Unquenchable Desire (2 page)

Running free through the rough,
hilly terrain, she weaved through the dark shadows and tangled bushes, racing
deeper into the wildness, intent on shaking the call of the moon from her
system. Using what little reasoning ability she had left, she planned for
unexpected trouble. Her snow white coat made her a highly visible moving
target. If she spied anything awry, the scattering of caves in the lower
foothills would be a perfect refuge until the danger was over.

Night sounds of crickets and
hissing snakes perked her ears erect. She sniffed the air and caught the
strangely pleasant and enticing feral scent of another wolf. Her sharp animal eyesight
picked out the silhouette of the huge alpha male posing on a boulder. The
silvery glow from the full moon highlighted his gray coat and startling bold
markings that extended from the neck all the way along the spine to the tip of
the tail. His alpha bold stance and size sent tremors through her. She backed a
step deeper into the bushes, fiercely resisting his magnetic pull.

****

Wolf Brian inhaled the beguiling female
scent as it grew stronger, escalating the flaming surge of desire in his loins.
With his intensified wolf-hearing, he heard the snap of a twig.
Yes, that’s it, come closer. Do you look as
enticing as your scent?

Then he saw her. She was
magnificent. The glow from the full moon highlighted her snowy coat. He’d never
seen a white wolf before, or a wolf with such lean, feral grace.
 
Her startling uniqueness, from the elegant
lupine-shape of her head to her intriguing, full, slightly-lifted tail, sent a
hot coil of sexual hunger through him—and the driving need to conquer. He stood
on his hind legs and howled his long, low seducing call…
come to me, my alpha queen and answer to the passions of the moonlit
night.

****

Valerie froze and stared at the
magnificent animal. That piercing stare, attack posture, and resolute high
muzzle gave this creature of the night a fierce power she didn’t know how to
tame, or if she even wanted to
. He’s a
wolf! A wolf!
She fought the unrelenting pull of their combined feral desires.
She craved passionate, body-to-body intimacy but—

Wrestling with all of her might
against an overpowering lust, she whirled and ran like the wind in the opposite
direction. To her horror, the alpha wolf, in wide, ground-eating leaps, caught
up with her. Following close on her tail, he let out a low growl and nipped at
her hind legs, forcing her to run faster and faster. Uncle Hugh had used the
same type of growls and nips in the past to protect her. The alpha wolf forced
her into a circle of boulders and cornered her. The desire in this wolf’s dark,
lupine eyes warned that protection definitely wasn’t on his mind.

She stood upright on her hind
quarters and returned his fierce look. The raised hackles around his neck and
shoulders revealed his exceptional length and breadth. Trembling, she issued a
low, throaty growl.

The wolf rose and towered over her,
standing deadly still. Although intimidated by his prolonged human-like stare,
she thrust her head higher. He snarled, showing the whitest, fiercest incisors
she’d ever seen. His low, throaty growl gained intensity. Then, with more nips
and snarls, he forced her muzzle down. In the shifting shadows, his feral
dominance ranked as far more frightening than Uncle Hugh’s coercion at their
first encounter. And this wolf was no relative.

Seeing his jaws open wide, baring
those sharp fangs sent another tremor of icy terror through her. She splayed
her ears sideways, like outstretched bat wings.
Let my show of increased defiance discourage him.

The gray wolf snapped into the air
near her head. She lifted her chin higher. He issued a low, throaty growl with
increasing intensity. With ears erect, he backed up his determination with another
snarl. He paused, and then snapped into the air a hairbreadth from the side of
her muzzle, clearly in final warning. Then with nips and snarls, he forced her
muzzle down. Her other enemy—the bright moonlight—illuminated this terrifying
encounter as though in conspiracy with the attacking wolf. The gray alpha wolf
stood deadly still again. He lifted his head, thrust his ears forward, and rose
threateningly on his hind legs.
Then charged her, jaws wide
open.

He had proven he could out-run her.
She snarled and charged him. He forced her back and trapped her tight against a
huge boulder. She closed her eyes, waiting for his incisor to sink into her
throat. She whined softly when instead, he licked her face and rubbed against
her, imbedding his scent in her coat, tantalizing her.
Don’t be tempted!
She’d seen the horny wolves in the lab and knew
what was coming. She didn’t want wolf puppies. In spite of his feral beauty and
enticing feral scent, she’d never be ready for sex with a wolf. She wanted a
man like her twin’s new husband for her own.

She attempted to step back. The
stone wall blocked her. She was trapped.

In the near distance, she inhaled a
familiar and welcome scent. Uncle Hugh! Her sniffing alerted the amorous young
wolf and he sniffed too. Then a shadow shifted and there was good ole’ Uncle
Hugh coming to the rescue in the nick of time. He bared his teeth and growled.

Then, in all his wolfish glory, he and
the young wolf circled and sized each other up.

With the two alphas distracted and
dueling for superiority, she whirled and ran into the night.
 
Halfway home, she heard shots.
Oh, no, hunters! God, please let Uncle Hugh
and the awe-inspiring, amorous wolf escape unhurt.

****

The next morning, when the rays of
sunshine fell across Valerie’s face, she shot upright.
I must find out if Uncle Hugh and the young wolf are all right!

She ran a comb through her hair,
dressed hastily in jeans and a cardinal red T-shirt, and rushed downstairs. The
tinkle of silver against china drew her toward the dining room. She sighed when
she spied her Marauding Uncle.

“Uncle Hugh! Thank the Lord!” He
was alone at the table. She gasped at the bandage around his right pectoral
muscle. “Are you badly hurt?”

“Just a flesh wound,” he said,
flashing the grin she knew so well.

“I’ve been so worried. I heard the
shots.” She paused and then with a tremor in her voice asked, “What about the
gray wolf?”

Uncle Hugh shrugged. “He’s quick,
agile—probably got away.”

Please,
God, let the young wolf be safe.
“How can we find out for sure?”

“He’s dangerous. Best you forget
him.”

“I can’t. Not until I know he’s all
right.”

“He’s a sly, tough adversary. He
had me pinned down when the hunters came. I doubt you have to worry about him. Instead,
pray, like I do, that you’re never again forced to go incisor to incisor with
him.”

She frowned at the totally
unsatisfying answer. “How did you find me last night?”

“I was with you from the moment you
sailed over the rail of the terrace into the wilds. But, because you’re
twenty-one now and a grown woman, I hung back, not wanting to impinge on your
sense of freedom or cramp your style. But then you got yourself into a
dangerous situation with that lustful wolf. Until he’s caught or run off by
hunters, we should stick close together on your moonlit escapades.”

“Yes,” Dad said as he and Mom
entered the room, faces pinched. “Those escapades are just what I want to talk
about. I went to your bedroom last night to check on you, and saw your new
PJ’s
folded on the terrace railing and you gone.”

“I…”

“I told you, Valerie, you can’t go
out in the wilds alone. There are wolves, hunters, and maybe even a demon
waiting to grab and vanquish a beautiful young woman like you.”

“I stayed with her,” Uncle Hugh
said, “and kept her safe.”

Dad frowned at Hugh’s bandaged arm.
“By getting shot?”

“I’m okay,” Uncle Hugh muttered. “But
maybe you should worry about yourself and your family.”

Red crawled up Dad’s neck.
“Meaning?”

“Only that you’re doing it again,
trusting every Tom, Dick, and Harry who rolls in
off
the
streets. That punk-gardener you hired could be a vessel for Reeves’ evil
spirit, for God’s sake.”

Dad laughed. It sounded forced. “The
kid’s name is Brian Jones and he’s no punk. I checked him out. Although he has
no solid credentials, his polite, soft-voiced manner and knowledge of
landscaping and maintenance impressed me.”

“The same way Lazar impressed you
with his dreams of a Pulitzer Prize and knowledge of lycanthropy?” Uncle Hugh
asked.

Dad shook his head. “If Reeves has
risen from the dead again, believe me, he hasn’t morphed into our new gardener.
Even if his blackened soul depended on it, Reeves couldn’t act humble and
grateful like this kid does. Such attributes are beyond Reeves’ capabilities. But
to be doubly careful, I called Brian’s minister in
Trona
and he verified that besides working for a landscaping firm, the kid devoted
the last few years caring for an old woman riddled with cancer. It takes a
special young man to be so selfless.”

Valerie agreed, but remained
silent, glad to no longer have her moonlight transgressions as their main focus.

Chapter Two

Brian Jones surveyed the manicured
grounds of the mansion. If careful, he could fit in here quite nicely.
“
Ahwooooo
!”
He let loose with a
low howl. It was a break to find work so quickly. The gardener job was perfect.
He inhaled the wonderful fresh air. Outdoors—how he loved it. And finding shelter
in a nearby cave was another piece of luck. Still, he had to remain cautious—for
him, nowhere was danger free. Last night he’d experienced first-hand a sample
of the expanding danger when a wolf hunter’s bullet zinged over him close
enough to crease his fur. Fortunately, out-running and side-stepping danger had
become part of his DNA. The bullets fired at him only proved he’d have to be
more careful in his moonlight carousing.

Without warning, his past swirled
around him like a sky full of hungry vultures. He raked his hair, suddenly feeling
bottom-of-the-barrel low. Cursed by a lycanthropy gene, he’d been in crisis since
the day he was born and the sense of chaos increased by leaps and bounds each
day. He didn’t know his history or why, when the moon was full, he turned into
a werewolf. He only knew it was under just such a fully-rounded brightness
that, as a baby, he’d been abandoned in the wilds of the
California
desert to die. It seemed to him
that being born with a lycanthropy gene didn’t deserve being discarded like
roadside trash.

Time turned back to that chilly
desert night. Under the glare of a full moon, he’d laid on a mound of sand,
half infant-half wolf cub, shivering, howling his heart out, and starving.

Wolves circled him, growling,
bearing sharp incisors, and salivating. He howled in terror when the largest of
the pack grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him into his liar. He’d
felt sure the big wolf was going to eat him. He stopped howling when the alpha
turned him over to a mother wolf. She licked him, pawed at him, guiding him to
one of her full nipples to suckle with the younger cubs. Then, she raised him,
side by side, with his new siblings.

He remained with the pack, living
wild until about age seven when he wandered off and fell into the steely
camouflaged snare of a woman named Maggie. The fall into the deep hole broke
his leg and made escape impossible.

The lonely old woman, who folks in
Trona
called witch or old hag, danced around the netted
trap, shouting, “I caught myself a young wild wolf to train like a dog to share
my lonely hours.” Later, when he shifted back to a boy, instead of acting
disappointed he wasn’t a regular wolf, the bent, rail-thin woman who smelled
like rotting skin clapped her boney deformed hands and chanted repeatedly as
she danced around, “Better yet, I caught myself a wolf-boy.” Her brittle voice,
scratchy as dried tumbleweeds, and her bugged-out eyes scared him as much as
his first encounter with the wolves.

She slapped a leather muzzle on him
so he couldn’t bite her, prepared a pallet with a blanket, and dragged him to
her wind-beaten shack at the edge of town. She set his leg in a splint and kept
him penned up in a spare room that had belonged to the son she’d lost. She fed
him well and turned on a picture-box, which he later learned, was a TV, to help
teach him language and keep him entertained. As the days flew by he lost his
desire to leave. She was good to him in her cross-tempered way, taught him to
talk, and told him stories of the world. She insisted that he had to go to
school or he wouldn’t be able to fend for himself when she rose to her final
resting place.

She ordered him to call her Momma
Maggie. Then she enrolled him in school as her son. “It’s vital that no one
discovers you're a werewolf.”

Her worry on that count was
groundless. No way would he spill his secrets. The kids already found his
quiet, shy ways different and as Momma Maggie termed it, “off-putting.” She
didn’t seem to mind that they found her equally odd and called her a witch. But
she got fighting furious when they called him names and abused him. He could’ve
gone for their throats and ended it. But Momma Maggie warned that if he did,
the authorities would lock him away. “I’ve another answer,” she’d said, in her
brittle tone. “I’ll enroll you in self-defense classes.”

He discovered he was not only adept
at fighting, but he took to the adrenaline-high like an addict. However, once
he downed the biggest bully the abuse stopped and the only practice he got was
at the classes. The pumping adrenaline became so addictive that he went on to
kick-boxing, karate, and later to Tai Chi for the opposing sense of calm and
balance it provided.