Chapter Twenty-Two

Terrick

We’d spent most of the ten previous days locked inside with each other. Only occasionally seeing other people after my mother took Salta home. We saw Bane and Lee for a few hours before they returned home, happy that I wasn’t a medical mystery. Everyday Blithe or Duke dropped off a snack basket for us, but we didn’t always hear them leaving it behind.

We stood on the porch with the wind ruffling my hair and already playing through Scott’s fur. He was a beautiful dark colored wolf. Browns, greys, and blacks mixed together to give him a woodland yet smokey appearance.

“Shift,” he said into my thoughts over the mating link.

“I’m trying,” I said aloud. “I’ve never done this before, you know. I just woke up as the hound that time.”

“Well you’re a pit hound shifter now. That means you know on some level how to shift.”

“He doesn’t exactly feel like me.”

“Well, he might never. Sometimes my wolf feels like an annoying furry asshole who wants to eat all the deer in the territory instead of staying in to bake. We just make compromises. It’s all part of me and it’s all part of him. Two sides, one blanket.”

“You mean one coin,” I teased.

“Okay. If you say so, man whose mother shits dinosaurs when she’s angry.”

“Fair enough, mate,” I nodded. “Now tell me how to do this.”

“It’s different for everyone from what I understand. It’s not like I shift every day, but sometimes you gotta be that part of you.”

“The part of me that wants to herd the dead and get justice? Are you sure you don’t just want me to go eat your sister?” I laughed.

“Stop changing the subject and try. I really want to run!” He yipped at me, and I blinked.

“Apparently, I understand wolf now,” I announced, looking around at the wind playing through the grass and tree branches.

“Of course you do. You’re a Pit hound now. I’m not sure if they speak Earthside dog, but it’s close enough to understand. That’s why not many of us have dogs. Not all of them like being pets. Some of them are scared of us. Some of them are just little assholes.”

“I thought that was cats?”

“Cats don’t care,”he shook his head. “Now shift before I run away, and you have to put up lost wolf posters to find me.”

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on my feet as if I were ready to stomp a ghost out of my personal space. With them closed, I saw the pit hound – the huge dark creature with glowing eyes and three tails. The tails wagged and he bent low in a play bow that made him look like an overgrown puppy. Hang on? Did Frost shove an overgrown puppy inside me?

The pit hound didn’t answer but stood erect and stepped forward. With my eyes still closed, he brought me to my knees. He slipped into the place of power, and I shook my head and fought off the urge to scratch my back as fur sprouted from it. I kept my eyes closed until we were bounding down the steps.

Strange.

This was strange. The world was vibrant under the midafternoon sun. The world was brighter right in front of me and shaded on the sides as if his glowing eyes were a spotlight outshining Earthside’s favorite star. He ran, nipping at Scott’s heels and Scott leapt ahead. He leapt too, shaking me up now that we’d switched places. I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, but the grass tickled my hands and feet. The sun warmed my skin and the smells of the woods erupted around me as the pit hound followed the wolf off the beaten path and into the forest.

Birds chirped above, cussing us as they flew from their roosts. Squirrels and other small furry things that the hound thought would’ve been delicious fled from us as we threw up dust and leaves with our heels. We ran like death himself was on our heels – like our doors were right behind us and we still had a hundred years to live. I had never run for the sake of running in my life. I had never felt the compulsion to zoom around the world with no destination. I only sorta got what the hound got out of it now.

The run wasn’t all bad. Scott’s scent filled my head again and again whenever he slowed down to wait for us. He was happy – free. He wasn’t worried about Frost’s curse or his sister or who was still talking about her nasty video. We just ran. We ran until our muscles ached for oxygen and my head spun from trying to follow a path where there was none.

Scott flopped down in a pile of leaves and rolled around. The pit hound flopped down next to him and licked his ear. He tasted earthy like the woods. Together, we panted for a second, before he was off again, sprinting through the air back in the direction we came from.

The hound grunted as he pushed himself upright. He wasn’t as much of an endurance animal as the wolf. He was better for short jaunts. Still, his paws hit the ground shaking up anyone unlucky enough to live beneath him. We lost sight of Scott for a moment. Panic seized my throat as the hound stopped – panting and spinning around to look for our lost mate. How had I not considered what might lurk in these woods? How had I not stopped to check for threats before letting him come out here?

“OUCH!” the hound barked and I startled, nearly falling on my face inside the inner sanctum that usually belonged to him.

The hound swung his great head around to see Scott, still in wolf form, bouncing around. He had nipped us on the ass. He bowed low, yawning, and stretching before racing off in another direction. The hound bounding through the underbrush, getting cussed out by a raccoon whose nap we disturbed, but we didn’t lose Scott’s trail this time. He kept his big nose to the ground and when I focused, I could see something that should’ve been impossible. Vampires have an incredible sense of smell or so I’ve been told. I’ve smelled the way I have my whole life and had nothing else to compare it to until now.

There on the ground in the spotlighted area of the hound’s vision was a bright red splotch. It moved every time the hound moved his head. With his nose to the ground, this new-to-me sense highlighted Scott’s movement through the woods even when he doubled back to throw us off the trail and win the game of running hide ‘n’ seek.

The red disappeared and the hound skidded to a halt kicking up dirt and rocks. He spun around again letting out a sharp bark. Scott yipped back, sounding as if he had floated away with a cloud. We looked up and he was up in the tree, shifted back to his human form.

“Guess you can only track animals, huh?” I teased the hound, prodding his ribs from the inside.

He ignored me and sat on his haunches.

“He can track anyone on the ground. It’s the tree that gave him a problem, I think,” Scott called back down.

“What are you doing up there?” I asked over our mating link.

“Taking a break,” he laughed,

“Cheating you mean?” I teased him.

“Come up here!” he called down.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard about some elves, but I believe the stories of my ancestors fucking like bunnies in trees were probably vastly over told.”

“Huh? You’re not even willing to try?” he laughed, a smile splitting his face ear-to-ear.

“Let me out of here,” I told the hound, poking him again.

To my surprise, he gave in easily, allowing me to sink back into the driver seat as his fur disappeared, giving way to my human form. I shook my head and looked down at myself. I was me again and it was time to go up the tree. It towered toward the sky with thick branches. If it held up to Scott’s weight, there was a good chance it would hold mine too.

Scott moved back on his branch, straddling it, with his back pressed against the tree’s massive trunk. I kept my eyes on him and let my instincts take over. Scaling a rock wall without a rope was a past time for me as a kid until Dad died and I had to start taking care of Salta. This was a piece of cake.

I joined him on the branch and when I was close enough, he leaned in and gave me a kiss. Up in the tree, both the sky and the ground disappeared unless you looked for it. The forest consumed us and our scents until we could’ve been a pair of nesting birds that no one noticed.

I kissed him again. Soft and slow. We weren’t going to have sex in the tree, but being close to him was nice. Being close to him was the whole reason I turned into a hound and ran around the woods.

“How did you like your first run?” he asked, taking both of my hands and entwining our fingers together.

“It wasn’t too bad,” I said, squeezing his hands.

“Not too bad? You didn’t have fun?” he blinked at me.

“It was sorta strange at first. He was going wherever he wanted, and I couldn’t stop him.”

“Did you try?”

“Not really. Didn’t think about it.”

“That’s on you then,” he squeezed my hands back.

“I’ll remember that next time.”

“Did you have fun once you adjusted to him?” Scott asked again.

“Sort of. I did because I was with you, but I could watch a pot of water boil or paint dry and have fun with you.”

“Because that would be boring and I think I’d have to demand a romp to get through the activity,” he laughed.

“He has this really cool way of seeing scent, though. The ground got all red and splotchy after you bit us on the ass. Which reminds me, I’m not going to forget anytime soon and plan to return the favor at my earliest possible convenience.”

“Promises, promises,” he laughed, leaning his head back against the trunk and looking up into the tree’s higher branches. “I think on the way home we should stop by the clinic for one of the pixelated baby tests.”

The words rolled off his tongue so easily that I almost missed them.

“Is there something you haven’t told me?” I laughed, squeezing his hands.

“No,” he shook his head. “Today just feels different. Everything – in a good way, just different. I took your mom’s advice and have been gobbling up gummies before I even get out of bed. It all just feels different.”

“Maybe that’s because we’re twenty foot off the ground up in a tree, mate,” I squeezed his hands.

“Maybe, but before that too. I had to get outside. I had to have fresh air. I needed to run off my energy.”

“That could just be you being a wolf.”

“Do you still want a baby?” he glanced over at me.

“Yes,” I nodded. “And you know your body better than I do. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up if we’re not.”

“I’m used to crashed hope,” he shrugged.

“Well, that’s gonna change now that I’m here. I’ll eat her or whoever is crashing all your hope parties.”

“You eating my sister will not make me feel better,” he shook his head. “I don’t know what to do about her, but I think the answer is nothing. She’s gonna do what she’s gonna do and everyone is going to react however they want and take whichever side they want.”

“I’m on your side,” I reminded him.

“I know that, Alpha,” he grinned at me, “but I do think it’s time to stop by the clinic. Maybe not the whole ultrasound thing today. I’m not too keen on Dara or the other doctor or anyone really touching on my stomach. I think my wolf would get bitey.”

“Isn’t it usually the other way around? I’m supposed to want to eat the doctor, not you?”

“Maybe, but I never said I was normal,” he shrugged. “Besides, the green baby can tell earlier than the other one with the yellow blanket.”

“Okay,” I nodded.