What he really wanted was just to sit alone with her in the night air and talk, maybe kiss her. He was aware that it was very different from what he usually wanted from the women he dated, but he felt a certain affinity toward her that wasn’t usually present.
They were quickly up the hill and seated on a wide flat rock, he watched her as she looked out over the city below. It was only a section of what you could see from the higher perches, but still quite impressive.
“Have you been up here before?” he asked.
“Not at night. When I first came here, I didn’t have a place to stay. It was sort of last minute, my getting accepted to art school and all. Things were bad at home, between my father and me. My mother let him walk all over her and he made bad choices that put us on the wrong side of the pack. It’s a wonder we weren’t exiled altogether. I think it was only because my mother died and they felt sorry for me that we weren’t.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” he told her.
“Thanks. It’s been a while. I was sixteen. I stayed two more years after she was gone, finished school. My father pushed me to get married to one of the Alpha’s sons. It served his purposes, you know? Anyway, we had a blow out about it and I left with just a duffle bag of clothes and a few keepsakes from my mother. I slept in my car for my first few weeks of school and then I met Sasha, a girl from one of my classes. She let me stay with her while I got another grant sorted out and a part time job. I only gave that up recently to focus on my final semesters of school.”
“That sounds pretty rough. It must have been hard on you.”
“It was better than the life I left behind without my mother and it was better than the life I would have had there if my father had gotten his way. The Alpha’s son he tried to marry me off to wasn’t a terrible person. I knew all about him from others, but not first hand, and I didn’t want to find out.”
Ryan was moved by the story. No wonder she was so opposed to being ruled over by some Alpha. It was understandable and he certainly couldn’t fault her for it, but he wasn’t sure what to say next. Instead, he reached for her, pulling her chin toward his and kissing her softly. She kissed him back, a soft, lingering kiss that stirred him in a way he’d never known a woman to be capable of before. There was something special about her and he knew he’d be better off if he didn’t feel it. She’d already expressed her feelings on getting too close.
“I guess we should head back. The temperature is dropping. Even with the jackets, it’s going to get a lot chillier here soon,” he said, standing and helping her to her feet.
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her, letting her remain there for a moment, enjoying the way she felt against him. Finally, he let her go and took her hand, walking back down the mountainside with her. A sound to his left caught him off guard and he stopped, putting his fingers to his lips for her to listen. They stood there and heard nothing further, except some small rodents shuffling through the leaves.
“I thought I heard something,” he said, beginning to move forward again.
“Me too,” she replied.
Only a few more steps down and they both stopped, the faint sound of footsteps nearby. They waited, the sounds growing closer and then stopping. Wordlessly, Ryan began stripping off his clothes, despite the look he was giving her that told her no. They both shifted and waited. The footsteps seemed to turn back and head off back down the hill. She and Ryan followed, clearing the woods, and seeing nothing. They turned and went back up the hill to where they had stripped bare and shifted back into human form.
“Where are our clothes?” Lucy said, looking around her.
Ryan looked about them, seeing nothing. “Is this where we stopped? It is, isn’t it?”
“It think so,” she said, her face screwed up in a puzzled gaze.
“Yes. It is,” he said, spotting a lone shoe lying on the ground nearby.
“Someone took our things?”
“I think so. Who would have done that?”
“I don’t know. Some locals pranking people they catch here in the dark.”
“There’s no way a kid or teenager could have outrun our wolfs down this hill,” she replied.
“No, but a wolf could have. Sons of bitches! My keys were in my pants!”
“So, we’re naked and without transportation?” she said.