I know I can’t run and feast as wolf until I know that she’s not going to try to leave me and that no one will attempt to harm her. That Riley Savage was here today and that he with others from that forbidden village congregated on the end of my road doesn’t sit well. This is miles away from their village and there’s no reason they should be here other than to interfere with my life. It makes me want to hunt them all down, destroy every single heartbeat in that village. But what stops me from raining blood on all of them is likely the niggle that weighs on me about the female that was there today when I caught up with Ivy. She was there with them, the tone of an accord, not under duress. Her scent calls to me in a foreign way. And her scent invades my mind because it’s as if memories are trying to surface.
I didn’t allow myself to look at her, but I knew she was there, and I felt something from her that I shook off, that I shake off again now.
Memories of my infancy are too far away to know for sure if that’s her. I left that village too young to remember anything or anyone, but maybe scents from the past did imprint on me. Perhaps they imprint on all shifters. I never asked my uncle about it. I asked no questions when I got to the village and they submitted, when I remembered when I’d scented one of their females before. I push the thoughts away. I can’t give them any time now, or my mind will spin, and the red haze of anger could l strike like lightning down my spine. When that happens it takes over and I become nothing but the urge to hunt and kill. It can’t be allowed to spin when I have Ivy to think of first.
I find this odd. The wolf in me has always been dominant over the man in me until now. Now, I feel that something is shifting. Instead of that wolf being angry that it’ll take second place in my priorities because Ivy is first, it’s happy that I have her and content to wait until it’s safe to come out. Unless it needs out to protect her, then I know it’ll thrust its way forward as it has been doing.
I pull jeans on, remembering that uncle told me clothing on a man was something females preferred outside fucking, and make my way to the kitchen.
I look through all the food she chose and half of it I don’t even recognize, though I notice she bought all sorts of fresh fruit as well as frozen fruit and fruit in cans like the fruit I’ve bought before.
I bite into a long yellow fruit or vegetable and the inside is squishy and pleasant. The outside isn’t. I spit the rind into the sink and dig the rest of the inside out. I like it.
I wonder if she wants one.
19
Ivy
I dozed for a few minutes, I guess, and when I open my eyes, it’s because I smell food. As that registers I also become aware of all the leftover cum between my legs. The bed is wet and it’s gonna get gross, or grosser, if I don’t clean it. I need another shower.
Tyson’s coming toward me with a plate in his hand, and the sight of him bare-chested, jeans sitting low on his hips, and eyes on me in that way of his has my belly doing a flip-flop.
I sit up and bite my lip. My stomach rumbles.
He sits on the edge of the bed and I see what’s on the plate. A giant T-bone steak, cut into cubes, the bone on the side. Steam rises from it.
He picks up a cube with his fingers and puts it into my mouth.
He cooked this over fire, obviously as it’s smoky, looks rather charred, and it’s bland. I don’t think he’s used any spices.
It’s tender, though. I chew and swallow.
“Good?” he asks.
I wrinkle up my nose.
“Not good?” He frowns and takes a bite.
He shrugs and takes another bite and then puts another cube to my lips. “You need to eat.”
“It’s not very…” I scrunch up my face again.
He leaves with the plate.
I’m gathering the quilt around me and am about to get up, when he’s back with a banana in his hand.
“You need to try this! This is delicious.” He bites the end off and lets it fall out of his mouth onto his hand.
I double-blink at the craziness of it.
Instead of peeling it, he digs two fingers into the opening in the top of the banana and scoops some of the fruit out of the peel before he brings his fingers to my mouth.