CHAPTER ONE

DEREK

      I smell something. A fragile something that is not supposed to be lurking in this woods at this hour. The smell grows stronger as I slowly walk towards the direction the smell is coming from. Then I hear heavy foot steps pounding the soil as it runs through the woods. Heavy breathing, heart beating twice as fast, soft whimpers - she’s afraid. A she-wolf. A scared little she-wolf in my territory. What exactly is she scared of?

    I pause to hear if there are others chasing after her but there is no one except her. Then what is she running from and why is she running into my territory?

    Bordered by thick, green trees, the inferior wolves know better than to wonder into my territory on any day, talk less of a little past midnight. The wolves that have transgressed in the past had their heads on a spike displayed as a warning to others who dare to make the same mistakes. Yet, a weak girl lunges herself into the den of death as if she has a death wish.

    I am in the center of the woods and all directions lead to the spot I stand so I wait for her to run to me. The nearer she gets, the stronger her smell becomes, arousing a strange sensation inside of me. A sensation I haven’t felt for in years.

    At first, I conclude this feeling to be from the satisfaction her fear gives me and the desire to kill her as another warning for her folks, then it becomes thirst for something else, something I can’t quite place.

    I swallow hard when she comes into view, radiating in the light of the moon. Her dark hair shining and bellowing as the breeze rushes past her. Grey eyes lock with mine and I hear her breath seize in her lungs, heart beating sporadically as she stops a few feet away from me.

    I knew it, those eyes are not from here. Southern have brown, blue, black and even white eyes, but never grey eyes. And I can smell my own from several miles away. She doesn’t smell like us.

    As I begin towards her, the feeling intensifies and the blood that rushes down to my groin stops me in my track almost immediately. Lust. That is it. Not the thrill of a new kill. It is the desire to pin her to a tree and fuck her.

    My eyes drop to the hem of her gown and the image of me lifting her dress up as I pin her against a tree, pulling down her panties quickly flashes through my mind and I clench my teeth. Three years of celibacy and self discipline and absolute loss of interest in a woman since the death of my wife and the first woman I feel the slightest lust over is an inferior wolf from enemy territory that I want to fuck like a savage.

    I haven’t asked a woman to sleep with me since the incident. I haven’t needed to. I am never in the mood. No woman can ever feel like her. Still, I barely manage to control the irresistible thoughts to fuck this she-wolf.

    “Who are you?” My voice is raspy and raw from the mixture of anger and desire that clogs my throat.

    Without answering, she quivers.

    Closing the space between us, my height towering over her barely 5’5 body, I look down at her and, with grated teeth, I ask again,

     “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

     She looks up at me and our eyes lock again, pulling me in even further. Coming close to her was a mistake. I should have kept my distance.

     “Please…” she barely mutters with in a shaky voice.

    Before I can say anything else, her eyes roll to the back of her head and she collapses into my arms. For a moment, I stand still, inhaling her scent. Strawberry shampoo and a deodorant that has been beaten down by the smell of sweat.

     Footsteps coming from a distance alerts me and I focus my attention on the voices. Two men with familiar baritone voices sharing a hushed conversation. Either they are patrolling the woods like I was earlier or sharing an intimate moment, I am sure they are my men and this girl is as good as dead if they find her.

      ****

     The she-wolf jolts awake as I splash a glass of water on her face. Her earlier slopped head now shakes as if to ward the water off, eyes wide open.

    I watch her struggle, strapped to a wooden chair in my garage under the single lamp that lit up the space she’s in. The light illuminates her face, the lines and contours, her full lips, round, wide agitated eyes restrained by the realization that she is in inescapable danger.

    My cock won’t stop pulsing at the sight of her. It is my mind denying me the liberty of thinking straight. Werewolf lust is urgent, a wildfire that destroys everything if not quenched on time. It can’t be helped and I’ve steered clear of it until tonight. I  clear my throat.

     Dragging another wooden chair from a corner, I sit across from her, where the light doesn’t reach, maintaining a good distance between us.

      “Where am I?” She asks in a surprisingly steady voice.

      “In a death trap,” I reply coldly.

      “The South.” She recoils

      “Are you a spy?” I ask, arms crossed over my chest.

      She scoffs. “If I was a spy, you think I’d be running around the Southern woods?”

      True, but I’m not going to tell her that.

      “Then you must be tired of living. Only the desire to be shred into pieces will lead an inferior and weak she-wolf into Southern territory. Was that your intention?”

      “I’m not tired of living.”

      “Doesn’t look like that to me.”