Asanni (15 page)

“It’s possible that my decision would be
totally different if I had someone.”

“But you don’t.”

We zoomed by the parking lot where we’d
stopped last time. Good. We might make it this time.

There was a bit of tension between Jack and
me. He kept his eyes on the road. His hand would occasionally reach
for mine, and then retreat back to the steering wheel. But rather
than distant, he seemed controlled and cautious.

A ridiculous thought crossed my mind. I
would’ve let it stay there if I hadn’t been exposed to plenty of
other strange things recently. “Please do not tell me that I have
to be a virgin in order to be your Ellida,” I said with a nervous
laugh. “In that case, we can simply forget about the whole plan and
you can go back without me.”

Silly as my concern was, I held my breath
until I heard Jack’s soft laugh. “No, Astrid, that’s not
necessary.”

“I don’t know if I should be happy or
disappointed.”

“Astrid, I couldn’t care less.” Jack turned
to me and rested his warm, amber eyes on my face. “My goal is to be
the last man in your life. James had wanted to know because it
could be a potential problem.”

I smiled. “I like your goal fine, but this
isn’t about you, Jack. And let’s leave my sex life alone. Are you
going to tell me about how to deal with my roaming wolf? That would
be more useful.”

“Wait now, Miss Spock. We’re almost there.”
Jack brushed his fingers against my cheek and, just like that, all
the tension disappeared.

We soon turned right at a “Y” junction and
took a forest road to the bottom of a hill. After a quarter-mile,
there was a pullout with the trailhead marker.

Jack helped me out of the truck,
double-checked if my shoes were properly tied, zipped up my jacket
and adjusted the straps of my backpack. Under normal circumstances,
I’d be annoyed with that excessive attention, but instead I enjoyed
his hands on my arms, shoulders and back. “Where have you been all
my life?” I said.

“I’ve been looking for you, that’s where.”
Jack lifted my chin and locked his eyes with mine, sending shivers
down my spine. “Ready?”

“For hiking or for talking?”

He smiled and took my hand in his. “For
me.”

“I am ready.”

LET ME check the guide,” Astrid said, pulling
her hand reluctantly from mine, as we entered the permanent
twilight of the ancient forest along the riverbank.

“Under a deep-green canvas of trees, the
trail climbs gradually along the river before a sharp turn near the
halfway mark and continues over the river, across a wooden bridge.
The same route takes you back, or you can continue to hike on the
opposite side of the riverbank, which is slightly shorter and
steeper, with the 98-foot Cricket Falls at its summit,” she read
aloud from the booklet before she passed it to me and turned around
so that I could tuck it back into her knapsack.

She turned back to me. “You don’t need a
guide, do you? You could go right into the woods and feel at
home.”

“You’ll soon feel the same, Astrid.”

Her blue eyes rested on mine. She tilted her
head and smiled. “We’ll see. Jack, why do I have the feeling that
you’re avoiding a certain topic?”

I sighed. “You’ll rant again that you’re
being left without a choice.”

“But I need to know, nonetheless. So tell
me.”

I sighed, “All right, then. Little is known
about the offspring of werewolves and wizards. Your kind is so
rare, Astrid. Most of us are born with our wolf and human spirits
already linked, or if not, it happens later, naturally and easily
as we reach maturity.” I paused, not sure how to continue. “Now
comes the tricky part. You might not like it,” I warned her,
feeling uneasy, as if I was personally responsible for her
unconnected parts. I inhaled and fired it out in a single breath,
“In short, you have to have sexual intercourse with a werewolf. You
need another wolf spirit to communicate with your own wolf during
the process and help you to connect your human and wolf parts.
Humans can’t do that, neither can wizards... Make any sense?”

Phew! I did it, I thought, relieved. The next
moment I glanced anxiously toward Astrid. I expected to see her
hurt and angry. To see her turn on her heel and run away, to yell
at me and shout that she would never, ever...

Without stopping, without changing pace,
Astrid just continued walking. “That’s not the craziest thing I’ve
heard recently. It’s logical,” she said in a light voice. “Of
course, who else can do that except another werewolf, right?”

I looked at her in awe. If I hadn’t already
been crazy about her, I would have fallen in love that very moment.
I exhaled aloud, only to see Astrid abruptly stopping and turning
to me, eyes wide and alarmed. “You qualify, don’t you? Don’t tell
me I have to do that with somebody else?”

“No, no, no.” I hurried to reassure her.

“No
what
?”

“Yes, I do qualify. No, you won’t do that
with anybody else. I wouldn’t let anybody else touch you.”

I pulled her against me and held her tight. I
could hear her heart, fast and strong. I felt the rush of her blood
under that delicate, ivory skin, the rise of her body temperature,
her breathing. I wrapped my arms even more tightly around her, as
if restraining her. She’d been brave this time, but I was afraid
that something else, sooner or later, would finally push her over
the edge. Since I’d arrived, I hadn’t stopped piling it up on her,
and that was only the beginning.

“I’m okay, Jack,” she whispered into my neck,
sending shivers down my spine and into every fiber of my body. “I
really am. Just stay with me.”

I lifted her chin and did what I’d wanted to
do since the moment her cold fingers touched my skin the first
time. Unaware of any other sensation except her scent and her firm,
slender body pressed against mine, I no longer thought she was too
skinny. Blind to anything save for her perfect face in front of
mine, I pressed my lips over Astrid’s, first breaching gently
inside her mouth, then gradually deepening the kiss.

Fiercely and breathtakingly, she kissed me
back. We stood in the middle of the narrow path, and in my
peripheral vision I saw a couple pass by and turn back to look at
us. I almost barked at them, fighting an urge to scoop Astrid up
and take her into the forest and lower her down on the soft moss
and…

I came back to my senses when I heard a low
growl that escaped from my chest. My own wolf was trying to come
out.

“Astrid, my love,” I whispered, my mouth
still over hers. I gently grabbed her wrists and unlocked her arms
from around my neck. I heard another growl, deep and soft.

This time it hadn’t come from my throat.

Our lips finally parted. I cupped her face
and I looked at her eyes, yellow-gold, like honey.

“Honey,” I uttered a nervous chuckle, “if we
continue, your wolf will come out.” I wasn’t even sure to whom I
was speaking, but I hoped that at least one of them—either Astrid
the Wolf or Astrid the Wizard—could hear me. “And mine was about to
come out. I’d know how to control mine, but I’m not sure if I can
tame yours.”

I saw her blinking several times, like waking
up from a trance. Astrid’s eyes had started changing color in front
of my eyes, first to dark amber, then back to their deep-blue
shade.

I still held her close, unable to part with
the feeling of her body pressed against mine, incomparable to
anything I’d experienced before.

“Do you remember what we were talking about?”
I said cautiously.

She laughed. “Did I miss a part again? You
said I have to have sex with you if I want to stay sane. And then
we kissed.”

“How was the kiss?”

“Gentle and sweet. I liked it.”

So she’d lost a part. “I liked it, too. Let’s
go.”

“Let me sum it up,” she said as we resumed
our stroll. “In order to merge my roaming wolf with my human part,
I need to have, ahem, intercourse with a fellow werewolf—”

“Not
a
fellow werewolf,” I interrupted
her. “I mean, technically, yes. In practice, I am going to be that
fellow. Clear?”

“Clear. But we cannot do that before my uncle
gives us the green light. Because you can’t take me to Red Cliffs
as your mate.” She rolled her eyes. “How long do I need to
suffer?”

“Don’t be angry with James, Astrid. I’d do
the same if I were him. That’s the best way. About how long? We
should wait until your next change anyway. I must see it. Maybe one
more transition after that. That should be enough to satisfy Red
Cliffs’ curiosity and get them used to your presence. And then I
don’t care about anything else. We’ll live together as a couple,
married, unmarried, however you like. If you decide that is what
you want.”

We continued walking in silence until we
reached the bridge. Astrid stood on the middle of it, forearms
braced on the wooden rail, looking into the river below. I came
closer and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.

“Tell me something,” she said quietly. “If
I’d had a werewolf lover before my first change, would my two parts
have been connected?”

“I don’t know. As I said, so little is known
about your kind. You apparently weren’t in a relationship with a
werewolf before.”

“How do you know?”

“You would have known.”

She smirked and threw me a look under her
lashes. “Oh, is it really so good?”

I laughed. In spite of her encyclopedic
knowledge about various subjects and her medical background, Astrid
was evidently ignorant of werewolves’ minor yet particular
physiological differences compared to other humanoids. She was a
human doctor, though, and as she had mentioned once, had never had
an opportunity to treat werewolves, not even children, let alone
adults, who rarely need any medical attention. She wasn’t,
therefore, aware of our little peculiarity: an extra gland that ran
along the penis, from the base to the tip, unnoticeable to the
inexperienced eye unless the penis in question was fully erect. I
was surprised, though, that her logical grandparents hadn’t
mentioned it to her. Or, maybe, regardless of their cool, rational
mindset, they still found sexuality an awkward topic to be
discussed with their young granddaughter.

But at that moment, I didn’t want to further
test her ability to accept new concepts. “Trust me, it’s going to
be good. I’ve heard it always is when a wizard and werewolf fall in
love. And personally, you look sizzling hot to me.”

“I DON’T want you to be alarmed, but your
wolf is making serious attempts to come out,” I said as we sat on
an old tree trunk covered with damp moss. I took off my jacket,
folded it and gave it to Astrid to sit on.

“I know. Even though I don’t remember, I can
still feel her. She’s responding to your presence. To another
wolf.”

“To her mate, Astrid. Your human part can
control it, but your wolf is much more primal in her needs.”

“I’ve figured that much out. I’ve pushed up
my last two surgeries for next Monday and Tuesday, and then I’m
taking a vacation. Tristan agrees. I don’t want to have a memory
lapse with the scalpel in my hand. Though I somehow know she
wouldn’t put anyone in that kind of danger.”

“She wouldn’t, Astrid. She’s you.”

“But she wants to come out, and that makes me
more tired than I should be a week before the change. She usually
waits until the last moment to take over.”

She turned her blue gaze on me and my heart
gave a loud thump.

“She knows about me, doesn’t she?” she
said.

“I believe so. I’ll talk to her when you
change, and then we’ll know more.”

“How are you going to talk to her? Are you
going to change, too? How do we communicate?”

“Come closer, I want to hold your hand... If
I am in human form, you can hear me, of course, and you can talk to
me in my mind. I mean, you can send your thoughts to me, like a
text message from one phone to another, sort of.”

“Sort of? That means you can read my
thoughts. You said you couldn’t.”

“Only what you want me to hear.” I searched
for a comparison. “Imagine working on your computer. You can choose
to have a single window open, close it down, open another one, use
it, close it down again and so on. Or you can have multiple windows
open and toggle between them. In our case, we choose—and it’s an
instant and automatic process—when we think and when we talk. I can
receive only what you want to say.”

“Oh, it sounds complicated... So I receive
only what you want to tell me?”

“Yes. Our thoughts always stay private.”

She sighed. “I think I’ve learned enough for
today. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay,” I said and pulled her closer. She ran
the back of her fingers along my face. I closed my eyes and let the
warm tide sweep over me.

“You know, with all that sexual attraction
between us and my little beast trying to take over, it’s not going
to be easy to stay away from each other. I know we can’t sleep
together, but I don’t think I can make it easier for you, either.
It’s up to you, Jack Canagan, to keep me at bay.”

“You might be asking the impossible.” My own
voice was so raspy that it crossed my mind that my wolf was about
to emerge any moment. “We’ll manage,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“You are worth waiting for. As long as it takes.”

“HOW DID the Falls get its name? Do you
know?” Astrid said later, looking up at the thick water
curtain.

“It’s from local folklore, I think. I heard
it long ago, and forgot the details… A girl and a boy were in love,
but her parents wanted to marry her to another man. She and her
lover decided to run away. They were almost caught, but a cricket,
whom the girl had saved from a fire long before, turned first into
a bridge so that the lovers could cross the river, and then the
bridge collapsed to stop the pursuers, and the cricket became a
waterfall... something like that, unless I mixed up two different
legends. It could also be because of the sound. Close your eyes and
listen.”