Nikolai's Wolf (10 page)

“This is so true.” Shannon and Shayla grinned at each other like lunatics that had successfully escaped from a mental hospital.

Rory opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of what he was about to say before turning and storming down the stairs. Moments later, the front door slammed.

Shayla fluttered her eyelashes. “Gee, was it something we said?” Shannon and Shay fell all over with laughter while Kiesha stood there staring at them, a bemused expression on her face.

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“Did you see his face?” Shannon asked, tears streaming down her face. “I’ve never seen him look like that. You rock!” She held up her hand for a high five.

Shayla slapped it, still giggling and wiping her eyes.

“All right, playtime’s over,” Kiesha said after this had gone on awhile. “There’s work to be done. Shay, I’m going to be pissed if you ran off my contractor.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back,” Shannon reassured. “Once he commits to a job, he’ll see it through. Besides, his pride won’t allow him to admit he let two harmless females get under his skin.”

Kiesha snorted in disbelief. “Shayla hasn’t been harmless since the day she was born, and I have a feeling Rory would say the same about you.” They discussed computers and programs as they headed back into Shannon’s office.

“Shay, are you sure you have what you need to set up? I know you can’t stay long,” Kiesha asked.

“I’ve already inspected all of the stations, and everything I need is present.” Kiesha murmured to Shannon, “That’s good. I don’t want to force Rory and Shayla into contact with each other any more than necessary.” Shay ignored the comment and got back to work.

* * * * *

Later that afternoon, Shayla was downstairs in the main part of the store hooking up the computerized registers when Mary Elizabeth walked in. She already had the workstations in the offices up and running but still needed to download the store’s operating system onto the computers, then install the inventory program.

“Shayla, how’s it hanging?” Mary Elizabeth jumped up on the countertop and swung her legs back and forth next to where Shayla was crouched.

“Life’s good. Can’t complain. What about you?” she asked as she gave a stubborn cord a vicious yank.

“Getting better every day. Kiesha around?”

“She’s upstairs with Shannon going over the store accounts. Hey, I’m sorry to hear about your sister. You know I would have had your back at the funeral if I’d been local. By the time I heard the news, she was buried, and you were on your way here.”

“Kiesha said you’d been doing a lot of traveling. She was glad you were able to fit her into your busy schedule.”

Shayla smiled and said in a mock-gangster accent, “Yuz gotta take care of family.

Besides, Kiesha’s good people. She’s always had my back.” Mary Elizabeth laughed. “Girlfriend, no one seeing you or listening to you speak would believe that you have two doctorate degrees and a IQ out of this world.” 52 Zena Wynn

Shayla laughed with her and said in the extremely proper tone of the British upper crust, “That is precisely the point, my good friend. It serves the purpose of keeping people off balance. If a person doesn’t realize how intelligent you are, they make the mistake of underestimating you.” And if they understand just how intelligent you really are, they treat you like a freak, she thought to herself. “So, what, you’re in the big leagues now and setting your own hours?”

Mary Elizabeth laughed. “Actually, I guess you could say I’m on bereavement leave.

I’m headed back to Pirate’s Cove for my brother-in-law’s funeral. We’re leaving tonight.”

“I can’t say I’m sorry dickhead is dead, but I offer you my condolences anyway.” It was the polite thing to do.

Mary Elizabeth waved them away.

“I take it that your Hugh is like the others I’ve met around here?” Mary Elizabeth looked confused. “Others? What others? What are you talking about?”

“I meant that Hugh is a…shape-shifter…like Alex, Shannon and her brother, and now Kiesha.”

“How did you guess?”

“I can smell him on you.”

“Shay, if you can smell Hugh on me, then you’d better be very careful while you’re here, or you’ll find yourself mated to one of these shifters. Believe me, there are a lot of them. You’re exactly the type of female they’re looking for. With your sense of smell, I’d say this shifter gene is strong in you. She did explain to you about true mates, right? About how it works?”

“Yeah. Well, actually, she told me what happened to her. I pieced the rest of it together myself. The only thing I don’t understand is what triggers the initial change. You know, what started the ball rolling.” She’d been thinking about it a lot and finally concluded that she didn’t have enough information. Apparently, Kiesha left out some of the details of her experience, or I’d have figured it out by now, Shayla thought.

“I’ll let Shannon answer you,” Mary Elizabeth said as the other woman walked into the room. “I’m still new at this, and there’s a lot I still don’t understand.” Shannon shrugged. “Okay. Since I don’t know how much Kiesha explained, I’ll give you an overview of the whole mating process.”

“Wait,” Shayla interrupted, “let me get comfortable first.” She shoved the cables and cords out of her way and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall behind her.

“What’s going on?” Kiesha asked as she stuck her head through the doorway.

“Shannon’s getting ready to explain the mating process to us.” Nikolai’s Wolf

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“Oh, good. I want to hear this too. I have yet to get a definitive answer out of Alex. He always tells me it depends upon the couple. Shannon told me more when she was explaining things to Mary Elizabeth last week than both Alex and Carol put together.”

“Wow! I feel like I’m teaching a class with the way you three are sitting here staring at me, but that’s okay, ’cause these are the things you need to know, especially you, Shayla.

Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to the mating process. The only way to protect yourself from being taken advantage of is to have as much knowledge as possible. Most males won’t hesitate to use a female’s ignorance against her if it would gain them what they want most --

a mate.”

Shannon took a deep breath before continuing. “Among shifters, the mating process is simple. The male marks the female during sex, which both signifies that he has chosen her as his mate and warns other males away. If the female marks him in return, they go before the council or pack elders to have their mating formally recognized. Or at least, that’s how we did it in my former pack. Not sure what the procedure is with the Ravens.”

“What happens if she doesn’t want him as a mate and doesn’t mark him in return?” Mary Elizabeth asked.

“What do you mean by ‘mark her’?” Shayla asked. “I sincerely hope you don’t mean the way dogs mark their territory.”

Mary Elizabeth and Kiesha burst out laughing. Even Shannon grinned. “The mating mark is a bite that one shifter gives to another. It’s located on the tendon where the neck meets the shoulder. It’s not visible to humans unless the shifter giving it was unusually aggressive.

“If the female does not mark the male at that time, he has two weeks to court her and change her mind. At the end of that time, if he is unsuccessful, the mark on her shoulder fades, and she is once again considered fair game by other male shifters. This keeps males from being able to force females into relationships they neither want nor desire.

“True mates are a tad bit different. Between shifters, there is no question that the female will accept the male’s mark and mark him in return because they both instinctively recognize the other as their one. Things change when one of the mates is human because humans are not as in tune with their instincts as shifters are. There may be a struggle while one mate waits for the other to accept their destiny. That’s where the mating fever comes into play. Because there is such a strong attraction between the two, they usually can’t keep their hands off of each other long enough for one or both of them to fight the mating bond growing between them.”

“What’s a mating fever?” Shayla asked.

“Since I’ve only heard about it, I’ll let the experts answer your question.” Shannon pointed to Mary Elizabeth and Kiesha.

“It’s a lust that defies imagination,” Kiesha said. “You literally cannot keep your hands off of each other, and the more you fight it, the stronger it gets.” 54 Zena Wynn

“No matter what your mind says, it’s your body that’s in control. I fought against my desire for Hugh, to no avail. It just got stronger and stronger until it literally erupted between us,” Mary Elizabeth added.

“But that’s just lust, right? I mean, sex is sex. Sure, sometimes it’s really good, mind-blowing, out-of-this-world sex, but it still all boils down to sex,” Shayla said, trying to understand what the big deal was.

“It’s more than just sex,” Kiesha said. “On a physical level, once you’ve been marked, every time you exchange body fluids, be it something as simple as a kiss or as complicated as sex, the human partner’s DNA changes, becoming shifter like their mate’s. With each mating, a soul-deep connection forms that only gets stronger and stronger until, like it says in the Bible, the two literally become one soul.” Shannon continued, “Once that happens, the mate bond rite takes place. This part varies from couple to couple, but it refers to that point in the relationship where the human party accepts the shifter as their one and marks them in return.”

“What would have happened if Alex had marked Kiesha, and she refused to accept him?” Shayla didn’t intend to get herself into that kind of situation, but if she did, she wanted to know her options. She believed in planning ahead and being prepared for any eventuality.

“The first thing she would have needed to do was get as far away from Alex as she could to try and stop the bonding. With enough time and distance between them, it’s possible that mating fever would lessen in intensity, but it would never truly disappear, not once you’ve been marked. Getting away is the trick. It’s almost impossible since shifter males are obsessive about keeping their mates once they find them. Even if you manage to escape, I’m not sure you can break the bond once the process has started. I’ve never heard of anyone succeeding.”

“So, if I were to find myself extremely attracted to a shifter and wanted to indulge, I could do so as long as I didn’t let him bite me?” Shayla asked.

“Shay, don’t even think about it,” Kiesha warned. “If you’re attracted to one of them and you don’t want to find yourself mated, don’t let them close to you. A strong physical attraction is a major sign of a true mate. It’s not simply a matter of not getting bit. If you have sex with one, you’ll be so caught up in the pleasure that you’ll never notice him biting you, not until it’s too late. This is no time to indulge your curiosity.”

“They’re that good in the sack?” Shayla asked as her neglected libido raised its head in hunger.

“Shay, really, this is not something to play with. These guys are serious. They play for keeps. They won’t put up with your games.”

“Kiesha, chill out. I was just asking a question. I won’t be here long enough to get into trouble. Besides, the only male I’ve met here besides Alex is Shannon’s dickhead brother.

Sorry, Shannon.”

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Shannon laughed. “No offense taken. He is a dickhead, among other things. I’m just glad I’m not the only one who sees it.”

“Don’t worry, Kiesha. If I meet someone here that looks like he could really rock my boat, I’ll run long and hard in the other direction,” Shayla said.

After I get myself a taste first, she finished in her mind.

* * * * *

In a few hours, the moon would rise. Tonight was the first night of the full moon -- a blue moon. Shannon felt hot and itchy, as though something were crawling under her skin.

Her sex was swollen and sensitive, her pussy weeping for the cock it was being denied. Her heat was at its peak. If she had any sense, she’d be home right now, locked in her panic room where it was safe.

Her body was broadcasting “come and get me” signals. Fortunately, there weren’t any males around to receive it, which was the only reason she’d ventured out of the house.

Shayla was done with the computers at the store. Last night she’d worked on Shannon’s computer, getting her networked so that she could work from home. She was driving Shayla over to Kiesha’s so that she could do the same to hers. She said it would only take her about thirty minutes to get the system up and running.

That was a good thing. There were about three hours until moonrise. Fifteen minutes getting there, thirty minutes on the computer, and then another fifteen-minute ride home.

That gave her two hours to make it to the basement and safety.

Rory had said she was crazy for leaving. “Stay home. Let Shayla drive herself to Kiesha’s house. There’s a capable adult in there somewhere, I guess, under all that weird hair.”

That, of course, had led to yet another round of bickering between Shayla and Rory.

The night before had been full of them. It seemed to Shannon that he went out of his way to antagonize Shayla.

After arguing for almost an hour, Shannon said, “Please, Rory. Stay here and make sure everything is secure. If Shay goes by herself, she may get lost. Do we really want her out there alone with a bunch of sex-hungry shifters on the prowl? If we aren’t back in an hour, you have my permission to come get us and drag us back.” Rory finally relented.

On the way out of the door, Shayla placed a suitcase in the trunk of her rental. “Once I’m finished with Kiesha, I think I’ll leave town for a few days until this blue moon madness is over and done with. You and that brother of yours have argued so much about it the paranoia is spreading.”

“I think that’s a great idea. I know you think I’m overexaggerating the seriousness of this, but if you’re gone that’s one less thing I have to worry about.” 56 Zena Wynn

If Shayla didn’t leave, the two of them would have to hole up together. The panic room wasn’t really made for two people, especially when one of them was a shifter at the peak of her heat. Shifters didn’t really tolerate confined spaces. They required the freedom of the outdoors with lots of space to move. If shifters had to be locked up, they needed to be distracted with lots of food or sex or both.