Shelter Me (Sawtooth Shifters, #6) (3 page)

“Does that mean the woman from the bar is your mate?” I asked.

“No. Wolves choose their mates. The stories say there’s someone out there for all of us, and we know it as soon as we meet them. Once the bond is formed, it can never be broken.”

“That’s beautiful.” If more humans thought that way, the world would be a better place.

“It is, but for us, it was total bullshit. With the she-wolves gone, all of us wolves left behind were pissed off, restless, realizing we had no future. We fought and caused trouble. We were in a rage, inconsolable. Our family had been peace keepers for generations, but I couldn’t keep that promise. Because the promise of the forest had been broken.

“Major started the Full Moon Fever parties so we could blow off some steam. We could all get together and be wild. One place and time we didn’t have to worry about rules or hiding what we were. Human women were off-limits, too. But unlike the she-wolves, no one could keep them away. They threw themselves at us. Sawtooth wolves are underdogs, but never count us out. We were all over that. We set the rules. One night. No commitment. It worked, because we didn’t have any other options. My brother demanded everyone stay away from the Montana she-wolves. Unlike the human women in town, they know what we don’t have, and they want the same things we do. A place they can call home. They want a future.

“We gave Shadow shit because he’s so attached to Trina. She’s not his mate. But it wasn’t long before Baron and I felt it, too. You ladies were more like wolves than any humans we ever met. We mate for love, Lyssie. No other reason.”

My heart pounded, the space between us immense. The effects of the champagne had started to wear off, and Dallas’ words hung heavy. I wasn’t sure if his story had a happily ever after.

“What does that mean?” I asked. I stopped myself from adding
for me
.

“It means you look an awful lot like forever, but I’m not supposed to have you.”

Just as I suspected. I stood up, wondering where the hell Kiera was. “You should go.”

“Lyssie—“ Dallas reached for me. Time froze whenever he touched me, and I could believe that forever actually existed. “—I’ve had every promise made to me broken. I don’t give a fuck about the rules. They don’t apply to me. What I’m trying to tell you is, I’ve never felt this way before. I have no idea what I’m doing. I make mistakes—“

“Like that girl tonight? How long has that been going on? Was she a mistake?”

He took a deep breath, fire swirling in his eyes. “For about five minutes before I saw you. And no, she wasn’t a mistake. Because she made something real clear. She might be a wolf, but she’s like every other human, using me to get what she wants. Except for you. You don’t do that.”

“I need to tell you a story, too. There’s a long version, and there’s a short version.” I’d never told anyone either of them. Pins and needles pricked my body, and I was glad he held on to me. “Every person I’ve ever trusted has left me. I can’t trust you. I know how this ends.”

“No, you don’t.” He pulled me in closer, his lips hovering just above mine. “Stop worrying about an end when we’ve barely had a beginning. Let’s write a new story. Forget everything that’s happened and how it’s supposed to be. Worry about right now.”

D
allas

I didn’t know how to keep a promise. It was a learned behavior, and I needed to break it. Smash it into bits.

Lyssie’s alarm went off before the crack of dawn. A thick blanket of darkness and uncertainty covered us. I had no idea if Kiera and Baron came back last night. It was my in to stay here with Lyssie. Truth was, I didn’t want to be alone, either.

I woke up way before the alarm sounded, running from my dreams while trapped under Lyssie’s sleeping body. In both realms, I raced through the forest as a wolf, she-wolves stalking me in their human form, naked and vibrating with desire. The bite on my neck throbbed, and my skin bubbled like lava, only bearable where Lyssie touched me. Her hand curled on my bare chest. In the flickering light of the TV, she was gorgeous. I knew she lay still, but my vision blurred as the she-wolves lunged for her, I regained consciousness just before they reached her each time.

“Hey,” Lyssie said, blinking rapidly, still lost in her own dream world. From the way her lips curled up I could tell it was much more pleasant than mine. “I didn’t realize we fell asleep out here.”

“I was gonna bring you into your bedroom, but you looked so peaceful I didn’t want to disturb you.” We were safer here, while my wolf raged and reality blurred. I had no idea where we stood.

Her giggle made my cock twitch. Every muscle in my body screamed.

“You could’ve. This is what happens every year. I fall asleep watching The Twilight Zone, and when I wake up I watch one more episode while drinking my coffee. Only then am I ready to start the New Year in style,” she said as she ran her finger over the scabbed crescent on my neck and frowned. “I hoped this would be gone when I woke up.”

“Me too.” The coffee maker groaned in the kitchen, the smell turning my stomach.

Lyssie sat up, taking everything good with her. She still wore her clothes from last night, rumpled now but even more stunning now because she woke up looking like that. “I assume you want coffee. If Kiera’s here, I’ll have to make more. You don’t want to tangle with her before she gets her coffee. Send her out in the forest, and those stupid wolves would go back to Montana, no questions asked.”

My head weighed more than the rest of my body. “Maybe just some water?”

The blurry image of Lyssie turned back to me, mouth open. “Are you okay? You were so warm last night.” She put her hand on my forehead. I moaned, her touch was the only relief I had. She jumped away. “You’re on fire!”

“Come back,” I groaned. “You’re cooling me down. It feels so good.”

Lyssie sat down in the space the crook of my body left on the cushions, pushing my damp hair away from my face. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s the bite. Nothing’s been right since then. My dreams were totally messed up, and they didn’t stop when I woke up.”

“You’re hallucinating. I’m calling Chandra.” Lyssie clutched my hand. “I’m so glad Connie knew about her. The vet Trina was using...she was an evil bitch. X would be dead if we had to rely on her. Whatever this is, it’s wolf related, and Chandra will be able to help.”

“Don’t.” The word came between clenched teeth. Lyssie let go of me, digging in her purse for her phone. I couldn’t read her reaction. I’d never had problems with my vision, but she was a blonde blur at the end of the couch. “It’ll pass.”

The blur came closer. Lyssie knew I was full of shit. “Dallas, you’re scaring me. You sound like you’re shitfaced, you’re sweating like it’s August, and your eyes are almost black. Go ahead, tell me it’s nothing, but you’re not going to die on my watch. I won’t let you leave me.”

“I won’t.” Darkness framed my vision, and the window I watched Lyssie through shrank to nothingness.

**

“I
t’s Full Moon Fever.” Chandra, the mysterious woman that Connie had called in for X, and now Lyssie for me, sat on the edge of the couch.

“Seriously? I thought that was just the name of those stupid parties,” Lyssie said, trying to add a chuckle. It was too thin and cracked on delivery.

Chandra wiped off her medical equipment and placed it back in her bag. She forced me to drink some concoction that tasted like one of those fancy coffee drinks mixed with moss. The first sip turned my stomach, but that shit did the trick. I only saw one of each woman, and wasn’t baking in Hell’s pizza oven anymore.

“That’s where they got the name of the party. When a wolf marks his mate, they’ll be overcome by lust until they consummate the pairing. It can take many different forms, but extreme drunkenness or flu-like symptoms are pretty common. If not treated, wolves can become permanently feral, and the symptoms become closer to rabidity.” The grave expression disappeared from Chandra’s face when she smiled sheepishly. “You, my friend, need to get laid in the worst way possible.”

Lyssie’s mouth opened, she rubbed those luscious lips together before speaking. Chandra could give me all the dirt flavored drinks she wanted, but my body craved the woman standing in front of me. The one in last night’s clothes who questioned every move she made. And I had answers for her. Problem was I didn’t know if they were the ones she wanted.

“Can it be with anyone?” Lyssie asked, her gaze darting down. “Or does it have to be with the wolf that bit him?”

Chandra frowned, snapping her bag closed. “Technically, it should be with his mate. I’ve never heard of a wolf being so reckless with a bite before. It’s a sacred ritual. Wolves mate for love, not spite. It’s meant to change someone’s life, but not like this. So if he’s in love with somebody other than the one who gave him the bite, it might work. I can’t guarantee anything. I only deal with the science part. My advice? Do what you need to do, Dallas. Good luck, and call me if you need me.”

L
yssie

“I need your help,” I said to Kiera when we got to the shelter. She’d spent the night with Baron, and Dallas had insisted she not come get me until Chandra left.

The sickness was scary, the prognosis even more terrifying, but the way he wanted to hide it made my stomach churn.

Kiera’s face lit up over her coffee mug. “How’d last night go? I stayed with Baron because I wanted the two of you to have some alone time. The way the two of you were dancing—“ she fanned herself, “—so flipping hot. I picked up a couple new moves watching you and Baron’s totally going to buy your next beer as a thank you.”

I laughed. “Good to know. Um, things didn’t go as I expected.”

Kiera put down her coffee and picked up the dog that had his paws on her belly. She squinted as he covered her face in kisses. “Lyssie, I’m saying this as your best friend. You’re way overthinking things. Take your clothes off and let Dallas ravish you like the animal he is. Next time he comes over, answer the door naked. I’ll stay in my room. Don’t worry about what you don’t know. Your body’s smarter than you give it credit for. Just enjoy the ride and stop fucking thinking for once.”

“That’s exactly it. Did you see that girl come up to us right after the ball dropped last night?”

Kiera shook her head. The whole thing felt crazy, and I really wanted one witness.

“She’s one of the Montana wolves. She bit him, trying to mark her territory. So when I left with Dallas, we were actually fighting. We kind of smoothed things out, but Dallas passed out hard when he came back to our place. Moaning and talking in his sleep, he had a ridiculously high fever. Blamed the bite. I called Chandra even though he begged me not to. I think he’s embarrassed that this chick bit him, or he’s got something to hide. Whatever. My point is, Full Moon Fever is a real thing, he has it, and the only thing that will cure it is him screwing his mate’s brains out.”

“Oh.” Kiera’s mouth kept the shape of the sound as she eased the dog back down to the floor. “He’ll stay sick until he sleeps with the she-wolf?”

“Until he has sex with his
mate
. Chandra stressed that wolves mate for love. Me and Dallas have been weird, but we’ve got something. We promised each other we’d stop wasting time. I still need to tell him everything...but none of that matters right now. If he’s not cured, he’ll go feral. Lose his humanity. I’ve got to give his wolf the best sex of his life or little Miss Montana staking her claim will be the least of our problems.”

The smile returned to Kiera’s face. “We’ve totally got this. You know how much I hate to lose. And I want to see you happy. But I need you to do some research, because what works for me isn’t necessarily going to work for you. You might not want to know this, but I’m the dominant in our—“

I put my hand up. “You’re right. Too much information.” Kiera and Trina talked about sex all day long at the shelter, but listening to them made my skin crawl. Maybe it was with jealousy that I couldn’t join in, or that the thought of it made my cheeks burn.

Yup. You heard it here first. Lyssie Bradley was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin. It was the opposite of all those rock stars that died at twenty-seven; I had yet to live. I had a perfectly good excuse for it that I’d rather take to my grave than say out loud, but that was no longer an option. I had to rip everything open and let it all hang out.

Kiera sat beside me on the couch, bumping my leg. “That’s the first thing. You’ve got to get comfortable talking about this stuff, because you have to be able to tell Dallas what you want. And ask him what he needs. Which leads me back to my point. It doesn’t have anything to do with your bodies—sex is a mind game. Let him think he’s in control, that he’s claiming you. In reality, you’ll be in the driver’s seat the whole time. The only way you’ll lose him is if you fuck this up. I know that’s harsh, but it’s true. I can’t sugar coat things.”

“I know. That’s why I asked you.” I sighed. No better time to talk about all the things that scared me than now. “I’ve been having trouble lately. I’ve been...feeling like I did when I first got to CAST. I didn’t want to say anything, because everyone else around me is so happy, and there’s a little voice in my head that laughs at me, telling me I don’t deserve that. Now that just turned into a big voice, with bright red hair and a giant rack. And honestly, I don’t know if I can beat her.”

Kiera hugged me. At first it was weird because we were both card-carrying members of the No Hugging Club, but it was exactly what I needed. “Don’t give her a chance,” she said against my cheek, then pulled away. “I know this violates the cardinal rule of Forever Home, but what the hell happened to you? If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

She chewed on her lip, just as nervous as I was. We made a pact when we came to Granger Falls, all of us strangers, connected by our grief and the hope that a bunch of unwanted animals could help put us back together again. We never talked about what got us there. No looking back. We couldn’t change the past. The present was what we had control over.

Trying to form the words, I was brought back to that day. Pain balled in my chest like a giant fist around my heart, squeezing it. In my mind’s eye, I watched the car pull away, always as vivid as the first time it happened. “My mother left me in a Walmart parking lot. She’d just got her check. I only remember it because we ran out of everything at the end of the month, and I’d be so hungry before we did our big shopping. She let me pick out one thing I really wanted, and I chose those sugar cookies with the frosting on top. I gag just thinking of them now. She loaded up the car, buckled my little brother in, and said she didn’t have any room for me. They actually waved at me as they drove away, and me, being the naïve little ten-year-old that I was, waved back. I didn’t get what was happening.”