WithHerCraving (2 page)

It was the pungent smell of blood. Not fresh, but possibly
recently dried. His lip curled as he sniffed the air then instinctively
searched for the source. Jaeger already smelled of beer and the rich, somewhat
sweeter smell of enthusiasm. He didn’t glance around them but focused on Jarvis
once he neared.

“Her litter ran through a week ago and left her here.”
Jaeger smelled self-important as he kept his growl low and shared what he’d
learned. “Apparently they felt she would be better protected here but the rest
of her litter kept going, supposedly to the States.”

It was unusual for a litter to split up, and especially
leave one of their females behind. Times were exceptionally hard, though, and
sacrifices, as well as actions that otherwise might appear dishonorable, had in
some cases become necessary. Jarvis wouldn’t judge a litter without knowing
their history.

“Right after I got out here, everyone smelled the blood when
several males hauled in a younger pup, barely grown, who was damn near filleted
to death. You just missed Toubec when he came out here to sniff out the
situation. They hauled the male off to the pack doctor but every single one of
those sick fucks, who claimed to witness what happened, didn’t hesitate in
howling about a rabid female.”

Jarvis snorted. “Rabid, my tail. She bested them and that is
the simple truth.”

“I agree with you.” Jaeger nodded and began speaking in less
conspiratorial tones. “There was something off about her though.”

“Because she didn’t turn tail and run like a good little
female so those males could chase her down and rape her?” Jarvis asked
incredulously. “Or belly-up and be fucked even though she didn’t want it?”
Jarvis shook his head. “You run with more honor than that.”

Jaeger sniffed the air, determining his littermate’s mood by
trying to smell his emotions.

Jarvis stared him down with a cool look. “She did neither of
those and all that means is she’s willing to fight. Whether that is the type of
female you’re attracted to or not, doesn’t mean there is something wrong with
her.”

“You want to sniff her out,” Jaeger accused, his eyes
widening as he inhaled and seemed content he’d called out the truth from
Jarvis’ scent. “You think you want to tame a female that wild and out of
control? You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

“The only thing I plan on sniffing out is good kill.” Jarvis
reined in any curiosity he’d been entertaining over the female. “I’m going
hunting. Enjoy your howlings,” he said, and tried feeling disgusted. Best to
cloud the air with pungent emotions than be called out as a liar.

Toubec offered more hunting ground than most of them had
ever known. And it was all Cariboo
lunewulf
land. Jarvis left the crowd
of Cariboo and wandered to the far side of land surrounding the outbuildings.
Toubec lived in a large den that sprawled over a flat strip of land near the
highway. On the far side of Toubec’s den the trees were thicker and there
wasn’t much to offer but rough, rocky terrain. It was still good hunting ground
and Jarvis liked the idea of hunting alone tonight.

They had witnessed something today neither of them had ever
dreamed they would ever see. One female not only overpowered one male, she took
down four. Jarvis accepted this as the reason why the slender female was stuck
in his thoughts. In their fur, females were half the size of males and seldom
had what it took to overpower one determined, horny single male. Especially one
with little to no scruples. That sexy, little spitfire had impressed the shit
out of him. A good, hard run and eating his dinner raw, in his fur, would be
perfect therapy to clear the thoughts that were stinking up the air.

As he found the perfect spot to undress, Jarvis sensed more
than the usual prickling of his flesh right before the change. He had the
uncanny sensation he was being watched. Pulling off his shirt, he looked over
his shoulder as the cold night air soaked into his bare flesh.

Toubec’s den was behind him. With lights on inside, many of
the windows glowed with flat iridescence, like a soulless creature staring at
him. A female stood in an upstairs window watching him. When Jarvis glanced up
at her, she moved out of his view. It wasn’t Toubec’s mate.

The change burned sharp and fierce inside him, ready to take
over his human form and ignite his stronger, more primal half. Jarvis growled
at the fading figure before unbuttoning his jeans and sliding down the zipper.
Shoving his boots off and stripping out of his socks, bones began popping and
contorting at the same time as he pushed his jeans to the ground. Jarvis barely
made it out of his boxers before his spine crackled and altered in order to
hold his new form.

Once again his skin prickled as it thickened and tightened.
Fur covered his new form and his senses heightened. Blood raced through his
veins and his heart accelerated, beating faster and pumping harder. The
settling darkness shifted from black to different shades of grays. He adjusted
to the acute awareness his heightened senses brought on and smelled every
insect and disappearing rodent that scurried from him in fright.

Jarvis turned again, this time his eyesight much stronger.
The female had once again stepped up to the window. Her long hair fell around
her willowy body, which was covered only by an oversized t-shirt. Most Cariboo
lunewulf
were blonde, although some of them had red highlights just as they did in their
fur. This female’s long, wavy hair was auburn with blonde highlights. Her
creamy white flesh contrasted against her darker hair. She had long, thin legs
that didn’t look as muscular as most female’s legs.

Jarvis didn’t question how he knew this was the female he’d
seen earlier in her fur. Instead he growled, turning and facing her with a
toothy grin. Inside Toubec’s den she was safe but very soon he would hunt her
down. Jarvis watched her straighten, sensed the moment she held her breath and
remained captive to his stare, and knew she understood.

Katrin Keller stood in the grocery line staring at the items
in her cart. The smell of humans was barely tolerable. They stuffed emotions
worse than some did a garbage can.

Katrin missed the mountains and running and laughing with
her littermates. They would race to their den. Katrin didn’t always win, but
when she did those memories smelled the best. For a moment she swore she could
breathe in the smell of her mother’s happiness instead of the fabricated odors
of plastic packaging from the items in her cart.

She missed the ripe aroma of fresh meat that always filled
their den. Their mama always made them wait for their sire to return before any
of them could eat. They had lived in a small cabin with only two bedrooms, one
for their mother and sire, and the other Katrin, Leisa and Magda shared. The
huge, fancy Toubec den didn’t hold a flame to the den she’d been whelped in.

Straightening, she refused to smell of regret or remorse.
Life changed. Find the best path and run with honor.
Never let your guard
down and be ready to kill before you’re killed.
Her sire had burned those
words into her head before she’d run on her first kill.

She placed the supplies for the Toubec den on the conveyor
belt, ignoring the human who began scanning each item. Her sire was gone. Her
den was gone. But his lessons in life remained strong in her mind. They were
all she had left to honor him with.

The human didn’t smell Katrin’s sudden sadness and there
weren’t any werewolves nearby. Her life in the mountains wasn’t supposed to
have ended. She should have been able to run, hunt, grow old and die in those
mountains. Instead she had run from her lifeless den, her mother and sire both
dead. Her littermates had left her on this ranch simply because more of her
mother’s blood ran through her than her sire’s. Her littermates had run south
to America because they had resembled their sire.

“I don’t want to stay here,” Katrin had complained.

“This ranch reeks of power and strength. You must smell
the truth when I say I would run with you here if I could.” Leisa’s dark,
almost black hair was pulled tight on her head and the ball cap she wore hid
most of it. “But we’ve been over and over this and Magda is right.”

“You two have howled about this. I never agreed. Do you
think I care what breed I look like?” Katrin glared at both her littermates. It
was her last chance to convince them. “We must run together.”

Magda’s scent was dangerous, aggressive, and had been
since the day they’d run from the flames and smells of their parents’ corpses
and den burning beyond control. “This is how it will be. Leisa and I aren’t
safe here. Don’t be a fool, Kat, you remember our sire’s howling when he told
us what the other werewolves did to the Malta werewolves. Now we run from
humans and our own kind. But you, you look like Mama.”

“I’m not leaving my litter.” Katrin had fisted her hands
at her waist and stared her oldest littermate down. She didn’t have to try to
make her scent defiant. She was pissed. “And you two aren’t leaving me. We’ll
survive if we stay together.”

“There is no discussion. Katrin, go to that ranch, tell
them your litter is dead. They will be honor bound to take you in.”

“I don’t want their fucking honor!” she’d snarled. If
there had been any more tears to shed, they would have fallen. Instead Katrin’s
eyes burned as outrage soared inside her.

Magda’s hug was unexpected. Since they’d left the
mountains she’d been distant and hadn’t at all smelled like herself. Now, when
she pulled Katrin close and pressed their bodies together as if she’d never let
go, for a moment Katrin almost believed none of the horrors had happened. Magda
smelled like she used to, protective and full of love and concern for her
younger littermate.

The moment she put Katrin at arm’s length, the old Magda
was gone. Katrin barely had the strength to hold herself up when Magda let her
go, took Leisa’s arm and pulled her away from their youngest littermate.

“Good hunting, Katrin. Never let your guard down and be
ready to kill before you’re killed.”

Katrin remembered her littermate’s parting words. Their
sire’s mantra was what she would live by today. The human told her the total,
which was already displayed on the register’s screen in front of Katrin’s face.
For a moment, she thought of letting her teeth grow and snapping at the store
employee just to see her fear and smell her panic. She hated humans! They had
destroyed her litter, her den and her life.

Pulling the bills out of her back pocket, Katrin waited for
the change, then took the items that Simone Toubec, the queen bitch on the
ranch, had asked her to buy. Pain and hatred might be trying to eat her alive
but she wouldn’t let the raw emotions cloud her ability to protect herself.
Especially in a human world mixed with rogue werewolves.

Taking her bagged items outside, Katrin hurried to the old
truck she’d driven into Prince George. She sniffed the air, searching for any
aggressors that might be nearby. In the mountains, Katrin had known how to
protect herself since she’d been a cub. Other Cariboo
lunewulf
, large
bears and even some smaller creatures on the mountain would attack a cub, or as
she grew older, a single female. Katrin learned to fight to the death before
she learned to drive. She wasn’t in the mountains anymore. Prince George as
well as Toubec’s ranch held just as many dangers.

Katrin glanced around the parking lot. The large grocery
store shared the lot with numerous other stores. Cars came and went. The
exhaust, gasoline and diesel created enough stench to make it hard to rely on
smell to spot danger.

Humans held on to enough conflicting aromas to confuse the
truth of what Katrin might actually smell. They were only half of a whole,
unable to change and therefore every emotion they experienced trapped in their
one form. Most humans walked around feeling happy and sad, angry and content
all at the same time. It was scary how real of a danger they could still be.

She loaded the groceries into the back of the truck and
continued sniffing the air, processing every scent she breathed in while
continuing to glance around her. When she picked up the smell of
lunewulf
,
Katrin lifted and closed the back hatch then hurried to the driver’s side door.

Two
lunewulf
males, easily spotted because of their
pale blond hair and thin, wiry build—a runt of a breed in comparison to Cariboo
lunewulf
—crossed the parking lot and sauntered up to her as if they had
the right to howl at her without asking permission first.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” whispered a
male, who was the same height as Katrin, although possibly a good fifty pounds
heavier. He grabbed the door handle of the truck before Katrin could open it.
“What’s your name, little Cariboo?”

“You know every female in Prince George?” she countered and
sized up the male.

“Why do you smell so hostile, little female?” The second
male moved in alongside her so that she was between him and the side of the
truck. “We’re just trying to be friendly.”

“You don’t smell too friendly.” Katrin controlled the change
even as sparks shot up her spine. A little muscle might not hurt though. After
all, it was two against one. She growled as her blood boiled through her veins.
When she grabbed the male’s hand and yanked it off the truck handle, her
elongated fingernails scraped open the surface of his skin. “And get your paws
off my truck.”

“Little bitch,” he hissed as he stepped back and shook his
hand. When he smiled, his incisors were a bit sharper than should be in his
human form. “I heard the howlings of a rabid female out on Toubec’s land.” A
drop of blood ran along the back of his hand when he slapped the side of the
truck. “I hear she likes taking on as many males as possible,” he snarled and
stepped into her space.

Katrin breathed in his lust and the smell of whiskey. “Maybe
you should go find her and leave me alone,” she growled, the urge to rid the
world of two useless werewolves almost overwhelming her.

Katrin barely had time to register a dark blur behind the
male in her face when he was being dragged backward. It was the male she’d seen
undressing in the trees and he was as imposing and incredibly sexy as he’d
seemed every night that she’d watched him undress and change. As he now as he
stood in front of her. Katrin managed not to drool.

There had been Cariboo
lunewulf
on her mountains.
They were a large breed, probably the largest of all werewolves, although she
wasn’t certain. What she did know was that the male snarling at these two
lunewulfs
was a very big male, well over six feet. He had to be. She had been five feet
and ten inches the last time her mother had measured her and her littermates.
This male towered over her.

He was muscular, which was obvious in the way his shirt
clung to his well-sculptured body. Not that she needed to look at him now to
see how well built he was. This was the Cariboo she’d watched change outside
her bedroom window at the Toubecs’ den every night. Katrin knew firsthand how
perfect his body was. In fact, she’d put damn near every inch of him to memory.

She’d dreamed about him, fantasized about him, and even made
love to him in her imagination. Katrin felt no remorse or regret over any of
the times she’d obsessed over him. She knew a perfect werewolf when she saw
one, and what was the point of enjoying a male in her thoughts who ran any less
than that?

He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the
lunewulf
males. They looked like runts facing him. Katrin studied his tousled blond
curls, which fell just above those rock-hard shoulders. His eyes blazed blue
the way the sky would just before turning the violent shades from a pending
storm. Katrin wanted to breathe in his scent, the only part of him she lacked
in recreating him in her imagination. She was instantly angrier when his spicy
outrage prevented her from doing so.

“Leave this female alone,” he barked, his tone fierce. The
large Cariboo dwarfed the two
lunewulfs
. No sooner had he let go of the
male he’d dragged out of her face than he lunged at the second male. “Leave
now!” he ordered.

There wasn’t time to announce she was capable of taking care
of herself before the two
lunewulf
males backed off then hurried away
from Katrin, leaving her alone with the Cariboo
lunewulf
male. She tried
reaching for her door handle once again. The male grabbed it first and when he
found it locked, gripped her shoulder and stared at her with dark-blue eyes.

“Keys.” He uttered the one word with an effort, as if still
reining in his temper.

“I can unlock my own door.”

“I’m sure you can.” His gaze left hers and traveled down her
body. “Give me the keys or I’ll find them myself.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to dare him to try. No male
would shove her around or tell her what to do. When she opened her mouth to
speak, his attention snapped to her face. Katrin got a strange sensation that
he knew what she was about to say. The corner of his mouth curved as his
fingers brushed over her shoulder.

“Give me the keys,” he said, his tone softer.

“Fine.” She shoved out of his grip and turned slightly when
she dug the keys out of her jeans pocket. It wasn’t enough time to regain
composure before his much larger hand scooped them out of hers. “If you want
the truck, take it,” she tried.

Katrin wasn’t able to back away. The male unlocked the truck
door, opened it and grabbed her in what seemed one fluid movement. She found
herself with her back against the side of the driver’s seat. The door shielded
them from onlookers, and his incredibly virile body trapped her in the limited
space. She fought for breath.

“I don’t want the truck.” The sudden hunger in his eyes made
his meaning clear.

As she sucked in air it was filled with his scent. This was
what he smelled like. The acknowledgment that she now had a well-rounded
knowledge of him from all her senses brought her pause. It took her a moment to
realize she was damn near panting while staring at the incredible muscular
structure of his shoulders and chest.

He smelled of timber and the woods. There was a saltiness in
his scent, possibly from body sweat dried on his flesh. She breathed in the
scent of laundry soap on his clothes, body soap and the slightest hint of
aftershave, although the hint of whiskers on his jaw made it look as if he
hadn’t shaved that day.

None of those smells she breathed in mattered as much as
what else she inhaled. Katrin picked up on his determination, which was tart
but not unpleasant at all. His spicy anger definitely lingered. There was also
a hint of something sweet mixed in with the rest. She raised her gaze to those
captivating blue eyes. It was sexual arousal.

No way would he guess that she’d imagined fucking him over
the past few nights. She fought to stop the pressure growing between her legs.
Her pussy began throbbing. The air didn’t smell of hostility anymore.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice raspy when it became
hard to breathe normally.

“You know who I am.”

It was possible the male saw her in her bedroom window the
first night he’d undressed and changed for his run. Katrin had made sure her
lights were out and she’d lingered near the edge of the large window after
that. Each night this male had come to the same tree, stripped naked and
changed into the most glorious Cariboo
lunewulf
she’d ever laid eyes on.
Now she knew his scent.

There hadn’t been much challenge in learning Jarvis Alger’s
name. After she’d been hunted down by those stupid males and simply defended
herself, Rock and Simone Toubec wouldn’t allow her out of their sight. It had
caused her physical pain making a show of being happy and content. She had
submitted every time either Rock or Simone growled, until finally they allowed
her to move around outside their den. That’s when she’d learned Jarvis’ name.