Wolf Tales IV

Wolf Tales 4: Keisha
Kate Douglas

All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2004 by Katherine A. Moore
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ISBN 1-59596-072-4
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Publisher:
Changeling Press LLC
PO Box 1561
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www.ChangelingPress.com
Editor:
Sheri Ross Carucci
Cover Artist:
Bryan Keller

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Chapter One

Running. Always running. Grass whipping face and chest, paws torn and bleeding. Searching for someone? Evading someone? Not sure. Never certain if running after or away from, only certain of speed. Constant, lung-bursting, heart-throbbing speed. Must run, faster… faster.

Someone follows, someone
…
no. Something new, someone shadowing, someone strong and true, dark as night, heart pure as gold, running alongside, a safe, strong shadow, running close in the night.

“Ouch. Meanie! That hurts.”

“Stop complaining. I’ve never done this to a white girl before. Your hair’s so straight, it’s hard to braid! Maybe I should just quit.”

“Please! Don’t stop now.”

Anton paused outside the open door and smiled at Stefan when he heard the women’s laughter in the kitchen. Stefan merely grinned and shook his head.

It was such an amazing sound, the soft lilt of Keisha’s laughter.

He heard her giggle again.

“Xandi, you say that all the time. ‘Please, Stefan. Don’t stop now. Please, Anton? Don’t stop, Anton. Oh… Anton…‘ “

The last was said in a low, breathy wail.

“I heard that.” Grinning so wide he felt like an absolute fool, Anton shoved the door open and walked into the kitchen. Alexandria sat on a kitchen stool, her tightly braided hair gleaming like polished copper, caught in a brilliant beam of morning sunlight. Keisha stood behind her, eyes twinkling as she braided one last row in Alexandria’s hair.

“Heard what? This little girl whimpering ’cause I’m braiding her do a bit too tight? She is such a wuss.” Still laughing, Keisha tugged the strands tighter, finished up the last row and fixed a small, blue bead to the end of the braid.

Alexandria shook her head and the beads adorning the ends of dozens of braids clattered together. Then she tilted her chin so the myriad colored beads draped to one side and smiled seductively at Stefan. From the harsh intake of the other man’s breath, Anton had a feeling she’d gotten the desired effect.

“Damn.” Stefan walked around her, staring at the totally new look. “You did this, Keisha? It’s gorgeous.”

“Thank you… of course, it’s all gonna fall out the minute she shifts.” Hands on her hips, Keisha stood back to survey her work.

“I just wanted to see how it would look.” Alexandria forced a sulky looking pout.

She couldn’t hold it. “Where’s the mirror? I wanna see!”

Keisha handed her a small hand mirror. “It really does look good on you. Wish there was a way to make it hold through a shift, but it all pops right out. All that work and
poof
! You end up tripping over a scattered bunch of beads!”

Alexandria turned to Anton. “You haven’t said anything… what’s your opinion, oh exalted leader?”

Anton cast her a sideways glance. “Exalted leader? Moi? I understood you were the Alpha bitch in this pack.”

Alexandria snorted. “Yeah, right. C’mon. What do you think?”

“I think Keisha’s an artist. You look absolutely beautiful.” He trailed his hand over the tight row of perfect braids sweeping back from her forehead. “You look just like a red-headed Bo Derek. Remember her in that old movie…
10
?”

“Oh, yeah…” Stefan nodded. “Now if she were wearing that same skimpy little bikini…”

“You see me naked all the time. What good’s the bikini?”

“I enjoy unwrapping the package.” Stefan moved closer and tilted his head just enough to catch Alexandria’s lips with his. She practically melted against him, all teasing suddenly lost in the lush sharing of lips and tongue.

Anton looked over the two of them at Keisha. The laughter had disappeared from her face and her body trembled. Sending a subtle block to Stefan and Alexandria, Anton reached around them to lightly grasp Keisha’s hand and lead her from the kitchen.

He closed the door softly behind them and grabbed her when she burst into tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, sobbing against his chest. “I don’t mean to be that way. I don’t.”

Lightly stroking her back, Anton smiled against her hair and silently reveled in the tight clasp of her arms around his waist. She had no idea how far she’d come. No idea at all.

“Sweetheart, don’t cry.” He kissed her tousled hair. When she raised her head, he used his thumbs to wipe the tears from beneath her eyes. “Look at me and think of what just happened. You’ve spent almost three hours braiding Alexandria’s hair. Touching her, being close to her. Right now your arms are around my waist. You’re holding on to me for comfort.”

She nodded, but she didn’t pull away. Another positive step.

“Are you afraid of me, embracing you like this?”

Almost shyly, she shook her head.

“That’s because you trust me. I think what just happened in there, when you saw them kiss? I think your body reacted to the inherent sensuality and it frightened you. Does that make sense?”

“Of course it does.” Pushing away from his embrace, Keisha stomped across the room, whirled around and stalked back to him. “Everything you say makes sense, dammit. It still doesn’t keep me from freaking out every time I see you guys kiss. Every time you crawl into bed with them and you guys make love, I want to be there so bad it hurts, but I lose it. I’ve stood in the doorway and felt my heart pound and my pussy practically weep with wanting to be with all of you, and I still fall apart!”

“It’s going to take time.”

“I’m tired of waiting.” She flipped her hand beside her face, opened her mouth, then shut it. “I want to do more than just hug, more than sleep in your arms as if you were my big brother. I want to fuck. I want to enjoy sex again, not run away when things start to get hot. I can’t keep playing the voyeur, getting my rocks off in your heads when the three of you screw. I can’t go to a therapist. Counseling won’t work when I can’t say what’s going on.”

She glared at him, as if her condition were all his fault. “I can just hear myself now. ‘Oh, it’s a bit confusing, doctor. I’m not really human, I’m actually a shape-shifting
Chanku
and I really, really want to screw my pack mates, but the silly little rape thing keeps getting in my way.’ Anton…” She practically wailed when she asked, “What can I do to get past this?”

Once again, Anton wished he had been the one to kill the bastards who did this to her. Choking back a low, angry growl, he spread his arms wide. Keisha threw her body against his, taking his comfort, taking his love. Avoiding the attraction that was tearing him apart.

He held her while she cried. Murmured words of love, kissed her dark hair and fought his own tears of utter and profound frustration. Times like this, it was all he could do to keep from going uninvited into her head and tweaking her memories, changing her past in order to help her accept her present.

Unacceptable
. Even so, there had to be something he could do to help her. She’d been here three weeks now. Her body had healed. Her sense of humor blossomed, her ability to touch and be touched was returning.

Yet the only way she’d been able to accept the sexual nature of their relationship was through a mind link with Alexandria. Joining mentally with the other woman, experiencing the sensual touch, the deeply intimate acts the three of them shared, not as an actual participant but as a mental voyeur.

Maybe… maybe Alexandria was the key.

My love… do you ever feel sexually drawn to Alexandria
?

Xandi
? Keisha lifted her tear-streaked face away from his chest and frowned.
I guess I never thought about her that way. She’s beautiful. I love being in her head when you guys are all together in bed, love the feel of sharing your bodies… I just wish I didn’t lose it when I’m in the same room with you
!

“What if you were in control? What if it was just you and Alexandria, alone together? What if the two of you made love? Would you find that at all appealing? She’s not male… not a threat. She loves you as much as Stefan and I do. She is a gentle, caring lover, filled with compassion as well as passion. As
Chanku
, you should find her as sexually appealing as you would any male…”

He allowed the sentence to linger. Holding Keisha in a loose embrace, he watched the thoughts unfolding in her brilliant amber eyes.

Xandi
? Blinking owlishly, Keisha opened her mind to the idea of sex with another woman. Obviously, she’d never thought of herself as lesbian, though she’d often noticed women who she felt were sexually attractive. It wasn’t as farfetched as it sounded, not really. Xandi was beautiful, sensual…

With their minds linked, Keisha had been more intimate with Xandi than with any other human alive. She’d participated in group sex, enjoyed the other woman’s responses and made them her own. There’d never been a feeling of wrongness, never a sense of shame.

How could she feel shame with someone as loving, as giving, as Alexandria Olanet? And, if what Anton said were true, that the
Chanku
were polyamorous by genetics, that the love of the pack put sexuality aside, became, instead, a sharing of the sensual body as a whole, then her feelings for another woman within the pack were right and normal.

How come she hadn’t thought of this before?

Ah, but you have. I know you’ve pleasured yourself during the links with Alexandria.

You do
? Struggling out of his light grasp, Keisha glared at Anton. “You snooped!”

He laughed softly and brushed his hand over her hair. Damned if she didn’t lean into his touch! Jerking herself upright, away from the magnetic pull of his fingers, Keisha took a deep breath, prepared to tell him exactly what she thought of him coming uninvited into her head.

“Yes, I was snooping. I’ve been worried about you, afraid you were withdrawing from us. When I realized you were finding sexual satisfaction in the privacy of your room, I was not so worried anymore.”

He cupped her chin in his big hands, his fingers warm and firm. “I want you healed, my love. I want you able to come to me, to share your body with me… some day to share with all of us, with Stefan and Alexandria as well, so that there are four of us together… four of us as intimate as any two people can be. I want you to love me, to love them… most of all, I want you as my mate, as the one who will bear my children… I want you with me, for all my life. Before that can happen, you must be whole, a complete woman, without fear.”

The breath whooshed out of her lungs. Anton’s hands trembled against her face and his jaw was tightly clenched. She’d had no idea… none at all, how much of a future he envisioned… how deep his feelings ran.

What of hers for him? Blinking back tears, she reached up and touched the side of his face with her palm. “Give me time, Anton. Just a little more time. I want to say I love you, but not until I can come to you with a body and mind free of fear.”

The disappointment in his eyes made her wish she could draw her cowardly words back. He merely nodded, leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead, then turned and left the room.

Keisha felt as if he took the sunshine with him, took the air she needed to breathe, the love she needed to exist. Stumbling in her haste to leave this suddenly cold and dreary place, she raced down the long hallway to her bedroom.