Base Nature Page 13

  “I need to change. Be better. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So sorry. Make it leave, make it go. I’ve learned my lesson. I have. Truly.” He stared at her and she crouched lower, slinking like a dark dangerous thing. Because at that moment that was what she was. A slinking dark thing that brought death.

  Kevin’s eyes flew wider. He felt it coming, sensed the end. He threw his head back, neck long—

  Big mistake.

  And he screamed, “Help! Somebody! Anyone! Help! Help me for God’s sake! Help me. Oh sweet Jesus. Somebody! Somebody help m—”

  Liv was already on him. All she had in her head was the smell of his blood and the vengeance for Garrett.

  Too late.

  ———

  Her mind shut down when her teeth hit flesh. That was probably good. It was probably for the best.

  Finally, Liv opened her eyes and wiped her skin. Soft, pale, cold shivering skin. Human skin. The rain wound its way through the maze of leaves still clinging to the trees and dripped in her face.

  “Oh Liv.”

  She looked up to find Kelly, naked and shivering, looking over the mess that was once Kevin.

  Liv’s stomach turned over when she looked at him. “Did I do that?”

  “Yes, honey, you did. Are you okay?” She hunkered down, looking Liv over for marks or wounds. She brushed her hair out of her face and smiled. “It will be fine.”

  “I did that?” But even as she said it, she knew she was stunned but not sorry. Not sorry as she had expected of herself. It had been nice, though possibly wrong, to exercise her power over Kevin. But she had done it. For once, she had been the one with the upper hand.

  The gray wolf that was Garrett came flying out of the woods, landing by her side. “Garrett?” She turned to Kelly. “Is that him?” Liv felt a sob rush up in her throat and cut off her air.

  Kelly nodded, tsking as she patted his nose. “He was shot, Liv, but not killed.” Then to Garrett, “You are a terrible listener, Garrett Gustafson. Did you not understand that shifting could make you weaker? Keep you from healing properly?” She swatted him on the muzzle, clearly trying to ignore the corpse.

  Garrett growled at her and she whapped him again. “Don’t you growl at me, boy!” Kelly was the one in charge, that was obvious. Liv stared at her, starting to shake from cold, adrenaline and the change. “H-he’s alive?”

  “He’s alive. But he is dead.” She shut Kevin’s eyes with shaking fingers. “Oh honey, why?”

  Liv turned and Garrett hunkered down in front of her in human form. “It’s my fault, Kelly.”

  “They’ll want answers for this.”

  “It was justified. She was new and alone and he was an aggressive force with a history of violence.”

  “But it’s still a death on our hands. In our camp. We are more than you and her, Garrett.” She stood, her muscular form smeared with mud and water and leaves. Liv watched her, feeling numb and scared all over again. This fear was different. This was the fear of being punished justly.

  “I knew what I was doing,” she said to no one.

  “Hush, Liv,” Garrett said, pulling her close.

  She stared at the shrinking, ragged hole in his chest. Blood still oozed but the fast freshet was gone. “You’re dead,” she sobbed. “I thought you were dead.”

  “It would take more than that to kill one of us. Especially bred wolves. You might be easier to kill that way but not us.”

  “You were dead,” she said to Garrett again, pushing the flat of her palm to his wet chest. His skin was mildly cool from the rain but heat still came off him, heating her enough so that she didn’t shiver.

  “I’m fine. Liv, would you have killed him if he hadn’t shot me?” Garrett pulled back, watching her face.

  Liv bit her bottom lip tasting blood and dirt and rain. She hated Kevin. Wanted to hurt him the moment he came into view through her wolf eyes but would she? Finally, she shook her head. “No. I might have chased him. I might have scared him. Just to see what that felt like…” She dipped her head as if admitting the worst thing in the world. Garrett kissed her wet tangled hair.

  Kelly watched, saying nothing. Waiting.

  “But I never would have killed him. I thought he had killed you, Garrett. I thought he had taken my new life. Already!” Then she began to cry in earnest. Angry and sad that Kevin had already managed to fuck up her new chance. To throw a wrench in the workings of her life.

  “Garrett, you know that they’ll still have to—”

  “Later, Kelly. It’s all about intent. We both know that.”

  “Garrett, she has to answer for—”

  It was too much. Was this the base nature Garrett had once referred to? Was she now and forever just a killer? She’d never had the nerve to stand up for herself and now she was bleeding people out. Her head swirled with too many worries, too much light and sound and the dusky earthen smell of the woods. Liv pulled away and stumbled back, bouncing off the slippery young birches, crying. Hurting. She looked at them both. Kelly’s resolve, Garrett’s worry. And she shut her eyes, falling back into moonlight in her mind. The pain was searing, intense, blood red and consuming. But it was over faster than the first time.

  They started to coo to her. To try to talk her down. But she turned tail and ran. She couldn’t think of where to run, so she ran home.

  ———

  Kelly watched Garrett shift again. It was so fast even her eyes had trouble seeing what was truly happening. She’d been doing it and watching it forever and a day and he changed that fast. “Garrett! You’re not going to heal if you don’t—” He turned, watching her, stark blue eyes looking haunted. “Go,” she whispered. “I have to take care of some stuff. I’ll get the truck.”

  He dipped his head, chuffed once and took up the chase immediately. The brief flash of his white underbelly twisted her heart. All she could do now was contact Chester and the others. She would run interference for them. Set up the self-defense and explain what had happened, all the contributing factors.

  “And I get to do all of this bloody and naked,” she laughed. But it was a dark laugh. Her feet were sure, even in the gloom of the woods. True nature couldn’t be ignored, Kelly thought.

  She found the truck, keys in the ignition, at the edge of the access road. She turned the key, wrapped a blanket from the back of the seat around her like a toga and headed to Garrett’s house. She’d hold down the fort and plant the seeds of leniency with the pack.

  ———

  Where Bad Began

  Garrett stopped short and sat at the base of the stonework steps. They were sagging and the mortar was wearing away. Stones had slipped off the piles so the steps themselves were uneven and dangerous. He’d seen Liv jump through the bay window. The glass had been shattered ages ago and he worried she’d cut herself. He sniffed the air and smelled nothing but dirt, age, neglect and the murky scent of a negative space.

  “Jesus. Where are we? What is this place?” He stood on numb feet now. His body racked with shivers and chill. He glanced at his wound. The healing had not progressed in the least. If anything, it was looking a little worse. “Great.”

  He took the steps carefully, holding onto the post that supported the FOR SALE sign and the realtor’s information. Even in his weakened state he could feel the nasty, oily feel of this place. “Christ, Liv, is this your home?”

  He pulled the busted, ragged screen door open and tried the front door. It was unlocked and swung in on stiff hinges that complained over the motion. Garrett spotted a box in the front hall. Socks and blankets hung out over the lip of cardboard. Probably a donation pile for charity. He dug for a moment, found a trash bag full of more bedding. He wrapped a comforter around him because the chill was worse now. Dizziness swept over him and he grabbed the archway for support. “Liv?” he called.

  Nothing.

  The soft report of paws on the floor above his head sounded and he found the main staircase in the foyer. He took the steps slowly, at spots they
felt soft, like the wood under the runner had rotted long ago. At the top of the steps was a bathroom. A dingy gray room with black and white tile and a stained claw-foot tub. There was a shower ring at the top but no curtain. The curtain loops hung in clumps like bad fruit on a metal tree. “Liv?” he whispered.

  Still no answer but he could feel her here. Garrett strained to hear, strained so hard his ears buzzed in the silence. The dirty, smelly blanket he clutched around him whispered as he walked. A small animal moved in the wall by his left. He saw a flash of blonde fur and heard the tick-tick-tick of her nails on the hardwood floor.

  He passed two other rooms. One painted what had once been a bright white and now was a dirty water color. The other had been plain, utilitarian white, now stained with mold and mildew from the place where the roof had caved a bit from water damage.

  Garrett stepped into the room and she was sitting on a small bed, stripped bare of bedding. This room had been yellow. The years had worn it to the color of bile. “This was my room once,” Liv said, turning a long piece of hair around her index finger like she might yank it out. “This is where the bad began,” she said. She laughed and it was the sound of a heart breaking down.

  Garrett went to her, dropped to his knees, laid his head in her lap. “It’s okay, Liv. We’ll work it out. I promise.”

  “Can you smell the blood and fear and anger here?”

  Garrett nodded but stayed silent. She needed to get this out. This would eventually eat her like some alien disease if she didn’t talk now.

  “I can smell it now. But you know, I think I could smell it then too. Just in a different way.”

  He stroked her calves, wet from the rain, dirty from the change. She shivered a bit and he sat up, pulling the blanket around them both. She touched his chest, hissed, stared. “Garrett! You’re bleeding worse. I thought you should be healed by now.”

  “It’s all the changing, it burns too much energy. I’ll be fine. Keep going.”

  She pointed toward the once white room he’d passed but then pulled her hand back into the warmth of the blanket. “He’d hit her in there. He’d come home from work, angry and frustrated and…whatever the hell people like that feel and he’d start drinking.”

  Garrett had heard this story before. People who had ended up with the pack, either as the occasional changeling or as mates, told stories like this. Violence, blood, weakness, abuse. He pulled her in, felt his body responding to her being so near. He ignored it, that could be later. Now was important. All that mattered was he’d found her and she knew that he was there now. Would always be there. No matter what.

  “That’s never good,” he said, prompting.

  “Oh, sometimes she’d drink too. And they’d go at each other, verbally, I mean. But when it came to hitting. He always—” she broke off, her laughter harsh.

  “He always?” Garrett put his hands low on her back, holding her heat to his. The blanket smelled like plastic bag and dust. But it was warm and she was safe. Beyond that, they could work it out.

  “He always had the upper hand, is what I was going to say. Isn’t that funny?”

  “No.”

  “I know,” she sighed and Garrett could feel her tears falling on his chest. “And now I’m back here because I’ve done something equally bad. Equally horrible. I killed a man.”

  “You killed a man who shot me. He didn’t shoot me to get my attention, Liv. He was trying to kill me and you reacted. You fought back and defended your mate.” He kissed her when he said mate. Just saying it made the situation feel more real, more intense.

  Garrett smelled her warming to him. Wanting him. The urge to couple was often overwhelming after a hunt, a kill or during times of stress. He ignored it, focusing on her answer. “But still. I’m a killer.”

  “Yes, you are and so am I. But we don’t normally going around killing humans. Just like humans, we kill to defend and protect. We monitor ourselves the same as normal society.”

  This is what Kelly wanted you to understand. Vengeance is not only yours to give. It affects the whole pack. The whole lot of us…

  Garrett shook his head, he could worry about his own stupidity and stubbornness later. Right now she was shaking in his arms. “Are you scared?” he asked.

  “No.” Her hands came up his flank, small and warm. She trailed her fingers over his belly and the muscles erupted in a flurry of twitches. Liv touched his face, his hair, leaned her head back and kissed him even though her tears continued to fall.

  “Then why are you crying?”

  “I’m crying because I don’t feel worse. Because I’m not scared. I should be.” Her fingers found him and she took him in hand, his cock growing harder still in her palm. Garrett pressed his lips together tightly, trying to focus. It was hard to think of anything beyond the feel of her hand on him and the small kisses she dropped along his neck and shoulder.

  “Not really. Liv, you’re different now. You acted on instinct to protect and avenge me. Simple as that. To you, who you are now, you did nothing wrong. You reacted appropriately.”

  “Base nature,” she murmured, stroking him now.

  He pushed up to thrust into her palm, feeling the tightening of excitement and want low in his belly. God, he wanted her. Needed to be in her. The coupling would calm them both and more than anything he wanted Liv to feel how present he was, how much he was here for her. How very much he wanted and needed her. The fact that she had gone after a man minutes after her first change in his stead, in honor of him and the loss she thought she’d just suffered was staggering. It humbled him even as her hands worked him up.

  “Base nature isn’t a bad thing, baby. It’s simply who we are when all the bells and whistles are swept away. And under it all you are fierce, a warrior and you are good.”

  That brought a sob but he quieted it with a kiss. She kissed him with a desperate kind of love. Like she was on the razor edge of death and he could save her. He could save her, she just didn’t know it. All she had to do was let him love her. “I love you. Don’t worry. It will all work out. We’ll make it. It has to.”

  She nodded over and over. A protection spell of her own. Say yes to his words and it would be so. Garrett rolled to top her. He pressed his pelvis to hers, feeling the intense heat between her legs that made his cock ache and his pulse speed.

  “I should feel worse, right?” she whispered. “I feel like I should,” she confessed but she rose up with her body to meet him. Liv parted her legs just enough that the heat of her pussy became more evident. Harder for him to ignore.

  Garrett did his best to soothe away her worries with his mouth. He kissed her harder, swallowing up her cries and self-doubts. Her skin was warm and tacky from the change, from running, from all of the big dark night that had stretched out before them. When he kissed low on her belly her muscles trembled with excitement and fatigue. The smell of her made him drunk, his head muzzy with his craving. When he put his mouth to her, found her clit with the tip of his tongue and started to lick, the flavor of her filled his mouth. She was honey and wine and the sweetest herbs. Her fingers plucked and tugged at his hair and her pussy was warm under his lips. Garrett thrust the rigid tip of his tongue into her, juices wetting his face. She moved like she wanted to get away. But he could feel that she wanted to move forward. Her body sheer, beautiful chaos. “Come up here, please,” she whispered over and over. Not quite able to simply lie back and take what he wanted to give her.

  Until he shushed her and the vibration of his request rumbled through her pelvis. He felt her cunt tighten so slowly around the tip of his tongue and he smiled. He lapped at her, cleaning off each bit of juice she gave him, altering his rhythm so she couldn’t guess. And when he had her right at the edge, her body moving like an impatient wave under him, he sucked her clit into his mouth and nibbled until she shook and sobbed, tugging his hair so hard it brought tears to his eyes.

  Garrett kept going and she gasped. Her body going stiff, even her toes pointing where t
hey rested under his thighs. Her big toe brushed his cock and he thought of them in the kitchen, her stroking his cock with her soft feet. Him spanking her, fucking her with the spatula. It seemed like a lifetime ago and yet had only been the day before.

  “Garrett, you have to stop!” she panted. She pulled at him, trying to worm her fingers, small and thin and chilly under his armpits as if she could haul him up. He had to laugh that she would even try. “Oh God, don’t laugh, that makes it worse. It’s too much, too much…” she said again but even as she protested her body relaxed, uncoiled and unwound over his roving tongue.

  Her wetness had a whole new flavor now. Dark sugars and warm fruit, aromatic wood and cool wind. She tasted of nature and love and peace. He felt like he could cry, instead he focused on the hard nub of her clitoris, pushing his fingers into her pussy, stroking her so that she blossomed for him. Wave after wave of her orgasm sucking at his fingers and making her thrash on the narrow abandoned bed.

  When he looked up, her eyes were shining. He could barely see her in the gloom, there was no electricity here. She reached out, touched his face, her body still moving here and there in a soft erotic dance from her orgasm. “Now will you come up here?”

  “Now I’ve lost my hold on my emotions,” he groaned. He rose up over her, flipping her harder than he ever would have when she was human. He pulled her hips up and she hung her head, moaning low, moving her body back so that her pussy readied for him. Garrett’s hands shook as he pushed the head of his cock to her, he bit his lip as he slipped into her, grabbing her hips in his hands and thrusting hard. She was smaller than him, he tried to remember but her head pushed to the mattress and she gripped the edge of the ticking to keep herself in place. Her pussy gripped tight around him as she pushed back to take him in, he lost his little shred of control when she tossed her head back, her long dirty hair flying through the air, her slender back arching. She looked like art, a painting, some magical shadow woman in the gloom.

  Garrett wrapped his arms around her waist, driving deeper as he felt her start to grow taut around him, the slick fist feel of her body taking him in was all there was. The smell of her was overwhelming. The feel of a mate was staggering. It hadn’t been as long as it sometimes felt since he’d had Eileen by his side. Most days, it felt like a lifetime. The way he felt for Liv was something he’d assumed he would never feel again. “Liv, I’m barely hanging on, baby,” he said. He wanted her to know because he felt like one more inhalation, one more exhalation and he would lose his slippery grasp on his body and come.