15 – Freak the Fuck Out

With his mate wrapped content in his arms, on the first night of the rest of their lives together, Troy slept, and Troy dreamed.

…

Troy scented his brother.

Trent was there to meet him, a man again, his posture urgent. “Take the path behind the purple door,” Trent told him. “The purple door, don’t forget.”

The dream evaporated. Troy slept the hard, dreamless sleep of a satisfied wolfen.

***

Wrapped in Troy’s arms in the cheap motel room, her back pressed against his warm, naked front, Reed felt safe for the first time in decades, comfort and relaxation spreading through her entire body. In this state, Reed didn’t so much sleep, as she did pass out and stay dead to the world for hours, her sleep-starved brain unable to think about things like being bitten or not using protection, or letting strange wild men come inside her during what was supposed to be a one-night-stand.

In her stupor, the nightmare still came, but somehow it came with so much more detail and clarity than it ever had before. This time, she could hear the words that came before the terrifying emotions, and she could imagine the forest had never meant to scare her…

“No!” four-year-old Reed screamed at her mother, then she ran outside, letting the door slam shut behind her, the pretty necklace clutched in her fist. It was her necklace, her mother had said so, and Reed was not about to give it up. She ran into the yard behind the house, then the forest behind the yard, stopping under her favorite tree.

She tilted her head up and stared at the branches high above her, holding up the necklace, displaying the pretty angel and the fierce wolf for the forest to see.

That’s when the growling started.

A tall man with an intense expression on his face appeared from the foliage like he’d always been there and stared at the necklace in her hands, then he shifted his eyes to her. He was dressed like a police officer, but the evil in his eyes said criminal, even to young Reed.

“What’s your name, little girl, and who exactly do you belong to?” he’d murmured, almost to himself. “Do you have your power yet, that’s what I need to know.”

He’d edged in close to her and she knew in her heart he intended to grab her. She whirled and ran down the path, hearing him follow and quickly catch up to her. The sound of his breathing got closer, and closer, spurring her to peel off to the right. She left the path which she was never ever ever supposed to do, and zig-zagged between the trees. It didn’t help. He gained on her again, not panting like she was, laughing at her pathetic attempt at an escape.

“Help me,” Reed whispered to the trees, and they did. The ground behind her split open with a thick ripping sound and the man grunted as he ran into something, then thudded to his back. Reed slowed and turned to see. Thick saplings had sprung from the earth, rising over his head, separating the two of them with an unnaturally straight line of barrier trees.

She stopped and stared at him. He sat up and stared back at her. “You look just like your father,” he said dryly, like that wasn’t even possible.

While he stared into her eyes, he sneered at her, and then he began to change.

Four-year-old Reed screamed at the dark wolf that had somehow appeared where the man had been. It ran so fast around the barrier, straight for her. “Save me!” she begged the forest, and a tree with a trunk like a cage grew around her so fast she was lifted into the air when the wood knit beneath her feet. She shrank into the far corner of her confinement, away from the wolf. It came in fast and tried to snap at her, but its jaw could not fit between the entwined roots that circled her, protecting her.

“Give me the pendant, little girl, and I won’t go get my chainsaw,” the wolf said in the man’s voice, without moving its mouth. She could hear the words clearly. “Right here, slip it between these roots and I’ll go away.”

Reed’s young mind snapped and she threw the necklace that way, slamming the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to reach her ears at the same time, not wanting to hear anything or see anything or know anything. She screamed for her mother.

The dream shifted and she knew time had passed. Hours, maybe.

More wolves in the forest, she could hear them. “Harlan, she’s over here somewhere,” one wolf called. “I can scent her.”

Reed pressed her hands to her ears, not wanting to hear the wolves… Somehow, she ended up back with her mother.

The dream dissipated. Too soon, real life fell in on Reed, along with the feeling of the mark on her shoulder and the knowledge that it was morning.

She was still in the hotel, and he, Troy, was asleep on the bed behind her, one hand curled possessively on her hip.

Bitten her. He’d bitten her, come inside her, and then she’d just… gone to sleep. She was going to have the mother of all UTIs and-good lord-she counted the days quickly in her head from her last period. Was she ovulating? Thoughts of STDs and single-parenting reverberated around her head, all because she’d gotten a little horny. She was a fool and she knew it. She rolled out of bed with a little groan and made desperate grabs for her clothes.

Sex with him had been as good as she had known it would be, but not good enough to make her forget he’d bitten her. Don’t forget he came inside you. You let a stranger come inside you. This is what the rules protect you from, Re-Re, the ultimate walk of shame through the pharmacy for the morning-after pill, holding the two halves of your ripped shirt together.

What a mess, and she couldn’t go back to this Dairy Queen, maybe no Dairy Queens.

From the bed, Troy made a noise that sounded as much like a growl as it had the night before, then he raised his tan, muscular arms over his head and stretched, the growl elongating also, making her middle go all gooey.

Stop that! she snapped at herself, stuffing her legs into her pants, then looking around wildly for her bra. She found it under the desk in the corner and grabbed at it, thinking to herself that she needed to get a better look at his face. Hadn’t he been beat up yesterday? But now his face seemed smooth and unbroken, making him more handsome. She tore her eyes away from him, pissed that she found him sexier than ever, the morning after.

She felt Troy’s eyes on her.

“You can’t leave,” he said.

Reed went stiff. She turned to him, arms clutched over her breasts, forgetting what she’d been thinking. “Watch me,” she spit at him, getting madder by the second. He had bit her. He had come inside her! Sure, she hadn’t asked him to wear a condom, and she hadn’t specifically told him not to come inside her, and that was all on her, but seriously, wasn’t it a little on him, too? Didn’t they teach that in sex education? Never come inside a woman unless you ask her if it’s ok? If they didn’t, they should.

Reed pulled on her bra and fastened it behind her, noticing that he didn’t look away like he should have. No manners at all. Instead, his expression said he was weighing how best to get her clothes back off.

Reed put her hands on her hips and stared him down. “Have you ever heard that the difference between fetish and felony is prior consent?” He only stared at her. She threw her hands in the air. “But you’re a cop, right? So wink wink, you get to do whatever you please, including bite people.” She put a hand to her shoulder, expecting to find broken skin, dried blood, a new scab, something. Instead, all that was there was nothing. She whirled, trying to see over her own shoulder, like a dog trying to catch its tail, but he didn’t give her time to examine it.

He scrambled out of bed quickly, pulling on his clothes as quickly as she was, but she had a head start. What she didn’t have was a shirt that wasn’t split down the middle. She jabbed her arms into her destroyed shirt, getting madder still.

Troy offered her his shirt. Sure enough, there were canoes everywhere, just like Sage had said. Reed hated them. She took a moment to remind herself that she should have already seen them, but she’d been too busy dry humping him to notice.

Reed didn’t want to take the shirt, but she wasn’t going outside showing off her bra. She grabbed it out of his hands and pulled it on over her bra and ruined shirt, buttoning a few buttons, racing Troy. She found her purse and her shoes, and ran out the door while Troy was still shoving his feet in his boots.

Reed ran for the street, heading for her car, which she’d left in the Dairy Queen parking lot. She’d only gone a few steps before she heard Troy coming behind her.

“Hold up,” he called to her, his voice strained.

She whirled around. “Damn you and your hold up!” she told him, face angry, hand held up like a crossing guard saying, “stop!”. “Just leave me alone. Don’t follow me and don’t look for me. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

His face crumpled in what looked to her like utter devastation completely inappropriate for the fact that they’d just met the night before. The muscles on his bare torso flexing invitingly.

Reed looked away. Reed ran away.

Troy didn’t follow.