The Reluctant Wolf: A Paranormal Romance (Werewolves and Shifters) (4 page)

He went in and out of consciousness as he lay there in the early morning sun. What seemed like hours to him was really only minutes. The next thing he remembered was hearing the front door of the house squeak as it opened. He struggled to move, to get out of sight but he was simply too weak to move in his current state. The next thing he saw, before he completely lost all consciousness, was Bailey walking across the yard with a blanket in her hands. Tears covered her cheeks as she bent to cover his nakedness with the blanket. Then he was out.

Hours later, as the mid afternoon sunshine peaked through the curtains, he awoke, somehow finding his way to his own bed. How did that happen? Did he manage to get home on his own? Had he only dreamed the other stuff about Bailey and the blanket? He was so totally confused.

He knew by scent that he was at home. In his own bed. Dressed only in his pajama bottoms. He smelled again – a wonderful aroma wafted through the house and he immediately recognized it was coffee. He rolled over and found a saucer with toast on it and a cup of cold black coffee next to it. Bailey was here! He immediately sat up, hoping against hope that she was out in the kitchen having a cup of coffee herself. But after a few seconds of careful listening he realized that really the house was empty other than him. The same way it had been for the past couple of lonely months.

Three full moons after “the incident” Bailey was awakened again by the same kind of mournful howl that awoke her in the past. And it was very close! Instinctively she grabbed her silver dagger from her bedside table and immediately strapped it to her leg. She didn’t wait for the wolf to enter her home this time, but immediately ran to her attic, pulled down the folding door and climbed up the stairs where she pulled the door shut behind her. In less than two minutes she was safely inside her attic where she closed the latch she had installed a few weeks back on the attic door behind her.

Bailey knew that the wolf knew exactly where she was, but she wanted to make it as difficult as humanly possible for the wolf to find her inside her own home. And to her knowledge, wolves still couldn’t operate door latches. So she felt fairly safe with her new addition. Barely a split second had passed as she shut the trapdoor behind her before she heard a crash as the wolf jumped through her bedroom window.

She sat there in the comfortable dark, breathing hard yet trying to be as quiet as possible, the adrenaline still pumping through her veins. She was safe, she kept telling herself over and over. As soon as the sunrise comes back around she would be fine. So she sat there in the dark listening to the sounds of her home being torn apart by the creature.

This month was different though, because the wolf had other plans that she was unaware of. As soon as Bailey locked herself up in her attic, the wolf went outside and jumped onto her roof. Bailey sat there quietly and just listened, what else could she do at this point? After a few minutes of what seemed like searching from out on the roof she heard a scratching sound begin directly above her head. And then it got more intense. Almost like a polar bear scratching after a seal pup underneath the snow.

She sat there in horror and did her best to wrestle the trap door open again. She didn’t want the wolf to hear her exiting the attic if at all possible so she did it as fast and as quietly as possible. But she managed to get it open and was halfway down the folding stairs when the wolf changed position suddenly, jumped off the roof and charged in through her bedroom window. It immediately jumped at her with teeth bared, but she was ready. Without even thinking she instantly pulled the silver dagger from her leg strap and stabbed it in the side as she pushed its body away in mid leap.

The wolf screamed in pain, then fell into a shuddering heap on the floor. Then, right there, in front of her eyes, the wolf started… shrinking? Was this possible, Bailey thought to herself? Something weird was obviously happening to it but she wasn’t exactly sure what. Its fur was quickly receding all over the animals body and its entire face was changing in shape. The next thing she noticed were its claws… transforming into… hands? Were those human hands?

Minutes later, once the transformation was completely finished, Bailey gasped in horror… Morgan was lying on her floor, bleeding furiously from his side. Morgan had been the wolf hunting her. It was too much to take in. How could this happen? And why would he want to hurt her? She didn’t know what to do next so she just stood there for a few minutes. She was in shock.

After a bit she managed to get herself back together and instinctively crouched next to the man she once loved, looking at the wound she had given him, not realizing that it was him, her right hand stroking his scruffy cheek. She grabbed some curtains from the floor, shook out the broken glass and pressed them hard against the wound on his side that was bleeding freely by now. He looked terrible. He was thin, super white, unshaven for weeks and frail looking plus had circles under his eyes all the way down to his chin. He moaned at her touch and kind of smiled… but didn’t open his eyes.

Bailey continued to hold the fabric firmly against the wound with one hand and touched his forehead with the other. Next, she closed her eyes and concentrated like she had never concentrated before, forcing all her healing energy into him. He was almost like a battery that needed a charge and she was the charger. But in his current state she wondered just how much she would be able to help him – and that wasn’t even taking the fresh wound into consideration.

She sat there quietly, not aware of how long, simply holding the bandages in place as she kept constant contact with his skin – first the forehead, now one of his arms. The entire endeavor took a lot out of her… and it took a really long time too. For a while she feared she wouldn’t be able to help him, but finally, an hour or so later, the bleeding stopped as the knife wound slowly shrank in size. After the wound closed she continued to hold on to him for a while longer. When Morgan finally opened his eyes and smiled at her, looking better now than he did right after the transformation, she let go of him.

She lay down on the floor, completely drained and unable to hardly move herself now.

“Bailey? What’s wrong – are you all right? Baby… talk to me! What happened? How did I get here?” he asked her. At that moment she realized that he knew nothing at all about what he’d done. As she lay there on the floor, she told him exactly what had been happening the past few months. When she finished telling him everything, instead of hugging her, as she’d hoped he would do, he pulled away from her.

“Morgan, are you okay?” she whispered.

“I have to leave,” he muttered under his breath, “If something happened to you… and if I was the one to hurt you… I could never forgive myself.”

“Morgan…” she hesitated, “I know of a really gifted healer, much stronger than me, if you want. I could arrange a meeting… you could go see him… I think he could help you if you truly wanted to change.”

The expression on Morgan’s face changed in a second and instantly went dark. Why would he want to see a healer? There was nothing wrong with him. Plus, he felt better than he had in months. And now he felt angry on top of it all. Werewolves were a bit hot tempered anyway and with his current vigor, he let her have a bit of that anger at her ridiculous suggestion.

“I come from a long line of people who have the same trait. How could you expect me to give my heritage up?” Morgan’s voice raised, louder and louder.

“You’re not exactly normal either you know,” he argued, “and I wouldn’t ask you to change that.”

“But I didn’t try to kill you, Morgan,” she shouted back at him, trying to convince him to do it but his eyes immediately went blank.

“I can’t believe that you would even suggest that to me! I won’t give up my heritage,” he said firmly, looking at the wall now, refusing to look at her.

“Then, you need to leave and never come back,” she finally said quietly, looking directly at him.

Morgan got up, wrapped the bloody curtains around himself and walked out, never looking back once. Moments later she heard the front door slam.

Bailey got up from the trashed bedroom and walked slowly to the kitchen where she poured herself a glass of orange juice. She was literally drained and drank the juice to help. She was just empty. She didn’t cry as she sat there, and she wasn’t angry either – but there was nothing left in her. She was drained of her healing powers temporarily, she knew that, but her energy was gone too. And she knew if she didn’t replenish it by eating or drinking that she might get sick too. So she drank the juice in silence, sitting at the empty kitchen table.

After the juice had been in her system for a while she got up and warmed herself a can of tomato soup. She sat there alone at the kitchen table and ate the soup and drank the juice. Slowly her energy seemed to return. She really didn’t want the food but her body thanked her for it and hungrily accepted the offering. She knew she needed the energy to be able to clean up her newly trashed house – again. So she ate, and drank and rested – until she felt good enough to do what needed to be done.

Several weeks passed after that night. Bailey, for lack of anything better, went on doing what she always did, volunteering at shelters, and spending time with those who had no one else to be with. She also found it was harder to heal others since that night with Morgan. But she kept on trying because she didn’t know what else to do. And she refused to let herself miss him. That was simply not an option.

Then one day about six months later, Bailey heard an unexpected knock on her front door. She went to it half expecting there to be a nosy neighbor or someone else on the other side but was surprised to see, when she opened it, that Morgan stood there. He looked terrible again and she instantly cringed in pain inside at seeing him this way.

“So, I went to a healer like you wanted,” Morgan blurted out before she could say anything else. “My entire family hates me now because of what I did. They threw me out. But… all I could think of was you….”

She just stood there, not sure what he wanted. She wanted to hug him, he looked so sad, but he also looked very guarded. So she decided not to hug him but to invite him inside where she made him coffee. Once inside he told her everything that had happened to him over the past several months. He’d fought with his family and they eventually kicked him out. They didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. So he had to make a tough choice. He just knew that he couldn’t live without her anymore. He had tried it and it never worked.

Morgan’s life had never had a purpose until he’d met her. So he gave his old life up, and got the transformation done. He was only human now, and he broke into tears as he begged her to be with him again. Bailey’s tears ran freely down her cheeks as she half-laughed, half-cried, and ran to hug him tightly in her arms. He weakly hugged her back as he continued to cry.

And then it just dawned on him! He had an epiphany! It was her love and special healing powers that had stopped his change in the past, and that gave him the strength to control it. Without Bailey he was just a monster. Her love had given him hope, the strength to go on and a purpose in life. Her love had even allowed him to stop the change! He was completely flustered that he had never realized her calming effect on him before now!

“Bailey, I love you still,” he said as she hugged his neck, wondering if he should say anything else, and then, “without you I’m nothing more than a monster. Please, baby, take me back. We can do this together, if you’ll just give me a chance.”

Bailey pulled away from him a bit and stared at him straight in the face before she spoke again, “I’m not going to lie that I’m not afraid of you,” she started, “You broke a lot of things between us.”

Morgan’s eyes teared up again, “Bailey, I’ll do whatever… I just can’t do this without you. I know that now. I was an idiot before and I’m so sorry…”

“Well, I don’t know if this is going to work…” Bailey started.

“Bailey, just give me a chance… one chance, that’s all I ask.” Morgan whispered and fresh tears streamed down his cheeks. By this time Bailey was crying to. She said nothing but hugged him again. Morgan hugged her back, stronger this time. He knew she was back with that hug. Just then he made a promise to himself and her too, that he would do whatever it took to make her happy. As long as they were together, he knew he could do it.

MEANWHILE, SEVERAL STATES AWAY

As the sun’s rays slowly faded behind the California mountains, his physical form became cloaked within the nightfall’s shadow. The enormous Sequoias compelled the nightfall to come early here. At the beginning of each night since his youngest sons absence, they now held a meeting, mostly concerning his capture. It had been years since his departure but the quest to find him was still as new as day one.

Now, Arthur, the pack leader, stood on the stone roof of a new Alpha den, with his sons and daughters and their companions gathered below his silhouette. His offspring were important assets to him – he only had ten heirs out of the three dozen or so people that were present, evenly split between the two sexes. He had just set up a new camp covering every bit of the 100 square acres of mountain land that his family now owned. Morgan would have made the sixth son, if he had been present.

The assembled pack wore dark clothing made mostly of bear, mountain lions or panthers, generally anything mammalian. They wore jewelry made of animal teeth and other remnants of the beasts they’d slaughtered. Arthur, the pack leader, who preferred to be called King Arthur, taught them that this is how their powers increase in strength. Their ancestors would protect them through battle. Under his leadership their trust and loyalty came with victory and triumphs over their adversaries through the many years they had existed.

“I knew it would be but just a matter of time before I was to receive legitimate conformation that one of our brothers…” he hesitated to snarl. “One of our own… One that has eluded us for quite some time now has finally been discovered. He is in a small town about 3 days travel from here.” He anticipated the packs reaction. He smiled when their heads turned to one another and mumbling broke the silence.