The Walls of Jericho

Shift

I feel like I’m about to burst. In more ways than one, but the big one has to do with the fact that the plate of spaghetti and meatballs in marinara that Channing brought for me was enough to feed an entire NFL team after the Super Bowl.

Okay, okay. So that might be a slight exaggeration.

It could feed half of an NFL team after the Super Bowl. It was a lot. Too much. I comb the remaining noodles in marinara sauce with the tines of my fork. When I’m done, my leftovers look like one of those Zen rock gardens where they rake designs in the stones to represent ripples on water with a couple meatballs and a last few unfinished bites of the garlic bread used as the little islands. I flick a glance up at Channing.

That night he walked me home, I called him a beefcake to offend him so I could get my groceries back and ditch him before things went too far. Mentally, I curse myself contemplating exactly how phenomenally I managed to screw that plan up. But I digress. The nickname ‘beefcake’ was intended as an insult.

Only as I look up at him lounging against the pillows propped against the headboard from my perch on the foot of the bed, I realize that ‘beefcake’ isn’t an insult.

At least not where he’s concerned.

Shirtless and with his fingers laced together behind his head, he fits the definition perfectly of an attractive, scantily-attired man with an appealing muscular physique. With those long denim-sheathed legs crossed at the ankles, and those gorgeous blue eyes of his half-lidded and feral as he devours me with them, he looks like a hunky blue jeans model.

“You dropped marinara on my t-shirt.” It’s not an accusation. It’s not even a complaint. The way he states it is a low dusky purr that promises all kinds of trouble is on the horizon in the immediate future.

“It’ll wash. If you’re going to pout about it, I’ll take care of it myself.”

“It’s going to need pretreatment and a presoak.”

There it is, all that trouble I saw coming. “You’re doing laundry?” My brows arch, challenging. “Right now?”

“Maybe. It’s mine anyway. Take it off.”

With the way this guy’s romped me into the mattress today, I don’t understand how werewolves aren’t the dominant species on the planet. The only species on the planet. If human females ever knew—

Curious suddenly, I blurt out my question without much thinking it through. “How does mating between a human and a werewolf work?”

Oh crap. I asked that so wrong.

A simultaneously eager and lazy smile curls Channing’s mouth. The white-blue whorls like spinning galaxies light up in the depths of his beautiful blue eyes as he answers with another purr. “Drop the shirt and I’ll show you again.”

Now he looks straight up like a wolf stalking prey.

Those divine abs of his flex as his hands release, and in the next instant, he’s on his hands and knees and prowling towards me, all sinewy grace and lithe power.

God, he’s so gorgeous.

The heated debate between my mind and my body goes something like this:

Mind: Oh look. He’s coming at us again.

Body: Yay! Yay! Yay!

Mind: Oh no. He’s got that look in his eyes.

Body: Yay! Yay! Yay!

Mind: I don’t think we can take anymore.

Body: Wait—what?

Mind: Listen, I’m just telling it like it is. We’re exhausted and a little beat up. In a good way.

Body: You sit down right now and shut up.

Mind: But the guy isn’t running a 5k. He’s pulling marathons. We can’t keep up.

Body: I said, ‘shut up’. Oh look! Here he comes! Yay! Yay! Yay!

Which is about the instant that my mind hard pumps the brakes.

“Channing. Stop.” I raise a hand in a non-verbal stop to reinforce my words. I put the probability that it’ll work, roughly around two percent. “What I mean is, if I’m a human and you’re a werewolf, how can we be mates? We’re not the same species.”

“Drop the shirt and I’ll show you again.”

Clearly, I overestimated my say in this matter. My telling him ‘stop’ actually has a zero percent probability of working. In fact, it might even be a negative number. He makes a grab for my ankle and I scramble backwards, narrowly avoiding capture. Crab-crawling, I scoot myself out of range with the vague and alarming sense that he's toying with me.

“Seriously. I want to know." I try to distract him. "If we’re not the same species, how can we be mates? How could we have a family or other stuff?”

“You’re ready to start a family? Great! Let’s get started now. Drop the shirt and I'll show you.”

“If you don’t answer my question, I’m seriously going to zap you again.”

Undaunted, he keeps crawling towards me, but now his tone is determined. “Drop. The shirt. And I. Will show you.” There’s an unnatural hypnotic glow in the eyes that track me.

The hair on my nape stands up.

“Uh-uh. Nope. I’ve read H.P. Lovecraft. Not going to happen.” My eyes scan the room frantically, looking for an escape. Unsurprisingly, Channing has maneuvered us so he’s between me and the doors. In another couple backward scoots, I’m going to be trapped against the headboard.

Real fear is trickling steadily into my system, heightening my senses and fueling an acute awareness of everything around me, especially him. I shiver in spite of the heat rolling off him. Panicked, I bolt for the door.

The action he takes can only be called a lunge. It’s still inhuman in both strength and speed as he swipes my ankle and sends me crashing to the floor with a pained yelp. In the next blink, he's upon me.

He’s already larger than I am, and obviously stronger. Unless I want to hurt him, what real power do I have to resist? In fact, pinned face down on the thick padded carpet like I am, resistance seems an exceptionally unhealthy choice. I have no idea what's happening to him, but I have the distinct impression that, like the dragon, it'll take a superhuman effort on my part to contain him.

There’s a savage excitement in the way he manhandles my body, grabbing my scrambling wrists and trapping them against my sides as he straddles me on the floor. His heavy pants singe across my flesh and I tremble violently. I don’t bother speculating what he’s capable of in this state were I not to comply.

Utterly frozen except for the wild pounding of my heart, I cringe feeling the collar of the shirt tighten against my throat. Then with a shredding noise, Channing’s t-shirt tears all the way down the back. Deprived of even the light warmth provided by the shirt, fierce goosebumps pepper my skin. I wonder if he can hear my frantically beating heart the way it thunders to my own ears.

His huge hand collects the hair covering my face, and I gasp in shock when I see it. Breathing in shallow rapid gasps, I desperately struggle to get enough air into my lungs to stay conscious. His fingers have shortened into thick clawed pads so rough that they’re almost painful even as he takes great care not to hurt me.

Shifting. The realization pops into my head unbidden. Channing is shifting.

Confused, I lay still as he sniffs along my bare shoulder towards my spine. His warm breath through a cold nose sends conflicting signals into my already frazzled brain. My agitation grows as he takes an interminably long time doing it. Then the vice-like grip his thighs have on my hips loosens. I feel that rough, clawed paw on my shoulder, turning me over to face him as he removes the torn shirt. I'm genuinely afraid of what's going to happen.

He moves with me as I roll to my back, keeping me trapped beneath him. Stunned, I remain unmoving, trying to process what I see for several moments.

Channing towers over me ominously, even larger now than he is as a man. The gold-kissed brown wavy hair on his head has shortened and bristles in a thick ruff over the top of his head, down his neck and across his broad shoulders. It’s shorter and finer over his tufted, pointed ears, across his face and elongated muzzle, and covers his lean torso and muscular arms in a dense fuzz.

Fur. It’s fur. I force my brain to accept.

The only thing vaguely recognizable are his eyes, still deep blue and glowing with the white-blue swirls that mesmerize me so completely.

“Not going to hurt you, Jericho,” he says and I struggle to comprehend him.

Gone is the ice cream smooth tenor, and in its place is a gruff voice so deep and growling, it seems only just able to convey human language. It also sounds strained, as if he’s striving to keep control. My fear still has a firm grip upon me, but it’s been joined now by an overwhelming curiosity and a strange excitement.

Channing positions his massive paws to the outside of my shoulders and dips his head. His mouth, when it opens, is full of razor-sharp wolf teeth. His fearsome canines must be nearly three inches long. His tongue lolls out one side, then retracts to protrude just past his front teeth. I suck in my breath and hold it, closing my eyes as he dips his head towards me.

Quivering, I gasp as his roughened tongue laps over the taut tip of one breast. At once, I'm riled and captivated by the harsh texture rubbing over my delicate flesh. His hot breath sears the skin near my collarbone. Suddenly, I realize what he means to do.

“Don’t,” I half-whisper half-plead. “Please, Channing. Don’t.”

His refusal comes as a fierce animal growl. Then his sandpapery tongue laps over the hollow behind my collarbone.

His hollow. His mate mark. 

Suddenly, my whole body is on fire.

My skin prickles, erupting in goosebumps and all of my senses flash, fiercely awake and aroused. My eyes fly open, riveted on his furred neck and shoulders slouched over me. I recognize they're bathed in the soft sodium yellow of my magic’s glow. 

As he licks the spot again, another low growl escapes him. My ears ring with the raw wolf sound echoing in the bedroom despite the noise-dampening carpets. The inside of my thighs slicks with warm wetness in anticipation. 

Then I feel his long canine teeth nip and hold the tender skin. 

Shivers of delight ripple over me, sloshing from end to end like a seiche on a lake. I hear a voice cry out and realize through a dizzying haze of exquisite pleasure that it’s me. Calling. Howling.

Answering my mate.