Hannah Pole - Silence of the Wolves

She was well and truly trapped, held hostage in her own home with no way of escape. Panic flooded her veins, yet even as it began to overwhelm her, it was rapidly chased away as Leyth, the apparent kidnapper holding her against her will, stepped into her living room. A fresh towel had been wrapped around his hips and his skin was gleaming with water from the shower. His shaggy hair was damp and hanging in ringlets around his harsh, chiselled face. He smelt clean, like soap and shampoo though, as she inhaled, she noted something else teasing her senses, something incredibly manly, something that made her jaw drop open and her heart race. He smelt of lust and sex.

What the hell had he been doing in her shower?

As those incredibly erotic scents hit her, she found herself aching in places she’d long forgotten about. His powerful body flexed in all the right places as he crossed the room towards the kitchen. ‘Coffee?’ he barked over his shoulder.

‘Sure.’ She bit the words out, though her voice was husky, harsh. She hated the way her voice sounded right now and, more than that, detested the way her body was reacting to that man. That smell. Every part of her was tingling with need, with unwanted lust. Her body was betraying her against all logic.

She violently shoved those ridiculous thoughts aside, telling herself to get a damn grip. She’d heard of what they called ‘Stockholm syndrome’; when someone had been kidnapped and kept in close quarters with their captor for extended periods of time, they sometimes fell for them. It was an apparently natural reaction to being around someone; to being in such close proximity for an extended period of time, but hell. She hadn’t been kept here with him for long enough for that to happen. Had she?

Leyth picked up the cup of coffee and walked it over to Tamriel, who was sat on the sofa, wide eyes tracking his every move. Putting the warm mug in her still shaking hand, he sat on the floor in front of her, shuffling the towel round to cover himself as he went; he didn’t want to flash her. Hell, she’d seen enough today.

Briefly wishing he could go and grab his clothes, which were no doubt still outside from his shift yesterday, he muttered another apology.

‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked.

‘OK, I think,’ she croaked. ‘Right,’ Tam visibly pulled herself together, taking a deep breath and eyeing Leyth, ‘tell me what’s going on.’

She was so strong, so determined. He couldn’t help but respect her. Any other female, wolf or otherwise, would have fallen apart at the seams by now. Being pulled out of her life, going through the fever, being confronted by a wolf when you’re down and injured, being told you’re a werewolf… You just had to respect her; she was in a room with a male who dominated her in size and strength, and she was still on the ball.

He ran a hand through his hair. Where to begin?

How did he explain to this fragile-but-deadly female what was possibly going to happen to her? How much did he explain about the Council? How much could she handle?

‘Well. Do you remember the last five days?’

‘No.’

‘OK, that’s not surprising. You went through the “fever”, which is essentially a wolf’s version of puberty.’ She snorted at that, but waved her hand, urging him to go on. ‘You’re supposed to meet your wolf, accept her and then go through the change when the fever takes you.’

‘I’m guessing by your tone of voice that I didn’t go “through the change”?’

‘You didn’t complete your transition.’

‘Shit,’ she cursed, scrubbing a hand across her face in disbelief.

‘I’m sorry, Tamriel,’ he muttered. And he genuinely was; she deserved so much better than any of them had to offer. Tam looked at him, straight in the eye for the longest of moments, before laughing. Laughing long and hard.

‘What?’ He grinned at her, glad she’d found something funny about the situation.

‘I’ve always been different. My senses have always been second to none, and it made me a freak. My entire life, I’ve been a freak.’

‘You’re not a freak. Far from it, in fact.’ He tried to soothe her a little, though this sensitive crap didn’t exactly come to him easily.

‘I am! Now I’ve got a possible explanation for my excessively acute senses, my abnormal strength and speed. I’ve also finally found people who might just understand me. I then find out that I haven’t done it properly? I’m a freak of nature, in my world and yours.’

‘You’re really not a freak of nature, Tamri—’

‘How do you know that? How am I anything but a freak—’

‘Because.’ He cut her off, his mind racing, yet lost for words. He cleared his throat and just said, ‘Because you’re strong. You would make a good wolf.’

She rolled her eyes at him, but at least it made her stop with the ‘freak’ thing.

‘Do you…’ he started, wishing he knew what to say to her. Right now he would just settle for a smoke. ‘Do you mind if I grab my clothes from outside?’

‘What?’

‘When I, uh, shifted, I think I lost my clothes on the way.’

Shock hit her hard.

She opened her mouth, closed it again. Opened it. Closed it.

‘So.’ She put her coffee down and rubbed her eyes. Took a breath. Then another.

‘You were sitting in my window,’ she finally finished.

‘Uh, yes I was.’ Crap. Crap. Crap. ‘I was, uh, making sure you were OK.’ He grimaced.

‘You fell—’

‘Yeah, I lost my balance.’ Tamriel’s eyes darted to the front door, which was currently being held closed with one of her chairs; the damn wood had splintered and broken when he’d forced his way into her apartment.

‘Would you mind if I—?’

‘Nah, go ahead. It’s not like I can get up right now and run away, is it?’ Though she said the words in a fairly light-hearted manner, they cut straight through him. Hell, the truth hurt. She was basically being held against her will in her own house, and though he wasn’t forcing her to stay, she couldn’t leave. And he couldn’t leave her. Damn, walking out of that door and not coming back would possibly be the best thing for the both of them. But he couldn’t leave her now; it wasn’t an option, not with her currently fragile physical state. What if the Council got their hands on her? God, he’d never forgive himself if she fell into the hands of a tuhrned.

The tuhrned were supernaturals that went against the Council, and they did it in the wrong way. Rather than simply going rogue as Leyth himself had once been, they joined the Circle, a powerful group of supernaturals that used dark magic. The ritual sucked the life out of them, and left nothing in its wake; merely the shell of the person they had once been. The Circle could then control the body, using it as a vessel to do its dirty work.

The tuhrned were nicknamed ‘tombs’ because they were like the walking dead. Hell of a way to go, from one controlling bunch of idiots, to another. Honestly, how on earth becoming zombified by a bunch of magis on a power trip was better than living by the strict rules of the Council was something he’d never understand. The only way to kill the bastards was to cut the head off, and that only worked because the eyes couldn’t see much if the head wasn’t attached, so the magi controlling the body usually gave up.

Tamriel shot him a confused look. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what she must be feeling right now. Crap.

‘Just gonna grab my clothes then,’ he mumbled, bolting out of the door, down the stairs and out the building. He flew round the corner to find himself standing in the middle of the patch of grass. Looking around frantically, he found nothing. Then he heard a mischievous laugh. He looked up at Tamriel’s flat to see that she’d hauled herself over to a window and was leaning out, watching him with amusement. She pointed to the bush lining the edge of a wall. Leyth walked over, bent down and pulled a pair of trousers free. They must have fallen off as he shifted.