The Last Lycan

Chapter 5 - One Thing

(“It’s not much further, big guy.”) The seductive she-wolf flashed her devastatingly pretty smile over her shoulder for the umpteenth time.

Each time she did so, it was a hammer to my restraint, shattering away chunks that I desperately wanted to cling to and patch back together. I had long since shoved my hands in the pockets of my trousers, to keep them from wandering back to Heather’s embrace, much to the facepalming dismay of my wolf.

‘Because you like it, you hopeless loaf!’ Kirill repeated his houndings, his frustrations revolving like a watermill.

‘Name-calling. Very mature.’

‘Says the lycan who sulks over hand-holding with a she-wolf.’

‘I am not the one sulking!’

My wolf snuffed in derision and raised his nose in the air, unwilling to argue any more on the matter. He was not the one who had to deal with the physical consequences of his palm enveloped in the temptress’s. And I was certainly not ‘sulking’. I was simply keeping a level head instead of inviting the delirious warm fog this woman’s touch evoked.

She made me want to forget the dark shadows clinging like cobwebs in the back of my mind, but those cobwebs held onto hard-learned lessons that were dangerous to forget.

(“Luckily for you, I don’t live near the pack house, so that’ll keep Alpha Richard off our backs for a few days.”) Heather tried to grin up at me, but her plump lips had lost their fullness and were pressed in a tight line instead. (“I’ve always been more of a loner anyway; I like my solitude. It’s kinda why I was always the odd duck in the pack for it. But I'm a strong warrior, so they put up with me when I tell them to go f**k themselves.”)

Whatever words she was speaking, they bothered her. Her tight smile drooped, and her gaze soon turned to the babbling river beside us, edging our path. Whether it was to distract herself from her fretting or whether she remained disappointed that I removed my hand from hers, I didn’t know. The flickers of her emotions vibrated our bond, and I was unsure which to recognise first in the midst of the muddled chaos. Once again, the invisible tether binding our souls dogged me against my will, tempting me with intimate moments I shouldn’t want with a wolf of her kind.

The further we walked following the river, the more prominent the sound of waves breaking against pebbles grew, and a homey tang of salt beckoned me forward. As the trees parted and the melody of the ebbing tides lapping the shore amplified, a modest dwelling bared itself.

The small home, which I could see over Heather’s head, sat shielded from the ocean beyond by a few fir trees and a patio that wrapped around the cabin. Though small in size, it rose above the short treeline, revealing a high, triangular window that looked out onto the waves and deck. The turfed roof covered the entire dwelling, with only a single metallic smokestack interrupting the pops of colour from the wildflowers surrounding it.

This was where she was leading me to: a home, her home.

Of course, the she-wolf lived by the ocean. She smelled of my home and surrounded herself by the one thing that brought me peace.

‘Almost like it could be fate,’ Kirill flatly stated, looking to revive his argument.

I was so consumed with my wolf’s internal grumblings that I nearly bowled into Heather’s back, catching myself a hair’s breadth from toppling over into her.

(“This is it. It’s not much, but it’s home. Ohh—”) Before I could move, she spun around and bumped into me, steadying herself with the flat of her palm splayed across my chest.

Dammit all, this was worse than holding her hand. It was the second time we were caught in this identical juncture, and that damn pleasant fog was seeping in to cloud my judgement. One wrong move, and I would be done for.

Or one right move. And I wasn’t entirely sure whether my wolf thought that, or I did.

(“You wanna see inside?”) Heather’s pretty hazel eyes fluttered under her eyelashes as subtly as the volume of her words.

Could she feel my heart where it hammered past my ribs?

The sensation only grew as she moved over the left of my pec and down the ridges of my arm. My free hand acted on its own, rising to the delicate contour of her chin, yearning to draw her lips to mine. As fast as my fears silenced, was as rapid as they returned screaming.

I yanked myself away from her fully, dispelling the hazy illusion the tingles of her touch caused. My chest erratically tightened, as if there wasn’t enough air to fill it, and what did, filled it with Heather’s scent, compounding me further.

What were her intentions?

What did she expect?

Kirill was too engrossed in his romanticism of true love and fuzzies to think with any sense. The bond was the bond to him, and he seemed far too happy to forget his secondhand experience of the past and take his enjoyment without question. Whereas the fears and scepticisms clawed at my ears when the quiet bliss gained a foothold in my head.

What could this she-wolf want from a man like me with nothing?

My entire worldly possessions were contained in a single small bag. What did she see that made me, in any way, an appealing mate?

And it was the answer to that question that terrified me the most.

The beautiful angles and contours of Heather’s golden-toned features fell as the short distance divided us. We were but an arm’s length apart, yet she could have been a world away due to the heavy absence between us. The cold that shivered my spine was from far more than the cool chill in the air. And it wasn’t entirely mine, either.

‘It is because you’re sending our mate in more circles than a school of fish with your mixed signals,’ Kirill snapped my head off and threw his paws up in the air.

‘It’s… complicated.’

‘Only because you make it so! You, meat sack, have been alone too long, and you’ve fooled yourself into thinking you prefer it that way.’

It was my turn to snuff in derision at my wolf. I didn’t prefer to be alone… I… it was easier… it was safer…

All arguments I could conjure faded into absurdity as I watched Heather slowly turn her face away from me and begin to shuffle her feet towards the small cabin, hesitating to cast me one final, forlorn glance.

(“You don’t have to like me, but I hope you’ll at least stay with me.”)

Was she still offering me shelter, or was she giving up on me?

‘Must I draw you the clue?’ Kirill slapped the back of my mind to make me move. ‘Follow her, for f**k sake; that’s why she waits. I swear to the goddess almighty, you test my patience, Konstantin. Quit with your foul mood, accept the home she is selflessly offering us despite you acting worse than what is excreted from the back end of a bear, and try to crack a smile, would you?’

‘Have you finished your tirade?’ My ears rang with the ferocity of his rant.

‘Have you finished being a dumb and ungrateful loaf?’

There were few occasions when I wished I could banish Kirill from my mind, and this was one of them because he was right and I hated it. I had been utterly ungrateful. Heather had shared her food; she had defended me against the aggression of her pack, and now, she was willing to share her most personal space.

But, as much as the urge in me wanted to accept, that same question whispered in the background: why? What was her game?

‘There’s only one way to find out, human. And I would very much like to sleep indoors for the first time. Just for the experience.’

‘Fine, mut. But only if you stop with your emotional blackmail.’ My eyes rolled to the heavens, hoping to find where my resolve and barriers were vanishing to.

When my boots moved forward, the light of Heather’s radiant shine returned. She didn’t try to take my hand again to pull me along behind her, but she did hurry me to follow, an adorably sweet spring accompanying her step.

The pale blue door creaked on its hinges, opening the way for a wave of heated and roasted spices. The scent welcomed me as a warm blanket settling on my shoulders and encouraged me to enter as though I were discovering a long-lost part of myself.

I had never seen the inside of any outsiders’ abode, but I assumed they would look somewhat comparable to those of my pack. Aside from a ladder that led to a small space above my head, chairs and plants hanging from pots, that was all I recognised. Curiosity got the better of me, and even Kirill remained quiet as I investigated the strange devices.

As I gawped at my surroundings, my bag dropped to the floor under a bizarre box protruding from the wall with a tightly spiralled tail dangling from its base. A delicate aroma coming from an unknown source caught my attention, rousing an innate protective instinct I didn’t understand. It smelled like the vanilla grass that I used to love to burn in my father's inking den. I followed the scent's path to a strange vase of glass containing a liquid and sticks, and the closer I neared, the more overpowering the aroma became.

When I stepped away from it, backing near the log-lined wall, the sole of my boot screeched underfoot, squeaking in an ear-piercing pitch. It was the curious remains of something clear, tinged with a blue colour.

(“It’s an inflatable chair”) – Heather swept past me and gathered it up in her arms, throwing it hurriedly through a wall of hanging beads – (“they look cool and all, but they only last about a week, then they get a puncture and go flat. I’ve been meaning to get rid of it for a while because I’m sick of repairing it.”)

I wasn’t truly paying attention to what she was saying, unable to understand any of it. She seemed to be talking more for herself, to fill the mounting silence of the tiny space.

As she rambled away behind me, a peculiar flat box jostled at my hip, placed atop a much larger silver-coloured box with a black glass front perched on a stand. The flat case rattled when I picked it up and had words scrawled across it that I couldn’t read. The picture made even less sense: two men, dressed in black.

(“You never seen one of these before? It’s a VHS tape.”) The she-wolf slipped the box out of my hand and opened it in front of me, slotting the contents into a machine below the silver box. She pointed a small silver device covered in buttons at it, and the box came alive, making me flinch in surprise at its noise. (“You put it in this VCR, and it plays a movie… or you swear at it because you forgot to rewind it.”)

A reel of white writing scrolled vertically to music, the type I had never heard before. Was this how wolves amused themselves in the outside world? A pass time? This world puzzled me the more I discovered of it.

(“Ok, that’s enough of the entertainment system. Let me show you where you can sleep tonight. It’s starting to get late.”) Heather stooped her upper body, looking out of the window above the silver box.

I did the same, wondering what she was looking at outside. Just beyond the trees, the calm ocean reflected the orange and pink sky above, swirling the colours in the surf. The edge of a crescent moon was beginning to fade into view, signalling night would descend soon.

The back of a hand brushed against mine, sparking me out of my reverie. (“Come on, you can have my bed. There’s no way you’ll fit in the futon up in the mezzanine. We’ll work our way up to sharing a bed, unless I can mime you around tonight over soup with some suggestive hand signals.”)

She led me through the wall of beads that acted as a door to a small kitchen space that was more typical of what I was accustomed to. Through an archway were two opposing doors. She opened one to a tiled room with white plumbing, and I had learned over the years that they were for personal relief. It was one of the few things of this outside world that I could actually appreciate. The second door opposite opened to an intimate room, seeped in her scent, and revealed something I hadn’t slept in since I was a sixteen year old boy: a bed. And not just any bed, Heather’s bed.

Did she expect me to lie with her?

A panic unlike any other wreathed me in its clamps, refusing to let go or quit its laughter at my naïvety – the laughter may have, in fact, been my wolf. My imagination ran wild and rampant with every sordid scenario it could spew, fuelled entirely by Kirill.

I had never experienced any of the ‘acts’ that took place between mates. I was aware of what took place, but I was painfully ill-equipped with little knowledge of what to do.

‘Never mind your virgin panic. What is that thing to your left?’ My wolf prodded my limbs to investigate.

It was a stack of strange fabrics, some sheer, some shiny, some a woven delicate pattern and all of them so small that they would barely cover any flesh. I lifted the strap of one; it had two cups that appeared able to maintain their shape. The garment that fell was a tiny triangle, connected together by equally tiny strings.

‘I don’t know what these are, but I have a strong desire to see our mate in them so we can rip them off again.’

‘Shut it, mut!’ I silenced him, feeling my blood make a quick diversion in response.

‘Perhaps if you slapped yourself around once in a while, you would be a little less tense and sexually repressed,’ Kirill muttered under his breath, determined to have the last words.

The alluring material was ripped from my grasp and thrown into a drawer. Heather’s cheeks tinted pink, which matched in colour to the items snatched from my grasp. (“I don’t think my underwear is your size. But anywho, you can stay in here, and I’ll sleep up in the little nook.”)

Whatever it was she said, she repeated it, noticing the unease stuck to my face.

(“You.”) She pointed at me. (“Sleep.”) Her hands pressed together under her head. (“Here.”) She indicated downwards. (“I sleep.”) Heather replicated her gestures, pointing to herself this time. (“Out there.”) Her signal was not for the room we were in, but for the direction we had come from.

Now I understood. She was giving me her bed, and she would sleep elsewhere. Why did that ignite a pang of disappointment?

‘Because you’re horny and could’ve shared a bed with a fiery-haired beauty,’ Kirill filled in the answer. ‘If you weren’t disappointed, I would question whether your equipment worked correctly.’

(“Well, now we have some communication going, let's get that soup on the go too.”)

Heather whirled on her heels and out of the room. Out of pure inquisitiveness, I followed, keeping a distance away to see what she was up to. In the kitchen, she busied herself by the stove with a ring of fire burning under a large pan, humming quietly yet melodically. She took a white pot and dumped the contents into it, a smell of creamy fish erupting into the air.

(“This shouldn’t take long. Lucky for you, I put the fish soup in the slow cooker while I dug for clams. Come to think of it, if I hadn’t decided on soup, I wouldn’t have found you today.”) Her words and actions came to a halt, her pretty golden hazel eyes settling on me.

Whatever it was she was thinking, she shook her head clear and took out a shining silver packet from a cupboard, opening the rectangular contents and slotting them into an off-white contraption. The wires inside it burned hot, glowing with such force that they threatened to burst forth into flame.

(“It’s a toaster. A toast-er? A toast— oh, forget it. I could be calling it a f*****g melon, for all you’d understand. Where’s my pen.”) Heather abandoned the glowing, hot contraption and began rummaging around in the drawer behind her. (“I need to make a list of stuff to open the channels of dialogue with you, starting with a Russian phrase book. I’m about 80% sure you’re Russian anyway. Maybe I can ask Aurora to bring one over tomorrow?”)

Just as she threw a white pad down on the work surface, the contraption snapped, popping with a loud crack. Instinct took over, and I shoved Heather behind me to shield her from the possible threat.

(“Steady there, big guy,”) she chuckled, patting my upper arm and skirting around my side. (“No need to save me from the deadly pop tart. Here, have one while I figure our s**t out.”)

She handed me a hot, golden-brown rectangle exuding a pleasant baked smell, like the sweet bread my mother would bake. I gave it a cautionary sniff and took a tentative bite, unprepared for the onslaught of dark-brown, oozing, molten filling, sweeter than anything I had tasted before.

I couldn’t help but flick my eyes to Heather, to pry how she was eating the strange, hard pastry. She broke hers in half and blew on the filling, her exquisite lips puckering and taking tiny bites like a squirrel. It was the most adorable sight I had ever laid eyes on. In between bites, she would pause her scribblings on the white pad, chewing on her bottom lip and stirring a fit of heated jealousy within me once again that something else had the pleasure of touching those divine lips.

(“All right, that’s the list. Where’s that bag of yours? I can put a load of laundry on while the soup finishes.”) She danced around me to leave through the beaded wall.

When I followed, she was already going through my meagre belongings where my bag had fallen due to my curiosity. Heather pulled the clothing out – what little there was – inspecting them intently and almost looking as though she wanted to bury her nose in the folds.

(“Damn, what is your scent made of? I could go light-headed on this. It’s a shame to wash it all, but I don’t know when the last time these saw the inside of a machine.”) Her eyes cut to me, scanning over my torso. (“You know what? I’m gonna need what you have on, too.”)

The she-wolf sprang up, and with one arm, she tugged at the bottom of my shirt, trying to lift it from my body. What, under the moon, could she want with it? She tried to manhandle my arm out of the sleeve and came to an abrupt stop, her gaze fixed on my right arm.

(“Teeth…?”) Her fingers ran over the raised ridges of the bite scar left behind from my attack… an attack from a wolf just like her.

In the blink of an eye, I was thrust back in time, the vivid scene screaming into my ears. The searing pain, the howls, the barks, my father’s final ragged breaths – all of it doused upon me, making me relive the graphic nightmares that once plagued me.

I wrenched myself away from the enemy before me, crashing into a solid wall at my back. I clutched my arm to my chest, snarling with all the venom I could muster and baring my teeth.

(“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you.”) My enemy morphed into the she-wolf, her hands raised as though soothing a wild animal. (“A wolf did that, didn’t it? A werewolf?”)

A fathoming look dawned on her face, and the clothing tumbled from her grasp. (“This is why you’re so wary of me. You’re a rogue because your pack was wiped out by other werewolves.”)

Her approach slapped me from my frozen stupor, and even I was shocked by the intensity of my voice. “Don’t f*****g come near me!”

Heather stumbled back, flinching away like I would strike her down. This woman had looked at me in longing, desire, hurt, sadness, understanding, humour, disappointment, curiosity… but not fear, and I couldn’t stand it.

I tore from the house without a second thought, regretting ever stopping by that cove to fire the band on my wrist. Kirill’s voice yelled at me under a torrential wave, muffled and unclear, but clawing to the surface to break through and be heard. His efforts were too late, and my decision was set; I was leaving.

I yanked down my shirt and shoved my arm back through the sleeve. My belongings could remain behind; I didn’t care. All I wanted was out of this choking pack and away from its f*****g wolves.

I should never have come here.

I should have run the moment I sensed that woman as my mate.

No good would come from her or her kind.

‘You said once, when I get my wolf, I won’t be running anywhere. So, as your wolf, I won’t let you run anywhere. You will go back.’ My muscles jerked with Kirill’s influence, exerting his will, but with no power to control my human body. His power of control lived and ended in our wolf form alone.

‘I am leaving, and that is final!’

‘And go where, you idiotic loaf? Do you think for a moment our mate won’t follow?’

“She can follow all she wants!” I yelled to the void of the calm, wooded coastline, my words echoing through the stillness. “I want nothing to do with this place... Or her!”

This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake. The bond between us should never have happened. There would never be a day I would trust a wolf like her.

‘Why do you continually lie to yourself? You fool no one, human. It is not her you distrust, it is yourself.’

The realisation of my wolf’s words broke over my head and faltered my quick steps.

Heather had shown me every kindness and care that no other had in years. I was looking for ulterior motives in her because I didn't want to accept the alternative.

I didn’t trust myself around her.

I didn’t trust myself to not fall for the soft curves of her face; her wide, adoring smile; her eyes which cast a honey glow to her features; her spirit; her persistence or her fight. If this woman betrayed me how my fears chimed she would, I would be destroyed beyond repair. And because of that, I didn’t dare delude myself that I could have her.

(“Wait!”) Heather’s desperate plea instinctively pulled at my heart. (“Please! Don’t leave.”)

I tried to break out into a run, to put distance between us, but a soft hand around my elbow spun me around. A disgruntled growl bubbled in my throat, aggravating the flow of tears staining the she-wolf’s cheeks. The sight of her broke the resolve I had constructed so hurriedly, chipping away at the hardened barriers that once protected me.

(“Please… stay…”)

My hand itched to wipe away the damp trail from the corner of her eye. The entrenched fear to pull away and run, to leave her behind and never look back, vibrated to be acted upon. I was tempted to scream at the bond and hate it for making me this way.

‘If you leave her like this, I shall never speak to you again.’

‘That is bliss, not a threat,’ I uttered, feeling myself vanish into the hazel pools drawing me under.

After a moment of hesitation, I reached out to run the tips of my fingers under her eyes, succumbing to the pull between us. She clutched hold of my hands and nuzzled her face into my palms, creeping closer until we were barely a breath apart.

(“Just give me a chance to show I’m different.”) She nuzzled her way up my wrist, then settled over the cuff of my shirt, lifting it over my scar.

Her lips pressed against my old injury, kissing the healed gash and raising my pulse with it to the heavens. I didn’t know what she said, yet on some level, I think I understood.

“I… I’ll stay… with you,” I relented, and fumbled over my words.

While she stared up at me with a confused smile, trying to work out whether I would return with her, I chose to show her instead and pulled her back towards her home. But I was so absorbed in the beautiful she-wolf that I wasn’t minding my surroundings and hooked my heel on a tree root, landing on the flat of my back and winding the air from my chest.

‘Dear goddess shining above, you were so close to maintaining some dignity.’ Kirill buried his snout under his paws.

Her musical laugh resonated around my ears, stoking the heat in my face from having made such a fool of myself. She wiped her cheeks dry and sniffled, offering out her hand to help me up. I decided to fight the urge to pull away and give in this once to the charge flowing between us.

Her eyes bulged as she took my weight and helped me upright. (“If we’ve had enough dramatics, let’s get home.”) Heather threaded our fingers together. (“My soup better not be burning with your little jaunt into the night.”)

I stopped her while we were in the moment, wanting to tell her one thing I had kept unspoken.

“Konstantin.” I jutted the side of my palm to my chest. “My name is Konstantin.”