The Last Lycan

Chapter 3 - Just This Once

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A REMINDER THAT OUR MAIN CHARACTER DOESN’T SPEAK OR UNDERSTAND ENGLISH, ONLY RUSSIAN

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Дельта Юкона, Аляска

6 лет спустя

(Yukon Delta, Alaska

6 years later)

I knelt by the crystal-clear and frigid waters of the ocean, washing the last remnants of the tattoo ink away from my left wrist. It was my first attempt at marking my skin with the bands of my pack, the last connection I had with my home and my people.

It marked my first year since I had shifted, gaining my lycan wolf form at twenty-one years of age.

The intersecting black lines were fairly even and neat. I had only botched up one of them. My father had taught me well, at least. On this day, this should have been him passing a salt-water-soaked cloth over my skin to clean my tattoo that he had etched with one of his needles passed down through our family, and we should have been in his inking den, in our home…

I lowered my gaze to my first band, running my fingers over the tender flesh and wiping away the last remnants of blood in the salty water. My father had always said he looked forward to the day he would etch my first, as his father had for him and his father before him. It only served as a bitter reminder of everything I had lost.

The fire by my side had died down, and the smouldering embers were all that remained from making the ink of bazal’t (basalt) and burnt pine. It was a perfume I had always found soothing, one that reminded me of home and better times.

Now that they had dried, I packed away the remaining items: the small wooden hammer and thick needle needed to puncture my skin for the tattoo, which I had fashioned myself; the items of clothing I had attempted to wash and, lastly, the torn shirt I had removed when I accidentally knocked the ink down my sleeve.

Despite the cold air on the naked skin of my back, I wasn’t chilled. I had lived through much colder temperatures than this. Yet my skin refused to stop shivering. A pleasant tingling down my spine had been growing, and I wasn’t sure why.

Neither was I sure why my wolf, Kirill, wanted to be here in this spot so much further north than felt comfortable. We had picked up the faint scents that carried over on the southern winds: pack. Those wolves that walked on four legs, as opposed to a lycan’s two, just like the wolves that had destroyed my home and killed my people.

For the five years I was without my wolf, I had stayed on the chain of islands I had drifted to and run aground on, which I soon discovered were the Unangam Tanangin, the chain of islands eastwards of our village that my father and I had sailed along on a couple of occasions but never far enough to see what lay at the end. When Kirill made his appearance physically, our appetite soared beyond what small islands could afford, so we were forced to the mainland that rose from the waves at the end of the chain. It was a land that spoke a language I didn’t understand and held customs I didn’t grasp. Normally, I scavenged on the outskirts of the human settlements to the south of this land, struggling to make sense of the words they yelled at me. These humans didn’t seem to like trading as much as the ones I was used to in my home did.

But my wolf was incessant on staying in the area, insisting it was crucial yet divulging nothing more. I was beginning to think he was full of it, acting wise beyond his year of existence. There were times his attitude was more painful than his emergence, and, much to my headache, he liked to make his presence known daily and vehemently.

As I wrapped my carved wooden needle in the folds of a spare shirt, Kirill’s mental form drew bolt upright and rigid, pacing frantically with his fists tensing.

‘Behind us. Someone approaches, and they’re sneaking.’ His hackles raised on their tips.

My head snapped around to a woman cautiously creeping towards me through the undergrowth's heavy scrub and brush.

Her fiery red hair contrasted heavily against the greenery framing her silhouette. The long, thin skirt fluttering around her calves accentuated every elongated curve of her never-ending legs all the way up to her full hips and narrow waist.

The further up her figure my gaze roamed, the sharper my heart beat into my ribs, and the tighter my trousers shrunk. At twenty-two years of age, I knew what an attractive woman looked like and was well acquainted with how my body reacted to a pretty face that caught my attention, not that I had acted on any of my basal urges.

But this pretty face?

She hadn’t merely caught my attention. She had drawn me into a realm where only she existed, calling out to my soul in a soundless ballad with her golden-flecked irises that would shame the purest honey.

“Mate,” the word fell from my mouth on instinct as I stood to my feet slowly, my eyes fixed on the enchanting woman.

(“Mate,”) her lips uttered, but I was unsure of what she was saying.

A basket of what appeared to be shells fell from her hands and scattered through the brush and sand. They may as well have been imaginary for what little attention the woman paid them.

A captivating aroma unlike any other weaved its way through the air, greeting my nose with fragrances of home, of spiced embers warming me on an icy day. My wolf dazed in a daydream, drunk on the scents as I was, until the underlying musky tone slapped the trance out of us and threw its frozen bucket of reality over our head.

‘She’s one of them, a pack she-wolf!’ Kirill spat, the hackles of his spine returning to their raised stance.

A low growl bubbled on my tongue, but if she heard, she made no show of it.

Instead, the apples of her cheeks flushed a frustratingly attractive pink as her eyes roved over my bare chest, and I despised how my heart leapt of its own accord at the sight and how my breath came in shallower bursts as a result. This she-wolf may have been my mate, but I in no way trusted her or her breed.

(“I’m Heather. Who are you? Are you a rogue?”)

But I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I only knew I enjoyed her voice. Her soft, sultry timbre vibrated along my skin, rippling it in a shiver, and called to my soul. Her words formed and spoke like the humans’ of the towns. Whatever language it was, I didn’t know.

(“I don’t care if you are. You gotta be to be this far out, and I don’t recognise you from home. I would have definitely noticed you.”)

The woman stepped closer, a dazzling smile tugging at a pair of full, dusky red lips glinting with an enchanting lustre. What would those lips taste like? I had never tasted a woman’s lips before, and these were whispering their pleas to me to be savoured.

‘Daydream on your own time, meat sack. Preferably when a pack wolf isn’t ensnaring us with her wiles!’ Kirill mentally smacked me into the present.

My body physically jerked and dispelled her lips from the forefront of my mind, the large bite scar on my right forearm I received as a boy replacing it, reminding me, mate or not, to be wary of pack.

I snarled, baring my teeth, and backed up as far as she had stepped forward. She obviously wasn't expecting it. Her eyes hung wide and her legs stuttered to a stop… her exceptionally long and inviting legs that had me staring and wanting very physical things I shouldn’t from a wolf like her.

(“I’m not going to hurt you… do you even understand me?”)

She tried to approach again, but I retreated, my wolf backing my snuff in her direction.

“Stay back, she-wolf.” I flashed my canines once more. “I’ll attack if I have to. Our bond be damned.”

(“Well, that explains things. You don’t speak English?”) She inclined her head.

English. I had heard that word before, but I had no idea what it signified.

(“I’ll take that as a no. I’m Heather,”) she said slowly, pointing at herself. (“Heath-er.”)

‘I believe she’s telling you her name, human.’ Kirill nudged when I remained silent.

‘I know what she’s doing, mut! I have no interest in reciprocating.’

Why did this woman have to be like one of the wolves that raided my home?

She exhaled a long breath, her face crumpling in a frown at my lack of response. The cavity in my chest twisted on its own, disliking her sadness. This must be the damned bond at work. Mates were so rarely found in my home pack that I was never given 'the talk' about what to expect from a mate, not that I had been old enough to receive such a conversation from my parents anyway.

(“Are you hungry?”) she spoke louder and slower, miming an action with her hands to her mouth.

“It doesn’t matter the volume or speed at which you speak. I still don’t understand you.” I grabbed my slightly damp shirt from the ground and yanked it over my head, annoyed that her eyes brazenly stared at my bare chest. I also secretly wanted to conceal the bite scar on my arm, before that, too, drew her eyes.

(“I’m going to take that as a long-winded yes.”)

She began gathering up the shells from the basket she had dropped and carried them over to the water’s edge, setting it down and dusting her hands. She appraised the embers, smouldering away, and gathered up lighting kindling, gently blowing the fire back to life.

For a brief moment, I fell into a trance yet again, watching her ripe and full lips pucker, and peeking at the hint of her breasts showing from the neckline of her low attire as she bent forward. Her heady, spiced ember scent was back to its old tricks, clawing my good senses apart.

‘Who’s staring brazenly now?’ Kirill chuckled at my muddled thoughts. ‘She is pretty to stare at. Why don’t you help her?’

‘I don’t even know what she’s doing.’ I watched as she gathered up the larger pieces of dry driftwood and tossed them on the growing fire.

‘Building the fire up, obviously.’

‘I can see that much, foolish mut. For what purpose?’

With a flat stone placed in the middle of the fire, she went back to the basket and dipped it in the shallow surf, swirling it around. And just like that, I was back to staring, leering as a scoundrel would at her perfectly round rear.

“Heather.” Her name tasted as aromatic as her scent on my tongue.

I realised too late that I had whispered her name out loud when she peered back over the curve of her shoulder at me. My pulse pounded in my ears, and time dragged to a halt.

‘You had better offer something, human. I won’t have you making us look stupid.’

‘Like what?’ My hearing was rapidly failing, as though I were sinking under the very sea surrounding us.

I didn’t want to offer anything to this she-wolf. The hold she already had on me was suffocating, growing by the minute… a hold that terrified me how much I would sacrifice and give to protect it at all costs. But I had whispered her name aloud, gaining her full attention, and I was now standing, performing my best impression of a useless broom, as my mother would say.

I instantly bent down and grabbed the nearest thing, a chunk of wood too large to put on the fire. Placing the length over my thigh, I smashed it down, breaking it in two, and held it out.

(“Oh, yeah, we could do with more wood.”) She nodded her head, kneeling down by the fire. I took her nod as a sign of ‘yes’ to the wood.

‘That was an equal and synchronised display of impressive and awkward. My congratulations.’ Kirill gave me a sarcastic round of applause, exacerbating the redness of my face that I hoped remained obscured by my beard.

The hiss of water hitting a hot surface split the internal squabble forming between my wolf and me. The she-wolf had pulled a metal cup from her side bag and was pouring seawater over the heated stone in the middle of the fire, a billow of steam erupting from it. She arranged the shells on the steaming stone, poking them into position with a stick.

The shells were clams.

She was cooking for me?

(“Come on, I don’t bite. Sit.”) She patted the ground beside her, but I was uncomfortable being so close.

Ignoring where she indicated, I slowly lowered myself to the ground as opposite to her as possible, keeping my sights fixed as though she was a predator. A familiar frown of disappointment flashed across her face again, and this time, the pang constricted across my temples as well as my chest and throat.

Refusing to look at me, she took out a drinking flask, raising it to her lips and downing the contents. I couldn’t tear my gaze away, my trousers stiffly becoming tight and uncomfortable with every motion her mouth made over the spout of her bottle. Her throat worked and bobbed at an agonising pace, elongating her neck and showing off a particularly tempting patch of skin. A bead of water dripped from the corner of her mouth, glistening a trail down her sun-kissed flesh, crossing that same patch of skin and rousing my jealousy that it got to touch and not me.

(“Did you want some?”) Her brows wrinkled together as she held the flask out for me around the flames.

She thought I was staring at the freshwater out of thirst?

Kirill fought to control himself and push down our arousal as much as possible. ‘You had better take it, because otherwise we truly are going to look like a creepy rogue miscreant.’

I snatched the container with more hostility than I intended, my exasperation solely directed at myself for having been caught staring and falling into her enticing wiles time and time again.

Lifting the container to my mouth was my next greatest mistake. The flavour of her lips lingered, dancing along my tongue and providing me with an answer to my unspoken question. She tasted of fire and spice, of home. I gently handed the container back to her, unable to meet her eye.

As the hiss of steam sizzled, a soft and melodic hum grew louder. The she-wolf paid no attention to me, focused on the clams cooking in the fire. Her voice was beautiful and drew my fixation for the umpteenth time. Damn this woman and her bond!

And just as before, she caught me staring and cut short her angelic melody, falling silent.

(“Sorry, I sing and hum all the time. Everyone’s always telling me it’s annoying. I guess it must be if my own mate can’t stand it.”)

Her entire face fell as she poked at the clams, flicking one into her cloth-covered hand. I didn’t know what she had said, but the same tightness clamped at my chest again.

‘You were glaring. She thought she was annoying you, i***t human.’ My wolf slapped the back of my head in my mind. ‘Will you please stop making her sad? It’s upsetting her wolf and me.’

‘Fickle animal!’ I internally groaned and vented my frustrations on my wolf. ‘You were fine snarling at her not a moment ago.’

‘That was then. This is now. Quit living in the past.’

That was easy for him to suggest. My past clung to me at every given turn. I could shrug it off no more than I could my own skin. It was different for Kirill; he saw my past through my memories, but he hadn’t lived it.

‘I don’t have to have lived it to know that this woman and the wolves that hurt you are not the same. Do you want that pretty face of hers to scrunch up all hurt?’

No, I didn’t. I may not have trusted her, and I struggled to understand what this bond was doing to me or whether I wanted it, but I didn’t want to hurt her.

I caught her attention and tried to mime what it was I wanted to say.

“You don’t have to stop.” I pointed at her and then raised my hand to my mouth, shooting it outwards with my fingers splayed and nodded. “Your voice is beautiful.”

A tiny smile curled her lips, and a light rosy blush stained her cheeks. A profound need arose within me – a want to keep her pretty smile stretched across her equally pretty face.

She handed me a small cloth parcel filled with cooked clams, their salty aroma rising and eliciting a rumble from my stomach. Our fingers brushed, and a surge of addictive sparks coiled along my arm, warming my whole chest with an energy that couldn’t be real. We gasped in synchronicity, our eyes connecting along an unseen tether.

She felt it too? Was this our bond?

Her hand lingered, moving to my wrist and following the fresh black lines of my band. It was healing over well, with only a speck of blood leftover from a closing wound.

(“You’re hurt?”) Her brows furrowed together. (“Let me see.”)

As she lifted my wrist to her mouth, I wrenched my arm backwards, trying to pull free from her overwhelming touch. But she held on tight with astonishing strength.

(“Trust me, I can help.”) Her fingers slowly massaged my raw skin, quickening my heartbeat. (“A mate’s lick can help heal.”)

Reluctantly, I stopped resisting, though my muscles stayed flexed in case she tried anything. Her tongue darted out, lapping my skin. A growl so deep that it formed at the base of my gut and tore from my throat, threatening to rupture my chest apart. I had no coherent thought, and my wolf was too delirious in rolling around to have any words of guidance on what the f**k was happening to me!

(“I think you enjoyed that.”) She smirked, sending my mind into overdrive when she traced her bottom lip with her tongue. (“Goddess, if you’d let me, I’d lick you all over.”) She shook her head and cracked open one of her shells. (“I am sooo glad you can’t understand me.”)

Flustered and having no clue what was wrong with me, I shovelled a handful of clams into my mouth, needing a distraction from the rigid bulge tenting itself in the crotch of my trousers. Only, I spat the food back out again a moment later. They were scalding hot and still in their shells. I wiped my mouth, wanting to bury my red face in the sand in embarrassment. The she-wolf didn’t look directly at me, but her suppressed grin was enough to make me want to slap myself.

‘That’s it. I refuse to help any longer.’ Kirill pursed his snout and sat poised. ‘I’m simply going to sit back and enjoy watching you find new ways to make a fool of yourself.’

Trying to ignore the teasing she-wolf and the teasing imaginary wolf in my mind, I willed myself to function normally and break open the clams properly, focusing on anything except the vision of the she-wolf flickering behind the dancing flames of the fire.

(“Did you do that yourself?”) She had scooted closer without me realising, pointing to my tattoo and then to my chest, the same energy zapping me again where her fingers touched me.

‘Fine, I’ll help you one last time,’ my wolf stepped in when I remained quiet. ‘Give her something. I don’t think she’s about to harm us.’

Deciding to heed Kirill’s advice, I nodded, guessing that she was asking whether I was the one who had drawn the band. I pulled out my tools from my deer hide bag and displayed them out in the sand, letting her explore and twirl them in her fingertips.

Once we were done, she stood, kicking dirt and sand into the fire to extinguish it.

(“Come with me.”) She held out her hand and c****d her pretty head in the direction where I could smell the distant wolves. (“Come to my pack.”)

Pack. That was a word from her language I understood, and I knew I didn’t like it.

I jumped to my feet in haste and backed away from her, my canines bared and growling my refusal.

“No pack!”

(“Hey, it’s ok.”) She held her hands up in placation, stepping forward to take my hand and hold it to her chest, right where her heart lay. (“I’ll be with you. I won’t let them do anything to you.”)

The rhythm of my heart matched hers, rising and falling in time like a reflection of one another. I weighed up my doubts and my fears. I didn’t want anything to do with the kinds of pack outside of my own. I wanted nothing to do with the four-legged wolves I would never trust.

But I couldn’t say I didn’t want this wolf, this Heather.

Perhaps I could trust her, just this once, for now, at least.