Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

58. Lone Werewolf

Akrum wasn't that much older than Volya and he was practically woven from moral fiber. Sure, his morality differed from that of the present day, but he stuck to it like glue.

Volya wasn't like his father.

He sat on his sleeping bag with his meager possessions, knees pressed into his chest. The pile to his right consisted of everything he was taking along. Stuff to his left could go into trash, except for his cross and the iPad. These two items he put on Liam's neat bedroll, because he wanted Liam to have them.

With a sigh, he picked up the iPad again, opened the Notes app, then closed it again. Some words a man had to write by hand. He dug up a pen and a pad of yellow sticky notes from a mesh pocket in the tent. Liam always had that stuff squirreled away to jot down an idea in the middle of the night.

Volya blinked away moisture from his eyelashes. It was just paper. Liam might not have even touched it, for goodness' sake! He chewed the end of the pen, tasting plastic.

Write your memoir, then get out or you'll miss your chance, the mist-wolf advised gruffly.

"Do you think I don't know that?" Volya snapped at it.

Tomorrow, the expedition would pack up and travel back to the coast. Liam would itch to get back to his band. Anabelle would want to pound the miles of the malls with her own two feet. And daSilva's team had to write their articles, even if nobody in the science community would take them seriously. So, yes, he had to leave tonight.

And he would leave, right after he wrote to Liam. If only he could put his conflicting feelings in one word, a simple, perfect word! Liam wrote songs that went for four minutes, digging into strangers' souls, while he struggled to give back one word.

Surely, he could find one word?

With a resigned sigh, he scribbled—no, not the right word, just an adequate one—and tossed the pen away in disgust. He pressed his sticky note on top of the iPad, then stacked his cross on top of it. It all went to the middle of Liam's bedroll. There, he was done.

Then he climbed out of the tent naked with a bundle under his arm. He pulled in a huge breath, counted down from ten... listened to the dying down noises of the merriment by the bonfire... counted down from ten again, lifted his eyes to the moon and allowed the werewolf to take over their shared genes, commanding them to build the body it wanted.

Once Volya had become a werewolf, he stalked the outskirts of the camp. He needed to leave, yes, but he couldn't do it without one last glimpse of Liam.

Alas, the figures that emerged from the circle of light by the fire were Damir and Marina. The distance between the two would have made it impossible for Marina to miss the cigarette smell on Damir. She didn't seem to mind it any more.

Her arms were around Damir's neck, head thrown back to better see his face in the uncertain light of the stars.

"It should have happened back then between us," Marina was whispering feverishly, "so I've told him you were my first lover... back then or now, it makes no difference. It's like paying it forward."

"Who was it then?" Damir asked quietly. "If you lied to your husband that I was with you first, who was it?"

"He didn't matter. Oh, Mirka..." She chuckled without merriment, stroking his face. "Mirka, how don't you understand that nobody else ever mattered?" She sounded drunk.

In Volya's reckoning, Damir should have taken off faster than when he had chased Anabelle's horse, but his face fell onto Marina's in a lingering kiss.

Forget Volya! Twenty werewolves could have marched past them in a parade formation, saluted and yelled a battle cry, and they would have ignored it, wrapped in their toxic paradise.

Volya shook his head and juggled his bundle in clumsy arms. His claws were great for ripping things, and dismal for carrying stuff. He should have fashioned a strap to carry it on his back, but it was too late for it now. Luckily, he didn't have far to go. Only to the shore, to the Buyan Isle, and then... Then, be what it may.

To make Volya's life easier, Damir slowly backed toward the equipment trailer, leading Marina along. Their lips barely unlocked when his back touched the door. Damir fumbled behind himself with the free hand... the other still squeezing Marina's waist... Marina reached around him.

The door opened, letting the two nearly tumble through, then closed.

It wasn't completely soundproof, so Volya was happy for his furry snout. His cheeks would have flushed tomato-red if he was in his human form to hear all that. If he didn't transform back then, Liam might have whispered similar things to him, in the same breathy tone interrupted with smooches. Except, Liam's voice would have been divine.

Crap. He couldn't afford to think about Liam. Abandoning his plan to spy on Liam from afar, Volya raced away from the trailer and into the darkness. Beyond the trampled, dusty grass of the camp, beyond the complicated human bonds, the untouched world still waited for him. He stopped at this boundary.

A few more steps—and he would be free to lead a solitary existence, as befitted a pack reject, lone werewolf.

He took one more deep breath in, clutched his bundle tighter. Just a few more steps...

Naturally, some idiot was rustling through the dry grass behind him. His mind whirled through the options—to run? But if this was a guard, he'd empty his gun into a monstrous black form loping through the dark and ask questions later. They were accustomed to a centaur, but a werewolf wasn't specified in their contract.

Volya squatted where he stood, willing his heart to stop pounding so loudly. With luck, the guard would move on soon.

"Volya?" the person who rustled through the grass called into the night plaintively. "Volya?"

The fate granted him his chance to see Liam one last time.

And not just see... The familiar scent tickled his nostrils like a drug. His face turned in Liam's direction involuntarily, nose pointing to the source of the sweet smell. He wanted to follow his nose till it bumped into Liam's skin. Till he could lick the scent off of him, catch his ear between his teeth. He was so close to Liam, he could cross the distance in three flying leaps and be on top of his mate before he even knew what hit him. Then Liam would be his, once and for all...

The ugly desires rushed in, carnage and lust flaring out his nostrils and engorging his private parts.

Volya impaled the claws into the dry soil, hard as rock, to anchor himself as deep as possible. If lust overpowered his confused senses, a torn claw should knock some humanity into him.

"Volya?" Uncanny, this poor blind man with no sense of smell was coming closer and closer to Volya's hiding spot. How the heck was he doing it?

"Volya?"

Go away! The mental yell turned into a low growl in Volya's throat. He snarled, wanting to howl. He was practically choking on it and on his saliva. Please, Liam, go away.

He didn't know if he should stay put and let darkness hide him, or make a run for it. The broiling storm inside him made sitting like a rock hard—damn the stupid puns!—but if he ran, who was to say that he'd run away from Liam not toward him?

His arm spasmed, and his bundle fell to the ground with a thud loud enough to alert the sleepers as far away as Barcelona.

Liam whirred. "Volya?"

His gaze fell right on Volya by the stroke of bad luck. "I see you. Come out. Your eyes are glowing."

Volya straightened and waved his hands to shoo Liam away. Didn't anyone teach him street safety as a kid? Advancing on a hulking werewolf like that! The guy was a moron. A sweet, idiotic, wonderful, infuriating, beautiful, annoying—

"You don't get to write 'sorry' on an effing sticky note and run away," Liam said.

Huh? Were the sticky notes particularly offensive? If so, get over it, rich boy. In Russia a guy wrote on what came in handy.

Volya snarled at Liam. It wasn't loud, because he didn't want to alert the guards, but loud enough for Liam to flinch. That was good. It meant Liam was finally clueing in. Another second, and he would turn to flee—

Liam did nothing of the kind. Instead, he made a giant step forward.