He is Ghost

Icy

She locked the door behind herself as she slipped into the cabin that was partially hers. It was clean, not that she could really remember what it looked like before she left it last. Someone had filled the cupboards with food again and left ice packs to harden in the freezer.  She inched at her lower spine, the heat there beginning to irritate her skin. 

Neira dropped the pheasant on the counter and stared at it. And then she pulled at the shirt that was draped over her body. 

When she had woken up underneath that pine, there had been a folded shirt waiting for her. And to the left of that had been a pheasant, still warm. But that hadn't been the strange part. No, the strange part had been its death. There were no puncture wounds on the animal at all, no teeth marks, no claws, not even the evidence of a blade. Nothing. Closed flesh. 

Its neck had been snapped as if someone had held it in their palms and crushed it. 

And the charcoal t-shirt? The one now draped across her body was even more... concerning. She assumed that once she had lifted it to her nose, Judd's scent would waft from the fabric. Misty pine and crisp wind. 

But there had been nothing. Not even a tiny trace of Jaro's scent or Landons. Nothing. Just forest, and nothing. Like it had fallen from the sky. And foolishly, she had looked up. 

The sky had been bright in the morning, the dew on the grass making everything clear. Neira had closed her eyes, feeling the sun press against her human cheeks. When she opened her eyes, directly in front of her, under a shaded pine had been the greyish curling shadow. Twisting under the bows and seeming to watch her, it ebbed and flowed as if underwater. The invisible current tossed it gently in the air as if rolling it over the sand. 

She didn't know why she did it, why she said anything at all but the words seemed to form without conscious thought. 

"Was this you?" she asked quietly. 

It seemed to pulse in response, flounce in that invisible current a little more noticeably than before. As if to nod... 

A small skittering of fear had run up her legs, along her back. The pain on her skin had been back for a long while now, coming in the night like an unwelcomed guest. And the sizzle of fear had only made it worse. 

As if it could sense her fear, discomfort, or whatever else thrummed against her skin the tendril of dark shadow retreated into the underbrush. 

"Wait." 

It didn't even sound like her voice as the word rushed from between her lips. It was no use, it disappeared right before her eyes. Maybe she had imagined it. 

But no, because on the walk back to her cabin, she had seen a shadow following her. It ducked in and out of the trees, appearing and disappearing with ease. Sometimes it seemed to take on a familiar shape; a wolfs shape — a wraith of a creature. 

Neira looked out the window over the sink, expecting to see that dark shadow watching her, flouncing in a non-existent wind. She was unprepared for the lash of disappointment that struck her face when she spotted nothing. 

Neira spent the afternoon scratching at her skin and trying to relieve the heat with ice packs or her own fingers. She knew she wouldn't last much longer without Judd and she hated him a little more for it. 

She tried to sleep; she tried not to watch the door. She tried not to wait for him to turn the door handle, even if it was locked. Neira thought he would have at least tried. She rolled her neck, wolf jowls jutting uncomfortably under her human skin. The fire was in the back of her throat, and the needles were piercing her arms with there poisoned tips, and her nails were carving craters into her palms. Her bones burned at the joints and her skin felt the lash of a whip. She felt as if she were bleeding all over, blood dripping off her face and onto the floor once again. 

The shirt chaffed her breasts and scratched at her hips. She could feel her skin trying to shift, her bones creaking, her mind going hazy. 

Neira slumped forward, jerky with her movements and unlcoked the door seconds before her body slammed to the floor on the other side. She rolled, back arched as pain seized her limbs. Her teeth clenched together so hard she thought they would shatter. She released a breath and scrambled to her feet. 

The stairs bit into her calves as she fell to the dirt at the bottom. Fingers dug into the ground as she tried to gain her balance, steady her spinning vision. 

Her body sprung upwards, shifting at an awkward angle into her auburn pelt. Her teeth snapped at open air, paws tripping over themselves as she scrambled in the direction of the main cabin. Neira could smell him, the misty scent of an alpha male looming all around. It seized her brain, tossing her body forward in a jerky lunge. 

She hit the dirt on her human face, her nose cracking under the force of her own body. Blood gushed over her lips as she righted herself again and took off towards him. Towards salvation, towards the rushing river that would finally put out the fire, towards the directions being flashed across her vision by the pulsing in her neck. 

She crested the hill, tumbling into a tree a wolf and sprung forward on four legs. Neira wasn't sure how she made it up the stairs, or how her human fingers managed to thrust the patio door open. She shifted wolf than human, quickly, sharply. And wiped a hand over her mouth and nose, smearing blood across her face like a mask. 

Judd met her gaze, copper eyes meeting icy blue. 

Like a drum, his own heat beat against her chest. His neck rolled and his fingers gripped the countertop, his teeth were clenched, his eyes coated in some kind of primal need. 

"Help me," Neira chocked out just before her human legs gave out and her naked body crashed into the floor. Her knee popped a the awkward angle, and her head hit the back of a sofa. 

He shoved himself back, away from her and into the wall behind him. "I can't," he sneered. Her only answer was a choked whimper as she rolled onto her stomach. "Neira, - I can't - I have no control."

He watched her for long moments shift in and out of wolf pelt. Watched her bones seem to break and stretch as she begged over and over. 

Help me, help me, help me. 

"The last time, Neira I can't. I killed her. The heat, -I haven't gone through it since. It left me until you; I can't control myself." 

She wanted to scream at him. She wasn't Kauri. She wasn't a submissive. She was an alpha female. She could handle whatever monster he unleashed. 

But the words wouldn't form around canines. 

Help me. 

"Judd please,-" 

His eyes sparked, thrumming blood making his irises look like metallic red. His scent filled her nose, pounded against her bones. It hurt her head, everything hurt, like she was laying at the bottom of a blazing fire. It was swallowing her whole. 

Judd had gone under the spell. 

He was stronger now, more dominating, more everything. Even now, his scent was thicker, it rushed up her nose, clogging it like mud. It leaked down her throat, and she chocked on it.  His body was humming with something she hadn't seen on him before, and his eyes were near glowing as he looked at her. 

Help me. 

Judd's neck cracked to the side, sharp. He rolled his neck as Neira dug her taloned fingers into the boards of the floor. 

He was across the room in the next instant. His hand wrapped around her throat and lifting her into the air. Neira's back collided with the wall, and her mouth parted as the air whooshed out of her lungs. 

But her throat, where his crushing grip lay clenched, choking her, was the only part of her body that wasn't made of pure fire. Instead, it was blissful, icy relief.