Page 18 of Heart of a Dire Wolf
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Nic could have wished for a hot shower, after the cold, rainy one outside, but he appreciated the luxury of stretching out in the back of the new, one-of-a-kind hatchback station wagon that Mauk had created. It had plenty of room for their stuff, and getting into new clothes and shoes from his bag was a breeze instead of a contortionist’s trick. There was even room for Skyla, if he spooned her in tight against him. Every inch of her skin would be touching his, and he could finally…
“Nic, stop projecting your sex fantasies, or I’ll run us into a ditch.”
He groaned. Cock-blocked by safety. He rolled to his side, then yelped when he hit the still-tender spot on his hip. But he’d take a dozen burns over being compelled to tromp across the high desert like a marionette. He slid into the flattened front passenger seat, then raised the back so he could sit up.
Mauk’s displayed map said they would be in St. George by six, after they went through a section of canyons. The rain had turned into a light mist, for now, but a jagged fork of lightning flashed ahead of them, silhouetting the mountain peaks. The windshield wipers set a cadence for the patter of rain.
Skyla cleared her throat. “You need to know something. About me.”
The serious expression on her face sobered him quickly. “All right.”
“You haven’t seen my true form yet.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but hesitated. She knew he’d seen her wolf for hours as they’d made their escape to Santa Barbara. “Okay, what is your true form?”
“Have you heard of the La Brea tar pits?”
Not the direction he was expecting. “Yeah. A bunch of prehistoric predators got trapped. Humans have been digging out the bones.” He dredged up more memories. “Like sabre-tooth tigers. Big-ass lions. Really big-ass bears. Animals from the Ice Age.”
“Like dire wolves.”
Her voice was so quiet, he almost missed it. Distant thunder rumbled.
He’d have suspected her of an elaborate joke, but it wasn’t her type of humor. “You’re a dire wolf? What do you look like? And how do you hide… never mind, stupid question. Your magic.” The magic he’d assumed was an inherent part of her but was probably a spell.
She seemed calm, but her hands had a tight grip on the wheel. “My true form is charcoal black and two hundred and twenty pounds of wolf built like a tank on thick long legs, with strong jaws and very big teeth.”
Those all sounded like assets, which left him perplexed. “Why the elaborate illusion? Why do you hide who you are?”
More thunder rumbled.
“Dire wolves were super-predators in their day, like the others you mentioned. We scare the pants off humans and shifters, and we can’t be dominated by any modern alpha we’ve ever run across.” She heaved a noisy sigh. “It doesn’t go over well with packs, clans, or prides. Or alphas, for that matter.”
“I’d like to see you.” He belatedly remembered to pull on his seatbelt, glad Mauk had repaired it. “Not right now, but when it’s safe.”
Her shoulder hunched toward her face, and she winced. “I don’t want to scare you or your tiger.”
“My tiger isn’t afraid of…” He trailed off. Talking smack to his buddies at the pool hall was one thing, but Skyla was his mate. It wasn’t right to honor her courage with bluster.
“I was going to say ‘not afraid of anything,’ but it’s not true. The auction house scared me every damn day. Being controlled terrified me, especially when I thought they’d make me hurt you. A feral polar bear shifter nearly ate me as a cub, so even the nicest polar bears make me wary. Thunder and lightning do, too.” He blew out a gusty breath. “So, I won’t promise that your bad-ass Ice Age wolf won’t scare me or my grumpy tiger, but if she does, we’ll deal with it.”
He wished he knew of some better way to reassure her, but the proof would have to wait for the actual experience.
“My sister says…used to say it was their problem, not ours, but she was the real bad-ass. I’m not a very dire wolf. I’m just your average grad student, hoping for a teaching job in some place exotic, like Paris.” She tossed him a quick, come-hither smile and shimmied her shoulders. “I’d settle for Quebec, though. You could teach me French.”
And there went his brain’s blood supply, rushing toward his dick, which had obviously recovered from his recent ordeal faster than the rest of him. “I don’t know why you don’t think you’re amazing, ’cause you are.” He snorted. “If you’re an average grad student, then all our kids are going for advanced degrees, whether they want them or not.”
“You want kids?” Her eyes widened and she gasped. “What the hell?”
He followed her gaze ahead to what looked like night-time road construction about a mile up the road, but was only a few bright white lights, and one person in a vehicle.
Except it wasn’t a vehicle, it was a red sleigh with ornate runners, right out of an old-fashioned Victorian Christmas illustration, sitting on a mound of melting snow. And the person in the sleigh looked suspiciously like Mrs. Claus. She smiled and waved.
Skyla stepped on the brake. “Mauk, deploy displacement… Shit, I forgot to change it back from the farm-truck illusion.”
“Turn around,” said Nic. “Maybe we can find an off-road trail.”
