Cry Wolf (17 page)

He moaned as he ran his tongue over the wound again, more forcefully this time. His rolling growl, like a purr, became a little louder, but instead of his teeth sharpening, Kelly noted the ripple of fur and the lengthening of his claws at his feet.

“There you go,” she murmured. “And if you feel it getting out of your control, remember the silver. It will help.”

She ruffled his hair with its soft curl then tightened her grip so that she could direct his head. He licked a path up Ki’s leg at Kelly’s unspoken command. He smoothed his hands over Ki’s thigh ahead of his tongue. Ki’s breath caught when his fingers encountered the folds of her labia, and although he did not open his eyes, his head lifted and he inhaled deeply, a different scent to catch his attention.

“Kiya, don’t move,” Malcolm murmured over his growl. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to…” He drew his tongue through her folds, swirling the tip over the swollen bud of her clitoris before taking it into his hungry, heated mouth. Ki’s eyes rolled back, and her fingers joined Kelly’s in his hair.

Kelly withdrew, but she was not quite prepared to leave them alone, not when all it would take was one prick of a wolf tooth. He was holding his teeth in very well, the tides of his hunger going over him in fur instead of teeth and claw. Kelly was right—she was rarely wrong about such things—he was a natural.

She peeked into the next thirty minutes. They weren’t chiselled, which meant that they could change. However, based on the present variables, the rest of their evening would go well, but it would go better if she stayed.

“Max, you can let her go now,” Kelly said, just as Ki cried out, her lower lip between her teeth and her dark, flushed labia between Malcolm’s.

Max wordlessly shook his head.

Kelly stood up then whispered in Max’s ear, “And what exactly do you think you could do if Malcolm attacks? Bite his ankles to death?”

“That’s hitting below the belt,” Max said, peering up at her. He loosened his arms around Ki’s shoulders, but his cheeks twitched, showing the clenching underneath.

“I know,” Kelly said. She wrapped a hand around his upper arm. “Come on. Just over here. I’ll help fix that.”

Now that she was here rather than trying to be somewhere else, she opened her mind fully to the magic letting her see the immediate future, so that she could stop something before it started.

In the meantime, Malcolm penetrated Ki’s cunt with his tongue, drinking in her juices and losing himself in the sound, scent and taste of her to forget the flavour of blood.

“Malcolm,” Ki gasped. “God, it’s been so long.” She fell back on the bed and pressed him closer, rubbing her clit with her other hand. “Yes, right
there
!”

“Do you mind?” Kelly asked after she’d sat both herself and Max on Malcolm’s bed. She spat in her palm and took his half-hard cock in her left hand.

The fear of Malcolm’s appetite had deflated him, but the sounds Ki was making now, little mewls and low moans, renewed the rushing blood flow to the organ Kelly’s fingers encircled. Max looked from Kelly’s hand to her, but when he didn’t see any mockery, he turned back to the tableau before him and nodded.

“You know, a little dog can be as dangerous as a big one under the right circumstances,” Max said. “We have to compensate for our limitations.”

“I know, honey,” Kelly replied.

Malcolm crawled onto the bed. Ki wrapped her legs around his waist and rocked up against him. Malcolm’s rigid cock slid into her with familiarity in spite of the differing circumstances. He thumbed her nipple at the same time that he hitched her up to change the angle of his thrust, making her whimper.

“I’d offer to reciprocate,” Max said, “but it’s a little harder from this angle.”

“That’s all right. I can take care of both of us.”

When Kelly slipped her fingers inside herself, she was already wet, aroused from fellating Damien, from commanding Malcolm, from watching the fruits of her labours and from Max in her hand, all of it combining at once to arouse her in spite of her conflicted feelings, so twisted and tangled that she couldn’t even pinpoint a single emotion.

Malcolm rolled himself and Ki over. Ki tossed her head back as she sank down, pussy dripping, over Malcolm’s cock. Kelly’s mouth watered at the sight of Malcolm’s cock stretching Ki’s pink labia around the base. She watched it disappear inside Ki over and over and faster and faster as Ki rode him.

Max’s grip tightened in the sheets. Kelly sped up her hand over him, spreading his pre-cum and her saliva over his full erection. She sensed his balls drawing up before they actually did. Ki wailed the beginning of her climax. Max’s ejaculate struck his chest, stomach and Kelly’s hand to the sound of Malcolm’s name. Kelly released him as soon as he doubled over from oversensitivity.

Kelly curled her fingers to rub her G-spot. It wasn’t a place she needed so much, but it was useful when she wanted to just get things over with.

Malcolm gritted his teeth as Ki’s cunt squeezed around him and unleashed a small flood over his cock with her orgasm. Canine teeth poked his lips.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Kelly said, low and severe.

Malcolm’s arms lengthened and wrapped around Ki, holding her close in his embrace as he took her harder, more erratically. The second Kelly could smell his cum, Kelly rubbed faster over her G-spot so that her hips couldn’t do anything but jerk against her fingers to help bring her to her peak with Malcolm.

“Well, that was in no way awkward,” Max muttered.

“Could have been worse,” Kelly whispered in his ear before kissing the shell of it in empathetic affection.

“Could have been better,” Max replied.

“Now
that
hits a little below the belt, don’t you agree?”

Max’s sardonic expression softened. “Hey, sorry. I know it’s not your fault. You’re just trying to help.”

“And I know you really care about Ki and Malcolm’s well-being,” Kelly said. “And Malcolm is just trying to please everyone, aren’t you, honey?”

“No offence, Kelly, and I really mean that, but is there a way that we could be more alone now?” Malcolm asked.

Ki had settled in the crook of his arm. She didn’t appear put out by Kelly’s presence or by the fact that Kelly had basically given Ki’s primary mate a hand job in the same room. But Kelly could understand if her being there was an intrusion to their pillow talk if Malcolm wanted intimacy the way it used to be.

Malcolm’s wolf was quiet. He was exhausted from the effort of holding himself back. He could probably fall asleep with Ki and not have to worry about waking up hungry. Kelly could leave knowing that Ki and Max would be safe.

“No, wait,” Ki called to Kelly before she could make her discreet exit. Ki put a hand on Malcolm’s chest as she sat up. “I mean, even if we wanted to, it’s not like we could keep this from her. Malcolm would tell her or she’d figure it out herself. Not that we want to hide it from you.”

“Ki, I’m psychic and I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kelly said, releasing the doorknob.

“You don’t?” Ki asked.

“I don’t know everything. In fact, I kind of make an effort not to know everything. Whatever you want to show Malcolm is in the top drawer of your dresser, though. Because you keep glancing at it.”

Ki got out of bed, ran lightly to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Inside were two printed pages folded into quarters. In spite of her claim that she wasn’t trying to hide it from Kelly, Ki looked a little ashamed when she turned back to face everyone, like a teenager whose parents had found her vibrator.

“Max and I contacted our parents about your problem, Malcolm, to ask whether they knew of anything that could be done to reverse it,” Ki said.

Malcolm jerked upright, eager but wary hope dawning in his eyes.

“Well, they sent us some info on this guy. They don’t know whether it’s legit or how much of a help it’ll be, but it’s all they could find on getting rid of the werewolf curse,” Ki said. She handed the pages to Malcolm.

Kelly walked to the bed where Malcolm hung one leg over the side as he pored through the pages. She read over his shoulder.

The pages were printed from the ‘About’ section of the website for an organisation in Missouri called Salvation. The background was a pale golden yellow. Most of it was text, but there was also a black and white picture of a young, clean-shaven man with a head of thick, dark hair, as though it was a historical site and the picture was over a hundred years old. He even looked old-fashioned in the pastor’s robes he wore. The cutline didn’t reveal his name, just that he was called ‘the Father’.

That boded well.

It didn’t get much better.

Magic is real. It is neither good nor bad, but all magic has consequences, and in those consequences, the nature of the magic is revealed. It is only when we admit the magical gifts within our spirit that we can also acknowledge the ways in which we abuse those gifts.

This abuse can be intentional, as in the practice of black magic. But the abuse can also be accidental—although still a product of our own weakness as human vessels—such as when we open ourselves to magical curses and demonic possession. See the Dangers page for more information about how you make yourself vulnerable and how to Safeguard your Soul.

Do not be afraid. You have within you the potential for amazing creative and regenerative power. Most of us never experience this power, but the Father can help you achieve that magical potential.

The Father invites you to cleanse yourself of whatever darkness has seeped into your soul. The Father’s fearless devotion and love for humanity has saved dark witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves and more. He can deliver you from evil.

We at Salvation urge you to attend our Wednesday and Saturday services to witness this cleansing for yourselves. Once cleansed, the Father can teach you how to tap into your intrinsic magical gifts. See Abilities for more information about what you can become once all impurities have been purged.

This is a world at war, a spiritual war, a supernatural war. To dismiss that is to put yourself at risk. Save your immortal soul at Salvation. Return to the Father and find true freedom.

The second page was a biography of sorts, but it still didn’t name the man calling himself ‘the Father’. Instead, it was surprisingly generic—rural kid moves to the big city for college and acts the Prodigal Son before discovering the seedy underbelly of magic dabbling. Rural kid grows up, grows a conscience, has an epiphany. It was the narrative of every self-styled prophet figure that Kelly had ever read about or encountered.

Kelly crossed her arms under her breasts and leaned against the wooden walls, waiting for Malcolm to finish. And scoff.

But when he put the papers down on the bedspread, that damned hope had not faded.

“Oh, you have
got
to be kidding me,” Kelly said.

She pointed at Ki and Max in turn, holding her anger in as well as she could to keep her fingernails from becoming claws. “I know the two of you think you’re helping him, but you’re really not.” Then she addressed Malcolm, “This is
ridiculous
.”

Before any of them could feebly attempt to convince her otherwise, she stormed out, running from the house and transforming as soon as she hit the forest line. Malcolm had already got his run in, but she hadn’t, and now was the perfect fucking time to run away, run far away from the lunacy behind her. There was no way they were going anywhere near an organisation called Salvation headed by a man who wouldn’t even tell anyone his real name.

When she reached the barbed wire fence, she jumped. At one point, she smelt Damien’s pack, but she veered in the other direction, and they didn’t follow after her. Nor did Malcolm.

It was almost dawn before she made it back to her trailer. She lowered the window, keeping it open a crack to feel a cold draught then turned on the space heater in her room for Butch Cassidy. Kelly peeked under the blankets and smiled weakly at the glint of his bright eyes. She crawled under the quilts with him. He nestled against her stomach. She was as good as the space heater while Butch Cassidy waited for the room to warm up.

She couldn’t sleep.

This time the feeling was more than just a feeling, but the future was still vague, and she clenched her fist in the sheets beneath her. What good was this stupid gift if it didn’t show her what was going to happen when it actually mattered?

* * * *

She got maybe two hours of sleep before the knocking started. Butch Cassidy, who had moved to the corner of the bed nearest the space heater, yowled to re-emphasise that there was someone at the door and that his stomach was woefully empty.

Kelly rubbed her eyes. She had a headache.

“It’s open!” she shouted. With resentful reluctance, she folded the quilt down, wincing at the sunlight coming through the window and the skylight.

Malcolm came in wearing his jeans, a flannel shirt and a sheepish expression.

“Before you do anything, could you feed that cat before he decides my fingers are edible?” Kelly asked. “And a coffee wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Yeah,” Malcolm replied. “I’ll do that. Don’t get up. I just want to talk.”

Kelly pulled her quilt back over her head and closed her eyes. She could have probably drifted back to sleep, but now Malcolm’s wish to talk was strong enough that her brain stayed conscious.

About fifteen minutes later, Malcolm came back in with a mug of coffee. She sighed and sat up against the makeshift headboard.

“I don’t know how you take it,” Malcolm said after he’d given her the coffee. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.

“There’s creamer in the cupboard there right next to you. Two, please.”

He tossed the creamers onto the dip of the blanket over her lap.

Kelly gestured to the foot of the bed. “You can sit. I’m not mad. A little frustrated, but I’m hardly going to gouge your eyes out over something so common as stupidity.”

“I want to apologise for yesterday,” Malcolm said. “I’m pretty sure I stepped in multiple piles of shit from morning to midnight.”