Read Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 1) Online

Authors: Ariana Hawkes

Tags: #4 Part Serial Ebook, #Fiction, #Paranormal, #Werewolf, #Wolf, #Mates, #Adult, #Erotic, #Shape Shifter, #Romance, #Short Story

Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 1) (2 page)

BOOK: Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 1)
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*

The sheriff’s directions were good, and Isabel arrived at the bar with no trouble. But as she parked the car it started to rain again, as heavily as before. Raindrops bounced off the car and the tarmac, first an angry staccato, and then a deluge. Isabel let out a shout of annoyance, glad there was no-one to hear her. And, her phone told her she was now exactly 21 minutes late for the date. Amazing. Still, it was pretty good going, considering the ordeal she’d been through. Peter would surely expect her to be delayed on a night like tonight. At least her leather jacket was on the backseat and not locked in the trunk. Isabel picked it up and hoisted it over her head. It would be the only thing between her and the downpour, and it probably wouldn’t make a lot of difference. She took one final look in the mirror, feeling sad for the hair that was about to get ruined, and crossed herself quickly – a habit picked up from her mother, and more of a nervous tic than anything. Then, she took a deep breath, jumped out of the car and sprinted for the orange-lit doorway of the Silver Dime Saloon.

Even though she was prepared for it, the force of the rain was overwhelming, instantly drenching her bare legs and the lower half of her dress. Isabel caught at the door handle, like a sailor pulling herself from a shipwreck, and hauled it open. She walked through the doorway, pulling her wet jacket off her head and shaking her hair out. But, at the same time, something huge was coming down the passageway in the opposite direction, and it didn't seem to have seen her. Drawing level, it flattened her against the wall, completely filling all the empty space. Isabel stumbled in her heels, her breath snatched out of her lungs. Moments passed before she recovered enough to register that the thing almost crushing her was actually a man, or maybe a giant. Her 5’4 frame was around average for a woman, but she judged that he towered at least a foot above her. She looked up to make eye contact, and received another jolt of surprise. He was handsome, with an angular face, high cheekbones and a square jaw, and smooth, olive skin, darkened by a couple of days’ beard growth. Good looking, unquestionably. But there was also a kind of hungry look to him that made the downy hairs on her arms stand up.

“Someone’s in a hurry!” Isabel yelled above the music coming from the bar. The stranger’s eyes widened and he bent towards her. Automatically, she moved her ear closer to his mouth, but, instead of speaking, he pushed his face against her neck, grazing her cheek with rough stubble. And then, even more strangely, he took a deep sniff of her, moving his nose from the base of her neck, up into her hairline. “Hey!” she yelled. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” He pulled back and looked into her eyes. In a flash she saw that his were amber, a color she’d rarely, if ever seen before, and his expression was intense, curious, but with something else she couldn’t pin down – something hostile and distant. Then, without a single word – even less an apology – he carried on walking. Stunned into inaction, Isabel stood and watched as he left the bar and crossed the parking lot. He moved lightly, unhurriedly, despite the rain. His bulk wasn’t heaviness, but muscle, tense and huge beneath his clothing, as if he was full of a barely-contained energy. He didn’t get into any of the cars, but walked to the far corner of the parking lot and was gone.

“Wow,” Isabel said aloud. The night had already been full of weird happenings and she hadn’t even met the stranger from the internet yet. Was there a full moon tonight or something? She folded her jacket over her arm and walked into the bar, fixing her hair as best as she could. The lighting was dim and beer mats covered the walls. There was a beery tang in the air and Aerosmith was playing loud from a jukebox. It was the kind of authentically seedy place that Isabel really appreciated. She looked around at the customers, biting her lower lip as the reality that she was about to meet Peter delivered an unwelcome surge of nerves. She couldn’t see anyone sitting by themselves. There were two couples and a few groups. Then there was one guy, around the corner from the bar, so she hadn’t seen him immediately. She didn’t think he was Peter though. His hair was much lighter than in the picture, and his face was turned away but he seemed older as well. Isabel stepped closer.

“Peter?” she said, quietly. The man turned his head.

“Huh?” He was at least ten years too old.

“Oh, sorry.” She backed away, feeling stupid.
Calm down
, she told herself. She wasn’t the first person to meet someone off the internet. This kind of thing must happen all the time.

Isabel scoured all the customers again, but there was no other single man in there. Giving up, she walked over to the bar. There was no way she was leaving without a drink, whether she found her date or not. She ordered a Wild Turkey and coke.

“Did you see a guy in here by himself?” she asked the bartender as he slid her drink onto the bar. “Uh… dark hair, late twenties?” She felt even more stupid at describing someone she’d never met before, and the only proof she had of his existence were two low-res photos.

“Yeah, I did see someone,” the bartender replied. “You must’ve just missed him. A really tall guy, dark hair,
big
build. He was over there for maybe half an hour.” He jerked his thumb towards an empty corner table. “But I saw him leave a few minutes ago. Couldn’t have missed him, really.” He chuckled. “I’m surprised you didn’t cross paths, actually.”

Isabel went cold. How could she have been so dumb? Peter was obviously the man who’d almost crushed her in the doorway! It was just that the guy was so huge, and so unsettling that she hadn’t contemplated it. Sure, she’d been expecting tall, and he’d ticked ‘defined’ under body type, but this guy was off the scale.

“So, he was sitting right there?” she asked.

“That’s what I said, miss,” the bartender said amiably. In a daze, Isabel took her drink over to the vacated table and sat down. She leaned her elbows on the table and gathered her thoughts. She didn’t know if she was more shocked by Peter’s size, or his behavior. She hadn’t thought he’d take his “
let’s be on time”
so literally. She’d been evasive about where she was coming from, but he knew she didn’t live in Black Peak City. And they were in the middle of a storm for god’s sake! She was more than a little stung, especially after what she’d put herself through to get here. She took a big gulp from her glass and slammed it down on the table. This was exactly the reason why she’d never tried online dating before, wasting time being stood up by freaks in the middle of nowhere.

She noticed that Peter’s empty glass was still there as well. She picked it up and sniffed the dregs. She smelled whisky – Scotch, not Bourbon, and definitely straight up. At least he had good taste in spirits. Idly, she turned the glass around in her hands. She’d been expecting Peter to be dominant, but this guy was like – well – a bit like an animal. Although, if she was honest with herself, there was something kind of hot about his hugeness. In the moment he’d pressed against her in the doorway, and she’d picked up a spicy outdoorsy scent and been enclosed by his muscularity, she’d felt something, a definite tingle. And his eyes – she’d never seen any like them before. If he was looking directly at you, you wouldn’t be able to tear your gaze away. Still, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have sex with him. He’d probably tear her apart. All of its own accord, an image popped into her mind – him arched over her, his eyes boring deep into hers, a strong hand at the base of her throat, and him thrusting himself hugely into her –
Stop!
she told herself, and clamped her thighs together. But it only made things worse. The tingle returned, more strongly this time. To distract herself, Isabel picked up her drink and drained it. What was wrong with her? She’d just been stood up by someone, who’d also nearly crushed her in the door, and not even apologized, and here she was, fantasizing about having sex with him!

She couldn’t wait to get online again and tell him what she thought of his behavior. But, in the meantime, she had to decide how to get home. She was pretty sure she could do a big detour that would eventually get her back, but that would take a really long time. Or, she could check into a motel for the night. From the beginning, she hadn’t had any real plan for getting home afterwards, being so uncertain how the date would turn out. She had assumed that being out in this wild country might sometimes mean a long, lonely drive late at night, or an impromptu motel stay, but it was a worthwhile trade-off for living here. She looked at the time. It was over an hour since she’d seen the fallen tree. Maybe they’d moved it by now.

The bartender came over and collected the glasses.

“Have you heard anything about a tree coming down on the road to Silver City?” she asked him.

“Yeah, it was on the shortwave not long ago,” he said.

“Have they said if it’s still there?”

“I don’t know. Let me go find out for you.” He went back to the bar, and picked up a walkie-talkie kind of thing and started speaking into it. It was like something from another era, Isabel thought, smiling to herself.

“The guys say it’s been moved and the road’s open again,” the bartender called from the bar.

“Thanks!” Isabel shouted back. Back home it was, then. She stopped at the restroom and then, with a backward glance at the table where she and Peter had both been sitting at different times, she left the bar, ready for the drive back.

Retracing most of her previous journey through the small town, Isabel found the road easily. The rain had stopped again, and the sky had cleared. The moon was now directly overhead, and she could see that it was almost full – she hadn’t been far wrong before. The moonlight shone on the wet road, transforming it into a brilliant silver strip. As Isabel drove, it seemed almost magical, a different world from the unwelcoming blackness of before. There were animal noises, howls, coming from the woods, but they seemed far away. Her mood lifted, and she was eager to get home, not least so she could do something about the maddening tingle between her thighs.

Chapter Two

She was being chased through woods, her pursuer always just out of sight, fear thick in her throat, and death a whisker away. But then she became the pursuer instead, all her senses focused on a bobbing white tail. She was running fast, faster than she would have thought possible, but never tiring. Others were on her tail, as hungry as she was, nerves thrumming with adrenaline, voices hoarse with excitement. Pulling ahead, she seized her victim, sharp teeth breaking into vulnerable flesh. Claiming it as her own, she snapped its neck.

Isabel awoke with a jolt. She felt hot and realized she was panting.
Weird.
She shook her head, trying to break free from the dream, and rolled over and stretched out, proving to her body that she was back in reality, safe in her huge, comfy bed. She was naked, as always, because she loved to feel unencumbered by anything, and the touch of the sheets on her bare skin. She reached for her phone: 11.30. Later than she liked to lie in, but it had been the early hours by the time she’d arrived home the night before.

The stranger from the internet rose up in her mind again. What a strange night it had been. Her thoughts were caught between annoyance at having been stood up, and, as much as she hated to admit it, a frisson of heat that hadn’t died down during the night. She couldn’t get over how Peter had towered over her in the doorway. The thought of his strength spoke to something primal inside her.

The same couldn’t be said of a lot of the men on the alternative dating website. Isabel had only been on there for a few weeks, but she was gaining the impression that most of them were into domination because they were losers in life. They created fantasy worlds online, where they could style themselves as ‘Master of the Universe’.
God
. Isabel turned over again and buried her face in her pillow. It was all too cringy. She’d signed up to the website very reluctantly, and not even added a photo until she discovered that other users assumed she was a man in disguise, up to who knows what internet freakery. Then she’d clicked through one nerdy profile after another, and received more weird messages than she had time to read. None of the fetishes corresponded with what she was looking for. They were so specific, involving terms she had to look up online, and communities she didn’t want to be part of. She was starting to wonder if she had any business being on a site like that, when a message came from Peter. It said:

 

I wonder if you’re the one who’s strong enough to submit to me.

 

That was all. It was enough to awaken her interest though, which was further piqued when she clicked on his photo. No-one seeing him would think he was anything but dominant, an alpha male. Isabel exhaled hard. There was something inappropriately arousing about the concept of the alpha male. A leader, not a follower. The top dog. Subject to no-one. She pressed her comforter between her legs. It was also a concept that went against all her principles. It was very important for her to have equality in relationships. The pressure of the comforter wasn’t helping. Images of being dominated by Peter kept flashing through her mind. What did he mean by
‘strong enough’
, anyway?

Stop. She was getting herself all worked up over someone who’d behaved as if the normal rules of social etiquette didn’t apply to him. With a superhuman effort, Isabel tumbled out of bed and put on her dressing gown, a white, gossamer number that didn’t make much difference to her nakedness. She opened a window, letting the sweet New Mexican air blow in. Then she walked over to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

She made a hazelnut latte and egg and cheese muffins, her weekend morning treats, and took them through to her living room. Settling down on a sofa in the light, airy space, she opened her MacBook. She took a sip of her coffee and sighed – she’d made it perfectly this time – then opened up Facebook. There were three different invites to parties in Chicago that she couldn’t attend. It was great that people still included her, to show she hadn’t been forgotten. But at the same time these things plucked at her heart, little twinges of homesickness, which, if she let them, would transform into nagging questions of what she was doing here, so far away from everyone she knew. She clicked onto a message from her best friend, Kara:

BOOK: Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 1)
9.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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