Wild Ones: Prowl (6 page)
“Good,” Lainey agreed. She drew her tongue across her lips, still feeling as if she were floating. Mind, she knew this was goodbye -- for now. They wouldn’t come inside. Not yet. But she liked that about them, she thought. And some night she would sleep beneath the stars with them. Curl up in a hummock of grass still warm from the sun and drowse away to dreams in their arms.
Asher thumbed Lainey’s lip as Russ nibbled at her ear. “Dream sweet,” he said. “We will run. Mark this land. Tomorrow, we return.”
Lainey caught him by the hand, and Russ too. She lifted her chin, proud and pleased and triumphant as a queen. “You see that you do,” she said. “I’ll be looking for you.”
“Never have to look hard.” Asher’s last kiss of the night was both hard and soft, proud and gentle. “Always we are here.”
“With you,” Russ whispered in Lainey’s ear before they -- both of them -- let go reluctantly and leapt off her porch. They flowed from man shape to wolf shape as she watched, her lips parted in wonder, going from one to the other like water flowing over smooth stones.
Lainey lingered on her porch, no less warm and satisfied, as she watched the two wolves lope away. Lucky, Rosemary had said? More than lucky. Lainey wasn’t one to use this word often, but it fit after a night like this and men like them, and an arrangement that suited her far better than what she’d imagined.
Lainey watched her wolves run wild and free, and knew that whatever kind gods looked down upon these worlds had done this for her at last: she’d been blessed.
Epilogue
Autumn and then winter weren’t far off on Leman, and on most days Lainey woke to a chill in the air that seemed almost too crisp to breathe, but too pleasurable to resist.
Today, she’d woken to a kindly sun that had yet an edge to it. Work to do, and good warm light to do it by. What more could one woman ask for? She’d dressed herself in the simplest of shirts, no sleeves and a low neck, proud enough of the whisker burn that made her breasts as red as if they’d been sunburned.
Lainey could feel the wolves sneaking about in the wheat fields as she harnessed her mare to the wagon. She didn’t bother taking her rifle with her. Anything out there that might threaten to cause her harm -- it wouldn’t last past a hint of challenge.
Her wolves made good on their word. Let others say what they would, if any on this world would -- which Lainey doubted -- but wolves at heart or not, they were that rarest of creatures: honorable men.
Lainey glanced back over her shoulder to see the wolves, as proud as they pleased, trotting along beside the wagon. She had to laugh. Honorable, yes, and as full of mischief as the devil. She’d have them no other way.
They met no other wagons on their way to the crossroads and the mercantile, not uncommon, but Lainey had a feeling there’d be more soon. Word got around between women, always had, and a distance that could be measured in stars wouldn’t stop them from hearing and coming to see for themselves. The lonely, the jaded, and the strong.
Leman would thrive because of women.
As if he could understand her thoughts, Asher picked up the pace to run beside her, close enough for Lainey to see, and far enough not to tempt the horse to kick at him. The mare snorted a disgusted equine snort but otherwise left Asher alone.
Asher looked almost disappointed. Playful, beloved beast! He wrinkled his muzzle at her and let his tongue hang out. He knew what she’d been thinking, all right, and he approved.
And as he approved, so would the rest of the wolves and hunting animals on Leman. Those who favored the human women and had much to give them. “Just as long as you remember who you belong to,” Lainey warned him.
Asher sneezed. Lainey chuckled and gently slapped the reins across her mare’s rump. No, Asher wouldn’t forget, and neither would sweet Russ, running on the other side of her mare.
When they came within sight of the mercantile, Lainey slowed the horse to a peaceful amble. The wolves fell into step with her, and it was as a unit that they drew close to the one place on Leman -- so far -- that its women gathered. Three wagons there that day, and Rosemary as well.
Rosemary ducked her head out of the dim, dusky depths of the mercantile, wiping her hands on a cloth. She carried with her the scent of fresh-baked bread and the smoke of drying meat. She shaded her eyes to look up at Lainey, then forgot to when she noticed the wolves sitting just close enough to tease.
Rosemary’s eyes sparkled. If she and Lainey had been the hugging sort, Lainey knew she’d have gotten a sister’s congratulatory embrace. “What did I tell you?” Rosemary offered the back of her hand to Russ for him to sniff.
Russ took his time about it, the deep thoughtfulness that separated him so visibly from other wolves foremost in his approach. He yipped over his shoulder at Asher, who returned a bark that sounded like a laugh.
“They
are
good luck,” Lainey said. She jumped lightly down from her wagon, glorying in the delicious stretch and pull of muscles that’d been well-used in loving hard and long, not just last night but every night before. “The best.”
She raised an eyebrow at the sight when Russ licked Rosemary’s hand and bared his teeth in a canine grin before loping back to Lainey’s side. “Well, now.”
Rosemary looked as awed as did the other women in Lainey’s peripheral vision, but far more delighted. “They like me.”
“Not as much as they like me,” Lainey pointed out, basking in the sunlight and savoring the reflection of simple truth. Russ nudged her leg with his head and looked up. Asher too, with such puckish playfulness that it made her warm inside as well as out. Gave her an idea of exactly what they were up to, as well.
“Good luck,” Lainey said, resting one hand atop both of her wolves’ heads. “Only for those they deem worthy.”
Rosemary looked briefly disappointed. “I’ve never been this close to one before.”
Asher leaned heavily on Lainey’s leg. She could feel his flanks shaking, just as a human might with a belly laugh, and yet there was respect in the way he eyed Rosemary.
“Owls,” Lainey said, the word tripping lightly off her lips since Asher’s muzzle wasn’t made for speech. “What do you think of owls?”
“I think well of owls,” Rosemary said, puzzled. “Beautiful, and fierce. I like owls just fine.”
Lainey let her mouth curve into a smile that only women understood. “Wolves aren’t the only creatures on Leman who crave mates,” she said, knowing Rosemary would know exactly what she meant. “Leave the windows open at night, if you care to.”
Rosemary laughed as freely as Lainey’s loving wolves. “I’ll do that very thing. Now,” she said, dusting her hands off and producing her stylus, “How can I help you?”
Lainey sighed, content at last, bracketed by wolves and by love, with sunlight darkening her browner, with the red dirt of the roads and the golden wheat that spread out as far as the eye could see.
She was home. And just like she’d sworn, she’d do this. But not alone.
Asher nudged her. Lainey had to hide a smile. “Let’s start with some rawhide,” she said. “And a good quilt, for sleeping out beneath the stars…”
Zoey Daniels
Who’s this Zoey Daniels person? (Or, why indulging multiple personalities can be healthy for us creative types.)
Zoey Daniels is the part of Willa Okati who occasionally has the yen to write a good ménage. “She” likes strong women, equally strong men, and faraway worlds filled with sci-fi cowboys and alpha shapeshifters. She also loves older woman/younger men. Yum, yum. Come enjoy!
http://willaokati.com/Willa_Okati/Zoey_Daniels.html