Cry of the Wolf Read Online Free Page A

room they’d pushed him onto the bed and been all over him, tearing off their own clothes and his, touching him, kissing him everywhere, clawing at him. But in spite of being drunk and hard, he’d realized this wasn’t what he wanted. That kind of sex suddenly seemed intolerably tawdry. He knew what he wanted and this was no substitute. He wanted that pretty woman on that farm. He didn’t know what exactly it was about her that drew him to her. He knew only that she was what he wanted, what he needed.
    He’d pushed the women gently aside. Apologized. Naked, he’d staggered into the night, into the nearby wooded area and changed to wolf. In his drunkenness he’d somehow found his way to the hillside behind Laura’s house and howled at the crescent moon until the wolf pack came to him, but when they smelled his breath, they’d backed away from him, snarling. Then he—the alpha, the leader—stumbled after them into the woods.
    He let go of his memories and broke the silence. “What’s your story, Laura?” Even her name felt sensual on his lips. He must have whispered it to himself a thousand times since he’d learned it. “What brought you here?”
    She glanced at him and then back at the icy road.
    “I’m city born and bred,” she said, “but the only times I remember being truly happy were when we visited my uncle’s place—now my place—up here. I loved having the animals and the woods close by. I felt free here, free to be myself in a way I never felt in the city. Now that I think about it, you’re right—I suppose on some level I am a wild child.”
    “Has it worked out well for you here?’
    “The first year everything went great—I mean, the work was hard and I had so much to learn, but I loved waking up to silence except for the sound of birds or, in winter, the whoosh of snow falling off the roof. I loved the way the migrating ducks would stop and rest on my pond. Sometimes I’d hear the wolves.” He saw that she blushed slightly. “That seemed very thrilling, very sexy somehow.”
    “And now you have a wolf in your car.” The car wavered slightly. They were both silent until he said, “You were doing okay until the Coughlins moved in next door to you.”
    She nodded. “Billy Coughlin came first—what a horrible man—helping himself from my orchard, hunting on my land. When Joel was released from jail and came to live with him, the unpleasantness went into overdrive. I didn’t know the dogs and the lambs were his doing. But there’d been other stuff, like obscene and threatening phone calls. I knew it was him—Joel—on the phone. He scared me. He’d shoot the ducks on my pond and when I told him to leave he’d laugh and say things like ‘go ahead, make me,’ or that he’d go as soon as I, um, had sex with him. The way he looked at me made me afraid. His dad frightened me too. Such a creep—every time he saw me he’d stare and rub his crotch. Ugh, those two are so gross.”
    “I think that will all stop if I’m around.” Damn straight it will stop . While I’m around no one is going to mess with Laura.
    “That would be wonderful,” she said. Then the color rose in her cheeks as though she were embarrassed at sounding enthusiastic. “Anyway, enough about me. Your story is probably much more interesting than mine.”
    “Don’t know about that.”
    “Please tell me.”
    “I grew up a pretty normal country kid with decent adoptive parents. Pretty good in school. Kinda shy and protective of my space—like a wolf.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I liked to go outside and wander about a bit, but nothing really out of the ordinary. As I became an adult, the full moon began to affect me more strongly. I’d feel that I had to go out into the woods, that something out there was calling me. I felt trapped by four walls, by the closeness of other people. I bought camping stuff and went camping a lot.
    “Then one night when the moon was full, I took a dip in a stream and I heard