Page 9 of Her Wolves

“Kris?Kris Tynan?”

I looked up from where I was lying and saw her coming towards me, stepping over the same stones that I’d stepped over to get there.I’d know that flowing blonde hair of hers anywhere.She was dressed in a tight one-piece bathing suit with a towel hanging over her shoulders, and wearing a kind of slippers that I recognized, that had special grips on the soles so she wouldn’t slip on the rocks.If she did lose her footing on the slippery rocks and fall into the water, maybe hitting her head and hurting herself, I would have been the first one on my feet to get after her, naked as I was.And all of a sudden I’d never felt so naked in my life.My kind didn’t have the same history of body shame and taboos around sex that humans had, but suddenly, with Tara Landon coming across the rocks towards me, I was aware of what was sitting up and taking notice below my waist.

Until now, the fastest I’d ever gotten my shorts on was the time at the Academy when I was in bed with a human Professor’s daughter and he came ringing the chimes on her door at the same time I was ringing her chimes between the sheets.I set a new record for myself, pulling my shorts on before she got to my rock, and holding out a hand to help her make the final step over some splashing water.And I thanked the old Greek god Lycaeon that we lycanthropes could be fast at everything when we needed to be.

She took my hand and climbed over to stand on the rock with me.Smiling welcomingly, I said, “Good afternoon, Princess.”

Flashing her sparkling smile, she held onto my hand a moment longer and said, “Please, I’d love it if you’d call me Tara.”

It felt as if she were a second sun lighting up right there beside me.I had been with well-born and well-raised girls—and taken the virginity of some of them—but there was something special about Tara.An instinct told me she wasn’t like any other girl I’d ever met.It wasn’t her station; she wasn’t born to her title and there was really no such thing as “royalty” any more.It was just some quality about her.

“Okay…Tara,” I said.“It’s good to see you.I, um, kind of didn’t expect that I’d see you here, the next time I saw you—at least in person, or, um…you know, up close.I didn’t think I’d be this close to you again any time soon.”Suddenly my heart felt like it was jumping from stone to stone.“Sorry, it must sound like I’m babbling.Probably not what you expect from a Guard…”

Tara laughed a soft little laugh, and maybe it was only my imagination, but it sounded more musical than the water playing on the rocks.“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said.“I have come here sometimes.”She looked down the stream, where other male Guards were lying on other rocks, just as naked as I’d been, and out to the surrounding green hills, and I wondered if there might be more than one meaning when she said, “There’s always something pretty to see here.”

“I agree,” I said.“Would you like to sit down with me?”

“Yes, I’d love to,” said Tara.And remembering my manners, I offered her my hand again, and she took it and we sat down together on my blanket.

We were quiet for a moment.I tried to look like I was admiring the scenery around us instead of the scenery right next to me, and I thought I caught a glimpse of Tara moving her eyes over me.It almost made me grateful that my regulation Guard-issue shorts were a near-black Navy blue color, which slightly hid my appreciation of her.But then they were also short and tight, which didn’t completely hide what I thought of her.

“You’re really the talk of the Capital lately,” she mentioned.

“What?” I said.“You mean the thing with the reception and the…?”

“Single-handed capture of a Soorn spy?Yes, that.People have their eyes on you now, you know.”

I loved hearing that from her, but as much as human females are supposed to love a lycanthrope who acts like an “Alpha,” there are limits to the popularity of a stuck-up wolf man.You never know when someone bigger and stronger—or female and unimpressed—might be there to put him in his place.So I tried to measure my reaction to that and seem modest but not humble.

“It was a line-of-duty thing,” I said.“I had an instinct and I followed it.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you did,” Tara said, “or that spy might still be skulking around passing for a human and doing who-knows-what.”She hugged herself a bit, as if she were taking a chill in spite of the beautiful day.“And there could be other Soorns around here.They could be anyone in Leto, anywhere, and they could be up to anything.People are trying not to show it, but they’re nervous.”

Much as I wanted to put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, I stopped myself.“Whatever they try, they won’t get away with it.I’m not the only wolf around here with good instincts.The ones who just came here with me from the Academy, they’re the best.All of us, we’re the best.”

She looked over at me with the sexiest tilt of her head, which made me bring up one leg so that she wouldn’t see my reaction “down there” to the way she looked.“Of course you’re the best.That’s why you’re here.”

We were quiet for another moment then, looking out over the water again.Then Tara said something that surprised me.

“You know,” she said, “every time I think about Sub-Commander Nick and Lieutenant Lon going after those mutated trees with their two-guns, I have this picture in my head of myself picking up someone’s fallen weapon and going at those monsters myself.”

Wrinkling my brow at her, I reacted, “You?”

“Yes, me!” Tara said.She used her fists and mimed the way that a Guard holds his two-gun in energy blade mode, and swung her imaginary blade in the air making swooshing and sizzling noises.“I can see it.If I could get the kind of training you guys have with one of those things, I could have fended off those tree monsters right there with you.”

Skeptical, but not wanting to insult her, I rubbed anxiously at the back of my neck.“You know, that’s not the way most people would picture you…”

Tara balked a bit at me.“What, you think I couldn’t do it?Really, you think someone like me couldn’t take that kind of training and do well at it?”

Oh no! I thought.I did just what I didn’t want to do.I insulted her.Squirming inside, I fumbled for a way out of this.

“That’s not really what I meant,” I said, a bit feebly.“Of course, anyone could be trained to use a two-gun.But you’re not supposed to even think about needing to use one, you know…”

She folded her arms and frowned.“Because I’m a Princess and I’m used to living a gentle, sheltered life.Because I was brought up to be taken care of.Isn’t that right?”

“Well, isn’t that right?” I asked.

“It’s the same thing my friend Melanie and I were talking about.I’m not as delicate as all that, you know.”

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