Wolf Bargain (Wolfish 3)

I close my eyes and hear movement. It sounds as if all three of them have left, or at least backed farther away from me.

“We’re going to come close to you without touching you and without speaking,” he says. “You have to try to guess which one of us is near you, and you can’t open your eyes. Use your sense of scent only. Wolves have excellent senses of smell. As a shifter, you’ll be able to not only identify people by their scent, but also know when they are nearby or if where they last were, just by the scent in the air.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling less than confident in my ability to do this than before the transformation. At least then, no one expected me to be able to.

I hear them rustle around some more and I try to stay still and keep my eyes shut. I focus on the darkness, my mind emptying until all it’s thinking about is the pattern of my own breath.

In a few moments, I can feel the heat of someone next to me, not necessarily in front of me but closer to my left side. I lift my face up into the air and inhale. I can smell the lingering smoke of a bonfire clinging to his clothes and the salacious scent of an eager lust emanating from his skin.

Lust.

I didn’t know it had a scent before.

I have no doubt in my mind that it’s Kaleb who is on my left side. But there’s more than just his scent in the air. There’s another smell to my right, one that is musky like the moments following a fresh rain and that smells earthy and confidently tempting.

Marlowe.

I suppose that by process of elimination alone I would have been able to know that Rory was the only one missing. I wouldn’t have even needed to try to inhale the air deeply in order to find him, but I do anyway because I can’t help but be called to his scent.

Behind me, there is a smell that I can’t resist, as if it’s a blend crafted perfectly to appeal to my most olfactory desires; emitting an aroma that smells like lavender and leather, calm and strength.

“That’s amazing,” I say as I open my eyes to see each of the three of them exactly where I thought they would be.

“Hey, no fair!” Kaleb says. “You didn’t tell us who you thought was who.”

“Oh, sorry,” I say, laughing. “But I swear I knew where each of you were.”

I turn behind me to see Rory and find him so close that even though we aren’t touching, I can feel the narrow sliver of space between us.

“I want to try more,” I say as I look up at him. “I want to try it all.”

10

Sabrina

A shiver runs through me.

This … all of this … it’s just the beginning.

“Taste,” I say.

“What?” Rory looks at me with his head cocked slightly, as if I’ve woken him from a dream. And in a way, I have. He’s been staring at me ravenously, his eyes drinking in the shape of my lips so close to his.

“I want to try the sense of taste next,” I say.

We haven’t moved our faces apart yet. I’m on my knees, as is he, with my body facing away from him but my head turned over my shoulder to look behind me so that our faces are nearly touching.

I should be enraptured by him too, so close to me with his now overwhelmingly intoxicating scent, but I’m too distracted.

Lydia had been right; I might still be in the middle of turning, but things are definitely already starting to change within me. Everything feels more real, more saturated with experience, than it was before. It’s as if everything I’m trying, I’m trying for the first time.

And in essence, I am.

As my new self.

Taste. I can taste the scent of the boys on my tongue already. It’s salt and musk.

I want to taste everything.