Big Bad Wolf Chapter 14

Big Bad Wolf Chapter 14

Beautiful Laughter

Javier

He took her shopping, ate lunch out, and invited her to spend the afternoon touring the land when he went to relieve Luke as a construction site manager. They walked the grounds. She asked him questions about building placement and the need for constant oversight. She agreed with it, though.

The feel of the place as a natural space drew Javier to accept Luke’s offer, and as the construction crews left for the day, he offered to cook hamburgers for dinner. She accepted, and they went back to his cabin.

Having her alone in his personal space was extremely gratifying to him. He worried she might feel uncomfortable. The last thing he wanted to do was push her away. They ate sitting in the open on the porch in the camp chairs as his compromise. There was no one else around. Being in the open still somehow felt more acceptable.

As they finished their meal, he asked her the one question that he’d been dying to ask since she’d asked about flying.

“Shall we run?”

“Run?” she asked.

He laughed. Then he shook his head. He was a direwolf. She was a phoenix. They didn’t run through the forest. They flew above it.

“I guess it’s a canine expression to ask if you want to enjoy nature in your animal form. So in your case, I guess, I should have asked, ‘Shall we fly?’”

He winked at her. She laughed.

“Oh yes, we shall fly.”

Isabell smiled at him like a child at Christmas, opening the one gift she had begged Santa for. Maybe he was being selfish. He wanted to share flying with her alone without the rest of the pack, at least at first. He wanted to be the one to give her that freedom back. When she smiled at him, his heart beat faster.

She was beyond beautiful. He was into her, and there was no denying that.

She was broken. Taking advantage of her couldn’t happen. How that felt wrong at the bottom of his stomach told him seriously invested in her he was.

“Go inside and shift, and I’ll be here waiting for you,” Javier suggested.

Isabell slipped into his cabin and left the door ajar. Shifters and doorknobs didn’t go together. Luke had opted for door handles at the retreat for good reasons. It would be more expensive upfront but better in the long run. Immortals didn’t do anything short-term. He would see about replacing the knob with a handle later.

Javier stripped off his clothes on the porch and shifted into his black direwolf. Thinking about her getting naked in his cabin made him antsy. He wasn’t about to damage whatever they had by coming onto her. Better if he moved slowly. Flying first.

Running as his direwolf would help waste that nervous energy. Then maybe his head would clear off the fog. It seemed to be clouded the whole time he was near her.

Isabell stepped out of the cabin and stretched her wings. Her wingspan was at least eleven feet across. She was no tiny bird to live in a birdcage, like Tweety Bird. She was the largest bird of prey he’d ever seen.

He cocked his head, studying her phoenix fire. It was ghostly blue and red, swirling around her talons and her beak. It reflected in her eyes. Tendrils of smoke leaked from the nasal holes in her beak. Her red-edged black flight feathers rippled silently in the light breeze coming off the water of the lake.

He watched her move. Not lithe, like a dancer. He’d been wrong.

She moved like a predatory bird. She watched everything and chose exactly when to strike.

Her movements as a woman closely mimicked the way she would fly and hunt. Isabell entranced Javier all over again. She had that effect on him, even in his direwolf form.

She skipped a few steps over the open ground. Then she was airborne.

He ran beneath her. She rode the drafts high into the sky as the moon rose in the early twilight. Seeing Isabell skim over the tops of the trees in the moonlight was unbelievably breathtaking.

He was crushing hard on her, even in their animal forms. Everything about her was elegant and intriguing. Javier wanted Isabell the way the Big Bad Wolf wanted Little Red Riding Hood in the song.

He watched her as the lone wolf stalked its prey. Then he realized she was watching him the same way. His heart beat faster.

She was hunting him just as he was hunting her. Javier had never wanted something as much as he suddenly wanted to know what it would be like if her hunt was successful.

Never had someone hunted him before. The thrill was unbelievable.

When he made it to the clearing at the top of the hill overlooking the lake, he pointed his muzzle to the moon and howled out his delight to the night. Then the most eerily haunting and piercing sound came back to him.

The phoenix was calling to him. Answering his howl, Isabell was speaking to the joy of the predatory flight. The sound echoed in the night, silencing the scurry of the small prey animals near him in the woods.

She made the call again, and he lifted his muzzle to answer her. She was calling him, and he understood her. He responded in the wolf manner, howling to her as if she were running in the forest near him. Then she plummeted out of the sky straight at him.

Javier cocked his head sideways and watched her speed towards him like a bullet. Her tail acted as a rudder to steer her body around the tree trunks as she dipped into the forest. The moonlight glinted off the red in her feathers making her appear to be flying in fire. It was a sight to behold.

Javier understood exactly why the legends claimed the phoenix rose from the ashes in flames to live again. Her immortality was breathtaking and hauntingly beautiful.

A few feet in front of him, she shifted her body, extended her wings, flapped twice, and lightly touched down. She side-skipped the ground towards him.

Javier stood straight and tall with his tail high above his back, waving stiffly like a flag. She dipped her head in submission to him and rubbed his neck with hers. When she stood again, she cawed softer, yet still piercingly to him. He howled softly back at her.

She turned to look at the lake. He nudged close to her and slipped underneath her wing and sat on his haunches to watch the water with her. Her flight feathers tickled his ear, making it twitch.

He was content to sit next to her and enjoy her company. But she needed to fly.

She leaned over and rubbed her head and beak over the top of his head. Then she hopped a couple of steps and leaped back into the night sky.

She called, urging him to follow her. He howled and raced after her under the moonlight through the trees.

She circled low over the lake, dragging the tips of her feathers in the water, creating ripples on the lake’s surface. Javier raced along the water’s edge, spraying water up as he went.

They played with the water, scattering it as they moved. The two of them then raced through the trees.

She was incredibly fast and agile. She should always fly. Never did he want her to be denied that freedom. She was a phoenix, and she should live as one.

He ran. Isabell chased him as he zigzagged through the forest. When they reached a small clearing in the forest on the opposite side of the lake, she nudged him off balance and rolled him over in the tall grass landing in a tangled heap on top of him.

Never had he wanted to play with such wild abandon and sheer joy. The animal lived in the moment and Javier didn’t want the moment to end.

Isabell Drakos took being an immortal shifter to a different level. He wanted to run with her as she flew. He wanted to play in wild places with her.

Free, alive, pure joy. They danced in his mind and his heart. That was why Luke wanted the retreat, claimed Eli, and desired a pack.

Light traced over him, and Javier shifted back to human without thinking. He was laughing hard at her antics. Blue flame engulfed her in a flash, and she was laughing on top of him. It was good, clean, beautiful laughter.

Thank you for your support! Welcome to the dream… Sincerely, -OK

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