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Sully

Four Years Ago

Our only excuse was that we’d been drinking, otherwise none of us would have gone anywhere near the west woods. That’s what I told myself, excusing our bad behavior. We knew they were out of bounds for a reason, and sober, we’d never have broken the rules. At least, that’s what I thought. I was sheltered, young, and so very stupid for trusting my “friends” that night.

“C’mon Sully! Dare you to go in!” one of the football team yelled. I couldn’t tell which one in the poor light. Was everything fuzzy at the edges? Clearly the alcohol was affecting me more than I’d thought.

The crowd of us, me, and some of the popular kids who made up our graduating class, were loitering in a cluster of trees not too far from the entrance to the west woods. I clutched the bottle of beer I’d been drinking in clammy hands. The buzz of the alcohol in my system made my reactions slower than normal.

My eyes about bugged out of my head when I realized where they meant. There was an old, partially overgrown track where a shed and mailbox sat not too far from where we were crowded.

Rumors said there was a house deeper inside, long forgotten and empty. No one knew if it was true because nobody went in there. I’d heard kids were arrested for just going inside the woods, not even all that far in!

“No way!”

There were boos and jeers. Cress, the fae star quarterback, slung an arm around my shoulders, pressing us close until we were cheek to cheek. The heat of his skin burned through the fog hindering my mind, lighting arousal instead.

“Sully, show us your wild side.” He ran his nose along my cheek, his lips stopping at the corner of my mouth. “If you can be brave, there’s a reward waiting right here for you.”

I didn’t dare move. Cress was everything I wanted in an alpha, not that I’d be allowed to date him. Mom would pitch a fit! Cress filled my dreams every night. If there was anyone out there hotter than Cress, then I hadn’t seen them. All I wanted was to be his. When it came, I wanted to give him my first heat.

There was laughter around the circle. Someone had lit a fire with their magic, chasing away the dark and filling the clearing with warmth. A few were roasting marshmallows on sticks while they swigged from beer bottles. I hoped they thought to place a silencing ward, otherwise we were going to get caught.

Cress squeezed me closer, his hand dangerously close to the curve of my ass as I sat on the log next to him.

My face heated. Cress was near enough we were sharing air! His proximity was overwhelming. I tried to take steady breaths and will my growing erection away. Did he really mean what he said? A reward? Did he mean a kiss?

I’d do just about anything for a kiss from Cress.

“Yeah?” I sighed. My hands were shaking. All I wanted to do was turn my head just a tiny bit and lock lips with Cress.

“A kiss for a flower from inside the woods. The prettiest one you can find.” There was a teasing quality to his voice I missed, too caught up in my longing for him.

More cheering and laughs. There was a new edge to the air. A secret I wasn’t a part of.

Later, I would realize they were playing with me. I was only there for their entertainment. A kiss from Cress was easy to come by and meant nothing to him. He told lies, whispered secrets, and stole love from willing saps like me to make himself feel good. Cress didn’t give a damn about me.

“Alright.” With difficulty, I got up on shaky legs.

Everyone followed me to the edge of the road. As a group we ventured deeper in, the trees and bushes rising up alongside us, obscuring us from view.

The rest paused at the beaten up mailbox. They ignored the shed in favor of watching me.

Cress stopped directly in front of me, making my heart stutter in my chest. He leaned in closer, cupping my cheek, his warm hand a brand on my skin. Closer and closer he came until once more we were touching, his mouth brushed my throat. All this teasing just to whisper in my ear.

“Pick me the prettiest flower you can find, one that makes you think of me, and I’ll make your dreams come true.”

I shuddered and had to lock my knees to stop me from fainting on the spot.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Good luck.” Cress moved out of the way to let me walk by him. His eyes gleamed with mischief.

The others closed in around him when I looked back nervously, Cress in the center, all of them watching me go. My footsteps were hesitant on the dirt path, but I walked slowly into the growing gloom.

Even though I knew it was wrong, that I was trespassing where I had no business being, I kept moving, desperate for a taste of Cress. I could still feel his hands on me, the touch lingering. Maybe it was just my foolishness.

Five minutes into my walk and I felt apprehensive. It was nearly impossible to see, even with shifter senses. How was I supposed to pick out a flower?

Leaving the path was my only option to find what Cress wanted. I really wished I had magic to conjure up a light so I could see.

Bushes pulled at my clothes. I got stuck a few times, having to pull myself free, tearing my t-shirt a couple times. My mom was going to murder me. Still, I ignored it all, determined to get what I wanted.

Finally, what felt like hours later, I found a patch of flowers. They were the pink of the dawn, and lit by the moonlight filtering through the trees.

I’d just picked one, the loveliest one of the bunch, when I heard it: a low rumbling growl.

The sound came from some bushes at the other side of the little clearing I’d gotten to. The same bush which held my shirt and my inhibitor, the only thing stopping me from smelling like prey to whatever was in the woods with me!

Moonlight illuminated the sandy brown body slinking out of the shadows.

A dog? What was a dog doing so far away from town?

Its teeth bared in a snarl. That wasn’t a dog!

Alarms flared in my mind. I was trapped in the woods, in the dark, without my scent inhibitor, with a dingo! The one creature a little quokka like me counted as their natural predator.

I was so fucked and not in the way I hoped I could convince Cress into doing.

“Hey, um, I know I smell tasty, but I’m a quokka…” I glanced down at the beast who was nearing me slowly, looking ready to pounce. “Uh, Mr. Dingo. Please, I’m… do you understand me?”

The look in his eyes was feral. He shook with the coiling need to pounce. There was no human intelligence like with normal shifters.

He was going to eat me!

Fear overtook sense and my shift fell over me. I twisted and struggled in my clothes, trying to escape them, and flee from the dingo.

As a quokka, my senses were better, my eyesight sharper, my sense of smell more defined. I was also much, much faster.

I hopped like my life depended on it, because it did, to the thinning trees, closer to the road, towards where I could smell the fire. The dingo barked and chased after me, his snaps and snarls driving me faster. He was so close!

My heart thundered in my ears. Panic shortened my breath. I felt like at any second he was going to catch me. Those sharp teeth would snap my neck if he got any nearer.

In the distance I could hear my friends still partying, celebrating our graduation, and getting more drunk. All I had to do was get nearer to them. One of them could fend the dingo off with their magic.

So close! I was nearly there. I glanced behind me. The dingo was gone. My pace slowed while I struggled to breathe. I didn’t dare stop until I was out of the woods.

Breaking out of the trees, I stopped sharply, panting.

“Look!” someone cried. “Isn’t that Sully?”

Unable to speak to them in this form, I shifted back, one hand automatically cupping my junk. In the other, I still held the damned flower.

“There’s a dingo! In the woods!” My words came out all strangled. “He tried to eat me!”

Then I fainted.

“Sully! Wake up!”

“Where the fuck are his clothes?”

“In the woods. D’you think he really saw a dingo?”

Someone laughed. “Nah, I think he was wasted, got scared, shifted and ran back here.”

“There’s no way he was chased here carrying a flower!”

More titters as I was hoisted into strong arms. The scent was all wrong for Cress. I must have whispered his name, half out of unconsciousness because I heard more giggles.

“Your boyfriend wants you, Cress!” I heard a girl say teasingly.

I was sure I was blushing the closer I got to being awake. I tried to protest, move, but the arms holding me locked down tightly.

“Shh,” the person holding me muttered. “Let them think you can’t hear them.” I held still, eyes closed against the shame as the others teased Cress over my apparently obvious crush on him and how pudgy I was. They said so many cruel things, I couldn’t stop a couple of stray tears from falling.

“The flower was pretty at least,” Cress said. I could just picture his perfect face. While I would have liked to have said my feelings withered and died, they didn’t. I was pleased he liked the flower. “Shame about his body. I thought shifters were all muscular.”

“Nearly at my car,” Stone, the one carrying me, said in an undertone. He asked someone to open the back for him and laid me down gently. The guy was a gargoyle and very muscular for his age. I was impressed with how strong and careful he was. My weight hadn’t seemed to bother him at all. He found a blanket and covered me with it before saying his goodbyes and getting into the car.

“Wait until I pull away before you get up.” The car rocked as it made its way over the grass and onto the road. “You’ll be home in a minute. Are you okay?”

“Do you believe me?” I stayed where he left me, too despondent to move.

“I think you saw something that scared the shit out of you.” I got up and caught his kind eyes in the rearview mirror. “We had no business sending anyone in there alone. It’s lucky you’ve only got a few scrapes and you’ve lost your clothes.”

“Fuck, my phone too! My mom is going to kill me.”

“I’m sure she’ll just be happy you’re okay.” How I wished those words were true right then .

“You don’t know my mom.”

Mom was, predictably, pissed. She hid it well until Stone drove off then rounded on me with a million questions all while she treated my cuts and scrapes.

Eventually, I was able to get the story out. I could tell straight away she didn’t believe me. No one did. Why would they believe I saw a dingo in the woods or that it tried to eat me?

Dad convinced her to at least call the sheriff. A couple of deputies came out, and a group went into the woods to check.

Hours later they returned with my clothes and phone. They also had a stern warning for me not to go into the woods again since I was jumping at shadows and wasting their time, or I’d end up in jail for the night. They’d put me in front of a judge for lying and breaking the town rules.

I never felt so ashamed. Had I really made it all up?

There was proof I hadn’t when I caught the scent of the dingo on my stuff. He’d chewed one of my shoes! It had happened!

Angry no one would believe me, I threw the evidence in the back of my closet and stayed home for a while, waiting for it all to blow over. Everyone would have something new to talk about soon.

Like Cress, and his boyfriend, Frost. They were the talk of Haenvale.

My friends came over to see me. They tried to convince me that no one was talking about me. All it took was one visit to Rosie’s to show that was a lie. Everyone was still laughing about me. They hadn’t forgotten about me escaping the woods, bleeding and scared. They thought it was hilarious. No one thought there was a dingo, until Trisha visited my house.

I showed her the shoes and finally, someone was on my side!

“Babe, that’s so scary! Anything could have happened to you!” She folded her arms around me, her wings shimmering in the sunlight filtering through the window.

“Right? I need your help. I need you to convince my mom to let me go to college early.”

Trisha eyed me with doubt. “Ain’t no way.”

“I need to get out of here. I’m a laughing stock!”

Her brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Hmm, maybe we can go visit my aunt until it’s time for college to start. She lives in Westerlake. It’s a haven, too. We can tell your mom she’s going to do a makeover for you or somethin’ like it.”

“If she can get my mom onboard, she can do a whole body makeover on me. You didn’t hear them, Trish. They were so cruel.”

“Oh, honey.” She squeezed me to her. I’d never been more grateful for her friendship.

Against all odds, Mom agreed. Maybe she’d heard some of the things the town was saying about me. Maybe she just liked the idea of Trisha’s aunt whipping me into shape for the matchmaking Mom would do when I got home from college.

Either way, I didn’t care. I was grateful to get away from Haenvale, the whispers and the shadow of the dingo in the woods.