There they sat, just as lovely, pale white against dark blue.
Oh yes. She was finished.
She glanced around. She could hear a woman's voice somewhere nearby, in the thick undergrowth.
She grabbed her camera hastily and snapped a photo of the two moons.
She heard footsteps crashing through the woods, leaves and branches snapping.
She crouched behind a tree and saw a woman running, a wolf trotting along behind her. She held her camera steady and activated the video camera.
Yikes. The wolf jumped on the woman and shoved her down on the ground, and stood over her, panting. Was this wolf going to kill this woman? Should she run at them, yell at them, try to scare him off?
Just as she was about to run forward to help, the wolf shifted to a naked man. A naked, naked, hot man. The woman laughed and pulled him close.
"Slow," the man joked.
"Only because I wanted you to catch me." The woman laughed, and the wolf-man began ripping her clothes away.
Esme fast-forwarded through the video rapidly, shoved the camera into her pocket, and took off through the woods, toward a clearing she saw in the distance.
The elk vale similarity was over. The area had been cleared and tilled, where in her world it was still woodland. She walked through the woods into an area where, apparently, some type of county fair was in progress. There were incredibly handsome men strolling around, and crowds of women who were finery-clad. She could hear music blasting from speakers hung on trees on street lights. In the distance, she could see tents and booths situated everywhere.
The men all had necklaces on of many colors, each with different talismans and tokens strung on them. She was quite sure that this meant they were werewolves, not human beings, and the tokens and talismans were showing packs in some manner.
She did not see any human men anywhere here, she thought. Only werewolves. Hunky, handsome, hot werewolves.
She saw a woman whip out her cellular and take a picture of two other women, between two werewolves. She saw the men half-shift, so that their heads became wolf but their bodies remained human. They threw back their heads and howled.
She reached into her bag and drew out her camera, snapping pictures for a minute, then put the camera back in her bag and stood there, trying to figure out what to do next.
One of the men suddenly stopped, tilted his head back, and sniffed. She stepped quickly back into the woods, hiding behind a tree.
"Did you smell that?" she heard asked.
"What?" another man answered him.
"I swear to god, i think it's…silver."
"Wha'? No way! Come on, man, no freakin' way would someone wear.hey, you might be right. I think i can smell it too."
She paled. Silver was bad? She had on sterling silver hoop earrings and a sterling silver bracelet.
She took off running running full speed into the woods, and quickly pulled off the earrings and bracelet, dug in the dirt with her fingers, and buried them.
Sincerely hoping she'd been mistaken, she brushed the soil from her hands, ran back over the clearing and peered about nervously. How many such things were there which she did not realize, that would get her into serious trouble?
A very good-looking young man, blond and with a whisker of beard, winked at her, and she blushed and turned away quickly. He'd likely winked at someone behind her, she decided.
maybe the best thing to do was stay there in the forest and wait and observe, at least for the time being.
As she made to depart, she ran into a chunky, beaming blonde wearing a large ring of blond ringlets.
She wore a red and white handkerchief print skirt, a white peasant blouse with red flowers embroidered on the neckline, and red sandals, and carried a big red bag.
"Hey! You appear lost. First time here?"
"Sorry?" she gazed about at the parking lot.
"First time attending the alpha claiming festival?"
Eww. Did that imply the gorgeous blond guy she'd seen herded her way had wanted to claim her? That was not probable–since when did a man that good-looking ever give a second glance to a woman like her?
"Uh…yes." She smiled nervously. "Is it that clear?"
"Don't mind it. It does look intimidating, I know. It's okay, everyone's very friendly, and of course, all you have to do is be here. You don't have to do anything that you don't want to but let me tell you, you'll want to do once you see the talent here."
Winked at her.
"Oh, and birthday happy 21st," said the woman, "my name is smith."
Esme was 24, but she smiled and just said "thank you!" So, women were meant to be here, but they only came to this festival when they were 21.
Okay, as long as she just pretended to be shy because she was at the festival for the first time, perhaps she could actually get away with this. She could have an excuse for being behind and not talking too much.
"Alright, alright," smith said. "I'll show you to the women's side. We can stop and get a drink first, though."
"Oh, I, uh…I didn't have any money on me."
Smith burst out laughing. "Money? Good heavens, neither did I. You know how alphas are, they're far too macho and chivalrous to ever let a woman buy them a drink."
"Yeah. Thank god for it," Esme stated happily. Hmph. Alphas were okay so far.
She followed along behind smith through the clearing and up a slope. The festival spread out before them looking sort of like any other country fair if you weren't paying too much attention.
There were food booths and bars and she could see a big stage where there was a band, and a group of wolves standing behind the band, howling on a regular basis to provide a chorus. There were vendor tents and vendor booths, and guys walking around in the crowd juggling fireballs, and seriously hot men everywhere flirting with gorgeous young women. It was like she'd walked into a convention for bodybuilders.
Esme was slightly underdressed; the girls were all dressed up to flirt, and she was in jeans and a buttoned blouse with a flower pattern. She'd tried to dress sensibly, thinking that she'd probably be sleeping in the forest. The last thing she'd have thought was that she'd find herself at this ginormous festival where thousands of human and werewolf were getting their freak on.
Nobody seemed to mind, however; she could have sworn that almost every man they walked by just stopped to give a respectful double glance. At home, nobody ever checked her out like that.
"So, where do you come from?" smith asked.
"Oh, up north," said Esme, waving her hand airily. "You?"
"An hour or so from here, a town called peakesville."
"So what do you do for work?" Esme asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from herself.
Smith shrugged. "I'm a starving artist, you could say. I waitress to make extra money, have some paintings in a gallery."
"Oh! Absolutely cool. I so wish I was creative. I'm a teacher." As they strolled, she knew she'd been right; all the male wolves were ogling her and smith.
"I'm not accustomed to all this attention," she breathed.
"Well, you must have anticipated it," smith replied.
She should have known why. "Oh?" she said, and said no more.
"Us bigger girls clearly have the advantage here. Notice how we're getting nasty stares from the skinny ones?"
"Now you mention it."
"You know werewolves. They like a woman with child bearing hips. I'll bet all these men are making googly eyes over us, wondering how many cubs we'd have."
Esme could not help but stifle a laugh.
"Not into wolves?" smith asked. "Not all girls are, obviously. If you're not, there's a whole bunch of girls who just hang out and bide their time by the women's quarters, until the festival's over."
The jury's still out," said Esme. She wanted to see what the human men in this world had to say about all these women having to socialize with werewolves. Too bad she couldn't question her directly.
"What about you?" she asked. "Do you enjoy them furry?"
Smith burst into laughter, tossing her head back and laughing so hard that tears streamed down her face. "Oh, that's hilarious.". I like you," she said. "I'll have to get your number so we can meet up some time after the festival. Yes, I like them furry. I'm looking at a certain pair, and as far as I can tell, the feeling's mutual. This festival may end in a claiming for yours truly. Wish me luck."
Esme glanced over at a group of men who stood by a light pole, gesturing towards it. There were three plastic balls hanging off the pole, and looked like a normal decorative lantern pole in her world, but its lights were flashing. When the men stood there, the light steadied up and was firm.
"Those men don't wear necklaces," Esme said, confidently.
"Naturally not. They're mages. They are not werewolves," smith clarified, looking at her oddly.
"Right. Oh. Sure. I know. Sorry, too much sun," Esme responded in a voiceless tone.
Smith was leading Esme to a bar as they spoke. It was an open-air bar that looked like a permanent festival structure, made of big round logs. A sign reading it as "the ozen and gray club" hung over the front. Women and werewolves were already crowding the front of the bar, and reggae music streaming out of the speakers.
They listened to reggae music, Esme was astonished. And for damn it, she liked smith very much. It totally sucked that she'd have to go and never see her again.
They reached the bar, which had a half-dozen bartenders shaking drinks as fast as they could. Their tip jars were already overflowing.
"Now what do we do?" Esme yelled to smith. "You're my guide."
"Let's just stand here and be adorable," smith yelled back over the music. "Someone will buy us a drink in sixty seconds."
They stood, and Esme felt a wave of warmth wash over her, as if clouds had lifted and a sunbeam had shone on her alone.
And then one of the guys in the bar turned to glance at her, and the floor dropped out of her stomach, and she stepped back.
Oh my god.
He was so handsome that he stole her breath. He was lean and muscular, with sleek brown hair she wanted to wrinkle her hands in and a square jaw. His mouth was full with the cupid's bow shape tip. His eyes were caramel brown – and he was looking at her like he wanted to devour her alive.
"What?" smith grabbed her arm and started dragging her toward him. "His name is finley, and his twin alfie. Finley's the nice one, alfie's a bit of an idiot but so bloody sexy. If I didn't love my guys so much, I'd be all over these two."
"Maybe I should wait," said Esme, a feeling of panic sweeping over her.
She could not help speaking to this adonis without giving away something absolutely idiotic. She was not used to having these kinds of hot men gazing at her. She and her sister used to be the invisible girls in elk vale – all except for scotts, and that was a shameless moocher and gold-digger.
Finley, my new best friend Esme. She's really quite funny and obviously smoking hot. Be nice to her or I'll beat you silly," smith said sweetly.
Finley ignored smith like she was invisible. He leaned in and grasped Esme's hand. She stifled a gasp; with his warm, hard palm covering hers, she felt a blazing tide of simple pleasure wash over her and she was painfully conscious that the panties were growing damp with the juices of excitement.
"Esme." Finley's voice was smooth and low and sexy. When he said her name, he stroked it with his voice somehow.
"Oh, my god, you are so amazingly…I mean, I don't….": Yep. She definitely had the small talk down pat. She sounded like someone had injected novocain directly into the speech center of her brain.
But he didn't seem to mind. He just looked at her with a mixture of lust and tenderness and possession like she'd never seen before.
"There is someone that you've got to meet," he said, pulling her with him through the crowd.