Chapter 34: Isabelle

Wes called the ranch several times that night to ask after Isabelle. The first few times, she found a way to dodge the call but she finally accepted the last one, sickened even by the sound of his voice.

“Got anything for me?” he asked. She could hear him chewing as he spoke to her, and it turned her stomach. “I need a lead, Isabelle. Something to go on here.”

“You understand that you literally just gave me this assignment, right? I’m still doing preliminary ground work out here. Give me a god damned break.”

“Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing, sweet heart: giving you a break. This is what you’ll need to really jump start your career.”

Bile rose in the back of her throat. As if she had been sitting on her hands for the past five years; as if he hadn’t overlooked her dedication and excellent work when she had delivered it to him. He wanted to be the one in control of her destiny, the one who got the credit when she suddenly outranked him in the public eye.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve got something,” she told him, ice and fire in equal measures. “For right now, leave me be so I can work.”

“Listen, Isabelle, we’ve got some idea of where to start. You can poke around those little towns all you want but you’re right where you need to be. The ranch is lousy with those shifter types. I know it is.”

She was alone in the kitchen, pressing the phone hard against her ear. Tara and Cormac had left to give her some privacy but now she wished they were here. She wished there was someone able to share what she was going through. All three of them had something on the line; everyone involved was in some kind of terrible danger.

The glowing feeling she had had earlier after she and Cormac kissed was declining rapidly. She had allowed herself to be warm and satisfied for the smallest moment, and now she felt bitter and cold all over. The idea of turning these people in, making spectacles and freak shows out of creatures just trying to live quietly, didn’t sit well with her but then again, neither did getting slaughtered in the desert by a pack of wolves. Having only known Cormac for about a week, she already trusted him more than she trusted anyone she worked with back in Denver. She was growing closer to Tara as well, and though Joey was off putting to her, Clint and the other ranch hands had been inviting and accommodating. Clint had even whispered a ‘congratulations’ to her after Cormac announced the reason for her staying around.

Ambition had been a driving force for her since she was a kid. Isabelle always aimed to be the best at what she was doing. Whenever she was told that something wasn’t possible, she found a way to do it. Despite respecting and even admiring the shifters at the ranch, she knew it was hard for her to pass over an opportunity. This was a story of a lifetime. It was the kind of thing journalists dream about covering. Outside of the National Enquirer or some other tabloid that specialized in alien abduction and Bat Boy, most news didn’t delve too deeply into the unknown. This was her chance to do something different, something radical; to be someone who stumbled across the mysticism woven into reality.

But either way, she didn’t have much proof of anything. She had the film, now hidden somewhere deep in her luggage, and she had Cormac admitting that it was all true but that wasn’t enough. If he came along and shifted in front of people then fine but for the present moment, she was in the same spot she was the day before. Or a slightly better spot since she was less worried about being attacked and murdered.

She took a shower before dinner, standing in the hot stream until her skin felt almost raw. There was a dirty feeling that she couldn’t wash off, and she was tired down to her bones. Sleep hadn’t come easily to her out here. She was hoping tonight would be different.

“You look much better now,” Tara said when Isabelle emerged from her room freshly showered and smiling. “You look ‘appy.”

“I was so dirty and I didn’t even do much of anything that physical today. This desert dust just sticks to me like glue.”

Aside from rinsing the dust off of her, she had taken a moment in the shower to slip a finger between her legs and stroke her clit. It was stiff and sensitive under her touch as if it had been ready for this all day. When Cormac kissed her on the couch, a burst of liquid had flowed out of her. More than she had ever experienced before. She had hoped to god that none of it had leaked through her pants. Cormac didn’t seem like the type to be an asshole about something like that but she knew how squeamish some men got around the realities of the female body. It leaked and bled and had all sorts of places to poke into. Isabelle had thought it more amazing than the rest of the world did, apparently.

Her finger slipped inside of her, and she pictured Cormac naked and aroused. She wasn’t sure how big his cock was but she decided it was big, well shaped and beautiful. In her mind, she dropped to her knees in front of him, telling him he could do whatever he wanted with her.

“Because you trust me,” he said, the head of his erection making its way towards her mouth. “Because you know you’re safe with me.”

Like most women, Isabelle had spent her life looking over her shoulder for danger. At work, on the street, everywhere she was there were people who could assault her without a second thought yet with Cormac, the leader of a pack of unbelievable creatures who hunted for fun, she didn’t feel a threat. Even when he was undecided about what to do with her, she knew in her gut that he wasn’t going to hurt her. He wasn’t the type of man to do damage for no reason.

She sucked him off in her mind; he bent her over and spread the lips of her pussy apart, licking every fold and curve he could find. Her tits were suckled; she bit into his shoulder as he eased his thick fingers inside of her.

“How badly do you want to get fucked?” he asked in a breathy, heaving voice. “What would you do to get this cock in you?”

“Anything you wanted,” she promised in a matching tone. “Anything you asked of me.”

She came hard as the image of Cormac in her head pounded her out. For a moment, she swore she felt the thickness of his cock stretching her wide, felt his fingers fluttering over her clit until she was shaking and trembling with pleasure. There weren’t enough men interested in how well their partners came but something told her Cormac did. Something told her he was a generous and dominant lover. If there was such a thing, Cormac was it.

Once she came, she stayed in the hot stream of the shower. In the distant world of the kitchen, she was sure she heard the phone ringing again. It would be easier to speak to Wes now. She was more relaxed, less on edge and tight with pent up sexual frustration.

The three of them ate dinner together, Isabelle and Cormac exchanging looks whenever they thought Tara wasn’t paying attention.

“Can I ask you two questions about being shifters?” Isabelle covered her mouth as she spoke, worried there was food in her teeth. “Nothing too personal.”

“You can ask me anything at all,” Tara told her.

“You can ask me anything but I can’t promise I’ll answer,” Cormac tacked on.

“Tell me about growing up as a shifter. Do you know as a kid that you have this ability or does it start later in life? Like after puberty or something?”

Tara shook her head. “All my life I know it. I started being able to shift ‘round five years old. My father ‘elped me to turn the first time then told me to keep doing it.” She smiled nostalgically. “‘E said it was like anything else: ya ‘ave to keep practicin’.”

“Did it hurt the first time?”

“It hurts every time,” Cormac jumped in. “You get used to some of it but it’s your whole body taking on a different form. It’s not easy.”

“But it really ‘urts the first bunch of times,” Tara said. “I thought I was dyin’ when I ‘ad to do it.”

“Walk me through the process. I’m curious how it all works.”

Cormac put his fork down on his plate and sat there with a puzzled look on his face as if he wasn’t even sure where to start describing it. Isabelle was transfixed by the sight of him so pensive and lost in thought that she very nearly leaked through her pants right then and there.

“At first, ya gotta focus on something deep inside of you,” he said, touching his hand to the space below his ribcage. Isabelle knew that was where his diaphragm was; she wondered if he knew that too. “There’s...I’m not sure how to say it, a power source that ya learn to access. But ya gotta find it before ya can. That’s why it hurts so much when you’re first startin’: sometimes ya lose the connection to the source, and the shift stops halfway through.”

Isabelle shuddered. “Jesus christ, that sounds terrible.”

“It can be,” Tara agreed. “It ‘appened to me a lot but one time it ‘appened when I was alone and very young. I couldn’t complete the shift and I also couldn’t turn back. I thought I’d be stuck the way I was forever, and I wanted to cry but when I tried to do that, all I could do was ‘owl.”

Cormac snickered lightly at the image of it then Tara joined in. Isabelle let herself follow their lead only after it seemed like it was alright to laugh. She didn’t want them to think she found any of this funny. If anything, she was dumbstruck and fascinated by it, not amused.

“What ya saw with Clint that other night was kinda like that,” Cormac told her. “He’s gettin’ on in years and havin’ trouble shifting the way he used to. Some people never lose it but some people can’t connect to the power source as easily when they get older.” He glanced at Tara. “You never had that problem. I see ya shifting as ya run towards the chicken coop to chase out the coyotes.”

“I am stronger than Clint,” she said without a note of pride anywhere in her voice. She wasn’t bragging or putting Clint down. She was merely stating a fact. “And I keep myself in shape. My father shifted all the time just to stay good at it.”

“It hasn’t gotten any harder for you as you’ve gotten older?” Isabelle asked, and Tara sighed. Her eyes moved to the window, the tattered drapes and the out of reach horizon.

“Everything gets ‘arder,” she said after a moment.

“So shifting feels the aging process like everything else?”

Tara shook her head again. “It’s more than that. Shifting still not a problem but I see ‘ow few of us are left and I see ‘ow many of us don’t take our gift seriously anymore. I get sad now more easily. I feel pain ‘arder than I used to.” She looked at Cormac, her eyes bright with those tears that never seemed to roll down her face. “And I remember what this place used to be like.”

“It will be like that again,” Cormac said, averting his eyes as he spoke.

“What did it used to be like?”

Neither Cormac nor Tara looked like they wanted to answer. Isabelle had assumed the peeling paint and decrepit bits of the ranch were just normal, the wear and tear of a place so exposed to the elements. She hadn’t considered that these structures were being forgotten, that the entire plot of land was being neglected, whether it was due to pain or age or any other reason used.

“It was lovely,” Cormac said after a long beat. “My father ran this place like a proper business. He kept it up in a way I never could.”

“You can, Cormac,” Tara insisted. “You can be ‘appy again. You can put this place back together.”

The screens and window panes rattled in their frames, the nighttime desert wind rolling in strong. Clouds were gathering together in the distance, and Isabelle could see the raindrops falling miles away from them. Dinner was finished in silence. For the rest of the evening, Cormac barely raised his head.

Alone in her room that night, Isabelle thought about him again but couldn’t bring herself to masturbate. The broken expression on his face had drained the lust right out of her. She wondered if he could actually care about her the way he did Maxine or if she was kidding herself into thinking there was anything more between them than simple animal attraction.

Flat on her back and plunged into the windy night the desert provided, Isabelle listened to the storm creeping closer and was relieved when the sound of rain took over the spinning thoughts in her head so she could finally go to sleep.