Chapter 44: Isabelle
Both Isabelle and Cormac were amazed at how comfortably Isabelle fit into life in the desert. Unlike Cormac, she was more inclined to spend time in the nearby towns and often convinced him to join her on weekends in Santa Fe.
“A little culture won’t kill ya,” she joked to him as she brought him to fancy restaurants and ordered fancy cocktails he never really liked. “After this, I promise we’ll find a place to fuck in the dirt like animals.”
A local news station had hired her to do human interest pieces, and she snickered at the idea of it. “Human interest,” she said, thrilled about the job, thrilled to be doing what she loved again. “I suppose I’m still human enough for that.”
It surprised everyone but Isabelle especially how quick she had taken to the lifestyle. Whatever she was leaving behind in Denver didn’t have its teeth in her the way Cormac or the desert or running at top speed, a speed she never knew she could get to, through the sand at night did. Though she missed how easy it was for her to disappear into a crowd in cities and the fact that she could go for days without speaking to another person if she wanted to. Living with the shifters was immersive; even in the vast void of the ranch there was always someone around. She had spent so much of her life being able to pick up and leave, follow a whim or a story and return when she felt like it, and now there were people who expected to see her face as they arrived. People beyond Cormac and Tara calling her family, telling her she was part of them.
One thing that made Cormac nervous was how casually Isabelle asked him questions about shifter rituals and rules. Sometimes even the answer he gave her wasn’t sufficient, and she’d push harder, asking follow up questions that turned the crest of cheek the color of blood.
“Shifters don’t like to talk about this kind of stuff,” he told her repeatedly.
“Is there a reason why not?”
“We just don’t.”
Isabelle didn’t accept that as an answer. There was a whole world that managed to keep itself alive and hidden with meanings and traditions they wouldn’t let anyone trace. She began to wonder if this culture was as old as everyone kept telling her; that maybe all these bits and pieces had been made up recently, thrown together to remain under the radar in an increasingly connected world.
The one thing she knew was that Cormac was not interested in talking but she always found a way. Late one night as he sat finishing his beer on the couch, Isabelle crouched in front of him and brought his cock out of his pants.
“Just what do ya think you’re doin’?” Cormac asked, one swig away from the end and savoring it in tiny sips.
“Sucking your dick,” Isabelle answered, nonchalantly. As if it was what she did at this time of night.
“What for?”
“I gotta have a reason now?”
Cormac pulled Isabelle up onto the couch. His expression was stern, and he pressed a finger to the side of his nose. “You don’t smell horny.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“What’s this about?”
Isabelle sighed and threw a long leg over his lap, pressing her lips together before letting them curl into a smile. “I have an idea for a project. A long term thing.”
“Oh yeah?”
“What if we started doing more research into the shifter culture? Found other packs outside of New Mexico or Denver, collected their stories. You could learn where some of these traditions come from. Why all these rules exist.”
Cormac shrugged her off but he knew she wasn’t easily dissuaded. It was too much to explain to someone still very much on the outside of the world. Isabelle was part of their pack, and her bond to him meant something but she didn’t grasp what she was dealing with, the kind of people most shifters are.
“Those guys up there on the plateau are much closer to a typical shifter than our pack,” he told her even as her hand closed around his stiff cock. “Shifters aren’t always an upstanding bunch.”
“But your pack is? Your pack is all about owning your decisions and protecting your culture and the rest are trash?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly!” Isabelle sat back on her haunches, her hand moving away from pleasuring him. “How many packs do you know outside of the ones in this area?”
“One or two,” Cormac admitted.
“One or two? You only know one or two and you talk about it like you’ve been there, done that.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “How many packs do you think are out there?”
Cormac shrugged. “I don’t even have a guess.”
Isabelle let out a strangled shout so brutish that it startled Cormac. “You don’t even know your own people! You don’t know where the rules come from, you don’t know who else is out there. Cormac, you’re curious about everything and you’re not curious about yourself?”
“Listen, it’s different, alright? Shifters don’t love to talk to outsiders, and they sure as hell don’t like those outsiders writin’ shit down.”
“It’s a long term thing,” Isabelle said, slipping closer to him again. She pressed her mouth to his neck. “We can start small. See where it takes us.”
Cormac leaned his head back, giving into the soothing warmth of her lips. “That’s how you function, ain’t it? Just see where it takes ya.”
“Brought me here, didn’t it?”
“Brought you here.”
As Isabelle made her way to Cormac’s mouth and he pulled her onto his lap, there was a moment where he thought to himself that he was going to help her; that he did want to know the things she was asking. Isabelle giggled and shivered as he thought it.
“What’s so funny?” Cormac asked.
“Nothing,” Isabelle answered, calmly. “I’m just happy. That’s all.”
“Just a little thing like that.”
Cormac kissed her hard, their bodies rocking in sync together. Somewhere outside the window, in the cool blue desert night, a wolf threw back its head and howled.
The End.