The Never Series
Never Two: Sarah Williams just bought an old Victorian house to celebrate her divorce from The-Good-For-Nothing that she wasted the last few years of her life on, but she's about to find out that her new home comes with a few extra surprises, not the least of which is an enchanted canine. J/S AU
Genre: Romance, Fantasy
Rating: M
Never Sit On A Werewolf
Part Two.
Sarah stared at the beast; he stared back. They were locked in the juvenile contest until she blinked, at which point he began to exude an overpowering smugness. She glared; he seemed to grin. She was fighting a battle of wills against a dog, and was losing. Maybe she was personifying him, maybe he was just staring at her and she was filling in the blanks by herself because, honestly, who wouldn't be a little paranoid after seeing a man turn into an animal?
A door opened and closed downstairs, followed by quick footsteps up the stairs. The dog's ears perked, and he turned his head just in time to watch Meg hurry through the door.
Meg was a curvy redhead with more freckles than actual skin tone, and had the sweetest brown eyes Sarah had ever seen. Usually Meg dressed in vibrant colors in clothes from nearly every era but the current one. However, at the moment she was wearing sweatpants and a threadbare T-Shirt, her hair in a wild disarray as she tried not to drop the large grocery bag she was carrying.
"I came as fast as I could," she panted, "but you didn't tell me what was wrong, so I wasn't sure what herbs to bring and—Holy shit, there's a wolf on your bed!"
"Really?" Sarah asked, sounding calm in spite of herself. "I thought he looked more like a husky."
Meg carefully set her bag on the floor and inched closer to the bed. "I'll grant that the markings can sometimes be similar," she agreed, "and, in terms of domesticated dogs, the husky does display the most wolf-like qualities."
"But?" Sarah asked dreading the answer.
"But even your biggest husky is usually going to be shorter than your smallest wolf," she answered, still inching forward at a slow and steady rate. "Your average gray wolf can get up to three feet from paw to shoulder. It's kind of hard to tell with him laying down, but I'm guessing he'd be a likely candidate for that height."
"What else?" Sarah pressed.
Meg gave her a funny look. "What else do you need? Isn't that enough?"
The dark haired woman jerked her head in negation. "I'm clinging to the idea of him being a dog, but I'm beginning to realize that it's probably not a safe or sane idea, so I need you to prove beyond a doubt that he cannot be someone's house pet."
"Well," she shrugged, "in conjunction with the height, there's a considerable difference in weight as well. A healthy male husky is only going to weigh about sixty pounds, but a male wolf can weigh up to a hundred pounds more than that." The canine in question sat motionless, his large furry body between Sarah and her friend, intelligent blue eyes watching Meg's slow progress across the room. "Their bone structure is a little different, too. Aside from the height, a wolf is going to have a longer and bit narrower muzzle, and a broader face."
"Alright," Sarah finally relented, "so he's a wolf. But why does he have blue eyes, then?"
Meg shrugged again, "Genetic mutation, cross breeding, hereditary trait; who knows? It isn't exactly normal on a grey wolf, but it isn't unheard of either."
The wolf stood up as Meg finally drew even with the bed, circling and moving around so that she was never at his back and never directly next to Sarah. Standing at his full height on top of the bed made him a good deal taller than Meg, and it was a fact that disconcerted both women. When the redhead extended a closed fist to him for inspection he obligingly sniffed at it, even gave a quick rub of approval, but when she reached out to Sarah his ears flattened and his lips pealed back, revealing many terrifyingly sharp teeth.
Meg withdrew her hand, but didn't move. "So here's my question to you," she murmured to the still motionless Sarah. "If you thought he was just a dog, why did you call me in such a panic?"
The wolf laid back down, practically draping himself across Sarah's lap, where she did her utmost not to touch him. "I don't know how he got in this afternoon," she replied, sighing. "All the doors where shut and locked, and yet there he was, sniffing around my living room."
"That's enough to unnerve anyone, I suppose," her friend nodded.
Sarah shook her head sharply. "Oh no, that's not it," she said slowly. "The real problem is going to sound crazy. He was here when I fell asleep; the wolf, that is. But when I woke up, there was a man leaning against my footboard instead. I told him to go away, and then he turned into the wolf."
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?" Meg asked quietly.
The dark haired woman frowned. "I distinctly remember waking up, and he was barely done shifting when I picked up the phone to call you."
Meg brought her hands together, nervously fiddling with her fingers. "Well, you did say you wanted a pet."
Sarah gave her an incredulous look. "Not one that could attack me in my sleep, honey, and certainly not one that was half man!"
The wolf looked up at that, ears perked forward and his tail thumped a few times against the edge of her bed. Now that the idea of him being a husky had been utterly destroy, Sarah finally realized how huge the beast was. Not only was he three feet in height, but he was probably close to six feet from the tip of his tail to his nose; he was longer than her bed was wide, which was probably why most of his tail was hanging over the edge.
"It's just…" Meg broke her out of her wolfy measurements. "It's not a full moon, and you said that he came to you in this form during the day as well. Somehow that just doesn't seem right."
"Meg, I just saw a man turn into a wolf, and you're going to argue semantics with me?" Sarah asked, waving her hands emphatically.
"No, but he's more like a werewolf in reverse: a wolf that can turn into a man instead of the other way around," Meg replied, trying to appease her friend. "Even accepting that werewolves exist, I've never heard of a story like this, have you?"
Sarah huffed in frustration and the wolf mimicked her noise, puffing hot air against her knees. "Nothing about this situation is normal."
The redhead shrugged uneasily, her eyes studying their canine subject. "I've just got a strange feeling that there's more at play here than we can see."
Sarah straightened at that. Meg was a practitioner of an obscure belief called Greencraft. She had once explained to Sarah that it had its roots in Old World paganism and Native American shamanism. Sarah had once asked if she fancied herself a witch. Meg had just laughed and said that she was a conduit for the powers of nature; if that meant someone wanted to call her a witch, then so be it, but she never referred to herself that way. There were times when Meg whipped out her collection of pungent herbs and tried to do something or other in the odorous rings of smoke they cast, but mostly her faith manifested itself in a soul-deep reverence for nature and all things connected to it. Meg believed in communing with her ancestors, and that everything—be it rock, plant, or creature—had a spirit and, as such, some kind of omnipotent protector. She had never discussed gods, but she had talked about resonating the power within to the surrounding nature in order to achieve some outward goal.
Sarah had stopped believing in magic ages ago, but Meg's intuition was uncanny and she had gotten her impossible way on more than one occasion. If Meg felt that something strange was going on—or rather, something stranger that they had yet to see—Sarah would listen. After all, this problem was beyond her scope of experience, and if Meg thought she was getting a handle on the situation then Sarah would be more than happy to leave it to her.
"So, I'm guessing burning a few bundles of sage and dragging him outside by a leash isn't going to help any, huh?" the dark haired woman finally asked, a note of sarcasm in her voice.
Meg snorted. "I suspect that we could try, but he isn't likely to do anything he doesn't want to, and at the moment it looks like he doesn't want to leave you." Her looked turn speculative. "I have a weird idea, but I'll need a few days to look into it."
Sarah's eyes rounded. "You can't mean to leave me alone with this monster!"
"It will only take a couple of days, I promise," the redhead soothed.
"Well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?" Sarah asked, sounding increasingly lost. The wolf sat up, rubbing his head under her chin, but the gesture didn't comfort her in the least.
"Take care of him, I suppose," Meg answered. "Look," she quickly cut off her friend's objections, "if he intended to hurt you, to hunt you, he would have done it already. He's been nothing but protective and affectionate since I've been here."
"Maybe he's just savoring the thought of how tasty I'll be," Sarah suggested morbidly, to which the wolf snorted.
Meg nodded. "I agree with him: you're being ridiculous." She held up a hand before her dark haired friend could comment. "Look, contrary to popular belief, wild animals only attack for a reason." The redhead picked up her bag of supplies and began to leave; however, she stopped in the doorway and threw a, "Just don't overexcite him and you'll be fine," over her should, then was gone.
Sarah managed to wiggle out from under her furry lap-warmer, and went to the window. "I don't care what Meg thinks," she murmured, watching her friend get into a beat-up old car, "I don't trust animals, and I definitely don't trust anything that can share a man's brain."
"That's really too bad," a smooth murmur came from right behind her. "We could have so much fun together."
She turned around slowly, but it didn't do her any good; she already knew that she was going to come face to face with the blond weirdo from before. And she was right; he stood just inches behind her, close enough to touch, the blue eyes of the wolf regarding her from a body that was human and male in all the essential ways, even if he was dressed like some eighteenth century fop.
"Are you going to do this a lot?" she asked snidely, trying to hold off the overwhelming reality of the situation by hiding in sarcasm. "Because I might develop a complex if you do."
"I thought your friend was quite knowledgeable," he changed to subject, "but I'm surprised at how readily she accepted the situation with no proof."
Sarah shook her head, unable to believe that she was about to have a conversation with the slice of a nightmare in front of her. "Meg has ESP; she's at one with the universe, or something like that."
"You don't believe it?" he asked, lips quirking into a playful smile that made her heart beat a little faster.
"Her I believe, because she's been right about too many things in the past for me to dismiss, but if anyone else tried to tell me that, I would probably think they're a lunatic," she replied. "Speaking of which, who are you?"
His smile deepened, revealing that even in his human form his teeth still retained their canine sharpness. "Jareth," he answered, bringing a hand up to trace the line of her jaw.
Sarah jerked back a step, but quickly found herself pressed against the window frame. "Let me rephrase that: what are you?" she asked, crossing her arms defensively.
He almost looked apologetic as he brought his hands up to either side of her head, effectively trapping her between him and the wall. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you, which is unfortunate because it does tend to impress," Jareth replied with an easy grin. "You have to figure it out on your own, then I can tell you."
"What's the point in that?" her brow furrowed. "By then I'll already know!"
He laughed, a deep sound that sent chills up her spine. "I don't make the rules, Sarah; I'm just bound by them."
His voice did wicked things to her name, things that made her glad she was divorced. "So, I'm guessing you're not a werewolf then," she stated, increasingly nervous with his close proximity.
He shook his head, causing a swath of blond hair to shade his eyes, lending them a further air of mystery. "I wasn't born this way or bitten by some poor villager who was frothing at the mouth, if that's what you were wondering," Jareth replied, moving one hand to fiddle absently with one of her earrings, "and the lunar phases have nothing to do with it."
Sarah shivered at his touch, grabbing him at the wrist to pull him away. He stopped but didn't move, his fingers frozen in a caress. "What do you mean?" she finally asked.
He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "You know that movie Disney that came out with not long ago, the one with the pirates? I'm like that."
"You're a pirate-zombie?" she asked sarcastically, trying to ignore his touch.
His perpetual grin turned wicked. "The moonlight shows me for what I really am," he answered just as the first rays of the morning sun peaked above the horizon.
"He said his name was Jareth," Sarah murmured into the phone, gazing sightlessly into the empty fireplace as she ignored the giant wolf head in her lap.
"Jareth?" Meg repeated. "That's sound familiar for some reason; I'll ask my Uncle Dillsby."
The wolf in question was making sad eyes at her and every once in a while he would rub his cheek against her legs, trying desperately to beg a pet out of her. "I thought your Uncle Dillsby was dead," she replied, ignoring the wolf.
Meg's snort was clearly audible from the other end. "That's never stopped me before. Besides, this is the sort of thing that Uncle lives for, or rather… unlives for."
"I'm not even going to try to understand that statement," the dark haired woman grumbled. "I just hope that you find something out," she said before hanging up.
Sarah had been on the verge of screaming ever since that morning. Watching a strange man turn into a wolf the moment he was touched by the sun was enough to put any woman out of sorts. And if that hadn't been enough, the damn wolf had never left her side; as a matter of fact he had been acting downright needy. Jareth had been taking any excuse to brush up against her, to lay his head in her lap, to press himself against her knees, or to lick her hand, and it was beginning to get on her nerves. If he had been a normal dog she wouldn't have felt so hostile; she probably would have started petting him ages ago. But he was neither normal nor a dog; every time she thought about simply giving in and running her hands over his thick coat she remembered that this was a wild animal, not a pet, and lurking somewhere in that wolfish body was the heart and mind of a man, and an annoying one at that if last night had been any indication. The itch to touch him always died a swift death when she thought that it wasn't really an animal she would be touching, but a man, and that made any caress strangely intimate, not to mention that she had sworn off men for the time being.
Jareth suddenly rose from the couch, padding his way across the room and down the hall before he sat by her front door.
Sarah followed him. "Halleluiah," she said quietly. "Does this mean you're ready to leave?"
His ears pressed back and the look he shot her was almost chiding, if a wolf could in fact give such a look.
"All right," she sighed in exasperation, "search me if I know what the hell you're thinking." she jumped when someone knocked on the door. "Well, that was creepy," she murmured to herself, regarding the wolf with narrowed eyes. Had he sensed the other's presence so greatly in advanced?
Sarah opened the door to a face that she had been hoping not to see for the rest of her life, if possible. He was a handsome man with dark hair and a perfect tan. He was also her scum-sucking ex-husband, Isaac, and she was no more thrilled to see him than if she had opened the door to find a dead horse on her porch. It was at times like these that she was glad she had opted for the screened door; at least it kept a barrier between them.
"Hey, babe," Isaac smiled, the smarmy charm rolling off him in waves. Luckily, she had grown immune to his over the top antics quite some time ago.
"I'm not your babe," she replied dispassionately, "I'm not your anything. We're divorced Isaac; don't make me file a restraining order on top of that."
"Is talking to me really so bad?" he asked, trying to make puppy eyes at her, but Jareth definitely had him beat at that.
"I would rather shoot myself in the foot with a nail gun than talk to you," she sighed angrily, "but seeing as I don't have one, I suppose I'll have to endure this torture. What do you want?"
Isaac made a thoughtful face. "I thought we were such a good couple, baby doll; I'm just trying to figure out when things went wrong."
She stared at him in incredulity. "Probably about the time that I realized you wanted a free ride more than you wanted a wife," she growled. "You know, for the longest time I couldn't figure out what had attracted you to me, my looks or my personality? But it wasn't either of those things; it was my healthy bank statement, wasn't it?"
Isaac reached for the screened door latch. "Let's just talk this over."
Jareth jumped up a moment before Isaac could open the door, laying his massive paws against the frame; he was nearly eye-level with her ex. His lips were pulled back and he was letting out a low, menacing growl. This wasn't at all like when Meg had tried to touch her; he hadn't really seemed offended then, and he had simply bared his teeth a little in warning. This, however, was full on guarding behavior born of anger.
Isaac quickly backed up a few steps. "Does he bite?" he asked worriedly.
Sarah smiled for the first time in what felt like days. "I don't know," she said flippantly, reaching for the door handle. "Want to find out?"
Isaac was off her porch and ducking into his car in the blink of an eye, a hurried, "We'll talk later," thrown over his shoulder before he was gone.
"Well," Sarah said, lifting a hand to rub the wolf between his ears, "that's certainly the most fun I've had since the divorce settlement."
Jareth seemed to freeze for a moment, paws still pressed the screened door frame, before he tilted his head back a bit, further into her caress.
Much too late, Sarah realized the mistake she had made.
A/N: Next week is going to be a bit crazy for me, so please keep that in mind if my next update (which will probably be for LFT) comes out a little late.
To those of you who are about to send reviews to me that I made a continuity error by talking about Pirates of the Caribbean, relax. This is an AU, which means that I'm taking the liberty of setting it in the present day, give or take a few years.
This story has required a bit of research on things that aren't easy to find (except for the wolf and husky information; that was all easy to look for). On the score of Greencraft, I apologize deeply because there were too many types of it for me to get a solid answer, which means I made up pretty much everything you see here. There's a third thing as well, but that won't come in until the next part, so hopefully I'll be able to find something on that by then.
I dedicate this part to BlueArcticWolf and Shadow-D'hampyr; it's thanks to these two wonderful reviewers that this part came so quickly, instead of weeks or months from now.
Please Review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth or Sarah. Disney owns itself and Pirates of the Caribbean.