Ian's Choice (Wolves' Heat)

by Lynne, Odessa

  Ian didn’t believe it was his fault that Devon couldn’t control his brash temper or his dumbass tendencies, but Ian knew Devon, knew how he would react in the end, and he’d suspected those men were up to something, suspected Brendan even for introducing them all, and he could have stopped it and he hadn’t.

  But Ian did have to bide his time with Craig because he wasn’t foolish enough to try to leave during heat season, not while Craig’s instincts were pulled as tight as a bowstring.

  He could look back on his actions of the past few days and accept that maybe he’d chosen badly a few times at the start of all this and he and Craig both had to live with the consequences, but he’d always had a choice.

  He wasn’t letting Craig steal that choice from him now.

  But his constant refrain to submit wasn’t working for him now, and Ian reached up over his shoulder and grasped Craig’s wrist where his hand still rested on the back of his neck. He wanted to pull it loose. He didn’t want the reminder of having himself wrapped up around Craig and Craig wrapped around him, fucking, mating, as if they really did have some kind of screwed up future waiting for them, despite the instincts and the human scent triggers that could steal all reason from Craig at the least provocation for nearly a month every three years. Humans had yet to fully understand or appreciate any of those instincts in any way that made things better or easier between themselves and the wolves.

  Ian relaxed his hand because Craig wasn’t budging and Ian’s common sense finally overcame his anger.

  He ignored the twinge of whatever the hell it was in his gut telling him he was overreacting and waited for Craig to say something. He frowned harder when he realized Craig looked…confused. Wary. Uncertain. But he seemed to be studying Ian, trying to work through whatever it was keeping that look on his face.

  “It’s heat season,” Craig said, “and we’re going to mate. If you leave, every instinct I have will drive me to do whatever it takes to bring you back.”

  Ian looked away, not wanting Craig to catch his gaze, to figure out any of the thoughts going through his head.

  One of the other wolves spoke up, sounding hesitant, but determined. “It’s a great honor to have our Alpha willing to kill to keep you.”

  Ian made a face at that comment. He wasn’t sure what it looked like, but he glanced around to see Craig frown and his eyes flicker between Ian and his guys.

  “Okay,” Ian said. “It’s an honor.” He looked at Craig, who stared intently back at him. “So I don’t go if they want me to come with them. I’ll tell them I twisted my ankle or something—I’m still limping anyway—and they won’t want me to slow them down, I’m sure. Not when they’re in a hurry to get their intel back to the main group.”

  Craig’s frown deepened. “So you didn’t want me to remind you how dangerous it is here for humans now? That your actions have consequences that will affect everyone?”

  “I know all about consequences, okay? Living with them every moment of the day right now. Thanks.”

  Ian refused to meet Craig’s eyes. He stared down at the jut of Craig’s collarbone instead, shifted his weight to ease the ache starting up in his leg again, and wondered what it was about the wolves that made their bones and skin and organs so much more resilient than humans. How did they heal so quickly from such horrific wounds? What made them so damn special?

  “I get it, okay? I won’t leave the area where you drop me.”

  “He doesn’t understand at all,” Ian heard one of the two females say in the wolves’ language, low and to his side. “They’re too different.”

  He looked around Craig’s shoulder to see that she was one of the mated pair of wolves who had watched Craig feed him that morning. She looked back at him with a frown of her own, eyebrows sharply creased over brilliant blue eyes, glimmering inhumanly bright, brighter than Craig’s eyes, a distinguishing feminine trait Ian had never noticed in any of the female wolves he’d ever met, until this heat season. Of course, he’d stayed safe during every other heat season so he couldn’t say what happened then. He’d heard females also put on weight in the year leading up to the heat cycle, and he could see that the two females here were voluptuous and curvy by human standards.

  He huffed out his breath. If not for the way he smelled, he wondered if Craig would have been interested in him at all outside of the heat season. He was young and fit and the only curves he had were those formed by muscle and bone. And then, why the hell was he even thinking that shit?, because he didn’t care. He’d rather not be wanted by a wolf, ever.

  And then in another tangent that made him question at his sanity he wondered just how many gay wolves existed. He didn’t know enough about the wolves to know if being gay was considered a normal thing for them.

  How many wolves had found themselves attracted to a male for the first time only after coming into contact with humans and the trigger of heat season and the human scent?

  The wolves had so many superficial similarities to humans that it was tempting to assume they shared the same human feelings and emotions, but then things like heat season and their mating practices threw their culture and their ways into stark relief against human culture, or those parts of human culture Ian knew and understood. Even he realized there were some human societies that didn’t fit what most of the rest of humanity had called normal before the wolves came.

  It hit him hard that the female wolf was right. They were too different and there was so much he didn’t understand.

  “As long as you do your part, they won’t die,” Craig said.

  “Great,” Ian said, turning his attention back to Craig, sighing at the relief of having his thoughts diverted back to his anger. “What if they try to force me to go? Am I going to get caught in the middle when your guys try to stop them and end up dead anyway in a mating frenzy or something?”

  Craig dipped his head and sniffed loudly against the side of Ian’s throat, dragging his nose up behind his ear. “You haven’t showered since you were injured. You smell filthy with my semen. As long as no other pack comes around, you’ll be safe even when no one else is. My betas won’t touch you because they know I’ll tear them apart if they do. What happened to the one you call Third is still very fresh in their minds. Trust me. Haven’t you seen them watching you? They smell it all over you and it makes them nervous because they know what I’ll do if any of them come too close.”

  Ian swallowed, taken aback at the absolute satisfaction in Craig’s voice. He nodded.

  Craig continued, as if he thought Ian needed further reassurance. “I’ve chosen carefully who goes and who stays behind, and even of those that go, no one should get close enough to catch a scent and lose control. If anyone succumbs to a lust craze, they’ll have a mate along to deal with it.”

  “Okay.”

  Craig took his hand off Ian’s neck, surprising him, and then surprised him again by hugging him, right there in front of everyone. He felt warm breath at his neck and Craig’s tongue on the column of his throat, and remembering all the times Craig had done just the same to him in bed made him feel awkward and embarrassed. But he made himself relax into Craig’s hold despite all that, before his reaction could be mistaken for resistance.

  Too many wolves watched for Ian to feel comfortable, but submission was definitely the way to go, a thought proven correct when Craig sighed softly against his skin and Ian felt more than heard a low rumble against his chest that sounded like the satisfaction that usually preceded Craig falling asleep while curled up around him.

  Craig released him and put one of his hands on Ian’s shoulder. “It’s time to go.”

  As they were leaving, Ian could hear a few of the wolves still in the room talking. According to Craig, these were the wolves who would be watching Ian in the woods while he waited for the renegades to find him.

  “The Diviners warned of a turning point,” someone said.

  “Death before peace,” another replied. “You don’t think—”

&nbs
p; “Fate can’t be stopped. We will follow our Alpha and entreat the universe for mercy. It’s all we can do.”

  “His human doesn’t get it. He’ll be the death of us all.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Our submission to Alpha Craeigoer gives us honor even in death if that’s our fate today.”

  Ian wished to hell he hadn’t heard that last bit. Craig pulled the door closed and with a hand on Ian’s shoulder led the way down the three short steps to the trampled grass and crackling leaves below.

  Chapter 17

  It certainly wasn’t Ian’s intent to start a war, but if the dumb shits who had been sent to meet up with him had their way, there’d be war.

  It had taken ten long hours for the renegades discover that the tracking beacon had begun signaling its location again and decide to send Marcus and Mason, a set of twins with too many weapons and not enough common sense, to check it out.

  Ian had spent those ten hours bored out of his mind, sleeping a time or two, mostly just fiddling with the phone he’d been given with the pictures of the wolf den while his leg ached more with every passing hour. The rain held off, the clouds skimmed by, and then more rolled in. He sat on a stump; he paced; he finally stretched out on the bumpy earth with his back against the same damn tree stump, because his rear end couldn’t handle the lack of padding, because he was still sore from spending the last few days as Craig’s heat mate and taking it up the ass every time Craig got a whiff of his fucking irresistible body odor, and frankly, he was in a foul mood.

  Pissed off and not appreciative of the guys’ absolute determination to be helpful.

  “We can rig up a stretcher and pull you along if you really can’t walk,” Marcus said, giving him a look that said he thought maybe Ian was a pussy for complaining about a twisted ankle so much, and Ian had to grit his teeth to keep from punching him. God Almighty. What was wrong with these guys?

  “Look,” he said, and he hopped another time or two just for show, and then wrapped his arm around the truck of a narrow tree to hold himself upright on one leg. “I don’t want to slow you down. Don’t you get it? This place is huge, important, and they already abandoned the last one. You might not get another chance like this. Wiping out a den this size would—” Start a war wasn’t what he needed to say so he changed tactics with a loud grunt of aggravation. “Would be a huge victory. If—uh—” He stuttered to a stop.

  He couldn’t mention Brendan’s name out loud. He had wolves listening to everything he said. “If someone told you to make sure I was okay, you don’t have to worry. I’ll explain everything when, uh, when he gets here.”

  Not using someone’s name when you were thinking about that person was harder than it should have been. Exhaustion, maybe. Irritation, definitely.

  Mason stepped up to his side and tried to pull Ian’s arm over his shoulders. “Rain’s coming.”

  “Fuck the rain,” Ian said, a touch of panic starting to wend its way through him. He shook Mason’s hand off. “I’m not leaving.”

  They were going to die, all because they wanted to help him.

  He took the phone out of his pocket and shoved it at Mason’s stomach, hoping he would take it this time. He did, with a short grunt and a scramble when the phone almost dropped to the ground. He gave Ian a look that said “what the hell” better than words and then shoved the phone into his pocket.

  “I lost my gun, so I need a replacement. Oh, and a knife.” Because of course he’d ask for one. “You saw the pictures,” Ian said, gesturing. “They tell you what you need to know.”

  Marcus came up on the other side of the tree. For the first time since their arrival, his eyes glinted with suspicion. “You never really said how you hurt your ankle. When did you take the pictures?”

  “Before I twisted my ankle,” Ian said pointedly. He waved in the general direction of the wolves’ den. “That’s why I stopped here, I stepped in a hole somewhere back there. A stump had rotted out or something, I don’t know.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose against his shoulder, mostly as a delay, waiting to see what Marcus would say.

  Marcus stared at him with narrowed eyes but when Ian didn’t say anything else, he glanced away, and then over at Mason.

  “If you get caught, don’t expect a rescue. He might have wanted you in, but I couldn’t give a damn one way or the other. Your friend did his part. I guess you’ve done yours.”

  Ian didn’t think he was supposed to notice Mason’s careful nod but he did and he had only a moment to figure out what it might mean. Nothing good, he realized in a flash.

  “Fuck,” he said, dropping his foot to the ground and jabbing his fist at Mason, catching him in the jaw, and jerked his other arm back to elbow Marcus right under the chin in a move he hadn’t had to use on anyone in at least a year.

  His grandfather would have been proud. He’d taught Ian everything he knew about fighting in the years before he died, and Ian had kept up that practice in a world falling apart after the coming of the wolves.

  Marcus dropped, but Mason stumbled backward a few steps. Ian didn’t give him time to recover. He launched himself forward, ignoring the burning pull in his calf muscle and came down on Mason heavy. He ducked and blocked a sideswipe from the rifle, the jarring impact on his forearm and shoulder hurting like a son of a bitch, but he used his leverage and punched Mason in the side of the temple.

  Two strikes to the face and Mason was out. Ian grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet and dusted his knees off.

  What the hell was he supposed to do now?

  He heard the rustle of leaves as he collected Mason’s and Marcus’s rifles and smaller guns, a couple knives and three clips. He hefted one knife in his hand before slipping in into the empty sheath sewn onto the side of his boot where his own knife used to reside. If Craig demanded he get rid of it, he could always give the knife up then.

  He really had no idea what to do with the guys. He had a feeling the wolves wouldn’t want them left here, but at the same time, Ian didn’t want to be responsible for the guys being taken to the wolves’ den. Not during the heat season, and not while the wolves’ had no drugs to keep the human scent from driving any of the wolves to try to make a claim. Marcus and Mason were both young, about Ian’s age, and prime targets for the wolves. As part of the renegade human forces, the likelihood either of them would have the common sense to submit was almost zero.

  Another crackle sounded and he turned to watch the stealthy approach of the wolves who had escorted him into the area nearly ten hours earlier before they had blended back into the woods to wait a distance away somewhere between his location and the closest perimeter marking the boundary of the wolves’ den.

  Craig had not come with them, even though he had watched Ian go with his betas with a look on his face and a harsh growl that said a lot about how much he didn’t like the idea of Ian leaving his side. Ian had found Craig’s discomfort reassuring and he wasn’t quite ready to admit why. He liked Craig. Too much. Especially considering he hardly knew him at all. But the things he’d seen, the way Craig kept himself under tight rein and how he treated Ian, it made a difference. Ian had not realized how much he’d wanted someone to actually care about what happened to him. It didn’t seem like it should matter so much, but Ian couldn’t deny that it did.

  Craig’s reasons for staying away had been simple. He was Alpha and while he was mating Ian and heat season continued, he would be a risk to the plan if his heat cycle came on him while Ian was too near. He would kill anyone who came too close to Ian if he lost control, and every day they got closer to the end of the heat season, his control would continue to weaken.

  “You heard what happened?” Ian asked. He dropped the weapons at their feet, the sane part of himself wondering why he wasn’t at least feeling more resentful that he’d effectively been coerced into taking the side of the wolves in whatever was about to happen.

  “Alpha is returning. This wasn’t the plan.”

  “You don’t think I know tha
t?” Ian crossed his arms. “I was told flat out not to leave with these guys and they weren’t taking no for an answer. You better do something with them because I have no idea how long they’ll be out. Probably not long enough.”

  As if to prove his point, Marcus moaned and rolled his head to the side.

  Ian watched, every muscle tense, but Marcus’ eyes didn’t flutter.

  “Yeah,” Ian added, “they could wake up any minute.”

  “You’re a skilled fighter,” one of the wolves said, and Ian glanced up. At the look in the wolf’s eyes, Ian took a step back, his sense of foreboding on the rise.

  “I can usually handle myself,” Ian said.

  The wolf stepped closer.

  Ian put his hand up in warning. “Stay back. Your alpha will—He wants us to mate and—Okay, you need to stop where you’re at. I don’t know what your intention is but I don’t think Craig will be happy with you for scaring the shit out of me.”

  Ian looked over his shoulder quickly, but even though the way behind him was clear of wolves and impediments that could slow him down if he ran, he really didn’t think running was his best choice here. He glanced at the guy, then at Marcus and Mason, and felt a trickle of sweat down his spine, the image of claws and teeth tearing into him making him wish Craig would hurry up and make his appearance before this got out of hand.

  The other wolves weren’t acting quite right either, although none moved closer. One kept looking at the downed bodies of Marcus and Mason sprawled out on the ground. Another had her head up, staring through the trees at something Ian couldn’t see or hear. The other three watched the wolf creeping up on Ian, and the men on the ground, and the glassy look in their eyes as their gazes flickered back and forth made Ian hesitate to move at all.

  A rumble of thunder broke the calm.

  The wolf closing in on Ian paused, and then a crash of leaves and a roar echoed through the woods. Ian’s heart slammed against his chest in reaction, his shock sudden and complete.