by Odessa Lynne
“Holy… mother… of—that’s… cold.” His chattering teeth made it hard to talk—or maybe that was the hard shoulder pounding into Gerald’s ribcage with every step Tanis took.
Tanis sped up, and the snow crunched and cracked underfoot. A thin layer of snow had melted and refrozen into an icy glaze and Gerald’s vantage point didn’t stop him from noticing several sets of footprints that didn’t look anything like booted feet.
The wolves traveled through the snow in their bare feet. Didn’t they worry about hypothermia or frostbite?
But no. Why would they? They healed so fast…
Gerald caught a glimpse of something in the trees, coming their way. Glowing eyes, the sound of running. He twisted his head.
Claws pricked his buttock through the denim of his jeans. “Be still,” Tanis growled.
“Sor…ry, uh, shi…it.” Gerald stopped fighting. He didn’t have a lot of choice if he wanted to breathe.
“Leisikei is nearby. Don’t be afraid.”
Gerald’s racing heart slowed. If those were Tanis’s wolves—
But that thought was cut short by a harsh growl and then he was spinning through the air on Tanis’s shoulder as Tanis turned, too fast for Gerald’s breath not to get caught in his chest and his stomach to lurch. Tanis squatted and dropped Gerald into the snow and Gerald yelped at the sudden smack of icy cold against his skin.
Tanis rushed toward the glowing eyes, roaring loud enough to ring Gerald’s ears.
Gerald’s fingers were already numb and stiff, but he shoved himself upright and scrambled to get his feet under him, heart thundering, blood racing.
The eyes became shadows of several large bodies and someone yelled. Gerald hadn’t taken his eyes off Tanis, and he watched him dart between two of the shapes, arms slashing through the air as the bodies collided.
A sound behind him jerked him around.
“Raleigh,” he said on a rush of breath. “What the hell is—”
“Quiet,” Leif said from behind him.
Gerald spun around, this time almost losing his footing on the slick slow. “Shit!”
Leif grabbed his arms and held him. His gaze slid sideways, head tilting. “Alpha will want us to take you to safety.”
“I’m not leaving him here. Where’s the other one? Where’s Er—”
Raleigh’s hand clamped over Gerald’s mouth, then slid down to leave Gerald enough room to breathe through his nose.
He stared at Leif over the top of Raleigh’s hand and shivered uncontrollably.
He felt Raleigh press closer, his thighs pressing into the backs of Gerald’s. He wore a t-shirt but Gerald could feel Raleigh’s inhuman warmth soaking into his back. He wanted desperately to snuggle into that warmth but common sense kept him still.
“Eris is helping Alpha,” Leif said. He’d pitched his voice low and his words were hardly more than a ghost of sound. “You need to be quiet.”
Gerald nodded, the movement nearly lost in the shudders wracking his body. Shit, he was cold. He hadn’t been this cold since that time he’d gotten into a fight with Royce and been left behind in the snowy woods to walk home after Royce took off on the only ATV they’d had enough halfgas to keep running.
Ten years ago, give or take—the first winter after everything changed with the wolves’ heat. He still remembered that damn argument; Royce still refused to talk about it. Royce had come back for him, and after three hours of trudging through the snow, Gerald should have been grateful enough to accept the ride without arguing.
Royce had knocked him on his ass and then hauled him onto the ATV while his head was still ringing from the blow.
Leif nodded to Raleigh, and he lowered his hand.
Raleigh palmed Gerald’s cheeks. The warmth shocked him.
“He’s freezing,” Raleigh said.
Leif glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll go on, then. He needs warmth.”
“We need to stay with Tanis.” Gerald’s chattering teeth made whispering difficult, but he managed to keep his voice low.
Leif shook his head, then jerked his chin up.
Raleigh squatted, wrapped his arm behind Gerald’s knees, and tossed Gerald over his shoulder.
For the second time in less than ten minutes, Gerald’s whole world turned upside down.
Raleigh and Leif started running, leaving Tanis and the sound of bodies crashing through the trees behind.
Chapter 17
They’d left Tanis. Gerald couldn’t get that thought out of his head. He wanted to fight his way free of Raleigh’s sturdy hold and go back, but common sense prevailed.
He had no idea what was going on, and Tanis was a grown—
Wolf. Not man. He would be fine. Gerald might not.
The cold had already seeped into his bones, but like Tanis, Raleigh gave off heat like a wood stove, warming Gerald’s belly and thighs enough to keep him shivering every time the cold air drafted under the back of his shirt. As long as he was shivering, he was okay.
Then Raleigh’s feet slipped on the icy snow, and Gerald clutched frantically at him, sure they were going down, but at the last second Raleigh regained his balance and surged forward along the dark path behind Leif.
By the time they came to a door recessed into the side of the mountain, Gerald was so cold he couldn’t even clench his teeth to stop the chattering. He still had no idea what Tanis had gotten him into, but the only thing he could seem to think about at that moment was his desperate need to get somewhere warm. He shoved his hands under the back of Raleigh’s shirt.
Raleigh’s muscles jumped under his touch, but Raleigh said nothing.
Raleigh swung around to watch the path behind them, and Gerald raised his head.
Leif was at the door, doing something.
A soft hiss followed, but Gerald had already turned his attention to the snow-covered forest. Shadows moved deep in the trees and moonlight glinted, but none were close enough for Gerald to say for sure he was even looking at wolves.
Tanis was back there somewhere and they’d left him.
The notion didn’t sit well with Gerald, not at all.
What if there were too many attacking wolves? What if Tanis was injured? How long could he tolerate the cold? He hadn’t even been wearing a shirt or shoes. He could be freezing to death at that very moment.
Then Raleigh turned, and a wall of warmth hit Gerald as Raleigh carried him across the door’s threshold and into a wide corridor.
He shuddered, gasped in relief, and turned his head.
“I… can… walk,” he stuttered out. His teeth hadn’t stopped chattering yet.
But Raleigh was already moving down the well-lit corridor. “You need to warm up. You’re too cold.”
“I’ll be fi—” A sudden jolt from the shoulder in his rib cut him off and he gave up talking in favor of catching his breath.
Two wolves stepped into their path, and Raleigh stopped behind Leif. Gerald heard Leif and the wolves talking, low, argumentative, but in the wolves’ language.
He thought he heard someone say “…ambush…” but then they were moving again, turning right, then left, then Gerald had to thrust his hand out to block the wall from smacking into him as Raleigh turned too quickly.
A click, click, click down the corridor caught his attention. Claws against the floor.
A door in the corridor wall slid open, the whine almost lost below the sound of his own breathing, and a wolf entered the room. In that brief moment, Gerald saw the profile of a man.
Thoughts cascaded through his mind, but he was already too tired to deal with them. Later, when he wasn’t so tired and cold. His jeans were soaked through from his fall into the snow, and the air was a cold breeze against his spine through the wet t-shirt.
A hard shiver swept through him, breaking the last of his ability to concentrate.
Raleigh put his hand on the center of Gerald’s back and the warmth was enough to draw a strangled groan from low in Gerald’s throat.
Leif’s voice came from ahead. “We’re almost there.”
They started down another corridor, this one dim and quiet and Gerald tried to pay better attention.
They’d gone right, then left, and left again. He would never remember their path unless he made an effort. He needed to make an effort.
Royce left Lacey running round Lewis…
And then one of those inset doors opened for them and Raleigh carried Gerald across a threshold and into a room, and his world turned right side up once again as Raleigh set him on his feet.
Only it really didn’t, because there was Tanis standing in the middle of the bright, spacious room, waiting for them.
“Why are you here?” Leif said.
While at the same time, Gerald asked, “Tanis?”
“He’s not Alpha,” Raleigh said, stepping in front of Gerald.
Gerald’s eyes tracked the movement of the wolf who looked strikingly similar to Tanis, but it only took him seconds to realize Raleigh was right. The hair was shorter, not quite to the wolf’s jaw, and his eyes seemed harder.
Leif reached to the panel beside the door. The door closed.
“Where is my kin?” the wolf asked in the wolves’ language. He stood in front of a table and chairs of a basic human design, the hickory marked by dark striations within the warm yellow wood. Only that wasn’t likely because all the hickory in U.S. had been wiped out by an exotic bug over fifty years ago. He was sure of it.
“Paetaniskeille was delayed. I’m sure he’ll send for you when he arrives.”
“I have urgent news.” The wolf’s red-gold gaze flickered over Gerald. “He’s taken a human?”
“The human isn’t your concern.”
“I disagree.” His sniff wasn’t subtle at all. Claws peeked under the edges of his dark fingernails and his voice softened. “I disagree greatly.”
“No,” Leif said, in as hard a tone of voice as Gerald had ever heard from him. “He isn’t your concern. He belongs to Alpha.”
The threat that belonged at the end of that statement remained unspoken, but Gerald sure heard it.
The wolf that looked like Tanis huffed out a quiet sound. “Since I wouldn’t want to kill my kin over the attentions of a human, you can relax your guard. He doesn’t interest me in the way you seem worried about. My concern is for Paetaniskeille.”
“Paetaniskeille doesn’t require your concern over who he chooses to mate with.”
“Paetaniskeille isn’t my alpha.” His gaze moved to Raleigh. “A fresh one, I see.”
Leif’s nostrils flared. Something seemed to pass between the wolf and Leif, some unnamed tension that made the air in the room feel tight and heavy.
The cold of Gerald’s wet jeans and t-shirt started to make itself known again as the remaining heat from Raleigh dissipated, and Gerald shivered.
Raleigh turned his head as if he’d sensed Gerald’s discomfort. Yet he didn’t look behind him, as if afraid to take his gaze off the others.
Maybe he was; Gerald wasn’t sure of Raleigh’s age, but with everything that had happened, fresh might be the right word for him.
“When Alpha arrives I’ll send for you,” Leif said. “We have obligations to the human. Go.” He gestured toward the door, the move so much like Tanis that it raised Gerald’s eyebrows.
The wolf’s lips pulled back in a near grin, the points of his eyeteeth visible. Gerald held his breath until the wolf had sauntered across the room and opened the door. Those eyes caught and held his for a moment and then returned to Leif. “Tell your alpha not to make me wait. What I have to tell him is more important than a fuck with a human mate he doesn’t need.”
A growl rose from Leif’s chest, but the door closed and the wolf was gone.
“Holy mother of God,” Gerald exhaled. “Two of them.”
Leif’s attention moved from the door to Gerald in the blink of an eye. “Not two of them. Four.”
“What?”
“Paetaniskeille was born of a Diviner who birthed four from one. It was the day the moon set for the last time on our world. No one had ever birthed four from one before, and no one has done it since.”
“It was a great gift from the universe,” Raleigh said, his excitement nearly palpable. “A sign of the prophecy.”
Prophecy. He’d heard that before. But where?
In the ship, that was where, something the wolf Zena had said. He struggled to remember, something tickling at the edges of his tired brain, but another shiver coursed through him and he lost the thought.
He crossed his arms and tried to hold back the next shiver. “What’s the prophecy?”
Leif gestured toward an opening in the far wall. “You need warmth.”
“I’d like to know more about Tanis.” And the prophecy, but it was clear Leif wasn’t going to go for that. Better to come at the subject obliquely, later, and hope no one noticed just how curious he really was.
Raleigh seemed like a good candidate. Young, impetuous, excitable. Maybe too naïve to realize Gerald was pumping him for infor—
Leif snagged Gerald’s chin, much like Tanis had a habit of doing, and gazed into his eyes as if he could read Gerald’s thoughts. “I see your curiosity and your cunning. Remember Alpha’s edicts. Questions aren’t for you to ask.”
Then Leif leaned toward him, and Gerald reacted on instinct, leaning back.
With a sharp growl, Leif caught him by the back of his neck and pulled him forward.
Gerald’s mouth went dry.
Leif’s teeth came too close, his breath hot along the side of Gerald’s neck, his lips touching Gerald’s ear. Another shiver raced through Gerald, but this one, this one he couldn’t blame on the physical chill that had settled deep into his bones.
“Do not assume privacy where there is none. Just because you’re human doesn’t mean the watchers aren’t watching.” After that clear warning, Leif bit Gerald’s earlobe.
Gerald yelped, jerking back only to find himself pulled up short by Leif’s grip on his neck and chin.
Leif released him with a soft laugh.
Gerald scowled as he raised his hand to his ear, but the sting was minor and it faded fast. But the bite had woken him up. His heart thundered in his chest and the spike of adrenaline sent a jittery energy racing through Gerald’s veins.
“The whole lot of you are pricks, you know that?”
“As Alpha does, so does his beta,” Leif said.
“And when he doesn’t,” Raleigh said, “he’ll have to choose his path.”
“What path?” Gerald asked.
Raleigh’s frown looked very human in that moment. “Choose to become—”
“Enough,” Leif interrupted. His look brooked no argument. “Come with me.”
Leif walked toward the opening in the farthest interior wall.
Gerald followed. When he passed the table, he reached out and touched the warm wood. It was the only obvious piece of furniture in the uneven room where the wall to his left came in at less than half the length of the one to the right.
He wondered at that, but as soon as he crossed the threshold behind Leif into the next room, he had his answer. The longer wall in the outer room created a shorter wall in the inner room and a nook that held a massive bed. Living plants rose the height of the opposite, longer wall, stretching across the glowing ceiling toward the bed as the thin branches spread outward like red and gold veins tipped in green.
It was a striking sight, the plant like nothing Gerald had ever seen. The roots seemed to disappear into the floor, but when he looked closer, he could see a narrow trench of earth just below floor level right up against the wall.
Leif’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Strip him while I prepare the bed.”
Gerald tore his gaze away from the plants. “What?”
Raleigh’s hands landed heavily on Gerald’s shoulders, turning him.
Behind him now, Leif said, “We’ll warm you. But first your wet clothes have to come off.”
Gerald tried to turn back to Leif but Raleigh just hauled Gerald’s borrowed shirt up by the hem and over Gerald’s head. He struggled to free himself from the tangle Raleigh had made of it. “That’s—Just show me to a hot shower and I’ll be fine.”
God, would he be. He needed a fucking shower. He needed a shower like he needed—
“And a toilet. Definitely need a toilet.”
The shirt finally came off his left arm and he quickly turned while he had the chance to face Leif again. He tried for his most persuasive look and swirled his finger in the air between them. “Which way to the bathroom?”
At just that moment, Raleigh’s knuckles grazed his stomach. He sucked in his breath and tried to ignore the fact that blood was about to start rushing to his dick if history was any kind of predictor of the future.
“No shower,” Leif said. “You can use the toilet when you’re dry.”
Leif reached for Gerald’s wrists and removed the cuffs.
Raleigh opened the fly of Gerald’s jeans and quickly shucked them right off Gerald’s hips. Gerald made one aborted attempt to grab at the waistband but stopped himself.
“Aren’t you worried about Tanis?” he asked. “I’m worried.”
“His penis is getting hard. Should I touch it?”
The question was obviously meant for Leif, but Gerald reacted with a very quick, very forceful, “No, by God, you shouldn’t,” and stuck his hands over his hardening dick.
No doubt about it, he’d been fucking wolves for way too long. His body had become accustomed to the pleasures to be had from all those hot as hell aliens and it was making its preferences known.
Despite his body’s attempt to prove him wrong, his current circumstance was not his idea of how to have a good time. He was trapped with wolves he didn’t know that well and who were going to run out of repression drugs at some point, and he wasn’t even sure if his mate was one of the good guys.
He also couldn’t forget why all of this was happening, and it wasn’t because he’d been helping out a friend and blown his cover. He barely knew Eli Pendergrass. But he knew Liam and Liam had vouched for Eli. Eli needed Chen, and Gerald had been able to put himself into a position to give him Chen once he figured out what Cam was up to.
