Bite Me Tender

by Kate Lowell

  Levi heard something hit the wall, but he wouldn’t turn, didn’t want to see that look of earnest supplication on his friend’s face. He felt his own fears gnawing away at his determination.

  Bryan continued, his voice gentler now, sadder. “Has it occurred to you that maybe Glyn can’t be changed? Maybe being a witch means you can’t be anything else.” He stepped up behind Levi and laid a quiet hand between his shoulder blades. “Sometimes all we can do is be happy with what we have. Maybe a break, without all the stress, will help you figure it out. Or maybe it’s something that just can’t be fixed. I know you don’t enjoy hunting him. I don’t imagine it’s any fun for him either.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Trust Bryan to find the crux of his fear and lay it all out there, where he couldn’t avoid looking at it anymore.

  “Maybe the wolf is trying to tell you something. Maybe you both need a break from the cycle. Try with someone else. If it works, we know it’s him, and you can deal with it then. But we need men, and there’s only three women strong enough to pass it on…and two of them are married. One’s pregnant, and you know how precious that is. It’s only logical—”

  That did it. Levi threw himself away from the wall and stopped with his nose just an inch away from Bryan’s. “Would you be talking like this to someone who couldn’t get pregnant? ‘Just put her aside for a few months, until you get someone else knocked up. Then you can have your baby, and she’ll be happy to have it.’ And I swear to God, if you say that it’s not the same for me because I’m gay, I’ll give you exactly thirty seconds to call an ambulance, because you’ll need it. I. Am. In. A. Committed. Relationship. You know, kind of like those married girls you keep finding excuses for. Get that through your damn concrete skull!” Levi backed away, shaking with the effort not to reach out and flick a set of claws through the other man’s jugular. God dammit, Bryan, just go away and help me not kill you!

  To give him credit, Bryan stood his ground when most other wolves would have either run or dropped belly up and hoped not to die. “Just, meet the guy, okay? I’m not saying you have to keep him forever. Hell, maybe Glyn might like a threesome—he’s a witch, right? Everyone knows they’re all pervs. And Patty tells me the guy’s gorgeous. You’ll have to judge for yourself. I couldn’t rightly say.” Bryan started to back away, his eyes wary, shoulders tilted just enough to show that he wanted to avoid a physical fight. “Just don’t say no until you meet the guy. And think about what McCourt will do to us if he decides to make a move.”

  He paused in the doorway to give Levi a sympathetic look. “I know you want the picket fence and the two-point-five kids and the station wagon. And I get that Glyn is good for you. Even if some of the others didn’t see it, I could see the change when you came back from New York. I hope he can give you your dream somehow.”

  Bryan looked down, scuffed one foot against the floor. “You said a council would let us make better use of everyone’s abilities, let us look after each other. We don’t all have your abilities—you could be alpha anywhere, and it shows when you change someone. We need this. Please, Levi, don’t make me call a general vote.” Bryan ducked out the door, barely evading the gallon can of ketchup that Levi threw at him. Seconds later, Levi heard the bang of the security door slamming shut.

  Levi pinched the bridge of his nose with shaking fingers. He needed to run, to punch or break something. The tingling itch in his gums and the pain in his bones told him he was bringing his change on days early. Not good. Bryan’s scent hung heavy in the air, a threat and a temptation all in one. The irony was that Bryan was counting on Levi to hang on to his ideals, all the while asking him to do something that he would give them up to avoid. Someone like McCourt would have finished this argument a long time ago with blood and claw.

  Sometimes, mostly in the mornings, when he could lie in bed and watch Glyn sleep, Levi wanted to go back to those days when he took what he wanted and damned the consequences. To just let the wolf go and finish it without all this endless politicking. The wolf whispered in his mind, promising him his heart’s desire. Blood to spill and a wolf to make. It was his right.

  Some pack members chased that high, the change from human to animal, the sudden freedom from human morality. The wolf brought simple desires and took away guilt. It was an addiction for some—one that he did his best to make sure they controlled—but not for him. He avoided it. Guarded his emotions carefully. Planned his changes.

  You could drown in the blood he’d spilled while the beast had ruled his life.

  Levi paced the room. Meat. Meat would give him something to sink his teeth into other than an old friend. He strode to the walk-in cooler at the back of the room. There was steak in here somewhere.

  He found a sirloin, frozen hard inside its box, and grabbed it. His feet carried him automatically back out into the warmth, where he stalked from one end of the storage room to the other, human teeth frustratingly dull against the stiff, icy flesh in his hand. But the anger was receding, the urge to let everything go and run in wolf form, let human complications slide away in the hunt, all of it gradually fading away. He paced, the mass of slowly thawing meat turning into bleeding red mush in his hand.

  Bleeding would be good. Not him, not Bryan, but food. Fresh food, still twitching as he gorged himself. Four more nights and he would turn his Glyn for certain, and later they would hunt together, swallowing new-dead meat still bleeding its life into their mouths.

  Calm. He had to keep it together for Glyn. It had to work this time. He would make it work.

  Levi stopped pacing, his emotions quieter and his mind focused. He looked at the dripping mass in his right hand and grimaced. Barbarian. Savage. He tossed it in the garbage can and washed the blood off his hand in the sink in the corner, then splashed some water over his face for good measure. There were accounts to be done, but first he had better find a mop and clean up the mess on the floor.

  He could still act civilized, even if his heart no longer was.

  * * * *

  The stack of invoices he needed to enter in the bookkeeping system was gradually shrinking. Outside his office door, Levi could hear the rising volume of voices in the bar as the light waned and the party picked up.

  Glyn would be here soon. He felt the tingle of excitement in his stomach and pushed the thought away. There were still six invoices to go.

  His lover could have finished this in half the time, whipping through the transactions with his typical speed and tenacity. Glyn insisted that Levi do it himself—something structured, to teach the wolf patience, instead of passing it off to a bookkeeper like he and Bryan used to do.

  Damn Bryan anyway for being half right. Once the nagging, seductive presence of the wolf had faded, Levi could admit to himself that something wasn’t working. He had turned more than half a dozen in his time, and each one had gone like clockwork. Hell, Bryan himself was one of his, although they never spoke about those crazy months after the first bite. Bryan had hated him for a while, once his wolf was grown big enough inside that he could step back and think about it a bit. Levi tried not to poke at that sore spot; he would have been confused if he had been turned by a woman. It had to be just as hard for a straight guy not to be able to keep his hands off a friend’s cock.

  Levi sighed. Five more invoices to go.

  Before he met Glyn, he would have happily jumped whatever candidate they agreed on. Mother Nature made sex pleasurable to ensure that organisms reproduced. The wolf took that and tripled it. There was nothing like your wolf spirit for focusing on what it wanted and ignoring everything that got in the way, including sexual orientation. The only thing that had ever stopped Levi’s wolf was Glyn. Even when Levi was out of control, Glyn could snap the wolf back on its haunches, make it sit and listen. Hell, he thought, his lips turning up in a smug smile, Glyn had taught the wolf to fetch. And beg.

  Not that he minded the begging, considering the rewards.

  Four left. He wanted to claw his eyes out wi
th boredom. Maybe he could hide them and say they came in after the end of the month?

  His phone rang. Glyn’s ringtone—was the man psychic as well as a witch?

  He dropped the invoices and answered the call. “How’s the most gorgeous man in the world today?”

  “I don’t know,” Glyn replied. “How are you feeling?”

  It must have been a good day. “I’m fine. I was asking about you.” He heard the sound of a door closing and the musical beeping of the alarm being set. Glyn was still at the office.

  “I am ecstatic. My work is done for the day,” Glyn crowed triumphantly. “Cleared my inbox, cleared my outstanding accounts. My desk is empty for Monday.” This was Glyn the flirt, hiding behind his alter ego of Glyn the businessman.

  “That’s great news. Are you coming over to the bar?”

  “That depends.” In a flash, Glyn the businessman was gone and flirtatious, coy Glyn was back in full force. “Did you finish your accounts?”

  Levi glanced guiltily at the four colorful slips of paper sitting on his desk. Maybe he could…?

  “Levi,” Glyn drawled. “You’re not finished yet, are you?”

  “I have four left to do.” Levi sighed. “They’ll be done before you get here. I swear.”

  “Good.” Levi could hear the smile in Glyn’s voice—and a promise as well. His heart sped up in anticipation. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. Love you.”

  “Love you too.” The phone clicked off, and Levi stared at it thoughtfully, letting his mind settle. Should he tell Glyn about the council’s decision? No, that was his problem to deal with. Let Glyn look forward to this month and pray God it worked.

  Levi didn’t think he could stand to watch Glyn cover up his disappointment once again.

  Call of the Wild

  When Glyn arrived, Levi was bent over, picking up a dirty glass that had rolled under a chair. Trusting in the crowd for cover, Glyn walked up behind him and cupped his hands over the man’s ass. “You have no idea what I want to do to you right now,” he murmured just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the bar. He squeezed the firm muscle, sliding his fingers as far into the crack as Levi’s jeans would let him. Levi yipped like a newborn cub and straightened up, so Glyn took advantage and slid his hands around to the front. Not touching anything sensitive, but so close it would drive Levi crazy. While he was at it, he rubbed his own rapidly hardening cock against Levi’s ass to let him know he wasn’t the only one suffering. Levi pushed back at him, and he stepped away, teasing gently as his fingers slipped from Levi’s hips.

  “Looks busy in here tonight,” he commented, dancing away to avoid Levi’s grab. Glyn shook his finger at him, in the mood for a tease, then relented and slid in for a quick kiss. “Meet you out back?”

  “Be there as soon as I clear these tables.”

  “Don’t be too long.” One quick hump against Levi’s thigh to drive home his point, and then Glyn threaded through the crowd toward the back of the bar. He had a promise from this morning to live up to. And the thought of screwing his boyfriend just on the other side of this wall had his breath coming hard already. Of course, if he had his way, his breath wouldn’t be the only thing coming hard this evening.

  He sauntered through the bar, waving to people he knew. A lot of them were younger pack, but there were a good number of normals here as well. It always struck him funny to see them mixing, all unaware, with the same “creatures of the night” they flocked to see in the movie theaters. If they only knew…

  Glyn walked through the door marked Employees Only and swerved left into Levi’s office. Technically it was Bryan’s office too, but since he hardly ever used it, Glyn had gotten into the habit of thinking of it as Levi’s. There wasn’t much inside—a set of shelves, a filing cabinet, a wooden desk, and a couple of chairs. The one behind the desk was quite a bit newer than the one in front of it, the fabric of the seat still an unfaded black. Vivid memories of breaking the old chair brought a smile to Glyn’s face. They’d have some way to go to top that escapade, but he liked a challenge.

  He sat down in the new chair, lifted the screen on the laptop, and smiled at the sticky note with a big heart drawn in the center that was stuck to the screen. Levi knew him too well. He pulled it off, folded it carefully in quarters, and tucked it away in his pocket. When he got home, it could join the others he had hidden away. If Levi ever found his stash, he’d totally lose his reputation as a hardass, but until then he was keeping every damn love note the man left him. He opened the accounting software—installed the same day he discovered that Levi was still using shoebox accounting—and called up the latest file.

  Scanning down the entries, it looked to him like Levi was up-to-date. He saved the file and sent it off to his business e-mail. After logging in to his online server, he made a note in his agenda to start Levi’s tax forms first thing Monday morning. He was pretty happy with the numbers he was looking at, and not a little smug too. Since Glyn had taken over Levi’s accounts, his taxes had gone down and profits had gone up. Last year, between the two of them, they’d had enough extra for investments, even after the renovations to the bar and the house. Something else to be proud of, though it was almost embarrassing how much he loved that sunroom.

  This year the plan was to work on the old farmhouse that had come down to Levi from his grandfather. Glyn checked his watch, wondered briefly where Levi was, then logged in to his guilty pleasure: eBay. He wanted a sturdy, antique-style bed they could laze around in on mornings after the full moon—because this time it was going to work.

  He spun lazily in the chair as he clicked, trailing his hand over the smooth wood of the desk. Levi had built it himself, out of wood cut from the old family farm. It was strong, with handsome grain, but not obvious in its beauty. A lot like Levi.

  As if the thought had conjured him, there was a spike in the noise level as the door to the bar opened and shut. Seconds later, Levi stood outside the office, his arms braced on the door frame, watching hungrily as Glyn traced random patterns on the gleaming wood.

  “I got all the invoices in.”

  Glyn smiled. “I saw.”

  Levi stepped into the room and closed the door. Glyn watched him, biting down on the edge of a finger to still the urge to launch himself across the room. A light cotton dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose the strength in Levi’s forearms. Jeans that showed off every flex of muscle in those thighs and practically dragged his eyes up to admire Levi’s package. Glyn was going to come right now, and Levi wouldn’t even have to touch him. Goddamn full moon and werewolf pheromones. His own hormones too.

  Fuck, he was the luckiest shit alive in the world.

  “So, do I get my reward?”

  Glyn cocked his head at him and smiled. “Everything else ticked off the list?”

  Levi walked toward him, fluid and intent on his prey. “Everything except the camera. It’s completely ruined; I’ll have to replace it when the shop opens on Monday.” He moved to Glyn’s side of the desk and leaned against the edge with his legs pressing up against Glyn’s. The front of his jeans strained against the pressure within, and he gradually increased the force he exerted on Glyn’s legs.

  Glyn’s eyes widened in delight. It looked like Levi was in the mood for a little play. Full-moon bonus—Levi was usually quite happy to let Glyn take the lead. “I suppose,” Glyn said, yielding slightly to the pressure, “that I can overlook it this time.”

  “Good.” Levi closed the laptop with a snap and slid it into one of the desk drawers. Then he reached down, wrapped his hand securely in Glyn’s hair, and pulled him up into a bruising kiss.

  When Levi finally let him up for air, Glyn was gasping, mouth already swollen and tender.

  Levi held him in place, close enough for Glyn to feel the heat coming off him and smell his scent. “Undo my shirt,” he ordered but kept his grip on Glyn’s hair.

  Glyn’s hands shook as he obeyed. His whole body, actually, trembled with the need to�
�� He didn’t know what. Something. He needed. His cock was going to explode, or bore a tunnel through his pants. The last button fell through the hole in the shirt, and he was able to spread it wide, feast his eyes on the broad chest before him.

  Levi pulled on Glyn’s hair, moving him until his mouth settled over one nipple. “Suck.”

  Glyn was grateful his mouth was already full; the noises that simple word would have pulled out of him would have been embarrassing. As it was, he heard himself making a high-pitched whimper as he swirled his tongue around the hard nipple in his mouth, tugging it deeper and teasing the point. He couldn’t decide what to do with his hands—his brain had stopped working. In the end, he spread them flat on the hard muscles of Levi’s stomach, kneading like a kitten.

  Levi grunted and pulled him off, then moved him over to service the other side. Glyn closed his eyes and concentrated on what he was doing and feeling. Levi’s free hand closed over one of Glyn’s, moving it up to the recently abandoned nipple. Glyn groaned into Levi’s flesh and thrust his hips forward to grind against his boyfriend’s thigh.

  “Stop that!” Levi admonished him, pulling Glyn away from his nipple and gasping as Glyn’s teeth rasped over it. “Behave yourself!”

  Glyn ran his tongue over his lips, trying to marshal his scattered wits. Levi’s grip never wavered—not painful, but Glyn was completely powerless and loving it.

  “Take your shirt off,” Levi told him. Glyn tried to bend his head to find the first button, but Levi held him still, so the only place he could look was up into his lover’s face. He undid the buttons by feel, let the shirt slip down his arms, and tossed it to one side.

  Levi tugged on his hair, forcing him to take a step back. He looked Glyn up and down, his enjoyment of that stretch of pale gold skin obvious, his smile possessive and knowing.