Jesus, thought Max. He’s going to be the death of me. He has no idea. I’m this broken old queer, scared and desolate, and messed over and rejected in so many ways, and he thinks he’s the one who has to beg. He thinks I’m limiting myself for him, not the other way around. Like he’d settle for scraps of my affection.
“Muscles, you know you’re gorgeous, right? It’s not me they’d be after.”
Bryan gave him a truly incredulous look. “Have you ever looked at yourself?”
Max dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “San Francisco is a nice, well-meaning, liberal sort of town, lousy with intellectuals and geeks. Sure we got gym bunnies galore, but true beefcake is slim on the ground.”
“Stop speaking code.”
Max laughed, suddenly happy again. And only slightly terrified. “I’ll explain over dinner. Where are we going?”
“There’s a pub nearby, supposed to have amazing shepherd’s pie.”
* * *
The pie was good, and the pub was nicely intimate, dark with old smoke and lost moments. About halfway through the meal, Max’s hand started stroking Biff’s knee. Then higher, up to his thigh. And then… Biff couldn’t get the bill fast enough.
Back at Max’s, the sumage had them off the motorcycle and plastered up against the stairway wall so quickly, Biff wondered if he’d somehow tapped into quintessence.
“Inside?” Biff suggested, not that he was averse to Max’s hands or his mouth, just that he wanted a great deal more of both. He nuzzled Max’s neck, breathing him in. Gorgeous boy hadn’t worn anything perfumed today, a concession to Biff’s needs. A gift. He gloried in it.
Until he caught a stinking whiff of ozone coolant, sharp with the tang of quintessence in use. Not Max. There was another mage around, a powerful civic mage, and he was casting at that very moment.
Protect him!
Biff ripped his clothing off right then and there.
“Whoa, Muscles, eager much?”
Biff didn’t notice that he tore his favorite T-shirt. He cursed the tightness of his new jeans (which he had bought only because Marvin said they made his ass look perky) and began shifting form without thinking it through. Instinct kicked in and his wolf state was stronger, faster, and better able to fight activated quintessence, coated as he would be in his own savage protection.
“And now he’s a wolf. Bryan, what the hell?”
Biff’s ears arrowed in on the rustling in the bushes. He took off round the side of the apartment, uphill, heading toward the big house. He sprinted through the undergrowth, intent as only a predator can be.
A smelly figure was standing in front of the massive old building. He had his hands up as though he were facing a dragon, not the crumbled shell of a maybe-home. The overgrown garden stopped about three feet from the house, leaving it slumped and grumpy in a patch of bare earth, as if the plants themselves were reluctant to disturb the place’s melancholy.
Biff slowed, stalking the intruder, lips drawn back, growl silenced but eager to burble forth.
It seemed he wasn’t the only defender – the house itself shivered protest. The front door appeared to be threaded with heat, a nothingness that vibrated outward, waves that were invisible except that they affected the air around them. An arc of dust motes born on the winds of energy rushed at the intruder and shattered against him. His own shield shimmered then, hugging his body, protection formed like the ripples off tarmac on a hot day, quintessence in its energy state.
Biff had no idea how this kind of thing worked. But the house was clearly…better, stronger, because the stranger swore and leaped back.
Biff crouched low and sprang at him, growling.
The man finally realized he had company.
“What the hell?” The intruder had a deep, sharp voice, with the hint of an accent. Eastern European, perhaps? Biff snapped at him.
The man smelled of pine aftershave under the coolant, the expensive kind that bankers used. Not quite sure what he should do, Biff crowded the man toward the house, trapping him between a wolf and a charged place.
Max came crashing through the overgrowth. He’d even less grace than normal, navigating a garden he’d let grow verdant with neglect.
The intruder feinted to one side, but Biff herded him back, hackles up, still growling.
“Who are you?” demanded Max.
The man was bulky and wore a too-small hoodie pulled over his head, a baseball hat under that, shadowing his eyes, and a scarf wound around his throat and mouth. The scarf was expensive-looking. The hat brim wasn’t bent and the hoodie smelled new. It was as if this guy had copied his look from a late ‘90s TV show about hoodlums.
Mr Hoodie-Banker didn’t answer Max – he just made a flipping kind of movement with his hand. The shimmer about his body moved in toward his wrists and then coalesced there, growing into a ball, activated quintessence picking up dust in the air, bits of cobweb, and confused gnats. It became a dirty, pulsing, grayish thing.
Biff stepped in front of Max, growling even louder.
Max said to him, “Don’t be ridiculous. This is the only thing I’m good for. It’s practically my purpose in life.”
The gray ball got bigger.
“Dude, only one?” Max said to their new friend and then, out the side of his mouth to Biff, “Do you think he feels inadequate with only one ball? I mean, it happens to lots of men, but it’s hard to get over.”
Biff chuffed at him in a tone he hoped conveyed This is no time for your lip, pretty man.
The point was made because Max sighed and got serious. “This is going to hurt like hell.”
Biff scooted back so they were touching – somehow, it seemed important.
The man was going to throw that thing at them, and Max was going to disPlace it, because Max was a Placer and this, this was a Surge-level civic mage in front of them.
Biff remembered the words of his old Alpha. “Savage abilities will only get you so far, pup. Not that I ever want you up against one, but if it comes to werewolf versus Surge, you run. Surges win ninety-nine percent of the time. No shame in running from those odds.”
Biff refused to run – he had Max.
At the very last moment, the Surge turned and threw that ball of gray at the door of the big house.
“Get down!” yelled Max.
Biff did as ordered, flattening himself to the ground, back legs splayed, tail pressed down. Max, next to him, balled up in the fetal position. Biff moved to curl around his mage in a heartbeat, stretching out the tip of his tail to protect as much of the sumage as he could.
The house exploded with tingling, nauseating rage. Or that’s what it felt like. The ground shook with an invisible force, and shards of gray nothingness arced up and over them, dust motes sparkling. There were no real objects mixed in, was just quintessence. Tons and tons of quintessence, fractured and vibrating about them, twisted and tumbling and destructive. Hot with unstable energy, redolent with the scent of coolant and ozone and power. Not like electricity but almost. Biff feared for the underbrush, but nothing caught fire. Although the plants, where the shards of gray touched them, were blackened as if burned. Invisible lines reverberated out from the house, leaving fractured black tracks all around on that bare earth, like the trace lines of Max’s skin.
And the hoodie mage was gone.
* * *
Max was prepared for the pain. For that sensation of skin splitting open all along his tracers.
That wasn’t what he got.
He’d been prepared for a direct hit from one mage, not an indirect from a Surge and an enchantment. He’d gotten a double-down of quintessence, two explosions at once. He struggled to Place it, to protect himself and Bryan at the same time, no way to guide reemergence, just let the quintessence sweep through him and dissipate however it could.
He wasn’t sure what he’d open his eyes to see. Except that as soon as the quintessence was finished with him, he was bound to be in a world of pain.
And t
his evening had started out with such a nice date.
He didn’t pass out like he expected.
He didn’t blink awake to burning agony like he expected.
Instead, he found his face being washed by a rough, wet tongue.
“What?” He opened his eyes.
Trace lines extended all around them – the enchantment had defended itself. The vegetation above him was burned black in places. The mage had definitely thrown an energy attack. But there was nothing near them. No tracers marred the earth in a foot radius around Max and Bryan. No black marks singed his wolf’s fur.
Okay, thought Max. Did I disPlace into a shield? Didn’t think that was possible. Maybe I disPlaced only the dangerous parts of both spells? Smart of me. How’d I do that? Much less quintessence to handle that way. Guess that’s why I don’t hurt like usual.
He did a careful mental check through his body.
I don’t hurt at all. That’s…odd.
The rough tongue licked his cheek again. He turned to look into a worried lupine face. Yellow eyes.
“I’m okay. More than okay. I’m oddly good. I think maybe I kinda borrowed some of your savage abilities, or your healer’s training worked with me to protect us both. I should hurt a lot more after Placing two discharges like that, but I don’t.” He gathered himself together. “Where’s our friend?”
The wolf gave a low growl.
“Gone?”
A soft chuff of agreement.
“Well. Poop.”
Another chuff.
They were still lying on the ground and the big wolf was curled close around him. He began snuffling Max in a worried fashion.
“I’m really fine. Stop. That tickles.”
Max eased himself up. Expecting more. Expecting to ache. Nothing.
He stood, gingerly. The wolf stood as well. His big yellow eyes watched Max with obvious concern.
He was a massive creature. Conservation of mass dictated that the wolf be the size of the man, and Bryan was a big dude, easily two- twenty. In wolf form, he was all muscles under a thick dirty cream coat, mottled with black, gray, and brown.
He woofed softly at Max, and leaned against his legs. His massive fan of a tail thudded gently against Max’s thigh.
“He was smart to take on the enchantment. He had to know I could Place a single cast, so he arranged it so I had to handle two instead.”
The wolf looked back and forth between him and the house, then chuffed a question.
“My dear dad’s last gift to the universe. You can see why he did it? Ye ol’ Gray Ball there isn’t the first to try for whatever Dad left inside. I doubt he’ll be the last. Thanks for the assist, by the way. Although I would have just left him to learn the truth on his own. You needn’t run to the house’s defense. It can take care of itself. Shall we?” Max turned to head back to the relative safety of his little apartment.
There was a sad, sharp crunching noise behind him, like a really crispy cracker being eaten by a man with dentures. Max turned in time to find a large, hot, naked man standing where the wolf had just been.
Max was staring or he would have missed the brief wince of pain on Bryan’s face.
I forgot, it hurts him. Every time.
Max stepped in against him, quickly. “Hi.” He threaded his fingers through the werewolf’s thick hair, so much softer in this form.
Big hands instantly went to his shoulders, rubbing up and down Max’s arms – comfort for him, or reassurance for Bryan, it was hard to tell which. But it was nice.
“Why aren’t you more concerned? You sure the house’s wards are enough?” Bryan grumbled.
“Not wards – that sucker is an enchantment. And yeah, it’s enough. Always has been. Nobody expects an enchantment. It’s like the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Sorry?”
“Python? No? Oh my god, I must give you a geek education. This is San Francisco – you can’t walk around ignorant of such things. You’ll destroy all my street cred. Anyway, my father left an enchantment over the place. Not wards. Surges pretty much suck at wards – that’s a Siphon’s game, even if wards could stay active after their mage’s death. Which they can’t. And trust me, Dad is very, very dead.”
“So, how does the enchantment still exist?”
Max wasn’t sure he wanted to explain the intricacies of bonded quintessence to a super-hot naked man who, given they’d just escaped near death, should be screwing his brains out right now.
“Sex first. Then maybe later I’ll explain the standard requirements needed to construct a lingering active quintessence state – full coven, six members, two of each civic class.”
“Combining Siphons, Sluices, and Surges?”
“Exactly. So, if any one dies, the others hold the spell in Place.”
“Remotely? Huh. And they cast one enchantment for each member of the group, like a trade?”
“Exactly. Activated upon that member’s death.”
“Right. Got it. So, what was that about sex first, then explanations?”
“You’re the one still talking.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Terrible Consequences of Really Good Sex
Biff worried about the enchantment. He worried that Max lived so close to a house that Surges wanted. He worried that a man powerful enough to call in a favor with five other civic mages had cast something that lingered even after his death. He worried that Max wasn’t worried.
He worried, even as Max slammed him up against the kitchen counter. There was a lingering scent of coolant in the tiny apartment. As if the Surge had come inside Max’s sacred space first. Or cast something at it.
In between kisses, Biff said, “Can you smell—”
“What the cock is cooking?” Max finished the sentence for him with a leer. Grinding eagerly against him.
Biff blinked. “What?”
“You never watched pro wrestling?”
“Because I’m a hick werewolf?”
“No, because you look like you could join in.” Max had the whole length of his hard body pressed up against Biff. It was glorious.
“Uh. Thanks?”
“Oh.” Max’s face suddenly caught on an idea, made beautiful by guilt and lust. “Would you wear spandex for me? Pretty please? And pin me down?”
He sounded like he was joking but didn’t look it, and Biff’s dick loved the idea. Not the spandex, but if one led to the other, he was game.
“Okay.”
Max, who’d been putting a concerted effort into raising hickeys on the neck of a self-healing shifter (with modest success), pulled back, mouth open in shock.
So it was Biff’s turn to push him back up against the wall near the door, lifting him off his feet.
“I like pinning,” he growled.
“Jesus fuck,” said Max, weakly.
Biff bit his neck with gentle precision. The sumage writhed against him. Losing even his obligatory swearing to moans – all his foul words swallowed by want. The needy pants of his breath ghosted over Biff’s shoulder – a caress of affirmation.
Biff wanted to lick Max’s trace lines again. To press his desire into the broken, empty places his lover ached to have filled. As if his tongue could heal all Max’s scars, even the invisible ones. But he didn’t want to rush and he didn’t want the man to think he was orally fixated (even though he was), so he touched Max instead.
He eased his lover back to standing and used long strokes up Max’s back to pull off his shirt, and down over his ass and legs to strip him of jeans and briefs.
Max responded in kind, petting with his whole hand, covering every part of Biff’s already-bare flesh, learning the rise and fall of bone and tendon. He was focused, fascinated. Seeking out the strange, sensitive places on Biff’s body, the spaces between his ribs, under his ears where jaw met neck, even sinking down on his knees to explore the backs of Biff’s calves.
“Is being hairy a werewolf thing?” Max asked, popping back up to nuzzle into Biff’s furry chest.<
br />
“Yep.” Truly, Biff didn’t know – he’d only really fraternized with his Boston pack and now this one. They were all, in general, pretty hairy, but that could easily be a result of human genetics.
“I love it.” Max nuzzled through Biff’s chest hair and nibbled at his nipples when he found them.
“You like overgrown things.”
“That a reference to your size or my yard?”
“Both.”
Max bit him harder.
Biff yipped but didn’t jerk away, shoving his groin against Max’s and crowding Max against the wall.
The sumage panted. “Right, I give you the pinning thing. Point taken.”
“You asked for it.” Biff dove in for a proper kiss, all tongue and intent, leaving them both breathless.
Max groaned. “Yes, yes, this is fun but it’d be a lot easier lying down.”
Biff ground against him again.
“Bryan!”
“You always switch to my real name when I annoy you.”
“Well, Biff is a stupid name.”
“Good thing I got another one.”
“Yeah, Mr Frederiksen?”
Biff was having none of that, thank you very much. He unpinned his lover but only so he could drop to his knees. Biff didn’t go immediately in for a blowjob – that was too cliché. Although, goodness, the sumage had a gorgeous cock.
He stroked Max, sure and firm, just once. “No trace lines here.”
“Oh, are we going there? I’ll go ahead and ask, then – what happens to your dick when you change shape?”
“Know anything about wolf anatomy?”
“No.”
“Look it up some time. It ain’t pretty.”
“Say no more.” Max was looking down at him, clearly admiring the view from above.
Biff gave him a heated look through long lashes.
“Fuck, those eyes,” said Max.
“Don’t think that’d work.”
“Ass.”
“Later.” Biff nuzzled up against Max’s cock, brushing it with the stubble of his beard. Max clearly liked that, because said cock started to leak, smearing Biff’s cheek with pre-cum.
Biff glanced up at him again. “Aw. Trouble, you giving me a facial?”
Sumage Solution GL Carriger Page 14
