All Hallow's Howl

by Cait Forester

  Dylan's lips part open on a sigh, and then he's leaning forward, fitting his mouth to that unblemished skin. He kisses it once, lightly, licks the area with the flat of his tongue.

  Then he bites down.

  6 - Six

  It's customary for wolves to seal their bond with sex out of doors. It's an homage to the moon - Lady Luna might not force a shift or feral behavior like humans thought in their books and movies, but her quiet influence cannot help but be felt as a primal tug in the days leading up to and at the zenith of the full moon.

  Dylan stumbles back from Jamie, startled as the idea occurs to him. It seemed like it had happened so fast - the run, the ceremony, the wolf, the bonding - and the adrenaline which has fueled him all evening is beginning to wear off, leaving him shaky and unsure. He cannot deny that he finds his mate attractive - more than attractive, really, considering he's been pining over a stupid portrait - but the realization that Jamie is his mate hits him on a whole new level.

  "I'm so sorry!" he gasps out, his eyes wide. "I made you bond to me and what if you didn't want to and - "

  Jamie steps forward and reaches out to ground him, his broad, warm hand reaching out to fit the curve of the back of his neck. "It's fine," he insists. "I could never be upset about being allowed to spend these three days with you."

  Dylan's forehead scrunches up in confusion. "Three days?"

  Jamie's tongue darts out to wet his lips. "You really weren't informed about the ritual you used, were you?" he asks rhetorically, his tone slow and thoughtful. "I'm dead, sweetheart," he says gently. "The magic that allowed me to come to you will fade at the end of All Souls’, and I'll have to return to the spirit world."

  "But," Dylan says, and blinks. He doesn't know how to finish that sentence. The bond between them is new and fresh, and just the thought of losing it sends hot, burning sparks through his chest. He can't imagine how much worse it will be when the bond settles.

  "You'll still have the protection of my mark," Jamie says quickly, misreading his sudden apprehension. "It won't fade for the better part of a year."

  "It fades?" Dylan knows his voice is plaintive, and weak, but he doesn't care.

  Mating marks aren't supposed to fade. Even when one half of the whole is dead and buried, the marks live on, blackened into the widower’s skin. His father still wears his mother’s mating mark proudly. A second mark can be added, but he's never heard of one just fading away.

  "It's because I am already dead," Jamie says, his voice gentle and soft. He looks sad, unbearably so, and Dylan has the sudden realization that it’s his fault.

  He whines low in his throat, the sound cutting off abruptly as he realizes what he’s doing. He isn't supposed to be weak!

  Dylan stares at his alpha, unblinking, his mind working furiously to process everything that has changed so quickly.

  “Do you want me?” he whispers.

  He’s afraid that the answer will be no, and that Jamie will say that he only responded to an omega’s plea for help to initiate the bond in the first place. He’s afraid that Jamie will reveal that he just wanted to be human again for a few days, and that he would have bonded with anyone who happened to call down a spirit.

  Jamie surprises him. “It was my choice,” he says. “I was selfish. I knew I couldn’t stay and be what you needed, but when your soul cried out to mine I knew it was the call of my true mate, and I wanted…” he hesitated, “…succor. For a little while.”

  It was enough.

  Dylan opens his arms - it’s not a large embrace, but an invitation, and Jamie steps forward into the shelter of his body without reservation. When Dylan offers his lips, canting his head back to give Jamie access, his mate takes full advantage, claiming his mouth possessively. It’s a firm kiss, but almost languorous in its execution.

  “Take it, then.”

  Jamie goes curiously still, his arms locked in place around Dylan, his breath coming out in a harsh pant. Their faces are too close for Dylan to get a good look at the feelings playing across the alpha’s expression, but it doesn’t matter; Jamie tugs them to the ground a few seconds later, falling backward so that Dylan lands on the cushion of his body.

  “You’re sure?” Jamie asks, and it makes Dylan want to thump him in the nose. He can smell his own attraction by now, which, yeah - wasn’t a thing he was expecting. He even thinks that -

  Holy hell, his ass is beginning to slick.

  He blinks, taken aback, because he’s never experienced the feel of his own slick before. He’d thought he was broken, but apparently not - apparently he’d only needed the right alpha to come along and draw that response out of him.

  It wasn’t fair, really, because Jamie wasn’t even trying, and something about the simplicity of that is what propels him forward to eagerly press their lips together again.

  “Yeah,” Dylan murmurs when Jamie pulls back, trailing his lips down his throat, nipping lightly at the lobe of his ear. His mate nuzzles there a moment, drawing in his scent, and Dylan’s eyes go half lidded under the fond perusal.

  Jamie startles him when he rolls them over, and the heavy press of the alpha’s weight across his body draws a moan from Dylan’s throat. Jamie reaches down between them, gathering both their cocks in one hand; the weeping head of Jamie’s cock is enough to have them both slippery as they slide together, rutting.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Dylan breathes, hitching one leg up to wrap around Jamie’s body, his other foot planted on the ground to give him leverage.

  The chemistry between them is explosive; he doesn’t think he’ll be able to last more than a minute or so, and the hitch in Jamie’s breath assures him that his mate is equally affected. He hides his smile in Jamie’s shoulder, mouthing along the ridge of skin and pressing in with blunt human teeth.

  He’s close. He wants to come - needs it, even – he’s suddenly as territorial as any alpha, and he wants to rub his spend into Jamie’s skin, to mark him. But just as he begins to tip over the edge of pleasure into ecstasy, Jamie pulls back and circles the base of Dylan’s cock with his hand, squeezing in to stop his release.

  Dylan lets out a frustrated noise, his eyes flashing gold in the darkness, and for his trouble he’s rewarded by Jamie’s smirk. The man is sinfully gorgeous, watching him, and it doesn’t stop the want in his belly or his aggravation at being denied.

  “Turn over,” Jamie orders him, and he moves easily enough, presenting himself. He waits for the feeling of his mate’s cock-head, but the feeling of a soft, warm tongue traveling up the base of his cock to the opening of his ass surprises him.

  “Relax,” Jamie says.

  Dylan doesn’t know how Jamie has the patience for slow. He wants his mate inside him, and the heavy press of Jamie’s body blanketing him. He wants to feel Jamie’s knot as it splits him open and Jamie fills him full of his come, breeding him. His humanity is far from the surface now; his instincts have kicked in, and he pushes impatiently against Jamie’s face.

  Jamie growls at him, but it’s not a sign of displeasure; he can scent his alpha’s pheromones becoming even headier, filling the clearing as he presses his mouth against him. Jamie’s tongue ought to be classified as a weapon; he eats him out sloppily, greedily, as Dylan’s body undulates of its own accord. Jamie shoves two fingers into him, working his tongue in alongside, and then three in perfunctory prep.

  Dylan’s body should be able to handle it easily enough - it’s what he was made for - but Jamie isn’t a small man, and Jamie’s knot will be larger than the knotting dildo Dylan keeps in a bag under his bed, so he’s grateful for the thought. Everything is wet and sloppy and glorious, and when Dylan can’t take it for another second, he reaches back to grab Jamie’s wrist, yanking him forward.

  “Alpha,” he demands, “fuck me already!”

  Jamie growls low in his throat and settles his hands in a rough grip at Dylan’s hips. When Dylan looks back at him, Jamie’s face is a study in need and desire, his lips plush and shiny. Dylan hums in conten
tedness and drops his head forward again.

  Jamie slips inside him. His alpha feels incredibly large, stretching him, and he lets out a strangled moan. When Jamie begins to move, he can’t stop the sounds coming from his throat - low moans and breathless “ah, ah, ahs!” - as the world contracts to just the two of them, the flames of fire on his skin where he feels his mate against him, the grass underneath his hands and knees, Jamie’s rough panting hot against his ear.

  Jamie thrusts forward again, once more, deep. His knot grows quickly, tying them together, and Dylan experiences a full body shiver at the feel of the expanding girth inside him. His own muscles clamp down around his mate, and the sound of Jamie’s growl of approval close to his ear sends a shock wave through his body.

  “Alpha,” Dylan bites out, and then Jamie’s lips are pressed to the back of his neck, sloppy kisses lingering over his spine.

  “Mine.”

  “Yes, Alpha!”

  There is a moment, a flash of a second really, between one exhale and the next, where the night melts away. There is no clearing in the woods, no ritual paraphernalia lying only a few feet away. There are no challengers. There isn’t even the moon above them, full and bright in the sky. The feel of skin on skin fades away; even the ecstasy of their bodies’ release pales next to the all-encompassing feeling of completeness and euphoria as Dylan and Jamie are stripped away. Their souls move in unison, twisting tightly around the other, merging and loving.

  Jamie throws back his head, a deep, sonorous howl echoing from his human throat. When Dylan’s voice joins his, the sound becomes a perfect harmony.

  7 - Seven

  “You’re crying,” Jamie observes when they collapse against the ground, still tied together.

  “Am I?” Dylan murmurs, and reaches up to touch his face. When he focuses, he can scent the salt water on the air. “Oh.”

  “Is everything alright?”

  “’s perfect,” Dylan slurs, and lolls his head back against his alpha.

  *

  Dylan wakes up happy. It’s the first morning he’s been truly at peace since the Decree was given - maybe before that. When he turns his head to the side, he’s met with his mate’s thick fur, and he breathes in deeply.

  They’d shifted to their lupine forms soon after they’d broken apart for the first time; it was easier and more natural to be sheltered by their fur. Neither one had wanted to break the spell of their companionship by returning to the pack, and so they’d spent the night alone, curled around each other in one way or another, making love and chasing each other through the clearing, high on the exhilaration of their shared bond.

  He stretches out, feeling the dull ache in his body as a reminder of the night before. By the time he’s worked the kinks out of his back and legs, he looks over to find Jamie blinking one eye open to watch him before he shuts it again, grumbling lightly to himself and shifting to make himself more comfortable.

  Dylan’s tongue hangs out in a smile. When he nudges at Jamie’s body with his nose, his alpha snaps at him halfheartedly. Dylan does it again. Jamie lifts his head to shoot him a baleful glare.

  Dylan shifts back, the better for him to crouch down and run his fingers through Jamie’s ruff. “Aw, come on,” he says. “It’s morning. I’m hungry.”

  Jamie shifts back as well, startling Dylan enough to make him fall back on his ass. “I can hunt for you,” he offers in a deep, raspy voice, and Dylan shakes his head.

  “I’ve been too busy worrying to taste my food in days,” he says, “and you haven’t had a proper meal in… well. A very long time. So wakey wakey, sugar lips. It’s time to breaky my fast.”

  Jamie lifts an eyebrow. “Sugar lips?”

  Dylan flushes. “I mean…” he says, suddenly unsure.

  Jamie must sense his nerves, because he springs to his feet in one smooth motion, reaching out a hand to pull Dylan up with him. When he’s steady on his feet, Jamie leans in close to his ear. “I think you’re the one with sugared lips, mate.”

  Dylan’s face burns hotter.

  They share a long kiss. When Jamie looks at the mark he’s left on Dylan’s neck, his face becomes this odd mixture of sad and proud, and Dylan reaches out to trace the mark he had left on Jamie. “Let’s just not talk about it,” he says quietly. “Not right now. Not while we still have some time left.”

  Jamie nods, pressing another quick kiss to his lips before melting back into fur and claws.

  It’s easier to be present in the moment as a wolf, Dylan thinks. Quieter inside your mind. Then he slips into his fur coat as well to lead them back to civilization.

  *

  Just like he left the night before, there is a crowd waiting for his (and everyone else’s) return when they step forward from the tree line and toward the waiting spectators. To the left, Dylan sees a newly-mated omega and what he assumes are her family members converging on her stoic new alpha. In the middle of the crowd, right near the front, are the officials, waiting to record new bonds as soon as the returning wolves shift back. And to the right, on the very fringe of the crowd, are his father and a worried Hannah and Eric.

  He nudges at Jamie’s side before breaking into an easy lope, bypassing the officials in favor of rushing to his father’s side. He butts his head against his father’s legs before shifting back, his face wide and open as he gestures back to Jamie, who is still coming, his walk purposeful and his head held high.

  “Who’s this, then?” Nash asks, holding out his clothes for him to put back on, while Hannah offers him a blanket.

  “Jamie will need it. He doesn’t have any clothes ready,” he tells her, and shrugs into his hoodie and sweats.

  “Jamie?” Nash says pointedly, just as his mate comes up to his side, shifting back and wrapping his arm around Dylan’s waist.

  Dylan watches as his father squints, trying to remember where he’s seen the face before, but Hannah coughs. “I guess it worked, then,” she says, and Dylan takes the blanket from her arms to settle around his mate’s shoulders.

  “Father,” he says, “Hannah and Eric,” he nods at them each in turn. “May I present my mate, the Alpha James McLean, Uniter of the South.”

  His father and friends offer their throats in a show of submission before they even realize what they’re doing, and Eric shakes himself from the automatic impulse to yield to someone of a higher station with a frown. “What is this?” he asks suspiciously, drawing Hannah further against his body.

  Dylan turns back to Jamie, his eyes twinkling, and Jamie’s just opening his mouth to reply when they’re interrupted by a middle aged woman in a hot pink jacket and hideous brown trousers. “Ahem.”

  Dylan cuts his eyes over to her. She’s holding a clipboard and wearing a smile that looks like she’d rather drown someone than hug them. “All new bonds must be registered immediately.”

  Jamie’s eyes narrow. “Surely you don’t mean to infringe upon the first meeting between my mate’s family and myself, as his alpha,” he asks her.

  Her smile could curdle milk. “It is imperative that we have a head count of all new pairings right away,” she says.

  Jamie lifts an eyebrow. “And what does this registration entail? We will still be bonded whether or not we fill out your papers now or at a more reasonable time in the future.”

  Nash chuckles, and turns to Dylan. “I like him,” he says.

  Dylan sighs. “Just give me the form,” he says. “I’ll fill it out and return it in a few minutes.”

  “That’s not acceptable,” she says sharply, and by this time they are drawing a crowd.

  “What’s going on here?” comes another voice, and Dylan presses back into the warmth of his mate’s body instinctively. Warren steps through the crowd, a great scowl on his face when he sees Dylan. His face is scraped up, and Dylan belatedly recognizes him as the alpha he’d pushed down the bank the night before.

  Warren comes another few steps and stops dead in his tracks as he registers Jamie’s face. “What trick
is this?”

  Jamie raises his eyebrow. He’s tired of the hubbub keeping them from celebrating their bond - however short it may be - with Dylan’s loved ones, and impatient that his mate’s stomach should be kept waiting for the purposes of bureaucracy. He doesn’t have to have a background on the situation to understand Dylan’s fear of the new comer, cuddled against him as he is, and so instead of allowing his omega to continue to take the lead in their interactions - a course which he had initially thought to be more respectful, given that he was out of his own time - he tightens his grip on Dylan’s waist and takes a half step forward.

  “My mate has invoked the Rite of the Soul and has been granted his request. My name is James McLean, former Alpha of the Carolinas, and if you don’t mind, we’ll be leaving now. If you give him one of your forms, you will get it back with all due haste, but as for now, my mate is hungry and I would not be much of an alpha if I did not attend to his needs.”

  “Now, look here…” Warren starts, and reaches out to grab hold of Dylan’s arm.

  His fingertips barely make contact before Jamie’s arm is darting out, catching him around the wrist and forcing his hand away. “I’ll thank you to keep your hands to yourself before you lose them,” he says, with the same force of authority he used as the leader of his pack and the warrior of his people. He’s gratified when Warren takes a step back.

  When they begin to walk away, he glances over his shoulder. Men like Warren are leeches. Jamie doesn’t think this is the last time his mate will have to deal with the man.

  8 - Eight

  The day passes in a whirlwind - too quickly for Dylan to hang on to every moment.

  It doesn’t stop him from trying.

  Jamie fits right in with his father and friends. They walk to the Spice Diner on the edge of town, ordering up Martha’s famous cinnamon swirl pancakes, and enough bacon and sausage to feed a small army. Ivan and Rusty are too busy with their own bonding celebration to come for breakfast, but Hannah texts Jewel and she shows up just as Martha is setting down an enormous cup of hot cocoa in front of Dylan.