by Davis, L. C.
The creature emerging from the woods was no wolf. I slept with a wolf nestled against my side most nights. This was a monster, pure and simple. Fear would have been a natural reaction, and while I could feel it somewhere in the back of my mind, awe eclipsed it.
Another growl came from somewhere behind me and I understood why the sound had seemed to come from everywhere. There were two of them. I turned to see a dark brown wolf creeping towards me on all fours. It was about the same size as Nick's regular wolf form, but its eyes were cold and hungry as they fixed on me.
The bipedal beast behind me let out a warning snarl and the other wolf stopped in its tracks.
"Nick?" I asked warily, turning back to the monstrous beast. He reached out with a gnarled hand and tossed me aside as he lunged to meet the other wolf in mid-air. With the size difference between them, there was no real contest. The beast I was about ninety-percent sure was Nick by that point grabbed the other wolf in the air and slammed him into the ground with a deafening crack, making it clear he had been using his kid gloves on me.
I watched in horror as the other wolf recovered, lunging at Nick's throat. The larger beast roared and blood sprayed his packmate's brown coat as he went down.
"No!" I cried, lunging in blind instinct. The smaller wolf turned on me, reminding me that he was small in comparison to the alpha only. He moved closer, his fangs dripping with Nick's blood and a low rumble coming from his chest. Whenever Nick's wolf growled, it sounded like a purr, warm and affectionate, but this was a sound of unmistakable malice.
My fingertips tingled the way they had when Locke kissed me and I could feel something coming to the surface, flushing my skin with its heat, but a huge shadow eclipsed ups both. I screamed as the alpha wolf grabbed the monster encroaching on me and sank his fangs into its neck, ripping its throat out with a shark jerk of its head.
The wolf's body went limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut and the beast threw it aside, loping over to me on all fours. The black fur around his muzzle was stained with blood and I flinched away in an automatic reaction when he reached for me.
Pain flickered in the monster's eyes and I felt like a fool for not recognizing them before. When I looked right into them, no matter what kind of ghastly face they were set in, there was no doubting who they belonged to. "Nick," I cried, throwing my arms around as much of him as I could span, digging my fingers into the wiry fur stretched over his solid chest. He was always warm, but it was like there was a furnace in his chest as he pulled his arms around me, and I could tell it took great restraint not to snap my spine.
"Daniel," I choked out, hoping he could understand me. He seemed to have a bit of trouble as a regular wolf, so he usually just shifted back when we needed to converse. "There was a wolf in the road, and the car flipped, and Daniel..." The image of his lifeless body run through by the limb of a tree, his eyes wide and staring, was never going to leave my mind. "Daniel was killed when that wolf darted out in front of his truck, and I made a deal with Locke to bring him back, and now they're both gone."
Nick watched me for a moment, his brow furrowed as if he was trying to make sense of what I had just said, but that could just as easily have been the result of my borderline-hysterical state as his primal comprehension. He turned and pain replaced the confusion in his eyes.
I followed his gaze to the bare white skin of the man who was face down in the grass, a strip of flesh on his neck peeled back like a circuit panel, revealing the veins and sinew underneath. Nick loped over to the body, turning it gently and I gasped when I saw the man's face, his eyes as wide open as Daniel's has been as he looked off into the sky, unblinking.
"Brent..." His face was already turning a strange shade of taupe, and his features were contorted with rage and pain, but I recognized him as Nick's brother immediately from the few times I had seen him around town, usually outside the sheriff's station.
The name spoken out loud seemed to be Nick's undoing. He threw his muzzle back and let out a sound somewhere between a howl and a cry of anguish. The notes were so strangely beautiful, but the vibrations they sent through me made my bones ache and I felt sure if the mournful song continued, I was going to crumble from the inside out.
I stood there, watching as Nick held his brother's body, at a loss for any words or actions that mattered. Nothing could make any of what had just happened okay, and in that moment, I couldn't imagine how anything ever would be again.
Cold fingers curled over my shoulders, chilling my skin through the thick fabric of my sweater. "Such a pity it had to come to this." Locke's voice was fittingly cold and cruel, stripped of the thin mask of civility and playfulness he wore so well. I spun on him, striking his hand away.
"This is your fault," I cried. "You knew this would happen. You left me."
"I had to get Daniel somewhere safe," he said, watching me with an apathetic expression. "This place is crawling with supernaturals, and I smell an angel haunting the border. It's not my fault you can't take care of yourself for two minutes. I'm not the one who made you stray from the path."
The worst part about his words was how much sense they made. He was right. This wasn't his fault, it was mine. If I hadn't gone into the woods, if I hadn't insisted on going to the shelter with Daniel, if I had never come to Stillwater in the first place...
Locke brushed past me, walking up to the snarling werewolf without a care in the world. "Well, I guess we know who ate the sheriff. Hope the deputy is faring better."
Nick growled low as Locke reached for Brent's body. "This is a crime scene. It won't be long before the rest of the pack comes looking for him and discovers what you've done. They'll know it was an alpha who killed him, and that'll raise some inconvenient questions, won't it?" he asked pointedly.
Nick's growl deepened, and he was holding eye contact with Locke, who seemed to be listening. I realized they were speaking telepathically, but couldn't make my voice work to ask what it was about.
"As noble as that is, have you given any thought as to what will happen to Holden once you turn yourself in?" Locke asked, confirming my theory. Nick frowned and the growling ceased. "Brent figured out what Holden was. Daniel was just collateral damage. Your brother had to die, but if you take the fall for it, his death will have been for nothing."
Nick's muzzle wrinkled and he snarled in warning at the demon, staring him down. The standoff seemed to last forever, but Nick's shoulders finally fell in defeat and my heart lurched as he passed Brent's lifeless body into the demon's arms.
"Good boy," Locke purred, nodding past Nick. "You'll find a change of clothes by that tree. Get dressed, take Holden home and lie low until the morning. By sunrise, Brent will be filling a ditch in enemy territory."
Nick turned away from him with a snarl and ducked to pick something up by the tree before disappearing into the woods.
"You planned this," I accused, turning to Locke.
Locke considered me boredly. "I'm an opportunist, not a psychopath. It didn't have to be this way. You could have taken my deal when it was sweet. Now you get to live with the bitter taste of death in your mouth. Let that be a lesson to you," he said, vanishing with Brent as Nick came back, fully human and clothed. I rushed to him, but the look in his eyes stopped me short.
"Nick," I breathed. "I'm so sorry."
He gave a curt nod, but I could tell he wasn't all there. He took my hand and led me deeper into the woods without a word. I followed him and my heart ached for the numbness he seemed to have slipped into out of necessity. After seeing what he was capable of when he was angry, I didn't feel justified in telling him to let the pain out. There was a good chance that nothing would be left of Stillwater if he did.
Twenty-Four
DANIEL
Fire crackled from somewhere not far off, warming my face and beckoning my eyes to open. My eyelids were heavy and at first, I couldn't get them to budge. A smooth hand traced the length of my torso and the touch was soothing, until it reached the spot on my ch
est that had been a gaping hole stuffed with a tree branch all too recently. I gasped for breath and sat upright, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight of the clear blue eyes staring back at me.
I looked around the cabin and recognized it immediately. Everything, from the poorly taxidermized deer head trophy watching me from over the fireplace--not the roaring flames of hell I had assumed would be there to greet me when I opened my eyes--to the coarse bearskin rug underneath my half-naked body. Dennis was leaning in close, his eyes dancing in amusement as he sipped a beer stolen from the owners of the cabin he had convinced me to break in with him.
I stared in disbelief, not just because he was there, smiling at me--or at least, wearing a smirk that was as close to a smile as he ever came--but because he was exactly the way I remembered him being that last summer. Our nineteenth, to be exact. My reflection in the glass panels that guarded the fireplace was just clear enough to realize that he wasn't the only one who had received a time travel makeover.
If I had been in my right mind, I might have questioned how any of it was possible, relativity being the least of our issues, but I wasn't. I still felt cold inside, and everything that had happened leading up to and immediately after my death was just a fading memory of something that hadn't even technically happened yet. Whether it was a dream, a reward or a twisted beginning to my eternal punishment, it didn't matter. Just as long as it didn't end.
"You need to relax," he said, moving to straddle my lap as I propped my back against the sofa. His light hair was a little longer than he usually let it get during the school semester and it teased his bare shoulders. I had always been sturdy, but he was all lean muscle and the elegance of his naked torso never ceased to mesmerize me. I knew if I dared to touch him, his skin, bronzed from the day we had spent lazing in the summer heat, would be as supple and enchanting as I remembered. He shifted a little, settling fully in my lap, his jeans rough as his thighs hugged my sides and his weight settled on my crotch, rubbing against my increasingly snug swim trunks.
"We came all the way out here to enjoy the last few days before you go back to that stuffy college, and you're acting like it's your funeral," he said, holding his beer in one hand while sweeping his fingers through my shaggy hair with the other. "
I blew a puff of air through my nose. His words hit the mark a bit too closely to laugh. I dared to touch him, deciding his shoulders were the safest place to start, just to be sure he was real. The tops of his shoulders were freckled and his skin was still flushed from the sun. Somehow, despite his fair hair and eyes, he never seemed to burn. I had always joked that even the sun was charmed by him. I ran my hands down his taut biceps and explored every slope and plane of his sculpted torso with an awe that bordered on religious.
When I met his eyes again, they were heavy with acquiescence. Sometimes he was a raging fire, too hot to touch or even stand close to without getting burned, but when he was in one of those rare moods, he was as gentle and as generous as the lake where I had seen all of him for the very first time. He leaned in first and his lips swept across mine, tasting of cheap beer and smoke. Even when he was in one of those moods, he couldn't help but tease, but the smile on his lips did about as much to me as anyone else's touch could.
"I bet I know what would help you relax."
"You're teasing me," I muttered, looking over at the fire. "Again." The last time, he had gotten me all worked up, pulling me on top of him, grinding against me and pushing me past the point of desperation only to pull back at the last moment and announce that he was late for a date with a girl he'd met at my dorm mixer.
"Am I?" He reached through the flap in my trunks, wrapping his hand around my shaft to finish what all his shifting and repositioning had started. Not that he needed to touch me to spark that reaction. Those days, I could get hard just thinking about his lips on my neck, the way he smelled, the feel of his hair tickling my skin...
He rose off me just enough to slip off his jeans, tossing them aside before he straddled me again. Leave it to Dennis Mills to bring the grace of a goddamn ballet performance to the awkward act of stripping off jeans. He reached for something in his pocket and pulled out a foil packet.
Of course this was premeditated. I took the condom and turned the package over. "Lubricated, huh? You're taking the joke pretty far this time."
"It's not a joke," he said, tearing the wrapper open with his teeth. He took the bright yellow latex ring and flicked his tongue against it with a wicked little smile. "Banana. My favorite."
I swallowed hard. "Dennis, come on. You're not gonna..."
I watched in fascination as he rolled the condom over my shaft and waited in a mixture of apprehension and curiosity for what he was going to do next. I'd sucked him off before, but he wasn't one to return the favor. That would be "too gay." Imagine my surprise when, instead of taking me into his mouth, he took my hand and drew my middle and forefinger past his lips, his tongue sliding along them languidly to wet them. The sight of him pulling my fingers out of his mouth slowly with a "pop" might have been enough to push me over the edge, but he pushed my hand between his legs and there wasn't much need to wonder what he wanted me to do next.
Hesitantly, I pressed a spit-slick digit against his tightly puckered entrance and waited on the chance that I had somehow misread him, as improbable as it seemed. His lips set into a focused line and he wet them as he pushed back against my finger and it slipped in up to the first joint. I worked it in a little deeper, relishing the muffled sound that parted his lips as I worked in a second. Once I got up to my knuckles, I started thrusting a little, deciding even if that was as far as his teasing went, it was enough just to feel him from the inside, the way I'd always wanted to. I pulled him closer and pressed a kiss to his neck, then his chest, his pulse fluttering beneath my lips.
"Harder," he demanded, digging his hands into my hair and his fingertips into my scalp, like he was intent on punishing me if I dared to defy his magnanimous offer.
I gave him what he wanted, surprised at how well he took it. If I hadn't been a naive college sophomore with more hormones rattling around in my skull than brain cells, it might have occurred to me that it wasn't the first time my Dennis had done something "too gay" with another guy. Still, when a god invited you into his throne room and offered you wine from a sacred goblet, you didn't ask what vineyard it came from. You just fucking drank the wine and enjoyed every minute of it.
His head lolled back as he arched against my fingers. "Want you," he breathed, scraping his nails up the nape of my neck. "Inside...I want to know what it feels like to possess all of you, Daniel."
No arguing with that. I moved to shift our positions so I could settle on top of him, but he pushed me back against the couch and adjusted himself, replacing my fingers with the head of my shaft. In all my fantasies, I had naively imagined having a bit more control in the situation, but I was content to let him manipulate me, positioning me against his tight entrance. At least I wouldn't have to worry about hurting him that way. I settled my hands on his trim hips and watched, mesmerized as he lowered himself onto me, breaking the surface tension. The sudden pressure on the most sensitive part of my cock was more than my virgin body was ready for, but he writhed and wriggled until his ass had swallowed up the length of me. He was stiff by then, and the feeling of his erection pressed hard and hot between our stomachs was enough to make me moan.
I dug my nails into his hips as he rode me, setting the rhythm of his bucking to the rhythm of his increasingly shallow breaths. I kissed him and he let me. It was a fifty-fifty shot most of the time, but when I reached to grab his shaft, he pushed my hand away and pinned it to the couch. Inexperienced as I was, I knew I wasn't into that restraint shit, but if it was what he needed to feel in control of the situation, I wasn't going to complain. There were plenty of things I wouldn't have put up with from anyone else that I more than eagerly accepted when he was the one offering. Insisting.
"Fuck, Dennis," I groaned into h
is neck, greedily clutching at every inch of him I could get my hands on. His hands were on my shoulders as he steadied himself, letting out a controlled breath as he ground hard against me, angling so I hit him in just the right spot, and I realized fucking him was better than any fantasy I had ever indulged. In the back of my mind, I was beginning to accept that maybe I wasn't his first like he was mine, but it didn't matter. My brain was stewed heavily enough in pheromones and love to entertain the delusion that I could be his last. That the way his lips quivered with each ragged breath and his eyes rolled back in his head as I hit his spot was more than just lust, more than a physical itch that needed to be scratched. That the experience was as intimate for him as it was for me.
Holding off became a chore, but he was only giving me the illusion of control, even in that regard. His cum sprayed my chest, hot and wet as he rubbed against me. His nails dug into my back and he arched one last time, drawing the orgasm from me like the final note of a concerto, every movement, every piece under his absolute control. I shuddered with release and the different kind of need that settled in its place, watching him for a moment as we both caught our breath.
I wanted to beg him to stay, not to pull away from me just yet, but I couldn't find the words. Especially when he kissed me, my ears still ringing with pleasure as he climbed off me and grabbed his discarded T-shirt, using it to clean up. "Guess we should go for another swim to clean up."
I stared at him, wondering how he could just recover that quickly from an experience that had become the peak of my existence. As I watched him clean up the wrapper and the empty bottles, erasing the traces of our presence, I worried the memory would be erased along with it. "Dennis..."
