by SJ Himes
“Partner? No! Let me go, you monster!” Simon kicked, scratched, punched, but nothing he did affected the monster who dragged him back into his condo.
He landed on the floor in front of his luxurious leather couch, sprawling. He groaned, and before he could get up, he was flipped to his back, an expensive leather shoe on his chest holding him down. The door to his condo hissed shut.
“What did you do to my guards?” Simon gritted out, trying to get out from under Julian’s shoe.
“Me? Why do you think I did anything to them?” Julian chuckled, leaning more of his weight on his foot. “Perhaps I killed them. Snapped their necks. Or slashed their throats. Humans, no matter how skilled, are nothing against me.” Julian leaned even more, and Simon coughed at the increasing weight on his sternum. “Ah, but have no fear. I bribed the lot of them to leave for the night and come back in the morning. It’s just you and me until dawn.”
The bite mark on his shoulder burned, and he cried out as Julian leaned down over him, knocking the air from his lungs. Julian tilted his head, and with a casual flick of his wrist, ripped away Simon’s unbuttoned dress shirt and tossed aside a long piece. Fingers trailed over the half-healed bite, pressing, claws lightly scratching. He felt one of the scabs crack, and the sting and sudden wet told him it was bleeding. He tried kicking Julian off him, but nothing he did moved the werewolf. Julian smirked, and shifted, knees straddling Simon’s chest, letting him suck in a fast gulp of air. He grabbed at Julian’s thighs, the werewolf’s knees on either side of his chest, just under his arms, but Julian pulled his hands away and restrained his wrists with one hand.
He watched in horror as Julian’s face warped, mouth growing wider, fangs protruding from upper and lower jaw, his eyes no longer human. Red fur to match his hair grew down his neck to the collar of his shirt, the once immaculate dress shirt of his suit straining over shifting muscle mass. The werewolf gave off heat in waves, warmth spreading out from Simon’s stomach, up his torso, across his chest, and down his hips and thighs.
Fingers tipped with long, slightly curved claws gently skipped over the now seeping bite, and Julian lifted his fingers to his nose, sniffing, nostrils flaring. He growled, a deep rumble, and Julian smiled down at him.
“Did you know wolfkin take humans for lovers? Not often, but it happens enough that most clans ignore the occasional indiscretion. Most of us fuck humans, of course, but a lover is a different beast altogether. It’s dangerous—we can’t turn humans, not like wolves in those silly stories humans write—but because humans react to us. The animal in us calls to the primitive part of your spirits.” Julian leaned down, sniffing at the bite, and Simon cringed when a wet tongue slipped between fangs and licked the wound. Julian sat back up, closing his eyes as if savoring the taste. “Your kind burns for us, hungers for us. Once bitten, once fucked, a human bitch aches for more. No matter if they want it or not—your bodies betray you every time.”
“No!” Simon hissed out, bucking his hips, heels digging into the floor. “Get off me!”
Julian chuckled, leaning down again. A slim tongue, too thin and long for a human, teased across Simon’s lips, lapping at them, and Simon moved his face away, but Julian followed him. He suffered the gross indignity of the beast’s kiss, not daring to bite the tongue slipping past his lips into his mouth.
He shivered, body awash with heat. His mind shut down, his heart hammering in his chest, and the kiss deepened until the heat eclipsed his resistance, and he went limp. His jaw dropped open even more as he yielded to the kiss. Julian tasted like blood, copper, spice and heat, and Simon moaned into the werewolf’s mouth as he turned his head into the kiss, suddenly wanting more.
The werewolf’s weight was gone almost immediately. Simon yelped, finding himself flung upwards, and he landed with a bounce on the couch. Julian shook out his sleeves, stretching his neck as red fur receded and his face and mouth shrank back down to human proportions. Simon’s breathing matched the frantic pace of his heart, and he gaped in confused shock at the werewolf who now stood over him, as normal looking as any human man.
“Such a good boy,” Julian said, gazing down at him with an insane amount of boredom on his handsome features. “Now that you know your place, tell me everything.”
“I…What?” He’d gone from expecting to be raped to holding a normal conversation and his brain was flatlining.
Julian sighed. He moved to the couch and sat next to Simon, who stared at him with wide eyes. Blood ran down his shoulder from the reopened wound, and his skin pebbled with fear and adrenaline. Julian leaned back, one arm along the back of the couch, his torso turned towards Simon. “Don’t make me repeat myself. Tell me everything. Every experiment. Successes, failures, who approached you with contracts, who is funding you. Everything. Tell me what I want to know, and I won’t bend you over this couch and show you exactly why humans never last long when wolfkin fuck them.”
The next morning dawned cold and intensely bright—not a cloud in the sky. The wind was calm and blew from the southwest, the first hint of spring on the far horizon.
Ghost scampered around Kane’s great paws, his big mate taking one step for every four of Ghost’s, but Ghost didn’t mind. He was faster than Kane, nimbler, and enjoyed teasing his bigger mate. Tongue lolling as he panted, Ghost led the way through the trees, following the trail of a rabbit.
The rabbit he was trailing jumped out from beneath a snow-laden bush and foolishly ran right beneath his nose. He caught it with a quick snap of his jaws and broke its neck with a sharp flip of his head. He trotted back to his mate and offered the rabbit with a wag of his tail. Kane took the rabbit with great solemnity and grace, and lay down with his gift.
Kane wordlessly asked him he wanted to eat it too, but Ghost shook his head and backed away a few feet before lying down. He was a wolf hunting for his mate, and although Kane was bigger and deadlier in his wolf form, Ghost was still a hunter and quite skilled at catching prey. Catching food for his mate made him happy, and watching Kane tear into the fresh kill was satisfying. His poor alpha had been through quite an ordeal the last couple of weeks and Ghost was finding that he was equally as protective of Kane as Kane was of Ghost.
The forest around them was peaceful, and with the skies clear high above, it was warmer this morning than it had been for months. Baxter was farther south than the sanctuary in New Brunswick by a few hundred miles. He wondered if the distance was great enough to affect the weather. He tilted his head back ears pricking forward as he listened to the sounds around him. Kane was chomping on a bone, there was a squirrel sleeping in a tangle of branches at the base of the tree a few yards away, and in the other direction, there was a brace of crows calling to each other, alerting the rest of the forest to the presence of the wolves.
Ghost called to his Spiritsight and it came alive in a rush of color and sensation. Kane glowed with a fiery red trimmed with silver; he could see the soulbond between them as easily as if it was a tangible thing he could touch. The earth beneath their feet was a soft green with hints of blue, still held in the grip of winter. The trees were alive, their cores of vibrant shades of green with hints of yellow and varying shades of brown. He could see the tiny stars of rodents and birds alike that hid beneath the snow and jumped from branch to branch or flew across the sky. He could see farther, almost through the physical forms of everything around him and he could see vibrant light in an unending vista that blurred into a wall of rainbows the farther he looked.
There was another wolfkin not too far away. The soulstar of the wolfkin was very like that of his mate but it was tinged with undertones of gray smoke and black lines that gave him the impression of grief.
Caius.
Ghost stood and carefully headed in his grandfather’s direction. He stepped around trees and over fallen branches taking care to not approach too quickly. Caius had been in his wolf form for several days now and Ghost knew how easy it
was to lose the human part of themselves. Kane finished the rabbit with a gulp and followed behind him. There was no need to talk— Kane knew, probably before Ghost did, that Caius was nearby. Kane had the gift of command, something that all greater alphas possessed to varying degrees, the mental ability to sense and communicate with multiple wolfkin minds. Ghost could hear and speak to a few wolves while in this form but not to the degree that Kane could, and certainly not to the degree of which Burke was capable—he was a Speaker, after all. And if Kane knew Caius was out here, then Caius was fully aware that they were nearby and approaching.
His heart jumped a little bit but a part of him recognized where they were. Even in the depths of winter the river that wound its way through Baxter never froze all the way through, he could hear rushing water not that far ahead. He came across Caius’s footprints in the snow and followed the fresh trail until the trees fell away and the river was before him.
He knew this place. Here was where Luca died and Ghost was born. Here too, was where Gray Shadow took a shotgun blast to the chest while protecting him from the humans. And where Caius stood on a large wide flat stone was where Gray Shadow died.
Caius was large, almost as large as Kane. They were probably separated by no more than a couple of inches and a few pounds. Kane was slightly slimmer while Caius was all bulk. He was dark, a mix of blacks and brown and hints of gray on the tips of his long guard hairs. When he turned his head his eyes glowed with the power of his spirit and his grief.
Kane stopped at the edge of the forest while Ghost continued on. It felt odd to walk this path, to be again in the place where everything changed so drastically. He hopped up onto the boulder that hung out over the rushing water below. The center of the river was free of ice for a few feet, white water frothing and tumbling down the mountainside. He sat next to his grandfather and they both stared at the water for a few minutes.
*You look just like him,* Caius said quietly. *It makes me happy and hurts my heart at the same time.*
There was nothing Ghost could say to that. He had always looked like this, and his memories of Gray Shadow as a wolf were blurry, but if anyone was to know his resemblance to Gray Shadow it would be Caius.
*You need not say anything, Ghost. You know, don’t you?*
*That you loved Gray Shadow? Yes, I know. I’ve always known.* Ghost replied softly, careful of the teeming grief ready to spill over.
*We were so careful. Sex was one thing, but to be a pair? I am a coward. I should have fought more to claim him as mine. So many centuries spent denying what we felt, even taking betas as mates to try and turn our hearts away from each other. We pretended to be naught but friends for so long the lie felt like truth.*
Ghost could see many lifetimes of frustration and pain, for all wolves involved. Caius had lost a great love to societal pressure, entered into one failed mating after another, and even lost a mate or two to death along the way. Gray Shadow had taken a mate as well, a nameless female beta that Ghost had never met, dying many years before he was even born.
He could not begrudge them their past mistakes, since he was alive. His mother, Marla, had been Caius’s daughter, and Josiah, his father, Gray Shadow’s son.
It felt like fate. That if Gray Shadow and Caius could not find their way to each other, their bloodlines eventually did.
A whisper rose on the wind, racing over the river and toying with his ears. Ghost tilted his head, listening, though this time there was no words, no soft feminine laughter to tease him and prompt him. It was still very familiar, and not of this world, and Ghost heeded the prompting.
He changed. A rush of silver and white smoke eclipsed his vision and he reclaimed his human form. He grimaced, but sat on the ice-cold boulder. Caius grumbled at him and shuffled closer, blocking some of the wind. The sky was a bright, intense blue, not a cloud to be seen, and he could almost see the river as it was that long ago summer.
“I don’t know anything about being a shaman. Or a man,” Ghost stated. He leaned over a bit, and peered down at the swift current before sitting back. “I can catch a rabbit easily. I know how to open a door with my teeth. I can find the best snacks in the fridge. And when it comes to grief, I have a pretty good idea how to deal with it, too.”
Caius glanced at him from the side of his eye, listening. Ghost went back to gazing out over the river. It was thick here with tall rocks and fallen trees, stripped bare of branches and moss. “I’ve been grieving my whole life, and it was part of why I couldn’t find my way back to my human self. Guilt, too.”
Caius gave a small twitch, fur rippling.
Ghost continued, smiling as a bluejay winged its way above them, crying out an alarm at their presence. It flew away, complaining as it went. “I felt guilty because Gray Shadow died saving me.” Caius gave up pretense and gave him his full attention. “Grandpa Shadow died saving me. He taught me to Change—and that healed me from the damage caused by the river. The greatest shaman the clans had ever seen died to save a single small wolf, who poorly repaid him for that sacrifice by getting stuck and pretending to be a wild animal because he was too afraid to find his home.”
Caius growled at him, displeased. Ghost just shrugged and kept talking. “Guilt eats at us. It weighs us down and lies to us, too. We think there is nothing on the other side of grief. How can there be anything on the other side of such pain? Combine guilt and grief, you’re trapped in a never-ending cycle of pain. Guilt creates more grief, and grief fuels our guilt. No matter how long we live, we are still mortals, and we suffer for our mistakes. I can’t fathom living for centuries carrying guilt and grief in my heart. To then learn your own son was partly responsible for killing your family, your people, and the wolf you loved above all others…I can’t comprehend that pain.”
He didn’t fight the tears. He let them fall. Caius whined, quietly enough to be swallowed by the noise of the rapids. The whisper rose again, and Ghost smiled past his tears. “He doesn’t blame either of us for our choices.”
Caius’s whole body jerked. He towered over Ghost even as he lay down beside him, a wall of fur and warmth at his side and back. Caius dropped his head to his paws, eyes locked on the river. Ghost continued. “I know he loves us both. I know fate and our Goddess has a purpose and a plan for us all. He wants you to listen. To believe that there is something worth living for, worth fighting for, that every mistake you’ve made in your long life is redeemable and understandable. He never blamed you for anything. He made mistakes, too.” A soft chuckle on the wind. A warm ray of sunshine caressed his cheek and glided along, smoothing down the long guard hairs along Caius’s spine. Caius shuddered again, a plaintive whimper slipping free.
The whisper came again, melding with Her voice. Wordless, yet full of promise. It became less feminine, deeper, with warmth in it that banished the chill winter air. Ghost let the voices in, and closed his eyes. He fell away, and Another spoke. “Caius, you led the Great Exodus, escaped Europe with many of the clans and gave us a new life on this continent. You brought Black Pine to prosperity and strength. You denied the greatest wish of your heart and hardened yourself against love and family. You followed that which you believed to be only duty, and suffered for it. Evil is here, among the clans, killing our people. The paths before you are twisted and full of grief and pain. Your son started this evil, and you feel guilt for his part in all of this. You carry a responsibility and blame upon your spirit that is not yours to carry. Our people are still in danger. Caius of Black Pine—you can fade away…or you can fight.”
Ghost breathed in, the cold air shocking him back. He looked around, confused for a moment. Caius was in his human form, kneeling beside him. His grandfather gazed at him with a slow, searching regard. “What?”
Caius shook his head and chuckled. “I don’t know who that was there at the end, but I got the message loud and clear.” Caius leaned over, and cupping the back of Ghost’s head, pressed a kiss to
his forehead. He pulled back, “Change back, grandcub. We have things to do.”
“Yes, Grandpa Caius.”
Caius retook his wolfkin form and shook out his coat. Kane stood from where he had been lying on the bank, cautious and curious. Ghost changed back, and ran between his grandfather and his mate back to the center of the park, leaving the river and its memories behind.
PART TWO
Three Hearts
It was odd. For the last couple of weeks Baxter had been full of tension, frustration, and fear. Most of the strangers were gone, following their respective alphas. Royrick and Caius remained, though for very different reasons.
Royrick leaned against the wall of the kitchen and refused to take his eyes off Sophia. The Black Pine First Beta was in the middle of making a sandwich, one eye on the front of the cabin and the other on what she was doing. She didn’t like not having her alphas where she could see them. As First Beta to Kane, it was her responsibility to carry out his orders and maintain discipline within his tactical team. The last couple of weeks had been very difficult, with Kane under suspicion and then behind bars— her usual authority usurped by the tribunal and thrust into limbo. Having Burke free was really the only reason she didn’t give into frustration and snap someone’s neck. When Kane wasn’t around, Burke was in charge. And if Burke wasn’t around, then Sophia, as First Beta, was in charge. The younger alphas within Kane’s tactical team had trouble adapting to a beta in charge, but the roles and pack structure were reminiscent of war bands that were in use hundreds of years ago, and it was familiar to Sophia and the few older wolfkin on the tactical team.
“I am standing right here, Sophie.” She pretended not to hear him, just because she could. He grumbled about stubborn betas and tried again. “I’ve been here for several days now, and not a word to me that wasn’t polite chitchat. Is there nothing you want to say to me?”
