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Wolf on a Leash
Copyright © 2015 by Virginia Nelson
ISBN: 978-1-61333-802-5
Cover art by Fiona Jayde
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
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Black Hills Wolves Stories
Wolf’s Return
What a Wolf Wants
Black Hills Desperado
Wolf’s Song
Claiming His Mate
When Hell Freezes
Portrait of a Lone Wolf
Alpha in Disguise
A Wolf’s Promise
Reluctant Mate
Diamond Moon
Wolf on a Leash
Tempting the Wolf
Coming Soon
Worth Fighting For
Promiscuous Wolf
A Wolf Awakens
Also by Virginia Nelson
Taking Control
Hypnotist
Dom of the Dead
Rumpling Riley
Dedication
For Sara Lunsford. Love ya, woman. You inspire me.
Wolf on A Leash
Black Hills Wolves
By
Virginia Nelson
Chapter One
Patch Williams didn’t believe in fate, true love, or the possibility her shift would end before her patience snapped. Tapping her fingertips on the counter, she mentally counted to ten before answering the elderly customer glaring at her from across the space provided by the glass surface. She hated this time of year due to their annual visits alone. “No, seriously, it really is fifty cents, and I can’t go lower.”
“Bah. This is a used purse. You’ll be lucky if someone gives you a quarter.” The old woman pushed the bag across the counter before spinning on one orthopedic shoe to head to the door on a wave of outraged indignity. “Come along, Darcy. We’re not giving money to her kind anyway.”
Her kind? And what kind is do you mean? The kind not willing to give away the stock for free? Or maybe the kind that bathes more than once a month? Oh, I know…the kind who could eat you if the mood took me.
Blowing out a breath, Patch closed her eyes and struggled with her annoyance as the two matronly women exited the building arm in arm. A Friday at the beginning of the month always meant some of the older people from the surrounding hills found their way down off whatever parts of the mountains they lived on—most from tiny, isolated cabins, unchanged since their ancestors came to the Wild West in search of whatever piece of land they might claim—to garner supplies, catch up with neighbors, and harass shopkeepers.
Although she recognized it for what it was—the coming snows meant they’d not be down the mountain for who knew how long, if ever, since some of them might not make it through the winter—it didn’t help her patience with them. Picking up the “used” brown purse and returning it to the rack—fifty cents for Coach and the woman expects me to go down on the price? —Patch rubbed her temples and headed to the rear of her shop.
She loved pretty things, old things, things that carried a story with each stitch or tarnish, but elderly humans were a different story. Something about the way they’d swat at her, disregard her, underestimate her…it just pushed her buttons in all the wrong ways. Behind the curtain, she stroked the leather mask she’d laid out earlier. Tonight, she would go to her club, play, and escape from the mundane world for a moment. For at least a little while, she wouldn’t be Patch, least important member of the pack and smiling customer service representative. She’d be something more. Something sexy and desired….
She sometimes feared what the pack would do if they ever discovered the full truth of her forays or caught a sniff of what she did at the private club, but not enough to stop going. As a submissive Wolf, she respected and obeyed the dictates she’d been given, even when they’d been led by a sadistic bastard, but none of it meant she had to enjoy obeying. It did mean she was wired to follow their directions, but….
What the Alpha didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
Besides, with Ryker distracted by his new mate and Drew busy trying to keep everyone else in order, who had time to bother with a little nobody like her? The leather felt supple under her fingertips, and she wished she dared more trips to the dungeon. Her appetites never seemed sated, hadn’t for a long time. Humans were fun—they knew how to have a good time, how to make her body arch in pleasure, and when she needed a firm smack to her ass to take her to the next level—but a part of her longed for more. Especially since her pack mates had started pairing off, one by one drawn into the lure of mating. Sure, she might wish for a man who understood her and loved her…even if every Wolf she’d ever met would be disgusted by the stuff she liked in the sack.
Annoyed with her own woolgathering, she shoved aside the curtain to return to the front. Since the bell hadn’t rung, Gee standing in her shop should have sent her heart racing….
If he’d been outside, perhaps he would have been able to hide the wild, gamey scent of bear. But closed inside a building? It reeked of bear when he visited. She’d smelled him the moment he walked in. “Hiya, Gee. What can I do for you?”
She hoped her smile didn’t look as forced as it felt. Although her words were the practiced, friendly banter of a salesperson, she couldn’t quite force herself to meet his eyes. What is the purpose of being a Wolf if I don’t have a scrap of claw?
“Don’t leave town tonight.” Gee often played the part of the somewhat vague and mysterious oracle, but he usually saved that kind of shit for in his bar. Coming all the way down the street to the consignment shop to rattle off doom and gloom was beyond strange.
“I hadn’t planned on going anywhere new.” It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. She hadn’t said she planned to disobey him. However, she hadn’t agreed to his dictate either.
Hadn’t Ryker all but given her the go-ahead about visiting her club? Sure, he’d mentioned she should let him know if she sensed she was in true danger, but he hadn’t told her not to visit the dungeon, which was almost akin to him telling her she could go, right? Years of practice at small misdirections, that seemed obedient and should have gotten her punished but didn’t when the Alpha couldn’t be bothered to control the pack as they should, had primed her for expecting years of the same. She wasn’t important. Therefore, she might be submissive, but she sure as hell didn’t have to obey, either.
“I’m not Drew. I’m asking you, not telling you, not to leave town tonight. There’s something in the air…. I don’t trust it. None of your typical shenanigans, girl. Be smart.” Gee didn’t wait for her response.
Typical. No one bothered to ask her what she wanted, what she needed. Pack business, town business, shifter business—none of it important enough to discuss with a little submissive Wolf with no tooth or claw.
Gritting her teeth harder, she admitted to a full-blown headache growing from her irritation. She was tired of being ignored, tired of not being important enough to bother with, tired of being a submissive without a Dom. Fru
stration mounting and head throbbing, she decided to flip the sign to closed, lock the door, and snag a shower.
If it wasn’t smart to leave town tonight…well, unless someone bothered to stop her, fuck them. She was going out and getting her freak on, to hell with the consequences.
***
Kennedy Laurie dropped the rucksack on the floor of Ogre’s cabin. The familiar scents of home—stale beer, sweaty gym socks, and cigarette smoke, all overlaid by the pines outside—wasn’t quite the same as he remembered. Tish had made her mark, everywhere, it seemed, including in his buddy’s man cave, leaving behind something floral, no doubt in a feminine attempt to make the cabin stink less. The difference had him offering unexpected words in greeting. “I’m not staying long.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, wandering and a rollin’ stone. Too busy to visit family, friends, a lone soul, forever you may roam…. I think I’ve heard the song. Or ten versions of it. Quit your bitching and grab us both a beer out of the cooler, okay?” Ogre kicked his recliner back, obviously at home in his surroundings.
Grabbing the beers, he plopped his ass on the cooler and considered his longtime friend, more akin to brotherhood than Kennedy’s actual blood relations. “Fuck you, too, jackwad. Seriously, I’m heading north. Maybe Alaska. I’ve heard good things about Alaska.” Like there were still unclaimed miles of space there. Like a man could get lost there. He longed to get lost, to bury what he knew in miles of wilderness and pretend he wasn’t human anymore. Anything to stop the nightmares that had plagued him the last few years.
“You know men outnumber women up there? I read somewhere….”
“On the Internet? ’Cause not everything on the Internet is true, you know.”
Ogre finally gave up, flipped his chair down, and stomped over to retrieve his beer. “No, asshole, I read it in a book or something. At least I think I did.” Popping the top off the glass bottle, he flicked it at Kennedy before returning to his worn chair and reclined. “So, unless you decided you were into that sort of thing while you were over there playing in the sandbox, Alaska might not be the place for you.”
Kennedy snorted and took another swig of his own drink, enjoying the way the cold fluid refreshed and rekindled a hundred memories of sharing beers with Ogre all in one gulp. “Nope, not my thing. I still prefer women.”
However, some of the things he imagined doing to women scared him. He’d always been a sadist, he’d owned to it long before. However, he didn’t want to accidentally hurt a woman, not in a way which didn’t ultimately bring pleasure. Didn’t stop the dreams, though…and he wondered if the war had twisted him in a way so he shouldn’t be around anyone anymore, including women. Maybe especially women. “Not that I’ve touched one in longer than I care to admit.”
“Come to the club tonight. Even if you just watch, it will be a good time. Remind you why you don’t want to go get lost in the frozen north, maybe.” Ogre’s red brow arched over his steady blue eyes. “Remind you that you’re in a place where we accept you for who you are, since who you are is a smelly asshole. Remind you you’re not over there anymore, now that you’re home.”
Blinking fast, Kennedy cleared his throat and looked away. The smell of the pines, the wet cold of the mountains before snow, all of it reminded him of another man—the one he’d been before he served. Before he’d seen shit he’d never forget, and before he warped inside into someone he wasn’t sure he aspired to become.
“I’ll go, but I’m not promising I’ll stay.” Or to touch a single subbie, no matter how willing the girl might be. Until he trusted himself….
He might never trust himself again, assuming some strange woman might find it in her heart to try someday.
“We’ll have a good time. You’ll see.”
Leaning against the wall and closing his eyes, Kennedy wondered whether he still believed in a good time—or if it meant more than finding a way to forget, even for a little while.
Chapter Two
He’d heard people describe the Black Hills as an island of trees in a sea of grass. If it were apt, the dungeon would have to be described as little more than a shack of a house buried amongst the ponderosa pine, sort of the flea on the back of a dog on a log in the middle of the sea of prairie. Rock underfoot was softened by the crunch of dry needles, and he braced for a hit of familiarity at the sight of the building through the trees. The glow of it beckoned, a mix of temptation and trepidation in one hit to his gut.
He and Ogre had started the dungeon years ago as a place for them to explore various kinks that tripped their triggers. Introduced to the lifestyle on a visit to the rolling hills of San Francisco, they’d attempted to bring a bit of it home to share with others who also had an interest and desired a safe place to play. Ogre was a machinist by day, therefore the perfect person to craft various instruments from their own imagination or replicas of things they’d seen. Kennedy had an eye for design, crafting ideas for play which Ogre brought into reality with his metal-working skills. Together, they’d started with an idea and invented a place for themselves and others of a similar mindset and taste.
While he’d been in the service, Ogre kept up with the dungeon, alongside his longtime slave and wife, Tish. They’d booted more than a few from their membership—people who didn’t understand or refused to adhere to the rules—but for the most part, they’d built up a decent community which extended well beyond the walls of the small and unassuming building hidden on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
Or what had been nowhere. Part of what left Kennedy itching to leave was knowing it wasn’t as uninhabited as it had been when they were younger. People encroached, destroying the wildness of nature Kennedy craved after his time eating, sleeping, and acting on the will of others rather than his own. There weren’t miles and miles of no one as far as the eye could see, with only animals hidden in the forests of the Black Hills as there used to be. People came, people left their mark. He scuffed his boot on a candy-bar wrapper sticking out of the pine sod underfoot. People, when he wasn’t fit for human companionship.
“Come on, get your slow ass in here. I’m letting out all the warmth, and not everyone is as overdressed as you are, soldier.” Ogre’s playful tone showed his excitement at the night, at the prospect of play. Kennedy half wished he could share his buddy’s enthusiasm.
He did, however, double-time it to the door. No sense freezing everyone else because he couldn’t stave off his demons long enough to decide what he craved.
The entry room looked much as he remembered, although they’d added a couple cute lifestyle posters behind the desk. Clipboards lay on the table, and he scanned one, seeing some familiar names scrawled on it. One listed people—they signed in and out of the dungeon, a necessity to ensure everyone got home safe. The other was a release-slash-gag order—to protect those who didn’t want their secrets revealed to the world and to protect the club from lawsuits.
“’Sup, Iris?” he asked as he set the board down without signing it.
Most of the women took on the names of flowers for play, something he and Ogre encouraged when they’d begun allowing outside membership. Too many people wished to enjoy the lifestyle without it encroaching on their real lives, so it was easier to call the women flowers rather than their real names. For shits and giggles, the men picked up names of monsters.
Didn’t matter—Dom, Domme, sub, switch—it offered anonymity and simplicity if no one used their real names, not to mention adding to the layer of fantasy. Not all clubs went by those rules, certainly not all those who participated in the lifestyle did, but it was a requirement of their little backyard dungeon. Ogre’d had his nickname for years; he’d picked it up when they were kids and he outgrew everyone else around—handy for getting beers while underage. They’d created one for Kennedy after they realized the need for a level of privacy. When he played, he’d always been called Minotaur.
Which seemed stupid now. He’d outgrown so much while dealing with real horrors. The onl
y thing fitting about the name was the suggestion of being lost in a maze—lost was a topic he’d begun to excel at over the years.
“Not much, Minotaur. Welcome home,” Iris answered.
He’d almost forgotten she was there, that he’d asked anything, he’d been so lost to his thoughts. It seemed, lately, he couldn’t keep up, and he’d been driven to move from place to place. Almost as if he’d been searching for something, or more likely trying to escape himself. Sometimes he thought there was too much going on, too much he’d seen and done, and he got lost too easily to the labyrinth of his own thoughts—all of which seemed strikingly similar to his role-played namesake, trapped forever in a hell of twisting dark paths.
Iris’s hand closed over his, and he gave her a friendly squeeze in return, glad she didn’t try for a hug, since she was an openly affectionate woman. Iris, in the real world, was Tish, Ogre’s wife. In the dungeon, she was a beautiful flower who bloomed under her Ogre’s touch. Her platinum collar—studded with enough sparkle to light up a room—seemed far more obvious as a mark of ownership against her pale flesh and leather corset than it did when she paired it with her nurse’s scrubs.
“You okay?” she asked when he didn’t release her small hand. “You’re home now. You’re safe.”
He released her with a smile. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
He wasn’t fine. He might never be. Not that he could talk to Tish about it.
Following Ogre, he entered the first playroom. The big space held everything from an iron cross to tables, a huge variety of play spaces all marked off by safety tape on the floor.
They had a spiderweb of chains for those who liked to be restrained. In another corner, they’d set up a space for wax play. Still another marked off space held a cage for those who liked being locked up. Iron rings dangled from the ceiling, waiting for knot work and dangling bodies being pleasured. There was even a pagoda, created for restraints, near machines intended for electricity games.
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