by Gem Frost
But it hadn’t released his wolf, goddamnit. He was as human as ever.
Savage anger roiled inside him like a hurricane, and he felt the terrible desire to lash out at the townspeople, to avenge himself for all the slights, the mocking laughter, the whispered taunts. Fury and hatred surged within him, and he discovered that he wanted to rip them apart, to terrorize them with all the casual cruelty they’d shown him over the past four years.
But these were his people, his Pack. He was an alpha, born to protect, and he couldn’t hurt them. He couldn’t.
No matter how much he wanted to.
Caeden spun on his heel, and started to run blindly, with no particular destination in mind. For the first time in his life, he wanted to leave his home town, and all its people, in a cloud of dust. He wanted to distance himself from everything familiar, from everything he’d ever known. Even his parents. Even Jon.
He wanted to be anywhere, anywhere in the world.
Anywhere except here.
He ran faster, and left Wolf Green behind.
Chapter 1
One month later
Humans were terrifying.
Jon had done his best to avoid this confrontation, but his instincts had betrayed him. He’d sought out darkness, and that had led him racing from the relatively well-lit street into a dark, dead-end alley. And now the Pack of human males was slowly closing on him.
“Pretty boy,” one of them said, his tone unmistakably sneering.
Jon found his back up against a brick wall, the rank scent of the humans sharp in his nostrils. He wanted to snarl, but faced with these swaggering, arrogant young men, he couldn’t. He dropped his gaze and lowered his chin, looking as submissive as he possibly could.
The leader laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound. “What’s wrong, pretty boy?” he inquired. “Scared of us?”
Jon didn’t answer. There was nowhere for him to go, no way of getting out of this situation. Well, there was one way, but he couldn’t do it. Not in front of a dozen humans. He whined, very softly, in the back of his throat, and the leader laughed.
“You are scared,” he said, reaching out and ruffling Jon’s hair in a mocking gesture. “Poor little baby. He’s about to wet his pants.”
Jon lifted his eyes enough to glance wildly around, looking for some way out, but the alleyway was blocked by the young men who stood there, staring at him like—
Well, like wolves. He knew that look, and he knew that tonight, he was the prey rather than the predator.
Story of my life, he thought grimly as panic welled up in him, forcing sound from his throat. He shouted hoarsely for help, but the leader’s fist slammed into the side of his face. Pain blossomed in his cheekbone, and he cowered back against the rough brick wall.
“Now,” said the leader, stalking toward him with a grin. “Let’s have some fun.”
✽✽✽
He was invincible.
Caeden stalked down the street, his head held high, his eyes narrowed dangerously. Other men slunk aside as he passed, their gazes focused on the sidewalk, their heads lowered in something very like submission.
Caeden had been in Crystal City for a month, and true to his surname, he’d quickly established himself as the alpha, the guy no one wanted to cross. As its name suggested, Crystal City glittered with tall, beautiful glass skyscrapers. Located in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, it was a prosperous modern city with a thriving business district, but every city had its rough spots, and the part of town where he liked to hang out was one of them. The streets here were plagued by roaming gangs, but even the toughest of them had rapidly learned to leave him alone.
At least he’d thought they’d learned. But last night around midnight, he’d been challenged, ambushed by a gang of a dozen men.
They’d imagined they were ambushing him, anyway. But of course he’d known they were there—he’d smelled the human reek of them a block away — and he’d walked into the “trap” simply to let them see how fruitless it was to try to hurt him. Ever since that night under the full moon a month ago, he’d been much faster and more agile than any human could hope to be. Knife blades couldn’t touch him, fists never made contact with his jaw, and blunt instruments like boards and bricks whooshed uselessly through the air.
Once they’d realized the futility of fucking with him, he’d grabbed the gang’s leader… and beaten the living shit out of him.
He could still see the guy kneeling at his feet, doubled over and clutching his ribs, his rust-colored blood staining the sidewalk. The rest of the gang had fled, but the leader couldn’t run away. He’d been too badly hurt. Caeden had grabbed him by the neck, hauling him to his feet, and slammed him against a boarded-over window.
A primitive, ugly part of him had wanted to kill the guy, to rip him apart until the guy’s blood pooled on the concrete. But a slightly larger part of him relished the fear in the other man’s eyes, the stark terror in his face. If he killed the guy, he reflected, he wouldn’t be able to see the guy cringe the next time he strode past him.
So he’d thrown the guy against the boards and left him huddled on the sidewalk, bloody and battered, but alive.
Caeden recalled, as if through a hazy mist, that he’d once been a pretty decent guy. Not a wimp, but certainly not a bully. Before he’d come to Crystal City, before he’d run away from everything and everyone he loved, he’d been a very different person. He’d never started fights without provocation, he’d never strutted around in someone else’s territory in a deliberate attempt to antagonize, and he’d certainly never toyed with the idea of killing someone just for the hell of it.
That had only been a month ago, but it seemed like another life. Somehow he wasn’t the same man he’d been. He was no longer a pathetic little pencil-pushing bureaucrat, huddled over a desk every day and dealing with minutiae like parking tickets. That night under the full moon, he’d changed somehow, transformed into a fierce, savage half-animal.
And he liked the change. He liked it a lot.
The news of his latest fight, the rumors of his near-invincibility, must have gotten around, because tonight every human he passed looked away, too scared of him to make eye contact. He swaggered on, enjoying the way the sidewalk seemed to magically clear for him.
Suddenly his preternaturally sharp hearing picked up an altercation, a couple of blocks away. He cocked his head. He was pretty sure it was that same damn gang again, but this time it sounded like they were picking on someone else. The disjointed phrases that drifted to his ears indicated they’d cornered a guy and were getting ready to beat the shit out of him. The victim didn’t sound at all happy about it.
Caeden didn’t particularly care about a stranger’s welfare. Hell, he didn’t care about anyone’s welfare except his own. He’d left his white knight days behind. He knew plenty of people, men and women, were assaulted on the streets of Crystal City every night, but despite his more-than-human strength and speed, he’d much rather spend his nights drinking, partying, and fighting than wandering around the city saving them.
But something in the guy’s cries for help caught his attention. He listened carefully for a second, then burst into a run.
A moment later, gang members went flying as he tossed them aside like a bowling ball slamming into pins. They struggled to their feet, saw it was him, and scrambled away like whipped dogs.
He lifted his head and watched them go, primitive male satisfaction surging through him. He could barely restrain himself from throwing back his head and howling in triumph. As the swirling darkness inside him had grown, he’d discovered he liked seeing other men scurry away from him like whipped mongrels. The only thing he’d like better was actually fighting one of them.
And sure enough, one of them was stupid enough to try it.
God, he was having a great night.
The one remaining guy stood over the man on the ground, holding a long, wicked knife. “He’s mine,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Get lost.”
&nb
sp; Caeden looked the man over. His red hair was clipped close to his skull in a buzz cut, and he wore camo pants and an olive green t-shirt, hanging loosely on his skinny body. A wannabe soldier, Caeden thought dismissively.
He grinned, showing all his teeth. The way the guy held the knife, like he thought Caeden ought to be scared of it, amused the hell out of him. A knife couldn’t hurt him unless it touched him, and that just wasn’t going to happen.
He spoke tersely. “He’s mine now, asshole. Beat it.”
The guy didn’t flinch. Caeden looked at him carefully and decided he hadn’t seen this particular face before. Apparently this man hadn’t been hanging with the gang last night. Maybe he was a new member, or maybe he’d been cooling his heels in jail overnight. Either way, he obviously didn’t have a clue what Caeden could do to him.
Caeden looked forward to showing him.
He took a threatening step forward. He was twenty-five, six foot two and powerfully muscled, and a smart opponent would have gotten the hell out of there. But this guy obviously wasn’t smart.
The knife swung outward in an arc, slashing into Caeden’s stomach. At least it would have sliced into Caeden’s stomach and disemboweled him if he were anyone else.
But Caeden shifted, the movement impossibly fast, and the knife missed him. He didn’t move quite as quickly as he should have, though, and the tip of the knife slashed through his t-shirt.
Annoyed, he grabbed the guy’s wrist and twisted it, and the knife dropped from nerveless fingers. Caeden caught it in the air and snapped the blade in two.
The guy yelled with pain and shock and stared at Caeden, his mouth dropping open, his eyes bulging. “Jesus Christ.”
Caeden grinned more widely. “Not quite.”
The guy staggered backward, away from him, but Caeden stalked him. “You’re not getting away that easy,” he said, letting his grin shift to a snarl. “You just slashed a hole in my favorite t-shirt.”
The guy looked wide-eyed with terror. “I’m sorry, man.” He held out his hands. “I… I’ll buy you a new t-shirt, okay?”
“Too late.” Behind him, Caeden could hear the gang’s victim beginning to struggle to his feet, but he didn’t bother to look around. Adrenaline, hot and potent, rushed through him like a drug surging through his bloodstream.
He liked the feeling of power he got when he beat the hell out of another man. Hell, he loved it. It gave him a sensation of almost sexual power.
His father had brought him up to be a leader, a guardian, a protector.
But dear old Dad hadn’t ever told him that hurting people was so much more fun.
He was invincible, or near enough not to matter. He could hurt people, even kill them, and they couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him. The bloodlust he’d felt last night rolled through him, stronger than before, powerfully compelling. He looked at the guy’s panicked eyes, and decided he just might kill this one.
Simply because the guy had gotten in his way, and people in this city really needed to learn not to do that.
He threw a hard punch, and the guy flew backward. He hit the sidewalk with an unpleasant crunching sound, and Caeden stalked toward him, hoping the other man wasn’t dead yet.
Caeden wanted to kill him slowly, because he thought he’d enjoy it more that way.
The guy began to stir and moan as he approached. Caeden reached down and hauled him to his feet, and the guy cried out in pain as Caeden slammed him against the rough brick wall of a building.
“Cae!”
The word, uttered in a familiar voice, broke into his bloodlust. No one called him by that shortened version of his name. No one except…
He turned his head and saw Jon MacArthur just behind him. He’d known it was Jon, had heard his voice calling for help, a voice he would have recognized anywhere. But it was nevertheless jarring to see his best friend here, in the human city, rather than in Wolf Green.
Jon’s amber eyes were wide with panic and shock, and rapidly purpling bruises marred his cheekbone and forehead. The gang had obviously roughed him up quite a bit, although Caeden’s keen sense of smell assured him they hadn’t done any real damage.
He wondered how Jon had wound up wandering around in such a shitty area of the city, in gang territory, no less. He knew for a fact that the other man hadn’t left Wolf Green in seventeen years. So for him to be here now—
Well, he had a bad feeling that Jon must have been looking for him, which meant this was his fault, kind of. Of course, Jon should have been able to get out of this mess on his own easily enough. He could have shifted, tucked his tail between his legs, and fled. Then he would have been safe enough, because no human could hope to keep up with anything on four paws.
But the prohibition against shifting in front of humans was strong, and for an omega it would have been almost impossible to overcome. When the men had grabbed Jon and pushed him around, he’d instinctively submitted. Wolves could be fairly brutal in their interactions with the lower ranked, but no adult wolf would have hurt Jon seriously if he’d displayed appropriately submissive body language.
But humans weren’t wolves.
They were far more vicious.
“Jon,” he said, leering in an effort to try to mask the feelings that rioted inside him at the familiar face, and more importantly, at the familiar scent. To their kind, scent meant far more than sight did. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Trying to find you.” Despite the unmistakable odor of fear that clung to him, Jon looked back at him unflinchingly. “I want to talk to you, Cae. I need to talk to you.”
“I’m kind of busy right now.” He remembered the gang member whose life he held in his hands, and turned away from Jon, slamming the guy against the wall again. His victim—his prey — yowled in pain and terror. Caeden was pretty sure the guy was about to piss himself from fear, and that made him feel more powerful than ever.
He really liked scaring the hell out of other men. It gave him a serious rush.
“Cae. Stop it.” Jon’s hand was on his shoulder, trying fruitlessly to pry him away from the other man. “You’re going to kill him.”
“That’s the idea.” He tightened his grip on the other man’s throat, and the guy gasped frantically for breath. Caeden saw his lips turning blue, and a cold, savage satisfaction filled him.
“Stop it!” Jon’s voice went up an octave. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Cae?”
“Just trying to keep myself entertained.” The man’s struggles were growing weaker, but Caeden didn’t want him to die. Not just yet, anyway. He loosened his grip a bit, and the guy sucked in deep, desperate lungfuls of air.
“Let go of him. Now.”
Caeden looked back at him and quirked an eyebrow, his lips curving.
“Who made you the Alpha while I was gone, Jon?”
“I’m not an alpha. You know that. But this… this isn’t you, Cae. Something’s gone wrong inside you. I don’t know what it is, but it’s turned you into… into this.”
Caeden didn’t like the way his old friend said this, as if he thought Caeden had turned into something truly dreadful, something monstrous, and he bristled. “Fuck off.”
“I just want to talk.” Jon’s hand rubbed his shoulder in a gentle, affectionate caress. “That’s all. Just talk. Okay?”
The light touch of Jon’s hand was oddly soothing. Caeden considered the matter for a minute. Jon’s hand continued to stroke his shoulder softly, and some of the cold killing rage drained away.
“Okay,” Caeden said at last, deciding to be magnanimous. This time. He let go of the guy, who collapsed to the dirty asphalt, gasping and rubbing at his throat. “But if you’re going to take my entertainment away, you’re going to have to keep me entertained somehow. Because I get bored really easily these days.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever. Let’s go, Cae. Let’s get out of here before the rest of them come back.”
Caeden didn’t much care if the rest o
f them came back. A pack of mere humans didn’t concern him, because he was invincible. He was an alpha, and none of them could touch him.
And as an alpha, he had the right to anything he wanted to claim. Anything.
He took a step forward and put an arm on either side of Jon, pinning him against the rough brick wall.
“I saved you from getting beat up,” he said softly, looking down into Jon’s eyes. Jon was slender but tall, only a couple of inches shorter than he was, and their noses were inches apart. To his shock, Caeden felt his body react to the nearness of Jon’s, his cock growing hard in the time it took him to draw a breath. “Maybe from being raped and killed. Aren’t you going to thank me?”
Jon nodded, gazing up at him. His eyes were very grave. “Thanks,” he said softly. “I came to save you, but I guess I’m lucky you found me. You saved me instead.”
Caeden found himself enjoying the nearness of Jon’s body. Jon wasn’t as well-muscled as he himself was, but his lanky six-foot body was nothing to sneer at, either. He’d been a little runt as a kid, and scrawny and long-legged as a teenager, but he’d grown into a pretty decent-looking guy, with an overgrown shock of dark blond hair and golden-brown eyes. The black ink of the small, stylized wolf tattoo on the side of his neck, a marking every omega in the Pack wore, emphasized the paleness and clarity of his skin.
Caeden realized with a startled jolt that his best friend was actually really…. attractive.
He’d been friends with Jon a long time, and had never thought of him this way, but suddenly he couldn’t think about anything else. All at once the crass Pack saying rose to his mind.
Omegas are made for fucking.
It was true. Jon was not only gorgeous, but he smelled like sex. The familiar, sweet scent of him seemed to flood Caeden’s senses, driving out all other thoughts. The humans had smelled it too, he realized, and responded to it, even if they didn’t know exactly what they were responding to. As a low-ranked omega, Jon’s scent was strong enough that even a mere human would notice it. Caeden had never really been all that aware of the sexual nature of it before, but now, under the influence of whatever the moon had done to him… he found it overwhelming.
