Howling for More

by Bailey Bradford

  “Yes, we are, and we’ll have a pure pack. No wolves. No conversions.” He stood up, leaving Chiz sitting on the floor.

  Chiz’s wrists and ankles ached from the metal cuffs around them. He couldn’t shift, either, since his hands were behind his back.

  “No humans knowing things they shouldn’t.” Maxwell gestured to Dare, who was still unconscious and too far away from Chiz for Chiz’s liking.

  There was a cut right above Dare’s left temple, and blood had dried down the side of his head, neck and onto his shoulder.

  Chiz wasn’t sure when Dare had been hit so hard, but he feared for him. This was the second head injury in a short period of time, but besides that—Dare hadn’t woken up in the last half hour, since they’d arrived at some shitty barn-like structure.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Chiz said, trying to keep his fear in check, knowing the scent of it would likely feed Maxwell’s cruelty.

  Maxwell shrugged. “So you say. Doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead soon too, and I’ll be the first alpha ever of a coyote pack.”

  “Who’s going to know that?” Chiz asked. “Seriously. Other shifters? Because there’s a shifter newspaper or website? Humans? No, because you’ll kill any who find out. So who, exactly, is gonna be awed by this…coup?”

  Maxwell scowled at him and gestured to his beta. “Stay back, Mark. I don’t want him dead yet.”

  “Can’t answer my questions?” Chiz taunted, wishing he could shift just his hands—or even his feet. If he had to, he’d shift and do whatever damage to his shoulders, because he’d be damned if he died easy for these bastards.

  Maxwell didn’t answer him, instead turning to Mark. “Get the others organized. They’ve had enough time to sit around and bullshit. Knock ’em into line, bro.”

  Mark’s smile was the definition of evil. Chiz shivered even though the expression wasn’t directed his way.

  “Yes, sir, Alpha.” Mark giggled as he left the dusty barn.

  Maxwell grinned as he watched Mark leave. “My little brother’s a sociopath. Well, I think he might be. He’s going to have so much fun with you and that bag of shit over there.”

  Chiz ground his teeth to keep from snarling that Dare wasn’t a bag of shit. He had to figure out a way to get him and Dare free from this mess. And he didn’t think Mark was the only sociopath in the room.

  Maxwell turned his attention back to Chiz. “You smell angry. Should I uncuff you and let you have a shot at fighting me?”

  Shouts and yelps came from outside, and one scream.

  “Why not?” Chiz replied, trying to sound like he didn’t care, but fervently hoping to be released. He’d have a chance then—

  “Maybe I’ll let the pack have you,” Maxwell mused, and Chiz knew then that he wasn’t going to be freed for a fair fight.

  He probably wasn’t going to be freed of the cuffs at all.

  “After I let them have him.” Maxwell cackled. “You can watch your lover die. I’ll have them draw it out, how’s that?”

  “Fuck. You.” Chiz couldn’t repress his anger or his fear. “Fuck you, you cowardly piece of—”

  He tried to turn his head to make the punch a glancing one, but Maxwell must have anticipated the move. Chiz gasped as his nose broke under the assault, and blood rushed down his throat and face.

  He wanted to tell Maxwell what a fucking wuss he was for hitting a cuffed man, what a complete weak asshole to do what he was doing, period. Talking, however, was beyond Chiz at that moment. He had to cough and lean forward, had to try to keep from choking on his own blood.

  “Anything else you want to say?” Maxwell asked, adding a kick to Chiz’s hip.

  Chiz couldn’t get a word out.

  Maxwell cackled again. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Sit here and think about how much it’s gonna suck watching that human die, and suffer.”

  Chiz spat out blood as Maxwell left.

  “Chiz.”

  At first Chiz thought he imagined the sound, then he heard it again—his name, in a rough, familiar voice. He blinked and looked at Dare.

  Dare’s eyes were open, and he struggled to sit up. “What was he talking about?” Dare whispered.

  Chiz felt nauseated. “What did you hear?” His words were slurred, short, and difficult to get out through the pain in his head.

  “Everything.” Dare shuddered, still keeping his voice low. “Shifters—what—are—”

  “Real. We’re a real thing,” Chiz replied, seeing no reason to lie. Chances were, they would be dead before tomorrow anyway, and if they weren’t, Dare deserved to know why he was in this mess. “Me. Bowen.” Chiz winced as his nose throbbed. “Gotta be quiet.”

  Dare nodded and began scooting over on his butt. His ankles were cuffed, as were his hands, but his arms were in front of him, not behind him.

  “You’re not scared of me?” Chiz asked when Dare was almost shoulder to shoulder with him.

  Dare shook his head. “No. I’m scared of them.”

  “Me too.” And being scared always pissed Chiz off. “They want to kill us.”

  “I don’t feel much like dying, or watching you die.” Dare jutted his chin out. “Can’t you change into…he said you’re a wolf?”

  “Yeah,” Chiz rasped. “Bowen turned me accidentally. He didn’t know—he didn’t know biting me would do it, and when we were fucking…”

  “He bit you. I saw—”

  “I was already turned by then,” Chiz explained. “Converted.”

  “Wow.” Dare’s eyes were huge. “Man. Maybe this is all a hallucination from the head injury.”

  “You want to risk being dead on that theory?”

  Dare frowned. “No.”

  “Then we need to find a way to get out of here.” Chiz didn’t have any ideas other than to shift and hope for the best.

  “Can’t you, you know, change?” Dare asked.

  Chiz grimaced. “I can, but I have a feeling my arms being behind me is going to fuck up my body. Ever seen any kind of wolf or dog with arms—legs—whatever—that go back like this?” He wiggled his fingers.

  “Shit. No.” Dare bit his bottom lip. “They’re going to kill us. Me, slowly. What’s wrong with them?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Chiz answered. “Can you pick locks?”

  “If I had some tools, maybe,” Dare said. “I’m not great at it, but I would get you out of those. It’s that or die, right?”

  “Might be dying even if they come off.” Chiz had to be honest. “Doesn’t look good for us.”

  “I’d rather die fast if I have to die. Not just today, but any day. I don’t want to suffer.” Dare looked at him with nothing but trust. “If it looks like—”

  “No. Don’t ask that of me.” Chiz couldn’t harm Dare, not for anything.

  Dare averted his gaze. “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know. See if there’s anything you can use to work on these locks?” Chiz suggested. “If I could shift part of me, that would be great.”

  “Have you tried?”

  Chiz spat out more blood. “No.”

  “Are there rules saying you can’t?”

  “No.” Chiz sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about being a shifter, just that it’s something I am, now.”

  Dare cocked his head to one side. “Try while I look for something to pick the locks with. If it doesn’t work, I have another idea.”

  “You do?” Chiz blinked, wondering why he wasn’t coming up with any alternative ideas.

  Dare nodded. “Yeah, I do, but let’s try plans A and B first. C will be a last resort.”

  “Do I want to know what C is?” Chiz wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t want to talk about plan C.” Dare got to his knees began shuffling around.

  “Quietly,” Chiz warned. “If they’re anything like me and Bowen, those shifters have enhanced senses.”

  Dare froze. “How enhanced?”

  “Enough that if you make much noise or we talk
very loud, they’ll hear us.” Though maybe not with all the noise the coyotes were making outside.

  Dare moved more cautiously.

  Chiz closed his eyes for a moment, but that was as long as he could stand to not look at Dare. Please work. Please work. Please work, Chiz chanted silently as he willed his hands and feet to shift.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  To say Dare was scared shitless was an understatement. First off, there was being attacked…then abducted…then the shifter thing…and the promise of death. How was he not supposed to be utterly terrified?

  He found concentrating on the fact that shifters were a real thing less scary out of the rest of the mess. Maybe it was too many blows to the head that made him easily accept what Chiz had said. Whatever, Dare was going with it.

  And Chiz wasn’t having any success with trying to change parts of his body. The agonized expression on his face was breaking something inside of Dare.

  Dare searched the dusty barn as well as he could, but he found only a flimsy piece of wire, possibly left behind from a bale of hay. He still had to give it a shot, because his last option—their last option—well, he wasn’t certain if he thought it was horrifying or cool.

  “Always was an idiot,” he mumbled.

  “Stop saying shit like that if it’s about yourself,” Chiz growled. “Fuck, I can’t—”

  Dare scooted over to him. “This is all I could find.” The wire was thin, rusty. “If I fold it over—” He started to do just that, and the wire snapped. “Damn it.”

  “Just try with what you’ve got. I can’t get free.” Chiz nodded toward his ankles. “No, no wait. My wrists.” He leaned forward.

  It was awkward as hell, but Dare managed to get the wire in the lock of the metal cuffs. Not that it did any good. The wire broke again, and he wanted to scream obscenities.

  “I’ll look around again.” The lighting in the barn sucked—in the way that, there was only a crappy battery-operated lantern hanging up on a hook at the far end of the place. “I probably missed stuff.”

  “No.” Chiz shook his head. “My vision is great, and I don’t see anything useful, unless you could reach the lantern.”

  Dare snorted despite the danger they were in. “Um, no, I’m not Stretch Armstrong here.” His heart thudded so hard his chest ached. “That leaves my last idea.”

  Chiz looked at him warily. “What is it? You smell like you’re terrified. I can see your pulse pounding at the base of your neck.”

  After a loud gulp, Dare licked his lips and tried to get some spit in his dry mouth. “Er.” Did he really want to do it? Beats being dead. He moved as close to Chiz as he could get. “B—” And had to cough and try again. “Bite me.”

  Chiz’s eyes grew huge as he took a step back. “No, no way. I can’t do that. How would that save us anyway?”

  “I could get free of these cuffs. Mine are all escapable if I’m…if I’m like you.” Another gulp.

  “You can’t even say it,” Chiz replied. “How—”

  “Turn me into a werewolf,” Dare rushed out. “It’s that or die. I don’t want to die.”

  Chiz hissed. “There has to be some other way.”

  “What? What other way?” Dare thought of every murder he’d ever read about. “Doesn’t everyone hope for another way, being rescued? You think people who are killed aren’t thinking that very thing before they die? That someone, somehow, will find them, save them?”

  “Dare…” Chiz studied him warily.

  “Please.” Dare wanted to live, and he could handle being a shifter if that’s what it took to get out of there alive.

  “We’d still have to fight off a bunch of coyotes,” Chiz pointed out. “And I’m chained.”

  “I could leap up to get the lantern,” Dare argued. “Or do the wolf thing, then become a guy again and I will find a way to get that damned lantern down. The hook it’s on alone might be enough to get your cuffs off. But if we don’t hurry, whatever drama is going on outside will stop, and those fuckers will come back in here and…well, then we won’t have any options.”

  “I don’t want them to hurt you,” Chiz said. “I don’t want to hurt you. And it does hurt. With sex, orgasming, that’s different. The pain and pleasure mix somehow, but alone, I don’t think it’ll feel good.”

  Well, it might, because Dare was already getting a semi, which was stupid considering their situation. “Would it hurt worse than being tortured, raped then killed?”

  Chiz blanched. “What if it doesn’t work? What if only a full-blooded shifter can do it?”

  “Then I guess we’ll go with the worst option.” Dare really, really didn’t want to do that.

  “Come here,” Chiz urged softly. “Lean your head to the left.”

  Bare my neck to him, he means. Oh Jesus. Dare was hot and cold, shivering and sweating, terrified…and aroused. He slowly tipped his head to the left, almost closing his eyes, not certain he wanted to see what was about to happen.

  Chiz’s eyes turned yellow, inhuman, and his canines grew longer as he focused on Dare’s neck.

  Dare didn’t hear the ruckus outside over his own pounding pulse, didn’t even know if he was breathing. His dick grew harder as Chiz leaned in.

  Chiz licked his skin, and Dare whimpered. His cock throbbed. He felt the waft of Chiz’s laughter against his neck, then an instant later, pain, bright, hot—orgasmic, spiraling through him, shooting out his dick as he came.

  He might have moaned, might not have. Dare’s life altered in that instant, and he felt it, felt the pleasure and change, the agony that spike ecstasy, the pulses of cum as he was lost, lost in that moment.

  Chiz laved the bite, and Dare shivered. He was boneless, but something was squirming inside of him. A little voice in his head reminded him that they were on borrowed time, and he called out to the squiggling thing inside of him.

  And he shifted, a painful crunch of bones and tendons that was over before it truly registered. He looked down as Chiz gasped. Saw his furry brown and gray paws.

  It worked! Holy fuck! It worked—and I’m a wolf! A shifter! But before he could dwell on that fact, his beast told him danger was near, and Dare let the wolf instincts take over.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Let me help.” Demanding wouldn’t get him what he wanted, but Bowen couldn’t bring himself to beg—yet. Panic was building in him, fear for Chiz and Dare both. He’d apparently been fonder of Dare than he’d realized, but the thought of Dare being killed struck at Bowen’s heart just as the idea of Chiz dying did.

  Goddamn, that meant Bowen was a mess. Even so, he had to help free his lovers. And they will be my lovers, both of them, if they’ll have me.

  For a long moment, he thought Jonas was going to ignore him. Instead, Jonas stared so intently that Bowen felt laid bare, as if every part of him was exposed to the alpha’s inspection, from his emotions to his innards and every particle of his being.

  Then Jonas gave a curt nod. “But you’ll do what I say, or I’ll lay your ass out cold.”

  “I will.” Bowen would do anything to get to Chiz and Dare.

  “Chances are, the human knows about our kind now,” Jonas said. “Once upon a time, we dealt with that by killing any human who found us out.”

  “No—” Bowen began, but Jonas waved him off.

  “Obviously, with all the technology and shit available today, we can’t just go dropping bodies, and eating a human is…” Jonas grimaced. “Unappealing, even in our shifted form.”

  “That’s good to know,” Bowen mumbled, nauseated at the very idea of such a thing. “What were you going to do to me for changing Chiz?”

  “Death as a wolf isn’t a crime,” Jonas pointed out, then he sighed. “What a fucking mess.” He turned to another shifter named Calex. “Check in with Erin and Claudia. See if they have anything yet.”

  “Yes, Alpha.” Calex took off at a run.

  Jonas scrubbed his face with both hands. “What the fuck have I done to piss
Karma off?”

  Before Bowen could think of anything witty to say, through the window, he saw Calex skid to a halt as Erin and Claudia came into view. “They’re back.”

  Jonas stood taller and wiped a tired expression from his face. “I wasn’t going to kill you.” With that, he left the room.

  Bowen was guarded by a half-dozen other shifters. He considered fighting them, but that would be foolish. Jonas had given his word, and the wolf in Bowen said to believe him.

  The man part of him wasn’t so sure.

  He watched out of the window as Jonas stepped onto the porch and gestured Calex and the others to him.

  Then they were all out of sight, but Bowen heard their footsteps. Jonas returned to the room with Calex, Erin and Claudia behind him.

  “Leave,” Jonas said to the shifters guarding Bowen. “Get the pack organized for an attack.” Then he looked at Bowen. “We have coyotes trying to take over the territory.”

  Bowen frowned. “Is this a thing with shifters?”

  Jonas shook his head. “I’ve never heard of a coyote pack. They’re usually singular creatures as shifters, unlike the animals, which do more often than not, belong to packs. Survival makes such things necessary. This—” He shook his head again. “This is crazy shit. And it’s going to end. Tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Bowen glanced out the window again. It’d be a couple of hours until it was dark out.

  “Yes, tonight. We’ve got to track them down.” Jonas turned to Erin and Claudia. “Tell us what you found. Every detail.”

  Bowen listened and wondered what kind of hell he’d dragged two good men into, and if his lack of control would cost them their lives.

  * * * *

  Fortunately, Jonas had his pack on the move in less than half an hour. Bowen had feared they’d wait until dark, but no, Jonas had only meant to attack in darkness. The moon was hidden behind dense clouds. It’d have only been a sliver without them. The lack of light made little difference. Once he was shifted, Bowen saw perfectly, his senses sharper and engaged.

  Jonas barked at him, and Bowen moved to run slightly behind and to Jonas’ left. Whatever Jonas was thinking, Bowen was down with—it meant he didn’t have to hang back. Jonas was letting him join the front ranks for the coming fight.