Something Magic

by Justine Taylor

  Mack sighs. “Yes. I don’t really know how exactly it works, because it’s never happened to me, obviously, and it’s not really something I had a chance to talk to my dad about, which even if I had, God, can you imagine how awkward that conversation would have been?”

  He loves Mack like this, embarrassed and rambling, like he’s picked up some of Caleb’s quirks already.

  “What about a female alpha mated with another woman?” Caleb asks, mind zooming right past the part where Mack’s dick will grow to undetermined size inside his ass.

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “You said that when a female alpha is mated to a male beta, he gains the ability to knot, right? Since clearly” – Caleb waves his hand down towards their touching dicks – “the mystical matchmakers are cool with the whole queer love thing, it stands to reason that something has to happen when a female alpha has a female mate, right?”

  “Your brain is amazing,” Mack says, eyebrows high. “And I have no idea.”

  “Do you think Maribel does? I mean, she has the potential to be an alpha right, since you’re twins? Do you think she had the knotting talk with your mom? Have you talked to her about knotting?”

  “Oh my God, Caleb.”

  “What? I’m curious like a fox! Do you think she knows?”

  “Cats are curious. And I don’t know. I’ve never talked to my sister about our supernaturally enhanced genitals.”

  It takes them awhile to recover from the fit of giggling after that, but when they do, Mack’s voice is soft and hesitating again. “So you’re not completely freaked out by it?”

  “About being knotted by you? Nah. Sounds fun.” It’s true – maybe now that’s he opened his mind to accept the impossible, maybe he’s hardwired to be into whatever Mack has to offer, maybe he’s just a kinky fucker – but he's very excited at the idea of getting tied to Mack, getting filled by him…his cock is now doing an excellent job of letting Mack know just how not freaked out he is. Mack reaches to stroke him lazily. “What will change…” Caleb asks, a little breathless as Mack picks up the pace. “Afterwards. After the bond is solidified. Will we feel differently?”

  “I think so,” Mack replies, shifting his hips to bring his dick into his hand, using his generous precome to slick them up, the hot friction of their cocks together in his broad hand melting Caleb from the inside out. “We’ll feel stronger about each other…”

  “Don’t know how that’s possible,” Caleb pants, back arching.

  “We’ll be able to sense each other’s presence more…feel each other’s emotions sometimes. Not all the time. Just intense emotions.”

  “Mack,” his name is a broken moan in the back of his throat, needy and urgent as he fucks into the tight heat of Mack’s fist.

  “I’m going to knot you soon,” Mack whispers in his ear, tugging his orgasm from him with deft fingers. “And then you’ll be mine forever,” he adds, groaning as Caleb comes all over him for the second time tonight.

  12

  It’s late morning when Caleb wakes, gray-speckled sunlight filling the room. Mack’s room, he thinks with a smile. The man in question is sprawled beside him on his back, taking up an impressive amount of space on the impressively large bed, heavy limbs strewn over Caleb’s legs and chest. Mack doesn’t budge an inch when Caleb slides out from under him, and he feels quite proud, having fucked a werewolf into a sex coma.

  He uses the bathroom and brushes his teeth, and instead of putting on the pajamas he packed, but he just digs through the clothes hamper in the bathroom until he finds a pair of dark blue flannel pants. He has to pull the drawstring all the way and they still hang low on his hips, but he feels a soft thrill at going commando in Mack’s pajamas.

  Caleb helps himself to the kitchen, which is fully stocked and equipped, easily finding everything he needs to make coffee and his mom’s French toast. He hums softly as he cooks, wondering if he can wake Mack with the smell of food.

  The first piece of battered bread has just hit the hot pan when he appears in the kitchen doorway, naked and sleepy-eyed, hair a tangled, flattened mess, dried come on his chest.

  “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Caleb says, utterly sincere.

  “Breakfast?” Mack asks, nose twitching.

  After breakfast and a long shower, they relax on the couch, each with a book, a record playing on Mack’s old-school vinyl player that Caleb can’t help but roll his eyes at. But Mack’s not holding it against him, judging by the way he pulled Caleb’s bare feet into his lap and has been rubbing them absently for forty-five minutes. Caleb isn’t sure how’s he lived as long as he has, not being touched by Mack. It feels like he needs it now, like oxygen. He wonders whether that will intensify or subdue after they’ve solidified the bond and can’t decide which one he wants, thrilled yet again at all he has to discover about being mated to a werewolf.

  He rests his book on his chest and watches Mack, memorizing every sharp curve and line of his sculpted profile, imagining him as his Wolf, easy to do now that he’s seen him halfway there. He wonders if he’ll dream about his Wolf again, if the dream will change like it had after the tattoo and the fire.

  “The fire,” Caleb says loudly and suddenly. wincing as it spills from his mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up, and definitely not like that. Fuck, I’m an ass.”

  Mack closes his book and turns to face him. “Caleb, it’s okay. I can talk about the fire, if you want to. It helps me to talk to you about it, actually.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Well, I just realized that the fire…it wasn’t because of your mom’s work, was it? It was because you’re werewolves?”

  “Yes. Diana was a hunter. From a family of hunters that has history with my family.”

  “A hunter?” He asks, stomach souring as he realizes what Mack means. “People…hunt you?”, Suddenly Caleb understands even better Mack’s anxiety at telling him the truth about himself.

  “For centuries,” Mack answers. “Some hunters follow a code, and only hunt wolves who hurt people. Others want to exterminate us. Diana was the latter.” The bitterness in his voice is visceral, and for the first time, Caleb can see his potential to be utterly terrifying.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to – “

  “Caleb.”

  “Right, okay. Go on.”

  “When my mother was young, soon after she inherited her alpha power from her father, she was attacked by two hunters. She bit one of them. An alpha’s bite will either kill a human or turn them, and this hunter turned. The other one, his brother killed him. That’s the only code that family cares abour. They’d rather die – kill each other or themselves – than be like one of us. The brother who survived, Henry Perrin, had a vendetta against my mother after that. He raised Diana to hate us, to hunt us, and to kill us, by any means necessary.”

  “Wait – Mack – did you say the hunter family’s last name is Perrin? The hunter that…killed your family is named Diana Perrin?” His stomach twists bitterly as it sinks. Given everything he’s learned, Caleb’s not surprised to discover another connection between them, but this one fills him with dread.

  “Yes. Do you know her?” Mack’s face pales, the fear written in the tense lines of his forehead stabbing into Caleb’s heart.

  “Not her, no. But Daisy, my friend Daisy…Perrin. I think Diana is her aunt.” Caleb thinks back to high school – he never met Diana, but Daisy always seemed uneasy when she talked about her. She came to visit every once in a while and bought them beer for their after prom party junior year and that’s pretty much all Caleb cared about at the time. The memory feels like a betrayal to Mack, somehow.

  Mack is quiet for a bit, focused on steadying his ragged breathing. “One of your close friend’s is Thomas Perrin’s daughter? You’ve met Diana….”

  “Yeah, they moved to Lighthouse Cove right when we started high school. She and L
eo dated until senior year. We’re all still close – she’s Abbie’s best friend, and she’s even friends with Leo’s girlfriend Stevi. I have no idea if she knows about Diana or werewolves…or if she’s a hunter.” The thought of his friend Daisy – sweet but tough, compassionate and kind – being anything like the woman who manipulated Mack and murdered his family is utterly incomprehensible to him.

  “Liam looked into the Perrins extensively after the fire, when he was still trying to find Diana. Which he never did, even though she was visiting Lighthouse Cove, apparently. Thomas was estranged from Henry, it seems, because of his hunting habits,” he continues. “I don’t think Thomas ever hunted us the way Diana did.”

  “So,” Caleb says, feeling a little more hopeful. “If he raised Daisy to know about werewolves, he raised her to follow the code.”

  “Probably,” Mack says grudgingly.

  “Well that’s…good, right? I mean, since she’s my friend and all.”

  “Yeah, that’s good. I’m not upset that you’re friends with her, Caleb. I know that she’s not Diana, that she had nothing to do with it.” It’s clear that Mack is trying to reassure him, but that he’s struggling with it.

  Caleb is a little relieved, but Mack still seems agitated and tense. After a while he stands and goes upstairs without a word. When he comes back down he’s changed into low-slung basketball shorts and a threadbare white tank top. “I’m going for a run,” he says, kissing him firmly on the top of the head.

  “Are you okay?” Caleb asks, voice tinged with worry.

  “Yeah. I just need to…I’m going to go for a run, get out of my head for a bit. I’ll be back before dark.”

  He kisses him again, and then he’s gone.

  Caleb tries his best to keep himself busy while Mack’s away, but he can’t stop seeing the look of frustrated anger and pain that was on his face as he turned away and walked out the door. He wonders if he’s shifted, if he’s running the forest surrounding his house as a wolf. As his Wolf. Caleb pictures him like that, majestic and wild, outrunning his demons. He hopes it helps.

  As the sun starts to sink into the sea, he goes out to the deck and lights a joint, his anxiety easing with each puff. He leans back in a deck chair, relaxing slightly for the first time since Mack left. He knows this won’t change anything between them – he isn’t worried about that. He just hates the idea of Mack alone, hurting, running away from him instead of toward him.

  He closes his eyes against the bright reflection of the sunlight on the water, and when he opens them again, Mack is there. He’s standing right in front of him, staring down and blocking the light. His shirt is gone but his shorts are intact, and there’s a light sheen of sweat shining on his torso. He’s silhouetted by the sunset and Caleb can’t really see his face clearly, so he’s surprised when Mack falls to his knees, collapsing heavily on to him and burying his head in his lap.

  His sob is quiet, a deep quiver that rumbles through his big body. Then another, and the tension leaves him with each shuddering breath as he clutches him around the waist. Calebb strokes his hair and doesn’t say anything, awestruck once again at the fragile, tender heart that’s been put in his care.

  Eventually Mack quiets and stills and even falls asleep for a few minutes with head still in Caleb’s lap. When he wakes, he stuns Caleb by pulling him into a deep kiss before stand up abruptly and throwing Caleb over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

  “Oh my God, you beast,” Caleb laughs into his bare, sweat-sheened back. “Oh, hello, beast ass. It’s nice to see you again,” he says, realizing Mack’s undignified manhandling of him puts him in prime butt-biting position. Mack growls as he gets a mouthful, much to Caleb's delight.

  Mack carries him upstairs and tosses him on the bed with another growl, leaning over to kiss him before reaching over to dig a bottle of lube from the nightstand. He places it in Caleb’s hands and steps away, leveling a predatory gaze at him. “I’m going to take a shower. Get yourself ready,” he orders softly, running a thumb over Caleb’s lower lip before walking away.

  Caleb can’t get out of his clothes fast enough, heart pounding and cock throbbing with anticipation. His body responds instinctively, and positions himself on all fours on the bed, wanting to present himself to his mate. His body opens easily as he slides a well-lubed finger in, and soon he’s got two fingers in and is working up to a third, even though the angle quickly gets tiring and his cock heavy and needy.

  He smiles when he hears the half-gasp, half-growl gasping growl behind him. And then Mack’s there, his body hot and still damp from the shower, a slick finger slipping in along with Caleb’s, who cries out with the sweet, aching burn of the stretch. Soon Mack replaces his fingers with his own, and Caleb falls down to rest on his forearms, loose-limbed and pliant under his touch.

  Mack continues to open him meticulously, slicking him up more with his thick precome, eventually getting in all four fingers and the tip of his thumb, driving Caleb insane with his patience. After what feels like an eternity, Mack has stretched him to his liking and pulls his hand away. Caleb feels like he’s gaping, like’s he’s been carved open, gasping and throbbing for Mack to fill him.

  “You ready?” he asks, voice low and rough.

  “God yes, Mack, please, please fuck me,” Caleb moans, biting his forearm in desperation. He’s never wanted it this badly, never felt this empty.

  Mack is trying to be gentle, bless him, but Caleb can’t wait for that, shoves back hard as soon as he feels the wet head of Mack’s cock press against his ready rim. Mack snarls and rocks his hips, snapping into him and bottoming out with such force it feels like his teeth rattle with the delicious force of it.. “Fuck, Mack,” Caleb moans, unsure how’s he actually still able to form words, because he’s pretty sure his brain is melting from the heat of how thoroughly he’s being fucked.

  Mack sets a rough, urgent pace, grasping him firmly by the hips, centering him as he dissolves. He feels so impossibly full, like his entire existence is rooted to where he’s joined with Mack. Desperate, needy moans echo around him, and he vaguely recognizes them as coming from his own mouth. Mack arches over him and pulls him up to press his chest to his back as he wraps his arms around his waist and holds him, hips still pounding furiously, mouthing at the back of his neck. Caleb lets his body go limp, held up only by Mack’s strong arms and hard cock, hand reaching back to squeeze Mack’s flexing ass, spurring him on.

  When the hot panting of Mack’s breath against his neck is too much for him to handle, sending buzzing shimmers of lust straight his leaking cock, threatening to make him come before he wants to, Caleb leans back over, resting on his elbows again. Mack slows his pace, finally stopping altogether, shoved in deep, breathing loud and heavy. Still panting from the merciless fucking, Caleb slowly, teasingly, rolls his hips, smiling against the sheets beneath his face at the hissing snarl that rumbles from Mack’s chest, at the sweet, simmering friction. He keeps the pace slow as agonizingly long as he can, thrusting his hips in a sinuous curve as he fucks himself on Mack’s cock. Soon, he can’t tease anymore, and he’s rutting back shamelessly, greedily, trying to get him deeper and deeper still.

  Mack meets his backward thrusts in kind, both of them chasing their orgasms in a frenzy now, their bodies going rigid when Mack suddenly stops, buried deep, and a keening growl, not very human at all, echoes through the room. Caleb loses all sense of time, his only awareness the growing, pulsing heat of where Mack’s growing inside of him, the base of his cock stretching him even further, filling him from new angles, pulling just on the good side of painful.

  It takes a moment for Caleb to realize that Mack is coming as he swells, his entire body trembling as he releases inside of him. Caleb thinks he can feel it, can feel the spray of his mate’s hot come coating his insides, but he’s a little fucked out of his mind at the moment and can’t be too sure of anything but his unequivocal love for Mack. And Mack’s cock, because holy hell. He had no idea his body was capable of ple
asure this intense, could not have even begun to fathom just how satisfying it feels to be tied to Mack this intimately.

  And tied they are. The base of Mack’s dick has swollen considerably, locking them together as he continues to come, though less forcefully now. Caleb feels utterly spent but also more alive than he’s ever felt, and he hasn’t even come yet, his dick still hard and dripping against the bed. He doesn’t even care though, is perfectly content to stay exactly as he is, skin sparking with crackling heat where Mack’s hands trace over his back as he thrusts softly into him, breathing his name with yearning whine. The air is thick with the smell of sex and sweat – and a spicy, earthy scent that Caleb can’t identify but somehow knows anyway is the smell of magic. He feels a burst of energy in his heart, radiating through him, and he knows it’s their mate bond, and whatever mystical power it contains, snapping into place, solidifying, completing them.

  He’s abuzz with heady energy as Mack reaches around for his cock, his hand on him for only a second before he’s coming, biting into the sheets as he bucks and spasms with the overwhelming force of it, Mack’s knotted cock shooting harder into him as he clenches around his knot. He fills Mack’s hand, and then he spreads it across his shoulderso he can lick it off, each swipe of his tongue sending shivers across his skin. He doesn’t stop licking at his back and nibbling at his neck when he moves them, still tied together, slowly and carefully, so they’re lying on their sides, Mack’s thighs fitting in neatly behind his. He feels drunk with love and wonders absently at how much of his feelings are Mack’s, giddy at the thought of Mack feeling his emotions too.