He leans down, his mouth hovering over the edge of mine and my lips part for him.
His tongue licks a hot wet line against my bottom lip and I groan at the tactile sensation. “I would never lie to you about your chances of being a mother, Tal.”
“But you'd lie to her about everything else, right Masker?”
Arden shoves me behind him.
Merck stands twenty feet away.
I don't think there's anything I can do to stop the violence this time.
4
Merck
That fucking Masker is strutting around naked, his hands on my change.
I listen to his comment about her ability to bear children. The goat. He's using words to soften her to his position. Not having that. “But you'd lie to her about everything else, right Masker?”
He tosses Talyn behind himself as though I'm a physical threat to her. A female. It's insulting on principle.
The only one who is a threat to anyone here is me threatening him.
“A lie of necessity, Merck.”
“No lies are necessary, Masker. I've not lied to Talyn since I made her acquaintance. However, you've known her two decades, and just now revealed your true self. Why don't you tell her why you chose now. Let's see what Talyn thinks of that.”
Talyn doesn't hide behind Arden.
She steps forward and her pungent sex hits me between the eyes. It's all I can do to not fall to my knees and worship her with my mouth. My dick. My everything.
Get a grip, Merck.
I stand stoically, a half-century of training and fortitude pull me through the moment. It feels a little like being torn through a knothole without grease.
But Talyn's scent is a heady thing. Royal blood is a fine wine, when partaken too much of—gets a Changer more than drunk, but obliterated. I've heard the stories and they're not pretty. And having just put two and two together—I realize why she was always so magnetic.
It's up to me to resist her, yet change her.
“Arden doesn't speak for me... Merck,” Talyn says and my name sounds funny from her lips.
“I don't know what's happening. But it sounds like the same thing that happened to Enforcer Adrienne is happening to me.”
“You don't need a Changer,” Arden says from behind her.
He smirks.
I give him my deadliest glance.
She quickly looks between the two of us. No doubt gauging the escalating violence. “No. Just stop this. I want to go home. I will not run from this. I will face whatever this means for me head-on but I want more details. Is there any way I can get home, Arden gets clothes on and you stay human so we can discuss this like rational people?”
“We're not exactly human, Tal,” the Masker comments.
I roll my eyes. Arden is supposed to be some kind of scientist? He seems slow to me.
“It's not safe for you to be out here in your condition,” I begin in a steady voice, inching closer.
Arden's brow lowers, his face going hard.
“No closer, Lycan.”
Talyn whips her arms out between us. “Stop. I don't want any male posturing.” Her eyes meet mine, the normal soft gray now the pewter of a coming storm. “I'm already up to here with that.” She makes a slicing gesture across her throat. “And you guys might not be fully human, but you're male. So that counts, never seen it not. If I didn't know better, I'd say you mimic regular human men pretty damn well.”
“That's insulting,” I say.
“If the paw fits,” she quips, lifting a shoulder. Her eyes gouge me. “And what do you mean by ʻmy conditionʼ? You make it sound like I have terminal cancer.”
She's not far off base. Not the cancer part, of course—but she's terminal.
“What?” Her dark brown eyebrow arches.
I'm silent.
“You're not answering me,” she notes, a slight waver in her voice.
“Tal,” Arden moves to the front of her and I snort. His nakedness is no big thing in the shifter culture but it's not going to do shit for his chances with Talyn.
Sure enough her eyes go round and she backs up a step. “Okay, I really can't have this discussion with you dangling.”
I cover my mouth with a fist, trying not to laugh at his expense. Because, it's just a hunch but I don't think Talyn will appreciate that either.
What started as a complicated change just got elevated to near-impossible.
My nose twitches as the fine hairs on my body rise in response to scent-recognition. I call out to Arden, “Shifters—coming fast.”
Arden's face instantly changes. His snout elongates into the one I hold in part-Lycan form—woflen.
His nostrils flare and he grips Talyn by the shoulders.
“Lycan, hold them off, I'll take Talyn home.”
Smooth. Real smooth.
“How you going to do that, Masker? You going to run through downtown Sioux Falls with you dick hanging in the wind?”
Arden smiles but then it vanishes into a grimace of pain.
“Get on, Talyn.”
“What—no!” she yells then turns her wide eyes to mine. “What is this, a trick?”
“Do you think I'd work with the competition unless it was to safeguard you?”
The shifters are close.
I can't stall any longer. “Go with him, I'll be there momentarily. We'll discuss shit.”
She crosses her arms. “Oh that's eloquent. Yeah. Pfft.”
I heave a harsh sigh as Arden becomes a stallion behind her.
That's when I know I've made the biggest mistake of my career. Arden's not another Lycan who can scent-mask. He's more than a Masker.
He's a Mutable.
And I just handed him over the prize.
Arden's animal kneels and Talyn hops on, like I told her to, I remind myself. Her fingers thread tightly into the mane of the horse Arden's shifted into.
He races away and a bare minute of time later, the shifters appear.
It almost makes me wish I'd taken Adrienne and her two vamps up on their offer to accompany me here. But I'd convinced them—and myself—that Talyn would react better if there weren't so many supernaturals around.
She seemed overwhelmed. Now the tables have turned.
Shifters of every brand surround me.
Five against one are shit odds.
The life of a Changer.
5
Talyn
My grandparents owned a farm out north of Brookings, South Dakota when I was a child.
Babbling brook, a prairie filled with wheat without end, and a sky stuffed full of cotton ball clouds in a sea of blue deep enough to taste.
And horses. There'd been horses.
You never forget how to ride a horse.
Even now—knowing this horse is actually Arden, doesn't faze my body.
It remembers.
My thighs clench around the heaving flanks of an inky stallion, so dark a black that it blends with the night.
My unbound hair streams behind me like sideways water and I part my lips to taste the smells—the freedom of the ride.
It's not like the Talyn Phisher of last week to just—be.
I usually have to be in total control of everything. But so much has changed in the last twenty-four hours I can't keep a hold of anything that was known.
Now everything that was—falls under before.
Before Blue Eyes showed.
Before Enforcer Adrienne told me the Lycan's job was to fuck me into werewolfdom.
I suck in a sob—yes, let's fuck it out for pity's sake.
My grip tightens as my mount charges up the last existing cobblestone street in the downtown area I call home.
And then there is the before of Arden. A million moments glued together of shared memories, events—and the sheer quantity of companionship. That history rolls into my consciousness like a fog that clings to the rocky shores of my mind. While the truth crashes against my defenses like unrelenting waves.
Arden's hooves are a disaster of noise against the thick quartzite pavers.
My eyes search the gloom. Eyes that will soon be werewolf, if Merck has anything to do with it.
Or Arden.
Hot tears burn the back of my eyelids, blurring my vision to searing blindness.
Arden slows to a walk and I lay down on his sweaty back, my arms flat against his sides, and the motion of his body lulls me.
My eyes clear, taking in the deep crevices of the cobblestones in my own alley as they follow the blocked pattern I've driven over a thousand times as I realize my home is within kissing distance.
Arden steps into the driveway and there I sit. A woman bareback on a horse.
I arch backward as Arden kneels and manage a clumsy sliding dismount.
My grandpa would have clucked for an hour if he'd seen that.
But they've been gone for years. There's no one to witness my lack of finesse.
I touch Arden's neck out of habit and jerk back when it's not the velvet of the horse I just enjoyed.
But the skin of a man.
“Talyn.”
I turn and there Arden is. Naked. Again. Sweat coats his body. Every bit. Every hard inch.
I look down. Yup. That's hard too.
I spin in the opposite direction, my female bits throbbing like an aching tooth. “Let's get inside—wow. I can't have a naked guy standing in my driveway.”
“Yes—what will the neighbors think?” His lips quirk and I swing back around and punch him in the arm.
“Jerk.”
I stalk around him and walk to the gate leading to the back yard. I open it and walk through. Using the narrow concrete walkway I stride to the back yard and my ruined patio doors.
I stop in my tracks for a handful of seconds. Taking in the sight of the boarded up french doors covered with recycled plywood.
Still, to see my house marked my the violence of the evening makes me want to cry. Again. I probably have Enforcer Adrienne to thank for the repair. And maybe her carpenter vampires, I think with grumpy thanks, stuffing my volatile emotions back where they belong.
I move to the back door and depress my thumb to the pulse lock.
A green light flashes and I turn the crystal knob, walking inside with Arden on my heels.
“What if I'd fallen off your back!” I toss behind me as I traverse the turned over furniture and lamps in my living room, thankfully noting there's no glass.
Somehow I don't think supernatural battle clean-up is part of the Final Enforcement's job description. However, Adrienne left me to my own devices against Merck. Shouldn't she have like—I don't know, mediated the entire “transition” thing? Or maybe her only job is to nail the criminals?
What can I expect, she's a hybrid herself. Not the same flavor but part-supernatural.
“I remember the stories about your grandparentsʼ farm,” he says with mild smugness.
I rotate slowly and look at Arden.
His mouth is twisted in a vaguely satisfied tilt of lips.
“So you figured even though I hadn't ridden a horse in twenty years I'd just—what—fumble around somehow?”
Arden nods happily. His stomach muscles clench and release with the movement and I feel my eyes dip.
His mouth isn't the only thing that's happy.
“Can't you,” I point at his crotch. “Now that you're not a horse and you're back to being a guy—do something with that?”
“Yes, I can.” His voice lowers to a seductive growl.
And then his hands are on my shoulders as he pulls me to him. His mouth grazes the sensitive spot behind my ear, his hands yanking all my hair back as he does. “I can find many things to do with that, Tal.”
The words hung like a horse flash in my mind. Oh god, I can feel his erection against the front of me and I can't stop wanting it.
Wanting him.
Arden. My geeky best friend who's anything but.
“No,” I say in whispered denial. Full of want.
“Don't feel guilty, Talyn. Your body wants this. You were made to change. It doesn't have to come from the Lycan. I can transition you.”
With the last ounce of my willpower I pull backward. His hands grip my upper arms loosely, but I can feel the immense strength of him like a tuning fork that vibrates to my core.
“What will happen if I don't want to be this ʻLycan femaleʼ? What happens if I just keep being me—Talyn Phisher—” I put my fingers to my chest and his arms tangle with mine, “counselor to the humans. You know—people that I can help experience something other than sadness? Maybe even joy. That's not a small thing, Arden. I can do something bigger than myself.”
He shakes his head. “I need you. I've always needed you, Tal.” Arden's eyes are his. The ones behind the owl lenses. Deep and soulful, so dark a blue they rival the slate of soapstone perfectly.
I step away and he reluctantly releases me.
“I don't want to be that needed by anyone. It's not normal. In fact, if I put my psych hat on, I'd say it's pretty damn dysfunctional.”
“Dysfunction be damned. I've tried to reason with you—and I know this has been a lot to absorb.”
I laugh. Damn straight.
“Totally,” I say, sweeping my palm at his naked self.
“Fine,” he grumbles and goes straight to the guest closet and jerks out a spare pair of sweatpants I keep around for my brother when he bothers to visit.
Handy that he knows where I keep them, I stew.
He jerks them on and my breath catches at the sexy view of his ass hopping into the soft black athletic pants.
I don't realize I've clenched my eyes shut until Arden says softly, “Tal.”
I open them. “Is it a fate worse than death that you have sex with me?”
It's open season on him with my eyes.
The old Arden, with the exception of his slate blue gaze, is gone. This is the new and definitely improved version.
I'd be blind not to notice him as a man.
He's a huge muscled specimen now. Dark honey brown hair falls in waves from his forehead and just brushes his nape, lithe muscles flow down his body like flesh covered steel.
I'm tall, but this Arden is much taller. I could wear my favorite (and painful), four inch heels and I'd still be inches shorter.
But in all this, even with my new sex drive pounding on every bit of me—begging for release—I can't just screw him like an alley cat.
I frown. Or a bitch in heat. My lips quirk at the image but I shake my head and say, “You might be able to turn the light switch on and off.”
“Pulse switches now.” He winks.
I always forget the new technology, and I'm old enough to remember regular electricity, even still have some in my old house.
“Yeah,” I reply softly. “You're right. But—I can't just have sex with you for the sake of turning into this creature. I think I'll pass. And somehow,” my eyes rise from his body to his face, “somehow I'll get past the dissolution of our friendship.”
Arden comes forward, eyes edged with sadness. “The Lycan can't offer you what I can. He can transition you—true. He will not bring you harm, he will bring you over. But then he's on to the next change. You're just a number. Another female hybrid who's checked on the tally of ʻNow Lycanʼ for them.”
That's awful. Somehow, that one comment makes me feel diminished. Like my value isn't in who I am but what I can become. And not even for myself. For some regime I've never been aware of until this last twenty-four hours.
Arden's finger slides down my face like a sigh that's felt instead of heard. I lean into his touch.
My emotions are tipping on the precipice of yes.
“I can offer you something more, Talyn.”
“Do I have to be a Lycan?” I ask softly. I liked my status quo. My life is boring and I'll admit to a certain degree of loneliness—but it's mine.
Arden slowly nods.
“But why?” I lament. “Why is there a stipulation of b
eing with you only to change into Lycan girl? If I even said I wanted that.”
“Because you'll die,” a voice that sounds like crushed gravel says from behind me.
I spin around and there is Merck. A badly beaten Merck, but he's here in my house.
I open my mouth to ask what he means when Arden attacks.
“No!” I scream.
Nobody listens. Not like that's never happened before.
6
Merck
He's Mutable—and a Masker.
Would have been great info to know before I ran into his conniving conveniently naked ass in Falls Park.
Of course, where would the fun of that be? Leaving me to face the shifters who were hound dogging on Talyn's scent.
But he can't scent-mask in every form.
The horse thing didn't work. Sure—it got Talyn away from me, and to safety quickly. However, it's only a matter of time before my Lycan nose smelled barn and here I am.
Standing in her open back door.
I flick my eyes around the immediate environment, notice that Adrienne and company cleaned up the majority of the shitstorm we left behind and hear Arden trying to get in my change's pants.
What does she mean why she can't just stay a human? Who'd want to?
Stupid question. “Because you'll die,” I say plainly.
The pup gloves have come off. Arden and me are going to come to an understanding. Now.
He doesn't disappoint, reacting immediately, he lunges across the small space, talons in whatever form he's just chosen sprouting like knives at his fingertips.
“No!” Talyn screams in her throaty contralto. Her voice wouldn't carry if she tried.
I use Arden's momentum and toss him behind me.
He stabs his talons into my back and uses them like a fishhook.
I arch forward in pain, my body flushes with heat, already feverishly trying to knit damage from a shifter gang bang twenty minutes ago.
I can't.
Then Talyn is there.
Arden jerks his talons out and I slump for a nanosecond, then spin, swiping my own razor-sharp set at him.
Furrowed and jagged marks streak across his naked chest and blood pours out of the wounds.
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