Cry Wolf

by Charlie Adhara

  “Listen, about the whole, um, Moon thing. There’s something you should know.”

  “Oh, are we doing a post-case wrap-up?” Eli said politely. “And here’s me in the malt shop without a strawberry shake.”

  “There might be some shit coming between the three factions soon,” Cooper said. “Freeman got her information from somewhere. She just knows too much. Neil, my—Neil did, too. He was a brilliant investigative agent, but still. To have gotten my AQ test that I ripped up back in Maudit Falls? To even have known to look for it?” He realized maybe Eli didn’t know about his AQ, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but Eli just looked thoughtful.

  “So clearly a wolf, or wolves plural, is involved. One of the factions feeding our secrets to humans to create unrest between the three. And because you attract problems like a light does moths, you’ll doubtlessly be in the thick of it, I see.”

  “Cola is sure it’s the rebels or WIP, which doesn’t surprise me, but Park agrees. He doesn’t believe it can have come from one of ruling packs. Even after the thing with his uncle.”

  Eli snorted. “No, well. He wouldn’t. He’s a pack wolf.”

  “But you’re not convinced,” Cooper noted, curious. “And aren’t you a pack wolf, too?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Eli said, saluting him, and bit his lip provocatively. “Your pack wolf, reporting for duty, sir.”

  “Seriously, though. I mean, you’re acting like there’s actually inherent differences here.” Cooper paused suddenly, alarmed. “Are there?”

  Eli laughed. “Thank goodness I’ll never fall in love with a human. It seems as exhausting as raising a child. No, we’re not different at a biological level. But pack wolves don’t see the other factions as anything but agents of chaos in the case of the WIP and violent outcasts in the case of the rebels. In their minds, these discontent fringes would do anything to get their hands on the power the ruling packs have. What Ollie doesn’t understand, could never understand, is we weren’t discontent. Being in the rebel pack appealed to a...need I had. He despises everything about rebels because of what happened to me in that specific pack. He could never understand why I don’t hate them as much as he does.”

  Not a great limitation for the soon-to-be owner of a shelter for rebels to have, Cooper thought, and then stopped, struck by a realization. Two soon-to-be owners plural. Because Cooper would also be responsible for the shelter and he faced the same limitation as Park. He too was genuinely shocked and confused as to why Eli didn’t hate rebels after everything he’d been through. Because of course Cooper thought of rebels and WIP the same way Eli had described the ruling packs: discontent, violent outcasts. The same way as Park did. How could he not when Park was the source of ninety-nine percent of what he knew about wolves? It was strange realizing just how much his understanding of this world was filtered through Park’s eyes. How perhaps that might change now. How perhaps that was a healthy thing and Eli’s presence wasn’t just good for Park but for all three of them.

  “Where will you go after this?” Cooper asked, an idea beginning to take shape.

  “Kicking me out already?”

  “Of course not. You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you want.” He reached out and tapped Eli’s forearm, and got an expectedly judgmental look back. “I just meant what do you want to do next?”

  “Oh, diminish, maybe. Go into the west. Might remain Galadriel, if I’m really feeling freaky. You know.”

  “Or you could develop. Go south. Check out this sanctuary for rebel wolves we’re starting. No pressure, of course,” he added hastily. “But if you want to, I’m sure we’d both be grateful for your expertise. You understand rebels. You can appreciate this...need you mentioned. And you won’t push them into joining a ruling pack or whatever, as if that’s their only option.”

  Eli’s eyebrows were arched about as high as they could go. Or maybe not, considering what he could do with his eyebrows. “Is it not their only option? You’d encourage them to remain rebels? Or become WIP?”

  “You’re the one telling me neither deserve such a bad rep, so if that’s true, why not?”

  “Why not, indeed,” Eli murmured, watching him. “Alice is right. The WIP is going to love you.”

  Cooper frowned. “When did she say that?”

  “I was listening to your conversation with her earlier,” Eli said without a lick of shame. “Trust me, it was implied.”

  “Yeah,” Cooper said, eyeing his slightly pointy-looking ears. “Maudit Falls or not, we’re going to have to settle on separate living arrangements ASAP.”

  “Afraid I’ll eavesdrop on your sex life? Don’t be. I’m full to the brim of Ollie’s cooties already.”

  “And to think of the best man speech we could have had. What a missed opportunity.”

  “My point is,” Eli continued, “the Moon has always been a sort of messiah figure for the WIP. They’ll do whatever it takes to steal you from pack wolves and align with them instead.”

  “I’m not aligned with pack wolves,” Cooper said.

  Eli flinched oddly. “You’re claiming territory. You’re alpha to two pack wolves.”

  “And we’re opening a sanctuary for rebel wolves,” Cooper countered. “And I’m going to get Park some goddamn closure with his WIP mom if it kills me. And he and I work for the Trust, which is supposed to be outside of it all.”

  “But it’s not.”

  “But it can be,” Cooper said. “It will be. It has to.”

  Eli studied him. “Does Ollie know you have these radical inclinations?”

  Cooper snorted. “Please. I’m too self-involved to be anything of the sort. I just don’t want to pick a team.”

  Eli ran his tongue over his teeth like he was going to disagree, then shrugged and looked out at the yard and tree line beyond. “You know, before they organized themselves as the Wolf Independence Party, WIP wolves were merely known as independents.”

  “All right,” Cooper said slowly, watching Eli watch the rain.

  “And before they modernized themselves, the independents were known as lone wolves.” He glanced briefly at Cooper. “You can see why Alice might think you belong with them.”

  Cooper thought about that. God save him from the stubbornly blank-faced, cryptic wolves in his life. “When I said I wasn’t aligned to anyone, I meant the three factions. I’m very much aligned with Oliver. And now with you, too. I promise.”

  “But by your own conjecture, we’re entering uncertain times,” Eli said. “So let’s not make promises we can’t keep, hmm? You’re a human who signed up for a lover and got a werewolf pack instead. If you find this arrangement a bit too much and it becomes necessary to part ways, I only ask for a little warning. I’d become a bit too complacent in the Park pack. When I found myself suddenly facing life without them...” His jaw worked for a moment. “I don’t ever want to be that helpless, again.”

  Cooper took a breath. There was a lot he wanted to say. But Eli was right. Promises were for children. “Fair enough, if you let me know the same. You signed up for an alpha, not this Moon nonsense. If it gets too much, and you want to go back to the Parks or the rebels or wherever, I’ll help you talk to Oliver about it.”

  Eli’s expression softened to something almost grateful. “Thank you, whippet.”

  “Of course—” Cooper paused. He’d only ever been introduced to him as Eli Park. “Er, do you still want to keep that last name?”

  Eli shook his head. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I have no claim to it.”

  “Do you...want to use...my name?” Cooper asked haltingly.

  Eli snorted. “As you plant the first seeds of sedition amongst the oldest institutions of our kind with an enormous moon-shaped target on your back? No, thank you. I’ll just take up the name I had before the Parks.” He tipped a nonexistent hat. “Elias Smith, at your service.�
��

  “Elias Smith?” Cooper repeated incredulously. “Was Alias Smith already taken or is that your attempt at subtlety?” As he spoke, another thought came to mind. “Wait, Alice Smith... They’re both pseudonyms, aren’t they? The same pseudonyms, no less.”

  Eli was watching him, amused. “If so, we’d fit right in. It seems to be all the rage around here.” His lips twitched into a sharp little smile. “The Moon and the Shepherd. Has a nice ring to it, actually. The Moon and the Shepherd...went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey”—Eli elbowed Cooper with a wink—”and puh-leeeenty of money—”

  “God, you’re insufferable.”

  “On the contrary, people suffer me often,” Eli said. A strange look passed over his face, there and gone again before Cooper deciphered it. But considering the three days they’d both just had, he could guess.

  Fuck it, Cooper thought, and brusquely leaned into Eli, pressing their shoulders and hips together. He felt Eli stiffen, and almost pulled away, an apology already poised on his lips, when suddenly Eli sagged back against Cooper like his strings were cut, head hanging low. Cooper grunted at the abrupt weight, but braced himself and stayed unmoving. He could see the back of Eli’s neck like this—soft, pale and vulnerable—and wondered what he was supposed to do now. If it was Park, he’d kiss it. But it was easier to comfort a sexual partner. Eli clearly needed...something else.

  Wet wind lifted his hair and Cooper glimpsed paler, shinier skin on his neck—a very old scar, silvery and slippery like the inside of a seashell—before Eli picked his head back up and cleared his throat. “Ollie’s here. We can’t let him catch us making passionate love.”

  The front door opened and Park joined them mid eye roll, which meant he was perfectly synchronized with Cooper, busy doing the same.

  “Of course you’re both out here. You are the two most unsociable, undomesticated...” Park muttered. “Did you know the cat is being more cordial than either of you right now? And I know for a fact she was raised in an alley.”

  “My poor, tortured beauty. I’ll rescue her from the perils of conversation posthaste. Which reminds me, we’ll have to come up with a visitation schedule, of course.” Eli straightened and stretched leisurely, setting off a number of clacking sounds from the region of his spine. “God knows I can’t leave her with you two all year round.”

  “Leave her?” Park asked, sounding suddenly nervous. “Where are you going?”

  “To run your revolutionary resort, of course. Keep up, Ollie.”

  “Really? El, that’s—” Park’s voice choked up a bit, and Eli sauntered toward him, out of Cooper’s sight.

  Cooper twisted his head subtly so that he could peek behind him without fully turning around. Eli and Park weren’t touching with their hands, but as Cooper watched they sort of bumped into each other as if passing in a crowded hallway, and then Park knocked the side of his face against Eli’s a couple times before they separated as if nothing at all had happened. Cooper hurriedly looked away and stared out at the rain before he was caught staring.

  “Don’t celebrate too loudly, you two,” Eli said. “You have fifteen minutes before I send your delightfully stammering brother out to fetch you, and I’m not responsible for what he sees.” He started to sing the last verse of that same silly Lear poem and headed back inside.

  Park joined Cooper on the railing. “Thank you,” he said after a moment. “For Eli. I’m—just, thank you.”

  “Mmm. Happy?” Cooper asked.

  “Completely, entirely, utterly.”

  “Good,” Cooper said, pleased. “I want you to teach me how to touch like that. Like you and Eli do.”

  Park looked at him, startled, then back at the empty porch where he’d just stood. “What—? We weren’t—that wasn’t—”

  Cooper flapped his hand to stop him. “I know. I’m saying I want to understand how to touch like wolves.” Park’s eyebrows shot up. “I know you and I don’t talk about it much, and if you really don’t want me to do that with you, of course I won’t. But I have to think about what Eli needs now, too, so I’m asking you to teach me. Talk to me about wolves. I want to know.”

  Park studied him, head tilted and face blank, with just a hint of something tentative and possibly yearning in his eyes. “Very well,” he said seriously. “Your first lesson starts now.”

  “What do you—”

  Park abruptly draped his body over Cooper’s, heavy and encompassing over his back, the immediate warmth of it wonderful in the cool, wet air. Cooper snuggled tighter into the crook of his arm, purposefully dragging his ass back and forth over Park’s crotch, and heard him exhale sharply. Park gripped one of Cooper’s hips, forcing him to be still, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, sharply nipped the back of his neck.

  “Ow!” Cooper said, though it didn’t hurt so much as send a pulse of Oh, that’s interesting straight through his balls.

  “Stop squirming like a tart when I can’t fuck you,” Park said, which really just made matters worse, and they wrestled a bit until, laughed out and lazy, Cooper collapsed over the railing again, Park still on his back, the big lug. They stood like that listening to the rain and the distant sounds of laughter inside the house for a while.

  “Hey,” Cooper realized suddenly. “What about those vows you said you wrote?”

  “What about them?”

  “Well, are you saving them for your second husband or do you think maybe I get to hear?” Cooper said sarcastically, and felt Park’s amusement rumble against him.

  “All right, give me a moment,” he said, rubbing his nose back and forth in Cooper’s hair at the back of his skull and inhaling deeply. “Let’s see, first there’s your toes. Eight of them aren’t too weird. What’s next, your—”

  Cooper kicked him in the ankle and Park spun him around so that they were face to face, pressed against the railing. “You love me.”

  Cooper blinked. “What?”

  “Shh, I’m doing my vows now. For real. You love me.”

  “Isn’t that backward?”

  “You already know I love you,” Park said, shaking his head impatiently. “So today I promise, I vow that I know you love me, too. I never doubt it. How could I when I feel it all the time? I feel it when you make me laugh and then watch with that pleased little look on your face. I feel it when you touch me like I’m special and when you can’t touch me anymore because you’re over-full of sensations, but let me stay by you anyway. I feel so safe in loving you, because I know you love me, too. And it’s the greatest gift of my life.”

  “You love me,” Cooper said.

  “Obviously.” And it was, wasn’t it? Park pulled Cooper closer, arms around his waist. “So if you’re the Moon, fine. I’m the sky. If you’re a human, I’m your wolf. If you’re a prickly, sarcastic, awkward, independent, randy-as-hell, secretly good-hearted porcupine, well, then I’m Oliver Park.”

  “I can’t believe I’m being slandered in my own vows.”

  “Whatever happens next, whoever we are or whoever they think we are, it doesn’t matter. Because the way we love is already the stuff of legends.”

  Cooper couldn’t help smiling. “Well. I guess if you say it like that, it doesn’t sound like such a bad life,” he said, leaning in to kiss him, and felt Park’s body sigh into his like it was coming home.

  No, not a bad life at all.

  * * *

  Reviews are an invaluable tool when it comes to spreading the word about great reads.

  Please consider leaving an honest review for this

  or any of Carina Press’s other titles that you’ve read on your favorite retailer or review site.

  Loved Cry Wolf?

  To find more of Charlie’s books,

  visit her website at www.charlieadhara.com.

  In 1920s Scotland, even ghosts wear plaid.

&n
bsp; Welcome to a sexy, spooky new paranormal

  historical series from debut author Ella Stainton.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  Best Laid Plaids,

  book one of the Kilty Pleasures series.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the entire Carina team for giving Cooper and Park such a supportive home.

  To my consistently wonderful editor Mackenzie Walton. This series would not be the same without her patience, care and talent.

  And to my family. They know who they are.

  About the Author

  Charlie Adhara writes contemporary, mystery, paranormal, queer romance. Or some assortment of that, anyway. Whatever the genre, her stories feature imperfect people stumbling around, tripping over trouble and falling in love. Charlie has done a fair amount of stumbling around herself, but tends to find her way back to the northeast US. When she’s not writing, Charlie is reading, hiking, exploring flea markets and acting as an amateur cobbler for her collection of weird shoes.

  To learn more and stay updated, follow Charlie on the usual suspects!

  Website: https://www.charlieadhara.com

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Charlie_Adhara

  Best Laid Plaids

  by Ella Stainton

  Chapter One

  Joachim

  Fifeshire, Scotland, 1928

  Joachim kept a brisk pace up the interminably long path to Rosethorne House, no matter that his ankle might give out before he got there. The steel tip of his walking stick twanged, punctuating each step in the way he’d grown accustomed in the ten years since the end of the Great War. Gravel drives like this were the worst; bloody slippery underfoot and hard to catch purchase. He mopped his brow once he stopped on the wide sandstone steps that led to a front door of oak that could have graced a medieval castle.

  Rosethorne House, my arse.