Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  He was losing.

  Cannot lose. Cannot. We are stronger. We are better!

  Clear-Skies shook all around Curtis. His wolf arms buckled and his legs gave out. Confident of his Beta’s defeat, Thomas had guarded against losing his balance and swept Curtis around, flinging him on his back. The Alpha did not hesitate. His jaws fastened onto Curtis’s neck and his razor clawed forepaws ripped down his exposed belly.

  Curtis yelped at the blinding pain.

  • • •

  Izzy couldn’t run. Thomas had Curtis pinned and squirming on his back. The Alpha’s broad backside obscured most of the silver wolf, but black blood pooled on the floor. Was it Alpha’s or Beta’s? She couldn’t tell, but she knew Thomas didn’t intend to mete out punishment. Curtis had crossed him three times for her sake and, judging from the squeaking growls Curtis uttered, she didn’t think Thomas meant him to survive. At the claws of the Wolf King, Curtis would die.

  No!

  Starting back inside, Izzy hesitated. What could she possibly do? She couldn’t fight a wolf and win. One flick of Thomas’s wrist and her neck would snap. She had to think fast. While the Wolf King was strong, she was clever. Her sightline fell to the shoes at her feet, human trappings the Alpha had discarded when he’d changed. She didn’t have to beat Thomas. All she had to do was distract him. Curtis could handle the rest.

  Tucking the fire poker under her right arm, Izzy hefted one of Thomas’s boots in her left hand and chucked it at him. She missed, barely grazing his leg. She hooked her fingers in the second boot’s mouth, aimed, and pitched it at the Alpha’s head. It clobbered him. He snarled and whipped around, his muzzle glistening black. She balked and the hasty retreat triggered the wolf’s lust for the chase. For the barest instant, she spied Curtis pitifully sprawled on the floor. His chest wasn’t moving.

  Not again. This can’t happen again.

  First Alan, now Curtis. Then Rapid, now Thomas. This was the part where Izzy fell to the wolf, but there was no one else to save her. She’d have to save herself.

  Abandoning his lifeless Beta on the floor, Thomas loped toward Izzy, who drew her poker like a rapier and leapt back, heels skidding on the icy first step. She lost her footing and her stomach dropped with the downward pull of gravity. Arms pin-wheeling, she fell as Thomas rocketed into the air. Snow cushioned her fall, swallowing her like a frigid cloud. She still had the wind knocked from her and the drift slowed her down. She couldn’t get up. The Alpha landed on top of her, his muscled arms bracketing her face, his hindquarters boxing her legs. His stinking breath steamed her face when his jaws opened.

  Poised for the killing strike, the Alpha seized and choked gurgling rattled from his throat. He spluttered. Blood spattered Izzy’s face and stippled the white snow. Wet warmth coated her hands like heated syrup and soaked her T-shirt and boxers. She looked down.

  The fire poker stuck up like a lightning rod in her hand and Thomas had landed on it. It skewered his belly and he bled out, steaming ichors dissolving the snow. She couldn’t take her eyes from what she’d done. She hadn’t meant to. She’d only wanted to give Curtis time, space to end fight. She’d only wanted to defend herself.

  Though badly wounded, the Alpha wasn’t down yet. He lunged for Izzy’s neck and she shrieked, shrinking further into the freezing carpet, eyes squinching shut. A sound like cracking ice made them snap open. She wished she’d kept them closed.

  Curtis’s hands were clamped around Thomas’s head, which he’d twisted further than it was meant. With one last jerk, he pitched the Alpha off Izzy. The fire poker was pulled from her weak grasp, firmly tangled in the gray wolf’s guts.

  Prone in the snow, Izzy stared up at the silver wolf. Claw marks raked his chest and belly. His muzzle and fur was stained and matted with gore. He heaved out a smoky breath that blew back her bangs and lowered his head.

  The Alpha was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Curtis changed.

  In human form, his torn flesh already knitted together. If Izzy unfocused her eyes, she thought she saw tongues of blue light darting from his wounds, alchemizing the healing process, but that couldn’t be. All that remained of the slashes across his face and torso were dark, raised scars. She wasn’t so fortunate. She ached everywhere she’d been cut or bruised. Swallowing hurt. Her throat felt puffed up like she had the worst case of strep throat. She sat up and found herself at the center of an enormous Rorschach blot. All around her, the Alpha’s blood had spread and stained the snow. Dazed, she turned her head in the direction of the body. There was a bare, human foot.

  A firm hand captured Izzy’s chin. Curtis made her face him, his fiery amber eyes still bright with feral luminescence.

  “Don’t look.” Long and pointed, his canines dropped from the straight line of white teeth and his voice came out as a half-growl. Unable to maintain eye contact, Izzy stared at his bare chest, then lower. Below his waist, his stiff cock curved up to his belly.

  Izzy’s tongue passed over her top lip. “We killed him.”

  “We had to and we have to get inside.”

  “I don’t think I can stand.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Curtis got to his feet first and offered his hand. Izzy wobbled up without his help. She’d done something to her ankle. It wasn’t broken, but walking pained her and the skin there stretched tight with fluid. Hobbling the few feet to the porch steps drained her and she gripped the railing. She had to recharge for the less than monumental climb. Whether concerned or impatient she didn’t know, but Curtis came behind her and scooped her into his arms, careful to block her view of the lawn. Chivalry was welcome even though she could have made it inside without help.

  Exposed to the elements all day, the cabin’s inside was as cold as the outdoors. Icicles could have hung from the ceiling. Little piles of snow gathered in the corners of the cabin’s entrance. Shutting the door with his foot — he kicked it three times before it stayed closed — Curtis paid the shambles of his front room no attention. He carried Izzy to the bathroom and set her down, leaving her for a short time. As she pulled off her blood-stiffened clothes, she heard the bedroom door click shut. By the time Curtis returned she was naked and picking the caked gore from her fingers like old, cracked scabs. Blood flaked onto the white tile and speckled her bare feet, which were little more than mottled slabs of frozen meat. Looking at them made her ill, so she looked at Curtis instead.

  Curtis stared at her, amber eyes ablaze. Under his alien scrutiny, she felt hunted and vulnerable. She held still when he advanced. He stopped himself. At the sight of her, his cock twitched and he clenched his fists.

  “I want you now,” he growled out.

  • • •

  When Curtis had snapped Thomas’s neck, he’d felt nothing. Not horror at what he’d done or any sort of power rush save the fight’s adrenaline pumping through him. He’d had no idea if the Alpha’s mantle had passed to him until this instant.

  Clear-Skies wouldn’t stay quiet and tucked away in his regular flame form near Curtis’s heart. The wolf stretched under his skin like a translucent membrane, giddy with triumph and eager to exercise their increased dominance.

  Mate. Izzy. Mate.

  The wolf’s instincts tangled with Curtis’s desire, already running hot from the hunt and his victories in battle, and it was too much; Izzy standing there bare and hurt and bloody and the smell of Thomas and Gerome and Rapid on her and her brown eyes wide and fearful. He wanted her so bad he hurt and her fear heightened his lust. Was that Clear-Skies’s instinct or a shadowy sliver of himself swimming up from the depths of his soul? Was there a difference? There had to be, but he couldn’t compartmentalize his wolf and Izzy transfixed them both.

  “I want you now,” he said, then it happened.

  A flash of force like a small, ghostly hand pushing off his spi
ne and zipping out from his gut had chased the last of his half-snarled words. He’d felt this new appendage strike Izzy and he hadn’t drawn it back in, couldn’t. Until she’d obeyed him, he’d had no clue what the sensation was. When she bent over the sink and displayed her back side at his demand, her upturned and split sex shiny with need, he knew he’d inherited the Alpha’s power.

  A metric ton of responsibility shackled itself to Curtis’s neck and he bowed his head.

  • • •

  Near the sink, Izzy grasped the porcelain edge and bent over. She canted up her rear, offering herself to Curtis. She didn’t think about doing this, she simply did it, her body responding to his whim. Body heat warmed her bottom and thighs when he came close. Callused hands stroked her back and his cock nudged between her legs, sliding up the cleft of her ass. Her heart pounded. His fingers dug into her hips when he resisted her invitation.

  “Tell me if you want this.” The harsh edge of Curtis’s voice softened.

  Izzy ached for him, but she was afraid. Why had she reacted this way? How could she be wet for him after they’d done what they’d done? Anger, fear, satisfaction at Thomas’s death, and revulsion that his death pleased her, became confused with this need for Curtis that had suddenly flared inside her when she’d watched him transform. She thought she might throw up. Thomas and Rapid, her brother’s killers, were dead. She and Curtis were alive. Knowing wasn’t enough. The solidity of his body would assure her. She needed it, needed the nova of pleasure exploding between them, making them definite, re-affirming their frayed bond. Pleasure would banish these awful feelings, this sickness rolling in her stomach and tossing her head like a little buoy, wouldn’t it?

  “I don’t know,” she whispered into the drain.

  Curtis snaked an arm around her chest and lifted her. He braced her against him and she felt his face in her hair.

  “Later then,” he said and moved away.

  Curtis got the shower going. Since he’d come to her rescue last night, they’d been at odds. Secrets, his feral nature and kin, had eclipsed what she supposed she knew of him. He’d become a stranger again. Deception had been a sucker punch when, with him, she’d felt so at home. But what he was hadn’t changed who he was, had it? Hadn’t he proved that? Back muscles bunched while he worked at the tub and she padded behind him, placed her one hand between his shoulder blades.

  The touch startled Curtis and he spun around. “No. Over there.” The order came close to a series of barks, near unintelligible. He pointed at the toilet and she went without question or hesitation, plopping on top of the lowered seat.

  What had happened to the will that gave the former Alpha pause? Curtis commanded and she obeyed, just as she had with Thomas. But the Alpha was dead, his power gone. Unless it passed to someone else.

  Izzy forced herself to her feet, testing the theory formulating in her brain. Familiar compulsion traveled up her legs in a prickling wave that made her teeth itch. This was the Alpha’s power and she didn’t have the energy for rebellion. She sat down.

  Curtis observed her reaction. A frown pinched his features. Twisting his back to her, he tested the jetting spray then held out his dry left hand.

  “Will you come?” he asked, voice gentle.

  Izzy awaited the inevitable urge to capitulate and catapult to his side. She didn’t feel it. Her body stayed hers. He’d asked her to come, not told or suggested. Watching him warily, she rose and stepped into his waiting arm and he ushered her into the shower.

  Tepid water shocked Izzy’s frozen body. She hollered when the spray hit her, jolting numbed aches and pains to life. Biting her lip, she let the water wash over her and curled her pain-gnawed fingers and toes. Filthy water circled the burbling drain. Textured cloth brushed her back like a tongue and Curtis’s spicy soap scented the steadily warming room. She leaned into the hand at the small of her back and winced when the soapy rag touched her slashed arm. The warm water already stung, but the soap lit her wounds like a trough of gasoline. She stifled the cry struggling to escape her lips. Bowing out of the spray, she took the rag from Curtis as they switched places and gingerly sponged around all her hurts.

  Water sheeted over Curtis’s back and buttocks and his tanned skin gleamed. All his wounds had healed. He slicked back his soaked hair, rubbed the green cake of soap over his scalp and chest. He lathered every inch of his body, palmed his groin, and rinsed himself. Izzy joined him under the showerhead, cradling his backside with her body. When she circled her arms around him, her breasts squashed against his back.

  Passing over the bump and ridge of muscle, Izzy’s fingers traveled down Curtis’s abdomen, found, then stroked his rigid cock. A satisfied growl rumbled in his chest and his head fell back. Releasing him, her hand ventured lower. She cupped and hefted the heavy weight of his balls and gently squeezed as she pressed her open mouth to his back.

  Disentangling himself, Curtis whipped around and ensnared Izzy’s waist. His mouth came down hard on hers and his pointed canines gazed her lips. The low rumbling in his chest vibrated against her body, which was flush with his.

  Had she made a mistake inciting his passion? She wanted Curtis, not the strange creature riding his body. Was there a difference? As his teeth scraped her jaw and his tongue flicked at the scalloped edge of her ear, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She needed him — this — now. What he was, what they’d done, didn’t matter. Not now.

  Izzy guided Curtis back to her lips when he strayed too far to her bruised neck. He wrangled out of her handhold and backed her up with his bulk. Indelicate hands kneaded her ass and locked her hips against his ready erection. One hand moved and squeezed her right arm and she hissed around his kiss. Pain ripped though her shoulder and she pushed at him, drove them apart. She nursed her burning arm. Half under the lukewarm spray, water dripped from her hair into her face, blurring Cutis’s form. The feral light in his eyes dimmed. Turning, he shut off the water.

  • • •

  A new power Curtis knew nothing about and couldn’t control was the last thing he needed. He didn’t need a reminder of how tenuous his control could become. When Izzy had locked herself in his room, barring his entrance, he’d almost lost it. The pack’s turmoil, his helplessness, and the threat to the woman he protected had fed his wolf’s frenzy. The need to dominate had threatened to consume him. If he would have forced himself on Izzy … he shook his head. That would never happen. The moment his inner animal had reduced him to that point, he’d fought back, asserted his humanity. Thomas was gone. So was Rapid. He’d soon deal with Gerome. With all threats eliminated, his inner beast couldn’t snap through its restraints. If Clear-Skies tried, Curtis would master the spirit as he had when he first inherited his wolf. He could do anything for Izzy.

  Tilting back his head, he let water from the dripping showerhead pat his crown. Clear-Skies simmered and bubbled just beneath the surface. The wolf hadn’t retreated, but Curtis had stopped fighting him. He let the spirit hover like a secondary skin, explored where he ended and the wolf began, where they’d grown inseparable. Two beings, one body. Beyond their mingled vapors, buried in the depths of Curtis’s belly lay the Alpha’s power, a reddened coal, a glowing and un-tempered blade.

  Declarations quickened the power. Curtis had felt it again when he’d told Izzy to get away from him — his restraint had depended on a generous swath of personal space — but the mechanics of the power had mystified him.

  In the shower, with the rush of water in his ears, he began to comprehend. The Alpha’s power had linked him somehow to Izzy. It forced an inarguable bond. He’d reached out with this new sense and had felt it pulling from his back like a glistening sinew. Reaching further, he’d felt Izzy’s essence, her soul white and brilliant as his own, but clouded, surrounded by a thatch of curled and thorny blackness. The vision had cut out when Izzy had touched him, but he’d welcomed it, had let his hunger
s rise up and take him. Desire had trampled his better judgment.

  Curtis balled his fists. Balance, he knew, was possible. He’d search it out. With practice, he’d find away around triggering the power or make it less of a slug with a baseball bat and more the fine cut of a scalpel.

  Argh.

  Thinking about scalpels conjured an image of Izzy helpless while Thomas cut her and Curtis on his knees, powerless at the former Alpha’s side, a prisoner of his own long-standing cowardice.

  There. He’d admitted it. But never out loud.

  When Curtis’s dad had passed, his inheritance had terrified him. Not the land or the lodge, but the wolf and the pack. Allowing Thomas to assume part of that burden had relieved him. He had sidestepped the perks and responsibility the role of Alpha bestowed. Boy, had that come back to bite his ass.

  Curtis faced Izzy. Until he understood this power, he’d stick with questions, not demands. Reaching out, he pushed her plastered bangs from her eyes, then stretched and yanked a towel from the rack near the toilet. Arms raised, she let him wrap the terrycloth around her and drip dried while he stepped from the tub and patted himself off. When he crouched in front of the sink — he knew a first-aid kit hid somewhere under there — she took his place on the soggy bath mat and carefully buffed herself. Like an egret, she went on one leg, giving her swelling ankle some rest.

  Curtis went to her, gauze and tape, cotton balls and disinfectant in hand. He concentrated on her face, but her hard and rosy nipples distracted him, the sensitive areolas surrounding them puckered with cold and arousal. The scent of her desire permeated the room like the soapy perfume carried on the lingering steam. His cock stirred and he swallowed. Clear-Skies tightened over his muscle and bone, infusing them, bringing Curtis’s beast forth. The animal now-now-now of the wolf’s mating drive made him grit his teeth.