Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Various Authors

  “Hey.”

  Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose. Windows on his monitor started to blur together, and his work hadn’t miraculously managed to do itself while he’d been off on another planet. “Yeah?”

  Andrea’s slender fingers were coiled around a cardboard cup. Steam drifted from it in lazy puffs. “You look like you had a hell of a night again.”

  He looked over the partition to her in time to catch a smirk that disappeared into her coffee. “You,” he said as he pointed to her, “have got a filthy mind.”

  Andie laughed in delight and placed her coffee on the desk by her keyboard. “Come on, Ryry. You’ve been getting worse all week, and now here you are looking fifty shades of sleep-deprived. Who was he?”

  Ryan’s mind spewed forth clutches of his dreams, and he squirmed in his seat. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh my god!” She leaned forward, squealing when she almost knocked her coffee over. “Shit!” Andie moved the cup away and then fixed her gaze on him while she wagged a manicured finger. “Where did you get him from? Not some dating site!”

  “No. Andie, god no!”

  “How can you not know who he was after he kept you up all night?”

  Ryan sighed. “Because it wasn’t a guy. It was just a dream. I’ve been having some totally weirdass dreams lately.”

  Her chin lifted in doubt. “Sexy dreams though, right?”

  “You’re such a pervert!”

  “Uh huh.” Her expression softened, concern edging in at the corners of her eyes. “Ryan, if you’ve reverted to being a teenager and having wet dreams all night long you seriously need to get out and meet someone.”

  “I hate meeting people,” he groused. “You know I do.”

  “No, you hate crowds.” She sat back and grabbed her cup. “That’s different. You throw yourself into horrible bars that are like meat markets and then you wonder why there isn’t anyone there looking for a deep, meaningful relationship. That’s not what those places are for and you know it.” Andie took a moment to appreciate the scent of her coffee before she added “I think you’re scared.”

  “Me?” Ryan attempted a laugh but it was hollow. “Of what?”

  “Being lonely.”

  Ryan felt a lump in his throat. He looked at his screen, but still couldn’t focus on it. “If I was scared of that I’d go home with the first guy who hit on me.”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “’Cause you know those guys will be gone in the morning.”

  Ryan felt like a shard of ice had sliced through him.

  She was right.

  He went to lunch with Andie, and they wandered past the small artificial lake between office buildings. There were barely any clouds in the sky, and the air was warm without being too humid.

  The company cafeteria usually had tolerable food, but the seating area was as ill-designed as the offices, and the voices from a hundred people rattled around the vast space as though everyone were chatting in a concert hall. Walking into the enclosed space with all its noise was a slap to the face. Ryan stopped in the doorway.

  Andie was a couple of steps ahead before she noticed. “Ryan?”

  “Sorry. I, uh.” He winced. “I think I’ve got a headache coming on.”

  Ever practical, she dipped into her purse. “I have Ibuprofen if you want it?”

  “Maybe.” Ryan groaned as he caught the smell of food. It turned his stomach, yet his hunger spiked at the same time.

  “You aren’t looking so hot,” Andie murmured. She handed him the bottle of tablets. “You want to head home?”

  “I’m really hungry,” he whined. His nose crinkled.

  “Okay, so. What do you wanna eat?” She took his arm and tugged him toward the counters.

  “Meat.” Ryan growled the single syllable.

  “Woah. Easy, Tiger!” Andie smiled briefly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “There’s meat. What’s on today?” She looked to the various counters. “Tacos, burgers, jambalaya… I’m gonna go right ahead and assume you don’t want the salad bar.”

  “I don’t know.” He drifted from one counter to the next trying to incite some interest within himself, but for every brief flirtation with the idea of eating there was a puddle of grease or the odor of vegetables, and he felt sick.

  This was absurd. He knew the food tasted okay, he’d eaten it a hundred times before. Why now was he obsessing over fats and sauces?

  Couldn’t he just get a steak?

  Ryan snarled softly.

  “Come on. Let’s get something to go, and head back to the office. You can wait for the tablets to work and see if they help, okay?”

  His skin prickled. He looked at Andie and thought for a moment he saw fear in her posture.

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  Andrea bobbed her head and quickly assembled a salad for herself. “It’s super noisy down here today. I’d rather eat at my desk anyway.”

  Ryan knew she was lying, and he appreciated it.

  He barely made it through the afternoon, and he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t made some huge mistake somewhere. He’d been so fixated on the hunger clawing at him from within that he couldn’t concentrate and he vaguely recalled dumping a whole bunch of users into the wrong usergroup. He was damned if he could remember what that group was or who any of the users were though. It was a typical drag-and-drop mistake and it was too late in the day to track it down. He’d have to remember to look into it in the morning.

  Ryan hardly spoke to anyone that afternoon either. Not even Andie could get a conversation out of him: he was terrified of letting out any more of those ridiculous animalistic noises and he was especially fearful of snarling at his boss. Doing that wouldn’t look good for his annual review.

  When it hit half past five, Ryan shut his machine down and swept out of the office without a single goodbye. If he couldn’t get himself under control seven years of hard work were going to flow straight down the tubes. He would be out of a job, his debts would start to mount up, and he would be forced to move back in with his parents. So much for the prodigal son.

  He needed to eat. He had to find something acceptable; something not drenched in fats and artificial flavors, without water or chemicals added.

  Preferably something raw.

  Raw?

  He pulled up short, halfway to his bicycle. Rare, sure, but raw?

  Ryan shook his head and pushed onward. He crouched by his bike and his fingers shook as he undid the combination lock. He re-fastened the chain around the chassis and jammed his helmet down over his hair.

  One leg swung over the saddle with ease. He gripped the handlebars so hard that he heard his knuckles crack. Ryan stared at people as they sauntered by to their cars or bikes. Barely any spared him a glance. They had homes to go to and probably wanted to be out on the road before traffic got too heavy.

  He should do that too. He hated weaving through stationary cars. There was always the risk that a car could move without warning and - more dangerously - without looking for cyclists first. He tried to slip his right foot onto the pedal but wound up kicking it instead, and he had to take a moment to compose himself before he could try again.

  Soon he was moving, pedaling fast. The streets were too familiar, and Ryan rode down them without really paying attention to much more than which restaurants along his route offered steak. Maybe a good rare porterhouse would put an end to this fierce need for meat. He wasn’t going to head to the store and buy fresh; he had the unnerving fear that he’d just tear it open and eat it right there at the counter.

  His mind was addled with food when he saw a man on the sidewalk, and all thoughts of one kind of meat were replaced with another.

  He was perfect: tall, muscular, with shoulder-length golden curls and an undersized t-shirt that clung to his physique like dew to morning grass. There was something more than pure beauty to this stranger, though. Somewhere in Ryan’s hind brain, he recognized him.

&nbs
p; A blaring horn punctured his reverie moments before his bike slammed into the wing of a bright red car. He was thrown face-first over the hood and slid across it so fast that by the time he tried to grab at the slick surface he’d already fallen off and into the road, skidding across the asphalt on his ass. At some point he lost both his glasses and his bag, but he couldn’t swear to when.

  Other horns chimed in. They sounded muffled and distant. What began as an itching sensation in his ass, thighs and palms blossomed into burning pain in moments.

  He heard voices clashing.

  “Hey! Are you okay?”

  “Is he okay? He just tore up my hood! You better be ready to pay for this, buddy!”

  “Just hold on. You aren’t getting money off a dead guy.”

  “Hey! Can you clear the street? I need to get home!”

  “Nothing’s moving until the cops get here.”

  “Dude. Seriously. Are you okay?”

  Ryan squinted up into the bright blue sky. Traffic had ground to a halt around him. When he turned his head he could just about make out the mangled remains of his bike underneath the car. Pedestrians milled along the sidewalk, rubbernecking as they pretended to be in a hurry.

  The stranger with the dirty-blond curls was still there. Ryan was sure the stranger was looking at him, but without his glasses he couldn’t make out any details.

  His heart pounded.

  It was him.

  How was that possible? How could this man exist? How could Ryan have dreamed about him night after night without ever having met him?

  His need overcame him, and he struggled to his feet, pushing away strangers’ hands which tried to help him.

  “Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” The driver of the car Ryan had hit shoved past other people and was in his face in seconds.

  Ryan’s mouth dried up. “I need-”

  “Are you drunk? On drugs?” The driver was angry, but Ryan didn’t sense a threat. Violence would not come from him. “What you need is to give me your details, buddy.”

  “Uh.” Ryan glanced toward the curly-haired onlooker, then took a deep breath. “Of course. Sure. Here.” He pulled his wallet out of what remained of his pants and - with fingers shaking from pain and adrenaline - tugged his business card out and offered it to the driver. Blood trickled down his fingers and left bright smudges on the card.

  The driver hesitated before he took it, and found a white spot with care.

  “Yours?” Ryan prompted.

  “Man, I dunno what you think you’re gonna get from me-”

  Ryan bared his teeth and snarled. It rumbled in his chest and bubbled from his lips like steam from a geyser, and the driver’s words cut out.

  “Take it,” the man said as he thrust his own card into Ryan’s hand. The aggression had bled out of him, and he seemed to be handing the card over as an olive branch.

  Traffic began to find its way slowly around the accident and the sirens of a cop car drew closer. Ryan stole desperate looks toward his dream stranger, his body thrumming with desire, his chin lifting in invitation every time they locked eyes.

  The man with the curls observed from his safe distance while Ryan spoke to the cops. The police double-checked details and made their report.

  Once the police were done and the driver was on his way, Ryan could finally approach the man who had been demanding his attention the whole time.

  Chapter Four

  Sauri observed the mess in the road for much of the evening. The smaller machine offered no protection to its owner, and when it plowed into the side of the red vehicle it was clear which would be victorious. He had been confounded as to how the humans could build devices which were capable of such catastrophic failure, but once the owner of the mangled vehicle began to expose his throat toward Sauri from across the street he began to understand the situation more clearly.

  The human sought to entice him into mating.

  He was amused and aroused in equal measure. The vehicles required their owners to control them and this one had been inattentive. No wonder the device had failed; it had been let down. But throughout the time after the accident, with humans in matching clothing clustering around it and asking questions, the bloodied one kept looking his way and then dipping his head and lowering his gaze. He was showing deference, ignoring his own kind to call out to Sauri. There was no mistaking the human’s own arousal: his body was tense, and the bulge in his groin was obvious to Sauri’s keen eyes.

  Was this how humans mated? Could they be so similar?

  Sauri had no idea, but the tousle-haired human had created such a mess that he doubted this could be the standard ritual for soliciting a pairing. Besides, mounting a male to establish dominance was all well and good, but it was hardly mating. Perhaps this one was confused.

  Although if all that were true, why was Sauri responding to the human’s invitation so strongly?

  It made no sense. Nothing that the humans did made any sense. When this one was finally free to approach him he did so, and Sauri pulled his shoulders up. He grew wary.

  The human moved like a shifter. He was graceful and lithe, alert and curious, and his head tipped forward in submission as he came closer. His shoulders hunched. No other human Sauri had seen moved in such a way, and as the stranger came within arm’s reach he finally picked out the faint woodsy musk of a fellow wolf. His human form’s nose was only marginally better at detecting such subtleties than it had been before his change, and it was masked under a layer of dried blood.

  The stranger was a shifter, without a doubt.

  So how was it that he knew so much about human life that he could drive a vehicle and interact with them as though he were one of their own?

  The shifter stopped two palm-widths from Sauri’s chest and tipped his head back. “I need you,” he whispered, avoiding eye contact. He butted his shoulder against Sauri’s and rubbed against his arm, and a pleading whimper escaped his throat.

  Sauri couldn’t help but step in, closing the space between them until their chests touched. “Is this wise?” he rumbled, all too aware that there were still many humans surrounding them.

  The other shifter groaned. “No. It isn’t.”

  Sauri quirked his lips and leaned in to the offered throat, nipping at it. “Then take me to a better place.”

  The stranger breathed “Yes,” and took a step back before he walked away, his gait awkward.

  Sauri watched him, then looked to the things the stranger had dropped in his accident. Humans were looking at them, too; it didn’t seem as though they found it acceptable to leave them where they were. “These are yours,” he said to the stranger’s back.

  The shifter turned and hurried to his fallen vehicle, scooping up a bag and throwing it over his shoulder. He did not seem able to see the thing which had fallen from his face, so Sauri stepped in and picked it up. Several of the humans wore such a thing, although theirs bore no fractures in the clear surfaces embedded in them. This must be broken, then. Perhaps humans could repair such items?

  Sauri offered it to the stranger, who took it and looked at it with dismay.

  “I have spares at home,” he whispered, as though he were apologizing to Sauri.

  “Show me.”

  Sauri found this wiry stranger intoxicating. His scent called to him, but there was more than just his delicious odor. The man was as good as writhing on the ground with his belly and legs in the air: he wanted Sauri badly, and was giving all the right signals that bypassed his brain and directly addressed his groin. The wolf in him wanted to take this man and claim him, lay his seed inside of him and hear him howl in pleasure.

  What if he’s my mate?

  Sauri’s mind whirled at the thought. What if this mysterious city wolf was his destiny?

  He was following him without any thought to his own safety or the unknowable human jungle around him. He felt more alive than he thought possible, more alive than he had during his first change.

  Ho
w was this possible?

  How could he sire cubs with a male?

  He snarled under his breath. If Mother Luna had chosen this to be his mate, then she had a plan, and he was a part of it. He had to trust in her.

  Ryan limped all the way to his apartment block with his bicycle squealing in protest, his flesh aching, and the blond stranger at his side. It was only a twenty minute ride from the office, but dragging a bike whose wheels wouldn’t turn took almost an hour, and sweat was running down him in rivulets by the time they reached the building’s entrance. The salt stung his wounds when it trailed over them, and provoked fresh waves of agony.

  He coaxed his keys from his pocket and pushed the door aside, then dragged his bike the last few meters to the elevator. Once he was in and the blond was with him he jabbed the button for the sixth floor and stared at the stranger.

  Ryan wanted to grab him and tear the ill-fitting clothes off him, but the fact was that he was in one hell of a state. He would need a shower, and his wounds had to be tended to.

  He whimpered.

  “You are my mate,” he whispered. The words spilled forth, but they were true. He knew they were true. He had dreamed of this man night after night.

  The man looked around the inside of the elevator before he stepped in. He pressed his body to Ryan’s and pinned him to the wall; hands pushed against his biceps. His hot, powerful tongue pressed over Ryan’s throat.

  “I am,” the stranger said. He sounded surprised, as though a lick had revealed the answer to some mystery to him. “And you are mine.”

  “Yes.” Oh, god, yes. “I’m yours.”

  The elevator dinged; the sound reverberated inside Ryan’s head and reminded him where he was. His keys were still clutched in his hand, and the jagged edges dug into his palm.

  The blond stepped back when the doors glided open, and he waved one hand at them as though he was trying to work out where they had gone.

  Fuck. He was adorable.

  “This way.” Ryan dragged his bike to his own door and unlocked it, then pushed it open and gestured for the blond to precede him. It felt right, as though he were giving his territory to the other man.