by Sydney Lain
“I have a name.”
“Really? Most people do. But I haven’t heard this name.”
There was a long pause while the shifter debated whether to share it. “Shea. You can call me Shea. Not little wolf.”
“Well, Shea, that’s a nice name. I’m Viktor Devin. You can call me Viktor. Now open your jacket and show me what you’re selling.”
Shea glared at him as if he pulled out beating hearts for fun. Viktor tried to figure out what had pissed off the shifter, but he had no idea. Instead of trying to guess, he folded his arms and waited.
“I’m not a whore,” Shea said. “I don’t sell myself. I’m not part of the merchandise.” He sized Viktor up. “I don’t see why you need to pay for it, but there are plenty of people out here ready to bend over for you. Just don’t look at me to provide that service.”
“I don’t pay for sex.” He’d never fucked someone that didn’t want it. He slept with the willing. People begged him for sex. He never paid for it. Then the outrage dwindled as realization hit. Shea didn’t sell sex. His mate hadn’t been forced into prostitution to buy food. For that, he said a silent thanks just in case someone was listening.
“Then why are you staring at me like that?” Shea asked.
“Like what?” Viktor asked.
Shea backed up, but this man was the safest person on the planet because Viktor would kill anyone that tried to harm him. “Like I’m a tasty treat you plan to savor.”
“Because you are. But you’ll come to me willingly. That’s the only way I’ll accept your body.”
“Arrogant jerk. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to like you as much as you like yourself.”
“Other than you,” Viktor challenged. Shea’s face turned red, but rather than wait for another explosion, Viktor rubbed a hand through Shea’s dirty, greasy hair. “You’re filthy. Did you roll around in the garbage before coming out to sell stolen phones.”
Shea swatted his hand away. Then he held out his arm and made a fist. He stuck up one finger. “First, I don’t live in a place that has working water. Sorry if I don’t have the same luxuries as you. No one at home to wipe my ass after I take a shit or towel dry me after a shower. I bet someone even dresses you.”
Viktor growled at the ass-wiping comment. “Are you applying for the job?”
Shea ignored him and held up another finger. “Second, these phones were mostly traded in from people, like you, who wanted the latest and greatest technology. The rest were found or abandoned. A lot of people lose things, in bus stations, cabs, libraries. You just need to know where to look.”
“Lost items have owners. Selling them is still stealing no matter how pretty you make it sound.”
“Are you kidding? If they can’t hold on to fine devices like these, they don’t deserve them.”
Viktor took a deep breath. This conversation was going as far as a derailed train. He studied his little wolf. A shifter should smell him and know that they were mates, but with the stench clinging to him like a tick on human skin, Shea probably didn’t smell anything other than his foul odor.
Viktor closed the distance. Now, he was against his mate. Shea tried to jump back, but bumped into the wall.
“Fine, I’ll give you a phone,” he said, trying to mask the fear.
Viktor pressed their noses together. Shea went from terrified to shocked.
“Mate,” Shea whispered. “It can’t be.”
“Oh, little wolf, it’s true. You’re mine.”
Shea shook his head. “I’ve already found my mate. I can’t have two.”
For the first time in a long time, Viktor stiffened in shock. All half-demons had two mates, and if Shea was correct, he’d found both of them. This day had turned from uneventful to life changing in a mere fifteen minutes.
“You’ve found someone that smells like me. A man you’d call a mate.”
Shea rolled his eyes. “Just because he wants nothing to do with me, doesn’t mean I get another man. This is a mistake. Two men can’t smell like a mate. There’s something wrong with my nose. No, there’s something wrong with me. I knew this whole shifting into a wolf wasn’t working out. It never felt natural.”
Viktor laughed for a second time that night. “Calm down. There’s no mistake.” He reached out and touched Shea’s perfect nose. “There’s nothing wrong with this. Even the cute birthmark on the tip adds to its perfection. It knows the truth. Trust it.” Viktor studied the red-faced shifter. The beast was lingering under the surface. “Tell me about our other mate.”
Shea held up both arms in defeat. “Oh, nothing much. I guess the most important thing is that he’s a hunter and despises nonhumans.” Shea arched an eyebrow at him, indicating that both of them fell into that category. “What are you?” he asked.
“Half-demon.”
Shea sighed. “Great, another man that won’t want to be with me. Half-demons hate everyone.”
Now he understood the utter defeat in his little wolf’s eyes, but Viktor didn’t know the meaning of that word. “Little wolf, half-demons cherish their mates. Soon, I’ll be bonded to both of you.”
Shea shrugged. “Just being an arrogant jerk isn’t enough. You can’t will it to happen. I don’t believe in dreams or some supernatural pull that makes us mates. So don’t think I’ll roll over. As for Gunner, he won’t give you the time of day. Close the door on your threesome fantasies because right now the closest you’ll come to sex is getting it on with your hand.”
“Shea.” He like the way his little wolf’s name rolled off his tongue. “I don’t need my hand. I have your ass and mouth to sink into. I’m going to make you cry out and beg for me. Then I’ll ride you hard and fast, and you’re going to love every second of it.”
Chapter Two
Gunner entered the warehouse. A cold draft blew across his face. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and soon he was seeing better than inside of a lighted room. The special ability made him an oddity. He wasn’t human or nonhuman, but a genetically created anomaly.
The entryway led to the main room. He opened the door. One narrow fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Three burly men sat around a metal table. Each man held five cards with a pile faced down on the table. The brightly colored deck had colorful fish swimming along the back.
As the card game unfolded, Gunner saw the group as friends getting together for fun. Did friends play cards for fun? He didn’t know. No one was smiling. Didn’t friends smile? Did hunters smile? Did he smile? Gunner studied the men sitting stiffly around the round table and thought about friends, a subject he never considered before. He didn’t know the answer to any of his questions and there was no one to ask. He continued to watch the game. Hunters didn’t laugh, lie or bluff, but something was different. If Gunner didn’t know better, he’d think they were enjoying themselves even without the facial expressions to indicate that, but something told him that he was right.
It wouldn’t last. The peaceful atmosphere was a tease that would disappear. Soon another assignment would come in and they’d return to the brutality of their lives. Pain, revenge, suffering he understood, not quiet evenings.
These men were part of his cell, a group of hunters the Organization stuck together to fight nonhumans. Cell was an appropriate word. Working for the organization felt like living inside of a prison serving consecutive life sentences with their “guardian” as the warden. He snorted. Guardians were scientists that couldn’t cut it in the scientific world or they liked to cross the ethical line. Each cell had one.
Gunner’s last cell was slaughtered like animals and he committed the grave sin of surviving. The guardians treated hunters like mindless trash, but gave him extra-cold, hate filled glares, and they didn’t know his secret. If they had suspected something, he would’ve been strapped to a table in a laboratory as they dissected him. Pain would rip through him while they jotted down each scream. On the streets, death came quick and easy. Death would be his salvation. If it looked bad, he had a bullet
with his name on it.
The dynamics of this new cell surprised him. The hunters moved with purpose but were not robotic and stiff. They didn’t talk much but interacted and played card games. His last cell hissed to communicate, forming a language only they understood. These hunters watched him like they suspected that he was hiding something.
Maybe coming back to this city was a punishment from an unseen force. Humans believed in god and fate. Gunner didn’t believe in unlucky coincidences. Was he willing to believe in fate? He shook his head. He should just hop on the guardian’s exam table and hand the scientist the knife.
“Hey Gunner. Where’ve you been?” Craig asked in a tone that betrayed nothing.
Was this a question or a challenge to his loyalty? Distrust lingered between him and them. That was what they were—him verses them.
His last cell ended with a fight against three men. The wolf shifter had turned his snout up at the hunters when he wasn’t ripping into flesh or tearing off limbs. There was a man that controlled the cold, a nonhuman the hunters couldn’t label. Both nonhumans fought to protect the human psychic who had been created in a lab just like Gunner. He didn’t survive because of strength or even luck. They had let Gunner go because he was different from the other hunters. He still didn’t know what they’d seen in him, but he felt like an alien that landed on a different planet.
The guardians didn’t know about the man that controlled the cold. He planned to keep it that way. They didn’t need to know about another race of nonhumans. The Organization panicked over the ones they already knew about. After that incident, Gunner had returned to the city where he spared a nonhuman and joined a new cell.
“Outside,” Gunner said to answer Craig’s question as if just remembering one had been asked. The other men gave no indication that they accepted his one word response. It wasn’t a lie. He entered from outside. Still, it was vague, but they were expected to be vague. His genetic makeup was vague. Human. Nonhuman. What was he? Some questions were better left unanswered.
The Organization, a government-created group, hired scientists to splice DNA together to create living weapons. Hunters walked the planet killing or imprisoning nonhumans. It didn’t matter if the nonhumans committed a crime. Their existence was a threat that needed to be stomped out.
Gunner wanted nonhumans to be evil. Since entering the field, the nonhuman he’d captured or killed weren’t trying to take over the world. They were cab drivers, accountants, and one even owned a flower shop. All of them had mundane jobs. One shifter that worked as a mechanic had adopted his dead sister’s two children. The kids were Cub Scouts and joined little league, and the shifter never missed a game. He loved those kids. The man followed the rules and obeyed the laws. He never committed a crime, not even a traffic violation, but only his nonhuman blood mattered to the Organization. The lion shifter couldn’t live among humans or raise children. One of the kids turned out to be a shifter and the other one a human. Gunner’s cell carried away the crying human boy, while the other two had been sent to a laboratory. To this day, he didn’t know what happened to that family.
Being human was the grand prize. Only the purity of blood mattered to the Organization. What did that mean for hunters? Gunner’s DNA comprised of human genetics, but what else? A weapon needed the enemies’ strength. What better way than to share the same nonhuman genes?
Gunner’s thoughts were wrong. He wasn’t created to find meaning for his existence. Hunters followed orders like good soldiers. They didn’t keep secrets or sympathize with the target.
He had been like that, but everything changed the night he had gazed into sky blue eyes that held fear, pain and anger. They had stared at the world with such clarity that they opened Gunner’s eyes. The wolf shifter had stirred a protective instinct within him. If this man no longer existed, the world wouldn’t be worth it. That night he had unlocked the cage, helped the man down, and walked him back to the city.
“Who are you?” blue eyes had asked on that night so long ago.
Gunner hadn’t answered him.
“We should get to know each other.” The blue eyed man didn’t give up.
Still, Gunner hadn’t answered. He’d left the man near a crowded bar and slipped away in the dark.
Two years later and he could still see those expressive eyes so full of life. The instant connection hadn’t disappeared. Time left him longing for something he couldn’t put into words. Once the blindfold was torn off, he saw the world and hated it. Before that night, Gunner went with the flow like a twig in a river. Now, he had questions with no answers.
Since arriving back in this city, the blue-eyed shifter watched him. Gunner didn’t know his name. Names didn’t matter between them. When he closed his eyes, he felt the shifter on the rooftops or peering out from boarded up windows. Gunner’s heart beat faster and the skin on the back of his neck tingled with recognition. Is that how the shifter found him? When Gunner slept, images of blue eyes filled his dreams with forbidden fantasies.
The warehouse door opened, pulling him back to the present. Dr. Fox strolled inside. The hunters placed the cards face down on the table. Gunner turned to face their guardian. Time stopped as they waited. Dr. Fox smiled like gold just landed on his lap. With his dyed bright red strands shooting out of his head like tiny flames, he looked like the devil as he paced back and forth with fast food bags in both hands.
“The city is full of idiots,” the doctor said as he dropped the greasy food bags onto the floor. “Stopped by the police station. They had no idea that nonhumans infected this area.”
Gunner waited for Dr. Fox to talk about something important. The man treated everyone like mindless morons. Hopefully, the leadership would change so a lesser asshole could lead this cell.
“Dinner,” the doctor said, pointing to the bags. He waited. No one moved. His face scrunched up in anger. “Didn’t you hear me?”
Great, they were playing this game. How dare they not jump for the great and powerful Dr. Fox? Soon, the doctor would mimic a two year old and throw a tantrum by kicking the wall and pushing the table across the room.
The other hunters didn’t move. Their bodies stiffened ready to fight and kill. If Gunner didn’t know better, he would have called them defiant. One wrong step and Dr. Fox’s body would be in a pool of blood. The doctor continued to stare unable to read the hostility in the room. Dinner meant nothing to them. All of the hunters knew how to get food. They didn’t spring into action for scraps or greasy slop.
Gunner reached for the bags. The tension focused on him. That was the plan. If things continued down this road, his new guardian would be as dead as his last one. The Organization would blame him. One dead guardian could be an accident, but two pointed to homicide. He opened the bag. The smell of oil from soggy fries turned his stomach. What he wouldn’t give for a ration bar or freeze-dried stew? He distributed the burgers under everyone’s scrutiny.
“Gunner, how did things work in your last cell?” Dr. Fox asked.
Another test. “A guardian led the cell.” No need to give Dr. Fox specifics.
Dr. Fox narrowed his eyes. “Is that all?” he asked as his thin lips pulled together into a tight grimace.
“I don’t understand the question,” Gunner said.
That pleased the doctor. His body relaxed. “Of course you don’t understand. You weren’t created to think.” Then the doctor waved a hand in a dismissive gesture like a king and they were the peasants. The other hunters stared at the wrapped hamburgers like the product inside was covered in maggots.
The doctor studied them. Gunner pretended not to notice the laser like scrutiny, but he felt like a lump of cells in a Petri dish waiting to be experimented on.
“This group is pathetic. None of you have what it takes.”
Gunner repeated the words. “What it takes?”
Now the doctor’s intense focus was on him. “There’s something different about you.”
Gunner let the blank mask slide
into place. The more confused he looked the faster Dr. Fox would move on. He wasn’t going to share what made him tick. After a minute of silence, Dr. Fox snorted and continued to read the reports.
Gunner closed his eyes as the mask slipped off. When he looked up, the other three hunters were staring at him. He ignored them and bit into the dry hamburger, leaving the soggy fries untouched. The day couldn’t get worse, even if a tornado touched down outside the door. Gunner cringed thinking about the one thing that would turn his day into hell on earth. The culprit had blond hair and blue eyes. If these men tried to hurt him, Gunner would kill them all.
“The city is infected with wolf shifters. The disgusting creatures.” The doctor shuddered and placed down the papers. “We are going to clean the city of the infestation. I want a few specimens for a new project.”
No one said anything, but fear pushed through his control. Gunner couldn’t imagine the horror and pain Dr. Fox would inflict on any shifter that ended up in his care. He’d seen specimens caged in labs. Imprisonment or death faced his blond haired shifter. Even after two years, the man stirred a fierce protective need within him. He didn’t understand it, but it was real. Gunner’s fist tightened. No one was going to lock his shifter inside of a cage. He wouldn’t become a “specimen” for anyone.
“Split up. Search the west side of the city and bring me a few wolf shifters,” Dr. Fox ordered.
Gunner turned and headed for the door. He needed to find the wolf shifter.
“I know you’re different,” Dr. Fox said. His sharp glare pressed into his back.
Gunner didn’t twitch. He just waited.
“You dismissed yourself. No one leaves without my permission.”
Great. Dr. Fox was going to bang his chest like a caveman.
“I haven’t given my instructions,” Dr. Fox added.
He wanted to say, “What else is there?” But he kept that question to himself. If the doctor needed to bark loudly to get their attention, let him.
The other hunters stood like ice statues with Craig’s hand balled in a tight fist, Tom staring at the door, and Robert standing like time stopped.