by Odessa Lynne
He kept going, pushing through the thickest of the brush as the sky darkened and he started having trouble seeing clearly more than ten feet in front of him.
And then the thicket opened up and over the sounds of crickets and cicadas and the whisper of a breeze, he heard a burbling gurgle that got louder with his every step. The ground softened beneath his feet, and he crested a small hill to see moonlight glinting off water and a narrow creek that filled the dip below, twisting through the trees until it disappeared into the dark forest ahead.
Matthew splashed his way into the knee deep water, shivering at the chill of the cool water against his hot skin. He crouched, and then just sat down in the water, letting it wash around him to sting the already healing scratches that covered him from neck to waist. Walking around in wet pants would be uncomfortable, but he stank of sweat and fear and blood, and that was even worse.
He cleaned himself off as best as he could. He would be covered in sweat again soon enough but this was better than doing nothing, and every bit of scent he washed away would make it just a little easier to hide from the wolves’ sharp senses.
He was running around in the woods of the protectorate and heat season had started, and hell if he knew why Alpha had wanted him gone, but he knew how risky traveling in the wolves’ territory was right now. He had to do something to protect himself.
Maybe Alpha hadn’t realized that Matthew would have submitted to Ash. Even if Ash only needed him temporarily, Matthew would’ve submitted.
He ducked his head under the water, scrubbing at his hair. As he came up out of the water, he thought he heard a howl from the direction he’d been traveling and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck prickled.
An alpha howl.
Was Alpha chasing him? Why the hell would—
Goddammit.
He couldn’t believe he hadn’t understood what was happening earlier, because suddenly, he knew—knew to his bones—what had happened.
His human scent had triggered Ash, but Alpha must have realized he was on the verge of being triggered too. And when the drugs wore off, they would’ve all been in a lust crazed mating frenzy if he’d stayed behind. They were probably all hunting him, ready to kill each other for a chance to mate with the human with the irresistible scent.
A rustle in the trees sent his heart thudding and suddenly his flight felt more urgent than ever and his position dire at best.
Matthew lurched to his feet and splashed his way out of the creek. He scrambled up the overgrown bank in the near dark, fighting the thick brush all the way. His hand slid into a tight spider’s web and he jerked back and almost lost his balance, managing at the last second to grab at a thick root and haul himself up the bank.
He ran for what felt like hours, but probably wasn’t more than twenty or thirty minutes, taking frequent breaks to catch his breath. Despite how tired he was, he stayed on his feet significantly longer than he would have if he hadn’t had the wolves’ biotech inside his body.
The moon became the brightest object in the sky and Matthew started having real trouble seeing where he was going. Just when he thought he was going to have to bed down in the middle of the woods, the trees thinned and he stumbled across what had at one time been a paved road.
He followed that for a while, feeling the strong urge to run but knowing he had to pace himself.
In the distance he could see the hulking shapes of what appeared to be dark, abandoned houses. He crossed a broken fence and had walked several feet before he realized he’d somehow ended up in a graveyard, full of orderly marble headstones worn down by weather and hidden by the brush and trees that had taken over.
He stopped next to one particularly large stone and hunkered down, running his hand over the front. He could still feel the indentions of the letters and numbers carved into the surface. He peered closer, nose almost touching the marble, and slowly traced the date with his forefinger.
Nearly sixty years had passed since whoever was buried here had been put in the ground, probably just a year or two before the big quake.
Matthew knew things about the time of the big quake that many people didn’t remember, not because what he knew was a big secret, but because people tended to forget the details. He’d thought he would be a doctor one day and as a kid he’d been fascinated by stories of plagues and epidemics. Just before the earthquake that had killed so many people, there had been a deadly flu sweeping across the world, the worst strain in over a hundred years.
The earthquake deaths had hindered the transmission of the virus in the area and had later been credited with being the beginning of the end of the pandemic in the Americas.
Matthew stood and dragged his hand along the top of the stone and then slowly walked through the many graves that had been abandoned to time.
He ended up on another road that he walked until the abandoned houses loomed between him and the moon, their shadows making the cracked and broken asphalt a more dangerous path than the ground to either side. Trees had grown to tower in the center of what should have been a curving driveway and he made his way to what appeared to be the porch of one house.
The mortar holding the bricked steps together crumbled as soon as he put weight on them, and the bricks clacked together as they fell. He backed off and just stared around him.
He needed to find a safe place to sleep for the rest of the night and then figure out what the hell he was supposed to do until tomorrow.
He picked out the shadow of a large tree and headed that way.
When he reached the tree, he dropped to the ground and tried to get comfortable. Something poked at his thigh and he frowned, then dug into his front pocket. His fingers connected with something thin and hard.
Tim’s phone. He’d forgotten all about it.
Matthew tried to turn it on. Nothing happened.
He knocked his head back against the trunk’s bark. “Goddammit.”
Because, of course, Matthew had decided to sit in a goddamn creek.
So Matthew pressed his bare back against the tree’s rough bark, stretched his legs out and crossed his arms, and spent most of the night shivering in the chill air. He finally drifted to sleep despite the rustling in the trees and the occasional creak of sound from the decrepit houses, only to jerk awake, adrenaline firing through his blood.
He listened intently but heard only the cacophony of insects. A cold breeze stirred the hair across his forehead and made goose bumps rise on his skin.
He curled tighter and closed his eyes again and questioned the choices that had led him here.
Maybe Ash was right. Maybe it was time to let someone else take his place with the renegades. Not Gerald, God no, but Matthew’s loneliness felt like it had started to take over his life and shutting himself up with people he couldn’t trust and didn’t like sure wasn’t helping ease the ache.
He was going to lose himself if he didn’t do something different soon.
The wind fluttered by, rustling the fallen leaves around him and soughing through the trees, and he breathed in the earthy smell of turning leaves and damp ground.
And then a roar sounded from the edge of the woods beyond the graveyard and another answered and Matthew bolted upright, already knowing in his heart that it was too late to run again without the risk of claws in his back and teeth at his throat.
So he took a deep breath and sat back against the tree, fear pounding through him as fast as his heart thundered, and he waited.
Chapter 11
The moonlight wasn’t strong enough to cut through the deepest shadows so Matthew didn’t recognize the wolf who appeared across the broken and crumbling street at first. He stalked toward Matthew, the glow of his eyes and flash of eyeteeth bright under the moon, and Matthew closed his eyes and rested his head back against the tree.
“Your scent … so fascinating. It calls to me,” the wolf said, and Matthew’s stomach tightened. He took a deep breath.
Not Ash.
“Alp
ha,” Matthew said, trying to stay calm. He had promised Ash, and he—he wasn’t ready to fight and die over sex.
Alpha loomed over him, a dark shadow of teeth and claws. Alpha reached down, grasping the back of Matthew’s neck with one hand and his arm with the other, and he hauled Matthew to his feet.
“Submit,” Alpha said, accent pronounced, voice a growl of sound.
Matthew’s blood pounded in his head. His hand shook as he reached for Alpha’s wrist, gripping tight. “I—” His throat closed up tight and he had to force the words out, because this was what Ash had told him to do. “I submit.”
Alpha thrust his face forward, his nose sliding over the column of Matthew’s neck as he sniffed, his sharp eyeteeth a scrape against Matthew’s skin.
“Incredible,” Alpha said. “I need—” He stopped speaking to flick his tongue over the jut of Matthew’s larynx and dragged his mouth over the ridge of Matthew’s bare collarbones. “You taste as fascinating as you smell.”
Matthew closed his eyes, but when he felt the Alpha’s other hand drop to his crotch, he snapped them open again. He quickly let go of Alpha’s wrist and grabbed for Alpha’s other arm.
“Submit!”
Matthew swallowed and made himself let go. “Aren’t you—” His dry throat cracked his voice, so he cleared his throat and started over. “Aren’t you worried about the others?”
Alpha drew back and his breath ghosted over the column of Matthew’s throat where his tongue had left a wet streak behind, causing gooseflesh to race across Matthew’s skin. Alpha’s voice, when it came, carried a note of disdain. “A watcher and a beta don’t frighten me. I’ll fight them both for the right to mate you. You are—”
“Mine!”
The roar vibrated on the air from behind them.
Alpha released Matthew, pushing him away hard enough to cause Matthew to stumble and go down on one knee.
Matthew caught himself on his stiff, damaged hand and gasped at the sudden snap of bone, his cry of pain unstoppable.
He hobbled to his feet, hand cradled against his chest. He staggered back and came up against the thick trunk of the oak tree.
In the darkness, all he could see was the swipe of arms and the struggling wolves as they tried to tear into each other. Their growling raised every hair on his body and a shiver chased down his spine. He panted through the pain in his hand until the stabbing pain started to fade and a dull throb settled into his arm as whatever had broken began to mend.
His desire to run warred with his knowledge of what was likely to happen to him if he did. The wolves wouldn’t let him leave; they would come after him, and he would end up with claws in his back and teeth at his neck.
He let his foot slip out from under him and he slid down the length of the tree, the bark scraping roughly at the naked skin of his back. His ass hit the ground and he held his arm close.
They were going to kill each other was all he could think as the snarling sounds of their fight filled the night. His human scent had triggered this mating frenzy, and he hated knowing that, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“Submit!” the alpha demanded, hand raised, claws drawn sharp in the spill of moonlight.
Matthew pushed back against the tree and held his breath, gaze locked on the sight of the two struggling wolves.
The shadow of the other wolf hesitated, as if fighting an inclination to obey, and then he roared and met the alpha’s slashing arm with his own claws. His hesitation cost him, though, and even in the dark, Matthew saw the other wolf jerk backward as the alpha’s claws made contact with his chest.
Matthew couldn’t tell who had attacked Alpha: Ash or Watcher. They’d been wearing similar clothes, dark t-shirts and pants and sturdy boots. Nothing to distinguish one from the other under the shadow of night.
But then a flash of skin made Matthew sit up, straining to see better. The memory of that boot he’d seen on the ground earlier flashed through his mind. The second wolf was fighting barefoot.
Ash. Matthew specifically remembered Ash coming down out of that tree barefoot.
“Submit!” the alpha roared, and Matthew clenched his jaw, hoping desperately that Ash had sense enough to give up the fight before he ended up dead.
Ash stumbled, then fell to his knees. The alpha loomed over him. “Submit!” Alpha demanded again.
Ash’s arm slashed toward the alpha. Alpha knocked him to the ground with a ferocious growl. “Submit!”
Matthew’s heart thudded hard and painful inside his chest. Alpha was clearly the more powerful of the two, but Ash wasn’t going to submit. He would probably die first.
Fuck if Matthew was going to let that happen. Not even if it took the last breath in his body to stop it.
Matthew pushed himself back to his feet, glancing toward the shadow of the house and the porch where the bricks lay in a pile. He was making a terrible mistake and he knew it, but he ran anyway, knowing he would probably draw the attention of both wolves.
He’d made it half way to the crumbling steps when a wolf roared behind him and grabbed at his shoulder, claws digging deep.
He cried out, dropping to his knees on the uneven ground, wincing at the impact, and rolled, curling into a ball and trying to protect the back of his neck. “I submit! I submit!” He wasn’t even sure who he was yelling the words at, but it didn’t matter. Submission was the only thing that might save him and even that wasn’t a given considering Ash and Alpha both seemed completely lost in the lust craze.
The wolves collided over him, falling to the side, locked together in a powerful struggle.
Matthew uncurled himself and scrambled backward, heels digging into the earth. He flipped and caught himself one-handed, desperate to get his feet under him.
One of the wolves knocked into him and he twisted under the weight, elbow dragging against the ground.
Oh my God, oh my God. He panted with the effort to roll away again, but he couldn’t free his leg—and then the weight was gone, and Matthew lurched forward, teetered on his knees and one hand, and then surged to his feet.
He got to the pile of loose bricks before either of the wolves could tear himself away from the other. He felt around in the dark for the loosest bricks, solid and hefty and when he found them, he turned, already pulling at the button of his fly one-handed. He was half hard under his fly because of the pounding of his blood and the fear and adrenaline, and he yanked the fabric hard enough to cause his fly to rip open, exposing half of his cock to the cool air.
He yelled in challenge, “You want to fuck, come get me. I submit! Fuck me.” Then Matthew dropped to the ground, holding himself up on one arm, and spread his thighs wide, even though doing so made his insides quiver with a fear he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before in his life.
They could tear him apart if this didn’t go the way he hoped.
A shadow broke free of the struggle and lunged toward Matthew, almost falling on him, nuzzling at Matthew’s crotch, taking a nerve-tingling sniff along the exposed parts of Matthew’s cock while his clawed hands caged Matthew against the ground.
Alpha. Matthew clenched his hand around one of the loose bricks.
Ash stumbled up to them, his step awkward and heavy, and Matthew had a second of panic in which he wondered what the hell he’d been thinking—of course this wasn’t going to work. The wolves were too strong, the alpha too smart, too—
Alpha reared up and swung around, arm raised to slash right at Ash’s stomach.
Matthew slammed the brick into Alpha’s head with every ounce of strength he had, hitting Alpha so hard he could feel the impact of the brick against Alpha’s skull all the way to his bones.
Alpha reacted with a strangled yell, shaking his head with dizzy slowness. Matthew shoved him back and Ash lunged. Alpha went down under Ash and before Matthew had even caught his breath, Ash had Alpha on the ground, mouth at his throat.
Matthew hoped to God Ash hadn’t killed Alpha, but…
&n
bsp; If one of them had to die, at least it wouldn’t be Ash.
Matthew scrambled up on his knees, and Ash’s head raised, eyes glowing brightly with the reflection of moonlight.
Matthew stilled completely, hardly daring to breath. The rough edge of a brick pressed at the side of his knee through his jeans.
Ash’s pointed eyeteeth flashed into view, dark with blood. “You’re mine now,” he said in the wolves’ language, accent so thick Matthew had trouble understanding what he’d said.
Ash palmed the side of Matthew’s neck and leaned in close to inhale a long sniff, and at that distance, Matthew saw how Ash’s eyes nearly closed as he drew in Matthew’s scent. As soon as Ash finished his inhale, he dragged the bridge of his nose along the column of Matthew’s throat, smearing a wet warmth over Matthew’s skin that Matthew tried hard not to think about.
Alpha’s blood. Matthew could smell it, the rich metallic tang of wolves’ blood, and a shudder coursed through him. The twisting in his stomach only got worse the closer he came to believing he might have helped Ash kill Alpha.
He wiped sweat off his upper lip, eyes straining to see in the dark. “Is Alpha dead?”
Instead of answering, Ash rumbled, the sound rising through his chest as his teeth raked across Matthew’s stubbled jaw, jostling Matthew forward on his knees.
He clutched at Ash’s shoulder to keep from falling over the pile of bricks, hissing as a sharp corner jabbed into the side of his thigh.
Ash stopped, breathing heavily against the skin over Matthew’s pounding pulse. “You’re hurt.”
Exhaustion hit Matthew hard. The tremors in his muscles turned into a body-wracking shudder and he didn’t resist at all when Ash pushed him down on the ground.
Ash crawled over Matthew, his hot breath breezing across Matthew’s skin and sending an intensely pleasant tingle racing down his spine. Ash made a sound almost like a whimper and he rubbed the hard bulge of what promised to be a long, thick alien cock against the side of Matthew’s hip.