Wolf Hunter

by Loveless, Ryan

“Why... not?” Tom’s mouth chewed air. “How would this work, for starters? Jaylen and I would share you?”

  Good point. Jaylen hadn’t fully thought that through. Tom would want to have sex with Westley, and Westley would want to have sex with Tom. Jaylen mulled it over, trying to decide how he felt about that. Meanwhile, Westley seemed to have missed Tom’s point (or Jaylen had), because he said,

  “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but we’ll work it out.”

  “What if I want to have sex with you?” Tom asked, bringing the real question to air.

  “Oh,” Westley said. He seemed at a loss. He glanced from Jaylen to Tom. “Um.”

  Well, the original point of this was get Westley some comfort, wasn’t it? And wasn’t sex something that a big tactile lug like Westley would use for comfort? The man cuddled for God’s sake. Jaylen couldn’t take this away from him. He tapped the iPad until a cartoon of two people popped up, waited until they’d seen it, and tapped their names. Then he did the same with a picture of wolves and his and Westley’s name.

  “So, we can have sex when we’re people,” Westley said, “and Jaylen and I will have sex when we’re wolves.”

  “When do you and I have sex?” Tom asked Jaylen.

  Jaylen heard the teasing in his tone and responded on the iPad with a rude gesture from Greece. Tom laughed. “Never, it is.”

  Westley leaned over to look. “I thought thumbs up was good?”

  “Read the caption,” Tom said.

  “’Up yours.’ Oh, geez.”

  Jaylen twitched out a smile. Tom’s Rude Gestures of the World application was the best tool on the iPad.

  “You’re dropping the tea?” Tom asked Westley. Jaylen had wondered the same thing before Tom had distracted him.

  “I’ll cut back. Since we killed Denton, it won’t stop me from changing, but at least it keeps some of my symptoms under control. I don’t need to quadruple my dosage for that. I could go back to a normal dose. My intestines will thank me. So, what else?” Westley spread his hands, palms up, curled his fingers up and wiggled them. After discovering what thumbs up meant to the Grecians, Jaylen fought the urge to scroll through his application for that gesture. It had to be rude somewhere. Look at it. Wiggling fingers? Please. “Come on,” Westley said, “lay out all your problems with this awesome plan.”

  “Well, because, because, I need an heir.” Tom said.

  “So adopt. Or, I don’t know? Surrogacy? This doesn’t end your options.”

  “Westley, I’m not a big fan of picking out a kid to kill me, or of explaining to a potential surrogate that’s what the kid she’ll carry is for.”

  “Then end it,” Westley said. “We both know you hate the idea. If your dad hadn’t been about to kill me, you wouldn’t have killed him. You’d have talked him into stepping down.”

  “I couldn’t have done that. It was too important to him.”

  Jaylen cringed. Tom had to deal with a dead parent and with killing that parent? That sucked. Maybe he should be more messed up than Jaylen, but he’d been raised into it, so even though he hadn’t wanted to do it, it was still normal for him. Denton had redefined Jaylen’s normal.

  “All right,” Westley conceded, “but now you can. You’re pack alpha, Tom. You can do whatever you want. You could hold elections!”

  “Elections?” Tom sounded amused. “Yeah, I guess I could. Of course it’s not traditional….”

  Jaylen had a bladder full of tea to contend with, a wet shirt sticking to his stomach, and the bottom of the chair molded to his ass. These two morons were drawing this out too long. Hurry the fuck up. They both jerked around to stare at him. Shit. He banged “Yes” as fast as he could on the iPad.

  “Okay,” Tom said, still looking at Jaylen. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” Westley asked. He took a step toward Tom.

  Tom faced him. “Yes.”

  Jaylen watched them come together and embrace on the other side of the table. Tom glanced at Jaylen as if to ask permission. Jaylen tapped “Yes” again, and Tom kissed Westley. Jaylen let them have their moment and then, lest they forget that he’d once had a reputation as a remorseless bastard, made the electronic voice say, “Toilet,” and chuckled in his mind as Westley hopped into action to steer him into the bathroom.

  “You need help?’ Tom asked.

  “Got it,” Westley said. He leaned down to Jaylen’s ear. “Asshole,” he said without malice.

  Jaylen grinned.

  Later, he lay in bed and listened to Tom take Westley. Westley’s moans from his bedroom made Jaylen’s groin tighten, but he didn’t try to touch himself. It didn’t feel right, not yet, for him to get off on this. Jaylen could see out the kitchen window. He watched the moon as he listened to Tom’s soft grunts that occasionally turned into Westley’s name. It glowed almost full. In a few days, he could mate Westley himself. He debated the merits of interrupting them now by electronically calling out for a glass of water, but decided against it when he weighed the possibilities of Tom coming out naked, probably with the condom still on his dick, against a bow-legged Westley responding to his call, and figured Tom was more likely since Westley sounded like he’d forgotten how language worked.

  He flopped onto his side. Tomorrow, then. He’d already been enough of an asshole for today.

  “We’re proud of you,” Stania said. “Tom and Westley deserve this.”

  “They’re super in love,” Leslie said, looking earnest.

  “Shut up,” Jaylen replied, but he only half-meant it. “I know.”

  The girls settled down next to a campfire. “Good, because we thought you were thick.”

  Jaylen couldn’t think of a reason to argue. “Hey, uh, I’m sorry I killed you.”

  “We know,” they said.

  “Oh. Good.”

  “Jaylen?” A tall, thin, young black man with square glasses perched on his familiar nose walked onto the scene. He hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and grinned.

  “Sunny?” Jaylen asked.

  “Hey, little brother.” Jaylen had thought he’d forgotten how cool Sunny used to sound, smooth voice borne of hours and hours of listening to soul records and mimicking the suave style, but Sunny sounded perfect in his mind, so some part of him must have remembered and kept it in storage at the back of his mind.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to tell you I’m proud of you for everything. And I love you.”

  “I messed everything up. I was supposed to avenge you and Mom and Dad.” It was weird to think of Sunny as older and look at him to see a boy of eighteen. Jaylen felt sixteen again.

  “Jay. Don’t. We want you to be happy now. You’ve got West and Tom. Tomorrow’s gonna be a good day. I promise,” Sunny said.

  “Okay.” Jaylen blinked away tears. His hallucinations weren’t real, but right now he wished to Hell and Heaven that this one was. He tried to imagine himself going to Sunny and hugging him, but it didn’t work that way, so he kept still and said, “Thanks.” He’d trust his brother, always.

  Sunny nodded and was gone.

  The girls roasted marshmallows. Jaylen declined Leslie’s offer to make him a s’more and listened until their voices guided him into sleep.

  EPILOGUE

  ON A TRIP back from the hospital for one of Jaylen’s appointments (still paid for by Mr. Knox’s insurance), Westley had spotted a two hundred pound pink quartz rock at a roadside sale. He’d paid $400 for it, brought it home, and dropped it on top of the grass at the back of his property line.

  Now the wild flowers had taken over. The rock tumbled with Great Blue Lobelia, Wild Lupine, Bergamot, Dotted Mint, and Evening Primrose. Westley tended them, though with less structure than he gave his garden. He liked the haphazard growth, liked how the flowers didn’t respect any boundaries. The plants closest to the pink rock crept up over and around it, wrapping it in color. He often stared at it as he did the dishes, sometimes rubbing his sponge over the same plate a dozen times before h
e noticed.

  “Ow!” He didn’t need to look to know Jaylen’s wheelchair had bumped his leg. For a second, he thought Jaylen had done it on purpose, but when he turned, Jaylen’s head was lopsided on his shoulder and his eyes were turned to the ceiling with no evidence that he was looking at anything. Westley eased Jaylen’s hand away from the small knob that controlled the chair’s movements. Jaylen made a soft sound as Westley lifted his hand up and kissed it. “Hey. What did we say about crashing into me? You’re a menace. No wonder they don’t let you out on the roads.”

  Jaylen’s other hand tapped at the iPad resting on his lap. “Beer me.” Westley had chosen the electronic voice that sounded the most like Jaylen’s, though he wasn’t sure if that was for Jaylen’s benefit or his. Sometimes it seemed to depress Jaylen to hear a man’s deep sex-on-two-legs voice saying the words he couldn’t. He’d learned to change the voices on his own. The current choice was a woman’s light Scottish brogue.

  “You know, I could remind you I told you I wouldn’t wait on you hand and foot,” Westley said as he went to the refrigerator. He opened a can of Pabst which, for some unknown reason was Jaylen’s favorite. Maybe it was a relic of a life where he had to get by on fumes and pennies. He draped a tea towel over Jaylen’s Black Eyed Peas shirt and tipped the can to his lips. Jaylen was getting better at getting his lips and tongue to work together, but a decent portion still dribbled onto the towel. “You’re doing good,” Westley said.

  Jaylen tapped his iPad until a full screen picture of the back of a hand extending its middle finger appeared. Since Tom had given him the iPad, Jaylen had used every country’s bird-equivalent twice. Jaylen thought it was the greatest invention ever, since it had returned his autonomy. Thanks to it, he no longer needed to wear a diaper because he could tell them when he needed the toilet, a usefulness that thrilled all of them, but doubtless Jaylen most of all.

  Glancing out the window, Westley saw Tom’s car pulling up the drive. “Tom’s home.”

  Jaylen responded by rolling his chair into the counter. Westley backed him up and aimed him at the living room. He pulled a gallon-sized Tupperware out of his freezer and set it on the kitchen island that separated the rooms. The herbs inside it gave it a cheerful green look. Tom let himself in. He waved at Westley and crouched down to greet Jaylen. Jaylen tapped the iPad.

  Fuck off, the Scottish lady said.

  “Okay,” Tom said. He squeezed Jaylen’s shoulder. “Missed you too.”

  “How was work?” Westley asked.

  “Quiet,” Tom said. “Not even a traffic violation. You guys all set for tonight?”

  “Shifting outside?” Westley grinned. “Jaylen can’t wait. I even did his hair today.” Westley had taught himself how to do cornrows from watching videos on the internet. The first few times had been disasters, but now he could do straight lines and only pulled a little. He always gave Jaylen a scalp and shoulder massage along with it, which seemed to sweep away any wrongdoing he did with his hair and, as a last resort, there was always a hat on hand they could employ to cover up the worst crimes.

  “Looks good,” Tom said. “But what about you?”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Tonight was the first time Tom had thought it was safe enough to spend the night outside. Most of the pack had stopped taking Westley’s tea. Westley and Tom had talked about sticking close to home despite the supposed lack of danger.

  “I’m going to leave you and Jaylen to it tonight, all right? I should be with the pack.”

  “Sure. And by ‘it’, you mean...?”

  I’m gonna mate you so good... For a second, Jaylen’s voice popped into Westley’s mind, but it disappeared as fast. That happened from time to time; Tom had noticed too. Remnants of the Alpha. Tom had confided that if Jaylen started using his ability to connect to other wolves in the same way Denton had, he would kill him. “We can’t have another Denton,” he’d said, and after everything, Westley had agreed. So far, Jaylen’s own thoughts, mostly commentary, had crossed into their minds, and it was nice to hear his voice again. Westley wanted to ask what it was like for Jaylen in his own mind, but that was a question better saved for when Jaylen had better coordination with the iPad.

  “You know what I mean.” Tom grinned. He made a lewd motion with his hips and laughed when Westley smacked his shoulder. He wandered toward the bedroom, stripping off his uniform and humming Al Green as he went.

  “Hey,” Westley called, “Don’t forget you have to help me dismantle the cage tomorrow. Jaylen’s friend Danni’s coming and she doesn’t know she’s staying with a bunch of werewolves. Considering she’s the person who taught him how to curse his knives to kill them, I don’t want her figuring that out.”

  “I remember,” Tom said. “I’ll be back in time. But I still think you should let me hang my handcuffs in there and we’ll let her think it’s our sex dungeon.”

  “If you make me die of embarrassment, I will never have sex with you again.”

  Tom laughed. “When you make a threat, you make a threat.”

  Westley fought the urge to throw something at him. “Just be here to help me.”

  “Will do,” Tom said, saluting.

  JAYLEN BOUNCED THROUGH the rows of cut corn stalks with Westley at his tail. He twisted around, snapping playfully, before darting forward again. He’d chased a rabbit into the field and now was hot on its trail. When he caught up to it, he intended to present Westley with a fine meal. Westley might care for him when he was a drooling human, but as a wolf, Jaylen prided himself on providing for his mate. The rabbit dove into a hole. Jaylen dug frantically, but it was gone.

  Westley nuzzled his ear. Turning, Jaylen gave him a lick. Soon, he forgot about the rabbit as his nose found other things to explore on Westley’s body and Westley returned the favor. He loved nothing more than mounting Westley (except doing so on a full belly), laying his mark on Westley’s shoulder with his teeth.

  As for anything else, Jaylen didn’t care about it. This was freedom. This was life. This was all he’d ever needed. The voices that tumbled around his mind didn’t bother him as much anymore. He’d grown more powerful and had more control over them. Sometimes he accidentally made Tom or Westley hear one of his thoughts. He needed to be more cautious. Vigilance was key. He was strong enough to keep Denton’s poisons out of his mind. He had no doubt about that. He knew what Tom had said to Westley, what Westley had agreed to, but it wouldn’t come to that. He had control. He might be Denton’s heir, but he wasn’t the Alpha. He wasn’t.

  Westley whined beneath him. Being the larger wolf, the practicality of the position wasn’t the best for him. Jaylen tried to be considerate of that, but sometimes he forgot. He nuzzled Westley’s shoulder, trying to soothe him. Westley twitched his tail and hit Jaylen’s flank. Jaylen growled contentedly. The rabbit crept out of the hole, but Jaylen ignored it, choosing instead to lavish his attention on Westley, who twisted to meet Jaylen’s tongue with his own.

  WESTLEY AWOKE NAKED in a cornfield with Jaylen beside him. Jaylen’s hands flailed and he struck himself in the chest. Westley vaguely remembered that the plan to stay on his own property had lasted about three seconds. Gathering Jaylen’s hands up in his, Westley massaged him as he brought Jaylen’s fingers to his lips. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” They couldn’t stay long. The sun rose higher each minute, and even though they weren’t far from home, they also weren’t far from a road where anyone could see them amidst the short harvested stalks.

  “Ready?”

  Jaylen did his best attempt at a nod.

  “Okay.” Westley pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then, helping him stand and hooking his arm around Jaylen’s back and under his armpit, Westley began the long walk home, step by slow careful step. As they walked, he planned his day. Television for Jaylen. Lately he’d wanted to watch Ghost Hunters over and over, which creeped Westley the hell out. So, he’d set Jaylen up with that. As for himself, he would spend some time in his garden—Jaylen would help
him snap green beans; when Tom returned, Westley would give him the task of shelling the hickory nuts he’d gathered from the yard—and he’d clean the cabin. He cleaned a lot these days. They lived in a house that needed clear paths.

  THE END

  About the author

  Ryan Loveless is a farmer’s daughter. She has a BA in English from a private college in Illinois and a master’s degree in library and information science with an archival certificate from a university in New York. Raised in a conservative family, she was shocked and relieved when her coming out was largely uneventful. She has been writing since she could read and has always drifted toward M/M because she enjoys the relationship dynamics. It’s possible that her first story was about GI Joe. She wishes she still had that story.

  Ryan at her blog:

  http://ryanloveless.dreamwidth.org, on Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanlovelessbooks, or at twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ryanloveless