by JC Holly
Harlan dropped his trouser leg and sat back, his face impassive. “Aren’t they?”
“No, they’re fucking not!”
Mitch jumped to his feet and began to pace the room, converting his anger into pacing. Harlan kept his seat, still calm despite Mitch’s outburst.
“Think about it, Mitch,” he said. “Think about how many wolves are spotted in cities these days. Or newspaper articles about bystanders seeing people getting hit by cars and walking away like it was nothing.”
Mitch shook his head, but he did remember seeing a similar article a few days ago. Someone had fallen from a third-story window, landed on a car, then ran away before anyone could ask if he was okay. The paper assumed the guy was high, but what if he’d been something else?
“And you’re telling me that now that I’ve been bitten, I’m a werewolf, too.”
“Yes. Though we prefer the term shifter. I just used werewolf to make it easier to understand.”
Mitch shook his head again, still pacing. “Then why hasn’t it been in the news? Surely if every time a werew—, shifter, bit someone, they turned, it’d make its way to the papers eventually.”
“Shifters avoid risky targets usually, which helps a lot. On top of that, we have people in most major news outlets that can make the stories disappear. And it’s not every time. A shifter has to want to turn someone.”
Mitch stopped pacing. “Wait. So this bastard who bit me wanted to make me like him? Why?”
Harlan sighed and held up his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you. The guy was a cunt. He’d done it before.”
“You’re using the past tense.”
“Huh?”
“You said he was a cunt.”
Harlan nodded. “He’s dead.”
“By that other wolf.” Mitch snorted. “At least he got what was coming to him.”
“That he did.”
“How did you know he bit me?”
Harlan colored. “Well, uh…”
“You knew him?”
“Not exactly.” Harlan glanced away, avoiding eye contact. “I was the other wolf.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s my job to hunt down renegade shifters and bring them to justice. That’s the quick version, anyway.” He frowned. “I tried to get to him before he bit you. I’m sorry.”
Mitch sat heavily on the edge of the bed as his brain tried to process the information. Not only was he bitten by a fucking werewolf, but the guy he met in a bar the night after was a freaking werewolf cop. He looked across the room to Harlan as it came together.
“So when we met in the bar, you were looking for me.”
Harlan nodded once.
“Why?”
“It’s my job,” he said, simply.
“To fuck the victims of your targets?”
Harlan winced. “No. Never that. That just…” He shook his head and punched the arm of the sofa, splintering it like it was balsa wood and not solid mahogany. “That just happened. My job was, and is, to watch over you and make sure you adapt to the change without any problems. I hadn’t intended anything more. Hell, I didn’t even know you were gay. I went into that bar in the hopes I’d get lucky before I started scouting the straight bars for you.”
Mitch smirked. He couldn’t help it. The thought was ridiculous. He shook his head and chuckled. “And then you saw me in a booth and decided to mix business with pleasure?”
“Pretty much.” Harlan shrugged. “I’ve done dumber things in the past, believe me.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt,” Mitch replied, but he was smiling as he said it.
Harlan smiled back and the air of tension between them seemed to lift a little. Mitch stood again and walked to the minibar.
“I need a drink.”
“You’ll need several.” Harlan smirked as Mitch gave him a querying look. “Shifters have a very high metabolism. It’s why you’re hungrier than before. It also means it takes more effort to get drunk.”
“I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing.”
Mitch pulled the rest of the six-pack from the fridge and split them between him and Harlan, two each. He twisted the cap from one and downed half in one long swallow.
“This is fucked up,” he muttered.
Harlan said nothing, instead watching him.
“What?” Mitch asked after a few moments.
“You’re handling it better than most.”
“Less ‘handling,’ more ‘too shocked to process it,’ I think.” He drank more of his beer. “Prove it.”
Harlan frowned. “Huh?”
“Prove that you’re a shifter, and that, by extension, I am too.”
“You’ve felt the changes already, Mitch.”
“But I haven’t seen them. Shift for me.”
Harlan was silent for a few long seconds, his fingers tapping on the crushed arm of the sofa. “That’s not… I have an order in which I teach. Shifting comes further down the line.”
Mitch shrugged. “Time to switch things up, then.”
The man was silent again. Just as Mitch was going to tell him to say something, Harlan stood and moved to the door, flipping the security lock. He turned back to Mitch and gestured to the curtains. A sliver of light came through the gap between them. It was small, but Mitch understood the need for privacy and pulled them shut.
“Okay?”
Harlan nodded, then started to undress. “Believe me when I say the shift ain’t pretty. You’ll want to look away, or you’ll probably never get the courage to shift yourself.”
Mitch gritted his teeth as his stomach clenched. He hadn’t even considered that he was now capable of becoming a wolf. Up to that point he’d focused entirely on the smaller changes, like the increased senses. What am I getting myself into?
“All right,” he finally said. “But I can watch you strip, right?”
Harlan laughed and shook his head. “Fine. But when I say close your eyes, you’d better close your damn eyes.”
Mitch restrained a shiver on hearing Harlan’s commanding tone. “You’re the boss. Or teacher,” he added with a wink.
Harlan slowly removed his shirt, revealing his taut torso one button at a time. Mitch took in every inch from his seat. He growled softly at the thought of jumping the bed and getting his hands on that body. Of pushing him to the bed, tearing his pants off, and riding the man till he howled. Harlan paused at the sound.
“Someone’s having very naughty thoughts.”
Mitch colored. “That obvious?”
“Your emotions are closer to the surface now. Hence the growl.” Harlan tossed his shirt onto the bed. “You’ll regain control. Most of it, anyway. Just takes time. In the meantime, I’m sure the odd growl is no big deal to the singer of a rock band.”
His hands moved to his jeans and he worked his belt free, followed by the fly, then slid the pants down off his hips, revealing the fact that he wasn’t wearing anything under them. Mitch licked his lips at the sight of Harlan’s thick cock. Even soft it was bigger than most men’s.
“Time to close your eyes,” Harlan said after a short while. “If you’re done staring.”
“For now,” Mitch said with a smile. “Though I may want to pick up where I left off later.”
He closed his eyes and, after a moment, turned away to face the wall, too, just in case he was tempted. Harlan had seemed pretty serious about not wanting Mitch to look, and given the whole “turning into another species” thing, it was probably a very wise suggestion.
He heard Harlan take a deep breath, then winced as a crackling sound started, quiet at first, then building in volume. Mitch hunched up and turned further away. He knew what that sound had to be—the breaking and reforming of every bone in Harlan’s body. God only knew how much it had to hurt. Harlan noticeably hadn’t mentioned that part.
After a handful of seconds, the sound disappeared, replaced with only heavy breathing. It sounded wrong, though. Not human. It was at that point he realize
d that they hadn’t agreed upon a signal for when Mitch could look.
“Can I, uh…” He swallowed hard. “Can I look now?”
There was a low chuff, like a dog would make at its owner when it wanted attention. Mitch took a breath and turned back, then opened his eyes.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Where Harlan had stood sat a familiar-looking large brown and grey wolf. On instinct, Mitch tried to back up further onto the sofa, bringing his feet up onto the seat. The wolf made no move toward him, and after telling himself he was being ridiculous, Mitch dropped his feet back to the floor.
“Sorry. Reflex. The last time I saw you like this, I was being attacked.” He shook his head and took a few breaths. “Uh, you can understand me, right?”
The wolf, Harlan, nodded once, his long tail thudded from side to side, knocking against the bed.
“Okay, this is…” Mitch laughed nervously. “This is fucking bizarre.”
Harlan nodded again, then stood and moved one step toward the sofa before pausing and cocking his head to one side, as if he was curious. Or asking a question?
“Oh, you want to know if you can come closer?” Another nod. “Sure.”
Mitch watched in amazement as the wolf padded over to him and placed his head on the seat of the sofa. Heart pounding like Theo’s drums in rehearsals, Mitch took another deep breath and reached over cautiously, then stroked the fur on Harlan’s large head.
“This is crazy.” Mitch moved a little closer. “I mean, hearing about it is one thing, and having these little changes in my body is another…but this? Seeing it? Fuck.”
Harlan made no movements or sounds. He just sat next to Mitch as he ran his fingers through the brown and grey fur. It was thick but still had a smoothness to it, too. He wondered whether the color reflected Harlan’s hair in his human form. While Harlan had no grey himself, the coat was only lightly dusted with it. Perhaps it was an age thing. The man looked thirty or so, but did shifters age differently?
“I have so many questions,” Mitch said. “And you can’t answer them. Like, can you only change at night? How long can you stay this way? Can you change back whenever you want? What happens if you fall asleep like this?”
Harlan chuffed once, stood again, then walked toward the bathroom. Mitch frowned as the wolf disappeared into the other room. The crackling explained what was happening, though, and moments later Harlan appeared, his breathing ragged.
“The change takes a lot out of you,” he explained as he walked back to the sofa and sat. “You recover from it in a short amount of time, but if you’re changing back and forth quickly like that it can be a drain.”
Mitch nodded and tried to keep his gaze aimed above the naked Harlan’s neck. “You realize how fucked up this is, right?”
Harlan laughed and nodded. “It’ll take a little adjusting to. Now, what do you want to know?”
Chapter Eight
“How about we start with the ones I asked when you were, uh, wolfed,” Mitch said.
Harlan ignored the aches in his bones and muscles and focused on Mitch. The questions were the typical ones that every new shifter asked, but since the guy knew nothing Harlan could hardly take offence.
“We can shift whenever we like, but as I said, it can be draining to do it too often. When shifted, though, there is no time limit. We can stay a wolf until the day we die with no issues whatsoever. Some have.”
“Really?” Mitch’s eyes widened. “They gave up life?”
Harlan smiled. “They didn’t give it up. More that they changed its focus. It can be appealing to spend a lot of time as a wolf. Considerably less stress and worries, for one thing. Everything is so simple. Eat, sleep, repeat.”
“I guess.”
“You’ll understand more after your first shift.” He held up a hand as Mitch paled. “Though there’s no real rush there. We’ll deal with it when it happens.”
That seemed to relax the man a little. Given what he’d just experienced, or heard anyway, he was no doubt rightly worried.
“And just to allay any worries, it’s not something you can fuck up, and there’s no way you’ll get stuck as a wolf. It’s impossible.”
Mitch nodded. “That helps.”
Harlan reached over and squeezed the man’s hand. “Any more questions?”
“About a billion, but I’ll try and condense it into a few.”
He cocked his head to one side. “There’s a rush?”
“You can ask that? While you’re sat in front of me with your cock out?” Mitch waggled his eyebrows.
Harlan glanced down at his stiffening cock, then grinned. “Ah. Yeah. Forgot. So you’re not put off?”
Mitch shrugged. “Right now, you’re human. And cute.”
“Fair enough. So, your condensed inquisition?”
“Well I know we get better senses, more appetite, and the like. But what about speed and strength?” He pointed to the destroyed sofa arm. “Is that from the shifter…ness, or from you working out?”
“That’s shifter blood at work. And, uh, sorry.” Harlan smiled sheepishly. “I’ll pay for the repair.”
“Please,” Mitch said. “I’m a fucking rockstar. I’ll pay. It’s expected of me to trash a few things, anyway.”
Harlan laughed and tried not to think too hard about how much money the man sat next to him had in his bank account. Whenever Harlan used an ATM it laughed at him. The Ancients covered his expenses, and even bought him a house, but the wages weren’t exactly in line with the danger of the job, or modern-day inflation.
“So yeah,” Harlan said quickly. “You’ll get stronger and faster over the next week or two, then it’ll increase gradually until the day you die. How much varies, though. Depends on the wolf who bit you. You’re also immune to all diseases.”
Mitch nodded, though the memory clearly still pained him. “How strong was the guy who bit me?”
“I can’t say for sure, but he’d been active for at least a few decades. Probably a hundred or so?”
Mitch’s jaw dropped. “A hundred?”
Harlan shrugged. “Ish.”
“How the hell long can a shifter live for?”
“Again, it varies. I know a couple that are a few hundred, and one Irish guy that’s closer to five.”
The surviving Ancients were considerably older still, but Harlan had sworn an oath not to reveal such information to anyone he wasn’t intending to then kill, and The Ancients took their oaths very seriously.
Mitch just shook his head in disbelief. “And you?”
Harlan smirked. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to ask someone’s age? Are you sure you want to know?”
The man paused, before nodding. “I’ve dated older guys before. It won’t bother me.” He winked. “Besides, teachers should be old, right? More wisdom.”
“Fair enough. I’m a youngster, compared to some. I was thirty when I was bitten, and that was sixty-five years ago. So ninety-five.”
“That’s not so bad. Still the oldest guy I’ve slept with, though.”
“I should bloody well hope so.”
Mitch laughed, then frowned. “So if you’re so young, comparatively, how did you beat the guy who attacked me?”
“Like I said, the power of a shifter depends upon the wolf who bit him or her.”
“And you were bitten by someone powerful.”
The most powerful. “Exactly. Plus, I’m trained to fight and have both experience and a little help.”
“Help?”
Harlan glanced at the closed curtains and door again, just to be sure, then willed a blade into his hand, then handed it, handle first, to a gaping Mitch.
“We can do that?” He turned the blade in the light. “Silver. Makes sense. And so light.”
“I can do that. It was a gift from my bosses.” Harlan willed the blade to disappear, making Mitch jump. “Oh, and shifters are no more susceptible to silver than anyone else. A knife is a knife, though.”
“So
, to recap,” Mitch said, leaning forward on the sofa. “Not only are you a shifter, you’re a badass.”
Harlan nodded, solemnly. “I can also juggle.”
Mitch laughed, then dropped a hand onto Harlan’s bare thigh. “Even better.”
Harlan glanced down at Mitch’s hand as it slid toward his hardening cock. God, he was hornier than he’d realized. Still, after the revelations Mitch had been witness to, Harlan had to be sure the guy was willing to be taught, and sex could complicate a teacher and student relationship. Mitch’s fingers moved closer.
On the other hand…
Harlan licked his lips. “If you touch it, you’re stuck with me until I decide you’re ready to go it alone.”
Mitch only smiled as he grasped Harlan’s cock and lowered his head. Harlan growled softly as he felt Mitch’s tongue run over the head of his cock.
“I’ll take that as an agreement,” he muttered, before gently grasping the back of Mitch’s head. “Now be a good student and suck until I tell you to stop.”
“Yes, teacher,” Mitch replied before putting his mouth to another use.
Harlan stiffened as the man’s lips wrapped around his cock and slid down the shaft. “Take it slow,” he growled. “I’m in no rush to come.”
Mitch did as he was told and took his time as he bobbed up and down. With a free hand he massaged Harlan’s balls, using the other hand to keep himself stable while he worked. Harlan put his head back against the couch and let out a long breath.
There’s a world-famous rockstar sucking my cock.
He kept his hand on the back of Mitch’s head as the man worked. He’d enjoyed being ordered around last time, and that sure as hell worked for Harlan, too. In day-to-day stuff he wasn’t interested in being in charge, but when it came to the bedroom it enhanced every moment.
“Keep it up,” he said, pushing down a little as Mitch slid back down his shaft. “That’s it. Good boy.”
Things had gone a lot better than he could have hoped for, he decided. He’d got a student who knew how to take instructions, who just happened to also be a great fuck. He leant over Mitch and reached down his back to the back of the man’s pants. He pulled them as far away from his back as he could, then willed a knife into existence and quickly cut the material before dismissing the knife. He slid the now much looser pants down over Mitch’s ass and slapped a cheek.