“I’m convinced Jack set the fire, Detective,” Dae insisted.
“We also found your neighbor’s stolen car parked near your assistant’s apartment building. Since you claim that Jack Hemmings had already threatened you and your assistant, we believe he had gone there to confront Mr. Phillips. What happened after that is anyone’s guess. We searched the area, but the snow had already covered up any tracks he might have left. Maybe he got cold feet and ran. Regardless, it looks like you’re off the hook.”
“Thank you, Detective. I take it that I’m free to go about my business now?”
“Yes. We’ll forward the findings of the inspector’s report to your insurance company.”
Dae thanked Baker and said good-bye, replacing the phone in its cradle. Picking it up again, he dialed Sean’s number, his heart suddenly feeling lighter than it had in weeks.
It was over.
Epilogue
YIPPING, BARKING, mewling, and hissing filled the air of the small waiting room of the Hunter’s Moon Clinic. It was loud, it was constant, and it was music to Dr. Dae Anderson’s ears as he strode past the waiting room and into one of the examining rooms.
“Ah, Mrs. Denson. Good morning,” he said, smiling at the older, blonde, coifed, deeply tanned woman who sat in tennis whites on a nearby stool. Sean stood at the examining table fussing with a lethargic Maltese. “How is Sweetums today?”
“Not too well today, Doctor. She’s been acting oddly,” the woman answered. “Yesterday she wouldn’t hold still for a moment, but this morning she doesn’t want to move at all.”
“Mrs. Denson, have you been letting Sweetums share your cappuccino again?” Dae asked as the Maltese whined and licked his hand.
“No, Doctor. You said not to let her have any caffeine,” the woman answered, looking affronted.
“What’s her diet been like for the past few days?” Dae asked as he checked the dog’s eyes and ears and listened to the rumblings in its belly with a stethoscope.
“She hasn’t touched her kibble. Poor baby, she practically lived on oatmeal cookies all weekend!”
Dae sighed and exchanged a look with Sean over the examining table. “Mrs. Denson, sugar is as bad for her as caffeine. No more cappuccino, no more sugar, no more table scraps, no more anything but her kibble and an occasional doggie treat. Okay?”
“But she loves oatmeal cookies!”
“Dr. Dae loves cabbage, but I won’t let him eat it because it doesn’t agree with him,” Sean said as he fished a dog treat out of a jar and tried to tempt Sweetums with it. “Sometimes you just need to say no, Mrs. Denson.”
Dae rolled his eyes behind Sean’s back, which made Mrs. Denson giggle like a schoolgirl. He picked Sweetums up off the table and handed her to Mrs. Denson. “She’ll be fine in a day or so. Just keep her to her kibble.”
“Yes, Doctor. Will you boys be at the potluck next weekend?” Mrs. Denson asked, cuddling her Maltese under her chin.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Dae smiled.
“Good. I’ll make sure there’s no cabbage on the table,” she said, picking up the Maltese’s paw and waving it in farewell at the two men.
Dae pulled the door closed behind her, then turned and raised a brow at Sean.
“Since when does cabbage not agree with me?” he asked as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Since I needed to give her an example of saying no to someone you love when it’s for their own good.” Sean grinned.
“Everyone in town is going to be thinking about me and gas at that potluck!” Dae grumbled.
“You do get gas. It’s horrible.”
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do. You don’t have to sleep with you. You polluted the bedroom after we ate those cabbage rolls Mrs. Winston sent over last week,” Sean answered, placing his hands on his hips and looking stern.
“Fine. Then from now on after I eat cabbage, I’ll shift. You can sleep with the wolf,” Dae threatened.
“The wolf is even worse!” Sean retorted, waving a hand in front of his nose. He burst into laughter at the look of mock outrage on Dae’s face. Sean walked around the table and then threw his arms around Dae’s waist. “You know I’m only playing, Dae.”
“I know.” Dae grinned, wrapping his arms around Sean’s back and holding him close. “That was our last patient of the day, and I’m starving. Let’s close up and go get some dinner.”
“Okay,” Sean agreed, brushing his lips against Dae’s. “What do you feel like having? Chinese? Italian?”
“Cabbage,” Dae replied, then winced at the blow Sean landed on his shoulder.
Together the two men left the Hunter’s Moon Animal Clinic and walked out into the palm-tree-lined parking lot.
Above them the moon, full and lustrous, shone in the warm night sky, and as Dae looked up at it, happy and content, he howled.
Courage of the Wolf
Chapter One
“YOU KNOW how much it pisses me off when you pull this alpha shit on me, Dae,” Sean huffed, slamming a paper sack of groceries down on the kitchen counter. Several glass bottles clinked together angrily, making Sean wince.
That would be all Sean needed to end his day—a bagful of mayo-salsa-beer goop leaking out onto the counter and floor. He peeked inside the bag, shoving aside a stalk of celery to evaluate the damage. To his relief, nothing had broken. Although if Dae continued snarling and bristling as he’d been doing all morning, Sean might be tempted to break a few jars himself—over Dae’s stubborn, jealous head.
“He was flirting with you.” Dae’s deep voice was almost a growl. His hazel eyes sparked with anger, his muscles flexing under his tight white T-shirt. If Sean hadn’t been so royally ticked off, he might have been turned on.
Okay. Truth be told, he was turned on, pissed-off mood or no. Sean’s body’s reaction to Dae was completely involuntary. He couldn’t help himself. Just looking at the man gave him a hard-on that could split wood. With more difficulty than he’d care to admit, he ignored the impulse to rip Dae’s jeans down to his ankles, throw him over the kitchen table, and have his wicked way with him.
“So what? I wasn’t flirting back. And even if I was, where’s the harm? It’s not like I was going to jump onto the back of his Harley and ride off into the sunset with him,” Sean retorted. “You do enough flirting yourself, you know.”
“That’s different.”
“Oh, this should be good. How, exactly, is that different?” Sean snorted, leaning back against the counter, his arms folded across his chest. He glared at Dae, trying not to look at his broad chest, where Dae’s pectorals were practically doing jumping jacks under the thin cotton of his T-shirt, or at his rock-hard biceps, or washboard stomach, or God forbid, at anything below his belt buckle. Losing the battle, his eyes wandered over Dae’s tight black tee and jeans, and the hard body they encased.
Damn it, I should never have gotten him that membership to the gym. He’s too sexy to stay angry at, Sean thought. He wrenched his eyes back up to meet Dae’s.
“He practically jumped you in the produce aisle!”
“Bullshit! All he did was ask me how to test honeydews for ripeness. And don’t change the subject! Why is it all right for you to flirt, and not me?”
“Because I know that I’m not going to cheat on you!”
Sean felt as if Dae had doused him with a bucket of ice water. The air whooshed out of his lungs as his jaw dropped. “Cheat? Do you honestly think that I’d ever cheat on you, Dae?” he asked incredulously. “How could you ever…? I’ve never once given you any reason to…. I can’t believe that we’re even having this conversation!”
“You wanted him,” Dae hissed through clenched teeth. “I could smell it on you.”
“Smell it on me? Is that what you do when I’m not looking, Dae? Sniff my ass like Mr. Beetleman’s German shepherd?” Sean shot back, feeling the muscles in his neck tighten painfully. It was a cheap shot, he knew, but his tongue seemed to have developed a mind of
its own.
“I could smell your arousal, Sean,” Dae snapped. “Just like I can smell it on you now.”
“Don’t fucking flatter yourself!” Sean yelled. The pain in his neck intensified, shooting up over the back of his skull, signaling the beginnings of a major headache. It was true, he had had an erection, just as he did now, but it was because he’d been thinking about Dae, not some nameless stranger in the produce aisle of the supermarket. The thought that Dae wouldn’t realize it, would use Sean’s inadvertent woody to support Dae’s irrational, petty jealousies, hurt.
Leaving the groceries on the counter, Sean brushed past Dae, stalking out of the room. He made a beeline for their bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him, locking it.
Standing with his back to the door, Sean shook, struggling to regain control. He was seething, furious, and at the same time deeply hurt that Dae could ever think him capable of cheating. Sean’s body was at odds with itself—his hands curling into tight, angry fists, but his eyes burned with tears, his traitorous cock still at half-mast.
It was more than just Dae’s hurtful accusation making Sean so upset. This fight had been brewing for a while, Sean realized. Ever since the last full moon, after Dae had come back from his “run.”
To the casual observer, Sean and Dae did practically everything together. Lived together, worked together at Dae’s Hunter’s Moon Animal Clinic, shopped together, socialized together—hell, they seemed to be practically joined at the hip.
For all their apparent closeness, there were differences between them, disparities that went bone deep, all the way down to the genetic level. Differences Sean had always told himself didn’t matter.
Running with the moon was the perfect example of the inequalities between them. It was one facet of Dae’s life Sean couldn’t share with him—one of many, as it turned out. Once, he’d thought their love for each other was strong enough to bridge the gaps, but lately… well, lately he wasn’t so sure.
They’d been through so much together that once upon a time Sean had doubted anything would ever be able to tear them apart, and his sudden bout of anxiety had him rattled.
To accept Dae’s unique ability to change his body into that of the huge, sleek black wolf that was as much a part of Dae as his eye color or the fact that he was right-handed.
But when Dae took to four paws, Sean couldn’t follow him. Couldn’t really grasp the world Dae saw through lupine eyes, couldn’t understand the wildness flowing in his blood.
And yet, Sean stuck with him, accepting him unconditionally. Loving Dae with every fiber of his being.
Now, Sean began to wonder if Dae truly felt the same way. The past two weeks had been the worst yet, with Dae sulking for days on end, prickly and moody and, even worse, silent about what was bugging him. Every time Sean broached the subject, Dae closed himself off, changing the topic of conversation or simply clamming up, ignoring the question.
Now this. That Dae would doubt Sean’s love after everything the two of them had been through together was devastating.
“Sean?” Dae’s voice was softer now, a whisper compared to the fierce, rumbling growl he’d affected in the kitchen.
“What?” Sean called back through the closed door. He didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to see Dae now. Sean knew if he did, he’d see Dae’s hazel eyes shimmering with emotion—knew from the tone of his voice Dae realized what a shit he’d been.
Seeing repentance in Dae’s eyes would undo Sean. He knew his heart would leave him no choice but to forgive Dae.
Right now Sean was too angry, too hurt to want to forgive. His bruised heart and ego wanted to cling to his anger, punish Dae for hurting him. Childish, certainly, but at the moment feeling like a betrayed teenager entertaining all kinds of painful and humiliating ways to get back at Dae was soothing.
“Go away, Dae,” he said. “I’m not speaking to you.”
“Please, Sean. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Dae.”
“Sean, c’mon. Please open the door. I know you’d never cheat on me. I don’t even know why I said it. I love you. You know that. And I know you love me.”
“You don’t trust me. Even after everything that’s happened, you still don’t trust me!” Sean yelled.
“I do trust you! I told you what I am, told you about my past. I told you about the pack, Sean, and I never would have told you about them if I didn’t trust you!”
He had a point, Sean reluctantly agreed. When Dae told Sean about the pack, the community of werewolves among whom Dae had grown up, he’d stressed how important they were to him. They were the only family Dae knew. No matter they’d turned their backs on Dae when they’d found out about his sexual preferences and his desire to live among humans, Dae still would have never betrayed them. He’d never have put their lives in danger by revealing their existence unless he had trusted Sean implicitly.
Blowing out the lungful of air he’d been holding, forcing his clenched muscles to relax, Sean turned and opened the door.
“Hey,” Dae said softly. He stared at his feet, hands shoved deeply into the pockets of his jeans, looking for all the world like a small boy who’d just broken his mom’s favorite vase.
Sean said nothing, staring at Dae with his arms folded across his chest, eyes hard. Sean might have caved by opening the door, but he wasn’t ready to let Dae off the hook so easily.
Frosty silence rolled off him in waves.
Dae sighed heavily, lifting his eyes up to meet Sean’s. In them, Sean saw regret, and more than a little fear that Sean wouldn’t forgive him this time. “I’m sorry, Sean. Really. I mean it.”
“What’s with you lately, Dae? You’ve been snapping at me for no reason. You’re short with our clients, impatient with the animals, irritable….”
Dae brought his hand out of his pocket. In it he held a crumpled piece of paper, torn in several places as if it had been thrown away and then retrieved from the wastebasket. He looked at it for several long moments, then handed it to Sean.
“I got this in the mail a little over two weeks ago. It was forwarded to me down here. Took a while too—the postmark was from almost three months ago. It came in one of those little clear envelopes the post office uses when they damage mail. Maybe that’s what took them so long to deliver it. I should have shown it to you sooner.”
“What is it?” Sean asked, taking the wrinkled paper from Dae’s hand, trying to flatten it out enough to read.
“A letter,” Dae said. “From my youngest brother, Jaeger. He wants me to come home. He says the pack is in trouble.”
Sean’s eyes flew to Dae’s, the letter all but forgotten. “Your brother? The pack? Are you serious? He’s got a helluva lot of nerve asking for your help after what they did to you!” Sean felt his stomach clench, angry all over again but for a different reason. This time he was suddenly furious on Dae’s behalf, not with him.
“They’re my family, Sean,” Dae said softly. His eyes were begging Sean to understand, but that was beyond Sean’s capability at the moment. All Sean knew was these people hurt Dae so deeply it still pained him, even now, after he’d managed to build a new life. They were the ones who haunted Dae’s sleep in nightmares that left Dae’s pillow wet in the morning.
“Is this the same family who threw you out with nothing but the clothes on your back? That family? Where was the pack when your ex, Jack, was fucking you over, Dae? How about when your business burned to the ground? Where were they then?”
“They didn’t know about Jack or the fire, Sean.”
“I know that. They didn’t know because you didn’t tell them. And you didn’t tell them because they wouldn’t speak to you, Dae! That’s my point. And now you get a letter from your brother after so many years, and he doesn’t apologize, or even tell you he misses you. Instead, he’s got the gall to ask you for a favor! This is what has you so upset you’re lashing out at the people who do love you!” Sean countered. “Why haven’t you thrown it out?
Or better yet, pissed on it and sent it back to him?”
“I have to go back to the pack, Sean. They need me. I have to go.”
There it was. He’d said it. The one word Sean never thought he’d hear Dae say was out of his mouth and hanging between them like an executioner’s axe. Go, as in leave. Leave Florida. Leave the Hunter’s Moon Clinic.
Leave Sean.
Sean felt like he’d been sucker punched. The air whooshed out of his lungs, and he felt his knees tremble as he fought to remain upright and not crumple to the ground in hysterics like a character in a bad soap opera. He could feel his face blanch as the blood sank to his feet at light speed. “You’re leaving me?” he managed to whisper, his mouth gone dry.
Chapter Two
“WHAT? NO! Of course not,” Dae said, a deep frown creasing his forehead. “That’s not what I meant! I’d never leave you, Sean. You should know that by now.” God, sometimes Dae wondered if his shapeshifting form shouldn’t be a mule instead of a wolf; he certainly seemed to make an ass out of himself often enough. Like every time he opened his mouth lately.
Sean’s eyes were glistening, and Dae could tell he was holding on by a thread. Damn it! He hated to see Sean upset, hated more the fact that it was because of him. Dae would rather gnaw off his own hand than intentionally hurt Sean.
He held out his arms, and Sean moved into them. But Dae’s stomach clenched with guilt at the tension he felt in Sean’s muscles, at the way he stood there stiffly, not returning Dae’s embrace. “Oh, man… I’ve been a Class A shit lately, haven’t I? I’m so sorry, Sean. I should have told you about the letter as soon as I got it, but it really threw me for a loop, you know?” Dae pulled Sean flush with his body, trying to ease Sean’s hurt with physical contact, willing him to feel Dae’s contrition.
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