Apparently, he didn’t. Blaze had lost him. Despite his Native heritage, Logan had lived too long as white to accept what Blaze was.
Wiping his face and eyes with a paper towel, Blaze telephoned Markell’s as soon as it opened and made arrangements for more classes. Only when he’d punched his phone off did the reality of what it meant to be an active alpha hit him. Any life he and Logan might’ve had together was gone, unless Logan moved here to be with him. Soon he might feel trapped too and leave him anyway.
Logan has already left you, stupid. The words raked through his thoughts, leaving him bruised.
Blaze had saved his lover’s life in true SEAL fashion, without a moment’s thought for his own safety. Yet it seemed this was his reward for doing a good deed.
Christ, but the world is a mess. I’m a mess.
Logan parked in front of the house, and slowly pulling in a deep breath, he stepped up on the porch, knocked, and stuck his hands in his pockets as he waited.
“Just a minute.” The sound of Blaze’s deep voice sent a rush through Logan’s chest, and if Blaze hadn’t opened the door as fast as he did, Logan would’ve lost his courage, run back to the car, and driven away.
They stood there, staring at each other.
Logan watched as the bright, brief look of happiness flashing across Blaze’s face disappeared, replaced by a shuttered impassiveness.
Now that the moment had come, Logan sensed it was not the time to back out. If what they’d had was evil, he needed to know. “May I come in?”
“Sorry. Of course.” He stepped aside, and Logan walked past him on unsteady legs.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Do you have lemonade?” It was such a dumb thing to say, but somehow it would have given him strength for what he had to do.
“Nope. I have water, beer, and Dr. Pepper. I was just going to make coffee.”
“Water would be good.”
“Have a seat while I get it.”
Despite having carefully prepared how he would approach this, Logan followed him to the kitchen and watched the strong hands lift the top of his Mr. Coffee, slip in a filter he filled with French roast coffee grounds, and add water. He pressed the On button, and soon the smell of brewing coffee filled the small kitchen. When it was ready, Blaze filled a mug and handed a bottle of cold water to Logan.
Which was when anxiety forced Logan’s plan to approach this subject with care leave him. He blurted his question out uncensored. “Are you a witch?”
“What?” Blaze turned, looking confused.
“You know, a skinwalker.”
“What in hell’s that?”
When he explained, Blaze threw his head back and laughed. He laughed so hard, he had to set his mug down before he sloshed the hot brew all over himself. “God, Logan, you ought to know I’m not a skinwalker. And I’m certainly not an evil witch. Is this an Indian thing?”
Logan felt his face get hot with embarrassment. He nodded. Not backing off, he asked, “Then what are you?”
“Pure and simple, I’m a shape-shifter. I have the ability to change my form from human to wolf and back again. My parents were shape-shifters.”
Logan said, “Werewolf.”
“Yes, a werewolf. But despite what you saw me do, I’m not the vicious kind you see portrayed in books and movies. It’s extremely rare for wolves to attack people. Maybe in an Alaskan winter when food is scarce and a wolf is starving, but otherwise never. I’m an alpha, a pack leader. To save you, I had to challenge and drive off or kill the alpha of the wolves you saw. I knew the rest wouldn’t join his attack on you because I had challenged him as their leader. The fight was only between the two of us. Now, of course, I’m forced to lead the damned pack.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Blaze retrieved his coffee and sipped. “Can we sit down? I’ve had a helluva four days, and I’m tired, hungry, and thirsty.”
Logan didn’t move. He felt miserable. “I’ve told you everything there is to know about me. I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me you were also a werewolf,” he pressed.
Blaze sat on the couch and set his mug on the coffee on the table. His face was tight. “I know it was a terrible shock to see me change. But did you tell me everything? You didn’t tell me you wouldn’t wait for me to return after you ignored what I told you and put yourself and me in danger. I risked my life to save your ungrateful ass.
“You’ve also kept secrets. Didn’t tell me you’re an internationally known artist. That the Smithsonian is holding a reception for you, that they and museums around Europe have bought your pieces.”
Logan twirled the unopened bottle in his hands and looked at the floor. “The reception is something I’m not that comfortable with. Yes, I like it that my work is known, displayed, and purchased by important museums. But I’ll be viewed by some as the token Native American, and in parts of this country, my work will be denigrated because of the color of my skin. Some of my own people will see me as arrogant and be threatened because I’m better educated, financially stable, and famous. To them it’s like I’ve betrayed every Native in the country by bettering myself and hobnobbing with whites.”
Blaze’s face and voice softened. “I love the color of your skin. Please, sit beside me. It’s making my sore neck hurt looking up at you.”
Surprised and touched by Blaze’s comment about his skin, Logan fought to bring the focus back to the dilemma he was facing. “In a minute. First, let me fix something for us to eat. I’m probably as hungry as you are.”
Stepping into the kitchen, he pulled bacon and eggs from the refrigerator. He found a skillet, and the bacon was sizzling as he broke eggs into a bowl, added water, and beat them to a froth with a fork before he removed the cooked bacon to paper towels to absorb the grease. He hummed an Indian chant as he popped slices of bread into the toaster, poured the eggs into the pan, and scrambled them. When everything was ready, he dished the food onto two plates, brought them to the coffee table, and set them down with forks and napkins.
He sat next to the warmth of Blaze’s strong body as they ate.
Blaze explained how tightly he’d kept his secret. “To begin with, wolves are very secretive animals. Even in Yellowstone, it’s rare to see one. It’s second nature for me to guard that part of what I am. I was born here, an alpha of alpha parents, a role I’ve never wanted. Every full moon as a SEAL, I resisted the call to change unless it helped my team, and since none of my teammates ever knew I was a werewolf, I thought you’d never need to know either. The need to change is even stronger here, but I’ve resisted until—”
“I went into the Lamar Valley,” Logan finished. “Can you ever forgive me for not listening to you?”
“If you can forgive me for being so stupid as to hide why I didn’t want you there. I was pretty sure the rogue wolf I killed had murdered two humans while in his wolf form. Just being in the valley when the moon was on the cusp of turning full threatened my tight control, but when I saw the killer stalking you, I lost it completely and couldn’t avoid the change. I wasn’t going to let you die.”
“But you left me there unprotected.”
“Had to. I left you my guns, but I couldn’t stay, couldn’t shift back due to the pull of the moon. Plus, this is a pack of shifters, and I’d killed their leader. To save you, I had to challenge his role with them, or they would have attacked me too. Once he was dead, the pack needed me to immediately assume his role, or they’d have begun fighting among themselves for control. You see, in the wolf culture, you only challenge an alpha if you intend to take over.”
“That’s why they came to you, pressed against you?” He shivered as the memory of their howls filled his mind.
Blaze nodded and laid his fork on his plate. “It didn’t occur to me that I’d come back from that ordeal and find you had left me. I thought I might as well be dead when I saw my portrait here and the chilly way you’d signed it. Saw the shredded charcoal drawing of my body in pieces on th
e floor. You obviously didn’t love me enough to accept this part of me.”
Logan too set his fork aside. “Blaze, look in my eyes.”
“What—”
“Just do it. Please?”
They shifted bodies until they faced each other. Their gazes locked.
Nothing had changed for Logan. A rush of feeling flowed through him just as it had the first time he’d looked into Blaze’s eyes. The golden thread spun around his sex and his heart as the animal appeared in the mist.
Tension built inside him. “That first day in the park, you told me you knew the coyote wasn’t a wolf. Tell me again how you knew.”
As they continued to stare into each other’s eyes, Blaze cradled Logan’s cheek and jaw with one hand, stroked one finger over his cheek. “It’s true the coyote you saw hangs with that particular bison herd, but, obviously, I knew what it was because I’m a wolf. Our ears are lower and broader at the base. Almost triangular. Coyote ears are taller and stand straight up.”
“Just like in the photos in the Shoshone museum on the rez,” Logan murmured as he studied the animal in the mist. “It’s not Coyote I see in your eyes, it’s a wolf! Thank the Spirits of the earth.”
A weight seemed to lift from him, and his whole body relaxed. He dropped his head on Blaze’s shoulder.
Blaze slid an arm around Logan and drew him in close. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, but I like your head on my shoulder and having you in my arms again. I don’t want that to ever change.”
“I’m talking about another Indian thing. What do you see when you look in my eyes?”
“Shocked me like shit the first time this happened, and it’s the same for me now. I see straight through to your sacred heart. The heart of a man of honor.”
Love welled up in Logan. He explained about the golden cord and the animal in the mist. “At first I thought it meant we were to be together. Then I thought it was Coyote.” He described the Indian belief about Coyote—why he was known to them as the Trickster—and how he’d thought that was the animal in the mist.
“I wasn’t sure if what I sensed you felt for me was real or a trick. Then, when you shifted into a wolf, I thought you might be a skinwalker—a witch—which terrified Indian me. I feared you’d bewitched me into thinking we loved each other, and maybe I’d lose my spirit, my soul.”
Blaze drew him into his arms. “After knowing you and looking into your heart, I’m not worried about your soul. As far as any witchcraft, I think it’s you who’ve cast a spell over me, Logan Swift Rider. Now kiss me so we can make up. I’ve missed you so very much.”
Logan swung his leg over Blaze and straddled him. Then he leaned down. “Hmm. I think I want to kiss my werewolf lover.” Just before their lips met, Logan said, “I’ve never told you how much I love the way you taste.”
“It’s a shape-shifter thing,” Blaze said, his laugh warm and low. “And I’ve never told you how my wolf pranced and circled and did crazy things inside me whenever I saw or was near you. Like you with your Trickster Coyote, I never knew if it was ecstatic that you were in my life or frantic to warn me away. Now I know it was doing a happy dance. Good thing, because I’d never have been able to resist you.”
“Maybe we can do that happy dance now.”
Blaze groaned and tried to lift his groin to get closer to Logan’s cock.
Logan rocked his cock across Blaze’s as his lips traversed the smooth skin of Blaze’s neck and his fingers released Blaze’s shirt buttons one by one.
Blaze’s breath was sweet, and his skin was clean. Logan ran his fingers through the short hair on his head, understanding the mingled colors now and why it grew untamed and short. He broke the kiss to make a tasting journey across Blaze’s face with his tongue as he freed the last button, pulled the shirt off his shoulders, and kissed the solid muscles.
Pushing the shirt open, his hands found the soft pelt there and threaded through it. “You were magnificent when you fought. And beautiful. I was so terrified for you, and for me, that I threw up before I got in my car.”
Blaze reached for Logan’s hand, turning it over to kiss his sensitive wrist and palm. Then he tongued between his fingers and sucked the tips.
A fire began in Logan’s crotch. “That’s so sexy, you’re driving me crazy.” He yanked Blaze’s shirt out of his pants, and Blaze reached between them and unbuttoned his sleeves at his wrists.
“Take my shirt off, Logan. All the way.”
With measured slowness, Logan slid the shirt off his wide shoulders, but as Blaze reached down to undo his jeans, Logan said, “Oh no. I’m not through enjoying you yet.”
“Better hurry, or I’ll finish before you’re ready. Strip for me, Logan.”
Logan was practiced in this, and each bit of clothing came off slow and sensually. When he stood nude, his cock pointed straight at Blaze.
Smiling, with his hands behind his head, he performed a few bumps and grinds. Then he turned around and bent at the waist, feeling his sac and nuts swinging freely as he wiggled his ass.
“Come to me. I’m too tired to do the butt banging, but I need to have you in the worst way.”
Logan knelt and removed Blaze’s boots before he released his jeans and slid them down and off. Blaze’s head was back, his eyes closed. Slipping a hand through one of the legs of his briefs, Logan wrapped his hand around the hard cock and slid the skin repeatedly up and down and thumbed the tip. When his hand became slippery with precum, he looked his lover in the face as he licked his hand clean.
Blaze grew restless. When Logan didn’t take him in his mouth, Blaze lifted his hips and wrenched his briefs down. As Logan breathed his warm breath over Blaze’s cock and swirled his tongue around its oozing head, he said, “Oh yes.”
Logan released the head. “I’ve never thanked you for saving my life.”
Blaze groaned and pressed Logan’s head down to his cock again. “Thank me now, Shoshone.”
And Logan did.
Chapter 11
Afterward, hand in hand, they climbed into bed. Logan laid his head on Blaze’s chest, and they drifted to sleep. Blaze wakened first, marveling that Logan had come back to him, had accepted what he was. Because he negotiated between the human and shifter worlds, it was obvious the very Anglicized Logan still felt the pull of his Indian roots.
No wonder my wolf danced a happy dance whenever I was with him. It knew this was the man who would open his arms to all that I am.
Logan’s hair was tangled. Blaze used his fingers to comb it out. Then he stroked his cheek.
“Hmm. Someone wants me awake, I think.” Logan stretched and sat up. He slid his arms around his lover. “Yum. Are we going to do this again?”
“We are, and you’re going to be on top.”
When Logan reached to push his hair behind his ears, Blaze said, “Don’t. I love it loose, and I want your hair brushing over my cock when you fuck my ass.”
“I’m already hard again for you.”
Blaze spread his arms. “Likewise.” He opened the hand where he’d concealed a foil condom packet and a small tube of lube.
“I see you’re prepared.”
“Always. As I said, it’s a SEAL shape-shifter motto.”
Logan stroked up Blaze’s inner thighs with kisses and small nips, creeping closer and closer to his pleasure centers. Blaze was quiet. One arm covered his eyes as if he concentrated on every sensation Logan created as he manipulated him into the position he wanted. A hand beneath each knee and only a nudge…Blaze brought his knees up to fucking position, exposing all his goodies.
With Blaze on his back, Logan let his hair cascade over Blaze’s stiff cock as he drew his lover’s sac into his mouth and traced its balls with his wet tongue. Logan released the sac and drew it aside to lick the erotic tissue between it and Blaze’s manhole. He blew across the exposed anus as one hand closed around Blaze’s stone-hard cock.
Blaze groaned. “Now, Logan. Now. Can’t take much more of this blis
s.”
The sound of the packet tearing and latex unrolling over another cock overrode the groans. Logan smeared a generous amount of lube on the big pucker. He poised his readied cock over the opening, wanting to jam it in fast and deep. But a guy’s ass was sensitive and prone to injury, and what he felt for the man beneath him tempered that need. He pushed with care through the first tight muscle, waited until it relaxed all the way, and then he did the same with the second, more delicate muscle.
Just as he reached that snug, hot spot that brought him so much pleasure, an image of the gold cord in Blaze’s eyes sprang to life in his mind. The cord heightened his drive to orgasm as it spun its coil to lasso his sac and cock once again. This time the wolf was there, no longer in the midst but solid—his nose dark, a chest and ruff in shades of brown, gray, and white tipped in black.
He imagined a howl of satisfaction as he fucked that wolf, pounding in hard, pulling out over and over until he brought them to a holding pattern, and Blaze begged. “Now, Logan. Now!”
Deeper and deeper Logan drove in, until he was absorbed by the feel, the scent, and the heat of this man…this wolf. Wild sensations rocketed up from Blaze and through Logan, sending both of them over the edge and into spiraling ecstasy.
In that moment of fulfillment, Logan fully opened himself to a connection that might be mystical but was also solid gold real.
They lay together, spent and drifting. Once they were awake again, Logan said, “The wolf I see in your eyes…that’s not just an image. It’s you, isn’t it?”
“I think it must be.”
“Can you ever forgive me for deserting you, for shredding my drawing of your beautiful body? It shames me to think I was so cruel. I promise I will sketch another.”
Blaze said, “You were hurt and angry. I shouldn’t have withheld something so important to our relationship and left you open to shock and fear. You wouldn’t have gone into the Lamar if I’d told you what I am, and why I pretty much knew the black wolf had killed two men. If you’d known I’d smelled an evil alpha shifter in the market.
“I almost lost my courage about facing you today. I feel weak when I think if you hadn’t been home, I would have left.”
Awakening the Alpha Page 11