The Last Werewolf (The Weres of Europe)

by Denys, Jennifer; Laine, Susan

  “Summer Harrison. She’s a Brit, came here looking for her grandmother now that both her parents are gone. The thing is,” Rik leaned forward and the intensity of his gaze was mesmerizing, “in the note she said the name of the village is Pajuskylä and that it’s right by Hell’s Lake National Park.”

  Leevi sat up in his chair like a spring wound too tight, and he felt his anxiousness swell. “That’s on our clan lands.” Pajuskylä was one of the oldest settlements in the region. The place derived its name, Willow Village, from the abundance of willow copses around the village. Leevi’s own family hailed from the area, but not from this particular village. Regardless, he knew it well. Not all of those from the area were shifters, but a good number were.

  “I know,” Rik said ruefully. “And after you sent me the text about those weirdoes in your clan after your position because of me…” His voice trailed off.

  “Look, I can tell you’re worked up over this,” he reassured Rik as calmly as he could. “But the truth is even those rogue separatists aren’t stupid enough to attack innocent tourists. There hasn’t been a wolf attack on humans in these parts by our clan members in over a hundred years.”

  “What about that incident during the Winter War?” Rik reminded him, his eyebrows raised in a slightly mocking query.

  Hissing, Leevi made a dismissive gesture. “Water under the bridge.” His exploratory gaze landed right back on Rik, and his eyes narrowed. “Why do you think she’d be in danger from those hotheads anyway?”

  Rik’s stance changed, turning rigid and uncomfortable. His face flushed again. “I, I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but…it’s like, um, if I were a cat, she’d be catnip.”

  Leevi stared dumbfounded. “Catnip?”

  Sighing, Rik explained. “Look, I know how it sounds. But when I met her, her scent overwhelmed me. I don’t understand why it was so intense, but it’s like I couldn’t get enough of her. It’s not like she’s a wolf or anything, but it felt like…I mean it’s never happened to me before with a woman or anyone. Well, except with you.” Rik shrugged at that point, but Leevi could tell this was not a gesture of nonchalance. This was important.

  Sniffing the air again, Leevi realized that beneath the reek of sex on Rik’s skin was an underlying fragrance of this mysterious catnip-woman. It was familiar somehow, and yet still totally new. He’d never met this woman before. That much he knew for certain. But who was she?

  “What do you expect me to do about this?” he finally asked.

  Rik’s nostrils flared as he got angry. “I expect you to do your job as Prime Alpha and stop these guys before they kill someone. Summer’s sweet and—”

  “Funny. I don’t remember you seeking sweet all those years ago.” Yes, it was a low blow, and Leevi regretted it the moment the words blurted out of his mouth. “But you’re right. If your, uh, catnip is as alluring as you say, any wolf around these parts might want to claim her even if she’s not a wolf. We don’t get quality meat over here that often.” He knew he’d said it crudely, but ignored the anguished look plastered all over Rik’s face and picked up his cell phone. “I need to make some calls. Where are you staying?”

  “She’s not a piece of meat. She’s a person and a good woman at that. She deserves better than this jilted lover act you’re pulling with me.” Rik’s growl was distinct. Leevi had never heard it before. Rik had been submissive back when they’d been together. Never once, even when he was walking out the door, had he so much as raised his voice. It was an oddly attractive sound.

  Leevi locked eyes with Rik’s. “Don’t forget, puppy, that I am a jilted lover because of you. But if you knew anything about me at all, you’d know I wouldn’t let anyone get forced into a mating bond or die just because I was angry with you.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t mad at me.” Rik glared, but even if Leevi hadn’t been an Alpha of his clan, he wouldn’t have let a half-human get the better of him.

  He kept his face as a stone mask. “I lied. Where are you staying?”

  Rik flushed in frustration, but wisely kept his thoughts to himself. “At your place. Where else would I go around here? I know your clan has it in for me.” Suddenly there was pain in his expression, so much of it that Leevi’s body twitched to hold him in his arms and sooth all his troubles away. “You know I had to go, right? I couldn’t—”

  “Now’s not the time to hash out old business,” Leevi cut in gruffly. “We’ll talk about it later, after we rescue your damsel in distress. If she is in trouble at all.”

  All of a sudden Rik sort of snorted, sort of chuckled. “If you knew Summer, you’d know she was no damsel in distress.”

  Leevi didn’t have to wrinkle his nose to tell that Rik had strong feelings for this woman. So quickly? Leevi and Rik had been together four months, and Rik hadn’t fallen for Leevi, at least not as hard as Leevi had for Rik. And yet here Rik was, without being conscious of it, head-over-heels in love with a complete stranger, a female catnip no less. Un-fucking-believable.

  Nipping in the bud the pinch of jealousy and envy combined, Leevi refocused on what he had to do to contain this situation. Yes, as far as he knew everything was hunky-dory, but he couldn’t take any chance with human civilians. Jaakko, his former Beta, and now his most fervent adversary, was not a wolf to be taken lightly. These rogues who had chosen to separate from the clan in protest were bad news for everyone.

  “You go on home, Rik, and I’ll make a few calls. If she made it into this neck of the woods, I’ll know soon enough.”

  Rik stood up and walked to the door, but spun around before exiting, looking at Leevi funny, darker somehow, like he used to when he wanted Leevi. “You know, that’s the first time since I got here that you said my name.” Leevi didn’t have a chance to process that statement when Rik turned around and promptly left the office. The metal front door slammed shut loudly. The rubbers preventing it from doing that in full force must’ve dropped loose again.

  Sometimes Leevi wished he had a rubber bumper too to prevent him from getting hurt every time Rik shut the door on him.

  ****

  Opening the front door to his house, Leevi was greeted with the scent of his former lover, the sweet woodsy fragrance assailing his senses and damn near bringing him to his knees. All those memories of their shared time together came rushing back in a heartbeat.

  Leevi missed their easy camaraderie and just as easy lovemaking. Who was he kidding? He missed everything about Rik, who had apparently fallen in love with a woman after all those years being closer to gay than straight. Clenching his jaw shut hard, Leevi walked towards the kitchen where he knew Rik would be.

  The smells of food, drink, and man encompassed him as he entered the kitchen where pop music was playing on the Radio Nova station and Rik was sort of humming, sort of swaying his hips to the music. It was more endearing than sexy since Rik had on a girlish flowery apron that didn’t fit the guy at all. Well, it made him look adorable, and smolderingly sexy.

  That cute look reminded Leevi of that fateful day a week after Rik had moved in with him when their relationship had gone forward, straight to hell.

  With his breath caught in his throat, Leevi leaned against the doorframe of the bedroom, watching Rik lie in bed on his back, his smooth chest still damp with water droplets from the shower. He still couldn’t wrap his brain around the fact that he had found his mate, in a gay bar of all places, in a kind of establishment he didn’t venture in much, unless he was after a mindless fuck. But the moment he had gotten a good whiff of the young man by the bar counter Leevi had known. He’d just known.

  Rik was his mate.

  The scent of him. The sight of him. The sound of him. All called out to Leevi like a siren’s song, luring him toward his inevitable fate.

  Leevi never picked up guys for dates. He didn’t date. Leevi met guys at bars, bought them a drink, took them to a bed somewhere, and fucked them silly. At least he didn’t bite or kill the men he so casually fucked. These
sort of assignations silenced his raging libido for man meat, but were rarely satisfying, and soon after he’d be horny and on the prowl again.

  For that reason, knowing that his usual way of approach would not aid him Leevi had stumbled into his first pick-up line. Christ, how horribly corny he had sounded then, uttering those ridiculous words. Hot dog? Buns? Jesus. Leevi still blushed at the memory of it, and doubted he’d ever recover from that reaction.

  Rik looked so damn good lying there on the bed. Their bed. After just one night spent together Rik had agreed to follow Leevi wherever he went. A part of Leevi worried that Rik only did so because of the instinctive mating bond that was strong, like a magnetic pull. But then again there was so much shapeshifters didn’t know or understand about the bond. The only thing they really grasped was that it was natural, both overwhelming and empowering. Denying it was insane. The sign of trust Rik had shown Leevi was one he wasn’t about to question in fear of losing the young man he needed so badly.

  “You just gonna stare at me all night?” Rik teased on the bed, wiggling his body as he got more comfortable, with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Or are you actually going to fuck me tonight?”

  Growling, Leevi discarded his clothes and jumped on the bed between Rik’s splayed legs. He knew what they were going to do tonight.

  For tonight was the night.

  The night he’d fuck Rik in the ass.

  The night he’d claim Rik as his mate.

  Wanting to drag out the pleasure for both of them, Leevi traced the lines and curves of Rik’s muscular figure with his fingertips. Rik squirmed and inhaled sharply, his back arching up to get his body to reach the caress. Leevi couldn’t get enough of his Rik’s beautiful body, honed to perfection by his gym workouts. Rik was attractive in a handsome way compared to Leevi who had a harder, more rugged countenance. Where Rik had a certain beefy roundness to him, Leevi was all sharp angles and defined lines. The differences between them fascinated Leevi.

  Rik’s dark brown eyes watched Leevi’s every move with a warm intensity Leevi adored. “I’m going to fuck you tonight,” he said to his lover with whom he had not yet crossed that line of intimate coupling. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  Licking his lips, his eyes hooded and burning with dark lust, Rik said, “Do it.” As a blatant invitation Rik spread his legs wider, bringing his knees up to his chest and opening himself up to his lover in a lecherous gesture that had Leevi’s blood boiling in his veins.

  Nodding both his approval and his consent, Leevi grabbed the well-used tube of lube from the nightstand drawer, coated his cock with an ample dollop and fingered Rik’s hole equally liberally with lube. Rik moaned when Leevi curled his fingers inside Rik’s hot, tight channel and found his lover’s sweet spot, the spongy bump within, nudging it with his fingers over and over. Rik’s hips shot up from the bed, and his moans ramped up in volume.

  “Right there. Oh fuck, right there.”

  Leevi grinned wolfishly. Rik did have a propensity for noisiness in bed. Leevi liked it a lot, so he never discouraged it. Leaning down above Rik, he kissed his lover, whose lips parted, allowing Leevi’s questing tongue swift entry. As they kissed lazily without rushing to finish, Leevi felt rejuvenated, as if the mere presence of his mate in his bed made all the difference to how he felt about the world. He was Prime Alpha of his clan and all the packs within it. The kinship all clan members shared was not bonds of blood, as they did not all hail from the same ancestry, but they were all wolves, and most of them born as shapeshifters to clan members, or bitten by clan members to become half-human, half-wolves, although the latter were rare. The unity of the clan was only as strong as the Prime Alpha, and in his position as the strongest wolf he was expected to carry on his proud lineage. This meant finding a female to procreate with, but none of the clan females had ever held any interest for him. Most of them weren’t his blood relations, but they heralded from the same region as Leevi, and he had always known his partner would be an outsider.

  And even longer than that, Leevi had wanted his mate to be a man.

  Yes, he did want to have children, but he had yet to meet a woman who held enough strength of will, beauty, wits, and humor to appeal to him. Now that Leevi had Rik, though elated at having discovering his mate was as he was, a part of him was saddened by the prospect he’d never have children with a woman he loved. Yes, he knew as an Alpha it was possible that there were more mates out there for him, but he was also well aware that in sparsely populated rural Finland he had zero chances of finding someone else. Having found Rik was miraculous enough.

  A female, Leevi mused at the idea.

  Leevi had no problems with women. He’d had sex with a few. He just preferred men. And when he’d found Rik, Leevi had assumed fate had sealed the deal for him. He would not have minded if his partner had turned out female because as an Alpha what he wanted overrode all other considerations. If he had a female, but wanted a male at the same time, he could get one. The sphere of his power over lesser wolves would have made any opposition to his will impossible.

  So he didn’t have a female to mother his offspring. At least he had Rik.

  Quieting his wayward thoughts, Leevi pushed those glum ponderings aside in favor of enjoying Rik’s company. As Leevi angled his head and deepened the kiss, Rik groaned and began to hump against Leevi’s fingers, still inside Rik’s ass. Leevi smiled into the kiss, which morphed into heavy panting into each other’s mouths. Tasting coffee on his lover’s breath, Leevi felt humbled at being with his mate, a man he had grown to love in a week’s short time.

  Waiting any longer was torture for both of them, so Leevi withdrew his fingers. In passing, he wondered if it would be easier for Rik his first time to be on his stomach, but in utter selfishness, as he wanted to watch his man. He promised to make it good for both of them. No, better than good—he’d make this perfect.

  The culmination of their relationship as mates.

  Positioning himself at Rik’s vulnerable entrance, Leevi pushed the head of his cock against the winking pucker, and the tight ring of muscle gave way. Immediately he was swallowed by breathtaking pressure. He nudged deeper, an inch at a time, being careful, following physical cues from Rik, like his relaxing exhales and loosening hold of his fingers on Leevi’s arms as Leevi braced himself above his mate. Closing his eyes, Leevi felt he’d come home at last when he was finally inside Rik to the hilt.

  “Fuck my asshole,” Rik urged, his voice high-pitched and breathless. “Leevi, hurry. Fuck me harder.”

  Leevi had begun a slow rhythm of shallow thrusts, barely moving in fear of hurting him. But now, with Rik inciting his passion, he picked up the pace, his cock delving deep. He had no reason to refuse Rik’s persuasions, and he lost himself in the moment, his need for this intimacy with his mate coursing through his veins like magma, settling in his groin.

  Deaf and blind to the sights and sounds of the world outside, Leevi felt the shift take over in a heartbeat. His cock swelled to a sizable erection that would be impossible to pull out, his eyes changed to wolf vision, fangs pushing through his gums with a familiar sting, and his claws grew sharper, longer. The wolf within was hungry, and, with ferocity, the beast pushed through his thin veil of human self-control.

  It took the terrified cry of the man beneath him to snap him out of his daze.

  The next thing Leevi was aware of was his fangs sinking into soft, warm flesh as hot blood ran down his throat, spilling out of his mouth to run in rivulets down his jaw. Opening his eyes, Leevi looked at the curve of Rik’s neck where his fangs had bitten down hard.

  And, simultaneously, as the realization of what he had done hit him, Leevi felt both his mate’s and his own cock erupting in jerky spasms of mutual orgasm. Their hips snapped together in perfect unison as pain—for one physical, for the other emotional—mixed with pleasure as they rode through their earth-shattering climax.

  It took years for Leevi admit to himself that the worst moment in his life was a
lso the most sublime.

  “There you are,” Rik called out from the kitchen, grinning happily and glancing at Leevi over his shoulder, probably still marred by the scars where Leevi had bitten him and turned him into a werewolf. He’d hated himself for forcing the change onto his mate more than any words could convey.

  Grunting, Leevi stomped past Rik in front of the stove and pushed him aside. “Don’t make yourself at home. This isn’t your place.” Fully aware that he growled most of his words, he took the frying pan off the top of the cooker and tossed it into the sink as he retreated back into the safety of the living room.

  “You can be so cruel,” Rik murmured behind him, angry as he took off his apron and threw it against Leevi’s back.

  Out of his mind with sorrow and fury, Leevi turned back, and, startled by his expression, Rik stepped back. “I am cruel?” He was part growling, part shouting, and he felt the eruption of all the emotions that he’d buried deep within since Rik had walked out of their relationship.

  Though shaken and shorter than Leevi, Rik stared him down, not budging. His face was a changing masque of all the things left unsaid between them. “What did you expect me to do, Leevi? Stay with you after you took away my right to choose for myself? After I learned, and not from you, that you didn’t have to change me for us to be mates, that there are plenty of wolf-human couplings out there. You bit me, and took my humanity from me. And then by not telling me the truth, for several months, you effectively lied to me. Every day for four months.”

  Leevi couldn’t take anymore. Seeing Rik was too hard. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner things would return to normal. Without looking at his former mate, he said, “I talked to my Beta. You were right to be concerned. Your woman seems to have been taken by Jaakko and his men this afternoon, but I don’t think they would kill her outright, for no reason. They’ve most likely taken her to our old fort by the National Park, as I hear they’ve commandeered it for their own purposes. It’s dark now, but if you want we can go there tonight, though the terrain is hard even for our kind. I worry that they would hear us stumbling and kill her before we got to her. Since I don’t know how many of my men are working with Jaakko or keeping him up-to-date on my doings, we’d have to go alone. Or we can wait until morning and head out at first light. Your call.”