by Odessa Lynne
“That’s not—”
But the wolf cut Mason off with a sharp look. “Don’t concern yourself with irrelevant details of your sexual nature. Pleasure is pleasure, no matter where it originates. I’ll prove it to you when we mate.”
Goddamn, but he was an arrogant bastard.
Mason forced a deep breath. An argument was out of the question. Of course, there was one argument that he’d be willing to take up no matter what the consequences. “I’m not leaving my brother behind. He won’t be safe out here, and he needs medical attention.”
Marcus finally stumbled to his feet. “You’re the one that needs medical attention. I’m fine.”
But Marcus wasn’t fine, because Mason had seen him wince and almost reach for his stomach. He’d stopped, probably only because Mason would’ve called him on it if he had.
“We won’t leave him,” the wolf said. Then he said to Marcus, so gently that Mason had to look at him to make sure it was still him talking, “I have more control over my need to fuck than I expected to have at this moment, but two humans in such close proximity will be dangerous. Do not forget that. My claws are sharp and your spine is weak.”
The words sent a chill down Mason’s spine and not even the shadows hid Marcus’s wide-eyed look that said he found the wolf’s warning just as disquieting.
Then the wolf snagged Mason by the hand, drawing him forward. Mason wasn’t prepared and he stumbled, but the wolf steadied him so quickly Mason didn’t even have time to suck in his breath. Then the wolf buried his nose against Mason’s collar and sniffed in a deep breath.
Mason’s back went stiff, his reaction instinctive, and his palm flattened against the wolf’s hard chest. The wolf growled, hauling Mason even closer by curling one hand tightly around the back of Mason’s neck. The wolf trailed his nose down Mason’s chest and up again, then across Mason’s shoulders, hesitating for a deep sniff at Mason’s underarm, and down Mason’s injured arm.
It wasn’t easy for Mason to accept the wolf’s inspection without complaint, especially when he felt the bulge of a hard penis he wasn’t interested in getting to know better pushing at his groin, but he did it because he had to. He’d made it through a similar inspection three years ago, and by God, he could make it through again.
Keep still. Keep calm. Keep breathing.
That last bit was important, both an order to himself and a promise.
The wolf took one final sniff at Mason’s arm, then raised his head. “Your injuries aren’t limited to this cut. You’re bleeding under the skin. Here.”
The wolf pressed the palm of his hand to Mason’s left side where Lavi’s boot had caught him under the ribs, and Mason sucked in his breath.
He probably had a size twelve bruise, so yeah, lots of blood under the skin. Might possibly have a cracked rib, too, but he couldn’t be sure. He would have expected more pain if he did, but he knew pain wasn’t always the best indicator of injury.
He’d hardly noticed his broken wrist three years ago, until that wolf had made another grab for him.
But those were old, well-worn thoughts and he didn’t have time for them now.
The faint pre-dawn light didn’t let him see more than hints of the wolf’s expression, but Mason didn’t have any trouble seeing the shimmer of those sharp eyeteeth. Warmth bled through Mason’s cold, damp t-shirt to the flesh beneath where the wolf’s hand lingered on his bruised ribs.
Goosebumps rose on his skin and a small shudder coursed through him. It was only one patch of skin heating up at the wolf’s touch, but it was the warmest he’d felt in hours.
The hand at the back of Mason’s neck moved and fingers slid into his hair. Claws scratched gently along Mason’s scalp. Mason’s entire body tightened as a tingle raced down his spine and out along his nerve endings.
The goddamned wolf was petting him.
“I shouldn’t have breathed in so much of your scent—but it was impossible to resist. I want to fuck you, here, now. But I hear the challenge of another alpha nearby and smell his eagerness to find a mate. My priority must be getting you and your kin to a safer location before I give in to my urges.”
“That’d be good.” Mason wished he hadn’t sounded so weak and breathy, but he couldn’t seem to relax his stomach with the wolf’s hand still pressed so firmly to him.
Marcus moved a few cautious steps closer. “We have transportation, if we can get to it.”
“The den isn’t far. We will walk. It will give me something to focus on besides my need to fuck your kin.”
“But—”
A growl rose in the wolf’s chest.
“We’ll walk,” Mason said quickly. “No problem. Right, Marcus?”
Marcus was quiet for a moment. Then, “I guess we’re getting the hell out of here on foot.”
“Do not worry. We’ll travel quickly. I’m eager to show my new mate how much pleasure his submission will bring him.”
Before Mason could react to that statement, a gust of wind shook the trees and the howl of a wolf echoed off the nearby ridge.
The wolf’s chin rose, his eyes glowing with a fierce light. He sniffed deeply of the cool, damp air, then growled softly. “We must go now. A fight will burn off what’s left of the repression drugs. I won’t be able to maintain my control over my instincts when your human scent triggers my urge to mate. I do not want that.” The wolf’s claws flexed against Mason’s scalp. “And with your inexperience mating other males, neither do you.”
Mason swallowed past the sudden tightening of his throat. “No. Don’t think I do.”
“Then we will go,” the wolf said, and they did.
Chapter 6
The hike through the forest was grueling. Mason was tired into his bones, and it didn’t take much watching of his bother to see that Marcus wasn’t doing any better.
Daybreak finally came, and with it, a heavy fog. Although the wolf ranged ahead a few times, he never disappeared from Mason’s line of sight for more than a few minutes.
“Hey,” Mason asked breathlessly at one point, his voice echoing off a landscape he couldn’t see, “you want to tell us your name?”
The wolf spared him only one glance before returning his attention to the impenetrable fog ahead. “You can’t pronounce it.”
Mason shared a look with Marcus, who shrugged before puffing out another breath on the sharp incline they were struggling to get to the top of.
“Come on,” Mason said. “I’ve got to call you something.”
The wolf paused ahead of them, turning to face Mason. “Five.”
Mason puffed out another breath. “Huh?”
“Call me Five.”
Five? What the hell kind of name was that supposed to be?
“Gotcha. Five.” He shared another look with Marcus before grabbing the trunk of a young poplar the width of his thigh and hauling himself another few feet up the steep grade. He was still favoring his injured arm, but it had stopped hurting a while ago. He wasn’t sure whether to be worried or grateful about that.
He turned, putting his back to the tree for leverage, planted his heels firmly in the soft earth, then leaned down the steep grade and thrust his hand out.
Marcus pushed off his knees where he’d been bent double and straightened, taking hold of Mason’s wrist.
Mason used his grip to haul Marcus up beside him.
They’d been taking turns leading. Mason would have given up halfway up the mountainside if not for his brother. The wolf, Five—what the hell, why not?—had spent most of the climb in what appeared to be a hyper-alert state, watching, listening, sniffing for God’s sake, leaving Mason and Marcus to follow his effortless climb in any way they could.
They kept falling behind, and Five kept backtracking, but Mason assumed it was better than the alternative. Five seemed to know what he was doing, and Mason had quit worrying that a wolf pack was going to sneak up on them.
Besides, his brother had it right: one wolf wanting to fuck was better than a
pack of them.
A glance over his shoulder told him Five had moved ahead again. Mason could just see his back through the thick bramble growing between the trees.
With the changing seasons, the underbrush that crowded the woods had lost most of its foliage. But as Mason turned and started up the incline again, the briars still tore at his clothes and the thorny vines pricked at his skin and the tang of pine was so thick on the air it burned his lungs.
He didn’t know how Five stood it, with his inhumanly acute senses.
“Goddamned pine trees,” Marcus said.
“Could be snake season,” Mason said.
“I’d take a fucking snake over this shit. My hair feels like it’s glued to my skin. You know how pine trees make me itch.” To prove the point, Marcus started scratching at his forearm, cursing under his breath.
Mason grunted and pushed off the tree as Marcus passed him.
It took another ten minutes to reach the top.
Mason was breathing heavily when he stopped beside Five and looked out through the trees toward a one-story house in a field on the other side of a dip in the terrain. All he could make out was a solar roof rising above the heavy fog, but he could see the first rays of the sunrise in the distance.
Marcus came up beside Mason and put his hand on the trunk of an oak tree for support.
“The den,” Five said. “My pack has been waiting for my return.”
“Your pack,” Mason said.
Marcus looked at him sideways. “You had to know this was coming.”
Marcus was right, of course. Wolves didn’t live alone. They lived in packs.
Packs, just like the one they’d hoped to avoid by submitting to this wolf.
Goddammit. Why didn’t he seem to have any ability at all to think ahead? He glanced down. That knife was still in his—
Five reached over and gripped the back of Mason’s neck, interrupting Mason’s thought before it was fully formed.
Mason tensed. It was impossible not to—Five had claws that pricked at Mason’s skin, and he didn’t seem to know how to keep them sheathed.
Five applied pressure, inexorably drawing Mason closer, and Mason wondered just how much he could resist before—
Five did not allow him to resist.
Mason stumbled forward, until he was chest to chest with Five. He licked his bottom lip, dry from a long night without enough water and too much exertion.
Five’s eyes glittered like the deepest ocean in the darkest waters. “I’m trying to make allowances for your fear, but do not let it goad you into doing something foolish.”
Mason reached behind him for Five’s hand.
Five allowed Mason to drag that hand around and turn it so his claw-tipped fingers were in the air between them. “You’re right. I am afraid. You’d be afraid too if you knew one wrong word was all it took to put you at the end of a set of claws like these.”
Five’s eyebrows rose. He stared at his claws for a moment, then let out a soft breath. His eyes darkened. “But I have faced claws like these,” he said. “Many times.”
Mason tried not to show his annoyance. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.
But Five only let out another soft breath. “My pack won’t hurt you. Not intentionally. Not if you follow the rules meant to keep you safe. We don’t seek out violent confrontations with humans during the heat. Confrontations happen because humans seek us out.”
Mason wasn’t brave enough at that moment to say what he was thinking. But Five probably saw the truth in Mason’s eyes, because he settled one of his hands at Mason’s lower back and the other he slipped into Mason’s hair.
He leaned close. Hot breath grazed Mason’s earlobe. “You need an alpha to protect you, to lead you, to teach you the rewards of submission. You belong to me now. You’ll come to understand the benefits of having a strong mate. After we fuck, and you come to understand all the pleasures we can share as mates, we’ll mate.”
With that, Five sucked Mason’s earlobe between his teeth—and bit down.
A sharp tingle raced through Mason from scalp to toes. His whole body shuddered, hard enough to make his goddamned, traitorous cock twitch.
Fear. That was all it was. A rush of adrenaline, a reaction to the sensation crawling over his scalp and down his spine.
Fear? that goddamned, traitorous voice in his head echoed.
Fear, goddammit. Nothing else made sense.
“Uh, guys?”
Mason jerked. He shoved his hands up between him and Five so he could take a goddamned breath.
Five tilted his head, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a snarl. “He followed us.”
“I can see that,” Marcus said behind them, his voice high and tight.
Five released Mason and gave him a light shove in the direction of the field. “My pack will protect you while I fight. Go. Now.”
Mason glanced at Marcus who was still standing at the top of the steep incline, looking down.
The trees shook, too close.
Marcus raised his head, his eyes wide and worried. He hurried over to Mason and shoved his hand against Mason’s shoulder, hard. “Let’s go.”
Mason staggered a few steps backward, eyes stuck on Five’s fierce expression, then he spun around and started running, his blood already pounding through his veins.
Behind him, Five roared a challenge into the trees.
The answering roar came from much too close, savage and powerful.
Mason stumbled when he heard that sound, but Marcus was there to shove him forward and keep him on his feet.
The rising sun blinded him when he burst out of the trees and into the field, Marcus at his side.
Another roar reverberated through the air, and a harsh, guttural yell that sent a chill racing down Mason’s spine. Behind him, he heard a loud thud and the sound of leaves rattling with the shake of a tree. Birds cawed, taking to the air with fast and furious abandon.
Mason slowed, then stopped, gulping in air. He bent double, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
Marcus pulled up short. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Mason straightened and looked over his shoulder. “We can’t run into the middle of a pack of wolves without the alpha. You know what could happen.”
Marcus was already talking over him. “Don’t be a shitbrain. You’re not doing this. You heard what he said could happen if he gets in a fight. We have no guarantees he’ll win the damn thing!”
“I heard.” Mason turned back.
Marcus grabbed Mason’s arm and yanked. “Goddammit, Mace! He doesn’t need us. He could end up fucking you right in the goddamned woods before it’s all over!”
Mason jerked free. “You think it’s going to matter where we fuck? It won’t.”
“It will, goddammit.”
“Did it matter where you were when it happened to you?” He glared at Marcus. “If we face his pack without him, one of them could end up taking you for a mate and it’ll be last heat season all over again for you.”
Marcus’s mouth became a hard, flat line. “We’re not going back.”
“The hell I’m no—”
He barely dodged Marcus’s fist in time.
“What the fuck, Marcus!”
But it was a feint and Marcus used the distraction to kick Mason’s knee out from under him.
Mason hit the ground with a pained grunt.
“You goddamned shit.”
He tried to roll into Marcus’s legs but Marcus pressed his advantage and jumped on top of Mason, wrestling him into a chokehold—the same goddamn chokehold Mason had used on him earlier.
“Son of a bitch!” Mason yelled.
He grappled for the back of Marcus’s head, his fingers sliding out of hair that was essentially identical to his own—too soft and too short to use for leverage.
“Good for the goose,” Marcus said, wrapping his legs around Mason from behind and holding tight. “Now shut the fuck up and listen. We’re not going
back. He will fuck you—and there’s probably no way out of that. Been there, and when one of them wants a mate, he takes a goddamn mate. But you’re not going to be a fucking martyr about it because of what you think happened three years ago. Got it?”
Marcus’s arm had tightened, choking off Mason’s airway until Mason had no choice but to agree or let the spots forming at the edges of his vision completely overtake him.
He pushed it as far as he could before he nodded.
Marcus exhaled a heavy grunt and released Mason.
Mason coughed, then sucked in a few deep breaths and stared up at the bright morning sky. After a moment, he rolled over and let his head stop swimming, then pushed to his feet.
Marcus hurried to his feet beside Mason, watching the edge of the woods behind him.
Mason took one glance toward the woods, then turned to face the houses in the distance, still too far away for him to tell whether or not anyone was watching them come—or waiting for the opportunity to strike.
“I fucking hate you right now,” Mason said, but there was no heat in the words.
“Sure you do.” Marcus shoved at Mason’s shoulder. “Move, goddammit.”
Mason moved.
Four minutes later, Mason and Marcus stumbled up the path that led to the front door of the closest house. Mason was breathing hard, exhausted to his core from running up the slope that looked a lot gentler—and shorter—from the tree line than it really was. He scanned the front of the house, then the neighboring houses, but saw no one.
Still, his neck prickled and he couldn’t stop feeling like they were being watched.
He made it to the front door first, almost collapsing against the wood frame. Shiny, clear windows let him see straight into the front room.
No one waited inside. Only masses of pillows piled high at the edges of the room, eight straight-backed chairs, and a dark, round dining table.
“This is creepy as fucking hell,” Marcus said quietly beside him, his hands framing his face so he could see through the window. “I expected a welcoming party at least, claws out maybe, but not this…”
“We’ll try the—”
The lock released at the first touch of his hand on the flat panel, startling him into silence.