A Grey Wolves Howliday

by Quinn Loftis

  Fane swallowed hard and forced his own emotions under control. The pain had been breathtaking at times, literally. Jacquelyn would hold him at night and just let him go through whatever emotion consumed him in the darkness of their bedroom. He couldn’t imagine not having her there, not having her touch open to him whenever he needed it. He wouldn’t have survived his parents’ death without her. Costin sat down at his feet, his leg resting on top of Fane’s. Lucian took on the same position, only his leg rested on top of Adam’s foot. To humans, it probably would have looked weird. But to their wolves it was normal and necessary. If they were in their wolf forms, they would be piled in a pack tightly around each other, and probably laying on top of Adam. which, for a fae, might be strange. But the man was one of Fane’s pack, and Adam needed his mate and his pack mates.

  “Can you feel her now?” Fane asked the fae.

  Adam nodded. “Only just.”

  “So, she hasn’t completely shut down the bond. That’s a good sign,” he explained. “When did she stop letting you touch her and to what extent?”

  Adam shifted, and Fane could feel his unease.

  “I’m not asking about your physical intimacy,” Fane explained. “That question is already answered if she’s not letting you get close. I want to know how much of your touch she will allow.”

  Adam cleared his throat. “At first, she sought me out.” His voice was full of longing as he spoke. “She wanted me close all the time. I loved it.” A wistful smile momentarily adorned his face, as if he were enjoying the memory. “I never feel calm … or … I’m not sure how to explain it, but something is missing when we’re not touching. But as soon as I hold her hand or wrap my arms around her, I’m whole again. I can breathe.”

  Fane watched Adam’s expressions as he spoke. The alpha leaned harder against him as he saw the male’s eyes take on a glassy sheen. The fae would find no judgment here for a single tear he cried, especially not tears shed for a true mate.

  “She would just sit in my lap with her head on my shoulder for hours,” he continued. He closed his eyes briefly, as if remembering those moments. “Sometimes, she would talk. Other times, she would ask me to talk, I think, to distract her. I could feel her pain. Occasionally, it was so strong that my body physically ached. At one point, when it got really bad, I tried taking some of it through the bond, so she wouldn’t have to bear it all.”

  Fane and the three other males all made rumbling sounds, their wolves recognizing that Crina’s wolf would not have taken that well. It would have made her feel inadequate.

  “I guess that was the wrong thing to do?” Adam asked, looking around at them.

  “We’ll get to that,” Fane assured him. “Go on with the rest.” Fane could tell Adam needed to share everything he’d been dealing with on his own. How many times had Fane’s father told him that very thing? He’d say, “You aren’t alone, Fane. Let those who love you be there when you need it.” Vasile’s voice filled his mind for a moment and then disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  Adam let out a humorless laugh. “I guess that’s about when it started. But it was slow. It wasn’t like one day I could hold her, kiss her, and love her, and then I couldn’t. It was subtle. I’d pull her to me, and she’d let me hold her, but gradually I noticed the amount of time she’d stay in my arms became shorter and shorter. Kissing her…” he whispered, his eyes filled with wonder even as a single tear slowly ran down his cheek, “I never knew it could be so addictive. I didn’t know it could be more than just lust. I didn’t realize I’d come to thirst for her taste. That sounds abnormal, doesn’t it?”

  “If you think that’s weird, you probably don’t want to know what all we wolves get addicted to when it comes to our mates,” Costin said with a small smile. “Sally is a human. For most of her life, she knew nothing of the supernatural world. Even knowing what she does now, she still thinks I’m creepy. And that’s only because of the things she actually knows I desire.” Costin tapped his forehead. “The really kinky things, I keep locked up tight. She’d run away, then I’d have to chase her, which would make me a stalker and even more creepy. Believe me, you’re practically normal compared to one of us.” He motioned to himself and the other wolves.

  Fane couldn’t help but chuckle. “In other words, no. It doesn’t sound strange, abnormal, or anything else. But if you need more reassurance, we could get really strange.”

  “So, it’s not weird that I sometimes stare at her mouth for hours?” Adam asked. “Or that I’m to the point of begging her to let me kiss her? Or begging her to touch me, even if her touch is violent? I don’t care. She could slap me or beat on me. I just want her.”

  “That’s pretty much foreplay to Canis lupus,” Costin said. “I think we’re going to have to make a mating handbook for the mixed-race mated pairs.”

  “How long has it been?” Decebel asked Adam.

  “Thirty-two days”—he glanced at his watch—“thirty-five minutes, and forty-eight seconds since I last kissed her.”

  “Are you sure you’re not part wolf?” Costin asked. “Because that was extremely specific, like wolf specific.”

  Lucian nodded his head, agreeing with Costin. “My wolf knows the number of hours since we last touched Perizada. He gets snappy when it’s been too long.”

  “How long is too long?” Adam asked.

  Lucian’s smile made Fane smile because he knew what his uncle would say. “The moment we’re no longer touching her.”

  “Okay, you males are definitely making me feel less neurotic,” Adam said, but the frown lines on his forehead didn’t show reassurance.

  “So, for the first two months since my parents’ deaths, Crina allowed you to be her comfort?” Fane said. “You were her security. She turned to you for everything? And now, she doesn’t come to you for anything?”

  Adam’s face darkened as his eyes flashed with something dangerous. “Are you suggesting she’s going to someone else for those things now?”

  “Please tell me you did not let that thought get through the bond,” Decebel growled.

  “True mates don’t cheat. Ever,” Costin said, his voice no longer light and playful. It was a painful topic for him. Fane knew it was not because he felt like Sally cheated on him, but because she still had moments of horrific guilt, even though they weren’t deserved. Costin had shared that with Fane when he and Sally had returned from Texas. She was doing well, and getting better every day, because Costin was there reminding her constantly that nothing had changed for him.

  “Then what are you getting at?” Adam asked Fane, the anger still lurking in his eyes.

  “I think she’s pining, for one thing, but I don’t think that’s all of it,” Fane replied. “You mentioned you tried to take some of her pain through the bond.”

  Adam nodded.

  “You did that because you need to care for her. You don’t have the ability to not take care of her.” Fane tried to work through his thoughts to explain this in a way that Adam would understand. “How much of your pain have you shared with her?”

  Adam frowned. “Why would I share my pain with her when she has more than enough of her own?”

  “Ahh.” Costin nodded, looking at Fane. “I see where you’re going with this.”

  “It’s natural for Crina to turn to you as her mate. You’re two halves of one soul. But that goes both ways. Her wolf expects you to turn to her for your comfort. She also needs to know that you need her.”

  Adam started to speak, but Fane shook his head. “When you tried to take her pain, your bond would have been fully opened, like soul-bearingly open. She would have felt everything.” He paused and then tilted his head as he looked at the fae. “You knew my parents.” It wasn’t a question, simply a fact.

  “I did.” Adam’s tone softened. “For a long time. They meant a lot to me, for many reasons. One being that they’d kept my mate safe until she was given to me.”

  “You also had a bond with them. Maybe not the same as a
wolf, but you still felt their death.”

  Adam nodded.

  “What did you do with that pain? How did you deal with it?” Fane narrowed his eyes on Adam. “Who helped you bear the loss?”

  The fae male looked confused as he gazed into the male wolves’ faces. “But she needed me,” he said, his voice desperate for them to understand. “I wanted to make sure she knew I could be what she needed.”

  “She needed to be the same thing for you, just as much as she needed to lean on you,” Fane told him. “Her wolf, she feels every bit as possessive as you do for her. When she felt you open the bond and realized you were hurting and you hadn’t come to her, hadn’t sought out her comfort the way she’d been doing with you, she most likely felt very inadequate.”

  “And useless,” Costin added, as he picked at a blade of grass, his own demons having surfaced, no doubt.

  “And weak,” Decebel offered.

  “She felt like you couldn’t trust her to be your support,” Lucian explained, patting Adam’s leg. “You are equals. Different, but equal. Crina came to you with all of herself. She expected you to do the same.”

  “I just wanted—” Adam started.

  “To protect her,” Fane finished. “Even at your own expense. You thought you were protecting her from your emotions because she was already feeling so much of hers.”

  “Yes.” Adam breathed out. “So, she’s punishing me?”

  “No,” Fane said quickly. “I don’t think so. At least, not on purpose. I think she feels like a burden to you. In a weird way, she thinks she’s protecting you now. Like you did with your own emotions. She’s keeping hers from being a burden to you. But for a wolf, that means there can be no touching, no intimacy. Her emotions would come through without her even realizing it.”

  “But she said nothing about it when we were still sleeping together.” Adam growled as he ran his hands through his hair, his body tensing. “She never acted like she could feel my pain then.”

  “Holy shi—” Costin began, but Decebel nudged him with his foot.

  “I mean, crap,” Costin corrected. “You guys aren’t sleeping in the same bed? Not even with stacks of pillows between you? That’s what Sally does, as if a few pillows will keep my wolf away. You definitely should have bitten her by now.”

  Fane didn’t disagree with Costin, but he wanted to keep Adam focused and listening. “Maybe because you’re fae, and no offense, but the emotions of your race tend to be non-accessible. Perhaps that allows you to keep the bond closed down enough not to let the emotions you don’t want through, even when you’re touching, kissing, and the rest,” Fane said, as he considered the true mate bond and how it worked between two wolves. It was probably different between different races. How could it not be?

  “He means the even more addictive stuff than kissing.” Costin smiled. “If you still need to feel less creepy, I can get more descriptive.”

  “I think he’s got it,” Decebel muttered.

  “Sorry.” Costin sobered. “I deal with stress by turning to sex, either literally or talking about it. I blame his mate.” He pointed at Decebel.

  Adam chuckled. “Thanks for that piece of information. You’re definitely making me feel less weird.”

  “Costin has become the resident example of what happens to a wolf if he loses his mate,” Decebel explained. “Jen was worried he was going to smother Sally, literally, though not on purpose.”

  Costin shrugged. “She’s mine. I would never hurt her, but I wouldn’t allow her to pull herself away from me.” He looked Adam right in the eye as he spoke, and Fane could feel the intensity of Costin’s words. “I used whatever means I had to in order to keep her close to me, allowing me to touch her.”

  “Like what?” Adam asked. His eyes watched Costin closely as he leaned toward the wolf.

  “Mostly seduction.” Costin smiled slowly. “You have a unique effect on your mate that no other male would or could ever have. Think of how much you crave her. Right now. Think about it. Describe it.” Costin narrowed his eyes, challenging Adam to open himself up and let them help him. The things that came naturally to them as Canis lupus males obviously did not come naturally to a mated male of a different race.

  Adam bit his bottom lip. One of his legs bounced up and down while he continued to meet Costin’s eyes. He was a pretty dominant male to be able to hold the stare of Fane’s third-ranking wolf.

  “How much do you crave her?” Costin asked again, more slowly. “Right now. What are you feeling?”

  “I crave her like every breath is going to be my last if I don’t have her.”

  “Good, keep going,” Costin encouraged, his voice rumbling a bit as his own emotions rose.

  “When I’m in the same room with her, I can’t take my eyes off of her. The whole damn world could burn around us, and she would be all I see. I’ve even … damn this is embarrassing.”

  “I promise you,” Fane said, “you’re safe with us. We’ve all done worse, I’m sure.”

  “I seduced Sally in her sleep,” Costin said, no shame present in his face. “When she forbade me from touching her. Right in front of everyone. She was pissed.” He looked very pleased with himself.

  Adam sighed. “A few times when she’s slept, I’ve used my magic to make sure she was in a deep enough sleep that she wouldn’t feel me. Then I held her. It wasn’t for long because her wolf isn’t as susceptible to my magic. The wolf would wake up pretty quickly, and then I’d have to flash from the room. Sometimes I would just sit there, close enough to feel her breath on my face.”

  “Can’t you do that thing where people can’t see you?” Costin asked, a jealous look on his face.

  “Yes, but don’t be envious. It doesn’t work on my mate. I’ve tried. The bond is too deep. Much of my magic isn’t very effective on her. She’s gotten curious in the past, and we’ve experimented.” Adam’s smile dropped as though the memories hurt too much to even think about. “I feel like I’m losing her,” he admitted. “For the past month, I’ve wondered if maybe our bond isn’t as… I don’t know. Maybe it’s not as unbreakable as the bond between two wolves. Maybe because we’re not the same species the bond is different.”

  “If she left you, what would you do?” Fane asked.

  “I’d follow her,” Adam said without shame. “I would be glued to her side. She would never be free of me because I never want to be free of her.”

  “You wouldn’t let her go even if it was what she wanted? If she told you it’s what would make her happy?” Decebel asked, a hint of ridiculousness in his question.

  Flames danced in Adam’s eyes, and his body hummed with power. “She’s mine. My mate. The other half of my soul. Why would I let the other half of my soul leave me when it would hurt us both?”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Costin said. “But let me put it in wolf terms for you. Words that Crina would understand. If Sally came to me and said she wanted to leave, if she said ‘Costin, I just think I’d be happier without you.’” His voice rose as he tried to sound like his female. “‘I don’t know if I love you anymore. I need you to give me some time.’” He stopped, and his eyes glowed with his wolf. “My response would be, ‘Sally-mine, I hear you. I believe your feelings are valid. But the only way you’re getting rid of me is by killing me, and baby, even then you’re stuck with me.’ I’ve done it before. She thought she couldn’t be with me after…” He cleared his throat as his voice tightened. Fane placed a hand on his shoulder. “After she was taken from me. She thought she was going to leave me. I’m not ashamed to say that I did everything I could to make her see that by my side is where she belongs. Did that include forcing her to accept my touch? Yes. I would hold her even when she struggled, because I could feel her soul crying out for me. Even when she told me to go away, I was ruthless in my pursuit of her.

  “The way you crave Crina? She craves you just as badly. You need to exploit the shi—” He stopped and looked at Decebel.

  “You need
to exploit the shit out of that,” Decebel continued for Costin. If Decebel was cursing, then he was emotional indeed.

  Adam turned to look at Fane. What did his alpha think? Fane could see the question in his eyes. “I’ve done the same with Jacquelyn,” Fane admitted. And he felt his wolf agreeing with him when he said, “I’d do it again. I’d do anything to keep her with me.” Fane felt his teeth sharpen as his wolf pushed at him. “Even now, I want to be with her. I want to watch her, touch her, kiss her, and I will, even if she decides she’s pissed at me for some reason. Because she needs me like I need her. My wolf understands that, and her wolf responds to the dominance in me.” He smiled. “She likes to push back. But in the end, she wants to be caught. She wants me to growl at her and chase her. But what she likes most is when I catch her.”

  “What if she pushes me away?” Adam asked, allowing his vulnerability to come through. Being rejected by your mate was excruciating.

  “You push back,” Fane said. “With your words, your actions, your love. With every breath, you endeavor to make her see she belongs with you.”

  Long after Fane had finished speaking, the five males continued to sit in silence. Fane could feel the tension pushing at Adam, but he could also feel the fae’s fear. He continued to lean against Adam’s side, as did Decebel opposite him, so they could let him feel through their touch and through the pack bonds that he wasn’t alone. They would sit there with him for as long as it took for him to be ready to take the next step. It was one of their wolves’ better qualities—patience. It wasn’t until long after the sun had set and the moon was beginning to make its appearance that Adam spoke again. “Thank you,” he said simply.