STORY EXCERPT

“Easy, man, fuck! This is going to hurt like a bitch! Try and hold still, I have to get this thing off you.” There was a metallic scraping sound, and then the pain in his foot intensified. It felt like it was getting ripped off. Then there was blessed relief as the pain began to ease a little.

Charlie lay there panting for a few minutes with darkness circling and a roaring noise in his ears before his head slowly cleared. Able to lift his head now, he glanced back quickly to check his foot was actually still attached, then struggled to rise and stand on three very shaky legs. The fourth leg ended in the mangled mess that the trap had made of his foot. He didn’t want to look at it too closely, afraid of what he might see. His liberation from the trap had given him the necessary energy to stand and look properly at his rescuer. It was a much older Jason. The boy he had known was nearly a man, taller, broader across the shoulders, and his face was slimmer. Charlie chuffed at him, the first face that was both familiar and friendly that he had seen in a very long time.

“Can you make it to Carden?” Jason asked, looking at him doubtfully, and Charlie chuffed again, hobbling forward a few paces. Every movement sent a wave of agonising sensation through him, and he had to struggle not to be sick. But he would let nothing stop him now that he was so close.

The last time he had seen Jason, the boy as he had been then had been unable to shift yet. That had obviously changed as he started to strip out of his clothes. Once he was naked, his body rippled and sprouted fur, bones twisting and contorting in a very painful looking transformation. Though, as Charlie knew, after the first time it happened there was no pain involved. The transformation took only moments, and soon there was another wolf standing next to Charlie’s own furry body. The second wolf’s fur had a more rusty edge to it than his own brown colouring, and he was quite obviously not fully grown yet. His leggy form stood in stark contrast to the pitiful figure Charlie made.

Jason’s wolf sniffed at him, whining at the scent of the unusual sickness his situation had caused, that and the filth of the cells that still clung to his fur. They set off slowly, shoulder to shoulder, making their way through the trees. Charlie leaned against Jason when he needed the support. He needed it often, and he thanked Jason with a whine or a lick to the ear every time. There were long periods where all Charlie could do was stumble forward, letting his paws swing under him as his head swam. Jason kept him upright, and Charlie knew he would have never made it without him.

Several rather long hours later, they broke through the tree line around several houses that were spaced apart. They were going even slower now than their initial painstaking pace, but they eventually approached the largest house. The houses, along with a few others that were still out of sight among the trees, made up the hamlet called Whithowe-cum-Carden and were made up of a mixture of brick and stone. Most of the residents just used the last part of the name, calling it Carden.

When Charlie collapsed at the bottom of the front steps, Jason shifted and bolted to the door. He hammered on it and rushed inside without waiting for a response.

Perry was concentrating heavily on the numbers in front of him when the banging on the front door tore his attention away from the screen.

“Perry? Perry! Where are you?”

“In the office, Jase, what’s wrong?” Perry rose and went to stand half out of the office door. He watched while a naked Jason slid to a halt in front of him, skidding slightly on the glossy finish of the parquet wood floor. Each and every one of the boy’s thousands of freckles showed vividly against the paleness of his body.

“He’s here, man! He’s real sick, but he’s back!” Jason turned and ran back the way he had come, vanishing again.

There was only one person Jason could be talking about. Going pale for a moment and leaning heavily against the doorframe, Perry drew a deep breath, the ever-present ache in his chest pulsing with a new awareness, then he took off after the other man.

Perry found Jason crouched outside next to an unconscious, emaciated brown wolf. “What…”— Perry swallowed, trying to contain his terror at the sight of Charlie— “what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I found him hours ago, stuck in a damn bear trap. He must have been there for days, judging by the state of him. I didn’t know if he would make it back here. God knows how he did. I would have come to get help, but I couldn’t leave him. Not after the way he disappeared last time. I couldn’t leave him alone.” Jason looked between Perry and the wolf at his feet rather wildly.

Perry laid a reassuring hand on Jason’s freckled shoulder. Jason had done well and should know that Perry was proud of him and how he had reacted to the situation. Perry’s gaze swung to the wolf’s feet, and the big man fell to his knees and moaned as if in pain himself.

“Charlie, what happened to you?” He buried his trembling fingers and his face in the dirty and matted fur around Charlie’s neck. The smell of sickness worried him even more than Charlie’s tattered appearance. “Get Doc.” His voice was muffled slightly by the fur, but Jason’s enhanced shifter hearing must have picked the words up easily enough because he set off running once again after jumping up.

Back less than four minutes later followed by a tiny brunette woman clutching a heavy black bag, Jason led the way into the house and up to Perry’s bedroom, knowing that’s where he would find his Alpha and the wolf. Perry would not have taken his mate anywhere else. Hannah, the brunette, let out a gasp of horror at the state of the wolf on the bed before getting her game face on and setting to work.

ADULT EXCERPT

Something niggled at the back of Perry’s mind, but he could not think. Charlie filled his senses. He circled Charlie’s hole and felt the quiver under his very dry finger. Fuck, he thought, that’s what I couldn’t think of. We don’t have any lube.

Charlie must have felt him tense and start to draw away, because he growled the moment their lips separated. “Don’t you dare stop now.” There were hints of desperation and panic back in his eyes, scared Perry would push him away again, belying the confidence in his voice.

“Lube. Don’t want to stop. Don’t have lube. Need it.” Perry knew his words were not entirely coherent, but he felt vaguely surprised at what he managed to put together.

“Trousers…” Charlie wiggled against Perry, this time to be put down.

“Huh?” He wants to leave? Perry was stunned, and he didn’t want to let Charlie go.

“Down, Perry, put me down. Gotta hunch.” He wiggled again, which Perry rather enjoyed but he stepped back a pace and let Charlie slide down his body until his feet were on the ground.

Charlie staggered over to where he had dropped his clothes and searched through the pockets of his jeans. “Hallelujah.” He waved something in the air and tossed it at Perry.

Perry reached out and snatched the object out of the air as it hurtled towards him. He looked down to see he held a small tube of lube.

“God bless Cameron.” Charlie grinned happily as he stood and sauntered back over, his surprisingly large cock bouncing with each hip-hitching stride.

Wait, what? “Why would Cameron be giving you lube?” Perry felt the jealousy stir again, cooling his ardour.

“Oh, stop it. I felt him slip something into my pocket right before Jake dragged him off, and thank god he did. Now we have lube…”

“Just out of interest…you never answered my question…” Perry suddenly got mighty interested in what Charlie was doing behind his back. His as yet unclaimed mate had grabbed the tube back, squirted some lube out onto his own fingers, and reached behind himself while they were talking. He braced a closed fist, the one holding the lube, on Perry’s chest and leaned in towards Perry.

“Uh…” Charlie’s eyes glazed over a bit, and his breathing grew faster. “Which…which ques…tion…again?”

“Back at the picnic, what was…”

Charlie gave a small moan.

“What was going on with Cameron?”

“Oh, that…He…wanted to…provoke you. I’d say…it worked.”

“Oh, I’ll say.” The sight of his mate’s flushed cheeks and hectic breathing became too much and Perry growled. He grabbed Charlie, who yelped as the jolt jogged his fingers from his body.

Perry hurriedly laid his mate down on the smoothest, grassiest bit of the forest floor he could see. He pushed Charlie’s legs up to expose his twitching hole. Taking the lube back again, he squeezed some out directly onto Charlie’s crease and found he could immediately slide two fingers in with ease after Charlie’s own ministrations. Charlie gave a small cry and arched his back up as Perry began working his fingers in and out and leaned down and took just the tip of Charlie’s cock into his mouth.

“Shit. Gonna come.”

Perry sucked harder, bobbing his head up and down, and hummed around Charlie’s cock just as his fingers found the small gland farther in. He wanted Charlie as relaxed as possible and knew that, thanks to their shifter bodies and libidos, his mate could be ready for round two in moments if he kept stimulation up. Charlie went rigid as if he had been electrocuted and gave a hoarse cry, seed exploding from his dick in a rush down Perry’s throat. Charlie seemingly hadn’t even noticed Perry had slipped a third finger in with the first two and had him nearly ready.

Perry licked at Charlie’s barely softened shaft. While it filled again and hardened, he continued to loosen the ring of muscle. When he thought Charlie ready, he withdrew his fingers and rose above his mate. Charlie squirmed under him, begging without words for Perry to fill him. He slicked himself up and positioned his cock at Charlie’s entrance. He smiled tremulously down at his mate, hardly able to believe they were here together and about to do this. There was a flash of something in Charlie’s eyes, something Perry did not like.

“Hey, you with me?”

“Yes.” Charlie’s shoulders had gone slightly stiff.

“Charlie, I can still stop.”

“No! No, I want you. Please.” Charlie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The tension eased out of him, and he opened his eyes again. The shadows had gone and they were clear and bright once more. “Okay.”

Moving forward oh so slowly felt like torture as he felt Charlie’s guardian muscles give way. As much as he wanted him, Perry was hyperaware the only experience his mate had to date had been extremely violent, so he went slowly. A sweat broke out on his forehead and body as he struggled to keep himself in check. He braced himself with his right hand next to Charlie’s head on the ground and trembled to feel his cock being accepted into Charlie’s body as he guided it with his left hand.

Charlie looked up at him, panting softly and making little noises of pleasure, his hands hooked behind his knees, holding himself open for Perry. Finally, Perry felt his balls squash up against his mate, and he held still to let Charlie’s body adjust, his dick fully seated.