STORY EXCERPT

Detective Ryan Miller couldn’t take it anymore. He was going insane stuck here in this fucking cage, and he wanted out. Now.

He slammed his whole body against the bars and threw the books he’d been given through them and against the basement walls of his prison. He yelled and kicked and raged with everything he had, but the fucking bars wouldn’t break. It hurt just touching them, but he didn’t give a shit about that or about the burning welts his skin produced whenever he punched the bars or gripped them with his fingers either. He was done caring.

One of the men had told him the bars were made out of silver and that they would keep him in place, preventing him from tearing away at the round and thin strips of metal.

Silver. Yeah fucking right. More likely someone had just coated the bars with some kind of acid. He had no idea what it was on the periodic table that would burn human skin without eating through the metal bars of this overly large dog cage he was in, but that was hardly the main topic on his mind.

He just wanted out.

It had been more than three weeks since he’d come to this land owned by James DeWitt and had seen all those fucked up things, including watching his former lover and the officer on duty with him, Decker, get shot in the back of the head.

He’d been shot, too. Ryan had taken a slug in the gut, and he’d gone down, but he kept on shooting his gun, emptying all the bullets he had into the things that had wanted to attack him.

Some of them had been other people with guns, and then there had been the giant wolves.

They were enormous. Ryan hadn’t known wolves could become that size, some of which were about the same size as, or maybe even bigger than, a standard grizzly bear.

He would never believe those creatures were werewolves, though. He was an intelligent man, educated, and definitely not superstitious. That was a hallucination if he ever saw one. And that man who’d seemingly changed from wolf to naked male right in front of him? That had to be a hallucination as well.

Maybe there was something in the air around this place. Maybe these people were part of some kind of cult, and maybe they also believed the things they saw around here to be real.

Whatever it was, Ryan had watched as they’d all, with grim faces, collected the bodies of their dead, along with the dead bodies of the men who’d attacked them, and quietly took them away into the woods somewhere. Ryan assumed it was bury them and hide the evidence of what had happened.

He had already been halfway out of it by that time. Watching through the window, lying on a bed, while that same naked man from before had worked to take Ryan’s clothes off.

Nothing sexual had happened, that Ryan could recall, but his mind was hardly with him while that man cut him with something. He’d only taken his eyes away from the goings on outside to look for the cause of the stinging on his arms and legs, and when he looked, he’d wished that he hadn’t.

It had to be another hallucination. Either that or the guy was wearing some kind of gloves.

His hands had become large, the skin leathery and darker than what was on his arms, chest, and face. They were brown compared to the rest of his tanned skin, and the knuckles were gnarled and huge.

What was even stranger was the hair. A patch of black hair, fur, really, on the top of his hand, and at the very end of his brown fingers were sharp black claws. The points were so profound they could have been needles.

And this guy was using them to make long scratches all up and down his legs, arms, neck, and chest.

Then, in a strange act of kindness, the man put his hand under Ryan’s neck and gently lifted him. A cool glass was put to his lips, and Ryan drank.

In that strange accent that was not quite English or Scottish, or anything else from Europe that Ryan could identify, the man had said, “Take all that ye be needin’. Yer body will need the liquid for the next part.”

Ryan hadn’t liked the sound of that at all. Then he understood why as he screamed at the burning fire that plunged into his stomach.

He arched his back, trying to get away from the sensation, but the bastard put his hand down on Ryan’s chest and forced him to endure the torture.

Ryan didn’t think he was so kind after that.

Then it was over, and Ryan looked down again at the hand, or glove, or whatever it was, and saw how bloody it was, as well as the bullet between his dripping fingers.

“Could’ve taken me to a hospital for that part,” Ryan said.

“What is a hospital?” the man asked.

Ryan supposed it was a good thing that he’d passed out right then because otherwise he might’ve screamed again.

ADULT EXCERPT

Blasius expected another attack. He thought for certain that Rhyan would thrust those claws of his deep into Blasius’s neck, killing him and sending him back to that awful spirit world.

Rhyan’s teeth came down, and Blasius braced himself for the coming bite.

Those sharp teeth came down on his neck, they bit him, but Rhyan did not bite into him. The bites were loving nips, and his lips suckled on the places where his teeth had touched. Rhyan groaned, his hips moving against Blasius’s cock, and Blasius released a small, relieved moan as he was pleasured.

He gripped Rhyan’s hips as his mate humped against him, searching for friction for his own aching prick.

Rhyan had not been about to make the shift. He’d been excited for the mating, and his body was now taking control.

“Oh, that’s it,” Blasius moaned, lifting his knees and pushing his hips back against Rhyan’s thrusting cock. He turned Rhyan’s head, forcing the other man to look at him as they rutted against each other.

His eyes were still golden, but they contained traces of human thought. He knew what he was doing. He wanted it.

“What did you do to me?” Rhyan asked, his voice a barely audible gasp.

“Nothing. Ye are doing it.”

Blasius brought Rhyan’s mouth down onto his, kissing the other man, thrusting his tongue inside Rhyan’s hot cavern and unconcerned about the teeth. Rhyan wanted to mate with him. He would not harm Blasius.

The soft bite his tongue received told him otherwise, and he pulled back with a groan, just to have his own mouth invaded by Rhyan’s slick, searching tongue.

Rhyan had not been an omega in their previous life together. It seemed that now he was not one either. Blasius should have predicted this.

Rhyan groaned and moaned with wanton abandon, his hips thrusting quickly against Blasius’s, and Blasius entirely forgot their surroundings as he threw his head back with a moan. The smack of his skull against the concrete floor was a painful one, but the pulsing pleasure against his prick more than took his mind away from any pain he felt.

He would not be the one to perform the claiming this night. Good. He’d hoped for that much.

“Rhyan,” Blasius said, managing to separate their mouths for only a second before Rhyan took command of his lips once more.

Blasius put his hands in Rhyan’s hair, less than eager to separate them again now that his mate was finally, willingly, kissing him after so many years apart.

Blasius could die like this and be a perfectly happy werewolf. He wrapped his arms around Rhyan’s back, clutching the other man tightly to him, not releasing him even when he heard the small grunt of pain that Rhyan released.

How could he release him? His mate was in his arms once more, and they were fucking as passionately as they had done over a thousand years ago. Blasius had never felt so much happiness before. He would never allow anyone to harm this man again.

Blasius gripped Rhyan’s dark hair in his fingers and forced his head back so that they were separated once more. It forced Rhyan to open his eyes and look at Blasius, at least.

“Let me get to my knees, and then fuck me,” Blasius commanded.

Rhyan’s only response was a low growl, but he lifted himself off of Blasius, allowing him to get onto his knees as he’d said.

Blasius did so quickly, thrusting his bum out for Rhyan to take. He couldn’t recall if they had ever mated like this before. In all of the memories Blasius had retained from their previous life, it had always been Blasius to take the role of the seducer, but now that he was in this position, the bones of his knees in pain from the hard flooring, he knew that they must have come together like this before. It felt too natural for them to not have done this.

Rhyan gripped his hips and then spat into one of his hands. Blasius looked over his shoulder in time to watch the other man stroking himself, his face contorted in pleasure as he spread his saliva over his cock.

Blasius appreciated that Rhyan was able to think of even that much, but Blasius had also taken precautions of his own. He’d made sure to grease himself with a substance he’d found upstairs before coming down here. He was more than ready for this.

This those golden eyes of his then opened, and Rhyan growled again, a possessive sound, and he plunged into Blasius’s hole.