STORY EXCERPT

He took the risk. The chain link fence made a slight noise, but no one turned his way, and Maddox ducked behind the tend. He could hear everything so much clearer now, as though he was in his human form and standing in the tent with the other two men.

"I'm...I don't know, but I thought we were going to fight them, this was...Jesus Christ, you just tied him down here and left him to bleed out! What the hell was I supposed to do?"

"Not bandage him. You were supposed to make his death quicker, you were supposed to prove that you were ready."

Ready? Ready to be a hunter?

Maddox's heart sank.

That beautiful voice spoke up again, catching his attention right away.

"I don't...I'm not comfortable with this anymore. I'm resigning. Forget it."

"You're not going anywhere."

Maddox had to act. He couldn't see what was happening inside of the tent, but he had a good enough idea, and his instincts were buzzing, alive and desperate to move, to act, to lash out.

He couldn't stop himself. He shifted into his human shape, and then quickly pulled up the bottom of the tent and lifted it up, allowing himself to get inside without going around.

He was spotted right away, the wide eyes of the young recruit and the older man who had been speaking before landing right on him.

There was almost no hesitation as they realized what he was.

"Shoot him!"

Maddox was too fast. He dodged out of the way of the bullet that had been meant for him, rolled, got back to his feet, and lunged at the younger man holding the gun.

Maddox grabbed him by the arm and twisted good and hard.

The scream of the young hunter was so damned loud that it probably made the ears of every hunter in the compound ring.

Maddox threw him back, right at the older hunter as the man reached for his own pistol.

Too late. A young body had been thrown on him, pinning him down. Not for long, and now Maddox could hear the shouts of the other hunters coming their way.

He looked over to where the scent of blood was coming from. A body was tied down to a metal table. A male that Maddox didn't recognize. A young man was on his ass on the ground, wearing the same green uniform that the other hunter and older human were wearing.

He stared at Maddox with wide, scared blue eyes, and Maddox was immediately transfixed, his mind going into a tailspin as lust and desire shot into him and exploded throughout his body.

Mate. His wolf screamed it at him. This was his mate, and he was wearing the garb of a hunter.

And then he was brought back to reality.

People were coming. People who would take away his mate. Take him away and hurt him even more than a punch to the face, if that red mark was anything to go by.

There was another metal table, empty, and Maddox grabbed onto it. He lifted it above his head and threw it at the opening flaps of the tent just as they flew open, because even though this was a tent, of course the humans would go for the more obvious door.

He got several humans in the head with that shot, and their guns were pulled out.

"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Shouted the older human.

Maddox grabbed for his mate, ignoring the younger man's shout of panic. He slung the boy over his shoulder and ran. One long swipe created a door of his own at the back of the tent, and he was gone.

"He's going around the back! Get him! The wolf's going out the back!"

The older male didn't need to shout it out since there were already a couple of humans waiting for him.

Maddox surprised them, however, and himself. He body checked one of them, knocking him over, and was forced to ignore the other as he leaped cleanly over the eight foot tall fence. It was all about dodging bullets after that, and there weren't many.

Three shots. That was all he heard before someone else shouted a cease fire.

"He's got a hostage! Don't shoot!"

Those three bullets that had been fired, however, were a big enough worry for Maddox that he needed to find someplace to take his mate, because the man was now hanging limply over his shoulder, and oh fuck, what if he'd been hit? What if Maddox found his mate and tried to take him, just for the young man to be killed before Maddox could even learn his name?

Run, run, run. Don't think about it, don't look back, just run away and meet up with Markus. That was all Maddox could do for now.

ADULT EXCERPT

Maddox leaned in and kissed the man.

Mine. The thought was as much his own as it was his wolf's.

There would be no more discussing it. No more giving chances for either of them to back out. Maddox needed this, his body craved it, and his wolf demanded that he take it.

He couldn't hold back anymore, so he wasn't going to try to.

This was exactly what he needed, and from the mewling little moans that came from his mate's mouth, it was what he needed as well.

Todd lifted his hands and put them up into Maddox's short hair, his fingers lacing through the strands and gripping him tight.

Maddox grunted at the slight pain, but he also liked it. He loved the spike in sensations that his body desperately cried out for, and he thrust his hips a little harder down, pushing their dicks together just slightly harder. Hard enough for Todd to really feel him.

Mine. Mine. No one else's. He would kill anyone who tried to come in here and hurt the man.

That thought scared and exhilarated him at the same time, because it was true. He would kill anyone who tried to come and take Todd away, lock him up, or even hurt him for having signed his name on a hunter sign up form. Maddox might even kill his own brother.

That was the lust of the mating talking. Maddox didn't want to kill his brother, and if he wanted to start thinking straight, then he needed to finish this in a hurry.

Markus knew what Maddox had come in here to do, so now Maddox just had to do it.

If he could manage to stop dry humping the man beneath him, but his hips had a mind of their own, and Maddox didn't think he could bring himself to stop.

"Oh, fuck!" Todd said, breaking off their kiss, his head turning from side to side as the pleasure grew.

Maddox could feel it. Not just his own pleasure, but Todd's as well. The man couldn't hide it from him. Maddox felt that pulsing eat, and it magnified his own pleasure, made his wolf all the more desperate to fuck, to rut, to claim and do everything that needed to be done to tie them together once and for all.

"Harder, just like that. Just like that," Todd said, his voice a whimper as Maddox canted his hips forward again and again, giving the man what he was begging for, giving the both of them what they desperately needed.

Maddox groaned, a harsh sound that almost could have been a noise of pain as he struggled to hold back his orgasm. Too late. That was so not happening anymore because that pleasure that had been swelling and growing just behind his stomach was now at the bursting point. Maddox's balls tightened almost all the way up into his body, and the pleasure burst forward like it had been behind a cement dam. There was no stopping that powerful rush, and warm cum shot onto Todd's cock, his belly, and even his chest.

Todd groaned, fumbling between them to grab onto his dick, stroking himself, using Maddox's cum as a sort of lubricant for the few strokes he needed to make until he came to his pleasure as well.

Todd threw his head back, his shoulders, chest, his thighs, all of his body becoming tight and wound up as he arched his spine and moaned. The scent of his orgasm as about a thousand times more powerful than anything Maddox could have done.

The scent of a mate. That was why the smell was so strong, and that was why it was enough to send Maddox's wolf into overdrive.

Maddox shook his head, trying to clear the hazy thoughts that ran rampant through his mind.

He thought about chasing his mate through the woods, catching him, ripping his clothes off and bending him over the nearest fallen log so he could push his cock inside of his tight hole.

Or he could just press Todd against the nearest tree, or he could fuck him in a stream, or on a bed of grass. On his hands and knees, on his side, face to face, it didn't fucking matter so long as Maddox got what he needed out of this.

His wolf was thinking about this, because Maddox highly doubted Todd was in enough of a haze to agree to go running through the woods, to let Maddox chase him down like he was a prey animal, and then fuck him hard and raw, until Maddox needed to carry the man back here so that he could do it all over again.

That made a nice mental image, but for now, a bed would have to be enough. Maddox would take his mate out and do all the things that his wilder side demanded he do, just as soon as Todd was comfortable with what was happening.

Right now, Maddox couldn't tell if this was more about lust than logic, and he was too far gone to care.

"Y-you're still hard," Todd said, blinking blearily, as though he was coming out of a trance, but his pupils were still heavily dilated.

He was definitely getting high on the pleasure of Maddox's wolf.

"So are you," Maddox said, reaching between them, and he just let his fingertips stroke over the length of Todd's cock, very gently.

It was enough to make the man shiver, and his eyes widen.

"You have a very nice cock," Maddox said. "I like it."

"You do?" Todd asked.

"Yes," Maddox replied, letting his hand stroke over the long shaft one more time.

Todd wasn't as big as Maddox was, either in thickness or in length, but he was still a very good size for a human. He was cut, however. Maddox had never been with a man who'd been cut before. Maddox hadn't been, himself, and he wondered what Todd had to think about that.

"No one's ever told me I had a nice dick before," he said. "I didn't think to ever tell anyone the same."