STORY EXCERPT

The wolf stared at the man ahead of him. Interesting creature. Smelled good.

Good enough to eat, but not in the way the wolf was used to.

The wolf wanted to curl around this human and sniff him, perhaps groom his hair. It was all over the place, but something deep inside began to stir. The man half, the side that had been dormant for so long while the wolf ran and hunted and played on his own.

Clarity. That was what started to seep into his mind. The wolf was aware, but it didn’t mind. It didn’t seek to slip back into the mindlessness of existence.

It wanted more of that scent. It wanted to communicate with the human.

With his human.

The wolf wagged his tail. Then whined when he could not get the attention of the male with the sweet scent that tickled his nose.

He placed his nose close to the cage, close enough that he felt the warning buzz of the heat and fire that attacked him whenever he touched the metal…

He wanted his human. He sensed the human wanted to come to him as well, but he stayed back for some reason.

He knew words. If he could just let them come forward from his mind, perhaps he could convince the man to step over here, where the wolf could get a proper sniff.

* * * *

Jason wrote down on the clipboard the time and the whining noise.

Did the wolf cry like that when the doctors were in here? The way it had been attacking the cage earlier, he doubted it. It seemed too tough for that, so for it to turn into a whining puppy over nothing…

They might want to know about this.

Another whine. A thumping noise.

Jason turned to see the tail going and the saddest expression he'd ever seen on an animal.

As though he'd just kicked it in the face for no reason.

Jason's heart tugged. He turned his chair to face the wolf, which was starting to look a lot more like a real-life, terrifying version of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Only not a dog and not red.

"Ah, I'm sorry. I'm staying right here, though. You've got to stay there until we find out why you're not shifting back."

The wolf lifted its ears up high and raised its head.

Jason flinched at the movement, but he recovered quickly.

"Can you tell I'm talking to you?"

The wolf tilted its head to the side, as though trying to understand him.

"Huh." That was…kind of exciting. Jason wrote that down. He should keep talking. Maybe doing more than sitting there and ignoring the thing would help it out if his scent was really calling to the animal like this.

"You know, I still can't believe you've been down here for months and no one knew it. I can't figure out how Humanity Now would have caught you, but whatever. If this helps other shifters…if it stops what happened to my parents…"

The wolf regarded him, head still cocked, and Jason felt so utterly stupid.

"God, you have no idea what I'm saying, do you? You're just…you like my smell, and I'm probably one of the first people to talk nicely to you, am I right?"

And now the head tilted in the other direction. The ears flicked.

Jason wanted to touch those ears, to see if they were as soft as they looked.

Jason wanted to laugh. "I'm being paid a lot to do this. It will help out so much, so I guess I should thank you, but at the same time…God only knows how many people you've killed. Do you get that? Do you understand at all that you've probably attacked people and really hurt them while you were stuck like this?"

The wolf whined, lowering its head. As if it were ashamed.

Jason was going to take that as a coincidence.

He had to look away from those eyes when he felt himself pulled into them again.

He kept finding himself wanting to get closer.

Was this strange effect on him supposed to be normal? Maybe this was how some wolves pulled their prey in to them. Luring them with eyes like that, catching their victims off guard.

But shifters didn’t have the power of hypnosis as far as Jason knew.

Jason had heard of other people getting a deer-in-headlights effect when confronted by shifters, but these eyes pulled him close in a way Jason didn't think he liked too much.

It was…a little frightening. He inched his chair closer and then closer again, knowing it was a bad idea, but the wolf wagged its tail again, and seeing such a frightening creature up close and personal like this when there was a protective cage between them made it a little easier for his brain to handle.

"You don't look so scary all locked up like that, but I know you can be fast if you want. All your kind are fast. Some are pretty mean, too."

The wolf inched closer to the bars.

Jason flinched back, but he needn't have bothered because the wolf's nose apparently came close enough that a single touch was all it took for him to feel the shock of the bars.

He yelped, yanking his head back, and Jason rushed out of his chair but then stopped himself.

What the hell was he supposed to do about that, exactly?

"Don't touch the bars," he said, still hoping against hope that, somehow, the animal in that cage would understand what he was saying. "It'll shock you."

Then release me.

Jason tensed. He blinked. He stared at the wolf, which looked back at him with those golden, intelligent eyes. He waited for what he just heard to make sense, for it to be revealed to him that he'd heard something on a PA system or maybe…

“I just made that up in my head. That’s all.”

And he was not writing it down on his clipboard either.

Still, he spoke, as though answering the wolf.

"You need to stay in there. You're a…you're a danger to yourself and to anyone else who might get in your way. The people here are trying to help you. I'm…”

Jason had to think about that.

You're mine.

ADULT EXCERPT

Jason swallowed. "You're naked and kissing me."

And he wanted it. Something alive and on fire inside him kept burning with each and every kiss.

Hotter, and more powerful than even the electric shock he'd been given by touching the damned cage.

"They wanted this," the shifter said with a growl. "They wanted you in here with me this whole time. They want me to fuck you."

Jason shivered.

"Are you going to?"

A strange part of his brain hoped so.

If he was going to die, then he might as well get something out of this. Getting off one last time seemed like the thing to do.

The shifter groaned. "I don't think I can stop myself. The bastards even threw something in to grease you with."

Jason's eyes flew wide. He forgot that would be needed if they were going to do something like this, and of course he would be the one taking it.

One look at this guy and Jason couldn't picture himself being the one in control when he was as huge as he was.

"Are you an alpha male?"

The man chuckled. "Yes, I am. But you knew that already, did you not?"

Jason buried his face in the man's chest, trying not to groan, but the heat was getting so much worse.

Without realizing it, he started thrusting against the man's thigh, wanting closer, wanting the friction.

No, not just any friction. He wanted it to come from this man. He wanted to feel pleasure from him. He wanted to get off by no one else other than him.

And he was so humiliated by that, that his eyes started to tear up.

"I hate this!"

"I know."

"Are they watching us right now?"

"I do not know. Can they?"

Did this guy understand how anything worked? It was as though he didn't understand the basic concepts of technology.

"They're watching us right now and probably jerking off to what I'm doing to you." He thought of the wolf that had sniffed at the side of his throat. "One of them definitely is."

Jason hated that guy the most, and he hoped it made him all kinds of jealous to watch a wolf soul being fucked by someone other than himself.

Great, now he was actually talking himself into it.

The male turned Jason over onto his back, his hands on either side of Jason's face, his eyes glowing a bright shade of gold so pure Jason almost thought he could take them to the bank.

They sucked Jason in, just like the first time he'd sat down here.

They were…beautiful.

"Are you a virgin?"

Jason blinked. "What? Uh, no."

The other man smirked at that. "Allow me to rephrase." He slid his hand down the inside of Jason's thigh. "Have you ever been fucked before?"

Jason knew what he meant. There was no way he could play stupid on this one. "No."

The hand paused then pulled back.

Only then did Jason note the claws, but they didn't scare him. He wasn't comforted by them, but he didn't feel anything bad about them either.

They simply existed. He noted them, but Jason was too busy looking into this man's eyes to be scared by them.

And this time, he allowed himself to be sucked in. Jason allowed himself to be put under the spell of those eyes.

No point in fighting it when he was literally in the same cage as this man, right?

The other man sighed. "I am not one for fucking virgins, though it pleases me that you have not had anyone else's cock inside you."

"I said I wasn't a virgin."

The man smiled at him. "I think you know what sort of virginity I mean, my sweet."

"Whatever." Jason couldn't help it. He didn't care about the details. "Are you going to do it?"

The other man nodded. "Yes." He took Jason's hand. "I can only fight against instinct like this for so long." He brought Jason's hand down to his cock, and instead of Jason feeling disgusted, a thrill of pleasure worked its way through his body. He pressed his lips together, noting how damned big this guy was.

He wasn't just big. He was huge.

"There's no way you're going to be able to fit that inside me." Jason thought he might as well get that little fantasy out of the way right now.

"It will fit." He thrust into Jason's hand, fangs revealed behind his lips.

"You're not going to turn back into the wolf while you're inside me, are you?"

"I am a wolf, not a savage."

Jason smiled. He supposed that meant he was safe from getting any gross surprises.

And stranger still, did this mean that Jason was coming to terms with the fact that he was going to have a dick inside him?

The more he thought about it, the more he stayed beneath this man's body, the more natural a situation it seemed.

As if there was nothing out of the ordinary about being kept prisoner in a basement with a shifter on top of him, getting ready to fuck him.

"I would still like to give you something, before I take you," said the male.

"Your name?" Jason asked. He still didn't have that little bit from the other man, and it definitely seemed important to have.

The other man blinked at him then smiled. He pushed some of his long hair out of the way behind his ear, though it still fanned around Jason like a curtain.

"No. I do not have that just yet, but when I find my name, you will be the first to have it."

Jason shook his head. He shouldn't feel amused right now, but he couldn't help it.

"Who the hell talks like that?"

"I do." The blond leaned in, and then his mouth was on top of Jason's.

Jason held perfectly still. He could only absorb the feeling.

Shocking, and yet nicer than he expected.

This guy's lips...they were softer than Jason had thought they would be. What kind of guy had lips as soft as this?

The rest of him, however, was rough and hard. The other man settled himself on top of Jason, thrusting his prick down onto Jason's hard cock.

His fingers seemed to have trouble with Jason's belt and jeans, so Jason helped him out there.

He frantically undid his belt, popped the button, and pulled down the fly. Jason shoved down the waist of his jeans, groaning through the pleasure as his dick was finally free.

He moaned again when the man on top of him took his cock in hand, and though his fingers were rough and thick, his touch was gentle and...

So good.

Jason shivered. He moaned. He thrust into that hand, needing more, desperate to have more.

"Oh fuck, that's…yeah, that's good."

Fuck it. He didn't even care anymore that there were probably cameras watching him right now. He needed this. He needed this man, and if this was what he had to do to feel better, to ease this burning heat that had ignited inside him, then so much the better.

He was suddenly not so scared of having this man's big dick inside him.

In fact, it seemed like the most urgent matter in the world that he did get it.