Fox knew it was the worst day of his life. The universe, for whatever twisted reason, wanted to prove it.
“Damn it, Fox!” Magic charged smoke clouded the air of the underground classroom. In moments it was impossible to see, never mind breathe.
“Shit. Sorry, guys.” Loud coughs shook Fox’s short, slim form as he jumped to his feet. His tanned skin was coated gray as he raised his arms up and tried to catch pieces of the falling ceiling. Dust and stone showered down on the class of snarling shifters and sorcerers despite his best efforts.
“This is the second time today,” Wylie growled from where he was glaring through the smoke with face covered in dust and soot. He was crouched protectively over his boyfriend, Dorian, who simply sighed in annoyance at the chaos. A piece of ceiling had hit Wylie’s back before his scales sprouted free, and his blood was a scarlet contrast to the layer of gray dust.
Fox’s gut tightened with guilt when he saw his roommate was hurt. “Damn, I didn’t mean to—crap!” The unstable slab of ceiling he was holding cracked and crumbled down in a dangerous clatter around his narrow shoulders and sneakered feet.
“Silence.” Master Theodore pushed his way through the mess and waved his hand. Jagged pieces of ceiling tile froze midair, and stone and dust stilled and floated around the patients’ ducked heads.
Theodore was a shining gleam of perfection in the middle of the turmoil. His waist length red hair was still sleek in its neat ponytail, and his violet dress shirt crisp against coal-gray slacks. Even his leather dragon-hide boots were scuff free in the midst of an explosion. Dust and smoke parted to the immaculate instructor as he turned and addressed Fox. “Sit down and let me focus. All of you,” Theodore added sharply to the rest of the coughing group.
Fox let his arms fall to his side, and he plopped back in his seat. Theodore’s accusing glare felt like a weight, and Fox slumped forward with a dejected sigh. His huff of breath sent a broken piece of tile across his desk to shatter on the floor. “Damn it.”
When he first arrived at the Academy, the walls of the Body Magic class were decorated with diagrams of the magical centers of the body. After Fox’s first explosion and the many that followed from his unpredictable power, the posters were removed one by one until the room was stripped of all adornments. Now the stone itself was trying to escape.
Fox jerked when his pocket vibrated. He scrambled to pull his cell phone out before the noise could be heard by Theodore. Fox squinted at the screen and pulled it to his face as he blinked through the stinging smoke to see who texted him. “Raider?”
“Scheisse! That damn arsch!”
Fox’s gaze snapped to a fog shrouded desk where Vincent Frost was swearing in German. “Oh no.” Fox jumped up and his phone clattered to the desk. He didn’t care he was half blind and his nose useless with all the dust. Fox tripped and maneuvered around a broken desk and pieces of fallen ceiling tile like his life depended on it.
It might have. If anything happened to Vincent because of his uncontrollable explosions, he might just kill himself. Fox covered his arm over his mouth as he coughed and stared down at where Vincent was sitting and gingerly touching his shoulder.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Fox reached for Vincent’s arm when he saw the blood soaking through his sleeve. “Damn, you’re really hurt. Let me…”
“Go away, idiot.” Vincent growled and yanked himself back before Fox could touch him. He hissed from the sudden motion and held his arm close to his chest.
Fox couldn’t help but stare at Vincent’s stunning, dust streaked face. The anger flashing in his silver eyes and the grim set to his mouth did nothing to make him any less beautiful. Fox’s heart twisted painfully when Vincent glared at him through the smoke.
“You’re making things worse. Master Howld said to sit.”
“Oh, uh, right.” Fox tried to smile but failed. Vincent would rather hurt himself than touch him. Today was definitely the shittiest day of his life. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, even if you are trying to kill me.”
Fox inhaled sharply to deny it and ended up with a lung full of smoke. He turned his head and hunched over as coughs raked his body.
“Go! Stop skulking, Zorro.” Vincent waved his good hand at Fox in a shooing motion that sent smoke swirling around him in a soft mist. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
“No one cares if we talk,” Fox muttered once he could stop coughing long enough to speak. “I just wanted to know if you were okay. It’s not a fucking crime.” He rolled his eyes when Vincent glared at him like he was breaking some sacred freaking rule by standing next to him. “Fine. Whatever. Sorry to bother you.”
Fox shuffled dejectedly back to his desk. He brushed off the thick layer of grit from his chair and sat heavily. He felt far too old for his nineteen years. Vincent hated him. Everyone could see it including himself, but it didn’t stop Fox’s stupid heart from crushing every time he was near the guy.
“Dumb. I’m so fucking dumb,” Fox muttered under his breath. His gaze fell to his phone on the desk, but his attention was across the room where he could still hear Vincent bitching.
Damn it, he was bleeding. He could have seriously hurt Vince…
“Uh, Master Theodore?” Justin called out, his voice full of uncertainty. “I think my book is on fire.” Through the thick, white smoke, the orange glow of flames flickered to life.
Fox firmly planted his face against the desk and groaned. “Fuck.” There wasn’t enough smoke in the world to hide the angry scowls sent his way.
He just had to say it in front of the entire pack. He just had to open his mouth and promise like a total dumb ass. Twenty bucks. He bet twenty bucks just to shut Leo up, and now he was paying for it.
Today was the day Fox promised to man up and finally ask gorgeous, crazy, shifter hating Vincent Frost out on a date. It was officially the worst day of his life. He should just get it over with and blow up the Academy. He had a better shot at bringing the whole building down than ever winning a date with Vincent.
“Stupid, flea-ridden, clumsy arsche. Every class. Every damn class. He’d find a way to explode water.”
Fox ignored the scrape of grit on his cheek as he turned his head and peered through the smoke for the source of the angry muttering. He tugged his yellow bandanna up and sighed wistfully when he found Vincent. The guy was seriously hot, even when covered in soot and dust. Maybe extra hot. Vincent’s blue black hair, formal button down white shirt, and dark slacks were covered in light gray dirt. He looked like someone dusted him in powdered sugar, and Fox wanted more than anything to lick him clean.
“Reckless, idiotic bastard,” Vincent growled down at his ruined backpack. His hands were clenched so tight, he looked like he was going to break his desk in retaliation.
Silver eyes flashed his way and Fox froze in Vincent’s familiar death glare. It lasted a second, maybe two, but Fox’s body lit up and his blood felt like it was boiling by the time Vincent looked away with a hiss and slammed his backpack on the ground.
“Fuck.” Fox breathed out carefully and licked dust coated lips. “Fuck, this can’t be healthy,” he rasped against the desk as he tried to will his erection away.
The things he would do to Vincent Frost if he wasn’t certain he’d be cursed dead an instant later. He made him crazy. Like, crazy crazy. Fox couldn’t be in the same room as him without feeling flustered as fuck. And when Vincent swore at him, usually in sexy German while looking ready to murder? Hell, it made him want to be a total bastard just to get Vincent to hit him, touch him, glare until he saw him and only him.
“I’m so fucked.” Fox pulled his bandanna down to cover his eyes. Looking at Vincent was torture. The guy was impossibly sexy in a way that said he didn’t even care. All the sorcerers at the Academy looked like models, but Vincent—fuck, he looked like an emo prince straight out of a magazine. One who seriously needed to get laid.
He was pretty sure Vincent had never been with anyone, and not just because he had that whole unattainably hot thing going on. No, it had more to do with how angry and defensive he was, not to mention oblivious as fuck to any and all social situations. When Fox considered the many cutting words that fell from Vincent’s lush, sexy lips on a regular basis, he doubted anyone would hang around once he opened his mouth.
Vincent might actually be a really terrible person.
“Doomed. I’m totally doomed,” Fox groaned.
“Dude, you’re whining.” Forest leaned sideways and elbowed him on the shoulder. “Stop sulking. At least he didn’t hex you.”
The smoke was starting to clear enough so Fox’s dejected expression was visible to anyone who looked his way. Forest’s desk was right next to his, and had received the brunt of the latest magical explosion. The wood tried to light, but the anti-fire wards placed on the furniture only allowed the tabletop to char black. Unlike Justin’s book, which hadn’t survived but disintegrated into curls of ash before Theodore got to him.
“I’m doomed,” Fox sighed dramatically and with feeling.
Forest silently rolled lamp-yellow eyes. The unique leopard spot pattern colored over his skin was marred by dark soot, but he was otherwise unharmed. “It was just one explosion,” Forest offered after a moment. He met Fox’s orange eyes when he huffed. “Fine, this hour. So what if you’re a little accident prone today? He’s still got all his hair. Eyebrows too.”
Fox wrapped his arms around his desk, ducked his head, and groaned in misery. He immediately coughed as dust filled his lungs. “Damn it.” He clunked his head on the desk and hid within the darkness of his arms. Fox stared at the clawed butterfly tattoo of his family’s goddess on his forearm, and carefully wiped the soot off the inked flesh.
Body Magic in general was his worsts, and not just because it was the only class he took with the sorcerers and sexy as fuck Vince. Fox wasn’t really good at magic. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to be good at magic, except to keep from exploding things. Vincent, in comparison, was perfection with every spell he attempted. It was a reminder, one Fox hated to face. Some things were hard to get over when you grew up with family who were hunted down and killed by sorcerers.
Fox gritted his teeth and glared at the tattoo of Itzpalotl. She was a mix of horror and beauty, destruction and protection, and it felt all too much like his heart lately. Most sorcerers weren’t about to start hunting down shifters and tear them open for their magic soaked organs. That was messed up horrors that happened in the past and the world knew better. Fox just wasn’t sure if Vincent knew better. When Vincent first arrived at the Academy and started learning English, he had said a lot of fucked up shit, things he only learned later not to say. A lot of it contained knowledge of what spells shifter organs would be needed for.
Unhealthy. Crushing on Vince was seriously unhealthy. Fox pressed his palm over Itzpalotl’s skeletal face, but the feeling he was betraying his entire pack and every ancestor who ever lived wouldn’t leave him.
Forest sighed when Fox’s pitiful, dismayed howl reached his ears. “Dude, just get it over with. I hate seeing you like this.”
Fox lifted his arms and peered at him with eyebrows furrowed. “Like what?”
“Pathetic,” Forest spat with a scornful expression. “Really fucking pathetic. You can do so much better than him.”
“Shit, it’s just a date,” Fox muttered and slumped forward again. But it wasn’t just a date. If it was just a fucking date his heart wouldn’t feel like it was twisting in half just thinking about Vincent saying no.
And if he said yes? Fuck, that might even be worse.
It wasn’t like Vincent was pure evil or anything. Well, not really. Fuck, okay, he really hoped the guy wasn’t evil. Fox groaned and buried his head into his palms. Even if Vincent was the evilest, craziest sorcerer out there, he couldn’t stop liking him. There was just something about him, something that was probably going to get him killed.
Forest was tired of watching Fox lament. “Hey. Tell him.” He reached over and nudged Justin, who glanced cautiously in Theodore’s direction. The smoke was mostly gone, but Theodore was more interested in keeping the ceiling from falling down than if they talked at the moment. Justin leaned over and rested his elbows on Forest’s desk.
“So, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to make you nervous and all. I have a feeling that doesn’t matter at this point, though.” Justin smiled ruefully and spun his finger to indicate the ruined room.
“What?” Fox raised his head and pushed his dusty bandanna back. He paused when he saw Justin’s eyes. Normally a warm brown, they were currently gold with an otherworldly, feral glint. “Shit, I’m sorry. We never should have planned this for today.” Fox sighed heavily. “Are you okay? Did I freak out your wolf?”
Justin’s smile was terse. He put on a strong front, but his psycho werewolf frightened Justin just as much as it did everyone else. “I saw Michael spell up a bed before class.” Justin ducked closer and pitched his voice low. “Go for it now before some new guy snatches him away.”
“Wait, we’re getting a new patient?” Fox gaped. “Are you shitting me? Today? Today, today? Fuck.”
“Yeah, so stop freaking out and go for it,” Forest muttered. “We’re all going nuts waiting. Just do it already.”
Fox blinked in surprise and looked around. All the shifters in the class grinned back knowingly. It was practically impossible to keep secrets from the pack with their hyper sensitive hearing. Even Wylie had gotten over his anger to shoot Fox an encouraging nod from where he was leaning in his seat talking to Dorian.
“Well, fuck.” Fox hadn’t expected this. He knew Vincent wasn’t really anyone’s friend with his bitchy personality and all, and most of the shifters didn’t trust him. Fox was suddenly really proud to have his pack. They might think he was fucking up his life, but at least they supported him to the bitter end.
A new patient. Fuck, he needed to do it soon. Fox didn’t want more competition when it came to Vincent’s very cold and potentially absent heart. It was hard enough when he thought Vince might like Wylie for a while. Vincent was everything Fox wanted, even if there were tons of moments when he couldn’t actually stand the guy.
Fuck, this was such a bad idea.
Fox sat up straighter and looked to where Vincent was scowling at his soot covered notebook. He had spelled his hair and clothes back to immaculate order already, and looked as gorgeous as ever. He also looked angry as fuck, which Fox was certain only made him extra sexy.
It was just one date. It wasn’t like the world would fucking end if he scored one date with Vincent Frost.
“Ask him now. Just get it over with,” Forest prodded under his breath.
“Come on, Fox,” Justin whined softly. “The anticipation is killing me.”
Fox licked his teeth and tore his gaze away from Vincent’s fuming form. “I’m not asking him in front of everyone. He’ll say no.” Fox narrowed his eyes when Forest snorted. “He’s shy.” Fox grinned and flashed a fang as he glanced at Vincent again. “He’ll think I’m teasing him if I ask with all of you watching. I’ll ask him after class.”
“Wuss,” Forest called while pretending to cough.
Oh, Fox knew he totally was, but he wasn’t about to admit it. He didn’t need any witnesses to his heart being broken and possibly spelled to ash depending on how pissed off Vincent got at the prospect of a date.
“Pussy,” Fox shot back. He snickered when Forest stopped his antics and hissed in warning. He might turn into a giant, deadly leopard, but that didn’t mean Forest appreciated being called anything pussy related.
“Shit.” Fox jolted when his desk vibrated. He scrambled to grab his phone and quickly silenced it. When he thumbed the screen on, he paused as Raider’s text came into view.
‘Listen, I fucked up. It’s bad. You might not hear from me for a while.’
Fox stared at the screen in silence as his mind raced. What exactly did that even mean? Was Raider grounded, or did something serious happen?
He never knew with Raider. Sometimes the simplest shit was the end of the world to his friend back home. He hadn’t heard from him in a while, either, which only made it worse. Actually… it had been almost a month now.
Fuck, how had he not noticed Raider hadn’t spoken to him in that long? Was he that caught up in his own life he completely ignored his friend? Guilt churned in his stomach, and Fox quickly texted a reply.
“Fox.” Theodore’s voice cut through the chatter of the patients, and silence immediately fell.
Fox gulped when he saw the instructor staring at him from his desk at the front of the room. He swiftly thumbed his phone off and slipped it into the back pocket of his jean shorts. “Yeah, Master Howld?” he answered as innocently as possible.
“Come up here so we can go over how that last spell went wrong.”
“Crap.” Fox winced when he realized he spoke out loud, and his inner fox whined when Theodore’s violet eyes pierced into his.
Theodore Howld might look like any other impossibly beautiful man in his thirties, but he was actually a dragon shifter, a really powerful sorcerer, and on most days intimidating as fuck. Seeing as Fox had blown up his classroom twice that day, Theodore’s normally grumpy tones were extra surly.
Fox’s shoulders slumped, and he reluctantly pushed up from his seat. He really wasn’t in a rush to fuck up in front of everyone. He dusted off his long jean shorts and brushed some of the soot from his arms but didn’t spell his clothes clean. Fox’s gaze flickered to the other patients as he made his way to Theodore’s desk. At least no one looked badly wounded. The four sorcerers in the class were already sleek and shiny again in contrast to the ruffled, dusty shifters content to wait to shower.
Fox stopped next to Theodore and tried to ignore the anxious gazes fixed on him. He wasn’t great at magic, but Fox was determined not to make an ass of himself while everyone was watching.
Theodore threw his long, red ponytail over his shoulder and waved impatiently for Fox to start.
Fox’s eyes darted to where Vincent was sitting. He relaxed slightly when he saw Vincent looked more bored than vengeful at the moment. The guy was a hard read. Oh, he was pretty sure Vincent hated him most days, but sometimes… Sometimes they could hold a conversation. Some days Vincent looked at him like he was a person. Sure, he didn’t see him as one he necessarily wanted to talk to, but a person nevertheless.
Vincent pushed his hair from his face, and Fox bit his lower lip. Damn, he was hot, and so out of his league. Vincent was absolutely beyond anything he could ever hope to reach.
“Focus,” Theodore snapped.
Fox jolted and blinked back to reality. He fixed on Theodore’s scowl and couldn’t help but grin. “Hey, I totally got this.”
He turned his cocky smile to his classmates, who only grew more unsettled as he straightened and puffed up with bravado. Fox stared down at his hands with brow furrowed in concentration and deliberately brought them together in front of his body. Power sparked, and a white current of energy moved from the tips of his fingers and arced between his palms.
“See? Fucking cake.” Fox beamed, oblivious to the way everyone was holding their breath.
Theodore stepped forward with a book in hand. “All this requires is for you to direct the energy circling in your body to flow through another object.” He raised the book and placed it so the spine was nearly touching the current flowing between Fox’s hands. “Don’t let the object cut the power stream. You need to feel the book with your magic and then allow your power to flow through. Carefully,” Theodore added sternly. “You’re trying to create a safe current so your power can leave your body and return, not destroy everything you touch.”
Someone scoffed, and Fox’s attention jumped from his hands to where Vincent was sitting. He watched with narrowed eyes when Vincent mouthed under his breath, “All he does is destroy everything.”
Bastard. He tried really fucking hard not to blow shit up. It wasn’t like he was doing it on purpose.
“Pull it back, Fox. You’re spiking power levels again,” Theodore warned.
Fox started and focused back on his hands. A drop of sweat trailed down his forehead as he fought to get his power back under control. There was a collective sigh of relief in the room when his magic balanced out.
Fox looked up and grin triumphantly at the other patients. “Told you I got this.”
“Focus,” Vincent called with a frustrated growl. “You’re going to fuck it up.”
Fox’s gaze again drifted his way, and he swallowed hard when Vincent’s sharp, silver eyes locked with his.
He couldn’t stall anymore. He had to ask Vince out before some new guy came in and stole him right from under his nose. Vincent was gorgeous, talented, and could turn his insides into pure mush with just one glare. It didn’t matter how much of an ass he was, Vincent was his, and he was going to win a date.
“For the love of…” Theodore huffed in exasperation and raised his hand to shield himself when Fox’s current of power arced out toward the class. Fox continued to stare dumbstruck at the now wide-eyed Vincent Frost who was about to be hit with his magic. “Focus!”
Fox jumped and scrambled to pull his magic back before he lost control completely. His power was quickly spiraling in a way he was all too familiar with, and he wasn’t sure he could stop it.
Forest ducked under his desk, and Jake quickly followed while Dorian swore loudly.
“Damn it. Fucking damn it,” Fox hissed. He crouched down and covered his head with his arms right before the room shook with a deafening blast.
Raider couldn’t pull his eyes away from the gate. It was tall, imposing, and dread twisted like a knife in his stomach when he saw the coil of barbed-wire glinting at the top.
Shit, he was so fucking dumb. He never should have trusted Joseph. All that bullshit about getting him help was clearly that, bullshit. He knew a trap when he saw one.
“Is this really…?” The question died on Raider’s tongue when the gate suddenly shuddered and opened on mechanical tracks. He searched for cameras he couldn’t find while his mind raced.
Couldn’t Uncle Joe see it was a trap? Raider dared a glance at his uncle’s profile. Joseph’s jaw was set and shadowed with two days worth of stubble from their cross country drive. His multi-toned gray hair was in a ponytail at his nape and flowed down the back of his worn jean jacket. His eyes were fixed ahead as he waited for the way to clear, and Raider had the distinct impression he was trying really hard to act like none of this was as terrifying as it was.
Raider stared back at the black metal gate with his lips pursed in an anxious frown. What if this was Joseph and Vicky’s plan all along? Were they leaving him there to die? There would be no escape from this cage.
He could smell it on the metal bars set so close together he’d never be able to squeeze through in his raccoon form. It smelled like death. Raider couldn’t say exactly what magic smelled like; it was sort of a mix of ozone, impossibility, and absolute terror. The gate opening in front of Joseph’s pickup truck reeked of sorcery.
Raider clutched his seatbelt hard enough for his tanned fingers to turn white. Not only was Joseph kicking him out, but he was putting him in a magic cage. Why the fuck did he agree to this? No escape. There was no escape from a magic cage.
Was this why Joseph took his phone from him at the rest stop when he caught him texting? Why turn his service back on if he wasn’t going to let him use it? What if he wanted to make sure he was locked up with no possible way for help to get to him first?
Why the fuck was there magic and barbed wire on the gate?
The beige, worn interior of the truck felt like it was closing in on him. Raider’s fingers twitched as he fought the impulse to throw the door open and bolt. His breath came out in desperate gasps he valiantly tried to keep under control. He had spent the majority of his life pretending he wasn’t freaking out. Most days it was the only way to make it through, but this time it was really hard. This time he knew he was being sent to his death.
Raider grabbed the seat cushion to keep from reaching for the door handle. His fingers bit sharply into the cracked vinyl and he gripped hard to hide the tremor of his limbs.
He promised to try—it’s a trick. They’re locking him in—but he promised. For Joseph. For Vicky. He promised. He fucked up and he wanted to make it right.
Tall conifers swarmed around them and encased the pickup truck in cold shadows. Raider huddled in the passenger seat as the gates shut behind them and locked them in. Small tremors shook his body that had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures outside. Joseph was oblivious as he maneuvered around snow ladened pine trees and fallen branches that littered the rarely used road. The dark of the forest felt it like an oppressive weight on Raider’s chest.
They didn’t believe him. No one believed him. Aunt Vicky said he could come home once he was better, but there was no fixing a fucking curse.
Raider felt the familiar sting of tears, and he forced his gaze to the window. The whole thing was such bullshit. He didn’t do anything. That asshole sorcerer cursed him and now his life was over. What did they want him to do, just let Helu kill him so Joseph could see how things really happened?
Raider felt a fresh wave of shame as he remembered how Joseph had to tranq him. Cursed or not, he fucked up bad. If Joseph hadn’t gotten to him first, the cops might have, or worse, the shifter patrol. It didn’t matter Raider hadn’t hurt anyone. No one cared he didn’t have fangs or the killing instinct like a predator shifter. If he’d been caught by the authorities acting the way he had, he would have been shot just because he could shift.
Raider had foolishly given the cops a reason to go looking for him. He was lucky he wasn’t killed. He was lucky no other shifters his age were killed just for looking similar to him. He put his entire class at risk when he lost control of his raccoon.
Raider huddled further down in his seat. He wasn’t sure how Joseph could be in the same space as him when could barely handle being with himself.
“Do not embarrass me, Angel. Not with these people.”
It was Joseph’s first words to him since the rest stop and their tense lunch. Raider scowled at the use of his real name.
“These people understand us. They understand why you’re like this. Don’t make them regret the help they give.”
There was a hint of pleading in his uncle’s gruff tone Raider couldn’t ignore, even though he stubbornly tried. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman,” Raider said flatly. He kept his gaze trained on the blurry wall of white trees. He didn’t dare meet Joseph’s eye. He couldn’t stay there. There was no fucking way he could see this thing through.
The barbed wire flashed in his mind’s eye, and Raider quickly grasped his hand and spun the silver ring on his forefinger. He was going to die there. No shifter ended up in a magic cage and lived. The wire would cut him up, but his raccoon was already judging the climb and how he was going to scale the gate to reach their goal. It was a buzz of animal thoughts Raider could barely distinguish from his own.
“You know there will be others like you. Shifters.” Joseph turned his head Raider’s way a moment, then looked back to the road. “Just, I didn’t tell you everything.”
Raider’s stomach clenched, and he shot a wary glance over to find his uncle holding the wheel too tightly. The road wound around lots of trees, but there was no ice to warrant Joseph’s death grip.
“There are shifters, plenty of them. I guess they even have a pack,” Joseph continued carefully. He drew the words out so slowly, Raider was anxious just listening to him. His uncle could be so damn slow at times.
“It’s not a formal pack. I guess it’s how they get along. We’re good in groups. It lets us protect each other. Support. We all need support.”
Raider nodded and waited impatiently for his uncle to get to the damn point.
“The things is they’re all flesh eaters,” Joseph disclosed with a sigh.
Raider rolled his eyes even as his stomach clenched in terror. “Whatever.”
“I’m not saying they’re going to hurt you,” Joseph added quickly. “But if it comes down to it and one of them loses his temper, I don’t want to see you hurt. I can only assume they’re here for aggression issues. You know how the predator types can get. Just keep an eye out.” Joseph glanced his way and nodded at Raider’s throat covered in tattoos. “With all those tattoos and piercings, sometimes even I forget you’re not a thug. Some of the guys in here might see you as a threat. It’ll be hard on you when you don’t have the nature to back up your appearance.”
“You’re worrying over nothing.” Raider really wished Joseph would stop talking before he got sick. He was about to be caged inside an institution with the craziest carnivores around. Fuck, he needed to get out.
“I might have also intentionally left out another thing,” Joseph added after the silence had a chance to stretch again.
“Uncle Joe,” Raider growled in exasperation. “We’ve been driving for over forty hours, and this is when you drop all this shit on me?”
Joseph coughed awkwardly and glanced to where Raider was scowling. “I wanted to make sure we were on the grounds so if you made a run for it, I wouldn’t have to chase you again.”
Deep, fathomless black eyes glared Joseph’s way. A spark of terror flashed in the silent depths right before Raider turned back to the window. He didn’t want his uncle to see his fear. Uncle Joe knew him too well, and right now that terrified him more than anything.
When most people looked at Raider, they didn’t see a scared twenty year old. They only saw the tattooed thorns covering his throat and arms, his pierced eyebrows, the row of silver dotting up one ear, and the rings on his fingers. Living as a scavenger among predators forced Raider to put up an intimidating front to keep other shifters from targeting him. He got a lot of shit for his dad being in prison, and no matter how quiet he was, trouble followed him. He had lifted weights to exhaustion and covered as much of his skin as he could afford in ink to help encourage people to back off and let him be, but under his muscle and dour expression, Raider felt like the same anxious, lost kid who ended up on Joseph’s doorstep with nowhere else to go.
He once trusted Joseph implicitly. Now he knew that trust was going to be what killed him.
Raider pushed himself up in his seat. His expression was alert as his eyes darted across the maze of snow covered trees, and he considered all the very logical reasons he should run. “I’m not going to run.”
Joseph huffed under his breath and slowed the truck as they came to a tight bend. “The thing is, son, most of the staff at the Academy are sorcerers.”
Raider ran a hand through his black hair and ruffled the short spikes in silence. He kept his head ducked to hide the thoughts warring on his face.
Joseph had to know about the magic gate. He had to know he wouldn’t be able to crack it, not without something powerful. He probably thought he couldn’t get through at all, that he’d be too afraid to even try. Raider bit his lip and inhaled slowly as he forced his himself to remain calm.
It took even longer for Joseph to continue as the truck filled with Raider’s fear scent. “Also, although they aren’t in the majority, there are a few young sorcerers attending to gain control of their powers.”
“Shit.”
Raider stared with blind eyes out the window. Wire cutters. He needed to find wire cutters. Could his raccoon’s hide survive barbed wire? Fuck, did it matter when he’d be up against flesh eating predators and psycho teen sorcerers? Raider knew people his own age and he didn’t want to mix magic into that temperamental mix of hormones and cruel apathy. Why the fuck did the magic cage have to have fucking barbed wire at the top?
Aunt Vicky said it was an institution for shifter’s in need. The Academy was supposed to be a place where out of control shifters could get better with therapists and stuff, not this. They lied. His aunt and uncle fucking lied.
Raider made himself exhale slowly and unclenched his trembling fists. He focused on keeping his breathing even and watched as each puff added another layer of fog to blur the view outside his window. Everything was white, nondescript, and blinding. Death. Uncle Joe was leaving him there to die.
“You know I wouldn’t send you somewhere that wasn’t safe, Angel. You know that.” Joseph reached over and clasped Raider’s stiff shoulder. “I respect these people. The masters at the Academy don’t care where you’re from, or what kind of shifter you are, or if you have any magic in you. They’re here to help you get better, and I’ve been assured they don’t allow any behavior from patients or staff that would make you uncomfortable. They would certainly never put you in any danger.”
Raider could feel his life coming to an end. This was it. He was going to die. He was twenty years old and he was going to die in a magic cage surrounded by paranormal fuck ups.
Light sparkled on the hood of the truck, and Raider’s eyes were drawn to the large clearing up ahead where he could see a pristine white building centered among snow covered fields. It had to be the place. The Academy. He watched silently as he accessed the prison he knew he needed to escape.
The rehabilitation center was a sprawling plantation style mansion divided among low building that stretched wide but barely took a dent out of the acres of untouched field and forest surrounding it. Two single story wings flanked the center building with long rows of windows that faced the driveway. The main building was taller, two stories, and had pillars that dotted the wide staircase that led inside. Above was a balcony that followed the length of the front of the building and was strewn with green and purple vines of ivy. Even in the winter months, there was greenery and flowers spelled to stay alive all year round.
Raider’s teeth buzzed the longer he stared. He wasn’t close enough to say for certain, but even from the distance of the driveway, he knew he sensed magic. The Academy was a magic cage inside a magic cage.
Joseph parked the old pickup and turned the engine off. He joined Raider in staring at the intimidating structures. When he finally spoke, his words were weighted. “I know this is hard on you, but you need to trust me and the masters. They can help you, Angel.”
Raider had to grit his jaw to keep down the sob rising in his throat. He clenched his fists in his lap and stared at the way the tattoos on his fingers were hidden by the thick silver rings he wore.
“Uncle Joe, what if I promise? I mean really promise to never do it again?” The words wanted to stick in his throat, but Raider choked them out. Admitting just how much he wanted to go home felt like a betrayal to the raccoon quaking in terror inside him.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just stay and die in this place.
Joseph sighed as he stared at Raider’s bowed head. “Son, if I thought you could do this on your own, we wouldn’t be here. But you can’t. I know it and you know it. You have a problem bigger than you, and you need help from people who understand.”
Raider swallowed hard as he felt Joseph’s eyes on him. Neither of them mentioned Lucus, although they were both thinking of him. Raider swore he wouldn’t end up messed up like his dad and addicted to the bottle. He stayed out of trouble the best he could. Just… just some things weren’t always in his control.
“It’s your nature, Angel.”
“Which makes this entire thing pointless,” Raider whispered bitterly. “You should have let them shoot me. I can’t stop what I am.”
He was always going to be his father’s son, a fuck up to the very end.
“Raider…” Joseph sighed again and slowly pocketed the keys. “This place is going to prove you wrong. I know you’re afraid, but the masters aren’t like the sorcerers back home. I promise you.” Joseph pointed to the windshield and the Academy on the other side. “Every person in that building is going through something similar to you. This is just people helping people. There aren’t sorcerers or shifters in there, just people like us.”
Liar. Raider glared at his clenched fists. Joseph was lying to him with a straight face and it somehow hurt more than the fact he was locking him up and leaving him there to die.
The truck shifted and an icy breeze swept in when Joseph opened the driver side door and stepped out. Raider stared stonily at his hands, and felt more than saw his uncle walk around and open up his door. The air that blew in was chilling and full of strange, frightening scents.
“Grab your bags. I’m going to go up and give a knock on the door.” Joseph left the door open but Raider refused to move. Joseph waited a few moments and eventually stepped away.
Raider desperately grasped for a plan. Did Joseph still have his phone? Could he get it from him before he was dragged inside and then make a run for the gate? He was already locked in and Joseph would have sorcerers to help hunt him down. He needed to find a way out that wouldn’t…
He could hide in the truck! Raider’s gaze darted around the enclosed space. He could shift, tear open the seats, and burrow into the foam and padding to hide. If Joseph thought he ran for it, he wouldn’t think to search the truck, and eventually he’d have to give up and drive home. Just, his raccoon was too big. Maybe he could fit underneath. The ninja movies always made it look easy to hold onto the bottom of a car.
He didn’t have to get far, just to the other side of the gate. No one knew him there. No one would even look for him…
A hand fell on his shoulder, and Raider jumped. His eyes flew up to find Joseph holding his duffel bag with a stern expression in his eyes. Raider felt brittle, like he might shatter from the simple touch.
“We’ll go in together,” Joseph said reassuringly. “These are good people, and I’m going to stick around so you can see. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Tears stung at his eyes, and Raider quickly pushed past his uncle and out into the cold before he could see.
Fuck him. Fuck him for throwing him away and then pretending to give a fuck.
Raider stared down at his sneakers as he tried to get ahold of himself. The wind bit through his thin, blue and white t-shirt and he wrapped his arms around his torso. He wasn’t dressed for winter, used to a much hotter climate. The big hole over the knee in his jeans allowed the freezing temperature to seep in, and goosebumps raised all over his skin. He ignored Joseph’s persistent sighs as he heaved the last of Raider’s bags out of the truck bed. Raider grabbed the strap of his duffel bag left at his feet and shouldered it as he suspiciously glared around the area.
He’d never been up North before and he already hated the bone chilling cold and strange white flurries in the air. There were no brambles or cacti to protect him from hunters, and the untouched snow made everything visible to sharp predator eyes even if the uneven terrain offered more possibility of hiding places. The snow was the worst. It had already found its way through the holes in his sneakers, and now his socks were full of water and his toes freezing. Raider already hated everything connected to the Academy including the weather.
Raider’s steps were heavy with reluctance as he dragged his bag up the driveway and onto the wide expanse of white stairs that led up to the main entrance. There wasn’t any snow here, not even a flake to mar the surface of the steps, and he sniffed the air suspiciously for magic. The wind shifted and Raider stilled while his raccoon curled up tight within.
Shifters. Predators. They were unfamiliar to his nose, but there was a similar hue to the new musks that screamed fangs, death, and blood. What Raider was seeking he found as well, and his raccoon quaked when they recognized the spine tingling scent of sorcery. The reality of his situation hit him hard as he stared up at the large double doors. He was going to be rooming with sorcerers and flesh eaters. He was going to be trapped in an institution for an unknown amount of time, cursed with a spell that made him completely vulnerable, with no claws or fangs to protect him from the beings stronger and more deadly than he could ever hope to be.
Run. He needed to run or curl up into a ball on the concrete until he woke up from this nightmare.
Raider turned back and his eyes sought the road through the wall of trees Uncle Joe’s truck had taken when they drove in. The forest looked darker from his current vantage, and the trees blocked all signs of the gate he needed to find a way over if he was ever going to get free. He didn’t know where he’d run once he got out of there, but it had to be better than the death trap he was walking into.
“Are you feeling okay?” Joseph stepped up beside him and pressed the back of his hand to Raider’s forehead before he could duck away. Joseph frowned and peered worriedly into his glassy eyes. “You better see the nurse once you’re checked in. I think you caught the shifter flu going around.”
Raider groaned and heaved his bag higher on his shoulder. Could the day get any worse?
He slogged after Joseph, his legs feeling heavier and heavier the closer he got to the Academy doors. He glared at the ornately carved wooden doors and the old fashioned door knockers in the center of both. If the Academy wasn’t an evil mansion of doom, they sure as fuck were doing all they could to make him expect a vicious, slavering beast to great them the moment the doors opened.
Raider sneered as he studied the elaborate molding, pillars, high tech buzzer system, and every aspect of the doorway that screamed wealth. It was just like a bunch of self-important sorcerers to open a fancy ass rehab center for the shifters they terrorized. If he had known it was a furry charity center, he never would have agreed to this. Fuck, if he knew any of the shit he learned the last ten minutes, he would have never gotten into the truck back in Arizona.
“There’s one other thing I failed to mention.” Joseph shot Raider a long side glance as he pressed the buzzer next to the door.
“Damn it, Uncle Joe. Seriously?” He was as good as dead, and Joseph just kept piling shit on top of it all.
Joseph grinned sheepishly and gripped the back of his neck. “This one isn’t that bad. Actually, I think you’re going to be pleased. I happened to have a chat with the Alvarezes before we headed out. They were surprised to hear just where you were going.”
“Wait, you spoke to Fox? When? Why?” Raider narrowed his eyes. Why would Fox ever talk to his uncle? Or had Joseph been screening his calls? Was this why he took his phone, just so he could keep his friends from talking to him?
“His father. Rafael needed some fencing, and we got to talking about your situation.”
Oh no. Raider winced and gritted his teeth. “Why are you telling the Alvarezes I’m being sent to an institution for idiot shifters who can’t control themselves? I thought you didn’t want me embarrassing you with all this?”
“Hey, you are not an embarrassment,” Joseph insisted as he met Raider’s glare. “You coming here is a good thing, Angel. Vicky and I are really proud of you. As long as you give it your all and do right by yourself, I know you’re going to be just fine.”
Raider huffed and turned back to the door. If Joseph and Vicky really gave a fuck, they wouldn’t be leaving him there to die.
“As I was saying, about the Alvarezes…” Joseph trailed off when one of the solid, wooden double doors clicked and started to swing open.
Raider tensed and his senses flipped to hyper alert. Magic. Through the gap he smelled magic. The door creaked as it opened wider and revealed a sorcerer standing on the other side. Raider barely got an impression of the man before his raccoon reared up in terror.
Run. Now. Run and survive.
Raider bristled as electricity charged through his nerves, but his legs were frozen in place. He said he’d give it a shot. He promised he’d try—but Uncle Joe lied about everything!
Flesh eaters. Sorcerers. It was an actual building of death! They wanted to cage him with killer monsters where there would be nowhere to hide, no way to protect himself…
“Master Whiteheart?” Joseph hesitated only a moment before reaching out to shake the instructor’s outstretched hand.
“Please, call me Michael. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Michael’s smile was welcoming and warm. His tanned face took to the expression easily with his perfectly white teeth and sparkling blue eyes. “After so many phone calls, I feel like we’re old friends.”
Michael turned his friendly grin to Raider, who stared horror-struck at the hand now reaching toward him. “And you must be Angel. I was just getting your room set up. You’ll be able to put your bags in there and meet the other guys once their class gets out.”
Raider couldn’t get his legs to move. They lied. His aunt and uncle lied. What if this was a money thing? What if they were just sick of taking care of him and this was how they got rid of him for good? Did they sell him to these sorcerers to be killed? Was there a fake report circulating that he died at the museum and that was why he wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone? His dad was in jail and his mom left years ago. There was no one to give a fuck if he disappeared and was murdered on the other side of the country.
Raider’s breath caught, and his each inhale was quicker and sharper than the last. His legs, once so frozen they couldn’t move, began to quake. The world tilted sideways as he managed a faltering step back.
Run. He needed to run. Run and survive and get the fuck out of the magic cage of death.
Michael grasped Raider’s trembling fingers and everything slammed to a stop. His hand was burning hot, large, and had calluses not first seen. From far away Raider heard his breath draw out in a slow expulsion of sound.
The hand holding his pulled Raider right out of his terrified raccoon mind and left him blinking at the startling white world. Chilled air prickled his flushed skin and cement was solid beneath his worn sneakers. When Raider inhaled, all he could smell was the stranger in front of him. Not his magic, but something that permeated deeper. Raider’s brain clicked with each identification: cinnamon, slow roasted coffee, old books next to a fireplace, brisk cedar.
“Angel, I’m Michael Whiteheart. I’m one of the live-in caretakers at the Academy.”
Everything felt unreal, too real when Raider looked up and met Michael’s intense eyes. There was something in those blue eyes that made Raider want to run and push forward all at once. He could see him; Michael could see him. The jolt of connection twisted something in Raider’s chest to damning to bear, and his vision blurred.
Raider wrenched free with a gasp and turned away. He quickly wiped his confusing tears away with the back of his wrist. Holy shit, what the fuck was wrong with him?
Michael tilted his head in concern. “Are you…?”
“It’s Raider, uh, sir. Only my family calls me Angel,” Raider muttered and tried to cover his fluster. He glared down at Michael’s hand and took a deliberate step back so it couldn’t reach him.
It had to be a spell. Michael fucked him up with just a touch. Raider felt completely off balanced. It was like the world around him had changed colors but in a way he couldn’t discern. Everything was brighter, sharper and more vibrant. It had to be a spell, but what he had no clue.
Raider scratched at his hair anxiously while he cautiously moved his gaze up Michael’s arm. He took in pieces of the sorcerer as he tried to come to terms with just what the hell happened.
Michael was weird looking. He was tall, muscular, and practically glowed with magic. His short, golden hair had a soft curl that teased at his forehead in contrast to his piercing, deep blue eyes, and he had the most perfect white teeth Raider had ever seen. Ever. Michael was a demigod with a fantastic model smile, breathtaking and relaxed, and it set every nerve Raider had on edge.
Most people didn’t look like gods, most people who weren’t sorcerers, anyways. Raider grew up knowing to be wary of unnatural beauty the same way to fear eyes that spoke of death. All shifters looked at him like he was prey. Michael’s eyes didn’t have the familiar death glare that set his raccoon off, though. No, something about this man made Raider’s inner raccoon calm in a way nothing had before.
Dangerous. Whiteheart was a sorcerer. Even if his eyes appeared normal, Raider still felt like prey in his gaze.
“Raider, I’m the human reintegration specialist for the Academy,” Michael informed him calmly.
At the use of his nickname, Raider met Michael’s gaze and immediately looked away. Michael didn’t seem phased at his erratic behavior and continued with a smile. “I have a few different jobs around here, but the big one is being available to talk. Now Theodore is in charge of the shifters. As a shifter himself, he can offer a much needed insight I can’t always provide. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come to me if you have any questions or concerns.”
Michael nodded to Joseph, who was watching Raider intently. “Your uncle informed me about your lack of exposure to positive sorcerers in your life. It’s my hope I can help you see we’re not all bad.”
Raider nodded silently and avoided Michael’s eye. This guy was totally going to kill him. No one could look so perfect and act so fucking nice and not be about to stab a knife in his back.
Warmth radiated from where Michael had touched his bare skin. Raider curled his fingers into a fist as he looked around the too white landscape. His raccoon was unnaturally quiet and full of curiosity instead of its overwhelming fear. It was wrong—everything felt wrong. Raider fumbled and twisted one of the rings on his fingers as he dared a glance at Michael. “Did you, um… Did you just cast a spell on me?”
A surprised grin flashed across Michael’s handsome features. “Nope, that’s just a handshake. You’ll find I don’t cast magic unless it’s a necessity. You’re not the only one wary around sorcery, and we make an effort to respect that here.”
Michael opened the door fully and stepped aside to reveal the large entrance hall behind him. “Shall we?”
Raider peered into the echoing hall of smooth tile and white walls and was hit full force with the scent of predators. His raccoon cringed, and the overwhelming urge to run the other way heated through him again.
Wire cutters or maybe a thick blanket. It wouldn’t take much to get over the gate, he just needed dark to hide in. One day. He just needed to survive one day.
Raider jolted when Michael’s hand brushed his shoulder and lingered. His dark eyes opened wide and then squeezed shut. Beneath his human terror, he felt his raccoon melt into a content puddle and begin to purr. The part of Raider who wanted to pull away, to snarl and tell the sorcerer not to touch him, couldn’t compete with the loud, internal vibration of peace inside him.
Death, Raider reminded his raccoon desperately. There were flesh eaters, sorcerers, and certain death.
It was no use. The animal’s purr grew louder, and Raider knew he was alone, trapped once again because of his raccoon’s overwhelming will.
Joseph cleared his throat. He was the first to actually step forward into the building. He flashed a reassuring smile at his nephew, but Raider could read the trepidation in his brown eyes. Even a fully grown coyote shifter like Joseph was afraid.
There was good reason to be afraid.
It left Raider with a small flicker of hope. Maybe once Joseph saw how bad the Academy really was, he’d change his mind. He couldn’t really want to have him die. Sure, he fucked up, but Uncle Joe wouldn’t want him dead.
Raider swallowed down the choking sensation in his throat as he took his first step through the Academy doors. He just needed to be brave for a little longer and hopefully he’d live long enough to escape.
Once they were inside, Raider could see how terrifying a cage the Academy truly was. Magic was everywhere. Every door, every window, and every wall had traces of unnatural power.
Raider’s back teeth buzzed as he followed reluctantly into the immense entrance hall. His steps echoed on the sleek marble floor which had suspicious scents of animal blood clinging. Raider’s eyes roamed the large space and followed the tall curved walls unadorned except for a few lush potted plants placed around doorways.
Raider jolted when he caught movement to the side and saw his startled face staring back. There was a mirror hanging on the wall so big you could fall in. It was hidden in the shadow of a sweeping staircase that curved up to the floor above. He looked up and pursed his lips as he sensed even greater magic somewhere on the floor overhead. Raider looked to his uncle, but Joseph didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Raider was starting to get the impression his uncle might be completely blind to the dangers he was planning on leaving him in.
Too busy staring up at the ceiling, Raider didn’t notice where he was wandering until he reached a glass door on the other side of the entrance hall buzzing with magic. He wasn’t dumb enough to touch damn thing. He stared through at the corridor that seemed to go on forever. He wasn’t sure just how big the Academy was, but clearly it was larger than his first impression he got from the outside.
“Did you want to explore?” Michael reached for the handle and Raider jumped away to keep from being touched. Michael smiled patiently as he held the door open. “Most of the guys are in class at the moment. It could give you a chance to get a feel for things on your own.”
Fear flashed in his eyes as Raider searched the room. He found Joseph and looked pleadingly his way. The last thing he wanted was to be alone in this terrifying cage with psychos lurking at every corner.
Joseph cleared his throat. “I have some time, and I’d like to the see the Academy while I’m here. I’m sure Angel wouldn’t mind the company.”
Raider’s shoulders sagged in relief. Thank fuck. Surely once Joseph really saw the death trap he delivered him to, he’d rush to take him back home.
Michael nodded agreeably at the suggestion and let the door swing shut. “Alright, then, we can start with a view of the grounds. Let me just point out where these two corridors lead first. Both are going to be pretty important in Raider’s day to day life here.”
Raider edged toward Joseph while Michael walked back the way they came.
“Down here is the lounge right off this short hallway.” Michael waved to the door opposite the large mirror. “This is where you’ll be sleeping, hanging out, and taking your meals. Back there,” He pointed to the door Raider was hovering next to, “leads to the classrooms, offices, and gymnasiums. We have two fully equipped gyms to ensure your shifter animal gets all the exercise it requires. And of course, the hospital is down this corridor.”
Michael stopped in front of a doorway half hidden by the staircase. “I believe Dr. Rob is out at the moment, but it’s always good to meet the healer who’ll be in charge of any serious injuries. Broken limbs and flesh wounds are a guarantee with shifters in small spaces.”
“Oh, I know it.” Joseph chuckled and stepped over to talk to Michael. “Me and my cousins got into more than our fair share of trouble. I’m amazed we all managed to keep our limbs attached.”
Raider scowled at the way his uncle was laughing like they were all friends or some shit. He glared up at the ridiculously beautiful vaulted ceiling high above. Everything about the Academy screamed elitist sorcerer. Two gyms? He was lucky to have found the little hole in the wall place back home that didn’t charge him an arm and a leg to lift weights. It was frequented by humans, though, who noticed he was too strong to be anything but a paranormal. He ended up having to lift rocks, tires, and even an old hunk of rusted car to get exercise most days.
Raider’s steps slowed as he passed the corridor that led to the lounge. He sniffed warily at the air and abruptly slapped his hand over his nose and mouth when he was hit with a barrage of scents.
“Whoa. Just, whoa.” Heat flushed through Raider like wildfire, and he grabbed the wall to keep from falling sideways.
Oh, this was not good. Not good at all.
The hallway spun around him while Raider gritted his teeth and fought to keep control of his body. Of all the residual scents he was expecting—predators, magic, hunts, blood—it wasn’t this flood of sex scent. Someone was fucking someone a lot.
Raider nipped sharply at his palm as he tried to get ahold of himself. Mating predators were extra deadly. A normal conversation could turn into a killing rampage depending on just how alpha the shifter in question was. This particular scent was imbued with strong magic as well as testosterone.
Dangerous. Dangerous… and kinda sexy.
“Angel? Mr. Whiteheart is a busy man, and we have a lot to see.”
Raider jolted at Joseph’s voice. He quickly bit his finger and mashed his teeth into his flesh until he could get his rising erection to die down.
Fuck, what the hell was wrong with him? Whatever this scent was, it was doing strange and extremely embarrassing things to his body.
The guy had to be an alpha. Somewhere in the Academy was an alpha looking to mate.
Raider took a breath that didn’t settle with the way his stomach was all twisted. He needed to escape. There was no way he could get caught up in a scent like that. Just one sniff and he was all messed up.
Raider’s gaze darted to where Michael was waiting by the door, and then to his uncle. Joseph merely raised an eyebrow at him and stepped into the corridor that was supposed to lead to the classrooms and gyms. Raider kept his eyes fixed on the large bank of windows as he followed behind, and made sure there was plenty of space between him and the adults.
He was in no rush to explain what was wrong with him at the moment. He hadn’t expected this at all and didn’t know how to deal with it. He knew some smells messed him up, he just hadn’t expected it in a place like this. Definitely not when he was certain death was right around the corner. How the hell could he get hard over a damn scent?
Raider’s steps slowed when he saw something dark out in the blinding white afternoon on the other side of the window. There was a man out there… A shirtless man. The guy was bulked and siting in the snow, and Raider turned and squinted his eyes to see clearer. He jumped when something flashed by the window.
“Holy shit,” Raider yelped as a giant, black maned lion bounded up and took off across the field. Snow flew up around the monstrous beast and blurred the landscape. Raider pressed his face against the glass as he looked for the human who had been there moments before.
“Shit, please be a shifter.” Raider’s breath fogged up the window and he scrubbed his wrist on the glass for a clearer view. No matter how hard he looked, he could only find the now lazily stretching lion and not the man who was there moments ago. Either the guy was a lion shifter or he was the meal of that van-sized lion. Both possibilities were equally terrifying.
Raider bit down on a ring while he hummed anxiously. He was so fucked. That lion out there was too big and too magical looking to be anything but a shifter. Raider’s raccoon would be an easy meal for a beast like that. Fuck, if a shifter were crazy enough, he might think his human form was a meal. That giant lion could probably eat a person. Easy.
Raider held his breath when Michael stepped up behind him. He kept his eyes locked on the lion while he silently wondered if the sorcerer was going to use this moment while he was distracted to kill him.
“That’s Leo,” Michael supplied as he stared out at the lion. “He’s not really a joiner, if you get my drift.”
Raider blinked and his gaze darted to the side where Michael was leaning his shoulder against the window. “Really? Leo the lion?” he asked scornfully.
Michael smirked. “Yup, it’s a bit of a running joke. His real name is Leonard and he hates it. As you can see by looking at him, we all call Leo whatever he wants to be called.”
Raider turned back to the window and whimpered into the flesh of his palm. Leo was a fucking monster. There was no way he was going to survive a day in the Academy. He needed to run. He needed to get the fuck out before…
“Hey.” Michael reached up and touched the hand trapped between Raider’s teeth. “You’re not going to have any fingers left if you gnaw them all off.”
“Uh…” Raider felt frozen as Michael carefully extracted his hand from his death grip, and his raccoon’s running mantra of death and escape abruptly silenced. “You don’t need to…” He could only stare as Michael held his hand in his. Raider’s finger was red with imprints of his teeth and more than a little wet, and Michael was just holding his hand like he wasn’t completely disgusting.
“There you go.” Michael squeezed his hand reassuringly before he released him.
Heat flooded through Raider and his raccoon gave a throaty purr. He quickly ducked his head and tried with all his might to ignore the way his dick had twitched.
This was crazy. This place was making him crazy.
“We can meet Leo, if you like. I can’t promise he’ll be friendly, but he’s usually civil enough.” Michael tilted his head at the window with an inquiring look.
Raider stepped back in alarm and shoved his hands into his pockets. “N-No. Er, that is…” He hissed out a breath and stepped around Michael to put space between them. “I just want to get this over with.”
Michael pushed from the windows and beamed. “Alright then. Let’s start with the offices.”
Raider nodded mutely. He hesitantly raised his head when Michael started walking and couldn’t help the way his gaze flowed along the man’s broad shoulders, trim waist, and lingered on his muscular ass.
Damn it. Raider bit his knuckle and tried to squash the fresh wave of heat rushing through his body. It had to be that sex scent. It was making him insane, apparently.
Michael turned back to see if he was following, and Raider’s gaze skittered over his handsome features as he fought a blush.
Yeah, he was totally going crazy. He had to have lost his mind to be checking out a sorcerer. Raider bit his ring and forced his legs to move.
Everything about this place was wrong, and it was messing him up. As the minutes ticked by and large, fancy rooms blurred past, Raider started to wonder if it was intentional. What if Michael was trying to freak him out and confuse him? What if he was using a lust spell? Raider wasn’t sure if they were real, but he knew magic could do just about anything if you had the power. Michael seemed like he had a lot of power.
The guy was sharp, really fucking sharp. Even when he wasn’t looking his way, Raider could feel Michael’s attention on him. Oh, Michael pretended to be caring, to be calm and collected, but Raider felt that same buzz he felt around predator shifters. Whiteheart was dangerous.
Raider dragged behind as they toured the Academy and refused to be pulled into conversation. His main goal was to find a way out, but his prospects looked bleak as he scented magic down every hall. He needed to know how many sorcerers worked at that Academy, and if they all lived there. He knew even less about the baby sorcerers who were the attending patients. He was certain any delinquent sorcerer in training would rat him out in a second if they discovered his plan, or worse, they might try to steal pieces of him for a dark spell. How the hell was he going to escape this giant place when surrounded by all these sorcerers?
The Academy was a maze, an elaborate, expensive, spine tingling maze. Raider wasn’t even sure how they ended up back at the entrance hall. They didn’t come back the way they left, or at least, he didn’t think they did. Raider glared around the room before following his uncle and Michael down the side hall that led to the lounge and sleeping quarters. He breathed shallowly and this time the scents didn’t have as strong as an effect. Raider glared around the lounge and twisted a ring nervously while Joseph and Michael talked about him like he couldn’t hear.
Raider couldn’t get comfortable. The room might have been full of couches and chairs, but the air was full of the scents of predators. And when he turned toward the line of doors opposite the long wall of windows, he was bombarded with that dizzying alpha sex scent. Raider crossed his arms tightly to his chest and stalked the length of the room like a caged animal. He noted the couches, tables, computers and multiple televisions with a scowl.
The place was money and everything smelled wrong: predators, magic, alphas, sex. He felt so out of place and he hated it. But…
There was nowhere else for him to go.
“This is fucking bullshit.” Raider hissed under his breath and stomped back to the entrance hall to escape the cacophony of unfamiliar scents. He had to get out. There was no way he was going to survive in this place.
He paced around the front entrance while his mind raced with half formed plans of how to get over the gate and barbed wire in his way. He almost missed the sound of the door opening, but it was the secretive footsteps that stopped him cold. Raider froze, his head down and lip trapped between his teeth as he listened to the stranger who had stepped into the entrance hall behind him.
It was a shifter. No human walked that carefully, that quietly. He sniffed the air cautiously and breathed a sigh of mild relief to know it wasn’t the giant lion. Raider stiffened on his next inhale. No, it wasn’t the lion but it was something similarly deadly. Cat. The shifter was some kind of big, deadly cat.
Raider’s fingers twitched as he quickly considered his options. His uncle was in the lounge, moments away. If he tried to make a break for it, he might just make it. There was time. If he judged by the footfalls, the newcomer was almost halfway across the room. He could make it.
His shoulders felt stiff as Raider turned and briskly headed for the side door. He was considering running and if it would make him a target or buy him the time he needed, when he inhaled deeply and his lungs filled with a new scent. Raider missed a step and gasped as he stumbled to a stop and came face to face with his first patient.
“Hey.” Forest blinked in surprise from where he stopped short before Raider could knock into him. “You’re the new kid, right? I’m Forest.”
Raider gulped, his knees locked and face quickly turning red. Forest was shorter than him, slender with tight muscle, dark hair, and smooth movements. Everything about him screamed killer to his raccoon, including Forest’s fang filled smirk that appeared the longer Raider gaped. There was a streak of soot on his cheek, and his hair was mussed with dust as if he was fresh from a fight. Raider barely noticed any of it beyond Forest’s intense scent.
The smells of magic, smoke, and dust did nothing to mask the musk coming off the leopard shifter. It was a deep, dark tone that curled through Raider with each inhale and left him flushed, dazed, and breathless. Sex. It wasn’t the scent of whoever was mating on every available surface of the Academy, but it was undeniably strong and confusingly enticing.
Forest tilted his head curiously when Raider continued to stare at him with wide eyes. “You have a name, right? I guess we’re bunking up.”
“No… m-maybe. What?” Raider’s mouth felt impossibly dry as Forest’s words sank in. Bunking up? With a predator? He was sharing a room with a predator?
Raider’s lungs felt like stone as he dragged his next breath in. He fought another wave of dizziness as he drank down more of the overwhelming sex scent.
Forest was hot. Like, seriously sexy. He was dangerous and hot, and he really needed to get away if he wanted to be able to think again.
Forest scratched some dust from the tip of his nose and glanced awkwardly to the side.
“I’m Raider,” he blurted out, then snapped his mouth shut. Raider knew he was probably acting like a total freak. His raccoon did lots of stupid things, and this seemed like one of those moments. Being aware of it didn’t mean his tongue was about to untie or his feet move anytime soon.
“Hey, Raider. Um… if you need me to get them, I can,” Forest offered when he met Raider’s gaze again and found silent panic. His ears had no problem picking up Michael and Joseph talking in the lounge down the hall. “Is your dad like you? I mean, uh, no one said you were… Not that they should have.”
Forest exhaled unsteadily and his odd, yellow eyes darkened for a moment. He took a step away. “Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you to be so….”
“No.” Raider swallowed down the lump in his throat and tried to answer properly. “He’s my uncle, sort of. We’re not actually related.” Joseph was a coyote shifter, as were all his relatives, and Raider was prey among them.
Forest nodded solemnly, and it took Raider a moment to realize what he revealed to an absolute stranger.
“My dad’s not dead,” Raider said briskly. “Joseph just took me in to make sure I stayed in school and stuff.”
“Hey, it’s cool.” Forest held his hands up reassuringly. “It takes all types, man.” He hesitated, and Forest’s glanced toward him sideways for a moment. “So, you missing someone?”
“Huh?” Raider blinked, distracted. Forest looked like he was fighting with his inner cat about whether they should eat him or not. His eyes kept flashing his way like he was just looking for a weakness or opening to strike.
“You know, did you leave your, uh, sweetheart back home or some shit?” Forest elaborated with a quirk of his eyebrow. “A hottie like you, you’re probably dating someone.”
“Uh. I’m not really…” Raider blushed hotly. He met Forest’s searing gaze and quickly looked away.
Fuck, this was weird. Was Forest hitting on him? Raider was pretty sure he was a total spaz, and once anyone got to know him, they gave him a lot of space cuz he was so weird. Raider glanced Forest’s way another quick second. Forest would probably be the same way. And really, it wasn’t like he wanted a psycho, flesh eating shifter living in an institution for crazy paranormals to be interested in him. Even if Forest was kinda, totally hot.
“No. I’m not missing anyone,” Raider finally got out, his throat too tight.
Forest’s smirk was full of sharp fangs. His bangs fluttered over one of his eyes when he shrugged in a clearly practiced move and edged closer to Raider. It made him look roguish and more than a little sultry, and Raider had to swallow hard to resit the urge to take a step back.
“Cool. That’s cool. That’ll make your stay easier, right? It always sucks to be missing someone.”
Raider nodded silently and watched as Forest’s eyes drifted over his chest like he was a meal he was sizing up. Forest might be cute and seem harmless, but he still had an inner cat that could eat him alive.
“Are you, you know? Missing someone?” Raider looked away before the question was out, half afraid he just made the biggest mistake of his life.
Forest grinned wickedly. “Nah. Even if I was, I got here months ago. No one waits around that long.” His yellow eyes glinted a deep gold as his stare lingered on Raider’s tattooed bicep. “But, you know, if you do find yourself missing someone…”
Raider held his breath when Forest took a step closer and his sex scent swam around him. “Yeah?”
“The Academy is a small place and some of us are here for a while. So, you know, if you’re ever feeling lonely and you want to talk…” Forest inhaled deeply as his eyes fixed on Raider’s parted lips. “I’m around, you know?”
“T-Talk?” Raider was really confused as to what the hell they were talking about now, never mind what Forest wanted to talk to him about later. Forest didn’t look like he wanted to talk. He looked like he was getting ready to hunt him down and maim him, or maybe just kiss him. Both options seemed terrifying in their own right at the moment. Raider had never kissed anyone and Forest’s fangs looked sharp.
“Yeah, talk, or something. Whatever you need.” Forest sounded breathless and his fangs glinted as his gaze seared down Raider’s heaving chest.
“Uh… that is…” Raider eyes skittered away as he tried to rise above the strange heat swimming in his head and body. One of his knees unlocked, and he took a cautious step back and breathed in fresh air. “I’ll, um… I’ll think about it.” He was pretty sure it was all he was going to be thinking about until he found a way out of the Academy.
“Right. Yeah, cool.” Forest shook his head and combed fingers into his hair as he stepped back. When he looked up, there was a hint of confusion in his dark eye hazy with lust. “Have you seen the gym? It’s kinda the main place to be for the shifter pack.”
Raider had, but he couldn’t find his voice. His eyes had wandered at some point and he was staring at the way Forest’s navy blue polo was stretched tight around his biceps and chest when he shoved his hands into his pockets. It highlighted the sleek, compact muscle underneath. Raider bit his lip as he tried to figure out just what Forest looked like without said shirt in the way. He glanced up, only to jolt and blush when Forest flashed him a wicked smile.
Damn it. Whatever. Fine. The guy’s scent was impossible to ignore, and he was really hot. It didn’t mean Raider was falling for any of it though. He could still smell death beneath Forest’s sex scent. Forest was all predator and he had no interest in ending up as his prey.
Raider scowled and stood up straighter in an attempt to look intimidating. He might only be a raccoon shifter, but he was strong for a human. Forest, unfortunately, didn’t look impressed by his size, muscle, or tattoos. No, he just seemed, well, into him. He was the first patient he met at the Academy, and if Forest or anyone else decided he was really weak, he could be dead by nightfall. Raider couldn’t believe he was even thinking it, but he was kind of hoping Forest would be more interested in hooking up with him than hunting him down dead.
“Come on, I’ll show you around.” Forest clasped Raider on the arm briefly, only to raise his eyebrow appreciatively as he squeezed his bicep. “It’s way better than listening to them talk about you,” he said with a knowing nod toward the lounge where Joseph and Michael were still talking. “The guys are all out in the yard running off some steam. You should meet the pack.”
The last thing Raider wanted to do was meet a pack of fucked up, psycho shifters.
He glanced Forest’s way only to find him staring expectantly. Raider didn’t feel bold enough to actually refuse. It would look weak, and he couldn’t look weak. The moment anyone figured out just how terrified he really was, they’d attack, no hesitation.
Raider gritted his teeth and nodded silently. When Forest started walking, Raider reluctantly followed. His feet felt heavy as if his limbs even knew he was walking to his doom.
Michael was doing his best to show Joseph there was nothing to fear when it came to leaving Raider at the Academy. He was trying not to act as rushed as he felt. The tour had turned into helping Joseph set his mind at ease more than anything to do with Raider. It wasn’t unusual, but there were only so many hours in the day, and Michael knew Theo was going to be coming up at any moment to rave about his classroom being blown up once again.
“Just how long will this program take?” Joseph spoke in low tones like they were sentencing his nephew to prison instead of a wealthy rehabilitation institution. His eyes kept jumping around the lounge as he took in all the new luxuries Raider would have at his disposal. “Angel’s already been held back in school, and I’m not certain he has what it takes to pass a GED in his current state. This whole thing came at the worst possible time.”
“That depends completely on him.” Michael did nothing to quiet his voice. The illusion of hiding things was never a good way to start with a new patient. “We offer a GED class for anyone interested.”
“Long, then? You think he’ll be here months?”
Michael leaned back against a couch thoughtfully. He was used to shifters being extra concerned about the safety of their young pack mates while under the guardianship of sorcerers. Joseph didn’t come off as frightened, though. He seemed consumed with guilt about leaving his nephew behind.
“These thing don’t have a set time,” Michael finally answered while Joseph idly explored the lounge. “At the Academy, we don’t promise results. We aren’t here to ‘fix’ Angel, but to help him gain the skills needed to live life as a shifter. All we can do is create a welcoming, stable environment so paranormals in need can find ways to deal with the challenges they face daily. We’re as much a safe haven as we are a learning institution and medical facility. What the young men attending the Academy choose to do with our resources and guidance is completely up to them.”
Joseph’s tanned face pinched with tension, and his gaze flickered along the line of empty chairs at the dining table facing the windows. He turned to Michael with a frown. “He’s going to need more than just an environment. Angel was nearly killed. He was unable to keep himself from the circumstances that led up to it and was unable to control himself after. He’s not in control.”
“Yes, the incident was difficult on your entire family. Angel is here to learn control. There is no set time for something like that.” Michael straightened and followed to where Joseph had stopped by the lounge exit. “This is up to Angel now. He’s an adult with adult sized problems. No one, no matter how powerful, can do this for him. We can be here to help, but that’s all. If he doesn’t want to deal with his problems, he’s not going to get better. I’m sure you understand that.”
Joseph sighed heavily. The lines on his face appeared deeper as he ran a hand over his brow. “It’s his father all over again, isn’t it? I watched Lucus take every wrong step, and for what? To leave that kid all on his own? To drive his wife away and leave the boy parentless? The boy’s going to end up in jail right next to his old man.”
“Angel is not his father,” Michael replied evenly, while fighting a surprising surge of anger. How many times had Raider heard that particular prediction from the people who cared about him the most? How many had decided he wasn’t worth helping just because of the man who raised him?
“Some people take longer to get to the place where they’re ready to take responsibility for their actions.” Michael tried to lighten his tone. “Just because it doesn’t appear to be happening the way you expect it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. This is normally a time of change for kids Angel’s age as it is. There’s a lot being demanded of him, a lot he’s trying to figure out. It can be easy to miss all the ways he’s trying to figure things out because of the many mistakes that are naturally going to happen on that journey.”
“I guess I could see that.” Joseph nodded dully, his voice gruff.
Michael took in Joseph’s tired expression and worn clothes. “You’ve been trying to pick up the slack for him for a while now. As valiant as that is, you’re keeping him from making those mistakes. Without messing up, Angel can’t learn. At the Academy he’ll be able to make mistakes and not destroy the lives of everyone around him. That means you can go home, take a break from trying to save him, and start taking care of your own needs again.”
“He’s a good kid,” Joseph said after a pensive pause. “Just… He’s a lot of work. His father left him a mess and…”
“And now he’s his own responsibility.” Michael clapped his hand on his shoulder warmly and led Joseph down the corridor to the entrance hall. He looked around, but Raider wasn’t in sight. “It looks like he feels comfortable enough to explore on his own. That’s a good sign. Are these his only bags or do you need help bring the rest in?”
“No, that’s all of them.” Joseph stared down at Raider’s two duffel bags, clearly reluctant to leave just yet.
Michael shouldered a bag, and reached for the next. “After a month’s time, Angel will be allowed to contact you beyond letters. Your life is going to change a lot by then, and so is his. If you need someone to talk to, please call me. I know this isn’t always an easy transition.”
Guilt flashed across Joseph’s worn features and he frowned grimly. “Unfortunately, you’ve all made this far too easy. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“Think of it as a vacation,” Michael said gently as he led Joseph back to the lounge and Raider’s waiting room. “A well needed one.”
If anything, Joseph looked more guilty. “These shifter instructors, they understand what Angel needs, correct? I’m not sure his father even talked to him about it. And I… well.” Joseph sighed heavily, his gaze fixing anywhere but on Michael. “I don’t even know how to start the conversation. I’ve taken care to keep him separated, and Angel has a knack for pushing people away his own age, so it’s made things easy in that regard. I’m just not sure he understand…” he trailed off, unable to voice just what Raider didn’t understand.
A furrow appeared between Michael’s brows as he tried to understand what Joseph was leaving out. “What, do you mean he doesn’t know he’s a prey shifter? I find that hard to believe.”
Joseph shook his head and his streaked gray ponytail tumbled over his shoulder. He finally met Michael’s eyes with a worried frown. “You’re a sorcerer, so I’m sure you don’t come across this much. Hell, it’s unusual among shifters as it is. It’s one out of 100 odds, maybe even lower. The boy is damn special, but it just seems to cause more trouble than good. His prey genetics are a whole different situation; it makes him afraid all the time.”
“Actually…” Michael cautiously sought the right words. Explaining to a shifter that he was wrong about what it meant to be a shifter rarely went over well. “Being a prey shifter has little to do with the level of anxiety of an individual. A healthy, well-adjusted prey shifter innately knows other shifters won’t hurt him. I understand non-predator shifters are rare, so you may not be too familiar with their behavior. We’ve had more than a few prey shifters come through the Academy with varying temperaments, and little to no anxiety among them.”
Joseph slowed his steps, his features sharp as it clicked just what Michael was saying. “None of them were afraid?”
Michael nodded as he stepped into Raider’s new room and deposited his bags onto his bed. “Angel’s level of fear isn’t normal for his situation. Have you noticed if this is new behavior since the incident?”
“No, he’s… he’s always been like that since I took him in.” Joseph stared at Michael with wide, worry filled eyes and shook his head. “You mean all that fear, it has nothing to do with his biology? Angel’s father… Lucus was never a nervous man, but I just assumed…” Joseph looked stricken, his eyes unfocused as he thought back. “Did something happen to him? How did I not notice this? Angel’s been living under my protection for five years and his fear only kept growing.”
Michael raised his hand up and guided Joseph back into the lounge. “Are you a mind reader? Some sort of seer?” He kept his voice compassionate but steady. “Can you control the chemical imbalance in someone else’s brain? I’m a master sorcerer, and I have no idea how to magically fix an anxiety disorder. The Academy will have plenty of time to get Raider’s situation sorted out.”
Joseph looked absolutely harried as Michael led him by the elbow toward the entrance hall. “If something happened to that boy while under my protection…”
“Whatever happened in the past is in the past,” Michael interrupted smoothly. “There’s no changing it, and no point dwelling. It’s Angel’s turn to care for himself. Don’t take his ability to get better from him by putting that responsibility on your shoulders. He needs to have the power to choose his path, and that gets difficult when well-meaning individuals keep making decisions for him.”
Joseph harrumphed but the tension in his shoulders lessened. He stepped side by side with Michael as they headed for the exit.
“I’ve protected Angel a lot back home. He’s very… he’s inexperienced in just what his biology is outside of being a prey shifter. I thought I was helping him. I thought I was protecting him and the other shifters from him.” Joseph looked at Michael meaningfully. “Angel has a scent that affects his own kind, and he has no idea. I’ve kept every shifter who was remotely susceptible away from him to keep him safe. It’s practically everyone with a nose, alpha or not. He had a few friends with a natural resistance, but that’s all.” Joseph sighed under his breath. “His scent is powerful, dangerous.”
Michael’s mind ticked as he began to put things together. Joseph took Raider in five years ago, which meant he couldn’t have been more than fourteen at the time. Had Joseph been isolating the boy ever since because of this scent? He gave him no explanation, no reason as to why Raider had to be kept from the others.
“I’m sure you can see how that could be a problem for Raider now he’s out on his own.” Michael offered quietly even as his mind raced.
Joseph nodded grimly as he sniffed the air of the entrance hall. “He just got here, and his scent is already permeating. He’s an adult with a power he has no idea how to use. Yes, I’m seeing how my wish to protect him has made this more difficult. I tried my best to stay atop of all this. Just…”
“You’re only one man, and you have your own life, Joseph. There’s nothing wrong about that.”
Joseph stopped and turned to Michael. There was more than guilt haunting his next words. “The anti-shifter badges were by the house. The shifter patrol, I guess you would know them as up here. I saw them staking out my land when I was packing Angel’s things in the truck. Angel doesn’t understand the consequences of even the smallest mistake when being a shifter. The entire coyote pack is in danger just because Angel’s raccoon flipped, that sorcerer got involved, and the incident ended up in the papers. That’s all it takes.” Joseph’s brows twisted as he tried to get Michael to understand.
“I know it’s not the boy’s fault, but that doesn’t change the danger he created. We’re all at risk, and he can’t come back if there’s a possibility he’ll repeat this kind of behavior.”
Michael kept his features trained as he heard the ultimatum on the tip of Joseph’s tongue. “Maybe you should give it a few months before you make a decision like that. As I said, these things don’t fix themselves overnight, but I’m sure Raider wants to be in your life.”
Joseph nodded gruffly, but his eyes were full of fear for the future. “He needs a father. I’m not going to stop trying to be that for the boy, but this is too much for me and Vicky. We’re not prepared for any of this, not at this level. Not when their are men sniffing around my house looking for shifter blood to spill.”
Michael grasped Joseph’s shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. The two made their way to the double doors Raider and Joseph stepped through a little less than an hour ago.
“When Angel is ready, he’s going to know how to carry that weight on his shoulders instead of placing it on you and your wife. You won’t need to protect him, you won’t need to keep others from him. Give him time. He’s going to learn a new way of living here, and that starts with leaving his old ways behind.”
“Right… that’s right.” Joseph took a steadying breath as Michael pushed the door open and they were hit with a wall of cold winter air. He fixed his gaze on his worn pickup truck. “He needs more than I can give him. It’s not that I don’t want to; I’m just not capable. And this Academy, well, that’s why he’s here. For help. Help I can’t give him.”
“Exactly.” Michael’s smile was full of confidence. “We’re going to show Angel how to supply what he needs for himself. Now, you just need to go home and remember what it’s like to do the same for yourself.”
Joseph smiled wanly as he made his way to his truck and the long, arduous drive home. Michael stood framed in the doorway as he watched him warm the engine up and pull down the drive. He took a few deep, thoughtful breaths of the refreshing air as he thought.
There were things about Raider Joseph hadn’t disclosed in their initial interview, and he wasn’t sure just how he was going to be able to contain it. He had thirteen patients living at the Academy, fourteen now Raider was included. Two were alpha shifters and two were borderline in their alpha tendencies. There was no way to know what Raider’s mysterious scent was going to do to his shifters.
Michael frowned as Raider’s dark, angry eyes flashed in his mind’s eye. The kid was defensive, terrified, and dangerous on levels he didn’t even understand. One mistake had cost Raider his home and nearly his life. Whatever problems Angel Valdez might bring with him, Michael already knew it was going to be up to him to keep the new raccoon shifter safe at the Academy.
“Go the fuck away, you flea-ridden bag of fur.”
“Come on, Vince!”
Vincent Frost found it difficult to know the right thing to say on most occasions. His native language was German, and no one understood him unless he spoke in very slow, precise English. He had, on the other hand, learned an incredible amount of swears and insults in both English and Spanish the last five months of living at the Academy, all thanks to the annoying as fuck fox shifter who refused to leave him alone.
“Just let me fix it,” Fox insisted as he scrambled after Vincent’s retreating form.
The hallway was empty—at least, it was supposed to be. Fox refused to let Vincent go to the hospital alone, like being annoying was somehow helping. It was infuriating, like everything about the stupid fox shifter.
Fox’s steps grew louder behind him, and Vincent quickened his gait.
“Vince…”
“My name is Vincent,” he hissed. “Master Howld said for me to see the healer, not you, Zorro. Fuck off!”
Naturally, Fox followed.
Fox was such a stupid nickname. It was the equivalent of walking around being called ‘human’ or ‘guy,’ or in Fox’s particular instance ‘annoying as fuck.’ Rafael was a perfectly nice name. Vincent started calling him Zorro, which was Spanish for fox, to prove just how unimaginative the nickname was. Of course his wit was completely wasted. Fox always grinned whenever he called him Zorro like it was some big, special secret.
Stupid. Fox was so fucking stupid.
Vincent’s angry footsteps echoed in the downstairs hallway. It was usually a quiet trip, but Fox kept coughing from all the dust both of them were covered in. Completely the stupid idiot’s fault, too. Vincent scowled and tried not to think of how his clothes were ruined again. Magic could only do so much. Each rip and stain was a reminder that a day would come when he wasn’t going to be able to repair his clothing after one of Fox’s fuck ups, and he’d have nothing left to wear.
“Vince, I just want to help. You’re bleeding and…”
There was a tingle of magic behind him, and Vincent stopped short. He whirled and glared in warning at Fox’s approach. “Get away from me, you furry son of a bitch, before you ruin…!” Vincent stood stock still as magic washed over him. “Son of a whore.”
Vincent sighed heavily and watched as Fox’s mischievous orange eyes went wide and his tanned face paled. Fox winced dramatically and took a stumbling step back. Vincent clenched his hands into fists and snarled under his breath.
Why? Why wouldn’t Fox just leave him the fuck alone? Since his very first day when he couldn’t speak a single word of English, Fox was right there to trip him up and unsettle the fuck out of him. It was a handshake gone wrong their first meeting. Yes, you could apparently fuck up a handshake; you just had to be Rafael Alvarez and not pay attention. Fox nearly pulled his arm from the socket when he turned mid shake to yell at someone and failed to release his hand.
Dumbass. Why couldn’t Fox understand he was the last person in the world to mess with?
Vincent took a steadying breath, but it did nothing for the seething of dread and exasperation rushing through him. The last time he saw that particular expression on Fox’s face, he singed his long, noble hair to its current chin length style. No good would come from that look. It had to be really bad.
Vincent silently assessed his body for pain and was relieved to find nothing new was throbbing, burning, or otherwise unattached from the rest of him. Decided he was at least in once piece, he inhaled another deep breath. His exhale came out in a growingly familiar exasperated growl. “Zorro, if you have…”
“It’s not that bad, I swear.” Fox said it so swiftly, his Spanish accent blurred his words together into a garble Vincent barely understood. Fox held his hands up and took another step back. “Your skin is just, um, well… You’re not covered in soot anymore.” Fox’s eyes flashed to the side for an escape route from the angry sorcerer who was radiating a new blue hue from his pale skin.
Vincent gritted his teeth to keep from screaming. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to physically beat anyone quite as bloody and bruised as he did the fox shifter. With a glare at Fox, he summoned up a mirror to see the damage. Fox immediately jumped forward and snatched it from his hands.
“I can fix it,” Fox promised and got ready to do just that.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Vincent saw his hand and the blue color glowing from his once perfectly normal skin. “Your next bumbling attempt will probably take my flesh right off!”
Fox winced and didn’t bother to disagree. “I’m seriously sorry, Vince. I’ll take you to Dr. Rob’s. If anyone laughs, I’ll tell them it was all my fault and…”
Vincent snatched the mirror from Fox’s grasp, only to start when his eyes met his reflection. The somber young man with clear gray eyes and raven black hair was as unfamiliar as always. Vincent quickly spelled the mirror away and ignored how his chest felt too tight and heart loud in his ears.
“We can go right now. I’ll carry your stuff, if you want.” Fox bit his lower lip as he stepped closer.
Vincent blinked as the world came back into focus but with a new, fuzzy feel to it. Fox was blathering about something. Fox was always talking, and rarely was it ever relevant. He was always underfoot, usually while exploding him or his things in the process. Sometimes Vincent thought Fox was his penance for his past life before he came to the Academy. But then, Fox wasn’t nearly terrible enough for something like that. It would take a swarm of dragon shifters tearing at his flesh and organs every day for a lifetime for Vincent to ever hope to reach absolution.
“Damn it. Let me help somehow.” Fox jumped from one sneakered foot to the other. “I keep fucking up, and I was distracted, and it’s been a really tough day. I’m supposed to call home today, and you know how I get. It was an accident, and I wasn’t paying attention, and…”
Vincent’s glare fell to Fox’s slender, tanned ankles. He idly watched the tattooed flesh dance as he fought his anger. He did know how Fox got whenever he spoke to his family, and that was another fact in a line of random bits of information he didn’t want to know. Fox was always there. Always. He was always chattering about his life like he was supposed to give a fuck, or talking to him like they were supposed to be friends, or fighting with him because, for some crazy reason, Fox liked to piss him off the most.
The guy was seriously skinny. If he didn’t see Fox eat enough food to feed three people his size every day, Vincent would think he had an eating disorder. It was annoying as fuck. Vincent couldn’t stand to see someone look like they were wasting away from hunger, especially a shifter.
The edges of his vision dimmed a moment, and Vincent immediately shut the memory down. He ignored the buzz that was Fox forever talking and pushed forward. He needed to see Dr. Rob, or at the very least get away from Fox.
“Vince, seriously. Let me help you.”
“Stop talking,” Vincent snapped. He pushed his hair back from his face and scowled to find it full of dust. “You want to really help? Just stop talking, Zorro.”
Fox grinned winningly. “You know that’s not going to happen.” He jumped in front of Vincent, and his orange eyes flashed mischief as Vincent glared at him. “Come on, let me carry your bag. Your arm looks pretty beat up from the last explosion.”
“The explosion you caused,” Vincent muttered spitefully. He promised the masters he would make an attempt to talk to Fox instead of raging at him. It was just very difficult when Fox was always blowing him up.
Fox’s cheeks flushed red as he reached for Vincent’s bag. “I’m really sorry.”
Vincent narrowed his eyes warningly. “If you were really sorry…”
“I know, I know. If I were really sorry, I wouldn’t keep doing it.” Fox’s fingers curled tight around the strap of the backpack hanging off Vincent’s shoulder. “Vince, you gotta understand. You really can’t talk to me when I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Bullshit.” Vincent huffed. “You insist on chattering at me every time I try to cast a spell. It’s far more distracting than me telling you to pay the fuck attention when you’re already fucking something up.”
Fox grinned awkwardly and wagged his eyebrows. “Yeah, well, you don’t blow shit up when I talk to you. I, on the other hand… Damn, you make me so nervous most of the time I can’t help but, uh, lose control,” Fox finished with a whisper and turned his gaze to the floor.
Vincent had no idea what Fox’s new game was, but it was just as annoying as all the others ones troublesome shifter got up to. He was now inches away with Fox holding him tight by the strap of his bag. Fox gazed up through surprisingly thick, dark lashes, and Vincent had the bizarre notion he was going to kiss him. Ridiculous—he’d hex his ears off if he even tried. Fox’s tongue darted out to lick his lips and Vincent wasn’t blind to how he was staring at his mouth.
“Hey, Vince,” Fox said huskily. “I know you’re really pissed about your hair and all, but it came out nice after Theo cut it. I mean, really nice. Now you don’t look so girly and…”
Vincent scowled. There was nothing remotely girly about him.
“And, you know, maybe you might want to, um, do something with me. Outside of class. Like on a weekend or something.”
Vincent’s brows furrowed as he tried to understand what the fuck it was Fox wanted. “What? What the hell would we do together, Zorro? Well, besides me hexing your mouth shut. Permanently,” he added when Fox blushed. Why was Fox always blushing at him? Like he was supposed to dismiss the fucking misery Fox put him through just because he blushed?
“Ah, I dunno, Vince.” Fox forged on, his eyes still locked on Vincent’s pout. “There’s this really cool mall I like to go to sometimes. Maybe we could watch a movie.”
“Now I know you’re up to something.” Vincent grabbed the hand firmly attached to his bag and pried Fox’s fingers free. “You couldn’t sit through a movie if your life depended on it. What are you trying to do, distract me so you can test another failed spell on my hair?”
“Come on, Vince. I’m not that bad,” Fox said with a heavy sigh.
Vincent just glared. There were no words to explain how bad Fox was. At least, no words Fox would actually bother to listen to.
Fox smirked wickedly and opened his mouth to continue, only to pause. His head swiveled to the side and nostrils flared as he picked up a scent.
Vincent tried to pull his hand away when it was caught in Fox’s strong, warm grip. “Let go, you annoying flea bag.”
“Shhh.” Fox tugged Vincent’s arm as he took a step toward the masters’ offices. His eyes were slitted and nose twitched.
Vincent stared in growing annoyance when he realized he was being dragged down the hall over a stupid scent. How dare Fox tell him to be quiet when he was the one always making noise? He never shut the fuck up.
Rage felt like a fire burning through him, and Vincent’s chest heaved as he pulled air in. “Zorro, I’m going to count to three. If you don’t let me go…”
“Quiet. Do you smell that? I think that’s… Holy fuck. It’s really him!” Fox gripped Vincent’s wrist extra tight. He took off running down the hall while completely oblivious to who he was pulling with him.
“Zorro—Damn it—Fucking arschloch!” Vincent struggled to wrest his arm free from Fox’s impossibly strong grip. Fox abruptly released him, and Vincent stumbled forward and grabbed the wall to keep from slamming his face against it. “I’m going to fucking murder you, Alvarez!”
“Alvarez?” an unfamiliar voice echoed down the hall. Vincent froze and the world tilted uncontrollably.
Unbidden, darkness encroached on Vincent’s sight. A wave of dizziness swept through him so great, he felt transported to another place and time.
Fox shouted from far away, and cries of pain echoed in the recesses of Vincent’s mind in sympathy. He breathed in and called the air and the power it held. He pulled the life force deep into his lungs and felt it spread like a chill though his veins all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes. He whispered for protection. Bladed. Indestructible. Death.
Vincent straightened from his slump on the wall. His body felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone of strength, of armor, and resilience, and not the brittle being he truly was. As he turned, he commanded the floor to aid him, the walls to…
“Raider! Holy fuck, man!” Fox laughed exuberantly and threw himself down the hall to land on top of the new arrival. Five foot seven inches with narrow tattooed limbs and a slender build, Fox literally climbed the tall raccoon shifter. He crowed in raucous laughter while the muscular stranger looked at him in utter shock.
Vincent’s reality tilted in a wave of nausea. His mouth clicked shut and he stopped all motion.
The hallway was too bright, he observed stonily. His gaze moved to the vicious spikes slashing up out of the tiled floor and white walls. Their growth slowed when he silenced his conjuring, but they were still deadly, still ready to destroy any flesh that dared brush near.
Sound was a cottony buzz in Vincent’s ears as he remembered where he was, or at least, where he wasn’t. This was not that dark, terrible place. That place didn’t exist anymore.
“Fox? Fox! What the—oomph!” Raider yelped when Fox grabbed him under the arm and twisted. The two went falling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and laughing curses. Neither noticed the spikes. Vincent spoke choppily under his breath to unravel the spell work, and the blades dispersed into the air they were formed from.
Vincent’s hands shook. It started as a small tremble that began to rattle his entire body.
What? How? He was just… What the fuck just happened? He thought he was there. For a moment he truly heard their voices and felt the aura of death all around him…
Something moved further down the hall, and Vincent’s gaze snapped to Forest. He could tell from the leopard shifter’s expression he saw his slip. How could he not? He nearly slashed everyone in the hallway to bloody pieces with one spell. Forest, just like his fool of a friend Fox, seemed to think it was reason enough to have a damn conversation.
Vincent clenched his hands into fists and forced them to stop shaking as Forest approached. His strange lightheadedness grew worse now he had to pretend it wasn’t there. Why couldn’t everyone just leave him alone?
“A new shifter.” Forest stepped around the two wrestling on the floor and tactfully ignored how Vincent nearly speared everyone in the hallway. “He’s apparently a friend of—damn it, Fox! Watch your fucking claws.” Forest leaped to avoid his ankle being shredded and nearly landed on Vincent’s foot.
“Yeah, he knows Fox,” Forest finished simply. His normally pale skin was peppered with dark spots, and his yellow eyes slitted with a sliver of dark pupil. Vincent knew half shifts happened more when shifters were excited. Seeing the other two wrestle must have Forest’s inner leopard ready to play. Either that, or he scared the fuck out of Forest with his spell. Shifters were always afraid of him…
Vincent felt something zap in his mind. For an instant everything blinked out and then back into focus. Fox’s howl rang out and Vincent darted his gaze to where he was laughing on the floor. The stupid dumbass. Vincent’s fingers twitched as he considered hexing Fox. Clearly the idiot shifter broke him with his last explosion.
He had no clue how someone so annoying could have so many friends. Vincent’s eyes narrowed when Fox’s bandanna went flying to reveal his messy, silver hair. It was so out of place with his caramel colored skin and wild orange eyes, and Vincent immediately wanted to pick up the yellow bandanna and hide Fox’s hair away. The guy was such an idiot and didn’t even know. Still, Vincent couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away.
“Brothers?” Vincent finally grunted out as he watched Fox get a lock on the new shifter. Fox laughed triumphantly since Raider had at least fifty pounds of extra muscle on him.
“Nah.” Forest snorted at the notion. He crossed his arms over his chest and fought a smile when Raider failed to get away from Fox’s merciless tickling. “Raider’s like Fox’s BFF from back home. I guess they text all the time and shit.”
“What’s he doing here? It’s not Visitor’s Day,” Vincent snapped. He felt a surge of annoyance when Fox lost his footing and was pinned by the larger shifter. Fox was clearly a better fighter, but he was too busy laughing like an idiot to focus. His face was bright read and the flush was moving down his neck and chest.
“He’s a new packmate. Bunking with me.” Forest glanced at Vincent from the corner of his eye and held back a smile. “Why so curious?”
Vincent heard the suggestion in Forest’s voice and he raised his head to glare him down. “I don’t actually care. I’m just pissed there are two loud of the idiots now.”
On the floor, Fox yelped, twisted, and pinned Raider down again.
Forest’s smirk broke free and he stepped back before his leg could be swiped by a wayward sneaker. “Raider’s a raccoon shifter, not a fox. They’re not alike, not in instinct of ability. Unless you’re talking about the fact they’re both Latino?”
“They’re both annoying as fuck.” Vincent scowled and tossed his hair back from his face. “This place is getting so overrun with all you loud ass shifters I can’t even think anymore.”
Forest shrugged dismissively. Unlike Fox, he didn’t bother getting upset by the stupid shit that came out of Vincent’s mouth. “Come on, Fox. Let the guy up before he starts puking all over the place.” Raider’s face had gone from red to purple, and his body shook with laughter that didn’t break free except for a few gasps for air.
“Charming,” Vincent grumbled and picked up his backpack. He was done hanging around with Fox. The stupid idiot first acted like he wanted to take him to the hospital, but the second someone new showed up, he completely forgot. Dumb ass. Not that he actually wanted the menace around. Vincent glared at where Raider was gasping for breath. He just had no interest in being passed over for some musclebound raccoon shifter who didn’t have the decency to introduce himself before getting in a wrestling match.
Not that Fox gave the guy much of an option.
With a loud howl, Fox finally relented. He sprawled out on the hallway floor as he caught his breath.
“Fuck, how are you still stronger than me?” Raider asked as he pushed himself up to his unsteady feet. He brushed his spiky, dark hair back into place while the flush of exertion slowly began to leave his tanned face. His gaze was glued on Fox, and a dazed smile was on his lips like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Vincent had seen enough and was ready to go. Unfortunately, the idiots were in his way. He stepped around Forest and went to push past Raider, who tilted his head and squinted his dark eyes when he saw him.
“Uh, dude, are you blue?”
Vincent glared and fought back a scathing remark. He was seriously surrounded by imbeciles. Biting back his anger, Vincent held his hand out instead. “I’m Vincent Frost. Please don’t try to wrestle me of I’ll have to hex you across the Academy.”
Raider’s gaze dropped to Vincent’s hand and he froze. When he looked back up, he took a wary step away and refused to shake. In an instant, Raider went from laughing to defensive as his shoulders hunched in and his expression closed off.
Right. One of those shifters. Vincent’s day had been terrible enough without having that particular look directed at him on top of it. His lips thinned in a frown as he nodded farewell to Forest—it was rude not to—and he stepped around Fox, who was still panting on the floor.
Fox jumped up when he saw Vincent was leaving and reached for the strap of his bag. Vincent scowled and Fox was knocked back by a sudden roar of wind. Blinking a moment, Fox beamed up from his new place on the floor.
“Hey, Vince, hold on. I’ll take you to…”
“Fuck off.” Vincent kept his gait brisk as he walked away. He was done with shifters for the day. Maybe for a damn lifetime at this point.
“Vince?”
Dumbstruck, Fox’s tongue slipped over a fang as he watched Vincent walk away. He had a great ass and Fox’s brain really couldn’t focus anywhere proper until Vincent rounded the corner and reality came roaring back.
“Crap, he’s pissed off.” Fox pushed himself forward on the tiled floor, and his bangs flopped across an eye. When he inhaled, he could smell Vincent’s anger vibrating on the air. “Fuck, he’s really pissed. I better see what’s wrong.”
“Who the fuck cares?” Raider scowled in the direction Vincent left. The hallway was now empty of everything but the white walls and soothing painting of an impressionistic landscape. “He’s just some freak sorcerer. Let him be bitchy alone.”
Forest glanced Raider’s way but didn’t comment. He reached down, grabbed Fox’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. “Maybe you should give Vincent some time to cool off, man. You practically flattened him into a wall when you came running in here. He was going to slice you to piece until he got himself under control.”
Forest ducked forward and added in a hushed tone, “I’ve never seen him lose it like that. I think you fucked up this time. Big time.”
Fox blinked rapidly. His gaze darted to the direction he came from as he replayed the events over in his mind. “Oh no.” Fox’s eyes widened as he realized his memory of running down the hall to greet Raider was from his inner fox’s perspective.
“No, no, no.” His animal mind had taken over his body without him even realizing it. “Fuck!”
Fox glared at his clenched fists. “I keep fucking it up, don’t I? What the fuck is wrong with me?” He swung at the wall and growled at the sting of pain when his fist slammed with a thud.
It just had to be today. Of all the fucking days, he fucked it up today! Raider just had to show up and… Damn it.
Fox hissed under his breath and leaned his head against the wall. It wasn’t Raider’s fault. He fucked this up all on his own. He chose to put off asking Vincent out until the last day, he blew up the damn classroom, he lost control of his fox. He only had himself to blame.
Fuck, was this the meds wearing off? Did he need to go back on the fucking meds?
“Fox, chill.” Forest rested his hip against the wall and met Fox’s angry gaze. “After you blew him up twice today, your chances really fucking dropped.”
Fox groaned in dismay and squeezed his eyes shut. He kept fucking up.
Fox cracked an eye open when Raider stepped up and peered down at him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Raider turned back to glare at where Vincent left and then whirled to Fox with narrowed eyes. “You’re acting like you… Like he…” He couldn’t get the words out, he was so offended at the very thought. “He’s a sorcerer!”
Fox avoided Raider’s gaze as he pushed away from the wall. Fuck, he didn’t want to deal with this shit. He saw his bandanna on the floor, and Fox made his way over and picked it up. “It’s complicated.”
“He’s a sorcerer.” Raider obviously didn’t think anything about it was complicated. “I could tell just looking at him. He reeks of magic. Did he spell you?” Fear flashed in Raider’s dark eyes. “You reek of magic. Are you okay? Is he making you like him with a spell?”
“For fuck sake.” Fox fought the urge to slam his head against the wall until the day from hell was over. He exchanged a look with Forest, who just shook his head apathetically.
Fox sighed, and without saying a word, held his bandanna out in front of him. He flowed his magic through his fingers and the charred edges of the fabric repaired and the lingering ceiling dust and soot cleaned away until the bandanna was back to its normal, cheerful yellow design.
Raider’s eyes went wide as he stepped back. “Dude.”
“Things are different here.” Fox took a moment to meet Raider’s wary gaze. “You might want to, you know, figure things out before you say too much. This isn’t like back home. That kind of talk about sorcerers isn’t cool.”
Raider swallowed heavily as the yellow bandanna was wrapped around Fox’s head. With his silver hair hidden from sight, Fox was bright and larger than life once again.
Fox was uncomfortable under Raider’s stare, and he hunched forward and shoved his hands into the pockets of his long jean shorts. He hadn’t bothered to clean the dust from his blue and orange t-shirt, but now he was wondering if he’d have to if only to prove that he could.
Damn it, he wasn’t expecting any of this.
“Listen, why don’t you let Forest take you to see Michael?” Fox said tightly. “He’s the guy to get your room all set up, and he can explain how things work around here. Once you’re settled in, we can catch up and stuff.”
“Are you a sorcerer?” Raider blurted out. “Did you come here to, like, be one of them?”
Fox gave him a dark look and shot back, “Did you come here to be turned into a sorcerer?”
“Fuck, no,” Raider spat out defensively. His expression darkened as he refrained from explaining just what happened. “You told me you were living with a distant relative or some shit. Didn’t you say you were helping your cousin, you know, get his house rebuilt after a hurricane?”
Fox had told a lot of lies to a lot of different people, and it was hard to keep them all straight. He was good at dodging questions and lying his way out of commitments any time he visited home, and he didn’t like how Raider was suddenly in his face about it. His old life was barreling into his current life, and Fox didn’t know who the fuck he was expected to be. He sure as hell didn’t want to be judged.
Raider just came in and Fox already felt like he needed his approval. He hadn’t even gone to apologize to Vince because he knew how Raider would freak over him talking to a sorcerer. It was bullshit.
Fox stood taller and looked Raider in the eye. “Hey, when you feel like you’re ready to tell me why you’re here, I’ll totally share why I’m here. It’s no big secret, but it’s my choice if I want to share it.”
Raider’s expression closed off and he shook his head agitatedly. Fox could scent the unease on him and he waited. Raider was always freaking out over something.
When Raider finally answered it was with a forced casualness. “Sorry, man. I haven’t seen you in forever. I think I’m just in shock still.”
Fox shrugged and relaxed his stance a little. “I get it. It’s fine. Seriously, though, I need to catch up with that guy.”
Raider grabbed his shoulder before Fox could turn. “Is he the one? The guy you’ve been texting about? Your high-maintenance hottie?”
Fox groaned internally as every fucking conversation he had with Raider about Vincent suddenly played through his mind. Fuck, he never planned for any of this. Why couldn’t Raider just stay outside the world he lived in?
“Fox? He is, isn’t he. The guy you…”
Fox pulled Raider’s hand off him, ready to run and never have this fucking conversation. He didn’t want to hear a million very good fucking reasons how being with a guy like Vince could never work back home. Fox frowned when he felt the heat rolling off of Raider’s flesh.
“Man, you’re burning up. Are you sick?” Fox stepped back so he could look at Raider properly. It took a lot to get a shifter sick, so either it was the flu, or Raider was in really bad shape. Just why was he here?
“It’s nothing.” Raider flinched away and bit his lower lip when he looked back. “Fox, I didn’t mean to dis him, okay? I’m sure if you like the guy, he’s fine enough. I seriously didn’t expect to see you here, and well, I don’t even really get what here is just yet.” Raider looked around the hallway uncertainly, his eyes glassy with fever. “It’s a weird place. It smells like, well, like a ton of predator shifters. Uncle Joe said everyone was a flesh eater and… Fuck.”
“No one will fuck with you,” Fox assured him swiftly. “No one here is like that. I mean, sure, Leo’s a total dick at times, but no one gives a crap about predators and prey around here. We’re all fed well, and no one is that fucking crazy.”
Raider exhaled a heavy sigh of relief, but his smile remained fearful. “Yeah, well, I figure if they do give me trouble, I’ve got my scrawny, bad ass fox to sic on them, right?”
A wicked grin flashed across Fox’s features. In a quick move he grabbed Raider by the arm, twisted, and had his tall friend trapped in a lock. “Damn, man, you keep getting more muscle every time I see you, but you still don’t know how to use it.”
Raider chuckled as he went limp in the hold. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
Fox snorted. “You’re full of shit is what you are.” He went to pull him into another move but Raider managed to slip his grip.
Forest stepped out of the way before he could be elbowed. “Fox, don’t you want to…?” He tilted his head meaningfully to where Vincent disappeared.
Fox paused and licked his teeth as he remembered just how angry Vincent had been. His gaze drifted to Raider and he grinned widely. “Nah, I’ll catch him later. I should probably give Vince more time before pissing him the fuck off with my charming personality. It’s only fair.”
Forest huffed in frustration. Fox didn’t notice as he slapped Raider on the back as he pushed him toward the hall that led back to the entrance. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the pack.”
“You mean the hospital,” Forest reminded as he followed. “He has a fever.”
“I’m fine.” Raider said quickly. “I’d rather, you know, get this part out of the way.”
Fox sighed and tried not to roll his eyes. He’d forgotten just how crazy Raider could be. “They’re not going to eat you, man.”
“Eat?” Forest stopped short and his expression turned incredulous. “You’re kidding, right?”
Fox shrugged awkwardly and turned to Raider, whose fear scent was filling the hall. “We have sorcerers and halflings living here, too. Everyone is taken care of. And no one gets eaten, even if you do turn into an adorable, fluffy raccoon,” Fox added with a wicked smile.
Raider growled grumpily. “Shut it, brat. There is nothing adorable…”
“Totally adorable.” Fox pinched Raider’s cheek before he could escape. “No one is going to pick on this cute, baby face.”
Raider scowled and rubbed the side of his cheek. His face was flushed red and he grinned despite himself. “Shit, I really missed you, you total ass. I can’t believe you’re here.” His gaze lingered too long as he smiled at Fox, and something sparked warm in Raider’s eyes.
Fox looked away and lightly shoved Raider to break the awkwardness. “Come on, dumb ass.” He was pretty sure Raider was crushing on him. Last summer vacation, Raider gave off a dozen signs of wanting into his pants. Fox had been so busy keeping all his lies straight about where he was living to really think about it at the time.
Forest grabbed Fox’s shoulder and stepped in front of him with a pointed stare. “Do I seriously have to remind you Master Theo will hunt you down and fry your ass if you don’t get back and help him clean up that mess? The only reason he let you leave was cuz you said you were taking Vincent to the hospital. You really want to test a dragon shifter after you blew up his classroom three times today?”
“Fuck, don’t say it like that.” Fox scowled and his shoulders slumped. “Three times. Damn it, he’s gonna roast me.”
“Dragon? You have a dragon shifter working here?” Raider’s face went pale. “Does he…? Does he turn…?” He looked around the hallway, like maybe a dragon was about to come bursting from the shadows at any moment.
Fox scrunched his nose when Raider’s fear scent flooded the hallway. Fuck, he forgot how easily freaked his friend was, and Raider was definitely over the top since the last time he saw him. “Listen, I gotta go deal with that before Theo freaks. No, he doesn’t turn into a dragon, but he does get super pissy.” Fox tilted his head to Forest, who seemed more than happy to be alone with Raider. “Forest will take care of you, man. You can hang in the lounge while the others hunt. It’s early, but they’re going out for Justin because of the full moon tonight.”
Raider only looked more terrified once he began to understand what creature cared about the full moon.
Shit. Fox didn’t want to deal with it. Master Theo was way more dangerous than the confusing crazy in Raider’s head.
Fox backed away before Raider could turn pleading eyes his way, whirled in the direction of the classroom, and took off. “See ya!”
Fox only felt slightly guilty as he ran down the hall. Raider was a great guy beneath all his fear. He was the loyalest of friends, would save your life in a heartbeat, and was always there to listen. He was also hot with those dark eyes of his and his macho look, even though he was a total cream puff under it all. Fox had enough time to get over the awkwardness of his best friend checking him out on occasion. He could only hope Raider would get a clue and get over his puppy love now they were sharing space.
When it came to guys who knocked him on his ass and turned his insides to white hot fire with one look, there was only his angry, fucked up Vince.
He wasn’t giving up. Today started off like shit, but it was barely afternoon. He was going to ask Vincent Frost out, and he was going to score a date. Fox didn’t care if he ended up scarred and bleeding; he was asking Vincent out today.
Wylie’s fingers itched to turn into claws. He was ready to maul someone for a cigarette. His first burglary was off to a shit start, and given how their luck was going, they’d all be dead or in prison before the night was out.
They were a small crew—four in total—but the van felt filled to the brim with potential disaster. Wylie was in the back with his boyfriend, Beck, while the other two guys sat up front. Wylie was hunched on top of the wheel well, which gave him a clear view of the windshield and the gate blocking their way. His head brushed the roof and his back was cold against the wall, but he refused to move unless absolutely necessary. Every scrape of his sneakers on the grit covered metal floor made his teeth buzz and body tense.
What the fuck was taking so long? He wanted out of this damn tin can. Hell, he just wanted out: out of this night, out of this initiation, out of this stupid ass plan. The only thing keeping him from snapping was the cloak of darkness in the back. It was easier to keep it together when no one could see how close he was to losing his shit.
“Damn it. No,” Adam hissed from the passenger-side seat in front of Wylie. The teen clattered away on his mini keyboard while glaring at the small, burning screen in front of him. The self-proclaimed hacker was so short his head barely cleared the back of the seat, and the caustic, nervous tune he was humming did nothing to disguise his growing panic.
Wylie took a calming breath and tried to block out the electric scent of fear filling the confined space. The little tech-wiz was taking too long. Adam reeked of anxiety and showed no sign he was even close to breaking through the security system. For all they knew, the kid had turned chickenshit and was hoping to wait out the clock.
Ten minutes. Wylie’s eyes darted to the display on the dashboard when it flashed. Twelve minutes. The air grew heated the longer each second ticked and nothing changed. Wylie could smell the lingering scents of oil and stale blood beneath the annoying, fang twitching flood of testosterone in the enclosed space. Diego was flipping. Their asshole leader for the night hadn’t said a word since they parked, but Wylie’s nose revealed the rage building in the silent gangster.
This was a bad idea. A monumentally dumb fuck idea. He seriously should have taken that last smoke before they left.
“Is this happening?” Beck asked. A warm hand grasped his arm, and Wylie held still when his boyfriend pressed his chest up against his shoulder. Hair tickled his nose when Beck leaned across his chest and peered at the clock on the dash. “Shit, our timetable is going out the fucking window.”
Beck turned toward him but failed to find Wylie in the absolute black of the back of the van. The darkness didn’t stop Wylie’s supernatural vision. His pupils expanded, and shapes and colors began to appear out of the darkness. He focused on Beck and his gaze traced his boyfriend’s familiar, handsome features and slipped down to the smooth line of his throat.
This was a mistake. Beck was too idealistic, too sweet for this gang bullshit. He had never spent a day out on his own and didn’t know shit about the real world.
Wylie bent forward and brushed his lips to Beck’s ear. “We can still back out. No one needs to know we came out here.”
Beck shuddered, but it was only from the heat of Wylie’s breath on his skin. He turned his head and their noses bumped. It was surreal, and Wylie felt half a predator as he watched Beck’s useless human eyes blink in the dark. Beck fumbled and his palm found Wylie’s neck and moved up to his face. He rubbed along the peach fuzz of Wylie’s crew cut and inched forward, their mouths pressing close so they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Don’t be dumb, baby.” Beck’s lips teased over Wylie’s, and his fingers tugged at the strands of his blond hair. “This is our ticket out of all the bullshit. Once we make this score, we’re in and everything is going to change.”
“B, getting into the gang is only going to lead to more…” Wylie trailed off when an angry growl tore from the driver’s seat.
“Come on, you little fuck. Hurry up!” Diego slammed his fist on the dashboard, and everyone jumped.
Adam’s incessant humming silenced with his yelp, as did the keyboard clicking. He tried to steady his shaking hands beneath his armpits. Adam’s voice was timid and faint once he finally spoke. “I’m almost—”
“I thought you were a genius? This was going to take five minutes, tops,” Diego snarled accusingly. The seat squeaked when Diego turned and towered over Adam’s diminutive form. “Hurry the fuck up, you little shit! Or I’m dumping you in a dark alley full of flesh-eating freaks like the guy in the back. Crack the gate!”
Wylie gritted his teeth. He wasn’t a freak, and he sure as fuck wasn’t a cannibal.
“It’s not the same system Roth gave me the plans for,” Adam whispered from where he was cowering. “There’s another element I’ve never seen before. I’ve almost hacked it.” His narrow shoulders scrunched as he bent over his small computer and avoided Diego’s glare. His lips pursed tight, Adam ducked beneath his mouse brown hair and refocused on the screen.
“Hey, freak, you paying attention back there?” Diego threw his heavily tattooed arm over the seat and turned his aggressive stare to the back of the van.
“Yeah,” Wylie said through gritted teeth.
Diego’s hard, black eyes tried to find him in the dark. The gangster was as mean as a junkyard dog and twice as foul. Wylie might have been the only one in the crew who could transform, but Diego was all human and still managed to be as despicable as it got. Everything about the situation was setting Wylie on edge. It started all the way back when Diego showed up half an hour late to the heist and labeled him a freak. After an hour trapped in a van with the bad-tempered asshole, he was ready to smash the gangster’s face in.
Diego’s expression was brutal as he glanced at Adam a moment, then to the back of the van. “You’re going to break us through the gate if the kid fucks this up, freak. You might also need to beat the shit out of the little bitch if it turns out he’s screwing us over.”
“Yeah, none of that’s happening,” Wylie said with far less emotion than he felt. “Unless the alarms are down, we’re not leaving this van. We signed up for a robbery, not a fucking suicide mission.”
“You little shit!” Diego’s tanned features flushed red, and his chest puffed like a jacked up frog about to explode. His hand gripped the top of the dividing seat and the vinyl creaked in his powerful grip.
Wylie silently unwound from Beck and nudged him to the other side of his muscular form. He didn’t trust Diego not to lose his shit and start punching. Being saddled with three nervous, untested teenagers for a gang initiation probably wasn’t Diego’s high point of the night, either. It didn’t mean Wylie was about to throw his life away over the gangster’s explosive temper. He’d rather fuck it up in the driveway before they committed a crime, than have it turn to shit when they were balls deep in the mansion.
“Listen here, you fucking freakshow.” Diego stabbed a finger in Wylie’s direction, but had enough self-control to stop there. He wasn’t angry enough to reach into the dark and risk losing an arm. “If you don’t want to end up dead tonight, you do as I fucking say. That goes for all of you. This isn’t some pussy high school playtime, and I’m not going back to prison over you dumb fuck kids. If any of you—”
There was a loud rattle of metal, and Diego whirled in his seat to peer through the windshield. Adam beamed when the wrought iron gate blocking the driveway shuddered and glided open on motorized tracks.
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Diego growled in relief and jammed the key forward in the ignition. The van sputtered, then roared to life. Diego showed thin restraint as he put the vehicle in gear, hit the gas, and they sped through the gate opening.
Wylie took a steadying breath as his gut clenched. There was no backing out. Whatever happened, they were in it now.
“We’re in,” Beck gasped in excitement. He fell against Wylie’s chest and peered ahead through the windshield. The sprawling mansion came into view, and Beck’s breath heated his cheek when he sought out his mouth. If Wylie’s response was more tepid than usual, Beck didn’t mention it.
“This is it, baby. This is our fucking future,” Beck whispered between quick, hungry kisses. “We’re finally going to be free.”
Wylie quickly sealed their lips together to silence Beck’s optimistic words. Running with Roth’s gang wasn’t going to be freedom the way his idealistic boyfriend envisioned. It was just another bunch of fucked up, hypocritical adults who used kids while calling it family. Doing illegal shit didn’t make it any better than all the other bullshit families Wylie had been through. It would be money, though, serious money that could buy him the future his fucked up arms stole.
Beck’s hand drifted down, and Wylie jolted when fingers fumbled for his zipper. “B,” he groaned, trying to keep from responding. He pulled Beck’s arm up and shot his boyfriend a smoldering look he couldn’t see in the dark. “Quit being a pervy kink. Focus.”
Beck rolled his eyes, and with a wicked grin, threw himself into Wylie’s lap. He wrapped around his boyfriend’s muscular form and kissed roughly up Wylie’s neck and jaw. “Don’t be that way, baby. We’re going to finally fuck tonight. We’re going to ace this shit, and you’re going to come over to my place and fuck me with your studly arms out.”
Beck rocked his hips against him seductively, and Wylie growled when his erection ground against his. Damn it, his dick dragged him into all kinds of trouble when it involved a tight piece of ass like Beck.
“B, you gotta take this seriously.” Wylie peeked an eye to the front of the van as Beck’s lips slid a hot path along his throat. “You know my arms are dangerous. With one wrong move, my scales could slice the flesh from your bones.”
“I don’t care. Your arms are crazy hot, and we’re totally doing it,” Beck whispered breathlessly. “Tomorrow morning, I’m telling my parents to go fuck themselves. No more evangelical school, no more sick fuck Reverend Clark, and no more pretending I hate dick. You’re going to move out of that shitty detention house where they treat you like a monster, and life is going to be fucking perfect.” Beck’s lips found Wylie’s in the dark and crushed him in a desperate kiss.
Beck was fucked up, and Wylie wasn’t complaining. He wrapped his arms tight around Beck’s narrow hips, squeezed his ass hard, and pulled him up into a deep kiss. Sneakers scraped the metal floor when Beck straddled his thighs, and his palms slid hot paths over Wylie’s chest and back.
“Damn it, Wy, you get me so fucking hot.” Beck shifted his hips, groaning into Wylie’s open mouth when his dick ground against his hard abs. “Tell me you want me…”
“B.” Wylie broke from the kiss and grabbed the hand trying to get under his sweatshirt and into his pants. He pulled Beck tight against him and pressed his mouth to his ear. “Promise me you’ll watch your back tonight. If you get even a whiff of the cops, you run.”
Beck stilled, glanced toward the front of the van, and turned back to whisper against Wylie’s cheek. “Dude, I’m the freaking lookout. I can’t run.”
He was so fucking naive. “B, you don’t owe these crazy fucks any—” Wylie fell silent as the darkness flashed and light dazzled his night vision. He hissed and covered his face with his arms. “Shit.”
Wylie stayed hunched until the blinding pain throbbing behind his eyes began to fade. An outdoor lamp illuminated the driveway where the van rolled to a stop in front of a large, multi-car garage. Diego cut the engine and silence descended. Wylie squinted up to the front once his eyes adjusted, and met Diego’s dark glare.
Wylie bristled and pushed back from Beck. He didn’t like Diego, he didn’t trust him, and he sure as fuck didn’t want his eyes on him when he was sucking face with his boyfriend.
Diego didn’t say anything as he watched Beck try to arrange his shirt to hide his obvious hard on. Beck was wearing skinny, black skater jeans that left nothing to the imagination as he tried to pull his already too tight shirt down his front. It merely lifted the fabric up his back, revealing the top of his ass where his jeans hung low on his hips. The gangster’s dark stare drifted down Beck’s body in a way that had Wylie growling in warning. Diego shrugged and pulled a packet from his pocket and jammed a piece of gum into his mouth. Wylie gritted his teeth when he realized it was nicotine gum. The fucker.
“Alright, kiddies,” Diego drawled. His gaze moved from Adam’s pale, anxious face, to Beck’s excited smile, to Wylie’s defensive glare. “Remember, the owner flew south to some fucking island, and we’re the professionals called in to check on a busted pipe. Easy.”
Wylie pursed his lips. They didn’t have a toolbox or even a sign on the side of the rusted-out van painted in matte black finish. They looked like three wannabe thug teenagers and a career criminal, not plumbers.
Diego didn’t seem concerned about the logistics of his plan as he pointed his finger at Beck. “B, you’re on lookout. I want you at the door with your ear on the scanner for signs of the cops. No matter what we’re lugging, you don’t leave that post until it’s time to go. As for you, you stupid shit.” He grabbed Adam roughly by the head and shoved him toward the door. “Get your scrawny ass out. We need someone to tag the stuff worth grabbing. Don’t fuck it up.”
Adam scrambled to keep his computer from falling while wrenching away from Diego’s touch. He didn’t dare look up as he shouldered the door open and slid down the seat until his sneakers reached the pavement.
Diego’s dark eyes burned with hostility when he turned to Wylie, who hadn’t moved yet. “Freakshow, you’re with me. Alright, you stupid fucks, let’s rob this shit.”
The night air outside was cooler than when they left the city, and held the distinct bite of autumn. Wylie lingered at the open back of the van to get used to the smells and sounds of the area. They had parked in a spot sheltered from view, where large willow trees and gardens of sculpted bushes blocked them from being seen by anyone on the road. Lights were on outside the mansion, and the trees cast long, black shadows in all directions.
Diego didn’t want them wearing masks, said it would ruin the illusion of being plumbers, but Wylie wasn’t sweating it. Adam had taken the surveillance system down before he cracked the gate, and the kid was confident it worked. And really, it wasn’t like anyone actually cared they were there.
Wylie’s pale blue eyes narrowed as he peered at the surrounding manors and mansions on the other side of the gate. The neighborhood was unnaturally silent compared to the city, but that was the rich for you. They went to bed on time, didn’t look out windows, didn’t think anything could touch them. They were the kind of people who kept all the lights on and thought that was enough to keep thieves away.
Wylie scoffed under his breath. When you had enough money to keep the monsters out, anyone could be dumb enough to sleep at night.
Wylie braced himself as he headed to the front of the van where the others had gathered. This was money, real money. A future. He was an eighteen-year-old freak who was never going to have a shot at a job with his fucked up arms. He needed to get this initiation right and prove to Roth he was useful, even if it meant stealing and thuggin for a living. Shit, he had to be good for something.
“How’s it look?” Beck asked as he came up beside him.
“It’s all quiet.” Wylie’s gaze drifted to his boyfriend and the excited flush to his cheeks. He gripped Beck’s shoulder and leaned down to whisper. “Don’t forget what I said. If things go wrong, you run.”
Beck’s smile was guarded when he pulled away. Wylie could tell from the sparkle in his eyes that he was loving every moment of the heist so far. Beck wasn’t fearless, but he got off on adrenaline, and it made him reckless. Wylie had his own ass to worry about, though, and he took a slow breath as he eyed the door he was there to break through.
There was only one entrance on this side of the mansion, a small, black door in the side of the wall, like an afterthought for servants who ended up on the wrong end of the building. The place was weird looking compared to any house Wylie had been in before. The downstairs looked like it was buried underground, the wall either built into the side of a mountain or someone had dumped dirt over it once the building was complete. A hill reached up on both sides of the flat, white expanse, and above was a glittering, beautiful house that looked like it sprouted organically from the gardens around it.
Wylie hesitated when he saw Adam hovering in front of the door, the kid hunched over a keypad to the right.
“Let’s go,” Diego hissed. He grabbed the black gate protecting the door after the keypad flashed and dimmed. Adam took a shaking step back when Diego swung the gate open wide. “Freak, we’re losing minutes,” Diego called impatiently. The gangster was too loud. Wylie looked around, but the yard they were in was so large, it could have been the size of a mall. No one was going to hear them out there.
“You can do this, yeah?” Beck took Wylie’s black sweatshirt when he shrugged out of it. “I mean, it’s just a door. You can cut that.”
Wylie smiled grimly. “Yeah. Easy.” Out of all the uncertainties the night presented, his abilities didn’t factor in.
Wylie raised his muscular arms and focused on his hands. As he concentrated, the pale pigment began to darken and his skin hardened. Starting at his fingers, black scales erupted from his flesh in a bloodless rush and moved up his forearms. Wylie hissed sharply and took a step from Beck, who was edging over to watch. His scales grew longer and pointed out from his arms at jagged angles. They were beautiful, like a dark, ruffled bird, but each oil slick blade had a razor-sharp edge. If not careful, his scales would ruthlessly slice through whatever they touched, be it metal or flesh.
Wylie had no clue what the hell he was. A paranormal, definitely. A shifter, probably, but his demon arms didn’t look like any animal out there. Most days he felt like a monster, but tonight he might actually be useful.
Wylie held his arms up over his head and let Beck tie his sweatshirt around his waist so it wouldn’t get shredded. “For good luck,” Beck whispered and leaned close to peck a kiss to his lips. Wylie had no defense against the wicked hand that suddenly reached between them and cupped his dick. “In less than an hour, I’m going to be deep throating this huge cock of yours while we’re surrounded by a pile of money. This is the ultimate score, baby. Everything changes tonight.”
Wylie didn’t argue as Beck’s lips heated along his cheek and he squeezed him through his jeans, his breath stuck in his chest. He was too aware of how easily his scales could slice Beck’s flesh to be able to enjoy the moment. Yeah, there was no way they’d be fucking with his arms out. No matter how sexy Beck looked when he grinned up at him like that.
“Freak!” Diego snapped, his patience running out as Beck continued to press kisses to Wylie’s tense jaw.
“I’ll be right back,” Wylie said once Beck stepped away, his eyes sliding down his boyfriend’s tight form flushed with arousal. “Try not to start without me,” Wylie added, only half teasing when Beck reached down to adjust his pants that were caught too tight around his erection. It didn’t seem to matter what the fuck they were doing, Beck was always ready to get off whenever they were together.
“All the more reason to hurry.” Beck’s smirk was shameless as Wylie turned away.
Adam gasped and threw himself back when Wylie stalked toward him. His eyes were wide as he stared at Wylie’s jagged scaled arms like he was a bloodthirsty demon there to murder him. “I got… I got the…” Adam flustered. Wylie stepped right past him, his gaze glued on Diego, whose expression was twisted with undisguised malice.
“Hustle the fuck up, freakshow.” Diego pointed to the door just in case he was too retarded to figure out why he was there. Wylie’s nostrils flared as he watched Diego chew his gum. The no smoking policy was total bullshit. If they could grab DNA off a cigarette, the cops could do the same for a piece of gum.
“Alarm dead?” Wylie grunted as he looked at the back door. The keypad no longer glowed with light, and the protective grate was pushed to the side to keep it from locking. Even at a distance, he could feel a strange sensation, like cold electricity was lingering in the metal of the grate.
“Of course it’s fucking dead,” Diego snapped. “Open the shit up and shut your freak mouth.”
Wylie ran his tongue along the edge of his teeth, his fangs itching to bite the aggressive fucker on the face. Money, he reminded himself. He needed the fucking money more than he needed stupid drama.
The door was black walnut with a gleaming finish varnished to perfection. It was misleading, made to look like every other pretty door on the rich houses in the area. The difference was that on this house, the wood was hiding a solid steel security door beneath.
Wylie drew a long, black talon down between the seam of the door and reinforced metal molding. He found the bolts, four in all, and scratched the surface to mark their placement. “Stand back.” He shot a glare over his shoulder when he found Diego hovering. “Unless you’re looking to eat metal.”
Diego grunted defiantly, but moved a few steps away. Wylie didn’t care if the guy ended up with an elbow in the face just so long as he had enough space to work. He ran his palm along where the door met the molding over the alignment of bolts, and braced his other hand to help muffle what he was about to do.
His first slam was experimental to give him an idea of what kind of force he needed. The door yielded beneath his palm, and the solid bolts were a soft bulge in the covering wood. Wylie abruptly clawed down the surface and scraped the glued on wood away to get a better look.
“Seriously?” Wylie muttered when he saw how close together the bolts were. Too easy. The pieces of metal couldn’t be more than three inches into the reinforced molding.
Wylie sank claws into the door with his braced hand, pulled his right back, and punched forward with an open palm. The metal buckled from the blow, and there was a shearing sound under the loud slam. Wylie kept pushing forward, and the door bent and warped from the molding around his hand. With a final slam, the mechanism holding the bolts tore through the other side of the door and clattered to the floor.
“Fuck, yeah.” A smug smile split Wylie’s face, and he turned the broken handle to loud protests from the metal, wrenching forward. Wylie pushed the door open wide with a flourish and waved the scowling Diego in. His gaze fell to Adam, whose chest was heaving and face pale as he stared at Wylie’s impossibly strong arms.
“Hurry the fuck up, you little bitch,” Diego snapped when he saw Adam frozen in fear. Adam jolted, and his eyes flew to Wylie’s face. Without a word, he scurried past and darted inside the dark room after Diego.
Wylie shook his head, his expression grim. He had only met Adam once before, and he reeked of so much fear it was hard to understand what the hell he was doing running with Roth. Maybe Adam was one of those types who didn’t want to be afraid anymore. Wylie sure as fuck didn’t have that problem. He stopped being afraid once he realized no matter how many foster families treated him like shit, he could still survive on his own. Even if he didn’t get into the gang tonight, Wylie knew he’d be fine.
“Baby, you got this,” Beck said excitedly as he stepped up beside Wylie, careful to avoid his scales. “Fuck college; you could be robbing banks! You’re made for this.”
Wylie pasted on a smile he didn’t feel. “Yeah, sure.” His boyfriend wanted him to be a career criminal. Great.
Lights flickered on inside, and Wylie eyed the gaping door where the other two had disappeared. Adam’s fear scent made the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and Wylie suppressed an annoyed sigh. None of this felt right. Adam was too waif-limbed to carry shit and too skittish to trust not to bolt if things got tough. Beck was at least a sweet talker. If some nosy biddy stuck her head over the fence, Beck could come up with a lie and a smile on his pretty face in a second flat.
It didn’t matter, not really. Beck shouldn’t have been there. Neither teen had the judgment or nerves suited to rob the place, and Wylie was left wondering once again why they brought four guys for this job.
He was in it now. Breaking and entering, trespassing, burglary, and damage to private property. Shit, Beck might have a point about this being a career.
Wylie squared his shoulders and stalked toward the door. “Watch your ass, B.”
“Yours and mine both, babe,” Beck replied with a wink as he whirled and sauntered back to the van.
Wylie paused as he stepped inside. He was expecting a great room, something relaxed with a television and couch. What he found was a space clinical and cold in both style and temperature, one with a purpose he couldn’t quite place. The floor was a hard tile, and the walls stripped of any personal touches or embellishments. It was a flat, white room all around, and Wylie’s ice blue eyes narrowed on the strange, bulky machinery made of glittering chrome and sleek plastic. The advanced looking equipment dotted the large space in an obvious grid pattern.
It could have been storage or even a weird art installation. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
“Start tagging anything that looks worthwhile,” Diego ordered Adam, who was trembling where he stood.
The air was stale and void of natural scents, which only made Adam’s fear scent all the more intense. Wylie’s gaze darted to the wall of electronics, paused on a dividing curtain of plastic to the right, and landed on Adam’s diminutive form and hunched shoulders. Wylie didn’t know shit about tech outside of email and phone calls, but there was a lot of big equipment. If he judged by Adam’s expression, none of this was the run of the mill stuff you’d find in just any rich fuck’s house.
“This is military grade,” Adam whispered as he hovered next to a metal contraption that looked heavy enough to crush him. The machine he was fiddling with flickered and buzzed, and a thin light glowed between metal plates, producing a laser. Wylie’s scales puffed up as a chill zapped down his spine. The sooner they got out of there, the better.
“The door!” Diego snarled to Adam and pointed to a large, open doorway that led to the rest of the downstairs. “We’ve got one more keypad to get through to get into the upstairs house.”
“R-Right!” Adam flinched at Diego’s aggressive tone and nodded rapidly. Clutching his laptop to his chest, he quickly scurried in the direction of the hall.
“I thought you said the security was all down?” Wylie asked suspiciously.
“Subsystems. Simple shit,” Diego grunted. “Come on, freak. The safe is upstairs.”
Wylie followed after Diego’s retreating back with his lips pursed tight. No one had mentioned anything about keypads and internal locks. Had Adam been briefed on things the rest of them hadn’t?
Wylie wasn’t sure if he had good reason to feel paranoid or if the downstairs was just creeping him out. The place felt like an underground laboratory, and it got worse as he followed Diego down the unadorned hallway tiled in white.
Lights connected to motion sensors clicked on as they passed. On either side of the hallway were floor to ceiling windows that looked into large rooms. Inside were desks and more equipment, the spaces filled with the shiny, chrome stuff. But the instruments didn’t look like displays here; they were being used for something. Well, had been used, at least.
Everything was covered in plastic drop cloths to keep dust from getting into whatever was hidden underneath. Wylie wasn’t particularly interested in learning just what was under the plastic. What he could see was creepy enough, from empty vats and cages large enough to fit people, to examination rooms that looked both high tech and intimidating. Through one set of windows was a room that looked so dungeon like, Wylie stopped to peer silently for a long minute.
There were metal restraints, a metal cage that fit across an entire wall, and a metal grid on every surface. On the back wall was a large image of the inside of a human mouth. Except it wasn’t a human mouth, not a proper one. There were two rows of razor-sharp teeth belonging to a fully infected werewolf.
‘Howlers…’
“Shit.” Wylie’s scales ruffled, and he blinked rapidly as a strange wave of dizziness hit him. He turned from the image of the werewolf and forged ahead. He didn’t look into the rooms after that. He didn’t want to see any of it, didn’t want to know. The stuff looked like it was sitting there, untouched for years, and that was consolation enough.
“Figure out what’s important, and we’ll be down to move what you can’t lift.” Up ahead, Diego shoved Adam back the way they just came. “Don’t fuck it up.”
Wylie could see the fear in Adam’s eyes as the teen came his way. Adam stayed close to the side of the hall to avoid getting too close as he passed by him, his only acknowledgment that he was there. Wylie shook his head grimly and forged forward.
Too young. They were all too fucking young for this shit.
“Stairs,” Diego grunted and pulled open the door he was standing next to. Wylie saw the dead keypad on the wall and the metal grate that was once blocking the door now hooked to the side. It looked just like the metal used for the werewolf cage.
“What is this place?” Wylie asked as he entered the stairwell made of concrete steps that led up.
“None of your fucking business,” Diego snapped. “Less talking, more paying the fuck attention, freakshow.”
Wylie gritted his teeth and stomped up the stairs after Diego. He slowed once they reached the upstairs door and waited for Diego to open it, the gangster taking care to push another black metal grate aside before stepping through.
Wylie held his breath when he stepped out into the upstairs mansion. The lights were dim, but his eyes caught every detail as he looked around. Everything was different compared to the sterile lab area they left downstairs, and it felt like he was stepping out into another world.
The stairway door was tucked in a corner that opened out into a hallway, and directly to his left was a large, gleaming kitchen with expansive counter tops and state of the art equipment. Wylie fleetingly remembered what he last ate that day. It had been a bag of potato chips Beck grabbed him from his house. Before then, a piece of bread smeared with butter and nothing else. Wylie had never seen a kitchen so large before, and he had to force his feet from wandering in search for food. He was sure whatever was in the giant, stainless steel fridge was of a better caliber than anything that was back at his detention house.
Wylie followed Diego down the unfamiliar hall, his gaze darting to every shadowed room and new luxury. At the corner, he found a giant family room with a television big enough to hide inside. He passed a decadent dining room, the walls dripping in luscious drapes, the space filled with gleaming wooden furniture carved with elegant curves and whorls. Chandeliers dazzled above their heads in the low lighting, glowing with a faint magic that turned the crystals into prisms lit from within.
Diego didn’t seem interested in any of the opulence as he stalked through the long maze of hallways with complete confidence. It made Wylie wonder if the gang had gotten the house plans in advance, or if maybe Diego had been there before. It was hard to believe someone as coarse and crude as Diego had convinced a maid to let him see the place, but the gangster moved like he knew exactly where he was going, and didn’t bother to turn on the lights even in the dark hallways. Wylie admitted a mild appreciation that Diego wasn’t bumbling around like an idiot. He could put up with the asshole just so long as he didn’t get them thrown into jail.
The hallway suddenly branched out in four directions, and Wylie stopped short, his mouth agape as he turned and took it all in.
On one side was a curved music room with no doorways to block the sight of the ornate instruments. Gilded and ancient looking, each musical instrument was meticulously preserved and cared for, arranged to be seen more than played. Behind the wall where a harp arched like a giant platinum swan, floor to ceiling windows looked out onto the courtyard. Through the glass was a tall gate blocking the courtyard in, one that ran above like a cage so that nothing human sized could get out.
Wylie turned slowly, barely seeing the dual sweeping staircases that led to the second floor of the grand foyer. He zeroed in on the dark door on the other side of the foyer as his stomach bubbled with nerves. He had severely underestimated the security. The little door downstairs with the wimpy bolts he punched through was nothing compared to the mammoth door and extensive security that encased the front entrance of the mansion. Even from the distance, he could see electricity arcing from the metal door to a switch connected to a generator below.
Wylie started putting it all together: the lack of windows, the metal gates on every door, around the courtyard and the lawn, and now the only other door he’d found literally made out of anti-paranormal technology. The mansion hadn’t just been designed to cage werewolves downstairs; it was made to keep them out of the building.
It was a level of wealth he couldn’t fathom, and Wylie looked around the foyer like a starstruck tourist. What it would cost to power the gate, the doors, the fences… It was the kind of thing only cities could afford, yet here it was in a house built for one family.
Wylie tilted his head back and peered at the ceiling that arched above with geometric patterns carved in relief on the white surface. The marble tile below reflected the shapes in its sleek, shiny surface. All around him from the walls, to the statues, to the paintings, and lighting spoke of a luxury he had only ever glimpsed in the pages of magazines or flashes on television. He had thought it had to be an illusion, just media magic—or even plain old magic—but somehow there were people who actually lived like this.
“Freak!” Diego snapped his fingers sharply. “Pay the fuck attention!”
Wylie blinked and lowered his gaze, his expression impassive as he stared back at Diego’s scowling face. If the fucker whistled at him like a dog, Wylie wasn’t sure just what he’d do, but he doubted anyone would blame him.
Wylie turned his feet in Diego’s direction and returned to the path, this time with his senses expanded to take everything in. Diego’s voice was a low, angry rant far ahead of him. “…saddled with a bunch of snot-nosed, piss for brains, fucktard kids.” Wylie tuned it out, more interested in the many extravagances and flashes of treasure found everywhere he looked. In the study, a grandfather clock ticked from its tall, cherry wood case. It had a mother of pearl face that gleamed in the luminous tint of magic from the pillar lamps. Everything in the mansion felt larger than life, created to impress instead of just exist.
Warning prickled through him as he passed the study, and Wylie stopped short. He tilted his head, and his scales ruffled and nostrils flared as he attempted to sense it out. Wylie breathed in deep and turned his head when he caught the scent of flowers. Down a connecting hall was a sleek, mahogany table with a vase sitting in the center. Wylie’s scales ruffled again, and without a word, he turned to investigate.
They were daffodils mixed with small, white daisies in a classic vase. The flowers were fresh, free of droopage or spots of brown on the perfect petals, and Wylie’s stomach churned with the realization.
Diego glanced behind him and snarled when he discovered Wylie wasn’t following. When he caught sight of him, he stomped over to where Wylie was glaring at the flowers. “What the fuck are you doing?” Diego demanded.
“Fresh flowers,” Wylie said through clenched teeth. He rolled his eyes when Diego inhaled, moments from flipping out at him for wasting time. “They’re not even wilted,” Wylie stressed as he plucked one of the petals free with his dark claws. “Who the hell puts flowers out in an empty house?”
Diego’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward to briefly sniff the flowers to see if they were real. He straightened, and with a shrug, waved to the elegant hallways. “Look at this fucking place. Do you really think someone this rich does normal shit? Maybe the fucking maid puts them out to look nice in case they get robbed. Stop thinking and hurry the fuck up.”
“This is totally fucked,” Wylie muttered under his breath as Diego stalk back to the main hall.
The downstairs was full of military tech and werewolf cages, the outside gate had a code they barely got through, and the place was designed to withstand a siege of howlers. Who the fuck knew what else they might have missed? It was the middle of the night and whoever might be there—maid, butler, guest—could be in bed in one of the many rooms in the giant mansion. Wylie had no issue with stealing shit from someone who had more than enough, but he drew the line at terrorizing people.
“Psst!” Diego turned and waved his hand in an exaggerated motion to get him the fuck over there.
“Damn it. Fucking damn it,” Wylie growled under his breath and forced his reluctant feet forward. His scales were twitching so much, it felt like a bug was digging beneath his skin as he followed after Diego.
For all he knew, the fucking rich put flowers out every damn day even when no one was home. Rich people were fucking crazy. Money lifted them beyond reality the same way drugs did for a strung out crackwhore. Whoever lived there had rooms for their stuff, not for people. It’s not like he had found any photos in the giant place or anything. Who the hell was he to say what went on in the minds of the ultra-rich?
Wylie kept close this time as Diego led them surefooted down a branching corridor. He wanted this heist over with already so he could get the fuck out. They followed around a curved wall and passed an elaborate gym with equipment that looked too expensive to belong in anyone’s house. There was nothing normal about the mansion, and Wylie felt more and more out of place when they passed a library inside a study large enough to be a house all by itself.
The wealth was no longer impressive. Every new thing just reminded him of the anti-paranormal tech on the doors and windows. He might not know what his demon arms were, but Wylie was well aware they marked him as a paranormal. This was not a place he was supposed to be.
Wylie’s unease grew with every tap of prison tattooed fingers to the doors as they passed. Diego finally stopped at a dark wooden door where dim light greeted through a narrow gap.
“The office,” Diego announced when Wylie met him at the doorway. “There are jewels and bonds in here, plus some cash.” He pulled a black rectangle from inside his leather coat and unfolded it into a large canvas duffel bag. “The safe is on the far wall past the windows and desk. A bunch of books open up like a door.”
Diego glared into Wylie’s eyes as he placed the strap of the bag into his smooth palm, careful to avoid his talons. “Empty the shit and meet me down the hall. The clock is running down, so don’t fuck around. Don’t touch anything that’s not in that safe, and don’t run off. Just empty it and meet me five doors that way, left side.”
Wylie nodded and tried not to wonder what Diego was going for alone. If the asshole was stealing shit without Roth knowing, he sure as hell didn’t want to be the guy to snitch. Wylie knew why he was there: to follow orders so he could get in with Roth. If Diego wanted to screw himself with the boss, that was his death wish.
Wylie kept his mouth shut and waited for Diego to disappear down the hall before he pushed the office door open. He paused on the threshold and his gaze darted around the lush, sophisticated study. The room brimmed with expensive sculptures and artwork from all over the world. A single table lamp shone a warm glow from a solid wood desk in the middle of the room. It illuminated the warm brown tones of leather furniture and deep red walls. Wylie glared at his ratty sneakers, half afraid to step on the rich oriental rug and dirty it.
The room could have been two with the way bookcases dominated the far side of the space. The wealth was overwhelming, and all Wylie could think about were the shitholes he spent most of his time in. Each room of the mansion felt like new worlds, and this one was no different. Wylie pursed his lips and slipped through the door, careful to tread as lightly as possible on the rug.
Wylie grew tense with each wrong step. He didn’t belong here. He had spent years in foster care, living in houses where he wasn’t welcome, borrowing what was lent and rarely given. This time he was in a house to steal, not borrow. No one had invited him in; he had broken through the door. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. As much as he tried to brush it off, Wylie’s chest was tight as he walked the length of the room.
Scents tickled at his nose, and Wylie did his best to ignore the signs of recent life around him. The stale scent of human flesh was on the air. An older male… cigar smoker… “The butler,” Wylie whispered and took brisk steps to the bookcase on the far wall. Whoever left those flowers probably checked the rooms during the day to dust or some shit. He wasn’t sure exactly what it took to keep a mansion this size clean, but staff probably came by daily.
The false wall of books was easy to find. The hinges hadn’t been hidden, and although the books were real, they were placed as if in afterthought over the swinging door. Wylie’s pierced eyebrow raised at the ridiculousness of it all. The house screamed money, and anyone looking would know the place was full of cash. The owner must have really thought no one would ever get through the door.
Wylie clicked a claw into the wooden groove and nudged the false door open. The bookcase swung wide, and he eyed the matte black safe critically. It was more a vault than what he expected to find. Encased in cement, the safe was almost as tall as him. In the center was a dial waiting for a combination, and beneath that, a handle. Wylie considered the metal contraption in silence for long moments.
The downstairs door had taught him a lot for his first break in, and he didn’t bother trying to finesse this time. He punched his scaled fist into the safe door and ground his knuckles in hard until the metal ripped. He slammed his other hand down just as hard and slipped his claws between the jagged edges of torn metal. Wylie gripped tight and grinned as he curled and bent the thick, heavy door down. Even though it was made of steel, the door twisted like a thin tin cover of spam beneath his palms.
Shit, he really was made for this.
The darkness within the vault hid nothing from Wylie’s night vision. He couldn’t say what bonds were exactly, but he guessed the large, colorful pieces of paper kept in neat piles on the top shelf were them. There were flat boxes on the shelf beneath he figured must be the jewelry Diego mentioned. All the other shelves held cash separated into bundles and kept in tidy piles. It was the most money he’d ever seen in his life, and Wylie didn’t have to count it to know it was an absolute fortune.
Wylie wrenched the door with a final motion until the opening was as low as his knees, then he reached in to sweep the lowest shelf into the duffel. The scales on his wrist caught and tore right through a metal shelf and shredded half a bundle of cash.
“Fuck!” Wylie froze as ripped twenty-dollar bills fluttered down to his sneakers. Any sudden movement could end with all the money shredded. On the best of days, his palms were the only safe part of his hands when his scales were out. When he was shaking, his demon arms became even more of a hazard—not that he would admit to the adrenaline coursing through him.
Wylie took a steadying breath and glared down at his hands. His scales ruffled but refused to retract. “Come on, you fuckers,” he demanded in a harsh whisper. Everything about his arms pissed him off, including how temperamental they were. He was pretty sure the demonic things hated him back just as much, seeing as they made his life hell. “The claws, then,” Wylie pleaded and wiggled his fingers. “I need a damn hand!” His scales refused to relent, and Wylie growled in frustration. He peered into the paper treasure pile waiting in the safe as his mind raced.
Fear was starting to itch up his spine. Wylie couldn’t actually remember the last time he had let his arms out this long. Usually it was short stuff, quick moments where he would break something that needed breaking, or threaten someone who was giving him shit. He always shifted back right after, afraid of what might happen. His demon arms never felt like they were a part of him, but more that someone else was in there, controlling the terrifying things…
‘Hurry…’
Wylie grimaced as darkness throbbed for a moment behind his eyes. He didn’t have time for this. There was no fucking time.
“Fuck it.” Wylie gave up on his hands, and his eyes lit on a thick, hardcover encyclopedia on the bookcase shelves. It didn’t matter if his claws shredded the book just so long as they didn’t touch the money. Wylie pulled the encyclopedia down and used a sweeping motion to clear half of the first shelf into the duffel bag. “Yes. Fucking winning,” he cheered triumphantly.
He held the bag gingerly by the strap with his knee raised to brace the bottom. With the book, Wylie knocked the rest of the contents from the shelf into the waiting bag. Things went faster after that, and it was difficult to truly understand the stacks of money sailing past him.
Seriously, rich people were fucking crazy. Who needed this much cash at home? If they put their money in a bank, no one would be walking into their house to steal their shit. But then, what the fuck did he know? Wylie snorted under his breath as one of the flat boxes knocked open and a glittering necklace tumbled out, only to be covered by a half dozen bundles of cash. Maybe the thousands flipping past his view were the same as spare change in the couch for normal people? Giant mansions, giant tech, giant amounts of dough: the rich were too fucking large to comprehend.
It was a good thing Beck was stuck playing lookout; he would have been writhing in the vault like it was an orgy. Beck had big dreams he was looking to buy if he could only get enough cash. Wylie tried to understand it, but he stopped dreaming a long time ago. There was no point. Freaks didn’t get to reach their dreams. No, they were stuck doing the grunt work behind the scenes while ambitious crooks like Roth were safe at home making a fortune.
The seams of the bag were stretching by the time the safe was empty. Wylie tossed the now shredded hardcover book aside and flexed his shoulders to coax his scales further up his arms. His demon arms had weird limitations he didn’t fully understand. His muscles and bones changed to beyond human, but only where the scales reached. It didn’t matter how killer his arms were if he couldn’t lug the weight of a bag full of twenties.
Wylie held still as his biceps bulged and more scales erupted through his flesh. The edges of his tank top shredded from the sharp scales. Sight, sound, and scent flooded him all at once when Wylie’s senses responded to the transformation, and a vibrant rush of information greeted him with his next breath.
Yeah, there had been a man in the office recently. Very recent. Wylie could smell the molecules of sweat in the air. He carried the bag one handed and wandered to a stand of glittering liquor bottles where a discarded glass of brandy rested. He sniffed and picked up the sour hint of clinging saliva and bacteria off the rim. If it was the butler, he sure as fuck wasn’t afraid to leave his booze stealing ways out for all to see…
Wylie didn’t need his scales to twitch this time as his heart pounded with understanding. He smelled someone.
He had slammed through that downstairs door, and the sound of shearing metal when he tore through the safe wasn’t fucking quiet. Fuck. They could have already called the cops. Wylie grimaced as a snarl tore from his throat. Fucking whore, the cops could already be on their way! What if they missed something? There had been codes on the inside—what if Adam missed something? The cops could be sneaking up the driveway even now!
Wylie didn’t bother to count the doors as he booked it from the office and dashed into the hall. He followed Diego’s scent down the hallway while he swallowed down his anxiety. There was no watch his scales wouldn’t destroy, but he knew they couldn’t have been in the house for more than ten minutes. Wylie winced when he thought about how long it took to get through the downstairs with all the weird labs. Shit, it might have been fifteen. Even twenty minutes—the hallways were so damn long in the place. Fuck, they needed to fucking fly.
“Diego!” Wylie palmed the door handle to the room the gangster had disappeared into and used his knee to push it open. He stopped short with a sharp inhale when scent and sight revealed an absolute shit storm.
In the dark room, each object glowed with a sharp halo to Wylie’s shocked eyes. Someone had outlined reality in a bright, vibrating light, making the open wall safe and the paper waterfall spread across the hardwood floor buzz at the edges. Even brighter were the forms of the man crumpled at the foot of the bed and Diego standing over him with a gun in his outstretched hand. Wylie’s senses strained as he tried to comprehend what his eyes were telling him. The world pulsed, and he realized blearily it had the same beat as his own heart.
It wasn’t the scent of fear, but the small whimper of pain from the homeowner on the floor that snapped Wylie back to reality.
“Don’t fucking do it, man.” Wylie stepped into the room, his eyes jumping from the gun, to the stranger on the floor tangled in blankets. What were once immaculate, silk pajamas were now stained in blood from the guy’s head wound. “Just stop.”
Diego barely glanced Wylie’s way, his glare fixed down at the homeowner. He waved Wylie off with his free hand and widened his stance to brace for the gun’s recoil. “I’ll meet you downstairs. Help the twerp with the—” Diego fell silent when Wylie defiantly threw the duffel bag full of money on the floor. Red colored his features, and he lifted the gun and pointed it at Wylie’s chest. “Pick it the fuck up, and get the fuck downstairs, freak!”
“Why? So you can shoot this guy?” Righteous anger heated through Wylie and clenched in his chest. The Glock didn’t waver in Diego’s hand, and Wylie stood taller in defiance. “We’re here to rob, not murder. Do you think Roth is going to pat you on the back for killing some rich slob in his fucking bed? No, he’s going to waste you for fucking things up. Think, for fuck sake!”
Doubt crept into Diego’s dark eyes. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“We’ve got the money.” Wylie waved at the duffel bag and the cash spread out on the floor. “I cleared out the fucking safe, and the little shit downstairs is rolling in enough tech to give him a woody. Walk the fuck away, man. We have everything we came for.”
“I can’t!” Sweat spilled down Diego’s forehead as he shifted from one foot to the other. He gripped the gun with two hands and pointed it back at the man on the floor.
“Just…” Wylie held his breath, and his gaze slid down to where the gun was pointing. Once he found the homeowner’s face, it was impossible to turn away. The older man’s eyes were open and glazed with pain and confusion. The head wound had split the paper-thin skin of his forehead, and blood the color of night streamed down his face unchecked. Wylie’s stomach churned and twisted as he got a fresh whiff of copper scented blood.
“Don’t do it,” Wylie whispered, his voice strangely hoarse.
“The rich fuck saw my face!” Diego shouted, as if yelling could justify what he was about to do. “I’m not going back to prison. I am fucking done with prison!”
Wylie’s eyes locked with the homeowner’s as fear trickled past his strong defenses. Diego was going to waste this guy. It didn’t matter what the fuck he said or what amount of money was at hand. Diego was more afraid of prison than of taking a life, and he was going to kill this guy. Wylie hadn’t realized he had something left to be afraid of, but apparently seeing an innocent man get shot to death was it.
‘Fight…’
Something dark shifted inside him, and Wylie nearly stumbled sideways as the room tilted a moment. Grasping his head, his eyes fixed on the gun and where Diego was standing. He couldn’t let this happen. He had to stop it.
“Listen to me, really closely here.” Wylie took a tentative step as he scrambled to think of something that would convince Diego to stop. He was a full seven feet away from the gangster. It wasn’t near enough to do a flying leap faster than a bullet, but if he could inch a bit closer…
“What?” Diego grunted. His dark eyes were full of warning when he glanced his way, and Wylie froze.
“Okay. Uh, let’s say he manages to describe you even though the lighting is total shit in here.” Wylie forged on, grasping for anything to distract Diego from pulling the trigger. “The guy’s got an egg on the side of his head the size of my fist. He’s fucking ancient, and he’s injured.”
Sweat trickled down Wylie’s neck as he stared at Diego’s tense face and waited for him to look away. Wylie slid his right foot closer. “Let’s say he doesn’t have brain damage or memory loss from that lump, and he can describe you.” Wylie stole another step closer while Diego growled. “What’s he going to say?” he pressed. “It’s just a face. There are a fucking million people who look like you. You’re not pretty, you’re not ugly or scarred. It’s just a damn face, man. There’s no way he’s going to be able to identify you with all that blood in his eyes.”
“I’m not going back!” Diego snapped his gaze back to Wylie, and the gun lifted a moment only to return back to its original target. “You don’t understand what it’s like in there, freak, what they fucking do to you! Arms like yours, they might leave you the fuck alone. But me? You think they care if I’m pretty or not? You think they care if I run with anyone?” Fear and rage battled on Diego’s features as he relived something in his mind. His body shook, and the red flushing his face and neck spread down his chest.
Wylie held his arms out in a pacifying gesture, terrified Diego was going to snap then and there. “Stop. Chill the fuck out.” There was a noise, and Wylie turned his head toward the door, his eyes squinting to peer into the darkness on the other side of the gap. From far away, he picked up the sounds of Adam’s thin voice calling from down the hall. Wylie tried to do the math of how long he’d been in the bedroom. Had the cops hit the scanner? Did Beck send Adam up to get them out?
It was possible. Fuck, the cops could already be there.
Wylie turned back, his frustration growing with every second of the fucked up situation. “Listen, if this all goes to shit, you’re either in it for robbery, which is a fucking cakewalk, or it’s murder. Think!” Wylie stressed, desperation creeping into his voice. “They will never let you out if you kill this guy. You fucking hear me? They will lock you away with the animals forever!”
“Shit… Shit!” Diego hissed. The gun rattled in his grip as his hands shook. “You don’t get it, freak. You can’t… Shit!”
“Just walk away, man. We gotta go!” Wylie held his breath, waiting, certain he had gotten through. Surely Diego would stop and leave. It was the only answer. But what followed was just as illogical as the gangster’s assumption their piece of shit van would be inconspicuous when parked in front of a luxury mansion.
Diego’s hands steadied, and he pointed the gun back down at the man groaning on the floor. “I have priors. It’s not robbery; it’s fucking armed robbery.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Wylie insisted. “The cops are on their way! We’ve been here too long.”
Diego shook his head and snarled. “Freak, you’re too fucking stupid to understand. If I let this guy live and then end up back in jail for armed robbery…” Diego shook his head again, and his eyes narrowed with determination. “Sometimes you have to do shit. Sometimes you gotta make sure your rep is set.”
Wylie’s heart raced as Adam’s footsteps came closer and Diego pulled back the hammer on the gun. There was no time. Danger was coming for him at all sides, and it was impossible to keep any semblance of calm anymore.
“This isn’t just about you, you selfish fuck!” Wylie shouted.
“What, I’m supposed to give a fuck about the rich asshole who wasn’t supposed to be here!” Diego hollered back, his face red.
“No, the lookout, you dick! The fucking nerd! Me!” Wylie pointed accusingly at Diego. “You’re setting us all up for life if you—!”
The door creaked as Adam pushed it open, and Wylie felt the trigger squeeze. His muscles screamed in protest as Wylie lunged with all his strength and knocked into Diego’s solid form. Noise and light exploded all around him as Wylie careened forward. His hypersensitive senses reeled and his sight blacked out the same moment a ringing overwhelmed his ears. Wylie felt more than saw Diego crumple and collapse beneath him.
Another shot jerked through his body. Wylie gasped as red throbbed behind his eyes.
‘Survive…’
Wylie jolted and scrambled to wrestle the gun from Diego before they all ended up dead. He clawed around Diego’s forearms in desperation, and the scent of blood filled his nostrils. His palm found the gun. The barrel was burning hot from firing, but his demon arms felt no pain as he wrenched the weapon from Diego’s grip.
“Fuck.” The maddening scent of blood was all around him, and the room twisted in dark tendrils. Wylie patted mindlessly at his chest, but if he was shot, he couldn’t feel it.
Time. They were out of time.
Wylie lurched to his feet and hauled Diego up after him. Diego howled, and Wylie blinked rapidly to clear the fuzzy, dark dot from his vision enough to see the damage. Diego’s flesh oozed blood where inhuman claws and razor-sharp scales had sliced and scraped. He squinted as he tried to decipher if it was bone or fabric peeking through Diego’s bloodied jacket. Wylie’s knees threatened to give, but when he looked down, they were free of any telltale blood or holes.
A small whimper broke his dazed inspection, and Wylie turned to the door. Adam’s eyes were wide and unblinking as he stared at the homeowner huddled on the floor. The kid smelled of piss and fear, and Wylie clenched his jaw and took a steadying breath.
He didn’t need to look. He could scent the blood pooling on the floor behind him. Now that the ringing in his ears had faded, he could hear the man’s shattered gasps for air.
“Get to the van, kid,” Wylie gritted out. He adjusted his grip on Diego and earned a fresh scream of pain.
Adam’s slim form was shaking so much, he had to grip his arms to his chest to keep them from flailing. Tears streamed down his small face, and with an effort, he turned from the view of the dying man. He looked green, and Wylie really hoped he wasn’t going to hurl.
“What about… W-What about the stuff?” Adam forced out between chattering teeth.
“Now!” Wylie yelled. “Get the fuck out!”
Adam swiftly backpedaled away when Wylie stormed toward the door. Diego screamed as his blood sprayed up Wylie’s shoulder and splattered hot on his face. Growling loudly, Wylie dragged him through the open door and into the hallway. Diego had no escape from the clawed hand gripping his arm and slicing deep into the muscle of his bicep.
Wylie ignored Diego’s thrashing struggles. He was too furious to even look at the gangster for fear he might do something he’d regret. Wylie was steady as he followed their scent trail through the mansion, passing the office and study in silence. He strode down the corridor and took the turn that opened out to the main hall, then snarled when the scent of flowers reached his nose again.
“Damn it! Fucking damn this entire night,” Wylie muttered. He was smarter than this. He was fucking better than this.
Wylie didn’t waste time on caution as he rushed toward the stairway hidden by the kitchen. The cops weren’t there yet. Yet. After two gunshots and a guy bleeding out in the bedroom, he didn’t have to guess how the night was going to end.
Wylie paused at the top of the concrete staircase and snarled down at Diego, who had stopped trying to keep up. The gangster’s legs had given out. His sweaty face was pale from blood loss, and his dark eyes were glassy as they failed to focus on his surroundings.
“You selfish ass.” Wylie gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to leave the gangster behind, locked in one of the rooms, or better yet, the cage downstairs. If he thought for a moment Diego wouldn’t sell them out, he would have gladly left him there to be picked up by the cops.
Diego’s cries of pain renewed when Wylie readjusted his grip and tucked the gangster’s slumped form under one of his jagged, monstrous arms. They descended the eerily lit stairwell at a quick pace, each step wrenching blood and weak protests from Diego’s flailing form. Wylie caught a glimpse of his savage smile in the reflection of the small window as he grabbed the door handle, and was momentarily stunned by how sharp his fangs had grown.
The downstairs was less creepy now that adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Diego’s boot caught on a narrow, spindly table by the door they exited, and a crystal bowl careened to the floor. Broken glass and small decorative rocks scattered in a spray at their feet. Wylie’s eyes narrowed and his fangs flashed. He wrenched Diego hard against his side and pulled him down the long hallway flanked by giant windows. Lights flickered on in response to their presence, and Diego’s boots thumped with each step.
Adam scurried behind them, deftly avoiding the blood on the floor. In his arms he clutched a small laptop while he bit at the fingernails of his left hand intently. He was silent, his eyes glued on the way Diego’s clothes and flesh were shredding in Wylie’s merciless hold and turning crimson.
Wylie rushed through the underground corridors and pushed through a door. He snarled when the lights of the strange, white room he first entered hit his eyes. He raised his free arm up to shade his vision and plowed toward the splintered side door.
Beck was waiting at the outer door, his anxious expression revealing he heard the gunshots. He didn’t say a word as he took in the way Wylie was holding both a gun and Diego, who was now unconscious and streaming blood on the sterile floor. Wylie felt a fresh wave of anger as fear slipped into Beck’s dark blue eyes and grew as he stared at Diego’s bleeding form.
The stupid fuck hadn’t run when he heard the gunshots. For all Beck knew, there had been a security guard inside shooting them down. The stupid kid just stood there waiting to be killed.
“You’re in the way,” Wylie snapped, and the scales on his arms ruffled up to prove the point. Beck’s eyes went wide, and he quickly backpedaled away. Wylie shook his head in frustration and made his way out into the night. He headed straight for the van while his ears strained for the telltale screams of sirens.
“What happened? Wylie, what the fuck?” Beck ran up beside him and tried to keep pace with his large strides.
Wylie grunted. Beck looked so young, like the naive high school student he was. His brown hair was dyed with stylish, red streaks, and he had worn his overpriced sneakers to his first heist. His pretty face and fast tongue had gotten Beck out of every petty crime he jumped into, but that was over. Given his pallor and the haunted look in his eyes, Beck was realizing he was an accomplice to murder.
“You’re driving, B. Adam, get in the van and make sure you keep those cameras down until we’re gone.” Wylie pointed to the front of the vehicle and ignored the hurt look on Beck’s face at the dismissal. Fuck, because B thought there was time to have his feelings hurt when there was a man dying in the house they just robbed. Wylie growled under his breath and quickened his pace.
Resolve hardened in Wylie when he got to the back of the van. Adam had gathered up a pathetic pile of electronics while they’d been robbing the place. The kid was useless unless he had a computer in hand. What the hell would happen if Adam ended up in prison? Diego had killed out of fear of going back, and he was a grown man with actual muscle. Adam was so small and weak that he’d probably be dead in days.
Was it worth it? Had any of this fucking gang bullshit been worth it? Fuck!
Wylie heaved Diego’s unconscious body into the back of the van on top of the pile of electronics. He resisted the urge to spit on him. They could have avoided all of this if Diego hadn’t lost his shit. Diego could have used his fucking brain the second they noticed the flowers. Fuck, no, he knew better. Wylie could have chosen to not get in the van when Diego showed up late…
Wylie went to shut the door and stopped short. He snaked a hand forward and snatched the cell phone half hanging from Diego’s pocket and slipped it carefully into his jeans. He slammed the doors shut with his knee and started walking.
“What, are you getting—? Wylie!” Beck gaped at Wylie’s back a moment, then took off after him as he headed back to the house. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m making sure that guy doesn’t fucking die!” Wylie whirled and jerked away when Beck reached for him, oblivious to his deadly scales. “Arms,” Wylie stressed when hurt again flashed in his boyfriend’s eyes. Beck bit his lower lip, and Wylie sighed and spoke more gently. “Get them the hell out of here, B. Diego’s going to need a hospital. I fucked him up bad getting the gun from him.”
“Don’t!” Beck pleaded when Wylie went to turn away. “Come with us. Baby, fuck, don’t do this!” Tears glowed in Beck’s eyes as he gripped his hands into fists to keep from reaching out. “No one will know it was us. No one will fucking know, and we can just… just…” Beck trailed off, unable to continue when he saw the resolve on Wylie’s face.
Naive. Beck was so fucking naive. Rich people didn’t get murdered in their homes with no one caught for the crime, not when it was a paranormal who broke through the back door. The police would never stop looking for them.
“Hurry up, B. That asshole is going to need you to save him after his huge fuck up.” Wylie smiled grimly and leaned down to press a swift kiss to Beck’s cheek. He paused to breathe in Beck’s unique scent under the stench of Diego’s blood. What Wylie once found comforting in his boyfriend now felt like a liability.
It felt like goodbye.
Wylie pulled back and tried to keep his emotions from his face. “Don’t let Diego pin this on you with Roth, okay? I know that crazy fuck, and he’ll blame us before ever owning up to his shit. I gotta go call an ambulance, but I want you safe and out of here first.”
Beck’s arms hung at his sides in defeat. “Shit… Shit, you’re such a fucking idiot.” Beck’s eyes continued to plead with Wylie even as he took hesitant steps backward. His gaze never left Wylie’s until he reached the driver’s door to the van.
The blood cooling on Wylie’s t-shirt from the night air was itchy, but he refused to move. He waited until Beck had climbed inside the van and the engine roared to life. The headlights flared, and Wylie growled and covered his eyes. Beck’s voice was rough with emotion when he snapped something at the hysterical Adam, put the van in gear, and turned sharply in the driveway. Wylie lowered his arm and waited until the van crossed through the open gate and pulled onto the road.
Wylie sighed heavily and turned back to the broken door. Shards of wood his claws had raked free littered the ground, red with Diego’s blood. He squinted when he noticed a small, white wad of chewing gum. It had been dragged by Diego’s shoe until it found its way onto the pavement. Wylie leaned down and speared it with a long talon, glaring at the little piece of nicotine laced gum for countless moments.
Beck was right: he was as fucking stupid as they came.
Wylie stepped back into the mansion and twisted the ruined door behind him, wedging it until the metal bent and stuck shut. He grimaced when he slipped on the tile floor and found the overly bright room splattered in Diego’s blood. The scent and sight of the scarlet carnage had him sneering while his stomach churned. Wylie stalked forward and slammed through the doorway that led to the long corridor and automatic lights. Nothing felt untouched by the violence they had brought with them, each step streaked with blood and reeking of fear sweat.
Dread clawed at his mind as Wylie rushed to the stairwell, his heart racing in his throat. He didn’t want to face what was waiting upstairs in the master bedroom. The blood had been intense, a fucking puddle compared to what dribbled out of Diego. While Wylie’s scales could shred flesh, that gun did exactly what it was designed to do. That old guy was going to die.
He paused outside the open stairwell door and scowled at the broken table and shattered crystal bowl. It felt disrespectful on top of everything else to have Diego break the homeowner’s stuff after putting a bullet in him. Wylie took the concrete steps in large leaps and bounded around the corner, hot on his goal. He jogged down the upstairs hallway, his steps muffled by a long runner carpet. When he passed the grand foyer, Wylie stopped short and bit back a gasp.
Strewn lengthwise along the hall was the homeowner. He had crawled to get there and was collapsed in a puddle of his own blood. Wylie swallowed hard. A gory trail was smeared in thick crimson across the floor, but in the dim lighting, he could see the man’s chest heave with every struggling breath.
Alive. Thank fuck, he was alive.
Wylie tried to take a steadying breath and gagged on the overwhelming scent of blood. “Shit.” He grasped his forehead as a wave of dizziness hit him, and stepped forward to where the homeowner was fighting to get up. “Stop moving. You’re going to bleed out even more.”
Relief unclenched in his chest when he saw the determination in the old guy. He was a fighter, and he wasn’t dead yet. Wylie knelt down and reached to turn the homeowner to find the wound. He flinched back when the man cried out and wrenched away.
“Chill. I’m not here to hurt you. My palms don’t cut like my scales do so…” Wylie trailed off when he noticed he still was holding Diego’s gun. “Fuck,” he growled in exasperation. “I’m not going to shoot you either. I just didn’t want to leave it with that trigger-happy fuck. Hold on.”
Wylie jumped up and his eyes lit on the nearest closed door. Inside, he found a square table pushed to the side where he left the gun. He made sure to close the door tight when he returned to the hallway. The gun might have been mangled by his claws, but Wylie had seen enough thrillers to be paranoid. He wasn’t dumb enough to leave the damn thing lying around where someone could shoot him with it.
The cell phone was in his sweatshirt pocket. Wylie glared down at the man, then at his jagged edged, scaled arms. The incident with the safe was hot in his mind. How long had his demon arms been out now? Half an hour? More? Wylie didn’t like to transform in front of anyone, but there was no way his claws could work a touch screen. If he couldn’t get a call out, this guy was as good as dead.
Wylie took a slow breath, then another as he focused on his scales and attempted to pull them back in. “Please… Listen this one fucking time,” he whispered desperately. Wylie pursed his lips, fighting down his rising panic. After a breathless moment, he felt something change and his long, razor-sharp scales ruffled and absorbed back into his flesh. “Thank fuck.” He rubbed a pale hand along his blood streaked forearm to make sure they were completely normal. He had no idea where the scales went; it was a magic he didn’t understand. His arms ruined his life so completely that he rarely dwelled on where the monster inside him lived.
With eyes fixed on the man gasping on the floor, Wylie fished Diego’s cell from his pocket and dialed 911. As the phone rang, Wylie sank to his knees beside the homeowner and sought out the source of all the blood. “Don’t—damn it,” Wylie muttered. It didn’t matter how careful he turned him over, blood gushed in a fresh wave down the man’s nightshirt. It was bad, seriously bad.
Wylie untied the sweatshirt from around his waist and wadded it up, then pressed it firmly to what he could only guess was the wound beneath the crimson soaked pajama shirt. Wylie’s nose wrinkled as his hand grew slick with blood. He glanced at the man’s face, but there was no fight left in him. Either the old guy was too exhausted from blood loss, or he figured out he was helping. The homeowner tried to clutch the material to his chest to stop the flow of blood, but his hands were shaking too much, lacking any strength.
There was a click in Wylie’s ear followed by the buzz of background activity. “911. What’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice drawled from the phone.
“There’s a guy with a gunshot wound. It’s in his chest.” Wylie lifted the wad of sweatshirt to see, only to squish it back down. Blood pooled in the fabric between his tense fingers. “Shit. He’s, uh, he’s bleeding out and I don’t know what to do.”
Wylie hoped his voice sounded more stable than he felt, because he was freaking out. He wasn’t sure where the hell it had been hiding his entire life, but apparently there was still a lot of fear left in him. Now that Beck was safe, and he was alone with a wound that led straight to the morgue, Wylie had found a shit ton of terror.
“Where are you?” The operator sounded bored, like it was a simple walk in the park. It would have pissed him off, but Wylie was too busy trying to remember where he was.
He was robbing a house and didn’t even know the address? Fail. Total fail.
“Shit, dude, what’s your address?” Wylie peered down with eyebrows furrowed, waiting for an answer. The silence dragged on so long, he started to wonder if the old guy could even talk.
“Woodcrest… 135 Woodcrest Ave.,” the homeowner choked out as blood trickled from between his lips. He coughed and immediately sucked in a gasp of air.
“You get that?” Wylie demanded, unable to tear his eyes from the scarlet fluid splattered on the man’s chin. He knew internal bleeding was bad. Like, death bad. Maybe the guy bit his tongue when Diego cracked him on the head… Wylie wrenched his gaze away and turned to talk into the phone, hoping to muffle his voice. “Listen, you need to get someone down here now. This guy isn’t going to hold out much longer.”
“An ambulance has been dispatched. Are the two of you in a safe location?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine,” Wylie snapped, wanting to avoid any questions about gunmen or how everything went down. “The guy is losing all his blood. Is there anything I can do to, I dunno, keep the blood in him? He’s soaking through my sweatshirt.”
“Right, of course.” There was a clicking of a keyboard and a long pause before the operator continued. “Has pressure been applied to the wound?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m doing that right now.” Wylie turned back with a confused scowl. “It’s not doing much. I think the bullet might have gone through him. Should I turn him over to cover that one too?”
“It’s best to keep the pressure. Is there a magic user with you, someone who might be able to enhance the bandages you’re using? Even the most rudimentary healer kits have something to slow bleeding. Look for a vial labeled ‘gloo.’”
“I don’t…” Wylie’s eyebrows twisted as he looked around the opulent hallway. The place was huge and he hadn’t seen a bathroom yet. There might be something down in the basement, but that would mean trying to explore all the labs… “I have no fucking clue. This isn’t a hospital; it’s someone’s home. If I leave this guy to look, I’m worried he’ll be dead by the time I get back.”
“Hmm, no healer kit.” The voice tsked in disdain in his ear. “Is he moving normally, or is there signs that his spine might be injured?”
Wylie smiled grimly as he considered how far the old guy had crawled. “His spine’s fine.”
“If it’s safe to move the victim, you want to elevate the wound to slow the bleeding—oh, but that’s for limbs. But make sure you keep pressure on the wound at all times. If you have a healer kit… Oh, ignore that.” Silence descended as the operator clicked through web pages. “Here. It says to ensure his airway isn’t blocked. Is he breathing?”
“Of course he’s…” Wylie shook his head with a frustrated growl, thumbed the phone off, and tossed it down the hall. “Fucking morons. It’s like they don’t know where their ass is without magic. Privileged fucks.” He glanced down and met the homeowner’s confused gaze. “Sorry, dude. I’m not listening to her read to me until the cops show up.”
“Is he breathing?” Wylie muttered to himself as he refocused his efforts to stop the blood pouring from the man’s chest. “Don’t you think I would have started with he’s not breathing if the guy wasn’t fucking breathing? Shit, you better keep breathing, man.”
In defiance, the homeowner’s breath grew stuttered and full of gasps as each minute ticked by. Tension built in Wylie until his eyes squeezed shut and he found himself praying to whoever might be listening to not let this guy die. He didn’t know a thing about the homeowner. Well, except he was rich, kept way too much tech and money in his house, and might like daffodils. Now it was like the old guy was the most important person in the world. He must be, because Wylie knew exactly what he was doing by staying.
It was jail time. Juvie, if he were lucky. If the guy died—fuck, he picked up the gun, didn’t he? Wylie wasn’t sure if his clawed hands left fingerprints, but he was the one who broke into the house. He had the gun that shot the guy. He was the idiot who stayed behind…
Wylie held his breath when the man started coughing, and his chest heaved beneath his hand. Wylie raised his gaze and hesitantly met deep, blue eyes clouded with confusion. The guy looked military with his gray hair shorn close. There was something about the squareness of his jaw combined with his broad shoulders that made him seem like he had seen conflict. He could have been a retired soldier, out of place in the luxurious mansion. Wylie searched his face for more information, but beyond the twisting of his features, the homeowner didn’t have much for wrinkles.
“They’re on the way.” Wylie wasn’t sure if there was anything else to say. He was shocked the guy was still conscious; most of his blood was on the floor instead of in his body at this point.
“Your hands… Let me see your hands,” the homeowner gasped between loud, shallow breaths. He reached for Wylie’s hand, the one holding the compress in place. “Before… they were…”
“Yeah, freakish.” Wylie tried not to flinch away when his blood coated fingers were grasped and slipped through the man’s weak grip. “You don’t want a nightmare right now, man. They’re scary shit.”
“No… they were…” the man broke off with a wheeze, desperation shaking in his voice.
Wylie sighed and pulled his hand away when the homeowner tried to grab him again. “Dude, seriously…” Their eyes met, and Wylie saw a pleading in them he couldn’t understand. It was like the old guy was begging him, and it just didn’t make any sense. His demon arms were monstrous.
The guy was probably going to die… Wylie’s shoulders hunched in defeat. “Fine, whatever. But I warned you. Don’t start freaking out.”
Wylie sat back and made a point to keep his arm clear as he focused on his hand. It was always a crapshoot if he’d be able to control the transformation, and he didn’t want his scales slicing the old guy up. Wylie’s pigment darkened up to his wrist, and at the tip of his fingers, sharp, black talons pushed free. It wasn’t until the scales had finished sprouting over his hand that Wylie regretted giving in to the stupid request. The scent of blood was everywhere and overwhelmed his enhanced senses. Wylie turned away and determinedly breathed out of his mouth.
“You’re a shifter.” Shaking fingers gingerly touched Wylie’s claws where they were resting on the floor.
“You mean a freak. A killer monster with fucked up arms,” Wylie spat bitterly. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard it all before.”
“No… No, you’re a shifter.”
Wylie rolled his eyes. “Listen, dude, I know all about shifters, and I’m not like those guys. I don’t turn into anything fluffy, no fur or crazy inner animal. I’m some kind of demon monster who can only change his arms.” Wylie turned with eyes narrowed as fingers again touched his. He held his hand still as the man’s pale digits wavered near. “Careful. The scales are super sharp, so don’t go cutting yourself up even more.”
The man’s breathing broke down into coughs, and his entire body jolted with each uncontrollable spasm. He clutched Wylie’s smooth talons like a lifeline as his body shook. “Dragon,” he got out. “No such thing… as demon shifter.”
“What?” Wylie blinked rapidly and jerked his hand away. “What did you say?”
Blood speckled the man’s neck as he coughed and clutched his chest. “You… you’re a dragon shifter.”
He was a dragon shifter?
How? What did that even mean? Dragons weren’t real. It wasn’t like anyone ever dug up dragon bones and put them in a museum. But… But he might have heard of someone going to jail for selling dragon scales…
Wylie’s mind raced as he stared at the rainbow sheen of color that coated his midnight black scales. Was he a dragon shifter? Did he have an actual shifter animal inside of him waiting to get out?
‘Hello…’
The scales on Wylie’s hand fluffed, and his breath hitched. For a moment, it was like a voice inside him, something that had been lost in his own thoughts but not. No, it was someone else. Something else…
“Well, fuck,” Wylie whispered. He curled his hand into a fist and watched the way his scales aligned in a beautiful pattern over his knuckles. He might be going to jail, but at least now he knew he was a failed dragon shifter. It sounded way cooler than a demon, that’s for sure.
“How do you know what I am?” Wylie asked the homeowner solemnly as he slowly unclenched his fist.
“I know… another.”
Wylie raised his eyebrows and turned to where the man was gasping for breath. “Really? You know another dragon shifter?”
“Spit.”
Wylie blinked at the change of topic. “Huh?”
The homeowner struggled to keep his head from falling back to the floor. “Your spit… can heal.”
Wylie wrinkled his nose and pressed down on the blood-soaked sweatshirt. “Err, I think you’ve lost way too much blood, old man.”
“Transform… and spit.” The homeowner’s bruised face twisted in pain, and another jagged cough shook through him. More blood spilled from his gaping mouth as he fought to breathe.
“I can’t do a full transformation,” Wylie tried to explain. “Even if I could heal—which is crazy unlikely—only my arms will change. I’m probably not even a dragon shifter, right?” A monster. Whatever was connected to his arms was a monster.
“Spit. It can… Transforming can heal…” The homeowner didn’t seem to hear Wylie over his shallow, desperate wheezes. “Spit heals… Transform and spit.” His voice grew weaker as he repeated himself between bursts of coughing.
Wylie sighed in frustration as the man grew more distressed and delirious. Whatever blood was left in the old guy was quickly escaping. “Dude, calm—” Wylie growled and pushed forcefully on the homeowner’s chest until he stilled. “Chill. I’ll do it, whatever. If you want to be spit on like a freak, I’ll do it. Just calm down and stop bleeding on me.” Fuck, who was he to deny the old guy his last—totally weird—dying wish?
“Hold this.” Wylie placed the homeowner’s trembling arm over the bloody sweatshirt. The guy didn’t have much strength, but it was safer than transforming on top of him with killer claws. Wylie focused down at his arms and stared from his scaled hand to his pale, normal looking one. He wrinkled his nose as the scent of blood again threatened to overwhelm him.
“Just hold on,” Wylie muttered and moved down the floor to be safe. Talons sliced through his fingernails and grew long and deadly. Scales slid free from his pale flesh, transparent with a rainbow sheen, and then filled with black as they thickened. In moments they were long enough to fluff out, his arms sharp edged from every angle. Wylie closed his eyes and tried to push the scales further up his arms for a full transformation. His other senses woke up, and his teeth sharpened and fangs poked free.
Wylie grimaced as he felt something fill him at his core, a dark shadow that grew larger, its presence expanding as he sought a more complete shift. If he really was a dragon shifter, that meant he was more than a pair of killer arms. Just… just, Wylie wasn’t sure he wanted to know just what the fuck that meant.
Maybe he had always known. There was something inside him, something that scared the crap out of him every time he peered too close. Now he knew it wasn’t a monstrous demon, though. No, only a monstrous dragon. Maybe it was safer. Maybe the dragon could do something he couldn’t. After this terrible night, he was desperate enough to try anything.
Wylie’s nostrils flared with his next inhale, and something stirred within. Something alive. Dizziness tilted him as the feeling grew and something shivered and slithered within his core.
‘Blood…’
Blood. He needed to focus on the blood. He was not for want of the life-giving liquid, and Wylie let his senses target the heavy scent rising in the air. The world slowed around him as he heard the rhythm of the blood flowing in the homeowner’s veins. It sounded wrong, sluggish, as if his heart had nothing left to pump.
Wylie groaned as saliva abruptly flooded his mouth. A wave of dizzying heat hit him so hard, he ended up hunched over the homeowner, who he just missed slicing with his claws.
“Shit.” He was hard. Wylie squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will the reaction away, but his body wouldn’t listen. It felt like a fire was burning through his veins, and his dick grew stiffer, swelling with need. Something about this, about the blood, was making him seriously horny. “Fuck,” Wylie muttered and shook his head. There was a new pulse inside of him, deep red throbbing through the darkness encroaching on his vision. For a moment, he could feel the creature again, a dark shadow twisting in his core, its heart pulsing with his own.
‘Blood… Feed…’
Messed up. Wylie gritted his teeth as his dick twitched and he fought the urge to grind against something, anything, to alleviate the building pressure. This was so not cool when there was some old guy bleeding out beneath him.
“Spit,” the homeowner pleaded, his voice a dry rasp.
Wylie’s lashes snapped open, his eyes no longer light blue but a glowing, otherworldly white. He tried to fight the pull, tried to push away, but someone—something—was controlling him. Wylie yanked the sweatshirt from the homeowner’s chest and tore away the sticking shreds of his bloodied shirt. A black hole cut through the man’s chest, pulling Wylie down, drawing him in. He bent over bare flesh, lips hovering a breath away as the fluid in his mouth increased. His sight dimmed with another red throb, and when he opened his mouth, his saliva spilled into the bloody wound.
“Ah!” The quiet gasp was tight with pain. Smoke began to rise from the wound, and the homeowner convulsed and hissed. He gripped weakly at his chest and heaved for air.
Beneath the scent of blood, Wylie was vaguely aware of the odd smoke and gasps of air quickly turning to pained cries. He inhaled again, nostrils full of the copper scent, and the world spun.
‘Blood… life giving… soul feeding…’
“No,” Wylie growled as he squeezed his eyes shut to try and block it out. “Shhhh-shut up!” A hiss escaped him, demented and animalistic. His eyes snapped open, but no, when he touched his face, it was still the same, no monster transforming his head. He whimpered when his blood wet fingers touched his lips, flavor jolting like small flashes of electricity on his tongue.
‘Taste… Taste blood… Feed…’
“Oh, fuck.” Wylie’s eyesight dimmed and darkness swarmed the edges of his vision. Before he could stop, he leaned forward and touched his tongue to the crimson, burning hot fluid coating the man’s neck. His senses exploded with the burning, metallic fluid, and Wylie moaned and surged forward, his mouth open wide to drink every drop down.
“Sorry… Really fucking sorry,” Wylie groaned, flesh vibrating under his lips as he sucked a patch of skin and lapped his tongue over the bloody surface. Somewhere, detached from the dark throb of arousal and the cloud of hot blood, he knew he was losing it, but his embarrassment was no match for his hunger. He was starving, and the blood tasted too good, too right.
‘More…’
More. He needed so much more.
Wylie licked long, heavy touches of his tongue up the man’s collar, seeking where blood had pooled into the hollow of his throat in a glittering, ruby red treasure trove. He groaned from the intense flavor as he swallowed the blood down, then chased the trail up the man’s jaw, sucking over sticky flesh and rough stubble. He paused, gritting his teeth to hold back when he found gasping lips wet with a terrifying trickle of scarlet. Wylie’s claws slashed into the floor as he tried to stop himself.
This was insane. The guy was bleeding out and he couldn’t stop licking his fucking blood. Shit, what the fuck was happening to him?
‘More… Drink more…’
The room twisted with a heavy pulse of red and black shadows, the same pulse throbbing through Wylie’s body, pushing him forward. The powerful rhythm built as he fought against it, the energy spiraling higher, shaking everything he could see until it was impossible to resist. “Sssssorry,” he hissed, knowing he had lost. Wylie pushed his tongue between the homeowner’s parted lips, using the pressure of his body to pin his prey down as he sought out every drop of blood he could find within the hot cavern.
The man’s mouth yielded beneath his, a wheeze of breath cut off as saliva and tongue invaded him. Wylie moaned as fresh blood burst on his tongue, the dark pulse growing triumphant in its prize. His tongue pried paper dry lips open, plunging deeper, relentlessly sucking wet sounds and weak gasps in. Beneath the pulse, Wylie felt his hips grind forward and his prey give in, responding, growing hard even as the homeowner’s body struggled to survive.
Above it, Wylie observed in a small sliver of sanity, cringing as he rocked harder against the man while stealing deep, ravenous kisses. He was kissing an old guy. A dying old guy. There was no redeeming himself after this. The guy was practically a senior citizen, even if he was kinda hot in a brutish, military way. Maybe fifties, sixties, not completely decrepit. But still, none of this was okay.
The homeowner whimpered a lost, hungry sound when Wylie’s lips broke away. It was only a moment, Wylie struggling with the shadows only to lose and surge forward again, stealing away the man’s air and blood. “Thissss isssn’t right…” Wylie got out, his eyes rolling back when his hips jerked forward, seeking more pressure for his aching erection. “Sssstop.”
The overwhelming pulse refused to abate, Wylie trapped for agonizingly long, awkward minutes before the addictive flavor of blood finally faded from his victim’s mouth. When he felt the possibility for escape, he dug his talons into the floor and pushed up on his arms, angling his head to the side. “Ssstop… just stop!” Wylie snarled. Cool air hit his lungs, and he whimpered in relief. “Oh fuck… fuck, what’s happening to me? I gotta… gotta run before…” Before he lost. Before this insane pulse demanded more than just kisses and easily available blood.
“W-Wait.” A hand grasped his neck, Wylie jolting when the homeowner’s trembling fingers pulled him back.
Wylie blinked down, confused when he saw the strange flush to the man’s cheeks, the only color to his otherwise pale flesh. He focused on the homeowner’s dazed, blown wide pupils, not sure what exactly he was seeing. He looked entranced, or maybe just really freaking confused after being tongue fucked by a total monster.
“No,” Wylie breathed out shakily. There was a heavy stream of blood on the side of the homeowner’s face from where the gun handle had cracked his skull. Darkness throbbed all around him, and Wylie’s mouth and tongue were attached to the hot flesh before he could comprehend it. He cradled the man’s head tight between his smooth palms and drew his tongue up the side of his face in rough, thorough strokes, refusing to miss any of the red fluid. Wylie’s fangs scraped skin, and he groaned, shivering at the pleasurable sensation of flesh yielding beneath his teeth and blood flowing on his tongue.
‘Drink… Drink our fill…’
Damn, it was good. Hot, tangy, and toe-curlingly perfect. Wylie’s cock pulsed in rhythm to the darkness twisting at the edges of his sight, and he groaned, wishing he could unzip but unwilling to release his prize to do it. He was so hard…
“Kid. My back.” The homeowner’s voice was stronger this time as he drew air in and blood didn’t spill free on his exhale. “The bullet went through.”
Wylie’s hands moved on their own accord, turning and shoving the man down chest first to the floor. His claws tore the bloody pajama shirt in half, revealing strong muscle, wide shoulders, and another dark hole frothing with divine blood.
“Crap.” Wylie gritted his teeth as darkness throbbed through him in a fresh wave of heat, his senses consumed with the heady scent of blood. This was bad. Whatever was happening to him was really bad, some sort of insanity he could barely comprehend. Worse, he was terrified of what it was turning him into.
‘Feed… We will have our reward…’
“Aw, shit.” Saliva flooded Wylie’s mouth, and he lurched forward as the room spun. Flushed and dizzy, he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the faint flicker he saw as the homeowner’s flesh pulsed with each weak heartbeat. Nothing should taste this good. Nothing should be able to take him over like a fucking puppet. Nothing should have him attack some weak, defenseless, dying dude.
Wylie fell forward and inhaled the combined scent of blood and flesh. “Fuck.” He licked his tongue out and shuddered when he touched fresh blood. Oh, hell, it tasted like a fucking god.
Wylie moaned loudly and roughly lapped the flat of his tongue along the burning hot wound. The room spun around him as he sucked at the blood, drinking it down between hungry gasps. His hips refused to still, his rock-hard erection grinding against the man’s thigh as the blood seeped into his senses and stole whatever restraint Wylie had left. The wound changed under his tongue with each swipe. Wylie felt the flesh slowly knit together and the blood flow trickle until it finally stopped. He instinctively sought more of the heady fluid, lost in the wild darkness swirling through him. He followed down smooth flesh and pulled scraps of cloth away so he could steal every streak and drop of red he could find with greedy, long licks of his tongue.
“Damn it,” Wylie rasped with a deep note of despair. The flavor was nearly gone, and the scent was diminishing with each lap of the firm, healed skin. “No.” He nosed down and tore at the homeowner’s shredded pajama top, but all he could find were the smallest specks of blood. “No!”
‘More… claw it free…’
“W-what?” Wylie shook his head, fighting the bizarre thoughts that sounded like his own.
‘Drink… He is ours… The weak bleed for us… cum for us…’
Wylie’s eyebrows twisted down as his arms jerked and sought to slash more blood free. “No… No! Sssssstop talking, you fucking psssycho!” A hiss tore from his lips as Wylie wrestled with the power that had taken him over. Images flashed through his mind full of blood, flesh and sex. Wylie inhaled sharply as fear gripped him. “I’m not… I’m not a monster, damn it!” He grasped at his head, snarling a sound that didn’t belong to a human. “Get out of my fucking head!”
“Kid, wait.” Somehow, the homeowner knew exactly what was wrong. With a grunt, he pushed his hand up where Wylie’s blood-soaked sweatshirt was balled in his grasp.
Stunned, Wylie watched as the sweatshirt was thrown a few feet down the hall. He was on it before the sweatshirt could hit the ground. He rolled and pulled the fabric into his mouth, a relieved growl rumbling in his chest as blood filled his senses and sparked on his taste buds once again. Wylie sank to the floor, his eyes closed as he tried to ignore the fact he was treating the shirt like a fucking pacifier.
He could still feel it, the beast thrumming inside him, its desires his as his cock pulsed with the twisting darkness. He could feel what it wanted, how it wanted it. Wylie gritted his teeth, tasting cold, ugly death as blood coated his tongue. He was going crazy. He had let his demon arms out for too long, and now he was turning into a monster.
‘Everything must feed… even monsters…’
Wylie grimaced. “Go away,” he whispered to the red pulse of darkness hovering at his consciousness. “Fuck off and leave me alone.”
Wylie wasn’t certain if the creature was listening, or if it was just bored without the promise of fresh blood to keep it around. With his next breath, cooler air filled his lungs, and some of the burning heat left his veins. Wylie exhaled heavily as the arousal pulsing through him abated to more manageable, less murderous levels. After a few more breaths, he turned his head enough to glare at the homeowner, who was staring back just as warily.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” Wylie asked hoarsely. He bit his teeth into the fabric and squeezed more blood free, but he didn’t have the urge to moan like last time. Without the scent of flesh to mix with the flavor, the blood from his sweatshirt wasn’t enticing his dragon.
“Nothing.” The homeowner grimaced as he moved his arm beneath him. He went to push himself up and immediately collapsed with a loud expulsion of air. “Hell.”
“Bullshit,” Wylie snarled. “You knew this was going to happen, otherwise you wouldn’t have thrown the shirt.” His eyes narrowed as he thought of the anti-paranormal tech that was coating the mansion upstairs and down. “Did you spell me?”
“Did I…?” The man blinked owlishly. “I’m not a sorcerer, kid.” He raised a weak hand and patted where the bullet had hit his chest. “If I am, I’m a really shitty one.” He tried to push up again, but his arms were shaking so hard, he ended right back down on the floor. “Damn it… It’s just bloodlust. Dragons are… are notorious for extreme bloodlust.”
Wylie remained impassive as he watched the homeowner struggle to get up. He wasn’t in a hurry to go near the old guy, not when he could remember all the weird stuff he had done, and the even worse stuff his dragon wanted to do. The homeowner man grunted as he tried and failed to get up again, and Wylie shook his head. “The ambulance will be here soon. Stop killing yourself.” He sought a fresh spot of blood on the shirt and crushed the material on his tongue until it seeped out.
“Run, kid. They’ll destroy a being like you.” The homeowner pushed up again and hissed in pain. “The cops will… they’ll shoot you on sight.”
Wylie’s nostrils flared. It wasn’t the panicked ravings of a dying man; he knew the cops had a bias against paranormals. He’d heard of things happening, of shifters getting shot for being aggressive with video proof showing up later of the exact opposite. Fear justified a lot of terrible things lately, even murder committed by the police. Even a rich fuck, who lived in the lap of luxury in the sheltered suburbs, knew it enough to warn him, and it struck a chord in Wylie.
Really, how did the old guy know about shifters? Where did he meet a dragon shifter, and were they friends or random acquaintances? How had he known he was a dragon shifter when Wylie hadn’t even heard of a dragon shifter before?
Wylie was silent as he pulled drinks of watery blood from the fabric of his sweatshirt. The man continued to try to get up like the glutton for an early death he was turning out to be. Wylie doubted the guy was healed on the inside. Healing the front of the gunshot wound hadn’t healed the back, and for all he knew, the homeowner was a bleeding mess on the inside.
Well, if he had any blood left to bleed as this point.
Decided, Wylie rolled to his knees. He kept his shirt firmly stuck between his teeth as he crawled over and sat on the homeowner’s back. The man collapsed flat under Wylie’s weight and finally stopped struggling.
“You need a doctor,” Wylie growled. The man, who was obviously in need of said doctor, didn’t have the strength to argue.
“Can you get me outside?” the homeowner eventually wheezed. “I don’t want the police in my house.”
Wylie snorted. “I fucking bet. I don’t know what all that shit is downstairs, but if the cops saw it, they might just shoot you on sight.” He looked down at the back of the homeowner’s head and added in a more serious tone, “You sure you can handle it? I can’t lift you without my scales out, and they hurt like a bitch.”
“It’s fine,” the homeowner said with false bravado. “After a bullet, I doubt I’ll feel anything.”
Wylie licked the back of his teeth. He doubted the guy was going to be that lucky. “Alright, man. If it’s what you want.”
Wylie stood and straddled his weak companion’s back. He cautiously slid his hands under his armpits and lifted him up. By the low hisses falling from the homeowner’s lips, it hurt like fuck and he was trying to hide it. Fresh blood welled up where razor sharp scales sliced into flesh. Wylie hesitated, but there was no sign of the dark pulse of before, no darkness twisting in trying to steal his sanity away. Wylie sighed in relief and took slow steps backwards down the hallway.
Wylie did his best not to hurt the guy. It wasn’t like he was mangling him on purpose like he did Diego. Still, there wasn’t much he could do to prevent the gasps of pain. His demon arms were things of destruction no matter the situation. Slipperless, the man’s feet scraped first the runner and then smooth tile as Wylie dragged him through the hallways. His goal was the basement stairwell tucked away near the kitchen, but Wylie paused when the ceiling arched above as they entered the grand foyer. He turned his head to eye the massive front door.
He honestly wasn’t sure if the old guy could handle a trip through the mansion and downstairs to get to the exit. And maybe, just maybe, Wylie was embarrassed with the state he had left the basement door.
The homeowner’s head raised, and he nodded when he saw the front door. “Closer. You’ll need to disable the security.”
“Uhh…” Wylie grimaced. “That might already be done,” he mumbled. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or fear clenching in his gut as he carefully maneuvered the man down onto the floor. Fresh anxiety welled in him as he approached the front door and the sound of electricity buzzed all around him like a suffocating cloud. Wylie could feel something in the air. It was like an energy but cold, chilling. He reached for the handle of the metal gate blocking the door, hoping to escape the horrible feeling, but froze when the darkness suddenly pulsed around him, loud and full of alarm.
‘Danger…!’
“Wait!” The homeowner struggled to push into a sitting position. He lifted his arm sluggishly, like it was too heavy to move, and indicated the panel built into the wall next to the door. “Flip the blue switch left… and then right,” he rasped out. “Otherwise, you’re going to fry yourself.”
“What, like, it’s electrified?” Wylie glared at the panel where a switch glowed blue with power. Doubts flickered in his mind, but he pushed them aside. Why would the old guy try to trick him now when the ambulance was on the way?
Taking a deep breath, Wylie flipped the switch to the left, then again, all the way to the right. The glowing cut out, and the buzzing immediately stopped. Moments after, the black gate covering the front door slowly retracted on mechanical tracks, and there was a loud click as an automatic lock released.
Wylie’s shoulders sagged, and he exhaled heavily. He had no idea if his arms could actually handle an electric fence. The mansion had every defense possible for a howler attack, and it made him feel extra uneasy as he walked back to where the homeowner was wheezing on the floor. When Wylie crouched down, he tried to ignore how pale and fragile the old guy looked. “You get a lot of werewolves around here?” he asked flatly.
“No. Not really,” the homeowner whispered with a weak chuckle. “Make sure you latch the door behind us. The grid will re-engage.”
Wylie nodded mutely and pulled the man up into his arms. His nerves were taut as he pushed the front door open and felt the same unsettling feeling of cold dragging at his flesh. Once he had cleared the homeowner’s feet from the doorway, he kicked the door shut. Wylie jerked when the power reconnected and the scent of ozone filled his nostrils.
“What is that?” he growled, glaring back at the door where a metal grate was slowly wheeling into place on the exterior side.
“Less effective than it should be,” the homeowner wheezed cryptically. His face twisted as a cough shook his body, and when he spat, a glob of blood hit the stone at his feet. “Let’s get away from the doors. We don’t want to… to give them an invitation to search my property.”
“Sure.” Wylie couldn’t help but notice the man’s eyes were losing focus. He was cool in his arms, most of his blood left behind on the floor of the bedroom.
“Brace yourself,” Wylie warned as he tightened his grip on his armpits. The homeowner hissed in renewed pain, his body limp as Wylie dragged him down the front stairs. Outdoor lights illuminated them against the night when they moved onto the lawn. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance, echoed by a police cruiser. They couldn’t be more than a few blocks away.
Wylie laid the homeowner out on the lawn and stared into the dark where the sirens were growing louder. There was still time. He could run, take off, and hope the cops couldn’t track him. He glanced down and narrowed his eyes when he saw something shimmer on the homeowner’s chest. He peered closer and found a patch of pink flesh where the bullet wound once was.
Healed. He had healed him with a power he didn’t even know he possessed. If Wylie hadn’t walked into the house at 135 Woodcrest Ave. to rob it that night, he might have never known he could heal.
It meant something. He owed this guy something.
Wylie’s scales ruffled, and resignation settled heavily on his shoulders. He stared down at his clawed hands and concentrated until his scales pulled back in, and the black pigment cleared from his flesh. Once he was smooth, pale skin marred only by streaks of blood, he sat beside the homeowner on the stiff grass to wait for whatever hell was quickly approaching.
“The door… is it…?” The homeowner grasped at his chest, confusion twisting his features.
“Yeah, it’s locked,” Wylie soothed. “No one will know about your weird tech kink.”
The homeowner turned his face up toward the sky, and his eyes sought out the stars obscured by the white puffs of his breath. Shirtless and drained of blood, his skin was turning blue around his lips and fingertips in the low temperature. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Wylie. Wylie Doe.” He fished a crushed and bloodied cigarette from his sweatshirt pouch pocket. Wylie had a lighter in there too, but the damn thing was too wet to burn. With a sigh, Wylie rested the cigarette between his lips and glowered when flashing blue and red lights bounced off the shadowed houses down the lane.
“Wylie, I’m Collin McPherson. If you want… to know the name… of the guy you saved.” The sentence wore Collin out, and he wearily closed his eyes.
Wylie glanced over and frowned when he got a good look at his companion. The old guy looked like hell frozen over, tremors shaking him as the cold sank into his bare flesh. “Yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself there, pops. You lost a lot of blood, and I bet you’re bleeding on the inside. There’s still plenty of time for me to be an accessory to murder. Fuck, or I guess just plain murder,” Wylie added with a scowl. No one would bother looking for Diego when they had him right there covered in the guy’s blood. He really was a fucking moron.
Wylie exhaled heavily and wished beyond anything else his damn cigarette would light. “I’m sorry about what I did in there,” Wylie muttered awkwardly. “The, uh, bloodlust thing. I’m not usually into, well, corpses,” he grunted, feeling beyond defensive. He glanced over when the uncomfortable silence stretched. “Hey, don’t fall asleep,” Wylie snapped sharply. He reached over and knocked Collin on the shoulder when he saw his eyes were closed and body had lost most of its previous tension. “Shit, they’re right down the fucking road. Stay alive, damn it.”
“Right… right…” Collin mumbled.
“Crap.” Wylie tried to push down the fresh flare of anxiety as Collin’s words petered out. He had either fallen unconscious or asleep, but at least the old guy was still breathing. Wylie shook his damp, bloody sweatshirt out and draped it over Collin’s chest. It was all he could think of besides breaking back into the house for something warmer.
Sirens blared and lights flashed all around them in a dazzling display. It was surreal to watch the early October night transform into a garish carnival. The reds drew Wylie’s eyes the most as the lights bounced off of the bushes and illuminated the large expanse of manicured lawn in a wild kaleidoscope of colors. The flashing lights piercing the dark night were too much for Wylie, and he covered his eyes with his hand and tilted his head down. The grass around his feet was wet with blood and glittered with bursts of blue and red.
Doors slammed, and there was the metallic rattle of a wheeled cot being set up on the driveway. Wylie held still and kept his perfectly normal looking hands open and in view as people swarmed Collin, who was barely breathing beside him.
“Is this your dad, kid?” A middle-aged police officer in a dark uniform knelt down to Wylie’s level while everyone else focused on Collin.
Wylie had to wonder just what the man saw as he took in his blood-soaked t-shirt, splattered jeans, drenched sneakers, and crimson streaked arms. He probably had blood in his hair and around his mouth at this point. Did the cop really think he was some helpless teenager who just watched his daddy get shot?
Wylie lifted his hand high enough to glare into the compassionate eyes of the policeman, and smirked around his broken cigarette. “Nah. Never saw the guy before in my life.” Fucking cops.