Hurt creases his brow and his chest puffs up as he takes a deep breath.His dark cock is fully erect and he clasps it in his hand.“Elias ...but...”He presses his other hand over his chest.“Why are you angry?I thought ...you were just...”
“Why am I angry?”I shake my head.“You just show up in the middle of the night, kiss me, practically beg Daddy to fuck you ...yes I’m angry, what did you expect?”
“I expected you to fuck me.”He points at my erection.“Seems to me you’re good to go and we’ve got a nice dark tunnel there.No one around.My guess is it won’t take either of us long.”
I snarl.“You think you have it all worked out, huh?”
“No, I don’t, I can just see that you want me as much as I want you so why deny yourself?Why torture us both to the point of pain?”
“Because.”I step up to him with my finger pointed.“Unlike you, I’m not naïve, we were lucky to get away with it for so long, but sooner or later we would be found out.”
“Naïve?”He whacks my pointed finger aside.“Maybe I’m just not stuck in the old ways like you are.Times are changing.The modern elders are more forgiving than the ancients.They understand that there are a minority of shifters who fall in love with different species.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not.I look.”He gestures to his eyes.“And I hear.”He tugs his left ear and continues.“You’ve been so wrapped up in grief and heartbreak, you’re out of touch, old man.”He bites on his bottom lip, daring me to react.“Age is blinding you.”
I do react.I curl my right fist and thump him square on the chin.
“What the fuck?”He clasps his face and stares at me with surprise and hurt flashing in his eyes.
But then he returns the punch, catches me on the nose, and then goes for a belly blow.Hits target.I grunt and hunch over.
“I can’t believe you hit me.”The pain in his voice slices away another part of my heart.
“Yeah, well, you just hit me ...twice.”I keep my head down and charge at him.I take him full in the chest and we both fall to the ground in a tangle of legs and arms.
My spine tingles, my hackles rise, and I shift.Turning in a second from man to wolf.
He does the same, his panther-self hissing and baring large teeth at me.
I snap and snarl and pull my tail between my legs.
Then the bastard pounces, taking me to the ground again in a roll of fur and teeth and claws.Over we go, twice, three times, he nips at my neck, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to tell me he could have dug into my carotid.My anger swells to new levels and I twist and get him beneath me.I glare down at him, growling and letting him see my sharp canine teeth.
It’s then I sense it and smell it at the same time.A sweet tickle over my scalp accompanied by an ashy scent that laces my tongue.A human is near.
Branson has clocked the same whiff on the breeze.He stills.
I look left and right.There is nothing to be seen.
“It’s female,”he says using his internal voice to communicate now we are in shifter form.
“And I’m out of here.”I step away from him, head low as I scan the area.There is nothing to be seen.After three paces, I’m in the cover of the tunnel and I break into a gallop, my claws tapping on the cobbles as I head west.What the hell just happened?My emotions are battered.
Branson is what happened, that’s what.Trouble wrapped up in sexy.
And so did something else—that ancient ash scent.It was no ordinary human in the vicinity.It was something else.Something magical, like nothing I’d come across before.
