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Will gave up and the wolf turned back into a man. A naked man with massive musculature and a presence that was no less powerful for being human. The wolf had amber gold eyes. Henry had dark brown. Very dark brown. When he spoke it wasn’t in the harsh timbre Will expected. It was soft. Almost gentle. Will felt suddenly calm. Very calm. He’d absolutely hated Henry at first. He would have happily killed him. Now he couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. He felt as though Henry was looking right into his soul.
“There you go,” the big alpha purred. “You can behave yourself. Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Will bit his lower lip and nodded. “Yessir,” he mumbled.
Henry tapped him lightly on the nose with his forefinger. “You don’t deserve to live your life behind bars. You can master that hunger inside yourself. It just takes discipline.”
“I don’t have any,” Will whimpered back.
“I know. That’s why I am here. I will be your discipline until you grow some. Now, are you ready to eat your breakfast like a good boy?”
“Yes,” Will murmured.
Ten minutes later, Will was eating some fried liver at the kitchen counter while Henry enjoyed a cup of freshly brewed coffee with Maddox in the dining area. They were talking about him like he wasn’t there.
“I am very impressed,” Maddox said. “Very impressed.”
“It’s like you said. Wolves need wolves. He’s not such a bad guy. Gave up pretty quick. He doesn’t want to be in charge. He wants to be safe. He’s just a pup. Talks a big game, but when it comes down to it, just needs to feel the jaws on his neck and go belly up.”
“How delightfully simple,” Maddox murmured.
“It’s not just about domination,” Henry said. “In case you’re thinking it was because you weren’t dominant enough. It’s about pheromones. Animal things. And you’re, well, dead. So you can’t get the same response. It’s not personal.”
Maddox smiled with elegant ease. “You do not need to worry about my feelings, Master Henry. I am very comfortable with the connection my boy and I share.”
“Sure, with his human side.”
Maddox lifted a brow ever so slightly.
Will felt his annoyance rising, and with it a low growl escaped his lips. Maddox understood his boy’s rage. How dare Henry imply that Maddox was in any way weak, or not enough?
Not only was Will angry, but his wolf side always flowed following feeding. The kitchen was not as resilient as his cage when it came to containing his wolf form.
Henry turned to look as Will burst through the kitchen cabinets.
“I should have warned you,” Maddox murmured. “He shifts after every meal. Proper meal. Human meal.”
“Hm. He’s big. Isn’t he.”
Yes. That was indeed the problem. Will was easy enough to control in his human form, but his wolf form was larger than Henry’s. Maddox had known the second he saw Henry shift that he was not going to be large enough to handle Will on his own. Will’s bloodlines were older, rarer, and more ferocious than the average shifter.
“You’re not going to attempt to dominate him now?” Maddox tried very hard to make the question sound innocent and inquiring rather than utterly smug.
“I think I’m going to have some guys come up to help with this,” Henry said as wolf Will ripped the lining out of the refrigerator.
“He always goes for the appliances,” Maddox noted. “I don’t know what he finds so offensive about them.”
“Pups always like soft chews. Older wolves usually grow out of it, but he’s not had the chance to develop properly. You’ll find he likes to suckle. That’d be my guess.”
“Suck, yes. Suckle? I suppose,” Maddox mused.
“You might need that cage a few days longer,” Henry admitted. “Until I can get my boys here. They’ll help. He’ll be fine.”
It was hard to hear Henry over the sound of every bit of ceramic being crushed beneath Will’s massive paws. Still, as far as Maddox was concerned, this was all going very well. Kitchens could be replaced. Will could not.
Three days later…
The cavalry was nigh. Henry’s men had just come in on a plane, and that was very good news as far as Maddox was concerned.
Will was not the only source of trouble. Lorien had been missing, in a certain sense, for several weeks. Lorien was not obligated to stay with Maddox. He was a free being with self-determination, but his talent for getting himself into situations which invariably ended with his throat being ripped out meant Maddox did worry.
“I need to find Lorien,” he mentioned to Henry. “Something tells me he has gotten himself into trouble again.”
“Who is Lorien?”
“A good question, one I would be hard pressed to answer without going on at great length. He is the closest thing I have to a son, though I have been no father to him. He is my heir, the crown prince of the city. He is willful and he is passionate. He lacks diplomacy, but I have hopes he will develop it in time. Whenever he’s quiet, I can guarantee chaos will erupt. Lorien may seem to be a foppish little dilettante, but there is something about him that links him to power. He was made for it.”
