STORY EXCERPT

Roland didn’t think he could wait even the few minutes it would take for this wolf to shift back into his human shape.

Roland stood over the beaten wolf and stared down at him. The wolf beneath him rolled onto his back, presenting his belly and lifting his paws in what could almost be a puppy sort of look.

This innocent picture was nothing at all like the snarling, angry creature that Roland had seen only a few moments before.

He was calm then. That was good.

Roland growled down at him, however, and then he barked. Shift, dammit! Shift into your human form!

When the wolf beneath him didn’t do it, Roland tried something else. He leaned down and bit the wolf on the side of the throat. The fur kept him from breaking the skin, but all the same, the wolf beneath him let out a yelp of pain.

Roland wanted to apologize to him, whoever this was, but he couldn’t. This wasn’t the same as when Anthony and Amadus had first met. Anthony had been human, and he remained human, despite the protests of some of the council members. There never had been any struggle on Amadus’s part to get his mate to return to a more civilized mindset.

The wolf finally seemed to understand what it was that Roland wanted, and it melted away, bringing the human side of himself back to the forefront.

Roland remained on top of him, but he did have to adjust himself when the wolf beneath him shifted and stretched, fur melting back into pink pores, revealing tanned skin and broad shoulders. Budding brown nipples were what Roland couldn’t take his eyes away from, not at first, and when he looked up into the man’s face, his own eyes widened at the sight of such a beautiful man.

There was no other word for it. Handsome didn’t describe him, though there wasn’t anything feminine about the shape of that jaw, or the messy haircut. Perhaps it was how perfect the man’s skin was. It was so smooth, as if he used some kind of product on it. No signs of scarring or wear were anywhere on his body.

He was slim, for a werewolf, but perhaps he was about slightly above average for a human. There was excellent muscle definition on him, though he didn’t have the six-pack or bulging chest that an alpha would have.

His hair was a wonderful shade of chestnut, but it was his eyes that really drew Roland in, trapping him like he was being hypnotized by a predator.

On top of it all, as if all that before wasn’t enough, the young man looked so damned young. He could be an adult, but then again he could also be a sixteen-year-old who happened to look older than he was. Roland was going to have to be careful with this. Now that he could see his mate’s face, he had to tell his inner wolf to calm down. Roland had never in his life slept with a man who was younger than twenty-one, and as he aged, the cutoff age for his lovers had only increased. He preferred someone who was at least a handsome thirty-five. What could he possibly have in common with such a young boy?

The human’s chest was rising and falling quickly, and he was shivering in the cold air. Despite that, and the fear that Roland could clearly sense rolling off of him, he noted the erection the man sported between his legs.

The poor man likely didn’t even know why he was aroused.

“Ar–Are you gonna kill me?” he asked.

Roland stepped away from his mate, noting how those shining silver eyes watched him so intently, and he shifted right in front of the man.

He stood before him, naked, his own cock hard and heavy between his legs. The thing pointed up at him, as if trying to tell him that it wanted the wolf in front of him.

“I won’t kill you, but you almost got yourself killed back there,” Roland said. He couldn’t help being a little angry about that. “You attacked me in front of other alphas and betas. You attacked me in front of the king of Silver City and his mate. You’re lucky you weren’t put to death immediately for that.”

The man blinked, a wide doe-eyed sort of thing, and then snarled at him. “So you’re warning me off then? Fine, I’ll go, I never wanted to be anywhere near your stupid king, anyway.”

Though this was his mate, Roland growled with the urge to defend his alpha, king, and the man who had come to be his best friend.

“You will watch your tongue. I managed to save you once, but if you ever speak words like that again around any members of the council, then no amount of begging on my part will keep you safe.”

After the last attempted takeover, by Amadus’s former best friend, Phoenix, no less, Roland had slipped into the role of the king’s most trusted confidant. Amadus had repaid Roland by keeping him informed of the decisions he wished to make regarding the humans in the city, and he’d repaid Roland a thousand times over by sparing this young wolf’s life for him.

Roland was going to have to tread carefully here.

“They’re not going to hear me talk bad about them because I’m not going to be around for them to hear it.”

“Talking badly,” Roland corrected. “And you’re not going anywhere, so you had better believe that if I ever hear a treacherous word out of your mouth, even if spoken in private, I will put you over my knee and punish you the way children deserve to be punished.”

The young man gasped at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he demanded. “I’m not a kid and I’m not going anywhere with you!”

ADULT EXCERPT

Roland grabbed on to Tom by the hips, and then lifted the man’s ass in the air, making Tom cry out with the sudden movement. He was probably still getting used to how strong Roland was, and how easy it was for him to put Tom’s knees over his shoulders, lift his ass up, and then press his lips and tongue to the young man’s pucker.

“Oh fuck! What are you—? Are you serious? Fuck!”

So no one had ever touched him like this before. The thought made Roland smile, and his inner possessive wolf growled in approval.

No one had licked this man’s hole before, and no one aside from Roland ever would again. He pushed his tongue deep, and there was only a mild resistance before the muscle of Tom’s entrance gave way to his tongue, and then he was inside.

Tom was humping against Roland’s mouth now, wild and wanton, completely lost in the heat and the lust as he swore and cursed and babbled all kinds of nonsense. Most of the bits that Roland understood consisted of yes and more. Roland gave him more. He gave lots more. They were out in the middle of the woods, and he hadn’t exactly thought to bring a proper lubricant with him when he’d shifted and chased after his mate, in complete and utter blind lust. Though his mate was a wolf and would likely be able to handle the sex with only saliva to help him, the fact of the matter was that with only saliva, it would still hurt. After a few rounds, Roland was going to have to cut this short and bring his mate back to camp, back to his tent, just so they could finish each other off properly with lube.

For that reason, Roland wasvery thorough with his tongue, so thorough that he wasn’t entirely aware of the way that Tom was fisting his cock, fucking into his hand, until the man’s body was spasming and coming.

The scent drove Roland’s wolf wild, and his vision changed as he felt the creature trying to come out of him. He held back. Tom was too new to this and he wouldn’t understand. If Tom shifted back into his wolf, it wouldn’t be to mate, it would be to run away again. Roland had to keep them both in their human shapes.

“Holy fuck. Holy fuck, what’s happening to me?” Tom asked, looking up at Roland. The man’s cock was still rock hard in his hand, and he continued to pump his fist. Clearly, another orgasm was on the way.

“I’m putting my scent on you. I’m making you mine,” Roland said, putting emphasis on the word mine.

So this was what it felt like to find and claim a mate. How had he gone one hundred and fifty years of his life without this drug in his system?

Roland put his tongue back on Tom’s hole, thrusting in and out of the man’s pucker, mimicking what was to come when he put his cock into that tight space, and Tom continued to thrust against him. The man moaned and thrashed about so prettily for him, fucking his fist while humping against Roland’s tongue.

The scent of cum was heavy in the air once more as Tom had his second orgasm, and that scent drove Roland wild. He couldn’t resist touching himself anymore, and he reached down and fisted his own cock, pumping three times before he spilled his own warm seed into the air.

He groaned, using his cum to make his still hard cock slick. At least now there would be something aside from saliva to make it easier for the smaller man.

“Fuck me. Fuck me, holy fuck.”

“Too much foul language,” Roland said. “I like it, little wolf, but you will offend ears that are overly sensitive.”

“Don’t call me little wolf,” Tom said, ignoring Roland’s gentle admonishment, even as Roland put his fingers inside of his asshole, stretching him wide.

“Pup then. I’ll call you my pup.”

Tom’s eyes widened, though whether it was because of Roland’s fingers stretching his pucker, or because of the idea of being called a pup, Roland couldn’t be sure until the man finally managed to answer him. “L–Little wolf is okay. I–I guess.”

Roland laughed out loud, and he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Tom’s sweet mouth, pushing his fingers back and forth, scissoring them and searching for that little place that he knew would drive his mate wild.

He knew he found it when Tom’s eyes popped wide open, and he thrust his hips forward again. “H–Holy shit!” he yelled, then shut his eyes and gripped himself by the hair. “Oh God, right there! Touch that again!”

“Has anyone ever touched you here?” Roland asked, unable to hold back his curiosity. If he was going to be jealous of other men that he hadn’t met before, then he might as well get it over with right now.

Tom shook his head. “N–No. Just me,” he said, still panting.

The thought of Tom touching himself in this place, of stretching himself and bringing himself to orgasm by playing with his prostate, was so damned erotic, so sexy, that Roland couldn’t hold himself back anymore, and it was a miracle in and of itself that he’d managed to keep his wolf back at all.

“You’re ready. No more of this,” Roland said, pulling his fingers a little impatiently from Tom’s asshole, and then placing the crown of his swollen cockhead to the man’s stretched hole.

“W–Wait!” Tom said, and it was enough to freeze Roland completely as he stared down at his mate. “W–Will it hurt?”

Roland pursed his lips, and for the first time, he managed to be sorry that this was how this young man would experience the loss of his virginity.