Authors: Susan Laine

Love of the Wild (16 page)

Dak shrugged. “Must have been. I don’t know what happened. To this day I am left without answers. But when the Veil lifted ten years ago, I knew I had seen it before. I half expected to come down the mountain and find the whole world changed. But….” He didn’t finish his thought.

Jim did so for him. “No one had changed. Everyone behind the Veil had just become visible.”

“More than that. Two separate worlds suddenly merged. The process still advances today. Like ripples in a pond.” Dak returned to the present and leaned down to give Jim a kiss on the forehead. “The world can fend for itself. You and I? We have our first night together as wolves. Come, my mate. Let us run together.”

Dak shook Jim’s shoulder, beckoning him to rise. Eagerly, Jim got up, stretched, and then threw himself into Dak’s arms. Dak caught him with ease, surrounding him and kissing him breathless. They rubbed their bodies together with sweet friction. They both wore only pants and nothing more since they knew what night it was.

“Can we have sex as wolves?” Jim asked when Dak’s lips traveled south along Jim’s neck to nip, lick, and suck at his mating mark.

Dak snorted. “No lube. No fingers. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“You’ve tried it?”

“Once. Didn’t go through with it. Too hard.”

Jim chuckled. “No pun intended, I’m sure.” Dak smacked Jim’s ass hard enough to sting. “Hey!”

“Come, little cub,” Dak teased. “The sun is setting. The moon is rising. Time to run.”

When Dak let him go to walk toward the door, Jim grumbled halfheartedly, “I don’t like to run anymore. I’m too flabby and old and—”

“Stop whining, or I’ll bite you. Then you
will
run, I promise you that.”

“Bully.” Jim flicked his tongue at Dak as he passed him to walk outside to the porch.

He was rewarded with another swat across his backside.

Jim was about to argue some more, perhaps to earn a few more slaps that heated his groin like wildfire, but Dak was already unlacing his pants. Jim forgot about undressing himself as he watched that majestic body and proud cock unveil.

“Jim? Your clothes?” Dak needled him even though he wasn’t looking at Jim. Dak sniffed the air, inhaling deeply, and then shoved his pants down, folding them on the stool inside the cabin, by the door.

Blinking to refocus, Jim swallowed down his lust and disrobed so fast it was a wonder he didn’t rip the fabric. He gave his pants to a smirking Dak, who put them inside the cabin too, and then closed and locked the door, hiding the key under the awning.

“Ready?” Dak asked, coming to stand in front of Jim.

Nervous and jittery, Jim licked his lips, then worried them. “How do I know what to do?”

Dak pointed toward the moon rising from the horizon, only tiny glimpses flickering through the thicket of bushes and the foliage of trees. “When the moon touches you, the change will begin. Don’t fight it. Let it wash over you like an ocean wave.”

“Will it hurt?”

Dak kissed him softly on the lips. “There will be some discomfort. But the pain will fade away. Our kind can feel only the briefest flashes of pain because we regenerate so quickly. Let the moon and nature around you transform you.”

Jim nodded frantically. He’d waited for this moment, but now that it was here, he felt apprehensive and queasy. “Will you stay with me?”

Dak rested his hands on Jim’s hips and pulled him close, their cocks touching. “I will never leave you.” He pressed his forehead to Jim’s, and they embraced like that for a while. “Do not be afraid when you see my form. I will be bigger than you.”

Jim glanced down at their soft cocks and grinned. “Yeah, I already know that.”

Dak laughed, and Jim’s anxieties lifted.

Long before the moon hit its perigee, the silvery beams of light pierced the foliage and lit up Jim’s body. Dak still held on to him, and his serenity lent itself to Jim.

A curious buzzing filled his ears. Then his skin tingled, as if touched by an electrical current. His groin fired up, and his cock rose, hot and hard. Dak grinned, and Jim felt his arousal as well as his own.

“You sure we can’t have sex as wolves?” Jim asked, his voice all but a growl now.

Dak nodded. “I’ll fuck you into the ground when we wake up at dawn’s first light.”

That sounded promising. Jim nodded his agreement. Yet he didn’t wish for the night to be over just yet. Too many new experiences ahead.

Then his neck twitched, as if his muscles moved on their own. This was immediately followed by his knees falling from under him, as if his bones had suddenly turned to jelly. Dak held him up and slowly lowered him to the ground.

“Your bones will feel different, softer. It facilitates the shifting.”

Jim looked at Dak with no small amount of fear. “Are they turning to liquid?”

“No. It just feels that way.” Dak kissed his lips again. The low burn at the base of Jim’s dick and in his balls intensified and then spread throughout his body. He felt feverish inside and out. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to fuck or scream.

He felt furrier than before. As he looked down at his skin, hair grew out until it was blond-gray fur. “Damn. Still gray.”

Dak chuckled. “I love you, my silvery hairball.”

Oddly comforted, Jim closed his eyes and let the transformation happen. His skin was crawling, like thousands of little firebugs danced all over it. The burning within grew until he was sweating and panting roughly.

He doubled over when the convulsions began.

“Won’t be long now, love,” Dak whispered in Jim’s ear, soothing away the instinctive dread.

Jim shook all over, unable to stop the tremors. His skin tickled, and when he brushed a hand through his hair, he felt wolf ears popping up. Even more strangely, when he rubbed on them a bit, a warm glow of delight filled him.
Oh, that feels heavenly, mmm
….

Then he realized he couldn’t speak anymore. Where he’d had teeth, he now had fangs. He touched and felt their razor-sharp edges. He wished he could see how cool they were.

But then he had to pull his hands back because they too were changing—growing bigger and hairier—and his fingernails exploded into claws.
Would you look at that
? Jim stared at them in amazement even though his body continued to reorient itself. Bones solidified into new positions, joints popped into place, and muscles quivered with newfound strength and energy.

Jim had never felt more alive—and horny as hell. In fact, there was new power within him. Not youthful per se, but a vibration like a tuning fork, connecting him to nature. Age didn’t matter. Young or old, his spirit soared, ageless, timeless, transcending his body.

It was a heady realization, to feel the bonds that connected him to the world at large, to nature, to the universe, to the very essence of life. It was too much for him to comprehend.

When Jim focused on Dak in front of him, there was a huge gray wolf where a man had been. Still, it was not as big as it had been back in the airport hangar. That meant Dak could vary his size at will. Jim growled. Dak had left that bit out, and Jim swore he’d learn everything about lycans
and
make Dak teach him that neat little trick.

The good news was he had eternity ahead of him to do just that.

Dak smelled good. Mmm, musky and pungent. Jim moved without realizing it until he was nuzzling his mate. Dak purred and suddenly nipped at his neck. It was playful, and Jim wished he could laugh. But he could only emit a throaty hum.

Dak seemed to nod in his direction, as if wanting Jim to follow him.

That was when Jim really looked around. The woods looked, sounded, and smelled different. Everything was more acute, stronger, rushing at him. The falling night wasn’t as dark as it was to human eyes. Shimmering drops of new colors he had never seen grazed over the curious silvery light of the background. In fact, it seemed like there was light and color everywhere. This night vision was not drab or blurry, but crystal clear.

And the smells. How did he suddenly know that a rabbit had hopped in the bush off to his right? Or that a skunk was skittering away a hundred yards distant? There was honey dripping in a tree not far from him, and he licked his teeth at the flavor he could almost taste.

But his mate’s scent was the strongest. Jim was so hungry, but he couldn’t tell if it was actual hunger for food or a savage hunger to wrestle with his mate in the grass and feel that furry weight on his back.

Dak barked.
Follow me
. That was all it could be as the big dark wolf began to slink into the shadows. Jim went after him, his paws making no sounds on the rocky ground. Only when he hit a passing dry pine needle was there a small scrunch. As a human he never would have heard that so distinctly.

Dak looked over his shoulder, purring. Jim would have smiled if he could. He was on all fours, but not as a man in bed waiting for his lover. He was a wolf, and he was trailing behind his mate, who would show him the wonders of the night, of the woods, of the hunt—of the wild.

I’m home
.

About the Author

S
USAN
L
AINE
, a Finn through and through, was raised by the best mother in the world. She told her daughter time and again that she could be whatever she wanted to be. It still took Susan until her thirties to find the spark for serious writing when she discovered the gay erotic romance genre.

Her formal education revolves around anthropology, but she wishes to be a full-time writer sooner rather than later. Susan enjoys hanging out with her sister and friends in movie theaters and bookstores. Her other pastimes include walking, swimming, and fantasizing about sizzling hot manlove. Some of her likes are pop music, chocolate, and doing the dishes, and a few dislikes are sweating hot summer days, tobacco smoke, and purposeful prejudice.

Visit Susan’s website at http://www.susan-laine-author.fi/ or write her an e-mail at [email protected]

By SUSAN LAINE

N
OVELS

Falling for Rain

S
ENSES
AND
S
ENSATIONS

A Luminous Touch

Love in Plain Sight

Sensible Commitments

Sounds of Love

The Sweetest Scent

L
IFTING
THE
V
EIL

Book One: The Wolfing Way