Heartsblood (Dark Hollow Wolf Pack 10)

“You’re fighting a losing battle and you have to know it,” Marco said, his breath hot against Nicky’s face. “One day, your wolf will be so strong you won’t be able to fight him anymore, and he’ll come out whether you want him to or not. You have to learn how to control him first or who knows what will happen. Do you want to hurt one of the children?”

Nicky fought his wolf back down, clenching his fists and exercising all of his strong will. He felt his incisors withdraw a little and he glared at Marco and shoved him back hard enough that he stumbled. “I said no! Leave me alone, damn you.”

Marco caught himself and snarled back at him, his eyes softly glowing in the moonlight. “Is that the best you can do? You were pretty full of yourself this morning when you threw me down and decided to fuck me. Why don’t you try that again? Let’s see what happens this time.”

Nicky had never felt such rage. Like a storm, it swept over him, sudden, violent, smashing everything in its path. He saw everything around him in a red haze. He fell to the ground in a frenzy of pain, vaguely aware that Marco had dropped to his knees beside him too. Nicky’s body was changing, morphing into something else, some bestial thing that felt like it was trying its best to kill him.

The horrible prickling started on his skin, just like the other times this had happened, tiny, itchy stings all over his body. He looked down at himself and saw fur matting his chest. Marco was saying something to him over and over but Nicky was too far gone to be able to understand. Another paroxysm of pain and the transformation was complete. He rolled over and got up on al

l fours, his pants hanging in tatters around his hips. Shaking himself violently, free of the human’s body at last, the wolf that had been trapped inside leaped to his feet and looked around himself.

Beside him on the path stood a huge silver wolf, glaring down at him in the moonlight. This was another alpha male, and the smaller wolf snarled in alarm and tried to back away. He was an alpha too, but instinctively he recognized the stronger male. The path was too narrow to retreat—there was no choice for it but to make a stand and fight. Crouching down, he laid back his ears and growled menacingly. The other wolf, bigger and bulkier, growled back, showing his gleaming teeth.

The smaller wolf wanted nothing more than to kill this alpha, to feel his hot blood slipping down his throat. His anger overcoming his fear, he scrabbled at the ground with his long, sharp claws and launched himself at the big alpha who met the leap with one of his own. They slammed into each other in midair and fell back to the ground. The smaller wolf was stunned and shook his head to clear it. The big alpha fell on top of him as he rolled to his back, kicking out wildly and trying to dig his claws into the alpha’s underbelly. The alpha sank his teeth into the side of the smaller wolf’s throat and bit down hard as the little wolf howled his pain.

Ignoring his cries, the alpha shifted to clamp down hard on the smaller wolf’s snout, forcing his mouth closed. This alpha was much too powerful. The smaller wolf decided to retreat, to get away the only way he knew how—by going back into the body of the human. He gave one last furious snarl and then disappeared, sinking deep inside Nicky to lick his wounds.

Nicky came back to himself with a start. He looked up and gasped in terror at the sight of Marco’s huge silver wolf standing over him, his teeth only inches away from his face with saliva dripping down from his fangs to pool in the hollow of his throat. Shrinking away, he instinctively covered his head with his arms and tried to curl up in a ball. The wolves could be dangerous when they shifted, though they usually recognized their mates.

Marco nudged Nicky’s arms and buried his snout deep into his neck, sniffing at him. Nicky lay very still, his eyes tightly closed, his face turned away. Instinctively, though it went against his need to get away from this predator, he bared his throat. Marco whined and stuck his muzzle down to sniff him thoroughly before licking up his throat with a rough tongue as he finally recognized his mate.

Then as quickly as it had begun, it was over, and Marco leaped away, running up the path so fast he was like a streak of white mist on the cold night air. Nicky shivered and sat up, listening to the sound of a low, undulating howl not far away. Wearily, he got back to his feet and made his slow way down the path and back to the lodge.

Chapter Three

The knocking on the door was becoming more and more insistent. Nicky rolled over and pulled the pillow down from across his face. He was alone in bed and he blinked at the clock on the bedside table, trying to make sense of the numbers. Ten o’clock. He should have been up hours ago—but then again, what for?

The banging on the door started up again, and he slowly rolled out of bed and got to his feet. Marco must have been gone for hours—the room had a still and empty feeling. He remembered when Marco made it back home the night before. It had been way after midnight and Nicky had pretended to be asleep, even when Marco slid in beside him and pressed his chilled body up against Nicky’s, settling in and throwing a heavy leg over both of his.

“I’m coming,” he called out as someone slammed his fist against the door. “Damn, don’t break it down.” He pulled open the door and grinned when he saw Jax leaning against the frame.

“What’s up?” Jax said, smiling at Nicky. “Definitely not you, I see.”

“Give me a break. Marco decided he wanted to go for a run last night.” Nicky turned with a vague wave for Jax to follow him and walked back toward the kitchen on a search for something to wet his throat. His mouth felt like someone had been marching around in it all night. He opened the refrigerator and got out orange juice.

“Want some?”

“No thanks. Too much coffee. Cade wanted to leave early this morning to see Marco and wanted me to come along with him, so here we are.” He flopped down on Nicky’s sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table. “And I have news.”

Nicky chugged down half the juice directly from the carton and put it back down on the counter. “Good news, I hope? I don’t need any more bad.”

“Yeah, it is good. Zack and Gabe are coming for a visit. They’ll be here later today.”

Nicky’s wolf stirred uneasily inside him. Ignoring it, Nicky scratched his belly thoughtfully. Zack was another damn alpha, and a cousin to Marco and Cade. He was a nice enough guy, not that they’d ever had much interaction. Being overly friendly to another alpha’s mate wasn’t exactly high on the wolf hit parade, so Nicky didn’t know him all that well, though they’d certainly been around each other a lot. Zack’s lodge was about thirty or forty miles away, down in the North Georgia Mountains. Gabe was his colorful, gorgeous mate who had been, from the first moment they met, one of Nicky’s best friends.

“I talked to Gabe just yesterday and he didn’t say anything. This is all pretty sudden, isn’t it? Are they staying here or with you and Cade?”

“With me and Cade. The trip is supposed to be to see our new lodge now that it’s finished, but I think we both know that Gabe is dying to see the changes in me and you.”

“And Zack can’t say no to him.” Nicky chugged down more juice and came over to sit beside Jax on the couch. “Or he says no, but Gabe just rides roughshod right over him.”

“It’ll be great to see him, though, right? I love Gabe.”

“Yeah,” Nicky said, getting an image in his head of how Gabe looked the first time he’d ever seen him. He was younger than Nicky by a couple of years, with hair as black as Nicky’s was blond. Their eyes were almost the exact same shade of blue, but Gabe wasn’t quite as big as Nicky, especially now. What he did have was broad, muscular shoulders, a trim little waist and a bubble butt that looked pretty damn good in tight jeans.

Nicky had always enjoyed his company because Gabe was so outrageous and full of fun. He was originally from Alabama, like Jax, and he loved country music and stupid line dances like the Canadian Stomp, which he would jump to his feet and perform at the slightest provocation, hooking his thumbs in his belt and twisting his ass just to see Zack squirm. He liked to bicker with Nicky over who was the best looking, though Rory said you would hardly be able to tell them apart except for their coloring. Probably that wasn’t so true anymore.

“You know we won’t be able to be as friendly with him anymore, now that we’re becoming more wolf than human. Zack wouldn’t like it, not to mention Marco and Cade.”