Read Heartsblood for Free Online Page B

pushing him so that he was mostly off the path and backed up into a big prickly bush of some kind behind him.
    “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 all 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