and cracked his neck, trying to become limber.
But it was difficult to focus. When he closed his eyes, all he could picture were the burned remnants of his house. One of the werewolves living on this land hadn’t needed to tell him about it. It had made the local news.
Dean usually set the homes of the witches and vampires he discovered on fire. It wasn’t his signature, necessarily, but he did say the fire cleansed the land.
The fact that Corey could never go home again or might very well have been inside that house as it lit up had he not gone back to James freaked him out, and he became a bundle of nerves every time, losing his concentration.
“Goddamnit, I can’t do it.”
He looked up and found James’s wolf snout in his face, the canine eyes looking down at him with disapproval. You need to transform. If you don’t―
“What?” Corey demanded.
James sat down, his bushy tail curling around his legs.
The silence didn’t bode well on Corey. “You said it wasn’t good for me to not do it. What will happen if I don’t?”
He’d been under the impression that not transforming wasn’t good for him in the same way that not getting his daily exercise or vegetable intake was not good for him. After being with the werewolves for so long, he learned that most were in complete control of their wolves after only a few transformations. Corey had nothing to worry about as far as turning into a monster went, but now James was making him worried.
Maybe he would get a little sick. He certainly didn’t feel all that great right now.
James explained it to him while still in his wolf form, which was a
The Alpha Wolf Kidnaps a Mate 47
good thing. Corey didn’t think he could handle seeing anymore of the man’s naked body.
Your wolf wants out. If you don’t let him out, he’ll force his way out of you.
Corey shivered. “What does that mean?”
James’s chest puffed out in what looked like a massive sigh. I’m not saying this to make things more difficult for you, but a wolf that has to use force to come out generally doesn’t come out a happy camper. He’ll be angry, he won’t want to go back in, and I’ll have to restrain you until you can change back.
Angry. Won’t want to go back in. “Will I be violent? Will I hurt people?”
You’ll try, but I won’t let you , James said.
It was reassuring, and yet not. It almost sounded like James thought it was a sure thing that Corey would be turning into a snarling, angry monster because of his inability to let his wolfy self out to play.
Could this…was this the real reason for why all those werewolves Dean killed were so vicious? Not because they were evil monsters hell-bent on destroying everything nice and good in the world, but because they had simply fought that more animal side to themselves and lost their minds to it?
Not for the first time, Corey felt a piercing guilt in his chest, and it hurt so much. It hurt to know that the possibility, hell, the certainty that he was involved, in a roundabout way, in the multiple murders of the innocent existed.
If only he’d done something. All he’d ever had to do was just call the police, and he never had.
James was right. Corey was going to be sick.
“Hey.” James was human again, and his human hands caressed Corey’s cheeks in a way that he was still becoming used to. He had to look up into James’s face before he caught sight of the other man’s dick and embarrassed himself.
48 Marcy Jacks
James seemed to be constantly doing that, touching him in some way or another. His hand would linger on Corey’s shoulder whenever they were taking a walk or having sessions like these, and his fingertips were always finding strands of Corey’s hair to brush out of his eyes.
He still wasn’t entirely sure why the other man needed to make contact so
John B. Garvey, Mary Lou Widmer