Primal Need: A Sexy Male/Male Shifter Anthology Page 10

  With water in his ears, and his eyes covered in hair he couldn’t chance clearing away, Kent relied on his nose for cues. He could track Carter by the wolfsbane and Luger by the acrid scent of spent gunpowder, and for a moment knew exactly where each man stood. And when Luger finally exhausted his rounds, Kent would destroy him.

  Except, when Kent took his next gasp of air, the wind carried another scent and shredded his hastily made plans to scraps. Salt spray and surf. Fresher than the scent Carter had stolen.

  What the fuck is Hadrian doing here?

  No time to find out. Kent burst from the river and forced himself into a flat run, almost doubled over, like he’d drop to run on four legs if he could. He could feel growls vibrating in his throat but couldn’t hear anything over Luger’s shooting. Twenty feet away. Fifteen. A bullet thudded into the meat of Kent’s shoulder in a shriek of red-hot pain he didn’t have time to acknowledge. He grit his teeth and rotated with impact, twisting aside to thwart Luger’s sight lines, and commanded a further burst of speed from his failing body. Ten. Five. Another bullet burned a line across his temple, Luger’s last effort before Kent sank his teeth into the man’s throat.

  Luger tried to club Kent with the gun, but Kent ripped it from his grasp. Mouth thick with blood, Kent pinned Luger’s flailing legs with his own and kept his teeth in place until Luger stopped moving. Until Kent tasted the last limp beat of the man’s heart.

  When he staggered away from the body and wiped his hand across his mouth, the familiar taste made Kent frown. He’d killed before. So why did this feel different? Why did his hands shake so badly?

  Because I’m conscious for it.

  He wiped his mouth again, blood smearing black on his sleeve, and staggered around to see Hadrian. Kent had scented him but not seen him. He wanted to see him.

  Of course he’d forgotten about Carter.

  Fuck’s sake.

  A wild look in his wide eyes, Carter unstopped his vial of wolfsbane and tossed it at Kent. Liquid splashed across Kent’s chest and throat, making him stink like Annie’s kitchen cleaner. He wrinkled his nose and wiped at the spill. Sticky.

  Carter blanched. “What are you—”

  Luger’s last bullet ate the rest of Carter’s question. The amplification warding melted into the grip, singeing Kent’s palm where he’d held it. He tossed the useless gun aside.

  Shuffling behind Carter, woozy like he’d been drinking, Hadrian nearly stumbled over his own feet as he recoiled belatedly from the spray. The wolves from the train, the one with the smoke-scent and his knife-wielding counterpart, moved to steady Hadrian. Smoke and Blade. They flanked Hadrian like an honour guard. No. The way they put their hands on him—propriety and caution in one—they weren’t a guard. They were an escort.

  Rage came to a boil in Kent, and clarity settled over him like a veil. His hands stopped shaking. Details made themselves known: Blade’s limp, Smoke’s sightless eye. Wounds from their last encounter. Kent bore his own history in cuts and bruises, but he couldn’t feel them. Only had attention to spare for his route to Hadrian.

  The route that would take Kent through Smoke and Blade.

  So be it.

  Kent saw his path unfold itself like a map, clearly marked. Get into Smoke’s blind spot. Take out Blade’s weak leg. Steal Hadrian away.

  He hadn’t factored in the way wolfsbane perfumed the air, rising before Kent like a storm and goading the wolves to recklessness. He’d barely shifted his weight before Smoke let out a bellow and went on the attack. Kent met blow for blow, but Smoke seemed intent on using all his reserves, grunting with exertion and unleashing devastating strikes to Kent’s guard. Though Kent landed his own attacks where Smoke left his vulnerable spots open, he couldn’t make enough impact to stem the tide.

  Kidneys. Throat. Knees. The sightless eye. Nothing worked. Kent saw Hadrian in glimpses behind the weaving of limbs, and each snatched moment made anxiety twist in his stomach. Hadrian swayed like a ship at sea, and even without his guard, he didn’t move to aid or flee. Kent ached to find out what ailed him.

  Blade joined her counterpart, and Kent had no time for worry. Their joint assault forced Kent toward the river until he stumbled and Blade rushed in. She snarled in Kent’s face and her fetid breath made him recoil, but he couldn’t get far. Her claws sank into his wrist, grinding against the bone. He saw himself reflected in her wide black pupils.

  “Present for you, little one.”

  She pinned a warding to him with her knife, embedding it in the meat of his shot shoulder. Kent howled in pain, the sound torn from him. He scrabbled for the knife but Blade got there first, her hand resting on the hilt and twisting. Kent’s vision swam.

  “Do something for me,” she said. Ordered. “Kill Hadrian. Tear him apart.”

  “What—No—” Kent coughed on the rest of his words as they dried in his throat. Stolen from him. He fumbled for the knife but his hands were like lead. The most he could do was widen his eyes in question. Enough for Blade to comprehend. She grinned. At her shoulder, Smoke copied her manic expression. Blood on his teeth.

  “I said for you to kill Hadrian. Do it now.”

  As his body jerked into motion without his bidding, Kent understood. Blade had slammed a compulsion on him. Kent could feel it itching beneath his skin, hot like a fever, creeping like ants, a sickness he couldn’t fight. He barely wanted to.

  Blade released him as he groaned to his feet. Her presence haunted Kent as he staggered toward Hadrian, resisting as best he could, but ultimately overcome by the warding. Who had made it? Evidently Hadrian’s enemies were well connected. Kent couldn’t let them live. But, mother of god, he couldn’t turn and kill them either. He kept moving inexorably forward like a river flowing downhill. Rocks at the bottom waited like jagged teeth.

  Is this what it was like for Hadrian?

  Kent saw his actions at a distance. Raised claws. Hadrian’s face, blotchy with colour. His lips moving. His hands raised in defence. The ribbons of his wounds and the wolfsbane dripping from Carter’s vial, finally finding its home in a wolf’s blood. Hadrian paled and swayed as the poison worked through him. Kent wanted to scream but couldn’t. Wanted to run but couldn’t. Wanted to apologise and beg and cringe but couldn’t do a fucking thing except watch Hadrian fall to his knees on the damp earth and hang his head like Kent would raise an axe next.

  If Kent had an axe, he would’ve raised it. Blade’s command would’ve made him.

  Except—

  Except apparently the only thing stronger than the warding was white-hot rage. It finally rose like the tide, breaking on the shore of the compulsion, bringing with it Hadrian’s scent and the memory of Hadrian saying berserker like it meant something. Like Kent meant something.

  Kent remembered thinking he could lie before the fire of Hadrian’s blood and be warm. Be home.

  Be pack.

  With a snarl, Kent dove deep into the well of rage as the water rose, trying to drown as he had so many times before, but consciousness refused to fade. His snarls turned to whines, breaking off when Hadrian suddenly burst into life and grabbed his hand. Yanked Kent down and wrenched the knife and warding free even as his eyes rolled in pain.

  “Come back to me.”

  Just words from his alpha. No warding making them orders.

  Kent tucked his face into Hadrian’s throat, where blood and sweat and sea mingled. Filled himself with that scent.

  “I’ll always come back for you,” he said. Promised.

  Lurching to his feet, Kent tore into Smoke and Blade the way he should have the first time. Let the rage in his blood hunt for what hid in theirs, searching with claw and fang, driven by the song of Hadrian’s scent. A song that drove him to move faster, strike harder, in a rhythm Smoke and Blade tried and failed to counter. They had summoned savagery, and for the first ti
me Kent could wield it with precision. With feral joy. The wolves dropped like missed notes.

  He returned to Hadrian steaming with gore and dropped to his knees, already reaching for Hadrian before he saw the mess on his claws and pulled his hand back. Glancing over his shoulder to the river, thinking to get himself as clean as he could, Kent froze when Hadrian touched his cheek.

  “Stay with me.”

  Kent swallowed. He nodded, jerkily, and didn’t move. His reward came when Hadrian pressed his lips to Kent’s cheek. Not a kiss. A benediction. To Kent’s lips, his eyelids, his temple. The hollow of his throat. Sweat and blood dripped from Hadrian onto Kent. Washed Kent clean. Didn’t some religions do that? A baptism. His alpha making him new again. Better than the bite.

  If Hadrian spoke, Kent didn’t hear him. His ears still rang with the last shot. Instead he spoke with touch, pressing kisses to Hadrian’s cheek, jaw, throat. Any skin he could reach. Blood made his kisses sticky, and he licked his lips, wanting as much of Hadrian as he could get. Inside and out. They clung to each other like children.

  Then Hadrian let go as he collapsed, shaking as the wolfsbane worked its way through his system. A ragged whine escaped Kent’s throat. Barely cognizant of his actions, he gathered Hadrian to him, cradling the taller man, and heaved to his feet. Reeling under the weight and various hurts howling for attention, he set his jaw. If the alpha couldn’t be protector, he’d be protected.

  Kent would take him home.

  * * *

  Annie screamed when Kent staggered through the front room door.

  “What in nine hells are you doing?” She leapt to her feet. “You look terrible. Set that man down before you collapse.”

  “Wolfsbane,” Kent blurted. “Poison.”

  “He’ll be needing to sweat it out, then. Here, over here, by the fire. God above, you’re both a state.”

  Following Annie’s directions and grateful to have them, Kent laid Hadrian carefully by the hearth. Annie stoked the fire as he did, muttering under her breath all the while. Kent fidgeted for a moment, unsure, before turning tail and running to his room.

  He changed quickly, no time for washing, and returned with enough blankets to make a den. He padded them around Hadrian. Mud and blood dirtied the sheets, and his claws took little bites from the cloth as his shaking hands refused to still, but Kent kept to his task until Hadrian was covered. Until the ache in his knees began to make itself known.

  Annie shoved Kent. “Move over, you great lump. Let me by.”

  At some point she’d procured a small bowl of something sweet-smelling. The bad kind of sweet, like sugar left too long on the stove. Kent reached for the bowl but Annie knocked his hand aside.

  “Did you get poisoned? I thought not. Let me tend to your man.”

  Kent frowned. Understanding dawned. “For wolfsbane? Cure?”

  “Of course. Had the ingredients for a while, haven’t I.” Annie produced a spoon from her apron pocket and took a small amount of the reddish substance. She tipped it between Hadrian’s lax lips, brows furrowed as she watched its progress. “Didn’t realise you weren’t a wolf at first, and after you saved me—well. I made sure, is all.”

  Kent wanted to dissolve. He held himself together for his alpha, nipping himself with his claws. He swayed on the spot as his shoulder sang with pain. Stop that. No time for that.

  Annie fed Hadrian another spoonful. “One more. Then you’ll have to give him the rest. Every hour, until it’s gone. Not too much, or it’ll do him worse than the first time. The moon will do the rest. Lucky, he is.”

  Taking the bowl and spoon, Kent nodded. Two spoons an hour. He could do that. He’d count every minute, every second, if he had to.

  We’re both lucky.

  “Now for you,” she said. “Your shoulder’s bleedin’ like a damn pig. If not for yourself, think of me cleaning this mess tomorrow.” She brandished clean squares of cloth like she’d smother him with them. “Come on, now. Let me be kind to you.”

  Kent’s throat clacked dry when he went to speak. Shrugging instead, he took the cloths. He’d put them aside as soon as Annie left. They both knew it.

  Chin trembling, Annie looked at him with softness in her eyes. “You should be staying close. For warmth. That’s what you—he needs.” She touched Kent’s arm, gentle, like he’d touched hers earlier. “You be safe, little pup. And I’ll wake you in the morning.”

  The door clicked shut, leaving them in the dark. Kent wished for human eyes, that he couldn’t see the way pain made Hadrian hold himself tight. That the lines of hurt in Hadrian’s face might be hidden to his limited sight. Ignorance would’ve been welcome.

  Instead Kent lay beside Hadrian, suppressing the whines wanting to escape his throat at the change in position and Hadrian’s hurts. He felt wild with grief. Clinging close to the warmth of his alpha, taking gulps of his scent, he tried to press them together. Wanted to crawl inside Hadrian like wolves into the earth. Put his long-gone tail over his nose and block out the world until the moon rose and healed Hadrian.

  And then what the fuck do we do?

  They slept fitfully until sunrise, when wardens came to the door.

  Chapter Eight

  Rosy light and long shadows reached into the room where Kent and Hadrian curled around each other like pups in a den. The door ran straight through to the main entrance, and Annie had left the door open, where it had been pushed aside by the wardens. Cloves rose around the newcomers like fog rolling in from the river, heralding a change in weather just as unseemly. Kent’s vision swam. He needed rest, and food, and a few days without being shot, if he could, but there wasn’t time for any of that. Hadrian needed him.

  Hadrian’s fever had broken sometime after midnight, though he’d spent less time conscious than not. Awake now, his nose twitched as new scents filtered in, and Kent retreated from him with bad grace, positioning himself between his alpha and the threat. Instincts he’d never heeded warred one another. Protect or attack. Wait for a command or prepare apology. Fight or—he’d never needed an “or” before.

  His eyes streamed, and he turned away to cough as the lead warden of Tabitha’s retinue limped in and took a guard position by the door, his charms clinking together. Kept coughing when another warden took a seat on Annie’s well-loved settee, like she belonged there. Two guards meant Tabitha only intended a show of force. Just in case Kent wanted to shoot himself directly in the face by betraying her.

  Even if he’d intended to do so, he hadn’t the energy for treachery.

  By the time Tabitha arrived, dressed in funereal black as usual, Kent had pressed his nose to a rag Annie had produced, coming and going from the room like a ghost. Kent’s business was none of hers, like she’d often said. The rag smelled like her cheap perfume. Like home. Kent clung to the scrap and took shallow breaths. He didn’t begrudge her escape. Envied it.

  “Apologies if I don’t get up. We’re feeling a touch under the weather,” Hadrian said to Tabitha, resting his hand briefly on Kent’s good shoulder. He squeezed, once. A staying touch. In the spill of sunlight, he seemed paler than Kent had supposed. He didn’t move to help, though. His alpha had asked him to wait. “To what do we owe this visit?”

  Tabitha tilted her head. “You speak as a ‘we,’ now?”

  “Indeed. That is my pleasure and honour.”

  “And his?”

  “You and I both know he does what he pleases.”

  It’d please me if you didn’t talk about me like I’m not fucking here.

  Kent took a breath from the scrap he clung to. He wiped his eyes and sniffed. Finally able to focus, he checked over the wardens. The standing warden watched Hadrian and Tabitha like he might have to intervene in their polite exchange, but the other—the other watched Kent. When she saw him looking, she tilted up the wide brim of her hat
and smiled at him.

  Felicity.

  She winked. Kent bared his teeth but didn’t move, only tapping Hadrian’s near knee to signal he’d noticed her presence and would be asking some pointed questions later. Hadrian flattened his hand, sweeping it minutely. Later. Agreed.

  If either of them lived that long. Tabitha looked at Hadrian like a worm on a hook, and Kent’s attention kept diverting to the sticky feeling of an open bullet wound on his shoulder. Not to forget Blade’s ward-wound, of course. Both should’ve at least scabbed over but hadn’t and every twitch tugged at dried blood and raw nerves. Kent swallowed a rush of spit and tried not to think about fevers and infection and whether wolfsbane just took longer to poison half-breeds.

  He blinked heavily. Tabitha had Hadrian’s hand in hers. Shaking. Hadrian clasped their joined hands with his other. Alpha move. Kent half-expected steam to rise from their hands.

  “The moon rises tonight,” Tabitha said.

  “It does that.”

  “You’ll be at full strength.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Then we might—What on earth are you doing? Release me!”

  Tabitha tried to pull her hand away, but Hadrian didn’t allow her. Instead he tugged her forward into an awkward crouch, and flashed his teeth. The wardens didn’t move. “Wolves keep finding me, Tabitha. They trapped me in the north, and now they found me here. After you were contracted, very discretely, to retrieve me. After you gave your man scarcely enough information to keep us on the same side. And I’m told this group are already making inroads into your businesses on the river. Into your city. I’m beginning to think you’d prefer I never made it home, Tabitha.”

  Sweat beaded on Tabitha’s temple. “Don’t be absurd. It transpires there was a—a lack of security in information. I’ve since had words with those responsible. It won’t happen again. Your safety is paramount in my concerns.”