The pull was fast, over and over, and Nero lost control. He erupted like a teenager with his first orgasm. And while he was still trembling from the force of his eruption, Josh’s body changed underneath him. At first he thought the tingling heat was from his own orgasm, but this was magic and Josh was midshift. Nero was still in the grips, his cock pumping out semen in ecstatic pulses. He barely had the wherewithal to understand what was happening and no ability to adjust for it.
In a split second, he was lying dick-first in a wolf’s mouth. And that wolf was throwing him off with all the power in a revved-up werewolf. Nero went flying sideways and landed on his butt against the headboard. He bounced because it was a mattress, then gasped because he had a hundred-plus pounds of black wolf suddenly going for his throat.
He wanted to say something, but he hadn’t the breath. All he got out was a garbled “Josh—” And then there was no more talking as Josh came down hard with his jaw on Nero’s neck. One bite and Nero was dead. No way could he shift fast enough to recover from having his throat ripped out. He didn’t even have the strength to cry out, but he lay there waiting for death.
One breath. Two.
Burnt orange eyes in a long black wolf face glared at him. Then the animal suddenly lifted his head and howled.
Triumph reverberated in the sound. Joy, ecstasy, and yes, pure dominant power. It was all there, filling the room until Nero joined, arching his neck and releasing the full-throated sound. Sure, he was human, but it didn’t matter. He knew the howl of a packmate, and nothing was going to keep him from joining in.
Josh had done it. He’d gone wolf again, and now was the time to celebrate.
It took several moments for them both to stop howling. Long enough for Wiz to bang on their door and yell, “We got it. You took second place. Now shut the fuck up!”
Josh just turned his head and howled even louder while Nero laughed. Eventually they both reined it in. Nero sobered up enough to cuff Josh gently on the nose.
“Listen up, cub. How about I show you how much fun snow is for a wolf?”
He shoved Josh off him and got to see the wolf scramble to get his footing. Two feet, four feet? New wolves never could remember. They were like overgrown puppies as they tried to figure it out.
Nero wanted more than anything to go running outside as a wolf, but he had a responsibility to watch out for Josh. All sorts of bad things could still happen with new werewolves, and he would be better able to help as a human. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be part of the fun.
“Ten minutes,” he said to Josh. Then he went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Five minutes after that, he was dressed as they both headed outdoors. The air was crisp, a new dusting of snow was falling, and Josh wasted no time running across the frozen ground to catch snowflakes with his jaws.
Nero played with him exactly as he’d done with his pack. He tackled the wolf, he rolled on the ground with him, and they played tug-of-war with sticks. Josh needed to get the full animal experience, and Nero needed to remember what fun it could be just to be alive.
It was the most glorious day of his life.
Until he remembered the worst.
Chapter 17
WHO KNEWit was such fun to be a wolf? Josh had never felt so much unadulterated joy as when he was running around with Nero, chomping snowflakes. Suddenly his body wasn’t an afterthought but a delight. And the simplest things were brand-new. Assuming he remembered he had four feet and not two, he could dive and pivot like a pro athlete. He could leap into the air and smell everything. There was such information in the world if only he sniffed. Pine and rabbit, human sweat, and the musky sent of sex. Yeah, that was great! And even that was nothing compared to playing tug-of-war with Nero. All he did was grab something and pull while Nero held on to the other end. It wasn’t that complicated, but he enjoyed it to a level that was insane. Helovedit.
But most of all—in a universe of mosts—he adored the sound of Nero’s laugh. When the guy let it fly, his laughter was a deep belly explosion of happiness. That sound could fill a black hole to bursting, and the more Josh tumbled, leaped, or rolled, the more Nero filled the world with joy. He could have stayed outside forever.
“Time to go in, Josh.”
No, no, no! He was too busy pushing his nose into a mound of debris. The scents were amazing and a little disgusting, but that didn’t deter him. Nero did, though, as he whacked him on the butt with a stick. Ha! It would take a lot more than that to make him stop. There was a weird smell deeper into this pile of whatever. Some sort of animal—
“That’s a skunk you’re scenting. I don’t think you want to pursue it.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, he paused and drew back to stare at Nero, who was chuckling.
“Okay, okay, you got me. That wasn’t a skunk. I have no freaking idea what you’re smelling, but you need to come inside now and get something to eat. You’re going to need it before you go human.”
Food sounded interesting. And though his human side revolted at dropping his nose into a bowl of kibble, the rest of him was increasingly interested in anything edible. And given what a wolf would usually eat outside, perhaps whatever Nero was going to feed him would be for the best.
He huffed out a breath and dipped his chin.
“That’s the way.” Nero turned and headed up toward the mansion while Josh paced beside him. Now that Nero had brought his attention to it, Josh was feeling tired. His tail was drooping and….
His tail! He had a tail that he could wag. How cool was that?
He spun around, doing his best to look at his own tail. He tried to hold that pose while he wagged, but it was hard to manage. He ended up spinning around and wiggling while Nero held his sides laughing. Josh would have given it up quickly, but it felt good to hear such lightness from the guy. And not just for Nero’s sake. Josh hadn’t ever made anyone so happy. Not that kind of hold-your-sides, giddy laughter that filled Josh with light. It healed him deep inside, in a place he hadn’t even realized needed attention.
So he kept spinning and wagging until he got dizzy from his own antics. Just when he was going to sit his ass down or fall, a huge body tackled him, and they went rolling. It was Nero, who was making fake growling sounds as they tumbled in the snow. Josh tussled back, and it wasn’t long before they were both flat out on the ground and breathing hard.
