Someone moved near the small cottage, the one across the driveway from the main house. Two wolves trotted across the drive and up the stairs to the front deck. They disappeared in the shadows. She tried to see where they’d gone, but the scope was slightly out of focus. She adjusted it quickly, but not fast enough. The view cleared just in time to see the door close behind the body of a tall, naked man with a wolf at his side.
Damn! Had that one shifted on the porch? Outside? Why not the other one? Crap. One more missed opportunity, all because the scope was out of focus! The first chance to actually witness a shift, missed. Damn, damn, damn!
Much too aware of Adam’s nudity, Logan followed him through the door and shifted once he was inside. “I hope no one saw you.”
Adam shrugged. “I know. I tried to be quick. I should have been more careful, but I forgot to leave the door ajar.” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “I still haven’t figured out how to open one with paws. You’re right, though. We need to be careful. I can’t get over the feeling someone is watching us. Guess I’m just being paranoid, but we didn’t used to worry out here. We’d shift anywhere because we felt protected, as if we had all the privacy we needed. Not anymore.”
Logan quietly closed the door. Talking about anything, even something this bad, was better than thinking about the fact they were both naked, both aroused…both well aware why they were here together.
And what they were going to be doing in a very few minutes.
“Mik told us about the attacks here last month, that they actually got inside the house.”
Adam nodded. “They did.” He led Logan down the hallway. The line of his back was long and smooth. A sheen of sweat between his shoulder blades and along his spine caught a reflection from the hall light…the same light that left deep shadows in the taut muscles of his buttocks as they rippled and bunched with every step.
Logan was mesmerized by the flow of light and shadow across Adam’s ass, the muscles hollowed and dark as he moved ahead with such natural grace. His fingertips itched with the effort it took to keep his hands at his sides, so badly did he want to reach out and stroke Adam’s sleek flanks.
“They could have stolen the babies,” Adam said. His deep voice raised barely above a whisper. “As it is, they almost killed Anton.”
“But you saved him, right?”
Adam paused with his hand on the doorknob to what was presumably a bedroom. He looked unbelievably handsome, every inch an alpha male, yet unaccountably conflicted. A chill passed over Logan. A line of heat surged through his groin and settled in his balls.
“Not really.” Adam’s soft reply caught him by surprise. “He was in bad shape when I got to him. I mended the broken bones and stopped the bleeding, but we would have lost him without the pack.” Adam paused and closed his eyes a moment, as if the memories were physically painful for him. Then he turned his gaze on Logan. His amber eyes sparkled in the low light. Tears?
“I was exhausted…beyond exhausted, and I couldn’t do anymore for him. Somehow Eve and my sister Manda figured out a way to channel their energy into me. So much of what we do is a learning process. There’s so much we don’t know, so much we might be capable of, if only we knew.”
Adam shook his head, obviously frustrated by his lack of knowledge. “They did it so I could help Anton, but there wasn’t much more I could do for him, not until everyone in the pack gave him as much of their life force as they could. That’s what saved him. That and his daughter Lily.”
“Lily? She’s just a baby. And with so many injuries…how?” Channeling life force, healing broken bones from inside a body…It was all too much.
“Come with me and I’ll show you.” Adam held the door wide open.
“Said the spider to the fly.” Grinning despite the butterflies in his belly, Logan stepped through the open door into the bedroom beyond. He fixated on the big, empty bed and his mind exploded with questions, but all he asked was, “Is this where you and Eve stay?”
“Sometimes.” Adam ran his fingers along the bedpost. “A lot of nights we’re in with Mei and Oliver, sometimes over at the big house. Some nights it’s just the two of us, when we want to be alone. There’s never any pressure for any of it…It’s all up to the individual.” He turned away from the bed and stroked Logan’s shoulder.
Logan’s body jerked.
“Relax. I won’t bite.”
“Damn. I was sort of hoping you might.” His voice cracked and he felt like a damned fool. He looked back over his shoulder at Adam. Adam’s eyes narrowed, studying him.
Logan took a moment to do the same, to inspect Adam’s lean body, his fair skin darkened by exposure to sun and wind, his large hands covered in nicks and scars from working on things that were broken.
From fixing things.
And those things included people, with all their myriad injuries. Exactly what Logan wanted to understand.
Adam was heavily aroused, his cock standing dark and proud against his flat belly. The nest of hair at his groin was darker than the streaked blond hair that hung in tangles to his shoulders.
Logan was every bit as turned on, erect and swollen to the point of pain, but all he could do was stand there, trapped by Adam’s gaze, caught by needs he didn’t fully comprehend.
He bowed his head, a blatantly submissive gesture that somehow felt right. “I’m sorry, Adam. I don’t know how to do this.”
Adam grinned. “What? Fuck a guy or get into my head?”
Logan raised his eyes, smiled and shook his head. “Take the first step. Usually Jazzy leads the way.”
This time Adam laughed out loud and Logan felt the tension begin to melt away. “Don’t you love those alpha bitches?” Adam walked across the room and grabbed a bottle off a low shelf. “This might help,” he said, pouring the golden liquid into a water glass and handing it to Logan. He poured another for himself. “They don’t call it liquid courage for nothing. It’s a trick I learned from Anton. A glass of good cognac releases a lot of inhibitions we still have from our human lives.” He stretched out on the bed, grabbed a pillow and leaned against the headboard with his glass in his hand.
Logan sipped at the fiery liquid and felt the heat as it slipped down his throat. At Adam’s unspoken invitation, he stacked a couple of pillows against the headboard and stretched out beside him.
“That’s me,” Logan said, staring into the golden liquid in his glass. “Full of inhibitions. The weird thing is, when I had amnesia, I got myself tattooed from one end to the other, pierced my nipples and my dick…” He glanced at Adam and sighed. “It’s like I had this alternate personality that finally broke free.”
“That was probably the Chanku part of you, tired of being roped in by conventions.” Adam shrugged and set his glass aside. He’d almost emptied it. “After so many years of medical school, your internship, residency…I imagine that part of you was more than ready to break free.”
“Could be.” Laughing, he stared at his glass. “Then, the first time I shifted, all the tats just fell off, along with the piercings.”
“Dust in the wind, right? Anything foreign to the body doesn’t make the shift. Luckily none of us has had any fillings in our teeth.” Adam rolled his head to the side and grinned. “Did Tala tell you what she lost?”
Logan nodded, laughing. “Her IUD. We’ve had fun teasing her, but she’s a damned good sport.” He took a big swallow of cognac. It burned going down and made his eyes water. His smile slipped as his mind shifted away from Tala, on to deeper things.