Zach’s hands touched his, and Gibson looked up, startled that he hadn’t heard the other man move or felt the shift of his weight on the couch. The ache Zach stoked in him flared at his touch, and Gibson struggled with his desire. It all seemed to be moving very quickly, too quickly for his liking, but he had never indulged himself in an emotional connection before. He didn’t know if his lust sucked out the reason from his brain, and feared once he slaked that thirst, Zach would fall away from him. There was a desperation in his chest, in his soul. He wanted to connect with someone else, and the pretty gift Ellis called him to collect from the lake seemed exactly the kind of person Gibson could fall in love with.
If there was one thing that terrified Gibson the most, it was falling in love. He’d seen what love had done to his parents, and he’d felt the devastation when he turned to his family for help, only to discover his cries were left unanswered. It was as if his entire life was a lie, a cheap tapestry of words and fond memories turned to ash in the fiery blaze of their distrust and condemnation. He didn’t want to risk his heart. Not again. But the urge to crawl across the couch, to straddle Zach’s long body, and to plunge himself into the simmering arousal between them was nearly as strong as the urge to wolf through a newly fallen snow.
It was its own hunt—that desire burning across his instincts—and his teeth ached to sink into Zach’s muscled throat. The animal part of him rode his blood, for once in his life united with the human part of him, blending and strengthening his urges, driving him to take what he wanted—what he needed—and make Zach his own.
“You okay?” Zach’s voice broke through the brittle shell Gibson’s longing formed around his mind. “You kind of drifted off there.”
“I’m fine. I guess I was just thinking about how fortuitous it was that Ellis chose you to drive into the lake,” Gibson remarked with a chuckle. “He used to try to set me up on blind dates, but half of the time he never asked the other guy if he was gay, and they’d show up thinking they were there to watch a football game with a bunch of new friends, only to find me with a home-cooked meal and lit candles.”
“That’s kind of… did he do it on purpose?”
“No… see, that’s the thing about El, he never thought about… never imagined someone wouldn’t want his baby brother.” Gibson’s thoughts gentled, soothing away the frustrated barbs poking at him about Ellis. “I guess I should be flattered, but mostly at the time I was embarrassed.”
“What about the times when he wasn’t wrong?” Zach stroked Gibson’s knees with his thumbs, generating small warm circles through his jeans.
“He usually got the type right but couldn’t quite get the personality down. Ellis always ended up picking guys who were like him, brash and reckless. I love my brother with all of my heart, but the last thing I ever want to do is spend my life with somebody exactly like him.” Gibson shook his head and tried to ignore the tightness forming in his balls from Zach’s touch. “I need somebody who isn’t going to spend his life jumping off a cliff just to see if the water is deep enough to dive into. I don’t mind adventure, but I do like to temper it with common sense.”
There was a flash of wicked in Zach’s smile, and if his roving thumbs hadn’t already ignited Gibson’s interest, the naughtiness in his eyes would’ve done the trick. “What exactly do you call common—”
Even with his lack of social aptitude, Gibson knew there’d been a proposal of some sort on the tip of Zach’s tongue, but those words—however promising and erotic—never left the man’s lips.
A howl shattered the heat between them, its frightened ululating call shearing apart the silence surrounding the cabin. It was loud enough, terrified enough to rattle the windowpanes and bury an iciness into Gibson’s bones he’d not felt since he’d gotten lost as a little boy on a winter trail. There was a pain in the sound, one that transcended physical, a horrific, unthrottled wildness stark in its anguish.
Gibson was off the couch before he realized he was moving. The wolf rippled under his skin, insisting on being released, determined to run to his brother’s side, but Zach’s hand on his wrist stopped the change. The animalistic urge to tear apart the unknown threat subsided beneath the calm of Zach’s skin on his.
“I’ve got to go,” he whispered. “That’s Ellis. And he needs me.”
“I know,” Zach replied softly, but his fingers tightened, refusing to let Gibson go. “Let me help you. Let me help both of you. You’re going wolf. I can see it. Your eyes are going gold. Think about it. You might need someone human to talk Ellis out of trouble. Let me do that for you.”
“Fine, yeah, that makes sense.” Gibson swallowed at the fear choking him, oddly relieved to know Zach was willing to be by his side, fighting a battle that wasn’t his. The wolf in him grew stronger, his spine rippling with the change, and Gibson didn’t know if he could hold on much longer, his other half chafing at being restrained as Ellis warbled another mournful howl. “Try to keep up, but don’t hurt yourself doing so. The shotgun above the fireplace is loaded. Take it with you. Even if you don’t need to shoot it, you’ll at least have some protection in case it’s something Ellis and I can’t handle.”
“Are you worried about bears or something?” Zach moved across the cabin floor, headed toward the fireplace. “Are there even bears up here?”
“Yeah,” Gibson growled, feeling his jaw beginning to shift. “But I’m not worried about any bear. What I’m worried about is if it’s a human or, even worse, if it’s one of us.”
Six
THERE WAS nothing more terrifying than watching a man turn into something else.
As frightened as Zach had been when Ellis’s hot breath ghosted over his back, driving his flight response and stealing the reason from his brain, watching the black wolf peel apart, fall off in long sloughs from the human within, then revert back to a shaggy beast, was the scariest thing Zach had ever seen.
Or least it had been before Gibson shed his humanity, leaving a colossal stygian creature in his place. Even without Ellis nearby, Zach could see Gibson was healthier than his older brother. His fur was thick and glossy, catching the sunlight streaming through the open front door. The skin at the wolf’s feet was more molt than flesh, a tangle of dry parchment-thin ribbons, and they turned to dust when Gibson’s paws flattened them against the cabin’s floor.
The change—Gibson’s shift—had been agonizing to watch. It affected Zach deeply, casting a net of mystification and apprehension over him. Gripping the couch, he forced himself to remain standing, to remain fixed in place when Gibson’s body began to twist and bulge. He’d stripped quickly, then dropped onto all fours nearly immediately afterward, and his spine bent in a way that no human could have withstood. Unlike Ellis’s transformation, Gibson moved quicker through the shedding of his mundane form, but that didn’t make it any less viscerally horrific.