Crying for the Moon (5 page)

Alex moved his hand faster now, his hips starting to thrust a little as well. He brought his left hand down to slide his thumb up inside his foreskin and squeezed it along with his cock, trying to capture the feel of his imagination. He worked his cock harder and he began to pant slightly at the action. He could almost taste Tate now, and the desire for blood was so strong that he had to abandon the thumb fantasy and bring his left hand up to his mouth so he could nip at his wrist. He bit down until he could feel the bright pinch of pain and the corresponding throb deep in his cock. In his mind’s eye, he could see himself nuzzling Tate’s chest, taking a pert little nipple into his mouth and teasing it until Tate grabbed Alex by his head and arched back into him with an inarticulate cry. At that moment, Tate’s neck would be exposed, inviting, begging…. Alex would sink his teeth into that warm, pulsing flesh, feel the heat flood into his mouth, taste the salty, coppery tang that could only come from blood….

The heat all around him, combined with the pulsing water and the power of his imagination, ratcheted up the tension in his body. The muscles of his ass clenched as the wave of his orgasm rolled over him. The intensity of it surprised and pleased him as warm fluid spurted over his hand. He relaxed into the water, feeling it embrace him with sensation until, finally, he could take no more and stepped forward out of the stream.

It was a fantasy, nothing more, he reminded himself as he turned off the water and began to towel himself dry. If he was smart, he’d keep it that way.

H
E
WASN
’
T
prepared to find Nick and Company already ensconced in the house when he made his way downstairs. He followed his nose into the kitchen, where the smell of onions and frying meat caught his attention, despite the fact that what he really craved right now was blood.

He paused in shock in the doorway at the sight of Nick’s pack crowded into the kitchen, everyone helping to make dinner. Tate looked disconcertingly domestic, a smudge of white flour on one cheekbone. A floury handprint also marked one thigh.

Tish was unpacking some dinnerware from a cardboard box and Peter was in the process of uncorking a bottle of wine. Duncan had his eyes closed as he stood sniffing the air, his nostrils flaring as he took in the scent of cooking meat. He opened them at Alex’s entrance, but Alex had no idea what was going on in his head. His expression was both amused and distant.

“Hey!” Tate waved cheerfully at Alex. “Tish called, asked what they might bring, and I said plates, so hooray, the day is saved!”

“What’s he doing here?” Nick growled softly in his ear as Alex came into the room. He was clearly displeased, and Alex couldn’t really blame him. Now they would have to be on their best behavior instead of relaxing and being themselves as planned.

“Who cares?” Peter said happily, passing Alex a glass of wine. “The food smells
awesome
.”

“Wipe your chin,” Nick snapped and Peter wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of one hand, giving Nick a rueful grin as he did so.

Peter was right, however. While Alex was in the shower, Tate had managed to sauté onions and mushrooms, grill steaks, and microwave the potatoes. Even now, he was using a hand towel as a makeshift potholder and carefully lifting a pan of fluffy cheese-and-garlic biscuits from the oven. It did smell good, even to someone like Alex, who seldom found food appealing.

“I’ve got another batch ready to go without garlic,” Tate said over his shoulder. “Just in case anyone prefers them plain.”

Alex gave Nick a helpless little shrug. He pitched his voice low so that only a werewolf could hear. “I had a problem with the water earlier. He came to help. The food’s all his, by the way. I can’t exactly kick him out now.”

Nick briefly showed his teeth. Alex knew it was unconscious, but it raised the hair on the back of his neck just the same. The enmity between their peoples was just too ingrained to ignore at times.

“Steaks are just about done; at least, the way I like them,” Tate said to the room in general. “Anyone else like them so rare they bleed?”

“Yes,” Duncan and Peter both answered simultaneously, and Peter called out “Jinx!” It was a schoolyard thing to do, and Alex noted with interest the indulgent smile that passed briefly over Nick’s features.

Peter quickly shook his head. “Duncan says so little, no one would ever know he’d been jinxed. Might as well release him.”

Duncan reached out and pushed Peter on the shoulder, causing him to wince in mock pain. “Anyone ever tell you that you spend too much time hanging out with teenagers?” Duncan rolled his eyes.

Something in Peter’s pocket began to vibrate and Alex flinched at the sound of several high-pitched voices singing cheerfully, “Ding dong, the witch is dead!”

“What the hell is that?” Alex asked as Peter frowned and pulled his cell out of his pocket.

Peter didn’t even look at the number; he pressed a button on the phone and replaced it in his pocket. “My sister,” he said shortly. “I don’t want to talk to her right now.” All of the animation had gone out of his face, leaving him looking deflated and smaller somehow.

“I didn’t know you had a sister.” Alex was a little embarrassed at his surprise. It wasn’t as though Peter couldn’t have a sister. It was just that those that joined the Life seldom mentioned anyone who was not also a part of it. Alex had never given it much thought before but it was weird to think of Peter or anyone else in Nick’s pack as having relatives. The fact that Alex had been part of a family at one time was rare among his own kind.

“We’re not speaking,” Peter said repressively, giving Alex an evil glare. That was weird as well; Peter was usually the most “normal” of all of Nick’s crew and usually the least irritable with Alex.

“You have to talk to her sometime.” Nick’s tone was deceptively mild. Alex felt uncomfortable, as though he’d walked in during the middle of an ongoing conversation.

Peter’s lips tightened into a thin line.

Tate set the frying pan to one side on the stove and handed the tongs to Nick as though the conversation with Peter was not taking place. He dusted his hands on his jeans, oblivious to the fact that he was leaving more flour behind. “Well. Looks like you guys have everything under control here. I’ll be heading out now.”

Everyone else in the room turned to look at Nick. His mouth twitched into his trademark little smile as he glanced briefly at Alex. He assessed Tate with a raised eyebrow, snapping the tongs open and closed a few times.

Alex smiled despite himself. Maybe Tate would sense the tension in the room and choose to leave regardless. Maybe not. At any rate, the evening was proving to be very interesting. He decided to make the offer anyway. “Stick around, Tate. It only seems fair since you did all the cooking.”

Tate cast a slyly amused glance around the room and Alex could suddenly envision him as a satyr. He could see Tate so clearly with slightly pointed ears and a wreath of leaves around his head, red-brown hair lightly covering his naked chest…. The image came and went in a flash but was deeply arousing just the same. Tish shot Alex a glance from across the room and winked. For a breath-stopping moment, Alex thought she’d read his mind until he realized she was reacting to the situation.

“Well, if you
insist
,” Tate said with a smirk. “Come on, everyone. Grab a plate and help yourselves.”

“It’s your funeral,” Nick said sotto voce, knowing Alex would hear him anyway.

It pained Alex to realize that Nick was right. He should be doing everything in his power to discourage Tate from hanging around, but instead he’d just invited him to dinner. Alex wanted very badly to give himself a dope slap. What was the matter with him? It seemed this new acquaintance could only end in disaster.

By the end of the meal, however, Alex had begun to think he was overreacting. Tate had proven to be good company. He’d somehow managed to get Peter started on the subject of literature, and Peter had held sway over the group as a lively discussion about the relative merits and failings of the American educational system took place. This segued into what made a book a best seller, with Peter arguing that the creation of such was so formulaic that he could write a best seller easily, as long as he included all the key ingredients. The discussion changed rapidly into the subject of favorite books, a topic to which Duncan unexpectedly warmed, and then moved on to theater. They wound up arguing about which was the better play,
Les Misérables
or
Cats
.

Alex had to laugh at Peter’s vehement defense of
Les Misérables
.

“Nothing happens in
Cats.
” Peter was amusingly indignant. By this time, they’d moved into the living room, wineglasses in hand, and had sprawled across the various pieces of furniture. Tate had convinced Alex to light a fire, and the resulting warmth had only added to the contented mood.

“Yes, there is a certain level of interest in watching people accurately portray catlike behavior, but I can’t fathom why it became the second-longest-running show on Broadway. We might as well spend two hours watching some tubby tabby washing its butt. The music is uninspired. Now,
Les Mis
, on the other hand…. The fact that the entire play is conveyed through repeating musical themes is fucking
magical
.” To prove his point, Peter began to sing opening lines from “One Day More.”

His rich baritone was perfect for the part of Valjean. Alex couldn’t help it; he joined in, singing the part of Marius.

Tate, his eyes lighting up from excitement, unexpectedly supplied the vocal of Cosette, though he remained in the same key as Alex instead of taking the soprano role. While not a trained singer, there was a raw power to Tate’s voice that blended harmonically with Alex’s melodic line. There was a strange sense of recognition in hearing Tate sing identical words of love at first sight along with Alex and he pushed it, like all of his emotions regarding Tate, into containment.

Tish’s voice suddenly soared into the room with the part of Eponine, and Alex felt a rush of intense belonging.
This must be what it feels like to belong to a pack
, he thought.

Nick straightened from his slouch in his seat and leaned forward as he opened his mouth to join them. For a startled moment, Alex thought he was going to supply the part of Enjolras, even as a corner of his brain questioned how Nick would know the song. Everyone paused as the song reached the point of Enjolras’s entrance. To Alex’s surprise, Nick sang mournfully, “Mama, just killed a man. Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he’s dead….”

Tate fell out of the singing with a guffaw of laughter, dragging Tish and Alex with him. Peter, on the other hand, switched gears rapidly, joining Nick in his rendition of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Within seconds, everyone was singing along, taking turns filling in all the parts. It didn’t take long for the song to disintegrate into a lighthearted argument over lyrics.

Tate looked smugly pleased as Peter and Nick bickered about whether the singer was saying “bismillah” or “makes me laugh” during the “will not let him go” portion of the song. He was sitting closest to the fire; the flames cast a dancing light over his pale skin, drawing Alex’s glance repeatedly in his direction.

Nick backed down when Peter suggested they Google the lyrics. “What the hell does ‘bismillah’ mean anyway?”

“In the name of God.” Tish spoke with serene confidence. Alex noted that no one questioned her word on that.

“Your voice is incredible,” Tate said to Alex, obviously referring back to the
Les Mis
song. “You sound better than the original soundtrack. Of course, that was recorded sometime in the late eighties, so we know that couldn’t be you.”

Shit. Way to go, Alex.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d give the whole game away.

“You make a pretty good Cosette, yourself,” Peter said easily, unaware of the undercurrents in the room.

Tate gave Peter a mocking little half-bow from the waist up. “Well, I don’t think anyone’s going to throw boots at me, but I’m not in the same class as you two.” Tate turned to Nick. “You guys should take this show on the road. You’re frighteningly good. Obviously a misspent youth.” He didn’t wait for Nick’s response but turned to Duncan instead. “So, Duncan. What do you like to do for fun?”

Alex expected Duncan to give one of his usual, pithy, one-syllable word answers. He did, but his answer was unexpected. “Chess.”

“He’s damned good too,” Peter said grudgingly.

Duncan smiled, not quite baring his teeth. “I’ve been playing for a long time.”

Tish, it turned out, was a violinist. Alex felt a little embarrassed as he watched Tish and Tate hold an animated discussion about music and instruments. Tate had found out more about Nick’s pack in one night than Alex had ever bothered to learn in the years that he’d known them. As Alex watched the interactions around him, he wondered what Tate was like with his patients and whether he was just as good at making them relax so that he could tease information out of them—and presumably their owners as well. It was easy to picture Tate calmly examining a cat, smoothing back the fur on its face as he tilted its head upward. Alex blinked sharply, wondering where all these images were coming from.

“What about you, Nick?” Tate turned an easy smile on Nick, where he was slouching in his chair once more. The flickering light from the hearth threw the planes of his face into sharp relief and when Alex turned to look at him, for an instant, he could see the sharp muzzle of the wolf overlying his features.

“I used to be a pilot,” Nick said shortly. The lightness in his mood snuffed out as some darker memory crossed his path.

“Really?” Alex was startled into asking. Somehow, he’d never expected that.

Everyone else in the room got quiet. Nick shrugged. “Had to give it up. Can’t afford it anymore.”

The conversation petered out after that. Nick rose smoothly to his feet, checking his watch. “It’s getting late, guys. We should push off.”