Entwined Enemies (4 page)

I look back at him for the first time, but he’s not looking at me. He’s wide awake, but there’s a change in his eyes. Somewhere, in among all the suffering and torment of being crucified and forcibly transformed, he’s mastered the pain.

His expression becomes focused as Mason grits his teeth, calling on some reserve of stamina. A force of will inside him. The quicksilver is crackling through his body, but he’s trying to get ahead of it.

That’s when Mason begins to strain, pushing against the spikes. There’s fury in his face, a conviction to fight back. The progress is slow and agonizing, but that isn’t stopping him. Mason begins to slide his hands forward on each spike.

I want him to stop, even for a moment, to catch his breath, but he doesn’t. I don’t know how he’s doing it, where the strength is coming from to keep going, but keep going he does. Not only that, but the spikes only get wider the further he goes.

Mason doesn’t care about the pain anymore. He slides his hands along the entire length, widening the hole on his palms with every inch.

It’s heartbreaking to watch, but I can’t look away. I’m breathless at the sight of his struggle. How he can be so silent about it? I want him to scream, to express his pain. Then he does—just not like I was expecting. It’s not a scream. It’s a battle cry. Mason bellows and pushes his hands forward with all of his strength.

Lover, I am in awe of you.

And like that, he’s free. We fall forward onto the bed in front of us. Mason is still inside me from behind and I’m still channeling quicksilver into his body, infusing him with werewolf lust from the pool.

Still giving Mason a taste of his own power back to him.

That’s when the tendrils succeed in doing what they’ve been trying to do all along. What I commanded them to do before I knew what I was doing. They transform Mason, and not slowly. Instantly.

One moment he’s a man, the next he’s a wolf. Not a half-man, half-wolf. A massive wolf, with a gigantic sledgehammer prick to match.

Thank the gods I cast Maintain the Flesh on myself back at Sylvia’s place. If I hadn’t, he would have split me in two.

It happened instantly, without any of the usual bone crunching or sinew stretching that usually takes place. Man one second, massive wolf the very same second. It was that fast, transformed by all the lust being channeled back into his body.

His voice changed too. His battle cry turned from a bellow into a howl. His vocal cords must have changed so quickly that it all came out in one uninterrupted breath.

Now, and for the first time, I have a wolf to contend with between my legs. A very large, very hairy, very horny wolf. A wolf whose enormous endowment the wonders of magic are managing to somehow accommodate inside me.

On the one hand, I’m happy Mason bounced back from his injuries so fast. On the other, I didn’t really think this through.

Mason’s entire body is huge. No different than the night he brought me a rabbit by the river embankment. He wasn’t the size of a regular wolf then and he isn’t now. He’s more of a
dire
wolf. Smaller than a horse, but not by much.

I’m on my hands and knees, canopied beneath his underbelly. His forearm paws are braced against the bedframe as his hips rapidly plow me from behind. I can hear the bed straining under his weight as he surrounds me.

The Maintain the Flesh spell is protecting me from any real harm, causing my nethers to somehow stretch around him, but that won’t last forever. Not when he’s this big and forceful. Each thrust pushes me forward, but when I get too far away, he nuzzles me back again and keeps going.

Okay, first step. Cut off the quicksilver supply of werewolf lust. He’s gotten quite enough, thank you very much.

Next step. Reverse the flow. I actually have to siphon him again. I can’t think of any other way to stop a rutting dire wolf.

The tendrils respond to my will immediately, casting Preserve the Lust with a thought, so long as my intentions come from a place of love for Mason. If only casting spells this way was always this easy.

Most importantly, my improvised spell worked. It gave Mason the stamina he needed to push himself off the spikes and do what he couldn’t in the form of a man. Even so, that purpose has been served now. The spell protecting my body won’t last forever if Mason keeps having his way with me at his current size.

I can actually feel the spell weakening to the point where it won’t be able to protect me for much longer. I cast it again as a precaution before it winks out. First time I’ve ever had to do that in my lifetime.

At the rate Mason is going, I may even have to cast it a third time. He’s really hasn’t slowed down at all. This is taking far too long. He’s all charged up and I’m his only release. Time to try something new.

I focus on the tendrils attached to my body and increase the intensity of their siphoning. If Mason were a normal man, this would probably give him a heart attack. There’s no chance of that happening here. His massive wolf form is far too strong.

A few thrusts later, he begins to slow down for the first time since he transformed. He even starts panting, tongue hanging out of his mouth, until finally the release I’ve been waiting for throbs through his length.

Suddenly I am awash in wolf jism. It’s more powerful than I expected. Each spurt is like a high-pressure garden hose being turned on and off repeatedly. There’s no place for it all to go. The back spray is phenomenal.

My poor creaking bed has become a sea of cum. That’s when I feel the change in Mason before I see it. He’s not so heavy anymore. His body starts to shrink. He’s a half-man, half-wolf behind me, but only for a moment.

Paws become clawed hands and then clawed hands become fingers. Before I know it, he’s reverted to being a man, spent and exhausted, like normal. Thank the powers! Mason slumps over my back and I immediately stop draining his lust as he slips out of me. He falls onto the bed into his own pooling splurge.

I turn around quickly and examine his body. All the blood and bruising is gone. Every cut or claw mark on his body has healed. Even the holes in his hands have completely filled in with flesh again. That makes it all worthwhile.

Mason is alive, intact, and breathing naturally. I did it. I brought him back from the brink of death.

That’s when it all comes flooding back. Everything that happened with Sylvia, Trent, and his two werewolf henchmen outside of my apartment. Baldy holding me up by the throat, putting his hands on me. Finding Mason mounted on the wall.

I look up at the two silver spikes. They’re still covered in blood and flesh. That’s Mason up there. It’s too much to take in all at once.

I fall on his body, hug him with all my strength, and cry into his chest at the shock of it all, racked with wave after wave of shuddering sobs. Once I start, I can’t stop. I’m stronger than this, especially in times of crisis, but that’s not where these tears are coming from.

I’m crying because I almost lost Mason, the weight of which seemingly hits me for the first time. I dig my finger into him and refuse to let go. If he weren’t unconscious right now, it would probably hurt, but I can’t stop. He’s alive. He didn’t die.

I saved him the only way that made sense to me at the time, and it miraculously worked. Thank all the gods it worked.

Candice recently offered to teach me a mending spell for repairing objects. I’ll ask to be taught a healing spell instead. Any spell that lets me heal somebody other than myself. It’s time. They’ve been stalling long enough, especially now that my first-aid training is complete.

I never want to feel this powerless again. Not being able to help Mason was horrible. If he hadn’t found the inner resolve to push himself off those spikes, I don’t know what would have happened next. That’s when I hear him moan a little. He’s already starting to wake up.

“Jess. You’re… hurting me,” he says weakly. His eyes are still closed.

I don’t know how long I’ve been clutching him, but I’m sure my nails are digging into him pretty hard. I hold his face in my hands instead and smother him with kisses. I can’t stop.

“Can’t… breathe.”

I let him catch his breath but then fall on him again. I want to hold on to him and never let go. I want to protect him from ever getting hurt like that again. I want to keep all the horrible people away. And I will. I’ll use my power and do whatever it takes.

The moment I find out why I can’t affect them with my magic.

Mason opens his eyes and wraps his arms around me, returning my embrace. At some point, however, he remembers what happened as well.

He sits up in the bed, holding me at arm’s length between his hands.

“Those men!”

He looks me over. Checks to see if I’ve been injured.

“They’re gone,” I tell him.

“Gone?”

“They left with your car.”

“What about you? Did they see you? Did they do anything to you?”

“I’m fine,” I say after hesitating for a second. “It was nothing serious.”

Mason can tell there’s more to that statement. He can see it in my eyes, because I can see the rage in his. Anger erupts in Mason like I’ve never seen it before. His voice becomes a deathly growl.

“
What did they do?
”

It catches me off guard.

“They roughed me up a little. I can take it.”

“
What did they do to you, Jess?
”

Mason inhales deeply and smells my body, trying to track down any scent he doesn’t recognize. Any scent that isn’t his own.

“No, it was nothing like that! One guy just grabbed me, is all. They threats were mostly words. What they did to you was real. How are you feeling now? How are your hands?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

“Which one touched you?”

“Mason, that’s not important right now.”

“Which one, Jess?”

I can see it in his face. A cutthroat calm that I didn’t know Mason had inside him. He’s shifted from one extreme of emotion to another. I answer honestly, almost like a reflex.

“The bald guy.”

Mason stands up and starts to look for his clothes. He spots his pants and shirt on the floor and pulls them on quickly.

“Mason, stop! We need to talk! You have no idea what’s going on!”

“Yes I do. I’m going to find him. I’m going to find him and then I’m going to kill him. Both of them.”

“And how are you going to do that? They’re werewolves, just like you.”

That gives Mason pause, but it doesn’t last. He looks up at where he was crucified.

“With these.”

Mason grabs the silver spikes and tears them out of the wall, one in each hand, bringing wood and drywall with them. I couldn’t even budge one with my entire body leaning into it. He pulled them out with no resistance whatsoever. I grab my cut-offs and pull them up quickly, trying to keep up with him.

“You’re not listening! There’s more going on here than you realize!”

“I can smell one of them on you, Jess. Saliva on your face. He licked you. I don’t care why this happened. I’ll figure that out later. Right now there’s a man out there that needs to be killed. They won’t catch me with my guard down this time.”

Mason reads the air with his nose, looking for the scent of his prey. Then he finds it. His whole body tenses and a growl rises in his throat, building in volume. He’s about to launch himself out the door.

I have to stop him, but I don’t want to use magic to do it. There’s another way. I can stop him with words. I wanted to break this to him more gently, but he isn’t giving me a choice now.

“Sylvia is a werewolf.”

Mason stops. He looks at me incredulously.

“What?”

“She’s a werewolf. She has been since you were turned in Norway sixteen years ago. She’s working with another werewolf who sent those two men to attack you. I was at her house when he gave them orders them over his phone. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, but I do now.”

“You were at Sylvia’s house?”

“Yes. That’s where I went on my walk. The man who commanded these werewolves is named Trent, but that’s not all. He’s the werewolf with red eyes you told me about. He’s the one who turned you all those years ago.”

Mason is stunned. Trying to comprehend what I’m telling him.

“How… how do you know all this?”

“He told me. Trent created your sister as well. She’s been working with him ever since that time. They’ve been trading out authentic paintings sent to your parents for forgeries that he sells, probably on the black market.”

Mason’s expression turns slack.

“To answer your question, I know this because they want me to paint forgeries for them. That’s why Trent sent those two men to hurt you. It was a message to convince me that they’re serious. Hurting you was their way of forcing me accept Trent’s terms. They want me to join their criminal operation.”

“Did this werewolf… Trent… did he touch you as well?”

No point in holding back now. Mason needs to hear it all.

“Yes, but that’s not important now. Trent has Sylvia under his control. She’s been dominated by him in every way. I think she has been for a long time. Your sister is working with him, Mason, but I can tell she’s scared. Still, I don’t think she would cross Trent under any circumstance. Not even to protect you.”

Mason clenches his fists but remains quiet. He’s thinking, but I can tell that’s difficult for him right now. He wants to act. He wants to maim and shred and tear.

“Do you see now?” I ask. “We have to think carefully about what to do next. We have to consider our options. You can’t just go after them half-cocked. They’ll kill you.”

“Not if I surprise them like they surprised me. No. Nothing has changed, especially now that I know Sylvia is involved.”

“What do mean nothing’s changed? What good are you to your sister dead? What good are you to me that way?
Everything has changed!
Didn’t you hear a word I said? There’s three of them, Mason. Four if you count your sister.”

“She won’t fight me. Not Sylvia. She may be caught up in this, but she wouldn’t do that. Nothing has changed because I’m still going to kill those men. Trent too. He may have turned me into a werewolf, but that doesn’t give him power over me. If anything, he gave me
his
power. Now I’ll use it against him.”