Vann's Victory (13 page)

“You got your fuck beneath the stars,” Vann said, leaning across to cover Kip’s back with his body.

“I did, Sir, and God, it was heaven. I knew it would be.”

Vann smiled, shutting his eyes and enjoying their close moment. He rested his cheek on top of Kip’s back, listening to the thud of Kip’s heart and his own as they thundered away. They beat at the same time, in tune, as one. As Kip and Vann would always be.

Together.

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

Highgate Shifters: Jace’s Justice

Sydney Presley

Excerpt

Chapter One

The sound of the whip-poor-will gave Jace the willies. He could only hope that sometime in the future Louie would give him the willies too, but he didn’t think that was about to happen any time soon. To have Louie’s cock inside him—God, that was a dream. Louie hadn’t given him any indication he fancied him in
that
way, more was the pity.

Yeah, a massive pity. No use even thinking about it. Can’t change it. Well, I could, but if I tell Louie how I feel I’ll end up embarrassed when Louie tells me to fuck off. Because he
will
tell me to fuck off.

He shrugged off the thoughts, telling himself to buck the hell up. Pining wasn’t really Jace’s thing, but he was close to pining now. He usually dealt with issues internally, making out that nothing bothered him, although it did. His scowls and short answers let the rest of the pack know he wasn’t to be approached unless they wanted their heads bitten off.

He laughed, imagining biting their heads off literally. Sergeant, the alpha, would have something to say about that. And upsetting Sergeant wasn’t something Jace wanted to do. The man had been good to him—to everyone.

Jace sighed. The ache in his torso was almost too much to bear. It reminded him of Louie again, not that the man was ever far from his thoughts. Being near Louie so often on a daily basis, even though they didn’t talk much beyond hello or a casual sentence or two… Well, that was killing him.

Could a wolf shifter die from never uniting with his mate?

And Louie
was
Jace’s mate, no doubt about that. Jace felt it in his goddamn bones. It was just a shame Louie didn’t feel it too. Or if he did, he hadn’t shown it. Louie acted like any other pack member, nothing more. No ‘accidental’ touches, no secret looks across the room.

“Shit.”

Jace stood on the rear porch of the main pack house and stared out at the compound. He ought to go for a run, really. Shift and streak around until he was out of breath. He had to do something to get this feeling of restlessness out of him. This feeling of loving someone who didn’t return the emotions. How long should he wait? That was the question—the very big question that loomed over him each and every day. How long would it be before Louie got that smack of emotion in his chest where he realized they were meant to be together? That they were mates? Intended for one another since birth?

“How fucking long?”

I’ll wait forever if I have to. I can’t imagine being with anyone else. Can’t be with anyone else.

It seemed Jace
had
been waiting forever, that he’d loved Louie forever—and he had. The longing inside him had grown to massive proportions, threatening to swallow him whole.

He wished Louie would swallow him whole.

“Enough with that crap,” he muttered.

To stop himself thinking of innuendoes, Jace stripped out of his clothes then put them in one of the clothes bins on the porch. He stood with no care that someone might see him naked. It was commonplace on pack lands for men and women to stroll nude before or after a shift, completely at ease with their bodies and who they were—
what
they were. What Jace had to be mindful of was getting a hard-on when Louie stripped in front of him. And
Louie
not getting hard was surely an indication he didn’t fancy Jace. Jace had never seen Louie’s cock as anything but flaccid, so if Louie had feelings for Jace, he was damn good at controlling his emotions. Then again, Louie always got dressed quickly, with his back turned to anyone who was there. A few times Jace had hoped that was because Louie was hiding one hell of a hard-on, but there never was a bulge in his jeans when he turned round fully clothed.

If Jace and Louie were meant to be together, why hadn’t it happened yet? They were well into adulthood. Most wolves, as far as he’d seen growing up, had got together during puberty. Then again, there were a few who had mated later in life.

So there’s hope yet.

But what if fate had got it all wrong? What if a humungous mistake had been made and Jace was destined to spend the rest of his life without ever bonding with Louie?

I can’t do it. I’ll have to go to another compound or one of the institutes. No way can I live here and watch Louie with someone else.

Then again, there couldn’t
be
anyone else for Louie. Could there? Jace might have read his feelings wrong. He could have just assumed that the love he felt for Louie
was
love, when really it was only his longings. And that might well be it. Jace had never loved anyone else so had nothing to compare it to. He had no blood parents that he knew of, having been taken in as an abandoned cub at a day old, or so Sergeant had said. Jace supposed he should love Sergeant, but he didn’t think he did. He was grateful for being brought up on these beautiful lands by him, grateful for being fed and clothed, but the kind of abiding love a kid should feel for a parent wasn’t there.

In short, Jace had never really belonged.

Before he gave in to more maudlin thoughts, he stepped off the porch and onto the grass. It prickled the soles of his feet, and the familiar brush of it brought with it a stronger desire to shift. It had always been that way, with the touch of grass, and he couldn’t fight it any longer. He relaxed his muscles, held his arms out, tilted his face to the night sky and waited for the transformation to take place.

In his wolf skin, he always felt so different—liberated, somewhat excited, exhilaration streaming through him that he was at one with his inner self. He embraced that now, shucking his fur-covered skin so it rippled down his new form then finally settled into place. He scented the air, digging his claws into the ground. The dampness of it seeped into his pads, infusing him with the need to bolt, to run so fast he lost the ability to breathe.

So he ran, shooting across the vast lawn toward the row of oaks that stood soldier-like, guarding the entrance to the woods beyond. Once at the oaks, he slowed a little, senses on high alert for interlopers—wolf or human. Other animals, well, they were welcome.

The oaks gave way to pines and birches, white ash and shadbush, the foliage spouting thickly from arthritic branches. Those branches didn’t start until quite a way up the trunks, higher than a six-foot man. What faced Jace were row upon row of trunks, something he had long known how to navigate, the paths created between them made from years of shifters padding through the woods. He ran on, dodging, weaving—he could do that with his eyes closed. His lungs burned, his ribcage fit to burst, yet still he plowed on.

He wouldn’t stop until the ache in his chest had eased.

Will it ever ease, though?

That was another insistent question he asked himself regularly. He shook it off, planning to concentrate on the run, the thrill of it and nothing else. He huffed out a breath that was accompanied by a rough growl. In human form it would have been a laugh of derision.

Concentrate on nothing else? Chance would be a fine thing. Since when have I ever been able to get Louie out of my mind? He’s always there. The sight of him. His voice…

If he could have shouted ‘fuck my life’ he would have. Instead, he howled, long and high-pitched, a distress call if ever there was one. If another shifter came running to see what the matter was, they’d wonder why he’d called out, seeing as he was still running and probably looked like he was fine. He’d have to lie, tell them he’d stood on a thorn. The truth wasn’t anything he could admit to—unless it was to Louie, but that was debatable if he’d ever even do that. To save anyone coming to his aid, he howled again, a low, steady sound that said he was okay.

But he wasn’t okay and never would be until—

Until? Admit it. Until Louie wakes the fuck up. If he ever does.

But he had to, otherwise Jace would find himself either eaten up with his inability to express his feelings or living on another compound. And who was to say he’d be welcomed elsewhere? Yeah, relations between compounds were relatively good, but shifters moving from one to the other wasn’t encouraged. The institutes were a different matter. Halfway houses, that’s what they were. Places for shifters who didn’t belong to any packs. Some were also used to incarcerate shifter felons.

‘You belong where you’re brought up,’ Sergeant was fond of saying.

Well, fuck you, Sergeant. I wasn’t meant to be here. I didn’t ask to be here.

He chastised himself for being a selfish prick. Sergeant hadn’t been obliged to take Jace in—he’d done so out of the goodness of his heart. Jace could have been left to starve on the side of the country road that led to the compound. Sergeant could have decided to take a different path for his run that night, bypassing Jace and never knowing that the cub had existed.

But he didn’t, and now I’m here, always feeling out of place, an extra.

Jace ran on, the thud of his paws reverberating through his body every time he smacked them onto the ground. Those thuds went some way to calming him, and he admitted he was a selfish bastard at times for thinking the way he did. But with no one to really express himself to, what else could he do? If he didn’t sort through the muddle of thoughts in his head he’d go mad.

Tell Louie how I feel?

Jace shuddered and thrust that thought out of his head. He didn’t fancy opening up, not when Louie might rebuff him. He couldn’t risk the world of hurt he’d find himself in if he were rejected. That would sting like a son of a bitch.

The scent of another wolf drifted over him, and Jace immediately slowed to a stop. His heart rate sped up, the pulse of it thundering in his ears. He panted, the rattle of his breaths drowning out every other forest sound for a long moment. He wedged himself between two tree trunks then sat so it would appear he was part of the scenery. The aroma was coming from ahead, so he narrowed his eyes, seeking out movement in the darkness. The moon was shrouded in cloud coverage tonight, so his vision was limited despite it being sharper when he was in wolf form.

Nothing moved.

He cocked his head, straining to hear better now that his breathing had almost returned to normal.

He heard nothing unusual.

Deciding to leave his hiding place, he padded forward, spotting the clearing up ahead that gave him a chance to rest, where he usually sprawled out on the grass. There was a pool there, and most nights he shifted back to human form so he could bathe in the cool water. Then he’d spend time on his back, staring at the stars and wishing Louie was there with him.

At the edge of the clearing, low growling caught his attention. His hackles rose, and he resisted the urge to sneeze—the foreign scent was so strong, invading him with its tang. Yet it was a tang similar to his own—one that didn’t belong here, just like him. Another scent arrived, so familiar that it almost erased Jace’s concentration.

Louie.

Another growl, one he’d heard a million times, a warning for the stranger shifter not to come closer. But where were they? Jace scanned the trees bordering the clearing, seeing nothing but goddamn trunks, leaves and murky shadows.

Show yourself, stranger. Come on, step out.

Jace felt altogether braver now he knew Louie was there somewhere—bolder, more able to handle the running off of an unwelcome wolf on the property. Together they could handle whoever it was should ‘whoever’ turn nasty.

Louie appeared first, coming out of the woods on the opposite side of the pool. He raised his head—
so damn regal
—and sniffed. His fur would have glittered had the moon been allowed to shine. Louie’s pelt always looked like the dark strands were made of fiber optics, silver-tipped at the ends. When he shrugged into his wolf skin after a shift, it sparkled much like the stars Jace loved to stare at.

Maybe that was why he liked staring at them.

Now wasn’t the time to entertain such things, though. There was a possible fight on the horizon, and Jace needed to keep his wits about him, be there for Louie if all hell broke loose.

The stranger emerged from the trees opposite Louie and to Jace’s right. If all their positions were joined by lines they’d form a triangle, the still waters of the pool at the center. The new wolf didn’t have glittery fur. It was dull with sweat and maybe even dirt, as though the animal had been traveling for a long time. Weariness, that was what emanated from the beast—and a beast it was. Large, standing almost half a foot higher than either Jace or Louie. Although the animal was a little on the skinny side, Jace knew it had once been wide and well fed.

How do I know that?

Jace sniffed, taking in a long pull of air, drawing that alien yet familiar scent into him. It smelled like home. Yeah, if he knew what home smelled like, that would be it. Confused and unsure what to do, Jace waited for Louie to make the first move. Louie would have scented Jace, would know he didn’t have to fight alone if that’s what this confrontation came to.

The foreigner suddenly shifted, changing into a man so tall Jace estimated him to be more than a few inches higher than himself. Jace stared, blinking at the sight.

The man looked just like Jace. His hair was longer, wavier, the tips brushing his shoulders, but it held the same dark brown shade. The body…well, it was broader, more sinewy, the belly dipping inwards a bit where he possibly hadn’t taken much food onboard.