His Bacon Sundae Werewolf (8 page)

They soon heard
the sound of voices in the clearing ahead. Pained whimpers came from a throat
that wasn’t quite human and wasn’t quite animal.
 

“Why are you doing
this?” the victim sobbed in a clear human voice.

“I don’t have to
explain anything to you, you filthy animal. Why don’t you turn back into a
beast so you’d provide me with more of a challenge?”

Jules winced at
the sound of something sharp whistling into the air and the killer was rewarded
with the sound of a whine.

“Change back to
your true form, animal. I might just be merciful and make this quick for you.”

“Please…” The
shifter let out another whine of pain. Uncomfortable silence followed. Jules
and Pat crept alongside the bushes, careful not to be seen.

“Good doggie.
We’ll be having oodles of fun, you and me.”

The instrument
made another sharp sound through the air and Jules was suddenly overcome with
unwanted knowledge. Jules’s ears flattened, his eyes narrowed and he bared his
teeth into a growl.

He’s using some sort of whip.
Is it the same whip he’s used on all of his
victims?

Jules remembered
the angry red lines all over Cole’s body when he found him, angry lines that
decorated whatever clean flesh left that wasn’t cut open or defiled.

Red hot rage
filled his head, emptying any other logical human thoughts he might’ve once
possessed. Without thinking, Jules lunged from the bushes that provided them safe
anonymity. He had enough of hiding and sneaking around. He announced his
presence with an ear-shattering, thundering growl of rage.

The killer looked
startled, but Jules couldn’t smell an ounce of fear on him. He certainly wasn’t
what Jules expected. A large, overweight, nondescript middle-aged man in a
hoodie stared back at him. The killer wielded a whip in one hand and a hunting
knife in another. He looked a little absurd actually, but Jules knew enough of
his enemy not to underestimate his appearance.

While he may smell
like a harmless human, Jules knew that some human monsters were just simply
worse than supernatural monsters. At least supernatural monsters killed because
it was in their nature. This killer killed for pleasure and it made Jules pissed.

Jules’s eyes slid
momentarily slid away from the killer to the victim. A silver trap similar to
the one that Pat fell into kept a small brown bloody wolf in place. Knife cuts
and whip marks decorated the small wolf’s body and the sight of them didn’t help
clear the tint of rage clouding Jules’s vision.

Why don’t you pick someone your own size?
The human Jules wanted to say, but only a howl of challenge came
out.

“Now you’re a big
handsome gray bastard aren’t you? Not as big as that dark brown wolf I had my
eye on, but good enough.” The killer adjusted his glasses, looking disturbingly
unconcerned that Jules began to dangerously circle him like a large predator
circling its prey.

The small trapped
wolf made a pleading whining sound at Jules, but Jules ignored him. He had to
focus on the killer. Nothing should go wrong. Jules took a threatening lunge
forward, and the killer took a step back. Jules practically snapped his teeth
at him, but the killer only laughed as if Jules was a small annoying dog that couldn’t
do him any harm. Rage rippled across Jules’s body in waves.

Damn him. Jules
would show him the consequences of messing with a werewolf. Thinking of Cole’s
broken body, thinking of all those sleepless years living like a zombie, some
part of Jules couldn’t help but think that this was finally it—the final
movement of a very long piece. After all those years, months and days of being
consumed by vengeance, it all culminated in this final moment.

He could almost
hear and taste the satisfying crunch of the killer’s face when he finally put
his deadly teeth to work. Let the bastard feel what his mate felt in his last
moments on earth—helpless and utterly powerless to his inevitable fate.

Aiming for the
killer’s vulnerable throat, Jules opened his muzzle wide to unveil his
sharpened rows of teeth. He saw the killer abruptly swing the whip and lift the
knife, as if he was undecided which weapon to defend himself with. Jules would
laugh if he had a human mouth, but the man chose to wield the whip and the tip of
the lash caught him on his face.

The momentum of
his leap faltered. His paws wavered in the air like a fish suddenly swimming
out of water, and he fell with a hard thump on the forest ground.

The little wolf
wailed again and Jules understood suddenly that it wasn’t whining for any silly
reason. The wolf was warning him. Pain shot through his right paw and he
snarled, realizing his stupid mistake a second too late. He could already feel
the poison of the silver teeth surging up his bloodstream.

The killer was
purposely luring him to the trap and he was too blind in his rage to notice.
For someone who claimed to have hunted the killer for so long, how had Jules
become so stupid?

“Not very smart
are you?” The killer sneered, peering down at Jules like a scientist studying a
subject in an experiment.
“Big and stupid animal.”

Jules snapped his
teeth at him. The maniac only laughed, staying away from his reach. “You stay
put, you hear? I’ll work on the small doggie first, and save you for last.
As they say, always save the best for last, no?”

The killer walked
over the smaller wolf, fingering his whip. The little wolf cowered away from
him. Jules only watched the killer with narrowed eyes.

“You asked why I’m
doing this, little
fella?
” The killer bent down to look
at the frightened wolf. “All I wanted was to be like you beasts once. To be one
of the powerful big mean wolves, but the local alpha in my town rejected my
application.
Said I was too fat and unattractive.”

The whip whistled
through the air, striking the side of the small wolf,
who
cringed away.

“Well, guess what?
Now I lead an exciting life hunting you animals down. I can’t even remember how
many of you I’ve killed, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m bigger and badder than
any of you dumb animals.”

Jules’s ears
prickled. His sensitive wolf ears barely caught the sound of rustling bushes.
The human killer didn’t even hear it. It was the sound of movement.
The sound of his mate.
Pat is still out there!
 

Sudden fear
stabbed at Jules, washing away whatever rage that still lingered. It was
replaced with stark white naked terror for his mate. Jules could clearly
visualize Cole’s broken body on the ground and it was replaced by Pat’s face
again.

Oh Gods, Pat. Don’t fall the same trick like I did. Run! Get your
pack to help!

Pat couldn’t hear
him. Not yet anyway, until they’d officiated their bonds in the eyes of the
entire pack.

Calm and
intelligent amber eyes stared at Jules from the bushes. Heart racing, Jules
could hardly control himself from letting out a whine of protest. He didn’t
want the killer to get suspicious. What was his idiotic mate doing? The wolf
inside of him was smug, although it was pleased that Pat didn’t run. Jules saw
Cole’s lifeless eyes again and tried to prevent panic from eating him inside
out.

Pat didn’t just immediately come after me. He waited. He fought
against the instincts of his beast to protect and stupidly defend his mate
despite the consequences.

Jules’s fear
turned to hope and his heartbeats slowed down. Pat had a plan. Jules had
forgotten the most important thing. If he and Pat really wanted this
relationship to work, then they had to trust each other and he trusted Pat with
his life.

The little captive
wolf let out a tortured sound of pain, interrupting his thoughts. Unable to
help
himself
, a growl of protest came out of his own
throat, but the killer was thankfully still fixated on his task. The man was
still bent over the smaller wolf with his knife raised, its end dripping with
blood.

Pat didn’t wait a
second longer. Emerging from the bushes like a liquid amber blur, he howled a
battle cry of anger. Slamming into the killer, both Pat and the man fell to the
ground. Jules let out a snarl when the killer jerkily raised his knife, and its
edge drew a line of blood from Pat’s flank. His mate let out a howl, but didn’t
let the small nick bother him.

All Jules sensed
was the unexplainable rage that wrapped around Pat as he opened his mouth and
tore through the man’s neck without a second thought. Watching the killer’s
hands flail miserably and helplessly as blood spurted from his neck, Jules
realized it was his rage that Pat was feeling. Pat was feeling his rage from
all those tortured years of tracking and hunting.

Tearing his eyes
from the gory, but satisfying sight, Jules caught the phantom image of Cole by
the trees. All the wounds that decorated his body were gone. So was the
sorrowful expression on his face. All that was left was the familiar smile on
his lips.

If wolves could
cry, then Jules would have wept a downpour, but it seemed Cole understood. Then
a second later, he was simply gone and the heavy weight in Jules’s heart eased.
Mottled shapes began pouring through the trees, howling and growling in anger,
then in celebration.
The New Haven local pack.
Jules
wasn’t worried about them though. Pat and
him
would
work out the pack politics later on.

For now, Jules
only had eyes for his mate.

Pat jumped off the
corpse and trotted to Jules with a self-satisfied expression on his wolfish
face. Jules whined in approval when Pat leaned his great chocolate furred head
against him. Amidst the violence that surrounded them and the wolves that
howled for more blood, a moment of indescribable peace filled Jules.

Pat leaning
against him like this felt so right he was unaware of anything else but his
mate. The other wolves, the bloody carcass on the ground and even the pain
shooting up his paw from the trap no longer mattered. It was all finally over.
With Pat by his side, he could remember how to start living again.

Chapter Eight

By the time Pat
helped Jules into his
apartment,
he suspected that the
other man was faking how painful his injured hand was. Jules certainly didn’t
need to lean onto him so closely and he didn’t have to groan in pain with each
step they took.

“One more whine
from you and I’m letting you taste the ground, wolf,” Pat threatened, grunting
as he hauled Jules into the apartment.

He was holding
onto most of Jules’s weight, and while Pat was large, it didn’t mean he could
easily lift Jules like a sack of rice.

“You wouldn’t do
that to your injured mate, would you, Patty?” Pat sneered at the nickname, but
Jules hooked his hands around his neck and began to nuzzle him, the smoothness
of his face a pleasant contrast to the rough bristles on his own.

“If I realized you
were this overdramatic, I would’ve dropped you instantly,” Pat said dryly, and
was rewarded by Jules’s addictive grin.

Realizing that the
other man was acting dramatic and teasing him to ease the tension, Pat began to
relax. Jules knew him far too well, even in a span of just a few days. Jules
had even seen the harsher and darker side of him when his dominant wolf rode
shotgun. Hell, Jules liked it.

Pat could still
remember the way the other man trembled at his every command and touch. The way
his body reacted so passionately and strongly to his—but what if Jules only
wanted that darker side of Pat and not his shy and awkward human half?

Pat didn’t think
he could go through the process of losing another mate so soon. He wouldn’t
survive.
Didn’t you want Jules the moment
you saw him?
Show some balls and take
what’s yours,
his wolf chided, but then the beast only wanted to ride its
mate hard again because that was his right. Besides, didn’t Jules want
it,
even crave it so badly that he begged Pat for it? Hell,
remembering the way he pleaded and begged Pat made him grow hard again.

Pat couldn’t deny
the thrill that ran down his spine at the sound of crunching leaves, of the
naked expense of Jules’s glorious body exposed for his eyes alone.

Not knowing what
to do or say, Pat dumped the other man on the couch and tried to hide his
growing erection. “You wait there. I’ll get the first-aid kit and we can check
on your paw.”

Jules snorted,
clearly knowing he was making excuses.

Pat frowned.
“Silver is dangerous, in case you forgot.”

“You shrugged it
off fine enough with our mate bonds. Plus, we just mated earlier, so the
process should even be faster. Let’s make a bet, Pat. If my hand’s all nice and
healed up, we both do what we wanted to ever since you brought down that evil
bastard.”

“And what do we
both want?” Pat knew he was asking for it, but he couldn’t keep the cynicism
out of his voice.