The Beast Within (16 page)

A few more firm strokes and Tony’s rod convulsed in his hand. Tony cried out. A stream of cum spattered against the bricks. Tony shuddered with his orgasm. Aaron watched his body tremble, saw the thin line of jizz trickle down the wall. His own dick exploded. He pumped manically against Tony, who cried out with him. He rode the pleasure, his groin tight, overwhelmed with sensation. He pounded out the last few waves of ecstasy, then collapsed forward. He rested his cheek against Tony’s heaving, sweaty back and pulled out. Tony reached for him, grazed his fingers along his hip, and turned to face him.

Aaron leaned in and kissed Tony.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Tony said with a grin, “but what about us being partners? What about you not needing this right now?”

Aaron touched his face, ran a hand through the carelessly perfect mop of hair. Something in his expression sobered Tony.

“I figure right now is all we have.”

Chapter Eighteen

Tony

Aaron stood naked and awkward in the bedroom. The upstairs shower was tiny, and after his nightmare about the dismembered Kapre agents Aaron had no desire to bathe in the downstairs tub, so he resigned himself to a sweaty, sticky ten minute wait. He was afraid to touch anything so he paced a careful path in the floor, looking at the sparse collection of personal items in Tony’s room. A glint of gold drew him to the bureau. A small frame, no more than two by two, sat behind a pile of supernatural books. He nudged the books away with his elbow. Inside the frame, a woman with heavily feathered brown hair, and cheeks delineated by sharp swaths of coral blush smiled down at a grinning, dark-haired toddler. It was the grin that struck a chord of recognition. The grin Aaron couldn’t help but return, even to a photograph.

“She was young,” Tony said. He was hovering outside the bathroom door, a towel wrapped around his waist. “Too young. Too drunk. Too addicted.”

Aaron turned to face Tony. The pain in his voice was nothing compared to that in his eyes.

“She didn’t love my father. At least, she didn’t love him enough at eighteen to marry him. But, she did.” Tony edged around him and picked up the frame, holding it so they both could look. “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

“Very,” Aaron replied.

“My father had a hair metal band, or so I’m told. Average talent, but a nice handful of groupies. He went out on gigs that lasted longer and longer. Finally, he didn’t come back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t old enough to remember him going. Just a little older than I was here.” He tapped the photo glass. “Before he left, though, he made sure my mother had her priorities straight. Got her hooked on heroin early in their relationship. When he left and took away what little cash flow she had, she eventually went to crack. She said the booze kept her ‘even’ on the days she couldn’t score.

“I grew up thinking that the families on TV were fantasies, as real as unicorns or anthropomorphic teddy bears. I thought all dads left and all moms were so rocked they forgot to make lunch. By the time I was nine she might as well have been dead. She occasionally did things—unladylike things—to scrape together enough change to keep us in our shitty apartment, but that’s about all. Most of the time she sat in a daze while I did all of the chores I thought needed doing. I made my food, washed my clothes in the sink when I couldn’t find enough quarters for the Laundromat, tried to clean the filth off the floor without waking her. I went to school and usually came home to an even bigger mess. Sometimes on her lucky days I would come home to find a strange man lying in her bed, zoned out along with her.”

“How long did that go on for?” Aaron felt strange standing naked and dirty while talking about such familial intimacies, but maybe his bareness, the vulnerability suggested by his exposed network of scars, made Tony feel like he was on level ground.

“Another six months after that. Then, one day I came home and the house was clean. A chicken—I remember it, I’d never seen a whole chicken before—was roasting in the oven. She was happy and free of that glazed expression I had come to associate with her. She didn’t want the ‘bad stuff’ anymore, she said. She was in NA, finally, but didn’t really need to be. She was off everything and didn’t want any of it anymore. She only wanted to make Him happy.”

“I thought by
him
she meant my father. I was elated, in only the way a stupid, naïve kid can be. I took our laundry to the Laundromat and did the wash properly. I hung all of our clothes in the closet and put the fresh linens on the beds. Then I went into my room, and after I cleaned every square inch I put out my collection of his old guitar picks. Daddy was coming home.

“But what walked into the door wasn’t my dad.” Tony put the photo back on the dresser and slid the books back in front of them. “It was a demon named Ray.” He gave a bitter smirk. “Scary name, huh?”

“Scary’s not in a name,” Aaron said.

“No, it’s not. Scary, in this instance, was in Ray. He was an incubus vampire, an old one. He had ensnared my mother. He got off on controlling her, forcing her to purify her blood while making her crawl after him like a lust-filled teenager. He got off on me seeing it all and being able to do nothing about it. He fucked her brains out and drained her dry the day after she earned her one-month chip. He made sure I heard the first part and watched the last.”

Aaron placed a hand on Tony’s face. He said nothing. So many people had told him so many things when he had been mauled and none of those well-meant but hollow words had lessened the pain. He ran his thumb across Tony’s cheek, hoping the gesture would convey what words never could.

“I went after him, you know,” Tony said as he pulled Aaron’s hand from his cheek and held it in his own. “After I graduated from Kapre’s boot camp, I went after him.”

“Did you find him?”

“He was my first Term.” Aaron smiled. “Now ask me if it made me any less fucked up.”

“I don’t think you’re all that fucked up.”

Tony grinned. “Again, says the Acqxterm agent slash shapeshifter I hope will be hanging out in my bed.”

“Let me get that shower, first, then we’ll see.” Aaron gave Tony another quick kiss and headed for the bathroom. He turned back at the door. “You know, we need to get some rest for tomorrow.”

“We’ll get plenty of sleep after we die.” The words came out with a wink and a smile, but Tony met his eyes and the mirth faded.

Aaron felt a wild desperation to reassure his partner that all would be well once the full moon was over. But all he could do was stand there, hands at his sides, and shrug.

* * * *

“You can’t wear that to work.” Tony sidled into the bathroom, brushing against Aaron’s bare ass as he did.

“You wouldn’t like it?” Aaron teased.

“Of course I would, but you would distract everyone else. And as we’re running late already, a distraction would take away from our very, very short work day.” Tony ran a hand through his hair. When he saw Aaron was watching him primp he licked his index and pinkie fingers and smoothed his eyebrows in a comical gesture. “Hellhounds and werewolves wait for no man.”

“I think I’ll follow you in a bit.” Aaron put down his toothbrush and turned to face Tony. “I want to try doing multiple shifts first. In case I need to tonight.”

“Won’t it make you weak?”

“That’s what I want to know. When we were in the woods with the Six Rivers clan, I started sensing changes, changes precipitated by Cerberus’s presence, I think. Whatever magic he was doing to make the pack stronger also affected me, but I think more so, as I’m his direct descendant. At least that’s the theory I have percolating in my head.”

“And you think you can shift more than once without consequence because of that connection?”

“I’ve been getting stronger in leaps and bounds. And last night, when Cerberus confronted me, I felt his power, power derived from the moon. I felt it inside me. I felt… Good.”

“Do you want me to stick around in case you run into trouble?”

“No, that’s okay. The worst that can happen is I need to take a short nap.” Aaron waved him off with a hand. “Just wait until I get there before you talk to Braven.”

“Wouldn’t do it without you.” Tony leaned in and kissed him. His clean-shaven face was as soft as his lips. A surge of desire washed through Aaron. “Go, before neither of us make it to work on time.”

Tony grinned. “I’ll see you there.”

Aaron waited until Tony had clattered down the metal steps and shut the ground floor door. He went into the bedroom loft and found a clear space on the floor. Last night when he had been with Tony, his eyes and jaw had shifted with little pain or exertion. If he could transform his whole body as seamlessly he would have a distinct advantage over the other shifters.

He closed his lids and focused on the power of the moon. Even though it had not risen he could feel its pull. He let his consciousness drift to the horizon, slide down the surface of the earth until the moon glowed bright in his mind’s eye. His body gave a massive spasm. A sharp pain recoiled through him, throwing him onto all fours. He watched the hair erupt all over his body. Like the snapping of a rubber band his body contorted, and he was wolf.

Wolf?

Demon?

Furry
.

Aaron stretched and padded into the bathroom. He reached up on his back legs and plopped his forefeet onto the vanity so he could see himself in the mirror. His coarse coat was so black he would have believed himself a shadow if not for the deep yellow eyes punctuating the darkness like twin miniature suns. He leaned in closer. While the excessive hair covered the myriad of scars on his body, the fine pale line on his muzzle remained. Although they faded greatly with the shift, the souvenirs of his last great physical trauma never completely disappeared. He shook his head, flopping his long, pointed ears, then bared his teeth at himself. Everything about his form spoke of wolf. If not for the unlikely color of his coat and the dark soul lurking just beneath his skin, he would have never believed he was Cerberus’ offspring. The dark thing looked back out at him, pleased he finally recognized his true heritage.

There was a popular myth that if the progenitor of a line of weres was slaughtered then all others would return to human form. It was a lie. The dark thing was a part of him. He couldn’t deny it any longer. Aaron studied the telltale scar on his snout a moment longer, then dropped to the floor. He may never get back his normalcy, but Cerberus—and all of his Six Rivers toadies—would die just the same. The beast rolled a protest through him, but he ignored the clamor.

Aaron headed back into the bedroom, concentrating on the shift. This would be the true test of his recent evolution. Instead of pulling his consciousness away from the moon he simply reversed his intent. It was a natural action, one he had given a good deal of thought to in the shower the night before. If he, as Cerberus’ own, took the power to shift from the moon, than the direction of that shift, human to wolf or wolf to human, should not make any difference. The moon didn’t care if he was furry on not, only he and his demon did. He relaxed his muscles. Another rubber band snap heralded by a sudden pang of short-lived agony, and he was on his human hands and human knees, itching like mad from the sudden retraction of all that hair but otherwise fine.

He stood carefully. The usual side effects might simply be delayed. A minute passed, then another. No wave of fatigue swept over him. He was transformed and fully functional. A smile spread across his lips. This was the advantage they needed. A shifter who could operate in any terrain, any situation. He could run as a wolf, shift to climb, then shift back to continue pursuit.

It was shifter Christmas.

Aaron transformed two more times, just to see if his endurance would wear down. Each time he changed, though, he felt stronger, more confident.

Gifts are never appreciated.
That was what Cerberus had said.

Aaron gave the hellhound he was about to murder a silent thank you, and gathered his clothes.

Chapter Nineteen

Baited

Something wasn’t right.

Aaron could smell it the moment he walked past the security desk and entered the elevator. A sour, tense fear hung in the lobby air. The dark thing urged him to go back. His own instincts agreed. Images of his last day at Kapre California flashed through his mind. Paralytic panic flowed through his body. His finger wouldn’t lift to touch the button. His breath came in short bursts. His knees nearly knocked with terror.

Were they up there? Six Rivers? Would he step off the elevator and find another bloodbath? Heads nearly decapitated, faces mauled to the point of being unrecognizable, entrails snaked across the floor like fallen party streamers? He would have run if his body would obey. The creature inside snarled at his cowardice. A part of him agreed, but it was buried far enough below the fear it held no sway over his actions. The only catalyst that could make his hand incline twelve inches and touch the floor button was the one that popped into his mind.

Tony.

The thought of his partner up there loosened his limbs and sent jolts of motivating adrenaline flying through his bloodstream. He punched the number. The doors slid closed and the lift jolted up. Aaron freed the tab holding his sidearm in his holster. He fingered the snap nervously. The elevator slid to a stop. He closed his fist around the grip. The doors slid open.

A young office assistant was placing bagels on the table in the glass-fronted conference room. The bullpen was bustling with everyday normalcy—agents shuffling papers, chatting near each other’s desks, talking on their cells. Director Braven’s door was open. Everything was fine.

So why did it feel wrong?

“Hey, Ar,” Ellison said as he strode toward him. The foul chemical smell that seemed to seep from his pores came with him, clogging Aaron’s nose. He said something else.

“Uh, I…” Aaron trailed off. Ellison’s words hadn’t made it through the jumble of thoughts in his head. Something was not right. With Ellison barking up his ass, he had no ability to pinpoint it. “What?”