Wolfsbane [Dark Hollow 5] Read online

  Evan lit a small candle he’d brought with him, not wanting to put on a light for fear of hurting the wolf’s eyes after he’d been so long in the dark. The other guards had been warned never to be alone with the wolf, and if he needed something they were to call for backup. Otherwise, they were to leave him strictly alone, and never go into the cell with him unless backup was waiting outside. Of course, that was for the other guards—not for Evan. Evan had resisted as long as he could. He knew the wolf had been interrogated and tortured every day since he’d been there. He had to wonder if this torture weren’t some way to coerce Evan into mating with the wolf more quickly. He knew the brass was upset with him for taking time to get used to the wolf.

  Evan had made no secret of the fact he hated the violent treatment of the wolf captives. When they had their last conversation, the major even implied that Evan’s greater haste in doing the doctor’s experiment would end the daily suffering of the creature, and it was true he couldn’t continue to stand by and do nothing while this wolfman was tortured and beaten. Not in all good conscience. He abhorred this cruelty and didn’t see any need to treat him like this.

  If he were being honest, it wasn’t just his strong sense of right and wrong. He’d never felt as drawn to anyone so quickly before in his life, since the first moment he’d seen the huge man being escorted down the corridor to his cell.

  When they’d first brought the wolf shifter past his guard station in the basement of the huge Hunter’s complex, he’d been surprised at how handsome he was. Even though they’d said he would be well-built and good-looking, he was still surprised at his size and muscles, and so damned turned on he hadn’t really slept well since. This wolf was nothing like he’d imagined.

  The light from the candle now allowed Evan to just make out the prisoner across the room, his hands chained to hooks in the floor, along with his ankles. He had only a few inches that he could move in any direction, and he couldn’t even lie down if he wanted to. All he could do was lean back against the cell wall, as he was doing now, though the pain of that contact on his whipped back must be excruciating.

  He was blindfolded, a strip of leather wound tightly around his eyes, so that even if he tipped back his head, he couldn’t catch a glimpse of his surroundings. Evan knew from his recent training that this was more a form of psychological torture, denying the prisoner knowledge of his surroundings or of what was about to happen to him next.

  The wolf sat quietly in his chains, waiting. As Evan walked a little closer, the man tipped up his chin, sniffing the air ever so slightly. Again, Evan wondered if, like an animal, the wolfman could smell him, his fear, his hesitation, his raging damn hormones, because goddamn, the man was gorgeous. Even in the dim light of the candle, his hair gleamed and the sun darkened skin of his chest looked silky smooth. Evan wanted to touch that skin so badly. He wanted to run his tongue over those dark brown nipples and tease them between his teeth. Fuck, admit it. He wanted to bang him like a drum.

  Evan took a deep breath. Up close, the musky-sweet smell was even stronger. He stepped closer, keeping his voice low and steady. “I’ve brought you some food. Not that awful swill they’ve been giving you, but some stuff I brought from home. Just some sandwiches and juice, but…” His voice trailed off as the wolf made no sign that he’d even heard him, just a brief tightening of his perfect lips.

  Evan set the sandwiches down within reach of his hand and then quickly stepped back. “I brought some aspirin too. It’s there on top of the sandwiches. It’s not going to help much, I know, but it’s all I had at home.”

  Evan stood there for another second or two, feeling stupid. He began to back slowly toward the door. He’d been a fool to come, but he’d felt he had to do something. He knew the Hunters were the most hated enemies of the wolves—the guy probably felt nothing but the deepest contempt for him. He might even be afraid to eat the sandwiches, thinking they were poisoned or something. As he backed slowly toward the door, Evan thought he should say something, anything to break this strange tension in the room.

  “They’re not poisoned or drugged or anything. I wouldn’t do that. I just don’t like how they’re treating you. It’s not right.”

  The man still sat stolidly in the same place. Evan didn’t think he’d moved the whole time he’d been in the room with him. Sighing, he turned and started out the door when he heard a deep, well-modulated voice from behind him, so quiet he couldn’t even be sure he’d heard it.

  “Just how am I supposed to eat this? Should I lap it from the floor like the dog you people think I am?”

  Evan whirled around to face him, but he still hadn’t moved, and he half wondered if he had hallucinated hearing the words. “I’m sorry.” He moved back to kneel beside the man. “I don’t think that, no. I mean that you’re a dog, or anything. Can I feed it to you? Would that be all right?”

  The man sat so quietly that for a moment Evan thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then just as Evan began feeling really foolish kneeling there by his feet, he inclined his head.

  Evan felt unreasonably pleased. He quickly unscrewed the cap from the bottle of juice and took the aspirin first, holding the tablets to the man’s lips.

  When the tip of his tongue, his beautiful, pink tongue, came out between his lips and ever so slightly touched Evan’s fingers as he accepted the aspirin, Evan felt weak in the knees. He had to sit down beside him.

  Over the course of the next few minutes, Evan carefully held the sandwich halves to his lips for him to take a bite, and watched him while he chewed. Occasionally, his lips would touch Evan’s fingers and once, his tongue. Each time it happened, the slight contact went straight to Evan’s cock. God, he was so perfect, from his even white teeth to his perfectly sculpted jaw line, and his straight, aquiline nose that twitched from time to time ever so slightly, as if he smelled something he couldn’t quite identify, though once he made a soft little moaning sound deep in his throat afterward, like he was moved by the scent in some way.

  When he finished feeding him, Evan didn’t quite know what to say or do. He got unsteadily to his feet. “Well, uh..that’s it. I can bring more tomorrow, if you like.”

  The wolf didn’t say anything. There was just a slight twitching at the corner of his mouth as if to indicate it was a stupid question, not really worth answering.

  “Uh, okay, so see you later then.” Evan turned and stumbled his way toward the door in the dim light, something about this man making him feel unsure of himself.

  As he got to the door, he heard the deep tones behind him again.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said quickly and turned, feeling unreasonably pleased.

  Evan retreated back to his guard station. Usually, third shift was very quiet, so he didn’t have any real duties to perform. He could have stayed longer and the doctors would have been pleased for him to do so, but the wolfman made him feel nervous and off balance. When he was with him all he wanted to do was touch him.

  Did the wolfman realize how he had affected him? Could a man who was half beast actually smell his raging hormones and the pre-cum that started leaking from his stupid cock the minute he smelled the guy? Because, oh yeah, the smell he’d been noticing was radiating off the wolf, a crazy, delicious smell like cookies baking in an oven, for Christ’s sake. He would have thought it was only his imagination, but he had to admit to himself that the odor was all too familiar—he’d been noticing that particular scent at his house for over two weeks, and even in his clean clothes he took straight out of the dresser drawer. Evan had no idea how that was even possible, but there it was. There it bloody well was, and he thought he might just be going out of his mind.

  Evan didn’t sleep well at all that day, and when it was time for his shift to start, he felt exhausted and overwhelmed. Yet he found himself eagerly looking forward to seeing his wolfman. Henderson, the guard he relieved, told him the brass had “interrogated” the wolf for hours that day, and it had taken four o
f them to drag his body back into the cell when they were through with him. He was still refusing to say a word, though, about why he’d been caught lurking around the compound before they captured him. The top brass feared some kind of attack, and had been trying to get him to confess whether or not he was a rogue or part of a pack.

  All Evan could think about while the guard was talking was how badly they might have hurt his wolf. Unthinkable—he needed to stop it somehow, but could he really agree to the doctor’s plan? He’d fed him again earlier that afternoon, stopping by the guard desk in the middle of the day when he should have been home sleeping, pretending to have left something behind the night before that he needed. When Evan offered to stay while the day guard, Henderson, took a quick cigarette break, it gave him the chance he wanted.

  He’d sneaked in to check on him and was alarmed and concerned to hear his panting breaths and see the rapid rise and fall of his chest. That smell of his was tinged now with the coppery smell of blood. “They hurt you again,” he said softly. “Where?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then the man leaned forward, ever so slightly, his breath catching in his throat at even that slight movement. Evan caught his breath too at the sight of his bloody, ruined back. There were places where the blood had crusted over, but many of the stripes from the lashes still oozed bright red. The stripes were crisscrossed in a pattern that stretched from his shoulders to his waist, and Evan suspected that they trailed even further down past his jeans into his buttocks and thighs. The person who had wielded the whip hadn’t been kidding around either. The cuts were deep and gouged into his perfect skin. The pain alone would have probably killed a human.

  “God,” he said in horror, pity wrenching his stomach. Without thinking, he reached to touch him, and the man winced sharply away. Evan pulled his hand back and dug into his pocket. He’d brought the aspirin with him before he left the house, and even though it was like bringing a knife to a gun fight, he thought they might be better than nothing at all. He grabbed his bottle of water he’d brought with him and held the aspirin to his lips. “Please,” he said. “I know it’s not much, but swallow these.”

  The wolf turned his head toward him, and opened his mouth to allow Evan to place the aspirin on his tongue and give him a drink from the water bottle. Evan wondered what he might see in his eyes if he hadn’t been blindfolded. Would he look at him with gratitude? With hatred? He didn’t know, but he had to try to help him, no matter how the wolf might feel about him. The man turned his head back around and sank back against the wall, and Evan reluctantly left before the other guard came back from his break.

  All that evening he worried about the prisoner’s condition and when he returned at eleven o’clock for his shift, he had not only food, but antiseptic cream and some extra strength pain reliever he‘d bought at the pharmacy on the way in. The pharmacist had promised it was the strongest you could buy over the counter.

  The second shift guy he relieved said things had been very quiet, and the prisoner hadn’t made a peep. As soon as he left, Evan grabbed a candle and tore off down the corridor. The sweet smell of the wolf was getting stronger all the time, so strong it was almost overpowering to him as he walked down the hall. As soon as he stepped inside, the wolf raised his face and sniffed the air slightly. Evan went quickly to his side and laid his hand upon his arm without even thinking about what he was doing. The instant he touched him, the wolf jumped and sharply drew back his arm as far as the chains would allow.

  “I’m sorry,” Evan stammered. I didn’t mean to…” His voice trailed off, as he realized he had no idea how to finish that statement. What in the hell had he been doing touching him like that? This was a fucking werewolf, a monster, and he had to remember that fact. Another thought that he would soon be required to be fucked by this same monster quickly followed, but surprisingly, the idea didn’t alarm him like it should. Instead it made his cock fill out and strain against his jeans.

  He cleared his throat and sat back on his heels. “I brought you some cream for your back. If you’ll let me, I’ll put it on. It’s just some antibiotic cream with a little pain reliever in it. Can I? Will you lean up a little?”

  The man hesitated for a long moment before slowly leaning forward and twisting to put his back to Evan. Evan opened the bag he’d brought from home and first removed the still warm, wet washcloth he’d brought with him, wrapped in aluminum foil. Carefully, he ran the cloth over the stripes, trying to clean off some of the dried blood. The wolf drew in a breath through his teeth as Evan worked, but never made any other sound. Next, Evan smoothed the antibiotic cream over the welts, trying to soothe him, and when he was finished, he sat back to survey his handiwork.

  “Well, that should help a little, but you really need to see a doctor.” Evan heard how stupid the words were the second they left his lips, and he bit his lip, wishing he could call them back. Still blushing, he touched him softly on top of his shoulder. “If you’ll slide down your jeans, I can take care of that too. The welts, I mean,” he said, blushing furiously.

  The wolf didn’t move, and Evan thought at first he was going to ignore him, but then he lifted his hips and slid the jeans down to the top of his thighs. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, and Evan thought for a moment his heart would stop—shudder to a halt and quit.

  The man was uncut, and the sight, while certainly not unheard of, was rare enough with the younger men he’d been with to look a bit alien, even primitive. Not only was he enormous, long and thick, he was so hard he could hammer nails with his cock if he wanted to. Most strange of all, he had a strange roundish bulge around the base of his penis. It circled right around and caused his cock to have the circumference of a small baseball at its largest point. It sat right at the root, half hidden by his reddish bush of pubic hair. The doctors had told him about this knot and suspected some of the chemicals involved in the mating process came from this anomaly. It sounded kind of gross when they told him about it, but it wasn’t at all. It was beautiful, like all of his wolf.

  Evan consciously tried to tell himself to calm down and get his breathing under control. In a few more seconds, he was able to calm down enough to really see in the dim light that whoever had whipped his wolf hadn’t confined the damage only to his back. He had seemed to take great pleasure in laying the lashes of the whip right across the wolf’s penis and scrotum.

  “Oh God,” Evan whispered. “I’m so sorry.” He reached out to touch the bloody stripes, feeling strangely out of control. That smell coming off his skin was clouding his brain, and he couldn’t seem to think straight. He felt overpowered by it, as if he had to get closer, had to connect somehow with this beautiful creature.

  Without any prior thought at all, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the head of his wolf’s penis gently, pulling back the foreskin and using his tongue to swirl around the wide, silky smooth head, trying his best to kiss it better. Instead of flinching away, the wolf thrust his hips upward and a deep groan escaped his lips.

  Evan’s own hand turned traitor next and reached out to touch the wolf. He was hesitant at first, afraid he would cause him further pain, but he found his hand moving toward the knot. He couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to. He took one finger and touched it, waiting for the wolf to pull violently away. Instead he pushed his hips up again into Evan’s touch with a quick, urgent motion that both thrilled and terrified Evan. Evan moved his hand carefully up the shaft, thrilling to the response he received. When he reached the head, Evan’s thumb rubbed back and forth across the slit, smearing the pre-cum leaking from it over the top.

  The wolf cried out in pleasure and bit his bottom lip, moaning. Evan put his tongue down to the head and licked it. He tasted so sweet and salty at the same time. Evan licked his way slowly down his shaft, to the knot and let his tongue circle it gently. He sat back on his heels and then put his mouth over his length, trying to take it all in. He couldn’t take it all, but he managed to get his lips down to the kno
t. Whenever his lips skimmed over it, nuzzling down with his nose, the wolf seriously went crazy, bucking his hips and making a sound half way between a moan and a growl. The sound should have frightened Evan, but it only made him more and more excited. He redoubled his efforts to give the wolf pleasure.

  One of Evan’s hands reached out to fondle and caress his poor, abused balls, as he took the wolf’s cock into his mouth again. The wolf rocked his hips upward, thrusting his huge cock even deeper into Evan’s mouth. Evan had sucked plenty of guys off before, but never had it been so intense, so incredible. He wanted nothing but to pleasure him, to make him cry out again from the mindless intensity. The wolf pulled at his restraints, and Evan knew he wanted to put his hands at the back of his head to hold him in place, but he didn’t need to. Evan had no intentions of going anywhere.

  Another deep thrust and the wolf was spilling into his mouth. Though Evan had rarely ever swallowed another man’s spunk before, he wanted this wolf’s in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible. Condoms weren’t necessary with a wolf, the doctor had told him, as they were mostly immune to human disease. His cum was salty, yet had a sweet taste that Evan could get used to. He swallowed it down and then raised his head to cover the wolf’s mouth with his own, letting him taste himself on his lips.

  The wolf kissed him back, but turned his head slightly to the side to whisper, “Blindfold.” Blushing, half afraid to remove his blindfold and look him in the eye, Evan hesitated.

  “I can’t.”

  The wolf’s voice became firmer. “Evan, take off my blindfold.”

  Evan reached out without any further thought. Then, with his hand halfway up to the man’s head, he stopped and caught his breath sharply. “Wait. How do you know my name?”

  Another slight hesitation, a tightening of the luscious lips, then, “Take it off, damn it.”