CHAPTER TEN

A Bad Case of Enchantment

Biff was ridiculously nervous about his Friday night date. He’d spent some time looking up what might be a romantic evening and thought he had a good plan. But he didn’t know enough about the area, or Max for that matter, to be confident. The pack had helped, and hindered, and teased, because that was what they did. It’s what made them pack.

Marvin’s report must have been reasonably favorable, because even Alec seemed excited.

“Marvin says he’s really handsome.”

Biff narrowed his eyes. “What’s Marvin doing noticing how handsome my boyfriend is?”

“Ooo,” teased Kev, “you said boyfriend.”

“Well, crap, I did. Not sure that’s right.”

Colin nudged him, looking quietly pleased. “But you want him to be?”

“Kinda.”

Lovejoy, who was heading out for work, twirled his hips (in a way no straight man had any right to) and said, “Biff’s in luuuuuuve.”

“You all suck.” Biff’s nervousness was now tenfold.

“Any man would be lucky to have you,” said Colin, staunch and loyal.

Biff looked at him gratefully. “Yeah?” He needed a confidence boost.

“Yeah. Big, strong, you clean up nice, and you don’t chatter.”

Judd looked like he objected to some part of what was going on but held his tongue. Judd had been acting odd lately, but Biff chalked it up to crowded quarters and a new location. Judd hadn’t come from their original pack. He’d been a friendly loner, living upstate, who paid his respects by occasionally joining them for a run. When he found out Alec was gay and starting a queer-werewolf West Coast revolution, he’d privately petitioned the new Alpha to join. What was said remained private, but Alec had welcomed him warmly. Biff had to admit Judd fit in remarkably well. Lately, though…

Biff gave him a funny look.

Judd grimaced in apology.

If he wasn’t so worried about his date, Biff might have followed through. As it was, he merely began searching for his phone and wallet. Never could find anything in the mess that was the living room.

“Don’t forget,” said Alec mildly, “we’re apartment hunting tomorrow.”

Biff groaned. So far, they hadn’t had much luck. The Bay Area wasn’t a great place to find a large house for a large number of large men. They weren’t particularly fussy about the house itself, just that it be big enough for each to have his own room, and within easy running distance of open space. They’d told DURPS Sausalito but that was proving outside their price range. Now that a few of them had jobs, they looked better on paper, but local prejudice ran toward werewolf-equals-frat-house means parties and destruction. Landlords were suspicious. Legally, they had to declare their species on application forms – thus, even Marvin’s charm was failing them. And their crash pad was going away soon. Manifest Destiny was returning to town, her East Coast tour over, and no doubt wanted her apartment back sans large, hairy squatters.

“Right, I’ll be back in time.”

Alec smiled at his brother. “Not too early. Have fun. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

A chorus of “aws” rose from the rest of the pack. Biff flipped them all off and, scooping up his gear, headed out to his bike.

Max was waiting for him at the end of his driveway, looking totally edible. He’d rustled up a proper motorcycle jacket this time, although it belonged in the ’80s. I suppose that’s vintage and trendy now. His long legs were hugged by thick jeans, and his torso by a cashmere sweater.

Biff pulled his helmet off but didn’t leave the bike, playing it cool.

Max seemed to approve.

“Hey, sexy.” He came over and kissed Biff hard, without any kind of reservations and with lots of tongue. It was as if he intended to map the erogenous zones of Biff’s mouth. Biff would let him chart every corner.

Max tasted of caramel, rum, and brown butter, and Biff wanted to turn off his bike, lift him over his shoulder, and go right back inside that tiny apartment. But he intended to be a goddamn gentleman tonight. Prevailing attitudes seemingly against werewolf roughhousing, Biff felt he must prove something to Max, because Max was a local.

Still, he gave in to a bone-deep urge and dug the fingers of one hand into Max’s silky hair, tilting his head to just the right angle and plundering. Only for a moment. He might be a Beta, but a certain amount of attack-and-take was nested into all werewolf nature.

Max clearly didn’t mind. He melted into Biff’s grip, giving a little whimper of pleasure. He really does like a bit of dominance. Makes some sense. No one as snarky as this man did it without hunting a reaction.

Biff relaxed back, grinning.

“What?” Max looked dazed, and mussed, and suspicious all at the same time.

“I just got it.”

“Just got what?”

“You’re a brat.”

Max laughed. “You only now figured that out?”

Biff didn’t stop smiling, seemed he couldn’t. “Mount up, Trouble – let’s go.”

Max fastened Biff’s spare helmet to his head and slid himself over the seat. He tucked in against Biff’s back, all lean warmth and hard cock. Guess he liked their kisses too. Uh-oh, thought Biff, that’s a bit distracting.

Then Max slid his hands around front to test Biff’s own aroused response to their kiss.

“Behave,” Biff growled, pulling on his own helmet.

* * *

Max was delighted that the ride was a relatively short one. Not because he was having an awful time, but because bitching on the back of a motorcycle was like intense foreplay with no climax in sight. He shouldn’t have started anything back in his driveway, although Bryan had pushed it further when he’d seized control of that kiss. Max couldn’t be faulted for getting hard. The very idea that his werewolf had a bit of a dominant streak was a total turn-on. Max loved being pushed about in the sack. And now he was forced to cling to Bryan’s broad back, cock nested against his tailbone. Anything more than a half hour’s ride and he might have died of need.

Fortunately, Bryan’s plan only took them to Muir Beach. Max was charmed – it’d been years since he visited. Too much of a tourist trap on weekends, but this evening it was peaceful, the fog having rolled in and driven all but the locals away with damp silence.

They parked the bike and strolled along. Bryan, after a moment’s hesitation, took Max’s hand in his larger one.

It was sweet.

Max hated how much he liked it. Hated how easily Bryan was quiet. How well he fit those worn jeans. His ass was a thing of beauty. And his hazel eyes were kind. He’d brought Max on a date that meant something, after Max had taken him into the Castro just to torture him for not being brave enough, or stupid enough, to be out.

Now he holds my hand like it matters. Like I matter.

I’m a jerk.

Stop hating yourself and think about his ass instead.

“You’re unusually quiet.” Bryan looked sideways at him, measured.

“Just wondering if you’re a top or if I’ll get a chance at that ass of yours.”

“That kiss worried you?”

“Naw. I liked it, obviously. But you do have a fine ass.”

The werewolf lowered his lashes. “Not as hairless as yours.”

“Mmm, I know. All peach fuzz and deliciousness.”

“You prefer to top?” Bryan didn’t sound upset about it, just curious.

“Sweet cheeks, I enjoy either way, but that ride has given me visions of all your luscious muscles spread out beneath me.”

“Damn.” Bryan gave himself a discreet adjustment.

Max laughed in delight. “We are going to have so much fun.”

“I don’t know that I’ll like it.”

“Never say I’m your first? Like, first first? No girlfriends into pegging?”

“That okay?”

Max was surprised by how okay, how weirdly possessively thrilled he was, like some crazy old-fashioned lord plundering the maidenhead of a village girl. Like he owned Bryan. Like Bryan is mine. But Muscles was looking nervous again and clearly needed reassurance. Max squeezed his hand. “I will be so gentle with you, my bruisable ripe peach.”

“Ripe? Really? Must you?”

“Shut up. You’ll be begging for it by the time I’m through.”

“Damn it, Trouble, we’re walking down a public beach. There are people around. We gotta talk about something else.”

Max grinned and left off his torture. “Fine, big guy, but we will revisit this later. What do you want to talk about?”

“I kinda love how hairless you are, so much easier to lick all over and—”

“That is not a change of subject.”

“Sorry, I was trying to ask about your ethnicity.”

“Oh. Oh? You mean in a sexy yet politically correct way?”

Bryan looked embarrassed again. “I’ve never met anyone who looked like you.”

Max laughed. “I know, I’m a freak. Asian eyes but they’re blue, skin that could pass for black in some parts of the world, taller than most, present company excluded. And I’m graceless.”

Bryan frowned. “Don’t belittle yourself. You’re the best-looking man I’ve ever met.”

Max swallowed a sudden lump of arousal, but also… What? Sentiment? Affection? “Scars and all?”

“Period. End of discussion. Hottest man ever. Stop fishing for compliments.”

Max hadn’t been. He’d been fishing for reassurance. He got it because Bryan automatically assumed that anyone who saw Max naked would want a second date. Because Bryan planned a beach walk at sunset – well, in the fog, but hey, that counted as a sunset in Marin – and held his hand like he was normal…

Max took a breath and reached for equilibrium. “Okay, so, ethnicity? I know it all. The one thing my family records is its bloodlines. There’s even a special online forum for tracking the family tree. Everyone is on there, even the sumages – especially the sumages. Family likes to know when they fail. Last I checked, I’ve got black, Asian, white, some Native American. Surges breed for quintessence ability and don’t care about anything else. It’s a fucked-up kind of egalitarianism.”

“Eugenics?”

Max tried to come up with a way to explain his family’s procreative philosophy. “Kinda, but also like Alpha-to-Alpha pack alliances. My line sought out strong Siphons and Sluices but really focused on Surges. Searched the globe for civic mages with that kind of power.”

“Why?”

“Honestly? It’s just a long-term breeding program. I assumed that the end goal was to produce the strongest Surge of them all.”

“What good is that?”

“I know, right? What can a super-strong Surge do? Blow up the planet or some shit like that? Sometimes, I think they’re shooting for the golden apple. You know, the myth and the legend.”

“Magistar?” Bryan’s surprise was genuine. There hadn’t been a new Magistar in decades. Only the oldest shifters knew anything about them, and they were closed-mouthed on the subject. Understandable. The last government attempt to create a Magistar had nearly cost them a city.

“Yeah. I know, crazy. But Dad was kinda crazy. Now you see what an epic disappointment I was.”

“But what about the other requirements?”

“I think he believed if you just bred a Magistar, everything else would follow. The mastery. The full scope of power. The familiar. The whole thing.”

“Man, that is fucked up.”

“Told you he was crazy.”

Bryan shook his head. “I always wondered how they worked.”

“Familiars? Ask a pre-Saturation shifter, if you can find one. Otherwise, who knows? The American government experimented during Iraq.”

“Of course they did.”

“They found a few ambitious Surges and attempted to get them to use cats and dogs to draw quintessence and shit like that. The records are sealed, but I happen to know that the Surges and the animals ended up all messily dead. Of course, the government had to stop – they needed Surges for the war more than they needed to source a Magistar.”

“How’d you know?”

“My father ran those tests.”

“Anyone tell you you got a fucked-up family?”

“Oh, yeah. Yours any better?”

“Mom’s all right. Jack’s cool. Jack is our household ghost.”

Max must have made a face because Bryan actually tried to explain. “Ghosts aren’t all bad. Jack used to be our neighborhood drag queen. He got us the house-sitting gig here.” He seemed to be waiting for something from Max.

“That’s all the family you have? A mom and a ghost?”

Bryan noticeably swallowed. “My brothers are thuggish, but better now they got families. My sisters are okay. Jack’s the only one who stays in touch.”

“So, why’d you leave?”

“Well, my brothers tried to beat the gay out of Alec when we were kids, until I put a stop to it. They eventually decided not to care. But my dad never stopped caring or beating.”

“Your dad an Alpha?”

“Beta, like me. But big with it, like me. It happens sometimes.”

“No wonder you stayed in the closet.”

Bryan gave him a funny look. “I kinda came out to the pack.”

Max felt his heart catch in his throat. Not that he thought Bryan’s pack would give him grief for it; obviously they were accepting, but because the words felt like some gift Bryan was handing to him – haphazardly wrapped and possibly heart-wrenching. “Yeah?”

“This pack, I mean. My pack. Well, Alec’s pack. I was pretty upset after, you know…” They were still holding hands and Bryan’s thumb moved gently up Max’s wrist under the sleeve of his sweater to caress the place where his trace lines began.

“I let it slip that you were a he and not a she.”

“How’d they take it?”

“Fine.”

“Bryan…” Max growled it.

“I like it when you call me by my real name. No one else does, you know?”

Max stopped, tugged his hand away, and glared.

Bryan sighed. “I don’t really know how they reacted. I was upset. By the time you and I made up, they’d all come to terms with it. Alec was a bit surprised, maybe betrayed, but Alec knows how hard it was with our dad. Marvin was delighted, but Marvin is always delighted when anyone goes from sea lettuce to kelp, as he puts it. The others all teased me, because they can. Haven’t told the rest of the family yet. Why bother?”

Max arched a brow.

Bryan said quickly, “I will if you want me to.”

Max couldn’t help it – he tugged Bryan in for a kiss. Lips cool and salty from the coastal air. God, he tasted so good. Max had never liked kissing as much as he did with this werewolf. It was as if there was something addictive in his saliva. This boy has heroin spit and a cayenne cock. How will I ever let him go?

“You’re a darling man, you know that?”

Bryan dipped his head and lowered his lashes in that way he had when embarrassment ate at him.

Max decided to lighten the mood. “Now, are you going to feed me? I need stamina for later.”

This time, Bryan did blush. “About that.”

“You want to wait a bit? Not into premature butt sex?”

“That’s okay with you?”

Max tried not to be thrilled by the implication that Bryan was planning ahead, not just this date but the next one, and maybe another after that.

“More than okay. It’s nice to go slowly. No one’s ever actually courted me before.”

“Good. Would you consider, maybe, seeing only me for a while?”

“Land’s sake, you asking me to go steady, honeychild?” Max fluttered his lashes and put his free hand to his heart.

Bryan hunched, self-conscious. “I know it’s old-fashioned and not really the gay lifestyle… And we are in a gay Mecca… And you have lots of options. But maybe see if you like us enough to keep me around? Unless that’s not—”

Jesus, thought Max. He’s going to be the death of me. He has no idea. I’m this broken old queer, scared and desolate, and messed over and rejected in so many ways, and he thinks he’s the one who has to beg. He thinks I’m limiting myself for him, not the other way around. Like he’d settle for scraps of my affection.

“Muscles, you know you’re gorgeous, right? It’s not me they’d be after.”

Bryan gave him a truly incredulous look. “Have you ever looked at yourself?”

Max dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “San Francisco is a nice, well-meaning, liberal sort of town, lousy with intellectuals and geeks. Sure we got gym bunnies galore, but true beefcake is slim on the ground.”

“Stop speaking code.”

Max laughed, suddenly happy again. And only slightly terrified. “I’ll explain over dinner. Where are we going?”

“There’s a pub nearby, supposed to have amazing shepherd’s pie.”

* * *

The pie was good, and the pub was nicely intimate, dark with old smoke and lost moments. About halfway through the meal, Max’s hand started stroking Biff’s knee. Then higher, up to his thigh. And then… Biff couldn’t get the bill fast enough.

Back at Max’s, the sumage had them off the motorcycle and plastered up against the stairway wall so quickly, Biff wondered if he’d somehow tapped into quintessence.

“Inside?” Biff suggested, not that he was averse to Max’s hands or his mouth, just that he wanted a great deal more of both. He nuzzled Max’s neck, breathing him in. Gorgeous boy hadn’t worn anything perfumed today, a concession to Biff’s needs. A gift. He gloried in it.

Until he caught a stinking whiff of ozone coolant, sharp with the tang of quintessence in use. Not Max. There was another mage around, a powerful civic mage, and he was casting at that very moment.

Protect him!

Biff ripped his clothing off right then and there.

“Whoa, Muscles, eager much?”

Biff didn’t notice that he tore his favorite T-shirt. He cursed the tightness of his new jeans (which he had bought only because Marvin said they made his ass look perky) and began shifting form without thinking it through. Instinct kicked in and his wolf state was stronger, faster, and better able to fight activated quintessence, coated as he would be in his own savage protection.

“And now he’s a wolf. Bryan, what the hell?”

Biff’s ears arrowed in on the rustling in the bushes. He took off round the side of the apartment, uphill, heading toward the big house. He sprinted through the undergrowth, intent as only a predator can be.

A smelly figure was standing in front of the massive old building. He had his hands up as though he were facing a dragon, not the crumbled shell of a maybe-home. The overgrown garden stopped about three feet from the house, leaving it slumped and grumpy in a patch of bare earth, as if the plants themselves were reluctant to disturb the place’s melancholy.

Biff slowed, stalking the intruder, lips drawn back, growl silenced but eager to burble forth.

It seemed he wasn’t the only defender – the house itself shivered protest. The front door appeared to be threaded with heat, a nothingness that vibrated outward, waves that were invisible except that they affected the air around them. An arc of dust motes born on the winds of energy rushed at the intruder and shattered against him. His own shield shimmered then, hugging his body, protection formed like the ripples off tarmac on a hot day, quintessence in its energy state.

Biff had no idea how this kind of thing worked. But the house was clearly…better, stronger, because the stranger swore and leaped back.

Biff crouched low and sprang at him, growling.

The man finally realized he had company.

“What the hell?” The intruder had a deep, sharp voice, with the hint of an accent. Eastern European, perhaps? Biff snapped at him.

The man smelled of pine aftershave under the coolant, the expensive kind that bankers used. Not quite sure what he should do, Biff crowded the man toward the house, trapping him between a wolf and a charged place.

Max came crashing through the overgrowth. He’d even less grace than normal, navigating a garden he’d let grow verdant with neglect.

The intruder feinted to one side, but Biff herded him back, hackles up, still growling.

“Who are you?” demanded Max.

The man was bulky and wore a too-small hoodie pulled over his head, a baseball hat under that, shadowing his eyes, and a scarf wound around his throat and mouth. The scarf was expensive-looking. The hat brim wasn’t bent and the hoodie smelled new. It was as if this guy had copied his look from a late ‘90s TV show about hoodlums.

Mr Hoodie-Banker didn’t answer Max – he just made a flipping kind of movement with his hand. The shimmer about his body moved in toward his wrists and then coalesced there, growing into a ball, activated quintessence picking up dust in the air, bits of cobweb, and confused gnats. It became a dirty, pulsing, grayish thing.

Biff stepped in front of Max, growling even louder.

Max said to him, “Don’t be ridiculous. This is the only thing I’m good for. It’s practically my purpose in life.”

The gray ball got bigger.

“Dude, only one?” Max said to their new friend and then, out the side of his mouth to Biff, “Do you think he feels inadequate with only one ball? I mean, it happens to lots of men, but it’s hard to get over.”

Biff chuffed at him in a tone he hoped conveyed This is no time for your lip, pretty man.

The point was made because Max sighed and got serious. “This is going to hurt like hell.”

Biff scooted back so they were touching – somehow, it seemed important.

The man was going to throw that thing at them, and Max was going to disPlace it, because Max was a Placer and this, this was a Surge-level civic mage in front of them.

Biff remembered the words of his old Alpha. “Savage abilities will only get you so far, pup. Not that I ever want you up against one, but if it comes to werewolf versus Surge, you run. Surges win ninety-nine percent of the time. No shame in running from those odds.”

Biff refused to run – he had Max.

At the very last moment, the Surge turned and threw that ball of gray at the door of the big house.

“Get down!” yelled Max.

Biff did as ordered, flattening himself to the ground, back legs splayed, tail pressed down. Max, next to him, balled up in the fetal position. Biff moved to curl around his mage in a heartbeat, stretching out the tip of his tail to protect as much of the sumage as he could.

The house exploded with tingling, nauseating rage. Or that’s what it felt like. The ground shook with an invisible force, and shards of gray nothingness arced up and over them, dust motes sparkling. There were no real objects mixed in, was just quintessence. Tons and tons of quintessence, fractured and vibrating about them, twisted and tumbling and destructive. Hot with unstable energy, redolent with the scent of coolant and ozone and power. Not like electricity but almost. Biff feared for the underbrush, but nothing caught fire. Although the plants, where the shards of gray touched them, were blackened as if burned. Invisible lines reverberated out from the house, leaving fractured black tracks all around on that bare earth, like the trace lines of Max’s skin.

And the hoodie mage was gone.

* * *

Max was prepared for the pain. For that sensation of skin splitting open all along his tracers.

That wasn’t what he got.

He’d been prepared for a direct hit from one mage, not an indirect from a Surge and an enchantment. He’d gotten a double-down of quintessence, two explosions at once. He struggled to Place it, to protect himself and Bryan at the same time, no way to guide reemergence, just let the quintessence sweep through him and dissipate however it could.

He wasn’t sure what he’d open his eyes to see. Except that as soon as the quintessence was finished with him, he was bound to be in a world of pain.

And this evening had started out with such a nice date.

He didn’t pass out like he expected.

He didn’t blink awake to burning agony like he expected.

Instead, he found his face being washed by a rough, wet tongue.

“What?” He opened his eyes.

Trace lines extended all around them – the enchantment had defended itself. The vegetation above him was burned black in places. The mage had definitely thrown an energy attack. But there was nothing near them. No tracers marred the earth in a foot radius around Max and Bryan. No black marks singed his wolf’s fur.

Okay, thought Max. Did I disPlace into a shield? Didn’t think that was possible. Maybe I disPlaced only the dangerous parts of both spells? Smart of me. How’d I do that? Much less quintessence to handle that way. Guess that’s why I don’t hurt like usual.

He did a careful mental check through his body.

I don’t hurt at all. That’s…odd.

The rough tongue licked his cheek again. He turned to look into a worried lupine face. Yellow eyes.

“I’m okay. More than okay. I’m oddly good. I think maybe I kinda borrowed some of your savage abilities, or your healer’s training worked with me to protect us both. I should hurt a lot more after Placing two discharges like that, but I don’t.” He gathered himself together. “Where’s our friend?”

The wolf gave a low growl.

“Gone?”

A soft chuff of agreement.

“Well. Poop.”

Another chuff.

They were still lying on the ground and the big wolf was curled close around him. He began snuffling Max in a worried fashion.

“I’m really fine. Stop. That tickles.”

Max eased himself up. Expecting more. Expecting to ache. Nothing.

He stood, gingerly. The wolf stood as well. His big yellow eyes watched Max with obvious concern.

He was a massive creature. Conservation of mass dictated that the wolf be the size of the man, and Bryan was a big dude, easily two- twenty. In wolf form, he was all muscles under a thick dirty cream coat, mottled with black, gray, and brown.

He woofed softly at Max, and leaned against his legs. His massive fan of a tail thudded gently against Max’s thigh.

“He was smart to take on the enchantment. He had to know I could Place a single cast, so he arranged it so I had to handle two instead.”

The wolf looked back and forth between him and the house, then chuffed a question.

“My dear dad’s last gift to the universe. You can see why he did it? Ye ol’ Gray Ball there isn’t the first to try for whatever Dad left inside. I doubt he’ll be the last. Thanks for the assist, by the way. Although I would have just left him to learn the truth on his own. You needn’t run to the house’s defense. It can take care of itself. Shall we?” Max turned to head back to the relative safety of his little apartment.

There was a sad, sharp crunching noise behind him, like a really crispy cracker being eaten by a man with dentures. Max turned in time to find a large, hot, naked man standing where the wolf had just been.

Max was staring or he would have missed the brief wince of pain on Bryan’s face.

I forgot, it hurts him. Every time.

Max stepped in against him, quickly. “Hi.” He threaded his fingers through the werewolf’s thick hair, so much softer in this form.

Big hands instantly went to his shoulders, rubbing up and down Max’s arms – comfort for him, or reassurance for Bryan, it was hard to tell which. But it was nice.

“Why aren’t you more concerned? You sure the house’s wards are enough?” Bryan grumbled.

“Not wards – that sucker is an enchantment. And yeah, it’s enough. Always has been. Nobody expects an enchantment. It’s like the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Sorry?”

“Python? No? Oh my god, I must give you a geek education. This is San Francisco – you can’t walk around ignorant of such things. You’ll destroy all my street cred. Anyway, my father left an enchantment over the place. Not wards. Surges pretty much suck at wards – that’s a Siphon’s game, even if wards could stay active after their mage’s death. Which they can’t. And trust me, Dad is very, very dead.”

“So, how does the enchantment still exist?”

Max wasn’t sure he wanted to explain the intricacies of bonded quintessence to a super-hot naked man who, given they’d just escaped near death, should be screwing his brains out right now.

“Sex first. Then maybe later I’ll explain the standard requirements needed to construct a lingering active quintessence state – full coven, six members, two of each civic class.”

“Combining Siphons, Sluices, and Surges?”

“Exactly. So, if any one dies, the others hold the spell in Place.”

“Remotely? Huh. And they cast one enchantment for each member of the group, like a trade?”

“Exactly. Activated upon that member’s death.”

“Right. Got it. So, what was that about sex first, then explanations?”

“You’re the one still talking.”