Blake tapped a cig from the pack of Tareytons, relishing in the slick feel of the carton beneath his fingers. He caught one of the gang eyeing his pack as he tucked it away again in the inside pocket of his leather jacket, though they didn’t ask for a smoke.
No one ever asked him for a smoke. Tareyton was a shitty brand. Couldn’t even find it in Walmart anymore because they didn’t sell well enough to be worth it, especially considering how cheap they were to begin with. A guy had to work to find a cigarette so shitty these days, either by browsing the skeevy sorts of corner stores that would sell booze to preteens for the right price, or ordering from wholesalers online. That was where he got his, buying a carton each month. 200 cigarettes a month. Six or seven a day. That worked for him. He wasn’t completely dependent like some of these guys. He just liked the smooth buzz it gave him, the dulled edge of calm. Always had, even when he’d tried his first.
After the puking stopped, of course.
Why he got into this habit of buying Tareyton, he didn’t know. Saving that extra $10 a month or so by buying them so cheap didn’t actually add up to much. What could he get with $10? A shitty fast food meal? Great. Wonderful. He’d get right on that.
There were a few reasons he could think of, though. They weren’t big reasons, not enough to justify his habit, but at least they were something. The first reason was that he liked the package best. Sure, Marlboro was also red and white, but Tareyton was simple. Clean. Distinctive, with its two vertical bars of red. A person could look at a pack of Camels or Marlboro and recognize the box, but they had to ask what kind he had if they were seeing it for the first time. And he’d be damned if he didn’t like the attention.
The other reason was he liked the old ads. That was what really caught his attention. Just these images of folks with black eyes, saying they’d rather get in a fight than give up their smokes. And Blake could appreciate that. Fuck yeah, he’d take a swing at a punk telling him what to do. No hesitation.
He and his gang were loitering, smoking, and flipping the butts into the street to let the sparks fizzle out on their own. It was him, Pinocchio, Fox, Pete, and Li’l Nickie. They ran together pretty damn good, even though they weren’t a pack. In fact, they were from three different packs. Some days, he thought about suggesting that they stop being just a gang and become a pack, but the fact was he didn’t think the others were in as deep as he was. They could back out. Hell, Pinocchio was taking college courses online, Fox and Pete both had jobs at the movie theater, and Nickie’s boyfriend was over the moon for her and would save her ass anytime.
Blake didn’t have a fallback. He liked it that way. Without risk, where was the reward, right?
Besides, they weren’t really a gang. They didn’t have a territory, didn’t have enemies, didn’t bother any of the other punks to prove who was more macho. No, they just started shit and ended shit.
But today, there wasn’t really any shit to get into.
Last week, they’d gone a bit over the line and started a fire in a trash can. A juvenile prank from the minds of a group of wolves who were all over 20—Pinocchio was the oldest at 29 and was sporting some gray in his beard. Nickie was 21, and Blake was squarely in the middle at a solid 25—but everyone needed to act a little younger than their age sometimes. So they’d started the fire in this overflowing trash can and then hid in the shadows to watch. The fire department was called. Good shit. Except the heat inside the metal can must have hit something flammable. Pete suggested a canister of insect repellant, or something similar, because they always had warnings on them, but Blake was pretty sure it was a discarded gas canister. It was the vapors of gas, the fumes, which burned the best.
The garbage can exploded. Nickie’s cheek got sliced open so bad you could see her teeth through the gap. Blake felt his stomach do a slow roll as he remembered catching a glimpse of yellowed ivory through the blood. He thought at the time that he should tell her she needed to brush better because he could see flecks of green in the spaces between her teeth. The thought was tinged with hysteria, which he didn’t like. He was in control, goddammit. All the time. Nothing was supposed to get to him.
But seeing Nickie hurt had done it. She didn’t scream, didn’t cry—she wasn’t a fucking girl, she was fond of saying—but the pain in her eyes scared him bad.
In the end, she required a lot of stitching and stapling, but the doctors said that the mouth is a pretty resilient place, and she’d be able to eat spicy foods again in no time. Until then, she had to drink through a straw and that included her meals. Soup and smoothies was the name of the game. She’d have a wicked scar, too. They were all pretty hyped about that.
They hadn’t gotten caught on-scene, and they’d made up a story about her tripping onto a broken bottle lying in the street to tell the doctors at the ER. The doctors hadn’t asked, hadn’t really cared. Still, the resulting chaos meant that area was off-limits for the time being.
So, now they were here, sequestered on the far side of the scene, away from the waterfront, bored out of their goddamn minds.
As Blake smoked, looking around the bustling Portsmouth street, Pete finished his own cig—L&M—and tossed the butt down by his feet to crush it out. The flame left a dark smudge against the concrete sidewalk. “I don’t know about you fuckers, but I got a shift at the theater in about a half hour, and I ain’t being late again.”
Blake waved one hand, watching the way the lazy curls of smoke tangled around his fingers. “Go on, fucker,” he grunted. “Go be a good and obedient member of society.”
Pete spat a filmy black wad on the sidewalk. “Shit, no.”
“Shit, yes,” Fox said and cackled. “That’s all he does. Sometimes twice. Takes half an hour each time.”
He was rewarded with a round of laughter.
Pete growled at them, hackles visibly bristling, but it was all in good fun, and he wasn’t particularly bothered by it. “See if I ever give you a discount again.” He waved his hand in a mockery of Blake, turning it into a flamboyant flourish. The others all laughed again as he sauntered off, shoulders back and head held up high. After a moment, a faint curl of smoke wafted away from him on the fierce wind.
Blake hated that little flourish just as much as he didn’t mind it. It was a weird brew of feelings, to be offended by something yet to know he shouldn’t be offended. Blake was as gay as a man could be, bent like his grandpa’s old hatband. That some people in this world could still use gay mannerisms as insults or taunts was confusing to him. Yet, at the same time, despite the fact that he hadn’t told his gang, he was very proud of himself, very accepting of what he was, and he couldn’t be hurt by the truth.
I’m not intellectual enough for this shit, he thought, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
But now Pinocchio was straightening up from the wall. “I should get going, too. Got some homework to get done. And no offense Blake, but I’m bored as fuck.”
Nickie nodded her agreement. “I got a date tonight. It’s not until eight, but I’d rather wait it out at home where I’m not freezing my ass off.”
Pinocchio nodded too. Blake had known his real name at some point, just like he’d known Fox’s and Nickie’s, but he’d forgotten all of them because those identities didn’t matter to him. “I’m headed your way for a bit. I’ll walk you.”
They headed off together, speaking quietly but enthusiastically. Watching them, Blake wondered if there might not be some chemistry between them. Nickie’s boyfriend was a sappy beta, and she could easily replace him. Then again, maybe she liked having a slave.
He looked at Fox, who was a little red-headed omega wolf, only 22 and the newest of their group. He’d debated a long time before letting the kid in, reasoning that the small punk would be safer with them than without. He was fast, with sticky fingers. Blake knew a few of the more interesting things the omega lifted, which included three goldfish and a puppy—on the same day—one of those owl lawn statues, a four-foot tall teddy bear, a vacuum cleaner, and an entire metal tub of ice cream from a Baskin Robbins. He politely returned the tub the next day after eating everything inside. Little bastard even washed it out first.
Yeah, Fox was okay. A gangly, hyper nuisance, but okay.
“What about you?” Blake asked, looking at the redhead as he chewed a piece of nicotine gum. Kid wasn’t trying to quit, he just liked gum. “You got someplace else to be right now?”
Fox shook his head. His blue eyes sparkled. “No way!” he said. “It’s still early. Something could happen.”
That’s the kind of attitude I like to see.
Nickie said something once about the combination of red hair and blue eyes, that it was the most uncommon in the world. Blake didn’t know anything about that, but he did think Fox’s eyes were the best part of him.
The quietest part, too.
“Good deal,” Blake said. “Let’s take a walk, yeah?”
“Sure!”
They stepped away from the side of the bank where they were loitering. Blake could almost feel the sigh of relief that escaped the building as they left, and he led the omega off down the nearby alley to get to the next street. As they passed by a window, Fox pulled the chewed wad of gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the sill.
Blake barked a laugh. He knew from experience that dried nico’ gum was a bitch to remove from a surface. And hair.
Just before they reached the end of the alley, a soft voice murmured, “Hold it, boys.”
Blake spun around, a growl rising in his throat. He automatically pushed Fox behind him to keep the omega from harm, because this situation reeked of danger. The sound came from behind, though he hadn’t heard any footsteps. And now a man was stepping around a jumble of trash bags that had been shoved into an alcove. Why he’d been hiding there, Blake could only guess. He cursed himself for not realizing someone was lying in wait to ambush them but the alley stank. He couldn’t have smelled a bouquet of roses if they were right under his nose.
He didn’t need that particular scent to figure out the approaching man was a shapeshifter. It was in the way he moved, the low angle of his broad shoulders. The man didn’t simply walk; he skulked...he stalked.
“What do you want?” Blake growled. He reached out with his senses, straining to identify the newcomer. He didn’t recognize him, and it would have been an easy enough task because this stranger was a very identifiable sort. His forehead was scored with a broad line of scar that canted down at an angle over the bridge of his nose, bisecting his upper lip and nicking the lower. At the end of that scar was another, striking back across his chin to form a crisp Z shape.
Beneath the ridge of the top scar, the stranger’s eyes were a hypnotic shade of amber. His hair was salt-and-pepper, wild now but with the shadow of a sensible man’s flattop style lurking somewhere within.
Blake didn’t like those eyes. They were too hazy, too glazed, like butterscotch candies set in his face.
The stranger just shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted to congratulate you for that trick you just pulled now. With the gum.”
It wasn’t a trick, or even a prank. That was just something they did, like littering.
“You got a smoke?”
Fox let out a little yip of laughter from behind Blake. “No way, man! You don’t want any of his! They taste like dirt!”
Blake whipped his head around and growled at the omega, then reached into the inside pocket of his jacket to bring out the pack. He shook one out while the other man watched, then handed it over.
The man placed it in his mouth, eyes closing with contentment. “Got a light?”
Grudgingly, Blake produced his lighter and flipped the wheel to start the flame. The other man lifted his hand to shield the flame from a nonexistent wind and touched the tip of the cigarette, still in his mouth, to the dancing blue center. A faint drift of perfumed smoke wafted up.
The man said, “Maybe I wanted to tell you punks to stop making the rest of us look so goddamn bad.” He said it in a pleasant tone but the flash in his eyes was all wrong. Whipping his cupped hand forward, having used the pantomime of shielding the flame to transfer the lit cigarette he flicked sparks their way. The burning tip would have hit Blake’s wrist had he not seen it coming and jerked back. Instead, it singed his jacket sleeve.
Hot red washed over Blake’s vision. This jacket was the nicest damn thing he owned! It had cost a fortune because it was nice and because it was durable, meant to withstand motorcycle crashes without so much as a scuff. Just because he didn’t ride a bike didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate that durability.
Reaching out and grabbing onto the stranger’s hand, he yanked him forward so their noses bumped together. “What the fuck?” he hissed. The cig fell to the ground, and he stomped it out instinctively.
The man looked deep into his eyes. Blake was a willing punk, the leader of a gang, a troublemaker by nature, but looking at those candy eyes, he had to admit to himself he was in trouble here. He had about 30 lbs of pure muscle over him, but they were both the same height and this man had a lean, ragged look. But in the end, it all came back to those eyes. The haze. The yellow glisten.
Blake was looking at another alpha wolf, and the most dangerous sort. He wasn’t a lone wolf, which was something Blake respected. No, this was worse. The man was feral or on his way to becoming feral, in the middle of the process of slowly losing touch with his humanity. When that happened, he would lose his ability to speak, to reason, and he would forget he was a man. He would truly become a wolf and that was a horrific thing, to be only half of what you were meant to be.
And somewhere in the back of this man’s mind, he would know the whole time something was wrong with him and it would drive him into a frenzy.
Blake turned his head to look back at Fox. “Run!” he said, desperately.
Fox looked at him with his mouth open, slack with fear and surprise. Then, he bared teeth that were now pointed fangs, and sprang away with a flicker of russet fur. He was gone in an instant, dashing around the corner into broad daylight. He was so small that if anyone saw him they would assume he was just a stray dog. There was no danger there.
The danger was staring Blake in the face.
Blake curled his lip into a snarl, watching the double image of himself in those glassy orbs. He watched his teeth elongate into pointed fangs. “Back off, old man.”
The man opened his mouth as if to reply, then lunged for Blake’s neck with his jaws pushing forward into a furry gray snout.
Fuck!
Blake staggered backwards and let the other’s weight knock him to the ground. He rolled as they fell, using his greater mass as they struck to get on top. He transformed fully, hurrying himself through the change even though it was always swift. In an instant, he was no longer a man but a deadly animal killing machine with massive paws and razor-sharp fangs. A single bite could kill, severing a jugular vein or choking the life from his victim.
But he didn’t want to kill this bastard, not yet. He hoped in the back of his mind it wouldn’t come to that. Instead, he settled for ripping at the other wolf’s stomach with his thick, blunt claws to weaken him. Blood burst from the ragged wounds, spattering up at his face.
The alpha beneath him corkscrewed his body, tossing Blake away and scrabbling to his feet. Blake landed on his paws and swung back around, bushing out his fur to make himself appear twice as large as he already was. Alpha faced down alpha, circling in the tight alley, their fur brushing each other and the wall. Growls echoed in the enclosed space, deafeningly loud.
Let’s take a good look at you.
Blake examined his opponent as best as he could under the stress of the moment. In their wolf bodies, the differences were more pronounced. The other alpha was clearly scrawnier, older, with sprays of white decorating his grey coat, coalescing at his muzzle and eyebrows. His scar seemed even more pronounced, devoid of fur where it lay on his face. Everything else about the man was unextraordinary. Wolves come in a variety of colors and patterns so that no two are ever alike, but this one was lackluster, solid grey on top and slightly lighter beneath.
However, Blake wasn’t exactly dumb enough to take his opponent at face value after that dirty trick with the cigarette.
The other alpha made the first move, leaping suddenly. Blake ducked backwards, aiming to intercept him and then flip him through the air, a move he’d practiced for an uncountable number of times because of how devastating it was, but he encountered nothing. Startled, he realized too late the other wolf had also gone backwards for that first move and then forward again. He had no chance to move before a heavy body slammed down on his shoulders and drove him face-first into the dirt.
“Aurgh!” Blake snarled, pain wrenching through his foreleg as it twisted beneath him. He struggled but claws and teeth sank into his fur as the other alpha held on. It would take too long to dislodge him through ordinary means, so he pulled a second trick out of his hat and transformed back into a human. His body twisted and rearranged as it changed, thick fur receding. The wolf lost his grip, and Blake yanked himself away from him and stumbled forward to his feet. He had to push himself against the ground to do it, and his wrenched arm protested this indignity. He ran as fast as he could back the way they’d come down the alley, feeling a moment of resistance as the other wolf grabbed at his jeans. The fabric tore and he stumbled, falling out onto the sidewalk littered with still-warm cigarette butts. He scrambled out into the street, half-crawling and half-walking...
...into the path of an oncoming truck.
Please, no. Stop.
Flinging out his arms in front of his face, as if he could stop the truck through sheer force of willpower, a jolt of fear shot through him, so terrible and sharp that he thought he had actually been hit. Nothing else came afterwards, no pain, no shouting, no sensation of having his insides rearranged. Opening his eyes, he realized the truck had stopped a couple feet away.
The door opened and the driver leapt out. It was another man. A human. This was the first time Blake had been glad to see a human.
But what about the wolf?
The wolf who had been chasing him was nowhere to be seen.
“Thank god,” Blake growled, ignoring the human man trying to speak to him. “Good riddance!”
Relief was replaced with trepidation and a pounding fear mingled with rage as he was proven wrong in the very next second. The other alpha emerged from the shadows of the alley, human once more. He looked even more wild and crazed than before, saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
“Holy shit!” the human said, lurching away from Blake and leaping back inside his truck. Blake fully agreed with the sentiment but there was nothing he could do but stand up and face this like a man.
The alpha hit him head-on and they collapsed to the ground again. There was no finesse this time. No circling. No dirty tricks, and definitely no shapeshifting. They were only two aggressive men grappling with each other, wrestling and biting and punching. On the ground there was no real room for leverage but that didn’t stop them. Blake thought grimly somewhere in the back of his mind this must have been one of the most ridiculous-looking fights on earth but that wasn’t stopping the humans from being terrified. Terrified and amazed, as they either fled the scene or just stopped and stared. The man in the truck was on the phone, speaking hurriedly.
Blake lost all concept of time as he fought for his life. He couldn’t hear beyond the blood pounding in his ears, couldn’t see beyond the fury. All he knew was the body pressed up against him; the glancing blows that stung. He tasted blood, smelled it thick in the air. He had no idea who was winning or losing and that didn’t matter a single damn bit.
Then, through the pounding rush of his pulse, he heard a new sound. At first he couldn’t understand it, couldn’t make any sense of what had disturbed their battle. And then he knew.
A siren. But not just any siren: the blaring whoop of a cop car.
Then, there was another sound. A voice he recognized through the pain in the corner of his mouth as the other alpha wolf somehow managed to get enough leverage for a punch.
“Blake! Run! They’re coming!”
Fox, he recalled dimly. Suddenly, the red across his vision was cut through with a brighter glare, pulsing with blue. Someone yelled, the crowd parted, and suddenly he was being torn away from the other alpha by strong hands that reeked of human. He caught a glimpse of a blue uniform and a glistening gold badge and knew the police were here. He saw Fox in the distance over the cop’s broad linebacker shoulders, looking anxious and dumbstruck. The omega had been trying to warn him to break it off before the police arrived. He had to give the little guy credit for his loyalty, sticking around like that even after Blake had told him to scram.
“What’s going on here?” the cop demanded, dragging Blake up to his feet. Another cop was performing crowd control, shooing away the onlookers with her sharp commands. “Well?”
Blake looked at the other alpha and opened his mouth to explain he’d been merely cutting through the alley with his buddy when this bastard jumped him. He would call over Fox and get the kid to vouch for him. They’d haul away this worthless sack of shit and that would be the end of it.
But the other man had a different idea. He cut in before Blake could say a word. “This punk jumped me! No reason at all! Just wanted to get his kicks, I guess. Fucking disgrace, kids these days!”
“No, that’s not...” But he stopped, because Fox was still watching. Now was when he should get the kid involved to corroborate what had really happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to call attention to the omega. He was so young. He could do so many other things with his life. Hell, Nickie was young too but she had a support system in place. She knew how to handle herself. But Fox? Involving the redhead with the police in any way could only lead to disappointments down the line for him. That wasn’t fair.
So he just shut up and let it be. The omega didn’t come forward to volunteer anything on his own, and Blake thought that was pretty smart, that the younger man had already learned a very difficult lesson. Sometimes, a person needed to know when to let go; when to save himself. So, as the cop slapped some cuffs on Blake, he focused on the way the cold metal burned his wrists and tried not to look as scared as he felt. He had been arrested more than a few times in his life but a majority of those had been when he was underage, so the law could protect him. Once he was old enough that the system declared him in charge of his own actions, he had been more careful about being caught. And he’d never been caught for something so serious before, beating up on what the humans perceived to be an innocent homeless man.
The other alpha was not cuffed. He was allowed to ride up in the passenger seat of the cruiser, while the officer who had been previously sitting there went into the back with Blake. “Don’t try anything funny,” she warned, holding her baton on her lap as an open threat.
“Don’t worry,” he replied, turning away from her and looking out the window, he saw a last few straggling onlookers, and Fox in the distance with a perturbed expression on his face. Then, the cruiser headed out. No one spoke. There was only the sound of the engine purring and tires skittering on gravel.
Then, Blake saw him.
At first, he didn’t know why he was so interested in that random man sitting behind the steering wheel of a damn fine white Mustang. Their faces were almost parallel as they idled at the streetlight, together and yet separated by a distance that might as well have been a thousand miles, waiting for the light to turn green so they could be on the way to their separate destinations.
The man looked very ordinary, at first glance. He was slim but not overly slender, at least from what Blake could see of him. The oversized sweater he wore might have made him seem smaller than he really was. Through the dark of the tinted window, his hair was a well-tamed mass of purposeful black curls. He had a thin wisp of moustache, a groomed patch of beard which encircled his chin and touched the corners of his mouth. His eyes were pale, the color indistinguishable.
Overall, he was just another face, just another human on his way to some dead-end job in a skyscraper. He looked like a cubicle worker, like a man who would tell the same genre of jokes every day around the water cooler. He would be funny and kind, but not exceptional, hilarious, or memorable. He was the sort of man who might be described as “boring” or “very nice.”
But as the light turned green and their vehicles started to move once more, the man glanced over through the window. Their eyes locked. And now Blake saw. Now he understood what he had been glimpsing all this time without quite realizing it.
He was sad. No, not simply sad, but absolutely miserable. His shoulders were broader than the rest of him, and the slightest definition of muscle pressed against the fabric of his bulky sweater, but his back was bowed as if some impossible weight pressed down on him. His shoulders slumped, carrying the weight of the world. His mouth sagged, as if the hairs of his beard dragged it down. There were dark blurs beneath his eyes, a testament to total exhaustion. Though Blake thought they might be around the same age, the man had lines along his eyes, forehead, and mouth, as if he was far older.
Holy shit, he thought. What’s the matter with you?
Then the man turned off down another street and he sat back again, unaware he’d been straining hard at his seatbelt until just then. Hell, no matter what was about to happen to him, at least he wasn’t so burdened as that.
At least he hadn’t given up on all this yet, like that man had.