Roman felt the walls shake from the act and
closed his eyes. He could hear Butch shoveling the walkway, caught
a scent of him still lingering. Roman headed to the kitchen and
looked at the neat counter tops, the room tidied up after their
meal. He opened the refrigerator. A white paper package was on a
shelf. He knew by the sight and scent it was raw meat.
His mouth began to water.
Roman closed the refrigerator door,
attempting to gain control. But it had been so long since this had
happened, he craved it. Craved the power.
With an effort he did not eat the meat,
although he wanted to. Wanted to chew on that raw steak. Roman
stood at the back door, looking out of the sheer curtain into the
darkness. Snow still fell, silently, but the inches were adding
up.
He was hit with a memory. The ranch in Heber,
the tiny hut on the far edge of the property…skulls, skins,
feathers…jars of unknown liquids and candles. An inverted
pentagram. Charlie had been locked in that hut by…something. A
female spirit? A demon?
As a wolf Charlie had clawed at the door,
unable to calm down enough to change back to human form, going mad
being trapped, caged. Roman remembered being a wolf, trying to get
Charlie out of that hut. Charlie kept morphing inside the trap from
wolf, to crow, to human, until he was so exhausted he couldn't
move.
Then, even worse than that…when Roman called
his fellow ATF agent, Phil Dean, to come investigate…they found a
dead body under the floorboards of the hut. A young street woman's
corpse had been decomposing slowly in the icy temperatures.
Roman rested his forehead on the cold window
glass. He felt the moon even though it was not visible through the
thick clouds. He peeked at his hands. His nails were glowing white.
Roman stared at them in awe. He touched his face, his jaw and neck.
A tingle rushed his spine. He was on the verge. With everything he
had he battled it back. His teeth began to ache and his stomach
twist.
Just as he felt he was under control,
something lunged at the back door. White fangs bared, a large wolf
leapt at him, snapping its formidable jaws at him through it.
Roman gasped and jumped back. "Charlie?" But
this wolf was white. White as the snow it was surrounded by.
"Butch!" Roman panicked for the young man out
shoveling snow.
"What?" Charlie bumped into Roman as Roman
headed to the front door.
"There's a wolf outside." Roman grabbed his
jacket.
"A wolf? No. Then why are you going out?"
"Butch is out there!" Roman opened the front
door and the icy gust and sleeting snow hit him instantly.
Butch had shoveled a path from the house to
the driveway. The light powdery snow was at least six inches deep
and still coming down.
Roman walked in the deep drifts to the back
of the house, holding the collar up around his neck. He sniffed the
air, but caught nothing with his acute senses.
As he rounded the bend to the back of the
ranch house, a man was standing at his back door. No coat. No
barrier against the cold. All in black, his huge muscular arms
exposed, he faced Roman. The stranger was holding a broadsword.
Roman shook his head, thinking he was
hallucinating. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Nothing was
there.
"Roman?" Charlie's voice came from behind
him.
Roman walked closer to the back door, looking
at the snow. Nothing. No prints. No trace of either wolf or
man.
"What is it? Why are you out here? I don't
see no wolf tracks. You sure?"
"I'm not sure of anything anymore." Roman
tried to look out in the distance, across their vast property. But
it was pitch black and the snow was blinding.
"Come inside. Butch is already indoors. This
ain't no kind of night to be out for man nor beast."
He felt Charlie's hand on his arm. Roman kept
staring at the snow for a sign. But there wasn't any. Had he
imagined it all?
~
Charlie walked around the house, hearing
Roman behind him. When they made it to the front door, Charlie
said, "Let me just look in on the horses. Will ya behave with
Butch?"
Roman gave Charlie a tired look and kicked
the snow off his shoes, leaning with one hand on the front door
frame of the house.
Charlie walked the path Butch had cleared
across the gravel driveway to the barn. He opened the door and
turned on a single light, not the overhead fluorescents. The horses
shifted and snorted. Their two goats chewed on the feed, calm,
giving him their attention. The barn was heated, but only to keep
the water from freezing. A few chickens were awake and scattered as
he entered.
One squawked as if he were a fox, flapping
and making an escape in a trail of feathers.
Charlie headed down the center of the barn,
glancing into each stall at the dozen horses they kept for public
trail riding. He walked close to his own horse, Spirit, and noticed
the big brown horse did not greet him as usual, keeping back to the
far end of the stall.
"Not you now." Charlie reached for his
pet.
The horse snorted and showed the whites of
its eyes.
"It's me. You know it's me."
The horse pressed its ears back in warning
and did not look happy.
Charlie was too tired for the effort. As long
as the animals were comfortable, that was fine by him. He headed
out of the barn and before he shut the light he noticed something
near his pickup truck. Closing the barn door behind him, Charlie
crept over to look. A shadow in the heavily falling snow seemed to
elude him. "Roman?" He pursued it, wondering if someone was outside
in the freezing weather.
Once he'd made his way around to the front of
the truck he could see two glowing amber eyes in the darkness,
staring at him. "What the fuck?" Struggling to see through the
blinding snow, and unable to stand the cold for much longer,
Charlie thought about getting a flashlight and trying to see what
it was, but he was too tired and if it was just a curious animal,
it wouldn't do any harm.
He knew the mountains had plenty of wildlife
roaming free. So far none had been a nuisance. He rubbed his cold
hands together and returned to the house, seeing the path Butch had
cleared already coated in snow.
Just before he entered his home, he looked
back at the driveway. An image of a man, standing staring at him,
all dressed in black, holding a large sword at his side, startled
Charlie. He blinked and it was gone.
"Lord have mercy. I must be tired." He kicked
the snow from his boots and entered the house, taking off his
cowboy hat and brushing off the white flakes that had landed on it,
then he shut and locked the door.
Once inside, Charlie peeked out of the
curtain on the front window. Nothing could be seen but the whipping
snow.
"The horses okay?"
Charlie took off his coat and hung it on the
rack, seeing Butch sitting in the living room, watching television,
a beer in his hand.
"Yeah. They're fine. Where's Roman?"
Butch tilted his head to the kitchen.
Charlie tugged off his cowboy boots and
walked in stocking feet to see Roman, staring out of the back door
window. He leaned against his back, feeling Roman sigh as he
did.
"Everythin'll be all right." Charlie hugged
him from behind.
Roman didn't answer, but relaxed in Charlie's
arms.
Once he and Charlie washed up for bed, Roman
could hear the television still on in the living room. Butch stayed
up late most nights, being a fan of late night talk shows and
reality nonsense. Roman didn't have the patience for television.
The news irritated him and the programs insulted his intelligence.
Charlie didn't seem to care much for the TV either, other than the
weather reports.
Roman was the only one in the house with a
computer, laptop, and smart phone. But he needed it to be connected
at work as well as his family.
Charlie shut off the nightstand lamp and
relaxed beside Roman in bed with a loud sigh. In the dimness of
their simple master bedroom, the walls bare and only a slatted
blind on the window, Roman stared at Charlie's profile. The dark
did not dim his sight. He could see every detail of their room
clearly.
Those wolf senses were kicking in full
force.
As if he knew Roman was staring at him,
Charlie turned to towards him. When Roman met those glowing blue
irises he stifled a gasp. "You too?"
Charlie rolled over on his side, facing
Roman. "Yes. Jus' lately. I didn't want to say nothin'."
"I'm nervous, Charlie." Roman crushed the
pillow under his head. "What about my work? Driving to Reno…Last
thing I need is to change into a fucking wolf on duty."
"Yer boys remember that shit from two years
ago?"
"Phil Dean does, of course. He used to be on
the same ATF team as me until I moved to Nevada and he stayed on in
Utah. And Nick Hoffman, my supervisor here. He knows."
"I remember them boys." Charlie nodded. "Ya
better tell Nick."
"I don't want to. He'll force me to take time
off or go for more testing. And I have no idea how to fix
this."
Charlie appeared to concentrate, then said,
"Ophelia?"
A shiver washed over Roman's spine at the
name. "The red witch."
"Yes. That just came to me. I haven't thought
of that name since we changed."
Roman felt his arms tingle and a brush of icy
air rush over him. He tugged the heavy quilt higher on his naked
shoulder. "Charlie, how are we supposed to find her? Find anyone or
anything associated with that cult?"
"Yer the agent. You tell me." Charlie
caressed Roman's cheek.
"We keep files, but that's a dead case. It's
not like they were firearms dealers or violent criminals. There's
no activity. No reason to have kept up intel or surveillance. And
the local homicide unit turned the death of that transient girl
into a cold case. No one knows how she died."
Charlie's stare was intense.
At the sensual glare, Roman felt his groin
tingle.
Slowly, Charlie leaned closer, cupping
Roman's head from behind. When their lips met, it was like an
electrical charge had washed through Roman. He moaned in pure
pleasure and pinned Charlie to the bed. Running his hands along
Charlie's arms to his wrists, Roman held him down, grinding his
cock against Charlie's as they both grew wild with excitement.
The scent of Charlie's skin, his aftershave,
the musky soap they used, filled Roman's senses. Deeply inhaling
the tantalizing smells, he opened his teeth wider and sucked
Charlie's tongue into his mouth.
Charlie whimpered under him and spread his
legs, submissive to Roman's power.
"God! I love you!" Roman panted between
kisses, grinding against Charlie's body, rubbing their stiff cocks
together.
"Roman…Jesus…you are so fuckin' amazing!"
Charlie hooked his ankles behind Roman's back and they dry humped
each other in a frenzy of movement.
Roman closed his eyes and arched his back,
squeezing Charlie's wrists and feeling as if he could come just
from the hot friction.
"God! Oh, God!" Charlie planted his feet back
on the bed and thrust his hips under Roman, fast and hard.
Roman pressed down and ground his jaw at the
intensity. "Fuck! Fuck!" Roman was on the edge of a climax.
Charlie broke the grip of Roman's hands,
grabbed his jaw and drew Roman to his mouth. As they kissed,
blowing out air from their nostrils like wild beasts, Roman came,
feeling the skin between them slick with sweat and cum.
~
Butch pointed the remote control at the
television, shutting it. It was late and he finally felt tired
enough to sleep, having nodded off on the sofa. As soon as the
sound was quieted on the TV set, he heard the men having sex in
their bedroom. Butch tossed the remote control down on the coffee
table, made sure the fire was contained in the hearth and began
shutting lights.
Washing up in a bathroom in the hall, Butch
got ready for bed.
He then walked towards his private bedroom
and stood outside the master bedroom's door.
"…oh, God…you amazing bastard…"
Butch leaned closer to the door at hearing
Roman's voice.
Occasionally they let him in on the sex. But
he had never screwed either, nor had oral sex with them. They let
him watch. Or, they watched him jerk himself off.
As their gasping became audible, so did
something else. Snarls. Growls.
Butch blinked and pressed his ear to the
door. What had sounded like human whimpers of passion had morphed
into canine rumblings. Hoping Charlie was not at the mercy of Roman
in wolf form, Butch swung open the door.
He gasped to see two wolves on the bed, one
all black, the other tan, biting playfully at each other. The big
black wolf had the tan one pinned under him and they were pawing
and nipping at each other while they made tiny sounds of joy.
"Shit!" Butch quickly closed the door when
both wolves looked his way. His heart pounding, Butch made sure the
door was shut tight and caught his breath at the shock. His legs
shaking, he made it to his own bedroom and shut the door, locking
it.
Taking a minute to recover, Butch had seen
this before. In Heber. Oh, yes. He remembered that insanity. At
first it was just Roman changing into a big black wolf…or a crow.
Then of course after Roman bit Charlie, they both changed.
Now? After two years of peace and quiet its
back?
Butch opened his closet and removed a leather
case from it. He rested it on the foot of his bed and unsnapped it,
taking out a twelve gauge shotgun. He loaded it with three rounds
and cocked it, filling the chamber.
He caught his own reflection in a mirror over
a low dresser in front of his bed. A man was standing behind him,
all in black, his muscular arms showing from his sleeveless black
shirt, and in his hands was a large sword.