Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

Newly born, he roared at the gleaming Chaste Moon from atop the California Tower’s east balcony.

There were mortals in the park who heard him—some likely saw him standing overhead—but I didn’t care. My first experience of bringing forth a new wolf overwhelmed me. Though I’d seen the ritual done before, by Sempronio in Como and Maximo in Burgundy, I’d never performed the act myself. It moved me inexpressibly that my first test as Omega was to bring my love, Daniel Archer, into this world.

He turned back at me with an agitated growl, but I approached him without fear. Reaching up, I ran my hand gently alongside his face, curling my fingers around the thick, silken black hair that crowned his massive head.

Welcome, beloved.

He bowed slowly to acknowledge my greeting and let me kiss his forehead.

Disrobing, I prepared for what I’d been dreaming of and transformed to let his physical eyes see my protector again. He unashamedly made his hunger for me known, falling to his knees to sniff my scent. I couldn’t stop myself from stirring his attraction. But before he could take me, I stepped back toward the tower’s north balcony and leaped into the moonlight. I landed heavily upon the sapphire and canary tiles of the California Building’s colossal dome roof.

Follow me, I told his mind.

The construction sat upon the edge of a deep ravine, connected to the west side of the park by the tall Cabrillo Bridge. I leapt down the building’s exterior levels until I reached the park floor. Pushing forward, I descended the steep ravine walls into the darkness beyond the reach of the pedestrian lamps. At the small lake near the base of the bridge, I waited for Daniel to catch up.

He was more than distracted by his new strength, and I heard his mind rumble like a storm as it processed the new senses available to him.

Stop here. Quiet yourself and breathe.

Daniel was sincerely challenged to follow my instructions, but he calmed enough to focus on my voice.

Listen to the sounds around us. Do you hear the humans in the park above? Can you see their locations with your sense of smell? Can you feel the rhythm of their minds pulsing together; that noise that pulls and pushes the link between them?

He didn’t answer, but I knew he was lost in the compulsive sensations I distinguish.

Now, look at all again, but this time, see it only through my mind.

Daniel did as I instructed. As lycan, we had already telepathically shared images and sounds. I’d shown him memories of my life to reveal who I truly was. It was through my mind he’d seen Henry’s crimes. But as a werewolf, he could sense so much more from me. He saw the light in every living being; he heard their hearts beating; he saw the color of their emotions.

Now, run beside me.

I took off north at a frightening speed, flying along the creek that ran through the bottom of the ravine. Staying with me, Daniel witnessed all of life laid out before us. The full moon lit the world my eyes saw, and the light emanating from within each living being illuminated my mind.

A family of coyotes pulled back as they sensed our approach, screaming in fear and warning. Daniel howled back in at them in ecstasy as we passed by.

From up ahead, I saw the red color of fear that I searched for. Up near the top of the ridge, someone was terrified, and the sound of their fear flooded my senses.

Daniel shot forward, his powerful legs pushing him up the ravine slope to a home that bordered the park’s northwest edge. He slowed right outside the back door, trying to understand what was happening inside.

There were two men in the house, lurking through rooms with dim flashlights, searching for what they could easily steal. They’d already found some silver, but they couldn’t believe the large, expensive house bore nothing else they could take.

The dark red light came from a young woman under a bed, quietly paralyzed with fear. From the woman’s mind, I saw she peered in the darkness, trying to find the slow stream of blood she knew was moving across the polished floorboards toward her. It came from her lover, whose corpse lay on the floor beside the bed—his throat was cut.

There had been a struggle; the sharp memories played over and over in this woman’s mind. They had just started to make love when the sound of glass shattering downstairs had stopped him. Slinging on a robe, he’d paused only when they heard footsteps creaking up the stairs.

“Hide,” he had whispered.

No sooner had she moved to the side of the bed when she heard a loud struggle, and she crawled into the tight space underneath. With a slam, her lover’s body landed on the floor beside her. Still, she stifled her scream. The poor man struggled to get back up, but someone had stabbed him in the chest, and he clutched clumsily to the wound.

A pair of loafers stepped up to the shivering man, and a switchblade sliced through his throat, pulled by a leather-gloved hand. She’d never seen anything so horrifying but didn’t cry out, not even when the spurting blood shot from his neck to land beside her.

A beam of light pointed at the man’s face, and she saw that he was dead. His open and unfocused eyes stared in her direction.

The memories recycled, again and again, the terror repeating in waves. Alone in the room, she couldn’t see her lover’s eyes well in the dark, but the intruders might come back and shine the flashlight on the dead man again. She might scream this time, she worried, and she tried not to think what might happen if they turned the lamps on in the room.

One of the men whispered to the other to come to see what he found. It was a woman’s handbag sitting on a side table by the living room sofa. After a moment’s search to identify the contents, they both surmised a woman was in the house and headed back to the stairs to locate her.

Daniel pushed the open rear door in and stepped on the shattered glass at his feet. He couldn’t enter without upsetting the floorboards due to his size, but none of it mattered. He had no interest in a stealth approach.

Taken by surprise, the two intruders shined their flashlights in Daniel’s direction. Their beams caught him for only a second before fluttering erratically as the flashlights were dropped in the confusion of their screams. They stumbled over each other to retreat toward the front of the house, but it was no use.

Daniel set upon the first intruder, moving so fast that the villain only heard his angry approach in the dark before feeling his talons slice across the skin of his face. In seconds, his upper torso was ripped to shred, the blood and viscous sprayed in every direction to coat the walls and furniture of the living room. Daniel stopped only a moment to enjoy the satisfaction of the first intruder’s suffering, who was still alive and struggling to breathe in bewildered shock.

The other man made it to his feet long enough to arrive at the front door and pry it open. He stumbled down the front porch stairs and fell onto the lawn. In the scattered moonlight, filtered by the branches of overhead trees, he tried again to get his bearings. He blinked wildly to see his car parked a hundred feet down Seventh Avenue. Without reason, his excited mind believed that if he could only make it to the vehicle, he could escape.

From behind, Daniel ripped the man’s head clean off his body, which slumped to the grass in violent spasms. He roared at the triumph of his kill, raising manic barks from every dog in the neighborhood. Lights turned on in the houses across the street.

Daniel reached for his victim’s corpse and slung it over his shoulder. He raced back past me into the house, where he picked up the other man’s body and hurried through to the back door. Daniel pushed on through the back yard until arriving at the ravine slope. One by one, he flung the bodies down into the brush. He then threw the unlucky intruder’s head like a football clear across the ravine to the den of coyotes.

Give them a taste, he thought, and again he howled at them.

I stared back and saw the light of people approaching the house from out front. I sensed they would help the woman and left to race across the yard and down the steep ravine wall. I beckoned Daniel to follow me as I ran north to where it opened down into Mission Valley.

I soon led us to an outcrop of trees and brush where I slowed. In the cover of darkness, I turned back. Daniel stopped at my side, his mind racing with pleasure and drawing in every detail around him.

I touched his arm, drawing his refractive amber eyes to mine, and placed my hand upon his massive chest. I felt the terrible rhythm of his heart racing, not from the running so much as the ecstasy of his first kill.

I loved it.

What he had done—the raw physicality of his wrath—had excited me far more than I expected.

I licked at his face, drawing his tongue to mine. Without hesitation, I reached greedily between his legs to stroke his sex. Daniel licked urgently at my mouth, but I fell to my knees, bent on worshiping him. I took his cock into my mouth with perfect abandon and felt him engorge against the back of my throat. Then I swallowed him deeper for as long as I could hold my breath.

The sensation of his entire length sliding into me seemed to drive him insane with pleasure. When I finally pulled away, his organ was achingly hard and ready for more.

Daniel shoved me onto my back and took hold of my legs to expose me, delving into my sex angrily with his tongue to chase my scent. Our minds linked, he knew exactly what the sensation felt like for me, and he sought after my pleasure as urgently as if he pleasured himself. Daniel dragged his teeth gently along the soft flesh of my inner thigh, the threatening sensation of which mingled with the pleasure. I thought I would climax before we’d barely begun.

Then he surprised me again, finding my anus and bathing it insatiably. He pushed the tip of his long tongue in fearlessly after what he sought.

We sat together in my bath, cleansing each other’s lycan body. It was a soothing, intimate bonding meant to be a break before we’d begin again.

To say that I’d never know such happiness might sound like a trite cliché, but it was true nonetheless. Yes, I’d known joy before, but I’d never felt this specific breed. It was awash with the different colors and flavors that only this exact moment in my life could manifest. I wasn’t a child nor enamored by the newness of life. I wasn’t a prisoner or attached to a man who I relied upon to save me from harm. I wasn’t obsessed with my carnal desire or afraid of my sexuality in any fashion. Instead, I was flawlessly paired with someone unique and independent of thought. He wanted nothing more than for us to worship and love each other to our mutual satisfaction.

After more rounds of lovemaking, we fell back exhausted into the release of sleep. Only a few hours later, as the early light of dawn filled my bedroom, I opened my eyes to a familiar sound.

It was low at first, humming from a distance just beyond my perception, but I knew precisely its source. I sat up in bed and focused on the approach that grew in tremor and volume within the bones of my skull and spine. The slowness of its course wasn’t an accident; I was meant to know of its arrival and prepare well in advance. It was a courtesy, this distant call, and several minutes passed before I heard the competing sound of an automobile moving onto the half-circle driveway of my house.

I rose from bed silently and gathered a dressing robe around my naked body. Pulling my loose raven hair back into a quick chignon, I stepped into my house slippers. I proceeded without the slightest haste to the hallway. As I rounded the stairs and descended to the main floor, I heard him step to the front door.

He did not bother to knock, no doubt knowing that I approached to receive him.