Winter's Dawn (36 page)

Adam’s head jerked up and he gave John a bored stare. “The last time you said that I ended up damaged. Go back to attempted beating. We have no desire for you to join us, abuse is preferable.”

John frowned. “What?”

Max snorted. “Nothing, John.” He set his budget aside and sighed in defeat. “What can we do for you?”

“I want you to enlighten me.” John crawled into the tent, forcing Max to grab some of his boxes and shove them to the side. “Susie said you were out here for religious reasons and I’m curious.”

“Why, are you going to convert?” Adam asked smartly.

“Maybe,” John said, his scent that of complete honesty. “Susie never talks about it much, but I know you have a different religion. I want to know about it. If I’m marrying her I should know what she believes.”

“Then ask Susie to explain it,” Max said. “I am not aiding you with this delusion of marrying her.”

“Susan can’t really explain it.” Adam’s voice was serious and technical. “A female could never teach a male our ways.”

“See, now tell me why,” John said as he sat cross-legged in the tent, looking around it curiously. “Do men and women practice differently?”

“We do.” Adam studied John intently. “You are genuinely curious. That is good. I can honor that.”

“Why?” Max snapped. “He’s only curious because he thinks it will help him talk Susie into marrying him. John, you can’t convert to our religion. You have to be born into it. We don’t recruit.”

“But, Maxwell, perhaps the Gods have sent him looking for answers,” Adam argued. “I think it would an insult to deny him enlightenment.”

Max rolled his eyes. “What are you, John? Catholic?”

John nodded. “Yes, I’m Irish Catholic. You know my family is close with the Kennedys.”

“Stick with Catholicism,” Max said with a snort of disbelief. “Have fun with it. Go sailing with the first family. You don’t want to convert.”

“But, I love Sue,” John argued. “I’ll pray to any God she wants me too. That is how deep my dedication to her is. I am willing to turn away from my religion for her. I’ll do anything for her.”

“Okay, I’m done.” Max tossed aside his work. “Let Adam offer you spiritual enlightenment.”

Max crawled out of the tent, leaving Adam to explain the complexities of their religion. John was the oddest human he had ever encountered and Max was totally over his puppy-like adoration of Susie.

Susie was Max’s mate…The only one who was allowed to worship her was
him
.

Max was barefoot, but he didn’t even notice the pleasant feeling of snow melting against his bare feet. A thought occurred to him. He paused where he stood and then turned back around and walked to the tent. He opened the flap and stared at Adam with narrowed eyes.

“Keep him occupied,” Max said in fluent Russian, knowing John was starting to work on Italian to impress Susie. “I feel like playing with my mate and I will kill this puppy if he interrupts.”

Adam gave him a broad grin and said in equally fluent Russian, “Have fun, Your Majesty. I will keep him out here until you return.”

“You two are really something.” John frowned at Max. “Was that Russian?”

Max smirked. “Maybe.”

“You ever hear of the cold war?” John asked as he raised his eyebrows pointedly. “People hear you speaking Russian and they’ll think you’re a Commie.”

“Whatever,” Max said before dropping the flap.

He had little care of human politics. Wolves had enough of their own and Max was knee deep in all of it. He had other things on his mind and it had nothing to do with the trivial worries over a cold war that Max had never understood. He got along just fine with the President of Russian Werewolves, who was an arctic wolf with excellent taste in vodka. He sent Max a bottle every year for his birthday and it was one of the only gifts he kept.

Russia was fine by him.

Max found Susie studying in his office, books spread out in front of her as a crinkle of concentration marred her forehead. He shut the door and then leaned back against it.

“Are you a naughty wolf, Max?”

“Yes, very much so,” he said as he stood there studying her. “I feel like playing puppy games.”

Susie snorted, finally glancing up from her work to arch a light brown eyebrow at him. “It’s the middle of the day and John is here.”

“John is preoccupied with the complexities of werewolf religion,” Max said smugly. “You look nice today.”

“Yeah, you’re a naughty wolf.” Susie sighed as she pushed her books away. “You aren’t going to let me study, are you?”

“Nope.”

Susie waved him over, looking a little put out at him but still pleased. Max noticed this was becoming much easier. The past few months it never took much to talk her into fooling around with him. Her schoolwork lay abandoned as Max walked over and dropped down to his knees in front of her. Until this season, her school was never abandoned— especially not for puppy games.

“We should lock the door,” Susie whispered, her voice husky as she sprawled out in the chair. Her legs wrapped around Max, pulling him closer as her fingers threaded into his hair. She forced his head up, making him look into her icy eyes as she arched an eyebrow. “Someone will see.”

“I like living dangerously,” he whispered, his gaze running over her body.

Susie dropped her head back against the chair. Her eyes closed heavily when he slid his hands under her sweater, skimming her ribcage before he cupped both her breasts in his large hands.

Her breath hitched and her fingers tightened in his hair. “You’re the big, bad wolf—I like it.”

He groaned, savoring the feeling of being completely damned as he sighed. “That’s not a good sign, Susie Bee.”

“Stop thinking and kiss me,” she growled, pulling him out of his sudden bout of melancholy. “Do it or I’ll be angry.”

Never one to disobey a command like that, he leaned up and kissed her. When his lips touched hers, he found that he was ever obedient to her commands—he stopped thinking.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Why is this fun?”

“It’s like a play.” Max’s attention was on Susie rather than the movie screen. He and Adam sat in the balcony, hanging over the railing looking down on where Susie and John were curled together in the seats below. Mid-afternoon there weren’t many people around and they stood out. “Its escapism. You watch other people’s problems to forget your own.”

“I see.” Adam still sounded mystified. “That’s why the sudden outing? What problems is Susan escaping?”

“Who knows?” Max said, a frown marring his brow as he watched John’s hand slide up Susie’s arm, dangerously close to her breast. He snarled, his lip curling back on instinct.

“Maxwell,” Adam whispered.

Max turned to glare at Adam. “What?”

“Teeth.” Adam flashed his own teeth quickly, showing off incisors that had grown long. He clicked them together and lifted his eyebrows pointedly. “You’re having blending issues.”

Max groaned, finding that Adam was beginning to sound like the voice of reason in his mind. It seemed he was always around and jerking him back to reality. What Max really wanted to do was pull Susie away from John, hide in a dark corner and find his own form of escapism.

“You’re starting to be a real pain in my ass, Adam,” Max growled under his breath, realizing his voice wasn’t quite human. “I am officially sick of you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Adam said. “Your teeth are still long.”

“I don’t give a shit.” Max’s tone was still gravelly with the wolf in him. “I’m your king. You can’t tell me you’re sick of me. Apologize.”

“Gods, help me.” Adam shook his head sadly. “You need to call Serena. She needs to come in early. You are never going to make it to the running.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Adam snorted, turning to look at Max dubiously as he placed a hand against his chest. “Are you saying this is my fault? That somehow your hormone issues are linked back to me?”

“They are absolutely linked back to you!”

“Okay.” Adam held up his hands in defeat. “I’ll bite. How are they my fault? Do I look like a female? Do I release female pheromones? Is there anything about me that could trigger a hormone problem in you?”

A smile quirked at Max’s lips as his teeth receded. Before he could help it a barking laugh escaped him and he clamped a hand over his mouth when he saw Susie turn around and glare at them from her seat below.

“Oh, no—this is not funny. It was
never
funny.” Adam sounded as inhuman as Max had. He narrowed deadly, amber colored eyes. “That puppy should die for planting this idea in your head.”

“Maybe you could help me with my hormone problems.” Max’s voice quivered as he tried to hold back the laughter threatening to burst out of him. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, leaning into Adam for a kiss. “Movies are made for foreplay.”

Adam gave him a horrified look before a smile tugged at his lips. He ended up covering his mouth as Max had done, his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back his mirth.

When Adam turned away Max draped himself over his back, leaning down to whisper into the curve of Adam’s neck, “Say you want me.”

“Get
off
me,” Adam snapped, his British accent pronounced. He shoved at Max in irritation, something few werewolves would do. “You’re such a puppy, Maxwell.”

Max tilted his head up, giving Adam a wide, toothy grin. “You love me.”

“I guess.” A smile still quirked at Adam’s lips. “I won’t tell anyone you’re secretly obnoxious. Sometimes our people forget wolves are puppy-like for dozens of years after becoming full-grown. That’s unfair to you.”

“Sometimes I forget that too.” Max rested his head against Adam’s shoulder in a way humans would probably find extremely odd. He stared down at Susie, feeling love and desire well up in his chest, settling there uncomfortably with jealously. “I’m unhappy, Adam.”

“I know.” Adam reached up to caress his hair and Max closed his eyes in comfort. Living outdoors made sleep challenging, especially given his nightmares that were getting worse the closer they got to Susie’s eighteenth birthday in a few weeks. Adam hummed, bringing Max out of his melancholic thoughts. “Are you having a hard time holding human form?”

“Yes,” Max moaned, wondering if the few humans that were on the balcony with them would notice if Max changed forms and curled up with his packmate. He wanted to lick his wounds over John, who was starting to become a source of genuine unhappiness for Max. Wolves needed packmates when they were injured. “They won’t notice,” he whined in a soft, puppy-like voice.

“They will notice.” Adam’s voice was thoughtful. “We’re becoming wild, Maxwell.”

“What?” Max asked tiredly and bumped Adam’s chin with his nose. He grinned, feeling like a very happy alpha wolf when Adam’s head fell to the side obediently. He licked at Adam’s throat, now exposed in a form of submission and then nipped at it lightly with his canine teeth that had grown long. “You’re supposed to be second in command, not my father. I’m changing it. If Susie and I die, you should be head of werewolves. You’re my second.”

“Maxwell, we’re wild,” Adam repeated. “I’m your second because I’m living in a tent with you. You’ve never done that with your father. You think I’m your packmate. Your
only
packmate. Do you understand? It’s harder for us to be human than wolf. That’s what happens to them and it happened to us that fast.”

Max felt a sliver of clarity wash over him as he realized he was cuddling with Adam in a movie theater filled with humans. He sat up and turned to look at Adam in surprise.

“You’re right,” he whispered in awe. His mind was reverting to the more simple mentality of a wolf. His requirements from life had slid to the bare minimum, the need to survive, the need to copulate, the need to protect his pack. “Wild wolves are more wolf than human—much more. Why be human?”

“Yes, why?” Adam asked, his voice dazed. “Too many thoughts, too many emotions. It’s tedious.”

“It is,” Max agreed. “I hate it. Being a wolf is so much easier. If Susie wasn’t human—”