Chapter 4
Gabriel slammed the heavy oak door the moment Asher disappeared into the darkness, his hands trembling with the effort of restraint.
He threw all three bolts with desperate efficiency, then pressed his forehead against the cool wood, drawing ragged breaths that did nothing to calm the storm building inside him.
Asher. Here. Now .
Of all the cruel cosmic jokes the universe could have played, this was perhaps the cruelest.
"Damn you, Ray," Gabriel whispered, the grief he'd been suppressing since his friend's death rising like bile in his throat. "You couldn't have warned him? Couldn't have left instructions?"
But that had been Ray's way—playing things close to the chest, parceling out information on a need-to-know basis. Even to his only son.
Perhaps especially to his son.
Gabriel pushed away from the door, resuming the restless pacing that had occupied him before Asher's arrival.
The stone outbuilding felt smaller now, more confining, as if the very air had filled with complications.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension building at the base of his skull—the first physical warning sign that the cycle was approaching.
The mating run.
Werewolves felt their instincts rise every full moon. It was the reason Gabriel hadn’t been able to attend Ray’s funeral—fate had been cruel, and it had fallen on the last full moon.
But once a year, when the moon reached was the wildest, werewolves were overtaken by the primal urge to hunt mates, to claim, to merge their dual natures in the most fundamental way possible.
Most of his kind embraced it. They ran wild in the woods, seeking the humans who offered themselves up.
The accords had established boundaries, rules of engagement—humans who entered the woods during that night were considered willing prey, fair game for the hunt.
Those who wished to avoid such encounters simply stayed behind locked doors when the moon grew full, pretending that it wasn't happening.
It was brutal. Primal. Honest, in its way.
And Gabriel wanted no part of it.
He had never participated in the run, had never dragged a willing human down to the ground.
The very concept repulsed him—the reduction of both human and wolf to their basest functions, the pretense that what happened during those nights could be neatly explained away as mere instinct, that it didn't leave marks that went deeper than skin.
He refused to be a slavering beast.
So he'd chosen isolation instead. For his whole adult life, he'd locked himself away during the cycle, white-knuckling through the fever and need until dawn broke.
Ray had been his only confidant, his only support. A true human friend. This stone outbuilding, out in the middle of nowhere, had been his sanctuary—safe, secure, secret.
Until now.
Gabriel caught his reflection in the small mirror mounted above the wash basin: silver-streaked hair disheveled, eyes already beginning to sharpen, reflecting the wolf rising inside him. He looked wild, dangerous.
Exactly what he was.
Asher's shocked expression flashed in his memory. The way those expressive eyes had widened when Gabriel stepped into the doorway. The way his scent had changed from anger to something sharper, more complex—fear mingled with another note that Gabriel refused to identify.
"He's not for you," Gabriel told his reflection harshly. "He's never been for you."
But his body disagreed. His body recognized Asher Sutter as the one human whose scent had haunted him, whose proximity had triggered responses he'd ruthlessly suppressed. The one human who, even at a distance, made his inner wolf howl.
Compatible. Perfect prey. His mate.
When Asher was eighteen, Gabriel recognized the danger. The way his scent affected Gabriel wasn't normal, wasn't safe. So he'd created distance, limited his visits, made excuses. And as soon as his best friend's son left for the city, a safe distance, Gabriel had cut the connection entirely.
Or thought he had.
Now Asher was here on the property, his scent so potent Gabriel could track his movements. He was twenty one now. A grown man.
The thought sent a fresh wave of heat through Gabriel's body. He stripped off his shirt, the fabric suddenly unbearable against his sensitized skin. The cool air hit his bare chest, bringing momentary relief that did nothing to ease the deeper burning beneath his flesh.
Two more hours until the moon reached its apex. Two more hours of deteriorating control before the mating cycle hit full force.
He should leave. Find some other shelter deeper in the forest where he could ride out this night alone, as he had always meant to.
The logical part of his brain—the human side still capable of reason—screamed at him to go, to put miles between himself and the one temptation he might not be able to resist.
But it was already too late. The cycle had begun, triggered early by Asher's unexpected presence. If Gabriel left now, entered the forest in this state, he would be driven by instinct to double back.
To hunt. To claim what his wolf already recognized as his.
"Not going to happen," Gabriel growled, pacing faster, each turn bringing him back to the small window where he could glimpse the distant lights of the main cabin. "Not to him. Not to Ray's son."
A fierce ache flamed through his core, doubling him over.
Gabriel staggered to the bed, lowering himself carefully onto the edge of the thin mattress.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, running in rivulets down his bare chest despite the cool night air.
His jeans felt constrictive, his skin hypersensitive everywhere fabric touched it.
This was familiar territory—the discomfort, the building pressure. He'd endured it month after month, year after year. This time was no different.
Except it was. Asher's presence changed everything .
Asher, laughing at something Gabriel had said, eyes crinkling at the corners.
Asher, sullen and distant during one of Gabriel's increasingly rare visits, shooting glances he thought Gabriel didn't notice.
Asher, broader-shouldered and defiant in his new adulthood, arguing with his father in the kitchen while Gabriel pretended not to hear from the porch.
And now, Asher at twenty one, all sharp edges and wounded pride, scent thick with emotions too complex to untangle.
Another wave of heat rolled through him, settling low in his belly. His cock hardened painfully against the confines of his jeans, demanding attention he was loath to give it.
Typically, Gabriel rode out the night through sheer force of will, refusing to surrender to even the most basic relief. It was his way of maintaining control, of proving that his human side could master his wolf nature.
Tonight, that approach was impossible. The pressure was too intense, the need too immediate.
With a muttered curse, Gabriel unfastened his jeans, shoving them down his hips along with his underwear. His cock sprang free, achingly hard, the head already glistening with evidence of his arousal.
He hated himself for the weakness, for the surrender—but the alternative was worse.
If he didn't take the edge off…
Wrapping a hand around himself, Gabriel hissed at the contact. Too sensitive. Always too sensitive during this night, when his body prepared itself for a claim that wouldn't come.
He stroked cautiously, establishing a rhythm that was more about relief than pleasure, more clinical than indulgent.
The sensible approach would be to think of nothing. To focus on the physical sensation alone, to separate it from emotion or attachment or desire.
But his mind betrayed him again, conjuring Asher's face—those expressive eyes, that defiant tilt of his chin, the way his scent had changed when Gabriel raised his voice. Had that been fear in his eyes? Or something else entirely?
"No," Gabriel gritted out, even as his hand moved faster, his body responding to the dangerous fantasy his mind was constructing. "Not him. Anyone but him."
But it was Asher's face he saw. Asher's voice he heard echoing in his memory. Asher's scent that filled his nostrils, so strong it was as if the young man were in the room with him, just out of reach.
Gabriel's strokes grew rougher, less controlled. His wolf was rising closer to the surface with each passing minute, with each degree the moon climbed in the night sky. The part of him capable of reason and restraint was being submerged beneath a tide of primal need—to hunt, to claim, to mark.
To mate.
Images flashed behind his closed eyelids—forbidden, shameful fantasies he'd never allowed himself to fully acknowledge.
Asher beneath him, throat bared in submission.
Asher's lean body arching as Gabriel claimed him.
Asher wearing his mark, carrying his scent, bound to him in the most fundamental way possible.
"Fuck," Gabriel groaned, pace becoming erratic as the pressure built.
Gabriel's hand faltered for only a moment before resuming its rhythm, stronger and more deliberate than before. He was safe here, locked behind stone walls and iron bolts. Fantasies couldn't hurt anyone. They weren't real, weren't actions.
Just release, for a will pushed beyond endurance.
In his mind, he saw himself in the city, that concrete maze where Asher had fled.
His wolf would have no trouble tracking that familiar scent through the streets, following it to whatever cramped apartment or seedy club Asher frequented.
The trail would be polluted with other scents—other men who'd touched what belonged to Gabriel, who'd dared to put their hands on his mate.
The rage that thought inspired made Gabriel's hand tighten on his cock, strokes becoming rougher.
In his fantasy, he'd find Asher in some dark corner of a nightclub, letting some faceless stranger grind against him on the dance floor. The air would reek of sweat and alcohol and arousal, but underneath it all, Asher's true scent would call to him like a beacon.
Gabriel would cross the floor in seconds, would pull the stranger away with enough force to send a clear message. Asher would turn, eyes widening in shock and something else—relief, maybe. Recognition. The moment when prey recognized predator, when mate recognized mate.
The fantasy shifted, blurred—now they were somewhere private, somewhere Gabriel could do what his wolf had been howling for for three years. He imagined pressing Asher down onto rumpled sheets that smelled of too many strangers, covering those foreign scents with his own.
His hands would map every inch of skin, erasing every trace of every other man who'd dared touch his mate. Cleaning him. Reclaiming him. Making him smell right again.
In his fantasy, Asher would submit beautifully, all his bravado melting away as his body recognized what his mind couldn't understand.
He'd arch into Gabriel's touch, make those soft sounds Gabriel had imagined a thousand times.
No words needed, just bodies speaking a language older than civilization.
Gabriel's hand moved faster, chasing the building pressure.
The fantasy was so vivid now he could almost smell it—Asher's scent, warm and willing, no longer tainted by strangers.
Pine from the forests he'd grown up in, something earthy and real that the city could never quite erase, and underneath it all, that perfect note that marked him as Gabriel's mate.
God, he could practically taste it. So real it was like Asher was right there, just outside, just out of reach.
"Mine," Gabriel snarled in his fantasy, claiming Asher with a bite that would mark him permanently, that would bind them beyond any human understanding. "Always mine. Should never have let you leave."
And then he'd bring Asher home. Not to Ray's cabin, but to Gabriel's own territory, deep in the mountain. Somewhere safe, somewhere private, where Gabriel could keep him, protect him, claim him properly without the ghost of his father's disapproval hanging over them.
The fantasy was so intense, so perfectly detailed, that Gabriel's senses swam with it.
Asher's phantom scent filled his nostrils—whiskey and pine and arousal, so strong it was like he was actually there.
Gabriel's wolf surged toward the surface, convinced its mate was close, was finally within reach after all these years of denial.
"Fuck, Asher," Gabriel groaned, his hand moving desperately now, chasing release that might give him enough control to survive the rest of the night.
The scent grew stronger, more real, and Gabriel's eyes fluttered open in confusion. His fantasies had never been this vivid before.
It was almost like Asher was?—