Chapter 13
Who’s on Top?
Yordan had never had a lover per se. He’d had hookups, of course—with women as well as men—but he never stuck around long enough to move it into a real relationship.
The closest he’d come was a friends-with-benefits arrangement a decade ago with a girl who was now married with three kids.
And since he thought office romances were a terrible idea—and he was always working—that left him thinking he would be alone for the rest of his life.
Instead, he and his boss were now lovers.
He ought to be appalled, but instead, he felt a bone-deep contentment that startled him.
When he was with McNabb, he felt seen. As if Kit—his lover’s name was Kit—saw things in him he didn’t even know were there.
And if Kit saw that, then he saw the messy stuff too, and that made everything okay.
Yordan wasn’t stupid. He still thought office romances were a terrible idea, but damn it, if he could feel this safe with another soul, he didn’t care who it was with. He was going to hang on and do whatever it took to keep them together.
He stroked a hand down Kit’s flank, loving the way he stretched into the gesture. Like a damned cat, he thought with a smile. Yordan leaned in.
“Purr for me, kitty cat,” he whispered.
“I think I already did,” Kit answered. Then he shot a look at Yordan. “So did you.”
Yes, he had. Yordan pressed a kiss to the Scotsman’s shoulder. “You’ve told me everything? About your bet with Coffee?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“So why haven’t you shifted? Go wolf.”
He watched Kit’s eyes widen with understanding. His expression flitted between hope and fear with a healthy side of worry.
“Don’t think about it, just shift. You’ll never know until—” His voice cut off.
Kit was already glowing as he initiated the change.
The air turned cold, and Yordan rolled out of bed.
Last thing he needed was a full-grown wolf landing on top of him while he was a naked human.
Scratches in the wrong place hurt! By the time he was on his feet beside the bed, Kit had fully manifested as...
“Meow.”
...a disappointed kitten who dropped his head on his paws and looked as depressed as his floppy ears.
Okay, so that didn’t work.
“Did we miss anything? This had to be Coffee, right? There’s no other reason you suddenly went kitten...right?”
Kit looked up and nodded. Then he dropped his head back on his paws.
Fuck.
“When I was in school, I learned Spanish. Did pretty well at it.” Yordan was thinking out loud, trying to twist his mind around something that wasn’t filled with massive disappointment.
“Then I tried to learn Chinese. Don’t ask me why.
It had something to do with those martial arts films.” He shrugged.
“Anyway, it was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it’d be.
Not just because it’s a totally different kind of language with all those tonal things, but because my brain was English and Other.
Whenever I went to a language that wasn’t English, I ended up in Spanish.
Then I had to consciously shift to Chinese. ”
The kitten huffed out a breath. Kit didn’t even lift his head.
“Don’t you get it? When you change to a wolf, are you really thinking wolf? Or are you just thinking ‘change’?”
Kit lifted his head slowly, cocking it to the side. It was freaking adorable, and Yordan really wanted to scratch the puss under the chin. But he refrained.
“Remember when I said, ‘Don’t think’? What if you thought about going wolf? Like, actually becoming a wolf. All the little bits about being canine...”
He stopped talking because the temperature was dropping again, and the Scottish Fold kitten was surrounded in a golden glow.
Yordan held his breath. Kit probably did too.
And then, right in the center of the bed, stood a full-grown gray wolf. The creature was huge, his jaw was large, and he was abruptly dancing around and yipping like a puppy. Or a very happy Scotsman turned wolf.
Yordan threw himself enthusiastically into the joy.
Nothing compared to moments like this where man and wolf could play together in absolute delight.
If he were an insta-shift wolf, he would have joined Kit in canine play, but this was equally great.
They played for a time until both of them dropped onto the floor in happy exhaustion.
And then Yordan sobered.
“You’ve got both the kitten and the wolf,” he said, a twinge of envy in his voice. “You lucky shit.” That could be a huge advantage. There were plenty of times when a huge wolf wouldn’t work. Just about any mission in a town or city. But a cute little kitten? “You can go anywhere and fit in.”
Kit leaned his whole canine body against Yordan and purred. Or at least attempted a purr. Wolf bodies didn’t really do that like cats could, and the resulting sound was funny as shit. Yordan laughed as he dug his fingers into Kit’s ruff.
“So, now you’re back, better than ever.” He took a breath. “And Pee said she could have all the bets collected by now. That leaves only one thing.”
He glanced down at Kit to see the canine face looking at him. The expression was serious, as was the slow dip of his chin as he shimmered back to human. A second later, Yordan had his arm resting on Kit’s naked back.
“We can’t go yet,” Kit said, his voice starting gravelly but stabilizing within seconds.
Then he stood up and crossed naked to the computer.
The man was in work mode now, and his entire body went from giddy enthusiasm to focused leader as he quickly pulled up his email.
“You’re right,” he said after a moment, though Yordan hadn’t said a word.
He was too busy admiring the man’s lean body.
“The debts are all handled now, even Marsha’s.
Plus, Pee says there hasn’t been a spin cycle in over a day.
That tells us we’re on the right track.”
Yordan looked up. “Right track? We know—”
“We never know anything for sure with fairies.”
True enough.
“But all the other glitches seem to be gone too.” He tapped a few more keys. “Even our Hawaiian fever dream helo seems to be miraculously fixed.” He glanced out the window. “Looks like I’m not in hot water after all for losing that one.”
Yordan straightened up to his feet. “Bonus.”
“Yeah, but...” Kit continued tapping on the keys. “Recovery crew is coming up tomorrow to get the pieces. Nero’s pack finished their mission and is heading home.” He started listing off what every combat pack was doing and what they would need in the next few weeks while Yordan watched, amazed.
He’d never really thought deeply about the sheer logistical challenge of managing seven combat packs.
Kit seemed to know what every piece of Wulf, Inc.
was up to and how each person supported the whole.
It was impressive as hell, and he began to realize that Kit couldn’t leave everything to chase a fairy. He was too important.
Which meant it had to be him.
“It’s all right, Kit,” he said as the man continued flipping through things on the computer. Wow, Yordan could barely process the spreadsheets Kit clicked through in a rapid tap-tap-tap. “I’ll go.”
“Not without me, you won’t.” It wasn’t a growl or even a threat. It was a simple statement when Yordan wasn’t even sure Kit was listening. “Both our names are on that page,” he continued.
“But you don’t need to. I can handle it, and frankly, you’re way more—”
“If you say I’m more important than you, I swear I’m going to deck you.” Kit stopped typing and looked straight at Yordan. “You’re thinking hierarchically,” he stated. “You need to think laterally. Or holistically. Or like my fucking lover.”
Yordan held up his hand. “You’re my boss. That’s a fact.”
Kit shrugged. “Every piece in the organization is important. Every combat wolf—that’s you and Coffee—supports the whole structure. Every nerve that coordinates the wolves is important. That’s what I do. And you, too, if I have anything to say about it.”
Yordan rolled his eyes. “Let’s leave my future employment out of this.”
“Let’s not.” Kit stood up. “I can’t keep doing this job alone. It’s killing me. I’m exhausted all the time, and frankly, I’m not growing any younger.”
“What are you? Twenty-two?”
“Thirty-two and still pretty.” Kit grinned. “Just two years younger than you, and some mornings, I feel every mission I’ve ever been on. You’ve got to feel the same.”
He did. That was part of why he’d been struggling lately.
He knew he couldn’t keep going in a combat pack.
Eventually, his body was going to give out, and people were going to die.
The younger wolves were faster, stronger, but they weren’t smarter.
Smarts came with experience, and that Yordan had in spades.
“Come on, Yordan. Why don’t you want to lead?”
He didn’t think about his answer. Words spilled out that shocked him to the core. And once said, he gaped at himself in the mirror.
“Because it’s lonely at the top.”
“What?”
Wait, what?
Yordan’s mind was reeling, but once started, he couldn’t stop talking.
“When was the last time you had beers with the guys? When do you sit around a campfire and laugh about gators soaring through the air? Who do you talk to at the end of the day?”
And when the fuck had he cared about friends? He knew the answer even as he mentally asked the question.
He’d always cared about friends. He’d had no one as a kid, and on the street, loners usually died.
The camaraderie he’d found in Wulf, Inc.
meant everything to him. And the idea of leaving any of the packs he’d been part of to sit at HQ was akin to death.
Even the lure of calling the shots as alpha had been too frightening for him.
Leaders didn’t get to pal around with the grunts.
And so, he’d sabotaged every effort to move up the pack ladder. Except now he wasn’t one of the regular grunts either. He was the old guy trying to be as stupid as the twentysomethings. It didn’t work, and with Coffee’s death or disappearance, his last connection to true friendship had broken.
Until Kit.
“I don’t want to be alone,” he said, ashamed of the weakness. “But I don’t fit in with the regular guys anymore. So I guess I turned into an ass.” Damn it, now he was going to have to apologize to Gummy.
Kit touched Yordan’s face, drawing it toward his in a long, tender kiss. And when they separated, he smiled. “What do you think about working together, then? Why not share beers with me every night?”
“And ordering the cubs around during the day?”
“Yeah. We could share the load together.”
Not to mention what they could share every night.
Yordan took a moment to think about it. What he visualized made his heart sing. “I could do that,” he said, his voice thick. “I want to do that.”
“So do I.” Kit grinned. Then he leaned forward for another kiss, but Yordan held back.
“But I have to get Coffee back first. If I can.”
Kit nodded. “I know. I’ve already let Pee know that we’re going to bargain with Gamfay for Coffee’s freedom. But we have to find him first.”
Yordan flinched. “Did you have to—”
“Let the brass know what we’re doing? Yes. But we’re going to have to move quickly before they stop us.”
That worked. “Okay. So we call Coffee as if he’s a fairy? Just say his name three times?” That usually worked with fairies, except Coffee wasn’t one of the fae. He was a wolf trapped in Fairyland.
Kit wrinkled his nose. “Want to guess how many times people say, ‘Coffee, coffee, coffee?’ If he hasn’t appeared by now, that’s not going to work.”
“We could try his real name. Dwayne, Dwayne, and my other brother Dwayne.” He paused.
Nada.
“We’ve got to call—”
Kit interrupted. “Gamfay, Gamfay—”
Yordan took up the call, repeating the fairy’s name a third time with Kit. “Gamfay. Let’s talk.”
“It’s about fucking time,” muttered a voice behind them.
Yordan spun around, Coffee’s real name bursting from his lips. “Dwayne!”
There was Coffee, standing in a ridiculous elf costume. He looked gaunt and miserable, especially with the thin green leash around his neck. And there, holding on to the leash, was a bright, tuxedo-wearing game show host, complete with a microphone and a shit-eating grin.
“Hello, boys,” he chuckled. “Place your bets. Daddy’s ready to make a new deal.”