“It seems like you’re both werewolves who make fairy deals.”
Nero tensed and his eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?” he asked in a too-casual tone.
“The freaking fairy told me.”
“What?” Nero exploded.
“The short one who acts like we’re all idiots.” He didn’t want to say Bitterroot’s name out loud.
Josh jolted forward. “You didn’t make a deal with him, did you? You didn’t—”
“All I did was listen and agree to hand you this.” He passed the message over to Josh, who shared it with Nero. They cuddled together to read it. He knew they didn’t mean to look so cozy together, but that didn’t change the way they fitted each other perfectly.
Meanwhile, Nero frowned. “What the hell does that mean? We already killed….”
Josh groaned. The sound was thick and deep, and he slapped his palm against his forehead for emphasis. “We’re back in this timeline. In my timeline, where I was recruited to find a way around the fire blast.”
Nero nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
Josh held up the parchment. “Don’t you see? In this timeline, the demon is still killing Wisconsin.”
“What? No, we….” Nero’s voice trailed into a loud groan. “We risk our lives, and he gets dragons.” He crumpled the paper in his fist. “Did I tell you that he’s the one who told us about the demon in the first place? He’s the one who sent us on this hunt. Unbelievable.”
Josh looked at his brother. “Did you read this?”
Bruce snorted. “Of course I read it. He wanted me to read it. Otherwise he would have put it in an envelope.”
Nero was staring at Bruce. His eyes were laser focused, and his stance shifted so he could quickly step in front of Josh if needed. Damn it, the man was protecting Josh in the way Bruce should have been doing as the older brother. In the way that Bruce had wanted someone to protect him for most of his life. And now Josh had it in a huge brute of a werewolf lover.
“What else?” Nero demanded, proving he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. “Fairies don’t give up information for free. What else did he offer you?”
Bruce held out his other hand. Nestled in his palm lay that dark red cherry. He lifted it up to the sunlight, and all three of them were temporarily mesmerized by the beauty of the simple fruit.
“He said if I want what you’ve got, I just have to eat this. And I do. I want it.” Bruce had been staring at the fruit, feeling the pull of desire. He was going to resist, but then he looked at his brother and Nero. Josh had certainly fallen head over heels in love, but Bruce didn’t trust Nero as far as he could throw him. The man wielded too much power over Josh, and that spelled disaster for his little brother.
But he couldn’t protect Josh unless he played. And the only way to do that was to eat the cherry.
So he tossed the thing in his mouth. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw a butterfly burst up from a leaf and fly off.
“No!” Josh cried out, but it was too late. Bruce chewed quickly and swallowed after spitting the pit into a nearby bush. All three waited in tense silence, prepared for something dramatic to happen.
Nothing.
Wasn’t that the way? Even in fairy magic, his brother had all the luck. Nero sighed and slapped his car keys into Josh’s open palm. “Go get my phone from the glove compartment and call in. Tell them that we’ve got another recruit.”
“But why?” Josh asked. “Nothing’s happened.”
“Yet.”
Bruce felt the heavy pressure of disappointment. That cherry was a big fat zero of—
Heat burned through his body. And since he’d been waiting for something, he noticed the tiny increments that built in his gut before expanding through his nerves. It felt like a small fire burning low, except that the base of his spine fired with a kind of electric pulse. Each beat shot up his spine, pounding in increasing strength. Up his spine, down his legs…. His muscles contracted in response. His back arched, his arms went wide, and his head jerked backward as he tried to scream.
It reached his brain faster than he expected, and once it was there, his mind whited out, although he felt the glow of a thousand suns right in the center. And once he saw that, felt that, knew it as something gloriously special, it all collapsed. The heat, the power, the joy—everything inside him fell apart. And when it reformed, he stood on four legs. His face was reshaped, and his backside moved as never before.
“Crap,” Nero said from somewhere above. “I hope he fits in my car.”
He wasn’t going into any car. He was going to run and bound and smell things. He was in the woods as a wolf, and the power in his body was glorious. So he tensed his muscles—
And collapsed.
He stood and leaped away, except only his back legs moved. His front went lax and he dropped his nose into the dirt. He focused all his attention on what muscles worked how, and he completely failed.
And that was how Nero and Josh got him to the car. And then some movie-star gorgeous guy looked him in the eyes and told him to sleep.
Chapter 3
MEANWHILE IN MICHIGAN, LADDIN QUITS WULF, INC.
“YOU CAN’T be serious. They were just rabbits.”
Laddin looked up from where he’d been staring out the window at the Michigan woods. He was in Captain M’s office, delivering the bad news in the firmest possible way. “It wasn’t just the rabbits,” he protested, but she cut him off.
“You can’t leave Wulf, Inc. because you ate a bunch of rabbits. The woods would be lousy with furbies if we didn’t keep the population down.” The woman was his trainer and also the administrator in charge of all the combat packs at Wulf, Inc. She’d been with him from the moment he’d
