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[center]His Wolf Part 6 - by A. A. Samuel[/center]

[i]But won't Tree be angry?[/i] Miah asked in Sam's head while they drove.

"She'd better be," Sam muttered aloud. He was in the car. He figured it was okay to talk to himself. Thinking silently at Miah was annoying while he tried to drive, he found. Talking was easier, and she still heard, if she was listening.

[i]No, I mean angry with[/i] us, Miah clarified, almost timidly. [i]She kicked us out of her territory yesterday. I don't think she wants us back this soon, especially not asking for more help.[/i]

"Jake's been captured by a murderer and rapist," Sam growled, watching the road. "If that doesn't change the situation for her, she's not his friend."

[i]She's very powerful, Sam,[/i] Miah reminded, definitely timid this time. [i]She could hurt us, if we're not careful.[/i]

Her words irritated Sam. He didn't want to think about Tree that way, but he knew Miah wasn't wrong. They couldn't afford another enemy right now. Hurst was more than enough. The thought made Sam's neck itch. He scratched it idly and kept driving.

"Who's side are you really on, anyway?" he asked Miah. "You're acting weird. I can't tell what you're thinking."

She didn't answer. Sam tried to let it lie. He was driving. He had enough distractions running around his head already. Damn Hurst anyway.

Sam scratched his neck again. It felt almost like he had some sort of rash there. He wondered if it had something to do with that stupid collar Hurst had made him wear. Maybe Tree would have a magical anti-itch salve. For now, scratching it seemed to help, at least.

Sam navigated around a curve in the road. And lost his patience.

"I'm serious, Miah!" he snapped. "Are you still waiting around to run off after your precious Alpha? Still daydreaming he'll get rid of me?"

The thought made Sam's itch worse. He couldn't seem to tell, either, if he was being mean to Miah, or simply fair. Maybe some of each?

Again, silence. Sam gave it a few heartbeats while he steered around another curve, then prepared to snarl something else in Miah's direction. Before he could, she finally answered.

[i]I don't . . .[/i]

She hesitated again, but after hearing her tone, Sam waited quietly this time. She sounded . . . serious. Even thoughtful. Not like herself.

[i]I don't think he makes a good Alpha[/i], Miah said gravely. [i]He isn't a leader—just an owner. He is strong in some ways, but . . . I could find better. We could. We could have a true pack. Al- . . . Hurst will never have a pack, and that is a weakness.[/i]

A pack, huh. "Jake doesn't have a pack," Sam murmured, considering her words, scratching idly at his neck.

He practically felt Miah's answering shrug.

[i]A pack takes time to form,[/i] Miah said. [i]Jake is young. And he's found us. We'll build one together.[/i]

That sounded a bit more like a committed relationship than Sam was ready to get into with a man, but . . . he accepted her point. And . . . maybe he would be ready someday. He'd think about it. Now it was Sam's turn to say nothing. At least Miah's idea of strength seemed to be evolving. It was good to see that she was capable of change and growth.

And it did sound like her loyalty to Jake had won out over her loyalty to Hurst. Sam felt relieved and grateful, though the emotions were a little bit eclipsed by the itch on his . . .

Leather strap. Tree's charm. Sam felt it snap and fall under his hand.

Why hadn't he noticed . . . ?

"There you are!" Hurst said in his mind forest. "Interesting ward you've got there . . ."

"I'm fucking [i]driving[/i] you asshole!" Sam yelled. "Unless you want her dead, you fucking let me out, right now!!"

Hurst narrowed his eyes. "Thirty seconds," he said. "Pull over. Then come back of your own accord, or I cut off your boyfriend's left foot."

Sam had half a heartbeat to register a bound figure behind Hurst. He was bruised and beaten almost beyond recognition, but it was Jake.

Then he was thrust from the mind-forest.

Sam came back to the car already across the centerline, with a station wagon full of small children headed right for him.

Thirty seconds.

Sam swerved hard, missed the station wagon, ignored the much-deserved honking and muffled shouts of its occupants, and made for the shoulder. It wasn't very wide here, and there was a ditch on the other side, but Sam did spot was someone's gravel driveway, winding up into the trees.

He hoped no-one would need to use it before he was done talking to Hurst.

As he put the car jerkily into park, Sam realized that his neck had stopped itching. Completely.

Hurst had done something. It had all been to get him to take off the charm. Was that what had happened with that dog too? Sam wasn't sure, but at least since the strap broke, it would appear that Tree's protection was no longer perfect.

How many seconds had it been? Sam couldn't tell. His heart raced like a rabbit. Panting, he turned off the ignition and dove back into the mind forest.

This time, Miah was already there. She lay on the ground with a bleeding lip. Hurst stood menacingly between her and Jake.

Sam stepped toward her, offering his hand. She took it and stood beside him. Neither dared to approach Hurst, however. Even without his wolf to back him up, Sam and Miah had both learned to fear Hurst's power in this place.

What did that drug of his do? What else did Hurst know how to use it for?

They had no way of knowing.

Hurst seemed to guess what they were thinking. He grinned at them. Sam glanced back behind him at the bound and bleeding Jake. He still had both feet. Sam must have been fast enough. Or it was a bluff, though . . . Sam did think Hurst was that psycho.

Jake didn't look up. He appeared to be barely conscious. Sam fought down his emotions. He needed to keep his head clear. He lay his hand on Miah's arm.

"Keep calm," he whispered.

She growled, but she didn't move from his side.

Hurst glanced back and forth between them.

"Huh," he said. "Isolation must be more necessary than I realized. I've never encountered a subject who already knew another werewolf. When other packs have interfered before, they just frightened my prey as bad as I did." He shook his head, smiling in something like delight. "Well, I'm sure, in the end, it will just make you more fun to break."

"Why are we here, Hurst?" Sam muttered.

"My name is Alpha," Hurst said.

"I'm not sure I heard you right," Sam threw back at him. "Was that Alfie? Ralph? I can call you Ralphie if you prefer." He had no idea where he'd found the courage for such a taunt, but he could feel himself shaking as he said it.

Then Hurst had a knife in his hand. Sam couldn't tell how long it had been there. He threw it at Jake. It lodged in Jake's thigh, and he screamed. It was a panting, tired scream, already raw and hoarse. Sam froze. So did Miah.

They'd only been driving about an hour. One hour was all it had taken Hurst to put Jake in this state.

"Why are we here?" Sam repeated softly.

"You're going to come back to me," Hurst said. His confidence was total. "I brought you here to show you why. Have a seat."

Behind Sam and Miah there were chairs. They hadn't been there before, Sam was certain this time. One was sized just right for Sam. The other was larger, with space for Miah's tail to poke out the back. Sam frowned at them and did not choose to sit.

"We're not going to let you torture Jake right in front of us," he said, uncertain just how crazy Hurst really was.

"His name's Jake, eh? How manly." Hurst gave a sly smile. "He hasn't spoken a word since you left. So brave."

Sam gritted his teeth. He heard Miah growl again.

Hurst shrugged. "Sit or stand. I don't care. You won't get to me." He looked Sam right in the eye as he spoke. Against his will, Sam believed him.

Before Hurst looked away from Sam, though, and without any warning, Miah flung herself in Hurst's direction. It was a wild leap, a bound that should have carried her much higher and farther than human legs could manage.

She hit a wall.

Sam saw nothing there, but a wall was the only explanation for how she'd flown—or rather, for how she'd abruptly stopped flying.

As she bounced off and crumpled to the forest floor, Hurst howled with laughter, clutching his sides and half-stumbling.

"Oh, you should have seen her face!" he cried. "Priceless!"

Slowly, warily, Sam stepped forward, hand extended. He did find the invisible wall. It felt oddly like concrete, more than anything transparent.

Hurst got control of his mirth and nodded at Sam, still grinning. "Impenetrable even by a tank, and I [i]dare[/i] you to try conjuring one while I'm here. The wall extends all the way around me in a perfect sphere. It has no weaknesses. It doesn't even need air-holes, because this isn't a real place, and neither the air nor my lungs have to follow the laws of physics."

It didn't seem to muffle sound, either. Sam kinda wished it did.

"By all means." Hurst gestured expansively. "Please waste time and concentration in testing my defenses. I do, of course, have traps laid should you try anything fancy. You know what I can do here."

Miah flung herself at the wall again, to little effect. She didn't appear to hurt herself this time, at least.

"Where are your wolves?" Sam asked.

"Making this all possible," Hurst said. "That's all you need to know."

Well, that wasn't far off from what Sam had assumed. Probably something to do with the workings of that weird drug. Sam wondered how Hurst had managed to drag Jake along with him into Sam's mind.

"How do I know that's really Jake?" Sam asked. It might be some sort of mental construction, right?

Hurst looked surprised. "After all the effort it took to get him here . . ." He snorted and shook his head. "Fuck, you're troublesome." He turned to Jake and nudged the dagger still lodged in his leg.

Jake gave a low, strangled cry.

"Convince them you're you, or I'll put out your eyes," Hurst said. He had another knife in his hand.

When Jake didn't respond, Hurst nudged him again, and again. Finally Jake raised his swollen, bruised face and opened his eyes. It seemed to take them a moment to focus, but then he forced a small smile. Sam's heart broke.

"Hey babe," Jake croaked, so softly it was hard to hear. "I'm ok. I'll make it. Get out of here."

Sam was convinced. Miah snarled and ran helplessly at the wall again. Sam could feel his body trembling with rage, but he didn't allow any of it to reach his mind. He held himself numb and looked back to Hurst.

"I'm very busy right now," Sam said. He had to force the words out through his teeth, but otherwise guarded his tone at a near-robotic neutrality. "Can we do this later?"

"Busy turning around and coming back to me?" Hurst asked lightly.

Sam didn't reply. He could feel Miah's gaze on him, but he didn't look at her. He kept his eyes locked to Hurst's.

Hurst sighed. "You can't leave unless I let you," he reminded. "You know that from before."

Warily, Sam tested this. It seemed to be as true as it had been before. He couldn't will himself back to his body.

"So let's see what I can do to convince you," Hurst said. "Make sure you have a good viewing angle out there."

Everyone was naked then, and Sam honestly couldn't tell whether or not they had been the whole time. Miah had been, but she usually was. Sam doubted the three humans had been, but he couldn't remember what any of them had been wearing.

He didn't quite dare try to re-summon clothes. For all he knew, he'd find himself instead in one of those Clockwork Orange chairs, to make sure he sat still and watched whatever Hurst had in mind. As for Jake and Hurst, the former didn't appear to notice he was naked now. The latter seemed, if anything, only proud to show off his perfect, masculine physique.

It bothered Sam to note that he did, now, find Hurst's body to be hot.

Jake's seemed less hot than usual to Sam, what with all the bruises and cuts, and the knife still sticking out of his thigh. Sam just wanted to get him safe, help him heal. He'd heard people talk before about bruises looking pretty, but at least to Sam's taste, they only looked wrong, almost sickening. Apparently he wasn't a sadist.

Hurst crouched in front of Jake with his knife, busying himself with Jake's bonds. Jake struggled weakly, but Hurst mastered him with little effort, repositioning him until he knelt in the dirt, apparently bound by his neck to the ground, with his arms still tied behind his back, and his nude ass raised high.

"I'm not going to watch this, Hurst," Sam said.

"Really?" Hurst asked, unconcerned.

He stroked his thumb over Jake's exposed asshole. Between Jake's parted thighs, Sam could now see what appeared to be a spreader-bar, forcing them apart, as well as some other contraption encasing Jake's cock and balls. Having led a largely innocent life, Sam had no context for what he was looking at, but it didn't appear comfortable.

Stomach turning, Sam shut his eyes.

For a moment, he saw darkness, as one would expect after shutting one's eyes, and then . . . like an image zooming toward him through space, the mind-forest rushed forward to envelop Sam again, complete with Hurst fingering Jake's ass. Beside Sam, Miah whimpered.

"You have no physical eyelids here," Hurst said. "There's no darkness behind your eyes you can retreat to. It's all your mind."

Sam lurched dizzily and spun to try running the opposite direction. The moment he turned, Hurst and Jake were in front of him instead of behind him.

"Now," Hurst said, "I will admit that I can't do this to both of you at once. If the two of you look in two different directions, I can only follow one person's gaze." He chuckled. "I've locked it to the human, so if you're still under the sad and doomed impression that you're a man, why don't you spare my pretty Bitch there and sit still to watch. That way she can run off through the forest if she likes, and you can tell yourself you're protecting her."

"Your real reason," Sam said, "is that I'm the one you need to keep distracted. It would be problematic for you if I had a chance to run off by myself and think."

Sam looked to Miah and caught her gaze. This, Hurst deigned to allow. Sam hoped his leniency was because it was a pain to shift the mind-world too far, too often. He hoped it meant that Hurst's power had more limits than he'd told them. He supposed they'd find out.

Staring hard into Miah's eyes, Sam said, "Go. Remember my training, if you can."

Miah looked like she might be about to cry, but she nodded. With one last look at Jake's bound form, she turned and ran off between the trees.

Hurst shrugged again and let her go. He pushed two fingers up into Jake's ass. Jake winced and tried to wriggle away, but he was bound too tightly into place, with more rope than Sam remembered seeing before.

"It doesn't matter what you tell yourself," Hurst said. "The reality is that you're going to watch me rape your boyfriend, and it's not stopping until you agree to come back to me." He twisted his hand until Jake gasped in something uncomfortably like pleasure. "How does that feel, Jakie-pie?" Hurst asked, "My fingers on your g-spot and your cock all squeezed too tight to get hard?"

"Switch with me, asshole," Jake grated out, still defiant despite his position. "I'll show you."

Sam could still see the knife sticking out of Jake's thigh.

He couldn't watch this.

There was no way.

"Give me a few hours, Hurst," Sam heard himself say. "There's something I need to do, but once it's done, I'll be all yours, ok? Just leave Jake alone."

Hurst laughed. "I've barely done anything," he said. "Is that all the guts you've got? At least let me get inside him first."

"Let him go," Sam insisted. "You can have me, ok? Just give me a few more hours of freedom, to say goodbye." A few hours to get to Tree, find [i]some[/i] option. Some way to fight back.

"You like the chastity toy that much, huh?" Hurst teased. He stroked Jake's balls, where they dangled between one bit of the metal thing and another. "That's good. I did get one for you, though I don't know if I'll ever let you be human, to be fair. Still, I liked fucking your ass more than I thought I would. You're awfully fun to humiliate."

Sam worked hard to clamp down his anger again. "Dammit, Hurst, I'm telling you you win," he snapped. "I'll come back to you, ok? Let me out of here!"

Hurst put the head of his cock to Jake's hole. "You don't mean it," he said. "You're just trying to buy time. Fuck hours. Come back now." He shoved his fat, flared tip into Jake.

Jake made a strangled sound, trying unsuccessfully, once again, to wriggle away.

"You don't want him," Sam snarled to Hurst. "You want your custom-designed fluffy-wuffy sex-toy, with her big tits and heat-on-demand. You call him my boyfriend, but I barely know that guy. Not my problem if he shares your taste for blond bimbos. Just because I don't want to watch gay rape porn doesn't mean I give a shit what happens to him."

Sam was improvising so fast, he wasn't even sure he was making sense, but . . . well, the truth was, a part of him was just buying time for Miah. She had to have picked up [i]something[/i] from Sam's lessons with Tree. Maybe now that she'd seen more mind-powers demonstrated, and didn't have anyone torturing her, she'd be able to put something together, act while Hurst was distracted.

"Thing is, though," Sam babbled on, "that stupid bitch you made wants both of you." He forced a fake laugh. "Yeah, she'd love to be your little slave, just like you want, but she still doesn't want you hurting her boy-toy. Now that she's run off, I can tell you straight. My only reason to deal with you at all is that I can't stand her fucking whining. But shit, I can't live like this anyway, and they tell me there's no cure. So I'm basically already dead. No reason to drag it out, right? So just give me my damn hours, Hurst."

Yeah, Sam was pretty sure he wasn't making any sense at all, but Hurst seemed amused at least, and curious. Of course, he didn't stop fucking Jake while he listened, and still he didn't let Sam look away.

"Your ass is so tight, Jakie-boy," Hurst said when Sam paused for breath. "Relax a little. You'll like it better."

"If I squeeze hard enough," Jake gasped, "I'm hoping your dick will pop off."

Hurst reached down and gave a jerk to the knife handle, still jutting unnaturally from Jake's thigh. Jake screamed. Hurst gave a few more thrusts.

"You're pretty hot when you're screaming, Jakie," he said.

"He's got parents, by the way," Sam said. "Contacts, friends. I'd make nice-nice and let him go, if I were you. Sure he's no match for you on his own, but once they all get here, if he's dead, or hurt too bad, or if you've still got him? You're pretty much screwed."

"If that were true," Hurst said, "you'd rely on them to save you too, since he's so taken with my little Bitch."

"Didn't I already explain that?" Sam retorted. "You've turned me into a monster, and a fucking [i]woman.[/i] You've defiled me with your filthy gay dick. I'm fucking suicidal, you asshole. I'm coming back because I kinda hope I can take you down with me when I go, but all that really matters is getting put out of my misery," he ranted. "This fuck-tard thinks I can live like this. He wants to play gay boyfriends, and it makes me fucking sick, the fag. At least with you I know the suffering is temporary. Just let me fucking [i]stop[/i] watching your nasty, gay-ass porn show, ok? Give me my hours. You're wasting everyone's time."

Hurst just kept on thrusting hard into Jake's ass. He gave a soft chuckle.

"You're cute, Bitch-boy, but a bad actor," he said. "No hours. Come back to me n- . . ."

Sam was back in his body, in the driver's seat of the car.

"Miah?" he asked.

[i]I . . . got out,[/i] she replied. [i]I don't really know how, but . . . when I did, I tied the pine cone back on.[/i]

Sam sagged in relief. "Good job," he said. "If I start to scratch my neck again, stop me." Then he remembered Jake. Who the fuck knew what Hurst would do to Jake now that Sam had escaped.

He turned the key in the ignition and careened back out onto the road. He had to get to Tree's. Yesterday.

This time, when Sam crossed the border into Tree's territory, there was an actual grizzly bear waiting on the other side. It huffed at him, rearing to stand upright. It was taller than Jake. Sam squeaked. He tried to blame the squeak on the fact that he'd crossed the barrier in female werewolf form, to save time, but the truth was, in human form, the bear would only have looked twice as big. He might have wet himself in addition to squealing like a high soprano.

Sam had known Tree didn't want him to come back, but he hadn't expected an apex predator as a border guard.

"Tree!" he yelled with everything he had. This was too important. He couldn't back down. He did have a healing factor. And fangs of his own.

Remembering that, he bared them, menacing with his claws like some cheesy Halloween werewolf decoration.

The bear laid back its ears and roared. This was not a soothing sound. The creature took a step toward Sam.

Sam didn't dare look away.

"Tree!" he screamed. "He's got Jake! Tree!!"

The grizzly pulled back its giant paw for a swing. Sam tried to brace himself for impact.

"[i]Tree!!"[/i]

The bear froze in mid-strike. Appearing suddenly bored, it dropped to all fours and wandered away between the trees. Some time later, Sam's heart started beating again.

"You're very determined," came a voice from behind him.

But Sam was braced for Tree's appearance. His hands were still shaking from the grizzly bear, but he was very proud of himself that he didn't even startle at Tree's voice.

"I didn't know you could control bears," he said.

"I can't," Tree said.

Sam turned to face her. She had white-and-green eyes today. He didn't see what tree she'd stepped out of.

"Then how . . . ?" Sam asked, glancing after the giant ursid—who'd already vanished between the underbrush.

Tree shrugged. "It's none of your business. Why are you here?"

Well, that [i]was[/i] more important. "Hurst has Jake. He's torturing him, trying to force me to come back. Also, this ward . . ." he flicked a claw near his pine cone, ". . . keeps getting torn off my neck."

Tree regarded him silently for a moment. Sam wished he had clothes. And was currently male.

"I keep telling you, Hurst is specialized in controlling werewolves," he insisted. "You wouldn't believe the crazy shit he can do with [i]my[/i] mind. He has total control inside my head, and he gets in there without even trying. He's got this weird magic circle painted in blood, and he takes some mystical drug . . . He says it helps him 'cheat' at mind control magic or something, and . . ."

Tree put up a hand.

Rage arced through Sam's body at the sheer arrogance of her gesture, but he did fall silent.

"What do you think I can do for you, Sam?" the dryad asked softly.

The question brought Sam up so short that he found himself choking down tears, like a little boy trying not to throw a tantrum.

[i]Miah?[/i] he found himself pleading, in sudden desperation.

"You misunderstand," Miah said, taking over their body. "There is no one else. If you can do nothing, then we will go to die for Jake's sake. That is all we have left. Hurst is that powerful." She kept her head bowed and her voice respectful. "We apologize for troubling you." Miah turned to go.

"Stop," Tree said. "I believe you. Tell me more."

Perhaps 15 minutes later, Miah and Sam had told Tree everything they could think of. They'd seen a great deal more of Hurst's powers since the last time Tree had sent them away, and Tree seemed to understand better this time what sort of magics they faced.

"You'll have to confront him in person, and well away from his ritual space," Tree said finally.

Sam shook his head. "No dice," he said. "He's already way bigger than Miah, and he's a better fighter than Jake. Most of my combat training is just in running away. I'm supposed to play bait while Jake attacks from behind, but Jake isn't available anymore. Your pet bear want to help out?"

"He's not my pet," she said, "and I doubt it." No further explanation. "Hmmm."

Her face was troubled, but not despairing. Sam was sure she considered options she hadn't before, and that was good, but he needed her to consider them faster.

"What about that 'item' Jake mentioned," Sam tried. He hoped desperately that bringing it up wouldn't piss her off again.

It didn't. Instead, she sat silent for a while, staring into space.

"Is it a weapon?" Sam asked.

Slowly, Tree shook her head, though she didn't look convinced. "It . . . it's not really an 'item' at all," she said. "Jake misunderstood whatever he heard about it."

Sam sagged a little. Well, it had been worth a try.

"It's a focus," Tree went on then, "for a terrible . . . pact."

Huh?

"It can be anything, really," Tree said, "though it's traditionally . . . sharp."

Oh. Maybe that did sound promising? But a pact with what? Despite his lies to Hurst about being suicidal, Sam was far from being ready for anything as drastic as selling his soul, assuming that was really a thing in this magical world he'd stumbled into.

"I've been . . . informed," Tree said, "that you briefly met the . . . other lord of this territory."

An image of black tendrils flashed through Sam's mind, along with the sensation of something slick and cool groping his cunt while two other tendrils gripped his legs.

"Met" was an interesting way to describe that encounter.

"I guess so," Sam said warily.

"He eats people," Tree said softly. "I live here, in part, to protect the world around him from his appetite. If I did not, of course, the humans would eventually come hunting him, after sufficient mysterious disappearances, and they would learn from their hunt far more about the shrinking supernatural world than we can afford to let them." She sounded very old as she spoke, and tired, and sad. "Or else, to prevent a human military response," she said, "we would be forced to slay him ourselves, diminishing the world's remaining magic, just to protect what little we can still keep hidden. I stay here, in other words, to protect the magical world from itself."

Sam thought he read in her eyes that there was more to it than that. From Jake's earlier explanation of Tree's relationship with the now-mad god-demon of this place, Sam guessed that she also . . . maybe hoped one day to see her friend return to himself. It didn't seem right, though, to ask.

"I normally discourage him from feeding on . . . anything but the pure sunlight and magic, fruit and other natural foods he subsisted upon long ago," she went on. "But . . . he certainly would prefer I stay out of his way in such matters." She wouldn't meet Sam's eyes, and for the first time since he'd known her, she looked lost and a little sick.

Sam wished he had time to give her her space. He wished he didn't have to bother her about this at all. But Jake was in the clutches of a madman, getting beaten and raped as they spoke. Sam couldn't afford to be gentle.

"What does the focus-thing do?" he asked. "What's the pact?"

"If you anoint it, activate it," Tree said, "it gambles your life for another's. It . . . will seek your enemy, so in weapon form, for example, it . . . heightens your power to attack, makes your strikes much harder to counter, and even one cut is enough to . . . well, not exactly slay, but . . . close enough not to matter. However, should you fail within the allotted time, the focus will turn on you, claiming your life instead of your enemy's."

She sounded nervous, and maybe a little nauseous to be telling Sam this.

It all sounded workable to Sam though. He was willing to stake his life to save Jake. To slay the monster that had done this to him.

Sam had never killed before, but . . . if he had to start, Hurst seemed like just the guy to kill.

"So, does it, like, feed the victim to your friend?" Sam asked.

Tree shrugged tiredly. "Close enough," she said. "And it always sets back his healing when he catches someone." She sighed and covered her face with both hands. "Assuming he ever gets better at all. I'm not sure I can tell anymore."

"At . . . at least you know Hurst deserves it?" Sam offered. He hoped he wasn't being insensitive.

Tree sighed again and nodded, dragging her hands away from her eyes. "As much as anyone can," she said, as if it were a fate far worse than mere death that this "pact" represented. "But if I do this for Jacob, my debt to his mother will finally be repaid. My debt and [i]his[/i]," she added.

Sam wasn't sure what that meant—Did the demon owe Jake's mother a debt too? Did psychotic demon-gods care about things like that?—but he didn't dare to ask.

"So . . ." Sam said after a while. "How does it work?"

Tree said they didn't have time to forge and "consecrate" a new blade. Sam wondered if she really meant "desecrate" and couldn't force herself to say it. In any case, though, she still had the last "focus" that had been made, and she thought it could probably serve again. This was the "item" Jake had mistakenly believed to be what Tree guarded, instead of just a hollowed-out symbol for a power she didn't even control.

Tree brought Sam to a cave he [i]hadn't seen at all[/i] on his previous visits to this place. There she left him with instructions and told him she had "something else to prepare".

Shaking with nerves, Sam approached a very old, very plain stone altar at the back of the cave. Its only marking was a crude carving of a human skull with antlers. It looked to Sam to be thousands of years old. It occurred to Sam that whoever had let a deity with an antlered skull for a symbol turn evil had really screwed up.

On top of the altar lay a long dagger, or possibly a shortsword. Sam didn't know the difference, really. He had no idea what culture it came from. It didn't look nearly as old as the altar. In fact, for all he could tell, it could have been made five years ago by some Renaissance Faire blacksmith. It was double-edged, simple and plain, with a stubby metal cross-guard and a hilt wrapped in brown leather. The pommel was flat and unadorned. Other than looking a bit rusty and not terribly sharp, it was entirely unremarkable.

Well, it [i]was[/i] a sword. Or a dagger. Either way, Sam didn't exactly see those every day. But still.

It didn't look like it had ever been enchanted to serve an evil god. It was a bit creepy, but . . . that could definitely just have been the ambiance.

[i]Are you sure this is the only way?[/i] Miah asked in his mind.

Sam shrugged. Uncomfortable with speaking out loud in this place, he answered her silently. [i]I can't think of anything else. Can you?[/i]

There was a pause. Then, [i]no. Do it.[/i]

Sam nodded and squared his shoulders. As instructed, he stood before the altar and uttered a string of nonsense syllables Tree had taught him, "to get [i]his[/i] attention."

The moment Sam finished the last sound, he felt the change within the cave.

[i]"It won't feel evil,"[/i] Tree had said. "[i]He feels more like his old self during the day."[/i]

Sam wasn't sure he and Tree shared the same definition of "evil". He almost couldn't breathe. He almost couldn't stand. He felt like his heart was being crushed inside his chest, from the sheer force of . . . [i]power[/i] that flooded the cave.

It didn't speak. It offered and asked nothing. But Sam had its attention. He wasn't entirely certain anymore that he wanted it.

Sam gripped a large rose-thorn Tree had given him.

[i]"Prick yourself to bleeding on the first try,"[/i] she'd said, [i]"Or he'll lose all respect for you and leave again."[/i]

Sam gritted his teeth and readied the thorn. "I seek a pact with the lord of this land," he recited. "I wager my soul . . ." What had he just been thinking to himself about not being willing to sell his soul? But this was a wager, not a sale. All Sam had to do was win. ". . . against the soul of he that cursed me with lycanthropy."

In lieu of knowing Hurst's real name, Tree had suggested alternative clarification.

"Should I fail to bring him as a gift to you, I offer myself instead. In return, I ask only that you bless this blade . . ." Again, Sam thought what he really meant was "curse", not "bless", but he used the words Tree had taught him. ". . . to strike true toward my enemy's heart."

With that, Sam stuck himself with the thorn, deep under the nail of his left pinkie. He knew it would hurt like hell, but it seemed like the best compromise between maintaining his ability to grip a sword while still being certain of drawing blood on the first try. He didn't want to actually hurt himself, after all.

His finger did bleed on the first prick, though Sam imagined he could feel chuckling amusement all around him at such a tiny, meaningless wound.

Fuck that, Sam thought. He only needed three drops of blood anyway. He held his finger over the blade.

"With my blood," Sam intoned, "I anoint this blade. Let it fill with your power, and seal the pact." He squeezed his finger. Three drops fell onto the sword.

[i]"He'll feel different once he tastes your blood,"[/i] Tree had said.

It was worse than "different". Sam collapsed against the altar, barely keeping his feet as the air seemed to rush from the cave all at once. The temperature dropped, and the shadows deepened. At the corners of his eyes, Sam thought he saw tendrils writhing, black flames flickering.

A yawning hunger seemed to open in the floor beneath Sam's feet, and the world began to spin around him. It seemed a miracle that he was not devoured on the spot.

[i]WEREWOLVES.[/i]

Sam heard no sound, yet the word seemed to echo all around him, along with a dark, dangerous chuckle.

[i]I'VE ALWAYS LIKED WEREWOLVES. TWO VICTIMS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE.[/i]

Sam spun, seeking the source of the sound, though he knew it was useless. There was no sound.

[i]"Beware Sam,"[/i] Tree had said. "[i]His deals are never fair. You will pay more for this pact than you think. They always do. I'm sorry I have no better way to help you. You have no idea how sorry."[/i]

And suddenly Sam regretted his decision. He wanted to take it back. Before he could, he heard or felt or tasted all around him . . .

[i]THE PACT IS MADE. I GIVE YOU THIRTEEN HOURS TO SLAY YOUR FOE.[/i]

"Thirteen hours!" Sam heard himself cry, without thinking. "Tree said you give people a month!"

The cave filled with laughter. [i]DID SHE? BUT YOUR CASE SEEMED URGENT.[/i]

Well, that was true, but how did that mean that it should have a shorter time limit? What if something went wrong?

[i]ALSO,[/i] the not-booming not-a-voice added, [i]I'M BORED. TAKE MY BLADE, FLEDGELING WEREWOLF. ENTERTAIN ME.[/i]

Sam looked down at the blade on the altar. It no longer looked rusty or dull. Its edge gleamed wickedly in the dim cave, but it had changed more than that.

Instead of plain, the blade, guard and pommel were decorated now, as if finely and masterfully etched over every inch . . . in shadowy, black tendrils. When Sam glanced away, they seemed almost to move at the corners of his eyes. Stamped into the center of both sides of the flat pommel, now, was the crude antlered-skull from the altar.

Sam wasn't sure he dared to touch it, but he was more certain, after the being's last command, that he didn't dare not to.

13 hours. In that time, Sam would kill Hurst and save Jake.

He refused to think about the alternative.

He gripped the hilt.

Still laughing, the [i]attention[/i] left the cave. The air became breathable again. The light grew brighter. The sword felt just like a little sword. Sam almost wondered how much of what had just happened had been his imagination. He gave the blade a swing or two. It had nice balance. Sam actually felt like he could fight with it.

[i]What do you think, Miah?[/i] he asked her.

[i]It's not as good as claws or fangs,[/i] she offered, warily.

Sam was about to allow himself a small smile, maybe even a teasing remark, but then, as if carried by the wind from far away, he heard . . .

[i]YOU . . . DON'T . . . HAVE . . . MUCH . . . TIME.[/i]

Followed by more laughter.

Yes, Sam and Tree definitely had different ideas of "evil".

[i]"Tree knows about his bad side,"[/i] Sam remembered hearing Jake say, the night they'd "met" the entity in question, [i]"but I doubt he's ever let her see it."[/i]

Sam shivered. He hoped dealing with this thing wasn't just going to make matters worse.

He tightened his grip on his freshly-cursed blade.

[i]I can do this,[/i] he thought.

If Miah heard him, she didn't respond.

Despite the strict time-limit, Sam spend most of the next several hours waiting.

It was part of his plan.

When Sam had emerged from the altar-cave, Tree had gravely given him a new ward-charm she'd prepared—a subtler spell, she'd said, fashioned this time from what looked to Sam like a dried apricot pit. He'd let her tie it onto his upper left arm, watching as it appeared, eerily, to meld into his flesh. To take it off this time, she'd explained, he would need her help. Yesterday, that would have creeped him out. Today, he was grateful. And when she'd explained how it worked, Sam got an idea.

He took his new, evil sword, and he walked back to the outer edge of Tree's territory. This was in part because she'd, again, told him he couldn't stay. She couldn't have him bringing trouble to her door. She'd already helped him more than she was sure she should. He really, really, really had to leave this time. Her debt to Hannah Grey was paid for good from the moment she let Sam take the freshly re-cursed blade from its cave.

That was all well and good, and Sam really did want to respect Tree's wishes.

He really did.

But what he wanted more, was to survive.

So he walked outside the barrier, and he put his clothes back on. Then he removed the old pine cone charm and braced himself for contact.

It didn't take long. He felt the brush of Hurst's mind on his own, but this time, with the new, subtler ward, it was Sam's choice to enter the mind forest and meet with him.

To Sam's relief and worry both, Hurst hadn't brought Jake along this time. Hurst's wolf was absent as well.

"Who the fuck is helping you with all this magic?!" Sam's nemesis growled.

Miah growled back, without words. Sam ignored Hurst's question.

"I'm sure you can tell where I am," he said, faking calm confidence. "I'll wait here for you. Get here at sunset. That should give you time for your drug to wear off, right? Otherwise it won't be a fair fight." He forced a small chuckle. "Bonus points if you let Jake escape while you're gone."

Sam hoped that would goad Hurst into bringing Jake along, trick him into thinking Sam had some ally planning to break Jake out while Hurst was distracted.

Hurst's face betrayed little response to Sam's words, however. He couldn't tell what Hurst would do.

"What makes you think your Jakie-poo is still alive?" Hurst asked.

"Whatever you did or didn't believe of my distraction-rambling earlier," Sam said, "you've already seen proof that Jake has powerful allies. You won't kill him until you know what you're dealing with, what you can and can't risk in his regard."

"And why, exactly, would I follow you out to where your allies are strongest?" Hurst replied.

Well, at least he hadn't refuted Sam's reasoning about Jake. Hopefully that meant Jake was still basically ok-ish.

"Why, exactly," Sam retorted, "would I go anywhere else? I have what you want: my wolf. I can't possibly take Jake from you. I see no reason to trust you that you'd let him go if I came to you. He's waiting for his allies to rescue him either way. So. Come and get me, or sit and wait to lose your chance. You'll want to skip town before you have to face Jake's parents."

Sam had no particular reason to believe that Jake's parents were really on their way. In perfect honesty, he didn't even know for sure that they were still alive. The way Jake and Tree talked about them, it was . . . kind of ambiguous. But all that really mattered was that Hurst [i]believed[/i] they were coming. Sam hoped his acting was better this time.

"I mean, yeah," Sam admitted, "you can tell I'm trying to lure you to where I'm stronger. I won't lie about it, but don't you [i]need[/i] to come find out [i]why[/i] I'm stronger here? You've had no plans in place at all for dealing with my magical defenses," he reminded. "What that tells me is that you've never encountered opposition to your methods before. If you don't know how I'm doing this, you'll never know when it might happen again. You'll never learn how to counter it—or at least avoid targets who can do this shit."

Hurst narrowed his eyes. He looked to be concentrating. A moment later, between one blink and the next, Sam found himself naked again, and chained to a tree. He tried again to visualize the chains as tinfoil.

This time it worked, and he tore easily away, brushing the ripped shackles from his wrists. He shut his eyes and imagined himself dressed again, in much cooler clothes this time than what he'd found in Jake's car. Casual black, somewhere between Johnny Cash and Spike the vampire. Thus attired, Sam grinned at Hurst, and started to feel almost as confident as he pretended.

"You've got to be curious," he goaded.

But Miah did him one better. "Sam is stronger than you," she taunted. "Prove otherwise, if you want to be my Alpha. Come and fight him, or withdraw your claim to me."

Hurst just looked at her for a long time. Sam thought his eyes probably held murder, not that it mattered now, with the pact Sam and Miah had made.

"Sunset, huh?" was all Hurst said.

Sam put his hands in his pockets. "Sunset," he agreed. "Now get out of my mind."

He willed Hurst to go, and he was gone.

Sam resisted the urge to scream and dance around like a triumphant monkey.

[i]"I don't know what that drug is,"[/i] Tree had told him. "[i]I don't know precisely how he does what he does, so I could be wrong, but this charm should give you the edge against anyone but me, as long as you're in your own mind."[/i]

Sam was very, very glad that it had worked. He returned to the real world and tied the other ward back on as well, just to be paranoid. He wished he was still dressed as cool out here as he had been moments before in the mind forest, but . . . at least Jake's spare sneakers from the trunk fit him . . . if he wore an extra pair of socks.

Hell, at least there had been clothes in the car at all. The last thing Sam wanted was to confront Hurst wearing Hurst's own clothes.

He didn't want to think about how he'd ended up wearing them. He didn't ever want to remember what had happened to him in Hurst's basement.

To change his own internal train of thought, Sam brought up another important point of preparation with Miah.

"You have, like, wolf instincts, right?" he asked her.

[i]I guess so,[/i] she replied.

"I, uh, don't," Sam said. "But I don't think we're going to make it to sunset at all, if we don't eat. Like, a lot." His stomach growled loudly in agreement. "Can you . . . hunt elk?"

[i]Ooh! Good idea![/i] Miah cried. [i]Give me the body![/i]

Hunting, eating, training, resting, and waiting. Until sunset.

Sam really hoped he was using his 13 hours wisely. If nothing else, he'd guessed right that Hurst wouldn't come early. He wouldn't want to fight face-to-face before dark anyway, since he'd want the option of his werewolf form for combat, but he also wouldn't want to fight or drive before that weird drug was out of his system, and Sam remembered taking a good while to come down.

An hour before sunset, Sam took off the pine cone again. He wanted to make sure Hurst could find him. Then, taking into account all the combat and freerunning he'd practiced with Jake, Sam chose his location with care.

[i]Come and get me,[/i] he thought.

Miah said nothing, but Sam imagined, at least, that he could feel her agreement.

He gripped the sword and waited. The sun dipped down behind the mountains. The forest began to grow dark.

[i]This had better work,[/i] he thought.

13 hours. Probably more like 8 of them left. Maybe less. Sam didn't have a watch.

He'd gambled his soul. That seemed . . . pretty stupid now.

Except Sam still didn't see how he'd had a choice.

Fuck.

"You have a sword," Hurst said from the shadows. He snorted. "Do you know how to [i]use[/i] a sword?"

"Try me," Sam replied, turning to face him. All his confidence from the mind forest seemed to evaporate like so much hand sanitizer. It was everything he could do not to shake.

"I don't have a weapon," Hurst remarked. Had he always been so much taller than Sam? So much broader? "I thought you wanted this to be a fair fight."

Sam knew what he expected to happen here. He expected Hurst to transform. Then he would transform too and run away like Jake had taught him, using the terrain as much to his advantage as possible, alert for his chance to strike.

It didn't happen. Hurst just stood there, waiting for Sam to answer.

"I didn't tell you not to bring one," Sam managed finally. "Not my problem you're not that bright."

Hurst laughed. He seemed almost pleased, in an I'm-going-to-kill-you-slowly sort of way. "Ok," he said. "Fair enough. Let's do this."

He did look to be dressed for fighting, in tough boots and practical clothes. Huh. He took a basic fighting stance and began to circle.

This did not fit well with Sam's plan, but then . . . it would only take Sam one hit to win. So maybe it didn't matter.

[i]Be alert,[/i] he thought to Miah, just in case. [i]He's acting weird.[/i]

Sam felt her acknowledge his words, but it didn't make him any less off-balance. He adopted a fighting stance of his own. After playing around with the sword for an hour or so after Miah finished eating, Sam had come up with something vaguely like a fighting style for a sword this size. It should work well enough for fighting an unarmed man, he thought.

Keeping his eyes on Hurst, Sam joined his opponent in circling the little clearing where he'd let Hurst find him. He wasn't really sure what he was supposed to be watching for, not even with Jake's training.

But he only needed one hit. He had to be able to get in one hit, right?

Hurst just grinned at him, unarmed, light on his feet, bare hands at the ready.

Actually, now that Sam thought about it, it looked to him like that wasn't human-Hurst, even though he was still in his human shape. What in the world?

Sure, it made sense that the wolf might have spent more time honing his combat skills. He might be better suited for fighting unarmed against a guy with a sword.

But at that point, why the hell would he [i]not[/i] transform? What advantage could the human form possibly offer him?

[i]It doesn't matter[/i], Sam thought. [i]I only need to hit him once. It's all moot from there.[/i]

[i]I just need to get it over with.[/i]

Though silently, Sam thought he could feel Miah agreeing with him. He nodded, took a deep breath, and rushed in.

Hurst evaded Sam's first strike completely. He was fast, fast enough to make Sam feel laughably slow. Hurst darted behind him, out of Sam's field of vision for just an instant, and then—as Sam spun back to face him again, bringing the cursed sword around for one more attempt—Hurst struck out at Sam's neck.

Sam tried to block, but he was just a hair too slow. He felt something sharp prick his skin. Dread flooded him.

Hurst jogged back out of his reach before Sam could counterattack. Laughing, almost dancing on the balls of his feet, convincing Sam completely that he looked at wolf-Hurst, not the human, Sam's opponent revealed an empty syringe in his hand.

"I may have lied," he said, "about not having a weapon."

Sam began to feel dizzy.

Shit.

He stumbled backward, steadying himself against a tree.

"You see," Hurst said. Sam was sure, somehow, that this was the human again. "I got to thinking about how you kicked me out of your mind earlier today. Neat trick, that," he admitted. "Don't know how you did it, but here's what I think: somebody gave you a magic thing to make you strong inside your own mind." Hurst shrugged. "I don't know how to make those. My understanding is they can work a bunch of different ways. But there's one possible way they can work, that would be, well . . ." He cocked his head and looked at Sam. "Kinda funny."

Sam didn't wait this time. He didn't even want to know what Hurst planned to do next. He kicked off his shoes and started running. [i]We need to be faster, Miah,[/i] he thought.

In moments he was transforming. His borrowed clothes were stretchy, but not quite enough to stay comfortable as he changed. Maybe he shouldn't have worn them. Then again, he thought, as the forest spun more and more dizzily around him, maybe the discomfort would keep him a little more sober.

Sam didn't know how much time he would have until whatever Hurst had stuck him with would take whatever effect it was going to take.

Fuck, why hadn't he thought of something like this? It wasn't as if Hurst hadn't stuck him with a syringe before.

But he'd had his hands out, visible and empty. How fast did the man have to be, to palm the damn syringe in the one second he was outside Sam's line of sight? At least it solved the question of why he'd stayed human instead of transforming. Werewolf bodies weren't nearly so well-suited to concealing things in pockets.

Damn it. Sam felt his legs going weaker as he ran.

Just a little bit further and he might be able to salvage this. Just a little bit further.

Just a little bit . . .

The torture chamber again. Fresh blood still spattered on the walls.

Hurst's mind.

". . . [i]as long as you're in your own mind,"[/i] Tree had said.

Oh shit.

"You're right, Face," said wolf-Hurst to human-Hurst. "That [i]is[/i] funny." To Sam, he added, in mocking explanation. "The same ward that protects you in [i]your[/i] mind, serves as a makeshift substitute for ritual space, if we have the means of dragging you into ours." He snickered. "You set [i]yourself[/i] up for this."

Both Hursts grinned at Sam and Miah.

Miah snarled.

"Oh, don't take it too hard," human-Hurst said. "It's just a battle on two fronts now. It'd be such a shame not to bloody our fangs at all, but we don't exactly want to make the news, do we? Even out in the woods, a werewolf has to take care. So let's let the wolves fight in here, and the humans outside. You remember how to do that, don't you, Bitch?"

Miah snuffed as if the question were beneath her, and the next thing Sam knew, he was back in the real world, perfectly sober. He was still in werewolf form too. He thought he could hear Hurst running to catch up to him, probably in werewolf form as well.

Sam checked on the blade in his hand. It was definitely more dagger-sized in this shape, and gripping it was a little more awkward with the proportionately-smaller hilt and Sam's own sharp claws threatening to cut into his palm, but he did still have it, and he still only needed a single good hit to win.

His plan was back on track. Sort of.

Whatever was going on inside Hurst's mind-world, Sam could already feel traces of lust pouring through his system.

He hadn't really expected Miah to be a match for the larger, more combat-ready wolf-Hurst. She was huge and strong compared to a human, but compared to other werewolves, Hurst had designed her small—petite even. Bastard hadn't wanted her able to fight back. It wasn't her fault, and it was something they'd known all along.

But what Sam [i]hadn't[/i] expected—and really, really should have—was that Hurst would try to use her sexuality against Sam in the fight. Now, in addition to being smaller and less experienced, Sam was going to be distracted by mind-searing lust.

He swallowed hard. He still only had to hit Hurst once. And he [i]had[/i] managed to get into position, exactly where he'd planned. He turned to wait for Hurst to arrive. And tried not to think about how much he'd rather be fucking Jake than . . . anything else right now. Sam's cunt began to swell and moisten inside his too-tight borrowed sweats. He tried very hard to ignore it.

Hurst burst through the trees. He pulled to a stop. Damn it.

No, no. Sam just had to goad him into motion again. He could do this.

"It defeats the purpose of the humans fighting out here," Hurst said, "if we're going to do it in werewolf form."

Sam shrugged. "You don't care about that. You just wanted your wolf raping mine some more, to mess with me." He pretended to glance away, leave an opening. Hurst didn't take it. Bastard. "Anyway," Sam went on, "there's nobody out here. I didn't want to take the time to transform again."

"I thought you were so disgusted by being a woman that you wanted to die," Hurst said.

"I thought you said you'd seen through my bad acting back there," Sam replied. "I actually don't give a shit, asshole."

"Fascinating," Hurst said. He paced back and forth across from Sam, his eyes never leaving Sam's face. "You have something in mind. I wonder what it is, and whether you think you can still do it once your mind has no room left for anything but your need for my knot."

Sam's lust spiked higher at the word "knot", and Hurst's black-furred body looked way better to Sam than he wanted it to, but he held himself steady, sucked in a ragged breath for calm. "Not your knot," he muttered.

Never Hurst's knot. Not of his own free will.

Jake's on the other hand . . .

No. Focus.

Was Jake even ok?

Dammit! Focus!!

"You want to know what I have planned?" Sam asked. His taut-stretched sweats cut painfully into his swollen cunt, but even the pain felt good. He had to work to keep from pumping his hips to grind against the hems of his own clothes. He wished he had time to take them off. He wondered if his claws were sharp enough to just [i]cut[/i] them off.

No. Focus.

"Come get me then," he taunted Hurst. "See if you can catch me."

"Those sweats look really uncomfortable," Hurst said, feigning sympathy. "I have to say, I'm a little worried about my own clothes. I hadn't expected to transform out here. How about I back up a bit and we each take a moment to get undressed. We'll both fight better that way."

Sam had a sense that this was supposed to be a trap, but between the fact that he was waiting with a trap of his own, and the fact that he wasn't thinking at all clearly anymore, he decided that the greater physical comfort was worth the risk. He accepted Hurst's offer.

The big black werewolf moved well away, though not out of sight. When he undressed, Sam could tell he was posing a bit, to show off his physique. Sam wanted to laugh at the sheer cheesy stupidity of this, but . . . the fact was, in his current state, he couldn't actually claim it wasn't having the desired effect. Sam swallowed hard and discarded his clothes as quickly as he could . . . without risking cutting himself on his evil little sword.

And that right there, he realized, might actually have been Hurst's objective. Once Sam was a little more comfortable, a hair less distracted, he caught Hurst watching the cursed weapon.

"You're afraid of your own sword," he remarked. "Why carry it then?"

Sam's brain utterly failed to provide him with a witty comeback. He was just too damn horny. Poor Miah. Wolf-Hurst must be using her hard in the mind-world. The thought did not improve Sam's concentration.

"Just come at me already," Sam finally said. "I'm tired of talking."

"Of fighting too, I imagine," Hurst replied, smirking. "Wouldn't you rather fuck?"

"Not you," Sam insisted, baring his teeth.

But yes. Sam wanted sex more than just about anything in the world. Shit.

Hurst chuckled. "We'll see," he said.

"It's your turn to make the first move, by the way," Sam told him. "I went first last time."

Hurst's ears perked and his tongue lolled out, but Sam didn't speak canine well enough to really know what that meant. He wondered if he made wolfish expressions in the wolf-forms too.

"Such a demanding little bitch," Hurst observed. "All right. Let's see what you think you have waiting for me."

He darted forward. Finally.

He was almost too fast, even for what Sam had in mind.

Almost.

Fortunately, all Sam needed to do was fall backward off a cliff.

In fact, due mostly to luck, Sam's timing was perfect. Not only did Hurst not quite catch him as he fell, the larger werewolf [i]did[/i] overbalance and tumble after him, over the very same cliff Sam had gone over with Jake. He felt it when he crossed the border. He felt the ambient hostility, the corruption of this forest's night-time soul.

His plan was crazy. Sam knew it was crazy.

But he only had 13 hours. He was desperate.

He was prepared for the monster. Hurst wasn't. He only needed a distraction. He only needed one hit.

Sam had positioned himself very carefully. With little effort, he caught a sturdy tree on the way down. Kicking out at a startled Hurst, Sam made sure his opponent found no handholds, fell on past, landing hard several yards further down into the demon's territory.

[i]So far so good,[/i] Sam thought.

That was when everything went wrong.

[i]DOES IT COUNT IF I KILL HIM MYSELF?[/i] came the terrifying voice from the cave, amplified a thousand times by the darkness of night. Corrupt [i]awareness[/i] seemed to stroke all Sam's fur at once. [i]NO, I DON'T THINK IT DOES[/i], the voice said without sound.

Black tendrils rippled up out of the ground all around them. Hurst yelled with alarm, but Sam had no time to feel satisfied. Tendrils grabbed for him like striking snakes.

No, he couldn't get caught, not yet. He had to kill Hurst. He had to win his gamble. Shit, it was so hard to think. He dove toward Hurst, who already snarled and clawed at the rippling black limbs that sought to bind him.

Tendrils grabbed Sam too, well before he reached Hurst.

[i]I'LL JUST EAT YOU BOTH, I THINK,[/i] came the voice that wasn't a voice. It was so much worse out here, at night. Every syllable dripped with cruelty. Every sound seemed to assault Sam's brain like rape.

Of course, Sam was so damn horny that rape sounded nice about now.

"Um," he heard himself say. "This was a bad idea. I see that now, Your . . . um . . . Terribleness. I'm not thinking very clearly. I don't know if you can tell."

To Sam's relief and terror, he felt or heard or drowned in cruel amusement from all sides. At least he was obeying the order to entertain, right?

"Isn't there some other way we could satisfy you?" Sam begged, "some toll we could pay for passage on your land, other than . . . being eaten?"

A black tendril slid higher up Sam's leg, up his thigh, dragged lingeringly across Sam's heat-swollen cunt. It felt like heaven, and like choking on pure filth, all at once.

Sam didn't like it. He didn't want it, but . . . horny as he was . . . compared to dying anyway . . . well, it didn't sound much worse than the way he'd spent his time last night.

[i]YOU MAKE AN INTERESTING OFFER,[/i] the voice replied, licking over his body as the tendril teased his clit.

"Ghah!" Hurst cried, from a few yards away. "Where the fuck did you bring me, Bitch?!"

Sam wondered if he was hearing the voice at all. Either way, he ignored Hurst's question.

[i]I MAY STILL EAT YOU[/i], the voice said, [i]BUT YOU HAVE BOUGHT YOURSELF THE TIME IT TAKES ME TO TIRE OF TOYING WITH YOUR LUSTS.[/i]

"Get off me, you bastards!" Hurst cried. He lashed about himself wildly with claws and fangs, but Sam could see the tendrils reaching up to caress his cock and ass.

Nice as the turnabout was, though, Sam had little time to notice it. As soon as the tendril slipped up inside Sam's eager, wet cunt, he knew, instantly, that if it fucked him very long, it would kill him.

It wasn't the combination of pleasure and filth that was the problem, though Sam thought that might give him nightmares later, and possibly render him unable to ever watch hentai again. It wasn't any particular physical incompatibility either. The tendrils were silky smooth to the touch, an acceptable shape and size, and didn't seem to excrete anything noxious. As far as the purely physical aspect of them was concerned, they were weird but—in Sam's current state of wild arousal—not at all unpleasant.

The problem wasn't even how quickly matters escalated from a single tendril snaking its sensuous way in and out of Sam's hungry cunt to: one in his ass, two pounding hard at his cunt, and one shoving down his throat until he gagged. It was rougher than he liked, but he could still breathe, and . . . well, he'd suggested this himself, so no matter how rough and terrifying, it was still better than getting raped by Hurst.

No, the problem was not really anything to do with the [i]fucking[/i] aspects of the weirdest, most outwardly disturbing sex act in which Sam had ever participated.

It was . . . Sam couldn't really describe it. He could feel them sucking his life away. No, not his life, not his blood or his soul or his energy. His . . . will to live? His desire to keep existing?

When it ebbed low enough, Sam could tell, it wouldn't just be that he would give up and lie there, allowing himself to be fucked to death. It wasn't just that he would cease to entertain, and thus probably be eaten anyway. No, it felt like he would . . . melt away, dissolve into nothing. Like he would lose cohesion as a being, or even an object, and just . . . un-be.

Sam knew Hurst had sensed the same problem when the man started screaming—screaming as loud as he could around the tendril that had to be shoved down his throat.

It occurred to Sam that he needed to get Hurst free as badly as he needed to get out himself. If he failed to kill Hurst with his cursed blade, after all, the gamble would be lost. The blade would turn on Sam.

It seemed like Sam had made nothing but poor decisions all day.

He knew when Hurst's wolf let Miah go. It didn't make any difference to either of them. Even Hurst's wolf wasn't a strong enough fighter to free him from these tendrils. As for Miah, she stayed well out of Sam's way, far back in his mind. It would be many hours yet before the drug wore off, and she didn't want to share its effects with him.

And the tendrils had no knots to offer, so since Sam was already far, far gone into heat by the time Miah was freed, it really didn't matter how hard he was fucked, or how long, or how many times the corrupted, molesting things made him cum.

He kept right on wanting more. He never did quite manage to clear his head.

One thing he did try was the sword, of course. He tried it early, as soon as he felt the tendrils sapping his existence.

The voice only laughed at him. The sword failed entirely to cut the tendrils. It might as well have been cardboard, for all they cared. Clearly, this was not an entity vulnerable to his own power.

And after that, Sam was out of ideas. He couldn't even think of any clever ways to beg for his life.

He'd lost. He was going to die.

Well, at least he'd managed to take Hurst with him.

He hoped Jake was ok.

Sam felt his consciousness slipping, even as his body writhed and gasped and moaned for more.

And then Tree was there.

. . . at least, Sam thought it was Tree. He was never quite sure.

He didn't see where she came from. He never managed a clear look at her face, though Hurst did, Sam saw. Whatever Hurst looked upon when his eyes met hers . . . Sam had never seen such pure terror in anyone's expression. Even the threat of death by hentai rape monster hadn't frightened Hurst as badly as . . . Tree's face.

If it was really Tree.

She was shaped mostly like Tree: beautiful, inhuman curves; long hair with bits of plants tangled or growing in it . . . She had to be a dryad, at least, so unless there were two of them in this forest . . .

But it didn't feel like Tree. This being, this visitation, felt dark and terrible, an incarnation of death and decay. She smelled of rot and poison, and she glowed just slightly in a fungoid phosphorescence. Far, far more than with the tendrils, Sam felt certain he would die if she touched him.

But she didn't touch him.

Instead, gentle as a warm summer rain, she caressed one of the tendrils—one near, but not touching Sam.

"That's enough," she whispered, like a nighttime breeze through a putrid swamp.

All the tendrils stilled.

"That's enough for tonight," she repeated. "You know how you fuss when you break your toys."

Several tendrils curled and all but frolicked around her feet, like they danced with delight just to be near her. With surprising gentleness, all the tendrils binding and fucking Sam slowly withdrew, to leave him reeling, weak-kneed, and a bit nauseous, but alive and free.

Sam didn't wait to be told. He fixed his grip on the cursed sword and ran for the barrier.

He heard Hurst close behind him. He could still slay his target [i]after[/i] escaping with his life. Somehow, Sam promised himself. Somehow, he would make this all work out.

As he worked his way up the same hill he and Jake had used to escape this same entity the other night, Sam felt with relief the moment he crossed back into the human world. His legs gave out from under him then and there, and he dared finally to look back toward where he'd been.

But, of course, he'd crossed the barrier.

All signs of Tree and the tendrils had gone. Sam hoped she was safe. He hoped she hadn't risked too much for him. Somehow, he thought she hadn't.

Besides, Sam still had to worry about keeping [i]himself[/i] alive.

He looked around for Hurst.

Too late.

Coming again from behind him, just outside his field of vision, Hurst darted in from nowhere and went straight for Sam's sword.

Sam clung on for—quite literally—dear life, biting and kicking and snarling for all he was worth, gripping the too-small hilt with all the force he could muster in both of his awkwardly-clawed, werewolf hands.

It wasn't enough to shake Hurst free, but it was enough to keep a grip on it, at least.

Hurst, however, seemed to have somehow intuited—or heard from the voice perhaps—at least a piece of the sword's true nature. He was as careful as Sam was not to touch any part of the black-embossed blade, and, worse, he refused as stubbornly as Sam did to let it go.

This was very, very bad.

"I'm going to end you, you piece of shit," Hurst grated, his huge, black-furred arms flexing as he worked to pry Sam's fingers loose. "After what you just put me through . . . no, you're garbage. You're a failure. I could never fuck you again anyway—not without seeing those [i]things[/i]."

All traces of amusement were gone from his face. For the first time, now, Sam read pure hatred in Hurst's gaze, as if he gagged on his rage at Sam.

Sam kind of had to laugh at that—except that laughter weakened his arms and nearly lost him his grip on the unholy blade. The amusement didn't last long.

"I thought those things were way better lovers than you," he taunted instead.

Hurst snarled incoherently and kicked out at Sam's legs. Sam lost his footing and went down on his back, clutching the blade. Hurst came down on top of him, still wrestling for the little shortsword.

"You noxious bitch," he growled in Sam's face. "What the fuck does this sword do, huh? Why are you so scared of it? Why is it covered in pictures of [i]those things[/i]?! You'd rather serve [i]that[/i] than me? Is that it? You fucking cunt! I'm gonna kill you [i]so hard[/i]!"

Sam noticed, then, that in their struggles they'd rolled precariously close to the border once more.

Sam did not want to go over it again. For any reason. It had been a bad idea the first time, and now it would only be worse. That thing wouldn't let them escape again, Sam was sure. It had listened to Tree once, but next time, next time it would shred them without thinking, without talking first.

He didn't know how he knew. But . . . given how the sword worked . . . it just didn't seem like the kind of being who liked to let its prey escape.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

On Hurst's next yank, he pulled them closer still to the barrier. Sam couldn't tell if Hurst was aware or not, how near he was to getting caught by the tendrils again. Sam wasn't sure if he could use it to his advantage either way. He'd made so many wrong decisions today, he couldn't seem to force himself to act.

He just held onto the blade, and kept on trying to force it in Hurst's direction.

Just one cut! Please!!

A chunk of rock gave way beneath Sam, tumbling down the steep slope, past the invisible barrier. Sam and Hurst slid closer, ever closer. Sam could smell it now. The snakeskin and pepper, lightning and old blood. They were practically on top of it.

One wrong move and . . .

No. No, while he'd been distracted, thinking of the barrier . . .

Hurst had lunged forward, pushing on Sam's grip with his bigger, stronger hands.

The bite of a blade stung the flesh of Sam's shoulder.

Just one cut.

Darkness exploded around them.

Darkness and laughter.

Hurst looked startled. Sam reeled in despair and terror. He lost his grip on the blade. Hurst stared at it, at the air around them. He rolled off of Sam and flung the little sword away from them both.

But it didn't matter. Sam could feel it in his flesh, no matter how far away it was.

He could feel it. Drawing him in.

What was happening?!

The mind forest was blackened, diseased, dripping in corruption. A foul wind howled through it from all directions at once.

"Miah!" Sam cried. "[i]Miah!!"[/i]

He ran, screaming her name, looking for her everywhere.

What was happening!?!

Then he saw them. The rippling black tendrils were here, in his mind.

That only made sense, really. Sam should have expected them the moment he found himself here.

Except, they weren't everywhere. The corruption was everywhere, but the tendrils all seemed concentrated in one spot. Sam pulled up short and peered at them. What . . . ?

Miah.

In the center, wrapped in tendrils, nearly mummified in them, Sam saw Miah. He ran toward her.

[i]Stay back!![/i] he heard, without sound. Miah's voice. [i]Run, Sam. Samuel Jeremiah Eriksen. Get away from this. Hide! Survive![/i]

Power flowed into Sam then, power it took him a moment to recognize.

The drug. She'd kept it to herself, here in the mind-world, to keep it from making him weak and woozy outside, but it hadn't worn off.

And here, inside his mind . . .

His [i]own[/i] mind, where Tree's charm would work in his favor again . . .

Yes. Sam willed himself to be invisible, imperceptible. Hide, Miah had said. It was a good plan. He'd hide and circle around to flank the . . .

Something shifted.

Sam looked again. No. A hole had opened up beneath Miah. The tendrils were drawing her down, down into a gaping, black maw.

Sam realized what she'd done.

She hadn't re-shared the drug's power with him.

She'd given him all of it.

[i]Samuel Jeremiah Eriksen.[/i]

[i]Survive.[/i]

She'd sacrificed herself.

She'd told him to live, for them both.

Sam stared, frozen in horror, as the hole in his mind closed over Miah's head.

She screamed, high, thin, and terrified.

Then she was gone.

The mind-forest vanished.

Hurst was on top of Sam. He seemed huge, impossibly huge, so much bigger than before.

"She's gone," the big black werewolf whispered, as if in shock. "Just that one little knick, and she's [i]gone![/i]" he gasped.

He wasn't looking at Sam. His eyes were shut. He started to laugh and rolled away.

"Fuck, she's gone!!" he cried. "Fucking little bitch made a deal with a demon and it fucking ate her! Stupid cunt!" He was laughing harder and harder.

Sam wanted to scream at him, defend Miah's choices, her courage and self-sacrifice, but he found he couldn't move. He seemed to feel remarkably awful. Well, he'd just watched Miah eaten by something horrible, to save his life, so Sam supposed that made sense.

Hurst just kept on laughing, paying Sam no mind at all. He transformed back to his human shape while Sam watched weakly, through half-opened eyes.

Naked and human, Hurst tried to push himself up from the ground. He got to all fours, but was laughing so hard, so maniacally, that he fell down again. Fell down and punched the ground, as his laugh turned to keening rage.

"That fucking bitch!" he screamed. "She was a fucking work of art!! How dare she die before I want her dead?! [i]How fucking dare she!?![/i]"

He collapsed into the dirt and lay there, punching the ground, his face turned away from where Sam lay.

That was when Sam realized why Hurst had looked so huge. Sam was human again.

Of course he was. His wolf had been eaten by an evil god.

Sam's chest constricted painfully.

[i]Miah!![/i]

He pushed himself up. Whatever shock had immobilized him when she was lost, he seemed to be recovering.

[i]When she was lost.[/i]

When she gave herself up to protect him.

[i]"How do I get rid of her?"[/i] Sam remembered asking Tree. It felt like years ago now, though Sam knew he'd have to count on his fingers to tell if it had been more than a week. Shame now seared him at the memory.

[i]"You don't,"[/i] Tree had replied. [i]". . . all you and your wolf can do is move forward together."[/i]

[i]"There has never been a cure for lycanthropy."[/i]

[i]". . . a dual soul where once no such duality existed."[/i]

But now Miah was gone.

Whatever link Hurst had had with her, it had broken. Hurst knew she was gone, and he'd seen Sam collapse and transform. He knew there was no cure for lycanthropy, except death.

Sam should have been dead.

". . . [i]two souls for the price of one,"[/i] the demon-god had said.

He was probably feeling cheated about now.

Beside Sam, Hurst had actually started to cry. He'd pounded the dirt until his fist bled and he still kept pounding.

He didn't mourn Miah, Sam was sure. Hurst wasn't decent enough to mourn—not for someone he'd seen as a toy. He was angry not to have gotten his way, perhaps, but . . . in honesty, Sam suspected that the real tantrum was about getting raped and humiliated back there beyond the barrier.

Well, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy. Bastard.

Sam finished sitting up. He looked around him for where Hurst had flung the sword. There it was. Could he get to it before Hurst noticed he was up and moving?

"[i]His deals are never fair,"[/i] Tree said in his memory.

Wasn't that the truth. Fucking demon bastard.

The price had been too high. From the beginning it had been too high. Sam had been stupid to take the deal.

[i]So, what,[/i] Sam asked himself, [i]I'm going to give him two more souls to play with?[/i] He shook his head. [i]Fuck the sword,[/i] Sam told himself.

His hand closed on a big rock, loosened in the earlier struggle. He clutched it in his fist.

Before Hurst ever noticed he was up and moving, Sam lunged toward him. He brought the rock down, hard.

"H-how . . . you're dead," Hurst mumbled, blinking blearily. "I felt you die."

No, he'd felt Miah die and jumped to conclusions. Sam felt sick, but he didn't answer. Instead, yanking Hurst's head up, he brandished the sword near the bastard's eye.

"You know what this can do," Sam said. "Something tells me, if it hits [i]your[/i] skin, your wolf won't be generously sacrificing himself to save your ass."

"How'd you tie me up?" he asked.

"Our clothes," Sam said. "After I hit you with a rock." He waved the sword in Hurst's face. "Now pay attention, you concussed bastard."

In truth, he was worse than concussed. Sam had smashed his skull in pretty bad. It had been grosser than gross watching it re-form into a head-shape as it healed. It still wasn't done re-inflating, not quite, so Hurst still had to be a bit brain-damaged.

Fucking disturbing.

"A rock. You hit me with a rock." Hurst started to giggle. Then he saw the sword and sobered considerably, appearing to wake up enough to realize his position. "Shit," he said.

"Pretty much," Sam said. "Where's Jake?"

By the time Sam arrived at Hurst's car—having smashed Hurst's head again and hoping to hell that the bastard didn't recover fast enough to escape—Jake had managed to chew through part of the hood that kept him bound in wolf form. From there, he'd started work on chewing through the back of the trunk, to claw his way into the back seat, but that was as far as he'd gotten.

His paw pads and lips were bloody from his efforts, but the moment Sam lifted the lid of the trunk in which he'd been stuffed, Jake had his forepaws on Sam's chest and was licking Sam's face, wagging with delight.

"Ok, ok," Sam protested, laughing despite himself and pushing Jake gently away. "Let's get that thing off your head."

Seconds later, Sam was being hugged by a giant werewolf.

"Fuck, it's good to see you, babe," Jake gushed, grinning.

Babe again? Really? "Yeah, you too, princess," Sam replied sourly.

Jake didn't seem to notice. "Where's Hurst?" he asked. "Is he dead? Can I still kill him?"

"He's this way," Sam said softly. He felt his delight at Jake's safety slowly fading in the shadow of . . . everything else. "I have a lot to tell you," he said.

Hurst did escape while Sam was away rescuing Jake, but in addition to the re-smashed skull, Sam had left him with enough badly broken bones that Jake had no trouble retrieving him before they knit. Sam and Jake kept him contained for the rest of the night, and Sam explained everything that had happened.

Jake took it . . . soberly. Beyond that, for all Sam knew, his . . . probably-no-longer-boyfriend . . . might just be in shock.

A lot had happened.

Sam's wolf was gone.

She'd given herself to a demonic god. To save him.

"You should be dead," Jake said. He sounded numb. "The wolf . . ."

"I know," Sam said. "She's me. We're not really two souls." He sighed. "Hurst was as confused as you. But here I am." He shrugged. Tears fought their way into his vision and gathered there, blinding him. He couldn't seem to blink them away. He hoped Jake wouldn't notice.

And that was it. That was all there was to do.

Until morning.

Crossing the border into Tree's realm, now that Sam's wolf was missing, was . . . not simple.

Jake walked across easily, with Hurst dragging sluggishly on the end of a leash. They'd bullied him into wolf form last night and put that damn hood of his on his own head for once, so he couldn't transform back. From there, keeping him prisoner had been a piece of cake. They hadn't even needed to keep crippling him—not to control one muzzled dog. Of course, they hadn't much felt like hunting for him either, so he had to be pretty weak with hunger. It seemed like a small slice of justice to Sam.

But when it came time for Sam to cross the border, well . . . He couldn't change anymore. He . . . was really just human again. Humans weren't allowed through the barrier. When Jake left him alone on the real world side, Sam just . . . forgot where he was and started wandering away. It was really quite an impressive barrier.

Eventually, Jake had to carry Sam through, and even then it burned them both, like being electrocuted. If Jake hadn't taken the time to tie Hurst's leash to a tree before the crossing, he probably would have escaped while Jake and Sam lay dazed and moaning.

Thank goodness Jake had taken the brunt of the shock. At full force, it would probably have killed Sam.

He wasn't a werewolf anymore.

He didn't have a werewolf's powers of recovery.

Just as he and Jake were finally picking themselves back up from the forest floor, Tree flowed out of a nearby tree. Her eyes were just green today. The tree she'd come out of bore no blossoms nor fruit.

Sam knelt back down in the dirt, awkwardly conscious of his nudity. Given her attitudes and habits, however, nudity had seemed a more respectful way to approach her than the ruined and dirtied clothes Sam had managed to salvage from the previous night's adventures.

He bowed his head to Tree. He lay the sword on the ground in front of him. When his 13 hours had passed, it had reverted to its former state: plain, dull, and slightly rusty.

"I'm so sorry for the trouble I caused you last night," he said dully. "I'm glad you're well."

Silence stretched. Sam didn't look up.

"This is your Hurst?" Tree asked finally.

Sam glanced up enough to follow her gaze. "Yes," he said.

"Why isn't he dead?" she asked.

"The sword . . ." Sam stammered. "We struggled for it, and . . ."

"I know what happened to your wolf," Tree said. Sam couldn't read her tone. "That close to my border, how could I not have felt it happen? I want to know how you have failed to avenge her when your enemy stands here, in such abject defeat?"

That brought Sam's head up. He stared at her. That wasn't the response he'd been expecting. Was she calling him a weakling? Angered by his apparent mercy? Or was this some kind of test?

Sam couldn't tell.

"Um," he said, "about that. I know I've imposed a lot, but . . . Lady Tree, I, uh, have one more favor to ask."

The corrupted god's temple was behind a second barrier, one that no one but Tree could even find, much less traverse.

But she did consent to take them through.

Inside, the temple itself was . . . only trees. They weren't even in a circle. They were just trees, standing together, tall and strong and ancient. Oh, and there was also a rock. A big rock, misshapen and off-center.

"Kneel," Tree said, "and say what you have come to say."

Jake handed Hurst's leash to Sam. "Tree and I will be right over here, babe."

Sam sighed. "Thanks princess," he replied wryly. If he got a reaction from Jake this time, he was too nervous to notice. "Come here," he snapped to Hurst, yanking his leash. "Sit."

Hurst growled and tried to bite him. With the way Jake had chewed up the hood, this was technically possible, but still not easy. Sam avoided Hurst's teeth and kicked him in the shoulder.

"Fine," he said. "Disrespect the god of this place. We'll see how that works out for you."

As for Sam, he knelt as instructed, once more bowing his head. Hurst looked studiously bored, sniffing the dirt at his feet.

Sam uttered the syllables Tree had taught him before. He wondered if they were a name, or a holy title in some ancient tongue. Maybe they were a dirty joke the god liked.

Maybe they meant nothing at all. It didn't matter. The moment Sam uttered them, he felt the thing's [i]presence.[/i]

[i]"[/i]Great Lord," Sam said, without raising his head. "I come offering you a deal. Two souls for the price of one."

It wasn't mercy. Sam hadn't spared Hurst out of mercy.

Laughter shook the trees.

And then . . . he appeared.

Or perhaps he'd always been there. Sam somehow couldn't tell.

He didn't look evil this time. He didn't feel evil either. Tree was there. Was that the difference? When daytime-Tree was present, did he hide his true self? Did her nearness suppress it?

Sam didn't expect he would ever learn the answers.

But this time there were no shadow-tendrils, no crushing weight of sheer cruelty—just curiosity, amusement, and unimaginable power.

He looked . . . well, he was difficult to see. The air around him seemed to shift and warp from moment to moment. But . . . most of the time he looked somewhere in the ballpark of humanish, tall and beautiful, with long, flowing hair. Sam couldn't tell what color it was, or the being's skin or eyes either, and he couldn't explain why he couldn't tell. The entity had antlers, but from eyeblink to eyeblink their shape, size, and species seemed to shift. He sometimes had other bestial traits as well, or seemed to: claws, wings, hooves . . . Sam couldn't keep track of everything he saw.

Sometimes, instead of a face, the god of this temple had an empty, dead skull.

But when he did have a face, it appeared to be . . . kind?

Sam felt a bit like he was going mad, and he realized it wouldn't be a good idea to stay here very long. Especially not for a human.

"I was supposed to get two souls last night," said the god.

It was the same voice as before, yet not, not at all. It was a physical voice this time, reaching Sam through his ears, but the difference went deeper than that.

As if the voice wore a mask.

A mask to hide the monster.

From Tree? Or . . . was it mercy, to a mortal supplicant? Was he sparing Sam the trauma of experiencing his true self?

It almost frightened Sam more than the filth and corruption.

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "My wolf saved me. But, if you would . . ."

"I could have eaten you both," the god said mildly. "You'd given yourself . . . so completely to me."

"Yes," Sam admitted, remembering pleasure and filth. "I am grateful for your forbearance. But that's all the more reason I wish to honor our deal."

The god stepped closer to Sam. The world fell away. Nothing existed but this indescribable god and the corruption that boiled beneath his strange beauty. Sam wasn't even sure that he, Sam, still existed.

The god reached out his hand. If he touched Sam, it would be a great honor. If he touched Sam, Sam would also die. He knew like he'd known with the night-Tree when she'd saved him. He couldn't move. The god's fingers stopped just short of Sam's flesh.

"You hated your wolf," he said. "You'd have given anything to be human again. Anything to undo what was done to you. Even now . . . you don't want her back. You'd rather be yourself again, the you you recognize. You'd rather not share your body with a stranger, one sculpted by a monster to serve as his slave. Why not let her be my slave? Give me your enemy, and I will grant your wish. Stay human. Go back to normal."

Sam blinked. It took a long time for the words to sink in.

"I . . . I already have that," he finally replied. "I don't need to give you Hurst to get it. But . . . Miah deserves better than to be a slave. It doesn't matter if she's a stranger; she was made from my soul. She's a piece of me who's been warped beyond recognition, and she gave her life to save me! No!" Sam found himself growing angry. He remembered Hurst's leash in his hand and gripped it tighter. "I won't give you Hurst for nothing. The deal's already in your favor. Two souls for one!"

What was Hurst even thinking through all this, Sam wondered. He wasn't fighting to escape. He wasn't behaving as if he understood at all. Sam . . . had honestly forgotten he was there. And Tree and Jake as well. Were they even hearing this conversation?

The god stared down at Sam for a long time, silent. Sam wondered what he was thinking too, wondered how vast and alien his thoughts might be.

"You have, as instructed," the god said finally, "entertained me. Leave the criminal here and go."

"What about Miah!?" Sam screamed.

The world went white.

Sam couldn't move or speak. As the brightness receded, however, he saw Hurst suddenly surge into motion, in a desperate scrabble for escape. Sam felt Hurst's leash slip from his slack fingers, but it didn't matter.

Instead of running from the Temple, the muzzled, tail-tucked, black-furred wolf slammed into an invisible wall, much as Miah had done against Hurst's mind-forest forcefield. Hurst yelped and crumpled, shaking his head.

The god gestured, and the leash and muzzle disintegrated. Or maybe they teleported somewhere else. Or maybe Sam was dreaming all of this. Whatever the case, the moment he was freed, Hurst wasted no time transforming into werewolf form—though considering how little he'd eaten, he had to have immediately regretted it. He surged unsteadily to his feet and stood there, wavering, baring his fangs in a snarl.

The god smiled. Kindly.

It was the most terrifying thing Sam had ever seen.

Just a smile, on a face that was, momentarily, quite human.

Sam couldn't explain it, but he understood when Hurst again threw himself against the invisible barrier and began to scream.

The god's smile widened, and his face became a grinning skull. The air around him darkened, and the antlered, humanish form began to . . . melt, like wax, darkening as it oozed and bubbled hideously. Sam's stomach heaved, and he squeezed his eyes shut in horror.

When he forced them open again, the temple had grown dark as night, and it dripped and writhed with filthy, black tendrils.

Sam still couldn't move.

Hurst tried to fight the twisting limbs, but it did him no good. They bound him hand and foot, throat and muzzle.

[i]YOU'RE MINE NOW,[/i] the god said sweetly, like an inappropriate caress. Like an abuser's fond endearment, he added, [i]BITCH[/i].

Whimpering, struggling, flailing wildly, Hurst was dragged against his will toward the great stone among the temple trees.

Sam knew he should feel something about this, knew he [i]would[/i] feel things later and wasn't even sure if the feelings would be good or bad, but . . . in the moment, as he watched the tendrils tug Hurst inch by inch in among the trees, all he could think was:

[i]What about Miah!?![/i]

If the god heard Sam's thoughts, he didn't choose to respond. Sam still couldn't speak.

Hurst reached the stone. The tendrils kept pulling. Impossibly, sickeningly, they pulled Hurst [i]into[/i] the stone, as if it was made of jelly, or sludge, or was a portal to another world. Hurst screamed and writhed, but to no avail. His legs disappeared entirely into the rock. His whole body went in up to his chest.

Sam watched, helpless, numb, as finally Hurst's shoulders, neck, head, and even his muzzle disappeared into the stone. As if he'd never existed.

Sam still couldn't move.

Hurst was gone.

Sam had lost his bargaining chip.

[i]MIAH!!![/i] he tried and failed to scream.

This time, the world went black.

"Sam!"

"Sam! Are you ok?"

Jake's voice. Sam opened his eyes. They were still in the temple. It was just trees. And a rock.

"Shit, Hurst is gone!" Jake cried. "Did he escape? Tree, did you see what happened?"

Sam gripped Jake's wrist. "He took him," he managed. "The god."

Then Tree was beside him as well. "What did you see, Sam Eriksen?"

Sam told them. He felt weak, but his strength was returning.

Jake and Tree listened, their faces astonished, even Tree's.

"No time has passed, Sam," she said when he was done. "You knelt, spoke the summoning, spoke your request, and collapsed. Hurst disappeared while we were distracted by your fall."

Sam blinked at her. "You're saying . . ." He frowned. "Wait, what [i]are[/i] you saying?"

She shrugged. "You had a vision. That can happen, with gods. We should leave his temple. It tires him to be wakeful in daylit hours."

Jake and Tree helped Sam to stand, but he sagged between them. He wished he had some clothes. Stupid supernatural creatures and their stupid lack of modesty.

He felt defeated, cheated, bullied, and . . . weirdly normal.

"What about Miah?" Sam asked bitterly. "I can't just . . ."

They reached Tree's inner barrier. They crossed outside it and the tree-temple vanished, along with its now-terrifying rock.

"She gave her life for me," Sam said. Without warning, he realized there were tears pouring down his face. He felt like an idiot. "She saved me."

[i]Sam?[/i]

What?

The mind-forest was back to normal. The sky overhead was clear. The trees were clean and healthy. Though he couldn't see them, Sam once again could hear birds among the branches.

He spun around himself.

There was Miah.

"He took you!" Sam cried. "You're here! Are you ok?"

She looked a little stunned. "I . . . I'm ok," she said. "He . . . didn't hurt me."

Sam blinked at her. "He didn't do anything to you?"

She shook her head. "We just had a lot of sex. It was . . . mostly nice."

Ah. That was her definition of "he didn't do anything". Sam remembered sex with the existence-sapping tendrils. He . . . decided not to ask.

He wasn't sure he ever wanted to completely understand Miah's kinks.

But . . . "He gave you back!" Sam cried, hugging her. "We have to tell Jake!"

"I brought him," said Tree, stepping in through an arch in the foliage. Jake and his wolf stood behind her.

At the sight of Miah, both Jakes' faces lit up like small suns. Wolf-Jake rushed forward to sweep her into his arms, licking her face and ear. Human-Jake grinned up at them.

Sam remembered to imagine cool clothes for himself. He crossed his arms and watched the others. Tree came to stand beside him, but she said nothing. She looked . . . serene. And terribly ancient. She too watched Miah with the two Jakes.

Sam began to feel left out, unimportant.

Miah was what Jake really wanted, after all. A custom-designed perfect werewolf girlfriend. Even if Jake was going to treat her with respect, he was still . . . well . . . a dog.

Sam had been given the chance to become human again, and he'd given it up, for . . . her.

He sighed and turned to Tree. "I owe you . . . probably more than I can ever repay," Sam said. "Thank you, Tree."

She looked at him with today's oh-so-green eyes and arched one eyebrow with a tiny smile. "Well," she said, "I'd ask you to start paying your debt this moment, but . . ." She looked him up and down, and her smile deepened to teasing. "Why in the world are you wearing clothes?"

"Oh hey!" Jake said, running over to hug Sam from behind. "You [i]are[/i] wearing clothes. What's up with that, man? We're all lovers here. Let me get these off you . . ."

Jake stepped around in front of Sam and went for the buttons on Sam's dark red shirt.

Sam stumbled backward away from him, flapping his hands at Jake's hands. "What the hell, man?" he asked. "I . . ."

Dammit. He didn't want to deal with this shit. Sam willed himself back to his body, though . . .

. . . of course, Tree and Jake were out here too, and outside his own mind Sam couldn't magically dress himself. They both grinned at him.

"I . . . need to talk to Jake a minute," Sam heard himself say.

[i]Yes you do,[/i] came Miah's voice in his mind. [i]I'll leave you to it, but if I don't get his knot soon, you'll pay.[/i] She sounded mostly playful, but . . . not entirely.

"Join me in my house when you're done," Tree said, nodding. "I do have a task for you both before you go."

She actually [i]winked[/i] at Sam and walked away. She looked as beautiful as ever, and Sam hoped very much that she'd meant to imply . . . exactly what he thought she had. His mouth watered a little. Miah, thankfully, chose not to comment. Perhaps she'd gone to take a nap.

Sam forced his gaze back to Jake, who looked amused.

"Hot dryads are still a-ok," he said. He stepped closer and put his arms around Sam's waist.

They were close enough to the same height that at about two centimeters nearer together—or if either of them started to get hard—their genitals would touch. Sam felt himself tense all over. He didn't know where to put his arms. He wanted to step away, but with everything they'd been through together, Sam thought Jake deserved better than for him to just withdraw. After a moment of awkward flailing, Sam settled for resting his hands on Jake's upper arms.

His perfectly-sculpted, muscular upper arms.

Yeah, that distance wasn't going to take long to close. Sam swallowed.

"Jake, I . . ." What did he want to say? Sam still thought of himself as a wholly-male straight guy, and besides, did he really want to be Jake's consolation prize for when Miah wasn't around? Was that really the life he'd signed up for when he'd asked for Miah back?

Whatever Jake saw on Sam's face, his own turned serious. "Hey," he said. "Is this about what Hurst did to us?" Jake stepped back, let their hands fall. "Babe, if you need time . . . I gotta say, me personally, I want you in every possible way, as quick as we can manage, to erase the memory of . . ." He shuddered. "But if you need time first, I can wait for you, as long as it takes."

Sam blinked at him. The memory of Hurst shocked through him: what he'd done to them both, how they'd beat him . . . and how the evil god had claimed him back in that temple. Sam remembered, too, Hurst's outraged screams when the tendrils had hold of them both.

Would that be Enoch Hurst's fate forever? Every night until the corrupted god somehow broke his toy?

Hurst had tried to take everything from Sam, even himself. Now Hurst was . . . gone, in the clutches of something monstrous and powerful, far beyond Sam's understanding.

And that victory could never have happened without Jake. Sam would never have survived, never have regained his freedom as long as he lived, without Jake.

Everything fell abruptly into place in Sam's thoughts.

[i]"I want you in every possible way,"[/i] Jake had said.

[i]". . . as quick as we can manage . . ."[/i]

Jake wanted him. Sam. Not just Miah. Sam knew that. He'd already known that. He just . . . hadn't been able to believe . . . that it was what he wanted too.

Sam looked at Jake's smooth brown skin, his kinky brown hair and bright grey-green eyes, and he saw . . . beauty. It was just, male beauty instead of female. Sam . . . still liked what he saw.

And he knew he liked what was underneath. You didn't come through a crisis like this one and turn away from the friend who'd pulled you through it. Jake was a far better person than Sam had ever guessed, and he was . . . kinda honored, now that he thought about it, that Jake seemed to feel the same way about him.

"I . . . don't need time," Sam heard himself say.

To his own surprise, though certainly without any interference from Miah, Sam stepped close to Jake once more, not caring this time whose parts touched who. He reached up a hand to the side of Jake's neck, and pulled his lover's lips close for a kiss.

It wasn't long. It wasn't terribly deep. But it was sweet, and sincere. It expressed Sam's genuine feelings.

"As quick as we can manage," he agreed with Jake. His heart beat a little faster at the thought. "Good plan. For now though, let's go see what Tree needs, eh?"

Jake grinned at him and slung an arm around his shoulder. "I'm liking today better than yesterday, so far," he said, drawing Sam in the direction of Tree's house.

Halfway there, though, Sam remembered something else he needed to bring up with Jake.

"Seriously though, man," he said, feeling pained. "Can you please quit calling me 'babe'?"

[center]-The End-[/center]