Winter's Dawn (14 page)

“Am I no longer cute and precious?” she asked impishly.

“Now you’re a radiant queen.” He noted that voice was low and his words were slightly garbled. “Did you miss the memo?”

Susie laughed and Max beamed up at her, giving her one of the first unrestrained smiles he had managed in a long time. He frowned again when Susie suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.

“Wha?” he asked, trying to focus on her face and read the strange look she was giving him.

“Wow, Max.” Susie sounded awed. “You’re really grown up. You look like a full-grown wolf when you smile.”

“How awful,” he grumbled as his eyes closed.

“No, it’s not awful at all. You’re so beautiful, it makes you hard to look at.”

Max smiled and wished he had the strength to open his eyes once more and tell her that she had been painful to look at for a while, but he wasn’t strong enough to resist the pull of sleep. He passed out in her arms instead.

Chapter Seven

“Your father is a wretched werewolf!” Maggie wailed. “I can’t believe he is hosting the running again.”

“I can,” Susie sighed.

“Me too,” Max choked, before another wave of nausea rolled over him and leaned back over the toilet. He gripped at the cold porcelain as his stomach rebelled, trying to force something up. Considering he had been sick like this for the past two hours, all he could manage were more dry heaves. “Gods, let me die this time.”

He pushed away from the toilet and collapsed. His head made a loud crack when it hit the cold marble tile in their bathroom. He groaned again, uncaring that he was sprawled out on the floor, still completely naked from the bath Susie had given him in hopes of cooling him off.

“Maxwell!” Maggie screeched, falling over him. “You’ll give yourself a concussion.”

“I wish,” he said before he covered his face with both hands. “Gods, I can smell them, Sue.”

“Oh, no doubt.” Susie let out a crazed sort of laugh. “There are only about fifty unmated females down there. Several of them arctic wolves, I might add.”

“How can you tell?”

“Takes one to know one.” Susie crawled over to Max and pulled him to her to cradle his head in her lap. “Uncle Doug must have flown them in from all over the world.”

“Let me die.” Max started shaking, his limbs seizing from the effort it was taking to hold himself back. The wolf was mad with want now. Max could actually feel him directly under his skin, viciously clawing his way out, uncaring of how positively ill it was making Max in the process. “I want to die, Sue. Gods, let me die.”

“Maggie, he needs more pills!”

“Susan, he has taken over twenty,” Maggie said firmly. “I will absolutely not give him another one!”

Max screamed in pain, his back arching off the floor with the force of it.

“Max, look at me.” Susie gripped his chin forcefully and shook him until he opened his eyes to stare at her. “I am going to take you outside for some air, okay? Wouldn’t air be nice?”

He tried to shake his head. He grit his teeth to hold back another scream. “They’re out t-there.”

“He’s bleeding!”

“He’s just bitten his tongue.” Susie took a deep breath. “It’s already healed. Max, you’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”

“No,” he rasped, before he bit his tongue again as another scream tried to force its way out of him. “I’m d-dying.”

“His eyes have gone straight silver.” Susie’s voice was shaking. “Maggie, get him some pants. The ones off the bed.”

“Not the ones your father left.”

“Maggie! Get the damn pants!” Susie yelled, sounding more primal than Max had ever heard it as she held his chin once more. “Honeywell, look at me!”

Max wanted to. It was built into his genetic makeup to obey Susie when she was so firmly demanding something, but the pain he was in made it impossible. The sun was about to set and give way to a full moon. The wolf was literally ripping him in two and he screamed from the torture of it. His entire body was seized with pain.

He was in such agony he hardly noticed Susie now fighting his shaking body to pull the leather pants on, using all of her strength to finally tug them over his hips. It wasn’t until she started struggling with the leather laces that he realized what she had put on him.

“No!” he yelled, shoving Susie away from him.

Maggie’s scream was ear piecing, nearly deafening to his hearing that was extra sensitive because of the full moon. He only dully heard the thud of Susie landing hard against the marble tub over the ring of it.

“Susan, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Susie crawled back to Max and issued a low, wolf growl. “Max, you are not to hit me again! Do you hear me?”

He groaned, the wolf in him recognizing Susie where the man in him had somehow failed. “Sorry. Bad mate,” he rasped, before he started crying at the horror of realizing he had hurt Susie. “Hurt?”

“I am not hurt,” Susie said. “I am angry and you are going to listen to me.”

He nodded, finally opening his eyes to stare up at her. Her face was flushed, her eyes glowing like icy blue flames.

“You are going to do everything I tell you to. Do you understand?”

He nodded again, before another seizure of pain grabbed him and he screamed once more. She finished tying his pants, ignoring his pain as she worked with grim efficiency while Max was powerless to stop her. If he had been even partially in his right mind, he would had reeled at how much power Susie had over him. He had always thought his obedience of her had to do with duty that had been pounded into him since her birth, but it was something much more primal than that. It seemed kings were just given the illusion of power, but it was the queens, the females of the alpha pairs, that really had true dominance.

“Maggie, get me the oil.”

“No!” Max moaned again, but held back from lashing out physically. “It’ll m-make my s-smell stronger.”

“That’s the point.”

“Susan!” Maggie gasped in horror.

“He is going to the running!” Susie yelled, her voice once again returning to a low, inhuman pitch. “The oil.”

Max couldn’t fight her, not because of her dominance over him, rather he was in too much pain to bother. Another wave of agony rolled over him as Susie started rubbing the oil into his skin, first working it into the hard muscles of his chest and arms before she jerked him forward and started working it into his back.

Susie ran her greasy hands through his thick hair, slicking it back away from his face. She held out her palm, letting Maggie fill it once again with the oil that he realized now was more animal fat than anything. He never bothered to wonder what exactly the concoction was that werewolves doused themselves in before the full moon. With his wolf senses so tightly honed, he could smell the animal in it now. He was disgusted to discover the scent of it nearly caused the wolf to leap out of his skin in excitement and anticipation.

“Sit.” Susie pulled away from him to dip her index finger into the fresh pool of oil in her hand. She anointed his forehead first and then ran her finger down the bridge of her nose. “You are the most powerful.”

He shook his head defiantly.

“Say it!”

He grit his teeth, glaring at her with watery eyes as he whispered, “I am the most powerful.”

“The most dominant.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears roll down his face. “I am the most dominant.”

Susie’s thumb pushed away his tears as she streaked oil over his cheeks. “King of my people.”

“I am king of my people,” he growled, the wolf finally winning as his voice turned unnaturally low and he spoke the last part himself. “All will bow to me, for the moon is mine.”

Susie nodded, her eyes glassy. “Yes, it is, Max.”

His senses sharpened, the room vibrated in vivid colors as he stared at Susie, seeing her eyes glow in a way he never had before. She was truly radiant. He loved her so much his heart nearly burst with it. It was the one emotion both halves of him seemed to share in unison.

“My heart will never betray you,” he rasped in a voice that had never been his, yet he recognized the low growl as his own.

Susie smiled as tears rolled down her face. “I never thought it would.”

“I’ll guard the moon until you are ready.”

She nodded. “You do that.”

He reached out to her, cupping her face in his large hands. He kissed her fiercely, an affection he had never indulged himself in, despite lingering thoughts of it that had filtered through his brain in the past month.

“Go on, Max,” Susie whispered against his lips. “They’re waiting for you.”

Max turned, hearing the horns that signaled the start of the running. They were starting it earlier in the evening this cycle, as if others had known he wouldn’t be able to wait until the moon was high in the sky. His whole body tensed in anticipation, but still he turned a questioning gaze back on her.

“Come on, you hopeless wolf.” Susie jumped to her feet and pulled him with her. She dragged him to the large doors that led to the balcony of their rooms and pushed them open so hard the thud resonated as both of them slammed against the terrace walls. “Oh, make it snow, Max. It should be snowing for this.”

She pulled him out into the open air and tilted her head up, waiting for the snow just like she had when she was little. She smiled when the first flakes landed on her face, lingering on her eyelashes and disappearing in the camouflage of her hair.

“There.” She looked back at him and gave him a beaming smile, only dimmed only by the gathering tears that made her pale eyes shimmer like the ocean on a sunny day. “Own our season before it ends.”

Max looked out over the expansive property of the Winter Palace, seeing all the wolves still standing tall in their human forms. All stared at him and Susie as though the newly risen moon had cast a spotlight on them. Gone were their elegant evening clothes. The males all wore leather pants like him, the females wore loose-fitting leather dresses. Their hair was braided into one or two braids identical in style to Susie’s hair every evening when he brushed and braided it for her.

He looked away from the impressive sight of so many waiting for him and turned back to Susie. It seemed the wolf in him held just as strong a connection as the man. He needed one more confirmation that it was okay.

“Go,” she said encouragingly. “Now, Max!”

He did it on command, falling onto all fours, his senses as sharp as they were before. It was only Susie’s sharp intake of breath and Maggie’s gasp of delight that told him the wolf had finally won.

“Oh, Susan, he looks just like a real wolf. Only so much bigger. He’s beautiful!”

“He is.” Susie sobbed as she fell down next to him and buried her face in his fur. “He’s the biggest, most beautiful arctic I’ve ever seen. The moon is really his. I wasn’t lying.”

The relief of that must have over overwhelmed Susie, because her tears wet his well-greased fur.

“And his eyes are still the same.”

“Of course.” Susie pulled away from him and ran her hands lovingly though the heavy, white fur at the nape of his neck. “He’s still Max.”

Max leaned in and licked at her wet cheeks while she caressed him. “The running is yours now. Uncle Doug can’t yell at you anymore.”

He growled, his hair standing on end at the mention of his father and Susie laughed. “You’re full-grown. Be a real king for our people.”

Max licked at her face once more, before he jumped up onto one of the chairs on the terrace and then leaped onto the wide marble railing. He tilted his head back and howled at the moon. The sound echoed across the whole property.

He sprang off the railing. Maggie’s scream followed him the entire four stories down. He landed on his feet and turned back to see Susie and Maggie leaning over the railing. Maggie’s fist was clutched against her chest, but Susie waved at him and he howled once more. This time others followed and the sound of hundreds of wolves howling in unison spoke to him. When he turned back to the waiting wolves, he found they had all changed form.

Several arctic wolves broke free of the pack, their forms considerably smaller than his, but their fur was the same gleaming white as Max’s. They cautiously walked towards him, casting hesitant glances up towards the balcony.