My Partner the Wolf, page 1
Story copyright September 2014 by Hollis Shiloh. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from the author. All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental. Cover design by Kanaxa. Cover image content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the content is a model. Copy-editing and proofreading by Martin O'Hearn.
Chemistry off the charts—but is that enough?
Tom Langley and Sean Goods work together in a human-and-wolf shifter partnership, assisting the police, rushing in to solve crimes wherever their bosses send them. They're a great team, and they have fun together, too: joking and enjoying each other's company in a way that doesn't happen every day.
Tom is also a married man. And his husband hates the wolf shifter with a passion. Tom tries to balance the sides of his life—one minute on a high-pressure chase with Sean, the next placating his husband Lowell.
Then the unthinkable happens: his marriage ends. Heartbroken, he's not expecting to ever get over Lowell's betrayal or to be able to love again.
Sean offers a solution: sex as friends. They have chemistry, and they trust each other.
But can they change their partnership that much? And is Sean secretly harboring feelings for him—expecting more than just sex?
Sean is a loveable, funny, strong, and protective. He's the best buddy a guy could have. But Tom might not be able to keep from breaking his heart—if Sean is in love with him, and Tom can't love him back.
My Partner the Wolf
by Hollis Shiloh
"Want a raw egg?" asked my partner, Sean. He held up a glass custard cup from my kitchen cabinet, the egg in it wobbling and squishy, the yolk too bright and gelid for this early. "Mm."
I waved him off, making a face. "Keep it to yourself, Rambo." I strode past him to the bathroom, giving him a swat on the way past. He was all solid muscle. As usual, he'd run over to join me for breakfast and then go for another run, this time together.
"That's Rocky, halfwit," he said, tilting his head back and swallowing the egg, his Adam's apple working. "Delicious!"
I flashed him the finger from the door of the bathroom. He returned it as I shut myself in. It was too early in the day for me to manage a decent retort. I needed my coffee and my run.
Shortly, I emerged. And he pressed a thick mug of coffee into my hands. "You're a saint." I inhaled deeply, cupping the mug in both hands, closing my eyes.
He nudged me in the side. "Don't fall asleep standing up, Tommy. I need my run."
My partner is a wolf shifter. He needs a lot of exercise. The man is tireless.
I edged away from him and sat down at the kitchen table to savor my morning brew. Nice of him to make it for me.
"I'm gonna shift," he informed me. "Don't look at my man-parts."
"Funny." I rolled my eyes. Behind me, a zipper sounded, slowly. He undressed, folding the clothes up and laying them over the back of a kitchen chair. I didn't look, not even in the window's reflection. After he was naked, he shifted. I couldn't hear or sense anything of it, he was that quick, but a moment later he walked over to me and pressed his muzzle up into my lap, resting on my thigh. He looked up at me with his big brown eyes and wagged his tail hard, moving his whole hindquarters back and forth.
Sean, in wolf form, is a pretty beast, speckled gray and white, with a white blotch on the side of his nose. He has huge dark eyes that are so expressive. Everyone who sees him thinks first of all that he's a damned big, dangerous dog, and second of all that he's sweet and adorable. Which, of course, he is.
I reached down to scratch my fingers into the coarse fur on the top of his head, behind his ears, and he closed his eyes, waggling harder. I savored my coffee and, after a moment, let my eyes fall shut again.
When I felt gentle teeth take hold of my hand and hold onto it, I awoke with a jerk and blinked down at him. He held my hand loosely in his strong jaws, his eyes gleaming with affection and teasing.
I pulled free—he hadn't scratched me, but I was damp with wolf saliva—and got up. "All right, all right," I groused, and headed into the bathroom to change into my running shorts. He followed me to the door and waited pointedly.
"You're such a nag!" I called to him.
He couldn't reply—or give me the finger—in his wolf form.
I emerged bare-chested and wearing only short running shorts, the kind patterned after the seventies style, tiny and red with white up the sides. I liked the free feeling of my legs against the air, and being shirtless. It was early enough in the day I wasn't going to gross out a bunch of people.
I sat down and tied on my costly multi-colored running shoes, and he waited by the door, a gleam in his wolfish gaze, lips parted enough for his tongue to loll a little bit. Sometimes I could've sworn he was a dog, not a wolf, he was so friendly and goofy, but he got annoyed if I mentioned anything like that. Apparently, it's an insult.
"All right," I said, and ruffled his ears one last quick time before pushing open the door. I burst out, and was far down the steps and sidewalk before the screen went creak-slap shut behind me. But Sean, he exploded.
Faster than me even in human form, he was like dynamite as a wolf. He ran, mouth open, far ahead of me down the street in the half-light of predawn. My shoes slapped the sidewalk as I ran. I felt bouncy and peppy, more awake and alive already. The cool morning air felt good against my chest. Later today, it would be too hot to run. If we did any running, it would be chasing a criminal suspect from necessity, not for the sheer joy of living, or to stay fit for our hard job.
I put on a burst of speed in a fruitless effort to catch up with him. At the end of the block, he whirled and dashed back to me. He pressed his nose up against my thigh, giving me a startled feeling of damp wolf nose, and then ran in step with me, by my side, for a few dozen yards before leaping ahead again.
We reached the park, and he raced around a couple of trees like a maniac before catching up with me again. He probably completed two circuits of the park to my one, in his own Family-Circus-style way.
"C'mere, you goof." I caught him close and rubbed his ruff, catching his face close and pointed up at me, loving him up. His tongue lolled and his eyes fell halfway shut as he panted. In his wolf form, my partner was the most loveable creature alive. I could show him affection without fear.
We started the run back at a steadier pace now. Sunlight was making the sky colorful as a child's chalk sidewalk drawing, and we ran at a steady pace, him loping beside me, pacing ourselves.
He pulled ahead just at the porch, sitting down abruptly, curling himself into a circle near the door, the tip of his tail wagging tightly against his body. He looked furry and huggable, and his face tilted up to me with a sweet, happy, almost smug look that I could only think of as his smile. His whole being seemed alight this morning, and it made me feel warm inside, like a burst of sunshine. I smiled back, nudging his tail with my sneaker's toe, and he wagged his tail harder, but still tightly. I opened the door—it creaked again—and he slipped in beside me, toenails clicking softly on the floor.
We hadn't said a word to each other for a while now, but I felt as if we'd communicated all the same. My soul always felt more whole after our runs, clean somehow, refreshed and new. He stretched out on the floor, flopped onto his side, and yawned widely, showing his many teeth. He was a long, rangy wolf, clearly powerful, but not half as scary as he thought he was. At least, not when he looked like that, regarding me frankly through lazily half-slit eyes from the kitchen floor.
"Bum," I said, trying not to trip over him as I moved to get the frying pan. He stretched his toes out a little further, arrogantly taking up even more room, and his tail thumped once. He squeezed his eyes shut, looking away, the way a cat would when it didn't deign to notice you. I laughed, and got the eggs frying.
Halfway through that chore, the morning's silence was interrupted by my husband, Lowell. He padded out from the bedroom, yawning, wrapped in his soft pink bathrobe. His face was wrinkled from sleeping on the pillow.
"Morning, Tom." He moved closer, leaning in for a kiss. I returned it, smiling at him, and he moved to get his coffee. "Ugh," he said, when he saw Sean. "Can't you get that…can't you make him wait outside?"
"Lo," I scolded. "C'mon. He's my partner." I was always hurt when he belittled Sean. Couldn't he see what a great guy my partner was?
We worked together. After a fashion, we were police officers. Except that we worked for a special team, going from department to department as needed, or striking out on our own: a kind of floating task force of two, with greater leeway and powers, all to take advantage of Sean's gifted nose and strength.
Police dogs, with their superb training and sense of smell, added a great deal to any regular police department, making criminals wary, finding drugs easily, and hunting down missing people and dead bodies. But Sean, and the other shifters like him working in the field, were better than either human or canine officers, with the intelligence, training, strength, and speed of both men and wolves. Sometimes I felt that together, we were damned near unstoppable.
I did bring something to the team, but not nearly as much as Sean did.
Sean turned his face away from Lowell and stretched out his feet further, purposefully slouching in Lowell's path and refusing to move. His one arrogance; he didn't like my husband any more than Lowell liked him.
Lo stumbled over paws. "Shit!" He aimed a sharp kick at my partner, who recoiled on the floor, jumping to his feet, startled
I reacted automatically. Moving between them with swift protective instincts, I frowned at my husband. "Don't kick him."
Lowell blinked at me, his sleepy eyes opening wider in shock. "What—you're defending him? He tripped me on purpose!"
"Don't kick Sean," I repeated, my hands clenching and unclenching uselessly at my sides.
Lowell saw, and smirked. "What, are you going to punch me?" He moved past, sinuous even when sleepy, and walked to the fridge, pulled the door open, and draped himself there. He looked artistic and delicious, the robe falling halfway open, the belt dangling to the floor.
Sean padded up to my side, nails clicking on the floor, and leaned against my thigh. I could feel his apology radiating through him, and his anxiety.
I scowled at Lowell, turned on and annoyed in equal measures. My husband was damned hot and he knew it. "Look, just don't, all right?"
"Don't what?" He flapped his bathrobe, as if he was hot and airing himself with the cool refrigerator air. Even though it was barely seventy-five degrees yet.
The movement revealed trim bare legs and a flash of his firm cock. Shit. I felt myself hardening as well. It would be visible in my short-shorts, and I felt humiliated to know that Sean would also clearly scent how I was feeling. He was that good at smells.
"You know what." My voice came out weaker now, less sure.
Lowell turned to me, flashing his cheeky smile, his robe still fallen open, and straightened up. "Why don't you come back to bed for a few minutes? Let Sean finish the cooking."
"Um." I couldn't think, with him looking at me like that. Yeah, we sometimes fought, but I knew I was lucky to have a man as handsome as Lowell—not to mention how understanding he was when I had to work ridiculous hours or be gone a long time traveling for work. Really, the man was practically a saint, except for his needless antagonism towards my partner Sean.
Beside me, Sean made a sound in his throat, but I barely heard it. I walked towards Lowell. Still holding his coffee cup, he let the fridge fall shut and used his free hand to squeeze my biceps, giving me a nice smile that reached his pale blue eyes. He jerked his head towards the bedroom, then turned and sashayed that way.
My cheeks burned, but I followed.
#
When we returned to the kitchen, sated and pleased with ourselves and each other, I didn't see Sean. A pang went through me at the absence of my partner, but at the same time, I was grateful that maybe he hadn't stayed and heard or smelled anything. I'd been pretty quiet, but Lowell is a noisy bugger in bed. Really, it was tactful of Sean to leave.
He'd finished the eggs for me, and left them covered with a tea towel on the stove to keep warm. He'd taken a neat third, scooped out and eaten. The dirty plate was in the sink, and his clothing was gone.
I'd meet him at work, I supposed. Unless he was waiting in my car. My heart ached, and I didn't know why.
After I gulped my eggs, Lowell gave me a loose hug and a kiss on the cheek before I left, waving from the doorway. He watched for a second, then turned back inside.
I walked down to my car, and it was empty. I got in and drove to the precinct.
We were stationed out of the local police department, and worked with them frequently, but we answered to others. It was a liaison thing. It wasn't that we couldn't get in trouble, but more that if someone here didn't like something we did, they had to report us to the higher powers, who then passed it on, and basically there was a whole bunch of bureaucracy involved. I'm not saying we could get away with murder, but we were hotshots and no mistaking it.
Besides, we solved a ton of crimes.
Lowell was sitting on his rolling desk chair, leaning back, tossing a beanie bag in the air and catching it. He looked up when he saw me, and straightened up, his cheeks looking pinker. Despite his casual air he was clearly embarrassed. "Hey," he said.
"Hey." I sat down opposite him, swiveled my chair from side to side and listened to it squeak, holding onto my desk to ground myself, to swivel faster. "Sorry about Lo."
He shrugged. It was an old conversation.
"So we're on homicide today?"
"Yep. Unless—"
The phone rang. I grabbed it first, snatching it before Sean's quick hand could reach. He made a face at me, and I stuck my tongue out. "Hello?" I said, batting him away from me with my free hand while keeping my tone as professional as possible. My chair squeaked as I sat up straight, quickly.
"We're on it, sir." I listened to details over the phone, nodding at several points, and then remembering the man on the other end of the line, one of my bosses, Commissioner Singh, couldn't see me.
I hung up and looked at my partner. He looked at me alertly, waiting for my word.
"Missing child. They think it's a possible kidnapping," I breathed out.
"Let's roll." Lowell didn't wait for more. He jumped to his feet, yanked his jacket off the back of his chair, and strode for the door.
I followed, grabbing my cell and sunglasses. We loped to the car and hopped in. Sean drove. We both preferred it that way. He's a car nut, and I like to check my email while we're en route. Sometimes, if the drive takes a long time, I can check my feeds: news, Facebook, or the other major sites I use.
"Anything good, Addict?" he asked, as we peeled out of the parking lot. "Tell me you're not twittering."
"Hashtag shut up," I told him, without looking up.
He laughed. "Just tell me what we need to know."
"Don't I always?"
#
I told him what we knew as he drove there. It wasn't much, admittedly. We arrived in record time, thanks to Sean's driving "skills," and tumbled out of the car, hurrying towards the crime scene.
Police tape was all around a small white saltbox house in a medium-nice neighborhood. It had a colorful mailbox out front and a small yard without a fence out back. Police and their vehicles were around, some of the latter still flashing red and white lights. The hiss-click sound of cops reporting and getting news from their radios punctuated the background.
My partner and I strode up to the house. He fell back, letting me lead the way. Sean is a bit taller than me, but he allows me to set the tone in dealing with local people. He's pretty shy about being a wolf shifter, and by mutual agreement, we don't tell anyone unless it's necessary.
Wolf shifters were only accepted recently—and by accepted I mean: no longer thought of as akin to Bigfoot, an urban legend created by people with active imaginations and too much to drink.
Most lived on their packs' lands, interacting with full-blooded humans only in their human forms. Most people would go their whole lives without meeting a wolf shifter and knowing it. Sean was pretty private about the whole thing.
He was a lone wolf, having left his pack at age eighteen—because of the whole gay thing. He had eventually integrating himself so well into human society it was tough for him to come forward for this job. Even though he had better pay, benefits, and of course the wonder of working with yours truly.
He nudged me now and pointed to the man in charge of the scene. I'd have spotted him in a second, but Sean was really good at that sort of thing. I thought it might be a wolf thing, being automatically in tune to hierarchies all around himself, but he hadn't told me. When I asked one time, he tossed a peanut shell at me and told me not to be an asshole.
So yeah, my partner was a wolf around me a lot, but he wasn't totally comfortable talking about wolf stuff, at least not outside factual details and impressions on the job. We worked well together though, as witnessed by our increasingly being called in to consult on difficult cases all around the country. No complaints from me.
Now I was hoping we'd be able to help find the missing little girl.
I liaised with the chief, who looked pissed off and stressed out of his mind. We showed him our special-detail, full-clearance passes and our badges. Nowhere on them did it say Wolf Team, but the chief had been told, apparently: he cast Sean a long, nervous look when he first saw him. My partner kept his face blank and expressionless, refusing to shuffle his feet nervously like I could see he wanted to. He hates it when people stare like that.
