Most nights Marco fell into bed exhausted, no matter how much sleep he’d gotten the night before. He’d been pale, irritable and angry for no reason, and now he’d taken to snapping at Nicky more and more often during the day. Sometimes afterward, Nicky had seen a look of bewilderment on Marco’s face. Other times, the look he saw was a steady and unwavering disapproval and almost resentment. When Nicky questioned him as to what was wrong, what he’d done to make him look at him that way, Marco had shrugged it off. Told him it was his imagination. But Nicky knew better.

He got up off the sofa wearily and began to straighten the kitchen. He was supposed to meet Logan and Evan, his closest friends, a little later for lunch. Dragging his feet, feeling vaguely out of sorts, he walked to the bedroom to make the bed, but only got a few steps inside the room when he heard the front door close. He turned around to see Marco standing just inside the door, a hard, almost angry look on his face. Nicky noticed again how dark the shadows under his eyes were becoming. Marco’s face was drawn with exhaustion.

“Back so soon, honey? Did you forget something?”

Marco prowled toward him, his moves somehow predatory and threatening. Nicky stepped backward instinctively, trying not to flinch when Marco suddenly put his hands on Nicky’s shoulders.

“Marco?”

Without saying a word, Marco shoved him backward toward the bedroom.

“Why were you up so early really, Nicky? Were you planning something? Trying to keep something from me again?” The low-voiced questions hit Nicky harder than anything he might have shouted. His voice was hoarse and menacing. “Are you trying to leave me again, pet? Want to get away from me?” He shoved Nicky again, and Nicky stumbled backward, falling on the floor, looking up at Marco, feeling frozen in shock. He couldn’t seem to utter a word as he stared up at this man who looked like Marco, but who was acting like a terrifying stranger. Suddenly Marco seemed to collapse on himself, putting a hand to his eyes as tears streamed from them. “You’re driving me crazy! I can’t get you off my damn mind! Why are you doing this?” Frightened, but unable to watch his lover in so much pain, Nicky reached a hand out to him.

In another dizzying mood swing, he slapped the hand away. “What? No smartass comments, boy? Then put that goddamned sarcastic mouth of yours to good use. At least that’s one thing you’re good at.”

Nicky hissed in a hurt breath but allowed Marco to pull him up to his knees. “That’s the way I like you, pet, on your knees. Only you should be naked. Naked and waiting on my pleasure. It’s what pets are good for, right?” He put a hand behind Nicky’s head, pulling his face close to the rigid cock straining against his jeans. “Suck me. Take me in your mouth and show me how grateful you are for all I do for you.”

“Stop it!” Nicky pushed back against him violently, jumped to his feet and ran around the side of the bed. Marco’s face was a mask of rage.

“Stop it? You don’t tell me to stop, damn you! You’re mine, you fuckin’ little bitch.” He stalked around the side of the bed, looming over Nicky, and drew back his huge fist.

Nicky flinched and covered his head, cowering down beside the bed, expecting the fist to slam into him. Nothing happened. Nicky raised his terrified, tear-filled eyes to see Marco stumbling back away from him, an expression of horror and confusion on his face.

“N-Nicky...I...I...” He seemed stricken at what he’d almost done. He looked down at his fist as if it didn’t even belong to him. Careening backward, his big frame hitting the door with great force, he righted himself and stood frozen in the doorway. “Oh God, what am I saying? What did I almost do?” He turned and stumbled out of the room, bent double and clutching his stomach as if in great pain.

Unable at first to process what had just happened, Nicky sat shaking in disbelief for a long moment afterward before grabbing for the phone and dialing a number with a trembling hand. “Please, come right away! My God, Logan, something’s happened to Marco!”

He dropped the receiver and found he didn’t have the strength to move, so fell back down on the side of the bed. He heard the door slam open and Logan rushed in. Logan, the mate of the pack beta, Ian, lived right across the hall in the big lodge, one of the main reasons Nicky had called him. That and the fact Logan was probably his best friend in all the pack. They’d been through a lot together.

“Nicky?” Logan called from the main room.

“In here.”

“Damn, Nicky, what’s happened? What did he do?” Logan asked, sitting beside him on the bed. “He didn’t hit you, did he?”

Nicky, whose eyes had dropped to his lap, twisted his hands together. “No, n-not really.”

“Not really? What the fuck? What did he do, Nicky?” Logan leaned in close to his friend, warm sympathy in his dark eyes. Nicky knew that Logan had been on the wrong side of a wolf a time or two himself.

“He yelled at me.” Nicky laughed shortly. “I know, I know, he yells at me all the time, but this time he...”

“What?”

“He pulled back his fist to hit me and called me a...a fucking little bitch.”

“Oh my God!” Logan said softly. “Nicky, I’ve never seen Marco treat you with anything but love. Even when he was furious at you, everyone still knew he was crazy about you!”

“I know,” Nicky said miserably. “He was crazy all right, out of control. I’ve never seen him like that, and it scared me to death.”

“What did you do? Nicky, tell me the truth. If he hit you...”

“No. He didn’t, really. He stopped himself, but he drew back his fist, and I thought he was going to knock my head off. He stopped himself and seemed upset by what he’d almost done. He took off then, and I don’t know where he is.” Logan squeezed his shoulder gently.

“No, I’m okay, really,” Nicky said. “It’s just—God, I can’t stop shaking. I’ve never seen him like that before, Logan. It was like looking into the face of a stranger—a stranger who hated my guts.”

“I’m going to call Ian. He needs to know what’s going on.” Logan pulled out his cell phone but before he could even punch in the number, the phone rang. “Oh, it’s you,” Logan said into the receiver. “I was just about to...what? Oh shit. Okay. Okay, we’ll be right there.”

Logan put down the phone and took Nicky’s hand again. “Nicky, that was Ian. Be strong, Nicky. Something’s happened to Marco. He’s collapsed downstairs, Nicky, and they’ve taken him to the infirmary. The doctor’s with him, but...I’m sorry, Nicky. He’s unconscious. They… God, Nicky, they had trouble getting a pulse at first. It doesn’t look good.”

Marco was having the strangest dream he’d ever had. He was wandering in a deep, unfamiliar forest, searching for someone desperately, but unable to find him. He was growing increasingly frantic, his wolf close to the surface. He shifted then, giving into his wolf, and stood howling his frustration at the moon. He heard a slight noise close by and saw the man he was searching for. A beautiful boy, really, in his early twenties with golden blond hair and sapphirecolored eyes.

The boy was frightened of him and turned to run. Marco, in his wolf form, was on him in seconds, knocking him to the ground and rolling him to his back. The boy cast a hectic gaze up at him, screaming in terror and twisting wildly to get away. Marco bent over him and sank his fangs into the boy’s throat, furiously ripping and tearing with his teeth until the beautiful boy lay unmoving beneath him. He moved away from him then and stared down with satisfaction. He had killed him, had rid himself of the boy and would never have to love anyone so deeply again. He felt as if a huge and oppressive weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

He was free—free to make his blood thick and unyielding, strong and unfeeling. He would never again be a slave to his passions. He would never again have to fear the boy’s leaving him. He’d taken that option away. Backing away and licking his lips, he tasted the boy’s blood on his tongue, sweet and cloying. He turned and ran into the woods, leaving the lifeless, broken body in the clearing behind him.

Marco twisted his legs restlessly as the awful dream left him, slowly becoming aware that he was in a strange bed. Without moving, he opened his eyes a slit and looked warily around him. A white room, people moving in the corner, and someone sitting by the bed, his head bowed, his golden blond hair falling over his face—where the hell was he? His arm ached abominably, and he glanced down to see an IV running into his veins. A hospital, then. Where were Ian and the rest of his pack? Surely, they wouldn’t have allowed anyone to take him to a hospital—too much chance of arousing suspicion with his werewolf blood. So where could he be, and who were these people in the room with him?

Suddenly, the door opened and Rory, his nephew, came in, looking drawn and worried. He felt an immediate sense of relief. If Rory was here, then he must be somewhere safe. Marco wanted to speak to him, but couldn’t seem to summon the energy to move. He saw Rory come closer to stand by the man with the blond hair and put a comforting hand on his back. The young man raised a tear-stained face to look up at Rory and Marco was shocked at the boy’s beauty. Who the hell was he and why was he sitting here crying by Marco’s bedside? It was too confusing and too much to worry about, so Marco closed his eyes and let sleep drift gently back over him.

The next time he awoke it was darker in the room. A dim light over a sink in the corner showed the blond boy from before still by his bedside, this time sleeping in a chair he’d pulled up close to the bed. His clothes were rumpled, and he needed a shave, but he still looked beautiful and sad, tear tracks on his face and his full lips pulled down in a heartbroken frown even in his sleep. Marco wished he knew who he was.

The door opened and a man came in who looked like a doctor, wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope casually slung around his neck. He came over first to the boy in the chair and looked down at him with such tenderness and compassion that Marco knew the doctor must be in love with the boy. Strange that the thought gave him a little pang of jealousy and possessiveness. He didn’t even know the boy’s name.