By Triple Vice

When he found her in the alleyway, she knew he was different. He had a distinctive Asian look about him, but he was taller than her, and lean with powerful muscle. His hair was the same sleek black, with the same messy cut that left him looking like a bed head. He looked emo, with mascara lined eyes…only, it was just that his lashes were so dark. The sleeves of his hooded sweatshirt were rolled up, and she saw the scars lining his right arm, and the tattoo on his left of a Chinese dragon that came down and wrapped around his hand. His jeans were faded, his sneakers a washed out grey with dirty white. He stopped when she stumbled to the alley wall and fell against it, breathing hard, and said nothing.

When he saw her with the blood on her face, she thought he would run. He hadn't. He hadn't known then that the man at her feet was another werewolf, or that her torn clothes and shredded flesh were from an attack made by the neighboring clan. He hadn't known that she wasn't a murderer…but she hadn't smelled any fear on him. Nothing. Nadda. Not even a hint of concern.

Instead, what she smelled on him as his blue eyes dropped to the dead werewolf at her feet was disgust. Then that was it. He looked back up, and even that was gone. He studied her, from her feet to her head, and seemed to know better than to approach her.

"You need to get out of here," he said. "If someone finds this guy you need to be long gone."

She gave a harsh chuckle. Her alpha was on his way with other wolves—she could smell their approach—and soon there would be a bloodbath in this little backwater town. There wasn't anywhere she could go that they wouldn't find her anyway. Her blood was all over the werewolf, and all over the alleyway, and her wolf was still rampaging in her head. She was still ready to fight…still ready to kill. She couldn't go anywhere, because it would just make more trouble.

She slipped off the wall to limp backwards, away from him, and he stepped over the body to approach her. She snarled at him, baring her fangs, and lifted a hand to grip the torn sleeve of her jean jacket. Her left arm was dripping blood, and she was weakening. There were cuts all over her body from werewolf claws, and she was pretty sure she had a couple broken ribs. No good. If someone came too near her in this condition, her wolf would lash out before she even had a chance to stop it. Instinct was harder to overcome when she was this hurt.

The blue eyed human paused at the canine threats coming out of her throat, and she limped further back into the alleyway. He took another step. The man had no fear. He was dauntless. Reckless. Some people would have said that he just didn't care, but after a year now, she knew better.

Against all odds, and every expectation, he seemed fascinated by her. Some called her a monster, but around him the term seemed to take on a new meaning. The more she warned him of the danger, the more enamored he seemed to be by her very existence. She pushed him away, and he seemed to like it. What the hell was one supposed to do with someone who actually liked pain? Someone who had lived through enough of it that he wasn't just talking big, and who was more than just a survivor. Someone whose self-inflicted scars hadn't been meant for suicide, or for depression, but whose every sinew became revitalized by the mere mention of a challenge. Who thrived on adversity. Whose strength redoubled with every obstacle encountered. How does one counter someone so indomitable? His existence was a threat to her alpha, who considered every female in the pack as his personal property. She warned him, and he brushed it off with all the blasé disinterest of someone watching a dull movie.

Adrenaline junkie, they called his kind…but he didn't even fit that stereotype. He was just…Alexis. He drove her nuts. He scared her…and at the same time, he made her wild with hunger. For the hunt, for life, for him.

It was his fault she was in heat. She hadn't gone into heat in years, and she'd thought it was because her body had finally gotten past such silly mortal things like lust. Technically, the other werewolves were even more…active than humans, their animal instincts intensified by their immortal Change, but she had been different. She hadn't been interested, and that had been why the alpha eventually gave up. It was no fun to pursue a female whose body wasn't into it.

Today, however, her alpha had smelled her heat, and it was a dangerous thing for a female in heat to be around males. No matter who they may be attached to, or mated with, they become aroused. They go on the hunt.

They were on the hunt now.

"They will kill you," she told Alexis as they stood in the ruins of an old mansion on the north side of town. It was the kind that used to stand in old horror movies at the top of a hill, where everyone on the main street could see it. Huge, gothic pillars still stood where the front of the house had been, but most of it had collapsed long ago. It used to be the pride of the town, but now no one visited it, and the lot lay abandoned. They were in what was left of the living room, with a fireplace off to one side and nothing but the night sky above their heads.

His quiet snort of laughter pulled up one side of his mouth, and he looked up at the full moon above them. The town below was alive with kids in costumes, trolling the streets for their Halloween candy. Parties where adults dressed as the creatures they thought were myth pumped loud music into the night, and she could see a few white-clad ghosts dancing on the top of someone's truck in the supermarket parking lot. Far in the distance, outside the town and coming through the trees from their homes up in the mountains, her pack was closing in. A howl sounded in the distance, and down by the huge cast iron gate a BMW went zooming past, one costumed couple laughing in the front seat and another caught in a passionate kiss in the back.

She sighed. "Why is it that every time there's a psycho killer on the loose, everyone is caught making out? I never got that in the old movies. The idiots are just asking to get caught."

The truth was that she envied them, but she wasn't going to tell Alexis that. For a guy with a girl's name, he had more testosterone running through his veins than half the werewolves she knew.

Alexis turned to her then, and he had that look in his eyes. That damn look that made her shudder all the way down to her toes. It was the look he had when he was about to break the sound barrier on his motorcycle, or when a man big enough to have an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records picked a fight with him. His magnetic eyes came alight with such a keen, unadulterated, electrifying anticipation that she felt her heart lurch in sympathetic excitement. It was a voracious, malicious delight that filled him, driving him. He relished the thought of danger. He lived for it.

She smelled it, felt it.

"It would be a good way to go," he said, and took a step toward her.

She took a step back, and ran into the crumbling wall that was next to the fireplace. "I don't want to be your next adrenaline shot," she said.

He raised an eyebrow and lifted a shoulder in quiet dismissal. "You're way more than that," he said. "Way, way more."

Another car came rushing by, and she cocked her head. "Really? What am I then, if not just another way for you to jack off on danger? I'm a gaddamn werewolf, Alexis. We don't make good pets."

"I don't want a pet," Alexis said softly, and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "I want you."

She twisted her head to face his neck and inhaled deeply. She didn't tell him how the scent of his skin made her heady with lust, or how he sent her hormones on a rampage that muddled her brain like a drug. She just looked up at him and shot him a haughty look. "I can see that," she said. After all, it was easy to identify a man's arousal. She'd been the one to tell him that.

He gave a small, wry smile and slowly reached up to slowly pull his shirt off. She knew what he was doing too—trying to tempt her—but even knowing…she looked. She swallowed. He really WAS ripped. She glared at him, but to him the warning was an invitation. He stepped closer to her as his shirt hit the ground, moving himself right up in her face, and then reached up to put his arms on the wall on either side of her. His face was only inches away, and she could feel his hot breath brushing over her face.

It was an old, old move, and it had lasted so long for a damn good reason. She couldn't look away because every corner of her vision was filled with him. If she looked straight ahead, she saw his mouth. Nice, full lips. Great for kissing…If she dropped her gaze just a little, she saw chest—and DAMN was that a good view, second only to the work of art that was his washboard abs. If she turned her head, she saw arms…strong arms that were blocking her in. Keeping her captive as though she were something they had the right to corner. Worst, if she looked up, she'd meet his eyes, and would see how they'd glazed over, and would get sucked into that Caribbean blue. They made her want to go skinny dipping in their depths, maybe drown herself in them. She'd see the way his hair just barely brushed his eyelashes—long, thick black lashes, secretive, luring… seductive—and the shadows they cast, and she'd want to reach up and run her fingers through the thick black locks. Bad. And not only was she surrounded by the sight of him, but by the feeling of his nearness. By the heat of his body, and his scent.

"Every guy goes through life looking for the ultimate adventure," he whispered. "The highest peak, the wildest land, the stupidest obsession. Something irrational. Something uncontrollable that we can grasp. Something to revel in. Fight for it, die for it, it doesn't matter, but we've got to find it. Possess it. Consume it. A lot of guys never find it. They just go look for something else to do." He nodded back at his motorcycle. "Find the fastest ride. Push every second to the limit. Get jacked up on a few seconds of adrenaline, which is just enough to make them crave the next few seconds when they can drive themselves to the point of defeat."

He leaned in and kissed her lips with a feather light touch that made her catch her breath, and then he pulled away, leaving her to fight her instincts as she held her immortal body in check.

"Sometimes they find it," he whispered, and she let out a rattling breath.

He was so provocative…the nearness of his body was calling to hers, promising sex—or threatening, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that her body was telling her it was unavoidable. It was like he had bypassed her consciousness and was speaking straight to her body, which was informing her that she was about to give in, no matter what her brain had to say. He moved closer, bringing the feeling nearer, smothering her with her own lust.

She tried to focus on something mundane. The rock music she could hear spilling from the skating rink just a dozen or so yards down the road. Kids laughing in the town as they squealed "Trick or Treat!"

He leaned past her face so his lips were touching her ear. "They're coming," he said, and for some reason, instead of bringing her back down to earth the sound of that simple statement made her body sing with elation.

Damndamndamndamn, DAMN. Oh…gods did she want him to just touch her already. Just touch her…kiss her. Something. Anything. Her eyes were burning, and she knew her wolf was looking out through them. Her fangs ached to sink into his flesh. Her blood raged in her veins, seething with lust as she held herself back.

She wanted to crush him in her embrace. She wanted to let go of all her restraints and demand he fuck her, immediately. Oh, how she wanted.

A soft, breathy chuckle reached her sensitive ears then, and she felt the front of his pants brush against her pelvis. She sucked in a fast breath, and realized he was toying with her.

No one toys with a werewolf.

She ground her teeth and put a hand on his chest. It was a gentle shove, because she had to hold back. He fell back a step, and she stepped forward, slipped her arms around him, trailing her palms along his sides and up his muscled back. Pressing her body against his, she opened her mouth on his and met his tongue as his arms went around her. Her touch was harsh, desperate, but so was his. He pushed her backwards, up against the wall again, and moved away from her mouth to trail kisses down her neck. She tilted her head back as she gasped for the air she was suddenly short on, her wolf running wild in her mind, demanding to be let loose, demanding to mate. She wanted to howl, but the only thing that came out when she opened her mouth was a soft moan.

One of her hands trailed up his arm, over his shoulder and neck into his hair, savoring the sensation of his muscles against her skin as it went. Her fingers touched the silken fineness of his hair and lost themselves in it. He smelled good. He really felt good too. Her whole body felt aware of its contact with the heat of his flesh—didn't matter that there were a couple layers of clothes between them.

Actually, it mattered greatly. She reached down to unbutton the top of his jeans, and he grabbed her hands.

"Not yet," he said. She could have pushed his hands away. He was bigger than her, and if she'd been human he would have been far stronger…but she was a werewolf.

And she felt like letting him take the lead. If he'd been werewolf, he would have been more dominant than her alpha anyway, so it felt right to let him take over.

His hands moved to trail down her sides, to her hips. Then he moved them back to spread his fingers over her ass, and he smiled. She just made a lunge for his distracted lips and claimed them once more, feeling like a cocaine addict craving her next dose. He pressed his hips against her, and her body reacted before her brain again, grinding her hips into his groin with the help of his hand on her ass. He sucked in a hard breath, and the sound made her crazed. Her blood ran hot, her body tensing and gathering itself, adrenaline pumping through her veins as she came up for air as well. Her temperature was rising as her ability to reason faded and lust took over. A growl was gathering in the depths of her throat.

The warm touch through her clothes was maddening, and the hand on her thigh slid back—her nerves sang sweet bliss at the long, slow caress, and then the hand was moving under her shirt. Suddenly his skin was against hers, and that took their contact to new levels of intimacy. His fingers played over her stomach, sliding lower, and she broke away from him, unable to choke out the gasp that froze in her throat. She had kissed a lot of boys before—even played around with them…but never anything like this. Never anything this intense. She'd been a wolf, they'd been human. It was too dangerous. Too dangerous now. She should back off…but he trailed the tip of his tongue along her jaw, and the gasp she had been holding came out in a low, breathy intake. She might have been trying to say something…she wasn't sure. She couldn't form syllables suddenly. All she knew was that she wanted him in her, and she wanted it rough. Her hips bucked against him and her body arched to press her breasts against his chest. One arm around his neck and one hand, like his, sliding lower.

She felt his breath on her ear as he leaned close. Her body was against the wall, and he leaned against her. Plastered – that was what she felt like. He was pressed against her from knees to chest, and the clothes didn't seem to make much of a barrier. Only separated by a little material, she felt like she could crawl into his skin and feed on his heat. Be as close to him as she could get. Have him in her.

"I think…" She heard him breathe, and his tongue traced her earlobe. His voice sounded deeper than usual—huskier. Snap. There went the snap at the top of her pants. She could feel his fingers working on the zipper even as his tongue toyed with the sensitive skin at her jaw line. "I think…we're…going to be here for a while…" his tone was soft, caressing her senses as intimately as his hand was caressing her body. She tried to breathe as he slid his hand into her pants and touched her teasingly, lingering. She gasped, and his breath tickled her skin as his teeth nipped at her ear. When he finished speaking, he ran his tongue down her neck.

Her heart hammered in her chest, excited, and she had to gasp for air. She moved her hands away from him to grab chunks of ragged rock in the wall, scared she would hurt him if she touched him now. Actually, if he didn't stop, she might not be able to continue restraining herself. She tried to say something, ask him to s-s-stop…

Two of his fingers pushed into her, and she gasped as her fingers tightened on the stone, her growing claws delving into the rock. She couldn't articulate again—couldn't even think in terms of things as objective as words. She opened her mouth and all that came out was a moan. Long, and low, and hot. All the heat in her body suddenly centered between her legs, around the place where his fingers pressed into her.

"In." She gasped, her own voice huskier than usual. He raised his face to take her mouth again.

"Hang on," he whispered, and sent his tongue into her mouth to range along her teeth. She bit his lip, and he bled. Her move made him pull back just enough to let her regain a little of her senses, but that was blown away again as she watched his tongue trace the pink of his lip slowly, tasting the blood, lingering as though fascinated. His breathing had roughened, and the way he looked at her when he let go of her hand to reach up and touch his lip sent her blood boiling. She closed in, moving his hand away to claim his lip, licking the blood off, sucking on it as, flailing, she reached down and felt around for the fasten to his pants again. This time he smiled against her kiss before pressing his abdomen against her hands. She had just gotten the snap undone when another howl sounded through the night, still far away. They had maybe fifteen minutes…

The wolves were coming. She knew it. In the back of her head, the barely conscious human part of her brain was telling her to get out of here, that they were both in danger. Go, go, go, go, go NOW.

She knew what Alexis had been talking about, then. Somehow, knowing they were in so much danger just made it more exciting. Stupid, she told herself. Stupid to be so mindless. Stupid to be so consumed, but when she pulled away from their kiss, instead of telling him to get away as fast as he could, she reached up to pull off her shirt. Then she stepped forward to slip her hands behind him to tuck them into his back pockets. She watched his face as he reached for the clasp of her bra, his knuckles grazing her breasts as he worked. Then it snapped open, and he glanced up at her before lowering his head. She sucked in a deep breath as his lips met her skin.

She could get used to this.

The muscles in her neck went limp—pure bliss and fire sang up her back, the sensations crackling across her skin centered beneath his touch. Her head fell back.

She was so glad she was a girl.

His lips left her then, and she'd never felt so bereft.

"Like that?" his mouth near her ear sent warm breath over her neck, and she shuddered.

"…yes…" she couldn't get more than a husky growl out, and brought her head forward to bury her face against his neck. She turned her head, kissing his skin, and bit him. He chuckled, and she licked the spot, kissing it again.

"So that's how you like to play," he said.

"Shut up." She found his lips again and kissed him—then she felt his fingers on her pants, tugging them down. She lifted one leg, and he slid the pants down it, his fingers trailing across her skin. When it slipped off the end of her foot, he slid the other leg down.

She heard her pants hit the floor a few feet away, and Alexis leaned in to tease her with a brief, lingering nip on her lower lip. She lurched in for more when he pulled away, but he raised a hand to her arm. He tugged it to the waist of his pants.

"Take mine off," he said, and her kiss fell short. She went for his collarbone instead, then his chest, tasting him as she moved down. Then she hooked her thumbs around his unfastened pants and shoved. He reached down to help her, and then she felt herself being propelled backwards. She hit the dirt and Alexis was on top of her, kissing her nose, her neck, her collarbone, and her shoulder as he reached down to boldly shove her knees out of his way. He settled down on top of her, kissing her, and then his body shifted over her, and her fingers on his arm became like vices. She had to fight her own muscles to keep from crushing his arms, but he seemed to like the pain anyway.

Why did such an animal thing feel so good?

"Chaney," he said.

She gasped. "What?"

"Hang on."

She felt a little crazed with the ecstasy that rippled through her boiling veins. He rocked against her, over her and then into her. She moaned, and he pulled out to rock in again, then again, and again. Her hips rolled with each thrust, trying to take in more of him as her head shifted back, pushing her body up off the ground. A howl was building up inside her lungs, and as she felt the delicious friction in her womb she cried out, her voice both wolf and woman, so intermingled that she couldn't tell what the sound was that she sent out into the night. Her hands moved up to his back, her claws raking down his skin. She tried not to hurt him too badly, but her whole body was aching with need. Her muscles quivered, on the brink of Change, the magic for her transformation gathering with the tension in her muscles to envelope them both, intensifying every sensation until she wanted to scream, or howl, or both. Her fangs were throbbing in her gums as her mouth fell open, gasping into the night. She could barely recognize the exquisite detail the night was taking on in her enhanced eyes, because she was so mindless with desire that she could barely see anyway. Alexis's hands were braced on either side of her, his shoulder blades jutting up into her hands as he leaned his head down and kissed her skin, wherever he could reach. Her neck, her shoulder, her breast…where he bit down, softly, to tug on her skin as one arm snaked beneath her to wrap around her back. She gasped, her legs digging into the ground to press her body against him. Just one little push, and she could send him over onto his back, and ride him until she was content…

She could have taken charge. She did it all the time. She was used to being strong, and she liked it. She liked being in charge of her own life, and she liked being able to defend herself…but she got tired of it. She wanted someone to take care of her. She wanted someone strong enough to be her alpha, because the schmuck that led her pack was a total loser and less dominant than she was.

Forget the weaklings. She wanted someone tough enough to handle her. Someone tough enough to take her on, and protect her. Someone who would take charge.

Someone like the man that was making love to her right then. She trailed her fingers through his hair again, gently, carefully, because he was too precious to truly harm, and savored the feeling of him sliding deep into her guts. She could hear everything perfectly, from the goings-on in the town below, to the rock music, to the parking lot not far away where the college kids were taking their darlings, to the sound of him inside her, to the sweet sound of his kisses and the wind in the trees. She could smell his skin, his arousal, her arousal, their mating…the scent of the night…everything was crystal clear.

She'd known he was different, that first night she saw him.

He moved to pull her legs up and around his hips so she couldn't push against him anymore, and then reached up to pull her hands off his back. He dropped her arms to the dirt and pinned her wrists there. Her skin was burning where he touched her, and aching where he wasn't. His lips came down to touch hers, his kiss a soft suction that grew to consume her. Emotions she'd never known or recognized moved to spread through her like adrenaline, so beautifully obsessive that she could barely catch her breath from the strength of them.

Yes. Precious. He was so precious.

They had to get out of here…!

Chaney came with a cry that rent the night silence, pleasure and dread mingling to produce a sound so haunting it rivaled her wolf's, who was finally content. She was mated. She had chosen her lifepartner, and didn't care what was going to happen in the meantime. It was up to the human to save them both.

Alexis let out a growl that mirrored hers as he came, and she finally called on her wolf's strength to push him over and onto his back.

"I love you," she whispered to him, and pushed off to back away.

He immediately pushed to his feet and reached out to grab her hand. "What are you doing?" he asked.

She smiled. "Men. You always think with your head. And not the one on your shoulders." She looked off into the night. "I'm going to lead them away, so please just get on your bike and get out of here. Leave the state, and keep driving."

"Did you miss everything I said?" he asked, and pulled her back. "They will hunt me until they kill me, wherever I go. They don't like being beaten by a mortal. That much was easy to figure out from what you told me."

She broke his grip on her, and backed away, glaring. "So you're just going to give up? You don't care if they kill you because tonight was enough or something? What about me? You think I'm just going to let them kill you? I'm a fucking werewolf. I fight to survive, not for fun, you moron."

He looked at her for a moment, his expression dark. Then he stepped forward and gave her one last kiss.

And everything went dark.

**********

He watched her fall, then tucked away the drug he'd used and walked over to pick up his pants and pulled them on. Then he got on his bike as the snarling pack drew nearer. The engine roared to life and he glanced back at her.

She wasn't the only one who had fallen in love, but he couldn't tell her that. Not when he was about to die, and she would have to live with that knowledge. Let her think it was his danger addiction. It would be easier that way.

His bike shot out into the night, and roared down the road to the highway heading out of town. He could hear the werewolves on his trail even then. He didn't need supernatural hearing for that much.

They were gaining on his bike, so he sped up, zooming down the road so fast that the wind felt like thousands of tiny blades slicing his skin. It felt good. It made the sensations he'd felt with her in his arms fade away, so he could concentrate on the road. Faster. Faster.

Faster.

**************************

A/N - Anyone want a sequel?