Marco wrapped the blanket around him. Nicky wanted to try to get cleaned up, but he didn’t want to argue with Marco. Anything Marco wanted was all right with him. He just wished he could have a chance to suck Marco’s cock. He so wanted to hold it in his mouth all night long. Good God, what was wrong with him?

Marco picked him up like a child again and carried him back to the table in the other room. He put his butt down on the table top, but still held him to his chest. Nicky whimpered and wrapped his arms around Marco’s waist. He could hear the other men coming back to stand by the table. He hid his face against Marco as they discussed him.

“Well?”

“It’s okay. He’s mine. We’ve mated. We were tied together for over an hour by the knot, and he had multiple orgasms. More than I’ve ever seen. I never saw any pet in heat so strong. Maybe it’s because he’s a male bitch. I don’t know. I’ve never been with a male pet before.”

Marco’s calling me a male bitch? I don’t think I like that too much.

Marco’s voice came again. “He’s my mate now, and no one touches him. He’s fed deeply from me, and I’ll feed and fuck him again in a little while once he regains some strength. In the meantime…” Marco looped something around Nicky’s neck, running a finger under it to make sure it wasn’t too tight before he fastened it together. “He’s wearing my collar now, and in the morning I’ll have him tattooed. If all goes well, we’ll have the Alpha mating ceremony tomorrow night.”

Marco leaned down to brush his lips. The words he’d spoken sailed over Nicky’s head and made little sense he was so tired, so exhausted. He closed his eyes and snuggled closer to Marco’s chest, embarrassingly aware of little sucking sounds he made with his mouth. Marco’s thumb slipped inside his lips, and Nicky sucked it in greedily, using it as a pacifier. He was too tired to even be embarrassed any longer. Not as good as his cock, but any part of Marco would do in a pinch. He put both hands around Marco’s fist, so he wouldn’t remove it and drifted gently off to sleep.

* * * * When Nicky woke up he was lying in another bed, wrapped up tightly in Marco’s strong arms. His ass ached horribly, but mostly he was quite comfortable. He’d never before had a feeling of such security and safety. Confused memories assailed his tired brain, but he pushed them away to think about later. Resting securely in Marco’s arms was enough for the present, a thought he couldn’t push away, the strangeness of it making him a little uneasy. He squirmed restlessly. Marco came instantly awake and alert next to him.

“What is it, little one? Do you need me to fuck you again?” “No!” Nicky cried in alarm, fighting what his body still wanted and his mind. “Uh, no, I think I’m fine.”

“Shhh, baby, your body knows what you need more than you do right now. Let me get the oil.”

He rolled over and reached into the drawer. Nicky tensed up helplessly, hating his weakness. He didn’t know if he had the strength for any more, even though his body squirmed to get closer.

“Don't worry, darling, it won’t be like before. The tying up will only be for special occasions from now on. It’s the knot or the gland that causes you to become multi-orgasmic. This time should be more about pleasure for you.”

“Okay,” Nicky said meekly. “It’s just…you know…I’m not gay. I’ve never been like this with another man—ever.”

“I know. Werewolves don’t have any particular preference. Sometimes we mate with men, sometimes women. It’s never anything we know for sure until we find our blood match.”

“What? I don’t understand. Did you say werewolves?”

“Yes, sweetheart. There’s a lot you probably don’t understand. You’ve been operating off pure instinct for the past few hours, but I can’t explain it now. Your mind isn’t clear enough while you’re still in heat. Once you come out of it, I can explain everything to you. For now, just relax and let me love you. It’ll help to clear your mind.”

He rolled Nicky over on his side and gently fit himself inside as Nicky’s ass snuggled up to Marco’s crotch with a mind of its own. With Nicky stretched out from their previous encounter, his cock slid in easily. Marco moved slowly and rhythmically, in and out, in and out until Nicky felt almost hypnotized from the motion. Marco was right; it felt so good this time. Nicky’s prostate was being gently stroked, and he thought he would soon lose his mind with the pleasure.

Marco whispered foolish sweet words in his ear, calling him his baby and his sweetheart, and Nicky grew more and more excited. He shuddered, and Marco gripped his hands in his so he could hold on. The orgasm, mind-blowing and very hard, was more like a normal orgasm, and Marco followed him in a few moments. He lay joined with Nicky, softening, but not moving, and that was just fine with Nicky. He wanted to stay joined forever. After maybe twenty minutes, Marco bit his wrist, rolled Nicky onto his back and offered him his bloody wrist to suck again.

Dutifully, Nicky sucked hard, once again loving the taste of his blood and trying to lap up every drop, until Marco pulled away. “Enough, darling. Go back to sleep now and when you wake up in the morning, you should feel almost back to normal, as normal a human as you’ll be from now on.”

Trying to ignore the last part of that statement for the sake of his sanity, Nicky tried to sleep. Marco said he’d be back to normal, Nicky thought sleepily. Except for the fact his asshole was stretched to three times its normal size, and he was thoroughly, irrevocably, totally in love with a gorgeous, muscular man twice his size. A man who had a strange baseball-sized gland at the base of his penis, yet seemed to think it was perfectly normal. A man who called himself a werewolf and called Nicky his mate and his pet. Nicky was afraid to think about all the strange remarks Marco made to him about male bitches and being in heat, like some kind of dog or something. He remembered the way he licked Marco and sniffed his hand. Oh, God! Had they done something to him to make him something not human? Was he an animal now? Was he a werewolf? Marco had called him werekin before. What the hell was that?

He looked down at himself and saw nothing unusual. He shivered uncontrollably, his mind shying violently away from the thought of being changed into some kind of dog or wolf creature.

Marco gathered him into his arms again. “Is there anything I can do for you, baby? To make you more comfortable? “

Nicky bit his bottom lip and cast his eyes down in embarrassment. He touched Marco’s penis, and Marco laughed. “Oh no, you can’t suck that, sweetheart, or I’ll never get to sleep either. You’ll have to be content with sucking my thumb again, I’m afraid. Here, sweet baby.” He rubbed his thumb against Nicky’s lips. Nicky opened his mouth and accepted it with a sigh. He closed his eyes and let the sucking soothe him. He wouldn’t think about anything else but Marco tonight. Maybe tomorrow he’d try to figure things out.

Chapter Two

Nicky awoke the next morning, alone in a strange bedroom. He sat up and looked around with interest, trying to figure out exactly what had happened to him. Was this some kind of hospital? If so, it was the most luxurious hospital room he’d ever been in. The walls were draped with some silky fabric, and the bed was massive and soft.

He stretched and yawned, feeling sore and achy all over, certain he’d been having what had quite possibly been the most ridiculous dream of his life. Weird. Maybe he’d been in some kind of accident and hit his head. Yeah, that must be it.

He had to take a shower, and that was absolutely non-negotiable. A great deal of sticky stuff crusted his stark naked body. Suspiciously, his mind went back to his crazy dream, but he pushed the thought away. He’d experienced wet dreams before, but he hadn’t had one in years. Certainly nothing compared to what he remembered or to equal the quantity of crust on his chest and abdomen. Getting out of bed to cross to an adjoining bathroom, he thought by the way his ass ached and burned he must have sprung a good case of hemorrhoids. What the hell had happened to him?

He adjusted the water on the shower and got in, enjoying the steamy feel of the spray hitting his shoulders. As he soaped his face and neck he came across a thin, soft leather strap of some kind around his neck. What the hell? He started to take it off and then decided maybe it was some kind of new identifying thing the hospital was using. Weird. He’d ask the nurse about it when she came in. He soaped himself up, shampooed his hair and began to feel human again. He paused, stricken with the notion. Why did he think that? He shook his head, not willing to even consider the possibility his “dream” had been reality.

After brushing his teeth with a new toothbrush and toothpaste he found on the counter, he wrapped a towel around his hips and drifted out to the bedroom, trying to decide what to do next. Maybe he should try to find some nurse or something and let them know he was awake.

The door opened and the young man from the restaurant, his stalker, walked in wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He regarded Nicky curiously, especially when Nicky’s mouth fell open in surprise.

“You! What are you doing here? I don’t understand. Do you work here?”

“Work here?”

“Yeah. This is some kind of hospital or clinic, right? Where am I exactly? Is this Grady?”

Nicky asked, naming a huge emergency trauma center in Atlanta. Before the boy could do much more than gape at him, a tall, gorgeous man appeared in the doorway behind him. Marco! The name screamed into Nicky’s brain even as he experienced an almost overpowering need to run to him.

“Hi, sweetheart. I thought I could get back before you woke up. I moved you to my room last night while you slept. You weren’t frightened without me, were you?”

So it hadn’t been a dream after all. Even as his heart leaped at the sight of him, a part of him, the still very human, still very straight part of him, shrank away from him in fear. “But, but I thought you were just a dream. I…I don’t understand. God, I think I must be going crazy.”