Meta and the Marines 1-7

A different take on the traditional M/M werewolf romance topic: less romantic, less traditional, more disturbing and with conniving wolves, vampires and submissive marines.

You will find a discussion forum for this book at: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/40241-metaseries-ranting/

Comments can be emailed to MetaWolf@gmx.com . Depending on reception, I will post more chapters.

JAR

Meta and the Marines

CHAPTER 1

"Can I pass, honey?" she asked with a Southern condescension, practiced over hundreds of years in the ruling class.

He didn't react. Finally noticing, he jerked. He took a deep breath, then he put the folder in front of his midsection, got up and said: "Sure, MaryAnn." `Who would nowadays give his daughter such a clichŽ name?' he asked himself quickly not for the first time.

Her gentle, sweet face cream scent was a distraction. He rubbed his nose, while he sat down again.

When her pseudo French perfume had disappeared, this mind wrecking smell attacked him again: fresh pine like after a heavy snow fall in late winter with a hint of small sweet strawberries. A very small hint.

All of this made his two day head ache worse.

He was struck. He wasn't very good at smells normally. Well, he wasn't good at barely anything most acquaintances would say. He wasn't athletic with his 176 cm and 80 kg body. He smiled inwardly. He still thought metrics, despite having been born in the U.S. He wasn't even good at being a wholesome American, he thought.

He wasn't a Big Bang Theory-like nerd, either. Liked science fiction, but didn't go to conventions; and he definitely wasn't good at sex due to the little practice he had.

He wasn't a loser given he was in the 3rd year of college in a quite good school in California, part of a prestigious five-year program, but never stuck out at anything.

Even his dirty blond hair and grey eyes looked as inconspicuous as one could imagine them.

Nope, Colt, despite his macho name, was a bit of a wallflower, well, a male wallflower.

This smell. Where did it come from? Around him everyone acted normally. It was the beginning of the fall term and this was an advanced business class. The teacher was supposed to be good, a Mr. McErickson, as he did the course MBA-style, that meant with lots of discussion and cases. That should score easy class participation points.

He saw the Rocky Mountains in front of him, or the Alps or the Carpathians, tall evergreen trees on steep mountain flanks. Had he been allergic to pine, he would be in the ER now so intense was the smell.

He recognized some few fellow students. MaryAnn of course, so impeccably dressed in her khaki shorts and white polo that she could have modeled for Hilfiger. Over there was Andrew, one of the football team stars, all tall and blond and popular, with his fat side kick Ted. He would have liked to invite all the members of the Feminists' Club to this course to show them how NOT emancipated little women are next to a hunky jock like Andrew. He could nearly smell the excitement between their legs. He coughed. Disgusting.

Concentrated on the pine smell again. So natural and true. Deep and masculine, nothing like toilet refreshers with fake, big snow covered pine tree pictures on the can. And when it got too intense, the hint of strawberry sweetness. Not the bland Wal-Mart monster strawberries, mostly white; but the seduction of tiny, natural, deep red strawberries; only to be found at the side of roads into the mountains.

He looked around. A guy who looked like he could shave as much as he wanted and would still sport a shadow, responded to his gaze by frowning arrogantly and opening his class book in an exaggerated bored way. Colt thought he knew him, but he was sure he had never seen him on campus. Maybe in a gay bar? Doesn't matter, he wasn't his type, all dark and hairy, like a wolf.

The scent came from the front. He looked across the two rows of chairs in front of him, but it was too strong to find his bearing.

In that moment, Mr. McErickson, a tall, goofy kind of man with round spectacles like from the early 20th century came into the room and shouted: "Good Morning!"

Some responded meekly, some ignored him. Only one voice responded nearly too loud: "Good Morning, Sir!"

There was some laughter. But it died down quickly, when the teacher went through the logistics of class. And mutiny might have broken out when he explained that class participation was only 20% because he said most students said stupid stuff just to claim participation, and he could not deal with stupidity.

Colt didn't really listen. He had found the source of the scent. It was the guy who had responded to the greeting like É Colt guessed É like a former soldier.

He sat painfully upright in his chair, making notes.

Colt only could see his back, but his shoulders were stretching the plain black T-shirt. The white-blond-reddish hair was a hint too long for a soldier, but maybe now that he was out of the army he let it grow a bit again.

Lots of freckles covered his surprisingly tanned neck and, what Colt thought was a dog tag chain.

How could a man smell so intense? And why did nobody else seem to notice?

The professor went over the exam schedule – accounting for 40% of the grade - and the written case discussion option. Every written case discussion entry could get a max of 8% if it was great. They had eight cases as options to complete, he said; but normally nobody got 8%; maybe a McKinsey consultant with 10 years' experience. The students chuckled forced.

"I guess that has eaten already 45 minutes of our session É"

The soldier looked up from his notes and scratched his neck.

Colt was attacked by a wave of mountain scents so strong he nearly fell off his chair. He succeeded to stay put.

Except for his cock. It grew at a painful speed and to an aching size that he was afraid his jeans would burst. Or get wet. Or both.

He tried to breathe again deeply. Like when MaryAnn wanted to pass and he had to hide his boner with his folder. Not only was it inappropriate to have a boner in a business class, but particularly when interacting with a Southern lady; and even more importantly when one wasn't interested in the lady at all.

He hoped the soldier would turn his head a bit more so he could see his face; but he stubbornly focused on the professor and on making notes; like a good recruit.

Colt liked that, but he wanted to see the guy's face.

No chance.

"So who read the first 10 pages of the case?" Maybe 10 of 30 students lifted their hands. "So five max," Mr. McErickson summarized sarcastically. Timid laughter.

Colt was only surprised that the soldier hadn't lifted his hand, all gung-ho as he seemed. Maybe soldiers don't lie.

"So who wants to start with his view, whether company INTEGRATED should spin off their consumer products business to focus on the B2B market? What should the CMO recommend?"

A small hand went up.

"Yes, your name?"

"Cotherby."

"Exchange student?"

"Yes from London," she replied in this cute BBC announcer accent. Colt was distracted from the smell, even if only for ten seconds.

She was as pale as one imagined Londoners of a certain class to be and had a cute slim face. Her chestnut brown hair and eyes were such a stark contrast to her white marble skin making her look just elegant. He was sure that she would get laid in the US in no time É in contrast to Colt.

Even her teeth were perfect; they looked naturally straight and white without the artificial bleach effect of MaryAnn's.

"So what do you think?"

It was obvious she had gone to good schools. "I think they should not sell. The business cases are barely showing any NPV difference; hence, only strategic aspects should be considered. And in this case having the proximity to consumers will always be a competitive advantage in the B2B business."

"I agree, know the customers of your customers," MaryAnn added in her Southern twang, which earned her an appreciative smile from the English girl.

"Any disagreement?"

An ugly guy with pimples raised his hand. Colt moaned. Seth. He wanted to be the big next Wall Street shark, and had opinions to go with that aspiration.

"Your point?" moderated Mr. McErickson with forced indifference. It seemed he knew the point already. And indeed, Seth covered the usual platitudes of focusing on the core business to maximize shareholder value like a well-trained Republican doll.

Colt didn't listen anymore but observed the soldier again, which made his boner grow even harder. Not sure he ever had been that big, not even when he had his first sex É in the backroom of a bar.

"Seems Mr. Parker is distracted," he heard Mr. McErickson say. He immediately was all ears. How come the teacher knew his name? He had never been in one of his classes.

"Not really." He tried to be calm and added a pseudo polite "Mr. McErickson." Why did this teacher know his name? And why did he want his point of view? He hadn't raised his hand when the teacher had asked whether they had read the case. So far he hadn't bothered anyone yet except those eager puppies. Oh shit, he thought, he was already on the shit list. Great.

"So what do you think?"

Colt had to grab his chair because the soldier turned around to see who was being harassed here.

He was handsome. No, really handsome. No, Ÿber-fuckable handsome. Green eyes, freckles, a small nose despite the strong cheekbones and jawlines. Not shaved, which could be fixed, Colt thought quickly. A smile, which has seen too much pain, around the not too small pink lips. The longish hair covered his ears, which was a shame, as Colt loved ears. He was older than the students around him. Maybe 26, 27 not 21.

"So?" demanded the teacher, while Colt was dealing with the blow in his gut that this gorgeous soldier, who gave him the biggest boner ever, barely looked at him and turned around to face the teacher again as if he had just seen an annoying stain at the wall and not Colt.

Typical. `I am not the type of my types,' while he looked up to the teacher and started to say: "It depends on the career aspiration of the CMO."

The teacher looked a bit perplexed. "How so?"

"As everyone noted the business cases are not decisive, one can argue both ways as done today. So less objective motives will come into play. If the CMO wants to become CEO he will push for the spin off, as he is perfectly suited to become the CEO for the new consumer business. If he wants to continue as CMO as marketing is his passion, he will push for not spinning off; as then his marketing empire will not be halved."

There was noise everywhere.

Even the soldier turned briefly around but straightened himself again after few seconds as he had done before; barely looking at Colt who was slightly nervous, he didn't know how the teacher would react.

Mr. McErickson said. "Provocative indeed. This will be an interesting discussion next time. Please read the next 15 pages. Hand-ins for 8% points are available."

He dismissed the class and moving chairs made an unbearable noise.

Colt put his folder in front of his midsection and let people pass through the aisle not forcing himself into it.

He wanted to see the soldier passing by.

He was tall, slightly above 190 cm, between 6 ft 3 and 6 ft 4 his phone recalculated quickly, deleting a provider message in the process.

Muscular. His biceps stretched the black T-shirts sleeves. A tattoo.

Colt quickly linked it to the Marines. Not a soldier, then. A Jarhead.

He nearly came into his pants.

The smell became unbearable. He had to turn away. Anyway, the marine didn't even look at him. `No surprise for you, fag,' Colt thought and waited until everyone had left the class before getting up and running to his dorm room.

Thank god, his roommate was in class. He hopped on his unmade bed, pushed down his jeans and yanked on his meat. He didn't have time to remove his shirt. He shot within seconds; all over his head onto the wall, on his face and his belly.

Yuck, he said while he used his shirt to clean himself.

It stank of come so he opened the window.

He heard an irritatingly loud howl. Some fraternity guys, he thought, while he undid his shirt and changed into a fresh one.

He didn't notice somebody was looking up his window from a distance, hidden behind a pine tree.

"I think they've finally found him," the petite woman said to the burly man easily triple her weight.

"I know, let's see how it develops. They might be scared given the freak he is."

"Or he is with the three of them."

"Maybe." The man scratched his beard. "Continue to watch him. Don't do anything. To him or them," he said.

---

He wore the loosest pants he could find. Black shorts. Just to be sure.

Not that he had so many clothes. He had never been into clothes anyway, nor had had the money for them. His mother was a meth addict and his father drunk – when at home. Only thanks to a recommendation by his high school principal did he get into this college including a grant by his home state and the college. He could pay his tuition and eat, but not much more.

It was enough for now.

Kitty, the girl he thought could have been his best friend in high school, lost interest very quickly, when she realized that her best gay friend Colt wasn't into shopping, or romantic comedies in the movies, or groping her breast jokingly, or doing make up sessions, as all best gay boyfriends should do in her world.

She quickly moved on to a fag in a lower class, who was so out that every Pride Parade would have been embarrassed, to fulfill her dream of her best gay friend.

Not into clothes he said.

Not true, he contradicted himself. A guy in a uniform always made him hot – as long as it was a real uniform and not some rubber leather shit for bookkeepers on the weekend. If it was his real uniform and not dress up for the gay bars.

His shorts were loose. So loose that he could have the biggest boner without somebody noticing. He hoped at least.

The classroom was already half full; nevertheless his seat was still empty. Like in every class, the attendants tend to find `their seat' in the first session and stick to it during the whole semester.

The soldier was not É yet É here. His chair was empty. Though, a big burly guy sat on the chair to the left. Light brown hair, still not military short, but short. His neck showed years of lifting. Footballer, Colt thought. The green T-shirt was too tight like with all gym rats that wanted to show off their hard work to earn envy and admiration.

Colt tried not to stare but a cool whiff of moist earth and plum hit his nose. Like when you open a bag of potting soil. Rich and dark and moist and fertile. Plums, like in preserved plums as he got them when he spent time with his mother's relatives in Eastern Europe.

His dick jumped. High. Strong. Saluting.

`Not again,' he complained. The marine isn't even here yet, he tried to talk sense into his midsection, but it didn't work.

"Cee!" a deep voice shouted.

The gym rat turned around.

`Isn't that a girls' name?' Colt asked himself quickly, but stopped thinking coherently when he saw the gym rat's face. Open, smiling, friendly like your bigger brother. Brown trusting eyes and a nose so small it should be illegal. Ears were a bit sticky out, which made Colt weak in his knees, so he was grateful that he was already sitting.

"Alf," the deep voice responded, acknowledging the guy who called him. The marine.

`Alf, the marine?' Colt was in a daze. Pine mixed with soil. Plums with strawberry, and his dick wouldn't wait for two hours to eject his sticky stuff.

The marine looked as gorgeous as last time, despite the fact he didn't seem to have shaved in the meanwhile. His dark blue polo was hugging his torso obscenely well. He could hear that MaryAnn sighed. Surely, she knew this man would be out of question for somebody of her breeding. But that seemed to have added to the attraction.

When Mr. McErickson entered, another student rushed into the room, placing himself to the left of the marine.

Mr. McErickson started: "Last time, Mr. Parker had a provocative view on the spin off proposal of INTEGRATED. All of you should have read 15 pages with more information. – Where do we stand now?"

People were quiet. The enthusiasm of the first class had already subsided given the workload in all the classes.

And Colt had to concentrate. A new smell of wheat fields and white cherries attacked his senses. He could barely focus. It was obvious the scent came from the blonde next to the marine. Classic Midwestern jock. Track and fields jock. Muscular but less than the marine and the gym rat, but incredibly blond and innocent looking. He guessed the portmanteau `twunk' was made just for blonde.

"Mr. Bush?"

A guy as WASP as they come, wearing a blazer with a badge from some snobbish fraternity, looked up while looking for something smart to say. "Well, the new data suggest the business cases are based on wrong assumptions. The market shares of the B2C business are much lower than the business case assumed. Hence the value is less."

"Okay meaning?"

Few other people chipped in, but the discussion was lackluster and uneventful.

It was obvious that Mr. McErickson was frustrated. His nose twitched and he was always looking for something in his jacket pockets but couldn't find it. Finally he found his nasal spray and used it extensively, while the students tried to catch up in their reading that they missed.

"So Mr. Parker?"

"Yes?" He looked up. He tried to decouple himself from visions of fresh soil, fields with ripe wheat and mountains so majestic that even God would be speechless. He closed his eyes to suppress the picture of rich ice cream with plum, cherry and strawberry flavors. He barely succeeded to be able to form an argument, while his boner screamed for immediate attention.

"Well, based on this data I would suggest the decision to spin off depends now on the CEO's retirement plan."

"Explain!" the professor demanded rather harshly. He seemed to find that statement not provocative but eccentric.

He saw that the gym rat had turned around to look at Colt. He didn't acknowledge him but turned back to his buddies and said something that earned him a little hit on his leg by the marine as if saying: `Don't make mean jokes about the nerd.'

`Great,' Colt thought. The three hottest men he has seen in his life are making fun of him.

"The team is right that the B2C position is much weaker than thought and could be spun off quickly before it lost even more value. But I think they are overlooking that the strength in B2B is actually a weakness. The high shares suggest that there is little growth opportunity left. They would have to venture into new B2B markets, which is risky. While the low shares in the B2C suggest there is substantial upside in a market they already know to a certain extent. Spinning this off would make future growth much tougher. So if the CEO wants a quick big buck and retire in two years, he'll sell. If he is in it for the long run, he will keep it and build it É"

During his last words, the All American jock boy had slowly turned towards Colt. His bluish eyes were cold and arrogant. He facial features a bit tougher and leaner than those of his buddies, but his skin perfectly tanned. He seemed to blow away his sun-bleached hair so he could stare even more uninterestedly at Colt than Colt had imagined was possible. He scratched his elegant nose and turned back to his buddies, whispering something to `Alf,' the marine.

Colt swallowed. He was not making friends with those guys while their scents drove him over the edge É soon.

"Well, that was another insightful opinion; it seems the Mr. Parker is convinced every business decision is made for personal gain. Sad but not necessarily not true." He was proud of his double negation it seemed.

The rest was torture.

The arguments were bland. And the three hunks, Alf, Blonde and Cee, `ABC,' he chuckled, ignored him. No, he corrected himself. To ignore him, they would have had to acknowledge his existence somehow in the first place. It was more like they treated him as part of the furniture. One doesn't ignore furniture, that would be already too much.

This time he didn't wait for others to leave the classroom. In the second, the teacher closed the session he stormed out the class. He didn't look at the ABC hunks, either; he just wanted to get to his dorm room. Fast.

And he wasn't even a good runner. He was exhausted when he opened the main door to the dorm. While he tried to get some air, he still smelled this intoxicating mixture of rich soil, white cornfields and snow-covered pine trees. He needed to get off fast.

This time he got his shirt off first and he had a towel ready to avoid more stains on the wall. His roommate had noticed them but not said anything. He knew Colt was gay but didn't care about it because he knew as well that Colt was not into tall slim black guys, so he was safe as he said. But he also wasn't comfortable enough to joke about Colt's sexuality, so lots of things were simply unsaid. And Colt was fine with that.

Two tucks on his foreskin and he shot.

Shot like crazy.

The towel was wet as if he had dried himself after a shower. But the pain did not recede. He was still stiff.

He did what he never had done before despite being supposedly in the prime of is malehood. He jerked off again.

Five minutes later the towel was definitely yucky. The second coming was obviously less forceful but not less pleasantly painful and relieving at the same time.

He lay there for 15 minutes before the stink forced him to open the window. Unmistakingly, some jocks kicked around a trashcan and were making dog-howling noises while doing it. How mature, he thought. But jocks can do anything when they are in the right fraternity.

And pussies will always be available.

Yuck, why did have to think of that now? He needed a shower. Badly.

The next weeks were odd.

The ABC hunks were not in the economics class anymore. Well, only one of them, the marine. Cee and Blonde were gone. Not that this helped his boner.

A forceful wank was guaranteed after every session. As was a challenge by Mr. McErickson during the session. As was the indifferent non-reaction of the marine to Colt's existence.

Nevertheless he could not get rid of the scents. In the class he was attacked by the strawberry and pine combo. But on other days he smelled the soil plum variations, although he never saw the guy he associated the smell with. Some days the wheat and cherry cocktail was always around him without him being able to see the blonde.

Just before Halloween he scheduled an appointment with the clinic on campus. Maybe something was wrong with his nose. He had to get rid of these smells. They drove him nuts. And his horniness drove him nuts.

---

"He is too dangerous," the young pale man said to the equally pale women in the elegant business outfit on the other side of the campus.

"They haven't even properly introduced him yet," she challenged him in a crisp voice while redoing her pinkish lipstick.

"But soon, I can smell it. The stink is terrible. I nearly need to vomit every time I see them."

"Well, you don't have to spend two hours in a room with them. After this I will need lots of `distractions' to recover."

He smiled while looking at her marvelous even skin, shame she wasn't available, he thought. "Well that won't be a problem here with all those ladies." He imitated her accent perfectly. Naturally.

"I know," she smiled with a hint of lust. "Nevertheless, make sure that your people stay put, irrespective of the smell."

"I will try," he said while opening the door to leave. "But do something soon, otherwise, I can't guarantee for anything É they cannot go against the nature when it comes to this nerd É"

"Soon," she said, putting her lipstick away, "soon, my dear."

---

"Sweetheart, do you mind if I sit next to you today?" MaryAnn asked with her utmost Carolina charm, while removing a nonexistent grain of sand from her blue white red polo shirt, which somehow made Colt feel as if she `asked' one of her house slaves to make her some hot milk.

Nevertheless he managed a forced polite smile. "With pleasure." He quickly put his folder on his lap covering the black shorts. Actually, it was too cold for shorts, he thought. But he always had frozen easily. Like a girl, his father had remarked in a disappointed tone.

But those shorts were the only really loose pair of pants he had, so he had to suffer the cold on his scrawny hairy legs to avoid the embarrassment of a visible super erection. Nobody seemed to notice anything, anyway, because normally nobody noticed him. And most jocks wore shorts even when the temperature fell below zero (Celsius, he clarified to himself). So he was just a pitiful asshole who thought he could be a hot jock in shorts.

He was torn. He was longing to see the marine again, to smell this intoxicating pine scent. On the other side he knew it would be painful. Painful in his chest because this guy ignored him – like MaryAnn, although she at least gone through the effort of being polite – and painful in his midsection because he was sure that the scent would be torture for two hours. Exquisite torture.

"Colt?"

"Colt?" Somebody was calling him.

Oh, MaryAnn.

"Sorry, I was lost in thoughts," he stated the obvious while glancing at his cheap watch. Only two minutes to the start of class, and the hunky marine hadn't arrived yet. Has he dropped out of class? Or was he just late? Nope, a marine would rather die than be late, he thought. Or was that a stereotype like that all girls froze easily? Somehow he was appalled by his own cynicism while trying to listen to MaryAnn's small talk. Somehow she talked about one of her girl friends being all-mysterious and not wanting to go out to do girlie stuff.

"And then I invited her to church! She looked at me as if I was the devil, dare I say his name. I mean I know those Europeans have some strange ways and are not as God loving as us Americans, but that was well beyond that!"

"Well, maybe she has a non-Christian religion," answered Colt. He conceded to himself that he wasn't really interested in expressing sympathy for her friend, more in messing with MaryAnn's mind.

"Fucking a brain," he called it. And he was good at it. And he liked it. Nearly as much as real fucking, although he barely had a solid comparative sample.

MaryAnn look shocked indeed. "You are so right. Oh do I feel a little bit dumb right now. She must think those Southern girls are so not tolerant."

Colt smiled wickedly, but was punished for it immediately. A tsunami of mountain pine scent clouded his head. He nearly passed out.

"You ok, honey?" MaryAnn asked with a concerned face. He had to give it to her. It looked sincere.

He tried to stop breathing, knowing well enough that wouldn't be a sustainable solution. After 30 seconds, when the professor entered the room – 1 minute late – he could talk again. "I'm okay. Just had little sleep the last nights. All the studying!"

While the teacher put his jacket across the back of his chair and got some papers out of his bag, she whispered in a motherly tone which was nearly endearing: "You need to have a bit more fun, Mr. Parker, not all books and computers."

He nodded absently, faking attention to the class, while in reality looking carefully into the marine's direction. The scent in the past weeks had been forceful like an attack of a Russian tank. Today, it was as overwhelming as a division of Russian tanks invading NATO space. Surrender was the only option.

And when he realized what he saw, he knew that not even surrendering would get him through the next two hours: The marine had taken off his thick shiny dark blue jacket and put it on the back of his chair revealing a tight black wife beater shirt.

Colt couldn't think about how some people would think such an outfit was a bit inappropriate for class on this college; he only tried to keep his composure. He admired the naked muscular shoulders, tanned and showered with a myriad of freckles. The tricepses were well defined and moved precisely with every move of his hands. And the deltoids lifted the wife beater bands with every twist of the marine's body.

This had to be illegal. The scent waves kept coming every time there was a little gap between the hunk's upper arms and his body exposing a bit of his armpits.

Another tsunami hit him. His loose black shorts wouldn't rescue him today. Somebody would call him a pervert for running around with a Viagra induced erection. Mountain pine Viagra, he thought helplessly.

"Morning ladies and gentlemen. I hope all of you have carefully read the chapter 5 of our case on the BUYNOW Company, which is interested in acquiring the B2C spin off of INTEGRATED. You obviously saw that the investors are not totally convinced. What is your proposal how to pitch it to them?"

Silence. Few might have read the chapter; even fewer might have thought about it in detail.

Mr. McErickson was obviously not amused and looked around annoyed. Colt was convinced he was an old vindictive goof when he suggested: "Mr. Seth Heines? That should be a perfect case for your future Wall Street career."

It was obvious Seth was not prepared and looked desperately in his notes for something that could rescue him.

"Well. I think," É he did think indeed. Or tried to quickly.

"Good start!" the teacher mocked him. Nobody laughed not to draw attention to himself.

"I think the numbers just don't add up. The internal yield is too low on a risk adjusted basis," he said with a smirk.

Colt knew Seth would say that in any situation. A wannabe shark had to ask for more in any case.

"And why so you think that is?"

"Well, I think they haven't maximized the overhead synergies of the two companies."

"Despite the 63.5% cut in the acquisition proposal?"

"Yes. Except for the direct sales force cost, everything else should be saved!"

"I see, Mr. Heines. – Can anyone tell me what the percentage of sales cost was within the overheads?"

"52%," somebody answered meekly, exposing Seth as unprepared. Everything he suggested to cut to make the numbers had been cut.

Colt smiled at the situation for a second before his senses had to shut down again. The marine had stretched his left arm on the back of the chair next to him sending an armada of walking pine trees to him. A helpless Colt was squashed to death by dark, walking forests.

"So it seems, that route won't get us further? – Any other ideas?" he asked.

Colt noticed that the marine stared at the teacher; actually, he seemed to do it frequently. The professor's reaction was to quickly look into a different direction trying desperately to ignore the hunk.

`Oh shit,' Colt realized, `Mr. McErickson has the hots for the marine as well, a closet fag!'

"What?" MaryAnn asked whispering.

Colt couldn't answer as she had attracted the wrath of the beast. "Mrs. Montgomery, what do you think about this?"

"Well, Mr. McErickson, firstly I am `Miss Montgomery'." No, she didn't say that. Colt thought she should have said it, but she was polite and answered: "According to my analysis," the word `analysis' had never sounded so heavily `humid cotton field'-like in his life, "the top line synergies are grossly understated. 1 + 1 is barely 1.9 in this case. I should be clearly above 2 to make sense for any such acquisition."

Mr. McErickson nodded carefully. He was clearly happy MaryAnn was not only a pretty girl but did have a little bit in her brain to make advanced small talk at future dinner parties hosted by her for her husband in Charleston.

"So in which areas would we see synergies?" he asked browsing the crowed with his bored brown eyes looking for the next victim.

Colt didn't give a shit. He tried to concentrate on keeping his senses, his head, his soul. A vortex of scents tried to swallow him and never spit him out again. His head ache tried to kill him.

In this moment a shot echoed through the class room and blood ran down one of the walls. Lots of blood.

The girls screamed. Some of the guys shouted. Colt didn't move, his body was paralyzed by the scent. He only observed that the marine had crouched down and looked at his direction. Colt assumed this instinct was military training. The blood wall was behind Colt, so the marine had look towards his direction.

Only now he noticed that MaryAnn had grabbed his upper arm like a damsel in distress. He was torn between snorting at her and feeling chivalrous.

"Oh my gosh, what a blood bath," said the teacher annoyed and walked to the blood covered wall as if he had seen an annoying fly which needed to be killed swiftly but effortlessly.

His finger touched the red liquid fearlessly and he licked it carefully. "Ketchup," he stated unsurprised. "I guess the Halloween season has started."

Some of the students laughed. Some guys said "pfffh," other boasted "told you so." Colt barely shrugged his shoulder. At least the scent had gone down. The marine had put on his jacket while the Mr. McErickson had made his Ketchup discovery.

"I guess Alpha3 will have to pay for a paint job," Mr. McErickson commented.

Alpha3 was, of course, the most elite fraternity on campus. One had to be rich, smart and good looking to get into it. They organized the Halloween party on campus, invitations to which were as rare as the Holy Grail and mostly reserved for females who would be appropriate mates for Alpha3 member: rich, reasonably smart but not to much, and very good looking. MaryAnn might just get one, he thought.

In order to make sure everyone knew the party took place and make the student body green with envy that only few got invited, they advertised the party heavily. Teasingly, like saying: `You wish you could be there. No chance, though, peasant!'

This little blood on the wall stunt was the start to this advertising campaign that cumulated in frantic efforts over the next days of most females to get a ticket – through whatever means.

Colt had never humiliated himself to even think he should get into a, and specifically this, fraternity; and as he wasn't a women, either, he would never attend this party, about which he would read online for weeks – until the Xmas party advertising started.

Alpha3 was on top, and top of mind. And nothing like a secret exclusive society one always reads about in corny college novels; this was the most conspicuously exclusive society ever – like a Rodeo Drive on campus.

"I guess they can afford it and the walls needed some new paint anyway," Mr. McErickson was clearly making an effort in being unimpressed, and in Colt's view he tried too hard. But who cared?

"Now, back to business." He chuckled at his own lame pun and looked at Derrick, a wholesome North Dakota native, who still thought all women where virgins until marriage. "Mr. McFarrow? – Where do we find more top line synergies to make this proposal more palatable?" Derrick obviously struggled with the `palatable' word, but wisely chose to ignore it and to attempt a reply: "I think they need to prioritize amongst the 8 product lines."

"Well that's an answer which will never be wrong, so can you bless me with a bit more?" The teacher became obnoxious using Derrick's faith as mocking base.

"Not sure."

"Ladies. Gentlemen! How could a business prioritize several product lines?"

"Maybe the BCG matrix É star, cash cow and such?" MaryAnn volunteered, pulling Colt out of his thoughts. He realized he still noticed the marine's scent, and only he it seemed, but since the guy had put on his flight jacket, Colt could deal with it - just. And MaryAnn answering this question meant Mr. McErickson was now looking sternly into his direction.

"Simple, but still good! So I guess that could be a way forward to find more synergistic topline growth to make the numbers. Let's go together through some other approaches É"

Colt drifted off again. The scent attack in the beginning, the artificial blood with the shot had drained his batteries, he needed be alone to recharge; he switched to autopilot to survive class.

Five more minutes to go, he thought.

"Mr. Parker seems to be interested in lunch instead of our discussion," the professor had obviously noticed his looking at his phone.

"I wouldn't say it like that," Colt responded with forced cool. He was annoyed. If artificial blood was the most exciting event of this session, the professor should rethink his approach than reprimanding students for the apathy.

"How would you say it then?" McErickson had smelled the blood of his next victim. How appropriate.

So he thought.

Colt exhaled. He got angry. Even when everyone stared at him because he was the next interrogation victim of this condescending instructor, the marine made an extra effort not to turn around to look at him like everyone else. Self-pity had turned into anger, cold anger. And he directed it at the instructor.

"I would say, Sir", this `Sir' must have been the most insubordinate `Sir' in the long history of `Sir''s in the U.S., "we have had the wrong conversation in the past two hours." He had to be careful not to come across as too condescending.

Somebody whistled. He thought it was Derrick. Maybe he wanted to encourage Colt given his own defeat.

"Is that so?" teased the professor.

"Yes, we have been discussing how to increase the numbers to make the deal more attractive; but attractiveness or lack thereof is not the barrier here," he insisted.

The instructor crossed his arms and stood with wide legs in the middle of the room as if to challenge him for a duel. "Go on," he requested, `and hang yourself,' Colt thought he thought.

"The M&A advisors won't carry the risk anyway, they get their fees and are gone. Whether the numbers are good or not are secondary; they are skilled to make them look good. What they really want is to double dip."

"Double dip?" The instructor was slightly off balance now.

"Not only BUYINGNOW is interested but also SECOND CHANCE. The M&A Company wants to split the spin off into two and sell one piece to each off them. Charging twice. Of course the official reason is strategic fit and value maximization through portfolio optimization; usual buzzword bingo. Well the cashier rings twice. Ching ching and É ching ching."

Colt put a fake smile on his face and enjoyed the reaction of the room. Mr. McErickson thought about it. Should he challenge Colt or praise him? The first was risky given they won't have time for an argument anymore leaving the image of Colt winning the case. The second option made both look good.

"Outstanding thought, Mr. Parker. Maybe you should become a politician."

MaryAnn said "wow" and Derrick nodded at him approvingly. Obviously, the marine couldn't care fucking less.

"I guess that was a great end to this class." The instructor stroke his beard and ordered "Next chapter, ladies and gentlemen. Good-bye!"

Colt swallowed and wanted to get out to recharge.

But a gentle hand held him back.

"Sorry, Colt. I know you are incredibly busy but I would like to ask whether you could do me favor?"

Her baby blue eyes graced him with the most endearing smile he had ever got from a woman. And actually he believed it was not all manipulative but actually a bit admiring.

"What can I do for you?"

"Well, would you like to have a cup of coffee with me now?"

He looked at her confused.

Suddenly, MaryAnn blushed.

"I mean not as a date but É so you could look over my case paper; seems you always have a different look at things."

Colt was disappointed. The marine walked by him while he talked with MaryAnn without even deigning him with a one second look. Colt did not exist for this man.

MaryAnn must have seen his disappointment, misunderstanding it. "Not, that I would not go for just a coffee with you, Colt É" She seemed embarrassed.

Colt swallowed. His desire to tease her was gone. She seemed a reasonably nice person and was asking for his help. He shouldn't be an asshole just because he was full of envy where she came from. Rich and well breed and that.

"You know MaryAnn that you're not my type," he graced her with a meaningful twinkle in his eye. "But I would love to critique your paper."

MaryAnn was relieved, double relieved it seemed. "Thanks, Bean's?" she asked while leaving class with him, suggesting a coffee shop compared to which Starbucks was a 1 dollar store.

"Sure, their tea selection is amazing," he answered truthfully.

"And I pay," she said resolutely.

"Does a lady of the South do that?" he teased her friendly.

MaryAnn smiled wickedly and boxed gently against his arm. "I think, honey, you have a very distorted view of us ladies of the South. There is more that what meets the eye or the ear," she explained to him in the same friendly manner.

"Okay now you need to spill all the beans," he went along.

"You are funny, Colt. I like you."

Colt swallowed. Nobody had said that to him for ages. And while he felt warm hearing it, a part of him said smelling this pine scent again: `Why can't the marine say that?'

CHAPTER 2

"Oct 31 É the Ultimate Halloween Horror3 at Alpha3 – Apply for tickets NOW!" the flyer screamed with unimaginative capital letters and exclamation marks. Beyond that, it only showed a blood-covered wall. No werewolves, witches, or pumpkins. Colt had to hand it to them: same consistent theme again, good big visual. They did understand advertising to some extent.

His Financial Analysis class had run late. Ironically, there were more intense discussions in that class than in Mr. McErickson's business case class. Maybe because only geeks like Colt took Advanced Financial Analysis; so everyone actually liked the topic and wanted to engage. Or maybe it was because the teacher, Mrs. Barner, was actually good at what she was doing. Nevertheless, instead of finishing at 0600 pm, they finished at 0715. They were actually kicked out by the security guy.

It was chilly. As necessary as loose shorts were to survive the pine attacks without embarrassing himself, as impractical they were on a cool evening like today. The drizzle and wind didn't help; nor that he had to walk across half of the campus through the campus park to get to his dorm room.

The pathways through the park were unusually deserted due to the unpleasant weather. Wide, ancient oaks rustled angrily.

He smelled something metallic oily like in a broken engine. He became a bit anxious, scolding himself for his childish emotions: If there was any advantage in being an unattractive nerd it was now when walking through a park at night. Nobody would bother with him. He clearly had no money to be robbed for and he was not a pretty girl to be raped.

Anyway the lanterns were brightly lit so nobody would stumble and sue the school for millions, he reassured himself.

Pretty much when he finished his soothing thoughts and made a right turn, the lights flickered for a moment and died. He had jinxed it.

Okay, now he did get a bit scared. He started to accelerate his steps to get back to the main street with lights and other people.

A small cold whirlwind gathered in front of him lifting the fallen brown leaves as if by magic.

And then a ghostly man appeared, tall and slim and pale. Dark pants and an old fashioned shirt with too much frills.

Colt was stunned for a moment but he quickly knew what was going on: "Also making advertising for Alpha3's big event?"

The guy didn't say anything.

"Trying to humiliate some nerds? A camera somewhere so you can show a little movie how we freak out on the big screen at your party?" Colt hissed with despise.

"Silence!" the guy barked while raising his right hand. He had long white fingernails.

"Sorry, dude, but you couldn't get a more clichŽ vampire outfit? Frilled shirts, fangs, long fingernails and pale complexion?" Colt continued talking to the `vampire' to give himself courage, decisively moving towards the main street.

The guy didn't react to his provocation.

"I thought that is so out after `Twilight.'" He purposefully made the `this is sooo yesterday' hand movement.

"I said silence, you mortal." The vampire actor closed in nearly levitating over the floor. When Colt tried to avoid him, he cut him off. Finally, they were close enough that the actor's right hand could grab his left shoulder. It was cold and strong.

`Man, this guy is good,' Colt thought, trying to twist away. "Okay it's enough, you had your fun. Leave me alone," he said with conviction wondering how they got those fangs moving out of and back into his gums so convincingly.

The vampire's grip got tighter.

"Stop it!" Colt shouted. "It hurts!"

The grip didn't loosen a bit, though. Colt started to crumble under the pain; he let his stuff fall on the wet floor. He tried to hit the frat boy with his right hand, but the guy caught his fist with the other hand and squeezed it hard.

Colt was in serious pain now. A stink of a decaying animal corpse hit his nose. The mouth came close to his unprotected neck, the fangs got long. Really yellow long.

His brain could not understand what was going on. It didn't make sense.

And then it got worse.

He saw stars. Golden stars. No, something else golden: blocking his view for half a second, stroking his cheek like a warm towel.

The iron grip was gone. And in front him stood the biggest beast he'd ever seen, growling threateningly at the frat vampire.

It looked like a lion, golden and big and dangerous.

He corrected himself. A mountain cat?

A wolf. An impressively big, golden furred fucking wolf in front of him. It faced the frat boy dressed as a vampire, growling at him menacingly again.

 The act was so convincing. He nearly thought there was an actual vampire and humongous wolf in front of him. And it seemed the act was not over yet, either.

Not sure how Alpha3 did it, but the wolf looked so real, every hair in the fur moved. Must be some awesome 3D animation, he thought É Alpha3 did like the number 3 after all. But the growl was so authentic, so intimidating, he thought. The frat boy did look frightened of the wolf projection. No wonder, the wolf animation reached the height of Colt's chest and did not show any signs of artificiality. If it had been real, it would eat the frat boy and Colt within a minute.

"Fucking wolves," the frat vampire cursed. He turned around and wanted to run. No not run, he started to float back into the depth of the park.

The beast wouldn't have that and attacked with a jump that covered 10s of meters, yards, whatever, drilling his claws into the back of the vampire frat guy.

His scream of pain was excruciating. For three long seconds. Then the beast had snapped the neck of the vampire lying on the floor.

Colt knees gave in. Not sure anymore whether this was the best outdoor interactive advertising ever or reality. Sure, his brain tried to chew him out: a reality with vampires and wolves? What else Santa Claus and Rudolf?

The body of the vampire disintegrated. He could see the skeleton for a short time, before it broke into dust turning into mud on the wet floor. A light whirlwind lifted it and soon nothing was to be seen.

Wow.

If this was a frat trick it would be over now, he thought; if `real' he would be the next snack for the wolf.

It was quiet. Even the wind had suddenly died. Colt couldn't move or get up.

The golden beast didn't either. It just looked back at the frightened Colt with his greenish eyes as if to say: `You've never seen me,' and ran off into the depth of the park. Five seconds later nothing was there to be seen, no frat boy, no vampire, no wolf and the lights came on.

Colt tried to get off his knees. This had been too much for him. Maybe he should cut down on Coke and move to water, as MaryAnn had suggested, not good for your complexion or so. Or maybe something had been in the brownie he'd had today at Bean's, but this had been intense. He was shaking.

The shock, the cold.

A scent hit his nose.

Somebody ran towards him from the main street.

"Are you okay?" the voice shouted.

When he finally was close, Colt recognized him.

The marine. He was tucking in his wife beater shirt, carrying the jacket in his hand.

This guy must have a mega active metabolism to run around basically bare-chested in this cold, Colt thought, before the smell pushed him back on to the ground.

As he was still on his knees, he pretended to collect his stuff from the watery pavement, not wanting to appear frightened of walking alone through a park at night like a little girl.

"You okay?" The marine's voice was deep and strong. He sounded really concerned.

Colt suppressed his stress tears thinking: `Great. The first time he sees me out of class I'm a bundle of nerves. He must think I'm the biggest fairy in California, all scared alone in a campus park. Great.'

"I'm fine. Thanks. – Why?"

The marine picked up the finance book from the pavement and handed it to Colt. "I heard a growl, and a voice. I thought maybe some mountain cat É"

Colt thought: `That was a fucking big mountain cat,' but said: "No, I think it was just one of those Alpha3 tricks they play on us commoners."

"Oh," the marine sounded disappointed while putting on his jacket.

A tsunami of strawberry hit Colt as if he had fallen into a harvesting truck, making him moan softly.

"You're sure that you're ok?" the marine asked again; obviously doubting him misinterpreting Colt's facial expression due to the scent attack as fear.

"I'm fine, thanks. – So you know how to fight a mountain cat?"

The marine looked a bit confused and seemed to wonder what to say. "Not sure, I just instinctively ran here."

Colt decided not to push further and said: "Well, thanks anyway."

"No problem. Do you think we should report this to the Campus police?"

Colt laughed. It was a weak laugh, but he laughed. And that made him feel good. And back in control. "Reporting an Alpha3 joke to the Campus police? That would be like complaining to Obama about the NSA snooping."

For some reason Colt had the feeling that the marine didn't understand. So he said: "No, it's okay. I think I'm embarrassed enough already."

The hunk had a concerned look while walking on Colt's right side to the main street. "I didn't see anything you should be embarrassed about."

Colt cleared his thoughts. He was grateful the guy now wore a jacket. "Appreciate it. By the way, I'm Colt."

He held out his hand.

The marine hesitated.

`Shit, he doesn't even want to touch me. Fairy and fag that I am,' he thought. Homophobic jarhead asshole trying to rescue the weak.

But then the guy broke into a smile showing his admirable, strong white teeth and took Colt's hand in a nearly too firm handshake.

`Macho, needs to prove to me he is all man in contrast to me,' Colt analyzed.

And then the shock hit him like a punishment for his cynical thoughts. A jolt as if he had put his finger on a high voltage wire. He smelled burned skin and hair.

Pictures shot through his head at a speed that made him sick. Until he saw this majestic Rocky Mountain peak covered in snow, surrounded by serene pine trees at the base.

"Prime," the marine said.

"Sorry?"

"Prime. My name," the marine repeated.

"Prime?" Colt responded instinctively. `What kind of a name is that?' he asked himself. `And I thought he was called `Alf.' Not sure which name is weirder: Alf, like a the extraterrestrial character of an 80ies TV show, or Prime, like in Optimus Prime in a transformer movie.'

`And what was this shock? Am I drugged? Vampires, wolves, high voltage shocks?' Or was he losing his mind?

"I know. Guess, how much shit I got for it in the Corps."

Colt tilted his head. "No experience with that, sorry."

The marine smiled again. It was a strange smile as if he was trying to hide something.

"Sure. I mean. My father was big into history. So he thought he should name his first son `first' like in the old times."

Colt nodded. "Ah, Latin `primus,' the first born." Good, Colt thought, he could think again, even if that normally meant that he wasn't understood.

"I guess so."

They were quiet as they approached the main street. Colt prepared himself for saying good-bye.

"Where do you live?" Prime asked.

"Chestnut dorm."

"Ah that's in my direction."

"Sure," Colton said politely, he felt like being chaperoned home like a little girl.

"You really showed off today, he?" Prime asked after some while to cut the silence.

"How so?"

"In our business class. I think for the first time, fucking Macmyass Erickson was happier the class was over than us students."

Colt lifted his eyebrow. It seemed Prime had noticed him after all.

"Well, I just wanted to be left alone today, but he was a bitch."

"He was indeed," Prime answered as if it had many layers of meaning. "But you always provoke him, don't you?"

Colt wasn't sure whether Prime said that in admiration or as reprimand. "Not sure, he brings it out of me. Can't really help it," he said truthfully.

"Well, makes class a bit more interesting. I find it quite boring otherwise."

"I guess nothing compared to Afghanistan."

Prime nodded.

"So how long have you been out of the army?" Colt asked.

"Marines, Colt! I'm no cock sucking army boy," Prime corrected him firmly, but also a bit artificially exaggerated.

Colt had nearly started to feel appreciated by him, but now he showed himself again as the macho asshole. He didn't know how to react to that homophobic bullshit.

"Sorry, didn't want to É," Prime was blushing, finally realizing the implications of what he had just said.

"It's okay. I don't suck cocks either," Colt tried to reply in a cool way. And actually it wasn't far off the truth: He had never really been into other men's dicks. Only when it helped him to get his own cock attended to.

"Good one," Prime laughed and raised his hand for a friendly high five.

Colt braised himself for the onslaught and clapped the marine's hand. This time he was prepared for the burning flesh smell and the hallucinations.

"So here we are," Colt stated matter of fact like, looking for his card key to get into the dorm. "Thanks for the company."

"No problem, Colt." Somehow the marine was uneasy on his feet. "I guess we should get home to study."

"Yep, have a fucking accounting exam day after tomorrow. If you think Mcmyass Erickson is a bitch you should meet Mrs. Letterman. You are no man no more once she's done with you," Colt joked.

"Thanks for the warning. No accounting for this dummie then." The marine smiled warmly as if he tried to gain some more minutes.

"Wanna come up for a soda?" Colt didn't know how he got the courage to invite the hunk, or when he had formed that plan. Somehow it just happened.

"Sure," Prime responded.

Colt was even more surprised about the hunk's answer, so much that he fumbled and dropped his card key.

Prime quickly bent to pick it up. He looked up briefly. Colt could see those beautiful green eyes. He grabbed the card from the hunk, and rushed to open the door.

Colt hoped Terrence, his roommate, was not home; maybe in the gym, in some girl's bed or wherever. Would be great if he could be alone with Prime for a little bit of time.

"Sorry, though, I only have Diet Coke and water."

"Water's fine," Prime said while he entered the room hesitantly. He actually stopped a bit as if something had disturbed him.

Colt wrinkled his forehead about it, as the room was quite tidy.

Prime went to the fridge Colt had pointed towards, and asked: "Girlie Coke for you then?"

This time, Colt didn't decode it as macho talk, more as friendly banter.

"Yes, Mr. jarhead macho."

"Got it."

They toasted to each other and had a big gulp. "Nice view towards the park," he said.

"Yep. Except one of the frat houses is there as well, and they always howl like dogs with rabies."

"Dogs?" The redhead sounded slightly annoyed.

Colt tried to imitate the sound.

Prime nodded without saying anything.

An uncomfortable silence surrounded them. After all the pleasantries had been exchanged, none of them knew what to say next.

Prime grabbed his bottle and gulped nearly half a liter of water down without stopping.

Macho.

He threw the empty bottle into the waste bin and approached Colt to say good-bye. "Thanks for the water, man."

"No problem. Thanks for trying to rescue me," Colt joked.

Prime didn't laugh, though. His face got serious. Deadly serious, as if a switch had been flipped. He moved closer to Colt.

Colt was attacked by the strawberry pine wave. His head was spinning. `Clearly on drugs,' he thought. `Where? Need to tell Campus police,' he thought, not being able to form full coherent sentences anymore.

He looked into the stern face in front of him. Into those green eyes, which have lost all their playfulness from before.

Drugs, he thought. He could see a majestic forest in those eyes.

And then an explosion hit his body.

An earthquake.

A volcano eruption.

A meteor crash.

The Big Bang.

A kiss.

Prime kissed him on his mouth.

Colt thought: `No campus police. More of these drugs,' and put his hands around the man. Man, was he hard muscled, like hugging a lamp pole. A wide lamp pole, an oil barrel.

He opened his mouth.

As did Prime. Prime's tongue shot into Colt's mouth like an aggressive animal.

Colt pushed back.

Prime fought. But finally he gave in and let Colt explore his sweet strawberry mouth.

Eventually, both needed air, Colt more than Prime it seemed.

They separated.

If Colt had thought his dick couldn't be bigger and harder than after the business class looking at the ABC hunks' backs for two hours, he was wrong. His dick was fucking hot, hard and big right now like an aggressive animal desperate for prey.

And the drugs continued to work: For some reason Prime shrank.

No, he didn't shrink; he just lowered himself.

`Can't be true,' was Colt's thought.

`Who gives a shit,' was Colt's dick's thought.

Those green eyes looked at him aggressively. Colt didn't believe he had a choice anyway, but he nodded just slightly.

Prime fumbled at Colt's belt, pushed down the black shorts.

Colt knew he looked stupid all bonered up in his white brief undies, shorts pushed down. When the mouth touched him, he felt he had been leaking extensively.

Prime didn't mind and covered his slimy head through the fabric with his mouth.

An electricity attack nearly kicked him to the floor.

Prime instinctively used his hands to steady Colt. His teeth carefully lowered the briefs.

Man, this guy was good with his mouth.

And then he put his nose in Colt's bush.

`I should have manscaped,' Colt thought, at least in one of the moments, he still could think.

Prime didn't seem to mind and inhaled like a drug addict. Again and again.

Colt loved it, but his dick demanded attention. He made a slight movement.

Prime's green eyes looked at him and he caught the cock with his mouth in a one quick deep movement.

Man, this man knew how to deep throat. Could the rumors about marines have been true after all?

Prime's cute nose was back in Colt's bush, but this time with the smaller man's dick deep in this throat.

Colt knew he wouldn't last long. And he wanted to come before the drugs wore off anyway.

He looked down and got lost in those forest eyes as if they were saying `now.' And Colt shot.

And shot.

And shot.

And shot.

He lost count.

He wanted to die now. Life would never be better than this. Never.

He shot.

Just before his final shot, he realized that Prime had stopped deep throating his cock, keeping the head in between his pale pink lips. Colt was coming in this guy's mouth. `Drugs and safe sex don't go together,' he thought.

A minute later he had recovered, he got soft.

Prime teased him with his tongue before releasing Colt's relatively clean cock. He used his hands to put it carefully into the wet briefs and pulled up the shorts, so Colt could buckle them.

Prime got up stretching his cramped legs and looked into Colt's dream glazed eyes.

Colt saw the forest. `Drugs still active,' he reported to himself.

His hand touched the strong pecs of the marine. This man was hot. Hot as in fire hot. Like having a fever.

`If the drugs are still on, I could try whether I like sucking cock for a change, this hunk's cock,' he felt experimental.

The forest in the green eyes moved like brushed by a heavy wind.

Colts hand counted the ripples on Prime's abs. Uncomfortably hard.

His fingertips went under the jeans feeling the seam of boxer shorts. Colt saw white boxer shorts. As his fingers clumsily dragged on the belt buckle, Prime's strong hand grabbed him violently.

Colt was confused, thinking he had done something wrong.

Prime shook his head. "Not now," he said.

Colt was not sure whether he should feel relieved or rejected.

"Your room mate is going to be here soon," Prime suggested.

"Okay." Colt pulled back and straightened his pants, as his cock seemed to want a repeat.

Not happening, as it seemed.

"I need to go now." Prime cleared his throat, visibly upset.

"Understand." No, Colt didn't.

Prime was already at the door.

Colt noticed the marine hadn't even put off his jacket during the whole time. `I guess that counts for a quickie blow job then,' he told himself.

Prime turned around again with his freckled face, the sun bleached red blondish hair and nearly white eyelashes over green eyes.

"The mountains are gone," Colt said to himself taking the beauty of this man in.

"What?" Prime asked.

"Nothing. Good night."

"Good Night. Thanks for the water É and everything."

With this he left and closed the door.

`"And everything." He seems to know how to make an exit,' Colt thought.

Ten seconds later the door opened.

Colt hoped Prime had changed his mind, but it was Terrence. "He, Colty, how are you doing?"

"Good, good."

"Who was this white army macho?"

"A guy from my business class," Colt said quickly opening the window. The scent of sex kept him in a haze.

"You didn't É?"

"Ah na." Colt tried to be convincing. "This guy's after disgusting pussy like you."

Terrence was convinced. And that hurt Colt. Seems Colty would never get such a hunk.

Then his brain kicked in.

"Terrence, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, bud."

"Can you look into my eyes?"

"What? Are you coming on to me? That's gross."

"Shut up, idiot! Check whether they are dilated. I have the feeling something spiked my brownie today. I'm seeing some fucking weird colors."

Terrence came closer and looked. Keeping his safe distance.

Colt checked for Terrence eyes at the same time: His eyes were dark. Just dark. No mountains. No soil. No fields of wheat.

"Nope, all okay. I think you just work too hard. And all the fucking girlie Diet Coke. No wonder that screws with your head."

"You're right." He grabbed his half empty can of Diet Coke and gulped it down. Nearly Prime style.

"I'm off to bed now. You?"

"Same. I'm beat. Okay with the open window?"

"Sure, bro. Stinks in here like in a locker room."

Colt showered quickly, brushed his teeth and took out his contacts. Terrence already snored when he went to bed. The wind rustled the leaves outside. Some strange birds mad a guruguru sound.

And when he drifted into a half sleep seeing green eyes, pine trees and white eyelashes, he heard the howling.

`Fucking frats,' was his last thought, before went into a dreamless sleep.

"You moronic idiot! I told you to hold back your goons! Do you know how many cameras are on this campus? Which part of `Don't do anything!' didn't you understand? The `don't?' or the `anything?' Is there actually brain left in there or has all rotten way? For all our sakes, how could you let this happen?"

The dark man didn't respond. He knew his brother had screwed up, so he got chewed out for a reason. And interrupting her would have just made it worse.

"Don't you know I barely can deal with the stink, either? But I can control myself," she stopped for a second. "Don't be so fucking quiet, say something!"

He wanted to but.

"My gosh, if I had known this before coming here I would have brought my `friends.' How stupid can one be?"

She ran to the table and poured herself a big glass of whiskey. A really big glass. And she had a really big gulp.

"This stink. We need to do something," he said quietly.

She threw the glass against the wall behind him. He didn't try to move. He knew she would miss.

"I fucking know. The plan is in place. Just a few days. And we will do it properly. My way. Cleanly."

"Okay."

"Have I made myself understood?"

"Very much so."

"Good. If this happens again, I will rip out the pitiful excuse of a heart from your chest and feed it to those dogs."

"Got it. Night."

That threat was the signal that he was dismissed.

"Night," she said and reached out for the Whiskey bottle. Alcohol had to do it for a while.

---

"Well, Colt, you are in a great mood," MaryAnn stated as he came into class whistling.

"Yep. How are you?"

MaryAnn took something out of her exquisite white leather bag. "Quite good myself. Look at this!"

Colt took the paper recognizing it was her written case analysis they had worked on last week. 5.5 out of 8 %, it said. "Congratulations!"

Mary Ann smiled thankfully. "If it hadn't been for you I would have gotten the 2 to 3's like everyone else."

"Thanks, but I think I was just a bit of inspiration."

"Honey, don't play modest with me. That's the first thing a lady learns to fake."

"And the last?" Colt challenged.

"You don't want to know, really; even if you are not into ladies."

"Okay," he held up his both hands and sat down.

He had bought new pants. Cargo pants. Dark green, wide cargo pants with many pockets. Very loose to hide erections. Very masculine not to look like a fag. Not Ÿber-masculine to look like a wannabe straight bromance guy.

Yes, he was a bit disappointed he didn't hear anything from Prime. While they hadn't exchanged any contact details, Whatsapps, numbers or e-mail addresses, Prime could have easily found them in the course material. All students provided some contact details there for the class.

Prime did not get in touch.

Colt thought about messaging him but decided against it. Not sure why.

Actually, he knew why. Because he knew the risk was high he would be rejected. The way Prime had left would make any other option highly unlikely. And as high a prize Prime was, he had as much chance of getting him as winning the 300 million dollars in this year's Christmas lottery.

No, it was much better to meet `for business,' pun intended. This would be easier for both.

Five minutes the watch said.

"So did you also hand in a case analysis?" MaryAnn distracted him.

"Yep."

"And how did it go?"

"Okay."

"Come on, details."

Colt smiled crookedly.

"I showed you mine, you show me yours," she said, even blushing at the sentence.

He opened his folder and gave her the five pages.

"7.5? Jesus Christ!" she shouted.

The room got quiet and everyone stared at them. As nothing further happened, conversations were picked up slowly again. MaryAnn had browsed through the paper.

"Impressive," she said.

"Thanks. I hope they think 7.5 is my dick size."

"Colt," she said with a low voice. "There's a lady present!"

"Please take your seats," McErickson said with his pseudo politeness while hanging his jacket on the back of his chair as usual. His beard was trimmed short today, so it appeared less grey. Also his shirt was unusually smart and well pressed.

"Seems he has a date," he whispered to MaryAnn.

"He is married," she corrected him.

Colt gave her a `So?' face.

Until it hit him: No Prime. He didn't come to class today. Great. A coward as a marine. Avoiding him by not coming to class. What's next? Will he reenlist to prove he is still a hunk of a man and not a cocksucker?

"So I'm sure you have all studied our new case in detail."

The agreement mumbling was disheartening, but somehow it lifted the instructor's mood. "So, who could summarize the question on hand?"

Obviously nobody raised his hand.

"What about Mr. Tang?" he said.

Tang was a small Chinese American, who was destined to become a lawyer as decided by his family. It didn't matter that it was drama where he really excelled. Not to his family.

Colt never understood how somebody could be so obedient when it came to his future. But Colt understood very little it seemed when it came to human relationships.

"Well the key question in this case is whether the company USONLY should expand first into Europe, China or other emerging markets. All of them have a different risk reward profile, but the resources allow entering only one market for the moment."

Mr. McErickson was pleased. There were some industrious students who did their reading.

In this moment the door opened. Quietly, but noticeably for everyone. A whiff of mountain pine hit Colt's nose. And his dick reacted with lightning speed.

Prime.

Didn't skip class. Was just late. `Shit, Mcmyass Erickson is going to have Prime's ass.'

"Welcome Mr. Loope, it is very generous of you to sacrifice some of your time to grace us with your presence." McErickson was mean.

Colt smelt how the pine got darker; the strawberries disappeared, as if some angry forest goddess was seeking revenge. He saw that he clenched his fists and that the veins on his necks throbbed violently.

This man was shit angry. But he only said: "My apologies, Sir, unfortunately, my previous class in international human relations overran. Doctor Van Hausen sends his regards."

While McErickson tried to deal with this utmost respectfulness, Prime sneaked into his usual chair. He quickly glanced in Colt's general direction giving him a barely noticeable nod. Not even a hint of his smile.

Colt was fuming. He felt like the somebody, who cleaned the university floors, being acknowledged like this. Being non-acknowledged like this.

`Okay. I guess that was "wham, bam, thank you, Sam,"' he said to himself or `suck, good luck, thank you, Puck?' He tried some more variations on this theme in his head to suppress his anger.

He had been stupid getting his hopes up, even if they'd been small already. This guy had made an unfortunate mistake last week, but now he was back to this straight macho world. Colt hoped he at least had had some sleepless nights questioning his sexuality and that he would always blush when his ABC bros made cock-sucking references.

Oh, he liked being a vengeful little bitch.

No, he didn't like it. It was just a way to deal with rejection.

And so the argument went. Why Europe. Biggest market, but stagnant. Why China. Big market, but highly competitive. Why other emerging markets. Major upside, but still small. Arguments in each direction and for each combination.

Actually, it became quite lively for once: Some students stood up to draw on flipcharts, crunched numbers and formed camps: the European camp, the China camp and African camp. Seth was for China, as that was en vogue right now in the business magazines. Most exchange students including the English girl with the perfect white skin pushed for Europe, and many Latinos, including the U.S. Latinos, and some African Americans for emerging markets. A consensus seemed to be far away.

It was 15 minutes to the end of class, when an excited McErickson said. "Seems most of you have made up your mind. – Except our late Mr. Loope."

Colt smelled the anger and revulsion. Deep pine notes filled the room. It nearly made Colt's boner go down. Nearly.

Prime rolled his shoulders as if preparing himself for a boxing fight. Instead he said: "I think, there needs to be another solution. The competitor GLOBAL is already in 3 of the 4 major markets. Even if USONLY goes into a second, they will always be at a disadvantage."

"True, but we all wish for magical solutions, don't we?" He ridiculed Prime's answer as a simple wish to Santa Claus.

Prime avoided Colt's glance.

Despite that Colt could only think of temptingly sweet strawberries. Okay, he was not a revengeful bitch, Colt said to himself, clearing his voice. "I think what Mr. Loope wanted to say is that if USONLY play by the rules set in this case they are destined to lose; to win they need to change the rules to their favor and we need to challenge the options presented."

"And how could they do that? Could you do that?" McErickson was much more careful with Colt as he'd proven that he could make a case, while Mr. Loope was only a dumb ex-marine.

"If I were them I would enter into a JV with the market leader in China, securing the country against political risk from being an American company. The JV would have the financial resources of two parent companies to enter key European and emerging markets. GLOBAL would immediately be at a disadvantage in China and in Europe, where they are not yet, and resource-wise given the production and state finance backing of the JV partner."

"Fucking shit," somebody said.

Colt was proud of himself. Maybe too much. But he was proud. He provided a breakthrough solution and tried to help Prime.

Energized, he looked expectantly at Prime. But the strawberry scent was gone. He appeared aggravated by having been saved by fag and looked away quickly.

"Mr. Parker, I would like to talk to you after class," the instructor said in a perfectly professional tone.

"Sure."

MaryAnn smiled at him appreciatively.

"I think nobody will trump this argument today, so I suggest we close here. Don't forget: Next time midterm exams. So go easy on the Halloween drinking!"

Students started to get their stuff and leave the room. Tang came up to Colt and said: "Cool, man. I hope one day we work together."

"Thanks man, every businessman needs a good lawyer."

Tang smiled, patted him against the shoulder.

"See you, Colt." MaryAnn, who had waited for the end of Tang and Colt's conversation, waved at him and turned around like an excited twelve-year-old girl.

Colt wasn't paying attention as he tried to find Prime.

But Prime was gone. So was the pine scent. Only a little remnant filled the room. Instead a hint of deep soil and plum scents tickled his nose. But this Cee guy was nowhere to be seen.

"Mr. Parker?"

"Yes, professor?"

"I have to say your solution today was quite creative." The old man seemed to be honestly impressed.

"Thanks, Sir," Colt hated calling people `Sir,' but this guy basically had just changed his spots and that deserved some respect.

"Given that grading papers and exams is a royal pain, I would like to make a suggestion."

"Yes?"

"If, and I mean IF, you write an A on the midterm exam, I will give you an A+ in the course without further written hand-ins or finals – as long as you don't miss any class without good reason."

Colt lifted his eyebrows. Seems he'd misjudged another person. After he had found out MaryAnn actually was a very nice girl with genuine warmth, the Mcmyass Erickson did recognize and reward that he was doing good in this class.

"Professor. I really appreciate this. Of course I'll come to class for the rest of the semester."

They shook hands. Some desert sand smell tickled him.

"Good-bye."

"Have a nice day," Colt answered, attempting to pick up his folder and leave the classroom in a cool adult way instead of hopping around like a boy who got a cookie.

He was happy about what just happened. So happy even his boner had gone down. Not completely, but it wasn't a distraction anymore until he got home.

Back in his room he got out of his pants and jumped on the bed.

He was stiff quickly imaging Prime on his knees.

"You might never look at me again, marine macho asshole, but I will always have the jack off memory of you blowing me," he said to himself before shooting a good amount of sticky goo all over him.

When he opened the window to let out the sex stink, the frats had gone into overdrive playing dogs.

CHAPTER 3

It was Friday and the campus got crazy with Halloween. It seemed that at this time of the year early 20 years olds regressed to 10 year olds without hesitation.

The noise outside was unbearable. Some of the outfits were even less tolerable. He nearly had made a run when he saw a vampire until he realized he was on the street with many other people and not alone in a dark park; and that the guy had just lost his artificial fangs. Nothing at all like the real life like vampire performance by Alpha3.

Terrence was out and about, surely fucking some small nurse with an axe in her head and too short a skirt.

For moment he had thought he recognized Prime - a tall redhead with military haircut, BDU pants and boots - until the guy turned around, letting him see a chubby baby face so unlike Prime's. Of course, there was a major bullet wound in the forehead; and the left side of his face was kind of missing. Good make-up, Colt thought, after having recovered from the disappointment not to meet Prime and the realization it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

Now he was in his room watching The Big Bang Theory. Sometimes he wanted to be like Sheldon, devoid of any need for physical contact. And then we wanted to be like Penny, able to get any man she wanted.

Not sure what he really preferred.

It was eleven and he was getting ready for bed. Contacts already out, teeth brushed and tissues ready – just in case.

He heard a knock at the door.

At this time? Can't be Terrence, he never knocks.

And none of his acquaintances would come to visit at this time. Wouldn't be a ladylike time for MaryAnn despite the cherry lipstick scent. He wondered for a second whether he should grab a weapon in case it was one of those scaringly realistic Alpha3 jokes, but he didn't have anything he could really use.

He told himself he was stupid.

The third knock.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

Nobody was there.

He looked down the hall to the left; somebody walking away. "Excuse me!" he shouted.

The guy turned around. It was one of Prime's friends. The blonde. Colt still didn't know his name.

"Sorry to disturb you, but I'm looking for a Colt Parker." He looked confused.

"That's me, what's up?"

White wheat field scents circled his nose, the fields surrounding an old tree; the branches nearly breaking under the size and amount and heaviness of tantalizing sweet cherries.

By now he had gotten used to the smells, so he wasn't a total fool when talking.

The blonde came close. He was cute, of course. Sun bleached hair, although it was late October, a healthy tan. His angelic face with a bit stronger nose, which made him look just elegant despite having a boyish aura with innocent blue eyes. The jeans and Nike sneakers were as All American as they could get. A grey sweater made him look so adorably wholesome that Colt nearly thought of himself as a dirty scumbag.

The Blonde approached Colt, who stood in the door trying to pull on a T-shirt so this twunk didn't see his pitiful pecs. "I'm Brian."

"Nice to meet you."

They shook hands.

And Colt got what he expected. Voltage charges, burned skin scent, visions of endless Mid Western wheat fields and ripe cherry trees in Utah. Shit, maybe he was a Mormon, no wonder he looked like an angel.

Brian examined him in an intrigued way. Maybe even disgusted. Colt had no clue how he came across when he got these shocks. Maybe his eyes turned full circle in his eye sockets. "I'm really sorry to disturb you so late, but Prime had some stuff to do so he sent me; and I had a long gym session."

Colt thought: `If you put the picture of you in gym outfit into my head I will scream like a pig being brought to the slaughter house.'

Brian seemed to turn his elegant nose up as if reading Colt's thoughts. "Anyway, he wanted to give you this."

"A USB stick?"

"Yep. We'll see you here tomorrow at 10."

Colt looked confusedly at the stick in his hand while asking "What is tomorrow at 10?" but Brian had already run down the hall and the stairs ignoring the elevator.

Man, did that man have a fuckable ass.

And then he realized: During the whole exchange with Brian he had sported a now customarily leaking boner, clearly visible under his loose short gym pants. "Fucking hell, soon the whole campus will know that I'm an uncontrolled perv."

He looked again at the stick that was wavy shaped and in a deep red color. He put it into his laptop USB connection.

A video sequence started.

"Shit, they are going to blackmail me with me being sucked off by Prime É or with the picture with me shitting my pants because of a fake Vampire and wolf," he thought instinctively, losing his boner over the Mormon boy in a second.

His brain answered: "And what would they want? Your dirty underwear?" They couldn't extort anything from him. Except for his brain he had nothing.

A shot. Blood covered the screen.

The Alpha3 logo.

"L. Colt Parker. You are invited to Alpha3's ultimate Halloween event. – Start: 10 pm. Frightening show: 1200 am. End: when the sun rises."

The screen showed his picture. It was ugly. It was the picture from the university files. Well, he wouldn't do himself, that was clear. A howl and a witch's snicker, as a bit of tribute to Halloween clichŽs, and another wall of blood covered the screen ending the video.

"Fucking glory hallelujah," he shouted out loud. He had just been invited to the coolest Halloween party by the most exclusive fraternity ever. And that by the sexiest man ever.

`Message from brain!' he said to himself, `not Brian,' he chuckled for a second: `Do you really believe this is true?'

He thought this through. Maybe too good to be true. Maybe this is another prank. The fraternity getting his hopes up and then humiliating him in front of all these good looking, rich and so well connected people?

Maybe, but he had to try. He could always hide from embarrassment for the rest of his life.

"He is smart," the man with the boring grey cardigan said.

"Well, with those parents, I'm not surprised." The man with the substantial belly pulled up his pants and looked out of his office window observing the students dressed up in the grossest outfits, giggling inwardly.

"So what are we going to do?"

"Well, they want him, the price isn't bad."

The thin man gave an impressed whistle when he heard the number.

"But given the progress, they will easily pay double in half year from now. And who knows what next year. I think we should wait." At least that was his plan.

"And if he gets too powerful?"

"Sam, you shouldn't worry about that. I have enough resources at my disposal. Your job is to keep an eye on him. On them."

"Understood, Sir!"

"Anything else?"

"Nope, I am going home now; my wife already thinks the pack have gone traditional."

"No worries, Sam. Have a nice weekend."

"You, too, Sir."

The older man continued to observe the crowd.

This is going to be a complex web he had to handle; and he was sure even he didn't fully see all the strings. He only knew that everyone suspected this boy was in the middle of all of it É and that he was potentially his last chance.

---

"My God, you're a bundle of nerves," Terrence observed while reading through his monster truck magazine.

Colt wondered who still bought paper magazines in the time of cells and pads É

"Don't know what to wear," he said without shame.

"Like the girls I date É"

"Girls?" Colt asked with a smirk about the plural.

"One alone can never handle all of this," Terrence commented while moving his hand across his body.

"Hmmm." Colt had got frantically nervous when he realized the invitation did not specify any dress code. Was he supposed to be all Halloweened up? Like with fake guts hanging out of his stomach? Or was he supposed to be semi casually dressed like frat boys in Alpha3?

He decided for the latter as he simply forgot to get a costume anyway. He chose his black jeans and a dark blue dress shirt, which he normally wore for interviews with a tie.

"So where are you going?" Terrence asked mildly interested.

"Not sure yet. Brian said it's a surprise," Colt lied. He didn't want to talk about Alpha3. If they did play a prank on him, at least his roommate wouldn't learn about it by asking how the hottest Halloween party on campus had been.

"That's cute. I should do that with one of my girls."

Colt ignored the comment. He couldn't be bothered to have a fight with him right now.

He pulled his black Texan boots out of his closet. They were the only gift he ever got from his drunk of a father that he actually liked. Couldn't deal with the footballs, boxing gloves and baseball bats.

"Going all YMCA?" Terrence chuckled.

"He, I was born in Texas. That's what we wear. Not those sissy shoes like in NY City."

"Sure, cowboy. Never heard a Texan drawl from you É"

Colt shrugged his shoulders looking into the mirror. "Makes one sound adorable, I know, but also a bit retarded when in California."

"Do your folks know that at home?"

"Nope."

Good that he'd had a haircut this morning. It was a bit too close for his taste but at least he looked a bit preppy. He was freshly shaven and the shirt had come clean and impeccably pressed from the dry cleaning. He knew he couldn't make a better casual dress code effort than this without coming across as making too much of an effort.

He looked at his watch. 0953.

Maybe they didn't show up anyway he thought. He decided in silence to leave the dorm in any case at 1015 latest in order not to give Terrence anything to make jokes about being stood up. And if only to go to McDonalds for a burger and to a late night show in the movies.

He had to calm down. Not to get sly Terrence comments, not to come across as too much of a freak if they did picked him up, and not to lose his cool if they didn't come.

"By the way, Colty. I won't be coming in this night."

"Oh, planning to get laid?"

"Not only planning. Man, she sooo has the hots for me. Can barely keep our knickers up."

Colt turned up his nose. "Gross, thanks."

"She is going to get a big Terrence therapy today so she won't be able to walk tomorrow."

"Well, I hope she doesn't have to go to church like that É"

Terrence showed him the finger.

In this moment there was a knock. Colt nearly puked. He straightened himself and opened the door trying to stay nonchalant.

Of course, the wave of pine and strawberry smells hit him like a wooden board slamming against his forehead or solar plexus or both. An incredibly handsome Prime stood in a pose so cool in front of him leaning against the wall that Colt wanted to cream into his pants right now.

 "Hi, Colt." This calm voice bonered him up in a second. His spine vibrated. Maybe he should have stayed with his loose cargo pants. Too late.

"Hi, Prime."

"Ready?"

"Sure, just let me get my jacket É" He walked into the room and noticed Terrence pretending to be interested as little as possible in the guy who picked him up; and failed at it.

"Prime, have you met Terrence, my roommate?"

"Nope. Hi, I'm Prime," offering his hand to the small black guy on the bed.

"Cool name, bro," was his pretend laid back response shaking the hand. Colt had the impression Terrence winced due to the marine's strength, but maybe he just imagined it.

"Thanks." Prime pointed with his arms towards the door as if to say "Go ahead" to Colt. "The guys are waiting downstairs."

"Okay, let's get going then," Colt said hoping he didn't sound eager like a Labrador puppy.

 "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Terrence shouted through the closing door.

"I guess he knows you are going to do exactly that É," Prime chuckled.

`Will I?' Colt asked himself.

In the elevator, Colt had to brace himself; little room, much pine scent. But he could also steal a glance. Dark blue jeans, tapered black dress shirt and his usual dark flight jacket on the hunk. He had cropped his reddish blond beard and had also got a haircut. He looked very proper and É edible.

The hunk opened the door and let Colt pass chivalrously. "I am the girl it seems," Colt stated to himself. Not sure, he liked it. The same happened at the main door onto the street; he just mustered a dry "thanks" but was quickly distracted.

Two guys approached them. And Colt had to concentrate not to fall onto his knees because of the heavy wall of moist soil and wheat scents hitting his nose without mercy.

Prime pointed at the blond preppy guy, who had given him the stick yesterday. "I think you guys have met?"

"Brian, I think," Colt stated in a cool way. Brian looked so innocently Midwestern in his dark beige Dockers, grey-white striped dress shirt and loafers that it hurt. For a second Colt wondered whether this guy's shit actually did smell of roses. Or cherries, he corrected himself.

"Yes. Nice that you can come with us. They say it'll be an awesome party."

"Well, Alpha3 has a reputation to uphold." Colt tried to sound like an insider without giving up too much information that could betray him as the outsider he was.

"And this is C E."

"As in the letters C and E?" Colt asked the big guy.

"Yes," he answered in a crisp way.

"Colt," he said and offered his hand fearing broken fingers.

The brawny guys with the soil scent smiled nearly a bit shyly when he took the hand. The handshake was firm but without any intent to hurt Colt. His face was so welcoming that it pained Colt. The cheeks meaty and the ears a bit sticky out. C E went for the jock look with a bright red Rugby shirt, which showed off all his bulk in an inviting manner. The short sleeves' seams nearly burst, and most women had less chest than this brute.

"So what does it stand for?"

C E looked at Prime. "Long story. Marines," was the brief answer.

Colt understood quickly that was code for `mind your own fucking business.'

"Do you have your stick with you?" Brian asked while turning around starting to walk towards the meeting hall where Alpha3 staged their depraved events.

Colt tapped on his jeans pocket and answered "yep," following the cute blonde; Prime walked next to him on his right and C E was last.

It didn't matter where they walked: on the sidewalk, on the street, through parts of the park. The formation never changed. `Odd,' he thought to himself but didn't raise the point.

"So you guys dropped the business class?" He raised his voice so Brian and C E could hear him.

Brian answered. "Too boring. And can't stand this arrogant McErickson. Though Alf É I mean, Prime told us you are handling him quite nicely É"

Colt was happy Prime could not see him blushing in the dark. Seemed Prime even talked about him to his friends. That was good news.

"He's just a little bully. And bullies only adapt their behavior when somebody stands up to them."

Prime nodded in agreement. "Takes guts, though."

"Takes guts to go to Afghanistan," Colt said with a lower voice. "Standing up to an asshole teacher is nothing compared to that." He didn't want to come across as too flattering, but he wanted Prime to know that he respected him even if he might not have been as good at his studies as Colt; hoping that Prime would reciprocate.

The doubts in Colt about the marine started to fade. Maybe there were good reasons he didn't reconnect after they had made out. Maybe he was just too busy, like yesterday when he sent Brian to bring the invite. Just inviting him to this party was more than anyone else had done for him in his life so far; and that needed to be acknowledged. And going there in the company of those three hunks was the cherry on the cake – no pun intended – even if it never led to sex again.

"Thanks," was Prime's humble answer.

Colt was positive Prime blushed – despite the difficulty to really see in the dark. He smiled inwardly. Maybe he was a decent guy.

"C E, were you also in Afghanistan?"

"Only shortly. Mostly in SD."

"Shore Patrol," Prime whispered.

Colt looked puzzled.

"Military police," Prime explained.

"Oh." He turned around to the big guy, who wore khaki shorts despite the cold but didn't seem to mind at all.

"Was nothing," was the short answer as if had been about doing two rounds of laundry today instead of one.

"So you're supposed to keep me out of trouble then?" he joked.

C E smiled. It made him so huggable. "I didn't peg you as a guy who would get into such trouble."

Colt liked the response but wondered whether it was a jocular tone or just a dry statement. And then he realized Prime must have talked a lot about him so that C E could make such a spot-on observation.

He glowed. The chances of being played a prank had just decreased substantially.

There were already some people at the entrance to the building. Blood red cloth hung over the whole wall, rustling in the low wind making quite a spooky impression indeed.

Seemed most of the crowd didn't have invites, so they didn't get into the building.

Seemed most of the crowd where pretty girls in too short skirts and with a bit too much make up and bra size.

"They are going to catch a cold," Brian stated.

"Or a horny Alpha3 frat guy," Colt added.

Prime chuckled.

The vestibule was decorated minimalistically: some tables with little pumpkin arrangements, a poster stand with the same visual as on the invites and flyers.

Some few preppy Alpha3 frat boys and their ladies of the evening played polite hosts helping guests.

It was 10:45 by now and most guests seemed to have already arrived so their little group of four went straight to the door into the main hall.

A guy in a blazer smiled and asked "Good evening, gents. Invites please?"

They all reached into their pockets for the sticks, Prime collected and handed them to the frat boy.

The handsome frat with a haircut of a CEO quickly put them into his Apple checking the pictures to ensure the invites hadn't been intended for somebody else.

Colt winced when he saw his ugly university ID photo. And he was so grateful when the guy quickly removed the stick to check the others.

Same theme inside. No clichŽ Halloween deco. Very tasteful, with little elements. Like one broom in a corner; a pumpkin with lights on the buffet table.

But everywhere wavy blood red cloth to go with the bloody wall theme. Colt liked it.

"Colt, what would you like to drink?" Brian interrupted his observations.

"Diet Coke, please."

"On the way," he heard Brian leaving Prime and him behind, with C E following the blonde. They joked on the way as Brian was punching C E in the arm and the big guy pretended to be hurt.

"Quite nice," Prime said looking around.

"They do have style, I need to hand it to them. Normally, can't deal with frats."

"Not surprised. I'm too old for them."

"Really? Stupid," Colt responded honestly. "But how did you get the invites?"

Prime smiled mischievously. "Having my connections."

"As long as they don't include sexual favors, I'm fine with that," Colt blurted regretting it immediately.

And unsurprisingly Prime's face darkened. Even his pine scent got kind of tarred. "You think I'm that kind of a guy because É?" He didn't finish the sentence in a menacing way.

"Sorry, that was inappropriate É," Colt added quickly and was relieved Brian and C E came back with their drinks.

He got his big Diet Coke cup and listened to Brian's story. "Would you believe my English professor hit on me today Sharon Stone style?"

Colt wasn't surprised. He was sure Brian had a whole undies collection at home.

Prime. "Gross."

"I'm an innocent Mormon boy after all!" Brian pretended a bit too much to be outraged.

Colt smiled, he had been right.

"And is she getting the message?"

"No, waiting until term is over. Want an A in that class."

"Not so innocent then," Colt stated carefully.

Brian gave him a little smile. "Well, not everyone can be so smart É"

Colt blushed again.

And then he heard a familiar voice. "Honey. You are here?"

He wasn't sure whether that surprise was actually a bit insulting like: `How in hell would you get an invitation to this event?'

MaryAnn opened her arms and raced elegantly towards him in here figure hugging gown, ignoring his friends for the moment.

"Hi, MaryAnn."

"If I had known I would have said something on Wednesday and we could have come together. You look very smart in this blue shirt."

"And you stunning as always."

"Oh," she fake blushed, "you are such a charmer É"

"By the way, you know my friends?" he asked.

He noticed all three hunks straightened their backs. He wondered whether because he had called them his friends or because they were being introduced to a Southern lady.

"Gents, that is MaryAnn."

"And here we have C E, Brian and Prime." From left to right.

For some reason Prime made a deep growling noise, and C E winced barely noticeably, but both kept their smiles and shook MaryAnn's delicate hand.

"Oh you're in our business course," she said to Prime.

"Yes," was the short answer, which was intended to close that topic.

But MaryAnn didn't seem to be interested in him anyway but turned herself back to Colt. "So don't you want to ask this lonely Southern gal for a dance?"

He choked. "Guys, okay with you?"

Prime nodded. Colt couldn't read his face.

"See you in a bit."

MaryAnn grabbed his hand and dragged him relentlessly to the dance floor. He turned around and saw the ABC hunks in deep discussion. Although, he should call them PBC hunks now.

After four dances he said politely thanks and returned to their place. But the hunks were gone.

Great.

He looked around, couldn't see them. Irritated, he decided he needed a snack and found C E with a big piece of meat on his plate standing at a corner table.

"Hi, C E."

The guy in the bright red Rugby shirt with what seemed an English club crest on his chest, chocked on his meat.

After two minutes with lots of slaps on an incredibly hard back to help him regain his breath and with energy jolts through Colt every time he made contact with C E's body, the big guy could finally talk. "I'm so sorry. Feel like an oaf."

"It's okay, big piece of cow there."

C E nodded. "Hungry." He seemed to like telegram style answers.

"Me too," Colt said turning towards the buffet table.

"Can I get you something?" the big guy offered.

Colt was confused by the offer, but felt declining it would be impolite. And for some reason he didn't want to be impolite to this big guy. "Some Turkey, white meat, and stuffing would be great."

C E seemed such a genuinely nice guy offering him to get food. But Colt again felt like the girl in the group.

Before he returned, Brian came towards him again with a beer in his hand. "Having fun?"

"Well, MaryAnn is a bit of a wild horse today É compared to class."

"Those Southern girls," he said knowingly.

"Here you go," C E put a plate in front of him with enough turkey for an army.

"Thanks. Boy, that's É a lot É of meat," he chocked.

Brian chuckled.

"Well, it seems you could deal with a bit more meat on your bones," C E answered in his unnerving neutral tone. "Ah, and here's another Coke."

"Thanks, you're very kind."

"No problem.

"I think secretly, he's a feeder." Brian hit the big guy again at the shoulder.

"And I think you need to eat a lot more before your girlie punches hurt."

The turkey was delicious. Between two big bites he asked: "Where's Prime?"

"He's with some pretty girl with skin like marble."

"Ah." Colt tried to be cool, but he was jealous. `Don't be stupid, you yourself were taken hostage by a girl today,' he said to himself taking another bite. `And it was just one mistake of a blowjob, doesn't mean you are married.'

"Nothing to worry about," Brain touched his hand, but pulled back quickly, nevertheless giving Colt a shock. "Prime's not into girls."

`Shit. They noticed. Now I'm the oaf,' he thought wincing like he'd just got a paper cut.

"No sardines for big Alf," confirmed C E.

"'Sardines'?"

"Long story," C E responded. For some reason he wouldn't have minded listening to C E's long stories.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Please prepare yourself for the horror climax of the year. In 10 minutes!" The announcement finished with spine shattering laughters and a squeaking door sound, just make sure everyone got into the mood.

"Colt!"

He rolled with his eyes. MaryAnn again.

Brian smiled a bit with schadenfreude.

"Come, so we can see the show!"

"Okay, honey, on my way."

He lip synched: `See you later guys!' and they gave him a relaxed salute as if he was off to battle.

They had barely reached a good spot with a nice view to the center stage when the lights went out at once.

Some screams. From the guests and through the loudspeakers.

Dark red lights illuminated the moving red cloth on the walls. Impressive visually, he thought.

Scary horror movie music. Little stroboscope lights showing ugly faces. MaryAnn moved closer to him.

And then floating people.

From all directions floating men and women. Dressed as zombies in various stages of decay.

He was hit with a foul smell of rotten flesh, oil and metal. More levitating bodies. This time vampires.

"Searching for virgins." A hair raising whispering voice filled the room, "virgin girls É untouched".

The vampires sported their traditional white frill shirt and long fingernail outfit. So it had been Alpha3 after all he thought, who had played this prank on him in the park.

Some of the vampires `landed' next to guests pretending to bite them.

People moved to have a better view, pushing forwards. MaryAnn whispered eagerly: "I'm getting closer."

"Ok." Colt didn't join in and took it all in from a distance.

The music became scarier. The lights got crazier. Shrieks. Real and recorded ones.

And then a single, excruciating scream. Live. Not recorded.

People started to run. He saw MaryAnn falling on the floor with a female vampire levitating over her. She had blood on her face and laughed.

`MaryAnn is part of this show?' he asked himself for second before he was pushed around. People were trying to run away from the scene as another young girl fell with a, this time male, vampire levitating over her, licking his blood-covered lips.

A tall, skinny vampire floated towards him. `Good that I'm not a virgin,' he said to himself. But the vampire `landed' next to him anyway. Rotten flesh smell. Oil. Metal.

He put his hand on Colt's shoulder like the guy in the park. His grip was painfully strong.

What the heck? Again?

In this moment he heard a voice "Fucking shit! – Colt, come!"

Prime was visibly aggravated.

"It's just a show," Colt wanted to say, despite the pain on his shoulder, but Prime elbowed the vampire in his face, grabbed Colt by his upper arm and dragged him away from the vampire, who looked a quite bit startled. He wanted to follow Colt and Prime but some screaming girls blocked his way.

"That hurts, Prime!" But the marine didn't respond while he tried to find a way through a panicking crowed.

Brian and C E ran towards them. Their faces were frighteningly serious. Now Colt did get scared a bit. What if something had gone wrong here? Was MaryAnn really hurt? He had to go back.

"C E, protect the Meta, try to get to his room!"

The big guy hesitated one tenth of second, so Prime shouted in a voice Colt had never heard before: "NOW!"

The big guy grabbed his arm equally ruthlessly and dragged him to one of the emergency exits. He turned around and saw Prime and Brian pulling daggers from somewhere as if to hunt for vampires.

Shit, this was a totally interactive show. Everyone should think this was real. And the hunks were part of the show. As was he, except that he hadn't been briefed to get an authentic reaction.

Man, Alpha3 was good.

C E pushed the door with the big EXIT sign open, but three vampires were levitating outside, so they couldn't pass.

"Holy fucking Cluster Fuck!" C E shouted and dragged him back. He ran towards the main exit through the vestibule.

A lanky vampire tried get in his way, but C E punched him so hard he hit the wall with a scream.

Throughout the vestibule people were desperately trying to open the main doors.

They were stuck.

C E let go of Colt for one second and ran against one of the doors. It cracked.

Fuck, this guy was a monster.

He ran against it a second time and it fell outside as if made of paper.

Colt could barely admire this feat as C E grabbed his arm again ruthlessly to pull him outside. He would have bruises tomorrow. Lots of big black bruises.

The few girls who still waited outside hoping to get a late invite, now screamed as well.

Police horns.

An ambulance.

Wow, the full Monty, Colt thought. Ignoring the pain in his arm.

"Stay with me, mate," C E said calmly.

'"Mate?"' Colt asked himself. He knew it was the Brits' `bro' equivalent; he didn't want to consider an alternative explanation.

"But what about Brian and Prime?"

"They'll be fine. We need to get you to a safe place."

"Because of the show?"

C E gave him a worried look while he jogged down the street.

"Not through the park."

They made a detour staying on well-lit streets.

The panic had reached the streets as well. More police and ambulances.

Wow, they'd made the whole campus the stage for their midnight performance. For the first time he thought, maybe he was wrong about frats.

He was exhausted from all the running. C E dragged him with the remorselessness of the drill sergeant.

"Wait C E, I need to catch my breath."

"Not safe." Before Colt could protest, the giant picked him up like a little puppy and continued towards the dorm.

Now Colt really felt like a girl, but if that was part of the show, so be it.

"Key?" C E demanded quietly.

Colt gave him the card and was pushed through the door.

Once inside, C E relaxed a bit. "They can't come in uninvited."

"Who?" Colt asked.

C E ignored him with a whine and opened the elevator door for him. Heavy soil aromas made him heavy headed.

Thank god, Terrence was gone for the night, he might have considered Colt a slut given that he returned with a different guy than the one he had been picked up by.

He was beat and sat down on his bed.

C E refused his invitation to sit down and commuted between door to hear if somebody came and window to see what was going outside.

"C E, can you explain to me what is going on? This is just a show. A fucking good one, but just a show. And you look as if the 3rd World War has broken out."

C E looked at him with a pain-covered face. "Can't explain. Prime will when he's here."

"Okay. Is he okay?"

"So far."

C E at least accepted the water and his hurried steps calmed down. Ten minutes later he just stated: "They're inbound."

And indeed two minutes after that a knock at the door.

Colt wanted to get up and open it, but C E told him to stay.

Carefully C E opened the door.

And Colt smelled the relief when the moist soil became light and airy instead of rainy heavy. And the pine and wheat field scents helped as well.

They looked beat.

Brian's dress shirt was ripped, and he was bleeding from his lower arms as if somebody had scratched him seriously.

Prime's pants were covered in blood.

Wow, they did all this masquerade to continue with the show?

"Do you have some Band-Aids?" Prime asked.

"For fake blood?" Colt hesitated. But Prime's look was unforgiving so Colt decided to join the game and got some dressing material to cover Brian's fake wounds.

While Prime rolled them across his friend's lower arms, Colt touched the marine's shoulder to get a bit of the fake blood on his finger and tasted it expecting Ketchup.

And then it hit him.

It was real blood.

It was as if all air was sucked out of him and he was falling into an endlessly deep hole. He had to sit down before he fainted.

Prime looked at him.

"C E water for Colt, don't let him faint!"

"Aye, aye, Alf." He quickly got some more water from the fridge and poured a bit into the stunned Colt.

Then he slapped Colt's cheeks. Surprisingly gently for such strong man.

Colt thought. `Something is seriously wrong here. Am I still on drugs?'

"Okay, tomorrow you'll be as good as new," Prime said looking at the bandages on Brian's arms.

C E handed him the rest of the water he'd used for Colt. Prime forwarded it to Brian, who took a big gulp, returning it to Prime, who finished the bottle in his usual macho style.

It was quiet outside now; no more screaming, no more horns, no more blues of police illuminating the dorm room. The three hunks had calmed down.

Colt's head was spinning. "What is going on here? I thought this was all part of the show, like vampire and wolf the other day. But this is real blood on you, Prime, did the crowd panic? Did it get out of control? How's MaryAnn?"

Prime ignored the question when he came towards him. He smiled a bit, but looked even more concerned. Sweet strawberry flavors danced in front of Colt's nose. "Not sure how I should explain it. But it wasn't a show."

Colt frowned. "Sure, there are real vampires, who kill people! Sorry this is not `Twilight' or whatever other Hollywood stuff." He could only react with full sarcasm.

"No, it isn't."

Prime sat next to him on the bed. He felt the radiating heat. He wanted to touch that freckled face.

"What if I told you that there are vampires, real vampires?"

"Then I would think that you're a loony, or I'm on drugs," was his quick reply.

Brain whined. But not because of his wounds but because of Colt.

"I think we need to show him, Alf."

"Show me what? A real vampire?" Colt laughed.

"Okay, C E, go outside, make sure nobody disturbs us."

"Got it," was the answer and the giant left.

"Brian."

What happened then was even weirder than the whole Alpha3 show: Brian undressed. He slipped off his loafers, ripped off the remnants of his shirt as if made of paper, pulled down his blood-covered slacks revealing beautifully sculpted but bloody thighs.

And if Colt had thought it would stop there, he was wrong and in for another treat. While Brian undid his black socks and black boxer briefs to reveal his complete handsomeness – although some handsomeness was on the small side surprisingly – Prime said in his soothing voice: "Colt, please don't be scared. Brian will show you something now. I'm next to you, I'm holding your hand."

Prime took Colt's right hand between his big warm paws with the tiny red hairs on their backs and the freckles everywhere.

Shocks. As usual.

And then Brian grimaced. His face changed. It became longer, like the face of a dog.

He opened his mouth and fangs shot out of the gums, with a howl that came from hell.

Colt jerked, but Prime held his hands. "It's okay. He won't hurt you."

Hair shot out of Brian's smooth tanned skin, silver white shimmering hair. And the excruciating noise of breaking bones. A noise he will never forget in his life.

"It's okay." Calm pine notes caressed him, calmed him.

And then it was over.

Bloody band-aids on the floor.

And a wolf stood in front of him. A big wolf. With a fur shimmering between silver, grey and white. A wolf with the unmistakably blue eyes of a human called Brian.

"Meet Brian's wolf," Prime said proudly.

"I am on drugs," Colt stated dryly. "Or dreaming."

"Could be," Prime said patiently, "or there are things on Earth even you didn't know." – "Come." Prime pulled him up. "Touch him!"

The wolf came closer. Instinctively, Colt wanted the make step back, but Prime held him firm. "Don't worry. He will not hurt you. He would never hurt you."

Prime pulled Colt's hand to the back of the silvery grey beast that reached as high as his belly button.

The wolf turned his head to follow Colt's hand, which touched the fur on its back.

It was soft, so soft.

Energy jumped through him. Blueish, strong, magic, but unthreatening energy. Visions of endless wheat fields and cherry tree orchards came and went within a second.

The wolf growled, but it was a friendly growl, an inviting one, a `finally' one.

Prime had let go of his hand, so he was patting the beast on his own. It smelled gorgeous; he was so soft to the touch that he couldn't stop caressing it.

The wolf got so comfortable that he lay down, and Colt knelt down.

It turned to the side to offer his white chest and Colt petted him like one of the dogs his neighbors had.

Nice friendly growls. The wolf's blue eyes were incredibly clear, and Colt imagined wheat bushel reflections in them.

Colt dared to pet the wolf closer to his head. And he got rewarded with a friendly growl.

"Okay, I think we made the point," Prime said silently.

It seemed the wolf was disappointed about that sentence and looked at him reproachfully.

"Colt, please get up, so Brian can shift back."

Colt went next to Prime in front of the wolf. He didn't seem to get up though and put his canine head between Colt's boots.

Colt grabbed Prime by his belt, somehow a bit afraid that the wolf might turn unfriendly.

"No worries, he just wants to show you his subordination."

Colt had no clue what Prime was talking about. He saw how the wolf licked his muzzle touching accidentally his boots' tips.

Then the excruciating sound of breaking joints and bones.

A light wave of wheat filled the air. The beast got on his hind legs and the hair disappeared as if it had never been there, only sun kissed skin. Last, the fangs receded into the gums, and Brian's cute midwestern face was perfect again.

He stood there naked.

"Put on your pants and get C E back," Prime said quickly while turning towards Colt.

"What do you think?"

"I don't think anything. My brain is on strike to digest anything that is happening here. I guess you spiked my Coke? Still part of the show?"

Prime shook his head in disbelief, while C E and Brian came back. Brian bare-chested as his shirt was in shreds.

"Where are the wounds?" Colt asked to reestablish a sense of reality and causality.

"When he shifted, his lycan body healed, much faster than his human body could."

"That's convenient."

Prime laughed. "It is indeed. A special advantage in the Marines."

"Thanks for touching my wolf," Brian said in a strangely submissive voice.

"I don't know what I saw, but it was beautiful. Such a beautiful beast. It had your eyes."

"Of course, it was still me, a form of myself at least," Brian said hoarsely.

"Shit." It hit Colt. "The golden wolf. Was that you, Prime?"

The red blond guy nodded. "Yep, couldn't have you bitten by a rogue vampire."

Colt rubbed his eyes and put his head into his hands. "Assuming this is not a weird dream and I am not on drugs, this means that a vampire really wanted to kill me."

"Sorry, my fault," Prime said. "It was my shift and I lost you for a second because of the fucking lights. And when I saw this thing, I needed a bit of time to shift. I didn't have a dagger with me, so only my wolf could kill him."

"And you C E?"

The big guy nodded. "Big bad wolf, Sir."

"Well, so far only the vampires are bad. Bad news for all the Bellas out there É," Colt joked to regain his calm.

The three hunks, wolfs, or whatever, didn't react.

"What do you need right now, Colt?" Prime asked with a considerate voice worthy of a psychologist.

"Either a slap on my face to wake up or a Coke."

"Coke's on the way," C E chuckled. He opened the can and handed it to the boy who was still shaken.

Big gulp.

"Okay guys, wolves É"

"Yes?" Prime said, "both actually." He put his arm around Colt, who felt suddenly so calm and relaxed soaking in Prime's unnatural body heat. Of course, he was wolf. At least in this wicked dream.

"So why are you showing me this?"

Prime looked at Brian and said: "Beta?"

The blond guy crouched down in front of the boy and put his hand on the boy's knee.

Prime growled.

Of course, a wolf.

Brian took his hand back but looked into the boy's scared grey eyes.

The same stunning blue eyes, he thought.

"We are wolf shifters."

"And why are you here?"

"Right now because we needed to protect you from those half-deads."

"Let's assume this is reality," Colt got his business case attitude back. Prime smiled. "Why would vampires want to kill me? I thought they only wanted virgins. Female virgins."

"We don't know. Honestly, we don't know. And today, they did take females. Not sure they were virgins though," Brian tried to lighten the mood.

"So I'm not their normal prey. – But let's assume they want me dead for some clearly illogical reasons as so far nobody has noticed me on this campus except for Mcmyass Erickson."

Prime growled loud, everyone looked at him.

"Okay. And Prime, when I was attacked by this stinking flesh," he conceded.

Friendly growl.

"Anyway, why would you protect me? There are so many more people out there. Like the virgin girls. Like MaryAnn."

Brian hesitated a bit, looked at Prime for guidance.

"Why would you protect an unimportant nerd?"

CHAPTER 4

"Because we like you."

"Do you?"

"Yep, from the first moment we saw in that class room, well, kind of." Prime blushed a bit.

"And why would three so fucking hot men like me? You could have any girl you want É"

"'Sardines'?" C E look disgusted and seemed to want to spit on the floor.

Prime gave him a sharp growl. C E winced.

"Or guys. I mean, any gay guy here would want to get you into his bed, any of you. Really cute gay guys."

"But you are a cute gay guy," Brian said.

"Sure, never worked for me in the bars", was Colt's sarcastic answer, `or with Chris the other day,' he thought. "What do you want from me?" His nose told him that he hit the jackpot. The pine got lighter as if receding under the deep layer of snow, the wheat scent thinner as if the harvest had brought in and the moist soil seemed to have covered by thick grass.

Brian got up and looked helpless at Prime, who said: "It's a long story."

"Guys, I don't care. I nearly shit myself today. I just wanted a hot date with this hot jarhead, and what I get is the weirdest trip in my life É well it's the first one anyway."

"Let's say we really want to have you as a friend," C E's soft voice hung in the room.

"I take it for now, though I'm still not sure what is really going on here."

"I think you should go to sleep now. Maybe we can talk this tomorrow?" Prime suggested.

"Do you think I can sleep now? After all this? I'll be crawling up the walls."

"We can help," Brian said.

Prime got up and become all business like. "C E, check whether the showers are free and make sure, Colt has privacy."

"Done."

At the same time he opened Colt's closet and got gym pants and a towel. "Here, have a shower, a quick one. We'll wait."

"Okay." Colt hesitated made "aham."

"Oh," Prime understood. "Brian, let's look out of the window to check status." While the two men discreetly looked away, he undid his shirt and undershirt, forced himself out of his boots and jeans. He wrapped the towel around his waist still over his briefs and went with his flip-flops to the shower.

At the entrance stood C E all watchful. He gave him a quick nod. Once he was inside, he felt that a SWAT team wouldn't get past this guy.

The hot water had felt good. And he nearly hoped that the men would have been gone and his drug trip ended when he left the shower. But C E was still there all protective and followed him to his room. Suddenly he got self-conscious. These three hunks saw his naked pitiful excuse of upper body.

Brian and Prime interrupted their agitated conversation, when he entered. Both smiled warmly.

Colt's smile was forced.

"What about dinner tomorrow?" Prime asked.

"Sure."

"We pick you up at 18hundred30," Prime said military-style.

"Okay. I guess it'll be steak", Colt tried to make a joke.

"Whatever you want, but steak sounds good," Prime laughed.

"Steak is okay. At least then I'm sure those wolves won't have me for dinner."

"Not enough meat on the bones," C E stated dismissively.

"Thanks, buddy."

C E winced barely noticeably about his mistake.

"Okay, can I hug you, Colt?" Prime asked carefully.

"Sure." Colt felt the warm arms around him. The beautiful scent. The whole body touched him, he was too comfortable.

Prime whispered. "Can Brian and C E also hug you?"

Colt nodded dreamingly.

And so, the three sexiest men on the campus surrounded him with their warmth. Scents from sweet cherries to voluptuous plumbs lead him to another sphere.

He was hot, pleasantly hot from the bodies touching him. He felt the strong authoritarian heat in Prime, the sun kissed heat in Brian and the earth heat in C E.

And then his eyes closed. He was asleep.

Prime caught the limping body and put Colt carefully onto his bed.

Brian tugged at the towel around Colt's waist and put the blanket over the naked body.

They quietly left the room.

While they ran down the stairs, Brian said: "He is so handsome."

"I'm drunk from his wine scents," C E stated.

"I know. And this waterfall freshness kills me a bit every time I see him." Brian inhaled deep.

"Boys, stop that girlie talk. This was the second time somebody tried to get to him, we need to continue our watch."

"Yes, Alpha," said C E as they stormed out of the building.

"You guys get some sleep. It's 0330 and I will take the shift until sunrise, let's say 0700. Brian you take over until 1300. C E, 1300 until 1830. I will pick him up at 1830. Take the truck and get home. Brian, when you get home from your shift, make reservations. A quiet booth."

"Understood! Good night, Alpha."

"Good night. And well done. They didn't get him. And we kicked some serious vampire non-ass."

"Sure, boss." C E laughed and was gone.

Prime walked around the dorm building. On the other side he looked up to the two windows to Colt's room. He hid behind the big pine trees, making sure he took in all the old scents of other wolves around him to check for danger. And then he howled. Howled as if his wolf's life depended on it.

For a moment Colt woke up. He heard the stupid frat boys howling like wolves again.

Like Wolves?

The warm bodies of three men.

He fell asleep.

---

Until somebody kicked him into his side. "Wake up, sleeping beauty."

Terrence.

Man, did he have a headache. Something must have been in those cokes.

Terrence threw some brown bag at him.

"What's that?"

"Not sure. Was in front of the door with your name on it."

"What's the time?"

"One o fucking clock. Man, I didn't think you would be such a party tiger."

"It was a hell of a party at Alpha3." Too much light, he moaned.

"I heard, three girls missing. Those frats are not making prisoners. O, they do make prisoners it seems."

What was he talking about?

He got the sleep out of his eyes and opened the bag. A big sandwich and a bottle of fresh orange juice were in it. And a card: "Good morning. The wolves."

"Oh, love letters from your lover?"

"Hu?"

"Don't give me that innocent look. I'm sure you did every disgusting stuff yesterday with that white army ass."

He wanted to speak up and defend Prime's marine honor. But first he needed a piss.

He sat down and devoured the sandwich as if he hadn't had food for a week. Of course, there was plenty of meat in it.

Had he dreamt all of this?

He checked in his closet and confirmed that bandages and some Band-Aids were gone. His upper arm had bruises exactly there where he remembered C E dragging him along. All the water bottles were in the trashcan and there was even some blood on the floor, where Brian stood as he got his dressings.

This was É not É a É dream, he sank back on his bed.

"Can't walk?" Terrence teased him.

"Oh, shut up with your gross mouth!"

Terrence looked at him with big eyes, but shut up indeed.

He finished the sandwich and gulped down the juice. Some serious research was in order.

After a shower and fresh contacts, he opened his laptops. "Wolf shifters" was his first Google search.

The research was not reassuring. The paranormal science stuff was all crap talking secret symbols and rituals. The influence of the moon (there was barely a moon yesterday), the importance of Fate, the threat of silver and different theories how to become a shape shifter.

Then there was all the junk on Hollywood stuff, in which vampires where unbelievably sexy and werewolf boys, 16 years old and barely 170 tall with artificially straight and white actor's teeth, were the latest sex symbols.

But the biggest bullshit was all the gay wolf shifter romance novels, which always covered the big hairy dark guy, who is a wolf, getting a beautiful innocent blond guy, who is human, as his mate to fuck him into heaven and back. 50ies house wife style.

`I É will É not É be É fucked É senseless,' he said to himself.

`Mate' that's what C E had called him when the escaped the party. `I É will É not É be É an É alpha's É fuck É mate, irrespective how cute the Alpha is.'

`"Alpha," that's what "Alf" stood for. Not "Alf," the funny little extraterrestrial guy, but "Alph(a)." Brian obviously was the Beta and C E whatever letter came next in the Greek alphabet, gamma,' he remembered.

That's why Prime always growled when Brian touched him. `No touching my mate.' He needed to have some serious conversation with this jarhead. `No matey here. And no fuckee fuckee.'

And the scents. Wolf smelled everything. Not sure yet, why he himself perceived the scents of the wolves so intensively as well since he had met the guys. Had never happened before.

The last two hours he had watched Big Bang Theory.

Terrence left to fuck one of his girls.

And then a knock.

Colt looked at the clock. "Fuck. 6:35. I missed the time."

He slowly walked in gym pants to the door pulling on a T-shirt and carefully opened the door.

Prime.

Fuck `first born;' `Prime' was just another name for `Alpha.' This guy was full of bullshit.

"Hi, handsome," Prime said.

Pine. Strawberries. Boner. Big boner.

Silence.

"Can I get in or am I grounded?" Prime asked a bit concerned.

"Sorry. Come in!"

"Thanks."

Colt was lost. Not sure what to do.

Prime came closer. Colt stepped bit aside, but Prime's wide arms captured him gently and hugged him.

He closed his eyes and enjoyed the vision of the forest-covered Rockies.

"Sorry, I'm not ready."

"No problem, we'll wait. Unless you want to cancel."

"Oh no," Colt answered standing in his little closet, "let's deal with that shit now, before my brain fries completely."

He put on a black T-shirt and his new cargo pants carefully hiding is throbbing boner from Prime.

Prime chuckled and opened the door.

Like in yesterday's formation, Brian in front, Prime to his right and C E trailing them, they walked to the parking lot.

Nobody said a word after the hoarse "Hi's."

The truck was one of those mega redneck things he always joked about. Brian ran ahead, and started the beast.

C E opened the back door on the other side for Colt, who climbed into it. Only when C E sat in the front passenger seat, did Prime run around the car to sit next to Colt.

It looked like a military operation.

"Hi, we have a reservation under `Loope,'" Prime said to the girl at the entrance of the steak house. She looked at him with unfiltered lust.

Then he growled. Strongly.

"Hi," the girl threw her hair back and revealed her slender neck. She seemed disappointed that nothing happened. "Sure, please follow me."

They got to a nice, cozy corner booth.

Colt wanted to wait so he could sit at the aisle as he preferred, but Prime pushed him gently against the wall. Putting himself next to him at the aisle. Brian sat opposite Colt and C E at aisle opposite Prime, again the formation seemed to have been precisely planned. Prime could see everyone approaching them.

"What a bitch," Brian said.

"She was ovulating, that slut," Prime added.

Colt looked at them with a shocked face. "Do you always talk about women like this?"

"Sorry," Prime hesitated. "Beta, help please!"

Brian chuckled while studying the menu. "She wasn't a woman. Well, she wasn't only a woman. She was a wolf shifter as well."

"I couldn't smell anything É," Colt stated.

"Can you smell wolves?"

"Only the three of you I think."

"Ah," C E commented. Colt had no clue what he meant with that.

"Anyway, she's wolf. She recognized the alphaness in Prime and tried to hit on him."

"How?"

"She offered her neck," Prime said in a disgusting tone. "That's how wolves offer their submission. And the dominant bites into it."

"Bites?"

"Gently, not like in killing but in marking."

C E winced.

"Oh, get it together, C E," Prime said.

C E winced even more.

"Hi, I'm Charlie, I'm your waiter for today. What can I get you to drink?"

Prime closed the menu and said: "We would like to order immediately. No starters." He looked to Colt and said: "What would like to have?"

"Well, now that the starters are off the table, the fillet, horseradish crusted, mushrooms and fries. And Diet Coke."

"Sure. How would you like to have the steak?

"Medium."

Brian chuckled. And whined a little bit. Seemed he got a kick against his shin.

"I take the big T-bone. Rare. And water please," Prime ordered in an unusually authoritarian voice.

"And sides to that?"

"No."

Brain went next, strictly according the ranking order Colt thought. "Same."

"Sides?"

"No, exactly the same," repeated Brian like a beaten up dog. The shin must hurt.

C E looked at Prime, who nodded.

"The extra big T–bone, bloody rare, if possible. And the grape milkshake."

Colt smiled. How sweet.

"Thanks gentlemen, drinks will be here in second."

"Wow, this was the weirdest restaurant order in my life," Colt said.

Nobody responded.

Colt tried again: "Terrence told me three girls are missing."

Prime nodded. "Yep."

Painful silence.

The drinks came.

"Thanks for breakfast, Brian. Very thoughtful." `Last attempt,' Colt said to himself.

"You are welcome," a tentative smile from the Blonde.

And silence.

C E seemed to browse through messages on this phone.

"News?" Colt asked. He couldn't deal with the silence.

"Not really. Police are keeping everything under wraps. Officially, some drugs in the punch at the party making everyone hallucinate."

"Well, I had no punch but surely hallucinated," Colt answered.

The three looked at him with serious faces.

"And here are the steaks," the waiter said handing over the plates with the meat. "Who had fries?" Prime took the plate silently and put it in front of Colt, same with the mushrooms.

"Enjoy!" the quirky little girl said and rushed off.

Brian and C E looked at Prime, who started to cut off a big piece of meat and put it into his mouth. Once he chewed, Brian and C E started.

Weird.

"Did your steak actually hit the grill at all?" Colt asked C E.

"Yes." Prime answered.

"But the grill was still cold." Brian snickered.

So did C E. And Prime.

"Thank God," Colt said, "I thought I was going to die here of serious silence.

"We were just hungry," said Prime.

"Hungry like a wolf?" Colt ventured.

All four of them chuckled, a bit forced.

Half of the plate gone.

"So about yesterday É," Colt started.

"Yes?"

"It was real then. I'm not on drugs."

"Real. No drugs," C E confirmed in his telegram style.

"Fucking shit!"

"That you can say. We had no clue this party was the cover for a vampire attack," Brian said.

"Why did you invite me to this party in the first place?"

No answer. They looked at Prime.

"I guess we wanted to impress you."

"Impress me?"

Prime chewed on a big piece of meat indicating to him to wait a bit for the answer.

Colt had some fries.

"We like you, Colt." Prime said.

"And I surely do not know why."

Sighs.

"I did some reading today. Mostly shit online. But I have some questions, if that's okay with you."

They looked at Prime, who said: "Shoot!"

"Prime, you are the Alpha wolf here?"

Brian chuckled. And winced. Another kick against his shin it seemed. Prime suggested: "Okay, say it then Beta!"

"Colt, Prime is as alpha as they come. When I met him the first time I not only figuratively, I literally shit myself."

"Thanks, food present," C E said.

"Okay, that clarifies Brian as well. And you C E?"

Brian got another nod from Prime and said. "He is our pack's enforcer."

"Enforcer?"

"Like the bodyguard of the alpha or alpha couple and the goon if the alpha needs something or someone to be dealt with."

"Nice. Goon," C E repeated while attacking the last piece of meat on his plate.

"And which role do I play in this?" directly poking into the wasp hive.

"Desserts?"

Shy looks to Prime, the Alpha. "Sure. Boys?"

Four plum pies were on the way.

"Can I have an answer please," Colt insisted.

"It's complex," Brian said.

Colt looked at Prime. "If this was typical, gay werewolf romance, you would tell me now that you've imprinted on me and I have to become your mate. And as of now nobody else would ever touch me anymore, while you fuck me senseless with your gigantic wolf dick."

Brian and C E winced. Prime growled.

"I didn't know those book existed," Prime said.

"They do. And get it out of your head to make me an alpha wolf's mate. Not into that." Colt said coldly. "Not into being somebody's submissive plaything and not into getting fucked. So if that's what you guys are thinking you better keep looking for your little fag boy somewhere else. It is not I."

Silence hung in the room. Colt's speech had been quite a conversation stopper. And the waiter with the pies couldn't get away fast enough.

"I don't want to make you an alpha wolf's mate," Prime said.

Colt took a deep breath. "Good. I'm sure there are much cuter boys out there who love to get your big wolf dick up their small ass."

Whining. Growling.

"Ok fuck this shit," Brian said putting the fork back on the plate too forcefully so it nearly fell off the table. With a speed Colt had never seen before, he caught it and put it carefully on the plate.

As he didn't get a kick against his shin this time, he continued: "Colt, we like you. We need you. We need you as a meta."

"Guys, I read a lot of stuff today, but I haven't read anything about meta. It's not even a Greek letter."

"Prime?" Brian looked at the big bad Alpha wolf.

"Go on."

"For millennia we wolf shifters lived amongst humans. And big bad alpha wolves like this guy," nod to Prime, "led packs. And up till recently, this testosterone-filled, animalistic, aggressive and dominating approach worked very well for packs É"

"É but?"

Brian picked up some pie on his fork, but did not eat it. "But this modern world is different. Other skills get people to the top than typical alpha wolf behavior."

Now Prime winced as if somebody had kicked him into his balls. Repeatedly. Colt nearly felt sorry for him.

"Go on!" Prime said nevertheless.

"Most alphas have to lead their pack very early, because the previous alpha died in some stupid fight."

Growling.

"The new alpha chooses his betas and enforcers, normally 7 or 8, whose only job is to protect the alpha and the alpha's mate and their offspring. They themselves do not mate and have no pups. This takes the strongest É"

C E nodded.

"É and brightest," Brian pointed at himself with the fork, "out of the gene pool."

"Oh fucking shit. You guys are degenerating."

Wincing.

"Anyway, so I guess around 100 years ago, `metas' appeared. They stand outside the hierarchy but have a strong control over what happens in the pack."

"Don't pussyfoot around, Brian," Prime said.

He chewed on is pie. "Okay. Metas, when they do appear in a pack, lead the inner circle of the pack; and they are better at it because they don't have the primal alpha instincts to fight everything but are adapted to the new world."

"Holy cow," Colt said.

"Now you might have noticed, we're gay wolves."

Wincing.

"We were basically kicked out of our packs," Prime said. "Even I as the rightful heir to the alpha status in my pack – as my father was the alpha, and I was his first born." His pie was gone. To the last crumble.

"So I É we formed a new pack, É but I quickly realized that I É" Prime trembled.

Colt felt sorry for the big guy and put his hand on the other's hand.

Prime smiled. `Thanks,' he seemed to whisper.

"É we realized that something was missing."

"We went to a Shaman woman in Arizona. And she told us that we need a meta to be complete. And we've been looking for our meta all over the States for 18 months," Brian completed.

"Do you know, how it is if some big piece in your life is missing?" Prime asked with his hoarse voice.

"Not sure about meta, but I do know," Colt said. "Who wants the rest of my pie?"

C E looked at Prime and said: "Me."

"Okay, this is a hell of a fucked up story, but in its weird way it makes sense. Unless I'm still on a drug trip É"

Prime laughed against his will. "How long are you going to keep that disclaimer up?"

"Don't know. Give me some break guys. 24 hours ago I had not clue about vampire, wolf shifters and É"

He got silent as the waiter came with the bill.

Colt wanted to grab it but Prime growled and took it, putting bills into the folder.

"So do alphas always growl at metas?" Colt asked in a provocative way. He saw Brian tried a surprise smile.

"You aren't yet our Meta," Prime said coolly, "if and when you are, you can punish me for being disrespectful as you best see fit."

Colt nearly regretted having gone down that route.

"Let's go," Prime said. Obviously, nobody contradicted him.

Same procedure walking to the car, same location in the car.

"We'll bring you to your room," Prime said affirmatively.

"Thanks for a unique dinner," Colt answered. "Terrence might be there."

"Nope, he's fucking his new bi É girlfriend," Prime corrected him.

"You guys are well informed."

"He sleeps in the same room as you, so we needed to make sure he isn't a threat as well," explained C E.

"How long have you been `protecting' me?"

"Since the day you saw me in the first business class," Prime said.

Colt felt that wasn't completely true, but didn't push it. "I never noticed."

"We hide well," C E said. Seemed when it came to bodyguard duties he talked freely.

"But it explains why I always smelled one of you guys, even if I couldn't see you."

"Yep. Making sure, those rotten things don't get you."

"You knew there were vampires here?"

"Since the day we came to this college. When you see a human and he doesn't smell like a human, he is either a wolf shifter or a vampire," C E continued to elaborate.

"And why am I safe in my room?"

"Vampires can only get into houses if explicitly invited when they are in vampire form. And you wouldn't do that, would you?"

"Nope, not anymore," Colt said.

"Though you still could be killed in a traditional way," C E added.

"Oh thanks."

"That's why one of us is always close by," Prime tried to calm down Colt.

"Still don't understand why somebody wants me dead. Maybe they don't like your choice for me as É" He didn't finish the sentence.

"We thought of that," Brian said, "but we are a small, totally unimportant pack".

Prime winced. Another kick to his blue balls it seemed.

"We're not a threat to some of the really big packs in this area, so it doesn't makes sense," Brian continued ignoring his Alpha's suffering.

"Okay and now?" They left the truck and walked in the usual way to the dorm. Colt handed the key proactively to Brian, who opened the doors to the building and the lift.

Prime and Colt went into the elevator.

"Why are they taking the stairs?"

"We hate the elevator, gives us the creeps," Prime explained.

"And why are you here?"

"Because you are here. And where you go, I will go."

Colt swallowed. "Wow."

Seemed the others had run up the stairs. Brian opened the doors, while C E was already patrolling down the hallway É

"And now?" repeated Colt.

The three men stood in his room, filling it with pleasant scents. But they stood like soldier in at ease positions. Well, two of them had been soldiers.

Correction. Marines.

"What do you want to do now?" Prime asked.

"I need to digest all the meta stuff. I might have lots of questions."

Prime nodded looking at the lost boy sitting on the bed. He wondered whether he made the right call.

"We will give you all the answers we have. But we don't have a lot, I'm afraid," Prime said.

"Understand." Colt looked exhausted.

"Okay, guys, we'll continue with this another time," Prime ordered. "Take the truck home, I'll take the first watch."

"Aye, aye, Alpha," said Brian. "Good night, Colt."

Colt looked up at the All American boy and smiled: "Good night, Brian. Good night, C E."

When they were alone, Colt got up quickly and approached Prime, who still stood there in his military position.

He looked into those green eyes with beautifully snow-covered mountaintops. It seemed Prime slowly spread his legs, so Colt could see straight into his eyes.

Colt swallowed. He had a dry mouth. "Can I see your golden wolf?"

Prime smiled. A big smile of relief.

Colt smelt fresh spring pine.

Prime undressed. Removed his polo shirt, revealing a solidly build chest and those impossible abs, Colt had felt before. Light red hair covered them. He took off his boots in a quick motion, together with black socks. Then went the jeans. And the white boxer shorts with them.

"Step back please. And remember, I would never hurt you. Never in my life."

"Okay."

Colt went to the other side of the room and waited.

Prime's face got distorted. Fangs appeared. Hair grew.

And the noise of breaking bones and joints. Sounded worse than with Brian. With a howl the beast stretched itself.

And then he felt like actually being in a Rocky Mountain forest. Crisp air surrounded him. And hints of strawberry.

Colt swallowed.

This wolf was fucking big. Up to his chest. And the fur was golden. It shimmered in the light as if being alive.

Big green eyes looked at him as if saying `hi!'

Colt moved forward. Slowly. Not to provoke anything.

The beast lowered his head a bit sniffing Colt's hand.

He touched the fur on the shoulders. Soft.

Electric shots.

Pine.

High voltage.

Water falls.

Meadows.

"Prime, not sure you can hear me, but your wolf is breathtaking. So big, so strong, yet so gentle." Somehow, he hugged the wolf. And the wolf lay down, and Colt lay down next to the warm wolf. And everything was right.

He might have fallen asleep for a bit. He got up. The wolf looked at him as if saying `Did I do something wrong?'

"I think you should convert back É no, shift you called it. Prime, can you shift back please?"

The wolf seemed to understand. It shuffled a bit forward. His muzzle touching Colt's shoes as if by accident.

Excruciating noise.

And Prime stood in front of him. Naked. Strong. Powerful. With a smile. "Thank you, Colt."

"This is the weirdest drug trip ever," he chuckled.

"Okay. Keep believing that. As long as I can be a wolf for you in that trip É"

Colt smiled shyly.

"You are aroused."

"What?"

Prime came towards him, opened Colt's fly and knelt.

Usual visions, jolts. Gorgeous. But not shocking anymore.

Once he had come into Prime's mouth, the wolf shifter got up and smiled like a naughty boy.

Before Colt could make a step to return the favor, Prime already got dressed.

"I think your roommate is coming. I better leave."

"Oh."

"Call me when you need something. When you need anything, Colt."

"I don't have your number."

Prime had just finished tying his bootlaces. "Check your phone."

And then the door opened; without a knock of course.

"Hi, Terrence," Prime said with an unbeatable smile.

"Hi, how's it going?"

"Great, but off to bed. Night, Colt."

"Night, big bad wolf," Colt joked.

Once the door was closed, Terrence made a funny voice: "Big bad wolf?"

Colt didn't respond.

"You mean big bad `wolf'?" He made the quotation marks around "wolf."

"Whatever," Colt dismissed him, fishing for his mobile and checking his messages.

No text. No email. Wait, a Whatsapp invitation.

"CE would like you to join the `pack' chat group," it said.

He confirmed. And three messages came in: "Hi Colt, thanks for today. Prime." A photo attached. It was Prime in the mirror of the elevator. His hair was messed up from the sex and maybe there was a tiny bit of come in the red beard. Colt got hard like crazy and nearly came without touching himself.

"Thanks for today. Brian. Message if you need to talk." A photo attached. A smiling Brian.

"Was great today. Will keep you safe. CE." A photo: big guy with crossed arms in front of him. Brian must have taken it. "And he writes his name as `CE' not `C E'."

"Sorry?" asked Terrence.

"Nothing."

"Oh my gosh, you're seriously in love with that ginger army guy É"

"Maybe, maybe not." He crawled into his bed.

Just before he fell asleep, he heard the frat boys' dog howls. And he suddenly realized those weren't frat boys' howls, those were the howls of his wolves. His wolves? Did he really think `his' wolves? And then he fell asleep.

---

"Did she taste good?"

"Like a lily in the first morning. Like a soft sun-ripened peach," she said.

"Where's her body?"

"Safely disposed of, don't worry!" she said with a smile. She was so much more relaxed now that she had stilled her hunger.

"Good. We still have our problem, though."

"Well, we need to move on after this semester anyway. And what do I care about these stinking dogs then."

"But that was your commitment to him who let us come here", he reminded her sternly.

"Fine," she gave in. She would have liked to break the deal, but seems that wasn't an option with her associates.

"They've shown themselves to him."

"Did they?"

"And he didn't run away screaming?"

"Nope. In contrast, he seems to like them."

"How gross is that." If she hadn't been already as pale as the cliffs of Dover, she would be now. "É but we can use this to our advantage É"

"Please arrange an appointment with the Dean on Tuesday."

"Will do."

"Good night, dark friend."

"She was sooo good?" he asked again.

"Get out, you perv," she laughed.

CHAPTER 5

"Okay, okay, that's enough."

"What's up?" Terrence asked with only a hint of feigned concern, looking up from his reading. He was actually preparing for his history exam.

"Nothing," Colt lied.

"Mmmm." Terrence wasn't really interested and dove into his reading again.

Colt was tired. He had prepared for three exams in the past two days given that he had been `distracted' during the last weekend.

One tomorrow morning: business, where he had to write an A to get out of the following exams. In the evening Financial Analysis and on Thursday Accounting.

His head was close to exploding.

But that wasn't what made him say: "Okay, okay, that's enough." He was used to studying hard, as this had been his only way out of his family's misery.

As promised one of the three men had always been around him in the past days. He had been able to smell them all the time. Now that he knew about them and their scents, he picked up the scent even more distinctively and consistently. Sometimes he was actually turning around to look for them as they seemed to be so close but they seemed to have made an extra effort not to be seen.

Most of the times, this made him warm all around his heart, and sometimes just hard. Once and a while the intensity of the smell made him jerk though as if it reminded him also of the fact somebody was out there to kill him. In those moments not knowing why made him nearly as frightened as the fact that his life was in danger at all.

He thought frequently his brain hadn't really accepted that he was in danger anyway; otherwise how could he have gone about his boring student life as if nothing had happened? His brain told him in these instances that it was not capable of processing a death threat by vampires.

So his helpless "okay, okay, that's enough" wasn't owed to this particular strange turn in his life involving threats to his life by vampires, either.

"My God, those frats are going crazy today." Terrence shifted his weight on his bed and pulled the book closer.

"Mmmm," Colt nodded in agreement. But he knew better. The howls had been getting more frequent and closer over the past hours. And he knew why.

He thought for a second to complain with Prime, but left it. At the end, if this wasn't the drug trip of his life, which could have explained everything logically, they were just doing their best to protect him.

`I need to find out whether this is real life or I am in É whatever.' It reminded him of Total Recall, where the hero actually was living his `real life' but his evil opponents tried to convince him that it was just a simulation to make him hand over the gun so they could kill him. The hero always found some small but important indication to find out the truth allowing him to make the right decision, which was in most cases to kill the bad guys instead of handing over his weapons.

`Doesn't matter whether fucking reality or simulation. I have three hunky guys hovering around me; I should enjoy the fucking trip as long as it lasts,' he said silently to himself grabbing his phone. "Hello guys," he typed in the chat group CE seemed to have created.

Within five seconds, Prime responded. "Everything ok, handsome?"

`Yep, it was a good decision to continue to play this simulation. Who else would call him "handsome" in real life?'

"Yeah. Just some wolves howling in front of the window É," he typed with a little smiley at the end.

No response. Seemed somebody got a big alpha growl right now.

"Won't happen again É"

Colt nodded, realizing that they couldn't see his reaction.

"É so frequently," the next line came.

"LOL. Anyway. Have three exams next two days. Could need some distraction Thursday evening."

"Boys?" Prime asked.

"'d love to; this Beta needs some alcohol bad," Brian typed.

"Available" was CE typical, short response which made Colt smile. He started to get to know these guys and it made him feel safe. In this weird dream or simulation or trip, or whatever it was.

"Dinner and drinks it is then," Prime responded. "19hundred Sausage Factory." Typical him. Not a question, just instruction.

Colt could live with that for the moment. He guessed they needed their meat in some shape or form; and if it meant in the shape of a sausage.

"Sausage? Are you horned up for your army boy?" Terrence was a bit freaked out.

"Not everything is about sex," although he was bit `horned up.' "We just want to go the Sausage Factory on Thursday."

"Oh my gosh, who would have known that you are such a dirty little shaggy bastard?"

Colt wanted to comment on the `little' and `shaggy' but typed: "Looking forward to it. Am I allowed to go there on my own or do I get a security detail? ;-)"

Silence.

"If you even put one step out of the house without us, I'll have your ass É" Prime responded as expected. This guy was easy to predict. "É and I know you wouldn't like that. ;-)" was the same emoticon coming back.

"Pfffh, he got that he was just joking," Colt said to himself relieved.

"Pick you up at 1830," Brian wrote.

Colt was sure there was a side conversation going on, he didn't mind. "Thanks, Mormon boy. And thanks for breakfast again. You're spoiling me."

"Welcome."

"Good luck with exams," was CE's addition.

"See you tomorrow in class." Prime.

"Night, boys. Be good."

Nobody responded. He guessed there were instructions in the background and smiled.

"'d night, Colt. Be strong."

"Can I sit here?"

Colt looked up. Prime was standing next to his chair with a boyish smile, which made Colt's heart jump a bit. It seemed he had so gotten used to the pine scent around him Prime's appearance did not push him over the edge anymore. Except that he got a boner. Instantly. And hard. But that was normal by now.

He put his folder in front of him to hide his erection discreetly. "Sure. Go ahead. And good luck."

It was obvious Prime inhaled deeply, but he didn't say anything about Colt's arousal.

Colt looked at the handsome red hair marine/wolf, who met his gaze for a second and smiled with his green eyes under white lashes. `What a change,' Colt thought happily.

Then they were interrupted. Seth tried to squeeze through the chairs in front of them. But Prime growled, and the future Wall Street banker changed his mind quickly.

Colt gave the wolf a knowing look, who returned it with his most innocent smile saying `I didn't do anything.'

"Sorry to interrupt you guys, but can I?" Tang smiled knowingly. And both, Colt and Prime blushed.

Colt got up, his folder around midsection so that Tang could pass by and put himself to the left of Colt.

In that moment, Mr. McfuckmyassErickson entered the room with a stack of paper.

Colt was finished within 65 minutes. The rest of the time he waited patiently before handing in his test not to discourage Prime, who was writing down answers frantically.

And when the professor finally called the end of exam, Prime rushed to hand in his paper and returned visibly exhausted to Colt, who waited for him at the door.

"Fuck I'm drenched in sweat, worse than Baghdad, tougher then being challenged."

"I can smell that. See you tomorrow."

"That means you are not going to seduce this lonely jarhead?"

Colt smiled and said: "Nope, have work to do." He noticed Prime looked at him in disbelief when he turned around and went for his dorm to finalize his reading for Financial Analysis. For some reason it felt good to regain some control in all of this.

---

It was Thursday evening, all exams behind him when his phone rang. "Is this Mr. Parker?"

"Speaking."

"Hi, I'm Cairol from the Campus police. We wondered whether you could come in and answer some questions regarding the Alpha3 party incident É" There was phone noise in the background.

Colt had wondered whether they would reach out to all the invited guests in general, and to him in specific given he spent some time with MaryAnn.

"Sure. When?"

"Now?"

"Okay. Will be there in 30 minutes."

"So when did you get to the party?" The policeman was fat. Sweat stains all around his armpits. He smelled of burnt sugar. His greying hair thinning but no bald spot yet. The eyes bloody.

"We arrived I think around 1030."

"We?" The cop made some notes, not looking up when he asked the clarifying question.

"Came with a friend of mine, Prime Loope, and two of his friends."

"And then?"

"I met MaryAnn Montgomery and we danced a bit. Then we watched the performance."

"What happened at the midnight performance?"

"Not sure. Looked like really good 3D and lightening tricks. The floating vampires looked so real."

`Because they were,' he thought, `or were they?'

"MaryAnn wanted to get closer," he continued, "and got `bitten' by one of the vampires. Then I realized she was part of the show. Quite some good modern drama shit to have the audience participate. Or to put actors amongst the audience to make it come across as real."

"So you think it was just big theater?"

"Mr. London," he addressed the policemen refusing to use the term "officer," "sure. Or do you believe in real vampires?" Colt was snickering.

London did not take the bait and continued his inquiries. "What happened then?"

"Well, MaryAnn played dead with all that fake blood. And then panic broke out. Maybe the performance was too good. Not sure, but people started to scream and to run away. I was pushed around and grabbed. Was concerned some of those big frat guys would trample me. So I ran as well. I just looked back for second. Most people ran away from MaryAnn, so she was not at risk being run over by a crowd while playing dead."

"So you didn't go back to check on her?"

"No, she was part of the performance. Why should I?"

"Because you were her boyfriend? Friend?"

Colt wasn't sure whether he imagined things, but this guy had more than just a professional interest in his relationship with MaryAnn. "Mr. London, I like MaryAnn, but I've only met her a couple of times in different classes."

"So did you want more from her and she said `no?'" The copper became hostile. More burnt sugar.

Colt twisted his eyebrows. Where did that come from? Did he miss something? "What?"

"Did you want more from her than student friendship? She was É is a pretty girl."

"Was? – Officer, what are you saying? Is she dead?"

"Can't say anything about that." The policeman was cursing at himself, so much was sure.

"Answer my question: Did you want `more' from Mrs. Montgomery?"

"Miss Montgomery," he corrected. "And no. Not into girls."

The policeman looked up with a slightly disgusted snarl. Colt wasn't sure whether he was annoyed about the correction or the fact that Colt was gay. Either way, he didn't care.

"And then?"

"I went home with some of my friends."

"And you didn't try to get in contact with Miss Montgomery?"

"No, we're not close friends. She comes from a wealthy Southern background; except for one class we have nothing in common. She missed that class yesterday, though." And after the short break Colt said, as he hoped convincingly: "Oh fucking shit. She is dead."

"Mr. Parker, please stick to my questions," London reprimanded him. "Have you heard from Miss Montgomery since that performance?"

"No."

The policeman scratched his double chin; his eyes red from alcohol and lack of sleep and with dark eye bags stared at him with some disbelief, but he didn't push further. He was sweating profusely. And it was not a nice Prime pine sweat. It was an ugly guy's old socks in piss sweat. Colt wondered why again he was faced with so many clichŽ characters in his life. `Maybe it's not real life but a trip,' his brain tried to make sense of it all.

"Did you notice anything unusual at the party?"

"Not sure what is `unusual.' The whole performance was unusual. Alpha3 really topped." He played the impressionable college student in awe of a fraternity.

"Who else had contact with Miss Montgomery that night?"

"I don't know. I didn't go with her to the party. I didn't even know she would be there. We danced and chatted before the performance. Otherwise I don't know what she did while I was with my friends.

"So you're not into girls?"

"Yes. Is that a problem, officer? – I came here to help. If you want to judge me maybe I should come back with a lawyer."

"Nono, you know the university has a strict policy on that," the policeman answered a bit too forceful. Seemed he did have problem with Colt but was professional enough to suppress it. "I mean, did she mention anyone she was seeing?"

"Meaning boyfriend?" - "No."

"Somebody told us she was talking about `sizes' though É"

"'Sizes'?"

"I mean how well endowed her boyfriend was. The length of 7.5 inches was mentioned."

`And you would like to be so big, wouldn't you?' Colt thought about this Mr. London. He wondered whether this donut even saw his dick anymore.

"No. Miss Montgomery would never talk about that, that thought is repulsive." Colt became such a pretentious asshole right now and he liked it with his whole soul. "I think whoever heard us talking, must have confused it with the fact I got 7.5 of 8 points for a case assignment in Mr. McErickson's class. Doesn't happen often, so she was excited about it. – Can bring you the paper, if you want." Oh, he was sooo helpful.

"That's okay. Was she threatened by anyone?"

"Not that I know. She never said anything. She was all Southern sunshine and Colonial charm."

"Do you know Miss Sandy Allister or Miss Zoe Key?" The policeman handed him pictures of two all blond Californian girls who obviously had nose jobs and some tit enlargement done.

"No, never heard of them. Which year?"

"Freshmen É freshwomen." The cop was confused trying to be politically correct.

Colt smiled with a hint of schadenfreude. "No, never seen them."

"Did you notice them at the party?"

Colt sighed. Never meant never, but he calmly answered: "No. There were a lot of pretty girls there."

"Okay. That will be all. If you remember anything else, please let us know."

Somehow Colt felt that the policeman closed the questioning a little bit too abrupt, but he pushed away the thought and went to the reception as indicated. He signed the confidentiality paper and left.

MaryAnn was really dead. He'd barely gotten to know her.

He left the campus police station. It was already dark. He messaged the wolves that he would be 30 min. delayed for their sausage date because of police business.

MaryAnn. Poor thing. `And I could be next,' he thought. `Although, all the victims seemed to have been pretty young girls; presumably virgins. Unbelievable that those still existed at college.' He nearly chuckled at the thought despite a sad feeling about the situation.

And it also was clear the police had no clue. How should they anyway: `Latest News: Real Bloodsucking Vampires Amongst Us! --- First Minority Rights Group for Vampires Established `Come out of the Coffin' Demanding Free Blood Donations to Avoid Killing Spree!'

He was the cynical bastard again.

It was cold and he rushed to get home to change.

A howl was close.

He turned around. "Prime? Brian? CE?" he said. When started to walk again he saw a wolf in front of him. Couldn't see the color in the dark, didn't know who it was.

When he had came closer, the wolf jumped. Not at him but to his right. What the heck? First vampires, now wolf shifters after him?

Enough light to see the fur. And now he got scared. The wolf was large, not surprisingly, but had a dark dull grey fur. That meant he wasn't one `his' wolves, at least not Prime or Brian. And he growled menacingly.

"What do you want?" Colt asked not accepting that a wolf shifter would attack him.

For some reason he thought the beast was highly irritated he wasn't screaming and running and being scared. Obviously, it couldn't have been aware Colt had lots of wolf interaction recently. From petting to sex.

The monster exposed his teeth. Yellow and angry. It growled. The eyes were bloody. He knew these eyes, he thought.

Colt started to tremble, sweat ran down his back. He tried to be calm but he had to accept now that this was not the friendly kind of wolf he'd met so far.

It moved slowly towards him.

Colt stepped back. He didn't realize he moved himself into a dead end street until he nearly reached the end. He was trapped. That had been the plan of this wolf from the start. Here he could kill Colt without the danger of somebody observing them.

"Prime!" he shouted. He knew one of his wolves would be around. At least that's what they had promised. Normally he could smell them, but right now he couldn't. Maybe the beast in front of him covered the scents with his stink.

Not sure his voice worked, though, either. His scream sounded so pathetic.

"Brian!" he tried again. "It would be really good if you could make an entrance now," he winced. Him knowing this was not an Alpha3 prank made his cool desert him.

The beast was preparing for the kill. Muscles tensed. Teeth ready. Eyes focused. Cold metallic grey eyes with blooded whites, which showed only animalistic fury.

It pounced. Colt was crouching against the wall with his hands up in air, a useless move to defend himself.

But before the beast could reach Colt with his deadly claws and fangs, another wolf leapt through the air and landed on top of the dark grey attacker.

"Brian." Thanks.

The bigger wolf howled loud, feeling the claws of the slightly smaller animal digging into his back.

They both landed on the street entangled in front of the boy, who breathed heavily. Somehow Brian's silver white wolf put himself in between the assassin and Colt. He growled `Leave him alone or I rip your throat open'-like.

The attacker backed off a bit, but wouldn't leave. Instead it readied itself to attack again, assessing its new opponent.

But he miscalculated, and Colt's eyes got wet.

Two wolves appeared at the open end of the street. One was Prime's golden animal and the other one must be CE, Colt thought.

The attacker realized it had no chance anymore. It tried to make a run, but the two bigger wolves, golden and brown, growled unmistakably that they wouldn't let him pass.

CE jumped. The beast tried to protect itself, but CE wasn't even interested in hitting the dirty grey rogue wolf. He put himself next to Brian, who then did the similar leaping to the other side to stand behind Prime. They'd just swapped position. What was the plan?

CE's wolf briefly looked at him. He came closer.

Colt winced, not sure any more about wolves.

Closer. And then CE basically locked him between his huge warm body and the wall, nudging him towards the open part of the street.

Colt briefly reached out to touch the fur, but CE kept looking towards the enemy, while taking slow steps. Colt knew CE would protect him. And he realized Brian had cut off the way to the main street so no newcomers could join.

All to allow Prime to take the fight. Very alpha like.

Both wolves, the golden Prime and the dirty grey attacker, were pretty much of the same size; but Prime moved more smoothly, he seemed to be a more athletic and quite a bit younger.

They started to leap at each other, fell, disentangled and engaged again. Growls became unsettling.

Colt had safely reached the other side of street, now standing next to Brian. CE tried to push him further away from the fight.

"No, CE, they will see you. We stay here until this is over and you can shift back."

The wolf pushed again. Colt nearly fell. "NO!"

CE gave up and just made sure he stood in front of Colt towards the danger while Brian staid back.

For a moment it looked as if the attacker managed to bite into one of Prime's hind legs, but the golden wolf wrestled himself out and opened a gap between them. Another leap. Fangs trying to catch the opponent. The grey wolf attacked É or so it looked. It tried to make another run towards the open street, having understood he couldn't win even against Prime alone. CE made himself bigger and growled. Colt had to steady himself on Brian's back. `No, you finish the fight' was the translation.

The grey wolf turned around, tried to back Prime into a corner. It leapt.

Prime ducked.

The wolf hit the wall instead of the golden wolf and winced.

Prime didn't waste a second and went for the beast that tried to shake off the pain from hitting hard bricks instead of an animal. And in a nearly disappointingly short two seconds, Prime had bitten through the light silver throat.

A little growl, another whining.

Blood.

And it was over.

The wolf was dead.

And it shifted back to a human form.

Colt swallowed. He recognized the man. But he didn't believe it.

Prime approached them, all bloody snout. Colt stepped instinctively back. Prime winced as if insulted Colt still would be afraid of his wolf.

And then the excruciating noise of breaking bones, the rustle of hair disappearing and the painful hisses of receding teeth.

The three men stood in front of him.

Naked.

Prime still had blood in his face and tried to wipe it off with his hand.

"Where are your clothes?" Colt asked quickly.

"First tree left around the corner."

Colt ran, found them, brought them. Gave them to the naked men.

"Dress, not sure the campus police would understand why there are three naked men next to a dead body É"

A minute later CE checked the surroundings and gave the all clear. In the usual formation they walked to his dorm.

Prime and Colt showered together which would have been very sexy if it hadn't been for the fact he'd just escaped a wolf attack.

CE stood guard outside of the showers and Brian was down to get Chinese take-out, as they didn't feel like going out, even for sausages.

Colt admired the strong, tanned body. For the first time, he got a good look at Prime's back. Every little muscle moved when he shampooed his hair. And as many freckles as stars in the galaxy.

Once they had rinsed they just let the hot water calm them down. Until now, Colt hadn't dared to say anything; considering how much adrenalin must have been in Prime's blood after this fight.

"You ok?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Just a little wolf fight," Prime tried to belittle the situation to reassure Colt.

This time Colt approached the taller marine and opened his arms. Prime seemed to hesitate, Alpha and all, but finally he let Colt embrace him.

"Thank you, Alpha."

"Fucking policemen kept asking question and question," Brian complained sitting on the floor in Colt's room like the others, munching on his Chinese take-out. There was enough food for twice as many people.

"I nearly lost Colt because of that. - And then I saw the wolf, I had to message Prime and CE because I wasn't sure if I could protect you and fight the wolf. And then I had to shift basically in the middle of the street!"

"You did well, Beta," said CE.

Brian punched CE at the shoulder.

"Much more needed before it hurts."

"Thanks Brian, I nearly lost it there."

"I mean a wolf! I thought only vampires were after our É I mean after Colt," Brian expressed what Prime seemed to have been thinking all along.

"Something is seriously fucked up. A rogue wolf."

"We need to plan even better. A coincidence of Colt being called to the police, while Brian is there – during his watch shift, could have nearly screwed all of this up."

Colt looked at CE intensively. This must have been the longest sentence in CE's life.

After he had successfully submitted his chicken rice with chopsticks, he said: "That wasn't a coincidence."

"Why do you say that?" Prime asked. All of them put down their Chinese food boxes staring at Colt.

"The wolf É the guy É whatever. I know him."

"And?"

"He was the policeman who asked me all the questions about the party and MaryAnn."

He could see on their faces they were in worse shit than they'd thought.

CHAPTER 6

Brian and CE returned with two mega cups of popcorn, seven bottles of water and a maxi cup of Diet Coke.

"How long is this movie? Three days?" Colt shook his head.

"2.5 hours. You need to hydrate," Brian said defending his purchase.

Prime. "Let's go, boys." Of course, he handed over the tickets and decided the row they would be sitting in.

CE went in first, then Brian, Prime was last. The two big wolves flanking the human and the smaller wolf, not that Brian was small, just a bit smaller than the other two. Again, Colt thought, one of those wolfish fight-inspired strategies. He had gotten used to them so quickly, that he started to get confused and uneasy when he didn't see Brian walking in front of them, or when he couldn't hear CE's steps behind him.

Maybe there was a little wolf in him. Not really, if he had been a wolf shifter, he would be a tiny scrawny dirty thing cleaning toilets; and these gorgeous wolves wouldn't have wanted to be seen dead near him.

The cinema was empty. Seemed the latest Iraq war movie wasn't very successful. Colt had questioned anyway whether it was wise to go to such a movie; he was afraid it would stir unpleasant memories for CE and Prime. But all big wolves, they dismissed that silly little notion by Colt.

And so they decided to go for that movie and then have some `serious follow up talk,' which was a confusing sequence in Colt's mind, but he didn't mind.

Two fags with super styled hair and squeaky laughter entered the cinema and stared at Brian and Prime in unashamed lust. One of them even waved a bit with his limp hand.

Colt got angry. "He, guys, nothing to see here!"

They one with the lip piercing nearly stumbled over the steps on his way downstairs; and both of them moved as far away as possible.

Colt felt the three men staring at him. "What?"

"Look who's become all possessive," Brian teased him. "And very politically incorrect."

"Like it, man," CE's smiled like a bear with too much honey.

"They were basically undressing you guys." Somehow Colt felt the need to justify himself.

"They always do," Brian added, not committing whether he liked that or not.

"I guess we have to put an end that." Colt's voice was cold.

Only the opening credits stopped their little argument.

Colt saw Prime smiled deeply content. The wolf reached for his hand and squeezed it like: `Proud of you.'

The movie was of medium quality. But the boys seemed to like it. They were quite captured by the action on the big screen – only commenting when the director got some military details wrong. Colt was less excited but happy to observe the wolves. Colt saw Brian's surprisingly strong hand lying on the armrest between them. He touched him.

Brian flinched and removed his hand.

During one of those heavy fighting scene, which made the loudspeakers shake the whole theater, Colt leant over to Prime, who still held his hand as if his survival depended on him. "Could you tell your Beta I'm not poisonous?"

Big growl. "Why?"

"Every time I touch him, he jerks away as if I'm the devil."

Growl.

"What?" Colt challenged.

"They have orders not to touch you."

"And why that?"

"You're not yet pack."

Colt shook his head. An explosion on screen covered their conversation.

"So you're not going to allow it?"

Growl.

"What if it helped me into the role?"

"Doing a McfuckmyassErickson on me?"

"Yes." Colt did not give in.

Growl.

Prime let go of Colt's hand, reached behind him to hit Brian's shoulders.

The blond looked at the Alpha a bit frightened: `Did I do something wrong?'

Colt bent forward picking up his Coke, allowing the two guys to briefly chat literally behind his back.

They all sat back.

Prime grabbed his hand, strongly, just at the border to pain. He whispered "Okay. But if he does anything you don't want, tell me. I'm going rip off his balls and shove them down his throat É"

Colt wanted to smile, but the threat was too sincere. He guessed that's why an alpha was an alpha.

"And if I do something he doesn't like?" Colt had never been good in accepting bully threats, trying to outsmart them.

"Before you are our Meta or after?"

"Before."

"Then I'll do the same with you. In slow motion." This time Colt didn't challenge Prime anymore. So he saved the `after' question for after the movies.

The explosions had died down. Seemed one of the main actors was mourning over the death of one of his fellow soldiers, who resembled Prime quite a bit, due to an IED. Brian's tanned hand again laid on the armrest; he was fully focused on the movie and startled again, when Colt touched him.

But this time he didn't jerk away, but intertwined his fingers with Colt's. He smiled at him. A warm, grateful and loving smile. For a second he leant in and his cherry-scented hair touched Colt's cheek and then he focused on the action again.

`Wow, I'm holding hands with two of the cutest men I have ever met in my life. Clearly still tripping,' he said to himself.

The scents of pine and wheat grew stronger. Strawberry and cherries sweeter. It shot into his body, and focused in his midsection. His erection was painful.

This time Prime leant in. "This is so not fair." He had obviously smelled what was going on.

"Shut up and watch the movie", Colt shrugged.

Prime growled and Brian whined.

The bar was crowded. Hordes of semi-drunken students shouting, playing drinking games and circling around desirable one-night stands.

"Two beers, a red bull and Coke for Colt," Brian handed out the drinks.

Colt wasn't in too good a mood, but suppressed his annoyance. It seemed 80% of the bar wanted either Brian or Prime for this night. And the rest CE. He even didn't care he wasn't desired, but he couldn't stand these lusting stares towards his wolves.

One of those blond, nose-jobbed and teeth-bleached beach bunnies even dared to touch Brian's ass on his way back from the bar when he couldn't react as he carried their drinks in his both hands. CE wanted to step in to give cover to his Beta, but Prime held him back. Not worth it.

"I'm used to it," Brian repeated.

"I'm not," Colt said; not specifying whether he referred to people touching his or Brian's ass.

They clinked bottles and took a big gulp. And they were barely finished, when two of those beach bunnies approached them seductively.

The really blond girl must even have had a boob job, how else could they be so perky? And the brunette was too drunk.

"Hi, boys," hair was brushed back, chins lifted, necks exposed and - Colt was sure - lots of female wolf scents spread. Colt looked at Prime, who nodded.

"Hi," was the polite, but disinterested response by all of them, although Colt could as easily have said nothing, as they didn't look at him for one second. They were interested in the alpha and beta wolves. He saw in the corner of his eye that CE was amused. Colt asked himself whether enforcers were less attractive for wolf shifter females, which would have confirmed his view women had no clue when it came to what made men attractive. How else could one explain DiCaprio was a sex symbol?

"I'm Tracy," the blond girl introduced herself, getting even closer to Prime.

Although he'd confirmed they were wolf shifters, he couldn't smell anything. He could only smell his three wolves. And the pine definitely got an off note.

"É and this is Lillian," she pointed to her drunk brunette friend, who was still playing with her wavy hair, exposing her shaved armpit.

While Colt still couldn't smell anything, he was sure that her scent must have bothered Brian because he got a hint of rotting cherries.

And then his mood lifted. Two top class females, as ready as bitches in heat could be, didn't seem to have the slightest chance to tempt his hunky wolves in way away from him. Wow, his boner became unbearable.

Prime again murmured: "Not fair."

Colt smiled a bit smug as if saying: `Not my fault.' He didn't care for a second the two females were a bit irritated at Colt's arousal as they wrongly attributed it to them. He could only chuckle imagining which annoyance that must create with them, as they wanted to attract big bad wolves not little scrawny humans. He was mean.

Prime took the challenge and whispered into his ear: "I'll show you."

He pulled blond Tracy closer, nearly touching her titties with his strong chest. Her eyes dilated looking at the big red alpha wolf. "So do you have a phone number, Tracy?"

Now she got nervous.

And Colt got nervous.

"Here take my drink, Lillian," she told her friend, while she desperately was looking for her mobile in her reasonably small handbag. She couldn't find it. "Must have left it at home É," she said, close to a panic attack.

Prime growled. She got weak knees. Colt thought he could have mounted her here and now.

"Maybe you do me a favor and write it down on my hand?" he asked with his spine-softening sexy alpha voice, which made Colt nearly lose it.

She was definitely close to a collapse now when she touched the big guy, who had a voice that opened her moist pussy to a big wolf dick without the need for any foreplay. Trembling she wrote down her number. "Call any time, honey."

"Sure, have a nice evening, Tracy. Was nice meeting you," Prime dismissed her and she was close to coming.

She pulled at Lillian, who was still ogling Brian hoping for a similar reaction. "Come, Lillian, let these boys enjoy their boys' night out."

"But É," Lillian protested like a puppy whose bone had been taken away, but had no choice but to stumble after her friend.

Colt, observing a smug Prime, finished his Coke and said in a voice he didn't know he had: "We are leaving."

He just imagined what happened right behind him: all three men wolfed down their drinks, scrambling to catch up with him.

And he nearly regretted his drama queen exit, as people didn't make way for him until he saw a smiling CE passing him to push people aside gently. In bars, CE and Brian changed positions it seemed. Prime was next to him, fending off a drunken football player, who would have nearly pushed Colt to the floor while bragging to his friends about his new tattoo.

When they were outside, he took a deep breath. He heard the noise and the music muffled through the windows.

The guys didn't say anything.

Then Colt suggested: "Let's go somewhere where we can talk the meta thing." A bit of hestitation. "But before that," he got in front of Prime making himself as tall as possible, "you, get rid of this phone number on your hand. I don't care how; but if I see just bit of it in 5 minutes, it is going to me who will rip your balls off and feed them to stray dogs!"

A moment of silence.

If there was a challenge to an alpha, than this was it, Colt thought. His brain told him to apologize; but he wouldn't have that.

Prime swallowed, spit on his hand and frantically started to rub away the ink with his T-shirt. Seemed he wanted to keep his balls.

"Now that is going to be interesting," Brian commented on the way to the car.

"You also want to lose your jewels?" Colt challenged the Beta drunken with adrenalin.

Brian stopped for fraction of a second before continuing to the car, turned around and said: "Sorry, no. I'll shut up now."

And CE just smiled.

They sat on the bed of the truck parked on top of a hill close to the campus. The moon was half full so there was enough natural light in the middle of the night in the clearing.

It was quiet. Few night owls.

They'd gotten some drinks and snacks from the gas station and looked at each other.

Prime poured some water on his hand and rubbed again with his T-shirt as if he had an unbearable itch.

"It's okay now," Colt said. "Won't neuter you today."

"For this you would have to catch me first anyway," Prime challenged back, playfully.

"Let me see."

Colt looked at the Prime's big paw. Except for a faint blue smear nothing was left. He kissed the inside of the hand. Prime whined.

"Okay, Brian. What is the job of a meta?"

As designated driver, Brian stuck to his apple juice. Putting the bottle away he explained: "He ensures the long term survival of the pack; from a military, economic and social perspective. Focus is on long term. No short term alpha stunts."

"And what is his relationship to the pack?"

Brian seemed to feel like in an exam, trying to answer questions. Somehow he felt sitting was inappropriate, so he jumped off the car, taking a military `at ease' position.

"He stands outside or above the regular hierarchy of the pack. He has rights in his Inner Circle; for the wider pack, the alpha rules."

"And what are his rights and duties in the Inner Circle?"

Brian hesitated.

Prime said amicably: "Go on."

"Are we talking about a regular or a `gay' pack?"

Colt asked: "What are you?"

"Not regular."

"Then the answer is obvious."

"Yes, Sir. I've only found one instance in the history of a gayish pack with a meta."

"Okay."

"The meta led the pack with those long term perspectives in mind. His inner circle did not have offspring, of course. But they also didn't mate and É," he hesitated and didn't start again, desperately looking for words.

Colt joked: "Are we going to wait until sunrise?"

"É they didn't mate and their energy was completely focused on protecting the meta and the alpha and executing their orders."

"`Completely'?"

"Alpha, please!" Brian begged.

"Celibacy and chastity. They are pure."

"Pure? Is that some kind of monk approach?"

"Pretty much," Brian continued, "in regular packs not being allowed offspring is enough of submission to the alpha or meta; in gay pack it's sexual release."

It was quiet.

After thinking it through, Colt said quite determined: "I can't do that to you guys."

CE chipped in for the first time. "You already have."

"Sorry?"

Brian continued. "What the chief enforcer means is that we've known all our lives that we're different and none of us ever had É" He stopped again.

"É sex?" Colt was speechless. And Prime definitely had. With him.

"Kind of. None of us has made himself ejaculate during sex, has penetrated or been penetrated." Brian's voice was really small now, like a little boy who tried to explain why he destroyed a vase.

Colt huffed: "Fucking hell." Visions of Prime stopping him reaching for Prime's cock jumped to his mind.

"And you want to do this for your whole life???"

"I É we have no choice." This was the first time Prime chipped in. "Fate has decided it for us; our genetics, our wolves, don't give us the freedom to choose; the Shaman has confirmed it."

Now Colt had to get off the bed of truck. He looked at the three. Brian standing, Prime and CE still sitting on the car. "So sex but no release? Isn't that torture? How do you expect me to do that? That is kinky. Inhuman. Simply twisted."

Brian: "You're right. You can bet we've tried. You saw I have no shortage of women É or men É approaching me. I tried to fuck a woman once É"

Prime growled, but Colt's hand told him to cut it.

"Kissing went well. But I couldn't get it up. I was 17. Full of teenager hormones, but I couldn't get it up. Even went to a doctor who said everything is fine, I should just wait for the right mate."

"Poor thing," Colt said with sympathy.

"I ate her out so she wouldn't tell anyone."

"Gross," CE stated spitting on the ground.

"Prime?"

"Same here. Every time I tried to fuck, nothing. Every time I want to wank, visions of hell and neutering hit me. Can't do it. I thought I was crazy."

"CE?"

"No clue what these guys are talking about. Never was into sex. That thing is just a distraction and liability in a fight."

"Spoken like a true enforcer", Brian commented softly.

"Colt. We're much more determined by our genes and instincts than humans. Maybe our strongest instinct is to establish a hierarchy when forming a pack. And submission to the higher rank is simply part of that. It's like with animals. They don't change their instincts over millennia."

"And I thought I'm on a fucked up trip." Colt shouted. "This is a mega giga super double fucked up trip!" He shouted even louder. There even was a bit of an echo.

But they didn't contradict him.

"Okay, let's assume this is true and not the product of my really sick loony bin brain, which also wanted to rape Channing in his Roman legionnaire outfit. How do I become your Meta?"

Brain started again. "Supposedly there're four steps, but I only know about three É"

"Great É Shaman again?"

"She said we would have find the forth ourselves, like the meta himself."

"Oh great, I'm a guinea pig then? A guinea pig with three wolves. Why do I feel I'm screwed?"

"Well, if that works, I'm pretty sure it's the wolves who'll be screwed," Prime added surprisingly light heartedly.

CE giggled like a girl, Brian joined in; and even Colt loosened up, saying "And I go off on you on about not getting it up my ass."

"Yep, I remember. Sometimes even a meta gets it wrong."

Silence.

"What are the three steps you know?"

"First is that the meta marks his inner circle in their human form É"

"Like?"

"A tattoo."

"A bit clichŽ, but go on."

"Second, he bonds with them in their wolf form, citing his commitment to the pack,"

"Which bond?"

"I think I have an idea. Can you show you next time."

"Third, he ensures the inner circle will comply to serve only him."

"And how does he do that?"

"The Shaman said the right meta will have the power to control the sexual energy of a bonded wolf."

"And if I don't?"

"I've thought of a `temporary' solution."

"You've already prepared for his?" Colt was a bit outraged.

"On my orders." Prime protected his Beta.

Colt tried to digest what he'd just been told. It was too weird. Nowhere had he read or heard about what Brian had just told him. It was unsettling like many other `preferences' he had seen on certain dating website. Seems piss was vanilla nowadays. He sighed, he had to think before his brain revolted giving him a hard time about being on a drug trip again. "Please get me home. This has become overwhelming," Colt asked trying to keep his cool, although everyone knew that it was boiling in him and he could explode any second.

Brian and CE had left.

Prime stood like a chastised poodle in Colt's room. "I'm sorry. This must be all very disturbing."

"Disturbing? Fucked up doesn't even cover it! Why does this hierarchy thing have to be so brutal?"

"Don't know, only feel it. Can't go against it. Tried it, believe me. I'm going to be one of the few alphas ever getting it up his ass."

Colt looked at the hunk. He didn't make a joke about this; he was dead serious.

"You saw the girls today. I could have fucked this bitch right in the bar and she would have happily thrown away her whatever career to give me a litter of pups with the future alpha among them. – Do you really think with these opportunities, I'm doing this just to tease you?"

"No." Colt sat on this bed and looked how Prime sat down on the floor in front of him. Close enough that he could feel the heat of his body, but not actually touching. "This must have been difficult for you in all these years."

"Sure. Gay was not enough. I had to become this alpha freak."

"So you never have É" Colt could not finish this sentence.

"Never been fucked if you ask that. That one's easy, few want to fuck an alpha."

Colt smiled wickedly.

"You're mean, Colt Parker!" Prime complained.

"Sorry, but I've always been into bigger guys. My genetics, I guess."

Silence.

"And you've never come? I can't believe that, you're a healthy male in his prime."

"Never fucked or wanked. Sometimes when I sleep, with certain dreams, it happens, but it is weird, not really coming."

"But you É"

"É sucked you off? Was horny as hell, you can believe me that. You should smell yourself when you're aroused or coming. It is like a heroin trip for me. I think I'm addicted. Can't do anything against it. Takes all my control, not to force myself on you like today in the movies. THAT is torture, young man!"

Silence.

"And you're doing it again," Prime moved a bit away, hurt.

"Sorry, but when a hunk tells me he likes my dick, you cannot expect any other reaction."

Prime nodded; it made sense. The little piece in the big piece of shit, which made sense. The rest: Cluster Fuck. "Maybe I better go now. This was a tough evening for you." The man got up in a graceful move.

Colt wanted to reach out to him, but hesitated. "You know what the worst part of today was?" He asked.

"BDSM-like chastity stories?" Prime tried to joke; not really successfully.

"No. When you flirted É

"É pretended to flirt É," the marine corrected quickly.

"Looked pretty convincing to me. When you pretended to flirt with that blond bimbo and she wrote her number on your hand as if I didn't even exist É"

"Sorry, but I thought you needed to see this."

"Might be, but I was so furious. It showed me how easily I could lose you and become this ugly pitiful fag again É"

Prime sent a wave of strawberry and pine scents. "Not ugly, not pitiful, not a fag. And if you lose me it is not going to be easy for any of us." The voice. No discussion.

"Thanks, Alpha."

Prime growled friendly. "Good night, handsome." He opened the door, but hesitated. "You know what the best part of tonight was for me?"

Colt shrugged. "That we sat under the moon together nearly like a pack?"

Prime tilted his head for a second. "Nearly. – No, the best part was when you threatened to feed my balls to stray dogs if I didn't get rid of that bitch's phone number."

Colt had a disbelieving look.

"That was your Meta voice. Putting a guy, who could kill you in five seconds, in line like this, means something. It means you have guts. And it means you are invested. It felt good! And I was scared you'd just walk away right there and then if I didn't obey. Think about that." And he closed the door.

"Only in the fucked up world of gay wolf shifter hierarchies," Colt mumbled.

"What?" A new voice. Terrence.

"Nothing. How was the movie?" Colt asked his roommate, who'd gone to some chick flick to get laid.

"Man, if you go with a girl to a movie and you remember the movie, you're either gay or old! And I'm neither."

---

"What the fuck was this?" The old man rearranged his pants; seemed they shrank.

"Sorry, Sir. He went rogue. Given his illness." The equally well-fed police chief dropped his head.

"Rogue?"

"He saw the price which was on his head and decided it was time for early retirement, at least for the years he still had."

"And now he's in the morgue. And we need another cover up story. Fucking hell. Has everyone gone crazy?"

There was obviously no response.

"Okay, police chief. Let me make this clear: Nobody touches this boy until I say so. And nobody touches the exiled wolves. Have I made myself understood?"

The chief wanted to be swallowed by the ground. His tight collar and fat neck didn't really allow for the appropriate move in this situation but he tried anyway and got an annoyed snarl as response. "Got out of my sight!"

The chief tried to keep his composure but the sweat on his forehead was giving it away while he left the office.

"That sucked", the third man who stood aside not trying to get in the way, said.

"For him", the anger was gone.

"?"

"We can use this to our advantage."

"How?"

"Now some people will want the boy even more."

"Ah. And the chief?"

"Useless. Time to tell Stiller É"

CHAPTER 7

"Does Prime know you're meeting me?" Colt asked Brian in a slightly hostile tone.

"No."

"You know he'll rip you into pieces."

"Maybe. Sure it's going to piss him of royally. And if he's in a bad mood he will beat my wolf ass until I can't walk." Brian wasn't joking.

"Well, let's hope, he won't be in a really bad mood when he hears about this."

"You don't want to know what would happen then," Brian shivered noticeably. And Colt didn't ask.

"So why are you here?"

"It's my shift."

"Okay. Thanks. But normally I don't see you guys, when you're `protecting' me." The `protecting' had left his mouth in an unintendedly cynical way. Seemed Colt was in a bad mood today, despite feeling good about the exam he just wrote in Financial Analysis. "I would assume because big badass alpha wolf wants it like that."

"We know you're smart," Brian dared to smile a bit.

"So why are you picking me up this evening?"

"Need to talk."

"Need?"

"Would like to, if that's okay with you," Brian corrected a bit shyly.

A little Chinese girl, who has so far not said one word in class, accidently ran in Brian and dropped her books.

"I'm sorry," Brian apologized although he hadn't done anything wrong. Colt noticed, though, that his wheat scent changed slightly.

"No problem. My fault," the girl answered in a giggly way. And indeed Colt had never heard this voice before, despite having been with her in the same class for months.

Brian bent down to help her pick up the stuff she'd dropped during the `collision.' Once she had an orderly stack in her hands, she smiled at the blond boy and said: "I am Qing."

"Brian," he answered politely, which could have nearly been understood as interested.

"Well, I'll see you around, Brian," Qing whispered and ran away in the childish girly way Japanese women hurried. Colt remembered though she was Taiwanese. He was sexist and culturally insensitive. Whatever.

"How many times a day?" Colt asked in a mixture of amusement and disdain.

"Three times É on a low day", Brian chuckled a bit.

"Must be tough to be sexy," Colt spat out sarcastically.

Brian looked at him warmly. "You should know."

"No, I don't," Colt insisted.

"Sorry you feel that way."

"So what do you want to talk about, you Prince Charming of all college girls?"

The Blonde hesitated. "Can we go and have a coffee or something?"

Colt couldn't resist conceding that if such a cute guy had invited him months ago for coffee he'd have been the happiest nerd on Earth after lots of rejections and a shrink. Today, he wasn't so sure about it. Well, he was sure he wasn't the happiest nerd on Earth. Several assassination attempts and the weirdest wolf shifter hierarchy initiation rituals had made sure of that.

"Sure. But not too long. Need to study."

"You've been studying a lot recently," Brian commented.

"Yes. It keeps me sane."

"But not us," Brian answered quickly.

"Not my intent. But I'm digesting a lot of things, which happened over the past weeks. And my brain still refuses to accept certain aspects of that."

"Like wolf shifters?"

They walked outside to `100+,' a nice student coffee bar, which insisted on being the only establishment serving coffee and teas from 100 countries. Though most of the teas were actually fruit and herbal infusions and those didn't qualify as tea in Colt's mind.

"You know somehow I can cope with that. Not sure how, as it's clearly fucked up. But there must be a reason why the werewolf myth is so strong amongst humans. It developed in several cultures independently. So I assume that happened because there are werewolves around the Earth."

"That is quite an argument."

"Not that I would make it in public, unless I want a permanent home in a locked up institution." For some reason he felt a familiar chill running down his back.

"So what is bothering you most then? – Vampires?"

"Again, many cultures have stories about them. There might be fire behind the smoke É so I can deal even with that." Colt continued: "Or all the books and movies and shows have prepared us for such a scenario."

Brian looked at him quizzically.

"Normally, we assume that things are very different from us are mostly hostile and therefore we fear them. Before Hollywood, wolves and vampires were scary fairy tales. And they had no individual identity, hence, they were just a simple anonymous projections of our own evil side to something that was very different from us, so we could pretend they were not like us."

Brian looked at him with uninterrupted attention. He wanted to say vampires were nothing like humans or wolves, but it was better for his purpose to continue to listen.

"But with all the pop culture around these themes, people got exposed to – fictional – individuals. Vampires and wolves with names. I guess Twilight was the peak of that. Even if the display of wolves and vampires might be wrong, we've learnt they could potentially be individuals, with their own unique identities. And that shift takes the archaic fear away and allows me to deal with the situation."

"Either you are a crazy psychologist or really smart," Brian commented.

They stopped to get their coffee and tea and muffins.

"You choose."

"So what is bothering you most? That somebody wants to kill you?"

Colt poured too much sugar into his tea. "I don't think so. I should. But I still don't fully believe it. Maybe it was just a series of accidents. I mean, they go for female virgins. And I'm clearly not female, and not a virgin."

"Accident? The wolf?"

"Maybe he mistook me for someone else. Maybe he just was crazy. You saw his eyes, he looked ill. Maybe he wanted to go for Prime and I was just the bait."

"And the first vampire?"

"Same thing."

"I think you're kidding yourself."

"Might be. But it is a more likely scenario that these were an unfortunate sequence of accidents than to assume little Mr. Parker, who has not special abilities or resources or knowledge, is so important both half-human living forms repeatedly try to kill him within days – ‡ la Bourne Identity? I know it could really boost my ego to think that somehow I'm so important. But from a logical perspective, I need to choose between two high improbabilities. And I choose the more probable improbability."

"And what does your heart say?"

Colt's eyes turned cold. Cold grey like fall clouds before heavy cold November rain. "Don't go all mushy on me. My heart hasn't been really helpful in the first 21 years of my life."

Brian whined.

Colt wanted to chastise him about it, but didn't.

"So accidents. No intent to kill. So you should be safe now," Brian stated in a slightly provocative form.

"I should. Are you guys intending to stop watching me?"

"Don't know. That's my Alpha's call."

They both had a sip from their drink. The silence was not uncomfortable. But Colt knew Brian wouldn't give up. Colt had buried himself in work over the past weeks. He didn't invite the guys for anything, lunch, dinner, drink or movies. And whenever Prime had made a suggestion he'd found a reason to delay it. Over the past two weeks, they'd gotten the message and didn't try to get him to do something with them anymore.

He could still smell them; one of them was normally close. But even the howls in front of his windows had become less frequent, as if to tell him: `No pressure from us.'

Sometimes it hurt. Sometimes he wanted to feel the warmth of Prime. See Brian's cute dimples when he smiled. And hear the staccato answers provided by CE. But he pushed that away, knowing he wasn't ready to give the guys what they wanted.

"So what is it then?" Brian didn't give up. In the end that's why he was sitting here with him against explicit orders by this Alpha.

"This meta shit is really freaking me out."

"Is it?"

"How should it not? Tattoo, markings, submission, chastity? – I mean that's like the whole BDSM shebang. Add some whips and nipple clamps and we can join Recon."

"'Recon?'"

"Forget it." Colt got a bit agitated.

"I know I'm going to be in trouble with Prime when I say this; but I'm already in trouble anyway. And one day you will also have my ass on this, but I think that's bullshit."

Colt opened his eyes wide.

"Bullshit?"

"Come on. You like fucking big guys."

Colt looked right and left. Nobody seemed to have heard what Brian had said.

"That's not the same."

"Sure and you do like soldiers."

"I thought they were marines?" Colt stated flippantly.

"Makes it even more hot for you, doesn't it?"

Shit, Brian knew him too well already.

"And I'm pretty sure you aren't even freaked out by three guys. Don't tell me you're one of those one-soul-mate-for-exclusive-sex-for-the-rest-of-your-life types É"

Colt didn't answer. Brian was right again, but he wouldn't give in so quickly. "How would you know?"

"Colt, I might look like a dumb blond pretty boy, but I am a Beta wolf."

"Hu?"

"Don't you think we smell when you're attracted to someone?"

He blushed a bit.

"We smell when you have the hots for Prime. We smell when you get a boner when you look at my ass. And for some strange reason you even get it up when CE is around you."

Colt knew this point went to the wolf. "Yep, I find all three of you sexy." And it seemed any cheating would be impossible in the future.

"And how many men do you think could do that? Get hot for three guys at the same time. Really hot, I mean."

He shrugged. How should he know?

"So I think you aren't freaked out by the poly thing, either."

"Seems I'm being analyzed here."

"Yes." Brian had finished his muffin and was picking up crumbs with a wet finger, licking it. When he noticed a girl from across the room was watching him, he made an extra effort to suck on his finger more seductively.

"You're enjoying that?"

"What?"

"Teasing women who want to get into your pants."

"A bit."

"Why's that?"

Brian responded instinctively: "It's my É" Then he stopped. "No, Colt, don't change the topic."

"Was worth a try."

"So let's summarize: it's not wolves and vampires; not repeated attempts of killing; not the absence of a fairy tale like one on one love story with Prince Charming, living happily ever after."

"Your summary."

"Yep. And I know, if you want you're skilled enough to shred it to pieces and stuff it up any body opening I have."

"Is that an invitation?"

"You know if you touch me like that right know, I have no choice but to beat you up; otherwise Prime is going to have my balls."

"I find it fascinating that the biggest non-physical domination approach is the threat of neutering", Colt stated in a forced dry smile.

"Trying it again?"

"What?"

"Changing topic. This conversation is about you. Not Prime. Not me. Not expressions of submission in a gay wolf pack. You can write a book about the latter if you want. I'm sure it doesn't exist yet. But we shall not talk about it now."

"Bossy."

"For such a smart guy, for a guy I'd give my life for, I would have to give my life for, you can be quite childish."

Colt smiled. "I think I haven't been called that since I was 13."

"So what is bothering you so much you shun us like rabid dogs?"

"Told you. Freaks me out. Doesn't make sense."

"And we deconstructed that. Not true."

"How would you know?" Colt got up. "I think this conversation is over."

Brian mirrored his quick steps outside and simply said. "It is not. And you cannot run away from it. You know that. I'm faster."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Nope. Just stating facts. Have you thought that your running away right now is actually a physical manifestation of your running away from your emotions?"

"'Physical manifestation?' Where did you learn those big words, big wolf?"

"Don't patronize me. You don't have that right É yet."

Colt was walking fast. But that was stupid. He knew Brian would barely break a sweat keeping up with him while Colt would be exhausted at the end. Brain to Colt: `Walk slower, keep your dignity.'

"So what are you running away from?"

"Not giving up, he?"

Brian lifted his hands, nearly apologetically. "I was born into a wolf family in Utah, man. I was kicked out when I was 17. I was a stray wolf for a year. Nearly died of hunger several times before I was picked up by Prime. I had no time for giving up."

"You're not the only one with a fucked up past."

"I assumed so."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'll tell you, although I think you're just trying to change the topic É again."

"Please entertain me," Colt was nearly shocked by his own sarcasm.

"In all the times we met you've never mentioned your parents. You never told us that you talked with them. They obviously never called you despite the news about the deaths at the party. But you also never said they were dead. So what does that tell us?"

"That I had É have É shit parents?"

"Yep. And what does that tell us?"

"Noooo! Don't come all Freudian on me now."

"Never would have thought about that, but interesting you bring that one up." In a weird way Brian seemed to enjoy himself a bit. "So you like to fuck big guys. Is that an unresolved father issue?"

"Fuck you!"

"Maybe one day." Brian didn't take the bait. "And you're rejecting a pack. Is that because you don't want to be vulnerable as you were with your family?"

"Hu?"

"Colt, I know you have thought about that."

Silence.

"Okay. If you want to play that way. Here's my thought: You think nobody ever cared for you. Nobody loved you. Nobody had your back. You always had to fend for yourself. Against the bullies at school. Against your abusive parents. Against all these rich and handsome college boys who have no interest in you whatsoever."

Colt tried to keep his straight face.

"I'm a wolf, Colt. I don't look at your face to gauge your emotions, I smell them É"

"É go on!"

"Taking the bulls by the horn? Interesting change of strategy. Am I getting too close?"

Colt tried to stay calm. "I said: `Go on!' Don't wanna miss an inch of that psycho bullshit."

Brian shrugged. "So you built this wall around you with lots of bricks. Bricks of smartness. Bricks of screwing with people's mind. Bricks of sarcasm. Bricks of telling how much you don't care and showing everyone that everyone is basically an asshole."

"'Another brick in the wall.' Pink Floyd? Really?"

"Really. Interesting association again though. Didn't the main character also have a difficult relationship with his father?"

"No. He'd died in the war."

Brian smiled.

Colt never bought that father fixation theory when it came to gay men. "That's the thing with pseudo psychology: You can twist every fact to confirm your argument. No father: screwed and looking for a partner as father figure. Nice father: not screwed but looking for a partner to continue nice father relation into adulthood. Bad father: screwed but looking for partner to get a nice father but abusing him to punish him in place of his father."

"You can," said Brian. "But interesting again that you expressed those scenarios that way É"

"You're not giving up?"

"I'll give up, whenever you want to. But we won't give up on you."

"No pressure, he?"

"Never said that. But you're in control."

"Am I?"

"Well, if you don't consider three guys hopelessly hooked to you as an element of control É"

"I didn't ask for that."

"Nor did we. So don't give me the `I got the shorter end of the stick'-shit!"

They'd reached his dorm.

"Have you ever thought this is just a major mistake? The Shaman was just playing with you guys? And all of you would just need a shrink? Or a doctor? Or a sexy wolf female with a hint of dominatrix?" Colt teased.

"We've been looking for you for nearly two years. Covered nearly every state in the US and Canada. We even thought of flying to Europe. Central and Eastern Europe, where we North American wolf shifters come from. – And you don't think we've ever questioned ourselves?"

"Have you?" Colt challenged. He felt a bit cornered.

"Asshole!"

"Seems we have reached an impasse."

"No, we haven't," Brian was stubborn. "You still haven't told me what's holding you back."

"Well, you seem to have put me on your wolf shrink couch, you tell me." Colt could be stubborn as well.

A heavy wheat scent hit him; maybe not even wheat but barley.

"Please don't do this to me."

"Brian. I do understand this is difficult for you. But it is difficult for me as well. And it seems you want me to say something very specific. Not playing that mind game. Tell me or leave me alone. I have home work."

"Home work. Of course."

"I guess that was it. Good night, Brian. Thanks for the tea."

Brian became unnerved. "I think you're afraid to love. To have something which is really important to you. Because of fear you could lose it again."

Colt swallowed. Heavy cherries.

"So?"

"Colt, we love you. We love you more than any human could love you. We could never leave you."

Colt didn't say anything. He opened the door.

And then it hit Brian like a huge pan on his head. "Shit, it isn't that. You know that already."

Cold lip-synched "Good night!"

"You're afraid one day you might not love us anymore because you don't know how it is to love É"

Brian's smell became too overbearing, he wanted to reach out to him, but Colt forced himself to close the door walking to his room.

"Oh, Colt, please É"

---

"So how did it go?"

"Not sure. I think he's really scared."

"Of us?" Prime drank beer. Brian counted 10 cans on the floor. It would take quite some more to get a big wolf like Prime drunk, but it was out of character for Prime to deal with problems by drinking alcohol.

"No. Of himself, I think."

"Of himself?" Prime crushed the empty beer can into a little ball and threw it into the trashcan with a self-confidence rooted in scary power and accuracy.

"I think he doubts that he can love. That he can love for long."

"But doesn't he feel? The smell. I know he can smell us."

"But that's it, Prime. The smell goes to his dick."

"So?"

"Fuck, Alpha. He's afraid that at the end he only wants sex from us. And that one day that attraction would be gone."

"Stupid asshole! We are going to keep him horny until his death bed."

"Not sure that would convince him."

"Now you are a wiseass as well?" Prime challenged.

Brian took a step back, not trying to irritate the Alpha. "No disrespect intended."

"None taken; it's just É"

Brian nodded understandingly. "He doesn't know how strongly you feel, we feel. He's not wolf. He can control his emotions in a way which we'll never understand."

Prime opened the next beer can and took a big gulp.

"And did you outsmart him?"

"Me outsmarting a meta?" Brian chuckled. "I think I gave him a good run for the buck. I think he knows we can always have a deep discussion É"

"É you mean in contrast to a simple Alpha and a dumb CE?" Prime laughed.

"Would never say that, boss."

"I know. But I know also that you know I'm right."

"I guess you would find any reason to beat me up, he?"

"Maybe today, yes."

"Okay. If that's what my Alpha needs É"

"Oh shut the fuck up; I'm not going to use you as a punching bag because this little piece of wannabe meta princess is playing tough to get." Empty can. Squeezed into an amazingly evenly round ball. Thrown into the trashcan. 12 done.

"Thanks. É anyway; I did what I could. Not sure he'll listen to what I said. He is too much hurt inside. But the fact that I did have such a discussion at all, might open his mind É"

"É hopefully his heart as well," Prime added.

"You see. That's why you're an Alpha and I'm not."

Growl.

"So what do we do now?"

Brian shrugged. If Prime didn't know who would?

"Tell CE I'll take over as of midnight."

"Okay. So we're staying?"

"Not sure. But need to get out to think. The two of you can go for a run to deal with all of those hormones in your system."

Brian nodded. "Thanks, I'm fidgety, I guess."

"Not only you. CE doesn't show it, but I think he needs a good fight soon otherwise he'll go insane. So maybe we should leave."

"You mean from here? For good? – What about somebody trying kill him?"

Prime shrugged. "You can bring a horse to the water É" He didn't finish the sentence. He hoped he'd never have to.

---

"What was that?"

"Rogue wolf. Not official pack business."

"Don't believe that. Seems they changed the deal. They wanted the money for themselves," she stated while moving the golden liquid in the glass.

"Might be. But then they wouldn't have sent one of their fattest policemen wolves. Was a rogue, pretty sure of that."

"You mean like your guy?" She loved to remind him of his screw up.

"Yep. Like my guy." He said. He had enough of her. And today would be that day.

"Unfortunately, that little incident screwed up our plan B."

"This little bastard seems to screw up all our plans," he challenged her, "and we still have the stink around. It has to stop, Bianca."

"Working on it. Working on it." She said. She felt something she couldn't get her finger on. Something was off.

"Good. If they continue the whole orifice will become difficult to uphold."

She gulped down the whiskey. It burned nicely in her. It was a short-lived experience, because her body didn't really fully absorb alcohol. "Don't you think I don't know that? That's why I came here the first place," she lied.

"Then do what you're supposed to do. Our friend is running out of patience."

"Don't pressure me."

"No pressure intended, just telling you the status." He lied, she knew it.

"And how are the wolves?"

"Still stinky and hairy. Nothing new. Still on watch cycle."

"Mmmh. Given the rogue has screwed up our send-the-good-turned-bad-wolf-plan, we have to go back to basics."

"Yep."

He held something back. He wouldn't tell her there was rain in the wolf paradise and that soon the boy would be unprotected and ready for picking. Very soon.

---

The last time he'd cried was years ago and he wouldn't start today. He'd learnt tears didn't fix anything. Only steely resolve to go about life as if nothing had happened worked for him.

He couldn't concentrate on work. Instead he watched Big Bang episodes on his laptop. Even those he'd already watched several times. Today he wanted to be Sheldon. Not Penny.

Brian had been such an asshole today. Trying to twist every word to get him to a place. Fucking with his brain. `Don't kid a kidder,' he said to himself.

No way Prime didn't know about Brian talking with him. Brian would never do something like this behind his Alpha's back. Colt knew that much.

Nevertheless not everything Brian had said was just to twist his brain. This innocent looking boy was smart. And Colt liked him. Yes, the wheat scent was still making him hard like crazy so he wanted to fuck that small perky ass of his; but he also liked him for more than his looks.

Of course Prime knew that. That's why he sent him. Brian could screw him with his heart, brain and his body.

"Oh fuck them!" he said. "Need a shower."

His sleep was restless. He had strange dreams of his parents and his 13th birthday. Hadn't had them for months; but Brian's all Freudian couch talk seemed to have raised something from his memories, which needed to be dealt with.

It was 0100. In the very distance he heard a howl and he picked up that pine smell which got him into trouble in the first place. Prime.

He put the pillow over his head and tried to fall asleep.

Restless.

Half sleep.

Steps.

He jerked up.

Somebody was in front of the door.

A shuffling sound.

Something was pushed under the door.

He didn't dare to get up and look for it. And he definitely didn't dare to open the door.

He listened. No more steps. Whoever it was, was gone.

But then he really listened. No howls.

And he turned his nose.

He started to sweat.

Prime wasn't out there anymore; neither was Brian or CE.

He got up and grabbed the letter. He opened it.

He cried silently so Terrence wouldn't hear him.

They were gone.