Hello, darlings! Today’s teaser comes straight from Much Humping Upon the Moors, er, Victorian England, and is part of my short story “Bully Boys.” In it, mild-mannered solicitor Arthur Finter takes an ill-advised short cut through an alley and comes face to snout with a gorgeous Alpha shifter who announces that Arthur is his mate, much to the solicitor’s shock. What happens then? You’ll just have to buy the anthology when it comes out from Evernight!

Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!

When Arthur awoke, he was tucked up in bed. The awful scene in the alley drifted through his memory, dim now from sleep. It was just a nightmare. Oh, thank goodness.

He tried to turn over, only to be stopped as his arms jerked unexpectedly against restraints.

His eyes flew open. He was in a small bedroom lit only by a coal fire in a blackened grate. A row of hooks on the far wall held coats and a collection of what Arthur assumed were shirts, and an armoire hulked in the corner. A plain wooden table stood next to the bed, bare of anything except a candlestick with an unlit candle.

Looking up, he saw a length of hemp rope had been tied around his right wrist and woven with very little slack through tarnished brass that was not his own plain white enameled headboard. The other end of the rope had been attached to his left wrist, effectively pinning his arms wide.

He flexed his feet and found that his legs were bound as well, with the same amount of slack given to his arms. To make matters worse, someone had removed his clothes before tying him to the bed and covering him with a thin blanket.

“Help!” he shouted. “Please, I need help!”

The door opened, and the handsome werebeast from the alley sauntered in, carrying a wash bowl and water jug. He’d taken the time to rinse the blood from his face and slick his hair back, and an old, threadbare towel hung casually over one shoulder. “Someone’s up, I see,” he said in a strong Northern accent.

Arthur felt his belly quiver, but gave the man his best glower. “Untie me immediately, sir!”

“Can’t do that. At least, not just yet.” The man approached the bed, giving him an appreciative look. Arthur belatedly remembered his state, and was grateful for the cheap blanket that protected his modesty. “I suppose you want to know why you’re here.”

“Indeed I do,” Arthur declared, hoping he sounded braver than he felt. “I am a solicitor, sir, and if you do not untie me this moment you will find yourself in grave trouble with the law.”

The man shrugged. “Won’t be the first time. Doubt it’ll be the last.” He moved to the side of the bed where the table stood and deposited the jug and bowl on it, then sat down on the mattress. That blue gaze trailed over him dispassionately, but there was as flicker of something else as well, something that tugged at Arthur’s senses and caused his breath to come faster.

The man reached out and grabbed the edge of the blanket, dragging it down to just below Arthur’s waist. The solicitor flinched as the cool air of the room hit his skin, causing his nipples to pebble up in a most embarrassing way.

“You’re trim. I like that in a bloke,” the man said conversationally. “Don’t spend all of your time on your arse, do you?”

Arthur gaped at the impropriety. “I — how — that’s none of your business!”

“Oh, but it is my business.” His captor sounded oddly amused about that. “Everything about you, Mr. Arthur Finter, is my business. Now that we’re to be mates and all.”

The bizarre comment would have made Arthur laugh in other circumstances. “If you mean we’re to be friends, sir, I can assure you that I feel no such friendship with anyone who ties me to a bed and terrorizes me in such a manner.”

The man tilted his head to one side, and Arthur was forcibly reminded of his other shape. “You’re tied to my bed to make sure you don’t run away,” his captor said. “I know you saw what happened in the alley, and I’ll explain it in good time. As for terrorizing you, it wasn’t what I had in mind for us tonight.”

He reached out and touched one of the tawny nubs on Arthur’s chest, tracing a tiny circle on it. The caress caused an indecent zing of pleasure to arrow down to the solicitor’s groin.

“Thought so,” the man said in satisfaction. “You yearn for the touch of a man, Mr. Finter. I’ll be that man for you tonight and ever after. We’re mates, you and me.”

“M—” The other, more marital meaning of the word burst in on him, the calumny he’d hoped never to hear addressed to himself. “Are you implying that I’m a, a filthy sodomite?”

“Implying?” His captor laughed shortly. “I’m saying it full out. You’re as queer as I am.”

“That is a foul lie!”

“The bond don’t make mistakes,” the man said, caressing Arthur’s nipple again and causing more of those horribly delicious sensations. “It chose you because you wanted a man in your bed, between your thighs, doing unholy things to you.” He smiled, then, straight white teeth unlike anything Arthur had ever seen before among the London poor, or its upper classes for that matter. “So I’ll tup you tonight, and put my mark on you. I’ll give you the pleasure you’ve craved for so long. Then you’ll understand.”

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to view this Linky Tools list…