Free Dire Desires: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan by Stephanie Tyler

coated and he and Cyd both looked like primitive gladiators. There was enough gore on the field for a horror movie.
    Now, Cain held two spikes steady and Liam and Cyd mounted their enemies’ heads, prepared to wrap and drag the pieces of the bodies behind them on tarps to the meeting with the outlaws that Liam had called before this fight.
    “This is what we’ll do to any and all who betray our kind,” Liam growled at Pat now. “Pass it along. It’s the only reason I’m letting you live.”
    The Were who’d witnessed the brutal battle scampered off and Liam had no doubt the tales he’d tell. Liam’s legend was just beginning. The bodies in the middle of the outlaws’ clubhouse to be discovered soon would tell the rest of the story.
    He fully expected there would be noncompliant wolves—he would do this, killing one by one until he reigned with an iron fist. This wasn’t the time for forgiveness—it was a time for war.
    Liam and his new pack would win it, battle by battle, not caring if he was soaked in the blood of his enemies. This was a message to any other Were who was thinking of rebelling, and it was also a risk, but one Liam needed to take.
    “Fine job, king,” Cain told him. “Fine damned job.”
    •   •   •
    The packs would talk about this forever. Vice knew that as surely as he did his vices.
    His canines elongated with the violence, the smell of shed blood. The scene in front of him had been so fucking brutal that he was both hard as hell and sick to his stomach, his emotions swinging on a violent pendulum of their own.
    It had taken every ounce of self-control he had, which wasn’t much, to not join in the fray. Brother Wolf was mainly responsible for holding him back this time, because his wolf trained with Liam’s.
    There are some things a pup has to do alone,
Brother Wolf said, and besides, Liam wasn’t alone. He had an alpha and his omega and he had to come into his own at some point.
    Doesn’t mean you’re not needed—now, more than ever,
Brother Wolf said and Vice sighed as his wolf saw right through him. As much as Vice had fought the pairing at first, spending time with the wolf pup who would be king was good for him. Spending any amount of time with someone balanced was always a plus, and although those effects were only in the short term, Vice still liked how it felt.
    But his emotional pendulum swung the other way more quickly than he thought and sorrow washed over him as he watched his charge—and Jinx’s—covered with blood, eyes still lupine and fierce, howling with all the frenzied power and lust that came with victory.
    Cyd looked . . . stronger. The kill he’d made had brought out more of his inner alpha. Vice wondered how long he’d stay with Liam’s pack before breaking off into his own. The omega was gaining power too, and it should’ve been the signal of good things to come.
    But Vice was so fucking sad. The loss of a certain kind of innocence that these young Weres would never get back.
    Vice never had it, but to watch the young ones doing what the Dires had trained them for made him so proud and sick at the same time.
    “Hey.” Liam stood in front of him now, uncertain for only a moment before Vice grabbed the back of the young wolf’s neck and pulled him in for a backslapping embrace, a warrior’s congratulations. A charge’s comfort, as Liam buried his head against Vice’s shoulder for a little longer than he should have, as if trying to gain back what he’d just lost.
    There was no going back now. There couldn’t be. And humans would be the better for it.
    Vice pulled Liam’s head back up, looked the young king in the eye and made sure he knew it too.

Chapter 9
    I nstead of going straight to the penthouse, Jezpulled into the parking lot of Mo’s Diner.
    “I thought we decided home was the best option,” Jinx said, wondered when and how he’d begun to think of the place as home in such a short period of time.
    “She’s got to eat,