Free All Hallow's Howl by Cait Forester

willingly, easily, stretching out pliantly beneath him. Jamie loves him slow and steady, like a piece of classical music oozing sensuality and working itself higher and higher until it reaches a crescendo.
    They lay there in the dark afterward, Dylan stretched and sated on Jamie’s knot, and he shuffles back carefully into his lover’s body.
    “Do you want a shower when we get up? I can wash you,” Jamie offers.
    But Dylan shakes his head. “No. I’d rather keep your scent on me.”
    Downstairs, someone starts up some music. It’s too soon for them to separate, so they lay there on the bed, the only light coming from the moonlight at the window and the sliver of orange glow at the crack underneath the door.
    A few songs in and they get up. Dylan feels wet and sticky and open, and he cleans up with a wet rag before he slips back into his clothes. He almost runs into Jamie when his mate begins to duck into the bathroom, but he sidesteps him and turns on the lamp.
    Something niggles at the back of his mind.
    The music switches over to a tango, and his lips quirk up in a brief smile as he hears the groans from half of his friends. Ivan and Rusty like to show off, and sure enough, when they slip back down the steps, the alpha and his beta are moving together in a beautiful synchronicity that Dylan hates to admit he envies. They look classy, even in their jeans and Henleys, and when Eric catches his eye the other alpha heaves a put upon sigh. Hannah was probably after him to get couple’s lessons again.
    It starts to bother him, whatever he’s missing. Jamie leads him out of the way of the dancers and hands him a cup of water with a wink - “you should probably replenish some liquids, mate” - but in the back of his mind it’s like there is some puzzle and he’s missing the key piece he needs in order to see the larger picture.
    He’s spent so much time chasing mysteries lately, maybe he’s hardwired himself for it.
    In the middle of the room, Rusty does some sort of fancy sidestep and Dylan thinks absently to himself, I sidestepped the rules .
    And that’s it.
    He did sort of skirt the rules, didn’t he? As much as he could, anyway. So what was to stop them from doing it again? It’s not like he’s trying to hurt anybody. He’s trying to help people. Okay, so one of the people was himself, but didn’t he count for something? And Jamie wants to stay - Dylan knows it. It will hurt them both for Jamie to leave.
    But it’s not up to Jamie. Every time they’ve slid around the subject in the past couple of days, it’s been clear that even though Jamie was able to choose to come back, he wasn’t in control of much else. And when Dylan performed the ritual, it wasn’t Jamie’s voice he’d heard in his head.
    “Are you alright?”
    Dylan smiles up at Jamie and downs the last of the water. “I’m fine,” he assures him. “Just need to pee.”
    It’s not even a lie for a blip in his heartbeat to give him away; his bladder is full enough for him to go and relieve some pressure, so he walks to the half bath off the kitchen slowly, thinking. Is it possible to seek the voice out?
    He pees absentmindedly, shaking off his dick on autopilot before heading back out to the others. Except he doesn’t really go there. His eye stops on a lone apple near the sink that he’d forgotten to chop up for the fruit salad and didn’t feel like adding back in, and then he remembers that when he’d bought the things he needed for the ritual, he’d dropped a pomegranate in the back of his car.
    He could maybe probably do the ritual again. If he wanted. He’d sort of forgotten the mortar and pestle in the woods, but he had one of those nice wooden bowls and serving utensils, the kind they were supposed to use for company but never did. That could probably stand in for the missing items.
    Of course, there isn’t any guarantee that it will work . 
    But what’s life without a little risk, yeah?
    As quietly as he can, he sets