Long werewolf mlm story... interested? (Patreon)

I have a werewolf story which is currently nearly 15,000 words long and I've got the whole plot in my head already, which is... a nice change for a writer!  It features a human who knows about werewolves in a world which is otherwise oblivious, a local pack of werewoofs and their politics with the other packs nearby, some hunters who have an agenda, and a stoically gruff werewoof with a troubled past... 

Are you interested in me releasing it here in full in chapters like I did with Mikaeil's dragon-shifter story first? (Final part of that is going up tonight, by the way!)

Here's a WIP preview, and if enough of you like it, I'll tidy it up and start posting it in addition to the other stuff I have planned for December! 

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“Harry, I’m not going with you to the Everleigh party,” he said, sitting in the squashy armchair across from him, one knee bobbing incessantly. “No way.”

“Come on, you like them! And Katherine is nice… you like Katherine? She’ll be there… In fact, all the pack will be there, but…” 

Luke rolled his hazel eyes and snorted. “ ‘I like Katherine’?” he parroted, “What, are we twelve? I had a crush on her for, like, a month - tops - during high school. I’m way over her…”

Harry leaned back on the sofa and laughed softly, eyes sparkling. 

“Come on, please don’t be a dick about this. I don’t want to go to some werewolf party as the token human and spend the evening either being treated like an adorable little pet or like the gum that got stuck to someone’s shoe, ok?”

His best friend turned immediately serious and said, “People treat you like that? Wolves, I mean?”

Luke shrugged. “I’ve had a bit of both over the years, yeah.”

“Shit. That’s not cool.”

“Don’t go reporting it to your alpha, will you?” Luke said. “It’s fine. I get it. It’s all healthy teasing, you know? There aren’t all that many humans in Ashridge who know about you guys, and the pack likes to have its fun where they can.”

Harry didn’t look convinced. He ran his hands through his strawberry blond hair, making it stick up all over the place, and his green eyes darkened. Pale, freckled, and skinny as a beanpole, Harry was one of the lower ranking wolves in the Ashridge pack, but that didn’t mean he was immune to those intensely protective werewolf urges. And the lines at the edge of ‘pack’ were blurred for him when it came to Luke. He might be human, but as far as Harry was concerned, Luke was pack. Not all the others saw it like that, but they could smell it on him, and because Luke was… well… Luke, they tolerated it. 

Before Harry had the chance to press the issue any further, Max walked into their apartment - werewolves apparently didn’t believe in locking doors or knocking first - kicked his shoes off, and ground to a halt in the living room, nose raised. The alpha looked from one to the other of the boys lounging in the apartment’s small living room area and murmured, “Everything alright?”

Luke shot Harry a look that clearly said, ‘don’t you dare say a word’, and Harry shrugged. “Yeah. It’s late… What’s up, boss?”

“I’ve told you not to call me that,” Max grouched as he headed for the fridge and helped himself to a beer. “You want one?” he offered as he twisted the cap off. They were the remnants from a party that a few members of the pack had held in the woods a few nights ago, funded by Max himself, so it wasn’t as if he was helping himself to their supplies. 

“Yeah,” Harry replied, but Luke shook his head.

Max towered over both of them as he grinned and handed Harry his beer. “How’s it going?”

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked carefully instead of answering as he shunted his research paper to one side on the coffee table. That he and Luke had both chosen to do their masters at the same university, even if it was in vastly different departments, was no coincidence. If Harry hadn’t been openly ace, and probably aromantic but he wasn’t entirely sure about that, people might have assumed that Luke and he were an item, they were that close. Werewolf senses or not, they read each other like open books. 

Max grinned and put his feet up on the coffee table beside the reams of notes, careful not to bend or disturb any of them. “Can’t an alpha check in on his favourite pack member?”

“You had an argument with Laura, didn’t you?” Harry said immediately.

The alpha slumped and rolled his head back against the sofa cushions behind him, beer bottle hanging softly between his fingers. “Yeah. But it’s cool. We’ll work through it tomorrow, but I couldn’t stand the smell of her in the house. She’s… She’s super pissed with me.”

“What’d you do?” Harry asked, folding his legs up underneath him. 

Luke wasn’t sure if he should leave the room or not, and when he started to get up, Max shot him a look and waved a hand. “You can stay; it’s fine. I didn’t come here to bitch about my marital problems anyway.”

Despite being six years older than him, Max usually oscillated between seeming way older or about the same age, depending on the circumstances. He and Harry had always got on like brothers - Max looking out for him and encouraging him, and Harry lending emotional support where he could. They made a good team. Max hadn’t ever expected to become the alpha of the Ashridge pack, but he hadn’t been changed by the experience, and when Luke thought about the guy who was supposed to be in that role, he felt a hot shiver run down his spine. 

Harry began to distract Max by talking about his thesis, centred on some aspect of chaos theory that Luke didn’t have a hope in hell of ever understanding, though Max, with his PhD in mathematics, clearly had no problem keeping up. The two of them started to tease out the problems in some issue or other that Harry was having, and Luke took that as his cue to leave. 

His best friend glanced up as Luke rinsed out his empty glass before leaving it on the draining board, and flashed him a quizzical frown. 

“I’m gonna go for a run,” Luke said. “Got too much energy and I want to burn some of it off before bed... Have fun…?”

Harry offered him a quirk of his lips that was somewhere between an apology and a thank you, and Luke disappeared into his room to change. Pack always came first, and when his alpha needed him, Harry would always oblige if he could. 

As he pounded along the pavements of Ashridge, the streetlights flaring neon on rain-slick streets, Luke started to lose himself in his pace. His inhaler dug into his chest pocket but he didn’t have anywhere else to store it while he ran, and he sure as hell wasn’t going out without it. Rounding the corner by the general store, he picked up his pace, pushing his muscles harder. He was pretty fit, though that was nothing by werewolf standards, and he’d managed to keep in shape since school and throughout university, and he was quietly proud of that fact. He just had to look at his alcoholic father with his great big beer gut and jowls to know that he was never going to be like that. Never. 

Growling softly to himself, he ground his jaw and thundered on. 

At some point it began to rain again. Soft, sheeting mizzle drifted down around him, collecting on his wavy brown hair and his lashes, but he didn't slow. The restless energy that had built up inside him throughout the day had solidified into a knot inside him that was only just beginning to work loose, four miles into his favourite loop. 

Luke made it all the way to the railway station at the far end of town before he slowed. Pausing to stretch out a bit, but not wanting to linger too long in case his muscles got cold and started cramping, he stopped in the lea of the station awning, breath billowing around him as the rain filtered lazily down in drifts, more like a fine spray than rain. 

As he took a moment to catch his breath, he looked across the tracks over the level crossing and noticed two golden eyes staring back at him through the darkness. He frowned. It was unusual for a wolf to be out alone but as the creature moved he recognised him instantly. Walking on all fours but definitely not an ordinary wolf, from the elongated limbs and the sheer size of him, this was an alpha wolf. The only other alpha that Luke knew of who was this big when he shifted, and whose fur was that dark, was currently ensconced in a mathematical debate with his best friend, so it had to be… Luke had taken an involuntary step back before he realised it. 

This was the pack’s ‘other’ alpha.