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Nootaikok is losing himself to his empathy. Can Amaruq call him back to love
and to bed?

There’s a terrible loneliness in being surrounded by a million minds,
none of which care a whit about you. With his empathic skills expanding
rapidly, Nootaikok is struggling to hold onto his sanity. Only joining with
Amaruq in bed play is sustaining him.

Both of them know bed play won’t save them forever. As the weight of
Nootaikok’s psychic disability pushes down on him, he and Amaruq start
fighting both each other and the world.

Can their love hold them together or will Nootaikok’s deception crush
them?

EXCERPT

He couldn’t just hear the couple arguing in the hotel room next to the
one where he lay with his mate. For Nootaikok, their anger, petty as it might
seem to some, was real for them. He wasn’t quite sure what they had
disagreed on. He wasn’t a telepath. However, as the hour crept on from
nine to ten, their bickering increased in intensity even as their volume
dropped. He read violence in the woman half of the pair’s building rage.
Whoever said females were always the victims had their facts wrong.

He got silently out of bed, checking to make sure Amaruq had stayed asleep.
His lover, exhausted from the psychic deluge he’d experienced over the
last half dozen hours, probably wouldn’t wake if he was quiet.

Scooping up his tracker badge, which would show as police or hotel security or
whatever he needed at the moment to humans, he dressed in cast-off clothing
that he’d worn to SearchLight that day. Not bothering with shoes, he
padded silently from the room.

The ebb and flow of their argument was cresting when he pounded on the door.

He felt their startlement and felt the relief from the male half of the pair.

She was the one who opened the door, though. “What?” she snapped.

He took in the belt clenched in her fist and the stench of alcohol on her
breath. He held up his badge. “Security, ma’am,” he said.
“Report was of some disturbing noises coming from this room.”

She snarled soundlessly at him, furious as a caged werewolf. “Go
‘way.”

“I can’t, ma’am.” He darted a glance over her shoulder
as the man, who looked none too sober himself, drunk-walked a little closer to
them. “Sir, are you hurt?”

“What’d you think I’d do? Drug him?” the woman
demanded baldly.

Nootaikok felt the spike in her anxiety and met her gaze. “What did you
give him?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Prove it.”

He wished he’d brought his cell phone. “I intend to.” He
marched into the room, shouldering her aside almost gently. Her drunken state
made her maybe more compliant than she would have normally been. Keeping an
eye on the two of them, he called down to the main desk and made his report.
That done, he ordered the two of them to stand out in the hallway until help
could arrive.

She swung at him with the buckle end of the belt.

He caught it, the sting of the metal making him hiss. He jerked the makeshift
weapon out of her hand and caught her, preventing her from falling when she
staggered into him rather than let go willingly.

By the time security had arrived, he’d gotten them both to lean against
the walls on either side of the corridor. The man was slumping there and the
woman was glaring at him, her face alternating between fear and fury.

After they had been escorted away, he snuck back to bed. It was going to be
difficult to sleep, even though the couple was gone. His empathy was fully
awake now, and he could sense probably half the occupants of the hotel.

Amaruq rolled over, his eyes slitting open. “Still awake?” he
mumbled.

“I’m all right,” Nootaikok lied.

His little white fib, meant only to send his lover back to sleep, backfired as
Amaruq frowned at him.

“Don’t you know better than to lie to a werewolf?”

“Sorry,” Nootaikok said, meaning it. “I just…”

“Do you need me to massage your shoulders again?”

“Maybe you could just rub my back for a minute or two?”
Amaruq’s touch usually helped him rest. It wasn’t magic but
Amaruq’s gentleness came through in everything he did. It was difficult
to dwell on all the emotions he couldn’t fix or completely understand
while his mate caressed him.

That being said, what he felt still tried to invade his mind. He shoved it
away over and over again until Amaruq’s fingers, digging deep, released
his tension and he slept.

* * *

When Amaruq woke fully, it was morning and the clock on the nightstand told
him it was a little after seven. He couldn’t believe he’d slept so
long, not with Mark and Luke in peril. Still, as the guilt rose up to choke
him, he forced himself to take a breath. He was managing it, he told himself,
and even if he wasn’t, there was nothing to be gained from drowning in
negativity.

Besides, he’d come back to the waking world with a sense of urgency and
a hunch that something was about to change. He didn’t know what that
meant exactly, but it definitely came from his precognitive sense, and he
refused to ignore that part of himself any longer.

He rolled over to face Nootaikok, startled to find his lover huddled under the
blankets. Narwhal shifters, at least from what Nootaikok had told him, were
warm blooded and tended to struggle with getting overheated. His mate looked
as though he was freezing. Or trying to hide.

Amaruq settled on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He wanted to reach out
to Mark and get a better sense of the dragon’s location. He thought,
I’ll ask him why it’s me he decided to reach out to once he and
Luke are safe. For now… He dropped his shields.

Nootaikok seized his arm. “Don’t,” he mumbled.

Startled, Amaruq jumped and tried for something passing calmness. He knew he
didn’t succeed because when Nootaikok opened his eyes, they were bright
with anxiety. “What’s wrong?” Amaruq asked.

“Too many…” Nootaikok visibly stiffened and seemed to pull
himself together. “I don’t want you reaching out to
whoever’s sending you visions without medical assistance nearby.”

Amaruq nodded, his head moving on the pillow as he turned his face toward his
lover. Nootaikok was still bundled up. Frowning, Amaruq said,
“That’s a good point. I’ll wait until we’re at
SearchLight. Now, what’s really wrong?”

About the Author

Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender
women’s speculative fiction. Seeking a world made of equality, she
created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its
problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a host
of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires. And in the
contemporary world she’s named “Sticks & Stones,” Emily
has vowed to create small towns where prejudice is challenged by a passionate
quest for equality. Find her on Facebook at Shapeshifter Central or on her
website.

Author’s Website

Emily on Facebook

Emily on Twitter

Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @changelingpress

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