Pricolici

Author Note: Just to avoid confusion, I wanted to make sure that readers know that this is not a Carthera story. A twist on some old werewolf legends, some magical mythology, and a lot of fantasy mix in with the modern world in what I hope is story you'll really enjoy. Happy reading!

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He fidgeted, waiting in line outside the club. He felt something pulling him, even as he wanted to leave. Wearing a metal chain choker, tight leather pants, and a pair of wrist cuffs, Tucker walked into the club and glanced around. He felt eyes on him but when he scanned the room he didn't see anyone staring. He bit his lip, undecided, and then slowly made his way to the bar.

"What can I get for you?" the bartender asked, her eyes feasting on his bare skin. She licked her lips as he gaze lingered on his hard pink nipples.

"Umm, a cranberry and vodka, please."

"Sure thing sweetheart." She turned away to grab the vodka and he shuddered, released from the hold of her lust. It made his stomach tighten just a little, his hand slipping down to press against the dull ache. He had no choice but to be there. He was searching for something he could feel but not put a name to or control. He had driven by the club in the daylight hours and had felt an overwhelming urge to go inside. It was closed but he had stopped his car in front and stared for almost an hour before realizing it.

He had sighed and then put the car in gear to drive away. He'd kept glancing in his rear view mirror until he turned the corner, pulling into the closest motel he could find and crashing on the bed. He had been driving for a long time. Tucker's alpha had sent him away, afraid of how feral he was making his pack. Fearing the Hunters coming to get him; it had been a move of desperation. Even Shane had been close to losing his control but with no one in his haitas strong enough to accept Tucker had been told he had to go. Since he left he had been aimlessly driving for days; at least until he ended up outside the bar.

"You let me know if you need anything else," the bartender said, sliding his glass across the bar.

Tucker nodded so he wouldn't have to speak and then took a sip of the drink he was given, avoiding any touch from the human's hand. Her lust was strong but Tucker knew he wasn't looking for a female. He turned his back to the bar and scanned the room again, taking in the shadowy booths, circular wood tables ringed with stools, and the empty stage where the lights were just beginning to turn on and spotlight the front mike. He took another sip, enjoying the bitter tang of the cranberry juice and the smooth vodka. He was jittery and uncertain of what exactly he was waiting for; what he had felt so strongly before when sitting outside.

He turned and put his empty glass on the bar and gestured for another. Right as he got it he could hear the whine of the speakers coming on and turned around. Looking up at the stage he froze. There were several large men, two holding guitars and one sitting down on a stool behind a drum set. They all looked the same, dark hair and eyes and taut tan skin over thick muscles.

Lowering the center mike at the front of the stage under the white spotlight was a female in a short black skirt and a green blouse with loose flowing sleeves. Her slim waist was revealed by a small golden corset that accentuated her curvy figure. His nostrils flared. This was what he had been waiting for.

These were his kind.

Without any introduction the man on the base guitar set up a deep throbbing beat. After a single measure the lead guitar joined in, fingers moving in a fierce riff that settle into a weaving rhythm that synced with every fourth beat of the base. With a quick triple beat the drummer joined in and the trio wove a complex melody that, amazing as it sounded, faded into the background as soon as the female opened her mouth. From her throat poured notes of such purity that Tucker was unable to focus on the words. Her voice was like a siren call and he left the bar and began walking forward without ever taking his eyes off the stage.

Like many of the other bar patrons he stood mesmerized while the song continued, his body swaying to the beat in a small lonely circle, most of the humans around him subconsciously leaning away from the intense pheromones his body was emitting. Several times during the song, the drummer leaned forward and would sing along into a microphone positioned in front of him, his smoky baritone carrying the woman's melody. Tucker blinked slowly when the last note faded away and the instruments stilled. The crowd went a little crazy, cheering and clapping while shrieking for more.

"Hey guys!" the drummer shouted into his mike. "For those new in the crowd, we are Daos. We have several more songs for you to enjoy tonight including one new song." Tucker shivered and the people grouped around the stage screamed in excitement. The dark haired drummer smirked and swirled his drumsticks in his hands and began a quick pounding beat on the snare drum before the group launched into another song.

He couldn't believe they actually used the name of their kind as their band name. The Hunters were something all the haitas feared and if they found out... Something pricked at Tucker. He could feel the power auras of the daoi on the stage and he thought that was what had pulled him forward. But as soon as he opened his eyes he was fixated on a pair of yellow eyes staring out from a gap in the back curtain. Tucker stood motionless through the next three songs as the humans danced around him totally oblivious, while he was held mesmerized by the unblinking predatory stare. The lead guitarist stepped between him and the gleaming yellow eyes, breaking the stare.

Tucker staggered a little and drew in a ragged breath. He was trembling and the hair all over his body was standing straight up. Stumbling back a few steps, Tucker turned and wove through the now crowded table area to drop his glass with numb fingers onto the wood bar. He was about to turn around and head for the door when arms slammed into the wood on either side of him and a solid body pinned him to the bar.

Tucker tried to shove back and get away from the full body contact but a throaty growl next to his vulnerable neck made him freeze.

"What are you doing in my territory, little lupe?"

Tucker couldn't speak; he was lost in the aura of power coming from the angry lupe behind him. He whimpered when sharp teeth bit down on his ear. He felt something inside him shift and he arched his back, whimpering.

"Answer me."

"I didn't know it was your territory. I was just passing through. I was looking for... for..." Tucker blushed and stopped talking. He didn't really know himself. Another growl made him almost squeak in fear.

"I'm sorry, I'll leave. Right... right now." Tucker tried to move to the left and the lupe's dark arm left the bar to wrap around him, pinning his arm to his side.

"Oh no. No one strolls into a den of the Pricolici and just walks away. You're coming with me."

Tucker was too scared to even think of objecting. The Pricolici were known throughout Daoi society as the most ancient of all the haitas. Full of Old Country warriors; some of them had lived for over a thousand years. They were also the men who made up the Hunters. Shane had told him to go south on purpose.

His old alpha had set him up. Tucker felt the pain of losing his haitas and the betrayal of the man he still thought of as his alpha swamp him. Shane hadn't just sent him away; he'd sent him to be killed by the most brutal lupes of their kind.

It wasn't until the big lupe had Tucker in a back room behind the bar that he even thought to try to pull away.

"I wouldn't do that right now." Out of sight of the humans, the large lupe simply picked Tucker up and slung him into a chair. The lupe pushed it into the table, pinning him in place and then circled around it to stare at him. "Stay there," he growled.

Tucker bristled but one warning look from those eyes still gleaming a solid yellow made him sink back in the chair. His hands were clenched on the wood arms. He watched as the lupe moved to a phone on the far wall and dialed a number that Tucker recognized. Son of a bitch! Tucker strained to hear and just managed to catch his end of the low conversation.

"I have him."

"You should have done better than that. What if something had happened? Do you think you are allowed to pick and choose which of my orders you want to follow?" the lupe snapped, barely glancing over at Tucker who quickly looked back down. He tried hard to look like he was really minding his own business like he was ordered.

"Hell yes I would have blamed you! He was alone!" he growled. Tucker turned his head to try and hear the other side of the conversation but the lupe suddenly went rigid and interrupted the person on the other side of the line. "I know him now. Do you need a reminder of who I am?"

Silence. The muscles in the lupe's neck and shoulders were slowly relaxing. Even Tucker could hear the placating tone through the phone.

"You're safe as long as no harm came from your poor judgment."

The lupe hung up the phone without even the courtesy of a goodbye. Before he could turn around Tucker made sure he was staring at his hands clenched together in his lap. He could feel it as the lupe eyed him for several minutes until Tucker cautiously raised his eyes for a brief second. Seeing the eyes still yellow, he flicked them back down to avoid irritating the enraged lupe.

"My name is Stelian and you are Tucker. You entered my territory," Stelian's nostrils flared, "and you smell like..."

"I'm in heat," Tucker said in embarrassment. He wrapped his arms around his slender chest. "I didn't know there were any wolves here or I wouldn't have come. I make everyone go crazy."

"Is that what they told you?" Stelian stayed across the room from Tucker. He still seemed very volatile and Tucker was glad for it. He didn't have anyone here who would protect him if the lupe got too close.

Tucker knew exactly what happened to other lupes who got a good whiff of him. He snorted.

"What else could it be? I attract males like a female calls to males when she is ripe for claiming. Even females respond to it. I can feel this force inside of me, like lust, welling up and spilling out into the air but I can't do anything about it. Fights were breaking out in my haitas because of it. I know you were just talking to Shane but he did what he had to do. I am the bottom of the haitas, a nobody, and no one was strong enough to control it. There was no one he could send with me that wouldn't try to... to..."

"Mount you whether you liked it or not?"

Tucker's fair skin blushed crimson at the mental picture that he got from the crude assessment. It was true though.

Stelian smirked at him and he shuddered a little at the heat in Stelian's voice and those eyes that were again burning yellow. He hadn't really noticed but Stelian had moved closer as they talked, inch by slow inch. Amazingly, Stelian was just several feet away and Tucker could feel his aura flowing toward him. He hadn't realized it was gone until that moment; Stelian dominated the room even without the power that reinforced his place in his haitas.

"Don't worry; you're in my territory now," There was satisfaction in Stelian's voice, "and if your haitas didn't know what they had then it is not my place to enlighten them."

"What they..." Tucker froze when Stelian stalked around the side of the table and grabbed the arm of his chair and slung it sideways. He leaned down and used his body to pen Tucker in when the smaller lupe would have tried to bolt.

"Oh yes. You're very special," Stelian said as he bent down to drag his nose up Tucker's neck. He nipped at Tucker's ear again and growled when he tried to jerk away.

"Don't."

Tucker froze at the order from a voice laced with the wolf's growl. The ache he had felt earlier from the bartender had nothing on the way he felt from the suddenly overwhelming surge of lust he felt from Stelian. Something welled up inside him and he felt his eyes shift. Everything was sharper and clearer when he had the eyes of his wolf. He knew his own eyes now shone as golden as the larger lupe's. Entranced by the angles and shadows he'd missed with his human eyes, Tucker stared at Stelian's dusky skin where it stretched tight over his sharp cheekbones. His Romanian blood gave him a deep skin tone and even the yellow eyes of an excited werewolf looked natural on him, as if Stelian was never fully human.

Tucker couldn't help but lick his lips as he stared at the ancient lupe's strong and handsome face that matched the hard, muscular body. All lupes were stronger than they looked but Stelian was taller and more heavily muscled than the biggest male in his old haitas. The power that flowed up inside Tucker reached out and met Stelian's aura.

There was a sensation of blending, a mingling of two opposite yet similar forces. One hand came down on Tucker's neck and tugged at the chain around his neck to pull his face closer to Stelian's. The lupe's breath puffed against his lips, only inches apart. It startled Tucker and he jerked away, his power snapping back inside him as his chair tipped over backward and Tucker fell over. He tucked his body and then rolled into a crouch, facing the larger lupe.

His body was vibrating with the growls deep in his chest as he glared at Stelian. "What did you just do?"

"Me? I did nothing but answer your call, little lupe. I could feel you for days now, getting closer. You've been in my territory, in this bar in fact. As soon as you entered the club I knew what you were."

Tucker pulled himself erect, his hands clenched in frustration at his sides. Would this lupe ever make sense? "That's impossible! I've never been here before, I'd remember."

"Not in person but your spectral aspect has been here."

"Spectral aspect? What in the hell are you talking about?"

"I told you; I know what you are. Don't try to deny it." Stelian glared at him and Tucker glared with equal intensity. He knew he shouldn't antagonize him; Stelian was the strongest werewolf he had ever felt, but he needed answers.

"What am I then?"

"A hultan."

"A hultan," he repeated flatly. Tucker stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest. "What in the hell is that exactly?"

"A priest. A Hultan is a priest."

Tucker burst out laughing. He closed his eyes and laughed until tears leaked out of the corners while Stelian had his chance to glare. "I don't think so. I'm not even Catholic. Nor do I wish to take vows of celibacy." Tucker shivered at the thought and rolled his eyes.

Stelian made a dismissive sound and looked at him in disgust. "You are impossibly young. You know nothing."

"True." Tucker shrugged. He couldn't argue with truth. "I've only been a lupe for six months."

Stelian's eyes widened and then squeezed shut. His hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"You transformed on your twentieth birthday?"

"Yes."

Stelian's eyes were still shut but his hand fell to his side. "You are only twenty years old?"

Tucker frowned at Stelian and then folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah, so what? You're all of what, twenty seven?"

Stelian pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am two thousand three hundred and sixteen years old."

Tucker looked at him in disbelief. "You... you're..." He slumped against the wall and stared at Stelian in shock. The man took advantage of Tucker's silence to continue.

"I know you don't believe me about what you are. There are many legends of the Hultan among our kind but they are wrong. The stories say that you were celibate recluses and would lose your powers if you were to ever mate. That was a convention the Christians brought with them to deny the power the Hultans had. Your kind faded into obscurity and then died out a very long time ago.

"I haven't seen a Hultan in over a thousand years. Until you."

Tucker shook his head. "You're nuts." A very old nutcase, but he was still nuts. Tucker wasn't some sort of crazy, old-fashioned priest destined for a life of monkish prudery. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

"I bet you always know what the weather will be. You dream about places you've never been and have seen things you can't possibly know. People and lupes can sense your power and lust for it, and you, ever since you changed for the first time. You are searching for something and every day that goes by without finding it has made your need worsen."

Tucker's eyes widened. His mouth tightened and he looked down. He wouldn't admit it out loud. The lupe couldn't make him.

Stelian then dropped his biggest bomb. "You're not even a werewolf."

"What the hell do you mean? Of course I am! I've been able to shift into a wolf for months." Tucker's hands were curled into fists at his side and he glared at Stelian.

"I'm sure you can. I didn't say you couldn't shift into a wolf; you're just not a werewolf. Hultans can shift into many animal forms. When I was young and growing up in Dacia there was a whole school where they would send your kind to be taught to use their magic called Crugul Pamantului. To predict and control the weather, to project your astral form and learn to direct it to when and where you want to go, how to shift into different animal forms. Most hultans trained from when they were young children.

"When a hultan turned twenty they gained the power to change shape. The first form they changed into is always their natural shape but with practice they can take others, it's magic-but not the same kind of magic that lupes have. I would guess you lost your family as a child and were raised by the wolves; that is why you would take the shape of a wolf. I'm sure you can do things I don't even know about too, the hultan were secretive of their power."

Scoffing at him, Tucker shrugged. "That's not proof. Shane could easily have told you all sorts of things about me." He nodded. "That's it. You're just trying to convince me that I'm this... this thing, as some sort of sick game. I've heard about you and your Pricolici. You're cruel and you toy with the ferals and humans you hunt down without mercy. You're animals no better than those you judge and execute."

It was Stelian's turn to glare. "You're a child and have no concept of what you speak," he thundered.

"My Hunters do not hunt humans and we certainly do not relish our role in Daoi society as the enforcers of our laws. If ferals were allowed to rampage unchecked the humans would discover us and, as powerful as we are, we would not be able to stop them from reacting as humans always have. They would eradicate all lupes. Someone must do the dirty work and if we muzzle our natures to become as civilized as the rest of the lupes have become there would be no one left to do the job.

"Just look at you. Shane, your own alpha, sent you to me. Without telling you that he was sending you straight into Pricolici territory, you were banished. He didn't know what you are and he thought you were going feral. He's weakened his wolf with his modern day human morality to the point that he can't even act himself to protect his haitas. Instead he sent you here, hoping that I would kill you so that his hands would remain clean."

The truth in Stelian's words was undeniable. Tucker had known Shane's intentions the moment Stelian told him he was in Pricolici territory. The alpha of Tucker's old haitas had often mocked the more animalistic haitas but his eyes always held a hint of fear when he spoke of them. They were the strongest Daoi clan and their leader was one of the most ancient werewolves living; and Tucker was arguing with him.

That realization suddenly reminded Tucker of exactly where he was and who he was facing. His anger faded and his fear spiked."What are you going to do with me now that you have me then? Kill me because I'm this Hultan thing?"