by Aiden Bates
“Yes,” his mother said, her displeasure obvious in her voice. “We do.”
Darren tried to shrink into invisibility.
“I would appreciate it, mother,” Blake said. “If you would take that out and me and not on him.”
“Darren,” the Alpha’s voice said, gentler than he had expected it to be.
Slowly, Darren looked up, forced himself to meet the Alpha’s eyes once more.
“No one is angry at you,” Blake’s uncle said. “Do you understand that, omega? We are less than pleased that Blake chose to mate you without bringing you home to meet us first, but you had no means of knowing, and you’ve done nothing wrong.”
Darren felt the tears spill over suddenly, and looked down so that the rest of the table wouldn’t see.
“Thank you, Sir. I-I’ll try to remember that.”
It was a little easier, after that. The air in the room seemed to clear, and people started eating again, the clink of dishes filling up the little quiet spaces. Blake’s family asked him how he liked Silver Bay, and he said he hadn’t seen much of it, but he would like to. Then they talked about Grey, who had his first child on the way, and Darren found out that Nicholas worked in one of the nearby state parks, and that Blake worked in another. He also learned that the family had money from back when timber had been a big industry in the area. It made him wonder what his own family had been like. Had they been part of a pack like this, or had his parents always been alone? Why had then been in Iowa that night, with no one around who knew who they were, without any identification? Where had they been driving to?
When the last of the food was eaten, Nicholas and Grey said their goodnights and left. Grey, to Darren’s shock, paused to hug him on the way out. After a moment of stunned immobility, Darren hugged him back.
“It will be okay,” Grey whispered in his ear. “I promise. They like you.”
When he pulled back, he was smiling, and Darren managed to smile back at him, leaning into Blake’s arm once more wrapped around his shoulders, and feeling almost relaxed for the first time since Blake had woken that morning and said he had to call his parents.
Then the door shut behind Grey and Nicholas, Blake and Darren were left alone with Blake’s parents and his uncle. Darren felt the momentary relief recede. He glanced at Blake, saw that his mate’s chin was lifted, his expression set. His mother, Darren saw when he dared a brief look, had nearly the same expression on her face.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” Blake said, his arm tightening around Darren. “I truly do apologize for forgoing pack protocol. It wasn’t something I went in intending to do.” His chin lifted a little higher. “But I’m not sorry that I’m mated to Darren.”
“Good,” his uncle said. “You shouldn’t be. He was a good choice, Blake, rough background or not. I am the first to respect the old bloodlines, but attitude, and ability to integrate with our pack, is important too.”
Darren wasn’t sure he liked them talking about him like he wasn’t there, except that he definitely didn’t want to be part of the conversation. He said nothing.
“But there is something we need to talk about,” Blake’s mother said, and her voice was much kinder than it had been. “Because I’m not sure I understand what Darren said about the car accident.”
Blake’s hand stilled on his arm, and Darren looked up, eyebrows drawing together. What was there to not understand? It was a car accident.
“I hadn’t spoken with him about that yet,” Blake said carefully. “He doesn’t remember.”
What? Darren looked up at his mate, a question in his expression, and Blake looked back.
“Sweetheart,” he said, very gentle. “I want you to show them the scar.”
Darren’s heartbeat picked up. He shook his head.
“No. I- Please don’t make me do that,” he whispered, praying the others would at least pretend they couldn’t hear. “It’s ugly, Blake. Alpha. Please.”
Blake’s hand lifted, ran gently through his hair.
“They’re your family now, baby. And I need you to show them.”
Stomach twisting, Darren lifted his head. His hand shifted at his side, but didn’t move to pull back his hair, and after a moment Blake lifted his own hand, gently brushing Darren’s bangs back. Darren closed his eyes.
“I see,” the Alpha’s voice said, as though he really did, and Darren didn’t know what he was seeing, because as far as he understood it had always just been a scar. There was nothing really special about it.
He heard Blake’s mother make a soft sound that might have been sympathy. Blake’s hand dropped, and Darren’s hair with it, and he opened his eyes.
“Will someone please explain to me what’s going on?” There was a bit of an edge to his voice, and he realized too late that he’d forgotten to add Sir to the end of that. He saw the Alpha’s eyebrows draw downward and immediately dropped his own gaze, giving in to the urge to tip his head downward, baring his throat in submission.
“Shifters don’t scar unless they’re cut with silver,” Blake’s voice said above him. “Whatever happened to your face?” Darren heard the way his mate’s voice faltered, heard Blake swallow. “Whatever happened to your face, sweetheart, it had to have been deliberate.”
Chapter Three
Blake saw the way his mate’s eyes widened, felt the slender hand suddenly clutch at his back, and wished he hadn’t had to tell Darren that. But he couldn’t have just let it go on. Someone, sooner or later, would have mentioned it. They all knew. It had been rattling around in his head since he’d heard the story of what happened to his mate’s family.
“What do you mean deliberate?” Darren asked, voice tripping over the word.
“I mean, baby, that a car accident, it couldn’t have done that. There’s nothing in a car that would do that. And your parents certainly wouldn’t have been keeping silver in their vehicle.”
Darren was reeling, and Blake tried to shore him up, wrapped an arm closer around him and gently tugged his omega back until the boy leaned against his chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Darren demanded.
“Because I wanted to be sure,” Blake said, ignoring the sharp edge to Darren’s tone and the silent disapproval from his family when he allowed it. “I wanted to know for certain that I had the right idea about it.”
“So,” Darren asked, voice softer; he must have seen the look from Blake’s mother, and Blake wished he hadn’t. “So you’re telling me that my parents didn’t die in a car accident?”
He sounded as though he was on the verge of tears, and the room smelled of burnt maple sugar. Blake wanted to wrap his boy up in his arms and take him home, back to their bed where it was safe and quiet and there was no one else around.
“Yes,” he said, voice even despite his own fears and the anger against whoever had ripped apart his omega’s family. “I’m saying that your parents almost certainly didn’t die in a car accident.”
“What happened then?”
“That,” Blake said. “We don’t know. But we could take a possible guess.”
“There are people,” his uncle said, picking up the thread of the conversation. “Who don’t like shifters. Who think we’re unnatural. Wrong. And they think the solution is to get rid of us. There is a chance that your parents encountered one of these people.”
Darren shook his head. “But they said I was found still strapped into my car seat,” he said, near-desperation in his voice. “We were all in the car. Why would they tell me that if that wasn’t true?”
“Hunters often try to arrange their kills as some accident,” Blake said, running his fingers through his omega’s hair. “So that no suspicion falls on them.”
“The question,” Blake’s mother said. “Is how you lived through it. Most of them have no compunction about killing shifters, regardless of age.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” his uncle answered. “And I’m not sure I like the answers
I‘ve come up with.”
Blake had been afraid that would be the response.
The thing about hunters was, once a hunter caught on to a pack, most of them didn’t leave anyone alive. If Darren’s parents had been running from hunters, and if they’d caught up, there was really only one plausible reason Darren hadn’t died with them.
“And knowing that, you brought him back here?” Blake’s father asked, and Blake felt Darren curl further into him, like he was trying to disappear.
“We were already mated by the time I knew,” Darren said, a little more sharply than he probably should have. “But I wouldn’t have left him there. A lone omega who’d just been through his first heat?”
“If you had left him there,” Gerard said, looking at Blake’s father. “You wouldn’t be the man your parents raised, and they know it.”
“I don’t understand,” Darren said, his voice very small, muffled against Blake’s chest. He looked up at Blake. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Blake took a deep breath.
“We think,” he said gently. “There’s a chance that the hunters left you behind to use as bait. If they knew you were going to be an omega, they’d know that someone would find you sooner or later, and almost certainly take you back to their pack, even if they didn’t mate with you, because no self-respecting Alpha would leave an omega on their own.”
“You mean they could be hunting us? They could be after you, because of me?”
Darren jumped as Blake’s mother laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“No,” she said, meeting Blake’s eyes, a fierce light in her own, before she looked down at his mate. “No, omega. This is not your fault. We’re a strong pack. We’ve handled hunters before, and if they are here we will handle them again. All will be well.”
“She’s right,” his uncle said, and Blake felt Darren calm a little under the Alpha’s steady voice. “Whatever happens, it’s not your fault, Darren. You had no idea. And we can take anything they throw at us. So don’t be afraid.”
They were all gathered in near now, Blake’s parents with their hands on Darren and on Blake, his uncle standing near enough that the aura of Alpha he projected had settled over all of them, promising protection.
“It might not even be true,” Blake said against Darren’s hair, both arms wrapped around his omega. His mate. “There’s a good chance that even if they were following you, they gave up long ago. Twenty two years is a long time to expend resources following a lone omega around.”
Darren nodded against his chest, clinging tight.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”
He didn’t sound like he believed it. But they hadn’t been bluffing when they’d said they could handle hunters. The Silver Bay pack was big, well established. And this close to the national forest, there was plenty of possible aid nearby. An even bigger pack than their own had its headquarters in Duluth, another in Thunder Bay. They would send fighters, if fighting became necessary.
That, he thought, was almost certainly the mistake Darren’s parents had made. They must have been from southern Minnesota. Maybe even from Wisconsin. And when their pack had been attacked, they hadn’t known where to go for help, had fled south with their child in the hopes of evading the hunters by playing at being fully human, heading as far from other packs as they could get. But when the hunters came they hadn’t had anyone to help them. Blake wrapped his omega even closer in his embrace. That wasn’t going to happen this time.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, low and fierce. “I promised you, didn’t I?”
He felt Darren relax, just a little, felt the nod against his chest.
“No matter what,” his omega said softly. “You did.”
Those brown eyes lifted to his.
“Promise me again,” he said. “Please. Promise me he’ll be safe.”
Blake didn’t question whether Darren knew for certain they were having a boy. He just promised, an Alpha’s growl in his voice, and his omega went boneless and trusting in his arms.
Chapter Four
"Well don't you move fast?" Blake's mother said, but this time Darren thought she sounded pleased, and he dared a glance up at her. She smiled at him.
"How far along?"
"A little more than a week," Blake said. "Maybe not so much. Depends on whether it was the beginning of the heat or the end."
"Two grandchildren." And this time here was definitely delight in her voice, and Darren answered her smile with a very small one of his own. "So close together. They'll be inseparable, I'm sure."
Darren liked that, the idea of his child having a cousin to play with. Someone just his own age. He wasn't sure how he knew that the child growing inside him was a boy. He just did. Maybe omegas always knew. Of course, there was always the chance he could be wrong, but he wouldn't mind a girl either. Would be happy no matter what. Girl, boy, Alpha, beta, omega. The child would be his, and Blake's, and that was enough.
He found that, despite their earlier conversation, he was surprisingly relaxed. Whatever happened would happen, and Blake and his uncle didn't sound like they were going to let anything through that could hurt their people, and Darren thought of all the tall, broad-shouldered Alphas he had already met, and thought that surely they would be able to keep a few hunters at bay. So it would be okay, he kept telling himself. It would be okay.
When they left, Darren got a hug from Blake's mother, and a pat on the shoulder from his father. Blake's uncle, the Alpha, didn't touch him, but he did nod, and Darren thought that was probably a sign of pretty high approval if the way Blake smiled when he saw it was anything to go by. So he smiled too, dipping his head in recognition of the Alpha's position, and followed his own Alpha out to the truck. It was dark, and the stars were already scattered across the sky, reflecting in the water as they followed the shore back toward Blake's home. Their home.
It was smaller than his parents' house, and not built from logs, but Darren thought he liked it better. It looked cozier. It looked like a place he could belong. Once more, Blake helped him down from the car, and his Alpha's arm wrapped around him as they went inside, moving through the darkened entrance hall and up the stairs that overlooked the living room. The bedroom was at the end of the hall, with a window that looked out over the lake, and a big bed that Darren had discovered was irresistibly comfortable. He bounced onto it, and rolled onto his back, arms folded behind his head, so he could look up at Blake.
"Feeling better about my family?" Blake asked as he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, laying it over the chair that sat in the corner.
"Yes," Darren answered. "They were all very nice."
Blake, his pants following the shirt, smiled. "I knew they would like you," he said, looking a little more smug than Darren thought he had the right to be. But then, he had been right, hadn't he?
"I like your brother," Darren said, reaching up to unbutton his own shirt, only to have his hands swatted gently away when Blake joined him on the bed. His Alpha's big hands replaced his own on the shirt's buttons, and Darren lay back and enjoyed the pampering.
"Most people do," Blake said. "He's sweet. Though not, I think, as sweet as you are."
"I think you're biased," Darren said mildly as his Alpha lifted him and pulled the shirt away.
"Possibly," Blake agreed, grinning down at him. He unfastened Darren's pants and pulled them off, tossing them aside. "And possibly you're just the most beautiful omega in the lower forty eight, and I'm entirely justified in my opinion."
Darren laughed until Blake hooked his fingers in the waistband of his underwear and pulled them down with a quick yank that made his breath catch in his throat.
"Either way," Blake said confidently, slipping his hands between Darren's thighs and spreading them wide so he could settle in between them, laying them over his shoulders. "I'm your Alpha, and you have to listen to me." He pressed a kiss to the soft skin just above Darren's knee on the inside of his thigh, and Darren whimp
ered. "So when I say that you are sweeter than you have any place being-" Another kiss. "And the most beautiful omega this side of the Canadian border." His hot mouth pressed to the inside of Darren's thigh, sucking a mark there. "You. Are going to shut your mouth. And just nod."
The words were punctuated with more kisses, and Darren was gasping, his fingers tangled in his Alpha's dark hair.
"Yes, Alpha," he breathed, voice already a little unsteady.
"Mmm," Blake purred. "Good boy."
He slid two fingers into Darren where he was already slick, and smiled at the sound it wrenched from Darren's throat.
"My sweet, perfect, darling omega."
Another thrust of his fingers, pressing up purposefully against Darren's prostate, and Darren was writhing, making pleading little noises low in his throat, but his Alpha didn't take pity on him, didn't add another finger or move up to fill Darren with his cock. Just kept stroking him inside with those same two fingers, slow and firm and driving him completely mad.
"Alpha," Darren pleaded. "Alpha, please. Please."
"What did I tell you?" Blake asked, low and pleasant, but with an edge of command to the words.
"I get it when you say I do," Darren answered, breathless.
"Very good," Blake growled, rewarding him with another finger, opening him wider. "I knew you could be a good boy for me."
And Darren could. He really could. Even though he wasn't sure he could stop himself from writhing on his mate's fingers, but he was pretty sure Blake was okay with that, that his Alpha liked the noises he made and the helpless little motions of his hips.
Three fingers, and Darren was clutching at the blankets, his legs spread wide around his Alpha's shoulders. He didn’t beg for more. He was good. He waited. And waited. Whimpered as Blake's fingers kept up the teasing circles over his prostate, the little rippling taps one finger after another and back again pressed down against the sensitive little bundle of nerves.