by Aiden Bates
“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly, fingers twisting together where they lay in his lap. “My parents were killed by hunters and I don’t remember them. I never had a pack.”
“You don’t think…” Lydia said, turning to look at the Alpha who sat next to her.
Daniel, studying Darren with an intensity that made him shrink against his Alpha’s side, laying one hand over the growing swell of his stomach. When her cousin didn’t look at her, Lydia’s gaze flicked back to Darren.
“You’re nearly the mirror image of Ellis Bailey.”
Chapter Two
Darren was too polite to say outright that he wanted the conversation to stop, but Blake could feel his mate’s growing discomfort through the bond. He reached around the high chair where Alex sat to lay a hand against his mate’s shoulder, and felt the tight muscles shift under the skin, a physical manifestation of his nerves.
“I think,” Blake said, not allowing the growl that wanted expression into his voice in front of a guest, but slipping in enough of the Alpha that he was certain his point would be made. “This might not be the best time or place for the conversation you want to have.”
His mate shot him a look of gratitude, and Blake curled his hand a little closer around his boy’s shoulder, squeezing gently.
“Oh.” Lydia looked apologetically at Darren. “I was so startled I let my tongue get away with me. I’m sorry I upset you.”
“It’s okay,” Darren said quietly. “Ma’am.”
“No need to call me that,” she said, looking a little pained. “You’re welcome to just address me as Lydia.”
Darren nodded, but didn’t say anything further to her, his attention had turned to Alex, who was currently occupied with mashing his roast into his potatoes. Blake heard his mate sigh as he began cleaning their son up. The rest of the table, quiet during the awkward conversation, had begun talking again, though Blake could see that his uncle was intrigued by what Lydia had said.
If he was honest, Blake was interested too. He’d only shut the conversation down because it had seemed to make Darren so uncomfortable. But later, he wanted to hear the rest of it. What if Darren was related to this Ellis? What if his mate had family that hadn’t been killed? It was unlikely. Wolves ran in packs, and packs stuck together, but there was always a chance that an omega he was related to had married into another group, and that Darren had an uncle or a cousin somewhere.
The rest of dinner passed more smoothly than the first part. Conversation was kept to more general topics, discussion of the forests in the area and the pack territories the most common subject. Blake watched his mate carefully, but Darren seemed to calm once the talk turned away from his potential relation to a wolf he’d never met, and most of his attention was taken up with Alex. Blake found himself watching them with a smile that was probably a little smug. He was a beautiful child, their boy, with his own dark hair and his mate’s soft brown eyes.
When dinner had ended, the leftovers were gathered up by Morgan and his mother, the dishes cleaned and put away. Darren and Grey took the little ones to the room his mother kept for the boys when they visited, and laid them down to bed.
Blake found Darren as he was coming back down the hallway, talking to Grey in a quiet voice. They stopped when they saw him, and Grey brushed a hand against his mate’s shoulder, then moved past Blake and out into the living room again.
“Darren,” Blake said as his mate moved to follow like he didn’t know Blake was specifically there to speak to him.
His omega froze, looking up at him with his full lower lip pulled between his teeth. Even now, the gesture made Blake want to wrap an arm around him and pull him in for a kiss, made him want to replace Darren’s teeth in that softness with his own. But there were things that had to be dealt with first.
“Why don’t you want to talk about it?” Blake asked.
Darren looked down at his feet, his shoulders slumping.
“I don’t know if I want to know,” he whispered.
Blake reached down and slipped a finger under his chin, lifting it until his mate had no chance but to look at him. Darren’s eyes darted away, then back to meet Blake’s.
“Why don’t you want to know?” Blake asked gently.
“I’m afraid,” Darren admitted. “What if... I mean, what if they weren’t good. What if they weren’t parents that I can be proud of.”
“Oh, darling,” Blake said, wrapping his omega up tight in his arms. “They were your parents, I don’t believe it’s possible for them to have been bad people.”
His mate huffed a soft laugh against his shoulder. “I think you’re a little biased,” he said.
“Mostly likely,” Blake agreed. “But I still believe it. There is no way two people had someone as beautiful and sweet as you are without being kind and good themselves.”
“What if she’s wrong?” Darren asked. “What if these people she knew weren’t really my parents?”
Blake looked down at the top of Darren’s head. “What if they weren’t?” he asked.
“How would I even know? I don’t know if she’s right or not. She probably doesn’t know if she’s right or not. And if I believe her and she’s wrong, then I’m replacing my real parents with someone who wasn’t them, and I’ll never know because there’s no way to prove it.”
“What if there is a way to prove it?”
Darren looked up, startled. “What?”
“What if there is a way to prove it?” Blake repeated. “What if she has pictures, or some other means of showing you what they looked like?”
His omega was biting his lip again, and Blake really wasn’t going to be able to keep himself from kissing Darren if he didn’t stop. He reached up and pressed his thumb against the soft swell, tugging it gently free from his mate’s teeth. Darren flushed.
“I guess I’d want to know,” he said, the words hardly above a whisper.
“So let’s go find out,” Blake said. His arms tightened around his husband. “It will be okay. Whatever happens, I promise I’ll be right there beside you the whole time, and if you want it to stop I’ll stop it for you. Any time.”
Darren took a deep breath, and Blake heard him let it out slowly, carefully. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk to her about it.”
Chapter Three
They walked back into the living room hand in hand. The others were already there, settled onto the couches, but they fell silent when Blake and Darren entered, and Darren felt his cheeks flush. They had been talking about him, he was sure. He let Blake guide him over to an empty seat, pull them both down onto it with Darren in his lap.
“What you were saying at dinner...” Darren began, stomach tying itself in knots. “I- I’d like to hear what else you have to say.”
Lydia, who was sitting in one of the only chairs, leaned forward a little, her elbows resting on her knees, and steepled her fingers in front of her.
“Are you sure?” she asked, voice gentle. “I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do, Darren. I’m sorry I tried to do it earlier.”
“No,” Darren said. “I mean. I want you to tell me. You’re not forcing me into anything.” He swallowed. “Please.”
She nodded, leaning back into her seat, and crossed one leg over the other.
“Ellis and Gideon were members of the Hatfield pack,” she said, watching Darren’s expression as though she expected him to change his mind.
Darren flushed, but simply nodded at her, encouraging her to go on.
“They weren’t far from us, just on the other side of the state forest, and our packs often ran together during the full moon. I was close with Ellis, actually,” she said, voice catching. “For a time we had thought he would be my brother’s mate. Then he met Gideon, and those plans changed, but he and I were always friends.”
An omega, then. Darren had suspected, guessing he wasn’t going to be nearly the mirror image of an Alpha. He reached out and slipped his hand into his mate’s, s
queezing a little harder than he had meant to. Blake squeezed back.
“What happened?” he asked, voice steadier than Darren’s would have been.
“Hunters,” Lydia said flatly. “They’d been mated for six years then, had a beautiful little boy.” She took a deep breath, her voice growing shaky. “We didn’t know until it was too late what had happened. They’d been and gone. Twelve wolves, dead. They’d killed as many of them in wolf form as they could, hoping to hide it from the humans. But it was still news. So many people gone missing, especially in such a small town.”
She shook her head, and for a moment she was silent. When she spoke again, her voice was even, but tight, as though she had trouble speaking. She wasn’t looking at Darren anymore. Her eyes were on her hands, folded in her lap.
“We didn’t find Ellis and Gideon’s bodies. There were a few others missing too. We’d hoped they escaped, but... If you are their son, it would seem they didn’t.” She sighed. “I suppose I knew already, of course. They would have eventually come back to us if they had lived. But I told myself that if they thought our pack had been destroyed too they would find a new one, somewhere with stronger numbers.”
When she looked up, Darren wasn’t surprised to see tears in her eyes.
“I might not be their son,” he said softly.
She managed a very small smile. “No,” she said. “I suppose that’s true. Though I have to say that you seem more like him every time you open your mouth.”
Darren flushed, dropped his gaze. What if she was right? What if she’d known his parents? Did he want her to have known them? He stared down at his lap and wondered what he was supposed to do with that news. What he was supposed to think. The conversation shifted and went on, moving into other areas, but Darren was still quiet, leaning into the arm Blake had wrapped around his shoulders. He hardly heard another word anyone said.
Eventually, Blake guided him up to his feet and went to collect Alex from the spare bedroom.
“Darren?” a voice inquired quietly next to him.
He looked up to see Grey at his side, looking down at him with concern.
“Hey,” he said.
“How are you taking it?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Darren admitted. “I don’t- If they were my parents, what difference does it even make to me? She can’t prove it, and neither can I, and it won’t bring them back.”
“No,” Grey agreed. “But it might be good to know, just to know.”
It might be. Darren tugged at his lower lip with his teeth, let it slip free again before Blake could return and find him biting it.
“Maybe,” he said.
Grey’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him into a tight, brief hug, and Darren wrapped his arms around his brother-in-law in return, grateful for the comfort.
“Thank you,” he said quietly when they broke apart. He managed a very small smile. “I kind of needed that.”
“Any time,” Grey said. “You know I’m always willing to listen.”
“I know you are,” Darren said as he looked up to see Blake emerging from the hall with their sleepy son in his arms. He looked back at Grey, and this time his smile was genuine, almost happy. “Thank you for that too.”
Grey smiled, and then he turned and went to join Nicholas and Channing, waving goodbye to his parents as they headed out the door.
“Thank you for dinner,” Darren said to Blake’s mother.
She smiled, reached out an arm that he accepted the offer of, and pulled him into a hug as tight as Grey’s had been. “It was good to see you.” She smiled. “Bring my grandson back soon.”
“I will,” Darren answered, backing up to stand against Blake’s chest.
His mate’s arm around his shoulders guided him from the house, out to their truck, and Blake helped him in with one hand before he moved to the back to buckle Alex into his car seat. Alex made sleepy noises of complaint, but settled down once he was safely restrained and Blake came around and got in, turning the key in the ignition.
They drove home in silence. The dashboard light gave just enough illumination that Darren could see his mate’s profile by it. Blake looked almost as tense as he felt, Darren thought, a guilty little twist in his stomach. Maybe if he hadn’t been upset about it, Blake wouldn’t be either. He dropped his gaze to his hands and leaned back in his seat again, waiting for the car to pull up in their own drive way.
It was not a long drive. Their home was only a few streets down from his parents’, settled on its own land near the shoreline. His mate helped him out of the truck, then collected Alex once more, carrying him in to tuck him into his own bed.
Darren was waiting when his mate returned, curled up under the blankets, settled against the pillows. Blake slipped out of his clothes, laying them over the chair in the corner with Darren’s to be dealt with in the morning, and turned out the light.
“Are you okay,” he asked as he slid under the blankets, wrapping an arm around Darren and drawing him close. Darren, his back pressed against his mate’s chest, took a deep breath and nodded.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m okay. I’m.... I’m not sure what to think, but I’m okay.”
Blake pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck.
“Probably need some time to process,” he said quietly.
Darren nodded. “Maybe a year or two,” he said, trying to make the words sound like a joke. They didn’t come out quite as jovial as he had hoped, but he didn’t sound like he was on the verge of tears, so he thought he was doing pretty well.
Parents. He might know who his parents had been. It was something Darren had never expected to learn. When he’d been really little he had imagined that maybe he would be found, that a family member would report him missing, or that someone would know who he was. He’d made up long, elaborate stories about the day an uncle or an aunt or his grandparents would come looking for him. They’d take him home, and he wouldn’t have to worry ever again about being moved from foster house to foster house, hoping that someone would maybe want to keep him for more than a few months. After the state had given up trying to find out who he was and made him available for adoption, he’d given up hope that someone would one day hear about a boy with brown eyes and brown hair whose parents had been killed in a car wreck and guess who he must be.
It was so strange that now, he might know. He closed his eyes and pressed back against Blake’s chest.
“If you want to talk about it…”
Darren shook his head.
“I don’t,” he said. “Not right now. I just need time to think about it. To figure out how I even feel.”
“Of course, darling.” Blake’s arms wrapped even close around him, drawing him in until Darren felt completely enclosed in his mate’s embrace, surrounded by his scent.
He let himself relax a little then, tried to breathe in and out slowly, to match the rhythm of his Alpha’s heartbeat. Slowly, he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Four
It was rare that Blake woke before Darren did. His omega was usually up as soon as dawn slanted across the horizon, going to start breakfast, checking on Alex. But Darren had been tired the night before, emotionally exhausted by the news, and for once Blake woke first. He looked down at the peacefully sleeping lover laying against his chest and smiled. Breakfast could wait a little bit.
One hand, big against Darren’s slim form, slid down his husband’s spine and slipped into his boxers, fingers sliding down the cleft between his buttocks, then back up again. The motion was lazy, the touch just firm enough not to tickle. Darren stirred, murmuring something against Blake’s chest, and Blake had to swallow a laugh. It never failed to amuse him that his early-to-rise mate was so difficult to wake. He thought fondly back to one of the mornings in their first weeks together, when he’d been determined to get his omega out on Lake Superior with him before he had to return to work.
HIs boy had really been less than thrilled to be shaken out of his bed, tho
ugh the morning had not even been early. But he'd been happier once they'd been out on the water, had watched the lake with wide eyes. Blake still remembered the wondering smile on his omega's face. It was an expression that he strived to reproduce as often as possible.
In the here and now, Blake traced his fingers up and down the same path, occasionally pausing to linger over his mate's hole, rubbing gently at it as Darren began to shift in his arms, rocking against him. He could feel his mate's cock getting hard through the thin layers of their clothing, and he smiled.
"Wake, darling," he breathed against Darren's hair. "Wake for me."
Darren mumbled something that sounded distinctly like an insult, and Blake laughed.
"Trust me, my love. You want to be awake for this."
His fingers were slick with evidence of his omega's growing arousal, making the slide easier, and Blake pressed the tip of one against his hole until it slipped inside. Darren jerked a little, and then his eyes opened and he looked up at Blake through pupils blown wide and dark.
"Morning, sleepyhead," Blake said, grinning down at his omega.
"Morning," Darren said, voice sleep rough. "Oh, Blake. Please."
Obligingly, Blake let his finger slide deeper, pulled it back and slid two in together, stroking over Darren's prostate. His mate bucked against him, hard cock rubbing over his thigh, and Blake's smile widened.
"Feeling good, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," Darren answered. "Fuck, yeah. Feels good, Alpha."
"Thought it might," Blake said, letting his pleasure slip into his voice. "It'll feel even better when I get my cock in you."
Darren whimpered. "Yes. Alpha. God. Want your cock."
"You always want my cock, don't you, baby?"
His omega nodded, hair brushing soft against Blake's chest. "Always,” he answered, a little too quickly. “Always want your cock, Alpha. Always want your knot."
Blake slid his fingers back until just the tips were pressed inside, then in again slowly, letting his mate feel every inch. Letting him feel how it wasn't enough. Darren moaned, and Blake saw his fingers curling in the sheets.