by Aiden Bates
For an instant, he couldn’t breathe.
“He wants to meet me?”
His Alpha nodded. “Yes, darling. He’s not far. I told her to go head and have him drive out.”
The sound of his own heartbeat rang in his ears, and Darren almost couldn’t hear the words his mate was still speaking.
“If you don’t want to meet him, of course, you don’t have to. But I thought, from what you said before, that you would like the opportunity.”
Darren looked up. “Yeah,” he said, throat tight. “I would.”
He realized his hand was shaking and pressed it close against his thigh.
“It’s going to be okay,” Blake said gently, both hands closing around the one he’d tried to hide, gathering it up and lifting it to his mouth so he could brush his lips across the backs of Darren’s knuckles. “I’m sure he’s just as nervous to meet you as you are to meet him.”
That was a comforting thought. Darren wasn’t sure it was true. After all, Ian had grown up with a pack. He’d known all his life what it meant to be a wolf. Why would he want to meet his weird cousin who had grown up all alone pretending to be a human because he hadn’t known any better?
“Stop that,” Blake said.
Startled, Darren lifted his gaze back to his mate’s. “Stop what?”
“Thinking about how you aren’t worth his time,” his Alpha said, voice low and commanding. “You’re worth it.”
Heat flushed Darren’s cheeks. “You guessed that.”
“I guessed right,” Blake said. His hand lifted, settled against Darren’s cheek. “I know you too well not to know what you’re thinking when you look like that. Trust me, sweetheart. It will be okay. He’ll love you as much as everyone who ever crosses paths with you does. I’m sure of it.”
It was sweet of him to say. Darren leaned up and gave his Alpha a kiss. He did try to push the negatives that kept creeping up in his thoughts away. Sometimes he even succeeded.
They got up and dressed, and Darren looked down at himself, smoothing invisible wrinkles from his shirt. He didn’t like the too-loose clothing, but if someone saw his stomach, saw him obviously pregnant, they were going to be in trouble. So he buttoned the shirt up and pulled a jacket on over it, glad that it least it was cool enough to wear a jacket without discomfort.
The afternoon passed slowly. Too nervous now to enjoy the easy playful mood of the night before, Darren paced the little cabin they were staying in until Blake pinned him to the wall with a palm pressed flat against his lower belly and yanked his pants down, swallowing his cock with a quick ease that made Darren’s head drop back against the wall with a thunk. He pressed a hand over his mouth to keep from crying out and rocked into it until he came.
Blake looked up at him, licking his lips, and Darren shuddered a little with aftershocks. “Do you want me-?”
His Alpha cut him off before he could finish with a single shake of his head.
“No, sweetheart. That was for you. How about we go down by the lake instead?”
It was nicer to walk down by the lake than to pace in the cabin. Darren linked his arm through his mate’s and leaned against his shoulder as they walked, slowly calming as the cool breeze moved over them, the sound of the water lapping against the shore a quiet counterpoint to their footfalls. He was almost thinking he might be able to relax her after all when Blake’s phone rang.
Blake fumbled for it in his pocket, answering it with a, “Hello?” and Darren stopped walking, looking up at his mate’s face.
“Ian,” Blake said. “Glad to hear from you. We’re staying at the Black River lodge, if you want to meet us there. We’ll probably getting around the time you do. We’ve been taking a walk down by the lake.”
There was a moment of silence. Blake nodded along to the voice on the other end of the phone. The voice Darren couldn’t hear.
“See you then,” Blake said, and hung up.
“He’s meeting us at the cabin?” Darren asked, tense again in spite of the relaxing walk.
Blake nodded. “He’ll catch us at the entrance to the resort and we’ll take him to the cabin.”
His arm wrapped around Darren’s shoulders, turning him back toward the place they were staying. Darren leaned into it, for once reluctant to go where his mate was leading him. But they kept walking, the lake receding behind them.
They were walking up the short drive that led into the resort when a nondescript little grey car pulled in alongside them. Darren could smell the wolf on it, faint traces too faded to tell him much, but barring some kind of crazy coincidence, it would have to be Ian. He didn’t need to know much more than that.
Lifting one hand in a ‘follow me’ gesture, Blake walked on toward the cabin. The grey car followed slowly, pulling in beside the vehicle they’d brought and slowing to a stop. Then it fell silent, turned off. Darren pressed closer to the reassuring warmth of his mate’s body, and waited for the door to open.
Chapter Twelve
Blake knew as soon as Ian stepped out of the car. He could smell it on him, under the scent of wood smoke and pine, the faint sweetness of maple sugar. Physically, it wasn't quite as obvious. Ian was taller than Darren, not quite so slight. His hair was lighter, a honey blond that went well with the freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. But the eyes were the same, warm, soft brown. Blake felt his mate's hand clutch at his own.
"Ian," Blake said in greeting, offering the hand that Darren wasn't holding tight, which was luckily the right one.
Ian took the hand with a smile and a respectful little dip of his head.
"A pleasure to meet you, sir."
Someone well-mannered at least. Though he wouldn't expect anything less from anyone related to Darren. If his mate's sweetness ran in his bloodline, he couldn't imagine anyone related to him being less than courteous. Even with no formal training in the rules and the etiquette of wolf packs, Darren had handled himself well in the early days. Now, well aware of exactly what was preferred, he provoked smiles and genuine well wishes from everyone Blake introduced him to.
"And you," Blake said. He extracted his hand from Darren's death grip and settled it on his omega's shoulder. "This is my mate, Darren."
Ian's smile became a little less certain when he turned his gaze to Darren, but his eyes were softer. "It's nice to meet you too, Darren," he said, voice softer than it had been with Blake.
Darren lifted his gaze slowly, but when he'd raised it he held Ian's eyes, and Blake saw the startled expression move quickly across his features. He wasn't sure if Ian would have noticed it.
"I..." Darren swallowed. "I'm sorry. I'm a little nervous. It nice to meet you though."
"No fear," Ian said. "I'm pretty nervous myself."
Blake slid his arm around his mate's shoulder inside of just resting a hand on him, drew him in close.
"Would you like to come in?" Darren asked.
"That would be very kind of you, thank you."
"Of course," Darren said, he and Blake turning to lead their guest back to the cabin.
Inside, Blake pulled Darren down beside him on the couch, and Ian took the single chair.
"I'm not sure how much I can tell you," he said quietly. "About Ellis and Gideon, I mean. I was only thirteen when it happened, and I wasn’t really here for it. So I can’t tell you what happened to them after… Well. I can tell you a few things about what they were like, but that’s it I’m afraid.”
"That's okay," Darren said, a little too quickly. His voice caught. "Anything you can tell me would be nice."
Ian nodded. For a moment he looked down at his hands.
"You look like him, you know," Ian said. "Like Ellis."
"Lydia told me the same thing," Darren said.
"Then it must be true," Ian said, and he smiled a little. When Darren didn't respond, he looked down at his hands again. "He was a good person," he said after that. “They both were. Ellis cared about pretty much anyone or anything you put in front of him. Always tr
ying to help someone, bringing a train of stray animals through the house."
Blake was very carefully not laughing.
“I think,” he said, looking down at his omega. “That you must be related.”
Darren flushed. “Okay. That turtle thing was not that big a deal.”
Ian looked a little confused by the exchange, but he didn’t stop them.
“The turtle thing,” Blake said. “Ruined my very nice rug.”
“We stopped bringing home strays after that,” Darren said, his eyes on his knees. “For now.”
The grin Blake was wearing gave away how very not done he was with teasing his mate about the turtle incident at every possible opportunity.
“Tell me more?” Darren asked, looking up.
“I’m not sure if it matters to you, particularly,” Ian said a little tentatively, going on. “But they were both very well respected. I believe beta Lydia told you that Ellis was in talks to marry her brother until he met Gideon. He married into the Hatfield pack instead. Gideon was the Alpha’s oldest son.”
It was likely he would have been pack Alpha, then, if he had lived. Of course, succession wasn’t guaranteed, but the family of the pack Alpha was often raised with skills necessary for leadership and many had genetics that gave them the strength and skill to back up their claims.
“What was he like?” Darren asked.
“Quiet,” Ian said. “Always thinking about something. But you could go to him if you needed help with pretty much anything. He’d always be willing to put aside his own problem and work on yours for a while.”
“You see?” Blake leaned down to whisper against his mate’s ear. “What did I tell you?”
Chapter Thirteen
Blake had told him more than once, Darren thought as his mate leaned down and whispered in his ear, had assured him that no one as good and as sweet as he was could come from people who weren’t. And Darren hadn’t been sure he agreed with that, still wasn’t sure he agreed with that. He’d met a lot of kids coming out of bad homes, away from bad parents, but they had been good people. Kind. He didn’t think it was genetic. But it was a relief to know what his parents had been like. A relief to know that they had been good.
"We didn't live with them, of course," Ian said.
And no, of course he wouldn't have, or he would have been hunted down with the rest of them.
"But we got to see them often," he continued. "And I met you, you know, when you were young."
Darren looked up from his hands in his lap, knowing he must look startled.
"You met me?"
Ian nodded. "I was a little old to play with you, but I was over there often enough." He smiled a little. "I was sure, when I saw you. When I smelled you. I knew you had to be him."
"Him," Darren said, his throat tight. He tried to take a breath in through his nose, slow and deep, and then another. "What was my name?"
He knew he was trembling, and Blake's arm wrapped tighter around him.
"Are you sure you want to know?" Ian asked, laying the offer out one last time, but Darren had no intention of backing out.
"I'm sure," he said.
"It was Shane."
Shane. Darren turned the word over and over in his mind. His name had been Shane. It was such a strange thought. For years he had been Darren. No one but Darren. And now he wasn't. Or was he? It wasn't as though he had to take the name Shane, wasn't as though anyone would force him to make the choice. It was the people he'd grown up with- no matter how limited their capacity to raise him with so many other children needing their attention, so many rules holding them back- those were the people who had given him the name Darren, and giving it back seemed ungrateful.
"You don't look like a Shane to me," his Alpha said against his ear.
No, Darren thought. He didn't look like a Shane. He didn't feel like one either. Pulling his lip between his teeth again, he shook his head. Whatever else came of this, he wasn’t going to adopt the name. He was Darren, and always would be. Shane had died the night his parents did.
They sat there in the tiny living room of the cabin for hours, Ian sharing stories about Darren’s parents. Sometime over the course of the day, he’d come to believe the story they’d come here to verify. Ian was the proof. Even he could see the similarities between them, could smell the relationship in their scent.
He wondered what it must have been like, to be Shane, growing up with parents who loved him. Wondered what it would have been like to know Ellis and Gideon. Hearing the stories meant something, but it would never be enough to make up for not having met them. They would never make him feel like he had known the people who had been his parents.
In some ways, he thought, listening to Ian talk about a time Ellis had brought home a cat that had hated Gideon and every other wolf in the pack but had, for some unknown reason, loved Ellis with all the passion a cat could muster, they had been like him. He found himself smiling at the stories that were meant to make him smile. Laughed, once. In some ways, they had been like him. But in other ways, they weren’t like him at all.
Ian’s stories were winding down, the light coming in through the window thick and gold, as afternoon became evening. In the new silence, Darren sat for a moment and said nothing, and the sounds of the words faded between them.
“Thank you,” he said then. “Thank you for telling me who they were.”
“You’re welcome,” Ian said, his voice as soft as Darren’s own. He glanced down at a phone he pulled out of his pocket. “I’m afraid I should get going.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay for dinner?” Blake asked as he stood. “Our treat?”
Ian smiled, shook his head. “No,” he said. “Thank you. But I’ve already got a date tonight.”
They stood with him, and Darren shook the hand that was offered, watched his mate do the same.
“Another time,” Blake said. “And if you’re ever up in the north, give us a call.”
“I will, sir,” Ian said. He paused in the doorway and smiled at them one last time. “Thank you for having me. And for listening. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”
And then he was gone, and they heard the sound of his car starting out in the drive. Blake asked if he wanted to go out for dinner, and Darren shook his head, though he couldn’t quite make himself speak. He didn’t want to go anywhere with people. He needed to think.
What would he have been like, Darren wondered, if he hadn’t been alone? Who would Shane has grown up to be. He watched his Alpha turn the oven on, pulling a pizza out of the freezer to cook when it had finished preheating, and he thought of Alex, safe at home with his grandparents, probably being horrendously spoiled. He laid his hand over the swell of his belly. The baby was too small yet for him to feel it moving, but he could smell the vanilla scent of it, faintly twined with his own.
If things had been different, he might never have met Blake.
Chapter Fourteen
“I would do it all again,” Darren said softly.
Blake, leaning over to slide the pizza into the oven, straightened up and closed it, glancing at the clock to fix the time in his mind before he turned to look at his mate. Darren had been quiet since Ian had left, sitting on the couch with his gaze turned down to the floor.
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
His omega was twisting the gold ring on his fourth finger around and around, watching the dimming light gleam in its surface, but he looked up when Blake spoke. He rose from the couch and crossed the room, wrapping himself around Blake, laying his head on his shoulder. Blake’s arms closed around his husband and drew him in closer. One of his hands slid up into soft hair.
“I would do it all again,” Darren repeated. “Everything. All the bad, and all the loneliness, and all the stupid people at Walmart. Even knowing it was all going to happen, I’d do it again if I knew you’d be waiting at the end.”
Blake’s embrace tightened until Darren gasped, and then he slid them apart just enough to
let his mate breathe, leaned down and claimed the warm, sweet mouth that belonged to him. Darren sank into the kiss with a soft moan, his legs wrapping around Blake’s hips as Blake lifted him suddenly off his feet and carried him over to the bed.
“I love you,” he said when the kiss broke, already reaching down to unfasten his mate’s shirt. This time he didn’t bother with slow and careful just pulled it open, paying no attention to the several buttons that clattered across the floor.
Darren was reaching for him too, unfastening his shirt, and pulling him down. This was what they both needed, fast and hard and reminding each other that they were there, that they belonged. Blake pulled Darren’s pants and underwear off him, didn’t bother with taking his own off, just pulled them down far enough to pull himself out.
He was already hard, could smell Darren, wet and wanting. His mate gasped as Blake flipped him onto his stomach, hauling him up onto his knees with his chest still pressed to the mattress. He pressed Darren’s thighs apart with a hand, caught him around the hips. The head of his cock found his mate’s hole, slick and ready for him, and he slid in deep with a single thrust, moans spilling from both of them as he bottomed out.
“Fuck,” Darren choked. “Fuck. Blake. Love you too. Always.”
Another thrust, Blake’s hands wrapped around his omega’s hips hard enough to leave marks behind, and he knew neither of them minded.
“Alpha,” his mate breathed.
It was fast, and hard, and perfect. A claim. A promise of everything they meant to each other. Blake pulled Darren back to meet each thrust, both of them panting, moaning, his own rough noises mixing with Darren’s cut off little cries. God, his omega made the best noises.
His knot was already inflating, both of them ready for it. Needing the connection. He rocked in, the head of his cock stroking over Darren’s prostate and making him sob.
Blake reached down and wrapped a hand around his mate’s cock, sliding his palm over the head to slick it, then stroking to match the pace of his earlier thrusts. Fast. Demanding. He thrust in deep, locking them together, and his teeth closed over the place where he’d left the mating mark.