by Aiden Bates
“I am looking at you,” Luke said softly. “That was not what I see.”
“I’ve already cost one omega his life because I let him tie his fate up with mine,” Jason said. “I won’t make the same mistake a second time.”
Luke’s eyes flash dangerously. “I am not a mistake.”
“That was not what I meant!”
“Isn’t it?” Luke pulled the rest of the way away from Jason. “Why were you here, then?”
“I – ” Jason started.
Luke watched him expectantly.
“You need someone,” Jason said at last. “I’m the only unmated Alpha in the pack. So it was my duty to help you.”
Luke froze. For a few moments there was silence as he worked up the ability to speak.
“Duty,” he said at last. It was not accusing, or angry, or even sad. It was just a single word delivered in the most neutral tone imaginable.
For a moment Jason felt an absurd flash of pride. All those lessons on how to keep one’s emotions concealed while on guard duty appear to have paid off.
Then his mind caught up. “That was – ”
“I understand,” Luke said, still in that terrible calm voice. “It was commendable of you to put your personal feelings aside on my behalf.”
“That was not – it came out wrong!”
“Then what did you mean?”
Jason’s brain shorted out entirely. Luke’s face was a blank mask, but his distress leaked out in his scent and colors the air around them. Jason was consumed with the need to soothe it. But he had also caught in the knowledge that he had caused Luke’s dismay, and he couldn’t find a single word to say.
After a moment Luke nods. “Another mistake, then,” he said coolly. Then he turned away. “I’m taking a walk.”
“Luke!” Jason scrambles to his feet, starting after the youth. He was stopped by Luke’s upraised hand.
“I’m talking a walk alone,” he clarified. His glance over his shoulder was disdainful. “You needn’t worry. I’ll be back in time for you to perform your duty.”
“It was not just duty,” Jason said desperately. “Luke, I didn’t mean – ”
Too late. Jason was speaking to the grass and the trees. Luke was gone.
And Luke was never gone. Luke was always found when Jason was looking at him. He ran after him. He took his arm.
Luke shook him off. Luke reached for him to take his arm in his hand. “I want you.” Luke’s teeth were gritted.
Jason felt like stone. “No. You don’t. I’m going to save you from me.”
“I don’t want saving from you.”
“You need it,” Jason spat.
“You know what I need,” Luke growled. “Give me what I need.”
There was so much hunger. So much hunger Jason did not know where his hunger began and where Luke’s hunger began.
“You don’t want what I can give you.”
It wasn’t a question but it hung like a question in the air between them. A mystery, Jason thought, one that he didn’t need to ever be solved. He needed to walk away. How many times had he told himself to walk away?
Luke’s eyes said different. Luke’s eyes said: more.
He was resolute. “Enough is enough.” He looked away.
“I need more.” Luke took advantage of Jason’s moment of distraction to break out of his grip entirely. Luke used his new leverage to climb practically on top of Jason, shoving his nose unerringly in one of the scent glands just below Jason’s collarbone and breathing deep.
Luke breathed again, deep and rhythmic. More of the tension went out of his frame. As though this meant he would have what he wanted, he almost relaxed now, sprawled across Jason like Jason was a particularly comfortable pillow.
Maybe Luke was right. He was going to have what he wanted. They would both have what they wanted.
He didn’t attempt to move Luke yet. They would have to rearrange for the actual knotting, but Luke’s scent had quieted somewhat. With his nose buried in Jason’s neck Luke’s body seemed to finally realize that he was not alone for this heat. The scent of distress receded somewhat. Not completely – it still lurked underneath, like a storm-cloud hovering on the horizon – but Jason could take a little more time to make sure Luke was ready.
He let his left arm curl loosely around Luke’s shoulders, stroking Luke’s hair, as Luke breathed deep and shuddered with every twist of Jason’s fingers inside him. He was wet as a river but still so tight. The first knot was hard, Michael had always said. He’d never seemed to blame Jason for their first heat together. But Jason had been a young Alpha then, every bit as inexperienced as Michael, and he knew that their first knot together had been a raw, fumbling thing. If nothing else, Jason could do better for Luke.
Luke was making soft, breathy sounds he was probably not aware of. He’d probably be ashamed if he were. But to Jason he was beautiful, and Jason couldn’t stop looking at him. He added a third finger without taking his eyes from Luke’s face and watched Luke’s lips part in a pleased gasp. Jason’s thumb gently massaged Luke’s rim, helping him stretch, and Luke’s eyes fluttered with the sensation. It was beautiful.
Luke groaned when Jason withdrew slightly, and his scent jumped in distress. Jason soothed him with a kiss. It was as instinctive and natural as breathing. It was only after it was done, and Luke was blinking down at him with red-stained cheeks and a look of astonished joy, that Jason remembered that he had supposed to remain detached. That he’d meant never to kiss Luke, or hold him like this and stroke his hair, or do anything other than what’s absolutely necessary. Or else Luke would realize…
Luke must have caught something in Jason’s face – or, more probably, Jason’s scent – because his look of joy faltered, then faded. This far into his peak Luke was running on sheer instinct, and his instincts had always been good. He could tell that Jason was about to withdraw. He was already bracing for the blow.
Jason couldn’t bear it. He kissed Luke again.
Luke stilled in shock, then surges up, prying Jason’s lips open with his own. Luke kissed with energy and motion and absolutely nothing held back. It was intoxicating. Jason fell into it, and it was long moments before he remembered that there was something more he needed to be doing.
Jason let Luke keep kissing him while his fingers go back to work. Instead of entering Luke, he massaged the omega’s rim and the area surrounding it, the muscles that were about to stretch wide over Jason’s knot. Getting the knot inside Luke would be only half the battle. The other half was Luke’s. His muscles had to have both have enough elasticity to lock around the knot and enough strength to contract around it. Luke was strong – Jason isn’t worried about that part – but if he was too tense he would tear instead of stretch. Jason worked the whole area, loosening Luke up until Luke was whining with need and his scent was spiking too much to delay any further.
Jason withdrew his fingers and gently disengaged from Luke’s artless kissed. Luke protested with a wordless keen. Jason shushed him, rolling them over so Luke was beneath him.
“Hands and knees, beloved,” Jason said breathlessly. The endearment slipped out of him without his conscious intent, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. “It’s time.”
Luke shivered all over. He wriggled into position eagerly, presenting without a hint of shame. Then he proved he was young and flexible enough to twist his neck around and give Jason the most erotic come-hither look Jason had ever seen.
It would tempt a saint. It certainly tempted Jason.
Jason kept just enough self-control to slide in slowly – as slowly as possible, given that Luke shoves back enthusiastically and moaned in a way that went straight to his knot. Jason groaned. This isn’t going to last very long. Fortunately that was the point – at least at the moment.
Luke took Jason beautifully, all the way to the hilt in one long, slow push. Luke folded his arms and lowered his front all the way to the ground to get a better angle. Jason watched Luke’s hol
e flutter around the knot with a sense of wonder. Michael had always closed up completely around him. Luke didn’t quite manage that. Jason could still see the base of his knot through the thin stretched skin at Luke’s entrance. Jason rocked back and forth gently, fearing even to thrust, afraid that the skin was about to tear. But it didn’t. It stretched and fluttered but held.
Luke probably couldn’t speak if his life depended on it, but the impatient moan and wriggle of his hips does it for him. More, they demand. Move. Now.
Jason surprised himself with a breathless laugh. He braced himself with his hands against the cool forest floor, leaning forward and nuzzling Luke briefly at the base of his neck. Luke shivered and moaned again, thrusting his hips up futilely, trying to get some action.
“I’ve got you,” Jason promised. He pulled out slightly – careful, still careful – then rocked back in. Luke moaned again. Still in pleasure, Jason was listening intently, but he heard no sour note of pain. Encouraged, Jason repeated the motion, building up a small rhythm. Luke’s scent filled his nose. His eyes were treated to the incredible vision of Luke’s beautiful body awash in pleasure. Luke’s hole contracted around his knot. Jason shoved himself fully inside, more out of instinct than conscious thought. His knot caught on Luke’s rim, which stretched nearly white, and for a moment Jason was caught in the fear that he had left it too late, that he had missed the knot. But it slipped in with an agonizingly pleasurable slide, and then it was at full swell. They were tied.
Jason’s orgasm built up in him like a tidal wave. Luke didn’t wait for it; he cried out and shook apart underneath Jason, without Jason even laying a finger on his cock. It shuddered through them both through the place where they’re tied together. Luke’s muscles squeezed tight almost to the point of pain, then relaxed suddenly, and Jason spilled himself deep with a groan he couldn’t hold back.
The feeling of coming inside Luke was indescribable. The sense of release was physically pleasurable, but it was decidedly secondary to the fireworks that go off in his mind and heart. For this moment, this knot, this heat, Luke was indisputably his. It was Jason’s knot in his hole, Jason’s seed climbing up his channel. Jason had the privilege of holding Luke close as he dozed. Jason was who Luke trusted to guard him against anything and everything, to help him when he most needed it.
Right now it didn’t matter that there were nearly ten years between them, that Luke was unbroken and Jason was scarred, that Luke deserved better and Jason deserved nothing. Right now all Jason could think about was the omega in his arms. His strength, his beauty, his resilience of spirit and faith in the goodness of others. Luke deserved every good thing this world had to offer. Jason was going to make sure Luke received them.
As the first orgasm died down between them, some of Jason’s reasoning faculties returned, and he maneuvered them down onto their sides on the mattress, or was it the forest floor, where they could rest. Luke was already lost to the world, dozing peacefully in Jason’s arms. Jason fumbled a minute, but managed to get a blanket over them both. They would stay tied for some time. A long time, if Luke successfully milks subsequent orgasms from Jason. Even when it the knot came down Luke wouldn’t likely wake from the doze. Not until he was hot and needy again. There was water within reach, and food. Jason’s whole attention was focused on the omega dozing on his knot. Peaceful and beautiful and trusting, all his barriers down. The thought hit Jason suddenly: this could be forever.
Jason wanted it to be. He wanted it with an intensity that scared him. He hadn’t just been lying to Luke with his words and actions: he had been lying to himself, too. He didn’t just want Luke the way any older Alpha might want a beautiful younger omega. Jason wanted this specific omega, this sometimes brilliant, often stubborn, occasionally frustrating youth who had looked up from a camera, or was it up from gravel of the practice yard, three months or three hundred years ago and turned Jason’s world upside down. He wanted to keep Luke in his arms, by his side. Forever.
Luke sighed softly in his doze. His muscles clenched and relaxed where he had joined with Jason, pulling more of Jason into himself. Luke wanted Jason. And maybe Jason had been lying to himself, too, about the depth of Luke’s feelings. Because Luke having a puppy crush had been far easier to deal with than the idea that Luke might genuinely love Jason. So Jason had let the weeks and then the years and then the weeks again go by and turn to months and to decades.
Chapter Twelve
He watches Luke toss in the bed. Luke had fallen asleep, back into a drunken stupor, and Jason stood. He stayed, watching. Do you remember me? He wants to ask Luke. Do you remember my scent? I remember you. He wants to tell him. I remember every single time I was your first. I remember every single I was your first kiss and your first knot. I remember how we made love under the moon and the stars and sometimes under the sun too.
They’d been here before, they were always here, always locked together. Forever.
Jason wants to hold him down, to beg him to remember.
He wants to get up and start walking again because Luke doesn’t remember, because Luke is blessed with the ability to forget.
He does get up.
He will go away.
He will shake Luke’s hand off of his arm.
He will push Luke back. He will not hurt him again or be hurt again.
He is lying to himself. Again. “Get off of me.” He growls. He growls because as he is standing Luke is standing too, Luke is holding onto him. Instead of throwing him back, Jason is taking him into his arms. It’s been different. Sometimes, it had been Luke’s arms wrapping around him. It has been different, but it has always been the same too.
It has always been. They have been a thousand faces, but they have always been.
He stands looking at Luke when he wants to lift his hands to his eyes. He wants to make himself blind, he wants to take away his sense of smell. If he could pull Luke out of his heart, dig him up from the places where Luke is rooted so deeply he forgets how to breath when he is not near, he would.
He could.
He remembers without dreaming. He wondered if Luke ever dreams about:
“I don’t want you.” He sneers saying it. He jerks his arm away.
“Liar.” Luke says with no anger. He says it with no remorse, with no pointed daggers. He says it like he remembers. He doesn’t remember though.
Jason knows. He doesn’t remember. He has no clue. He wants to fly at him. He wants to unstop his eyes. He wants to open Luke’s ears and pour his words inside of him, a million words, all of them echo’s.
“You want me, Jason.” Luke moves nearer. His words are soft, whispers between waves, whispers between the pages of books, whispers shared between barely parted lips while barely parted thighs opened wider.
“Go away!” It is a roar exploding from inside of him. But he is right, Luke is right. He is a liar. His words lie but his body doesn’t.
Chapter Thirteen
Jason remembers when.
How they end up backed up against the wall, Luke had no clue. Honestly, he couldn’t even say for sure that it was a wall and not the floor or the ceiling or an impressively sturdy patch of air. His center of gravity was all fucked, mainly because it had decided to locate itself between Jason's hips, bumping roughly up against him and at this moment he couldn’t remember why he'd ever wanted it to be anywhere else.
Luke's never been particularly hung up on being the he-man macho-dude in bed, but he was an Alpha and there were certain personality quirks that come with the territory. He'd never spent much time considering it from the other side, the appeal of having someone bigger - a tall order all by itself - and stronger manhandling him around, taking what they want. And there was a part of him that was getting all kinds of pissy about it, wanted to buck Jason off and flip them around, got him face first against the wall and show him who's boss. There were several other parts that were busy knocking that part out and locking it in a closet somewhere so Luke just grabs on to the tight glob
es of Jason’s ass and pulled him in tighter. Tried not to go off like a shot when his fingers find the back of Jason’s pants damp with slick.
Jason remembers:
Jason's shaking so hard Luke's not sure how he was still standing but he had not easing off. The hot musk of beta slick and the sting of an alpha both mixed up in Luke's nostrils was nothing he'd have ever thought would got him hard but he felt like he could come just breathing close to Jason right now. He was huge and everywhere, surrounding Luke, pressing him back against the wall, pulling and jostling until Luke's feet loose contact with the floor. It only lasts a second, but it was there, Jason picked him up and it was, without a doubt, the single most stunning thing that had ever happened to Luke during not-really-sex.
“We should stop,” was also, without a doubt, the single most painful thing Luke's ever had to say. But he was better than this, fast and rushed, using Jason in a frenzy like some bad romance novel. Luke's a good guy, damnit, he'd held off all during Jason's heat even though it was like pulling out his own fingernails out with rusty pliers and he had not going to blow that being a horn-dog now.
Only, apparently, Jason did not get that memo.
“Taste so good, Luke," was what Luke thinks he said. Jason's still primarily licking at Luke's chin and may have included a couple of letters in there that don't have a place in the English language, but Luke's pretty sure that was what it was. "You taste so good.”
His “Fuck,” got muffled around the hungry shove of Jason's tongue back into his mouth, salty with his own sweat. Ok, so much for being the good guy. He could maybe still pull off not being a complete advantage-taking pervert though if Jason would quit trying to hitch his leg up around Luke's hip.
“Could I touch you? Was that ok?" Jason kind of sort of manages to pull back enough this time that the question comes out as real words. His hand pawing its way down Luke's chest to twitch needily at his hip would got the message across anyway. Luke manfully restrains himself from laughing in Jason's face.