Alec modified the kiss, rising up on his toes and pressing bodily downward against the merman, slanting his head and diving his tongue aggressively into the other man’s mouth.
Marvin gave a little squeak of surprise, but acquiesced willingly enough, melting easily against Alec’s aggression. Alec gave a little growl of approval and grabbed that tempting long blond hair with one hand, and yanked the merman’s head around to exactly the right angle. Now, that’s a kiss.
Then he stopped.
Marvin, for once, seemed to have nothing to say. His mouth went open and then closed for a little while in shock. He looked like – well – like a fish.
Finally he said, eyes wide, “So that’s how it is?”
Alec, blushing a little at his own temerity, pretended a casual shrug. “You thought I was submissive?”
Marvin nodded, but recovered from his surprise enough to snuggle up against him.
Alec explained. “You thought I was in the closet just because I was gay? Not me, I got far more problems. I’m a closet alpha too. I just act the gamma around the pack, makes things easier. I’m a non-confrontational kind’a guy.” The stepladder tilted dangerously at a particularly hard whack from the walrus. They would have to deal with the selkie situation soon.
Marvin was more interested in the implication of Alec’s kiss. “You telling me you’re an alpha in everything?”
“Do you even know what that means?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well, for one thing people are always trying to follow me places without my actually doing anything. Can get pretty hairy in a gay bar, let me just say. And I am so not into werebears.”
Marvin blinked at him.
“I was trying to be funny.” Alec sighed. “So, technically, yes. I’m alpha. That’s kind of what started all my problems. I always knew, you see? Since right after they changed me. You just kind of do know, once you’re a werewolf. Know where you sit in a pack, I mean. But, can you imagine the hell I’d have to pay if it became known by anyone else? My dad already suspects, and I think Biff might too.”
“I thought they suspected you were gay.”
“Possibly. But that’d just be the excuse to fight me. I might be able to take a couple hits now and again, but a real fight? It’s in my nature to have to prove things. That’d be bad. So I avoid it.”
Marvin looked at him. “You don’t want the responsibility of your own pack?”
Alec shrugged. “Maybe.”
Marvin blinked long blond lashes at him in a parody of a fifties housewife. “Honey, are you telling me I’m in love with a single dad?”
“If you count about seven grown up bikers. Yup.”
“That’s how many you think would follow you?”
“If I won alpha, sure. “
“I always wanted a big family.” Marvin didn’t seem to mind this possibility.
“You’re a loon, you know that?”
The most remarkable high-pitched yet melodic keening wail cut through both their conversation and the seal barking. Alec flinched. The sound was so sharp it almost tore through the delicate drum of his hypersensitive ears.
“What the hell?”
Marvin grinned. “I believe my sister has arrived. Cover your ears.”
Alec did so. Marvin threw back his head and let out a correspondingly painful yet lovely sound.
A few moments later a loud banging commenced and then the door at the top of the cellar steps crashed open, breaking the bolt. Giselle appeared. She was shadowed by three large and bulky figures who seamed to have done the brunt of the damage to the door.
Alec sniffed suspiciously. Eau de dad, brother, and alpha. Just wonderful.
Giselle and the werewolves crashed down the stairs and then paused, confused, at the bottom. For there were Marvin and Alec, clutching each other on the top of a rickety stepladder while at their feet two large furry sausages writhed about in an entirely unthreatening manner.
“Uh,” said Giselle.
“Marvin found their skins and incapacitated them.”
“Makes them mighty difficult to interrogate though.”
“But not so much of a threat,” Alec defended.
Marvin shrugged. “Bundle them up in a couple of tarps, take them back to Alec’s place and dump them in the bathtub with a bit of salt. Should do the tick.”
“Oh, now really. Must it be my apartment? My tub isn’t nearly big enough for a walrus.” Alec protested.
“We’ll be careful. It’s the only way to get a confession out of them. Need to trace the rest of that money.”
“What the hell are you doing on a stepladder with a merman? Naked!” Butch asked in that tone of voice. Apparently, he had finally taken stock of the situation.
Alec sighed. Suddenly he was very tired of hiding everything all the time. His mouth tasted like seal blubber, the man of his dreams was in his arms, and the future just didn’t seem all that bad anymore.
“Kissing him, if you really must know.”
Butch sputtered.
Giselle grinned.
“Would you like a demonstration?” Alec offered. Might as well go for broke.
“No need to press the matter, pup,” warned Fifi in his alpha tone of voice.
Butch, ignoring the walrus, the seal, and the merman, charged down the steep wooden stairs into the basement and leaped at his son, changing form midair in a spectacular display of werewolf prowess. His clothing fell to the floor with a sad little fump.
“Oh, well, that’s just great,” said Alec, falling off the stepstool with his father’s jaw wrapped around his shoulder.
Then he too changed.
Alec had never actually fought his father. After he became a werewolf he’d fought his brothers, one at a time, and several at once. None of them talked about it, but Alec had kicked their proverbial furry butts. But his Dad was pack beta. And very very big.
He was also, Alec soon found, a tad out of shape and beginning to feel his age.
Alec never understood how any werewolf could lose his human sense along with his human form. It seemed silly simply to let the slavering beast take over. So Alec fought using his intelligence as well as his wolf body. So with his father mindlessly attacking, tearing for the throat and scrabbling at his jaw, Alec – quick and nimble – fended off his attack and steered him in a furry slathering growing tumble around the basement toward a promising looking fish tank.
His dad took a particularly nasty nip to the side of the face, under one eye, and backed away, circling his son warily for a moment.
Alec seized the opportunity to dart in at exactly the right minute, and instead of going for a ruff-grabbing bite as one might expect, he nosed under his father’s belly, and heaved upward using leverage and supernatural strength to simply flip the wolf over and into the fish tank. There was a tremendous splash and then the glass shattered under Butch’s weight.
Butch took a moment to recover, shaking the glass and water from his coat. He was about to charge his son again, and Alec was beginning to wonder how he could end this without actually killing his father, when both Fifi and Biff stepped in.
“Enough, Butch,” said the alpha. “The fight is done. Consider yourself rousted. He’s fighting smart and we both know what that means.”
Butch crouched down among the remnants of the fish tank and glared at his alpha.
“He’s always fought smart, you just never bothered to ask any of us why we stopped picking on him after he changed. You thought we didn’t test him?”
Marvin and Giselle were occupied trussing up the two barking sea mammals in a couple tablecloths they’d unearthed from the kitchen stores. But, drawn by the conversation, Marvin wandered over.
Giselle, apparently tired of all the barking, glared the walrus into silent stone stillness. Without him, the harbor seal seemed far more amiable.
“What’s it mean, fighting smart?” Marvin bent down and began scratching Alec’s ears. Alec leaned into the caresses. It was a li
ttle lap-dog degrading but it felt wonderful.
“It’s an alpha trait, keeping the brain with the change, as it were.”
“Oh, I though alpha had to do with dominance and size.”
“Size, sometimes. Dominance, definitely. But that too has to do with smarts and how you use them.”
Fifi looked down at Alec. “Enough playing, pup.”
Alec sighed and shifted back to human. He found and pulled on his jeans before Marvin could say or do anything rash.
Marvin gave him a very significant look.
Alec looked to Fifi. “So, now that it’s out, what are you going to do about me?”
Fifi shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for you to get your crap together and take on responsibility for your half of the pack for a couple years now. Couldn’t understand what was holding you back.”
Alec winced.
Biff looked at his brother, head cocked to one side thoughtfully. “I can.”
“What’s your interest in this matter?” Alec wanted to know.
“Didn’t you realize it? I’m your beta.”
Alec took a closer look at his brother. It would explain his protective behavior over the years. “Oh.” I guess he always knew he was a beta, just like I always knew I was an alpha.
“So?” Fifi demanded, one heavy foot resting casually on Butch’s still lupine back, as if he were afraid Alec’s dad would leap up and begin attacking once more.
Biff shrugged, looking significantly at Alec and then Marvin, who’d sidled up behind him and wormed one hand into his.
Alec puffed out his cheeks. “So, I’m gay.”
Butch twitched and growled under Fifi’s foot but did nothing further.
Fifi shrugged. “So?”
“You’re not mad?”
“You’re not making a pass at me, are you? Why should I be?”
Biff said, “We all, well, kind’a already knew.”
Alec turned to his brother, voice rising, “Oh really? How long?”
Biff raised both eyebrows. “Well, there was that thing when you were six. I was gnawing on one of Ma’s shoes but you took if away from me because it was Italian.”
Alec’s jaw dropped. “You don’t care?”
Biff shrugged. “Why should I?”
“You aren’t worried about your alpha being, well, you know . . .”
“Alec, I just think it’s time you settled down, came out as an alpha, took your piece of the pack, and relocated us. We’ve waited long enough, we’re restless.”
“None of the others care?” Alec was thinking of his brothers and the rest of the younger pack members.
“The ones that do will stay with Fifi. The rest of us don’t give a damn. New generation, Alec, it’s not an issue anymore. We’re, you know, modern. Though, I don’t know how they’ll feel about the in-laws smelling like fish.”
Marvin grinned at him.
Alec turned to look down at the merman. “So, I come with a bit of baggage.”
Marvin kept smiling. “Every relationship has its little hurdles.”
“Little? Who you calling little?” Biff glared.
Marvin ignored Biff, nuzzled up against Alec’s neck and gave it a little lick.
Alec jumped slightly. “Behave.” He turned back to Fifi and Biff. “So what do we know about the Bay Area, any packs roaming there?”
Fifi grinned. “Not that I know of. The general feeling on San Francisco among the older pack leaders is that there are too many, well, you know . . .” He trailed off.
Alec shrugged. “Guess I’m the right kind of alpha for the area then.”
Biff grinned. “So you’re in? You’ll do it?”
“Do I have a choice? At least there are still marine biology labs over there.”
Marvin slid an arm around his waist. “Plenty. I may even have influence with one of two of them.”
Alec smiled and looked down at the merman’s blond head. “I suppose to be unexpectedly in love is a nice change from being unexpectedly alive.”
The merman stood up on his toes and kissed him.
Alec wondered what Marvin looked like with a tail. “Man, this is going to be one weird relationship.”
“All the best ones are,” replied his merman boyfriend.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Trisha for insisting I write this story, and for letting me branch out from the Parasol Protectorate universe.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Thank you so much for reading Marine Biology. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to know when my next book is available, I have a newsletter called The Monthly Chirrup, or feel free to follow me on Twitter at @gailcarriger, or like my Facebook page. I am grateful for any time you may take to review my books ~ for time is almost as precious as sardines.
ALSO BY GAIL CARRIGER
The Parasol Protectorate
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate Book 1)
Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate Book 2)
Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate Book 3)
Heartless (The Parasol Protectorate Book 4)
Timeless (The Parasol Protectorate Book 5)
The Finishing School
Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School Book 1)
Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School Book 2)
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny (Winter 2015)
The Custard Protocol Prudence (Spring 2015)
Imprudence (Spring 2016)
Short Stories
Marine Biology
Fairy Debt
My Sister's Song
The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn't, the Mummy That Was, and the Cat in the Jar (A Parasol Protectorate Short Story)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times Bestselling author Gail Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported from London.
Find Gail's blog and news about upcoming books at www.gailcarriger.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Marine Biology
The End
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
Also by Gail Carriger
About the Author
Marine Biology Page 4