by Grey, Aspen
I hadn’t been able to make the chair yet, so we were stuck with those goofy lawn chairs you see people setting up outside during barbeques or Superbowl parties. Chairs were particularly difficult to make, and I’d need to invest in a lathe, a machine that let you turn pieces of wood and carve them into cylinders to be used for legs, but that was quite an expense and I hadn’t managed to hunt an affordable one down yet.
Still, our new home was gorgeous, even if it wasn’t completely finished just yet.
Owen had designed it beautifully. It was set away from his and Trevor’s house and was made of brick with a long sloping roof that almost touched the ground on one side by the mountain, which was perfect for the Maine Winters, as it would shed snow with ease.
One entire wall was glass, letting in the morning sun and the evening glow, and there was a thick chimney and fireplace in the center of the house that formed a doorway leading to the kitchen, and beyond that, the bedroom hunkered down in the back for some privacy. The bathroom had a skylight above the shower that could be opened to make you really feel like you were bathing outside. Of course it occasionally meant that you had to sweep up some leaves from the drain, but that was no biggie.
“Don’t drop the brush,” Paul joked as he came into the workshop behind me. Trevor had added on a barn to the property and filled it with tools and I’d spent almost all of my free time there when Paul and I weren’t busy with our baby boy.
“You know these hands,” I replied, setting my brush aside and stepping back from the table. “Very skilled.”
“Mmm, I know,” he mewed, slipping his arms around my waist. “It looks wonderful, baby.”
The table really was awesome. It was the piece I was the most proud of out of everything I’d built so far. It was made from two enormous slabs of live-edge cherry wood that had been joined together in the center and set on enormous legs to keep the whole thing up. It had a perfect balance of being completely natural but also handmade. I honestly could have sold it for a lot of money, but all the money in the world meant nothing when compared to the happiness of my family.
“Is Clyde in bed?”
“Oh, no,” Paul laughed. “He’s just outside. I told him to wait until we could see if daddy was finished or not.”
“Well, daddy is done,” I replied. “Should we let him in so he can see the finished product?”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Paul smiled. He went over to the door and opened it and a little ball of energy burst into the room. “Here comes the terror!”
Clyde poofed into a shifting ball and took his wolf form, then snapped back to his human form, and then back again until finally leaping towards me as a wolf and transforming back to the little baby he was before landing perfectly in my arms.
“He really loves doing that, doesn’t he?” I smiled, kissing his smiling face.
“Oh, I can’t get him to stop,” Paul replied. “Wolf, human, wolf, human. It’s like a brand new toy he’s discovered.”
Clyde was adorable and filled with that pure happiness that only children possess. I held him as he squirmed and finally got comfortable, then gestured towards the table.
“Look at that, Clyde,” I told him. “That’s our new table. Do you like it?”
His mouth opened and he turned to look at me, then back to the table and back to me again.
“I don’t think he understands,” Paul laughed.
“It’s where we’re going to eat!” I explained. Clyde’s eyes lit up.
“Eat, eat!”
“That’s right,” I laughed, bouncing him in my arms. “Now, let’s go outside and let this dry. We shouldn’t be around the fumes.”
We stepped outside and I realized that it was already evening and the sun was going down. I’d been working longer than I had planned, and Paul had been nice enough not to come in and disturb me. The lights were on in Trevor’s and it looked like Damon had come over with Jordan. Family dinner had become the norm out here, with fresh fish from Damon’s boat and some vegetables from the small gardens on the property. We were pretty self sustainable now. If we could eventually afford solar, we’d be off the grid entirely.
“Long way from Miami, huh?” I said to Paul as we walked to the main house.
“You can say that again,” he laughed. “I can actually see the stars out here.”
“Can you imagine trying to raise Clyde in the city?” I asked. “With all his energy?”
“Ugh, nightmare!”
“You can say that again!”
“N-nighnare!” Clyde tried to say.
“Close!” Paul laughed, running a hand through our son’s messy hair.
A feeling ran through me that I’d almost gotten used to but not really. It was like an out of body experience where for just a moment I was able to look at my life objectively, like an outsider, and marvel at what I had.
I’d achieved my dream—reached my destination, even if it had taken me a few years and a couple of detours to get there. I’d found “the one” and made him mine. I had a child, a family, and I was doing my woodworking like I’d always dreamed. I’d actually managed to find Frank’s e-mail address online and reached out to him last week with a shot of my almost-finished table.
Looks great, kid!
That was all he’d said, but it was all he needed to say. I’d extended an invitation that he come up and visit my shop some day, and he had said he’d think about it. I knew it would take some coaxing, but eventually I’d get him to come. Having been the only real father figure in my life, it would mean a lot to me to see him again. Maybe I’d name our next kid after him and then he’d have to come up!
The door to Trevor’s opened and Owen stepped out, waving a hand happily. “Come on, you two! We’re about to sit down!”
“Coming!” I called back. Holding Clyde in my left arm, I slid my right around Paul and pulled him close. “This is the life, isn’t it?”
“Damn straight,” he replied. “Couldn’t ask for more.”
“No?” I replied. “So you wouldn’t want more after dinner?”
“Mmm, well when you put it that way…”
“Double dessert?” I teased as we took the steps to Trevor’s house.
“They say you spell dessert with two s’s because you always want two,” Paul replied. “So, yes. I think that sounds like a plan!”
I grinned, leaned in and kissed my fated mate. It had taken us four years to find each other again, but now we were stronger than ever and nothing was going to break us apart again.
“I love you, Paul.”
“I love you too, Alec.”
Clyde, never wanting to be left out, flapped his arms and squealed. “I—I wub you!”
I laughed and kissed my son on the head. “And we love you, son.”
The End
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Bred For Him — Sample
Chapter One
Owen
Five years.
It’s been five years since I saw him last and I I can’t stop thinking about him…
Despite what happened, despite what they’re calling him. And how could I? He was my fated mate.
No. He is my fated mate.
Trevor Stone, the man of my dreams. Tall, handsome, tattooed, fierce, the most dominant, strong willed alpha I’d ever met. Life had brought him to me and snatched him away just as quickly. We’d only had one week together—one beautiful week that felt like a lifetime—when we ran through the warm summer nights together, side by side, mates ready to start a family and face life’s challeng
es together.
And then, in a blink of an eye, it was all over.
Murder.
That was the charge against him. Murder. I couldn’t believe it. My beautiful Trevor a murderer? He was tough, don’t get me wrong. He’d been a bare knuckle boxer in his teens and was an enforcer for the Cancio family, an Italian mob family in Providence, Rhode Island. He collected debts and swung his fists when he needed to, but a murderer?
No. Not my baby.
I thought about him every single day since he was torn from my side, excised from my life so quickly it had felt like a punch to the gut that I was still recovering from. I’d told myself that if I could hear from him, understand what had happened, then I would be able to handle it better. But there hadn’t been a single word from him in five years.
…not one.
So, I did the only thing I could do; I went on with my life the best I could and tried to tell myself that sometimes things in life just don’t work out and you can’t be stuck in the past. I went to counseling groups for family members who have lost loved ones, but I felt bad being in a room with people who had actually had husbands, brothers and sons die. I felt like an imposter.
I went to counselling. It helped a bit, but there’s just no cure for a broken heart, especially when you know it was fate that brought you two together.
It was a warm June night when we first met. I was 18, fresh out of high school with high hopes of getting my architecture degree and designing houses for a living. My father was supportive—before he passed away of cancer—and I was going to spend the summer sketching my dreams in my notebook while staring out at the ocean from our small house on the coast of Massachusetts.
And then he had come into my life.
He arrived like a storm off the coast, sweeping into town on his motorcycle wearing black torn jeans and a black leather jacket, his long dark hair billowing in the wind like a vision of pure sex, dripping with an undeniable alpha masculinity that had me tripping all over myself. He was stunning.
But that wasn’t all. Not by a long shot.
Five Years Ago…
I was sitting on the grass overlooking the water when he pulled up and parked behind me.
“Hey,” he’d said, his voice like someone off the radio. “What’s an omega like you doing sitting all alone?
I was feeling a little full of myself, wide-eyed with starry dreams of taking life by the reigns and steering it wherever I wanted to go, so I decided to sass him a bit.
“You find that pickup line on the Tumblr?”
He grinned and hopped off his bike, giving me a full view of how tall and commanding he was. As he walked over to me, I couldn’t help myself. I flushed with a hot heat that started inside and rippled through me like a solar flare. I felt small as he approached…helpless…like he could do anything he wanted to me.
And I’d let him…
“I don’t use pickup lines,” he replied. “I speak the truth. And the truth is, you’re gorgeous, boy, and I’m trying to figure out why you’re here alone on a nice night like this.”
No one had ever spoken to me like that before. I was used to high school boys, betas who came at you sideways with the “nice guy” approach, or alphas who weren’t secure yet and compensated with plenty of douchebagery. Not a turn on.
“I—I’m just relaxing,” I told him. “Thinking about my future.”
“A future with me,” he chuckled as he took another step forward. I was about to open my mouth and give him some more sass, but that’s when it happened. The wind shifted and blew his scent to me, and as it swept into my nostrils, my whole world turned upside down.
Holy shit!
Not only was it the most incredible scent I’d ever smelled, thick with dominance and so overpowering my mind went blank, but it was more than that. It was it.
The scent of my fated mate.
He must have smelled it too, because the look in his eyes changed from cocky and casual to something more—something serious, determined and filled with intent. It was a look of realization. We were both speechless. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of loving each other with our eyes, he spoke.
“I’m Trevor. Trevor Stone.”
“Owen,” I whispered. “Owen Baiser.”
My voice broke the tension and Trevor swept up to me, and before I knew it, I was in his arms, standing beneath the orange glow of the dusk, the ocean roaring behind us.
“Hello, sweet thing,” he purred.
I was drunk off his scent, like a shot of anesthesia had been pumped directly into my brain and overwhelmed everything else besides whatever it was that allowed me to lust, love and desire.
My body ached for him. Even with his leather jacket on, I could see that he was built. His low cut t-shirt showed tufts of chest hair and a bulging pectoral muscles that looked like he could bench press a car. His eyes, blue as the ocean behind us, pierced my soul as he stared at me like he’d known me forever.
His jaw looked like it had been chiseled out of stone. He had just the right amount of designer stubble, a five-o’clock shadow that would make Hugh Jackman jealous. In fact, he was better looking than any celebrity I could name, and beyond that, had an air of mystery to him that drove me wild.
What does he do? How old is he? Where does he come from?
All those questions and more rattled around in my head like a jar of marbles. He definitely wasn’t from around here. We didn’t have alphas like him in my tiny little town, but when he pulled me closer and kissed me, all those thoughts vanished from my mind and were replaced by pure bliss.
His lips were strong and crushed against mine with passion and determination like he’d kissed me a thousand times before and knew I belonged to him. Never in my life had I experienced such intent, and I felt my dick begin to pulse between my thighs as my body cried out for him. As he pressed against me, I could feel a strong bulge beneath his pants signaling his equal arousal for me.
He wants me.
I moaned into his mouth, opened my lips eagerly and accepted his tongue, alive with heat as I experienced my first kiss. He knew what he was doing, and that turned me on.
Show me what to do, daddy. Teach me.
And boy oh boy did he do just that. The next week we spent together was Heaven on Earth. Trevor was a warm wind of destiny that swept me off my feet and lifted me into a realm of happiness I never knew existed.
I rode on the back of his bike, kissed him beneath the warm Summer sky and lay with him in a dingy motel room he had rented by the sea. He told me about his work in Providence but assured me he was a good guy. He was on vacation and wanted to get out of “the life” as he called it, settle down and focus on woodworking and carpentry.
“That’s perfect!” I’d cried out when he told me. “I want to be an architect! Can you imagine the houses we could build together!?”
I’d showed him my designs and he’d been interested—like actually interested and promised me we’d build one together one day. We planned on having a family, and as my heat was approaching, I told him I wanted to give myself to him.
“Get me pregnant, baby,” I told him. “I want to give you a cub.”
“Just one?” he smiled before kissing me.
We had plans. Big plans. And then it was all over.
“Your boyfriend is gone,” the cops told me when I came back to the motel to find our room swarming with detectives. “We took him in this morning.”
“What!?” I cried out. “For what!?”
“The charge is murder,” they told me. “We’ve got him dead to rights. I’m sorry, son, but you’re never going to see him again.”
And like that, my whole world shattered.
Chapter Two
Owen
My phone vibrated on the desk beside me, shaking me out of my thoughts of Trevor. It happened from time to time, especially here on the night shift of Cliffside Self Storage where I worked as a security guard. It was a strange job for an omega. Among the shifters, I
wasn’t exactly the most threatening, but the clientele here was mostly human, and even as an omega I’d be able to handle any real trouble that cropped up.
I didn’t even have to check my phone to know who it was: Charlie, the beta I’d been seeing for a few months now. We’d started in March after he approached me at the coffee shop. I’d seen him giving me the eye for a week or so but it took him that long to get the courage to come talk to me.
He wasn’t Trevor, not by a long shot, but I’d been alone for so long that I guess I just needed somebody. It’s only natural, and with it looking more and more likely that Trevor was never coming home, I was slowly starting to tell myself that I had to accept the fact that he was never coming home. Besides, if Trevor wanted to reach me he could have. They let you send letters from prison. But I hadn’t heard a word from him.
Not one word in five years…
Charlie was fine. He was nice, a little too nice, which was probably the reason I hadn’t given it up to him yet. I knew I was meant for someone else, the alpha I’d intended on starting a family with, and giving my virginity away to someone else felt wrong.
Get over it, I’d told myself countless times. But as hard as I tried, I simply couldn’t do it. And when June came again, the five-year anniversary of when I first met Trevor, I finally realized the truth.
I couldn’t get over him. He was my fated mate and that was all there was to it.
I picked up my phone and checked the text.
Let’s just talk about this. I can come see you at work?