by Alana Timms
“I take it you don’t cook much?”
“No, Zach and I…” Trent frowned, smoothing a palm down his t-shirt to flatten imaginary wrinkles. “Pretty sure the bread’s still fresh.” He pushed away from the island and brought a loaf of bread from the pantry.
“You’re allowed to talk about him. It’s not illegal,” said Noah.
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
They worked in silence, side-stepping and circling as smoothly as they did back at Pegasus. Trent produced an unopened jar of strawberry jelly from the depths of a cupboard. Noah checked the expiration date. It was only a few months out of date. No risk to a robust latent constitution.
Twenty minutes later, they were in the park, sitting on either side of a picnic table with a spread of jelly sandwiches and beer. Framed by a forest of pine, the lake shimmered blue in the distance. The wind carried the sounds of children playing in the fenced-off playground. Quite a few joggers out, running on the trail that wended through the park and led all the way down to the lake. Noah, picking up the pine in the air, inhaled deeply. Bowed his head to let the sun warm his nape.
He could be in any park in West District, apart from the fact that, “There are no dogs here. How come?”
Trent shoved half a sandwich into his mouth. Chipmunk cheeks as his jaws worked. “Latents don’t keep canines as pets. Too close to home.”
Small things like this, things that weren’t specified in books but were part of everyday latent tradition, these small details chafed at Noah. They highlighted the urgency of retraining his brain from thinking like a human to seeing the world through latent eyes.
“First question.” He pulled the tab on his beer. “If I chose you to be my omega, what would you teach me about being a latent?”
“Hmm, good question. You make a pretty decent alpha already, so I’d look at extending what you do in Pegasus to the outside world. Kinda teach you how to handle an omega?”
Noah’s mind cruised toward the gutter. He pulled it back with difficulty. “Second question. What qualities make you suitable for this role?”
“Loyalty. Latents are big on loyalty.”
“Uh-huh. Anything else?”
Trent chewed on it, at the same time chewing on a mouthful of jelly sandwich. “I’m very flexible, happy to fit around you.”
There his mind went, cruising toward the gutter again. “I’m sure that’ll come in handy.”
Trent smiled, and Noah had to scold himself for seeing flirtation in that innocent gesture. Or was it innocent?
“Something tells me you’re not taking any of this seriously.”
“Is it serious, though?” Trent crushed his empty can and swiveled around. He aimed the can at a recycling bin several feet away and tossed. The can landed in the bin. “Boom! And the crowd goes wild.”
Smiling at these antics, Noah handed his empty can to Trent, who dunked it as well.
Noah clapped. “Do you play?”
“I’m an omega,” Trent said, as if that explained it all.
Noah hadn’t meant the interview to be serious, but it was turning out to be. He wanted to grill Trent about that cryptic comment, yet another elusive latent detail chafing at him.
Trent’s posture stiffened. “Oh, shit.”
He followed Trent’s gaze to where three guys were walking in their direction. Two betas and an alpha, judging by appearances, though he could be wrong. “Friends of yours?”
Trent looked away from them. “Remember what I said about open season? That’s the jackass alpha I was talking about.”
The hairs on the back of Noah’s neck bristled. He left his side of the table to slide in beside Trent, straddling the bench before pressing his lips to Trent’s plush mouth.
Trent eased back, a tiny jerk of his head. Still close enough for their lips to brush when he said, “What are you doing?”
“Being your alpha.”
“Pretend alpha,” Trent vehemently corrected, underscoring his tone with a stinging little kiss sharp with teeth.
That scrape of teeth didn’t have a pretend effect on Noah. Very real, his bounding pulse. His spinning head at the scent of Trent’s sun-warmed skin. He wanted to kiss Trent deep and dirty. Wanted to sweep his tongue in to capture the taste of strawberry hinted at on Trent’s soft lips. But there was a bitter taste, too. The realization that after the initial fierce reaction Trent went into passive acceptance. Putting up with his kiss like one might a viral rash which had no cure.
Noah pulled back, not sure whether the heat on his nape was due to the sun or Trent’s scalding rejection. Belatedly he remembered Joshua’s warning that Trent was unavailable for anything real.
The trio who’d thrown Trent into a panic were approaching, their expressions incredulous.
“Hey, Trent,” said the alpha, the strong smell of pot wafting from him.
“Hi, Peter.”
“You two look cozy.” The alpha again, Peter, his tone an ocean away from welcoming. “Who’s this?”
Trent glanced at Noah with a tiny hitch of his eyebrow, prompting him to say, “Noah Archer. I’m Trent’s alpha.”
Peter stared at Trent. “So it’s true, then? You bagged yourself a new alpha?”
Noah pushed to his feet. “You got a problem with that?”
“Settle down,” said Peter. “You’re in my territory.” He moved on with a parting shot. “Tell your alpha how things work around here, Trent.”
Those words were a punch to Noah’s gut. Just another reminder he was not socialized as a latent. He helped Trent clear the table, glad this car crash of a morning was over.
****
Trent
Trent dumped their litter in the trashcan and trailed behind Noah on the path leading out of the park. He was going to have to redeem the vampire bites. All he could think while Noah kissed him was how different his kisses were from Zach’s. How not quite right.
He’d thought, with how good Noah’s hands felt on him, that kissing him would be a scorching event. But, no. All because Zach lived in his head. If getting bitten was what it took to evict Zach, then Trent was going to the Red Lounge and getting some fangs in him. Three times.
He caught up to Noah. “That jerk back there was one of Alpha Logan’s grandsons. Likes to throw his weight around.”
“I noticed. How many more grandsons does he have? And are they all jerks?”
“He’s got one more, and two granddaughters. Zach and Peter are the only alphas.”
He took the long way home to show Noah around the co-op. They couldn’t get it all done in one day, but at least Noah now knew where the hall was. The sports club. The ATM. The store, where Trent grabbed a few groceries. He hadn’t had time to prepare for Noah’s visit, confessing this to Noah as he put the groceries away.
“The extra room’s not ready yet.”
“Need any help?”
“I’ve got it, thanks. Can I get you anything before I go set it up? Coffee? Tea?”
“Wi-fi?” Noah pulled a MacBook out of his bag. “Might as well get started on my Approval application.”
Once Noah was logged into his wi-fi, Trent went into the spare room to confront the stacks of packing boxes he’d been hoarding. Shrouded in dust, they crowded around the bed and were all labeled in black marker: Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. Personal. All stuff from the apartment he and Zach had shared in college. Zach had wanted to throw most of it out when they were packing up to move back to La Tragua. Trent had rescued the boxes and stored them in his mother’s garage, moving them here when he bought this place.
They were as hard to let go of as the alpha himself.
He swiped the boxes with a hand towel to dust them off. Got a little fervent about it, swiped at them again and again. Dust flew into the air, tipping him into a sneezing fit. That didn’t stop him from whaling on the mountain of memories.
“Everything okay in here?”
He paused, arm raised. His skin hot with anger and his throat clogged
with misery. He tried to smile for Noah’s benefit, but it took too much effort. Noah watched him from the doorway for a beat, then stepped into the room.
“Trent?”
“Nothing’s okay. I need to…need to…he’s wrapped around my bones, Noah. I need to bleed him out.”
Noah took a slow step toward him. And another. “Bleed him out?”
“At The Red Lounge.” He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and showed Noah the voucher. “Will you come with? Tonight?”
A deep frown marred Noah’s brow. “Hold on now. Take a breath—”
“I can’t. Haven’t you been paying attention? I can’t breathe. I can’t…” He smashed his fist into the box marked “Personal.”
It toppled off the stack, crashing to the floor. The tired packing tape couldn’t hold back the keepsakes that came flooding out. Just like Trent’s exhausted body couldn’t hold back the gnarled and twisted tide of his emotions. Tears spilled down his cheeks, hot and fast. He spun on his heel to turn his back on his audience. But Noah placed a hand on his shoulder and turned him back around. Against a solid chest, into strong arms that were so here.
And if Noah’s kiss hadn’t felt right, his scent was everything right. It was strength and safety and trust. He wound his arms around Noah’s waist, hid his face against that solid chest, and let himself cry in the sure knowledge that Noah would hold him together.
****
Noah
Noah rested his chin on top of Trent’s head. Perhaps now the healing would begin, without the need to bleed Zach out. His arms tightened on Trent at the image. A vampire sinking his fangs into Trent’s unblemished neck.
Not on Noah’s watch.
He slid his palm to that place between Trent’s shoulder blades, rubbing to ease his tremors. Found the rhythmic motion quietening to himself too. The prickly unease of the car-crash morning dulled into something tender between him and Trent. He slid his hand up to Trent’s nape to run his thumb back and forth along the curve where neck met shoulder. Trent inhaled sharply at the caress, adding credence to the point Noah was about to make.
“Right there, that’s your claim point. Shifters used to bite their chosen mate there as a part of bonding. Biting is a huge deal to shifters. It means forever.”
“We’re not shifters,” Trent said. He stepped away, swiping at his eyes with the heels of his palms. Took that deep breath Noah had advised him to take. “Nobody shifts anymore, Noah. Claiming doesn’t happen anymore.”
“Our wolves are still alive. They’re asleep, not dead. We’re wolf-folk, and people like us shouldn’t take anything to do with biting lightly.” He sought Trent’s gaze. Spoke as kindly as he knew how. “Do you really want your first experience to be with some random vampire?”
“You have…” Trent’s voice cracked. He hunkered down to right the box he’d shoved to the floor. “You have no idea how bad it gets.”
“I’ve lived with loss, Trent. I do know it gets better.” He crouched next to Trent. “Give it a week. Let’s get me moved in. After that, if you still want to go to The Red Lounge, I’ll come with you.”
“What’s going to change in a week?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. How about it?”
Trent’s gaze became distant. He looked the boxes over, as separated from Noah as if he’d left the room.
Trent disappeared at the bar too, at times. He’d be fixing a cocktail and something would trigger him, and he’d be gone. Hands working on autopilot while he watched the memory his mind was playing. Noah now waited for the moment to pass like he always did.
But Trent didn’t snap out of it with a bright, brittle smile. He picked up a box and took it out of the room. Conversation over, it seemed. It was new, Trent’s tendency to fade out. In all the time Noah had been hanging out at Pegasus, he hadn’t noticed it before Zach left. He grabbed a box to take his thoughts off Zach. Couldn’t think about him without picturing his hands around the other alpha’s throat. A new tendency for Noah. He was not the type to harbor murderous thoughts.
“Where should I put this?” he asked, hefting the box onto one shoulder.
“In the dining room with the others.”
If nothing else, he and Trent worked well together. They had the boxes neatly stacked in the dining room and the spare room cleaned, aired out, and ready for occupation within an hour.
“We need a hard time limit.” Noah toed off his sneakers and stretched out on the freshly made bed. It was too short—his feet hung over the end. “I can’t live here forever,” he said, thinking how unhealthy it would be for their rebounding to morph into an intense false pairing. That shit was best avoided for both their sakes.
“Six weeks?” Trent stretched out next to him. “Gives you time to find your own place after Approval.”
He didn’t miss the fact that Zach was due back in six weeks, but he let it slide. “If I get Approved.”
“Sure you will. I could go over your application later if you like. Red flag anything that’s liable to make Pop twitchy.”
“Pop?”
“Alpha Logan,” Trent clarified.
Later, after dinner, Trent fell asleep on the couch with his feet propped on the coffee table and Noah’s MacBook open on his lap. Noah lifted the laptop away and shook Trent awake.
“Hey, why don’t you turn in? I’m going to bed too, in a minute.”
Trent blinked. Yawned. Shuffled off with a mumbled, “See you in the morning.”
He had suggested quite a few changes to Noah’s application, all in red. Noah frowned at the mess. He wrote research papers for a living, for crying out loud. He hardly needed heavy editing. As he read through the edits, it became clear that Trent was tempering his language. Less prideful of his achievements, more humility. Less me, and more team. He struck through Noah’s paragraph about being a shifter expert altogether, explaining in bold, Alpha Logan is proud of the part his father played in voting for the Truce. He’s strongly pro-latent. You can’t be sympathetic to old shifter ways if you want to be part of his co-op.
He had asked earlier what Trent would teach him about being a latent. Well, here was his first lesson. How to approach a Supreme Alpha. He could be ruled by his ego, or he could learn.
He made the changes and hit send.
****
He didn’t know how thick the walls were, whether they were solid brick, but he could hear the bedsprings creaking next door as Trent tossed and turned. It would go quiet for a bit, and he’d almost fall asleep. Then Trent would start with the creaking again, and wake him right up. This went on for a while until he heard a thud, followed by Trent’s bedroom door opening. Footsteps as Trent headed away, toward the living room.
Noah cursed his ultra-sensitive hearing when the rustling started. It was worse than the creaking. Secretive and insidious, muted crackling from the living room keeping him awake. Frustration mounting and heading toward a full-on bitchfest, he rolled out of bed.
And stalked to the living room.
And frowned at the contents of the ‘Personal’ box that Trent had spread over the floor in concentric circles. Order in the chaos. Categorized into piles of postcards and yellowed letters and movie ticket stubs, and other stuff Noah didn’t care to identify at three in the morning. Trent sat in the center of the circles like a spider presiding over its web.
“Did I wake you? Sorry.” He reached into the box, examined his find, and placed it on the appropriate pile. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”
“There’s a story in here somewhere.” Noah gestured at the spiderweb on the living room carpet. “Tell me in the morning. Because right now we’re going to bed.”
“But—”
“No, Trent. Enough.” When Trent didn’t move, he added, “I get cranky on less than six hours’ sleep. You don’t want to meet cranky me.”
Trent’s face was pinched, the skin around his eyes bruised with exhaustion. His feet dragged as he followed Noah back down the hallway. Followed him to th
e spare room. Face-planted on the bed.
Noah got the light.
Chapter Four
Week Four
Trent
He woke up in degrees. First he tuned in to the thud of a heart under his ear, the rise and fall motion in tandem to quiet breathing. The warm and firm press of a body against his. That so-good scent, heady and spicy. Only one person on earth smelled this incredible. He smiled, filled with wellbeing. Every muscle relaxed; every cell nourished by sleep. The spinning hamster wheel of his mind finally at rest.
“Noah?”
“Yep?”
“Think I might have drooled on you.”
“What’s a little drool between rebound buddies?”
Rebound buddies. His smile turning into a grin, he rolled away to perform a full body stretch. Wide awake now. Tracking the pillow creases on Noah’s cheek. The dark stubble, new growth. Spellbound by the brown eyes flecked with gold.
“Never seen you without your glasses on.”
The warmth in Noah’s smile deepened the brown of his eyes. “Few people have. It’s a very exclusive club.”
Club! “Shit! What time is it?” He leaned over Noah to check the bedside clock. Almost one thirty. “We’ve got ten minutes to get to the sports club.”
“Why? What happens in ten minutes?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
Trent rushed through his morning routine, not doing much more than brushing his teeth and washing his face, glad to discover Noah could be just as quick in an emergency. Maybe not the blue lights kind of emergency, but close. Alpha Arthur Logan hated to be kept waiting.
“Pop believes a co-op that plays together stays together,” he said as Noah started the car.
“Isn’t that a universal latent belief?”
“Probably, yes. How Logan’s Reach plays together is through Sunday Meet. From one thirty until whatever time Pop ends the Meet.”
“Every week?”
“Every damn week. You might enjoy it though, being an alpha.” Trent straightened the collar of his polo shirt. “We also have dinner as a co-op every last Sunday of the month.”