by Mandy Rosko
“He’s my best friend. Known him as long as I’ve been alive,” Cedric said. “But if what I felt for one day was anything like what you did, and you’re still feeling it, well, then I want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you through that, and I’m sorry for the way I took it all out on you this morning.”
“Cedric,” Silus began. “You are not usually one for such declarations, but you must know that I would never ask you to choose between myself and your companion, loyal fool that he is.”
Cedric grinned at the description. Those two words pretty much summed up Ben, all right.
“It’s just, what happened this morning—”
“Enough,” Silus said, using his commanding voice. He sat up, his hand coming up and curling around the back of Cedric’s neck, his thumb stroking his jaw and earlobe. “That,” he said. “You may do to me whenever you wish.”
Cedric grinned. “Well, since you enjoyed it so much, I don’t really think you’ll mind doing the same to me.”
Silus didn’t mind. He reached for the lube bottle in the nightstand and took his time preparing Cedric’s hole for what he wanted.
They fucked lazily, Cedric riding Silus, kissing and suckling on each other’s mouths before Silus shifted them. They settled back into a slow rhythm, lying together on the mattress. Silus spooned behind Cedric, his arm curled around Cedric’s stomach, holding him close as Silus shifted his hips.
Cedric reached down for Silus’s hand, reassured when their fingers intertwined. He held on tight, keeping Silus as close to him as he possibly could, imagining them ten or twenty years from now. Cedric wouldn’t be too old for this at forty, or even fifty, and he was sure his body wouldn’t change that much in the span of twenty years that Silus would no longer want him.
No. If there was something more comforting than Silus pressing kisses to the back of Cedric’s neck as he thrust inside his body, his one hand squeezing Cedric’s while the other put little bruises on his hip, all the while groaning his pleasure, Cedric didn’t know what it could be.
They were fine as they were. For now. They would deal with Cedric’s eventual death when it came a couple of decades down the road.
They would also deal with his ageing problem when that one reared its ugly head in a couple of years.
Chapter Six
Jackson was going to kill Damon. Kill him in cold blood. Right in front of the entire pack. That should be enough to let everyone know he was still alpha enough to lead them.
It would serve him right, the piece of shit, for doing this to him. This morning, when the rotation was shifting, Damon pulled him aside and told him that he wouldn’t be going out with his usual partner but that he was switching him with Joey.
Jackson could still feel his blood spiking when Damon told him that.
“What the hell for?” he’d seethed, hoping to keep the others from hearing.
Joey, of course, had been sitting across the lawn on one of the benches with Mitch, tying his laces.
“He’s with Mitch, isn’t he?” Jackson had said, resisting the urge to point at the pair. “That’s good enough.”
“No, it isn’t,” Damon had replied. Already his eyes were sharp and his tone hard, letting Jackson know just how much his leading alpha appreciated having his judgment questioned like this.
“Mitch is the same age as Joey, and they’ve never worked in pairs before. If Joey wants to keep running with us then I want to make sure one of the older alphas is watching him.”
“Then get one of the older alphas to do it,” Jackson snarled.
Damon’s hand shot out like a crack of lightning, grasping Jackson by the neck before he could even take in a proper breath.
Every head turned up at the action, before they all bent down to resume whatever it had been that they were doing. The leading alpha taking command like this was hardly something for the pack to get worked up over.
Damon pulled Jackson’s face so close they could have been kissing. Jackson felt Damon’s warm breath across his face as he snarled at him. “Stop. Fighting. Me.”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed, and then they began to wander.
The kid was staring at him and Damon. The only one of the group to really sit up and take notice.
Well, he was an omega, after all.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Jackson hurriedly nodded, and Damon released his neck. A tingling sensation followed where Damon’s fingers had gripped the skin, but that was all. Jackson was not hurt.
“Do we have an understanding?” Damon asked.
“Can I talk with you privately?”
Damon’s brows narrowed, and then he nodded. Walking beside Jackson as he was led away from the rest of the alphas, Jackson didn’t want any of them to hear this.
He stopped just when they made it inside the tree line. There was enough privacy here without the leading alpha being entirely out of sight of the pack, or they out of his.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Jackson said.
“Doing what?”
“Please don’t play that with me,” Jackson said.“I understand you’re in charge now, and I will follow you wherever you go, but I was your leader for several years. I want you to explain to me what you’re doing.”
There. He’d said it in the most nonthreatening, slightly nondemanding way he possibly could. There was no way Damon could get out of answering him.
Thankfully, he didn’t try.“I want you to stop avoiding the k— Joey. I want you to stop avoiding him.”
“What does it matter if I don’t want to hang out with someone barely older than a pup?”
“Jackson,” Damon said slowly in that tone that demanded he cut the bullshit.
Jackson still had no idea what he was on about. “What?”
Damon rubbed his mouth, his eyes casting sideways over to where his alphas and Joey were still getting ready for their day-long hunt in the woods surrounding the property.
“Look,” he finally said. “If you don’t want to mate with the kid, that’s fine. No one can force you, especially not me. But you need to hurry up and decide what you want before it happens and the two of you get tied together for the rest of your lives.”
Jackson couldn’t believe it. He and Damon stood staring at each other for a good minute before he was finally able to respond.
“That...that is what this is about? You think we’re mated?”
Damon gave him a long look. “No, I don’t think you’re mated, but I think you’re on the verge of it. Everyone saw the way you took care of that kid when we were with Veturious. No one would have kept it from him that Joey was an omega if you hadn’t suggested it. Then you take the fall for Seth’s injury.”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Now you avoid him now that the danger’s all gone.”
“I get it,” Jackson said again.
Now he was the one to rub his face with his palm, looking over to where Joey and Mitch were sitting, talking, and laughing.
“I don’t get it,” Damon said. “It’s the most natural thing in the world. He’s an omega, you’re an alpha, and the kid likes you. If you want to do it, then do it before someone else picks him up.”
Jackson kept his eyes on Mitch. About the same age as Joey, he was handsome and easygoing, for an alpha. Jackson didn’t know if the guy swung that way, though, but that didn’t stop the small rise in jealousy that consumed him at the thought of Mitch wanting to mate with Joey.
“How old are you, Damon? Thirty-five? Forty?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Thirty-eight,” Jackson repeated. “I’m seventy-three,” he said, allowing that to sink in. “Joey only just turned twenty-one, what? A month ago? Christ, even you would be too old for him, forget me.”
“Jackson.”
“No, listen. I remember when Joey’s grandfather was the leading alpha, and I respected and followed that man like he was my own father. I can’t just...” He made a vague gesture in toward the kid, young man, in question. T
hen he shook his head.
“Even by the standards that we age, I’m too old for him. The kid’s never even been in love before anyway. He’d be better off with someone closer to his own age.”
Damon looked in the direction of Jackson’s glare. “Mitch is straight, in case you didn’t know.”
Christ. “Fine, anyone else, his own age.”
Damon shook his head at him, a sort of disbelieving movement. “Jackson, Silus doesn’t keep us as slaves. It’s okay if you mate with him. He won’t get sold off to some other family.”
Jackson turned to leave, not wanting to listen to anymore.
“Jackson, stop.”
The command was sharp, and Jackson obeyed. He turned to look at his alpha, who was glaring at him with his arms crossed. “Come here.”
Fuck if Jackson despised not being the leading alpha at times like this.
He obeyed.
Damon didn’t grab him by the neck or throw him down in some show of dominance. He just stared that cold, steely stare he had.
“I’m sorry I said that. Please forgive me.”
The words were out of Damon’s mouth quickly, like he was getting something over with that he didn’t much feel like doing. The same way someone quickly took their spoonful of cough syrup, makeit-over-in-an-instant kind of thing.
Jackson grunted and crossed his own arms in return. Let that be response enough.
“Look,” Damon said, wetting his lips. “Just go out on watch with him a couple times. It really would be better for him to have someone around that he respects guiding him. He’ll do as you say.”
“I’ll just distract him.”
“If the two of you are distracting each other because you want to fuck so bad, then either get it over with and mate with him, or go off hunting or something.”
“Hunting?”
“If you still think that you would rather not mate with him, then I’ll speak with Silus about letting you run off, away from the pack, to try to find out where those other wolves came from. Maybe by the time you find them, Joey will have turned his attention somewhere else, and he’ll be mated before you even come back.”
Jackson’s throat seized up. The thought of Joey forgetting about him and finding a life mate other than him, well, the ground swallowing up his stomach was not enough to describe the sensation he felt.
“That sound okay to you?”
Jackson cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Chapter Seven
Silus dressed casually. At least, it was casual for him. Cedric, the little idiot, had cheerfully informed Silus that he looked as though he were getting ready for a round of golf, which was ridiculous because he wore no spikes on his feet.
Still, over the past several days, their new guests had made it a habit to visit their quiet abode as often as possible, and even Silus could not dress in his best suit that often.
Though it had started to feel as though they had four extra tenants on their land, with Ben and Seth constantly around to help with any needs Damon might have had with tracking those mysterious wolves that had been sniffing around the property, and with Cecil and Varinia making constant guests of themselves, Silus noticed the difference in his lover whenever all four were on the property.
His closest friend was always on hand, and with another sun sprite and vampire couple, both Silus and Cedric found themselves breathing easier at times when they hadn’t realized there had been stress between them.
The feeling of not being so alone in the world was a very comforting one, indeed. Not to mention Cedric’s glee when he discovered that Varinia was a healer, a trade Cedric had become much interested in shortly after Seth had come to them so injured six months ago.
The problem with their self-imposed exile was that there was no way for Cedric to apprentice himself to any healer who happened to be searching for a student, and attending a human medical school was simply out of the question at the moment, considering they were both still attempting to keep a low profile from any of the local vampire or sun sprite clans.
As it was, the moment Cedric made his discovery of Varinia ’s profession, he’d latched onto her like a child to his mother’s leg, following her around the property, asking questions, and taking notes.
It made Silus smile. At first he ’d been weary, but now, the idea of creating such friendly connections certainly held its appeal. Especially when one of the younger werewolves happened to get hurt during one of their hunts.
It had been Joey to come back with a dislocated shoulder, naked, and bleeding in some places from where he had taken, what Silus had later learned, was a bad fall. He’d returned, sheepishly holding onto the limb in question with his good hand and the alpha he’d been paired with close to his side, hovering closely as though to keep the boy from falling over.
It seemed to escape the young alpha ’s notice that it was Joey’s arm that had been dislocated, not his leg.
Damon had been furious, for some odd reason, taking most of his frustration out on Jackson, though Silus could have sworn that Joey had not been on rotation with the older alpha at the time of his fall, but he paid no more mind to it as he’d watched Varinia twist the arm into its proper position before putting pressure on it and popping it back in place.
Silus had winced at the sound. Cedric had been captivated.
The fool.
At least now they would no longer need to worry about when such injuries occurred, and Joey was back out on rotation by the next day, still searching for possible intruder werewolves.
Even though it was hardly proper, Silus slowly found himself coming to terms with the fact that, while there likely had been wild werewolves around the property, they had most likely come across the cabin and inhabitants, meaning no harm whatsoever, and left in their rightful way.
He simply found he had better things to worry himself with. Like the fact that Cedric was spending an awful long time in the bathroom as of late, believing that Silus didn’t know what he was up to.
Silus had caught the other man staring at his reflection in the mirror before, had noted the increase in gels and creams that made it to their shared countertop as well as his eager performances in bed as of late, and he knew what his lover was searching for and trying to prevent. Eventually, Silus began searching as well.
When Cedric fell asleep in his arms at night, Silus carefully examined his features, gently pushing stray hairs out of his beautiful face as he slept in the starlight.
He had yet to find any traces of hair loss, wrinkles, crow’s feet, grays, or anything. Cedric still appeared as young as though he were twenty-one and not a day older.
Still, he couldn’t help but take note of the situation now.
He loved Cedric. The sun sprite was everything in his world, but sun sprites did not have the long lives that vampires had. Silus feared that he would simply blink and Cedric would have died of old age.
Cecil and Varinia were proof enough of that. They had been together for thirty years, since Cecil was a young man, yet now, he was the older looking of the two. He aged, leaving Varinia behind as the beautiful young vampire she still was.
Currently, he was alone with her, looking out through the tinted windows as his lover and Cecil conversed together, enjoying the warm sunlight that provided them with life.
He could not help but speak, though he knew it was none of his concern. “Varinia?”
“Mmm?” Her eyes remained on her husband, watching carefully as he and Cedric walked barefoot on the grass, nodding at the younger werewolves who chased each other and played on the stretch of lawn. The days were becoming warmer now, and the two men strolled about in their shorts and T-shirts like long-standing friends.
Silus cleared his throat, determined to be in command of himself. “Cedric tells me that sun sprites age well, though their life span is not quite better than that of a human. I can never get an honest answer out of him. Has Cecil spoken to you about it?”
Silus noted the way
Varinia blinked, her eyes becoming sharp, an indication that he had her attention at the mention of ageing. “He has, my lord.”
Though Silus and Cedric had both come to see Cecil and Varinia as close friends over the weeks they had known each other, Silus could still not convince the woman to stop addressing him as my lord. It was a clear indication that she had not yet given up on the chance of Silus becoming the head of the new clan she and Cecil wanted to form with him.
Silus and Cedric were still undecided about that.
“Cecil,” Varinia began and then stopped. She licked her lips and continued, her eyes back on her husband as he walked outside. “He and I have spoken about his...age. And his coming death. We have made preparations for the time when his bones will be too weak to carry him, and what he should like me to do if his mind were to decay before his body.”
Her words, spoken in such a way as to leave no doubt in Silus’s mind that they had indeed spoken of such things, put a shivering chill down his spine.
Cedric would age and die. Yes, that was a certainty. But never had Silus stopped to think of it beyond his lover merely producing some wrinkles.
Cedric could live a very long time. He could live past a hundred years of age. Most sun sprites did. However, he would not be like Silus, who at one hundred was still young and in the prime of his life. Would Silus have to help feed Cedric every morning? Bathe him, change his clothing?
Would Cedric even know who Silus was at that age? Like Varinia had said, the mind could decay before the body.
Silus stopped to inhale deeply, the fear of the future squeezing him and cutting off his air supply, but as he breathed, his heart slowed down, and he felt calm, if still a bit weary.
Silus loved Cedric, and he would care for the man every day for the rest of Cedric’s life if it meant they could have this time together. Even if he woke up one morning to find them both in separate bedchambers because it was no longer feasible for them to share a bed, and even if he was forced to change Cedric’s adult excrement pants, he would do it.