by Leta Blake
Crying out, Jason’s fists came up, ready to defend himself. Their eyes locked and Jason’s swam with questions. Urho held him hard against the side of the car until Jason jerked free, resettled his coat, and shouted, “Wolf-god, Urho! What’s wrong with you?”
Urho gripped Jason’s lapels again and got up into his face. Two sleepless nights had left him feeling wild, and if the reflection in the car window was anything to go by, he looked even wilder. “You fucked him!”
Jason’s expression crashed through pissed to confused and back again. “Who? Vale? What are you talking about?”
“You fucked Xan.”
Jason’s face blanched, and he pushed Urho away hard, darting glances around the empty sidewalk. He peeked at the neighbor’s house whose gate they now stood in front of and lifted his hand, offering a smile and a reassuring, “Good morning, Mr. Ragnak. Everything’s fine here. A friendly tussle, but we’re all right.”
Urho didn’t turn around to see what the neighbor made of Jason’s niceties and his own explosive words, and instead got up in Jason’s face again. “You fucked him.” He shook him hard with each word out of his mouth. “And you fucked him up.”
“Will you keep your voice down?” Jason pushed Urho back, surprisingly strong for his sapling build. He smoothed his hands over his new, fashionable coat—no doubt picked out by Vale—and took a slow breath. “If you give me a chance, we can talk about this. Reasonably. But you have to calm down, Urho. You look like a maniac.”
“You ruined him.”
Jason’s eyes sparked. “Xan isn’t ruined. But if you don’t shut up, he might be.” Jason reached out reassuringly, but Urho ducked his touch. His stomach lurched and his eyes felt gritty with lack of sleep.
“You shouldn’t be driving,” Jason said. “You’re a disaster right now. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if you’ll calm down, you can come back to the house with me and talk this over…” He trailed off, his gaze swerving back toward the cozy home he shared with Vale. “No, Vale doesn’t need to see you like this. He’ll get upset and it won’t be good for him or the baby.”
Urho clenched his jaw, holding back from taking a swing at Jason, furious that he could be so calm, so smooth. Not at all the gangly baby alpha he’d been four years ago—back when he’d apparently been fucking Xan, as his lover, and then gone on to ruin Vale’s life, too, by imprinting on him. Who gave a good wolf-god damn how happy they were together now? It was clear Jason was a curse.
“Urho,” Jason said softly. “You’re exhausted. Let me drive you home.”
“No.”
“Fine. We can look for a quiet place to talk. This is so unlike you. You’re worrying me.”
Urho swallowed hard.
It was true he wasn’t acting right. Something had happened to him when he’d touched Xan’s body, when he’d slipped his fingers past Xan’s puffy, swollen anus and held his hips steady so he wouldn’t flinch. Something had come unhinged. He didn’t understand and he didn’t think talking to Jason about it was going to fix it at all, but as he rubbed his tired eyes he had to concede that punching him probably wouldn’t help either. What had he been thinking coming here?
“C’mon,” Jason said kindly, urging him into the passenger side of Urho’s own car. “Where are your keys? I’ll drive.”
Urho indicated they were still in the ignition and let Jason take over. Then he leaned back, hand over his face, trying to gain some measure of sanity as Jason buckled in behind the wheel and guided them out onto the road.
After a few minutes of stressful quiet, Jason said, “Here. Vale likes this park. He brings me here to watch the ducks with their ducklings in the spring.”
“Entreo Park,” Urho said, removing his hand from his face to confirm. “He used to bring me here too.”
Jason huffed softly, but made no other remark about Urho daring to bring up his former entanglement with Jason’s Erosgapé, despite the obvious provocation of it. “The ducks have probably gone south for the winter, but we can still have a walk around the pond.”
Urho’s footsteps felt wobbly and strange, as though he’d downed a bottle and a half of liquor. His mouth was dry and his hands shook. What devil from wolf’s own hell had come to possess him? Or was Riki punishing him now for the sins of his unwanted thoughts and feelings? Had that moment in the study been only wishful thinking, putting words in his omega’s mouth? And now his beloved’s ghost haunted him from the grave?
“Talk to me,” Jason said finally, guiding Urho to a low wooden bench by the side of the muddy, winter-brown pond. The trees around them released colorful leaves and etched dark lines into the expansive gray sky. Birds going south cried out every few seconds. “What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know.” Urho’s voice was gruff, like he’d gargled glass. “I don’t recognize myself.”
“I barely recognize you either, so I understand that.” Jason cleared his throat. “I hate to ask given your line of questioning, but is Xan all right?”
“He’s fucked up” Urho bit the words out. “He’s demented.”
“Is he?” Jason asked with a sympathy that Urho wanted to wrap around himself and hide in, like a soft blanket. “I don’t think he is. I think he’s wonderful.”
Urho swallowed hard but said nothing.
“Did he…try something with you?”
“No!” Urho’s insides roared to life, cool rage and hot lust colliding. Xan hadn’t tried anything with him at all! And what was wrong with him that he’d wanted Xan to? If Xan had made a move toward him that morning after his examination, if he’d acted instead of remarking on Urho’s lust, what could have happened between them?
Anything. Anything at all!
“All right,” Jason said. “So what’s going on?”
He choked on his reply. Xan was his patient, wasn’t he? He’d treated him and prescribed him medication, touched him as a doctor—though his resulting arousal hadn’t been doctorly at all—and, even if Xan wasn’t his patient, guaranteeing him privacy, he’d asked Urho outright not to tell Jason anything. “I can’t say.”
“I see,” Jason said again, oozing calm concern that no longer seemed comforting and instead made Urho want to clock him. “But Xan’s safe?”
Urho gritted his teeth. “How the fuck would I know? I’m not his keeper. Though he needs one.”
Jason held up his hands in surrender. “Got it. Well, it doesn’t seem like you plan to tell me much, even though you’re the one who came to my house and roughed me up.”
Urho grunted. He shook his head, not knowing where to even begin. “You fucked him.”
“Right. So, I guess you have questions for me about that?” Jason asked, bracing his forearms on his knees and letting his blond hair cascade over his forehead and nearly into his eyes. His next words held that fond softness again, and Urho’s heart ached. This must be why Vale loved this pup of an alpha so dearly. “Let me help you, all right? Talk with me.”
“He’s courting a world of trouble.” And the next bit was delicate to address, but he said it anyway. “He’ll drag Caleb down with him.”
Jason frowned. “So, he’s begun something with another alpha? And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how you know about it?”
Urho stood, raking his hands through his hair. He paced by the side of the pond, his legs aching with the need to move. “You admit that you know what he’s done, what he still does?” He whirled on Jason, pointing a finger at his face. “You admit that you fucked him, and that you were lovers?”
Jason nodded. “I do.”
“Did you abuse him too?”
“What in wolf’s own hell, Urho? Abuse him? What we did was—look, I love Xan.”
“You love him?” Urho spit out, disgusted.
“Not like that. I love him like how Vale loves you.”
Urho wiped his hands over his face, pacing back and forth again. His legs trembled. “Why did you do it?” Facing Jason again, Urho made a lewd mot
ion with his hand.
“Have sex with him?”
“Yes! Was it alpha expression? Did he provoke you and you couldn’t control yourself?”
“No.” Jason shifted uncomfortably, his cheeks going a darker pink. “I found him attractive. He’s handsome and has a good body. What we did was fun. We played sexual games together for several years, and pretended it was practice for when we had our omegas.” Jason smiled slightly. “We were friends and it grew naturally from there. I never felt violent toward him and I never forced him. I wouldn’t have wanted to.”
Urho snorted, his heart racing. Was that possible? Sex between alphas was condemned, but Jason spoke of it like it was the same as playing with betas for pleasure, or two omegas finding tenderness at Mont Juror before they discover the true joy of being with their intended alpha. He made it sound natural.
“That’s all it was for me,” Jason said gently. The cool winter breeze brightened his eyes and ruffled his hair. “But, eventually, for Xan it became more. I recognized that too late to keep from hurting him.” He sighed. “I love him as a friend, as my dearest friend, and it killed me to hurt him. Luckily, Vale has grown to love him too. And, yes, Vale knows everything. So you don’t need to worry about surprising or wounding him with this information. He took it in stride, much more than I ever imagined possible. But then Vale’s perfect, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.”
“Perfect? The man barely stirs himself to dust the house more than once a year and lazes about writing poetry while you do all the hard work.”
Jason smiled fondly. “He’s perfect to me.”
Urho rolled his eyes. His armpits were sweaty and he scented his own rankness rising up. Had he even showered that morning? Or the morning before? “He loved you? Romantically? Xan, I mean.”
“Yes.” Jason winced. “I hoped once he found an omega that…” He shook his head. “But I don’t think that’s what’s happened. Though I know he cares deeply for Caleb.”
“He’s unmanned,” Urho whispered.
“He is,” Jason agreed. “I think he always will be.”
“He’ll destroy himself and his omega, too, if he doesn’t stop what he’s doing.”
“And what, exactly, is he doing? And with whom?” Jason sat straighter, pushing the hair off his forehead, and pinning Urho with hard eyes. “Did you see him with someone? Is that what this is about?”
Urho wiped a hand over his mouth, words wanting to vomit up out of him. But could he tell Jason the truth, or any measure of it, without violating his oaths as a doctor? “I saw him after. I smelled it on him.”
“Oh.”
Then, unable to hold back, he burst out with, “He isn’t safe.”
Jason rose to his feet, his normally pink cheeks paling. “Is he hurt? Do I need to go to him?”
Urho shook his head. “He asked me not to tell you. Because of Vale. And the baby.”
“No. Of course not. He wouldn’t want Vale to worry.” Jason bit his lower lip, staring at the gray-brown water of the pond in front of them. “I need to go to him anyway. Make him confess to me what he’s doing and whom he’s seeing. It’s dangerous, you say? This relationship?”
“Of course it’s dangerous!” Urho glared at Jason. “He could go to prison!”
Jason swallowed hard. “He’s not foolish enough to get caught.”
“Isn’t he?” Urho motioned at his own chest. “Hasn’t he already been caught? By me?”
Jason sucked in a breath, blue eyes flashing. “You’re going to turn him in?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
Jason huffed. “I’m not the one who grabbed you off the street, roughed you up against the car, and then proceeded to be the most dramatic asshole ever in the entire history of assholes, all right?”
Urho nodded once. He couldn’t argue with that, as much as he wanted to, so he just slumped back down on the bench. “He’s fine right now. You don’t need to rush to his side.” He hoped.
Jason sat again and turned to him, a thoughtful crease between his brows. “I understand that acting on his desire for other alphas is a potential problem for Xan, and for Caleb, of course. But you’re distraught. You’ve never particularly liked Xan, as far as I can tell. So why do you care so much? I mean, aside from common human decency and all that.”
Urho didn’t know how to answer. Why did he care? He’d been torturing himself with that very question for the last two days. He barely knew Xan. They were nothing more than acquaintances, fellows of the same cohort. They’d never shared an intimate minute in their lives. Not until the moment on the sidewalk when Xan, all broken eggshells and messy insides, had spilled out his confession, and not until Urho had slipped his finger inside the man and felt his trembling desire all around him, in the very air he breathed.
“I don’t know,” he repeated.
Jason stared at him solemnly. “I see.”
Urho leaned forward, elbows on knees, and covered his face. His coat stretched tightly across his back, squeezing him. As the immensity of what he didn’t want to admit grew, he felt like he might burst the seams.
“Let me take you home. You need a good breakfast,” Jason said, rising and putting his hand out to help Urho stand on his still-quivering legs. “And a long restful nap.”
Urho followed Jason from the park like a duckling trailing his mother back to their nest. He didn’t know the last time he’d let himself be led, or allowed another alpha, especially, to treat him so gently, but he didn’t have the energy to fight it.
Jason drove them to Urho’s house, walked him in and asked Mako, the cook, to bring him some lunch, and then saw him onto the library sofa. He waited until the food was delivered, talking about pleasant, light things, like the books in the library he’d like to borrow. As Urho ate, he sipped a mug of tea and avoided any further mention of the events of the morning or the man Urho was losing his mind over.
Then Jason called for a cab, gathered his coat again, and stood over Urho on the sofa. Urho’s belly full of soup and his exhaustion gave over to sleepiness.
Jason said, “You should rest now. And, if you can manage it, don’t worry any more about Xan. I’ll talk with him and Caleb tomorrow. Together, Caleb and I will make sure he stays safe.”
Urho doubted that greatly, but he didn’t argue.
“As for your feelings, Urho?” Jason added with a knowing sigh. “If you can’t accept them, they’ll eat you alive.”
He turned away and let himself out, leaving Urho examining the library ceiling until he finally slipped into a fretful sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Xan stood outside the door to Urho’s impressive home, his knees trembling and a sick temptation swelling inside him to leave without knocking and instead head several streets over to Monhundy’s house for another taste of just how monstrous he could truly be.
Swallowing hard, he stiffened his resolve and lifted the brass knocker twice. As the boom echoed in the large house, he wondered why a man as well-to-do as Urho didn’t have a doorbell. Probably Urho considered them too new-fangled, as old-fashioned and strict as he was.
A tall, middle-aged beta servant asked his name and led him to a room near the end of the entry hall, adjacent to a set of stairs rising to the second floor. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll let Dr. Chase know you’re here,” the beta said, a small smile on his lips.
Xan nodded and turned to the room at large, surprised to see that he’d been taken to the library. Larger than his reception room at home, all four walls were lined with books, spines in every color from ruby red to grass green facing out in ridges that rose to the ceiling.
In the middle of the room, across from a banked fire, sat a sofa and two leather chairs with a long, low table between them. Xan stood behind one of the chairs, his hands on the high back for stability, and waited for the sound of Urho’s footsteps.
There was no warning, though, before the door opened and Urho stepped inside on socked feet. His pants were wrinkled and hi
s shirt was too. His hair stuck up in some places, as though he’d slept on it and hadn’t tidied the course salt-and-pepper curls yet. Xan had never seen the usually dapper, uptight Urho looking so disheveled.
“You’re here,” Urho said, and his voice sounded like he had taken up smoking in the time since they’d last seen each other. “Are you all right? Have your injuries worsened?”
Xan swallowed again, his throat tight. “I’m feeling better, actually. Thank you for the medicine and your help the other day. I know it must have seemed as though I didn’t want it.”
Urho stared, like he couldn’t believe Xan stood in his library. Finally, shaking himself, he gestured toward the furniture. “Have a seat. Wherever you like.”
Xan walked around to sit in the leather chair, leaning back and trying to still the jumpiness of his hands and legs.
Urho sat on the sofa across from him and ran fingers through his hair. His red-rimmed eyes scanned around the room. “Jennor will bring some tea.”
Xan nodded, and the door opened on the same beta servant carrying a ceramic tea set and a plate of cookies on a big tray. He put it down in front of Xan and Urho and then, when Urho nodded, left the room without a word.
“Help yourself,” Urho said, gesturing to the cookies before pouring the tea into small, red teacups. “Take as many you want. You look as though you’ve lost weight since I saw you.”
Xan wondered at that. It was true he hadn’t been eating well; between physical pain and his shame, he’d been pushing his food around for the last few days. Still he couldn’t have lost enough weight for someone to really notice. His brother Ray hadn’t said anything, and neither had Caleb. Did Urho see him so very clearly?
“I’m fine,” he said, putting several of the buttery cookies on a plate and accepting the tea Urho passed to him. “You look…” He gestured at Urho and left the words unsaid.
Urho glanced down at his clothes and huffed a strange laugh. “Forgive my slovenly appearance. I was napping earlier and—well, let’s just say it’s been an odd couple of days.”