Unwilling: a shifter romance

by Hannah L. Corrie

  Unthinkable.

  Could he live without his family? Could he hurt his father like that, dismiss him and risk never seeing him again? No more Friday dinners, no more phone calls, no more hot cocoa in front of the fireplace,... It was just as unthinkable.

  George had gotten his breath back under control but he wouldn't let up. "Seriously, boy! What were you thinking?"

  Shivering, Darwin looked down at his white-knuckled fists. The skin was boiling, moving, about to sprout a pelt that had no place on a human body. This felt so unreal, so entirely contrary to his expectations, it was almost physical pain. "I was thinking that he's my mate and I love him," he said.

  George snapped. "He killed Carl!" he yelled, surging forward. His broken body tumbled to the ground and Mary shrieked, jumping to his aid and shoving Darwin out of the way.

  "Look what you did! You know what the doctors said! How could you upset him!" she screamed and grabbed George to pull him off the ground. "George? George! Are you okay?"

  It was too much. With a torn snarl, Darwin turned and fled.

  Darwin stumbled out of the room and into a darkened, deserted hallway. His whole body was itching, tingling, caught between shifting shape and exhaustion. He had no idea where he was or where he should go, but the stairs to his right seemed like a better choice than the darker left side of corridor. As long as he got away from that room and the terror inside, anywhere else was fine with him.

  The stairs blurred before his eyes and not just because of the soft crackling of changing bone in his eye sockets. He hadn't thought there were any tears left after his breakdown, but here he was, stumbling up the steps and barely swallowing the sobs threatening to pour out of him. His mind kept going in circles, taunting him with the demand to choose; father or mate, father or mate, it whispered cruelly. There was no way to run from his own thoughts but Darwin did his damnedest to try, at least try.

  He burst through the door at the top of the stairs, trying to blink away the tears as he ran forward blindly, smacked against a table and spun off to one side, fumbling for something to catch himself on. His fingers found a chair and he leaned onto it, scraping its legs across the floor as he fought for balance, coughing out a half-snarled sob.

  "Whoa, Darwin," a familiar, female voice called, then a hand caught his arm and pulled him upright. "What happened? What's wrong?"

  Darla, of all people. It didn't matter. Nothing she did could ever hurt as much as the impossibility his father had imposed on him. And if she hit him, it was still better than facing all of... this. Darwin grabbed her, hugged her like a drowning man, and bawled against her neck with a voice that wasn't quite his own. If she was surprised by his sudden clingyness or alarmed by the signs of him losing control and shifting, she didn't let it on. Instead, she hugged him back and more or less dragged him until something pushed against his calves and he sank onto a still warm couch.

  When had be become such a crybaby? Why couldn't he stop, pull himself together? Voices talked in the background, too low for him to understand what they were saying over the sound of his own bawling, but someone moved away and a little while later, another pair of hands pulled him away from Darla. It was only then Darwin realized that the crackling and tingling had stopped, that his skin had stopped boiling, and that all the noises in the room were those of him crying and nothing else. Somewhere along his breakdown, the change had stopped in its tracks.

  "Jesus, Darwin, what's wrong?" Harry asked and pulled him closer until Darwin's head landed on his lap. He felt better, good enough to slow down the tears into whimpering hiccups. He still didn't have a clue why he couldn't stop crying, how he had stopped himself from shifting, or what to say. What wasn't wrong with his life?

  Still, he tried to answer. There was a lot of sobbing and clutching Harry's shirt, misunderstandings and confused inquiries, but after a while, they got it. And them understanding why Darwin was this distraught eventually helped him calm down all the way.

  The couch moved a little as someone readjusted themselves. Darla was the first to break the silence, if only to talk over Darwin's head. "I get it."

  "I don't," Harry growled. "That's the cruelest thing I ever heard, telling your son he has to leave his mate." Combing his fingers through Darwin's hair, he looked down at him. "Are you sure you understood him right? It doesn't sound like your father at all."

  A hand touched Darwin's shin and petted it. Darla kept talking, ignoring Harry. "He's responsible for what happened to Darwin, you know? At least he feels like it. In his eyes, he let it happen. In his eyes, nothing is as it was supposed to be. The person he trusted— an Alpha— used his power for evil and he didn't do anything against it. And now another Alpha is after Darwin. What is he supposed to think when he couldn't even trust his own with his son?"

  "That's stupid," Darwin groaned, burying his face into Harry's shirt. His throat felt raw, but at least he sounded more like himself again. "He's in a wheelchair. He would have been no match for Carl. That's why I didn't tell him in the first place, he would have gotten himself killed!"

  Darla's hand kneaded his leg as if to take the sting out of her words. As unusual as her sensitive behavior was, Darwin appreciated it. "That's the point. You are a submissive. He's a dominant. You patronized him and risked your life in the process and you're not supposed to do that. He is supposed to protect you, not the other way around, no matter his physical condition. It's instinct. Shielding him from everything was okay as long as your family thought you were dominant, but a submissive protecting a dominant? That must be a horrible position to find yourself in. It had to hurt when he found out what happened. And you were saved by a stranger who is now in the process of taking you away from him and there's nothing he can do against it, except scream at you and forbid it. You took his balls, just like you took my freedom."

  Darwin flinched. As calm as Darla sounded, her words burned him more surely than a physical punch. He tried to say something, deny her allegations, he even opened his mouth to tell her to fuck off, but no sound passed his lips. What if she was right? No, she most likely was right, at least a little. Didn't matter. "I had no other choice!" he whined, still buried against Harry. "He couldn't have helped!"

  The sound of blood rushing through his veins filled the following silence. The rubbing on his back and the massage on his leg went on, pulling the last shreds of energy out of him until he felt more like an empty shell than a person. Maybe Darla was right. Maybe his father would never accept Jared, because Darwin had fucked up. But there had to be some way out of this, some way around losing everything he had. He just couldn't think of it. Not yet.

  "What am I supposed to do now?"

  "Well," Darla huffed and shoved his legs from her lap as she stood up. "Give the man back his balls."

  Jared

  Jared found Margo in the spacious kitchen, fiddling around with the coffeemaker, her face scrunched up in concentration. She glanced at him, huffed and pushed a few buttons. "I hate these modern things. They never work like they're supposed to and those horrible little tabs cost a fortune," she grunted. Scratching her head, she straightened and abandoned the machine to look at Jared. "Why the long face? I thought your boy found his sanity again. At least that's what I surmised from Rich whining about you forcing your way into Darwin's cell."

  The exit on the other side of the kitchen suddenly looked very tempting. "He did. His father's with him right now," Jared said and slumped against the fridge. He felt positively pouty, now that Darwin was alright.

  Margo smirked. "Ah."

  Jared clenched his teeth, trying his best to keep his voice calm. "What? I didn't do anything to George, except exist. He hated me from the moment he met me, how is that my fault?"

  "I didn't say anything," Margo retorted, turned around and smacked the coffeemaker. It clicked, hissed and started up. "Ha, gotcha!" She grinned and shoved a cup beneath the spigot. The scent of fresh coffee flooded the kitchen as the machine gurgled and worked its magic.

  J
ared settled on watching the dark drops dribble into the cup. "Then do say something, because I'm on my last rope here."

  Margo snorted, poking him out of the way as she got milk out of the fridge. "Nope. I'm not your Yoda and I'm too much of a redneck to play fairy godmother. Deal with your own shit."

  Jared tensed. White-hot rage shot through him. The emotion came on without warning and he instinctively reined it in and gnashed his teeth, more out of surprise than out of respect for her. Still, he couldn't hold back the words. "Oh, so it was okay to deal with my shit before, but not anymore? You had no qualms taking over at the cabins and you've been ordering me around for the last three days, but suddenly it's my problem?"

  At the Alpha's searing glance, he clicked his mouth shut halfway through the rant. It had been simmering in his mind ever since he had woken up on a bed in the medical room, half dead and helpless. In the following silence, Margo added some milk to her coffee, put the carton away and took a sip. Then she sighed, leaned her butt against the kitchen counter and inspected Jared's face. "This is what you don't seem to get, Jared. It's always been your problem. I tried to keep Darwin safe like I'm supposed to. I ordered you around because you're in my home and I won't let you plant doubts into the minds of my people about who's in charge around here. It doesn't mean I'm willing to play nanny for you any more than I have to. I'm willing to take care of Darwin since he's a submissive, but you are stretching your welcome thin."

  Take care of Darwin? Give Darwin up, leave him here? The thought alone drove a shudder through Jared's body and sent his heart racing. Jared balled his fists, snarling at Margo as he paced up and down the kitchen. The need to hurt her was almost overwhelming, breathtaking, painful. "You'd better watch what you're saying, Margo. I will not leave him with you!"

  Margo lifted a brow. "You must have had the shittiest of all upbringings if you actually believe I'd take your mate from you just because I could."

  Jared stopped pacing. He took a deep, forceful breath and examined Margo, trying to still his twitching arms. He wanted to believe her, he really did, but all his experiences contradicted her words and her expression. After all, his brother would have done precisely that. Hell, even his uncle would have, just to prove his superiority. To prove who was in control.

  His lips twitched into something resembling a faint smile. "Not shitty, just... crowded. Very crowded. Both my brother and uncle are Alphas too." Okay, so it wasn't a real apology for bitching at her, but it was close enough.

  Eyes widening, Margo guffawed. "Holy smokes, that must have been fun. No wonder you're so skittish." She paused, then frowned. "Actually, it explains a lot of things."

  "Like what?"

  "Like why you have no idea what a real Alpha can do, for example. Every normal wolf experiences the powers of a true Alpha all through his life. Even, well, normal Alphas are taught and trained by their pack's leader, we don't live forever after all. But with you it's different. Your Alpha brother is older than you I assume?" Jared nodded and Margo continued. "Now I get why you don't seem to know anything at all. If I had a rival in my own house, sitting at my table, eating my food and continually threatening my own reign, I probably wouldn't teach him how to become more powerful either. I'd try to get rid of you as quickly as possible."

  Which was exactly what had happened to Jared. Awkward. How was he supposed to react? Sure, he had kind of sensed something wasn't right with him, noticed Hector's pondering glances and the way Margo strict-mothered him, but to believe and to know were two different things. And to think that all this time, Tobias had concealed knowledge from him, that his own brother had known Jared had found a new pack and wouldn't come back and still he hadn't confessed to leaving him high and dry?

  The familiar rage came and went and left nothing but a faint, bitter taste on Jared's tongue. Just one more indignity in a sea of indignities. He shuffled, stepped back and crossed his arms. "Fine, now that we've established I'm a whelp, could you pretty please help me out and tell me what I'm supposed to do about Darwin's family?"

  Margo sipped her coffee, licked foam from her lips and grinned. "Nope. Still not Yoda. Deal with your family on your own."

  Huffing, Jared left the kitchen.

  Jared surprisingly found Darwin in the living room instead of the cellar. The scene couldn't have been any more peculiar or unsettling, though; amidst the stench of despair and tears, Darwin lay on the couch, all puffy-eyed, propped up by both Harry and Darla. Even Graham was there, leaning against the dinner table. He turned his attention away from Darla as Jared stepped in, watching him with a slightly worried expression. Harry taking care of Darwin wasn't out of the ordinary, but seeing Darla lay her hands on Darwin in a friendly manner felt eerily like Freaky Friday.

  "What the hell happened? I was gone no more than ten minutes!" he asked exasperatedly, moved in and picked Darwin off of Harry's lap. He cradled him in his arms and glowered at the room. "Where's George?"

  Holding his mate brought a wave of relief and he clutched Darwin closer. Darwin wrapped his arms around Jared's neck and huffed hot breath against the skin above his pulse. Even exhausted and torn like this, nothing, nobody else, smelled this good to Jared. Safe, like home.

  "Well," Harry began, squirming on the couch.

  Darla beat him to it. "His father decided to forbid him to be with you. He thinks you're not worthy of him."

  "Darla—," Graham interjected, stepping forward to lay a hand on her shoulder in a way too intimate gesture. She shrugged him off. "What? It's the truth. And we all know how this will end, too." A pause, then, "Badly. It will end badly."

  Not worthy. The words could have come directly from his brother. Not worthy of being called an Alpha. Not worthy of learning the ropes. Not worthy of becoming something more than a flighty jock. Too dangerous, a bad influence, good-for-nothing. The words breathed through Jared, tightened around his heart and faded. The weight in his arms was real, as was the breath against his neck. Someone thought he was worthy of this. Someone had bet their life on him becoming something more. Darwin's scent wafted up and even the stench of heartbreak couldn't keep Jared's body from reacting, from pumping blood into his cock.

  He smiled. "I see. Excuse us, I have to have a talk with my mate. And thank you for taking care of him."

  He turned away from their surprised faces and started walking, swiftly carrying Darwin up the stairs and past a few of Margo's pack members. The door to his guest bedroom slammed shut behind him as he shouldered his way through. The loud bang reverberated through the building and Margo called out in protest somewhere in the house. Jared didn't care. He delicately draped Darwin on the bed and crawled in next to him, sidling against his back and drawing him into his arms.

  Darwin wiggled until every last inch of his body was pressed against Jared, then sighed. He sounded congested and shivery, but his body relaxed in Jared's embrace. Silence built until the sounds of their beating hearts and their soft breaths was all that was left.

  "My father hates you," Darwin finally said, breaking the quiet.

  Jared sighed and buried his face in Darwin's hair, sucking in lungfuls of that enticing, hypnotizing scent. "I can't bring myself to care right now."

  "But you should, you know? He's my father, my family, and I want you two to get along." The pliant body in his arms wiggled a little, brushing a pert ass against Jared's already confused crotch. His cock followed the call and plumped up further, straining against his jeans. Jared gnashed his teeth and hid his grin in Darwin's tresses.

  "That's what everyone keeps telling me, but I sure as shit don't get what I did wrong or why George despises me so much." Jared found the hem of Darwin's shirt and flipped it out of the way, sneaking his fingers under the warm cotton. Darwin's skin felt like hot satin, tensing beneath the small touches. The idea of forgetting everything and getting lost in the utter joy of touching him fought for purchase in Jared's mind. And why not? They didn't have to run anymore, their enemy was dead, and all that was left to do was pla
n how to best return home to Banes. If they wanted to.

  Darwin sighed, stretching restlessly beneath the small circles Jared drew on his belly. "Darla says it's because you don't treat him like a dominant. I'm not sure I trust her, though. She may just be trying to stir up more conflict, get you to rough up a wheelchair-bound senior and all that."

  Jared stopped his caresses, pulling up his brows in surprise. Beat up George, the intractable, snarky dominant who provoked him constantly? Now there was an idea. But beating up George, the quadriplegic father of his mate? Not so much. Jared made a face and buried his nose against Darwin's neck. His fingers took up their movement again. "Yeah, no, I don't think I could lay a finger on your dad. He's... fragile."

  "That's the problem, if you believe Darla," Darwin said and snorted sarcastically. "She says, since nobody treats him like the dominant he is, legs or no legs, he acts up. And you have to treat him like a man to make him see reason. Stupid, right?"

  Jared blinked and pulled Darwin closer, shoving his hand deeper into his shirt and petting his sternum. Come to think of it, if Jared ever ended up in a wheelchair, he would be furious if someone treated him like a dainty flower. Sure, he couldn't ask George to take a hike up a mountain and beating him up was still a very bad idea, but was it right to decide for him? Shouldn't he treat George like any other dominant and give him the choice to back down? Now there was an idea.