Gray does as he’s instructed. Steam rises from the container he’s holding. It smells both sweet and bitter at the same time.
Adam has a similar container in his hand. It smells different.
“Come on. Let’s take a seat.”
Gray follows Adam out of the room, still holding his container, and into the room that he crept past the previous evening. It has the scents of many different wolves even though there is no one in it now.
You need to watch them humans, cub. They say one thing, do another. Don’t get involved unless you have to. Gray has always heeded his father’s advice, and he fully intends to watch them carefully, but he’s long past the point of not being able to get involved.
The pack leader is gesturing to a cushioned chair beside a stone area that smells of burned wood. Gray takes it, putting each foot flat on the floor and his uninjured arm on the rest.
Gray risks meeting Adam’s eyes and sees deep brown eyes, similar to Jax’s but flecked with gold. They show an expression of nothing but concern.
He doesn’t know enough about human mating rituals to know what is going to happen next but his stomach tightens and a cold frisson of fear skates up his back, uncomfortable against the unfamiliar softness of the chair.
Injury or no injury, this is where he will have to prove he is going to be a good mate and he doesn’t know how he is going to do that.
“I need to talk to you,” Adam says slowly as if he’s not sure how much Gray understands him. “About your pack.”
The air suddenly turns cold and Gray’s throat turns to ice. He doesn’t think he could say anything even if he wanted. He nods instead.
Now, he wishes it were about Jax. Jax, he could argue for.
He says nothing and watches the tall wolf with cautious eyes, just as his father told him to do.
“We need to know what happened,” Adam says. “We are having our annual mating run. If any of our pack or any of the visiting packs are in danger, we need to know.”
Gray still isn’t used to using human words but he knows they put great import by them so he takes a moment to sound the words out in his head to make sure there is no unintended meaning that can be taken before he says them out loud. “It was pack business. You are in no danger.”
“One of my alphas followed your scent up the mountains,” Adam says and then he clearly reads something on Gray’s face because he adds, “Our packs are allies. We needed to make sure your pack was safe.”
That’s a lie, Gray thinks. And an obvious one. They’ve never tried to help Gray’s pack before. “You did not need to do that.”
“We did,” Adam hesitates and Gray gets the impression he is choosing his words carefully. “We found Isaiah’s body.”
Gray closes his eyes. It doesn’t help. All he sees is the blood, and the look of betrayal in his father’s eyes as he died. Cold wracks his body.
Somewhere in the distance, Adam is still speaking. “Can you tell us what happened?”
What happened. How can he put it into human words? The betrayal and the blood, and the stink of panic.
Adam doesn’t push him for an answer. He just sits there, slowly sipping his drink and waiting for Gray to find the words he needs.
The words aren’t there. Gray isn’t even close to capable of articulating them yet. He asks a question instead. “What did you do with his body?”
Gray knows there are wolf packs that eat their dead. His never had and he didn’t think the humankind did it, but he needs to ask. The thought of his father still lying where he died, slowly disintegrating in the summer heat has been haunting him.
“We didn’t know your customs, but we didn’t want to just leave him there either. We built a cairn.”
“What’s that?”
“We covered him in a pile of stones and small rocks,” Adam says. “It stops animals from getting at him but can also be a memorial.”
Gray thinks that’s an odd thing to do but it’s fitting. His father lived his life among the stone of the ridges and peak. In death, he should become a part of it. He nods.
“If you want us to do something else, we’re happy to help. Just tell us,” Adam continues.
Gray shakes his head. “I like that one.” He wishes Jax were here. He can scent him on the air and that is comforting, but it would be better if he were here, warm against his alpha’s side.
“We’d have to consult with the rest of the pack though,” Adam says. “And now that Isaiah is gone, we’ll need to redraw the old pack agreements.”
Gray risks another direct look. The concern is still there, as is the kindness, but there’s something else too: a glint of steel that tells Gray he’s not going to go anywhere until Adam finds out what he’s looking for.
Gray cocks his head, thinking. He’s not had to do much of it as a wolf. Life was far less complicated in the mountains. Chase this rabbit, reach that rocky overhang before it rains. He’d never had to explain himself before.
And while the Winterstokes are wolves, at least partly, he’s not sure if they are going to understand what happened. They do things very differently here.
The hole in Gray’s stomach extends to his heart. Everything feels hollow. His throat is tight and hot. Panic begins to tingle at the back of his mind. “Where is Jax?”
“He’s gone to work,” Adam says, his voice soft. He leans forward and reaches out a single hand out as if he were about to pat on Gray’s shoulder or head.
The movement makes Gray startle.
Adam’s hand moves back in a shot. “Sorry. I’m not very good at this kind of thing.”
What kind of thing, Gray wonders through a fog of panic.
“Don’t worry. Jax will be back later, but you’re welcome to stay here and wait for him. All you need to worry about for now is getting healed. We can worry about what comes after later.”
Gray risks meeting the pack leader’s eyes again. They’re dark and watchful, but he seems sincere. A knot loosens in Gray’s stomach. He had been worried about that.
Gray can’t go back to his own pack. What would he do if he was rejected by Jax’s? He’d have nowhere to go.
He hasn’t missed that Adam hasn’t offered him a permanent place. It’s a place ‘for now’. It will have to do.
He nods. “Thank you.”
Adam breaks out into a smile. “Good, then that’s settled. I’ll introduce you to the others when they come in.” A cloud crosses his face. “Except Ben. You can smell there’s another omega here?”
Gray nods again. He’s finding it a useful human gesture.
“I need you to keep far away from him. Always. If he enters a room, you leave. If he’s downstairs, you stay up. He needs his space too.”
Space. Such a human concept, but Gray keeps on nodding as if his head is too loose for his neck.
“How about I show you to your room now?”
“I know where it is.”
Adam shoots him a confused look and then his eyes widen and a sympathetic look crosses his face.
“You can’t stay in Jax’s room. He needs his space.” the words are soft and sympathetic, but Gray recognizes the steel behind them. Adam is not going to budge on this one.
Gray isn’t going to push it. He’s happy to do what Jax wants. Well, maybe not happy but he’ll do it, at least until Gray understands how human minds work.
Space. From a mate. It’s an odd concept. In Gray’s pack, mates do everything together: sleep, hunt, play. You want to spend every moment with your mate. Why would you not?
But it seems humans don’t.
Adam seems to take sympathy on him. “You’ll still be here in the packhouse with us. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Adam gets awkwardly to his feet, relying on a thick stick leaning against his chair
“Yes,” Gray says quickly. “Yes, please.”
Adam puts his hand out again, and Gray takes it even though he doesn’t want to.
Adam’s hand is rough but warm as he shakes Gray’s own.
&
nbsp; “Thank you,” he says. “I know this is difficult.”
Gray doesn’t know what to say to that so he says nothing at all. He nods, a gesture he is finding works in a lot of situations, then follows Adam’s lead towards a small door at the opposite end of the big room.
Gray has been here too, but instead of leading him into the room that he climbed into, Adam indicates a set of very steep stairs leading up into the dark.
Then Adam closes the door behind him, and Gray is very aware of how close Adam is and how big and tall the other wolf is. The stale air of the tower fills with alpha scent, and Gray has to swallow back the instinct to growl.
“Straight up the stairs,” Adam says, letting Gray go first. “And go slow. They’re steep.”
They are steep, and Gray has no option but to take them like a pup taking his first steps.
If it were just the steepness, Gray wouldn’t mind. He’s managed worse climbs up on the ridges. It’s that there are walls on either side and a strange alpha he barely knows right behind his back.
He wants to run. Every instinct he has is telling him to run fast and far, to get out of the confined space and away from the big alpha behind him.
He can’t. The only way is up the steep winding staircase and trying to run would be a surefire to fall over his own feet and expose his belly.
Gray swallows his terror and keeps going: one step at a time.
“You’re doing great. Not much further,” Adam says in tone that Gray thinks he probably means to be soothing. It’s not. It’s a reminder of just how close the other wolf is.
His feet go from one wooden step to the next. The middle of each step is worn smooth and pale by hundreds of previous feet. He takes the next step, then the next.
Finally, there are no more steps and he finds himself on a small landing. A single window looks out over the forest, and opposite: a single closed door.
Adam hobbles past him, then opens the door, pushing down on the handle, then gestures with his head to Gray to go inside.
Gray does. The room is small, smaller than Jax’s with a bed against one wall. There’s also a dresser, a desk and chair, and a small set of shelves stacked with books.
“So, this is it,” Adam says. “Jax said he was going to take you shopping for some clothes so you’ll have something to put in the dresser. The bathroom is the door with the blue paint that we passed on the way up. You’re welcome to come downstairs and use the kitchen and the common room, but I need to ask you to respect everyone’s privacy in the bedrooms, especially Jax’s and the other omega who lives here.”
“Privacy?” It’s not a word Gray is familiar with.
A look of frustration crosses Adam’s face. Gray knows how he feels.
“Just don’t go into any room downstairs that isn’t the kitchen or the common room — the one where we had the tea.”
“Okay.” Gray says, looking around the small room. It looks clean but it smells like a lot of people have spent time in it. Alphas, omegas, beta scents all entwine with the sharp smell of what he is beginning to recognize as cleaning products. Humans spend so much time cooped up together that they have to wash their smells away, and even then they don’t succeed. Not completely.
Adam takes a couple of awkward steps forward, and fiddles with the latch on the window above the dresser. It opens with a creak, and fresh forest-scented air drifts in on the breeze.
“How about I leave you to get settled in?” he asks, and Gray takes the chance to look directly at him. He’s been getting braver about that. In other packs, it might be a challenge but he’s learning that it isn’t in this one.
The tall alpha is sweating slightly after taking the stairs in the summer heat, his skin pink and flushed against the dark blond of his hair. He doesn’t meet Gray’s eyes, and Gray realizes that Adam felt just as awkward about the confined space as Gray did and isn’t sure about meeting his eyes.
The realization makes a tension go out of Gray’s stomach that he hadn’t quite realized he’d been holding on to.
Adam appears to be waiting for an answer, but Gray has a question for him instead.
“How do humans mate?”
Adam makes a peculiar noise as if he’s choking on something, and Gray realizes how his question could be understood, but then realizes that the oldest Winterstoke brother is laughing.
“I mean, how do I get Jax to like me?” Gray admits.
“Oh, right,” Adam replies, breathing out. He puts his hands in his jeans’ pocket.
It feels as if Gray has asked another awkward question but he doesn’t know why. This should be obvious. It is for wolves. For the thousandth time since he came down the mountain, Gray feels as if he has nothing in common with the humans. None of it makes sense.
“Start slow,” Adam suggests. “Respect what he says and the pace he wants to take things at. You need to court him. Dinner and flowers. That kind of thing.”
“Dinner and flowers?”
“It would be a good start. And talk to him. Let him take the time to think things over. Respect his choices. I don’t know what it’s like for omegas in your pack, but it’s difficult for them here. Jax has had to fight hard for his independence. He doesn’t want to lose it.”
Gray can’t think of anyone more independent than Jax. It feels as if he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
“Okay,” he says.
“Any more questions?”
Gray shakes his head.
Adam takes a single step forward and then stops suddenly as if thinking better of it. “Just ask me if you have questions. I’m happy to answer anything.” He turns to go, and then turns back, sympathy in his eyes. “And my condolences. I’m sorry about your father. He seemed like a good man.”
“Thank you.”
Then Adam is gone, and Gray is left alone in the room with all its old scents, intertwined with the home-like scents of the forest drifting through the open window. He doesn’t know which is worse.
JAX
pheromone fogs and bossy betas
Jax drives down to at the clinic, his stomach in a knot. Despite the steaming hot water and copious amounts of soap, he’s sure everyone is going to scent Gray on him.
There are multiple reasons he avoids sex during mating run week and turning up at work smelling like a horny omega is one of them.
The alphas smirk, and the betas just sigh and shake their heads like it’s nothing less than what they expected. It’s irritating and it messes with his head.
They are going to smell Gray on him. He knows it, even as he knows it’s impossible. Not after that much scrubbing.
Even more annoyingly, he didn’t even do anything. All he did was wake up with Gray in his bed.
He shouldn’t care. He knows he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t care what everyone else thinks or if they judge him for it. It’s their problem. But he does care. And he hates that he cares too.
He parks the truck in his usual spot, half-consciously counting the other cars in the lot and mentally making a note of who is there. There’s only one car he doesn’t recognise.
Gregor’s parked his truck out front again. A shiver runs up Jax’s spine.
He hates the sight of that too. His brothers only ever park right out front for one reason.
And it’s the same reason. Every. Single. Year.
It means omegas for Jax to sew up, bandage, then send back into the run like pieces of meat.
Maybe this year, this’ll be it. Just Gray and whoever this is. No more injuries. No more nastiness. Jax knows he’s lying to himself even as the words materialize in the depths of his mind.
Whoever it was out there in the darkness last night wasn’t going leave it at scaring one lone omega walking home at night. He’d enjoyed the game.
Dr Barnes’ dark blue sedan is parked in the single spot marked ‘Doctor’ so Jax takes one of the visitor slots.
He pulls the keys out of the ignition, and twists his nose to his shoulder to try surreptitiously pi
ck up the scent of the side of his neck and glands.
No sex scent. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
He rolls down the window an inch and sniffs the air before opening the door. It would be incredibly stupid of the alpha from last night to be hanging around a parking lot in the middle of town in broad daylight waiting to cause trouble with him, but intelligence wasn’t always an alpha’s strong suit.
There’s nothing but the usual town scents. Jax walks fast anyway, clutching his keys in his hand, just in case.
He pushes through the glass-fronted doors and waves at the receptionist, before striding through to the back of the clinic.
It smells like Gray. The wild man has been gone for hours but the traces of his pine needle and wind scent remains.
The scent hits Jax’s nostrils like a shock wave, but that is nothing compared to what it does to the rest of him. A sudden wave of lust shivers down Jax’s spine and makes his vision blur.
It’s followed by a flash of anger, hot and furious in the depths of his belly.
No. Not today. I’ve got work to do.
Gray’s scent is not the only one in the clinic. The corridor is filled with the thick fog of omega-in-heat, and it’s strong enough that Jax doesn’t need to even think about where it’s coming from. It’s strong enough that great flashing signs would be more discreet.
He hates that this is what he smells like sometimes, and that every alpha in a mile would know what it means. He can feel his own heat creeping up: a steady hot heaviness in the pit of his stomach that makes his dick extra sensitive against the confines of its underwear.
Jax takes in a deep breath to steady his racing thoughts and immediately regrets it.
The air is thick with omega hormones, so solid that he can almost imagine them as a fog seeping under the door of the examination room.
He thanks whatever gods sent Gray running up to the packhouse that the wild alpha is no longer in the clinic to scent them.
If Gray got completely over attached to a strange omega who wasn’t in heat, how would he have reacted this one? Not well, Jax predicts.
It’s far better to keep the wild wolf in a space where the Winterstoke alphas can more easily keep an eye on him.
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