A shiver runs up Thomas’ back. There’s something wrong. He knows there is. Gregor promised he’d let Thomas tell Adam about Ivan, and he thinks the big alpha will keep his word.
It has to be something else. Something bad.
“Stay here,” he tells Ivan, then to the other two omegas, “Lock the door behind me.”
The alphas look up as the door opens and Thomas steps out onto the sagging porch. He’s not wearing shoes and the pine needles prickle his feet as he makes his way over to the truck.
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m just going to head back into town,” Gregor says. “Adam’s going to stay with you for a bit. He’ll catch you up on everything that’s happened.”
That wasn’t what I asked. Thomas’ attention is suddenly drawn to movement inside the truck. Adam didn’t come alone.
Thomas’ heart sinks as he recognizes a familiar face. “Jacob? Are you okay?”
His cousin nods. Thomas gives him a quick once-over as he gets out of the truck. He looks perfectly fine physically, but Thomas knows that doesn’t always mean that an omega is fine.
“We had a run-in with Ronmin at the farm,” Adam says. “Ronmin seemed to take a liking to him so your mom thought it best to send him up here until this blows over.”
“Yes, of course.” Thomas takes Jacob by the arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Barbara’s overreacting. Ronmin just got a bit flirty.” Jacob rolls his eyes.
Flirty. That could mean anything.
“Are you really okay?” Thomas asks again.
“Yes, fine. The guy’s kind of cute actually.”
Huh. That was not a description Thomas had ever expected to be used for the Fort Gosford leader, but he’s not going to argue.
He takes Jacob back to the cabin where Shannon immediately starts clucking over him like a mother hen, wrapping him in a blanket and offering to make him hot chocolate.
He stops on the porch step on the way back out when he sees the two brothers. Adam is shaking his head. Whatever argument he interrupted when he came out earlier has clearly just resumed.
Gregor throws up his hands and walks backward to the truck, but he’s grinning. Adam gives him a dirty look.
Gregor gets in the truck, reverses and drives off.
There’s clearly something going on but Thomas is not quite sure what it is, and he’s not sure he’ll get a straight answer if he asks.
He takes his time walking over. “What was that about?”
“Oh nothing. I lost an argument.”
Thomas feels his curiosity piqued further. That part is new. The old Adam never admitted to losing anything.
Before Thomas can ask anything, Adam continues, “I need to talk to you about some stuff. Away from the others. Is everything okay in there?”
“Should be.”
Adam nods. “Let’s go to the rock then.”
Thomas feels his stomach flip over. “Sure,” he says casually, “let me just pop inside and let everyone know. They’ll worry otherwise. I’ll meet you there?”
Adam nods and disappears into the brush.
It only takes a minute to tell Ivan and the others that he’s just having a talk with Adam. It takes a little longer to brush his teeth and peer into the age-spotted mirror running his fingers through his hair.
It’s not a date, idiot. They’re just talking about adult things where the child can’t hear them, or Warwick things where the others can’t overhear.
Just because they are going to be completely alone for the first time in ten years, doesn’t mean anything. It’s been ten years. Adam almost certainly lost interest years ago.
Ugh. He forces himself out of the door before he tries to change his clothes and come up with a speech.
He picks his way through the brush without thinking. Nothing has changed about this area of the woods. They’re still overgrown. There are still trees higher than any building in Aylewood. There is still the ravine.
He’s the only thing that has changed.
Thomas follows the invisible path between the trees to the place that they always knew as just ‘the rock’.
It’s one of the most beautiful parts of the Aylewood region: just a large rock, jutting out and overlooking the ravine. Look down and you’d see the pines and river far below, look up and there are the snow-covered peaks of the Aylewood range.
He and Adam spent a lot of time here when they were teenagers, legs dangling over the edge while they talked about what they were going to do when they grew up, or complained about their parents, or later, simply spent all their time kissing and not paying any attention to the scenery at all.
Then he had no secrets from Adam. Now he would have to count them.
Adam is sitting in his old place as he approaches. He did always take the spot to the left. Old habits die hard, it seems.
He glances around as Thomas approaches. There’s an intensity in his brown eyes that makes Thomas look away.
Thomas inches over the top of the rock until he’s comfortable sitting down. He always did hate how high it was, but with Adam beside him, it never seemed to matter.
Adam is a solid, reassuring presence beside him, and he can almost feel his blood pressure dropping.
It’s his scent, Thomas tells himself. It’s just an alpha/omega thing.
“So, everything okay?”
Adam draws in a deep breath. “No one’s hurt. Not seriously.”
Thomas turns to look at it. “And the not serious part?”
“Your mom’s got a cut above her eye. I don’t think it’ll even scar.” He leans back on his elbows, eyes still on the forest below. “Ronmin and his men were at the farm. They didn’t find anything, but they left a real mess.”
Thomas gives him a quizzical look.
“Completely trashed the house. Smashed up the furniture. Broke every piece of china in your mom’s cabinet. Tore up books. You get the picture.”
“Why?”
“Because they couldn’t do anything else. Ronmin’s clearly got nothing on you. No real proof, or nothing he can use really. He wants us to make a mistake.”
Thomas shakes his head. “Bet Mom was pissed.”
“Like you would not believe.”
“And Jacob?”
Adam’s face turns serious. “They didn’t touch him. That would have crossed a line, but Ronmin kept going on about taking him instead of the others.”
Thomas is silent. He can imagine the kinds of things that were said. He’s heard all of them over the years, from omegas young and old. Some shaken, some just accepting, and some like Jacob who just see a pretty alpha who wants them and don’t understand the consequences. Thomas wants to say that it’ll be okay but it’s not, and it never will be.
“Thomas,” Adam’s tone is serious, almost pleading.
Thomas turns to look at him. Adam gets up from his position leaning back on his elbows and sits up straight.
“Thomas,” he says again, and Thomas wants to lean into the sound of his name in Adam’s voice. It’s something he could drown in.
Adam’s mouth is working silently as if he keeps starting to say something but keeps changing his mind about what he wants to say.
“Thomas, I am so sorry. So sorry. I should never have bitten you like that. Never. I have no excuse. None, but I’ve thought about it every single day. What I did to you,” Adam leans towards him, reaching out with his hand but evidently thinks better of it because the hand withdraws just as fast, clasping his other one in his lap. “I am really, really sorry.”
Thomas reaches over into Adam’s lap and takes the withdrawn hand in his own. It’s warm and firm in his. The touch makes him shiver.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize. I’m not sorry you did it. Not really.”
Adam’s hand tightens in his. Thomas is suddenly aware of close they’re sitting, and of how easy it would be to just lean over and press his lips against Adam’s.
He pulls his hand back
and misses the touch immediately. “What happened with your leg? I heard what you said to Lex.”
Adam’s hand goes to it immediately, to where Thomas guesses is the pain point. He rubs his hand palm down against it.
“Long story really,” Adam says. Like always when he’s talking about something he doesn’t want to, he looks away. He’s staring out across the darkening ravine as if it is the most fascinating thing he has ever seen. “I had to issue a challenge to an alpha who threatened Luke’s mate,” he continues. “He went down but not before tearing out the ligament. I need surgery. It’ll help but it’ll never go back to what it was.”
Thomas can’t help it. He lays his hand over Adam’s and presses softly, massaging on top. He doesn’t know if it’s the bite, or just an omega instinct, or if it’s just him, Thomas, but he wants to make it better.
“Does massaging it help?”
“For a while. I can’t sit too long or stand too long.”
Thomas lifts Adam’s hand away and presses down directly on Adam’s jean covered leg. He rubs circles into the warmth of the material. “Like this?”
“Yeah.”
What are you doing? This is not the time. Tell him about Ivan. But Thomas can’t stop himself. He’s been away from his alpha for a decade.
He’s not taken another lover in all that time. He’s done nothing but pine over Adam, and fantasize about him in the dark, quiet of the night.
Now, Adam’s flesh is right there, under his fingertips and Adam’s breathing is quickening in a way that makes Thomas want to clench his thighs together.
He does but it doesn’t make any difference. Adam’s presence is having an effect, and Thomas sees it the moment Adam picks up the scent of his slick.
Thomas leans forward the way he’s been wanting to ever since he saw Adam though the window yesterday morning. His nose bumps up against Adam’s own, and he can feel Adam’s breath, hot on his mouth.
“God, I’ve missed you so much.” The words come out in a whisper, filled with all the longing of a decade.
“Me too.” Adam’s nose nudges Thomas’ out of the way, and then his lips are right there, pressing against Thomas’ own, hot and sweet.
His tongue slips with an urgency that forces a groan out of Thomas’ mouth.
It feels as if nothing has changed. It’s just Adam and Thomas, making out on the rock, the way that they always did.
Adam’s hand rises to cup Thomas’ jaw, tilting his face so he can kiss him just the way he wants to. The fingers of his other hand curl into Thomas’ t-shirt, pulling him closer, then pushing him over onto the flat of the rock, the hot line of his body weighing Thomas down.
“Fuck,” Adam blurts. “C’mon, move!”
He pulls Thomas further away from the edge of the rock as easily as if he weighed nothing at all, rolling him away and onto a bed of pine below the rising trees.
Thomas’ heartbeat sounds in his ears. He grabs Adam’s upper arms, feeling hard alpha muscle underneath the thin cotton of his shirt. Hands slip under the shirt, to the hard strength underneath.
Thomas grabs the shirt and lifts it, and Adam lets him pull over his head.
He reaches up craning his neck, slamming his mouth against Adam’s in his urgency, bucking his hips and rubbing up into hardness he finds there.
He slides his hand down, pulling at Adam’s jeans and undoing the button and zip in a couple of easy movements.
Just like that he’s got his hand wrapped around Adam’s bare cock, fingers gripping tight as he jerks it the way Adam likes it.
Maybe it’s been a while or maybe it’s just Thomas, but it only takes a handful of smooth tugs before Adam shudders, full-bodied and groaning above him and Thomas’ hand is flooded with wet warmth.
Thomas carries him through it, until the aftershocks die down and Adam collapses panting, his nose pressed against the scar on Thomas’ neck.
They lie together, rising chest against rising chest, until Adam lifts himself enough to brush his lips along the hard line of Thomas’ collarbone.
“Your turn,” he murmurs.
Thomas shuts his eyes tight and for the next long while, his mind is lost to everything but the singular and extremely overdue pleasure of Adam’s hands and mouth on his body.
ADAM
blackmail and cold hard cash
Adam circles the cabin one last time. The moon is high in the sky, and the only sounds emanating from inside the cabin are soft breathing and the occasional snore.
The world smells of pine and the coming rain, and the residual scent of Thomas on Adam’s skin.
The cabin isn’t what Thomas deserves, not this broken, stinking thing. Thomas should never have to run and hide somewhere like this.
Adam stops and breathes in deep again. Thomas’ scent soothes everything. Even the pain in his hip feels better and easier to manage with Thomas close by.
He stops, satisfied that the surrounding area is safe, and pads over to the porch on heavy wolf paws.
He curls up in front of the front door and lays his head on his paws.
He dozes, waking throughout the night: every time an owl scratches in the trees above, or he catches the scent of a mouse in on the breeze.
He gets up twice to circle the cabin again, but each patrol brings nothing but confirmation that they are truly alone.
He’s awake with the sunrise and sitting on his haunches on the pine floor when the door pushes open with a scratching sound.
The sweet strawberry scent of Thomas’ son reaches Adam first, followed by the soft sound of small feet.
He smells a bit like Thomas but also something else that Adam can’t quite put his finger on: something familiar and comforting.
The boy walks over to Adam on quiet feet and puts his hand on the scruff of his neck, scratching him behind his ears.
Adam leans into it. He doesn’t usually like anyone touching him when he’s in wolf form, but somehow this is different. It feels natural.
“Ivan?” Thomas’ voice sounds from inside the cabin. It’s not panicked. Not yet, but it’s got that pre-worried tone to it, the one that all parents get the moment that they realize their children aren’t where they expect them to be.
Adam nudges Ivan with his nose. The boy gives him a last ruffle, then runs back to the cabin. Adam watches him go.
If this thing with Thomas works out, he’ll be a stepfather. He’s not sure how he feels about that.
Adam has never really thought about having children, other than assuming he’s going to have a son one day. There have been six generations of Adam Winterstokes. He’d always assumed there would be a seventh.
Would Thomas even want more kids? Does Adam want a kid?
He pads over to the truck where he left his clothes folded on the front seat, and shifts. The morning air is cool against his skin as he dresses quickly behind the truck, then retrieves his phone from the glove compartment.
Five new messages and twelve missed calls. All from Ronmin.
Hey old man, let’s negotiate. Good terms, I promise. x
Hi! Hope you’re not avoiding me! Give me a call.
Evening! I’ve got some fabulous terms for you. You keep whatever omegas you fancy, just let me have one or two (gotta leave me something, right?).
Hiya. If you want a deal, I’m your man. Better take it up before the Fosters do. xx
Hey, what’s up? Sorry for all the messages :( but I will give you a good deal. Call me! Love to Thomas and Ivan xx
He’s like a crazy internet stalker, sliding into Adam’s DMs to annoy him.
The last deal that Ronmin offered wasn’t even to him. It was to Gray of the wild wolves, offering Jax to him in order to not fight for the Winterstokes.
Adam knows where Ronmin can put his deal. He wonders how many messages the Fosters and Warwicks have woken up to this morning.
The timestamps on the messages and calls are all throughout the night. Adam imagines Ronmin sitting in bed in the dark, his face lit up by the
reflected light of his phone, sending message after message.
He gives one last glance at the cabin. It’s still and quiet.
He dials Barbara’s number. She’s a farmer. She’ll be up early.
She answers on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just checking in. Everyone’s fine. Jacob’s settled in,” he says. “Wanted to see if you needed any help with cleaning up the mess from yesterday. I could send a couple of alphas from the town to give you a hand.”
“Why are you really calling?” Barbara says. She sounds exasperated. She’s outside somewhere. Adam can hear the sounds of animals lowing in the background and the low growl of a tractor in the distance.
“Did you wake up to a bunch of messages from Ronmin this morning?”
Adam can practically hear the eyeroll over the phone. “Always. He doesn’t stop. I think he actually gets one of his men to do it. I’ve had one while he was talking to me face-to-face once.”
There goes Adam’s obsessive stalker theory. Although getting someone else to send your creepy messages probably counts too.
“Please tell me you’re not thinking of actually talking to him,” Barbara says disdainfully.
“Maybe. We’ve had a couple of run ins now and no actual violence. I don’t think he actually wants to fight us. It might be worth seeing what he says.”
A snort sounds over the phone. “He’s capable of violence. Just because he’s got a soft spot for you, doesn’t mean he won’t kill the rest of us the moment he gets the chance. No negotiations. That’s my final decision.”
“Okay,” Adam says. He hangs up with a sense of frustration.
Lex’s words are weighing on him. This isn’t about omegas. Not really. If Ronmin is after the business, they might be able to pay him off. It’s not a sexy solution, or one that will satisfy the alpha who wants to growl and beat his chest like an animal, but it might be one that would actually work.
Adam has spent a lot of time over the last year looking into how Ronmin works and how he has managed to gain so much influence in such a short space of time.
Ronmin came from almost nowhere almost eight years ago. He worked his way up the ranks in the Fort Gosford and then won the leadership in a challenge.
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