Winterstoke Wolves Collection : An MM Mpreg Shifter Romance Bundle

by Sasha Silsbury

  Gregor’s eyes widen and then he grins. “Like that, is it?”

  “Maybe,” Aaron says, biting his lip.

  Gregor’s blue eyes flicker to it, then they turn serious. “All right, then. Get over here,” he orders.

  Aaron moves, close up enough that he can feel the heat from Gregor’s chest but not enough to actually touch his skin.

  His heartbeat sounds in his ears.

  Gregor pulls him in close, cupping his jaw as he dips his head for a kiss.

  Aaron whines and kisses him back enthusiastically.

  The big alpha pulls away, his lips curving into a smile. “Nuh uh. I think we can finally go slow. You’re not the only one who can tease,” he murmurs as he pulls Aaron down onto the soft red sand.

  An infinite time later, and it feels like something has changed. Aaron lies on his side on the sand, Gregor’s arm around him as he snuggles into the big alpha. The hair on his chest tickles his nose but it’s nice.

  I could keep doing this, he realizes. I want to keep doing this.

  As he thinks it, his stomach rumbles and ruins the moment. He hasn’t eaten anything since the lumpy not-a-poisonous tuber back at the boulder yesterday. When the heat first hit, he hardly noticed but now that Gregor is fucking him every time he needs it, his stomach is starting to hurt.

  It has to affect Gregor too, but the alpha hasn’t let on.

  That’s alphas for you, he thinks, even as he admits to himself that his real-life experience of alphas has been limited to the father who left so long ago that he doesn’t even remember him.

  “Are you hungry?” Aaron asks suddenly. He’s going to say ‘no’.

  Gregor’s eyes snap open. He scrutinizes Aaron, giving him a thorough up-down look. “Are you? I thought the heat suppressed it.”

  “It does, but—”

  Gregor gives a firm nod. “Wait here. We’ll rig up the condensation bags when I get back.”

  “I—”

  Gregor’s gone, disappeared down through the channel.

  The last light is fading from the sky and the yellow moon is rising in the distance, accompanied by a handful of bright stars. The scudding clouds from earlier have dissipated completely. So much for rain.

  Aaron sits on one of the rocks Gregor brought up and looks out over the view. He can see almost the whole of the valley from here: a vast expanse of dark sand, interrupted only by the shadows of brush and adderthorn trees.

  It’s further out than he’s ever seen before. He had a window in his room at Gary’s house, but it looked out onto the side of the house next door and they never did anything interesting.

  It feels like he’s been given brand new eyeballs. All of this is new: the scents, the sounds, the view, the sex. Good heavens, the sex.

  He feels a stirring at the thought of it, and not just from the next wave of heat that’s rapidly approaching.

  The little cave and surrounds are saturated with the scents of every filthy thing they’ve done, even as a fresh breeze drifts in from the north bringing cool evening air.

  Aaron sighs, suddenly exhausted. He hasn’t slept a full night in days. Last night was all running and panic, and the nights before that he spent frantically cramming facts and statistics into his brain that he wasn’t going to need at all.

  He breathes in the fresh air and lets his heavy eyelids drift closed while he waits for Gregor to get back.

  The blond alpha’s face appears in his thoughts immediately. He wonders idly what he’d look like without the beard.

  Probably very different, but he’d like to see it anyway. Maybe see him with it shaved off once before he grows it back.

  It’s only been a few hours but Aaron has decided he likes a beard on an alpha. It brushes against his face while they’re fucking and he’s also learnt that it has a pleasant tickly sensation on the insides of his thighs.

  He’s only aware he’s drifted off when the sound of feet scuffing against sand makes him wake with a jolt.

  “It’s okay,” Gregor says softly. “It’s only me. You okay?”

  Aaron blinks, then rubs at gummy eyes. “Yeah.”

  Gregor’s holding bulging plastic bags in both hands.

  “What’s in there?”

  “More leaves,” the alpha says, kneeling down and tipping them. “We just need to split them out evenly between the bags. Can you see okay?”

  “Enough.” The moon is higher in the sky now, spreading a cool white light across the desert.

  “Good. I didn’t just bring ones for the condensation. I got some medicinal ones too. I’ll show you which is which but just give them a good sniff if you’re not sure. You don’t want to mix some of these up. Just in case.”

  Just in case you’re not here, Aaron finishes for him. He doesn’t want to think about that.

  His stomach growls audibly and he remembers why Gregor went off in the first place. Apparently, it was loud enough for the alpha to hear too because he holds out one of the lumpy tubers. “Here, enjoy. Even though it tastes like ass.”

  Aaron laughs despite himself. “You already said that. Besides how would you even know that?”

  “Because I’ve had yours. Of course, yours is delicious.”

  Aaron feels himself reddening and is suddenly grateful for the darkness.

  “I’ll get us some rabbits in the morning,” Gregor says conversationally as if he wasn’t just talking pure filth. “I’ve caught the scent of some by the thorn grove. You ever caught a rabbit?”

  “Not sure I’ve ever even seen one,” Aaron admits.

  “What about at petting zoos?”

  “I don’t think so. We never really went to those,” Aaron says.

  Gregor stops what he’s doing and gives Aaron a searching look and the omega is grateful yet again for the darkness.

  “Tell me about the leaves,” Aaron asks, grasping for a change of subject.

  “We’ll have to wait for the sun to come back up, but we should be able to get some water out of the broad ones if we hang them in the sunlight. Can’t hurt to supplement our little stash.”

  “And those? Are those the medicinal ones?” Aaron asks, pointing to a stack of tiny-leafed sticks that look as if they’ve been stripped from the bushes down below.

  “Yup. They supposedly have antiseptic properties although I’ve got no idea if that’s true or not.”

  “Is it your shoulder?” Aaron’s at his side in seconds, pressing his hand against Gregor’s skin. It burns under his fingers. “It’s infected. It’s poison. You should have told me.” Panic rises, and his stomach tightens in fear. The awful tuber threatens to make a reappearance.

  “Calm down. It’s fine. Probably just a bit of sunburn. I got the leaves because it can’t hurt to be careful. I don’t even know if they really work. That’s all.” Gregor grins, and dips his head. He licks a stripe along Aaron’s lower lip. “Better see to your heat before bedtime. Y’know. In case I’m all poisoned tomorrow and all.”

  His skin is hot against Aaron’s own, giving off waves of that intoxicating summer scent. Aaron leans into him, drinking it in, feeling his knees weaken.

  This can’t just be heat. It can’t be, he thinks. And how would you even know? a little voice answers.

  He ignores it and calls Gregor sir again.

  GREGOR

  soft kisses and burning skin

  Gregor burns while Aaron sleeps. There was no poison on the teeth of the giant wolf. He would have scented it. He’s sure of it.

  He burns anyway, his skin running hot then cold, even as he sweats.

  Can’t sweat, he thinks. We don’t have the water for that.

  He dreams of running for the river again, this time a thousand wolves on his tail. One of them is Aaron, snapping and growling at his flank as Gregor races on under a burning sun, until he wakes startled and runs his hand across his forehead.

  It comes away wet with sweat, and the worry returns.

  Aaron is curled up close to Gregor, his nose pressed against
Gregor’s stomach while he sleeps. He’s breathing steadily and securely, although every now and then he gives out a whimper that dissipates as soon as Gregor whispers to him and runs a hand over his back.

  Gregor’s not sure how long it is before he gives up and gets up, making his way on trembling legs outside to the little seating area they have arranged out of rocks and fallen branches.

  Gregor finds the short-leaved branches by scent, and sits on a rock, picking off the tiny leaves one by one, and crushing them with a thumbnail in his palm.

  Ideally, he’d crush them into boiled water. He snorts to himself. Hell, ideally he’d be calling a medic. Or just sleeping it off in a proper bed.

  ‘Ideally’ is no longer an option. All he has is ‘will have to do’.

  It might just be the beginning of flu, picked up before he even set off on his manic drive from Aylewood. Or it could be too much sun.

  He’s a mountain and snow wolf. This isn’t his terrain. He’s spent more time under the sun now than he has in years.

  It could be anything.

  He can’t afford anything. Not now. They still have five full days to go.

  The leaves have turned to a stinky pulpy mass in his palm. He presses it into the wound at his shoulder, rubbing it in and pretending to himself that it doesn’t hurt at all.

  The shoulder isn’t hotter than the rest of him, and the wound doesn’t smell.

  It’s flu. Inconvenient, unlucky flu combined with sunburn.

  He helps himself to a couple of swallows of water, then heads back into the cave, curling up around Aaron.

  The omega snuggles closer into him, pushing the soft skin of his back against Gregor’s stomach.

  Gregor leans down and presses a soft kiss into Aaron’s hair, scenting his hair.

  He’s not sure what this is yet, or what the shape of it will be when they finally get out of here. All he knows is that he needs to be in perfect physical condition to fight off any threats to his omega if he wants to keep him.

  Gregor closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep, as his skin burns around him.

  AARON

  condensation and squashed leaves

  Aaron wakes with the sunrise as it colors the cave entrance pink and gold.

  The heat seems to be leaving as fast as it arrived, as if whatever the blood wolves injected him with had only a certain amount of horniness to give off.

  It left him alone for most of the night, but it’s starting to return now, urging him to wake the alpha lying beside him. Aaron ignores it. His own desires are going to have to wait.

  Gregor lies flat on his back, mouth open. Heat radiates off of him. The big wolf tossed and turned all night, and every time Aaron turned to check on him, his breath was harsh and labored.

  Aaron leans over, careful not to wake him. Sweat has beaded at the sides of the alpha’s face and his hair is limp and damp against his scalp.

  The wound to his shoulder appears to be healing. The blood has scabbed over and it doesn’t have the red, angry look that Aaron would expect if it were infected.

  It does have something else: a welt of squashed, dried leaves. Aaron bends gently and sniffs at Gregor’s shoulder. It doesn’t smell infected and the crushed leaves just smell sharp.

  He frowns. There’s something going on. He just doesn’t know what it is.

  One way or another, they are going to need more water. Gregor has sweated through at least a day’s portion during the night.

  Aaron moves slowly and quietly as he leaves the shelter of the cave, stopping in the entrance to sniff at the early morning air.

  The air is still cool, but with the promise of heat to come. Aaron gazes out over the valley and thinks about all the other omegas still out there.

  There can’t be many that still remain unmated. Even the lucky one who had supposedly survived three runs in a row couldn’t stay lucky forever.

  Maybe it’s just me left. Day three and still not bitten. Four days left. He’s trying not to think about the end of the run, and what will happen if he’s still unclaimed.

  He glances back at the cave where Gregor is still sleeping. They haven’t had a chance to talk about it.

  Everything has been about survival: water, eating, competing alphas and the ever-present distraction of his heat, but if he’s still unclaimed at the end of the run, his guardianship reverts to Gary.

  That’s why the omegas who do manage to get through these things end up doing them again and again.

  Gary won’t want him, although he won’t object to the idea of getting to sell him again.

  The only difference is that next time he won’t get the chance to go on a run. He’ll just be sold sold. Just like Ben was.

  They’ve hung half of the plastic bags on the branches of a adderthorn tree overlooking the cave entrance. A couple of drops of condensation are visible on each one.

  Not enough. Not even close, Aaron thinks, but they need to be exposed to the sunlight. That’s what makes them sweat. He needs to be patient.

  They used the other bags in a similar fashion, but instead of hanging from branches, they’re spread into holes in the ground by the precipice.

  Two methods, both half-remembered. If one doesn’t work, the other might.

  The bags in the ground are the same as the trees: a couple of drops and not nearly enough. Yet. There’s still time.

  Aaron puts his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the rising sun and looks out over the valley again. It’s still quiet, and when he looks down over the incline to the cave, it’s empty too and still undisturbed.

  It’s a good defensive position, and a poor place to attack. Not if you know there’s a defending alpha or suspect that the place might have been booby-trapped.

  Only the desperate would even try. Aaron shudders. He’s not sure if that’s better or worse.

  He ducks under the rock at the entrance. His feet scuff the sand as he enters, but Gregor doesn’t stir.

  A streak of worry hits. That is not good.

  Aaron grabs a bottle of water from the stash in the corner and kneels by the alpha. His breathing is still heavy, and the sweating hasn’t let up.

  “Hey,” Aaron whispers, and then, “Hey,” even louder when that doesn’t work. He puts his hand to Gregor’s uninjured shoulder and shakes gently.

  The alpha blinks and stares at him with bleary eyes.

  “You need to have some water,” Aaron says firmly.

  He’s expecting an argument but he doesn’t get one. Gregor pushes himself up onto his elbows then takes the bottle, drinking almost half in one go. Then he hands it back to Aaron and sinks back onto the soft sand, shutting his eyes again.

  Definitely not good. He didn’t even ask how their condensation bags were doing or flared his nostrils in the way he usually does to check for alphas. He didn’t ask about Aaron’s heat.

  So very not good. It has to be poison.

  Aaron just has no idea where it came from. The giant wolf can’t have had it on his teeth. Gregor’s shoulder looks and smells fine, and from what Aaron can remember about it, if it had got in that deep, Gregor would be dead right now, not just napping.

  It can’t have been the wiry wolf back on the first night. It would have kicked in by now.

  Gregor said he’d encountered wolves while getting the water but he’d outrun them.

  Aaron sits back on his heels and tries to work it out, but he keeps coming back to the same options and keeps dismissing them.

  He sighs and helps himself to a sip of water.

  Just one small sip and that’s going to be it for the morning. He can have another at lunch time. By then the sun will be high overhead and he’ll have a better idea of how well their little science experiment will have worked. Then he can decide whether to have more or keep eking it out.

  He just wishes he had a blanket for Gregor. Or a bed. Or a doctor. Or anything other than a cave in the middle of nowhere with nothing other than rationed water and whatever-the-hell thos
e leaves are to nurse him back to health.

  Leaves. He scrambles out of the cave and scrabbles for the remainder of the leaves that Gregor brought. They’re dull and wilted.

  Do they need to be fresh? Will that make a difference?

  He has no idea. He sits on his heels on the red sand and weighs up the risk of leaving the cave against the possibility of fresh leaves being more effective.

  Wilted leaves, it is.

  The leaves on Gregor’s shoulder had been crushed, so Aaron lays the remainder of them flat on one of the rocks and uses another rock to pulp them into a squishy mess.

  He scoops the mess into his palm and heads back into the cave.

  Gregor has shifted off of his back and onto his side some time while Aaron was outside, and suddenly the problem is clear.

  A jagged, purple line streaks down Gregor’s hip splintering out into lightning as it approaches his thigh.

  Aaron stares at it in horror. What the hell is that?

  It’s too dark to see properly in the dim light of the cave. Aaron doesn’t want to try wake Gregor to get him to move, and he certainly doesn’t have the strength to carry him into the sunshine.

  He squats and squints, trying to see the injury better. The line starts halfway down Gregor’s hip and then branches out in fading lines once it gets to his thigh.

  Was this here yesterday? He’s sure he would have remembered seeing it, but then Gregor’s hip wasn’t the part of his body that Aaron had been focusing on.

  He reaches out a tentative fingertip and grazes the line on the skin. Gregor grunts in his sleep.

  Aaron bends and sniffs. It doesn’t smell infected, but it does smell like something. Something sickly sweet and getting stronger.

  The line is raised and swollen under Aaron’s fingers. A scratch from a poisoned bite would make sense, although Aaron doesn’t remember the giant wolf nor the other one getting close to Gregor’s thigh, even if he didn’t see the whole of either of those fights.

  Aaron reaches over for one of the water bottles and uses some of the precious liquid to wash the scratch as best he can without wasting water.

  Then he rubs the pulpy mess from the tiny-leaved plants into the scratch all the way down to the lightning streak.