They stay in position longer than they should and longer than it feels comfortable, trying to keep the feeling of skin-to-skin intimacy going as long as they can.
Finally, Otto steps back with a sigh. Dan turns around and pulls him to him, kissing him long and deep.
Otto kisses him back just as hard, gripping the back of Dan’s neck as if he doesn’t ever want to let him go.
Dan ends the kiss reluctantly. They don’t have a huge amount of time today. Otto is due back in the city before nightfall.
He opens the door of the police car and reaches in for the tissues that he’s started keeping in the glove compartment. Cleaning up isn’t the most romantic gesture and he’d normally prefer not to do it in front of a lover, but they’re parked at the end of one of the many small tracks leading off into the mountainside. There’s not a bathroom to be found for ten miles in either direction.
“When am I going to see you again?” Dan asks.
“I don’t know. Ronmin’s up to something again,” Otto says as he pulls up his jeans, and zips up. “Don’t look at me like that. I’d tell you what it was if I knew and if I could.”
They’re being careful. No messages or emails, other than the official ones Dan sends through the secure channels and those are carefully worded, containing nothing but the same kinds of things he usually does.
There are no secret code words or plans to meet up. They take the opportunities they are given and only talk about it in person, and even then when they are sure they are alone and not anywhere that has been bugged.
“No clues at all?”
Otto rubs his face with his hands. “I’m not sure. He’s been getting people to watch the Warwick Taprooms. There’ve been a lot of Fort Gosford wolves getting very drunk on Warwick cider recently. I’m not sure why or how, but my money’s on him trying to get through them next.”
“The Warwicks? Are you sure?” Dan asks.
They’d be the last people Dan would expect Ronmin to go for. The Warwicks own a network of orchards and breweries, selling their cider through their own Taproom franchise. They keep to themselves. The whole business is run by a seemingly endless supply of cousins, aunts, uncles and great-nieces and nephews. It’d be hard for Ronmin to get a spy in there. The Warwicks keep everything in the family.
“That’s as much as I know,” Otto says. “What’s the history with the Warwicks and the Winterstokes? Anything there?”
Dan shrugs. “Not really. They’re both old packs, been in the area for over a century and allied all that time. I don’t think they have much to do with each other otherwise. I seem to recall Adam Winterstoke dated one of the Warwicks when he was in his teens but it didn’t last long.”
Otto grunts and Dan doesn’t even need words to know what he’s thinking. There’ll be something. Ronmin does nothing without a reason.
Dan finishes dressing, then pulls him in for another kiss.
“So, what do you need to be back for?” he asks conversationally.
Otto hesitates, then says. “Actually, I’m heading out of town for a few days. Need to pack up and get some errands run before I go.”
“A Ronmin job?” Dan asks. He knows Otto has other spies and other networks to maintain. He doesn’t ask about those and Otto doesn’t tell him.
“Actually, it’s my parents’ wedding anniversary.”
Dan shoots a look at Otto who meets his eyes. This is the one thing that they’ve held back. Or at least, it’s the one thing that Otto has held back.
Dan’s asked casual questions. How did Otto’s nose get broken? Does he have any siblings? Where did he come from? He wasn’t in Fort Gosford in the days when Dan lived there.
Otto has shaken them all off as casually as if it didn’t matter.
It’s not the same the other way around.
Otto will have a file on Dan that is inches thick. He’ll know all of Dan’s history: the town he came from, when he left, that he has a brother he hasn’t spoken to in years. Hell, that file will almost certainly even include the appendectomy he had when he was seventeen.
Dan doesn’t have secrets. He’s not been allowed any for years.
The dossier on Dan will even include Michael. Dan often wonders if Otto thinks about whether he’ll meet Michael’s fate. Otto has to know what happened to Michael but Dan doesn’t ask about it. He doesn’t think Otto will tell him.
“That’s great. Congratulations to them,” Dan says and he feels a stab of sorrow, even as his mind greedily grabs onto the tiny snippet of personal information.
He’s never going to meet Otto’s parents. He can’t pass his good wishes on or even have them know that Dan exists. This is going to be a secret relationship for all time, no matter how long or short it lasts.
“Yeah, thirty years,” Otto says.
“Wow, good for them,” Dan says. His own parents split when he was three and he’s always been envious of those who still had theirs together.
Otto snorts out a laugh. “They fight like snakes. I think the only reason they’re still together is that neither of them wants to give the other the satisfaction of them leaving. It’s not going to be a fun weekend. My dad’ll get drunk and my mom’ll be furious.” Otto grins suddenly, and pulls Dan in by the waist, nuzzling at the side of his neck. “I’d far rather be here canoodling with you.”
“Canoodling, huh?”
“Yeah,” Otto replies, and Dan can feel the curve of his lips against Dan’s neck. “Canoodling. Lots of canoodling.”
Suddenly, Otto’s body stiffens against Dan’s and Dan feels the flutter of his eyelashes as Otto closes his eyes.
“You okay?” Dan asks.
Otto draws back, his face serious. “I do want the canoodling, you know.”
Dan smiles and draws his hands up to Otto’s face. It’s funny how his perspective has changed. When he first saw Otto, all he noticed was the roughness of his face, the bulk of him and the broken nose. Now, he sees that too, but he likes it. Everything about him is just Otto, even the broken nose. It makes Otto who he is.
“I know,” Dan says, “but I have no idea when Elyse is going to be away again. It might not be for a while.”
Otto’s expression hasn’t changed. He’s still looking at Dan like he’s thinking serious thoughts so his next question is the last thing that Dan is expecting.
“Do you have any savings?”
“Uh, yeah. Some. Not a whole lot.”
“Me too,” Otto untangles himself from Dan’s arms and leans back against the car. “I’ve been saving for years, trying to get enough money to be able to start over somewhere else. Somewhere far enough that all this pack stuff won’t catch up. I was thinking I had another year or so before I got there, but if we pool our funds... well, maybe we can do more canoodling whenever we want.”
Dan’s body flushes with warmth. No one wanted this before. With Michael and Otto is was all about sex. Not much kisses and cuddles. And certainly not actually being together. The realization makes his chest tighten.
“You asking me to run away with you?”
“Yes,” Otto replies simply.
Dan feels his lips curve into a smile. “I think we should do that.”
Otto’s brown eyes sparkle, crinkling at the corners as he grins. “When?”
“As soon as we can. No reason to wait. Plenty of reasons not to.”
“Next week. After I get back from my parents. Get ready and—”
“I know. Nothing to draw suspicion,” Dan says, his mind racing. There isn’t a lot for him to do. All he needs is his money. He has nothing else here that can’t stay behind. He can get new clothes, new books, new everything.
The only thing he wants to take with him is Otto.
OTTO
forced jollity and broken plates
He must have taken some seriously wrong turns in life to end up here, Otto thinks as he pushes over a cabinet filled with decorative plates.
It crashes to the ground, the plates spinning and smashin
g.
Out of the corner of his eye, Otto sees Ronmin grin at the sound.
Otto grins back, forcing jollity into his eyes. The man is a lunatic. Smile like you’re crazy too.
The scent of apples drifts in the open windows accompanied by the stink of pure alpha rage. There is absolutely no reason for the Fort Gosford pack to be trashing one of the Warwick farmhouse.
None at all. Or at least none if you were a decent, reasonable person, Otto thinks as he watches Ronmin rip into the cushions on an old floral-patterned sofa.
This is payback for Ronmin’s humiliation back at the cabin. Maybe it’s the Warwicks and not the Winterstokes but that hardly matters. The Warwicks are Winterstoke allies and they too have something Ronmin wants.
Adam Winterstoke is out there with his allies now. Otto can scent him. He’ll be watching and listening and feeling furious and helpless just the way Ronmin wants him to.
Ronmin picks up his scent too. That’s obvious by the way, the man’s eyes light up and his nostrils flare, and he takes out his rage on an innocent set of drapes, ripping them from their rails.
The Fort Gosford pack leader is sweating and red-faced with the effort but his eyes are bright with pleasure, like a child who’s spent too long at soft play.
At least it’s almost over. Otto hasn’t had the chance to talk to Dan since their conversation by the car, but Dan will be ready to go. He’s sure of it.
All they need to do is find a window of time that’ll let them both leave without being discovered for long enough.
That’s easier said than done. Whatever Ronmin has planned for the Warwicks has been set in motion. Otto’s hardly going to have time to blink until it’s resolved one way or the other.
Finally, Ronmin runs out of steam. Otto follows him out of the farmhouse and stands by him as Ronmin does his usual schtick of goading, gloating and posturing.
It does work though, Otto thinks as he watches the various Aylewood allies grow increasingly angry.
In other circumstances, it would be a beautiful setting: the orchards all around, thick with white apple blossom that gives off a sweet natural scent, even as snow-topped mountains rise into the distance behind them.
Even the ramshackle nature of the barn and old farmhouse gives it a certain quaint charm.
God, I want this to be over, Otto thinks. For once, it would be nice to be in a beautiful place where he’s not trashing it or chasing someone down or just standing there looking threatening.
He wonders what Dan would think about getting a farm. Just a little one. Somewhere they can grow their own vegetables. Maybe get a couple of ducks and some chickens.
He startles as Ronmin whistles high and loud, signalling to his pack that they’re done for now.
Crap. Adam Winterstoke is staring at Ronmin in horror as if he’s just had some kind of realization and Otto has no idea why.
He should have been paying attention to what was going on instead of daydreaming about Dan and ducks.
Otto half-expects the Warwicks and their allies to attack as the Fort Gosford wolves walk past them on their way back to their cars. It would be a stupid move on their part but the pure alpha rage in the air is so thick that it’s almost visible.
He gets into the passenger seat beside Ronmin who always insists on driving.
“That went well, don’t you think?” Ronmin says.
“Yes, I think so, sir.” Crap, he thinks again. Don’t ask me anything about it. I wasn’t listening.
Ronmin starts the car, maneuvering it back over the rough farm road that leads to the farmhouse.
“Tell me,” the lunatic says. “The Winterstokes are your territory. What do you think their weaknesses are? How would you leverage this?”
I wouldn’t because I’m not an asshole, Otto thinks.
He doesn’t say that however because he doesn’t have a death wish. Instead, he puts a thoughtful look on his face. “That’s an easy one. They’re too nice. They don’t want to fight. They don’t want to do anything at all. They just want us to go away.”
“Going away isn’t an option,” Ronmin says, but there’s no threat to it. He’s listening.
“Tell them you want to negotiate. They’ll do it. As long as they think you’ll leave them alone, they’ll give up anything and everything. Maybe not at first and they won’t think in those terms, but that’s what they want.”
Ronmin bursts out laughing. “Oh, good man. Let’s do that. Actually, you do that. I’ve got other things to try. Take a look in the glove compartment.”
Otto opens it. It’s filled with phones.
“Use one of those. It’ll redirect through my number and look as if it’s coming from me. See if you can get Adam Winterstoke to negotiate. Let’s get him to give in the easy way.”
Otto takes one of the phones and presses the button at the side to turn it on.
“You persuade them to give up and there’ll be a big bonus in it for you,” Ronmin says.
“Yes, sir,” Otto replies.
Sending messages as Ronmin. He’ll need to work out how to get Ronmin’s tone of goading and gloating over text exactly right, but it feels like an opportunity even if he’s not sure what to do with it yet.
DAN
weighty secrets and tuna mayo
Dan used to forget.
Back before Otto took over from Hamish, Dan used to forget what he was and how he was betraying the packs he lived with.
It was easy to just spend his days working, patrolling the town for drunks and coming home in the evening to read and chat with Elyse. The reports he sent through were of no consequence and he got into the habit of just not thinking about it day to day.
He no longer has that luxury. Now, the knowledge of what he is and all the secrets he’s carrying are weighting him down and when he’s not worrying about his own secrets, he’s looking at everyone else and wondering what they’re keeping to themselves.
He didn’t used to think the Aylewood packs had secrets. They were all too laid back for that.
It turns out he was wrong about that too. The Warwicks have been keeping a pretty major secret. They’ve been running a secret underground omega railroad for years. Decades perhaps. Dan wonders how often any of them forget about it.
The thoughts tick over in the back of his head as he turns to Otto in the kitchen of the manager’s quarters at the hotel and says, “I had no idea. The Winterstokes didn’t tell me.”
The thought hurts and it shouldn’t. The Winterstokes didn’t trust him with that secret, and even as Dan knows they had a good reason, it doesn’t stop him from feeling left out nonetheless.
“I’m not sure if they knew,” Otto says with a shrug, helping himself to one of the tiny sandwich triangles from the platter in front of him, leftover from a conference earlier in the morning.
God, what a shitshow, Dan thinks. How many more secrets does the town hold?
“Our intelligence indicates that the two packs haven’t had anything to do with each other for years,” Otto continues. “If Ronmin hadn’t stirred everything up with his raid on one of the Warwick’s safehouses, I think they’d still have nothing to do with each other.”
Dan crosses the room from where he was leaning against the counter and inspects the sandwiches. The sandwiches are still good to eat but they’ve been out a little long and he can see them curling at the edges. It seems a waste to make new ones but none look particularly appetizing.
Otto doesn’t seem to notice. He’s plowing through them like he’s not eaten in a week.
“Well, either way Adam isn’t sharing with me,” Dan says as he leans against the kitchen counter. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks. I’m not in the loop on this one.”
“He’s keeping it in the family as far as we can tell,” Otto says.
Dan nods. That lessens the sting but not by much.
They’re standing side by side now, close but not too close. “Are you going to need me for anything?” Dan asks softly. Translati
on: When can we go?
He hates that he can’t even talk openly in his own kitchen when there’s no one else around, but paranoia is so solidly part of his life now that he’s not sure if he even knows how to live without it.
“I’m not sure,” Otto replies. “I’ll let you know. The boss is keeping me pretty busy.” He doesn’t look at Dan but his hand drifts just slightly to the left and Dan feels Otto’s fingers up against Dan’s own: warm and soft.
Dan’s mouth curves into a smile, and warmth spreads through his body. The sooner they go the better, he can’t handle this for much longer.
He leans over, seeking Otto’s mouth on his own. Otto’s mouth is soft and warm and he tastes of sandwiches.
As always, the mere presence of Otto and the touch of him sends shivers of pleasure down Dan’s spine right into his dick.
Dan reaches up and cups Otto’s face. God, I want him so much, he thinks but there’s nowhere for them to go.
They can’t go to the police station, not with everything else going on, and Elyse could come home at any minute.
“We could risk it,” Otto whispers, reading Dan’s mind.
Dan shakes his head just slightly, his nose bumping against Otto’s.
With that thought, he hears the distinctive sound of the front door opening. Panic skates through his veins and evidently through Otto’s too because they jump apart like guilty teenagers.
Elyse’s scent drifts in through the door and seconds later, Elyse herself walks through the kitchen door. Dan grabs one of the sandwiches in front of him without looking at it.
She gives them a quizzical look. “Everything okay?”
“Yes,” Dan says.
“Yeah,” Otto says at the same time and Dan has to resist shutting his eyes in panic. They sound guilty.
“Okay,” Elyse says. “I’m just popping in for some lunch. I see you’ve at least left something for me.”
“Yeah,” Dan says again.
“Okay,” Elyse says, but she’s looking down at the sandwich in Dan’s hand. She frowns.
Dan follows her gaze. It’s tuna mayonnaise. Dan doesn’t eat tuna. He never has.
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