by N. J. Lysk
“I was born here,” Ray replied neutrally.
Nicholas nodded, conceding the point. “The big pack across the river, right?”
Ray nodded, suddenly at a loss about what to ask. Nicholas saw it right away. “Do you want to sit down so I can tell you about the guys?”
Ray hesitated, but there was a difference between being in control and being childish. He wasn’t an alpha, after all; there was no need for posturing. Nicholas smiled at him, soft and pleased like Ray had given him something instead of sat down and agreed to listen. In a way, it was true, Ray had given him this chance, even if they both knew Ray needed it just as much as he did.
“You—” Nicholas started to say, then closed his mouth and looked away. “I’m from a big family. Two dads,” he added by way of explanation. “Or four, I guess, but the point is that I’m good with kids.” He glanced at the toys scattered in a corner of the room. “And I’m not bad with cars either, did a module and I like to play around with them. Might come in handy around these parts.”
Ray had assumed he was in his late twenties, but now he was starting to doubt himself; he didn’t sound it when he talked about himself. The man wasn’t short on accomplishments, but he didn’t have any practice listing them.
“Are the others from your birth pack?” he asked, hoping to redirect his attention.
Nicholas looked up. “Clyde and Rob are, grew up together. Always got them in trouble,” he told Ray with a fond smile. “Rama and—”
“Stop,” Ray demanded. It was insane. Six men, six men he had never even met, and he was thinking of letting them… He only realised he was breathing heavily when the alpha went to his knees at his feet and clamped a hand around his ankle, hard and impossible to ignore. A grounding presence requiring Ray’s attention.
“Raymond, just breathe. I’m just asking, you don’t have to—”
“I don’t have to?!” Ray snapped, not caring if he actually spat on his face. “What the fuck are you talking about? How am I supposed to do this without help?”
“But you have your alphas—”
“It’s not enough, no pack can survive with a single omega. Without betas. Who is supposed to go and work for the money we need for supplies if everybody has to stay in to look after the children?”
“Didn’t your… I mean, didn’t your parents arrange for some betas to come with you when you started the pack?”
“No, it was just us,” Ray said, angry still but unable to stop talking. “Since I was an omega, it was expected I would start a new pack.”
“Couldn’t you ask them now?”
“Ask?” Ray repeated. “In exchange for what? They’re not my pack any longer. I could ask for some money, or a car, or something; but people to work here?”
“Since you were an omega, you said, why… Well, of course you didn’t expect it,” he said, looking Ray up and down, maybe noticing for the first time he was a big man.
“Yeah, well, gotta get over that quick,” Ray said quietly. “I have way bigger problems.”
“I’ll help you, if you want,” Nicholas offered. Ray frowned at him.
“Why would you want to? I mean, any pack would take you.” He didn’t even want to take it back when he realised that he was pretty much saying he would, without discussing conditions or anything.
“I stopped for the land,” Nicholas said, eyes fixed on him. He was still on the floor, hand around Ray’s clothed ankle, but hot through it still. “But I want to stay for you.”
Ray stared. He had admitted he needed the alpha, but he hadn’t expected a declaration in exchange. “You met me less than half an hour ago, and the only thing you know about me is that I’m desperate.”
“And that you’re arguing,” Nicholas explained. “You need me. Us. But you are arguing anyway. You didn’t try to trick me or hide anything from me. I want that.”
“Trick you?” Ray repeated. “Who would do that to an alpha they want?”
Nicholas smiled at the implied admission, then shrugged. “Yeah, well, now you know why I wanted to get away,” he confessed, looking down. This time he wasn’t lost in remembrances or trying to put Ray at ease, this time he didn’t want Ray to see his face. His heart-rate was slightly elevated, too: fear, or pain. Or both.
Ray didn’t want to ask. Strangely, he didn’t need to know. He’d been hurt, too, and needed his own time to recover. “But it’s just so stupid, almost as stupid as agreeing to… do this with an alpha I just met.”
Nicholas laughed dryly at that, sensing Ray’s self-deprecating humour through his defeated tone. “Almost as stupid as taking on a pack that’s just starting up and trying to build it from the ground up?” he asked in turn, brown eyes shining up at Ray.
Ray nodded. Nicholas straightened, just enough that he was level with Ray’s hunched posture. Just enough to meet his eyes, for the first time, from the same height.
“But we are going to do it.”
“Yes,” Ray said. “We are.”
He leaned forward and pushed his mouth against his new alpha’s to seal the deal.
&
“We are hoping it’ll be a while before the next litter,” Alec explained at dinner. Ray kept his eyes on his food, and didn’t look at any of the strangers nodding along at the most intimate workings of his body. If he was going to let them mount him—and he would have to do it if he wanted to invite them into the pack—then talking was nothing.
He hadn’t mentioned it to Nicholas earlier, but the man sounded thoughtful when he commented, “Those kids of yours are already eating through the fence, need to get something metallic there before there’s more of them.”
He complimented Alec on the meat next like both things were equally innocuous to discuss at dinner. Ray wondered if for him conversations about planning for more children depending on the state of repair of the property were normal, since he was the child of an omega male himself.
Ray hadn’t noticed, but Josh admitted later that it was true that the pups had been chewing on the corners of the fence and that they were just lucky they hadn’t figured out they could dig their way out into the great wilderness of the hills. For a while, Ray had looked forward to his kids growing up and becoming more independent, now he was starting to remember his little brother’s adventures as a toddler and calling himself an idiot.
It was hard to have strangers crawling all over his land when he could feel them there, and the knowledge that he had agreed to let them much closer than into his land didn’t help. But Ray was dealing, and his alphas were being polite enough—even if they were transparently uncomfortable at being outnumbered and having strange alphas around the babies.
It was just that Ray didn’t know what would happen when he told them what he had decided. They’d brought him the proposal because they had to, and on a rational level, they had known he had to seriously consider it. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt.
They might not have loved him, but they were his mates and he had promised to be theirs for the rest of his life. Saying yes to Nicholas felt like a betrayal, but if it was necessary to keep them all alive and safe…
He had to tell Josh first, he knew, because for Josh it went beyond instincts. Josh hadn’t saved him and left his pack to become Ray’s protector because of mating urges. He was as vulnerable to the power of the moon and instinct as Ray himself, but even if Ray could never forgive him for that, he could never forget all the little kindnesses either. He knew he meant something to Josh. As treasonous as it had felt when Josh had offered to be his alpha, he knew Josh had cared for him long before that. He wasn’t sure in what way, but Josh loved him. He had known Ray before he had become an omega, and he hadn’t abandoned him when he had—and maybe it was... Only it didn’t matter, exactly, what it was. Josh had proven his loyalty, and Ray owed it to him to acknowledge it.
It wasn’t easy to get him alone, but eventually he got the last baby fed—Jamie, of course—and made up an excuse about wanting to look some furniture
up on the website Josh had been raving about. Josh didn’t even go for the computer once the door closed behind them, instead turning to Ray and examining him closely. “What is it?”
Ray swallowed, keeping his gaze averted. His alphas had never made him follow the protocol, but he still found he needed it sometimes. “I’m going to invite them to join the pack.”
Josh made a choked noise, then exhaled loudly. Ray looked up to see him clenching his fists, eyes shut tightly as he held his breath for a long moment. His heart was beating so fast it was no wonder he was out of breath when he spoke. “Of course,” he said eventually. “I... It’s your decision.”
But he was too obviously upset for Ray to let it go. “You don’t think I should? How else am I supposed to get enough adults in the pack to take care of the children? To provide for all of us?”
“I…” Josh was breathing harshly. “I don’t know, Ray. I just…”
“If you don’t have any better suggestions—” Ray started.
“Oh, god, shut up!” Josh snapped. Ray did, throat closing up even as the surprise paralyzed his brain. Josh immediately backtracked. “Fuck, sorry, I… speak, if you want!” Ray didn’t, and Josh gave him a worried look. “It’s just a lot to take in, please don’t think I’m… angry or something. I just… didn’t expect it.”
“Well, you should have, I don’t have any other choice,” Ray replied bitterly. He was angry, he realised. Not with Josh, who had no reason to know better, but with his uncle, who had sent him off into this without enough backup. “Apparently somebody forgot my complimentary betas when they sent me off to start a new pack.”
Josh sat down on the bed, frowning. “Is that a thing? Sending betas? Is that what Nicholas said?” He was clearly sceptical and quite as obviously not happy about Nicholas. And except for Alec, Josh had been the friendliest of hosts all along. Ray could just about picture Gabriel’s reaction…
“Pretty much,” Ray replied. “And I think he’s right. There’s no way we can do this without betas.”
“Then we should get them,” Josh replied. “Wouldn’t that be better than getting more alphas around?”
“Betas follow alphas, Josh.”
“Ray, I can’t…” He met Ray’s eyes, desperately sincere. “It was bad enough with five. I don’t want to see you go through that.”
Ray looked away, face burning. Body locked tight, as if he could cut himself off from it and all the pain it’d bring him. “Well, it’s my decision.”
“But I’m your alpha,” Josh said, more plea than statement. “I’m supposed to take care of you, to keep you safe—”
“But you can’t,” Ray said. “I wish you could, and… I wish there was another way.”
“Okay, wait, just…” Ray heard him swallow thickly. “Let me ask. I’ll go and ask your uncle. You know he likes me, maybe if I explain that we are not coping so well, he’ll let us borrow some betas.”
Ray hesitated, but ultimately it was some hope and Josh was asking him for himself as much as for Ray. “Okay, you can ask.”
&
But hope—even one so small as Josh’s plan provided—was harder to live with than resignation. Ray felt like a dick asking Nicholas and his friends to clear out for the next full moon. Nicholas had agreed to it in the same conversation in which Ray had promised to tell his alphas that Nicholas would be staying, and now… He might not only not fulfil his promise, but instead tell Nicholas that he had to go.
He didn’t really believe his uncle would suddenly remember he had neglected to send any betas with them, apologize for the misunderstanding, and send half a dozen willing babysitters. Josh couldn’t show up now, of course, no pack was in the mood for visitors a few days before the full moon. Ray should have told him sooner. But that was in the past, too. Right now, he couldn’t hope to make anything better, just make sure it didn’t get worse.
Alec sat them down to talk about what would happen if Ray went into heat.
“There’s a chance it won’t happen. The babies are still small, and they need Ray. But even if it does, one of us needs to be with them and make sure they don’t do anything dangerous while…” He swallowed, then proceeded as diplomatically as possible, “Everybody else is busy.”
Ray kept his eyes firmly on the groves of the wooden floor. Even with the two pups currently sucking from his chest, it still took all of his willpower not to move. The angle was a little awkward, but they were able to keep their necks upright. And with their heads in the way, there was no part of Ray’s swollen chest left exposed. He felt the alphas glance his way at Alec’s casual reference to them fucking him. Holding his daughters kept him from hunching over, but he still had to tell himself off for the rush of humiliation their attention brought up. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, no matter how swollen his… his fucking tits were. It was natural, and it didn’t matter if his chest had lost all hair and gone soft for the pups. It was what they needed and Ray had no right to complain just because his body didn’t look the way it used to.
He just couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be touched when he was like this.
“...but it’s best not to knot him anyway,” Alec was saying when Ray managed to calm down enough to listen again.
“But you are sure he won’t conceive,” Josh said, half a question in there.
“Pretty sure. It should come back gradually. First the sex, then… the rest.”
“I don’t get it,” Josh insisted. “Aren’t you an expert? How can you not know this?”
Alec snorted, “You think we study werewolves at med school, Josh? I’m guessing from the lore and what other werewolves have told me. Best we’ve got.”
“Well, our best is crap,” Iesu said rather mildly. He gave Alec his best charming smile. “No offense to you, mate.”
&
The effects of the moon were multitude, but if you boiled it down to its essence: it made every instinct a shifter had come to the surface. Sometimes all at once. The basic three normally took precedence: eat, mate, protect the pack. It wasn’t accidental that most werewolf attacks took place when the Goddess was in the sky; when you were moon high, it was easy to interpret things as a threat to you and yours. And easier still not to think before you reacted to eliminate that threat.
Hunting was of course the whole reason they lived where they did—the idea of living near a city like Manchester sounded like a nightmare to Ray, much as he would have liked to visit—and usually happened first. And then there was mating… or sex, because unlike real wolves, the impulse was too entrenched into a werewolf’s sexuality to be easily separated. During the full moon, if you were old enough and able bodied enough, you’d end up tangled up with someone—your mate if you had them, a friend if you didn’t. Ray remembered his first full moons as a teenager as a little awkward, but he had never been really out of control—as his ability to stay away from other males had more than proven. He had ultimately done things he had been too shy to do sober. Nothing that made him uncomfortable come morning.
Until he became an omega. Suddenly, his body had developed instincts and needs Ray had never thought about himself. The wolf demanding it like it had once demanded a deer’s blood, or a drink of water. To be mounted, and bitten, and taken, and bred. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he wasn’t affected by just his own wolf, but by the alphas’ too: they had wanted to fuck him, and he had wanted it too. They had wanted to breed him, and he had wanted it too. He had found himself watching it happen, listening to them calling him a ‘good boy’ for spreading his legs like a good bitch, and not resisting as a knot stretched his insides to the point of pain. He had felt the heat of them coming inside him and known he was being bred, his wolf howling for joy. And he hadn’t known what he wanted anymore.
He had let Josh kiss him, and kissed him back, and tried his best to find his way back to the feeling he had had with the girls he had spent time with as a boy. The exhilaration, and the rising excitement, and the awkward tenderness of hav
ing someone expose themselves to you in the dark—all the soft, vulnerable parts of themselves open to your eyes and your hands and your mouth. He had looked at his friend and reminded himself that once upon a time he’d had to force his eyes away from his exposed skin.
And he had learned. Learned to accept what the wolf wanted, what the wolf made him want. Before, alphas had made him slightly wary of a fight. Now, their presence alone left him ready and wanting.
It wasn’t completely new: he had looked at Sergi’s mouth once, twisted in anger, and thought about licking the bloody lip he had just given him. But he had never thought about Sergi putting him on his knees and feeding him his cock, on sucking on it while Iesu entered him from the other end, making his growing belly bounce as he was fucked into from both ends.
He had learned to relax against Gabriel’s wide arms, to feel safe when he was being held from behind, even when there was a hard cock pressed against his buttocks. Even when the hard cock was put inside his naturally lubricated entrance and he was fucked slowly and sweetly until a slow orgasm rolled through his body.
He still hated getting knotted outside of heat, but Gabriel only did it sometimes, when he couldn’t help himself. And if he couldn’t learn to like it, he had learned not to get angry; to let Gabriel lick him clean, and soothe him with food and pampering until he felt better.
They had all been very patient for the last three—almost four—months while Ray was too heavy for sex, and then while the babies were young and needy. After the first week, Ray had swallowed their come to keep the wolves quiet. They had fallen into a routine: he had knelt at their feet in their rooms at least a couple times a week—naked so his own orgasms didn’t ruin his trousers and so his come would soak further into the house—and he had sucked them off or let them fuck his mouth. He had tried to time it so he only had to do them twice a week and he could relax the rest of the time; and they’d bravely kept their libidos in check except for those little breaks.