by N. J. Lysk
She said it quietly but not timidly.
Brennan nodded at her and put a hand on her arm, even though he had to sidestep me to get close enough. “I know how you’re feeling. When Adora told me…” He smiled nervously, “well, I was not feeling ready, believe me, Clar. But that’s life for you. It turns out we are a lot stronger than we think.”
The message was clear: we were not getting out of it.
I wasn’t going to take it lying down, though. “I don’t want to do it,” I said, enunciating clearly.
Brennan turned to me in surprise, and the edge of anger in his expression sent my wolf cowering. I locked my muscles to keep myself from backing away. “I have made plans for the pack, Dev. I can’t change them just because of you.”
“I have made plans for my life, Bren,” I said, using a diminutive like the Alphas always did to us. But Brennan didn’t care. He was an Alpha and he was my Dominant. He didn’t need posturing, he had me by the balls and he knew it.
He sighed. “You are going to have to adjust,” he told me gently. “We will all do our best to help you.”
And then he turned his back on us, so secure in his invincibility that I wanted to rip his spine out. I couldn’t have, of course. My wolf wouldn’t have attacked its Alpha any more than it would have allowed me to jump off a cliff. Brennan shuffled some papers. I thought, it was a gesture to put us in our place, but it turned out he was looking for something. When he found it, he turned back to face us.
He handed a piece of paper to each of us. It was some sort of diagram, and I couldn’t help but look. I was used to diagrams. I loved diagrams. Not this one, though. Clara’s breath hitched a second before it hit me what they were: family lines and breeding characteristics. He had made a study of each of us and each of the Alphas he thought would be suitable to breed us, rating them according to the dominant and recessive characteristics he wanted in the next generation of the pack.
“I’m willing to let you choose between the top three,” he explained, then hesitated and snatched the paper I was holding loosely in my hand. “No, top two for you. It’s too much of a difference.” He tried to give me the paper back, but I backed away, swallowing hard and breathing shallowly. I needed to get out of there. “Devlin…” he started, but I was gone before he could add anything else. He had said more than enough for me to know I didn’t want to hear it.
&
Transforming was the only thing I could do not to go crazy right then. I dropped my clothes behind the porch and shifted faster than I could ever remember doing, before or since. I would be a terrible parent, I thought. As a human I would have cried, but wolves don’t really cry and, as the animal mind took over, I felt better. Wolves don’t really care about the future either. All that mattered to the wolf was that we were in pack territory again. We were home and there was no danger anywhere in the vicinity - not even if we decided to run for days. The human part of me liked that too, so we took off, faster and faster. Soon I was panting but I didn’t care and neither did the wolf; it understood my need to get away even if it didn’t understand what I was running from.
Brennan had to come and get me himself. It had been at least a day, perhaps more, but I didn’t care. When you are a wolf for long enough, time becomes immaterial. Pretty much everything but food, water and mating does. As long as I stayed away from other wolves, only the first two mattered. But when Brennan howled, my feet moved without conscious thought on my part - I went because my Alpha was calling. He waited until I had shown him my belly before he caught me by the neck and dragged me into the house. He shifted first and I followed instinctively. We were both naked, and I was smudged with mud and covered in loose bits of grass.
“Have you had enough of an angsty fit?” he asked, sounding annoyed. I tried to speak, but found myself coughing instead. Hair - it always got in my mouth when I shifted back. My brother knelt and rubbed my back, then stayed there next to me. He wasn’t that much larger than me, physically speaking, but it didn’t matter. I felt dwarfed. His hand on me was like a steel buckle I could never shake. I couldn’t even think to shake it. He started carding his fingers through my hair and I tilted my head back. I didn’t mean to - I just did. “You are a man grown, Dev, you can’t let your emotions get the better of you.”
I swallowed in lieu of nodding, and he rubbed my ear in what he must have thought a consoling manner and got to his feet. “Go up to your room and get cleaned up. It’s time you met Rami and Naveen.”
And that was the first time I heard their names. Not the way one hears new names and nods, mostly assuming one will forget them until reminded a couple of times or until the person does something exceptionally good or bad. Their names were an announcement. One of those names, I knew, I would never forget. I would never be allowed to forget.
Keep reading The Mating Habits of Werewolves!
You might also enjoy:
Rescuing James by Aska J. Naiman: James has left behind the ranch and his werebear pack for the big city. He wants to be more than his instincts. He wants more of life than the peace of the mountains broken only by the exhilaration of the hunt. But when a lost shifter, just bitten, crosses his path, he realises that there is nowhere he can escape his wildest side. The mysterious man is young, lost and desperate. He knows nothing about being a shifter, not even what kind of animal he can become. He knows one thing for certain: he needs James' help. If James is strong enough to offer, is he strong enough to take it? A gay shifter novel.
The Omega’s Bodyguard by Dessa Lux: Being an alpha werewolf made Rusty Jamison one of the best while he served in the Marines, but now he’s out of the Corps and taking his first job as a bodyguard. His client, Sam Hurley, is the last thing he expected--a latent omega werewolf, just waiting for the bite to awaken his potential. Rusty and Sam can barely keep their hands off each other from the moment they meet, driven by their werewolf instincts. Rusty knows that whoever's stalking Sam must be another alpha, hunting this rare unprotected omega. Sam might just be Rusty's chance to start a pack of his own; all he has to do is give up his secrets, hunt down a rogue alpha, and make sure Sam still wants to be his at the end of the day...
First time gay werewolf romance novella. No cliffhangers!
Alpha & Omega by Isabelle Arden: Alpha werewolf Nicolai Jensen has always had to fight for whatever he can get in his pack. Tired of the struggle, he decides to strike out into the world to search for someone to call his own—his fated mate. But the other half of his soul is the last man Nicolai expects: Father Aden O’Hanlon an unprotected Omega without a pack—who also happens to be a priest, and completely unaware that he is a werewolf. With Aden about to enter his first heat and a group of rogue Alphas searching for a vulnerable Omega to add to their pack, Nicolai doesn’t have a lot of time to explain to Aden who and what he is. The only thing he has to rely on is himself—and his strong Alpha instinct to protect Aden at all costs. Will his bond with Aden be enough to gain his trust before it’s too late?
Alpha & Omega is a 54,000-word standalone romance novella, featuring HEA and no cliffhangers.