Alpha's Forbidden Mate

by Alice Cain

  "You're fucking perfect," John says slowing down just as my orgasm is about to overwhelm me. I whimper pathetically, desperate to come, shivering violently when he starts telling me all of things he plans to try before I have to go home.

  He does it over and over, fucking me to the edge of orgasm before backing away, slowing down, giving me time to breathe. I'm almost out of my mind with need, nearly crazed, whimpering as he kisses and sucks hickeys onto the back of my neck. And then he does the one thing guaranteed to ends things fast.

  He bites down hard.

  Chapter Eight

  ** John **

  Darrick's late.

  We've been seeing each other every second weekend for months now and he's never been this late arriving before. Yes, he's a busy man so he doesn't often get to leave work on time, but he called me nearly seven hours ago to say he was leaving. He should have been here by now. Even that time a serious traffic accident had blocked the road down the mountain, the trip hadn't taken this long.

  But it's the fact that he's not answering his cell phone that's really freaking me out.

  I'm trying not to panic, but I've been struggling with my own guilt these past few weeks. Darrick always comes to me. Never the other way around. I was quite content to let that happen when I thought he was maybe trying to keep our relationship out of pack business, but he admitted over a month ago that I'm not actually a secret. Hunter and a handful of others already know about me.

  Of the two of us I'm the one with flexible work hours and a laptop. In all fairness I should be the one doing the lion's share of the traveling.

  The thing is... I don't really know where I stand. I want to visit Darrick in our home town and maybe catch up with a few people I knew as a kid, but I've kind of been waiting for an invitation. It seems like the right thing to do. The last thing I want is to upset the balance Darrick works so hard to keep within the pack by forcing my way into that part of his life.

  I also get the impression that visiting me one weekend a fortnight is the closest Darrick gets to having any time off—and even then his phone tends to ring at least two or three times.

  I glance at my treadmill and am tempted to climb aboard and try to run out some of this nervous energy, but I can't ignore that something is very wrong. I want to be ready to leave at a moment's notice if I need to and I'd rather not be sweaty and smelling gross when that happens.

  Thanks to our many and varied conversations on life as a werewolf I know now that Darrick spends a lot of time in board meetings discussing the various businesses the pack owns with the people Darrick appointed to run them. When he'd said no one questions the alpha's decisions he'd really only been referring to the pack stuff. Apparently board meetings in a company run by werewolves end up in just as many arguments and political-type maneuvering as every other business. Staying on top of that takes a whole lot of work.

  And as far as I can tell, Darrick very rarely—and only as a last resort—uses his veto power to choose a course of action for the businesses he runs, so his days are long, stress-filled, and emotionally and physically draining.

  He really shouldn't be spending eight hours of his precious downtime traveling back and forth to my apartment. I don't care if werewolves have better stamina than humans. Driving while tired is dangerous, especially on the winding roads that bring him down the mountain.

  The knock on my door is familiar and I nearly deflate with relief when I mange to fumble the locks open. I want to drag him inside and pin him against the wall the way I usually do but the expression on his face makes me hesitate.

  "Darrick?" I ask, stepping out of the way so he can come into the apartment. "Everything okay?"

  He wants to lie, I can see it on his face, but in the end he shakes his head and moves into my arms. He's trembling violently and I quickly realize he's going into shock. My mind flashes to everything I read about what a Dom needs to do for a sub after an intense scene. The D/s lifestyle is not something we've explored to the extent either of us would like—that sort of relationship takes a whole lot of time that we haven't yet been able to find—but if Darrick was ever in need of aftercare, this is it.

  I help him to the sofa, grab the soft blanket off the back, and wrap it around his shoulders. I don't want to leave him alone long enough to make sweet tea, so I grab a sports drink from the fridge and double back to join him. I hold him until the worst of the shaking subsides and then urge him to take a few sips of the drink before encouraging him to lay on the sofa with his head resting on my thigh.

  I run my fingers through his hair, setting a soothing, repetitive rhythm as his stilted, heavy breaths slowly turn into quiet sobs. I have no idea what happened or why it would reduce him to this sort of anguish, but I'm willing to wait, willing to protect and comfort him for as long as he needs me.

  "Can you tell me what happened?" I ask when he finally relaxes against me. He nods but has trouble finding the words. I'm pretty sure it was nothing that happened at work. When he'd called me to say he was leaving he'd been his usual jovial self, so chances are that it was something that happened on the way here. "Was there a road accident?"

  He nods. "Two young kids," he says, his voice croaky and raw. "They were werewolves."

  Oh, god. I knew it was bad from his reaction, but even my mind hadn't gone to something so awful.

  "The car that hit them," Darrick says, swallowing hard before trying to continue. "The driver stopped but once he realized they were werewolves..."

  "He left the scene of the accident." I don't even have to make it a question. I know that werewolves—especially young ones—can instinctively change forms when they're severely injured so identifying them as werewolves had probably been easy. And because of that I also know the law won't charge the human driver. All the guy will need to say is that he was in fear for his life and no one will even question his callous, inhumane decision to leave two injured kids by the side of the ride.

  "I called an ambulance, but it took nearly an hour to get there." Darrick's voice cracks with emotion. "Apparently in that area they wait for a police escort before attending a hit and run." He swallows painfully before whispering, "The kids died in my arms."

  "At least they had you," I say, feeling inadequate and out of my depth. "They didn't die alone."

  Darrick barks a harsh laugh. "Yeah, great consolation prize for their mother." I hold him tighter, silently cursing the laws that made such a horrific situation possible. "Do you want to know what the ambulance officer said to me?" Darrick asks gruffly, not waiting for me to respond before continuing. "He warned me against stopping next time. Next time! As if it happens every other day."

  "Fuck," I whisper under my breath, appalled that a person dedicated to medicine could be so fucking callous as to advise a person not to offer help to dying children.

  "He even suggested that I get tests done to make sure that the blood I had on my hands doesn't make me sick."

  "He didn't realize you're a werewolf?" I ask reflexively, cursing myself even as the idiotic words drop from my mouth. It isn't possible for a human to identify a werewolf just by sight. It's how they managed to live among humans before being outed twenty years ago.

  "Financially, our pack is luckier than most," Darrick says tiredly. "The clothes I wear, the car I drive, the way I speak, all set me apart from packs that live closer to the city. I'm often mistaken for human, but I'm very careful not to claim that I am."

  I breathe a tiny sigh of relief at that. There are harsh penalties for werewolves who pretend to be human. Compulsory, country-wide blood testing and registration as a human or a werewolf were introduced within a month of werewolves being outed. At the time few people had even questioned the fairness of such a thing since everyone was held to the same policy and the information was supposedly necessary for forward planning things like schools and hospitals. To most humans it had seemed no more important than listing things like religious affiliation or language spoken at home.

  But bloo
d tests and registration for everyone had only been the beginning of the nightmare for werewolves.

  I continue to card my fingers through Darrick's hair until he falls asleep. And then I spend the rest of the night wondering how the fuck the human race so easily lost its way.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  *** Darrick ***

  I don't sleep very well, even with my mate's arms around me the entire night. For the first time in decades I'm struggling to hold onto my human form, my werewolf side wanting to howl out my anger and grief as loudly as possible. I also feel guilty that I didn't offer the grieving mother more help, but I know I can't put my own pack at risk by offering sanctuary to every werewolf I meet.

  Feeling helpless, I nuzzle deeper into John's embrace, pushing into his touch more urgently when I realize he's awake. He makes love to me slowly, gently, the emotional connection far more important than the physical act. I love this human with all my heart, but considering the state of the world right now, maybe that's the worst thing I could do for him. John is human. He can avoid things that I cannot.

  "Do you want to watch a movie or something?" John asks afterward, whispering the words as he holds me close again.

  I shake my head, unable to imagine anything that will make me forget the devastation I witnessed earlier. "I can still hear their mother's howls of anguish," I say, gulping in a tired breath. I can also hear over and over in my head as if it's caught on a loop the police officer's terse, nervous-sounding order for her to "settle the fuck down".

  There is no doubt in my mind that if the mother and children had been human she would have been allowed to grieve as loudly as she wanted.

  "I'm so sorry," John says in a low tone. "I can only imagine how awful this is for werewolves."

  "For everyone," I say quietly. "The changes to law in the past twenty years also affect the humans in our town."

  "I didn't realize that," John says, the scent of regret filling the room before I can move to comfort him. I know John feels as if he should know these things, but without any direct contact with werewolves, understanding our lives is nearly impossible.

  Again I wonder if the best way to show my love for my mate would be to let him go. What right do I have to pull him into the nightmares of a world that can let young children die simply because of their DNA?

  "But things are better at home?" John asks. I can smell the hope on him and I'm very glad to be able to answer without having to lie or sugar-coat the truth.

  "Life in Wolden Valley is very different. We were lucky to fall below the government's 'wealth redistribution scheme' limits seventeen years ago." I can sense John's growing anguish so I try to rush through the explanation. "We had enough full-blood humans in the company to dilute the profits. Thankfully most humans in our town were happy to accept that werewolves lived among them. There are plenty of packs that weren't so lucky."

  Despite the massive impact on werewolf packs, very little real information about the "wealth redistribution" scheme had made it into mainstream media. It isn't surprising that most humans have never even given it much thought.

  "Fuck," John growls low in his throat, "I remember the advertising... hell, the propaganda at the time. They justified everything by claiming a need for specialized schools and services for werewolves. They planned to fund them by taxing the 'obscenely wealthy' werewolf packs."

  "That's the one," I say, remembering my own bewilderment at the time. I'd barely been twenty years old and only just beginning to grasp the ramifications of werewolves being outed. I'd attended my first protest rally that same year.

  And it was the first time I'd truly been confronted with the hatred humans have for werewolves as a species. It had taken several more years to realize that not all humans outside of our small town feel that way.

  I sigh quietly and try not to close my eyes, the images of two children broken and bleeding in my arms too fresh in my mind.

  "Did they build any schools?" John asks, his tone suggesting that he can't think of any examples.

  "A couple that I know of, but over the years they've become more like juvenile detention facilities than actual schools for werewolves. What the scheme actually did," I say in a low voice, trying to choose my words carefully, "whether it was the original intention or not, was simply confiscate pack lands and assets, forcing many werewolves into poverty and eventually into crowded, government-funded housing that are now nothing more than slums."

  Exactly like the area I drive through each time to get here. The same place where two young werewolves died tonight. They're concrete slums and the absolute worst place for werewolves who need wide open space.

  Over the years the authorities haven't even bothered to separate the displaced werewolves from the existing human occupants in those areas—many of whom were already involved in the type of criminal activities that commonly go hand-in-hand with severe poverty—despite the whole point of confiscating werewolf wealth supposedly to provide specialized services for werewolves. The results have not been pretty. Apathy, anger, violence, and ever increasing drug problems have led to even more laws being passed in an effort to control the growing "werewolf problem."

  But even the packs who have managed to retain enough land to house their members often need to rely on outside employment to keep the pack financially afloat, and that has led to even more problems. Employers are now required by law to notify the rest of their staff of any werewolves they hire, and to pay higher insurance premiums "just in case." It makes it nearly impossible for werewolves to get jobs in human-dominated industries, and for the "lucky" few that do get them, the pay rates and working conditions are most often far below the minimum standards set for humans.

  There are supposedly laws against the exploitation of werewolves, but when not working means not eating, most are forced to stay silent or lose the only income they can get.

  And since most of the laws that were introduced regarding werewolves are phrased in such a way that they seem perfectly reasonable on the surface but can be applied in multiple and sometimes terrifyingly unjust ways, a werewolf's legal recourse is almost non-existent anyway.

  With my mate's gentle encouragement I spend most of the weekend explaining everything in detail despite how much I want to keep the worst of my experiences and understanding from him.

  "Something has to change," John says eventually, the words sounding like a promise.

  I hug him closer and agree. Something does have to change, but the only thing I can do right now is make the decision to protect my mate.

  No matter what that costs me.

  Chapter Nine

  ** John **

  It's well past midday on Sunday before I even start to think about getting up for longer than just grabbing food and drink and then crawling back into bed and pulling my lover back into my arms. I don't want to let Darrick go.

  I don't want him to leave my bed, or my apartment, or my city. I don't want him going anywhere without me. And I sure as fuck don't want him driving after so little sleep. I feel like he's also trying a little too hard to convince me that he's okay.

  I'm worried and I'm not sure what to do.

  "Can I drive you home?"

  Darrick frowns and shakes his head. He gives me an incredulous kind of look. "It's an eight hour round trip."

  "I don't mind," I say, trying for nonchalant and probably just sounding weird. I try to correct that by voicing at least part of what's worrying me. "You barely slept last night."

  "I'm fine," Darrick assures me, "and I'm pretty sure I got more sleep than you did this weekend."

  That's actually true, but I can't quell the concern burning a hole in my stomach. "But I didn't start out exhausted," I point out, hoping that it's a winning argument.

  "I'm a werewolf," Darrick says with a tiny shrug. "I'll be fine, John."

  But I won't be.

  I don't say the words out loud, but Darrick's overly casual attitude is winding my anxiety tighter. I'm still trying to find an argument that
gets me what I want but doesn't make me sound like an overprotective jerk when he steps into my arms and kisses me sweetly.

  "I'm sorry," he says as he pulls away.

  I think I know why he's apologizing, and it pisses me off, so I ignore it in favor of confirming that he'll come back to me in two weeks. The look of regret on his face is answer enough. Shaking my head violently, I reach for him and can't control the nervous shudder that runs through me when he lets me cuddle him close.

  "The annual pack meeting is in two weeks," he says after a few minutes of me clinging to him like some sort of barnacle. He presses a soft kiss to my jaw before he steps away. "I need to be there."

  I nod because I do remember him telling me that a few weeks ago. "So I'll see you in four weeks then?" I must sound like a needy prick, but I honestly can't shake the feeling that everything is suddenly falling apart.

  He shrugs and gives me an unconvincing smile, but he doesn't nod and he doesn't promise to come back.

  "I can drive up to Wolden," I say, inviting myself despite my recent decision not to.

  "You don't need to do that," he says, his smile far less convincing as he waves away my offer.

  "Ricky, don't do this," I plead, giving up the pretense of not knowing exactly what is happening between us.

  He huffs a tired sigh. "John, I don't want you in my world," he says with a forced casualness that would sound cruel if I didn't know him so well. He goes to say something else and I push my hand against his lips, blocking the words I don't want to hear.

  "Call me when you get home," I order, using the tone of voice that has worked so well for us in our sex life. "Don't make any decisions until you're thinking clearer."

  I can see his determination to push me away "for my own good" in his eyes, but when it comes to belligerence we're evenly matched.