by Odessa Lynne
“Alpha!” the wolf cried out.
By God, if that wasn’t a pout on his face, Gerald didn’t know what a pout was.
“And here I thought you didn’t have the patience for a mate,” Gerald said. “Seems like you’ve got plenty of damn mates.”
“I cannot ignore the heat.”
At that moment, the wolf shimmied his trousers down over his ass, canted his hips and raised his legs, exposing himself to Tanis.
Gerald jerked his gaze off the sight of alien ass, fell back on the bed, and dropped his forearm over his eyes. “Tell me when this is—” Over, he would have said, but Tanis’s sudden lunge and roar caught him so off guard, he didn’t have time to do more than gasp and roll.
The bed jostled, and a loud thump and an aborted cry followed.
“Holy—” Gerald cut himself off, scrambling to his knees on the still shaking bed.
Tanis had the wolf by the throat, dark blood welling around the claws he’d buried deep. “You threatened my mate.”
“No, Alpha! Please. I didn’t mean to threaten.”
Or something like that. They were speaking the wolves’ language and Gerald had to guess between several possible interpretations.
“Your very presence here is a danger to him. You don’t have enough control to be allowed near a human right now. You haven’t mated. What if the drugs had failed? What if your heat cycle came on earlier than you expected? How am I supposed to think of this except as a threat?”
The wolf whimpered softly. “Alpha, please.”
“I should tear out your throat for your defiance.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Gerald said. “He’s just a—”
Tanis turned on Gerald, dragging the wolf half off the floor as he did, claws biting even deeper, the poor wolf trying to take some of his own weight on skidding hands. “Submit!”
Gerald threw his hands up, adrenaline spiking. “I do. I submit.”
Tanis shoved the wolf to the hardwood again, a dull thud echoing in the room, and growled out, “He is mine.”
“Yes, Alpha. I’m sorry. Please… I submit.” The wolf thrust his head back in the same way he’d done earlier on the bed, offering up his throat with a soft whimper.
Gerald watched breathlessly, afraid to say a word.
Tanis dragged the wolf to the open door. The wolf struggled to get his feet under him but his trousers were still down around his ankles. Tanis didn’t make any concessions, just hauled the wolf through the door by his throat and down the hallway. Gerald lost sight of them, but he could hear the bang of a body smacking into the wall, then the repeated thump of feet on the stairs that led to the ground floor.
Gerald sat back on his heels, thrusting his hands into his hair. He waited a moment, staring at the door, then slowly climbed off the bed. He stood there for a moment before he heard footsteps coming back up the stairs.
By the time Tanis appeared in the open doorway, Gerald had started pulling on the jeans he’d worn for the last two days. His hand was on the zip when Tanis spoke.
“Do not.”
Gerald stopped. “I’ve got to pee.”
“Then pee. You don’t need trousers for that.”
“You’re such a prick sometimes.”
“We’ll fuck before I return to my duties.”
“After what just happened?”
Tanis’s dark eyebrows rose.
“Seriously. You don’t think you overreacted?”
“He shamed his alpha with his behavior and he’s learned a valuable lesson. If your scent had triggered his heat cycle he would have tried to fuck you without a second thought.”
“He didn’t seem to think I smelled all that great while he was sniffing and rubbing all over me.”
Tanis growled. “Do you not know how frequently the repression drugs fail when a heat cycle is near?”
Gerald shucked the jeans he’d just pulled on, yanking the legs down over his bare feet one at a time, each sharp movement a clear statement.
“No,” he said, “I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Too often.”
Gerald raised his head and glared.
Tanis stared back with not a glimmer of humor in his gaze.
Gerald huffed softly, tossing the jeans to the floor, and sat back on the edge of the bed, raking his hands through his hair. “If we’re supposed to be mates, I’d like to know why the hell you aren’t making more of an effort to—”
“I thought you had to pee.”
Gerald stopped and stared at Tanis. Finally, he let out a rough growl of his own and got to his feet. “Fine.”
“I warned you I had no patience for a mate.”
Gerald made a pointed effort not to grind his teeth. “I didn’t ask you to mate me. I’d have been perfectly happy with that beta of yours.”
“Leisikei would not have suited you.”
“Fuck that. That’s bullshit. You wanted me and you got me. Now you don’t know what to do with me.”
“Leisikei submitted to my claim. I cannot regret what happened.”
“Well I can. If it was just about fucking, all you had to do was ask. I’d have been happy to give you a ride. Hell, maybe we could’ve had an honest-to-God threesome after he mated me. I might’ve liked it. Now I’ll never know, because I’m stuck with—”
He shut his mouth. Tanis was just staring at him, face going darker by the moment.
Gerald dragged his hands down his face. “Can I go to the bathroom now or do you want me to piss on myself?”
Tanis waved his hand in the direction of the attached bathroom. “Go.”
Gerald plodded to the bathroom.
Half a minute later, just as he was feeling the sweet relief of an emptying bladder, Tanis’s heavy hand landed on Gerald’s shoulder.
Gerald jerked and piss hit the side of the toilet bowl and splattered onto the floor.
“Dammit! What the fuck, Tanis!”
“It was too late for Leisikei to make his claim the moment my repression drugs failed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your scent, it tempted me beyond reason. I couldn’t give you up to Leisikei once I’d tasted the fire in your scent.”
Gerald looked askance at Tanis, then forced himself to finish peeing. He shook himself off, aware with every breath that Tanis was watching him handle his penis.
When he finally released himself and turned, Tanis was right there in his space. He didn’t even have the decency to take his hand off Gerald’s shoulder.
“Even if we find a way to prevent the drugs from ever failing, they’ll never be a permanent solution to the human scent trigger.”
Gerald gave Tanis a flat look, then let his gaze drift to the shower he hadn’t been allowed to use. “Can I—”
“Shower,” Tanis ordered in a firm, hard voice. “Raeshikid’s scent is all over you and I’d rather not smell his stink when we fuck.”
“Shit yes,” he muttered. “About damn time.”
“When you’re finished, I’ll cover every lingering trace of Raeshikid’s scent with my own.”
Gerald felt his shoulders droop. “Ah fuck.”
Half an hour later, Tanis has his shoulders under Gerald’s knees and his dick buried in Gerald’s ass and Gerald had enough alien spunk drying on him that it felt like his chest hair had been glued to his skin.
Tanis thrust powerfully into him and his spine curved, his whole body one tight knot.
“God!”
Tanis snarled at him.
“Fuck. I mean Tanis. Alpha.” Gerald fisted his hand in the hair at the back of Tanis’s head, the other fisting his dick. “Alpha.”
Tanis’s snarling quieted and his heavy breaths got lost against the inside of Gerald’s leg. A few strands of Tanis’s hair teased at Gerald’s nipples, making him suck in his breath every time they made contact. Sweat glistened on Tanis’s brow and shoulders, and his body gave off more heat than the old wood stove back home.
Ger
ald groaned, his dick shooting sticky white stands of semen between them as he came. Tanis continued to rut into Gerald, growling, just before his own semen filled Gerald’s ass for the second time.
Tanis’s powerful arms held his weight off Gerald and Gerald groaned again, this time with the uncomfortable stretch of his leg as he let it slip off Tanis’s sweaty shoulder.
“You need to give a guy more room to breathe when you’re pounding his ass.”
Tanis held himself up on one arm and grabbed Gerald’s ankle before he could fully relax. Sharp teeth scraped along the tender inside of Gerald’s thigh.
He sucked in his breath and yanked at Tanis’s hair.
Tanis nipped at Gerald’s flesh.
“Ow!”
“Submit!”
“Not if you’re going to—”
Tanis roared at him.
Gerald jerked backwards. Unfortunately, he didn’t let go of Tanis’s hair first.
Tanis’s roar came to an abrupt end. His nostrils flared wide and he lunged forward, mouth open, teeth glinting.
Gerald gasped, turning his head, his body too tangled under Tanis to react to the threat in any other way.
A hot tongue swiped along Gerald’s jaw, then a hot, openmouthed kiss pressed close to his ear. He shivered, goose bumps rising quickly on his skin.
“Shit,” he muttered, pressing his hand to his breastbone where his heart thudded so fast he felt lightheaded.
Tanis sat back on his heels, laughing softly.
Gerald stretched out, groaning with the pull of muscles. He was flexible, but Tanis’s vigorous fucking pushed his body to its limits; he couldn’t remember the last time his muscles had been so stiff and sore.
He glanced at Tanis from under his lashes. “Have I told you lately how much of a prick you are?”
Teeth flashed, a grin that made Tanis look almost playful.
Gerald pushed his toes into the bedding next to Tanis’s thigh. “You’re not that bad, though.” Then, quickly, “Just how mated are we? Is this one of those permanent things?”
The skin around Tanis’s eyes tightened. Gerald wasn’t surprised. Tanis didn’t like it when he asked questions he’d already asked and gotten no answer to.
He kept trying because he was hoping Tanis would either give in and answer or let something slip.
So far, no such luck.
Tanis rose onto his knees, stretching his long torso, thrusting his hips forward as his back gave an audible crack. “This conversation bores me. What have you occupied yourself with while I’ve been gone?”
Gerald clasped his hands behind his head and stared up at Tanis. “Why are you so different from the others? Hardly any lust craze at all. Nothing like Cory, last season.”
Tanis narrowed his eyes on Gerald, resettling on his heels, thighs spread wide between Gerald’s.
“A successful breeding releases chemicals that ease the heat cycles. I’ve bred many females this season.”
Gerald rubbed his eyebrow, then scraped it with his fingernail when he realized he had semen drying at the edge. “Why so many?”
He really wasn’t expecting an answer. Tanis hadn’t been very talkative any of the other times they’d fucked, why should this time be different?
But Tanis did answer this time.
“Because I will meet death before the next heat season. Now, roll over. You still stink of Raeshikid and I wish to mate again.”
Chapter 10
Gerald shoved crackers and leftover venison stew in his mouth and stared through the window across the room. The wolf who’d been guarding the back door had passed by in a hurry earlier and hadn’t returned.
Although, really, there was no back door, because both the front and back door had equal prominence in the strangely designed house where the kitchen sat dead center between two wide living spaces devoid of furniture.
Gerald was alone, much like always. He’d been trapped in this particular house for thirteen days, his only entertainment, aside from Tanis and his big alien dick, a couple of computers Devon had cut off from the wider nets and a veo-like screen that mocked him with its empty stream.
He’d spent a lot of time in those thirteen days watching the world outside the windows—the changing colors of the leaves, the comings and goings of the wolves—especially those wolves who surrounded his temporary home.
He couldn’t leave the wolves’ territory, he knew that. But he’d been entertaining other possibilities.
He could steal a computer Devon hadn’t modified.
He could make an attempt to contact his family, tell them what James probably wouldn’t, let them know he was okay and that it might be a while before he returned, but that he fully intended to return—someday, as soon as he figured out how to do it without damaging the treaty with the wolves. He could convince them not to come after him, he was sure of it, but first he had to find a way to get in contact before his absence became too prolonged.
He could try to find Devon and just talk to him—make him understand.
That last possibility played on his mind more than it had any right to, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think it would actually work, anyway. Devon wasn’t ready to listen. Not yet. It’d been thirteen days, after all, and Devon hadn’t made any effort at all to get in touch.
Gerald shoved another stew soaked cracker in his mouth and watched the window.
What he had was too much time to think.
One of the things he needed to distract himself from was the unanswered question of why Tanis thought he was going to die before the next heat season. In the moment Tanis had made his declaration, Gerald had found himself completely unsettled by the certainty in Tanis’s voice.
Dying wasn’t something Tanis thought could happen in the next three years; it was something he truly believed was going to happen.
But then Tanis had steadfastly refused to talk about the why or how, no matter what Gerald said in the days that followed. They fucked and talked about much of nothing, and Gerald snuck food when Tanis wasn’t around just to piss him off when he returned, and watched the windows just like he was doing now.
Annoying Tanis had become a bit of a game for Gerald lately.
Something that was all Tanis’s fault, because Gerald was bored out of his fucking mind.
Some commotion had drawn the other guard away at least half an hour ago. The second had been gone for six to seven minutes. Gerald had been counting ever since he’d seen Alan with a young wolf at his side hurrying along the nearest path through the woods very shortly afterward. Gerald had recognized that young wolf as someone he’d seen at various times over the last year moving around the den.
Ethan. That was his name. He belonged to that wolf who called himself Ash.
That brought Matthew to mind and all the crazy stuff that had happened already this heat season—and all the stuff Gerald didn’t know.
Something had happened with Matthew the very same day Gerald had stolen the data from Salvadore Jones, but no one would say what. For the few days Gerald had been able to access the communications screens, he’d tried to weasel the story out of Alan or Matthew but they’d both been closemouthed about it.
That meant there was stuff Gerald needed to know.
Lots of damn stuff.
He pushed his chair back, tapping his hand on the table top, looking across the echoing space to the door near the windows where he’d seen the fewest wolves over the last two weeks.
Deep breath.
He walked across the rustic oak floor and drew his finger across the panel by the door—the system wasn’t quite like the human-designed system that worked the locks and lights of most modern homes, but he’d learned enough to know that even human touch could activate it, although it didn’t always respond.
The lock clicked, releasing without any delay whatsoever.
Gerald’s heart began a slow, heavy thud.
He’d suspected the guards were present because the doors weren’t keyed to lock humans
inside; this house wasn’t part of the building complex that had been specially designed for the unmated humans who needed to be protected during the heat season. Still, he’d half expected to find it impossible to leave after his previous attempt to venture out.
He was supposed to be a prisoner—although no one wanted to call him that. Instead, he was now one of their mates, because it made total sense to mate your enemies and treat them like they were important.
Gerald shook his head. Of course that didn’t make sense, but they’d done it. Multiple times.
He’d always thought it was amazing how much you could learn about a guy when he was fucking you. He and Tanis had done a lot of fucking in a mere thirteen days. And with the wolves, there was a lot more to mating than just fucking, and that had also given Gerald an opportunity to learn.
Tanis was nothing like Cory in the way he took care of Gerald after mating. His actions, his touches, they were all much more perfunctory, much less ritualized. He provided, but he did not coddle. Cory had been smothering in his attentions three years ago; Tanis gave only enough to tease.
Gerald had become curious. He wanted to figure Tanis out, find out what hid behind those striking, unusual eyes, understand why Tanis chose to let his hair grow when no other wolf Gerald had ever met had done the same.
He wanted to know Tanis—as a person.
Gerald didn’t want a mate any more than Tanis claimed to have wanted one. But Gerald had one now, and so did Tanis, and Gerald found himself, after thirteen days, wishing he was free to let himself…
Do what? Care? What a stupid fucking thing to do. Hadn’t the situation with Devon taught him anything?
His freedom was worth more than some ephemeral feeling and he knew it. His mission was over, but not really, because his mission wouldn’t end until he was back home with Royce and Jacob and Gracie and Mama and Nana and the damn cat he hated more than he hated his middle name. Not until he’d shared everything he’d learned with James, and James officially retired Gerald from the department or sent him to jail.
All he had to keep himself from going nut-cracked crazy was the knowledge that heat season was different and that maybe things would change between him and Tanis when it ended.