The Omega Objection

by G. L. Carriger

  He’d thought sex with Tank might be good, a kind of escape. And he liked escape.

  But it had been perfect.

  Not ideal, but perfect in that way the world sometimes gives you ice cream on a sunny day. Perhaps not the best brand or your favorite flavor of ice cream, but with the heat and the urge to lick before it melted, it becomes a momentary perfection.

  Tank was unexpected. Isaac had thought him hot, in that way he had of always preferring bigger men. Some stupid instinct his wolf had forced upon him early and he’d never lost. Probably something to do with wanting an Alpha. Except Isaac’s wolf’s wires were crossed by his human’s need to dominate. Tank had clearly liked that too.

  Tank was sensitive to the needs of others and took orders so well at the club, Isaac suspected it would translate to the bedroom. It was in Isaac’s nature to read people, so he could sense Tank’s desire to serve. But the way Tank fell into it so easily? That too was perfect. Flying, someone at a BDSM club had once called it – subspace, said others.

  On Tank it looked more like shifting forms. Only his mind had shifted without his body, rather than the other way around. Tank had lost himself so willingly, so eagerly, so committed to Isaac’s desires. That kind of trust was humbling.

  Isaac tried not to be awed by it. And he tried not to be frightened of it. His own life was already too much – the world burned and tortured, putting pressure on his lungs, suffocating. To be offered this man right now. Isaac wanted nothing more than to savor him. Tank could so easily be his solace.

  Isaac thought about Tank lying in his bed, supine and sweet-smelling. It must be some joke the universe is playing on me. For the bitter pill at the center was always there. Isaac knew it even as he tasted perfection.

  Tank was big, which Isaac found unbearably tasty. Tank was submissive, which Isaac found deliciously sweet. Tank was kind and loyal and so sexy.

  Yet Tank was a werewolf.

  Isaac stared at his own confused face and decided to allow himself one night to eat his fill. To appreciate perfection. There would be consequences for indulgence, there always were.

  He just didn’t realize how soon.

  * * *

  Isaac left the mirror and returned to his shabby room. The man mountain was curled like a child under his blankets, taking up most of the bed.

  Isaac crouched to look at Tank’s face, slack and peaceful. He’d used the man into exhaustion.

  This wasn’t Isaac’s normal thing, a full-on ass-pounding on the first date. Or the first ride home. Or whatever form of first-forever this was. Usually, there was a pattern to Isaac’s assignations. Hands. Hand jobs. Blow jobs. And only then did asses come into play, all previous encounters being acceptable.

  Tank had made him want more so furiously. He’d been need-drunk. His wolf had risen up insisting that he take and claim, sink inside the man, so every particle of Tank’s being might be filled with Isaac. The wolf had made Isaac ask Tank up in the first place.

  It was weak of them both, primitive and animalistic. But Tank had been generous and yielding – every dream and every desire Isaac ever cherished in his worn old heart. To be made so profoundly necessary by one of his own kind. To be trusted and wanted so completely. Tank had given him everything without reservations.

  Isaac climbed under the covers, pushing Tank gently over to make room. The man rolled instinctively, offering his ass again.

  Isaac moaned only a little. His cock twitched hopefully, as if he hadn’t just fucked them both into oblivion. Then he curled himself around Olympus and placed a soft kiss at the nape of Tank’s neck. The werewolf made one of those little whimper pleasure noises that Isaac was rapidly coming to crave.

  Isaac thought, on a startled moment, that he would give Tank anything. Even the truth. He owed him that. To have been made briefly whole because of something so basic as sex.

  I did not know this is what it could be between werewolves. I did not know it could be easy and right.

  His wolf said nothing but was smug. Curled somewhere deep within him, pacified for the first time ever.

  Tank’s voice, husky with longing, broke into Isaac’s reverie. “I can stay?”

  Isaac knew Tank was really asking: Can I give you all my strength? Can we wind our souls together with no gaps?

  Isaac forced down the wolf inside him who had never wanted anything so badly as that.

  Tank’s big hand was gentle, smoothing along Isaac’s draped arm.

  That caress represented the sure warmth of home – an amorphous place of soft light, clean sheets, the sound of running paws, and all the things Isaac had never known to want. But his wolf knew. And his wolf wanted. Memories of another time, a past life, an impossible thing to force on this one man. This one other werewolf. Except, of course, that Tank could take it. Could take all of him. Had proved that.

  Oh, not just Isaac’s cock, but his darkness and demands – the uncertain parts of his soul that drove him to need. Need all the things he always knew he shouldn’t – another man, another werewolf, a submissive beast. Bound to him and his will.

  Isaac whispered into the back of Tank’s neck, “What color is your wolf?”

  Tank didn’t seem surprised to be asked. He let out a rumble of amusement. “Humans. Always so interested in a shifter’s second form. He’s brown.”

  Isaac tightened his own brown arm against Tank’s chest. “Like me?”

  Tank bent his head and kissed Isaac’s wrist. “No. Darker, almost black. People always think I’m pure black if they see me at night.”

  Isaac found this funny. His own wolf was nearly pure white. How unintuitive that that massive white dude should be a black wolf, and he the opposite.

  Tank said, as if following his thoughts. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

  “You’re sweet, but blind.”

  “I have excellent taste.” Tank kissed Isaac’s arm again.

  They drifted into sleep. Isaac thought he might not be able to. It was rare for him to share a bed – usually he didn’t feel safe. And yet…

  He awoke sometime in early morning, only a few hours later. Difficult to tell the time, for he kept his room as dark as possible.

  Tank was in the same position, as if he had been ordered into stillness, even in sleep. That perfect ass was pressed back against Isaac’s now very interested cock.

  He thought that might be what woke him. Tank made a tiny micro movement with his hips, brushing against him, trying, even in sleep, for greater closeness, for penetration.

  Isaac’s breath hitched. He ran the hand that had been resting, slack against the broad chest, down to wrap about Tank’s eager cock.

  How much he wanted this man.

  Being with him was like remembering his own body existed and inhabiting it fully for the first time. Usually it was an internal struggle, his wolf making himself known only to test Isaac’s control. The wolf was an unhappy tenant of Isaac’s human body. Irony of ironies, the shifter shrink, who was really nothing more than a werewolf at war with himself. But in this bed, Isaac and his wolf were in accordance, they were liquid and prowling. Unified and predatory, they both wanted to press that unity into Tank.

  The big man was awake now, arching back against him, then rocking forward into Isaac’s stroking hand. When did I start that?

  “May I?” asked Isaac, confident in his ability to take once permission was freely given.

  “Please,” begged Tank.

  The word fell over Isaac like a blessing, breathy and wanting.

  He twisted away. Tank keened at the loss.

  “No touching yourself. That’s mine,” Isaac said, as he found the lube.

  He didn’t bother with a condom this time. Tank’s ass couldn’t taste him, not that way anyway. He coated himself liberally and slid back against that broad welcoming back.

  Tank let out a long sigh of welcome.

  Isaac closed his now slippery hand once more around that big
lovely cock. Tank shuddered. Then the werewolf went perfectly still while Isaac pressed inside him. It was awkward. Isaac had to use the hand he was lying on to guide himself. But it was also hot and tight and perfect. His wolf was delighted to be bare inside his lover. The prospect of painting Tank’s insides with cum triggering some primal need.

  Isaac held his wolf in check, though, determined to make this good. Although Tank seemed happy with whatever Isaac did. His cock jerked and leaked in Isaac’s hand with each slow, measured thrust. Isaac marveled at the willing eagerness, and then lost himself in it.

  He bit and sucked on Tank’s neck and shoulders, anything he could reach, both of them getting harder and harder and closer and closer until Tank began to pant and emit a little whimper with every withdrawal. The whimpers became “Please.” Which might have been please go faster. Or please go harder. Or please jack me more. But was actually, Isaac knew, please take me forever. Please give me your pleasure. Please use me like this, never stopping.

  He wished he could. He wanted to hold them both on that sweet pinpoint of just before. But Isaac’s world had enough denial, so this time he wanted and he took. He moaned low and bit hard, though not so hard that he broke skin (he wasn’t a complete idiot). He thought there was a good chance his eyes had shifted and his teeth were dropping because nothing had ever been this good. Nothing.

  His cock buried deep and spurted hard. His mouth clamped down on the need to howl. Tank’s shoulder became Isaac’s gag. His wolf rose close to the surface, unsafe. His wolf told him this was like sinking teeth into the flesh of a kill. The warmth of life running out over his tongue. Total deadly satisfaction.

  But Isaac’s wolf had never killed anyone or anything. Had never hunted. Had never been allowed to by others and then never been allowed to by Isaac. This big man, vulnerable and willing, was as much his as that fantasy deer. In this moment, captured and held tight against Isaac, filled by his spend and his spent cock, Tank was his kill. Isaac thought, This is that connection between death and love that the French are so foolish about, only worse, more deadly.

  His kill whimpered in denied satisfaction. “I can feel… Please, Isaac.”

  His name from those begging lips.

  Isaac curled his hand, which had never stopped slowly jacking Tank, and twisted over the head of Tank’s cock. He gave him a firmer grip, ran one of his short nails through the weeping slit and whispered, “Give it to me.”

  It might have been any one of those things, but Isaac liked to believe it was his order, for Tank groaned and spurted his release, warm and satisfying.

  They lay like that for a long time. Tank’s softening dick in Isaac’s hand, Isaac’s softening dick in Tank’s ass. Isaac had this weird sensation, as if the points of infinity throughout the universe had stretched and then snapped back, a sense of new wholeness, even knowing he was essentially unchanged.

  Isaac thought it odd, that the world seemed to have shifted, and then returned to itself, and only he had noticed.

  It was only relevant to him, anyway.

  * * *

  Early afternoon Isaac awoke still inside Tank and hard again.

  This is utterly ridiculous. This need.

  It was also distracting him from something, some unnatural stillness about the apartment, something wrong. Isaac, who’d been hunted more often than not, had developed some powerful instincts and spatial awareness as a result. He was a predator who’d become prey.

  Isaac withdrew from his perfect werewolf, which was the very last thing he wanted to do. Tank whimpered at the loss even though he was asleep. Isaac resisted the urge to pet him.

  Isaac dressed quickly, grabbed his go bag, always ready and always packed. I never properly thanked him, he thought. So sad it hurt his throat. But he was already straining to hear the enemy, the invaders, the hunters.

  Someone was at his apartment door, which meant they’d gotten inside the building. His roommate’s annoyed voice carried down the hall. No one ever came to their door – it’s one of the reasons they all lived together.

  “He’s fucking asleep, of course. What the hell? Fuck you too and your early morning noise. Who does that?” The kid was annoyed (clearly he’d been woken against his will). Isaac’s roommate was a pretty little thing, go-go dancer, but tougher than glitter and twice as abrasive. Isaac always believed the boy hated him. Or at least feared him in that way pink humans had of associating darker skin tones with thuggish behavior. It was odd to hear him bitchy in Isaac’s defense.

  Isaac cracked his door and sniffed. He couldn’t get anything through the haze of Tank’s amazing scent, nutmeg brandy and salty sex. And belonging. Such perfect eager belonging. Isaac knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he now smelled like Tank. I will have to shower as soon as possible.

  All of Isaac’s safety lay in not smelling like a werewolf. Himself or any other.

  He sniffed again. Beyond that delightful scent there was something else coming through the house from the cracked front door. Jonny was no idiot to take the chain off. Whoever he was grumbling at, he was doing it through the crack. Bless his suspicious little heart.

  “No, I won’t go wake him up. I’ve no idea who you are and he never has visitors. Fuck off. Text or call like normal people.”

  Isaac revised his assessment. There was more than one person at the door. He also revised his opinion of his roommate. He’d thought the kid was a vain useless pothead who didn’t like anyone but himself, but clearly he had a protective instinct.

  He sniffed again and caught it then.

  Shifter.

  One was all honey, warm loamy soil, and deep forest caves, earthy… bear, his wolf categorized quickly. But not a friendly bear, not one he knew, like Kettil. The other smelled better, his wolf liked it – fields and fur and power – werewolf. Unknown, explained his wolf. Not family, not enemy pack, not Tank, and not connected to him. But still another wolf, play, friend, connection. Hope. Alpha!

  Isaac shut that down quickly. Stupid fucking wolf.

  Isaac made for the bathroom window. It was one of those inexplicable ones that faced nothing but another wall of another apartment building, designed to let out smell, he supposed, if nothing else. Although he hadn’t thought humans built with such things in mind.

  The window was big enough to squeeze through. He slung his pack over his back, braced himself in the gap between buildings, and shimmied down, landing in the tiny alleyway bruised and scraped.

  He was running away, of course he was. But Isaac wondered if he was running from the shifters at his door or the shifter in his bed. He knew that while the one made him a survivor, the other made him a coward.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Trapper Keepers

  Tank came awake fast and alert. He was alone in the bed and in the room. Isaac had left him. He knew that with complete certainty. Isaac was running from something. Probably him.

  Tank had no idea how he knew, he just did. Inside he keened at the lost, panted with it, wanted to shift and track and be with and close and belong to Isaac all over again. But there was good reason for Isaac’s flight, there must be. Tank had done something horrible and wrong last night. He struggled with his memories, fuzzy with that precious floating feeling. Had he done something not ordered, or said something unbidden?

  He didn’t think so. Isaac had made glorious and thorough use of him. Twice. He shivered, wishing he smelled like him. But he only smelled like himself. And sex. As if he had undertaken a whole evening of toy-ridden and cum-covered masturbation.

  So, Isaac was gone because there was something else wrong?

  Tank strained his supernatural senses.

  There was a ruckus at the front door.

  He lumbered out of bed and, in deference to the fact that this was a house of humans, he pulled on his jeans from the night before. Nothing else necessary, he lumbered out of the room and padded down the narrow hallway.

  A pretty boy with smeared mascara and
a petulant mouth stood at the apartment’s front door yelling at someone outside.

  “And how the hell did you even get into the building?” There was a clinking rustle on the other side. “Oh badges, really? Badges? You think that does any good? I know those and you’ve got no jurisdiction here. No shifters in this…” He heard Tank then (finally! humans had such poor hearing) and whirled around.

  His gorgeous green eyes bugged out of his face. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Tank said nothing. The pretty boy turned back to the cracked door. The chain was still on it. “Okay, maybe there is a shifter here.”

  Tank arched a brow. He supposed it was a safe assumption for a human to make about him. A man his size and shape usually meant some kind of supernatural blood.

  He crossed his arms and glared. Wondering what the hell was going on. Isaac had obviously run because of whoever was on the other side of that door. Which made Tank very much want to meet them, preferably with his teeth bared.

  The boy slammed the door on whoever was outside it. Tank’s nose told him berserker and a fellow werewolf. The wolf was female, Alpha, and only mildly upset. Impatient, probably, with the little human in her way. The bear was, well, a bear shifter. Difficult to read.

  Those smeared mascara eyes turned to glare at Tank, not at all intimidated by his size.

  Tank supposed it was a bit like being a kitsune. The little human must be accustomed to being smaller than everyone. Someone that much bigger, like Tank, was only really that much bigger than everyone else.

  Tank figured he should say something by way of explanation, as presumably this was one of the roommates, and he was a guest in this house. “I came with Isaac.”

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah? He never brings tricks home.”

  Tank brightened. “No?”