by Robin Moray
Callum took a deep breath. "It's not that I don't believe you, but..."
Nero nodded. He dropped his items on the bed (Callum imagined Nero buying lube and condoms and tried not to snort) and pushed himself up, stripping his shirt smoothly over his head. Callum watched as he unfastened his jeans and shoved them down and – holy fuck, he'd gone commando. His cock was long and thick, jutting out hard from the nest of black curls at his crotch. Callum wanted to lick it, wanted to feel the bounce of it on his tongue.
Nero was otherwise surprisingly hairless, just a trail up to his navel, a dusting across his pecs, and the dark tufts under his arms. Callum lifted a hand to smooth it over the taut brown muscles of Nero's torso, feeling out the firm ridges beneath his skin and, oh, he was beautiful. Callum had never been with anyone so beautiful, and he begged whatever powers might be that (between 'nineteen years old' and Nero's stupid sexy face) he wouldn't get over-excited and, well, rush it.
Nero let himself be touched, tearing open the condom wrapper and rolling it on himself before retrieving the lube and using the palm of one hand to slick up the fingers of the other. He wrapped his palm around Callum's cock, sliding slick and smooth along the length of him, and Callum caught himself whimpering because, fuck, he was so hard it almost hurt. Nero watched, speculative, trailing his fingers up the inside of Callum's thigh, stealing into the cleft of his ass, stroking slow and firm with insistent fingertips as Callum gasped and canted his hips up. It was so easy. This was easy, easy to spread his thighs, bracing his feet against the bed and letting Nero in. Nero breached him, opening him up if not gently then oddly careful and meticulous about it.
Callum couldn't help himself. "Ugh, you're killing me please, please–" and Nero growled low and dangerous, before easing the head of his cock inside. Callum groaned, overwhelmed for a moment by the heat of him, the unfamiliar-yet-familiar stretch of him as he rocked inch by inch into Callum's flesh.
Nero's breath came heavy, ragged as he thrust, every stroke sending heat up into Callum's belly. Callum clenched his fists in the bedcovers, dizzy with want, and fuck, if he'd known it was going to be this good he would never have argued against it, not ever.
But he was still only nineteen. "Oh ... fuck, I'm–" He clutched at his cock, dragging his hand down the length of it in jerky stutters and arching up off the bed to meet Nero. He came with a shout, and maybe it was that or maybe just the sight of him spilling over his fingers but Nero snarled, snapping his hips sharply to bury his cock deep in Callum's ass.
Callum tried to breathe, but the sight of Nero's eyes, flashing silver in the dim light, pulled the air from his lungs and then, oh, he got to watch Nero's face wrench up, see him shudder, hear the broken groan as he emptied himself.
When Callum finally caught his breath he said, "That was ... pretty good."
Nero, still arched over him, still balls deep in him, opened his eyes. "It was ... unsuccessful."
Callum groaned, collapsing on the bed, lethargy stealing into his muscles. "Okay, okay. Honestly? It was pretty fucking successful."
But Nero was withdrawing and reaching for the tissues. "No," he said, and he sounded apologetic. "It was not."
"I just saw your 'o' face," Callum argued, wincing and rolling onto his side. "Maybe I'm no supernatural lie detector, but I know what an 'o' face looks like."
Nero gave him an amused-in-spite-of-himself look. "It was successful in that way. Very much so," and he stroked Callum's ankle before approaching him with a tissue. "But the bond was unsuccessful."
Callum batted his hand away. "Give me that," because the idea of Nero cleaning him up was just, no. "So, what, it didn't work?" Which was, after all, the point of all this. "How do you know?"
"It's the bond," Nero said simply, wiping his hands. "You'd know if it worked. You'd be sure. It feels like ... nothing else."
Callum thought that sounded hokey, but didn't say it out loud. "So ... what now?"
"If you're willing to try again, then," Nero shrugged, "I can think of no other alternative."
Callum chewed his lip. Doing that again ... it was more than he'd signed up for, but it was really ... yeah, it had been pretty fucking awesome. "I could go again. Gimme half an hour?"
Nero blinked and then smirked. "Oh, to be so young."
That made Callum blush, because– "So, you don't have mad wolf stamina? That's really disappointing, man."
Nero snorted, leaning in to press his nose to Callum's cheek. "Tomorrow, perhaps. Get some rest."
And Callum found he really didn't have a problem with that.
* * *
Nero lay coiled around Callum, listening to his breathing deepen, flattening out into long, slow breaths as his muscles relaxed. He felt heavier like this, warm and weighty, but pliable, as if Nero could wind him up into knots and he would just accept it, obedient.
Submissive. Except he was not, and Nero did not know how to make him so.
Submission by its nature must be voluntary, he knew that. And Callum ... he pretended to submit, let Nero put him where he wanted, permitted Nero to do with him as he wanted, but still there was in him this rebellion, this refusal to back down. It was, frankly, attractive. Nero enjoyed it, appreciated it, wanted more of it, but for the purposes of the bond it could only be a hindrance.
Nero buried his face in Callum's hair and breathed in. He smelled like Nero now, and like himself still. The pack scents were all over him, the smell of the den, of home, and safety. And now he smelled like 'mate'. It was good. Nero responded to it without conscious thought, wanting only to curl up with him and doze, content, one eye half-open for threats.
Because if anything threatened Callum now Nero would destroy it. He had no choice. Mate.
The wolf in him was instinctively attracted. This had been the trouble with Holly, or part of it. Once his wolf had decided she was his mate there was no turning back, no matter what she did to him, how she hurt him. Even when she had spurned him, sniffing after Hamish and throwing it in his face, the wolf had howled after her, his mate.
And now Nero-the-wolf had Callum, had whole lungfuls of him, had tasted him and would never let go, as though he were a well-worried bone.
Nero-the-man, though, knew this wasn't real, that he had purposefully manufactured this because he knew Callum would leave. And when he did? The wolf would howl after him, but the man (both of them) would be free.
He stroked his fingers down Callum's shoulder. Free of this. He did not know if he wanted to be free of this.
Ah, his face, his throat, the scent of his skin, and the warm places at his crotch and under his arms. Nero wanted to bury himself in it all, wanted to claim him the right way, under the moon in the dirt, wanted the run and the chase and the glorious conclusion and he knew he could not have it. None of it. He had promised.
They would make the bond and then Callum would go. As agreed.
But how to make the bond? He'd thought it would be easy; Callum would submit to him and Nero would master him and the bond would snap into place, as it had with Holly. But it hadn't worked.
At least Callum had agreed to try again. (And did the flush in his cheeks when he agreed to that mean he wanted it? Was he eager for it? Or was it a chore, an imposition, one more delay before he could leave Nero behind forever?)
It will be for the best, Nero told himself. It would have to be. There was no other choice.
Chapter 8
Callum woke up somewhere before dawn, blinking blearily. Nero was sitting on the edge of the bed and he was dressed. Callum blanked; why would Nero be dressed?
"Nuh?"
Nero stroked Callum's hair, more an affectionate petting than the condescending ruffle Jackie always gave him. "I have to go out."
Callum wasn't good at mornings, but he was even worse at pre-mornings. "S'n trouble?"
"Don't worry. Go back to sleep."
He leaned down, pressing his nose to Callum's in a kind of nuzzle.
Callum did as he was told, because it was
easy.
When he woke up again his head jerked up off the pillow, his heart pounding. What? For a moment he didn't know where he was, and then took in the wooden skirting-boards, the big old heavy-curtained windows, the heavy quilt and, oh yeah, Wolf Style Murder House.
He really needed to stop calling it that, even in his head.
Anyway, something had woken him but he couldn't think what. A noise, maybe?
He pushed himself up, swung a leg over the side of the bed and ... oh. Yeah. So, sex happened. Actually, remembering exactly how sex the sex had been, Callum was surprised he didn't feel it more. No pain, just an ache, and a good ache, a reminder that Stuff Happened and it was actually Phenomenal.
God, Nero was strong. And so disciplined. Callum didn't think he could ever pull off the sort of controlled restraint Nero had. Benefits of being a werewolf, Callum supposed as he pulled on his jeans. Along with fast healing, no diseases, being the kind of incredibly hot that people normally paid money for.
Callum caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror behind the door and just stared. He looked ...
"Oh my god, I look so laid," he blurted out, and then he actually saw himself blush in the mirror. Fuck. So that's what that looked like.
But still. There were pale red marks all down his chest, trailing from his collarbone to skirt a nipple, and sweeping down to his navel and below and – fuck – he yanked his jeans-and-boxers down to find a bite-mark on his hip, right where he remembered. Holy shit. Not to mention his neck. On closer inspection, none of the marks were too bad, all small pale things that were almost done fading out, but fuck, there were so many of them, like a mosaic. It was like Nero had signed his name on Callum's skin, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
Well. That was definitely something.
He pulled his shirt on and ventured out into the hall. There had to be a bathroom, somewhere, but with the doors closed he didn't feel like just opening one at random in case, well. In case.
He padded down the back stairs in bare feet, ending up in the kitchen where Michael and Vera were feeding pancakes to the toddler and a little girl in a bright yellow sun-dress. She must have been almost school-age, her patent-leather shoes and her hair both jet-black and shiny, and when she saw him she waved.
"Good morning!"
"Uh," and again, it was all awkward. "Morning."
Vera flashed him a vague wave. "Told you he'd want pancakes," she said to Michael, who just frowned over his skillet. She was in her pyjamas still; they were blue with pink and black penguins on them. It was disturbingly domestic.
Callum didn't quite know what to do. "Is there a bathroom?"
"No, we just pee in the woods," Vera said, sounding completely serious.
The little girl giggled. "Wanna pee in the woods," she said, and Michael groaned.
"Oh, god, look what you've done."
Vera shrugged, and then she bent down to tweak the little girl's nose. "You can't pee in the woods today. Only when it's full moon, okay? We use bathrooms the rest of the time."
The girl nodded. Then she beamed up at Callum, and, whoa, okay, he knew exactly who she looked like. "We use bathrooms!" She blinked at him and her nose wrinkled. "You smell like Papa."
Callum felt like the air had been knocked right out of him.
"Yeah, you really do," Vera said, nose wrinkling the exact same way. "Boys are so gross. Right Gabby?"
"No," the little girl said, completely nonplussed. "They's okay."
Vera rolled her eyes. "Brainwashing you is going to be hard. There's one back through there," she told Callum, gesturing down the hall. "Second on the left. Towels in the hall closet," she added with an evil grin. "If you wanna wash all the S-E-X off you."
The little girl squealed. "Essex!"
"Vera!" Michael yelled, but Callum was so mortified he bolted down the hall before he could hear the next part.
He did shower, and while he did he tried to think about what he had clearly just seen. That little girl – Gabby? Gabrielle? – was Nero's. He was sure of it. She had the same silky hair, the same eyes. Hers were brown, but the shape was there, and her mouth had a frogginess to it that was all Nero.
She was, what, four? And Nero's, definitely Nero's, she even said she could smell her Papa on him.
This was crazy. What was he doing here? It shouldn't bother him that Nero had a four year old daughter with brown eyes and Ria's fucking jawline.
I'm not in love with Nero, he told. I'm just ... sex-drunk. Or something.
The reflection in the mirror, with his chest and neck peppered with love-bites, didn't look even slightly convinced.
* * *
Gabby, or Gabriela as it turned out, was actually fucking adorable. She showed him the white ducks on the border of her dress, and then pointed to the big one right on the bib. "This one's a goose," she said.
"You're a goose," Vera told her, and Gabby made a beak out of her hand and flapped it at her.
"I'm a goose!" She tried to eat pancakes this way, picking up bits with her beak-fingers and going, "Mmmmm! De-li-cious!" before putting them in her mouth.
Callum couldn't help grinning, and even Michael just sighed and muttered something about getting her into horrible habits.
Meanwhile, the toddler spent a lot of time sitting in Vera's lap staring at Callum, and then, somewhere around Callum's fourth (absolutely delicious) pancake, he leaned over and grabbed Callum's arm.
Callum hissed; it was right over the bite, the one that wasn't healing. He'd cleaned it and re-wrapped it with fresh gauze he'd found under the bathroom sink (he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised by the giant first-aid kid and all the medical supplies in there, but then he'd remembered that werewolves had super healing powers so it actually didn't make a lot of sense) but it still hurt and the shock of tiny fingers suddenly there took him by surprise.
"Oh, shoot, sorry!"
Vera took the boy's hand away, holding it away from Callum, but it made him complain, and he reached for Callum again, grasping with both hands.
"Baby, no," she said, trying to curl him back up, but he started to whine and Vera had to jiggle him to get him to stop. "It's because you smell like alpha," she explained.
Oh. Crap. "I showered," he said apologetically.
Vera gave him an 'oh, please' look. "You pretty much permanently smell like Nero, now. Which is good. I mean, you smell like pack. You belong here." She grinned. "And, like, no-one's going to accidentally tear your throat out or anything."
Callum looked up at Michael, who normally made some kind of face whenever Vera exaggerated or outright lied to him. This time, though, he just blinked. "What? She's right." He shrugged, but at least he didn't cringe as if he thought Callum was going to yell at him anymore, which had been all kinds of wrong before.
The toddler was still trying to clamber into Callum's lap and Callum, well, he didn't mind, so that was how, when Hamish came in, Callum was jiggling the not-so-baby on his knee and trying to eat his last pancake one-handed without getting it poached on the way to his mouth.
Hamish's entry made the whole atmosphere of the kitchen change. Michael went instantly quiet and still, until he may as well not have been there at all. Gabby too, oddly enough, her big eyes flickering from Michael to the blond man in the doorway and back again. Vera, though, just huffed, raising her chin and pretending not to see him.
Callum swallowed his pancake, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now.
Hamish didn't look angry, but he did look pretty intense. He was the kind of big, buff mountain-man that, frankly, Callum always daydreamed about hitting on in bars, with a short scruffy ginger beard and blue eyes like hot glimpses of the sky. And, of course, he'd hit Callum in the head one time and thrown him in the back of a truck, tied up like a present. Callum didn't exactly like him. But. He wasn't someone Callum could ignore.
And now he was coming over. "Hey. Kelly." He held out his hands, gesturing for the toddler who was squirming and mak
ing pleased noises. "Give him to me."
For a split second Callum thought, No, you violent fuck, but then two things happened. First, Hamish looked surprised by Callum's hesitation, and second, the toddler made a grab for Hamish' hands, babbling happily. And then, a third thing; Vera kicked his chair from behind. He figured that was a 'go ahead' so he tipped the child into Hamish's arms.
Hamish stared at him for a long moment, and then he held the child up high on his shoulder to nuzzle against him. The baby squealed, the very high, very piercing squeal of an excited happy baby, and Callum relaxed. Hamish rubbed his face all over the baby's belly, and up the front of him, ignoring all the jam and butter, and finished by scruffing his beard over the baby's head.
Wait, Callum thought he got this. Scent-marking, right? Hamish was smothering the smell of Callum. Like it was personally offensive.
Hamish is his father. That would make sense, at least. And then, another thought– Hamish doesn't like me.
Or, wait, was it the smell of Nero that bothered him? Vera did say that Callum smelled 'permanently like Nero' now. Maybe it wasn't Callum he was trying to get rid of.
Either way, he was pretty sure he was right about Hamish not liking him, from the way Hamish was looking at him.
Hamish let the toddler yank at his beard, apparently unconcerned. "So. Busy today, Kelly?"
There was jam in his beard. It was boysenberry, Callum knew, and it was hard to feel intimidated by a man who had just rubbed a baby on his face and now had purple jam in his beard as a result. Boysenberry is a stupid berry.
"There's a tree fallen across the road down in the valley," Hamish went on, as if Callum had actually answered him. "Could use a hand sawing it up, clearing the road."
There was a challenge in the way he said it, in the way he stood, the level blue stare that never wavered. And this, at least, made sense. Callum was the new guy. You always had to make the new guy sweat, that's how it went. Wolves? Actually not all that different from humans, it seemed.