by L. C. Davis
“No,” Nathan said quickly, afraid of the murder in the beta’s tone. Alpha or not, he knew if Tanner thought there was even a chance Vance had forced him into anything, it would lead to a confrontation. As far as Nathan knew, Vance was still sleeping downstairs. He certainly hadn’t called like he’d promised.
Tanner squinted and seemed to be trying to decide whether or not he believed Nathan. “What happened after I left you two? You were making googly eyes at each other.”
“We went somewhere to talk,” Nathan admitted.
“Talk?” Tanner cocked an eyebrow. “You’re curled up in my bed with bloodshot eyes because you ‘talked?’”
Nathan sighed, sitting up with his back propped against the wall. “We did more than talk, okay?”
Tanner’s eyes widened. “You made out?”
The scandalous tone in his voice made Nathan cringe. “That’s how it started.”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t, Tanner.”
“Please don’t tell me you had sex with him.” The beta’s voice came out in a rushed whisper with barely a pause between words.
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
Tanner searched Nathan’s face like he was looking for any sign of deception. “Oh, shit,” he groaned. “You did.”
“So what?”
“So what?” Tanner cried. “You’ve never even kissed a guy! You had your first kiss and your first mating in one night? Are you even on suppressants?”
“N-no…”
“Please tell me he at least wore a condom.”
“Of course he did,” Nathan said, burying his face in his knees. He had been so caught up in the need that felt like fire under his skin within that moment that he probably wouldn’t have thought to insist on a condom if it hadn’t been Vance’s idea, but there was no need for Tanner to know that. Dread churned in the pit of his stomach as his memories of the night before sharpened. “I… I don’t think it broke.”
“Broke?” Tanner echoed. “Why would it break?”
“When his knot came out…”
The beta’s tanned skin went sheet white. “He knotted you?”
“I went into heat,” Nathan said shakily. “It all happened so fast, I -- please don’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t tell anyone? Nate, if an Alpha knotted you, you’ve got bigger problems than me flapping my lips,” he said, reaching to pull back the collar of his shirt from Nathan’s neck. “He didn’t mark you, did he?”
“No.” Nathan winced. “His teeth scraped me like he was going to bite, but I stopped him. I think that might have been what triggered my heat.”
“You’ve never gone into heat before, right?”
Nathan shook his head.
“Fuck. Well...maybe that’s a good thing.”
“How?”
“I mean, it’s way less likely that you’d get pregnant during your first heat. I think. I don’t know, you’re the one with an A in biology, you tell me.”
Nathan whimpered. “That’s a myth.”
“Fuck.” Tanner hesitated. “Nate, how drunk were you last night?”
“Not very. He was drunk, too, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Tanner frowned. “He’s an Alpha.”
“So?”
“So, it’s not the same thing. Shit, I never should have let you go off with him.”
“You’re not my dad, Tanner,” Nathan said in a clipped tone. “You didn’t ‘let’ me do anything.”
“Tell that to your dad.”
Nathan sighed. “I can’t go back home. Not until I figure out…”
“Figure out what?”
“I don’t know,” Nathan admitted. His voice sounded small. Weak. Pathetic. Tears stung his eyes again. “I just slept with a guy and I don’t even know his last name. I’m not getting into Chase Wesson and my head feels like someone put it into a vice grip. Take your pick.”
Tanner’s face contorted into a mask of pity and he pulled his arms around Nathan, squeezing tight. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure out what to figure out together.”
“I fucked up, Tanner,” Nathan said through gritted teeth. “I still don’t know what was me and what was heat and what was me just being pissed at everything. I don’t know him, I don’t even think I like him, but I… Oh, God, I fucked up.”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Tanner soothed, wrapping Nathan up in the blankets until he felt like a sad burrito. “I gotcha. We’ll skip class and watch movies in bed all day just like old times, okay?”
Nathan nodded. Tanner’s presence was always soothing, but somewhere deep down, Nathan knew this wasn’t the kind of problem junk food and shitty daytime TV were going to fix. Especially since he didn’t even know what the scope of the problem was yet.
Chapter Seven
KENT
“Hey.”
In that single word there existed multitudes. To anyone else, it might have been a greeting, but Kent knew his older brother better than that. Adam had never been any better at apologizing than Kent was, and wrapped up in that one word was, “I’m sorry,” and “I know I’m right, but I shouldn’t have ambushed you about your personal life the moment you got home,” and “I’m just jealous because you’ve always had better hair.”
To be fair, that last one was probably Kent’s imagination taking some creative liberties, but the apology was definitely in there, just as forgiveness was wrapped up in the curt nod he gave in his brother’s direction. “Hey.”
Adrian stood in the foyer, looking between their mate and brother-in-law with a worried gaze. “Adam,” they whispered urgently. “Isn’t there something else you’d like to say to Kent?”
The Alpha sighed. “I’m sorry about what happened at dinner.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Kent. “Whatever.”
“That’s it?” Adrian cried, planting their hands on their hips. “That’s all either of you have to say?”
“Pretty much,” said Adam.
“Yep,” said Kent.
The omega threw their hands up and stalked down the hall, muttering something about Alphas in an exasperated tone.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Pregnancy,” Adam said, as if that explained everything. “You come all this way just to save me a trip?”
“Hardly,” Kent scoffed. “Dad’s playing matchmaker, and I promised I’d come up to hear about his progress.”
“Matchmaker?” Adam cocked an eyebrow. “Since when?”
“Since our dear father convinced me that I was being as stubborn about this whole mate thing as you were being dickish,” Kent shot back, moving past Adam to walk into the kitchen. He grabbed an iced tea from the refrigerator, parched since he’d spent most of the morning working on his porch.
“Yeah, well,” Adam mumbled. “If you’re not serious, you probably shouldn’t set our parents down that path or you’ll have a mate within the month.”
Kent shrugged. “I told them I’m just looking. If I find the right omega, I don’t have any issue making a commitment.”
“You’ve always been like that,” Adam said with a nostalgic chuckle.
“Like what?”
“You always knew what you wanted. Even when we were kids. The rest of us would move from one thing to the next, but you got something in your head and it never left until you got it. Remember that puppy?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kent said, grinning. “Never got it.”
“No, but you didn’t stop whining about it until you went off to Danvers.”
“So I’m consistent.”
“There are worse qualities to have in a mate,” said Adam. “Worse qualities to have in a second-in-command.”
Kent groaned. “Not this again.”
“I’m just saying, I still haven’t found anyone else I trust to help me run this pack as well as I trust you.”
“We fight constantly, Adam. We can hardly be in the same room together for more than five minutes without tearing each other’s throats o
ut, case in point.”
“That’s exactly my point. You keep me in line. Everyone else around here kisses my ass, but you don’t.”
“You’re damn right I don’t. I know how long you slept with a nightlight, you’re not fooling me with the hardass routine.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe in surrounding myself with sycophants. Strength comes from challenge, and a healthy pack is one where ideas can be shared freely. You’d still be able to keep your job in the military, but you’ll have time now that the war’s over.”
“I don’t wanna be part of any of this breeding program shit.”
“Then help me make sure it doesn’t come to that,” Adam said with a shrug.
Kent frowned. He hated it when Adam had a point. “If I promised I’d think about it, would you lay off?”
“Completely.”
“Fine. I’ll think about it.”
“Great,” Adam said, patting him on the shoulder. “Now, let’s go look at that binder.”
“Binder?” Kent asked as Adam led him down the hall. “What binder?”
“You asked Cameron Colt to find you a mate,” the Alpha said in a dry tone. “Did you really think he’d do it with anything less than alphabetized labels and laminated stat sheets?”
Kent groaned. “I screwed myself over with this one, didn’t I?”
“Oh, yeah,” Adam said with a laugh. “Welcome home, little brother.”
Chapter Eight
NATHAN
Days turned into weeks and Nathan found his classes an even more welcome distraction than usual. Vance hadn’t bothered to call or even text. In fact, Nathan only knew he was gone because Duke had mentioned that the unit had left for home that Monday, as promised. Nathan still wasn’t sure how he felt about Vance’s radio silence any more than he was sure how he felt about their encounter.
There were packs in the Council where mating an omega in heat without a pre-existing bond was enough to get an Alpha locked up, which meant Nathan didn’t feel like he could confide in Connor without opening a can of worms he wasn’t prepared to deal with. In turn, that meant he’d had to keep lying to his parents. The little white lies were starting to pile up behind the questions.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“You don’t seem like yourself, did something happen?”
For the most part, Duke and Connor seemed to believe that Nathan’s rejection from Chase Wesson was the reason for his strange behavior. Even Nathan wasn’t sure anymore. Vance and that letter had converged and morphed into something he both wished to forget and couldn’t stop obsessing over. The one fed into the other and it was hard for Nathan to distinguish either one as the cause of his pain at any given moment. He felt ill when his thoughts lingered on either of them for too long.
The Spring semester of Nathan’s junior year in college ended with a fizzle and soon, the only trace of Vance’s presence was the quiet unease Nathan felt whenever he made the mistake of letting his thoughts drift to the Alpha. Unfortunately for the omega, the specter of Chase Wesson was harder to escape. As summer came, all the young wolves were eagerly discussing their plans for the near and distant futures, which meant fielding questions from well-meaning relatives and friends of Nathan’s parents.
Yes, school was going well. No, he hadn’t gotten into “that program he’d been talking about since he was knee-high to a coyote.” No, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do after senior year. No, there were no Alphas “on the horizon,” either. Uncomfortable laugh.
It was a script Nathan knew well and he was tired of reading it, but he reminded himself that it could be much worse. As his parents constantly reminded him, he was still young and he still had plenty of time to figure out what he wanted to do. The only problem was, Nathan already knew what he wanted to do. He’d known since he was five, and the plan had never wavered. It wasn’t the plan that had failed, it was him.
As the first weeks of summer evaporated in the record heats that plagued the western mountain range, Nathan found distraction in Tanner, as usual. The beta had always made an effort to ensure that Nathan felt included, but he was borderline obsessive about it now. Nathan knew Tanner felt responsible for what had happened at the party even without knowing the details, which made it impossible for Nathan to confide about his strange and conflicted feelings the way he wanted to in the only person he had always been able to confide in about anything.
When Tanner’s younger sister, Darcy, needed a tutor to help her get through her summer math classes, Nathan had eagerly volunteered. It was an excuse to get out of the house and out from under the worried gaze of Duke, who was being even more attentive and overprotective than usual since his mate was overseas on business. Nathan didn’t particularly want to be alone, but he didn’t trust himself to keep up the charade around his parents and the Amaris were far less demanding than socializing with his peers from school. Nathan’s first college party had turned him off parties--and drinking--for good. The thought of that night still churned his stomach, and even though he had reached some semblance of detached acceptance about it, that physical reaction only seemed to intensify the more time that passed.
Nathan was sitting at the kitchen table in the Amari household, explaining the limit calculations that had given Darcy trouble on her last test when Hassan came into the kitchen. “Studying hard?” the Alpha asked, rummaging through the refrigerator.
“Yep!” Darcy chimed.
“When she isn’t checking her texts, anyway,” Nathan said dryly. Explaining calculus was easy enough, but keeping the girl’s attention on her books when she would clearly rather be out with her friends enjoying the weather was the challenging part.
“Narc,” Darcy mumbled, shooting Nathan a dirty look.
Hassan sighed and crossed the room to pluck the smartphone out of his daughter’s hand. “Nathan is taking his time to help you through your classes, Darry. The least you can do is honor his time by paying attention.”
“Dad, Kyle is gonna think I’m ignoring him if I don’t text back!”
Hassan slipped the phone into his pocket, folding his arms. “Kyle isn’t pulling a B-minus in his summer classes.”
“Kyle isn’t taking calculus,” she grumbled.
“Well, Kyle doesn’t want to be a veterinarian, does he?” the Alpha shot back with a twinkle in his eyes. “You can have the phone back when you’re done studying for the day.”
Darcy sighed as if she’d just been sentenced to death, but she became a model student for the next half hour, flying through problems that had previously mystified her.
“That should be good, as long as you keep practicing those formulas before the next test,” Nathan said, closing the textbook.
“Yes!” she cried, bolting up from her chair to snatch her phone back from Hassan, who was making dinner in the kitchen. “Bye, dad!”
“Where are you off to? We’re about to eat.”
“I’m going to the diner with Kyle and Fran! Don’t wait up! Thanks, Nathan!”
The door slammed shut before Nathan had even finished putting his old textbook back into his bag. Hassan sighed. “I swear, that girl is worse than Tanner with the phone.”
“That’s the price of being well-adjusted, I guess,” Nathan teased, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.
“Thanks for helping her out. Did Toval already pay you for this week?”
“He did, but I wish you’d let me do it for free. I don’t feel right charging family.”
“Nonsense. If you do something well, you should be compensated for your time,” said Hassan, eyeing the pan on the stove that seemed about ready to boil over. Toval was the gourmet in the family, but while Hassan’s cooking wasn’t terrible, the smell of that particular dish was making Nathan feel like he’d just spent the last few days on a sailboat in choppy waters. “Which is why I’m not a chef.”
“Uncle Toval’s not home, I take it?” Nathan laughed.
“He’s working late, so I wanted to
surprise him with dinner, but… maybe we’ll order out,” Hassan said, grimacing as he took the pan off the stove. Whatever brothy substance he’d been trying to make sloshed over and fizzled on the burner, and the plume of scent sent Nathan’s nausea over the edge.
The omega gagged, rushing to the half-bath down the hall. He barely made it to the sink in time before retching and decided it was a good thing that he’d skipped lunch.
“Nathan?” Hassan called worriedly, leaning into the hall. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Uncle Hassan, I…” The omega trailed off, gripping the edge of the sink as he felt another wave of nausea coming on. “I think I just have a stomach bug or something.”
“I’ll make you some ginger tea,” Hassan offered. Nathan was too sick to plead for the Alpha not to inflict any more recipes on him.
The front door closed and Nathan recognized Tanner’s stomp even before he appeared in the hall. “Hey, Nate! I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“I just finished up with Darcy’s math lesson,” he said, forcing a smile.
Tanner frowned. “Dude, you don’t look so good. Are you sick again?”
“Again?” Hassan asked, looking at Nathan with a worried gaze as he held a cup of tea in his hands. At least the tea didn’t have a scent. “You were sick earlier?”
“I’m fine, it’s just the smell of the food. No offense, Uncle Hassan.”
Tanner grimaced. “I mean, dad’s cooking makes everyone wanna puke, but you’ve been sick for a while, Nate. You ran out of class on the last day.”
“It’s just a bug,” said Nathan.
“That’s a long time to be sick,” Hassan said, offering Nathan the cup of tea. “Here, this always helped Mel when…”
The Alpha trailed off and at first, Nathan thought it was merely a result of the same sadness that usually came over him whenever he spoke of his late omega, but the look in Hassan’s eyes was sharp and appraising.
“When what?” Nathan asked, curious.
“When he was pregnant,” Hassan said softly.