“This place is not your home,” said the wolf shifter, and the man on the ground knew this was true. This place had not been his home for a very long time, as much as he'd tried to pretend it some day could be again.
“What if I leave?” he said finally, gambling the only thing he had left. “What if I depart this forest forever, never to return? Would you let me leave this place, with my tail between my legs? Would that final act of degradation be enough for you to spare me?”
There was a deafening silence. He thought the man might burst out laughing at him at any moment. The wolves, for that matter, were sinking toward the ground, looking prepared to strike at any moment, the instant their leader gave the word.
The man was surprised as they were at the next words that passed forth from the lips of the head wolf shifter.
“Yes. I believe I would.”
His head jerked up, and several of the wolves stared at their leader with perplexed looks across their muzzles.
“You—you would?” asked the man, incredulous.
The head wolf shifter nodded. “Leave this forest. Leave, and never again even think about setting foot in it. Do that, and your life shall be spared. I see no point in relentless cruelty when the situation does not call for it. But be warned. Return to this place again after you've left, and there will be no compromise. You shall be killed, on the spot, by the first of our kind who happens to stumble onto you.”
His voice caught in his throat. He looked down at the ground, considering the prospect of leaving this place forever. The impossible conditions he was about to agree to. Yet he knew that he had no other choice but to capitulate.
He nodded his head.
“Okay. Okay,” he said. It almost occurred to him to say thank you, but he stopped himself. He wasn't about to show gratitude to these bastards.
The head wolf shifter stared at him for a long moment, as though to assess his sincerity. Then he gave a single, low nod of his head, as though judging his decision a sincere one.
“Very well. You have until sunrise to take your leave of this place, and to never return for the remainder of your days. We will leave you alone until you go. Collect whatever possessions you may have and anything else of that nature you feel needs to be taken care of. But be aware, my men will be keeping an eye on you until you're gone. Don't think there's a place in these woods where you can hide from us, where we won't be able to discover you. We will find you, just as we've done tonight. And I reiterate, there will be no second chances.”
The man stared up at the head wolf shifter and gave him a short, unfriendly nod.
“Don't worry,” he said. “For the very first time in my life, I'm done hiding.”
_____
Hours later, as the sun cast its saturated orange glow over the face of the hillside and the trees appeared to burn with autumn foliage despite it being the middle of springtime, a single male figure trudged his way down along the slope, out onto the road that ran alongside the mountains. An abandoned road, cracked and in a state of general disrepair, the white and yellow faded against the gray asphalt.
The man set foot onto the cool pavement, standing there for a moment, completely naked in the midst of the civilized world. He took a very deep breath, and even this first inhalation of air seemed different to him. Like he could tell instantly that the world he'd entered into had changed from the one he’d left behind.
He could feel the eyes of the wolf shifters locked on his back. Unseen, hidden from view, but there all the same. As present and as plentiful as the strange new air he now breathed.
He tried to ignore them, though. After all, this wasn't their story anymore.
As much as he hated them, he knew that, in some ways, they were doing him a favor. They were giving him the impetus he'd been searching for to finally get up and leave this place, pushing through his fears. There was nothing for him here anymore. There hadn't been for a very long time. He just hadn't had it in him to leave of his own volition.
Now, though, as he stood on the edge of the road, he ran his fingers slowly through his long brown locks, thinking about the future. He could already imagine shearing every hair from his head, shedding his wildness, leaving this whole unhappy life behind him.
It was time, he knew. Whether he was ready for it or not, he knew it was time.
He took another last deep breath of clean forest air. Then he placed a single foot forward onto the road, unsure of where it might lead him, but determined to follow it until he got to wherever he needed to be.
“Look out world,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes narrowed on the horizon. “Here I come.”
1
Alexander sat at the hotel bar, slumped over in his seat, a single lap of alcohol remaining in his glass. He stared into the tumbler, lightly flicking his wrist so the ice circled around at the bottom, clinking against the sides.
He was thinking. Thinking about the past. The present. And the future.
His future, which didn't seem like much of a future at all at the present moment.
And that was because it wasn't really his future at all, he knew. Everything he did, every decision he made, was made for the survival of the group. The betterment of his kind, and the assurance that they lingered on well into the future. Well beyond the point that anyone, anywhere on the earth, wanted them around any longer. They didn't seem to really be all that welcome now, for that matter. Yet, here they still were.
It made his life, and the circumstances by which he lived it, seem all the more like a prison for him. None of the work he did really mattered, but he was still obligated to perform it faithfully, because—because why?
Because of the pressure from those around him, really. And that was pretty much it.
What would realistically happen to him if he decided to give it all up? Abandon the path in life that had been set out for him by those who knew better? What if he were to throw off the yoke he'd been fitted with at the moment of his birth? Broke free of the prison bars that surrounded him, as he'd longed to do so very many times over the course of his life?
Well, quite frankly, nothing would happen.
They wouldn't send someone to come out looking for him. He wouldn't end up court martialed for desertion. Or brought up onto the gallows and hanged by his neck in the public square, the life strangled out of him, as an example to a crowd of jeering onlookers.
His people had no secret police force, or anything like that, that could stop him from leaving. In fact, if he wanted to—or rather, if he was brave enough—he could walk out the door right now, on the spot. He could hop into the truck, disconnect the trailer, and drive off into the night, into pure oblivion, abandoning his responsibilities, his mission, his people.
His entire way of life.
He could leave it all behind, in the blink of an eye. And not a soul, anywhere in the world, would lift a finger to try and apprehend him. No one would intercede and try to prevent him from doing what some small part of him had longed to do ever since he was just a boy. He could fly off like a bird, or simply like the animal he was.
And that was precisely what terrified him about doing so.
Once he was gone, he wouldn't have that protection. Once he made that decision, there would be no turning back from it. All it would take was that single disconnect. That one lone transgression, severing a lifetime of mutual obligation, and he would be free. But he would also be completely alone. Hopelessly, and utterly.
The truth was, as smothered as he felt by the sleuth, it was the only life he'd ever known, the only family he'd ever known. He imagined himself floundering like a fish out of water without the group's guiding hand to keep him safe. He was technically free, but a prisoner of his ignorance about the world around him. The human world in particular, which he'd only ever experienced on its fringes, as he did here tonight.
He was present, but he didn’t genuinely belong here.. Like somehow, even though no one here could possibly know his secret, they were all still
silently judging him. Intuiting that there was something different about him, but unable to lay their finger on just what, exactly, that might happen to be.
He gently placed the remnants of his drink down on the bar with another satisfying clink, the sound of ice against glass against wood. Then he raised his eyes up, wanting to get a decent look at the people around him.
A sudden flash of movement, and the bartender's back was away from him. He seemed to be focusing a little bit too hard on wringing a dish towel through an empty glass, like there was some sort of stain in the glass that he couldn't possibly get rid of.
Alexander frowned. Obviously, the bartender had been watching him without his realizing it.
Disregarding it, he casually turned around on his stool, glancing back over his shoulder toward the bar at large. It wasn't especially busy this evening, but there were still enough people in the place to make him feel isolated and alone.
Decent looking men in suits, presumably out on business, trying to pick up women in tight black dresses and artificial white smiles. An older couple seated together, thin and bespectacled, and a little bit obnoxious to look at—they struck him as the self-proclaimed “connoisseurs of the world” type of couple, looking down their noses at the menus held out in front of them. He imagined they were the type of people who traveled less for their love of it and more simply to be able to brag to their friends about it later on. He saw quite a few of these types on the road. Against the far wall, a group of young people, dressed stylishly, with long hair and fashionable hats and hipster beards, flirting and laughing and acting like they didn't care about a thing in the world.
Alexander tried to smile over at them, but then turned away, and found himself begrudging them their happiness. He knew, deep down, it was only because he wanted it for himself.
That should be me, he thought. A young gay man in his early twenties, attractive, kind, virile, and the very sort of man who, in another life, would have fit right in with a crowd such as theirs.
But he didn't really fit in with them, he knew. Anytime he caught their eyes, or the eyes of anyone else in the bar, their expressions quickly changed, like they were trying to evaluate him. But they failed to do so, and then turned away, mildly disgusted looks on their faces, like they couldn't quite figure out what his deal was, and therefore wanted nothing to do with him.
He snarled contemptuously at them, but knew they weren't really to blame. It wasn't their fault he was an outsider. It was, rather, entirely the fault of those who had made him this way.
He turned back to his drink, giving up his aimless pursuit of a connection. He picked up his glass again, and brought it slowly to his mouth. As the remnants of amber liquid sloshed between his lips, burning his throat as it went down, he realized he felt a peculiar intimacy with the drink in his hand. In that moment, it was like the one thing that really belonged to him. The one place where he really belonged. Mingling with the burning sensation as it traveled down into his chest, becoming one with it. He wondered whether this kind of desperation, this need to associate with something, was what drove men to alcoholism?
He finished off the glass, then tilted it back just far enough to detach a single ice cube from the hive at the bottom. He slid it around on his tongue and pushed it from side to side in his mouth, the cold feeling almost sensual against his burning mouth. He closed his eyes, breathed, then sank his teeth through the melting cube as though biting into some manner of prey.
He swallowed the crushed fragments, placed his glass down on the bar, and tapped his fingers twice against its wood surface.
“Bartender,” he called, trying to sound friendly. “Could I please get another old fashioned over here? On the rocks?”
“You got it,” the man barked, in a tone far less friendly than Alexander’s own. He frowned and sighed as the bartender turned away. Clearly, his attempts at friendliness were not going to be reciprocated.
He passively watched the magic alchemy of drink mixing as it ensued behind the bar. The pouring and stirring and the hiss of the cool liquid as it dissolved the ice. I really think I could do it, he thought as the bartender went about his business. I really think I could become an alcoholic...
“Enjoy,” the man said, placing it down on the bar. Alexander tipped his glass to him, tilted it back, and breathed deep. Sweetness burned in his nostrils, and he considered as he drank just how shit-faced he could safely get tonight if he hoped to stay on track with his schedule tomorrow. He didn't think he was there yet, but he knew with the mood he was in he might go from “not there” to “there” before he even had the chance to realize it.
A powerful scent made its way into his nostrils, even above the strong, sweet smell of the old-fashioned. He hadn't noticed it before, but its intensity caused him to furrow his brow in consideration.
A smell that was familiar. Something he knew. But yet, at the same time, which seemed so utterly different. So completely detached from any he'd ever known. Like a variation on a theme.
Perplexed, he set his glass down, and craned his neck around again, trying to pinpoint the source. He looked at the businessmen and the table of young people, wondering if one of them might be harboring some unexpected secret.
He didn't think so, though...It was coming from somewhere else.
It continued to bother him until, at last, his eyes fell upon a darkened section of the dimly lit bar. A man was sitting in a corner booth, staring over at him, seemingly every bit as perplexed as Alexander was at that moment. Clearly, he realized, the stranger could smell it on Alexander as well.
The man didn't look away from him like all the other patrons had done. He seemed curious at first, then markedly invested. He straightened up a little bit in his seat, and Alexander thought he saw the corners of his mouth raise up into a devilish little sneer.
Alexander gasped, surprised by this.
An encounter like the one suddenly transpiring was the last thing he'd imagined when stopping here for the night. He hadn't figured on seeing any of his kind again until he made it back home, and he certainly hadn't anticipated the possibility of flirting with one. After all, it wasn't as though he was really at liberty to do so.
Yet, as unexpected and as wrong as it felt, his heart was racing, his ears were burning, a vicious solidity pressing up against the crotch of his jeans. He shifted in his seat and tried to focus on his drink as he'd been doing before. His thoughts, however, were focused on the man across the bar, torn between hoping he would go the hell away, and longing for him to come over here without a word, and kiss him deeply on the mouth.
Then, without any further warning, there he was. Materializing beside him, respectfully leaving a single unoccupied seat between them, but his intentions clear.
They locked eyes, and Alexander's nostrils flared as he got a better look at him.
He was an unspeakably attractive man—a ten or beyond in a bar full of sixes and sevens. An unmistakable alpha male, he wore a tight black t-shirt over a broad frame and swollen, rippling muscles. His face was chiseled and angular, though with soft gray eyes, adding a touch of gentle humanity to such an imposing figure. His head appeared recently shaved, with only fuzzy dark brown seedlings of hair pressing up through his scalp. He had a sexy film of stubble across his square jaw, and Alexander noticed the tops of his arms, visible beneath the t-shirt, were pocked here and there with scars.
His throat tightened, and he had to remind himself to breathe.
“I don't mean to bother you,” said the man, smiling warmly at him, “but I think we're alike, aren't we?”
Alexander hesitated. His people always kept their identities secret from the human world, and he worried there was still a chance he could somehow be reading this man incorrectly.
“What?” he asked, blurting out the first other thing that came into his head. “You mean gay?”
The stranger laughed and shook his head.
“Well, that,” he said. “But I meant in a slightly less common way. I
could smell it on you, from across the bar.”
Alexander felt a spasm of movement between his legs at the idea of this man picking up his scent. He suddenly felt entirely out of his depth, sitting side by side with this solid statue of a man. Being an omega male, his own body was trim, smaller in build. He had muscles to spare, but his physique was slender and sinewy, almost incomparable to the tank of a frame seated across from him. He knew he was probably judging himself too harshly—a lot of alpha males were attracted to men like him after all, and he knew from experience that alpha-omega hookups were far from an uncommon thing.
In any case, the stranger didn't seem to dislike the differences between them one bit as he stared into Alexander's green eyes, surveying every trembling inch of him as though sizing him up for things to come.
“I guess I picked up on that too,” he said, finally managing a smile at the man.
The stranger laughed.
“Name's Chris,” he said, extending a hand. Alexander hurried to grasp it and loved the firmness of his grip around him.
“Alexander,” he said with a nod.
“Nice running into you, Alexander,” said Chris, still locking him in his gaze. He didn't let go of his hand for a very long time. “It's been a while since I met anyone who was—like myself...” He laughed, and Alexander found himself doing the same.
Their hands separated finally, and the skin of Alexander's palm tingled. He grinned at the man, in spite of himself, but his expression fell once the moment passed.
“This was definitely about the last place I expected to run into one of my own kind,” said Alexander, at last relaxing just a little bit.
“Ditto,” said Chris. “So, are you alone?”
The question made him nervous, and he quickly tensed up again.
“What? You mean alone here? Or like do I belong to a sleuth?”
Chris laughed. “Well, either I guess, now that you mention it.”
Alpha Liberation: A Bear Shifter Mpreg Romance (Feral Passions Book 1) Page 2