When No Doesn't Cut It

by Lisa Oliver

  Scott had just two seconds to appreciate the full power of the cat, before Drake caught him on his flank and Scott fell down, narrowly avoiding Drake’s teeth. Rolling away, Scott staggered to his feet and turned to meet Drake head on. They met in the air, a clash of teeth and claws and then Scott went down again, Drake’s heavy body over his back.

  Fuck, he thought, this is not good, even as he struggled to get out from under the much larger wolf. Wiggling and crawling forward on his belly, he managed to evade Drake’s teeth that were gunning for his throat, but the enforcer got in a good bite on his front leg before Scott got free.

  Scott didn’t even register the pain in his leg. He was too focused on killing Drake. The bastard had tried to rape him after all, and he had betrayed Damien. This time as he leapt towards the larger wolf, he aimed to go over Drake’s body, snagging Drake’s throat as he went. The sheer momentum of Scott’s body, and the power of his teeth in Drake’s throat, ripped the man’s neck wide open, and as Scott fell heavily on his injured leg, he registered that his strategy had actually worked. Drake was dead.

  Then he howled in misery as his leg buckled underneath him and he would have fallen completely flat on his face if two huge hands hadn’t caught him as he fell. Hang on a minute, where did the hands come from? Scott’s muddled mind tried to process what was happening.

  Then he heard Damien’s voice yell at him, “Shift damn it,” and well, he thought, wasn’t that just a bit rude. Shivering a bit at Damien’s tone, Scott shifted to find Damien standing over him, as he lay on the ground.

  Throwing his mate a cheeky grin, because hey why couldn’t he tease the man just once before the asshole left to go back to Texas, Scott asked, “Did we get ‘em?”

  Damien looked at his mate sprawled on the ground, blood pouring from his arm wound, a cheeky as smile on his gorgeous face, and was overcome with so many emotions he could barely breathe. Anger and lust were the two big ones and they were threatening to tear him apart. He just couldn’t help himself. Reaching down, Damien picked Scott up by his armpits and held the man up so they were eye level and an arms distance apart.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” Damien roared and without warning he pulled Scott to his chest and sank his teeth into the juncture between Scott’s neck and shoulder. Scott’s cock went from zero to one hundred in two seconds flat, and Scott climaxed in spectacular fashion, spilling his seed all over Damien’s abdomen.

  Damien drank deeply from the bite in his mate’s neck, overcome with pleasure that came from the taste of Scott’s blood, the smell of Scott’s come and the feeling of rightness of what he had done. When he felt Scott sag against him he carefully removed his teeth from the muscle, licking the wound and then raising his head he let out a triumphant howl, proclaiming to all that could hear that he had found his mate. Scott didn’t hear it though, he had passed out. He’d had a really long day.

  Chapter Six

  When Scott came too, he was alone in his bed. For a moment he had to stop and think about how he got there. Then his memories came flooding back - the fight, the pain in his arm and Damien. Damien yelling at him, biting him. And giving him the most powerful orgasm of his life. Fuck. He’d been claimed. He’d been claimed by a man who had said less than twenty words to him in two days. Worse, he’d been claimed by the Alpha of the San Antonio Pack in Texas.

  But, thought Scott, maybe not. Damien and Scott weren’t having sex when Damien bit him. Maybe it didn’t take. Then maybe he could just hide in his room until the guys from Texas went home and his life could go back to normal. Scott was surprised to feel the pang of hurt in his heart at the thought of never seeing Damien again, and knew with everything that he was, that sooner or later he was going to be living in Texas, whether this mating bite took or not. But it didn’t have to be today.

  Groaning, Scott went to sit up. He felt surprisingly good, considering all of the fighting he had done on the past two days. Hearing the door to his room open, he was relieved to see the figure of his twin coming in. He wasn’t ready to face Damien yet. Not until he had worked out what he was going to do.

  Troy came over and sat down on the bed beside him, putting his arm across his twin’s shoulder.

  “How you feeling?” He asked.

  “Surprisingly good,” Scott said, looking down at his arm where he had been injured. The arm was healed, obviously Shawn’s work. Then he reached up to find the spot where Damien had bitten him. That too was healed, but Scott could feel the ridge of the scarring left by Damien’s teeth.

  “Yes, it took,” Troy said, “The scar’s as plain as day. Shawn tried to heal it, because we all figured the mating wouldn’t work without sex, but that’s another myth blown to hell.”

  “It can’t have taken,” Scott spluttered, “I can’t feel him in my head or anything.”

  Troy laughed. “That’s because Shawn has got your mate downstairs encased in an energy field. Seems Damien broke the law when he bit you without permission. Shawn and Kane are threatening him with the Shifter council and everything. Damien could lose his pack and even his life because of this.”

  “Oh that’s rubbish,” Scott said, reaching around the bed for his clothes. He found some reasonably clean jeans and slipped them on. “Diablo claimed Griff without telling him and nothing was done about that.”

  Diablo and Griff had met in Claude’s club and were originally supposed to be a casual hook up and nothing more. Griff was drunk and didn’t realize Diablo was his mate, although when they got together in bed, apparently doing the deed so to speak, Diablo did catch on and couldn’t stop himself from claiming his mate. The fact that he had to leave to complete an FBI assignment before Griff even woke up caused the two a few problems, but they had got it sorted in the end.

  “Yeah, well that’s because the two of them actually wanted to be together, and look at them now, their mating is perfect.”

  “So why is the situation any different with Damien? I’m not making a complaint against him. He bit me. We’re mates. So what?”

  “I made the complaint,” Troy admitted quietly, “and Kane backed me up.”

  Scott looked at his brother in shock. “Why would you do that?”

  “Well, you didn’t want to move to Texas did you? And Damien is hardly your ideal type. Come on Scott, don’t be mad. I’m your twin. I know what you were looking for in a mate, and face it, Damien doesn’t tick any of the boxes, other than he is really hot looking.”

  “He’ll lose his pack over this! He could be killed because of this! You can’t do that to my mate, Troy, no matter what you thought I wanted.”

  “But if you accept this mating, then you will have to go with him. You’ll lose your home, your job, your pack and the only family you have left.”

  Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Scott acknowledged that Troy was right. His whole life would be turned upside down. A life, that up until today, he had really loved.

  “Why would they put him to death?” He asked quietly.

  “Because he bit you. Claimed you. It means you won’t be able to get a hard on for anyone else again. If he’s dead the mating bond is broken, and you can go on and find love with someone else. They won’t be your mate, but you could be loved, Scott. We’ll help you get through it. It won’t be easy, even though you two haven’t really bonded yet, but we will get you through it, and then you can have your life back.”

  Scott held his brother by his arms and looked deep into eyes he knew were identical to his.

  “You know I can’t let that happen, Troy. That’s not the type of person I am. I thought I didn’t want Damien as my mate because of all of the things you have said, but the Fates have never been wrong before, and I have to trust that Damien is right for me on some level. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I can’t let my mate die, even if it means moving to fucking Texas.”

  “I can’t lose you,” Troy said, tears in his bright blue eyes.

  “You won’t,” Scott promised, kiss
ing his brother’s forehead softly. “Your own mate will be here in less than a month and then you’ll be building a life of your own. But I will always have your back Troy, no matter where I am, and if you need me for absolutely anything at all, you just get Shawn to zap me to where you are. Trust me.”

  Troy nodded and they both turned to head downstairs.

  “So do you think he’s hot at least?” Troy said quietly.

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Scott lied through his teeth, well aware that his twin would know he was lying too.

  “Yeah, right.” Troy punched him on the arm, as they went through into the kitchen, where it seems everyone was waiting for them.

  Damien was sitting at the table, encased in a blue energy field. His face was surprisingly calm, considering he was facing the loss of his pack and possible death, but the relief in his eyes when he looked up and spotted Scott was unmistakable.

  Scott looked at Shawn, who was sitting across the table from Damien, with Kane at his side. Both men looked really angry.

  “What’s going on?” Scott asked, even though he already knew.

  It was Kane who answered, “Damien’s claim on you was forced in that you didn’t have any say in it. That’s against pack law. Troy has laid a complaint, and as your Alpha I have backed that complaint, on the basis that you don’t know this man, he wasn’t having sex with you when he claimed you, which would have implied consent, and your own life will be turned upside down as a result of this claiming. We figured that would be what you wanted.”

  Taking a deep breath Scott looked straight at Damien. “There is only one thing I want if I agree to go through with this mating. I want the right to claim you in return - properly,” he added.

  /~/~/~/~/

  Damien’s face shut down and his eyes were bleak. Scott was only a beta wolf. The thought of an Alpha wolf of Damien’s power and stature submitting to Scott, even if it was in the bedroom was almost unheard of. Damien had never been fucked by anyone, for reasons of his own, and he wasn’t sure he could ever give up his anal virginity, even to his mate.

  “What if I can’t agree to that? Will I lose my pack, my life?” Damien’s voice was deadly calm and it ran over Scott like a caress, even if the words themselves jarred his soul.

  “No, I would never do that to you,” Scott said, equally calm. “Kane and Troy thought they were acting in my best interests and I really appreciate that. But I won’t have you lose everything including your life because of one moment of angst. Troy is withdrawing the complaint, so there is no case to answer.”

  Surprise etched on his face, Damien asked, “So what will happen if I don’t agree to your terms?”

  “You will go back to Texas and resume your life, and I will continue to live here and get on with mine. Neither one of us will have sex again, but I am sure that will be a small price for you to pay for your pride.”

  /~/~/~/~/

  If Scott sounded angry, it was because he was. But he wouldn’t yield on this point. Damien wasn’t anything like the mate he had dreamed off, and although the sexual tension in the room was growing, simply by virtue of the two of them being in the same room, it wasn’t enough for Scott. He had to be an equal to Damien in at least one respect, and he wasn’t backing down.

  Damien was silent for the longest time and then he raised his head and shook it.

  “I’m sorry Scott, I don’t think that I can give you what you want,” the sorrow in his voice evident.

  “Fine,” said Scott, even though in that moment his heart broke in two. “Have a safe trip back to Texas.”

  Ignoring the stunned looks of all of the men in the room, Scott managed to leave the room with his back straight and his head held high. It was only when he was out of sight of the others that he crumpled, and seconds later he was in Troy’s arms, shaking and trembling in grief. It was Troy who got him to his room and held him through the long afternoon and into the night, long after Damien and the rest of the Texas men had left.

  Chapter Seven

  Damien was a wreck. He knew it, and people around him were starting to notice as well. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep, and he had the most interminable case of blue balls he had ever had in his life. But it was the pain in his heart that was the hardest to handle. He just ached inside, all the time. It had only been a week since he had gotten back to Texas, but it felt like forever.

  Whenever he closed his eyes he could see Scott as he lay there naked on the ground and cheeky as anything on the day Damien had claimed him. Other times, he saw nothing but the rigid structure of the man’s back, as he had walked away from him that last time.

  He remembered how Scott had offered him comfort when he had wanted it, strength when it was needed. The man obviously had a sense of humor, and all in all, he would be the perfect mate for Damien. But Damien couldn’t give the man the one thing he wanted, and Scott had had the strength to walk away.

  Damien had delayed his departure from the Cloverleah pack house for as long as possible the day Scott sent him away. As soon as Shawn had released him from the energy field he had been caught in, his brain had been assailed with intense sorrow and grief from his mate. Every part of him wanted to dash up the stairs, pull Scott from his room and take him with him, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Shawn had threatened him with permanent paralysis if he made one step towards his mate without accepting Scott’s one little condition.

  That grief was so tangible, so permeating, that when it suddenly stopped, while Damien and the others were driving back to Texas, Damien was worried enough to put in a call to Shawn to ask if Scott was all right. Shawn told him shortly that it was none of his business anymore, but that he had taught Scott how to shield his mind. Apparently his mate didn’t want to cause him any distress, so had blocked him.

  Now all Damien could feel was emptiness. A deep, gut wrenchingly hollow emptiness. He knew the Alpha challenge day was coming up the following week and for the first time ever it looked like he would lose. He just couldn’t summon any energy to do anything. Without his mate he just didn’t care.

  “You look like shit,” Malacai said, stepping into Damien’s private office above the club.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Damien replied, shuffling papers on his desk trying to look busy and hoping that Malacai would just leave again. Malacai had been Damien’s second in command for more than fifty years and knew just about everything there was to know about Damien. But he didn’t know about Scott, because no matter how much Damien wanted to share what happened to him with someone, he just couldn’t, and he had sworn Lucius and Vincent to secrecy before the men had gotten back to Texas.

  “Look Damien,” Malacai said bluntly, “You have an Alpha challenge day at the end of next week and quite frankly you are going to lose if you can’t get your shit together. Now tell me what is going on so we can fix this, or I am going to have to resign myself to a new Alpha, and quite honestly, I am getting too old to train another one.”

  Leaning back in his chair Damien looked at Malacai. Like most of the men in Damien’s inner circle Malacai was gay and surprisingly fine looking given how big he was. Pushing 100 years of age himself, Malacai held the wisdom that comes from age, and Damien had often turned to him for advice that no-one else had been able to give him. The problem was that Damien knew, as soon as he told Malacai what the problem was, Malacai would give him the advice that anyone else would give him - go and make things right with his mate. It’s what he kept telling himself for goodness sake.

  “I found and claimed my mate,” he blurted out.

  Malacai’s mouth dropped open in shock for a moment, and then quickly closing his mouth again, he took a long look around Damien’s office.

  “Well the chap’s obviously not here, so how did you fuck it up?” He drawled.

  Damien explained what had happened from the moment he arrived at the Cloverleah pack until the minute he left. He left nothing out, including his despair at being without Scott now he was home, and
how he couldn’t think of anything else.

  Malacai sat silently for a moment and then said, “You know you have got to go back and get him, don’t you.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? He refuses to come here unless I allow him to claim me?”

  “And where’s the shame in that?” Malacai shot back. “So what, he’s a smaller wolf and beta status? You told me yourself that he took out Levi and Drake and helped you beat a bear shifter. And the other side of the coin is that you are Damien, fucking Almighty Damien. If you want to let your mate claim you then that’s your business.”

  “It’s not the status side of things and you know it,” Damien snapped. “I just can’t let anyone do….that…to me. You know what I went through the first time I tried that. I won’t go through it again.”

  “For fucks sake Damien, listen to you. That was more than 130 years ago. You were a pup. You’re 160 years old and you have been alone all that time. This Scott wants to be your equal in just one way. He is prepared to give up everything he has and asks for one thing in return. Do you want to be alone for the rest of your hopefully long life?”

  “Of course I don’t,” Damien muttered.

  “And look at the state of you. You haven’t been able to lead your pack. There are a lot of rumors going around that you are sick, and this is making you look weak in the eyes of the pack. The subs in the club all think you are impotent, because you haven’t been near any of them since you got back, and you can just imagine what that is doing to your reputation. You’re setting yourself up to be ousted and probably killed at the next Alpha challenge day. All because you can’t get past your hang ups about being topped.”

  “But what if he doesn’t know what he’s doing? What if…”

  “Have you even talked to him about this?”

  “I explained to you everything that happened while I was away,” Damien snarled. “I don’t know this guy. I haven’t slept with him. We haven’t shared sexual history or anything, and you know it, so what are you getting at?”