by Lisa Oliver
“Are you two finally going on your trip?” Scott asked Griff. Griff and Diablo were supposed to be going on a road trip, culminating in a wedding in New York, between Diablo and Griff’s alter ego, Angel Bandures. Although the wedding was more to keep Diablo and Griff’s cover with the FBI, Griff had really wanted to be connected to Diablo in every way possible, and the cat shifter seemed to agree.
“Yes, finally,” Griff said. “A quick visit to Diablo’s mother; and then it is a short burst through to New York. We are hoping to get married this Sunday, if all goes to plan. You will be there, I hope.”
“I’ve got Alpha challenges and a pack meeting on Friday, but that is the only thing I can’t get out of, especially if the boys are going to be sorted by then,” Damien said, looking at Scott. He didn’t need their mind link to know that Scott wanted to be there for Griff and Diablo. “I should imagine we can get flights on the Saturday, if that suits you?”
“You know I’d love to go,” Scott said, “but I understand your pack comes first.”
“Our pack,” Damien said firmly. “And this is important to you. The Cloverleah pack is your family, I understand that. So we can fly to New York on Saturday. If we leave early Saturday morning we can stay through until Tuesday or Wednesday and have a bit of a break.”
“You’ll be staying as our guests,” Griff said just as firmly. “We are all staying at the St. Regis Hotel and I will see to it you two have a suite. We are all entitled to a bit of a holiday after everything that has happened lately.”
“Sounds like a plan, Griff. Thank you,” Damien said, his head already mulling through the things he will need to get sorted before they left. He hadn’t had a holiday of any sort for so long and suddenly it seemed like a really good idea to have one with Scott. Preferably some time spent without dealing with pack dramas, problems at the club, and all of the other responsibilities Damien had.
“So are you two planning to get married or go through an Alpha Mating Ritual?” Kane asked Damien.
To be honest, Damien hadn’t even thought about anything like that. He lived in Texas, and it wasn’t legal for him and Scott to marry there. The thought of the Alpha Mating Ritual hadn’t even crossed his mind. He was just over the moon that he had his mate. Damien felt Scott stiffen beside him and wondered what was wrong. He got a bit of an idea when he heard Scott answer Kane.
“We’ve hardly been together long enough to think about that, Kane. In case you haven’t noticed our life has been one drama after another, since Damien and I met.”
“Yes, but our lives were hardly dull when I met Shawn, or when Griff and Diablo met. We’re wolves and we make up our minds pretty quickly about who we love. Shawn and I went through our Ritual within a week of living together, and Griff and Diablo only took two weeks. It’s natural when you do fall in love, you want to share that commitment to each other, with your pack,” Kane said.
To Damien’s surprise, Scott stood up. He seemed really agitated and Damien was struggling to work out what had happened in the last five minutes to upset Scott so much.
“Not every mating is like yours and Shawn’s, Kane, or like Griff and Diablo’s,” Scott said almost yelling. “Some of us should just be happy we’ve found our mates. Love and mating don’t automatically go hand-in-hand you know.” He stormed off and headed upstairs. Troy took off after him and seconds later the men in the living room heard the decided slam of a bedroom door.
“What the hell was all that about?” Damien asked.
Kane and Shawn shared a long look between each other and then Kane said softly, “I’m sorry Damien. That was my fault. I will apologize to Scott when I see him. I know Shawn had said it was unlikely you would ever love Scott the way he does you, but I saw the way you seem to rely on him and read more into it than I should have. I didn’t mean to upset him.”
Kane seemed genuinely sorry, but Damien was blind-sided by his words.
“Where did all of this talk of love come into things?” He said, feeling like he had been dropped into a conversation conducted in a foreign language. “One minute Scott is happy because we are going to New York, and then next thing, he is storming off making it sound like being mated to me is not what he was looking for.”
“Damien, most wolves, when they’re true mates, expect to fall in love with each other.” Shawn tried to explain. “Every true mated pair Scott has had ever known love their mates unconditionally. They fall in love quickly and irrevocably. I know it’s not something you even think about, but you can’t expect Scott to feel the same way. Scott’s going to fall in love with you, if he hasn’t already, and he is going to do it, knowing you aren’t going to feel the same way.”
“What Kane said wasn’t fair on Scott, because it just reminded him of that fact,” Shawn continued. “You haven’t given a thought to going through the Alpha Mating Ritual with him, or marrying him or anything else, have you?”
Wolves can scent a lie like they can any other strong emotion, but Damien wouldn’t lie to these men anyway. For better or worse, the Cloverleah pack were Scott’s family and he respected that, even if it worried him that they would encourage Scott to leave him. Now that worry had just increased ten-fold because, well shit, he hadn’t thought about claiming Scott publicly. He wore Scott’s mating bite and for him, up until now, that had been enough.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
“No,” Damien said slowly, “but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to. It’s just there hasn’t been any time for us to get to know each other, let alone plan any type of ritual claiming.”
“I told you before, Damien. As your mate, Scott deserves to come first in everything. But Damien, all you are doing is letting Scott know that anything is more important than he is. Your pack, your club, your needs, your feelings. Didn’t you hear what he said about the trip to New York? He wasn’t going to tell you he wanted to go, even though he had been excited about it before he met you. Now he’s your mate, he just assumes that his needs aren’t important because you have shown him time and time again, that all of your other responsibilities are more important than he is. When are you going to start putting him first?” Shawn’s words were delivered quietly, but the reproach behind them was unmistakable.
Damien looked at the men in front of him and felt… inadequate. For the first time in his life he worried that he wasn’t enough. His age, his experience, his strength as a wolf and as an Alpha just weren’t enough if he wasn’t pleasing his mate. He could plainly see the love that flowed between Kane and Shawn, and Griff and Diablo. It was so solid and so real it was almost tangible.
“It’s too soon for love,” Damien almost whispered, knowing as soon as he opened his mouth, that something stupid would come out of it. It was never too soon for a wolf to love his true mate.
“We never know how long we are going to have, Damien.” It was Diablo who spoke this time; his voice as low and melodic as ever. “I didn’t think I could tell Griff I loved him until after I left the FBI. I was waiting for a sign - the perfect day to tell him. I’m glad I didn’t wait, because before my time in the FBI was up, I had been abducted and was hours away from being sold into slavery before being killed.”
“I couldn’t wait either,” Kane chimed in. “My mate had to face an Alpha challenge where I knew he was going to die. I wasn’t sure I could bring him back. So many things could have gone wrong. But if Shawn had died without him knowing how much I loved him, then it was nothing more than a wasted emotion on my part.”
“I get that, I do,” Damien said. “But you said yourself, Shawn, Scott already knows I don’t love him and probably never will. I’m not capable of loving anybody, not anymore. I gave that up long before Scott was even born.”
“You are going to be hurting your mate every single day of your life together. Are you strong enough to live with that? More to the point, do you think Scott is strong enough to handle that?” Shawn’s gaze pierced him from across the room and all of a sudden Damien needed to get out. Get out
of the house, away from these men and the love they had for each other. He couldn’t breathe.
“I’ve got to… I need to go,” he said gruffly. He stormed out of the front door of his house and stripped off his clothes. Seconds later a huge grey wolf was seen running away from the houses in the compound.
Back in the living room the five men sat there for a minute. Then Shawn started to laugh and after a moment, the other men joined in.
“Well that went a bit better than I thought it would,” said Shawn.
“I know you’re trying to help Scott and Damien, lover, but was it fair to upset Scott like that?” Kane asked as he nuzzled his mate’s hair. He absolutely adored Shawn’s hair.
“Scott’s already upset about his mate not loving him,” Shawn said as he leaned into Kane’s touch. “But he’s been hiding it from Damien. Now Damien knows about it, so it is up to him to do something about it. It won’t take him long to get the right idea.”
“So, bets on how long it takes for the mighty Damien to realize he has fallen in love after all?” Griff said.
“Ten dollars says he will do it in a month,” Dean shot back.
Kane was more thoughtful. “Ten dollars on two weeks. Damien’s not thick, and he’s got a lot to think about thanks to us.”
“I reckon he’s too stubborn to realize how he feels. I mean have you seen what those two are like together? Damien is seriously besotted and if Scott can’t see that, then he is an idiot.” Griff said. “I’m going to go with six weeks because of Damien’s pig-headedness. What about you Diablo?”
“He’s coming to our wedding, lover,” Diablo said smiling down at Griff. “I give him a week to cave. What about you Shawn?”
“Well, considering I think he’s already in love with Scott,” Shawn said with a smirk, “I would have guessed the wedding as well. But Damien’s got an Alpha challenge before then, on the Friday, so I’m putting my money on Friday.”
“Do you know something we don’t, mate of mine?” Kane said, his hand caressing the back of Shawn’s neck.
“Nope,” Shawn grinned, “no divine intervention on this one. But it will happen, and when Damien does realize he has fallen in love and actually gets around to telling Scott, he’s going to make the four of us look like amateurs in the mate department.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Damien felt like he had been running for hours, but nothing could stop the ache he felt in his chest. Why did it feel like his life falling apart so badly? The problems in the pack. Those poor, poor boys. God, Damien couldn’t get over the guilt he felt at having something so fucking terrible happening on his pack land. That’s without factoring in the deception from those he believed close to him. For so many years Damien had trusted that he had built up a good, solid pack. The sacrifices he had made in his personal life - never let anyone get too close - never take a break or a holiday. Just work and keep the pack strong. And now, with meeting his mate, which should be the icing on the cake of his life, what had he actually achieved?
Financially the pack was one of the richest in the country. Most of the money came from Damien’s club and while Damien’s personal wealth was staggering, given his long life, most of the money from the club went to the pack. Numbers wise, again the pack was one of the most solid anywhere. Men wanted to get into Damien’s pack as often as they did his club.
Damien was respected in the city as a strong, but fair business man. He had helped many of the smaller businesses in town, and had seen to it that basic essentials like rubbish removal and graffiti cleaning was done, to keep the riff raff out of what he deemed his area. He was forever being asked to sit on this committee or that, and for the most part he participated where he could. If anyone questioned why it was that the owner of the club never seemed to age, no one said anything. Damien had been a part of the fabric of the business community for so long, no one thought to comment on his presence and only a fool would ask him about his looks.
But what was any of that worth at the end of the day? All the money in the world couldn’t take away the ache in Damien’s heart, or the guilt he was feeling. For all of his huge pack, there wasn’t anyone around who actually cared enough about him to be with him when he wasn’t at his best. No one, but his mate.
Damien had been so happy to find Scott, and okay he would be the first to admit that he did stuff things up at the beginning, but he really thought things were getting better between them. Scott seemed to care about him. He had saved those boys, even though he risked his own life to do it. What was more, Scott had taken the spanking that Damien had given him, when he knew he wouldn’t get anything out of the experience. Damien would never do that again. Since the day he arrived in Texas, hell even before then, Scott had stood by Damien’s side through everything. Never wavering in his support of him, and since coming to Texas, his new pack. It was Scott who convinced the Cloverleah pack to come in and help when Damien didn’t have the resources he needed. Darn near everything that Scott did was for the betterment of his mate or the pack.
And Damien was hurting the man every single day.
Damien hated that thought. He hated the idea that Scott was hurting because of him - again. Damn it to hell, Shawn was wrong. Damien had been thinking about love in connection with Scott. Okay, the thinking had been largely abstract for the most part, but Damien had been thinking about it. It was really hard not to, when you had a mate who was perfect for you in every way. And Scott, damn it, was perfect for him in every way.
Damien looked up and saw that he had run almost in a full circle. He was back near the pack members’ houses. His own house sat to the side of the others. Closest to the gated entrance, it was the largest house in the area. A huge two-storey affair built out of sturdy wood. Damien scanned the lights on the second floor, automatically looking to his bedroom window. Even in the depths of despair and confusion, Damien’s wolf wanted to be near Scott. Given the ache that still resided in his chest, Damien knew his human half wanted the man just as much.
But why did Scott still want him, if his mate believed him totally incapable of ever loving anybody? Damien crept up onto the porch in his wolf form and sat for a while in the shadows, just listening to the sounds of the night. There was a time when he really loved this place. But over the years, once he became Alpha and ‘out’ as a gay man, he spent more and more time at the club he had created. He felt more at home with the men in the club, than he did with the families that remained on pack land. Not ever really being part of a family, Damien didn’t know how to relate that well with women and children, especially when he had no desire to be with a woman, or to have any children of his own.
As he thought about it, Damien knew that his thinking was outdated. A hundred years before when Damien first became Alpha, it was illegal to be homosexual. That was why Damien had built the club. So men like him would have a safe place to be who they were. As social thinking changed and sexual experimentation became more accepted the club had morphed into a BDSM club, probably because of the clear Dominant/submissive nature of wolves. The club was open to humans for lunches, dinner and dancing, but only wolves were allowed membership into the BDSM side of the club. This allowed the wolves to express their true nature without fear of revealing that same nature to the humans they worked and lived among.
Maybe I’m getting old, Damien thought as he sat and let the calm of the area soothe him. Or maybe it’s because I am mated now. Damien didn’t feel the need to be at the club, like he usually did on the infrequent visits he made to the compound. He only went to the compound if there was a major problem, or if he had to face Alpha challenges. But sitting on his porch, in front of the house he had built and owned for more than 100 years, Damien did feel a sense of peace and belonging that had eluded him in the club.
Of course, that could have something to do with his mate, who was probably waiting for him upstairs, in their room. Damien didn’t know what to say to him. He couldn’t tell Scott that he loved him, because he honestly didn’t kn
ow if the feelings that he was so confused about, where actually love, or a residue from the fact that the two men were fated mates. Damien hadn’t said those fateful three words since he was twenty years old and at the time, when those same words were so cruelly flung back in his face, Damien had vowed then and there to never utter them again.
Now, more than a hundred years later, that vow felt more like a curse. Damien was a smart man. He knew that holding onto pain that was way older than Scott himself, was just plain stupid. Damien’s first, and up until now only love, was the reason that Damien had kept himself from having meaningful relationships. It is why he had relegated the act of sex to be something as meaningless as cleaning his teeth.
Laughing to himself, Damien stood up and shifted back to human form. Sex was something else his mate had shown him could be so full of love, and so wonderfully amazing. Damien didn’t think he could ever, or would ever tire of the way Scott made him feel when they were naked together. His mate didn’t believe in having a snack - every time with Scott was like a ten-course gourmet meal and with Scott, Damien found himself sharing more of himself than he ever had with anyone else. He wanted to please his lover - another first for him. Everyone else Damien had fucked before, had claimed how wonderful he was sexually, but it took Scott to show Damien that sex and love combined was a far more potent way of doing things. And Damien was already addicted.
Did Scott love him? After his little display in the living room that evening, Damien had to assume that Scott did. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so upset at all of the talk about love and mating going together. Shawn had also said that Scott loved his mate, so the Cloverleah pack must be seeing something he was totally oblivious too. Perhaps the better question might be, Damien mused to himself, did he want Scott to love him?
That was easy to answer. Hell yes! Because if Scott loved him, then he wouldn’t leave him, and that was Damien’s biggest fear. That Scott would leave him. So could he love Scott back? Damien scrunched up his face as he thought. No… Yes… Maybe… Definitely? Damien settled on probably. If they were together long enough, and Scott stayed loyal and sexy and as loving as he already was, then it was a definite ‘probably’. But was this something the two of them had to talk about tonight, he wondered, because he really didn’t want to.