by Lisa Oliver
Thinking things through, Damien figured that he didn’t have to talk to Scott right now. Maybe Scott was already in bed and they could just cuddle up. After being starved for affection for so long, Damien realized how quickly he had come to rely on Scott’s easy touch and the need to have the man in his arms became overwhelming. Opening his door, Damien strode, naked, up the stairs to the room he shared with Scott. Even if Scott did want to talk to him tonight, hopefully he could do it while Scott was safe in his arms where he belonged.
/~/~/~/~/
Scott could sense that Damien was nearby. After he had thrown his mini temper tantrum at Kane and stormed off out of the living room, he had heard the men downstairs talking for a bit and then heard Damien leave the house. He could tell that his mate hadn’t gone far, although with Damien in his wolf form, Scott only got impressions of open grass spaces and tree lined areas, when he tried to tap into the man’s mind.
Sighing, Scott rolled over on the bed and tried to get some sleep. After his talk with Troy, he was deathly tired but he found no matter how often he closed his eyes, sleep eluded him. For the tenth time that evening, he replayed the conversation he had with Troy, over in his mind. He remembered being angry because Troy had followed him. Scott was embarrassed about his little outburst and worried that it might have upset his mate. Troy didn’t think it was a big deal and tried to say so.
“But Troy, he’s my mate. Storming off like that, is like, being disloyal or something. Now Damien’s going to think that I have a problem being mated with him, and I don’t”
“Actually you do,” Troy said. “You have a problem with the fact that you think he won’t ever love you, and that’s a big problem for any mating pair.”
“No, it doesn’t have to be.” Scott was adamant on that score. “We get along fine in every other way. He’s a great Alpha, a good business man, he seems to want to be with me, even if he doesn’t love me, and the sex is out of this world fantastic. How could I not be happy with all of that? Have you seen the man? Troy, have you really looked at him? He is a walking sex god. I have nothing to be unhappy about.”
“I have my own mate,” Troy reminded him. “I don’t need to be perving on yours. But what about your feelings? Does he care about them? Does he cherish you the way you deserve to be looked after by your mate?”
“He doesn’t know about my feelings,” Scott remembered whispering to his brother. “Because if I tell him, then he is just going to feel bad, because he will never feel the same way about me. And I won’t do that to him.”
Scott remembered Troy’s hug, and while it had comforted him to a degree, the feeling was nothing like it used to be for Scott. All Scott wanted was Damien’s arms around him. Damien letting him know that he wasn’t upset with the way Scott had let his guard down and possibly let his feelings slip.
“Well, I kinda think you let the cat out of the bag tonight, Scott. Honestly brother of mine, why did you go off at Kane like that? You know Kane didn’t mean any harm. He was just asking what any one of us would be asking by now. You’re Damien’s mate. You deserve to be recognized as such in a pack ceremony. Hell, given Damien’s standing in the shifter community, it should be the biggest Alpha Mating Ritual ceremony us wolves have ever seen.”
“You’re not helping, Troy. I’m just damn glad the man hasn’t asked me. I wouldn’t say no, because I can’t deny my mate anything, but I wouldn’t want to go through that, in front of so many people.”
Troy laughed at him and punched him on the arm. “Since when were you shy, little brother? You’ve never struck me as the retiring wall-flower type.”
“God, Troy, could you imagine it. The vows we would have to make to each other. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from telling him, and every damn other wolf in the area, how much he means to me.”
“Why would that be so bad? That’s what the ceremony is for. For each person to say why the other is important to him, and to the pack.”
“Oh yeah, that would be just peachy fine.” Scott thrashed his head back on the bed in frustration. “Me pouring out my heart about how much I love the man, and my mate, the Almighty Damien, explaining how I am good for pack moral and how wonderful it is to have an Alpha Mate after so many years. Real romantic, not. I’ll look like a fucking pussy.”
“Don’t let Diablo hear you say that,” Troy said as he laughed. “Seriously though, if it comes to that, then I’ll write your vows for you. I don’t have any love for the man and I can write you a set of vows that discusses ‘utilizing and combining pack resources to the benefit of all wolf kind’. You’ll see. I can make it sound like a business merger.”
“Well, if it happens, and I hope it doesn’t, I’ll take you up on your offer,” Scott said as he sat up and looked at his brother fondly.
“He will fall in love with you,” Troy said with all seriousness. When Scott looked at him with his patented ‘whatever’ expression, Troy continued. “He will fall in love with you without even realizing it. You have that knack, Scott. That knack of just being yourself and having people care about you. His wolf will already be in love with you, and no matter what the man has been through before in his life, eventually his human half will come to know the same thing. With Damien, it’s just going to take time. Now you’re mated to him, you have all the time you need.”
Scott had thought long and hard about what Troy had said, especially about the wolf part of things. No matter what had happened to Damien when he was young, those experiences wouldn’t have bothered the wolf half of his mate, nearly as much as the human side. And wolves fell in love easily with their mates - it was almost a rule, damn it.
Feeling a lot better than he had, Scott tried to get himself comfortable enough to get some sleep. He had no idea how long Damien would be out in his wolf form. He did think idly about shifting himself and tracking down his mate, but he wanted to give the man some peace. Damien had a lot on his mind at the moment and didn’t need to be bothered by a mate who couldn’t control his emotions.
But no matter how much Scott willed his body to try and get the rest it needed, Scott couldn’t fall asleep. He wanted, no that wasn’t the right word at all; he craved the feeling of his mate’s arms around him, their bodies pressed close together and Damien’s soft lips plundering his. Damn, he needed his mate.
Right on cue - as if Damien was responding to his silent plea - Scott heard Damien’s footsteps pounding up the staircase and seconds later a very naked Damien flung open the door to their room. Scott sat up on the bed and looked intently at his mate. Damien didn’t say a word. He closed the door behind him, climbed up on the bed and pulled Scott into his arms. In a heart beat, those thin lips that Scott had dreamed about, were smashed on his own, and Scott took the first full breath he had taken, since he walked out of the living room, hours before.
Chapter Twenty Seven
“Incoming. Our two, plus two extras.” Scott warned as he flicked a look at the text on his phone. Damien and Scott were sitting at the dining room table, enjoying a late dinner. Troy and Dean had already had theirs and were up in their rooms preparing to go into the club. Lucius and Vincent had promised to show them around, keep them safe and return them back to the pack house later that night.
Shawn and Kane had been zapping in and out of the compound all day as they took messages of peace, news of the boys, and offers of restitution to the parents of the stolen children. Deciding to approach the parents in turn, based on the age of the children who needed to be reunited with their families, by the early evening, the only one left was Argon’s family. It seemed, from the message on Scott’s phone, that Argon’s parents wanted to talk to Damien personally, something that the man dreaded, but knew couldn’t be avoided.
Damien fought to contain his yawn. It had been a long day. It started off nicely enough with reciprocal blow jobs. Yes, Damien was starting to see the appeal of being in bed with Scott when the man woke up in the morning. Then Maria and her friend had bought them breakfast in bed, agai
n, and it was almost ten o’clock by the time Damien and Scott had headed downstairs.
Griff and Diablo were waiting to say their goodbyes, and left with assurances from Damien that he and Scott would be in New York on Saturday. Damien had already arranged a private jet to take him and Scott there. Then Kane and Shawn started zapping in and out of the pack house, visiting parents, arranging for the safe transporting of the children to their homes, and appraising Damien of the restitution each family required from the San Antonio pack. Damien had called in Madison as soon as Kane and Shawn left for their first visit, to help coordinate everything, and to take details of the restitution the pack would become responsible for.
Most of the families were simply thrilled to have their son’s back, and weren’t interested in restitution, especially after hearing that three of the four wolves responsible, were already dead. Damien had insisted that each family also be offered a large cash settlement, college funds for all of the shifter’s children, and paid therapy and medical expenses for all of the boys who had been abducted. That, plus the assurance from Damien that the fourth person responsible for the crimes, Jacob, would be dead as soon as he was found, was enough for the families approached so far. It would appear that Argon’s family might want a little more. It didn’t matter to Damien what the family wanted. They would get it, if it was in Damien’s power to give it. Argon had been separated from his family for two years, and the boy’s family had probably thought he was dead.
A tell-tale shimmer was all the warning Damien got before Kane, Shawn and an older couple suddenly appeared in Damien’s living room. The first couple of times Damien had actually watched this happen he felt a bit disorientated. It was almost like watching the men from Star Trek transporting on and off the Starship Enterprise. But after the day they had all shared, the whole shimmer and appear thing was starting to become commonplace.
The two people travelling with Kane and Shawn weren’t as sure of the whole process though, and Kane and Shawn supported the couple, as they made their way to where Damien and Shawn were sitting.
“Alpha,” Kane’s serious tone and nature of address warned Damien this was a pack policy negotiation, not a meeting of friends over coffee. “This is Arthur Novac and his wife Patricia. Argon’s parents, and formerly of the Utah pack. They seek asylum with the San Antonio pack for themselves, and their three teenage children.”
Pushing his plate away from him, Damien stood up, feeling Scott do the same beside him. He nodded his head and indicated that everyone move through to the living room. Kane and Shawn got the couple settled on the couch and then shared another love seat to the side. Damien stood in the middle of the living room, Scott by his side.
“Welcome.” Damien’s voice was quiet but full of authority. “I am the Alpha Damien and this is the Alpha Mate Scott. Tell me why you require asylum from the Utah pack.”
Arthur looked at his wife, worry was etched over both of their faces. Watching them, Damien could tell that Arthur was a powerful wolf. Damien didn’t pick up any Alpha vibe, but the man had obviously been a beta or an enforcer with his previous pack. His huge, solid build indicated a strength that would, Damien imagined, be formidable and Damien couldn’t understand why they might have left their previous pack. Arthur was a good looking man, like most wolves. He had curly brown hair that fell just to his shoulders and his tanned skin indicated that he worked outside a lot of the time. He had clear skin, deep brown eyes and a solid mouth.
In comparison, Patricia was a small woman - human, Damien noted with surprise. Given that Argon was a full wolf shifter, Damien wondered if the other two children were wolf, half wolf, or human. There were only two human’s in the San Antonio pack - both women who had taken up with their partners when the men had tired of waiting for their true mates. While it was true that the Fates allowed one true mate for every wolf, sometimes it could take decades for that person to turn up, and some wolves, especially heterosexual ones, wanted to start a family as soon as possible. So they married, or mated, with someone who was not their fated other half, and then preyed that their fated mate didn’t turn up. That type of situation had the potential to get messy, because a fated mate trumped a taken mate, every time under pack law.
“Alpha,” Arthur began cautiously. “As you can see my wife is human and yet our union was originally blessed by the Utah pack. I had worked as an enforcer for the Alpha there for more than twenty years, and although humans weren’t readily accepted by the pack, because of my position we got by. However, we had a problem six years ago, which necessitated our leaving the pack and we haven’t been back.”
“Arthur, you are going to have to explain the whole story, or I won’t be able to help you,” Damien said firmly. “I have no problems with other packs, as you are likely aware, and I don’t want to start any without just cause. You are going to have to tell us more about your situation.”
“Is this about Argon’s brother being gay?” Scott piped up beside him. “Because as you can see, we don’t have a problem with homosexuality in this pack. The Alpha and I are true mates.”
“True mates, right.” Arthur said nervously. “Well, it is about Kevin in part, Alpha Mate. See, Patricia and I aren’t true mates and as I said, she’s human. But I love her, and we have been together for twenty years. Yes, it’s true Argon’s older brother is gay, and it would seem now that Argon may be as well, which is fine by us. We love our children and don’t care about things like who they love.”
“Does the Utah pack not acknowledge gay couples?” Damien asked. He didn’t know anything about the Utah pack. He had never been in that area and had never met the Alpha there, although he had met most of the Alpha’s around the States.
“No they don’t,” Arthur said. “But that wasn’t the reason we left. Kevin is only half wolf and has never shifted - we don’t know if he can, and again that doesn’t bother us. Kevin is nineteen, and we also have a daughter, Christie, who is seventeen. She is a full wolf and can shift.”
“The problem is that when it came to light that Kevin was gay, the Alpha said that Kevin’s orientation was because I had mated with a human.” Arthur’s head dropped to his chest as he relived old hurts. “He ordered my wife and Kevin be banished from the pack and demanded that I take another wife - a wolf. He also told me that I should prepare Christie to become one of his wives, as the Utah pack practice polygamy. She had only just turned twelve, Alpha Mate. What was I supposed to do?”
Patricia put her small arm around her husband and held him close. She looked up at Damien without any fear. “I know I’m not my husband’s true mate,” She said bravely. “We have already discussed what we would do if his true mate came into our lives. I know that is a possibility and I will step aside if it happens, without any anger or dispute. But the wolf that the Alpha wanted Arthur to mate with, was not his true mate either. He wanted my husband to split apart his family because of his hatred of humans and gays. And I would have accepted that, Alpha Damien. I would have left the pack with Kevin, because I know how important the pack was to my husband. But Christie, I couldn’t leave Christie to become part of the Alpha’s harem of wives. She was so young.”
“You are an incredibly brave woman, Patricia,” Damien said gently, “and you have my fullest respect. Tell me, after you all left the pack, did anyone come after you? Did anyone try to get to the children after you left?”
“We purposefully travelled the best part of 1,000 miles to get away, Alpha. We left with nothing but what we could stow in our car, and kept driving until we got to Texas. We had a little bit of money, enough to rent a small house and then Patricia and I started working full time so that our children could have a future. That’s why, that’s how come Argon got snatched. We were both working, and didn’t realize anything had happened until we got home late one night to find out that Argon hadn’t come home from school. By then all traces of him had gone.”
“Speaking of which, you must be anxious to see him after all of this time,” Sco
tt said.
“I’d like to get this sorted first, if that’s all right, Alpha Mate. The Shifter Guardian has explained the situation and what our son has been subjected to over the past two years. For what it’s worth, Alpha Damien, I don’t hold you responsible. There are bad wolves around, just the same as there are horrible people. We didn’t even realize Argon had been taken by a wolf.”
Arthur released his wife’s hands and stood up. He tilted his neck to the side in submission and said in a low, but clear voice. “I offer you my loyalty and service, Alpha Damien. I ask for a safe harbor for my wife and my three children. I want them to live here as a family. I will find work in the area and contribute to the pack in any way I can. The Shifter Guardian mentioned that you offered restitution for all of the boys who had been taken, and their families. I don’t want anything, but to be allowed to bring my half-breed family into the pack and for them to be safe.”
Stepping forward, Damien laid his hand on the back of Arthur’s neck in acceptance. “Your loyalty and service is accepted, Arthur Novac. No one has a problem with humans here and if they do, they will answer to me. I realize my offering you safety for your children, after what has happened to Argon here, might seem a bit ironic, but believe me when I tell you, things are changing in the San Antonio pack. I believe you and your family can be part of that change.”
“That said, there is a condition on this acceptance. You will take the restitution offered to the families of the other boys impacted by this horror. There is cash money there, plus a college fund for all three of your children. We will provide you with a house here on the compound and help with moving any belongings you want to bring with you. Your son will receive paid medical treatment and counseling for as long as he needs. After three months, if you are interested, you can have a position here with me as one of my enforcers, which is a well-paid position. The cash payout should be enough to cover any of your expenses until that time.”