by D J Heart
“What are you majoring in?” he asked, walking over to Logan’s bed. He was curious. He knew what Aiden was doing in school, but Logan was a mystery.
“Nothing, really,” Logan said. He was clearly avoiding the question and Sam’s stomach sank.
Logan had just pissed on him and he hadn’t even complained. The least he could do was not lie.
Logan caught the expression on his face and winced, looking guilty.
“It’s not… I really am undecided, okay? It’s down to either drama or dance. I’ve been doing both, but after this semester I need to choose which one I’m going to focus on. David thinks I’m going to switch over to business school.”
Sam frowned. “Why does he think that?”
“Because that’s what I told him?” Logan looked miserable.
“Why did you tell him that?” Sam didn’t understand.
“He was fine with me taking a few dance and drama classes, but that’s not really an asset to the pack. He wants me to join the company, and I mean… I want to. But I also want to perform. I’ll have to figure it out.”
Sam nodded, not sure what he could say that would help. It sucked that both Aiden and Logan wanted to do things David wasn’t okay with, but it was also hard to muster up too much sympathy.
Sam had been bought by the pack, and he had zero say in his future. Aiden and Logan’s problems were ones he’d honestly love to have.
But that wasn’t a good way to think, Sam chastised himself. Getting bitter and petty was no way to live his life. All he could do was take the cards he’d been dealt and make the best of them.
“Well, I hope you figure it out,” Sam said, and Logan smiled.
“Yeah. Me too.”
Sam pulled his feet up on the bed and hugged his knees to his chest.
“So when are you done today?” he asked.
“Not until five. You’ll have to figure out lunch yourself. Do you have money? Or maybe you can meet Aiden?”
“I have a credit card,” Sam said. “But not any cash. I guess I can text Aiden and see if he wants to meet up.”
“Great. So you’re good on your own for the day?” Logan grabbed his bag off the floor and lifted it over his shoulder.
Sam nodded.
“That’s great. I’ll call you when I’m done and come get you for dinner.”
Logan bent down and kissed him on his forehead before taking off. Alone once again, Sam slipped under the covers and pressed his face into Logan’s pillow.
It smelled just like his alpha.
***
Logan
Logan felt like he was floating on cloud nine. Having Sam to himself was every bit as good as he’d thought it would be.
“Hey, man,” Roger, his friend and current dance partner said as he walked into the studio. “You’re looking chipper.”
Roger was an alpha, too, and he and Logan were working on a routine for the fall recital.
“It’s my day with the new pack omega,” Logan said. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Roger shook his head.
“That’s crazy, man. Sharing an omega. But whatever works, right?”
Logan smiled, knowing that there was no way to make a human alpha understand the dynamics and feelings involved with an alpha pack.
“It works just fine,” he said, taking off his shirt and starting his warm ups. Roger settled down next to him, mirroring his stretches.
Five hours later they were both sweaty and worn out, but the routine was coming along nicely. Roger wanted more lifts, but Logan thought it looked weird with two alphas. He wanted them to dance around each other, only touching sparingly.
They were coming to a nice middle ground.
“I’m going to go buy some Gatorade. You need anything?” Logan asked, putting on his jacket and making sure he had his wallet. Patting the square of leather he remembered Sam saying that he didn’t have any cash, and he regretted not giving him any.
“No, I’m fine,” Roger said. Logan headed outside and made his way the short way to the student store.
Standing in line to buy his drink, he caught sight of Lucas Evans and frowned. There weren’t many Humans First activists on campus, but Lucas made up for the shortage by sheer obnoxiousness.
Logan almost wished he could send David or Max after him. He’d like to see Lucas spouting his anti-werewolf nonsense in their presence. They’d break him in half and throw away the pieces.
Paying for his drink, Logan sighed when the douchebag in question walked up to him.
This should be good. Lucas was smirking that nasty little smirk of his, and Logan just wanted to punch him.
“Hey, mutt,” Lucas said, crossing his arms and blocking Logan’s way. Logan tilted his head and raised his left eyebrow.
“Can I help you with something, daddy’s boy?”
Lucas didn’t rise to the bait. He smirked wider, looking smug as fuck. Logan got a bad feeling.
“I met your omega,” Lucas said. “Poor thing was all by himself.”
Logan froze. Lucas had what?
“Such a shame to waste an omega like that on a bunch of inbred dogs. I bought him a coffee, you know, to cheer him up a little. He seemed to appreciate it.”
Logan didn’t think. He punched Lucas in the jaw and watched him go down with a vicious sense of satisfaction. As far as his wolf was concerned, this was just the beginning. Logan was going to tear him limb from limb for even suggesting that he’d approached Sam.
But Logan wrestled his wolf under control just in time. Lucas pushed to his feet, looking shocked by the violence.
“You can’t hit—"
Logan growled, baring his teeth and angling his body to attack, and Lucas scrambled back. Then he ran away with his tail between his legs, leaving Logan both confused and angry.
He needed to find Sam and figure out what the fuck was going on.
***
Sam
Sam was in the library when his phone vibrated in his pocket with a text from Logan telling him to go back to the room and stay there until he got back.
The message was short, and Logan hadn’t used any of the smiley faces Aiden had used in his text messages.
“What?” Sarah asked, Sam’s frown diverting her attention from the textbook in front of her. They’d been at the same table for a few hours now, studying like they had the day before.
Sarah had even gotten them coffee.
Sam wrinkled his nose. “My alpha wants me to go back to the dorm.”
“I thought he had class until five,” Sarah said.
Sam nodded. “That’s what he said, but maybe he got done early?”
The thought made Sam happy.
“That’s probably it,” Sarah agreed. “He probably just wants the two of you to have lunch together.”
Sam blushed. He couldn’t help it. If Logan’s version of “lunch” was anything like Aiden’s, Sam couldn’t wait.
But even if it wasn’t, he should get going.
“I’ll see you later,” Sam said, getting up. He closed his book and held it against his chest. “I guess I’ll see you next week, maybe?”
He hoped he would. Having a friend outside the pack would be a huge relief.
“Sure. Hold on, I’ll give you my number.” Sarah took out a piece of paper from her bag, wrote her name and number, and handed it to him. She was smiling. “Then you can call me next week and we can meet up and study again.”
Sam grinned. “I will,” he promised. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He’d program the number into his phone later.
“See you,” he said, leaving the study area.
After a brief detour to put his book back on the shelf, Sam made his way outside. The blue sky from that morning had given way to a grey sky, and Sam’s sweater wasn’t quite up to the task of keeping him warm without the help of the sun.
Walking fast, he was back at the dorm less than ten minutes after getting Logan’s text. Sitting down on Logan’s bed, kickin
g off his shoes and pulling the covers up around his shoulders, he texted his alpha.
I’m at the dorm! :)
After sending the message he wished he hadn’t included both the exclamation point and the smiley face. It looked like he was trying to hard.
A few seconds later, Sam’s phone vibrated with an incoming message from Logan.
Good. Stay there. Will be back at five.
Sam stared at the terse message, confused. Was Logan mad at him? He hadn’t done anything he wasn’t supposed to, had he?
A sinking feeling in his gut, Sam wondered what he should do. He licked his lips nervously.
This couldn’t be about the alpha from the day before, could it? Sam hoped he hadn’t fucked up by not telling his alphas about the encounter.
Unable to stand the awful feeling in his chest, Sam picked up his phone and called Logan.
“Is everything okay?” he asked when Logan picked up. The words were rushed and anxious.
Logan was quiet for a few seconds before he asked, “Did you meet an alpha named Lucas yesterday?”
Sam swallowed, a lump forming in his chest.
“I did,” he said. He knew he sounded incredibly guilty.
“And?” Logan growled.
“The coffee place didn’t take my credit card and he was behind me and he paid for my drink and I threw it away and told him to leave me alone—” Sam took a deep breath, “and my new friend Sarah made him go away.”
Sam clenched his jaw shut, wanting Logan to say something. He hadn’t done anything wrong with Lucas, he knew that, but he should have told his alphas about the encounter.
“So that’s it? He was bothering you and you told him to fuck off?” Logan wasn’t growling now, which Sam counted as a win.
“Pretty much,” he said.
“Fine. You should have told us about this. He cornered me today and I had no idea what he was talking about.”
Sam wanted to ask what Lucas had said, but he couldn’t quite work up the nerve.
“Are you mad?” he asked. He felt stupid for being this upset, but he couldn’t help it. His instincts were working against him, his alpha’s anger like a physical thing.
“A little,” Logan said. “Not as mad as I was.”
Sam took another deep breath, calming down.
“I should have told you. I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’re right, you should have. Why don’t you stay there in the room until I get back—think about what you’ve done—and then we can put it behind us. Okay?”
“Okay,” Sam agreed.
“Good. I’ll see you in a few hours. I’ve got to go.”
“See you later.”
They hung up, and Sam leaned back against the wall. He pulled his feet up on the bed and crossed them in front of him, holding his knees.
He was in time-out.
The realization was both humiliating and infuriating. Told to stay in his room like a naughty kid.
Stop it! Sam admonished himself. Being told to stay in the dorm was nothing compared to what Logan could do. He didn’t even want to think about how Max or David would react to something like this. Especially Max. The disciplinarian of the pack—that was how David had introduced him. Who knew what kind of punishment he would have come up with?
It was best to just take his punishment and put the matter behind him.
***
Logan
After spending the whole morning with Roger practicing for the recital, Logan only had time for a quick lunch before his drama class. He grabbed a sandwich and ate it on his way to the theatre building, making it just in time for vocal warm ups to begin. He ran down the aisle and jumped up on the stage, facing out toward the empty auditorium.
As he stood in a circle with his fellow students and practiced the vocal exercises his teacher insisted they go through at the beginning of every single class, Logan couldn’t stop thinking about Sam,
He wasn’t angry with the omega—he believed him when he said he hadn’t encouraged or engaged with Lucas—but the rage simmering inside of him was undeniable.
His teeth itched to hunt Lucas down and rip him to pieces.
“Logan, are you okay?” Evelyn, his teacher, asked. The whole circle was quiet, and Logan realized he was growling.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his face heating with embarrassment.
“That’s all right. If you need a minute that’s okay.”
Logan shook his head. He was one of only two alphas in the class, and Evelyn insisted on making allowances for them. She worshiped alphas, and it drove Logan crazy.
“I’m fine. Just… rough day.”
Evelyn nodded, eyes searching, turning her attention back to the group.
“What was that about?” Colin, the other alpha in the class, asked when they broke up.
“Lucas Aimsworth was hassling my new omega yesterday. I just want to… you know.”
Colin’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you got a new omega. Congratulations, man. That’s huge! And if you ever need an alibi… just let me know.” Colin grinned and winked, obviously joking.
“I’m sure if I just wait long enough he’ll annoy someone else into taking care of it for me,” Logan joked back.
It was annoying. Now that Colin had raised the possibility of getting revenge, Logan was pretty much barred from getting it. If anything happened to Lucas now, Colin would be suspicious.
Logan had no illusions that any human alpha, no matter how friendly they were in class, would side with a werewolf over another human.
“I’m sure you’re right. He is pretty annoying, isn’t he,” Colin laughed.
Logan gave a tight nod, saved from having to continue the conversation by Evelyn calling out for everyone to pay attention.
“Okay guys, today we’re going to be practicing movement. I want you each to chose an animal—not a wolf, Logan—and try to emulate how it moves. Make sure you have enough space and try not to pay attention to what everyone else is doing. I’ll be walking around, but try not to mind me either.”
Logan suppressed a groan. He hated exercises like this, though if pressed he might admit that they sometimes proved useful. Getting down on his hands and knees, he tried to remember what the horses on his mother’s farm had used to walk like.
If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
***
After class, Logan headed right home to the dorm. His cock pressed against the front of his jeans, aching and hard for Sam’s ass, but his coat was long enough to cover the bulge.
A minute before he made it to the front of the building, it started to rain. He lifted his coat up over his head and made a run for it. When he made it inside, he was dripping wet.
He took the elevator up to his room, shrugging off his wet jacket and hanging it over his arm away from his body.
“Sam?” Logan pushed the door open. He didn’t think that Sam would have disobeyed him and left, but in the second it took the omega to answer his gut clenched.
“Hi, Logan,” Sam said. He was in bed, the covers piled on top of him, his back against the wall. He was reading a textbook, but Logan couldn’t tell which one. “How was your class?”
Logan let his coat fall to the floor, kicked off his boots and rushed over to the bed. He dropped down next to Sam, pushing the covers out of the way and draping his arm over the omega’s shoulders.
He pulled Sam in under his arm, pressing him against his body, and leaned down to press his nose into Sam’s soft hair.
“Class was good. Wish I could have skipped it, though. It would have been a lot more fun to hang out with you all day.”
He grabbed Sam by the hair and tilted his head down, exposing his neck. Sam gasped as Logan licked the scar left by his claiming bite. Logan grinned, savoring Sam’s reaction as he licked further up over his jaw and past his ear. Sam’s skin tasted lightly of salt, and his scent was pure omega. Logan took a deep breath through his nose, relishing the heady scent.
&
nbsp; “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about that alpha,” Sam said, spoiling the mood. Logan leaned back, keeping his arm where it was and looking up at the ceiling. He licked his lips, wondering what to say.
“It’s okay. Lucas wasn’t bothering you because of you. He just hates werewolves. An alpha that would hassle another alpha’s omega, though… it just isn’t done. Next time something like that happens you need to call one of us right away.”