Mason's Regret

by Odessa Lynne

  Mason stopped talking.

  Five lowered his finger. “Tell me the name of this family member.”

  “Matthew. Matthew Bryant. I think he’s been working with your people, doing something. I’m not sure what.”

  Fighting renegades would’ve been his guess, since that was about the only thing the wolves might find a human good for these days outside of heat season. The sharing of technology and knowledge between species had come to an abrupt end after the first heat season and it hadn’t recovered in the eleven years since, not unless it was going on secretly inside the highest levels of government.

  When Mason had joined Brendan’s renegades, Brendan had said it wasn’t. Mason had never doubted Brendan about that, since Brendan’s father had been part of the government before the wolves came and had managed to hang on even after his district became part of the American Protectorate. If anyone would know about the sharing of technology, it would’ve been Brendan.

  Mason knew Brendan had been stealing technology from the wolves during the raids against them. He’d known and he hadn’t cared, not at first. He’d still been so angry about everything back then that he’d thought it served the wolves right to lose a little tech. They’d stolen so much from humans, after all, and unless someone stopped them, they’d continue to take what didn’t belong to them.

  Mason crossed his arm over his chest and rubbed his shoulder, trying to forget that he was standing naked in front of Five. It was impossible. He was naked and Five wasn’t and all he wanted to do was grab his clothes off the floor and yank them back on.

  He cleared his throat and looked at the wall over Five’s shoulder. “If you could use some of that advanced technology I know you’ve got and track him down, I’d appreciate it a whole hell of a lot.”

  Five startled Mason by reaching for his chin. He turned Mason’s gaze toward him. “Do not be embarrassed. You have a beautiful body.”

  Mason blinked a few times, then cleared his tight throat. He couldn’t help it, his gaze flickered over Five’s lean shape and he wondered for the first time just what kind of body Five had under his clothes. Hairy? Muscled? Then he blinked again and shoved those thoughts aside.

  He met Five’s gaze. “Come on. You can do it. I know you can.”

  “You have a lot of faith in my ability to find one man among many.”

  Mason dropped his arm to his side. “I spent a good part of the last heat season inside one of your dens. I know how carefully you guard your technology but I know you have it. You can do this for me.”

  Five’s unreadable expression didn’t change, so Mason said, “Please. Do this for me.”

  He stared at Five with his heart in his throat. He didn’t move when Five reached for him and hauled him forward by the back of his neck.

  Mason crashed into Five, letting out a soft “umph.”

  Five pressed a hard, quick kiss to Mason’s lips, then just as quickly, released Mason and stepped back. “I won’t allow you to make contact with anyone outside the den, but there might be something I can do for you.”

  Mason’s lips tingled from the pressure of the unexpected kiss. “Thank you.”

  “Do not thank me yet. I might discover nothing of value to you. While you wait, fill the bathtub with water. I’ve taken the last dose of repression drugs I intend to take until after we mate, and I won’t be gone long.”

  Mason wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. By “mate” Five meant “fuck.” Still, he didn’t let himself hesitate. He nodded.

  Five turned to go but then turned back. “Use the time you have to relax. I’ll clean you when I return.” His gaze skimmed down Mason’s naked body. “Do you know what it feels like to be penetrated?”

  Mason couldn’t fight the heat that rose into his face. “No. I don’t.”

  Five let out a huff of breath. “While you wait for me in the bath, finger your anus and try to get used to the feeling.”

  Fucking hell. Mason’s face flamed. He needed out of this room. He turned and started for the bathroom. He could feel Five watching him and it made his eye twitch to know his ass was on full display.

  At the bathroom door, he turned. “You really want me to put my finger up my ass.”

  “Would you rather one of my betas prepare you?” That hopeful note was back in Five’s voice, the one that seemed destined to unsettle Mason at every turn.

  He gripped the doorframe. “Uh, no. No. And how about fuck no, too?”

  Five crossed the distance between them and covered Mason’s hand with one of his own. He gently pried Mason’s fingers loose. “Go,” he said, quiet but firm. “My control does have a limit.”

  Mason made himself step over the threshold into the bathroom, then turned once again. “And if I don’t want to wait for you to wash me? I mean, you’re asking me to put my finger in my asshole. I’d like to be clean first.”

  “Irrelevant. I do not shirk my obligations to my betas and mates.”

  “Irrelevant. Like the fact that I’m not gay.”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter 11

  The bathwater was almost hot enough to scald by the time Mason had the free-standing tub half full. He used his foot to push the cold water lever up, opening the stream full blast, and dropped his head back against the contoured rim behind him and listened to the violent splash of pouring water.

  He stretched his arms out on the sides of the tub while steam rose around him.

  His house—the one he’d grown up in and still shared with his mother and brother and sister and cousin—didn’t have a bathtub. But goddamn, he was going to wish it did after this. The hot water he was sitting in soothed his tired, overworked muscles in ways he hadn’t imagined it could. He could even stretch out his legs if he didn’t slouch too much.

  He could thank Five for this. Hell, he might even do it. This was the best he’d felt in days.

  Recycling a tub full of water every time someone needed to wash up was a serious waste of resources. The house couldn’t be older than the water conservation laws, and high-capacity water recyclers weren’t cheap. A tub was a luxury most people weren’t willing to pay for when a shower worked just fine. Maybe the wolves were using some of their technology to make the recycler more efficient. However the hell they were doing it, Mason was more than willing to take advantage now that he knew what it felt like to sit in a tub full of steaming hot water.

  Someday, someone would fix the electrical grid inside the protectorate, but he wondered more often than not if he’d live to see it. No one seemed in a hurry to fix what had been broken, not inside the protectorate, and not on the outer edges where he lived with his family.

  Nine years was a damn long time to live on nothing but halfgas generators and solar.

  The world had suffered in a way few had ever seen after that first heat season. The collapse of the economy had been the thing that had nearly destroyed the world, one country after another falling to anarchy. The U.S. had managed to hold on, if only because the U.S. government had quickly realized that giving the wolves what they wanted—more land and more rights over that land—meant the wolves would give them what they needed: help retaining control of the most critical areas of the country before it was too late to stop the fall of the government.

  The worst of it all was that more people had died after the end of the heat season than during. Mason had lost friends and family both—including his father, who’d died somewhere out in the southwest when he’d tried to stop some half-assed militia from stealing his fully loaded cargo drone before he could send it off on a delivery.

  While the rest of the country had recovered a measure of stability in the ten years since that first heat and what had felt like the end of the world, the outer edges of the protectorate hadn’t. It was a dangerous place to live and work, even more so since the government had given over almost complete control to the wolves three years ago, because the wolves didn’t seem to care at all what humans did to each other as long as they le
ft the dens alone.

  Fear kept away the people who could do the jobs that needed done. He didn’t see how it could be any other way, not after what had happened, and how quickly. Everyone was worried, Mason too. That first heat had exposed a part of the wolves’ society that was hard for most humans to accept.

  What if the wolves were hiding another secret, one that could do even more damage than the heat?

  The water finally reached the top of the tub, and Mason leaned forward to shut it off. He hesitated only a moment before he cupped water in his hands and splashed it over his face, rubbing briskly. Surely Five wouldn’t begrudge him that. When he finished, he sat back and closed his eyes again.

  He waited a few minutes, then lowered his hand into the water to take hold of his dick. He tried not to think about anything in particular, but it was hard. At first nothing happened. He tugged a little harder, biting his lower lip and grunting softly as he felt the first stirrings of an erection.

  He reached up and flicked his left nipple with his thumb, back and forth. He wasn’t very sensitive there, but sometimes it helped when he was trying to get off quickly. Not that he was actually trying to get off.

  His breath started coming faster, and he thought maybe it was time to see if he could get his finger through his anus, but—

  “How the fuck—”

  He tried putting his ankle up on the side of the tub, then couldn’t grab the rim of the tub fast enough to keep himself from going under.

  “Son of a—”

  He surged upright, sputtering out a mouthful of water. He swiped water off his face, then stared across the room at the mirrored wall that probably hid a closet.

  “Goddammit,” he muttered, eyes on the sight of his hair plastered to his head and his naked chest.

  He was supposed to relax and do this? No way in hell. This was the furthest thing from relaxing he could imagine doing in a bathtub.

  Fuck it. He could take whatever that wolf did to him and he didn’t need to stick his finger up his ass beforehand to do it. He dropped back, resting his neck on the rim of the tub, and closed his eyes.

  The small measure of defiance felt pretty damn good.

  Twenty minutes later, maybe longer, he startled out of a half-doze at the sound of the bedroom door opening.

  He leaned forward with his arm on the side of the tub and tried to peer through the open bathroom door. He heard a few soft sounds that he couldn’t identify, but no one entered the bathroom.

  “Five? That you?”

  No one answered.

  “Hello?”

  Unease sent a small surge of adrenaline through Mason. He rose, trying to be quiet, but water sluiced down his body and sloshed over the rim of the tub, splashing loudly to the tiled floor. He climbed out, nearly landing on his ass when he stepped in a puddle and his foot slipped on the tile. He grabbed the rim of the tub to catch his balance.

  The quiet sounds coming from the bedroom continued.

  Mason reached for one of the towels stacked in an open shelf between the tub and shower enclosure and wrapped it around his hips, tucking the end in tight so it wouldn’t slip.

  “Anybody there?” he called out.

  The sounds stopped.

  Mason took one quick look around the door but all he could see was a lanky figure crouched on the floor over his dirty clothes.

  Mason clenched his jaw and stepped into the doorway.

  The lanky figure was holding one of Mason’s boots and sniffing at the laces.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mason asked.

  The figure twisted on the balls of his feet so fast that Mason took an instinctive step backward.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you. Alpha said I was supposed to give you privacy.” Said as if that were a bad thing.

  Mason frowned. The wolf’s features had a softness to them that told Mason he was looking at a kid.

  “Why are you here?” Mason gestured at his boot. “Put that down.”

  The young wolf studied the boot. “I was just trying to figure out what makes your scent so special.”

  Mason padded across the floor, leaving behind wet hardwood in his wake. “Is that so?” He reached for his boot.

  The wolf pulled his hand back and bared his teeth. “Don’t try to hurt me. I know how to defend myself.”

  Mason eyed the kid. “I’m not going to try to hurt you.”

  “I overheard Aiahaleaeille and Alpha talking. You’re one of them.”

  “Them.” What the hell was this kid talking about?

  “The human renegades. You want to kill us.” He rose out of his crouch, letting the boot thud to the floor beside him. “You might think I’m weak, but I won’t let you hurt me or anyone in my pack.”

  His arms were at his sides, hands at the ready, as if he thought Mason was going to surge forward at any moment and attack him.

  Mason put his hands up, palms out. “I haven’t been with the renegades in over three years. Even when I was—I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Suspicion overflowed from the ocean-blue eyes returning his gaze. The young wolf didn’t relax his stance.

  “I mean it, I’m not going to hurt you.” Mason eased his arms down and glanced around the room. The bedding had been stripped but not replaced, and there were several small jars on the dresser, along with a coil of—

  “What the hell is that?”

  The wolf darted his gaze toward the dresser and back. “Ropes.”

  Anger stirred in Mason’s gut. “They better not be here for the reason I think they are.”

  The young wolf’s chin went up. “Aiahaleaeille says your submission can’t be trusted because you’re human.”

  Mason couldn’t figure out who the young wolf was talking about, but he didn’t think it was Five. He distinctly remembered a “W” sound at the beginning of Five’s real name. At least he thought he did.

  Still, he had trouble getting his jaw to unclench enough to respond. “Take them away.”

  “Alpha told me to bring them.”

  Goddamn that wolf.

  Mason forced his jaw to relax. If he kept gritting his teeth, he was going to crack one of them. He didn’t waste a breath telling the kid to take the rope again. He could tell by looking at the kid that he would do what his alpha wanted and to hell with Mason’s commands. So Mason would take care of the goddamn ropes himself.

  The young wolf pointed at the bathroom door. “You should go back to your bath. I have work to do.”

  “Like sniffing my boot?”

  The wolf flashed his teeth and growled low in his throat.

  Mason refused to be cowed by a kid, wolf or not.

  The wolf stopped his growling, his expression going soft. Regretful. “Alpha Weketekari says you’re going to be his mate. I wish you would have chosen to fight.” He flashed those teeth again, dropping into a half-crouch and slashing his arm through the air as if he were taking down an enemy with his claws.

  Mason gave the wolf a flat look then moved to the hard chair. He sat, slouching enough to keep the towel in place, and twined his fingers together over his abdomen. “I’ll just watch you work.”

  When the wolf realized Mason was serious, he straightened, then side-eyed Mason as he slowly made his way toward the bed.

  Over the next few minutes, the young wolf surprised Mason with the care he took doing his job. He put the blue and white striped sheets on the bed with careful precision, tucking each corner and smoothing every inch of fabric before laying out a clean quilt on top of it all.

  Mason studied the kid, watching those familiar eyes.

  After a few minutes, he asked, “What’s your name?”

  His voice seemed to startle the young wolf, who stilled before answering. “Aaron.”

  Mason pressed his thumbs together. “That’s a human name.”

  “Yes.”

  The wolf smoothed the quilt across the bed. It wasn’t quite large enough, but a few inches hung over each side. The
wolf picked up the pillows piled into the corner and started placing them strategically, as if he knew where every one was meant to rest.

  There were too many. That was all Mason could say about it.

  “What’s your real name?” Mason asked.

  The wolf gave him a pointed look over his shoulder as he placed another pillow. “Aaron er tio Skiatarweaieskg.”

  Well that was impossible. Mason sighed. “So Aaron, huh?”

  “Traesikeille wants us to take human names.”

  Mason made a quick guess. “You’re talking about the First Alpha?”

  “Yes.” The wolf dropped the final puffy pillow onto the bed and turned. “I have to go now.”

  Mason sat forward. “Wait. You’re not one of his are you?”

  A furrow appeared between Aaron’s eyebrows. “Do I belong to Alpha?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s Alpha. We all belong to him. You do too.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” And he disagreed vehemently that he belong to anybody, but that was an argument for someone else and some other time. “Is he your father?”

  “Weketekari?” Aaron snorted in an all too human way. “My father is Alpha’s father’s kin. We are not kin.”

  “That sounds like cousins to me.” Which abruptly brought to mind exactly why Five wasn’t there and what he was supposed to be doing. “Cousins are definitely kinfolk.”

  Aaron moved away from the bed, toward the pile of Mason’s clothes. “Kin is kin, pack is pack. If Alpha were kin, I wouldn’t be in his pack.” He snatched Mason’s clothes off the floor, gave Mason another suspicious glare, and left without another word.

  Mason didn’t object to the removal of his clothes, if only because the t-shirt was useless to him while torn in half and an objection would be just another wasted breath. Aaron had his orders. Mason wouldn’t win that argument.

  His gaze landed on the ropes Aaron had left behind.

  Mason pushed to his feet and stalked across the room. He took the ropes off the dresser, went to the door that had just finished closing, and slid it open to see a wolf straightening away from the wall opposite the door. He threw the ropes into the hallway where they landed with a loud whump.