by Tanya Chris
“It’s like that here, too,” Shade said. “Same rules of succession apply—power can pass to the heir presumptive without a real fight.”
“So…” I was confused.
“So you’re assuming Marta would roll over for him,” Tarek said, closing the logical loophole I hadn’t been able to find. “She won’t, which means he’d have to fight her for real.”
“But he’d win, surely.”
Lars shrugged. “Now you know how someone can be both a bully and a coward.”
Well. I hadn’t been able to figure out why Prince Devin didn’t appeal to me before, but I was starting to get a sense of it now. I liked alphas. Which meant brave, I decided.
“You ever wonder if Devin just needs a good railing?” Shade asked.
“He doesn’t deserve a good railing,” Tarek said, though I could hear laughter in his voice. “I doubt I could get it up for him.”
“I could,” Shade said. Lars and Tarek both groaned.
“You could get it up for a tree trunk,” Lars said. “In fact, I think you have.”
Shade flipped up his apron, revealing that he was hard right now. So was I.
I was in a room full of alphas who were happy to be horny for each other, joking about it the way alphas joked about omegas in omega bars, except I was on the other side this time—the hunted, not the hunter. I didn’t know how that made me feel. Wanted, maybe. Scared, a little. Home, mostly.
Chapter 11
Tarek didn’t ask me if I wanted to come back to his place. My following along next to him said it all. Last night, there’d been a lot of orders. Tonight, there was quiet. A moonlit stroll along streets lined with trees and cabins, the dirt of the road beneath our toes and a cool breeze blowing over our skin. I shivered even though I was back in jeans after swinging by to pick up our clothes. It wasn’t the temperature so much as the silence between us. Did Tarek still want me?
“You’re different tonight,” I observed.
“I came on strong last night. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“I liked it.” I’d already admitted as much. What more did he need from me?
He swung around to face me, pausing on the corner closest to his house. There weren’t any streetlights here, but no lighting could flatter him more than moonlight. “Did you like it?”
“You know I did.”
“I thought you did, but then you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away.” That sounded cowardly. I’d been sensible, not afraid.
“Ran off then. You left me. If you liked it, why did you leave?”
“Because it couldn’t be more than it was.” Though considering what I’d seen tonight, I understood why he might have thought otherwise. “It’s impossible for us to be together. Even aside from the fact that we’re both alphas, there’s the other stuff. You’re Northern Pack and I’m Southern Pack—”
“And things are coming to a head, I know. You aren’t the first bounty hunter to show up here, and you won’t be the first to go home disappointed.”
It was more personal than that, but he didn’t know it. I’d betrayed him to Prince Devin, but what did I owe him? I had a job to do, and so did he. Like I’d just said, he was Northern Pack and I was Southern. Even if the two of us could be together, we wouldn’t be.
He sighed, so wistful a sound I almost made him promises I couldn’t keep.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “Let’s have what we can while we can have it.”
I let him lead me into his den, into the room where he’d ravished me the night before, let him push me onto his bed and strip me for his gaze and eat me up with his silver-blue eyes until I was ready to scream at him to get on with it.
“I want to watch you come tonight,” he said when I tried to roll onto my stomach.
“Who said I want to be watched?”
“You’ll do what I tell you.” There was that flavor of command again. I’d been missing it. My cock perked up, and his smile widened at the sight of it battering at my stomach. “Why was I trying to be nice to you? You don’t want me to be nice to you.”
I shook my head, not sure whether I meant yes or no. His alpha voice ran like fire through my veins, but dinner tonight had been a different kind of pleasure. Not the food. Lars had been right about that. The company, the warmth, the overt way Tarek touched me and how no one reacted to it aside from Shade’s occasional horny observation. That was what Tarek being nice to me was like, and I didn’t hate. But I didn’t hate this either.
I arched up to meet him when he finally came over me, reaching for his mouth with my own. Our tussle in the birch grove came back to me as we tangled together in an embrace that was almost like fighting. Out there, I’d been able to take him, but here, in human form, with my cock hard and sliding against his, it was clear who belonged on top. I wanted him over me.
“Alpha,” I murmured when his teeth caught on my nipple. I’d been bit there before, but never with teeth sharp enough to pierce. The flash of pain was bright, too quickly receding, and then repeated. “Alpha,” I cried out when his fangs moved lower. His mouth hovered over my cock like a threat and I lay as still as a pup cowering before its mother after a bit of mischief. He wouldn’t dare me punish me like—
Ah!
Ah, ah, ah. He had my foreskin in his teeth, tugging on it as the points of his fangs dug deeper, simultaneously piercing and pulling. I writhed so hard I did half the damage myself, but it was good, so fucking good. And then my cock was down his throat and I thrust up to meet it, choking him with my length.
He snarled as he sucked me, the sound as stimulating as his tongue and teeth, the whole experience of it transcending anything I’d experienced before. The humans who’d fucked me, who’d been rough with me to the best of their human strength, had never gone down on me. Sucking cock wasn’t an alpha thing to do. But Tarek wasn’t a human playing at being an alpha. Tarek simply was an alpha, and an alpha could do whatever the fuck they wanted. Even this.
“Alpha,” I begged.
His mouth was warm and wonderful and unexpected, but I wanted to come on his knot again, and he had me too close already. I tried to roll over, but he stopped me.
“Face up. I’m watching you tonight, remember? Besides, it’ll take you longer to come this way, make it last longer.”
“Isn’t how long it lasts a function of how long it takes you to come?” I grumbled. I didn’t want him witnessing the throes of my humiliation.
“You have no idea what your ass felt like when you came.” He moved up my body to speak right into my ear. “Your ass milked my knot, Donovan. Kneaded it like it wanted every drop of my come. Because it did, didn’t it? Your ass is dying for my come, isn’t it?”
I groaned, embarrassed and exposed, and then, because I knew he’d make me do it anyway, I said the words out loud. “I want your come.”
“And you’ll milk my knot to get it?”
“Please let me milk your knot.”
“Mm. I gotta grease you up, lover. What did we do with that lube?”
I lay there splayed out like a wanton waiting to be taken while he found the lube and used it to slick up my ass with impatient fingers. Then he tossed the tube off the side of the bed where we were going to have go searching for it the next time, and hitched my legs practically up to my shoulders.
“I don’t bend that way,” I complained, even though I already had. It was just so fucking blatant. There was no pretending I wasn’t right where I was, doing exactly what I was doing, which was receiving Tarek’s firm cock as he slid into me with a slowness I knew was deliberate, his eyes on mine the whole time just like he’d threatened.
I turned my head away, and he manhandled it right back. I closed my eyes, and he stopped moving.
“Don-o-van,” he sang. “Don’t you want me to fuck you?”
He fucking knew I did.
“Then look at me, pretty thing. Show me those gorgeous green eyes. Fix them right here, sweetheart.”
&nb
sp; I opened my eyes to find him pointing at his nose and with a sigh of surrender, I fixed my gaze there.
“There we go.”
I hated how much his approval meant to me, just like I hated realizing he was ashamed for his friends to know what I did for a living. Why should I care what he thought? Just because he’d fucked me?
But it wasn’t just because he’d fucked me. I liked him. That was the horrible truth I saw when I looked straight into his eyes like he’d demanded. There was dominance there, but also affection, and I wanted him not just to rough me up but to like me. A lifetime of secrets meant never allowing myself to be vulnerable. For the first time, someone could see all the way through me, and I wanted him to like everything he saw.
He wouldn’t let me look away, and I couldn’t bear to keep making eye contact, so I reached up with my mouth to kiss him, and that was when he started fucking me—sliding in and out of me while our tongues tangled, his cock ruthlessly hard, his mouth surprisingly sweet. The kiss broke when his pace picked up. We needed our breath. Our rhythm was faster and harder than anything humans could’ve managed, his dominance calling me to match him in perfect synchronization. I was a wolf following his alpha. I knew how to serve him.
He was right that it would take me longer to come in this position. His cock didn’t strike my prostate with the same precision, and the embarrassment of being face up watching him watch me kept me balanced on a precarious edge between humiliation and delirium. Pleasure swirled around me like an eddy, dragging me under before spitting me back out to go around again. Tarek was gorgeous with lust, so wild and strong, so unabashed about what we were doing.
“Help me,” I begged, and he worked a hand between our bodies to stroke my cock, but that wasn’t what I meant. I meant help me not be afraid of how much I love this. But his hand did its job, scattering conscious thought. So maybe he’d understood, after all. I couldn’t be afraid when I was this present, this whole, this focused on my body and how he used it.
His knot began to rise, and with it came jerkier motions as my body resisted—first objecting to being plugged by his knot, then refusing to relinquish it. The knot rubbed firmly over my prostate, and his hand twisted roughly around my shaft, squeezing just below the head of my cock as if he could pinch back the flood that threatened.
It was all too much—how he felt, how he looked. I came with a howl, giving myself up to him. He fucked me through it, ramming harder and harder before jamming his knot inside me so roughly our pelvic bones cracked together. He threw his head back, beautifully wild. His howl matched mine, the two notes blending in a harmony of feral pleasure.
Last night, I’d all but passed out once I came, but today I was fully conscious as our heartbeats settled together. His cock pulsed inside me, gently now. If you could call a baseball bat lodged in your ass gentle. It hurt, but sweetly. My cock lost its rock-hard edge but stayed chubby. I didn’t know if I could ever be soft if Tarek was hard. The smell alone got me.
He nuzzled against my mouth, asking for a kiss which I gave him, then rolled onto his side. I went with him. I didn’t have a choice. We were tied. Joined, stuck. It was so awkward—so quiet and hideously tender. I couldn’t bear it and couldn’t escape it and had never wanted anything more. Tears threatened at my eyes, adding to my embarrassment, and Tarek kissed them from me, licking along my eyelids, swiping the hair back from my brow, whispering to me.
“So good, Donovan. You’re so good. And beautiful and perfect and precious.”
I could only shake my head, denying his compliments, trying to deny the emotions they raised. I was an alpha. An alpha tied to another alpha by the irresistible pressure of his knot. My cock was pressed tight between our bodies, reminding me how much I’d enjoyed being fucked and was enjoying being knotted, and I could feel the holes his teeth had left in my neck and nipple and foreskin. And heart.
“Stay here,” he said. “Not just for the night. For however long you’re in North Leland.”
“Are you sure?” As close as we were right now, I couldn’t forget how far apart we were on the issues that mattered most.
“I’m sure, Donovan. Really sure.” He kissed me, and I opened for him. One more night, I told myself. I could have one more night.
Chapter 12
Carmen jumped when she caught sight of me. So she was capable of fear, despite that show she’d put on in Ryker’s office. It hadn’t been my intention to scare her, but part of me didn’t mind that I’d done it. I was rattled. Why shouldn’t she be?
“Still think you’re going to change my mind?” she asked when I fell in with her.
I didn’t really. I had no idea why I’d been lurking around outside the Immigration Office waiting for her except that I didn’t have anything else to do. And maybe if I could talk her into coming back to Rio Verde with me, I could make a case with Tarek that what I did for a living wasn’t wrong, that I was providing a service for misguided omegas and the families who cared for them. Then I could go back home and remember this episode fondly—closed and done with, but perfect and precious.
Perfect and precious. They were the words Tarek had used to describe me last night, but I knew better than to believe them.
“Just happened to see you go by,” I lied. “Where are you heading?”
She was wearing a knit hat with a perky pompom and a scarf that must’ve been fifteen feet long, wrapped artistically around her otherwise naked body.
“Work.” She made a face at me. “I help Dr. Petra in her lab.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t mind it, I guess. I’d just rather be lazy.” She gave a delighted laugh, confident in her faults. “Macy says I have to have a job.”
“If you had an alpha, you wouldn’t. Come back to Rio Verde with me and you can be spoiled like omegas deserve.”
“Good point.” For a wild moment I thought I’d actually done it, but then— “Thanks for reminding me why Macy is right. She knows how to spoil me without imprisoning me, and if that means I have to have a job, it’s a trade I’m willing to make.”
Ugh. It was just impossible. Nevertheless, I kept my footsteps in pace with hers. She had a brightness to her that was refreshing on an otherwise grey day. Snow threatened overhead, but the bobble of her rainbow pompom said bring it on.
“You really don’t think you’ll regret it later?” I asked her. “Not having an alpha, I mean. You’re young now, but when you look back on your life—”
“How am I going to regret being who I am? I’m fabulous. You’re fabulous too, you know.”
“Mmph.”
“No, really. There’s nothing wrong with being who you are—whatever that is. My brother Gage, Omega Gage—”
I was about to interrupt with some questions about that, but she interrupted my interruption.
“Listen,” she said sternly. “I’m trying to tell you something. Some wolves don’t understand that he’s an omega. I used to be one of them. But he is an omega, and if you’re an omega—”
“I’m not an omega,” I growled. This was what came from the things I’d been doing the last few days—I was being mistaken for an omega.
“Okay, okay.” She glided to a stop, and though I was angry and confused, I stopped with her. “You’re more like me then.”
Since Carmen was definitely an omega, that only made me angrier.
“I didn’t mean it that way. Geez, you alphas can be insecure.” She rolled her eyes at me, mocking my reaction, but at least she’d rightfully referred to me as an alpha this time. “What I’m saying is that Gage is an omega even if he doesn’t smell like one and can’t produce slick, and I’m an omega even though I don’t get hot for alphas and have no interest in playing sheepdog to a passel of pups. He likes being a traditional omega obeying his traditional alpha, and I’d fuck up any alpha who tried to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. But we’re both still omegas. Get it?”
I shook my head.
“If you’re an alpha
—”
I growled again to remind her that I was.
“Then you’re an alpha,” she finished. “Nothing’s going to change that. Not who you fuck, or what you smell like, or how big you are, or whether you like hunting or knitting or collecting seed pods. None of that matters. You’re an alpha just because you’re an alpha.”
“I’m an alpha,” I protested. I’d never imagined I wasn’t.
“You’re an alpha who’s attracted to other alphas. It’s okay. You can say it.”
Could I? Tarek had made me admit to wanting him, to wanting his knot, but that admission hadn’t been made in cold blood in the light of a grey day to a sassy omega who was becoming something weirdly like a friend.
“Try it,” she urged. “Tell me. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then tell me. What does it matter what I think anyway?”
I considered the leaden sky above her pompom. Then I considered the hard-packed dirt beneath our bare toes. Then I considered a few of the wolves who were passing by. And then I said it. “I’m an alpha who’s attracted to other alphas.”
“And that’s okay.”
“Is it?”
“Say it and see what happens.”
“I’m an alpha who’s attracted to other alphas, and that’s okay.”
Carmen went up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose, her lips warm and her breath scented with persimmon. “Come on. I’m going to be late.” She tugged me by the hand in the direction we’d been heading. “How long are you sticking around for?”
“I don’t know.” I obviously wasn’t bringing Carmen back with me, not even if Head Alpha Marta said I could, so why was I still here? Maybe a better question was why would I ever leave?
After dropping Carmen off in front of the squat building fronted by two signs—one for the pack shaman named Flo, the other for this Dr. Petra she worked for—I headed back to my B&B, the one where I was paying the cost of a night’s lodging so my landlady could serve me eggs. I ate my eggs, then packed my bag and checked out.
I had two options. I didn’t know which to choose, but they both started with not spending another night at the B&B. One was to admit defeat—head back to Rio Verde and the life I’d left there. The other was to bring my bag over to Tarek’s, as he’d invited me to do last night.