CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Urho frowned as he pressed the stethoscope against Vale’s chest. His heartbeat was a little rapid, but it could be due to nerves. He knew Vale’s in-laws had been visiting often lately, and Vale was growing tense and weary of their attentions.
“Everything all right?” Jason asked with his arm around Vale’s shoulder and his eyes glued to where the stethoscope pressed against Vale’s skin. They were seated on the sofa in Vale’s study with Urho kneeling in front of them.
“Shh, I’m listening.” Urho moved the stethoscope down to press against Vale’s belly.
Jason radiated impatience.
Urho’s own patience had worn thin over the two and a half months since Xan had moved to Virona. Sometimes the sex he’d had with his alpha-shaped omega seemed so distant as to be more like a dream, and other times, especially after a steamy phone call from Xan, or one of his deeply erotic letters, it seemed as though he’d die if he didn’t touch Xan’s skin again or hear the little noises he made when he came.
Jason huffed. “You’ve been listening a long time. Is there a problem?”
Urho shushed him. There was a problem, yes, indeed. And that problem was his mind wondered to Xan constantly.
But he forced himself to fully concentrate, and after counting the baby’s heartbeats again, he lifted his head and nodded once. “The babe is getting along just fine, but Vale’s blood pressure and heart rate are elevated. He’s stressed.”
“He’s right here,” Vale said testily, shifting on the sofa. His stomach bulged nicely and the movements of the child inside could be detected by touch alone. The babe seemed to be exactly on track for the timeline Vale and Jason had provided regarding conception. “I don’t like being talked about like I’m not present. I’m a grown man, for wolf-god’s own fucking sake.”
Jason clucked gently, stroking a soothing hand over Vale’s arm. “Don’t get upset. It’s not good for the baby.”
Vale glared at Jason with more force than Urho had ever seen.
Jason swallowed hard and looked down, whispering, “But, of course, we’ll stop. Right away. I promise.”
Vale groaned and rubbed his bulging, shifting stomach. “Is it normal for him to do that?” he asked, referring to the baby. “He head-butts my ribs and then pushes with his feet against the mouth of my womb.”
“Perfectly normal.”
“Well, I wish he’d stop!”
Jason rubbed Vale’s shoulders and hushed him quietly.
“It’s preparation for the life to come,” Urho said. “Children rarely do what we wish they’d do. And, from what I’ve witnessed, their growth into adulthood is never without pain to the parent.”
Vale sniffed and closed his eyes. “That’s all fine and well, but I’m tired.”
“I can prescribe something gentle to help you rest.”
“Please do,” Jason said, sounding desperate. “He was up walking last night. Nothing soothed him. Not even his usual bedtime tea—the one with the herbs that make him drowsy.”
“Speaking of,” Vale said, as he buttoned his shirt. “I want some tea. Daytime tea. Something strong and well steeped. Jason will you get it, please?”
Jason rose, obviously reluctant to leave Vale’s side, but, like any alpha, he was also prepared to do whatever his pregnant omega demanded of him.
The doorbell rang.
Vale growled, almost pulling off the final button in his annoyance. “If that’s your pater or father, I will murder them both. Do you hear me? Murder. Them. Both.”
Jason bent to run his fingers over Vale’s dark beard, whispering, “If it’s them, I’ll tell them to leave. I promise.”
Urho watched Jason rush off as the doorbell rang a second time, and then he began to gather his things. “I’ll get out of your hair too.”
“You never come over anymore, except to examine me,” Vale complained. His moss green eyes raked over Urho irritably.
“I come here every day.” Urho buckled his bag and sat on the sofa next to Vale. “But I can stay awhile if you want.”
Vale rose and began to pace. His stomach bulged, and Urho could see the baby rolling and kicking, even beneath Vale’s loose shirt. “He moves around so much,” Vale said, rubbing a hand over his stomach. “Is that normal?”
“Better than normal. It’s a good sign.”
“I can’t stop eating. Sometimes I eat so much, I can’t put anymore in, but I’m still hungry.”
“Another excellent sign.”
“And everyone just pisses me the wolf-hell off.”
“Normal enough,” Urho said. “You’re uncomfortable and the weight of the baby is putting a strain on the scar tissue now. That’s enough to make anyone cranky.”
With no segue, Vale said, “Jason is adorable.”
Urho refrained from rolling his eyes. “I’ve heard that from you before, yes.”
“But he’s making me crazy!” Vale gestured wildly as he spoke. “Eat this. Drink that. Sleep more. Let me rub your feet. Don’t tax yourself. Let’s read together.” Vale snorted. “Read together. Read together!”
“Did Jason not read before?” Urho raised a brow.
“No! He has a photographic memory and so he just skims books. No, he doesn’t read. Unless I read to him.”
“I see.”
Vale seemed to interpret some kind of judgment in Urho’s voice because he added defensively, “He tinkers. Out in the garden, mostly. Or with his microscope.” He groaned. “But now he’s glued to my side. Plus, he smells amazing to me. Like my alpha, yes, but I scent him even more strongly.”
“This is normal.”
“This leaves me aroused all the time. All the time, Urho!”
“I know but—”
“No but! Being aroused all the time is exhausting. Let me tell you this now. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“I am getting ridiculously tired of being fisted every day.”
Urho’s lips quivered. Vale was lovely when he was angry—cheeks flushed above his beard, eyes bright, and his breath coming quick bursts. Urho almost remembered why he’d been in love with him once. But he wasn’t half as gorgeous as Xan in the throes of ecstasy. “I told him to do that.”
“I know. Tell him to stop.”
Urho sighed. “Love, it’s important that you keep stretching that scar tissue. It’s going to be a tough few months, but, in the end, you’ll have a beautiful baby and it will be worth it.”
“I know all that!” Vale exclaimed, his pacing stopped. He turned to Urho speculatively. “Wait, though. Should you still call me that?”
“What?”
“Love? Should you call me a pet name like that?” Vale tilted his head.
“If it bothers you, I can st—”
“No. I don’t care, but does Xan mind, do you think?”
Urho frowned. “I’ve called you ‘love’ for years—”
“Not when Jason’s around.”
Urho scoffed. “Because I don’t have a death wish.”
“So what you have with Xan, it’s not…” Vale rolled his hand.
“Nickname material?” Urho hazarded.
“No! Is it not serious, you fool? What you have isn’t serious?”
“I have no idea what it is.” Urho wiped a hand over his face. “I haven’t seen him since he left for Virona. Between the twins, you, and this wretched flu season, I’ve barely had a moment, much less a day, away from the clinic or work. And he can’t come here. He’s ‘banished’ from the city, according to him. At least the work on his new office seems to satisfy him, because otherwise I’d worry.”
“Jason talks to him.”
“I talk to him too,” Urho said defensively.
Vale’s brows lifted, and his voice dropped conspiratorially. “How often?”
“Daily,” Urho admitted. His cheeks felt warm.
“I see. So it’s not serious, but you talk every day, and you miss him. I can tell.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t serious. I said it’s complicated.”
“You said you didn’t know what it was.”
“You’re so exasperating today!” Urho started to stand, but Vale took hold of his shoulders and pressed him back down to the sofa.
“You have to tell me everything. Now.”
“It’s a long story and it’s been a long day.”
Vale rolled his eyes. “I’m a miserably pregnant omega who is essentially trapped in this house by the flu epidemic and tortured daily by the attentions of my loving in-laws. Please talk to me.”
Urho gave a quick half-smile and then eyed the liquor cabinet across the room. The truth would come out more smoothly with a bit of bourbon.
“I’ll pour you a drink if you tell me how it all began.” Vale crossed the room and lifted the bottle temptingly.
“I found out that he was involved…” Urho trailed off. That wasn’t his information to share. “He was in a dangerous situation. So I offered to fuck him, like a surrogate for an omega.”
Vale blinked rapidly and then choked on a laugh. After pouring a generous glass, he collapsed beside Urho on the sofa and passed the bourbon over with a grin spreading his lips. “I see.”
Urho wet his throat with the bourbon before going on. “I didn’t anticipate how that turned out.”
“Oh, I imagine you didn’t.” Vale sounded utterly delighted.
Urho rolled his shoulders and took another drink. “I hadn’t realized that it would become something so…”
“Different?”
“More.”
Vale’s grin sliced across his face again, and he leaned back on the sofa, his hand on his bulging stomach. “Ah, then you’re still the idiot I’ve always known and loved.”
Urho tried to explain it so that it made sense to them both. “I wanted to believe that what I was offering was no different than helping an omega in heat, but, in reality, it was nothing like that at all.”
“It was forbidden,” Vale supplied. “Which is definitely different.”
“Yes, but—” He’d apparently developed feelings for the little brat somehow. What he wanted from Xan wasn’t sex and sex alone, like with a typical surrogacy. He didn’t want to fulfill his animal lusts and then walk away. He wanted to build something real.
“But?” Vale prompted.
“He reminds me of Riki.”
“I thought Riki was a paragon of gentleness and obedience. Something Xan is decidedly not.”
“Riki was. No, Xan isn’t like him in that way at all.” Urho scrubbed a hand over his head and tried to put the words into the right shape. “I meant the way I feel about him reminds me of Riki. The way I react to his scent and the way I want to…”
Vale sat up again. “Yes?”
“The way I want to own him.”
“Oh, dear friend,” Vale whispered, a hand on Urho’s shoulder. “I suppose that must have shocked your old-fashioned, traditional soul nearly to death.”
“I keep telling you. I’m not old-fashioned. If anything should prove it and put a nail in that coffin, I’d think it would be this situation.” Urho smiled wryly. The illegal abortion he’d performed on Vale years before and the untraditional relationship they’d shared should have ended the rumors of his old-fashioned sensibilities well before. “I admit I did lose my mind at first.”
“After you’d…” Vale made a lewd gesture.
“No. Before I made the offer to him. I was in a state—overwrought, afraid, and angry. I wanted to protect him and shake him. I wanted to…” Urho trailed off. “Once I settled on the idea of acting as a surrogate for him, everything seemed to click into place. I was able to make a peace with it.”
“Well, you always did have a hero kink,” Vale said, the knowing smile on his face almost annoying. “I think that was half your attraction for me.”
“No.” He’d cared about Vale for reasons that went beyond that.
“Oh, maybe our relationship eventually became more than heroism to you, but at first you were my surrogate during heats because you wanted to save me from ever being in a dangerous position again. And then we became lovers outside the heats…and, yes, I’ll concede that was based more in friendship and fun than in heroism gone awry. But that was where it had started.”
And based in a now-faded love.
But Urho wouldn’t bring that up. Instead, he ventured toward the subject that had been pricking at him between bouts of dreaminess, longing, and intense phone calls with Xan. “It’s wrong, though. Two alphas. It’s against the Holy Book and the law.” He took Vale’s hand in his. “How do I reconcile that it feels so right?”
“I think you’re smart enough to know the answer to that.” Vale flicked him a harsh glance. “The laws and Holy Books are all about control. But hearts are wild things. They can’t be controlled no matter how much those in power wish it.”
“It’s an obstacle,” Urho mused. “We can never truly be together.”
“Plus there’s Caleb.”
Urho chuckled. “Yes, Caleb. Who is strangely accepting of all this.”
Vale nodded. “Contracted relationships aren’t like Erosgapé. I’m sure he has his reasons for being content with the arrangement.”
Urho tilted his head. “You know.”
“I know what?”
Urho said nothing and Vale looked at him innocently. Clearly Xan had shared something with Jason—perhaps the failed heat—and Jason had shared that information with Vale. “Caleb is special.”
“I think he’s a wonderful man and Xan is lucky to have him,” Vale said, shifting back uncomfortably and rubbing his stomach. “Good wolf-god above, this child! He never rests.”
“When he’s bigger, he’ll have less room to move around. So he’ll slow down.”
Vale frowned at his stomach. “Then I’ll panic and rejoice every time he makes himself known. I’ve heard as much from Miner.”
Grateful for the change of topic, Urho asked, “Miner’s driving you up a wall, is he?”
“They both are. They’d put me in a glass cage if they could, and feed me only the freshest fruit and vegetables straight from golden tongs.”
“Interesting image.”
Vale sighed and rubbed his bulge again. “So with all that out on the table, indulge me some more. What’s the plan now? How will you proceed with this relationship—is that even the term for what you have? And how are you coping with all of this time apart?”
Urho sighed. “I’m not sure. Making plans is difficult because his cousin, Janus, an alpha with a reputation for seducing contracted omegas, has been sent there to spy on Xan. Or so he believes.”
“Oh, I can believe it.” Vale rolled his eyes. “Xan’s father is a controlling man from what I’ve seen and all I’ve heard.”
“Yes. Well, Xan wishes he could get away from Virona to meet me halfway in Montrew, but he’s so busy with his work. And I’m busy here, of course. Plus his father has put the kibosh on Xan traveling anywhere near the city during this flu epidemic, and his cousin is there to enforce it.”
“Jason didn’t tell me about that. What if you went up to see him for a few days?”
“He says even if I did find a way to get up there, we wouldn’t have any time alone. Not with his cousin keeping such a close eye on him.”
Vale’s face showed how ridiculous he found that argument. “You could be inconspicuous.”
“Perhaps.” Urho rubbed a hand over his forehead, thinking hard.
“Don’t be such a coward,” Vale said sharply.
“What?”
“Surely you could find someone to look after the omega who is pregnant with twins? And we could engage another doctor—just for a day or so. What’s really stopping you?”
Urho’s shoulders tightened. The idea of anyone else as Vale’s doctor…no. He didn’t want that. But the vibrating sensation in his body, the sense that he was a bell that’d been rung, was undeniable. Maybe he was too cowardly to see what he’d wrought, to test his mettle, and to keep his commitments to Xan and Caleb.
He cleared his throat. “This flu contagion is growing in proportions that frighten me. The omega expecting twins and his alpha have decided it’s too risky to stay in town. They’re heading west to Elinton for the rest of his pregnancy.”
“Perfect. When they’re gone, you should go up and stay with Xan.”
“I could, but—”
Jason entered with a stack of mail and a tray of tea. “The door was only the postman. He was coughing up a storm. Ugly wracking coughs. I’m not sure he shouldn’t be home.” Jason nodded at the envelopes. “Out in this cold weather with a cough like that, he’ll catch his death, as my father would say. And all for a stack of junk mail and fliers.”
“Go wash your hands,” Urho said, standing up. “And burn that mail.”
Jason paled and stared down at the offending papers like he held a murder weapon in his hands. “The flu,” he whispered.
“Do what I said,” Urho commanded.
Jason fled the room, and Vale chewed on his bottom lip. “Do you think he’ll get sick?”
“I hope not. For your sake. The real danger, though, is if you get sick.”
Vale nodded. “I heard rumors that this flu is bad enough that some young people are dying from it. A boy just last week—younger than Jason, healthy and hale, and then he was gone.”
“I think the omega with twins has the right idea.” Urho sighed. If he fled the city with Vale and Jason, he’d be leaving his duty to the citizens behind, but keeping his promise to Jason to see Vale through to the end of the ordeal. “I can host you at my country home.”
Another two hours south. Even farther from Xan. His heart ached.
Vale’s eyes went wide and he shook his head. “No, no.”
Urho knew exactly why Vale didn’t want to do that. Urho had handled many of Vale’s heats at his country home, and it would be far too awkward for all of them to be there together. “What about the house at Seshwan-By-The-Sea? The one Jason’s parents keep?”
“They’re heading there for their anniversary in a few weeks, and, to be dramatic, I’d rather die than be caged in a house with the two of them right now. They’re as bad as Jason, only I don’t adore them. Miner’s always trying to mother-hen me, while Yule is constantly shoving food into my mouth. Did you know he cooks extra every night and brings it over here? Then I have to eat it even though Jason’s already fed me once.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I know! I’ve been looking forward to them leaving town, just to get a break.”
Urho said aloud, thinking to himself, “Virona is three hours north of here by train.”
Vale raised a brow and stroked his stomach. “And?”
“And Xan is always saying that the house is empty and Caleb is lonely.”
“I don’t know if Jason will agree. He barely lets me leave the house to walk to the market or—”
“With this flu going around, I want you to stop that immediately.”
“I haven’t been in over a week. I’m going stir crazy here. The garden is dying and the flowers are going, and I haven’t written a decent poem since I got knocked up. Do babies suck out all your inspiration? Is there scientific evidence of that? Because I could contribute to the studies.”
Jason came back into the room, looking shaken. “I burned the mail in the fireplace in the reception room and washed my hands in hot water. Do you think that’s good enough? Should I shower?” He started to turn and leave again. “I can shower!”
“You’re fine.” Urho said, gesturing to the leather wing chair that used to be his favorite when he could snatch it from Vale. “Sit down. We need to discuss this flu epidemic and the risk to this pregnancy and Vale.”
Jason sat immediately, eyes like saucers, intent on whatever Urho suggested. It felt good for a moment to have the boy’s obedience because he hadn’t always been willing to listen to Urho at all.
“I forgot to remake Vale’s tea,” he said quietly. “Can this wait until I get that for him?”
“Never mind, darling,” Vale said softly. “I’m past wanting it now.”
“He’s very finicky lately. Is that normal?” Jason asked.
“Quite normal. Now, please listen. I was just telling Vale about the flu this season. It’s ramping up, becoming an epidemic very quickly. Normally, I’d want to be here, in the thick of it, helping those who contract it, but I’m committed to Vale’s health and dealing with whatever potentials come from this pregnancy. I won’t put him in another doctor’s hands.”
Jason nodded gratefully.
“Which brings me to my suggestion: I think we should all three leave town.”
“And go where?” Jason asked.
“Somewhere the flu hasn’t reached yet. The sea, perhaps,” Urho said, licking his lips. Did he sound too self-serving? Would they guess how desperately he wanted to see Xan and test himself against his own cowardice now that he’d recognized it? It shouldn’t matter, though. The suggestion was sound either way.
“My parents are already going to the cottage,” Jason said, repeating Vale’s comment from earlier. “Vale can barely stand their nightly visits. I don’t think he’d want to be stuck with them in—”
“We can go to Xan’s house in Virona,” Vale interrupted. “He’s invited us, hasn’t he?”
“Well, yes, for the Autumn Nights feasts, but we declined of course.”
“Don’t you think the offer probably still stands?” Vale pushed. “Even though the feasts are past?”
“I’m sure it does,” Jason agreed. “He’s always complaining that the house is so big and yet his cousin seems to be everywhere at once.”
“This cousin of his. Urho was telling me about him. You hadn’t mentioned him before,” Vale said to Jason curiously. “Why’s that?”
“He’s a little older than us, but I never liked him.” Jason shrugged. “Aside from that, I’ve had my mind on other things.” His brows drew down. “Seeing Janus would be a negative toward going, but if push came to shove, we could always rent our own little place in Virona if we need to get out of Xan’s hair.”
“I want to be with Caleb,” Vale said suddenly, clutching Jason’s hand. “When the time comes, it would be good to have him there.”
“I didn’t know you felt so strongly for Caleb.” Jason kissed Vale’s knuckles.
“Omega brooding instinct,” Urho said softly. “They take solace in the presence of other omegas during their time. It’s instinctual.”
Vale gazed at Urho pointedly. “Or perhaps societal. And stop talking about me like I’m not here. Regardless, if Xan and Caleb will have us, then, yes, I’m willing to go.”
“You’re coming too?” Jason asked Urho.
“I made a promise to you both that I’d deliver this baby and I will. So if Xan will have me—”
Jason laughed. “Oh, he’ll have you. This way and that.”
Heat rose up Urho’s throat and made his ears burn. “Yes, well, then I’ll be going too.”
“I think we just cinched our invite,” Jason stage whispered in Vale’s ear, eyes dancing.
Urho cleared his throat and looked at his hands. His heart beat rapidly. Soon he’d finally see Xan again. He clamped down on the squirmy feeling inside. He was terrified and yet he couldn’t wait.
“Caleb!” Xan shouted, racing over the dunes and down to the beach. His right ankle nearly twisted on the uneven ground but he righted himself. The cold wind off the ocean stung his eyes and cheeks. “Caleb!”
Caleb stood by the water with an easel and canvas. He’d taken up painting while waiting for his printing materials to arrive from the city. Xan didn’t know what was taking them so long, but apparently the printing mechanism itself was heavy and needed special equipment to move. Plus the beta servants had trouble boxing it all up because there was so much of it.
Xan had offered to buy whatever Caleb needed in the meantime, but the proposal had been brushed aside in the hustle of redecorating the house, arranging for lonely, awkward Autumn Nights feasts with local business invitees, and keeping out of Janus’s way.
“Caleb!” he cried again as he ran.
The blue slash of the sky on the canvas was brighter than the real blue above, but not half as bright as the blue of Caleb’s eyes. He turned to Xan, paintbrush raised, and his red mouth open in surprise.
“What’s wrong!” he shouted, tossing the paintbrush into the sand and rushing to Xan. “What’s happened?”
Xan swept Caleb into his arms, squeezing him, breathless with joy. “They’re coming!” His heart beat wildly, rattling his chest, and he felt like he might be able to jump into the air and fly away with Caleb crushed to him.
“Who?” Caleb gasped.
“Everyone!”
“Your family?”
“No! Thank wolf-god!” Xan laughed. “Urho! And Jason and Vale too! They’re coming, Caleb! He’s coming!”
They hugged tightly, the ocean waves pounding the shore and the gulls crying out above them. “I’m so glad, alpha mine,” Caleb finally said. “I’m excited to see him too. Your joy is my joy.”
Xan kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
“If we’re to have guests then there’s a lot to do. I’ll need Ren and the others to get the guest rooms ready,” Caleb said, obviously beginning a long list in his mind of what, who, when, and where. Caleb had been lonely since moving out of the city and away from his friends, and part of Xan’s joy was for him as well.
Caleb started up toward the house, leaving the easel and canvas behind, as well as the paints and brushes. Xan thought of turning back for them, but changed his mind when Caleb called over his shoulder that he’d send someone down later. It was evident that Caleb’s mind was on planning and parties now, and Xan was ready to go along for the ride.
An hour and a half later, beta servants were scampering around the upstairs of the house, opening windows and airing out rooms, putting fresh sheets on beds, and dusting where a dust cloth hadn’t been in years. Caleb stood in the middle of the dining room, taking measure of the long table, his head cocked and his neck exposed.
Caleb patted his own cheek absently. “Now, what will we do about seating? We need more chairs. I shouldn’t have sent so many off to be reupholstered.” He clucked his teeth. “And your alpha of course needs to be kept far away from your awful cousin.”
“I love it when you talk dirty about me,” Janus said from the doorway to the kitchen. He stepped out with a piece of pecan pie held in his hand like a hick farmer from Leitel, his lips glistening with the buttery filling. “Do it again.”
Caleb’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing in reply. Instead he simply turned and left the room.
“I’ve warned you,” Xan said, pointing at Janus, who lifted his pecan pie up in a faux toast as he laughed.
“He’s so sensitive. And whose alpha was he talking about just now?” Janus’s tone was too casual.
Pulse racing, Xan kept the subject on Caleb. “You know as well as I do that he’s off-limits to you. Plus, he’s immune to your so-called ‘charms’ anyway.”
“Is he? I wonder.” Janus smirked.
“I don’t think he could be more plain about it.”
“Believe me, he wasn’t always.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Janus took another bite of his dessert. “There was a time when Caleb thought I was the sweetest cherry in the pie.”
Xan stared at Janus, trying to parse what he was saying. “You knew each other? Outside the Philia parties?”
“We were intimate friends,” Janus said with an air of satisfaction that Xan loathed. “He hasn’t told you? In all these months we’ve been here together? Why keep it from you? Maybe he still harbors feelings for me after all this time.”
“You lie.”
“Ask him.”
Xan’s hands balled into fists, and he stepped closer to Janus, hot rage like a volcano in his gut.
“Duels are against the law,” Janus said, half laughing. “But we could have fisticuffs here in the dining room. First blood or to the death?”
“Death,” Xan muttered, his heart thudding fast. He drew close enough to smell the watered-down rose perfume Janus dabbed behind his ears. It gagged him. “Let’s go.”
Janus only stood there with his pecan pie, smiling like he had the upper hand.
“Stop!” Caleb’s voice cut into the room again. “No fighting. No dueling, either. He’s not worth it, Xan.”
“Who says I wouldn’t win?”
“Me,” Janus said, laughing.
Caleb went white as a sheet and stalked to him, took the pie from his hand, and shoved it into his face, smearing the butter and syrup concoction all over his flushed cheeks and up into his hair.
Janus gasped, his eyes wide. “What—but, why—and—”
Caleb kicked Janus in the shin. Hard. Then he elbowed him in the back of the head, felling him to the floor.
“Never insult my alpha again,” Caleb hissed. “Or I’ll murder you in your sleep, you sorry, pompous, self-absorbed, lying, manipulative prick!”
Xan blinked in shock, staring as Caleb spun on his heel again and stomped from the room. Janus struggled up from the ground, his hands clutching his shin, his face smeared with pie. He sat back on his haunches, blinking dazedly after Caleb through the sticky goo. “Wow. Maybe he is immune to my charms after all.”
“You think?”
“Tell him I’m sorry.”
Xan almost commanded Janus to go tell Caleb himself, and on his knees at that, but he bit it back, not wanting Janus to upset Caleb any further.
Janus huffed and said with a surprising earnestness, “I didn’t mean to upset him, Xan, I swear. I thought with our history, he’d take my comments in the vein I meant them, but I guess he still holds a grudge.” He rose slowly to his feet and wiped his hand over his face, gathering some of the pie goo before sticking his fingers into his mouth. “Delicious.”
“Get out of my sight.”
Janus rolled his eyes, but then seemed to remember that he was talking to the irritated alpha of the omega who’d just taken him down several pegs. He bowed his head. “Don’t mention this to your father, all right? Give me a chance to make it up to Caleb.”
“Is that all you care about? My father?” Xan didn’t know if his father would even believe him if he ratted out Janus. However, a call from Caleb would do the trick. He chewed on his cheek, trying to breathe through the urge to sock his cousin in the face.
“Of course that’s not all I care about.” Janus’s wide eyes made a good show of regret. “Truly, I’m sorry. For today, and for anything I said to hurt him since he arrived here.” He hesitated before his eyes dropped to the carpet. “And, most especially, for what happened in the past. Tell him I said that, and I sincerely mean it, all right?”
Xan gritted his teeth and tried to imagine what his father would say if he called and told him, “I brained Janus with a candlestick in the middle of the dining room for flirting with Caleb.” He cleared his throat and pointed at Janus. “Let this be a lesson. Don’t mess with Caleb again or give me any reason to come at you. Don’t speak of whatever happened in the past. Never make him unhappy for even a second. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Xan turned on his heel, his blood boiling, and an itchy, rageful desire to dispatch his cousin to the great wolf-den beyond still aching in him. Instead, he headed upstairs in search of Caleb and answers.
Xan found Caleb in his room, his windows open, letting the frigid ocean air pour in. He stood facing out the sash, his shoulders trembling and his hands clenching the windowsill.
“I should have told you the first day,” he said miserably.
Xan said nothing, his usually fast-running mouth fused shut. He sat on Caleb’s now-volumous bed, and the soft cushions and blankets cradled him. He tugged one blanket up over his shoulders to keep his shivering at bay.
He waited.
Out the window the clouds scattered across the sky, the setting sun shone on the water, and the rush and fall of the waves rose like a soothing whisper. The anger leeched out of him, and he waited some more, an inhuman patience settling over him. He’d wait as long as it took for Caleb to tell him.
Eventually, Caleb turned from the view.
“I loved him,” Caleb said as he walked slowly toward Xan and took hold of his hand. “Philia love, of course. As always. Brotherly love. But not as profoundly as I love you.”
“All right.”
“But, at the time, I thought I might grow to care for him as deeply.”
Xan tugged him onto the mattress and cuddled him close, both of them stretching out and getting under the blankets. Caleb shook against his body, chilled from the window and clearly rattled by old emotions.
“It was humiliating,” Caleb whispered. “When he didn’t bring it all up right away after we arrived, I decided to pretend it never happened. I thought he might be willing to play along. But then I realized he just wanted to needle me with it constantly and call the cruelties nothing more than flirtation.”
Xan considered offering up Janus’s apologies and assurances, but he held them back, a rare otherworldly certainty descending. He should give Caleb the space to share his story and feelings first.
“I didn’t love him the way I love you,” Caleb said again.
“All right,” Xan repeated softly. The alpha in him wanted to cover Caleb completely and rub his scent all over, assert his dominance over him until slick began to slip from his hole. He also knew that would never happen. Caleb only produced slick during heat, and never in response to another person. He didn’t experience attraction.
And Xan wasn’t attracted to him anyway. But whatever instincts he still had—even as an utter failure of an alpha—made him want to comfort Caleb in the way an alpha would. He almost laughed to himself; it would only make things so much worse. Besides, who was he to judge Caleb’s past entanglements? After the horrors of his own?
“I knew he was your cousin when we contracted. I planned to tell you about it then, but he was never at any of the family dinners. I was grateful for that and let myself believe that your families weren’t close. So when you started coming home from your father’s office with complaints about Janus returning from some sort of exile to suck up to your father, I was horrified. And then…” Caleb’s voice broke. “This is hard.”
“I’m here.”
“I’m so sorry, Xan.”
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not. Because when your father said we weren’t to come to any family dinners anymore, I was relieved. I didn’t want to see him again.”
Shoving aside the prick of betrayal, Xan stayed on course. “Did he hurt you? Janus?”
“Not physically. And, to be fair, if I was hurt it was my own fault. He never pretended to be anything other than who and what he was, and apparently still is.” Caleb sighed and snuggled in closer, scenting along Xan’s neck for comfort.
Xan stroked a hand up and down his back. “You can tell me. I won’t be angry.” With you. As for Janus, well, he wouldn’t promise that.
“I met him at a Philia soirée. He spotted me hiding in a corner, like he said. It was my second year out and my parents were set on finding an alpha for me. Janus didn’t seem to care about my father’s addiction or loss of fortune. He was funny and full of gossip. He pulled me in simply by coming around and refusing to leave.”
“If I recall correctly, I used a similar tactic.”
“You did. But unlike Janus, you had a good heart.” Caleb kissed Xan’s chest and then rubbed his cheek on his shirt. “I let him in. I laughed at his jokes. I allowed him to call on me at home. I took his phone calls. And while I didn’t feel attraction for him—I never do—I felt warm and hopeful. I felt something. And that feeling allowed me to think I could tell him the truth.”
Xan went cold. “He knows about you?”
“He hinted one day that he wanted to contract. It wasn’t an actual proposal, but another inch in that direction. I went to my bed that night and tried to imagine letting him touch me, kiss me…. Fuck me.”
Xan kissed Caleb’s hair. His heart squeezed.
“I didn’t want that. But I did want—remember I didn’t know about you, that I would meet you and we could make a good life.”
“It’s all right,” Xan reassured him. “You know I did things with others in the past. Felt things for other men, and still do.” He missed Urho so fiercely in that moment. He wished he could throw himself into Urho’s arms and be comforted. But no, Caleb was his friend—his family—and Xan had to be strong.
“I imagined a future with him. A home, friends, and a life. I’d had one heat already at that point, so I knew I’d be willing when that time came. But the idea of being with him outside of heat was horrible to me.” Caleb shuddered like he did every time he thought about having sex with someone else. “Still, I hoped.”
“You hoped he loved you for you. Or could.” Xan knew. He’d been there. Wolf-hell, he was there now with Urho. Could the man really love him? Or was their bond going to be purely physical? He shook the questions from his mind, returning his focus to Caleb.
“Yes. I was sure I’d be alone forever. I wanted to believe that all the things he told me—that I was everything he imagined in a contracted omega, that I was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen, and that he adored me—could be true. So when he came around again the next week, I took him out into my pater’s garden, and I told him the truth.” Caleb’s voice hitched.
“He spurned you.”
“He was kind enough in the moment. But, yes, he said that wasn’t the kind of life he could stand to live. He never called me or came around again. It was humiliating. I saw him at Philia parties and he ignored me. He treated me like I was nothing. No one.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Then he left the city for a long time and I thought that was the end of him. Until I met you. I knew he was your cousin, but he never came up in conversations and when I met your family he wasn’t discussed. I hoped he was someone I might see only once in a while at larger family functions, and hopefully after you and I had produced several beautiful children that I could parade in front of him. And I’d hoped he’d believe that with you at least I didn’t suffer from this weird affliction.”
“It’s not an affliction. It’s just who you are, Caleb. We aren’t all the same.”
“We both know that in this world, that’s not true. We’re both afflicted—you with taboo desires and me with an unacceptable lack of any desire at all.”
Xan thought of his cousin, pie smeared all over his face, and his confused, stunned expression as Caleb had stalked out. “You should have seen him,” he said, overcome with a giggle. “He looked so ridiculous. And he tried to play if off, but I could tell you’d put him in his place.”
“I wasn’t about to let him put a finger on you,” Caleb said fiercely.
“I could have held my own.”
Caleb made a noncommittal sound.
“You don’t think I would have won?”
“I think you’re brave. And like most alphas short sighted. He’s got several years and many pounds on you. I can’t remember the last time you pushed yourself physically beyond a game of ball with Jason now and again. How you remain so fit-looking is beyond me.”
“I have training in fighting skills.”
“Rusty skills left over from Mont Nessadare. Compare that to your cousin who runs on the beach every morning, lifts weights at the local gymnasium, and engages in wrestling matches on the weekends at the gentlemen’s club. I had reason to be worried. But I also knew he’d never strike an omega and that I had the advantage of surprise on my side.”
“How do you know all this about him?”
“He brags about it, darling. Don’t you listen?”
“I try to tune him out when we aren’t at work.” Xan didn’t add that his mind was usually occupied with Urho and turning over whatever conversations they had most recently engaged in.
He could entertain himself for hours doing that—thinking of Urho’s chuckle, or the small strain that would come into his voice when he was aroused, or the one time he’d felt sufficiently safe to jerk off with him over the phone, and Urho had grunted Xan’s name when he came. That had been a particularly wonderful conversation and he’d gotten a great deal of fantasy mileage out of it for nearly a week and a half.
“Over breakfast just this morning he suggested you go with him this weekend to the gentlemen’s club to meet the more prominent alphas and their omegas. Something about there being a new member of the club and an upcoming match worth betting on.”
Xan scoffed.
“Not that it doesn’t pain me to credit anything your cousin suggests, but maybe you should consider going to the club with him. That’s where you’ll meet the sort of men your father admires, and perhaps turn them into future clients for the business.”
Xan wrinkled his nose. “Being near him is its own punishment, but soon Urho will be here, and leaving him to go with Janus to some ghastly gentlemen’s club, especially when that will be the only time I can be sure Janus is out of the house and not spying for Father, seems too cruel.”
Caleb lifted up onto an elbow, gazing down at Xan. “Urho will be here for some time, and there’s no reason you can’t take him with you. The club isn’t far from the house and surely he’s not going to be a prisoner here waiting for Vale and Jason’s babe to be born.”
Xan laughed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“And you don’t have to go with Janus. You could just go when it suits your schedule. All I’m saying is that Janus is making connections in town while you’re spending evenings here on the phone with Urho, or lounging in my room thinking about Urho, or walking on the beach dreaming of Urho, or—”
“All right, all right! I get it!” Xan chuckled. “You’re right, of course. As usual.”
“Now, about Janus…” Caleb pushed his hair behind his ears and chewed on his bottom lip.
“I will call Father and tell him that Janus can’t stay here. That you have a history with him that’s far too painful for you—”
“No. I don’t want anyone to know. That must stay between us.”
“Fair enough. But it will make it harder to explain to Father what it is about Janus that bothers you. I can say that he flirts with you, but then Father will wonder why I don’t put and end to that myself. He’ll bring up my failures as an alpha and we’ll end up down some miserable path where I’m a horrible disappointment and he’s a nightmare, and you’re still stuck with Janus here reminding you of things you’d rather forget.”
“I think the solution is for me to move past my bruised ego. If Janus wants to flirt with me, why should I get upset about that? It means nothing in the scheme of our lives. It was years ago now that he shamed me and I’m happy with you now, planning a future, coming up on a heat that has every reason to be a successful one. I’m eager to start our family. Why should his barbs and teasing dig into my skin so deeply? I resolve to no longer let them.”
“Perhaps you still care for him,” Xan ventured carefully, both for Caleb’s sake and to make sure his own possessive alpha response wouldn’t destroy the potential for truth.
“No. He’s handsome and I used to find him funny years ago, but all that remains now is hurt. He saw me in a very vulnerable moment and whenever I look at him I want to show him that I’m strong now. That I’m not that boy he left crying in the garden.”
“You’re definitely a better man than he is. Handsome, strong, determined, loyal, and so much more. He missed out. And I got very lucky.”
Caleb snuggled him again, kissing his chest and scenting his neck. “We both got lucky. You love me just the way I am, and I love you too. More than you know. It doesn’t have to be romantic love to be worthy. We’re family, and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. So, alpha mine, let’s both resolve not to let Janus get to us anymore.”
The rising moon shining through the windows caressed the room. For once, Xan let himself drift off to sleep in Caleb’s bed, holding his omega close and taking comfort in his sweet presence.