CHAPTER FOUR
Urho sat stubbornly in the well-appointed drawing room to the right of the fashionable entryway. It wasn’t a room he’d been in before during the few parties Xan and Caleb had thrown over the last year since they contracted together. The furniture didn’t seem to Xan’s taste. It was simple and classic, lacking in the elegant yet quirky self-awareness that Xan’s clothing and furnishings always revealed. Perhaps this room was Caleb’s doing? If so, the omega had timeless sensibilities.
Mid-morning sunlight filtered in through the soft, white curtains, lending a further sense of calm to the room. On another day, Urho would have enjoyed having tea and relaxing here, but his nerves made the lack of fussy details on which to focus his attention nearly unbearable. He crossed and re-crossed his legs restlessly.
The door to the hallway opened behind him, and Urho rose, still facing the window. He crossed his hands in front of him and lifted his chin, prepared to meet Xan in whatever state he found him this morning. Despite having thought of little else all night, he was suddenly speechless without any idea of where to start. So he closed his eyes, waiting to hear how Xan greeted him first.
“Dr. Chase,” a smooth, soft voice murmured. It was pleasant, a quiet tenor laced with an iron undertone Urho recognized. He’d heard omegas wield that attitude on alphas his whole life.
“Mr. Riggs,” Urhos replied politely, opening his eyes and turning to take in Caleb. He wore loose, casual clothing: white pants and a soft-looking white, short-sleeved shirt that opened in a small V to expose his delicate collarbones. His pale arms hung loosely at his sides, an attempt at appearing calm and collected, but Urho didn’t miss the way Caleb’s breath came quickly or how his pulse pounded at the base of his long throat. Urho said, “I’m here to speak with your alpha this morning.”
“Xan is resting.” Caleb called over his shoulder for tea to be brought before stepping farther into the room. His longer-than-entirely-fashionable blond hair hung to chin-length, but the front was combed back from his face and held in place with a sparkling blue-jeweled barrette. His similarly colored eyes cut through Urho like blades. “He isn’t well.”
Urho’s stomach dropped. “I saw him last night. Does he need medical assistance? I’d like to help.”
Caleb’s right brow went up, but he didn’t say anything for a moment as a beta servant, a mere slip of a boy, brought in the tea service and put it on the table before Urho. It wasn’t what Urho would have expected in Xan’s house either. Instead of a quirky, elaborate, and cutting-edge design, the pot was smooth and white. The cups didn’t have handles and were made of the same fragile but plain ceramic white clay.
After the boy left again, Caleb took a seat opposite Urho in a simple cream-colored, tall-backed chair with no arm rests. He crossed his legs carefully, and Urho noticed for the first time that Caleb was barefoot and each of his toenails was painted with some shiny, glittery substance that caught the morning light.
“Let’s cut out the formalities, what do you say?” Caleb looked up at Urho through his lashes in a way that could only be called coy. A very omega thing to do when feeling cornered. “We’ve met often enough to use first names.”
“Of course.” He smiled, trying to grasp onto the familiar back and forth of social graces to dispel the discomfort he’d wallowed in since the night before. He settled back onto his chair. “Call me Urho.”
“And you may call me Caleb.” He relaxed back in his seat, but with the same air as Vale’s cat when she watched birds out the study windows: relaxed but focused, poised for attack. “So, how can I help you, Urho?”
Urho attempted to soften his own body into a more soothing position. He didn’t want Caleb to think of him as the enemy here. “As I said, I saw Xan last night. He was injured.”
Caleb’s cheeks flushed, but his eyes didn’t sway from Urho’s gaze. “Yes.”
“If he requires a doctor’s care, I’m discreet and ready to be of service.”
Caleb carefully poured tea for both of them, his long fingers deft and strong, though they trembled slightly. “I’d like that. However, I doubt he’d hold the same opinion.”
“He’s a stubborn ass.”
Caleb’s smile was swift and surprising. Urho hadn’t been granted it many times in their prior meetings. Xan’s omega had always seemed, if not shy, perhaps cautious. Now his smile signaled a potential opening between them. “He is, yes,” Caleb agreed. “Many people don’t understand that about him. But I’m not surprised you do.”
Urho wasn’t sure who in the world could ever be surprised by a stubborn alpha, but Xan typically turned in a convincing performance of a superficial fop with no substance to back up his mouthy opinions. Between that act, Xan’s bow-ties and the tight pants that hugged his ass in ways that made Urho’s eyes linger too long—not to mention his bright, somehow guileless blue eyes—Urho could imagine many serious men might fail to register Xan’s true nature.
In the morning light streaming through the windows, Urho noticed not for the first time that Caleb was slightly older than Xan. Fine lines started at the corners of his handsome eyes. If Urho had to guess, he’d say Caleb was older by at least five years.
It was unusual for an omega to contract with an alpha that much younger without an Erosgapé bond to tie them. Not unheard of, but all the same, it was of interest. Why would he choose Xan over other alphas his own age, men who were perhaps a bit older and more established? Surely there had been offers. Especially for an omega of Caleb’s beauty and obvious intelligence.
“Xan admires you, you know,” Caleb said carefully, like he was dipping a toe into the oean to see how cold the waves might be.
Urho’s heart thumped hard, and he frowned, confused by the abrupt heat blooming in him, making him sweat. “It’s not unusual for a younger alpha to look up to an older alpha,” he said, but his voice sounded tight, and he didn’t know why.
Caleb hummed softly, his gaze shrewd as he took Urho in. Shifting on the soft chair, Urho loosened his tie. The room was suddenly stuffy and he wished Caleb would open a window.
Silence clicked between them for a few stilted moments, but eventually Caleb asked, “What do you plan to do with the information you discovered last night?”
Urho’s pulse seemed to grow very slow and yet very loud before bursting into a gallop. He studied Caleb’s calm expression, searching for some sign that Urho might betray Xan’s trust by discussing this matter honestly with his omega, but he found no innocence there.
Caleb’s challenging gaze told him that whatever happened to Xan last night, whatever the truth of it—rape or alpha expression gone wrong—Caleb was in the know about it all. Urho let out a sigh of relief. “I plan to do nothing other than offer my assistance as a physician.”
Caleb nodded, sipping at his tea, and so Urho did the same. The flavor of orange rinds spiced it nicely and he took another, longer sip. The sound of a door opening and closing somewhere above them caused Caleb’s eyes to flick speculatively toward the ceiling, but then he met Urho’s gaze again, holding his silence.
“So what happened last night?” Urho asked after a long moment where they simply drank tea and studied each other, with the occasional break to stare at the patterns the sun made on the floor. “What he told me makes no sense.”
“He was out of his mind,” Caleb said softly. “I’m not sure what caused him to seek out—” His lips twisted and he bit off the rest of that sentence. “His reasons are his own.”
“He claimed he wasn’t assaulted.”
Caleb’s laugh was bitter. “I suppose it depends on what one calls assault, wouldn’t you agree, doctor?”
“He appeared to have been attacked in the most grievous of ways.”
And Urho had let him drive away alone. He had no excuse for his behavior. He’d been so overwhelmed by the scent of another alpha on Xan’s body, the pheromones of sex and pain layered together. It had roused him deeply and disturbingly. And the iron trace of blood on the air had horrified him in a way that it had no right to horrify a doctor.
He flashed back to Xan’s eyes, normally so lustrous and blue, dark with fear, shadowed with desperation, and wild with pain. Urho shuddered, remembering Xan’s words. “I’m unmanned.”
And the way he’d stated it!
Permanent. Final. Not the temporary ego loss of a man who’s been forced into the submissive position in an unfortunate and disgusting episode of alpha expression. No, there was more to it. A guilty confession. A history.
But there couldn’t be.
Urho wouldn’t believe it. He refused. No alpha would accept being permanently unmanned as a way of life for himself. Especially not an alpha with so much to lose. And Xan, as the heir to a very large fortune, had everything to lose.
“He said he’s…” Urho hated to use the slur.
Being labeled “unmanned” was not only a perversion of nature but it was dangerous. Imprisonment wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen to a man who’d turned his back on the Holy Book of Wolf’s commandments in this damnable way.
Urho squirmed in his chair. “He said he’s…”
“Yes.”
“But he can’t be.”
Caleb’s voice was cool. “And if he is?”
Urho rubbed a hand over his face. “How? He’s an alpha. No alpha would allow such a weakness in themselves.” He stirred restlessly in his chair and lifted his chin, searching for the words that must be true. The words he’d told himself since he’d watched Xan’s taillights disappear the night before. “He fought back. He’s wrong about what happened last night.”
Caleb’s blond lashes blinked rapidly.
“He was assaulted,” Urho went on. “By a man overcome by uncontrollable alpha expression. Perhaps drugs or drink played a role, or some slight to the man’s omega. I don’t know. It was a power play of the most vicious sort, and he fought back. Of course he did.”
Xan was a small alpha; there was no way he could win against a bigger man, and nearly all alphas were bigger than him.
“There was no fight,” Caleb said softly.
“Of course there was a fight. He was injured.” Urho’s stomach churned uneasily.
“He was beaten,” Caleb corrected, his fingers trembling harder as he put his teacup down on the small table between them. “There is a difference.”
Urho stared at Caleb, his stomach roiling. He tried to get a grip on why, exactly, he cared so very much. He’d been a medic in the army and seen terrible things. And he’d recently left his post-military research work at the university behind to pursue a life of service in helping the poor in the Calitan and Delta districts.
He’d seen all sorts of people in his lifetime, depravity of all kinds, and yet somehow what Caleb was implying about Xan seemed more unacceptable than anything he’d witnessed out in the world. The idea that irritating, mouthy, handsome Xan Heelies would truly seek out this kind of treatment was unthinkable.
“He wants this?” Urho whispered, his tongue thick.
“Not this,” Caleb said, shaking his head. “Who would want to be so abused? But…” he trailed off, his gaze going toward the door, and Urho knew who stood there when Caleb’s eyes took on a gentle expression. “Darling, you should be in bed.”
“I have a visitor, apparently,” Xan said stiffly. He stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other in his pocket. He wore fashionable but loose trousers, and a soft gray sweater with a high collar that brought out the white flecks in his blue irises. His left cheek was distorted with a bruise and his eyes were lifeless shadows, nothing like the dancing, laughing pools Urho had first admired when they’d met.
“A stubborn visitor, according to Ren,” Xan went on, mentioning the name of his housekeeper and the beta servant who’d greeted Urho at the door. “Someone who won’t leave until they see me, or so he was told to tell me. And now that someone is upsetting my omega.” He raised his chin, the small dent in the middle looking deeper in the light from the window.
“I’m not upset,” Caleb said, smiling at Xan warmly. “But I do enjoy your protectiveness, dear.”
“You look upset,” Xan reiterated, his eyes hard on Urho.
“I apologize if I’ve overstepped with your omega,” Urho said quickly. Heat prickled him all over as he gazed at Xan. His heart pumped faster, as though he was in the wrong to be here, trying to help this man who was, supposedly, a friend. “He was only being hospitable in your absence.”
Xan raised a brow and said nothing.
Caleb cut the vibrating silence. “If you won’t go back to bed, then I suppose you should come in and take a seat. Have some manners.”
Xan crossed the room slowly. He kept challenging eyes on Urho, only sparing a glance for Caleb when he sat down on another soft chair next to him, wincing as he did.
Clearly, the damage to his anus was sufficient to still bring him pain the next day. Urho opened his mouth to scold Xan for not asking him here as a doctor and a friend to deal with it, but then he shut it again.
Xan had said the night before that he deserved this, and, by the Holy Book of Wolf, if he did go seeking out this kind of thing, then perhaps he did. Urho shuddered in disgust, but he didn’t know if it was at himself, the Holy Book, or Xan. He was in over his head and he didn’t know where to begin.
Caleb seemed to have no such reservations. “You must have Urho examine you.”
Xan snorted, but his gaze darted away from Urho’s finally, dropping to the floor. He reached for Caleb’s hand and when it was granted, he held onto it. Urho stared at the two of them trying to understand. Why did he feel as though he’d walked into an upside-down world, one he both wanted to comprehend and to run very far away from?
“You’re injured and I’m scared,” Caleb said. “As your omega, I demand you allow it.”
Xan squeezed his eyes shut, his cheeks flaming, but he nodded. “Dr. Chase—”
“We’ve been friends too long for that.” The repressed emotion under all this civility was making Urho itch.
“Urho, then,” Xan said, his eyes landing on him with anger burning down deep inside. “My omega would appreciate it if you’d examine me. He’s concerned for my health.”
“As he should be. You look terrible.” Urho took a deep breath, taking in the scent of Xan’s skin, the other layers of odor over and around him. He frowned. “There could be a hint of infection already.”
Caleb’s eyes went wide and he clutched at Xan’s hand, knuckles going white.
“Now you are upsetting my omega,” Xan said darkly. “But let’s get on with it.”
Urho’s head swam. He felt as though the tea had been drugged. He stood when Xan did and watched through a fishbowl of confusion as Xan kissed the top of Caleb’s blond head and then motioned for Urho to follow him to “somewhere more private.” Since when did an alpha need to keep anything private from his omega?
Xan led the way toward the staircase, but when he glanced up at it, his shoulders rounded in defeat. “I’d rather do this on the ground floor.”
“We could return to the drawing room. Surely Caleb would want to be present for…”
“You need to stay away from him,” Xan muttered.
Urho frowned. “I have no designs on Caleb. What do you take me for?”
Xan laughed, though it held little mirth. “I’m not concerned about that. Caleb is special.”
“All alphas think their omegas are special.”
“Perhaps, but I want to keep him safe.”
“From me?”
“From things that upset him.”
Urho huffed. “I imagine the bruises on your face at this moment must upset him much more than anything I could say or do.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Xan said ominously, beckoning him down a narrow hallway. “One remark to imply that you intend to go to the authorities over what you know about me would undo him.”
Urho let out a breath laced with hurt. Is that what Xan thought of him?
Xan finally opened a door to a small, un-renovated but well-lit room with a very dated daybed tucked against the front wall beside a table and chairs. It looked like an old nursery. Perhaps it had been for the previous owners. He knew Xan had purchased the house in an estate sale after the death of a widowed omega.
“Will this do?”
Urho put his bag down on the table and forced his voice to steadiness. “Undress. I’ll need to see your injuries from head to toe. Use the blanket on the bed for privacy, if you must, but I’ll need to examine your anus.”
Xan stood motionless, staring at Urho. His pupils grew so dilated that the blue was nearly obliterated. “Why are you doing this?” he finally hissed. “Why are you here at all?”
“You’re injured.” Urho floundered. “What kind of doctor would I be if I didn’t check on you this morning?”
“What kind of doctor were you last night that you let me go home alone in this shape?”
“A shocked one. A human one.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble he’d missed in his haste that morning. “I handled it all badly.”
And he didn’t understand why. Had it been any other man on the street, any other alpha confessing to being unmanned, he’d have known how to behave. And any other friend, especially, he’d have insisted on taking home and caring for him immediately. What was it about Xan that always threw him off? And why did this revelation that the beating behind these injuries hadn’t been entirely unwelcome terrify Urho so much?
No, it was all nonsense. Never mind if Xan claimed to be unmanned. The boy had been delirious last night. He couldn’t have meant what he said. Just as Caleb couldn’t have meant what he was implying this morning either. Urho refused to believe it.
His stomach was full of snakes, rolling and slithering into living knots as he wiped a trembling hand over his face again. “Forgive me.”
“I nearly passed out at the wheel.”
Urho cleared his throat, trying to regain his footing in their conversation. He was in the right. He needed to remember that and hold the upper hand. “I’m sorry. Should we begin the exam?”
“Fine.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“No.”
“Your omega requested that I examine you.”
Xan crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. “Leave him out of this. What are you doing here, Urho? What do you really want from me?”
Urho motioned at the bed as he took a seat in a tiny chair at the small table. His knees came up too high and he felt ridiculous and stupid. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I regretted the way I let you leave. As a doctor it was incorrect. As a friend it was unforgivable.”
Xan remained standing. “But you ask my forgiveness anyway?”
“I wouldn’t blame you for withholding it.”
“You’re an asshole,” Xan snapped.
“So are you.”
“True.” His lips quirked with an almost smile. “But let’s be frank, we’re barely friends. You don’t owe me anything. If you want to be of help, then go home, forget you saw anything, and leave me alone.”
Urho frowned and sat up straighter. He wanted to dispute this description of their acquaintance, but the fact of the matter was, he didn’t spend time alone with Xan. Not ever.
And there was a reason for that. Xan always made his skin feel too small, and his world too dull, and his heart too shriveled. Xan made him itch all over with irritation, and brought on a desire to grab him by the neck, shove him to the floor, and…
And what?
Do whatever that alpha had done to him last night?
No, he wanted to fuck Xan and make him love it, not beat him to a pulp and make him suffer. No part of him wanted that.
Urho’s face heated. He hoped his dark complexion kept Xan from seeing it. But, even if it did, he supposed there wasn’t much he could do to hide his bewilderment. The inside of his mind was a circus of desires and fears he didn’t understand. He couldn’t imagine he was any good at hiding that fact.
Xan stared steadily at him.
“You confuse me,” Urho said, finally. “I’m here to help, but you’re treating me like the enemy.”
Xan’s shoulders slumped. He frowned, casting a hard look at the wall just over Urho’s shoulder. His knees seemed to tremble and he finally sat on the day bed, away from Urho. He plucked nervously at the blue quilt beneath him.
“Talk to me,” Urho commanded. “Enough of this strangeness and just tell me what happened last night. Use your words. I know you have lots of them. I hear you spout off with impertinence all the time.”
Xan’s plump lips twitched like he might smile, and Urho sat up straighter, relaxing into this familiar role. He was an older alpha with experience and good advice to offer. Like with Jason, he could be an uncle figure, perhaps. Xan wasn’t any different.
Never mind that Xan’s bruised cheek pulled at something inside Urho, like a fishing hook to some part of his soul, tug, tug, tugging until he wanted to rip it free or…do something else. He yearned to act—to be tender or violent, he wasn’t sure. But he definitely wanted to behave in a way that was forbidden.
He swallowed hard and took up the uncle role again, leaning into it for strength and steadiness. “Tell me,” Urho commanded.
Xan shot him a glare, as though he might argue or refuse, but then he simply calmly stated, “I’m unmanned. I explained to you last night.”
“You were attacked. You fought back,” Urho said, returning to the story he had mostly convinced himself had to be the truth. Except for the part where he knew it wasn’t—because he’d smelled Xan’s semen last night too. And he was only now willing to admit it.
Still he lumbered on with the easier lies, willing Xan to take them up and own them too. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were overpowered and—”
“I went to him, Urho. I go to him regularly.” Xan’s eyes burned hot. “To get fucked.”
Urho’s mouth clamped shut and he squeezed his fists tight. Revulsion swept over him. The image of Xan beneath another man, taking his cock, being owned by him, forced acid to rise in his throat. “No.”
“Do you understand now? We aren’t lovers. It’s nothing like that.” Xan shuddered, as if the thought of the man who’d abused him being his lover disgusted even him. “I had a lover once and I know the difference. But that’s over. So I make do with what I can find. What I deserve.”
“You had a lover?” Urho’s hair stood on end, and he ground his teeth together. His heart rate ticked up, a flood of unacceptable feelings roaring within him. In their wake, cold swept through, chilling him head to toe.
Xan didn’t take up that topic, though; his eyes went distant as though he was somewhere else, not there at all anymore. Urho swallowed so hard that the noise echoed in the small room.
Finally, Xan’s eyes met his again and he asked, his voice raw with defeat, “What else do you want to know?”
“Who is he?”
“Does it matter?”
“What he’s doing is unlawful. He should be arrested.”
Xan snorted. “According to the law, it’s me that should be arrested.”
“You don’t…you can’t want…” Urho’s head spun and the room was too warm. He worked open his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.
“I do!” Xan said, his cheeks flushing. A redness spread up his pale throat. “He never seeks me out. I go to him. Always. I find him, and I beg him. I taunt him and push him until he fucks me. It’s a game to him. Nothing more.”
“What is it to you? Also a game?”
“I wish.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it’s a wretched darkness in me that I can’t contain or control.”
Urho shook his head, still disbelieving. “You don’t beg him to leave you injured like this.”
“No,” Xan agreed. “But I know what I risk when I’m with him. I’ve known his animosity toward me for a very long time. I know how to provoke him. And I do.”
Urho wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead. His insides tumbled wildly. “Help me understand.”
Xan huffed. “How?”
“Explain it.”
“I just did.”
“Again.”
“I’m unmanned. I’ve told you twice. What more is there to say? Get it through your head.”
Urho closed his eyes. Had Xan been raped in the past? Is that what had led him to believe this kind of treatment was what he wanted? “When did this start?”
“The association with the man who did this to me? Or my being unmanned?”
“The latter.”
Xan picked at the bedspread and shot Urho a wary glance before he finally replied, “It started in school.”
“With whom?”
“My lover.”
“And this so-called ‘lover’ forced you?”
“No! Never. He was my friend and we played together sexually. It was different than what I do now.” His voice went very small, and he couldn’t meet Urho’s eyes. “It was nice.”
Urho’s temples throbbed. “Who was he?”
Xan laughed, still plucking at the bedspread. “Like I’d tell you. It’s not your business. Besides, that’s over.”
Urho stared at Xan. Suddenly little cues and glances between Jason and Xan took on a new meaning, and Vale’s words from the night before came back to him again. A rage he didn’t understand gripped his heart. “Jason was your ‘lover’?”
Xan’s mouth crumpled and tears sprang in his eyes. “No.”
“You’re lying.”
Xan swallowed audibly, and then pressed his trembling lips together. “Jason is… He’s my best friend. He understands me. That’s all you need to know.”
“He’s aware of this brutal connection of yours?” Urho motioned toward Xan’s bruised face, knowing damn well that Jason couldn’t possibly know. He’d never let it go on, and besides, Xan had pleaded with him just the night before not to mention it to him.
“No. And if you tell him, it’ll only upset him, which won’t be good for Vale.”
Urho’s jaw clenched again. The snotty tone Xan took when he’d mentioned Vale told him all too well that he knew about Urho’s former relationship with Vale and feelings for him. In a friend group so small, there was apparently no hiding things like that.
Though, until last night, Xan had done a damn good job of hiding his secrets. His and Jason’s. Long banked anger flared deep inside Urho. Jason had taken Vale away and damaged Xan.
“For that and so many reasons, I hope it’s clear to you that what I do is my business, and no authorities need to be dragged into this,” Xan added imperiously. “The person who would be hurt the most if I were arrested is Caleb, and he’s innocent in all this.”
“I wouldn’t see anything bad happen to you,” Urho said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. The thought of Xan hurt again tore at him, but he tried to remain composed. “That’s why I can’t let you say these things anymore—to yourself, or to anyone. You must promise me that this—whatever this brutality is—is something you will never seek out again.”
Xan’s jaw jumped, and he glared sullenly at Urho, but he jerked a nod.
“I have your word?”
“I’ve already told Caleb I’m done,” Xan snapped. “He’s the only one who has any right to demand anything of me anyway.”
Urho sighed, relief and irritation coursing through him in equal measures.
“Speaking of Caleb, he’ll be wondering what’s taking so long,” Xan said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell him that you examined me and I’m fine.”
“I would not.”
Xan grunted, pulling the sweater up over his head. “Then let’s get started. The sooner this is over, the better.”
The red and purple bruising beneath Xan’s sweater was frighteningly impressive. Looming over him, reminded of how small Xan was, Urho listened to his lungs and heart, his own racing pulse making it hard to hear through his stethoscope. Closing his eyes to block out the damage done to Xan’s body, he steadied himself against the rage and helpless hurt buffeting about inside him.
When he was calmer, he opened his eyes again and with trembling fingers tested Xan’s ribs for breaks. The dips and planes of Xan’s muscled stomach and chest were mostly hairless, and his pale skin contrasted against Urho’s fingers sharply. Xan hissed in pain as Urho applied some pressure, testing the damage he found. He felt his ribcage carefully, relieved to find that despite the horrific colors blooming all over Xan’s torso, his ribs didn’t appear broken.
Then he carefully touched the fingerprint bruises around Xan’s neck. His heart ached as he asked Xan to turn his head this way and that, and then felt carefully for damage. He didn’t like to think of what could have gone wrong had a little more force been applied.
Turning to his bag, Urho removed a liniment that promoted healing. Opening the lid of the small glass tub, the scent of arnica and licorice root filled the air. He scooped a dollop onto his fingers and smeared it over the worst of Xan’s bruises, finding the skin hot and fragile beneath his hands.
Xan stared up at him, breath coming in shallow pants, and his nipples rose into peaks. Urho’s heart thumped, but he cleared his throat, wiped his fingers on a handkerchief from his bag, and then murmured, “I’ll need to see below as well. I can smell the onset of some infection there.”
Xan’s cheeks flushed even brighter, his pulse pounding visibly in his throat. But he unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down to his ankles, revealing a nicely shaped and half-hard alpha cock, as well as a thick bush of black pubic hair.
Urho’s balls tingled and his own cock thickened. He turned away to his bag, pretending to search for something as he ruthlessly tried to squash the rising arousal flooding him. “I’ll need you on all fours,” he said, but his voice was rough and strange even to his own ears.
When he turned back around, Xan had complied. His ass was up in the air, and his knees and forearms dug into the thin daybed mattress. Urho’s breath caught in his throat. He blinked hard. Xan’s back was bruised as well, several boot-shaped welts were perilously close to his spine, and even his ass cheek sported a red, round bruise.
But his pale skin glowed in the morning sun, his dark hair was glossy and beautiful, and his ass was gorgeous—juicy and plump, the sort of ass an omega would be proud to possess.
But he’s not an omega. He’s an alpha and it’s absolutely forbidden.
Urho swallowed hard, adjusting his cock in his pants. Then he knelt to get a better view, pulling the pale globes of Xan’s ass cheeks open to examine his anus. He found it like a seashell, hidden at first by a whorl of dark pubic hair. As he brushed the soft hair aside, heat flashed through him like a lightning strike. He gulped and saliva flooded his mouth.
Xan twisted to gaze back over his shoulder. Urho’s cock rose to full hardness as he caught Xan’s worried, blue gaze. “Is it all right?” Xan’s voice trembled slightly, and Urho wanted to grip him by the hips, tug him close, and kiss the puffy, red flesh in front of him. He wanted to keep that tender hole safe forever.
Urho shook his head hard, trying to gain sanity again.
Xan’s eyes went wide with fear. “How bad is it?”
Urho cleared his throat. Blood roared in his ears, dots swirled in his vision, and his cock pulsed pre-come in his pants. He shuddered, gripped by a crazy urge to lean forward and not only kiss, but lick the puffy, damaged flesh. He shook it off with great effort, forcing his focus back on the task at hand. “You’re swollen there. There are small tears.”
“But it’s not ruined?”
“Ruined?” Urho repeated, his brain sending up fireworks, his cock straining. “It’s going to be fine.” He took a deep breath, still scenting the underlying hint of infection. He should check inside for fissures. After picking up the lube he’d set aside, he slipped on a thin plastic medical glove made from the same material as alpha condoms. “Spread your legs a little wider for me. I need to feel you internally.”
Xan moaned pitifully, and his cock twitched and swelled to rise against his stomach. His balls shifted up tight to the base of his shaft, and his thighs trembled.
Urho’s own dick throbbed so hard he felt the echo of it behind his eyes. “Wolf-god,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Xan murmured, redness running up his back and flushing his face. “I can’t help it. But I promise, I won’t come.”
Urho growled, trying to block out the visual that popped into his mind: Xan, back arched, asshole wrapped around Urho’s dick as he streaked the daybed beneath him with copious wads of alpha semen.
“He hates it when I come,” Xan whispered, and Urho nearly blacked out as rage rocked him. He sat back on his heels, breathing hard, cock jerking within his pants. He sucked in a jagged breath.
Xan spread his legs wider and hid his face on his forearms. His cock hung there before Urho’s eyes, long and thick, bigger than any omega’s, and growing harder by the second. Urho poured lube onto one gloved finger, closing his eyes and trying to get a hold of himself.
He must be getting sick, spiking a fever, or perhaps going insane, because as he swiped over Xan’s abused asshole, he wanted nothing more than to rise up and plunge his own cock into it. He bit down on his lower lip and shivered.
Xan arched his back into the lordosis position, presenting himself like an omega would. Urho’s balls drew up hard. His breath pushed through him greedily, a rough susurration he could hear echoing around the room. He pushed his finger in and tried to clear his mind of the screaming, possessive lust that swamped him, but it was no good.
It didn’t matter that it was wrong, or that the Holy Book of Wolf condemned these feelings, or that as a doctor he should not be touching a patient when he was aroused in this manner—this confusing and wrong manner. It didn’t alter anything.
He closed his eyes, taking slow breaths, and focused on his duties as a doctor. He felt inside, pretending Xan was a patient in the Calitan district, an older beta who’d been taken anally by an alpha, perhaps. It didn’t matter, so long as whoever he was touching was not, and never could be Xan Heelies.
But the pungent scent of Xan’s arousal filtered into his lungs, uniquely his and beyond delicious, until Urho couldn’t pretend any longer. He wanted to press his face closer to Xan’s skin, to breathe it in more fully, to wallow in it, and then fuck it.
What the wolf-hell is wrong with you?
When he was sure he could control himself, he pulled his finger free, removed the glove, and sat back on his heels. “You’re going to be fine.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat, trying again. “There are no fissures and the small tears will heal. The infection I scented earlier has barely started. I’ll leave medicine for you.”
He stood slowly, his cock not easing, and turned around to hide the evidence from Xan as best he could. He counted out tablets into a small pillbox for Xan’s medication, and tried to think around the wild panic ransacking his mind. He’d never wanted to fuck another alpha before. No matter how handsome or pretty, no matter how small or tight-bodied. Not until Xan.
“Can I get dressed now?” Xan asked, his voice small.
“Please.”
Urho kept his back turned as the rustling behind him indicated Xan’s eagerness to cover himself. He tried to think of something—anything—that would make his own arousal dissipate before the moment came when he must turn around to face the boy.
Instead, an image of Xan the day they met, four years younger and pretty as the day was long, bloomed in his mind. Xan had stood in the summer sun in nothing but his swim trunks, his compact body shimmering with sweat and the drying water from a romp in the waves. Urho’s breath had caught, and he’d stopped dead in his tracks, pinned in place by the sight of the boy.
Something similar had only ever happened once before in his life, on that beautiful day he’d first seen Riki. Right after seeing his mate and stopping mid-sentence, silenced by Riki’s beauty, he’d scented Riki’s perfection and imprinted on him in a wild and violent way. They’d been Erosgapé from that moment on, forever, and even now.
Obviously, imprinting had not followed that awestruck moment of seeing Xan on the beach; it couldn’t have physiologically. But now with the musky, strong scent of Xan’s arousal still flooding his nose, Urho’s brain and body itched with lust and a demented sense of proprietary ownership—mine—that he couldn’t explain or begin to understand.
Xan was an alpha. Urho was an alpha. The Holy Book of Wolf and the law of the land made it plain—never could two alphas share a bond of that nature, not without paying a terrible price. Until that very moment, Urho had always believed in the rightness of the strictures.
But now…
“I smell you,” Xan whispered, the air between them crackling with energy. “Your arousal is heaven to me.”
Urho could barely restrain himself from pulling Xan into his arms and making him submit to the protective, insistent urges rising up inside him. He didn’t recognize himself with all these feelings. He didn’t know where to put them.
“Stop,” Urho gritted out, instead. “That’s disgusting.”
The air sucked out of the room and Urho struggled to breathe through his shame.
“I’ll give Caleb your regards,” Xan said from behind him, his voice cold now and threaded with hurt. “And I’ll pass on your opinion that I’ll be fine. You can leave the pills and your instructions with my doorman. Then I trust you to find your own way out and spare us both any further humiliation and discomfort.”
Urho opened his mouth, turning to issue orders for care, to demand another promise that Xan would never again seek out whatever monster had done this to him—or possibly to drag him into a violent kiss—but Xan was gone, the door left barely open and the sound of his footsteps dissolving down the hallway.
Urho’s knees gave way and he dropped to the too-small chair, his heart lurching. He struggled to hold himself back from charging after Xan as shame and bewilderment made him their bitch. He sat there long enough to hear the echo of Xan and Caleb’s voices moving through the house toward the upper levels. And then even longer, until a beta servant came and suggested that he’d be happy to show Urho out.
Confused, the world a popping, fizzing, spinning, insane place now, Urho handed over the pills, gave instructions for Xan to take them, and then allowed the servant to show him out into this new and nightmarish unknown.
The sun was setting when Urho parked his car on the curb outside of his home. His stomach still ached and his hands shook from the ordeal at Xan’s house that morning. Because that is what it had been, he told himself firmly—an ordeal and nothing more.
It seemed callous and wrong to be more distraught by the events of the morning than he was over a stillbirth in the Calitan district that afternoon. And yet he couldn’t shake the sensation that his very bones still rattled from the minutes he and Xan had shared in the old nursery together.
He’d tried to put it behind him, driving out to the clinic with determination to lose himself in his work. He’d found the staff buzzing with worry over an omega who’d come in well ahead of his expected laboring time. Things had gone downhill from there for both omega and babe.
Urho had been lucky to save the man, and he’d had the sad job of holding the man’s hand as he’d sobbed over his lost child. Where the alpha was who’d impregnated him, there was no one to say. Not all omegas were lucky enough to be Érosgápe, or even contracted, and not all were contracted to a man who cared for their well-being.
But after the pitiless stillbirth, Urho had tried to unwind by sorting through files in his office. It hadn’t worked. Then he’d dealt with a few drop-in patients. They’d gotten his mind off Xan, but only temporarily. He’d finally given up when he realized he was replaying his conversation with Xan over and over, rather than listening attentively to a young omega presenting with continued bleeding following a tough birth the prior week. He’d managed to focus long enough to put the man’s mind at ease, prescribe some herbal tablets to help with clotting and healing, and schedule another consult in a few days time.
After that, he’d driven past Xan’s house again, peering up at the windows and ransacking his mind for a reason to ring the bell. He’d eventually forced himself to drive on home, confused by the urgent, restless sensation beneath his skin.
He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t think straight. He kept returning to Xan as he’d last seen him, ass up on the daybed, and the swirl of pubic hair around his swollen asshole—used and yet beautiful. Somehow beckoning to Urho with his red pucker.
And now, still dazed, he sat squirming in his car, staring up at his own three-story, faded red brick house. The home he’d shared with Riki before he’d died.
A bolt of need rocked him hard, and he slid from his car with his jaw set and a fresh certainty in his step. Riki always brought him clarity, in death just as he had in life. Just being in his presence would soothe Urho and bring him to his senses.
He rushed through the front and side gardens, past the rose bushes his Erosgapé had once cherished, and into his house through the library entrance. He took the back stairs up to the hallway leading to a suite of rooms he claimed as his own. He let out a long breath when he successfully avoided any beta servants, especially the nosy—though incredibly talented—cook, Mako, who would undoubtedly be worried about the state of dinner if Urho didn’t make his appearance soon.
He passed through into the bedroom. It was cool and dark there. The space held only a large bed with a light blue canopy that matched the drapes and a chest of medications that he kept for emergencies.
Riki had chosen the décor the year before he died, and Urho still remembered the sweet smile on his beloved’s face when he’d stood in the room, surveying his choices. Urho had agreed with him when Riki had proclaimed it perfection.
One wall was dominated by a large painting of the ocean—crashing waves, blue skies, and soft-looking white sand—another of Riki’s choices. The other wall was entirely mirrored, making the dark room look even bigger and affording them both a beautiful view of their lovemaking. Riki had been quiet and unassuming for the most part, but he’d loved to watch himself as Urho had fucked him silly. He’d said it helped him believe that his life was true, that the beautiful happiness they shared was real, and that Urho was sincerely his in every single way.
Urho sat on the bed, undoing his tie and shuffling off his jacket. He stared at the blue curtains floating over the wide windows, and then turned to gaze at himself in the mirror. Haggard was the only description for his face at the moment. He’d shaved that morning, but already his afternoon shadow was creeping up, making the dark circles under his eyes look even deeper. He kicked off his shoes and raked his hands through his hair.
“Riki,” he whispered, standing up and heading into the small, interior room that used to be Riki’s study.
The décor still consisted of wallpaper showing soft, blooming roses that Riki had chosen, and his light, maple desk. But the walls were now lined with the old photos Urho hadn’t been able to bear leaving out and about in the house.
Everything from a picture of them on the courthouse steps on the day they signed their contract, to their first trip to the seaside together—Riki’s blond hair tousled in the ocean breeze, a pipe clenched in his white teeth, and his green eyes glinting with joy. Next to him, a younger version of Urho gazed at the camera, too, with pure pleasure, not a glimmer of sorrow yet in his dark eyes or in the creases of his smile.
Those had been the days when he’d believed he and Riki would grow old together and raise a passel of young, brown babies who’d look like him in skin tone but be like their pater in temperament—gentle, good, thoughtful, and kind. All the things Urho now aspired to be, when, back then he’d simply allowed Riki to be all those things for him.
Above the mantel of the fireplace where no fire had burned since the day of Riki’s death, there was a large, painted portrait of Riki, standing proud and wearing a shy grin. His hand rested on the bulge where their baby grew.
Urho had insisted on the portrait, one of the few things he ever made Riki do against his will, because he’d wanted to always remember the way Riki’s cheeks had glowed and his own heart had stuttered at the sheer beauty of his Erosgapé carrying his child.
He stared up at it now, old roaring, conflicted emotions battering inside him. He knelt on the floor across from the desk where a lock of Riki’s hair sat beneath a glass dome. It was the only bit of him that resided here in the house now. His young body had been retired to the Chase lot in the Zimmermon graveyard on the edge of town. Six feet down he rested, along with their child.
Yes, Urho had buried them together. The small, tiny babe lay folded into Riki’s loving arms eternally. Just the way Riki would have wanted it, had he lived to hear their child’s pitiful first and only wail.
He gulped against the salty tears that started now. He hadn’t cried in this room in years, and yet for some reason, today he needed Riki more than he had in a long time. Needed him, bone deep. Wanted his soothing fingers in his hair, and his soft voice telling him that everything was all right. He craved his calm acceptance of whatever life brought.
And he desperately wanted to hear him say, “I love you, just as you are, even if you want to fuck Xan Heelies, even if you want to love him, and even if you want him as your own. Because you’re perfect, Urho. Wolf-god’s gift to me, and there’s nothing you could want that I wouldn’t want you to have.”
He wiped the heel of his hand over his eyes and shook his head. “Really, Riki?” he asked the air. “Could you forgive me this strange lust? These wolf-damned desires?”
He stared up at the portrait of his omega, his beautiful, shyly smiling man, and lowered his head. Exhaustion swamped him, and he sat on his ass, burying his face in his forearms and riding out the waves of revulsion and self-loathing, the weird jittery want, and the anxiety he just couldn’t shake for Xan’s well-being. And Caleb’s, too, as an extension of Xan.
Eventually, he rose on shaky legs and lit several sticks of incense, chanting the prayer for lost Erosgapé with a trembling voice, and then turned back to his bedroom. He rang down to let Mako know that he wouldn’t be taking dinner, helped himself to a calming tablet, and fell into restless tossing and turning beneath his blue covers.
The sun rose and he hadn’t slept a wink.