Personally, he hated the storehouse, and he hated having to dig through it for something specific, even more. It was located on the opposite side of the village from his house. As if having to walk all over the place wasn’t bad enough, it was never properly organized. He didn’t know how anyone managed to find anything in the maze of crates, boxes, and various storage containers. It held everything they needed that wasn’t food. If there were books, fabric, building materials, tools, or any number of other things the village needed to keep in stock, it was somewhere in the large building.

Technically, he could have resorted to asking a couple of omegas who worked in the storehouse. Since they were generally the ones who tracked the stock, they knew where everything was. However, he was trying to avoid being in public places for as long as possible. Having an easy way of finding the herbs Elder Water told him had arrived for Mags would have meant he’d have to be outside again. If he could burn an hour or two hiding in the storehouse, then he considered it a victory.

He was just glad it had been Elder Water who tracked him down. She might have given him a disapproving look that spoke volumes about what she thought of him, but at least she hadn’t lectured him. The thin woman had simply informed him there was a box of new herbs for Mags, ones the shaman needed but which couldn’t be easily found in the area. Elder Sky would have used the opportunity to give him a long-winded lecture about propriety and respect. Kyle had done a good job of dodging Elder Sky since the night of the Showing, and he wanted to keep the trend going.

“Why don’t they just deliver it straight to her cabin?” he asked the dusty air, not expecting an answer.

He already knew the answer anyway; he just wanted something to complain about out loud. Mags had a tendency to wander off, and no one felt comfortable leaving medicinal herbs lying out in the open. Any number of things could happen to an unattended box left out in the elements. If Mags wasn’t at home or in the village, it wasn’t generally a good idea to rely on her coming back anytime soon. Sometimes she just stayed away from her cabin, wandering from her appointments in the village then out into the woods. He imagined the system that existed before he’d been taken on had simply been to check whenever she was home and then bring her goods to her. With Kyle working directly under her, it gave the village elders a direct route for delivering to her, namely by having Kyle be the delivery boy.

The island wasn’t even that big, which was why it was tricky for Kyle to try and avoid people like Aidan, or Elder Sky. The village sat at the center, a cluster of cabins of various sizes depending on the size of the packs that lived there. You could run into anyone in the forest at any time, and the only way safely off the island was by boat. Yet despite Kyle’s difficulty in avoiding people, Mags somehow did it seemingly without trying. It was a well-regarded fact that if Mags didn’t want to be found, she simply wouldn’t. He had known Mags for years now, and even he couldn’t find her unless she wanted him to. Kyle suspected it had something to do with her abilities as a shaman, since his lack of shamanistic abilities or powers was her biggest advantage over him.

“Are you hiding or lost in here?”

Aidan’s voice made him jerk hard enough that his arm smacked into a precariously stacked box. He swore under his breath as he fumbled to keep it from crashing to the ground and breaking. Alternating waves of cold and hot washed over him as he struggled to put the container back in its place. Even in his surprise and anger, Kyle felt tingling pleasure at the sound of Aidan’s voice. It was not a good sign that what had once been a faint pleasure had become a more potent sensation.

With a grunt, he finally shoved the box back into place before turning to Aidan. “Do you just enjoy sneaking up on me, or have you somehow gotten craftier since you were a kid?”

Aidan raised one shoulder and let it fall. “Like I said, there are advantages to knowing when to be subtle and when to be overt. Going unseen and unheard keeps you alive in battle, and I guess I just kept the habit, even being back here.”

Remembering his promise to Lily, he held back the sarcastic comment he had ready. “Well, it’s not doing much for my heart rate. What are you even doing in here? Storehouse work isn’t exactly war hero alpha stuff.”

Aidan’s eyes roamed Kyle’s body. “Elder Water informed me some of my old things were here, and if I needed help, I would find that in here, too.”

Kyle felt his face tighten as he both tried to frown and stop the expression before it formed. He had forgotten just how manipulative Elder Water could be, particularly when she was angry. That she hadn’t even made a single cutting comment when she’d spoken to him should have sent up warning flags. Instead, he’d wandered into the storeroom under her orders, grateful that he hadn’t caught flak. Now he was seeing just how neatly she had set him up, though he wasn’t sure what the endgame was. Either she was giving Aidan the chance to get some payback, or she knew what had happened between them.

“I hope she wasn’t talking about me, because I haven’t the faintest clue where anything of yours is. I don’t even know where to find what I’m looking for,” he finally said, gesturing at the rows of stacked containers around them.

Aidan’s gaze followed the sweeping motion of his hands. “I don’t think anyone knows where anything in here is.”

“Castor and Pollux would, but I haven’t wandered out to try and find them,” Kyle told him.

Aidan frowned in concentration. “Those aren’t names I recognize.”

Kyle shrugged. “They’re omegas, identical twins. They’re not of age, so they weren’t even on your radar when you were still here. But they’ve been working in the storehouse for years now, and probably know more about what’s in here than even the elders do.”

“So, I should be searching for those two, since you’ll be of no help?” Aidan asked, sounding like he was taunting Kyle.

Keeping back his biting comment, Kyle grunted. “You want to know what to mix together to hold off the effects of about thirty different poisons, you come see me. You want to know the most obscure pieces of our lore, you come see me. You want to know how to set a broken limb, stitch a wound, put someone’s face back together, you come see me. If you want to know how to navigate this shit-show of a storehouse, you find someone else.”

“A man of few talents,” Aidan commented.

Kyle’s temper flared. “Says the man whose sole talents include killing things and being a dick.”

Aidan grinned. “Now there’s that temper. I wondered where it went and where this sudden pleasantness came from.”

“I was trying to be polite. Maybe you should try it sometime. You’ll want to go to Elder Sky though, since he’s the expert on manners and respect, as I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you. Bring a pillow though, because he has a tendency to run his mouth,” Kyle told him in a huff.

Aidan chuckled. “He does have a tendency to drone on, doesn’t he? I think he likes the sound of his own voice. That or he’s simply looking to feel important in his role as Elder.”

The alpha’s chuckle sent another shiver of pleasure up his spine. “Probably the first, if only because he has ‘Elder’ slapped onto the front of his name. Who needs to feel important when they’ve got one of the biggest titles a werewolf can have?”

Aidan began to wander up and down, gazing at the boxes around him. “You’d be surprised. Elders supposedly give up everything they were to be what they are, but you can’t deny what you were born to be. Alphas will always be alphas, and we have egos, even if we do end up gaining the title of Elder. Once, Elder Sky was a man of great renown, and while they are respected and obeyed as elders, they do not have quite the same prestige they had as just alphas. I imagine he prattles on because it gives him the same sense of importance he had once as leader of his own pack.”

Kyle blinked, taken aback. “You, uh, think so, huh?”

Aidan shrugged, and Kyle was struck by how predatory he looked pacing around, and even more scarily, how erotic he found it. “I wouldn’t know for sure. It’s not as if I live inside his mind, or know his heart. It’s only a theory that’s crossed my mind, generally during one of his monologues after my thoughts have drifted away.”

“I mean, it makes sense. I guess I just wasn’t expecting to hear that from you,” Kyle admitted.

Aidan snorted softly. “What, you expected that I only knew how to hit things? In your rush to continue hating me, you forgot I come from a…prestigious pack. There were expectations growing up, and they included being far more than simply a brute who knew how to hit things hard enough. I was given a proper education, and was taught more than just battle tactics. Though I will admit, I certainly enjoyed those parts of my studies.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Forgive me, I forgot how much better your pack and status was than mine.”

Annoyance flashed across Aidan’s face. “You can be insufferable at the worst moments.”

“Me? I’m insufferable? This coming from the alpha who fulfills every criteria for the negative image of an alpha? You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t throw myself at your feet and beg you to acknowledge my existence. If you don’t like it, do something about it. You’re here, I’m here, and there’s no witnesses to say that you did anything to me. It’s what Elder Waters wants. She made sure we would both be here, so you could have your chance. You already gave me bruises from your manhandling the other day, so what’s a few more that no one will give a shit about?” Kyle told him, voice heated.

Aidan’s eyes narrowed. “I hurt you?”

If the alpha’s insightful views into Elder Sky’s character had surprised him, it was nothing compared to his surprise at the question. It was asked neutrally, but the fact that it wasn’t done in Aidan’s normal demanding or arrogant tone knocked Kyle off-balance. Aidan looked almost annoyed, but Kyle was struck by the sudden idea that it wasn’t directed at him.

“It’s just a few marks from where you held me. They don’t even hurt,” Kyle told him, trying to rein his attitude back in.

Aidan looked away, jaw tight. “I have no desire to hurt you, or whatever it is you believe Elder Waters thinks I will do.”

“I publicly humiliated you. What alpha doesn’t want revenge for that?” Kyle asked.

Aidan cocked his head so he could look at Kyle from the corner of his eye. “One who wasn’t humiliated. I told you, I found it surprising coming from you. I found it interesting how much you had changed, and that you were the only person who did anything but kiss my feet. I return after years of gaining renown and respect, to find that my sept all but threw themselves at my feet in reverence. It was…boring, and irritating. And then there you were, the scared little kid, all grown-up and full of fire and hate. It was…invigorating.”

He didn’t like how the tone of the conversation kept shifting without warning. Kyle felt almost dizzy from the emotional whiplash he was feeling. One moment Aidan was his cocky, condescending self, and then he would switch, becoming almost personable. When the alpha spoke personally, without a screen of arrogance thrown up before him, he even looked nothing like himself. His entire demeanor shifted, becoming more relaxed.

Kyle’s breath hitched as he realized Aidan had moved closer to him, and he could smell him over the dusty smell of the storehouse. “Fun times had all around, then? I got to yell at you, and you got off on it. But I already told you how I feel about invigorating you.”

Aidan stepped even closer. “You say that as if either of us have a choice in the matter.”

Kyle couldn’t back up any further, his back bumped into a crate behind him. “I’ve got one, and that choice is no, never, not gonna happen, so take your pick.”

The alpha’s next step brought him right in front of Kyle. Close enough that he was now definitely in his personal space, but not quite close enough for them to be touching. Aidan’s bulky build blocked out the sight of everything behind him, his broad frame taking up Kyle’s entire view. Kyle couldn’t help but notice how well Aidan filled out the dark t-shirt he wore, or how well his jeans hugged his lower body. The alpha’s scent washed over him again, and he could feel himself taking in deeper breaths of air just to soak up the smell of the woods and that strange metallic tang.

“Blood,” Kyle whispered, having a hard time forming words.

“Where?” Aidan asked, his voice low and husky with promise.

“That’s what that smell is. You smell like blood,” Kyle said breathlessly.

Aidan eyed him with faint curiosity. “Is that what you smell on me?”

Kyle tried to climb up onto the crate, if only to give himself more space. “It’s the metallic smell, mixed with earth, and moss. Something else is in there too, but…yeah, Gaia, you smell like a battle in a forest.”

“That doesn’t sound bad when you say it,” Aidan murmured, beginning to lean closer.

“I hate it,” Kyle whispered.

“Which is why you keep taking deep breaths,” Aidan said.

Kyle groaned. “And I hate you.”

Aidan’s face was almost against his neck, and he heard the alpha take a deep breath through his nose. “You smell like…winter. It’s like when you walk outside and take your first deep breath of the freshly fallen snow and ice.”

On its own, that didn’t sound particularly appetizing. Aidan’s voice however, was laced with pleasure as his breath caressed Kyle’s neck. Kyle shivered violently, stiffening when Aidan reached out to steady him. The alpha was so warm, his touch burning Kyle’s skin as he pushed him against the crate behind him. Kyle wanted to fight him, and could feel some distant part of his mind screaming for him to shove Aidan away and tell him to go fuck himself.

Instead, he watched as Aidan’s face turned to his, breath held as he waited for Aidan to continue. When the kiss came, it stole what remained of the air in his lungs, lighting a fire within his core. Their second kiss lacked the force of the first, and Kyle melted against Aidan. His scent filled Kyle’s nose as their mouths opened, exploring each other with more care this time. Aidan still exuded dominance, silently demanding more from Kyle, but he wasn’t forcing it. Without the force behind his movements, Aidan had Kyle pinned through sheer pleasure and mutual passion. There was heat and fire between them, without an iron grip holding him in place. Kyle couldn’t form the thoughts that would give him the strength to try to resist.

They were both hard again, Kyle could feel Aidan’s arousal pressing against him as surely as his was pressing against Aidan. He gave a small groan when Aidan shifted his leg, the pressure and movement sending sharp peaks of pleasure through him. Their kiss was already going further than it had the last time, but Kyle wanted it. He was aware of everywhere their bodies met, and he was hyper-aware of where Aidan’s hands moved on his body. They were shifting further and further downward, and Kyle leaned into the man’s leg, groaning once more as he ground against him.

Aidan chuckled, the sound coming from low in his throat and vibrating against Kyle’s lips. He pushed against Kyle’s hip, creating space between their lower bodies. A thrill of anticipation ran through Kyle as the alpha’s fingers worked at his pants, undoing them. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped him when Aidan’s searching hand wrapped around the length of his cock. Aidan gave a low grumble that sounded like approval to Kyle as he began to stroke, pressing them together again.

Kyle pushed harder into the kiss, no longer able to restrain himself as he sought to get more of that sensation. He was harder than he thought he’d ever been in his life, and Aidan’s hand stroking him was making it impossible to think about anything but wanting more. There wasn’t much room between them, but Kyle pushed his hips forward, sliding his cock into Aidan’s grip. Aidan ran his tongue along Kyle’s bottom lip nipping gently as he effortlessly brought Kyle to the edge.

The omega had always prided himself on his self-control, even in the middle of sex. Nothing he did with a previous partner had ever driven him wild or out of control. The kiss and Aidan’s coaxing hand, however, had him practically whimpering for release. His body was taut with pleasure, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to push his mouth or groin closer to Aidan. All sense of self was completely gone, as he was only aware of Aidan’s mouth against his, the press of his body, and the feel of his fingers pumping his cock.

“Aw fuck,” he swore breathily, breaking the kiss.

Aidan’s gaze glittered down at him in rapt attention as Kyle’s orgasm hit. He slumped his head forward, biting down on the muscle of Aidan’s chest to muffle his cries. Ecstasy unlike any he had known before slammed into him, his cock jumping in Aidan’s grip and spilling over his fingers. Kyle clung to the alpha, unable to hold himself up with his own legs as his muffled cries resounded against Aidan’s body. It had been so quick, but in that moment he didn’t care, only barely able to ride out the crashing waves of pleasure coursing through him.

When it passed, he slumped back against the crate, chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath. He was surprised to see that Aidan had stepped back, leaving his personal space and allowing him to get control of himself. In the time it had taken for Kyle’s senses to return, Aidan had cleaned his hand and had apparently refastened Kyle’s jeans. The courtesy was more frustrating than the fact that the alpha had once again managed to make Kyle forget his hatred and anger for even the briefest of moments.

“I like the way you taste too,” Aidan told him, almost fondly.

Kyle’s head snapped up. “Pervert.”

Aidan followed Kyle’s gaze to his hand and chuckled, shaking his head. “That’s not how I cleaned my hand, Kyle. I was referring to kissing you.”

He didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t noticed, too caught up in every one of his other senses that had been so active he’d been overwhelmed. His only consolation was that despite his controlled demeanor, he could see Aidan was struggling. It was a small consolation, since nothing about the alpha’s appearance should have hinted that he was fighting with anything, or was bothered in the slightest. It was a sense, his inner, now mollified wolf, that knew something was wrong with Aidan. His animal half could see Aidan’s continued sexual arousal, and the frustration from holding himself back.

Kyle pulled himself upright. “I meant what I said. I hope you know that.”

Aidan grinned. “You’re a stubborn one, but don’t get too cocky, because I meant what I told you, too.”

Kyle stepped around Aidan warily. “You don’t get to play games with me, Aidan. I’ll eventually get a hold on this and you won’t be able to trick me.”

Aidan’s only movement was to turn and watch Kyle’s retreat. “Stubborn, willful, opinionated, and you aren’t afraid to say what you want to me, despite how everyone else treats me and what you’re expected to behave like. You’re hypersensitive, mouthy, and all around difficult to have even the most benign of conversations with.”

Kyle paused, turning his head to stare at Aidan. “Is listing off all your negative opinions of me your way of wooing someone?”

“The first list wasn’t negative. On the contrary, those are the very things that I’m finding I enjoy about you. I’m seeing just why Gaia chose you of all people to be mine. She’s not without a dark sense of humor it seems, but her logic is…undeniable.”

“Lily said something similar,” Kyle admitted, feeling another flash of annoyance that he was apparently missing something everyone else was seeing so clearly.

“Oh? Apparently, she has more brains than I originally gave her credit for. Good for her. I have to admit, I’m surprised you told anyone, considering how much you’ve tried to deny it’s happened at all. Either way, it only reaffirms my decision to play this long hunt to the end,” Aidan said so casually that they could have been talking about the weather.

Shaking his head, Kyle turned on his heel and made for the door. Let Aidan play his little hunting game; Kyle knew there had to be a way for him to win eventually. Aidan could savor these small victories all he wanted, but they wouldn’t mean anything once Kyle figured out how to get his inner wolf to behave again.

He stopped at the open door, a question nagging at him and making him turn to face Aidan once more. “Why play it this way? You want me, don’t you? So what’s stopping you from walking straight up to the elders and claiming me? You could, you know. It would be easy and no one would think twice. They wouldn’t even have to know about the Joining.”

Aidan’s smile was almost pitying. “Oh Kyle, that’s too easy. I don’t want to simply claim you. Taking you by force offers only limited pleasure for me. No, I want you to come to me willingly, when you can’t fight it anymore. And you will. I can see it in your eyes now; all you need to do is accept it.”