The next three days passed in much the same manner. Bouts of sex followed by periods of rest. They only ever broke the routine when stopping to grab a bite to eat, which meant that, by the end of Corey’s heat, there wasn’t much left to eat at all.

He woke up on the morning of the fourth day, feeling better than he had in what seemed to be an eternity. The events that occurred during that period were a blur of pleasure, fuzzy around the edges. He couldn’t really recall details because there had been too much done in such a short amount of time, but it definitely hadn’t been a dream because his whole body ached in ways he hadn’t known a man could. His hips throbbed like he’d been split apart with a tree trunk and then glued back together, and his ass muscles felt weaker than they had been. His back ached, and his arms ached, and he had a massive headache that told him he hadn’t been eating nearly enough.

Rolling over, he reached out toward the other side of the bed. “Hey, Dell. Breakfast?”

His grasping hand encountered nothing but tousled sheets, which were cold to the touch. Wherever Dell had gone, he had been gone for more than a few minutes.

Corey sat up and breathed in, but all he smelled was sex and sweat. He tried listening then, and picked up on a heartbeat coming from the direction of the kitchen. Since his clothes were a shredded ruin, he just picked himself up and padded naked out of the bedroom.

Dell stood in the kitchen, sipping at a cup of coffee. Steam wreathed around his broad face, concealing some of his strong features. “Curtains are open,” he said.

Corey glanced over at the living room window. The curtains were indeed open, as was the window itself. A warm breeze blew in from outside, brushing teasingly against his body. If anyone was out there, though he scented no one, they would definitely be getting an eyeful of him.

At one point, that might have bothered me. But I think I’ve changed.

“Oh, well,” he said. “Can I have some of that coffee?”

Dell poured him a mug and then watched with amusement in his golden gaze as Corey doctored the strong liquid with liberal amounts of milk and sugar. He looked up, aware that he was being watched. “What?” he asked.

“Sometimes I forget you’re still just a kid,” Dell replied. He had that distant glaze in his eyes again, like morning mist in the middle of autumn. Corey hated that mist. It hid the other’s thoughts from him.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m an adult.”

Dell glanced away. “Yes, you are. At least, sometimes I think you are. And then other times I see you murder my coffee because you don’t like the taste.”

Corey looked down at his mug, which had taken on a toffee color. “I do like the taste.” He glanced back up at Dell, narrowing his eyes. It was hard for him to know what was going on, when he still knew so little about this new life of his. “What’s your problem? I know it’s not the way I drink coffee.”

“I need to go back into the station today. I have work to do. Reports to file.”

“Yeah, okay,” Corey grunted. You just keep avoiding the real issue, okay?

The alpha stepped forward. Corey’s heart hammered in his throat and he tilted his head up to accept a kiss, only to find something pushed into his hand instead. Embarrassment and hurt vied for control of his emotions, both of which were equally strong. “Uh, what’s this?”

“We’re out of food. You omegas eat a lot when you’re in heat. I need you to go buy groceries.”

He’d been handed a short list of basic essentials, along with a few crumpled $20 bills. “You want me to do your shopping?”

“No,” Dell growled. “It’s our shopping, since you’re still here mooching off me.”

What the hell?

The alpha walked out the front door and was gone in an instant, leaving Corey baffled in his wake. They had been getting along so well and now this? He couldn’t understand it. He must have done something wrong. But what?

His sweet coffee tasted sour now, but he drank it to fill his stomach and then went to take a shower. The hot water felt good on his skin so he just stood there under the spray for a time, imagining that all his worries were being washed down the drain. Somehow, that was enough to make him feel better and he busied himself with washing up and getting dressed.

The face staring back at him in the mirror was one he didn’t quite recognize. It was him, but was it really himself? Was this the Corey he had always been?

Thinking about that raised a question to mind that he hadn’t considered as of yet. What if Dell was tired of sharing his house with a stranger who didn’t contribute anything? Perhaps having sex with him had been the end goal and everything would go downhill from here until he was eventually cast out.

“Stop it,” he growled to himself, bending down to lace up his sneakers. “Dell wouldn’t do that.”

After all, why would the police go through such trouble to try and locate his family if they were just going to push him away and act like he’d never been there in the first place? Hell, that just didn’t make any sense at all. All that time, all those resources, just wasted. Unless, of course, they were tired of wasting time and resources on him.

Corey finished tying his shoes and willed his hands to stop trembling. “Dell wouldn’t do that,” he repeated to himself. Dell liked him. Dell had been rough and gentle as was needed, and Dell had helped him when he was in heat. No, this bout of moodiness was something else.

Maybe it’s like an alpha period.

That cheered him up. Laughing at the thought of a strong, powerful man in the brooding grips of PMS, he stepped outside and made sure to lock the apartment door with the spare key he’d been given. Then, he set off at an easy lope toward Eureka’s polite little downtown. It still amazed him how much energy he had. He thought perhaps it might be the most energy he ever had in his entire life, wolf or no wolf. His breath came in measured gulps, and he didn’t falter in his step even once.

He quickly reached Main Street and looked up and down its length, pondering where to go from here. He couldn’t even remember where the boutique had been, now that he thought about it. The condition he was in at the time was hardly conducive to a good memory.

Oh, well. This was the first time he’d been allowed to go anywhere by himself. He might as well make a journey out of it and take some wrong turns along the way.

Corey turned right, as he was right-handed, and set off down the sidewalk. A few cars passed by, though not many. The handful of people he saw gave him a wide berth, no doubt recognizing him as the amnesiac stranger. Maybe some of them wondered why he was walking around without his escort, but no one was stupid enough to stop and ask him; for all they knew, he was crazy!

He passed by a gas station, the small store he had bought his clothing, a post office, and a few other small buildings that held no purpose for him. All the same, he lingered near the windows and peeked inside. It was easy enough to enjoy himself like this, he had to admit. The mountains were as gorgeous as ever, blue and gray and white at their peaks, snow mingling with cloud. The sun warmed his shoulders and back, while that breeze kept the heat from becoming oppressive.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to find a grocery store down this way, as the buildings thinned out and the road before him was the only thing to be seen for miles, Corey turned back around and started his search anew. This time, he found the grocery store. As it turned out, he’d missed it and passed it by. He didn’t think he could be blamed for that lapse, especially since it was called Bob’s Mart—no indication whatsoever that it sold food—and was crammed between the post office and a florist.

He turned into the parking lot and went inside, bringing out the list to examine it. Simple enough, he supposed. Eggs, milk, cheese, bread, a number of frozen goods…

How am I going to carry all this by myself? he wondered. Oh, well, He was strong. He could do it.

Grabbing a shopping cart, he busied himself with wandering up and down the aisles. One grocery store really wasn’t that different from the next and he found all the things he needed with little trouble.

Then, halfway through, he felt something.

Corey paused, a gallon of milk hanging from his fingertips. That odd sensation… Did he know it? It was like heat, but not from inside himself. It came from another source, behind him somewhere.

I’m being watched.

He caught his breath in his throat, panic rising up inside him. All he could think was that the panthers had come for him. They were behind him now, perhaps one, perhaps many, crouched down low to the floor with murder in their eyes. Any second now, he’d feel hot breath on the back of his neck and then he wouldn’t be able to feel anything anymore as they crushed the life from his body.

“Excuse me,” someone said. “Could I reach around you?”

Corey turned his head, muscles in his neck creaking, to stare at the woman who had approached him. “What?” he croaked.

She frowned, eyes behind her glasses growing impatient. “You’re standing in front of the milk.”

This stranger had eyes only for him. There was nothing behind him. What he’d felt, surely it was only a shadow of his paranoia, a ghost conjured up by some nightmare that had risen to the surface of his brain. In other words, he’d imagined it.

“Sorry,” he said, and pushed his cart out of the way. The woman huffed at him but he hardly heard it, as he was too busy trying to convince himself that he really had imagined it. At the very least, it was gone now.

The rest of the shopping trip went without incident. He paid and was given a few coins’ worth of change back by the uninterested clerk, who didn’t even say a word to him the entire time. Corey pushed the shopping cart back to where it belonged, gathered up his purchases in both hands as best he could, and hurried back out onto the street. All he wanted to do now was get home, get somewhere safe where he could put these groceries up and pretend he hadn’t gone insane. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d been remembering something.

Why had his past been so dark as to give him nightmares like this? Only time would tell, especially since it seemed as if no one even cared that he was gone from wherever he was supposed to be.

As he staggered along, his arms started to ache from his burdens. His shoulders felt like they were strained to the limit, on the verge of popping out of their sockets. The sunlight, so pleasant before, now worked against him. Sweat trickled down his back, making his shirt stick uncomfortably to his clammy skin. Stubbornness kept him planting one foot in front of the other, though not even at half the speed he’d been going before.

As he crossed the street, he felt it again. That burn on the back of his neck, like lasers piercing right through him. The wolf in him clearly detected two eyes turned his way, the stare unbroken and drawing nearer.

Corey braced to shift and was on the verge of transforming when a voice came from behind him. There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that it came from the person who was following him, which meant one of two things: either he wasn’t hallucinating something from his past, or he was really insane.

“Don’t do that. You’re okay.”

He had been a wolf long enough to recognize that distinct timbre, the overwhelming bass that came from deep within the chest. He was being talked to by a shifter, and an alpha at that.

And is that voice familiar?

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” the speaker continued. “I just thought you might want some help.”

Curiosity now mingling with his fear, Corey turned around awkwardly and found himself looking up into the eyes of a very tall, very broad man with milky skin and flame-red hair. He wasn’t wearing his blue uniform, but Corey recognized him in an instant. This was the alpha who had been standing in as the Chief of Police, while the actual Chief was out of town on his honeymoon. Corey didn’t remember his name, but he did remember being spoken about as if he wasn’t in the room.

“Help?” he repeated, uncertainly.

The deputy gestured with one wide hand toward the bags Corey held. His fingers were long and sprinkled with curly red hairs. “You went shopping. I thought I’d ask if you wanted help carrying those home.”

Jefferson, that was his name. Corey struggled to remember why he hadn’t liked this man. He seemed so different now; polite instead of aggressive. Maybe it had just been a tense time when they met, because this alpha was certainly all smiles now.

Despite that, he still couldn’t help but to feel wary. The wolf inside him lingered on the verge of bursting out of him, ready if needed. “I don’t really need help, thank you,” he said, as politely as he could. “I can get there on my own.”

“Sure you can,” Jefferson agreed. “But you’d get there a lot faster if you let me help. Here.”

Before Corey could react, the alpha had nabbed half of the bags from his hand and hefted them up in the air easily. His other hand came around just as neatly, and Corey was relieved of the gallon of milk.

He had to admit that it felt a lot better to be carrying so little. Some of his wariness faded away and he smiled tentatively up at the other. “Thanks. Um, it’s not far.”

“Oh, I know it isn’t. I know where Dell lives.”

They started walking together. Jefferson strode along with an easy bounce to his step, as if he held far more power in his body than could be contained.

“So, is it your day off?” he asked awkwardly, uncertain if Jefferson would like a conversation to bridge the gap between them.

“Indeed it is, though I imagine it will be the last one I’ll have for quite a while.”

“Oh… why is that?”

“Because of the panthers, of course.” Jefferson looked at him. His brown eyes were very dark and serious, two abysmal caverns on the moon of his face. “They’re getting braver. Soon enough, they’ll attack and innocent lives will be lost.”

Corey swallowed hard. He could picture it: the cats swarming down from the hills in a dark wave… “So what are you going to do?”

“We’re going to eradicate them before they eradicate us.” Jefferson spoke dispassionately, like a man discussing the weather instead of mass murder. “There will be a battle. It happens. But, you should get Dell to tell you about that. It’s not my place, since you’re his omega.”

Dell’s omega. On the one hand, Corey did like the sound of that. On the other hand…

“You know what it means to be his, don’t you?”

If it was what he thought it was, he didn’t want to say it out loud. A wash of color rose up his face and settled in his cheeks.

Jefferson looked off into the distance, seeming to see past the neighborhood to something else. Something more. “He hasn’t told you then? Hm.”

“Told me what?”

“Well, it’s not my place to say…”

Corey sped up and then spun around, facing Jefferson and looking up into his eyes. “I have to know,” he pleaded. He knew his eyes were his best feature and he used them now to his advantage, begging with them. “If he hasn’t told me, it’s probably something I need to know.”

“Well…” Jefferson looked troubled, deliberating for a long moment before nodding. “Okay. But you can’t tell him that I’m the one who told you. I would hate for him to be angry with us.”

Just thinking of Dell’s anger was enough to make him shudder, so he nodded. “I won’t tell. I promise.”

“Alright then.” Jefferson stopped where he was and set down the bags he carried, careful not to break anything. Corey kept ahold of his, since they were light anyway. “There’s this thing that alphas can do, called marking. We do it during mating, and it tells other alphas that you belong to someone else. It’s a sign that you have a mate.”

A mate. Not merely lovers or boyfriends, but mates?

“But, Dell hasn’t bitten me or anything.”

Jefferson shrugged. “Then you aren’t his. Maybe that’s a good thing, you know? You’re so young. Why would you want to be tied down to anyone, especially a gruff loser like Dell? There’s nothing really special about him. All he’d do is use you to make babies.”

“Wait. Babies?”

“He didn’t explain that to you either, huh?” Jefferson shook his head. “Maybe we shouldn’t have put him in charge of you if he doesn’t tell you important things like this. You see, omega shifters are the ones that have babies. They’re usually female but then there are males like you who can have children too.”

It was like the world had been ripped out from under his feet and he was falling. He could accept the fact that he was a shapeshifter, and he could accept the fact that being marked was a thing that wolves did, but a man getting pregnant from another man? Surely it was impossible! And yet, it wasn’t. He could tell that he wasn’t being lied to. This was the reality he lived in now.

And hadn’t he gone into heat? An animal state intended to inspire a lot of sex so that babies would be born.

Shit. Is Dell… did he really use me? No. I don’t believe it! I won’t. I don’t.

But, he did believe at least part of it. Dell clearly had a reason for not telling him, for making him have to learn the truth from someone else. Why? He needed to find out.

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this so suddenly,” Jefferson murmured. “Maybe you need to have a good, long talk with Dell about what he wants… before he marks you and you’re his for good.”