The next few weeks were beyond rough. It wasn’t so much the wounds he had sustained in the fight against the panthers, as those healed within a few days and left no lasting marks. Michael didn’t blame him for his loss, though Jefferson kept making snide remarks about how he would have managed to somehow capture one.

No, the rough part was being around Corey. It wasn’t that the kid annoyed him. Far from it. Somewhere along the line, something had changed and he had to struggle with that when all his life he hadn’t wanted the responsibility of a relationship. He didn’t want to be tied down, and he certainly never would have imagined the person he wanted to be tied to was Corey. All that was out of his hands now. The wolf in him had chosen his mate and was affecting his thoughts. He was powerless to stop it from happening. All he could do now was accept it and he didn’t want to.

At the same time as he didn’t want to, he wanted nothing more than to spend all his time with the omega. With no word as to Corey’s identity, no leads turned up by the media or any of their other attempts, it was already considered a given that he was never going to be claimed by anyone. He was alone in the world except for Dell, which neither of them talked about, but which was never far from their thoughts. That was just another reason to spend time with him, to keep him from thinking about it and getting depressed.

And it really wasn’t all that hard to spend his days with Corey, since he hadn’t been told to do anything else yet. Corey was his job, and so became his life. Every day, they strayed farther and farther from Eureka, even crossing the Canadian border at one point. To simply be wolves was pleasure, as always, but they were wolves together and could frolic and play until the sun sank down and cast long shadows across the ground. He taught Corey how to be a wolf, to hunt and to track and to read the subtle body signals passed from one animal to another.

The only thing he didn’t teach the omega was the concept of marking. It just never seemed the right time. Corey was, after all, just a kid. It wasn’t right to force such a big decision upon him, especially not when they had just spent hours pushing their bodies together. It was sex without the sex, all contact and pleasure without intercourse. Dell would hate to ruin what they had, and truthfully, he didn’t know how to proceed with the subject himself.

Then, one day in particular, the same as all the others, Dell awoke to find a curious scent in the air. Sitting up on the couch, he uncurled his body and then flopped to the floor to transform and stand on his own two feet. Spending too much time in a wolf’s body was unsettling, but at least he slept better than when he was cramped on the furniture as a human.

He continued to smell that strange smell even when not in wolf form, and it made his stomach tremble. Before he knew it, his groin felt hot and tense, and he had the beginnings of an erection. It had been so long since he smelled that, and he had to struggle for a moment to remember what it was before it came to him in a flash.

Oh. Oh, no, he thought. Then, he thought, oh, yes, and felt guilty for his eagerness.

Before he knew what he was doing, he left the living room and was down the hall. The smell became stronger, spicy, intoxicating, and musky. It clogged his mind, consumed him. And now as he stood outside his bedroom door, he heard soft little moans. Soft moans, soft thumps, and a rustling of covers; Dell would have known that sound anywhere.

“Corey?” he called out.

A moan cut off abruptly into a gasp and the movements halted. He heard Corey breathing rapidly, panting like the wolf inside him. “Go… away.”

“Corey.”

“Go away!” came the reply, stronger than before.

Dell could have laughed, but it lodged in his throat. Life just kept going on without him and he had to go along with it no matter what. What had happened to him? What had happened to his life for it all to come to this, standing outside the bedroom of an omega in heat?

“I can help you.”

“I don’t… need help,” Corey moaned. Dell could imagine him, dick in hand, pulling anxiously at his member to try and alleviate the pressure building inside him. It wouldn’t work. It never did.

“Yes, you do,” Dell murmured. He pressed his palms against the door as if he could reach right through the wood. “I’m a wolf. I know what’s happening to you.”

“Nothing happening!”

Dell shuddered. His body was reacting to Corey’s sexual distress, fingers curling against the door so that his nails dragged deep grooves in the surface. “You’re in heat, Corey.”

Stunned silence. He couldn’t wait any longer and shoved his way into the bedroom.

The scene before him was exactly what he knew he would see. Corey didn’t even look up, didn’t even seem to notice or care that Dell was in the room with him. He lay flat on his back, both hands wrapped around his dick. His hips bucked as he tried to pleasure himself, thrusting against the ridges of fingers and palm. His face was red as a tomato, and the head of his manhood was the same shade. Between his hands as they moved were glimpses of pale skin with light blue veins just beneath the surface.

Dell breathed in deeply, closing his eyes to try and get control of himself. Every muscle in his body was drawn tight and tense, but he couldn’t let this get out of hand. “You’re in heat,” he repeated. “It’s something that all omegas go through.”

“What?” Corey grunted, still uselessly trying to masturbate. His face had gone from red to purple.

“Because we’re wolves,” he explained. “Omegas go through heat.”

His hips and hands still worked of their own accord, but now Corey lifted up his head to stare. “Heat… for breeding? Like dogs?”

“Right.” He dared to take a few steps forward. Corey didn’t particularly seem to mind. The room positively reeked of sex and desperation now. “It lasts for a few days every month. Sometimes a week.”

“Make it stop,” Corey pleaded. His pale eyes were wide, rimmed with white and bloodshot. “I need to…”

Dell took a ragged breath. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? There were pills now that omegas could take to lessen their symptoms, helping with their discomfort and to keep them safe from randy alphas, but he hadn’t thought to see if the omega living in his house could be provided with any. “It’ll go away. But until then… you won’t be able to cum.”

Corey sat up abruptly, balancing himself with one hand on the bed while the other worked furiously at himself. His skin was growing raw and chapped, without lubricant to smooth things over. “What?” he said again, eyes round. “No! This is awful!”

“You won’t be able to cum… without an alpha.”

No response.

Dell pushed on, figuring he might as well get this over with. Nothing would happen if he didn’t, and it was time for him to finally take responsibility. “I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. I… I know that we’re… We haven’t even kissed… I don’t know if you want that.”

Very smooth. Good job. One would think that I’m not nearly as experienced as I am.

Despite his stammering, he felt confident enough to approach another few steps. His hips pressed against the mattress, uncomfortably crushing his dick as it struggled to rise.

“Dell.” His name said in that quaking voice was like fingers stroking down his spine. “I need you.”

So simple to say, and such a powerful reaction. Dell pulled in a ragged breath and then tore at his clothes with his nails, shoving his shirt to the side and breaking the jeans zipper. He climbed up on the mattress, straddling the other man’s writhing body. He leaned his head down until their noses touched and then brushed their lips together. Such a chaste kiss he hadn’t experienced since his very first all those years ago at thirteen, and it set his blood to boiling and ignited his body on fire. Trails of fire lanced out to his fingertips, making him gasp so that his hot breath rasped against Corey’s lips.

Corey lifted up both his arms, giving up on his self-pleasure, and wrapped them around Dell’s neck. Their lips touched again, pressing deeper than before. They breathed together, lips moving together between them. Corey’s mouth beneath his was clumsy but eager, and he quickly learned. When Dell flicked out his tongue and lapped at Corey’s lower lip, the omega opened his mouth and let him inside. He drank deeply of the taste, hot and sweet.

Before he could catch himself, Dell started rubbing his throbbing cock on Corey’s thigh. He couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t resist the urge… but he made himself stop all the same. He wasn’t about to rush this, not when it was their first time together.

Their lips parted again, both of them breathing deeply. Corey whispered, “You don’t have to do this. I know I’m not anything.”

He decided not to answer, knowing as he did that Corey was more to him than anyone could ever guess. What was it that Michael had said all those days ago, that Dell would be the last one to notice if he fell in love? It seemed the Chief was right. All this time he had spent feeling so strongly for Corey, in ways he had never felt for anyone before, and he had ignored it until their bodies could be ignored no longer.

Their mouths crushed together again, harder than before. Dell let his tongue spear through the yielding Cupid’s bow of the other’s lips, thrusting deep inside in a mimic of sex. He held Corey’s face in his hands, holding him still as he claimed his mouth with his tongue. Their teeth clicked together as his tongue slid deeper, reaching for the back of the throat. Corey took it all, yielding and submissive as an omega should be, whimpers and little gasps of breath pulling up from his yearning interior. Dell swallowed each gasp and smothered each whimper in his attempts to claim.

Hands slid down his back, following the low ridge of his spine. Fingers explored his body as intrepid adventurers once explored the Montana mountains, tracing the hills and curves of his muscles. The omega’s tremulous but thorough examination of him, complete with an occasional scratch or a nail digging into his skin, rose fires inside Dell the like of which he had never known before. He always burned with a partner but, this time, the wolf beneath him fit him exactly. They were two and one, meant to be joined, and the blaze was all the stronger for it. His taut muscles were burning trees, livid with heat that jumped from branch to branch until the entire mountain of his identity was caught in the inferno.

Distantly, somewhere beneath him, he felt wetness.

Dell snapped back to himself, gasping and shuddering. He lifted his head and Corey went limp, shuddering as he reclaimed all the breath that had been stolen from him. He was aware now of the state his member was in, throbbing so hard it twitched and jumped as with life. Involuntary release had been seconds away, and wetness dribbled from his overheated tip as a precursor to the finale.

That wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t his pleasure that mattered here.

“Dell?”

He looked down into Corey’s face and marveled at it. In such a short time, with just a little bit of care, the younger man had blossomed once again into his true self. No longer a skeleton, his cheeks were rounded and his skin had filled out so that the harsh edges of his features were blurred into a fine softness. Only a bit of golden fuzz adorned his upper lip and chin, but his thin hair had filled in and hung down in silky waves that covered his ears. His peridot eyes, so pale and afraid once, now glimmered with depths of green and gray that hadn’t been there before. Deep inside the irises, he saw a scattering of emerald that was as green as the grass on which they had played for so many days.

And those eyes, they begged him for something a mouth could never say.

Dell pushed up and away, which made his lover cry out with loss, but he returned again after rummaging around in a drawer on his nightstand. Lube in hand, he hesitated, but not for long. Certainly Corey wouldn’t get pregnant after just one go of it. Later on, when everything had calmed down, he would buy condoms for the future.

This isn’t the last time we’ll be doing this, he thought, although he didn’t allow himself to think years ahead. He had only just barely adjusted to the idea of having Corey as a mate. Imagining them growing old together was still a bit away, as far as he was concerned. Best not to rush it.

“Get up on your hands and knees,” Dell said, his voice hoarse. As the omega grunted and obeyed, using limbs made wobbly by desire, he rubbed lube on his shaft until he dripped with it.

Corey had assumed a classic position, though his back was arched in the wrong direction and it made his ass point down. Reaching out, Dell grabbed onto his hips and realigned him. He couldn’t stop himself from digging his nails in and deeply massaging that small rear, making his companion cry out and buck backward against his palms.

Then, they were both ready and there was nothing to stop them any longer.

Dell held the bottle again and upended it over Corey’s ass. A liberal amount of liquid streamed down onto his pale skin and started to dribble down between his ass cheeks. It was cold but no doubt it seared his pulsing, needy opening when contact was made.

“Ah! Dell!”

“You like that,” he murmured, not a question. Reaching out, he rubbed Corey’s opening and made sure the lube covered every part. The fire inside him, banked but still very much alive, reared its glowing head at the feel of that throbbing patch of skin, as unique to its owner as a fingerprint. He felt each wrinkle and whorl quite clearly, a map of it burned into his memory.

Corey let out soft little whimpers, rubbing back against his hand like a cat marking its territory. Encouraged, Dell pressed one finger hard in the center of his pucker. It parted easily beneath his touch and Corey cried out as he was penetrated, pushing back harder than before. In less than the span of a second, Dell’s entire finger was buried in the omega. It was ecstasy on a whole new level. His eyes almost rolled back in his head as he was gripped by the omega’s inner muscles, his lover’s body begging for him to go deeper. He wished he could. He wished his finger was long enough, so that they wouldn’t have to separate for even a moment. It wasn’t long enough however, and anyway he needed to satisfy himself, too. No act of sex was without a little bit of selfishness.

He withdrew his finger and Corey cried out with a sense of loss, which immediately turned into a yell of delight as Dell hurried to replace his finger with his dick. He pushed deep inside the omega, but managed to stop himself from sinking inside fully. Corey wasn’t ready for that yet.

“Dell!” Corey cried out, his yelps rising to screams edged with pleasure and a small amount of pain. “Please!”

“Trying not to hurt you,” he grunted in response. God, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt the precious man beneath him. A coupling between two males was no small matter. He knew only too well the sort of violation and damage it could bring if done improperly.

Corey shuddered, apparently out of words. His ass bucked up, muscles dragging at Dell to try and pull him in deeper. Dell gave in, lacking his normal resistance in the face of this, and gave the omega another inch. They hovered there together, on the brink of orgasm, until Dell judged it safe to move in another fraction deeper. Corey’s body accepted him readily and without hesitation, relaxing when he moved and tightening again when he stopped.

It was almost as if they weren’t in control. Their bodies were.

When he was fully embedded in the omega, Dell let out a relieved sigh. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. The relief was almost better than cumming, although Corey beneath him seemed to disagree. He writhed and bucked with the same desperate need, struggling toward release. Panting cries pulsed from his throat, sounding almost like little howls.

Dell rubbed his hands on Corey’s back, trying to soothe him, but the omega would not be soothed. He was wild with his need, bucking like a stallion out of control. It was time to end this then.

Dell slowly lifted his hips, pulling his shaft almost all the way out. He was no longer capable of fully withdrawing, however. His tip was too swollen. He couldn’t leave until he was done here.

Corey’s ass rose up with him, his body stilling in anticipation. Closing his eyes, Dell thrust himself slowly back inside to give the omega what he needed. The thrust earned him a sharp cry, pain and pleasure mingling as his virgin body struggled to align itself with what was being asked of it.

Dell thrust again and again, as slowly as he could manage. Corey moved with him each time, breath coming faster. Their bodies sped up. Dell grunted and moaned constantly, unable to help himself. Corey’s body held his dick so sweetly…

Before he knew it, a pulse of fire shot down through his shaft and he came hard enough to send his body into spasm. He saw nothing, eyes closed so tightly that pulses of color danced behind his lids. He was blind and deaf, mouth open but not knowing if he made any noise. It was pleasure so intense it bordered on agony.

When he was finally able to come back to himself, his manhood gone limp inside Corey, he realized they were both slumped over on their sides. Tremors still ran and pulsed through the omega. He hadn’t achieved orgasm.

Dell closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath. He was no young man anymore but he was experienced, in the prime of his life. Omegas in heat were nearly impossible to please after just one round of sex. He had no idea why, but that was simply how it worked, especially when they were as young as Corey.

“Corey?” he breathed.

Corey’s eyes were shut tightly, but he turned his head slightly at the sound of his name. “Feels better,” he murmured.

I would hope so.

“Let me catch my breath,” Dell said. “And we’ll go again.”

Nothing was said in response, so he could only assume he was being agreed with. He wrapped his body around Corey and focused on breathing. With the edge taken off his own burning need, he felt better able to think. That was when he realized that he hadn’t marked Corey during sex. It simply hadn’t occurred to him, although now he realized his own reasoning behind the absence of that action. He hadn’t ever told Corey about marking, about being mates. As far as the omega was concerned, this was just sex between two people who cared about each other. True though that might be, it was far more.

He had been meaning to explain, but there just hadn’t been a right time for it. And now, between bouts of sex, it seemed just as inappropriate a time as all the others.

After half an hour of resting, Dell found it within himself to have another go at it. He lasted longer this time, until they were well and fully going at it, bodies rocking and hips pumping. Corey seemed to enjoy it even more than before, especially now that his body had adjusted enough to the act to know what was required. He still didn’t cum, but he seemed even more relaxed than before. The same couldn’t be said for Dell, who had only succeeded in making himself more tense with all the thoughts of marking. It lingered in the back of his mind and overshadowed all he did, until he found himself leaning down to bite at the omega’s neck as he orgasmed. He stopped himself just in time and turned the bite into a fierce kiss, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy that wild urge to claim.

After another hour of rest on the bed, bodies curled together and hearts hammering as one, the pair went at it a third time. This time, Corey found it within himself to support himself on the mattress with one hand while using the other to tug on his own throbbing member. In no time at all, he finally orgasmed.

Dell hadn’t realized he was close to that edge again himself until he felt Corey’s ass clamp down on his shaft, quickly bringing him to new heights.

When it was over, they resumed lying on the bed. Neither of them had the strength to move and so they just curled together, feeling closer than ever, but also somehow more distant. At least, that was how Dell felt.

They drifted off to sleep together, and Dell’s dreams were a confused mash of pleasure and fear. His eyes snapped open and he realized that the fear was not his own. Beside him on the bed, Corey tossed and turned in the grips of one of his nightmares.

Not knowing what else he could do, Dell hugged the little omega against his body until he quieted. Corey didn’t awaken, and that was perhaps for the best.