The torches from the Showing flickered more faintly with every step Kyle took back toward home. The grounds used for the Showing were a fair distance from the village itself, and his house was at the other end of the village. The village sat at the heart of the island, all of which served as the core territory of the sept. He supposed that while the village served as the heart, assholes like Aidan were probably considered to be the immune system. Working and fighting all over the sept’s territory to make sure those on the island could live the comfortable lives that they did.

It wasn’t like Kyle didn’t live a comfortable life, especially when he compared his life to those who lived on the outskirts of the sept’s territory. The Sept of the Green Isle held a lot more territory than just one island, and some of that territory was quite dangerous to live in. Werewolves were supposed to be the guardians of Gaia herself, though he wasn’t sure just what they were supposed to be guarding, or how they were supposed to do it. The only threats to Gaia herself were cosmic events and humans, but no werewolf was equipped to smack away an asteroid. They’d long ago lost the fight for control of humanity to the humans themselves, so he didn’t quite see how they were supposed to be saving Gaia from them either. Since then, werewolves had become nothing more than a number of septs, made up of several packs who staked claim to various stretches of land and then fought each other over them.

Even though his home was situated at the edge of the village, subtly separated from the rest of the sept, it was better than living in some battle-worn hamlet near enemy territory. Here, at least, he was isolated from all the border skirmishes. Alphas ran things everywhere, but they were even more draconian and harsh on the population where the fighting was the worst. On the island proper, things were run by the three elders: Sky, Earth, and Water. Every elder that ever held the position always possessed one of those three names, giving up the one they had before they chose to be the guiders and overseers of the sept. In the time before they became elders, they were alphas of great renown and were regarded as wise.

It was because this was the heart of the sept that so much politicking and posturing was prevalent. Even omegas, whose sole source of reputation and respect came from being chosen by someone else, were prone to focusing on appearance and behavior over results. Kyle didn’t know if he was just simply a grumpy bastard, but he despised how everything here seemed to be more about how good you looked doing something, rather than the something itself. It was the same reason people like Aidan could get away with their rudeness and bullying.

His steps faltered before coming to a stop, as the muscles in his shoulders tightened. He wasn’t sure what exactly had put him on edge, but he knew better than to ignore his instincts. The village and the woods it was built in were quiet, save for the normal noises of the night. There was enough moonlight for him to be able to see in the dark, and he did not see any immediate threat to his safety. It didn’t alter the fact that he knew someone or something was there, and it was watching him.

Not caring if he sounded foolish, he called out into the shadows. “I know you’re there, so quit creeping around and come out already. I want to get home and drink myself stupid instead of playing silly games!”

The deep chuckle that came in response sent a chill down his spine, and Aidan stepped out from a nearby cluster of trees. “And here I thought living the life of luxury made you people soft.”

Kyle’s wolf growled inwardly at Aidan’s sudden appearance. “And I thought you’d have better things to do than skulk around in the dark. I guess we were both wrong.”

“Knowing how to skulk around in the dark is a handy skill. Sometimes it can save your ass, and sometimes it lets you slip away from a group of idiots to stalk a lonely omega through the woods,” Aidan told him, and though he couldn’t see it, Kyle could hear the smirk in his voice.

The statement was enough for him to become brutally aware of his predicament, however. He had assured Lily he’d be fine, and that Aidan wouldn’t bother with him. He’d been wrong about that, and now he was out in the dark, by himself, with a man he knew was an arrogant, aggressive, and mean-spirited alpha. Even if legally, Aidan couldn’t touch Kyle, it wouldn’t matter if there were no witnesses. The harsh fact of his life was that if it came down to Kyle’s word versus Aidan’s, then Kyle would lose out and simply have to lick his wounds in private.

“Don’t you have a pack of adoring fans to deal with? Why the hell are you stalking me?” Kyle demanded.

“Because I wanted to?” Aidan chuckled, stepping closer so Kyle could see his face clearly.

Hating himself for it, Kyle took a step back. “Well, congratulations. You successfully stalked me and creeped me out, so now you can return to the party.”

Aidan watched him with interest. “What’s the matter, you scared of me?”

Kyle eyed the size of the werewolf before him. “I would call it a healthy wariness. I’m not stupid. I’m alone with you, and we both know what that means, or could mean.”

“You think that low of me?” Aidan asked in a mock wounded voice.

“I think I made that pretty clear already,” Kyle growled, wishing the asshole would just leave him in peace already.

Aidan nodded, looking thoughtful. “You did. And you did it so everyone will be talking about it for weeks. You took my shining moment as a returning hero, and turned it into a dramatic outburst about how mean I was to you as a kid.”

“You were a prick, and you still are. I’d think you would have embraced that by now,” Kyle said before he could stop himself.

He really wasn’t liking the way Aidan was looking at him and the longer he talked, the worse it got. Kyle was beginning to get frustrated with himself. Having just admitted he was in a dangerous predicament, being out here alone with Aidan, here he was, still goading the alpha as if he was perfectly safe. Kyle considered himself to be a reasonably intelligent person, and he knew damn well it wasn’t very smart to keep mouthing off to the alpha without an exit strategy. As a matter of fact, all he was doing was increasing the risk that Aidan would retaliate in a situation where he could get away with it.

Aidan grinned. “You’re still hanging onto that, aren’t you? Geez man, you really know how to hold a grudge over a bit of kid stuff.”

Then, there was that insufferable smile that made Kyle want to ball his hand up and deck the alpha. Even though he knew it wasn’t smart, he found he couldn’t help but let his mouth run free when it came to Aidan. The alpha had spent years tormenting Kyle, when Kyle had been nothing more than a young, skittish omega, terrified of his own shadow. That had been years ago though, and a part of him that was far stronger than his sense of self-preservation refused to let history repeat itself.

“I have half a dozen scars from that kid stuff, as you so stupidly put it. Because you decided, on a few different occasions, that pranking someone meant risking them getting seriously hurt. That, and on a kid who wasn’t old enough for the first change to happen, so I didn’t have werewolf healing by then. If you weren’t tripping or pushing me down a hill into a briar patch, you were dropping me out of a boat in the middle of the lake, chasing me through the woods at night, or any number of screwed-up shit ideas that you should have had your ass kicked for. Now you’re going to creep after me in the dead of night because I called you names in front of your friends? You’re the one who hasn’t left childhood behind, Aidan!” Kyle snapped, both loving and hating the liberation of being brutally honest.

Aidan’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I’m trying to give you the chance to at least act as smart as you think you are.”

Kyle snorted. “If I was worried about doing the smart thing, I wouldn’t have told you to basically go fuck yourself in front of the whole sept.”

“For someone who’s supposed to be wary, you’re sure not acting like it,” Aidan pointed out, sounding annoyed for the first time.

“Wary doesn’t mean scared, and I’m more pissed than scared anyway,” Kyle told him, refusing his instinct to back up again as Aidan took another step forward.

Aidan snorted. “Where was all this bravado when you were a kid? Because I remember how much of a crybaby you were. I did twice as much to some of the other kids around here, but you were always the first one to break down. I’d say it was because you’re an omega, but I’ve known plenty of omegas who didn’t cry at the drop of a hat.”

Kyle jerked a thumb toward himself. “Do I look like a kid anymore? Because last I checked, I came of age quite a while ago. You’ve been gone for even longer than that, Aidan; you’ve missed quite a lot. I might be an omega, and you might be some big ol’ hero, but I’m not scared of you.”

Aidan tilted his head slowly, looking like he was considering his prey. “And what changed that?”

“It’s called life. It tends to suck, and it has a tendency to change people, for the most part. All it’s seemed to have done for you is make you worse. Well, and bigger too, I guess. But some of us did change,” Kyle shot at him with a snarl.

“What, losing your pack somehow make you get some balls?” Aidan asked.

Kyle’s inner wolf was no longer simply growling, it was about ready to pounce. “If I want to talk about my pack, my family, it’s not going to be with you. Can I go now, or did you want to force me to continue having this ridiculous conversation you’ve managed to pin me into?”

Aidan’s smile looked dangerous in the shadows. “I haven’t pinned you to anything.”

Kyle really didn’t like the inferred yet at the end of that sentence. He’d been thinking that Aidan would only smack him around a bit, maybe break something before going back to the party. A wash of fear passed over him, both cooling the rise of his anger and sharpening it at the same time. An alpha taking what they wanted wasn’t necessarily a foreign concept to Kyle, but he’d been spared that so far. It was incredibly common out on the borders, which is precisely where Aidan had been spending his time for the past several years.

He needed to know if he was in that much danger or not. “Fine, then why the hell did you follow me out here? Did you just want to get yelled at again?”

“I didn’t actually think you would keep yelling at me once we were alone,” Aidan told him.

Kyle frowned. “What, did you think we were going to be buddies once there wasn’t an audience? You apparently learned a few things about me before you took off to follow me, so I’m sure you found out that I’m generally a disagreeable person as it is. I don’t usually show it by telling someone off at a party, but hey, you can have the trophy for being the first person to make me wanna do just that, so congratulations.”

Aidan chuckled, the throaty noise doing nothing to settle Kyle’s nerves. “I actually thought you were just feeling ballsy because you had everyone there to make sure I wouldn’t do anything back to you. Gotta say, I’m surprised you’re still running your mouth off. You really have changed since you were a kid.”

“Great! You found out that I’m not scared of my own shadow anymore,” Kyle said sarcastically.

“And ya know, I haven’t had someone talk to me like that in…forever. It’s more than a little stimulating, actually. I should be pissed, but I don’t think pissed is the word I would use,” Aidan said with a wicked grin.

Kyle did take a step back this time. “And there’s plenty of people back at the Showing who would be more than happy to help you take care of that, I’m sure. Don’t look at me like that. I would rather gouge out my own innards than touch you like that, so go be horny on someone else.”

Aidan cocked a brow. “Who said anything about horny?”

Kyle couldn’t believe Aidan was really going to be coy about this. “I’m an omega, and you’re an alpha. The Showing is today. There’s expectations for that, and you just got done talking about how you’re stimulated. I’m not stupid.”

“Maybe I just want to stand here and listen to you rage at me in the dark,” Aidan taunted.

Kyle threw up his hands. “If you want to play games with someone, go find yourself a toy back at the Showing. I’m done standing around here. You’re going to keep being an arrogant ass and I’m going to continue to be an insulting shit, so let’s just end this now. I’m going home, where there are still plenty of drinks for me to enjoy, and if I get far enough into them, maybe I can even forget this night even happened, okay? Great talk. Good night.”

He turned, knowing that not being able to see Aidan anymore wouldn’t matter. If the werewolf was going to do something, there was nothing Kyle could do to stop him. Sure, he could hold his own, but that wouldn’t matter for shit against a battle experienced alpha who outweighed him considerably. The best he could hope for was that Aidan would just be frustrated or bored with him after playing his little taunting game. Maybe it was one of Aidan’s old long term games, where he would spend the entire time he was back in the village trying to constantly get a rise out of Kyle.

When a strong hand wrapped around his arm and yanked him back, Kyle shouted in surprise and outrage. He struggled against Aidan’s grip as he was forced to turn and face him. Aidan clamped his free hand on Kyle’s other arm to hold him in place. Kyle had no choice but to look up into the face of the alpha with a mixture of fear and anger. He could see Aidan’s face almost perfectly now, close enough that the moonlight streaming down from above illuminated his features.

The frustration on Aidan’s face faltered, and Kyle’s body froze in the middle of its struggles. His skin was tingling where Aidan was holding him, dancing pinpricks of electricity spread out along his body. When it reached his core, the energy melted into a wash of warmth that bathed him, soothing the tensing muscles of his arms until his body felt almost relaxed. Confusion was just a faint noise in the back of his mind as he stood there, seeing the same puzzlement cross Aidan’s face.

The snarling of his wolf within him had stopped, and Kyle felt as if it were sniffing the air around it, testing it. As if on cue, Kyle became immediately aware of the scent of the alpha in front of him. It was just the nature of werewolves that an alpha usually smelled, to some degree, pleasant to an omega. Kyle had enjoyed the scent of a few alphas, some more than others. Aidan’s scent, however, was so much more than just pleasant. It was warm, like the smell of the forest floor on a summer afternoon, the faint smell of pine, a metallic tang that he would swear was blood, and something altogether different and ultimately unique to Aidan. He could only smell the alpha’s scent, as the other scents around him were now drowned out in the sudden flood of Aidan that drove down to the core of his being.

His inner wolf pawed the ground, whining in sudden anxiety. Kyle knew full well what it was like to have his inner animal want something, and every werewolf knew how to read its needs and desires; it was second nature to them. His wolf spirit wanted Aidan, and it wanted him more fiercely than it had ever wanted anything before. Every other person Kyle had ever been with had been simply the result of him and his wolf’s instincts wanting to find release, and having felt enough attraction to someone to find it. This sudden desire in him was so much more than simple rutting: his wolf wanted Aidan. Hell, it needed him. He felt as if his spirit wolf were pacing a hole within him, simply because he was doing nothing but gaping at Aidan stupidly.

His conscious mind slid into place enough that he realized he was seeing the same stunned confusion on Aidan’s face. Realization slammed into his mind with jarring force, and he pulled back from Aidan. The alpha’s grip had gone slack, and Kyle freed himself without any trouble. The confusion on Aidan’s face only grew when Kyle pulled away, and Kyle knew exactly what the problem was. His inner wolf didn’t like that Kyle had pulled away, and it desperately needed Kyle to get back in there and finish what it had wanted to start.

“Did you…” Aidan began, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.

“No,” Kyle said immediately, denying it even as his wolf spirit snarled, this time at him.

He could see it on the alpha’s face, he was beginning to come to his senses and understand what had happened, and what was happening. To Kyle’s sheer horror, Aidan didn’t look annoyed or even pissed about it. If anything, Aidan was looking at him with renewed interest. The man’s eyes were appraising him even harder than they had been before, and it only made him look even more predatory.

Kyle pointed at him. “You stay away from me, you hear me? Go back to your battles, and go earn your glory. Hell, stay here for a moon and fuck every other omega who’s willing, but you stay away from me. You hear me?”

He didn’t even care that Aidan was smirking at him as he turned on his heels and took off running. That he didn’t hear Aidan call out after him or even try to follow him should have been a relief, but it only sent another tremor of nerves through him. His inner wolf was howling in frustration, furious that Kyle was going in the complete opposite direction to Aidan, but he didn’t care. He was in charge; he was the one who dictated what they did, even if his wolf had more influence on him than he wanted to admit at that moment. Still, he was conscious, he was aware, and he could still deny it, even if it would make him suffer in its own way.

When he reached his small home, he barreled through the door and slammed it behind him. He rested against the door, letting his head thump back into it. His chest heaved, trying to catch his breath as he wiped the sweat from his brow. He stared at his fingers, hating to see them shaking as he stood there, trying to make sense of things.

It wasn’t possible. That was what he had to believe if he wanted to stay sane. He’d told himself he was too old for anything like that, and that had to be true. Even if he wasn’t too old for chances like that, there was no way it could happen with anyone like Aidan. There was no way Gaia could be so cruel as to add that to the pile of shit in his life. His family had been taken from him, his life had been turned on its head, and he had been forced to scrape by with what little he could grasp onto. There was no way Aidan would be added to that mess.

He grabbed a bottle of liquor from the nearby hanging cabinet, eager to drink and tell himself that he did not just experience the Joining.