Page 33

Blake nodded. “Will you do it? Look into the injunction, I mean.”

“What? No! She’s my mum. I can’t… I can’t lose this job, Blake. I’ll lose my income, my house… I can’t… I can’t go back, I can’t… Oh shit… N-not there… not?—”

The anger in his gut hardened, turning into a lead weight deep in his core.

It was pulling him down, crushing his pelvis and trying to force him to his knees.

He gripped the stall, fingers holding on to the blue plastic barrier like it was the only thing keeping him from being sucked into the plughole.

“Pember,” Blake growled. “Can I come over there?”

A low-frequency drone rattled Pember’s skull. “W-what? Yes. I mean, no. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m—” He wasn’t fine; he couldn’t breathe. “Oh God, Blake. I can’t. I can’t…” It was the only thing he could say as he struggled to keep a grasp on the English language.

If Blake was calling to him, he couldn’t hear it. His hearing was muffled, face as numb as his feet as he struggled to feel the ground beneath them. His wolf whimpered, agony squeezing his chest, making it feel like his ribs were cracking.

It was the end, wasn’t it? He was dying. It felt like he was dying. He’d rather die than go back. He reached out for his wolf—the scent of its fur, the warmth of its skin—and for once it reached back.

“ You’ll remember me, won’t you, Pem? ” Were those his words or his sister’s? His brain was turning upside down; it must have been.

A deep rumble cut through the fog, dislodging the ball of dread in his stomach.

Blake. Blake was there, all long lines and wet skin as he pushed open the cubicle. A towel rode low on his hips, another in his hand.

“You aren’t dying,” he growled, fingers brushing over Pember’s hips as he wound the towel around him. “You aren’t losing your job, or your house, or your sanity.”

Pember shuddered, brain too fuzzy for him to be embarrassed by either of their nakedness.

The vast expanse of the alpha’s body filled the space.

His space. Blake’s chest had freckles, marks and years-old scars.

Scars. The scar that cut vertically through the centre of his sternum from open-heart surgery.

It was too much with the two of them squashed together, and his omega wolf pressed into Blake’s. The alpha’s rumbling breaths were making him woozy, drowsy almost. It was too much, his heart—his own heart—was hammering as the panic attack clamped around his ribs.

“I-I-I-I can’t do this. I can’t… I can’t,” he squeaked, voice cracking.

His hands pawed feebly at Blake’s chest, both he and his wolf trying to find purchase on something solid, but coming away empty. Dark fur pushed through his skin, black claws appearing in place of blunt nails. His shift. His shift was coming and he was powerless to stop it.

Then the alpha was fully standing over him, his forearm across the tiles above both their heads.

His other hand gripped Pember’s waist, thumb pressing into the space below his navel.

Blake pulled their bodies together with a wet slap, the showerhead bumping his temple, making water run down his face and over Pember’s shoulders.

“I can’t…” Pember whimpered again, leaning forward to press into the slippery warmth of Blake’s body.

“You can, and you are,” he whispered back. “This isn’t going to break you. Your backpack’s just a little full right now.”

Pember had no idea what ‘backpack’ Blake was referring to, only groaned through his sharpening teeth in reply.

He felt boneless, like his limbs were too heavy to bear and the only things holding him upright were the alpha’s arms. Dark clouds circled his thoughts, making it difficult to see a way forward, a way out of everything. Out of life.

Blake’s scent was a whisper at first, quiet and unassuming.

It tickled his nose, making his wolf chase the scent like it had in the woods.

The whisper became a call, wrapping around him like a weighted blanket on a cold day.

Mouth hanging open, he tried to drink in that taste of comfort. Of reassurance.

“It’s alright,” Blake murmured, fingertips smoothing through Pember’s hair. “I’ve got you.”

“Y-you don’t know me,” Pember stuttered. “You don’t… Y-you shouldn’t have to?—”

“I know enough.”

Pember’s eyes squeezed shut, and they almost rolled back as the alpha’s scent enveloped him completely.

It was like a drug, like walking into that grove of apple trees in the woods.

Fresh, crisp and calming. He wanted it. Needed to have it on his tongue, the tip of it swiping at the alpha’s skin and tasting the tang of the cheap shower gel and natural salt.

Blake growled low in his belly when Pember’s mouth slid from his shoulder to his collarbones, and he began sucking at the water that gathered in the bony dip.

“Pember—” he groaned, hand leaving Pember’s waist to grip the top of the cubicle. “Pem,” he repeated, barely more than a breath.

The panic attack left pins and needles prickling Pember’s fingers, something that bled across Blake’s skin as gooseflesh covered his entire chest.

“You smell… so good,” Pember panted.

Blake’s chest rumbled in agreement. “So do you,” he said, sliding his knee between Pember’s thighs. “You need to shift. Your wolf is breaking through, and I don’t know what mine will do once it does.”

Pember whimpered, pushing up on his tiptoes to latch his mouth around the scent gland beneath the alpha’s left ear. Tasting him. Drinking him in as the perfect nectar of his scent poured into his mouth. He sucked Blake’s skin, rupturing the blood vessels and bringing a red welt to the surface.

The shower room filled with a heady cocktail of both their pheromones, and it did something to Pember’s insides, making him hot and breathy as he sucked the scent gland raw.

Blake snarled, baring his teeth. “Now,” he said, the word rough in his throat. His cock hung heavy under the towel, the thick length of it pressing into Pember’s belly. Pember pushed into it, his own cock almost poking through the rough material.

“Kiss me again,” Pember whimpered.

Blake’s Adam’s apple jerked sharply. “No.”

“W-why?” The word sounded needy as it left his mouth.

Blake turned off the shower and spun Pember towards a side door. “Because you’re stressed and upset, and the moment I start kissing you it’ll become about what I want, and not what you need.”

Pember groaned, almost falling over as Blake led him through the shower room and towards a door to the side. It opened onto a grassy run, the type installed in shifter parks to keep elderly wolves on the right path. Wooden railings ran up the sides, directing a track into the woods.

“Ah, ah—ow!” Pember cried, dropping to his hands and knees.

Dark brown fur sprang through his skin, his bones cracking and muscles ripping as his body changed on its own.

Blood gushed into his mouth, fangs dropping through his gums in place of human teeth.

Four long canines clacked together and his gums receded, letting his lips peel back around his long muzzle.

Pain bloomed between his eyes, the intense surge of smells ripping through his airways, making his nervous system shudder and spasm. He felt every drop of rain, the pattering on his coat like razor blades cutting into his flesh.

The world went black, and when he awoke, cool earth pressed along his body. His muzzle was half-buried in the disturbed soil, the coolness of it keeping him grounded.

A warm weight lifted from his back, and when he was finally able to raise his head, he realised another wolf had been lying alongside him.

Blake. Blake with his tawny fur and the bright, blown-out irises of his lupine form. His eyes were still mismatched, and he had a thick, shaggy mane that ran across the crest of his neck, down his chest and between his front legs.

There was a hot, wet sensation between Pember’s ears, and he realised Blake was licking his head.

“ Safe. ”

The word rattled around Pember’s brain, tasting sweet on his tongue. It wasn’t a thought—he and Blake had slipped into shared awareness almost seamlessly, the alpha’s warm, heavy presence like a ball of pent-up energy in the back of his mind.

“ Alpha, ” his omega wolf whined, fear and confusion thrumming across the bond.

“ Safe, ” Blake said again, licking his ears and at the blood dripping under his chin. “ Stand. Now. ”

Blake stood, sliding his muzzle under Pember’s shoulders to roll him onto his front.

All four of his legs were trembling, but with Blake’s head under his belly he was able to stand and stretch his nose towards the sky.

Closing his eyes, he drew in the sweet scent of the grass and the deep earth of the woodland ahead.

Shaking out his body, he stumbled to the side and dropped to his paws in front of Blake.

He was beautiful. A huge, scruffy beast with paws as large as dinner plates and ears pointing up like spears.

Blake dropped his head and ran his wet nose between Pember’s ears and all along his back, briefly pausing to sniff above his tail.

He was scenting him, Pember realised, and something about that made his inner wolf shudder with joy.

“ Come, ” Blake said across the bond, his massive canine head turning towards the trees.

Pember’s eyes flitted to the woods, then back to Blake as he loomed over him. It made Pember shiver, the sensation both alien and familiar as his sinuous canine heart rapidly pumped blood around his body and made the pads of his paws tingle.

He wanted to run, he really did, but he knew he’d get tangled up in his own legs as soon as he tried. Shifting should have come naturally, like slipping on a well-worn coat, but thanks to his mum it did not.

Blake stared down at him, his massive paws leaving indents in the ground. “ Up, ” he said, those mismatched eyes boring into Pember’s soul.