Page 22

TALIUS

I was conscious that I had a very inexperienced omega in my care. I wanted to treat him with all the tender care and devotion I could, because he was my omega, he was going to be my mate. And I wanted him to have the best possible experience when we finally did mate. I wanted him to know that this wasn’t transactional, that he was loved, and yeah, I hadn’t said anything since I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but I had developed feelings . They’d been growing for a while now.

I wanted to start this off properly, but until I’d formally mated him, he was at risk of his meddling parents trying to separate us, and I didn’t like knowing they had some influence over us. I resented that they were forcing us to move faster than we otherwise would have, though paradoxically, I was glad we didn’t have to wait until Irian turned 22 to finalize our bond.

He was mine to protect, mated or not. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it, I swore savagely to myself as the rain continued to drum down outside, sealing my promise.

I lay awake for the remaining hours, listening to the rain, shadows dancing across the ceiling from the headlights as cars occasionally passed, the swish of water under the tires… until a faint pallor sneaking its way around the blind signaled the arrival of the new day. The pattering of rain on hard surfaces outside hadn’t diminished in the slightest. A brilliant flash illuminated the room followed swiftly by a deep rumbling. At least the weather was on our side. While the storms continued to rage, no-one would search for us. We’d have a little time to adjust to our new relationship before we had to move on.

Under the covers, warmth wrapped itself around my body. I had a sleeping omega snuggling on me. When I looked down, the brown lashes were resting softly against his pale faintly tanned cheeks, his pink lips, plump and pouty, were slightly parted. His chest rose and fell steadily. However unsure of our relationship Irian might be when awake, in sleep his wolf knew where it wanted to be, seeking out its alpha. My lips kicked up, affection suffusing me. We were going to be more than fine. Satisfied, I drifted back to sleep.

Sometime later, we roused. The mattress jiggled beside me as Irian unwrapped himself and sat up. His cheeks were flushed – again! I had never seen him so self-conscious before – and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Hey,” I tugged him back down onto my chest, which felt exactly where he belonged. “We’re mates, or we will be. Don’t be shy.”

His eyelashes tickled the hairs on my chest, his weight a comfortable pressure on my abdomen and chest. I ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, the silky strands gliding between my fingers. My other hand wrapped around his back and held him to me.

I dropped a kiss onto the top of his head.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

A deep sigh punctuated the silence and he seemed to melt on top of me.

“Yeah, I’m good. This is all just a little new.”

I ran my hands down his back, the fine downy hairs made it feel so soft on top, but underneath his muscles were firm, with just the slight roundedness typical of most omegas.

“I want you to feel comfortable with me,” I told him. “As your alpha, everything I have is yours… my land, my protection, my body, even…,” I hesitated, wondering if it would be too much, too soon, ‘…my heart,” I finished.

Irian’s head popped up off my chest, and a pair of bright eyes shone directly into mine, his face radiating delight.

“Really?” he squeaked, excitedly. When I nodded, he slid his arms around my neck. The relief was evident in his voice as he blurted out, “Thank the Goddess, because I love you!”

My wolf rumbled. My omega loved me. My mate. What more could an Alpha want?

“I love you,” I told him, before cupping the back of his head in my hand, the fine strands of his hair silky against my skin, and taking his mouth in a dirty, filthy kiss. When he pulled away, lips puffy and slightly bruised, his breathing was ragged. I could see the pulse thundering at the base of his neck. A bright stripe colored the length of that slender structure.

Our hard dicks rubbed against each other. A pungent scent hit the air. At first I didn’t recognize what it was. But then I smirked in satisfaction.

“Eew!” Irian exclaimed. He squirmed uneasily on top of me and looked like he was about to move away. But I held him there with one hand, my other one trailing lower until it located the wetness between his ass cheeks. It was copious. Irian tried to wriggle away.

“Slick,” I told him, bringing my glistening finger to my mouth, wondering if this was too much. But I wanted to taste my omega. When I licked the sweet slickness from my finger, humming at how perfect he tasted, the burst of pungent slick that hit the air told me Irian liked what he saw. He was highly responsive, literally bathing us in his hot, horny, omega slick.

My cock stiffened further, stretching the silky skin taut to the point of discomfort. I knew what I needed, but it was still too soon.

The grumbles coming from on top of me, drew my attention away from my own desires. My omega was clearly not happy. “What the fuck?” he demanded.

He looked so indignant at his omega biology, with his plump cheeks and disheveled golden brown hair sticking up at all angles, that I chuckled.

“That’s your slick, it’s normal. It means your body is responding to having an alpha nearby. It’s getting ready to receive me.”

Irian glared at me. “Never happened before,” he snapped, chin jutting out stubbornly.

I simply shrugged. Shifter biology took care of itself, with no intervention from our human selves. “Maybe because our relationship has changed,” I suggested. Most likely that was the truth of it too. After what we did last night, and then sleeping the night together, it was probably enough to cause this change despite his young age, and one more reason to suspect we were fated.

“So what are we supposed to do about it?” Irian wailed.

“We enjoy it,” I suggested.

Irian was much lighter than me, so it was easy to flip him onto his stomach and cover him with my body. My erection glided along his ass crack, coating itself in slick.

“Keep your legs together,” I whispered in his ear, as I nibbled on the lobe. I felt his muscles flex beneath me. Reaching down, with one hand I guided my slippery cock between his thighs. The space was narrow and made tighter as he squeezed his legs. I grunted, pressing into the tight space, and as the crown popped through, I couldn’t suppress my groan.

I withdrew, leaving just the head of my dick caught between his thighs, and Irian whined dramatically.

“Again!” he demanded. Oh Goddess, he was getting pushy! If I wasn’t clenching my jaw and concentrating on the pressure of his thighs squeezing my cock, I would have laughed aloud. Instead, I merely managed a strangled “hmmf” as I pushed again into the space between his thighs.

Irian’s slick gushed and the extra wetness squelched as I continued to drive my cock into the tight space time and again. He grunted and moaned as my hips slammed into him. Skin slapped wetly against skin, the sound primal and harsh.

I needed more leverage, so I slid us off the end of the mattress until we were standing with Irian bent over the bed, supported by his arms. I steadied him with my hands gripping his hipbones as I thrust repeatedly.

Slap! Slap! My balls slapped against his thighs.

“Umphf,” nonsense came from Irian, as I pounded into him. “More!” he gasped.

His thighs began to tremble. Holding him with one hand, the other reached around and grasped his dripping cock and I began to jack him off in time with my own thrusts.

“Please,” Irian begged, desperately clawing at the bedcovers, alternating pushing back into my groin with thrusting forward into my hand. The smell of slick and arousal was intoxicating. I began to lose myself to my wolf, my brain fading out, and the biological imperative to fuck taking over. I struggled to retain my sense of self over the roaring in my ears, but I wasn’t letting go yet. My omega hadn’t come, and there was no way I was coming before he did.

I focused my efforts on stroking his dick faster, squeezing harder as I relentlessly slid the precum up and down over the shaft, twisting my palm over the head on the upstroke.

Irian moaned, then whimpered, then tensed beneath me as he threw his head back and shuddered.

“T-a-l-i-u-s!” he howled, strings of cum spurting across the sheets.

I slammed my hips into him a few more times, hard and fast, rocking him forward onto the edge of the bed. A sense of inevitability rolled through me as my orgasm began to take over, and I drew back, shouting, cum erupting from my cock, decorating Irian's back. Marking him , I thought.

For a minute there was nothing but heaving chests, heavy panting, and trembling, shaky legs. My hair had fallen across my face in a curtain, limp and damp with sweat, and I couldn’t see. But a deep sense of peace pervaded me.

After a while, a grunt from below me, made me realize I was clutching Irian to me so tightly he must be uncomfortable. I willed myself to relax my grip a little. A little, but not too much. I didn’t want space between us just yet.

I flicked my hair back.

My eyes fixed on the damp patch of hair at Irian's nape, the strands darkened with sweat, and felt the trickle as a coupleof drops of sweat rolled off me and landed in the cum on his back. My hips bucked gently a couple more times, my cock sliding along his crack, and I savored those last moments of warmth and closeness, before my cock softened.

“Ah,” I sighed as my cock slipped free.

Irian whirled around, and throwing his arms round my neck, surprised me with a set of hot, pouty lips pressed hard to mine in a bruising kiss. When he pulled back, gasping for air, he beamed at me. “Alpha, that was… that was…” He gave up. “Wow!”

My chest puffed out and I swear I grew a few centimeters taller. I couldn’t help it. My wolf rumbled his satisfaction, he’d pleased his mate.

The mattress sagged beneath our combined weights as I pulled Irian down, dragging the coverlet over us. We fell asleep curled up against each other, filthy, covered in sweat and cum, while the rain continued drumming down outside.

◆◆◆

Something startled me awake. At first, I couldn’t figure out what had disturbed me. The light in the room had barely changed with the advancing day - it was still gloomy, the light diffused and dull. Rain still pattered onto the cars outside, but it was a gentle rain now, droplets landing on metal with soft spitting sounds in a sibilant hiss.

Irian was curled up close to my side, our bare skins hot where they were in contact. He was a soft armful of omega to my hard alpha frame. His quiet huffs were regular and light. He was sleeping, and I marveled at it. That he was here, that he was in my arms, in my bed… that we could finally be who we were meant to be. An alpha and his mate.

A loud gurgling came from under the covers, and I realized what had woken me. We hadn’t eaten in 24 hours, and my high-metabolism body was demanding it be fed.

I waited one more minute, enjoying everything about this morning, then I nudged Irian awake.

He lifted his head off my chest, hair askew, eyes blinking blearily. For an instant I worried that he might have second thoughts, but no, his rosy cheeks were plumped and he couldn’t keep his lips straight. The twinkle in his eyes as the sleep cleared away was unmistakable.

“Hey, Irian,” I whispered.

“Hey, Talius.”

“Here we are.”

“Yeah, here we are.”

“Are you… okay with this?”

“Oh, yeah,” Irian replied dreamily, and the weight of his head settled comfortably onto my chest again. A strange surge of emotion ran through me but…

“I’m glad. But now I need to eat. I’m fucking starving!”

At that moment, my stomach decided to speak again, another long gurgle filling the silence.

Irian sprang up, his pale body almost ephemeral in the dim light, his dusky nipples shaking as he laughed. The movement caught my body’s attention and I went straight to half-mast, but we were not stopping for that now.

“C’mon,” I said, getting up off the bed and offering Irian my hand. His fingers were strong in mine, grasping my hand with a firm grip as he allowed me to pull him up. He seemed more confident again this morning, back to his old self as he grinned at me.

“Let’s clean up first, then go get something to eat.” I smiled back at him.

The shower recess was small, but not so cramped that we couldn’t have some fun in there. I stored that information away for later. Right now, food was the priority. I cleaned both of us up with a washcloth, and we pulled on our dirty clothes and made our way to the motel’s restaurant.

In the restaurant, large windows overlooked an amazing vista of wintry trees and distant snow-clad mountains, but we scarcely noticed.

Later, we returned to our room and I showed Irian some of the fun that could be had in a cramped hotel shower.

Two days later, the weather broke and we continued our journey.