by Piper Vaughn
“Dylan’s here.”
Jaden’s gaze shot to the pool tables, where Dylan and his little friend had joined the other wolves, before returning to Avery. His sympathetic expression made Avery’s stomach clench. “Do you want to leave?”
For a moment Avery was tempted. He didn’t want Dylan, but no shifter could watch his fated mate with someone else and not be bothered. Fury vibrated inside him, making him feel sick. At the same time, he chafed at the idea of Dylan knowing he’d run Avery off. Hell no. His pride wouldn’t allow him to leave. Not yet. Not before Dylan had seen Avery having a good time and not caring at all that Dylan was there on a date with someone else.
“No, it’s fine.” Avery waved a dismissive hand.
Jaden squeezed his arm briefly but didn’t call Avery on the lie. They both knew nothing about the situation was “fine.” Instead of pressing the issue, Jaden said, “One more beer and we’ll head out. I need to dance, and you need to get laid.”
Avery picked up the beer the bartender had delivered while he was gone. He toasted Jaden before draining most of his glass. “You, sir, have the best ideas.”
REFUSING TO give in to Avery’s prodding, Dylan watched the princess prance his way across the room and back to the bar. He also refused to acknowledge the twist of jealousy in his chest when Jaden leaned into him. Dylan had no claim on Avery, and he didn’t want one. Still, the urge to storm across the bar and drag Avery out kicking and screaming was strong. It took everything he had—and the cute blond anchored to his side—to tamp down that stupidity.
Just no.
“Do you need something else to drink?”
A moment passed before Dylan realized the soft question was directed at him. Chance. Dylan pasted on a smile he didn’t feel and glanced down at the man blinking innocently up at him. Chance looked good there, felt comfortable in his arms. He was a dancer, and a damned good one, all long limbs, smooth porcelain skin, and platinum hair. Dylan had plans to test out his claims to being “bendy in all the right ways” later.
“I’m good.” Dylan winked and decided to change his focus from the mate who didn’t want him to the man on his arm who obviously did.
“It’s just, you keep glaring at the bar. If you want another beer, I can go get you one.” Chance’s flirty smile wavered before brightening again. Damn.
Why the hell did Avery have to pick Wolfhound, of all the places in the city, to show up? It was Dylan’s domain. After Avery graduated and moved to Portland from Eugene, they’d run into each other now and again, but Dylan had assured himself he wouldn’t need to worry about checking Wolfhound for his supposed mate. Dylan shook that thought off. Mate. What a joke.
Throwing a quick glance at the bar, he snorted. Should have known Avery followed the alpha’s son there. Dylan narrowed his eyes, a growl rolling in his chest when Jaden’s hand landed on Avery’s thigh. He quieted down quickly. Avery could do whatever and whoever he wanted. Even Jaden, if that was what he was into. The memory of his mate’s scent hit him as if Avery were standing in front of him. Dylan’s cock twitched and his wolf howled at the knowledge of Avery being so near yet untouchable.
He grimaced. Get ahold of yourself.
Dylan was happy with his life the way it was. He didn’t want a mate. He knew what fate had in store for him if he chose that road. One look at his mother and father told him what he’d have to look forward to. Same fate, different mate. Dylan didn’t plan on being stuck in an unwanted mating, much less with a mate who didn’t want him. He was perfectly content with his life the way it was—uncomplicated.
“Come on.” After glancing once more at the bar, Dylan tugged Chance along to where his crew gathered around the blue-topped pool table at the back of the bar. As they neared, Dylan leaned in close and whispered, “That’s Kirk.” He motioned toward a group of guys, at the small man with a dark halo of hair. Among all his friends, and even the other men at the shop, Kirk was the smaller, quieter, more introspective of the bunch, but his wolf was damn powerful. Next to Dylan, Kirk’s wolf was the strongest, definitely the boldest.
Dylan pointed. “That’s Sawyer.” He wore the look of a stereotypical biker—long hair, inked sleeves, and a permanent scowl. “Don’t let his broodiness scare you. He’s a big teddy bear.” Sawyer’s unflappable expression didn’t budge as he gave Chance the once-over, then turned his attention elsewhere. To those who didn’t know him, Sawyer was intimidating and standoffish. Dylan had known him for a long time, long enough to know Sawyer preferred it that way.
“And this guy here”—Dylan detached himself from his date and clapped Lucas on the back—“is Lucas Marshall, my best friend since I was four.”
Lucas landed a warm smile on Chance, and Dylan watched the kid’s cheeks blaze pink. It was the same effect Lucas had on men and women alike. A couple of inches taller than Dylan, with boyish good looks and perfectly combed golden blond hair, Lucas looked like he’d walked off the pages of GQ and fallen into a leather bar. His muscles stretched the thin cotton of his vintage T-shirt, and all eyes tended to be drawn to the strategically worn holes at the knees, thighs, and, when he turned around, right below the ass of his jeans. On the outside, Lucas wore a mask to enthrall the masses, but Dylan knew the softie on the inside—the one who liked to snuggle under the covers and take long walks on the beach. Okay, maybe he made the last one up. Maybe not.
Dylan didn’t have to understand it, though. To each his own.
“Nice to meet you.” Lucas held out his hand in greeting, and when Chance grasped it, Lucas raised Chance’s hand to brush a kiss across the top. Rolling his eyes at his friend, Dylan smiled at Chance’s blushing giggle.
With a brow quirked, Lucas trained his knowing smirk on Dylan again and winked, then tipped his head toward the bar. Leave it to Lucas. He didn’t miss anything and was about as subtle as a flying brick. “Yes, I know,” Dylan bit out. “And no, we’re not talking about it.”
Lucas huffed out a laugh and went back to his game, but not before throwing the next comment over his shoulder, his tone all but indifferent. “He almost got his ass handed to him by Glenn a little bit ago. You barely missed it.”
And damn if that didn’t hit the mark exactly as Lucas had intended. The hair on the back of Dylan’s neck stood and his shoulders tensed as he searched for Glenn’s ugly face. He wasn’t there. A growl lumbered in Dylan’s chest. Regardless of his feelings for Avery or Avery’s for him, Dylan couldn’t rid himself of his protective instincts when it came to the hedgehog.
“Wanna play?” Lucas trained a slow smile on Chance as he bent over the table and racked up another game.
Closing his eyes, Dylan sighed, never more grateful for Lucas’s flirting. Dylan felt like he was about to lose his shit, and, thankfully, Lucas could probably tell.
When he opened his eyes, Chance was watching him, head tilted curiously. Dylan almost laughed. Chance had to know something wasn’t quite right, and Dylan liked the guy more for not asking.
Dylan took a seat at the nearest table and forced his focus to his group of friends, trying to keep up with the game. It soon became obvious Chance had no idea what he was doing. Dylan wouldn’t have doubted it if told the guy had never played billiards in his life. He was horrible.
“No.” Lucas laughed from across the table, his big indulgent grin all for Chance. “The stripes. Aim for the stripes and this time try not to hit the big black ball with the eight on it.”
Dylan grinned. Jesus, with Lucas and the flirting, but he was just that guy. The nice one with great hair and shiny charisma. He was charming in ways most people only dreamed. He made friends everywhere he went. Case in point. Dylan shook his head when Lucas leaned in and whispered something in Chance’s ear. The poor guy’s face and neck turned beet red, and he looked away giggling.
Dylan might never get laid again.
Unbidden, Dylan’s gaze drifted to the bar where the one person he was doing his best to avoid sat. Avery threw his head back in a full-bellied laugh.
Dylan could hear the forced happiness all the way from across the bar. The twinge that had started in his chest at the first glance of Avery bloomed into a full ache, and Dylan wanted to ignore it, wanted to run from it, but with Avery so close and Dylan’s friends there as witnesses, he wasn’t running. He wasn’t a coward.
Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut. Ignoring the damned bond between him and Avery didn’t make him a coward. It made him smart. What wolf in their right mind wanted to be tied forever to a mate who didn’t want them? Dylan’s mother’s smiling face flashed behind his eyelids, a strained smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Not many of them did.
He rubbed a fist over the pain in his chest.
Lucas’s low chuckle brought Dylan back to the present. When he looked up, Lucas was leaning against the pool table, smirking back. Dylan narrowed his eyes.
He could have kicked himself for telling Lucas about his first time meeting Avery at Jaden’s twenty-first birthday and Avery’s haughty words—“Mechanic? As in blue collar? Do you really think I’d waste my time with a low-class loser?”—but there had been alcohol involved. A lot of it. Avery’s words back then had angered him more than they had hurt. The best thing those words had done, though, was reiterate every reason Dylan didn’t need nor want a mate.
The teasing glint in Lucas’s eye gave way to sadness, not pity or apathy. His friend was more understanding than judgmental. Fuck knew what it was like for a wolf who actually wanted to be tied down. Dylan shook his head against the voice—which sounded an awful lot like his best friend—that whispered it was exactly what he wanted too. He had already been forced to sit through Lucas’s lecture on the gift of mating and how Dylan should be thankful for what he’d been given. They’d agreed to disagree.
Lucas tossed his cue to Kirk and wandered over to Dylan’s table. “Just so you know, Derick had your boy’s back with Glenn.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. Why not dive bomb the giant pink elephant in the room?
“He’s not my boy.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, Dylan did. Didn’t mean he liked it. Then the rest of Lucas’s revelation registered. Dylan bristled. Another wolf shouldn’t be watching out for Avery. Not that Dylan was standing in line for the job. He sighed. “Did Avery start it? Did he cause any trouble?” He wouldn’t put it past the prickly brat.
“Dunno. Don’t think so. Glenn was being his charming dickhead self.” Lucas gave a snort-chuckle, and Dylan shook his head. For a man of such model perfection, he was a dork sometimes. “Good thing you have pack betas to look out for the little guy, huh?”
“Yeah, good thing,” Dylan grunted.
“You could go talk to him, you know?”
“Not a good idea.” Dylan took a drink from the beer he’d ordered from a passing waitress. He didn’t need to ask whom Lucas was talking about. He’d been trying to get Dylan to talk to Avery for two years. It hadn’t worked yet.
“You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself, D.”
Dylan really didn’t want to have this conversation. “Not now.”
Lucas pursed his lips, then glanced at the table where Kirk hovered over Chance, their bodies pressed flush as Kirk demonstrated a shooting position. A soft growl caught Dylan off guard, and he turned to find Sawyer staring at the pair, the strangest expression on his face—puzzled, like he was trying to sort something out, but angry too. Dylan might have to keep an eye on that.
“You are not your folks,” Lucas continued, as if Dylan had been paying attention to him. Dylan brushed off the comment in exchange for studying the scarred surface in front of him. “Fine, you’re not going to talk? You can listen.”
Dylan could have walked away then, and their friendship would have remained intact, but he didn’t. Instead, he continued to feign ignoring Lucas by taking another swig of his dark ale while staring blankly ahead.
“You know I think of your mom like she’s my own….”
Sadness and longing in his voice almost had Dylan caving and tugging Lucas into a hug. He had been there when Lucas’s world shattered with the death of his mother. Dylan still felt the loss. He’d loved Michelle like a second mom, so yeah, Dylan knew how he felt.
“And I know Law is a complete asshat to her and to you,” Lucas continued.
Law. Dylan smirked at Lucas’s blatant disregard of his father’s edict that he should be called Mr. Green instead of Lawrence or Law by his inferiors. One of Law’s Laws, as Dylan and Lucas had called them. A remnant of his days as one of Portland Police Bureau’s polished and perfect captains before he retired a couple of years ago. He’d been a good cop but a shit dad.
“Here’s the thing. Your mom—she’s strong, stronger than any woman I know. And if she didn’t want to be exactly where she was, she would find a way out.”
Finally turning his gaze on Lucas, Dylan snarled. Everyone knew that once a wolf was mated, that was it. Although, not all wolves found their mates, so some married for love instead of waiting for fate. Once a mating bond was completed, there was no out.
When Lawrence Green had batted his baby blues at Betty Wilkerson thirty years ago, their mating had been all but a done deal. Dylan’s mom hadn’t stopped to think, to get to know him. As a result, she’d spent the past thirty years with a beta wolf who controlled her every move, who talked down to her, who degraded her at every turn. She was a servant in her own home, and if Dylan could have gotten her out, he would have. Thank heavens Law never hit her, because Dylan might have been forced to do something he might regret.
No. There was no walking away from a permanent mating bond. Fate controlled the spirit of the bond, even though it wasn’t infallible. Before accepting the bond, the decision to take up the bond or ignore it was up to the individuals, but a bond, once cemented, was unbreakable except upon death. To walk away was the forfeiture of sanity, making the most sedate of wolves violently feral. No alpha could allow an out-of-control wolf to roam free.
Lucas held his hands up. “Gimme a sec. Betty knows what she’s doing, and I’d bet good money that she runs that house. I’d bet even better money she knows precisely how to play Law into making him think her ideas were his all along. She’s a smart woman, and you may not want to hear this, but I don’t think she’s as unhappy as you think she is.”
“Lucas,” Dylan warned steadily, narrowing his eyes, “you’re crossing the line.”
“Fine. What do I know?” Lucas sighed and sat back to watch the game, which had turned into a free-for-all, whoever could get whichever ball in whatever hole. Their friends laughed and joked back and forth with his date, all of them running around the table like they were trying to win a race. Chance fit in well, but Dylan didn’t have it in himself to smile.
“You’re wrong,” Dylan told him, finally.
His gaze cut to where Avery leaned against the bar. He was surprised to find that hard brown-green stare aimed at him. Heat washed through Dylan, head to toe, and stole his breath. For that moment, it was difficult to remember all the reasons he didn’t want or need a mate. Shaking his head, he blinked away the questioning look from Avery before he turned back to Lucas.
“Whatever you say, dude.” Lucas flipped his attention from the bar back to Dylan, sounding for all the world like he knew something Dylan didn’t. “I hate to see you let a good thing get away because you’re afraid your parents’ bad luck will carry over to you.”
Dylan grunted and downed the rest of his beer.
“It would be a shame for you to figure it out too late.” With the parting shot of wisdom, Lucas gestured with his chin in the direction of the bar and walked away.
When Dylan would have turned, knowing what he would find at the bar, Chance pranced into his line of sight, parted Dylan’s knees, and slid himself between them. His smile was radiant, and Dylan beamed back at him, even though he didn’t feel it.
He dropped his hands to Chance’s hips, tugged him closer, and whispered in his ear, “You ready to go?”
> Dylan felt a shiver course over Chance’s frame. Chance nodded, his blue doe eyes full of fire. Dylan took a moment to let himself feel the regret of the letdown he’d surely be to this man.
Icy fingers stung his neck, the feeling of being watched. Dylan flicked a glance over Chance’s shoulder and met a hazel gaze trained on them. A lock of dark blond hair haphazardly covered one of Avery’s eyes. With long graceful fingers, he brushed it aside in a harsh swipe, his narrow jaw tensed.
Then Jaden leaned forward, whispered something in Avery’s ear, and kissed him on the cheek. Dylan despised the hatred burning inside him at that moment. He beat down the desire to rip Avery’s friend limb from limb. It wouldn’t do Dylan any favors to mangle the alpha’s son.
Especially with so many witnesses.
Time to get out of there. Wrapping his hand around Chance’s, Dylan stood and guided him toward the door. “C’mon.” If a part of him reveled in the jealous look Avery shot in their direction, Dylan didn’t let it show.
As they stepped out of Wolfhound, a chill in the evening air cut through him as forcefully as the stab of guilt over knowing he wouldn’t be following through with Chance. Another wave of resentment and blame, directed at Avery, trailed after that.
Unable to continue the charade, Dylan pulled Chance to a stop. Doleful eyes stared up at him. “It’s not gonna happen tonight, huh?” Chance asked.
Smart kid. Dylan shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t give me the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line, okay?” He looked down, and when his gaze drew back up, the openness he’d displayed earlier shut down, became guarded, shuttered. “The guy that bumped into you?”
“It’s not….” Dylan thought about denying it, but Chance hadn’t done anything wrong. He deserved some semblance of the truth, so Dylan tried again. “It’s… complicated. I didn’t mean to lead you on.”
A sad smile pulled at the corners of Chance’s mouth. “I get it.” He held up a hand when Dylan opened his mouth to apologize. Again. “No need to say you’re sorry. I promise we’re fine. I understand,” he reiterated. Then almost too low to hear, he mumbled, “More than you know.” In fact, had it not been for his superior shifter hearing, Dylan probably would have missed the last bit.
