Master

by R Phoenix

  “I do not care.” Liam reached out, touching the fur along Caleb’s back. “I want my pets home and with me. He is here temporarily. You belong to me, and you are here.”

  It was as simple as that, at least as far as he was concerned.

  Zain just watched Liam, but the pup barked, a noise that sounded surprisingly like “I told you so.” Liam was not in the mood to deal with the pup’s behavior, so he kept his focus on Zain. Was the ‘wolf denying that he belonged to Liam?

  Aggie’s words played again in his head. He hadn’t wanted to give the words any weight but as Zain simply stood there, Liam had to reconsider.

  Finally, Zain nodded. “Okay, let’s get my stuff then.”

  Caleb gave a loud bark, and his tail swung back and forth, making his feelings on the subject clear. As they climbed in the car with the pup curled up at their feet, Liam stretched out, his arm going around Zain’s shoulders. “Good,” he said finally. “Then we will return home, and I will speak to Isaiah,” which he was absolutely not looking forward to at all, “and then we shall see, yes?”

  “Sure.” Zain’s words were an agreement, but his expression lacked conviction.

  The pup barked again, an awkward sound that was supposed to cover a laugh, and Liam shot a glower at him.

  The awkward silence that descended over the car was displeasing, but Liam was not the type to break those sorts of silences with small talk or… chitchat. He still didn’t understand what was going on with his pets, and trying to understand it made him wish he really was dealing with true beasts instead.

  This kind was entirely too complicated.

  “I will send someone for the rest of your things,” Liam decided abruptly. “We are returning home now.” There was no sense in delaying the inevitable, and he had plenty of work he needed to do. Dancing around in a strange silence was not his preference, especially if there were other options available to him. He paused, then added stiffly, “If that is acceptable to you, pet?”

  Zain nodded slowly, but he pressed himself closer to Liam’s arm as he settled deeper into the seat. “That’s fine. It was a nice hotel. Thank you.”

  The ‘wolf was quiet for a moment and seemed to be focused on the pup, but before they’d gone far, he spoke again. “What will happen when we get… home? Are you really going to talk to Isaiah about me coming back to the house?”

  “Do I lie so often that you need to question me?” Liam retorted, a little annoyed that he would even have to specify something like that. “Really, Zain,” he chastised.

  Zain had the nerve to roll his eyes, and the familiar submission Liam preferred in the ‘wolf’s gaze faded again. “After kicking me out of the house I kind of thought I lived in, I have a right to be skeptical. And when you consider the fact that the asshole basically said he’d kill me, I think I have a right to ask some questions.”

  Caleb stuck his face right between them, nose in between their legs, and he let out a little whine. It might’ve been pathetic and distracting — cute, even — if Liam hadn’t seen him do something similar before. He reached out, lightly tapping the pop’s nose.

  “No,” he said firmly. “None of that.”

  The pup gave him the same sort of look Zain had, and their sheer audacity left Liam feeling at a loss.

  “Yes, I will speak to my sire. It is not my fault you misunderstood the situation,” he huffed.

  “‘Get out, Zain, you’re done here.’ Yeah, there was a lot to misunderstand.” Zain’s sarcastic words made Liam bristle, but before he could reprimand the ‘wolf, Zain reached out to pet the pup’s head. “Never mind. It’s fine. I believe you.”

  “That is not what I said,” Liam said curtly, even though he couldn’t remember precisely what he had said. “I do not use contractions.”

  “Sorry… You are done here…. Better?” The apology fell flat given Zain’s dramatic eye roll and his refusal to even look contrite.

  Liam’s eyes narrowed. “Do not mock me,” he grumbled.

  “You can’t complain when you make it too easy. God, I’m turning into Caleb.” Given that Zain’s frustration now seemed to be focused toward his own behavior, Liam found himself in a more forgiving mood.

  Zain shook his head and leaned back against the seat to stare up at the roof of the car. “It’s going to take me a while to get past everything. I’m not deliberately trying to be an ass.”

  “It is…” Liam paused. “I am…” He wasn’t going to apologize, but perhaps he had some fault in this little schism. He wasn’t entirely sure where, but both of his pets seemed to be holding him accountable so there had to be something. “I do not share my sire’s opinions of my pets, clearly.”

  Zain sighed. “I know. You made that part clear.”

  “Then why are you so upset?” Liam asked, frustrated.

  The pup gave a low whine that seemed to indicate caution because Zain took another long breath before he spoke. They were such emotional creatures.

  “I don’t know how to explain this is a way you’ll understand… Give me a sec.” Closing his eyes, Zain seemed to focus on his thoughts.

  Liam watched, only mildly curious about the drama Zain was creating. However, he kept those thoughts to himself as his pup shot him dirty looks.

  When Zain finally opened his eyes, he reached out to the pup and started petting him again. “You’re head of this… family, if you will. That puts certain responsibilities on you. You made it clear you wanted my focus to be on Caleb, so that’s what I did. But when the first person who vocally disapproves of what you did comes along, you shoved me out the door with no explanation. What was I supposed to think? You went from wanting to control my every move to seemingly wanting to have nothing to do with me.”

  “It was temporary!” Liam protested again, his voice a little more heated then. “Was I supposed to know you would take it so personally and so… so fatalistically?”

  Zain scoffed as if the words were the most ridiculous things he’d ever heard. “What did you think would happen when you didn’t say it was temporary or tell me what to do? You just told me to pack my bags! I’m not a mind reader. I’m a fuckin’ werewolf.”

  Caleb let out another deliberate sound, and Liam looked down at him, asking sharply, “What is it, Pup?”

  The pup only looked at him with a look that might’ve damn well been admonishment, and Liam didn’t appreciate it.

  “Do you have an opinion you would like to share?”

  Caleb expelled a breath in a loud sigh. “Can you two just fuck already?”

  Zain let out an undignified snort and shook his head at Caleb. “That doesn’t fix everything, and you know it.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes. “Please, Pup. At least offer something more useful than that.”

  “All you’re going to do is go back and forth because you don’t understand why he’s upset, Master,” Caleb said deliberately, earning himself a scowl, “and you don’t understand that he’s not going to understand, Alpha.”

  “I want some guarantees that he’s not going to pull a stunt like this again. He might want to be my master and to claim me as part of the crazy family he’s created for himself, but I’m not going to live with an axe hanging over my head. There’s all this stuff he’s not telling me, but he expects me to just follow him blindly because he’s hot as fuck in bed and I like belonging to him.” Zain took a long breath after the flood of words and finally looked over at Liam. “There’s too much stuff I don’t know, and this just proved I need to understand if we’re going to make this work.”

  “It was not a stunt,” Liam said hotly, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat and letting his arm fall away from around Zain. “And I have no more of an obligation to tell you about my family than you have to tell me of yours. You are mine, and you will follow me.”

  Maybe if he said it enough, it would finally get through Zain’s thick skull.

  “No.” Zain’s gaze finally steadied, and Liam found he preferred a nervous Zain to the stubbo
rn ‘wolf before him. “I chose to be yours, and I chose to follow you. I made a deliberate choice to submit to you and to be Caleb’s alpha. That’s what you need to understand. If I’m nothing but a slave to you, it’s something I’ve done by choice. I’ll follow you… but not blindly. Not yet, anyway. You haven’t earned it yet.”

  Liam stared, incredulous, at the ‘wolf. “You can come and go as you please. You have full freedom. I ensured you would still have your pack. I invited you home. What more do you want from me, Zain?” he asked sharply.

  “I want you to see me as something important. It’s that simple. I’m not expecting romance and flowers, and I’m not expecting a human-style relationship… not anymore anyways… but I want the same respect you’d show a business partner. You wouldn’t have sent a business partner from a meeting without giving them enough information. Maybe it’d be a threat, or maybe something as simple as when you’d meet next. I deserve to be treated at least that well.”

  Liam frowned at that. “These are not things you need to know,” he insisted. He looked between Caleb and Zain, shaking his head.

  “You’re right… I think I’d sleep better now knowing what the hell you’re doing.”

  “Do not pass judgement on me, pet,” Liam warned him. “The two of you seem to think I have done something wrong. You say you are not expecting a human-like relationship, but you seem to think I am human.” His lip curled into a slight sneer. “I am not human.”

  “But I was. That’s going to change how I see things and you need to remember that as much as I need to remember it’s been centuries since you were human. There’s going to be a learning curve here but hiding things from me that I do need to know isn’t helping. I’m not stupid enough to think I need to know everything about your business. I’m pretty sure I’ll be safer not knowing everything.”

  Zain paused, eyeing Liam and taking in a deep breath.

  “But my point was,” he continued, “you wouldn’t treat a business partner the way you’re treating me. That’s what I want you to understand. There are some things I need to know. Like the fact that you thought I would come back to the house as soon as the asshole left. I should have been told that at some point. Not doing that was just petty and controlling. If I’m yours by choice than you can’t do that shit to me. Not and expect me to trust you.”

  Liam simply… stared. Then he leaned back against the seat, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “If you are to be my pet, you must trust me. I will take care of you. That is inherent to our relationship, is it not?” He opened his eyes, repeating, “I am not human. If you expect me to operate as a human would, then you may as well walk away.”

  Because he still didn’t see what he’d apparently done wrong.

  Zain huffed, clearly becoming frustrated at constantly circling the issue, but he didn’t let up. If anything, he seemed more determined to push his point. “If I’m a pet, then you must be my master… a good master. And you weren’t. You were a careless master who didn’t care where his pet slept or what he did. I had no way of knowing you still wanted to be my master. You want pets? You need to be a good master.”

  He paused, looking at Liam for a response but when Liam just stared, he started again.

  “You don’t want mindless slaves to follow you around. Pets aren’t slaves. If you want the feeling of a pet following you and looking to you as a master, then be a good one damn it. I’m not saying be human and I’m not saying love me. I’m saying be a good master who wants his pets to know they’re his and they’re important.”

  “What he’s trying to say,” Caleb piped up, his ears folding back when Liam turned his glare onto the pup but not stopping, “is that you need to use your words.”

  “Use my—” Liam sputtered, staring at him in disbelief. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “I have a tail, dog ears, and fur all along my back. And if I remember right, the two of you crazies came up with the ideas for that shit. I don’t think I’m the one who lost my—”

  Liam put his hand over Caleb’s mouth, and his pup licked his palm.

  “Enough,” he said wearily. “I do not understand either of you. But I did perhaps err when I sent you away without warning,” Liam hazarded. Was that it? Had he finally gotten close to what the actual issue was? It was something so trivial. “If you were not important to me, I would not have done what I did today,” he pointed out, trying not to let exasperation spill into his voice. “Perhaps I do not express myself as you expect, but if I did not want you around, I would not have done any of these things.”

  Zain shook his head and it fell back against the seat again with an overly dramatic thud. “Yes, I’ll give you credit that you’re fixing it now. But you threw me out like I was old clothes that you didn’t wear anymore. There was no more thought than that. I appreciate you fixing the problem you created and making sure my pack knows I’m important to you, but this shouldn’t have happened to begin with. I’m more important than an old pair of shoes and I’m not a mind reader. This can’t happen again if you want me to submit.”

  Liam frowned, and he hushed Caleb when the pup began to speak. The conversation had become circular, but he thought he at least got an idea of what was being said — and the irony was that it was so easy. He didn’t understand why he should even say the words. Shouldn’t Zain and Caleb know they were wanted? Apparently not.

  Perhaps he’d lived too long to be able to translate his interests into a human dialect.

  “There was more thought than that,” Liam countered. “I suppose I did not… communicate it to you.” Now he felt like they were on one of those television shows. “I did not want you to leave, and I had assumed you would return when I had space again. There is no point in arguing with Isaiah, truly, so it is easier to let him come in, do what he wishes, then wish him well. He is a good sire, but he thinks of me as perhaps too… careless. It seems you think that of me as well, but it is not true.”

  Zain let out a breath and nodded, turning back to face Liam. “Less assumptions and more orders next time. God, I can’t believe I said that. I just need to know what you want when something like that happens. I’m not expecting human. Just tell me what’s going on and what you want me to do so it doesn’t get all fucked up. Wouldn’t it have been better if all you had to do was snap your fingers to get me home and for everything to be easy and not all this drama?”

  Caleb gave a low huff and turned to frown at Zain.

  Zain chuckled. “Oh all right, no more harping. I’m going to trust you to talk to me when it’s necessary and let me know what the plan is. Not with everything but when it pertains to me.” He reached out and ran a hand over a smiling Caleb’s face then reached down to pinch his nipple. Caleb gave a low bark and Zain laughed. “You got what you wanted. Are you happy now?”

  Caleb barked again, looking entirely too smug for Liam’s liking, but he chose to leave it be.

  “Yes. Now, let us return to how things were, no? I will speak to Isaiah. You see…” Liam paused, frowning slightly. “He is my sire, and my sire is first in my life, in all things. But he must understand that there are other things that matter to me, no?”

  “You realize we’ve only been trying to get you to admit that for the entire car ride now, right?” Caleb pointed out, deadpan.

  “This is not precisely something I am used to,” Liam snapped back at him, but he grabbed his pup by the back of the neck and yanked him up, kissing him deep. “Now hush.”

  Zain leaned close and trailed his fingers down Caleb’s back, letting them tease around his tail. “He’s been very cheeky, Master.” Zain’s words had a whimper escaping Caleb and the naughty pup shivered, desire pouring out of him. “I think he needs a good reminder about his place later.”

  Liam let out a quiet groan at the idea of punishing the pup — and of reclaiming his role in Zain’s life. “You call me Master, but will you submit to me when I have you on your knees, pet?” he asked, his other hand moving so that his fingers tra
ced over Zain’s lips.

  Zain nearly purred as a shiver raced through him that time. “Yes, Master, I will be a very good pet for you.”

  It was about time his pets reacted as they should have been. As frustrating as they were, they both knew what their places were — they simply had to be… reminded to stay there.

  And he would enjoy showing them where it was, again and again.

  Chapter Twelve:

  Caleb

  His alpha and his master were both incredibly stubborn, and Caleb had felt the nerve to just start biting some ankles from his place on the car’s floor somewhere during the conversation. It didn’t seem like either of them had been listening to the other, but the problem was obvious — in his eyes, anyway. Liam was a goddamn psychopath, and Zain was a hopeless optimist.

  They made no sense together, yet there they were in the car together, getting ready to go up against an adversary as a single group.

  All right, so maybe that was a little dramatic, but Isaiah was formidable, and Liam did sort of turn into a meek — meek! — man when his sire was around. It was obvious he valued the older vampire’s opinions, but Caleb suspected he might’ve been valuing them a little too much…

  But he’d obviously realized it, or he wouldn’t have headed to the werewolf place to get things sorted out there.

  By the time they finally stopped in front of the house, Caleb’s stomach was in knots, but at least Liam and Zain seemed to be getting along in their own way. There had always been that push and pull between them, that way Zain seemed determined to make Liam prove himself that drove Liam crazy in turn.

  And there Caleb was to distract them both, the one they could both play with and come to common ground over.

  There were worse places to be, really, as long as there wasn’t a ton of fighting going on.

  “Out, Pup,” Liam’s deep voice ordered Caleb, and he scrambled awkwardly out of the car. He winced, glad for the knee pads as he found the cement of the sidewalk in an almost full body sprawl.

  He gathered himself with a shake, watching as Liam extended a hand to Zain. He rolled his eyes, but it was sort of sweet in a way.