Alpha Heat

by Leta Blake

  “Oh,” Xan murmured. “Of course.”

  “You only want sexual touch during heats?” Urho asked to clarify his understanding. Perhaps Caleb simply didn’t want Xan, but why would he have contracted with him then? “You feel no desire any other time? You’re frigid?”

  “Frigid is a rude word,” Xan said.

  “I feel aroused at times, but I prefer to satisfy it with my own hand. In general, I don’t feel sexually attracted to other people.” Caleb sat up straight and brittle, almost daring Urho to challenge or insult him. “Also, for what it’s worth, I prefer the term asexual to the more colloquial and insulting ‘frigid.’”

  Urho nodded solemnly and said nothing. He’d heard of such men—usually betas, though he’d read case studies involving omegas and alphas. He’d never met an asexual person, though, as far as he knew. He wondered what it must be like to scent as an omega, to smell the delectable odors of an alpha, and not be attracted by it.

  Was Caleb disgusted even? He’d appeared disgusted by Xan and Urho’s scents before. Maybe, one day, he’d be a close enough friend with Caleb to ask. For now, he simply inclined his head again and said, “If your alpha agrees, I’d be honored to help service you during your heat.”

  Xan let out a soft, wounded sound. He slumped on the couch, his eyes on the carpet and his lower lip in his mouth again.

  “Darling, it’s not an insult to you. It’s a gift. You can share this now with your lover—both the pleasure and the burden.” Caleb reached out to touch Xan, but he shrank away. “What’s bothering you? I’d hoped you’d be happy.”

  “I can handle the heat on my own. I’m strong enough.”

  “You’re very strong. And a wonderful alpha,” Caleb said, using the voice omegas always employed when trying to soothe an alpha’s ruffled feathers: fond, quiet, sweet. “I’m proud to call you mine.”

  “But…” Xan rubbed his fingers over his eyes.

  “No ‘but’ at all. More of an ‘and,’ darling. And your lover is trustworthy, strong, handsome, and used to surrogate duties. He’s a perfect choice. Swallow your pride and accept this help.”

  Xan shook his head. “But what about your reputation? Everyone will think you suffer from interminable heat.”

  “Oh no!” Caleb gasped and clutched his chest. “People will talk!” He rolled his eyes and then smiled indulgently. “Alpha mine, people have talked about me for years. They speculated about what damage—mental or physical—might cause me to refuse so many offers to contract, what kinky sexual activities I must indulge in to be so hard to match, and then there’s you! And all the rumors that fly around about your barroom brawls and proclivities. Let them talk! They already do! I’m beyond caring. And your money makes us rather bulletproof.”

  Xan rose to his feet and Urho watched as his boy (his boy? he was losing his mind here!) paced the floor. “My father will be appalled. Last time, he made sure I understood that servicing you, getting you pregnant, was my sole responsibility and that I needed to step up to the plate and be a man.”

  “You have stepped up to the plate by getting access to the pills for stamina and by providing a wonderful surrogate option in your lover. I don’t think Urho will be gossiping about his duties toward me at parties!”

  “Of course not,” Urho said, stung. He sometimes discussed his surrogate work with Vale, Jason, Yosef, and Rosen, but if Caleb and Xan wanted to keep this between the three of them, of course he could be trusted to do that.

  “Good,” Caleb said, turning back to Xan. “As for your father, he’ll be fine with it. Leave him to me.”

  Xan’s lips twisted. “He does like you.”

  “Because I flatter him.”

  “True. But I’m not sure that me arranging for a surrogate will impress him or make him think I should be allowed to see Pater.”

  “Your father is keeping you from your pater?” Urho asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Xan said, flapping a hand, but he still chewed on his lip, so it was clearly very much something.

  “I think he’ll be more impressed that you’ve arranged a discreet way to prevent my suffering than if you allowed the next heat to be another failure.”

  “I want to be able to do this myself,” Xan said with longing. “I want to be the alpha you deserve.”

  Caleb rose and pulled Xan up into his arms. “You accept me the way I am. This is me accepting you the way you are, darling. And I’m encouraging you to accept yourself.”

  “Limitations and all?”

  “No, Xan. No. You and me? We’re without limits. This is even further proof of that. Boundless love and friendship and boundless acceptance—that’s what we give each other.”

  Xan nodded against Caleb’s neck, and Urho stood slowly.

  It was a risk, and he didn’t know if he was overstepping, but they’d had a very intimate discussion in front of him, about him, even. Despite all sense and reason, he’d laid some sort of claim to both these men now. So he wrapped his arms around them both, joining in their embrace.

  Caleb stiffened for a moment and then relaxed. When the embrace ended, Caleb said, “Now that’s all settled, I’m going to leave you two alone.” Caleb kissed Xan’s cheek. “I’ll be in my room. Come to me before bed?”

  Xan nodded, and his eyes followed Caleb out the door before he collapsed on the sofa again, covering his face. Urho stood by helplessly, confused about what he should do next: return to his chair, sit beside Xan, or maybe take his leave? It’d been a confusing day for them both, surely. Maybe Xan would prefer to be alone?

  “What happens now?” Xan said, his voice muffled through his hands over his face.

  Urho chose to sit next to him on the sofa, close, but not quite touching. “I admit I don’t know. I’ve never done this kind of thing before.”

  The honesty seemed to prod Xan from where he was hiding, and he dropped his hands, a self-deprecating smirk on his lips. “Believe it or not, I have. Not exactly this, I suppose, but I’ve had a lover before.”

  “Jason.”

  Xan swallowed hard and nodded, darting his eyes toward the fire. His bruised cheek shone in the dancing light. “We don’t talk about it. The two of us. We never mention it. It just exists there. A memory that we both feel, but we ignore.”

  Urho knew exactly what that was like. He and Vale were the same. “It must be difficult to see him so happy.”

  “It has been, yeah. At times. But I love him—as a friend—so I’m glad for him too.”

  Another point of feeling they had in common. “And sad for yourself.”

  Xan shrugged. “I’ve been very sad for a long time, but I wasn’t sad with you today in your library. Or tonight in mine. Shocked, maybe. Surprised, for sure. But not sad.”

  The glow in Xan’s eyes was probably hope. Urho wanted to coax that small flame to life, but he had to be sensible about it. No matter what he felt, or what they’d done, they couldn’t flaunt this in society and not pay a price. “I’ve been sad for a long time too.”

  “Because of losing Riki?”

  Urho nodded. His beloved’s name on Xan’s lips should have rankled, or at least brought with it a stab of guilt given what he’d done with Xan right beneath Riki’s portrait earlier in the day, but it didn’t. Instead a warm pleasure filled him, as though maybe Xan might hear Urho’s stories of Riki and help keep him alive by listening. To his surprise, what he felt was hope too. “I still grieve him.”

  “Of course you do. And then you lost Vale,” Xan said cautiously, as though Vale was the more prickly topic when it came to Urho’s prior loves.

  Urho smiled. “That was hard, but nothing like losing Riki. My relationship with Vale was always doomed to end, even if Jason hadn’t come along that night in the university library.”

  Xan sucked in a breath. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice you then. I was too busy holding Jason back from just taking Vale right there in front of wolf-god and the whole wide world to notice anyone else. That and dealing with the realizat
ion that my own puny plans for my future with Jason had just gone up in flames.” Xan snorted, but then went on wonderingly, “Until just now, I’d nearly forgotten that you were there that day.”

  “Both of us supporting characters in other men’s love stories.”

  “Yes.”

  Urho smiled. The fire crackled. “This room is very modern.”

  “Caleb likes things to look clean. He wears white except for his baubles and paints, and his room is a nest of white fluffy everything. He says it’s calming to him, and he keeps his areas as sparse as possible. Everywhere except in his print studio. That is a bird’s nest and a fire hazard, if you ask me. But it makes him happy, so I don’t forbid it.”

  Cool relief flooded Urho to have left behind discussion of love and past lovers. He grabbed on to this new information about Caleb. “He’s an artist?”

  “Supposedly,” Xan said, laughing gently. “I haven’t seen any of his work, but he spends a lot of time in there and then comes out covered in ink. It’s cute.” Xan’s eyes sparkled fondly. “He’s cute.”

  A strange, fragile jealousy grew in Urho—unbidden and imperfect. “And you don’t want him between heats at all?” Clarification on that seemed incredibly important. “You’re truly all right with his frigidity?”

  Xan frowned. “I am. I don’t find him physically or sexually exciting. He smells like an omega, and the alpha in me does respond to that in some ways. Like, I want to protect him and care for him. But fucking him is not something I want to do. Which is lucky since Caleb would hate it if I did. And we already told you the word ‘frigid’ is very rude and it makes Caleb angry. He prefers asexual.”

  Urho inclined his head. “I tend to fall back on the old-fashioned terms. Vale is always arguing with me about that. Out of respect for Caleb, I’ll try to remember to use this new term.”

  “It’s not new. It existed in the Old World too. It means someone who doesn’t feel sexual attraction.”

  “And he doesn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Not even during heats?”

  “Not really. He says being in heat is like having a really, unbelievably intense itch that he can’t reach. It feels amazing when someone finally scratches it for him, but that doesn’t mean he’s attracted to the person doing the scratching. He says he prefers it be with someone he cares about. Would most like it to be someone he loves as a friend.” Xan chewed on his lower lip again.

  “But his heats are like any other omega’s?”

  “I guess? I don’t know for sure. I don’t have any experience other than the one heat we’ve shared together, so I can’t say.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “It was a disaster. A complete wreck. I couldn’t stay hard for very long and he was in so much pain. I tried fisting him, and using the alpha dildo, but it wasn’t enough. He needed a knot, and it was…” Xan’s mouth wobbled. “I hate myself for that entire situation. I let him hurt.”

  “You didn’t call for assistance?”

  “I asked my father to arrange for something once I realized that I truly wasn’t going to be able to satisfy him, but by the time a suitably discreet man arrived, the heat had passed. I managed to knot him once a day for the duration—”

  Urho held back a gasp. That wasn’t nearly often enough. Poor Caleb! He must have been in agony.

  “I think with the pills…?” Xan rubbed at his eyes, pinching between his brows and sighing in frustration.

  “They’ll help,” Urho agreed. “But I’ll help too. Caleb won’t suffer again.”

  “But we’ll be in Virona by then.” Xan looked up worriedly. “Won’t you need to stay here with Vale for his pregnancy?”

  Urho frowned. “When is Caleb’s heat due?”

  Xan counted on his fingers. “Two months and two weeks, give or take.”

  “Vale isn’t due for another three months. If things are going well at that point, it’s possible I could leave him for a week.” But it was doubtful. That was a slim window and Vale would be in the most dangerous stage of the pregnancy. Urho would need to be here for him.

  Xan must have read the truth on Urho’s face because he shook his head. “I don’t want to risk Vale or the baby’s life for this. You need to be close by in case anything goes wrong.”

  “There are other options. You and Caleb could return here for the duration of his heat. You could say he wanted to be comfortable in the home he’s most familiar with. Surely your father wouldn’t argue with that?”

  “No,” Xan agreed. “He probably wouldn’t. Father is generous with Caleb. I think he pities him being contracted to me.” He nodded slowly, blue eyes distant and thoughtful.

  “That way you would be close and if I needed to leave the heat to deal with Vale, I could.”

  “It’s a lot to put on you,” Xan fretted.

  “I’m strong. I can handle it.”

  “Heats are tough and tiring. You’ll be worn out when Vale needs you most.”

  “It’ll be fine. With two of us, the heat won’t be a problem to manage at all. Especially if Caleb is not a nymph—suffering from interminable heat.”

  Xan huffed a soft laugh. “Old-fashioned asshole words are hard to let go of, huh?”

  “I’m learning.”

  Coming back to his main worry, Xan asked, “But the pills will help?”

  “The pills will provide you with a great deal of stamina, but if your interest isn’t there…” Urho lifted his hands helplessly. “There’s no forcing that. Still, I believe if I’m with you then you might find the situation more exciting.” Urho cast a hot glance up and down Xan’s body, imagining him naked again.

  Xan’s cheeks flushed beneath his bruise and his eyes brightened. “Definitely. I have other ideas too. I was thinking during Caleb’s heat, I’d ride a dildo myself and pretend it’s…” He trailed off, licked his lips, and smiled hotly. “I could pretend it’s you. That might help keep me hard. Of course, if you’re actually there…”

  Urho flushed hot all over. “You’re going to arouse me again. The image of you with a dildo pressed inside and thinking of me. Filthy.”

  Xan’s cheeks glowed pink in the firelight. “How many days until I’m healed enough that you can take me?” he asked, licking his lips. His eyes shone hungrily again.

  Urho’s cock ached as it thickened against his thigh. “Remind me, when do you leave?”

  “Sunday.”

  Urho groaned. “I don’t think you’ll be healed enough to take me for a good deal longer than that.”

  Xan squirmed, scooting closer to Urho on the sofa. “I can handle it. I can take a lot of punishment.”

  Urho touched his cheek where the bruise still distorted his handsome face. “Punishment is the last thing I want to give you.”

  “But what if I need it? For something bad that I’ve done?” Xan blinked long and slow.

  “Like…like a spanking?”

  “Yes,” he hissed, shifting on the couch, his arousal on display distorting his pants.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Urho said, leaning closer. “If I hear of you doing anything worthy of punishment, I’ll dole it out. But only if you truly need it.”

  Xan licked his lips. “I’ll need it. Definitely. Really soon.”

  Urho’s heart skipped a beat. “Then I’ll have to come up to visit you and dispense a spanking or two. I couldn’t stay more than one night, in case something goes wrong with Vale, but I could steal away once I’ve checked in on him. If all stays well.”

  “You’d do that?” Xan asked, eyes wide and happy shock in his voice. “You’d visit me even before Caleb’s heat?”

  Urho took Xan’s chin in his hands and rubbed the cleft there with his thumb. His insides trembled, confusion and certainty warring. His voice shook as he said, “How else will I tend to the beautiful, sweet hole you’ve promised to me?”

  Xan’s lashes fluttered and he groaned. “I’m going to come in my pants if you say things like that.”

  “You smell so good,” Ur
ho whispered, leaning close and nuzzling the sweaty place behind Xan’s ear, overcome with the urge to cover Xan and protect him. To make him smell like Urho’s own come and saliva and skin. To mark him as his own for all to scent and know. “I want to suck you and taste your juices again.”

  Xan turned to Urho, kissing him quickly.

  The night dissolved once more into lust and madness. Any attempts at holding a reasonable conversation were lost in a lush raft of scents, skin, and desire. Urho sucked Xan’s cock, and allowed Xan to drain his dick again too. His balls ached like when he was a newly imprinted youngster and he’d fucked Riki for days upon days. He stroked Xan’s hair as the boy swallowed his come again, gazing up at him with wide, hopeful eyes, begging for Urho’s approval.

  “Good boy,” he whispered, his voice slurring with satisfied lust and exhaustion. “Such a good boy.”

  Xan buried his head in Urho’s lap and kissed his softening cock. “Are we lovers, Urho?” he asked tremulously.

  “We’re lovers,” Urho agreed, the weight of the words shaking him to the core. “My beautiful one. My alpha-shaped omega. My lover.”

  Xan quivered and a sob burst free. Urho hushed him and fed him cock again, petting his head as Xan suckled him gently and cried.

  Somehow it felt holy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The sun rose on Urho wrapped around Xan in a soft bed covered by a canopy and warm, wooden furniture. He blinked into the sunlight, lazy satisfaction shifting into confusion and then dismay that he’d somehow spent the night in Xan’s home, lost in pleasure and flesh, feeding on Xan’s small noises and salty tears. The lingering scent of their combined pleasure smothered him, and he threw back the covers, eyes sharp and throat dry, searching for the bathroom.

  Xan groaned and slept on, his dark lashes pressed against his sleep-pale cheeks, and his red mouth open and wet with drool. The formerly livid bruises on his face, back, and ribs were now shaded green and yellow. Urho remembered how heedless he’d been of them last night, and the way Xan hadn’t complained in the least. Either the boy enjoyed pain or was willing to endure it in exchange for pleasure. Urho cleared his throat, but Xan only whimpered in his sleep and drowsed on.