Unwilling: a shifter romance

by Hannah L. Corrie

  "Those will do nicely, don't you think?" he purred, watching Darwin with a particular kind of warm darkness in his eyes.

  "Give me that," Darwin harrumphed as his face turned pink. He snatched the can out of Jared's hand and grabbed the other clothes Rayne held out, only to realize that he couldn't carry them and hold on to the jacket around his mid-section at the same time.

  "Here, let me help you."

  Jared grabbed the clothes without waiting for an answer and proceeded to guide Darwin out of the car. He met Rayne's eyes for a moment. "You two make sure to call your parents and friends and tell them what happened. Harry, find out what you can about Darla, especially if anyone will miss her. Make up a cover story." He turned away from the car to follow Darwin who was already limping to the bathroom doors and added, "and someone please find out if we've got cops on our heels!"

  Jared

  The bathroom was like any other highway gas station bathroom. Somebody had tried to clean it at one point during the last days, but the meager effort had been limited to the floors and ceramics. Jared didn't need his superhuman senses to notice the stink of urine, feces, cigarette smoke, and body odor.

  Even Darwin seemed taken aback by the slap of scents hitting them at the door and he stood there blinking confusedly for a few seconds.

  "I think I'll get an STD from just standing here," he rasped, hesitant to step onto the dirty tiles.

  Jared herded him inside and into one of the stalls, his right hand hovering next to Darwin's arm in case he stumbled. "Don't be melodramatic, you can't get sick from anything in here. Just don't touch needles or blades if you find any," he joked. Wedging himself into the stall after Darwin and getting the door closed behind them was no small feat, but he managed.

  "What are you doing?" Darwin asked indignantly when the stall door fell shut behind them.

  Guiding him onto the toilet seat, Jared grinned shamelessly. "Helping you. We need to check your wounds. Somebody shot you, remember? We wouldn't want the bullet to stay in there just to have to cut you open later, now, would we?"

  A glimpse of Darwin's old self peeked through his eyes and he made a displeased, grumbling sound, but the little flame flickered and died down quickly.

  Jared didn't like that. He decided to push Darwin a little, just enough to see if he was truly broken or simply... bent out of shape. He got down in a crouch, tugged at the jacket, and tried to wrench it out of Darwin's death-grip.

  "Take that off, I need to check you over."

  Darwin lifted an eyebrow, looking incredulous. The jacket around his hips was the only piece of clothing he had and by the look on his face, he wasn't going to let go anytime soon.

  "Get out of the stall so I can dress," he snarled with furrowed brows. The spark was back, but only just. Still, Jared clung to it like a life line. Not that he planned to give in to Darwin's demands.

  Growling, Jared curled his fingers into the clothing and tensed his arm until he felt the cloth of his shirt strain against his bulging muscles. Darwin's eyes widened at the rumbling sound, his breath quickened, and Jared tugged sharply as Darwin's fingers relaxed with surprise.

  The jacket fell away and Jared was left to stare at the glorious, naked body sitting before him, breathless with wonder and lust.

  Darwin's hand cut the moment short as he slapped him. Hard.

  "Out. Now!"

  Jared's cheek burned. He felt over the heated, hand-shaped impression in his face and grinned at the mirror, then turned around to lean against the rickety sink to watch the dance of naked feet and shadows beneath the bathroom stall door. True, he had aggravated Darwin again, but for a good cause. The slap proved that Darwin was still himself and although his face hurt where it had been hit, the burn made Jared happy.

  "Just underwear and trousers, remember! I still have to check that bullet wound," he said over the shuffle of clothes and feet.

  Instead of a reply, Darwin shoved open the stall door and stalked out. His bare feet made obscene, soft slapping sounds on the tile floor as he walked in front of Jared, then the blond hunk received another disdaining glare.

  "I heard you the first two times. Could you please stop baiting me? I'm sick and tired of having to be vigilant around you." Jared heard the strain in Darwin's voice, though it was hidden beneath the usual sarcastic lilt. Darwin sounded like he needed a hug, but Jared was suddenly afraid to give it.

  "Okay," he said instead.

  Pushing away from the sink, he stepped closer to Darwin, letting his eyes feast on his naked chest as he leaned forward and softly touched around the angry red rim of the bullet wound in his shoulder. It was healing well enough, so Jared leaned closer and looked over Darwin's shoulder to search for an exit wound at his back.

  "I really don't want to cut you open," he said and shuffled around him to have a closer look.

  There it was, sitting beneath his shoulder blade, displaced by the change of shapes from wolf to human. The hole was even smaller at his back.

  "Is it bad?" Darwin whispered, staying as still as possible. His face appeared surprised and pale in the mirror, his usually piercing eyes were dark with the remnants of shock, pain and fear.

  Jared returned his gaze in the mirror and instinctively stepped closer, turning his head to blow a soft, hot puff of air against Darwin's neck. He could see Darwin's face relax as he lowered his head to the side, baring his neck to Jared's mouth. The gesture filled Jared with happiness, but it also awoke the sudden need for closer contact, skin contact preferably. The instinct to touch, hug, stroke Darwin was so sudden and surprising, he stepped away instead and shivered.

  "No, it's not bad at all," he replied throatily, "it's a through-and-through, clean, already healing. You're good to go."

  If the submissive noticed Jared's nerves, he didn't show it. Not that there weren't a myriad of reasons for Darwin to be preoccupied.

  "Put on your shirt and the jacket too, it's cold today. Do you want to call your father?" Jared asked, walking over to the bathroom stall to pick up the jacket.

  When he turned around, Darwin was dressed and holding out his hand for the last piece of clothing. "Not yet. It can wait, he can't take a lot of stress and his day has been hard enough." His voice was once again void of emotion or sarcasm, the spark was gone from his eyes.

  This time though, all he had to do was give him time.

  Half an hour later, everyone but Jared had finished their calls. They would have let him go first, or second, or third, but he had no idea whom to call and what to say. Sure, he could call his brother or his uncle, but how was that call supposed to go? 'Hey Tobias, guess what, I just ruined the life of my sweetheart!' or 'Neil, glad to hear your voice! I was driven out of Banes by the local Alpha because I stole people from him, can you help me out?' didn't sound like the greatest of lines for a family reunion.

  His never-ending rivalry with his older brother Tobias didn't bode well in any case, but as much as Jared hated to admit it, Tobias was probably the only person in the states able to help him at that moment.

  Rolling his shoulders against the beginning tension, he stepped into the plastic soundproof dome and dialed.

  He waited about five rings before someone picked up. Luckily, it was Tobias, not his wife Casey. Jared really didn't like Casey.

  "It's one o'clock in the morning, this had better be good," Tobias drawled into the phone. His normally so businesslike voice was rough from sleep.

  "It's Jared. Don't hang up on me, okay? I really need your help."

  A short, surprised silence followed. Jared envisioned Tobias staring a hole into the air as he collected his thoughts. "Are you for real?" was the first thing Tobias came up with.

  Jared grinned to himself. Tobias usually was so good with words.

  "Yes. Remember when you told me not to mess with the local pack? Well... I kinda did. But I had a valid reason, I promise! And I'm not coming back if you think that's why I'm calling, I need—"

  Tobias didn't let him finish. "So, let
me guess," he drew out, "you fell in love with some local werewolf, decided she's the one and claimed her. The local Alpha thought you're stealing his pack members and threw you out or challenged you or something, and now you're afraid of sleeping in your rust bucket of a car. How am I doing so far?"

  A breeze of cold morning wind blew over Jared's back, making him shiver. He bared his teeth at the phone, then closed his eyes. "He's the one." Damn Tobias.

  This time his brother hissed, but he didn't hang up. "Excuse me?"

  "He. Not she. He's the one. But yeah, you're almost spot on. Except for the negligible fact that I claimed him because they would've killed him otherwise. The rest is sadly accurate." There was no use in denying or explaining, at least not at that moment. Not as long as he needed his brother's help.

  Tobias had always hinted at Jared being gay, it had never been a big deal. Jared had tried women, that much Tobias knew, but the family had had their suspicions for too long to be surprised by his confession now.

  "Fine, he. I already told you my opinion on this. It's the same shit that got you thrown out of here, but since you couldn't keep it together for your own family, I didn't have much hope you'd manage it for anyone else. So, what can I do for you now that you fucked up, lil' bro?"

  For a moment Jared wished he could strangle Tobias through the phone because he was right once more, but the mood vanished as quick as it had come. Love for each other in good times as in bad had never been the issue for his family.

  "Gloat all you want, dickhead," he growled with a smile, "you’re still gonna help me. You won't risk having to take me back."

  "Well that's the truth if I ever heard it."

  "I need a car, at least I need to use the family credit card to buy a car," Jared explained, hesitant to give away too much information. His family was well off, but they weren't rich; two tornadoes in two years had made sure of that.

  "Did your junker finally break down?"

  "Well, no, um." How did you tell your brother that you had involuntarily formed a pack recently? Jared hesitated, then decided to treat that tid-bit of information like a band-aid. He ripped it off in one move. "I kinda sorta have a pack now, courtesy of the Banes Alpha. We don't fit into my Beetle and it won't carry that much weight for much longer."

  This time Tobias crunched the phone. "You what?" he hissed, just short of yelling at him.

  The phone bleeped its 30 second warning tone and Jared inserted another quarter.

  "I got a pack. Many people, bigger car," he repeated, trying not to sound small at the audible scowl from the other end. He wasn't the useless little brother anymore, damn it!

  Tobias made a drawn-out groan. "Okay, to paint a picture here. You find someone you think is the love of your life. You piss on some Alpha's porch to steal him, getting run off and homeless in the process. And to add insult to injury, you drag not one, but bunch of people down the shit hole with you. And now you need to buy a car to fit all the people who's life you've ruined?"

  Jared blinked, staring hard at the number pad in front of him.

  "Yes."

  There wasn't much else he could say and he was already growing tired of Tobias' domineering tone of voice.

  "Fine."

  It was a short, crisp answer, void of all the sarcasm and exasperation from before.

  It flabbergasted Jared. "Really?"

  "Yes. You'll have to pay it back once you settle down, my bank account is no charity. But for now, buy that damn car and take care of your victims. And call mom as soon as you have done so, she'll freak if you don't after I tell her what you just told me." There was a hint of pride in his older brother's voice, although he tried hard to sound disgruntled.

  A relieved smile played on Jared's lips. "I will. And thanks, bro. Talk to you soon."

  Things were definitely looking up.

  Darwin

  Through all the shocks, the pain and the last remnants of fear, Darwin's mind huddled into a tight ball around one simple problem: why the hell wasn't Jared touching him anymore? The glorious jock never hesitated to use any and every chance to paw him whenever he felt like it, but now he seemed actually frightened to do so.

  Had Darwin been too snappy in that gas station bathroom? Or maybe his wolf had driven Jared away, just as promised. Whatever the reason, Jared threw glances at him here and there, but he never did anything more than that.

  Jared even volunteered to walk across town and buy a new car, although that probably had something to do with his credit card. There was a sad possibility that Rayne of the dark skin might get arrested if he tried to buy a brand-new SUV with a credit card in someone else's name.

  But still, that didn't rule out the possibility that Jared volunteered just to get away from Darwin. He glanced through the back window of the Beetle and chewed on his lip. Harry and Rayne were standing at the trunk, deeply immersed in their conversation, and that made Darwin wince too. He had had no chance to reconcile with Harry yet, but Harry seemed to be doing well enough. Without Darwin. With that rogue wolf.

  Jealousy was a petty reaction, but he felt justified. Each of them had lost something, that was true, but Darwin was the only one to get hurt repeatedly. Nobody seemed to care.

  Well, except for Darla. He had bitten her, that counted as hurt. And Jared was out buying a brand new car with money he'd had to borrow from his estranged brother because he had nothing but the clothes on his back. And Rayne had given up his only safe haven to help them. Harry had even been kidnapped because of him, for god's sake!

  All of a sudden, he wanted to crawl out of his own skin with disgust. When had he started to think only about himself? No wonder Jared kept his distance, he must have noticed Darwin's mood before he himself had.

  And adding to all this was Darwin's acceptance of Jared's superiority. After all, Jared had fallen in love with him when he had still tried to pass as a dominant, and now he was stuck with a whiny, groveling—

  The deep honk of a shiny new car ripped him from his self-pity, and not a second too soon. With a shudder, he crawled out of the Beetle, threw an instinctual smile at Jared and did his best not to limp too transparently as he walked across the small parking space.

  He wanted to help them load whatever goods they had left into the new car but his shoulder still hurt and bled when he tried to lift something heavy, so Jared simply shoved him into the car and told him to wait there.

  This time, Darla was draped onto the back seat and Harry and Rayne took on the job of holding her steady. Darwin got stuck in the passenger seat next to Jared, jumping at the chance of getting the Alpha's attention again. He'd just have to try harder.

  "What are you going to do with your old car?" Darwin asked as they pulled out of the parking lot. The little Beetle looked forlorn in all that empty space. He didn't mourn the cramped interior, but the car had enough character to appear like a lost puppy.

  Jared sighed, then threw a glance into the back mirror. "I don't know. It depends on how long we're going to stay away. I'd hate to lose it to be honest, it's my first car."

  Rayne hummed sympathetically. "First one's always the hardest. I still remember when I—"

  "When are you going to tell us about that pack in Canada?" Jared interrupted gruffly, taking a moment to look at Rayne's face in the rear view mirror. Hard lines settled on his face. They were new, having started to appear only since Carl's pack had gone on the offensive and started to attack them. They were strong lines, very male, but also very sad to see. Jared looked positively cold, like a winter sun.

  Rayne stayed silent for a moment, long enough to make Darwin put up with the pain in his shoulder and look back. The dark one glanced down at Darla's face, obviously trying to come up with the best way to start. It was unusual to see him at a loss for words and Darwin would have liked it on any other given day. But not today. He wanted to crawl back and shake him.

  "I think it's best I tell you how I myself met them, maybe that will be enough to make you understand why Carl's plan w
ill never work," he said, sorting through Darla's hair.

  "Six years ago, I was new to this whole pack thing. At eighteen, you don't think about the future the same way you do at twenty-one, or any time after that, and I had nobody to talk sense into me. My erstwhile pack didn't want me anymore, so I decided to find out about a legend, the same one Carl heard. A story about some pack up north that was somehow different, more powerful than any other pack."

  He hesitated for a moment, smirking. "I wanted to be strong, I wanted power more than anything. If my parents had been stronger, they wouldn't have been killed by hunters, I told myself. And since I didn't want to die, this was the way I chose."

  Darwin huddled into his seat. George had always told him that there was such a thing as hunters, especially when he told the story of how he had found him as a kid. His adoptive father was sure that the wolf who had bitten him had been hunted and killed by the men who called themselves hunters because they never found him. It had kept their pack in hiding for weeks before they dared to show themselves in their wolf shapes again.

  "It took weeks to get to the Canadian border. I didn't have a passport or visa, but you know, such things don't stop a wolf. The hunger was a bigger problem, because it was salmon season and there were bears everywhere." Again Rayne hesitated, then he took a deep breath and added, "and you can guess where this is going. I was near death and ripped to shreds when one of the mythical werewolves found me. He carried me to a hunting cabin and patched me up."

  Jared huffed and slowed the car to enter the highway. "Very magical, but so far I can't find anything unusual in that," he grumbled.

  White teeth flashed as Rayne grinned. "When I asked him if I could join his pack, he said no. I asked why," he threw a glance at Jared's profile and finished, "he said, because they're all Alphas."