The gray-eyed wolf wonders if the memory of that scent is ever going to fade. He doesn’t think it will. He’s going to smell what happened for the rest of his life.
The thought makes him even more determined to find Jax and replace one family scent with another.
He hopes he’ll find Jax soon. The roughness of the road has been biting into his soft human feet since he started out. It wasn’t bad at first, not much more than the occasional prickle and scrape, but it’s starting to hurt with every step. It’s not surprising humans use vehicles to take them around. They’re too soft to even move themselves safely.
The scent leads him high up the road and finally to a low flat building with a taller one on the end. Jax’s scent is even stronger here.
Relief floods through him. He knows where his mate is. The sense of unease that has been with him since Jax left him at the clinic disappears.
The wolf approaches the building with caution. Jax will be sleeping with his pack and strange alphas might not appreciate him turning up in the middle of the night. Of course, humans do things differently. Jax might be sleeping alone.
He shouldn’t be. Not when he has a mate to sleep beside him and keep him safe. Gray decides he’ll find him and then decide what to do. If his alphas are close by, the wolf will keep a respectful distance and wait until the morning. At the very least, he’ll be able to spend the rest of the night closer to his mate’s scent.
Gray hasn’t quite worked out how doors work but the big doors don’t open no matter which way he tries to turn the handle, so he circles the building trying to find a way in.
He finds it in the tall building at the end. There’s a window that moves when he gives it a hard push. Climbing isn’t the wolf’s strong suit. He tumbles to the floor clumsily, landing on his broken arm. Pain reverberates up his body. He grits his teeth, suppressing a scream.
Fortunately, the room at the bottom of the window is empty. He stands and sniffs, then listens.
There’s an alpha in the room ahead of him, but his breathing is deep and slow. He’s fast asleep.
Gray slides past him, careful to keep his clumsy human feet from making a noise.
It’s easy to find where Jax sleeps. Like the clinic, this building also has a row of rooms off of a corridor. The scent of strange alphas and one strange omega emanate from each of them.
The wolf quietly opens the door that smells of Jax and finds his omega sleeping soundly on his stomach in the middle of a huge bed. He is sleeping without any of the impractical clothes that the humans seem to favor.
The wolf kneels beside the bed and pulls in a deep breath of omega scent. Sweet relief rushes through his body, relaxing every muscle that aches, his painful feet and throbbing arm. He breathes out slowly, relaxation coursing through his blood.
Jax is beautiful, of course, but he is even more beautiful in the relaxed pose of sleep. Dark eyelashes frame soft skin. The wolf wants to kiss them, but he doesn’t want to disturb him. He’s also not sure that Jax would welcome it, given his odd behavior.
Instead he climbs onto the too soft bed and cuddles up against his omega’s warm skin, carefully tucking his injured arm against his body.
Jax gives out a soft happy little sigh in his sleep and breathes in deep against the wolf’s neck.
Gray reciprocates, and finally with the heady soothing scent and warmth of his mate close by, the wolf is able to sleep.
JAX
shampoo and coffee
Jax sleeps badly. Thoughts of Gray thread through his dreams: Gray injured, Gray smiling, Gray hurtling down the mountain in the dark, white bones breaking through gray fur.
Then Gray kissing him gently under a blue summer sky, the air filled with the scent of sun cream and beer, hot sweaty skin against his own.
Finally, the dreams stabilize and turn into a soothing one. Gray pressed up against Jax while they sleep, and that one is so relaxing that there are no more, and Jax sinks into a deep sleep that feels like it lasts for hours.
He begins to surface from his dreams, still drifting, with the scent of Gray still lingering in his nostrils, strong as ever, as well as a raging erection to go with it.
Half asleep, eyes still closed, he reaches down between his legs to find that the pressure against his groin is not a spare pillow.
What the hell?
Jax’s eyes fly open to see the back of an auburn head on the pillow beside him.
Gray is lying on his side, ass up against Jax’s groin, injured arm cradled into his chest.
Jax sucks in a deep breath.
There’s a wild wolf in his bed. A naked wild wolf.
His eyes dart to the door. It’s closed at least. How on earth did he even get in?
That’s a problem for later. Right now, he needs to work out what to do about the wolf in his bed.
He knows what he wants to do. He’s achingly hard and his dick fits perfectly into the curve of Gray’s ass. All he has to do is bend down a couple of inches and press a kiss into the curve of Gray’s neck.
Gray looks serious, even when he’s asleep. Despite the slack mouth and slight dribble, he’s frowning slightly, his eyebrows furrowed. The pale skin on his face is starting to show signs of stubble.
You’d expect a wild mountain man to be all tan and leather, but then Jax supposes his human skin probably rarely sees the light. It’s pale and smooth, marred only by the long red scratches and bites. The doctor in him can’t help but note that, despite the visible bruising, they look like they’re healing nicely.
The curve of Gray’s hip has escaped any damage. It appears perfectly smooth and soft.
Jax wants to run his fingertips along the curve of his hip just to find out what it feels like. He’s also aware of how perfectly his body fits against…
No.
Jax rolls over on his back away from the temptation and grits his teeth, then pulls himself up so that he’s sitting, duvet over his lap.
“Hey, you. Wake up.”
“Gnnnh.” The wolf turns over onto his back and blinks slowly. Hazy gray eyes survey Jax from the pillow.
Kick the man out, Jax, you damned idiot. Kick out the wild, gorgeous, very naked and eager man…
“Out,” Jax orders before his baser instincts overcome him.
Confusion crosses Gray’s face. “Why?”
“Just leave. Please.”
“But you want me. I can smell it,” the gray-eyed man says, his pupils are blown wide. The objection seems more innocent than protestation, Jax thinks. The wolf simply doesn’t understand.
It doesn’t help that Jax isn’t the only one who smells aroused. The deep wild scent of the wild man is pushing every one of Jax’s buttons.
It’s a good point. Jax does want him, and he is thrown by the irritating logic of it.
“Because I am your doctor.” Sort of. “And you are my patient.” Sort of. “It’s inappropriate.” Definitely.
The man’s brow furrows further. “Is that a human rule?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Gray says simply. He rolls himself into a sitting position and pushes himself to his feet with his working arm, displaying a perfectly shaped ass. He turns back to Jax and now Jax can see the front of him too, which is clearly very interested in Jax. “So we can mate when I’m healed? I suppose that is sensible.”
Jax is stuck between answering ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and being terribly distracted by the utterly and very naked gorgeous man standing in front of him. Another thought strikes.
“Where are your clothes?”
“I left them at the clinic. I do not find them comfortable. Do you want me to get them?”
The clinic. At the other end of town. He must have walked up here completely naked, and now he’s intending to head back in the same state.
Jax imagines Gray walking nude through the town right when everyone is on their way to work and stopping off for their morning coffee. He doesn’t know whether to be horrified or amused.
“No,�
� Jax says. “Look, just sit down. I’ll get you something to wear. And you have to wear something. It’s a human rule. And have a shower. Showers are important too.”
The wild wolf sits heavily on the bed. Jax gives him an appraising look, thinking. The wolf seems to have a deep respect for rules. That could be useful.
“Just wait here,” Jax says, getting up and grabbing a robe. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He shuts the door behind him, and stands for a moment, his back pressed up against it, trying to catch his thoughts. Gray in his bed. It’s both wonderful and terrifying, and Jax doesn’t know which is worse.
He sniffs the air, trying to sense where his brothers are. Luke’s scent is days old. He hasn’t been here for days. Gregor’s is stronger. He stopped by some time in the night, but he’s gone. His scent is stronger but it’s stale.
Only Adam is here. The scent-traces of his morning coffee still fill the air, along with the lingering scent of his aftershave.
His big brother is not going to be happy. Not after the way he’d laid down the law last night.
It’s one more thing to worry about later, but right now he needs to find Gray some clothes.
Gregor is probably the closest match for clothes. He knocks on Gregor’s door out of habit and opens it without waiting for an answer. The room is empty as he expected.
Jax crosses the room and opens Gregor’s dresser. The man needs a housekeeper, or at least to learn to fold his own laundry. Clothes are just thrown in how they land. It takes him a few minutes to sort through everything before he finds a loose t-shirt and pants that are clean and look as if they’ll fit.
He gives them both a good sniff but they smell like they’ve come right out of the dryer. There’s a slight residual scent of alpha from spending time in Gregor’s room but that can’t be helped.
He finds Gray exactly where he left him: sitting on the edge of the bed. If he were anyone else, Jax would think he were waiting obediently for instructions, but Gray is just watching, and Jax is reminded that this man has spent most of his life as a wolf, chasing down prey and conserving his energy when it’s not needed.
He’s watching Jax’s every movement, and Jax can’t help feeling as if he’s not much different to one of the many deer Gray must have brought down in his life.
He brushes the feeling aside and pulls a spare towel from his own closet. “I’ll take you shopping later. We’ll get you some new stuff. And some shoes. You can’t wander round barefoot like that. You’re going to tear your feet to pieces. First you need to shower. I’ll show you how it works.” He stops and looks at the cast. “We’ll need to wrap that up so it doesn’t get wet.”
“Okay.”
Gray keeps still and watches curiously while Jax covers his arm in plastic wrap. Jax tries to keep skin contact to a minimum, but even so he is hyperaware of every time his fingers come into contact with bare skin and has to hold his breath to try keep from leaning over and kissing him.
He sets the shower to colder than he usually likes it, thinking almost-scalding water will put the wild wolf off showers for life, explains how the shower gel and shampoo works, then leaves Gray to get on with it.
There’s no coffee left in the machine when he gets into the kitchen.
He’s scouring the cupboards for the spare beans when Adam saunters in.
“You finished the whole pot?”
“I’ve been up a while. I see you’ve a visitor.”
Jax braces himself for the inevitable telling off but it doesn’t come.
Instead, Adam says, “Are you okay?”
It’s a simple question but one that suddenly floors him, because he doesn’t actually know. He turns the question over in his head, but still doesn’t have an answer. “I just need some time to think,” he says finally. “I don’t even know how he got in.”
Adam looks guilty. “I think that was my fault. It smells like he got in through the spare room at the bottom of the tower.”
And he snuck right past you. A thought strikes.
“Why didn’t you come to see if I was okay?”
A flash of confusion crosses Adam’s face. “I thought you would send him on his way if you didn’t want him here. You’ve always been very clear about not wanting me to interfere with the men in your life. Besides I didn’t want to interrupt you... Do you need me to boot him out?”
“No. Not yet. I just want a damn cup of coffee.”
“Did he say anything yet?”
“No,” Jax says, finally locating the bag of coffee beans hidden behind a giant bag of pasta.
Adam leans back against the counter, his expression thoughtful. “There was another wolf who came down from the mountain, years ago.”
Jax turns to look at him. “Was there? I don’t remember that.”
“You were a baby. Maybe you weren’t even born. I was just a kid. I remember Dad talking about it,” Adam frowns. “Maybe he was pack to this one. I’ll put some feelers out.”
“Thanks,” Jax says, pouring beans into the machine. “You could just ask him. I thought I’d leave him here while I go to work.”
“What here here? Why can’t he go with you?”
“Too many omegas. The one we had yesterday seemed fine with him, but others might struggle with him. His scent is too...alpha.” As he says it, Jax realizes that’s it. That’s what the wild wolf smells like. It’s not the wild, or the woods, or some intangible feeling of the outdoors and running free. It’s pure alphaness.
As the thought hits, electricity skates up Jax’s spine and he feels hot slick trickle between his cheeks, dampening his trousers.
“So? There are alphas at the clinic all the time. I’m there all the time. They’re not bothered by me,” Adam says, completely oblivious to his brother’s sudden horniness, or at least he’s pretending he doesn’t notice. Jax is fine with either.
“You’re not… wild like that.” Jax says, and it’s the only think he can think of at short notice.
Is that it? Are the local alphas too tamed by city-life? Whatever it is, putting Gray into the clinic with a bunch of wounded omegas would be like setting a lion down among mice.
“Yes, I am,” Adam mumbles.
Jax rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time for his brother’s bruised ego. He just found a wild wolf in his bed. And he’d liked it. And now he has to go change his pants. Things are getting messed up fast.
“He should probably stay here anyway,” Jax continues. “Not in my room,” he adds hurriedly. “Maybe in the tower. It’ll stop him wandering off and you can ask him all your questions directly.”
“Fair enough. I’ll ask him myself, then.”
And as if on cue, Gray himself appears, hair wet and tousled and smelling like heaven.
Jax gives up on the coffee. “Right, my turn in the shower. Adam, show him where he’ll be staying, will you? And then I’ve got to get to work.”
“Got it,” Adam replies, and Jax has never been more grateful for him. If Adam can just keep Gray away for a few hours, Jax will finally have some time to think.
GRAY
stairs and broken alphas
Some things are meant to be true no matter which pack you’re in or if you’re a human or a wolf.
The leader of the pack is always the biggest strongest alpha. If you couldn’t distinguish him immediately from the others as the boss, then he wouldn’t be the leader.
So when the limping blond man in the kitchen smiles and says, “Hi, I’m Adam. I’m the pack leader here,” Gray feels his eyes widen in surprise.
How can he fight off challengers? Even Gray with his injured arm and lack of wolf teeth would have a chance at taking this man on. He’s starting to understand more and more why his father refused to come down the mountain.
But he knows his manners, wolf or human. Gray bends awkwardly and tries to get to his knees to show his submission, but the pack leader shakes his head hurriedly.
“No, don’t worry about that.”
Gray doesn’t move. The longer he is here, the more bewildering he finds human customs. He risks peeking up at the other man.
Adam looks like Jax, and like the other man who was there when Gray first woke up in the clinic. They have the same shape nose and jawline. The hair is a shade lighter than Jax’s, but it’s got the same curl at the nape of the neck. Adam is holding his hand out.
Gray knows what that means. He remembers his father making them practice when he was a pup, even though he hadn’t seen the point. It was a weird human thing, and he had no intention of ever having anything to do with humans.
Just do it, cub. It’s a human thing. They all do it. I don’t know why.
He practiced it many times, but only with the hand that is now dangling from the sling. He decides the principle is the same.
He puts out the wrong one. It doesn’t fit into Adam’s hand the way he remembers. It’s meant to be palm to palm, Gray thinks, not palm to the back of the hand, but he shakes it vigorously anyway the way his father taught him when he was a pup.
They think a firm handshake means something so make sure you do it hard and strong.
Adam winces slightly. Gray thinks that means he probably did it right, but then the pack leader smiles as if he finds the whole thing as ridiculous as Gray does, and Gray is no longer so sure.
“Have you ever had coffee before? Or tea?”
Gray shakes his head.
“Let’s start with tea. Then you and I need to talk.”
Talk. That’ll be about Jax, Gray thinks.
This is the part where Adam explains why Gray can’t be Jax’s mate. Imprinting is one thing, but Gray is broken. Any normal pack leader wouldn’t permit an omega to mate a wolf who can’t provide for him.
Gray watches Adam hobble around pouring hot water into containers and mixing things into them and thinks that maybe Adam isn’t a normal pack leader, even for humans.
“Here, hold this. No, by the handle. Otherwise, it’s too hot. That’s right, just like that.”
Winterstoke Wolves Collection : An MM Mpreg Shifter Romance Bundle Page 25
