For a long moment, it seemed as though the alpha didn’t understand anything that Jack said. Then, suddenly, he nodded. “Okay. Right. One conclusion. Bear shifters.”
“Right,” Jack agreed, a little relieved that the alpha had settled down some through the conversation. He was still breathless and there was a painful stitch in his side, right over his scar, but the situation could have been a whole hell of a lot worse. “I’ve never seen or smelled a bear shifter before.”
“Neither have I,” Tristan agreed, but then his lips pulled back away from his teeth. “I should have recognized the bear part of it, though. It’s just that we don’t really have any around these parts. I forgot.”
“Bears?”
“Or bear shifters.”
“Why? Isn’t this kind of a nice place for any animal to live?”
Tristan just shrugged a little. “Sure. And we have predators around here too, but it’s mostly just the small ones. Foxes and stuff. It’s just part of nature. Bears, mountain lions, those animals are a little further up north in the mountains.”
Jack shook his head, not really understanding. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that we are here, Jack. Us wolves. When there’s a large group of apex predators, there’s not that much prey to go around for other predators who eat the same things as us. That’s why foxes and bobcats and lynx and hawks can still live here. They eat toads, mice, the small stuff. The predators that eat what we eat... They have to go somewhere else.”
“So, why was this one here?”
Tristan shrugged. “Maybe she got chased out of her old territory and was desperate. Or...”
Before either of them could say another word, they suddenly heard a pair of shuffling footsteps and a series of tiny grunts. Turning, the wolves saw two small bear cubs racing out from the thicket nearby, leaving behind the body of their mother.
“Dammit,” Tristan swore. “That’s why. She moved out here for her cubs.”
Jack felt awful, his heart sinking. “Do you think they’ll be able to make it on their own? They’re so small...”
Tristan just shook his head as if the thought pained him. “I don’t know. Do you think I should put them out of their misery, maybe? Without any predators here, they’ll just slowly starve to death. Or they might be ambushed by foxes or something. I would hate for them to suffer.”
The powerful man was about to transform, to finish what he had accidentally started, but Jack held him back.
“If there’s a chance that they’ll survive, why not let them try?” he asked softly. “I mean, you didn’t really think that I’d make it either.”
The alpha didn’t have much to say in response to that.
Chapter 11
Two days after the incident with the bear, Jack knew without a doubt that he had gone into heat.
It was unavoidable, really. It came over him every so often, on an odd sort of schedule that wasn’t quite once a month. Omegas regularly went into heat, although when and how long it lasted depended on a variety of factors such as age and general health. Young omegas tended to nearly burn alive with sexual desire, while adults were more in control of their urges.
Jack himself was still pretty young so he knew it was going to be rough, and he was dreading every minute that he felt the pressure build inside him. Recent developments in medical science had churned out a sort of birth control pill that lessened the intensity of going into heat, which had the added benefit of making an omega be able to interact with alphas without being jumped on just after walking by.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have that medication with him, and Agatha refused to get him any from her clinic down in the city because he was marked. Only one alpha was going to bother him when he was in heat, and that was his mate.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t seen Tristan around in a couple days. The alpha always seemed to be busy with something or other, whether it was holding meetings or sitting with his council, or performing some duty or other. It was almost like the alpha was going out of his way to avoid him, which he probably was. It had to be evident to everyone Jack came across that he was in heat, which meant Tristan could smell it, too.
Tristan was trying to ensure that nothing happened between them. Given how strong their feelings were already becoming despite their best efforts to the contrary, Jack’s heat would drive them both over the edge and to the point of no return.
The bad thing was that being in heat didn’t feel good if you had no mate, and it took even longer to pass.
Jack lay on the bed in Tristan’s room, his back arched as he tried to alleviate some of the pressure gathering between his thighs. His loins were burning with the need for companionship, and his member felt so swollen that he thought it might be engorged to almost twice its size. Sexual want was practically driving him crazy, but short of grabbing himself and trying to take matters into his own hands, he wasn’t going to solve anything.
It was so bad, though. His whole body felt like it was on fire. His skin was flushed. He felt swollen and full to bursting, but also empty. His opening was dangerously relaxed and pulsing slightly with his rapid heartbeat. His shapeshifter’s body couldn’t understand why he wasn’t being mated when he was ready to be mated with.
I can’t stand this any longer, he moaned to himself and shoved one hand down the front of his borrowed jeans. The pants were too big to fit him, and he managed to get his arm in without much trouble at all. Just as he had expected, he was fully erect and throbbing hard.
Taking his shaft into his hand while also trying to keep his senses open and wary to alert him if anyone came near, Jack slowly started to rub his hand up and down his dick.
It wasn’t enough.
The fire in his stomach tried to climb up inside his shaft, but stroking wasn’t going to do it for him. He needed more. He had to have more.
Wriggling his ass around on the mattress, gasping louder now, Jack started to pull on himself in frantic, rough tugs that started at his base and went all the way to the tip. His hips shook. His whole entire body trembled, every part of him spasming and twitching with the desire for release that just wasn’t coming.
It felt like he was stuck in a perpetual orgasm, but not quite. He was right on the edge, his blood tingling, his breath rasping, everything straining towards the one single goal of getting himself off.
Tightening his muscles, his toes curled. He dug his shoulders hard against the mattress and arched up his back higher, adding another hand to himself to try and see if that would help. Gripping tighter, his body throbbed. He felt like a heartbeat, every atom in his entire body pulsating.
And still, nothing happened.
His side started to cramp, his muscles rejecting the fierce strain. Unable to hold the position any longer, Jack collapsed down onto his back. Sweaty and exhausted, he felt even worse than before.
“Should I maybe come back some other time?”
“Aggy!” Jack shrieked, wrenching his hands out from his jeans. “Why don’t you knock?”
“I did,” the doctor said, staying well away from the bed. Her eyes were wary, although her face was full of understanding. “You were making so much noise that I thought you might have hurt yourself. I hope I was wrong. You didn’t, um...squeeze...something...too hard, did you?”
“Get out!” the omega squealed, turning his head away and blushing an even more furious shade of red than before. He wasn’t ashamed so much as he was just plain embarrassed. He knew that the Barrow pack was pretty open about things like this—he only had to hear wives screaming in their beds once to figure that much out—but back in Wolf Haven, everything was done almost like it was a secret. Old habits die hard.
“Do you want me to get Tristan?” Agatha continued, not moving from her spot.
“I...what? No! I don’t want anything to do with him!”
“Well, you’re going to have to do something about this whether you like it or not,” the doctor said. Jack could hardly understan
d a single word she said. He was so impossibly frustrated with this entire situation. He felt almost close to tears at how uncomfortable he was. All he knew was that he didn’t want to give in to this. He didn’t need Tristan. He didn’t need to depend on someone else to do for him what he could do for himself!
“It won’t go away, Jack.”
“What?” he croaked out, hardly able to hear her now. His blood was pounding in his ears.
“You’re mated. It’s simply shifter biology. Look at the state you’re in!” Agatha scolded. “You have a mate and your body knows it. You won’t be able to do anything at all unless Tristan helps you, or unless this goes away on its own.”
“I can...do it,” he gasped.
“Except, you can’t. An omega in heat can’t release themselves.”
“Go away!” he shouted again, amazed that he was able to find that much spare breath leftover in his lungs. Nothing more was said, so he just had to assume Agatha had gone away like he asked her to. Good.
Fifteen minutes later though, and he was completely certain that he was about to die. He couldn’t even breathe anymore. The pressure was too much. It was like having an elephant sit on his chest, and an even larger elephant on his groin. Agatha was right. He was going to lie here in agony because he was too stubborn to get some release in the only way that was left available to him.
No! I won’t do it! I don’t need anyone for anything! I can do it on my own.
“You can’t do that on your own, you know,” a deep voice suddenly growled.
Jack let out a squeak of alarm and swung his head around to the side to pierce Tristan with a glare. “Why don’t you people know how to knock?” he demanded. “Go away! I’m kind of busy here.”
The alpha snorted. “Yeah, okay. You can’t kick me out of my own house so don’t even try it. I’ll just wait until you’re done, then.”
“You’re going to watch me?” Jack sputtered. “You’re a pervert!”
“Just do it,” Tristan growled.
Jack snarled, and was surprised at how fierce he sounded. Then, he lay flat on his back again and ignored Tristan, smarting with anger. If the alpha wanted to stand there and watch him jerk himself off, fine! That’s exactly what he would do!
Grabbing himself again, Jack went at his shaft with renewed fervor. Jerking and tugging, he bucked his hips up and down to a frantic rhythm that only he knew.
And still, nothing at all happened except for the fact that he got even more frustrated. That was the last straw.
Flopping on his back in exhaustion again, he grabbed the sides of his head and screamed, and then curled up on his side while the agony of unreleased pleasure shook his body in spasms. His dick against his leg was rock hard, to the point where it was beyond painful.
Please, he silently begged, tightening his thighs together. Oh, please.
He couldn’t do it.
He tried to shy away from the knowledge, unwilling to give up and admit it, but it was impossible. He just couldn’t do it.
Tristan’s voice spoke from behind him again, incredibly rough somehow. “Jack, it’s biology.”
Jack tried to withdraw inside himself, hiding in his thoughts, but what he found there wasn’t quite what he expected. His wolf spirit was in agony, but there was another source of pain inside him that could only be Tristan. Curiously, he nudged at the pain and then practically reeled away from it again because he recognized it for what it was: sexual need, burning and uncomfortable and hot. Yet, when mixed with his, he thought his eyes might roll back in his head. He was going to die like this.
Suddenly, Tristan’s scent entered his nostrils and he groaned out loud. “Oh, go away! You’re such a pervert, Tristan!”
“I can’t help it!” Tristan practically shouted. Jack felt him vibrate, he was standing that close. Still, he kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “I can’t help it. I’m mated to you. I don’t want it just as much as you don’t, but it won’t stop. I can feel it. You’re suffering, and I’m the only one who can help!”
“No!”
“Let me do it!” Tristan snarled. “That’s what it means to be mated to each other. I’m not happy about it and neither are you, but this is what I did and now I have to face the consequences of it. Alpha and omega are meant to balance each other out. Neither of us can be happy unless this is taken care of!”
“No!” Jack shouted again, but by this point he knew he was just protesting out of sheer stubbornness. Apparently, Tristan could feel that too because suddenly a harsh, warm hand wrapped around his wrist and yanked him to his feet. The motion and the rush of blood returning to his head from his nether regions was enough to make him swoon; Tristan grabbed him up in his arms, bridal-style, and started to walk out of the house.
“Put me down!” he protested angrily, thumping weakly at the alpha’s chest with one hand. The other was down by his groin, uselessly attempting to protect himself from being seen by anyone as they walked outside.
Much to his horror, it was that morning hour just after breakfast when the wolves were milling about and preparing to go out about their business. That meant that the majority of the pack saw him being carried away by their leader.
“Yeah!” someone hooted. “Go get ‘em, Tristan!”
“Woo!” another called, clapping. “Look at our alpha go.”
Defeated and burning up, Jack slumped against Tristan and let out a horrified little groan. “I will never be able to come back here,” he moaned. “All of those shifters know that you’re going to have sex with me. They’ll know that I’ve had sex. With you.”
Tristan kept on toting Jack away from the camp, heading towards the meadow they went to recently where they first caught scent of the elusive bear shifter. He knew that he should have been more concerned with the situation and wondering exactly why a bear shifter seemed to have such a vendetta against the Barrow wolf pack, but he was still beyond thinking. Going into heat over the past couple of days had really done him in, in a lot of ways.
“Look,” Tristan said finally, and his voice was a little less harsh. “Look, Jack. I don’t hate you. I think that you’re okay. And I’m sorry I got us into this situation. I wouldn’t have bitten you if you would’ve survived without it. Okay?”
“What’s your point?” Jack groaned. The bump and sway of the alpha’s body beneath him, and especially their very close proximity with each other, was starting to make him get even more worked up. How that was possible at this point, he had no idea.
“Okay, so, look. Okay? We have to do this. There’s no other option. This is...just our life now. We’ll do it once, and then we’ll have gotten it over with and you’ll feel better. Right?”
“Sure,” Jack grunted. He actually knew that the truth was the exact opposite, but it didn’t seem like the most helpful thing in the world for him to say.
“Okay!” Tristan rumbled. “So, we’re going to have to...you know...do stuff. It’s just friction. It’s just biology. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sure,” Jack grunted again. He thought that he might be able to get behind that reasoning. Just friction. Meaningless and impersonal, it was just to serve a purpose rather than from any true attraction to one another.
Suddenly, the light strengthened around him and he became aware of the fact that he was being lowered to the ground in the middle of the meadow. The sun warmed his skin and felt good on his sweaty clothes, warming him.
It was just friction, so there was no kissing. Jack watched with half-open eyes as Tristan undressed him. The alpha seemed a little stunned for a moment when he had to reach into the omega’s underwear and bring out his dick. He hesitated, and then did it anyway.
“Wow,” he said, his throat sounding slightly dry.
“What?” Jack snarled.
“You’re just...really big right now.”
“Pervert!”
Amazingly, Tristan let out a chuckle. He backed away from the naked boy writhing in the grass and then undressed himself.
Jack lifted up his head and felt his heart quicken and his dick stiffen as what felt like a bolt of lightning shot through it.
“Oh,” he gasped, grabbing at himself with one hand and starting to pull at his shaft. It wasn’t like they hadn’t already seen each other naked, but this was different. Tristan was fully erect, his cock practically pulsating. He was huge, and it was all Jack could do to restrain himself.
Just friction, he told himself. That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything.
“Jack?”
“What?” he grunted.
“You haven’t ever done this before, have you?”
“Of course not!” he snarled.
In some places, sex was a thing that could happen without a subsequent bonding, but Jack lived in old-fashioned Wolf Haven. Things were done differently there. That was part of the reason that their medications to control urges had exploded in popularity. No one wanted to go outside the norm.
But now, Jack was about to have his first time with a man who didn’t really mean much of anything to him. It was just friction, and nothing more.
Tristan lowered himself back down into the grass, and alpha and omega stared at each other. The awkwardness between them seemed to have abated somewhat, although Jack was very conscious of the fact that now they had come this far, they needed to actually do something.
Tristan acted first, of course. He was the alpha. It was just his way to make the first move.
Reaching out, he wrapped his hand around Jack’s dick.
The omega arched his back and let out a squeal that spiraled up through the thin mountain air and reached all the way back to the camp. His shaft pulsed and swelled, shivering and dripping with wetness at the tip. His mouth opened, and he swallowed hard, bracing himself with his hands behind him.
Normally, an alpha would have never performed such a submissive act as what Tristan did next; however, Jack knew that sometimes alphas would resort to actions like that if it was to help please their mates.
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 40
