When Felix had tried to call him back, his phone had been off. It was still turned off, judging from how his call went straight to voicemail. Felix dropped his phone in the passenger seat. What had Sorell been thinking?
He's still trying to protect you. Felix had hoped that they had dealt with that problem all of those times in the bedroom. Clearly, for as much as Sorell said he thought Felix could protect him, when it came time to actually let him, Sorell had surged ahead. It was close enough to a lie to make Felix clench his teeth.
His phone rang. Felix saw it was the man who worked the security desk at his apartments. While Felix had wanted to trust Sorell one hundred percent, he had had his doubts. Now, Felix was happy that he'd paid the security man to keep an eye on things. He'd called Felix the moment Sorell had left, told him the name of the cab company that Sorell had left in, had even called the company, using a connection to discover where that fare had been going.
Felix pressed down on the gas pedal. It felt like he was traveling in slow motion. In his head, he was back in Zambia, standing in front of Kofi's bloody door.
What if he got to Sorell too late? His entire body rebelled against the idea. He would know. They had a connection, that was obvious.
Felix would know.
That didn't stop his tires from screeching against the pavement. He saw the gas station up ahead on the corner and his heart nearly stopped. The street was not busy and the gas station did not even look open. Sorell stood on the side away from the main entrance, partially shielded by a dumpster. He was not alone, a fact that tinted his vision red. A large shifter stood in front of him. He pushed Sorell back, shoving him against the wall, his hand around Sorell's throat. He didn't look big enough to be Isaac. Felix didn't care. The shifter was going to lose that arm.
Felix stopped the car nearly on top of the two. He had enough of a mind to keep from accidentally hurting Sorell. Shoved against the wall as he was, Sorell saw Felix get out of the car while the shifter in front of him remained oblivious. He saw relief in Sorell's expression, but there was also fear.
Felix reached them in a flash, and grabbing a handful of the other man's hair, he pulled his head back and his body away from Sorell before slamming his head forward again so that his face smashed against the stucco wall of the gas station. The shifter crumpled forward and Felix grabbed Sorell by the arm. "Get in the car," he demanded before turning back to the shifter who dared harm his Sorell. He rolled the shifter over, satisfaction at the blood that poured from his nose.
"Tell your pack master to stay the fuck away from Sorell."
The man's eyes fluttered open. "Isaac always gets what he wants," he croaked.
"Not this time."
He meant to leave then, to check on Sorell, but the shifter moved to stand, scowled up at him before smiling arrogantly. "If I were you, I'd say goodbye now."
Felix's fist shot out, striking the shifter. His strikes continued to land on the other man. Felix knew he should stop, but he was lost to the anger. He was pulled back by the arm.
"Stop!" Sorell cried. "You have to stop."
Felix breathed hard, the angry haze already beginning to clear.
"Did you kill him?" Sorell asked, his voice high from fear.
Felix didn't trust himself enough to respond. Sorell reached forward, a tentative, tender hand on his shoulder. Felix snapped his gaze to him and Sorell gasped, stumbling back. Great, now the most important man in your life is afraid of you. He should've stayed in the apartment!
"Are you okay?" Felix asked, looking over Sorell's body. Other than a redness at his throat he didn't seem to have any injuries. You mean any new injuries.
"I'm fine. I'm sorry. Isaac didn't even show. I don't know, maybe it was some kind of fucking power play."
Felix held in the growl that wanted to burst out from him. "Get in the car, now," he said, his voice low. Sorell backed away from him warily.
He should be afraid of him.
Felix followed him to the car, shutting the passenger side door with more force than he should have used, but not as much as he wanted to. He got in the driver's side and took a deep breath. "Do you want to try to explain what happened?" He'd give him that much, at least.
"How did you know where I was?"
"I got the information from the cab company."
"What? Isn't that illegal?"
Felix leveled a stare at the younger man. "The dispatch operator has beers with Phil, our doorman."
"Oh," Sorell said, the word just fading away into silence.
"Oh? Is that all you have to say?"
"I'm not a child, okay? I'm twenty-three, grown, and able to make my own choices!"
Felix grabbed his cell phone and called for an ambulance. He had not killed the shifter, but he would not leave him passed out on the side of building now that reason had returned to him. He pulled out of the gas station and waited until he was on the road driving away before speaking.
"I don't believe I've treated you like you were a child, Sorell," he said, ice in his every word.
He saw Sorell wince from his peripheral vision. "I don't mean that you do, but—"
"But when I try to keep you safe it makes you feel like I am not taking your age into account?"
"I don't know, maybe?"
Felix nodded. "I'll keep that in mind from now on." He didn't plan on stopping worrying about Sorell, but it wouldn't be easy trying to protect Sorell if he was always trying to rebel. A dark thought crossed his mind. "Do you feel that way when Luke tries to protect you?"
Sorell scrunched his face up in thought. "I never thought of if that way. It's different with Luke, he's..."
Felix pulled into his apartment building's parking complex. "He's a shifter."
Sorell froze, sensing the dangerous ground they were on. "No, it isn't that. Not entirely. Felix, this is new for me. I've never been with a human. Like, a regular, normal human who didn't turn into a wolf or a dragon or a lion. I don't know the rules."
"Then allow me to tell you the rules." Felix turned the car off and rotated so that he was facing Sorell. Sorell was curled up against the passenger side door looking wary but curious. Felix ignored his pounding heart. This had to be done. "If we're going to keep doing what we've been doing then you need to obey me, Sorell. I can promise that I will never ask you to do anything that will cause you harm, but I may ask things of you that you don't like. Even in those instances, I need you to obey. I can't live not knowing if you are safe and I can't keep you safe unless you listen to me. What happened today, what I had to do to that shifter at the gas station, I don't enjoy that. I regret it, only because I regret any moment when I must harm another person. But know this, I could have killed him and would have if you had been seriously hurt. I understand you have obligations, to your pack for one, and I will do my best to accommodate those. But from now on, if you stay, I am your alpha. I am your protector." Felix took a deep breath. "If you agree to my terms, then you may go upstairs, undress yourself and wait for me on the bed, because you will be getting punished for today's stunt. If you don't, I'll let you get your stuff and will drive you back to the pack house." Felix waited for his words to sink in. Half of him expected Sorell to tell him to fuck off and drive him home. He hated pushing the younger man, but after today, he couldn't let it be any other way. He couldn't go through that again. He'd left work in an all-out panic. He had ditched patients who needed him. And he would have done it again for Sorell, but he shouldn't have to.
Sorell reached down to unbuckle his seatbelt. He licked his lips. "I'll be on the bed."
***
Sorell lifted his face to the warm spray from the showerhead. He ached in all the best places. The warm water slid down his body, loosening his tight muscles. Sex with Felix was unlike sex with any one else. Each time was like the first time and each time ended with Sorell feeling like he'd just run a marathon. A sex marathon.
Sorell smiled and grabbed the bar of soap.
"I'll take that," Felix
rumbled.
Sorell hadn't even noticed him come in. He handed the soap to Felix and turned around. Soon, Felix's strong hands were working over his shoulders, his arms, his back, sudsing and massaging as he moved downward. There wasn't a part of Sorell's body that Felix hadn't spent the week exploring. From the moment Sorell had agreed to Felix's terms, they'd been in bed.
Well, they took breaks for food and once they had thought about going grocery shopping, but Felix had suggested pizza instead and that had been the end of that.
Felix paid extra attention to massaging Sorell's backside. He smirked. "I think it's clean, Felix," he joked.
Felix snorted. "I want to be extra sure, I know how dirty we get." He bent over and bit Sorell's cheek.
Sorell yelped and jumped forward. Felix straightened, turning Sorell around to face him. Felix smiled but there was tension in his face. Sorell understood, it was the same tension he felt. Today, Sorell had planned to go back to the pack house. Something he hadn't done in nearly a week. He had never been away from his pack for so long before and if someone had asked him two weeks ago, Sorell would've said there was no way he could stay away from his pack for so long. He did miss them, but he loved the bubble he lived in with Felix, where there were no worries, no stresses. Just lips and sheets and soft moans. And loud moans. Sorell's cock hardened as he imagined everything they'd done. Felix brought with him the confidence of experience. That experience hadn't been with guys, but it translated. Lord how it translated. He had done stuff to Sorell's body that he was fairly sure wasn't legal.
"Did Pippen mention Frannie coming back early?" Felix said, hopefully.
Sorell smiled. That was the main reason why he was going back. They needed someone to watch Serena Ann. Frannie usually did it, but she hadn't gotten back from her conference yet.
The whole thing was ridiculous. It wasn't like Felix wasn't coming with him. He was going to do a check-up on Christian and his litter, before they traveled back to Louisiana for a bit and then he was going to go to the pack house and help Sorell watch the baby. Okay, help Sorell watch the baby and make sure Isaac didn't try anything. There hadn't been any calls, but Sorell wasn't fooled into believing that meant the issue was resolved. The other shoe still had to drop.
An hour later, Felix parked at the curb in front of the pack house. With a kiss, Felix turned left to go to Christian's house next door and Sorell went straight. He almost considered knocking, but then thought better of it. This was still his home. He walked in and the living room was empty, so was the kitchen. Sorell heard music coming from Finn's bedroom and figured they hadn't heard him come in because of it. He almost knocked but then heard his name.
"Sorell doesn't know what he's doing," the voice was Luke's.
Sorell froze.
"He is a great kid, but all he has done is go from one bad situation to another."
"You aren't being fair," that was Finn's voice and he sounded angrier than Sorell had ever heard him when speaking to his mate.
"A broken kid can't fix a broken man," Luke said, resolutely.
"You fixed me."
"No, you fixed yourself. And you weren't broken, love," Luke's voice was muffled then, like they were in an embrace.
Sorell backed up a few paces and then stomped forward loudly. The people inside the room went absolutely silent and Sorell would have laughed if he weren't so mad. He knocked on the door and Finn opened it, a worried look on his face. Sorell tried his best to smile and look like he hadn't just heard his pack master call him a broken kid.
"Hey, long time!" he said brightly. "What's up, boss?" he said to Luke and cursed his tone. It was too happy.
Luke regarded him with a wary expression. "Did you just get here?"
"No, I've been here for days. Yeah, of course I just got here. Don't you two need to go? I can handle it from here." Surprised that you trust your child with a broken kid. He almost scowled but stopped it.
Finn stepped forward, hugging him very quickly. "I have a little bit of time. How are you? How is...er...how's Felix?"
"He'll be here later to give Serena Ann a check-up." That didn't answer his question, but that was all Finn was getting.
Finn shifted, nervously until Luke came up and grabbed his hand. "We'll be back this evening," he said quickly, having the decency to at least blush a little. He knew that Sorell had heard him. But he wasn't going to bring that up. "Thank you, Sorell, I really appreciate this. It's great having you back."
Sorell just smiled and gave a mock salute. "Sure thing, boss." Sorell walked over to the baby's crib, all of his anger and evaporating the moment he locks eyes with the little infant. He was shocked to notice that she seemed bigger than she'd been the last time. He'd only been gone a few days, how had she grown so much? "Hey there, pretty lady," he cooed and lifted her up. She smiled up at him and then tooted on his hand. "Gross," Sorell laughed. "Nice to see you, too."
Thirty minutes later and Sorell wondered why the hell he had offered to watch the demon banshee in the first place. She had smiled, farted on him, and then proceeded to scream, without pause. He'd tried changing her, checking her for signs of sickness, and feeding her—nothing had helped. It didn't matter if he walked with her or rocked. She was inconsolable. Sorell set her down on her playmat and tried not to pull his hair out. Felix would be by soon, but Sorell wasn't sure how Felix would react to what Sorell had heard. Sorell did know that there was no way he could hide it from the man. He'd read that there was something he worried about right on his face. There was no way to hide his emotions from him. Unless...
Sorell stepped into his room very quickly and shed his clothes. He shifted, marveling at how amazing he felt shifting into wolf form. It had been too long and his wolf needed to stretch. He put his front paws out and bent down, his spine stretching as well as his back legs. He padded back into the room where the crying baby still cried. Sorell stepped so that he was standing over her and peered down in her face. She caught sight of him and stopped screaming. For a second, Sorell thought he might have scared her, but then her tiny lips pulled up into a smile. Sorell licked her face and she laughed. He stepped back and lifted his front feet up so that he stood on his hind legs only and pranced about. He felt like a dork doing it, but there was no one around to see him dance like a stupid poodle. Serena Ann laughed so hard she snorted.
"Sorell?"
Sorell froze, on his hind legs, his front paws hanging like a T-Rex. He looked at the door, Felix stood there, his mouth open in awe.
"That is you, right?"
Sorell let his front paws land on the carpet. He nodded and sat down on his hind legs. Felix knew, of course, that he was a shifter and had seen some of the others as wolves, but he'd never seen Sorell in his wolf form. As a wolf, he was a little bit smaller than the others. More like a large St. Bernard than a bear. He had brown fur that matched the color of his hair in human form, but Sorell was proud of his long, lean muscles. He was a fast runner in this form. Faster than Pippen at least, possibly even faster than Luke.
Would Felix appreciate this form? It was such an important part of who he was, he needed Felix to at least be able to tolerate it. He stepped up to Felix's feet and then sat there. He cocked his head to the side and looked up at Felix, waiting for his judgment.
Felix's face was unreadable at first. He looked down at him, his eyes moving constantly all over Sorell's body. Sorell almost felt like he could see Felix consolidating and comparing Sorell's wolf form with his human form, noting the similarities and the differences.
Then, his mouth broke into a wide smile. He patted Sorell's head. "You look like you, but not like you, obviously. You know how they say people look like their pets? It's like that. Only, you're huge."
Sorell let out a wolf-sigh of relief.
Felix regarded him. "How high do you think you can jump?"
Chapter Eight
Felix held a laughing Serena Ann on his hip as he balanced the frisbee up one foot higher on the platform they'd constructed o
ut of patio furniture and some boxes. So far, Sorell had cleared the six-foot and eight-foot markers. They were going to run out of things to make the platform any higher. Felix stepped back after balancing the frisbee at the end of the stick nine feet in the air.
"Remember, keep your hips lined up with your front so you don't twist your spine," he said to Sorell, though the wolf just snorted and pawed forward. He sat down on his haunches, regarded the position of the frisbee and then, bunched up his muscles before springing upwards like a jack-in-the-box and snagged the frisbee easily in his mouth.
Felix cheered and did his best to clap while holding the baby.
"What the hell is going on here?" Pippen asked appearing in the doorway.
"Sorell was just showing us how high he can—"
"He's not a dog," Pippen snapped.
Felix felt the hair on his arm rise. Pippen had always been nice to him. What had happened? "I know that, Pippen. Is everything okay?"
"I don't think so. Sorell, shift. I called Frannie's hotel. She wasn't answering her cell, which is not like her. When I called the hotel they told me she wasn't there. They wouldn't even tell me if or when she checked in. I don't think she ever made it to her conference."
Serena Ann began to cry and Felix latched onto that noise, using it to stay sane, stay present. They didn't know that there was anything wrong yet. Pippen was just worried. His sister was fine.
Sorell stood beside him in a second. He pulled on his shirt and then searched his pant pockets. "Fucking Isaac," he mumbled as his motions grew more frantic. "I knew it. I knew this would happen!" His hands shook when he finally found his phone. He pressed a button and put it up to his ear.
Felix didn't think before swiping the phone away from Sorell's face. It clattered against the patio. Sorell turned on him and snarled furiously. His eyes widened as he realized what he'd done before visibly deflating. Felix took another measured breath. He would stay calm and in control. Not just for Frannie, but for Sorell. Clearly, he needed that from Felix right now. He grabbed Sorell's hand tightly.
Wolf's Mate Mpreg Romance Box Set Page 40
