Love at Sea

by Preston Walker

  “Fish,” Skip shrugged. “You’ll see a lot of those out here.”

  Ash laughed, and then suddenly the boat jerked. He squeaked and staggered to the side. An image flashed through his mind, of standing a bit closer to the edge and staggering right over it and falling into the ocean. He shuddered.

  “Skip!” came a call from the bridge.

  “Excuse me, Ash,” he said and went over to speak with Linden. After a moment, he was back. However, he didn’t stop to talk. “Stay there, Ash.”

  Ash obeyed and watched as Skip grabbed Degasi. The two beta males went over to an odd contraption, which he quickly figured out was an anchor. They dropped it down into the water, and the boat came to an even more complete stop than before.

  After a moment, Ash sensed another presence and turned to see Linden leaving the bridge and walking towards him. “Got your sea legs yet?” Linden asked.

  Ash nodded, feeling his heart beat a little faster at the sight of the alpha male approaching him. “I think so.”

  “Well, then it’s time to see what you’re going to be able to do. I’m just going to be watching.” Linden smirked. “Don’t let that make you nervous.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “Hey, Ash! Come over here!”

  He turned to see Skip gesturing to him, over by the hydraulic system that looked pretty sketchy to him and had since he first saw it yesterday. It looked like some sort of abomination, like it couldn’t possibly exist. It was so goofy and illogical.

  He hadn’t noticed it earlier but the ramp that Linden had shown him now held an empty crab pot. He blinked down at it and wondered if he was just stupid or if there was something wrong here. “Is this broken?”

  “Correct!” Skip said. “Good eye. Normally, these have mesh between these bars. This one is broken so that we can use it without endangering any crabs while we train you. Even if we ‘accidentally’ grab a crab or two, that would still be illegal.”

  “Right,” Ash agreed.

  “So,” Skip said, clearing his throat. He reached out to the pot and grabbed the top part of it, showing where a long chain and a bright red buoy was attached to it. “This is going to float up on top of the surface. So now we just…”

  Without warning or any sign of what he was about to do at all, Skip just shoved the pot up the ramp. Ash blinked, inwardly wincing at the huge splash that the metal made when it slammed against the waves.

  “How much did that weigh?”

  “The size we use, only about two-hundred pounds.”

  Ash shivered a little. Only two-hundred pounds? That was an enormous amount of weight to be shifted so easily. And Skip was only a beta male.

  He slid his eyes towards Linden. How strong was his mate?

  Linden glanced at him and frowned, and he jerked his gaze away again. Linden snorted a little and turned away.

  “Look, Ash.”

  He dragged his gaze back to the water and realized that the buoy had drifted quite a distance away due to the constant motion of the waves. Something cold tapped at his arm and he glanced down to see an enormous hook the size of his head being held out to him.

  “This is where I throw it to see if I can hook the buoy?”

  “Right,” Skip said while the other two betas hung back to watch. He smiled encouragingly. “Go ahead. Try it and we’ll go from there.”

  “Okay,” Ash said and nodded decisively. He reached out to grab onto the hook and hefted it one hand, trying to get a feel for its weight. It was certainly heavy but he felt a little silly doing it because he was no athlete. What information was he trying to gather by doing this? He couldn’t even throw a baseball correctly.

  However, he reasoned that because the hook was kind of flattish in shape, he wouldn’t want to do it overhand. Wouldn’t it make more sense to throw it like he had seen track athletes toss discuses? Tilting his hand sideways, he squinted out at the buoy and let it fly.

  The hook jerked out of his hand with a surprising weight that nearly dragged him forward with it and would have if not for the hand that grabbed at the back of his shirt again. He turned to thank Skip for saving him again, and to apologize, but was surprised to see Linden releasing him and pulling away instead.

  He opened his mouth to thank him anyway but was interrupted by a shout from Skip. “Holy shit! Would you look at that! First try!”

  “What?” Ash exclaimed, whirling around. “Really?”

  Degasi held out one hand. “It looks like it, but let’s try to drag it up. Let’s see if it actually stays hooked.”

  It did.

  Ash was stunned. He was patted on the shoulder and applauded again and he had no idea how to feel about it, because he had never nailed anything right off the bat like this in his entire life.

  Maybe this is where I was supposed to be all along.

  Throughout the rest of the day, he continued to have some weird sort of success with the inner workings of the crab boat. He grabbed very quickly onto the intuition of what size crabs were safe to keep and which weren’t, plus the differences between males and females. That whole lesson was helped along with crab-shaped props that were literally just children’s toys. They were adorable and peach-colored and smooth.

  “You’ll probably get pinched about five times an hour,” Skip informed him. “You stop noticing it actually, until you reach out for something and see a crab dangling off your thumb!”

  He was also able to lift a surprising amount of weight, due to the fact that he was a shifter, and his own memory surprised him. Not only that, but he was no stranger to cooking, cleaning, sweeping, or mopping.

  Eventually, Linden went back to the bridge to pilot the Storming Lady back home. Ash stood out on the side of the ship and watched the horizon line where the sky met the sea, wondering at himself.

  “You seem like you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Matteo said, his voice contemplative and soft.

  Ash blinked at the Italian man. “It’s just that I feel good here,” he said, surprising himself with actually voicing the words out loud. “I feel like I belong here.”

  Skip smiled at him. “You’re certainly a bit of an unconventional sailor, but you’re actually a natural. You belong here. Perhaps that’s not any surprise, since Linden is your mate?”

  “Maybe,” Ash said softly. He wondered if Linden was as impressed with him as the others seemed to be.

  However, Linden didn’t seem inclined to see him go, so he was seen off by the three beta males.

  He went home, full of himself, and he answered every single question thrown at him with a renewed vigor that he hadn’t felt in years. Bridgett didn’t seem to be paying any attention to what he said at all, but his grandmother and father were amongst the most congratulatory.

  For the next week, he went back to the boat every single day. A few times, there was a young alpha male joining them. His name was Hank, and he was going to be out with them during the season.

  Ash didn’t much like Hank, especially since the alpha was constantly jostling him around. He didn’t pay much attention to it, however. He was far too interested in trying to catch glimpses of Linden, who would show up at the oddest times with a contemplative look on his face.

  He wasn’t quite sure what the alpha was thinking, but he felt as though his own awareness of the other was becoming stronger.

  Only time would tell what might happen between them, but he was feeling quite a bit more confident than he had when all this started. Maybe, just maybe, fate was right and they were meant to be.

  Chapter 8

  Somehow, the day arrived. Linden thought it would never come but here it was—the start of the season. All that previous week, he had been preoccupied with watching Ash. Time seemed to slow down when he was observing his omega, the slender muscles in his back flexing as he worked. The boy constantly hummed or laughed through his work, seemingly never without good spirits now that he was with people he felt comfortable around.

  It made him jealous, that th
e omega wasn’t like that around him. However, that was on purpose, wasn’t it? He couldn’t complain about something that he was forcing to happen. It wasn’t right or fair to anyone involved, not even himself.

  Yet, he made no effort to get to know Ash. He would leave that to the three betas, who constantly tried to regale him with interesting stories about the kid when they were drinking in their apartment late at night. Linden wanted no part of it and would either head to bed or leave again to roam the far hillside where there were no houses. It became almost the norm for him to curl up in a particularly secluded patch of grass, breath forming as frost around his muzzle. He would wake in the morning with a dripping nose, and his fur frozen together at the tips, but he was an alpha and that bout of sniffles never lasted beyond half the day.

  Despite his efforts not to know anything about Ash, he could feel their connection growing stronger. Without even trying, he could pinpoint where the boy was and what he was doing. He could feel Ash’s emotions, whether he was pouting at home in the company of a pack he no longer wanted much to do with or lounging in Regina’s store with the crazy old bat. And so he couldn’t help but to feel it whenever Ash saw him and reacted to him.

  Most of those reactions were filled with longing, and they made Linden ache inside. The others were far more difficult to deal with, because they had to do with the way Ash’s eyes lit up when he saw Linden or the breathlessness the omega felt in his presence. It was attraction, plain and simple, and he could hardly deal with his own; now he was having to deal with an echo of Ash’s arousal as well, and he just…couldn’t. There was no way to block out his awareness of the other.

  That meant when he awoke on that morning, it was not on his own terms. He had deigned to stay inside for once, curled up in one of the three bedrooms. However, when he awoke, he was no longer curled up but flat on his back with his legs spread apart and both hands wrapped around his swollen shaft.

  Damn morning wood, Linden growled. He started to release himself and rise, but he couldn’t.

  He was throbbing from the inside out, the tip of himself swollen red and dripping with desire. The press of his soft skin against the hardness of his organ was strangely erotic, and he gave himself an experimental tug. Heat surged throughout his whole entire body and he gasped, tossing his head back and writhing on the bed while his hands roamed over his own body. His skin was flushed and his nipples were erect, sensitive to the touch of his fingertips. What is this? What’s happening?

  But, he knew. Of course he knew. He could feel it in his chest: a wild, helpless attraction that was not his own. Closing his eyes, but with his hands still moving up and down on his cock, he felt for Ash’s presence. It was right there beside himself, as surely as if they were lying in bed together. He could practically feel the omega whimpering and gasping, tossing and turning with the burning sexual urge driving his body crazy. Ash was in the midst of some heated session, hands pulling at himself, desperately seeking relief, and now Linden was caught up in it.

  No, he thought. I don’t want this.

  It was too late to stop Ash from feeling his own response, but that didn’t mean he had to continue.

  Taking his hands off his cock was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Staggering to his feet and walking on legs that felt like they didn’t have enough blood in them to move, he went into the hall bathroom.

  “Hey, naked man!” Matteo cried from where he was sleeping in the living room. “That cold shower isn’t going to help, you know!”

  Linden winced and growled, but he didn’t listen. He couldn’t listen. He had to hope that the shower would help.

  Flicking on the light, Linden grabbed a towel from the closet and placed it on the toilet nearby so it would be within reach when he came out. Then, he turned on the water and made sure to leave the knob in the realm of the coldest possible spot.

  Matteo’s teasing call came again. “Wouldn’t you rather be sinking yourself into that warm, virgin flesh? Obviously, he’s waiting for you. He’s an omega! You have to satisfy him or no one will be happy!”

  Linden ignored the words and plunged into the freezing spray. Immediately, the shock of ice to his whole entire body sent him staggering back against the far wall. He couldn’t get out of range of the water, however, which was the whole point. Now it was his waist being pounded by unimaginable cold, and his member wilted rapidly. However, it didn’t do anything for the raging desire brewing in his loins, or the fact that he could feel that Ash was still overwhelmingly horny.

  “I can hold off,” he muttered to himself, reluctantly grabbing at the bar of soap on the shower caddy. Cold water didn’t make for very good suds to wash with, but he made do with what he could. However, the feel of his own fingers tracing in the contours of his muscles was enough to drive him crazy again on its own, so he soon gave up. Who cared, anyway? They were all going to be salt-crusted and reeking of crab soon, so why bother with the effort of bathing in the midst of all this frustration?

  He shut off the shower and emerged from it, grabbing the towel to rapidly dry his naked body. Brushing his teeth and combing his hair with his fingers, he emerged from the bathroom again.

  “Doesn’t look like it helped,” Skip remarked as he passed by, equally naked but with an armful of clothes clutched close to his chest.

  Linden growled at his best friend, ducking inside the bedroom to grab a t-shirt and jeans. They weren’t solely his, as they all shared clothes due to their lack of money, and didn’t fit quite right because he was a little bigger than all of the beta wolves, but they covered his nakedness. The seam of the jeans trapped his half-erect cock against his thigh, pressing on it uncomfortably. He hoped that would help him with some of the sexual feelings, but so far it didn’t have much of an effect.

  In his soul, where his awareness of Ash lived, he watched the other throughout breakfast. The omega had given up, unable to take care of his own needs.

  A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he practically dropped his fork. Catching himself, he set the bent utensil down on his plate and stared down at his uneaten meal.

  “I think he’s figured it out,” Matteo whispered to the others.

  He had.

  How had he not foreseen this?

  Ash was in heat.

  He groaned and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table to bury his face in his hands.

  “I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems,” Skip said encouragingly.

  Linden just groaned. “Why do all of you know what’s going on?”

  “Because we’re your friends and we must know what’s going on, or else we wouldn’t be able to torture you with it,” Degasi hummed happily, shoveling eggs into his mouth. He spoke through the food as he chewed. “Besides, you are nowhere near the enigma you seem to think you are.”

  Linden groaned a third time and rubbed at his face with his hands. “So, give me advice.”

  “Well, the only one that it affects is you,” Skip pointed out. “And they came out with that medicine recently, didn’t they? Like birth control for shifters? If Ash has pills to take, it will keep the urges under control.”

  “But what about that other kid I just hired? Hank?”

  He could hardly believe that sudden stroke of good luck, stumbling across an alpha who was looking for a job on a crab boat. It was almost unbelievable, but he hadn’t wanted to miss the opportunity.

  The three betas would have no reaction whatsoever to Ash’s heated state, but that other alpha…

  Matteo stood up with his plate and went to take it over to the sink. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said, in a more serious tone than he normally used. “All three of us will make sure Hank doesn’t bother your mate. I doubt he would in the first place, but on principal, we’ll watch him for you.”

  Linden sighed, feeling appreciative of his friends for the first time since they had started mercilessly teasing him.

  Why must everything in life change like this, all at once? I wa
sn’t given any warning. I didn’t have time to adapt.

  The four friends quickly cleaned up their meal and washed the dishes. Each of them had a small prepared bag of clothing and essentials, which they tied about their persons with flexible cords before transforming into wolves. With their bags still lashed to their backs, they set off for the docks and arrived at the same time as Hank. A moment later, Ash brought up the rear and skipped to a halt beside them.

  Linden glanced over at the omega red wolf and felt his heart skip a beat. The scent of Ash filled his nostrils, delicate and intoxicating.

  Where before there had been six wolves, now there were six humans looking at each other in the pre-dawn light as the sun was just barely casting rays over the horizon. All around them, the air was full of soft shouts and the sound of engines as the other fishing boats left the harbor.

  “Okay,” Linden said, clasping his hands together in front of them. He straightened his back and took a deep breath, knowing that he had to shove his emotions aside to be the captain of his vessel. “We’re going out. We have two weeks to make this count. Hank, Ash, listen to everything that Skip, Degasi, and Matteo tell you to do. Don’t question authority, but do everything right and you might be authority by the end of this.”

  Alpha and omega nodded, although Linden didn’t like the way that Hank looked at his mate. A growl rose up in his throat but he silenced it, knowing it wouldn’t do to waste time by causing trouble over something that wasn’t an issue. Yet, anyway.

  “For now, you’re what we call greenhorns. You’re new. We’re going to put you through your paces and really test you.”

  Skip grinned over the shoulders of the two younger men, knowing full-well that that meant he had permission to screw with them. Nothing cruel or undue, of course, but just a few things here and there that could be considered a sort of initiation.

  “Good luck to all of you. Let’s get going.”

  Perhaps not the most eloquent of speeches, but it served the purpose.

  Already, the others were beginning to change into their wolf forms, preparing to leap up onto the boat, but Linden stopped them.