Love at Sea

by Preston Walker

  Linden bit his lip, and Ash knew the story was coming to an end. “Ash…I have always lost things. I have always been leaving things, or having to move on. I have always been losing people, so I decided I would never get close enough to anyone to have that happen again. And for a time, I managed. And then you came along and ruined all that, and I hate you for it.”

  More unspoken words, and this time Ash called on them. “Do you still hate me?”

  “Yes,” Linden said simply. Ash’s heart twisted. “I think part of me always will. Changing is so…so difficult. I have no idea how I’m going to do it. Yet…I think…the rest of me feels…”

  Ash lifted up his hands to hold his alpha’s face between them. He gazed deep into those hurting brown eyes and whispered, “I love you, Linden. I can’t help but to love you, okay?”

  Linden closed his eyes, and two small tears beaded at their corners. “I love you too, you stupid omega.”

  Their lips touched, gently, sweetly. There was no urgency at all between them, no hurry, and no burning ferocity. It was simply something they shared between them, with their mouths pressed together. Their tongues stirred together slightly between them as well, but mostly they simply shared their breath.

  Ash was tired enough to fall asleep right then and there, but there was something happening that was going to keep him very, very awake if this kiss continued on much longer. A burning, stirring warmth filled his loins, pleasant and tingling. He would have been content to have it, to fall asleep with a teasing buzz pulsing in his blood, but he had been apart from Linden for so long, in so much need of his presence, that his body would not be content with just a kiss. It refused to cooperate, and he felt his dick slowly start to tighten and swell.

  Pretty soon, Linden was going to feel it pressing against him. A soft blush heated Ash’s cheeks, awaiting the inevitable.

  Sure enough, the alpha’s breath hitched slightly in his mouth, and those brown eyes opened just enough to gaze at him curiously. The omega tried to smile back, but his smile turned into a grin as the heat continued to rise. His breath came faster, and he couldn’t help but squirm around slightly in Linden’s grip.

  Linden pulled back slightly and kept looking into his eyes. “What’s going on there?” he growled softly, reaching down between them to place his hand right over Ash’s dick. Since the omega was wearing only a hospital gown, it was almost like there wasn’t anything between them at all.

  “Sorry,” Ash whispered, embarrassed. “I just got excited. Uh…”

  The alpha gently picked up Ash’s hand and then set it between his own powerful thighs. Ash gasped as Linden’s heat practically burned him, his cock stiff to the touch.

  “You look so cute,” Linden growled. “With your cheeks all pink like that.” He paused. “Your face-cheeks are cute, too.”

  “Hey!” Ash protested, but a giggle rose up in his throat and he wiggled his ass around, enticing Linden to grab onto it. He did, fingers squeezing and massaging so deeply that he could practically feel his touch deep inside his opening.

  Almost as if sensing exactly what he wanted, using that special connection between mates, Linden moved around slightly so that he could easily reach beneath Ash’s ass and slide one finger down between his cheeks to caress against that soft spot between his opening and his dick.

  Ash bit the pillow beneath his face, moaning softly and wriggling around. His dick was pressed against the mattress, and he moved his hips against it to try and take the edge off of the burning urge inside him.

  Linden’s finger moved back up, twirling in a gentle circle around his opening, and then rubbing deeply against the tight pucker. Whimpering, Ash bit the pillow so hard that the fabric split beneath his teeth. His body quivered, tightening and then relaxing.

  The moment he relaxed, Linden’s finger filled him up deeply. Ash felt the bumpy ridges of his knuckles against his innermost walls, and now he was trying to buck backwards against the finger in his ass while also shoving his dick on the mattress.

  Then, another finger filled him, stretching him slightly. Rather than hurting him, the sensation instead made him feel wild and untamed. Soft grunts exploding from his lips, he started to move as Linden began to thrust his fingers inside him.

  “Deeper,” Ash whimpered. “Fuck me deeper!”

  He was shivering and panting, about to burst apart at the seams. He could feel the mattress beneath him becoming wet with his own dribbling desire and knew that he wasn’t far away from coming all over his own thighs.

  Suddenly, the fingers thrust as deep inside him as they could go. He squealed and bucked his hips forward, a surge of heat starting to send his seed up the tube of his shaft; suddenly, something thicker and longer slid inside his ass to replace the fingers as they backed out of him.

  Linden mounted him from behind, shoving his hips down on the mattress to hold him still. The alpha buried his teeth in the back of Ash’s neck to stifle his own growls of pleasure, and the two wolves moved as one, rocking and thrusting hard enough to make the hospital bed creak and groan.

  Linden bit down even harder than before, and gave one last powerful thrust that sent them both shuddering away into their own individual worlds of pleasure. Light and heat and fire consumed them, until they were both spent.

  Piled on top of each other, the two wolves fell asleep rapidly.

  Chapter 16

  “Regina!” Ash called out cheerfully. “Look who I brought!”

  Linden looked right at the old lady and said, “Hello, old bat.”

  Regina squinted at him with the scowl she always wore when dealing with him. “Well, hello there, you mangy cur. I see that you’re looking better than you ever have in the whole time I’ve known you.”

  Linden had to admit that he felt better than he had in his whole entire life. It felt good and right and utterly natural to walk through town, holding hands with Ash. They had earned a few odd looks from passersby, but others had seemed genuinely pleased for them. A few people even whistled at them and congratulated them.

  Since neither of them was very personally involved in the Dutch Harbor community, it came as a bit of a shock that they were given any attention at all. However, they had caused quite a stir with the whole boat-crashing thing. The spotlight was on the crew members of the Storming Lady for the moment, until the next big thing happened to change all that.

  Rest the Lady’s soul, Linden thought sadly, thinking of the remnants of his wrecked ship rotting for all eternity beneath the Bering Sea’s deceptive surface.

  Regina cleared her throat. “So, Ash, why did you bring this mutt into my store? Are you sure he’s properly housetrained?”

  “Close enough,” Ash teased, flicking Linden a loving glance. Linden gazed back at him and smiled dotingly. “Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your advice.”

  “Wait a moment.” Linden frowned. “Her advice?”

  Regina and Ash shared a secret smile between them. “Oh, don’t you worry your head, you silly mutt. Just an exchange of words between friends. Now then, why don’t we all have some tea and you can tell me the whole truth behind this little escapade of yours out on the water?”

  “Everything happened just the way it says in the newspapers,” Linden replied calmly, leaning against the wall nearby. Ash let go of his hand and scampered over to the counter to watch as the elderly woman set about preparing a pot of tea for all of them.

  “I’m sure it did,” Regina said in answer. “But I’m also certain you left out quite a few details, and it’s those I’m interested in. I’m a nosy old lady, after all.”

  The two mates shared a glance between them, and then shrugged in unison. Really, what was it going to hurt?

  Over the next couple of minutes, Ash told his elderly friend everything. Linden hung back and watched his omega, admiring everything from the sweet furrow of his eyebrows to the way his ass poked out when he leaned over the counter to grab the mug of tea offered to him.

  “And I suppose you can ha
ve some, too,” Regina said, squinting sideways at Linden.

  He couldn’t help but grin a little at her, and her eyes smiled back.

  “Yuck!”

  They both turned to see Ash setting down his tea with an expression of disgust twisting on his sweet face.

  Regina blinked, and Linden was surprised to see that she didn’t seem offended in the slightest. In fact, she seemed a little curious. “What’s wrong there, dear?”

  Ash glanced at the old woman. “What did you do to my tea?” he asked, half-serious. “I was just starting to get used to it the way it was!”

  “I had to give you a different kind today,” the old woman replied calmly, taking a sip of her own. Steam curled about her face. “Since you can’t have caffeine any longer, that is.”

  It was Ash’s turn to blink now, his face filled with incomprehension. “Uh, why can’t I have caffeine?”

  “Pregnant people can’t have caffeine.”

  Linden sputtered and grabbed at the wall behind him to support himself. “Excuse me?” he stammered out. “Pregnant? Who, him? Ash?”

  Regina glanced back and forth between them both, and then started laughing in earnest. “Neither of you figured it out?”

  “We’re both males!” Linden gasped. “How would we know?”

  “Hmm,” the old lady hummed, sipping more tea. “An omega stops going into heat and starts putting on weight, and neither he nor his mate notice something is amiss?”

  Linden stared at Ash, but the omega wasn’t really paying any attention to him. Instead, he was looking at the woman with his mouth hanging open. “This is what you were talking about before, isn’t it? Something that you couldn’t say unless I was with Linden? Why?”

  “Because,” Regina answered softly, “Linden might be a criminal and a jerk, but he has always been a loyal man. If he knew you were pregnant before you resolved your issues, he would have supported you no matter how he felt. Feeling obligated towards one’s love isn’t exactly the best way to go about a relationship.”

  Ash just shook his head, very slowly.

  Linden stayed leaning back against the wall, trying to take all of this in stride. It wasn’t a surprise to him that a man was pregnant. They were, after all, more than simply men. They were able to completely change their chemistry around to turn into animals. If that was possible, anything was.

  It was typically the omega, or the less dominant of any pairing of shifters, who would become pregnant and carry the child. Linden thought back on all the times he had orgasmed while snug inside of his mate and realized that this had been inevitable.

  Then, he realized what that inevitable truth meant.

  He was going to be a father.

  He was going to have a child, with Ash.

  He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to do or how to feel. Panic stole through him, just as strong as the first waves of joy crashing through him.

  Suddenly, Ash was there, pressed against his body with their lips touching.

  “Don’t be afraid, okay?” Ash murmured.

  “Alphas are never afraid,” Linden growled. He was, though. In fact, he was scared shitless. He had only just started to accept the idea that he could love someone. How was he going to learn to love another?

  Yet, as he felt the soft swell of Ash’s stomach against his, he thought perhaps he might already be almost there. There was a child in there, his own flesh and blood.

  Slowly, he wrapped his arms around Ash and kissed him as deeply as he could. Their tongues danced together between them, and they were slow to part from one another.

  Regina said, “Get a room!”

  Chapter 17

  The world was changing right in front of Ash’s eyes. When he’d moved to Alaska, he’d expected something of a difference, but it was almost unbelievable to him just how far he had come in only a few short months. And the changes ahead of him, to come in another couple of months, were perhaps going to be the biggest changes of all.

  That night after they had sex, after finding out that he was pregnant, they lay together in the living room of the apartment Linden shared with his crew. Ash was draped over Linden’s body, arms and legs wrapped around him. They whispered to each other with their hearts and minds, mulling over baby names together. It was too early yet to tell whether their pup would be a boy or a girl, but it was never too soon to try and find the right name.

  So far, Ash was leaning towards Natalia as a girl’s name, but he hadn’t brought up that possibility just yet. Plenty of time.

  However, there was a lot to do in the meantime. Ash had been staying with Linden ever since they came back to the shore. His parents had sent along messages to him but they hadn’t bothered to come talk to him themselves. That was just fine with him, if he was honest with himself. He hadn’t figured out all that he was going to say to them yet, though he knew he had best do it soon.

  Neither of the mates had thought about what was going to happen after the birth. Obviously, it wouldn’t do to raise a child in a crowded apartment with strange men that weren’t all part of the same pack. That just wasn’t a suitable environment. At least, that was what the ever-romantic Matteo insisted.

  That didn’t mean that the betas were going to move out, however.

  It was Skip who voiced the idea one day, sitting down in the living room to eat the dinner that he helped Ash prepare.

  “Hey, Linden,” Skip said, in a too-casual tone of voice.

  Linden glanced at him, fork suspended halfway to his mouth. “What?” he grunted, not quite impatiently. His other hand was on Ash’s stomach, softly stroking it.

  “Do you know when you’re going to get the insurance payment?”

  It was lucky that the crash between the two boats had been deemed a total accident. Linden had insurance on his boat, and he was going to get back at least some of what he spent on it—plus, he had reported the near-miss from the fishing season in October and was being awarded a bonus settlement for any “mental effects” that he might have experienced in the aftermath of that. It wasn’t enough to make him rich—far from it—but it almost made up for missing out on the crab season.

  “Probably in a week or so,” Linden growled warily, staring down the beta. “Why are you asking?”

  The three betas glanced at one another. Degasi took over, for the moment. “You see, Captain, you and Ash here will need a special place to raise the baby. You need your own den, you see. That can’t be here, and we were thinking over how we might be able to make an arrangement work.”

  Ash glanced at his mate, a little confused. Linden didn’t look like he understood any of this either, though.

  Matteo picked up the explanation now. “We were thinking that it would be easiest for you two to head out on your own, you see? We can always get jobs here on another boat, but you two have your whole futures ahead of yourself.”

  “Matteo—”

  The Italian wolf cut off his friend. “No, no. Listen. Leave us enough of the money to carry us through with rent for the next few months. Then, you take the rest and buy yourselves a nice little house somewhere. Go off and start your own family. Be free from your pasts. Do you understand? Go. Be free.”

  Linden just shook his head. “No, my friends. Thanks, but no. I’ve been a free wolf before, remember? It wasn’t so great. I wouldn’t want to bring a child into that kind of life. I wouldn’t want to force Ash into that life.”

  Ash looked over at his mate and felt his heart ache a little for the troubles the alpha had gone through, to the point where he didn’t even really understand what he was saying.

  Freedom wasn’t roaming the world without responsibility, refusing to stop. That was a form of slavery, caged by impulse. No, true freedom was loving what you were and being content with protecting what was yours.

  I hope you understand that, someday. Maybe when you see our son or daughter…

  Linden opened his mouth to start protesting again, but Ash reached out and grabbed at his arm. “N
o, Linden,” he said softly. “Listen to me. We’re going to do it.”

  “Ash…”

  “No, Linden,” he repeated, firmer. His alpha growled warningly, but there was no real threat behind the sound. “This is the way things need to be. The baby needs a real home, and we have to do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

  Linden just looked at him for a very long time, eyes large and soft. Then, he nodded his agreement.

  “Good!” Matteo beamed. “Now that that’s settled, all we have to do now is decide where you want to go!”

  “Well?” Linden asked, grabbing onto Ash’s hands and continuing to look deep into his eyes. “I don’t care where it is. I’ve been everywhere. Home will be with you, wherever you want it to be.”

  Ash thought he knew just the place, but there was something that needed doing before any of the rest of this could happen.

  Chapter 18

  Linden looked at the door to the house that was probably humble but seemed an intimidating mansion to him. He could hear the sounds of young pups from inside, voices of all ages. It brought to mind a sense of family and peace, which very soon he was going to discover for himself.

  He looked over at Ash. Both he and his mate had groomed themselves for this occasion, in order to make the best impression possible in as short a time as they could. The ferry was going to come in only an hour, which meant they had to do this fast.

  “Do you want me to do it?” Linden asked, feeling as terrified as Ash looked. His sheltered little mate was about to take his biggest steps into the wide, deep world yet. He had to be frightened.

  However, Ash just shook his head. “No. I’ve got it. Let’s do this.”