The feeling of Oliver’s fingers in his fur interrupted all human thoughts Sebastian could have. The only thing that was important, the only thing that mattered was how Oliver played with the strands of Sebastian’s mane, how he grabbed them and tugged lightly, how his fingers skimmed between the tresses until they touched the skin underneath.
A low noise filled the room and Sebastian realized that yeah, he was purring. He knew it was a noise most types of cats did when they were happy, even shifters, but it didn’t seem very...manly. At least it didn’t sound like a real cat’s purring. It was more like a chuffing, but still...it made it very obvious that Sebastian liked this.
Once Sebastian’s lion was satisfied, he concentrated on his human form and let the shift wash over him. Oliver ended up with his hands on Sebastian’s head, his fingers woven deep in his hair. Sebastian leaned a bit toward him and they were so close they could have kissed, which was exactly what Sebastian intended to do. He’d had enough of resisting. His wound had made it clear that he was breakable—a few inches to the side and he would have been dead.
Leaning in, he gave Oliver the time to move away if he wanted to. He doubted the man would do it, though. Oliver had been very clear about what he wanted from Sebastian in the past days, if not with words, with his body. The little scene from earlier was enough indication of that.
Just as Sebastian thought, Oliver didn’t move. If anything, he seemed to be inching even closer as he spoke. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
Sebastian snorted. “God, you’re wrong, so wrong. It’s the exact opposite.” Sebastian stamped a quick kiss on Oliver’s lips. “I want you so much I was afraid I’d be too aggressive and that I would have ended up hurting you.”
Oliver’s cheeks flushed and Sebastian seared the image in his memory. It wasn’t something he had seen often—Oliver was too confident for that.
“I won’t break, Seb. I’m fine now, and I want you.” Oliver was still cradling Sebastian’s head in his hands, the gesture speaking of how much he cared for Sebastian.
Sebastian used his shifter speed to swing on the table and sit on the edge of it, his legs dangling down as he pulled Oliver to his chest. He fitted between Sebastian’s legs as if he had been made for him, and maybe it was exactly like that. Sebastian hooked his legs behind Oliver’s knees and pulled him even closer, Oliver’s arms ending up around his neck as Sebastian took his mate’s face in his hands.
He didn’t hesitate, not anymore. Sebastian took what Oliver freely offered, crushing their lips together and snaking his tongue into the moist heat of Oliver’s mouth. Their tongues tangled and stroked, their mouths sucked and nipped as their breaths became ragged.
Sebastian secured his fingers in Oliver’s hair as he pressed closer still, and it reminded Sebastian that he was naked. He could feel Oliver’s jeans against his cock, the rough fabric strangely stimulating as their erections ground together.
Sebastian didn’t know how far Oliver wanted to go, and he didn’t want their first time to be on an operating table in the infirmary with injured shifters right next door, but Oliver seemed to have his own ideas.
When their mouths separated, Oliver fell on his knees, startling Sebastian. “Babe, you don’t have to—”
He couldn’t finish the sentence because his cock was suddenly engulfed in Oliver’s sweet mouth. All coherent thought disappeared from Sebastian’s mind as his blood rushed to his groin. Oliver set a punishing pace from the very beginning, bobbing his head up and down as he sucked and licked Sebastian’s length. It had been so long since Sebastian had experienced someone else’s touch there that he was ready to blow in two seconds flat.
Threading his fingers into Oliver’s soft, dark hair, he started moving his hips as Oliver sucked his cock, concentrating on the cap as his hand rose to cup his sac and play with it. “Babe...”
The suction became impossibly harder, and Oliver scraped his teeth on the sensitive skin of the head of Sebastian’s cock. His orgasm crashing through him and Oliver drank down every drop of his seed. He leaned away only after thoroughly cleaning Sebastian’s shaft, a satisfied smirk on his lips as he looked up.
It took a few seconds for Sebastian to come out of his lust-induced fog. “Come here. It’s your turn now.”
Oliver looked down at his hands, but not before Sebastian managed to see the red color expanding on his cheeks. It must be my lucky day.
“I, uh, I’m okay.”
Sebastian saw the wet spot expanding on the front of Oliver’s pants and he couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face. Sliding down the table, he hauled his mate up by the arms and kissed him thoroughly before releasing him and reaching for one of the drawers in the small, metallic cabinet in the corner. Taking out two pairs of sweats, he handed one to his mate and put his pair on.
“Was it...it was bad, right?”
Sebastian couldn’t help but take the time to reassure his mate. Oliver came first, before even his Alpha or his friends, and Sebastian knew the whole situation was probably awakening bad memories for his lover. “Yeah, it was, but we got them out. I’m sure that with Jared’s help they’ll all end up being all right.”
Oliver nodded, leaning into Sebastian’s body to give him one last kiss before he opened the door. Chaos was reigning on the other side.
There were only two people medically qualified in the pride, and they weren’t enough, not even for the small number of people they had rescued.
A small man was lying on one of the cots, his eyes staring blankly in front of him. One of the human mates of the pride, Traci, was sitting next to him and softly talking as she bandaged his hand, but he wasn’t reacting. She kept throwing worried glance at the other side of the room, but she didn’t move from where she was.
Another man was sitting on the cot next to his, looking at the situation in front of him. A large man Sebastian thought was a wolf from the strong scent he smelled was snarling at Jared and Jill as they tried to help him, blood trailing down his chest. He didn’t let any of them get near him, snapping his teeth at them. The most surprising thing, though, was the presence of Keenan right behind him. The man didn’t seem to have a problem with the smaller human, it was exactly the contrary, actually.
His arm was keeping Keenan behind him, as if he was protecting him, even as Keenan tried to convince him that he had nothing to fear, that they were only trying to help him. The man wasn’t having any of it, though, but luckily he didn’t notice Finn shimmering right behind him. The Nix was holding a syringe in his hand and with an apologetic glance at Keenan, he stabbed the needle into the man’s arm. The guy roared and swung around, but Finn had already shimmered to the other side of the room with Keenan.
It didn’t seem that Keenan was okay with it, though, and he ran back to the man just as he collapsed out cold on the floor. Sebastian was used to seeing Keenan react strongly to a lot of things, but not to that extent. Tears were flowing down his cheeks as he went down on the floor and cradled the man’s head in his lap, his hand caressing the long, dark hair that was flowing from the man’s head.
Sebastian stepped ahead and helped Jared to get the man—the wolf, because now he was sure the man was a wolf—onto one of the free cots, even if he barely fit. Keenan never left the man’s side, and Sebastian knew there was a story there, but now wasn’t the time to ask. Taking his mate’s hand, he led Oliver out of the infirmary and into the hallway, where they took the stairs two by two until they reached their room.
Once inside he noticed right away that Oliver’s things were missing from the bedroom. The man didn’t have much, not yet, but his books were missing, and Sebastian could see his clothes were gone since the dresser was open. “Where are your things?”
Oliver looked at him, an embarrassed smile on his face. “See, it went like this...”
Chapter Four
God, this was so frustrating! Oliver had tried them all, but he just couldn’t seem to be able to shift. Jared said that while his body might have n
ot been born a shifter, Adrian’s serum helped it maintain the right balance with his bear and should make it possible to let him out, but he just couldn’t.
He had asked Sebastian, then Bryce, and even Dominic how they shifted, and they had all said the same thing. They just had to concentrate on their cat and they shifted. It seemed easy enough, but there was one little problem. It didn’t work with Oliver.
He had spent hours thinking about the damn bear, and Yogi was now more than ever irritated with Oliver just as much as Oliver was with him. No matter how much time he thought about it, Oliver stayed in his human form, even if Finn had insisted that he had seen him partially shift. Oliver trusted his friend, but sometimes he thought that maybe he had imagined the whole thing or that he had seen wrong.
A smack on the back of his head brought Oliver back to the present situation. He liked the fact that Bryce didn’t treat him with kid gloves anymore, had never really done so, but he could definitely do without the smacks. “What the fuck?”
“Concentrate! How do you expect to shift if you can’t even do that?”
“You better not let Sebastian see you smacking his mate around,” Keenan said from the corner where he was sitting on the back porch, but it lacked his usual snarky tone. The man had been really down in the past days, and Oliver suspected it had something to do with a certain wolf shifter, even though Keenan refused to even admit something was wrong.
“It’s not my fault Yogi is being a bitch.”
Bryce shook his head, a smile on his lips. “I’ve never met a shifter who named his animal part, and with such a ridiculous name...”
“Hey, I like the name!” Oliver protested. “Besides, I’m not a born shifter. Yogi has been a part of me for only a year and something, so I don’t actually feel like he’s my other half or whatever. He’s just a bear that happens to live in my body, and he’s not even polite.” Oliver wasn’t exactly sure a bear could be polite, but Yogi sure was snarly.
“Want to try again?”
Oliver thought about it, but he really already knew the answer. “I think I’m done for today. Maybe the serum isn’t working properly, or maybe it hasn’t completely kicked in yet. I don’t think it’s useful to keep on pushing like this if I have no results.”
Bryce looked dubious, but he let it go, probably happy to be able to ditch Oliver. He knew he wasn’t the best company when he tried to shift, because it got frustrating and he got as snarly as Yogi when he didn’t manage to do what he had set his mind to.
Bryce left to go find Finn, probably, and Oliver waited to see if Keenan wanted to do something together or if he would be leaving too. He was worried for his friend, though, so he decided to push a bit. “Keenan, want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Oliver sat on the bench next to his friend and waited. He thought Keenan wouldn’t answer after a while and he started to get up, but Keenan stopped him, leaning a hand on his arm. “How...how did you know Sebastian was your mate?”
“Well, he told me, remember? I didn’t leave my room for months, so I didn’t know he was my mate. I didn’t even know what mates were until I met Jamie.”
“I mean, how do you know he’s your mate? Does it feel special, different?”
Oliver thought about it. It wasn’t really something that was easily described, but he could try. “I feel a...pull, I guess, toward Sebastian, as if with him I can be myself and I know he will still accept and love me. As if he’s what I’ve been missing even if I didn’t know I was missing something, as if we’re meant to be together. It wasn’t love at first sight, but I’ve always felt strongly about him.”
“How would I know if I was a shifter’s mate?”
“Do you want to be with...him?” Oliver wasn’t sure who Keenan was talking about, and his friend had been known to go out with both sexes, but he had an idea that the big bad wolf was who they were talking about.
“It’s stronger even than it was with Bryce, and Bryce is the only person I ever fell in love with. I want to be with him, to sooth him and to help him recover, to always be there for him. I want to get to know him because I know we would be perfect for each other.” Keenan should have been happy to find out he had a mate, but the man had leaned his chin on his knees and was staring at his feet. He had yet to look at Oliver since the shifting training session had ended.
“Then I’d say you found your mate, but I can’t be sure. You know I’ve been a shifter for only a short amount of time, and I don’t know if I’m feeling the pull differently than if I had been completely human. Maybe you should ask Jamie about it.”
The smile Keenan gave him was brave, but Oliver could see the sadness in it. “I don’t think it will be necessary. I don’t want Jamie to be worried, and even if he is my mate, he made it clear he didn’t want me, so...”
Oliver desperately wanted to comfort his friend, but he didn’t know how. “We’re talking about that wolf guy, right?” Not all the shifters the pride had rescued had come home to the mansion. Out of six shifters, only three had moved in with them—a fox shifter, a bobcat shifter who unfortunately was still not talking, and the wolf. They had also found out several humans were in the lab, and three of them had come to the mansion. After Jared had examined them, two of them had already gone home.
Keenan thought about it, then seemingly decided he could trust Oliver. “Yeah, I’m talking about Jonah. He’s the wolf shifter. I...as soon as I saw him the other night I just knew he was mine. I felt so happy, even if he was hurt and wary, but I thought that my presence would help him heal. Instead...he can’t wait to run away from me.”
“Did you talk about it?”
“I tried, but since he woke up in the infirmary he won’t talk to me. I...I’m not even sure if I’m really his mate or if it’s something else I’m feeling. If I really was his mate, wouldn’t he want me?”
“Ah, Keenan, I don’t know. I’m not sure how this mate thing works, you know? From what I’ve seen here they always end up together, though, so maybe you could try again. I’ve been where he is right now, and I guess he has to get his life back before he can think of someone else. It’s been only a few days—give him time, then try to talk to him again.” Oliver looped his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Everyone here loves you, I don’t see why he shouldn’t. You kind of grow on people, you know?”
Keenan finally smiled as he bumped his shoulder into Oliver’s chest. “I know, I’m that lovable. So, what about you? Have you already done the deed with Sebastian? Because I have to say I don’t see any mating bites on either of you two.”
Oliver recognized the attempt to change the subject of the conversation, and he gladly went with it, even if he didn’t really want to talk about his sexual life, with anyone. “Nope. I’m making him work for it.”
“You don’t still think he doesn’t want you, right?” Keenan asked in a worried tone.
“No, don’t worry. When he was down in the infirmary we...talked,” Oliver managed to say with a straight face, but Keenan’s smirk was enough proof that he knew what talking had been about. “Then he found out I had moved my stuff and he got angry, so I moved everything back. I know he wants me, he told me he was just scared he would’ve hurt me, but it didn’t actually change anything. With the new shifters in the house and his job, we don’t really get a lot of time to ourselves.”
“Maybe you should organize something.”
“Like what?” Oliver wasn’t sure he could trust Keenan’s crazy ideas, but it couldn’t hurt just to listen to them, right? The wicked smile on Keenan’s face made him think he might just be wrong.
“Did I ever tell you about what Jamie bought Ward for Christmas?”
* * * *
Sebastian held still and watched as Ani shimmered into the kitchen. The little guy was still mostly afraid of big men, and nearly everyone in the mansion was big, at least to him, since he had to be about five foot three or four.
The Nix’s eyes widened a bit at the sight of Sebastian leaning against the co
unter, but he didn’t immediately shimmer away, which was progress. A few weeks ago he would have been gone before Sebastian would have had the time to say hi. “Hello, Ani.”
“Umm, hi.”
Sebastian kept his attention on his mug of coffee and started to inch toward the door when a loud sigh coming from Ani’s lungs stopped him. Yeah, he was curious, so what? He didn’t have many interactions with the guy, and while he tried to respect the man’s fear, he also thought that he would never get over it if he didn’t start being with the big shifters around the house a little bit more.
Sebastian was mated to one of Ani’s friends, so he knew he should be safe in the man’s eyes. He wasn’t sure if the fact that he wasn’t technically mated yet would influence that, though, so he decided to let Ani set the pace. The small Nix neared him and reached for the coffee pot, his hands slightly trembling.
Sebastian smiled and grabbed a mug from the cupboard above him, handing it to Ani, who accepted it with a small smile. “Thank you.”
Sebastian knew exactly what the man would find in the mug, since he had seen Dominic slip a note in it a few minutes earlier. “If I were you, I’d check the mug before you fill it.”
Ani looked and reached inside, his fingers coming out with a small piece of paper. The smile Ani now sported was soft and made Sebastian think that Dominic was breaching the Nix’s heart, little by little. He didn’t know who had given him the note idea, but it seemed to be a good one.
“How...how is Oliver?”
Oliver Page 6
