Silver-Steel

by Belinda McBride

  Dylan licked it away.

  “On your back.”

  Travis wasn’t ready for more, but he obeyed and then looked up at the fae in awe. Dylan had dropped his glamour; his hair looked like a white-gold halo around his bare body. Startled, Travis saw faint, shining marks gleaming on the fae’s throat and wrists. They were familiar. Tattoos—a torc and wide bracelets etched in ghostly metal. His eyes glowed green in the darkness like the eyes of a cat.

  Before Travis could move, Dylan covered him, dragging his dick over Travis’s belly. He leaned in to bite and suck, leaving marks on Travis’s chest, shoulders, and neck. One arm braced his weight, the other kept Travis pinned, and fingers twined through his hair. Dylan bared his teeth, and Travis snarled back, receiving a cruel, savage kiss as reward for his resistance.

  “Be still!” Dylan growled as he spoke.

  “Fuck you!” Travis arched, trying to throw the other man off his body, but Dylan’s hips dropped to meet and pin his. They wrestled, scrambling for position, and once again the older man had the advantage. He flipped and pinned Travis so he was facedown in the pillow. Travis went perfectly still as Dylan straddled his ass and let his cock trail over the skin of Travis’s back, down to the crack in his ass. Travis shivered, suddenly terrified.

  “Shh…” A warm palm stroked him soothingly. “Not going there, Travis. Not this time, anyway.” He could hear laughter in the other man’s voice and began to relax. Dylan rocked his hips in a gentle, steady tempo, pushing Travis’s hips into the bed. He was hard again, and when the fae rose, Travis missed the contact. Strong fingers teased, skimming over his opening, pressing and teasing at the tender skin behind his balls. The massage had him ready again, and Travis straightened his arms, pushing up. A hand between his shoulder blades shoved him back down.

  “Do not move.”

  “But…”

  He yelped at the stinging slap Dylan planted on his ass. “I’ve wanted to spank your ass from the moment you walked into that bar. You came in looking for trouble, didn’t you?”

  Another stinging slap landed, this time on the other cheek.

  Travis caught his breath. “Looks like I found it. Ow!” He squirmed, biting his lip as his cock grew ever more sensitive. Another smack, and then another. He writhed, bucked, and yelled with each sharp blow. Humiliation raced through him. Excitement drew his balls tight. Travis reached back and struck futilely at Dylan, who captured his hands and pinned them at the small of his back. Another blow landed, and Travis snapped.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’m a cock-tease and a troublemaker. I’m nothing but a disappointment to everyone who knows me. I’m a fuckup—” He jerked as another strike came down, and he struggled dangerously close to a climax. “I’m a stupid idiot. I’m a slut and a whore and a goddamn fucking omega coward, and everyone seems to know it but me! And I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m such a freak!”

  He came then, in bitter, searing waves that rocked him, and he panted, his breaths turning to deep, painful sobs. He thrust, his semen jetting out in hot bursts, and as he lay facedown, hiding what he’d just shared of himself, he felt drained and weak. Dylan released his wrists, and Travis’s hands fell limp at his sides. He was ruined. Destroyed. Helpless against the soft touches on his skin, the kisses at his nape.

  He cried.

  “I am truly sorry, Travis. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Yes, you did.” He turned his head slightly. “You even said it. You wanted to spank my stupid pathetic ass the first time you saw me.”

  He felt the soft brush of a sigh against his cheek. Dylan rolled him to his side and wrapped an arm around him. Travis tried to break loose, to roll facedown again, if only to let his tears soak into the pillow. Hell, would his father have cried? Would Blacque?

  Not likely.

  A hand gently stroked his hair, then his cheek, and Travis remembered just how much the fae had avoided touch. Was this difficult for him?

  “You know you are none of those things. Well, I’m sure you are a bit of a troublemaker, but I suspect that’s due to a very lively intellect that’s not being utilized.”

  Travis snorted.

  “You’ve long felt these things yet have never shared them, have you?”

  “Who’d want to listen?” He reached up and scrubbed at his face. Damn drugs. They totally took the spine from him.

  Of course, he’d just endured having his ass spanked like an eight-year-old who’d broken the kitchen window.

  Oh, wait… That would have been him. He’d cried after that spanking too.

  “I imagine those who love you would listen.”

  Problem was, those who loved him…well, they were part of the problem. He’d never be able to bare his soul like he just had—not to family. Especially not to his mother, who thought he walked on water. He curled into himself a little tighter and pulled Dylan’s arms a bit more securely around his body. They lay in silence, insulated from the entire world. And something odd was happening.

  “How do you feel, Travis?”

  He thought about it before answering. “Peaceful. Empty.” He felt good. The burn had faded to a tingle. He reached up and tentatively fingered the bite mark on his neck. If Dylan had been a shifter, that mark would have been a claiming. But he wasn’t, and it was highly unlikely he’d want to mate a reluctant omega. But maybe he’d like to have sex again, maybe even see each other a few more times. Now that Travis had taken a step to the dark side, he wanted to explore a bit more. With Dylan.

  “TELL ME ABOUT omegas.”

  Dylan rested his chin on the top of Travis’s tousled hair, feeling all sorts of low. He’d known the young shifter was hiding a lot, but had no clue it would come rushing out like that. It wasn’t unusual for someone to experience catharsis after being dominated, but there were depths to Travis he hadn’t expected. His self-image was in the gutter. It was sad, and he had no clue how to go about patching up the broken pieces of the young man’s emotional wreckage. In truth he hadn’t worried about someone else in ages. He barely gave thought to his own well-being, focused as he was on surviving his hunts. And now his final hunt.

  The one he should be focused on instead of cuddling a reluctant lover in a ratty old motel room.

  “I know the alphas are the dominant figures in the pack.”

  Travis sighed. For a moment Dylan thought he wouldn’t answer.

  “The alpha is the top-ranked wolf, male or female. It’s like they’re the apex of the pyramid. Below the alpha are the more dominant wolves in the pack. Some are his lieutenants; others are just members whose positions in the hierarchy are fluid. The omega, well… They’re the bottom of the heap. They have no dominant impulses and in some packs are easily victimized. In a dysfunctional pack, they’re the last to eat and tend to be picked on a lot. They sexually service other wolves and tend to take the brunt of the pack’s bad mood because they won’t stand up for themselves.”

  “Because they are overly submissive?”

  Travis nodded glumly.

  “Well, you certainly resisted my attempts to dominate you. I doubt you’re at the bottom of your pack.”

  “No, my mother is.”

  He broke out of Dylan’s hold and rolled to his belly. Feeling the chill of the room, Dylan pulled the covers up over them. “I was at the bar on Thanksgiving because a few days ago, some of the lower-ranked females took my mother on a run she couldn’t keep up on. They tried to lose her, and she ended up running out onto the road. She got hit by a car.”

  Oh shit. Dylan bit his lip, remembering the terror of that moment—his car striking a wolf, and watching her morph into a woman.

  “Was she…?”

  “She’s fine. A little battered. The alpha’s out of town, and his beta tried to punish her for shifting in front of an outsider, and I got into it. Then Lukas—that’s my brother—he intervened and put the women on work detail. Michella is furious about being usurped by Lukas. So we had the pack at the alpha’s for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t easy.
”

  “And you left?”

  “I stuck it out for dinner and took my mom home. Then…I don’t know. I just felt crazy in the head. Needed to get out and burn off some energy, I guess. Maybe I shoulda gone running instead of drinking.”

  “That might have been the wiser choice.” To Dylan’s relief, Travis chuckled. They lapsed into silence, and it felt comfortable. Dylan never shared a bed. Usually he took his sex on the run—in an alley or a dark car. Maybe their place, as long as he could get up and leave afterward. He even dropped in on the occasional fetish club when his needs were darker. Tonight he hadn’t wanted to hurt Travis. He just wanted him to… He wasn’t sure. He wanted him to pay attention to himself, maybe. He’d seen enough in the shifter’s dream world to know there was so much more to him than what he believed of himself.

  And when he’d dragged himself from that dream—that horribly beautiful replay of his youth—Dylan had been stunned, devastated. Yet somehow he’d followed Travis back to reality, only to find them wrapped together, his hand full of hot, throbbing cock. He should have felt more guilty for taking advantage of the moment, but he didn’t. Not at all. Travis was an adult and could have turned him down at any time.

  “Dylan, how old are you?”

  “What?” He raised a brow, surprised. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “Well, you’re fae. You’ve got white hair, but that’s not from age, is it?”

  He shook his head. It hadn’t been time that had turned his hair white.

  “You just… I don’t know. You talk like someone from another time. Sometimes you talk sorta old-fashioned, and I can’t figure out your accent.”

  “I am from another place far away. And yes, it was another time. I can’t really say how old I am, because I don’t know.”

  He wasn’t going to go into details about Homewood and how time flowed differently there. Travis didn’t need to know. Nor did he need to have a glimmer of the fact that Dylan didn’t count his age in years—or even decades. Sometimes there were lapses, where his master took him out of the flow of time, letting Dylan suffer through the crawling pace of years while only hours passed in the human realm. Other times he was in Ulric’s realm only moments, but when he returned to hunt again, decades had fled.

  “I suppose my language sounds archaic because I long ago abandoned the effort to adapt to the slang of the time. It passes so rapidly.”

  Travis nodded, looking sober. “Well, that’ll give Bleu something to chew on.” Dylan looked at him in confusion. “He’s a vamp, and so’s his great-granddaughter, April. My father kinda likes her, I think. He’s forty years older than her, and Bleu thinks he’s robbing the cradle.”

  Dylan frowned, quickly calculating the years. “But your brother—”

  “Is in his thirties. And Bleu is about a century old. But no, he doesn’t see the irony.”

  Dylan recalled seeing the tough shifter in Travis’s dream. He’d walked with a heartbreakingly beautiful vampire. That would be Bleu. The man rolling on the grass with the children was the pack alpha, Dane Blacque. Slowly Dylan made sense of the images he’d seen in Travis’s dreams and the details he’d gleaned from him. He’d done some research of his own before coming to Arcada. Of course his research hadn’t been academic in nature. Dylan had brutally plundered the dreams of countless men and women and painstakingly created an image of the mysterious town and its residents.

  “Are there any people like me in Arcada?” He allowed a throb of loneliness to enter his voice. It was real, so he wasn’t really deceiving Travis, was he?

  “There’s no one like you specifically.” Travis didn’t seem uncomfortable talking about his home and neighbors. “Are you asking about fae?”

  Dylan nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “I don’t know much about the fae. There seem to be a lot of you. All different sorts too.”

  That made him smile. “More than you can imagine.”

  “I’ve got a couple friends… They’re kinda odd. You can’t really tell if they’re guys or girls, but they shape-shift into something else. They can play with fire and ice. Stuff like that.”

  Dylan’s heart beat a little faster. “Elementals. They’re rare.”

  “And I’ve got a friend Jason. He works at my brother’s auto shop.” He grinned. “There’s even a little elf lady. She works at the post office. Looks normal as can be, unless you see her under the moon. Her boyfriend’s a fox shifter. I see them out and about sometimes.”

  “Do you spy on everyone?”

  Travis laughed. “I don’t really spy; I just run a lot. You see some surprising things happening in the middle of the night.”

  Dylan lay staring at the ceiling but not really seeing it. He was so close, and now he knew exactly where to look. He glanced over at Travis and stifled a flare of guilt.

  He deserved his freedom. He’d been held captive to the will of Ulric for far too long. And this wasn’t a kill; it was a capture. He was so close.

  Over on the rickety nightstand, his phone gave the little chirp that told him a message was coming. He didn’t need to see it. Still, he turned his head and looked at the illuminated display.

  #1000?

  Fuck. He reached over Travis, who was half-asleep by now. Dylan sat up and sent a quick reply:

  Target located. Close.

  He then set the phone aside, unwilling to look at the vile piece of technology. It was just another leash that kept him tethered. He turned his thoughts to ways to lure a shy fae from the safety of Arcada.

  Chapter 8

  The storm broke, but from the looks of the sky, more snow was on the way.

  In all his life, Travis couldn’t remember a storm like this, one that literally shut down transportation and business. Fortunately the motel had kept power, and they’d been able to nuke some soup to go with the sandwiches Dylan threw together. He was still hungry but not ravenous.

  He peered out the window, grinning at the wall of snow rising just feet away from the door. The breezeway was surprisingly well built; most of the snow slid from the roof down to the parking lot. Dylan wouldn’t be driving anywhere soon; his black Caddy was completely buried in snow. Travis’s muscle car was probably just a bump in the Roadhouse parking lot.

  But plows were running, and soon his brother would come calling for him. Hopefully he’d leave behind the womenfolk.

  God, Drusilla would kick his ass if he said something smart like that in front of her!

  He paced a little, feeling odd in his borrowed clothing. Dylan’s black jeans were too long, the long-sleeved shirt slightly tight. But Travis wore his own boots and coat, so in all he was fine. He prowled the room, not wanting to snoop but curious about his benefactor. He didn’t know what Dylan did for a living. The man had money; his clothes and car were top-of-the-line. But no personal possessions sat out in his room. No photos, no knickknacks. The room was spartan, with only a bed, a desk, and a couple of chairs. Travis spotted a black laptop and rolled his eyes. The guy had no clue about color.

  He ended up in the recessed vanity area, ignoring his reflection in the mirror and focusing on the few items by the sink. Toothbrush and paste. A comb. No razor, which made sense; the fae didn’t have facial hair unless they wanted it. With a grin he headed back to the nightstand and pulled the drawer open. A half-full box of condoms and little pillows of lube. So Dylan liked his sex on the run. He smiled and pushed the drawer closed. A loud pounding on the door made him jump.

  “Travis!”

  He flushed in mortification. He should have heard his brother approaching. Hell, he should have felt him nearby. Blacque wasn’t particularly subtle about throwing out his power. Travis opened the door and stood back as Lukas Blacque stalked into the room.

  His dark eyes were sharp as he surveyed the space, looking for danger, no doubt. He wore a dark blue jacket and gloves. His booted feet were crusted with snow. His short hair had grown out; he usually buzzed it to the scalp every day. He’d skipped a
couple of shaves. The hair softened his edges, showing what a handsome man he really was.

  Lukas looked at Travis, examining him from top to toe. With a touch of chagrin, Travis realized there was no way Blacque would miss the scent of sex in the room. He’d showered and was wearing someone else’s clothes, and he’d even stripped the sheets. But Dylan’s scent was still all over him. He felt the heat of a flush, but his brother just turned away. At least if he was going to get caught boffing a guy, it was Lukas who’d found him out.

  “You okay to walk a ways?”

  Travis glanced at the window and saw the deep trail Blacque had left in the snow. Of course his brother was a good four inches taller than Travis and had longer legs as well.

  “How far?”

  “Maybe a half mile. I pulled over at Ox Yoke Road.”

  He nodded. “I can do that.” He didn’t want to do that—not on two feet. But given the look on his brother’s face, he wasn’t about to cut Travis any slack.

  Blacque cleared his throat and looked at Travis searchingly. “You okay? The fellow who called… I wasn’t sure if I should believe him.”

  “I’m fine. Tired and punky. And Dylan, he saved my ass. Literally.” He shivered now that he allowed himself to remember.

  “Let’s get out of here, then.” He started to leave, and Travis stepped back.

  “Not yet. Gotta…you know…thank him.”

  “I’d say you thanked him plenty.” Blacque did not look pleased. Just then the bathroom door opened, and fog rolled into the room. Travis closed his eyes briefly to capture the scent of Dylan on the air. The fae stepped out, shirtless, still damp, his pale hair wet and loose. He straightened, and subtly his glamour descended to transform him into someone quite ordinary. Blacque narrowed his dark eyes in anger.