“Marcus?” he whispered.
“You can come in, I’m not asleep.”
Isaiah looked sheepish. “Did I wake you?”
Marcus sat up. “Nope. Did you want to talk?”
Isaiah came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. It was small enough though that he was nearly sitting next to Marcus. “Is this okay?”
“If you’d come in here and laid down next to me, it would have been fine too. You’ll see, in time, that boundaries don’t really exist here. Not unless you make them. Everyone is going to be careful with you though for a long, long time, until you tell us that you’re ready for more. But yes, this is fine. Whatever is comfortable for you is completely good for me.”
Isaiah awkwardly lay down beside him. “I don’t want people to be careful with me. I don’t want to be treated differently. I want to be normal. Well, as normal as a human in a werewolf world can be.”
Marcus tried, and failed, not to snort at that. Isaiah could deny it all he wanted, but Marcus knew what he was. Still, he wasn’t going to continue to argue that point with him. He had faith that Isaiah would see who, and what, he really was in time. “Your abuse though—”
“That’s just it,” Isaiah said, interrupting him. “I don’t see what was done to me as abuse. What I did when I was living on the streets, that’s survival. I could have gone hungry, I chose not to unless I absolutely couldn’t make that deal with someone. When I was cold, I found places to stay, when I needed food, I got it. I chose what I did and who I did it with. I don’t see it as abuse. I don’t see those people as having taken advantage of me. Some of them, yeah, they were sick bastards. But I was a willing participant in everything that was ever done to me while I was living out there.”
Marcus was still pissed about what Isaiah’d been through, but he also saw his point, as skewed as it was. “I don’t like it,” he grumbled.
Isaiah rolled over onto his stomach.
Marcus turned to look at him. The narrow bed made not touching each other impossible.
“You don’t have to like it. I’m not asking for your approval, or your pity. I’m just saying, if you think I’m some fragile victim, I’m really not.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Isaiah yawned, and Marcus knew it was late, but it was also nice to have him nearby. Despite the uncertainty and awkwardness between them, he enjoyed having Isaiah close to him. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Isaiah gave him a sleepy smile. “In your bed or in your pack?”
Marcus tried very hard not to ever lie to anyone if he could help it, and especially not people in his pack. “Honestly, the answer is both.”
Isaiah didn’t look surprised by that, so maybe Marcus wasn’t as good at hiding when he was attracted to someone as he thought he had been. Still, that didn’t mean anything. It didn’t have to anyway.
But then Isaiah gave him a gentle kiss.
Marcus held still, letting it happen, and he didn’t ask for more. He didn’t push Isaiah away either.
“You won’t kiss me back. You must see me as a victim,” Isaiah said bitterly as he pulled away.
“I don’t see you as someone capable of having sex with someone you barely know without it being skewed,” Marcus corrected him.
Isaiah rolled his eyes.
But Marcus knew he had a point. “Have you ever had sex when it wasn’t a give and take kind of situation? When it was just for the sake of pleasure? Or has sex ever only been a means of survival for you? I’m not saying no forever. I’m saying that you’ve barely gotten here, and I want to make sure that you know exactly what’s going on and can make that decision based on more than just you thinking that you need to give me something in exchange for something I’ve done for you.”
Isaiah turned away from him and pursed his lips. “I don’t like that you’ve given me clothes, food, and a place to sleep for free, though. I feel like I need to repay you in some way.”
Well, he did have a point there. “Tomorrow I’ll start putting you to work, but it won’t have anything to do with sex. It’ll be hard work too. Long hours, and you’ll be sore.”
“Sounds like I’d be better off giving head.” Isaiah turned back to him and was smiling at his own joke.
Marcus reached over and ruffled his hair. “Maybe. We’ll see. But that’s my bargain. You’re welcome to stay here and do nothing and simply exist and be an ear for everyone in this pack, and I won’t ever ask you for more. If you insist on doing more than that though, there’s always things to do here. And it’s fall, so we’re planting trees in the orchard right now. It’s not fun. There’s tons of rocks here that you need to get through. Some bigger than two fists.”
Isaiah kissed him again, and this time Marcus opened his mouth for him a little. Maybe they could get to a more understanding place someday, a place where Marcus was secure in what Isaiah was doing, and why he was doing it. “Thanks. I really can’t just be a freeloader. I want to do something in exchange for what you’re giving me.”
Marcus might have taken the lazy option if he’d been in Isaiah’s spot, but he could see Isaiah’s point too. “You’re welcome. If it’s too hard, though, let me know and I’ll give you something else to do.”
“I’m sure I can handle planting some trees.”
Marcus smirked. If Isaiah wasn’t complaining within a few hours, he would be better at planting trees than anyone else in the pack. “Goodnight. You can stay here if you want. Or you can go back to your room. It’s completely up to you.”
Isaiah looked around the small room for a moment, seeming to think about the offer. “Will I be bothering you if I stay here? There’s not a ton of room on this bed. I don’t even think a king size would fit in this whole room.”
“You’re fine if you want to stay. If you weren’t welcome here, I would have told you to go sleep in your own room. Just because I like you doesn’t mean I won’t tell you if you’re being in my space too much.” He paused and looked around the room. “And yeah, the rooms are tiny in these cabins. They’re supposed to be. These tiny homes are actually just portable buildings. We buy them for about five grand apiece, sometimes as much as eight, and then we finish them out on the inside and make them nice homes. It works for us a lot better than all of us living in some giant house somewhere.”
Isaiah made a face. “Is that how some people do it? Because I couldn’t. Yeah, the rooms are small, but it’s kind of amazing to think that I’ll have my own place soon. That’ll be mine. No conditions, just mine. Right?”
“Yes. All yours. When it’s ready for painting, you can pick out the colors you want, too.” Marcus rubbed at his eyes. He was glad for the conversation, but he was also getting pretty tired.
“My own place.” Isaiah sounded happy with that idea. “Goodnight?”
Marcus nodded. “Goodnight.”
Isaiah laid his head down on Marcus’s shoulder, and Marcus pulled a blanket down from the shelf nearby to cover them both with.
Isaiah was asleep quickly, and it didn’t take long for Marcus to join him.
* * * *
Marcus was right—planting trees was hard work. Isaiah was sore, and tired, and he’d only been able to get six trees planted within the first two hours, but he was trying his best, and he wasn’t going to give up, either. There were other guys out there with him, and they were nice to him, but Isaiah was working by himself. He liked that. No one telling him he was going too slowly. No one saying he was doing it wrong. The trees had already been put in the spots where they were supposed to be planted, and each one came with instructions. So all he had to do was dig deep enough and do what the tag said. Aside from how much actual physical work it was, the planting part was easy.
A guy came up to him and handed him a water bottle, which Isaiah took with a thankful smile. “You’re doing good,” he said.
“Thanks,” Isaiah said.
“I’m Alex. Will you tell Marcus thanks for get
ting us new light bulbs?”
Isaiah had no idea what Alex was talking about, but before he could get some idea, Alex was already walking away from him. Isaiah shrugged it off and went back to planting. He didn’t get more than another half an hour of quiet though before someone else was coming up to him. “I’m Ben,” the new guy said.
Isaiah had been elbow-deep in wet mud with a plum tree propped up against his shoulder. “Uh. Hi?”
“I need Marcus to come up me with some plumbing stuff. The pipes are knocking under the sink. I don’t know who he’ll send, so I didn’t know who to ask to do it. Will you tell him please?”
“Why don’t you all tell him yourself?” Isaiah asked him. He didn’t mind the interruption, necessarily, and he didn’t mind being asked to give messages to Marcus either. He was staying with him, it wasn’t like he had to go find him or anything, but still, they could have just told him themselves.
Ben blushed. “Well, it’s...” He sighed. “It’s hard for us to approach him. There’s this worry, this idea that we’re interrupting him, that we’re bothering him or something. Even if we’re not, even though he’s never seemed annoyed at us, it’s still difficult for us. So we used to all write things down and put them in a plastic bag and leave them on his porch. But now you’re here, and now we can just tell you, and you don’t have the innate worry about interrupting him that we do. You can just go talk to him like he’s a regular person.”
Isaiah really didn’t get what Ben was talking about. “Marcus is just a regular person though.”
“He’s an alpha...”
Isaiah knew it wasn’t going to suddenly click for him, so he just shrugged. “Yeah. I’ll tell him. You have a knocking with your sink.”
Ben nodded and Isaiah went back to digging holes and planting trees. He got a good few hours in without interruption until Sam came up to him. He stopped before she got too close to him. Sweaty, muddy, and ready to be done already but still having a dozen trees left to plant, he had very little patience for her. “If you need me to tell Marcus a message for you, you can just write it down and I’ll hand it to him later.”
But she just laughed and crouched down in the dirt next to him. “Nope, I came to check on our omega. I’m the second highest member of this pack. I can talk to Marcus whenever, and however, I want to.”
Isaiah was relieved, but he kind of wished that people would stop calling him an omega. “I’m not a werewolf, so I can’t be an omega. Right?”
Sam shrugged. “I really don’t know how to convince you of what you are. I’m hoping that with enough time here in the pack you’ll at least start to feel like you might be part of it. Maybe you’ll never be able to shift. Lots of us can’t shift. That doesn’t make you less of a werewolf. Especially now, when no one is actively trying to take over territories and we don’t ever go hunting all that much either. What a pack is, really, is just a big family with a solid leader and different members having roles. You’ll never be asked to do anything that Marcus would be asked, for example, because you’re an omega and he’s an alpha. But how are you doing down here? Planting trees any fun?”
Isaiah sat back on his butt and groaned. He was sore, but it was a good type of sore. He’d worked hard and he felt it. “I could use a shower.”
“Yeah, you could. You’re done for the day, if you want to be. Or you could stay out here. But dinner is almost ready if you want to come eat. Some of us don’t eat dinner, or with the others at all, we don’t fault them. But if you want to go get cleaned up I’ll wait for you at the cabin.”
Isaiah looked around. He and Sam were alone, though he had no idea how long the others had been gone, or if they’d said bye to him at all. He’d been so focused they might have said something and he wouldn’t have noticed. “Lots of people at dinner?”
“Generally, yeah. Maybe ten. Or, if you’re not ready for that, I can just bring you something. I know Marcus wanted to make formal introductions for you when you were more comfortable with the pack, so if you want to wait you can.”
Isaiah wasn’t worried about needing introductions. Mostly he just needed food, after he got a hot shower. “Give me like fifteen minutes to shower. Okay?”
“Of course.”
Isaiah got up and brushed his pants off. “I need to talk to Marcus, too. I’ve got some messages for him. Apparently, I take messages now.”
“You can tell me,” Sam offered.
Isaiah figured that was good enough. “Alex says thanks for the new light bulbs and Ben’s sink pipes are knocking.”
Sam nodded. “Got it. See you back at the cabin.”
She took off, and Isaiah headed back as well. He showered quickly, but he would have stayed in there for an hour if he could have. When he came out, he heard someone else in the cabin with him. He assumed it was Marcus and didn’t worry while he got dressed.
He was pulling his shirt down as he came out of the bedroom, only to find a big wolf blocking the hallway in front of him. Only this wasn’t Marcus. He was more of a black gray, and he was taller than the reddish-brown wolf in front of him. This one was fluffier too, and this wolf only stared at him.
“Uh. Hi?” He wished that he could call Marcus for help right then. “So...I’m Isaiah. And you’re...” The wolf just continued to stare at him. “Maybe you could shift back or something? If you want to talk, we can talk. I don’t speak wolf, or whatever.”
The wolf walked forward, her ears up, her tail straight. Isaiah knew nothing about wolves, but a few of the people he’d met on the streets had dogs, and based on what he’d seen of dogs, this wolf wasn’t being unfriendly. Of course, she wasn’t jumping on him and licking his face either.
He’d decided that the wolf was a girl. Not because he’d checked, but because he had to think of her as something. And she didn’t seem to want to hurt him, so he knelt down and held still, ready for her to come sniff him or whatever and then be on her way. But she just stood nearby, as if waiting for him to do something first. Only he had no idea what he was supposed to do, and she was blocking his way out.
“Could you move or something, please?” He didn’t love that there was a large wolf blocking his path, but he wasn’t annoyed either. She was just there, just peacefully watching up.
Up until the moment he tried to simply squeeze past her.
Her low growl was unmistakable, and he froze in place, hovering against the wall. “I’m sorry,” he squeaked out.
She stepped back, though, giving him room, and he managed to get out of the cabin. Sam was waiting for him like she’d said she would, but he’d taken a while and she looked annoyed with him. But then her focus went to something behind him, and he turned to see the wolf standing there.
“It’s okay,” Sam called to him. “She won’t hurt you.”
“She won’t shift and tell me what she wants either though,” Isaiah said as he slowly backed up toward Sam. He figured being near her would be better than being between the two of them.
Sam shook her head. He was surprised at just how sad she looked. “No, she hasn’t shifted in a long time. I don’t know what she might have wanted with you right now, but maybe she was just curious. Maybe she wanted to know what you were doing in Marcus’s cabin. Either way, she’ll go soon. And you and I should get to dinner. She’ll be fine.”
Part of him wanted to do that, but part of him wanted to know more about the wolf too. “What’s her name?”
“Ella. Come on.” Maybe she couldn’t command him, just like Marcus couldn’t, but when Sam took his hand and practically dragged him along, Isaiah really couldn’t refuse either. He did look back, though, and the wolf was still watching them.
* * * *
Marcus was glad to see Isaiah at dinner, but although he did have Sam beside him, it seemed to be doing little to actually calm him down. There were too many people around, too many people talking to him and wanting his attention. Marcus had to make his rounds, to greet everyone and see how they
were, but he was anxious to get close to Isaiah again. Then, once he was able to sit next to Isaiah, he stayed close beside him.
“This seems to be wearing on you,” he quietly said as Isaiah nibbled on some cornbread.
Isaiah shrugged. “I’m trying. I’ve had big get-togethers like this before, like at the shelters and stuff, so it should be fine. It’s just feeling a little overwhelming right now.”
Marcus looked around and tried to see the pack from Isaiah’s perspective. There were probably ten people there, in addition to the three of them. “They won’t hurt you,” Marcus promised him.
Isaiah didn’t look so sure about that though. “It’s been like no time at all since I broke into your house and you told me I’m a werewolf, and I’m just needing some time to process that, you know? Then there was a wolf in the cabin and—”
“What wolf?” Marcus looked to Sam. If there was an issue of one of the pack sneaking around in his cabin or disturbing Isaiah, he needed to know about it.
But Sam just waved him off with a piece of pecan pie in her hand. “Ella came to check him out. Nothing happened.”
She seemed okay with it, but Marcus knew that seeing her like that had to have hurt Sam. “She’s harmless too,” Marcus said.
Sam smiled at that, but she didn’t disagree with him.
Isaiah pushed the mashed potatoes around on his plate. “I wish there was some test, some way that I could show you all that you’re delusional, but I’m worried that you wouldn’t let me stay then. I like being here. That’s the problem. I liked today. It was hard to plant all those trees and I am sore and tired. But I liked it. I feel good about the work I did.”
“As you should,” Marcus chimed in. In a few years those trees would begin to bear fruit, and the work Isaiah had helped with today would help feed the pack for years to come. Providing for the pack, helping to sustain them—those were huge parts of what life was like there. Everyone chipped in and everyone benefited from the effort.
Lost Omega Page 5
