by Leta Blake
Vale cried out. The noise of his pleasure broke Jason’s fragile hold against his own orgasm. It tore him open like a pleasure-wound. With his muscles spasming, semen pumping in harsh, thick ropes out onto the wood floor, he shuddered and shook, his moans uncontrollably harsh and desperate. A moment of strange clarity crashed over him, a vision of himself as a quivering, shattered boy sweating and coming painfully hard in massive spurts all over his father’s office. And then he snapped back into himself again. Panting through tears of desire he gazed at all the come. Wolf-god, he’d made a mess.
“That’s it. That’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” Jason murmured. “And mine. You’re mine.”
Vale moaned. “Only if you want me to be.”
“I do. I want you so much.”
Vale sighed, his own pleasure seeming to calm while Jason still trembled with need. “This wasn’t the reason I called,” Vale said, a hint of embarrassment in his tone.
“It wasn’t a mistake.” Jason sat up, gathering command into his voice despite the way his thighs and arms shook. “Don’t say it was a mistake.”
“I won’t. Not yet.” But he sounded sad. “I can’t. It was too perfect, listening to you, feeling you through the phone. Did you feel me, too?”
“I can almost taste you,” he growled. And he could. Vale’s voice was a sweet grit on his tongue, and he swallowed it down. “Don’t be sorry. I won’t allow you to be sorry.”
“I’m not,” Vale said softly. “I just regret I didn’t accomplish what I’d set out to do.”
“Which was?”
“To know you better.”
“Well, now you know what I sound like when I come.”
Vale laughed. “Indeed I do.”
“That’s one thing you didn’t know before.”
“No, I didn’t.” Vale’s voice went breathy again. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“I should thank you.”
“Yes, you should. Tell me what you liked best.”
“You really are dirty.”
“Does it bother you if I am?” Vale sounded naughty as he asked.
“No. I like it. If you were a prude, then we’d have a lot of problems.”
Vale chuckled again, his tension coming and going in waves over the phone with every question. “We should clean ourselves up.”
“I don’t want to stop talking to you.”
“Let’s have one more question and then we’ll say goodnight. You can call me again on Monday after school.”
“But I didn’t call you at all.”
Vale snorted. “Don’t be pedantic. I’m giving you permission to call me on Monday.”
“I will. Absolutely. On Monday.”
“After school.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, one last question for you, Jason Sabel. Do you believe you’re capable of being my alpha?”
Doubts that he’d ever convince Vale that he was old enough plagued him, but he lifted his chin, remembering the sweet sound of Vale’s climax. “I know I can be.”
“And if your parents don’t approve?”
“It’s my choice, not theirs.”
“You don’t know everything about the situation. I’m not asking for promises from you tonight. I just wanted your honest gut feeling. A surrogate might still be—”
“Don’t talk about that. We just…the two of us… We were together.” He fought to untie his tongue. It’d been over the phone, but it meant something. “We just made love together. I don’t want to hear about surrogates. Not now. Not ever.”
“I agree it’s poor timing, but—”
“No,” Jason cut him off. “Stop. I have one last question for you.”
Vale hesitated. “I’m all ears.”
“In your poems, what do you have against capital letters?”
Vale giggled softly, sounding young and embarrassed. “It’s a ridiculous affectation I started in my youth and has now become my signature style, that’s all. Do you prefer capital letters? I can start using them if you’d like.”
“Do whatever makes you happy. Your words are beautiful just the way they are.”
Vale was silent for a long moment. “Goodnight, Jason. Sleep well.”
“Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”
They listened to each other’s breathing for a half-dozen heartbeats and then Jason hung up first, determined to show his strength of will and exert his power.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You jerked off together?” Rosen’s dark brown eyes flew wide and his red mouth hung open. His hair was twisted up into one of his artful buns, and he wore a paint-spattered shirt as he prepared a canvas for another of his ‘expressions’, as he called the art he produced when he wasn’t teaching at the university or playing at being a chef.
Vale sighed, scratched at his unshaven face, and paced the messy room over the detached garage near Rosen and Yosef’s apartment. Rosen rented it as his studio. The floors were tacky with half-dried oil paint and spilled turpentine, and the astringent scent of the place filled Vale’s nostrils completely despite the open windows. Colorful canvases lined the walls and leaned in small stacks a foot or more deep. Glass jars, smeared with paint, were stacked on a counter.
“It was a mistake,” he said finally.
“Huh.”
He frowned and pulled up short next to Rosen where he mixed a blue very similar to Vale’s favorite color on a large, wooden pallet. “What do you mean by ‘huh’? Your expression said everything about what a disastrous move it was.”
Rosen shrugged. “It’s done now. Who cares if it was a mistake? Onward, I say.”
“Onward into what, though? That’s the real question. Now I’ve given him hope.” And he’d given himself hope. That was the worst of it, really. Jason was a child; his parents could break him easily enough. It was Vale’s own heart that he’d stupidly risked.
“Was it good?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Amazing, then,” Rosen murmured. “You’d tell me everything if it sucked. There wouldn’t even be a problem if you’d hated it. You’d just decide that you didn’t want to contract with some alpha who couldn’t even hold his own for phone sex, force him to take a surrogate, and be done with him.”
“Wolf-god, you’re almost as impossible as Urho.”
“You didn’t tell him, did you?”
“No. He’s so old-fashioned at heart. He’d find it all ‘improper’.”
Rosen smirked. “You’re so cruel to him.”
“I can’t do anything about his feelings for me.”
“At least don’t deny you have them for him, too.”
Vale groaned. “You’re missing the entire point of what I came to talk about. When will Yosef be back? He’ll understand.”
“He’s travelled to see his pater today. He’s not doing well. Hasn’t since Yosef’s father passed.”
“Érosgápe suffer,” Vale murmured, crossing his arms over his chest and imagining a future where Jason faced so many years alone. Like Urho. “I’d die long before Jason. Another reason he’d be better off with a surrogate his own age.”
Rosen rolled his eyes. “You can tell yourself that all you like, but it doesn’t make it true. Just like eating moldy cheese sandwiches won’t make them a decent dinner.”
“Speaking of, you need to feed me before I go home. I’m out of everything civilized. This morning I almost resorted to eating Zephyr’s food before I found a hunk of cheese in the bottom of the refrigerator.”
“It was molded, wasn’t it?”
“I scraped it off.”
Rosen sighed. “I’d be much more worried about how you’re going to feed your alpha than whether or not he’d be better off with a surrogate.”
“A surrogate would probably know how to cook,” Vale said mournfully. He knew he was whining now, but wasn’t he allowed a little self-pity? This was a big change no matter what happened.
“And a surrogate would neve
r satisfy him deep down and you know it. It would never be the same. You’re Érosgápe. He’d long for you regardless. Besides, what would you be cursing yourself to? A life of knowing that he’s out there, miserable with someone else, and that you can’t have him? Ridiculous. Put your best self forward. Convince him to contract with you. Be happy.”
“That heat… You remember the one?” He looked at Rosen meaningfully. “When you found me? And then after…”
Rosen threw his paintbrush down and grabbed Vale into a hard hug. “Now that was a mistake. An honest, tragic, horrible mistake.”
“The scar tissue from the abortion would make a birth too dangerous. Even if Jason and I contract, if we consummate, and bond, he’d always have to hold back during heat, never give in entirely. He’d have to keep his wits about him to use a condom when I’m begging for his child. He’d be better off with someone he can just fall into heat with and screw blind.”
Rosen went still but held him even tighter. Eventually, he whispered in his ear, “Rumor has it his pater has access to abortifacients.”
Vale jerked out of Rosen’s embrace. “What?”
“Drugs that prevent pregnancies from taking. That’s why he’s so fragile.” Rosen pushed a hank of loose dark hair out of his eye, but it felt back almost immediately. “Or at least that’s what I heard.”
“Who told you this?” Vale’s heart beat faster, cold seeping into his gut.
Rosen shrugged. “Betas gossip just like anyone else. The chemist’s lover told me.”
“Which chemist?”
“Delta section.”
“Anton? The chemist with the red beard who hands out balloon animals for the sick children while they wait for their medicine to mix up?”
“The very one.”
“He makes abortifacients for Miner Hoff? You’re certain?”
“And other omegas who won’t survive a birth.”
“No!” Vale’s mind whirled. “It’s too risky.”
“It’s true. Shankar only told me because he wanted to know if Yosef would be willing to represent Anton if he should ever be discovered and arrested. I told him Yosef would be happy to, of course, but we all know those laws are airtight. The man would swing.”
Vale swallowed hard. “You can’t tell anyone about this, Rosen. You know what would happen to Miner.”
And to Yule if it was determined he was complicit. Anton wouldn’t have a prayer in the world. If it was uncovered, an investigation would no doubt be launched, and who knew how many other omegas might be sussed out using these illegal drugs? Wolf-god, it could be horrific.
Rosen’s eyes darkened angrily. “I’d never put anyone at risk. I only told you because, well, perhaps he can help you if the worst ever happens.”
“Anton or Miner?”
“Either. Both. I can’t imagine the omega we met the other night would ever want you to suffer a birth at the risk of your life. He was a good man.”
Vale nodded.
Generally, he agreed, but a jittery fear rode his nerves. He didn’t want Jason to lose his parents to something so scandalous. The family name would be forever tarnished and their lands and business forfeit to the state. Jason would be left destitute. His parents would be imprisoned and possibly executed for crimes against humanity. It made Vale’s stomach turn.
How could Yule be so selfish that he’d impregnate Miner when he knew the man couldn’t handle it? He’d played the devoted alpha at The Feast of Alpha’s Blessings. Vale never would have suspected he’d be so cruel. He wondered if Jason knew. He couldn’t imagine those wide, innocent eyes knowing anything about it at all.
“It’s too much to be believed,” Vale breathed.
“Some people play the hero to the point of idiocy,” Rosen observed. “But I don’t think either one of us would accuse Anton of that. Not given what we know and what we’ve seen.”
Vale rubbed at his mouth and said nothing.
Rosen returned to his painting, and for a while Vale watched in agitated silence. Eventually, the quiet in the room coupled with the breeze calmed him. The pace of Rosen’s work was soothing as well. The progress was similar to how Vale wrote poetry: he relied on creative flow to get a draft of his initial inspiration, and then he took away from the piece a little at a time, narrowing it, focusing it, until the words were perfect, like blades of grass, sharp and green.
Rosen painted broadly first, and then used a scraper to narrow bits that were overlarge, adding details with smaller brushes and a lighter hand. Perhaps all art started out as a mess and was refined gradually to something worth sharing with another person.
“Should I not have told you?” Rosen asked after almost an hour had passed.
“Admittedly, I’m not sure what to do with the knowledge, but I’m glad to have it.”
“I thought you shouldn’t contract without knowing. Not only because he can help you, but it’s only fair that you understand the risk of association.”
“Yes, getting more deeply invested with a family that could be extinguished in one swoop of the executioner’s blade does seem precarious.”
Rosen shrugged. “True. But I know you don’t think what they’re doing is wrong.”
“I do, actually,” Vale said. “Yule Sabel didn’t strike me as the kind of man to lack in self-control, but to consistently impregnate his omega despite his health? That, I judge him harshly for.”
“We don’t know the whole story. There might be a good reason.”
Vale raised a brow. “Lack of will is the only explanation I can think of.”
Rosen shot him a glance from beneath his strong eyebrows. “The world is vast,” he said in his philosophy-professor voice. “There are things we can’t know unless we ask. And sometimes we can’t ask.”
Vale watched him outline a yellow square with a thick line of the blue. “Perhaps you’re right, but I’ll have a hard time shaking this knowledge when we start negotiations on Friday.”
“Maybe you’ll be stronger for it. You’ll know going in that Yule is a man like any other, hiding his own terrible flaw. It can help you stick to your principles knowing that your past doesn’t hold the worst sins at the table.”
Vale chewed that thought over. “I have one absolute going into the meeting. Anything else, within reason, is open to negotiation. But you and I both know what I can’t deliver on. And that will put an end to the whole thing.”
“Will it?”
“You know it will. Jason will want children and his parents will make sure his imprinting and my ‘omega persuasion’ doesn’t get in the way of that.”
Rosen didn’t seem convinced. But he slipped his brush into a jar of mineral spirits and sighed, turning from his canvas. “I wish I could have a child sometimes.”
“You do?”
“Sure.” His lips quirked in a bittersweet smile. “A little Yosef would be very cute, don’t you think?”
“Especially if he had a little white beard.”
Rosen rolled his eyes. “It’s hard to understand, probably, as an omega, what betas miss out on. Our culture is set up to glorify the alpha and omega connection, the consummation and the intoxication of a heat-fueled mating.” He rubbed his paint-spattered fingers together. “I know that’s all designed to disguise the danger and precarious nature of breeding, to make the peril and lack of control seem romantic and worth it. But I can’t help thinking that having a child, a baby of your very own, would be a beautiful thing.”
“Yes, I suppose it would be.” Not that he’d ever know. In that way, he was doomed to be as barren as Rosen and Yosef. Still, it was true that he’d never thought of how it must be from a beta’s point of view—to not even have the option of a surrogate for breeding. He’d always assumed that most betas didn’t want children. After all, he’d envied them their carefree lives without heats to handle. They could be anything, do anything…well, so long as they didn’t get designs on proper alpha positions. And so long as they never fell in love outside of their gender.
He supposed there were probably all kinds of ways a beta felt hemmed in by the laws of the country and the Holy Book of Wolf. He’d just never bothered to truly consider them. Perhaps he was a good match for Jason after all. It was shameful to discover how often he suffered from the self-centeredness of the young.
They lapsed into silence again, and after watching Rosen paint for another half an hour, Vale said, “You need to feed me soon or I’ll die of starvation.”
Rosen laughed and dumped all of his used brushes in a mason jar of turpentine. “All right, come along to the apartment. What would you like? Something from scratch or a quick meal?”
“As much as I’d love one of your creations, I’ll take the quickie, please.”
“Are you sure? I could use the company over dinner.” Rosen washed his hands in the deep sink stuffed into the corner.
Vale stretched with a sigh. “I have to go soon. I told Jason he could call me after school.”
Rosen laughed, his eyes sparkling as he cast a glance over his shoulder and rinsed his hands off. “Are you going to ask after his homework?”
“You’re an asshole worse than Urho.”
“Are you going to jerk off with him again? You know he’ll expect it now.”
Vale’s cock twitched to life and he glared. “I will absolutely tell Yosef how you’ve tormented me today.”
“Oh, good. Maybe he’ll spank me.” Rosen grinned, wiping his hands and then tossing the towel into a bin next to the door. “Why don’t you see how Jason feels about that? Would he like it if you turned him over your knee? Or would he like to spank you?”
Vale shook his head and jerked his hand up in a rude gesture before following Rosen from the studio. The smell of oil paint dragged along behind them.
“If I wasn’t so hungry, I’d go home,” he said to Rosen’s back.
“You could try this thing called grocery shopping. It’s not as hard as it looks.”
The blue sky stretched overhead and Vale shrugged. “But it’s better when you take care of me. It makes me feel loved.”
Rosen slowed his step and threw his arm around Vale’s waist. “Oh, we love you. Even when you serve us moldy cheese.”
