Chapter 15 Titan’s Secret Past
TITAN’S SECRET PAST
Mathlin blinked rapidly at the sudden shift in conversation. “Uh, next week? But...”
“But?” Titan stopped, turning to meet his gaze fully.
How did you tell your hot alpha boss that sex with him—his dirty talk alone—made you feel like you were going into heat?
“But it might not be accurate,” Mathlin blurted. “Sometimes things influence my cycle.”
Titan’s gaze sharpened. “What kinds of things?”
“I can’t answer that!” Mathlin’s face burned. “Things!”
Titan stepped close again, and Mathlin knew his own pupils were dilating.
“Things!” He flailed.
“Things like this?” Titan rumbled, his voice going low, his bare cock nudging against Mathlin’s front.
And there was that going-into-heat feeling again. Like Mathlin’s bones were melting, just a little.
“M-maybe!” he squeaked.
The alpha’s lips twitched. “Noted.” And he stepped out of the bathroom like he hadn’t just reduced Mathlin’s legs to jelly.
Mathlin stumbled after him, turning on the bedroom light. In the crib, Jannie remained peacefully asleep. “How did she not wake up after all that?”
Because he had been a little loud, maybe.
Titan huffed. “Cribs in our pack have been spelled to filter out sounds. They don’t remove all sound, just the loud, disruptive ones.”
Like Mathlin’s moans, probably. “Oh.”
“C’mon, let’s get dressed. Pack Jannie’s things and we’ll get going.”
“How are we getting to the bakery from here?”
The answer arrived in the form of a car, engine warm and purring.
Hamilton struck a pose with one skinny leg sticking out through the driver’s side window.
“You should pose like this, Titan,” the shapeshifter said, eyebrows waggling.
“It looks sexy. I bet all the omegas will thirst after your shapely ankles.”
“They’re just normal ankles,” Mathlin said.
Titan snorted, his mouth curving into a grin. “Math’s right. They’re just ankles.”
“Not to the thousands of thirsty omegas out there. You should oil yourself up too, make those pecs really pop.” Hamilton leered. “You could pose on this car almost naked, and they would fall over themselves to see you on OnlyFangs.”
Titan hummed. If it weren’t for the reluctance in his eyes, Mathlin would have been envious at the idea of every other omega trying to get their hands on Titan.
Actually, they still could. It wasn’t as though Titan belonged to Mathlin.
“I’ll save that for when I get really desperate,” Titan said. He eased onto the passenger seat when Mathlin opened the door for him, turning to watch when Mathlin clipped Jannie into her car seat. Then they were driving off, leaving the pack grounds.
“Thanks, Ham,” Titan said quietly. “You didn’t have to wake up at this ungodly hour too.”
Hamilton waved dismissively. “One day, when you’re rich again, you can hire me back as your minion.”
“You used to be rich?” Mathlin blurted.
Titan sighed. “It’s a long story.”
Hamilton coughed. “I’m sure long things only serve to encourage omegas more. Besides, you’ve got a car ride ahead of you.”
Another sigh. Titan met Mathlin’s gaze through the rearview mirror. “I used to be a lawyer.”
“You were a lawyer?!” Mathlin squeaked. He had trouble picturing Titan in a suit and tie, standing in some stuffy courtroom. The Titan he knew showed up at pack meetings lightly dusted in flour, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“I was.” Titan’s mouth twisted. “Our firm specialized in criminal defense, but I only took on cases where I was sure the client was telling the truth. I was pretty good at negotiating for them, too.”
“You defended criminals?” Mathlin asked, confused.
“The aim of a criminal defense lawyer isn’t to prove their innocence. It’s to make sure that people are charged fairly in court, maybe get them a more lenient sentence. Obviously I’d rather defend clients who are innocent, but those aren’t as common as you’d think.”
Mathlin must still look confused, because Titan said quietly, “Not every criminal is charged the same. Sometimes two people are charged differently for the same crime, because one of them belongs to a minority group. Maybe they speak differently, or they look different. Usually it happens because the prosecutor is a biased asshole. Without someone holding the court accountable, how do you make sure that criminals are fairly punished?”
Mathlin didn’t have an answer to that. He remembered stealing loaves of bread after he’d escaped his Master.
A time or two, he had done it in a crowded marketplace, with cops hot on his heels.
He had never stopped to consider the consequences.
Later on, with Jannie’s dual species making her a target, he didn’t feel safe working for people he couldn’t trust, especially when she needed him close all the time. So he had stolen food then, too.
If he had been caught during any of those thefts... he could’ve been punished worse than what bread theft deserved. And no one would speak up for an omega with nothing to his name.
“So why did you quit?” he blurted.
Titan looked away. “I trusted the wrong people. See, I started the firm with my best friend at the time. Ray and I met during law school and became roommates, then best friends. He had some sketchy connections. But because he had saved my hide a few times, I trusted him to have my back.
“The thing is, Ray didn’t always do things to help people. Sometimes he did things to benefit himself. I was fine with that. Until we got a really big case one day.
“You know that I depend a lot on heartbeats and visual cues to read people,” Titan continued, his eyes narrowed.
“Except this client was one of those liquid metal guys who have no heartbeat, and precious few tics.
I felt uneasy about him. But the client was offering to pay a lot; five times our usual rate.
Ray swore up and down that the client was innocent.
“So despite my misgivings, I decided to trust him.
“We won the case. But in the months after, my client showed up as whispers on the grapevine. There were rumors about him being involved in an omega trafficking ring. He had paid Ray a hefty sum so I would represent him in court, before lying to me about his case.
“I confronted Ray. He claimed that the client had only begun his criminal activities after our case was closed. But unlike the silver guy, I could read him. To my horror, I realized that Ray had been learning to hide his tells from me, so he could lie to me and get me to do his bidding.” Titan gritted his teeth.
“I showed him the proof. He publicly accused me of lying to the court to help my client get out of his sentencing—and he even had ‘evidence’ of it. Forged emails, draft pleadings with incriminating comments... He must’ve broken into my laptop at the office to change those documents. ”
“Oh no,” Mathlin whispered, horrified.
“Yeah. The court suspended my license,” Titan said bitterly.
“I was eventually cleared of wrongdoing. But when it came time for Ray to be charged by the court, he pulled some strings and got off lightly.” Titan thumped his head against his headrest. “That whole thing fucked me up. I lost a lot of faith in people and decided to quit. Instead, I spent all my savings on Twin Buns. It was my other dream job.”
The more Mathlin heard, the more his chest ached. “I’m sorry all that crap happened to you. It’s terrible.”
Titan shrugged. “Yeah, well. Can’t have everything in life, I guess.”
“I stalked the asshole for a year and poop-bombed his head,” Hamilton said proudly. “Never the same bird species, and sometimes I was a dog pissing on his shoes instead.”
Titan huffed. “I appreciate it.”
“I’m glad you did it, Hamilton,” Mathlin grumbled. “I hate that terrible people exist.”
Hamilton puffed up his chest in the driver’s seat. “And that is also the reason why Twin Buns isn’t located in Cartfalls, even though business would be better there.”
Titan sighed. “I don’t want to move away from my pack, either. That really limits where I can set up shop.”
“Must be nice to have a family,” Mathlin said. “I mean, Jannie is my family, but... she’s not an adult.”
Titan watched him through the rearview mirror. “You’re always welcome with the pack, you know.”
Mathlin frowned. “But I’m not a wolf, and neither is Jannie.”
The alpha rolled his eyes. “Math, you’ve been hanging around the pack for a while now, as a guest. You can continue being a guest indefinitely. No one will chase you out.”
“You’re just biased because you like me,” Mathlin mumbled. “But... I lie a lot?” His breath hitched when he realized that. In his efforts to hide Jannie’s true nature from Titan and the pack, it kind of counted as lying. “Why don’t you hate me?”