Chapter 10 Marcus
MARCUS
The words “fed on him” rang in Marcus’s ears, and it was by the thinnest thread that he managed to restrain himself from actually ripping the weird alpha’s head off.
“What do you mean, fed on?”
Marcus didn’t try to lessen the force of his glare or to make his growl any less terrifying.
The alpha cringed back, glancing around as though looking for someone to save him. He inched toward the exit, and Marcus had to physically put himself in the man’s path to prevent the clearly brain-damaged idiot from making a run for it.
Marcus let the growl rumbling in the back of his throat get louder.
None of the alpha’s actions made sense. It was like someone had put a human into a werewolf’s body and told them to pretend.
Any sensible alpha would have thrown himself to the floor and shown their belly when faced with Marcus’s rage.
“Explain,” Marcus demanded.
“Warren works for a company that matches human donors to vampires. He just got matched with Harland this week.”
A vampire chew toy? That was how Warren financed his life?
Marcus would hunt down the disgusting vampire that thought he could prey on his mate and drag him into the sun and watch him burn to a crisp.
“Listen, can I go? I’m sorry I attacked you. It won't happen again.”
Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose. The vampire must have done something to make the alpha this way. He was clearly damaged.
“What’s your name?” he asked, forcing his wolf to be calm.
The alpha hesitated before answering. “Max.”
“And where were you before you got involved with your vampire?”
“Upstate New York.”
New York. That was the Northeastern Pack. Marcus wasn’t too familiar with their pack alpha, but they had a good reputation.
“So, you used to belong to the Northeastern Pack. When did you leave?”
“Oh, no. I was never in a pack.” Max looked embarrassed. “I was adopted. I didn’t even know I was a werewolf until I was like thirteen.”
That… did not make sense.
“You what?”
“I was adopted. I’m not really the best at being a werewolf, but Harland has been helping me figure things out.”
The absurdity of that statement was almost enough to make Marcus forget that his newly claimed human mate was vampire food. A vampire helping a werewolf raised by humans to understand his own instincts was absurd to the point of being comedic.
It also explained why none of his reactions were right.
“You should lie down and show me your belly.”
“What?” Max took a step back and plastered himself against the wall.
“It will make you feel less agitated.”
Looking at him like he was crazy – his expression clearly saying that he was only doing this because Marcus was scary – Max lowered himself down and awkwardly lay down on his back. He looked up at Marcus.
“I’m still feeling agitated.”
Marcus said nothing, standing over him and trying to exude calm, and after a moment Max seemed to relax.
“Okay, maybe a little less agitated.”
“Good. When you submit, the fight for dominance ends. We’ve settled our roles. I’m not going to hurt you now unless you attack me again.”
“Can I get up?”
“Sure.” Marcus reached down his hand, offering it to Max and rolling his eyes when the younger wolf looked at it like it was going to bite him. “Come on, let me help you up.”
“Your fingers are all bloody,” Max complained, though he reached up and took the hand and let Marcus pull him up. “Are we good now? Can I go?”
Marcus crossed his arms. He was about to answer when he heard the telltale sound of a police radio crackle from the other side of the door.
Fuck. That was the last thing he needed.
“We’re both going to go. The police are here, so you let me do the talking.”
“The police?”
Max looked at the door, his brow scrunched up with worry.
“I dragged you in here by your throat while you were choking on your own blood. If I were a human, I’d have called the police, too.
” Marcus reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled on a pair of leather dress gloves.
He looked Max up and down. “It’s good that you’re wearing black – you can’t really tell that you’ve been bleeding. Can you wipe your face for me?”
Max lifted the hem of his compression shirt, stretching it up and using it to wipe his face. He spit into his palm a few times and used the saliva to clean up as much of the blood as he could.
When he was done, Marcus looked him over and nodded to himself. “Good enough. Let’s go.”
They exited the small storage room to find two police officers, guns out and pointing at them, looking scared shitless.
“Is there a problem?” Marcus asked, looking between the two officers and over to the window where a crowd had gathered. He kept his body loose and fixed his face into a startled, nonthreatening expression of bewilderment.
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
Both officers were young, probably early twenties, and very much on edge.
“I’m sorry if I frightened anyone,” Marcus said, holding up his hands and keeping up the charade of clueless befuddlement.
When the sleeve of his suit jacket moved up and revealed that the cuff of his shirt was stained with blood, he lowered his hands just enough that his sleeve slid forward and hid the damning evidence.
“Is everything all right? My pack-mate was having an allergic reaction. People were staring and taking pictures. I brought him in here to have some privacy.”
“You weren’t fighting?” the younger of the two cops asked, sounding hopeful.
Marcus laughed. “Officer, if we were fighting, this store would not still be standing. We’re werewolves.”
“Are you okay?” the first officer asked, directing his question to Max. He clearly wasn’t buying Marcus’s act.
“My nose started bleeding,” Max said.
The officer looked at him, waiting for more, but Max let the silence build.
“Oh, you mean my allergic reaction?” he finally said, doing a perfect imitation of a clueless himbo. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’d never seen a wolfsbane flower before, and I was like, that looks pretty, I bet it smells good, too.” He frowned. “Flower shops really shouldn’t be allowed to sell them.”
Marcus bit back a snort. Max’s delivery of the story was so convincing that he wondered if it was something that had actually happened to him.
“Looks like this was a misunderstanding,” the younger cop said, putting away his gun.
The older guy also holstered his weapon, but his expression was still suspicious. “We’ll talk to the employee who called us. She was pretty shaken up by the sight of you.”
“I’m sorry she reacted like that,” Marcus said, putting his hand on Max’s back and steering him past the two cops.
“I know how intimidating we werewolves can be when you’re not expecting us, but it’s always a little disappointing when people overreact.
Still, I should have taken the time to explain to her what was going on. Have a good night, officers.”
Exiting the store before he could be detained or asked his name, Marcus ignored the crowd of people watching – most of them dispersing when it became obvious that nothing interesting was going to happen – and speed-walked the short distance to his hotel.
He glanced back to make sure that the cops weren’t following, which they weren’t.
Max walked next to him, propelled by Marcus’s hand on his back, clearly wanting to leave. At one point he tried to veer off and go his own direction, but Marcus grabbed him by his arm and yanked him back on course.
They were in the elevator up to the suite when Max spoke.
“You smell nice.”
Marcus glanced at him through the mirrored elevator doors, wondering where that had come from.
“Thank you?” he said.
“Harland says that the reason I was so angry when I smelled you on Warren wasn’t because you were a rival, but because I hadn’t staked my claim yet.”
Marcus shot him a warning glare.
“You won't be staking any claim, Max. There is no yet. Warren is mine.”
Max mumbled something, his words too jumbled for Marcus to make them out.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” Max crossed his arms, hugging himself. “And I’m not going to claim him. Not unless I have to.”
“There is no version of events that leads to you having to claim anybody.”
“I hope not.”
Marcus grabbed Max by the back of his compression shirt and gave him a little shake. Max let out a startled noise of surprise and yanked himself away, pushing into the corner of the elevator furthest away from where Marcus was standing.
“What was that for?” The way he looked at him reminded Marcus of a kitten that had been dunked in a bath.
“I was hoping to shake some sense into you.”
The elevator doors opened and Marcus stepped out into the hallway.
“I’m making sense!” Max said, following him to the door of the presidential suite. “If we’ve turned Warren into an omega, it’s not like I could stay away even if I wanted to.”
Marcus walked into the room and held the door open for Max, wondering which part of that to tackle first. How Max had gotten the idea that Warren was in danger of turning into an omega, he didn’t know, but it was ridiculous. Omegas were rare.
Sure, Steve and his mates had turned their human into an omega – but that just meant that statistically, there was less room for Marcus to do the same.
“The likelihood of Warren becoming an omega from having sex with me and blowing you is microscopic.”
“Harland says that omegas are nature’s way of bringing alphas together. He says that we’ve probably started the process by sleeping with him.”
Marcus scoffed. “Harland sounds like a superstitious old fool.”
Max looked furiously offended on his alpha’s behalf, but Marcus was right. The idea that omegas were nature’s way of bringing alphas together was antiquated and silly.
“He’s not.” Max glared.
The lack of submission was really quite startling. Now that Marcus had gotten used to it, Max’s absolute inability to behave appropriately was almost a little funny.