Chapter 23 Harland
HARLAND
“I’m not letting you beat him up.”
Harland sat across from Marcus in the conservatory, dressed in his usual daytime leathers, watching his new mate wolf down a huge helping of scrambled eggs and steak and drink his own weight in coffee.
Marcus made a protesting sound.
“That’s not what I said!” he groused, speaking with his mouth full. “I just think it would be good for Max in the long run if we put him in his place. That scene in the bathroom was unnatural.”
Marcus shuddered.
“And I’m saying no.” Harland was firm on this. He’d corrected Max on a few occasions, back at the beginning of their relationship, and it never took longer than a few days before Max forgot all about it and went back to his usual behavior.
If they wanted Max to behave like a normal werewolf, they would have to break him first, and that was out of the question.
Harland liked Max just the way he was.
“I can't have my pack see him behave like that.” Marcus shook his head, leaning down so that he wouldn’t have to lift his fork as high as he shoveled food into his mouth.
He looked up at Harland with obvious disapproval.
“And no one is going to respect you if they see him act like that with you, either.”
“I don’t care what people think,” Harland said. “And if someone has a problem with that, I’ll eat them.”
Marcus paused, glancing up at him.
“Seriously?”
“It’s a neat solution to the problem of rude people.” Harland shrugged. “People should know better.”
Marcus chuckled. “Okay then, Hannibal.”
Harland rolled his eyes.
“I still think we should deal with Max. I took him running the other night on a hunt, and he has the instincts. He’d make a great alpha if he learned to listen to them properly.”
“And that’s why correcting him doesn’t work.” Harland took a sip of his blood, wincing at the lifeless taste and hint of plastic that coated his tongue. “Max can ignore his wolf to a degree I’ve never seen before. If we try to correct him, all he’ll do is suppress it.”
“If we catch him off guard?”
“He’ll react in the moment, and then the second he’s alone, he’ll shake it off.” Harland couldn’t help his fond smile. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.”
“It’s creepy,” Marcus objected. He leaned over his plate and growled. “He poked me in the chest.”
“And you deserved it.”
“But I didn’t!” Marcus objected. “We had every right to set those stakes for our fight. You’re his alpha.”
“And now we’re both his alphas, but only when he wants us to be.”
“He wants us to lead him, but only when he wants to be led?”
That sounded like a reference to something, or a quote, but Harland wasn’t familiar with it. He decided to ignore it.
“Exactly.”
“So, I have one mate I fought to a stalemate, another who only acknowledges my leadership when he wants to, and a human who hasn’t even decided if he wants to date me. How did I let this happen?”
“Would you change it?” Harland asked.
Marcus wrinkled his nose, a stubborn look on his face. He shook his head. “Probably not. I’m sure there’s a reason we were drawn to each other.” He shoved the remainder of his steak into his mouth, his cheeks bulging as he chewed. “Any suggestions for how we bring Warren fully on board?”
“You seem to have had the most success so far,” Harland said. He didn’t even try to hide his envy. Marcus had knotted Warren twice, and Harland hadn’t gotten more than a blowjob. It was an injustice he hoped to rectify as soon as possible.
Marcus grinned, swallowing and taking a drink of water before saying, “Yeah, he was really freaked out by the whole omega thing. He calmed down when I told him we could make a pill to keep him from feeling any of the effects.”
Harland had heard Warren telling Max about that. He’d suspected that Marcus had simply lied, but from the way he was talking about it now, it didn’t seem like a deception to ease Warren’s fears.
“Can you?” he asked. “Make a pill, I mean?”
“I didn’t lie,” Marcus said, looking offended.
“I mean, I would, but I didn’t. My brother’s mate is an omega.
They figured out that dehydrating sperm and turning it into pills was an effective way to treat omega withdrawal – and then I had my pharmaceutical company’s research division look at it and come up with a more stable and effective version. ”
“That will come in handy if things work out as I suspect they will.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes, giving him a long, considering look.
“You’re disappointed,” he said, a grin forming. “You don’t want there to be an effective way to treat the withdrawals that doesn’t involve your dick.”
“I’m happy that Warren won't have to suffer.”
“Sure, but both things can be true. It’s fine. I get it.” Marcus bit his bottom lip, a cocky smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “The idea of Warren on his knees, desperate, horny, and begging me for my cock isn’t exactly unappealing.”
Harland’s cock twitched inside his leather suit.
“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble seeing him on his knees,” he said. “He might not have our instincts, but he’s desperately attracted to us and very submissive sexually.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair, his hand landing on his bulge as he nodded his agreement. “You should have seen the pounding I gave him on Sunday.” Harland watched him knead his cock through his jeans. “I kept expecting him to tap out, but he just moaned like a slut and asked for more.”
Harland reached down and squeezed his cock through the leather of his suit.
“He’s bound to be compatible; otherwise, we wouldn’t be drawn to him.” Harland spread his thighs, brushing his thumb over the head of his cock where it pressed against his thigh.
He wasn’t quite comfortable enough with Marcus yet that he could free his cock and jerk himself off at the breakfast table.
“I cracked my belt when I took it off before fucking him, and he looked so disappointed when I didn’t spank him with it.”
“Why didn’t you?” Harland asked.
He'd love to spank Warren with a belt – or with one of the riding crops or floggers Max had bought over the past year.
A sheepish look passed over Marcus’s face. “I was trying to be a little gentle. I showed him my alpha shift – and it was going pretty well – but then I let things get a little out of hand.”
“Out of hand, how?” Harland asked. It couldn’t have been too bad if they still ended up in bed together.
“I told him to run, and when he hid in the bathroom, I knocked the door down and scared the shit out of him.”
“And he still wanted to have sex with you?”
Marcus nodded, grinning. “He’s resilient. I thought for sure that he’d want to leave, but he didn’t.”
“That’s good,” Harland said. His hand stilled on his bulge as he thought about his own alpha shift.
For the first time in centuries, Harland had felt like a werewolf. His vampire instincts had faded into the background, his wolf coming to the fore and taking control in a way that he'd spent centuries longing for.
That was why it was so disorienting that he hadn’t enjoyed it.
Changing into his werewolf alpha shift had felt like putting on an old shirt that didn’t fit anymore.
Harland was comfortable being a vampire, he now realized. He’d spent so much of his life resenting it – feeling like his identity had been stolen from him – but now that he had some of that identity back, it turned out that his resentment was more habit than fact.
He was a vampire alpha, and that was okay.
The realization didn’t change anything. Harland still wanted to have his territory recognized by the alpha council, and he still wanted to formalize his relationship with his mates in the eyes of the law.
“He seemed a little spooked when I mentioned my playroom back home,” Marcus said. “But intrigued, too.”
“Playroom?” Harland inquired, curious.
“It’s not much. Just some bondage equipment and gear. Are you and Max interested in anything like that?”
“We are,” Harland said. He wasn’t surprised in the least that Marcus shared his and Max’s taste for kink. “Max has been turning one of our guest bedrooms into a playroom. He’s started a nice little collection.”
“You didn’t have one of your own?”
“I did, but I decided to build a new one with Max.”
Harland didn’t mention that some of his own pieces – from when he was younger and less concerned with the safety of his partners – were pretty extreme.
He had a pear of anguish that caused considerable damage with a single turn of the screw, and some of his whips could flay a man to the bone.
He really should get rid of the whole collection before Max or Warren stumbled across it and freaked out.
Marcus licked the corner of his mouth, his grin cheeky. “Can I see it?”
“Of course. It’s yours too now.”