Chapter 15 Quinn #2
There’s a groan from Soren, and before Quinn can announce himself, he’s crouched possessively over the sleepy boy, claws out, eyes glinting red in the dark.
“Mine,” he growls, the almost subsonic sound raising the hair on the back of Quinn’s neck. When he recognizes Quinn—nose in the air—the relief sends him tipping sideways, knocking Kai back into the wall and landing in his lap with an inaudible, “Mates.”
“Oof. Whoa, big guy.” Kaian clasps him to his chest and presses his nose into Soren’s hair over his ear. It’s an oddly Were-like gesture rather than a plain-old Human one.
It’s more alarming that there isn’t a responding growl of possessiveness from Quinn at the action, but this is even more proof that this boy is their mate.
Neither alpha is threatened by shows of affection or the presence of an alpha around their mate.
Kai is theirs, and based on how the Human can’t seem to hold Soren close enough or stop huffing in great breaths of their alpha’s scent, the feeling is mutual.
Of course, it is. Humans may not have Were instincts, but they can still be Were mates, and when they’re fated, science says they feel it, too. Especially if they’re fated. That’s another thing Quinn doesn’t like to think about, since he and the Goddess have always been at odds.
Quinn pushes against Their design, and They try and try again to get him to come to heel. Well, Quinn is no man’s—or Goddess’s—dog.
“Hey. Uh…Blaze?” Kai whispers, his voice breathy, and Quinn realizes he’s been sitting there watching Quinn just think. How embarrassing. “You okay?”
“Fucking peachy. Call me Quinn. He been out this whole time?” Quinn asks, kneeling beside his once-more-unconscious mate and the much smaller boy.
He has to physically restrain the urge to push a long strand of hair out of Kai’s face so he can see his eyes better.
Instead, he reaches for Soren’s wrist so he can feel his rapid pulse under his fingertips.
“Ye-yeah,” Kai stumbles over his whispered words.
Quinn feels his gaze on his face when Kai murmurs, “Whoa.”
Unable to resist the urge, Quinn looks up, and like the first time he’d met Soren and when he’d first seen O’Daire across the open pit at The Hole, Quinn’s wolf howls with victory. Mates. Pack. Home.
Up close, Kai’s eyes are hazel, with tiny orange flecks amid the deep, soothing green, like that forest canopy in early fall he’d seen on a visit to upstate New York.
A few flaming leaves amongst the foliage, just waiting for change.
His soft-looking skin is clear and smooth, with a flush of pink high on his cheekbones that disappears down his throat under the collar of his t-shirt.
So beautiful. So soft, and smelling like the sweetest sin.
“Fuck me,” Quinn mutters under his breath before asking, “Kid, how old are you?” He barely holds back the urge to add “Where’s your mama, bébé?”
In a flash, Kai’s brows lower into a fierce glower, well on his way to what Quinn thinks might be a temper tantrum. “That. Is. It. I am totally growing a mustache.”
Quinn can’t help the grin that makes his cheeks hurt. “That might take you an awful long time.”
“Oh, screw you. Just because you’re all—” he waves a hand over Quinn’s whole person, “that doesn’t mean you get to be a dick about it.”
“All what, cher?” Quinn drawls in his lowest, sexiest voice.
Soren told him once that the tone sounds the way the best sex feels.
He’s rewarded when Kai shivers, and his mouth drops open.
The aroused look in his eyes combined with his bravado still doesn’t tell Quinn whether he’s fated to a minor, though, so he dials back the pheromones, hoping the boy’s sweet coconut arousal will fade, too.
Arousal that makes Quinn’s choice of vintage denim a regretful one and is causing even the unconscious Soren to pump out his share of come-fuck-me-pheromones. Combined, Quinn’s mouth is watering.
Now that he thinks of it, Kai smelling like anything is just plain weird. Humans don’t smell like shit. Unless they’re wearing perfume or body wash, they just smell like Humans. This ain’t some artificial scent, though.
This sweet baby smells like the best coconut cream pie and something else…it’s so faint underneath the coconut, fading in and out. Delicate enough that his alpha nose can’t catch enough of it to jog that elusive memory.
Soren groans before Quinn can ask about his age again, shifting in Kai’s grip. He leans back, raises a hand to the boy’s wrist, and presses his mouth to the soft skin there. His tongue grazes the pulse, then he runs his nose along the pale blue veins.
Kaian whimpers.
Quinn has a second of warning before he sees a flash of fang.
He barely has just enough time to slap Soren upside the head and shout, “Stop!”
Soren flings himself away, scrabbling across the alley on his hands and feet. He presses his back against the opposite wall, eyes flashing red to green and back again as he struggles to rein in the alpha urge to claim an unmated mate.
“Mine,” he growls again, through a mouthful of the longest fangs Quinn has ever seen.
If Soren had broken skin, he’d have catapulted this boy—most likely a minor—into the change without his consent.
While his alpha might piss him off, Quinn doesn’t want to see Soren in jail for violations of the Human-Were Alliance or saddled with a lifetime of regret, no matter that the choice would mean a death sentence.
“What the heck?” Kai shouts. He has his back up against the wall, eyes wide and breath sawing in and out in shock. It’s the fiery sparks, flashing at the end of his fingertips, that finally slide that elusive scent from earlier straight home.
It’s the scent of pure magic. Quinn’s new mate is a magic-using Human.
“Holy crap. Holy crap,” Kai gasps. “What the heck is going on? He has fangs, and what? He was going to bite me?”
Frozen, eyes wide, it’s as if Kai is remembering every other time in his magical life when he’d run into someone or seen something out of the corner of his eye. A nose in the air, fingernails that look too much like claws, someone who moves too quickly, or whose growl sounds all too real.
“Holy shit! Are you a werewolf? There are werewolves?” The last word is said in such a high pitch that Soren flinches.
“Let’s all calm down. Come on now. Bébé, you’re magic. There’s not a whole lot of difference. We’re all born from The Plain. Surely you must have learned about us at The Guild, right?”
“Us? Both of you?” Kai asks, flinching at the mention of the academy where magical children go when their power manifests, usually around puberty.
Surely he’s attended or is still attending…as much as it’s hard to believe a magic user wouldn’t have run into Weres before, his shock is genuine, and his distress is upsetting Quinn’s wolf.
“Has telling anyone to calm down ever worked?” Soren groans, trying to climb to his feet, supporting himself with one long-fingered hand on the brick. He seems more in control now, even though Quinn can see he’s breathing deeply of their scents. “What’s your name, kid?”
Kai frowns, clearly conflicted between helping the guy who tried to bite him and who also looks like he could fall on his very handsome face. “Kaian Noa, and for the last time, I’m not a kid.”
Quinn is surprised when it’s not accompanied by a stomping foot.
“I didn’t attend any Guild, so this is a little bit of a surprise.” He stops as Soren staggers a step, his knees giving out.
Before he can face plant onto the dirty alley floor, Quinn has his mate around the waist. “Fucking hell.”
“Blaze, you swear too fucking much,” Soren whispers, and it’s followed by a chuckle. “Guess I do, too. Do you swear too much, Kaian Noa?”
Quinn’s belly warms at the soft, happy sound. One he’s never had the pleasure of hearing before now, and one he could happily hear for the rest of his life.
Kai’s lips curve into a fleeting smirk. “No, but I’m thinking I should take it up. What a fucking fuck of a god-damned shitty cunt of a bollocks day.”
It’s funny to see such a baby face spewing a laundry list of filth, and Quinn can’t help his own bark of laughter that sounds more rusty than he’d thought.
“It doesn’t suit you, cher—”
Quinn stumbles as Soren suddenly becomes a dead weight. “Goddammit. Let’s get him back to my place, and I can tell you all about Weres and…other stuff. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Which, to be fair, is exactly what someone who was going to hurt this na?ve little lamb would say.
“Can I touch you first?”
It’s not the first time he’s been asked today, and being asked first is always nice, but it seems like a weirdly timed request, given that he’s holding up 180 pounds of pure I-don’t-give-a-fuck.
“I can’t go with you unless I do.” He crosses his arms, cocking a slim hip out to the side. The buttons clanking on his jean jacket are the only sound in the alley other than Soren’s heavy breath.
“Bébé, I’m not going to hurt you. Wanna pinky swear, or what?”
A little smile curves Kaian’s red mouth, but he holds out his pinky so Quinn can shift Soren’s weight and offer him the same.
The moment their fingers curl around each other, Quinn’s soul jumps in his chest. His wolf howls with a joy Quinn couldn’t hope to hide on his face, and when he checks in to see if Kaian feels the same, he finds the boy’s eyes closed, a frown marring his brow.
A second later, the scent of coconut-patchouli fills the space between them. A faint glow builds around Kaian, filling the alley with white light. He unerringly finds the edge of Soren’s neck above the collar of his shirt with a fingertip of his other hand, and the light becomes blinding.
It takes only a few seconds, but Quinn can’t look away. His boy is ethereal. Beautiful in a way Quinn couldn’t begin to comprehend.
When the light fades, Kaian’s eyes pop open, and a grin flashes across his face.
He misses the touch of that single finger immediately, and it’s Quinn’s turn to mutter, “Whoa. What did you just do?”
Kaian just laughs. A joyous noise that sounds like freedom.
Quinn wants to cry at how bright his smile is. Brighter than the light that had no doubt spilled out of the alley lit up the night sky.
“Nothing. Not a damn thing. Let’s go. He should lie down, and you should tell me everything.”