Chapter 20
XANDER
There was an annoying buzz in my head when I awoke, a kind of staticky white noise that wouldn’t go away. It sizzled away at the back of my consciousness. Fatigue, maybe.
I flung an arm across the other side of the bed, hand tapping away at the place where my mate should be. The bed beside me was empty, the sheets cool.
Carefully, I prised my eyes open, my sticky lids opening reluctantly.
The bright morning light was too much for me and I jammed my eyes shut again.
Ooh, I was not a morning person. And I had aches and pains in every conceivable part of me.
I moved experimentally. Yup, I was gonna have a reminder all day of what we’d done last night.
We’d exhausted ourselves between the sheets and fallen into a deep sleep in the early hours of the morning.
And overslept. At least, I had. And though I didn’t love waking alone, it had been energetic enough that I was grateful Darius had let me sleep in.
A yawn and a long, groaning stretch later, I was awake enough to wonder where my mate was.
I’m here.
I didn’t so much hear the words or the familiar voice, as understand them. I looked around. The room was empty, Darius’s clothes were no longer on the floor. Was he in the bathroom?
I’m outside, in the yard. Come on out when you’re ready.
What the fuck? This was the weirdest thing ever. Was the guy in my head? Or having woken up alone after the torrid night of sex, perhaps I was imagining things?
We have a mindlink, came the answer to the question I hadn’t known I was actually asking , it’s common among mated pairs.
Oh, I hadn’t known. The mating manual hadn’t covered that .
Mating manual, eh? Is that where you learnt all those skills you were showing me last night?
Embarrassment heated my cheeks. Oh Goddess, had I lost all my privacy?
No, you haven’t. You’ll learn fast to only share the stuff you want to.
A green monster reared in my head, surprising me.
This alpha was MINE, but he wasn’t sharing all his thoughts with me.
How did he know how to compartmentalize?
Had he been mated before? Or was he also mated to someone else?
And naturally, my mind went to the blonde omega, even though I knew the truth of that now.
Regardless, insecurity wound its way around my heart.
Reassurance and denial pushed down the bond to me, almost as strong as the pheromone bath he would have given me in person.
There’s been no-one but you. I’ve been practicing all morning. Just focus on the thoughts you want me to hear and push them to me. Let the others sit back.
I tried it. If I ever find you messing around with someone else, I’ll bite your balls off. And then I tried to not focus on the distracting thought that his balls had been in my mouth the night before, and how much I had enjoyed that.
There was a burst of humor in the bond, quickly followed by a flare of heat.
Notice taken. And yeah, I enjoyed that too. But unless you don’t want me to get any work done, I wouldn’t think about that right now. You haven’t quite mastered the thought shielding yet.
Horrified, I tried to put a stop to all thinking, just immersing myself in the present. I was filthy. I needed to shower before going outside. I needed to clean my teeth. I needed to not think about anything except what I was doing.
I set about getting ready, very, very , deliberately not allowing my thoughts to wander.
Showered, dressed, and with teeth cleaned, I wandered into the kitchen looking for something to eat.
There was a tray of what seemed to be blueberry muffins on the counter, and I grabbed one before heading out through the squeaky door.
Darius wasn’t hard to find. He was crouched down beside a wooden box in the yard, holding a panel in place, while his companion, who had his back to me, hammered something into the timber.
Darius looked up as I approached, his smile spreading across his face, eyes shining.
I almost didn’t notice his bare chest, the golden-brown skin shiny with sweat and sunlight, and the dark coils of his patchy treasure trail disappearing beneath the waistband of his blue jeans.
He wore a knitted cap, despite the obvious contradiction of not wearing a shirt.
I smirked. Darius was stylish no matter the conditions.
“Hey,” I greeted the men, totally unable to stop the self-satisfied smile creeping across my face.
“Hey, Xander.” Darius got to his feet, groaning a little, as if his body hurt as much as mine.
“Hey, Xander,” Darius’ companion said, his voice flat as he turned to greet me. It was Zendius, and although his lips were smiling, the smile didn’t reach his eyes, and a frown cast a shadow across his features. His nose twitched and wrinkled. He looked… disapproving, disgusted even.
Why would he…? Oh! Even having cleaned up, to another shifter I probably stank of sex. But why did he care? Shouldn’t he be happy his Alpha and Alpha Mate were finally getting along?
I remembered his comments about Dayla and Darius sitting in the office that day.
Hadn’t he implied Darius and the tall, blonde omega were involved with each other?
Ugh. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind, trying to conceal it.
I must have misunderstood him. He’d have known that was Darius’ sister.
“We’re pretty much done here,” Darius’ words interrupted my internal musing. “Let’s go for a walk. There’s something I want to show you. We’ll catch up later, Zendius.”
“Sure, I’ll just finish up here,” the reply, when it came, sounded grudging. Darius didn’t seem to notice, taking me by the hand and leading me away.
“Where are we going?”
Darius led us to the edge of the compound and stepped onto a narrow path, nothing more than a trail, really, that disappeared into the dense forest.
I want to show you the vacation houses, in case you ever want to spend your heat up here.
Immediately I had visions of Darius fucking me over the end of a bed, thrusting violently into my hole and me screaming my lungs out and begging for more.
“Oh Goddess!” Darius groaned, smacking his free hand onto his forehead. “Don’t do that to me here.”
He was aroused, half-hard from the look of it.
I smirked. “I’m having trouble shielding my thoughts.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking skeptical. He cocked his head. “ Are you?”
“Uh-huh.”
Darius snorted and shook his head. “C’mon. Practice controlling your thoughts while we’re walking.”
Tugging on my hand, he led me deeper into the forest. The trail led onwards and upwards. At first, I spent my time teasing him by thinking lascivious thoughts, playing graphically in my mind a whole heap of scenarios that fascinated me.
He sighed. “Not helping, Xander.”
Suddenly, I found myself pushed up against the trunk of a tree, random edges of bark scratching at the back of my head. My shirt rasped noisily against the rough surface. A denim-clad thigh found its way between my legs.
I groaned as a trickle of slick made its way down my inner leg. I’d outsmarted myself with my little game.
A pair of demanding lips landed on mine and his hips ground against me, as his tongue ravaged my mouth. I surrendered into him, my body going limp and pliant. He was going to fuck me right here against the tree and I was so down for it!
A draught of cold air cooled the heat between us as Darius stepped back, leaving me shivering and desperate against the trunk. And outraged! I was outraged . Fucking tease, coming on to me like that, then withdrawing.
Then I noticed the shit-eating grin on Darius’ face. He pulled me forward and manipulated me until, following the line of sight of his arm, I saw the pale green roofs of the vacation houses showing above the trees, high up on the mountainside.
“See where the houses are?”
I nodded.
“Shift and find your way up there. I’m going to shift too. I’m going to hunt you.” A hungry look gleamed in his eyes and he looked almost feral. I shivered. Hunting a mate was the oldest game of all. We both knew how that ended.
“O-okay,” I stammered, ripping my clothes off and starting the shift.
Without waiting for Darius to finish his shift, I bounded away into the trees, leaving the trail and heading through the undergrowth.
Darius was a much larger wolf, and would be faster, but my size was an advantage.
.. I could pass through gaps and spaces that Darius would have to go around, and I was lithe and flexible in my wolf form.
The blood pounded in my ears as I ran. I wasn’t sure how much of a head start he would give me, but I wasn’t wasting any of it.
I tore through the undergrowth, darting around saplings, leaping over logs, heading straight as an arrow, taking the shortest distance to the vacation houses that the terrain reasonably allowed.
I couldn’t hear anything above my panting and the surging of the blood in my ears, so I eased my pace slightly, scanning the forest with ears flicking back and forth, searching for the slightest sounds of pursuit.
There were none. The forest sounds were normal: birds chirping, small animals scurrying, the rustle of leaves higher up in the canopy, the tiny calls and trills of the insects.
The relative silence was unsettling. Somewhere out there, slinking noiselessly through the forest, was a predator, and I was his prey.
The absence of tell-tale sounds was deeply disturbing.
Where was he? Did he already have me in his sights and was stalking me?
I looked around sharply, an instinctive frisson of fear running down my spine.
But I saw nothing, scented nothing but the everyday forest. Still, I shivered. Then I hurried on, more quietly now.
As I neared the first of the houses, I began to relax, though I didn’t slow down. I could see the pale green exterior of the building through the gaps between the trees. Relief swept over me. Although I knew this was just a game, the tension was real.