Chapter 12 Will #2
The idea of one’s shifted self being separate from one’s non-shifted self wasn’t one Will subscribed to, not in the way some people did.
My wolf made me horny, my lion made me want to argue.
It was bullshit, a cheap excuse. But Will’s shifted side had sharper, more acute instincts and an easier time trusting them.
Whenever he’d been a wolf in these past four years, Will’s fear had been bottomless, and he had run faster than ever before. His wolf had wanted to get away, and if not for that, Will might never have run to Peter’s house in the middle of the night.
With Sage here, Will’s wolf wanted to stand still and make himself vulnerable, and he could feel that, even now.
He scooted up on the bed so he had an easier time watching Sage watch him. The bulge in Sage’s pants couldn’t have been comfortable, but he made no attempt to do anything about it.
I can’t give him anything else, but maybe this can work. Maybe he’ll like this.
“Will you touch yourself?” Will asked. “If you want.”
“Yeah, I want. I just don’t want to do anything…you know, to freak you out.”
Sage’s voice was rough and strained. It made Will feel good. Powerful. Like what he did had an effect on Sage. It was something. Better than brushing up against the other man or the tentative physical contact here and there.
Will shook his head. “It won’t freak me out.”
“You can freak out all you need, sweetcakes. Honestly, that’s fine.” Sage looked mildly dazed. “I just don’t want to be the cause of it.”
Will hadn’t considered that, hadn’t considered that his inability to do normal stuff did that to Sage. It’s—they did that, Ed and the others. I’m like this because of them, and because of how I am, Sage thinks he has to be careful.
It was information he’d have to mull over, but Will knew if he did that right now, he’d have to stop what he was doing. He didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to let the moment go.
“I’ll be fine.” He bit his lip. “I’ll say stop. If I have to stop.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. We’ll do that.”
Sage unzipped his pants, and scents filled the air.
Will could see the wet patch on the font of Sage’s boxers, and part of him wanted to stop what he was doing and go over there so he could lick Sage, taste him, but the fear of failing at that made him stay right where he was, where he could control everything better.
This, touching himself, could hardly go wrong. He was almost there, and Sage…Sage shoved his underwear down to reveal a dark pink cock that was fully hard.
Sage started stroking himself, shuffling sideways so he could lean against the wall there.
Small bird paintings in square white frames hung on that wall.
The image of Sage getting himself off with the inky touch of his raven’s feather brushing his abdomen against the backdrop of larks and robins seared itself into Will’s mind.
When Sage tilted his head back, his neck straining. His blue eyes caught the light, and they looked brighter. In that moment Will knew he wanted to fall in love with Sage, badly.
He wanted all the warmth and fuzziness, the bird wings tickling the insides of his heart, and he wanted Sage to have that too.
Tears began leaking out of the corners of Will’s eyes even as the pleasure rose within him.
Was his heart even still a place where ravens could roost and sing their love songs?
Will came, and a deep, bone-shattering cry clawed its way out of him.
“Fuck,” Sage said.
Will forced his eyes to stay open, forced himself to keep looking at Sage, even though his vision wanted to white out with the intensity of the orgasm.
Sage’s cock pulsed, and ropes of cum gushed out of him. His eyelids were at half-mast, pupils blown, and his lips were a deep rose pink. He trembled and sagged against the wall, the back of his head nearly dislodging the robin painting.
They just stared at each other. Sage looked so soft. They had made a mess of the floor and the bed, respectively, and Will knew he should care about that. He didn’t.
“Will you… Can you come lie down next to me?” he asked.
Sage’s nod came instantly, and he hurriedly pulled his pants up before moving toward the bed.
Sage kept looking at Will, and he smelled so good. Will wanted to rub up against him until he smelled like him all over, like sunshine and smiles.
Sage lay on his back, but his head was turned toward Will. Will wiped his hands clean on his pants, then shoved them off rather than back up. He got into Sage’s space and put his head on Sage’s shoulder and his hand on his chest. He could feel Sage’s heartbeat under his fingertips.
“I’m not sure what to say to you, but you’re beautiful, sweetcakes.”
“I’m broken.”
The words clawed their way out of him like the misbegotten nightmares that had kept him awake all these years. Sage’s breathing didn’t change, nor did his scent, but he didn’t respond. The silence stretched so long that Will thought they had gone past talking.
“I don’t see you that way,” Sage eventually said. “It doesn’t take a genius to guess something bad happened to you. I just don’t see you as broken.”
Will curled against Sage. He’d have to tell him eventually. All of what had happened to him. Sage had a right to know, so he could walk away.
I might as well tell him now. Will closed his eyes. His throat felt like it was studded with glass shards.
“I was given by my original pack…to a pack of four loups-garous. So they’d stay away from pack territory.
I was payment for them leaving. That happened four years ago.
I was allowed to go to the farmers’ market for herbs, and I met that brownie.
She gave me this look…and she just knew.
She said there was this vampire lawyer who’d helped her, and she gave me the address.
One night—” Will’s throat felt like sandpaper, almost like his body was trying to stop him from talking about any of this.
His fingers curled tighter around Sage’s T-shirt until he couldn’t feel the beating heart underneath anymore.
“I snuck out one night. Out of the pack leader’s bed. ”
Sage’s breath caught. “They…assaulted you.”
“I just had to survive. They’d have killed me if I hadn’t—I… At some point, I stopped fighting them. I had to survive. I’m so sorry I let them—”
“Oh, Will, sweetcakes, you have absolutely nothing to feel sorry for.” Sage was crying. Will heard it in his voice. “Can I hold you right now?”
Will nodded, and Sage drew him into his arms. They cried together for a ridiculously long time, and halfway through that, Will started giggling.
“What?” Sage asked.
“It’s silly.”
“I don’t get that, so please share.”
Will licked his lips. “I’ve just really wanted your hands all over me, but crying together wasn’t what I was picturing.”
“Ah. Well, not to make this any more awkward, but this is technically my dead grandmother’s bed we are technically not having sex in, so there’s that. She was very sex-positive though. She’d have approved.”
Will snorted and accidentally sprayed some snot over Sage’s T-shirt. “I so owe you laundry.”
“You also owe me some floor cleaning since you made me come all over it.”
“You could have used a sock or something.”
Sage gently tugged on Will’s earlobe. “You were distracting me. I couldn’t look away to locate socks.”
Will huddled closer. “That was really…okay? Just watching?”
“Yeah, it was really okay. I mean, look around. I enchant cushions for company.”
Will snickered. “You could be with anyone. You can do magic, and you do yoga. You’re really handsome.”
“Will, this is New Elvenswood. Half the eligible singles in town can do some form of magic, and the other half turn into dragons or something. And the yoga is, like, the only thing my mother gave me.”
“Is she a witch too?”
Sage’s chin poked Will’s head when he nodded.
“Yes, but she never studied it much. More a hedgewitch than anything. She’s sort of a late-blooming hippie, I guess.
Or free spirit slash modern nomad. We lived in a trailer and she wasn’t sure who my father was.
I never went to school or did anything you’re supposed to do as a kid, and when I nearly died because my mom thought the appendicitis was just a stomach bug, my granny threw a fit and took me in.
She threw another fit when she figured out I’d only gotten half of the standard vaccinations, but by that time, Mom had up and left, which was a shame, because Granny’s fits were epic.
I think she even scared Peter when she told him to get her custody of me, or else. ”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Not about the fits though. Your granny sounds like a force of nature.” I can’t imagine a human who’s able to scare Peter, but if that’s where Sage comes from, it’s no wonder he’s as amazing as he is.
“It’s all good.” Sage brushed his fingers through Will’s hair.
“I wouldn’t have gotten Granny to sign off on the tat without that sad tale of an origin story.
She was pretty easygoing, but not that easygoing.
Taught me all I know about magic though.
Except the cushions. Those are all me. And I think I really improved her lube recipe. ”
That led to more giggling.
Will nuzzled Sage’s chest before he lifted his head. “Let’s make lunch.”
Sage nodded, and they got up, reluctantly moving apart and leaving their bubble.
When Will sat up, he saw something yellow on the floor.
“Yuck, Lemon, stop that.”
The round yellow cushion had snuck out from under the bed. To mop up Sage’s cum.
“Oh, you found Sunny.” Sage picked up the horny cushion. “He was always my favorite.”
“You are way too happy to see that cushion.”
“Judgy wolf. Don’t listen to him, Sunny, and let’s get you into the washing machine.”
Sage blew Will a kiss and walked out of the room, the wiggly cushion under his arm.
They cooked a late lunch together. Sage turned on the old kitchen radio and never even stopped swinging his hips as he was chopping carrots or dicing mushrooms. Will loved it.
He also loved Sage. The realization had settled deep into Will sometime between Sage’s heartbeat thumping from Will’s fingertips all the way to his very core, and Sage crying for Will. But he’d keep his love secret for now, in case it shattered this tentative thing they had.
“It’s the full moon again,” Will said when they were sitting on the couch together that same night.
After Sage had done some invoicing, with a good amount of grumbling, they’d decided to watch a show.
Sage had made Will pick something, and now they were adding their commentary to the highest grossing TV fantasy show of the last ten years or so, and there were issues, such as, why did no one care about when summer was coming?
“Shit. Again? I meant to add a reminder to my phone. You want me to drive you to the woods or somewhere?”
Will quickly shook his head and leaned his head on Sage’s shoulder. “We can just keep watching this. I don’t want to run. I want to stay in with you.”
“Works for me.”
And so, when Will felt moonrise tugging on him, wanting him to change his skin, he headed upstairs. He took a detour to the laundry room though, because it sounded like some small animal had gotten in there, and he didn’t want to freak out any critters when he turned canine and scary.
“Oh, it’s just you,” he said to Lemon, who was fighting to get free of the several clothes pins Sage had used to hang it from the clothesline.
A writhing assemblage of stuffed cotton and thread should have freaked Will out, but he took it as a sign that he was becoming a witch that it made him smile fondly instead.
Back in his room, he took off his clothes and waited for the shift. Changing shape was like the drop from the highest point of a roller coaster ride, and Will had always loved it. Once he was in his wolf form, his sense of smell was even better, but it was like all he could smell was Sage.
He hurried back downstairs to where Sage was waiting. He looked at Will just like he had the last time. Sage seemed impressed, and Will liked that. He settled in next to Sage on the couch, but not before daring to sniff his neck and carefully lick the skin there.
“Oh, fuck. That tickles.” Sage buried his hands in Will’s fur.
Will yipped and got as close as he could. They spent a few more hours just cuddling, and it was perfect. Will’s attention was barely on the show throughout it.
Later, when the moon was well past its zenith, Sage tapped the top of Will’s head. “Feel like heading to bed?”
Will nodded in the human way and jumped off the couch. He watched as Sage stretched, his shirt riding up to reveal the dark tip of the raven’s wing.
With Sage’s scent so strong and him casting Will those sweet smiles as they went up the stairs, the wolf’s desire was clear and present in the forefront of his mind. Please Sage. Be close to Sage. Protect Sage.
Will was not an alpha, but Sage was only human and didn’t have a werewolf’s strength or the ability to shift at will. Will knew he had to guard Sage, and he would fight to the last if he had to.
The possessiveness was strong, but it wasn’t overbearing like alphas could be.
Will would simply be near him whenever the full moon was out.
Even if it wasn’t, he would defend Sage.
As a shifter, he healed better, and he was physically tougher.
With his wolf ruling his thoughts, all this made perfect sense.
And that was the easiest thing—knowing what he wanted. It gave Will purpose, and purpose was good.
The attic smelled of Sage’s magic, and Will inhaled deeply as he watched Sage get into bed next to him. Sage ruffled the fur on the top of Will’s head and pulled his ear before using the sheets to cover them both.
“G’night. Joyous night, put out the light.”
With a wave of magic, Sage’s attic room was in darkness, and in his heart of hearts, Will’s wolf howled. He was exactly where he wanted to be.