Chapter 8
“You guys are werewolves,” Marcus said, even as he relaxed further against my chest. He smelled sick and was still too pale, but with rest and pampering, he’d get over the cold in a few days, tops.
Linc shifted back. “Yes, that’s right.”
He stood there naked while Marcus stared at him, our mate’s gaze unsubtly dropping from Linc’s head and going down. Linc managed to keep a straight face, even if I didn’t. The attraction in Marcus was sweet. It made me hopeful, even if it was just physical. For now.
“You said he’d be fine.” Dom pointed a finger at me. “How’s he only getting with the group now? How bad was that concussion, really?”
Linc shrugged. “Seeing me shift seems to have helped.” He grinned smugly at Dom.
“Actual werewolves,” Marcus said, not really following along with the conversation, his brain still caught in the loop of realization.
I gently squeezed his arm. “He’ll be fine. Won’t you, Marcus?”
Marcus turned to me. “You’re all werewolves?”
“Yes.” I let my other hand drop from the back of the couch to Marcus’s arm.
Touch was different for humans, especially men.
They gave it less, expected less of it and even rejected it to some degree.
I was very aware of keeping my distance because of work, but getting Marcus used to accepting more non-sexual physical contact would help ease him into…
whatever he would let himself be eased into.
If he was an omega… But no. Omegas had been stories—almost myths—for too long.
“All of you? This whole damn town?” Marcus asked.
“Nope, and thank fuck for that.” Dom pretend-shivered. “Just some family and friends, you know.”
He waited to shift until Marcus looked at him. Dom clearly enjoyed Marcus’s small gasp of surprise at the sight of him turning wolf. After a delighted huff and a wolfish grin, he leaped toward the front door and ran outside.
Linc was pulling his clothes back on. “There are a few werewolves in town, and they mostly run with the Wind Creek Pack. We’re loners.”
“Loners,” Marcus said.
“Loners together,” I told him.
Linc closed the front door after Dom and sat back down on my other side, where he got close enough to kiss my neck and place his hand on my thigh. “Loners. Together.”
“Oh… Oh,” Marcus said, and just like that, the gears in his head were turning once more.
Linc leaned forward to catch Marcus’s eye. “After kicking that…man out, I should get you a drink. Does that hot tea and honey still sound good?”
Marcus nodded. “Yeah. Everything’s hurting. Tea can only help.”
Linc stood and headed to the guest room. I heard him grab the pill bottle from my bag, and he handed it to me after also filling a glass with water and putting that in our mate’s hand.
I unscrewed the bottle. “One now, and another after we get some food into you. We’ll make that soup.” I caught Linc’s eye. He nodded.
Marcus looked at the pill I shook into my palm with clear suspicion.
I held it out to him with the kind of smile I gave the very contrary toddlers who’d had bad experiences with being too sick for their years.
Just like the toddlers, Marcus caved after some thinking time and swallowed the pill with a gulp of water.
Linc was rattling around in the kitchen by that point. He wasn’t a soup person, more a kale and tofu salad person, but he could whip up a mean minestrone with cashew cream and lemon zest, and he was happily chopping away within minutes of setting the kettle to boil.
“Why did you put me in flannel?” was the thing of all the things that Marcus chose to ask first.
I gaped, just managing to swallow the burst of laughter that wanted out, but Linc didn’t even try, chuckling away as he chopped. “Oh, you perfect little human. Could you please not say that within earshot of Dom? Those are his.”
“He’s the closest to you in size.” I tugged on Marcus’s sleeve. “And he likes his flannel.”
Marcus examined the sleeve I’d touched. It reached past his fingertips. “I see. Let me summarize. The three of you are loners together, and you also turn into wolves.”
“We all sleep with each other, if that was your question,” Linc chimed in from the kitchen.
As our unofficial leader, Linc could be delicate, but he never bothered with the people closest to him. Whether consciously or not, he was already thinking of Marcus as close, one of us, and knowing that soothed me.
“Ah.” Marcus’s scent shifted slightly. There was a bit of arousal there, but the mild unease in him was more tangible, especially since he was still letting me hold him like this. “You sleep together, as in it’s a three-way wolf fest every night, or you huddle for warmth?”
I managed to keep my laughter partially bottled up. Linc stopped halfway through turning a purple carrot into coins. He grinned and gave Marcus a not entirely innocent look.
“We fuck. All configurations, but if you need me to elaborate…?”
Marcus shook his head, skin heating. His scent was changing again, the embarrassment obvious there. “No. No, thank you. You’re an actual medical doctor?” He looked at me.
“That’s right.” I decided I could risk running a thumb over Marcus’s cheek.
Marcus nodded. “Can you… Well, this is the fever talking probably. I’ve never asked a medical professional who gave me a lollipop this, but Steven is just… Can you fit me in to get tested? For STIs?”
I cocked my head. “You don’t have to go in for that. I can bring a sample kit tomorrow, and we can do it then.”
Linc had stopped chopping, and I heard the way he was controlling his breathing in order to keep calm and stay where he was. Marcus’s jaw tensed as well, and I saw his fists clench the hem of his unloved, loaned flannel.
Then he nodded. “Yeah. That would be good.” He swallowed thickly. “I thought you were serial killers. Or a werewolf cult.”
Linc was taking out his aggression on an organic lemon, judging by the zesty smell.
“No cult, just werewolves.” I tried looking like I’d never heard of cults or serial killers ever before.
“Hmm.”
A few moments later, Linc came back with a large mug of chamomile with honey and lemon. He held it out to Marcus, handle first.
Marcus sniffed his tea. “No oolong, huh?”
Linc shook his head. “There’s Macha, but I can run into town and pick you up some oolong after dinner.”
Marcus sipped his tea and looked at Linc over the rim. “Why’re you being so nice to me? You guys don’t even know me.”
Linc crossed his arms. “Do you remember how I said you’re our mate? Did that register?”
“I don’t know what that means.” Marcus looked off to the side.
“I feel like I should be single for a while. I was with that douchebag for four years. Four fucking years. Can you fucking imagine the waste of time that was? All those anniversaries and…and he cheated on me, and now that’s my fault all of a sudden? ”
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”
Linc looked like he was ready to eat Steven, so he went back to the kitchen to deal with it there. Probably wise.
I kept my voice carefully neutral. “Is it normal for Steven not to even ask how you are when you’re obviously not well?” Like all doctors, I’d seen abuse and knew it didn’t always have to come with cuts or bruises.
Marcus looked up at me again before he went back to sipping his steaming tea. “He doesn’t really have a bedside manner. Never complained when I dropped everything and took care of him though.”
In the kitchen, probably too low for human ears to pick up, Linc growled at the carrots he was finishing off before moving on to the celery. The celery had no idea what it was in for.
Marcus cleared his throat and wiped his nose on the flannel. “So you shift and run around in the woods and chomp down on deer and cute little bunnies and bite hikers so they turn into werewolves like you?”
“We do run around in the woods, but we don’t kill other animals for food. Dom eats chicken sometimes, but Linc and I are vegetarian. Even if biting hikers were any kind of fun, a werewolf bite wouldn’t make them werewolves. It would just hurt.”
Maybe Marcus feared us for our teeth or the pop culture myths about those fictional werewolves that did enjoy chasing humans who lumbered through the wilderness.
I wanted to tell him we’d never bite him, but that would be a lie.
He was our mate, and the mating would only be complete with a mating bite. Three, in Marcus’s case.
“I see.” Marcus tapped a finger against his mug. “He eats chicken.”
He went quiet from there, his mind going elsewhere for several long minutes. Linc was using his fancy olive oil to sauté the onions, the warm cooking smells blending with the newly familiar one of our mate.
“Why did you bring your laptop into the woods?” I asked him in the hopes of jolting him out of whatever thoughts he was drifting in.
“It has all my stuff. I’m a copywriter, and it’s all on there. I mean, I keep backups, but the most recent files are on the laptop. I don’t really trust the cloud.”
“If you ever want a dedicated cloud server for your writing that you can actually trust, one that has really good encryption, let me know,” Linc said. “I do security. Cyber security is a smaller area for my company, but we’re good at it and planning to expand.”
Marcus leaned back so he could watch Linc cooking before looking back at me. “Hmm. So when you say mate, what you mean is you want me to join your polyamorous cuddle puddle?”
Linc hissed when his knife came down, and the scent of his blood made my nose twitch. Unless he’d actually taken off a finger, the cut would heal quickly, so I decided to save him the embarrassment in front of Marcus and not comment.
“We didn’t expect this.” Linc turned on the water to wash away the blood. “The three of us weren’t out looking for a mate. What you need to understand is that mate bonds just happen. Some say it’s magic, some say it’s genetic. We’re doing our best to take this in stride.”