Chapter 12
I slept lightly, drifting back to wakefulness whenever Marcus stirred in my arms. Holding our mate was more satisfying than a good run or a hard fuck. Odd, that.
As morning light drove the gray out of the world, I found myself thinking back to what had happened just a few hours ago. Dom could be such a brat sometimes, but I wouldn’t argue with his results. He’d gotten Marcus to a state of blissful contentment, and that was good enough, for now.
Or it had been good enough for last night.
Where it left us with Marcus, I had no idea.
The alpha in me wanted to claim our mate, the sooner the better, but the man wanted to give Marcus all the time he needed.
I’d curl up at his feet, wait patiently for the smallest smile, beg for a moment of his attention.
I lay awake for maybe a half hour past sunrise before I reached over our sleeping mate and ran a hand through Ell’s hair.
Ell woke almost immediately, looked at Marcus, smiled, then looked up at me. Dom was still totally oblivious. He’d always been able to fall asleep as fast as a tired-out puppy, and waking him took at least three alarms or a well-aimed nip with my teeth.
Ell gave me a grateful nod. He had the morning shift today, so he had to get ready for work.
I watched him extricate himself slowly and carefully so as not to wake Marcus.
Normally, I’d have reached for him, would have reeled him in for a good morning kiss.
By his wink, he knew it but didn’t mind that I kept holding on to Marcus instead.
The sound of Ell getting ready—showering, starting the coffee in the kitchen downstairs, getting dressed—it added the comfort of routine to being in bed with Dom and our mate. If Marcus wanted it, it could always be like this, every morning from here on out.
Marcus stirred as he came out of a deep sleep. He didn’t feel as feverish anymore, and the smell of sickness no longer hung as heavily in the air around him. If not for the danger of a potential hunter and Marcus’s asshole of an ex, this would’ve been one of the happiest days in my entire life.
Ell eventually poked his head into the room. “About to leave. I need to get Marcus’s blood for a panel.”
I nodded, and Ell came back in with his hematology kit. The idea that Steven had cheated on our mate was bad enough, but the possibility of him having passed him an STI? It made me angry beyond words.
I brushed Marcus’s cheek with my fingers while Ell got back on the bed. It took a little while, but eventually, Marcus’s moonstone eyes blinked open, and I smiled at him.
“Good morning.”
“Hi there,” Ell said in his doctor voice, and Marcus’s eyes flicked to him. “You wanted me to run a blood panel. I need to take a sample, if that’s okay?”
Marcus blinked a few times then cleared his throat. “Right. Yes, sure.”
He looked around, registering where he was—in my arms, half lying on my chest—and that Dom and I were still in bed with him.
Watching him made me want to pull him close and kiss him.
There was just such a rush of love inside of me, like a pot wanting to boil over, and it was all I could do not to act on it.
I also wanted to shake Dom awake so he could see our mate realize where he was and sort of relax into it.
Then Marcus jolted upright in my arms, or as much as I let him. “Oh, shit.”
My heart sped up as if on autopilot. I listened for anything he might’ve heard, anything that might’ve upset him. “What is it?”
Ell’s hand had come to rest on Marcus’s thigh.
“I—shit. Dom didn’t use a condom last night.” The last came out pained, guilty.
I pulled Marcus back against me, and Ell did his trust-me-this-won’t-hurt smile. It worked a charm on children.
“Werewolves are basically a different species. We know that the flu crosses over, and there’ve been a few, well, studies I guess, about Epstein-Barr, but STIs are not something you need to worry about.”
Marcus relaxed against me. “Thank all the gods and devils.” He looked at Dom. “Why’s he out still?”
That he cared about Dom gave me more of that warm and fuzzy feeling. I petted Marcus’s shoulder.
“It’s just Dom being Dom. Man sleeps like a dead rhino.”
“Arm, please, Marcus.” Ell pulled on some gloves.
Marcus held out his right, and Ell sprayed the skin with disinfectant, then brushed off the excess with a cotton swab.
My only expertise in the medical field came from the annual blood drive Ell volunteered us as nurse support for every year, but I was pretty sure Ell had picked an especially thin needle, the kind normally reserved for children.
If Marcus had an issue with needles, he didn’t show it, and Ell was pretty quick. Just as Ell was putting the Band-Aid on Marcus, Dom eventually started moving and looked around bleary-eyed.
He nuzzled my shoulder. “’S happenin’? ’S too early to be up, Linc. Cuddle me.”
He became somewhat more alert when he saw Marcus keeping pressure on his arm to stop the bleeding.
“Did you stick our boy with a needle? You didn’t think to wake me so I could hold his hand?”
“I’m a grown man and I don’t need you to hold my hand. Jeez.” Marcus’s cheeks were glowing pink.
Ell pulled his gloves off. “You did very well. Nice veins too.” He put a plastic sample cup on the night stand. “I’ll need you to fill that for me as well.”
Marcus groaned. “Before anyone asks, I don’t need handholding for that one either.”
Dom chuckled and stretched. The morning light that came in through the curtains washed over his body, outlining the hills and valleys of his physique. Dom totally wanted Marcus to stare, and Marcus sure did.
“What kind of voyeuristic alphas do you think we are?” Dom said as Ell left the room. “No, don’t answer that. Those pink cheeks are answer enough. I’ll go make breakfast.” He got to his feet in a rush. “Ell, wait! Cuddle me!”
Dom strutted out, which left me alone in bed with Marcus. I heard Dom ask Ell when Marcus’s stitches could come out, and Ell told him that humans needed a hot minute to heal. I didn’t need to see Dom’s eye roll to know it was there.
Marcus turned in my arms. “So, should we get up too? I guess I have to. For the sample. I just seem to have, erm, misplaced my pants.”
Dom burst out laughing, and I heard Ell chuckling as he packed up the sample downstairs.
I couldn’t help it; I plastered a kiss to the side of Marcus’s mouth. He looked at me wide-eyed, but not shocked, and his expanding pupils and the change in his scent told me he hadn’t minded.
Once I’d moved Marcus onto the pillows, I got out of bed, whisked his pants off the floor, and tossed them at him.
He swallowed hard. “You need a shave.”
I grunted in agreement. “There’s a bathroom through there.” I pointed to my en suite. “Smaller than the other one.”
“Just need a shower and a toothbrush.” He blushed sweetly. “What?”
“I’d rather run you another bath and wash your hair for you, Marcus. It won’t hurt to keep those stitches dry for a while longer.”
The truth was, I also liked washing Marcus. Thankfully, I had enough sense left to know that a human would find that odd, to say the least. Even I found it odd.
Every wolf had heard about how strongly a mate bond could pull people together, especially before the mating bite.
The trick here would be to strike a balance where we didn’t freak Marcus out to the point where he ran for the hills.
We had to keep it together so that we could actually achieve the mating bite, with his permission.
Marcus was busy awkwardly wiggling into his pants under the covers. “I don’t need—”
“Please.” I gave him puppy eyes. Or so I hoped.
Marcus pulled the pants up over his hips and sighed. “Fine, whatever. Let me just do the sample first.”
Ell left for work as soon as he had all his samples, and Marcus insisted on dressing in jeans and a sweater after his bath. It was a shame. I really would’ve liked to see him wear some of my sweatpants.
The first thing Dom did when we came down the stairs was hand Marcus a nice big cup of oolong tea.
“Mmm, thanks.” Marcus smiled at Dom as if tea were the most precious thing in the whole wide world.
“I like pleasing you.” Dom leaned in.
I hesitated, unsure whether I should tell Dom off or slather on the affection, but Marcus made the choice for me when he walked around Dom and farther into the living room.
Dom grinned at me, then shrugged. His happy-go-lucky attitude had always drawn me in, and right now I envied him for having the daring to be so forward.
I tilted my head toward the other end of the house, asking Dom an unspoken question. He nodded.
“Marcus, were having breakfast in the dining room. Let me show you.”
Marcus stopped a foot from the couch and turned to me. “There’s a dining room? This place is even bigger?”
Dom basked in that, and rightly so. The dining room wasn’t immediately obvious from the hallway or the living room.
You had to walk past the kitchen to get to that area of the house.
Dom had decided to put in a half wall to break the space up, and with the lighting, you could easily miss that the house continued in that direction.
“It’s bigger on the inside, yes.” I kept my face straight but saw our mate’s lips twitch.
Dom rolled his eyes. “There’s another one of you. Not fair. Nerds are way too sexy. How will I ever choose which one to kiss first?”
“Let me make the choice for you.” I put an arm around Dom and kissed his mouth. He still tasted faintly like Marcus. It was divine, almost too much. I needed to focus. “This way.” I beckoned for Marcus to follow us.
Marcus stared, almost like he’d stared at Ell and me last night, and with his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, he followed me and Dom.