Chapter 8 #2
A month of living with Bel had left them both hungry for the man’s touch. They could smell the desire on the man, but he studiously kept his hands to himself unless Wyatt or River pushed.
Fuck, he generally kept an entire room between them, as if he didn’t trust himself.
But Wyatt wasn’t going to force him or corner him. If he wanted something more with them, he wanted Bel to come to them naturally. He wanted the vampire to show that he desired them for more than scientific studies and roommates.
“What did you want to know?” Bel asked when he had his lab coat settled around him and those beautiful eyes were trained on his face.
“Were you scared when you were changed into a vampire?”
Bel straightened and blinked at him a couple of times. “Oh, that is a serious question.”
“If you don’t want to answer—”
Bel quickly waved him off. “No, I don’t mind. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
Drawing in a deep breath, he looked down at the tabletop littered with printouts of reports, a few microscope slides, and other bits of debris from his work. His shoulders slumped a bit, and some of the earlier happiness seemed to drain out of him, as if his mind were traveling back to that night.
“Scared?” Bel shook his head a little. “Probably not as scared as I should have been. I grew up with Aiden around for most of my life. Aiden was as normal to me as the cook’s treasured apple tarts.
I went into it with this idea of learning all this important scientific information, and Aiden always said that he’d keep us safe.
He was our father. He wouldn’t hurt us.” Something changed in his voice at the end, became darker and sadder.
“But he did.”
Bel’s head immediately popped up. “Not intentionally. Never intentionally. A vampire’s bite always hurts at first. There’s no way around that.”
“I know,” Wyatt said. He wished they weren’t sitting so far apart. He wanted to reach across and place his hand over Bel’s, but he’d found that Bel was much more relaxed in the lab when Wyatt was out of physical reach.
“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry.”
Wyatt could only flash him a reassuring smile. There was no point in telling him not to apologize for every wrong he and River had suffered at the hands of the MacPhersons. He was just going to keep doing it. He could only distract him. “You were saying about the changing…”
Bel nodded. “I knew the mechanics of it all. Changing a person into a vampire isn’t exactly rocket science. You drain the person of blood to the point of death and get them to drink a vampire’s blood. And then…poof!”
“Like magic.”
Bel held up a finger. “Science.”
Wyatt chuckled. “We just don’t understand it all yet, so it looks like magic.”
Bel’s smile faded. “I don’t think it would have helped to understand the science of it all.
” He swallowed hard and his eyes were locked on a distant point.
“Seeing Marcus lying on the library floor, not moving, not even breathing. His face so pale. My older brother has always been so strong and brave. He was our protector. The wall against which the rest of the world hammered. Seeing him dead. I was scared then. Not for myself, but for him and the rest of my brothers. What if something went wrong? How was I supposed to go on without my brother?”
The soft tremor in Bel’s voice pierced Wyatt’s heart. He couldn’t stop himself. Pushing to his feet, Wyatt crossed the distance between them and stood behind Bel, wrapping his arms around his slender frame.
“I’m sorry.”
Bel squeezed Wyatt’s hand. “Don’t. It was a scary moment, but everything turned out okay. My brothers and I survived the change just fine. We have all lived long and interesting lives. We have no regrets about taking that chance so many years ago.”
Wyatt pressed a kiss to the top of Bel’s head before releasing him. “Thank you.”
“What about you?” Bel asked as Wyatt returned to his stool at the end of the table. “Were you scared when you shifted into a wolf for the first time?”
Wyatt’s laughter bounced off the walls and he rocked on his stool. “Shifting the first time is always a nightmare.”
“I’m so confused,” Bel murmured, which only made Wyatt laugh harder.
“No, it’s just a typical teenage nightmare.
It’s puberty with raging hormones, crazy mood swings, and then throw in trying to shift for the first time in front of your family and the entire pack.
” Wyatt nearly started laughing again at Bel’s wide eyes, and lips parted to form a horrified O.
“Nearly everyone shifts by the age of sixteen, but some can shift as early as thirteen. So, when you turn thirteen or fourteen, they drag you out into the field every full moon so you can attempt to shift in front of the entire pack.”
“Oh my,” Bel whispered, his fingers touching his lips.
“It’s supposed to be this great bonding moment with the pack.
They want to celebrate this monumental event in your life, but you’re a fucking teenager.
All you’re thinking about is being the last among your friends to shift or if the cute guy is going to like your wolf.
Or hell, even worse, getting stuck midshift. ”
“You can get stuck? How? When you and River do it, there’s this glow and then…”
“Poof?” Wyatt teased.
Bel pointed at him. “Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.” Bel sighed and nodded. “But yes, poof.”
“Lots of practice,” Wyatt said with a smile.
“We’ve had lots of practice over the years.
It becomes faster and smoother. When you’re shifting the first few dozen times, it’s anything but smooth.
And it’s painful. Some people panic in the middle of the shift and get stuck.
Takes a bit of work and even more pain to get them to either continue or switch back to human.
Add on top the embarrassment that it happened in front of all these people you know. ”
“That sounds like a version of Hell.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Rite of passage, I guess. I was lucky that I had older siblings who’d gone through it already. They’d spent months coaching me so that my first shift went pretty easily.”
Some emotion that Wyatt couldn’t quite name flashed across Bel’s face and his smile faded. “I hadn’t thought of that. Your family. You must have siblings.”
Wyatt’s smile fell away. He hadn’t thought of his family much over the years. It was less painful that way, but the old ache was still there. They’d likely be married and have children of their own by now. They’d probably forgotten all about him. “Yes. Three sisters and four brothers.”
“Wow, you’re one of eight. Is…is that viewed as a large family?”
Wyatt nodded. “We were one of the larger families. A point of pride for the pack.” At least they had been until Wyatt came out and proclaimed his love for River.
He hoped the rest of his family hadn’t been shunned because of what he’d done.
He’d made his choice and hoped that his family had been able to move on without him.
“And I always thought the Variks were a particularly large family with four children.”
“I think you are.”
Bel smiled at him, but there was more to it. He could feel the vampire reaching out to him through their connection, could feel both warmth and acceptance from him as clearly as if he’d wrapped his arms around him.
“Whoa…things look bleak in here. Test go bad?” River said as he walked into the laboratory. He was still pulling on a dark-red Henley over his sleep-tousled hair as he stepped into the room.
“We were just talking about what it’s like when a werewolf shifts for the first time,” Bel replied. Wyatt smiled to see the man’s eyes caress River’s bare chest before jerking away to look anywhere but at the younger wolf.
“Oh, shit. I’m out.”
River turned on his bare heel and started for the door again, but Wyatt snagged his elbow and jerked him off balance.
River tumbled backward with a yelp, landing between Wyatt’s legs.
He wrapped his arms tightly around River’s, burying his face into his neck.
He was still warm from the bed and smelled wonderful.
River started to growl, but it ended up a hum of pleasure as he relaxed against Wyatt.
There was a low chuckle from Bel, and Wyatt wanted to ask him if he could feel the love and attraction between him and River, but he swallowed the words. Instead he turned his attention to his lover.
“You should tell him,” Wyatt nudged.
“Ugh. Why?” River whined.
“Because we’ve all got embarrassing events in our lives.”
River pulled away enough to frown at him. “You gonna volunteer up something humiliating too?”
Wyatt smiled at him. He didn’t mind sharing embarrassing things if it brought the laughter back to River’s greenish-brown eyes. “Like what? Like the first time we managed to get ten minutes alone together, I was so excited that I came in my pants?”
River groaned. “That’s not humiliating. That’s sweet and romantic.”
Wyatt nearly fell off his chair laughing. “Romantic?” he choked out.
“It is…in a way,” Bel said, sounding as though he was trying very hard not to laugh.
Wyatt sighed, getting the last of his giggles under control.
“Well, it felt extremely mortifying.” He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through the stubble on River’s jaw, soaking in the love shining in his eyes.
“After fighting my attraction for him for nearly five years, I finally gave in and went to secretly meet River outside of our pack lands. The sexiest man I’d ever seen and he wanted to meet me, of all people. ”
“Only because you were the sexiest man I’d ever seen,” River chimed in.
“It was our second kiss ever. I’ve got him pinned to the wall and can feel his every muscle pressed along my body. The fucker grinds against me and lets out this throaty moan, and I lose it.”
“Still the best compliment I’ve ever received,” River murmured before kissing him gently.
“Maybe,” Wyatt murmured, kissing him again. “Okay, you’ve gotten my embarrassing story out of me. Tell Bel.”