6. Chapter 6
By the time Roman brought Lance up the long drive, the estate already knew.
Word ran ahead of them the way it always did, gate to cottage to mess hall, and the windows of the main house were lit and crowded.
He walked Lance in through the front of the mansion because it had to be settled here, in front of all of them, or it wasn’t going to be settled at all.
Nobody said anything, at first. A hall full of pack, the wolves he’d grown up among, watching the half-blood come in bloodied at their prince’s side.
Then it started, a growl somewhere at the back of the crowd, and another picking it up, the sound a pack makes at when someone or something doesn’t belong on its ground.
Roman stopped walking. He let his own growl roll out over the top of theirs, louder, the whole weight of the bloodline behind it, and one by one the others choked off and found somewhere else to look.
Lance kept his chin up through all of it. He walked into a house full of people who’d run him off as a boy and didn’t let a single one of them see it cost him a thing. He even found something to say.
“Place hasn’t changed,” he murmured. “Same look they gave me at nine. Real comforting, the consistency.”
“Behave,” Roman murmured back.
“Never.”
Merritt stood at the foot of the main stair. He’d beaten them home, changed his shirt, put the Alpha back on like a coat, the silver insignia ring catching the light when he folded his hands. For a long moment the brothers only looked at each other across the cold hall.
“You brought him here,” Merritt said, and the hall went dead quiet.
“He’s my mate now.” Roman didn’t raise his voice. “It’s done, and I did it on purpose, in front of the Council’s own people. You can make room for him, or you can try to stop me and see how that goes. You’re not going to argue me out of my own mate.”
A muscle worked in Merritt’s jaw. Near the stairs one of the big wolves from the shed shifted his weight forward like he might make something of it, and Roman turned his head and looked at him, only looked, until the man went still and stepped back into the crowd.
Around them the rest waited to see which way the Alpha would jump.
It was Amanda who moved first.
She came down off the second step, small and certain, crossed the cold hall to where Lance stood bloody and filthy and braced for the next blow, and stopped in front of him. Every wolf in the hall went still. Lance went stiller.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“I’ve had worse,” Lance said. “House cats, mostly.”
Amanda’s mouth twitched, the first scrap of warmth anyone in that hall had offered Lance. “I’ll have a kit and something hot sent down to the cottage.” She said it to Lance and aimed it at Merritt. “We don’t leave family bleeding in the front hall, Merritt. Whatever else gets decided.”
She didn’t wait for permission. She caught a passing maid and sent her off for the kit and the food, and the girl went without a look at Merritt, because the Pack Alpha’s mate had said so and no one in that house argued with her. One small mercy in a hall full of stone.
Merritt watched her go. Something complicated crossed his face, fear and love both, and under them the worn look of a man who’d been certain of something for fifteen years and wasn’t anymore.
“This isn’t settled,” he said. But he stepped aside from the stair and let them pass. It was not a blessing. Stepping aside at all, from Merritt, was more than Roman had looked for tonight.
So they weren’t being thrown out. Not tonight. Roman took that for exactly what it was worth, set a hand at the small of Lance’s back, and walked him out of the cold house and across the dark grounds toward the one place on the whole estate that had ever been only his.
“Where are we going,” Lance said.
“Home. My cottage. Away from all of them.” Roman looked at him, at the blood and the bravado and the man he’d somehow gotten to keep. “I’ve wanted you under that roof since the night you turned up in my stable. Let me take you home.”
***
A first-aid kit already sat on the table next to a covered plate, still warm. Lance looked at the kit, then down at himself, at the blood and the dirt and the torn shirt, then at Roman, who was no cleaner.
“Forget the kit,” he said. “Forget the shower. I’ve waited fifteen years for this. I’m not waiting on hot water.”
“You’re filthy.”
“So are you.”
“C’mere.” Roman crooked a finger and closed the distance with a searing kiss, sliding his palms up under Lance’s torn shirt, spreading his fingers wide and learning his body in slow, unhurried strokes.
Lance’s breath hitched, and he shivered under the warm hands. He squirmed at the ticklish drag of them, and his laugh came out more like a whimper. “Cold hands,” he complained, trying to pull back, playful. Then Roman’s mouth was on his again and he stopped wanting to pull anywhere.
Their mouths moved together, slow and deep, and between the taste of Roman and the press of all that hard heat against him, Lance could barely think. His hands found Roman’s waist and pulled him closer. He couldn’t get enough.
Roman’s fingers trailed down his side, teasing, mapping. He broke the kiss and spoke against Lance’s neck. “You scared me. When I asked and you didn’t answer, I thought you might choose Bedlam over me.” His hands tightened for a second at the memory.
“It was—it is—complicated,” Lance admitted.
“The pack’s tried to kill me twice now. Bedlam might’ve been safer.
” He pressed a kiss near Roman’s ear. “When you first found me, I wasn’t after more than a couple nights’ rest. Then being with you had me thinking things I shouldn’t.
Impossible things.” He drew back, caught his lower lip in his teeth, and shrugged, helpless.
“I’m still not sure I haven’t wrecked things between you and your family.
If I’d said I still wanted to go to Bedlam, would you have come with me? ”
“Are you kidding?”
Lance hardly dared breathe.
Roman pulled him in until their chests met. The heat off him made it hard to think, and Lance needed the answer like air.
“I’d go anywhere with you,” Roman said, hoarse.
“I felt more whole in those few days with you than in my whole life. I went off to school to find where I belonged and still came up empty. Went to the clubs, ran through too many people trying to find a mate who’d satisfy the pack, and it only made the empty worse. You know why?”
Lance shook his head.
Roman cupped his jaw, thumb tracing the line of it. “Because when you left, you took a piece of me with you. And when you came back, I found myself in you.”
Lance’s heart lurched. “Roman, I could never have refused you. I tried. I’m half-blood.
I’m not built for a happily ever after, and saying yes could drag you down, so Bedlam was the less selfish call.
But the look in your eyes, the sound of your voice.
Nah. I didn’t stand a chance. No way I was giving you up. I love you.”
“Ditto.” Something heavy lifted off Roman’s chest, and they were both already working Lance’s shirt up and off.
His hands moved over Lance’s body, the lines of his arms, his back, and slowed at the ridges of the scars.
The thought of anyone laying hands on his mate made his blood boil.
“I’m going to make you forget every way you’ve ever been wronged,” he growled, and took Lance’s mouth again, hungry.
Lance kissed him back, fingers fisting in Roman’s hair, holding on while their mouths moved together.
Roman’s hands roamed his chest and stomach until Lance arched into them with a low groan.
The alpha’s scent, the demanding hands, lit him up.
He clawed Roman’s shirt off and threw himself back against him, skin to skin at last, burning.
Roman’s hand went to the button of Lance’s jeans. A hard tug had Lance groaning. Step-by-step Roman walked him back until his knees hit the bed and he dropped onto it.
For a long moment Roman just looked down at him, the handsome face, the line of his throat, the hard planes of his body, the open jeans showing black-and-red shorts. Roman’s shorts. His eyes flicked up. “Fuck me,” he breathed.
“I grabbed the first thing—” Lance started, toeing off his shoes.
Roman gave him a beat, then dragged the jeans clean off. “What’s mine is yours,” he said, still staring at his own shorts on his mate. He kicked off his shoes, put a knee on the bed, and straddled Lance’s hips. “Did I mention you’re hot as hell?”
“Mmm. I seem to recall that, and something about me being gorgeous. Brilliant. Amazing. Astounding. Heavenly—oh, wait, maybe that was Romeo.” He started tugging Roman’s shirt loose. “And how come I’m half-naked and you’re still dressed?”
Roman helped get the shirt off and settled over him, taking his mouth in a long, deep kiss. Focused on his clean scent under the blood, he knew he’d made the right call. Losing his family and his pack would hurt. Losing Lance would be worse, a wound that never closed. He’d never allow it. Never.
He slid his hands under Lance and lifted him, grinding down, his thick jeans and the thin cotton of Lance’s shorts the only things in the way when all he wanted was skin. He came up enough to work his belt and zipper, and when Lance started to break the kiss, a warning growl rolled out of him.
Lance gave a small whine and lifted into him, arms looping around his neck, pulling the kiss back.
All he really wanted was to get Roman out of those jeans, but he knew that until they’d done this, the alpha would run possessive and demanding.
He dragged a foot up Roman’s calf, urging him on, the heat in him building. Roman’s scent wound around him.
The need to claim had Roman by the throat, and it took everything he had not to just take Lance, half-dressed and in a rush. His mate deserved better. He’d been cheated of better his whole life.