“I’m out by the eastern border,” Connor said. “Did you need something done?”
“You’re all the way out there in your human form?” Davis sounded incredulous. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Just get back here as soon as you can. I have a job for you.”
Connor waited until the alpha disconnected the call and started running back to Davis’s house. While his wolf was big and mean, Connor’s human form was also super fit, and he barely broke a sweat as he covered the fifteen miles back to the alpha’s house. The air was crisp and clean, and the forest was full of the sounds of spring. Connor loved this time of year.
As he ran, Connor’s mind went back to Leyden. That was hardly a surprise, and Connor had gotten to the point where he just accepted that the man would dominate his every thought. He knew Leyden was his mate and felt the pull to be with him every second of every waking moment.
But even though his wolf desperately wanted to be claimed by his intended, Connor knew now, even with a mate, he didn’t feel the overriding need to have sex, like Leyden had clearly felt when they had met. So he stayed away, accepting that he would never be claimed by his alpha and tried to deal with the unbearable hurt that thought was causing him.
Connor had done a lot of research since finding out that the way he felt was different from other wolf shifters. Being gay wasn’t a problem. Wolves didn’t care about the sex of their mates; they just enjoyed a lot of sex. Connor couldn’t even get interested. He’d read about asexuals, graysexuals, and demisexuals, trying to get a handle on what might be different about the way he thought. The range of different terminologies in the human world made Connor’s head spin. Humans seemed to have a label for every shade of sexuality known to man.
Originally, Connor had thought that he was asexual but as he grew older, Connor did find himself thinking about sex. By the time he was eighteen, he had become a master of masturbation. At the time, encouraged by the hard cock he had in the privacy of his own bedroom, Connor let Davis talk him into going to a human club about twenty miles away.
Connor had sat at the bar, watching men of all ages and types, and admired from afar. He decided he liked taller men with muscles, although none of the humans in the club were a patch on a wolf shifter in the size department. More than a few men offered to buy Connor a drink and as the night wore on, the propositions changed from drinks to blow jobs.
At one point, desperate to feel something, Connor had followed a man into the bathroom. But when the man dropped to his knees, clearly ready to find out what was in Connor’s pants, Connor had walked away. He hadn’t felt a smidgeon of attraction for the guy, and in the male gender, sexual arousal couldn’t be faked. Hespent the rest of the night watching Davis, who did go into the bathroom with men - three different times.
Reading about graysexuals and demisexuals gave Connor a bit of hope. It sounded like he wasn’t alone in the way he felt, although he conceded that he probably was unique in the wolf shifter world. From what he could gather, graysexuals liked physical closeness and preferred nonsexual intimacy as opposed to sex itself. Demisexuals, on the other hand, had a problem feeling sexual attraction to anyone they didn’t have an emotional connection with. Apparently even if a demisexual was in a relationship, the desire for sex built over time.
Connor wasn’t stupid. He knew even among humans sexual attraction was usually the first thing to blossom between two potential partners. Relationships were built from there. Among wolf shifters, casual sex was common. Wolves couldn’t catch diseases, didn’t have to worry about STDs, and while every wolf shifter ever born longed to find his mate, they were hardly going to stay virgins waiting for their intended to turn up.
Which was why, Connor thought as he trudged up the steps to the alpha’s house, he was still alone and a virgin. He had friends, but he wasn’t sexually attracted to them - Davis was one of them. He’d never been closer to anyone than Davis in his life. But he didn’t want to go to bed with the man even if he did admire the man’s muscles on occasion.
In fact in his whole life, Connor had never felt sexual attraction to anyone he had been close to. He woke up with a hard-on almost every morning and took care of that. He quite often jerked himself to sleep at night - better than a sleeping pill. So he knew his equipment worked. It just didn’t seem to want to perk up around another person. Even his mate, it would seem.
Cursing himself for being so fucking different, Connor stomped harder than normal as he went into the alpha’s office. Davis wassitting at his desk, the surface covered with papers. He looked up as Connor came in and stood in front of the desk, arms clasped behind his back, feet slightly apart, head tilted to show respect.
“You’re sounding grouchy this morning, Conner,” Davis said with a grin on his face. “Problem?”
“Nothing I can’t handle, Alpha,” Connor said firmly. He knew he wasn’t looking his best. The black circles under his eyes were a dead giveaway that he hadn’t been sleeping well, and he knew he had lost a few pounds because the thought of food made his stomach churn. He spent a lot of his time controlling his wolf, who wanted to go and find Leyden. Given that his wolf was such a grumpy soul, that sort of control was tiring at the best of times.
Davis seemed to accept Connor’s assertion and looked down at the papers on his desk instead. “Alpha Leyden has requested that I send someone over to his pack to supervise the beta challenge he’s holding. His old beta is exactly that, old, and Leyden has sent out a memo to all packs asking for contenders for the position. He asked me if I had someone who had the skills and expertise necessary to do background checks on all of the contenders and provide him with security before and during the challenge. All of his enforcers will be attending as contenders. You will need to be at the pack for three days.”
The word “no” teased Connor’s tongue, but a look at his alpha’s face had him swallowing it just in time. Taking a deep breath, before he did something he would regret, Connor said instead, “Permission to speak freely, Alpha.”
Davis nodded and indicated that Connor take a seat. Connor slumped in his chair, wondering what on earth to say. He’d never taken advantage of his friendship with Davis before, but he knew he couldn’t go to Leyden’s pack.
“Davis, please. You can’t ask me to do this. Send Bruno or Ivan, they both have the skills. You said yourself that Alpha Leydenasked forsomeoneand either man could do the job just as well as I could. Don’t put either me or the alpha in a difficult position.”
“I lied,” Davis said, a grin cracking his handsome face. “Leyden asked for you specifically, and given your situation, I saw no reason to refuse him. You’re mates after all.”
“I am not saddling someone like Alpha Leyden with a mate that doesn’t want to have sex. Have you seen the man?” Connor burst out. “Everywhere he goes he has men and women falling all over him and he seems more than happy with the attention. He’s not going to want to take the time to get to know me like I need, and I can’t, Davis, I just can’t watch him fooling around and screwing other people. It would fucking break me. Please send someone else.”
Davis leaned over his desk, his face showing all of the compassion Connor knew he was capable of. “Your mate might be in danger, Connor,” he said. “Now I am guessing, from what you are saying, that the urge to rut didn’t hit you when you smelled your mate, but surely your other instincts are there.”
“That’s why I don’t want to go,” Connor said miserably, looking down at his hands. “I won’t be able to stand it if anyone else touches him - my wolf is so possessive it’s beyond a joke.”
Davis studied Connor intently and then seemed to come to a decision. “I had a talk with Leyden, after you ran off from the meet and greet. No,” Davis said, holding up his hand as he saw Connor was going to speak. “I know this wasn’t easy for you, but Leyden was in shock when you left. I had to explain to him why you did it. He understands that you two need to get to know each other before any claiming can take place, and he respects that.”
“But you know damn well that he can still have sex with anyone else he wants until he’s bitten me. He’s a strong alpha wolf shifter. He’s not going to be able to stay celibate waiting for meto feel something. I wouldn’t expect him to, but I know I couldn’t handle seeing any sign of his mucking about if I was there,” Connor said, angry at the thought of his mate being intimate with someone else. He might not feel the desire necessary for sex, but possession and yes, the need to protect, were rampant parts of his makeup.
“When we had our chat the other night he told me that he would not cheat on you now he has met you. When I spoke to him this morning, he promised me that he hadn’t been with anyone else since the other night. He honestly wants the chance to talk to you, work alongside you, and get to know you. I thought this sounded like the perfect opportunity for you both.”
Connor didn’t know if he was pleased or pissed off that his mate seemed to have no problem talking to Davis about their apparent relationship, when Connor hadn’t heard from him at all since he ran from him.
In a way he was glad that Leyden and Davis had talked - that could have been a really awkward conversation if Connor had tried to explain to his drop-dead gorgeous mate why he didn’t want to have sex with the man. Davis had been Connor’s friend for as long as he could remember, and Connor trusted Davis with his life. While Connor had felt like a freak since puberty because of some twisted link in his brain, Davis had never made him feel like that.
“Connor, listen to me,” Davis said firmly. Connor looked up and could see that Davis was being deadly serious. “You only get one mate, you know that. You are different, you know that too. But there is honestly nothing wrong with you. Just because you want to wait before having sex - want to make a connection to the man first and get to know him, that doesn’t make you weird. The Fates made you perfect exactly the way you are. Can’t you trustthat they knew what they were doing when it comes to pairing you with your life partner?”
