Viggo was like something conjured up from his deepest, darkest sexual fantasies. Everything about him, from his size to his natural authority to the way he growled and grunted when he came, was like he’d been built in a lab to tick every one of Sebastian’s boxes.
Bjorn, he had no idea about, but even when he was having the breath squeezed out of his lungs, Sebastian didn’t get the impression that Bjorn was unkind.
He was being stupid, he knew. The feeling of relief came from the same shameless part of him that had him imagining Bjorn hugging him against his naked chest while wearing his leather jacket. It was probably a defense mechanism: his mind focusing on the good bits so that he wouldn’t think about the fact that he was essentially trapped and completely at Viggo’s mercy.
He needed to call his mom. Steeling himself for an uncomfortable conversation, he brought the phone up to his ear and said, “Call Mom.”
The phone rang and Sebastian scraped his fork over his empty plate as he waited for her to pick up. He didn’t have to wait long. After the second ring – probably the first for her – she answered the phone.
“Are you okay?”
Sebastian grimaced. She sounded worried, her voice groggy like she was tired from staying up all night.
She probably had, Sebastian thought with a guilty clench in his stomach.
“Hi, Mom, I’m fine,” he said, hoping she believed him. “Viggo seems nice so far. I don’t think you need to worry about me.”
His mother choked back a sob. “Of course I’m going to worry. He’s a werewolf. Did you read the articles I sent you? The one about the case in California-”
“Mom, I don’t think any of that applies to me. Nobody forced me into this – it was my choice.”
His mother was silent, and Sebastian knew that she was blaming herself.
“He’s married,” Sebastian blurted out. The last time he’d spoken to his mom, he hadn’t known about Bjorn.
“He’s what?”
“Married,” Sebastian repeated. “His husband is a forest ranger named Bjorn.”
His mom didn’t say anything for a while. When she spoke, she sounded even more worried, which had not been what Sebastian expected.
“What do they want with you then, if they’re together?”
Sebastian winced. There was no way he could tell his mother that Viggo wanted him to tame his feral husband – only for Viggo and Bjorn to then share him like some kind of human sex-pet.
“Nothing bad,” Sebastian said. His mother let out a frustrated hiss at his non-answer. “They want me to be in their pack. Viggo says I smell right. I can keep my job and I can visit you as much as I like. They don’t want me to be their prisoner.”
“But they want to have sex with you.”
His mother sounded bitter and guilty, like this was something horrible she had done to him, and Sebastian wished he knew what to say so that she wouldn’t blame herself. He certainly didn’t blame her. If the choice was to belong to Viggo in his pack, or to be free and not have his mother, Sebastian knew which choice he’d make in a heartbeat.
“Not if I don’t want them to,” Sebastian said, thinking back to Viggo’s promise. “The main reason they want me is that their pack needs a human – don’t ask, it’s a weird werewolf thing – and that’s why I’m here. Viggo said that if I didn’t want our relationship to be sexual, it didn’t have to be.”
Sebastian may be massaging Viggo’s words a little, but that was the essence, if not the spirit, of what he’d said.
“Is he telling the truth?” There was a spark of hope in his mother’s voice, and Sebastian felt guilty for deceiving her. Viggo may have said that he could take sex off the table, but Sebastian had boarded the full-steam-ahead sex train without giving it a second thought.
Now he wondered if he should have been more careful.
“He doesn’t have a reason to lie.”
“But this is your life,” his mother cried, sounding overwhelmed by her emotions. “He can’t just take you.”
“This is what I signed up for,” Sebastian reminded her, making her sniffle. Sebastian hated when his mother cried. “It was worth it, and it’s not your fault. Viggo seems nice. This could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. We don’t know.”
“You’re a good boy, but I should never have let you put yourself in that position.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “It’s not like you chose to get sick, or did I miss something?”
