“Come on! We have to know.” Lee glared at me.
“Kneel,” I told him, my voice firm but not too sharp.
Lee barked a laugh. “Say it like you’re my Alpha, not the guy who wants his cock sucked.”
This isn’t a done deal. If I am Alpha, I can release him.I wasn’t sure how that worked, but I knew bonds could be cut when a wolf went lone, or changed packs. I looked up into hisface, trying to ignore the entire big, muscled man whose dick under damp khakis was staring me right in the… On second thought, I stood too and met his eyes.
I gathered myself, reaching for shift energy as if about to wolf up. My wolf stirred, but didn’t seem eager to either run in fur or fight. I stared into the dark depths of Lee’s moss green eyes, pretended he was teen Jonas back when I could take the kid down, and ordered, “Kneel!”
Lee rocked on his heels, then grinned. “Easy to say no.” Except his grin faded. “That means…”
I looked up at the man I loved, who’d somehow become my Alpha. I trusted Lee. I’d trusted him not to hurt me, not to betray me, not to turn to anyone else while I was gone. Surely I could still trust him if he controlled me. But my heart sank and acid burned my throat. “Do it,” I said.
He scowled, dark brows almost meeting, and demanded, “Kneel.”
And nothing happened. Flowing down the bond in my head, I felt his worry, fear, curiosity, anger, love— a heady mix that made me want to step into his arms, not sink to the floor. “It didn’t work,” I told him. “Try harder.”
Lee set a big hand on my shoulder and growled, “Kneel!”
The warmth of his touch through my shirt shone inside me, but his command didn’t grab hold. I knew what submitting to an Alpha felt like. There’d been a few occasions when Dad, tired of pack bickering or otherwise peeved with us, had sent his whole pack to our knees in a reminder of who held the reins of power. His commands had slacked my muscles and taken me to the floor before I even realized what I was doing. Lee’s words didn’t hint at that kind of control.
We stared at each other. “One of us is doing this wrong,” I said.
“Or maybe not.” Lee set his other hand on my right shoulder and leaned in to kiss me. The touch of his lips sparked brightness in that hidden place in my head. He eased back. “Maybe it’s not an Alpha bond.”
“What else could it be—?” The answer came as my wolf rolled over, basking in that warmth, and said,Mate.
I blinked. “You’re kidding, right?” And to my wolf,You’re kidding?Wolf-self settled deeper into the light, weaving the bond around his paws.
Lee said, “A mate bond.”
“That’s for a husband and wife. After they’ve lived together and known each other, after they totally trust…” My voice trailed off. “It can’t be between two wolves. Two men.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t happen. Because the packs aren’t like that.”
“How would we ever know? When queer wolves are driven out, slaughtered, forced into deepest hiding. How would we find out? Who would expose themselves?”
“An Alpha would know. He’d sense a mate bond with any of his wolves. He’d know who they were bonded to.”
Lee nodded slowly. “So perhaps this is the only way it happens. Two wolves alone, with no pack and no Alpha. Only each other. And trust. And love.”
I wanted to believe that. Jesus Christ, I wanted so hard. And yet it went against everything the packs taught us.
Formal mate bonds served to tie the pure-human mothers of our pups to the pack and made it safe for them to know our secrets. We wolves had to marry human wives. There were no female werewolves. But without the bonds, an unhappy wife might be a threat to all of wolfdom.
The mate bond made a woman’s husband’s pain hers, the pack’s wellbeing hers. Once she was bonded, betraying herhusband meant she would feel everything that happened to him like it was happening to her— any captivity, any torture, any death, would echo in her body. The bonds were insurance against betrayal.
Which meant… I shook my head. “A mate bond serves no purpose between two wolves. We don’t need a bond to keep us from leaking pack secrets to humans.”
“We don’tneedit. But maybe we want it. Maybe our bond’s not about usefulness and protection, but about family.” Lee cupped my face between his hands and kissed me again. The green-gold of our bond flickered in his eyes and suffused my chest, the best thing I’d ever felt. His lips on mine were my lips on his. If we hadn’t both just come to sticky, wrung-out satisfaction, I’d have dragged him back to bed.
“Let’s run,” I suggested. “Get out there in fur. If it’s an Alpha bond, we don’t have to use the power and if it isn’t…” Maybe wolf instincts would tell me for sure. “I’ve missed running as pack.”
“Sounds good.” He looked himself up and down. “Maybe we can risk shifting here this one time. I don’t want to change and clean up and get dressed again and drive. I don’t want to wait.”
“Me neither.” I yanked my shirt over my head— to hell with the buttons— removed my undershirt, kicked off my boots, and then undid my pants. Cum in my shorts was something I hadn’t dealt with since my teens, and the mess hadn’t improved, but at that moment, I didn’t care. I stepped out of my underwear, used the clean back side to wipe myself, and tossed them into a corner. Socks came last, and then I stood naked facing Lee. He’d been faster, and his hard body was exposed to my viewing pleasure. I looked, wondering if this was the last time I’d be so free. If he was Alpha…
