10. Alec

Chapter 10

Alec

S hopping with a mate was something of a treat. Leif paid attention to anything Alec focused on—he noticed things that Alec hovered over, reading the packaging, noting the price, even asking if Alec was hungry and whether he wanted to go eat based on what food items he paused by in the grocery section of the store.

All of it made Alec feel well-cared for and tended to and he loved it. After weeks of isolation, abuse, and being forced to use his powers to make drugs, he was enjoying the freedom and the safety of being with Leif.

He wasn’t afraid of what might happen if they came across someone who knew that Alec had been sold off to the mountain mafia.

There was no way Leif was going to let anyone hurt him or use him again. He knew that with a certainty that reached down to his bones.

They headed to the electronics section at the rear of the store, and Alec took Leif’s hand in his and held it as they walked. Leif squeezed his hand and held it in a firm grip, not at all worried about PDA. Alec smiled, wide and silly, blushing a bit, and he caught Leif grinning at him from the corner of his eye.

Alec went straight to the laptops on display, cruising along until he found a model he liked with the right amount of RAM and disk space, and with a powerful CPU. The model was a popular one with good ratings, and he looked around for an associate to help him.

“They cost that much?” Leif asked, puzzled, eyeing the sticker price with disbelief.

“Good ones do,” Alec replied. “If it cost less for these specs I’d be worried about it falling apart after a few weeks.”

Leif hummed in response, clearly thinking. He spotted a person nearby in a uniform vest. “Let me get the associate.”

“Thank you.”

Leif headed off to get help, and Alec went back to examining the computers; though he was set on the model he’d picked, it never hurt to have a backup.

With the stack of cash he took off of Stu and the other men, he had enough to walk out with the laptop he wanted. Crime apparently paid well, and he was astounded by the choices they made to go hunting with so much cash in their wallets. He was reading the stats again when he felt a tickle of awareness—he was being watched. As nonchalantly as he could, he looked up and glanced around.

A figure ducked back behind a row of clothing in the next section over from electronics, their furtive motion catching his eye more than anything else. He had no idea who it was, and had no desire to go hunting through the stacks without his mate. He wasn’t an idiot—if someone was watching him, then they were either a creep or a mountain mafia goon.

Alec’s senses were heightened, and aside from Leif and the associate heading his way, there was no one else nearby. Maybe he was just being paranoid. He was confident everyone who knew him and where he’d been the last several weeks was dead. Maybe. He hoped.

Leif

Alec was nervous about something, and when Leif came back to his mate with the associate in tow, he leaned down and scented his mate while Alec spoke to the employee about getting the laptop. Inhaling hints of distress and anxiety, Leif was immediately hyper-aware of their surroundings. He pressed a kiss to Alec’s temple, and took a few steps back, turning slowly as he perused the aisles and shoppers, looking for a hint of what might be making Alec nervous.

Humans revealed much of themselves in their scents. Emotions, wants, fears. Even superficial things like annoyance shifted and changed the baseline scents for everyone, and it took practice, but an experienced werewolf, or any shifter with a nose, could read another person with a high degree of accuracy.

Leif wandered out only a single row from Alec, discreetly patrolling, scenting as he went, but there was nothing but the scents of the superstore—hundreds of people, cleaners and chemicals, and food from the grocery section. It was a nightmare of scents, but he breathed through it all, parsing out the scents and dismissing them from his higher mind, searching for something that stood out .

He found it floating in the air in the main aisle between electronics and the kids clothing section. A hint of sour anxiety, avarice, and fear. He refused to let Alec out of his line of sight—he mentally catalogued the person’s scent markers and returned to his mate, remembering the scent for the future.

Alec was just paying with a wad of cash when Leif returned to him, his laptop box in a bright blue bag, Alec taking the receipt with a happy smile he shared with Leif.

“All set?” Leif asked, taking his mate’s bag and then his hand in a gentle grip.

“All set; I got a phone too. It’s prepaid so it’s all set up,” Alec shared, waving the shiny new model in his free hand. He thanked the associate and they headed out of electronics, detouring to the adult clothing section.

Alec went tearing through the displays and racks, Leif grinning the whole time as Alec wasted not a moment finding his sizes and grabbing pants, shirts, underwear, and socks, all the essentials. He even found a pair of hiking boots in his size, sitting down to put them on in place of his ruined sneakers, ripping off the tags and leaving the box on the shelf. “I’ll pay for them with the tags.”

Leif grinned at the growing pile in Alec’s arms and snagged an empty cart left in an aisle, then directed Alec to dump all his items so he’d have his hands free.

His mate was a speed shopper.

“Are you gonna try anything on besides the boots?” Leif asked, amused, as he followed his mate with the cart—he never tried anything on, either. He kept an eye on the people around them also shopping or walking by, but no one matched the scent of the person he thought might be bothering Alec .

“Nope,” Alec said with a grin. “It’ll all fit. I’ve shopped these brands before.”

Leif pushed the cart close to Alec as he debated over a blue shirt or a green one. “What had you worried earlier?”

Alec was briefly startled before blinking it away and smiling in amusement, tossing both shirts into the cart. “You noticed, huh?”

“I did, little greenbough,” Leif confirmed. “What was it?”

“I thought someone was watching me,” Alec shared. “I didn’t get a look at them, they ducked out of sight too fast.”

“Where?” Leif asked.

“The kids section across from electronics.”

It was the next section over from their current location, and was where he had noted the sour scent. “Let’s walk by there, see if the scent matches the one I picked up nearby.”

“They’re probably long gone though,” Alec said, but he followed Leif as he pushed the cart in the direction of the spot the watcher had been.

“Their scent won’t be,” Leif promised his mate, who nodded in dawning understanding.

“Werewolves have better noses,” Alec said with a wide grin, a bit of a feral edge to it. He didn’t have fangs like Leif, but his smile was sharp and predatory. His mate had a dangerous edge to him that Leif liked. “I can’t define the scents in here, it’s so overwhelming between the food department and the number of people.”

“Show me where exactly?”

Alec pointed to the end of the nearby row of clothing, and Leif went up and down the aisle, scenting. It matched the scent he’d noticed earlier.

“Got ‘em,” Leif said, returning to his mate, eyeing their surroundings, but whoever it was had left already, their scent trailing toward the front of the store and presumably the exit. “I’ll know the scent if we cross it again.”

“It might have been a creepy person ogling me,” Alec said, but he sounded as if he doubted it. Leif agreed—too soon for coincidences.

“It’s a small world,” Leif said. “Anything else you want?”

“Toiletries, then we can get out of here,” Alec declared.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Alec

The quiet domesticity of shopping with his mate was comforting and left a warm sensation in his chest, and he made sure to push it along the nascent mate bond to Leif as the feeling grew the longer they were out. Leif not dismissing his concerns about being watched helped cement the certainty that Leif was the wolf for him. Leif cared and wanted him safe. Just days after meeting, Leif was already growing more solicitous and caring; Alec ate it up.

There were no more incidents as they finished getting everything Alec needed and left the store, heading for the truck. He had several bags in the cart, and while it wasn’t a crazy amount, it was more than would fit in a backpack on the way up the mountain.

“How are we getting this up the mountain?” Alec asked. “I feel bad treating you like a pack animal.”

“I’ve got a large sled I can pull for heavier gear or appliances, but also some rucksacks I can secure to a harness. Depends on how much it all weighs. We can get groceries in Gelridge Hollow, and that’ll determine which I use.”

“Good to know,” Alec helped Leif load up the bags in the extended cabin of the truck. He took a thorough glance around the parking lot, but didn’t recognize anyone, nor any vehicles. Not that the vehicles were a sure bet—he’d been locked up inside most of the last several weeks. He knew faces better.

He paused, seeing a police cruiser parked several spots away, but there was no one in the vehicle, and the way it was parked made it hard to see what town it belonged to. It could be the cruiser from Hemlock, but he didn’t notice they were being followed at any point, so he doubted it was the same cruiser.

“Recognize anyone?” Leif asked casually, loading the last bag and shutting the door. Alec took the cart, shaking his head.

“No,” Alec replied. “There’s a police cruiser parked a few spaces away, but I can’t tell if it’s the cops from Hemlock or not.”

Leif turned and saw the cruiser. He gestured for Alec to follow him, and he headed a few spots down toward the cart corral. Leif got within one spot of the cruiser before turning and heading back to his truck, nodding grimly to Alec as he went.

Same cruiser, same cops. Hard to fool a werewolf’s nose.

He pushed the cart to the corral, mindful of Leif watching over him, the alpha waiting for him to return before getting in the truck after Alec hopped into the passenger seat. Leif locked the doors the second he was inside, and he grinned at the protective actions of the alpha wolf. Alec was in no hurry to be kidnapped again, so any actions Leif wanted to take to keep them safe, he was all for it.

“Was it them?” Alec asked, just to be sure, as Leif pulled out of the superstore parking lot, heading toward the highway.

“Yup. Matches the scents in the store, too, for who was watching you. The wind was blowing the wrong way for me to get much at Stu’s place, but the cruiser reeks of them both and fits the scent trail in the store. They were watching you. At least one of them, for sure.”

“Probably Earl, the quiet one. John makes him do all the work.” Alec said, checking behind them for anyone following, glad the truck’s windows were tinted so no one could see inside.

“Think they’re in on it? That mess with Stu and the mafia?” Leif asked him, hands on the wheel, knuckles white. His voice was deeper, too, full of fangs and growls. Leif was feeling protective.

“They’re on the mafia payroll, so I’d bet anything they told whoever they report to that I’m loose and alive.” Alec faced Leif directly as his mate drove. “I’m sorry to get you caught up in all of this. They’re gonna try and find out who you are now, where you live.”

“Only a handful of people know my full name, and only one person knows where I live for sure, and that witch ain’t talking to no one,” Leif informed him. “We should expect them to send more people after that first group we took out.”

“Dammit,” Alec groaned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Leif told him, briefly taking his eyes off the road and giving Alec a stern expression. “I’m not sorry one bit. You shouldn’t be either. This mess brought me you, and that’s more than worth all the trouble. ”

Alec reached out and Leif took a hand off the wheel to grasp his smaller hand in his larger one, squeezing firmly. “We got this, you and me.” Leif told him, warming Alec from his toes to the top of his head.

“Yeah, we got this.”

Alec

Grocery shopping went swiftly. The tiny store in Gelridge Hollow had a varied selection, with regional flavors like flash-frozen fiddleheads, crawdad bushels, and locally sourced meat butchered in the back of the small deli.

Assured by Leif that he had a root cellar that stayed cold year round and a large chest freezer in the lower section of the mine he had yet to see, Alec filled the cart at the grocery store, mostly with things easily frozen. He splurged on a bushel of crawdads after checking with Leif that he had a propane cooker and fuel for a crawdad boil. They were going to be eating well that night.

Checking out was slow, the cashier recognizing Leif and talking to him about what had happened since the last time he came in, which Alec guessed was over a week. Leif made awkward small talk, but he gifted the whole store with a huge smile when Alec added his two cents.

“What brings you back so early? Usually we see you once a month?” the cashier asked, ringing up their items.

“He met me,” Alec piped up, loading the belt as Leif loaded the shopping cart after items were scanned.

“Oh? And who are you then?” the cashier asked, curious .

“His mate,” Alec declared proudly, grinning. Leif’s answering smile was incandescent, the cashier stunned by both the words and the smile.

“Congrats!”

“Thank you.”

They had a ton of stuff by the time they were done checking out, and Alec worried again how they were getting it all up on the mountain.

The tiny parking lot was packed, and Alec and Leif made sure to get eyes on all the vehicles. None of them were the cruiser from Hemlock. Leif scented the air as they loaded up the truck, shaking his head in the negative when Alec asked him if he scented anything.

No one followed them there, as far as he could tell, and there was no one watching them now. Well, except the cashier through the store front windows, who was smiling at them and waved when they saw Alec looking back at them. Alec chuckled and waved back, certain they were as safe as they could be at the moment.

Alec

He shouldn’t have worried about the amount he bought.

When they got to the storage unit, Leif went to a large shelf and pulled down what appeared to be a huge pile of leather straps and ropes, but when he laid it out on the floor and began untangling the lines, Alec saw it for what it was—a huge harness.

It had clips for attaching things, like the matching nylon bags Leif also retrieved from the shelves, and velcro and buttons for attaching all manner of objects and items along with the bags.

“Let’s bag everything up first,” Leif said, “then once that’s done, we’ll get the truck back in the unit and I’ll Change. I can carry this all without any trouble, so no need for the sled. You’ll need to get the harness and then the bags on the harness for me—I won’t have hands.”

“How have you done this before without help?” Alec asked as he and Leif went through the grocery bags and got everything into the nylon bags.

“I paid the storage unit employee to help me last time I did this,” Leif looked at Alec with a grin. “Glad I don’t need to pay someone now.”

Alec sputtered out a laugh and took a pretend swipe at Leif, who dodged in an exaggerated manner, making Alec laugh outright.

Teasing his mate was fun, as Leif had a good sense of humor.

Leif stripped down, handing Alec his clothing one piece at a time. Leif made no move to turn away, smiling when Alec took the bold invitation to stare at every inch of skin that was revealed by the casual striptease. Alec folded the clothing and stuffed it into the backpack they’d used coming down the mountains, and the warmth of Leif’s body clung to the garments.

Leif took off his pants and then his socks, standing in skin-tight boxer briefs that hugged his bulge and left nothing to the imagination. Leif was thick with muscle and his thighs were massive, the iliac crest of his hips defined and lickable. Leif was a big man and it was all muscle.

Alec bit his lip and fought the urge to reach out and grab Leif—gently, of course. He behaved, and Leif grinned at him and his very obvious struggle not to get sidetracked .

“If I watch you Change, will that bother you?” Alec asked, desperate to change the subject so they both didn’t end up naked in a storage unit. “I’ve only seen the movie and TV versions of it.”

“You can watch,” Leif assured him. “I’m old, and I Change fast. You won’t see much unless I slow it down, but that’s a bit difficult. It’s more effort to hold it back.”

“Don’t hold back on my account,” Alec said. “I’m just curious.”

Leif stripped off his boxer briefs and tossed them to Alec with a wink, and Alec grinned wide at the delicious sight of his naked mate. Leif’s cock was thick and plump, groin neatly trimmed and his balls temptingly large. Alec stuffed the underwear into the backpack and zipped it shut, watching patiently as Leif began to Change.

Leif was right—there wasn’t much to see. It wasn’t a horror show of mutating flesh—there was a shimmer of muted light that swept over Leif and he grew taller and then leaned forward, falling to his four paws as a giant wolf in less than a second.

“Fuck me, that was fast,” Alec muttered, eyes wide.

Leif was a gorgeous, rich brown and medium gray, a dappled mixture of colors that matched the trees and underbrush perfectly in the dense hills. He was as stunning in the daytime as he was in the moonlight. Big ears brushed the ceiling of the storage unit, and Leif ducked down and exited the unit, giving Alec space to hop in the truck and back it into the unit. It fit with a couple of feet to spare, and Alec hopped out and locked the truck, making sure to put the keys in the same pocket Leif had when their trip began.

Alec dragged the harness out of the unit, and Leif crouched down to help Alec get the harness on him easier–with Leif explaining the process, he got the massive leather and nylon harness onto Leif, tugging and reworking straps until it was snug, and nothing was too tight.

“Now the bags, little greenbough,” Leif directed in that deep, rumbly voice.

Alec snapped the bags onto the harness, making sure that the weight was distributed as evenly as possible. By the time he got the last bag snapped into place, it was approaching late afternoon and Leif was laden with a half dozen huge nylon bags stuffed with everything they’d bought that day. Alec shrugged on Leif’s backpack and eyed the space on Leif’s back. He would fit, but Leif was already carrying a lot of stuff and he didn’t want to weigh down his mate any more. Leif was not a mule.

Alec made sure the lights were off, the truck and cabinets locked, and then closed the steel door to the unit, dragging it down until it landed with a thump on the concrete floor. Alec locked it, making sure to put the keys in the same pocket as the truck keys before zipping it up.

“Ready?” Leif asked.

“Ready!” Alec hefted the backpack onto his shoulders and started heading for the woods, stamping his feet to make sure his new boots were snug and fitting perfectly. He wouldn’t normally wear new shoes for a hike—that was a great way to get blisters—but he was able to alter the structure of the boots at the molecular level and make them more comfortable, avoiding blisters altogether. He just needed to break them in a bit to find the friction points before changing anything.

“Smell anything suspicious before we get in the woods?” Alec asked, eyeing the empty lot and the storage unit buildings around them. He saw nothing and no one, the front gatehouse near the entrance holding one person on duty that was out of sight and several buildings away .

“Nothing. I don’t hear anything, either. I think we’re okay,” Leif grumbled, sniffing the air.

“Alright, let’s go!”

Leif walked slowly beside him as they entered the woods, the slope of the hillside gentle and not at all steep enough to worry Alec yet.

“I can carry you too, greenbough,” Leif rumbled. “It’s not any trouble.”

“I can walk,” Alec stressed. “You’re carrying a lot of stuff already.”

“If you insist,” Leif grumbled good-naturedly, shaking his massive head a bit, ears flopping a little as he shook himself out, settling the harness and bags.

Leif was soon in the lead on the nonexistent trail—he knew the way, unlike Alec. He wasn’t woods-savvy or at all familiar with rural living—the most hiking he’d ever done was a field trip in middle school. He was still recovering from his captivity, too, but he refused to voice how tired the hiking was making him, and figured his labored breathing was telling Leif enough on its own.

Alec was soon realizing the error of his decision when thirty minutes passed and they were making horrible time. The terrain was growing steeper, and Alec was struggling to keep up, forcing Leif to halt and wait for Alec to catch up numerous times before his mate finally stopped and crouched down in front of Alec.

“You’re not taking advantage of me, little greenbough,” Leif rumbled patiently, eying Alec from one great eye that caught the sun and flashed red. “Climb up now.”

“I give up,” Alec gasped out a bit, dramatically falling into Leif’s huge shoulder with a flop, making Leif snort in amusement. “You’re right.”

Leif crouched down even lower, and held still while Alec clambered onto his back, adjusting his legs to fall forward on either side of Leif’s neck in front of bags clasped to the harness, not wanting to clip Leif with a muddy boot. He sighed once in place, muscles already happy for the respite.

Leif got carefully to his feet and Alec grasped a handful of the thick fur over Leif’s neck and shoulder, holding on tight.

The ride home wasn’t as fast as the trip into town, but they were going uphill. They still made better time with Leif carrying Alec than they would have otherwise, and Alec gave up trying to spare his mate the indignity when it was clear Leif felt fine carrying their stuff and his mate.