8. Alec

Chapter 8

Alec

B reakfast was filling, and Alec hid a massive yawn behind his hand, jaw creaking. Leif was watching him with a soft expression, and Alec blushed. He was not used to a man gazing at him with any kind of softness. Affection was a foreign concept after the death of his mother, and the few sexual partners he’d had weren’t the kind for softness or concern.

Alec was dressed again in clean clothes borrowed from Leif; he’d left the previous bloody garments out on the front stoop before making breakfast to keep the smell from the cabin. Dishes washed and put away, enemies dead and left for the carrion birds, Alec was ready for a nap. A warm, solid arm curled around his back, and Alec leaned into Leif, snuggling into the heat of that big, strong body. Leif reminded Alec of an ancient oak tree, standing tall despite centuries of storms, wildfires, and greedy humans with axes.

He was really tired.

Alec realized his eyes were shut, and he blinked them open, yawning again. “Can I take a nap? ”

“I was about to suggest just that,” Leif murmured, and Alec hardly noticed when Leif swooped him up in his strong arms and carried him down the tunnel to the bedroom. His mate obviously liked to carry him around and Alec had no problem with it.

“Nap with me?” Alec asked, nuzzling into the warm skin of Leif’s neck. Breathing in the scent of his mate, he felt the bond stir to life. Each touch, each glance, every breath laced with the scent of Leif made the bond glow, as if happy, content. “You can go wolfy if you want.”

“Wolfy?” Leif chuckled, “is that an official word for the Change?”

“Yes, I just decided right this moment,” Alec teased, smiling, barely awake but happy to banter with Leif. He was so different from what society said alphas were like—he was powerful, but kind, patient, and tender. Not at all the brutish, overprotective, possessive alpha-hole from urban legends and romance novels.

Alec dozed in and out but was alert enough to register Leif tucking him into bed, the werewolf stripping out of his clothes, but pausing before removing his pants. “Clothes off?”

“Clothes are evil,” Alec muttered, making Leif snort out a laugh, the alpha shucking his pants and tossing them to the side. He was gloriously naked and Alec loved the view.

Alec wiggled around until he was able to remove his own shirt, and then big, hot hands helped him get out of his borrowed clothing. He reveled in the feel of the furs and clean sheets on his bare skin, and then the heat pouring off of Leif as his mate slid under the covers beside him.

Alec rolled into Leif and fussed about with soft whimpers, making Leif laugh again, but his mate understood Alec’s silent demand and wrapped him in strong arms, holding him securely to his broad chest. Alec pressed his nose to the firm expanse and sighed happily, falling asleep before he even managed to finish a breath.

Leif

Alec was asleep instantly, his breathing evening out as he gradually went limp, his soft, near-snores vibrating against Leif’s chest. Holding his naked mate in his arms was arousing and delightful, but he was old enough to tell his cock to behave and wait until Alec made it clear he wanted sex. Nothing was more of a turn-off than an unenthusiastic partner.

A few hours later he woke to Alec sprawled out by his side, and found himself in his wilder form, having Changed in his sleep. He slept most nights as the wolf, but now that he had a mate, he might need to be a man more often. A habit to build.

Alec’s head rested on Leif’s foreleg, both arms wrapped around his leg, fingers buried in thick fur, as if afraid Leif would disappear while he slept.

He sniffed along Alec’s head and down to his shoulders, unable to stop his tongue from licking the bare skin he found. Alec twitched, tickled, and Leif made himself behave, resting his head atop of Alec, covering his mate. Alec wasn’t a small man, but he was far, far smaller than Leif when he was the wolf, and it made a primitive, wild part of him quite satisfied at the size disparity.

They spent the day in bed, Alec sleepily asking if he could stay abed instead of getting up, and it made Leif incredibly happy to let his mate recover in his bed. Between food and water breaks, Alec always reached for Leif, needing to touch. The bond grew in the quiet moments, and Leif rested, content, protecting Alec as he slept.

Alec

Riding a gigantic wolf in broad daylight was a far different experience than doing so in the dead of night.

Wearing his old clothing from captivity was less than ideal, but the borrowed clothing from Leif was comically oversized and he didn’t want to spend the hours of travel in the woods fighting with his clothing to stay on.

Alec wore a backpack with Leif’s clothing, the straps unclipped and rearranged to be worn on the shoulders and not around the neck of a great wolf. Alec did not mind—the thought of a bag hanging around his mate’s neck waiting to get caught on a tree or boulder if they had to run was enough to make him demand the backpack before Leif even tried to get it on.

Looking around, he recognized the area from the morning before.

The bodies had been disturbed, yanked and tugged from where they fell, mauled and pecked. Alec heard the cries of ravens and crows, and there was a pair of turkey vultures soaring overhead, visible through the bare branches.

“Coyotes got to them,” Leif said in that delicious wolfy voice of his.

“Did we scare them away by coming through? ”

“We did, but they’ll come back when we leave. I try not to bother them too much—I’m not what they expect from a wolf, so they tend to avoid me.”

“How do you mean?” Alec asked as Leif crouched enough for Alec to slide down. Alec picked his way through the chaos of blood and leaves and knelt by Stu’s body, digging a hand underneath until he came out with the keys he forgot to get the day before.

“No pack. A lone wolf is unnatural, so to them I’m an oddity, a danger.”

“Makes sense,” Alec said as he hopped back up into place on Leif’s back, wiggling until he felt secure.

“Ready up there, little greenbough?” Leif asked, amused.

Alec took two big handfuls of fur from the mantle across Leif’s huge shoulders and nodded. “Yup! Mush!”

Alec laughed when Leif growled, gently shaking him from the force of it.

“Sassy once you feel better, aren’t you? We’ll see about that…”

“What do you mean…”

Alec bit back a screech when Leif took off like a bullet from a gun, the wind biting at his face. The screech turned into a delighted laugh soon enough, and Alec leaned forward into the wind, snuggling down into the thick coat beneath him to stay warm.

Ale c

His face was freezing by the time they entered the lower valley. Their progress through the woods was in a general downhill direction the whole way, and he felt the muscle strain from maintaining his balance on Leif’s back. Leif followed no track or trail that Alec could see, but then that was smart—it helped protect his location in the woods all the better if there wasn’t a trail right to the front door.

Leif followed his nose and memory, from what Alec could tell, and he was impressed by his mate. Easily impressed, probably, but then Alec was allowing himself to be so, as finding a soulmate was nearly impossible. To have one handed to him in such a manner, after imprisonment, trials, and pain, made it all the more important that he enjoy himself and the process of bonding.

“What’s the nearest town?”

“Gelridge Hollow,” Leif replied. “It’s tiny, doesn’t even have a stop sign, but it has a storage unit facility where I keep my truck, and a gas station.”

“That sounds familiar, is it near Hemlock?”

“About thirty minutes down the highway,” Leif answered him over his shoulder, one big ear flickering as they spoke. “Why?”

“I lived in Hemlock with Stu and Mom,” Alec said readily. “The keys I took off his body are for the house and his bedroom. I need my license and paperwork and stuff, unless he sold it all along with me. If he kept it, it’ll be locked up in his bedroom.”

“We can check; it’s on the way to the nearest superstore.”

“Sweet! Thank you.”

How quickly his life had improved in a matter of days. He went from beaten and poisoned by chemical exposure on a daily basis to talking to his mate about shopping at the store for essentials.

Alec only knew they’d made it when Leif stepped out from behind a tall pine tree and they were standing at the back of a parking lot, rows of storage unit bunkers in front of them. Orange and red sliding garage doors signaled they were in the right place, and the parking lot was made of dark, small-grade gravel, rutted in places from vehicles coming and going and thanks to mud from autumn rain.

It was impossible to see past the rows of units, and Alec worriedly looked around for cameras—it wasn’t illegal for a werewolf to be in their wolf form in public, but humans were easily scared and violently protective over their property. No point in courting trouble. “Is it safe?”

Leif sniffed the air, great black nose working, and then he twitched both ears backward at Alec. “No one has been here in days.”

“Okay,” Alec sighed in relief, Leif crouching down to let him get off. He jumped the last bit and adjusted the backpack on his shoulders.

“Unit with my truck is F23.” Leif offered, pointing with his nose in the right direction. “Key is in the front pocket of my bag.”

“Gotcha.”

Alec found the key and headed in the direction Leif indicated, his mate following behind him, big head swinging as he scented, ears twitching. “Expecting trouble?”

“Always expect trouble in the hills when I’m in this form,” Leif said. “Especially closer to towns.”

“People don’t like werewolves out here?” Alec asked, surprised. He didn’t experience any prejudice growing up, at least not for being fae. For being poor, yes, but not for being fae. That was so normal in the hills. The younger fae got along well with humans, and interbreeding was as natural as breathing, and had been going on for hundreds of years now.

“This form is the problem, not the nature,” Leif replied. “Homesteaders shoot first, and don’t bother with the questions later, either. Coyotes are bold out here, not enough wolves or big cats as competition. Bears get in as much trouble as the coyotes do. Wild wolves haven’t been here in decades.”

“Ahh, yeah, gotcha,” Alec said, grimacing. He had a horrible image of a small farmer shooting a massive shotgun at a scrawny, terrified, fleeing wolf. “That sucks so much.”

“It’s not easy being a predator surrounded by humans. They tend to think everything is theirs, and zealously kill any perceived competition.”

Alec understood that truth on a visceral level. While the younger fae were generally welcomed amongst humans to the point of interbreeding, that was mostly a regional thing in the Appalachian Mountains and the assorted ranges within, and outside of that, humans and fae tended to maintain species lines and divisions. The non-indigenous peoples of Appalachia owed their lineages to immigrants from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Germany, all places with rich cultures and a history of interacting with various fae species.

All that fell apart, though, when it came to fae species that could not, and never would, pass as human or vaguely humanoid, whether in face or form. There were fae species, both Elder and younger, that were quadrupeds, or insectoids, or came with scales and feathers in place of hair and trimmed nails. Those precious few species were quick to seek shelter in the wilds of the Americas during the many migration waves from the early 1700s to the mid-1900s from the Old to the New World. Human history was rife with stories of humans killing or reacting with violence to the more fantastical fae peoples in the Old World. There were myriad accounts of death and horror, and those fae that survived to escape across the sea disappeared as soon as they made landfall in the Americas.

That was the limit of what Alec knew—schools taught human-centric white colonizer history and what little he did know he got from his mother before her passing.

Alec found the unit and unlocked the garage door, lifting it for Leif as he was still a wolf and lacking thumbs. Lights flickered on automatically, and Alec was impressed to see a large, dark blue extended cab truck with tires meant for mountain roads. Also inside the unit was a large couch along one wall, a simple metal table with a lamp, some spare tires leaning against the back wall, and a rolling tool cabinet. There were shelves tacked to the walls as well. The unit was climate-controlled and had electricity, and Alec wondered how much money it cost Leif to rent this place.

Sounds of flesh rearranging came, and Alec politely kept his eyes averted, not wanting to presume—Changing was an intimate thing, uniquely vulnerable. He and Leif might be mates, but they were also still learning about each other. Alec was happy to be patient and take his time understanding his mate and what made Leif who he was as a person.