4. Eternal Payback

4

ETERNAL PAYBACK

Mav jolted awake when something warm hit him in the face.

“What the fuck?” He smacked away the offending object, only for his hand to hit something light, crinkled, and warm. He cracked open his eyes.

It was a brown paper bag, spotted with grease.

“I killed something for your breakfast.” Across the room, Telos kicked back in a chair, fully dressed. He was holding an identical paper bag.

Mav narrowed his eyes. Then he sniffed, and realized that whatever Telos had thrown at him, it smelled delicious.

“I could throw your coffee at your head, too, but I’m not feeling up to being mauled this early.” Telos took a bite of his own breakfast. “I would pay to see coffee splash all over your face, though. It would be the trendy new look.”

Mav flipped him off. “Do that, and you’ll get payback every morning for the rest of your life.”

Telos’ eyebrows shot up. “Huh. Really.”

He looked suspiciously thoughtful. For all Mav knew, he’d just set himself up for another prank.

Mav scrubbed his face. He hadn’t gotten enough sleep. But he checked the time on his phone and realized they had to get going; there were people who needed to be saved.

People like Telos’ surprise baby.

How was it fair that Telos had gotten a baby before Mav, when Mav was the one who’d been searching so carefully for the right person to raise his children with?

He sat upright with a groan, the sheets falling away from his chest. He reached into the paper bag and found a large croissant filled with cheese, scrambled egg, and a thick slice of ham. When he bit into it, the flavors burst across his tongue like an orchestra.

He looked up to find Telos grinning smugly into his coffee.

Mav was only surprised that Telos had bothered. Telos was great at picking tasty food for their friends; whether he got something good for Mav, was a whole other story. Mav couldn’t count the number of times Telos had promised to bring him something amazing, only to show up with food that was strange, disappointing, or outright disgusting.

The croissant was far better than anything Telos had given him in the past. It was better than the frozen food from last night, and it was probably the best food they’d had on this mission. Mav made a sound of approval, stuffing half the sandwich into his mouth.

Then he got out of bed to piss, only for Telos to choke and cough.

“Can’t swallow?” Mav asked around his sandwich.

Telos pounded his chest, coughing harder. His face was turning red. “Fuck,” he wheezed, eyes watering. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

Telos gestured vaguely in his direction. Mav looked down at himself.

“You’ve never seen a naked man before?” Mav asked. They were both shifters. Nudity was a part of their lives.

“Yeah, well.” Telos gulped down some coffee, looking away. “Yours is offensive.”

Mav ignored him and strode into the bathroom—only to have Telos follow him in. “What?”

“Thought you might like some coffee,” Telos said. And he stepped closer, upending his entire paper cup over Mav’s head.

Hot coffee soaked into Mav’s hair and sluiced down his chest, splashing onto the floor.

Mav stared at him in shock. Who the hell poured coffee on their mission partner, in the middle of a mission?

Telos smirked. And he promptly dove out of the way when Mav roared, lunging at him.

“Time to shower, partner!” Telos hopped out of the bathroom and yanked the door shut between them. “We’ve got a mage to track down!”

“You sniveling rat’s ass!” Mav flung the door open, only to find Telos back in his chair, legs crossed, magazine in hand.

“Looking good.” Telos gave him a thumbs-up.

Mav strode over to him. Telos’ eyebrows crawled up; his gaze dropped briefly down Mav’s body. Before Telos could come up with a smartass remark, Mav grabbed him by the front of his shirt, hauling him roughly to his feet.

It took a bit of effort because Telos was a large, muscular alpha roughly Mav’s size. Telos narrowed his eyes, his tongue flicking over his lips. Mav frowned at it.

“We don’t have time for pranks,” Mav growled. “Have you forgotten that we’re rescuing your baby? ”

At that, Telos stiffened. “I haven’t. But you were moving slowly before, and you’re much faster now.”

Mav inhaled. Telos was right. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, all his senses on alert. He scowled and yanked on Telos’ shirt. “Fuck off.”

Telos grinned. A heartbeat later, he was a sparrow fluttering in Mav’s face, batting Mav’s forehead with the tip of his wing.

“I’m going to make your life hell,” Mav muttered, tempted to breathe a plume of fire at Telos anyway.

Telos flew across the room and turned back into a man, sans clothing. His smile dug under Mav’s skin. “You already make my life hell. I doubt it can get worse.”

Did he really? It wasn’t like Mav went out of his way to annoy Telos. If anything, Telos was the one who showed up at Mav’s lair, taunting him and getting on his nerves. Mav kept an eye on Telos because he wanted to stay one step ahead of that crazy fucker.

Especially after that stunt Telos pulled last night.

“Watch your prehistoric ass,” Mav growled, turning back to the bathroom. “You’ll get payback.”

“Every day of my life,” Telos said. He sounded excited.

Mav ran the shower on full blast, thanking all the gods that Telos’ coffee was black with no cream or sugar to make him itch. Then he dried off and left the bathroom.

Telos was back in his working outfit—a plain gray T-shirt and cargo pants—loose clothes that would give him the freedom to shift in an instant. “Bags are packed,” Telos said easily. “I did yours, too.”

Mav looked around the room. “Yeah, you packed all my clothes. ”

Telos grinned, watching with too much glee as Mav leaned over his duffel to pull out his clothes. “With how big those balls are, I’m surprised you don’t walk bow-legged.”

Mav almost said, Sounds like they’re the right size to gag you with, but that would be going too far. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. “Jealous?”

“No, not really.” Telos tossed the car key into the air and caught it. “I’m driving today. You can tell me which exits to take.”

Mav shrugged and stepped into his boots, grabbing his bags. They checked out with a receptionist who was barely awake.

As they approached the car, Mav caught a faint whiff of something musky in the air. “Do you smell that?”

“Smell what?” Telos flared his nostrils. “Oh. Uh, don’t step on the—” His face cycled through a few expressions, before landing on a smirk. “Ah. Too late.”

Mav looked down. The asphalt was dark gray all around him, save for the patch he was standing on. Right beneath his feet, a translucent white sheen covered the ground, turning the asphalt light gray. It wasn’t all a uniform shade, though. Streaks of white overlapped splatters and drips, like multiple layers on a painting.

It only hit Mav what it was, when he opened the door and a wave of musk hit him in the face. “What the actual fuck, Telos.”

Telos dropped his bags in the trunk, his cheeks faintly pink. “You got that right. There was actual fucking going on last night.”

Mav dumped his bags next to Telos’ and tried not to look at the dried patch on the ground. He couldn’t be smelling Telos’ cum.

It had come from his cock.

He threw himself into the passenger seat, only for a fresh cloud of musk to puff up around him.

Mav swore quietly. Bad enough that he’d overheard Telos last night. He’d been dozing off, thinking about how crazy it would be to suddenly have a baby, when he’d heard Telos’ breathing change. It had been different enough that he’d paid attention; they were on a mission to hunt criminals. It would be just Mav’s luck for Telos to be ambushed.

Except he’d picked up the squeak of leather seats, the rustle of clothing. There had been rhythmic slick sounds, on and on, the sort that Mav was intimately familiar with.

Mav had never thought about Telos pleasuring himself before. Never had a reason to.

Until it filled his ears; the hitch of Telos’ breath, the hissed consonants of his swearing. And the slick sounds had grown faster.

The thing about jerking off, was that Mav knew what certain sounds meant. The fast, wet sounds of his fingers on his cock. The increasingly urgent gasps, when his balls grew heavy and his cock throbbed.

Telos’ sounds had filtered through Mav’s brain, triggering his sense memories until it had felt as though the pleasure was in his own body. As though he had his own hand around his cock, his balls aching for release.

He’d gotten hard without meaning to, throbbing in time with Telos’ stroking.

Mav had waited for Telos to come and be done with it. Except Telos had dragged it out and played with himself for the better part of an hour, leaving Mav hard and leaking in bed, desperate for release.

In the end, Mav had taken himself in hand and begun to stroke. But because his luck was crap, that was when Telos finally began speeding up. It forced him to hurry, to get it over with before Telos caught him in the act.

He’d kept his ear on Telos’ pace—only for his brain to paint a vivid picture of Telos in the car, cock out, precum trickling all over his fist.

It wasn’t something he’d wanted to imagine. Just that Telos had been giving him grief. As payback, Mav had pictured Telos pinned beneath him, Telos taking his cock as punishment for all the times he’d made Mav grit his teeth.

Mav had surprised himself with how much he didn’t find it repulsive. In fact, the fantasy had been hot. Holding Telos down, fingering Telos’ ass open, shoving his cock against Telos’ hole, and seeing him try to take it. From there, it had spiraled out of his control: grabbing Telos’ hair, fucking him roughly to shut him up.

He’d thought about pushing his knot deep into Telos, and he’d come so violently, he’d blacked out for a second.

Luckily, he’d had the presence of mind to haul his covers over himself, and soak up his cum with a shirt he’d had on the bed.

Mav hadn’t stopped coming when Telos stepped back into their room. To his horror, Telos’ voice had only made his cock jerk and spurt harder. He’d held himself as still as possible, waiting until Telos had gotten into bed.

In the dark, he’d listened to Telos’ breathing, his cock still shooting cum.

If Telos found out what had gone on under the covers... Mav would never hear the end of it. So he wasn’t going to mention it to anyone, ever.

He shoved aside the memory and clicked his seatbelt into place, scowling when Telos slid behind the wheel.

“So,” Telos said lightly. “When did you find the time to jerk off last night?”