Chapter 14 - Gage

Chapter 14

Gage

After working with us all day to prepare for Ironwood’s attack and our new plan, Bretton informed me he’d arranged dinner to be delivered to our den. Flint briefly stopped by to eat before returning to work. Heath and I stayed to clean up and continue talking about what we needed to request from the Snow Moon pack to bribe Astrid and the Midnight Path.

“I hope things go smoothly at the restaurant,” Heath said under his breath as we finished straightening up the kitchen.

“I’m sure they will,” I chuckled. “After all, you planned the whole thing.”

In a million years, I never would have expected my pack to share a mate. But now that we were, it warmed my heart to see Heath paving the way for Rowan and Freya’s relationship. I supposed we all played our parts. I’d knocked some sense into Rowan, and now Heath was playing matchmaker.

Back when it had been my turn, Flint and Heath had both needed to knock some sense into me. It only seemed fair that I got to pass it along. Rowan was so skittish about Freya and her witch side. They both needed all the help they could get.

Heath froze when my head whipped toward the door.

“They’re back early,” we both said, both sensing Freya through our mate bonds as I also sensed Rowan in the pack bond.

Heath grumbled, “We were this close to making it out before they got back.”

My heart stuttered, my body going into fight-or-flight mode. I hadn’t felt this way since my father had caught me throwing a party at the pack house while he’d been away. He’d arrived home early, just like Rowan and Freya were now.

Heath and I had hoped to vacate the den before their return, giving the two of them their privacy. Rowan needed time to come to terms with his feelings toward Freya, and having an audience would ruin his chances. I’d sensed as much through the pack bond when he’d felt resentful of my attempt to reassure him.

“They shouldn’t even be done eating yet,” Heath grumbled just as I asked, “I thought you said they would go on a run afterward?”

“I guess not.”

“Can you give Freya the head’s up, tell her to delay a minute?” I asked, since he was the lucky one with the two-way mate bond.

“She’s a little distracted right now… I don’t want to ruin their mood.” Instead, Heath motioned toward the coat closet at the corner of the kitchen, near the front door. “C’mon, if we try to leave now, we’ll run right into them and turn things awkward. We’ll let them go to Freya’s room and then we’ll sneak out.”

“How is that better?”

Heath grabbed my upper arm and forcibly shoved me into the coat closet.

I protested, “This is ridicul—”

“Shut up,” Heath whispered. “They’re here.”

I pushed aside the few coats as Heath joined me in the tight space. As soon as he closed the door, everything went pitch black. It took me back to a more carefree time when Heath and I had played hide-and-seek in the alpha residence. I’d hidden in a closet much like this one for what felt like hours until Heath sniffed me out.

But we were a lot older now, and bigger, and this coat closet wasn’t built for two grown men to stand in. Heath’s body plastered against mine, and my nostrils filled with his cologne and his own undeniably wild scent. We both moved, trying not to press so tightly against one another, but it was pointless. There just wasn’t enough space.

I stilled when I felt something long and hard pressing against my hipbone. My breath caught in my lungs. Was Heath sporting a danger boner? Or was it because Heath’s mate bond went both ways, and he could sense Freya’s arousal? That had to be it.

I held my breath, trying not to make it obvious I’d noticed, especially because my own dick began to respond in kind. The front door opened, and we both froze. Heath’s breath sounded loud in my ear, his warm exhale like a caress on my neck.

“You have no idea how much I wanted to throw you across that table and devour you,” Rowan’s growl hit our ears just as Freya’s scent hit our noses.

Her arousal was off the charts, and her melodious laugh did nothing to soothe the desire burning inside of me. “What is it with you alphas and tables?”

Rowan grunted as he lifted Freya up onto the kitchen table, which shrieked against the floor and thumped into the wall, accompanied by Freya’s moan. Through the mate bond, I could tell how much Freya enjoyed Rowan manhandling her.

“It’s because we like the thought of taking you in front of everyone. No one can have you but us,” Rowan growled.

The mate bond was sheer torture at this point. I knew when Rowan flipped up her skirt. She moaned as he kissed the insides of her thighs, and my dick became as hard as Heath’s, trapped against his body.

Then Rowan continued, his voice raised slightly. “We like the idea of showing everyone you’re ours while we claim you.”

Fuck. He knew we were here. I’d hoped they were both too distracted with one another and wouldn’t notice us through their bonds. I reached for the door, but froze when Heath’s big hand came down on my shoulder. The movement caused our dicks to grind together, and I stifled a moan.

What the fuck? Why did that feel so good?

Freya moaned instead, and then I heard movement in the kitchen. I froze, hoping we remained undetected.

“But this is supposed to be a proper date,” Rowan groaned. “And a proper date requires a proper bed.”

I could hear Freya’s smile in her words. “Our first time in a bed? You know how to treat a lady.”

“You’re the only one I want,” Rowan’s growled words faded as his heavy footfalls moved away from us. “And I'm going to take my time proving exactly how much.”

From the mate bond, I could tell he was carrying Freya. Her lust made me long to burst out of the closet and join them. Rowan had told me how her first heat had blasted him through the pack bond despite my best efforts to block it from him. Sensations through the mate bond were even more powerful than the pack bond. And both Heath and I were connected to her in that way. Whether or not we wanted it, we both had a front-row seat as Rowan ravaged our mate.

Was that the reason our bodies had reacted? Her scent and her lust through the mate bond bombarded us because of her upcoming heat. And when I opened up the pack bond… both Rowan and Heath’s lust rocked me back on my heels.

At the same time, Freya’s reassurance flooded the pack bond, instantly calming me. My first thought was that she was trying to reassure Rowan, who she didn’t yet share a mate bond with. But that didn’t make sense, because the only one who could sense what everyone felt in the pack bond… was me. Knowing I could sense her emotions in the pack bond, she sought to reassure me using that alternate method since we didn’t share a two-way mate bond.

But she and Heath shared a two-way mate bond. Ice flooded my veins as I realized she knew every sensation Heath must be feeling in this closet with me, just as I could sense everything Rowan did to her out there.

In the pack bond, her lust twined with even stronger reassurances as I puzzled through what she was trying to tell me. Perhaps she wanted us to join in… but tonight was meant to be her and Rowan’s first date.

Heath and I wanted to respect that, which meant we should have left to give our packmates some privacy. But both of us stayed frozen, our cocks rock-hard against one another. I barely dared to breathe.

Heath was bisexual, so the situation probably didn’t embarrass him much. But what was my excuse?

All this lust through the bonds made my head hazy with desire. The touch of any other woman would have repelled me and sent my wolf into a violent frenzy. Yet Heath rubbing up against me hardly fazed my wolf. Maybe because Heath was also Freya’s mate, and we’d shared her during her last heat.

Heath’s breath ghosted over my lips, and I almost surrendered to the sudden urge to lean forward in the dark and find his mouth with mine.

My wolf roared to the front, and he growled, Bite.

The thought was so clear, so forceful, that it startled some sense back into me. I always maintained an ironclad control over my wolf. I shook my head and reached for the door handle again. Heath didn’t stop me from opening the door this time, and when light flooded in, I studied him with fresh eyes. Growing up together, I’d watched Heath grow into a man, but the sudden blinding light washed away all my old memories of Heath as a child and as a teenager.

The man who stood so close to me possessed a strong jawline and a commanding presence. Hard muscles filled out his broad shoulders, and his perfectly cut and styled hair gave him a naughty playboy look… Then his intense caramel gaze met mine.

The pure desire burning in his gaze shocked me to my very core.

I tried to tell myself that desire was meant for Freya, not for me, but I didn’t believe it. Not when Heath’s eyes darted from my eyes to my lips and back again. I’d watched women do that a hundred times throughout my life, sometimes just because I was the pack alpha’s son, sometimes from genuine interest. I knew what it meant. I’d just never expected to see my best friend giving me the same hungry look.

“They both know we’re here,” Heath whispered, sliding his body past mine.

I bit my lip to avoid moaning as our dicks rubbed together again, only the rough fabric of our jeans keeping us separated. Was it strange that my whole being suddenly wondered what that would feel like if we were naked?

The moment he stepped out of the closet, I instantly felt bereft. My skin felt cold without his heating mine. My hard-on twitched in frustration. And I felt more confused than ever.

Heath beckoned to me, making me realize I was still standing in the closet with a boner like an idiot.

“No need to make it weird,” I said in response, hoping he’d understand I meant that both ways.

Rowan clearly wouldn’t be upset to have an audience like I’d thought. Since they both knew we were here, when they heard us leave, they would understand us giving them privacy for their first date. And as for me and Heath… what happened here didn’t have to be weird, either.

Except now the air between us felt charged. The gap between us was too far.

My entire body ached to close the distance once more, but Heath nodded curtly and stepped through the front door without looking back. I closed it behind us, trying to make our retreat as obvious as possible without sounding like I was angrily slamming the door. Outside the den, I took a giant breath and exhaled before turning to face Heath.

He ran a hand down the back of his neck and didn’t meet my gaze as he asked, “Where you off to next? Your study?”

I nodded, the haze of lust slowly clearing from my brain, even though in the back of my mind, I sensed exactly what was going on through the mate bond. Rowan had torn off her dress, and Freya wasn’t even mad about it.

“Heath…” His name escaped my lips before I’d even thought about what to say.

What should I say? Sorry my hard cock touched yours? I’m sure it was just Freya’s heat driving us both crazy?

Awkward silence stretched until he said, “Don’t worry about it.”

He smirked over at me, looking every bit his normal playboy self. Totally unfazed by any situation and amused, as always.

“Like you said, no need to make it weird.”

Then he turned and walked off. Why did I feel like I’d just fucked up somehow? I reached for him through the pack bond, trying to sense his feelings about all this, but he’d locked them down tight.

With thoughts of what Rowan and Freya were doing in the back of my head, my boner didn’t fade, making my walk to my study painful. I closed the door, paused, then locked it. If Freya and Rowan kept at it all night, I might need to rub one out.

But even though Freya’s lust leaked across the bond to me, it was Heath that my mind went to. The way he’d manhandled me into that tight space… The way my body had responded to his breath teasing over my lips… The undeniable lust in his eyes…

My hand shook as I poured myself a drink from the side table. My mind searched for clues, for answers to a question I hadn’t known to ask.

I’d never once felt uncomfortable around my best friend before, but now a memory resurfaced. After my first shift, Heath’s father had scolded him for staring at my nudity and told him to go chase after some girls. Our behavior towards each other was the same as with other shifters. It was normal for shifters to be naked around each other. Much of the Frost Fang pack got naked in front of each other during pack runs on the full moon, after all.

Even that time Heath had walked in on me touching myself, thinking about some girl who’d caught my eye, he hadn’t made me feel awkward about it at all. I couldn’t remember her name, but she was a subordinate wolf, and my father had made it very clear his alpha sons would mate with no less than betas. As our pack alpha, he expected all his alphas to procreate, to do their best to produce more alphas. Back then, that girl was as off-limits to me as a male wolf.

I hadn’t understood how unfair my father’s orders were until we were teenagers and Heath came out to me. The way Heath had explained it made it sound like his sexuality had nothing to do with me. Like I didn’t “have to worry” whether he was attracted to me because he knew the pack alpha would never allow him to settle down with a guy. Reproduction was the top priority of any alpha mating in our pack.

That’s why I’d expected my father to be proud when Nira and I had gotten together. He should’ve been happy his alpha son would mate an alpha female and produce the alpha offspring he was after. But my father simply took it in stride. It seemed he wouldn’t be happy until I impregnated Nira, but neither of us had wanted to rush it.

My exile and Nira’s betrayal made me reluctant to consider romance until Freya came into the picture. But now… now I remembered the way Heath had held me when I found out my brother was dead. Heath’s embrace had felt so intimate, but it was exactly what I needed — proof that I wasn’t alone, exiled out there in the wildlands.

Heath had always been my safe harbor. My whole life, every time I’d needed him, he’d been there.

“Did I miss something?” I asked myself.

Because now I remembered one time, back when the Dawn Chaser pack had still existed… Heath had convinced me to create the Howling Echo pack. The Dawn Chaser alphas stood as our witnesses when my wolf bit his front leg and made him my first packmate. The next morning, I’d accidentally walked in on Heath while he was jacking off.

Our gazes had locked… and he’d blown his load, covering himself in his own release. Just thinking about it made my hard cock ache.

I’d apologized and turned away… but for some reason I’d stepped into the bedroom, not out of it. I still remembered the scent of Heath’s lust filling the room, and how good it had smelled to me, not off-putting like most other men’s scents when they were aroused.

“I’ll get the hang of the pack bond eventually,” I’d told Heath by way of apology.

I’d been pack alpha for less than twenty-four hours, and I already felt like I was fucking it up. He reminded me that as the pack alpha, I didn’t have to apologize. But hearing Heath call me his pack alpha… I still remembered the strange way his words had made my balls tighten with a sense of power.

And then, like an ass, I’d used the pack bond to spy on Heath’s emotions. He was annoyed, and I teased him about it.

“I’m annoyed at myself, not you, Gage.” He had shrugged and said, “I’ll get over it.”

Looking back… I wondered if I’d missed the hidden meaning behind his words that day. Thinking about it made my stomach tie itself into knots, and that’s when I forced myself to stop. This train of thought would get me nowhere fast.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told myself, taking a drink. “We’re both mated to Freya now.”

And with that, I let my attention turn toward the mate bond. When I opened my pants and began stroking myself, I let myself picture exactly what Rowan and Freya were doing.

Except… my imagination kept replacing Rowan with Heath. Before long, my mind’s eye turned toward memories of Freya’s heat and all the times Heath and I had shared her together.

My hand moved faster and faster. I tried to hold off, to wait until I felt Freya getting close through the mate bond. But then I remembered the hungry look in Heath’s eyes after our dicks had rubbed together in that closet. I remembered how his breath had felt on my lips in the dark. And I remembered the sight of him coming all over himself when I’d walked in on him so long ago.

“Fuck!” I came hard, splattering my shirt.

Moments later, I felt Rowan making Freya come, and I told myself that this was okay.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I whispered to myself. “We’re all Freya’s mates. This doesn’t have to be weird.”