Chapter 1: Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Chapter Text
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
NOW:
“Finish up, Sunshine. We leave in twenty minutes.”
“Cain, help me. I can’t decide what to wear. I can’t pack everything. Cas limited me to two bags. I can’t wear any of this stuff!” April’s shoulders slumped in defeat, a brightly colored sundress trailing the ground from each hand.
Cain frowned and abandoned the doorway where he’d meant to stop in briefly on his way down to check in with the Alpha. He sighed and pressed his lips together. There were clothes strewn everywhere. “Did you ask Michael to help you?” he checked with his chin lowered carefully. “Kiddo, your bags were packed this morning. What happened? What is all this?” She smelled off. Clearly, she wasn’t suffering a bout of indecision. This was far deeper.
Tears welled in her eyes from nowhere. “I went looking for my makeup kit, and once I had it all out on my bed, I got to looking at it, and it’s all wrong for New York. I can’t wear this, alpha! I don’t know what I was thinking! I’m going to be a laughingstock! They’re going to think I’m a hick! I can’t do this, Cain! Fuck! What was I thinking?! What was I thinking?! I can’t go to NEW YORK!!”
“Hey, hey, sweetheart, hold up there.” Cain wrapped his arms tightly around her, and she immediately went lax in his embrace, trusting him to hold her. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay. Put the dresses on the bed. Come with me. Let’s get you some help.” He carefully extracted the wrinkled folds of fabric from her claws and tossed them both across the bed before walking her out to the staircase, whispering all the way. April leaned into him and sobbed piteously, wetting his blue oxford at the shoulder.
“What the hell’d you do to her?” Dean accused rashly as he topped the final step on his way up. “What’s wrong, kid? C’mere.” Dean took her in hand straight from Cain’s supportive grasp, and he put distance between them immediately, escorting the Omega in the opposite direction, back the way they’d come from. He sat her on a padded bench in the hallway and attacked her tearstained cheeks with a handkerchief he produced from his pocket. “Whatcha crying for? What did the mean alpha say to you this time?”
Cain rolled his eyes. “She’s spiraling, Dean. She needs her mate. Sitting in the hallway isn’t going to help anything.”
“I’ll take it from here, thanks,” Dean muttered without looking up at him. “You’ve done enough. You can go now.”
“Dean, she needs Castiel, not a sympathetic ear.”
“I said, you’re dismissed,” Dean snapped. “Don’t you have things you need to be doing?”
Cain set his feet and crossed his arms. Dean could feel a tug at his navel, and he growled deep in his throat at the presumption. Cain’s Claim wasn’t powerful enough to compel Dean, but it could skew a less than stout commitment. “What I need to be doing,” he reminded Dean, “Is finalizing preparations and seeing to my client’s welfare. Everything is in readiness except April. So, no. There isn’t anywhere else I need to be at the moment.”
“She needs Pack right now, alpha. Not a manager. You have five seconds to make yourself scarce.” Dean imbued his words with as much disdain as he could get into them, and he flashed red eyes up at the contemptuous upstart hovering above him.
“You’re not helping, alpha,” Cain replied, unruffled. “April requires calm heads and a de-escalation of tensions, not a throwdown between posturing knotheads. I respectfully suggest that we do this some other time; maybe some time that we’re not limited by a departure schedule? I am…as I’ve reminded you multiple times already…entirely at your service if you feel the need to test your red eyes against mine. But right now is arguably not the best moment.”
“Five,” Dean muttered to himself with certainty. He kissed the top of April’s head and eased himself out from beneath her, standing to his full stature and making use of his powerful stance. Cain sighed.
“Four.”
“Dean?” Castiel interrupted as he rounded the corner from the nursery. “What’s going on?” The Alpha sized up the situation nearly instantly, and realized his mate was dead center of what was gearing up to be a bloodbath. “Step away! Right now!” Cas hurried between the alphas and stooped to kneel in front of April, placing his hands on her knee, on her cheek. She shuddered and closed her eyes, leaning her face into his touch and shifting forward into his personal space. Cas cradled her, rotating to sit beside her and tuck her close. His eyes blazed up at his husband. “What is this?!”
“Ask him,” Dean replied coldly, nodding toward Cain. “He had her in tears.”
“Kitten, are you all right? What’s the matter, baby?” Cas gentled as he turned to inspect his mate’s face. She sniffled and buried her face in his chest mutely.
“Explain,” the Alpha commanded, rounding on his alphas as he coddled her trembling figure.
“We were on our way to you, straightaway,” Cain said disdainfully. “But Winchester waylaid us so he could protect her from the big bad interloper. Sir, she’s spiraling, and her suitcases are no longer packed. Someone needs to see to both of those issues, as I believe we are schedule to leave in another ten or fifteen minutes. If you’ll excuse me, I can go see about getting her luggage squared away. I leave her in your hands, sir.”
Castiel stared at him in surprise before taking hold of himself and nodding curtly. Cain returned the nod and reversed course, disappearing into April’s room at the top of the stairs and closing the door behind him rather sharply. To the side, Dean’s chest still heaved, and his jaw worked soundlessly. He was staring furiously at a spot on the carpet about five feet in front of him as if trying to burn a hole through to the bare floorboards underneath.
“We can’t keep on like this, Dean. You have to do something about it.”
“I’m trying,” Dean asserted without lifting his eyes. His face flushed pink at the criticism. “But he’s always got a frikken excuse. It’s this damned Claim, man. I can’t get a handle on a confrontation. It’s like my mind is praying for an out even when I’m doing my damnedest to throw it down. All he has to do is come up with one lame excuse, and I jump on it like a life raft.”
Cas chuckled and cinched his mate in tighter.
“It’s not funny, CJ. He’s taking advantage, and you’re the one who let him get one over on me in the first place. This is your fault, you know.”
The humor disappeared from Castiel’s eyes, and he cleared his throat meaningfully. Dean’s eyes popped up to meet his Dom’s. “We’ve discussed this, Pet. Cain would not have had any chance to Claim you if you hadn’t played the game you played. I’ve warned you about playing with fire. Little boys who light matches sometimes get burned.”
Dean glared fiercely.
“Or am I missing something?” Castiel challenged. “Care to enlighten me?”
Dean looked away.
“Hsst!” Cas hissed, making both Subs jump. “Eyes on me, Pet. Answer me.”
Dean brought his focus back to his husband’s face, but the petulance remained. He chewed on every explanation his mind spun out to him, but none of them would do. Castiel wasn’t in a mood to suffer whining. They had indeed discussed Cain’s Claim already. In depth. Exhaustively. Dean wasn’t getting any sympathy about the situation. He could feel the flush spread downward from his face to cover the rest of his body. His fingers twitched with a need to fidget, but that wouldn’t go over either.
And April needed her mate’s full attention.
“Nosir,” Dean admitted reluctantly. “You didn’t miss anything.”
“Good,” Cas told him firmly. He stood carefully, bringing April to her feet as well before sweeping her up into his arms, cradled close to his chest. “Then may I rely on you to see to this untenable situation post haste? I won’t ask the Pack to ride cramped on a coach together with this level of tension between my alphas. Handle it before we depart, Dean, or one of you stays home.”
“Sir, you can’t ground me.”
Castiel cleared his throat again. “Can’t I?”
Dean grumbled but stood firm. “There isn’t time to get settled before the bus pulls out, Sir. We can’t half-ass it if we expect it to stick.”
Cas nodded in agreement. “I’m drawing back our departure time. April needs more than a simple Release. Her scent is wildly off-center at the moment. I will need to knot her, and that buys you time as well.”
“Fantastic,” Dean grumbled. “All the time in the world.”
“It’s sufficient unless you take your brat into the confrontation instead of your alpha,” Cas told him. “I suggest you stop showing out for me and go take care of business. I’m not paving your way for you, alpha. You’re either doing this on your own or you’re going to concede your position as second in command.”
“Wha…showing…? Paving…?” Dean sputtered. “What the fuck? You would put him over me in rank?!”
Castiel hardened his voice and leaned in close to Dean’s left ear. “Only if you force me to, Dean. Don’t make me choose between you. I cannot give this to you. You must earn it. Your alpha is miles above his, Claim-bond or no. I know you can do this, and I’m weary of waiting.”
“Alpha, please,” April whined into his collarbone, and Cas made soothing shushing noises into her ear, rubbing her back.
“Yes, Omega. I’m here. We’re going.”
Dean fumed.
“And Dean?” Cas added. “Once it’s done, the provocations stop. You hear me? It was bothersome when it was nonstop between you and Cain, but now that it’s interfering with my mate, my foot is down. It stops.”
Dean huffed a heavy sigh.
“I expect an answer, alpha,” Cas reminded him.
“Yes. Sir.”
Castiel nodded imperiously and then descended the stairs at a jog with his mate in his arms, their heads close together. Dean could feel Cas’ focus and temperament shift from irritated to concerned, and he frowned at the floor again.
It was an ultimatum with multiple repercussions, and Dean resented the heavy strokes even as he knew that an order from his Top was precisely what he’d been waiting for, what he needed. He needed permission, of all things.
What kind of alpha needs permission to be alpha?
A Submissive one, he decided. Dean scrubbed the back of one calf with the top of his alternate foot, and he thought. He ran through it feverishly in his head. Cas had called him on his posturing. All the stupid confrontations? Yeah, that was aimed at Cas, not Cain; even if it felt good to bust the asshole’s chops again and again. He was busted there. It really had nothing to do with setting a hierarchy between Pack alphas and everything to do with acting like a brat in front of someone who had no patience for it.
But the truth remained, Dean was never going to roll the man until he stopped playing brat games and faced it like he meant it…like Castiel would do.
WWCD.
Dean sighed.
Interrupting Cain’s trek to get April to her mate had been a douche move. Dean knew that when he did it. But the feeling of outrage was nearly insurmountable every time he confronted Cain and his stupid silver mane. Seeing him curled protectively around April was a step further than Dean could stomach, and he’d let his gut lead him. Only, his gut led him wrong. It led him to throw a foot out and trip them up when April desperately needed Castiel. It led him to fling unsupported accusations at a man who had shown nothing but careful attentive consideration toward the Ozzie from day one.
Dean’s instincts had never been this discombobulated before.
It had to be that damned Claim-bond that Castiel had stood aside and allowed the asshole to place, heavenly as it had felt at the time. It was fucking Dean right up now that he needed to throw it off. It was another layer of security to Dean’s wolf, and the bastard had turned brat on his own self in order to hold onto it.
(We don’t need another Claim, you prick,) Dean thought viciously at his own wolf. (Two psychopaths are enough even for you. Don’t be a fucking glutton. Some of us have to live with this mess you’re making.)
Dean got a dismissive shrug in response, and he smacked the wolf putatively on its rump before closing its kennel door with a resounding clang. Dean rarely did that to his wolf, finding that its insight was usually a welcome part of Dean’s interactions with other Lupins. But the last thing he needed right now was a rout by the brat that could lead him to lose his rank.
Sam would never let him live it down. And Cas. Cas would be devastated. Cas was depending on Dean to pull it together and get this right.
Jesus, but the silver-haired alpha punched every one of Dean’s brat buttons.
April’s bedroom door cracked open while Dean was still facing it deep in thought. Cain swung it wide with a suitcase in one hand and another set beside him. He looked up and startled when he found Dean staring coldly right through him.
“I see,” he said into the stilted silence. “Bee in your bonnet, Winchester?”
“You’re no Submissive,” Dean accused.
Cain chuckled and set the suitcase on the floor in the hall. “All my test results say I am,” he countered calmly. “I don’t see the relevance.”
“You can’t have him,” Dean replied, carrying on a conversation that the other man wasn’t privy to.
“I’m not pursuing him,” Cain replied, still infuriatingly calm. He reached back and hoisted the other suitcase out into the hall with its matched mate and closed the door behind him. “It may perplex you to hear this, Dean, but not every man is attracted to the same ones you are.”
“Don’t lie to me, alpha. I can smell you.”
Cain sighed. “I’m human, Dean. He’s Alpha. My body’s responses are not something I control. That doesn’t mean I’m looking for weaknesses so I can steal him from you. I assure you I have no designs on your husband or your mate. And I much suspect that that isn’t what this is about anyway.”
“Is that so?” Dean spat back. “What’s it about then?”
Cain tilted his head as he regarded Dean and selected his words carefully. “I find it interesting that you led, not with a warning to keep my paws off your Claims, but with an accusation that I misrepresent my designation. Therein lies the tell, perhaps. Is it my public face that so irks you, Dean? Is it my refusal to flaunt my Submissive side, so out of line with your approach, which is such an annoyance to you? I don’t begrudge you your spectacle, alpha. I simply prefer a more private route.”
Dean scoffed. “You do you, man. I don’t care. Just don’t…” Dean stopped abruptly and blushed.
“Don’t what?” Cain prodded, stepping a little closer. Dean growled real menace at him and was pleased when the alpha froze in his tracks. Cain’s mouth fell open slightly, and his pupils dilated. Dean could smell arousal in the air, and it wasn’t his own.
“Don’t judge me,” Dean whispered. His voice was soft, but there was iron behind it. He could feel the telltale warmth of his eyes shifting to red. His nostrils flared.
“Judge you?” Cain asked in dismay. “Dean…”
“Stop saying my name!” Dean hissed.
Cain’s palms came up between them, beseeching. “You misunderstand, alpha. I don’t judge you. You’re not like everyone else. You’re vulnerable and soft at the same time as you’re fierce and powerful. I can’t begin to mimic that. My wolf…he’s…he’s not half what yours is. He’s dull and lifeless compared to yours. I’m not judging you, Dean. I’m jealous!”
“WHAT?!”
Cain sighed and dropped his hands. He shook his head and turned his back, facing the door and carding fingers through his own hair. The silver locks parted and flowed back together under his touch. He turned back to face Dean, and slowly, he sank to his knees. Dean’s face registered base disgust, and he backed rapidly up three or four steps, seeking distance.
Cain lowered his eyes.
Dean stared at him in horror.
“Stop it!” he commanded.
Cain breathed an exhale out through his mouth and then looked up, his expression deadly serious. “I pledge you my fealty…”
“STOP IT! Get up! What the fuck are you doing?!”
“…in all that you may require of me.”
“I’m not even kidding, man. Get up! I’m not accepting a damn pledge from you. You have my wolf on a fucking leash!” Dean was aghast. Hierarchies did not work this way.
“I will faithfully execute your commands…” Cain continued, unswayed, and Dean felt a bubble of outrage forcing its way from his gut to his heart.
“I swear to god, you asshole…”
“…to the best of my abilities…”
Dean tackled him sideways without warning, and bowled April’s suitcase hard into the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster. “I said knock it off! It doesn’t work like that!”
Dean pinned the man beneath him, prone on the floor, with a hand between Cain’s shoulder blades. They both fell silent, both panting. Cain didn’t struggle. He turned his head to the side and closed his eyes. His feet pulled wider apart on the floor. Dean sat atop his hips, staring down at him.
“Fight me, damn you,” he said quietly with a chill in his voice.
“No,” Cain replied, his calm back in place.
“It won’t hold if you don’t make me take it,” Dean countered. His voice straddled the line between reason and insanity, and he had no idea which part of him was in control.
“Good,” Cain said in an infuriatingly solid voice. His eyes squeezed tightly shut. His voice might be calm, but there was a riptide under the surface that he was riding… Where was it taking him? Dean began to struggle to catch his own breath. His palm remained flexed across Cain’s back, his nails digging into the man’s flesh.
Dean’s mind whirled. His cock hardened. He leaned forward to bring his lips close to Cain’s ear, and he rolled his hips into Cain’s ass, stroking himself in the exchange. Cain’s breath caught.
“I won’t do it,” Dean breathed into his ear. “I’m not your sex toy. I’m not your Dominant. You can’t have me either, Submissive. I belong to Michael and to Cas. My dance card’s full, asshole.”
Cain whined, and Dean’s cock responded to the sound of need and arousal.
“Dean, please. I don’t need a Dom. I need…”
“An alpha?” Dean finished for him.
Cain’s lips sealed. He didn’t answer.
“You fucking Claimed my ass, Darius Cain. If you didn’t want it, you should’ve kept your dick in your pants. Now you can live with it.”
“Alpha, please,” Cain begged. He rocked his hips a little to remind Dean what was on offer, but Dean pushed himself back up to sitting.
“No. You made your bed. You can sleep in it.” Dean waited another infinite moment before shoving himself up to his feet and stepping clear. His dick wept the loss, but an alpha, even a Submissive one, had some pride, and Dean was no one’s toy.
Okay, that wasn’t true, exactly. Dean was someone’s toy. But not Cain’s. Damn these newfangled designation jumpers. Cain’s Tertiary looked for Domination from a Secondary? It was fucked up and beyond complicated, and Dean’s head was spinning with the implications even as his front-brain told him to expect a whole new set of research subjects to hit the labs.
Dean scrubbed his thumbs across his eyes, and it was that momentary blindness that allowed Cain to get the jump on him. The two of them went flying the breadth of the hallway to crash violently into the bench on the far wall. The bench cracked with a sickening sound, and it sagged sadly without shattering. Cain was all teeth and fists and fury, but Dean wasn’t having it. He’d waited long enough for this, and no manipulative douchewad was going to Claim his ass in his own home under his own roof.
…Not twice, anyway.
Dean dodged Cain’s fists like the streetfighter he was raised to be, a hard glint in his crimson eyes. He let Cain tire himself a bit without ever landing a blow, and then he systematically shifted one pound of bodyweight at a time, one calculated move after another, until the silver-haired alpha was trapped beneath him again.
Cain was sweating and struggling, but Dean felt decidedly calm. Once they both realized there was no contest between them, would never be a contest between them, Dean sat upright across Cain’s ass again, exactly as he had done before, but this time was very different.
Cain snarled and slobbered against the floor, incensed, outmatched, embarrassed.
Dean watched him coldly and then stood, straddling his Packmate’s knees with his feet.
“Get up,” he demanded.
“Make me,” Cain spat back.
“What happened to I swear to you my fealty?” Dean teased brutally. “Didn’t you mean it?”
“Fuck you!” Cain said over his own shoulder.
Dean could feel Michael approaching from the first floor, but he didn’t balk at all. “Oh, no, I think that’s all done with,” Dean told his adversary reasonably. “I hope you enjoyed your taste of this sweet ass, because it’s the last you’re gonna get. Get up.”
Dean stepped clear as Cain struggled sadly to his feet. Michael stopped at the upper landing, watching, admiring, drooling a little.
“Slacks down at your ankles,” Dean instructed. “Lean down onto the bench you broke. Stick your ass out.”
The look on Cain’s face could’ve frozen a river at full flood, but Dean’s was colder. “Do it. Now.”
The air crackled between them, so much tension in the space between their bodies, that it was nearly visible. Cain turned his back on the superior alpha and followed his instructions. In short order, his ass was bare and presented, and Dean paused to lower his own pants just enough to free his erection.
“You need to spit on yourself, alpha,” Michael advised helpfully. “Just a touch of moisture is more painful than none at all because it’ll let you fuck deeper.”
“Michael, shut the fuck up,” Dean gritted between clenched teeth, but his mate was right. Dean worked up a rolling dollop of spit in his mouth and surreptitiously let it drop straight down onto his hard length. He used his hand to smear it evenly over his whole cock. He could smell Michael’s slick even at this distance. It was rich and enticing and copious. Dean spared him a quick glance. Their eyes met, and Michael winked. Dean smirked back.
“Ass out,” he instructed, addressing Cain again. “You wanted it this way, you got it. I’m not going to pin you, hold you, bind you, or impede you in any way. You get me, alpha? You’re free to make a break for it any time you feel like you can’t take it. But if you stay, then we’re doing this. And I plan to make it hurt.”
Dean positioned the head of his cock at Cain’s anus, and he pressed forward enough to test the give. There wasn’t any give. Every muscle was clamped tight. Dean splayed his fingers against the wall for support, and he stopped pushing, allowing the tension to hold right at that point.
“It’s going to hurt, alpha,” he whispered. “And you’re going to release that Claim you hold over me whether you want to or not. Because no one Claims this alpha against his will and walks away from it.”
Cain’s breathing was turning ragged. His head fell forward to hang sadly chin to chest. “Just do it,” he begged.
“No one,” Dean went on, applying the barest bit more pressure to the tightness at the head of his cock and pulling a high whine out of the man in front of him. “Gets the better of me and lives to walk away from it unless I consent to it. And I don’t consent to your Claim, Darius Cain. Take it back.”
“I…take it…back,” Cain whimpered.
”TAKE IT BACK!!! Dean shouted as he thrust forward and breached Cain’s clenched hole in one hard push.
“I GIVE!!” Cain screamed.
”Damn right you do!!” Dean huffed. “This is MY house!” Dean pulled back and thrust back in. “My PACK! MY ALPHA!! MY OMEGAS!!” He fucked furiously to match his words, and the keening wail from the conquered man beneath him nearly drowned his voice completely. Dean could still feel Cain slightly through the Claim that Cain had set, and he pistoned his hips in a desperate attempt to erase and replace that link. “You’ll do as you’re told from now on, and you’ll keep your filthy eyes off my mate, off my husband, off me, for fuck’s sake!”
“I WILL! I PROMISE!” Cain shouted as his body jolted forward and back, as the sound of slapping skin echoed down the long hallway.
“You’ll go up to The Facility, and you’ll get your own alpha to scene with, and you’ll stay out of my foursome! Your dick better not breach anyone’s body in this whole Pack but April’s. Do you hear me, alpha??” Dean was up on the balls of his feet, pummeling his hips into his Packmate’s as furiously as he could, pulling bruises in Cain’s shoulder and leaving a sweaty handprint on the wall.
“Yes,” Cain managed between cries of pain. “I prom…ise.”
“What was that?” Dean prompted, freezing in place with his dick buried to the knot.
“Yes, Sir,” Cain breathed out. “Sir,” he repeated.
Dean pressed hard and his knot popped past Cain’s tight rim. Cain threw silver hair everywhere as he writhed and screamed in pain, his knees buckling for a moment before locking again.
“You crave that, don’t you, alpha?” Dean asked carefully right into his ear, too soft for Michael to hear. “You need an alpha knot?”
Cain trembled, but he didn’t answer.
“Well, you’re not getting mine,” he said with brutal coldness as he pulled his knot free again. “Do we understand each other now?”
Cain nodded into his braced arm, his every line, every muscle, screaming surrender. Dean judged him primed, and he fucked into him powerfully, turning his alpha impulses loose, feeling the hot flow of a Claim coursing through his veins, down his arms and legs, into his belly and his groin, and the feeling was exquisite and bestial. Everything exploded in tandem. Dean pulled himself free of Cain’s ruined hole, and he painted his come across the man’s lower back as his Claim slammed into place like a slap across an unwary cheek that sends the victim sprawling.
Cain cried out and collapsed to his knees, clutching at his head. His own Claim evaporated into metaphysical mist, and a far more substantial one locked him into place on his knees. There was no air down there, and he gasped in panic. He tried to suck in a breath, but nothing happened. He slid sideways to sit gracelessly on his hip and cast a terrified look upward.
Dean didn’t let him suffer. He went down on one knee, hovering tightly over Cain’s body, bringing him body heat and alpha musk. He put a grounding hand on the back of Cain’s neck.
“Breathe, alpha,” he instructed, and Cain’s throat rattled painfully as he gulped air. “That’s it. Slow it down. Breathe for me. I’ve got you.”
Cain took no more than a few breaths to find his rhythm again and get himself back together. He held tightly to Dean’s hand, and he nodded firmly.
“Give it a minute,” Dean advised. “It’s going to hurt like hell when you stand up. Don’t rush it.”
“I’m all right,” Cain braved. “I know what to expect. I’m no virgin, Dean.”
“Your funeral.” Dean stood up and hoisted Cain to his feet then pressed supportive hands across his ribs. “Take a minute though, man. I ain’t asking. Don’t go anywhere until I’m sure you’re not going to collapse on me.”
“I’m not going to pass out, Dean,” Cain protested in offense. Dean cleared his throat, fixed his hard gaze on Cain’s face, and gave an unsubtle tug to the Claim-link. Cain chuckled at the reversal of roles and then groaned and shot a hand out to brace himself on the wall.
“You see? Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
“I usually have to take a knot to feel this inside out,” Cain admitted. “And not a tease of a knot like you did, you asshole, but a fully locked, no-one’s-going-anywhere-until-this-fucker-deflates knot. Cripes! That aches!”
“You’re welcome,” Dean added sourly. “Think you can sit?”
“Yeaah,” Cain assured him, eyeing the bench warily. “Maybe…just…” Dean began to lower him down, and Cain transferred his shaky arm from the wall to the feebly angled bench. “Careful…” he warned.
“Lean forward and put your weight on your thighs. Lift your core off the seat. Center of gravity forward. There you go. Easy does it.” Dean eased him down and urged him to lean forward, balanced over his knees and feet. “How do you feel? Dizzy at all? Think there’s any tearing? You prone to Sub-drop?”
Cain chuckled again and dropped his head to his knees. “No drop, alpha. I’m okay. I swear. I need to go clean up and get dressed. My back is dripping onto the cushion.”
“Dude, the bench is toast anyway. No one gives a fuck about jizz on the cushion. I’m surprised it’s holding you at all.”
“What?” Cain nearly stood back up, but Dean held him.
“But it is, so sit tight for a bit until I’m sure you’re all right. Go really still in your head, alpha. I’m gonna dig around. Check you out. Don’t block me.”
“I’ll take the bags downstairs, Dean,” Michael told him. “I’ll send Cas up. He’ll wanna do a quick exam before we go.”
“Thanks, Michael. Check for him in the playroom. He may be tied up for a while, but you can check.”
Michael took one suitcase in each hand and hauled them down the stairs as Dean settled on his knees between Cain’s thighs. “Open up to me, man,” he reminded Cain. Their eyes locked, Dean’s full red and Cain’s brilliant blue.
“We got off on the wrong foot, Dean,” Cain told him softly as Dean rifled about in his head. Dean only hummed in reply, barely listening. “I was never after your fellas. You realize that don’t you?”
“Shut up a minute, alpha,” Dean told him, searching deeper. The link wasn’t wide enough to let him see much, but he should be able to suss out a real issue if there was one.
“I didn’t have my sights on you either, Dean. Not really. I need an alpha touch sometimes. I know that’s odd, but it is what it is. I’m trusting you to keep that to yourself. This isn’t the type of thing that’ll make sense to most of our people, and I’m not ready for the nature of the fight that’ll come on its heels if it gets out.”
“I’m not going to out you, man. Now shut the fuck up. What’s this?” Dean tugged at a tangled mess of Tertiary linkage. It was knotted so tightly on itself he couldn’t tell if it was a knot or a fusion.
Cain touched his own temple. “I told you,” he said gamely. “It’s complicated.”
“Has Alpha seen that?” Dean asked him as he let it go and pulled free of Cain’s mind. Cain’s shoulders relaxed immediately.
“Castiel hasn’t Claimed me, Dean. He doesn’t have access to it.”
Dean sat back on his heels and thought it through. “Does it get in the way of your work with April?” he asked at last.
“No.”
“Then I guess it’s none of my damn business, is it?”
“I would appreciate your discretion on the matter, alpha,” Cain agreed. “Although I’m not naïve enough to think you won’t describe it to Castiel.”
“He needs to know, man. This Pack and everything in it is his responsibility.”
Cain nodded slowly. “I know. It’s not as rough as it looks, Dean. I can manage it as long as I’m scening regularly.”
“How long’s it been?” Dean asked as he pressed himself up to his feet.
“Counting just now?”
“Don’t fuck with me, alpha.” Dean took hold of Cain’s upper arms and helped him to his feet before ducking back down and helping the man with his pants. “Do you have a Top?”
Cain licked his lips. “I’ve been looking. I had a Dominant in New York. I haven’t found one here. I’ve been looking.”
“Ah, yeah, that’s a problem. We’ll get right on that when we get home. For now, you’re going to contact this Dom in New York, and you’re going to schedule an overnight scene with the dude. No argument. Do it.” Dean let Cain lean heavily on him as they descended the stairs together. “Drop Castiel’s cash if he needs an incentive to be available.”
“I don’t need money, Dean,” Cain protested. “And while we’re on the subject of you saying offensive things, I AM Winchester Pack, so you can fuck off with that bullshit protection of your people.”
“What’d I say?” Dean asked innocently.
“You told me that what April needed in the middle of a downward spiral was Pack, not a manager. That was uncalled for.”
Dean sighed. “Yeah, it was. Sorry about that. It wasn’t about you, not really.”
“It wasn’t about April either though,” Cain posited.
“Fine,” Dean conceded. “I’m a dick. Now you and Michael have something to bond over.”
“If it’s all the same to you, alpha,” Cain confided. “I’ll pass on bonding with Michael. I may be Pack, but I’m not a kumbaya joiner, and Michael is…a big ask. I’m not a masochist, Dean.”
“Ouch, I’m telling him you said that,” Dean told him in offense and defense both.
“Please do. The sooner he dislikes me, the easier it’ll be for all of us.”
“Well, then, I don’t feel like a shit for telling you that the ship’s already sailed on that, so you’re in the clear.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
They cleared the bottom step together and trudged slowly through the foyer. Fred bustled the other way and then pulled up short, stalling in his tracks with his eyes flickering from one alpha to the other before he visibly relaxed.
“At last,” he breathed. “Forgive me, alphas, but these last few months have been a trial for all of us. I congratulate you both on the resolution, and I do hope it is a satisfactory one.”
“Yeah, thanks, Fred. It’s all done but the limping. You seen Cas?”
“The Alpha is engaged downstairs with his mate. I fear the Omega was in an aggrieved state, and he’s delayed the departure of the coach until he’s seen to her appropriately. He’s asked that everyone remains close at hand and that all the luggage be stowed before he and April appear. Is there any more luggage?”
Dean replied. “Michael had the last of it, Fred. We’re gonna head down to the H/R room to get Cain cleaned up. You’ll vouch for where we are if Cas goes on a tear with his flock all spread out, won’t you?”
“Indeed, Dean. Fear not the Alpha’s temper. I’ll see to it.”
“You’re the best, Fred. I love you!” Dean steered a taciturn Cain around the back doorway and down the stairs.
“A sentiment that is warmly returned, alpha,” Fred added to the empty room.
Fred looked about him, re-setting himself to the task he was about before encountering Dean and Cain. Even a glancing blow with Dean often set him awhirl, but he had a household to oversee, and a Pack departure to manage. The phone rang. Fred angled to pick it up.
Castiel wasted no time once the door slammed closed behind him. He tossed her absently onto the bed and attacked her clothes, baring her swiftly and completely. She whimpered and flipped herself onto her belly. She pressed her backside into the air up on her knees and reached back to pull her cheeks apart as slick issued copiously from her channel. Neither of them spoke a word.
Castiel crawled up behind her and buried his face in her channel, digging in as far as he could with his tongue. With one arm, he reached beneath her and up across her shoulder to pull her backward into his face. With his other, he squeezed her thigh tight enough to hurt, and he moaned at the scent and the feel and the taste of her. Cas lapped and licked into her until his tongue began to tire, and then he rose to his height on his knees behind her and slapped her ass hard with his bare hand. No warning.
April hissed and pressed backward with both hands pressed into the mattress. Cas growled and struck her again. Her flesh pinked rapidly as he applied himself wholeheartedly to his work, and April Released explosively.
Cas lost himself in the simple pleasure of making his mate hurt long after her Omega no longer needed him to. This wasn’t for the Omega. It was about Cas and his Submissive, a man and his mate, an intimacy so tightly enmeshed in his very being that it was essentially an act of masturbation. He wanted her hurting, aching, throbbing, and he wanted to hit her. The sweet visceral, tactile pleasure of his hand whacking the meaty firmness of her backside hadn’t grown old yet. He prayed it never would. It was a bliss akin to the first bite of a perfectly rare steak, but far more sustainable. Like Dean, Cas sometimes felt like he might orgasm from the eroticism itself of watching his hand and his mate’s ass turn red together.
And she not only allowed it, she lived for it. Castiel could tell that his eyes had reddened. He could feel the thumping rhythm of his own heart at pace with his mate’s, and he let it go, forgetting to catalogue anything, ignoring the subtle and overt signals from his Sub that he always kept careful watch over when he scened with Dean. Here in this moment, alone with his mate, he and she were one, Alpha and Omega, and they tempered one another the way the Universe intended, through their bond. Limits were as self-regulating as the jerk of a hand from a hot stove. He couldn’t press her beyond her limits, even if he’d wanted to. Their bond turned a mutuality into a singularity. Her pain pulsed through his body, and his wild arousal thrummed inside of her.
All at once, he reached his tipping point, and he roared as he pressed his still clothed groin up against her willing orifices. A baffled Omega glanced back at him as the Alpha looked down and struggled to comprehend the encumbrance. He shook his head like a wet dog and impatiently attacked the fastenings to his pants. He shoved his pants and underwear to his knees hurriedly, freeing himself.
Why did people insist so vehemently on wearing clothes all the damn time?
Castiel draped himself over her back and let his body do whatever it would do. He didn’t deliberate upon which hole to aim for. Such intention was beyond him. He sank into a warm, wet welcome, the softer of the two options, more cradling than embracing, and he felt perfect soul-affirming rightness. He whined high in his throat. She echoed right back at him and pressed back into his thrusts.
“Let it all go, Kitten,” he instructed far more calmly than he felt. “I’ve got you. Dissolve right into me, and I’ll piece you back together. Let go, baby.”
She cried out, clutching the linens in her fists, and threw herself bodily right into the maelstrom in her head. It caught her midair, lifted her, ravaged her, pummeled her until she couldn’t see or think or breathe or want, and she flew apart as each molecule that made her whole was wrenched in a different direction, every nerve unraveled, every muscle undone. She screamed as she climaxed, and her brain exploded in relief.
Her Alpha’s knot locked, and he filled her with his seed and bit down on the back of her neck. It hurt. Oh, how it hurt. April watched with her eyes squeezed shut as every molecule that comprised her whirled into the edges of the Universe to vibrate and spin far from anyone’s reach, only to slow, to pause, to linger in space so very far away, and then to glisten and vibrate with renewed energy and speed at the beckon of something outside of her own power, to wing back from every direction.
She felt concussed by the violence of the collision in her psyches of every separate strand finding her once again and re-fusing into place as if they’d never abandoned her at all, and it was Castiel who knit each morsel back together.
His Claim rocked them both, and his embrace, both physical and spiritual, held her fast to the bed. She was weeping from the power of her relief. She struggled to catch her breath, but the Alpha paced her carefully, guiding her inhales and her exhales until she could hold the rhythm once again on her own. Half moon divots from his blunt nails marked her upper arms where his strong arms had wrapped around her bodily. She trembled. He kissed the back of her neck. He murmured comfort. He whispered adoration and pride.
He rolled her to her side to spoon her protectively. She reached up to clutch at his hands, and he let her intertwine their fingers. She could feel him smile into the back of her neck.
“So good for me,” he whispered. “Feel better?”
“Mm,” she answered cryptically.
“Mm,” he agreed, pumping his hips gently. His knot wouldn’t hold long. Her vaginal muscles didn’t have the same hold that anal ones do. She was softer and easier in her feminine aspects than in her uniquely Omega anatomy. Warm, not hot. Welcoming, but not constricting.
Castiel examined her mind internally, and she reached back through to reciprocate, earning a soft chuckle from her mate. “We both needed that,” he agreed quietly. “It’s going to be a long drive to New York and a long and arduous experience for all of us; for you most of all. You’ll let us know if you feel off-kilter again, won’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
April raised his right hand to her lips and kissed his knuckle. “I will, Alpha. Although I expect you’ll catch it before I do out there amongst all those strangers. You’ll be watching my every move.”
“Hm,” he fussed. “I don’t mean to hover, Kitten. I can’t help it. I worry about you, even with Cain right at your shoulder.”
She grinned into her pillow, aware that he could feel what he couldn’t see. “Between you and Cain, Michael, Dean, Sam, and Gabriel, I can’t imagine I’m going to take a single step without someone holding my hand steady.”
“Kitten, you’re too important to all of us to take any chances.”
“Thanks, Alpha. I love you too.”
He chuckled and nuzzled his nose across the red mark his teeth had left at the knob of her spine. “As soon as we’re untied, we need to get washed up and on that coach. We’re late leaving now, and I don’t want the driver to try to make up the time by speeding.” He sighed a long and contented exhale, sounding very close to nodding off.
“Cas, would you do me a favor when we’re in New York?”
“Hmm? What’s that?” he asked, intrigued and sleepy.
“Would you…?”
“Kitten?” He lifted up on his elbow behind her and tested the give of his knot with a gentle tug of his hips. Not yet.
She rolled back enough to look at him. His hand cradled her chin, a soppy expression of warmth in his blue eyes. “I want you to take Dean to New York on this trip. I want you to enjoy the city with your husband. I’ll be fine, Alpha. Dean needs you right now in a way that I don’t.”
A wrinkle blossomed in the space between Castiel’s eyes. He swallowed and raised himself a little higher to face her better, and he opened his mouth to question. April put a manicured finger over his lips, forestalling him.
“I’ll be busy, Cas. I have so much to accomplish, so many people to work with, so many connections to make. I need you to hand me over to Cain and Nick and give me enough room to practice being me without you at my heels. And, sweetheart, Dean needs just the opposite. You see it, don’t you? Are you hurt? I don’t mean to hurt you.”
Cas pressed his lips together and then leaned down to drop a soft kiss to her jaw, trailing it up to her ear and then to the richly scented space behind her ear where her personal smell was the deepest. He nuzzled her there with his nose and his lips.
“I’m not hurt, love. I understand. We’re beginning to see everything that we’ve been working toward come to fruition, you and me. This is who we are, Kitten. I need you as if you were a part of my own body, as you need me. But we need space apart just as desperately. You have a professional life of your own to chase, and it doesn’t have a place in it for me. I’m no more than an observer to your journey out in the world. Love, that’s all right. That’s where we’ve been heading. I knew it in my head all along. And you did too, didn’t you? You have all the resources I know how to give you now. You don’t need me for that, and I won’t get in your way. I have, as you say, other distractions to occupy myself with.”
April’s eyes locked with her mate’s, awash in fear and uncertainty. For all he said the words she’d barely dared to hope for, New York would be a test of his resolve and his commitment. She could feel that he loved and cherished her. Did he love her enough to gently nudge her away from him and out into the cold frightening world, trusting in the people he’d surrounded her with to keep up with everything he was setting aside? Could they both overcome the pull to stay close to each other? Could they stretch the elastic cord between them until it pulsated with tension and then hold there, each in their own sphere until need and obligation snapped them back together for a mutually powerful release, only to pull apart again?
“You’re thinking too hard, Kitten,” he chastised lightly, nibbling at her chin. “I won’t be far. Not ever. And you’ll have Cain and Nicholas. Most of all, April Renée, you’ll have Michael.” He huffed a breath that could’ve been amusement or irony. “Baby, I promise to focus on my husband in New York if you’ll promise to lean on Michael.”
“Cas…”
“Shh. I know. I know you’re scared. But I also know you love him. And he’s been patient, April. If you’re waiting for him to prove himself to you, don’t you think he’s done that already? He’s loyal and careful. He cares about you far more than I think you allow yourself to see.”
She frowned and laid her head on the pillow, looking blankly at the far wall. “We brought Cain in so I would have a Pack alpha to lean on.”
“It’s not the same thing, and you know it,” he chided. “Pack or not, you don’t love Cain. He serves a vital purpose, but he’s never going to be to you what Michael is. Michael would sacrifice his own life without a second thought to keep you safe. He reads your state of mind better than anyone, and he’s laser focused on taking care of you. April, please…”
“What are you asking me, Cas?”
“I want you to submit to him, Kitten. I would feel better if he held a Claim over you. I want to know he can read you directly, not just instinctively. His instincts are good, but they will be so much better once he’s got a bond to trace.”
She laughed out loud at the sudden turn of fate. They both felt the sticky flow as his knot released and his cock slid wetly out. April rolled over to face him and found his expression adamant. “Who are you, and what have you done with my mate?” she asked rhetorically.
“Look, I know I was possessive and controlling, and I threatened to tear his balls off if he flirted with you…”
“And shove them down his throat,” she reminded him, at which he had the grace to look embarrassed. He blushed prettily, and he lowered his eyes to her long, elegant fingers, playing gently with them.
“It feels wrong, Castiel. I belong to you. I love Michael, but try as I might, I can’t scale this wall in front of me. I belong to you.”
“If Dean and I can do it, Kitten, then you and Michael can too. Be selfish, love. I grant you my permission and my blessing. Go get him. Make him yours. Be his. If you meant what you said about needing me to step back while you’re out building and creating and working, Kitten, you have so much to share with someone you love. There is no one on earth that I would rather see you share your life with than Michael.”
“It’s not your decision, Alpha,” she told him firmly, rankling at the sudden and unexpected all in from her mate. “Just because it’s an easy fix doesn’t mean it’s what I want. Why does everyone feel the need to pressure me all the time? When do I get to make my own choices? What if I’m not ready for a Claim from Michael? What if I never want that?”
“April. Kitten. If you ask me to, I will desist and say not one more word on the subject. Love Michael or don’t. It’s your choice. But don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Don’t reject him simply because you feel pressured to accept him, not if he’s who you truly love. And love? I think you do.”
“Quit poking into my head!” she protested weakly.
He laughed softly and kissed her lips. It was an easy, chaste kiss. Soft. Brief. Meaningful. His deep blue eyes were impossible to dodge. “Omega, when we Mated, we committed to bring our best selves into this union. I cannot give you my best self if my husband is not a part of what I bring to you. I need him to fulfill myself. And I owe you a fulfilled me. Yes?”
She pulled a pained face and took her hands out of his grasp, but he captured them right back.
“Yes?” he repeated more firmly, imbuing his word with a touch of Dominance. “Your words, April Renée, not mine.”
“It’s not the same thing, Castiel.”
“Yes, it is. It’s exactly the same thing. You are not fulfilled with only me as an intimate. I cannot comprehend, much less commiserate in, the parts of you that reach in opposite directions from me and my designations. You need Michael. And what’s more, you love him desperately. I won’t brook any lies from you, Kitten. You love him. Please, for the love of god, go get him. Stop playing around with the idea and reel him in.”
“I thought we were running late,” she deflected. “We should clean up.”
“April.” Castiel didn’t hesitate to put his voice into a register that would hold her fast. “You have a great deal at stake in New York. I know that. Your focus belongs on your work. Many, many people are depending on what you’ve created with Nick to strike the right tones for success. It’s more pressure than someone your age and background should be expected to handle. And if you tell me that you can face it best with me out of the picture, keeping my distance, baby, I can do that. But you need someone close by; someone whose loyalty is to you, not to your career, not to your success, but to you. Use Cain as your professional rudder, love, but use Michael as your anchor.
“If this show you’ve built doesn’t receive the acclaim we’re all hoping for—and that’s a very real possibility—you will need someone who’s only concern is helping you through. And if it is a triumph as we all fully expect, you deserve to have someone cherished to share it with.”
“That’s you, Alpha,” she protested without conviction. “I want to share that part with you.”
“Don’t split yourself, Kitten. You’ve asked me to turn my focus to Dean while we’re away, and I can feel the resolution in your choice. When the stage lights fall and the curtain comes back down, I will be there. Wild horses won’t be able to keep me away. But, love, it’s not my embrace you will long for in that moment when the audience rises to its feet in applause. You were brave just now, and you threw all of your fear aside to pose a choice to me. Don’t pretend that you have no other goal in your sights than supporting my marriage. I can feel it as surely as I feel the rhythm of your heart beating. You’re asking me for distance, April, and I can give you that. It’s what we both need. What we both want. Don’t be afraid of it now.”
Someone pounded on the door at that moment, startling them both. April sighed and released her mate’s hand. She turned and rolled off the bed. Cas ran a hand through his hair. Was he being blindly selfish? Was he grasping at the first hint that he had the freedom to turn his face more toward his husband than his mate out of a desperate wish that it could be so?
Cas followed her out of the bed, and he clicked open the lock on the door before meeting her at the back of the room for a quick shower. He fondled the curve of her sore backside as water cascaded over them both, and he closed his eyes to Michael’s entrance.
“Everything’s loaded and ready except you two,” he said as he strolled idly into the room. “We need to get gone or we’ll fuck up our schedule. You about done here?”
“We’re finishing up now, Michael,” Cas answered with his soapy hands busy sponging the excess fluids from his mate’s body. “If you’ll help April dry off and dress, I’m right behind you. Go on, Kitten. You’re clean. Go with Michael onto the coach and get settled. I want you napping.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Michael, would you mind lying down in the back with her? Dean and I can juggle pups.”
“Um, no, sir. I don’t mind,” Michael replied, a little perplexed. “You both okay? You seem… weird.”
“We’re fine. April had a very trying fall just now, but she’s better, and she needs a nap.”
“Right. And passing her off to me is easier than doing your own aftercare.” Michael dried April off top to bottom with a fluffy towel before holding her dress open for her to shimmy into.
“It was a yes or no question, Omega,” Cas reminded him coldly. “If you’re not interested in joining April for a nap, you aren’t required to do so. Your tone and your implication are not acceptable. We have a long way to go together in a confined space. I suggest you consider what degree of personal discomfort you prefer for the journey.”
“My bad, sir. I withdraw that. Yeah, I’ll curl up in the big bed with your mate. Just don’t be too surprised if you don’t get her back right away.”
“Understood,” Cas said calmly as he dried and dressed himself. “In fact, that is rather the idea. I will let April explain.”
The coach pulled out of the gravel drive a mere five minutes later, and it wound its way to the interstate with a cargo of family, all in varying degrees of excitement, stress, and puzzlement, the ultimate Omega still mum to the confused questions from her suitor, but accommodating to his warm spooning embrace and resigned to the fact that once she’d slept, she owed him a serious discussion about a shift in dynamics.
April hadn’t expected her mate to give way that readily, to see through her that completely, and it left her feeling far less certain than when she’d started that she truly wanted what she’d asked for. She had been expecting a fight. Castiel wouldn’t so easily give her over, would he? He needed her. Loved her. Craved her body and her touch. She knew he did. She had expected a fierce denial and a gnashing of teeth at the existential unfairness of a reality of split loyalties. His moral compass was predictable to a fault.
Or…it had been.
With all the wind knocked out of her sails and a host of arguments at her knee that she never had a chance to use, she was speechless and adrift.
But her gut wasn’t churning with the burn of a mate-rejection. He was still right where he belonged inside her soul, the bond between them as sure as ever. He’d agreed that what they shared was enough. They were mates but not best friends, not a couple, not married. And it stung.
Why did it sting?
The relief in her sternum was a weight lifted, a weight she hadn’t known she carried. He was still her mate. Still her Dom. Still Alpha, for Christ’s sake. He had agreed that he didn’t have to be her boyfriend. And he’d done it with no hesitation, really. That hadn’t even been what she asked for, but it was what she meant. He could read her well enough to know what she meant. And he’d jumped on it as if he had been trying to find the words to ask for the same thing.
But he couldn’t have done that. He was Alpha. He was obligated to provide his mate everything she might need. It had to come from April, this pushing away. Had he been waiting and praying for a chance like this?
And that didn’t even begin to touch on what the change would mean for Michael. An Alpha fully focused on Dean meant less Dean for Michael. April could see no other way. It would either free Michael to spend more time with her, or it would spark a turf war that he was going to lose miserably, catastrophically. There was no shifting one dimension of their dynamic without encroaching on others.
The elegant solution was to fill the newly emptied space in April’s life with Michael. And vice versa. Cas had spotted that immediately, and he’d shoved it forward as an inevitability. April felt twitchy with the certainty that Michael would resent the assumptions. She tried to take the weight of that argument on herself, but Cas knew better, and he’d cut that protest off at the source.
April exhaled slowly against her pillow. Chess had never been an easy game, but the stakes were higher now than they’d ever been in Oklahoma. She loved Michael. Wanted him. Was so very close to having him. But if she saw this maneuver through…
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Michael observed from behind her. “Doesn’t feel like you’re close to sleeping.”
April leaned backward against his solid body, and she rolled her head until it was nestled beneath his chin and she could gaze upward at the light dappling across the shifting ceiling. A pup’s plaintive wail echoed back from the front of the coach, followed by soothing shushing sounds in Dean’s voice that comforted the pup to silence.
“Michael, will you stay close to me?”
“Of course, Pete. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I mean for this whole trip, even once we arrive, even when it turns into a frenzy or a circus.”
Michael’s eyes grew somber, grew a golden halo, and he supported her chin with his knuckle before kissing her lips with infinite tenderness. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told her solemnly.
April stretched out her feeling to trace her Mating-bond to its other end and found the Alpha entranced by his young, embraced by his husband, and still watchful over his mate. No, whatever led him to dive at the chance to shift his focus from his mate to his husband, it hadn’t been an uncomfortable friction in his bond with his mate. He wasn’t chafing.
For all that April could surmise, he appeared to have answered her as bluntly as she’d posed the question. He, too, was split with things as they were. Too split to sustain them all. April had concluded ages ago that the biological mandate of their Mating-bond didn’t leave space for an intimacy such as Castiel shared with Dean. They were simply too different for that. And it seemed now that Castiel had reached the same conclusion but that he was too righteous a gentleman to admit it first. That wasn’t the same thing as finding fault with the True-mate Trigger that tied them together. Mates they were, and mates they should be. But they weren’t marriage material.
Michael though.
He slung a leg over hers and snuggled in close, letting the rocking of the coach shift them ever tighter under the light blanket. He smelled good. He was warm without being stifling. He was solid without being hard. He was supportive. And gentle. And funny. And accepting. And generous.
Oh, lord.
April sighed again, and Michael responded by snaking a hand down to her butt to rub the lingering sting out.
“When I wake up, we should talk,” she muttered.
“Why do I suddenly feel the need to dodge another shoe?” he grumbled halfheartedly.
The drive across Missouri went smoothly. Planning for most every eventuality was a tedious business, but the resultant journey going off without a hitch made the hours spent planning well worth it. April explained to Michael much of what she’d discussed with her mate as the two mothers shared a cement bench at a rest stop picnic table and nursed pups side-by-side. Michael heard it with a blank expression, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his face going pale at the realization that to make it work—putting an arms’ length between the Alpha and his mate—April really did need a Claim from Michael. He couldn’t be her fallback if he couldn’t feel her internally. Barring that, if he proved incapable, April would have no choice but to depend upon Cain for immediate response, not Michael.
“I don’t want that,” she admitted softly with her eyes on Kat’s dozy face. “I want you. God help me, Michael, I want you. I don’t have a right to ask that of you. And Cas…Cas is taking you for granted, and that’s not fair. Michael, you don’t have to…”
“I want to, Pete,” he broke in. “I need permission from Dean, I guess. A blessing, at least.” Michael took a deep breath which expanded his chest and disrupted Alex’s suckling. The pup grunted and lunged back in for the nipple he’d lost. Michael absently lifted his son to his shoulder and began a percussive rapping on his back. “And I don’t wanna try to do it away from home. We can wait until we get back home, can’t we?”
“Of course,” she murmured quietly. “Cas and Cain are both close enough to catch me if I fall in New York. I feel stable right now. I shouldn’t need anything else until we check into the hotel at the soonest. Michael, they’re planning on daily spankings the whole time we’re away from home to head off any chance of an upset.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m not scared. I’m happy they thought to get ahead of my stress. It’s the premiere that I’m frightened about.” She confessed carefully, wiping Kat’s chin and flipping her to the opposite side. Most of what Kat was feeding on was slow to release since she was taking the leftovers from her siblings’ turns. It let the two Omegas linger a little longer than strictly necessary while the alphas shuffled everyone to the restrooms, to the changing tables, into the late afternoon sunshine to stretch legs. “If they hadn’t suggested it, I would be asking for a turn over someone’s lap every day anyway. It centers me. It stops the whirling in my head.”
“Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “You’re not expecting me to take over that part too, are you? Pete, I can’t…”
“No, Michael. Cas is still my mate. Cain is still my chaperone. What’s changing is…I guess we could say…Alpha isn’t going to keep pretending he can be my boyfriend.”
Michael spewed the water he’d just put to his lips, and Alex squawked a startled protest. “Jesus, sorry, Ace.” Michael mopped him up, and then juggled to get his shirt pulled back down. “Boyfriend?! Seriously? Pete, he was never going to be that to you.” He stood up and adjusted Alex to sit on his hip. “You had to know that.”
“Most mates…” she began, but then she stopped and stared forlornly at him. “I know. I’ve known for a long time. We’ve all known, haven’t we? We’ve been heading in this direction since the beginning, but… Michael, Mating-bonds are tricky things. If we worded it badly, we could’ve done permanent damage to our bond. We had to be careful. He couldn’t have said it first. He had to wait on me. And there couldn’t be any trace of a rejection in the way we put it.”
Michael laughed. He laughed gently at first, and then he threw his head back and snorted. April smiled patiently at first before giving over to a smile and then a chuckle.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” she grumbled, still snickering.
Michael swooped in and dumped Alex on her lap as he swiped Kathleen and set to burping her on his shoulder. April caught the boy and shook her head slowly as she buttoned back up. “You’re nuts.”
He was still laughing, dancing a bit as he coddled his daughter, but he licked his lips and explained. “You dumped the single most powerful man in the world on his ass. You don’t think that’s funny? What’s more, he’s thrilled to be dumped. And here you are with starry eyes asking for me instead. Me. Pete, the two of you are a matched set. You’re both certifiable.”
“I didn’t dump him, you ass. We’re still mates.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed quietly as his laugh lines faded. “But he’s not your fella, is what you’re telling me. And Cain is a Sub. Does that mean you’ll be looking elsewhere for a Dominant?” He couldn’t meet her eyes suddenly.
“He’s still my Dom,” she confessed. “Unless you want to apply for the job.” She was likewise incapable of looking at him.
He blanched, unseen. He kissed Kat’s temple. “Pete, I can’t,” he whispered. “I told you.”
“I know. I know, Michael. It would be too…weird. And it would be unfair to Dean.”
“No, it’s not that. Damnit, Pete, the alphas can deal. Don’t you dare put their needs ahead of ours. It’s just that that side of me, Pete, it’s unclean. It’s tainted. I can’t put it any better than that. I don’t want my wolf anywhere near what I have going with you. He’ll tear it all down. You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll ruin us.”
“But Dean…” she began, and he interrupted her fiercely.
“Dean isn’t you! He knows the gutter, April. He’s been down there too, and there’s no coming all the way back from that once you’ve been there. He’s strong enough—physically strong enough—to take it without scarring. Maybe he’s carrying so many scars they just don’t show anymore. I don’t know. But he’s broken in a way that’s not fixable, and the darkest part of me, it actually helps glue him back together. It’s fucked up and sick, and if I could change it, I would, but I can’t. The two of us are sick in the same direction. We heal each other on our own excess.
“Goddamnit, this is coming out all wrong! I don’t want to be that man, April! I want to be able to shed my skin like a snake and be someone else for you. We’ve been over this! I thought you understood! You can’t ask that of me. I can’t do it. I can’t!”
April didn’t reply right away. Alex practiced standing upright on her lap with her hands circling his torso. He bounced up and down on her thighs and grinned at her. She smiled back, encouraging him. She broke the silence without looking away from the pup.
“It’s the same agreement you and Cas have to share Dean, Michael. But in reverse, so to speak. And without a Tertiary element to complicate things. You adjusted to shared custody once. Can you do it again? And I’m talking about a permanent arrangement. Michael Quentin, I love you. I want you. We can build something brand new if we throw ourselves into it and decide. There’s nothing stopping us.”
He turned away and paced slowly along the walking path toward the standalone restroom buildings. Alex cried out a nonsense syllable in protest, but Michael didn’t go far. He turned and came back without any fanfare. He was thinking, processing. He sidled all the way up to the picnic table where she sat facing outward and harrumphed as he threw himself dramatically back down beside her.
“How permanent?” he asked at a whisper. Alex made a grab for his nose. April swallowed. This close, his eyes were intense.
“For as long as you’ll have me?” she asked carefully. “Michael, I want to grow old next to you.”
“We’ve already got that,” he pointed out, but he found his hand kneading the muscles at her shoulder.
“No more waffling,” she tried again. “No more taking it step by step, cautiously, whatever. I want to be yours. For good.”
“Pete, I don’t want to… We’re not apes. I mean, do you need a…?”
She giggled. “It’s not a proposal,” she confirmed, and she watched a weight slip off his chest to puddle on the ground.
He smiled. “I’m not seeing the change, then,” he confessed. “What’s different?”
She reached out and put a hand on his thigh which he immediately covered with his own hand. “Michael, I need you to Claim me. We can’t do this blind. We’re not Primates, as you pointed out. But Claim me and see. You’ll see. I can’t begin to put it into words. But I can share it with you if you’ll build us a line. Will you do that? Just once.”
“Yeah,” he nodded around the lump in his throat. “Yeah. I’ll do that. I need to talk to Dean.”
“And Cas,” she added. “You’ll need to re-open negotiations with Alpha.”
“Terrific,” he deadpanned. He stood and pulled her to her feet. April dumped their water bottles back into the bag at their feet and then shouldered the bag. Michael wrapped an arm across her shoulders and led her down the walkway back toward the coach. He leaned across her and blew a raspberry on the back of Ace’s neck, and the pup cackled in delight. Michael smiled. He glanced down. Kat was fast asleep. “I think I can swing that,” he decided. “I wouldn’t do it for just anyone though.”
“I’m flattered,” she joshed with a subdued smile and a blush.
Castiel stood in the stairwell door of the coach with his hand shading his eyes, watching them approach. As they neared, his face cleared from concerned to resigned. He offered April a tight-lipped smile as he took Alex and helped her up.
“I hope you’re sure about this, Castiel,” Michael quipped as he climbed aboard. He didn’t bother to explain. “I expect you to keep your word this time.”
“While I appreciate your uncertainty, Omega,” Cas replied evenly. “I’ve had it with the tone.” Dean’s head came up from scanning a tablet in his hands in one of the front bench seats along the side of the coach. He looked back and forth between the two of them.
“What’s going on?” he prompted.
“Michael has just pushed my last button, Dean. Permission to apply a disciplinary correction?”
“Um, man, you don’t need my permission. What’d he do? Michael?” Dean straightened to his full height and tugged his alpha into place behind his eyes. He fixed his mate with a stern and forbidding look.
Michael nodded down at the sleeping infant in his arms, and Dean let him pass to lay her safely in her car seat. He buckled her in without waking her. Dean waited. Castiel eased past them both with a heavy look into Dean’s eyes as he wended his way toward the back compartment, dropping the pup back off to April on his way.
“I don’t know, Dean,” Michael admitted. “I’m irritable. Everything about him is setting me on edge. Have you heard about what’s going on between Cas and Pete? Did your husband tell you they broke up? That he’s basically shunted her off onto me whether that’s what we wanted or not? I mean seriously. The gall. First he’s so against the idea that I worried he might actually kill me. And now, I’m his stand-in, a plug-and-play substitute mate, without so much as a by-your-leave. It’s the entitlement, Dean. It pisses me off. I could probably handle it better. But I shouldn’t have to handle it at all.”
Dean sighed and shook his head with his lips compressed. He glanced across at April. She looked up carefully from her seat on the bench that Dean had left. Her blue eyes peeked from behind her long lashes, and Dean rolled his. She had nothing to say. He turned back to Michael who swallowed uncomfortably.
“You were rude to him?” he checked.
“I had good reason,” Michael returned stubbornly.
“No,” Dean disagreed. “We’ve talked about this. Whatever you need to say, you do it politely. Head on back there and take your swats. I’m not going to protect you this time. Go on, git.” Dean smacked Michael’s backside, and the Omega grimaced. He huffed, but there was no appeal available. He stomped unhappily toward the back and closed the thin door behind him a little too hard for travel board.
Dean turned to face April. She peeked up at him again. He raised his eyebrows. She licked her lips. Behind Dean, Sam and Jess climbed back onto the coach with the twins. Dean grabbed hold of the overhead rack and leaned out of the walkway to let them pass. It brought him closer to April, and she leaned further away.
“Broke up?” he prompted. “You’ll excuse my language, but that’s bullshit.”
“It’s not that cut and dried,” she admitted, wringing her hands. “I told you he wasn’t boyfriend material for me.”
“Yep. I remember that. What’s crawled up Michael’s ass? Unless I’m mistaken, you and he both decided he IS boyfriend material. Now he’s not interested?”
The sound of Michael’s impactful correction was barely muffled at all by the paper-thin wall at the back of the bus, and Dean and April both turned at the hot slaps and corresponding pained grunts. At the front, Gabe climbed up the stair followed by Kali. Each had a triplet pup in their arms. Cain and Sarah followed right behind. Dean ignored them all, returning to the Ozzie and fixing April with his fiercest glare.
“Kid? Michael? Spill.”
She looked on the verge of breaking down, but instead turned to face the front of the coach as it pulled away and headed back to the interstate.
“April, your boyfriend is back there right now getting his butt roasted over mouthing off. He had to be some pissed off to risk that. I wanna know what’s going on, and I mean now!”
They had an audience at this point. The sounds of flesh striking flesh paused from the back, but once the coach reached cruising speed again, they resumed. Michael was in tears at this point. Dean could both feel and hear them. His heart went out to his mate, and it killed the last vestige of patience he had with April.
“Answer me, Omega!”
“Michael was pushing buttons before anything changed between Cas and I, Dean!” she burst out. “This isn’t my fault.”
Dean thought back carefully. She had a point. But there was a great deal she wasn’t saying. He sat down beside her, mindfully ignoring Cain and Sam, both watching carefully. “Yeah, whatever. Maybe. But what the hell is he talking about? And don’t tell me Cas dumped you. Mates don’t work like that.”
“I asked him to, Dean,” she said with a shaky voice. “I told him I thought we would be better off with some space between us. I told him I wanted him to focus more on you than on me. You’re welcome.”
Dean scoffed in disbelief. “No you don’t. I don’t need your charity, kiddo. I can manage my own marriage, thanks.” The resounding slaps quickened in the back, and Michael’s voice rang out even louder as he called out a miserable apology. Everything ended abruptly. Dean could feel the relief and the resolution. Michael seemed calm and centered back there, and he was hugging hard as the coach swayed.
“No, Dean. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for myself. For my relationship with Michael. And for Cas. My mate is tearing himself in two trying to be everything for you and me both. But he isn’t that to me. Not what he is to you. It’s not going to work.”
“So, you’re stepping out into an afterthought? That what you’re telling me?” Dean couldn’t wrap his head around it. What did she mean? “Did Michael get a heads up or did you blindside him?”
She took his hand in both of hers and held it in her lap. “I let Castiel go for you once, Dean, and that was hard. But everything got better. The thing is, I didn’t fully let him go. I just…moved over a little. I gave him permission to be pulled in two for the rest of our lives. And, god, he’s trying. He’s trying so hard to be everything for both of us.” She cut herself off and pressed her lips back together, turning away but clutching his hand.
“Hey.” He shook her hands a little, and she focused down at her lap, tears spilling and dripping from her nose. “Hey,” he repeated, firmer. “Forget what Cas might need. Forget me. What you and Michael have going is real, kid. I don’t understand what he’s angry about. Did he cut you loose too?”
She trembled a soft laugh. “No. Michael loves me, Dean. I’m sure of it. And I love him. I think I can safely say it’s forever for us. I know that sounds crazy. But even without a Claim-bond, I can feel it. I can feel him.”
“I’m still lost.”
“You should ask Michael,” she said, letting go of his hand to swipe at her eyes.
“Oh, I will. Don’t you worry about that. But right now I’m asking you.”
April licked her lips again and looked up at Dean with a devastated expression. “He’s never been able to hold onto anything before, Dean. Don’t you see? He finally won something from an Alpha. He won something the alpha didn’t want to lose. And now…”
Dean closed his eyes and took over from her. “…Now it’s like getting a hand-me-down that the alpha doesn’t want anymore.”
April looked back at her lap. “He doesn’t mean it, Dean. I’m sure he doesn’t. He doesn’t appreciate being a foregone conclusion. He’s made a lot of progress at accepting his place as an Omega in a very short time, but he still balks at being managed, even if it’s for his own good.”
“And what does that make you, huh?” Dean asked shortly, his temper flipping targets. “The two of them handing you back and forth like a cut of steak, deciding who gets the biggest portion? This is the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard. Jesus Christ, why can’t you people accept happiness when it’s staring you in the face? Michael’s mad because he got you by committee vote instead of a bar brawl? Who the fuck cares how it happened? He wants you. You want him. Your mates are both all in for whatever you decide is right for the two of you, and now he wants a do-over so he can battle for your hand?”
“Dean, please. You can’t know what it’s like for an Omega!”
“And you sat there and let him rile himself into a tizzy until his ass was on the line!”
She clamped her mouth closed and looked away again.
“Jesus Fucking Christ!” Dean shouted. The driver checked him through the rearview mirror, then resumed his attentive navigation. Everything cleared for Dean in an instant. Her eyes. They were empty. She was hiding behind her veil, and Dean stared hard. Pieces all fell into place. All three of the tortured love triangle stood to gain if things worked out well. And Dean would win more of Castiel, but…less of Michael?
“What did you do?” he demanded. April’s jaw twitched, but she didn’t answer.
Sam leaned forward in his seat and added commentary for the first time. “Michael’s been mouthy for at least a week, Dean. He was pushing everyone’s buttons, even mine. This may have been the last straw, but that camel was already carrying a heavy load.”
“I agree,” Cain added with his head down toward his phone screen and an uncomfortable shift of position.
Dean threw his hands up. “If you’ll all excuse me, I have a mate to see to. Kid, you’ve got the pups. Shout if you need help.”
“There are enough adults to take care of the pups, alpha,” Kali stated assertively. She shuffled across and took Dean’s spot beside April as he stumbled to the back. “Go on. We’re fine.”
Dean held his mate’s eyes, refusing to let Michael look away. “Convince me, Michael.” The bus rocked precariously, and they both reached for something to hold onto in the tiny back room.
Michael wasn’t the tortured boy he’d been when Dean met him, and he wasn’t naïve. But Dean couldn’t read him. There was a pain and a resignation in his eyes that twisted Dean’s gut into knots. “If I love her,” he said simply, “then I love her—all of her, even the broken parts. And I do, Dean. I’m not happy about how it’s happened, but I’m thrilled at how it’s turning out.”
“So she gets away with it? Again?” Dean pressed with his forehead furrowed. “She played you, man. A-fucking-gain.”
“No,” Michael disagreed. “She hadn’t talked to me yet, but she was planning to. Castiel forced the topic before she was ready to go there. It’s not the manipulation it looks like. She told me everything the first chance she got.”
“You’re not this stupid, man. She played you. She threw you to the wolves. She hatched a scheme to shift the dynamics that all four of us have worked so hard for without consulting any of us about it, and it all hinged on you being smitten enough to take whatever they offer you!”
“But I am smitten, Dean! I DO want her. I want THIS. You want me to take a stand on principle and risk losing her? For what? To teach her a lesson? That’s not my job, alpha. And I promised her I’d stand beside her, no questions asked. I keep my word, Dean.”
“And she promised you she wouldn’t involve you in her schemes anymore,” Dean pointed out coldly.
“She didn’t mean for it to all come tumbling out at once,” Michael persisted. “She planned to negotiate for some space in New York and to woo me there. Think about it. All she asked Cas for was some distance. He made the next big jump. He forced her to admit that where he left a void in her life, there was room for someone else to fill it.”
“You didn’t see her face when you took the fall, Michael.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But you were right that there’s no excuse for what I said or how I said it. I earned that spanking all by myself, and I’m man enough to admit it.”
“You’re not mad at April at all,” Dean said softly. “Man, you’re fucked before this relationship even gets off the ground.”
Michael raised his chin and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s my decision, Dean. Not yours. Not Castiel’s. It’s between Pete and me. We have some tough conversations coming when we get back home. But I’m not going to lose her, Dean. I’m not.” Michael’s eyes blazed golden.
Dean felt a wash of pain in his gut. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was far smaller than usual. “Don’t leave me for her, Michael. Please, man. I need you. I’ve never asked before, but I’m begging you now. I don’t know what’s breaking between those two, but they aren’t us. Right? You and me, we’re still solid. Don’t leave me. I don’t need any goddamn distance.”
Michael was in his space in an instant, kissing him, whimpering into his mouth in his rush to reassure his mate.
The premiere was a raging success, and all of them felt the whirlwind speed up exponentially. Matt and Mark, Rowena and Cain, worked nonstop to lay groundwork in shining golden bricks that Nick carefully handed April down, a beaming Michael at her side. The reviews called her an epiphany, an aural orgasm, a revelation, singling out the pieces that were hers alone for line-by-line, phrase-by-phrase examination and resounding praise.
April was speechless.
Never in her wildest dreams.
Not even in her wildest dreams.
The phone never stopped ringing, turning their hotel suite into a scurrying anthill.
Nicholas whisked her away from the frantic pace and sat her down at a grand piano in a rented studio. It wasn’t her piano, and her fingers knew the difference, but Michael sat beside her, and she sang for him. To him.
And Nick beamed and told her she was his retirement plan. Michael kissed her hard, and she giggled manically against his lips. Their mates were who knew where doing who knew what, and April felt free for the first time in her life. Really free. With Michael right here beside her. They listened to the playback together, April erupting into uncontrollable giggles, and Michael grinning stupidly.
Nick talked the plan through with Castiel and the entire team. The single would be ready for release in time for Tony Award nominations, paired with a B-side that could stand as an anthem of its own. Releasing the show’s anthem as a single would serve as publicity for the stage performance, drawing in crowds from far and wide. The fact that it was the composer’s voice on the single highlighted her in a way that her name on the playbill wouldn’t do alone. Nick was positive that by this time next year, she would be a household name, and Cain agreed.
The train was well and truly clear of the station now, and there was no going back.
At the end of the stint, as the Pack returned to the hotel from an exhausting evening of interviews and cocktail parties, April found herself alone in her room with her mate. He tossed his formal scarf onto the enormous bed and pulled her in by her fingertips. He wrapped himself around her, breathing her scent and finding home again. He was spinning furiously. His mate had to be nearly undone.
“Are you happy, Kitten?”
“I’m thrilled, Cas.”
He kissed her deeply, pressing her back against the flat wall, assaulting her with his lips and his tongue. He searched for her center and couldn’t place it. She was swirling too fast.
“Scene with me,” he whispered roughly, desperately. “I need you.”
It was more for her than it was for him, but they both pretended otherwise. A desperate Alpha doesn’t appreciate being contradicted. He’d been as good as his word for two whole weeks in the city, turning his eyes, his hands, his heart toward his husband, and leaving his mate in the capable hands of people he loved and trusted. And she was glorious. For all that she could glean from Michael, from Cain, Nick and Mark and Rowena…April needed her mate for this. And he needed her.
He had Dean, of course. Always Dean.
But a mate wasn’t a spouse. A mate was Self and Not Self all at once, and no one else could scratch that specific itch the way she could. The way he could. Their eyes blazed Secondary, and they stopped talking in words.
In the morning, Castiel’s fingers tangled with Dean’s as they climbed back onto the coach. Cas carried Jimmy. Dean had Idgie. April had Ace. Michael brought up the rear with a squalling Kathleen. Paparazzi shouted their names and snapped photos but were largely ignored.
They were triumphant and exhausted and ready to go home. From here, the production company had custody of the show. April’s job was done. It was time to turn to something else. Something new.
Castiel settled the pups into their carriers and then sat next to Emma’s car seat and pulled Dean down to straddle his lap. Dean hissed as Cas’ hands grasped him by the ass to pull him in.
“Easy there, Alpha,” he cautioned. “I think I’m wearing bruises this morning.”
“Rough night?” Cas asked. He rubbed his unshaven cheek abrasively across Dean’s meticulously groomed face.
“The best kind,” Dean confirmed. “We pulled out all the stops.”
“Are you too sore to warm me this morning?” the Alpha questioned carefully.
“Never, Alpha. But, um, isn’t that April’s place in the morning?” Dean bit his lip. Cas’ hands roamed possessively. Dean leaned into them wherever they explored.
“I expect a few things will be changing from now on, Pet. April’s got other responsibilities to tend to, which leaves me out in the cold, I’m afraid. So, I’m asking you.”
The coach jolted as it merged into traffic. Sarah collapsed gracelessly into the seat beside the two alphas, knocking into Dean.
“Oh! Sorry, alpha,” she pardoned, finding her balance again.
Castiel raised a brow. “Kindly refrain from addressing my Submissive while he’s working, beta.” To Dean, Cas nodded toward a folded baby blanket, and Dean grinned. He slid backward off Castiel’s lap and tossed the blanket on the floor between his feet.
Without speaking any further and holding the Dom’s eye the entire time, Dean unbuckled Castiel’s belt expertly with his teeth and then attacked the fastenings of his slacks. He took Castiel’s soft cock carefully into his mouth then settled in with his eyes closed to float calmly for as long as his Dom required.
A hand carded through his hair. Nails scritched at his scalp. A soft voice praised him occasionally. Cas caught Sarah up in an intense discussion about the media coverage from the premiere and their multitude of appearances, the outing of the Omegas’ fledgling relationship. The tone of bitterness and resentment at the raging success of an Ozzie, of all things, was growing darker by the day from certain sections of their species, and they required a response. Cas outlined his plan to the young researcher, and she had plenty to add, as did Sam and Gabriel. Soon, the entire Pack was deep in discussion and planning.
Everyone but Dean.
Dean floated outside of it all. There would be plenty more discussions. Nothing would happen without his input. But for now, he wasn’t present in the same way the others were. He was taken in hand and floating blissfully.
And when Cas used his mouth, more than an hour later, to pound out his release, Dean swallowed every drop and then stretched out lazily across the bench that Sarah had abandoned to sleep with his head in his husband’s lap, fingers still carding contentedly through his hair as the miles churned slowly by.
Chapter 2: Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Summary:
Michael wants a confrontation and gets more than he bargained for. Cas & Dean are searching for ringers to plump up their staffing pool. And the king enjoys his spoils.
Notes:
Happiest of holidays to all y'all. It's Winter Solstice time and so I'm turning my face back toward the light. I don't like the darkness. It does a number on me.
JaxCon was a blast. I got to meet folks in person that I know only through the blinky screens, and that was lovely in every way. Steeleye1 and I shared mojitos and photo ops and had a grand time. Ibelieve333 and I chatted all too briefly. I wish it could have lasted longer than it did.
It feels like forever since I last put words into my flashdrive. I'm right on pace with my usual output, but it doesn't feel that way.
Thanks, as always, to Jennyfly for the support and the collage.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
NOW:
Jonathon searched feverishly through the documents on his lap. He was flustered and stressed, and Castiel knew it had more to do with the pressure to perform in Castiel’s presence than the swiftly looming deadline. He had that effect on people who didn’t know him well, and there was no fix for it but time. Cas watched a bead of sweat leave the man’s hairline and slip down his temple.
He turned to Billie instead to give Jonathon a moment to collect himself.
“I’m taking Adam and Jack out with me tonight,” he told her, changing the subject entirely. “It may be a harebrained idea to recruit from the back alleys, but Dean’s convinced that if we can convince the twins, the rest will follow. Considering our persistent manpower shortage in Contracting, I’m ready to try a Hail Mary.”
Billie didn’t look up. “You won’t hear an argument from me,” she replied coolly. “Except if we can’t get this fiasco lined out by tonight, staffing will be the least of our worries.”
Michael’s knock at the doorframe of Castiel’s home office was quiet and short, hesitant in a way that gave away his purpose. The door was wide open, so he saw Castiel’s expression cross from concentration to annoyance to flat acceptance in an instant. Billie looked round from her spot on the sofa, but Jonathon didn’t even pause. His finger traced crazily across the page he was skimming as he searched for the passage he needed.
He only looked up when Castiel spoke.
“What is it, Michael? We’re really very busy at the moment. Can it wait?”
“Yes, sir,” Michael told him carefully. “But it can’t wait forever. Catching you in a moment when you’re not inundated with work or buried in pups is proving harder than I anticipated. We need to talk, you and I.”
Castiel’s face registered that he could feel the weight and urgency behind Michael intentions. He held the Omega’s eyes steadily for a beat, and then he nodded.
Billie put a hand up in a staying motion. “Sir, they need an answer by two. We’ve got hours of work in front of us. Whatever this is, surely it can hold until tomorrow. We need you here right now.”
Cas met her eye and then Jonathon’s, both subordinates in agreement that now was not the time for the Alpha to absent himself. Jonathon’s finger was pressed into his page as if pinning his selected passage in place like a cat with its paw on the mouse’s tail. “Sir…” he said.
Castiel pursed his lips, looked down at the documents spread across his desk in apparent mayhem, and then huffed a sigh through his nose and closed his eyes.
“Cas, you promised…” Billie began, reading his body language.
“You don’t need me, beta,” he answered as his eyes opened again. “I trust your judgment. I grant you authority to decide in my place. I’ll support whatever you and Jonathon propose.”
“Castiel!”
The Alpha stood up and stepped around his desk. Billie stood too, but it might have been purely from shock. Jonathon’s mouth fell slack. Cas bracketed Billie with a hand on each shoulder, squaring her up before him, and he smiled gamely. “You wanted a chance to put your spin on the company’s direction, Sparky. Here’s your chance. Go get ‘em, kiddo. I’ll be back in a bit. I expect to be wowed by your brilliance. Show me I was right to pick you for the front spot.” He patted her a couple of times on the upper arm, squeezed it, and then turned and gestured to Michael to lead the way.
“Castiel James!”
“Billie, you can do this,” he said, barely turning, his face in profile. “You’ve waited your entire life to get a chance to do this. You’re ready, and your turn is up. Use my desk. It’ll help you spread out enough to see the big picture.”
“You’re an asshole,” she accused. “You set this up.”
He chuckled and winked. He disappeared around the corner without answering the accusation and Michael followed mutely, wondering if Cas had indeed set it up somehow. If he had, Michael wasn’t in on it, and that meant Michael had been set up as well.
It figured.
Michael had been patient, but they’d been home for several weeks after the spectacle of the New York premiere, and the Alpha hadn’t graced Michael with more than a condescending few moments here and there between far more urgent appointments. Even his usual tutoring sessions had become perfunctory Q&A stopgap meetings, no longer than they absolutely had to be to make sure that Michael was keeping his head above water in his classes and in the framework of his Dominant position over his mate. Cas was barely present at all. Had he somehow calculated Michael’s explosive countdown clock hitting zero just as Billie, Cas, and Jonathon were securing the final directional statements for the next fiscal year?
Could he read Michael that well?
Would he do that to the two of them if he could?
Castiel didn’t go far. The library was across the hall from his office. Cas led Michael in and closed the door behind him. They wouldn’t be disturbed. The library door was always open, so closing it was a clear declaration of intent.
“Is she right, sir?” Michael couldn’t resist asking. “Did you set us up?”
Cas coughed subtly into his fist, but he didn’t demur. “Often, I’ve found that a sense of urgency, of emergency even, can shunt someone over a sticky bump in their developmental road. Call it a stretch exercise if you like. Billie would have frozen up in any scenario but being dropped unexpectedly into the deep end. She’s going to be brilliant, but she’s not someone who grows in a linear trajectory, Michael. She’s losing her mind with impatience and having new responsibilities doled out piecemeal. This is better.”
“Better. You couldn’t have warned her? It had to be a shock? Seriously?” Michael wandered deeper into the library passing his hand over the backs of the comfortable rolling chairs at the long table in the center as he strolled.
“The adrenalin rush is part of the process for Billie,” Cas replied reasonably. “So, yes, it was necessary to surprise her.”
“That means you knew I would hit the limit of my patience today…”
“I expected you at my door yesterday, actually,” Cas admitted. “I’ve had to do some juggling to keep Billie poised to catch something critical in my absence. What it fell to is substantially more than I planned to drop in her lap.” Cas chuckled again, his gaze lengthening as his mind turned internal. “It’s a good thing I trust her as much as I do. She’s got my entire mission in her hands right now.”
“No one likes to be used, Sir,” Michael pointed out. “I’d rather be left out of your schemes if you don’t mind.”
Cas sighed expansively and shook his head. “Consider it a fee of admission to my Pack. We all pay dues, Omega, in one form or another. You know me well enough by now to have seen under the curtain. No one close to me is exempt, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise just to assuage your prickly sense of righteousness. People like us make our own rules. You don’t have to like it. I don’t require your approval. I am Alpha, and I am not shy about taking what is mine to take. If you find you cannot live with it, you know where the door is.”
It was the coldest and most real Castiel had ever been in Michael’s presence outside of a crisis, and the Omega was speechless. He blinked. Cas had just ripped the drape straight off the rod and bared everything that polite society fretted over, everything that apes accused wolves of, all the inequity and presumption laid bare. Castiel’s blue eyes didn’t falter, didn’t show any sign of ambivalence or regret. He waited calmly, stoic as ever, for Michael to process what he’d been shown and respond.
Michael swallowed. He wondered if Dean had seen this side of Castiel. Surely he had. They had years of intimacy under their belts. They’d faced countless tough spots that Cas, at least, would have turned to manipulation to solve. Dean knew Cas was a scheming bastard, but did he know that the man was brutally indifferent about it? Did he know how utterly unrepentant the man was at heart?
Michael decided a little exploration of the man’s bared soul was called for. He pulled himself together and put his wolf in front.
“The door…The one you offer me as an escape if I don’t wanna be serially used in your plots…What are the chances I would actually be permitted to walk through it?”
Castiel laughed.
“This is funny to you?”
“Cutting through all the bullshit is a natural gift of yours, Michael. I’ve come to depend upon it, and it’s one of the things I love most about you. No, you’re right. There’s not a door that opens to anything but a brick wall for you, is there? So, let’s dispense with any pretense that you have any choice. Can we move on now, or do we need to trudge through every strand of minutia about the Alpha entitlement as it pertains to this Pack?”
“God, you really are a piece of work.”
Castiel slapped his palm onto the center table, making Michael jump. “We are not apes, Omega,” he said fiercely through clenched teeth. “I pretended to be a monkey my entire childhood and adolescence, and it nearly killed me. It nearly killed you, Michael Quentin. You don’t have to like it. But our lives don’t come out fair. I get more than you do. In every way except bearing children. Do you hear me?” His eyes went crimson, and his voice took on a fervency that pinned Michael in place. “I give as much as I can to the illusion of equity, and I try my damnedest to honor the humanity and inherent value of each and every person I encounter, but, Michael, equity is an illusion. You’re not a child anymore. I’m not going to shield you from the realities of pack. You deserve better.”
“I deserve… Jesus, do you even hear yourself? Shield me from the realities? What the fuck do you know of the realities of pack?” Michael spat acerbically.
“I know that it’s useless to bury our heads in the sand and wish it could be different. Michael, we don’t simply need hierarchy. We need a hierarchy that has teeth, or it’s meaningless. Don’t you get it by now? I could choose another avenue to play it out, but that only changes the flavor of the onus I place upon your heads. It doesn’t alter the weight.”
“You manipulate us for our own good,” Michael told the tabletop flatly.
“Would you rather be raped and beaten?” Cas imbued his tone with an icy cold steel that brought Michael’s head up and set his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “The hierarchy is everything. We are not apes, Michael, and the moment we forget who we are, we fall again. That’s not going to happen in MY PACK under my watch. Get used to it or get used to being miserable.”
“It’s a bit convenient that the most humane means of keeping us all under your thumb is precisely the technique that suits you best, then, isn’t it?” Michael muttered. “How perfectly elegant.”
“You didn’t interrupt me in my office to talk about pack hierarchical theory,” Cas reminded him. He pulled a chair out from beneath the table and sat down, stretching his legs out under the table and crossing his ankles. “You want to talk about Dean and April. I’m all ears. Lay it on me.”
“What difference does it make?” Michael asked fatalistically, falling into a chair across the table from his rival and glaring daggers at the ceiling. “You’ve already decided what it’s going to look like among the four of us.”
“I haven’t, actually,” Cas replied calmly. “But I will if you forfeit your chance to have a hand in the setting of stipulations.”
Michael set his jaw and lowered his gaze from the intricately designed cornice to look the Alpha straight in his eyes. Castiel’s wolf was right there, in his eyes, not in control, but very present. His Alpha-red eyes told the Omega that however calm his face was, this was a moment of high intensity for the Alpha, and Michael felt his nerve catch for a moment. He licked his lips.
“You’re in breach of contract,” Michael said finally, his voice steadier than expected. “You stole my mate from me in clear violation of our agreement, and I want him back, full stop.”
“I thought we settled this more than a year ago…” Cas began.
“In New York!” Michael clarified. “You monopolized his time on that trip based on Pete’s directive, and you haven’t reverted back to your agreement with me yet. You’re still monopolizing his time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember authorizing April to speak for me on matters of my mate.”
Cas drew himself up straighter and folded his hands on the table before him. “I propose a renegotiation,” he said.
“What? After you just drilled me with the realities of pack? As if I have any chance of getting anything you don’t wanna give? I don’t want a renegotiation, Castiel. I want what we agreed to, and I want compensation for what you took over and above what you had claim to!”
Cas rubbed his chin in thought and frowned. “I may be a manipulative bastard, my friend, but I’m also a man of my word. Mostly. I owe you suitable restitution if I expect you ever to trust me again. And I need you to trust me, regardless of pack realities.”
Michael huffed impatiently. “You’re such a prick. Seriously?”
“Watch it, Michael. Name-calling is as out of bounds now as it ever has been.”
“Whatever,” Michael replied simply. “Go ahead and start a tally. I’ll pay up when we’ve reached an agreement.”
Cas chuckled. “Very well. Although, I expect civility regardless. A tally is not license to spew abuse unchecked.”
“Of course not, sir. I would never,” Michael replied.
Cas rolled his eyes.
“Michael, you’re bright enough to realize that the only reason you got to witness me at my base-level scheming self just now is because I allowed you to see it. You should ask yourself why I would do that when keeping it hidden would make things so much easier between us.”
Michael had a sharp retort on the tip of his tongue, but then he stopped, and he studied the man’s expression. Michael had both his wolf and his Omega pulled up in tight convergence, and he could see through both sets of eyes. He knew his irises had a golden halo around them even as the weight of his wolf made them cold.
Castiel spoke again into Michael’s hesitation. “No games, Omega. No curtains at all. No entitled tricks and hiding and subterfuge. I suspect I’m guilty of every sin you’ve ever suspected me of committing and a good many more that you haven’t even imagined me capable of. I’m a monster at heart, and I give allowances to the bestial side of me as often as I need to. I quite hypocritically deny doing so when my audience needs to be protected from the truth. I am a liar and a cheat and a brute. I have torn out the throats of living men with my teeth and reveled in the primal joy of conquest. I have set traps for my loved ones to fall unwarily into and pounced on them with glee when they stumbled. I will do the same in the future. For this is what I am, Michael. This is who we are. This is who you are meant to contend with, and I will not deny you your rightful place. I deserve a rival like you, and you need the likes of me. Don’t pretend that the thought doesn’t make your blood quicken in your veins. I can smell you from here.”
Michael found himself fixated on red eyes. He couldn’t blink. He couldn’t breathe.
Castiel continued. “Only my most trusted and loved ever see me admit to the full horror of who I am at heart. Most people assume that the monster is a rabid beast who lives caged inside me, separate and unwelcome, fed on scraps and utterly miserable in its prison. I want you to look at me and see the truth. I need you to know who I am—who I really am.”
“Jesus Christ,” Michael muttered, gripped by the depth of the Alpha’s eyes.
“Do not question me ever again over my tactics. I will not tolerate mutiny. I will tear you to pieces until the last dregs of your remaining limbs bow to me as they should, and I will toss the bits to Dean to reassemble however he can. Now. Renegotiations and remuneration. What would you ask of me?”
“Um.”
“Take your time.”
Michael swallowed. He broke his eyes free and caught sight of his hands, fingers tangled so tightly together they were white. Painstakingly, he untangled and flexed them. His mind was simultaneously frozen in place and whirling madly. It wasn’t a negotiation, and he’d always known it wouldn’t be. He was a beggar at Castiel’s feet, clutching beseechingly at the hem of his velvet robe, pleading for anything the king saw fit to grace him with. Everything clicked into place. Michael felt it through his Omega as a soft and welcome sigh of relief, at odds with everything Michael had ever wanted but as a realization that it was precisely what he needed. And for the first time in his life, it was a realization that came with a sense of security instead of rage. It was as if Michael’s Omega had been steering a bus full of children down a treacherous mountain path with jagged turns and no brakes for the last fifteen years of his life, and someone capable had finally assumed control of the wheel, delivering them all safely to the valley floor.
Michael’s wolf saw it from the opposite angle. Scrappy and contentious, the wolf respected nothing but power and its display. The wolf shivered at the blatant power dripping from every molecule of the man before him. Castiel was speaking the only language Michael’s wolf really understood, and that too was a relief in its way—not to have to wend through a miasma of double-speak and hidden intent. Here was power in its essence, proclaiming itself shamelessly. Here was a wolf who knew he was a wolf.
Michael’s human mind caught and stuck as always. Take your time. Right. Chew on it and choke, he meant. Reach the conclusion that resistance is futile and speak your peasant words of supplication. The king will bestow what the king sees fit.
“I want him back,” Michael said simply. “I want you to honor the agreement you made with me.”
Castiel nodded with a slight frown. “We can do that, if it’s really what you want, but are you not also mid-courtship with April? Do you not think your burgeoning relationship with her deserves more attention than our agreement over Dean allows?”
“All due respect, sir, I’d very much like it if you left my relationship with Pete between me and Pete.”
“Pete and me, that would be, Michael.”
“Whatever.”
“So,” Cas continued. “We revert to a four/three weekly time split, in your favor, and what else? Refresh my memory.”
“You don’t scene with him without my permission.”
Cas scoffed. “Indeed. It may surprise you to hear, but Dean and I have never once played, in a D/s scening sense without your approval. Not once. We’ve been exploring the more… romantic side of our sexual relationship lately, not that that is any of your business directly.”
“You…Wait…But…” Michael frowned in thought. “He was limping on Friday. He was sore and used. I didn’t authorize anything Thursday night…”
Cas laughed softly again. “I never said I didn’t fuck him lame, Omega. I said I didn’t scene with him. You’ll recall that the girth of my penis is substantial when erect. Not to put too fine a point on a blunt object, but he’s always going to limp after sex with me, regardless of the mindsets involved. You’ll further recall that I explicitly reserved the right to conjugal touching from the very start of negotiations. I’ve acted in good faith all along on that point.”
“It’s not fair though, sir. One hard night with you can tie him up to convalesce for the next two or three. By the time he’s healed, it’s your turn again.”
“Then I suggest the two of you get creative. There is more to scening than sexual congress.”
Michael devolved into pouting, his jaw working unsubtly under the line of his flesh.
Cas leaned forward. “Alternatively, talk to me more often, and I’ll make accommodations for your plans. We were working together seamlessly before April pulled her latest stunt and threw all of us into scrambling. Let’s attempt to upright the hull and find our center again. Are you with me?”
“You’re blaming Pete for this mess?” Michael blinked. It was exactly what Dean had said.
Cas shook his head in sympathy. “Michael, there’s besotted, and then there’s just blindness. Don’t be a fool. April leads all of us around by the nose.”
“I don’t care how deeply she plays, sir. You’re the Alpha. You control everything. You want me to see the truth about you? Then be honest about this one.” Michael felt a shiver of fear crawl up his spine. Cas’ wolf was too close to the surface for a direct confrontation, but Michael’s mouth had been taking notes from his mate, and it refused to stop moving. “What actually happened there? Who did what? How much was you and how much was her?”
Castiel sat back in his chair. He tilted his head and regarded the man before him. Was he sizing up his prey? A blunt finger passed over his lip and then stroked back again. The red dissipated fully from his eyes, leaving them an uncomplicated blue. The wolf was stowed safely wherever Cas kept him ninety percent of the time. Michael watched him think it through.
“The trickiest part about April’s gameplay,” Cas said eventually, “Is that there are distinct moments when she reveals one hand on purpose in order to distract us from the real machinations that she doesn’t want us to see. That makes tracing the lines of motion all the way back to their source quite a challenge. We don’t see all the motion there is.”
“Then explain what you do know. How much of what happened was you?” It was Michael’s turn to lean forward on his forearms, emboldened by Castiel’s reaction to the questions. “You took me for granted, right? That was you. You saw an opening to get closer to Dean, and you used my attraction to April as a shiny new toy to draw me away from my mate.”
Cas nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. You could see it that way. But it’s not an untruth to say that the webbing between our foursome is falling out into an astoundingly elegant weave wherein each of us gains from what the others leave vacant. You’ve been making good use of the nights I spent alone with Dean nearly from the moment you entered my house. You only seem to balk at the way the connections are forming when you feel they slight you in some way.”
Cas put a placating hand up when Michael sputtered. “All right. We were talking about me. Full confession then. Yes, I wanted a bit more distance from April than a standard True-Mate connection. At first, I believed she was too dependent to allow me that, and I resolved to be the Alpha mate she needed. When the hood came off and I realized the depth and the breadth of her, it was entrancing. I’m sure you can relate. But she and I are very much alike in all the ways that make me uncomfortable, and the shine began to wear off rapidly.”
“Try again, sir. You’re not uncomfortable in your skin. That’s a roleplay for the masses who need to be soothed that the sheep’s clothing your wolf wears is enough to keep the wolf in check. You play the bumbling, awkward social misfit or the assertive, in-control Alpha, but you just showed me those are only play-acts.”
Castiel’s mouth set firmly. “I cannot live permanently in my wolf any more safely than you can in yours, Michael. Could I choose my aspects, I would not choose this. And I would NEVER choose it for my Omega mate. She endangers herself at every step. Acceptance of who I am has come to me at a steep price, and I would wish that journey upon no one, not my worst enemy, certainly not my own beloved mate.”
“Beloved.”
Cas rounded on him. “I do love her, Michael. Never doubt that. But setting her in the primary intimate position, where nature intended her to go, made my skin itch after a time, and it was only getting worse. It was a matter of time before I lost control and took my frustrations out on her. She doesn’t deserve that, and I don’t need the constant pressure against my self-control. I’m only human. What I did, as you so eloquently put it, was to carve a safe path between you and her and to nudge her periodically to take steps along it. And yes, before you remind me, it took blunt force trauma to get me to realize that you and she as a couple are not only inevitable, but the answer to every disconnect we still have as a Pack.
“What I did was to throw all in to make possible what you and she declared was your most ardent wish. But rather than stand you two face-to-face and force you to make something declarative out of it, I stood back and allowed you to go at your own pace, silently moving obstacles out of your way and encouraging you where I could. Was there a self-serving motive inside all of that? You’re damned right there was. But I didn’t manipulate you into loving April, nor she you. I watched for signs that she was chafing at the artificial closeness between us as mates as much as I was, and when it presented itself, I moved to bolster her in that direction. I allowed the timing and the degree of the move to be entirely directed by my mate. And if distance from me hadn’t been what she wanted, I would never have suggested it.”
Michael licked his lips. “And what would the two of you have done if I’d refused to play along? Doesn’t this whole scheme-not-a-scheme ride on me being pliable enough to play my role? Did you once stop to think how Dean would feel about being wrenched away from his mate? Does it matter how he feels? He’s the Sub, right? It’s his job to comply. And me, I’m just an Omega. I don’t get a vote at all.”
“Michael…”
“No, you make it sound like you’re nothing but an innocent do-gooder, like the great and glorious benefactor who graces all of us with your generous gift of attention and affection and whatnot, tying our lives up in happy little packages for us. Dean was shook, man! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? It took me hours to reassure him I’m not going anywhere.”
“Of course Dean’s feelings matter!” Cas snapped. “We talked it over for several days after the bomb dropped. He understands now. Dean’s going to be stretched between you and me. There’s no other way, Michael. But between the two of us, the pups, and his work, he’s right where he wants to be. Ask him if you don’t believe me. Ask him.”
Michael sighed and collected himself. He’d already done that, and Cas was right. Dean wasn’t balking at the tension in his strings. He didn’t want any give. He never wanted his feet to touch the ground if they could stop it. Michael’s exhale was slow and deliberate. He placed both palms on the table.
“You should have told me sooner,” he said. “You should have explained what you were waiting for, watching for from Pete. If you wanted me to step in and take her when you were prepared to hand her off, you should’ve just said so. I could have helped. She could have helped.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Cas replied. “Any move from me that so much as hinted at a wish for more space between us, if it hadn’t been reciprocated, would have dealt a damaging blow to our bond. I had to wait for April to move first. Talking to you would only have deepened the degree of manipulative… I couldn’t do that to her. I love her. I don’t ever want her to hurt. A mate-rejection pang is said to be nearly unbearable.”
“So, you saved her from feeling it, and you shifted it off onto Dean instead.”
“What?” Cas registered real alarm for the first time.
“Yeah. Didn’t he tell you? Felt to him like a dagger in the gut, a real visceral agonizing wrench of a thing that almost buckled his knees. Luckily, I was there to catch him. Or is that my fault too since I’m his mate after all?”
“When was this?” Cas was frowning deeply. “Michael, when?!”
“On the coach,” Michael told him smugly. “On the way to New York? After you blistered my ass and Dean got the full skinny that he’d be spending the lion’s share of his time with the head lion from now on. Didn’t last long, but his initial reaction was to assume that if you and April were breaking up but for the knotting, that you would expect the same from us, so that you and your husband would match schedules. I felt it through the bonds—both of ‘em. His abdomen clenched right up in this awful agony, kinda like labor pain, and he almost doubled over.”
“No,” Cas muttered. “No, no, no, no, no. Damnit! God-fucking-damnit!” His volume increased accordingly, and Michael sat back with his eyebrows raised.
“You didn’t feel it?”
“I was…distracted, I guess.”
“Alpha,” Michael explained, leaning forward again. “You can’t shift one relationship without upending all of us. You should have said something sooner. Shit runs downhill, and it always lands hardest on the lowest occupant of that precious hierarchy of yours—in this case, on the lowest Sub in the Pack. You set Dean reeling, and there was no way I could’ve stopped it because you didn’t trust me enough to let me in on what was going on with you and April.”
Cas couldn’t think of anything to say. It was classic Michael—oversimplified, but direct and irrefutable.
Michael nodded to himself, and the smugness disappeared. “Look, here’s what I want. I want Dean back, just as I had him before, to the extent that it’s practical in light of you two being hitched. I still want a say when you scene with him. Not just notice, mind you. I want the authority to grant or deny permission. And sir? I will deny you permission on occasion just to remind you both that I can. You should be prepared for that. I relieve you of the requirement that he defaults to sleeping in my bed. That rule is fucked anyway since we mostly sleep as a pack pile as it is. But his wolf is mine to discipline and his Sub is mine to dole out as I see fit.”
Cas let the moment lengthen a bit before nodding. “And April? What are your stipulations for sharing her?”
Michael shrugged. “That’s her call, not mine. She’s not my Sub, sir. I’ll take whatever she has liberty and urge to give me.”
“She said you aren’t interested in marriage,” Cas prompted.
Michael licked his lips. His assurance evaporated and it took his adversarial mindset with it.
“No. At least not right now. Marriage feels artificial to me, Cas. I don’t want to try to jam us into a premade box. I’m not an ape, as you pointed out. I feel like now that you’ve accepted the idea of us, you’re trying to tie all four of us off into a nice, tidy box with a bow—every relationship a mirror image of every other. Just because you and Dean did the fairytale wedding with carriage horses and pixie dust doesn’t mean that’s me. Or Pete. We’re Omegas, and that touches everything we do. Maybe you can’t understand this, but the last thing either of us needs is another set of rules and limitations mandating our every move.”
“Yes,” Cas replied carefully. “Yes, I see. That makes a lot of sense to me, actually. So where does that leave your relationship?”
“You know,” Michael said getting slowly out of his chair and stepping slowly down the long line of the reading table, not looking at his Alpha. “Keeping in mind everything you made clear to me about Alphas and pack hierarchy and all that, it seems to me that as long as April isn’t endangered by our relationship, that how we choose to pursue it is maybe something we should have leave to keep private.”
Cas laughed, and Michael turned his head to check if it was a genuine laugh or the prelude to a beheading.
“Well said, Michael,” Cas told him. “I need to know the basics of course. She is my mate and a Pack Omega, both.”
“We’re dating, sir,” Michael shot back. He braced himself on the table upon his fingertips with his fingers splayed wide. “We’re sexually involved, but not scening.”
“I know that much,” Cas replied impatiently.
“I consider myself hers in every sense of the word that’s available,” Michael went on. “And I consider every part of her she can spare apart from you as mine. Dean’s not the only one stretched thin here. I intend to make a real go of this, Cas. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and I’m scared shitless. Wolves aren’t built for this. It’s like I’m in blinders. I can’t see or feel anything from her except through her eyes, and she hides shit as often as she shows it.”
Castiel’s heart melted a bit. His blue eyes, already canted in form to have a sympathetic lien, softened, and he caught Michael’s eye, watching the Omega flail a bit before reaching for his Alpha.
“I will help however I can, Michael,” he promised. “This is not a manipulation, you understand. I won’t spy on my mate for you nor feed you insights into her emotions. You need to settle that conundrum for yourself. But I will support you both. If you cannot bring yourself to Claim her, your progress will be slow and cumbersome. You can take courage in the knowledge that millions of Primates form lasting relationships with one another every day without any type of metaphysical bond guiding them. It can be done.”
“How do they know though?” Michael blurted, revealing his touchiest fear. “How do they know for sure that their partner is as much in love as they are? How do they trust day in and day out when they can’t feel it?”
“I don’t know,” Cas admitted. “But I know that they do trust, that they do find ways to communicate what they feel for each other in ways their partner can hear. I watched Fred fall in love and build a life with a man he trusts with his life. I can’t fathom it, Michael, but there it is.”
Michael was shaking his head before Cas finished speaking. “No, it’s too much expectation to put on Pete. I can’t ask her to take it on faith forever. I promised her I’d build us a bond we can use as a starting point. I need to keep that promise.” He sighed heavily and turned lost eyes on Castiel. “How do I do this? I can’t give her to my wolf. He’ll devour everything beautiful about her, about us.”
“Michael, have you confronted April yet about her part in this mess that set you and Dean back on your heels?”
Michael’s face flattened. “You want me to pick a fight with her and ride it to completion, don’t you? That’s what you would do.”
“I’m suggesting that you clear the air between the two of you.”
“We’re not at odds,” Michael protested.
Cas begged to differ. “You’ve been walking on eggshells since we returned from New York, afraid perhaps, that getting down to real talk would mar her beautiful victory there and tarnish the memories a bit. Whatever the reason, you’re both being supremely and artificially polite to each other. There’s nothing real about whatever you’re both doing right now. I’m suggesting you take the kid-gloves off, stop worrying that she’ll stop loving you if you show her the real you, and get yourselves straightened out. Don’t forget, it was the real you she fell for in the first place, and a rather unflattering version at that.” Michael moved to interrupt but Cas held up a finger to stop him, and he continued. “And if you both work from instinctive places in your psyches, you may find that the situation resolves itself with little planning and no hand-wringing.”
“I’m just not seeing it, man.”
“Or,” Cas said, grunting a little as he stood up. “You can keep dancing around each other and setting sparks off in all directions. Dean and I will keep cleaning up the spills until we weary of it and find a way to resolve the tension that neither of you will enjoy.”
“Great. Thanks for that. I really needed even more pressure.”
Cas chuckled. “You work well under pressure. And word to the wise, if you don’t want me involved, keep it out from under my nose. Come on. You have an anatomy exam in the morning, and I’ve yet to hear your drill of the subject. I assume your notes are in your office?”
“Oh, come on!” Michael moaned.
“March, Omega. Show me how many hours I need to set aside for your studying tonight.”
“Yes, Papa,” Michael grumbled.
Cas laughed again. “And that brings your tally to four. Let’s see, five swats per tally, that’s…hmm…that’s twenty swats. How about we settle up before dinner?”
Michael managed to divert the scathing look that was forming on his face in the nick of time, but he didn’t stop his gripe. “I thought you were going to be spending more time with Dean.”
“That’s five, Michael. You might consider shutting up soon.”
Castiel did his best to put Billie and Michael out of his head as he scoured the side streets and alleys through the window of the back seat of his town car. Billie had all but slapped him before huffing off to type up her decisions in her own space, a wide-eyed Jonathon towed along behind her. And Michael’s dourness lasted all the way through dinner, earning him an early and lonely bedtime with his anatomy notes.
It was often a tough role when a hard nose was required, especially when Cas longed to wrap them all up in his arms and whisper gentle words to them. Today, more than most days, Cas felt pulled into two distinct parts. He hadn’t been overplaying his brutal side when he showed his hand to Michael. And that scheme was tame compared with what Castiel was capable of at his most inspired. But it was high time Michael saw him fully for what he was. If nothing else, it would stop the Omega from constantly second guessing his own instincts where the Alpha was concerned. Michael had himself half-believing things about Cas’ capabilities that would take superheroic powers to achieve, and at the same time, he talked himself into vouching for the Alpha’s innocence in times when doing so took monumental mental gymnastics.
Better that he knew the simple truths which were at once far more dastardly and far more mundane that what Michael had built him up to in his head.
A burnt-out streetlight at an alleyway they passed offered Cas an insufficient look down the length, and he rapped on his window and flashed Jack a signal to round the block and give it another drive by.
Beside him in the back seat, Dean read his mood, apparently, and chose not to ignore it. Dean touched his thigh with a knuckle.
“Someone’s cranky,” Dean remarked lightly. “What’s on your mind, man? Still riled about Michael?”
“No.”
Cas let it stop there. He focused out the window, searching the darkness closely for his target. Dean should be doing the same from his side.
“Cas?”
“Pay attention, Dean.”
“Yessir,” Dean mumbled, turning back to scan out his window.
It wasn’t that Cas wanted to be a dick. It’s just that, very often, being a dick was his best option, and it fed the beast inside him as well. If he was honest with himself, a big part of him WAS just that dickish, and his foul mood reflected the confluence of moments where his soft nurturing side had no choice but to acknowledge it was secondary to a … well, to a dick.
If only the dickish side would show the slightest touch of remorse, but Cas knew better than that. He was his father’s son as much as his mother’s. There was no place for remorse when you’re Alpha. Remorse was what underlings felt. And if they didn’t, they were corrected until they did.
Cas wanted it to be otherwise, but it wasn’t. It was the curse of the hierarchy. He couldn’t show weakness like that, not when a moment was fraught. It was the cold line of his unmovable brow that held it all together, and it was Castiel’s burden to carry—both that he must do what he must do and that he privately loved every moment of it.
They circled back around. The alley was still too dark, but Cas caught a trace of movement.
“Slow down and park on the opposite side of the street. Hold there.” He instructed coldly.
Jack followed his instruction. Dean shot him a quizzical look.
“You sure?” asked Adam from the front passenger seat.
“No, but let’s give it a minute. Be ready.”
They all fell still and silent save for the sounds of breathing and an occasional shuffle of fabric as someone adjusted. With the four of them looking, they would spot one of the twins if they were here. It was prime time and a perfect locale, and Cas was tired of waiting for one of them to bite his baited hook in person. If they were going to take the offer, they would’ve done so by now.
“There she is.”
“Where?
“Eleven o’clock. Heading this way. Gonna pass right by us.”
“Have you got her, Dean?”
“I’ve got her. You guys take care. I’ll call Sam when I’m ready for a ride.” He waited for the young woman to pass the car, and then he slipped quietly out and took up her tail, thankful for the silent catch of his husband’s expensive luxury car. Dean’s Baby would’ve creaked like a banshee upon opening and slammed like a prison cell when he closed her, no matter how much he lubed her joints.
He felt eyes on his back until he disappeared around the corner. He could still feel his mate brooding in his bed at home, studying his flash cards in preparation for tomorrow’s exam. If Michael’s courses went well, he might be out scouting like this someday in the not-so-distant future, and the thought put Dean right back to work. Everything they cleaned up now meant less for Michael to have to face later.
Dean knew it was an irrational belief, but he growled softly anyway and slipped into a doorway when the woman subtly checked her six.
Cas checked that the door had closed securely, then he concentrated on the mouth of the alley across the street.
“Is there a postal box in that alley?” he asked, squinting. “It looks like someone’s sitting on something about that height, swinging a leg, maybe. Something’s moving, but I can’t make it out.”
“You wanna drive down it?”
“Yes. Take it slowly.”
The car rounded the block again in order to approach the alley correctly, and Cas narrowed his eyes as the darkness resolved into dim light. It was a power box, about three feet high, and the young man sitting obscenely on top of it had one heel dug in against his butt and the other swinging out over the edge, his knees spread grotesquely wide and his cowboy boots signaling a playful attitude. The kid was asking for it in every way but in lettering three feet high. His short blue jean cutoffs framed his small package, making Cas wince at the tightness that had to be binding.
He was cocky and adorable, and he looked ripe enough to pluck straight from the vine, even down to the shade of a wet stain that barely showed between his legs where he leaned back on his tailbone enticingly.
As open as he was, Cas could nearly have fucked him from the car.
“Showtime,” whispered Adam. “That’s him all right.”
“Yes. Leave the talking to me,” Cas replied.
The car pulled up in front of the box slowly, telegraphing its intentions, but it didn’t stop completely until the window of the back seat was flush with the box. Cas studied the boy from behind tinted windows. The kid couldn’t see him, but he knew he was on, so he smirked cheekily and leaned back just a bit to flash the stain below his crotch. Castiel’s body responded, but he ignored it. The kid was chewing gum aggressively, a tell maybe, that he wasn’t as self-assured as he looked.
Castiel activated the window, lowering it about five inches. He stayed back far enough that the boy’s line of sight wouldn’t give him more than the hint of a jawline.
“Howdy, mister.”
Cas didn’t answer. He turned his head subtly, letting the boy know he’d heard the presumptuous greeting. People told him most Omegas could spot an alpha even if they had no more than the briefest of glimpses, and Cas had found it to be true, by and large. Something about his mannerism caught the kid. He sat up straight, leaning closer and whiffing the air with his nose.
“You, uh, looking for something, sir?” he tried. “Need directions to, um, the better side of town, maybe? You lost?”
“I’m not lost, no,” Castiel answered shortly, turning his head so that the boy knew he was being inspected. He sat up a little straighter still, pulling his knees unconsciously closer and running his hands down his elaborate vest to straighten it.
“Well, then, uh…” He licked his lips. “What are you looking for? I might be able to direct you. I know these parts pretty good.”
“Pretty well,” Cas corrected.
“Who are you, my grammar teacher?” the kid said with a huff of disbelief.
“Who do you need me to be?” Cas answered glibly, lowering his voice to connect with the Omega outside of their surface pleasantries.
“Oooh! Shivers, dude. That was good. Say ‘Mufasa’!”
“Get off the box and open the door. I want to talk to you.”
“Oookay.” He slid forward but hesitated to drop to the ground. He was smart and wary, attuned to the dangers of the world, and his eyes went everywhere. His nostrils flared, seeking a scent from inside the car. Cas hadn’t tried masking any of their scents, and if the kid could smell him, so be it.
“Well?”
“You know this is dangerous, what you’re doing right now, don’t you?” the boy joked bracingly. “I could be a maniacal hatchet murderer. You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“I know that you’re in pre-Heat and you don’t have a hatchet at the moment. I think I’ll take my chances.”
“Pre-Heat. Huh. Who talks like that? Dude, you need to lighten up a little and learn to play some. I could give you some pointers.” He moved a few millimeters closer to the edge.
“Are you this hesitant with everyone who propositions you?” Cas asked pointedly, letting a touch of exasperation into his voice.
“Only the ones who come off as cops,” the boy shot back.
“Cops don’t drive expensive vehicles, son. Now, get down and open the door. You may keep your feet on the ground if you like. No one is going to touch you without your permission.”
He obeyed without thinking, and a brief flash of disbelief crossed his face before he plastered a simper back on. He stood in the door of the car, bent down and kept far enough back that he’d have a good chance of escaping if someone inside made a grab for him.
“So, what can I do for a rich and pretty alpha tonight? You know, my mouth is good for far more interesting things than talking.”
“Be that as it may, and I do believe you, talking is all I have planned for tonight. Would you feel safe enough to get in and ride with me while we talk?”
“For free? Not a chance. Look, if you’re not taking this anywhere, would you mind clearing out? You’re scaring off the regulars.”
“You don’t have any regulars on Wednesdays, Max. Get in the car. I’ll pay your going rate and then some.”
“How do you know my name? Who are you?” Max backed up a couple of steps, but he didn’t run. The promise of a fare, and a virtually free one at that, was too good to pass up if it was on the level. “Show me the cash.”
Cas leaned forward so that the Omega could see his face.
“Get in the car, Max. We need to talk about your sister and your mother.”
Max’s mouth dropped open and he stumbled backward again, pointing. “I know you.”
“Yes, and you know me well enough by reputation to know that I have one to protect. You’ve been in far more dangerous waters than this one, Omega. Come ride with me. I promise to deliver you safely wherever you want to go and to compensate you for your lost revenue.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh, no you don’t! Not that again! I told those leeches I don’t work for anyone.”
“I’m not a pimp, Max. It’s a bona fide offer of employment, and you would be wise to listen to what I have to say before you cut your nose off to spite your face.”
Max’s body rolled of a piece as he rolled his eyes. It was a beautiful melodrama, and Cas was impressed with his commitment to it, but he was unfazed by the theatrics. “Get in the car, Max. I dislike speaking through a car door.”
Max left his body limp as he shuffled up and slid onto the bench seat beside the Alpha. Cas knew he wasn’t as lax as he appeared. He couldn’t afford to be.
“Thank you.”
“You know,” said the Omega as he pulled the door shut. “You’re talking to the wrong Banes. I’m Omega, or didn’t you notice? I don’t call the shots.”
“Understood,” Cas acknowledged with a nod to Jack to drive on. “That’s why we’ve got someone else speaking to your sister right now. And speaking of shots…”
“What have you done with Alicia?!” The door had locked, and Max was trapped as the car made its way to the interstate where it could hit speeds too fast to bail from even if he picked the lock. “Where are you taking me?!”
“Nothing’s changed, Max,” Cas told him calmly. “You’re not being kidnapped. We’re just having a conversation. No one is harming your sister. Please calm down.”
“How do you know anything about my family?”
“I’ll tell you if you’ll calm down and stop jumping to conclusions. Look, here’s the money I promised. It’s yours, no questions asked. I’m not going to ask for anything in return except a chat. At the end, we’ll take you anywhere you say, and you keep the money regardless.”
“Who’s driving?” Max demanded. Every line of his body told the truth now. The kid was way out of his comfort zone and terrified. “I smell another alpha.”
“The beta behind the wheel is Jack. He’s an Omega Services Coordinator who works for me. Beside him is Adam, an Ozzie Contractor, who also works for me. The alpha scent you smell aside from my own is my husband, Dean. He’s the one who’s looking for your twin, and he’s planning to have a similar chat with Alicia to the one we’re having here. Now…If I may continue?”
Max blinked owlishly, fisting the money as if Cas was going to snatch it back, and he pressed his knees tightly together. Eventually, he nodded.
“Good. Very good. All right. As I was saying, speaking of shots, we know about your mother’s condition, Max, and we want to help. Diabetes is rare in Canids, but it’s all the more deadly because there isn’t as much research into the Lupine form as there is for Primates. Your mother needs medical care that she isn’t getting, and she’s succumbing to the disease before your eyes. Am I right?”
“How do you know that?”
“You and I are in a perfect condition at the moment to help one another. Now, I can offer your mother my services as a physician. I can pay for her medications myself. But what she really needs is an insurance policy that covers her head to foot, as do you and your sister.”
“This is extortion! I knew you were shady! You ARE a pimp!”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. I help arrange sexual experiences for individuals who do not have access to the experiences their designations require in their private lives. The difference, Max, is that I do so out in the open, under state and federal regulations that protect my workers and my clients, both. I offer a pay rate that far exceeds what you make on the street, and I offer a retirement plan and medical insurance for you and your dependents.”
“It’s a trap,” he exclaimed, causing a quickly stifled guffaw from Jack.
“Sorry,” Jack mumbled. “Admiral Akbar flashback.”
“Max, we’ve been advertising for professionals like you for months and have been baffled that there’s virtually no response at all. Perhaps you can explain your fears. Yours and the others’? What kind of a trap could this possibly be? You’re a professional, and you’re good at what you do. No one’s judging you unfairly. Don’t you long to turn tricks in a safe space? Safe from disease, from assault, from unwanted pregnancy, from legal entanglements? Wouldn’t you love to let go of the synthetic Heat-simulating drugs and give your body a rest? Explain it to me. What are you all so afraid of that living hand to mouth and watching your mother’s health fail is better?”
“Easy, Alpha,” Adam soothed. “Give the guy a chance to catch his breath.”
Cas huffed and scooted further away, turning to watch the landscape slide by outside.
Adam rotated in his seat and made a frustrated face. He glanced at Castiel and then turned to address the hooker in Castiel’s backseat.
“Look, Max. You don’t know us. You know him by sight, but most of what you’ve heard about what we do is secondhand and overblown. Maybe if you explain what you’re concerned about, I can help you. I’ve been doing this for years now. I’m just like you, Max, but I have a safe, clean apartment of my own and a tax bracket. It’s not Utopia, but it’s a lot better than taking my chances on the street. I’ll answer anything.”
“Why me?” the Omega asked. “Why not take all those pretty young recruits from the trade schools?”
Adam released a slow breath. “Frankly,” he said, “because the industry is too new to have good schools going yet. It takes experience to make a good Contractor. No amount of training can make up for a lack of experience. And I say that carefully, because Alpha there, he runs one of the training schools. It’s like telling your own dad he’s shit at fixing cars. But, man, truth is truth. The new grads are too green, and we need numbers. We need Omegas, like, yesterday. We need professionals, Max. People like you. People who know which end is which.”
“That doesn’t answer the question, why me,” he pointed out. “You researched my family, targeted me and my sister at the same time. You didn’t just go after professionals walking the street. You went after me. Why?”
“Because you’re the best,” Jack put in with his eyes on the rearview mirror to catch Max’s striking green gaze. “And the others look up to you. We’re thinking that where you and your sister go, the trade will follow. We need more than a couple, Max. We need all of you. And quite frankly, like it or not, you need us.”
“The hell I do.”
“What exactly do you envision a contractor’s experience is, institutionally?” Cas asked. “Help me understand.”
“Why should I?”
Cas didn’t answer, but he tilted his head, goading the boy to answer for himself.
“Are you going to help my mother?”
Cas sighed. “Tasha Banes, Type II diabetes, untreated, neurologic effects beginning to present. Yes, Max. Regardless of your answer this evening, I will do everything I can for your mother. But you need to understand, there is a limit to what I can offer personally. She needs specialists. She needs holistic care. She needs insurance.”
“You’re going to turn me into some kind of automaton,” Max blurted. “I’ll have a stupid script, and I’ll get lashed if I deviate. I’ve heard the stories! I work for myself and my family, and I decide how I work, when I work. I say no when I get the wrong feeling from some skeevy dude. No one, and I mean no one controls me but me!”
“And Alicia,” Adam put in quietly.
“Hey, fuck you! You don’t know my life!”
“No, goddamnit, but I know what it could be,” Adam shot right back. “You’re pissed at all the wrong people, man. We’re the good guys…”
“Oh, really!? Like the asshat alpha who took the state’s money to look after me and then hightailed it to Cameroon? He was the good guys too, or didn’t your dossier on me mention that?”
“We know about your alpha, Max,” Castiel said smoothly. “You got a raw deal there, and you’ve managed magnificently on your own. No one’s going to force you to be something you’re not. That’s really the whole point to what we do. We might need you to stretch yourself from time to time to accommodate a rare affinity, but we’ll never force you into contact with anyone, not least of which, someone who smells skeevy to you. Every single client will be your choice. We offer training to give you tools that you don’t currently have, tools to protect yourself, to head off unsafe situations before anyone is even close to harmed. You would never, ever need to climb into the car of an alpha you don’t know. Not ever. Do you hear me, Omega? You put on a brave face just now, and you saw it through because you really don’t have a choice if you’re going to keep food on the table and emergency funds under the mattress. But none of it—NONE OF IT—is necessary. There’s a safe way to be your own boss.”
Max scoffed.
“It’s true,” Adam told him with his eyes locked straight into the wary Omega’s. “No one tells me how to run my room. I sign my own scene contracts. I have full say on the green list. No one does anything to me that I don’t agree to. I’ve kicked plenty of alpha-Dominants out on their well-bred asses, and I’ve safeworded over nothing more than a suspicion. I’ve never tested positive for an STD, and I’ve never missed a cycle or had to take synthetic anything—not the suppressants, not the faux-Heat shit, not the weird-ass pheromone scents you buy at the corner gas station. And I’ve never popped up unexpectedly pregnant.”
“Well, goody for you,” Max grumbled, but his defenses were weakening. Cas could see him sinking deeper into the plush cushioning of the back seat as his wolf sensed safety and began to unfurl. “They beat your ass. Or are you gonna try to snow me on that too?”
“Uh, yeah. About that,” Adam faltered a little and looked to Jack.
Jack looked over the seat briefly before turning back to driving. “Dude, you’re not a pup. You know how it works. No one’s beating anyone unless that’s what they paid for. Yeah, you’ll be spanked when it’s the right call for you in the moment. It’s all monitored, man. It’s safe. They’re careful and deliberate. It’s not like the movies at all.”
“I don’t think that’s helping much, Jack,” Adam said. “I don’t think he has any frame of reference to guide him.” Adam kept his eyes on Max’s face as the kid blushed and averted his eyes out the window. The bills were still clutched in his hand, and he distracted himself with counting them—twice—and then folding them in shaky hands and tucking them into the minute front pocket of his jean shorts.
Cas noticed that his legs were sporting chill bumps down both thighs, and he reached to the console between them to adjust the air. When he spoke, it was the gentlest Max had heard from an alpha, possibly in his life, and he froze in near panic at the uncertainty it engendered.
“Max, you scene with your current clients, correct? It’s not just sex you offer; it’s the full gamut of necessary services. You offer a full menu. I know this because your scent tells me that you’re fully Balanced in your Secondary aspect, and your mannerisms tell me that you’re well-fed in your Tertiary. That only happens when you’re getting seen to yourself. I suspect you have a few special favorites among your clientele that you would sorely…excuse the pun…miss if you were to up and vanish on them.
“Let’s don’t lie to each other. I swear to be truthful with you, but I expect the same in return. You don’t fear impact play. You use it as carefully as we do. What you fear is abuse. Let me clarify. We do not abuse our employees or our clients. If you’ve experienced impact scenes that were done correctly and, as I suspect, you’ve experienced those done badly, then you know the difference between Release and abuse. I expect you to hold on to that measuring stick for the rest of your life and use it every time anyone holds an implement of impact over you. If you ever doubt where your experience falls in relation to that stick, then you call RED at the top of your lungs. If you do that even once in our Facility, you’ll understand what we’re really offering you, and you’ll be a convert for life.”
“Where are we going?” Max asked again, surreptitiously scrubbing his eye with the back of his arm and hiding a sniffle.
“We’re going for a tour of The Facility,” Cas told him calmly. “No one will make you go in. Max, it took a great deal of courage for you to get into this car, but you put up only a token resistance. You’ve had to roll the dice on your safety and your sister’s your whole adult life. If you’ll make one more gamble, I believe you can leave all of that behind you.”
“Or? If I refuse?”
“Then Jack here will take you home or wherever you wish to go. He’ll take you right back to that alley to finish your evening of waiting in the dark if that’s what you want. But he’ll talk your ear off the whole way home about how useful it can be to let an Omega Services Coordinator help you out of some of your stickier situations, and he’s not going to leave you alone until he’s certain you’re signed up with an alpha you can trust not to abscond with the state fee.”
“What does a prostitute need with a custodial alpha?” Max asked sourly. “You think one more round of fucking and paddling per month is gonna make any difference to me? It’s just another lay, Sir.”
“Max, you don’t need to call me Sir. I’m not your employer, your teacher, your parent, your Dominant, or your alpha. We’re equals in this car as far as we can be. No, Max, the custodial alpha for someone as well-tended as you is mostly there to see you safely through your Heats and to verify that you’re safe and healthy outside of the Heats. I’m sure you’re aware that it’s exceedingly dangerous to work while you’re in-cycle. I don’t need to tell you the dangers, I’m sure.”
Max snorted then went quiet. Tellingly quiet. He blinked several times. He shook his head at his own internal dialogue. He huffed.
“Alicia won’t go for it,” he said. “She’s even more stubborn than I am, and she’s beta. I’m just Omega. It’s not my call, Alpha. She’s family. It’s her call in the end. You’re wasting your time.”
“You might be surprised, but she and my husband are right behind us. They’ve been following for a while.”
“What?” Max spun around and spotted his sister at the wheel of her old beater with the famous alpha riding shotgun beside her. She caught his eye and offered a baleful finger-wave. Dean grinned stupidly beside her. “She’s…she’s only following because you kidnapped me, and she’s gonna rip me a new one for getting in this car!”
“Not according to the texts Dean’s sent me. Apparently, she’s ready to give the grand tour a chance.” Cas had a smugness about his voice that made Max’s lip curl. “What do you say, Maximillian? Are you ready to do something really brave?”
“You’re just going to assign us a room and turn us loose to run our business from here?”
“Oh, no,” Adam told him. “You’ve got to go through the training and certification courses first. But don’t worry, experienced pros never have any trouble with that. You’ll breeze through.”
“And what happens to my clients in the meantime?” Max asked, finally switching to speaking about the process as a potential fact rather than a proposal that was headed for the scrap heap. Cas noted the degree to which the Omega put stock in his sister’s opinion. That could be useful down the line.
“If they can find you on a mailbox in an unlit back alley, they can find their way to us,” Jack told him confidently. “A simple word from you, and I believe most of them will be easy to flip from the shady side to the legal side. You’re too healthy to have a business book full of the dregs of humanity, Max. You strike me as a top-notch businessman and a right good judge of people. Talk to your clients. Give us their names. We’ll mark them as they come in, discount them while they wait for you to come out of the other end of training, and then we’ll return your business book, fully intact, and you’ll have a whole roster of support at your back. It really is the best of both worlds.”
“If it doesn’t work out,” Max squinted at the building as Jack turned into the parking lot. “I’ll lose my best spot to some other prick.”
“C’mon, Max, that’s not a lot at stake when you think about what you’ve got to gain.”
“It’s time to come in out of the cold, Omega,” Cas told him prophetically. “And I’m hopeful that where you and Alicia go, others will follow. In fact, if you’re a betting man, I’m willing to wager a hundred bucks on my part versus an extra week as a fluffer on yours that this time next year, there won’t be more than two of your colleagues still on the streets of K.C., unaffiliated with the ACRI Facility.”
“What does a week’s worth of fluffing look like?” Max asked, following Castiel out of the car.
“Use your imagination,” Cas told him playfully back.
“Wow, Cas, no wonder he’s pissy. Just laid it right out for him, did you? Did you really say, I get more than you do, get over it?”
“More or less,” Cas mumbled as he scrolled through his schedule on his tablet. He had his knees pulled up under the cushy white comforter, his back braced against a pillow, his brow furrowed in thought as he juggled appointments and commitments.
“And how’d he take it?” Dean crawled the length of the bed in a worn pair of sleep pants that rode low on his hips. “What’d he say?”
Cas spared him a glance as Dean approached, a glance that turned into an appreciative ogle. He let Dean ease the tablet out of his hands, enjoying the play of muscles over his ribs and shoulders as he stretched to set it on the bedside table, a move that left his torso draped across Castiel’s.
“Hello, Dean.”
“Heya, Cas.” Dean dropped a series of kisses along Cas’ clavicle before laying his head on his husband’s chest. Castiel’s right arm came up around Dean’s bare back. He trailed fingertips easily across the smooth expanse of his back, and he bent his head to leave a kiss in Dean’s hair.
“He wasn’t surprised, I don’t think,” Cas replied. “Disappointed a bit, maybe. I believe he’s been imagining that I have a network of operatives around every corner who spy for me. He’d talked himself into believing I’m the root of all nefarious outcomes with a set of superpowers far exceeding what I can really accomplish. It was an oddly backwards hero complex.”
“So, you popped his bubble by confirming his suspicions?” Dean asked in confusion. “I mean, you do have a network of operatives, and you are at the root of all kinds of shit. You basically confirmed his worst fears and told him to get used to being used. How was that supposed to help?”
Cas chuckled, bouncing Dean’s head gently. “I’m weary of the constant faux outrage. Michael benefits personally from the style of management I provide. I’m tired of being confronted with indignation when what we do in this Pack works, and he takes advantage of it whenever it suits him. We can’t have omelets if we never crack any eggs, and all of us enjoy omelets. He wanted to know how the sausage is made, so I showed him. He already knew most of it, but it was important for me to impress upon him that I’m not going to keep apologizing for actions that I’m not remorseful about. If I could do it all again, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Michael needs to come to terms with his place in this Pack. His and mine. We aren’t equals, Dean. I don’t owe him an explanation.”
“Whew, that’s hot,” Dean murmured.
“Yeah? How hot?”
Cas craned his neck to look down, spreading his knees beneath the blankets to bracket Dean’s hips and center him. Dean propped his chin on Cas’ sternum. He wrapped his arms up under Castiel’s shoulders and hoisted himself up until he was looking down into soft blue eyes.
“You turn me on, Alpha.” Dean clambered his knees up under himself and followed that pronouncement with an exploratory touching of lips. The tip of his tongue traced the line of Cas’ bottom lip as his hips ground in a dirty circle above Castiel’s. Cas opened a space between his lips and reached for Dean with tongue, with arms, with an answering grind of hips. Shoulder muscles rolled as Dean pulled himself closer, tighter, a groan of pleasure slipping between them that could have come from either man.
Cas rolled them, tangling the comforter. Dean whimpered and held on. Kissing Cas was like drowning in perfect bliss. He couldn’t breathe, but he never wanted to stop. He felt hands in his hair, at his temples. He felt knees bracketing his hips. There were layers and layers of fabrics between their groins, but their mouths found each other, and that was all that mattered.
“Cas…”
“Shhh.”
Dean’s eyes were closed. He could feel every point of pressure and every touch of warmth. Cas kissed his eyelids, one by one. He kissed down from temple to jaw before delving back into his mouth, so welcoming, so hot and wet. Dean was encased in the bedding now, wrapped tightly, bound from the waist down, while Cas had essentially freed himself with the flipping of positions.
“Want you…”
“I’m here, Dean. Shhh.”
Cas sat up, straddling Dean with a knee on each side of Dean’s hips. The last of the covers slipped free of his back and his hips. He was gloriously nude. He smiled down at Dean with a sappy, hooded bedroom expression that would make them millions if they could bottle it. One thumb caressed Dean’s jaw.
With a tilt to his head and a thoughtful pause, Cas broke the silence and the enchanted moment. “It was you Michael was most incensed about, you know. He said that you took the brunt of the fallout from my rift with April.”
“Oh, jeez. Not that again. Cas, I’m fine. It was a miscommunication. It lasted all of three nanoseconds. My thought pattern went to a dark place for a sec, like it does sometimes, and it kicked me in the gut. But it was wrong, and I’m fine.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Can we fuck now?”
“Hmm.” Cas pursed his lips and scooted backward until his face lowered and he had good access to Dean’s bare chest. “Not tonight, love. Michael made a good point. Every time I stretch you open, I return you to him a little worse for wear.”
“Now I’m a used sweatshirt?”
Cas continued as if Dean hadn’t spoken. “I’m not going to inhibit myself for his sake all the time, but for now, as a show of faith, let’s refrain from making you limp into your scene with him tomorrow night. He’s had a lovely idea, and I expect you’ll enjoy it more if you’re pristine at the outset.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Why don’t you just relax and let me worship you, my love?”
“Oh, well, now you’re talkin’.”
“Good.” Cas climbed off the bed and dug through his bureau drawer for a bottle of lightly scented massage oil. “Pants off. Lie down on top of the comforter of your belly.”
Dean worked his way out of the burrito of blankets around his middle and slipped his pants off, dropping them over the side of the bed. “You can’t get to my dick if I’m on my belly,” he pointed out. “You sure about this?”
“Shut up and lie down,” Cas said.
Dean grinned, tugged the blankets up to a smooth surface again, and then threw himself down with enough gusto to bounce a little. He settled with his cheek resting on crossed arms, his eyes barely open. Soon, the warmth of Castiel’s bare thighs straddled his own, and he felt those angelic hands smooth across the planes of his back, pressing in with thumbs and heels, turning to knuckle along a braided muscle. Dean melted on a loud groan.
“Jesus fuck, your hands…”
“Mmm, yes, they are very fond of your body, Dean. They know every curve, every rise, every dip. My hands know you so intimately, they could sculpt your shape from clay in the dark by feel alone. I am a very lucky man.” He ran his hands down Dean’s torso, curving around his ribs, to dip into the small of his back and round over his perfect ass until they ran up against Castiel’s spread thighs, and then he reversed and pressed upward again, earning him another moan from the prostrate man below him.
He massaged until Dean’s back was warm and pink, soft in the lamplight, shadowed and elegant, a sublime art piece of curvature and mass. His thumbs worked up along Dean’s neck, into his hair at the back of Dean’s head, out across each shoulder. Castiel’s soft cock sat loose against Dean’s inner thigh, pressing forward every now and then as Cas moved over his lover, a tease of motion that sent chill bumps across Dean’s thighs. Dean began to float softly, not a Sub response, just a gentle cradling by a sea of endorphins and trust.
“I’m very sorry that you experienced a mate-rejection cramp as a result of April and I finding our balance, Dean. I’m sure you’re aware that wasn’t an intended consequence, but I apologize that it happened at all, that I didn’t anticipate that you or Michael might interpret the shift as having a wider impact on your Mated relationship than I expected. That was my fault, love, and I’m sorry.” Cas kept his voice low and his hands in motion, kneading into the meat of Dean’s butt and around each hip, down into the tops of his thighs. He shuffled his seat backward to give him better access.
“You couldn’t have anticipated that, man. S’not your fault.”
“Michael said I was cavalier in my decision to take whatever I want and let the chips fall where they may for the rest of you. He was right, Dean, and I’m sorry.”
With Cas sitting on Dean’s calves now, Dean had the freedom to press up onto his elbows and look back over his shoulder. “And you were supposed to…what? Live your whole life tied to a mate you don’t jibe with? Come on, Cas. Something had to give. Maybe you could have been better with the head’s ups, but maybe not. You didn’t know when the tension was gonna break, and you didn’t want to divulge private stuff that was nobody’s business but yours and April’s. That rope’s been getting tighter and tighter since you two Mated. It was gonna pop eventually. It had to. But it could have been weeks, months, could have been years before it snapped. You’re not omniscient.”
Castiel’s hands stroked down each thigh over and over, the slide eased by soothing oil, his fingers seeking muscle knots and homing in whenever they found one. Dean grimaced at a particularly troublesome knot that Cas determined to untangle.
“I hoped stating my position to Michael might clarify things for us, but I’m not sure that’s going to be the result.”
Dean chuckled and collapsed back into his arms, crossed on the pillow. “Yeaah, he’s good at busting bubbles. Makes you feel naked and weighed, doesn’t he? He’s not an easy man to be a hypocrite around.”
“No. He’s not.”
“He’ll be fine, Cas. We’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out. Give him a little time. He’s naïve, and he needed you to be perfect, or…thought he did. He wanted you to be perfect, anyway.”
“Hmm. And what about you, Dean? Are you okay with me as I am, imperfect and hypocritical?”
Dean rolled over onto his back. Cas lifted onto his knees to let Dean’s shins settle beneath him, and he fell forward onto his hands so that he was bracketing his husband’s body.
“I told you, Alpha,” Dean said with his eyes glistening with fervor, and his hands pulled high to stroke the soft dark strands of Castiel’s freshly washed hair. “I love you exactly as you are. I love that you try like hell to make a space for everyone that honors their humanity. I love that you are unapologetically powerful, that you found a way to marry a nurturer with a Viking, and you look at every day as a new chance to make something new and great in the world that’s never been there before, that you drag the rest of us along into that new vista with you. I love that you’re a wolf, Castiel James. You don’t owe my mate any apologies or explanations, and you don’t owe one to me either. Sometimes you’re gonna need to throw your weight around, and I know you don’t actually feel guilty about that. You don’t have to pretend to feel guilty when you’re home, baby. That’s your parents talking in your head. That’s the ape’s society, not ours.”
Cas sighed and closed his eyes.
“Hey.” Dean nudged his jaw with a knuckle. “Michael’s only got two phases, man. He’s either Everybody’s Mama or he’s Wet Cat. Let him hiss and spit himself out for a while. He’ll come round. He’s wrong about this. Wrong about you. You’re Alpha, Castiel, and if you don’t act like it, none of us are safe.”
Cas kissed him, softly at first, but it soon grew heated. Both men were panting, gasping for breath when they broke apart.
“Are we done sharing our feelings now?” Dean asked breathlessly. “‘Cause I really need your mouth on me or I’m gonna explode.”
Cas smirked and pulled backward once more until he had a good angle on Dean’s cock. He looked down at it, pausing slightly. Dean wiggled his hips.
“Your backside is a lovely and unblemished shade of pink, sweetheart,” Cas observed with his eyes on Dean’s half-hard dick. “Do enjoy that while it lasts.”
“Bring it, big man,” Dean teased back, and then he gasped as Castiel closed his lips around the head of Dean’s cock. One hand circled Dean’s soft knot and the other pressed knuckles behind his balls. Dean’s knees came up involuntarily. Cas shifted to hold them down with his own body weight, and he set to, working his lips further onto the shaft and beginning a slow, tortuous rocking motion. Cas planted his knees and pressed outward, spreading Dean’s legs.
“Yeah, babe,” Dean whined breathlessly. Cas glanced up, blue eyes framed by dark lashes, and Dean’s belly twitched. “Jesus.”
Cas traced the center line of Dean’s perineum with his middle finger, down to the soft flesh of his hole. He circled it with his finger as his mouth suckled and slobbered, trading soft licks for hard suction, and bringing Dean’s knot up into a hard bulge at the base of his cock. Dean couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Please…”
Cas pulled off, locking eyes. He put his middle finger in his mouth and coated it with wetness, his eyes unblinking, then he leaned back in and took Dean all the way down his throat as his digit pressed into silky, dark heat. Dean pulled his knees up again, planted his feet, and rocked into the touches.
Cas fucked him slowly with one thick finger, very close to Michael’s full girth. It was a powerfully evocative feeling, as if his mate and his husband had fused into one, and Dean threw his Mating-bond wide, taking his mate by surprise. Dean groaned and ground his hips down and then up again into Castiel’s hot mouth.
His fists tightened into the bedding. Cas swallowed around his head, and Dean cried out and reached for his shoulders. That finger was relentless, steady as a robot, driving in, out, in, out, like Dean’s cock in Castiel’s mouth, and Dean felt Michael turn, riveted, to feeling what Dean felt.
“Baby…”
Castiel’s grip on Dean’s knot was tightening rhythmically. Dean felt his feet break out in a hot sweat, and his eyes clenched tightly shut as his body quickened. He panted and rocked. He was heat and pressure, motion and pleasure, and his mate’s eyes watched every move. Cas picked up the pace with his mouth, slamming home to the point that Dean’s head buried into the back of his throat on every down thrust even as his finger relentlessly pegged Dean’s prostate.
“Cas…!”
Cas hummed, and that was the final straw. Dean locked up, his hips lifted off the bed, his ass clenched hard onto his husband’s finger, and he filled Castiel’s mouth with his come. Cas swallowed it as it came, expertly protecting himself from choking or gagging, massaging Dean through the pulses of pleasure, holding him until his hips collapsed back in exhaustion. Cas slipped his finger carefully out, licked Dean’s cock clean as he pulled off. He stretched out on his side beside the puddle of a man he’d just brought to ecstasy, and he kissed Dean’s jaw.
Dean had an arm thrown over his eyes. He smiled at the kiss and turned his head.
“I see a kink in your plan now, Alpha.”
“No, Dean. No kink. Go to sleep. The pups aren’t going to let us have more than a couple of hours before we’re up again. We should grab sleep while we can.”
“You sure?” he mumbled back, losing his argument even as he made it, the post-orgasm sleepies sucking him fast under.
“Very sure. Good night, my love.”
“Night, babe. That was awesome. Thanks.” Cas chuckled as he kissed him. He helped Dean climb under the covers and rolled in beside him, arranging himself to be easy for his octopus husband to cling to, and he fell almost instantly to sleep.
Dean lay awake a little longer. He closed his eyes with Cas’ chest hair tickling his nose and he watched from a distance as Michael returned the favor, feeding Dean the eroticism of a secondhand orgasm. Michael’s pissy mood seemed to have evaporated with Dean’s shared carnal sensations, and he was clearly inspired to proposition the warm and willing body beside him into waking up for one more round.
Dean smiled to himself, scrubbed his nose with a palm, snuggled back in, and fell into a soft snoring without a single coherent thought.
Notes:
Just briefly, this is for open sharing of life-shit, not for sympathies, but I'm flat on my ass with Shingles at the moment, and I gotta say, if you're old enough that they'll let you, get the damn Shingles vaccine. This sucks.
Also, my usual output runs on a roughly 28 day cycle to match my work schedule, but if I disappear on you for a round or two, it'll be because I'm trying to make sense of my notes before I fuck the story up irreparably.
Thanks to everyone who's reading. I love you.
Chapter 3: Friday, November 2, 2018
Summary:
Pack Alphas are busy all up in these parts. Charlie's got a problem without a simple solution, but she turns it on its head with a classically Charlie solution. Sam and Sarah get caught cutting corners, and it's not a fun resolution for either of them. And as always, the heartbeat beneath it all, binding it all, stringing through it all...is Dean.
Notes:
This is a long one, not gonna lie. It totally got away from me, and time was, I would cut in half and make two chapters out of it, but I really liked the way it flowed, one segment into the next, so you're stuck with a grisly 18K words to slog through. Not a bit sorry.
Warning for what could be a very uncomfortable aspect of this section of the fic...but honestly, if you've read the previous, you won't be surprised. The point is that pups are raised in this universe right up inside everything that goes on, so there are pups about, witnessing the sticky, stingy happenings. There is no sex involving pups directly. It's just that, as doors are often open, and people do stuff out in the main rooms, and pups are all over the house more and more, they will bear witness to stuff. It's how the AU is framed. It's not new, but this is the first chapter of the current generation that it becomes relevant.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Friday, November 2, 2018
NOW:
“Goodbye, baby,” Meg crooned sweetly, hanging half out of the trailer door in the dappled early morning light. “Have a good shift. Don’t forget to grab milk on your way home.”
Ketch kissed her softly, their heights aligning nicely with his feet on the concrete pad and hers on the second step. “Behave yourself,” he whispered, adding a trace of menace as he quirked a half-smile to soften the threat. “I’ll see you tonight. Call me if you need anything.”
Contractors were arriving in their heavy trucks as Ketch negotiated his car down the dusty dirt track and out onto the paved road. Meg stayed perched in the trailer door, waving him out until his car vanished around the scrub brush at the edge of the Pack’s property. The moment he was gone, her hand changed motion, flipping from a farewell wave to a frantic beckoning, targeted at the small copse of trees that shaded the trailer.
Charlie darted out from behind the biggest tree trunk and slipped in past Meg, taking the climb in one swift step. Once inside, Meg latched the door and the two women shrieked in laughter too long suppressed.
“I thought he’d never leave!” Charlie exclaimed. “There are ants by that tree, by the way. I need calamine.”
Meg chuckled. “The man is nothing if not predictable,” she clarified. “He can feel when I’m up to something, and it always takes a quickie to distract him. Works every time.”
“Eww. Meg! You left me squatting in ants so you could get your happy face on? Where’s your loyalty?”
Meg was unflappable. She busied herself in the tiny kitchen and then joined Charlie at the table with two mugs of coffee and a plate of mostly burnt toast, stating emphatically, “If you don’t know by now where sex rates on my loyalty meter, Charles, then let me introduce myself. Hi. I’m Meg. I’m a sex demon.”
Charlie batted away the hand Meg put out for a handshake and attacked her mug instead.
“Fine. Bitch.”
“You called me,” Meg reminded her, and Charlie immediately broke into a grin, hunkering down conspiratorially and leaning across the table to grab Meg’s hand.
“Right. Can you keep a secret?”
“Never,” Meg responded truthfully.
“Well, try. This is important.” The grin slipped away, and Charlie’s eyes became haunted.
“What are you up to? Why the creeping around in the ants before I’ve even got my knickers on?”
“Meg, I think I’m in love,” Charlie confessed, her brow knitting darkly as if admitting she killed and stewed small children.
Meg snorted rudely and snatched her hand back. “You’re talking to the wrong chick, Chuckles. You need Joanna Beth.”
“No, no, Meg,” Charlie entreated. “I need you. No one else has a prayer at talking me down the way I’m really, really hoping you can. You gotta help me. Help me untangle myself. No one keeps it all separate the way you do. The last thing I need is to fall head over heels. It was only supposed to be sex. I dunno what went wrong. You gotta help me figure this out. What if she finds out and dumps me? Oh, God, what if she doesn’t? What if she starts talking about Mating?”
Meg sat upright and sipped her coffee, thinking. “What’s her name?” she asked after a very pregnant pause.
“What difference does it make?” Charlie retorted.
“Do I know her?”
“You’ve…met,” Charlie admitted carefully.
“Is it Gilda?” Meg guessed.
“What?! No! I would never date a client! What the hell, Margaret?!”
Meg cocked her head and upped an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine, maybe I sneaked around with Gilda a few times, but no. Just…no. Besides, she’s way outta my league. She’s, like, a fairy princess or something ethereal and floaty and shit. What the hell did the toast do to you to deserve torture of this magnitude?” Charlie poked at one brittle brick before abandoning it.
“It’s Dorothy,” Meg stated with assurance. “Isn’t it? Brusque, businesslike, badass, take-no-prisoners, stick-up-her-ass, here-one-day-gone-the-next Dorothy. You two have had a thing for years.”
Charlie’s ears turned bright red, followed by the rest of her face, her neck, even the backs of her hands pinked up where they clasped her mug. She floundered for a response, and Meg blew out a heavy breath.
“Jesus, Charlie! Really? Please tell me you’re not planning to Mate that bitch. She’ll bring the whole Pack down with her dour expressions. And can you even imagine her and Ketch in the same Pack?”
“You gotta help me, Meg! The last thing I ever wanted was to be daydreaming about Mating-scars. I don’t want to feel this way. Make it go away!”
“Shh. Hey. You don’t ever have to do anything you don’t wanna do, kiddo. You’re not Omega. Unless you Trigger a TM response, you can plant your feet and say no.” Meg slid out of the short bench seat and switched sides so she could wrap an arm around her friend.
“I don’t know what to do,” Charlie confided sadly, snuggling in and accepting the hug.
They both jumped when a hard knock shook the lightweight door and rattled the trailer.
“Fuck me,” Meg muttered. She eased back off the bench and cracked the door to find the construction foreman standing on her patio. “What?!”
“Good morning, ma’am. Is Ketch or Benny around? We have a…problem.”
“Do I look like a Neanderthal-built, testosterone-flooded brute to you? No! They’re not here. Go away. You have a phone, don’cha? How about you try using your brain instead of sitting on it?! Scram!”
Meg saw his eyes flick past her hip and land on Charlie behind her. She pulled the door closer to her side, but he’d already spotted her visitor.
“My apologies, beta,” he said stiffly. “Please forgive the interruption.”
Meg slammed the door on him and turned to rest her back against it. “He saw you,” she pointed out. “Why are we hiding again?”
Charlie closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “I’m playing hooky from work this morning. I couldn’t face it. Dorothy has a seminar in the main auditorium today, and I’m the coordinator and running the A/V board. She’s been working on it for months. I called in sick.”
Meg processed that slowly, thinking through the options still available. “Well, that’s both our butts roasted.”
“We could say you brought me here to take care of me,” Charlie suggested helpfully. “You’re off today. I’m sick.” She coughed halfheartedly. No one would buy it in a million years. Not for a second.
Meg sighed. “That would’ve worked before I Mated. Not anymore. He can tell when I lie. Sometimes I get by on omissions, but he always knows a direct fib.”
“You have to help me, Meg,” Charlie begged, pulling up onto her knees on the bench. “Dorothy doesn’t want a girlfriend. The second she gets one whiff of what’s going on in my head, that’ll be the end of it. I don’t wanna Mate, but I can’t lose her! How do I turn it off?” Charlie’s panic, her desperation was beginning to sour the air in the confined trailer.
Meg stayed by the door and sighed. “You don’t,” she said softly after a long pause. “You have to ride it out or cut it off. There’s no middle-grounding this. You’re going to have to talk to her.”
“No, I can’t!”
“Then you break it off,” Meg said gently. “Walk away without an explanation.”
Charlie whimpered sadly, hopelessly.
“What’s so awful about Mating, Charlie? Huh? I mean, it’s got its perks. Maybe you’re afraid of the unknown. Maybe this could turn into the best thing to ever happen to you!” Meg strode aggressively forward and snatched the plate of inedible toast. She flung it into the trash, turning her back on her friend, irritated inexplicably.
Charlie ruffled, turning her panic on to the only target in the room. “I’m not afraid, Meg! Not of Dorothy, not of anyone! That’s not what this is! How could you say something like that to me? To me?!”
Meg wasn’t one to take a confrontation and deflect. She squared into it. “You’re not afraid? Fine! Then go up there and talk to her! Tell her how you feel. All of it. Not just that you’re falling for her, but just how desperate you are to never Mate anyone. Tell her that! If you’re not afraid, what’ve you got to lose? She’ll either blow it off, or laugh in your face, or…”
Charlie slapped Meg across the face. Hard. Tears ran unimpeded down her cheeks. Meg stared at her in shock with a hand touching her reddened cheek.
“I don’t know why I came here in the first place,” Charlie spat. “You’re too selfish to think of anyone but yourself. Forget I said anything.”
Before Meg could respond, Charlie was out the door and flipping off the foreman who stood a dozen yards away with his phone to his ear. All around, as the newly risen sun bathed the construction site in a warm glow, workers looked up from their morning tasks to watch her stalk across the property, her red hair ablaze as it flared out behind her.
Meg watched from the top step as she made her way to the side street, watching as her little yellow Gremlin emerged and turned right, the opposite direction from The Facility. Meg sighed heavily, aware of the construction foreman picking his way across to her. She didn’t acknowledge him.
“Yes, Sir,” he said into his phone. “She’s right here.” Silently he held the phone out to her. Meg roasted him with a scathing look and then disappeared into the trailer and slammed the door.
Her cell buzzed less than a minute later. Meg switched it off.
From there, lying across the full bed at the end of the trailer in her bathrobe, Meg played a countdown game with herself, betting herself whether it would be Ketch’s heavy footfalls outside on the concrete pad first, or Benny’s.
Either way, she was toast.
Her stomach rumbled.
She crossed her arms across her belly and stared upward at the curved ceiling.
She lost her own bet.
It was Dean.
He knocked gently but didn’t wait for her to respond before hauling himself up the steps and flopping down beside her.
“What’s going on, brat?” he asked softly with his usual playful air. “Word upstairs is you’re not answering your phone. Ya know, that’s a flaying offense for folks like you and me. Tops get kinda twitchy when their brats disappear off the grid without warning.”
Meg rolled into him and clutched his shoulder, hiding her face in his chest.
“Well, now,” he said, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. “That’s a nice surprise. I don’t usually get a hug from you.” He propped his chin up over her head and began a slow caress of her back with the pads of his fingers. “Meg? Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
Her voice was muffled when she spoke. “Tell them I’m fine, Dean. All right? Tell them I burned my breakfast and it freaked me out, but I’m fine now.”
“You don’t smell fine.” Gingerly, he sat up, bringing her carefully along with him. He ducked his head to get a view of her face, lifting it with a soft touch beneath her chin. His eyes caught the outline of a hard slap on her cheek, and he traced it gently with his thumb. His eyes softened. “The plot thickens,” he whispered. “I heard tell of a fiery redhead tearing outta here at a run. You got a sidepiece going on, Megster? Lover’s spat?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled away. “If I was sneaking around,” she clipped churlishly, “it wouldn’t be with a redhead. It would be with an oblivious moose.”
Dean laughed at that. “What happened?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said, sounding much more like herself. She scooted to the edge of the bed and cleared the two coffee cups off the table. “It’s not mine to tell.”
“You can turn your phone back on though,” he pointed out. “Ketch is not a rational dude when he’s worried about you. I had to pull rank to keep him from tearing out here and ripping you a new one.”
She paled and turned away, surreptitiously powering her phone back on. “Great. Thanks, alpha. Now he’ll add humiliation to whatever else he’s gonna be mad about. You should’ve just let him come himself.”
“He’s got critical work to do right now, Meg,” Dean told her seriously. “He’s needed onsite. There are people in far worse condition than you are, and they need him to stay and do his job.”
“You think I’m selfish too,” she accused coldly.
“What?” he asked, taken aback. “No. Meg, I think someone threw you off-balance this morning, took you by surprise maybe, and then bolted on you before you could get your feet set. I have a suspicion who that was, but I have no idea why. What I do know is that you don’t have to try to handle it alone. Keeping someone’s secret after she slapped you in the face isn’t friendship, kid.”
She scoffed and held her tongue.
He took a couple of steps closer. “I also think that your construction crew out here is run by a gaggle of gossiping geese who pay more mind to the comings and goings of this trailer than they do their jobs of building your home. You might wanna keep that in mind when you try to sneak visitors in without your mate or your Alpha knowing.”
“We weren’t sneaking,” Meg protested. “She’s Pack, Dean. She’s allowed to drop in whenever she wants.”
“Unless she’s due at work to run the A/V lines for a seminar,” Dean replied calmly.
“I’m a nurse,” Meg replied. “She’s not feeling well. She dropped by for advice.”
“Then why did she hide her car around the bend? Surely, Ketch would approve of you dispensing medical care to a sick Packmate. In fact, I imagine he’d insist on it if he knew. Don’t lie to me.”
They were sparring, and Meg knew she’d lost. “I can’t tell you, Dean. You just have to take it up with her.”
“Her who, Meg? How many redheaded Lafitte Packmates called in sick this morning? Who slapped you?”
She gave him a withering glare that caused him to laugh outright. He raised his palms in surrender, chuckling. “All right. You win. Don’t tell me. But here’s the deal. You’re looking at a stiff punishment for failure to answer your phone and being unreachable. Something about slamming the door on the foreman when your mate tried to speak to you through his phone? For whatever that’s worth. For interrupting professional workflow. For sneaking a visitor in and out in a clandestine manner that indicates foul play. Want me to go on? You two are up to something, and you’re not in the clear until it all spills. You might consider spilling sooner rather than later. C’mon. It smells like burnt toast in here. Let’s go get breakfast and talk.”
She dropped her robe without bothering to seek privacy and rooted in the flimsy dresser for a pair of jeans with her backside bared and unashamed. Speaking over her shoulder, she called across to the alpha. “Take me some place that serves bacon. And, hey. How’d you convince my bigger half to stand down anyway? You can’t pull rank when it’s a Pack matter.”
Dean looked up from the ceramic turtle he’d been examining, one that looked like a school art project—probably a gift to Meg and Ketch from young Ben. The kid idolized Ketch. “I can when your Pack Alpha backs me up,” he commented dryly.
She turned around, buttoning her jeans, still bare from the waist up. “Benny knows?”
Dean smirked and held her eye, raising his brows. “Benny’s off chasing Charlie down as we speak. He knows everything…except that you’ve got a handprint on your cheek.”
“Damnit,” she muttered, kicking at the array of clothing littering the bedroom floor and reaching down for a bra that didn’t seem too dirty to wear. “None of this is my fault, you know. I was behaving myself, minding my own business, enjoying the sweet, sweet ride of a Dom who’s got my number six ways from Sunday. Charlie pulled me in and sucker punched me, and the sun hadn’t even cleared the trees yet. You’re buying me a tall stack and bacon,” she asserted, slipping her arms into a wrinkled button down and kicking the door open before she even started buttoning it. “And I don’t wanna hear a lecture on how much coffee I guzzle.”
“Lead on,” he agreed, pulling the door closed behind him and returning the foreman’s wave.
“Who’d they get to run the A/V board for the seminar?” Meg asked as she slid into the passenger side of the Impala.
Dean rolled his eyes. “You probably don’t wanna know. It’s embarrassing.”
Meg continued to stare at him as he backed out, his arm and his eyes over the back seat. As he righted himself, he caught her eye and chuckled. “Becky and Garth are trying to figure it out. It’s not pretty. We really need a bigger tech crew.”
“Wow,” Meg remarked, feeling a little better about her own situation.
“Shuddup,” he said, put the car in drive and ambled his way across the bumpy dirt drive.
“Why’d Benny send you?” Meg asked as the enormous car made its way closer to civilization, hot grease, and caffeine.
Dean shot her a look. “Sometimes, even more than Pack, what’s called for is alpha. You and I may not be Pack directly, Margaret, but we’re family. I was happy to help. He couldn’t send Jo; she’s in class. He would’ve tapped Lisa, but she’s Contracting this morning. With Benny hunting down Charlie and Jo and Lisa tied up…”
“Ketch was next in line,” Meg finished for him. “And he was probably slavering insane. I’m fucked, Dean. Say your goodbyes now. I’m dead.”
Dean laughed. “You’ve been in way worse scrapes than this, Meg. You freaked and turned your phone off. It’s not the end of the world. You apologize and take your punishment and go back home for lunch.” He maneuvered the car into a narrow parking lot where Benny’s Escalade sat near the door of a neighborhood diner. He parked in the back corner, away from the other vehicles. Meg eyed the diner warily. If Benny was here, Charlie probably was too.
“Don’t be a coward, Kemosabe,” Dean prodded with a back-of-the-hand slap at her thigh. “You and me have faced way worse than this and did it with our heads held high. Don’t go soft on me now.”
Meg clutched at his arm. “I can’t go in there, Dean. Charlie hates me. She came to me for help, and I sent her away in tears.”
Dean leaned across the bench and put his hand over hers. “Charlie could never hate you, kiddo. Maybe you helped more than she was ready for. If she lashed out, that’s not hate, it’s fear. I need you to buck up, stand up straight, look her straight in the eye, and be real for her. She doesn’t need you to cave on her now. She needs you to be strong. That’s what Pack does.”
“You don’t know what’s got her spooked though, Dean,” Meg tried futilely.
Dean winked and got out. Meg followed, trudging across the parking lot and hiding her cheek in her palm, willing the red handprint to fade before Benny saw it.
Inside, Charlie’s head came up first, and Meg looked away, scooting in beside her Pack Alpha with her eyes down and her slapped cheek averted. Charlie bit her lip. Her eyes welled up with tears as she turned to stare out the window. Dean took the booth spot next to Charlie, dropping an easy kiss on her cheek.
“Glad to see you feeling better,” he remarked glibly. “We missed you this morning. Must’ve been something awful to keep you at home when your main squeeze was up onstage strutting around like a mute peacock.”
Charlie huffed. “She’s not my… Oh, for Pete’s sake, Dean.”
“So, you’re feeling better?” he asked seriously.
“I…um…yes. I’m fine.” Charlie shot a look across at Benny and then at Meg before blushing and dropping her gaze to the Formica table.
Benny let his gaze go flat, but he said nothing, stirring creamer into his coffee.
Meg and Charlie both broke the silence at the same time:
“Charlie, I’m sorry…”
“Look, Benny, I can explain…”
Benny tapped his spoon on the side of his cup and then set it down on a napkin before lifting his cup to his lips. He acknowledged Dean with a slight nod after setting his mug back down. Dean leaned back and sought a waiter with his eyes, hoping to avoid entangling himself more than he already was. Charlie didn’t try to continue her explanation. Benny wasn’t ready to hear it. She blushed deeper red and folded her hands in her lap.
Dean signaled the waitress for coffee and a menu, and Benny turned to Meg who was steadfastly keeping her face in profile. He regarded her for a moment.
“Have you contacted your mate to let him know you’re alive? He’s very concerned that something upset you this morning after he left.”
Meg pulled her phone from her pocket and sent a quick and terse text to her mate. Benny nodded.
“Thank you. You know he worries about leaving you with a slew of construction workers around. We know some of them, Meg, but not all of them, and the trailer offers no protection from attack. Not really.”
“Then why did you move us out there?” Meg challenged. “Why not Jack and Jo instead?”
“I said Ketch worries. I didn’t say I was worried. Jo needs to maintain a steady household for her mother’s benefit. And Lisa is too inexperienced dealing with contractors and construction issues. You and Ketch were the ideal selection, and I won’t hear another word about it. But while you’re there alone, until our Pack compound is complete enough for the Pack to move in, you’re to follow your mate’s safety protocols. That includes answering your damn phone when he calls you. We clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Meg mumbled.
He was staring hard at the side of her face, and something about her body language gave her away. Slowly, Benny reached across and turned her to face him with a hand cradling her jaw. She sighed and closed her eyes. The handprint stood out stark and pink on her cheek, each finger outlined distinctly. Benny’s jaw twitched. He met Charlie’s eye, and she swallowed. He could be the gentlest bear of an Alpha when he was relaxed, no threat to anyone. When he laughed, it was nearly impossible to remember that he was a powerful Dominant and an Alpha who commanded fear in his enemies.
He wasn’t laughing now.
“Can you explain this?” he asked Charlie starkly.
She didn’t answer right away.
“Are you going to tell me it’s not what it looks like?”
Meg jerked her face out of his grasp. “It’s not a big deal,” she grumbled.
“That’s not for you to decide, beta,” Benny growled.
“Yes, it is,” Meg shot back. “It’s MY fucking cheek. You weren’t there. You didn’t see what happened. I torqued her up, and she was already tense.”
“Silence,” Benny said, not loudly, his eyes never leaving Charlie’s.
Charlie swallowed again.
“Answer the question,” Benny directed.
“I slapped her,” Charlie admitted. “Unprovoked. Meg didn’t do anything to deserve it. I just. I got scared, okay? I got scared and I lashed out and I bolted, and… Do we have to talk about it here?” She shot a nervous look around. There weren’t many diners, and everyone she could see was Lupin, but…still.
“I told you you should’ve taken it to Jo,” Meg told Charlie. “She wouldn’t have ramped you up and freaked you out. I’m no friend. Look at us. You came to me for help.” Dean reached across the table and placed his palm on the back of her trembling hand.
“No, it’s not your fault, Meg.” Charlie was crying openly now, huddled into herself with her arms wrapped around herself miserably, leaning away from Dean and his warmth. “I should never have put you in that position. It wasn’t fair.”
“Good,” said Benny. “That’s out of the way. Let’s get this over with so we can get some breakfast and go to work. Dean, order something filling for all of us. We’ll be right back.”
“You got it, Alpha,” Dean said, uncharacteristically serious as he slid out and waited for a lead-footed Charlie to ease past him. Charlie and Meg reluctantly followed Benny back out to the parking lot. If Charlie was put off by the public aspect of the interior of the restaurant, Dean had no doubt she was nearly peeing herself at being positioned bent at the waist and leaning into her hands against Benny’s rear bumper, side by side with Meg, her ass bared to passing traffic from two directions at the intersection of cross streets.
Dean ordered a couple of stacks of pancakes, extra bacon and sausage, the seasonal fruit, and a double serving of oatmeal along with four plates. Through the window, he couldn’t hear what Benny had to say, but he could recognize a lecture when he witnessed one, and he could hear both of the betas cry out when Benny’s strap landed hard on their backsides.
Around him, most of the diners were watching through the plate-glass windows, chewing beatifically, casually interested. Outside, more than a few motorists honked their horns as they drove past. Some shouted out their windows. Benny ignored them. Dean picked up a slice of bacon when the waitress slid a platter into the center of the table, and he ate it slowly, watching Benny help them both dress, turning each beta, cradling them each in his immense embrace and wiping tears away with his thumbs. Dean watched them cling to Benny and then to each other, sobbing into each other’s hair.
By the time they returned to the table, Dean was on his third slice of bacon, and everyone seemed far better put together. Benny gestured for Charlie to take the inside spot before sliding in next to her, and Dean scooted over to let Meg take his seat. Meg sat down and then kept on sliding until she was nearly in Dean’s lap. He wrapped both arms around her.
“Hey, now,” he chuckled. “You’re all right. Look, I got you pancakes.”
“I swear,” Charlie stated, loading her plate up from the platters in the middle. “If Garth fucked up my wiring, I’m gonna castrate the fucker.”
“You’ve got no one to blame for that but yourself,” Benny reminded her gently. “Nobody would’ve touched your equipment if you’d been there.”
“Alpha, I can’t,” Charlie said plaintively. “I can’t go back there, not while she’s there. Please don’t make me go back today.”
His eyes twinkled slightly, but his voice was careful. “You’re just going to run the board from your apartment, then? How’s that going to work?”
“You don’t get it…”
“Celeste,” he cut her off, dropping her given name as a means of getting her immediate attention.
“Nobody calls me that,” she protested weakly. “Charlene, maybe…sometimes…but…”
He held her eye until she found the wisdom to zip it and look chagrined. He nodded once he was certain she would shut up and listen. “What I understand is that you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t expect you to do this alone, Charlie, but you need to talk to that woman that you’re afraid to admit you love. No one’s going to try to force you two to Mate. You hear me? In fact, I forbid it. You belong to me, Charlie Bradbury Lafitte, and you don’t Mate without my permission. You’re not getting my permission to Mate Dorothy Baum, at least not any time soon. I suggest you two negotiate some other type of … relationship … connection … whatever. Whatever you decide to call it, it’ll still need to go through me for approval. I’m not going to leave you dangling in the wind trying to cobble something together that doesn’t give you what you need, and I’m not going to let you walk away from someone who’s important to you just because you’re afraid. Talk to her. Find out how she feels. Bring it to me. We’ll deal, Charlie. There’s more to love and attraction than biting someone’s neck and tying your life to theirs forever.”
Charlie had frozen in shock, staring in disbelief at Benny, her fork clutched like a dagger in her fist.
“Say something,” he prodded.
And the dam broke. Charlie dropped the fork and flung her arms around him, taking great handfuls of his shirt as she buried her face in his chest. “How did you know?” she muttered.
He chuckled, embracing her tightly. “Pretty hard to miss, to be honest. Dorothy had me flummoxed, but you, kiddo, you give the game away every time. You’re gonna wanna keep your day job, Charlie. The world of subterfuge is not for you.”
“Nuh-huh!” she protested adamantly. “Tell that to the international multi-corp I just redirected funds from!”
“What?” asked Benny.
“Um. I mean. How ‘bout this cantaloupe? Dean, you think we could get seconds? It’s really hitting the spot. Mm-mm!”
“Charlie?”
“Kidding, boss! Just kidding. I’m totally not redirecting funds from douchewad global nefarious corporations to aid California wildfire reclamation. I mean, who would do something like that? Crazy people, amirite? Coffee! I’m out of coffee!”
Dean snickered and hid it with a big bite of syrupy pancakes that bulged his cheeks. Meg shook her head and reached for more bacon.
“It was a shitshow without you. So, thanks for that,” Dorothy said, her tone bitter. “I spent two months on that seminar and no one past the third row heard a damn word I said. I hope you’re happy.”
Charlie kicked at an invisible lint ball on the rug between them.
“I see you’re feeling better,” Dorothy said into the lengthening silence. Neither of them was under any illusions that the other believed Charlie had been anything but skipping out.
Dorothy broke away, picked up her jacket, and took three steps for the door before stopping motionless and staring straight ahead.
“Just answer one question,” she said harshly. She pivoted on her heel. “Was ruining my presentation and making me look stupid the end goal, or is there more coming? I think I have a right to know.”
“I’m in love with you,” Charlie blurted.
Dorothy blinked. Her eyes narrowed, and she blinked again. “What, now?”
Charlie sucked in a breath to steel her nerves. “I-abandoned-you-today-and-fucked-up-your-seminar-because-I-just-realized-I-love-you-and-I-couldn’t-stand-for-you-to-know! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean for this to happen! I know it’s not what you’re looking for! I’ll understand if you can’t see me anymore!”
“Hold up! Back up a minute! You sabotaged the biggest presentation of my life because you love me? Fucking hell, Charlie!”
“I panicked!”
“You panicked.”
“YES! I knew you would look at me just like you’re looking at me right now, and you would roll your eyes in disgust and remind me that this isn’t what you signed up for and girls like us, we don’t Mate, and you’d walk out that door and never speak to me again, and I… I … I don’t want that, all right?”
“You don’t want…what, exactly?” Dorothy seemed frozen in place, in shock.
“I don’t want you to walk away from me! Can we, maybe, brainstorm something here? Can we talk about it? I’m not looking for a mate. I’m not!”
“Charlie, I don’t know what to say. You know I can’t Mate you. You know why. I told you everything. Why are you saying this? Why can’t things just stay the same? That was working for us, wasn’t it?”
“Because I fell …”
“Right. You’re in love. Jesus Christ. What do you want me to do?”
“Please.”
“I’m not going to Mate, lady. Not you, not anyone. No one owns me, but me! You don’t own me, Bradbury! I can’t believe this!”
“No! Dorothy, not mates. Listen to me. Think. You don’t have to say it back. It doesn’t work like that. But I’m not looking to Mate either.” Charlie swooped in close and took hold of Dorothy’s wrists, her face inches from the other woman’s. “I’m in love with you, and when I first realized that, it felt, I felt, ecstatically happy! And then I was terrified. I realized I can’t bear to lose you, not for this, not right when it became so clear how much you mean to me. Please, don’t you see? It changes everything, and it doesn’t have to change anything!”
“How long?” Dorothy asked coldly. “How long until you start to feel the itch for the bite? I’m not going to live like that, Red.”
“Not ever,” Charlie told her staunchly. “I’m no one’s mate either. I don’t ever want to marry. But what I do want…I want you. No gold bands. No scars. No metaphysical bonds. No mortgage. No ties except what I say to you, and you say to me. Dorothy Baum, I love you. I want you in my life from right now until time stops turning, and I’ll take you however you’re willing to show up. And I’ll never, ever leave you with poor mic coverage ever again.”
Dorothy looked struck speechless. She adjusted her hands slowly until her fingers were laced with Charlie’s. She stared at their hands, and her mouth opened and closed several times before she found words. “No bonds…ever?”
“No bonds ever,” Charlie confirmed. “No expectations. No rules. No Pack. No documents. No pups. When you’re away, I’ll text you and make you laugh. When you’re home, I’ll sleep over and sex you up until you’re dizzy. If you get pissed at me, you can yell, and then we’ll make up and start over. And I won’t ever ask for more than what you give me.” Charlie worked her right hand free and held her pinkie out. “Pinkie swears are as binding a vow as you’ll ever owe me.”
Dorothy balked. She shook her head, staring at the pinkie. “You’ll want more. Eventually. Charlie, I can’t.”
“That’s not for you to worry about, beta,” Charlie answered. “You don’t own me. I’m a free woman … mostly … except that I have a Pack Alpha and all that goes with that. But he’s not going to push for more either! I swear! Benny’s cool. It’s just you and me and taking each day as it comes. C’mon, Baum. It’s an adventure. Be adventurous with me.”
“You skipped my seminar because you realized you love me?” Dorothy said, still staring at Charlie’s pinkie.
“Yes! Keep up! Come on, babe! It’ll be fun. Let’s show ‘em all they’re wrong about biological mandates. Let’s give free will a spin! Huh? What’dya say?”
“Charlie, I’m gone for months at a time…”
“And I’ll miss the hell out of you, and I’ll find someone boring to fuck in the meantime, and then I’ll make it all up to you when you get back!” Charlie felt electric, invincible. She could feel the beta’s defenses falling.
“Even if I never join your Pack?” Dorothy questioned, her face a grimace, certain she’d found the weakness in the plan.
“Pssshh! You’re not invited to join, you bitch. You’re way too gloomy. You and Ketch in the same Pack? No way! You’d scare off all the new recruits!”
“I’m not gloomy! And how are you calling me a bitch when you practically just proposed!” Dorothy set her feet and put her fists on her hips in offense.
“You are kinda gloomy. Maudlin, even. But I love you anyway, and I didn’t propose. I did the opposite. I … anti-proposed! Dorothy Baum, will you NOT Mate me or marry me or…anything…me for the rest of our lives, and will you stick around all that time to make sure that NOT Mating and marrying sticks?”
It was too much. Dorothy burst out in laughter that ended in a tight embrace and a hand splayed at the back of Charlie’s head to hold onto her and make certain she was real. Her laughter shifted to sobs, and she sank slowly to her knees, taking Charlie with her. She sniffled into Charlie’s hair.
“How do I even answer that?” she asked, pulling back.
“Little less snot would be appreciated,” Charlie quipped to cut the tension.
Dorothy laughed through her sobs. She found Charlie’s hand, and with extreme care, she isolated Charlie’s pinkie. Wrapping her own pinkie around Charlie’s, she sobered her expression and chanted, “Charlie Bradbury, I swear not to marry or Mate you. And if you ever stand me up for an important presentation again, I will flay you personally until you have to learn to wire a microphone with no fingers.”
As she looked up into Charlie’s eyes, saw the agonizing effort to hide how much affection Charlie felt, and found herself desperate never to see that pain again, she leaned in slowly and kissed it off Charlie’s face. Their pinkies still locked, Dorothy had only one hand free to caress Charlie’s face. She leaned her forehead against Charlie’s, breaking their lips apart, and whispered, “I love you, too, you bitch. Took you long enough.”
“Wha…?!” Charlie sputtered, but Dorothy cut her off with another fiery kiss.
Charlie was shit at keeping a secret, and as word spread, wolves began to spontaneously congregate at Zeke’s bar to wish the happy non-couple well. Dorothy found herself the unwitting subject of a full third degree from Castiel concerning her intentions, a turn of events that she found supremely unfair and one that she stood her ground through, shooting daggers over his shoulder at Charlie, sitting in a booth with Michael, nonchalantly sipping beer from a bottle.
“What do you think he’s asking her?” Charlie posed. “He looks deadly serious. You don’t think he might scare her off, do you?”
Michael shrugged. “If he does, then she wasn’t worth her salt anyway.” Glancing across, Michael chuckled. “I don’t believe you need to worry though. Looks like to me, looks like he’s got her defensive, and that’ll bring out the stubborn in someone like Dorothy. You should write Alpha a thank-you note after tonight. Wild horses won’t be able to tear her away from you after this.” Michael took a long drink, seeking out April with his eyes. Pete was at the bar with Dean, the two of them laughing hysterically at something or other. Michael smiled.
“You think so?” Charlie could only watch and worry.
“Mm,” Michael replied.
“Well, I’ve got until Benny gets here to ready my own defense,” Charlie told him glumly. “God, you should’ve seen him this morning. He was pissed. I’m pretty sure my right ass-cheek is gone altogether.”
“Serves you right, you know,” he lectured, halfway between Everyone’s Mama and Wet Cat.
“I know,” she agreed. Charlie glanced around but Meg and Ketch were noticeably missing. She sent up a small prayer for her friend’s welfare before her eyes settled back on Michael sitting across the table from her.
“What’s eating you?” she asked. “You’re about as celebratory as a bar rag. Can’t you be happy for your best friend on her big day?”
His eyes snapped from April to Charlie. “What? Of course I’m happy for you. See? I’m smiling. Besides, since when are you and I best friends?”
“Oh, please,” she protested.
“I thought the whole point of tonight’s festivities was that you’d just proclaimed Dorothy your newest best friend.” Michael popped a pretzel into his mouth and found April again with his eyes. Charlie’s followed his.
“Haven’t you been listening?” Charlie challenged, reaching across to grab his chin and bring his eyes back to her. “Dorothy and I are the opposite of best friends. We’re best nothings. We committed to not being labelable. That leaves a vacancy in my lineup, so you’re up, buddy boy. Get crackin’. Do best friend stuff, stat!”
Michael chuckled. “I appreciate the nomination. I’m honored. I will endeavor to live up to whatever I’m supposed to be doing for you.”
“You’re a prick,” she decided. “Why do I like you?”
“No idea,” he murmured. “I’m not throwing any non-bridal showers.”
“Hey!!” Charlie’s fingers snapped in his face, and Michael was startled to realize he’d drifted away again.
Charlie was affronted. “Two seconds, Michael! Can you not be happy for someone else for two fucking seconds!! She’s not going anywhere in the next few minutes. She lives in your fucking house! You can look away long enough to share a beer with a friend! Jesus!”
“Sorry,” he sighed, straightening in his seat, his ears going red when he felt Castiel’s eyes pulled to their booth at Charlie’s volume. “You’re right. And I am happy for you. I really am. Congratulations, Charlie. You pulled off something important, and I wish you two all the best.”
“That’s better. Thank you.” Mollified, Charlie nudged his ankle with her foot. “She’s pretty damned sexy, isn’t she? Look at her. She’s got her dander up. Look at that posture. You know what that is? That’s the love of my life fighting for the right to never Claim me. God, she’s incredible!”
“Maybe I’ll ask her for pointers,” Michael mumbled.
Charlie shot him a perplexed glance and then cottoned on fast and looked across at April just as the Ozzie was bestowing a dazzling smile over at Michael, apropos of who knew what. But Dean was grinning too, and that meant cahoots. Michael’s lip twitched upward, and he took a long drink, released a slow breath, and then blushed when he found Charlie’s eyes on him again.
“You haven’t Claimed her yet?” Charlie asked.
Michael licked his lips. “Unimportant,” he stated. “This is your night. Let’s see who’s up for pool.”
Michael was out of the booth before he finished speaking, but Charlie caught his arm and stopped him. “It’s okay to wait until the time is ripe, Michael. If you try to force it, you might hurt her.”
His breath was shaky when he let it out. “The time is never going to be ripe. I’m kidding myself that waiting will make any difference. Come on. I’ll spot you four in the pocket, and you can pick solids or stripes.”
“Asshole! I don’t need your charity. I’ll wipe the floor with your ass. Oi! Winchester! Grab a stick! We’re hitting felt! It’s you and me against Jo and Michael!”
“Charity?” Michael exclaimed. “Of course you don’t need charity if you’ve got Dean on your team. Who picked these teams? I want a redress!”
“Shut up and break,” Jo told him, whacking him on the ass as she passed by to select a cue.
“Go get ‘em, baby!” Jack called, raising his tumbler in the air without leaving his barstool.
“Be right back, sugar!” she called back without lifting her eyes off the triangle she was racking.
“I need a puke bucket,” Dean commented dryly, but he winked at Michael as he found a spot by the wall with his cue.
“Suck it, Winchester,” Jo added, lifting the triangle and hanging it on a nail on the wall. “I may take a fuck-break halfway through and make you watch. It’d serve you right.”
“Bring it, blondie,” he quipped back. “I’ve been dying for an eyeful of that hot piece of ass you Mated.”
The sound of the break startled Dean into looking around, and he hung his head in mock apology when he caught Michael’s possessive expression. Michael’s green eyes were golden haloed, and they sizzled with menace, burning into Dean’s even as the balls ricocheted about, and three stripes fell. Dean sauntered up and lifted Michael from his doubled-over position with a palm on his chest. He left a searing kiss as he walked Michael backward to the wall and pressed him up against it.
“You, baby. Not him. Just you,” Dean murmured.
“Liar,” Michael said softly, pulling Dean in for a deeper kiss and letting their wolves have a taste. They heard the sound of Jo taking the follow-up shot but waited until Charlie cleared her throat before pulling apart.
Dean smirked, finding a spot at the table and adjusting his cue before tearing his eyes away from his mate’s. His shot was fast and clean and powerful, and he flowed from one position to the next with no evident need to calculate his chances. Solids dropped. The table cleared. Dean flicked his eyes briefly to Jo’s, tapped the corner hole with his cue stick, and then shot smoothly, sinking the eight ball.
“Table’s yours, Harvelle. You were saying?”
“Shut up and reset the damn game,” she muttered acerbically. “Jack, babe, bring me a beer!”
“Coming!”
It was a good night, all in all. Charlie abandoned her doubles partner when Benny showed up, and Jack took her place, proving a far more adept player than she’d been, to Dean’s delight. The two of them cleaned up until their mates demanded a shuffling of teams. Jo and Dean versus Jack and Michael was far more even a match. It wound down to a final shot of a final game—a shot that Dean blew disastrously when Cas slipped up beside him and whispered unexpected filth in his ear. Smug, Cas sauntered away without looking back, blind to the shocked and betrayed expression on his husband’s face.
Michael bought a victory round and claimed a victory kiss from April, who was only too happy to oblige. It was their first evening out in months, away from the pups and free to revel. All four of them threw themselves into it with intentional abandon in the knowledge that barring a catastrophe, they had most of tomorrow to themselves as well. It had taken some scrambling, but once things began to fall into place, everything fell just right. All four of them were ready for a night of adult entertainment, each worn out from their own particular burdens.
Charlie and Dorothy couldn’t have chosen a better time not to tie the knot.
Sam and Jess joined them as the hour lengthened. The two looked every bit as ready for a night of freedom as Dean and his co-parents were. He set them up with drinks to get them started and urged Dorothy closer so she was in prime position to field their questions, catching Sam and Jess up in every way.
It took a couple of tries for Jess to catch Dean’s attention, what with the boisterous volume in the bar.
“What was that?” he hollered with his hand cupped at his ear.
“Where’s Sarah?” Jess repeated.
Dean nodded that he’d heard that time. He raised his voice above the din. “She volunteered to take the graveyard shift with the pups! She’s probably asleep right now, trying to get a nap before her turn!”
“Alone?!”
“No! No! She’s teaming up with Eunice! Gabe, Fred, and Kali have them until one! Sarah and Eunice take over until six! Monique’s partnering with Cain at dawn until Fred comes back! It’s a patchwork, but they swear they’ve got us covered all the way until one or two in the afternoon! Have another beer!”
“Don’t mind if I do!” Jess shouted back. Dean laughed at her apparent discomfort at the volume, and he took her elbow and steered her further in, deeper to where it wasn’t necessary to shout.
Jess sighed in relief. “Thanks, Dean. I’m too old for that kind of noise.” He nodded in understanding, tugging at his own earlobe in an effort to pop his ear before sliding into the last empty booth. “I bet you’re as ready for a night like this as I am,” she continued. “It’s been insane at work lately.”
“Sam said you won the case you’ve been working so hard on though,” Dean mentioned carefully. “Can you take a break yet? Maybe a week off? You never did get much of a honeymoon, you know.”
“I know,” she agreed. “Believe me, I’m not about to forget. Sam reminds me at least twice a month. But it’s not linear with these cases. We don’t have the luxury of working on just one at a time. As soon as one case ends, the next one is primed and prepped and ready to go to court. There’s no good way to take a break.”
Dean frowned. “Jess, you can’t live like that forever. It’s a meat grinder.”
“I took twelve weeks when the twins came home,” she reminded him.
“Sweetie, that was a year ago!” Dean protested. “And it wasn’t a vacation, either. It was hard work. I remember. I was there. When do you get a real break?”
“I told you, Dean. I can take a day or two here or there, but there’s just no way I can be gone for a whole week, much less two. Not right now.”
“I know one way, but I don’t know if you’ll wanna hear it.” Dean swigged from his beer bottle and kept her eyes. She narrowed them and then shook her head.
“No. No way.”
“Wouldja just hear me out?” He leaned across the table. “Look, you’ve got the credentials. You’ve got a killer resume. You did your time in the trenches. You’ve seen firsthand what we’re up against. Jess, we need attorneys like you. Don’t you get it? If we don’t hire you, it’ll be someone else from your office—someone who doesn’t have the snap you have, but who had the guts to apply for the job! We don’t want them, Jessica. We want you! Just take a look at the job posting. You fit it. You’re perfect for it.”
“I fit it,” she accused, “because you wrote it from my resume.”
“We did no such thing!” Dean defended. “Go back and look at previous job postings if you don’t believe me. Go back however many years you want to. You fit it because the job requires someone with courtroom defender experience, someone who’s worked with Lupins of all designations and who’s got a win-to-loss ratio that proves they can back up the shingle on their wall. Jess, you know the laws governing and limiting our people like the back of your hand. Aren’t you itching to stop trying to work for the good of our species in spite of the laws and work with them? No one knows where the injustices are like a public defender does! Damnit, beta, we need you. Just look at the job posting.”
“All right! Fine! I’ll look.”
“And even if you don’t apply,” he said huffily. “You’re taking a goddamn vacation soon. Don’t make me set Cas on your ass to get you to put in for it.”
“I worry about leaving them, Dean,” she admitted sadly.
“The twins?” he asked.
“The Ozzies on my docket,” she clarified. “The most horrible things happen to them in the system when a defender drops their case. A simple vacation for me could mean an uprooting of an Ozzie from everything they’ve ever known and getting shipped cross-country to live with an alpha who beats them. How can a week on a beach justify that?”
“You’re no help to anyone if you burn yourself out, Jess. And that’s the track you’re on. Your boys need you healthy. Your clients need you healthy. And beta, you’re not going to save everyone. That hurts, but it’s the truth. Come join a team where you can make a difference by the tens of thousands, not just the ones.”
“Easy to say unless you’ve looked into that one’s eyes and seen her desperation,” Jess said fatalistically.
“I’ve seen her desperation, Jess,” Dean reminded her.
She reached across and took his hand, feeling the trembling in his fingers as his adamance affected his nervous system. “I know, Dean. But then you understand how hard it is to turn my back on individuals whose cases I know I can impact. Maybe I’d be helping more people by working for Cas and maybe not, but if I leave the people who’ve grown to depend on me, … How can I face a choice like that? How can I leave them when they’re so vulnerable?”
“You’re not the only defender in the P.D.’s office, beta. And when you leave, they’ll hire someone bright and ready just like they did you. You aren’t leaving them with no one. But you can’t do everything alone anyway. You can only do so much. You’re only one person. Join us though, and we can magnify your reach.”
Jess became still and thoughtful before breaking out in an enormous grin.
“What?” asked Dean, always ready for an inside joke.
Jess cackled slightly. “Cas hates his lawyers,” she said conspiratorially. “I’d be a thorn in his side on the job, and he’d tie himself in knots to avoid bringing it home with him.”
Dean chuckled. “He hates the contract and business lawyers,” he clarified. “He’s actually a lot warmer to the legislative and the project attorneys.”
“You’re a shitty liar, Winchester.”
“I’ve been told,” he said with a swig of his beer that emptied the bottle.
“Dean.” She sighed as she stopped him from leaving with a hand on his arm. “Sam didn’t put you up to asking me, did he? Please be honest.”
Dean sat back down on the edge of her bench and wrapped both of his hands under her arms to pull her close. “Sam would kick my ass if he knew I was propositioning you about this. That’s the God’s honest truth, Jess. But some things are worth an ass-kicking.” He rose again, pressed a hand into her shoulder, and left her sitting there, thinking.
“This stool taken?” Michael asked suavely as he slid onto it, appearing out of nowhere, nearly overbalancing off the other side.
April’s face lit up, and she leaned in to kiss him. “You smell like sweat and a barrel of hops,” she told him, wrinkling her face in distaste.
“I might be… a little bit drunk-ish,” he admitted.
“A little bit?” she questioned. “You’re swaying.”
“I’m good,” he disagreed. Holding onto the bar helped.
“How about a walk?” April suggested. “You could use some air. Walk me home, big boy?” She batted her eyes coquettishly, and Michael’s laugh was a sophomoric bubble bursting wetly through his lips. April smiled in amusement. “I’ll go tell Cas. Don’t move. Don’t fall over. I’m not good at picking men up off the ground.”
“Pssshh! Fall over. Huh! I’m good.”
“Mm-hm.” She left him carefully, one hand trailing across his sternum as if unsure what would happen if she removed it too quickly. Michael blinked owlishly, following her reflection in the mirror behind the bar as well as he could. She didn’t go far, and she returned in a matter of moments.
“So, bad news,” she told him. “No walking home for unaccompanied drunk Omegas. Alpha’s orders. He’s calling us a cab. We can, however, wait outside on the sidewalk as long as we stay close. Can you make it to the sidewalk?”
“Unaccompa…? Unaccomped? I’m not unaccomp…anied. I have you!” Michael slurred, following her off the stools. “And you smell nice. C’mere.” He draped himself over her as she staggered toward the door.
“My hero,” she deadpanned in an amused voice.
“No, no, you’re MY hero,” he disagreed. “You’re gonna fight off all the randy alphas that try to waylay us on our way home. Get ‘em! Look! There’s one now! Attack!” Michael lowered his head and head-butted Benny in the gut, only to find himself somehow looking at the stars from flat on his back on the pavement. Benny leaned over him, frowning as he assessed Michael’s condition.
“I’m taking him home, Alpha,” April told Benny.
“Well, it’s either home or to the hospital to get his stomach pumped,” Benny agreed. “See if you can get some water and an aspirin down him before he passes out. And I think you’d better share our Uber. I’m not comfortable with the two of you travelling alone.”
“Thank you, sir,” April told him. Benny helped Michael find the vertical again, but it didn’t last. Michael bolted for the bushes beside the front door and heaved his guts up, groaning miserably about how everything had suddenly begun to spin about.
“Ah, good,” Benny joked. “No need for a stomach pump after all. He chose the cheap route.” Benny ambled over and supported Michael’s head as he retched again. Looking up, he spotted Castiel, concerned, in the doorway. “We’ve got him, brother,” Benny soothed. “Andrea and I were just heading home. We’ll drop your Omegas off on the way. Michael’s gonna feel better in a bit. You go on back in and take your time.”
Cas nodded. He looked April over quickly, gave her a hug and a kiss, thanked her for helping Michael get home, and traced along their Mating-bond enough to be sure she wasn’t impaired to the degree that Michael was. April giggled at the touch, and Cas dropped another kiss to the corner of her mouth, charmed as usual by his mate’s youth and vibrance. “Go straight home,” he instructed. “Obey Benny. I want you in bed asleep by the time I get home, but if Michael is still vomiting in half an hour, call me. Drink some water. Don’t check on the pups. They’re in good hands. I’ll see you in the morning.” He couldn’t resist kissing her again. She was receptive and sweet and warm, and Cas felt a pang at watching her walk away when the Uber pulled up. He bit his upper lip and stopped his feet from following her to a place he knew there were beds.
Dean appeared at his shoulder. “We can go if you want, Alpha. It’s okay with me if you need your mate tonight. Don’t let it go longer than you need. Don’t hurt yourself trying to stay pure on my account.”
Cas had been listening with half an ear, but at the last, he laughed outright. He cuffed Dean upside the head playfully. “Brat,” he said. He wrapped an arm over Dean’s shoulder and steered him back into the bar. The throng was thinner, but there was still a hometown crowd busying up the joint, and Cas felt good.
One last look over his shoulder as the Uber pulled away and his mate waved from the backseat, and Cas let the warmth of the bar distract him from the power of his mate’s pull. He rarely felt it tug at him this hard. A night out with his husband wouldn’t hurt his Mating-bond. He would make it up to her tomorrow. He found an empty bar stool, and he pulled Dean between his knees, leaving the man breathless with laughter as his lips found all the ticklish places behind Dean’s ear.
There was something carnal and grounded and utterly real about the feel of Dean’s muscles under his hands when they were a bit sloshed that wasn’t there when they were sober. It was a delight Cas couldn’t get enough of, and his hands splayed out over Dean’s ribs, feeling every twitch, every shift of his body beneath his clothes. Cas wrapped his hands around Dean’s torso and lifted, setting him upon the bar itself. Cas turned into him, shoving Dean’s knees wider and huffing a drunken breath into his belly until Dean curled over him in near hysterics at how it tickled. Cas grinned up at him.
“You’re incredible,” he said earnestly. “And you’re beautiful.”
“And you cheat,” Dean accused, bringing his knees in tight to force Castiel’s mouth away from his belly.
Cas chuckled meatily. “I do. And you love me anyway.”
“I love you anyway,” Dean agreed, bending over to claim his husband’s lips. “I love you so much, you cheating bastard. Come and let me kick your ass at darts. Either that or stop playing around and go ahead and fuck me over this bar. The teasing is driving me crazy.”
“Mm, tempting,” Cas admitted glancing left and right for a quick read on the room.
“C’mon, babe. There are no apes here. We scared ‘em all away hours ago.”
“Mm, so tempting,” murmured Cas. “But we’ve got more at stake than we used to have, and when I fuck you, I want to pound you like I mean it. You’ll have to wait for it, I’m afraid.”
“Jesus, man. You can’t say shit like that.”
“Come on, Dean. Darts. Remind me how the scoring goes?”
“Asshole. You know how to score darts.”
“That’s true,” Cas teased as he lifted Dean down and set him on his feet. “And I’m not bad at hitting the target I’m aiming for.”
“Yes, well, I can vouch for that.” Dean let Cas claim his mouth, his lips, his tongue. Dean felt a little dizzy when Cas grabbed him by the hand and marched him assertively across the bar to the dart board.
He still beat the Alpha in three games out of five.
April unclipped Portia’s leash just inside the garage door and then removed her halter, hanging both by the door before kicking her shoes off, adjusting their positioning against the wall, and following the fluffy black dog into the kitchen.
Sam was up and making breakfast. He looked as chipper as ever. “Hey, kiddo,” he greeted. “Thought I was the first one up. How do you feel after last night’s festivities?”
April insinuated herself under his arm and snuggled in close, breathing in the happy scent of Pack and feeling welcome and loved. “I didn’t drink all that much,” she told him. She stole a slice of bacon from the plate and ate it slowly, holding the plate out for Sam to remove the newest slices from the pan. “Michael’s the only one who really overdid it. I expect he’s going to be miserable this morning.” Portia nudged April’s leg and then tried Sam’s. The beta hissed at the dog and pointed to her bed in the corner. She dropped her head and slunk her way across the room, collapsing unhappily into her cushion. April snorted.
“Poor thing. She acts like no one ever gives her anything. I fed her before we went out, and then I let her run with Cas for a few blocks before we stopped to walk the rest of the way. She’s already had more of a day than the rest of us, and she still wants more.”
“Well, I mean,” said Sam reasonably. “There’s bacon.”
April giggled.
“So, Cas is up already too?”
“He’s out running. We left together, but I only run as far as I have to to satisfy the dog. I’m no runner.”
“Me either,” Sam agreed. “If you see me running, it’s probably the zombie apocalypse, and you should turn and run with me. Coffee?”
“Yes, please!”
Sam poured her a cup. “Don’t say yes,” he warned, “if you’re not supposed to. Please don’t get us both in trouble.”
She smiled. “I’m allowed coffee before breakfast,” she assured him. “It’s only once the meal starts that I’m restricted.” She pulled herself up to sit on the counter by the sink, and she sipped her coffee, closing her eyes to take in the aroma.
“If Cas is out running, Michael overindulged, Gabe and Kali stayed up late babysitting, and Jess has her first opportunity in months to sleep in, it might be just you and me for breakfast.” Sam swapped pans out and began to whisk eggs. “What happens,” he wondered, “if you’re alone at breakfast, and your mate is otherwise occupied?”
“That’s not an issue,” Cas told him, walking in and helping April off the counter. “Her mate isn’t otherwise occupied.” He kissed her and then stole her bacon, smirking.
“No disrespect, Alpha,” Sam said, unruffled. “But, say you got tied up unexpectedly at breakfast. You’ve got some Dominants around most of the time. Would you rather she skip the rituals or have one of us step in? How critical is it that we follow the script? Can she miss?”
Cas had an arm around her waist, and she fit herself into his side as if she had been born there. “She can miss a day, Sam. If it’s one breakfast, it would be better to allow her to take a chair rather than disrupt her training by switching leads without preparation. If it goes longer than one day, and I’m unavailable for direction, consult Jo and Dean. They know what she needs.”
Sam nodded. “If it helps, sir, I would be happy to step in. Perhaps it would make sense to make some emergency plans. You could talk me through the critical points. I know it would be on an emergency basis only, but I’m a worst-case-scenario kind of guy, and it would make me feel better if there’s a plan in place.”
Cas stared at him for a moment, speechless. “Um, thank you, Sam. I will take that under advisement. I suppose it’s possible that I could be hospitalized or called away unexpectedly at some point when Cain is unavailable. I expect that to be unlikely, but it wouldn’t hurt to allow you to sit in on my sessions with him. It wouldn’t hurt for you to learn how to manage April’s morning routine. Speaking of which…” Cas let her go and smacked her backside to send her back up to her room to prep for breakfast. She smirked as she grabbed her coffee mug on the way and took the last of her bacon back, stuffing it all into her mouth.
Cas grinned as she left.
“What brought that on?” he asked Sam. He began rifling through the cabinet for plates.
“My Impact class with the apes, actually,” Sam admitted. “Sometimes it goes a little off-script and turns into a Q&A about Doms and Subs in Lupin daily life. It feels good to straighten out some misconceptions. We got to discussing the ramifications of conditioning an Omega, an Ozzie in particular, to a certain routine and then having it pulled out from under them due to an upset in the household. It made me think about it. It was a good question, and I didn’t have a ready answer.”
“It was. Good thinking, Sam. I’m glad you keep on your toes, and I’m glad you feel empowered to speak up when you have a concern.”
“Well, that comes from good leadership, sir. You make it safe to speak my mind.”
“Hmm. I try. And I always have Gabriel prepared to remind me when I fail.”
Sam laughed. “Well, to tell you the truth, my paddle arm needed a break that class, so a Q&A was very welcome. Since Sarah offered to let the students get a taste for how it’s supposed to feel when they do it right, I’m getting the workout of my life. Everyone wants a turn. I mean, you’d think they would take our word for it, but…” Sam chuckled. “It’s turning into a rite of passage.”
“Sam.”
“What?”
Sam turned and found the Alpha staring intently at him with his mouth agape.
“Your Primate students are paddled in class?”
“Well, yeah. They practice on each other some, you know?”
“On each other?”
“Of course. I mean, we have dummies too, but they don’t graduate until they can deliver on a live person. That only happens when they have a real model to practice on.”
“Right. I understand. We agreed that as long as they sign the waiver that exculpates the ACRI from accountability if they are charged with battery for practicing, that they be allowed to practice on each other. But you said they’re standing in line for…For what, exactly? Sam, you’re not striking Primates yourself, are you? Sarah isn’t striking anyone. Tell me I’ve misunderstood.”
“I mean…” Sam blinked.
Castiel didn’t blink.
Sam swallowed and turned the fire off under the eggs.
“Samuel, have you, at any time during the course of your classes teaching Primates the proper techniques for corporal punishment, ever, even once, struck a Primate student with a paddle, whether in punishment or in demonstration? Answer me honestly.”
“Yes, Sir. I have.”
Cas let the weight of the admission reverberate in the kitchen.
“Sir, we thought…”
“We?”
“Yes, Alpha. Sarah and me. We both agreed that it was an insurmountable hindrance to be confined to pointing and directing when demonstrating cuts straight through everything. Nothing explains better than feeling it for yourself.”
Cas closed his eyes. He rubbed his forehead with a hand. “Sam, the scope of the class. We were as clear as we could possibly be. The legal team wrangled it for weeks. You can’t touch them. You told me you understood! How could you change the scope without consulting me? Do you realize what you’ve done?!”
Sam’s mouth fell slack. “No, Sir. I didn’t think…”
“No, you didn’t think! Go wake Sarah. Bring her to my office. Classes are cancelled until further notice.”
“Yes, Sir.” Sam beat a hasty retreat up the back stairs toward Sarah’s little apartment over the garage. Portia fell in with Castiel as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. He found Dean showering, and he stripped off and climbed in with him, sluicing the sweat of a fast run off his body. The dog curled up on the bathmat. He filled Dean in, and the two of them dressed casually for the weekend before confronting Sam and Sarah in Castiel’s office.
Castiel could hear them in his office, stressed voices in a loud whisper as he stalked across the foyer with his husband and Portia in tow. He didn’t feel any sympathy. Sam had flagrantly put Castiel’s reputation at risk, and he’d jeopardized the progress of the movement. They could be looking at a lawsuit at the very least, at most, a federal stoppage and charges of assault. They could lose their licenses, all of them. He rounded the doorway, noting the immediate silence that followed, and he placed himself behind his desk, leaning into his arms with his fingertips splayed on the gleaming surface. His eyes shifted to crimson.
“Explain this to me.”
Sam rose from the sofa. “Sir. Alpha. The course has evolved so many times since its inception. We’re always adjusting, tweaking, tossing out what’s not working, sliding in new ideas… We’ve changed so many things about how we present the information. We lost sight of the mandate to keep a wall in place between Lupins and Primates in terms of direct contact.”
“You forgot,” Cas stated coldly in summation.
“We forgot,” Sam agreed. He shot a nervous look to his right where Dean lingered in the doorway, one hand idly fingering his chin and his eyes on the patterned rug at his feet.
Castiel turned his eyes on Sarah, mutely commanding a statement from her as well. She hiccupped and then stammered a bit before finding her voice. “Sir, it…it … was … wasn’t something we really even considered. Not in the way we should have. It seemed a natural progression. Everyone was frustrated at the disconnect. We were so close to conveying the exact feel that we were trying to elicit, both from the delivery side and the receiving side…but…well, hitting a silicone dummy doesn’t illustrate what we need to illustrate the way letting someone feel the power in the swing does.”
“I see.”
Cas didn’t soften his expression. He let the silence lengthen, watching the two of them fidget. Sarah glanced at Sam, and Sam frowned at the floor.
At length, Sam’s frown deepened, and he drew in a breath to speak, looking bravely back up at the Alpha.
“Sir, I get it. When we began to flounder, we should have brought it to you or Dean. We should have put it all out on the table and worked out a solution that doesn’t cross legal limits. But we were both so determined to make this class a success and coming to you for help would’ve felt like an admission that we couldn’t do it on our own. We wanted to do it on our own.”
“You were prideful,” Cas commented softly. “Tell me something, Samuel. Where is your gold medal for solo completion of a complex mission? Who bestows that honor upon you? The Universe? Do you have a box of these medals somewhere? Under who’s auspices are you directed to work out your conundrums alone?”
Sam chose not to answer. Sarah chewed her lower lip.
“What happens now?” she whispered nervously. Castiel’s eyes shifted to her face, and he studied her. How far into Lupin norms had she travelled? Was she capable of understanding the next steps?
“What happens now,” Castiel said, turning his back and thinking as he spoke. “Is a cessation of the class, likely including a refund of tuition funds and a forfeiture of overhead costs. You and Sam will provide full statements to the Internal Investigations Committee, as will some of your clients, I’m sure. Legal will need to be involved. We need to know if you’ve done any lasting damage to the brand or to the mission. That will take time to unravel.”
Behind him, Cas heard the sound of Sarah dropping hard onto the seat of the sofa. He turned. She had her head in her hands. Sam’s hand rested comfortingly on her shoulder.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Castiel added. “At least it came out before any of the clients filed a complaint. Sarah, you have a modicum of an excuse in that you’re still a student yourself, and you’re not yet fully certified in correctional techniques. Your presence in the classroom was one of support, and as such, I have no intention of holding you more to account than is fair.”
Sam shifted, knowing there was a But coming. Cas didn’t torture him with a long wait.
“But you, Samuel. You are the lead classroom instructor, the course designer, its chief cheerleader, and the primary responsible party. This was your baby, and I’m holding you entirely responsible.”
Sam’s face flushed. He resisted fidgeting with a monumental effort. Keeping his eyes up took everything he had.
“Yes, Sir. You have my sincerest apology, Alpha. I let you down. I let The Facility down. And I’m very sorry.”
“I’m exceedingly disappointed in you both, and you will both be punished. Sam, your punishment will be administered here, but it will be logged in your employee file. If there’s a bright spot for you, you can at least rest easy that you won’t face double-jeopardy when the Committee reaches the conclusion that a stiff punishment is warranted. One correction will do.”
“Yessir,” Sam muttered stoically, losing the battle to keep his eyes up.
“Sarah.”
“Sir.”
“As a student employee of the ACRI, and a Primate, you do not fall under the awning of punishable employees. For the same reasons it is inadvisable to demonstrate corporal punishment directly on your Primate students in a spanking class, The Facility cannot apply corporal punishment to you as an employee. Spanking Primates is against the law, and the ACRI follows the law in all matters. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir. But then…?”
Cas continued, glancing at Dean briefly. Dean was listening intently, cataloguing and following, but he had nothing to add. “I plan to leave your institutional punishment for the Committee to name, if they should feel a reprimand is warranted. You can expect to have such a reprimand added to your employee file, and you may face other penalties as well. I won’t try to guess what they will deem appropriate as I really have very little experience with alternate means of correcting a wayward employee.”
“I understand, Sir. Whatever they name for me, I will do my best to hold myself accountable and to overcome. I’m still determined to prove that I can succeed in a Lupin environment.”
“Indeed. I expect no less,” Castiel told her. “But that is in answer to the question of your institutional punishment. You still owe a debt to me personally as your Alpha.”
Her head popped up, and her pupils contracted. “Sir?”
“You cannot imagine I plan to let this go without a Pack response. You broke faith with me, Sarah. You embarrassed me before professional colleagues to whom I defended and championed you. I am in a position now to appear before them with my hat in my hand and admit that I miscalculated your judgment.”
“You’re going to sp…spank me?”
“I am.”
Her face lost all color, and had she not been seated already, her legs would have folded. Sam’s arm crossed behind her to hold her across her shoulders and pull her to lean into his hip. “You just said it’s illegal…” she murmured.
Cas raised a brow. That brow. “Institutional corporal punishment of Primates is off the table, Sarah,” he said simply. “I won’t put my business at risk over this. But you know my mind where Pack matters are concerned, and you knew this moment would come eventually. We have an agreement, do we not?”
“It’s okay,” Sam said softly. “It’ll hurt, but he won’t kill you. Better to get it over with. The anticipation is the worst part.”
Sarah clutched at Sam’s hand, and she looked up at his face, terrified.
“Shh,” he soothed, sitting down next to her. Cas let him speak. “It won’t be as bad as you’re imagining. Just remember everything we’ve been teaching in class. You’ve got this, Sarah, from a theoretical perspective. Now it’s time to take what you know to the practical side. You’re gonna be fine. And look, I’m so sorry. This is my fault. We had hours of meetings that you weren’t a part of, hashing out the boundary lines, all the legal limits. I knew all that, and I let my enthusiasm cloud my judgment and talk me into pretending I didn’t know we were crossing lines. I’m sorry. I let you down when I should’ve known better. I DID know better.”
Sarah took a deep breath and laid her forehead on his collarbone. “I did too, Sam. It wasn’t just you. Alpha’s right. I fucked up too. It was my suggestion in the first place.” She turned her head and looked across the desk at Castiel. “I understand, Sir. You’ve been patient with me, answered all my questions, brought me into your Pack. I won’t try to bail on you now. We’ve talked about it so many times, and I always knew somewhere in the back of my head that this day would come. I trust you, Alpha. I’m ready.”
Cas nodded sharply. “I appreciate that,” he told her. “But I’m not. It’s time for breakfast, and my mate is patiently waiting for me in the kitchen. It would be inappropriate to make her suffer when she’s done nothing wrong. Sarah, I will deal with you at ten o’clock sharp in the library. Do not be late. Samuel, ten-fifteen. If either of you have any plans for the day that take you outside this estate, cancel them. You’re both grounded for the weekend.”
“Sir,” Sam said, sitting forward. “Would you permit me to be there for Sarah, as a friend, during her punishment? If…she wants me there, that is? For support?” Sam turned questioning eyes on the dark-eyed woman sitting beside him.
Sarah looked uncertain, clearly weighing the embarrassment of having her backside bared and flayed in front of witnesses with the comfort of having a friend there for support.
Cas watched the play of emotions across her face, and he called it for her. “Not this time, Sam. Let’s allow her a modicum of privacy for this first experience. I will allow the two of you to spend the afters together if you like. You’ll have plenty of time to lend her your comfort and support when I’ve finished with you both.”
He found Dean’s eyes again and raised his eyebrows in question, but Dean simply shook his head subtly in reply with a thoughtful expression.
“That is sufficient for the moment, then,” Cas stated imperiously. “I will notify the Committee after breakfast, and we’ll go from there. No one is excused from joining the Pack in the kitchen for our morning meal. Dean, please go wake Michael. Let me know if he’s too ill to join us.”
Cas rounded the desk and nodded to the two on his couch. “Dismissed,” he said gently.
The twins were the saving grace at breakfast. Hank and JT were both rowdy and cheerful, both famished and intent on teaching Michael a song they’d learned the night before. Michael, to his credit, fought his pounding hangover to entertain his favorite nephews, following their directions, and singing each line carefully as they taught it to him. They were learning words and language skills so fast now, it was dizzying.
Castiel let them be. He far preferred a household that embraced the vibrancy of youthful vigor and volume, encouraging the pups to play as they would as long as they ate well and addressed the adults respectfully. Eating well was unlikely ever to be an issue for the twins, although singing with their mouths full merited an occasional correction from their father. Sam shepherded toddlers back into their seats and back toward their plates repeatedly, clearly compartmentalizing his own doom into a different part of his head.
Sarah watched him, wondering how he could still come off as a Dominant when he was under a ticking clock himself. She tried different mindsets to emulate him, even as he spoke a sharp word to his oldest son that froze the child mid-step and sent him straight back to his chair to concentrate on eating for the next minute-and-a-half. She couldn’t swing it. Sarah couldn’t shake the feeling of being a castigated toddler herself, one for whom the bell relentlessly tolls, and it dropped her into sullen silence between Gabe and Dean.
“Ow-Fa! Sing! Sing like My-cal!” Hank ordered, pointing at Castiel with his fork. Jess redirected his cutlery back to his plate and instructed that pointing at people with one’s fork is rude.
Cas laughed. “I’m afraid your Uncle Michael’s singing voice is far better than mine, Hank. Perhaps you can teach the song to me later and help me practice.”
Hank grinned and agreed. It was a date, and he beamed up at Sam who was trying to clean the eggs off his face. Cas turned back to Jess, discussing the potential legal ramifications of Sam’s decision to skirt the law in his classroom. Jess looked at it as a puzzle to be worked apart and fitted back together, and she didn’t miss that Dean was listening to every word from his end of the table with a telling smirk on his face.
Nor did she miss when Castiel’s eyes glazed over while she was unwinding the precedents already on file. Cas’ cheeks took on a high blush, and his nostrils flared. Jess cut herself off and allowed him his moment. His hands clutched at the table’s edge, and he groaned obscenely before rocking slightly, squeezing his eyes closed, and flooding the kitchen in the scent of Alpha release.
“Ow-Fa!” JT pointed.
“Finish your breakfast, kiddo,” Sam told him. “Let’s let Alpha have a minute.”
Hank climbed out of his chair for the thousandth time and ducked down to look under the table at April kneeling beneath it, her mouth still suckling her Dom softly. Before Jess could stop him, he’d crawled under and climbed into her lap, seeking the source of the soft, loving scent that suffused the kitchen. It smelled like Pack to Hank.
April shifted slightly to make space for him on her lap, and he curled up against her soft chest and closed his eyes. April ran her fingers through his silky blond hair.
Jess rolled her eyes and sank down onto her knees, calling softly to her son. “Hank, sweetie, not right now. Remember what we said? Breakfast time is mate’s time. You’ll have plenty of snuggle time with Aunt April later. Come and sit up at the table with me.”
Hank hesitated, but a glance upward into the Alpha’s face from between his thighs changed his mind. Cas was a lenient patriarch where pups were concerned, but he didn’t hesitate to remind them that minding their parents wasn’t optional. Hank earned a kiss to his cheek from his mother and a very welcome hug as he settled onto her lap, making space for JT when his twin realized snuggles were being granted.
“Speaking of mate’s time,” Kali shifted the conversation. “What brings you up into a chair this morning, Dean? You’re off your pillow. Little too much celebration last night?”
He laughed easily. “Not for me, no. My Sir isn’t quite up to his usual role this morning. So, with Michael’s queasy belly and this mess with the spanking class, I decided I was needed here more than on my pillow.”
“You decided?” Kali asked.
“Yes,” he answered emphatically. “I decided. I’m still alpha, Kali. Nothing happens to me without my say-so, and Michael and I both have to be on board any time we do a breakfast submission. It’s for both of us, not just for him.”
“Hm,” she replied with a surprised expression. “I thought there was more mandate to it than that. Some mornings you don’t seem very pleased to follow directions.”
Dean blushed. “Yeah, well, some mornings I need a firm hand.”
She nodded, slapping Gabe’s hand when he tried to slide her last piece of bacon off her plate. “I see. And how do you decide which mornings you kneel for Michael and which you kneel for Alpha? I’ve always wondered. The four of you make it look seamless.”
“Um, I’m not really sure,” Dean admitted, seeking input from Cas at the other end of the table. Cas tilted his head in thought and then shrugged.
“We do whatever feels right for the day, I suppose,” Cas replied. “Certainly, if Dean presents us with a fully alpha aspect in the morning and states that he needs to spend breakfast in his own chair, neither of us would argue his choice. However, if he’s unsettled and submissive or bratty, he will be taken in hand. With Dean, Michael and I have found it’s best to cut right to the chase when his state of mind begins to swirl, cut it off before it gets any momentum behind it. Right, Michael?”
“Definitely,” Michael groused into his plate.
Fred strolled cheerfully in with Alex in his arms, nearly toppling as Alex spotted his Daddy and launched himself.
“Hey, Ace!” Dean greeted, catching the pup. “Good morning. Daddy saved you some breakfast. You hungry? Thanks, Fred. How’d they do last night?”
Sarah snorted.
“Oh, right,” Dean amended. “You had the late-night shift. Was it awful?”
She huffed a laugh. “Emma and Alex both slept like champs. Kat and Jimmy played tag-team with the crying fits. I swear they’re in cahoots.”
“Ouch,” Dean commiserated. “Thanks for taking one for the team. I owe you one.”
“The triplets are waking up,” Fred told them. “They seem none the worse for wear this morning, but they will be ready for sustenance very soon.”
Cas looked under the table and ran a caressing hand down April’s face. “Are you finished with breakfast?”
She nodded with a smile and nuzzled the inside of his thigh contentedly.
“All right, then. Up you go. Let’s go see who’s awake and who’s cranky.” He pushed his chair back. “Excuse us, please. Thank you all for a delightful breakfast. Jess, if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish our discussion this afternoon. Hank, you have a song to teach me. Perhaps we should do that outside in the backyard during playtime.”
Hank grinned up at his mother, delighted at being included in the Alpha’s agenda.
“Sarah and Sam, please be punctual. Dean, when you’ve fed Alex, come find me, please. Michael, for heaven’s sake, go back to bed. You look terrible.”
There was a light chorus of, “Yes, Alpha.” The twins’ version was a bit clumsy, and Cas graced them both with warm smiles.
Cas swept April up into powerful arms, and she squealed and then laughed happily as they disappeared around the archway.
Sarah found she couldn’t swallow around the lump in her throat, and she couldn’t feel her fingers. Sam was right. The anticipation was the worst part.
“Please come in,” said Cas when she stepped hesitantly into the library at ten. She turned to close the door, but he stopped her. “There’s no need for that. We’ve got the first floor to ourselves. We have all the privacy we need. Come here, please.”
She felt seven years old, and her feet wouldn’t stop shuffling, but she made it to him. He sat perched at an angle on the long reading table in the middle of the enormous room and he let her approach without getting up. When she stood before him, he angled his head to get a view of her face.
“Don’t be frightened, Sarah. I will see you safely through. You know how this process goes. First, tell me why we’re here.”
She blinked through an adrenalin rush. She’d practiced up in her room. She’d been imagining how it would feel, but with his piercing blue eyes on her, everything fled her brain, and she couldn’t think. He waited calmly.
“I’m…getting a spanking,” she said haltingly, “because I mishandled my role as a classroom teacher, and I broke the law. I embarrassed you. I’m sorry, Sir. It won’t happen again.”
He nodded serenely. “No, I don’t expect it will. Did you, in fact, actually paddle anyone in class yourself, or did you merely sign off on Samuel doing it?”
She looked up at him. Yep, still scary.
“Um. I don’t swing the paddle in class at all, Sir. But, uh, Sam’s been teaching me in private separately, and he’s paddled me a few times. Just as a demonstration, you understand. It’s nothing personal…or sexual…or kinky. We would never!” Her face was on fire as she blathered stupidly.
Glancing back up, she found him mildly amused.
“And in these private tutoring sessions,” he asked. “Have you ever paddled him?”
“Yessir,” she admitted. “For practice. To see what it feels like to deliver a painful blow. I don’t really need the experience. I’m not going into the field, and I’m not planning to get certified. But…I was curious.”
“Curiosity is not a sin, beta,” Castiel told her. “And it isn’t against the law for you to paddle a Lupin, provided everything that you do together is consensual.”
“Then why does it feel icky now that we’re talking about it?” she blurted. “I feel guilty, like I…like we had an affair or something, but it wasn’t like that at all.”
Cas pursed his lips in thought. “We need to explore that further, Sarah. I would hazard a guess that whatever is making you feel icky isn’t shared by Sam. I would guess that it’s exclusive to your being Primate and the fact that the pathways that define vulnerability and intimacy for you generally connect to your sexuality. Even though it wasn’t a sexual experience, you may be incapable of fully separating your sexual side from your vulnerable side. However…” He slid off the table and began to roll his sleeves up past his elbows. Sarah noticed a wicked-looking paddle on the table behind where he’d been perched, and she blanched. “That is for another time. Right now, we have more pressing business.”
“I’m really very sorry, Cas!”
“Your use of my name is forfeit for the duration of this encounter, beta. Call me Sir or Alpha.”
“Right. Sorry, Sir. I forgot.”
“You get one warning.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Do you have any questions or concerns? You may speak freely.”
“Alpha, I’m scared. That’s all. Once we’re done here, I’ll be okay, but could we maybe just…do it?”
He huffed a soft laugh. “Yes, we can. I appreciate your candor. Honestly, in bringing you into the Pack, this moment was my chief worry. I don’t think either of us could have said with certainty that we would survive our first correction and maintain our connection as Pack. That you showed up for your punishment, right on time, and that you haven’t made any attempt to thwart it, speaks volumes toward your commitment to this Pack and your respect of me as its leader. I thank you for that show of trust.”
“What do I do?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Face the table. Stand up against it,” he told her, pointing. “Drop your pants. I need to see what I’m striking. Then lean across the table and take hold of the opposite side.”
Sarah pushed her pants and panties down with shaking hands. Her blouse was a long one, and it covered her to mid-thigh, but he didn’t seem bothered, so she left it on. She settled her weight onto the table, and she concentrated on breathing as she clutched the far edge.
“Widen your stance for me,” Alpha told her. “Little bit more. Good. Right there.”
She felt the impossibly naked sensation of drafting air on her backside as he lifted the tail of her blouse and set it up across her back. She was bare from her mid-back to her calves, and she felt far more nude than she ever had during sex. She tucked her chin into the hollow of her throat and felt her humid breath fog the gleaming wood of the table beneath her.
“We start with an open palm, beta,” she heard him say. “That prevents injury. Brace yourself.”
“Sir,” she mumbled as her grip tightened.
And then his flat palm came down on her cheek. The pressure was the first thing to register. Then the sound, magnified by the high ceiling. Then the sting. She sucked in a shocked breath and rolled to the side as his hand popped down again.
“Ow!”
“Steady,” he corrected. “Back into position. Do not move, Sarah.”
“That hurts!”
“Indeed. It is meant to. Don’t move from this spot.”
“I’m sorry! I’m ready.” She got herself centered again and closed her eyes tightly. She’d witnessed so many spankings by this point that she’d become blasé about them, no longer really processing the power and pain that each swat brought to bear until it was her upturned backside that was rapidly turning red.
She cried out with each hit, sobbing against the table and bending her knees. It hurt so much worse than she’d expected, and a part of her goggled at the fact that she wasn’t bowling past him and barreling out of the house, never to return. But as she lay there, feeling the heat, the burn, the sting build on itself, all she could think was that she’d earned it and once it was over, she’d be forgiven.
A comforting hand circled her lower back in a gentle touch. She was hard-pressed not to reach back and rub the sting out of her ass, but she diverted that impulse by holding tighter to the table’s edge.
“Very good,” praised the Alpha. “That was thirty, and I’m not going easy on you. You’re very brave, Sarah. This paddle will feel quite different, and I expect you’ll find it significantly nastier. You’re getting ten. I will pause as often as you need me to. We begin when you’re ready.”
Sarah shuffled her feet a bit and wiped her snotty nose on her arm. She huffed hard a few times. Looking back over her shoulder, she found him watching her, waiting patiently.
“Where?” she asked. “Where are you going to aim?”
“Are you familiar with the correctional classifications we use onsite?” he asked.
She nodded.
“This is a class 4-B correction. The paddle will be aimed across both cheeks, the significant majority of strikes will hit the meat of your backside, in the middle of the roundest part of each cheek. But you can expect me to land more than one swat to the crease at the top of your thighs. I’m sure you’re aware that your legs are more sensitive to pain than your backside is. Does that answer your question?”
She sobbed and nodded. For the infraction, it was as mild a correction as he could reasonably have leveled against her. He was going easy on her after all. She castigated herself for being a baby.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded again, and then she discovered that she wasn’t ready at all. So startled was she by the pain that she flared up from the table and stumbled backward five or six steps with her hands clasping her ass like a toddler. She stared at him in shock, speechless as tears continued down her cheeks.
“We decide right here in this moment, beta,” he told her calmly. “If you walk away, the world will not come to a screeching halt. You do not lose your research project. You will merely need to find a new apartment. This is my Pack, you see, and membership in it requires submission to my will. You are not one of us by birth. Are you one of us by choice? It’s your call.”
Sarah was humiliated, half naked and tripping over her own pants. Her backside burned miserably, and she felt immensely stupid. If anyone she knew ever saw her like this, she would die on the spot. But she couldn’t look away from his eyes. There was truth there, and power, and a determination to let her hold the reins, and a gentle kindness that didn’t fit with the strength of his paddle arm. His eyes told her they were in this together, and he wasn’t going to walk away unchanged either.
She sobbed hard, and it shook her whole body.
“What do you want, beta?” he asked her carefully.
“I want to be forgiven,” she told him through wracking sobs.
“The way through to forgiveness is painful. I don’t know if this is right for you, love. I only know it’s the only way for us, and I want you to be one of us. What do you want?”
“I want to be yours,” she cried.
He nodded, and she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “You have nine more, Sarah. You can do this. But you don’t owe anyone more than you can afford to give. Only you know what you can afford to give.”
She nodded, rubbing at her ass. Slowly, she stumbled forward again, feeling foolish walking a stutter-step with her pants at her ankles. She laid back down and she reached across the table. Just like before, he lifted her shirttail and settled it over her back.
“Nine more. Don’t move. Ask for a break if you need one, but I’ll advise you that very often, breaks hinder more than they help. Nod to me when you’re ready.”
She breathed out, imagined a peaceful lake surface in the early morning, with mist unbroken over its surface, and she nodded.
Then there was fire everywhere. Everything burned and ached. The sting was intolerable, and it built and built and built until she screamed and lifted her feet right off the ground, pulling her body halfway across the table’s surface. Every nerve fiber fired, and her bloodstream was flooded with so much adrenalin, she felt like she could fly.
And then it was over, and she bawled into the table. She flinched when she heard the paddle set down beside her with a soft thunk, and Castiel wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and eased her off the table and into his arms.
He shushed her quietly and rocked her, praising her in a whisper. “So good,” he murmured. “So brave. I’m so very proud of you. You’re a Winchester, Sarah. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. You have grit. You’re so strong. Shh. Shh. It’s okay. Take a breath now. You’re okay.”
He began chuckling softly as her sobs softened to a hiccuppy dribble. “There now,” he crooned. “We both lived. Let’s get you dressed and then you can stand at the end of the table and wait for Sam. The two of you will need to sleep it off.” He knelt down and helped her untangle the fabrics of her underwear and pants, holding her steady as she dressed herself.
She sniffled, feeling quite accomplished indeed, vanishing the offhand worry she hadn’t known she was carrying that he would go too easy on her. He hadn’t. She knew she wasn’t calibrated to be sure how much power he’d put into his swing, but there was no way he’d lessened his swats very much. Maybe he’d reduced the count to account for her being ape, but he’d applied himself with power. She could tell there would be bruises, and as weak as her legs felt, she had no desire to sit at the moment.
“Don’t …” *sniffle* “… don’t you usually make your punishee stand in the corner when they’re done?” She wondered if she was pushing her luck, but he only smiled and shook his head.
“No, love. What I do following a paddling is whatever is needed by the person I’m correcting. You don’t need any more humiliation than you’ve already withstood. I would ask you to stay for Sam’s sake, if you can bear to. You don’t have to.”
“I’ll stay,” she nodded. “If Sam wants me to.”
“Thatta girl,” he told her. She was shocked at the warmth and pride that his praise sent through her bloodstream. She felt a rush of affection and trust, and she threw her arms around him, bursting into tears again. He hugged her close, rocking her subtly from side to side. A shift at the door caught his attention, and he looked up without letting her go.
“Come in Samuel. We’re finishing up here.”
“Sir,” Sam said, ducking his head submissively and coming all the way in.
“Would you find it a comfort if Sarah stays for you?” Cas asked him simply.
Sam looked surprised. “Oh. Yes, please. If she wants to, that is. Thank you.”
Cas looked down at her, and she wiped her eyes with her knuckles and nodded up at him. Cas indicated a good spot for her with a jut of his chin and a gentle nudge to her back. She shuffled awkwardly to the end of the long table, bracing herself upright on her arms.
Sam shot her a nervous half-smile, his face drawn and remorseful.
“Go ahead, Samuel,” Castiel prompted, moving the paddle out of the way. Sam tracked it with his eyes. He shoved his jeans down and took his position without further direction. He was ridiculously out of proportion for the height of the table, but instead of lying across it, he braced himself on his arms, merely bending over at the waist a bit. It was enough. Cas rolled his shirttail up out of the way.
“Talk to me, Samuel,” the Alpha prompted. “Why are you here?”
Sarah saw the muscles in his flank flex. He was incredibly muscular across his hip and down his leg. She couldn’t look away, even as she heard him huff a hard breath before he spoke.
“I dropped the ball, Alpha,” he admitted. “I forgot the scope we all agreed to, and I let my enthusiasm override my good sense. I put our whole agenda at risk by breaking a core tenet as well as federal assault laws. I failed my students. I failed my protégé.” Sam caught Sarah’s eye at that and sent her a wordless apology. “I failed my Pack and myself. I failed you. It won’t happen again, Alpha. I swear to you.”
Sarah saw Castiel’s face clench up as he struck Sam’s ass with the flat of his hand. Sam whimpered, but he didn’t break form. Cas swatted him a good ten or twelve times before he spoke again.
“What did you do, specifically, beta?”
Sam had to talk through the painful swats, as Castiel picked them right back up again, and Sam’s voice shook with the power of Castiel’s hand.
“I broke the no contact rule, Sir! I spanked and paddled Primate—aargh!—Primate students, in violation of my agreement with you…Aaahhh! And in violation of the law! I’m not permitted to touch Primates! No Lupin is permitted to touch Primates in a professional—oomph—capacity!”
Castiel didn’t pause as he continued the conversation.
“Was that rule unclear to you at the outset, Samuel?”
“No, SIR! It was … clear! I just forgot! I should’ve come to you!”
Castiel stepped back, his breath coming heavy with the exertion. Sam slouched into his braced arms, relieved and panting.
“So we understand one another?” Castiel asked vaguely.
“Yes, Alpha,” Sam nodded vehemently.
“Good. I trust this won’t happen again. Go to the umbrella stand in the foyer and fetch me my switch.”
“Yessir,” Sam said shakily. He pushed himself off and ambled awkwardly out the door, returning quickly with a shuffling half quick step. He had a wicked switch in his shaky hand.
“Back over,” Cas said, taking the switch from him.
Sarah found herself trembling with second-hand mortification. Sam’s backside was a shiny, cherry red as he doubled back over, going down onto his elbows this time and dropping his head between his arms. Castiel fussed about with his shirttail again, but he was clearly done talking.
Sarah flinched hard when the switch sang fiercely through the air and popped an instant stripe on Sam’s ass. She saw his eyes squeeze shut, and his hands clench into fists, one around the other, but he didn’t budge. Another whistle, another pop, and a loud groan from Sam. Another stripe.
In the end, there were ten stripes, all perfectly aligned, all an angry, blistering red, swelling to welts. None of them bled at all, and Sarah couldn’t account for that at all considering the power she’d witnessed behind the swing. But Sam was standing back up, and he was shaking a heartfelt apology as Castiel wrapped him in an engulfing embrace. Sam had his arms tucked inside the hug, still clutching one hand in the other and shaking as he cried. Sarah felt a tear slide down her cheek. She wiped it away, turning her eyes to look at the wetness on her fingers.
She breathed out, feeling all of the tension leave her body with her exhale. Looking up, she found Castiel holding an arm out to her in welcome, and she dove into his embrace, wrapping her arm around Sam’s back too and adding soft words of pride and comfort to the litany coming from the Alpha.
Sam didn’t cry long. He pulled back and smiled gamely at her through his tears before kicking off his jeans and working his boxers carefully into place over a throbbing backside.
“Thank you, Sir,” he said seriously. “I believe I heard you loud and clear.”
“Good,” Cas replied. “I would hate to have to repeat myself. Please return the switch to the umbrella stand and find somewhere suitable to curl up and take a nap, somewhere that isn’t exclusively private, if you don’t mind. Perhaps the first floor living room?”
Sam smiled again, fighting through the pain to keep his game face on. “Alpha, I can’t nap. Jess needs me to watch the boys. She’s got errands to run.”
Castiel nodded in acceptance. “Understood. But ask for help if you need a break, Sam. Sarah, unless you have anything further to discuss, you’re dismissed. You, I want sleeping. No excuses.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“And Sarah?”
“Sir?” she paused in the doorway. Sam slipped by her with the horrible switch in his hand.
“I love you immensely. That doesn’t alter when I call you to stand to account for your misdeeds. It’s critical that you understand that.”
“Yes, Alpha. I understand. I love you, too, Sir.”
He grinned boyishly. “Go on. Find a soft couch somewhere and get some sleep. I’ll check on you in a bit.”
“Thank you, Alpha.” She felt her face heat up as a blush surprised her. Why was she blushing? What she felt was the throb of her heartbeat echoing through the pain in her backside and a bottomless affection for the man in front of her.
If it was Stockholm Syndrome, it was the worst case of it she’d ever heard tell of.
In the grand foyer, Sam was waiting to help her up the stairs. He settled her on her side on the longest couch in the game room, the one he promised was the best napping couch in the entire house, and he fetched her a soft woven blanket and a glass of water.
She grabbed his arm as he started to leave. “Sam, you took far worse than I did. I should be taking care of you.”
He chuckled. “No, sweetheart. Today was your first go. It’ll never feel that bad ever again. Yours was worse. Get some sleep. It’s going to hurt for a couple of days.”
“Ugh!” she exclaimed. “Oh, and just for the record, the anticipation? NOT the worst part.”
Sam grinned, kissed her forehead, and then left her rolling miserably, hunting for a comfortable position to sleep in.
“Hey,” Jess greeted as he joined her at the doorway. “She okay?”
“She’ll heal.”
“Babe, quick question,” Jess opened as she wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him limp down the hall.
“Shoot.”
“What would you say if I said I wanted to apply to work for Cas?”
Sam threw his head back and laughed. “I’d say I’m thrilled,” he told her with a tight squeeze.
Notes:
Whew! That was crazy long. And I know I said I would be breaking to think shit through. But breaking and organizing turned into writing out ideas, which turned into writing a chapter. It happens.
Shingles still suck. I've had enough of this crap. Get the vaccine. Not even kidding.
Hugs and Kisses!
Chapter 4: Friday, December 14, 2018
Summary:
Michael's hit a snag in his hands-on training and it's going to take a creative solution to help him past it, a solution that his mate may not appreciate. Dean's got his pups to help him de-stress, but he's also got a husband. Will Dean's brave new approach pay off? Also, what's that about the Grammy's?
Notes:
So. We've been busy over here at wolf-central. New reference guides on the way. Thanks to Andi4 for the nudge to think through the punishment classifications and do more than wing it. Thanks also to Melodina for the hard work of getting it together and making it both pretty and readable. If you're subscribed to the series, you should get a ping when we load it.
Thanks to Jennyfly for the collage as usual. Your work makes me drool.
I'm also working on putting the Winchester Pack Rules onto publishable shingles that we'll put out for reference as per request.
If there are any other useful references that y'all would like to see, hit me up. If it's not hard to put together, I'll probably say yes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Friday, December 14, 2018
NOW:
Michael licked his lips as a drop of sweat found its way over his eyebrow and threatened his eye. He scrubbed it off with the white sleeve of his lab coat, frowned in concentration, and focused back down on his work with the tip of his tongue caught in his teeth. The procedure had never been this hard in his classes, but then of course, those had been silicone dummies, not real people, and the penis size on the dummies was about average for a beta.
Omegas were smaller.
Way smaller.
The tip of the catheter slipped free again. Michael stood back up and squeezed his eyes shut, taking a breather. The patient had his own arm over his eyes, and his fist was clenched tightly enough to turn his fingers white. Poor kid. He didn’t deserve this.
“Re-lube it, Michael, and try again. Move your grip up just a little.”
“Which grip?” Michael asked.
“On the tube, obviously. If you slide any further up his penis, you’ll cover the tip. Easy now. Relax.”
Michael pressed his lips together and then re-gripped with both hands and aimed the lubed tube at the tiny slit, a slit that was becoming tauter as he tried ineffectively to feed the tube into it. Michael huffed through his wolf.
“He’s engorging again,” Michael muttered. He sighed and stepped back. Stripping his gloves off and dropping them into the waste can, Michael stood as far from the patient as he could get and turned his back. He could feel the man’s eyes on him, and he could feel his wolf react to it.
“It sucks to be beautiful, I know,” Jody told him flatly. “But you have a job to do. Get back in there, Michael.”
“He’s erect, Jody!” Michael pointed pointlessly. “I can’t hit the bladder with him like this.”
“You’ll be able to with some experience. It’s not impossible, just uncomfortable. For now though, let’s try to return him to an unaroused state. So, what do you do now?” Her voice rolled back down in tension, reminding him that getting stirred up wasn’t helping.
“I…uh…we need to soothe him back down.” Michael approached the poor guy’s head and ran fingers through his hair, hoping to help him relax a little. He shushed the man softly. He preened in the heady adoration the man cast up at him. It was a rush.
“I know it’s rough,” Michael cooed. “I’m really sorry this is turning out to be such an ordeal. I’m new at this. You can probably tell. But hang in there for me, okay? I may not be quick, but I’m not gonna hurt you. We’ll get through it together. Are you with me?”
“That’s not helping kill his boner, trainee,” Jody commented. “He’s developing a crush on you, and you’re feeding his medical kink. You need to disengage and get the job done. We’re going to have to use ice.”
“Not yet,” Michael said firmly. “Ice sucks. I’m not doing that to him if I don’t have to.”
“You need to stop touching and talking to him. Step away.”
“Give me a minute!” Michael snapped.
Jody’s face flattened. She took two measured steps backward and then stopped pointedly, crossing her arms over her chest. Michael worked his jaw in frustration and then looked back down at the man on the table. Michael pulled his wolf forward, and the man’s pupils dilated instantly.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Michael told him, still stroking his hair away from his face. “You’re going to picture something really repulsive in your head, and you’re going to close your eyes. Think of a pile of earthworms in your lap. We’re going to try again, Omega. I need you to imagine yourself away from here. I need you to be good for me…”
“Michael…”
“Shut it, Jody! Let me work!”
Her lips popped as she stepped back up again. “Omega, I need to speak with you in my office, please.” There was a forced politeness to the tone of her voice. “Right now.”
Michael stood up straight and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Fine.”
“Glad you can see your way clear to humble yourself for little old me,” she smiled at him with malice and gestured to the door in the corner that led into a small private office.
The door snapped closed behind her, and the smile disappeared.
“Take the lab coat off, Omega,” she snapped ruthlessly. “And the scrubs. Now.”
Michael’s eyes widened comically, but his mouth had other ideas. “What is your problem?” he asked rudely.
“Shut up. Take your shirt off.”
“What? No!”
“We’re on my time, Michael, and the clock’s ticking. Do it. Shirt. Off. Pants down at your knees. You have to the count of two to comply.”
“Two?! What the hell, Jody? Look, I’m sorry I questioned your authority in there. I get it. That was a shit move.”
“One.”
Michael frowned but he unbuttoned the lab coat and pulled his scrub top over his head, perplexed. Without another word, Jody collected a coil of rope from her desk drawer and looped its center around Michael’s neck, leaving a tied loop hanging between his shoulder blades.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Standing very close to him and choking up on the loop of rope at his throat, Jody’s face was all business. “I’m binding you. You’ve forgotten who’s in charge in that room, so I’m giving you a reminder. What’d’ya say, Omega? Are you gonna be a man about this, or do I need to summon some muscle?”
Michael swallowed hard. “You can’t do this,” he whispered.
“Oh, it’s happening, kiddo. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. One way or another though, you’re not leaving this room without my rope around your body, not if you plan to continue in this program.”
“Jody, please,” Michael whined. “I said I was sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Drop your pants.”
“This isn’t necessary! Message received. You have my word I’ll be respectful…”
“Drop. Your. Pants! This isn’t a joke, and it’s not a threat. We’re doing this. Get ‘em down and then arms up.”
“Look, I get it. You’re in charge…”
With a surprising amount of strength for a beta, Jody hauled him in and yanked his scrubs down. “Widen your stance. Lace your fingers behind your head. And I swear to God if you so much as snarl at me, mister, you’ll regret it forever.”
Slowly, miserably, Michael brought both arms up and laced his fingers together behind his head. His Omega training had cemented certain conditioned responses so irrevocably that Michael’s wolf found itself shunted into a dark steel cage somewhere too deep to reach. Jody began to tie a series of knots down the length of the ropes hanging from his neck, and she talked as she worked.
“Here’s the thing, Michael. We’ve discussed this before, haven’t we? What we have here is a pattern. A pattern of poor decisions. Every time we call you on it you swear it’s the last time. You swear you’ve learned your lesson…” Jody split the two ropes at his belly button and ran each strand between his legs on opposite sides of his junk before tying them off on the loop at the back of his neck, leaving two long strands hanging freely down the center of his back.
She rounded him to stand in front of him again, testing the pull and the give, adjusting the slack. “But you still haven’t, have you?” She reached around his chest to draw both ends around his torso beneath his raised arms to begin tying in the tortoiseshell pattern. “You make the same rookie mistake again and again, and you won’t take any coaching from anyone. You’re unteachable, Michael. That has to change. So, we’re gonna try a little something different. Comfy?”
“No.”
“Here, this’ll help.” She left the ropes dangling in front as she readjusted the pants of his scrubs back into place and tied the drawstring a little tighter. “Don’t need your pecker hanging out anymore. The rest is all upper body ties. Stand still for me and listen.”
“Jody, please. This is humiliating.”
“It doesn’t have to be, Michael, but your humiliation is not my concern right now. Right now, all I’m concerned with is that Ozzie patient in there who has the hots for you, and my Omega-Dom student who’s eating it up. This is what we talked about.” Jody continued tying the pattern around him as she talked, ignoring his mortification and praying he would take heed this time. She was getting desperate for a way to get through to him. She couldn’t draw his mentorship out forever.
“You,” she said with a jab at his sternum, “are not in play in that room. Michael, there is no play in that room. This is not a scene, and you cannot allow it, much less encourage it, to become one. Your responsibility is to catheterize that patient and then finish the evaluation so we can finish what we’re here to do and send him home. You don’t matter in this equation! Get out of it! Disengage, damnit!”
“I can’t help it if he finds me attractive, beta! I’m not going to slap ice on his willie just because he gets a hard-on! Do you have any idea how much ice hurts?” Michael was trembling with how miserable he was, and it fed his anger. He couldn’t lash out the way he wanted to. He couldn’t risk being ejected from the program. He’d come too far. But he was livid. “But then, what do you care if it hurts? You’re a….”
Jody’s hand grabbed his chin and wrenched it downward to look right into her eyes, and Michael froze, caught in the hierarchy where his Omega was weaker.
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, you little asshole. Don’t tempt me, Michael.” Jody was beyond livid, and Michael gaped. “I have given you every chance! I’ve bent over backward to accommodate your designation, and I’ve allowed you to be disrespectful to me in a way I’ve never allowed from anyone! That ends right now. Do you hear me? It all ends. I am the instructor. You are the student. From here on, you listen. You obey. You learn. You say, yes ma’am and no ma’am. You jump when I say jump.”
Michael was off balance with his hands linked behind his head, but he stumbled a bit and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Jody’s jaw twitched while she finished his binding in silence. Finishing up, she handed him back his shirt followed by his lab coat, and he dressed himself with shaking hands. He rolled his shoulders in discomfort as the Hishi Karada tie pulled in odd ways.
“You’ll wear that for the rest of the day, and you’ll have one of your alphas from home call me this evening for permission to remove it,” she told him coldly. Michael froze in the process of fastening the last button of his lab coat.
“No…” he breathed.
“Dean or Castiel, Michael. Your choice. I expect a phone call from one of them tonight. If I learn that anyone else removed this rope from your body, you’re done. You’re already on the last strike. It only takes one more, and I won’t hesitate to pull the lever. Don’t test me. Your memory needs a little help keeping your ego out of your work, Omega. Let this rope help you remember. Now. Kneel and let me finish what I need to say.”
Michael didn’t hesitate this time. He sank to his knees, still miserable, but casting his eyes ahead to having to tell Dean or Cas that he was wearing a rope corset as a punishment.
“A pattern, Michael,” Jody said. She rounded her desk, leaving him kneeling before it. She stood behind her chair and frowned down at him. “At this point, it’s becoming more than a pattern. It’s becoming conditioned. You lean into their attraction, feeding your own wolf off the eroticism, and you feast while your client suffers.”
“I can’t help it if they find me hot! What am I supposed to do?”
“You separate your ego and your appetite, and you do the damn job!” she responded fiercely back. “It’s not about you!”
Michael looked away, blushing.
Jody leaned down on her desk, pinning him with her eyes. “We’ve been over this time and time again. You cannot engage when the client is looking for you to do that. You are not a Contractor, and this is not a scene! You need to start listening to your instructors. We’ll guide you through tough moments. We’ve all been there, Michael. You’re not the first therapist who encounters an erection during a routine procedure. It happens all the time. Bodies do things their owners can’t control. But you can’t let it go to your head and convince you that you’re a god, and you can’t offer patients a hand job to get rid of a stiffy. You have to turn it off. Turn it off from your end. Disengage and put the client’s needs in front of your own.”
Michael blushed harder, staring hard at the front of her desk. “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.
“I’ll admit, Omega, I’m out of ideas,” Jody continued sadly. “If this doesn’t work, we need to seriously evaluate if this program is right for you. I tell you that with all the affection I have for you, for your mate. You and your family mean the world to me. But I can’t put clients in front of you if you can’t stop snacking on them. This is your very last chance.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand.”
“Lord, I hope so,” she breathed. “Come on. On your feet. Let’s try this again.”
Michael sighed as he stood up. His posture was ramrod straight, and he moved in a way that spoke of discomfort on every level. “The hole is so much smaller than the one on the dummy,” he groused.
“No, it’s not,” Jody chided softly. “That’s a psychological block. The size of the organ is smaller, but the opening is about the same. Take your time. Don’t get him worked up. Use the cool pack if you need it. Come on.”
Jody led the way back into the clinic room where they found a wide-eyed Ozzie feverishly wiping jizz off his own belly with the paper drape over his torso.
“Sorry,” he panted. “Sorry. Kinda…got away from me.”
Jody chuckled, handing him a couple of moistened paper towels. “Well that solves that problem.” She looked to Michael and took her spot back near the wall.
“Uh, right. If you’ll just lie back down like you were. We’ll finish up. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Michael took the towels out of his hands and tossed them before washing his own and stretching on a new pair of gloves. He didn’t look at the man’s face. He didn’t speak to him beyond what he needed to say to instruct. Michael kept his body turned slightly away and pretended the patient wasn’t a person for the moment.
This time, the traitorous tube slid right into place with no hard bargaining. Michael earned a simple nod of approval from his mentor as he fed it in and fixed it. He covered the man back up with a new paper sheet, and he explained that the catheter needed to remain in place for a couple of days to track his output.
“One more quick procedure before your mate can take you home,” Michael told him, maintaining a detached persona. “We’re going to administer an enema to take all the pressure off and then take a look at your cervix. It won’t hurt, and it won’t take long.”
“I just had a physical a couple of months ago,” the man whined as Michael helped him roll to his side.
“I know,” Michael told him, feeling a nudge from his wolf who wanted to throw in an extra layer of comfort to the nervous Ozzie. Michael waved it back into the shadows, noting that Jody was watching him very closely. “Remember, we talked about this. Your physical didn’t turn up any medical reason for your block. Your physician referred you to us to see if we can figure out what’s causing you to freeze up in the middle of sex. All your plumbing works from a medical perspective.”
Michael worked as he talked, so the enema was a warm presence in the Ozzie’s gut before he really even processed that Michael’s fingers had inserted the nozzle.
“What we’re doing today,” he continued blandly, soporifically, “is getting all the baselines we need to tell us what your body functions are like at a normal, unaroused state. Once we know that, we can check for what changes when you and your mate come back next week and hit the sheets in the lab. If that goes well, your body will do for us what it’s been doing to you in private, and we’ll be able to narrow in on what’s not working the way it’s designed to.”
“And what if it’s not me,” the Ozzie said quietly. “What if it’s him?”
Michael managed his reaction carefully, staying at an unprovoked level and slipping the nozzle back out. He eased the man up and helped him stand, minding the fluid bag strapped to his thigh and helping him toward the toilet. He caught Jody’s eye and got a slight nod. There was a reason the alpha mate was in the waiting room for these simple preliminary procedures.
Michael stood back a little and let him settle onto the toilet on his own. When he was empty, Michael was there to guide him back to the table. He maintained his silence until the man was seated on the side of the exam bed. Michael set his hand on the man’s shoulder and waited until frightened brown eyes met his own.
“Ian, does your mate hurt you when he fucks you? On purpose, I mean. Does he ever hurt you in a way you don’t like? It’s okay to tell me, Omega. We can keep you safe. We can help.”
“What? No, of course not!”
Michael nodded. He patted the side of his client’s thigh and edged him into lying back down. Michael guided his feet into the stirrups. “I hear you,” Michael said calmly. He couldn’t deny the spiky scent of terror that had struck just for a moment and then dissipated, but he couldn’t force anything either. “Knees out wide for me, please.” Michael took his spot at the end of the table and touched the back of his gloved hand to the inside of the Omega’s thigh. Tension struck like a lightning bolt, and the man’s knees shot together, clipping Michael’s shoulder.
“Oh, shit. Sorry. Sorry. I’m good.”
Michael didn’t flinch. “It’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. There you go, good and wide. I’m not going to hurt you. So, you enjoy sex with your mate?” Michael continued, leaning in and taking the lubed speculum that Jody passed to him.
“Yeah, of course,” came the stilted answer. “Until my channel closes up, and everything freezes and hurts. That’s not exactly fun.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so.” Michael used one hand to hold the man’s cheeks apart, and he fitted the speculum in with the other, opening it wide once it was all the way inserted. He heard a strangled groan from up the table. He caught Jody’s eye again and read her mind, noting that inserting the speculum had not been difficult in the slightest, and that the man was self-lubricating around it as Michael worked. His plumbing was indeed fully functional. His tiny prick was straining to engorge again, tugging at the catheter tube that was taped to his thigh. Michael pulled the tape loose without a word, freeing his cock to reach for the sky if it wanted to without pulling painfully.
Jody handed Michael a small camera on a rigid cord, and Michael fed it through the opening his tool was holding wide. Eyes fastened to the small screen at his client’s shoulder, Michael quickly snapped a series of pictures. He didn’t see any physical scarring, but sometimes scars weren’t visible.
“Ian, do you mind if I ask you another question?” Michael asked as he removed the camera, handing it over his shoulder to Jody.
“I guess not.”
“Can you tell me what punishments are like at your house? What does your mate do to correct you?”
“I get the belt if I’m really bad,” he answered. He didn’t blush. “Usually, it’s just an OTK with his open hand.” He didn’t seem to be feeling any shame about punishments.
“How does he Release your Omega gland?”
“Same way. I Release super easy. If sex doesn’t do it, a quick spanking always finishes it off.”
Michael nodded again. That jibed with what he’d read in the Omega’s notes. He closed the speculum with a click and eased it out, watching for the ooze of Omega slick that followed and noting its color, consistency, and odor. Everything looked normal there. Michael tugged a couple of wipes out of the dispenser and started to clean the Ozzie’s backside, but a move from Jody and a sense that she was moments away from clearing her throat spurred Michael to hand the wipes to the patient instead.
Awkwardly, the man reached down and wiped the lube and extra slick away from his backside. Michael helped him sit up. He considered how to approach his next question and then decided to try Omega-to-Omega, in camaraderie.
“Look, Ian, I believe you, okay? I do. But something’s spooking you, and I think you know what it is. I’m asking you to trust me enough to tell me. If you can. What’s going on during your scenes that your body sees no alternative but to lock all the entry doors and put up a Closed for Business sign?”
The Omega shook his head. His eyes stared over Michael’s shoulder at the far wall, going blank. His knees trembled with how tightly they pressed together.
“Ian, please. I can help you if you tell me. I swear I can.”
“He loves me,” the man replied without emotion. “I know he does. He would never hurt me.”
“Someone’s been hurting you. Is it someone else? Is there someone besides your mate?”
Ian’s head shook desperately, sending his hair splaying outward in its wake.
“Hey, shh. Shh. Calm down. Let go of the table, Omega. You’re gonna break your fingers.” Michael eased up close to him and took hold of his biceps in a firm grip. Jody stepped around the table to lean against him from behind, sandwiching him, and the poor man sobbed.
“There’s no one else, Sir! It’s just us! But he would…never. He loves me!”
“I’m sure he does. Um, Ian, have you ever seen his wolf directly?”
Ian went so still he stopped breathing. Horror looked out through his eyes, and his hands took hold of Michael at the elbows. His fingers were claws, attaching like talons to Michael’s arms. “He would never hurt me,” he whispered. Michael reached back to catch him by both hands and hold his frigid hands warmly, massaging them.
“No, love,” Michael soothed. “Your mate wouldn’t hurt you. Good boy. You did so good for us today. We’re going to help you both. I promise. Why don’t you lie down for a minute? It’s okay if you take a little nap. I need to type up some notes before we go back out there.” Michael licked his lips in visceral discomfort. Slipping into his front brain dominant to ease the Ozzie’s stress came instinctively, and Jody didn’t fault him for it. It was an entirely different response pattern than what Michael’s wolf had been doing inappropriately on the regular for weeks.
Jody fetched a thin blanket and flipped the lights off as Michael soothed the Omega on his table into closing his eyes.
Michael sat in Jody’s visitor’s chair with his fingers steepled beneath his lips, thinking. His notes were open and spread out in front of her, and she skimmed through them, pausing every now and then before nodding and moving on.
“Tell me,” she said eventually. She looked up at Michael and sat back in her chair.
Michael scratched his upper lip. “It boils down to a training issue,” he told her shaking his head in frustration. “Everyone is adamant about training Ozzies until they’re programmed sex robots, but the vast majority of alphas still get by with little to no training at all. We know the mate is alpha-Dominant, but until we apply to have his Keller report released to us, we don’t know what kind of wolf he’s got barely chained up in there.
“He’s a sweetheart until his engines get revved, and then the ugly side comes out, a side that no one has any control over. Afterward, all the alpha remembers is a mind-blowing orgasm, and the Omega is left to deal with the trauma alone. I’ll bet the alpha has no idea what his own wolf is up to. Bet he’s never been allowed in the room with his wolf while the hard shit’s going down. And the Omega is too terrified to tell him.”
“Why do you call it a training issue instead of a case of mate abuse?” Jody asked keenly. “You making excuses for the man? There aren’t many Tertiaries with the clout to hide their actions from their own Secondaries.”
Michael thought about it with a frown and shook his head. “It could be abuse, Jody, but I saw the two of them together. It doesn’t feel like abuse. I mean, don’t get me wrong. That alpha is abusing his mate. I just don’t think it’s the alpha in control when it happens. I don’t think his wolf even lets him see what’s happening. It may be rare, but it’s not unheard of. It’s the wolf who’s violating his mate, not the alpha. If he’d taken the alpha and the Dominant classes like he should’ve before he Mated that boy, he’d know how to control his wolf. It’s a training issue for our whole species, Jody. Don’t you see? Training Bottoms is window-dressing. It makes them pretty, sellable, shiny… It doesn’t make any difference in real life though, day to day. It’s the Tops who have all the power to cause harm, and our society still doesn’t value teaching them how to touch their own loved ones without scarring them. Guys like that…he’s thirty-three years old, and he Mated a seventeen-year-old boy straight outta high school. The Ozzie never stood a chance.”
Jody nodded sagely. “Very good, Michael. What do we do now?”
He huffed. “I wish we could arrest the wolf and leave the alpha at home. Tearing the Ozzie away from his mate isn’t going to fix this.”
“It would keep him from getting raped by his own mate anymore,” Jody added.
But Michael disagreed. “Only in the short term. They’re still mates, and a long separation punishes the Omega more than the alpha. We need to mandate a full course of eval and training for the alpha. He can’t go near his mate sexually until he can do it safely. He needs to learn how to pick his wolf’s lock.”
Jody stood up and came slowly around her desk. She leaned up against it just in front of Michael and looked down at him. “We haven’t had much luck with the courts on that plan. Our courts are geared toward punishing offenders, not teaching them. Prosecution is better than doing nothing. At least that way, the Omega has a chance to heal. We can usually win chaperoned conjugal rights in a case like this. It’s no use trying for something we know we can’t get.”
“What if the alpha can be convinced to do the training without a legal mandate?” Michael suggested feebly. “If we prove to him that what his wolf is doing is real, maybe we can use his love for his own mate to convince him to do the training. We could skip the prosecution altogether and give him a chance to do the right thing.”
Jody held his eye. She didn’t answer.
“Is that really a naïve question?” Michael asked. “Isn’t it at least worth trying? I feel like what’s going on in their house could’ve happened to me if I’d been an alpha. If I was doing that much damage to my own mate, I’d want someone to level with me. I’d do whatever I had to do to straighten my wolf out. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Jody raised her eyebrows. “The worst that can happen is that we clue the wolf in that we’re onto him and he murders Ian in cold blood. He’s not likely to put up with having his chew toy taken away, not without a response. The wolf doesn’t have as strong a connection to his mate as the alpha does. Secondary connections are far stronger. The wolf might decide that compliant Ozzies are dime a dozen, and if he can’t have Ian the way he wants, no one will. He could decide that the pain a broken bond link causes himself is worth it to punish his own alpha designation for turning him in. It’s risky.”
“Goddamn alphas! I swear!” Michael shouted. “Stupid…fucking…privileged…!”
“Michael, calm yourself. That’s not helping. It’s not the alpha causing the mayhem. It’s a psychopathic Dominant Tertiary.” Jody held his eyes meaningfully, both of them remembering an unsettling moment that sat heavy between them.
“How long until we can change the laws about training requirements?” he asked, still spitting mad, struggling to keep his ire focused on the correct target instead of turning it inward or onto his mentor. “We can’t keep letting them in like this with no fucking clue what they’re doing! They’re hurting people!”
“Yes, I know, and it’s been going on for a very long time. We can’t fix eons of disconnect overnight. We’re working on that mandate, Michael. Castiel is working on rewording the bill again. He’s going to send it back up to Congress again, but we don’t have the votes yet. We have to live in the real world, Omega.”
“Cas gives you a rundown on what he’s sending up for legislation?” Michael asked cynically.
Jody chuckled. “There are five or six hard to pass but critical bills that we introduce to every single session of Congress as a matter of course. Mandating that Tops receive training is one of them. It’s not a secret. Lupins have been out of favor in Washington for a few years now, I’m sure you’re aware. And Cas is nothing if not persistent. It’ll happen. We just have to figure out how best to protect Ian in the meantime.”
“Are we going through with next week’s clinical session in the lab with those two?” Michael asked.
“Oh, most definitely. If we can get that fucker on video, Michael, your plan of talking the alpha into learning how to control him gains wings. And with what you managed to discover here today, the clinicians in the lab know what to be watching for. You did good, Omega. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.” Michael blushed and rolled his shoulders. “The rope rubs.”
“I know it does.”
“Can’t we please take it off now? I learned my lesson.”
Jody cocked her head jauntily. “Only if staying on as my student isn’t something you value. I’ll cut you loose right now if you want me to.” She winked, damn her.
Michael looked away and tongued his cheek in discomfort.
“I tried to warn you, kiddo,” she added, taking her seat again. “You earned this one. Whoever’s calling me, have him call before seven, would you? I have a show I wanna watch tonight. Now scoot. Go on. I have reports to write.”
“Jody, we sent those mates home together.” Michael hovered in the doorway.
She glanced up at him, and she folded into resignation. “I know. We didn’t have a choice short of charging the alpha right on the spot, and his mate wouldn’t have backed us on that. If it’s any help, I’m guessing that as long as Ian has that catheter in, his alpha isn’t going to touch him. Looked like a revulsive reaction to me. I suspect he’s not as drawn to a medical roleplay as his mate is.” Jody made a fatalistic face, and Michael left her to it.
He walked down the hall with an encumbered gait, fidgeting at the rough feel of hemp between his legs chafing the base of his dick and plying his cheeks apart like a wedgie. Michael had one class left to attend and it wasn’t here. It was across campus. He’d have to walk as there wasn’t sufficient parking to be sure of finding a space color coded to his car’s permit. Walking was going to be brutal. Michael collected his belongings from Dean’s office and left in a hurry, leaving his security escort scrambling to stash his phone, slip his shoes back on, and catch up. Michael was in no mood to babysit a security guard. He was itching for a random bigot alpha to get all up in his grill and start something. If that happened, the first man Michael planned to knock unconscious would be his security guard, so he’d have leave to fuck up someone’s shit completely to hell. Michael stormed furiously across the street, disappearing down the sidewalk bend leaving his security detail trotting after him.
He nearly tripped over a baby stroller, dodging at the last moment and knocking a plastic sippy cup flying.
“Jesus Christ!” he cried, scrambling to catch the cup. “Shit! Sorry! My fault, my fault.” Michael danced a little on stumbling feet, all the more discombobulated with the pull of Jody’s rope doing fascinating things under his clothes. He finally caught himself, snatched the cup back up off the ground, and handed it to a harried young man who was holding laughter in unsuccessfully. “Everybody okay?”
“Yeah,” the man giggled. “That was amazing. I think I saw you in Disney on Ice once.”
“Very funny,” Michael huffed. But the incident broke his violent internal chanting. He took a look in the stroller. It was a little girl of about one. She had a satin bow tied haphazardly in her hair, and she was grinning up at the man who was laughing. “She’s cute,” Michael said awkwardly. “Glad I didn’t knock her over. Y’all take care now.”
The man moved off with his stroller, leaving a chuckle and a nod behind. He’d recognized Michael, clearly. Many people did now. Michael glanced at his guard, but he turned and walked on without speaking. Having to walk across his hometown campus with a security escort was embarrassing and emasculating, and Michael wanted like hell to ditch the guy.
He made it to class and abandoned the guard in the hallway, taking a seat at the front of the class. Sitting still in his rope contraption was going to be a nightmare. He could feel it sawing into his sides and the back of his neck.
“Dude, thought you were a Top? What’s with the new necklace?” The voice from behind him came with a hard tug to the loop at his neck. Michael ducked, swatted the hand away, and pulled his shirt up to hide the rope.
“Mind your own business!”
“Pipe down, Winchester, and hands to yourself,” his prof called from the front, preparing to begin the class.
Michael readied a retort, but squelched it, knowing that with the trouble he was already in, taking home a report of mouthing off in class wouldn’t sit well. He felt his wolf snap in the darkness. There were two other Omegas in this class, but they were both essentially throw rugs in terms of life signs. All the focus always hit Michael squarely between the eyes. It was unfair, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do.
“Are we all here?” prompted the professor. “Everyone did the reading? Good. Let’s get started. Today’s discussion is on the differences and similarities of a drop versus a fall and how we respond to each. Who wants to start?”
After class, Michael dropped his security guard off at the guard house as usual and parked in the garage on his own. He may have puttered about getting his bag re-packed a little longer than necessary, but he really wanted the ropes off, so stalling didn’t make a lot of sense. He’d been forced by the ever-present sensations of the binding into mulling over his behavior during his clinicals, and he felt his face redden in shame. He closed his trunk with a loud bang and trudged to the door.
Might as well get it over with.
Laughter struck him as he opened the door. Dean and Castiel were in hysterics over the Alpha’s attempt to roll out a pie crust. It looked tortured. As did the Alpha himself. He had flour all over him, even in his hair, and tear tracks from his laughter cut trenches through the dusting on his cheeks. Dean kept trying to speak but failing and devolving again into fits, bending at the waist and clutching at his knees.
Tony stood at the island chopping vegetables with an amused expression.
All four pups shared a playpen peacefully, each engaged in their own little explorations.
Michael waited solemnly for the alphas to notice him and shot Dean a terse, “I need to talk to you,” before escaping past Tony through the archway. The ape watched him go without comment.
“Uh,” Dean added eloquently. “Yeah.”
He patted Cas on the shoulder, chuckled a bit, and followed Michael.
In the foyer, just beyond their enormous Christmas tree, Dean caught sight of his mate’s heel disappearing into the front Omega Calling room, and he followed at a jog. “Michael? Babe, what’s up? You okay?”
“Do you have your bonds open?” Michael asked, turning to face him.
“Yeah, of course. What’s wrong?” Dean reached for him, taking him gently by the upper arms and frowning in concern.
“See for yourself. Go in there and look. Couldn’t you feel me?” Michael scrunched up his face to keep from crumbling now that he was home and in private with his mate. He could feel his emotions cresting.
“Hey. What’s the matter? Talk to me, man. I wasn’t focused in on you today. God, Michael, what is all this? What the fuck happened?”
“I…uh…I have to show you something. Promise me you won’t get mad.”
Dean blinked in surprise and stepped back a bit, frowning. “Yeah, man, you got it. I won’t be mad.”
“Really? Just like that?”
Dean shot him a wry look that bitch-slapped him for being stupid. “No. Not really. You know better than that. Tell me everything. If I get mad, we’ll deal with it. Start at the beginning. What happened?”
Michael braced himself with a deep breath and then pulled his shirt over his head. He dropped it on the floor at his feet. Dean’s eyes darkened instantly, turning to a smolder, misreading what he was seeing in its unexpected eroticism. He stepped back up and reached tentative fingers out to trace a line that ran over Michael’s ribs.
“Holy fuck, that’s hot, Sir. How…did you get it tied? How are we going to…?” Dean mumbled, already swirling away in his sensual imaginings, and forgetting completely that Michael’s state of mind was distraught, not primal. He didn’t seek Michael’s eyes before slipping down to his knees and taking his own wrist into a fist behind his back.
“Dean. Get up. You misunderstand. Pay attention! I didn’t do this. I didn’t tie it. I don’t want it. I need you to… Dean! Snap out of it. Get up! Alpha, please!” Michael grimaced and hauled Dean back up and set him on his feet. Tears were welling dangerously in Michael’s eyes, and Dean shook his head out like a dog to clear his senses.
“What?” Dean blinked furiously. The hot coursing of adrenalin made him a little dizzy, and he struggled to find center again. “Back up and start over. What is this? Someone bound you?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m telling you. I’m not permitted to take it off. Only you or Alpha can do that. Dean, please! I need you to untie me.”
Dean stared at the knots running down Michael’s midline. He focused closer. “I know these ties. I know who ties knots this way. I’ll bet they’re spaced to her fist-size. This is Jody’s handiwork.”
“Wha…? How did you know that?”
“Who do you think taught me Shibari in the first place?” Dean asked rhetorically. “She did a good job, man. This is beautiful work.”
“Just take it off me, Dean. I’m begging you.”
Dean lifted his palm to Michael, trying to get himself back online. “Hold up. Jody bound you in a rope dress, and you can’t take it off? What’s going on?”
“She wants you to call her, Dean.”
“Oh, I’ll call her all right! This is nonsense! I don’t know who she thinks she…” Dean fumbled his phone from his pocket and had it ringing before he finished ranting. “Hello? Jody, what the fuck? What’d you do to my mate?”
Michael stood shirtless in the middle of the room, feeling profoundly stupid. He heard Jody’s tinny voice asking to be put on speaker and then clear up audibly when Dean complied in confusion.
“Hey, fellas,” she said calmly. “I trust you’ve seen my handiwork.”
“Yeah, beta, looking right at it. What’s this all about, and who’s ass am I kicking?” Dean’s face had taken on a hard light, all planes and angles and a pulsing vein in his throat.
“I leave that decision to you, alpha. I’m not apologizing for the clothesline. Just hear me out.”
“Somebody better start talking,” Dean warned. He pointed to Michael. “Text Cas to get his ass in here, pronto.”
“No, alpha, please,” Michael wheedled, but Dean cut him short with a sharp snap of his fingers and a fearsome look as his eyes suffused with crimson. Michael acquiesced with a pained expression, punching in the short text before stowing his phone in his back pocket.
“Does that corset stop at your waist?” Dean’s face clearly indicated he knew the answer to his question already. And of course he did. He could feel Michael’s rope wedgie now that he was concentrating.
“No, alpha,” Michael admitted uncomfortably. Cas slipped in, closing the door behind him with a perplexed frown. He kept his distance and didn’t speak.
“Take your pants off. Show me. Jody? Beta, you better start talking, and I mean now.”
“I hear ya, alpha. I know it’s an impertinence, but Michael left me few choices. You know he’s already on probation with his program. Dean, he did it again today, and I gotta say, I’m not feeling very generous anymore. He’s had beaucoup chances to figure this out, and he’s just as mouthy and impudent as ever. It was a full-blown case of insubordination. He’s using the clients to stroke his own ego, and it’s putting vulnerable people into unhealthy situations. He snapped my head off when I attempted a redirect.”
“Michael?” Dean prompted.
Michael had had a few hours to consider how to answer the charges Jody made against him, and it was a good thing she had allowed that processing time. He’d needed it. He kept his eyes on his mate’s, not an easy task when his behavior was the very antithesis of Dean’s moral compass.
“I want to be a therapist, Dean. It’s important to me. I fucked up. It won’t happen again. Jody, I’m sorry about the insubordination and the taking advantage of vulnerable clients. It won’t happen again. I swear it. Please, please get this off me.” Michael’s face collapsed, and his tears fell fast and hot. He stood trembling in humiliation with his pants at his thighs and his face in his hands.
Dean cast a look back at his husband by the door. “Alpha?” he asked softly. Cas strode forward, circled around Michael, and began unstringing the ropes. He still hadn’t said a word. His jaw looked carved from marble, and his blue eyes were hard and cold.
“Look, guys,” Jody said through the phone. “He pulled it together before it went too far sideways to save. He did excellent work by the end, and we’re going to have a win on our hands before it’s all said and done with this couple. But he’s way beyond the point in his progress where he should still need training wheels. I’m not overstating things by saying that if something like this ever happens again, I’ll have no choice but to cut him. The clients have to come first.”
“The clients come first,” Castiel agreed at a growl. “Thank you, beta, for watching over all parties involved and finding a way to get them all through it.”
“Jody,” Dean said, still tense. “I wanna see you in my office first thing Monday morning. Don’t go for coffee. Don’t stop off and take a shit. My office. First thing.”
“Yes, alpha.”
Dean ended the call with nostrils flaring, staring daggers at his mate. Michael’s hands were up as Cas methodically unbound him, turning him bodily when necessary, and shifting the rope with care to keep the ends from popping painfully on their way through each loop.
“Sir, it won’t happen again. I swea…”
“Save it! You said that last time!”
Cas broke in with a softer volume but no less fortitude. “Dean, take a walk. You’re in no condition to handle this right now.”
“No offense, Alpha, but he’s my mate!”
“And I’m your Alpha! Take a walk!”
“Fine. I’ll walk. But he’s gonna get what he has coming to him, and he’s gonna get it from me, so you keep that in mind if you start swinging and you care if he has any ass left at the end, because frankly, I don’t.”
Dean stormed out the door, tripping over Portia on her way in. He left the door hanging ajar and thundered back into the kitchen. He flung Cas’ ill-begotten pastry into the trash and began assaulting a new lump of dough with his rolling pin. Behind him in their playpen, two of his pups began to wail, and Tony disappeared into the pantry.
Dean set the rolling pin to the side and laid the crust gently into its glass pie pan, his hands working on autopilot. He pricked a few holes in the bottom and edged it along the circumference with his fingertips. He repeated everything with a second pie pan, working swiftly with expert movements. He slid the crusts into the oven, checked the oven temp, wiped his hands on a dishcloth before flinging it onto his shoulder, and squatting in front of the playpen.
“What’s got your diapers in a wad?” he asked soothingly, letting Idgie suck his pinkie into her mouth. Jimmy crawled up to the side of the pen and pulled himself to standing with his fingers entangled in the mesh, his face bright red and his nose running. Dean sighed heavily. He closed his eyes, running his fingers through Jimmy’s fine hair. He brought himself mindfully back from an angry pinnacle. He lifted Jimmy one-handed, a practiced technique that took a degree of care and grace, and he settled his son on his hip, still down on the balls of his feet where he was eyeball to eyeball with all of them.
He sang a soft and playful song while Emma teethed on his finger and Jimmy wiped snot on his shirt. When the timer buzzed, Dean was far calmer.
“I can’t work with you two on my hips, guys. If we want pie, we’re going to have to be patient. Daddy’s got you but hold on for me for just another minute. It’ll be worth it. Trust me.”
Dean stood back up to the dismay of his children, wiped Jimmy’s nose with his cloth, and set him back in the playpen on his bottom. He rinsed the pup-spit off his finger, collected the warm pan of apple-cinnamon goodness from the stovetop, and portioned it into the partially baked crusts. He ignored the wailing from behind him as he carefully settled his intricately woven latticed top crusts onto the pies. He garnished one with two piecrust apple leaves and the other with holly-shaped leaves before putting them into the oven. He set a timer on his phone, listening through his Mating-bonds to see if he could tell what Cas was doing to Michael. Funny that Cas assumed he was too upset to deal with Michael, so instead sent him back to juggling pups. At least Michael was an adult. He could deal if Dean lost it a little. The same couldn’t be said for the babies. And if Dean really was as out of control as Cas suspected, wouldn’t he want Dean nowhere near their offspring?
Dean huffed a disbelieving snort. Cas knew Dean wasn’t losing his shit. He just wanted to ease Michael’s anxiety. He wanted to appear to be the great Alpha, always in full control. Dean swallowed around a lump of bitterness in his throat.
He swooped down on the little ones and scooped both of the loudmouths up at once, showering them each with kisses. “See? I’ve gotcha, you little monsters. And now you get pie and Daddy cuddles. Who wants a puppy pile, huh? Puppy pile?”
Holding onto Emma while dragging the wheeled playpen with one hand and hoisting Jimmy up to his shoulder with the other was cumbersome. Tony emerged from the pantry and silently took over rolling the playpen into the parlor. Emma was still sniffly, but Jimmy quieted now that he had what he wanted. In the playpen, Kat pulled up and reached up with both hands to be rescued from her prison, balancing by leaning her tummy into the soft mesh side. Alex was too busy chewing on blocks to notice a rescue was being mounted. Dean spread a clean blanket on the floor, settled the two he’d already sprung, and then hoisted the other two out as well. He sat leaning against the sofa with his legs spread wide, and he set to playing with his pups, each of them showing him their toys in turn.
Soon he was entranced, laying on his side by the sofa and practically covered in baby drool. Emma in particular loved to bestow kisses, despite not really understanding the mechanics of a slobberless kiss. He stopped fixating on Michael’s state of mind after he felt his mate burst into infernos of shame and then crumble back down into penitence. Cas hadn’t touched him physically. But it had to have been one of those Alpha lectures that leaves you scorched from the inside out.
Cas emerged again an unquantified time later. It couldn’t have been all that long as Dean’s timer was still ticking down. The Alpha sat down on the floor opposite Dean, caging in the squirmy pups and accepting a soft-sided book Kat gifted him. He sent Dean a bracing look before animating his face and beginning to read the picture book to his daughter. The other three immediately dropped their toys and scuttled across to join the story.
“Traitors,” Dean mumbled at them. He waited until Cas reached the last page and surrendered the book to Alex before speaking.
“Where’s Michael?”
“I sent him to his room for the evening. You can go up and deal with him whenever you’re ready. Whether he gets dinner or not is your decision.” Cas played gently with the pups as he talked. He had an ease with them that Dean found endearing. Alex crawled up into Castiel’s lap and pretended to read the book out loud to his father, babbling nonsense syllables in recognizable language inflections. Cas helped him turn the pages and made noises of agreement here and there. Dean watched them, feeling his resentment dissipate.
“Cas, can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course, Dean. Anything. Kathleen, you mustn’t hit your sister. Here. Try this one instead.” Cas handed his daughter a soft toy in place of the stiff one she had been wielding. Kat took it and crammed it into her mouth.
“Man, I feel a fall coming. I’m itching to throw shit and break something. The image of apple pie sliding down the kitchen wall won’t leave my mind. Do you think you can head that off for me, so we get to eat the pie instead of mopping it up? I’d hate to ruin Jess’ birthday dinner. I need something powerful and painful.”
“Dean. That is spectacular progress. Of course I can. It would be my honor. I’m so proud of you.” There was warmth and wonder in Castiel’s voice, and it made Dean blush slightly.
“I was going to ask Michael tonight after dinner,” he admitted. “He told me ages ago that all I had to do was ask, and I finally felt ready to try him out to see if he could pull the intensity I’m craving without being provoked into it. You understand, don’t you, Cas? Why I would go to him instead of you?”
“It’s fine, Dean. He’s your mate. In fact, if you’d rather, I can provide you a stopgap to tide you over until he’s out of the doghouse. You can still ask for the full response from Michael.”
“No, if it’s all the same, after what he’s got on his plate today, I’d rather you do it. I’m not in any condition to take my chances that it isn’t enough. I feel it coming, babe, and it feels big. I feel stretched thin and burned out. I almost mouthed off at you back there just to piss you off. I know that’s not what Michael needed. It would’ve been for me, not him. It took me a little thinking to trace back why I got so mad at you sending me packing. You knew I was about to pull the same play Michael’s in the roaster for, didn’t you? Somehow you knew I was poised to take something that was about Michael and turn it all onto me.”
Cas nodded solemnly. “Yes, I knew. You’ve been building to it for days.”
Dean gritted his teeth and nodded back. “I need a re-set. Like, a total system reboot. I haven’t slept more than three hours straight in almost a month what with cycles, and the pups’ colds, and the budget deadlines. And now Michael. Jesus, what are we gonna do, man? How do we get through to him?” Dean leaned back into the couch until he wasn’t looking at Cas anymore, and he didn’t see Alex clambering across to throw himself on his daddy’s stomach. Dean let out a surprised whoof and sat straight up.
“Ace, buddy! Warn a guy!” Dean pulled him up and kissed his soft throat, letting the pup seek out his dad’s scent glands and rub his nose and chin behind Dean’s ear.
“A roleplay, then,” Cas concluded. “Would you like to choreograph it or ad lib? I’m fine with either option.”
Dean closed his eyes on his exhale. The feeling of being taken in hand sent tingles down his spine and made him shiver. They weren’t even there yet, but his Sir had agreed, and that was enough to settle Dean.
“Maybe you could outline some if/then options for us and keep them to yourself so I can roll with it?” Dean made it a question. “You’re okay if I lash out? I…Cas, I really need to let go and then feel you pull me up short and tight.”
“I’ll take care of everything, my love. And for tonight, since he’s grounded, Michael forfeits the right to grant or deny us this round.”
“Thanks, Cas. I knew you’d get it.”
“I do, Dean. I get it. I’m really very proud of you. Go on and help Tony finish supper. I’ve got the munchkins. Emma Jo, that does not belong in your mouth.”
“You stood still and let her bind you,” Dean commented dryly, giving no hint of what he thought about it.
“She’s my superior, alpha. It was either capitulate to the punishment or lose my position in the program.”
Dean shook his head as if Michael was missing the point. “You,” he said with emphasis, lowering his chin. “Allowed a beta-Neutral, who you’ve already accosted once, to put a rope corset on you, and you wore it to class.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“How did you and Jody convince your wolf that you didn’t have a choice? He’s not the most easygoing mutt I’ve met.”
Michael swallowed. “I kenneled my wolf. It wasn’t easy. He was mad.”
“Mad.”
“What do you want me to say, Dean? Yes, mad. But I stashed him, and Jody and I both lived through it.”
“Michael, that’s…damn, boy, that took a hell of a lot of self-control. You get that, right? I wanna make sure we’re on the same page here. That was some next-level Tertiary regulation, and you made it look easy.” Dean was pacing slowly in front of Michael, holding his eye. Michael stood stiffly at the foot of their bed with his feet apart and his hands behind his back wearing a faded pair of flannel pajama pants.
“It wasn’t easy,” Michael objected.
“Did you hiss or snarl at her? Snap? Did you fight her in any way?”
“No, sir.”
Dean stopped and faced Michael. He let Michael think. Dean’s eyes could have drilled granite. Red eyes confronted golden. Michael’s chest heaved. Dean took one step closer and spoke very softly.
“Don’t you ever try to excuse behavior like this again by saying you can’t control yourself. You can control it when you choose to. And, man, if you can’t make that choice when our clients are at stake, you are in the wrong line of work.”
“I’m sorry, alpha. It wasn’t a lack of control. It was a bad decision. I get it now.”
“Oh, is that right? You get it now? We’ve been on this roundabout for months but truss you up like a Sunday chicken and all of a sudden it’s crystal clear? I’ve been way too lenient, Omega. I let you slide on the promises that it wouldn’t keep happening. This time, you’re paying what you owe.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here’s the rule, Michael. When you work with Omegas, your wolf stays kenneled one hundred percent of the time. Don’t even let it out to sniff the wind. It’s not trustworthy enough to be there. It’s a pedophile in the schoolyard. Do I make myself clear? Consider it a restraining order. Cage the fucker or tap out.”
“Yes, alpha.”
“And when you work with alphas, you feed out just enough Tertiary to get their attention and win their respect. There’s a reason you’re not cleared to work solo with alphas yet, Michael. That’s a dance that we expect will take you loads of practice to nail down. Is any of this ringing a bell?”
“Yes, sir. I remember.”
Dean huffed. “Do you?”
“Alpha, please. Let me prove it to you.”
“What do you do when you have a client who reacts to you with sexual arousal?” Dean asked, veering the subject down a different line.
“I disengage. I keep working but without acknowledging the spark. I avoid eye contact. I keep my touch limited to the bare essential. Don’t get flustered. Don’t take it personally. Re-stake my wolf to make sure he’s kenneled securely. Put the client first.”
“All good answers, Michael. Why isn’t that what you do when you’re presented with that scenario? Talk to me. What’s going on in your head?” Dean stepped around behind him and sat on the bed. He didn’t invite Michael to turn.
Michael’s head dipped. “I feel responsible for them, Dean. Their nerves, their worry, their discomfort. I feel the need to ease it all. It always starts innocently. I don’t want to be one of those therapists who puts distance between their own humanity and their client’s, and when people get uptight, I soothe them. It starts there, but it builds. They like my touch and my voice, and as they begin to react to me, I…”
“You preen.”
“Yeah. I suppose that’s the word. It feels good to connect with people. It happens in the background inside my head so that I’m never aware I’ve built a D/s substructure between us until it’s already complete and I’ve got a client desperate to please me.”
“Who’s doing the building, Michael? Is it your wolf or is it you?”
“I’m not sure.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed, weighing. Finally, he accepted that Michael wasn’t certain. “Thank you for being honest. If it’s your wolf, then kenneling it will solve this. If it’s your front-brain, we’ve got a problem that I don’t know how to solve except with classic conditioning, and I know how much you enjoy that.”
“What do we do?” Michael asked with a shaky voice.
Dean gave it a moment. He scratched his chin and then rolled his open palm over the back of his neck. He stood back up. “You’ve earned a right thrashing, man, and we’re not leaving this room until you’ve taken what I owe you. After that, I’m going to propose to Jody that your clinicals be monitored by a pair of mentors—one focused on the client’s welfare and your professional performance, the other just to watch over your wolf.”
Dean could feel it too when Michael’s mouth went dry. “Only Winchester Pack alphas can even see my wolf,” Michael pointed out. “No one else has a Claim.”
“That’s true. We’re going to need to fix that.”
“Who?” Michael asked.
“Joshua or Benny would be my ‘druthers,” Dean told him.
“Benny’s too busy,” Michael said stoically.
“Probably.”
Michael stared at the carpeting in front of him, silent and pouting.
“Look, Michael, I don’t like it either. I don’t want anyone else to hold a Claim over you, but we have to do something. I’ve never known Jody to cut someone this many breaks. She’s done, kiddo. Next move is yours. If you really mean you’re serious and staying in the program means that much to you, you gotta prove it. Once you figure out how to cut this pattern off at the knees and give the clients the service they deserve, we’ll ease off on the supervision. But you asked for this. Don’t go balking now that you got it.”
“I didn’t know it would be this hard, Dean.”
“Everything worth achieving is hard, Michael. Nut up,” the alpha snapped harshly.
“Can I still come with you to Providence?”
“Go fill a bowl with water and grab a washcloth. Leave your pants in the bathroom.”
“Please, alpha. Don’t bench me. It’s my first convention.”
“No, it’s not. Don’t be dramatic. I’m not pulling you from Rhode Island, but if you aren’t back here with the water by the time I get my paddle outta the closet, you can spend the whole con in your hotel room.”
Michael squeaked and darted away. Dean pressed his lips together and collected his paddle from its nail in the closet. He blew dust off the outward curves. It had been a while since he’d held this type of wood in his right hand. Michael usually took a strapping over a paddle. This time felt like a different flavor though, and Dean went with what his instinct led him to do.
Michael was just coming back to the bed with a bowl of water in one hand and a dry cloth in the other. He held them both out to Dean. The alpha set the paddle on the bed and took the small white cloth from his mate. Carefully, he wet it, making sure not to spill on the floor.
“Lay out on the bed for me, Omega.” Dean took the bowl and set it on the floor around the corner from the end where Michael braced his feet. He spread the wet cloth over Michael’s backside. Water ran in rivulets down Michael’s flesh, seeking the lowest pathway along each curve and crevice to disappear into the comforter. Dean stooped and wet his right hand in the water as well. Michael bit his lower lip and then hid his face in his arms.
“Count every swat, Omega. You lose count, we start over.”
“Yessir.”
Dean removed the cloth, laid it flat on the paddle for safekeeping and easy access, and then he set to turning his mate’s wet ass bright red with his hand. Michael counted loudly, keeping his volume incontrovertibly clear. He began to pant rapidly, but his counting never hesitated, sometimes meeting Dean’s strike right in time. Dean re-wet his hand often, and the sting reverberated in his head, bouncing in from his mate’s agony to build inside Dean’s mind, a feedback loop of power and pain.
At eighty, Dean switched out for the paddle. It had absorbed enough moisture from the cloth that keeping it wet was easy. Dean still made Michael swipe it with the cloth before every stroke, slowing the process and keeping his backside wet. It was an exercise in submission that Dean could feel Michael hated to his bones. He kept count though, and he didn’t budge.
“Get up on your knees on the bed now, Omega,” Dean told him after a slow fifty. “Knees wide. Pull your cheeks apart. We’re aiming for the tender spots way up close.”
“No, alpha! No! I’ll be good!”
“Don’t make me add a strap, Omega. I don’t like this one bit, but you earned it, and I’m going to do right by you if it kills me.”
Michael whimpered as he got positioned. Dean rearranged him to keep his testicles out of the line of fire, but when he popped the paddle hard right at the intersection of ass, thighs, and sit spots, Michael yowled as if his jewels were being crushed in a can opener.
“You forgot to count. Five more, Omega. Hold still.”
“OW, ALPHA! PLEASE!”
Dean snapped his wrist and popped it down again. “Count!”
“TWO!”
“Say one, Michael. We started over.”
“ONE!”
Once prompted, Michael didn’t forget again, but when Dean released him from his position, he rolled to his side moaning with his hands reaching back between his legs rubbing at his sore flesh in an undignified frenzy.
“Spare me,” Dean told him affectionately. “You’ve had worse. C’mere.”
“My channel is swelling closed,” Michael whined.
“Mm. Kinky.”
Michael rolled into Dean’s chest when Dean flopped down on the bed and reached for him. “Don’t make fun of me, alpha.”
“Nah. Shh. I got you. Give me your hands. Stop rubbing it.”
“Mmmnngh!”
Dean kissed his mate’s brow. “Michael, I forgive you. You know that, right?”
“I’m so embarrassed though, Dean. How will I show my face to Jody again?”
“She doesn’t hold grudges, babe. She’ll be watching you for signs you’ve crossed this barricade though. Forgiving isn’t forgetting. You need to keep your eyes focused on the goal in front of you. Don’t lose focus. Don’t try to do it without guidance.”
“Can I do this, Dean? Can I do it at all?”
“Michael, man, we’ve trained a lot of people. You’re by no means a hopeless case. The only thing standing in your way is you. Here, try this. Think of Top Gun. You’re Maverick. Tell me what that means.”
“Uh,” Michael hesitated. “I’m the hot-head?”
“Yup. Take it all the way through the plot. Where are you right now in terms of the movie?”
“Is Goose dead yet?”
“No, Michael. Goose is still alive.”
“So, I just got reamed out in the C.O.’s office.”
“Did you? What comes next?”
“I get butt-hurt and go on a tirade, and it ends badly.”
“Badly for who?” Dean pressed.
“For people who depend on me.”
“Why?”
“Because I was stuck in my own head, caught up in who’s right or wrong, in my own self-image, and I wouldn’t listen to people who had my best interest at heart and a lifetime more experience than me.”
“Damn, Michael, you’re good at this. So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to pay attention to my instructors, kennel my wolf, and buzz the tower.”
Dean laughed and kissed the side of Michael’s head. “And study for your psych test,” he added pointedly. “You hungry?”
“Famished.”
“I’ll bring you a tray.”
“Can we talk through the Psych chapter? I’m still confused between Fall and Drop. The symptoms are almost identical, but the treatments are opposite.” Michael rolled off his mate as Dean struggled to his feet.
“You’re making it harder than it needs to be, man. The difference is the source of the symptoms, and you can tell them apart by what started them each. A drop happens after a Secondary or Tertiary encounter when the participants don’t get enough support from each other to come back to center after a deep dive. A fall is what’s on my horizon right now. It’s what happens when a dude goes too long without a good ass-reddening scene. It builds over time when there’s no encounters to speak of, but the dude really needs one. So, look, I’m gonna bring you a tray. You eat and study, and later, when Cas is through heading off my impending fall, I’ll send him in to check on you. Write up any questions that come up while you’re reading.”
“So,” Michael blinked and bit his lip. “You’re scening with Castiel tonight?”
“Yeah. I’m in a bad way, Michael. I need it. And you’re… You know. Bad timing. We’re okay though, you and me.”
“He didn’t ask me.”
“No, and he’s not planning to. You’re grounded tonight.”
“Oh.” Michael huffed humorlessly. “Unintended consequences.”
“You need anything from downstairs?” Dean asked as he approached the door.
“My bag is in the foyer.”
“Okay, I gotcha. Settle in. I expect you to ace this test.”
“Can Pete help me study?”
“Cas put her to bed an hour ago. She’s been pulling double-duty all week with the pups and getting ready to celebrate Jess’ birthday and Christmas too. She’s freaking out about the Grammy nomination. She needs a break. Cain said her work’s suffering. Besides, it’ll do you some good to spend a few hours alone with your throbbing butt and your textbooks.”
Michael grumbled, and Dean grinned. Dean felt the grin slip as he left the room and closed the door though. His whole body sagged with fatigue, and he felt as if he was being held up by clothespins. He rubbed his face with a weary hand and snagged Michael’s bag on the way to the kitchen. April wasn’t the only one pulling extra duties lately. The house sparkled with holiday cheer, a new tradition Dean insisted they institute while the pups were still young. It had taken him over a month to finish tinkering with all the decorations. Every surface that could hold a twinkle light or sprig of evergreen was adorned.
But Friday night’s celebratory dinner had been flat without Michael in a way that holly and pie couldn’t fix.
Tony had a tray already loaded, the food still hot and fragrant. A single piece of pie sat alone on the counter as if Tony hadn’t been certain if grounded Omegas would be afforded dessert or not.
Dean added the pie to the tray and headed back upstairs. He delivered it without fanfare, leaving Michael a soft kiss on the side of his mouth and closing the door on his way out. He nudged the door to the nursery open. Cas had Alex in his arms in the rocker and Jimmy blinking heavily in the swing. A quick look in the crib told him that Emma and Kat were already dead to the world, each laid out at opposite ends of the mattress. Kat was a gymnast in her sleep, and she had a habit of kicking her siblings awake.
Dean eased Jimmy out of the swing and lifted him to his shoulder briefly, jouncing him gently. “When I lay you down, are you gonna be a man about it?” he asked the pup rhetorically. Jimmy nuzzled Dean’s throat sleepily.
“Atta boy. Here we go. Shh. Daddy needs a good strapping tonight, Jimster. How ‘bout you get your Z’s and let Papa take care of Daddy uninterrupted? There’s a big boy.” Dean laid him down at the end of Alex’s bed. The plea was academic as Michael had the baby monitor while Dean and Cas engaged themselves downstairs.
They had been rotating the triplets to see which combinations worked best in what sleeping configuration. So far, the most reliable arrangement was for the triplets to sleep together in one crib and Alex to sleep alone. But they would soon outgrow their crib if they continued to share it three abreast. Putting the boys in one crib and the girls in the other also worked most nights. Jimmy was the lightest sleeper, and Alex was a natural cuddler, so they had a synergistic effect on each other.
Emma slept like the dead as long as she didn’t take a foot to the face in the middle of the night, while nothing seemed to make any difference whatsoever to Kat. She slept well or she didn’t according to her own internal machinations.
Jimmy shuffled around tiredly for a moment, rolled onto his belly and pulled his knees up under him so his backside stuck up. Dean patted it a couple of times, rubbed circles on his back, and then pulled his blanket up to the middle of his back and stepped quietly back. He turned to Cas.
Castiel’s face registered soft admiration. He rocked Alex like a metronome, his eyes fixed on Dean with an expression of having everything he’d ever wanted at his feet. He was contentment encapsulated. Dean quirked a smile at him and nocked his head to the side to indicate he would wait outside. Cas nodded understanding. Looking down at Alex, Cas nodded again to let Dean know it wouldn’t be long.
Cas had done some thinking while he settled the pups for the night. Dean needed to be taken out of his own head for a span by fire and froth. Cas had felt him building up to a blowout and had been looking for safe ways to guide him toward destroying something they could live without. He’d considered and discarded the idea of pre-empting Dean’s barrage with a grownup conversation. That had never worked, and it usually had the opposite effect to what he intended.
He’d learned over the years to let Dean lead the dance toward chaos, to light however many matches he needed to and only once all the fuses were going could Cas safely step in and take him over. For Dean to have spoken up the way he did, asking for the brimstone without lighting any bombs, set Cas on alert. Were there fuses sizzling away that he didn’t know about yet? Was it a ruse of some kind?
Was Dean honestly growing right before his eyes?
Cas meant to take him at his word and see him fulfilled as he’d asked to be. Anything less would be a cop out, and Castiel wasn’t prone to copping out. That left Cas wondering how best to go about it. The element of surprise was a useful tool, and one that both partners enjoyed making liberal use of. Dean was infamous for despising surprises but only because it had the effect of setting him back on his heels and sending him defensively into his wolf. In-scene, he thrived on being kept in the dark. So, for tonight, Cas meant to turn the lights off metaphorically and leave him guessing.
He rocked Alex steadily, feeling the pup’s grip on his shirt begin to grow slack.
What had driven Dean’s fall this time? There was usually a trigger that started the ball rolling, and sequential hits sent it cascading ever faster, ever larger until Dean lost control of it entirely, and it bowled him over heels over head. Dean’s falls nearly always involved mental and physical fatigue, and no wonder. With four squalling pups to wrangle—six when Sam and Jess stopped in—everyone was exhausted. They were easy pups as pups go, but there were four of them. Caring for them well enough to keep them healthy was hard enough. Taking time to connect with each of them was even harder, and Dean was committed to being more than a changer of diapers. He wanted to know his children and to have them know him.
Cas weighed the amount of intensive quality time Dean was putting in with the pups on top of his performance at work, which, for the last few months had been stellar, and come to the conclusion that Dean was due an intermission into Nowheresville. On top of that, even while perched precariously at the ledge and losing his balance, Dean had still pulled together the grit to dole out appropriate consequences to Michael.
April had the same fall coming. She was pulled ever more tightly between responsibilities, all of which meant a great deal to her, none of which could take second chair to the others. With the shared Grammy nomination now highlighting her name to the general public, barely a day passed without a call or text from New York that sent her whirling into another anxiety attack. Unlike Dean though, April wore out before she fully tumbled, and Cas had tucked her into bed with a soft blanket and a fluffy dog.
Dean never stopped moving before he fell, even if he was burning out from every direction. He would continue to push through until he was so frazzled he broke something irreparably. For Dean, that act of willful destruction was a raised finger to the physical limitations his body and his mind were bound to. It was a shout of rage out into the darkness, knowing full well that the darkness would always win in the end.
”Rage, rage against the dying of the light!” That was Dean.
Dean was what happened when testosterone took over where stamina left off and razing it all to the ground was the only recourse he had left that gave him any sense of self-respect.
Cas smiled into Alex’s baby-scented hair. He loved Dean when he was furious at the world. He loved even more taking Dean by the bridle and letting him rage against the hold, kicking up dust and sweat in a desperate attempt to break free, only to flay him until the whites of his eyes rolled, and he fell still, heaving and panting, head low and withers trembling, to stand shaking in submission before his Alpha.
Castiel found he had a rather ill-timed erection as he hauled himself out of the rocking chair to lay Alex beside his brother. Alex stirred, his nose scenting the change in the air, but Cas placed a palm on the back of his head and soothed him back to sleep.
Dean wasn’t in the hallway when Cas emerged. He felt outward through his link and zeroed in on Dean’s location below his feet. He was in the playroom. He was centering.
Whatever happened tonight, Cas vowed to reward Dean at the end. Dean had already earned it, pass or fail through the scene itself. Of course, he had no intention of leaking that little nugget just yet. Plus, this wasn’t going to be the kind of scene that really had a chance of failure one way or another. Whatever Dean chose to do, Castiel would respond by directing them both toward the pain his Sub needed. From that perspective, a failure on his Sub’s part was a victory. Dean really wasn’t going to have to do anything but hang on tight and scream himself hoarse.
Cas shoved the playroom door hard so that it flew open with a bang, and he caught the startled turn of a surprised head. Dean’s body was neatly arrayed, but he’d been looking at the back wall while he waited, perusing the straps hanging in a line, perhaps?
“Interesting,” Cas commented in a low rumble, strolling in like the king of the world. “I see my pet has forgotten the basics of his very first lesson. However shall I respond?”
“I’m sorry, Sir. You took me by surprise.”
“Did I?”
“Um…yessir.”
“Recite for me, please, Pet. What was your very first lesson?”
Dean swallowed. He tracked his Dom with his eyes as the man strolled casually about, touching nearly everything he passed.
“Obey you unless I need to call a safeword.”
“Hmm. Not the one I’m thinking of. Not untrue, exactly, but let’s argue that an initial recitation of the contract isn’t what I’m searching for. Try again.”
Dean licked his lower lip. His eyes were bright. “You told me to finish my water.”
Cas chuckled darkly. “You have an excellent memory, Pet. Drinking a glass of water is hardly a lesson though, is it? You have one more chance. I encourage you to answer correctly this time if you’re at all interested in continuing this evening.”
Dean’s head followed his Dom’s progress toward the back of the room. He licked his lips, clearly deciding to take the warning seriously. His eyes lost the tease that had them alight. “I’m to…um…kneel naked on my starting position in my starting pose, put my eyes on the door, and wait for you.”
“Very good.”
Cas kept strolling. He reached the back wall where the straps had garnered Dean’s attention, and he carded his fingers through the warm leather. Dean didn’t strain his neck by trying to watch him. He had his head lowered to his left, prepared to pick the Dom back up if he continued on. Cas let the silence lengthen. Eventually, he moved on around, leaving the straps where they were and gliding on past the luxurious couch that April had draped in faux monkey fur. Dean’s eyes flicked up to him, and Cas stopped at the point where Dean could hold his eyes but doing so was an uncomfortable angle for his head.
“That isn’t what you did though, is it?”
“No, Sir,” Dean told him, adding a touch of petulance that dared a reaction. Cas smirked. This was going to be fun.
Dean had been raised by a man who demanded obedience and rationality. Flares of temper, the hot-blooded kind, had been dashed coldly the moment they showed the first sign of bursting from an adolescent too fired up, too impetuous, to control his own rage. John had no patience for that from anyone but himself. Never mind that Dean desperately needed a conduit to feed the rage safely onto bare ground where it wouldn’t scorch anything precious.
What Castiel gave him was a conduit. He let Dean rage until the fire burned itself into a glorious conflagration, he fed it, tended it, raised it up into epic levels of power and heat, and then he whoofed it out like a breath on a birthday candle, leaving Dean utterly spent and shaking.
But first, he had to ignite Dean’s pilot light.
“Where were your eyes when I arrived, Pet?”
“I was looking at the showerhead in the back, Sir. I think it needs replacing.” Dean smirked back.
“Well, by all means, if you’d rather be doing a home improvement project, I’ll leave you to it. You don’t need me for plumbing jobs. Have a good evening, Dean.”
“What?”
Cas strolled a little faster, still barely acknowledging the Sub in the middle of the room. “I misunderstood,” he said coldly. “I thought you were invested in performing duties as I see fit this evening, but I see you’re more interested in the plumbing. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Now wait just a goddamned minute!” Dean sprang off his square and planted himself before his Dominant. “You’re leaving? We didn’t do anything!”
“I ask very little of you, Dean.” Castiel buried his excitement and let nothing but cold steel touch his eyes. “I ask that you remember one simple set of instructions at the outset, and that you follow instructions as they are fed to you line by line after that. I go to a great deal of effort to plan and to implement scenes for you that you don’t need to worry your pretty head about whatsoever so that you can glide through them while I do all the work. The least you can do for me is to remember your goddamned starting pose. Is that too much to ask?”
“While you do all the work?! Are you insane?”
“KNEES! NOW!”
shit
Dean dropped, covering his head with his arms.
“Am I insane?” Cas repeated lightly. “Was that the question? Why don’t we find out? Let’s try this again. Dean, Pet, go get in your fucking starting position and try to get it right this time.”
Dean’s face contorted in rage. He snarled, pulling his lip upward as his nostrils flared. He lumbered angrily to his feet, slapping Castiel’s hand away when the Alpha offered it. Dean stood toe to toe with the man, eyes shifting to red, and self-control on a hair trigger.
Castiel didn’t balk. He breathed mindfully, controlling his wolf, his eyes, even his heartbeat through practiced techniques and years and years of repetition. Dean was allowed to lose it. Castiel couldn’t.
“Your starting square, Pet. I’m waiting.”
“Fuck this,” Dean spat. He turned on his heel and snatched two hangers off the back rack that had his clothes dangling from them.
“I’m in no mood for impertinence, Dean.” He actually was. He really, really was. Castiel’s wolf was snarling like a caged tiger. “You asked for a scene. Drop the clothes and place yourself correctly before I decide to do it for you.”
“Fuck this, and fuck you, Cas! Go kneel on the goddamn square yourself if you’re so keen!”
Dean knew it was coming, and yet once it was over, he still couldn’t have said what happened exactly. One moment he was storming toward the door, nearly there, and the next he was flat on his back with Castiel’s foot planted in his groin and pain blossoming from more than three places.
Cas tsked at him calmly from six feet up. “I believe we’ll be using cuffs tonight, Pet. I’d hate to have to chase you down. The ruckus could wake the household.” The Dom affected a fake cheeriness. “Sound good? Yes, it does.” He pulled a groaning Dean to his feet, dusted him off a little, and then bent him double with a hand at the back of his neck. Looking up into Castiel’s crazy expression, Dean’s jaw dropped.
“Oh, Pet,” the man sang. “This is going to be so. much. fun.”
Dean closed his eyes and grimaced against the pain.
So much pain.
“You still amaze me, Dean. It’s been years, and I’m still in awe of your stamina and your pain threshold. How’re the wrists?” Cas kneed back up onto the mattress with an icepack in his hand. “Show me.”
“ ‘M good, Alpha. Can we sleep now?”
“Yes, love, in a minute. Here, drink the rest of your juice.” Cas handed the glass to Dean but had to help him stabilize it.
Dean was embarrassed at his jittery hands. “Damn, it’s been a while since I had the shakes this bad after a scene. Cas, leave it. My wrists are fine. It’s surface bruising.”
“You’re experiencing an adrenalin load, Dean. Can you try to breathe back down with me? Let’s slow you down, alpha.” Cas set the juice glass on the sideboard and pressed the ice pack into the outside of Dean’s right wrist. He held Dean’s eyes and they breathed slowly together, intimately. He straddled Dean’s thighs and moved the ice to the other wrist, maintaining the pace of his breath and feeling when the tremors eased.
Dean blinked sleepily.
“I’m so proud of you, my love.”
“Yeah, you said that already,” Dean teased.
“It bears repeating,” Cas defended with no embarrassment.
“Come ‘ere,” Dean suggested as he wriggled to get to a flat supine position. Cas stretched out beside him. Dean met him with a warm, intense kiss, feeding Cas his gratitude and affection, saying all the things he didn’t know how to say in words. Cas answered him back in kind, rolling up on top of him and inundating him with hot, wet kisses, flooding him with adoration.
Dean whimpered.
The pressure made his ass throb. He pulled his knees up, spreading Castiel’s legs wide, and he ran a hand down to massage the sore flesh.
“Mm-mm,” Cas corrected, catching him by the wrist and easing it clear. He didn’t stop kissing.
Dean whimpered again and then groaned into Castiel’s mouth. Eventually, they fell into near stillness, breathing shared air more than kissing, reveling in the closeness and so close to falling asleep that their bodies both fell slack.
“You wanna stay down here, Alpha?” Dean mumbled, half hoping he wouldn’t need to get up, half understanding that they needed at the very least to go fetch the baby monitor from Michael’s room. Only, his body felt like his muscles were no longer strung to his bones. If he tried to stand, he felt like he’d be a sloshing pile of goop dragging at the bare skeleton that attempted to stand to full height by itself.
“I wish I’d installed an elevator,” Cas mumbled back.
“Yeah.”
“Come on, Dean. Put that world-renowned stamina to one more test. Let’s get you upstairs. I promise to let you sleep uninterrupted all night.”
“Noooo,” Dean whined. “Wanna stay with you, not Michael.”
Cas smiled and kissed the tip of his nose. “I’m flattered, but you need the sleep. That was part of the deal, and you know it.”
“I c’n sleep through pups waking if I know you’re gettin’ ‘em. Please, Sir? Lemme stay with you.”
“All right, Dean. But we’re sleeping up in our bed, and that means stairs for both of us. Bring the icepack.”
Cas rolled off of him, gaining his feet a little clumsily, and Dean followed with a lot more effort.
“Crimeny,” Dean grumbled, clutching at the back of his thigh. “What’d you hit me with anyway?”
Cas chuckled. “I’ll show you tomorrow. I got a new toy.”
“S’not a toy, man. That’s a medieval torture device.”
“That’s true,” Cas told him, holding the door and helping Dean stumble through it. “Matter of semantics, I suppose. Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to.”
Notes:
Was that a Grammy nomination that slid by with barely a mention? Why, yes. Yes, it was. Nicholas is nominated again for Best Musical Theater Album, and since our Ozzie is a co-composer, she's up to share it if it wins. Tony nominations don't happen until April, so we won't know what's going to happen there for a bit. April's big show anthem didn't win a nomination for the Grammy's, but there's still hope. It's eligible for a Tony.
Y'all, I can't tell you how much fun putting together the table of impact implements and classifications has been, although I have to confess, Melodina did most of the work.
Chapter 5: Monday, December 17, 2018
Summary:
Monday after that awful Friday when Michael came home in ropes... It's time for Dean to have his say to Jody about tying up other peoples' mates.
Cas sits in on Dean's session with Tessa because they've discovered something important. Talking it through in the counselor's office has more than one benefit.
April is at the end of her strength as her candle burns from both ends and starts singeing her fingers in the middle.
And Alex is ready to try out his new words. Three guesses what he says first.
Notes:
I had jury duty this week, and to celebrate I jumped in whole hog and took the whole work set off. It was a win in every way: I didn't get selected, but I showed which re-sets my clock another three years, and I had so much free time I wrote and wrote and wrote.
Thanks to Jennyfly for the collage. Thanks to Andi4 for the peptalk.
I hope you enjoy:
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, December 17, 2018
NOW:
Dean rounded the corner toward his office with Cas at his shoulder and spotted Jody already waiting for him outside his door. They’d arrived for work before seven-thirty, as usual, but the beta beat them. That was no surprise considering Dean’s commandment to her back on Friday. Castiel greeted Jody with a simple nod and a word. He kissed Dean chastely on his lips and then unlocked his own door across the hall from Dean’s and let himself in without fanfare. The door swung gently closed behind him.
Dean raised his cardboard tray in offer, and Jody took the coffee cup closest to her with a quiet word of thanks. Without a prompt, she also took his briefcase out of his right hand so he could open his office door unencumbered, and he mumbled a thanks back.
Once inside, Jody set his case on his desk and stood waiting while he organized his belongings and got settled. Eventually, there was nothing left to do but look to each other. He’d had the weekend to think about it, and that helped.
“Have a seat,” Dean said simply.
Jody sat.
“Look, I get why you did it,” Dean began. “And I’m not making excuses for Michael, but that was outta line, even under the circumstances.”
“I disagree,” Jody replied coolly.
“Really? Maybe you can point me to the section in our training guides that recommends bondage as a deterrent for Dominance displays during clinicals.”
Jody sighed. “Dean, he wasn’t listening. We weren’t getting through to him. I needed something startling, something that gave him pause. It was either that or give up on him altogether. I’ve given Michael’s situation a great deal of thought, and there wasn’t a better way. You’re not going to get an apology from me.”
Dean broke in, his temper rising. “You should have called me, beta. I was right down the hall. You weren’t obligated to try to come up with a response on the fly…”
“And how is that fair to the other students, alpha?” she shot back. “None of the others in this session have a mate who can drop everything and come dashing in to their rescue when they fuck up.”
“I’m not rescuing him from his fuck ups, Jody!”
“You’re not letting him stand on his own feet, Dean! If it had been anyone else, you would have ripped into me for calling you down there for something I should be expected to handle on my own. Michael’s not the first Dominant trainee to figure out that it feels good to masturbate himself on a patient’s reaction. Most Doms do it a couple of times until they get smacked down hard and the message sinks in that it’s not harmless. He’s just the most stubborn. Damnit, alpha, he’s uncoachable. If you can’t see how that’s a problem, then we’re stuck.”
“We’re not stuck,” Dean told her bracingly. “He needs a team effort though, not a one-on-one. I see that now. I’m going to bring in a co-mentor to assist you.”
Jody’s jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”
“He’s unique, beta. We have to stay flexible to his needs and be willing to break our usual rules.”
“Break our usual rules,” she repeated, dumbstruck. “You’re punishing me for Michael’s stubbornness. Dean, I don’t need a partner. I need you to take the handcuffs off me so I can do my job and break some of our usual rules. I can’t believe this. I told you it was a bad idea to train him here. I told you we should send him to Dayton. He’s taking advantage of having his mate onsite to step in for him, and you’re letting him do it.”
“That’s enough,” Dean said fiercely. “You’re forgetting yourself.”
“No, alpha. I’m not the one who’s out of line here. You are. You picked me as his mentor over my objections, and you set me up to play the sacrifice. Dean, I’ve trained hundreds of wolves to do this job. I trained you. When it comes to Doms and Subs, I know what I’m doing. I told you and Benny that training Michael here was a shitty idea, and you both overruled me, ignored the warnings. And now it’s all going down exactly as I predicted, and the one who’s getting punished for it is me.”
“I’m not punishing you. I’m correcting an oversight. You’re top of the class for D and S, no question. But he’s training to be a Secondary therapist, not a Tertiary one, and I overlooked how he might need another set of eyes and ears in the room with you both. Maybe it looked to you like whapping his Tertiary nose with a rolled-up newspaper was the best plan, but that man has an alpha mate, and you don’t do that to a Mated Omega. You just don’t. You put him in ropes, Jody! How did you expect me to react?”
“I expected you to back me up, alpha! I expect you to be a professional and put the program ahead of your mate’s hurt feelings or your own alpha possessiveness, and back me up! You would’ve supported me a hundred percent if it had been anyone but Michael, and you know it!”
Dean sat forward. His eyes suffused with crimson streaks. “If you’d done that to someone else’s mate, we would have a lawsuit on our hands.”
“That’s right,” Jody agreed, matching his posture. “And you would’ve told me to let legal handle the whiner. You would have thrown the weight of our entire legal department into supporting my decision to protect the client and chastise the wayward trainee. And you would have issued a personal statement explaining how the ACRI stands in full support of the actions taken. And I’ll tell you something else, alpha; something you don’t want to hear. That Omega wouldn’t need to snack on clients every day if he had enough to eat at home. If he comes to work hungry, that’s on you, Dean. Don’t blame the trainers.”
Dean’s jaw dropped in shock.
Jody collected her coffee and stood up. “You think about that,” she demanded. “Let me know what you decide. Michael’s on his last chance. I have no choice but to write this one up as a formal reprimand. It’ll be on your desk before lunch, and it’ll need your signature. You have some decisions to make, Dean. If you still want me leading his training, then you let me do it my way. No co-mentor. No rescues. And you send him to me every afternoon with his belly full. If that’s not going to happen, I need you to tell me today so we can get him a new mentor. And if you’re having a hard time digesting what you need to do here in respect to this particular trainee, I suggest you ask yourself why. The whole scenario is a disaster waiting to happen, alpha. The only way it might work out is if you can separate being his mate from being his Director of Training. You don’t do him any favors when you make special routes for him to wiggle through, cause he’ll do it, Dean. He’ll take every loophole you leave open to him.”
Dean sat speechless, blinking his eyes back to green. Jody blinked a couple of times herself, coming back down from her stern lecture high.
She licked her lips uncomfortably. “Let me know,” she finished with, and she left Dean to his thoughts.
Tessa’s smile was warm and welcoming as she held the door to her office open and ushered both men in. Castiel had always found her to be an understanding ear and a taker of no bullshit in equal measures. What she’d done for Dean over the last year put her in the miracle-worker column to Cas. He took a spot on one side of the couch, leaving Dean room to settle beside him. Cas wasn’t nearly as familiar with this room as Dean was, but he’d been here several times over the months prior, and he’d always felt their joint sessions gave him valuable insight into how he and Dean functioned together as a couple—sometimes in concert with each other and sometimes painfully out of step.
Tessa had both his trust and his gratitude, so when she invited him to join Dean at his weekly appointment, Castiel accepted with no hesitation.
“Thank you for coming today, Alpha.” Tessa took her usual squashy armchair. It appeared molded to her form from years of single occupancy, and it looked exceedingly comfortable. “We’ve had what Dean believes is a real breakthrough, and he asked if he could explain it to you here, where he’s got extra support to withstand what we’ve come to expect will be a battering from his deeper designations. Talking about some of these issues has been a challenge for him. Talking at all is sometimes a challenge when his lower brats take hold of his tongue.” She shot Dean an affectionate and bracing look, and the man ducked his head.
Cas could feel shame eking from Dean’s side of their bonds.
Cas frowned slightly. “Dean? Whatever you want to talk about, I’m listening.”
“Yeah,” Dean said with a hand across his mouth. “Yeah,” he repeated, still not looking up.
Tessa leaned forward and put a hand on his knee. “Take your time, alpha.”
He huffed through his nose, a sound of frustration and self-condemnation, but he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t look up. The trickle of shame turned into a deluge, and Cas could feel Dean slipping away in his head.
“How about if I begin?” Tessa asked him. “I can get the ball rolling and then I’ll let you explain in full when you’re ready.”
Dean nodded, his gaze glued to his lap.
Castiel wrapped an arm around his back and soothed him with simple strokes up and down his ribs. He looked to Tessa in consternation. “What’s this about? What’s got him so tongue-tied?”
“We’ve been taking some deep dives these past several months, Castiel; deep into his various designations. He’s got them tangled together, like most of us do, but in order to help him to suss out the source of his self-esteem challenges, we had to pry them all apart. That’s a painstaking and uncomfortable process for most people, and Dean is no different. It hasn’t been enjoyable for him. What we found is that when his deepest designation feels exposed, it takes him down with it to a place where he loses verbal capacity. He regresses for a time to a pre-verbal mindset.”
“Yes,” Cas nodded, his hand and his eyes still on his husband. “He does that when I touch a certain tone in our scening as well. He always seems to find it cathartic.”
“He does. And often, it is. I encourage the two of you to continue to seek this mindset when you play. Stroking his inner toddler is a critical part of keeping him emotionally healthy. I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded that his younger mindsets are not endangered by his adult sexuality. He’s an adult, not a child, and it’s perfectly healthy to let him regress while engaged in sexual contact.”
Cas nodded. He didn’t need Tessa’s confirmation about that. There was no universe yet created where Cas would neglect Dean’s inner brats during playtime. In fact, it would never be possible. Dean’s brats made sure of that. He continued to frown as he stroked Dean’s back. “So, this new discovery he’s made, it touches on…which designation, exactly?”
Tessa took a deep breath. She spoke to Cas, letting Dean seek his voice on his own. “It touches on two of them, actually. What we’ve culled out is an interaction between his Tertiary and his juvenile Primary, both aspects where Dean is submissive, both of his brats, so to speak. It’s a bit of a jumble. The Lupine Tertiary designation speaks mostly in emotions, colors, and coarse images. Those wolves who are capable of hearing speech from their Tertiaries are usually translating feelings into words up in their forebrains. Tertiary designations aren’t great speakers. Sometimes, what they mean to express is misinterpreted by either of our other two designations.”
“I’m following you,” Castiel told her. “What does that mean for Dean?”
Tessa pursed her lips and looked back to Dean. He was shaking his head slowly. He’d closed his eyes. He’d begun a slow rocking in place. She looked hesitant to continue now that it was becoming clear that Dean wasn’t going to win back to the surface on his own. Cas felt a strong sense of gratitude for the counselor. He turned in his spot to face Dean.
“Dean Michael,” he began in a firm tone. “I’m going to give you two options. Whichever you choose is fine. There’s no pressure. You’re okay, love. Stop struggling for me for a moment and listen.” Cas weighted his voice to authoritative, and Dean took a deep breath and fell still. “Good boy. There’s my Pet. Listen to me. I’m here today because I need to hear something important. I know you trust Tessa, and so do I. If you would rather, she and I can talk it through by ourselves. I’m not sending you away, but if you can’t talk to us right now, then you can sit next to me and listen. That’s option one. Option two is to let me pull you back up out of the deep water and set you on your feet again so you can tell me yourself. You understand your choices?”
Dean nodded, looking miserable hunched tightly over his own lap.
“Would you rather Tessa and I talk about your discovery without your input? It’s okay if you can’t find your voice right now, Dean. You can trust both of us to watch out for you. You can trust us. I know your voice is important and you don’t like to be discussed without a say.” Dean didn’t respond to the question. If anything, he seemed more disturbed. The rocking picked up again, and his fingers clenched onto his knees, white and tense.
Cas looked at Tessa, but Tessa was watching Dean silently. Cas licked his lips and continued. “Or would you rather have help coming back to yourself?”
Dean let go of his own knee and touched his knuckle to Castiel’s thigh.
Cas blew out a careful breath. “Good boy. So good for me. So brave. My brave, brave boy. All right. Let go of your knee and stand up, love. I’m going to be quick. I know you don’t like this, and I’m going to make it fast. I’m extremely proud of you. You made a very grown-up decision. Come on, Pet. On your feet.”
Tessa sat back a bit as Dean lurched forward and stood up. She didn’t add any commentary. She let Castiel work, observing the two men who had so much trust built between them that there was no hesitation from either of them, even in a moment so vulnerable.
Cas unbuckled Dean’s belt and unbuttoned his slacks, noting that Dean’s eyes held a dark and cloaked kind of pain. He wasn’t looking at Cas, but he stood still, letting his husband loosen his pants. “Over you go, Dean. I’ve got you. Lie down across my lap.”
Dean let Cas position him, utterly passive. His somberness was painful to witness, but it wasn’t new to his husband, and though saddened, Castiel wasn’t alarmed. Once he had the man across his knees, Cas lowered the seat of Dean’s pants until only his backside was bare, showing the yellowing bruises of a several days ago deep in the tissue of his flesh. Dean reached back and took hold of one of Castiel’s hands, and Cas chuckled softly.
“I’m going to need both hands, sweetheart. I love you too. Hang in there for me. This won’t take long. Don’t be afraid. You’re the strongest man I know. You can do this.” Dean let go of Castiel’s hand and tucked his face into his crossed arms. Cas looked up at Tessa, and she gave him a simple nod.
Castiel tucked his left hand tightly under Dean’s torso to hold him in place. He caught Dean’s calves behind his leg to keep him from kicking out, and he slapped Dean’s butt hard with the palm of his right hand. Dean whimpered. Castiel spanked him again, putting power behind his swing, aiming for a deep sting and a growing heat. Pulling Dean out of a dive like this required power and intensity.
And, no, Dean didn’t enjoy it at all.
This was neither play nor punishment, and for Dean, it was miserable. He kicked futilely with both legs, and he squirmed in place, trying to dodge. But Cas had him held tightly, and Dean’s struggles were fruitless. As the spanking continued, Dean’s whimpers grew louder until he was crying out. His voice shifted in tone from passive whines and grunts through the back of his throat to purposeful shouts; still wordless, but distinctly Dean’s voice, engaging his voice box as he shifted and rolled.
Eventually, Dean stopped struggling. Castiel’s palm ached and burned as he spanked. He breathed deeply, using his runner’s pacing—two counts in, three counts out, two counts in, three counts out. As Dean’s body fell lax over his lap, Castiel slowed to a stop and soothed the heated flesh of Dean’s ass with his hand.
“Take your time, love,” he whispered.
Dean shifted upward, still keeping his eyes lowered. He pushed up until he straddled Castiel’s lap with his head tucked into Cas’ throat, wrapping his arms around his Dom and melting into him. Cas chuckled affectionately. “You made a very mature choice, Dean,” he told the man hunkered in his lap. Dean’s pants stretched taut over Castiel’s thighs, but he let Dean have a moment. “It would have been easier to stay under where you were and to let me speak to Tessa alone. I know it’s difficult to talk about things that are so deep inside you. I’m very proud of you for taking control back from your deep designation. That had to be tough. Can you look at me, Dean?”
Cas could feel Dean steeling himself. With a deep, grounding breath, Dean untucked his head and found Castiel’s eyes. Tear tracks smeared both reddened cheeks, and his eyes were tortured. Cas kissed his lips gently, softly. Dean tilted his head and rested his forehead against Castiel’s. He rolled it just a little.
“Can you talk yet? Take your time,” Cas advised.
“’M okay, Alpha,” Dean croaked after a pause. “Feel shaky, but I’m okay.”
“Let’s get you dressed.”
“Mm-mm,” Dean protested, clinging tighter.
Cas chuckled again. “Dean, your alpha won’t have any success holding a front face with you on my lap like this with your backside hanging out. Take a minute if you need to, but don’t settle too long, or all of that will have been for nothing.”
“Urgh!” Dean grumbled unhappily. He shoved backward and stumbled to his feet. Scrubbing the moisture from his cheeks, Dean took a deep breath and fixed his pants. He stood for a moment, facing the door, his arms akimbo in random motion, looking for a way out of the awkwardness. He crossed them over his chest, then he dropped them to his sides, then he smoothed his hands down his thighs, then he snaked them back to rub the sting out of his backside. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and shook his head as if arguing with himself.
Cas and Tessa waited him out patiently.
Finally…
“So, here’s the thing, CJ,” Dean said gruffly, spinning around, ignoring his own journey in favor of moving decisively forward. “You know that nightmare of mine? With the fire? The one where I always fall into Hell?”
“Yes, I know it,” Cas answered, making no sign that Dean had only just won his voice back. “It’s been tormenting you since you were a teenager.”
“Right. Ever since my mom died. Right? That’s the imagery I see when I’m in the dream. It’s Mom’s workplace up in flames, but in the dream, underneath the floor she was trapped on is…not just the next floor down…it’s full-on Hell, with deep pits and lava flows and tar and stone and boiling lakes. It’s Hell, right?”
“Yes, you’ve described it to me just like that. I’m following. This is about your nightmare?”
Dean licked both lips and glanced at Tessa. “Yeah,” he said stiffly with a hand rubbing his ass. He paced. “The thing is, Tessa helped me trace back through this mess in my head, and we figured out that the dream…Cas, it started with the fire imagery just after my mom died, and that makes sense, right? The picture in my head matches what happened to her. That’s because her death had such a huge emotional impact on me. It scared me to death, thinking of her trapped in the flames like that. It made an enormous impression on all three of my designations, changed my whole perspective about what fear is, what it looks like, feels like. Right?”
“Naturally,” Cas answered.
“But the dream that has me hell bound, it didn’t originate with a nightmare about fire. It’s actually older than my mom’s death. It was there before that, just different. I don’t remember any specifics, but this certainty I’ve always felt that I’m…that…that I’m going to Hell when I die…Cas, that’s coming from these nightmares, and it goes back further than Mom’s death. It’s just that, once I lived through her death and everything that happened to her, my back brain seized on those images as the perfect device to show me fear. It took a lot of digging to figure that out. It’s coming from the nightmares, and the nightmares are coming from my Tertiary’s fears, not from the Universe or God or some outside source—from inside my own head. Do you see? I misunderstood everything! They’ve been there all this time. And I thought it meant I was damned.”
Castiel looked up at his husband in confusion, his head cocked to try to understand.
“Damnit, I need to slow down. Sorry, man. I lost you.” Dean sat down on the couch and turned to face Cas. He took a slow breath and both of Castiel’s hands. “Man, I’ve had this absolute certainty for as long as I can remember that I can’t be saved, that I’m damned to Hell, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Everything that goes wrong is on me. Everything I touch is destined to rot. And I can’t fix that. The best I can do is try to throw everyone I care about clear, so they don’t all get sucked in with me when I go. I never knew where that idea came from. It’s just always been there. It’s been there forever, as far back as my memory goes. And I believed it, CJ, hook, line, and sinker, because it’s so deep inside me, it feels like the absolute truth. I have no idea if you can understand what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, Dean. I’m still following. But you’ve uncovered something new about that sense that you’re doomed?”
Dean looked across at Tessa. She smiled encouragingly. “Keep going, Dean. You’re doing fine.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. The thing is…it’s my designations, man. They talk to each other under the radar.”
“Your Secondary and Tertiary? Dean you didn’t have a Secondary until you Presented.”
“No. Not my alpha. He’s not involved in this at all. It’s my wolf and my Primary. You know I Presented pretty much on time, not way early, not especially late. But my wolf… Cas, that fucker has been skulking around in my head since I was a little kid, probably since I was six, maybe five. I dunno. But way earlier than most Tertiaries show up. I’m one of those few whose Submissive wolf emerges as a part of their submissive childhood. And the brat that lives in my front brain, man, he’s even older. Tessa says he’s the reason I go all the way back to being pre-verbal when I float. He stuck at a toddler age, and he never advanced past that point. So, see, I’ve got a toddler brat in my front brain, and a kindergartner in my back brain, and the two of them talk to each other all the time.”
“But you can’t hear what they’re saying directly?” Cas guessed, trying to keep up.
“I hear pieces of it, CJ. That’s just the thing. I hear pieces, but it’s in gobbledygook language. They don’t talk in words. They use imagery.”
“The nightmare.”
“YES!” Dean shot back to his feet and rounded on Cas. “Exactly! That dream…it’s not a foreshadow of where I’m headed when I die, Cas! It’s a foreshadow of where I’m headed next Tuesday! Do you get it? I always dream about falling—falling into fire and pain and punishment and torture. FALLING! Cas, it’s a warning that I’ve got a Submissive fall coming. I don’t know why I never connected the dots before. The dreams come closer together in the weeks before I have one of my massive blowout spirals, and I’ve been dealing with those since I was a pup!”
“You’ve been tracking them?” Cas asked, looking at Tessa for confirmation.
She nodded. “I asked Dean to keep a record of his nightmares, his falls, his drops, critical scenes, significant punishments, anything that breaks the mold of a scheduled daily routine. There’s a notable increase in frequency of his nightmares as he approaches a Submissive fall event.”
Cas blinked and leaned forward. “Is there any chance of diverting the messaging to a less distressful means? Can we tap into Dean’s Tertiary and find a way to glean the same information without need for the nightmares? Can we train it to warn him some other way?”
Tessa chuckled. “This isn’t Star Trek, Castiel. I can’t point a tricorder at his head and hit erase. His dream originates from his Tertiary, but it’s not aimed at warning us, or Dean himself, even. It appears to be attempting to communicate with Dean’s front brain submissive, the youngest version in his psyche. I don’t know of any way of subverting that effort. Tertiary wolves do what they want to do. Yours excluded, of course. Perhaps, Alpha, you might have some success in teaching your training techniques to Dean. I’m hesitant to encourage that though, as your wolf and his are radically different in structure.”
“But we don’t need the warning,” Cas continued. “I can see his falls coming well enough. The dreams are traumatic for Dean. Surely, now that we have insight into their source, we can find a way to soothe the wolf and assure it that it doesn’t need to shout warnings into the darkness. It’s Submissive. Can’t we train it?”
“You’re missing the point, Cas,” Dean objected.
Cas clutched Dean’s hand. “Dean, if your internal designations have that much forewarning about your falls before they happen, maybe we can cut the spiral off at the pass, prevent you from having to go through the fall at all. It’s just a matter of tapping into what your wolf is aware it needs before it becomes a blowout and giving it a response before it turns to provocation.”
“What? No, man, you’re missing the point.”
“Missing the point? Dean, this is the point!” Cas turned to the therapist and tried again. “How do we use this information to keep Dean out of that pit completely? You haven’t seen what he goes through firsthand, but I have, many times. It’s an ordeal, and it’s stressful, and it’s destructive. It’s terrifying for him. How do we shorten his falls or stop them altogether?”
“Cas…I thought you were onboard with handling my falls. You never said…” Dean looked shattered, and Cas pulled up short, switching his intense gaze from the therapist who seemed to be working out how to respond and turning instead to the Submissive beside him who was clearly hurt.
Everything inside Castiel came to a screeching halt.
“You’re not a burden to me, Dean. You could never be. But watching you go through that…It’s traumatizing for all of us, but it’s a devastation for you. If there’s a way to stop you from suffering like you do, you’d better believe I want to find it. This isn’t about searching for a way to protect our belongings. It’s about trying to stop your suffering.”
“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Tessa broke in. “To my knowledge, finding circuitry that helps Dean’s Tertiary communicate with his Primary isn’t going to help you mitigate the intensity of his falls. That’s really not what we’re here to discuss today, Alpha.”
“I…apologize,” Cas said, chastened. Dean had his hands up covering his face again, and Cas felt like a right shit for co-opting his moment. “Dean, I’m sorry. Please continue. I’m listening.”
Dean rubbed his hands over his face and then dropped one. The other stayed across his mouth, hiding him more metaphorically than actually, and he turned his eyes back to his husband. “I, uh…” he stumbled, shifting his hand until his knuckle sat under his nose and he could form words without losing the safety of his hiding place altogether. “I always knew I was damned, CJ. I never even questioned it. But now…” Dean reframed his posture and his approach. “Cas, I misunderstood my dad when he threw blame around after Mom died. I thought he was blaming me, and I thought I deserved it. But he wasn’t, and I didn’t, and letting that guilt go is really fucking hard, but I’m getting there. That wasn’t on me, man. It wasn’t my fault. And now this, this certainty about how I’m damned from the very start, from before I was born maybe, like I was born with a hole in my soul that’s so ragged, it’s not fixable… Now I’m starting to understand that maybe that’s a misunderstanding too.”
“Dean…”
“When I catch messages flitting around in my head that aren’t in a language I understand, I guess I made a buttload of assumptions about what was being said and who it was being said to. And I started making those assumptions when I wasn’t even six years old. I was just a pup, CJ.” Dean paused and regrouped. Cas squeezed his hand, and Dean squeezed back. “Every time we got close to it, Tessa and me, I balled up, lost my voice, went into a deep dive and got stuck there. I couldn’t talk about it. I think my little toddler side wanted to, but he can’t use words, man. All he can do is throw things and have tantrums and shit. But Tessa’s real patient with me. We just kept trying from different angles, and then the lightbulb went off, and I could see everything from way up above it all. It makes so much sense. I feel like a moron that it took me this long to figure it out, what with how much time I spend chewing on it.”
Cas smiled kindly at him.
Dean licked his lips again and dropped his hand. “It’s not about trying to cut off the falls, CJ. I know they’re shitty, and they’re tough on the plaster and all, but I need them. I need to burn it all off every now and then. I’m like a magnet for emotional baggage and crap. I accumulate mine and everyone else’s, and it gets stuck to me. My falls are how I burn off all that shit and get back to being shiny, ol’ me. Just me, without all the crap.”
Tessa broke in gently. “There’s another aspect of Dean’s falls to consider as well.” Both men turned to give her their attention. “He’s unusual in having two separate designations that are both profoundly submissive. Castiel, Dean is profoundly submissive. I know you know that, but my point is, that doesn’t simply mean he needs to be taken in hand frequently or have a barrage of rules to follow. It’s not about an intensity of play. For Dean, it means there’s no escaping his falls. His psyche uses falls to realign his separate designations when they become skewed from each other. Each of his brats has a very different behavior pattern and very different needs. Often, what feeds one brat starves the other. Without a blazing cathartic fire every now and then, his designations drift further and further apart until there’s no overlap left to them at all.”
Cas frowned. “How is it that his Primary submissive has that much power over him? Lupins aren’t built to be slaves to their Primary. And Dean’s front brain isn’t regressive. He’s a mature adult. Where is this toddler even housed?”
“I can’t answer that, Alpha. I don’t believe anyone can yet. There’s not enough research on the subject. But I can say that the human brain is multifaceted and complex. His front brain as a whole consists of more than his neocortex. It includes aspects from his entire brain as a whole, and it has room for a multitude of personality divisions and traits. Every person we’ve ever been as we’ve aged is still in there somewhere, Alpha. You carry every version of yourself you’ve ever been as well. Some of those versions have more of a voice in our heads than others. Usually, pivotal moments in our development imprint a bit deeper than others. I would guess you both have a loudmouth twelve-year-old shouting his opinions at you now and then. And a five-year-old. And a sixteen-year-old. They’re all still in there, and we can speak with them in a way. Some of them become enmeshed in who we are as adults, and some of them remain separate entities living inside our heads. Dean has a toddler taking up a lot of real estate, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s definitive to his personality. If we were successful in altering that landscape, Dean would cease to be Dean to some degree.”
Castiel thought hard. “You brought me here so that if Dean lost his voice, he had the support he needed to come back to himself. You also knew I would try to turn his revelation into something else…” Cas turned to speak to Dean directly. “…and you wanted Tessa here to help bring me back to the topic.”
“Thanks, man,” Dean said softly. “Thanks for being here. What I needed to say…mostly…is that hard as it’s gonna be, I need to start letting go of the guilt and all that darkness I carry around with me. I need to learn to stop focusing on my fear of the future and pay attention to what my life is right now, today, here with you. I’m gonna need you and Michael to help me. It’s hard to imagine what it might look like without all that shame. I’m buried in it up to my eyeballs. Maybe deeper even. Sometimes it feels like guilt and shame are what holds my body together. And all I can do now is start shoveling and make sure I don’t add any more layers to what’s already there.”
“I’ll help however I can, Dean. I love you so much.” Cas leaned in close and touched his face gently to Dean’s.
“I know, man. But, babe, I need you to let me fall, just the way you’ve always done. I can give you a heads up when the dreams hit me, and maybe we can make some preparations, but don’t expect them to stop, those falls. It may be hell, CJ, but it’s a good kinda heat. It burns away all the crap I don’t need.
Cas huffed a sharp laugh. “Your Tertiary doesn’t seem to think it’s a good heat. Your wolf is prone to exaggeration, it seems.”
“Yeah,” Dean chuckled. “Falls scare the bejeesus outta my wolf. He may be overstating the warning a little. Wish I’d understood that sooner.”
“All we can act on is what we know in the moment,” Castiel assured him with a touch to Dean’s face. “It’s no use regretting what we didn’t know sooner.”
A wave of hormones caught up with Dean and he began to tremble under Castiel’s hands. Cas shushed him gently and wrapped him into a tight embrace. Dean pressed his nose into his husband’s throat, seeking the safety of Alpha scent, and he closed his eyes.
“I left my calendar out on the reception desk,” Tessa told them both. “Lemme go grab it so we can schedule your next session. You did excellent work today, Dean.”
Cas repeated her words into Dean’s ear as the therapist scooted out, leaving the door open behind her. “Excellent work today, alpha,” Cas soothed.
“I’m coming undone,” Dean whispered. “Need you.”
“I’ve got you, Pet. I’ll hold you together.” Cas nosed down Dean’s temple to find his lips and delve in deep, opening his mouth and finding Dean’s tongue with his own. Cas pressed forward until Dean settled onto his back on the couch. He shifted Dean’s outer leg free until he could press in close against his groin and roll his hips. Dean moaned, clutching Cas’ shoulder across his back and pulling.
Cas made short work of both of their belts, both of their buttons, both of their zippers, deepening the kiss all the while, and burying Dean in his want. Cas pulled himself free of his own slacks and then found Dean’s cock too, wrapping one hand around them both, aligning their heads to share the silky first drops and spread it as far down as one hand could hold. Dean whimpered, engaging in the kiss, finding space between their bodies to set his own hand to work and driving his hips up into Castiel’s lead.
Cas moaned loudly.
“…Um…Usually, it works best to save that until you get…home,” Tessa tried futilely from the doorway. “But then, you are Alpha. Could you at least try not to soil the…?”
“Go away,” Castiel told her.
“Right.”
The door closed with a click, and Cas smirked as he drove back into Dean’s lips, his free hand tangling in Dean’s hair and tugging hard. Dean whined and spread his legs wider. Dean’s hand spanned the gap in Castiel’s reach, but he let Cas drive the speed and pressure. Dean craned his head back into the pull of Cas’ grip in his hair and let his Alpha stretch his throat out. Cas switched his kiss from Dean’s mouth to his neck, sucking hard and leaving a string of hickies in his wake.
Dean’s breathing turned raspy and shallow. His hips stuttered in rhythm. He wrapped his legs around Cas’ hips and pressed in, nearly edging out space for their arms and hands.
“Cas…” he moaned in desperation.
“I’ve got you, alpha,” Cas answered gruffly back. “Come for me, Dean. Let’s make a mess of the couch. I want to leave your scent in the fabric with mine.”
The rudeness of the request tipped Dean over the edge, and he spilled into his husband’s hand with a high moan at the thrill. Leaving their scents behind stroked Dean’s brats and his alpha need to mark territory, and he was all over it, shaking in his release and ducking his head back down to find the scent of Alpha at Castiel’s neck. Dean began to pant as the strokes continued, aided by the sticky wetness of his own spend.
Cas’ strokes picked up speed. He let Dean’s cock go, and he and Dean together brought him to completion. Dean’s teeth fixed tightly around the pulse point at Castiel’s throat as his Alpha came, and Cas growled fiercely, breaking free and snapping at the impertinence. Still shooting pulses of come between their bodies, Cas clamped down on Dean’s throat, right on top of his bruises, and bit down.
Dean threw his head back and shrieked, going still but for his rapid panting, sucking in air like it was too thin to catch his breath.
“Brat,” Cas mumbled as he let go with his teeth and kissed the sore place on the side of Dean’s throat.
Dean whuffed a laugh. “My bad,” he effaced, almost like an apology.
“Yes, you are,” Cas agreed.
They panted in silence. Cas wormed his hand free and rested on top of Dean’s body, compressing him from above, adding the sensation of weight to the sense of feeling tethered that Dean was clinging to as he sought his equilibrium.
Dean drove them home still tangled up inside his head, feeling tender rawness from more places than his butt. He ground his jaw and drove mechanically. More and more, he’d begun scheduling his therapy appointments late in the afternoon so he could go straight home afterward…and process.
Cas snaked a hand across the bench seat and touched his thigh with his palm upward. Dean took the offered hand and squeezed.
It was Castiel who broke the silence.
“You had a nightmare last night.”
“Mm-hm,” Dean replied.
“Our scene on Friday night didn’t stop the fall that’s coming, did it? You’ve still got one building.” Cas spoke carefully, thoughtfully.
“I don’t think we can stop them, Alpha,” Dean told him as stiffly. He squinted into the waning afternoon sun. “It’s why I never came out and asked you to fry my ass without provoking you into it. Call it a block if you wanna label it, just like April’s. A roleplay won’t work on my wolf. He has to do something he feels guilty about enough to feel he deserves a flaying. He has to…” His words petered off into silence.
“Dean?”
Dean’s chest heaved, and his face scrunched up in anguish. Castiel turned his body to face his husband’s, pulling his left knee up onto the bench. He squeezed Dean’s fingers. He watched a tear break free of Dean’s eyelid and track down his cheek to highlight the grimace on his lover’s tortured face.
Dean let go of Castiel’s hand to scrub it furiously away. He used a left turn to look away and hide from the intensity of the Alpha’s blue eyes.
When Dean straightened, staring hard into the setting sun, Cas figured it out. He huffed softly and straightened in his seat.
“Surely, you realize, don’t you?” Cas said softly, avoiding Dean’s eye. “That nothing you could ever do will make me love you any less.”
Dean snorted. “It’s not just my wolf who falls, Alpha. This will probably be with me even after I lose my wolf. So, you keep taking that shit from me forever?” There was an acrid bitterness to Dean’s tone that spoke of bottomless self-loathing.
“I will,” Cas said simply. “Forever. And I will feel honored to have that chance. Dean, I can think of no greater blessing than to be trusted enough to be the one who gets to hold you steady while you crumble and then be allowed to help piece you back together again.”
Dean scoffed again. “That’s because you’re a little bit fucked in the head too,” he accused. “You feel guilty for all the ways you failed people you might’ve saved if you’d known how, and you think you deserve to have me fling bullshit at you with no warning.”
Cas chuckled to himself. “Well then, we seem to be a matched set.”
“This isn’t a joke, Castiel! You get what this means? It means that every time I tested your … attachment to me, your commitment or love or whatever I was testing, it wasn’t about testing you at all. It was about throwing a fucking toddler temper tantrum so I could earn enough fire in response to burn clean again. It had nothing to do with you at all! It means that flipping tables and wrecking your car are both the same fucking thing! Getting us thrown out of that movie, dropping my pants and shouting Pudding! in front of that cop, all of it. Every stunt I ever pulled that you had to come bail my ass out of. It means that even as a thirty-year-old adult, I’m never going to be free of throwing myself to the ground and acting like an infant! You’re going to have to wipe my snotty nose and smack my childish ass and put me in the corner for a timeout for the rest of our lives because I’m stuck as a two-year-old in my head! And who knows what’s next?”
“What I understand, my love, is that when you feel brave enough, secure enough, safe enough, to allow yourself to show the vulnerability that you need to show in order to re-set your balance—and Dean, that need isn’t exclusive to you, it’s a universally human need—that you have always trusted me with witnessing and responding to you in your most defenseless moments. As I have you. We trust each other, Dean. We always have. Maybe not in everything, but in this most delicate of moments, in the really scary stuff; we trust each other. Don’t you see? You and I are partners in so much more than building a Pack and sharing a household. We chose each other years ago in a way that is as irrefutable as a Mating-bond. Don’t think for a moment that I could ever feel burdened with holding onto you while you rage against your inner workings. No more than you feel burdened with holding still under my furious lash when my wolf is so enraged he needs to behave like a… Like a… All right, I don’t know what he’s like… But it’s wild and angry and out of control far beyond the provocation that led him there.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dean protested as he turned into their drive and slowed to let Security open the gate. “Cas, man, I love your lash and your fiery temper. I eat that shit up. It’s what I live for.”
“Exactly, Dean. We are truly a matched set, you and I. Just as you revel in my temper, I adore your tantrums. You are not a burden to me, love. You are perfect for me. We feed each other. Like you, I have a certain tone in my head that must be struck on occasion in order for me to re-set my feet when I begin to drift off-balance.”
Dean maneuvered the car into its usual space in the garage, set it to park, and cut the engine, but neither man moved to get out.
“It’s a cold and heartless brute of a headspace, Dean. It’s not something I can give to April, not fully. It would devastate her. But I need to unleash it on someone, that contempt. I haven’t done the exploration that you’ve done to try to figure out what it is or where it stems from, but if I did, I suspect I would find it was a vestigial aspect of my upbringing, a lingering unresolved piece of my father that keeps rearing its head, looking for absolution. And like yours, it’s unlikely that I can ever be totally free of the need to express it. So, don’t think that you’re a burden on me when your toddler acts up. Don’t forget, I have a corollary need to respond to a misbehaving brat.”
They sat in the shade of the garage, in the stilted echo of the enclosed car, both looking straight ahead, and they left themselves naked to each other.
Cas went on after a moment. “We are both enriched by our mates. But neither of our mates is sufficient to this, much as that truth hurts. Michael cannot see you entirely through your falls because you require an Alpha in the final resolution. And April can take my strap, but she isn’t built to take the psychological whipping that my cold withdrawal of affection would lay upon her. I can’t do that to her. But I can do it to you. And you can offer me a target. We fit, Dean. You and I. I need you to let go of the shame over what you and I do to each other. It’s not broken. It’s not wrong. It’s inevitable and healing and righteous because it fills us both back up to our most authentic levels. Surely you see that you can’t absolve me of shame and still cling to it yourself. If it’s acceptable for me to have a vulnerability that scourges you in your weakest moments, then it’s acceptable for you to throw tantrums that elicit that scourging.”
Dean sucked in a breath. He let it out slowly. Ultimately, he nodded, playing idly with the keys in his hand. “We bought some time,” he said vaguely. “You and that medieval torture device probably postponed my fall by a week or two. I wanna apologize in advance for whatever happens, whatever I break. I know I won’t feel like apologizing once I get sucked under and start throwing plates at the wall.”
Cas smiled softly at him. “No, I don’t suppose you will.” He reached over and stilled Dean’s fingers by wrapping his hand over his husband’s. “But I’ll see you through anyway. That’s a promise.” Cas cracked his door open and began to shift, but Dean took hold of his wrist and stopped him.
“Thanks, CJ.” Dean’s jaw clenched tightly, the only external evidence of his internal struggle, and Cas leaned way over to leave a warm kiss on his lips.
“When I tell you I love you, Dean, I mean every single part of you. No exceptions.” Cas held Dean’s eyes for three or four breaths, their hands still clutching each other, their faces only a couple of inches apart. “Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your journey. I know today was difficult, and I know that having me there made it harder, not easier, to talk about your experiences. But this is a great step forward you’ve taken. It’s monumental. Who knows what you’ll be capable of once you shake off the guilt and the shame you’ve carried on your shoulders your whole life? The idea that you may be ready to walk away from that burden; it’s such a relief. I’m so happy for you, love.”
Dean nodded again and rested his forehead against Castiel’s. “Now I gotta go in there and do it all over again with Michael,” he said wearily.
“When you’re ready, Dean, I’ll stand beside you if you want me to.”
Dean sighed and cracked his own door. “He’s got class until seven. It’ll keep. Let’s go rescue April from the diaper-set and unwind a little.”
“Whatever you need, Dean.”
April, it turned out, wasn’t buried in pups, she was having it out with her manager and her agent in turns, her face red and her posture immovable. When she spotted Castiel coming into the parlor from the kitchen entrance, she burst into tears.
Cain rolled his eyes and began to pack up. Rowena threw her arms up in resignation and turned her back.
“Here, now. What’s all this?” Cas asked as he cradled his weeping mate.
Matt looked up from his laptop. He scratched his cheek. “Cain wants her writing sellable songs,” he explained. “Rowena wants her performing. And April wants a break.” Matt glanced at each party in turn to verify that he’d summed the argument up to their satisfaction.
“If she needs a break,” Castiel said as a tiebreaker. “Then she’s taking a break. You can both explain your objections to me without April. I will listen, talk it over with her in private, and then we will decide what happens in what order for the next month.” He shifted his attention to his mate and softened his tone. “Kitten, go upstairs and take a bath. Try to relax. We’ll see you through, and it will be all right.”
She sniffled sadly but nodded, leaving him with a hug and a shuffling step. Dean touched Castiel’s shoulder as he passed, heading up to find the pups and grant whoever had custody of them a break as well. Cas touched Dean’s fingertips in passing, then he turned to the others.
“Well?” he demanded.
Rowena answered first. “She needs to be seen and heard, Alpha. It does her no gud to put her name to this or that only to have someone else record it. That’s no’ how she’s going to break through to the top echelons. One shared Grammy nomination makes her an oddity, no’ a star.”
“She’s not interested in breaking into stardom yet, beta,” Cain countered testily. It was clearly an old argument. Cas loosened his tie and listened as he poured himself a Scotch. “She wants to solidify her reputation as a composer first, and that takes diligence. It takes output.” Cain turned from Rowena back to Cas. “It takes constant output. She needs to stay prolific, even when she’s tired. I hate that it’s the truth, but it’s the truth, and it’s why so few Omegas make it big in this industry.”
“Matt?” Cas prompted. He turned to face the room but lifted his eyes toward the cornice and crossed his ankles.
The Primate closed his laptop and sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. He glanced at the two irritated wolves. “She’s going to burn out soon if she doesn’t take a break. She’s showing signs of losing that fresh edge that makes her work interesting. Some of her latest songs are sellable and might even make the charts if the right voice records them, but they aren’t anywhere close to what she can do. She’s going through the motions, fulfilling someone else’s idea about how she should be spending her time, and all the while, her mind is in the nursery with the kids. Her psyche wants her to focus on her pups, Alpha. Trying to fight that is a losing battle. It’ll rip her in two.”
Cas sighed and carded his fingers through his hair, leaving it awry in every direction. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he agreed. “That’s why I wanted to postpone having children until she had established herself.”
“Little late for packing yur swimmers on ice, Alpha,” Rowena said. Cas shot her a withering look, but she simply shrugged and shot him a look that said, What? It’s true.
Rowena took the gauntlet up. “All I know is that a new mum is going to be a mum at heart no matter what anyone else wants her to focus on. But every mum needs breaks. I say,” Rowena continued as if she’d hit on the absolute perfect solution. “Forget abou’ the songwriting fer now. It eats too much of her time, and she can’t concentrate tha’ hard right now anyway. Let me book her a few gigs here and there. Jus’ one or two a month. She can keep being Mum to the wee pups and use performing as her break. Everyone wins!”
“Except that performing isn’t what she wants to do, you witch!” Cain broke in rudely.
“There’s no call for that, Darius,” Cas told him. He turned back to Matt. “What do you suggest? What can we cut and what do we keep?”
“It depends on which direction we pick,” Matt answered evenly. “Whatever that turns out to be, we need to see it through, not constantly switch back and forth. If we go with Rowena’s plan, then she needs to continue the voice work. She’s making good progress with her vocal range, and she’ll only get better still if she keeps at it. But we drop the composition tutoring. Mark won’t be happy about that, but April can’t do both, not and have any energy left to devote to her children and her mate.
“Lord, Alpha, she’s even trying to keep up with dating Michael. It’s too much. We need to choose a direction, like I’ve said from the beginning. And these two…” Matt pointed at Cain and Rowena. “…need to sign off on it and stick to it. They bicker all the time, and it’s driving April crazy. It would drive anyone crazy.”
Castiel nodded decisively. “I understand. I’ll speak with April tonight and find out which direction she prefers…”
“She prefers to be a songwriter,” Cain grumbled.
Cas growled fiercely at him, and Cain’s metaphorical ears flattened as his tail wrapped tightly between his legs. “If you interrupt me again,” Castiel warned, “I will make you regret it.”
“Yes, Alpha. Apologies, Sir.”
“Good. As I was saying, April and I will select a direction, and I will ask each of you to commit to it. Matt?”
“Sir?”
“You’ll be in charge of coordination.”
Matt nodded and stood up with a deep, bracing breath.
“Cain,” Cas continued. “You are responsible for keeping April balanced during the working day and deciding moment by moment if she’s better off stepping clear of the lot of you for a break. If it turns out that she spends the lion’s share of every day as a mother to our children, then so be it. Her psychological and emotional health take precedence over her musical career. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Alpha,” Cain told him.
Cas held his gaze for several moments. “And if she decides to pursue performance instead of composition?” he posed.
Cain nodded formally. “Then that’s what we do. …But she won’t.”
Castiel’s eyes hardened. “Try again,” he said, softer in volume than in intent.
Cain sighed heavily. “Then that’s what we do, Sir. Full stop.”
“Thank you,” Cas replied testily. He turned to face the diminutive Scot. “Rowena?”
“Naturally, Alpha. Whatever the wee Ozzie phenom prefurs.”
Cas narrowed his eyes, searching for duplicity. He couldn’t bring himself to trust Rowena. He had to concede that if he had been forced to work in concert with her day in and day out, he would probably snap at her as often as Cain did. Cas felt Cain at his back, stifling a retort, and he decided to let the discussion end before Cain’s self-control slipped. He couldn’t hold Rowena to the same degree of acquiescence he did Cain. She wasn’t Pack. And what was more, she had been hired as an agent. Putting April onstage was basically her entire job. If April wasn’t going to perform, what was Rowena supposed to do for her?
“I’ll speak to all of you tomorrow. We’ll set a new game plan. Matt, please have Mark here. Cain, I want everyone who’s involved in tutoring her. Get Nicholas patched in on Skype if he can make it. We’ll meet at five-thirty. April is taking tomorrow off unless she has a commitment I’m not aware of.”
“No, Sir,” Cain answered for all of them. “Tomorrow’s clear. We’re in a holding pattern right now until she goes to Nashville for her meetups, anyway. She can’t make any more headway than superficial steps until that trip wraps up.”
“Good. I’ll bring Michael. You’re all dismissed. I’ll see you tomorrow at five-thirty.” Cas strode through the parlor and mounted the stairs two at a time.
He found April with Dean in the nursery, the two of them laughing as Dean played peek-a-boo with Jimmy. April’s smile didn’t reach her eyes, and she startled when she noticed her mate shadowing the doorway.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” she stumbled, setting Kat down on the play rug and getting to her feet. “I’m going. I only stopped in to check on them.”
“Put your hands on the wall, Omega,” Cas said firmly. Despite the fact that her sojourn to a warm, soapy bath was intended to offer her a chance to relax, her disobedience required a response. April shot Dean a look and then complied. Cas slipped her skirt down to pool on the floor. Beneath the skirt, she was bare.
Alex climbed into Dean’s lap and stared with wide eyes, scenting Alpha dominance in the air, and leaning into his Daddy for comfort. Dean chuckled at him and kissed the side of his head. The triplets paid no attention until the first blow landed with a sharp crack, and then all three heads whipped around at once.
Cas made short work of the simple consequence. It wasn’t enough to Release his mate, but he hadn’t meant for it to. He pulled her off the wall and held her in a tight embrace, stroking her hair.
“We’re going to figure it out, Kitten. Don’t worry. Go get your bath. I’ll come wash you in a bit. Just soak for me for now. Relax. Try to turn off and let me worry for you. That’s what I’m here for.” He smiled gently at her and kissed the tip of her nose. “Go on, now.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she replied. Stooping down, she collected her skirt and she dashed out, trying to make up for her prior stalling by hurrying now.
It made Cas smile.
“Pa-pa,” Alex called.
“Did you hear that?” Cas asked Dean in wonder as he sank onto one knee and held his arms open to his son. “That time it was definitely intentional! He’s talking, Dean!”
“He sure is,” Dean agreed, releasing the pup to scurry across to Cas. Cas lifted him high into the air and grinned at him.
“Good job, Alex! Say it again for me. Say, Papa.”
“Pa-Pa!” Alex answered, delighted to have earned his Alpha’s pride. “Pa-pa-pa-pa!”
“That’s my boy!” Cas cuddled him close and danced happily with him, grinning at Dean all the while.
Dean laughed.
“Has he said anything else?” Cas asked.
“You win first honors, Sir,” Dean told him proudly. “Although he’s been humming M sounds as well. No doubt, mama is right on the tip of his tongue.”
Cas turned back to Alex as Dean accepted a toy from Emma and pulled her into his lap.
“Alex, can you say, Ma-ma?” Cas prompted. “Mm-mm-mm-ma-ma!” he offered, turning a hum into a syllable and overemphasizing the movement of his lips for the pup to mimic.
Alex frowned in concentration and caught Castiel’s face between his hands, holding him still.
“Mmm,” said Alex. “Mmm-mm-mm”
“Very good. What a hard worker you are,” Cas praised. “Look at you concentrate. It’s like this. Watch Papa’s mouth. Mmm-mm-ma-ma.”
“Mmm-mmm-mmmm,” Alex mimicked before breaking out in a grin and then humming happily. Cas laughed with his son and stooped to sit down in front of Dean.
“He’s so close, Dean. He’ll be talking nonstop any day now. He barely babbled, and now he’s on the cusp of full words. He inherited his parents’ acumen for verbal acuity, clearly.”
Dean snorted. “He’s gotten one word out so far, Papa. Give him a minute before you register him for Debate Club.”
Cas only grinned, leaning down to blow noisy raspberries on Alex’s neck, bringing the pup to squeal in delight and throw himself backward into his Papa’s belly. Cas caught him and tickled him.
Out of the laughter, Alex cried, “Pa-pa! Pa-pa!” over and over. Jimmy joined the game, sucked in by the laughter and playfulness. Cas split his attention between both sons until all of them were in hysterics, and Kat began to wail at being left out, sitting on her bum a few feet away.
Cas took pity on her and pulled her closer by her ankles, nearly toppling her and surprising her into a laugh in place of her cries, a laugh that turned to giggles when her Papa’s five o’clock shadow scratched at her tender skin, and the wet noises he made into her throat cracked her up. She tugged at his hair and cackled.
Playing with all of them at once could be a challenge now that all the pups could move about and focus on their need to be the center of attention. It wasn’t easy to keep all four entertained, and Cas calmed their laughter before they overdid the play into an overstimulated chaos that would inevitably lead to tears.
He sent Alex to Dean, and he cuddled two of his triplets in his arms. Emma shared the lap she’d claimed, and Dean sang a song to them that Cas didn’t know. Cas had to hum awkwardly as he swayed, grinning all the while.
Once the song ended, the four pups wiggled free of their parents in favor of exploring their playroom. Their fathers watched without interfering, interested in learning their rhythms and their interests. Emma and Jimmy sat together, sharing a set of blocks amicably. Kat pulled bins off the shelf one by one, investigating what each held before moving to the next. Alex chewed on a stuffed wolf and watched her.
“How did it go with Jody this morning?” Cas asked as he handed a block back to Jimmy.
Dean snorted rudely.
“That bad?”
Dean shook his head. “What good is it to be alpha if the betas can lecture us as if we’re Omega?”
Cas’ eyes widened. “She lectured you?”
“Oh, yeah. She let me have it. Both barrels. Unloaded on me. Left me stuttering and speechless. I didn’t know what hit me, man.” Dean scooted closer to the shelf and began to return some of the items to their bins.
“What’d she say?” Cas asked, curious.
Dean counted items off on his fingers. “One, she reminded me that training Michael in Kansas was NOT her idea. Two, she said I should back her up, not take Michael’s side since my first responsibility in this instance is to my job as Training Department lead. Three, she said if I assign another mentor to Michael, she’s out. Four, she said…”
Dean paused and bit his lip.
“Dean? What was four?”
“She said Michael wouldn’t need to snack on clients if he was getting enough to eat at home.” Dean’s cheeks reddened, and he focused on helping Kat put toys in the bin she’d just dumped.
“I see,” Cas answered. “And how did you respond?”
“I told you. I gaped like a fish. I didn’t know what to say. That wasn’t at all how I pictured that conversation going. I was going to put the fear of god in her for binding my mate. I was going to scare her shitless and attach Joshua to her side like a remora. She basically laughed in my face and then said, Now see here, pup.”
Cas chuckled. “Is she right?” he asked carefully.
“You know she is,” Dean answered with a pout. “She knows she’s right, too, or she wouldn’t have said it. I forgot who I was dealing with, CJ.”
Cas let the statement thicken. He got up on his knees and crawled across to Alex to distract him from slapping at Kat’s backside. Alex had begun mimicking both the spankings and the more risqué body movements he’d witnessed, but his imitations weren’t alarming. It was a natural phase, and he would grow out of it. Once Cas had Alex on his lap, he prompted Dean to continue. “What are you going to do? You’ve already promised Michael that you would be adding another mentor.”
Dean sighed. “I backpedal my ass off, I guess. Backtrack. Admit I fucked up. Tell Michael he doesn’t get off that easy. He can’t evade Jody forever. He needs to straighten up and take her instructions head-on. I need to stand behind her. I owe her that. I’m still not convinced that putting ropes on a nineteen was the only option, but I can’t argue that it didn’t get his attention. And I need to give Michael’s wolf more of a workout than I’ve been doing.”
“That’s a lot to take on by yourself, love,” Cas said vaguely, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He let Alex amble up and take shaky steps out of his lap and toward the pile of blocks his siblings were enjoying. “You’ve promised me a portion of your backside as well, and I don’t mean to release you from that promise. But Michael’s need is important, and there isn’t anyone but you available to him.”
“There’s April,” Dean pouted, looking at the floor, knowing he sounded petulant.
“He’s not Tertiary with April, Dean. You know that. You can’t force something on them that isn’t what they want.”
“Then what do you suggest, Alpha?” Dean challenged. “I’ve only got one ass. Heaven knows I’d sacrifice it to both of you if that would solve this, but it won’t. I can only take so much. I’m already giving his wolf my Submission every day at breakfast and two or three times a week in the bedroom. What more can we do?”
Cas leveled a hard look at Dean, and the Sub lowered his eyes immediately. “No, Dean. Look at me.”
Dean rolled his head on his shoulders uncomfortably, but he eventually met his Dom’s eyes. Castiel’s brow rose as he spoke, signaling an end to a mutually equal conversation. They were Top and Bottom now. That simple shift in tone and his brow rising was all it took to put Dean one level down.
“Are you sincere in your inability to balance between the two of us, or is that your brat talking?”
“Come on, Alpha,” Dean whined. “Think of how much you two ask of me. There’s not enough to go round.”
Cas crossed his arms across his chest and tilted his head in a wordless, ‘Really, Dean?’
“I’m just saying, …” Dean didn’t know what else to say. His eyes hit the colorful patchwork rug again, and Castiel cleared his throat.
“I can’t look at you when you’re doing that with your eyes,” Dean protested feebly.
“Is that so?” Cas asked.
Dean huffed and looked up. “Okay, fine. You got me. I’m being a brat. Whatever. But the point is that Michael’s in the doghouse. He’s paid up for what he did last Friday, but I need to keep him in thumbscrews so he knows I mean business. How’s it gonna go if I ask for a scene from him through his wolf right now? How do I maintain pressure on his Omega when my brat is rolling belly up and begging for a strapping?”
“I suggest you talk to him, Dean. Lay it all out there just like you did to me. Explain that what you do with him in the playroom doesn’t alter his responsibility to respect you at work. You’re going to have to trust Michael to make that jump. Either that, or he can’t work for you.”
“He doesn’t work for me,” Dean protested. “He works for Benny.”
“He works for you while he’s in training, Dean. Until he earns his certification, you and he have to manage a split relationship. During his clinicals, you are his Top. At home, I want you backing down and Submitting to him more often than just at breakfast. For now, if he needs more support than his Omega can get from you in this dynamic, bring your concerns to me, and we’ll figure out together how to manage him.”
”I’m his alpha, Sir,” Dean protested possessively.
“I understand, Dean. I’m not suggesting someone else Top him at home. I’m suggesting we funnel him through that experience with you as alpha enough to find his balance and then assist you both in flipping back over to put him back on Top. I’m suggesting you allow me or Sam to act as spotter. Emma, we do not throw the blocks.”
Dean chewed on it. Kat dumped another bin.
“You’re going in to help April bathe?” he asked.
“I’ll meet you at dinner,” Cas agreed. “I expect to expend some sexual energies on my mate, but I promise you I’ll keep enough in reserve to see properly to you tonight. Dean, if you can talk things over with Michael after dinner, make a game plan, get yourselves squared away, play a little even, I’ll reward you when the others go to bed. And I’ll show you that you have enough for both of us. Let me show you.”
“Tonight?” Dean asked.
“Stay up late with me,” Cas flirted shamelessly. “Skip the beer at dinner and play hard with me tonight. Maybe we can kick your upcoming fall a little further down the street.”
Dean chewed his lower lip. “You’re asking me to flip from alpha to Sub and back again at lightning speed, CJ. Over and over again.”
Cas scoffed. “That’s nothing you haven’t done on your own countless times, Pet. And really, I’m asking the opposite. I want you Submissive at home as often as makes sense for as long as Michael needs the extra support.”
“Nuh-unh,” Dean countered. “The pups need me alpha. Tony needs me Primary-adult, at the very least. I have household responsibilities that I can’t do as a Sub, not to mention whatever work I bring home. And I can’t be your number two as a Sub.”
“Mm, sounds like a challenge,” Cas teased, knowing he was going to win.
Dean sighed again and rolled down to sprawl on his back. Kat and Alex immediately dogpiled him. “All that work to find access to my alpha around you and Michael both, and now you’re turning me over and sending me back the way I came.”
Cas chuckled happily. “Training never ends, my Sub.”
Dean mimicked him rudely, ”Training never ends, my Sub…,” and Cas rolled him over on the spot, tugged his pants down with a fist on the outside of each thigh and spanked him hard and fast, leaving Dean unbound and free to attempt an escape if he felt like it as the two pups scattered. Dean covered his head with his arms, but he didn’t crawl away. He lifted up on his knees, offering his ass more fully to his Top, and feeling the pain send licks of flame along his nerve-endings.
“Pa-pa!” Alex called, pointing at Dean’s reddened backside. “Da-da!”
“That’s right, Ace,” Cas told the pup as he finished up and tapped Dean’s thigh to indicate he could lower himself back down and dress again. “Papa spanked Daddy, didn’t he? Daddy was naughty, but he’s a good boy, even when he misbehaves, and Papa loves him.”
“Da-da!”
Dean laughed as he rolled onto his side after hitching his slacks back up. Alex scrambled to him and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Ace. That makes me feel better.”
“Will you see to their dinner and get them bathed, Dean?”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” Dean replied cheerfully, all stress abandoned for the moment. “What are we having for supper?” he asked the pups, and his enthusiasm pulled all four of them to him. Cas stood up and began to straighten the play space. Dean fell in with him, encouraging assistance from the pups that they weren’t especially interested in offering. Between the two fathers, the room returned to tidy in no time, and Dean had two of the pups sitting with books in their cribs while he carted the other two downstairs.
Cas left him at the stairway banister with a kiss and a wink. “I’ll see you at dinner, love,” Cas said. “No alcohol tonight.”
“Yes, Sir,” Dean called back over his shoulder, and Alex mimicked him with a “Yesah!” that made both of them laugh.
Notes:
I have three more chapters in varying degrees of finishedness. I'm going to spread them out though. There's such a thing as too much all at once.
Chapter 6: Monday, December 17, 2018
Summary:
Sam and Ketch - just an ordinary day in the life of an E.O.
Dean's evening continued - is there enough of him to go round? The Alpha believes there is, and he's usually right.
Notes:
Continuation from chapter 5 - finishing the day with a lot of action.
Y'all, please be careful out there. Take the warnings seriously. A little common sense, thorough hand washing, and social distancing is what each of us can do in real time to make a difference and slow the spread. Hoarding toilet paper isn't going to help, despite Chuck's prescient warnings. Panicking never helped any issue ever, but if you suffer from anxiety disorders like I do, it's to turn off the 'what ifs'.
And, my friends, I just completed the most exhausting four-day work week ever. My tank is empty, and I'm a little shell-shocked with the speed of my departmental meltdown. We'll see just where critical mass as far as how many individuals it takes to run a laboratory before it all collapses on itself actually is.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, December 17, 2018
NOW:
Sam hurried the length of the building, running late to his session, scrolling through the calendar on his phone and muttering to himself. Facility clients, students, and employees dodged him. Sam mumbled an apology when his distraction led to a direct collision now and then, but he hustled on, hardly noticing his own wake. This session was full, and he needed to finish on time, or he’d never make it across campus before class started.
“Sorry, I’m late,” he stated sincerely, closing the door behind him. Ketch was already stationed in his booth at the front of the room, but he couldn’t start until he had a partner. Sam took in the line of nervous wolves, counting by twos in his head. There were a lot of them this week. “Wow, we have our work cut out today,” he observed, laying his bag on the counter and pocketing his phone.
“And we’re not making much progress,” Ketch chided without heat.
“I know, man. I got caught on a conference call with Benny and Dayton,” Sam replied. “Thanks for waiting for me. I’ll make it up to you. Let’s get the ball rolling, what d’ya say?” Sam clapped his hands and dry washed them a little to warm them. Ketch nodded, all business, and stood up to address the lines.
He cleared his throat.
“All right, listen up!” Ketch called. “All the way in the back, give me your full attention so we can get through this with a minimum of fuss and confusion.” He stepped to the edge of the dais and stopped there, planting his feet and crossing his arms over his chest, a picture of dominant posturing that his English accent lent credence to.
“Some of you know the drill from experience. To you folks, welcome back,” he said in a clear voice that caused a modicum of chuckling and nudging within the ranks. He added an ironic smirk to lighten his tone without negating his authority. Behind him, Sam began laying out implements and logging onto his account. He adjusted the security cameras, checking their positioning and clarity.
“If you’re new to this process, relax. No one’s died from corporal punishment yet. We’re going to take care of you. Here’s how it works. Beta Sam and I will call you up by name two by two. When you hear your name, step lively. We all have things to do this afternoon, and no one leaves this room until we’ve taken each and every one of you in turn.
“Once you’ve taken your swats, you’ll stand for fifteen minutes at the settling wall. When you get there, set the timer and put your nose on the wall. Lace your hands behind your head. Do not cover your backside. Do not rub the sting out. No touching. No talking. No leaving early. Wipe your nose print off the wall with a sterile wipe when the timer goes off and get dressed. Once you’re done, find somewhere to sit or stand and watch the proceedings until everyone’s dismissed together. There is to be no talking while you wait, neither before you step up to greet us, nor afterward. Do you understand?”
There was a sad muttering from the floor.
Sam turned around, finished with his preparations. He clapped his hands percussively and sent a jolt of startlement out into the group.
“You were asked a question!” he growled. “We expect answers when we ask for them! Do you understand?”
A much clearer response echoed back this time, a clamor of Yes, Sir and Yes, beta.
“Better,” Sam told them assertively. He nodded to Ketch and stepped back one stride.
“All right, then,” Ketch picked back up, raising his voice to carry. “You should all have brought your punishment orders with you. Little white piece of paper with your name and a code on it. Is there anyone who doesn’t have a slip? Raise your hand.”
No one moved.
“I’ll ask one more time. If you don’t have it, we can look it up, so you’re not getting out of this, but we use your copy as a verification check. If you forgot it or lost it, we can figure it out if you tell us now. If you get to your turn without fessing up, we add fifteen paddle swats. Anyone? Now’s the time to say something. Don’t be shy. There’s always someone.”
At the back, an unsteady hand wavered into the air. “Sir? I didn’t know I needed to bring it with me.”
Ketch nodded. “Happens all the time,” he told the poor frightened girl. “Take a quick look at the slip in your neighbor’s hand there. Read to me what it says in bold black letters at the top.”
“Um,” she stumbled, peering to her left at the paper an Omega held steady for her to read. “It says Present this order at your assigned punishment session.”
“That’s what I thought it said,” Ketch replied, still speaking in an auditorium voice. “Never hurts to check that they didn’t alter the wording.”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” the beta called bravely back.
“Atta girl,” he smiled. “Better. Anyone else? Just the one?”
No one else spoke up.
“Five extra swats for failure to bring your own order. Better than fifteen,” he observed. “Thanks for being honest and letting us know now. Come on up and stand here to the side. I’ll look your name up in a minute and get you situated. All right, are there any questions?”
A hand in the middle of the pack shot up stridently.
Sam smirked and turned his back on them to hide his amusement. There was always one. Ketch pointed, and the man stepped forward.
“I don’t deserve to be here,” he said aggressively. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Where do I go to get a review of this sentence? I wanna talk to whoever’s in charge. You’re not touching me, beta!”
Ketch smacked his lips and looked across the dais at his teammate. Sam found his control and turned back around. Ketch used the moment to confer with the terrified beta who hadn’t brought her orders. They turned to the computer monitor, heads close together, and Ketch pulled her rapidly up, checked her ID photo and scribbled out a quick form for her to hold onto until it was her turn.
“I’m in charge,” Sam said calmly, stepping forward and allowing his wolf to add gravity to his bearing. “Reviews take place prior to the punishment session. If you wanted to challenge your punishment, you should’ve done that right away. I’m certain you knew that. If you’ve appealed and lost, I can’t help you. If you want to try your luck appealing to me, be my guest. But I warn you, I don’t offer leniency very often, and most of the time, I increase the punishment either in length or intensity, sometimes both, if you waste everyone’s time. If you’re innocent, and you’re sure of your position, let’s talk. In my years of experience, I’ve only come across two or three people who were truly sent here erroneously. It’s happened. We’re not infallible. But the rules are the rules. If you broke one, you gotta pay for it. No excuses.”
“I didn’t break any of your stupid rules!” the man declared with an aggressive step forward.
“What does your form say?” Sam gestured to the wrinkled paper in the man’s fist.
Somewhere in his mid-twenties, the young man looked out of place among a sea of younger faces, all milling about now that they realized that there was no need for an orderly line. “Some douchebag in a lab coat said I was disturbing his office hours,” the man spit back. “I wasn’t any louder than anyone else in the hall. He didn’t even care if it was me or someone else. He just stormed out of his office, fisted my shirt—stretched it out too—and put me on my knees in front of the rest of my class!”
“Your name?” Sam asked evenly.
“Josiah Middleton.”
“Josiah, who signed your form?”
“No fucking clue. It’s chicken scratch,” the beta declared in disgust.
Ketch sauntered back to the keyboard mounted on the countertop and began typing rapidly.
“Bring it here,” Sam instructed. “I’m proficient in douchebag chicken scratch.”
Josiah shoved his way rudely to the front and presented his form to Sam as if bad handwriting would prove his innocence. Sam scoffed.
“That’s, uh, that’s our head researcher, Dr. Tran,” he informed the unfortunate young man. “Not a man with a lot of patience for shenanigans in the hallway while he’s working.”
“It wasn’t me,” the beta persisted.
On the screen mounted to the wall above the counter where Ketch typed, a video loaded and began to play. In it, marked with a timestamp and Josiah’s name and punishment order number, the unruly twenty-something man jostled his way boorishly down the hallway with his friends, shouting obscenities at the Ozzie class on their way in the opposite direction.
Sam didn’t watch the video. He scratched idly at his upper lip and cast his gaze out the window along the long axis of the room. He didn’t need to see the specifics. Keven never sent anyone for punishment without getting his documentation in order.
In the video, several of Josiah’s classmates joined in the hooting, but his voice rang out clearly above the others. He was brutish and childish and loud enough to be incontrovertibly the ringleader. When the video ended, Sam turned stern eyes back on the beta.
“You were saying?”
“We were heading to lunch. Everyone gets a little keyed up before lunch,” he tried weakly.
“Dr. Tran listed only one transgression for you, Josiah,” Ketch told the room, scrolling through the entry in the computer. “That’s disorderly conduct causing work disruption. Interesting that he didn’t include Omega harassment. What do you think, Sam? Harassment?”
“Definitely,” Sam agreed. “That’s forty more on top of what you walked in here to get. Care to keep protesting?”
“This is bullshit!” the man growled. He ripped his form in two and bundled his way through the crowd like a bulldozer. Sam watched him go. Some people just refused to be held accountable, and they had a much harder journey than those who allowed themselves to be molded. The door slammed behind Josiah.
Sam clapped his hands again. “All right, then. Let’s get this over with. Beta Ketch, who’s up first?”
“You’re just gonna let him walk?” someone near the front asked in dismay.
Sam chuckled. “He won’t get far. We’ve got alphas watching the doors. They’ll pull him into a side room and chill him out. We’ll get to him when the rest of you leave. Look, folks, the doors aren’t locked. We’re not locking anyone in this room. If anyone panics and makes a run for it, those doors will let you out. Don’t think we’re here to scare you. The monitors are rigorously trained to handle true panic attacks just as they’re trained to handle blowhards like Josiah.”
Ketch cleared his throat. “Asperice Cleavely and Genevieve Branson,” he called. “First up means first over with. Front and center, ladies.”
Two pale faces wended their way forward and surrendered their slips to Ketch. He handed one to Sam before studying the other. Both Doms typed the number on the papers into their keyboard and verified the punishments assigned. Sam led Asperice to his booth as Ketch took the shorter of the two into his.
The booths had curtains on the sides but were open to the front of the room. Neither girl would get any privacy. Speaking firmly but softly, both EO’s addressed the misbehavior in quick words, clarified that the betas both understood the significance of their misconduct and why they deserved a painful correction.
Both girls stripped out of their shoes and pants and leaned over the bench in the middle of each booth without needing any harsh words to put them there. They were each already in remorseful mindsets, primed to take a swift correction to heart.
Sam put Ketch out of his mind. He spoke gently to the girl, instructing her to lift her hips and slide a little further onto the support. There was no call to strike an ugly authoritarian tone with a wolf who was already there, poised to soak it in, ready to see it through and learn to do better. The EO’s were there to dole out consequences, not freak people out or shame them into submission. Sam checked the order once more for power and count. He put his hand on her back, declared his intention stoically, and struck her right thigh hard, leaving it pink. He hit her left thigh next, just as hard, and followed that with a strike to her right crease. Sam set an even pace, concentrating on her legs more than her butt, giving her an intense experience that had her hands white on the bar and her thighs quivering.
At fifty, he stopped. He asked her a couple of simple questions to check her stamina and overall condition. She answered with a sniffly stuffiness. Sam judged her suitably fit to continue, and he selected a leather strap from among the implements he’d brought with him.
Asperice shrieked as the strokes of Sam’s strap striped her thighs. Twice, her hand wrapped round to shield her, and twice Sam paused to put it back where it belonged. He ended the punishment at twenty moderate, even strokes. She’d been assigned a G-nine reprimand with a suggested hearty warm-up and a flag that she responded better when the attention focused on her legs instead of her buttocks.
The beta-Submissive wept piteously into the support, fully rebuked and ready to apologize. Sam let her stumble through the words inelegantly. It was the mindset he sought more than a perfectly formed verbal eloquence at the culmination of a successful correction, and Sam was pleased. He helped her stand. He hugged her hard, wiped her tears before handing her the tissues, and sent her to stand against the wall, instructing her on how to activate the timer above her station and reminding her not to touch her butt until the timer beeped. Sam handed her clothes to her and nudged her toward the settling wall. He watched her find a spot, set her clothes on the bench behind her and start the timer. She glanced over her shoulder at him and graced him with a shaky smile before setting her nose to the wall and lacing her fingers behind her head.
Ketch finished up a minute or two after Sam did, his own charge dragging ass much more reluctantly than Sam’s had, but equally red-bottomed and chastised. Sam pulled up the next two names and called them forward.
It was a boy and a girl this time, both Omega-Neutrals, caught in unrelated acts of inappropriate sexual contact. Sam didn’t press for details. That wasn’t his responsibility. The reprobates will have had been lectured fully already. Today’s session was to sink the hook in and set it.
Sam was a little surprised that his young delinquent had earned himself a J-fifteen correction for something as simple as fucking in the bathroom. The slip wasn’t very helpful, so Sam dredged through his accessible record.
Ah.
Not a first offence.
Not even close.
Sam stifled a chuckle at the kid’s persistence. Odd that he hadn’t come across this boy himself before now considering how many corrections he had amassed in such a short time. But Sam wasn’t onsite as much anymore. He invested far more hours into his PhD studies than he did fulfilling the daily EO grind. That distraction, added to his multiple weekly meetings and mentor sessions with Benny meant Sam saw more faces in the room that he didn’t know than those he did.
“You know the drill,” Sam said to the cocky young Omega. “Get comfy. We’re in this for the long haul. Shout if you need a break.”
They worked their way systematically through the horde. Each EO waited for the other to finish before calling up the next pair. They took short breaks to stretch their arms and take in water. They kept an eye on the settling wall, but charges at that stage generally managed themselves, standing pat and obeying the rule to keep their hands off their sore butts until the timers beeped them free to dress and find a place to wait out the rest of the session. The room’s mood shifted from antsy / anxious to quiet and subdued as the numbers waiting diminished and the numbers spanked rose.
It was a workout, to be sure. Sam’s bicep ached as he checked the remaining list. Three more each. It came out to an even number, not including Josiah, still waiting in a cool dark room by himself. Sam checked on Ketch. The man was a machine, untiring through the lengthening afternoon session. He nodded a bracing confirmation back at Sam and took a long slug from his water bottle.
Sam told Ketch he’d take Josiah at the end, giving Ketch a twenty-minute head start on filing his final report. Ketch didn’t argue. He summoned the next two.
Beta-Dominants.
There was just something about Presenting with a Secondary designation—a second-place finish—that tended to turn these wolves into assholes. Sam had no sympathy. He was as beta-Dominant as they come. He knew all the excuses, all the insecurities, all the whinging, pathetic justifications they called up for their shitty domineering bully tactics, and Sam let his muscles explain where they’d made wrong turns. He rarely felt tired up against one of these guys. If he could get through to them now, it might mean fewer Omegas or Subs in crisis later.
They were just so…
Damned.
Hard.
Headed!
Sam whacked the paddle down with emphasis and a slight grunt. God, but he hated having to do this to the same ass over and over again.
This one was an employee, not a client, so Sam knew her very well indeed, and she shouldn’t still be making the same mistakes a year in.
The body before him shifted a little but didn’t dodge, didn’t cry out, didn’t so much as huff. She took it, each and every stroke, and she held.
Sam hit the top limit for the level he was assigned to deliver, hit it with regret. He felt like a few more wouldn’t hurt. Maybe an exclamation point to the essay he wrote across her ass might make all the difference. But that wasn’t his call either, and this one had Castiel’s name on the form. Cas wasn’t one to go easy on a repeat offender. If he’d assigned less than Sam would have, there was a reason. Sam was in no position to challenge the Alpha’s directive.
“On your feet,” Sam said gruffly, unable to hide his disdain completely. “I don’t want to see you here again any time soon,” he admonished sternly. “I’ve spent enough time looking at your ass.” She didn’t get a hug, which was mutual. She wouldn’t have accepted it.
Sam sighed as she strutted smugly to the wall, tossed her clothes on the bench, and made a show of setting the timer and letting it count down a full minute before finally settling into position. Ketch caught Sam’s eye, noting that Sam saw it too and wasn’t planning to let her get away with the insult. Follow-up would come later though, not now. She was one of Bobby’s employees and a fine trauma nurse, but there was no place for her long term in a facility like this if she couldn’t kennel her wolf when someone challenged it.
Sam’s wolf longed to show hers what a real challenge looked like. This wasn’t the time or place though.
Ketch looked out to the floor. All but the last two were crowded close to the walls, either standing and leaning or sitting miserably up against the wall watching the end of the session. Some of the Omegas were laid out on the floor on their bellies, holding hands with someone they didn’t even know, offering one another comfort. Staying for the full program and witnessing each other’s corrections let each and every participant take more away with them than their own experience. The scents alone spoke volumes to their back brains.
Ketch beckoned the last two to the dais and held his hand out for their slips. “Don’t worry, fellas. We still have enough in the tank to make your wait worthwhile. Fear not.”
“Very funny,” the blond dude grumbled, unbuckling his belt like he knew the routine by rote. Sam took the other one, letting Ketch clash with the blond. Sam could sense Ketch’s wolf engage with the beta’s. Sometimes kismet played a hand. It was always helpful to have a harmonic between the wolves of the punisher and the punishee when you could make that happen. It made the interaction more memorable, more effective, more satisfying when your wolf really connected with its charge. Ketch had veritable sparks shooting from his fingertips and his eyes, and Sam smirked, scenting the air and letting it speak to his wolf in turn.
“You’re Stan?” Sam asked, reading the slip.
“Yessir.”
“Stan, did you know it’s against the rules to throw food in the lunchroom?”
“Of course I did. I got carried away. It was stupid. I deserve to have my butt roasted, Sir, and I deserve what I’m gonna get when I get home. Can we get it over with? The waiting is killing me.”
“You bet. Take off everything below the waist and get up on the structure. Your order says he wants you paddled. You’ve taken a paddle before?” Sam readied himself while the kid climbed into place.
“Look, you don’t have to baby me. I’m not going to break.”
Sam sighed when he got a good view of the boy’s butt. He had yellowing and purpling marks all over his ass and thighs. There were new marks on top of older ones, surface bruises mixed in with deep damage. Sam consulted his file.
Stan wasn’t boarding onsite. He was a local, driven in daily by his mate, recently Mated and dispatched to live with his alpha mate’s Pack. There was no mention of a preference for impact play in his playlife or his Submissive balancing. He wasn’t a masochist or a brat. Someone as even keeled as Stan had no reason Sam could see to be sporting damage like this. His Facility record was clean but for this one incident.
Sam looked at the order. It was signed by a middle manager on the legal wing. He barely knew the guy. Sam pulled his trusty maplewood out of his pocket and rubbed his hand firmly over it to warm it up a little. Aiming carefully, he swapped it down square onto Stan’s ass, pulling slightly at the last moment to land it with a simple smack rather than his usual hard thud. Sam schooled his face to keep those watching from realizing he was pulling his strokes, and he watched Stan’s shoulders tighten up at each swat.
He was in a great deal of pain. Sam couldn’t stop his punishment from happening, but he could prevent the boy from taking a new injury. Sam shortened the count and the intensity to the degree that he was allowed. It was still a lot. When he finished, he checked carefully, satisfied that he hadn’t added any new bruises and had still sent the ACRI’s message loud and clear that misbehavior wasn’t tolerated.
Beyond that, Sam could only give the kid a good, tight hug and follow up later with a phone call to Submissive Resources to have his home life investigated. Sam suspected abuse, but bruises like that could come from other sources too, not all of them alarming.
Dean had bruises like that on his ass more often than not.
It’s possible Stan’s file was incomplete.
But it was worth looking into.
Sam sent Ketch home, along with those who’d completed their wall standing. The room cleared slowly. Sam sat on the spanking bench on Ketch’s side and swung his legs, waiting for the timers to beep. When the last two dressed and scurried out, Sam slipped out behind them.
An alpha monitor flagged him down.
In a dimmed and unfurnished room, he found Josiah sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped idly around his knees, staring at nothing.
“Up you go. Follow me,” Sam said with no introduction.
“I can’t believe you made me wait that long. My Alpha’s going to kill me. You’ll be getting a phone call. Just you wait. Do you know who I am?”
“Save it,” Sam said curtly. His class would be starting soon on the other side of the campus. He didn’t have time for a lengthy discussion. “Shoes, off. Pants, off. Underwear, off,” Sam drilled as he led the asshole back into the correction room. Sam’s wolf didn’t give him any chance for defiance, shepherding the beta into place on the power of his designation alone. “What you take from this experience is your own business. I don’t need to know. Get your ass up onto that structure and hold on. I don’t appreciate being disrespected or lied to.” Sam began with his hand, hardly waiting until the man, who should have been old enough to know better, got himself placed. Sam made him feel it, finding that his own wolf had some definite opinions about this guy’s attitude.
When his hand began to burn, Sam switched to a level C paddle, with half-inch holes drilled through it every couple of inches. It was no toy, and Sam knew how to get the most out of it. The man’s breath caught at the first hard swat, and he was soon crying out in pain at each subsequent swing. Sam had him bawling by the time he reached twenty. He went ahead and added those extra forty for Ozzie harassment too. He had ample evidence to support his decision. He wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t enjoy tripling the dude’s count, and he wasn’t in any mood to feel sympathetic to his pain.
Sam chose a springy cane for the last round. Adding extra strokes to a punishment for defiance during the session usually meant putting more time in with the mid-level implement, but Sam’s wolf suggested he put the cane to use explaining the way Sam saw things in relation to this young man’s protests. Originally scheduled for five with the cane, Sam set him to fifteen, feeling like the synchronicity of tripling both segments sent a powerful message. By the time his striped ass was allowed to ooze off the bench, the beta’s tune had changed appreciably.
His face was as much a disaster as his butt, but Sam let his tears and his snot run unchecked. He set the timer himself and stood right behind the sniveling beta during his wall time, slapping his hand down every time he tried to rub. He kept a weather eye on the clock. His time was short, but he could make it to class if he jogged.
Barely.
But Sam meant business, and he wasn’t about to shortchange a blowhard just because his own schedule was tight.
He’d have to do his reports at home after class.
Damnit.
Again.
The timer beeped. Sam reached up and clicked it off.
He slapped the man’s butt one more time.
“That’s it, beta. Grab your clothes and head out. Don’t let me see you here again.”
“I’m reporting you,” the man sniffed.
Sam sighed, gathering his supplies.
“You do that. Make it a good one,” he added. “Contact info is on the website. My name’s Sam Winchester. Please spell it correctly.”
Sam followed him out, watching him slide uncomfortably into a waiting sedan. He waved solemnly when he saw the beta point at him, and then he broke into a light, distance-eating jog, putting his long legs to use.
He made it with three minutes to spare and a sweat-soaked body. Sam huffed his breath back down. He doused his face with water in the restroom and took a chair in the back corner as far from the majority of students as he could get. It was a small class. They had room to avoid him. Most of them chose to do so.
Sarah shot him an odd look from the front row and removed her bag from the seat she was saving for him. He sent her a thumbs up and a weak grin, but he didn’t switch seats. Sam pulled his notebook and a pen free of his bag and wiped his brow.
Time to switch gears.
Cas left him at the stairway banister with a kiss and a wink. “I’ll see you at dinner, love,” Cas said. “No alcohol tonight.”
“Yes, Sir,” Dean called back over his shoulder, and Alex mimicked him with a “Yesah!” that made both of them laugh.
Dean beamed. “That’s your third word, Ace! Look at you go, man. Big kiss for Daddy!” Kat wedged a pudgy hand in between Dean’s mouth and Alex’s cheek, earning herself a play growl from her Daddy and an attempt to catch that hand with his teeth as he descended the stairs. She chortled at his snapping, pulling her hand free and ducking her body into his chest. He laughed easily with them both, enjoying the simple playfulness of his pups and a weight off his shoulders now that his dreaded talk at Tessa’s was behind him.
Dean arranged Alex and Kat in their seats in the kitchen, handing them off for Tony to keep an eye on while Dean popped back up for the other two. How was it that Cas made all of his troubles seem simple? They weren’t simple. They were anything but. Dean knew that the complex dynamics between the four of them were a spider’s web tangle. But Cas spoke, and the tangles fell loose in his fingers.
Dean wanted to show his husband that he could balance on his Submissive side as he’d learned to do on his alpha. He wanted to prove he had the control necessary to flip from one to the other intentionally as the situation demanded. He wanted Cas to be proud of him. He wanted to earn that wink and the confident nod that went with it.
Dinner for the pups was baked fish, it turned out, a favorite of all four. The triplets were allowed a chance to manipulate the morsels of flaky fish and steamed veggies in their clumsy fists, but Dean made sure each of them swallowed enough bites to fill their bellies.
Lupin pups require solid foods much earlier than Primate humans, and though all four of them were still nursing, they couldn’t rely entirely on milk to supply their dietary needs anymore, especially Alex, who only nursed now at bedtime and first thing in the morning.
Alex drank cow’s milk from a sippy cup while the other three drained a bottle each of pumped milk. April’s lactation couldn’t begin to keep up with the needs of her three pups. No one had expected her to. In the wild packs, when one Omega gave birth to a larger litter than she could feed by herself, their nutritional needs were spread among the rest of the Pup-bearing mothers. The lowest ranked Omegas, once stimulated to lactate after bearing their own first pups, could expect to be called upon to nurse any pups in the Pack for as long as their milk supply held out. Some of them didn’t stop nursing pups for decades. It was often a point of pride for Omega mothers, proving their fertility and their sustainable worth in a tangible way and giving them an excuse to wallow in the care of others as the Pack doted on them and fed them inexhaustible quantities of nutritious foods.
April’s pups were beginning to wean already, preferring the silicone nipple to the flesh one, but April maintained her milk supply by pumping every few hours and nursing when the wiggly triplets deigned to hold still. In that way, she found she could stretch out her touch to their little bellies and their immature immune systems longer, even as they seemed to be pulling away. April still nursed each of them a couple of times every day, but it was getting more difficult to convince them to settle down with her when there were all kinds of fun things they could be doing instead.
Once they were all sated, Dean enlisted Gabriel into hoisting the pups back upstairs for their baths. Dean liked to bathe them all together but doing so was a two-man job. Gabe sorted pajamas and readied diapers while Dean scrubbed little faces and little butts and let them splash a bit.
Kat came out first, as usual. Dean handed her slippery body into Gabe’s towel-covered hands, and Gabe whisked her away for drying and dressing. Dean was painfully aware that Gabe and Kali had tried countless times now to conceive and had come up dry every cycle so far. He watched Gabe for indications that assisting with nieces and nephews was beginning to grate, but so far, Gabe seemed copacetic.
Gabe got Kat situated on the floor with her favorite book and her damp hair tidily combed and came back for the next wiggly body. In no time, all four pups were settled quietly in footed pajamas in a dimmed room. Gabriel stayed until Eunice arrived with her knitting basket to watch over their quiet evening play, and then he joined Dean in heading down to dinner. The smell from downstairs was mouthwatering. Gabe pocketed the baby monitor, but Dean stole it back when they reached the dining room, and he handed it to Michael instead.
“Hey, babe, how was class?” Dean asked, bending down for a kiss as Michael slipped the monitor into his own pocket.
“It sucked ass as usual, alpha,” Michael told him. “I swear Professor Linnear has it out for me. No one else in the class gets called down like a six-year-old. I’m barely allowed to breathe in that room. And by the time I get home, the pups are already headed to bed. I’m missing everything! And for what? So some ass-monkey can tell me to sit still and keep my hands to myself?”
“Oh, man, sorry to hear that,” Dean commiserated. He slipped into his chair at the foot of the table and squeezed Michael’s hand. “Have some dinner, man. You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten. Maybe read the kiddos their story before bed. Don’t forget, you’ve got them all morning. You’re not missing everything, Michael.”
“Alex said his first word, Dean, and I was in class!”
Dean pressed his lips together. He put a bracing hand on the back of Michael’s neck and held him firmly. “You’re a terrific mother. Those pups adore you. They light up when you walk in. You’re doing everything right. Sweetheart, we’re all gonna miss some bits here and there. It sucks, I know, but it’s not the end of the world. I missed Ace’s first steps. Cas was in San Diego when the triplets tried solid food for the first time. April missed that first word by, like, moments tonight. But we do what we can. We’re there for the important stuff, Michael, the everyday stuff, giving them a home and teaching them they can trust us. Please don’t start a scoreboard over who missed which milestone. That road leads to resentments we can’t fix.”
“I know,” Michael replied. “But I don’t like it. I feel like hitting something,” Michael groused as he spooned lima beans onto his plate beside a long link of bratwurst.
Dean cleared his throat, and Michael looked up, then looked around. “What? Too much? I’m sorry, guys. Alpha. I’m just really cranky. Don’t mind me.”
“Michael,” Cas said from the opposite end of the table. “You’re tired and your bad temperament is understandable, and while I appreciate that it’s unwise to allow too much venting over dinner where one out of sorts wolf might turn everyone’s mood sour, no one’s castigating you for answering your mate’s question. Let’s try to move on now and enjoy each other’s company.”
“Oh. Thank you, Alpha.” Michael glanced up the table at him but turned toward his own mate when Dean touched his arm.
“Michael, man, can we talk after dinner? Just you and me?” Dean had switched to a cautious tone and a submissive slant to his expression, and Michael frowned.
“Hey,” he said, tucking a knuckle under Dean’s chin and lifting his head a little. “Dean, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Dean asserted, letting Michael shift his hand until the Omega cradled Dean’s cheek. “Eat up. I’ll tell you in a bit.”
“Can’t you tell me now? You’re freaking me out a little. Why are you Tertiary at dinner? Are you falling? Is it time?”
“Um, it’s kinda along those lines.” Dean caught Cas watching, but the Alpha didn’t interrupt, and no one else at the table paid them any mind. He ate a little. Michael mirrored him, waiting on a response but giving up when Dean seemed reticent to continue.
“Dean? Please tell me. It’s been a shitty day, and I’m not in the mood for a long wait. If you’re upset with me, I need you to tell me what’s wrong. What’d I do now?”
“Damn, Michael. Stop jumping to conclusions. I’m not mad at you. I want to talk about how to give your wolf more than it’s getting from mine. Eat your dinner. I’m not discussing this here.” Dean layered his alpha over his wolf and shut Michael’s protests down. Michael frowned at his mate, then turned to glance down the table at April. She wasn’t paying him any attention. April was caught up in listening to Kali describe a new commission to design all of the clothing for a high society wedding, and the two women pulled only Sarah in with them. They ignored all the men.
Michael looked back to Dean and realized his mate had a water glass where his beer bottle usually sat. “I’m planning on spending tonight with Pete, alpha,” he clarified, reading the implications.
“I know,” Dean replied. “You can still do that. I’m sleeping with Cas tonight. I won’t take your whole evening. But we need to hash something out, you and I. It won’t take long, and it won’t hurt. I swear, man. Eat. And hold onto that urge to hit something. We can do that real quick too if you want to.”
Michael set his fork down with a thud. “You talked to Jody.”
“You know I did,” Dean answered softly. “You were there when I made that appointment. And what are you mad about? This is a good thing. You get me on my knees more. What’s not to like?”
Michael rolled his eyes, set his jaw, and picked his fork back up, eating mechanically.
“Oh, brother,” grumbled Dean, kicking the tension up a notch. “You’re going to kick up a fuss because it was someone else’s idea? Damnit, Michael…”
“I hate to be managed, Dean. You think you and Jody can stuff scenes down my wolf’s throat until it’s so full it can’t walk and then send me into my training classes docile enough not to make waves. I don’t want to be force fed.”
“Maybe you should’ve thought of that when Jody warned you off nibbling on clients the first twelve times. You’re acting like a child,” Dean accused. “You would be all over the idea if it was yours instead of Jody’s. But you know what? You don’t wanna do it? Fine. You figure out a better way to keep your wolf outta your work, and I’ll sign off on it. You don’t need to do me any favors, Michael. Fuck this.” Dean tipped his chair over in his haste to remove himself, and he stalked out of the dining room.
“Goddamnit,” Michael muttered as he watched Dean leave. “That’s not what I meant, alpha. I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it. Jesus, I told you I was pissy.”
“Michael, you’re excused,” Castiel told him without further instruction, and Michael took the excuse to bolt after his mate.
“Dean, wait!” Michael caught up to him in the foyer.
“Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?” Dean asked him, furious and red-eyed. “It took me months to win back to holding onto my alpha. Now I’m supposed to reverse track and take it all back, and be Tertiary all the fucking time? And fine, man, I can do that if it’s what you need from me, but don’t act like a petulant spoiled asshole brat when you get precisely what you want without having to throw down and win a brawl to get it! What do you want from me, Michael? Don’t pretend you don’t want me on my fucking knees! Goddamnit! Why do we have to play these stupid games?”
Michael wiped his face with a hand, blushing as the accusation struck home and stuck. “I want to earn it though, alpha. I want it to mean something. My wolf isn’t interested in being fed. It wants to hunt. I wanna be a part of bringing you back topside when you fall, and I know you’re close. But you’re planning on roleplaying with me and then letting Cas do all the real heavy lifting. Come on, Dean! I’m your mate! Don’t hand feed me scraps and then give everything that actually matters to him!”
“I need him, Michael,” Dean confessed. “I can’t get through a fall without him.”
“I know that,” Michael lobbed back, closing the distance between them. “But please say you need me too. Dean, please. Don’t do this without me. Please.”
“I never had any plan to do it without you, man. That was you jumping to conclusions again. Since I’ve known you, have I ever had a fall that you didn’t play a crucial role in? Michael, man, you’re a part of me. I’m not doing anything without you.”
“Then what’s this roleplay bullshit about?”
“Who said it was going to be a roleplay?” Dean countered. “And besides, I use roleplay all the time with Cas. We settle all kinds of little imbalances that way.”
“Spare me the details of your kinky love life with him, alpha.”
Dean sighed. “Here’s the deal, Michael. If your wolf was getting all that it needed from me at home, you wouldn’t be tempted to turn professional interactions into inappropriate contact. There’s only one way to fix that unless you wanna start signing up to scene at the Facility with Adam. I’m down to let you if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t want Adam,” Michael growled.
“Good,” Dean responded. “Then stop throwing shit at the walls like a damn monkey and take the offer, damnit!”
Michael’s nostrils flared and his eyes turned golden. “You don’t decide this for me, Dean. I decide! You obey!”
Dean’s wolf caught the change of wind direction and speed, and it hunkered low onto its haunches, watching for a cue. Dean’s alpha spotted the way into the headspaces he was targeting as it evolved, and it stepped back into the shadows, giving over to his brat. Michael’s golden eyes marked heightened arousal, not a Secondary mindset, and Dean lowered his body in readiness. There was real anger funneling through to Michael’s wolf, not a roleplay, but Dean was ready. The Omega had taken the bait and bolted with it.
Michael went on.
“I don’t need you and your little team of betas charting out feeding sessions for me. This is between me and you, Dean. Not Jody! Fuck Jody!”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Dean gulped. His knees wobbled slightly, wanting to give way, but he needed a cue from his Dom first.
“You’re about to be,” Michael growled at him. Michael turned on his heel and left Dean standing by the staircase. He didn’t summon his mate, but Dean leapt to follow him anyway. He jogged down the back stairs in Michael’s wake, keeping up at a run.
“Sir?” Dean pressed. “Does this mean you like my idea? Are we scening after all? Sir?”
“Shut up, Dean.” Michael held the playroom door wide and gestured. “Get inside and strip. And wipe that smile off your face.”
“Yes!” Dean enthused, raising his hand for a high five as he passed his mate, a high five that Michael didn’t return.
“You’re not cute, Dean. You’re a brat. And I’m not laughing. You want a Dom? You got one. Get your clothes off and climb up in the swing.” Michael pointed.
Dean grinned at him and tossed his clothes in a heap on the floor, setting the swing to swaying heartily in his enthusiasm.
“Keep it up, Submissive,” Michael warned. “It makes no difference to me if your night with him is spoiled or not.”
“Bring it on, Sir,” Dean challenged, and Michael responded. He tangled the fingers of one hand in the webbing, and he swatted his mate several times with his hand through the gaping back of the chair where it left its occupant’s backside accessible before stopping to stare at the pink blush Dean’s backside already sported.
“Who did this?”
“Alpha took exception to being mocked earlier this evening,” Dean admitted shamelessly, craning his head around to try to catch a look and setting the swing to a slow rotation. Michael held it in place.
“Goddamnit!!” Michael shouted. His voice echoed against the high ceiling, and Dean smirked over his shoulder.
“He’s not going to be asking you for permission anymore, Sir. You get that, right? He said you and he had a Come-to-Jesus and things were going to change. Does that piss you off too, Michael? Feel like doing something about it? Come on, Omega! Hit me! Like you mean it this time!” Dean’s goading made Michael snarl and slap down a hard ten to his bare ass, but ten swats with an Omega’s hand was nothing to Dean Winchester and giving him what he asked for wasn’t satisfying to Michael in the least.
Michael changed course. He left Dean swinging and collected a few items. Coming back with a scowl on his face, Michael tied Dean’s wrists to the wooden dowel at the top of the swing, far apart to keep him stretched. Dean grinned as he held still for the binding. Michael used a fine, smooth rope to fix Dean’s thighs to the outer supports of the chair, forcing him wide open and staking the swing in place to halt its motion. But Dean’s mood darkened instantly when Michael untangled Dean’s boxer briefs from his jeans and stalked back to confront his brat with them in his hand, wagging them in threat. Into Dean’s bratty mouth, Michael shoved Dean’s underwear and then he tied a gag around the back of his head to hold them in place. Dean shouted wordlessly, feeding the scent of anger in the room as he struggled fruitlessly and letting his brat’s temper into the stew.
Now they were both mad.
Dean’s brat did not like being gagged.
Dean fought when Michael shoved lubed fingers up his ass and fucked him harshly. He struggled and shouted a muffled protest even louder when Michael rolled the automatic fucking machine up behind him and affixed a narrow dildo to the end. Dean tugged at his restraints to get the swing moving, but Michael had it anchored to the robot and to the outer supports, and Dean’s ass had no choice but to accept the intrusion.
Fucked by a robot was not what Dean wanted, and he fought, bruising his wrists and thighs in the process.
The dildo hurt, even at its narrow gauge and even at a minimal depth. Dean was tension in every muscle, and it hurt. Anger shifted rapidly to outrage, and he promised Michael torment once the ropes were removed.
Michael stared coldly at him, watching from the front as the alpha’s body jolted with the motion of the robotic machine. Dean’s cock shifted loosely with the swaying of the chair, uninterested.
“You don’t like that?” Michael mused, eyeing Dean’s soft dick. “I thought you wanted a Dominant wolf. No? You’d rather be pampered? Stroked with a feather? You want a hot bath and chilled champagne?”
“Mmmphmmgrm!” Dean shouted at him, eyes a blazing red.
“I don’t want to be FED, Dean!” Michael clarified, and Dean’s eyes widened. “You don’t control me, alpha! What? You thought we could do a little light impact play before bedtime and call it a success? Have you forgotten what I’m like when you push me toward something I don’t want?”
Dean struggled and grunted as the fucking machine worked tirelessly behind him. It was beginning to wear, needing more lubricant, the friction a harsh burn.
Michael disappeared out of Dean’s field of view and after a moment, the glide smoothed out as Michael filled the reservoir in the machine that fed a constant supply of silken lube through tiny ports in the dildo’s tip. Dean huffed through his nose, sucking deeply, attempting to draw in enough air with his mouth full of used underwear. His fists tightened on the bar over his head as Michael shifted the robot closer, increasing its depth.
Dean whimpered pathetically. His thighs burned with the ties holding him open, and his shoulders burned with tension. Coming back around front, Michael set another heavy machine to a rhythmic sucking right in front of Dean, the same mechanism that worked April’s breast pump. The alpha shook his head frantically and flexed the muscles of his groin to try to close the gap between his thighs, but it was no good, and his beloved fucking mate slipped the cushioned suction hose over his dick, holding it in place until it anchored and held on its own, sucked right up tight to Dean’s knot and stretching to accommodate. The soft repetitive sound of the motor sequencing through suck and release, suck and release, filled the high space in counterpoint to the cycling sound of the machine behind him.
Dean struggled again, sending rage through both Mating-bonds.
“There now. That’s all I wanted to say,” Michael chirped happily. “I feel so much better for getting that off my chest. Thank you for talking it through with me, Dean. I believe I’m ready to eat dinner now. You coming? No? Not yet?” Michael broke a little at his own pun, smiling in spite of himself, but he heeled backward toward the door.
Dean’s eyes flew wide, and he shook his head violently, starting up another desperate round of grunts and muffled shouts through his gag. His cock began to respond to the suction, and his asshole loosened in spite of his efforts, but surely Michael wasn’t going to leave him here.
Surely not.
“I’ll save you some brats in case you’re hungry later,” Michael offered.
The overhead light flipped off and Michael let the door slam behind him.
Dean screamed into his gag in frustration, sending Michael obtuse promises through their shared links. At length, when his mate didn’t return, Dean realized he was in this for real, and he settled down to breathe through it. His body was responding, and it fed his temper all the more.
Michael would have to release him eventually. That fucker didn’t know who he was dealing with. A fucking machine? Fine. A cock-sucking robot? Good. Bring it. Dean could take it.
Dean couldn’t take it.
His ass ached, every nerve on fire. His cock had nothing left to give. It was only barely pulling enough suction to keep the hose attachment from slipping off entirely now that his erection had faded, but Dean had given up trying to shift his hips enough to loosen it. It continued to suckle mechanically at his over sensitized flesh.
He was sweating and spent, exhausted and shaking, and he concentrated on sending the word, Uncle, through to his mate in every language he knew. He sent remorse, defeat, submission, and apology in equal measure, but it wasn’t until Dean gave up trying to hail Michael and instead, dropped his head and wept that the door cracked open again.
Dean’s soft crying turned hard and ugly as he realized Michael was back. Michael untied the gag and pulled the wet fabric out of his mate’s mouth. Dean hiccupped out a heartfelt apology as the blasted machine at his groin finally fell silent. The hose slipped off on its own without suction behind it. And then the rhythmic spearing from behind slowed to a grind and disappeared altogether, leaving Dean’s entrance feeling cold, raw, wet, and stretched.
Gentle hands at his wrists loosened and freed his arms followed by the untying of both of his thighs at the same time. Dean searched through teary eyes and let his head roll to the side. Cas knelt at his right side, inspecting the bruises that circled his thigh while Michael picked at the knot securing the rope to the outer frame of the swing. Untying Dean’s thighs was a matter of pulling a quick-release loop, but apparently, Michael had used a harsher knot on the swing itself. He frowned in concentration and then abandoned it to kneel in front of Dean, leaving the knot for later.
Dean had lost control of his crying. He searched Michael’s face with eyes too blurry to see clearly, and he shuddered violently as he reached for his mate. Having Castiel at his shoulder felt amazing, all told. They were both here, focused on Dean.
“Shh, shh. Dean, I’m here. Shh,” Michael cooed, wrapping his hands around Dean’s hips. “You did it, baby. You did so well.” Michael eased Dean into leaning forward so that he toppled out of the swing and into Michael’s lap. His sobbing picked up, earning him a huff of a laugh from Michael. “Shh, alpha, baby, you’re all right.”
Dean needed to apologize, but he couldn’t get the words out around the painful constrictions of his throat as weeping grunts tore painfully out of him. He leaned into Michael’s chest and cried. He felt Cas lift his wrists and look them over. He heard Cas instruct April to fetch a couple of ice packs. Michael held a water bottle up to Dean’s lips and eased small sips into his mouth.
“You’re all right, Dean. Shh. I’m here. Cas is here. You’re not hurt. Can you tell me why you’re crying? Talk to me, Dean.”
“’T’s too m-much, Sir,” Dean said haltingly.
“What’s too much, baby?” Michael asked, rocking him. Dean tucked his face into Michael’s chest, feeling the awful throbbing sobs begin to slow. Dean felt Cas take his arm and wrap a cool pack around his wrist, securing it with a loose strap. Cas had to fumble awkwardly for his right arm, snugged as it was up by Michael’s chest. Once the cool band was in place on both wrists, Cas nudged Dean into turning his back to his mate, arranging him in Michael’s lap to lean back and wallow. Michael wrapped his arms around Dean’s torso and ran fingers through his hair while Castiel doctored Dean’s thighs.
“Dean? Honey, what’s too much? The machines?”
Dean shook his head.
“You didn’t think I’d really left you, did you? You know I was watching over you the whole time.”
Dean nodded and snuggled his face to the side, nuzzling. “Y-yeah. I sa-aw you.”
“Good boy,” Michael praised. “Sip some more water for me.”
Dean accepted the bottle when Michael tipped it up. As he sipped, Michael reminded him. “What was too much, alpha?”
“I wanted to be g-ood for you, Mi-Michael. Wanted to hold ou-out. But it was too much. I f-failed.”
Michael chuckled, shaking Dean’s body with his belly. “No, love. You were amazing. You did so well.”
“I did?” Dean looked up at him, and he found the expression on Michael’s face matched the zing in his bonds. Michael was fiercely proud.
“You did,” the Omega confirmed. “But it’s bedtime now. Let’s get up and get you to bed.” Michael leaned forward to get his feet under him, letting Cas help him haul Dean to his feet. They hoisted him up and each wrapped an arm around him. Slowly they made their way up the stairs, the two Doms practically carrying Dean between them, and Dean was reminded of a night ages ago when he needed help up the stairs after a far harsher confrontation with Castiel’s angry wolf.
Maybe one day Dean would get smart enough to stop pissing off psychopathic wolves who have access to make him ache.
“Michael?”
“Yes, Dean?”
“Man, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to hand feed you like that. That was stupid.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, love. Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Michael suggested. He eased through the Master bedroom first and helped Dean stumble through after him.
“I can walk, fellas,” Dean mumbled weakly as they stumbled toward the bed.
Michael let Cas deposit Dean gingerly on the comforter. Cas lifted Dean’s legs up onto the bed for him and applied another layer of ointment to his inner thighs. Cas looked carefully into Dean’s eyes then smiled and patted his cheek paternally.
“Michael,” Cas said turning around. “I’m going to take a shower. Please stay with Dean until I’m back, and then you may go to April. She’s waiting for you, I believe.”
“Yes, Alpha. I need to talk to him a little yet anyway.”
“Very good, Michael. You did well tonight. I expect your report on my desk by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Once he was gone, Michael stretched out on the bed beside his mate. Dean rolled in to lean against him. He wrapped an arm over Michael’s ribs and tugged.
“I’m right here, Dean. God, you blew me away tonight. I haven’t felt a rush like that in ages. I had no idea you could do that. Do you know you were in there for an hour and a half? Holy shit, you’re amazing.”
“I live to serve, sir,” Dean said sleepily, coming slowly back to himself. “I hope it was worth it.”
“Oh, it was worth it,” Michael assured him. “You talk about sending me to clinicals with a full belly. That was a whole banquet. I’m stuffed.”
Dean snickered and hid his blush in Michael’s chest again. “Stop it,” he whined.
“Look, alpha,” Michael said, losing the teasing tone. “That was a shitty thing to do to you without talking it over first. You know you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t you? You didn’t deserve to be punished that way. That wasn’t what it was about.”
Dean grew thoughtful and still, plied out along his mate’s body and stroking the Omega’s long lines with his fingertips. “I don’t feel punished,” he observed. “I feel reined in and secured fast. That’s a good feeling, sir. Maybe it didn’t go the way we usually play, but you nailed me…in more ways than literal. You played it right, Michael. I’m really proud of you.”
Michael took stock of Dean’s expression as he rifled brazenly through his Sub’s head. “I know you’re going to point out that we never lost touch with each other, and that we both know I would’ve kicked the door down if you needed me to. But the truth is, I set you hurting without explaining what I was doing first. I took your safeword from you, and I need to know for sure what you’re thinking. I can tell what you feel, but I need to know your mind. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Michael. You’re finally really getting it, baby. That’s the kind of bullshit I need from you. So, if you’re good, man, I’m floating.”
“Even if it wasn’t a roleplay?” Michael questioned carefully. “I was pretty pissed at you.”
“Especially since it wasn’t a roleplay,” Dean confirmed stoutly. He jostled himself up onto his elbow with a groan. “You remember I said back before you ever started your training, if I’m being a dick to you, that’s the brat, and the only response that makes sense is to smack it down hard? And you did, and it was awesome! It was a roleplay in all the senses that keep us both safe, man. You weren’t mad at me. You were mad at the circumstances you have to live by. You caught my pitch and ran with it, and you did it like a veteran. My mate is a god, Michael.”
Michael eased over and kissed Dean’s lips. “Here, mate-of-the-gods, finish your water.”
Dean lay on his back and put his hands behind his head, holding Michael’s eye and opening his mouth.
“Oh, really?” Michael laughed. “Here in Castiel’s bed? If you spill, it’s on you.”
Dean nodded and winked. Michael sat upright, aiming the bottle carefully as he got the flow going straight into Dean’s open mouth. Michael held steady as Dean swallowed every now and then without closing his lips. It was a practiced technique, and Dean was proficient.
“Damn, that’s hot. Makes me wanna fuck your mouth,” Michael praised, tipping the last drops into Dean’s mouth. Instead of fucking, Michael kissed him. He sent Dean heat and gratitude and praise, and Dean basked.
“It should go without saying,” Castiel said emerging from the bathroom rubbing a towel over his head. “That much as Michael needs his wolf well-nourished… You’ll note I didn’t say fed… We cannot do scenes of this magnitude on a daily basis. Therefore, I expect both of you to put your thinking caps on and come up with some ideas to keep the ball rolling without exhausting our adorable mutual Sub. Dean, my Pet. Are you ready for me?”
Dean gaped. “Ready for you? I thought I was going to bed.”
Michael kissed the top of Dean’s head and excused himself quietly, slipping out without another word.
“You are in bed,” Cas pointed out. “And you and I had plans tonight.”
“But you just had to carry me up the stairs! I came five times!”
Cas shook his head with a grin that dissolved into a serious expression. “Your decision to rile your mate until he slapped you down doesn’t alter my plans, Pet. The point of the evening, as I already explained, was to prove to you that you have enough in your tank for both of us. And we hardly had to carry you up the stairs. You milked that. As to your orgasm count, you exaggerate. Be honest.”
“Fine. I’m too old for a fiver in under three hours,” Dean admitted churlishly. “But it was a solid three and a couple of world class aftershocks.”
“It was two,” Cas corrected. “There’s a difference between a full orgasm and a mechanically induced harmonic. And I believe your penis has experienced enough direct stimulation tonight anyway, regardless of the count.”
“But you’re still going to tear up my ass,” Dean concluded.
“Yes, I am. Scoot to the end of the bed.”
Dean groaned, but he complied.
“I’m never going to be able to resist your ass when it’s gaping like this,” Cas observed. He lifted Dean’s right leg by the ankle and ran harsh, probing fingers over the lube-slicked pucker, soft and swollen. “It’s erotic, my Pet. You’re all my fantasies incarnate.”
Dean grimaced at the pain. Friction had worn him raw, and intrusion had left him swollen. Castiel’s touch was a harsh, intemperate assault, and Dean writhed.
“Be still.”
“Sir!”
“It hurts?” Cas asked in the voice of his wolf.
Dean’s lips pressed stubbornly together, unwilling to admit his flesh might have limits, and he glared down the length of his body.
“Mmm,” Castiel acknowledged. “Good. Roll over.”
Dean took to his belly, and he stretched up to wrap his hands in the headboard. Castiel squatted down at the end of the bed and fixed his teeth into the back of Dean’s left thigh. Dean’s eyes flew wide and sweat erupted from everywhere as the Dom bit down. Dean screamed, suffuse with adrenalin and endorphins, tightening every muscle until he ached. Cas held him in his teeth, and he rammed both thumbs into Dean’s entrance, forcing the clenching muscles wide.
Dean cried out again after his breath ran out. He ducked his head into the bedding and sobbed at the sensations of being assaulted from behind. His nerves pleaded for him to defend himself, but he locked his core and remained prostrate on the bed. With supreme effort, Dean spread his right leg further apart, opening himself all the more to his attacker, and he felt Castiel swoon from inside his own head. Jaws that remained clamped around the meat of his thigh began a hungry chewing as if the Dom’s appetite was stoked enough to actually attempt consuming his prey.
Dean whimpered.
That was going to be one hell of a bruise.
Cas released him. Immediately, Dean felt tongue and teeth at his hole, nipping harshly and digging deep between the spread of his thumbs. Dean panted. He wanted to respond, but his cock was out for the count. Castiel knew how to play with his toy though, and Dean’s fingers and toes tingled in anticipation.
From behind him, Cas supported Dean’s knees and legs one by one until he was up and supported on the bed in a presentation position, arms still reaching out above him, totally at Castiel’s mercy.
His balls hung heavy between his legs, a delectable temptation that Cas went for as soon as they were free of the bed. Cas sucked them into his mouth one at a time, sucking and tonguing and rolling and licking. Dean sobbed and shivered. Cas’ thumbs returned to his ass as he let Dean’s balls go. They alternated stretching and thrusting, sometimes together and sometimes fluctuating.
Dean rolled his forehead across the comforter, searching for the doorway into his sense of other-worldly floating.
Cas pulled one thumb out and reached between Dean’s legs to pull his cock backward. He licked at the tip, coaxing and sucking just the head, and Dean’s breathing lost all regularity. He huffed and panted. His thighs trembled.
What happened to no more direct stimulation, the fucking liar?
Cas was reveling in Dean’s overexertion, in his overwhelmed, over sensitized overuse. He chuckled at Dean’s discomfort and applied himself to find every touch that made Dean’s feet sweat where his toes curled in the open air. Cas played with his exhausted genitals, with his sore and puffy hole, with the pink, sunburned meat of his ass, biting and squeezing and tugging and slapping until he felt Dean float away in his head.
Dean’s vocalizations never paused. He whimpered and moaned, rocking back and flinching away. And Castiel’s brutal wolf teased him mercilessly the whole time.
Dean was nearing the kind of whimpering that would soon turn into hiccups when Cas finally stepped back and stood up, unbuckling his belt. He stripped swiftly, noting that Dean had grown completely still in anticipation. His back barely moved with suspended breathing. In their heads, they were both circling, both inhabiting places in their minds that they intentionally avoided during the daytime.
Here, alone in the brightly lit bedroom they shared, each of them embraced in himself and his partner what he often found shameful when forced to consider its depths alone in the dark with no company but his own insecurities. Castiel was a heartless brute. Dean was a desperate reprobate in need of staking down. But they filled each other’s vacuums. It didn’t have to be more complicated than that.
Castiel watched himself press in, watched Dean’s muscles expand as the Sub bore down against the intrusion, opening himself wide. Cas slipped right in, and he closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, pressing forward until he was buried just short of his knot. He held there, and he breathed. His hands wrapped Dean’s hipbones where his flesh doubled with the bend of his body, making perfect hand holds for a powerful grasp.
Cas took his time finding his grip, letting his Sub anticipate why he needed a hold he was sure of. Dean’s breath hitched a couple of times, expecting this to hurt.
And it did hurt.
Cas drew back slowly, held still with the head of his cock planted in the swollen embrace of Dean’s weary body, and then he snapped his hips forward with a loud grunt, and he set to taking hold and staking his claim. His fingers sweated against their hold, but he only gripped tighter, and he fucked hard, fast, hurtful, and vicious, slapping against Dean’s ass at each thrust hard enough to spark the sting back up.
Dean let go of the headboard rails. He let go with every muscle, becoming a ragdoll in the mouth of a bulldog. His body jolted with the tide of Castiel’s wolf’s furious onslaught, and he flew.
Sweat flew from the tips of Castiel’s hair and dribbled down his throat to coat his chest. He surged forward, following the call of his wolf to subsume his Sub, setting first one knee up on the bed and then the other. He fell to the pull of gravity over Dean’s back, and he rucked up into him in possessive rage, covering his entire body as he rutted, adding everything he could to make Dean’s pain sing inside their bonds.
Castiel’s knot slipped in on a particularly hard thrust, but the wolf was possessed, and he tugged it right back out, only to shove it back in again, an exclamation point on his Claim. Dean’s abused rim stretched and rolled under the assault. He bit into his own arm at the burn, forcing himself to take what the wolf demanded he endure. It hurt in a way the two rarely reached for, in a way they both craved only once in a great while, and while a part of Dean felt the call to push free and make a run for it, his deepest urges basked in the abuse. He was soaring again, flying above the reach of clouds and sunshine, up in the outer reaches where physicality ceased to exist and all that there was was sensation and intent.
Castiel thrust so hard that Dean’s knees gave way, and he collapsed onto the bed with the Alpha’s knot buried inside him. He felt the throb within his gut as the man orgasmed, and he felt sharp teeth sink into his sweaty shoulder and break through to leave a painful, stinging mark of ownership that bled fresh and clean and righteous.
A bright new Claim snapped hard, and Dean’s butt muscles spasmed as if he’d been struck physically. Chill bumps erupted up and down his body. He began to shake uncontrollably in relief and bliss and exhaustion.
He wept a cathartic release into the bed, and he eased beneath the covering protective claim of his Alpha.
Cas let go of his shoulder and kissed the spot he’d bitten. He licked slowly to thwart the flow of blood. It wouldn’t bleed for long. Dean took a deep breath and let it go. Without opening his eyes, he splayed the fingers of his left hand wide, and Cas threaded his own between Dean’s, squeezing.
“I love you more than I can ever convey, Dean Winchester,” Cas mumbled tiredly. “What you give to me, what you keep giving, is more than I ever deserved.”
“Love you too, Alpha,” Dean grated. His voice was trashed. His body was ruined.
For now.
He would heal of course. All the damage was physical, and Dean had never shied away from physical damage. In his soul, where he’d always felt so broken he didn’t seem entirely human, the holes felt a little bit smaller tonight. He sniffled loudly and turned his head to the side, seeking his husband in his peripheral vision. Cas kissed his temple. They lay still, each nestling into the rhythm of the other. They held hands, and they matched breathing, and they let the hormones settle.
“Love you too,” Dean repeatedly sleepily.
He was asleep before Castiel untied, and he slept through all the work that went into getting him and his bedding back up to snuff to sleep the remainder of the night in Castiel’s arms.
He still had a fall coming. But maybe they could successfully shepherd the devastation to a time and place of safety, of convenience. Cas cinched him tightly into his chest and lay awake long into the night, thinking about frailty versus strength and vulnerabilities versus weaknesses.
The baby monitor didn’t crackle with sound all night long, and eventually Castiel slept too, his nose pressed against the back of Dean’s neck.
Notes:
This is chapter 2 of 4 from what was a wild, nonstop, keyboard-mashing frenzy that dumped something like 50K words into my laptop all at once in one long chapter. I split the mess into 4 chapters, and I'll be posting them at about one week intervals. I was inspired (maybe triggered is a better word) to throw my life on hold and lose myself in the words on my screen after a comment that it's been disappointing to keep having Dean/Michael scenes fleshed out in their entirety where the Cas/Dean scenes get short-scripted to simple before and after cuts. I wanted to believe that wasn't true, and I sat down to write until I reached the scene I felt was imminent, only to have my muse send other important scenes out first. For a fic that stands firmly within its mission statement as being primarily destiel, I have to concede that I do actually skip the destiel smut on a regular basis. The reason for that, upon reflection, is pretty simple. While my imagination can send me what those scenes need to feel like, I often fall short on being able to render that feeling in full. Michael/Dean, I can do, no problem, but the intensity and that 'skirting right along the edge of danger' sense that I need for Cas/Dean is way harder to evoke than it seems like it would be.
Since I do this for fun and my own form of therapy, taking on a challenge like that would turn it into work, and that's not going to happen. The moment it stops being fun is the moment I throw it in altogether.
That said, I liked writing this section. A lot. I hope you enjoyed it too.
Chapter 7: Thursday, December 20, 2018
Summary:
April's hitting rock bottom, and she's not crying wolf this time. Maybe her new boyfriend can give her a bit of a lift. Charlie plays catalyst - a role that Charlie is ideally suited for.
3rd chapter of 4
Notes:
I hope this posting finds the Pack well and safe. I hope you're all leaning on each other. I hope you're coping in a way that feeds your soul. To those who struggle with the anxiety of uncertainty and upheaval, I send out the tightest hugs I can. Reach out when you need someone's hand. We're going to see each other through this.
For me, I'm ostriching my ass off, burying myself in fantasy worlds because there's not a lot else I can do, and this brings me solace.
To this chapter: I skipped a few days. For those who wanted to see Dean limping around sadly after his hard night, yeah, I skipped that. It happened. That was Monday. This is Thursday. He's mostly recovered. Alphas heal fast. Assume he was coddled a bit and tweaked a bit and feels pretty damn good about how he handled what they threw at him.
Enjoy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday, December 20, 2018
NOW:
Michael found her in the kitchen, seasoning a tray of chicken thighs. She had her hair up in an untidy pile on top of her head, and her feet were bare, a long sweatshirt of Michael’s her only clothing.
“Hey, beautiful,” he flirted, wrapping her up from behind and nuzzling the side of her neck to mesh their scents. “Got a few minutes? Pups are all napping. We could… …you know…”
April let her head fall lazily backward to land on his shoulder, and she closed her eyes to his touch. “No, I can’t,” she answered quietly. “I need to shower and get back to the nursery. They’re going to be waking up any minute, and everyone else is out.”
April’s voice sounded exhausted beyond its usual breaking point. Her body felt heavy against Michael’s chest, but she lifted her head and went back to work. He tried to turn her, but she resisted, continuing to sprinkle seasoning on the chicken pieces despite his efforts.
“Pete, are you all right? Didn’t you sleep last night? Did the extra naps over the week not help at all?”
“Yes! I slept,” she exhaled. “All I do is sleep, it feels like. And write shitty tunes. And wipe shitty butts. And pump my tits over and over and over. And whine. And fall short whenever anyone asks me for anything. Michael, I fucked up so bad.”
“Come on, sweetheart. You’re just tired. It’s not that bad.”
“I thought I could do this, but I can’t! I can’t take care of four pups and keep my music going at the same time! I can’t do it! I’m so fucking tired, no matter how much I sleep, and I’m hungry all the time, and I feel like there’s always more to do, more that has to be done, and everyone’s always touching me, reaching for me, asking me for things I don’t have the energy to give, and I’m letting everyone down. Have you seen the pile of laundry by the washer? I haven’t walked my dog in over a week! And the worst part is I asked for this! I swore I could handle it, but I had no idea what it would feel like! I can’t do it, Michael. But I have to! I begged Cas to let me.”
“You don’t have to keep pushing when you’ve reached the end of your strength, April,” he told her firmly, finally succeeding in shifting her to face him. She had chicken slime on her fingers, and she held her hands out away from him. Her face pinched tightly closed, shutting her eyes and shutting him out.
“We have enough people in the house to give you the breaks you need,” he continued. “Why are you working on dinner when we have a cook? Pete, there’s no need for this. Come on. Wash your hands, and let’s get you showered. We’ll go from there. Don’t throw your career down the crapper just yet. The laundry isn’t going to catch fire if we don’t get to it this afternoon.”
She let him walk her to the sink, and she allowed him to wash her hands for her. “Tony’s not coming in today,” she explained.
“What? Why not?”
“Something personal came up. He didn’t say. I didn’t ask for specifics. Didn’t want to seem nosy.” She leaned into Michael’s side, her two arms pulled underneath his left arm as he scrubbed her hands clean.
“Pete, handling the staff’s days off is my job, not yours. Why didn’t you tell me he called in?” He held her hands under running water and rinsed them, patting them dry when he finished. She stood completely passive in his hands.
She shook her head sadly. “See what I mean?” she asked pathetically. “Everything I do is wrong these days.”
Michael laughed softly and kissed the side of her neck. “All right, little miss Woe-is-me. That’s enough of that. Let’s stop the pity party and go get you cleaned up and back on your feet. I declare a day of rest for my sweet Ozzie girlfriend.” He left her long enough to stretch a length of plastic over the tray and slip it into the refrigerator before he took her by the hand and guided her out of the kitchen. “How about a full body massage?” he offered.
“Kat’s got a runny nose again,” she told him. “Probably coming down with another cold or teething. She won’t nap long enough for that. Besides, you’re supposed to be studying. We had all day blocked for you to study.”
“Then we’ll call in the cavalry and get some help. Charlie can send us someone. She’s keeping us a call list.”
“Michael, I promised Cas I could handle them on my own today. I need to keep my promise.”
Michael passed through the garland-festooned parlor, rounded into the foyer with its gargantuan Christmas tree, and mounted the stairs with her hand in his, a reluctant Ozzie following him dolefully. “That’s not a promise he would ever hold you to, April. In fact, if you overdo it and put yourself at risk of a fall, he’ll be pissed that you didn’t ask for help. Come on. Shower and nap. No arguments.”
“Damnit, I’m not four!” she said, suddenly staunch. She tugged her hand out of his and refused to climb the stairs any further.
Michael ignored her protest. He slipped back down to her level and scooped her up onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and trotted up the rest of the stairs with her fists beating against his back. She had no traction against him physically. He was far stronger, and emotionally she was drained beyond any capacity to manipulate him to her preference. She had no defense that would work, and that truth added frustration to the weight across her shoulders. All she could do was flail fruitlessly and let him manhandle her up to her own room. He didn’t understand. April had begged her mate for this weight, and she had to prove she could handle it. She HAD to.
Michael leaned over and let her slide off his shoulder onto her bed. Her fluffy throw pillows bounced as she landed. He fixed her with a hard look from his wolf, the same one he used on Alex when the pup tried to pull the screen off their fireplace. “I know you aren’t four, Pete. But you’re too tired and overworked to pretend you can keep going without a break, and you’re in no condition to make that choice. I’m not asking. I’m telling. You leave Kat’s runny nose to me.” Where Michael’s wolf wanted no part in his love affair with April, the beast was a hundred percent engaged in caring for her as a Packmate. Michael couldn’t have kept the wolf out if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t want to. She was clearly floundering for someone to direct her.
April appealed to him desperately. “No, you’re committed to spending the day in your books. You have a test. I promised Cas I could handle it without bothering you. Don’t you see? I promised! He knew way back before we even planned to have pups that I couldn’t handle it, not and make a go of a career at the same time, and he let me talk him into it. I can’t let him see me like this!”
“That’s fine, Pete,” said Michael, bending at the waist to lean in close to her and touching her face. “We don’t have to let him see you like this. So let’s fix it before he comes home. Let me help. It’s just you and me at home right now, Pete. Trust me, huh?”
“You don’t understand,” she repeated plaintively. “A nap isn’t going to help. It’s cumulative. It’s all piling up on my shoulders, and I’m buckling under the weight. It’s too much. I can’t do it. I can’t keep this up. God, Michael, I’m so tired. But he’ll pull the plug on my new projects if he finds out, and I can’t let that happen. People are depending on me. We agreed just Tuesday to a whole new pathway, and I’m already buckling again. There’s so much left to do before Christmas. It’s their first Christmas. I can’t let them down! But I’m being pulled in two, just like Cas predicted, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” Michael told her firmly. “We call in the damn cavalry, and we buy you some time to refuel. Love, you’re tired. That’s all this is. You’re spent. But you’ll feel better after a break. Maybe one nap isn’t enough to re-set you but give me a chance to shuffle some things around, and I’ll get you more than that. Trust me, Pete. This isn’t your fault. You’re not failing. You’re doing an amazing job mothering those pups and showing the world your brilliance at the same time. You’re a terrific mate, an amazing musician, a damn good cook, and a sexy-as-fuck girlfriend, and you’re exhausted. Someone else can walk the damn dog. Someone else can wrap the presents. Let me take care of you for today. Take your clothes off. Shower first.”
April had no fight left in her. She nodded in defeat and began to shoulder out of Michael’s sweatshirt, releasing her hair at the same time. “I need to pump again after I clean up,” she said tiredly. “Before I can take a nap.”
Michael texted a short note to Charlie and nodded. “You go shower. I’ll get the pump set up.” He sent Dean a second text and then sent one to the Alpha. April dragged her weary body into the bathroom, leaving the door wide. The water started up just as Michael’s phone rang.
No surprise, it was Cas.
“She’s going to be fine, sir,” Michael told him. “But she needs to rest. I’m taking the pups while she naps, and then I’m going to see if Charlie can arrange babysitting for us this afternoon. That way, I can keep studying and April can make progress on her project.”
”Do I need to come home, Michael?
“No, sir. Please don’t. That would only add to her feelings of inadequacy. She’s trying so hard to balance it all and make you proud, and she’s doing it. If you come to her rescue today, it’ll send her a message that you don’t believe in her. She needs a break. That’s all. Let me and Charlie handle this afternoon. Please. She probably needs you tonight before bedtime, but she doesn’t need you dropping everything to rush home right now.”
”We need to discuss the growing evidence that we should bring in professional assistance,” Castiel told Michael over the phone, and Michael frowned. ”It’s becoming patently clear that all four of us have too much on our plates to continue as we’ve been going. April’s taking the brunt of it, and she’s taking it personally as a failure of her own, when not a one of us would hold up any better under the strain. We haven’t hired any new staff since Tony joined us. It’s time, Michael.”
“We don’t want a nanny raising our pups, Alpha. Pete and I are both in agreement about that.”
”I’m open to alternatives, Omega,” Castiel replied tiredly. ”But I’m drawing a blank. What would you suggest? Should we continue asking both of you to wear yourselves to a frazzle? Parenting isn’t going to get any easier. Either someone has to give up the career they value and devote themselves to childrearing, or we need help. I don’t see any other way. I’m not putting them in daycare.”
Michael couldn’t argue the logic. Cas and Dean put in intense hours at the Facility. Both of them came home spent more days than not. Michael’s commitment to his fledgling career had been rigorously tested from every direction, and he found himself determined to make a go of it, but that left him limited hours in each day too, no matter how he rearranged. Michael did most of his schoolwork and what classes he could in the evenings, leaving his mornings free to be a mother to his pups. But sometimes he encountered a pinch point where only a concerted effort and hours of studying could see him through the next test, the next practical—times like today.
As the only parent who truly worked from home, it was April who filled in the gaps. She was running herself ragged attempting to be everything to everyone, and it showed in the deep, dark wells around her young eyes. She and Michael had pulled out multiple stops to make Jess’ birthday celebration the night before a bigger production than usual, an effort to prove to Jess that she wasn’t the outsider she sometimes felt herself to be. That extra effort on top of the impending holiday that Dean was gung-ho to make memorable for their cadre of little ones was proving, not a straw on the camel’s back, but a lead weight. April was reeling.
No amount of trading off sleepless nights was making up the difference.
“Can we talk about it tonight, sir?” Michael asked with a hand rubbing through his hair.
”Yes. Let’s.” There was resignation in the Alpha’s voice too. He didn’t particularly like the idea of farming his children out to a professional any more than Michael did, but he was also responsible for more than just the pups’ welfare. Cas had the wellbeing of the whole Pack to consider, so he had no choice but to face it from a practical standpoint. “In the meantime, please see that April gets the break she needs. I thank you for taking care of her. I know that puts a strain on your studies.”
“I’ll manage,” Michael told his Alpha. “If you can take the monsters tonight, I can get Dean to drill me on the anatomy test review while he wraps Christmas gifts.”
”Monsters, Michael?”
Michael chuckled. “Thanks, Cas. Don’t worry. I’ll look after her. She’s in good hands.”
”I know she is.” There was a pause as Castiel considered, turning things over in his head. ”Her trip to Nashville is likely weighing heavily,” he offered. ”We need to try to allay those fears before she departs, or she’ll fall hard. Cain isn’t equipped to break a hard fall by himself. If April’s experiencing feelings of guilt over needing to leave the pups to attend to her career, that might explain her evident need to overextend herself before she leaves.”
“This isn’t her first solo trip away from them,” Michael pointed out with the phone trapped between his ear and his shoulder, noting the shower cutting off in the bathroom behind him. He lifted the breast pump from its spot on the floor and set it on her bedside table.
”No, but it’s the first that extends to two full weeks,” Cas replied somberly. ”She’s never been away from them for this long before. We’ve tried to find some free time to schedule a visit home, and we can’t fit it in. There’s no choice but to grit our teeth and push through.”
“I don’t like it, sir,” Michael said. April emerged from the steamy bathroom with a towel around her head. Michael opened the storage bin of clean pumping apparatus on her dresser and rummaged out two of each piece.
”Nor do I,” Castiel admitted. ”But I promised her the freedom to go where her career takes her, and we always knew it would take her away from us on a regular basis like this. We’ve done everything we can do to protect her psyche from faltering, but we can’t shield her completely.”
“Sir, let’s all discuss it tonight—all four of us. I gotta go. I need to get her pump set up.”
“I’ll see you tonight, Michael. I love you a great deal, and I appreciate everything you’re doing.”
“I love you too, sir. Don’t worry about us. I’ve got it under control.” He hung up and pocketed his phone, noting the blissful harmonic chime of a conditioned Omega compliance response sending waves of pleasure down his arms and legs, and he shivered slightly.
Michael still had reservations about Castiel’s increasingly tighter authority over his unruly Omega-Dominant, but though he often had a biting, snarky comeback on his tongue, the reaction from Michael’s own Omega gave him pause. Where his wolf and his Primary agreed that Cas was pushing his limits, Michael’s Omega purred with relief and snuggled right down into the structure Castiel built around it. It was such a strikingly powerful reaction, Michael pulled up in surprise and studied himself from the inside. And Castiel could clearly tell he was giving the new reality a chance to make sense to him. Cas had stepped back and allowed him time and space to digest it, offering a supportive comment now and then, but no further harsh lectures.
Change this rapid was exhausting, and Michael found more and more that he couldn’t drum up the motivation to rebel when his Omega was so content it practically purred inside his breast. He didn’t know if he was caving to the conditioning or if he was finally finding himself supported in the way his psyche demanded but staying on Castiel’s good side both felt good and graced him with the stamina to be his better self for everyone else. He couldn’t argue with that.
Michael got April set up to fill two bottles, propping her up on pillows in her bed so that she could close her eyes and let the pump do all the work. He brought her a glass of milk and a plate of finger foods, and he told her to relax, promising to take care of the bottles and the pump once she’d run empty.
Michael studied the girl as they chatted, waiting for her milk supply to be drained for the time being. He searched her for evidence of deception. The exhaustion was real, and her outburst was classic for an Ozzie overwhelmed. But April’s mastermind manipulator had a track record of using her own overwhelmed state to pull sympathy and action from her packmates. Michael stroked her hair, tucking the stubborn loose strand behind her ear, and he searched her eyes. He didn’t think she was feigning anything. She seemed utterly wasted, barely able to string three words together, much less orchestrate a manipulative coup.
Of course, he couldn’t tell for sure. He had no pathway into her mind or her emotions.
April fell fast asleep with the apparatus propped up by folded towels at her waist, and Michael switched it off without waking her. She slept through his dismantling it all, cleaning her breasts with a warm cloth, and easing her down to lie flat, naked under the blankets. She murmured something unintelligible as he pulled the blanket up. She turned over to lay on her side with her cheek in her palm.
Michael kissed her temple affectionately, eased that strand of hair out of her face with one finger, and collected the milk she’d produced so he could run it down to the freezer.
He had his hands full on the staircase when Charlie appeared through the front door, letting herself in with a cheerful, “What’s up, bitch? The rescue party has arrived.”
“What good is a security team that allows random strangers to waltz straight in without even ringing the bell?” Michael groused, handing April’s snack dish and milk glass to her so he could more easily carry the rest.
“Ouch, Michael. I’m crushed,” Charlie joked. “And besides, ringing the bell would have woken the sleeping terrors in the nursery. You said you wanted them napping as long as possible. Holy fuck, Christmas exploded in here!”
“I didn’t mean for you to drop everything and come yourself,” Michael told her. He led her through to the kitchen and made short work of getting it all squared away. “I expected you to text me back and tell me who’s available.”
“I’m available,” she announced happily, spreading her arms wide in offer.
“Oh, shit,” Michael exclaimed. “I left the monitor in with Pete. Hold on. Stay here.” He dashed back out and up the stairs, leaving Charlie wandering slowly back toward the foyer in his wake, marveling at the expanse of glitter and twinkle that flocked every spare surface. She met him at the foot of the stairs and followed Michael into the parlor, listening while he filled her in. He described April’s condition and what he hoped Charlie would be able to offer them.
“Where’s Cain?” she asked, sliding off her chair to sit cross-legged on the floor once Michael had explained the crunch.
“He’s in Nashville getting everything ready for her. He says he can shorten her trip if he lays all the groundwork before she flies in. He’ll be back in a couple of days.” Michael followed Charlie onto the floor.
“How did Castiel not know she’s at the end of her stamina?” Charlie spoke with an air of covert caution.
“I’m not sure he missed it entirely,” Michael confessed. “I think he’s giving her space, feeling her limits out, maybe giving her room to fail. I’m not sure. It’s not like him to put her at real risk or set her up to fall disastrously, but I get the feeling he’s letting her make her way out onto a tightrope with his arms stretched out to catch her if she tumbles. I think he wants to give her a chance to find her balance mostly on her own, for as much as that’s possible for an Ozzie. I think he’s hoping she’ll reach out for help when she really needs it, and he’s giving her room to make that call for herself.”
The monitor crackled with the sound of a waking pup, and Michael switched it off as he stood up. Charlie went with him.
“But that leaves you picking up the broken pieces when she needs help,” Charlie observed. “Is that also part of his plan? He cinches you in until you’re tied to his hip, and he gives her slack enough to struggle?”
“Probably,” Michael answered on the stairs. “Although I doubt it’s that simple. I’ve still got more slack than Pete does. Maybe he’s trying to get us both to similar places. He’s been working hard to give us room to build a relationship of our own. Parenting as an Omega team is part of that. At least that’s how I see it. I don’t mind being her go-to when she’s struggling. Kinda the opposite, actually.”
Charlie shot him a knowing, ironic look, and Michael smiled in conspiratorial agreement.
In the nursery, they found Emma wide awake and playing silently with her stuffed bunny. Kat snuffled uncomfortably, rubbing her nose into the bedding and fussing. The boys were both still sound asleep. Michael gestured toward Idgie with his chin, and Charlie didn’t need telling twice. She cooed as she scooped the little pup into her arms, smiling wide, as Michael followed suit with Kat. Idgie reached for her nose with a matching grin.
“You’re a flirt,” Charlie told the pup seriously. “Charismatic little thing, isn’t she?” she posed to Michael who had Kat half naked on the changing table and was attempting to clean her bottom over her protests.
Michael smirked. “She’s just like Dean. Don’t ask me how that happened. We may need a paternity test when it’s all said and done. She looks like April, and she sparkles like Dean. Try to explain that one.”
“No, thank you,” Charlie laughed, teasing the pup by pretending to drop her, only to bend her knees and catch her again without ever truly letting her go. Emma shrieked with laughter. “I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole.” Charlie scrutinized Emma’s face, looking for a paternal tell. “There’s not actually a chance…?”
“No,” Michael chuckled. “She’s Alpha’s. You can see it every now and then when she frowns. She does this thing with one eyebrow that is a hundred percent Castiel. It’s fucking adorable. God, I hope she’s an alpha. Can you imagine a girl version of Cas and his Dom brow?”
Charlie laughed and made a face at Idgie which had them both cracking up. Michael finished changing Kat, wiped her nose, and set her on the floor to squall in offense. He took Emma from Charlie to give her the same attention.
Charlie plonked down onto her belly in front of the raven-haired grouch and transferred all of her face-making efforts into cheering Kat up. Kat batted at Charlie’s face testily and turned her back on the beta.
“Ooh,” Charlie observed playfully. “Someone’s in a bad mood.”
“Always,” Michael said patiently. “Don’t take it personally. Kathleen was born angry. It gets worse when she’s got a cold.”
“Aw,” Charlie commiserated. “I know, little bunny. I don’t like to feel shitty either. Poor thing.”
“You say that now,” Michael said. He lifted Emma up to sit on his hip. “Just wait until she’s screamed for two hours straight and tried to gouge your eyes out when you try to comfort her.”
Charlie grinned. “Your O-Pop is saying mean things about you, Kitty-Kat. Come here and let Auntie Charlie give hugs.”
Kat responded by crawling as far from Charlie as she could get in the nursery and sulking in a corner.
“See what I mean?” Michael laughed.
Charlie shrugged. “It’s fine. She’s not the first chick to give me the cold shoulder. I’ll live.” Standing up again and grinning when Emma reached for her, Charlie scooped the baby out of Michael’s arms and danced with her. “There are other fish in the sea, aren’t there, Idgie-girl?”
She caught Michael checking his watch, and she straightened up, eyes wide and helpful. “Oh, hey, I’m the babysitter. Right? You go on and do your stuff, your homework, whatever you’re supposed to be doing. Just tell me what to expect from these little rugrats and point me to where the cocaine and switchblades are so I can corrupt their little minds.”
“Corrupting them is Gabriel’s job,” Michael pointed out. He checked on his sleeping sons, leaving Kat pouting in the corner for the moment. “It’s really a two-person job, Charlie. I can’t leave you alone with them. Even with two of us, it’s likely to be a challenge if they all get wound up at once.”
“But you said April’s been taking care of them all by herself.” Charlie winced as Emma tangled her fingers in Charlie’s hair and pulled.
“She’s supposed to tap Eunice or Monica for help, but she never does. She thinks she should do it all alone. And she’s amazing with them. They respond to her voice, so she can rock two of them while she sings, and the other two go into a trance and listen. Nothing seems to faze her when she’s got them to herself. She’s like an octopus, always has one free hand for whoever needs it. No one expects you to be able to mimic that, Charlie.”
“Okay, so you leave them to me and Eunice. I know you’re supposed to be studying today, bestie. I’ve seen the schedule for your practicals, and they are coming right up. Your Alpha doesn’t need two overwhelmed Omegas.”
Michael made an uncomfortable face. “I don’t know. With Kat fighting a cold and as cranky as she is, Alex will be out of sorts too. He sponges off her emotions. He’s like a little mirror. And Jimmy is a snuggle-hog. He’ll want to be cuddled when he wakes up. They need to eat. They need some playtime. I don’t feel right about leaving them.”
Charlie squared up, her coordinator hat firmly in place. “How about we go downstairs and start pulling their lunch together? I can keep the girls entertained when the fellas wake up, and you can run back up to fetch them. We’ll double-team for a while until all their little tummies are full, and then you leave me in the good hands of Grammy Eunice and go back to your books.” Charlie arranged Emma on the floor and handed her a toy. Emma ignored it and headed straight for her sister instead, joining her in the corner and babbling happily. Kat didn’t seem bothered, but she didn’t answer back either. “Michael, you wouldn’t have asked for help if you didn’t need it. Please trust me. I can do this.”
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Michael found Jimmy beginning to squirm himself awake. “All right,” he conceded. “Let’s get the girls set up in their chairs in the kitchen and I’ll come back for Jimmy and Alex.”
Spending lunchtime with Charlie was a delight, and Michael lost track of the time. They fed the fab four, entertained them for a while as the adults munched on finger foods and leftover birthday cake, coddled the grouchy out of Kat who grew less cranky once she was fed, and packed them into a long stroller built for four for a walk in the sunshine, taking advantage of the rare warm day this late in the year.
April, back in Michael’s sweatshirt but looking far better this time around, found them down by the live oak where they’d stopped to offer bottles to the triplets and a cup of juice to Alex. The toddler ambled about clumsily at the edge of the blanket Michael had spread on the grass, tripping occasionally, but getting back up again and again to try once more, his cup clutched in a death grip in his fist. April swept him up playfully, inverted him to tickle his belly and smother him in kisses, then righted him again and set him back on his feet with a reddened face. Alex squealed with laughter and reached for his mommy. Settling on the blanket where she could pull an irritated Kat out of Michael’s lap to settle in her own, April let Alex fall awkwardly against her. She adroitly snuggled Kat into her lap and took over feeding her with a quick upward slide of her sweatshirt and bra while wrapping an affectionate arm around Alex, giving them both her warmth at the same time, and making it look effortless. Kat balked for a moment before snuggling in and taking April’s nipple into her mouth.
Michael had Jimmy in his lap as well, and he shuffled over a little now that he didn’t need to feed both of them. He smiled happily at April in welcome. “Feel better?”
“Loads better,” she agreed. Her eyes were still sunken and tight, but she did look far better than he’d found her. Charlie had Emma. The pup had both hands around the bottle and leaned back into Charlie, completely relaxed and trusting. Charlie turned her face up to catch the skittering sunbeams that danced between the windblown leaves above her, a look of peace and bliss on her face.
“Alex, stay near Mommy,” April chided gently as the pup pushed off and made a break for the lawn. He could hear Portia barking from her fenced run, and he pointed and took off at a fast toddle toward the dog. The incline proved too much, and Alex fell sprawling onto his hands and knees at a good clip. His expression registered shock for a moment, and then he wailed. He rolled onto his butt and sat bawling in the grass, clutching his sippy cup.
“Aww,” worried Charlie.
“He’s all right,” April replied. “Come on, Boo,” she called. “Come show Mommy.” Alex kicked his legs against the ground, winding himself up and growing furious that no one was running to his rescue. “We’ll go see Portia in a little while,” April soothed, calling out to him and holding her hand out in offer. In her lap, Kat snuffled and spat the nipple out as she began to cough, so April had to divert her attention to helping her daughter through the fit. Michael picked up smoothly where she left off with Alex.
“Come on, Ace,” he cajoled. “Come here and let me see where it hurts.” Alex responded by flinging himself backward to sprawl out on the lawn and move into full tantrum volume.
“Shouldn’t someone go check on him?” Charlie asked in dismay.
“He’s not hurt,” Michael assured her. “That’s not his hurt cry. That’s his attention-seeking cry, and it’s hard, but with four of them, we can’t reward tantrums. He can’t be allowed to demand this way. He gets as much attention as the triplets do. He’ll get plenty of snuggles, but right now, our hands are full, and he needs to learn to understand how he fits into the Pack.”
April snickered softly. “Submissives don’t make demands in Castiel’s Pack,” she commented dryly in a deep voice, sharing a private look with Michael. She settled Kat back in to finish her milk, sitting more upright than she had been to try to help her breathe and swallow better. “Alexander,” she called out, raising her voice to be heard over his cries. “Son, you can cry by yourself if you want to, or you can come back to the blanket and get cuddles from Mommy or O-Pop. Would you like to show Aunt Charlie your owie?”
Alex pounded his fists into the lawn, flinging his cup in his fury.
“Oh, he’s really mad,” Charlie observed.
Michael nodded. “Still wishing I’d left you to them all by yourself?”
“Guys, I love your pups, but I’m never having kids of my own.”
Michael laughed. He checked the empty bottle in his hand after Jimmy ejected the nipple decisively. He wiped the pup’s face with a deft hand and let the boy roll out of his lap to explore the blanket. Michael watched Alex checking on his parents in between pitiful sobs and had to stifle another chuckle. It was too soon to predict, but Michael could imagine Alex developing a full brat as he matured, and he pitied whoever landed on the other end of such a beast.
Michael leaned back on his hands and turned his face up to the sunshine as Charlie had done, enjoying the warmth, one ear keenly attentive to his son’s wails. The air held a slight chill, but the sunshine was warm enough to bask in. At length, Alex sat up again, sniveling. Pouting.
Michael glanced over and held a hand out to him. The pup pushed himself to his feet and ambled across the short distance, collapsing into Michael’s arms to be crushed in a meaty hug, complete with face-covering kisses. Michael cleaned his son’s face and turned him around to sit in the nest of O-Pop’s crossed legs, praising him and snuggling him in close. Jimmy found a short stick and shoved it into his mouth before his mother could replace it with a toy from the stroller.
It was a lovely day to sit outside.
Michael received a text from the house. Eunice, it seemed, had finished with her cleaning duties, and was free to help with the pups. Charlie pounced on the offer, reminding Michael that he was supposed to be studying.
Charlie put Emma in her seat in the stroller and then peeled Jimmy’s stick out of his hand and settled him behind Em. April didn’t need any convincing, handing Kat over right away when Charlie reached for her. Kat got the front seat, and Charlie buckled her in before turning again to Michael. Michael hadn’t moved. He didn’t want to study. He wanted to sit in the sunshine and enjoy his family. The pups were growing up too fast. It was all moving too fast. And April was leaving soon for two weeks.
“Tell you what,” said Charlie with a shrewd look on her face as she eased Alex out of Michael’s lap. “I’m taking these guys up to the house. Eunice and Monica and I will keep them busy for the rest of the afternoon. You two are pup-free until I have to go home at six. What you do with that time is not my concern. But there’s room to study if that’s what you need to do.”
“You’re not staying for dinner?” April asked.
“No. I have a date tonight. Gotta get home and tidy up a little first, trim the shrubbery, make sure everything smells nice. You know the drill. I wanna encourage her to get dirty later, so I need to spend some time sprucing up the landing. She has this thing she does with the very tip of her tongue.” Charlie didn’t so much as blush as she buckled Alex into the high seat in the back. She addressed April. “You know the thing, right? The tongue thing?”
April laughed. “I know of several tongue things. Which one?”
“Do you two really have to discuss this now? My pups are listening.” Michael stood up and gathered items, tossing them into the back of the stroller.
“Oh, please,” protested April. “You’re not worried about the pups. You’re just concerned you may suffer by comparison if Charlie and I start comparing notes.” She was teasing, and Michael didn’t resent it so much as he wasn’t sure if he should join in the ribbing or stand above it all, leaving the two to their girl talk. Even months into their relationship, Michael was still off balance when it came to April.
“Do you have any complaints?” he asked pointedly, helping April fold the blanket. “I’d hate to think you were disappointed.” Charlie snorted.
“No,” said April with an innocent expression. “But I’m interested in hearing about this tongue-thing in case it’s something you don’t already know. I’d hate to think I’m missing out.”
Michael pulled her closer through his grip on the blanket, and his smolder turned her pupils wide. “Any time you’re worried you’re missing out, you just tell me, and I’ll fix it.” April stared up at him, caught by his confidence and the look of promise in his eyes, and she flushed bright red. “I have a very talented and trainable tongue,” he whispered. He took advantage of the proximity to touch his lips to hers in a tease of a kiss, leaving off with the barest touch of the tip of his tongue to her upper lip.
“And on that note…” Charlie broke in, taking the blanket and stuffing it into the stroller’s storage basket. “Maybe studying isn’t on the top of your to-do list. Last I heard, you two were still dancing around the idea of setting a Claim-bond between you. Pretty day like this…”
”Charlie…!” Michael hissed. He went red and lost his seductive demeanor.
Charlie turned to him and set her fists on her hips. “Michael, I love you, but you’re a moron sometimes. That’s all I’m going to say. Ta, bitches!” She unclipped the brake on the stroller and began the arduous trek back up the incline toward the house. Michael took one step to follow her and then stopped, watching her approach Portia’s run and fumble her way through the gate to both Portia’s and Alex’s delight.
Eventually, he turned his head and caught April’s eye. She gazed back at him, expressionless, waiting for Michael to choose a direction. Michael gave up trying to decide and sank back to the ground with his back against the huge trunk, defaulting to stasis. He tugged on April’s hand until she joined him, leaning back into him so they could enjoy the afternoon sunshine together.
They didn’t talk for a long time. Michael caressed her arm with a thumb. April reached back and ran the backs of her fingers down his stubbly cheek.
“Some Omega men don’t have facial hair,” she observed at last, earning a huff from him at her choice of topics.
“The Deeper ones,” he agreed with his face close to her ear.
“Does that make them more feminine?” April asked.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Michael decided. “Less masculine, maybe. Not necessarily more feminine. They’re still men. It’s just hair.”
Michael liked conversing with April like this. Their words were meaningless. Neither of them cared what the topic was, but the distraction allowed them both to scent the wind with their other designations and speak to each other under the surface. Michael’s wolf was alert, a rare occurrence in April’s presence, and it was listening to what she wasn’t saying. It was listening to the rumble of her subtext, to her wolf and her Omega.
Michael kept a wary eye on it.
He shifted his touch to pass over her breast in a barely-there caress, testing her eagerness. He felt her respond with a miniscule arcing of her spine, barely a motion at all. Inside his head, he felt no corresponding shiver.
“But it’s all fluid, really, isn’t it?” she asked. “The genders? They flow together in the middle, in a way?”
“Maybe. I don’t think it’s that simple, Pete.” He said her name like a prayer, changing the entire meaning of the sentence, and he felt her melt further. He wanted to know what she was feeling, but he couldn’t sense her at all. “I don’t think it’s a straight line—more like a matrix, maybe.”
“Michael,” she breathed.
He leaned down and kissed her throat softly, carefully, his thumb passing across her nipple and causing a shudder in its wake. Not being able to feel the essence of that shudder in his own body sent a soft growl escaping from between his lips. Her hand snaked back to pull at the back of his neck until his hot breath coursed along her collarbone, and he had to pull up onto his knees behind her.
Michael spread his palms wide beneath the hem of her sweatshirt, palming her hips to feel no fabric covering her lower half but the length of his oversized top. He pulled it up and over her head, holding it while she pulled her arms through and tossing it aside. He unhooked her bra and slid that off too, tossing it to join her shirt. Michael instantly regretted sending the blanket back with Charlie, but the grass was soft if a little cool, still green and pliant as December waned warmer than usual. He fondled her heavy breasts, kneading the soft richness of them, watching them shift under the play of his hands, watching a touch of moisture leak from each nipple. He rubbed the wetness in in circles to coat her areolas, squeezing on each pass to encourage more of a dribble to leak out, letting it dribble down to her belly.
April pressed her head back into his shoulder and buried her nose behind his right ear.
“Can you feel me, Pete? Can you feel what you do to me?” He shifted his hips beneath her slightly, and she moaned.
“Michael, I need more. Please try. I need to feel you for real. I can see you inside—some of you—but I can’t feel you. I can’t do this without feeling you. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m blind. Baby, please.”
He panted with want, kissing along her shoulder, avoiding her Mating-scar, taking his time everywhere else. He heard the desperation in her plea. Michael was astute enough to know that she had been adamantly, stubbornly repressing an impulse to manipulate him into Claiming her. They both knew she could do it if she tried. It would take no more than a carefully constructed provocation that irritated his wolf into lashing out.
But she hadn’t done that. Instead, she’d waited for him to find his way to it on his own, and occasionally she asked again as a reminder she hadn’t changed her mind.
It had been months since he’d agreed to set them a scaffold.
She’d waited for months.
He felt his wolf’s keen eagerness perk up, a line of hot drool falling from its hungry maw, and he felt it paw at the ground in anticipation.
Michael snarled at his wolf. He fixed it with a powerful glare, warning it to back down. The wolf glared back, hungry and impatient. Michael kissed along April’s collarbone and then shifted her until he could stretch out beside her in the soft grass. It tickled, but Michael wasn’t paying attention to the exterior. His eye was fixed internally upon his own treacherous wolf. April’s body rose to meet his touch everywhere his hands roamed. She was pliable and antsy, impatient for more, but Michael’s eye wasn’t truly seeing her either. In his head, he was circling the wolf. If he was going to Claim his girl, he could only do it safely from his Primary, from inside his head, fueled by his Omega. The wolf had no place in that transaction. Michael needed it kenneled, but his wolf had other ideas.
The scrawny black wolf in Michael’s mind jeered as they circled each other. He had watched from behind bars too long as ripe, tender young flesh passed under his nose again and again without any chance for him to taste it, and now she was right there, and he wasn’t caged. He knew that if Michael caught him, he would be stuffed muzzle-first into a box again, so his only chance to touch the girl was in defeating his alpha. The wolf had no interest in her personally, but ownership was ownership, and the wolf wanted bound flesh.
But it was wary of Michael’s intense green eyes.
And so, they circled.
Michael laid his ears down flat and he raised his lips to show his sharp canines, white and menacing in the moonlight. He turned his eyes a brilliant gold that pulled in light and power from a far, deep place to shore up his muscles, and he stalked in a slow, ominous circle around the dark beast.
The live oak faded into obscurity and the sun disappeared entirely, leaving a primordial forest bathed in moonlight, dense and dark and loamy, soft beneath his four paws, richly scented and alive, breathing as one organism. Michael circled his wolf, and his wolf’s eyes glowed blue.
They each searched for a moment of weakness, watching for a strike or a pounce or a lunge, but neither ready to strike without a clear advantage. Michael pulled power from the deep well of ancient prowess under his Omega’s custody. The wolf could only count on the strength of his confidence, his bearing, his cocky arrogance, but there was no knowing for certain until they tested one another if the wolf’s Dominant conceit might just be enough to swing the tide of decision this time. Certainly, he wanted it badly enough.
They didn’t speak.
They couldn’t if they’d wanted to, each bound by the limits of a canine maw.
But their eyes spoke volumes, and the building tension in their muscles told of preparation to unleash. Both had become springs of potential energy, winding up tight, ready to lash out.
The wolf pawed the ground in front of him, turning the rich soil with his sharp claws, leaving jagged stripes in the loam, but Michael didn’t react to the threat. Michael had his eyes on the wolf’s eyes and one sliver of attention focused on his hips. It was that sliver that caught the shift of weight just before the wolf leapt at him, teeth bared and jaw gaping, reaching for Michael’s jugular. Michael jumped back just in time and then used the miss to fall upon the beast with teeth flashing viciously.
They scrabbled and snapped at each other savagely, no quarter asked, none granted, utterly contemptuous and ignoring the connection between them. Michael felt teeth sink into his leg, and he jerked it free, feeling the skin tear as he ripped loose, only to turn in place and dive back in to attack even more furiously.
Blood dribbled down Michael’s leg to run between his toes in a sticky coating. He ignored the blood and the pain.
Michael had to win this battle. Everything depended upon it.
Everything.
They leapt apart and crashed back together multiple times, bloodying one another on each pass, but neither finding a real hold that they could clench down into. Michael circled, his head low and engaged, watching, watching. Without warning, he pivoted and met the beast head-on, jumping him from a direction the wolf didn’t expect. His growls sounded loud in his own ears, feral and fierce.
He pinned the wolf beneath his weight and snapped his jaws, missing the wolf’s throat by millimeters and losing him again as the fucker wormed his way free. Swiveling where he stood, he met the attack with jaws gaping, and they both sank canines into flesh, each clamping down and drawing blood and pain, each desperate to gain the advantage of height and position over the other.
And then a new wolf appeared from the dark mists. Michael’s eyes jumped about without releasing his hold as he searched the woods for what he was certain he’d just seen out of the corner of his eye. She was sleek and blonde and massive, her eyes golden, her teeth bared, her sudden vicious bites striking again and again at their mutual foe—a bite and release and a retreat, and then another from a random direction, in and snap and draw blood, and then vanish. She struck Michael’s wolf over and over while Michael held fast to his throat, his mouth full of gamey fur.
Michael maintained his jaw lock on his own wolf’s throat. It wasn’t a killing hold. For, angry as Michael was, he couldn’t kill his own wolf. He only needed to defeat it. He wasn’t sure the wolf understood the limit though. Certainly, it seemed not to be pulling its strikes. The wolf’s teeth in Michael’s shoulder were a blaze of pain that tore endlessly at his concentration.
Michael had no idea what the ramifications would be if either of them dealt a killing blow to the other. Would it hold in the outer world?
The blonde wolf struck again, a harsh snap at the wolf’s hindquarters that had it tucking under and turning its head without releasing Michael’s shoulder, an attempt to catch where she would strike next. The pain shooting through Michael’s muscle blazed like a lightning strike. His wolf kicked out, but the blonde wolf struck next at its underbelly, and the wolf yiped and let go of Michael.
Michael shook his head vigorously, shaking the wolf in his grip until he was dizzy, and he snarled like a beast, his own throat making sounds he didn’t recognize at all as self. When the blonde wolf dove in again, Michael timed his move, using the wolf’s distraction to shift across, releasing its throat and taking hold of his wolf by the shoulder from above, just where it joined with his powerful neck, clamping down hard with a grip that no wolf could shake off.
Michael’s snarling increased in volume and intent, and he thrust his hips downward, seeking completion, even as his wolf dodged.
Michael…
…was done playing around.
Then, furious and formidable, face to face with Michael’s wolf, the blonde wolf stalked slowly closer until she stood nose to nose with it, her eyes glowing golden in their unblinking command, spittle dripping from her teeth, her lips pulled up high and feral, a force of nature, powerful and unsettling, and Michael’s wolf froze.
Above him, Michael re-set his stance until he had his wolf pinned. He wrapped his front legs tightly around the wolf’s ribs, his dew claws digging divots in the wolf’s flesh, and he tugged backward with his legs as he thrust forward with his hips. He rutted madly, frustrated and futile for a few harsh guttural breaths, and then he felt his cock sink into tight warm wetness.
And then Michael unleashed his rage on his wolf from above, rutting wildly, forcing the mongrel into the dirt, digging in hard with his legs until the wolf whimpered beneath him. Michael’s eyes locked with the blonde wolf’s, and he snarled in feverish effort, watching her eyes shift back to a soft baby blue and her face take on a lazy appreciative slackness with her tongue hanging from the side of her mouth. She slumped down on the ground several feet in front of the couple and licked herself, waiting for Michael to finish, seeming almost bored now that the battle was decided.
Michael’s body ached from so many wounds. He was dizzy, but he thrust into the whimpering body of his wolf until he felt the rushing quickening of a Claim-bond rising within his gut. He bit down harder on his wolf’s left shoulder, feeling a stereoscopic echo that made his head ring, tearing at flesh that was truly his own flesh and fucking hard into a channel that didn’t exist in the physical world.
Michael climaxed hard, pushing outward with all of his intention. The blonde wolf looked up, her ears pricking forward, and he locked eyes with her, his body exploding in sensation that raced down every vein and capillary, along every nerve, through every sinew until his vision whited out.
When his eyes cleared, they were both naked in the grass, both fully human beneath the sheltering branches of the live oak tree, and the sun had hardly moved. The breeze, cool now that they were nude, pebbled their skin with chills. Michael was panting, breathless, confused, disoriented. His cock was still hard and buried inside April’s channel, beginning to soften before it slid wetly out. Both of his arms clung tightly around her chest, binding her arms to her sides at the elbows, and crossing around her chest in possession.
His teeth.
Michael tasted his teeth and found no blood. He lifted his head from where he pressed it hard between her shoulder blades, and he looked her back and shoulders over. She wasn’t bleeding—not her shoulder, not her throat, not her back or her arms, all places Michael knew he’d managed to sink his teeth into his metaphysical adversary.
There was a reddened circle on her left shoulder, but no divots. He hadn’t bitten her at all, it seemed, not with his teeth bared. But he had obviously fucked her senseless, until he filled her channel with his come and collapsed on top of her in exhaustion.
He blinked in the harshness of the light, so different from the dark glow of the moon in his internal world.
“Christ, what’ve I done?” he murmured, finding it difficult to let her go. He rolled off onto his back and blinked up through the shifting green leaves high above him. “I Dominated him, not you, Pete. Not you! The Claim was meant for him! Jesus! Pete? Baby, are you hurt?”
She uncurled slowly and blinked up at him with an oddly satisfied expression. She chuckled awkwardly. “See for yourself,” she offered cryptically, holding his hand to her soft belly to keep him close. Michael felt a nudge from inside his head, and he traced it to where it lodged, exploring it, following it back along its trajectory until he found her.
Michael’s eyes widened, and he sat up so quickly he went dizzy and had to put a hand to his head. “I Claimed you?”
“You were magnificent,” she confirmed.
Michael licked his lips and rocked slightly in consternation. “Did I hurt you? Did I … bite you?”
“No, Michael. I’m fine. You fought hard, but it wasn’t me you were fighting. I’m so proud of you. No one’s ever done anything like that for me before. You beat him. Drubbed him into the dirt like a dog and sent him scurrying back to his cave to pout. It was incredible.” She laughed gleefully, her eyes alight.
“I don’t understand,” Michael pleaded, getting up onto his knees. “You were there. You saw?”
April’s smile faded and her eyes grew glassy, turned inward in reflection, searching. “I don’t know what I saw, exactly. It was all blurry, like a dream. I dreamed you were fighting your own wolf and my wolf went to help. I can’t say much for sure because it’s all jumbled up in my head, but you won, and then you Claimed me, and it was spectacular.”
April rolled off her belly, rather boneless in her afterglow. Michael searched her body with his eyes, desperate to prove to himself that he’d not scarred her with claw and tooth. His vision had seemed so real he could nearly taste the loam and sinew between his teeth. He could still feel the dribble of thickening blood make its way down his arm. He looked down at his own arm, which had been a leg, a black fur-covered leg, a ripped and bloodied black fur-covered leg, and only fine soft hair and a few freckles met his examination. Michael ran his hand over it, over the place where vicious teeth had dug in and ripped flesh open. There was no lingering pain but what tickled his memory, fading swiftly like the disappearance of a dream upon waking.
“You came to help,” he murmured. He lifted his hand to pass it across the shoulder that his wolf had clung to, puncturing the deep meat of his muscles, but there was nothing now but pristine skin.
“You would have beat him anyway,” she said smugly. “I only sped up the decision.”
“He thinks I’m alpha,” Michael realized. “It’s true. I felt it.”
“Well then your wolf is a bit dim, Michael,” April told him as she pushed herself to sit up. “Your eyes are gold, not red. It’s kind of a giveaway. And you have no knot.” She chuckled.
Michael reached out to steady her as she found herself a little shaken upon straightening.
“Easy, Pete. Take your time. Are you hurt at all? Anywhere?”
April smiled serenely at him. “I’m not hurt, Michael. I’m fine.”
“I didn’t hurt you? My vision…I don’t see how you could have been at ground zero for that and not be injured. My god, Pete, you faced off against him and he backed down. I’ve never seen him do that for anyone who’s not his clear Top. You stood nose to nose with him and he rolled.”
She laughed. “To be perfectly honest,” she told him, “It wasn’t me he was rolling for. It was you. I just encouraged him to concede that he’d lost.” She laughed happily. “The look in his eye, Michael. That part was crystal clear. You had him, and he was livid. It was beautiful. And then it was like I snapped back to myself. You rolled me and really just…went for it. It hurt when you tackled me and mounted me, but only a little, and in the best possible way. I love that kind of hurt. It’s hot and a little scary, but it was delicious, and it was you. It was you,” she repeated with a blush, lowering her eyes. She regrouped quickly. “I’m not damaged, Michael. See for yourself.” April held her arms up to show him the minimal crazing of carpet burn on her forearms and touched her knees to press into the redness there. The palms of her hands were bright pink. But search as he might, he couldn’t find any further injury. Her channel wasn’t torn, just freshly Claimed. Her shoulder wasn’t punctured.
And her scent.
Michael could smell a trace of his own possession in her scent. It was changed. It was like a sliver of Michael stayed rooted within her. It was the same kind of scent shift he’d smelled on Dean the morning after they Mated, only this was miniscule in comparison.
“I didn’t bite you,” he said softly, confirming again as if saying it out loud over and over would sink the reality into his head. His fingertips traversed her unblemished shoulder. It was reddened slightly, like her knees, but there were no teeth marks. No punctures. No scarring. She couldn’t have said if his observation was regretful or relieved.
“You latched on,” she clarified. “But you covered your teeth with your lips. You were grounding me, not trying to mark me, and even as out of it as you were, you clamped down on the other shoulder from where the Alpha put his mark. You really don’t remember any of this?”
He shook his head. “I was inside my head,” he admitted. “In the wolf-scape. Everything happened very differently in there. You were there, your wolf at least, but you and I weren’t… In there, it wasn’t you I Claimed at all, it was him.”
“Your wolf.”
Michael nodded.
April stared at him. “I saw some of the battle,” she told him. “Like I said, it’s fuzzy, but I felt like I got pulled in when my wolf jumped in to help. Once you defeated your wolf…”
“I Dominated him,” Michael told her in a soft reticent voice. “Tore his ass up, kinda brutally, kinda like an animal. Pete, you have to be honest with me. Did I DF you? Did I just rape you? I need the truth.”
April broke out in a musical peal of laughter. “No, sweetheart. No. You Claimed me, and it was perfect. Whatever happened inside your head, Michael, it wasn’t real, not out here. I know the battle was real, and you had no choice but to put his mangy head to the ground and take him hard. You had no choice. But what you did to your wolf, that’s not what you did to me. I guess maybe your Omega made use of the arousal while it was there. Does that make any sense?
“Maybe your Omega felt a Claim coming and managed to get your physical body lined up to take advantage of what your internal body was experiencing; gave the Claim somewhere to land when you sent it out. Where you were mostly internal with an unconscious part of you acting in the real world, I was mostly in the physical world with a small barely conscious part of me acting in the internal wolf-scape. I saw a different view than you did, baby. And I’m not hurt. Please believe I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
Michael took a deep, cleansing breath and sighed hard. “I missed everything,” he complained sadly. “I missed my own Claiming of the woman of my dreams.” He looked across at her, and she snorted and laughed. Michael smirked and then chuckled a little.
“It’s not funny,” he protested which only served to make her laugh harder.
“Aren’t you going to explore what you fought for?” she asked. “You won the prize, Michael. Don’t you want to see?” April sent a tempting sense of beckoning along the line that still shivered between them, and Michael dropped everything in his proverbial hands and hustled along after her, eager to see it for himself.
“Pete, you’re beautiful,” he breathed with his eyes closed as he explored the depth in her psyche. He shuffled across the grassy span between them without opening his eyes and pulled her in close, stroking her hair, feeling her from the inside out. “You’re more beautiful than I ever imagined. God, I love you so much—so damn much.” He buried his nose behind her ear and whuffed as he attempted to catch hold of his tumbling emotions. She clung to him just as tightly.
“I love you, too,” she told him soberly. “And I got to see your wolf. He’s exactly how I imagined him.”
“You imagined my wolf?” he asked, pulling back to look at her.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it,” she teased. “Everyone thinks about it.” She paused for a moment and licked her lips. “You saw mine?”
He grinned. “She’s gorgeous, just like you are,” he told her with pride. “And she’s huge! I’ll be honest, Pete, it never occurred to me that yours would be that … expansive.”
“Why, because I’m Ozzie?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” Michael admitted.
“I guess that goes to show you about making assumptions about people, doesn’t it?” April kissed him on the nose, and he grinned boyishly.
“I guess it does.” Michael studied her face, trying to conjure up the image of her blonde wolf to overlay it across her features in a way he could remember. He had no idea if he would ever glimpse the real thing again, and he didn’t want to forget. He found that his staring had elicited a simple acquiescence from April, a patience in waiting, and he leaned in at last and sealed her lips with his own, a kiss of promise and certainty, his knuckle crooked beneath her chin.
He felt it from inside his head this time, that kiss, and he let her feel his wonder in return. She was soft and receptive, and she was fierce and resounding, and she was everything. Michael whined in earnest and leaned in, forcing her back, laying her down. He touched the tip of his tongue to the seal of her lips, and she opened for him. From somewhere deep inside, Michael felt a rush of emotion begin to build and to resonate, and he rolled with it, giving in to it, letting it moisten his lashes and tighten his grip.
He could feel her. And she loved him.
Michael made love to her tenderly this time, carefully. They moved together as mates do, sinuously, in sync, as one piece with two parts. And Michael shared everything he could with her…including the talents of his tongue. At length, they sat tangled together under the tree, talking, trying to work up to getting dressed again, keeping each other warm as the breeze picked up and the sun dropped.
“I won’t let you get that overwhelmed again, Pete,” Michael promised. “I didn’t know. But I can see it now. I can help watch out for you.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get,” she agreed. “I feel much better now. I Released for you. Did you feel it?”
“You did? No, I didn’t feel it. I was elsewhere, remember?”
April laughed merrily. “Cas is gonna blow a gasket. He’s going to grill you over the details of your vision. You weren’t even unconscious this time.”
“We should go back up to the house,” Michael prompted, making no move to get up or to untangle himself. “I’m going to be in big trouble for not cracking a book open since ten this morning. I’m gonna fail this anatomy test.”
“We can all help you this evening,” April suggested. “Dean won’t let you fail. He’ll stay up with you all night if he has to. And Cas and I can take the pups and give you two a nice long study session, uninterrupted. Besides, you work hard in those classes, Michael. I’ll bet you know more than you think you do.”
“Hm,” Michael replied. “Well, I’ll know for sure after my test. Come on. Up you get. Let’s go face the gauntlet.” Michael stood and pulled her up with him. He didn’t bother to dress. Neither did April. They gathered their scattered clothes, Michael discovering that his blue jeans were ripped irreparably. He waggled his fingers at her through the hole and she smirked.
“Hey,” Michael opened as they approached the house hand in hand. “Don’t get too upset, but Alpha’s going to insist on hiring a nanny.”
“What?”
“After what happened today, he made a good point. There are four of us, and we wanted to believe that’s enough for our family, but the truth is that all four of us have careers that mean something to us. If none of us are willing to sacrifice their career to be a stay at home, we need help. The housekeepers have their own responsibilities. Taking care of the pups isn’t a one-person thing anyway. It takes two people, minimum, whenever they’re in transition. Lord, Pete, just getting them up and down the stairs is a job in itself.”
“Gabe suggested installing a slide.”
Michael snorted at that. “And a foam-filled landing pad. I know. He told me. What I wouldn’t give for an elevator.”
They reached the dog-run, and Michael opened the gate and handed April inside before following and securing the latch carefully. Portia emerged through the dog door from the kitchen and bounded across to them. She reached them and thumped down to sit before April, her backside on the ground, but her tail wagging furiously and her tongue lolling out of her happy face.
“Good girl!” April enthused, kneeling down to pet her and play with the ruff of her neck. “You didn’t jump! Such a sweet dog!” April devolved into baby talk and let Portia cover her face with kisses which Michael couldn’t bear to watch. He rolled his eyes and continued on into the kitchen.
He found Dean frowning into the fridge and then pulling out the tray of chicken thighs. “You’re home,” Michael deduced.
“It’s five-thirty, man. Where else would I be? Where’s Tony, and why isn’t dinner cooking? Jesus, Michael, why are you nude and reeking?
“Oh.” Dean’s eyes widened comically.
“OH!” The refrigerator door slammed shut, and Dean set the tray of chicken on the island with a thunk.
”Oh!” Dean stepped up to Michael, took hold of his chin and turned his face this way and that while he searched the Omega’s eyes.
“Holy shit! You did it? You did it!” Dean pulled Michael in for a congratulatory hug, thumping him hard on the back.
“Ow.”
“Up top, dude!” Dean cheered, raising his hand for a high five as he released Michael.
“No, thanks,” Michael demurred, feeling self-conscious at his nakedness under the harsh kitchen lights. “I’m gonna go clean up and hit the books if you’ve got dinner? Tony’s taking a personal day.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Dean said, hiding his slight disappointment in Michael’s brush off. The Omega could be a bit skittish when he felt vulnerable, and Dean let him be. He turned toward April as she and Portia ambled in together though, and his eyes lit back up. “Well? How do you feel?” he prompted. “Glowing? Can you feel it effervesce? Does it tingle under your skin?”
April granted Dean a happy smile and came in close for a full hug, feeling blessed to have a Pack that would celebrate with her. “It feels good, Dean,” she admitted. “You should get Michael to tell you all about it. He had quite an experience making it happen. He walked the wolf-scape again. Battled his own Tertiary while he was wide awake. It was epic…and terrifying.”
“He did?” Dean released her and followed his bond with Michael until his eyes found a straight line to his mate, already upstairs preparing to shower. “I felt something weird. I thought he was working out with the punching bag or something. Man, that guy. Never know what he’s going to do next.”
“He was incredible, Dean.”
“Yeah, I think so too,” Dean winked at her conspiratorially. “Go on up and clean up,” Dean told her. “Cas is upstairs changing. He’ll wanna know right away. He’ll wanna check your new bond with a meter. I’ll figure dinner out. Who’s got the pups?”
“Charlie came over to pup-sit,” April told him as she headed out. “She needed to leave around six though. I’ll check on them before I go upstairs. I wanna share the good news with her too.”
“Yeah, good. Oh, hey, kid.”
April stopped in the archway and looked back.
“Cas said you had a rough day. Does this make up for it? Are you even-keeled again?”
April half-smiled. “It makes up for a lot, Dean. But I’m still pretty beat. I’m not feeling as overwhelmed or hopeless anymore, but I’m still exhausted. Michael didn’t get much studying done today, I’m afraid. I needed him to take the pups, so he did that instead. And what with looking after me, pulling extra O-Pop duties, battling his wolf to the death, and Mating his girlfriend, I think he’s earned a pass on studying before dinner. He still has to pass the test though. Would you mind trading Doms with me tonight? Cas and I can feed and bathe the pups and get them down for the night if you’ll help Michael cram for his test tomorrow.”
Dean nodded with a knowing expression, a deep crow’s feet of wrinkles growing at the corners of his eyes. He glanced away briefly as if ordering his reply and then approached her slowly, ponderously. “If he’d battled his wolf to the death,” he mused, “then we would have a real problem on our hands. I’m thinking that’s an exaggeration. And if you’re going to go around telling people you Mated my mate, then you and I, missy, are about to have words. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”
April laughed, and Dean chuckled. He couldn’t resist hugging her again, kissing the top of her head. “Go on, you little minx. Go tell Cas we’re swapping tonight. Ask him to choose a wine for dinner since I’m not going to be scening after all.”
“I’m sorry, Dean.” April broke away and made a regretful face. “I’ll make it up to you.”
He pointed at her as he returned to the tray of chicken to work out how to cook it rapidly without ruining it. “I get to kneel for Alpha tomorrow morning,” he told her. “I’ll ask your mate to let you sleep in.”
“Deal.” And with that, she was gone.
Dean turned silently back to his work, comforted by the familiarity of his kitchen, his mind enmeshed in his mate’s ebullience, and his own sense of stability shaken a bit. This was a good evolution. It was good. Michael was happy, and the very essence of that was a deep pleasure inside Dean’s soul. He felt Michael’s joy like a reverberation that solidified his own contentment.
But Mating-responses aside, Dean was shaken. His hands moved by rote, collecting ingredients to feed his Pack and beginning preparations to turn those ingredients into tasty dishes that his Pack would enjoy.
He didn’t resent Michael’s connection to April, not the closeness they shared nor the shiny new bond-link. But there would be fallout. There was always fallout when their complex dynamics shifted, and today’s events marked a radical and irrevocable shift. The ground trembled beneath Dean’s feet just a little. He felt his footing weaken. A reckoning was coming, but it wasn’t here quite yet, and Dean couldn’t tell if it would be a reckoning of his own, isolated inside Dean’s psyche exclusively, or if all four of them would feel the earth tremble.
For now, he had dinner to cook and a mate who had better get his ass in gear studying if he didn’t want a humiliating grade on an anatomy exam that he’d promised to ace. Dean chose his footing carefully as he crossed the span of shaky ground beneath him, and it held.
It would hold for a while yet.
Dean had responsibilities to cinch down before the storm swept him up into chaotic motion and noise.
He opened the cabinet and rummaged for pans.
Notes:
Not gonna lie, trying to press Michael into Claiming April went nowhere for ages. I couldn't make him commit to it. He kept telling me it wasn't time yet and that he needed to think it through to keep her safe. This section started as a hypothetical exercise I convinced him to try - just to see where it went. Once his wolf showed up and squared off, it all fell into place. It's a bit of a copout, but I'm happy with it anyway.
Hang in there, folks. "Every storm runs out of rain." - Maya.
Chapter 8: Thursday, December 20, 2018
Summary:
Pack culture is finally starting to sink in for Sarah, although not in the easy way. Michael gets a chance to talk his out-of-body experience over with his mate. Dean's solid for the moment and standing his ground, but the writing is on the wall. Can he make it through Christmas? It's getting to where he can't make it through dinner. Castiel is grounded and planted and holding steady as a Pack Alpha must, rooting them all in stability.
Notes:
Is it just me, or is there a weird and stark divide between "then" and "now" that makes reading stories written pre-Corona virus or watching shows produced prior to March 1 feel oddly surreal? We don't live in that world anymore, and it feels bizarre to see no reference of the pandemic from items created just a month ago.
This chapter is number 4 of 4, all written in one long, crazy, manic anxiety-fest. As such, it was written weeks ago. It feels odd to me now. It feels irrelevant, somehow - trivial. I had to go through a mental exercise before making the decision to post it...an exercise consisting of asking myself if this chapter even makes a point in the wider scheme of both reality and the story itself. Does it add anything new? Is it relevant? Is it necessary?
Yeah, I'm not sure.
In the scope of posting something that may serve as escapism, I'm hoping there's value in that. In the scope of offering a continually richer view of the AU in which the story is set, I'll leave that up to the reader to evaluate. Is it still showing new perspective, or have I begun to repeat myself?
At the very least, it offers a bit more explanation of what happened between Michael and his wolf last chapter. For clarification, just let me say that the battle Michael experienced is exactly what his and Castiel's wolves experience every time there's a confrontation within their heads. That's how the wolves always see it. I'm not sure that came across clearly last chapter.
Anyway...enjoy 4 of 4.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday, December 20, 2018
NOW:
Dean had the chicken pan-frying in three separate pans over three separate burners as he prepared broccoli to steam and chopped up a salad. It wasn’t going to be a lavish meal, but it would feed them on the fly. Sarah came jauntily down the back stairs two at a time and appeared in the kitchen looking fresh-faced and cheerful, offering to help.
Dean pointed at the rice cooker. “We need a carb or Michael’s gonna bitch,” he told her. “Oh, and something else came up. You got a second?”
“Sure,” she agreed. She disappeared into the pantry and came out with a bag of rice. She measured it into the cooker, added water and salt, and set the timer. “What’s up?”
“When’s your next review meeting?” Dean asked, checking the chicken.
“My dissertation?”
“No, your screenplay,” Dean deadpanned. “Yes, your dissertation. When’s your update deadline?”
“Next month,” Sarah answered, a little puzzled.
“Lotta pressure right now? Feeling a bit overwhelmed?” Dean licked his thumb and then turned to the sink to wash his hands.
“Naturally,” she replied. “But I think I’m in good shape all in all. I have a lot of work to do, but it’s coming together. I’ll be ready. It’s not in final draft shape yet, but it doesn’t have to be.”
Dean stared at her. “How are you this calm? Your whole doctorate is on the line, and they aren’t going to go easy on you. No one’s going to hand you anything. This is the point where everything has to stand up to scrutiny or you get knocked on your ass and wind up scrubbing the whole thing to start over. Aren’t you a little bit anxious?”
“What?” she asked. “Are you trying to freak me out? I mean, I might still need to pull a couple of all-nighters. I need to sit down with Jess and Michael one at a time for a couple more check-ins. But Cas has been amazing in his support. He’s a great teacher. I’m in good shape. Really. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Dean turned back to the chicken, deemed it close and then turned the fire on under the broccoli. “No reason,” he said with his back to her. “Only you were right in front of us heading into the garage tonight, right? No more than a minute or two in front of Cas and me?”
“I guess so. I heard the garage door open while I was changing upstairs. Why?” Sarah scooted up onto one of the bar stools at the island and frowned at him.
“That’s what I thought. And the Omegas were both here all day. Charlie parked out front and used the front door. Cain is in Tennessee. Gabe and Kali always use the side entrance. The staff come in the back door. Sam and Jess aren’t here yet. Tell me,” He turned around and leaned into the counter by the stove. “Did you see anything on the garage floor by the door into the house on your way in?”
“Like what?” she asked. She could feel the alpha weighing her reaction. He was making her nervous. “Dean, what’s with the third degree?”
“I found something on the floor on my way in, and it was kinda hard to miss. I figure that either you saw it and stepped over it instead of picking it up, or you’re the one who dropped it. Considering no one else likely used that door all day, and I know it isn’t mine or Castiel’s…”
“I didn’t see anything,” she told him. “What did you find?”
“Is there anything you want to tell me, beta?” Dean asked.
“Am I in trouble for something?”
“Have you broken any rules?” he gave back.
“No.” She swallowed. “I don’t think so.”
Dean nodded and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a plastic baggie with stark white tablets in it and tossed it onto the island in front of her. “Are those yours?”
Sarah picked the baggie up and flushed. “Yes, they are. But they aren’t illicit, Dean. I have a prescription.”
Dean didn’t answer right away. He went back to the stove and turned the chicken over, piece by piece. When he wiped his hands on a towel and answered, his voice was hard. “Given the nature of this conversation,” he said. “I would appreciate your calling me alpha or Sir until I’m satisfied that we’ve resolved the matter. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Try again, Sarah. Capital ‘S’.”
“Yes, Sir,” she replied with some disquiet. “I told you. They aren’t illicit. I’m not breaking any rules. I don’t have to explain my health decisions to you, alpha.”
“Oh, really?” he posed. “You remember that Castiel is our Pack’s physician. Did he prescribe you those pills?”
“I went to another doctor,” she answered, lowering her eyes.
“Does Cas know about them?”
“It’s none of your business! Or Alpha’s!” she declared brazenly, the shift of her eyes giving away that she wasn’t as certain as she sounded.
Dean looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his face. “Sarah, I’m doing my damnedest to remember that you’re a Primate. But we’ve been over this. You joined this Pack knowing what that means. Now, I get that Primate families don’t work this way, but in this Pack, you answer to the alphas. Why are those pills in a baggie if they’re legit? Answer me.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have a prescription,” she told him again. “I take them twice a day. It was easier to separate some out to carry with me and leave the bottle at home with the rest.”
“So, when I go up to your room and search it, I’m going to find the other half in an orange bottle with a legit label? Who’s your doctor?”
“You can’t search my room, Dean. I’m not a child. I don’t believe this!”
Dean held her eyes with a hard look and then he removed the chicken pieces from the pan, setting each one on a wire grate to drain the fat. Sarah watched him, speechless. Dean cut the burners under the three skillets and turned on his heel to ascend the stairs leading to the little apartment over the garage.
Sarah followed him with a gasp. “What are you doing? Stay out of my room! Dean!”
Dean was already in her bathroom rifling through the drawers. In the topmost one, he found what he was looking for. He uncapped the bottle and checked that they were the same pills he’d found on the floor. He glanced up as he screwed the cap back on, but his expression gave nothing away. Reading the label and pulling his phone out to search out the generic drug name and the prescribing doctor who’d signed for it, Dean ignored Sarah’s outrage.
She fell silent as he read through the purpose of the pills and looked back up at her, showing her the search result. Sheepishly, she sat down on her bed.
“I thought you were acting too chipper for this stage of your progress,” he told her. “I remember what the last year of the doctoral process was like, kid, and it was rough. No one’s cheerful through the last leg. If your eyes aren’t bloodshot, something’s off.”
“I’m not a kid,” she told him sourly.
“Sorry. That was rude. I apologize.”
Dean let the silence lengthen, letting her think about Pack and rules and lines of hierarchy.
“Is there any way you’re not going to tell him?” she asked at last.
“There’s one way,” he told her. He leaned against her bathroom counter and crossed one ankle over the other with the bottle still in his fist.
She looked up, hopeful.
He dashed her hopes with his next statement.
“That’s if you do the right thing and tell him yourself.”
“If I wanted him to know, I would have asked him for the scrip,” she mumbled. “How are my health decisions about my own body any business of yours or his?”
Dean considered his answer for a minute. “Look, you’re an adult. I get that. And it’s not shameful to have anxiety. Lots of people do. Lots of people seek medical assistance for it. It’s not a big deal. And out in the Primate world, you have a right to decide these things for yourself and keep it private. But you’re not in the Primate world here.
“I know Cas explained this to you. I know he explained what having a Pack Alpha means in terms of your medical decisions. Sarah, I was there for some of those discussions, so don’t pretend you didn’t know. You knew. You just didn’t believe we were serious or that our having authority over your personal agency was real. You wanted the security of the Pack without handing over your autonomy to get it. It doesn’t work that way. You hid this from us intentionally, and I think you knew you’d get roasted if we found out. What else are you hiding? Are you taking sleeping pills too? Adderall? Anything else?”
“There’s nothing else, alpha,” she told him tiredly. “I’m not leaning on drugs to get me through. I just needed something to tamp down the nerves. I was making myself crazy with deadline pressures and overthinking and all that. I can’t believe you invaded my room. I’m not on drugs.”
Dean pushed off her bathroom counter and pulled her to her feet, taking the bottle with him. “Okay,” he said on his way back downstairs. “I believe you. But you’re still telling Cas. He’s responsible for your health, and he needs to know about this.”
“Dean, please.”
“No whining,” he cut her off. They reemerged into the kitchen, and Dean pulled the broccoli off the steamer. “Help me set the table.”
“Alpha, seriously. I’m begging you.”
Dean stopped in his tracks with a handful of plates, cocking his head. “How did you get these past the Facility turnstile?”
She sighed and took the plates from him.
“I haven’t needed to go in for the last couple of months. I’m working on campus now. And in the library. Or from home. Once I finished my observations, I didn’t need to be there at all.” She spread the plates out onto the dining room table.
“Oh,” he replied, following her in. “I didn’t realize.”
Sarah put a hand over his as he laid flatware out beside the plates she’d set out. “Alpha, please. I’m begging you.”
“Not how it works, Sarah,” he told her with a gentle touch to her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Don’t be afraid. He won’t be mad, just concerned. He doesn’t like being blindsided.”
“He’ll punish me.”
“Is that all you’re worried about? It’ll probably be me swinging the strap. I’m way easier than he is. Ask anyone.”
“You?!” she asked in shock, stepping back rapidly. “I didn’t swear to you, Dean.”
He laughed and left her on his way back into the kitchen. She followed hopelessly in his wake. “And you call yourself a PhD candidate,” he teased. “You swore to the Pack, beta, and I’m alpha in this Pack. Sarah, chill. First of all, I’m hella relieved to find out those tablets aren’t something illegal and hardcore. This could’ve been a very different conversation. Second, if you were under the mistaken idea that you only sort of joined this Pack and that you only answer to the top dog, let me clarify. You’re sixth in rank. That means there are five of us above you who have the right and the responsibility to watch out for you and straighten you out when you veer off course. That’s not even counting our resident nineteen-rated Dominant. If you act up around Michael, and it looks like it’s coming from an irrational and impulsive part of you, he can and will take a stand to set you right.”
“Kali is above me,” Sarah murmured to herself, choosing to pretend she hadn’t heard Dean’s statement about Michael.
“That’s right,” Dean agreed. He pulled a serving bowl out of the cabinet and transferred broccoli into it. He handed the broccoli to Sarah and carried the salad himself. Gently, he nudged her into taking her bowl into the dining room. “And if it had been Kali who found your pills, it would have been Kali having this discussion with you right now. And it would likely be Kali putting stripes on your ass.”
“What’s this?” asked the elegant beta herself as she and Gabe arrived for dinner. “Why am I putting stripes on Sarah’s ass?” Kali sat regally down in her chair and looked up, curious.
Sarah spluttered in indignation. “It’s nothing,” she insisted, returning to the kitchen to fish out napkins. “Just a hypothetical,” she called back over her shoulder. Her face was on fire, and she caught Dean’s expression—quite a Toppy one, but she refused to elaborate further.
Once everyone was seated, served, and eating, Dean watched her. Her ears stayed bright pink, but she didn’t volunteer anything. Dean gave her time, shooting her encouraging glances all through dinner, but she let the conversation center around Jess’ birthday presents, around the idea of hiring a live-in nanny, and around Michael’s new Claim and April’s contentment.
When Michael took a second helping of chicken, Dean decided she’d had enough time.
“So, Cas, Sarah has something to tell you. Wanna hear it here or somewhere else?” he said conversationally. At the corner to Cas’ left shoulder, Sarah’s fork slipped, clattering against her plate noisily.
Cas wiped his mouth with his napkin, chewed, swallowed, and frowned in annoyance, addressing Dean instead of Sarah. “I have no basis by which to answer that question until you give me some idea as to the nature of the issue. Is it suitable for the dinner table?”
“No.”
“Absolutely.”
They answered at the same time, and Cas turned to study the protégé at his shoulder. “Sarah?”
“We should discuss it later,” she mumbled with her head lowered.
“I’m intrigued,” Cas said, sounding fully invested and looking back down the table to his husband.
Dean shot her a look but chose the hardass route. “If it was anyone else in the Pack, they would know they don’t have a leg to stand on to hold out when an alpha calls them to account. She’s not talking because she’s an ape and she doesn’t really get it yet. Alpha, I suggest we disabuse her of that illusion.”
“Ah,” Cas replied. “Well, that gives me some context. I assume by calls them to account, you mean you caught Sarah in an act of rule-breaking and wish her to confess.”
Sarah sank down into her chair a bit, and Cas responded without looking away from Dean by placing his hand on her elbow and stopping her slide.
Dean wasn’t finished talking. “The rule-breaking question is one I’m going to let you call,” he said seriously, scooping up the last of his rice. “But her reaction when I spoke to her was downright defiant, and as second rank, I need you to clarify right here in front of everyone that you support my authority in this house. Does she or does she not answer to me as a full active member of the Pack?”
Cas nodded solemnly, and his jaw worked a little while he thought his response through. “Dean, you have my full support. You are alpha, and you are my number two.” He glanced around at everyone. A study could have been made of the reactions around the table. All of the Dominants were riveted and frowning. All of the Subs but Dean fidgeted uncomfortably. Gabriel reached across his wife for the serving bowl of rice and scooped himself another couple of spoonfuls, spilling half of the second in Kali’s lap.
Cas continued. “You absolutely have the authority to act within this Pack and expect to be obeyed. I won’t tolerate anything less.”
“That’s all I’m looking for,” Dean agreed with a nod. “And I still think Sarah needs to fess up right here, not later when she’s got a private audience.”
“It’s personal, Dean,” Sarah protested.
“Alpha,” he corrected her with an authoritative tone.
“Alpha,” she parroted back, flustered. “It’s about my private health decisions, and it’s no one’s business but mine.”
Cas turned to her. “Are you ill?”
“No, sir. I’m not ill. I just… Can we please take this somewhere private?”
“Tell him, Sarah. Tell him or I will. If you’d wanted it kept private, you had that chance days ago.” Dean spoke like a man at the end of his patience.
She sighed and wilted. She faced her plate and spoke mechanically. “Dean found a baggie of tablets in the garage that I must’ve dropped on my way in this afternoon. He knew they were mine because he knew I was the last person in the garage.”
“Tablets?” Cas keyed in. “What kind of tablets?”
“Dean has the bottle.”
“You said they were in a bag,” Cas reminded her.
“I split the bottle into two portions so I could carry some with me and keep some at home.”
“I see. What are they?”
“Don’t I have a right to some level of privacy?” she tried valiantly again. “They aren’t illegal drugs, Alpha. I’m not on drugs. I have a prescription.”
Cas held his hand out, palm up, waiting to receive, and Sarah had no arguments left to try. She looked to Dean. He dug into his jeans pocket, produced the orange prescription bottle and tossed it the length of the table to her. She caught it, hesitated for only a moment, and then set it into Castiel’s waiting hand.
Cas oriented the label so he could read it and studied it briefly. “Why would you attempt to hide something like this?” he asked, genuinely curious. “We’ve been over the expectation that you come to me with your pharmaceutical needs. Surely you know I would have helped you with this?”
“I didn’t want you to know,” she answered sulkily, and Cas glanced up, switching his studious eye from the bottle to her face. Something about her expression gave him pause, and he wondered if he might be missing something, some interspecies disconnect.
“She told me I have no business searching her room,” Dean added. “Told me to stay out. Kinda freaked out on me. We need to clear that up too.”
Cas palmed the bottle, gave it a little more thought, and then quietly slipped it back to Sarah. “We do,” he agreed after a pause long enough to make Dean wonder if he’d been heard. “We most certainly do. Sam, I wonder if you might offer an opinion.”
Sam looked up in surprise and cleared his throat. “Oh. Right. Of course.” He cleaned his mouth with his napkin and then shrugged his shoulders a little in preparation to lecture. “It’s, uh, it’s an alpha’s right to get pretty invasive if they believe a Pack member might be up to something or in some kind of danger, Sarah. So, yeah, if Dean found unlabeled pills, and he believed they were yours, he’s got the authority to go through every inch of your room, your car, your desk, your bag, whatever. Seems like it’s really different for apes, huh? Maybe that point wasn’t super clear. Maybe we took a lot of it for granted that you would understand what we meant by Pack Custody and Pack Discipline.”
“So, it’s like being a perpetual teenager,” Sarah summed up with a clearly irritated tone. “Am I ever going to be trusted as an adult? Are you going to check my ass after I poop to make sure I wiped properly? Don’t I have the right to make adult decisions about my own health and wellbeing without an Alpha looking over my shoulder?”
“Not if you’re registered as an active member of this Pack,” Dean answered bluntly with his mouth full. He swallowed the bite and went on. “He’s Alpha, Sarah, and he’s also your personal physician. You shouldn’t be taking anything heavier than Tylenol without his knowledge. None of us expects to be free to do whatever we want to ourselves without getting his nod of approval, not even me—not even Cain. And I can’t figure out what the big deal is anyway. So you’re…”
“Dean,” Castiel cut him off. “Let’s stop there. We may not understand what has Sarah so upset regarding discussing this issue in everyone’s presence, but we appear to have touched upon an insecurity. We need to proceed cautiously, keeping her insecurities as protected as we do our own.”
“What’s to be insecure about?” Dean wondered. “Everybody’s got health concerns. Nobody else is hiding them. Hell, Gabe and Kali are upfront about having a hell of a time getting pregnant. It sucks, and it hurts, but it’s not shameful. It’s not hidden. How can the Pack lend support if no one knows there’s an issue?”
“I didn’t ask for your support,” Sarah said petulantly, clutching her bottle and done with dinner.
Cas put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’re likely to get it, regardless,” he commented dryly.
“Look,” Dean continued. “You think it’s embarrassing? You think that taking an anti-anxiety med makes you look broken?”
Sarah sighed hard and gifted Dean with a world-class bitchface.
“Dean, I told you to drop it.” Cas wasn’t pleased. He agreed with Dean’s assessment, but understand it or not, Sarah was flinchingly uncomfortable, and now she was outed.
She gave up deflecting and engaged in the discussion, sitting up and leaning into her crossed arms on the table. “Yes, alpha, it makes me look weak. Okay? Maybe not to you. Maybe not to wolves in general. But I can’t take that risk when there’s still a terrible stigma in the ape community and my chief cheerleader for my doctoral dissertation is also my personal doctor. People who need drugs to regulate their anxiety are seen as unreliable, overemotional, sketchy…at worst, mentally ill, and that’s a label that can stick to a person like glue for the rest of their career! There are apes on my panel, Dean! What if they find out? What if the wolves find out, and they aren’t as understanding as you are?”
“There’s not a wolf alive who gives a fuck what it takes to help you find your balance, Sarah,” Dean shot back fiercely. “Every last one of us is fighting that battle ourselves one way or another, and we’ve got emotions leaking out our pores twenty-four seven that are way more intense than what you’re juggling. You think it’s tough for you? You don’t know the half of it. So, go ahead and hide your pills. This is the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard of. Fucking apes, I swear! Fuck the panel, Sarah, you don’t hide shit from your Pack!”
“Dean, you’re excused,” Cas said firmly. “Please leave the table.”
“Me?!” he exclaimed.
“I instructed you to drop the matter for the moment out of concern for an insecurity that you and I needed to get to the bottom of privately. We owed Sarah that respect. Instead, you announced it to the entire Pack. That in no way nullifies my support for how you responded to the issue initially, nor does it excuse Sarah from her blatant defiance of your authority. But you’re being callously dismissive of her discomfort without making any effort to understand its source. That is unacceptable from an alpha in your position. I will speak to you in my office in fifteen minutes.”
No one moved for several breaths. Then, slowly, Dean’s chair shooshed across the carpet as he pushed back. Dean set his napkin on his plate, piled his flatware on too, and carried his plate and his wine glass into the kitchen to the sink. He moved slowly, deliberately, rinsing and wiping and loading it all in the dishwasher before sauntering back through the dining room with his hands in his pockets.
“Damnit,” Michael muttered once he was gone.
Sarah exhaled loudly, an involuntary release of tension. “Michael, April, I’m sorry for stealing your thunder. This was supposed to be a celebratory dinner.” Sarah’s voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to ruin it.”
“Not your fault, really,” Michael muttered. “You’re still learning our ways.”
“And we still don’t understand yours well enough to avoid landmines, it seems,” Sam added sadly.
“So, apes can really just do whatever they want, and no one has any authority over their choices?” April asked.
Cas laid his hand over hers on the table and she turned her curious eyes to him. He shook his head slightly.
Sarah didn’t notice their interaction. “Not just anything, obviously,” she replied. “We have to obey the law. We have rules in our homes too. There are all kinds of customs and norms and conventions that people follow in order to fit into society. Some of them are clear cut and some of them are easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. It might actually be harder than just answering to an Alpha because there’s a lot about cultural customs that apes need to figure out for themselves.”
“Like not advertising a need for mood-stabilizing medications?” Kali guessed.
Sarah blushed. “Yeah. Everyone is expected to show a happy, confident, enthusiastic face to the world and not appear to have any weaknesses, especially in their professional or academic life. Taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds is a sure sign of a broken constitution. It’s worse for women. Men who look after their emotional health are seen as woke or evolved or something. Women are judged weaker right out of the gate. Add an emotional vulnerability to that, and good luck finding a job or winning any credibility. Is it really not like that for wolves? Come on. Surely, you have some unspoken cultural taboos.”
“Of course,” Cas responded, distracted as he tracked Dean’s pacing in the foyer. “It’s clear that ours are different from yours. Sarah, you have my apology on behalf of the Pack for not recognizing soon enough to prevent this mess that you felt uncomfortable divulging certain personal concerns to the Pack at large and to me specifically. Do learn from today though, that your defiance in the face of an alpha’s authority will not be tolerated. We’ve covered this more than once.”
“Yes, Alpha. Maybe we should go through it all again now that it’s become more real to me. I thought I understood, but I never dreamed that I’m not permitted to seek a doctor’s assistance on my own.” Sarah sounded resigned, and perhaps that’s the best Cas could hope for tonight. At least she wasn’t still arguing.
He steepled his hands, glanced around the table, and intoned, “We will meet your health needs, beta, all of them, but the hierarchy cannot and will not be ignored. As Alpha, I need to know about and to have advisory rights in all aspects of your care. I will refer you to other doctors as needed, but I won’t be cut out of the equation. You are expected to play an active role in determining what care you require and in seeing it through. We must be a cohesive team, you and I, but I reserve the right to the final say about what medications you put into your body. I’m aware that this reflects a shift in your conceptualization of your own personal bodily autonomy and that making it work will require an enormous amount of trust. I really must insist though. You are either mine, or you are not. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Alpha,” she replied. “May I continue to take the prescription? They’ve been helping.” Her eyes flicked up to catch his, and bravely, she held.
“You may. I will have your prescription transferred to a psychiatrist in whom I have more trust than I do that particular hack whose name likely came up in an internet search, and I will arrange an appointment for you to meet with her.”
Gabe and Jess had continued to eat, but everyone else was dejected. A pall lingered, and Cas didn’t know how to break it. He turned to April and gave her a tight smile.
“Can we revive the celebratory mood with some dessert?” he suggested.
April shrugged. “There’s leftover birthday cake from yesterday and there’s still some of Dean’s homemade ice cream in the freezer, but it won’t be any fun eating it without him.”
“I can’t stay for dessert anyway,” Michael added. “If I don’t get my face in a book soon, I’m fucked.”
“We need to get home, Alpha,” Sam put in, pushing his chair back. “Hank’s eye appointment is early, and we need to get the twins to bed.”
“May I be excused, sir?” Sarah asked in a small voice.
Cas gave it up for hopeless. “You may.”
“Do I have a punishment coming?” she asked once she was on her feet and gathering her own dishes.
“I need to confer with Dean,” he said. “I need his insight. He clearly feels you overstepped appropriate respect boundaries knowingly, and I will take that under advisement. My inclination is to leave you with a stern warning and close this unfortunate incident as it stands, but I may be swayed if he is adamant. I won’t keep you waiting, Sarah. We’ll speak again before bedtime.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll be in my room.”
“Gabriel,” Cas added as he stood. “You and April have the kitchen. I will be in my office. Everyone is excused.” Cas left the dining room as Kali promised Gabe to stay and assist in the cleanup. Dean was halfway through his pacing pattern in the foyer, so Cas gathered him up and escorted him into his office without a word. Dean positioned himself in front of the couch.
“You may sit,” Cas told him. But Dean didn’t, his brow furrowed in a look of deep thought. “Are you angry with me?” Castiel asked carefully.
“No, Sir. You were right. I don’t know what came over me. That was a shit thing to do.” Dean’s face registered the swift swirling of his mind. He seemed caught between his alpha designation and his front brain submissive. His eyes flickered from point to point restlessly.
Castiel sat down at an angle on his desk and mindfully lowered his energy. He spoke in a calm, measured voice. “You were right that we cannot make allowances for her forever. If she really wants in, then we have to be firm about what that means. She’s studied our species enough that continuing to fall back on an assertion that she didn’t understand is growing tiresome. No one else in this Pack would have been given that much leeway. She should be familiar enough with our rules to have understood both conflicts this evening. I really cannot account for her except that she seemed resolute that I not learn of her diagnosis, and that speaks of personal disquiet more than defiance. I’m at a loss because I don’t have a clear way to read her, Dean. I cannot tell for certain if she’s being argumentative as a boundary check or if she was truly caught flat-footed.” Cas watched Dean’s expression while he talked, but Dean wasn’t feeling belligerent any longer.
“You caught on right away,” Dean admitted. “I’m rethinking it all now from the angle of her being insecure enough to risk getting punished to keep her secret. Maybe she wasn’t defiant, Cas, just ashamed. And I dragged it all right out into the light like a dick and made her stand there naked in front of everyone. I pantsed her to prove that I can. That’s not the kind of alpha I want to be, Sir. I need your correction.”
Cas gave him a moment, then he softly added, “You didn’t hurt her on purpose, Dean….”
“Didn’t I? She defied my authority, and I responded by slapping back at her.”
Cas continued with barely a pause, raising a finger to show he didn’t appreciate the interruption. “And you have as much at stake in maintaining your position in the hierarchy as I do. They do not maintain themselves, the strata. Call it a status check or call it a mistake. Either way, it wasn’t an intentional injury. Besides, none of us is entirely certain where our differences lie, one species to another—you maybe least of all considering you have spent the least time interacting with Primates.”
Dean shook his head, his thoughts turned inward. “No, maybe that’s true, but you weren’t watching for interspecies differences, CJ. You were watching her as a human. You saw that she was more than just unhappy at being called out, that she was mortified at being unveiled. I should’ve caught that. And even if I missed it, I should’ve trusted that you knew what you were doing when you told me to zip it. I should have obeyed you.”
“I’m proud to hear you say that, Dean. We make a good team when we have trust.”
“Yeah, well, I learn if you apply blunt force trauma to my brain…or…elsewhere.”
“What are you feeling right now?” Castiel asked.
“I’m anxious about getting my ass whipped,” Dean replied on the spot.
Cas snickered calmly. “What I mean is, are you feeling any closer to falling? I want it stated for the record that I don’t want you launching off of this minor incident and leveraging it into a full blowout. We’ll find another route. I want this closed tonight.”
“You think I control that?” Dean asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Yes, I believe you choose the time and place, and the motivational source. I understand that if you don’t act on your own, eventually the outcome will be taken out of your hands, but I don’t sense you being close enough to the cliff’s edge for that yet. I’m asking you to let this one go and choose something else. Sarah’s already humiliated. Let’s not make it worse for her by turning her tantrum into the spark that lights you on fire. If at all possible, can you push it off until after Christmas? Until after April leaves for Tennessee? I’ll follow your lead on the timing, Dean, but not this.”
Dean nodded, agreeing. “I’m not feeling it yet anyway,” he admitted softly. “I feel it building, but it’s got a lot more cresting to do before I can ride the wave. God, this feeling sucks. I hate this, Cas. I wish it would just fade out like a shitty mood. I wish I could run it out on the treadmill or punch it out on the heavy bag. I wish there was another way.”
“I know.”
“You gonna tell me I can’t strap the pretty ape?” Dean asked, changing the subject.
“Does she deserve it?”
“You want to let her off with a warning? She threw a full-on tantrum, Alpha.”
“I wasn’t there, Dean. I need you to tell me everything that happened, exactly how it happened, and we’ll decide her fate together. Let’s get your punishment over with first.”
“We don’t need a conference, Sir. You’re Alpha.” Dean unbuckled his belt, unfastened his jeans, and shoved them down as he rounded Castiel’s desk to lean across it in his usual position.
“I’m aware of that,” Cas told him as he took hold of the buckle of Dean’s belt and zipped it free of the loops. “But I also want the two of us to develop a shared approach to discipline. Talking things through should help us understand one another’s minds.”
“Help me understand yours, you mean.”
“However you choose to look at it. Set your feet, Dean, and hold on.”
“Sir,” Dean responded as he ducked his head.
Castiel started with his hand, as usual, and Dean winced, knowing the belt was coming. What that man could do with his bare hand caused sweat to break from his pores everywhere at once and bead at his hairline after only one strike. Dean focused on breathing, on feeling, on the heat and the pain and the immediacy and the present moment. He didn’t track the time, only the power and the intensity.
Castiel wasn’t angry.
His palm hurt, but there was a measured moderation to what the Alpha doled out that told Dean Castiel didn’t believe all the blame rested on Dean’s shoulders.
Dean’s ass was hot pink and throbbing when Castiel switched to the belt, but he didn’t offer more than a moderate application with the leather strap. He was by no means gentle, sending Dean up onto his toes more than once, but the punishment ended after no more than twenty or twenty-five swings, and Dean was allowed to huff himself back to earth laid across Castiel’s desk with a hot hand stroking his back gently.
“That’s it, love. You may stand. You’re done.” He eased Dean up, watching the blood drain from his face and return it to its usual unstressed shade. There weren’t any tears. “You’ve earned a hug,” Cas offered with a smirk, holding his arms wide. Dean took the hug and then lay his head on Cas’ shoulder.
“You went super easy on me, Alpha.”
“You didn’t deserve more than I gave you.”
“Getting soft in your old age.”
“I love you too, Dean. Pull up your pants. Let’s talk about Sarah.”
“What, no more aftercare?” Dean bent to resituate his clothes.
Cas knew it was a joke, but he took it seriously anyway. Standing close and taking over the buckling of Dean’s belt from his husband, he told him. “I haven’t even begun to care for you this evening, my love. Are you all right in the interim? What do you need right now?”
Dean grinned. “Just you,” he answered unhelpfully, and he kissed Castiel’s lips briefly, no more than a peck, before turning his back to the desk and scooching up onto it. “And your go ahead to let Sarah know I’m not fucking around. What was that you called it? A status check? Yeah, that’s what it felt like to me, Alpha. Felt like she isn’t sure what the boundaries mean and where they’re situated. I think she sees me as a buddy, not an alpha.”
“That’s unacceptable, Dean,” Cas agreed seriously. “And it can’t be allowed to continue.”
Sarah cracked the door when Dean knocked lightly, and her face fell.
“I figured,” she admitted. She stepped back and let him in.
He shrugged. “It’s straightforward consequences, Blake. I’m really not seeing how we could let you slide when you stand right in front of me and tell me I have no right to investigate drugs that you admitted were yours. I’m alpha, Sarah. Don’t let the naked morning kneeling confuse you. You’re not afforded privacy when you drop little white pills in your wake.”
“Fine,” she muttered.
“No.” Dean crossed his arms and stood unmoving beside the door.
Sarah considered him and then folded. “I apologize, alpha. I was disrespectful, and I should have known better.”
Dean waited until the air grew heavy with expectation before uncrossing his arms and taking a seat on the end of her bed. He regarded her, standing above him and looking anxious as hell. “I appreciate the apology,” he told her. “I owe you one right back. I was an ass back there, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you through that in front of the whole Pack. I’m hoping we can put this behind us and get back to what we have outside of disciplinary structures.” She nodded solemnly, but she didn’t answer.
Dean considered her. He drummed a thumb on his thigh to a rhythm in his head and he squinched his face up in discomfort. Finally, he broke the silence. “Can you tell me something? Did you know better? Honest answer, beta. Tell me the truth. Were you really confused or were you just hoping I would buy the hand fluttering and let you off without digging out your little secret?”
She thought about it, turning to fiddle with a half-empty perfume bottle on her vanity. “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t sure?”
“I will if it’s the truth,” he admitted.
“I still think like an ape, Dean. We’re raised to be independent. I don’t know how to turn myself completely over to an Alpha…or to his number two. Inside, I’m hearing so many conflicting messages about what should be or what is, and I don’t always follow the voices that sound like Castiel’s.”
“Taking a strap when you make the wrong call will help with that,” he told her almost reluctantly, like he knew it was truth but wished there was a more effective way to drum it into her head. Conditioning wasn’t always a painless process.
She sighed and set the bottle down. “Is that what this is for?” She looked across at him, searching with her eyes.
He shrugged and seemed to be saying she could derive more than one benefit if she tried.
“Where do you want me?”
Dean scooted back and opened up a wider space at his lap. “Answer me one more thing first,” he interrupted her progress. He took her hand and held it, looking up into her face. “Why did you join us? Not some lame excuse about wanting to see it from the inside to help with your research. I want the real reason. You gave up your independence and you’re about to let me literally spank you like a child. Why on earth would you do that when you already have a family?”
Sarah sank down beside him. “Dean, I needed more help than just some pills. I’m a shitty adult when I have to run my life myself. I make stupid choices. What I managed to do to get to this point, it was all luck, other people leading my direction, and hanging on by my fingernails. My life should have come crashing down around my ears years ago. I don’t know why it didn’t. Pure luck and the Universe watching out for me, maybe. The point is, I was running on fumes when I met Castiel. I was faking every step I took, and I was one step away from the looney bin. He saved me. I struggle against the authority because I can hear my family in my head telling me to stand on my own two feet and stop being a burden—pretty much the opposite of what you and Cas tell me. Under this roof, I’ve started to feel like I really am the person I pretend to be. Maybe I gave up a lot to join the Pack, but what I get back is way more. You and Cas gave me my life back. If that means getting my butt smacked sometimes, that’s not really a tough choice.”
Dean nodded. “Maybe you’re not so different from us after all,” he observed with a shoulder nudge.
She smiled. “We’re still doing this?”
He laughed. “Nah, you know what? Let’s just forget it.”
“Really?”
“No. Up you go.” Dean helped her stand up.
“That was mean, alpha,” she protested, and he laughed again.
“Just keeping it real. You have a good ass-blistering belt for me?”
“I have to supply my own?” she asked in dismay.
“If you don’t have one, we can use mine. Kind of a custom to use the spankee’s belt, but it’s not a big deal.”
Sarah scowled and disappeared into her closet briefly. She returned with a simple strap of soft leather. Dean accepted it and looked it over. “No buckle?” he asked as he realized there wasn’t any hardware to it.
Sarah blushed crimson. “Adam bought it for me to use on him. We’ve been trying out some light impact scenes.”
Dean laughed and set it beside him on the bed. “That’s my girl. Okay. First off, tell me what you did to earn my visit here this evening. What rules did you break?”
Sarah took a deep breath and rubbed the sweat off her palms onto the legs of her jeans. “I broke Rule Three,” she told him. “I was disrespectful when you asked me a question…several times.”
“Mm-hm. What else?”
“Rule Five?” she asked uncertainly.
Dean prompted her. “How did you lie to us?”
“I hid what I was doing,” she confirmed. “Lie by omission?”
“Is that a question?” Dean challenged.
She sighed again. “No. It’s not a question. I was lying by omission. I knew that if Cas learned I’m on those pills, he would want to look further into it and take ownership of my prescription. He’d start keeping a closer eye on my emotional state. I hid it from him on purpose.”
“Good girl. What else?”
She licked her lips. “Rule Two, maybe. I’m not as sure about that one. I didn’t take the decision to Alpha, but taking anti-anxiety medication isn’t unsafe, inherently. He told me I can keep taking them. I didn’t break Rule Two, I don’t think.”
“Agreed,” Dean conceded. “Is that all?”
She frowned, thinking it over. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”
“Go back to the top, Sarah,” he advised. “The first rule in the list. What does it say?”
Sarah swallowed. “It says be obedient to the Alpha.”
“That’s correct,” Dean praised. “Were you disobedient to him directly?”
“He instructed me to bring my health concerns to him,” she admitted softly. “And I went around him because I thought he would be ashamed of me.”
Dean didn’t answer right away. He studied his fingernails, letting her ruminate.
“I disobeyed him,” she concluded. “I told him I had no problem with him serving as my doctor and then I panicked and went to someone else without telling him. If he had been unclear about how he wanted my medical choices to be handled, I could say I didn’t understand, but he went over every detail with me. I knew hiding meds wasn’t going to be allowed. Yeah, I knew.”
Dean leveled a sympathetic look at her. “How does that plan look now?”
“Stupid,” she told him. “I feel stupid for thinking I couldn’t take my worries to him.” She wrinkled her face up in embarrassment. “That’s the whole reason I joined the Pack, alpha. I wanted support strong enough to hold me up when I falter. And the first sign of faltering had me hiding it from the people who are there to help me.”
He nodded and patted his lap. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he said. “Shed the blue jeans and mount up. This part is easy. It’s negative reinforcement—classic conditioning. I’m going to help you make a different choice next time by associating an unpleasant experience with this choice. Capiche?”
Sarah rolled her eyes at his informality. But she slipped her jeans and panties down and laid down across his lap. He turned her so that her upper body was on the bed, and he put one leg over her calves. He cinched her in.
“Thirty with my hand. Fifteen with your belt. You ready?”
“No, Sir.”
Dean rubbed circles into her back. “Take your time, Sarah. Let me know.”
She took a monumental breath that raised her ribcage under his hand, and she nodded.
“Don’t worry about counting,” he advised. “I gotcha.” Dean set to work. Holding her tightly helped them both. She wasn’t accustomed to taking swats, and she hadn’t been over anyone’s knee since she was a little girl. It was humiliating on top of hurting, and she sobbed more in mortification than anything else. He reached thirty at an even pace, taking his time and giving each slap a chance to set in and burn before aiming the next.
Sarah blew a hard breath out when he finally reached the end. He stood her back up and then changed places with her, bending her over the end of the bed and standing beside her.
“Gotta do this next bit on my feet. Can’t swing a belt well from a seated position. You ever had a strap before, Sarah?”
“No, alpha,” she whimpered into the bedspread. “Not until now.”
“Okay, well, it stings pretty hot, but it won’t last all night. You’ll wake up good as new, so this is all about feeling it right here in the moment. Give it your full attention and don’t shut it out, and it’ll do what it’s meant to do. This isn’t about making you feel ashamed. It’s about setting pins in your memory to remind you next time you start to make a choice like that—not to. Answer my questions as I ask them.”
“Questions, alpha?”
Dean struck her ass with the belt, doubled in his hand. She shouted and clutched at the bedding, but she didn’t get up.
“Do I have the authority to question your actions?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir,” she answered.
He swung again.
“Do you have the right to hide your medical or emotional needs from your Pack Alpha?”
“No, Sir,” she replied gruffly, clearly speaking through clenched teeth.
He swung again.
“Are you going to defy any alpha in this Pack when they ask you straightforward questions?”
“No, Sir!” she shouted.
He continued through fifteen slow, miserable strokes, demanding answers between each one, and driving his point home the hard way.
After fifteen, he sat beside her and rubbed her back, catching her wrist and stopping her from easing her own sting. He helped her up and let her pull her clothes back up, and then he stood with her in an intimate embrace, almost swaying, tightly contained while she sniffled.
“We’re lucky to have you, Sarah,” he said in a tone that promised more than she dared to believe in. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of everything you’ve learned and how you adapted. There’s no way in hell any of us would be strong enough to try something as scary as leaving everything we know and joining a new family in a whole different species. You’re a far stronger person than you give yourself credit for.”
She nodded and sniffled again.
“Wanna go get some ice cream?” he offered. “It’s about that time when Michael raids the freezer. You could join us?”
She shook her head. “No thanks,” she murmured. “I need to go to bed. I have a lot to process.”
“All right,” he said. “You think it through. Try not to rub. I’m leaving you to it, and no one’s going to be checking to see if you keep your hands off, but letting it settle in can be a powerful experience. Give it a shot for me, would’ja?”
She huffed. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“Alpha, I’m really sorry. Truly.” Sarah stood awkwardly in the middle of her room, wondering how to explain.
Dean didn’t need an explanation though. He smiled kindly at her. “I’m sorry, too. We were bound to need an adjustment period,” he told her. “Once you cotton on to the nuances, you’re never going to break a rule again. I can see your brain working on it from here. We’re going to be good for you and you for us. Don’t sweat it. We’re done here. No hard feelings. No lingering resentments. We all let it go. I forgive you. You forgive me?”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a shaky smile.
“Come ‘ere.” Dean pulled her in for one more hug and then left her to change for bed feeling far better about her than he had before dinner.
Dean quizzed Michael with a rapid-fire barrage of questions, and Michael snapped answers out like a skeet-shooter taking out clay targets. Coming on the heels of writing out a near-flawless outline of the chapter by memory with occasional hints and nudges from his mate whenever he got stuck, Michael was sharp. It was getting late though, and they couldn’t continue much longer.
Dean called a break.
“Let’s grab a snack,” he suggested. “I got sent away from the table before I finished my supper. I know there’s chicken left over. Come on, Michael. Quick break and some protein for stamina. Then we’ll take one more pass at it and call you ready.”
“Yeah,” Michael exhaled. “Good. One more pass. I think I’ve got it. If I could only keep the spleen, gall bladder, and pancreas straight, I’d feel way better.”
“Two totally different body systems, man. Now, stop. No more test talk until we leave the kitchen,” Dean commanded, tugging his mate to his feet and shepherding him in for a snack. “Tell me about Claiming April. She said you went into the Dream wide awake. What happened, man?”
Michael grinned a secretive smile with his eyes down. He took a stool at the island while Dean rummaged through the fridge. “I can’t explain, Dean. I don’t know what happened. April asked me to give it a shot while we had the afternoon to ourselves. I was thinking it over, and my psycho asshole wolf came sniffing all up in my business. I confronted my wolf because the bastard thought it’d get a chance to slip in while I was busy working out the details. My Tertiary has never looked twice at Pete as a person. He doesn’t care one way or another, but if there’s a Claim to be laid, he expects to lead it. It’s like a notch in his headboard. I couldn’t let him in on that, alpha. It’s private.”
“He’s a psycho asshole now? I thought you were proud of your wolf. But how did you get immersed in the imagery, anyway?” Dean asked. He loaded a couple of chicken portions on a plate and topped it off with scoops of cold sticky rice.
“No idea,” Michael told him truthfully, ignoring the reference to his new irritation at his own wolf. “One minute the sun was shining, and I was beneath the big tree out back. The next it was midnight, and I was in a deep forest somewhere, walking on four legs and circling my own wolf. The whole contest happened inside my head, in that wolf-scape. He was his usual pushy self, and except for having fur and a tail, I was me in my front brain, only, I think I was powered by my Omega. I’m not a hundred percent sure. I felt ancient, Dean, like I had infinite resources and I’d been around forever in that forest. And I could feel my eyes change to gold. The Omega wasn’t there, but he was feeding me somehow—like, shoring me up.”
Dean took a stool beside Michael’s. He left the food cold, and he set the plate between them to share. He scooped some rice up with his fingers and popped it messily into his mouth. “You were two separate wolves?” Dean asked before he swallowed.
“I had to have been,” Michael answered thoughtfully. “I couldn’t see much of the body my cognitive mind was in. I could feel it though, and it wasn’t human. The flashes I saw, when I curled around or turned quickly—my body looked just like his. I think it was just the same. Pete said my eyes were golden though, and his glowed bright blue.”
“Wait. April was there too?”
Michael chuckled and took a bite of cold chicken. He chewed for a moment and then answered, not attempting to hide his pride. “Her wolf jumped in to fight beside me.”
Dean gaped.
“Yeah,” Michael continued, studying his chicken, turning it over in his greasy hands. “Pete said her Primary and Secondary stayed put out in the sunshine, but she could see blurry visions of her Tertiary jumping in to help me win. And, Dean, her wolf is stunning, holy shit.”
“You saw her wolf? Like, really, truly saw the beast itself?” Dean stopped eating and faced his mate, shocked.
Michael grinned and ate a clumpy bite of rice with his fingers. “She’s got fur the color of her actual physical hair. Her wolf is blonde, Dean. Ever seen a blonde wolf before?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“It was wild, the whole experience. It was a knockdown drag out brawl, and my own wolf seemed like he wanted me dead. I was bleeding from wounds all over my body. He was either trying to kill me or make me prove I deserved to Top him. He wasn’t playing. Pete showed up outta nowhere and hit him with Ninja guerilla tactics, jumping in and snipping at him from all directions and then tucking out before he could respond. She was brilliant. I’m telling you, I can’t explain. It was crazy.”
“April’s wolf is Submissive,” Dean remarked, dazed and lost in a whirl of thoughts.
“Doesn’t mean she can’t fight,” Michael told him. “I feel like she was acting under my wing, like a soldier in a battle I was leading. She was still Submissive, Dean, but she is a hell of a soldier, and her being there made a huge difference.”
Dean frowned and picked up his own piece of chicken, turning it over in his hands. “So… The two of you ganged up on your wolf.”
“Her wolf and my Primary,” Michael clarified. “Weirdest fucking experience of my life. I couldn’t see the real world at all. I have no memories of what happened during that time for real. I lost about twenty minutes of real time, Dean. Pete had the better view. She said she was mostly outside with blurry flashes and a sense of what her wolf was experiencing. You should ask her for the details from the outside.”
“So, you defeated your wolf…” Dean nudged.
Michael grinned again. “That asshole isn’t taking April,” he told his mate confidently. “She got him all turned around with her darting in and out from everywhere. And I buried my huge fuckin’ teeth in his shoulder and put him in his place.” Michael giggled. “Dean, man, I Dominated my own wolf. Claimed him like an Alpha would. Shoved his face into the dirt and fucked him stupid.” He began to laugh harder. “God, I wish I could have filmed it. I wish I could show you. He is not happy with me at the moment.” Michael took a celebratory victory bite.
Dean marveled and shook his head, hardly able to imagine it, much less believe it. But Michael wasn’t lying, and Dean could feel a shift from within him. Michael’s wolf was sulky and distant.
He ate in silence for a bit, mulling it over. “So, you Topped him, kenneled him, and then Claimed April without him breathing down your neck trying to nose in?”
Michael set his chicken bone on the plate and wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. “No, Dean. I Claimed Pete while I was still buried to the short and curlies in my own wolf. It happened in the real world while it was happening to him in the wolf-scape. I never Claimed April. I Claimed my wolf, and the Claim that I shot at him landed on her and stuck.”
Dean shifted backward in surprise, stunned to the marrow of his bones. “I don’t get it,” he said at last. “You Claimed her without touching her, without even targeting her?”
Michael shook his head vehemently. “No. No. Not entirely. I definitely touched her. We fucked, man, only I wasn’t there to see it. I didn’t attack or fight Pete. I checked her over afterward. Dean, I thought that at first my physical body must’ve mimicked the actions in the real world that I was doing in the wolf-dream, but she’s unhurt, and she says none of the battle made it outside of my head, just the mounting and the fucking and the Claiming. That part was real. I didn’t see it. Had no idea. Missed the whole thing. Pete says she thinks my Omega felt a Claim building and took advantage of it, got us both situated for the Claim to have something to land on in the real world when I sent it out within the dream. I think she must be right, although even from my Secondary I have no memory of it. I opened my eyes still hard and still rocking her channel. And the Claim was fresh and pulsing—doing that weird tingly thing they do right at first. The Claim’s real. The rest of it is confusing as hell.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Dean added. “What the fuck, Michael?”
“I dunno,” he admitted. “But I don’t think that was the first time I’ve ever battled myself or Dominated myself. This feeling right now, of my wolf kinda pissing its bad mood off into dark places to lick its wounds and talk itself back up again—this feels like somewhere we’ve been before. I control him all the time by snapping at him in my head, but that’s just a sense, not a real image. Sometimes when I wake up after vivid dreams that I can’t remember in detail, I’ve felt like this. Never happened with full wolf imagery while I was awake before though. And I’ve never seen another wolf in the flesh but you before. We were both there at the same time, Dean, both me and Pete. Neither of us was unconscious, and we both saw it.”
Dean chuckled and ate a little more rice before feeding a handful to Michael. “It took my alpha and Castiel’s working together to topple his wolf,” he remembered. “I guess it’s not that far-fetched to think our designations might all have access to the wolf-scape under the right conditions. I know mine and his were in the same dimension at the same time for that. And sometimes when we get really intimate, you and I, I can almost see our wolves touching noses or playing together. It’s like it’s just out of my peripheral vision, like if I turn my head quick enough, I can see it.”
“Mm-hm,” Michael agreed. “But going there as a Primary,” he said in wonder. “Dean, that’s the key to getting to see it for real and keep the memory of it. Wherever our Primary mind is is the part we keep as memories. We do that when we dream. Apparently, if I’m motivated enough, I can do it when I’m awake.”
Dean peeled off his stool and circled the island to dump the bones and rinse the plate. From her pen, Portia thumped her tail hopefully. Dean washed his hands and dug a dog treat out of the cabinet for her, scratching her ears affectionately while she crunched it up.
“Is the memory getting foggy?” he asked Michael. “Fading at all like dreams do?”
“Not really,” Michael told him. He washed his own hands, reading into Dean’s discomfort. “I guess once I sleep on it, I might lose a few details, but now that I’ve talked it over with Alpha and April, and now with you, I’m certain I’ll remember most of it. Cas told me to wait until my test is over tomorrow and then write it out like a journal entry. Dean, he’s going to want to explore what happened, not just as Pack Alpha, but as part of our in-depth research interviews. You’re going to be okay with that, right? It’s still just talking. No probes.”
“I’m not okay with it, man. I just don’t have a rational reason to put a stop to it. I know every argument for doing the interviews and for driving down into the meat of what your brain is capable of. I know that stuff. But it still makes me nervous. What happens if they find a loose thread and start tugging on it through these interviews, but they can’t quite get a grip without turning interviews into exams? Where does it stop if they really get going on something pivotal? What would they do to you, Michael? Jesus, I want to trust Cas to put the brakes on if it comes to that, but I’ve seen him when he gets close to a breakthrough.”
Michael embraced his mate, wrapping him in solace. “We’re not going to let them hurt me,” he reminded Dean. “You need to let me do this, alpha. If it comes to needing a CAT scan to watch my brain engage, alpha, I’m going to say yes to that. We need to understand.”
“I know,” Dean agreed reluctantly. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t let them any deeper into you than I signed off on. This feels like a slippery slope, man. A CAT scan? Really? We need to discuss everything before it happens so no one gets carried away.”
Michael snickered. “You think someone’s going to slip a probe up my ass without my knowing?”
“Damnit, Michael. I’m serious. Any alpha in the research department could pin you Secondary and convince you they have a hierarchical right to override your objections.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dean.” Michael pulled out of the hug and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Don’t get pissy on me,” Dean warned. “It’s a very real vulnerability. They have an advantage, and I’m not convinced they won’t try to intimidate you into letting them do something we told them not to if they get excited enough.”
“You think I would be intimidated into rolling over when I know you’d flay me for it? Dean, I’m on your side here. I’m asking you to trust me and Alpha both. I’m asking you to let us explore whatever this is and find some answers. Hell, come with me to the interviews!”
“Can we not talk about this anymore?” Dean asked irritably. “You need one more run through of all three systems before bed. It’s late. This test needs your focus. Come on, man. Endocrine system. Go.”
Michael nodded in acquiescence and followed Dean toward the stairs, reciting as he went…
“Pituitary, adrenals, thyroid, parathyroid…”
April was fast asleep on her side in the big bed with Kat still nursing grumpily in a half doze. Cas closed his book when Dean and Michael crept in. He worked himself to sitting upright and accepted a warm kiss from Dean as Michael reached across April to collect their daughter. He rearranged April’s nightshirt and pulled the blanket up to her shoulder. Kat turned into Michael’s chest with an irritated snuffle and sleepily began to follow the scent of milk at his chest.
He lifted her to his shoulder and patted her back soothingly as a distraction.
Dean took the pup, kissed Michael’s cheek, and sent him to bed with a gesture.
“See if you can clear her nose,” Michael whispered. He slid between the sheets beside April, snuggling up close to her and pulling a pillow in under his head and punching it a couple of times. April murmured and rolled to face him, scenting for his throat in her sleep.
“Do you want any help?” Cas asked Dean before he left to settle the cranky pup.
“Nah, I got her,” Dean whispered back. “Be right back. She’s nearly out.”
Castiel shuffled back down into the softness of warm bed and embracing Pack. He clicked his lamp off and set his book on the bedside table before shifting into the middle with his mate, leaving Dean a space on the edge. April was deeply sleeping, but her body wasn’t entirely still, responding to the closeness of her new Claimant with a gentle, sleepy pulsing roll from her hips, as if seeking one more connection. Michael rolled with her, not connecting fully. Cas heard him sigh in contentment as the Omegas sought each other in Castiel’s bed.
Cas turned onto his side, giving them a trace of privacy and touching his mate only at the outermost curve of their backsides and the soles of their feet. He could hear his husband through the monitor beside his lamp, murmuring soft assurances to Kathleen as he laid her down in her crib. Everything felt soft and tempered, and Castiel half wondered if he was dreaming already.
Dean returned swiftly, having settled the pup with no issue, either from her stuffy nose or her bad temper. He slid straight in and wrapped warm arms around Cas. In no time, he’d rolled his back to his husband, snuggling in the Alpha’s embrace, and Cas found his nose pressing into Dean’s scent glands. The Omegas both fell still behind him, and the house settled into peace.
Dean was warm in his arms.
“It’s still Yes, my love,” Cas whispered, uncertain Dean was still awake to hear him. A squeeze to the Alpha’s forearm and a slight pressure as Dean angled his head back into Castiel’s told him he’d been heard. “Just in case you were wondering.”
Dean huffed gently and then fell asleep.
Cas breathed in the scent of Pack…
…and followed him.
Notes:
I hope each and every one of you is safe, healthy, protected, and secure. I hope that if you are isolated in your quarantine, that you are reaching out and finding others to connect to. Isolation is the enemy of sanity. Don't let the bastards get you down. Chime in, folks...Is everyone okay?
I am behind in responding to comments, but I'll catch up. Every comment is important to me.
Love to all of you.
Chapter 9: Christmas Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Summary:
It's a Winchester Pack Christmas. There are toys and gifts, a lot of food, a lot of family, (too much family?) and a couple of heart-wrenching falls. Needless to say, there's such a thing as kicking the can too far down the road. April is easy, if intense, but Dean... Dean has steam leaking from his ears and no easy way out.
Notes:
I followed a barrage of four chapters in four weeks with a longer wait than usual. Turns out I've had a bit of a Winchester-level fall myself, and it took a good two weeks for me to claw my way back out of the pit. Not an actual fall, but I was on a scary downward slide into a worsening health condition and it took good drugs, a declarative diagnosis, and a month off work to stop the descent. What this means for my future, I don't know yet. None of my choices are easy ones. But managing a chronic disorder while continuing to work 12-hour shifts that rotate weekly from night to day and back again doesn't seem feasible if I don't want to end up right back where I was headed.
So, it took me a bit to get my brain back into working order. It had skipped a few tracks on me there for a bit. But I'm back now, and pounding out words, and feeling so much better.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's angsty, but ultimately healing, and it's long...cause fuck it. Why not?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Christmas Tuesday, December 25, 2018
NOW:
Naomi sat regally in the plushest chair in the parlor, holding court as the Pack shifted about her, ignoring her for the most part. Wrapping paper littered the floor everywhere, bows and ribbon and bright shiny new toys made a disaster of the normally ordered space.
Michael quick-walked across in front of Naomi on his knees, scooping Alex up just as the pup reached for an ornament hanging low enough in the tree to grasp. Michael chuckled and kissed his son’s throat playfully, distracting him with Portia’s antics and a bright red fire truck. Alex bowed his back and struggled in his mother’s grip, determined to have another go at the Christmas tree with its alluring lights and prickly branches.
Portia pounced and flattened another wad of discarded wrapping paper, earning full-throated chortles from Kat who tumbled over backward.
At Naomi’s feet, Jimmy edged closer and closer to the mysterious woman whose scent spoke of family, but whose demeanor remained aloof. He crawled closer in fits and starts, emboldened one moment and shy the next, until he sat right at her feet with a stuffed giraffe in one hand. He risked a glance up at her and found her studying him in turn. Intrigued, Jimmy displayed his toy for her to examine, an offer he’d found universally won adults right over. But Naomi only lifted an eyebrow at the youngster’s gall.
Perplexed, Jimmy sat down on his diapered bottom and tilted his head in consternation, working out what he’d done wrong. Behind him, his Papa laughed and swept him up into a hearty hug before depositing him unceremoniously into his grandmother’s lap.
“James, kiddo, you remember Grandmother. She’s visited before. She won’t bite,” Cas told him, kneeling down beside the chair and bracing the pup with a hand on his back. Naomi had not moved except to lean slightly away from the pup, stiffen uncomfortably, and remark, “He’s barely out of the womb, and he’s already got that absurd, pretentious head-tilt down.”
“He’s my son, and it’s endearing. Mother, for goodness’ sake, don’t be mean. He’s clean, fed, and he’s well-rested. You’re not going to get a better chance than right now to try to bond with them all just a little. He’s your grandson! Talk to him!” Castiel’s frustration was evident, but Naomi was impervious. She set her jaw and looked away, her eyes fogging over slightly.
“We can try again later, Cas,” Dean told him softly. “She’s not home at the moment.” Dean’s hand twitched on Castiel’s back. He was holding onto himself, but it was becoming a struggle.
Cas sighed and lifted the puzzled pup to his shoulder, admiring Jimmy’s giraffe and stealing it away to begin a playful game of nuzzle-the-pup with its soft faux fur. Dean’s need would have to wait until Christmas morning’s festivities ended. Now was not the time.
All around, except for Naomi, the Pack, still mostly in their pajamas, giggled and played. Portia entertained them all with her antics. Gabe and Jess batted a wad of crumpled paper around raucously, playing an impromptu game of Keep it off the Ground that threatened to trample tiny bodies until Michael made them take it into the foyer.
April sat on the floor, leaning against the couch, cuddling Emma and sharing a scone with her daughter. She felt a bit thunderstruck in the aftermath of the assault on the Christmas tree, and in the mess that remained, April was uncharacteristically quiet. Emma was too.
Dean plunked down heavily onto the floor beside her, crossing his legs Omega-style before him. He offered her a sip from his freshly poured coffee, which she accepted before resting her head on his shoulder. Dean cinched her in with a soft smile, sipped carefully, and watched the chaos continue around them. He had to lift his mug clear when Idgie shuffled from Mama’s lap into Daddy’s. The pup turned her back to his chest and settled into the gap between his legs. Dean kissed the top of her head without a second thought. Pack scents thickened around them all, sending their unconscious minds a signal of comfort and safety. Dean breathed out an unsteady breath, tightening his grip on his alpha.
At the tree, Michael swooped back in heroically and saved the harried ornament one more time, much to Alex’s frustration. The pup wailed, eliciting patient chuckles from his parents. Michael foisted the squalling pup off to Sam and began stripping ornaments off the lower boughs of the tree to eliminate the draw. Hopefully. A full month this tree had been right here in full reach of his short grasp, and it wasn’t until this morning that Alex made a break for the breakables.
It was picturesque and joyful, just as Dean had needed it to be. He tightened his arm slightly, hugging April close, communicating his appreciation for all she’d done, even through her own exhaustion, to bring this morning to fulfillment. Christmases past held a golden, vintage glow in his mind, haloed by selective memory that ruthlessly deleted the uncomfortable parts. Dean remembered finding his first bicycle propped beside the family tree one year—a far cry from the rugged mountain bike that sent his mother into a hazardous industrial sweatshop when Dean was nearly grown—just a little red two-wheeler with training wheels already attached. He couldn’t have been more than five years old that year. He remembered Sammy pulling himself to standing with his pudgy hands woven into the spokes while Dad braced the bike with one large hand, a proud grin on his face.
Dad had been an edifice, a fixture to Dean back then. He was enormous and implacable. He was immutable. He was strong and permanent and reliable. His laugh shook the rafters, or would have done if their house had rafters. His scolding face could take Dean apart without his ever speaking a word. His presence bought their family safety, surety. He was the very essence of stability. Or…he had been.
He was gone now, and all that surety dribbled away years before he died, leaving behind a husk, a void, where power had once lived, a vacuum that bewildered his oldest son who’d grown up trusting that alpha could never be toppled.
There was a touch of John in Castiel, and Dean wasn’t blind to that. They both carried their power as a birthright. They both eschewed flexing their power until truly necessary. They both trusted themselves to draw others beneath their wings and lend strength where it was needed. Neither of them shouted unless fully provoked and even then, only when a full-throated roar brought about the end result they looked for—never just to flex, never to posture. They both had a tenderness to their touch that was as healing as a mother’s caress.
Dean blew gently across his coffee’s surface and sipped again, mindful of his daughter below his chin.
“Merry Christmas, Dean,” April said placidly.
“Merry Christmas, kid,” he answered back.
Naomi pushed herself awkwardly upward out of her chair and stuttered to the tree, shuffling her feet through the remains of countless opened packages, shifting brightly colored paper as she walked. She’d fallen into the haze of a marbled mind, and she wasn’t present in the present any longer. She stopped before the evergreen, squinting up toward the glittering angel at the top, her gaze still unfocused. She looked baffled with her brow drawn down, something amiss that she didn’t seem capable of putting her finger on. She reached out and caressed a glass orb that shone with reflected light, her fingertips just nudging it gently.
At her feet, Alex stumbled up and wrapped his arms in her dressing gown, clinging on and tugging adamantly.
“UP!” he demanded.
Naomi looked down. Her gaze cleared as she focused on the presumptuous child.
Dean shifted, ready to intervene, but April stayed him with a hand on his shoulder.
Naomi blinked down at the dark-haired child whose parentage showed so dramatically on his face and in his mannerisms.
“You’re not mine, little one,” she told him fatalistically. “Are you? You’re one of his.”
“Mother,” Castiel admonished gently. “Alex is your grandson. Remember our rules. I won’t tolerate unkindness. You promised.”
Naomi blinked at her son and then back down at the impatient boy who had begun to tug persistently at her robe.
“UP!”
Michael spared her. He lifted Alex, stepping in close enough to show him the brilliant round ornament that had transfixed his grandmother. The Omega placed a warm hand on Naomi’s shoulder and graced her with a smile just as warm. “Look with your eyes, Ace,” he instructed, “not your hands.”
“Michael,” Naomi mumbled, seeming confused. “The child favors you, doesn’t he?” She reached out and straightened Alex’s hair where it fell across his brow, much as Michael’s often did. “How odd.”
Michael chuckled, unconcerned at her bizarre state of mind. He kissed her cheek and patted her shoulder. “He looks more like his Daddy than me,” he said. “He’s got my hair, but the rest of him is Dean.”
“Dean?” she asked, blinking and looking round to fix a bewildered eye on her nemesis still sitting uncomfortably on the floor. “I don’t understand. Why would he resemble Dean?”
Michael patted her shoulder again, but he didn’t offer an explanation. She wouldn’t remember anyway. Her dementia was worsening, taking more and more moments from her during each day, stealing her memory and her thoughts. At least for the moment, she spent those fuzzy episodes in a soft puzzlement rather than a frightening confusion. Her temper had eased, her razor-sharp caustic cutdowns vanished with the fog when it descended, much to the Pack’s relief. She had grown unexpectedly gentle in her dotage rather than bitingly mean.
She was still in there, to be sure, and she could struggle her way back to the surface unpredictably fast and slap an insult that no one saw coming onto anyone unwary enough to approach when she was out of sorts. All except Michael. She never had a harsh word for Michael.
Cas watched her shifting demeanor with a cautious eye. He’d long assumed that people under the clutches of dementia tended to revert to their base personalities, and like Dean, Cas assumed that for his mother, that would mean she turned even nastier as her rationality slipped away. But she hadn’t.
Befuddled, certainly. But not intentionally hateful.
Cas had discussed her involvement in their pups’ lives exhaustively with Dean. Michael and April both expressed trust in their alphas’ decisions on the matter, and that left the weight of the decision on Dean. Dean was wary, but as long as Naomi behaved harmlessly, he agreed there was value in allowing her to play a tangential role in the children’s lives. Time was on their side. Naomi’s unwitting remarks that could have painful repercussions later—remarks about parentage and which pups were her real grandchildren—would most likely disappear as her mind sank further and further from her reach, hopefully vanishing altogether before Alex was old enough to understand them.
Cas chuckled at his mother’s confusion, not unkindly so much as a recognition that they could go in circles for hours if they began trying to explain it to her all over again. He took Alex from Michael, hoisting the boy up onto his shoulders and offering him a better view of the top of the tree. Alex’s eyes glazed over with reflected light and awe. He was enamored with the colors and the lights and all the intricacies of the various ornaments.
“Papa!” he exclaimed, pointing up at the angel on top.
April laughed. “I told you the angel looks like Alpha,” she jibed. “Alex agrees with me.”
“As it should,” Cas said imperiously. “I have the best view from up there. I can watch over all of you, keep my eye on your shenanigans.”
Sarah stepped up to his shoulder with her eyes on the tree topper and her head tilted. “Not to mention the stick up its ass,” she noted jovially.
Laughter from every direction drowned Castiel’s rebuttal, leaving Sarah the uncontested victor of the exchange.
Flummoxed at being so close to the tree and still stymied from touching it, Alex began to cry in earnest. Kat looked up at him from her game with a brand-new set of rings, and she couldn’t bear her brother’s sadness. She burst into tears to join him. In Dean’s lap, Emma rubbed her eyes hard and then turned into his chest as she too succumbed to sobs.
“And that’s our cue,” Dean commented dryly, clutching the little girl and pushing himself to his feet. “Naptime first or nursing first?”
Cas brought Alex down from his shoulders and jounced him gently in comfort. “They’re probably hungry. Only Jimmy ate more than a token breakfast.” At the mention of snacks, JT and Hank both emerged from the foyer and toddled across the littered space to their father, hopeful.
Kali rolled off the couch she’d been half dozing on and scooped Kat off the floor, engendering a full wail from the pup who wanted nothing to do with her aunt whatsoever. Kali wasn’t bothered. She led the way into the kitchen and strapped Kat into her chair at the end of the island. Michael busied himself plating out a hefty snack for all six pups, joined by Dean once Emma sat belted into her own chair beside her sister. The two of them competed for volume, losing patience rapidly. Alex joined them, his face red with anger. Little Jimmy sat wide-eyed in Uncle Gabriel’s arms, clearly wondering what the fuss was about.
“Merry frikken Christmas!” Dean shouted in jest over the noise. Cas kissed his husband’s temple on his way past.
Dean squeezed Cas’ shoulder in return and then focused back on his work. “All right, all right, keep your pants on! It’s coming! Jesus! Fucking tyrants, all of you!”
“Language, Dean,” Michael scolded. He filled a sippy cup with juice and handed it across to Alex who batted it away, sending it flying. Luckily, the lid didn’t pop when it landed. Sam collected it from the floor and handed it back to Michael placidly then buckled Hank into his own chair at the main table. Michael offered the cup back to Alex with a calmness that Dean found difficult to match. Michael raised one finger and both eyebrows as his son met his eye. “You get one warning, young man,” he chided. “If you want the juice, hold onto the cup. I’m not giving it back again.”
Alex went still, snuffling softly. He held his hand out and took the cup by its handle. With a somber expression, he stuffed the soft drinking tip into his mouth and inverted the cup, sucking hard.
“That’s my good boy,” Michael praised warmly, running fingers through Alex’s thick hair.
Second breakfast calmed frayed little nerves, and the Pack was soon back to an even keel. They lingered at the table, peacefully enjoying each other’s company and the simple joy of fellowship in a home where everyone felt valued.
Cas emptied his third cup of coffee in no hurry. He had JT and Jimmy both snuggled on his lap, the former helping himself to Ow-fa’s plate, and the latter slipping into a doze with a bottle of warm milk that his father held firmly for him. Looking about, Cas was amused that most of the pups had found comfortable laps but only Jimmy sat with his own parent. Cain had Alex, the pup still grouchy but mollified with a full belly. Kali had Emma. Kat most assuredly had Sarah rather than the other way around. And Gabe was teaching Hank to tie shoelaces, most likely so that his next lesson could be to teach the boy to tie Sam’s laces together under the table. The pup was far too young for a skill that complex, but Gabe had Hank’s complete attention. His focus was vague, but his hands were nimble.
Cas found himself assessing the Pack as they chatted amiably, a little drunk on mimosas and heavy carbs. He didn’t miss Dean’s shifting shoulders or the way his husband continually scratched at his throat and face as if bothered by gnats. Nor did he miss April’s poor posture and downcast eyes. April would be easier to rebalance. All she needed was intense fiery pain, a chance to scream and struggle against her bindings as he set her aflame and drove her into gales of emotional tempest that burned every imbalance to a crisp.
That was what Cas was born to do, and he planned to see to her early in the afternoon, after lunch when most everyone was either out visiting friends or napping.
Dean, though. Dean caught Cas watching him from the opposite end of the table as a wave of nausea passed. Dean lifted his head out of his hand, sitting back up straight after swiping a thin layer of sweat from his brow and looked up to see a worried frown watching him right back. He looked away, reaching across the corner of the table to clean Emma’s chin unnecessarily of the ever-present drool that foretold another tooth on its way out.
Cas watched him silently, noting that Michael’s attention was as focused as Castiel’s. Michael had a hand on Dean’s thigh, and he was massaging tense muscles.
“We should go clean up,” Jess suggested, breaking the soporific lull. “We need to get home soon and put these two down for a nap. It looks like the North Pole exploded in there. I’ve never seen such a mess.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Naomi scoffed with a sip from her delicate China coffee cup. “The staff will clear the mess away.”
“The staff has the day off, Mother,” Cas reminded her coolly. “It’s Christmas for Primates too.”
“You are a strange excuse for an Alpha, son,” she told him sadly. Her disappointment leaked out around the edges, and Dean growled softly.
“Let’s set to,” Cas announced, sliding JT to his feet on the floor as he stood up. He took the toddler’s hand and led the way out of the kitchen with Jimmy asleep in his arms. “The faster we get started, the sooner we’ll finish.” Cas settled his son in the portable crib in the corner and covered him with a blanket before directing JT to begin gathering crumpled paper.
Portia followed the Pack back into the parlor, thrilled to be allowed to snuffle and pounce back into the mess until April corrected her and sent her to her pillow. The fluffy dog obeyed, albeit grudgingly, and Cas gifted his mate with a radiant smile, proud of her evolution into parental maturity. She rolled her eyes and held a bag out for him to deposit paper into.
The cleanup went quickly. Soon, toys and other gifts were separated and stowed or packed away into cars.
“You sure you won’t stay?” Dean asked his brother as he carried a pile of boxes out to fit into Sam’s trunk. “The Andersons will be here by dinner. They’ll wanna see you.”
Sam chuckled. “They want to see the twins, Dean. They don’t give a rat’s ass about Jess and me.”
“Whatever. They’ll be disappointed if you don’t show.”
Sam shook his head and closed the trunk. “I need to get Jess home, man. She’s skipping tracks on me already. If I put her off any longer, I’ll have a full tantrum on my hands. We’ll try to be back for dinner. I have to wait and see if she settles or not.”
“You’re just going to leave me alone, then?” Dean asked in an oddly strangled voice.
Sam frowned. “Alone? Dean, the whole fucking Pack is here.”
“Sammy, I…” Dean fell silent awkwardly and then leaned right into his brother’s warmth, burying his face in Sam’s coat with his arms hanging listlessly beside him. “Please don’t go,” he said in a muffled voice, pathetic in his pleading.
Sam laughed softly and wrapped his arms around his brother’s forlorn form. “I’m not leaving, Dean. I live a couple miles down the road. You’re fine, man. It’s not me you need anyway. Hang in there just a little longer. They’re not going to leave you hurting.”
“No one gets me, Sammy. My skin’s flaking off. Look.”
“Your skin is fine, dude. It’s just a sensation. Go back inside and tell Michael how you feel. This is a classic pre-Rut fall for you. You’re okay, I swear. Come on. I’ll walk you back in.”
“I don’t wanna!” Dean asserted dogmatically. He dug his heels in. “Naomi’s in there!”
“Dean. Brother. Breathe. Okay? Naomi is heading home soon. And besides, she’s irrelevant. She can’t hurt you. Your mate and your Alpha need to take care of you now, not me. Don’t be scared. You’re not in any danger. All those scary sensations are false, remember? Come with me.”
Dean balked, but Sam set his shoulder into his brother’s back and forced him forward. Once moving, Dean shuffled toward the house on his own power. His hands began to tremble, and his eyes lost all light.
Halfway to the house, Michael emerged through the front door at a jog.
“It was fast this time,” he observed to Sam as he took up Dean’s other side and put a guiding arm over his shoulder. “He was alpha not five minutes ago.”
“Well, he’s anything but alpha now,” Sam agreed. “I’ll get Cas.”
But Cas was already there, framed in the doorway as the three of them climbed the porch steps and Dean grumbled childishly about people speaking over his head. Cas pointed them to the right, into the first room with seating, the Omega calling room, and Dean collapsed mutely onto the floral sofa.
“Dean?” Cas probed. He sat down beside his husband and looked deeply into his eyes. “Can you answer me? Do you hear me?”
Dean closed his eyes and panted. He gripped Castiel’s hand with his left hand and Michael’s with his right. The Pack crowded the doorway in consternation.
“What is this?” Michael asked Castiel. “Panic attack?”
“It’s a fall, Michael,” Cas answered without looking away from Dean’s blank eyes. The alpha’s pupils were tight, barely pinpricks in the middle of his iridescent green irises. “What can you feel from him?”
Michael coaxed Dean into leaning back against him, rubbing his arm and clasping his hand. “He’s swirling, sir. I can’t pinpoint his conscious mind. I don’t know where he is right now. How did he fall that fast? Why did he lose his footing? I thought he had control of how his falls play out?”
Cas stood up and stripped his robe off, wrapping it around Dean’s shoulders. The man was shaking as if terribly cold. “I can’t answer those questions yet, Omega. We need to focus on helping him out of this first. I fear we delayed him too long while we sought the perfect avenue for him to overflow into. It’s caught up with us. Here, help me get him on his feet. We can’t do this here.”
“Where are we going?” Michael asked. “Downstairs?”
Dean clutched at them both and resisted being pulled to his feet, but between the two of them, they got him up.
Gabe appeared at Michael’s shoulder. “Take him to my room,” he offered. “It’s the only bed on this floor. I don’t think you should be doing stairs with him like this.”
Dean gave a great backward lunge and pulled them all off balance, scattering them like popcorn. Castiel’s expression firmed, and in one smooth motion, he lowered his shoulder and lifted Dean bodily across his back in a fireman’s carry. Michael goggled as Dean’s struggles proved completely fruitless. The Alpha rarely put the entirety of his substantially superlative physical strength on display, as it was rarely necessary, but Dean was having none of it, and Cas had no choice but to knuckle down and carry him. Michael spread his arms to guard those in the doorway from taking a stray boot to the face. He kept his distance as Cas tackled the stairs, clearly deciding that his own bedroom was the best option.
Dean made a grab for the banister as Cas hauled him bodily upward, but he couldn’t get hold. All of his substantial struggling was for naught.
“Papa?” Alex called, climbing up onto the first step before Kali picked him up and carried him back into the parlor.
“Gabriel,” Cas called down over his shoulder. Dean landed a hard knee in his gut, and he grunted but didn’t slow or falter. “Would you and Kali please watch the children for me? Cain, I need you to keep an eye on April for a couple of hours. You’re in charge. Michael, you’re with me.”
A subdued chorus of affirmation followed him as he disappeared down the hallway.
“Such dramatics,” Naomi observed coolly. “In my day, adults behaved like adults, not children.”
“Put a sock in it, Mother,” Gabe groused. “Nobody gives a shit about your day.”
Michael sighed and touched April’s shoulder. “He’s going to be okay, Pete. We’ll make sure.” He shared a quick look with her and then followed Cas up the stairs.
“Be careful, Michael,” she called. “He’s not himself.”
Michael disappeared, and Cain wrapped bracing arms over April’s shoulders, leading her into the parlor with the rest of the Pack.
“We should go,” Sam mentioned. “Hank, pick up your duck and take your brother’s hand. JT, you’re leading. Don’t let him fall.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Jess, take the boys and get them loaded up. I’ll be out in a minute.” Sam didn’t wait for her reply. He took Cain aside as Jess fitted both boys into their coats. “Michael was supposed to take Naomi home,” he reminded the alpha. “The last time Dean tanked this fast, it was Naomi who set him off. She needs to be gone before they come out of that room. Should I drop my troops off at home and come back?”
Cain shook his head. “I’ll see to it,” he answered. “If Sarah can’t drive her, I’ll have Gabe do it. We’ve got this, Samuel. Go home and relax. Merry Christmas to you.” He squeezed Sam’s arm and gave him a solid nod, firm and resolute.
“Merry Christmas,” Sam answered by rote.
By the time the front door closed behind Sam, Sarah already had the matriarch dressed in her coat and ready to go as well. Cain shepherded them toward the garage entrance, saying, “Thank you for joining us this morning, Mrs. Novak. Sarah, take Castiel’s car. She’s most comfortable in the Lexus. Don’t forget the plate of cookies for her to share with her neighbors.”
Farewells were short, abrupt more from distraction than distaste, but no one gave two thoughts to Naomi’s offense at being shuttled out the side door when the Pack needed to circle up. April gravitated to Cain, looking for support, and he gave it easily. Kali walked wide circles around the room, gentling Alex with soft, slow passes by the blinking lights and festive baubles. At length, he rested his head on her sharp collarbone, seeming not to notice the shortage of padding, and he closed his eyes with a thumb in his mouth.
Gabriel stood over the crib, watching the triplets sleep, taking his assignment seriously.
They settled to a waiting stillness.
“I’m glad you joined the Pack,” April said unexpectedly, snuggling into Cain on the formal sofa.
“Are you now?” he asked, teasing a little bit.
“We needed you,” she replied. “I needed you. It feels like we’re complete now. Just think how stretched we’d all have been if Dean fell like that and we didn’t have you to keep the rudder straight. Cas would have been too distracted to focus. He would have worried about me the whole time. Or Gabe. Now he can give his full attention to Dean, just as he ought to.”
Cain smiled grimly. “I’m more than happy to oblige, my brilliant little ingénue. My older sister had falls just like Dean’s when I was too young to assist, and it was just the four of us in that house. I admit that it feels far less precarious with a house full than it was for her back then. I think your mate is on to something momentous in trying to reinitiate large, stable packs. A nuclear family isn’t enough.”
April wiggled in tighter, encouraging him to tighten his embrace. “Now that we’re complete,” she said airily, “it’s time to concentrate on finding you a mate.”
Cain huffed hard enough to stir her hair. “That is a dead-end street, young lady. Mind yourself. It’s none of your business, and I’ll not have you digging about meddling in my affairs. If I wanted a mate, I would have Mated.”
She glanced upward, searching his face. “Who was he, then?”
“I’m not a widower, April. Leave it alone.”
“Did he die young?”
Cain’s thumb repeated a slow, thoughtful circle on her arm as he disappeared into his own head.
“He left me,” the alpha said after a long pause.
“You were planning to Mate?” April pressed.
He nodded brusquely. Then he took a deep breath and extracted himself from the sofa and her clinging. He stood in front of her, facing away. He scratched his brow with one thumbnail. Finally, he turned. “This was some years ago, you understand, before I had anything to do with young artists like you. I once made my living very differently than I do now. He asked me to find a new line of work. Said he found the violence abhorrent. Said he couldn’t fathom that I found anything noble about what I did for money. He asked me to swear I would stop…killing. And I couldn’t make him that promise.”
“But you did stop,” April finished for him. “You turned to a completely new line of work.”
“I did,” he agreed. “But not before Colin Mated someone else. Everything that used to seem important to me turned to ash in my hands. I chose blood and death over life and love, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
“What was it that you did back then? Were you an assassin?”
“I don’t talk about that time in my life any longer, April. It’s behind me, and that’s where it belongs.”
“Castiel knows,” she guessed, and he nodded. “And Gabriel.” April caught Gabe’s eye from across the room and the man looked swiftly away.
“And Gabriel,” he agreed.
“And they both approved of you joining the Pack. Whatever you were doing couldn’t have been illegal or they wouldn’t have let you near me.” She held his eye fiercely, desperately.
He chuckled. “Not every law is a just law. Legality is a false front, lass. Don’t assume the world is black and white.” His statement held a finality that told her the subject was closed. Following April’s glance, Cain turned and shared a look with Gabriel that told April she would get nowhere by pestering either of them.
But she didn’t need to. She had learned what she needed. She was peeling Cain open like an onion. It was all beginning to make sense. April made grabby hands, and he graced her with a patient look before fetching a soft blanket and tucking her in across the sofa.
“Get some rest while the little ones are sleeping,” he instructed. “I won’t be far. I’ll be in the kitchen tidying up.”
She gloated at him from beneath the blanket, and he shook his head, collecting Gabe.
“Why do I suddenly feel like I need to watch my back,” Cain asked rhetorically.
Gabe laughed. “Alpha, if that’s a new feeling, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
Cas dumped Dean into the middle of the bed, but he didn’t leave him free to shimmy his way off. Cas stripped him of his clothes and bound his wrists to the bed frame in short order, securing him fast with his hands cuffed out to either side and ensuring he couldn’t hurt himself. Dean sat twitching in the middle of the bed, jumping at nothing. Cas snapped his fingers in Dean’s face.
“Dean, I know you’re scared, but you’re safe, alpha. Calm down. No one’s going to hurt you. I need you to look me in the eyes and breathe with me. Calm down.” Cas shifted his head as Dean fought frantically to avoid meeting his eye. Michael slipped in and closed the door. He shed his clothes and climbed onto the bed behind Dean to brace him, lending him the solidity that Dean had lost.
Dean threw his head back into the crook of Michael’s shoulder and clenched his eyes tightly closed, whining high and desperate.
“Dean, open your eyes and look at me,” Cas continued calmly. “I need you to look at me, baby. Open your eyes. What you’re feeling right now is a delusion, Dean. You’re not in danger. You’re safe. Look at me and see for yourself.”
Dean scuffled frantically in his cuffs, scrabbling for a way out of whatever hell was in his head.
“Michael, can you hold his arms? He could dislocate a shoulder struggling like that. Good. I want you focused inside your bonds. Dive deep and see if you can find where he’s hid himself. Try to coax him back out. Something’s terrified him.” Cas pulled his cotton pajama shirt over his head, skipping the unbuttoning altogether in favor of getting bare skin available faster. He pulled up onto the bed and straddled Dean’s thighs, leaning in close and letting his chest bracket Dean between his mate and his husband.
Dean wasn’t going anywhere, and he panted in panic.
Cas shushed him calmly, running his wide, flat palms along Dean’s ribs and massaging his torso in long, firm sweeps.
“Talk to me, love,” Cas whispered. “What do you see?”
Dean whimpered.
“You’re safe, Dean. I’m here. I’m not going to let anything hurt you. Tell me what you’re afraid of right now.”
Behind Dean, Michael’s eyes were closed. He had Dean’s arms pinned in a way that allowed very little movement but didn’t pull harshly against the cuffs bound to either side of the bed. Michael began a gentle rocking motion, bringing Dean into movement with him. He tucked his face into Dean’s throat, an embrace so intimate they moved as one.
“Michael is right there with you, Dean; he’s right beside you in your head. And I’m right beside you out here. You’re not alone. We’ve got you. I need your eyes, Pet. I need you to come back to me. I need you to trust me. Follow my voice and come back to me now. I’m never going to let anything hurt you.” Keeping his voice steady was a herculean task, but Cas leaned into his wolf, and he held.
Dean’s hand splayed open by his thigh, and Cas took it, interlacing their fingers and squeezing. Dean’s breathing grew deeper then shifted to hard, short puffs through his nose, and then his eyes shot open.
“Castiel!”
“I’m here, baby. Look at me. Breathe. Slow it down.”
“Cas!”
“Shh. You’re safe, my love. Tell me what’s happening in your head.”
“Whole world’s on fire, Alpha! Michael! Gotta get him out of there! Cas, help me!”
“Baby, Michael’s okay. He’s safe. Everything you’re seeing is a delusion. I need you to trust me and come back up to the surface.”
Michael was frowning hard in concentration. “Alpha, he can’t find anything solid to grip. He’s just swirling around in there like the ground fell out from under his feet. And he isn’t made of anything I can grab hold of! He slips right through my fingers! Damnit! Dean!”
“This isn’t working,” Cas decided. “Help me get him on his belly. We need to give him something he understands, something solid to hold onto.”
Cas unclasped the cuffs, and they repositioned the alpha onto his belly. He struggled desperately the whole way, only falling still when Castiel’s hand crashed down on the back of his thigh. Dean’s eyes were wide open, but he wasn’t seeing anything—not anything real anyway. His mouth fell open and he huffed short, quick, helpless breaths. His body fell supremely still as Cas delivered pain, simple and hot, a lifeline to a psyche lost within itself.
“Keep doing that,” Michael urged, his focus still turned inward. “He can feel it. It’s like a window out of the chaos. That’s it, Dean. Follow the heat. That’s it. You can do this!”
It seemed to take forever. Castiel’s bond was useless. He could feel Dean’s pain and desperation, but he couldn’t see anything. He had no view of the maelstrom in Dean’s head. He searched frantically for an echo that might allow him to experience what Dean did, but there was nothing but chaos and motion and heat. Cas had no ideas but to keep striking Dean’s body in search of his mind. He had no signal to follow but Michael’s assertion that it was working.
He felt utterly helpless, and he struggled with his own fear.
Not now, Novak! Take care of the patient first. Fall apart later!
His training shored him up, years of crisis management through the most horrific scenes imaginable. His hands, his body knew what to do even as his emotions tried to turn on him. Dean’s thighs and butt had turned a blazing red, torn in a few places where Castiel’s wedding ring cut at the skin. When had he switched hands? Cas was not a leftie. He realized he had released Dean and was wailing on him with both hands, willing him to find a way to use the pain as a foothold out of the depths.
And then Dean gasped and flailed, pressing his chest up with both hands braced against Michael’s shoulders. He sucked in air exactly as if he’d been inundated and nearly drowned.
“Stop!! Stop! Goddamnit, stop!!” Dean flipped over, protecting his ass by rolling onto it and taking hard, painful gasps of air.
Castiel found himself weak and trembling. He had tear tracks coursing down both cheeks.
“Dean, thank the Universe!” He lunged forward and gathered Dean in his arms.
Michael collapsed backward to lean exhausted on the wrought iron headboard. His hands never left his mate’s back, but he closed his eyes in relief.
In Castiel’s embrace, Dean began to cry, great wracking, painful sobs.
“Let it go, baby,” Cas soothed. “You’re okay. Let it go. We’ve got you.”
Dean was quiet in the afters, somber, ashamed. Michael curled into him, spooning closely. Michael didn’t speak at all. But Cas needed answers, even if Dean was reticent to give them.
Cas faced him, on his side in the big bed. He carded his fingers through Dean’s hair.
“That was something I’ve never seen you experience before, love. It wasn’t a panic attack. It was deeper. Has that ever happened before, ever that you remember?” he asked gently.
Dean looked away. Cas waited a bit and then prompted. “Dean, I need to understand.”
Dean’s voice was gruff, hard used, when he spoke. “Coupla times, maybe,” he finally answered without looking at his husband. Michael’s arms tightened around Dean’s chest. “Years ago. When I was a kid.”
“Can you tell me what it felt like?”
Dean gathered himself and sighed. “What d’you want me to say? It feels like swimming in a lake of fire and watching my flesh crisp off in layers. It feels like dissolving into a pool of acid where there’s nothing solid to hold onto.”
“God, I’m so sorry, baby. Are you still hurting?”
Dean huffed softly. “My ass throbs like a son of a bitch, Alpha.”
“From the fire, Dean,” Cas clarified patiently. “The acid. Can you still feel it?”
Dean ducked his head again, clinging to his mate’s arms and shook his head. “Only in my memory. I can remember what it felt like, but it wasn’t real. I know it wasn’t. It was my own brain burning out the rot, cleaning up the garbage. Was all in my head, Cas. When you hit me, that was real, and I could tell the difference. I could hold onto that and…sort of climb it, climb my way out. Damnit, I’m not making any sense.”
“Shh, yes, you are.” Cas let the silence lengthen for a moment. His bonds with Dean had gone still too, calm, still, peaceful. Soft. Trusting.
“Last time you experienced this fire,” Cas began again softly, noting the wrinkle between Dean’s eyes form as he braced himself for another tough question. “Who brought you out? Was it your father?”
Dean shook his head slightly and whispered, “Sammy.”
“Your brother pulled you out?”
“Mm. Sammy’s the only one who’s ever seen me like that before. Pretty sure it scarred him for life. Not surprised he hightailed it home when I got clingy just now. He doesn’t wanna have to drag his loser brother outta the muck all the damn time.”
Cas frowned. The language and the outlook were all wrong for the far side of a fall. Dean was still trapped in the mind of a derelict little boy, his self-esteem battered and his sense of guilt overwhelmed. Whatever Sam had done, fleeing having to face Dean’s fall wasn’t part of that picture. Sam was probably pacing in worry at the foot of the stairs. Or he had felt that reducing the overwhelming houseful of people at the height of Dean’s vulnerability would ease the pressure on his brother.
Cas pushed his torso up so that he had a height advantage. “Did you just call yourself a loser, Dean Michael?”
Dean sighed tiredly. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with one stiff finger. “Yessir,” emerged somehow from lips that didn’t seem to move. Castiel’s mind worked feverishly.
“Dean, what’s going on? Do you know? Was it having my mother visit?”
Dean sighed and sat up. He sloughed off the lingering Tertiary brat, but he held onto Michael’s hands. He frowned and wrangled at it, working out how to put it into words.
“Nothing to do with Naomi, Cas. From the outside, it must have looked the same as that humiliating panic attack she dragged me into. But it’s not the same thing at all.” Dean paused and bit his lip then regrouped and went with stark honesty. “I’m not done with it yet, Alpha. The fall. This was just the pressure valve blowing. It was like a little part of it that leaked out from being held in too long. I should’ve just gone with my gut and tumbled days ago, but I’ve been holding it back, looking for a way to blow off without hurting my family, without spoiling Christmas. Cas, there’s not a way for me to do what I need to do and keep all of you safe.”
“That was a little part of it?” Cas asked in dismay. “My god, Dean.”
Dean looked across at him and reached for his hand. “It doesn’t happen this way if I lean into it. That’s why you haven’t seen it before. You always gave me space to blow out. This was like an explosion that hits all the harder because it boils up under pressure and has no relief valve. Normally, I send all the pressure out into whatever ploy I think up. I give it a steam vent. This time, it built up inside me until it had nowhere to go, and my brain exploded. I’m okay for now, but there’s more in there, still boiling around, building pressure. I need to get it all out, man. But I don’t know how. What am I gonna go flip another table? Set April’s piano on fire? Drive my car through the back wall of the garage? What’s it gonna take this time?”
Cas kneaded Dean’s palm with his fingers, massaging every muscle. “Dean, you know I’ll hold you steady while you release the pressure. I can take whatever you dish out. You don’t need to hold back. There are ways to express rage safely.”
Dean shook his head sadly and looked down at Michael’s somber face, green eyes blinking up at him. “I opened up that Pandora’s box inside my head, and I got a good look inside,” he explained. “And now I can’t pretend I don’t understand how my mind works. I explored too deep. Don’t you get it? The roleplays only ever worked while I was still able to fool myself. Now that I know what was behind all those stupid stunts, wrecking your car, getting drunk and blowing off midterms, flipping the fucking kitchen table, Cas that shit won’t work anymore.
“My Tertiary needs something real or it just scampers happily around thinking it’s playtime. Every round that we go through this, the volume gets turned up a little higher, a little riskier, a little more dangerous. Damnit, Cas, last time I fucking blindsided you on your fucking birthday! Don’t tell me that didn’t hurt, man. I know you covered for it cause you figured out I was blotto, but I can’t keep blowing holes in your hull. What’s next, huh? And after that? And then after that? Am I gonna have to draw blood eventually?”
“Dean, Dean, baby, breathe. We can think of something if we put our heads together.” Cas sounded adamant, but Michael had gone pale.
Dean leaned toward Cas. “We tried that already, man. You set me up for an awesome roleplay. Had me so pissed I nearly walked out on you in the playroom, and I’ve never done that before. I wasn’t playing around, Cas, I was fuckin’ livid. And then you pulled me down by my short-n-curlies and you peeled my skin off with that fucking medieval cat-o-nine. And for a while we both thought it had worked, that my fall was over and done with. And I was so fucking relieved, thinking all I had to do from now on was tap you or Michael on the shoulder and clue you in that there’s a fucking storm brewing in my head. But it didn’t hold. And you know why? Because my fucking wolf wasn’t fooled. He knew it was a roleplay even though you pushed all the right buttons. There’s feeling it, and then there’s FEELING IT, and we didn’t fool him for a minute, man.”
“What do you need to make it real, Dean?” Cas asked, worried he knew the answer already.
Dean sighed and dropped his head back to stare upward. “I need to break something, CJ, something meaningful, valuable, irreplaceable, I dunno, something real. And then I need to face you in all your fury or your…that distance thing you do where you get cold on me. I need to feel like the bottom might actually drop out on me for real. I need to feel that fear that I might have actually gone too far this time, and then I need to pay whatever price there is to pay to win you back. Don’t you get it? There’s no way this doesn’t just keep getting more and more outta control. And the more therapy I do, the more I understand about how I work, the harder it is to fool myself.
“It was way easier when I doubted that you love me.”
“Dean.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, crumpling. “I know.”
Cas pressed a kiss to his lips. “We’ll figure something out.”
“I’ve been over it and over it, searching for some way through this round, and I can’t think of a thing that doesn’t put the Pack at risk. Cas, I don’t want to break anything. This is my home, my family. It’s my Pack, damnit, and we’ve worked so hard building it up. I can’t do something that tears it all down again. God-fucking damnit! I don’t wanna keep hurting you over and over again for the rest of our lives! I love you, Cas! I can’t see a way out!”
“Dean, love, I know you’re scared, but when have you and I ever faced any monsters that we couldn’t defeat together?”
“What are we gonna do?” Dean asked in despair as he rolled into Castiel’s arms. Cas caught him and shifted his weight so that Dean was still pressed into Michael as well. Michael sat up a bit, embracing his mate from behind and pressing his cheek into the middle of Dean’s back. Dean hunched over Michael’s arms, allowing the two of them to hold him upright. He fought the need to cry. What good would tears do?
“I don’t have an answer for you yet, Pet,” Cas told him firmly. “But one thing I know is that there’s no subverting your nature. We aren’t going to get anywhere until we learn to ride the rapids through whatever canyons your psyche throws in front of us. I’m grateful that you’re searching for a means to feed your wolf without laying waste to our home. I need you to believe that we can find you that relief valve. We’ll figure this out, Dean. And I want you listening to me through your wolf right now. This is important.
“Pet, I’m never going to abandon you. I’m never going to stop loving you. There’s nothing in the world you could ever do that would lose you your Pack or your home. But you listen to me, Dean Winchester. I won’t accept anarchy or mutiny from within my own Pack. If you defy my authority, break my rules, throw chaos in my face, I WILL hold you fully accountable, and you will fall rapidly and thoroughly out of my good graces until such time as you make full amends. Is that clear? Is your wolf listening? It’s no less real if the consequences are you sleeping alone for a month. You will make restitution to me for your missteps, or you will suffer under my boot until you do. Answer me. Do you understand?”
Dean’s breath caught. He blinked a couple of times, working it out, finding the elegant pathway through to a place that would allow his wolf its sense of penitence without needing to fear losing his family altogether.
Cas was a frikken genius, wording it like that.
Dean nodded.
“In words, Winchester,” the Alpha corrected staunchly.
How did he always know just what to say to clear the fears away? It wasn’t a solution, but it was solid enough that Dean felt he could stop treading water and rest while he searched one out.
“Yes, Sir,” Dean said.
“Good,” said Cas with a trace of a twinkle in his eye. “Let’s go rescue Cain from my mate before she chooses him a mate and names all of his children. Up you go, Michael.”
“Sir,” Michael asked as Cas hauled him to his feet. “Do you think your mother is still here? It would be best if I take her home before Dean goes back down.”
“I can check. You two get dressed and wash your faces. The Andersons are due by supper time. We need to turn out for them. Dean?”
“Sir?”
“We’re going to figure this out. I want you to trust me. Can you do that?”
Dean thought it over, still bare before his Alpha. “I trust you, Cas.”
“Thank you, love.”
“You’re not steamed at me for keeping it to myself?”
Cas kissed the tip of his husband’s nose. “It makes sense to me that if you’re searching for a way to kick my feet out from under me, that you wouldn’t be forthcoming about that. And I haven’t missed the worrisome consideration that the more we expose the process, the less likely we are to find a fulfilling path through it. Your wolf, Dean, is a canny and irresponsible fellow. He’s not going to be easily taken by surprise. But that stunt you pulled turning my birthday dinner into an orgy did blindside me, and it did hurt. I’m all for finding routes that are satisfying without being hurtful. No, I’m not angry with you. I get why you kept it to yourself. I’m very proud of you for the way you opened up, even if it sets us back to square one in finding a solution. At least now, the three of us can work on it together.”
As he’d predicted, Cas found that re-setting April’s feet was a piece of cake compared to Dean’s. The two of them worked up a slick sweat together in the playroom. Cas produced the bullwhip, fixed her with a forceful, red-eyed glare, and set her screaming. He experienced a jarring, mid-scene moment of lucidity that brought his mind and his psyche into painful counter step, but he soldiered on, repressing the feeling of absurdity that wielding a whip could be anything but wicked. Cas squeezed his eyes tightly closed, stepped back two big steps, coiled his whip in his hands, and huffed his headspace back where he needed it to be. God help him if his concentration faltered while his mate was so vulnerable.
Before him, bound spread-eagled on her bare feet, April waited, shivering. She turned her head a fraction, but within their bond, she was solid. Trusting.
Castiel pulled from his Tertiary, let the blood course through his chest and quicken his senses, and he firmed his resolve. Only a moment it had been, but his breathing heaved as if he’d been sprinting.
“Two more, Submissive,” he growled. “Hold for me. Don’t move a muscle. I need…” He swept the sweat from his eyes, and he re-set his feet. “I need… Don’t move. God help me, I need to hurt you. Scream for me.”
April’s fists flexed and tightened on her handles. Her hips shifted slightly as she dug her toes into the cushioned floor. Within their shared bonds, she was solid, offering freely everything he despised himself for wanting to wrest from her. Her wrists were cuffed, but the cuffs were a flex of power, not a necessary binding. She would hold still for him for as long as her body had the strength. She’d long since Released. She was stable and fixed within her head once more. April was complete. All that remained was to bring Castiel up to stand firm beside her.
He blinked sweat from his eyes, and his wolf roared mercilessly in his head, and the whip flew, marking his slow climb from a pit he hadn’t known he was in. The lines across her back gave him rungs to grasp as he hauled himself bodily from the depth into which he’d slid.
“Goddamn, you’re incredible,” he muttered softly. “Look at you.” Cas shifted his feet again, feeling the rush of endorphins sweep through him. “Can’t believe you exist and you’re right here, right here for me. Hold…Hold, baby…I love you so much.”
His whip snapped, popping one final time across her back, and shuddered as she screamed to the ceiling, a sound that no one heard but her mate. It was his, that scream, and he swallowed it whole, feasting on her pain like the ravenous beast he was. Castiel abandoned humanity for a time, abandoned sentience and morality and caution. He slaked his thirst for blood, for violence, lapping at her screams with a growl in his throat.
When his vision cleared, he was pressed bodily against her, moaning and thrusting his hips ridiculously, mouthing at her Mating-scar as she trembled before him. With great intent, Castiel slowed himself. His breath, his body, his mind all shifted back toward the realms of the human, and his mouthing softened to gentle kisses. The red-pink tone of his vision faded, and the thrumming in his ears waned.
Castiel assessed.
April had been easy to re-set back to balanced.
Cas himself had been somewhat more of a challenge.
April tilted her head backward into his jaw in a nuzzle, and he returned the simple pressure.
“Let’s get you lying down,” he murmured softly. “You need bandaging.”
“Will you knot me, Alpha?” she asked in her most helpless waif-like voice, having herself given entirely over to her wolf. “I’m spinning.”
“First-aid first, love,” he answered. He unclipped her wrist cuffs and caught her up, lifting her off the floor with a mind to not hurting her enflamed back more than necessary. Once he had her horizontal and all of her wounds catalogued, cleaned and bandaged, he stretched out beside her, caressing her gently and basking in the afterglow.
April smiled and touched his face, still floating in a cloud that kept her feet off the ground. She watched him for a few moments and then frowned. “You dropped out of the moment, Sir. Are you back now? Are you all right?”
Cas kissed her palm. “I’m fine, April. Momentary lapse. Not a drop. I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all. I didn’t pull you out of your headspace, did I?”
“No, Sir. No complaints. It’s been a long time since we did that, and it was as powerful as I remember. I feel electric right now.”
He smiled that soft, gentle, adoring smile that was April’s and hers alone. And he chuckled. “What would I do without you? Is there anything my wolf might want to do to you that you would ever protest?”
“I’m not fond of amputation,” she teased.
Cas made a resigned face as if he’d been considering the idea, and April laughed and swatted his shoulder. “So?” she posed. “Did I earn a reward?”
“Anything you want,” he agreed graciously. “It’s Christmas. I’m feeling generous.”
April scoffed. “Don’t give me that,” she protested. “I earned it fair and square. Look what you did to my back.”
“Mmm,” he agreed languorously, a lion at peace in its den after a feast. “Need to have an artist paint you one of these days.”
“God, you’re too conceited for words,” she laughed. “If we let you, you’d paper the whole house in photos of our bruises.”
“Oh, now that’s a wonderful idea,” he said, rolling up from his sprawl.
April laughed softly. She was settling into a soft glide that would ultimately send her to sleep.
“Knot me, Cas. Please? Doesn’t need to be violent or anything. I need to feel you all around me and inside me and through me.”
“On your side, love,” he instructed. “Face me. There’s my girl. Lift your leg up to my waist. Close your eyes and float for me.” He helped to arrange her so that he had reach without jostling her overmuch. He reached down between them and stroked himself to stiffness before shunting his hips in tight and burying himself inside her. She hummed in contentment, and he rocked slowly into her body, cradling her to sleep with kisses to her temple and a gentle rush of blood to her lower regions.
Cas slipped off the bed without waking his mate. He fetched a heavy blanket and tucked her in before slipping into a pair of warm sweatpants and padding back up to the main floor for a filling lunch. Alex waddled across to meet him in the archway to the kitchen. Cas lifted the pup to his hip with a grin.
“He’s been beside himself wondering where you went,” Michael explained. “We saved you some quiche. Are you hungry?”
“Famished,” Cas answered. “And thirsty.”
“I’ll bet,” the Omega observed, filling a water glass for his Alpha at the sink. “How’s Pete?”
“Injured,” Cas admitted ruefully. “But she seems content. She’s sleeping. She’ll need a hearty meal and a lot of water when she wakes. Some Tylenol, too.”
“How injured?” Michael asked as he delivered Cas his drinking glass and returned to the kitchen to fill him a plate. “Her parents are on their way, sir. Is she out for the rest of the day?”
“We’ll have to play that by ear when she wakes,” Cas told him. “The usual intensity wasn’t cutting it for either of us. It took the bullwhip to finally get some traction. Her back is a bit of a mess.”
Michael pulled Castiel’s plate out of the microwave and mulled over the news. “You should stay with her,” he said as he placed the plate in front of his Alpha. “She shouldn’t be alone, and you two can’t always substitute me in your place for aftercare. She needs you.”
“Yes, Michael. I know. I don’t intend to abandon her. I need to eat and shower, and then I’m going right back. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like. She’ll likely sleep for two or three hours. With any luck, she’ll wake refreshed and eager to enjoy the evening with her parents and their grandchildren. I also have a bit of business to do tonight that will require a drive over to Bobby’s. I’m taking Dean with me. We won’t be long. Would you please ensure that the Andersons don’t feel they’ve arrived at an inconvenient time? I need you to host for me.”
“Can’t your business wait, Alpha? It’s Christmas.”
Cas patiently dodged Alex’s reach for his fork as he took a bite of quiche. Then he swallowed, wiped his mouth with a napkin as he fed his son a small bite and shook his head. “It can’t wait. It won’t take long though. I need to speak to him in person. How’s Dean? Did he eat?”
Michael nodded and removed the pup from Castiel’s lap so the man could eat in peace. “He seems fine. He’s in the backyard with the triplets waging a Nerf war with Sarah and Gabe. All that pain just vanished like it had never happened at all. I can’t sense a trace of it. He’s got it locked down tight, and he won’t say another word to me about it. Cas, are you sure it wasn’t having Naomi here that triggered him?”
“No, but Dean is, and that has to mean something. We have to trust his lead on this one, Michael. His Submissive has always had telltale signals that call out to me when he needs to be taken in hand, and I’m not sensing that just yet. If you’re sensing differently, I need you to tell me. My gut is to follow Dean’s instinct and be ready to step up the moment he shifts Tertiary again.”
Michael grimaced and glanced toward the back window although the kitchen offered him no view of the battle royale out on the back lawn. An occasional shriek or shout muffled through the window. “I got nothin’, sir,” he lamented. “Your guess is as good as mine. Whatever is looming on the horizon isn’t going to give us any warning unless we can brainstorm some way to set his brat up to pop off safely. Maybe we lay a baseball bat and a plate glass window in his path and hope he takes the bait.”
Cas sighed, finishing the last of his meal. “That would only work if his wolf believed the glass was a family heirloom of mine. It isn’t mindless destruction he’s targeting, Michael, it’s willful destruction that hurts me specifically. And I guess a trick like that would only work once before his Tertiary caught on.”
Michael shifted down to hunker low and confidential over the corner of the table. “Cas, is this a self-fulfilling prophecy you two started? This need to keep upping the ante every round, to make the destruction worse and worse over the years, is there any way to set it back to the start? What would he be like if he hadn’t met you and learned that there aren’t any limits to what you’ll let him do? Would he be able to regulate himself back down to a reasonable level of tantrum? Maybe it only got out of control because it can.”
“Perfectly good theory, Omega,” Cas replied. “With no means to test it. We can’t spend time wondering what might have been. We have no choice but to deal with what is.” He carried his plate and glass to the kitchen.
“Cas, he’s going to blindside you. You get that. Right? He’s going to poke and prod and probe at you until he finds a touchy spot and then he’s going to dig right into it until you’re hurt for real. No roleplay is ever going to work.”
Cas nodded, resting his hands on the countertop by the sink and staring out the back window. “I know.”
“How can you manage a marriage with that going on between you? Someday you’re going to wake up to find some total stranger fucking him in your bed. He has no limits to what he might do to provoke you.”
Cas steeled his jaw and turned to face Michael. “Yes, he does,” he said firmly. “He has limits. There are lines he won’t cross. He’s not going to harm the children. He’s not going to harm you or April…”
“All due respect, sir,” Michael broke in. “That incident with the kitchen table? He deliberately stoked you by aiming darts at Pete. He knew you’d be more upset that he stole her knee-pillow than that he launched your family’s breakfast table.”
Cas nodded. “He pulled April into that. I won’t pretend that wasn’t a part of his thinking, but there’s a big difference between being offensive and actually harming either of you. Michael, the key to all of this is in how I react to his outbursts. I’ve been aware of that for years. If I coddle him and forgive too easily, he increases the intensity. If I completely overreact, he can sense that it’s a roleplay. There is a razor-thin line I must walk to see us both through to a satisfying culmination, but I’ve had ample practice, and I am adept at striking the tone he seeks. He’s asking us to assist him in finding the means to feel that tone without tearing down what we’ve built, and I mean to help him do that. But we cannot do it in the open. We must pick our way through delicately, in stealth.”
Michael nodded sadly. “So, we’re back to leaving a baseball bat in his path.”
Cas took a deep breath and blew it out, turning again to watch out the back window. He could see Dean, Portia bounding after him, pelting Gabe with a rapid-fire assault of Nerf-shot from his new automatic machine gun. “That’s the best idea we have,” Cas admitted. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Go shower, sir. Ace and I will look in on Pete. Little fellow might actually nap now that things have calmed down.”
Cas stretched his hands out for the boy. “Give him to me. I don’t want the pups in the playroom, even for a nap. He can help me shower, and then I’ll settle him in his own bed.”
Michael handed Alex off and followed Cas into the parlor. “Clear that up for me, sir. Where do we draw the line about what we show the pups? I don’t have any history to guide me. My folks were very private. Most of my training is geared toward assuming I already have instincts for this. But I don’t.”
Cas paused at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re familiar with the Z-scale,” he began, thinking as he went with a concentrated frown. Michael nodded. Cas continued. “What children are wired to digest from adult behavior are actions that are non-violent and generally toward the center of the scale. They inherently understand hierarchical sex, although DFs are too violent for their immature psyches. They understand love, affection, pleasure, and status. Simple coupling and other straightforward behaviors—fellatio, cunnilingus, frotting and the like—cause them no dismay whatsoever.
“It is wise, however, to shield them from complex kinks. They have no means to comprehend masochism, violence, humiliation, bondage, or any of the more strident kinks that adults derive pleasure from. If you need a rule of thumb, Michael, just ask yourself if the action itself can clearly be comprehended as pleasurable by even rudimentary measures and by most people. Actions that are explicit and that many people would find uncomfortable to participate in are unsuitable for our pups to witness.”
“Sir, you spank your mate at breakfast if she displeases you sexually. How is that suitable?”
Cas pondered. “It’s hierarchical, Michael, and a spanking isn’t expressly explicit.”
“Papa!” Alex announced, pulling warm crow’s feet from Cas and a soft smile from Michael.
“Let’s discuss this further at our next Dom-training session,” Cas decided. “I expect Sarah has many of the same questions.”
“Yes, sir,” Michael answered easily. “Ace, you be good for Papa.”
“Papa!” the pup shouted proudly.
Michael chuckled.
Cas took another moment to focus Alex’s attention back to Michael. “And who is this, Alex?” he asked, pointing at Michael.
“A-Pa!” Alex said.
“That’s very close,” Cas praised. Michael grinned and leaned in to plant a kiss on Alex’s cheek. “Can you say, Oh-Pa?” Cas made a round circle with his mouth, leading the pup to mimic him.
“Ohhh!” Alex copied.
“Good,” said Cas. “Oh-Pahp, say it like Papa does. Oh. Pahhhp.”
Alex studied Castiel’s mouth, his brow a perfect facsimile of Dean’s when he concentrated. “Ohhh-Pa!” he said.
“That’s my boy!” Cas cheered. “My goodness, you’re trying so hard for me.” Cas had vowed to focus his praise to his pups in terms of their efforts rather than their achievements or their inborn attributes. That route did nothing to alleviate his awkward speech patterns, but it let him foster a home where effort and intent were more highly regarded than traits that a child could do nothing about. “Give O-Pop a kiss and come take a shower with Papa. I need you to help me get clean. Papa stinks.”
Alex leaned outward, braced in Cas’ arms and landed a wet kiss on Michael’s lips. He laughed at Cas’ funny crinkled nose, clearly in agreement that the man needed a shower, and he waved an energetic farewell to Michael as a laughing Papa carried him up the stairs.
“Oh-Pah!” Alex called over Castiel’s shoulder.
“You’ve been promoted,” Gabe observed. Michael jumped. “Opa means grandfather,” Gabe told him.
“Well, it’s close enough for me,” Michael grinned. “Where are my pups?”
“Dean and Kali are bringing up the rear, the slowpokes. They’re all getting cranky. Probably overstimulated. We’re going to see if we can bring the volume down with a little less stimulation.”
“Give them some soft-cover books and let them play on the floor in the living room,” Michael advised. “Sing to them if they are struggling to calm down.”
“What, you’re not joining?” Gabe asked as Dean stumbled in through the back and handed Emma off. Gabe took her and hoisted her up to his shoulder.
“I need to check on Pete,” Michael said. “Alpha did a number on her back, apparently, and she’s going to need a few hours and a few icepacks.”
“It’s Christmas, for fuck’s sake,” Gabe cried. “The fucker can’t take one day off?!”
“Gabe, language,” Michael sighed.
Gabe raised his brows and said very clearly. “Their mother is downstairs fucking bleeding into the sheets, and you’re worried about my language?”
“Look at me, Gabriel,” Michael instructed assertively, assuming a powerful posture. “Cool it with the swearing around my pups or lose the right to spend time with them. Understood?” Michael’s eyes flashed. The air vibrated subtly.
Gabe took a surprised step backward. “Wow,” he breathed, blinking. “Yeah, man, whatever you say. Damn, that’s a weighty mofo you’re carting around in there. I always wondered.”
Dean chuckled and passed between the two Omegas on his way toward the hall. “Come on, Gabe. Now’s not the time to poke at the beast unless you wanna sing falsetto.”
Gabriel followed Dean at a trot, looking back over his shoulder. “Was that his wolf, alpha? It was, wasn’t it? Hoo boy, that felt like an earthquake under my feet. Did you feel it?”
“I’ve felt it, Gabriel,” Dean huffed impatiently. Kali followed at a slower pace with Jimmy in her arms. She shook her head at Gabe in amusement and winked at Michael.
Michael checked on April, found her sleeping deeply, and then jogged back up to the kitchen to fetch her a tray of finger foods and a pitcher of water. By the time Cas returned, freshly showered and sans pup, Portia at his heels, Michael was snuggled in the middle of the bed with April lying prone against his belly. He had one hand in motion in her hair and a paperback novel in the other. The tray sat half eaten, the pitcher partially consumed, and both Omegas were giving off scents of contentment.
Cas slipped under the blanket beside them and curled in. Portia jumped up to join them, flopping down at the foot with a tired huff.
“Get some rest, sir,” Michael whispered. “She smells balanced to me. You did good work. She’s back to herself. Thanks for that. I was worried about her.”
Castiel nodded serenely. He snuggled right up to them both, touching them along as much of their length as he could, and he began snoring softly before his hands even stopped twitching. Michael chuckled smugly and went back to his book, a stocking stuffer that he suspected came from Sam. He would never know for sure. Christmas stocking contents were anonymous in this Pack.
Dean pulled the Impala to a stop in the bare dirt of Bobby’s auto salvage yard. The old alpha still lived in the home his father left him, still ran it as a side business, although he’d long since passed all management of the place off to his crusty neighbor, Frank. Frank ostensibly lived next door, but the fence had long since been knocked down, and the two men paid no mind to property lines whatsoever. Their relationship bore all the hallmarks of a “Grumpy Old Men” fraternal bond. They sniped and bickered like an old married couple. There was no couple to them whatsoever though. Even through Bobby’s waning Ruts, theirs was a platonic connection, not an intimate one.
And it proved that Lupins have it in them to connect person to person outside of the mandates of their wolves just as fervently as Primates do.
Bobby met them on his dilapidated porch, holding the screen door wide and reminding the Winchesters to wipe their damn feet as they eased past him into the warmth of his cozy home.
“Merry Christmas to you too, you old grouch,” Dean remarked playfully. He handed Bobby a wrapped gift and then sauntered into the kitchen in search of a refreshment.
“What’s this,” Bobby asked, holding the present like it might explode.
“Relax, alpha,” Dean called. “It’s from April. It won’t bite you.”
Bobby eased the paper off and opened the box. He pulled out a picture frame covered around the edges in tiny colorful handprints, many of them smudged, that framed a photo of Alex resting peacefully against Bobby’s chest.
“She made this for me?” Bobby asked carefully. He glanced up at Cas who shifted around to get a better look himself.
“Looks more like Alex made it,” Dean commented uncharitably. “Guess they had to try to draw attention away from the photo somehow. I suspect you broke the camera, so that’s probably the only pic she had.”
Cas laughed. Bobby slapped at Dean’s head, but the brat ducked out of the way and tossed a beer bottle into his husband’s lap. Cas caught it with a grimace. Opening it now would be a disaster. Dean winked.
“Tell April and Alex that it’s wonderful, and I’m going to give it pride of place on my desk at the Facility,” Bobby gushed, running light thumbs over the frame. “And you, Dean, you can go fuck yourself.”
“I would if I could reach, Bobby,” Dean teased back. “You know that.”
Dean handed a beer to Bobby in amends and sank down on the ancient couch beside Cas. He took Castiel’s bottle, tapped the neck carefully a few times and then cracked the lid with the edge of his ring. He waited a moment to make sure it wasn’t going to foam over, then he handed it smugly back with a smirk.
Cas accepted the bottle, secured an arm around Dean’s shoulder, and sank back into comfort. They chatted amiably for an hour or so, reminiscing and teasing playfully, enjoying the solace of old friendships that had tempered through the years into family.
Eventually, Cas steered the conversation back to business, asking Bobby about the suspected trafficking hub they’d discovered outside of St. Louis. Dean stayed through the essentials, but once they knuckled down to details and potential plans, he excused himself.
He steered to the first-floor bathroom, but after relieving himself of his last two beers and washing up, he grabbed his coat off the hook by the door and slipped out into the gray cold of late afternoon.
Dean’s shoulders sagged with the release of his carefully constructed mask once the door clicked closed behind him. He felt his face go slack as his breath puffed clouds in front of him. He paused a few moments, leaning on the battered wooden rail, and then he skipped lightly down the steps into muddy gravel. He had some salvaging to do, he told himself. Parts for a ’67 Impala and a classic Chevelle, those weren’t easy to come by anymore. Every now and then, Frank took custody of an old Chevy with some useful bits that Dean could glean, restore, and make use of.
Dean kicked an odd rock here and there as he strolled, sending it skittering off into the rusty heaps before him. He tucked his hands into his pockets for the warmth, balling them into fists. That his fists clenched up tighter than the weather demanded wasn’t lost on Dean, but he didn’t dwell on it.
It wasn’t a huge lot, so it didn’t take Dean long to find the ’68 Caprice that Frank told him would be his for first rifling. Dean walked a slow circuit around her, noting the wear, the rust, the sagging over her rear axle. He took a knee and checked what he could see beneath her rear end. It wasn’t promising. Her chassis was probably rusted through. Her engine couldn’t possibly have fared better, but maybe there were some interior parts worth salvaging. He was losing light fast.
Dean lifted the hood, checking key components with a practiced eye. Behind him, the sun set, losing him the last of the light he needed. He let the hood drop with a clang, and he stood hunkered over the old car, folded nearly in half with his elbows braced and his legs quivering. He felt utterly alone. He was cold. He was aware suddenly of being surrounded by unknowns, and he closed his eyes. His mouth fell open, and his breath came quicker.
Dean stood like that until the last of the sunlight faded. Calmly, too calmly, he pushed himself to standing and shoved off the derelict scrap of junk, pacing intentionally toward the spotlight at the front of the yard, right in front of the house where his pride and joy sat gleaming, clean and shining, loved and cared for, centered perfectly in a pool of yellow light beneath one bright bulb on a high pole.
Without pausing, Dean smoothly closed his hand around the handle of a sledgehammer that stood propped against the dismantled fender of an old Ford pickup, weighted side down, and he swung it effortlessly to his shoulder, describing a perfect circle as he walked. His eyes stared at nothing. His pace never faltered.
He traced his fingertips along the elegant curve of his Baby’s hood, along her front fender, her driver’s side window, down along the cold steel of the passenger door, out along the gleaming metal trunk. How many touches had he shared with this paragon of perfect form? How many times had he washed it? Caressed it? Ogled it?
How many times had his fingers flexed into the door handle and swung into her, an entrance as entrancing as thrusting into his mate in the dark?
Eyes still unfocused, Dean gripped the handle of the sledge, and he screwed his face tight in effort, swinging down with all of his might, landing a hard, brutal blow into the center of the trunk with a riotous clank. It was loud enough to jar him nearly back to himself, but the sight of the dent, scraping harshly into the dark paint, set his jaw, and he hauled back and swung again, feeling his heart break as he landed the blow.
Could he hear his Baby cry out? No. Don’t be stupid, Winchester. It’s a car.
It’s only a car.
He slammed home again, feeling the impact jolt down his arm into his back, into his hips, and he ached. He realized after the fourth blow that he ached everywhere. He was shaking badly, crying openly, and he swung again, releasing a bloodcurdling wail of torment. The trunk sagged and split beneath the strength of an alpha, no match for the sheer force of Dean’s despair.
He swung again, screaming as he landed blow after horrible blow, ultimately shouting a torrent of profanity into the still winter night, sweating beneath his coat, sweating enough that his grip slipped more than once.
And then Castiel was there. Cas caught the hammer on its upward swing and wrenched it out of Dean’s hands. He tossed it aside and wrapped his arms around his husband, binding Dean’s arms to his sides.
“Stop, Dean! Stop it! It’s time to stop. Let it go. Come on, baby. Let it go.”
Dean leaned backward, face to the sky, struggling impotently, and roared at the stars.
Cas held him through it, his face pressed hard against Dean’s neck, his arms offering no slack. Dean screamed himself hoarse, struggling in Castiel’s grip.
At length, he slowed, huffed heavy, cloudy gasps, and buckled, dropping his forehead onto the ruined steel of his beloved car. Tears streaming, he rolled his head back and forth. Cas held him through it.
In the awful silence that followed, Dean sagged against Cas’ grip, grimacing, unable to garner the strength to raise his head and see for himself what he’d just done. Dean’s head had come to a horrible screeching halt. He could feel Castiel at his back, feel the warmth of his husband’s tears on the back of his neck, feel Castiel’s resolve not to show weakness in the face of Dean’s need despite the unbearable sadness that eclipsed nearly every other emotion in Castiel’s heart.
For Dean had broken the pattern. This destruction was nowhere near the worst he was capable of, nowhere near the worst he’d ever done. But in his desperation to avoid hurting his family, he’d turned the power of his outlandish need for devastation on himself, something he’d never done before, and it broke Castiel’s heart.
The resolution from here all depended upon Castiel holding firm and allowing no softness to show through. Dean knew it was there, that sympathy, that ache, but if Cas couldn’t stay the course and pull the pattern back into an alignment they both knew, all the anguish would be for nothing. Dean squeezed his eyes closed and chanted meaningless detritus into his own head, hoping to drown out his conscious mind. If he could only stop thinking for one fucking second and let go, his Dominant could drag him bodily through the fire he so desperately needed.
God, please let Castiel be up to this.
Dean felt Castiel harden, felt the sympathy disappear and a cold judgment take its place. Castiel released Dean to slump over the trunk with the damage right in front of his face and turned his back on his Sub, standing upright and drying his eyes in a surreptitious swipe with one hand. He blew out a quiet breath. He gathered himself.
He steeled his jaw and hardened his eyes, and then he turned back.
“Get up,” said Castiel, a cold snap of an order.
Dean clenched his teeth and fisted the bumper, slicing his fingers on the sharp chrome. He grimaced, but he shifted onto his knees in the mud, and he defied his Alpha.
“On your feet, Submissive. NOW!”
“Fuck you,” Dean spat over his shoulder. “You can’t punish me for damaging my own car.”
Cas stepped right up behind him, wrenched his head back with a fearsome grip to his hair and glowered down at him.
“What did you just say to me?”
“Fuck. You.” Dean enunciated clearly. His cheeks flushed with a hot, burning, rosy glow, and his eyes flashed red.
Anger flashed hot and powerful and real behind Castiel’s crimson eyes, and he let go of Dean’s hair. He stepped back a pace and crossed his arms. “I’ve never reached five, my Pet,” he rumbled in his deepest voice. “I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to finish a count and have you still standing defiant before me. Shall we find out?”
“It’s my car!” Dean declared. His eyes filled with hot angry tears, and he clung to the bumper as if he’d drown without it.
“One,” Cas said calmly.
”FUCK YOU!!”
“Two.”
“You can’t fix this with a fucking leather strap! I’m too fucking broken! Don’t you get that?!”
“Three.”
“Goddamnit, Cas! Can’t you hear me? Just fucking leave me already! I’m not worth it!”
“Four.”
“Are you really that stupid and codependent? You don’t need me, damnit! You don’t need this wreck dragging you backward for the rest of your fucking life!! What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“Five.”
There was a brief pause as the world held its breath. The word pulsated in the air, jangling reverently for a moment as they both listened to it echo, and then Dean’s eyes widened as Castiel lunged for him and hauled him to his feet with a grip in the lapels of his winter coat. He flung Dean onto the frozen steel of his ravaged trunk and held him there, shaking in his rage.
“You don’t decide that for me, Dean! You don’t get to tell me what I need or who to fucking love! And you don’t get to defy me! Not now. Not after everything. Not after this!” Castiel pulled hard at his claim from within his head, and Dean flinched as it clamped into him like a vice.
Dean grunted loud as he used Castiel’s grip on him to leverage his knees up, pressed his boots into Castiel’s gut and kicked out with all his might, sending the Alpha sprawling. Dean followed him, yanking him up to his feet and planting a fist into his jaw.
Castiel roared, catching Dean’s coat, shifting his weight, and driving him right back onto the Impala’s trunk on his belly with a Whoof! that drove the breath from Dean’s lungs. Dean gurgled in vain, trying and failing to draw a breath. Castiel wrenched his arms back behind him and pressed his cheek into the cold metal beneath him.
“No, Dean,” he breathed, panting hard, out of breath himself. “Not like this. I’ll dance with you however you need me to, but I won’t fight you.” Castiel pressed him harder into the surface and then let go, pacing a wide path away before coming slowly back, thinking fast. Dean had rolled painfully over and sunk down, still gasping, to sit right on his butt in the mud. He looked devastated and alone. He looked shattered.
Castiel hardened his expression once more as he approached. He raised his chin and his brow, and he fixed Dean with a furious glare. “On your feet.”
This time, Dean offered no resistance. It took him a few moments to brace his back against the bumper and find strength in his legs. His hands bled streaks onto his jeans as he heaved himself upward. Once upright, Castiel took him by the bicep and turned him harshly.
He pointed at the trunk, his arm a condemnation that shook with fury. “Look at it, Dean. Look what you did.”
Dean swayed on his feet, but he wasn’t going to fall, not while the Alpha had a hand on him.
“You don’t get to destroy everything you love and think it makes no difference!” Castiel spat. “You think I don’t know what this means? You think it’s just a thing, and it doesn’t matter?”
Tears fell new and steaming from Dean’s eyes as the scope of the damage he’d meted out upon his beloved Impala struck him with terrible clarity. “You think,” Castiel went on, “that I don’t know that every blow to this car is tantamount to a slice right into your own flesh?!”
“Cas, please,” Dean whimpered.
“You don’t own this car, Dean Michael! I DO! You gave me everything! You gave me everything you are and everything you have, and you SWORE to me you’d take care of everything I returned to your custody! Does this look well cared for to you, Dean? DOES IT?”
“Sir, please?” Dean’s voice shook with fervor.
“Please what?” Castiel asked coldly.
“I didn’t mean it,” Dean begged pathetically.
“Yes, you did,” Castiel replied. “You meant every single swing. You meant to drive right into your own skin until you could peel the demons out with your bare hands.” Alpha offered him no mercy. “But that’s. Not. Your. Job. Do you hear me? Damnit, Dean, you broke your first rule, and you did it flagrantly! You flipped me the bird, and you threw yourself into the junkheap!”
“I HAD to!” Dean wailed. “Don’t you get it?”
Castiel cut him off furiously. “I told you that we would think of something together, Dean, and you said you trusted me, and then this! What the fuck is this? Does this look like trust to you?”
Dean sniffled and lowered himself to his knees, Castiel still bracing his arm.
The Alpha tightened his grip. “Have you gone deaf in addition to daft?” he asked in outrage. “Stand! UP!”
Dean’s face crumpled, and he sniffled again with a swipe from the back of his free arm to his nose, but he struggled back up to his feet. Castiel’s face was only centimeters away, and Dean shied back.
“Open your trunk,” the Alpha instructed unexpectedly.
“Huh?” Dean eloquently wondered, taken completely by surprise. His trunk?
“The keys are in your pocket, Pet. Remove them. Insert the appropriate key into the appropriate orifice and open the trunk.” Castiel’s hard voice brooked no argument or delay. He’d also shifted into a humiliating tone, one that tore chunks the size of his fist off Dean’s self-confidence. Dean descended rapidly into a headspace that was miserably uncomfortable.
He didn’t like it here.
And the man with the red eyes was scary as fuck.
Dean’s trembling fingers slipped into the right pocket of his blue jeans and came out with a small ring of keys. He separated out the round-headed one and managed to wrench the ruined trunk open, revealing an odd array of detritus and containers.
“Very good,” Castiel praised coldly. “Now. Open the black box in the back left corner and show it to me.”
Dean froze, licking his lips, his hands still on the trunk ledge above his head. Stupidly, he opted to play dumb initially. He placed a shaky hand on an innocuous brown cardboard cigar box, taped along its edges to hold it together after many years of jostling. His fingers wouldn’t stop shaking.
“The black one behind that, Dean Michael. Do not try my patience.”
“Cas…” Dean breathed desperately. “Please.”
Castiel tore Dean from his spot, rotated him bodily around the end of the car, and flattened him against his driver side back seat door. Dean winced. He didn’t struggle.
“My name,” Castiel spat. “Is forfeit to you right now. You may call me Sir. You may call me Alpha. You may call me God Help Me if you like. You may not call me Cas. Do I make myself clear?”
Dean nodded mutely. Desperately.
“Good. Now. There is a closed box in your trunk. It is painted matte black so that it blends into the interior. It is approximately two feet long. It sits at the very back, nestled carefully so as to be unobtrusive to the casual glance. Go fetch me that box, Dean Michael. Right now.”
Castiel saw Dean’s eyes shift with his descent. His scent shifted into fear and anticipation. He was almost there, almost at the optimal position to run this gauntlet. Cas released Dean’s lapel and gave him a moderate nudge toward the rear of the car.
Bobby stood observing from the porch with a steaming mug in his hand.
At the trunk, Dean scrabbled the box forward, reluctant to open it, but he had no choice. He set it toward the front and lifted the lid. Castiel peered over his shoulder with a grim expression. Inside, the cat-o-nine-tails that Cas had used on Dean recently during their first attempt to subvert Dean’s fall sat wedged beside Castiel’s favorite stiff leather tawse.
Cas reached out and picked both of the implements up. Dean averted his eyes and stood supremely still, bracing himself on the bumper. As the rubber-tipped leather tails of the expensive torture device swung clear, Cas caught sight of a thin, springy cane underneath. He chuckled. He hadn’t seen the lap cane that he’d used on Dean back on the night they got engaged since that fateful night.
Castiel picked that up too, examining the tools in his hands and pacing a few steps away. Dean turned slowly around. When Castiel spun to face him, he froze with a quick gasp.
“You thought to steal from me?” Castiel said in a brutal voice, putting paid to any hopes that had still lingered that his Top might take a forgiving route. ”From ME?”
Dean blinked rapidly as the rush of adrenalin hit his nervous system. “Sir, I…I…”
“You STOLE these from me, Dean Michael, and you hid them where I was unlikely to find them. Do you want to explain this to me?”
“Nosir.”
“Indeed,” Castiel agreed acerbically. What was there to say? “Pet, how many times have you fantasized about me discovering your cache? How many times have you imagined my outrage and how I might respond?”
“Sir?”
“You hid these from me. You didn’t destroy them. Surely, you’re aware there was no chance that they would remain hidden forever. You’re not stupid. You knew I wouldn’t simply forget about them. So, I must assume that having them hidden away, right under my nose as it were, was a ticking timebomb that you relished imagining a culmination to. What is it you expect from me, Winchester?”
“Sir, I… I’m sure I don’t know. Th…That’s your decision.” Dean’s body was zinging with powerful sensation, anticipation, hope and fear and anxiety. He blinked and lowered his eyes.
“Eyes on me, Pet.”
“Sir.”
“Your father raised you with survivalist skills, correct?”
“Sir?” Dean’s floating took a strange skidding halt in mid-air, and he frowned.
“You can, at need, build a campfire, can you not?”
Dean’s mouth dropped open. A hard look from his Dom had him stuttering out an affirmation.
“Excellent. Then do so. Right here behind your car. A small one will do nicely. Build me a fire, Pet. I’m cold.”
Dean blinked in confusion, but he stumbled away to gather flammable materials. Once constructed, he flicked his lighter into the soft fabrics he’d stuffed at the base of a motley pile of sad winter twigs, and he soon had a crackling fire—not big, but stable. Briefly, he warmed his hands at the flickering flames.
Castiel tapped him on the shoulder with the lap cane and handed it to Dean.
“Snap it over your knee and feed it into the fire, Pet.”
Dean wilted. His shoulders sagged visibly. “Sir, no. Please. You love this one.”
”Loved,” Castiel corrected harshly. “It is foul to me now. Destroy it.”
“Please, Sir. Please just take it out of my ass. I won’t do it again, I swear.”
“Indeed, you will not.” Cas held Dean’s eye with the fortitude of a granite mountain, and Dean sighed sadly. Grasping the cane in reluctant hands, he put his back into the effort and brought it down over his right knee with a crack, snapping it cleanly. Then he dropped both pieces into the fire without ceremony. Flames licked at the dry rattan, melted the plastic endcap, and blackened the leather cord around the handle. Dean watched with a blank expression as the device of many a bruise and welt vanished before him.
“Now this,” said the Alpha, handing Dean the tawse. Its stiff leather tails had little bend to them, thick and rigid enough to feel like a paddle made of fire when they struck flesh. Dean didn’t protest this time. He registered no emotion as he took the tawse and blankly dropped it into the flames.
Sparks chittered and flew about his hand as the tawse settled at a sharp angle in the middle of the pile, knocking Dean’s carefully constructed little A-frame off kilter. For some time, the tawse sat undamaged in the center. Ultimately though, blackened edges began to smoke and grow darker. Dean watched in silence, feeling dead inside. The only emotion visible on his face was an occasional tic at his lower jaw. His breath caught every now and then.
Castiel said nothing behind him for a long time.
Dean had expected an explosion of outrage when Cas discovered his hiding place. Cas had guessed correctly that fantasizing about the confrontation in that moment had been a driving anticipation for Dean. But Dean had never imagined this. The tawse crackled and warped as it burned. Wordlessly, Dean bent down to the little stack of boards and logs he’d amassed and fed two more onto the fire. The cane was destroyed already, nothing left but a thin glowing line of coal to mark its structure.
Dean closed his eyes when he felt Castiel shift at his back. The sensation of the cat-o-nine-tails touching his outer arm made his fists close. Castiel didn’t bother speaking. He just handed the tool forward, trusting Dean knew what to do.
“No, Sir,” Dean managed with difficulty. “Please. You’ve only used it once. I barely got to experience it at all. Please. At least let’s have one more go. Please!” Dean shunted his coat open and attacked his belt buckle. He had his jeans and his underwear at his knees in no time, and he bent himself over his trunk, leaning in braced on his arms before huffing and doffing his coat in a tangle of arms and fabric. He repositioned himself stubbornly.
“Sir, please. Hit me with it. You know you want to. And I deserve it! Please don’t do this…it’s brand new!”
Castiel stood pat with his arms crossed over his chest, the tails of knotted leather and rubber dangling down his side. He didn’t speak, but his body said for him everything there was to say. He wasn’t going to cave. He wasn’t going to change his mind. He waited in the cold air of Christmas night as his Submissive shivered and begged to be punished.
Dean ultimately gave up. He dropped his forehead onto his hands and rolled it a few times in consternation before finding his resolve and pushing up to his feet again. He looked ridiculous with his pants at his knees, but he staggered slowly back and held his hand out.
Castiel wordlessly placed the flail in his hand by its handle. Firelight danced across the tails, sending ghoulish shadows dancing over the Alpha’s face, distorting him into a demon of Dante’s mindscape. Castiel’s jaw twitched, but his eyes were resolute. There was no warmth there, only cold judgment and hellfire.
Dean dropped the gangly tool onto the fire without looking, and then he turned and faced his car. The open trunk lid was just as battered from the underside, where a painful gash ripped a tear in the blackness to show a cold and forbidding sky. Cas had been right. It was a wound into Dean’s own flesh, a laceration into his soul, and he bled pain and self-loathing in rivulets that wouldn’t coagulate. He was bleeding still, from his hands, from his heart, from his soul.
“You’re not in charge, Dean Michael,” Castiel told him. “Whatever you imagined I would do when I exhumed the stolen items that you tried to bury, your fantasies are not my script. Actions have consequences. Go cut me a switch and then undress and return to this spot.”
“Sir,” Dean mumbled, thankful to have a task he understood. He pulled his pants back up and set off at a jog, stripping his own belt out in case he needed to use it to climb into the branches. Bobby’s lot didn’t have many trees, but he’d wisely allowed one Hickory tree to decorate his meager front lawn. Dean ignored the man watching from his own side porch. He regretted that delving into the Hickory tree put him in sight of Frank’s house where more than the usual beater car sat parked in the darkness and a great deal of light spilled out of Frank’s side windows. The man’s sparse family was obviously visiting for Christmas.
Great.
Dean returned quickly. He sat on the cold edge of his still-opened trunk and removed his boots. Castiel wasn’t watching. Instead, he was gazing serenely into the fire. In Dean’s absence, Cas had enlarged the blaze, feeding it enough wood to get a hearty, snapping fire going. It was warm and cheerful, inviting. Dean didn’t dwell on it. He wasn’t worried about needing warmth, expecting that very soon he would be plenty warm enough.
In his head, Dean felt the swirl of desperate need clashing against the rock solid adamance of his Top. This was the confrontation he needed. This feeling was what he could never get to without first destroying something precious. Dean had a greater perspective on it now. He could see how critical it was for him to feel his body jolt painfully as he struck rock bottom within his own psyche and how desperately he needed to look up from within that crevasse and find someone staring coldly down at him, someone who saw him for what he was and who cared enough not to allow him to smooth over the jagged tears in his soul, someone who would stand right beside him through it all, take him firmly by the back of the neck and shove his nose right down into the catastrophe that was Dean’s own self- hatred.
Make him look at it.
Make him acknowledge it.
And then bind back up all the bandages Dean wore to cover over it all.
Naked and trembling in the cold, Dean held the switch out to his husband.
Castiel took it from him without a word and examined it thoroughly. Nodding in approval, Castiel stepped up into Dean’s space. He was close enough that Dean could feel warmth eking off him. He longed for that warmth, but he hadn’t earned it yet.
He’d struck rock bottom. Now it was time to begin the exhausting arduous climb back out of the pit. And while he was fully capable of flinging himself into the hole by himself, he needed assistance to get out.
“Open,” Castiel instructed simply.
Dean opened his mouth.
Castiel put the switch into his mouth, centered so that it balanced easily across his back teeth.
“Hold,” he said.
Dean closed his mouth, clamping the switch between his teeth. It pulled the sides of his mouth as it stuck out a good distance on both sides.
“I want you down in a plank position, Pet. Up on your toes and elbows. Clasp your hands together. Keep your body flat. Hold position until I release you.”
Dean huffed through his nose. He avoided groaning by the barest of margins. He was in no condition for a stamina challenge, especially out in the cold and wet mud. But he obeyed. Dean lowered himself carefully, nudging gravel out of his way and adjusting until he’d found a mostly soft place for both elbows and all ten toes. The balls of his feet sank slightly into the mud. It was cold as fuck, and Dean shivered. The fire was too far away—off his left shoulder—to feel it. It was a tease of light and welcome.
Dean’s abdominal muscles began to tremble in no time. He really wasn’t fit enough for this. His biceps burned. But he held. He whuffed through his nose, finding that the switch between his teeth was a nasty encumbrance both to his concentration and to his breathing.
Behind him, Bobby shuffled down the steps with a canvas tarp and a couple of folding chairs. Cas fed more logs onto the fire. Bobby laid the tarp on the ground and set the chairs up on top of it, drawing them close enough to the fire to be cozy. Dean grunted in effort and held. Cas disappeared and returned with a heavy load of firewood in his arms. He dropped it all into a haphazard pile near the Impala’s rear tire.
Bobby handed Cas a bottle of Scotch and dug a couple of plastic cups out of the satchel over his shoulder. The two of them settled in to enjoy the cold night and the warm fire and the camaraderie of an old friendship.
A drop of sweat fell from the tip of Dean’s nose.
“Knees down, Pet,” Cas finally called without looking at him. “Push back into a Child’s Pose and rest for a moment.”
Dean collapsed with a groan. He rolled his body back over his legs, feeling relief in his belly and his arms. The mud was cold, but he didn’t care anymore. He couldn’t make himself look at the fire. He prayed that Frank didn’t spot the beckoning glare of the fire and decide to bring his family over for a nightcap.
Wouldn’t that just be great?
“Back into position now, Pet,” Cas said as he held his cup out for Bobby to fill.
“Sir!” Dean protested with a stick in his mouth making his word thick.
“It’s not my fault that you neglect your core strength, Pet,” Castiel said glibly. “This exercise would be far easier for you if you took care of your body.”
Dean grumbled words he hoped Castiel couldn’t make out and he struggled forward again into his plank.
Bobby sipped Scotch and watched him.
“He doesn’t look much like an alpha in this cold, does he?” the old man observed.
Castiel chuckled. “His genitals may not appreciate the weather,” he agreed. “But his nipples are showing out nicely.”
Dean grimaced.
Castiel wouldn’t have stood for ribbing like that from anyone else, but Bobby was a special case. Bobby had read the situation and determined that to end the scene as quickly as possible and to get the Sub inside out of the cold faster, a touch of extra humiliation might just do the trick. And he wasn’t wrong.
Dean was miserable in every way there was to be miserable except the one flame he really craved, and that was a physical pain brought not by brutal exertion that his body tone wasn’t prepared for, but from a flaying.
He tongued the switch in his mouth, reminding himself it was there. Cas had given him this as a lifeline. If Dean could hold out a little longer, his Dominant would deliver him the rest of the way.
Pray it was only a little while longer.
The two alphas sat at their leisure, enjoying Dean’s fire, enjoying Bobby’s Scotch. Dean sweated, grunting every now and then, grimacing into his effort. His belly ached. His thighs burned. He dropped a knee once or twice when he couldn’t hold any longer. Then he stiffened his spine and his resolve, and he lifted it back up, shaking so hard he was in danger of slipping in the mud.
Finally, Castiel set his cup on the canvas tarp. “That’s enough,” he said softly, and Dean’s knees hit the ground with a relief akin to orgasm. “On your feet. Hand me the switch.”
Dean complied eagerly. He was so cold he couldn’t feel his fingers, but they functioned well enough to hand off the switch. Cas gestured toward the trunk with his head, and Dean jumped to obey. Surveying the scene, Castiel pulled him back to standing, closed the trunk with a bang, and nodded him back into place over his own destroyed trunk.
Dean supported himself on his elbows, bending over and providing his Top with a good target.
Behind him, he heard Bobby swirl the liquor in his cup. He heard Alpha swish the switch through air a couple of times. Dean’s butt clenched. This was going to…
”AAAAAGGGHHHHNNNN!!!” Dean screamed. He huffed hard, searching for oxygen that seemed to have vanished. The cold combined with Castiel’s strength and that damned switch set him on fire. He danced a bit in place, funneling the pain down into his feet, out along his fingertips which splayed wide.
“Hold,” Castiel said.
“SIR!”
A singing zip sounded behind him, and another blazing line of fire shot tears squeezing from his eyes and a soundless scream out his mouth. Dean bent his knees slightly. His fingers went white where they clutched each other in front of his face. Looking down, once he could wrench his eyes open again, the horrible, jagged chasm he’d pummeled into the living flesh of his beloved baby tore into his heart, and he wept.
Another hot stripe broke another howl free. Dean cried out in agony, loud and unfettered. He was freezing cold and burning hot, and every exhausted muscle tried to clench in vain. He dropped his head onto his fists and sobbed.
Castiel swung again. Hard. Relentless. Merciless.
Dean felt it all begin to dissolve around him. He clung to the only things that were real. He clung to his own hands, to his fiery pain, and to the freezing mud between his toes. His self-absorption, the loathing and dismal gut-wrenching descent into despair all broke apart like a shattered mirror in his head, leaving him shivering in the cold, sobbing in pain and relief, and clutching onto Castiel in his head, onto Michael only a short distance away, onto the stripes singeing his ass, into the splay of his toes.
And then Castiel swung again, putting his shoulder into it, and Dean went up onto the tips of his toes, breathless in agony. He screamed—not a manly hoarse grunt of surprise, but a shrill shriek that tore at his vocal chords and sent birds protesting off their nightly perches.
Huffing, Dean centered himself again, falling back down to his elbows, to his flat feet. He stood as still as he was capable, tears flowing freely, his gasps for breath turning raspy.
“Come here to me, love,” Cas said softly, and Dean dove into his arms, a weeping mess. Cas embraced him, rocked him, wrapped him up in arms and coat and acceptance. “It’s okay, Dean,” he murmured. “Let it out. You’re okay. I’ve got you. I know, baby. We’re all done. Cry as much as you need to. It’s over.”
Dean clutched his husband and wept pitifully, soiling the shoulder of his expensive winter coat with snot and tears.
“You certainly do keep a man on his toes, Winchester,” Cas told him affectionately, earning a hiccup in protest. “Let’s get you warm and cleaned up. Bobby, would you please mind the fire? We’ll be right back.”
“Don’t mind me,” Bobby complained with his breath clouding on his exhale. “It’s only my house. I’ll just sit out here in the cold and wait for you two to warm up.”
“Yes, thank you,” Cas told him unironically over his shoulder. He stooped and gathered Dean’s clothing from the dry tree stump they’d been left on, and he guided Dean into the welcoming warmth of Bobby’s home.
Dean was snuggly and clingy as Cas dressed him, making it difficult to get his clothes back on.
“Baby, I know, but you need to get dressed. Work with me here, and then you can sit in my lap, and I’ll hold you for the rest of the evening. Dean, love, let go for a second. It’s too cold for bare skin.”
“Alpha, please. Need you,” Dean snuffled back, resisting Castiel’s efforts. Luckily, after practicing with squirming pups for over a year now, Castiel was adept, and he managed to wend Dean back into his clothes, albeit with a struggle. Wrapping him back into his coat, Cas held him upright by his lapels and leaned in to kiss him softly on the mouth.
“You’re forgiven,” he whispered reverently. “And we’re done with this round. It’s over, Dean. Let it go. Come sit by the fire with me. Let’s calm down and take it easy from here. Deal?”
“Yeah,” Dean sniffled. Cas wiped Dean’s eyes with his own handkerchief and held it for Dean to blow his nose. Dean accepted the attentive care without a thought. He ducked his head into Castiel’s chest when the Alpha led him back out into the cold, and Cas wrapped his boy up in loving arms and drew him down into one chair to share body heat and snuggles.
“That’s a hum-dinger of a gash you need to repair, alpha,” Bobby sighed, handing Cas a double, knowing the two men would be sharing it. “You’ll probably need a replacement. Setting this one back to unblemished is not feasible, if you ask me. I’ll get Frank scoping for parts.”
“I wanna try to fix it, Bobby,” Dean mumbled, still looking down. “If I can get the edges straightened, I can try to weld the hole closed and then smooth it back to flat. I want to try. I owe it to her.”
Bobby whistled a long sad note. “It’s your car, Dean. I think you’re nuts, but it’s your car.”
Castiel’s arm held Dean warmly and securely, and Dean fell asleep soon after, the play of firelight dancing behind his eyelids. The silence in his head lulled him into a soft doze. The spinning had stopped. The urgent tug behind his navel quieted. His wolf lay exhausted and deeply asleep inside a cave in Dean’s mind, and his body went slack.
“Merry Christmas, Castiel,” Bobby said quietly.
“Merry Christmas, old friend,” Cas smiled back, his hand carding through Dean’s hair.
Notes:
Sending out warm Pack hugs to all of you. We're tough, and we're going to get through this, all of us, together. To everyone who's weathering alone, please know you're not entirely alone. And don't minimize, as so many of us tend to do. This is unprecedented, and it's hard, and it's scary as hell, and the ramifications to our emotional health is gonna be epic. Hang tight with me. One day at a time. I hope you can feel how tightly you're being hugged right now.
Chapter 10: Sunday, January 20, 2019
Summary:
It's a surprise mass Heat event that is actually no surprise at all. Why weren't the locals prepared? And where can a regional hospital find enough certified alphas to handle it all? If only we knew someone close by who trains and certifies alpha contractors. In other words: We're surrounded by bureaucratic incompetence.
And there's a double-take. Is Cas losing his edge? Is Michael ready for the big time? Isn't Dean in chastity?
Notes:
This may turn out to be the least smutty sex-driven chapter in the history of smut. Also, I chose to go with a hospital culture of nurses who care a great deal about their patients but have little patience with newbies who haven't yet proven themselves. It's based upon nothing directly. I've never witnessed nurses being this curt with each other, but it was how my words flowed. There's an old guard thing going on that Michael needs to break through. All my respect and admiration to nurses everywhere. You're absolute badasses, and you deserve roses, chocolates, good wine, and three months off with pay.
This is for Melodina and Jennifly.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sunday, January 20, 2019
NOW:
Dean hummed cheerfully to his daughter, tied fast to his back in a sling. Over his shoulder, he fed her a small morsel of chicken after blowing on it and testing its temperature with his tongue. Her pudgy lips sucked the bite right out of his fingers, and he grinned back at her.
“Just the chicken, Idge. Daddy’s gonna need the fingers back. What d’ya think? Good? Does it need more salt? Yeah, you’re right. A touch more.”
Tony sighed down at his skillet of sautéed onions, biting his tongue. He and Dean were never going to agree about salt, but he couldn’t deny that Dean’s sous chef gave the man a leg up in confidence. Emma loved everything Dean cooked. Even now she had hoisted herself higher with a grip to his throat and was endeavoring to launch herself over his shoulder where the food was.
“Ow, sweetheart!” Dean protested futilely. “Daddy’s skin is not for climbing! Leggo, Idgie! Jesus!” He pried her claws from his throat with a laugh bubbling up, and he heaved her bodily over his shoulder to extract her from the sling. She pointed toward the counter where the shredded chicken sat giving off sublime and tempting odors.
“I know, love, but we gotta wait. Tony’s making enchiladas for Papa’s dinner and shredded chicken bites for Idgie-cakes.”
“Dean,” April called from the archway. “Cas sent me. Charlie’s on the phone. Alpha’s office.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay. Can you grab this bottomless pit for me?” Dean handed Emma to her mother and hurriedly washed his hands. “What’s up? Did he say?”
April shook her head. “I’m not sure. Something about the full moon?”
“Shit,” Dean mumbled. “I was afraid of that.” He dried his hands, untied his apron, and hurried out of the kitchen. He approached Castiel’s office tentatively, slowing as he rounded the open doorway. Cas looked up from his phone and gestured him in.
“Hold on a moment, Charlie. Dean’s here. I’m putting you on speaker.” Cas activated the phone and then set it on his desk.
“Hey, Chuck,” Dean called.
“Dean, I’m really sorry to disturb you guys, but I got a callout from Lawrence Memorial. I was just telling Cas. They’ve already run straight through their alphas on-call. They’ve gone Code 6. It’s a full-on blanket request for anyone qualified.”
“Labor and delivery?” Dean asked hopefully, futilely pretending Charlie’s call might be anything but what he knew it was, praying it was about newborns, that Cas would be pulling a late night delivering near-term pups, and it would fall to Dean to keep the coffee hot for his return.
Charlie huffed impatiently. “No, Dean, virgin Omegas in Heat. It’s the Septennial. They just keep coming…pardon the pun. Hospital admin has sequestered the west entrance and isolated the Omegas in their own space. They’ve activated their safety protocols, but they need certified alphas, and they need them now. I know it’s the weekend, and your weekends are sacred. I’m really sorry. I was only able to drum up one or two from the contracting department, but we’re stretched too. Most of our alphas are already scheduled to cover our own clinic. All our therapists are manning the hotline. It’s hitting here as hard as Alpha predicted. But we’re not seeing anywhere near the numbers the hospital is. And Memorial is just the first to call in. I’m sure the others are experiencing the same thing. I don’t think they made any preparations at all, sir.”
Cas stood up. “Charlie, call Benny. Have him meet me there. Get Bobby to check on Kansas City and Topeka. Have…Christ, who’s left…have Meg check on the rural clinics. Send Jo to the ACRI clinic if she’s not working already. She’s in charge. I want Ellen at Lawrence Memorial with me. Call Chelsea and tell her I’m on my way.”
“Um, right. Sir…how many should I say are coming? They need to know for scheduling.”
“I’m going to take Michael with me, Charlie,” Cas replied with a weighted look across at his husband. “He can help with the coordination or monitoring. It’ll be just the two of us. One alpha.”
“I can help, boss,” Dean reminded him.
“Your certification’s lapsed, Dean.”
“No, sir, not until my birthday. I’ve got four days. I’m still good. And you heard the beta. They need alphas. I’m certified, medically fit, all my meds up to date and accounted for. I’m fodder, Alpha.”
“Dean…” Cas said tiredly.
“Come on, Cas. He didn’t expect something like this to happen. You know he’ll waive it. I can’t ask him, but you can.”
“Alphas?” Charlie queried hesitantly through the line. “One knot or two?”
“Just one,” Cas stated emphatically.
“Fine,” Dean accepted. “But I’m coming with. Michael’s not certified yet, and he’ll need a mentor onsite.”
Cas rolled his eyes. “Get cracking, Charlie. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“On it,” she chirped. “Thanks, fellas. Hey, boss, send me contact info on anyone else you know who might be eligible, would’ja? Think this round’s gonna be epic.”
Once the call ended, Cas cleared his throat, eliciting a blush from Dean, who dropped his eyes and backed up into the doorway.
“She said they needed knotheads, sir. She said they need as many as they can scrounge up.” Dean blushed hard, his voice a petulant brat’s. “It’s not personal, Alpha. It’s an emergency. These aren’t just horny teenagers, man, they’re in danger. There’s gonna be dead teenagers by daybreak.”
“Why did Michael put you in chastity, Dean?” Cas asked pointedly.
Dean thumbed along the doorjamb, studying the wood grain and failing spectacularly to meet his Alpha’s eyes. “Because I, um, I tried to thwart his authority.” The words stumbled out unhappily.
“You tried to subvert his authority entirely,” Cas corrected him. “Look at me. You tried to exhaust him into sleeping half the afternoon away so you could sneak in an extra session with me when you knew damned well it was Michael’s turn on your disobedient ass.”
“I said I was sorry,” Dean protested.
“And you were whipped, but you’re still going to see the chastity sentence through to the end, Pet. No excuses, not even for this. One alpha more or less isn’t going to make much difference. And you may still have four days remaining on your certification, but that’s hardly reassuring. You’ve made no move to complete the necessary hours toward renewing it.”
“Come on, CJ. I can do this kind of work in my sleep. I teach Heat therapy, man. I don’t need any retraining.”
“The state regulations notwithstanding,” Cas remarked dryly. He pocketed his phone and passed Dean, heading for Michael’s office next door.
Michael himself was frozen right in the middle of the hallway, clearly having overheard and struck dumb.
Cas didn’t pause. “Grab your shoes, Michael. We leave in five minutes. Dean, if you’re coming, meet us at my car. I need to check on Gabe. I need to make sure April can handle the pups if Gabe’s Heat trips. We should expect a long exhausting night. Grab some snacks.” Cas swept out into the foyer, gathering April up as he rounded the corner toward Gabe’s suite at a quick pace.
“Michael, I’m not asking,” Dean said fervently, still standing forlornly in Castiel’s office door. “I fucked up, and I owe you another two days. I’m good for it. I swear.”
Michael huffed and wrapped a warm hand around the back of Dean’s neck. “What am I going to do with you?” he wondered affectionately.
“I can think of a couple things,” Dean teased. But he backtracked swiftly when Michael’s eye flashed a touch of his wolf from beneath his lashes. “But not for another two days! I’ll be good, Sir. Promise.”
Michael pulled his mate closer and kissed him soundly. “Flip back to alpha for me, man. I’m going to need your expertise. I’ve never seen a full moon Heat-glut before, not in person. I don’t know what to do.”
Dean smiled softly, balancing precariously between his brats and his alpha. The harmonized posture sent tingles down into his toes and warmth into his chest. He kissed Michael back, ever so softly, just a touch of lips. “I’m not going to let you fall, Sir. I’ve got you. You’re ready for this.”
In a matter of minutes, the three of them were shuffling out the garage door, each of them swinging a satchel onto his shoulder and trying to get out of each other’s way as they hurried toward the car. Dean steadfastly avoided looking toward his Impala, still covered by a tarp, still undrivable. Jess steered her Camry into the garage when Cas opened the garage door. She nodded and waved, parking in the only empty spot. Cas backed out without stopping to talk to her. Sam was working the night shift at the clinic, managing a process that only needed dusting off once every seven years. Bringing Jess to the big house for the next few days granted her the support she needed to survive twins without her mate, but now, with half the household out of commission too, Jess would give as much support as she got.
He instructed Michael as he backed out, “Text Jess, would you, Michael? Have her keep an eye on Gabe. Let her know he’ll trip before the night is out. Tell her to let Kali manage everything but to keep an eye on them both. Kali may need a hand.”
“Why am I texting Jess instead of Kali?” Michael asked as his thumbs flew across his screen.
“Because Kali is already anxious, and because I told you to!” Cas told him decisively. Then he calmed himself, pulling out past the gate into the street. “Michael, please also let Kali know she’s got our support, and if she needs anything, to send word.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing…” Cas glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure Michael was listening. “Tell her that if Gabe’s temperature reaches 103, that she’s to enlist Cain’s assistance. That’s an order.”
Michael shrugged and texted away. “I hope Cain’s aware of that order,” he mumbled.
“He is,” Cas responded testily.
“Hey, hey, guys,” Dean broke in. “Let’s not start off already pissy. Can you both bring it down a notch or two? I promise you’ll get plenty of opportunities to blow off steam real soon.”
“He will,” Michael added. “No one gets off pushing paper around, Dean.”
Dean blew out a slow breath. “You never know, man. Might be the thrill of a lifetime. Don’t jizz on the forms. They need to be readable.”
Cas and Michael both laughed in spite of themselves at Dean’s ludicrous remark.
Dean took the opportunity to lower the tension further still. “Chill out, fellas. Everything’s under control. No one left the water running in the bathtub or the fire on on the stove. Everyone is where they belong, and everyone’s just fine. Cas? Gabe’s fine, man. He’s fine.”
Cas took hold of Dean’s hand and kissed his ring and his knuckles. He didn’t let go as he set his hand back down on the seat.
At the entrance to the hospital parking lot, a harried and miserably cold cop pointed Cas toward the east lot, but Cas stopped and summoned her closer.
She wasn’t in the mood for a chat. “Sir! Alpha, I need you to continue on into the lot, stay to the east, and don’t approach the western entrance!” She snapped out orders like a drill sergeant, but Castiel ignored the instruction.
“We’re here to assist medically,” he explained. “I have an Omega therapist with me. Where do I need to drop him?”
“Oh,” said the cop, looking about. She could smell alpha, and that seemed to make her answer harder to fix. “Omega and ape staff can still enter through the west, but no visitors, betas, or alphas. We’ve been instructed to reroute everyone who isn’t Omega to the east lot for precautionary reasons.”
“Thank you, officer. I understand,” Cas told her calmly. “Is it all right if I discharge my Omega through the usual route if I promise that my husband and I won’t get out of the car?”
“Alpha, the scent over there is pretty strong. We’ve had a couple of alphas rush the doors already. It’d be safer if you avoid the area altogether. Your Omega can go through the long way with you, or you can drop him here, and I’ll get him an escort.”
“Let’s just take him through with us, Cas,” Dean suggested from the passenger side. “I wanna stay with him.”
Cas nodded. He rolled his window up and followed the cop’s flashlight toward the far lot. Behind him, barely keeping all four wheels on the pavement, a sedan peeled into the Omega section with a loud blast from its horn, summoning help.
“Jesus Christ,” Dean muttered. “It’s a zoo over there, CJ.”
“No doubt,” Cas replied with a touch of tempered impatience. “We tried last Septennial to warn the hospital officials that it was due, and they did nothing. We advised them this round was looking to be a record-breaker, but apparently, we got nowhere. They’re protective of their quarterly budgets. They lied to us this time. They said everything was ready. I shouldn’t have believed them.”
“I always thought it was a myth,” Michael remarked with his face against the window, watching an ambulance dodge the sedan to pull up to the Omega entrance before Cas drove around the corner of the building and a far calmer sight took over. Near the east door, a tent had been erected with portable heaters, a folding table, and tent flaps tied back.
“It’s no myth,” Cas told him. Then he intoned pompously in his low gravelly voice, “At the first full moon of the year, on the morn of the seventh turn, Luna’s children venture forth into her likeness, rotund and fertile, ripe and fruitful, to ply wide of their bounties and…”
“CJ, give the mythology a rest,” Dean broke in. “It sounds stupid when you try to recite what you don’t understand.” Cas smirked and stopped his recitation. Dean turned to face his mate. “Look, the ancients recorded the pattern tens of thousands of years ago. Even without calendars, they could count to seven, and they noticed that every seventh year, Heats hit like a flash flood on the first full moon. Any Omega who was anywhere near their first mature Heat, any Omega who was within a couple of weeks of their usual cycle… they all toppled at the same time. The scent overwhelms a Pack when it hits like that, and it pretty much always led to a weeklong fuckfest no-holds-barred orgy that ended up with every Omega in the Pack pregnant, and all the young ones freshly Mated. And then, seven months after the orgy, they all go into labor at the same time, give birth at the same time, and produce a single, massive baby boom that ensures the Pack’s standing for the next generation.”
Michael thought it over, following his alphas out of the car. From here, he couldn’t smell a trace of the alluring scent from the other side of the building. They’d implemented Code 6 well, selecting the downwind side for isolating Omegas. “I cycled on time,” he observed. “Why wasn’t I knocked back a couple of weeks?”
“Lucky break,” Dean mumbled. “It usually speeds folks up to tumble early, man, but it doesn’t slow people down if they’re more than a week or two ahead of the moon. Most Omegas who are already established—meaning Mated and mothers with at least one pup under their belt—those guys don’t get swept into the frenzy unless they’re on the cusp anyway. As close as you were, it could’ve gone either way. Honestly, if it hadn’t also been time for my cycle too, you’d probably have been delayed. You’d have been sweating it just like Gabe.”
“Come on you two,” Cas chided. Dean took Michael’s hand and led him across the lot in the Alpha’s wake.
Michael squeezed his mate’s hand and continued thinking out loud. “So, then, it’s also true that every seven years, a super-Alpha is born to the Pack who’s destined to take over its leadership when he comes of age?”
Cas chuckled and ducked into the tent to check in, leaving Dean to answer. Dean turned toward his mate. “If that was true, Michael, then Cas would be an age divisible by seven right now, and he’s not. If there’s an Alpha somewhere who’s higher ranked than Cas, I think we would know by now. Some parts of the story are myth. We’ll get a big population flood from tonight, but there’s no data that supports any difference in the designations of the pups these Omegas produce.”
“Oh. So, are all Packs on the same seven-year cycle?”
“Yup. Every little hamlet and major city is probably as overwhelmed as we are here tonight. Some of them undoubtedly paid attention to history and were ready. Lawrence Kansas, not so much. Here, he’s calling for you.” Dean held the tent flap open for Michael to duck through. He followed his mate into the warm, if slightly stuffy, tent. Cas pointed Michael toward a seated registrar.
“Name?” prompted the harried-looking beta nurse.
“Um, Michael Winchester.”
“Designation?”
“I’m, uh, Omega. I’m training to be a Secondary therapist. My Alpha thought I could help with coordination, but I’m not certified yet.” At Michael’s shoulder, Cas was answering similar questions, angling toward an assignment.
The nurse looked Michael over. “Have you started accompanying rounds yet?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m paired with Jody Mills?”
“That’s good enough for me. Here’s a lanyard. Fill out the tag. Don’t take it off for anything. Go in through the door right there and follow the gold tape until you reach another desk checkpoint. Tell them you’re meant to support station “Ostrich,” and they’ll get you situated.” She was all business, assertive, no-nonsense, inarguably in charge. “Lawrence Memorial thanks you for your assistance.”
“Ostrich. Right. Um?” Michael hesitated.
“Those doors, there, Omega. Here’s a pen.”
“Ma’am, it’s just that my mate planned to mentor me? We thought I’d be assigned a paper-pushing job, some kind of coordination?” Michael pointed over his shoulder at his mate.
“Coordinators, we’ve got. What we need are Omegas who aren’t in Heat. I’ll take every warm body I can find. And your mate isn’t going anywhere near intake,” she shot back with a firm shake of her head. Dean had his bottom lip in his teeth, but he didn’t protest. “No alphas allowed past the double doors. Omegas and qualified betas only. The alpha entrance into each room is from the other side, and we’ll assign each knot the Omega who best fits. No exceptions. If you need a mentor this late in the game, Omega, you’re no use to us. Now scoot.” Michael’s jaw fell slack.
“Come here, Dean,” she continued without a pause. She clearly knew him, but Michael shouldn’t have been surprised. Everyone in Lawrence knew Dean. Cas took his ID card, a badge that was designed to adhere to his skin so he wouldn’t have to remove it when he doffed his clothing. He stopped long enough to be sure Michael knew what was expected of him. He disappeared through the entry doors, following a red line taped to the floor, disappearing into the warm bright corridor with his trench coat flaring behind him. Dean and Michael mutely watched him go.
Dean hesitated. His Alpha was gone, but his mate was still here. “Look, Michael, I can volunteer to do something else. I can take over out here and give one of the nurses the freedom to get back in there where the need is greatest. I swear I wasn’t trying to run around you.”
“Dean!” the nurse beckoned vigorously. “Alpha, this is no time to chat. It’s a nightmare in there.”
Michael sighed. “You have a job to do, Submissive,” he said. “They need you. Take care of yourself, and don’t forget to hydrate. Come find me when you get a break.”
“Michael…”
“Dean, stop. You’re an alpha, and they need you. Go do your job. If I get overwhelmed, I’ll give Jody a call. I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.” Michael pointed back to the nurse waiting impatiently behind the table with a pen already filling in the portions of Dean’s form that she knew.
“Certification number?” she asked as Dean turned back to face her.
“One-seven-two-four-six,” he rattled off by heart. “It lapses in four days,” he added with a careful look at Michael.
“Happy birthday,” she said blandly, handing him a sticker to fill out. “Next!”
“Cas is gonna be pissed,” Dean lamented as he quickly filled in the ID badge and walked with Michael to the point where their designated lines diverged.
“Worry about that later,” Michael said with a kiss to his cheek. “For now, I’m the one who put that punishment on you. It’s my right to remove it. I’ll see you in a few hours. Try not to Mate anyone.”
“Very funny,” Dean chuckled.
Michael turned to walk backward toward the corner around which the gold tape disappeared. “And make me proud, alpha,” he goaded. “Show me that storied Winchester stamina isn’t a myth.”
“Myth?” Dean protested. “I’ll have you know…” But Michael was already gone, and the orderly hurrying into the building with a crate of supplies gave Dean a worried look.
“No, man, I was just… It was my mate, he…” Dean gave it up for pointless and trudged along the marked path, following the way Castiel had disappeared, muttering to himself.
At the assembly point, Cas stood near Benny and ten or twelve other alphas, summoned from the city and parts roundabout. They were awaiting a briefing and assignments as a team of nurses worked their way through injecting each alpha with a cocktail of antibiotics and preventatives. Cas’ face deadpanned when Dean appeared with his ID badge in his hand, visibly working out where to stick it.
“You can turn right back around and go wait for me in the car, Dean.”
“I’ll have you know, sir, that I’m here under the explicit instruction of my Dominant mate. Not under his permission, mind you, but his instruction. Michael didn’t give me a choice.”
“You knew they wouldn’t allow an alpha in to be his mentor,” Castiel hissed.
“Yeah, well. I didn’t know they would send him straight into the red zone. I expected him to get a job holding shoes or something, handing out coat checks. And besides, you knew everything I knew, and you still let me come. Unless I’m totally missing the mark here, I’m exactly where you wanted me to be. Ouch! Damnit.”
The nurse smiled an apology and pasted a sticker to Dean’s badge showing he’d received his inoculation.
Toward the front of the group, an old, respectable beta physician clapped his hands a few times and drew the crowd’s attention forward. “If I may, alphas. We have a few housekeeping items to go over before we begin assigning you rooms. There are policy changes you all need to be aware of.”
Someone near Dean grumbled, “When are there not policy changes?”
“We haven’t finished talking about this, Dean,” Castiel whispered.
Michael approached the desk carefully. The door was flanked by two burly beta guards, immense intimidating muscled brutes, both of them. In front of them, another folding table had been haphazardly erected, and it was manned by a pair of older nurses, one beta and the other Omega. Michael raised his lanyard hesitantly.
“They told me to follow the gold line and to go to the “Ostrich” something?”
“You’re in the right place, boy,” the Omega told him with confidence. “They need all the help they can get. You know how to monitor a Heat cycle?”
“You mean the hormone readings and the phase spikes? I’ve done it in class, but never live.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” gushed the beta. “They sent us a virgin.” There wasn’t any sting in her words, just a gently patronizing regret. “Honey, after tonight, you’re gonna get your wings if you catch my drift. No one walks away from a night like this a virgin. We’ll get that cherry of yours popped in no time. Just remember, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. In you go, now. Don’t be scared. We haven’t killed one yet.”
The Omega nurse whapped her colleague lightly on the arm. “Hush. You’ll scare him off. Gus, love, take this one to Ostrich. Give him to Missy. Make sure she knows he’s a virgin.”
“Follow me, Omega,” the beast on the left intoned.
“I’m not a …” the man hustled him through the door after his colleague unlocked it, and a wave of Heat scent nearly knocked Michael on his ass. “…virgin.” He gaped slightly at the frenzied bustle, dodging hurrying staff and swiftly wheeled gurneys. The beta leading him wasn’t wearing a ventilator like the other beta staff, but he didn’t seem fazed either.
“Dude, what are you, a eunuch?” Michael joshed.
“There’s no need to be rude,” Gus answered calmly, heading up one flight of stairs. “We prefer the term Castrati.”
“Oh. Geez. Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Ostrich is for the Ozzies,” Gus interrupted in a baritone. “There’s also Osprey and Osmosis. All for Ozzies.”
“Osmosis?” Michael checked in disbelief.
“There aren’t many words that start with O-S,” Gus explained apologetically as if he’d failed somehow.
“So, the Omega-Neutrals?”
“Their sectors start with O-N, yes.” Gus seemed ready to change the subject, so Michael nodded and followed without asking.
“Here’s your station,” the beta indicated an offshoot hallway with his head. “Nurse Fellowes, this Omega is here to help. Jeanna asked me to clarify that he’s a virgin.”
The middle-aged nurse, her hair tightly bound in a stiff bun at the back of her head, looked Michael up and down.
“I’m not a virgin,” he explained.
“Mm,” she commented dryly. “We’ll see. Welcome to Ostrich.” She waved Gus away, and he disappeared without a word. Michael had to step lively to catch up to the nurse who had spun on her heels and strode swiftly in the opposite direction still talking, clearly expecting Michael to keep up. “I’m Missy. Don’t call me ma’am. Don’t call me nurse. Only the doctors and the patients call me nurse. This is a Code 6 situation we have here tonight. If you don’t know that term, you’ll figure it out pretty fast. We expect it to last for the next three or four days. If you can, we’ll take you for the whole ride, cycling in and off shift every twelve hours. When you need a break, tell me. If you pass out, we may leave you where you fall as a lesson. We break virgins in hard and fast around here. You know how to monitor a Heat cycle?”
“Yes, Ma’a…uh, Missy.”
“Good. You’ve got rooms four through six. Sit here. Do you need to pee?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh…”
“Restroom’s down the hall on the left. Wash your hands and grab some water on your way back.”
“Right.” Michael’s head was already spinning. There was movement everywhere. He stood near the center of a hub with hallways branching away like a star. The smell was dizzying. Michael hurried back from the bathroom, spotting a vending station with a counter full of large, capped cups with straws sticking out. He took one as battered elevator doors dinged open just opposite.
“Oh, lord, here’s another one,” he heard an Omega nurse mumble beside him before she hurried forward to guide the moaning man on his gurney into the hallway, confer with the orderly who had custody, and see him checked in. Michael found his seat again and slid down into it. Missy was nowhere to be seen. In front of him, three monitors were arrayed, each showing feed from a different room, images from the closed-circuit cameras as well as constant tracer lines that he recognized as hormone readings and vital statistics. He took a moment to familiarize himself with the monitors, looking up to make sure he had each room’s door in view.
He found a notebook in front of him and recognized it as the same type of log he had filled out in class. He opened it and perused the entries, comfortable that he’d been taught the current formats correctly. This was fast-paced and a bit frightening, but the more he got his bearings, the more familiar it felt. Michael knew this. He breathed out slowly.
He could do this.
At the moment, all three rooms stood empty, but there were four Omegas still in the hallway awaiting rooms and alphas.
“Psst! Hey, new guy!”
Michael looked to his left.
“Natalie,” she said loudly. “When you’re ready, got yourself figured out, flip the switch under your desk. That opens your rooms. And don’t worry, kid. It’s a piece of cake once you get the rhythm. It’s like sex. It’s all about the ebb and flow. You’ve got this.”
Michael smiled shyly. “Thanks, Natalie. I’m Michael.”
“Yeah. Duh,” she muttered, checking her monitors again. “Shout at me if you get into a bind. Push the summons button if one of your rooms needs intervention. That’s your most important job. The staff inside the room is trained to sit tight, keep things as calm as possible if something goes wrong, and rely on us to summon assistance.”
“Look, Natalie, I’m not certified yet. Are you sure this is okay?”
“You know what those squiggly lines on the screen are for?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“You know how to tell a stable reading from a dangerous one?”
“I think so. Is there an audible alarm if it goes into the red zone?”
“Not only that,” she assured him, “but your screen will light up and flash at you too. A chimp can do this job, kid. Relax. Pay attention. Don’t go to sleep, play on your phone, or leave your post, and you’ll do fine.”
“Right,” Michael told himself bracingly before flipping the toggle beneath his countertop. In front of him, lights popped on in front of his three doors. It didn’t take long for three gurneys to peel off the wall and angle into each, their occupants rolling in agony, all of them naked and touching their own sweaty bodies, all of them plying wide of their bounties. Michael got quite an eyeful of their bounties, in fact, far more than he really wanted to see. He focused on the screens. Each feed blipped to life with a reading that shot off the chart in both directions before finding itself, automatically calibrating a midline, and beginning to track the occupant’s stability. He watched the monitors as each patient was moved to a low, wide bed and sponged off.
He had girls in rooms four and five, and a dude in room six. All of them looked flushed, exhausted, and desperate. Michael opened his binder and began marking data according to the readings, just as he’d been taught. He watched along as temperatures of all three began to spike within moments of each other. He searched for a way to alert the staff inside the rooms, but he soon realized they had access to the same data.
One by one, all but a Secondary therapist left each room, and an alpha entered through a door on the far side.
“Holy fuck,” Michael murmured, using his controls to zoom in.
“Right? Did we choose the right career path, or what?” Natalie agreed with her own eyes glued to her screens. To Michael’s right, another volunteer was planted firmly into the next station down and given instructions as abrupt as his were. She didn’t look like a virgin to Michael though. She looked like maybe she’d been pulled in from retirement. She wasted no time in flipping her lights on and pulling her binder forward. Rooms seven, eight, and nine activated. Michael felt a charge of electricity as Sector Ostrich came fully to life.
“Oi, virgin!” the retiree to his right called out, getting Michael’s attention. “Toss me that pen. Someone stole this one.”
“My name’s Michael,” he said stoutly as he rolled a ballpoint down the counter to her. Behind him, Natalie snickered.
“You get your name back once you’ve proved yourself,” retiree told him. “If your feelings are hurt, darlin’, you can always run back home to Daddy.”
“Wow,” Michael muttered to himself.
It had been hours since Dean last saw Cas. But as he sluiced off briefly in the staff showers, his husband rounded into the same section. He looked as spent as Dean felt. Cas had been heading toward a spigot on the opposite side from Dean, but he caught his husband’s scent and changed direction without even turning his head, practically falling against Dean’s wet body.
“Can’t give out yet, Alpha,” Dean admonished teasingly. “Long way to go.”
Cas sighed. “I know. Had a rough one just now. Fought me. God, I hate having to force it, Dean.”
Dean activated the shower head and walked Cas under the flow. “I know, babe. We all do. But we can’t let them die. You were as gentle as you could be, I know you were.” He pumped some body wash into his hand from the wall reservoir and began to rub it into Cas’ chest.”
Cas let Dean work for a while, standing limply in the steamy shower. “What did you mean when you said I wanted you here, Dean?” he asked suddenly. “If I’d wanted you here, I would’ve said so. What I said was that you should stay home because an alpha in chastity is no use to the hospital on a night like this.”
Dean soaped up his hair and then carefully washed his face. He nudged Cas back into the spray. When the Alpha emerged, he shook his head out like a dog and pulled Dean out toward the lockers by his hand, snatching two towels from the stack on his way.
“Well?” Cas slouched down onto a bench to dry himself. Dean sat beside him with his towel around his shoulders.
“Cas, I don’t know what happened back there, at home, but there’s no way you didn’t know I would end up on this side of the fence instead of chaperoning Omega trainees. The best I can figure is you wanted to set me up to disobey you so you could cut my wolf off at the knees. If you didn’t want me here, balls deep, then you would have left me at home to watch over Gabe and April and Kali and Jess and all the pups…me, CJ. Me, not Cain. Man, I can’t make heads or tails of it, but you’re not stupid. You don’t do shit like this by accident. You let me come along. Either you’re working a ruse to give my wolf room to brat out so you can slap him down or you’re testing Cain. I dunno. For some reason, it was critical to you that I leave the house for the night. Dude, if it was a setup for my Tertiary, I say go for it. Maybe if you keep hitting him with smaller ploys, he won’t get so out of kilter he has to destroy things we both love. Was that it, Cas?”
Castiel frowned, drawing his towel over his face and then spreading it out on the bench so he could sit on it. “No, I don’t think so. If it was, it wasn’t a conscious play.”
Dean rotated to kneel on the floor in front of his husband. “Don’t dwell on it, Alpha. I’m not hurt. Whatever happened to bring us both here, we’re where we need to be. I’ll owe Michael the same chastity commitment I lost here. I owe him two days. Look, this mess will probably taper off just before my birthday. You want me punished? Defer my chastity to run right through my birthday. That’s a punishment, Cas.”
Cas shook his head. His gaze faded out into vagueness, and he spoke more to himself than to Dean. “I didn’t question anything you said,” he muttered. “You suggested coming along to mentor Michael, and I didn’t even think twice about what Michael might need a mentor for. I didn’t think twice even though I know that alphas and Omegas are segregated during a Heat-glut.”
“Dude, you were distracted trying to place every alpha you know from here to Indiana and make sure every little Doc-in-a-box in a three-state radius has the resources they need. You were beating yourself up for taking the hospitals’ word for it that they’d prepared. You hate to be blindsided, CJ. It threw you. And I swear I didn’t mean to slip one over on you. I’ll admit I was okay with playing it by ear when we got here. If things were running smoothly, and I was surplus, I would’ve found some menial button-pusher job to do and made my top half useful. I’m not gonna lie though. I knew that if things here were out of control, there’s no way you would keep that chastity stricture in place, no matter what Michael said. I played that a little on the loose side, man. But you… I guess it was distraction, but that looked for the life of me like one of your schemes. I know you when you’re moving chess pieces, Castiel James. I’m your favorite piece. Did you really not know?”
Cas shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wasn’t acting intentionally, I know that much.”
“Hoo-boy,” Dean breathed. “Maybe you’ve got a secret ring-master like April did, ordering your army guys without you knowing about it.”
“Perish the thought,” Cas said with a touch of dread. He leaned forward and rested his head on Dean’s shoulder. “I need to be sure. If my Secondary or Tertiary is learning new tricks, I need to figure them out and put a stop to it. I’m tired though, Dean.”
Dean scratched at the back of Cas’ head, down near the nape of his neck. His Alpha needed a haircut again. The hair behind his ears curled adorably. “Hang tight, love. I’ve got you. You always catch me when I’m too tired to stand. Trust me this time to catch you, all right? I’ve got you.”
Cas sat upright, studied Dean’s face, and then leaned back in and kissed him. “I always feel better when you’re with me,” he said simply. “You make everything better just by being here.”
“Good thing I’m here then, isn’t it?”
Cas said nothing for several moments. He gazed unseeing at Dean’s face.
“Gabe’s fine, Alpha,” Dean told him. Cas nodded dumbly, but his eyes didn’t clear. Dean continued, pressing close. “I called home before my last round. He’s locked into the H/R room with Kali, and they’re in the fun stage right now. He’s not here, babe. He’s not in danger. That was a long, long time ago, and you saved him. Don’t relive it, Cas.”
Castiel’s grip on Dean’s shoulders tightened. Pain passed across his eyes.
Dean watched him carefully. “The round you just had… CJ, was it a young man like Gabe was? It was, wasn’t it? Come on, Alpha, you know this dance. We’ve been through this before, haven’t we? PTSD is a bitch, but you know how to counter this shit. Talk to me, Alpha.”
“He looked just like my brother, Dean. And he wanted nothing to do with me. He fought until they tied him hand and foot. They had to gag him. I couldn’t talk him down.”
“You saved his life, Castiel. His psyche will digest it later. He’ll be fine. You didn’t hurt him. You saved his life. His body and his mind and his spirit, right now they’re all outta wack. He’s fighting circumstance, Alpha. It wasn’t personal. It was pure shitty chance that he looks like Gabe. He’s not Gabe. Right now, Gabe is having a blast getting his ass beat and getting off with a beta fist around his scrotum. Gabe’s fine.”
“Gabe’s fine,” Cas repeated, beginning a chant, mostly to himself. “He’s fine. April’s fine. She’s not close enough to trip this round. She’s at home with the pups.” Castiel’s voice strengthened as he spoke. Dean hummed affirmations along with him. “The pups are all fine. They’re growing every day. The Pack is fine. Everyone’s healthy and balanced. Dean, you’re…are you fine? You’re okay, right?”
“Right as rain, Alpha. Not a cloud in my sky. Me and Michael have all cylinders running smooth as silk. He’s over his snit about missing out on my last fall. Over his resentment about my last bratty episode. We’re fresh from a cycle and washed clean. I owe him two more days of chastity and a cherry pie. And you and me? Cas, look at me. You and me are solid. And don’t you dare correct my grammar. I like the way I talk.”
Cas chuckled. “It’s a style choice, then. I can respect that,” he whispered, kissing Dean again.
“You good?” Dean asked, breaking the kiss. They needed to preserve their strength.
“I am. At least, I’m well enough to continue. When do you check back in?” Cas stood and helped Dean off his knees.
“I have twenty more minutes before they’ll hunt me down. You?”
“About the same,” Cas replied. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“There’s time for a quickie, sir,” Dean suggested.
“Absolutely not, Winchester. We’re here to work, and you’re in chastity.”
Dean snorted. Cas popped his ass, eliciting a very unmanly yipe. Then he wrapped an arm around Dean’s waist and led him naked down the hall toward the breakroom. “Once I figure out the sequence of events that brought you here, Dean, one of us will owe an apology to the other. Don’t get comfortable. I’m not yet certain that it’s me.”
“I told you everything, sir. I really don’t see how you can pin this one on me unless you’re going to claim you had a stroke or something. If you really missed it, man, we have more to worry about than thrashing my backside. Please don’t lose your edge yet. We need you sharp.”
Cas huffed, but he didn’t have an answer. “You’re not helping, Dean.”
“You said I make everything better,” Dean teased back.
“That was before,” Cas argued. “Now you’re being a brat.”
“Who me?” Dean skipped a few steps ahead and turned to bat his eyelashes. “I’m the love of your life.”
“Wipe that simper off your face,” Cas said, trying fruitlessly not to laugh. “It’s absurd. I WILL spank you right here, Pet. Don’t test me.”
Dean rolled his eyes and turned again to walk beside his husband. He pulled in close with an arm around Cas’ neck so he could whisper in the man’s ear. “Just think, CJ. All those strangers. All those random wolves I’ve had my knot inside tonight. I’ve shattered my previous record, you know. Shattered it. What are you gonna do about it?”
Cas put his hands on Dean’s shoulders and sat him down in a chair at a long, crowded table. Cas towered over him, making him crane his neck to look up. “None of that counts, Pet. Nice try. I take no issue whatsoever with your activities as a Heat-therapist, so that’s irrelevant, strangers or not. And as to your record. You stand at five. Five, Dean. Orgasms in the presence of Heat-scent do not count. They have never counted. Trying to cheat, however, that earns you ten right here. Hands on the wall.”
“It was a joke, sir. I was kidding!”
Cas hauled the man up by his arm and turned him to face the wall. “Two more for arguing.”
Dean glanced around and blushed, realizing suddenly that his nudity would give away his arousal if a spanking turned him on, and Cas’ hand nearly always turned him on. “Look, double it at home, okay? Cas, please. Triple it. Not here.”
“Doubled it is,” Cas replied. “But for using my name. And yes, right here. Anything else to say?”
They weren’t the only naked wolves in the room. Most of the alphas were running too hot to wear clothes between rounds. And none of them cared what Dean and Cas chose to do to keep themselves balanced, their engines revving hard enough to get it up over and over again.
One matronly alpha woman collected her packaged cookies and her tea and cleared out of the spot by the wall without speaking.
Dean sighed and rolled his shoulders. Then he ostentatiously postured as he placed both palms on the wall.
“No one’s watching you, my adorable show-off,” Cas taunted, amused. He studied Dean’s form for a moment, appreciating the lines of muscle. “No one but me, that is,” he amended. “I anticipate that one day you may simply ask me to slap your ass a few times. I look forward to that day, Pet.”
Dean scoffed rudely. “What fun would that be? Sir.”
Castiel stormed forward and let his hand fly. Dean braced and gritted his teeth, counting in his head. The swats echoed loud enough that everyone paused their conversations for a moment. Castiel put his hips into it, and Dean grunted, struggling to keep his chest off the wall. Damn the man. Cas passed twenty without slowing, rounded thirty as Dean’s eyes clamped shut, shot past forty as Dean’s arms began to shake, and rested finally at a solid fifty. The Alpha was out of breath, but Dean arrested a snarky comment about aging constitutions before it hit the air.
“Wha’ happened to doubling it, Sir?” Dean asked shakily. He continued to face the wall. His stiffy wasn’t subtle.
Cas chuckled. “I would hate to deprive you your fun. Come sit with me.”
“Ah…Sir.” Dean looked down at himself.
“No one cares, Pet. Come here.”
Dean pushed off the wall and scurried to where Cas held an arm out to him. “You make everything better, Winchester,” he cooed as he pulled his husband to straddle his lap. Dean grinned and dove in for a not-so-professional make out session. Snacks could wait.
The hours passed slowly. Michael’s back ached from sitting in one position too long. His feet fell asleep. Missy appeared periodically to review his log and examine the data on his monitor. Unlike Jody, she never offered him feedback. She just chucked the binder back onto the counter, asked him if he needed to pee again, and then moved on.
Michael’s alarms blared with little warning, and his heart rate shot up as he pressed the call button to alert the staff. After that, he watched helplessly as a young woman thrashed violently on the bed, a seizure wracking her body, and her alpha attendant bravely risking his own safety to protect hers. He took a flailing arm across his temple as he straddled her hips, but he managed to secure her arms just as an emergency team rushed in. The alpha slid down to pin her legs beneath him, to stay out of the way and help bind her to the bed, and a nurse wedged an insert into her mouth to protect her tongue. They worked swiftly, urgent but not panicked. Michael panted in alarm, eyes wide, breath choppy, staring at the screen before him and chanting, “Come on, come on, come on,” under his breath. The physician in charge issued orders, and very shortly, the Omega was flipped onto her belly, the alpha was directed to get his ass in gear doing his goddamned job, and multiple injections entered the young lady’s bloodstream from syringes wielded on both sides of the bed.
Michael whimpered as he watched helplessly.
“Don’t forget you’ve got three rooms to watch, virgin,” the elderly monitor reminded him. He caught up on the other two observations quickly, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off his center monitor. The seizure faded as the medications took effect. The steadfast alpha above her never faltered in his thrusts, even as nurses wedged a pillow beneath the Omega’s hips and jostled them both. Michael couldn’t see her face, blocked by the staff, but he watched as her fingertips splayed out on the bed. She clutched at the bedding, at the railing, at a nurse’s scrubs. She was in pain, that much was clear, and Michael prayed she retained no memory of the event once it was over.
The alpha pressed his torso up high on both arms, leveraging his hips to deepen his reach. He threw his head back and groaned through clenched teeth. The effect was immediate. The staff relaxed, most of them stepping back a little. One nurse kept a hand moving through her hair and the doctor closed in closer to listen to her heart. The Omega lay utterly still, exhausted, her breath coming in long, stilted, jagged huffs. Her hair lay lank and sweaty around her shoulders.
Michael’s tracer lines dipped one by one back out of alarm range, leveling out slowly.
“You okay, pup?” the retiree quipped without looking.
“I’m fine,” Michael returned. His heartrate returned to normal as all of his readings leveled off. His hand shook as he marked the incident in his log. “That was close,” he added. “Almost waited too long.”
Natalie turned her head briefly to check on him. “Don’t dwell on it, kid. That won’t be the only hairy experience tonight. Stay sharp. You did good. The kid’s okay?”
“Yeah. She’s stabilized and back into trough phase. They pulled her through.”
“That’s their job, Michael. Don’t forget to keep doing yours.”
Eventually, Natalie was replaced by a short, stout man with a scraggly beard who only grunted at Michael’s greeting. Michael had found his rhythm by then. He’d monitored as his own Alpha rotated through, mindfully keeping the log accurate rather than ogling the man he had a not-very-secret crush on. Michael tried to attend to his job, but he couldn’t help noticing that Castiel-the-medical-alpha was a far cry from Castiel-the-Pack-Alpha. In the room before him, Cas had his wolf completely kenneled. He acted on need alone—the Omega’s need. He was efficient and thorough, with a tender touch once his knot locked and the fluids he’d injected deep into the Omega’s body brought Michael’s tracer lines back to midline. But he wasn’t Cas—not the Cas Michael knew. He was an alpha first, a doctor second, and a person barely at all. He was a therapist assisting a patient.
Michael couldn’t tear his eyes off the man, calm and decisive, every inch the alpha, even while confined in a tamped headspace. Michael missed a couple of data markers from the other two monitors, but when his eyes caught up, he found no harm done.
He’d assumed that since all three rooms started at the same time, that they would track together, granting Michael a solid break once all three couples lay knotted in repose, waiting for completion. He had little to do once the alpha shot his ameliorative spunk up into the harried Omega, and Michael closed out his log entry with final readings, but that looked-for break only came around after the very first round. Each couple remained knotted for a different length of time, and it took a doctor following each alpha’s departure a different span to examine the Omega and prescribe the next course of action. Soon, Michael had three monitors showing entirely different points in the cycle, granting him no break at all.
Often enough, it was Dr. Harvelle stepping assertively in once the alpha unknotted. She swatted Castiel maternally on his naked ass as the man passed her in the doorway. He grinned over his shoulder at her, boyish in his charm, clearly pleased to be back to playing an active role in a way that meant a tangible result. Ellen let him go, referring to her clipboard and pulling a Peliomometer from her pocket.
As the hours rolled past though, Michael began to view each encounter before him as desperately needed medical care rather than frenzied and outlandishly brazen sex. All the parts involved began to blur in his mind, reduced to factors in an equation. Once all necessary parameters for the equation were met, all of his tracer lines returned to their midlines, and he readied his binder for a new entry. He worried briefly that he might never find another penis attractive again, nor a plump breast, nor a dribble of slick, but he put that thought out of his mind for the moment. If Dean and Cas still enjoyed sex, then it must not be a difficult transition. But this… this wasn’t hot, except for when it had been Cas in that room. That got Michael’s attention, he had to admit. But this. The constant cycle of sweat and oddly-shaped bodies, of tan lines and receding hair lines, and body fluids and pubic hair—it was … a little repulsive, in fact.
Also a thought for another time. Not right now.
Michael had no idea how many Omegas in crisis the hospital was managing. What he saw in his three rooms was a carousel of desperation. Each Omega entered on the verge of catastrophe and then wheeled back out forty-five minutes later much more stable than they’d entered. But Michael knew the statistics. One round with a faceless alpha wasn’t enough to halt a Heat gone into overdrive. Still, Michael never saw the same Omega twice. Whoever was coordinating the flow of people through rooms had to be an octopus of sorts, an old-fashioned telephone operator, plugging in and pulling out to regroup, matching alphas who had rested long enough to re-set their refractory periods with Omegas reaching their peak temperatures.
Omegas must fill several wards somewhere off by themselves, monitored carefully as they rode out their cycles in pain, and shifted back into the processing rooms when their temperatures spiked, and they were ready to go again. He couldn’t imagine what those wards must smell like.
Michael rubbed tired eyes and sipped from his cup again, only to slurp loudly and find nothing but dribbles.
“Up, virgin!” directed Missy at his shoulder. “Break time. Go get some air. Walk around. Eat something. Refill your cup. Don’t go near the east wing. You’ll carry the scent with you. There’s a snack bar at the end of the hall, and you can go outside through the double doors to your left. Get out of here. Don’t come back for thirty minutes.”
“My boards,” he protested, pointing out he had two active cases in mid-coitus.
“I’ve got these two. Go on, scoot!” Missy toggled the station back to inactive to keep new patients from being sent in, and she slid into his space once he stretched his legs and stood up. His whole body was stiff, and his eyes were blurry. Missy paged back through his logs before turning to his current page and picking up his pen. “You do good work, virgin.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, wondering how many hours before he earned his name back. Michael had never been a smoker but standing out in the cold with a microwaved burrito gave him new respect for the habit. Something about the way the stress sat inside his bones and across his shoulders made him crave a cigarette.
“How many sectors are active, anyway?” he asked a weary-looking nurse in scrubs who stood out in the cold smoking lazily.
“Normally, just one. Tonight, they activated all six.” The man’s dark hair fell over his eye, and he flipped it back with a toss of his head.
“Six!?” Michael wondered. “I’m in Ostrich. There are nine beds. You’re telling me there are fifty-four beds in use, and more patients in need of them than that? I haven’t seen the same kid twice.”
The nurse huffed a laugh. “Crazy, right? Where did they all come from? Not every sector has nine beds, but it’s still a fuck ton of desperate kids. Happens every seven years, so we have a Septennial plan. Funny thing though, the plan sits gathering cobwebs while new administrators who don’t know a cycle from their own asshole come in and tell us old-timers that were here seven years ago that it’s all a myth. They don’t staff up. They don’t warehouse extra supplies. They don’t put the town’s certified alpha contractors on notice. Nothing. And then, cycle after cycle, round after round, all hell breaks loose, and these morons are surprised all over again.”
The nurse dropped his cigarette on the pavement and crushed it out with his toe. “You new here?” he asked. “I’m Damien.”
“Michael. Yeah, I’m a volunteer. Got drafted by my Pack Alpha. He’s one of the plug-and-play alpha contractors. I’ve never seen anything like this, and I didn’t exactly grow up in the sticks.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t get a lotta news coverage, man. Most people don’t give a fuck about Omegas. Most Omegas cycle through their Heats just fine at home with their mates, or if they’re real young, with a family friend or Pack member. Some still tough it out with their own parents. The shrinks say there’s nothing damaging about taking it up the ass from your own dad, but…” Damien huffed. “My dad smells like anchovies. No, thanks.” He shivered at the idea, looking thoroughly disgusted. Michael had to agree.
“So, the ones who end up here?” Michael prompted. They’d discussed it in class many times, but the reality was so much more visceral. Michael felt shook to his core.
“These are the poor sonsabitches who were unlucky enough to be close to coming of age without anyone safe to fuck ‘em back to ground level. Some of the Omegas here are older, swept up in the Septennial when they weren’t expecting their Heat yet and didn’t have an alpha lined up. Most are just barely sixteen. It takes an alpha once you’re sixteen. Folks still wanna debate about that, but I’m telling you, it’s a hard limit. Man, I’ve seen kids fifteen and three quarters go through a Heat with a hard dildo and a DVD and come out of it no problem, but once their birthday’s past, if there’s not an alpha jizzing up their channel, they’re playing Russian roulette with only one chamber empty. Not one Omega in ten survives more than two Heats alone once they’re sixteen.”
“No wonder some of them turn to their own parents,” Michael observed. “Better that than risk death … or chancing a random who could rape and murder you.”
“You’re not wrong, man. But, honestly, it’s not the randos with a danger kink you gotta worry about. It’s desperate lonely bachelors who’ll Mate an Omega without their consent that are the scariest. Some of the stories we get through these doors; it’d turn all the hair on your chest dead white.”
Michael found the wrapper of his burrito tightly fisted in his cold hand. He was shaking from the weather and the second-hand fear as Damien realized he’d gone too far. “Hey, man. You okay? Look, I can smell you’re Mated. You got nothing to worry about. Besides, it’s really just the young virgins who get took that way. Once you cross that first moat, age a little, get to know your own body and how to manage your Heats, you’re nowhere near as vulnerable. Nights like tonight, it’s good these kids have somewhere safe to go. We’ll take care of ‘em, man. No one’s going to wake up Mated here unless they showed up at our door that way.”
Michael made himself chuckle. “Surely there’s an occasional True-Mate Trigger. All the scents clinging to the place?”
“Oh, well, yeah, every now and then,” Damien agreed. “But most of the alpha contractors are Mated already. Not all, I guess, but most. There’s still the rest of the staff, I guess. We keep extra alphas off the wing as much as we can. Betas who have to be here wear respirators. First Heat is no time to go looking for your one true match. They’re sixteen years old for cryin’ out loud.”
“What’s the deal with those two, uh… the beta guards back at the entry point?” Michael made a slicing motion at his groin.
Damien laughed. “Oh, the eunuch twins? They’re rescues from an underground ring. The syndicate captured them as tweens, both of them. Castrated ‘em right after they Presented and raised them to work with the Omega livestock in some scummy Omega fuckhole. It’s old news now. They’re cool. They aren’t brothers, but you wouldn’t get anywhere trying to separate them. They’ve worked here for years, and they’re funny guys. They love castration jokes.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You’d think. But, nah. They were too young when it happened to really know what they’d missed. So grateful for the rescue and all the rehabilitation Alpha Novak offered them that they’re pretty much the easiest-going chaps on the whole staff. Course, I wouldn’t cross them, if you know what I mean. They’re essentially bouncers here, and if they tell you to move your ass, I’d advise moving your ass.”
“Castiel rescued them?” Michael asked. He’d been told the rescue teams operated in secret. If the average joe on the street knew about it…
“No, man. He didn’t rescue them. He offered them a job and paid for their therapy while they were in rehab. I heard the chicks who actually pulled them out were some kinda ninja angels with killer bods and flowing hair and deadly aim. Omegas, the whole team.”
“Is that so?” Michael said noncommittally. “Sounds more like some beta’s wet dream to me.”
“Well, somebody shot all the guards in the forehead and pulled every last sorry son of a bitch out of that basement prison. Maybe they weren’t all chicks or Omegas, but they weren’t no ghosts neither.”
Michael chuckled. “I need to get back in there. I’d hate to see what Missy does to volunteers who overstay their breaks.”
“No, it’s not pretty, man,” Michael’s new friend agreed.
But when he returned, red-cheeked and huffing from the cold, his station was manned by a veteran nurse, who looked embedded, and Michael was at a loss. He looked around, recognizing no one. He didn’t really want to interrupt, but he had about decided he had no other choice when a resolute voice called to him as a gurney slid by.
“Hey, you! I need a body.”
The owner of the voice took Michael by the bicep and steered him along beside the rumbling gurney with an unconscious naked sweaty teenaged blonde girl on it.
“Who, me?” Michael scurried to keep the rubber side down as he jogged to match the pace.
“You stand still with your thumb up your ass like that, kid, and someone’s gonna put you to work. Name?”
“Um, Michael.”
“All right, Um, Michael, you’re my in-room monitor for this one. You know anything about Secondary therapy?” She was blunt and coarse and abrupt, and she wasn’t looking at him at all. She put her back to the door into one of the rooms, and she heaved on the gurney as the orderly pushed, scraping Michael right off the side to trail awkwardly in behind.
“I’m in training,” he told her staunchly. “I’ve got two semesters left to go. I’ve never done rounds on my own, and I’ve never chaperoned a Heat before.”
The nurse smacked her lips, letting the orderly arrange the gurney beside the bed and transfer the patient. She looked Michael up and down, recognition flashing. “You’re Jody’s newest pup! I heard she laid you raw a month or so ago. Your welts heal up yet?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michael answered sourly. “I’m right as rain.”
“Good. Look, freshman, if you’ve been doing rounds with Jody, you’ll do fine in here. All you gotta do is keep the patient as calm as you can, stand witness, keep outta the alpha’s way, and get them anything they need. If any of the alarms go off, you don’t do a goddamn thing, you hear me? The monitor outside in the hall will call for help. You’re here cause the lawyers say we need two bodies in the room with every cycling Omega. If something comes up that any goldfish with an average IQ can handle, then handle it. If you don’t know what to do, call for help. Your emergency button is right here at the door, but only push it if it’s you in distress, not the patient. Don’t, I repeat, don’t, under any circumstances, try to go back through the door we just entered from until we come get you. If an alpha gets a whiff from that hallway, we’re fucked. Got it?”
“Got it,” Michael told her.
She stared at him for a moment, a glare hard enough to make Michael wonder if she might be an Omega-Dom herself. “All right. So. This poor girl is in bad shape. She’s sedated for the moment, but the drugs are going to wear off in a few minutes. You see her shoulder? She’s been bitten. Mated against her will. If I caught the story right, it was her own Pack Alpha who did it, and the patient wants no part of a Mating with a woman forty years her senior and way past her prime. She was screaming bloody murder to be taken somewhere that woman couldn’t touch her and had to be sedated for her own safety. None of that’s going to help when she wakes up still in the middle of her first mature Heat. You going to be able to handle all that, Michael? We’re not going to have to scrape you off the floor, are we?”
“No, ma’am. I’m fine.”
“Lord, I hope so. I can’t stay and babysit you, it’s still chaos out there, more coming in every hour. Come on, George.”
The orderly signed off the young Omega’s chart and handed it to Michael, pointing to where he needed to sign in. Michael took the clipboard and added his name before perusing the details. She’d been in Heat for six days. She hadn’t had an attendant for the first four, but as her condition turned dangerous, her Pack Alpha kindly stepped up to see her through. Unfortunately, the woman’s lust caught her up and led her not simply to Claim the Omega, but to Mate her too. Michael frowned. How did a spinster get to be a Pack Alpha in the first place? Wasn’t one of the perks of being Alpha the right to bring into the Pack whomever you wanted for your mate?
He checked the history outlined in the chart, pacing slowly as the girl slept on. She wasn’t any blood relation to her Alpha. That was irrelevant, Michael supposed, if she wasn’t planning to honor the Mating. There were ways, he knew, to all but sever an unwanted Mating. It couldn’t be dissolved entirely, but it could be stretched and twisted until it was barely perceivable, a therapy that could take years before the link remained little more than a kite string linking two people together, but it was better than being bound forever against your will.
Michael shivered again.
The blonde on the bed groaned and pulled her knees up, her fingers tightened into fists. Michael set the clipboard down on the counter and checked the various displays. She was stable, but her temperature was climbing steadily. Her face was flushed, and her eyelids twitched.
He leaned over her and gently stroked her hair.
She flinched.
“Shh. You’re okay, sweetheart. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe right now.”
Her eyes shot open, brown and accusing, circled with gold. “Where am I? Who the hell are you? You keep that bitch away from me!”
So much for a slow, groggy wakeup. She went from dead asleep to alert in seconds, scanning the room.
“She’s on the other side of a whole bunch of locked doors, Kate. You’re safe. My name’s Michael, and I’m Omega, like you. I’m here to help.” She struggled to sit up, but Michael didn’t back out of her way, blocking her from getting out of the bed. “Kate, you need to stay where you are. Your legs won’t hold you right now. Lie back, Omega. You’re still in Heat.”
“God, don’t remind me.” She fell dizzily back onto her pillow and covered her face with her elbow. “Jesus Christ, I feel like hell.”
Michael smiled. “You actually seem pretty good for your sixth day. You’re made of some world class grit, Kate.”
“Look. Omega.” She gritted her teeth and shot a hand down to rub at her crotch. “You’re cute and all, but if you don’t have a knot, I’m not interested. Can we save the small talk? I don’t know how to phrase this politely, but I’m not in a chatty mood. I need… Oh, fuck, I need…” Her fingertips sped up as her hips joined in the motion, and her other hand slipped behind her to press fingers, wrinkled from constant moisture back into her ass.
Michael looked over his shoulder. He knew there were screens on the alpha side of the room as well, monitors that signaled the alphas when to enter. He didn’t know how to stall if the alpha was late. “Um, yeah, I know. I’m no good to you. We’ve got somebody on the way. Hold on for me for just a sec. Don’t get up.” He didn’t remember there being a delay in the alphas’ arrivals when he was outside monitoring. A glance at the screen behind her shoulder told him she was already approaching the yellow zone. Someone should be here by now.
Michael edged toward the door, his hand out to the doorknob, his eyes watching to make sure she didn’t try to stand. The door opened as he reached it, and Michael found himself face to face with his own mate. Dean looked braced, though his jaw twitched a little. If Dean had known Michael was on the other side of that door, that explained the delay. This was gonna be… But Michael could stand it if Dean could.
“Everyone else is tied up or resting,” he whispered to Michael as he eyed the blonde wolf curled up on herself on the bed, beginning to lose herself in the pain and the heat and the throbbing. Her eyes locked onto Dean and held there. “I know it’s weird. You’re not supposed to be assigned as chaperone, man, not without a license. Can you do this? I need to know she’s not gonna get her throat ripped out.”
Michael scowled. “She’s already had a chunk taken out of her shoulder, alpha. We’re on her side, remember? I’ve stashed my wolf. I’m good.”
“Good,” Dean repeated. “Had to check. I’ve got this, man. Hang tight for me and keep watch. Things go sideways sometimes.”
“Dean, I will always watch out for you.”
“I love you too, babe,” Dean whispered in a hurry. He kissed Michael’s lips briefly and then made his way to the bed.
He wore a thin bathrobe, tied at his waist. He sat beside the Omega girl, and he touched her face gently. “Hey there, kiddo. Heard you’re not yourself right now.”
“No shit,” she groaned. “I need you to fuck me, and I mean now.” Her hand tightened around his wrist, her eyes pleading. Her voice held conviction. Sweat dribbled from her hairline, and she’d begun to pant slightly.
“Yeah, we’re gonna do that,” Dean comforted, placing a wide palm on her belly and massaging firmly. “In just a minute. I know it hurts. I need to make sure I understand where your head’s at right now. I need you to trust me, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. Not even a little bit. Promise me that if I do anything that hurts, you’ll say something, yeah?”
Michael was in awe of Dean’s control. The Heat scent filled the small room until Michael’s eyes watered, and though Dean’s pupils were enormous and his robe slipped open, allowing his engorged cock to stand out shamelessly, he was calm and deliberate with every move. He was slow, broadcasting every move, stroking her in unerotic places to get her accustomed to his touch. He held her gaze, proving moment by moment that he wasn’t going to lose control and cause her pain.
She stared into his eyes, transfixed and panting, blushing even beneath her flush. She was pretty, not simply in the base Omega allure of raw unabashed sexuality of a Heat cycle, but in clear, objective everyday truth. She was pretty, and she was writhing, and the scent of need began to replace the scent of fear she’d awoken with as the seconds passed while Dean massaged her body. His hands began systematically to rove closer and closer to her hot spots, nudging a glancing blow first to the soft skin of her breasts, then with light touches across her nipples, then down into the modest growth of hair at her groin. Always in motion, his hands introduced her to the comforting feel of him, and his eyes stayed locked with hers, reading her and speaking to her.
“Michael, take my robe, would’ja?” Dean spoke softly so as not to burst the hypnotic bubble he was building around the needy Omega. Michael stayed behind his mate, circling his waist to untie the fabric belt and slide the robe off Dean’s shoulders. Dean shifted, still holding her eyes, and put a knee on the bed, still moving slowly, intentionally.
“You’re going to be okay,” Dean promised. “It’s not as fucked up as it seems right now. We can help you, I swear. You don’t have to go back there when this is over. But first, we need to get your Heat under control. You ready?”
She nodded quick, certain little jerks of her head, and she spread her legs to him.
“Good girl. Don’t let me hurt you. You may be tender after your first time earlier, but I’m gonna be real careful. Tell me if anything stings, and we’ll find a different position.” Dean worked his way above her, centered, holding himself up with his arms. “Eyes on me, Omega. I’ve got you. I need to hit your channel, sweetie. I know it’s sore. I’ll be real careful. Let’s see if we can get your temperature down, okay?”
Without looking, Dean lowered his hips, feeling and aiming his way straight to her entrance effortlessly, years of practice guiding him. She groaned and closed her eyes as he slid in. Her hands shot up to hold him across the shoulders and he praised her softly. Dean pressed in slowly, watching her face, concentrating on what she felt like around his cock as he sank into her. She frowned slightly, tightening her fingers.
Michael could tell she was hurting, but the pain pulled her in opposite directions, and she gripped Dean’s back tight enough that he couldn’t go anywhere even if he’d wanted to. He shushed and praised her in a chanting litany, moving gently.
“Alpha, please,” she whined, lifting her legs up around his hips and pulling him in deeper, thrusting her hips into his. He let her move as she would, but he held himself to his glacial pace.
“We need to start slow, sweetheart,” he told her. “Your Pack Alpha did some damage, and I’m not gonna make that worse. Don’t worry, we’re getting there. Michael, babe, watch her O.T. tracer for me. Let me know if it goes above fifteen.”
“Alpha, please. I’m burning up!”
“Shh, I know, love. Ride with me, okay? Feel the pulse? Slow it down for a sec and match my pace. Does it hurt at all?”
“Everything hurts!” she wailed.
He chuckled. “Okay, kiddo. I hear ya. Next round we’ll shoot for the top pocket and give your channel a break. Right now, we have no choice.” He’d been thrusting in deep and slow for a couple of minutes, watching for signs of distress, but her only distress was the Heat itself and the alpha’s infuriatingly controlled pace. Soothed that she wasn’t badly injured internally, Dean picked it up. “Here we go. Follow me. Hold on, Kate, I’m gonna take care of you.”
And with that, Dean decided that was enough talking. He picked up the pace and the power. His alpha emerged, red-flushed and sweating, tired of being stymied, and he began to pound into her. With a harsh grunt, he ducked his shoulder and tucked her leg right up over it, splaying her obscenely and gritting his teeth. Gone was the subtle, delicate tracing touch. Dean wrapped a hand around the back of her neck tight enough to get her attention, and he fucked her ruthlessly.
She screamed as his knot locked and his cock pulsed within her, coming hard, deeply alpha, and filling her with wet, sticky, soothing warmth. Dean coasted for a breath or two on the endorphins racing through him. He released her neck and kissed the reddened skin below her ear under his grip. He lifted his torso and slid a hand down her belly between them to stroke idly at her clit, watching her float on waves of pleasure, all the more powerful as they replaced brutal, agonizing cramps.
Kate pulsed her hips into the stroking of his fingers, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow and quick. Tears leaked from her closed eyes as she found a good rhythm and rode the touch to orgasm. And then she was crying in earnest. Her hands covered her face, and she sobbed.
Dean’s heart went out to her. He leaned down and left a soft kiss to her unblemished left shoulder, but he couldn’t repair the damage to her right. A square bandage covered the bite, but nothing could erase it. Kate was Mated now, like it or not, and no matter if she ever acquiesced to its pull and became a Pack Alpha mate in truth, she would never have a chance to Mate again.
Dean held her as she sobbed, watching helplessly as one pain replaced another. He arranged her to lie on her side, with most of their weight on Dean’s hip. He wrapped his arms around her hot, sweaty body, and he let her cry.
Michael produced a light blanket and a warm, wet cloth. He wiped her body down as well as he could, and then he covered her. He climbed up to sit beside her and rubbed her back in firm circles.
“Grab her some juice and something to eat,” Dean coached. “She needs to refuel. We’ve got a long way to go yet.”
Michael nodded and eased off the bed. “Do you need me to take any readings?” he asked carefully.
“Nah, the doc will take care of that after we untie.” He turned his attention to the Omega he was knotted to. Her tears had begun to fade, leaving her spent and still. Dean rolled backward and popped a couple of tissues from the box at his bedside. He cleaned her face and then accepted the juice bottle and cereal bar Michael handed to him. “Can you lean up a little, Kate?” he asked gently. “Let’s get some calories in you. It’ll help, I promise.”
She let him care for her, saying little. Her face bespoke a hopelessness that broke Michael’s heart. She ate mechanically.
“One more day of Heat, Kate,” Dean soothed, bracing her weight so she could eat and drink. “And then you’re home free.”
“Home,” she repeated dully. “I can’t go back home, alpha. I’m not tying myself to that asshole; I don’t care how bad it hurts. I trusted her and look what that got me.” By the end of her statement, she’d gagged and doubled over, drawing her top leg across Dean’s hip and curling into the cramp in her core.
Dean frowned in concern. “Shh. Let’s save that kinda talk until you’ve got your body back under control. You don’t need to add any more pain right now.”
“I don’t care, alpha! I want it to hurt. I hope she’s in pain too, the bitch. Look what she did to me!” Her volume backed up her adamance, even as the pain in her gut brought a grimace to her face. Dean sighed, knowing that a mirror of Kate’s pain would be felt in her Alpha mate right now no matter how far she was. He couldn’t chide Kate for the impulse. Dean didn’t blame her at all.
“I know, kid,” Dean soothed, breaking off a piece of the cereal bar for her and feeding it right into her mouth. “And we’re gonna deal with that, okay? No one’s gonna make you go back. What she did was dead wrong, whether it was an accident or intentional, and she’s going to face the piper…”
”Pay the piper, Dean,” Michael corrected softly. “The phrase is Pay the piper.”
Dean shot his mate a nonverbal version of, shut the fuck up through his Mating-bond. He carded his fingers through her damp hair. “The point is, if my mate would let me finish, there are ways to dull the bond-link and get you almost back to new. We have therapies, Kate, and they work to make your Mating-bond nearly undetectable. It’s not painless, I’m not going to lie, and it takes time. But, kid, you don’t have to go back and be her mate.”
“Can you break it?” she asked hopefully. Her voice was grated and weary from the near week-long ordeal.
Dean took a deep breath, meeting Michael’s eye and then turning back to Kate. “No,” he said as straightforwardly as he could. “We can’t break it. And we can’t give you another shot at Mating. I’m sorry. But this isn’t the end of the road for you. We can stretch it and dull it until it doesn’t hurt anymore, and it’s not always pulling you to go back. There’s still a world of people out there for you to meet and find connections with. There are more ways to gel with someone you love than Mating. See my wedding ring?” Dean held his hand up and let her examine the Titanium band. “I married a guy I can’t Mate. There’s more than one road, Kate. Your life isn’t over.”
Kate closed her eyes and rolled onto her back to the extent that she could. “We’re not all Dean Winchester,” she commented dully.
Dean softened his tone. “Look, I’m not special. Doves and chipmunks don’t bring me breakfast in a sunlit room with rainbows coming through the windows. I fought for what I wanted, and I didn’t let anyone tell me what I could or couldn’t go out and get. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s not easier for an alpha than it would be for you, but hard or not, you don’t have to roll over and let some shithead Alpha take what’s yours and decide that’s all there is to it.
“So, we’re gonna get you through this Heat, and then we’re going to move you somewhere safe and start legal dissolution proceedings to get you out of that Pack. We’ve got therapists and advocates who will help you consider all your options. You have options, kiddo.”
Kate sighed with a world of grief behind the breath, but an edge of steel ringed her pupils with a golden halo, and she nodded. “I don’t know what to do, Dean,” she admitted. “I planned to wait until I was nineteen and then put my scent out into the Mate-match program if I hadn’t found a TM by then. I wanted a family. I wanted pups. I dreamed of opening my own childcare center in the Pack compound, watching over all the pups in the Pack and helping with income by taking in pups from the public too. I had it all figured out. Now what do I do? Start all over?”
Michael sat back down behind her and touched her cheek. “Don’t try to solve it all now, Omega,” he urged. “Get some rest.”
“Will you guys stay with me?” she asked Dean, including Michael as well by grabbing hold of his hand.
Dean smiled. “Yeah, kid, I’ll see what I can do. Close your eyes and try to sleep a little.”
“Dean,” she said, taking hold of his wrist. “Thank you.”
He kissed her brow and wrapped an arm beneath her, pulling her to snuggle in close. “We’ve got you, sweetheart. You’re gonna be okay.”
In the far hallway after Dean’s knot slipped free and he’d donned his robe again, Dean led Michael by the hand to try to search Castiel out. This side of the block of rooms carried a far different scent—muskier and more cloying. Michael sneezed.
“Gesundheit,” Dean muttered.
They’d left the sleeping Omega in the care of a circulating physician who checked her condition and attempted to predict how many rounds she had left before she could be safely discharged. Dean instructed the doc not to move her just yet, warning him that she had special circumstances riding on her whereabouts, and she needed an advocate assigned right away. Dean wasn’t sure if her Pack might still be loitering about, seeking a way to bust her out and take her home, and he wasn’t going to risk it by allowing her to ride out her lulls in an open ward with other Omegas.
“What are we doing?” Michael asked as he trailed his mate. Michael grew weary as the night waned and dawn loomed heavy, but Dean seemed spry.
“We’re looking for Cas,” Dean repeated, offering nothing further. The alpha steered them both into a long dark room lined with cots, each separated by a flimsy partition. Alphas lay sprawled here and there, resting between rounds. Dean followed his bond-link and his nose, rounding Castiel’s cubby with a confident stride. He dropped Michael’s hand and approached the man who appeared to be asleep.
But Cas spoke without opening his eyes. “Dean,” he muttered, lifting a hand. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m awesome, Alpha,” Dean told him, lacing his fingers into Cas’ and climbing right onto the narrow cot next to the man. Cas huffed and scooted over a little.
“They’re not built for two, Winchester. If you collapse my bed, I’m taking it out of your paycheck and your ass.”
Michael hovered in the aisle, a little perplexed. Dean raised up to kiss his husband’s tired lips, earning himself a cracked open deep blue eye and a touch to his scruffy cheek. “Whatever you’re about to ask me, Dean,” the Alpha asserted. “The answer is no.”
“Just hear me out, CJ.”
“Dean…” Michael started and then stopped. Cas rubbed his face, swatted Dean lightly to give him some space, and then sat up.
“Talk,” he instructed with a peek at Michael.
Dean licked his lips. “You know the young Omega girl who came in with her Pack Alpha a couple of hours ago?”
“Dean, that describes half the Omegas in the building.”
“The one who was Mated without her consent. The blonde from the Harrister Pack. You did her triage,” he clarified.
“Right,” Cas nodded. “What about her?”
“She’s going to contest the Mating and probably file rape and infringement charges,” Dean told him. “We need to find her a safehouse. She can’t go back there.”
“No,” Cas agreed. “And she won’t. Intake marked her file already. Her Alpha has been taken in for questioning. Her case will be transferred to Social Services before she’s finished with her Heat, and they’ll find her a foster home. Don’t worry, Dean. She won’t be forced to return to that Pack. I doubt the rape charge will stick, but the infringement is enough by itself to win her a dissolution. Did you draw her on your last round?” Cas knew that Omegas under harsh societal pressures always struck Dean personally, and he expected that his husband probably needed a comforting touch.
“I want to foster her myself, Cas.”
“What?!”
“What?”
Cas and Michael both responded at once. Dean sat up, pulling up onto his knees and getting right in Castiel’s face. “Look, it’ll be good for her and for us. We need a nanny. She needs a home. She needs protection and the kind of hard-core therapy that not just every foster home can offer.”
“Dean,” Cas said tiredly, leaning into a hand braced on his brow, propping himself up on elbows that dug into his thighs. “I know it hurts. She got a shitty deal from someone who was supposed to protect her, and that sucks. We can’t take in every brutalized Omega we encounter. We aren’t going to let her flounder, but we can’t fix this. We can’t un-rape the girl. We can’t remove the bond. What we can do is clean the wound, see her through her Heat, find her a safe home, prosecute the offender, and work on stretching her link out until she can breathe again.”
“I want you to meet her, CJ. Talk to her. I think she’s ideally suited to our Pack. You’ll see if you talk to her.”
Michael took a step forward. “Dean, you only know her from one knotting, and she wasn’t in her right mind at the time.”
“That’s right,” Dean agreed fervently. “But even in the thick of the hardest Heat of her life, she showed grit and a rational mind. I’m telling you, fellas, this girl is a Winchester at heart. I can feel it.”
“You’re feeling aftershocks,” Michael told him uncertainly.
“All right, look,” Dean regrouped. “At least sign off on me sticking with her for the rest of her Heat. The kid’s traumatized. The last thing she needs is a parade of total strangers marching through getting a taste of her snatch.”
“Always classy,” Michael observed.
“She trusts me, Cas. She asked me to stay. I know I’m really not supposed to be here at all, and you said yourself that one alpha, give or take, wouldn’t make much difference. Sign me over to be her exclusive. She needs that security.” Dean ignored Michael’s shifting weight and concentrated on Castiel.
“This isn’t my facility,” Cas reminded his husband. “I don’t have assignment rights here. And besides, every Omega here is in Heat-distress. This merry-go-round approach isn’t ideal for any of them, but there aren’t enough alphas to assign each Omega one of their own.”
“They’ll listen to you, man. You know they will. Tell them she bonded with me enough to feel safe for a spell. She’s not just distressed, man, she’s fighting a mate-rejection and emotional trauma that the others aren’t.”
Cas mulled it over.
“Damnit, Cas, she needs this. The girl was just raped by her own Alpha, Mated against her will. And her body isn’t done demanding more. Don’t make her face stranger after stranger at the most vulnerable moment in her life! We can’t save everyone, man, but at least we can do right by this one scared kid!”
“All right,” Cas agreed. “I’ll speak to Chelsea. Get something to eat and then go on back to her. But Dean?” He waited until he had green eyes locked onto his blue. “She’s not coming home with us.”
Dean won the assignment he’d requested, but Michael found himself sent home to sleep until his next shift began. Michael left the alphas at the hospital and drove himself home after promising Cas he wouldn’t stop anywhere for any reason until he parked in his home garage, joking that he would even run stop signs and red lights if it would make the Alpha relax.
Michael dragged himself into the kitchen where Cain presided over a very informal breakfast. He dropped into his usual seat, attacked a hot bowl of oatmeal that appeared from nowhere, and then slouched up to his room with barely a word to anyone. Michael was under instructions to get as much sleep as he could and then get Cain or one of the betas to bring him back. He felt like he could sleep for a year.
He had a voicemail from Jody that needed to be returned first.
“Hey, sunshine!” she sang at him through the earpiece. “I heard you won your wings last night. They’re saying you did really well, Michael. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” he replied dully. “Where are you stationed?”
“I’m working the home field,” she told him. “I’m scheduled to clock in about fifteen minutes from now, so I can’t stay and chat. But I wanted to hear your voice, kiddo. I know that was rough. You okay?”
“Why didn’t you warn me about the Septennial, Jody?”
She sighed. “They covered it in class, Michael. I know they did. But, yeah, kind of caught us all flat-footed this round. We staffed up here at the Facility, and all the hospitals assured us they had everything under control. One of these times we’re going to learn not to believe them. I didn’t expect you to get pulled in or I would’ve prepared you. I’m sorry about that. But, Michael, no amount of prep really helps. It’s a baptism by fire, and there’s no way to get ready for it. The good news is you’ve met your service hours and then some for the semester. You’re getting great experience and working well under pressure. This is an excellent opportunity for you. Use it, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Can the extra service hours carry over to next semester?” Michael’s sneakers hit the floor with a clomp, and he collapsed onto his bed still fully dressed.
“‘Fraid not. We don’t want trainees stocking up early and then riding out the rest of their terms without keeping a hand in the game. But every hour you’ve got your eyes on a patient is gold to you, Michael. It’s more than the state requires, but none of it is a waste. Oh, and if you stick around and volunteer as long as they can use you, I’ll replace a major test grade in the class of your choice with full marks. Deal?”
“You can do that?”
“I can do that.”
“Deal. Thanks, Jody.” Michael unbuckled his belt, unsnapped his jeans, and shimmied out of his pants with his phone tucked into his shoulder. He didn’t mention that he was already roped into helping for as long as they needed him, whether he wanted to or not. He suspected Jody knew that.
“Get some sleep,” she advised. “Eat a good meal before you go back. You’re doing important work, trainee, way more important than showing off on some stage.”
Michael humphed and hung up to the light peal of Jody’s laughter. He shoved himself upward when April slipped in with a cranky Alex in her arms. The toddler reached for Michael, and Michael took him into a warm embrace, burying his nose in the scent of his son’s hair.
“Hungry, Ace? O-Pop’s got you, baby boy. I missed you too.” Michael wormed his way out of one sleeve and shifted his tight undershirt to give Alex access to his nipple, and he dropped his head back to rest against the bars of his headboard. April rounded the bed and climbed up to help him all the way out of his shirts and snuggle in close to him. It would have been serene but that Alex slapped at her, unhappy at having to share his mother’s affection.
Michael caught his hand and held it. “No, son. Pups do not hit. Mommy is welcome here.”
Alex tore his suction free, spilling his mouthful, in his adamance. “No! O-Pah!” he demanded, curling into Michael and shooting daggers at April with his eyes.
Michael sighed wearily and heaved himself off the bed with the boy. “Alexander,” he corrected sternly, incorporating his wolf in a controlled way. “O-Pop told you. Mommy is welcome. Grownups decide who stays, not pups.” He set the pup on the floor in the corner, facing the room, and he took a couple of steps back.”
Alex wailed and threw himself forward, almost face-planting in the carpet.
“You’re tired,” April said. “Maybe I should go. We can catch up later.”
“No,” Michael disagreed. “He needs to get used to obeying. I’m not raising a brat, Pete. I can sleep later.”
“He’s not a brat,” she replied softly. “It’s a phase. He doesn’t dislike me, Michael. He just missed you. He didn’t sleep well. You weren’t here at bedtime. You weren’t here when he woke up.”
Michael stood his ground. “I know, but cause and effect are crucial to him right now. He needs boundaries or he won’t have the security he depends on. He’s not hurt, Pete, just dismayed. Please don’t go. I missed you as much as he missed me. I missed all of you. Please stay.”
She smiled. “All right.”
Michael shot a shy smile over his shoulder, warmed by her trust, and then he stepped up and scooped the furious pup off the floor. “Shh, Punkin, it’s all right. O-Pop’s here. I’m not mad, buddy. You ready to try again? I know my boy’s hungry.”
Alex nodded vigorously as Michael wiped his tears away and held a tissue for him.
“Blow hard for me, champ.” Climbing back onto the bed, Michael arranged Alex back at his chest, making sure that the pup could still see April, and he deliberately wrapped his free arm tightly around her. “O-Pop’s sleepy, kiddo. Can you help me go to sleep?”
Alex eyed his Mommy across Michael’s chest, but he didn’t swipe at her again. Soon, he’d closed his eyes and set to the rhythmic suction of a practiced team effort with Michael’s thumb caressing his cheek.
“Good boy,” Michael murmured, losing himself for a moment in the wave of oxytocin that relaxed all of his muscles. “He’s not a brat,” Michael agreed quietly without opening his eyes. “And he’s not going to be one either, not if I can help it.”
April scoffed quietly. “You can’t control what he grows into,” she added. “He’s Dean’s son too. He stands a fair chance of developing a brat as he gets older.”
Michael leaned down and kissed her temple. “Maybe,” he agreed. “But I’m not talking about his wolf. I’m talking about while he’s a pup. We’ll be screwed if we let the pups take charge. There are too many of them. It would be chaos in no time.”
“The others all woke and ate early,” April told him. “I should have stuck to the schedule. I’m sorry. How do I get them back on track?”
“Nah, it’s okay, Pete. You met their needs. You did fine. They’re not damaged. The schedule is there to help, not to be hard and fast prison. Everything’s a mess right now. It’s okay to adjust.”
“I’m lost without you,” she admitted. “Jess and Kali help, but they don’t want to overstep, so they leave the decisions to me, and I keep looking around for you.”
Michael laughed softly. “Pete, you’re an amazing mother. You don’t need me. You need to learn to trust yourself. You’ve got better instincts than any of us for this. You just get tangled inside your own self-doubt.”
She sighed and melted further into his side. “I missed you so much.”
“I was gone for one night.”
She laughed. “Pathetic, isn’t it? But Cas was gone too, and the house feels too big when I sleep alone.”
“Would you like to nurse too?” Michael asked with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s helping Ace reconnect. Might help you too.”
She laughed again. “You would love that, wouldn’t you?”
He leered playfully, but it didn’t hold. He was too tired and too glutted on the ugly side of sex.
They descended into silence but for Alex’s swallows. Michael shifted him, situating him to latch onto the other side.
“Was it bad?” April asked after a time.
Michael didn’t answer right away. Finally, “We’re very lucky, you and I. Lucky where we ended up. Lucky we didn’t have a harder go of it early on. And you…I don’t know how you survived. There were a couple of seventeen-year-olds, but nearly all of the patients were sixteen. How the hell did you ever hold out? Why did you risk it in the first place? We could have lost you before we knew you existed. That thought kept running through my head all night long, watching those kids come through. There was this one blonde… And three kids died last night, brought in too late to stop the inevitable. Pete, I could have lost you, and I never would have known.”
April stroked Alex’s hair a couple of times, but the pup waved her off, and she stopped.
“I had to, Michael. I can’t tell you how I knew, but the Universe had a direction for me, and I knew I had to hold out. I couldn’t see where I was going, but I knew it wasn’t part of the plan for me to stay there and teach piano to bored pups. And I didn’t know there were safer options. I thought my choices were to submit to Mating someone I didn’t love or get my own father lost enough in my hormones that he forgot who I was. Or hold out and get through it by the skin of my teeth. Do you think there will be better options for our pups, Michael? I don’t want any of them to face the choices I had. They weren’t choices at all. What if the alphas insist on making our pups go through that? What if we can’t make them understand?”
“Shh, Shh. Don’t worry, Pete. They understand. Trust me. They’re both still up at the hospital knee deep in desperate, feverish Omegas. They understand.”
“Oh-Pah,” Alex said with a dozy expression as plump slack lips pulled away. He planted his index finger in the middle of Michael’s throat.
“You got that right, Ace,” Michael crooned. “And now it’s time for O-Pop to go to sleep. Would you like to stay and nap with me? No wiggling, now. Just sleeping.”
“Nooo!” Alex struggled his way upright and crawled out of Michael’s lap toward April. She grinned and caught him.
“Ah, now I’m your person again,” she laughed. “I see how you operate, mister. I’m on to you.”
She stood up and carried Alex with her around the bed, leaning over to give Michael a slow kiss, encumbered by interfering toddler fingers. But she pressed on anyway, easing Alex to her other hip so he couldn’t reach.
Michael shuffled lower into the bed and pulled his many layers of blankets up to his shoulders. “Night, Ace. Night, Pete.”
“Oh-Pahp!”
“That’s right,” April agreed. “O-Pop stayed up all night long, and now he’s sleepy. But he loves Alex, and he loves Mommy, and he loves Emma, and he…” Her voice faded and disappeared as the door clicked shut.
Notes:
In other news, the next chapter flowed from this one, so it's partially complete. I am still at home, building up strength, trying to figure out how to get a job reassignment without losing the job altogether. I'm good though. Feeling so much better. Thanks a million for all your kind words. I love you too.
Hugs to the Pack!
Chapter 11: Thursday, January 24, 2019
Summary:
Castiel put his foot down, right? I mean, he did. We all heard him. "She's not coming home with us," he said.
Hmm.
So, there's that. But the Alpha isn't as off his game as he seems. He's got big plans for the new recruit, and it seems the new recruit has big plans as well.
All this and a Winchester-sized reckoning on a Winchester's birthday. When do one's thirties begin? At 30 or at 31?
Notes:
Thank you all for the comments and observations over the last few chapters. They're so, so appreciated, as are all of you. We're so deep in the weeds of this story that I'm really digging hard to get the plot moving again. Next chapter is where the pace picks back up. Big stuff coming. I swear.
This chapter is for Andi4. I know you need your Sammy fix.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday, January 24, 2019
NOW:
“This will be your room,” Dean said as he set a nearly empty duffel just inside the door of the room next to the nursery. It had its own bathroom and a little nook with a rocking chair near the window. Kate followed him in slowly. “Like I said,” he continued. “You take your time. Take all the time you need. Dinner is at seven. You’re welcome to join us, but if you’d rather, we can get you a tray and let you stay up here for a while. Just…please understand…whether this works out long term or not, while you’re here, this is your home. Be at ease. Make yourself comfortable. Only our bedrooms and the offices downstairs are off limits. If you want to find a hole to disappear into, the pool house out back is empty all winter.”
“And the pups?” she asked cautiously with a hand on the sheer drape in the window. Her room overlooked the side yard, out toward the duck pond.
“Right next door,” Dean answered. “Look, Kate, no one’s expecting you to jump right into anything. You don’t owe us a thing. If you find that the job suits you, and we all feel comfortable with it over time… I mean, it would be an incredible bit of serendipity if your need for a new home and our need for a nanny lined right up perfectly, but no one expects a miracle. The world rarely works that way. Don’t feel you need to force anything. We’re not going to chuck you out on the street no matter what.”
She smiled softly, watching Portia tormenting the ducks.
“I have … no idea what to think or what to feel right now, Dean,” she admitted. She seemed calm, but he’d seen her naked in more ways than one already, and he’d come to learn that her mask hid a great deal of turmoil.
“I know,” he told her. “There’s no rush. It’s going to take some time to work through what’s happened to you. It’s going to take time to unravel enough of it to even get to the point where you can look at where you are instead of where you’ve been. Even longer before you’ll be ready to look toward where you’re going. Just know, kid, you’re safe here. There’s no safer place in the world than right here.”
She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were chilled, and she nodded mutely without turning from the window.
“Your lawyer will be here at two,” Dean reminded her regretfully. “I’ll have someone come fetch you. We’re going to have one of ours sit in as well. I hope you don’t mind. There are…complications to consider. Don’t worry, Kate. We’ve done this before. We know what we’re doing. We’ll try to keep it short and painless. Promise.”
“You’ll stay with me for that?”
“The whole time, kiddo. Right beside you.”
She nodded and turned finally, facing him bravely. An Ozzie in a house she didn’t know, her only ally a Deep alpha with beautiful eyes, Kate couldn’t allow herself a moment of weakness. He was kind, and he’d touched her with a tenderness that wasn’t strictly required, but he was alpha. She didn’t expect she’d ever be able fully to trust another alpha. Not fully.
“What does your mate have to say about you taking in a stray? You talk a good game, alpha, but if I’m here over his objections, that doesn’t strengthen your argument very much.”
Dean ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Michael’s on board, Kate. He’s…wary. I won’t sugarcoat it. But he’s in, and he’s here for you too. Michael’s reservations aren’t about you, Omega; they’re about me. He thinks I’m overextending myself, and he’s probably right. But if Michael and I share the responsibility of taking you on as our ward, team up to make sure your needs are all covered, we can do this. And he’s game for that. I’d like to see you lean on him if you can. He can offer you things no alpha has access to.”
She sighed. “I always wanted to be someone’s senior project.” Her sarcastic tone bit with resentment, but then she shook it off. “No, I don’t mean that. You’ve been very kind, alpha. I’m grateful.”
Dean aborted a step forward. She didn’t need him that close. Not right now. “You don’t owe us any bootlicking, Kate. It’s okay to be pissed. Is Michael using this mess to gain some experience? Yeah. Definitely. Does that mean it’s not genuine? You’ll have to answer that for yourself. Give him a chance though. All right?”
“Thank you, Dean. I’ll see you at two.”
He nodded and turned to go. “By the way,” he added in the doorway, noticing that she’d stiffened when his body blocked her only exit. She took an unconscious step toward the window, despite being too far from the ground to use it as a safe exit. He moved backward until he was in the hall and not strictly blocking the door. He pointed down at the floor. “You’re directly above April’s conservatory. You can probably hear her play from here. If you want, you’re welcome to go down there and talk to her. She’s not much older than you. And she’s nice, most of the time.”
“She’s going to think I’m moving in to steal her children… or her boyfriend,” Kate guessed with an air of dread. “I don’t want to steal anything, Dean.”
“No, Kate. I talked to April myself. She’s not like that. And, hey, this isn’t really my story to tell, but you need to understand a little bit of where she’s coming from. The thing is, April came close to taking an unwanted bite herself. She held out as a virgin until she was nearly eighteen. I know you can imagine how excruciating that must’ve been. She was damn lucky she survived at all. She doesn’t resent you, Omega. She’s willing to give you a chance. She’s young and Ozzie and overwhelmed in a house full of old men, and she’s lonely on top of everything else.” Dean kept his tone level, but his alpha had the bit in its teeth, and he exuded authority and security. “Now, nothing on earth can force you two to be friends if that’s not in the cards, but you and she both have a lot of power to give it a good, honest shot.” He paused to let his words sink in, and then he added, “There’s no rush though. Take your time. Don’t feel like you need to perform for us. It’s okay to be unsure right now, kid. Just, maybe don’t dismiss the idea right away. We’re not without our flaws, Kate, but we’re good people for the most part. Nobody’s going to rush to judge you.”
“Dean, I’m grateful to you and your Pack. Really, I am. But I’m so lost right now, I don’t know which way to turn. I feel so fucking scared, I’m jumping at my own shadow, and I don’t trust myself not to lash out at someone, even someone who’s trying to be nice. I don’t deserve nice. I don’t deserve to be here. I broke the cardinal Ozzie rule. I ran from my own Pack, from my own Dominant, from my own mate. I’m useless, and I’m broken, and I don’t even know yet if I’m pregnant.”
Dean strolled slowly back into her room, broadcasting his intent, and he held his arms wide, not demanding, simply an offer, and she dove into him, holding on tightly. “You’re not broken,” he told her decisively. “You’re not useless. You didn’t break any rules, kid. They did. They broke all the cardinal rules, not you. They were supposed to protect you. Keep you safe. Give you a home where you could thrive. You were supposed to be able to trust them. I know you’re scared. I know you’re hurting. And, Kate, if you’re pregnant, we’ll sit down and talk through all your options. It’s going to be okay. You’re not alone, Omega, and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you like that ever again.”
“Why me, Dean?”
He pressed her back so he could look into her face. “Because I married a rich dude, and I have more resources than I know what to do with, and I can.” He was hoping for a chuckle but had to settle for a small smirk. Kate added an eye roll and turned her back to lift her duffel onto the bed.
Dean quirked a half-smile and then nodded to himself and disappeared.
“You’re not still steamed at me,” Dean prodded as he trailed Cas down the Facility hallway. “It’s the perfect solution. You’ll see. She’s awesome, man. Feisty. She’s a little like Claire in a way. You just have to get to know her, that’s all.”
“Dean, save it,” Cas quipped shortly. “Yes, I’m still steamed, as you put it.” Cas’ finger quotes would never not be adorable. “If I’m beholden to you to seek your input where significant decisions are at hand, then you’re most certainly under the same expectation from me. Regardless of how this plays out, you did an end run around me, and I’m not letting that go without an accounting.”
Dean licked his lips and then pressed them together. The look Cas leveled as he held the classroom door for his husband was one Dean wanted nothing to do with. But bravely, he met his Alpha’s reproving eye. The look told Dean in no uncertain terms that they hadn’t finished discussing Kate.
Most of the panel was present already. Dean sighed and peeled off to take his place along the long table, set facing a single chair out in the middle of the room by itself. He didn’t understand why Cas had convened the whole leadership team for a Contractor Certification review. Usually, Dean sat those with just his training team, a couple of Contractor leads, and Benny.
“We’ve a great deal to accomplish this afternoon,” Castiel announced, grabbing everyone’s attention and silencing the room. “So, let’s get started. First up is Maximillian Banes. Balthazar, would you please show him in?”
“Sure, Alpha,” the Omega said as he slipped out of his chair on the end and opened the far door with the candidate’s name on his lips. Max strolled in looking nervous but resolute. He stood next to the chair until Cas invited him to sit.
Cas introduced the proceedings to him as if he did this every day, cutting right to the point. “Max, you’ve performed well in all of your training courses. The only barrier to your certification now is this panel. It’s critical to the ACRI mission that every one of our contractors shares our goals and our values. Right here is where we establish that for the record. I warn you that we have had candidates fulfill all prior requirements for the post who nevertheless failed to establish themselves as ACRI material in the final interview. This is not a ritual discussion. It is a critical part of your evaluation. Please be advised that your responses to our questions are considered by this Facility to be binding. Should you, in future, display behaviors that conflict with the core values you declare to us here today, you will be held accountable for that discrepancy. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” Max replied clearly.
“Don’t be nervous, Omega,” Cas told him. Dean scoffed quietly, rolling his eyes. First the Alpha scares the kid with a threat to ream him if he wavers from the high-ended words Cas was about to pull out of him, and then he says not to be nervous.
Cas leaned forward and shot a hard look down the table. Dean rolled his shoulders and focused front. Castiel sighed and shuffled his notes.
“Benny,” he announced. “He’s all yours.”
What followed was fairly routine, despite the grandiose opening. The contractors operated under the Behavioral Department—Benny’s domain, so Benny handled most of the proceedings. Benny played video excerpts from Max’s final exam scenes, discussing strengths and weaknesses, pointing out where bad habits lingered and where a fine instinct led him well. Benny noted with a wry tone how Max’s striking green eyes kept track of the camera as it moved and seduced the lens as fervently as he did his scene partner. The panel chuckled in light amusement. The kid was cocky, flirtatious, and impertinent as he worked, but he had a commitment to his scenes that worked well, despite his cheek.
Dean’s department had led his training, so he took a fair number of questions as well. Max fielded them calmly, with an assurance that told everyone in the room he was a true veteran. He didn’t stumble over his answers, and he didn’t back down when someone on the panel pressed into responses they hadn’t expected. He saw things from the perspective of a young man whose safety hadn’t always been a foregone conclusion, and he rarely trusted that the ACRI’s protocols were entirely sufficient to protect Omega or Sub contractors. For every assurance they offered, Max gave them two or three hypotheticals that were realistic enough not to disregard out of hand.
Once the panel’s questions were spent, Cas took over again.
“Very nicely spoken, Omega. I believe I speak for the team when I say you’ve shown yourself to be a good fit for our Facility. What’s more, I want to thank you, on behalf of the Lawrence site, for your hand in convincing the unaffiliated sex workers of eastern Kansas and western Missouri to place themselves under a safer umbrella. You and your sister have saved lives, my friend, and you are to be commended for that.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you. They didn’t all follow us, but we were able to convince most of the ones who aren’t addicts. The ones still walking the streets wouldn’t have passed your health screening anyway.”
“Quite unfortunate, but a concern for a different panel,” Cas told him haughtily, evoking images of secret elvish meetings to which hobbits aren’t invited. Dean squelched his bratty snort, but barely. Jo smacked his thigh under the table.
“It’s your turn, Max,” Cas continued, still channeling Middle Earth. “What questions would you ask of us? Understand that the leadership team’s doors are always open to you, but you won’t have many chances to address all of us at once. Now is your opportunity to be heard.”
Dean glanced down the table at Cas and then looked past him to Bobby. Both alphas had an odd glint in their eyes. They were up to something. Closer to Dean, Benny was studiously scribbling notes. Billie looked bored.
“Yes, sir,” Max said, leaning forward. “There is something, if I may?”
Dean took in the heavy tone of the room. Something weighty was in the air, and clearly, Bobby and Cas both knew what it was. He focused back on Max. The Omega’s green eyes pierced, even from six yards away. When Cas gestured for Max to continue, the man lowered his gaze, clasped his hands, and centered his thoughts briefly. He looked up again and looked straight at the Alpha as if he had a private audience, as if no one else in the room mattered.
Perceptive kid, thought Dean, leaning back to listen.
“Sir, your approach to adolescent Omegas, the company line that says they should seek training when they mature, get tested once they’re of age—even lose their virginity to some random Keller panel—it’s wrong. It’s dangerous. And it needs to be updated. You need to write new laws lowering the age of consent—maybe just for Omegas, maybe for all wolves. I don’t really care about the betas. Alphas have a hard go of it, I know, but it’s the Omegas who’re really in the soup here. Omegas need a lower legal age of consent and harsher laws for their guardians if the kids wind up in Heat-distress at sixteen.”
“Interesting,” said Cas, steepling his fingers and fairly radiating potential energy. “Go on. Lower the age of consent to what age, exactly?”
Max appeared oblivious to Castiel’s heightened state, but he answered the question, taking it at face value. “Look, right now, we’ve got a legal age of consent set at sixteen. But that’s too late. It sets kids up to get to their first mature Heat still virgins, terrified out of their minds, horny enough to try to get the family dog to fuck them, and primed to be victimized by some alpha with no self-control. It’s too late, I’m telling you. I’ve seen it again and again. Lots of kids don’t wait, no matter what the law says—betas, alphas, even some of the neutral Omegas sneak off into private places and do what wolves do—but the Ozzies, most are trying their damnedest to behave themselves, make their Alpha proud, obey the house rules. But then they turn sixteen. They came to me on the street, desperate for something I can’t give them and putting themselves right into the meat grinder that chews up virgins and spits them out broken.”
Max took a deep breath and grounded himself again. “These kids…they’re trying to graduate high school, start college courses, make something of their lives that isn’t only about sex, and they have to compete against betas and apes who have nothing close to the kind of burden Omegas are saddled with. Alphas have it rough too, I get that, but I remember being fifteen and scared. I remember dreading my first Heat after I turned sixteen, knowing full well it was gonna be hell. But there’s no legal way to prepare for it. You’re not legally permitted to experience what a knot feels like until you come of age, and once you do, within your first three months of being legal, BOOM, you’re panting and rolling around, spiking a fever, and desperate for a knot, any fucking knot! And if you’re not ready for that, you die! You get to choose between dying in a fever with hallucinations while your blood boils or popping your cherry with whoever smells you first while you’re out of your mind in a hormone bath. That’s a shitty choice, Alpha!”
Max calmed himself visibly. The panel sat mute, waiting him out. Finally, Cas leaned forward onto his forearms. “What would you change?” It was a charged question, and Dean understood now. Max had been carefully groomed without Dean’s realizing it. Cas had plans for this Omega. Dean couldn’t fault his choice. The guy was smart and experienced, charismatic. He’d seen the rough side of the coin and come out into the sunlight with all his knowledge, and he had the energy of a crusader.
“Two things,” Max said at once. “A legislative change and an ACRI expansion. First, lower the age of consent to fifteen. Fourteen would be better, but that might be a hard pill to sell to Congress.”
“We aren’t legislators, Max,” Bobby reminded the candidate, but Max rolled his eyes.
“Yes, you are,” the Omega retorted. “You may not sit in the big leather chairs and cast the votes, but that doesn’t mean you don’t pull all the strings.”
Bobby shared a look with Cas. Cas shrugged and raised his eyebrows slightly before facing Max again.
Max went on. “Look, I know what goes on in the big Traditional packs. Packs with multiple generations in one compound, with multiple bloodlines all under the same roof. You guys can’t hide that shit from those of us on the street. You’re not sending your own sons and daughters into their first real Heat with an unbroken hymen. You don’t advertise it, but you allow nature to take its course behind your big iron gates. If it doesn’t, and the clock’s running down, you take care of business yourselves.
“It’s not the Omegas from big, rich packs who showed up at your clinic last week in danger of burning up. And damnit, I don’t have an issue with the way you do it. Your Omegas are groomed from the moment they Present. They’re taught and trained, and they know their own bodies. They know what to expect, and they get the chance to experience sex somewhere safe with someone they trust, with someone who cares about them like family. They get to do it outside of their Heat. They get a mentor, not a fucking rapist.” Max chewed on his lip for a moment, clearly gauging how fervent he should get.
“And Alpha, that’s the way every Omega should be raised!”
Cas shook his head. “I must take issue with your assumptions that there is a tradition of grooming in the larger packs. I’ve not seen that as a culture in my own experience, at least, not in a healthy way.”
“Alpha,” Max interjected. “Any parent or Pack Alpha who allows their own Omega to reach their first mature Heat without arranging a safe experience for them should be charged with neglect! We just had a nightmarish Septennial cycle, and we’ve learned nothing! How many unwanted pregnancies? Matings? How many terrified Omegas had to experience sex for the first time with a total stranger in a hospital bed? How many teenagers died last week for no reason?”
Max’s words reverberated in the room, highlighting his volume through the utter silence that followed.
“That’s one,” Cas reminded him. “You said there were two points. We legislate. An adjustment to the laws governing adolescents to allow lawful sexual encounters at a younger age and criminalizing a guardian’s failure to prepare for the Omega’s impending majority. What’s number two? What’s this ACRI expansion?”
Max licked his lips and cast a furtive glance down the table, realizing perhaps for the first time, that he had the riveted ear of everyone onsite who had any power.
“Open a school for young Omega teenagers,” he said simply.
Benny laughed. “Son, we’ve got one of those, or didn’t you get the tour?”
“No, alpha. Not for wolves sixteen and up. One for fourteen to fifteen-year-olds. I called it grooming, and I know that word has…connotations. I’m not suggesting we churn out sex slaves. I want us taking in boarding students, kids under sixteen, kids coming up on the big change. I want them to learn themselves, learn that sex doesn’t have to be scary, give ‘em a chance to fight off a rapist if they have to, learn how to recognize what pre-Heat feels like and make the appropriate preparations. I want to staff this school with…with…”
Max struggled. He blew out a breath. “Look, in the wild villages, what do they do with young wolves? Not just the Omegas, ALL of their adolescents. They don’t leave their coming of age to chance, do they? They have a special cadre of young adults who are old enough to have the right experience but young enough to remember how tough it is to be a kid—young enough to retain the cool factor of a young adult. Mentors. Coaches. Instructors. Whatever you wanna call them. Bring in the cool ones, the hot ones, the ones that teens gravitate to. Make sure they’re trustworthy. Train them to keep the kids’ best interest at heart. God, just give these poor kids a fighting chance not to get fucked by this fucked up world before they’re even mate material!”
Benny cocked his head. “And how would you implement this school of yours?”
“Uh, well, alpha, I, um, I have a lot of ideas. It’s probably not my place. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I worked intake last week when the Omegas started flooding in. Some of those kids…their eyes are gonna haunt me forever, sir. Implement? Look, it’s all about recruiting. If we draw the right people to the project and let them design it, we can end the Septennial Heat-gluts from ever overwhelming another hospital. Omegas can cycle at home or in a contractor’s care, with someone they’ve chosen instead of luck of the draw in a clinic. Recruiting is where you start. We need the right planners, the right design from the start, and we need the right contractors.”
Dean marked the Omega’s frequent use of the word, “we,” a very good sign. “Max, what do you plan to do if we say no to your ideas?” Dean asked, enthralled. It was an academic question. They weren’t going to say no. That new expansion was already in the planning stages. Curriculum additions to teach young Dominants and alphas to manage an Omega’s first tentative steps into sexual maturity were already being added to the standard coursework. Dean had no doubts now that Max had been carefully groomed himself, groomed to become a champion of the young and vulnerable. He had no doubts that a carefully worded question dropped now and then during training hadn’t led him toward a trajectory he never would have dared on his own. A glance past Bobby to the end of the table told him that Balthazar was in on the game too. As lead Omega contractor, Balthazar had more contact with the trainees than anyone. It came as no surprise that Cas would’ve tapped the irreverent veteran. No surprise at all.
That left Dean feeling perplexed—concerned might be a better word. Dean had known Cas wanted an Omega or two on the implementation boards and poking at likely candidates until one of them perked an interested ear was so very Cas that Dean felt a bit dim to have missed it. But… Cas had culled and shepherded a rookie ACRI Omega contractor into a champion of the young and vulnerable, and he did it without cluing the kid in at all. He did it without Dean noticing at all, although it appeared that Dean was the only one still in the dark.
But if Cas was still sharp enough to pull that off while he professed to have had no idea what Dean had been up to when he asked to mentor Michael during the Septennial when any fool knew alphas and Omegas would be immediately separated... ? And after that, he claimed having had no choice but to accede to Dean’s application to foster an orphaned Omega right in their home where everyone Cas loved resided. As if the application itself was binding, and Cas had no say.
In what universe did Castiel James have no say?
Something wasn’t adding up. Cas wasn’t broken. His chess-player’s acumen was obviously as sharp as ever. But then…why drop the ball on his own husband? Twice!
Max’s answer broke Dean’s musing. “Then I plan to regroup and try again with someone else who might have the means,” he answered boldly. “You and your ACRI values and your mission statement, it’s all about protecting the vulnerable, giving stability to those who can’t stabilize themselves. At its core, it’s about turning Omegas into people, not breeding cattle. If you really mean that, then you have to admit I’m right. Just ask yourselves, those Omegas who showed up at the hospital and the clinic last week; what if that had been your daughter? Your son? Would you ever allow your own pups to face that kind of risk? Will you? Will you act like you didn’t see it coming and fret and moan over why isn’t she coming out of it this time? People who know where the limit line is face a tough choice, but at least they have a choice.”
“You’ve given us a great deal to think about, Max.” Cas was back to his usual Alpha self, down a couple of energy levels from the one that stoked Max’s embers. “I congratulate you on your certification, and I welcome you to the ACRI staff.”
“Thank you, sir. And my ideas? Lemme guess: We thank you for your input. We’ll consider it in due time?”
Cas chuckled. Benny did too. Dean pitied the boy a little. Max had no idea that he’d bitten a baited hook and run with it.
Benny answered. “Max, despite the fact that your final exam scenes look more like a PornHub upload, you passed every test with flying colors. As for your suggestions…” Benny smirked and shrugged as he glanced down at Castiel. “The preliminary sketches for an extension to this Facility are already in the works. What we lack is someone to spearhead the design and implementation of our adolescent training wing. I wonder, where do you see yourself in five years, Omega?”
Max’s mouth fell open. “Spearhead? Me?”
It was Bobby this time. “We have engineers, kid. We have architects and attorneys and lobbyists. What we don’t have is a visionary. Now, you can say no. That’s fine. You’re a hell of a contractor, even if you can’t stop eye-fucking the camera. Maybe someday you’ll work your way up to this guy’s job.” Bobby waved a thumb toward Balthazar. “Or you can take a really big leap into something that’s not even built yet and put your personal stamp on forging a brand-new program. It’s your choice.”
“I’d be part of a team, and they would listen to what I have to say?”
“They will,” Castiel confirmed in a tone that said that if they didn’t, they would face the Alpha directly. “Max, we’re not searching for someone to join the team; we’re searching for someone to lead it. And what’s more, along this career path is a shot at joining the Omega Oversight Committee with authority over the entire Keller-ACRI complex. That’s down the road a good ways. But it’s a very real possibility if you do well at this assignment.”
“Holy fuck,” he muttered by accident.
Dean laughed as the Omega blushed. Dean had known Cas was scoping for an Omega to add to the planning team for the new wing, but he should’ve known that Cas had his eye on Max. He had to admit it was a good fit, from everything he knew about the street-walker-turned-advocate. Max had been slow to sign on, but once inside the turnstiles, he’d thrown himself so thoroughly in that he’d become a brutal critic of every point where the ACRI hadn’t yet covered a weakness.
Better Max than Michael.
And no matter what Bobby OR Cas said about his choices, Max was on Castiel’s radar now. It no longer really mattered what career path Max intended. He would find himself herded toward a premiere spot as Castiel’s figurehead whether that’s what he wanted or not.
He was plenty pretty enough to be a figurehead with his café au lait skin and his brilliant green eyes—striking beauty on top of ambition and brains. Cas was no newbie to the public relations game. He knew what sells and what doesn’t. And Cas had no compunctions with playing dirty if that’s what it took to win.
“I need to think about it,” Max stammered.
“Take all the time you need,” Cas soothed. “Sit in on some of our planning meetings. We’re not going to rush this project. You have time.”
Dean wasn’t surprised when most of the panel packed up after Max’s interview and skipped off to pressing schedules elsewhere. Dean shared an amused look with Benny and Sam, both of whom were on the usual review slate, before cueing Balthazar to call in the next candidate. Dean wondered if Max had any idea what was coming down the pike for him. Meanwhile, there were still nine other candidates to interview, all of them recruits who’d followed Max off the streets of Kansas City, all of them fine contractors in their own rights, five of them Omegas. Dean grinned at Balthazar, both of them relieved that the scarcity in the Omega ranks was easing at last.
“Julian,” Dean said cheerfully. “Welcome, dude. Have a seat. This part is a breeze after your final exam.”
Cas hadn’t even said goodbye to Dean on his way out, the jerk.
“We’ve never really discussed it, you know,” Dean observed as he backed Castiel’s car out of the Alpha’s designated parking spot in front of the employee entrance. “We’re a long way from having our own pups coming of age, CJ, but we do need a plan. Max was right about how the big packs handle their young Omegas. Nobody likes to admit it, but it’s true.”
Cas sat beside him with his head buried in papers balanced on his lap like always. Work never really ended for Cas. But he was listening.
“Mm, yes, some of them. It helps to diversify the bloodlines in a pack to allow for the kind of mentor relationship he alluded to. And while they at least avoid the utter neglect of the Progressives, a lot of the grooming they’re doing is sketchy at best. Too many of the Ultra-Traditional packs tie the Omegas’ emotional needs to their physical and developmental needs, resulting in a level of dependence that is unwarranted and abusive. The Ultra-Traditionalists create an artificially—or, rather, an unnecessarily—traumatic coming out experience for their youth. Grounding them in trauma at sexual maturation reinforces their dependence on their pack authority figures. It is a self-perpetuating process. Their Omegas emerge from adolescence utterly dependent upon their Tops and suspicious of their own power.
“It is barbarism, and it is ultimately little better than the Progressives who allow their Omegas to wallow in dangerous fever, chanting that chastity is a purification. There are better ways. We cannot allow either of these roads for our children, Dean. It might be a challenge, if we have more than a couple Omegas, to search out a good mentor for each. They will all need different things, I’m sure. Of course, it’s also within the realm of a healthy parental scope to allow for a limited degree of carnal contact between parent and offspring in order to teach, guide, and protect young Omegas. It’s a fine line between parental guidance and inappropriate sexual grooming, but sometimes the paternal parent is the best first choice.”
“Dude! No! We’re not doing that. I don’t care. There are plenty of alternatives here. We don’t live in an isolated village cut off from other people. I’m not screwing my own kid! And neither are you! Jesus Christ!”
“Relax, Dean. I wasn’t suggesting that for us. You’re correct that it won’t be necessary unless we have Omega children who stay on well into adulthood. But from a developmental standpoint, from our position as leaders in the construction of a new society, we owe it to those in perilous circumstances to throw our support into fighting the stigma that the apes saddled us with, the stigma against therapeutic or hierarchical incest. Any Omega who remains a part of their birth pack should eventually be Claimed by their pack Alpha, and preferably by every alpha in the pack, if they mean to remain pack members. It’s dangerous to skip that out of a distaste that isn’t instinctive to us. That’s learned societal taboo, Dean, as is our dislike of ushering our own offspring into mature adulthood. It’s a rite of passage in many Ultra-Traditional packs for the Alpha or paternal parent to claim rights of Jus Primae Noctis from their Omegas at the dawn of their maturity. And whether we like the practice or not, none of the Omegas who belong to such a pack show up at the hospital in Heat-distress.”
“Whatever, CJ. Doesn’t mean it’s healthy either. Maybe I learned it too well because the very idea makes my skin crawl.” Dean steered toward home.
“Well, I can’t disagree with you, despite how I appreciate the issue from multiple directions. It would take a significantly altered headspace for me too. I pray that never becomes a necessity.” Cas stacked his papers and slid them into his briefcase. “But I won’t hesitate to act if any of our pups approach the condition that those poor wretches were in last week. Better to suffer being knotted by your father than boil in your own skin and die screaming.”
“It won’t come to that, Cas,” Dean stated unequivocally. “We’re not going to let them face it alone. We’ll have made preparations. They’ll know what to expect, and they won’t be caught flat-footed.”
“No,” Cas agreed grimly. “They won’t.”
“You got a plan of attack figured out?” Dean asked.
“Dean, Max is right. We need to see our Omega and alpha pups properly prepared for their cycles. They’ll need mentors we trust. And they’ll need leave to begin exploring before they reach that critical age of sixteen. Whether we greenlight full penetrative sex or not, we must allow them routes for safe exploration. They need coaches who can help them learn to control their wolves. God, Dean, if we can get this right, get the seeds of Tertiary control planted while they’re still teens, teach them to be citizens as well as sexual and hierarchical wolves, if we can expand those seeds to blanket our whole society, not simply our own pups, so many of the problems we spend so much time chasing our tails against will vanish. Imagine if it became customary to send every fifteen-year-old adolescent into a three-month onsite training regimen where they could explore themselves with no boundaries. We could identify dangerous behavior patterns before they coalesce. We could divert and reshape harmful thought patterns. Imagine if we had had an opportunity like this in our youth! Think of the angst we might have avoided. This is our frontier, my love! And we’re finally ready to make real headway! This is so exciting!”
Dean grinned. “God, you’re gorgeous when you’re on a roll like that. Huh, sex camp. I can dig that, babe.”
Cas huffed. Then he sighed, saluting informally toward the guard at the gate outside their home. “Eventually we’ll need to look at an even younger age and address freshly Presented pre-adolescents,” he added. “Most parents don’t have a clue how to support their own pups through the most traumatic growth phase of all. We need to offer them our assistance, and we need to find a way to screen tween pups who are showing signs of distress for any that might turn out to be Dominants. We’ll need screening tools for nine and ten-year-olds whose wolves have emerged pre-Presentation and are bigger and wilder than a child can control. I’m convinced there are many more in the world like Michael than we know. They never get counted because they flame out before they reach Keller testing age. We don’t have the tools yet to identify them. All of our screening tools are sex-based. But there are children out there like Michael and me whose wolves aren’t tamable without assistance.”
Dean maneuvered the car into Cas’ usual parking space and cut the engine.
Cas looked across at him. “I’m convinced those are the ones who don’t survive to adulthood. I can’t prove it yet. But I’m going to.”
“Yes, CJ,” Dean agreed staunchly. “We’re going to.” Dean studiously ignored the tarp in the corner.
Cas smiled. Dean laid a hand on his arm. “And for what it’s worth, thanks for digging out an Omega figurehead in place of Michael. Promise me you won’t railroad Max into more than he’s up for.”
Castiel’s face dropped into pure innocence. “Scout’s honor, Dean. But I won’t promise not to encourage him to try some things that scare him. He’s capable of far more than he knows. I intend to explore those limits a little bit.”
Dean sighed and nodded.
Cas placed his own hand on top of Dean’s and said, “So now we turn back to the uncomfortable conversation of Kate and her foster alpha. There is an Ozzie living in my home under the auspices of a probational stint as nanny to my children with neither my invitation nor my permission. I’m not about to forget that, Dean. Applying to the state board to foster her while her legal battles are in limbo without first obtaining my nod was a subversive trick.”
Dean chewed on the inside of his cheek briefly. “The state wouldn’t have approved my application without your sanction, sir. I know you signed off on it in the end. She may not have had an invitation, but no one enters the house without your permission. You said yes in the end, at least on the form.”
“I had little choice, Dean, after what you’d promised her!”
“Bullshit,” Dean maintained stubbornly. “No one pushes you into a decision you don’t want to make, especially not one that directly affects your family, especially not one that stems from your disobedient brat. You live to rein me in. You may not like it, and you may be pissed at me for forcing the question the way I did, but if you weren’t on board, you would’ve found another arrangement and made me explain it to her. You wouldn’t have brought her home with us. I don’t know what’s going on with you, sir. Did you really just forget that your word is law in this house? First, you let yourself be played into me finagling my way into the hospital on Sunday, and now you can’t stop me from adopting an Ozzie? Cas, what’s going on?”
Cas held his eye for a few beats and then sucked a long breath in through his nose and studied the floormat between his knees. “I thought we were partners, Dean. I’m not opposed to the idea of fostering Kate through her troubles from an ideological perspective. I know the next few years will be difficult for her. But you made that decision for both of us over my objections and well before I was prepared, before we’d had a chance to consider all of the ramifications. It’s not supposed to work this way. We agreed that I would rudder the ship with your input, not the other way around. You didn’t give me a chance to weigh the very justifiable concerns I have. You didn’t even warn me that a state rep would be contacting me for a security check. It was a blindside, Dean, and you know how I feel about those. She may be all kinds of wonderful and still be nowhere near fit to care for our pups. We don’t know her yet. She may be traumatized to a degree that causes irrational or dangerous outbursts. And the last thing she’ll need is to play musical households if this isn’t the best fit for her. Dean, you were reckless and blatantly insubordinate in your actions—so much so that I’m uncertain how to proceed.”
Dean let his head fall back against the headrest, staring straight up at the car’s plush interior. Cas hadn’t really answered the question. “Please don’t kick her out, Sir. What I did…that’s not her fault. And… You wouldn’t have agreed if you really had reservations.” Dean sighed heavily, sounding more like a grunt. He kicked himself internally for his impulsive decision to apply to be the Omega’s foster alpha over Castiel’s head and without his knowledge. But when he did it, he never dreamed it would turn out like this. Wasn’t making kneejerk impulsive decisions Dean’s job? Wasn’t reining him in Castiel’s? Which part of the dance broke down? “…I fucked up bad, Alpha. I get that. I swear I do. I acted out of impulse and desperation and fear. I want to curl right down over the girl and keep anything bad from ever touching her again. That’s … Jesus … I know that’s not how it works, but I needed this win, man. Please, just give her a chance.”
Cas pursed his lips in thought, scrubbed at his eyes, and turned to face his brat. “I have no intention of taking your poor choices out on Kate,” he stated. “I’m not happy about it, but it’s true that none of this is her fault. And for better or worse, she’s here now. What I do intend to do is to consider the issue carefully, from every angle, as I’d meant to from the start. I intend to observe her closely, sit in with her during meetings with the attorneys, have her evaluated by a psychiatrist, and perform a thorough background check. I’m considering taking her case out of her lawyer’s hands and giving it to our team. Our staff has far more experience litigating Mating-bond abuse than that state-appointed lackey does. Dean, I expect you to make good on your commitment to be her foster alpha. You’ll do so without slacking from a professional standpoint, from your responsibility to provide Michael a filling Tertiary experience, from your duty to your pups, to your Packmates, to me as your husband, and to your own self-care.”
“I’m good for it, Sir. I swear.” Dean gulped, registering with relief just how seriously Cas was taking Kate’s predicament.
“And,” Cas said, lifting a finger to let Dean know he’d decidedly not finished yet. “You’ll meet those extra commitments with a very sore bottom and a pair of very blue balls. No sex, Dean. Not for two weeks. Spankings every morning for those same two weeks. I decide the severity. I decide the count. I decide the venue. If you so much as look like you’re about to complain, I will tack on more consequences.”
“Yessir,” Dean mumbled down toward his lap. It had seemed like an elegant plan at the time, but Cas wasn’t hiding his hurt, a pain that was only now beginning to sink into Dean’s psyche. Why were these things never clear to him until after the fact? It appeared that allowing Dean his way wasn’t going to be the victory it had always promised to be. And maybe that was Castiel’s reason for allowing it to proceed as it had done. Would Cas use a traumatized girl to prove a point to his Sub about blindsides?
He would if all parties benefited in the end, wouldn’t he? He totally would. Kate would never need to know that she’d moved in over the Alpha’s objections.
Damnit, Castiel.
They sat in silence. The windshield fogged slightly. Dean knew there was more.
“I’m hurt, Dean,” Cas finally admitted out loud. “I get what drove you. Believe me, I feel the same anguish you do. I’m as desperate to save them, to save them all. But we can’t do it like this, at odds with each other, going behind each other’s back. We can’t afford to whittle away at the trust we’re building. You’re not out of balance. You’re fresh from a Rut, a fall under your belt that took you to your knees and then set you right back on firm ground again. The only thing on your horizon right now is your cycle rebound, and this doesn’t bear any of those hallmarks. You’re not pulling insular, not regressing verbally, and you’re not lashing out irrationally. I have to conclude that we can’t blame your decisions on anything but a desire to have your own way at any cost and a lack of faith that I would address the situation appropriately. And I have to conclude that the cost to you personally needs to be steep or I’ll have lost control of you altogether.”
“It’s not like that, Sir.”
“Dean,” Cas pressed his lips together as he searched for the right words. “I’m being straight with you. I’m aware that, if motivated enough, you are willing to take any consequence I can dream up… if you want something badly enough. I’m not happy with what you did, with how you went about it and how your actions disrespect my position. I don’t enjoy knowing that my authority is negotiable to you. That’s not how I understand our roles. I’m not pleased with you at all. But I had to consider why this was worth it to you when you knew damned well how I would feel in the aftermath. You want to know why I approved your application? Because despite feeling hurt and disrespected, I trust your instincts. If it meant enough to you that you were willing to cause me pain and face my wrath to get it, then I have no alternative but to listen to that impulse. That doesn’t absolve you of deceit, nor of insubordination, and it doesn’t grant you permission to do whatever the hell you want from here on. I am very angry with you.”
“Sir…”
Cas cut him off. “Don’t you dare apologize to me yet.” He glowered for a moment, and then softened his voice, still adamant, but no longer incensed. “So, she stays for now. I make no promises that she stays long term. Furthermore, I have no intention of showing a disunity to our Pack. This discussion is for you and me, alone.”
“You don’t think they’ll notice my bare ass turning their stomachs at breakfast every morning?”
Cas huffed. “I never said I was spanking you at breakfast, Pet. Give me some credit. I’m far more creative than that. Now come on. There’s a birthday dinner waiting, I’m sure.”
“Aw, fuck, I forgot,” Dean groaned. “Do we have to?”
“Absolutely. Move it, Winchester. It’s not every day you turn twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine,” Dean grumbled, sliding out of the sleek automobile he despised so much. “One more year before I’m old. I’ll kill them if they used glitter this year.”
“Your thirties don’t begin until you turn thirty-one, my brat. It’s not as dire as all that. And you’ll behave yourself and be a good sport or I’ll have Sam use his paddle for your birthday licks instead of his hand.” Cas wrapped an arm around Dean’s waist and escorted him toward the door.
Dean planted his feet. “Birthday licks? Cas, I’m not twelve! We’re not doing that!”
“We most certainly are,” Cas told him, all warmth evaporating in a way that made Dean shiver. “In fact, now I consider the matter, due to circumstances that were utterly within your control but through which you chose to take the most insubordinate path anyway, I’m tripling the usual tradition. It’s not simply one round of twenty-nine swats. It’ll be three. One for me, one for Michael, and one for your brother who is so very patient with you when he clearly has cause to wring your neck multiple times a week. What’s more, I plan to encourage my cohorts to use their imaginations as to implements and positions. One of these days you’re going to learn when to shut up.”
“Seriously?!”
“Happy birthday, Dean.”
“Damnit.”
Dinner didn’t include any glitter, confetti, or surprises, for which Dean was grateful enough to cheer up and enjoy himself. He unwrapped his gifts from the end of the table, marveling at the creativity and effort his family had gone to, and hugging each packmate tightly, warmly. He had two helpings of cake, a rich, moist almond confection that melted in his mouth, a regional specialty of Tony’s.
Kate sat on one of the stools at the island, near the pups, mute and awkward. The Pack left her her space.
Dean kept mum about the birthday tradition he was hoping Castiel would forget, but the man was a machine when it came to keeping his word, and he herded everyone into the parlor once Tony cleared the dessert dishes away. Even Kate braved the festivities, trailing the others cautiously through the archway with Kat in her arms. She looked wary and uncomfortable, shooting baffled looks toward Sarah, keeping constant tabs on Kali. She was clearly battling an impulse to sneak back to the security of her room. But Kathleen had taken a shine to her from the first introduction, and Kate appeared to be using the pup as an anchor. She obviously felt safer with a baby in her arms.
So did Dean for that matter. “Hand Jimmy to April, Dean,” Cas instructed. “Kate, my dear, do not be alarmed. Birthday spankings such as Dean’s about to experience are for Pack brats only. Please don’t feel concerned. We have no intention of putting you through an ordeal like this, either now or in the future. I apologize for the rude baptism into Winchester Pack life. We’re regretfully not fully tamed.” Castiel’s lightheartedness turned Dean’s stomach queasy. If he was making jokes, he was revving up to something stinging and quite unpleasant.
Castiel turned formally to Michael, squaring up with gravity, making quite the unnecessary production. “Michael, I respectfully request permission to lay hands upon your mate until he’s a blubbering, slobbering mess. Oh, and Sam needs permission too.”
Oh, yeah, the man was in fine fettle.
“Granted,” Michael laughed.
And there went Dean’s last hope that Michael might go easy on him. The traitor.
Cas rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Sam, you’re first. He’s all yours. Any position you like. Your only hard rule is that your total count needs to equal twenty-nine. Preferably—so that we can be sure this birthday really sticks, as it is his penultimate year prior to entering the staid reserve of his thirties—you’ll make him feel it. This tradition is not simply ceremonial. Think of it as recompense for whatever he got away with last year and a good, solid prepayment on this next one.”
“Yes, Sir,” Sam said enthusiastically. “Go ahead and strip, Dean. There’s no point fighting clothes when they’ll only be in the way.”
Dean squashed the mulish impulse to revisit his argument with Cas concerning whether a decade ended at the last occurrence of the tens column in the set or carried on into the first occurrence of the next one—that is, whether it ended at zero or one. Twenty-nine wasn’t the penultimate year of his twenties unless you were a stubborn, pedantic, self-important blowhard to whom being literal took precedence over being realistic. Dean set his jaw. A prescient look from Cas reminded him that both arguments and complaints right now counted against his punishment for the next two weeks, and he kicked off his boots.
“Dah-dee!” Alex pointed, tugging on Sarah’s cardigan to make sure she was watching.
Sarah took a seat with the toddler in her lap, finding herself amused at Dean’s plight rather than mortified, clearly feeding off Castiel’s pleasure. Jess plunked down beside her with Hank.
“Hands on your shins, Dean,” Sam instructed. “Lean all the way over. Don’t lose your balance.”
“You take care of your business, little brother, and let me take care of mine,” Dean shot back. He widened his stance and doubled over, bracing his hands on his shins just below each knee, showing everything to the room and blushing. Cain had JT in his arms. He took a spot near the foyer, less invested in torturing the birthday boy than the rest of them. Kate followed Cain with her eyes but kept her distance. She practically blended into the back drapes.
“OW!” Dean hollered as Sam’s hand connected.
“I owe you for so much crap, Dean. Hold still and quit your bitching.” He slapped down again. Then again. As Sam established his rhythm, the Pack counted them out, cheerfully enjoying the alpha’s humiliation. Dean’s ass reddened, and he grimaced as blood rushed to his face. Sam wasn’t playing. The smacking sound bounced from the high ceilings. Fred appeared in the archway to the kitchen with a gracious smile, clearly pleased that his Pack still found time to bond and to celebrate as only wolves do. He stood relaxed while Sam’s powerful smacks turned Dean’s face and backside bright red, a gentle look of pride on his aging face.
When Sam reached twenty-five, he paused, bracing a hand on Dean’s lower back. “Four more, Fred,” he offered. “Would you like to finish my turn?”
“How very generous, beta,” the butler said with a terrifying smile. “Are you certain?”
“Have at him,” Sam agreed, stepping clear. “If we’re clearing air, I know you’ve got a grudge or two you’ve been sitting on.”
Dean glanced up, but he didn’t protest. Sam had a point. If anyone in this house deserved a shot at Dean’s backside, Fred was near the top of that list. It didn’t stop Dean from huffing a hard gasp when Fred’s hand struck the crease of his ass right in the same spot four quick times, whipping down with a particular pop of his wrist that felt more like a strap than a hand.
“Holy…! OW! Fred, that hurts!”
“Happy birthday, alpha,” the butler said with dignity and warm touch to Dean’s back before gliding back to his place in the archway.
Dean stood up, rubbing that spot, his face expressing shock and horror.
“My turn!” Michael shouted.
“Go easy on me, huh?” Dean pleaded, grunting as he took a few painful steps.
“Not on your life, Winchester,” Michael retorted. “You still owe me for promising me a hand in your fall and then giving the whole thing to Castiel. I forgave you, but I could really use some closure. Go stand in the front window. Hold onto the top of the frame. Legs wide. Curtains open.”
Dean sighed heavily, but as before, he obeyed without complaint.
“You know no one’s going to see me, right? There’s no street view from this window.” He took his position, feeling very exposed despite the private lawn and sequestered drive.
“It’s not my intention to give the world a view, alpha,” Michael said. “I just like the aesthetic. You’re beautiful like that, outlined by the security lights. Hold on tight.”
“Yes, Sir,” Dean responded, tightening his grip. He was up on the balls of his feet, but he wasn’t sure if that had been a prod of Michael’s from inside his bond or if he just knew Michael would most appreciate him a little off balance.
And then the first stroke struck, and Dean grunted and closed his eyes. Michael had chosen to use the sole of his own shoe, and on top of Sam’s palm, it hurt like a motherfucker. Michael hit again, shifting lower.
This was no playful ceremonial tradition. Dean would have purple bruises in the morning. Deep bruises before he’d even begun a fortnight of daily spankings would be hell. He gulped, and his breath hitched as the shoe fell, far more literal than he liked.
It made a glorious sound, much to the delight of the Pack. Tears squeezed out of Dean’s eyes. Michael’s pace was slow enough to draw the ordeal out, each smack hitting in a different spot and setting the sting into an intense burn before they’d even reached fifteen. Dean didn’t look down, but he knew Michael had struck the nerve that resonated with his arousal. His cock chubbed playfully.
No matter how accustomed Dean became to embracing his submissive and exhibitionist impulses, it would never stop being an embarrassment. Michael slapped his shoe down hard three times in quick succession, right at the crease of Dean’s ass, and he popped up onto his toes.
“Jesus Christ! Michael!” Dean whined. He opened his eyes, gasping, and was horrified to see a security cart had stopped right in front of the window. The four guards in the cart were enjoying the show immensely.
“Ahh!” Dean cried out in surprise and mortification. They were laughing, pointing, grabbing at their own crotches, elbowing each other as they spilled out of the cart to get closer. One of them pulled his dick out of his pants and began stroking himself right in front of Dean to the obvious amusement of the others.
“Cas!” Dean called over his shoulder.
“Yes, I’m aware, Pet. I texted the guard house and let them know that there was a show to watch if any of the guards not currently on duty were interested. Don’t worry, the pups are all in places they can’t see the observers. Enjoy yourself, Pet. They think you’re hot.”
“Son of a bitch!” Dean exclaimed as Michael’s shoe struck him hard again.
“Twenty-four!” shouted the Pack.
“Lean into the window, Dean,” Michael instructed. “Last five. Put your chest to the glass and don’t close your eyes. Stick your ass out.”
Dean panted as he placed himself. His cock had fully joined the party, to his horror. He was showing out whether he wanted to or not. He heard Michael shuffle his feet, seeking the optimal position. Dean tightened up. This was going to hurt.
Fucking birthdays, man. Who needs this shit?
The man before him outside in the cold stroked himself rapidly, making obscene gestures with his tongue while the others cheered him on.
And then Dean’s ass lit up in a fiery blaze that turned his fingers and his toes white. He howled. Dribbles of precome smeared the window. He could hear the idiots outside hooting and cheering in moronic entertainment. Dean caught his breath and eased his eyes open in time to see the security guard blow his load spectacularly.
“Get off my lawn!” Dean shouted at them through the window. He pounded on the glass with his palm with what he hoped was a forbidding expression, but they turned back to their cart still laughing.
“Dean, be polite,” Cas chastised.
“Apes, Cas! You let apes beat off in front of me while I’m buck naked and getting my ass whipped!” Dean turned around and confronted his Alpha with a furious scowl. Cas raised his brows calmly, as if to say, Yes. And?
“Fucking birthdays!” Dean hollered in impotent rage. Portia flinched and ducked behind Castiel’s legs.
“One more, Dean,” Cas told him smugly. “You’re nearly done. I want you over the back of the sofa, and I want you holding your cheeks wide. Ladies, I invite you to stay put if you like, but you may get drooled on if you remain, and you won’t have the best view.”
Jess and Sarah both sprang up and giggled their way to the other side of the couch, enjoying themselves immensely.
“Papa! ‘Pank!” Alex cried, wriggling out of Sarah’s arms and pointing at Dean.
“That’s a new word, Ace,” Michael crooned, sweeping Alex up and hugging him in congratulations. “Good boy! Dean, Alex said a new word!”
“Goody for Alex,” Dean groused quietly. He shook his arms out, cracked his neck once or twice, shuddered blood flow back through his legs with a hearty shake to each as he took his place over the back of the couch.
“You’re a sick man, Alpha,” he told Cas once he was in place with his ass cheeks held wide.
“Indeed, this is true. Move your fingertips outward a bit, Pet. I need access to as much of your bottom as you can give me. Are you ready?”
“Bring it.”
Cas hadn’t shown Dean what he held in his hand, but Dean knew it from the first stroke. It was a slapper—leather covering a narrow, hard plastic strip a little less than a foot long. Cas went to work, applying stinging swats across the insides of Dean’s thighs, onto the delicate undercurve, all over his sit spots, and on every third hit, upright, straight to his hole.
Dean could feel his flesh swell and heat. He was sensitive there, far more sensitive than the skin of his butt, far more sensitive even than his precious and protected sit spots, and Dean writhed up onto his toes. He couldn’t hold still as the burn intensified. He flexed his knees and then pushed them straight. He rolled his ass to the side. Cas should have corrected his Sub, but instead, he simply followed, proving that Dean had nowhere to hide that Cas couldn’t get to him.
Dean was wheezing as the count mounted. His face went bright red. His cock throbbed. He wanted to come, and had he permission, he would’ve doused the back of the couch like a fire hose. But he knew better than to allow that without express authorization, no matter whose birthday it was. It took all of his concentration to hold back.
Cas delivered a particularly stingy smack to Dean’s asshole on the count of twenty-nine, and then he stepped back and admired his painting. Bruises were beginning to develop deep in the tissue of Dean’s backside from Michael’s shoe, and gradations of pink and red radiated outward in an abstract pattern that Cas thought might look striking in a frame above his mantle. Dean shoved himself upright, looked around, and then shuffled to where his clothes sat folded. He limped and grimaced.
“You lot suck, you know that? All of you. Fuck you all.”
“Now Dean, is that any way to speak to your family?” Cas admonished.
“Sir, permission to go jerk off in private?” Dean asked as he pulled his shirt on.
“Denied,” Michael and Cas both stated in stereo in the exact same cold tone.
“Well then, would one of you please help me out with this?” Dean gestured to his crotch.
“Dean, chastity should not be a new concept to you. Are you confused? Do you have a complaint to lodge?” Cas asked with an indifferent air.
Dean caught sight of Kate watching mutely from the door at the back out to the pool, her eyes giving nothing away, and he looked down, digging bare toes into the expensive rug. “No, Sir,” he decided. “No complaints.”
“Perhaps you’d like to thank your family for the dinner and gifts. It’s not every day a member of our Pack turns twenty-nine.” Cas spoke in a way that only an intimate would catch the razor-sharp warning, but to Dean, it was obvious. Just as his birthday spankings had been no simple, playful tradition, this moment was no trifle to Castiel.
Hierarchies do not maintain themselves.
And Dean had upset that balance badly.
Payback would be no piece of cake. The security guards were only the beginning of Castiel’s Treatise on Why Blindsides are Unacceptable.
Dean stood rocking in place for a bit, wearing only his boxer briefs and his undershirt, staring at the ground and digging for his headspace. He owed this to Cas. He knew he did.
He looked up, fixing a deliberate twinkle into his eye and a smart-alecky smirk across his mouth. “Thanks, guys. You’re still assholes, but there’s no one I’d rather get my butt roasted in front of than you dicks.”
“Happy birthday, my Pet. Go on to bed,” Cas instructed. “We’ll take care of everything tonight. Do not touch your penis, either directly or indirectly.”
“Dah-dee!” Alex called, breaking free from Michael and hurrying over to demand Dean pick him up. Dean chuckled, lifting the boy into his arms. Alex leaned around and attempted to peek inside his drawers, trying to look at his backside. “Dah-dee, Papa ‘pank?”
“Yep, kiddo, he sure did. Hey, sit up, Ace. Leave Daddy’s butt alone.”
“Owie?”
“Very.” Dean righted his son in his arms and carried him toward the foyer. “Papa told Daddy to go to bed, champ, so unless you’re ready to hit the hay with me, you need to go see Papa.” Dean tipped the boy into Castiel’s waiting arms. “Give Daddy a kiss,” he requested, leaning down for a sloppy toddler version and ruffling Alex’s dark hair. “I’m all right, Ace. Papa spanks when he needs to because he loves us.”
“Owie,” Alex explained to Cas as Dean slipped into the foyer with a limp, clutching the rest of his clothes. His hand meandered back and rubbed at the harshest burn between his cheeks.
“And don’t rub it!” Castiel called blindly from the other room.
Dean jumped, snapping his hand back to his front and stepping faster up the stairs.
He had two long, miserable weeks in front of him, but they bought him something tangible this time, something wonderful, something real. Kate was going to be a blessing in this house, Dean could feel it, and he wasn’t sorry. Cas would have waffled over worrying about risks and ramifications until the Omega was lost somewhere within a system that raped Omegas as callously as her Pack Alpha had done. Someone had to move fast, decide now, wrap her up tight and get her the fuck out of there, and if Cas wasn’t going to do it, then Dean would take a page out of April’s playbook: Act first. Do it boldly. Do it without remorse. And then pay for it.
Dean chanted that mantrum to himself as he headed toward the Master bedroom, trying like hell to drown out his guilt at having disappointed his Top, his Alpha, his Dominant, his husband, his everything.
It was worth it, he chanted.
Two weeks was nothing.
When compared with the lifetime of misery Kate had been staring down, two weeks was a trifle.
Bring it, thought Dean with a hot slap to his own aching ass in punctuation. It wasn’t the brat’s fault he got away with it, he chanted. Brats do what brats do.
It’s up to their Tops to set the limits.
Right?
Dean wrestled a smug mask on over the penitence that stubbornly held its ground. It wasn’t his fault he got away with it, any of it. If Cas couldn’t keep up, that was the Alpha’s problem, not the brat’s, damnit.
He couldn’t silence the voice in his head that predicted the next two weeks might prove instructive on whether or not Dean had actually gotten away with anything. He turned the tap on in his shower, aborted an impulse to rub the sting out of his asshole, and eased his underwear off without dragging the elastic down the length of his dick.
Dean awoke to fingers in his hair and warm lips on his shoulder. He squinted toward his bedside clock, surprised to realize it was only ten-thirty. He rolled back into Castiel’s warm body. “Just us?” he mumbled sleepily.
“Mm-hm,” Cas answered with his lips still roving across Dean’s body.
“D’ju have fun tonight at my expense?” Dean questioned.
Cas took a moment. He pushed up to a sitting position and clicked his lamp on. “Dean, can we talk for a moment?”
“You’re the boss, CJ.” Dean abandoned an effort to sit beside him, opting to lay on his side facing the man instead. Castiel’s half-smile spoke more resignation than anything else, and Dean changed direction. “I mean, sure, man. I’m up. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“I owe you an explanation,” Cas confessed. “I haven’t been supporting you well lately, and I’m worried you may read that as an instability in my commitment to you as your Dominant. Dean, love, that’s not the case. It’s really not about you at all. It’s about me. Me and Gabriel.”
“What’s Gabe got to do with anything?” Dean wondered, shoving up onto an elbow.
Cas sighed. “I can’t explain why, but I had an awful premonition about his cycle this time. Maybe it was something to do with my own instincts clueing into the Septennial and turning up my anxiety. I don’t know. He was late with his Heat, and even though I knew the explanation, I couldn’t stop worrying about him. I was convinced that he was headed right back into another dangerous round.”
“Okay. You were on edge. I get that. Gabe’s Heats throw wide often enough that that’s not an unfounded fear. You did everything you could to make sure you were available for him.”
“And then I was called out,” Cas continued, taking up where Dean left off. “And I confess, my mind went blank on me. I needed him with me. I needed to be where he was, but I couldn’t drag him to the hospital. I panicked. I grabbed the closest approximation to my brother I could get, and I dragged him along to ease my nerves.”
“Michael,” Dean concluded. Cas nodded.
“I couldn’t take April.”
“And you tried to plug me in in your stead here, hoping I’d watch over Gabe as well as you would’ve,” Dean guessed.
Cas nodded again. “In retrospect, insisting that you carry out your chastity punishment in the face of a Heat-glut was ridiculous. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all. Dean, I’m sorry. I dropped the ball.”
“I thought you were playing sophisticated games with me, man. I had just about concluded that you’re so advanced in your play that you were eighteen moves ahead of me.” Dean chuckled to himself. “Shows just how much of a bluff you’ve got on me. Even when you fuck up, I’m still lost on you. How’d I end up in the car then if you wanted me at home?”
“Conflicting instincts,” Cas admitted dully, staring straight ahead.
“A Tertiary mutiny?” Dean asked.
“Secondary,” Cas corrected. “My Secondary was all in a tizzy, and he wanted the whole Pack up under his wing.” Cas sighed again. “My apologies, Dean. Losing focus like that… it destabilizes you. I can’t allow myself that kind of mistake when you and April both depend on me. If I’d been thinking straight, I would have postponed your punishment immediately and tapped you in where you were needed. But I both wanted you with me and wanted you with Gabriel, and those competing impulses drove me to freeze up completely. I feel terrible, Dean. By the time I realized how badly I’d fucked up, it was too late to apply any damage control. I know you’ve been puzzling over it for days now. I needed to explain and to assure you that I’m not faltering in a wider degree. I’ve still got you, love. I beg your forbearance. I will make it up to you.”
Dean snorted. “Why do I suspect making it up to me is going to hurt?”
“Please don’t brush this off, Dean. I screwed up.”
“It’s okay, man. We all screw up sometimes. No harm done.”
“Are you sure?” Cas frowned. “Your blindside with Kate struck me as a volume increase, a test to check whether I’d lost my touch entirely or merely had a momentary glitch.”
“Nah, Cas. The two things weren’t related. At least, I don’t think they were. Look, I was confused for a bit, cause getting away with shit never happens to me, not like that, not that easy. I thought you were playing a long game. Can we move on without the tears and pleading? Please? It makes my ass twitch just hearing you beg.”
Cas chuckled. “I’m not begging, you dick. I’m honestly apologizing to you for letting you flounder.”
“So,” Dean thought out loud. “If I was floundering, then it’s probly not my fault that I slipped Kate in under your nose after all. That would be your fault too. ‘Cause I was just reacting to having the rug pulled out from under me. Yeah. That’s it, isn’t it? I reached out for you and fell flat on my face when you didn’t meet your side of the routine, and then, because I’m a Sub who needs to know his Top is on his game, I tried again, even bigger, and fell flat on my face again. None of this is my fault. I shouldn’t be in punishment at all!”
“Dean…”
“And that means you owe me big-time for letting apes ogle my delectable body without my consent!”
“Are you finished?” Cas asked flatly. Dean glanced up at him, snickering softly.
“Am I still in chastity?” Dean posed hopefully.
“You absolutely are,” Cas told him. “And I may decide that this counts as argumentative behavior.”
Dean snorted again, laughing outright. “No, sir,” he added promptly. “No argument from me. I was just following through your apology to its logical conclusion. You can’t fault me for that. You introduced the idea.”
Cas smiled softly and slid down to stretch out beside Dean. “You’re such a brat.” He wrapped an arm beneath Dean’s shoulder and turned him to make Dean his little spoon. Dean pressed back into him.
“You love me,” Dean added.
“And you love me,” Cas replied with a kiss to Dean’s scent gland, right behind his ear.
Castiel roused him at four a.m., before going on his daily run through freezing dark streets. Dean barely stifled his grumbles in time. He stumbled upright, eyes bleary, ass aching, and he tried hard not to snap at his husband’s chipper mood.
Cas spent more time appreciating the colors of Dean’s backside than he did applying a simple OTK. The Alpha spanked Dean’s thighs instead of his ass, and it hurt like blazes, but it ended quickly, leaving Dean anticipating a long slow build over the next two weeks.
Because Cas was nothing if not creative.
“You’re with me for breakfast, Pet,” he whispered as he tucked his husband back into bed. “I expect your best behavior. Kate is Ozzie, and she needs a good example set by a seasoned Submissive.”
“Yessir,” Dean mumbled, enjoying the loving strokes down his back.
“And Dean,” Cas said softly in a far more intimate tone. “You smell like a hormone flush. Your rebound is upon us. Let’s please be diligent about seeing that through. I’d like for you to work through it with Michael. There is time after breakfast for a short scene. Remember though, no sex, at least none for you as a recipient. I will allow you to provide him oral care if that’s what Michael wants. Behave for him, Pet. This is no time for a brat insurgency. Do I make myself clear?”
“Mmm, yessir,” Dean mumbled again, sliding an arm beneath his pillow and rolling from his side onto his belly, quickly losing the thread of any brat insurgency plans. He was out before Cas padded out of the room in socks on his way out for an early run.
Notes:
Love to all. Stay safe. Stay well.
Chapter 12: Monday, January 28, 2019
Summary:
Castiel takes his message out of the house. Balthazar adores his job. Michael and April both have bones to pick, but all that goes out the window when something totally unexpected happens that promises to change how the world views Omegas forever.
Notes:
Greeting, Pack. I hope everyone's still safe. I hope that where restrictions are being lifted that we all keep in mind that viruses don't care what the law allows. Love you guys.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's a game changer for our Winchesters. It's also a bit of a gamble on my part. It works in my head. But there's only one way to find out if it works on the page.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, January 28, 2019
NOW:
If he’d been asked to guess how Castiel’s creativity would lean as their work week started up, Dean would have said there would be a firm statement made that clicked more than one box for the Alpha and his Pack, and he wasn’t wrong. Dean’s backside ached. Some of the bruising was already leaking down into the backs of his thighs, fluids pulled by gravity to paint a grim picture. But where Dean was thinking family Pack, Castiel widened his scope to his Facility Pack. They left home Monday morning without a word said about spankings. Dean drove Castiel’s Lexus with his nerves jangling. He shot worried glances across to his husband, but Cas had his head buried in papers already and a frown of concentration speaking to his mind’s engagement in matters far more substantial than whose ass needed swats.
At the turnstile though, Cas stowed his papers in an almost distracted way. He waited for Dean to emerge from his kiosk and then calmly took Dean’s satchel from him. He set the bag on the floor by the security desk and nocked his head wordlessly toward the desk itself. Dean frowned. Cas wasn’t even looking at him. Around them, the small anteroom bustled with morning activity. Wolves moved in and out of kiosks on rote. The stream of employees made a constant one-way flow that swirled around the two men like rocks in the creek. Most of them greeted the alphas as they passed, respectful and warm.
Castiel nodded politely to them in response, but Dean simply frowned. “What’s up?” he asked, confused.
“Right here,” Castiel replied.
“Here?” Dean questioned in surprise.
“Hands on the desk,” Cas told him simply. He greeted Mark, the security guard, and handed both his bag and Dean’s in through the window for Mark to hold. “Step quick, Pet. We’ve got a lot to do today.”
Dean looked around, but he didn’t have any excuses for delay, so biting his lip, he faced Mark through the window and dropped his slacks. Having the guard witness from in front of him struck Dean as especially embarrassing. Mark would be derelict in his duties if he stepped away, and though he was focused past Dean on the flow of people in the room at large, he stood not three feet from Dean’s blushing face.
“Ass out, Dean. You know the position.”
Dean corrected his posture with a “Sir.” Behind him employees noted the state of his backside, and they made a bit of a stir before Castiel set them all back to moving as they were.
Castiel’s hand was warm and a little calloused as he ran it lightly over Dean’s ass. Chill bumps followed the caress. Dean tucked his face into his hands.
“Head up, Submissive,” Castiel told him with a smack to his backside. Dean gritted his teeth and lifted up again, looking right through the security guard, pretending for all he was worth that Mark wasn’t there.
“Why are you being punished this morning?” Castiel prompted, spanking him four times, hot and fast.
Dean hissed. “For insubordination, Sir,” he gritted out.
Castiel agreed, spanking him painfully six or seven times. “What do you have to say for yourself?” Employees continued through the foyer entrance. The turnstile gate barely stopped turning before another wolf pressed through.
“I screwed up, Sir. I was disrespectful. I know better. I’m not in charge. I’m sorr…”
“NO!” Cas cut him off. “No apologies! Not yet.” Dean gasped as his husband’s hand set his ass on fire, waking the deep ache, starting a throb and a sting that made Dean want to dance in place to alleviate the burn.
“Sir, please! Let me say it. I need to say it! OW!”
“Not until I’m certain you mean it,” Cas told him coldly. Dean winced, grunting, fighting the urge to tuck under or dodge. In the window before him, he saw Billie’s reflection. She stood with brows up in interest, watching for a moment before nodding firmly and continuing in. Jo came through, entered and then exited the kiosk. She smirked with a standard, “Jesus, Winchester, it’s not even eight o’clock yet,” before pushing through the turnstile. Dean’s face reddened. Castiel’s hand was relentless, paying no heed to the bruises already decorating his ass.
When the strokes paused, Dean released the breath he’d been holding. He gripped the desk with his fingers, sweaty as they held on tight. He inadvertently met Mark’s eyes for a moment, and both men swiftly looked away again—Dean dropping his gaze to the marbled desktop and Mark setting himself back to scanning the antechamber.
“Good morning, Sam,” Castiel called warmly, stopping Dean’s brother on his way into a kiosk. “Would you lend me your paddle?”
“Of course, Sir,” Sam replied at once. Dean scowled at his brother’s reflection.
“Up on your toes, Submissive,” Cas instructed. “Fingertips and toes. Stand up tall. Widen your feet for me.”
Dean adjusted with a grunt, steeling himself in the precarious position. The paddle connected with a pop. He stifled a cry, reducing the sound to a muted grunt through his teeth. His legs wobbled a little. His toes struggled to hold. Another blow clenched his eyes closed. The next one forced a grimace as his fingertips slipped on the desktop. He let his mouth fall open as he panted through the pain. Cas seemed to be attempting to marry his morning workout with doling out hot hard swats, and Dean whimpered.
His eyes watered. His chest heaved. He trembled. Warm flat wooden strokes fell endlessly until Dean lost track of his surroundings, focused on nothing but the heat and the relentless strikes. He huffed shallowly, shifting his weight to maintain his balance on his toes as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.
The rhythm slowed without notice, drawing to a simple unremarkable close without Castiel’s usual flurry of intense swats that marked a finale of sorts. He simply slowed his pace and then stopped altogether with a loud, deep breath.
“That’s it for this morning, alpha,” Castiel said behind him. He returned Sam’s paddle with a word of thanks, collected his briefcase from Mark, squeezed the back of Dean’s neck, and then disappeared through the turnstile without looking back.
Sam waited on his brother, helping stabilize him when Dean pushed shakily off the desk.
“What was that all about?” Sam asked as Dean eased his pants back up.
Dean grunted, catching himself before he rubbed the sting out. “Just the usual,” he deferred casually, avoiding his brother’s eyes. “It’s no big deal.” Mark handed Dean his satchel, studiously not looking the alpha in the eyes either.
“No big deal? Dean, your ass is dark purple. Have you seen what it looks like this morning? And after what Cas just did, it’s going to be even worse this afternoon. What the hell did you do? If Missouri sees that she’s going to open another investigation.” Sam followed Dean in through the rotating gate, barraging his brother with concerns.
“What I did is none of your business,” Dean quipped. “It’s between Cas and me.”
“If it was between you and your husband, he had no business displaying you like that for the whole company to ogle,” Sam countered logically. “Come on, man. This is me. Talk to me. I’m your brother.”
Dean stopped at his office door, digging his key out of his pocket and letting himself in. He held the door for his brother, aware that Sam wasn’t going to leave without at least a partial answer. “Look, he told me not to discuss it with everyone. It’s a private matter. Suffice it to say, I was an insubordinate brat, and I deserve every swat, no matter who’s watching. Don’t worry about Missouri, Sam. Cas already talked it over with her. He’s got me set to check in with the clinic every day for the next couple of weeks for a checkup. No one’s going too far.”
“Two weeks,” Sam deadpanned. “Every day?”
“Every morning,” Dean admitted. “I told you. I did this to myself. I deserve it.” He set his satchel on his desk and dug out his flash drive and a protein shake. He grimaced in pain as he eased into his chair.
“This is about Kate, isn’t it?” Sam guessed. “You told Jess that Cas approved your application. She wouldn’t have helped you file it if she knew Alpha wasn’t a part of the decision.”
“I’m not gonna discuss it with you, Sammy. Thanks for checking on me, but I’m fine, man. If that changes, I’ll let you know.
Sam didn’t relax or move to leave for his own duties. He sat down across the desk from his brother and scooted his chair closer, leaning across the surface. “You shouldn’t be punished for helping people, Dean. Discipline is there to stabilize you, not to control you. You know that, right? Does Michael know about this?”
Dean set a hand on his brother’s forearm, patting him lightly. “I’m not being controlled, Sam. Look at me, man. Really look. Listen to me. I’m all right. Swear to god. It’s not fucked up. It’s discipline. It’s not fun, maybe, and I may look like a Titian painting from behind, but Cas knows what he’s doing.”
Whatever Sam saw in Dean’s expression apparently soothed him enough for the moment. He nodded grimly. “Text me when your checkup with Missouri is. I want to be there. I want to hear what she says. Not just today. Every day. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Dean replied with gravity.
“I’m not kidding, Dean.”
“Would you get out of here?” Dean shot back. “You have a class to teach. All that moaning about having your Spanking class taken away from you and the day you get it back, you’re in here stalling. Go on, man. Teach apes to turn asses purple! You want me to model for you?”
“That class isn’t until this afternoon, jerk. And no thanks. Your swollen ass will send every one of them running for the hills.”
“Well, go prepare for it, then,” Dean said dismissively, done with the topic. “Get out of my office. Some of us have work to do this morning.”
“I’m going,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “You want coffee? I gotta swing back this way in a bit. I can bring you a cup.”
Dean nodded with a thumbs up as he booted his computer up. “Don’t think you’re going to stop by sixteen times a day to make sure I haven’t swooned from the pain,” he warned.
Sam scoffed. “Fine, asshole. Get your own coffee!” And with a laugh, he wrenched Dean’s door open.
“Sammy?” Dean called. “Thanks, man.”
Balthazar sprayed an enticing cologne onto his chest, skimmed through the scene call sheet once more, checked himself in the mirror, and slipped unceremoniously into his contract space. A nervous beta teenager sat stiffly on the bed in a bathrobe. The kid popped to his feet when the door closed behind the confident Omega. Balthazar sized him up, scenting the room. The kid’s eyes took him in, all bare skin and tight briefs, nothing subtle or demure whatsoever. But a brief glance at the contractor’s face was all he managed before his eyes hit the floor.
Submissive, this one. Undoubtedly. Although some teens carried a lingering vestigial carryover submission from their childhood years, carryover didn’t explain a sub reaction this prominent. Plus, as an Omega, Balthazar shouldn’t be eliciting a Sub reaction at all from any but Profound Subs. He smirked. More and more betas were choosing to contract with Omegas to lose their virginity. Balthazar still hadn’t had an alpha sign up for that, but he wouldn’t be shocked when it finally happened. Omegas weren’t intimidating in size or carriage, and that gave Balthazar a leg up on being the perfect choice for a less terrifying first experience. That was not a fact he took lightly. Most of his virgins were still Omegas themselves, but the rising number of betas on his bed was a hopeful trend.
Balthazar approached but paused before he was in touching distance. “If you can’t even look at me, honey, this is going to awkward as hell. I like to see the color of eyes I’m working with. You’re not scared, are you? I’m just an Omega. Nothing to worry about from me. I’m going to take excellent care of you. What’s your name?”
Cautiously, the beta looked up, already blushing. “Jake, sir. My name’s Jake.”
“Sir?” Balthazar laughed. “You have the nicest manners, sugar. Can I sit with you?” He took a spot next to the kid without waiting for an invitation and he set a calming hand on Jake’s thigh, squeezing gently and rubbing up and down. “Let me share a secret with you, Jake.” Balthazar leaned close enough that his breath would tickle the boy’s ear when he whispered. “You don’t have to Sir me.”
Jake giggled and blushed. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“S’not a problem. We’ll figure it out. You wanna start by telling me what you like?” Balthazar moved his hand up the boy’s thigh, watching to see if he would melt or stiffen. He did neither really, but his eyes tracked the progress, and he didn’t flinch when his bathrobe slipped open. He flicked his gaze to Balthazar’s chest, rapt.
“I don’t really know,” Jake admitted.
“Ooh, that’s a treat, then. You and I can find out together, Jake. You know, virgins are my favorite assignments. I hope you don’t mind. There’s something very sexy about watching someone feel it for themselves for the first time. You mind if I take your robe? We’re not going to need it.”
Jake nodded, letting Balthazar untie the knot and push it off the beta’s shoulders. He had on a simple jock strap, blue mesh, which hid his dick. He was half hard and breathing deeply already. “Jake, I really want to touch you. May I, love? Can I put my hands on your body? You have the sexiest tummy. I might have to lick it later.”
Mute, the kid nodded, watching intently as Balthazar straddled his lap and pressed his hands against the boy’s belly, groaning wantonly. Jake’s eyes dilated. His cock twitched.
“Good boy,” Balthazar praised. “Oh, yeah, we’re going to have a good time.” He kept his touch clear of Jake’s cock as he pressed forward and nuzzled his throat. Jake raised his chin, but Balthazar didn’t respond as a Dominant would. That wasn’t his to take. And it wasn’t why Jake was here.
The kid had his Keller test scheduled in a week. Still a virgin at seventeen, he feared entering that experience without any clue what to expect. He’d been advised that a round or two with Balthazar would calm his nerves and offer him a glimpse into himself that might help him behave authentically for his test, rather than leading with his nerves simply because it was all so new.
“You’re beautiful, Jake,” Balthazar crooned, pressing him to lie back. “Your body is ready to show you what it wants. You ready to find out?”
“Uh…yeah…please,” he huffed breathlessly, leaving his hands out on the bed to either side. Balthazar slid up to straddle his belly. He leaned down and collected the kid’s hands and helped him explore the miles of bare skin of the Omega’s body, granting him implicit permission to touch. Jake caught on fast. He trailed his hands down Balthazar’s legs, up the insides of his thighs, daring to cup the meager balls inside his underwear, and watching in awe as Balthazar’s cock stiffened inside the fabric. A dark, damp spot appeared where the head of Bal’s cock leaked against the stretchy cotton.
“What do you think, sweetheart,” Bal asked, leaning close to kiss his lips. “Wanna lay bets on you being a Bottom or a Top? What do you dream about all night long? You wanna fuck me?” Balthazar moved his hand down between them, earning a hitched breath and an unintentional thrust from his virgin.
“That’s it,” Balthazar told him. “Let it come naturally, sugar. Don’t hold back. It’s just you and me and whatever feels good.”
“Would you…? I think I want you to fuck me,” Jake admitted.
“Oh, kid, I was hoping you would say that. You know what? We have all the time in the world. I’m going to make you feel so good, you’re going to twitch all the way home and jerk yourself in the car before you even get inside. How does that sound?”
“Mm-hm,” Jake murmured.
“Lay back for me, honey. Lay on your back, how ‘bout. Shimmy up onto the bed and let me do all the work. I’m going to show you why I love my job.”
Jake looked behind him and worked his way up onto the bed proper, with his head at the headboard and his feet straight out toward the foot. Balthazar ostentatiously licked his lips and followed. He shoved the beta’s legs apart, giving himself room to work. He held Jake’s eyes as he lowered his royal blue briefs and gracefully worked them off his legs. They disappeared over his head. Balthazar could feel the boy wanting to lower his gaze to take in the whole package, but as Balthazar stared intently, cataloguing all the colors in the young man’s irises, the kid found himself incapable of tearing his eyes away.
Definitely submissive. Not just submissive, but Submissive. And beautiful in his youthful enthusiasm. Jake’s cock pressed hard against the fabric constraining it. He sported quite the package for a young man not yet fully grown. Betas sometimes continued growing well into their twenties. This kid would be hung one day, and Balthazar secretly prayed he would get to play switch this morning. They had a full hour. Virgins always got a whole hour and the first appointment of the day to ensure a contractor who could give them everything. Balthazar’s channel responded, always a good sign.
“I’m going to work you open, Jake.” Balthazar kneed closer, up between Jake’s legs. He reached across and collected a thick towel from the side table. “Lift up, baby. Sometimes I drool a little.” He nudged Jake into lifting his hips and he slid the folded towel beneath his ass, casting semi-intentional grazing touches to his sensitive flesh as he worked, scenting for a reaction as he went. Then, lowering his body to lay out flat, he held Jake’s eyes for a moment then pushed each thigh high into the air and touched the skin behind his balls with his tongue. Bal traced a tentative line downward until he circled the boy’s hole. He listened and he scented, and he purred in pleasure when the young man melted into the touch. Bal pressed in, breeching his hole with his pointed tongue just a little before circling it again.
Jake moaned.
Balthazar looked up, glancing in the mirrored wall at the head of the bed. He found the beta’s toes curled tightly. Another very good sign.
“That’s it, sugar,” he coaxed. “Just relax. I got you. Tell me if I do anything you don’t like. This is for you, baby. All for you.”
“Please…” Jake begged. He aborted a motion to touch Balthazar’s hair.
“You ever had anything in here before, honey?” Bal asked before circling again in a tease.
“Nuh-unh,” Jake whispered, watching intently.
“Oh, love, you are missing out. I’m going to show you a secret spot. But you have to be patient for me. Yeah? I’m going to blow your mind, kiddo.”
“Please!”
“You want to push my face down and make me lick you wide open? Then do it, baby. I’m all yours, and I love rimming almost as much as I love sucking cock. Touch me, Jake. Do it.”
Jake’s hand twitched nervously, but he carded his fingers into Balthazar’s hair, giving the strands a hesitant tug. After a moment, he came to a decision, flattening his palms around Balthazar’s skull and pressing him decisively down between his legs, eliciting a debauched moan from the contractor.
Balthazar set to work on his hole, abandoning the teases. He left long, sloppy licks with the flat of his tongue and quick jabs that breeched ever deeper into the void behind tight muscles. Jake wrapped his legs around Balthazar’s shoulders, swearing a litany of curse words into the headboard as he craned his head as far back as it would go.
Balthazar kind of forgot he was working for a while, pressing himself up with a foot braced on the bed beside his opposite knee. He wanted to dive in headfirst and see just how deep he could go into the boy. Jake wallowed in it, rolling in ecstasy at the unfamiliar pleasure that he’d never imagined would feel like this. Balthazar added fingers and thumbs as he worked. No big deal. No production. Nothing in his actions that might spook the kid. This initial process, the deep presses into his body, stretching his rim and coaxing the muscles to relax, it wasn’t about achieving a penetrable orifice. It was about soothing the virgin into trusting the pleasure of his touch. It was about making him crave an even deeper reach, always short of just a little bit deeper. Balthazar watched the kid begin to rock his hips, trying to urge his tongue, his fingers just a bit further in.
He was so beautiful. Jake’s dark skin glowed with a sheen of sweat. He threw his arm across his face and rocked wantonly on Balthazar’s hand. Bal lifted up onto his knees and shoved four fingers into the boy, slick with spit.
Balthazar loved his job. Where else would he get to be a part of a moment so pure, so earthshattering?
“Would you look at that?” he purred. “You’re a natural, Jake. You light up inside. All I had to do was flip your switch, and you came alive for me. You’re amazing, sweetheart. Here. Let’s try this one more thing before we get to the real show. You ready. Look at me, dear. Eyes on me.” Balthazar eased his fingers out, replacing the four with just his middle finger, pressing in deep as he held the amber-eyed boy’s gaze. With a crook of his finger, Balthazar rubbed a firm touch along the little knot of firm flesh inside him, watching in awe as his eyes shot wide, his feet pressed into the bed, lifting his hips high into the air, and he sucked in a harsh guttural breath. His fists gripped the sheet beneath him and then he bit his lip and closed his eyes.
“Feels good?”
“Fuuuuuck, please do that again…please…” Jake cried.
“Mmm,” Bal agreed, giving him what he wanted. An all too short moment later, Balthazar withdrew his finger and left Jake panting as his hips hit the bed.
Hovering above him on his arms, Balthazar looked into his sweaty face. “You’re doing so well, Jake. You ready for the main event?”
Jake nodded with certainty.
Balthazar chuckled at his enthusiasm. “It’s your day, my sweet. How do you want me?”
“I dunno. Just…regular…I guess?”
Ah, the sweetness of a natural Sub. Jake blinked innocently up at him, trusting fully and so worried he was going to say something wrong, do something wrong. Balthazar nodded without judgment. “See that little foil packet there on the table? Rip it open and hand me the condom inside. We play safely, right, Jake? Repeat after me, kiddo. No glove, no love. Don’t ever have unprotected sex until you’re committed and fluid-bonded and your pregnancy decisions have been managed. This is no joke. Promise me.”
Jake obeyed without hesitation, repeating the mantrum and ripping into the packet with his teeth. Balthazar rolled the condom on himself and then let Jake squirt lube onto his palm. He spread his knees wide, scootching up close to press Jake’s legs wide around his thighs.
“Take hold of me, Jake,” he instructed. “We’re going to do this together. I’ll aim, all right? You control how deep. You set the pace, love.”
“I... dunno what I’m doing,” Jake whined, looking down between them where Balthazar had wrapped Jake’s hand around his cock and was helping him stroke. “Can’t you do it? Please…”
“There’s no wrong way to do this, sugar,” Balthazar soothed. “I want you to own this moment.” Balthazar squeezed Jake’s hand around Bal’s cock and held his eyes. “Do it, Jake. Whenever you’re ready, love. I’ve got you, baby.”
Watching Balthazar’s eyes carefully, Jake exhaled and began to tug gently forward, lowering his hips to take the man’s cock. He licked his lips. Balthazar watched him back, aiming himself and letting his hips move as Jake directed. He fed calm affirmation, validation, warmth, and acceptance through the link between their eyes, and Jake stopped blinking entirely.
Bal didn’t need to see their connection to aim. He kept his eyes on the beta’s, humming in pleasure when his boy pressed the head of Bal’s cock past the tight ring of muscle. Jake gasped and froze.
“That’s it, baby. You got it. Take a second and breathe. It’s all you, sugar. Does it hurt?”
“A little,” Jake breathed.
“S’okay. Take a minute. That’s normal. When you’re ready, keep going.”
Jake let go of Balthazar’s dick and transferred his sticky hands to his shoulders. He tore his gaze away from the Omega’s face and looked down between them. His face fell slack in wonder at the sight of half of the Omega’s cock disappearing into his body. Slowly, he pressed his hips forward, lowering his hands to Balthazar’s hips and pulling him in, sucking in the rest of the length, watching it vanish, feeling it fill him. He closed his eyes and threw his head back, bottoming out.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered.
“Not today, honey. Maybe when you come back and visit me again.”
Jake panted, feeling himself so full, so stretched. He lay still, taking it in, and Balthazar knew he had no idea where to go from here. “You ready?” Bal asked softly with a touch to his throat. “Nod when you’re ready.”
Jake nodded immediately, opening his eyes back up and dropping his knees as wide as they would go. Balthazar swooned. It didn’t get better than this. He had this boy’s complete trust, and he had a front row seat to the epiphany of discovery, of sexual enlightenment.
Slowly, he began to move, fucking as deeply as he could on his knees, thrusting his hips in a circular motion, angling to glance a touch off the beta’s prostate, earning pleasured gasps.
Jake clutched at his shoulders, tugging him down, and Balthazar lowered his torso until he covered the kid in a tight cocoon. Tentatively, he kissed Jake’s lips, earning an enthusiastic response, and soon his tongue explored deeply into the boy’s mouth while his hips pumped.
Eventually, to ensure that Jake could breathe, Balthazar reluctantly sat up again, he rolled his hips and watched Jake’s face. A fine sheen of sweat and a healthy flush accented the kid’s youth, but his eyes were hooded. He might be new to this, but he knew what felt good, and he was rolling in it.
“Hey, Jake?” Balthazar cooed softly, leaning back down.
“Huh?”
“You’re not a virgin anymore.”
Jake laughed and shoved Balthazar’s shoulder playfully. Balthazar grinned. He watched, licking his lips, as Jake slid the fabric panel down and took himself in hand. He stroked his cock to the rhythm of Balthazar’s hips. He was gorgeous. Balthazar tucked the elastic of his jock strap behind his balls for him.
Jake rolled his own hips into his fist. Balthazar kept his pace steady, letting the kid work himself up at a measured pace, both of them enjoying the slow build. But Balthazar wasn’t about to let this hour end before the hour was up. He waited until a wrinkle appeared on Jake’s forehead between his eyes. He was close, climbing and hungry. Bal gently pulled Jake’s hand away by the wrist, holding his eyes with intense focus, and he pressed Jake’s wrist into the bed by his shoulder.
Jake’s pleasure turned to puzzlement and disappointment at being denied what was so very close. His breath hitched. He didn’t pull away though. He bit his lower lip, entranced at the look in Balthazar’s eyes, and he slowly placed his left hand up on the bed by his left shoulder as well. Balthazar smiled affectionately and covered his left wrist. He shifted his weight to hold Jake’s arms still, binding him to the bed.
“Good boy,” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss. “Just try it, okay? This is for you, Jake. If you don’t like it, say the word, and I’ll let go.”
Jake nodded, eyes wide.
Balthazar picked up his pace, reaching deep, sending loud slaps out at every thrust that bounced the beta’s cock off his belly, closing his eyes. Jake moaned again, spreading his legs as wide as he could, opening up his hips and offering himself in complete shamelessness. Balthazar felt himself cresting. He slowed and pulled out, easing the stretch with a massaging thumb over the gape of Jake’s asshole.
“Let’s try something else. Are you game? Do you trust me? I’m not going to hurt you, Jake.”
“Okay,” huffed Jake, out of breath.
“Roll over, sweetheart. Get your knees under you. This way gives me better access to that sweet spot that made your hair light up. Remember that?”
“Uh-huh.” Jake rolled, tidily adjusting the towel beneath him and shuffling to give himself space from the headboard. Balthazar massaged his flank. He swiftly examined his condom, checking that it still had enough play left. He had another ready, but Bal decided the one he was wearing would hold.
“You’re a natural, Jake. You take to fucking like a frog in a pond. Are you ready?”
Jake nodded vehemently.
“Press back and take me in,” Bal instructed, arranging the head of his cock at Jake’s entrance and applying enough pressure to help ease it in as Jake pushed backward with both palms splayed against the bed.
“Ohhhhhh!” they both groaned together.
“You feel divine, beta,” Balthazar added. “So tight for me.” He clutched the beta’s hips and rolled his. “I’m going to hit you hard and fast,” he advised. “All you have to do is hang on and feel.”
“Feels so good…” Jake slurred into the pillow.
“I’ll tell you what,” Balthazar added, still simply rolling his hips. “If you want me to, I’ll take care of your cock as well, and you can shoot off with me. There’s something really satisfying about coming together, Jake.”
“Yeah?”
“But what I’d like even better, if you want to, don’t touch yourself. Don’t come yet. I would love for you to try Topping before you leave here today. There’s two kinds of virginity for fellas, Jake. I’d love to be your first from both directions. What do you say?”
Jake panted into the pillow. The slow, rolling motion was beginning to wear. He nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Will you fuck me now, please?”
“So polite,” Balthazar grinned. He firmed his grip on the boy’s hips and he snapped his own forward, punching the breath right out of the ex-virgin and drawing a gasp. “Push back against the headboard, Jake. Press into me. Here we go.”
Balthazar unleashed. He watched for signs that the kid had grown too sore to find pleasure in his thrusts, but Jake melted entirely. Bal wound up holding him up by his hips as he fucked the boy for all he was worth. Giving up on keeping him off the bed, Bal let go and allowed the kid to flatten beneath him, never pausing his rhythm. He covered the kid down the length of his body and went at it as if he were racing an opponent. Sweat dripped from Balthazar’s nose and chin to mingle with the sweat of Jake’s back.
Balthazar felt it coming. He wrapped his arms beneath Jake’s shoulders, embraced him tight and intimate, stuttered a little, and then came hard, losing himself in the agonizing pleasure of a hard-won orgasm.
He breathed with his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against Jake’s temple, coming down slowly.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked after a moment.
Balthazar laughed. “More than okay, honey. That was epic.”
Jake hesitated. “Uh…are we still gonna…?”
“Oh, yes. If you’re up for it.” Bal pulled up, pulled out, eased his weight off the young man, and slid the condom off his faded dick. He kneed to the edge of the bed and tossed the condom in his bedside disposal can before helping Jake turn over and inspecting him head to toe with a professional eye. Bal dropped a simple kiss on his lips. The boy was boneless, in no condition to fuck anything. But that wasn’t an impediment if he was willing. A seventeen-year-old boy who’d just had his backdoor cherry popped but who hadn’t come yet… Bal wasn’t worried that the kid’s cock lay flaccid on his belly.
“How do you feel, sugar?” Balthazar asked in a soft, bedroom voice. He roamed his hands up and down Jake’s body, squeezing slightly now and then, kissing his lips now and then. They were soft lips, firm and plump, and Balthazar thought he might enjoy one day spending a whole hour sitting in this boy’s lap simply kissing him.
“I feel…kinda… floaty. Feels good.”
“Excellent. That’s the best possible answer, sweetness. Ready to sit up?”
“Yeah.”
“Easy does it. Floaty sometimes gives over to unconscious if you take it too fast. Tell me if you get woozy.”
“No, I’m good,” Jake assured his partner as he sat all the way up. “Oh!” he exclaimed as his weight shifted to press into his sore ass. “Is that normal?” he asked with wide eyes and a hand snaked under him.
“Absolutely normal. If you’re really a Bottom at heart, kiddo, it won’t bother you. If Bottoming isn’t right for you, it’ll bug the hell out of you. Only time and practice will tell.”
“Aches,” Jake added with a pained expression.
“I can help get your mind off the ache,” Bal reminded him.
“Yeah?” Jake smiled, charmed.
“Here’s how we’re going to do this,” the contractor instructed. “I’ll get your engines revving again. Shouldn’t take long. You’re already on the verge of stoking back up. Then I’m going to stand here and double over onto the bed. You stand behind me, and I’ll talk you through the rest. It’s easy as falling into a lake, Jake.”
“Okay,” Jake breathed. His cock twitched in interest. “You’ll tell me if I’m doing anything wrong?”
“Would I let you leave here with bad habits?” Bal teased. “Trust me, sugar. You’re going to be terrific.”
“Yeah. Okay. Where should I…?”
“Sit right where you are. Has anyone ever given you head, my darling?” Balthazar dropped to his knees between Jake’s knees.
“Uh…no. Not yet.”
“Unh!” Balthazar grunted in shock and pleasure. “I am the luckiest man alive. Hold on to something then because this will blow your fucking mind! Knees open for me, love.”
Jake’s mouth dropped open as Balthazar’s enveloped his cock in warmth and wetness, and he cried out in alarm. “Oh my god!”
“Mmm,” Balthazar agreed. The beta went from half flagged to fully erect in an instant. Bal tasted the salty slickness of precome dribble onto his tongue and he grinned around the boy’s substantial girth. He played it cool and simple, keeping his eyes up on Jake’s face and a hand massaging his balls. He didn’t want to spoil it for the boy by timing badly. But Bal felt he could suck this boy’s dick all day and half the night and still want more.
Jake’s belly jumped with the effort to contain himself, and Balthazar reluctantly pulled off.
“Good, yes?” he teased.
“That was amazing!” Jake answered in wonder.
“Love, you have a whole world of exploration in front of you. Some things you’ll hate, but most…you’re going to love. Blowjobs, my boy, there’s really not much that’s better than a good hard suck-off.” He winked and whispered, “This is why it’s better to be a boy. Shh, don’t tell the girls.” Balthazar stroked Jake’s dick with his hand and then rolled a condom onto it, squeezing playfully as he went.
Jake laughed. He let Balthazar pull him up and watched with his lip caught in his teeth as the contractor bent over the bed and reached back to spread his cheeks.
“Just point and shoot, Jake,” Balthazar told him. “Your cock knows what to do.”
Jake was nervous but committed. He stepped closer and touched Balthazar’s ass cheek hesitantly. “Any advice?” he asked.
Balthazar glanced over his shoulder. “Once you’re in there, hold still for a couple of seconds, all right? Give yourself and your partner a chance to get used to the feeling. For the Bottom, that lets their ass relax so it doesn’t hurt as bad. That’s not so important if your Bottom is Omega, but for everyone else, the initial intrusion can hurt. Let them adjust. For the Top, sometimes that first shock of tight, hot constriction is enough to send you right over the edge and it can end before you even get started. Pausing for a beat helps the Top too. You understand? Go slow, Jake.”
“Okay. Go slow. Anything else?” Jake had a hand around his cock, stroking idly, his eyes glued to Balthazar’s entrance.
“Don’t try to pull all the way out with your thrusts. If you slip out while your hips are still in motion, the crash of a loose cock against your partner’s ass hurts both of us. Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll feel the right depth when you get in there. Now come on. No more stalling. Get in there.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Jake stepped in close, letting his cock go and taking Balthazar by the hips.
“Use your hand to aim, Jake,” Balthazar coached.
The Omega turned front and closed his eyes, bearing down to open himself to the intrusion, and he sighed and collapsed onto his elbows when Jake found his mark and pressed in.
Jake panted behind him, trembling as he pressed in and bottomed out. “Christ Jesus,” he muttered.
“Hold, sugar. Hold. Touch my back if you want. Talk to me if you want.”
“Can’t talk,” Jake whined.
Bal chuckled. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready. Let’s start with tiny little pulses. Okay, darling? Pulse for me.”
Jake huffed stuttered breaths as he pulsed his hips. “I need to…”
“Are you ready?”
“Uh-huh,” Jake breathed.
“Then hit it, love. I want to ache just like you ache. Let me have it, Jake.”
“Aaahhh!” Jake cried. His hips flew, his head fell back, his eyes squeezed shut. He fucked like his life depended upon it, pulling Bal into his thrusts with a death grip on each hip.
He came in no time, whimpering to the ceiling and grinding his hips into Balthazar’s ass as if he wanted to meld with the man. Then he doubled over, collapsing against the Omega’s back.
The air reeked. Their sweat mingled. Heaving breaths countered each other. Jake’s cock slipped out wetly. Balthazar propped himself up on his elbow and looked back, breathing hard.
“That was incredible, love. You’re incredible, do you know that? I believe you’re ready for your Keller. You’re going to knock their socks off, kiddo.”
Jake chuckled and swallowed. “Is there time to do it again?” he asked hopefully.
Bal laughed and rolled over, tugging the boy onto the bed and into his arms. He removed Jake’s condom without ceremony and tossed it onto the side table behind him.
“Last lesson, honey. Cuddling. Come and snuggle with me a while. This is part of the payout. Feel the endorphins running through your blood? Smell the oxytocin in the air? Lounge in it for a bit, Jake. No stress. No pressure. Nowhere to be but right here. And if you feel like kissing me, I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”
Balthazar said goodbye reluctantly, fervently wishing every day started like this one. The kid was so young, so malleable, so eager, so trusting…
”Love my job,” Balthazar quipped to a fellow Omega contractor as he slipped into the shower.
Michael drove his own car. He steadfastly refused to unseat Pete to allow the security dick to ride up front, so the asshole was pouting in the back seat.
Pouting!
As if he would be any less effective from the back seat.
Michael glanced in his rearview mirror. Men! he thought testily. With these guys, every interaction had to account for an oversized ego or there would be a tantrum to field. Fuck that. Michael didn’t give a fuck about this guy’s ego, and he didn’t care if he pouted except that it spiked the close air in the car and made Alex edgy. Michael turned the fan blower up, hoping to circulate the cloying spike right out of his car.
“All I’m saying is you shouldn’t walk on eggshells around her,” April continued.
And there was the real cause of Michael’s irritation. He’d been arguing with Pete long enough now that they’d begun going in circles.
“I’m not walking on fucking eggshells,” he disagreed, annoyed, beginning to seethe. “I’m giving her a safe place to live. Would you rather I turn my wolf on so she can see what it’s really like to live in the Winchester Pack? Did you think that birthday display of Castiel’s, that power trip, was a good introduction for her? Do you want me to bite her head off for leaving her cereal bowl in the sink? What exactly do you want me to change, Pete?”
“You’re treating her like she’s going to go scurrying into her burrow if she sees us going about our normal lives!” April insisted. Her volume increased unnecessarily, starting to turn shrill. “You creep around, trying not to spook her, smiling like an idiot every time she looks at you. It’s creepy, and it’s weird. And besides, I didn’t notice you complaining about that showcase when it was your turn on Dean’s ass. Yours was the harshest of the three. All I’m saying is that instead of scaring her with the Dominant grandstanding or freaking her out by plying her with some kind of false intimacy, we should get back to normal, and let her come out of her shell at her own pace.”
Michael sighed and steered left. “Are you worried I’m going to make a move on her, Pete? Cause that’s not happening. She’s hurt, and she’s scared, she’s fighting constant urges to go back to the woman who stole her Mating-bond, and she’s waiting to find out if she’s carrying that woman’s pup. Excuse me if it seems to me that she could use a gentle touch right now. That’s not false intimacy. It’s kindness.”
“It’s bullshit, Michael. I can feel your emotions when you talk to her. You’re on the edge of your seat, drooling over her neediness. You’re waiting for her to encounter a puddle so you can be the magnanimous gentleman and lay your cloak across it.” April scowled at her own words, apparently surprised that last comment had made it past her filter.
The security guard in the back seat huffed a short, contemptuous laugh, and Michael glared at him.
“Why is it any of your business in the first place?” he challenged, hoping to find a way out of the argument. “What are you, my social etiquette nanny? Why do you care one way or another?”
She licked her lips and turned in her seat. “She doesn’t need another savior,” April insisted. Her volume increased further as she made her case. “She needs a family. If you keep trying to be her knight-protector, she’s going to freak out and bail!”
“Stop shouting at me, Pete. I can hear you just fine,” Michael bit out.
“Really?” April squeaked. “Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re listening!”
Security dick piped up from the back seat with: “If you two are gonna scratch each other’s eyes out, would you mind pulling over first? I don’t wanna die in a car wreck.”
“Nobody’s talking to you!” both wolves retorted in tandem. They each scowled and then huffed in annoyance. Michael turned into the ACRI parking lot and put the car in park. He stared at his lap, high bright circles on his cheeks giving away his annoyance even more than his bond-link did.
“I don’t know what you’re asking me to do,” he told her simply. “What exactly bugs you so much about how I am around Kate? You don’t have anything to worry about, April. I’m not going after her, not now, not ever.”
She sighed in frustration and got out of the car. Michael followed suit, catching her eye over the car’s roof and gritting his teeth. “Michael, I’m not jealous, damnit. But you’re acting like you’ve never been around anyone who’s had a traumatic experience, and it’s fucking weird, okay? How did you feel after you watched that Omega lose his life and his pup in a violent attack when all the alphas in the house wanted to follow you around with a pillow in case you fainted? Wasn’t there a part of you that wanted to shoo them all away so you could circle up with just us Omegas and finally get real?”
“That’s exactly what I’m offering!” Michael objected.
“You can’t force it on her, Michael! You’re a total stranger to her. You need to back off!” April turned and stalked away.
Michael ignored the security guard. He opened the back door and extracted his son. Then he followed April to the doors, using the visitors’ entrance. He didn’t look back to check if the guard had followed or buggered off to the pub. Michael didn’t care.
“Whoa!” Charlie exclaimed as she met the two of them stalking side by side down the hall, decidedly not looking at each other. Charlie stopped them. “Tension. Knife. Cut. And I mean, like, wow. What up, bitches?”
“Not now, Charlie,” Michael groused, squeezing past her with Alex on his way to Dean’s office. Charlie let Michael go, but she snatched Ace out of his arms and then leveled April with a faux-stern look.
April rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Men,” she offered by way of explanation.
“Well, that just about explains it,” Charlie agreed. She grinned as she tickled Alex’s belly. “What brings you two up to our neck of the woods? Playdate with Aunt Charlie?”
“Michael’s got an eval meeting with Jody and the nurse supervisor he worked for last week up at the hospital. Figured I’d tag along for support. I needed to get out of the house anyway.”
“Ooh, that sounds important,” Charlie said. “If he gets a good review, that could really help his career. We tend to get too incestuous here in our own lair. Having input on the record from unaffiliated sources means a lot.”
“I know,” April sighed. “It means a lot to Michael, and I wanted to be there for him. But he’s being such a prick right now, I don’t know if it’d be a help to have me there or if I’m just on his nerves.”
“Pete, are you coming?” Michael practically bellowed from outside Dean’s office door.
“Wow,” Charlie repeated. “Someone pissed in the whole box of Cheerios.”
April replied to Charlie with a weighted look, all about how dealing with men was often not worth the trouble, and Charlie winked and handed Alex back.
“Bye, Scooter!” the redhead chirped, wiggling her fingers at Alex. He waved back shyly and then clung to April’s neck.
Inside Dean’s office, Michael sat moping on the couch, and Dean stood studying his mate. The alpha looked up and grinned when April entered. “Hey! Look who came to visit Daddy at work! Come ‘ere, Ace.”
“Dah-dee!”
April set the pup on the carpeted floor by the door and let him amble to where Dean squatted by his desk. Dean swamped him with adoring kisses. “Where are the triplets?” he asked as he emerged chuckling.
“Napping at home. We figure it’s better to take one or two out at a time instead of the whole litter every time we need to run out for something.”
“Run out for something,” Michael repeated sourly. “I guess this is just an errand to you. I thought you supported my training, Pete. No one made you come.”
“Whoa!” Dean exclaimed, spinning on his heel. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” Michael dismissed. “Just a stupid argument.”
“You’re arguing?” Dean clarified. “You two?” He pointed a finger back and forth between them. “You two,” he repeated in disbelief.
“Yes, Dean. We’re arguing. Why is this difficult to comprehend? You and I argue all the fucking time. I’d think you understood the concept by now.” Michael was in fine form, throwing a solo pity party and feeling massively misunderstood.
Dean grinned. “Oh, I do, man. I get arguing. I’ve just never seen the two of you go at it, that’s all. Damn, it’s about fucking time. I’d about given up on you guys. I wonder if Charlie has a betting pool going. I should’ve thought to get in on that action.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Michael demanded, obviously offended.
Dean stood up with Alex and held an arm out to draw April in. He kissed her temple when she joined him. “You two have been going through the relationship motions for-frikken-ever, Michael. You’re so polite and careful it’s nauseating. I had about given up hope you’d ever take the rose-colored glasses off and start really talking to each other. It’s a relief to see you get real, that’s all.”
“Not everyone fights as much with all their loved ones as they all seem to do with you, Dean. Maybe your perspective is skewed.” Michael lay down on the sofa and stretched out.
“That,” said Dean with a finger pointing right at his mate that Alex mimicked, “was hurtful and uncalled for. Don’t be mean, Omega. I don’t argue all by myself.” The alpha infused a Secondary weight in his tone. Alex’s eyes widened.
“Go ahead and spank me, Dean. It won’t change anything. I’m wrong. I’m wrong now. I’ll be wrong after you bust my ass. I’m always wrong. So, whatever.”
Dean snorted and sat down on Michael’s thighs, causing Michael to flinch. “The argument is none of my business, if you wanna keep it to yourselves” Dean added. “But I wanna reassure you both, that this is a good thing in the end. Just don’t let it fester and don’t take it up to the hospital with you. We’ve got a few minutes if you want to hash it out now. I can probably help.”
“Get off my legs, alpha,” Michael grumped.
Dean rolled back up to his feet. Sitting on a firm and uneven surface hurt anyway. “April? Nothing to say?”
April peeked at Michael over Dean’s shoulder. He wasn’t looking at her. He had his gaze fixed to the ceiling. “Michael’s doing the Knight in shining armor routine for Kate’s benefit, and I think it makes him look like a creep. He’s freaking her out.”
Dean’s brows shot up. Then he laughed a little. “If I recall, kid, you ate that routine up when he did it for you.”
“It’s not funny,” she protested. “If he was just making a fool of himself, I wouldn’t care, but Kate doesn’t have any idea what to do with him, and he’s sabotaging my chances to make a real friend in the Pack. She’s closer to my age and my designations than we’ve ever had in the house before, Dean, and I like her. She’s nice, when she’s not freaked out trying to figure out what the hovering dude at her shoulder wants all the time!”
“Oh. That’s…”
“All I did was ask Michael to cool it a little with the overactive chivalry and let her breathe, and now he’s pouting because I injured his delicate ego. She doesn’t need another Dominant in her face. She needs a friend.”
“Ah,” Dean added. He’d noticed the same worrisome behavior. He had vowed to give Michael some time to get it out of his system, but eventually, he knew, someone would have to steer Michael onto a different track. His savior complex was not going to be good for Kate. It didn’t help that April had chosen to deliver the message in a patronizing lecture.
Michael was watching his mate, and he felt the pins click in Dean’s head.
“I see,” Michael said as he sat up. “You’re on her side. Okay. I get it. I’m an overbearing asshole who can’t stop cramming assistance into people’s faces whether they need it or not. Fine. You think I’m going to confuse which mouth to spoon the baby food into. All right. I’ll leave her alone. I won’t say a word to her. She’s all yours, Pete. Maybe I’m the one who should be jealous. Maybe it’s the two of you who are going to run off together.”
“Stop it,” Dean demanded staunchly. “Stop that shit right now. April doesn’t deserve that. Do you even hear yourself?”
Michael clamped his mouth shut and sat glowering at the floor between his feet with his nostrils flaring. “I didn’t mean it,” he muttered eventually. April watched him sadly. “I’m not jealous, and I’m not accusing you of anything. I feel stupid, okay? I thought I was being nice. It’s hard to come into a house full of tight-knit pack as abruptly as she did and not be sure if the people around you are sharks. I never meant to hover or seem creepy.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Then he shook his head at his own internal dialogue. He looked up at Dean, then at April. “I don’t know any other way to relate to an Ozzie. It just happens. My wolf…”
“You’ve already proven you have the control to kennel the wolf,” Dean reminded him softly.
“Yeah, but maybe that’s not what Kate needs. Look, a professional persona is one thing. I understand why my wolf can’t be a part of that. But at home, with my Pack… it may be weird or creepy or stupid to you, but this is who I am. My wolf is a world-class asshole, but most of the time, he gets this one thing right. No one hurts my Pack. No one goes without care and attention in my Pack, not if I can provide for them. And you didn’t have to make fun. It’s not necessary to humiliate me to make your point.”
“I’m not asking you to be someone you’re not, Michael,” April told him as she knelt between his knees and took his hands. He stiffened, pulling away. “I’m just asking you to follow Kate’s lead until she knows what she’s about. Hanging over her like that, it’s…Michael, you’re making it about you, about how you feel when you know she’s safe and warm and fed and sheltered. If she was healthy and secure right now, I’d say have at her. She can cope with whatever you decide to try throwing at her.
“But she’s not healthy. She’s not secure. She’s pretty fucking broken, and she needs us all to back up and give her some air. Baby, she’s not going to starve or fall out of her bed at night without you hanging right on her heels. Let her come to you. Be nice to her, I’m not saying she needs you aloof. But let her come feel you out. And she will. I swear. God, Michael, your wolf, it…it’s magnetic to an Ozzie. She’s going to be pulled to you once she feels safer. Everything you’re looking for from her, that’s all going to happen if you don’t drive her up the wall being a babysitter first.”
“Dah-dee, dat!” Alex shouted, physically turning Dean’s face toward a brass elephant on his shelf and pointing. Dean set Alex on his feet and handed the elephant to him.
“Hands and eyes, Ace, not your mouth,” Dean reminded him. Alex plopped down onto his bottom and then rolled onto his belly and began to gallop the elephant along the carpet.
“Look, I hear you, okay?” Michael replied churlishly, scowling at April. “I suck. I’ll own that. But don’t get all outta sorts that I’m making this about me when your chief reason to pull me back is so you can have a new BFF. Maybe she doesn’t need you pressing in on her any more than she does me.”
April blushed slightly and lowered her eyes.
Someone knocked on Dean’s office door and then cracked it open. Jody poked her head in.
“Good. Right on time. You ready?” She came all the way in and spotted the toddler under Dean’s desk. “Well, hey there, kiddo! This is a treat! Thanks for driving your O-Pop out to see me. Can I borrow him for a little while if I promise to give him back?”
Alex’s eyes grew impossibly wide, and he abandoned his elephant to scuttle straight to Dean and hide behind his legs.
“Aw, sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Jody grinned. “God, it’s been a long time.”
Dean lifted his son to his hip. “I’ve got to get back to work, folks. Who’s going and who’s staying?”
“Pete?” Michael prompted with an annoyed sigh. “It’s your call. You and Ace can hang out here, go chill in one of the suites and wait for me. Hell, go on home if you want. I’ll catch a ride back later.” The chip on his shoulder threatened to overbalance him, so heavy was it in his tone.
“I want to come with you,” she affirmed with a sour resolution. “We’ll wait at the cafeteria or one of the waiting areas or something. I’d like to see where you worked if that’s allowed. I won’t go if you don’t want me there.”
Michael nodded, a little shellshocked from his unhappy intervention, and he heaved himself to his feet, taking Alex from Dean. “Do whatever you want,” he groused.
“I think that’s a terrific idea,” Jody agreed cheerfully, ignoring the tension and turning her smile on April. “We can give you a tour. I’ll explain how they sequestered six whole sectors in a flash, and you can see how they’re normally just another part of the hospital. Michael, will you drive?”
“I think I lost my bodyguard,” he grumped, steering around Dean without his usual touch.
“He’s waiting for you in the hall.” Jody pointed over her shoulder with her thumb.
“Well, damn. I’ll try harder next time.”
Jody ushered them both out the door after April collected Alex back. The beta shot a puzzled and slightly amused look toward Dean on her way out. She hadn’t missed the tension between the two Omegas, but she’d clearly chosen to ignore it.
The debrief was a non-event in the end, much like a parent-teacher conference for a kid with no real issues. There was a lot of simple praise, no meaty specifics, and some inside joshing between Missy and Jody that Michael wasn’t privy to. But he left the meeting with a signed general reference letter and a promise that if he needed a good word later on, Missy would hook him up. She didn’t spend any time on a sales pitch toward Lawrence Memorial’s Secondary therapy staff. Missy knew Michael was going nowhere outside the ACRI, possibly ever. She did ask him if he would consider signing on to the ad-hoc call-out roster though, once he was actually certified, that is.
So, it turned out that Michael’s work in the hospital had been completely legal, even his brief stint alone with Kate before Dean finally nutted up enough to open the door. With all the oversight cameras, he was never actually without supervision, and he hadn’t done any work that wasn’t already part of his training regimen. And here Michael thought he had been flying under a radar of sorts, slipped in where there weren’t enough trained professionals and, in a pinch, any warm body was better than none.
Missy and Jody both laughed affectionately at the idea that the hospital would ever have allowed an incompetent near its patients.
“We’re regulated to our toenails, Michael,” Missy added. “You were vetted and tagged all the way back in the registration tent as a second year with six months hands on experience. We didn’t put you anywhere you weren’t supposed to be. I had my eye on you the whole way. There aren’t really that many Omegas in this profession. We keep track of our own. We have to. Every Omega who’s ever handled a syringe was on that wing last week, and we still ran short. We were just lucky your own facility hadn’t put you to work, leaving you free for us to snap you up.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Michael said politely, although she seemed to be saying that any loser with enough hours would’ve been snapped up just as quickly, even if they didn’t know an O.T. trace from an O2 reading.
“Any questions?” Missy asked, but she was already getting up. It was clear Michael was out of time, and she hadn’t been all that useful to him anyway. He shook his head and thanked her for her time.
Walking back down three flights of stairs, he checked his phone. “April took Alex out front to walk around,” he shared with Jody from his texts. “She’s got this crazy idea that cold air is good for him.”
Michael halted abruptly at the bottom step, nearly bowling into Jody from behind as he left the stairway into the main lobby. She’d stopped dead with her first view out the front sliding glass doors and vaulted windows. There were people everywhere. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. The parking lot overflowed with a milling, spiraling flood of people all crammed closely together. Michael gaped, coming up to stand beside Jody. The throng seemed to be moving right up toward the doors where a line of security personnel stood forming a solid line facing outward.
“Jody, what…?”
“Some of them have signs,” Jody observed, squinting.
Michael realized the lobby was mostly empty.
“Folks, can we get you to exit through the rear doors?”
“What?” asked Michael, taking a slow step forward. “What is this?”
The security guard who had addressed them was a short severe-looking woman in her middle years. Primate, not Lupin. “There is a disturbance in the front lot,” she explained. “We’re asking everyone to exit toward the rear. We haven’t ascertained if there’s any hazard yet, but we’re taking precautions for everyone’s safety. If you have business elsewhere in the hospital, please find a route that does not go through the lobby. If you’re finished for the day, you need to exit toward the back. Do not attempt to access your vehicle if it’s in front. We’ll sort this out swiftly and signal when it’s safe.”
She herded Jody and Michael away from the stairs and the glass and the doors and the signs, but Michael stood his ground. “Pete’s out there,” he whispered. “Oh, god.” Dread filled him as he stretched out through his link with April and found a muted, stilted, vibrating spasm of worry on the other side. She was close. She was outside. She wasn’t safe, that much he knew. But only one clear thought echoed hollowly in his head: his last words to April had been snippy, childish and mean. Michael felt his face drain of blood as his fingers turned numb.
“Michael,” Jody caught his sleeve. “You can’t go out there. I can read some of the signs. It’s a protest march. There’re protesting YOU, Michael. Or…Omega medical staff just like you. Why aren’t the police clearing them out?!” Jody rounded on the security guard. “There’s no way this is a legal demonstration. The hospital would have known. We all would have been notified. Why are you just standing there?”
“April… God, Alex!” Michael took off running, and Jody dashed after him.
“No, you really can’t go that way! We’ve locked the doors!” But the poor security guard’s shouts were futile, and she didn’t pursue them. Michael crashed against the door, banging on it and shoving against it to no avail.
Jody tugged his sleeve. He shook her off.
“She’s not unguarded, Omega! She’s not alone. She has a bodyguard with her. Jesus, check your phone! She’s probably trying to reach you to tell you she’s safe! Michael, stop! They’re going to see you! You can’t face the lot of them if they turn into a mob! Goddamnit, Omega, if they spot you this could turn into a riot! Those are Ultra-Traditional cultists! LOOK at them!”
Michael’s chest heaved, but he stopped attacking the door and pulled his phone from his pocket. He dropped it, then kicked it in his fumbling, following as it skittered wildly across the smooth tiles before collecting it up again and ducking behind a support column.
“No, there’s nothing!” he lamented, searching each avenue April might have used, kicking himself for wasting the morning in a pointless, trivial, ego-bruising argument. And then a text appeared.
PETE: ”Don’t use the front door! I don’t know who they are, but there are a lot of them, and they’re very angry.”
Michael’s fingers shook too badly to text, so he called her instead. She answered immediately, whispering into Michael’s ear.
“Shh. They haven’t spotted me yet,” she told him, and Michael’s heartrate spiked.
“Is the bodyguard with you?” Michael demanded.
“Shh!” she repeated. Michael could hear angry voices through her phone, and they sounded far too close. ”We got separated. He was watching from a few yards away. Alex wanted to see the flowers, so we went through the grass by the big windows to get a closer look. The guard got cut off when these crazies stormed the parking lot.”
“Pete, are you safe right now? Where are you?”
Michael heard her gulp loudly, and her voice changed volume as if constantly turning her head to check every direction. ”I’m behind a bush in the raised section of the garden, right up by the building’s wall in the ivy near where the big windows start. They haven’t seen me. But I don’t know if I can keep Alex quiet. He’s getting restless. Michael, I’m scared. Some of the signs they’re carrying. These guys aren’t joking.” She gasped suddenly, and Michael heard the shuffling of leaves and foliage. “Oh, god, they’re heading this way!” she squealed in a desperate whisper. “It looks like they want to use the height of the raised bed as a podium. Michael, I’m trapped!”
“No, you’re fucking not!” Michael hissed. “Stay down. Keep Alex calm. I’m coming, baby. Don’t be scared.”
He looked up at Jody, whose eyes were enormous but who, to her credit, looked game for whatever came next. “Did you contact Cas?” he asked her.
“No answer,” she replied. “But I sent a group text to all of your alphas and Gabe.”
“Put your phone on silent,” he instructed. “We don’t want to attract attention.” Michael scoped for the short guard who’d tried to shunt him out the back. She was herding others down the steps and out the back door. Relieved that she was distracted, Michael darted to the left down the long hall that led off the lobby, parallel to the front entrance drive. The wail of sirens began to filter in through the tall windows in front of them.
“What are you doing?” Jody hissed as she followed.
“We need to find a way out. Look for any door that might open to the outside.”
“Michael you can’t go out there.”
“I have to get to Pete and Alex.”
“The cops are on their way, Omega. I’ll send them an SOS that there’s a mother and child trapped between the crowd and front wall. They’re trained to handle this.”
Michael rounded on her furiously with eyes glowing golden. “She’s an OMEGA, Jody! No cop is going to risk getting shot for an Ozzie! They’ll send us condolences, and they’ll write a report, but they won’t intervene. You stay here!” He commanded, and those last three words echoed with power, seeming to reverberate along the abandoned hallway. Jody’s mouth fell slack and she took an unwitting step back, blinking rapidly. The sirens approached, their volume peaking, but the sound of angry shouts rose higher still. Right on the other side of the wall, a bullhorn or amplified speaker trembled to life.
“Jesus, I know that voice,” Jody gasped. She looked swamped with dread. She licked her lips and clutched at Michael. “You gotta get her outta there. That’s Monroe Styne. He’s as crazy as they come, and his followers will do anything he says. If they spot April, there’s no telling what they’ll do. This…this is an Ultra-Traditionalist mob. It’s a cult, Michael. They despise Omegas, especially those who try to be anything but home-bound slaves.”
Michael didn’t need the data dump. He recognized the voice too. “I need a fucking door. A window. A damn garbage chute! Get me out of here!” Michael jogged down the hall. “Here!” It was a shaded single heavy door with a push-bar and a “Not an Exit” sign, but when Michael shoved it, it opened. He emerged near a covered walk that crossed the drive toward a parking garage. Michael jumped the low hedge to his right and took off jogging along the brick building, doubling back the way he’d come, and watching all around him. There were people everywhere, crowding in closer and closer to the hospital entrance. Police cars descended from multiple directions.
Michael could read the signs now.
He put that out of his mind. Only April and Alex mattered.
“Michael!” a voice from his left, out in the crowd. Their security detail emerged from the throng, shoving hard at the idiots with their signs and their propaganda.
“Have you spotted her,” Michael hissed, grabbing the man’s arm and pulling him close. “Where is she? Why the hell aren’t you with her?!”
“She’s just to the right of that podium they put up. We can’t get to her without every idiot seeing.”
“Then let them see,” Michael was angrier than he’d ever been in his life. A part of his brain registered the insanity of the drivel the douche at the microphone was spouting. He was ranting to shut down this travesty of a hospital that allowed Omegas to work with the public, Omegas, for god’s sake, little more than savage children themselves. He blustered about having video proof from the mass hysteria of the Septennial that Omegas had taken the place by storm and had run amok through the halls, strangling old ladies in their beds and fucking their dead bodies, performing ritual sacrifice in the maternity wards, he ranted, killing fine alpha doctors and slicing open beta mothers in labor, ripping their unborn infants out by their legs and eating them alive before the mothers bled out.
There was no way this rally was a spontaneous gathering, no way in hell. There were definitely crazies in this part of the world, but not in numbers like this. They’d known what the Septennial would bring to hospitals, and they’d planned a strike in the weary aftermath—a strike right here in Lawrence where the seat of the new Lupin crusade was based. It was a strike on Castiel, himself, and his own mate sat trapped right in its midst, helpless and terrified.
If they found her…
“No, you can’t!” The bodyguard took hold around Michael’s chest, but Michael leveled his eyes back over his shoulder and growled in a tone the man had never heard before. He let go and stood gaping as Michael prepared to push through the tightening throng.
“Call in,” Michael instructed over his shoulder. “Send for help.”
“Jesus,” the bodyguard muttered, buffeted by the crowd. He lost sight of Michael quickly.
And then they found her. A thug lackey thrashing through the bushes in search of an exterior power outlet spotted April and pounced, and the whole crowd heard her shriek as he lifted her from her hiding place by her hair with Alex crushed to her chest. The pup wailed in terror. Michael shot forward, flattening cultists who got in his way, and he achieved the low corner of the raised planter before Monroe Styne even reacted to the unlikely catch.
“She’s Omega,” the lackey told his boss with a deep whiff of her throat. April slapped him. Michael needed to get closer—too many yards between him and his beloved Pack. The prick with his fingers tangled in her hair barely acknowledged the slap. He held her at a slight distance, turning her head to get a good look. He ignored the screaming pup completely, and his voice carried when he spoke, projecting for the crowd. “She looks like that Winchester bitch who’s been on TV. What say, Winchester bitch? Don’t you know Omegas belong at home cooking my supper?”
They hadn’t noticed Michael yet, advancing on them in rage.
The blond-haired idiot wrapped a hand across her neck, forcing her head up, and Michael saw red.
“Get your fucking hands off her! NOW!” he bellowed, storming forward. The crowd pressed in along the edge of the platform as it rose higher in the middle, but Michael dodged. They were low enough at this angle that they couldn’t reach him without climbing. He was close now, close to the lectern, close to his Pete, his son…
Something took Michael over from within, something implacable and ageless, and he didn’t even think about resisting. His feet felt elevated above the ground. His eyes took in the weight, and the location, and the significance of this exact moment in time. He saw with a vision that reached into every moment in time, both before and behind this one, into every mind and heart, into every motive, pure and impure, into every chain of events that brought each individual to descend upon this place on this, the day of Michael’s ascension, and he knew what it was to be omnipotent.
“See, what we have here is a prime example of upbringing gone wrong,” Monroe drawled into the lectern as Michael bore down on him, enraged. Michael reached him before any of the guards caught up and punched him full across the face. The Alpha spun backward and clutched his broken nose, stunned to find that an Omega could even launch such an attack in the first place, much less see it through. The crowd surged again, many of them scaling the wall and rushing Michael and April’s position.
”STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!” Michael called in a voice that echoed even under a limitless, open sky and seemed to reverberate back and forth from mind to mind, through channels rarely used in the physical world, and they all stopped. All of them. Those in the back stopped as well, but they couldn’t have said why. A muttering susurration, carried by the cold January breeze sent sounds of confusion forward. Michael turned his attention to the man holding April.
His voice resounded, and his eyes flashed. ”GET. YOUR FUCKING. HANDS. OFF. RIGHT NOW. AND GET ON YOUR FUCKING KNEES!!”
Dire warning, fury, resolute power shot from Michael’s whole body, flashing from his eyes and seeming to bathe him in haloed light.
The man stood slack jawed. All the fight in his muscles vanished at Michael’s vehemence. His grip fell slack. Slowly, he dropped to his knees. Michael lunged forward and caught her up, bracing her. “Are you all right? I’ve got you, Pete. Can you hold Alex?” he asked as he enveloped her in his arms and smoothed her hair. “I may need my hands.”
“I’ve got him,” April affirmed. “I’m okay. I’m not hurt.” Michael kept an arm around her, but he turned to face the leader of the cult, now moaning with a broken nose, hunched over with his face in his hands, but his stunned eyes tracking the unthinkable man before him.
Michael’s eyes glittered bright golden, a backlit haloed glow that sparkled in the sunshine and turned him ethereal. He stood tall and proud, merciless in his wrath. He pointed to Monroe Styne, not three feet away, and without speaking, Michael took the alpha-Dominant all the way to his knees. Michael lowered his arm slowly, and the man’s body followed his command, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
Michael left a warm kiss on his son’s temple, shared a bracing look and a nod with April, and tucked them both behind him. He pulled the cheap microphone off its cradle. Holding it loose at his side, he growled. Michael needed no amplification to be heard. That growl, it was a terrifying sound. He stalked closer to Styne. The man stumbled backward on his knees through the dense ivy as Michael loomed above him, wavering before finding balance again at the cold judgment on Michael’s face.
”I’ve had enough of this bullshit,” Michael told him, speaking in words they would understand. His voice carried through a powerful, supernatural diaphragmatic projection with an unworldly echo, and they held an impossible weight, despite the lowbrow vernacular. It wasn’t volume that proved Michael’s strength. It was something far more primal, and no one, it seemed, was immune. “You owe compensation to every Omega you’ve ever harmed. But you’re going to start by explaining to these cretins you call followers that you’re dead wrong, about all of it. Phrase your words carefully, Alpha. You only get one shot.”
Michael tossed the microphone onto the ivy in front of Styne’s knees. Turning to face the crowd, Michael could see police arrayed behind them, containing the crowd in a semi-circle against the brick and glass building, but keeping their distance. He could feel Dean and Cas moving swiftly closer, still somewhere on the city streets, fighting traffic lights and sweating bullets.
He felt the eyes of the world, of countless generations past and those not yet born, resting upon him and lending him stature. He felt a surreal sense of timelessness and invincibility. He looked out at the sea of stunned faces, and he felt like he knew every sordid, disgusting detail of their wasted lives.
Michael became, in that moment, an embodiment of mystic canine authority, an archangel, and he was as beautiful as he was terrifying.
He snarled in revulsion, and the first few rows backed up, pressing against those behind them.
”On your knees, all of you!” he ordered, reverberation ringing in their ears. ”Your leader has something important to say, and we’re only doing this once!” At his first sentence, those closest dropped immediately. Further back, people hesitated. ”DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!! NOW!!!”
And the entire crowd lowered, including a few of the cops. Here and there, an aged or disabled wolf teetered precariously, unable to kneel due to a malady, but Michael ignored them. They had all dropped their heads, and that was enough.
”SAY IT!” he demanded, pointing at Styne. ”Tell them!”
The old man huffed in consternation, a sound carried by the microphone he clutched to his chest. Behind him, Michael smelled his own Pack bodyguard approaching. He turned his head fractionally to send April away with the man, but she clung to Michael. Michael watched long enough to make sure the bloodied man on the ground before him wasn’t planning a counterassault, and then he turned and hissed at her to take Alex and go. She gave him a pleading look, but he shook his head slightly and nocked his chin to send her off, sending her a staunch affirmation of his devotion through their bond. She left a kiss on Michael’s palm and then allowed the guard to hustle her away with her son.
Monroe Styne knelt quaking before Michael Quentin, his jaw shaking, and a dark streak staining the inseam of his trousers. Michael returned his attention to his enemy, belittled though the man was now.
“Tell them,” Michael repeated in his normal voice. His eyes still shone with inner light. He was still hypnotic and unassailable. He was still the archangel of justice. The breeze lifted his hair in gentle waves. He wasn’t cold. He felt very much like he could fly.
“Um…I…People can be…mistaken.” The cult leader’s voice shook in a way Michael was certain his followers had never heard from him. “I…may have been…”
“Wrong,” Michael interrupted bluntly, and in the silence that had descended over the parking lot, he didn’t need a microphone or a stereophonic voice for everyone to hear him. “The word you want is wrong. You were wrong. Say it. SAY IT!”
“I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” Michael prompted. “Where do Omegas belong?”
“I…” Styne huffed in confusion.
“Do I look like a CHILD to you?” Michael asked him, thundering closer, and the old man stumbled backward on his knees. He fell backward onto his butt and stayed there.
“You knelt to me,” Michael went on, approaching slowly. “All of you knelt to me because you know from within your own canine souls that I am your Dominant, and it is written within ancient intractable law that you MUST kneel to me. I am also…OMEGA! And when you leave here your friends and colleagues will try to convince you that I’ve poisoned your minds, that I am unhinged and dangerous. Well, I AM dangerous, but I am far from unhinged, and I am not maladjusted. I am not brainwashed…” Michael continued his very slow progress forward, closing the distance toward his enemy. “… or incompetent, or delusional, or insane, or unstable. I am Omega, and I carry within me a power so bottomless and so ageless that it is unfathomable to small minds like yours. You fear me, Alpha, as you fear all Omegas, not because we are weak or helpless, or dependent, or inept, or bestial, but because we have access to a core of power that is limitless, and you don’t. You can feel the truth in your bones. And you may leave this place with denial on your lips, but you will never again convince yourself or anyone else that there is truth to your lies. You may tell them all that there was witchcraft, or hysteria, or powerful drugs at play here today, but YOU KNOW DIFFERENTLY, DON’T YOU!? You can feel it. I see it in your eyes. It’s enough now. ENOUGH!!”
Michael stood over him, straight-backed, fearless, furious, and the Alpha cowered. Michael turned his back on the cultist, turned his back on the petrified lackey, faced outward to address the throng. If Michael hadn’t owned the moment as confidently as he claimed, he would’ve been vulnerable to them both. But he didn’t fear them. He’d read them both to their cores, and they were as harmless as newborn kittens now.
Michael ignored them, an act that by itself proved his victory. He spoke to the silent crowd, shivering painfully on their knees on the damp asphalt. “So, you’re going to leave this place, abandon your stupid signs, and you’re going to go home to your families. You’re going to throw away your pamphlets and your propaganda, and you’re going to volunteer your time to Omega outreach instead, to your community schools and hospitals, to the weak and destitute and disabled, to the old and infirm.” Michael’s tone shifted lower as his lip curled in disgust. He looked out at the crowd of shocked faces. “Because you are humans, not animals, and it’s time you remembered that!”
Michael turned back to face Monroe, an old man who had aged a lifetime in the last five minutes. He snatched the microphone out of the man’s shaky hand and chucked it at the lectern. “And you,” Michael added coldly. “You’re going to fix everything you broke, and you’re going to compensate my family for terrorizing my son and his mother. Come with me.”
Michael spun on his heel, leaving the man to struggle to his feet and follow helplessly as the Omega stormed back the way he’d come, seeking April by bond-link. Behind him, uneven footsteps followed at a stuttering jog. The crowd parted before them both, baffled people stumbling to their feet and pulling away from Michael and his leashed dog.
“I don’t…I don’t understand what’s happening,” Styne told him as Michael finally stopped clear of the crowd and looked around. Michael spotted a manned ambulance a few yards away, and he led the bleeding man to the EMTs standing by.
“I punched this man,” he told them. “His nose is broken. Patch him up, but don’t let him leave until Castiel arrives.”
They took Styne toward the back of the ambulance, and Michael began to shake. It began as minor tremors, but then the world spun, and he lost his balance, dropping to his knees with his hands gripping the sides of his head. He sought April with frantic eyes, and he tugged at his mate through his bonds, but his vision blurred.
“Michael!” Dean caught him before he fell all the way to the ground. “Are you insane! What were you thinking? What the hell were you thinking?”
“Had to, alpha,” Michael slurred. “They ‘ad Pete. She safe, right? Alex? He’s safe?” And then he passed out.
Cas bolted from the car before Dean had fully stopped it. He barreled forward, homing in on his mate by feel alone, and he caught her up in his arms, shushing her softly and rocking her, cradling Alex between them. “I’ve got you.”
“It was some kind of a protest, Alpha,” she told him breathlessly, eyes searching for Michael. “But it nearly turned into a riot. They were mad that Omega nurses and doctors ran the Septennial rush last week. They wanted to turn it into something awful and depraved, and they were so angry. Did you see Michael? Cas, he … I don’t know what that was, but he saved us.”
“Jody said you were trapped in the foliage when the mob showed up. April, are you hurt?”
“I’m okay, Sir. Alex was so good and quiet for me. They almost didn’t see me at all. When the man spotted me, he yanked me up by my hair. They would have hurt me, but Michael stopped them. We’re okay.”
“Cas, where…?” Dean searched with a touch to April’s back. “There’s Michael! Oh, crap!” Dean took off running, and Cas led April to follow, hardly realizing they were trailing a hapless bodyguard in their wake. Cas helped Dean lay Michael out on the pavement with his head in April’s lap, and he checked briefly that Michael wasn’t in physical distress. An EMT swooped in, drawn by the sight of Michael’s very still legs protruding from the little knot of concerned wolves. He soon summoned a gurney, and they wheeled Michael away toward a waiting ambulance.
Dean went along, but Cas hesitated, spotting the humiliated and bloodied old Alpha, cause of all the consternation. He’d been on Bobby’s radar for years, stirring dissension and peddling outrageous fables about Omegas turning bestial when allowed too much self-direction. He was dogmatic and obstinate, and if he was allowed to define the narrative that followed the wake of this afternoon, he would cast Michael’s outburst in the worst possible light for Omegas. Certainly, Michael hadn’t been rational, but neither had he been deranged. It was imperative that Castiel and Bobby control the story’s message, and that meant bottling the cult leader himself. Castiel descended aggressively, but the attending EMT placed himself between the two wolves.
April watched from several yards back. She cuddled Alex to her, and the toddler clutched her right back.
At the sight of Castiel though, Styne dropped instantly back down to his bruised knees. “Don’t kill me, Alpha. I beg you.”
Cas recoiled in disgust. “You did this! What the hell is wrong with you? Someone could have been killed!”
Styne’s mannerisms were all wrong. He groveled piteously. He looked upward and caught Castiel’s hand, beseeching pathetically. “I don’t understand, Alpha,” he whined. “It shouldn’t be possible. He had me on my knees with just a look. It’s not supposed to work that way.” He blubbered in his despair. All of his flawed and stale assumptions were broken, and he couldn’t make sense of the world.
Cas recalculated, snatching his hand free. Styne was broken. A new assault wouldn’t be coming from him, but that meant Bobby needed to hustle to identify whoever would next assume leadership. They still had a narrative to redirect.
Castiel eyed him with contempt and suspicion. “If you truly wish to understand, we can show you. I’ve heard your offensive diatribes. I’ve been dealing with people like you my whole life,” he snarled. “You assume that every strength acquired by someone you don’t know is a strength ripped from you and yours. Your disgusting beliefs can’t stand up to the light of day, so you surround yourselves with darkness and mutter fear into each other’s ears. You long to mean something lasting, but you live a life so small, you can’t even convince yourself that your fantastical lies are true. You and your little friends terrified my mate and my son! By the ancient codes, you belong to me now, Monroe Styne.”
“What are you going to do? I have a family, Alpha.”
“Don’t be absurd. I’m not going to kill you. You’re disgusting. But you owe me, and I will have recompense. You terrorized my family! Now, you can scurry on back to Shreveport if you don’t have the courage to face up to what you’ve done, but I will drag you back here when it suits me. You cannot hide from me. Or you can stand up like a human, admit you lied to these people, and join me in a tour of a place where you’ll see for yourself what’s true. And then, you will turn your propaganda machine to doing my bidding.”
“They won’t listen to me now, sir. They all witnessed me wet myself. They all heard me recant everything. I’m finished.”
“What a spineless coward you are,” Castiel observed as if studying an interesting creature. “Go away now. I have important business to attend. Go sleep your pain medication off. I expect you next Monday morning at the ACRI main foyer at eight o’clock in the morning. You have the week to recuperate and to consider. If you run, I will find you. If you mobilize against me, I will obliterate you. Don’t cross me, Styne. I’m far more frightening than Michael is, and I only talk for as long as that method continues to meet me my ends.”
“Cas, for the love of god!” Billie exclaimed as she stormed up in heels that didn’t particularly appreciate the uneven pavement. “You just take off like that! Everything’s up in the air! What the hell?”
Castiel rounded on her. He pulled her by her upper arm until they stood far enough away from his nemesis to speak without being overheard. “WHY didn’t we know about this march? My Pack was here, Billie! They put their filthy hands on my mate! How was this rally a surprise to you? The hospital didn’t know, the police didn’t know, city officials didn’t know! People don’t organize and gather without leaving a trail! What happened? Why didn’t you know?!”
Billie ignored the injustice that she should have been aware of what even local law enforcement wasn’t, and she frowned. It wasn’t local law enforcement that Cas put his faith in. “I can try to find the trail by working backward, Sir, but it’s going to take some time. They’ve obviously found a new platform for organizing.”
“Then find it, beta! And shut it down! Don’t ever let something like this come to MY town without knowing about it. I hold you personally responsible!”
He left her in a huff and swooped April right up into his arms as he made his way back to his car, ignoring Styne who stood flummoxed and powerless as chaos continued to swirl around him.
“He controlled the whole crowd, Cas,” April told him in a daze after he settled her into his backseat to double check that she wasn’t hurt. He crouched in the door and touched her face. “He told them all to kneel, and they did it. His voice, it echoed somehow. It seemed to come from everywhere.”
“Yes, Kitten, that’s called, The Voice. It’s an aspect of some Profound Dominants’ repertoire that we don’t utilize very often. It takes a great deal out of us, so we only use it when we must. It involves catching hold of the metaphysical aura around each wolf and funneling our energy directly inside that space. The echoes come from the way a wolf’s aura serves as a bubble for the soundwaves. The more wolves involved in the projection, the louder the reverberations.”
“I didn’t know Michael could do that,” she replied tiredly
“Papa!” Alex sniveled.
“Come here, Ace,” he urged. The pup scrambled across. Cas held the boy like he might never let go, and Alex fell nearly instantly to sleep in his embrace. He curled around his son and breathed as he rummaged through April’s mind and calmed her. “Both of you were very brave. I’m so proud. Rest now. We’ll go home in a bit.”
It didn’t take long for a police investigator to find them and request an interview. Castiel made him speak to April across her mate’s body through the rolled-down window with the door closed. Cas listened with rising tension as she described climbing into the wide ivy planter to allow Alex a closer look at the delicate purple flowers, separating enough from her security detail to be cut off as hundreds of furious cult members swept in from nowhere waving obscene and inflammatory signs, and then ducking into a dense bush with a hand over Alex’s mouth.
She described the terror of watching a blond man come closer and closer, whacking at the bushes and tromping over the flowers, only to look down and meet her horrified eyes with a look of crazed triumph. He knew her on sight, she told the investigator. She could smell his wild, irrational fervor. He smelled insane, she said. She could see the imminent threat in his mad eyes. He expected to make an example of this gift The Universe had clearly dropped right underfoot for his own personal gain.
Castiel realized he was growling low in his throat, and he sucked in a calming breath and squeezed his mate in assurance.
The questions didn’t take very long. April scrutinized a few photos from the man’s phone and picked out her assailant easily. Castiel confirmed that, yes, he would be pressing charges, but he assured the cop there was no hurry in taking the alpha into custody. He wouldn’t get far. With a polite nod, the officer thanked them both, lowering his eyes in deference to the Alpha as he disappeared into the diminishing crowd.
Cas felt itchy knowing his Pack was still out there in the confusion, but he had a bead on Dean, and he knew they were safe. He wanted them all in one place though. He needed that. But he had unpleasant business to attend to first, and he couldn’t justify dragging April and Alex along for his own benefit.
He left them under the eye of the bodyguard whose failure would not go unmarked, and Billie, whom he trusted far more, but he never lost sight of his car. Castiel checked in with the police chief, with Bobby, briefly with a news crew, although he didn’t give an interview. He did have a brief chat with a local journalist. Michael’s harangue was entirely justified, he told her, not the ravings of an unstable psychopath. They’d captured Michael’s rant with their camera, had made it in time to get the whole thing on tape. Having a news crew capture what had undoubtedly also been recorded by countless phone cameras would add weight to the ineffable power Michael wielded here today. Viewers would be able to watch from multiple perspectives, from close up, from far back, from either side… They would be able to see for themselves that Michael had stood his ground alone up there on the makeshift dais, no one’s puppet, not propped up by the essence of any alpha, and they would be able to watch for themselves as he commanded the leader of the most violent opposition faction countering Castiel’s movement onto his knees with only a hard look and a pointing finger.
Moving on, Cas found Jody and thanked her for keeping him updated as he and Dean rushed across town. He thanked her for her efforts to protect his family, even if those efforts proved ineffective. Michael wasn’t going to be kenneled so easily. It wasn’t Jody’s fault she was as susceptible to Michael’s wolf as the protesters were. Cas finished off his rounds at the back of the ambulance where Michael’s checkup was concluding. They’d kept him seated in the ambulance for monitoring, but other than weariness and a stunned mind, he wasn’t hurt. The Omega sat dazed but awake in the open back door, numbly allowing a doctor to look him over while Dean squatted behind him with both hands underneath his shirt, palms pressed flat against his clammy skin. Dean’s face was pale, his jaw set in a grim and rigid line, a vein pulsing at his throat.
“Are you all right?” Cas asked Michael simply.
“Shaky,” Michael replied. “Where’s Pete? She’s okay…?”
“Have you given your statement to the police?” Castiel diverted bluntly.
“Yes, sir,” Michael said quietly, dully, quite obviously still in shock.
“Come to the car once you’ve got the all clear. April and Alex are fine, Michael. We’ll get all of you home. Dean, I’ll leave you to watch over him. Keep him safe, alpha.”
Dean nodded and pressed his nose behind Michael’s ear, upset enough that he didn’t ruffle under the absurd instruction. Cas returned to his own car and slid into the backseat to wrap around his mate and watch the chaos dissipate outside in the parking lot.
There was nothing more he could do at the moment. Most of it was in Bobby’s hands right now, and Cas would only be in the way.
Through the car windows, he watched as the police funneled befuddled protesters out of their swiftly erected semi-circular barricade through a few checkpoints. Everyone willing to produce an ID and stand for a quick photo was released to go home. A number of rather militant hardliners wound up cuffed with zip ties and penned off on their own. Most of the crowd merely seemed impatient to leave. Battered signs, preposterous in their statements in light of the last hour, lay trampled on the damp pavement.
Castiel thought carefully, watching faces, reading body language. They were embarrassed in addition to having their paradigms shifted. No radical who’d not been here would believe that any Omega had the wherewithal to mount a confrontation such as Michael had just pulled off, and that would soon create dissension in their ranks as those who had felt it—felt their knees hit pavement at his word—insisted they had all been missing something in their beliefs about Omegas, that the power that sent them into genuflection was nothing like the imperative force an alpha wields.
This was a power they’d never experienced before, totally alien in its source, but there was no denying that their instincts understood it.
After firing off several critical texts in a multitude of directions, Cas navigated through his phone in search of uploads with an arm around his mate. She watched groggily, resting her head on his shoulder. Jody’s play-by-play may have painted vivid pictures, but Cas wanted to watch it for himself, to judge if Michael’s energy translated through video at all.
Cas squashed a sense of dread. What Michael had just succeeded in doing was precisely what he was destined for… This was a good development. It crossed an impossible chasm in Castiel’s plan in one wide step. But…
It was too soon.
Michael wasn’t ready.
What was worse, Dean wasn’t ready.
But times move on their own accord sometimes and woe be to the laggard who doesn’t make the train when it puffs forward on steam from sources we do not control. Ready or not, Michael was in this now. The only way to strike at the cracking iron and turn cracks into splinters and splinters into fragments was to strike fast and hard and to offer no reprieve. Michael’s face would need to be everywhere after today, speaking and smiling, proving himself erudite and steady, not crazy, thinking on his feet, commanding in ways that could never be denied by those who had experienced it, casting doubts into the minds of those who hadn’t. But they needed to do it carefully, or they would engender a whole different cult, one that defied controlling.
Michael might house a wolf who believed himself to be god, but he wasn’t a god. He was all too human. There was a slippery slope at Michael’s toes, one that Castiel knew very well.
He needed to prove that Omegas weren’t children, weren’t maladapted for a full adult life in the abstract, in the practical, in the gritty, messy, confusing, terrifying reality of human experience. But push that message too far and too strongly, and they would lose it to the zealots. They would need to cast Michael as a man who was first and foremost, civilized.
And April, Castiel’s beloved Kitten. She had been testing her public face, dipping her toes in cold water to check her resolve, but testing was done now. What Michael would do with the voice of a scientist and the power of a leader, April would do with the grace of an artist, the vitality of youth, the glamour of the spotlight, and the nimble dexterity of fingers that danced across piano keys. These were not half-formed near-children, as the protesters insisted. They were alive and vigorous and full of power and sparkle and all the complexities that made humans so much more than the sum of their parts.
But nor were they supernatural deities with the power to supplant world orders. Cas knew the temptation of that pull—to believe oneself a savior of humanity simply because of a quirk of genetics. Michael wasn’t a messiah. Neither was Castiel, his own wolf’s pretensions notwithstanding. The razor-thin path forward traversed a ravine so steep, so wide, and so bottomless the chance of following it all the way across without stumbling was a near impossibility.
But that was their road forward.
Castiel watched as a blond middle-aged man wrapped an arm around Monroe Styne’s shoulders and helped him hobble away with a jacket tied around his waist by its sleeves. He felt his mate stiffen when they passed Cas’ car.
“That one?” he asked vaguely, gently.
“Yes, sir. He held me by my hair. He frightened Alex.”
Cas memorized his features as they looked in this moment. He knew the man already—Eldon Styne. But some moments require more than data, they elicit a singularity of detail, taken out of time altogether, a snapshot that becomes indelible, definitive. The man sensed an ominous malevolence perhaps as he helped his father depart in disgrace, for he glanced up suddenly with a gasp forming a perfect O to his lips, and his eyes met Castiel’s.
And then he turned away, smaller. The Alpha’s eyes followed until he rounded out of sight. The police had expected Castiel to demand he be taken into custody. But Cas wanted to let the man sweat first, to question why he hadn’t been apprehended and charged with assault. Castiel wanted him jumping at shadows for a while before the mundane process of court proceedings took the wind out of his sails. Already, Castiel was busy soothing his rabid wolf with promises of vengeance, but he couldn’t allow bloodshed this time. There were too many eyes on them. There was too much at stake. Castiel refused to be that man anyway. But he could at least allow his wolf this one brief taste of just deserts. Eldon Styne wouldn’t sleep with both eyes closed for years, maybe not ever again.
Castiel blinked his vision into an unfocused distance as he thought furiously.
Michael was so nearly molded. Cas exhaled control. It was too soon. But there was no stopping momentum this powerful.
Alex reached out in his sleep and curled his plump fingers into the fabric of Castiel’s shirt.
Notes:
Ask questions if you got 'em. Shout if you're confused. The second half of this chapter got split out into the next one, so some resolution is coming soon.
Also, I have comments from last chapter that I haven't replied to yet. I will. I'm chomping at the bit over some of your astute comments. Looking forward to that, but these words wouldn't wait, so I did this first.
Love you all!
Chapter 13: Monday, January 28, 2019 (Cont. 2 of 3)
Summary:
Dean and Cas discuss the fallout around the recent 'unpleasantness', and they realize it's time for a D/S contract review.
Notes:
It's so hard to know what to say in this space right now. For posterity, the juxtaposition of RL events with the unintentional prescience of this fic will eventually be lost. But right now, the US is battling with its own deepest flaws, with the original sin that has been embedded since its inception and made a sad mockery of the ideal that we as a nation have ever truly believed "That all [men] are created equal." I took a week or so pause before posting this chapter out of respect and solemnity and a strong desire not to ride the waves of anguish that have been so callously stoked over the last couple of weeks. This chapter and the next are about entitlement and privilege and bias more than most of my chapters. This story, while it is about me playing with kink and rolling around in the abusive side of power that isn't pretty or appropriate, is also about bias. It's a canted perspective on gender, orientation, racial, and religious assumptions that are made in the real world and how blinded we sometimes are to our own biases. I don't take that lightly at all. I'm also no expert. I welcome feedback, especially if it makes me think or helps me grow.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, January 28, 2019
NOW:
Dean paced furiously in the kitchen, turning every now and then to confront his mate with an accusing finger up and then pressing his lips together without saying a word and resuming his adamant pacing. His mug of tea sat forlorn and cooling by the chair he couldn’t sit still in. Michael sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, his own tea equally abandoned. April sat right up beside him, leaning into his body in a show of support, Alex on her lap. Castiel stood leaning against the wall by the bay window with his arms crossed over his chest, watching his husband fume. Dean’s ranting devolved into a series of short, punctuated statements about how daft Michael’s choices had been, and then they’d petered out altogether as he struggled to get to the point.
“Kitten, would you please take Alex upstairs?” Cas prompted calmly. The phone rang again, but no one moved to answer it. Fred was fielding their calls and organizing the glut of media requests. There was already a line of news vans growing at the gate.
“Yessir,” she obediently replied. She rose to her feet with a squeeze to Michael’s shoulder and carried the pup out. Michael watched Castiel’s eyes follow her through the arch. The tension in the Alpha’s posture spoke of a tightly reined Mating-bond. Michael considered challenging why Cas would put his mate anywhere but directly beneath his own chin after the ordeal she’d just survived, but April didn’t want him interfering in her relationship with Castiel. Michael wondered how far she might be willing to stretch that rule. He wasn’t about to stand mute if Castiel was negligent. April didn’t need to be alone right now.
Michael’s knee fidgeted beneath the table.
Dean watched her go too. His chest heaved. He very nearly vibrated in barely contained anger.
“Dean, I have class in an hour,” Michael reminded him, glancing up.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dean spat. “Not until I get to the bottom of what the fuck just happened out there. What in god’s name did you think you were doing, Omega? You were alone with thousands of hateful thugs pressing in from all sides. You should be dead, you know that? What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Michael sighed and slumped over the table, laying out on his arms in defeat, speaking into the table’s surface. “What am I supposed to say? I don’t know, alpha. It just happened. They had Pete and Alex. My mind went somewhere else, and it just happened. What did you want me to do, let them have her?”
“Oh, so instead of holding two of our Pack, you thought it would be a grand idea to give them three?” Dean shot. “What the hell, Michael? There were thousands of them, and you waltzed up there alone! ALONE!”
Michael flared upright and looked Dean in the eye. “I told you, Dean, it wasn’t something I made a choice about! They had Pete! They had Alex! They weren’t going to play nice. They came here to create a stir, and they weren’t going to leave peacefully. It wasn’t something I sat down and planned out, but I couldn’t just stand there!”
“Don’t you shout at me,” Dean warned. “I’m not afraid of you, Omega, you or your big voice.”
Michael sighed heavily and slumped over again. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to give me some indication that you’re not pathologically stupid, Michael! Your chances of storming up there and not being torn to pieces were fucking miniscule. There were cops already swarming in from every direction! It wasn’t on you to mount a solo rescue when you’re unarmed, untrained, and a fucking…!” Dean stopped, scrubbing both hands through his hair.
“A fucking what, Dean? Omega? A fucking Omega? Say it.”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Dean defended weakly.
“Yes it was.”
“Michael, whatever the fuck you thought to do out there had a one in ten-zillion chance of succeeding. I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but if you thought you had any chance of …”
“I stopped them from hurting my family, Dean,” Michael interrupted coldly. “And I did it with a minimum of bloodshed.” A pause to check if Dean had a rebuttal, but he didn’t. “You’re welcome,” Michael finished coldly. He shoved his chair backward and stormed out in disgust. He had better things to do than sit there and take abuse when the whole world now sat skewed on its axis. God damn Dean and his mulish refusal to look past his own fears. God damn his predictable, interminable wailing cynicism in the face of Michael’s revolutionary epiphany. They should be celebrating, but no. No, instead of praising Michael in an astounded round of joyful accolade, they were stuck indulging Dean in his anxiety-fete. Typical of an alpha to co-opt a moment of pure Omega triumph. Somehow it was always about the alphas, even when it wasn’t.
Dean took a step forward and raised a hand but then huffed and let his mate go. He turned a devastated face toward Castiel. “Cas, man, I can’t… How does he expect me to be okay with this? How are you okay with this?” Dean stretched out a beseeching hand toward the archway through which Michael had vanished.
Cas took a moment to consider the question. He could tell that his calm demeanor irked Dean no end. Dean wanted the Alpha railing as fiercely as his husband. If the wildness of Dean’s eyes meant anything, his next words might well be a suggestion to hold Castiel’s cape while the Alpha dispatched every sign-waving idiot at that march. “If your positions had been reversed, Dean, what would you have done?”
“Don’t give me that crap, man. Barging into that alone was stupid and reckless. I don’t care who it was. It would’ve been stupid and reckless for you, even. And Michael’s not you. I don’t care what that was, CJ. It was irresponsible to wade in there alone!”
Dean stood his ground right in the middle of the room, squared off and defensive. Cas kept his weight braced against the wall, nonthreatening.
“I didn’t ask if it was wise, Dean. I asked what you would’ve done. Let’s dispense with the false notion that you would have been as frightened if I had been in Michael’s place. We both know better. I’m asking about you. Would you have tucked into a safe place and waited for the police to mount a rescue? They had her by the hair up in front of a mob whose communal self-control was waning rapidly. I’m not saying Michael’s actions are justifiable. I’m saying he likely couldn’t have helped himself any more than you or I would have done.”
Dean stared at his husband with his mouth agape, stunned. Wheels spun furiously in his head.
“Did you set him up for this, Alpha?” Dean blinked at the rush of adrenalin that followed words he didn’t want to believe could be true.
Cas rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous…”
“‘Cause I really can’t tell anymore where you draw your lines,” Dean continued.
Castiel lowered his chin. “Dean, stop. Stop letting your imagination run away with you. I know today’s events frightened you…”
“Why aren’t you freaked out?” Dean argued. “How can you be calm? They had your mate and son up there in front of a mob whose communal self-control was waning rapidly. Why aren’t you a slavering, drooling, vengeful mess right now? You wanna convince me that you didn’t orchestrate any part of this…? Then get back out there and shed some goddamn blood!”
Cas stepped off the wall, holding Dean’s eyes with his own, shifting to crimson, and without saying a word, he cracked open the vault he carried inside his soul where his vengeful impulses got unceremoniously stuffed, and his jaw twitched with barely contained rage. Dean’s face paled at the glimpse, and he frowned.
“Then how the fuck are you defending Michael?” Dean challenged, meeting fury with fury. “We could’ve lost all three of them! Or is your mate the only one who matters?”
Cas shuttered his vault again, resumed a dispassionate expression, and consciously shifted his eyes back to blue. He reached Dean and wrapped the man up in his arms. “You know that’s not true, love. You know I had no hand in orchestrating anything. You’re frightened, and you’re lashing out, and we can work through that. I know it’ll take some time to process what Michael’s just done. But, Dean, whether we’re comfortable with it or not, what he achieved is momentous. Please don’t take this away from him.”
Dean sniffled, his body trembling as his shock began to shift from immediacy to aftershocks. “I can’t lose him, Cas. I can’t…”
“Shh. I know, baby. We’re not going to lose him. Don’t you see? Michael has proven he’s got enough strength to stand his ground against attacks that should level an Omega. He pulled from the deepest well of power, and he did it purely on instinct. He’s armored in a way you and I can’t even imagine. That wasn’t alpha-strength, Dean. It was Omega, and because Michael is a Profound Dominant to boot, he has the stature within him not merely to touch that power, but to wield it, a power that other Omegas can only bask in, that alphas cannot sense at all.”
Dean fell still, listening. Then he snaked his arms around Cas’ waist and pressed his forehead into the Alpha’s shoulder, right over the vanished bite-mark he’d left there long ago.
“Did you know he could do that?” Dean asked carefully. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to know the answer.
“No, Dean. I anticipated that he might have The Voice, but I didn’t know for sure. Even with a Profound Dominant’s access to handling auras from a distance like that, I never dreamed he would be able to command enemy combatants to their knees by himself. Dean, that’s the stuff of legend. He’s a… myth, brought to life.” Awe flavored Castiel’s tone, he realized too late.
Dean pulled away, incensed. “He may be your myth, but he’s my mate! He’s a mother to our children! He’s family! Your wheels are turning mighty fast there, Alpha. What have you got planned? We’re not going to sacrifice him to your war, Castiel James!”
“No,” Cas defended, resolute. “No, we’re not. He needs to learn to control this exquisite gift for defensive—only for defensive—purposes. Exercising The Voice is an exhausting experience. Michael will likely be woozy for the next couple of days. Dean, please believe me, I’m not planning to use him as a weapon, quite the opposite, in fact.”
“So, you do have a plan,” Dean astutely surmised. “Michael flared up with surprise wings and a halo not two hours ago, and you already have a plan.” The accusation snapped out like the sting of a whip.
“It’s the same plan we’ve always had, my love. Nothing’s changed.”
“Maybe you could remind me.” There was no mistaking the cautionary tone. “Considering that when we made that plan, we didn’t know Michael existed.”
Cas sighed tiredly. “I’m not planning an undercut, Dean. But you know as well as I do that Michael is destined to play a role in our crusade.”
“Your crusade.”
“Our crusade,” Cas corrected adamantly. “First, we had to stabilize the Omegas so they aren’t constantly hobbled by their own biology. After that, the plan was, and is, and always has been, to open a channel of some sort that allows the world to see what stabilized Omegas are capable of becoming. Some Omegas—and don’t throw a revisionist view at me; you’ve always known this phase was coming—some of them will live exceptional lives, reach for higher accomplishments, search out the spotlight. What’s on the horizon for Michael is no more or less than what he strives to achieve. I’m not forcing anything on him. He is his own man, Dean Michael. It’s not on you or me to deny him the right to be who he is. And he is exceptional.”
“How very fortunate that who he is jibes so beautifully with what you want from him,” Dean answered caustically back. “And that it just happens to put him into situations where he’s more, not less, likely to need to defend himself with this miraculous talent you’re both so in love with.”
“You’re the Universist,” Cas retorted, losing his fight to hold the high ground for the moment. “Isn’t this Perfect Balance? Where else would Michael’s strength be succored instead of strangled? Where, but in this Pack? I’m not directing him. He’s doing that for himself. But just like I have done for you, I will offer him a route to make use of the fire in his belly… Not as a weapon or a puppet, Dean, as a crusader. He was put on this planet for this task, and you know that. He’s no one’s tool. He is the wielder of whatever tools we can armor him to carry—just as you are, just as I am. Deny him his birthright, and you’ve shackled him as surely as his father did. Don’t buy in to the argument that enslaves Omegas. We cannot bow to fear, not even well-founded fears, not even when it’s our family in the crosshairs. If I’m allowed to fight, if you are, then Michael is too.”
“You’re an asshole, Castiel,” Dean told him bluntly. “All that matters is how he can be useful. I can’t look at you right now.” Dean turned to leave, but Cas laid a hand on his shoulder.
“This is bigger than all of us…”
Dean spun on his heel, his face red. “And isn’t that just the most convenient thing in the world for you? What’s next, CJ? Doll him up in a tailored suit and teach him how to seduce a camera the way you taught me? Is there anyone you won’t use if it gets you what you want?”
“No,” Cas answered starkly.
Dean’s nostrils flared. His jaw twitched as he looked away, fuming.
“Because what I want is equity and hope for all of us. I can’t fight fairly. I’ll lose if I do. Feel free to step out of the limelight whenever you like, Dean. I didn’t coerce you to join. You begged me to bring you in. I don’t use people who don’t want in. I don’t make anyone play this game.”
“Tell that to Max,” Dean spit.
Cas bit back an angry retort, calming himself with great effort. “Max has a warrior’s spirit,” he defended quietly. “Look, we could shield them all, and if that was the right thing to do, that’s where our focus would be. But it’s not. If it was, you and I would have been waving signs right next to those thugs at the hospital. All they really want is for Omegas to stop dying in their own sweat, just like we do. They’re mistaken about how to achieve that, and they’re irrationally frightened of Omegas wielding power, but their base aims are the same kneejerk protectionism you’re feeling right now, Dean. And I am not happy about what happened today. Not at all. I swore to April and Michael both that no one could ever touch them, and I failed spectacularly in protecting them both. But you know damn well that we have no choice but to use the momentum Michael started or years of work will have been for nothing. That mob represents the largest, loudest faction standing against us, and he broke it with no more than a few words, a well-landed punch, and a power that no one, not even you, knew he had access to. I’m not proud of the fact that my next move will be to make sure Michael presents himself as human to the world. I get how skeevy that is. But, Dean, that is what will happen next, whether you appreciate the necessity or not. What Michael did…it’ll take us years to unwind it. It shouldn’t have been possible, and yet he did it.”
“We’re all just puzzle pieces to you, aren’t we?” Dean asked in dismay.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cas impatiently denied. “Perhaps you need to take some time, get a little distance and process what Michael pulled off.”
“Maybe so,” Dean agreed coldly. “And maybe you need a little less distance, go look at it up close, so you can actually feel what our mates went through instead of just plugging it into your calculator brain and milking everything you can out of him.”
“That’s not fair,” Cas protested.
“Why did you send April off?” Dean pivoted. “Why aren’t you comforting your mate, Castiel? She just faced down a mob and a personal, physical attack with her son in her arms, and you’re down here smack-talking with me. You can’t take an hour off to spend consoling your mate after a horrifying trauma because you can’t lose valuable implementation time? Your mind is skipping ahead, setting plans in place and figuring out what your assets and liabilities are. That’s the real reason you’re so dead set on finding more O/Ds, isn’t it? So you can fill out the ranks of your little Omega army? So you can man it with cannon fodder that will turn the tide of popular opinion?” Dean’s eyes reddened.
“Are you finished?”
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Cas replied coolly.
“Dignify your ugly plot…?”
”Dignify that you just casually suggested it would be better to continue to allow Omega-Dominants to die in adolescence, so they don’t get pulled into a war of someone else’s making, a war that wins them the right to exist on their own terms!” Cas shot back.
Dean crossed his arms, openly, brazenly defiant. Furious. Aching.
“Look,” Cas tried again, deliberately lowering his tension. “You’re angry, and I don’t blame you. I’m angry too. I want to rip their throats out with my teeth, but that won’t help us in the long run, any more than turning on each other will, any more than making unfounded accusations. What will help is to shock the world with the revolutionary concept that an Omega-Dominant can assume a form of power heretofore known only in stories and defend himself and his family against an angry mob, and that that same Omega-Dominant is also a rational, well-spoken human being, not an unbridled beast. If we don’t answer this moment with a firm declaration that Michael’s power is not an aberration but the natural order, and that he is as human as the rest of us… Dean, we must move fast or we will lose this war! The last thing we can allow to happen now, for Michael’s own safety—for ALL of their safety—would be to tuck him away inside the house as if he’s dangerous. Don’t you see? We don’t have a choice!”
“It’s amazingly coincidental that every time we find ourselves backed into a corner, it leaves us with no option but the direction you most wanted to go in all along,” Dean told his husband acerbically. “You’ll pardon me for saying that seems mighty fortunate for you.”
Castiel couldn’t remain stoic as Dean’s resentment melted his reserve. His eyes reddened to match Dean’s, and his jaw set stubbornly. “What is it that you believe I’ve done, Dean? Do you think I orchestrated a riot outside the hospital where our mates and our son spent the afternoon? You think I lured those crazies here, stuck an incompetent bodyguard on duty, and then allowed my mate to wander around in the parking lot while a mob descended, hoping that Michael would turn out to be the first Omega in recorded history with powers of compulsion?”
“Of course not!” Dean snapped.
“Then what? What exactly is convenient about any of this for me?”
“When did you know?” Dean asked.
“When did I know what?” Cas countered, short in his frustration. “I found out about the mob when you did.”
“When did you know that Michael had access to the well at the center of the metaphysical core?” Dean asked, enunciating carefully.
“What are you accusing me of, love? Of grooming your mate toward an emotional explosion so that he would best fit my plans for him?”
“Did you? You’ve been grinding your heel into his back for months now.” Dean’s tension level choked the air in the kitchen, enough to give away that at least half of his emotional overflow was about fear, about leftover shock at having seen his mate pass out after taking on an angry mob singlehandedly. Cas knew that, but he couldn’t stand passive in the heat of Dean’s accusations. Allegations like this didn’t come from nowhere.
“Dean, I had no idea that Michael is capable of that kind of compulsion until we both found out through Jody over the phone. I was as stunned and alarmed as you were.” Cas kept his distance, but his body language spoke a desire to close the uncomfortable space.
“You haven’t been grooming him the way you did Max?”
Castiel’s jaw clenched in anger. A vein throbbed at his temple. He snapped out his answer in staccato, accented snaps. “I’ve groomed him diligently, every step of the way. I’ve tutored him exhaustively to be a dependable Dom for you and to control his wolf’s destructive impulses. That’s never been a secret. I’ve reinforced hierarchical strata when his Omega designation showed signs of insecurity. I’ve guided him toward making a full commitment to his chosen field, and yes, I’ve watched him for indications that a position in the vanguard of our fight to humanize all Omegas would suit him without forcing him to fit where he doesn’t. I’ve never kept that a secret from you! Nor did I keep secret that I planned to trail chum in the water for the new Omega contractor recruits to chew on. You’re not a simpleton, Dean. You could see every indication from Max that I did, but you made it clear to me—more than once, I might add—that singling out the right Omega for the planning committee was my job, not yours, so I didn’t discuss with you what you didn’t want to participate in.”
“All right, fine!” Dean waved off logic he was in no mood to untangle. “Then how do you explain how quickly you turned a hostage situation involving both our mates and our son into a pivotal new direction for your war? Nobody moves that fast, CJ.”
“We must move that fast. We don’t have a choice if we want to win the war.” Cas repeated tiredly, stepping back up to beseech Dean. “I had a very good teacher, myself. He taught me to seize the moment. He taught me the hard way to plan for the unlikely and to be prepared to come out swinging when we’ve been caught off-guard. He showed me the consequences of taking the slow road.”
Dean allowed Cas to pull him in. Pain etched Dean’s face as he searched Castiel’s. “He’s not ready, Alpha,” Dean told him in a strangled voice.
“I know,” Cas agreed. “But he’s older than you and I were when we took the mantle.”
“Just this morning,” Dean explained. “He and April got into a tiff over how creepy Michael’s savior complex is when he’s hovering over Kate. He’s still figuring himself out, man. He’s not ready to play media games. He’s not as polished as he needs to be. They’ll eat him alive.”
Cas chuckled sadly, sloughing off the tension, easing his shoulders. “So that’s what she was irritated about. Maybe offering Michael another venue for his savior complex will keep him from needing to fulfill it at home.”
“Oh, that’s a terrific idea,” Dean huffed sarcastically. “You wanna feed his narcissism? He’s got a big enough head already.”
Cas tilted Dean’s head with a hand at his chin and kissed him sweetly. “Well, he can at least put it use right now while April is shaken. She wants nothing to do with me at the moment. How’s that for convenient?” Cas scowled at his own whiny stream of consciousness. “Dean, I know you’re scared. I know you’re angry. I would not have chosen this timing or this outcome. But what’s happened, as disturbing as it is, is a gift, and we cannot ignore it. I need you to stop running through endless what if’s and focus on the magnificence that is your mate. Look what he did! With no firearms, no serious injuries, no DF’s, and no hesitation whatsoever, he halted a riot and rescued two people from certain torture, two people he loves with his very soul. He turned the tide of a movement that had been gaining steam for five years, leaving it broken and rudderless. He stood toe-to-toe with a sea of Alpha-Dominants and proved that he holds more presence in his bearing than any of them, even cumulatively. And this was not a laboratory setting. None of those people were obligated to comply for evaluative purposes. They knelt to Michael because he made them kneel. This is why evolution gave us Dominance in the first place: to empower Pack leaders to redirect a population that’s lost its way.”
“Thought that was why we have alphas,” Dean countered, just to be argumentative.
“Alphas can lose their way too, love. Who’s going to redirect people who’ve grown too powerful for their own brakes? They accosted a defenseless woman and a child. It doesn’t get much further out of balance than that.”
“You’re saying that Lupins developed Profound Dominants who’re also Omega as the final check on runaway powermongers?”
“I don’t know yet, but it’s a reasonable guess, considering,” Cas huffed impatiently back. “It fits the mythology better than assuming only alphas can hold the moral compass.”
“I don’t get you, Alpha,” Dean told him, honestly baffled. “What’s got into you? Who are you, and what’ve you done with my Alpha? How the hell are you this collected?” Dean held him with a beady eye, studying the unflappable man who seemed to grow a little flapped under the scrutiny. “You’ve always been half calculator and half rabid boar. Where’s the boar? You’re going after him, aren’t you?”
“Who?” Cas asked, turning to the sink for a glass of water.
“Styne,” Dean clarified simply.
“No, I’m not,” Cas denied. “I told you. That would be counterproductive. I’m going to shove his face in the mess he’s made of society. His credibility may be shot with the hardliners but converting him fully to our mission and putting him to work offsetting the damage he’s done will sway some of the less devout.”
“Okay,” Dean prompted. “Maybe not Monroe. What about the younger one? His son? The one whose hand touched April’s head?” Dean evoked the imagery on purpose. He needed to see Castiel’s true response.
“Eldon,” Castiel said in a dead, cold voice.
Dean shivered. “Yeah. Him. He assaulted your mate, Alpha. He wasn’t planning to treat her to a nice massage and tuck her in warm and cozy. You’re too calm, CJ. You just let me go off on you without batting me back down, and we’re too close to this thing for you to have this kind of control while he’s still walking and breathing. Unless… Who’s got him, Bobby or Billie?”
“Neither,” Cas answered, growing annoyed. “Dean, much as it pains me, we can’t touch him. In fact, Bobby’s sent out a detail to protect him. I think Ash is leading this one because he’s the best stealth stalker we have. If anything happens to Eldon when the entire world knows he assaulted my mate, we’re cooked. I’m filing assault charges, and I mean to make them stick, but I’m doing it all above board.”
Dean gaped at him; he swallowed. Cas sighed in response. “I know, Dean. I’m struggling. But it has to be this way. Traditional Pack vengeance would be just as damaging to our mission as sequestering Michael in the house.”
“Then how the fuck are you standing here talking about it like it’s the weather?”
Castiel licked his lips. “Lucky timing,” he replied with a shrug.
“Come again?” Dean’s skepticism hadn’t waned.
Cas pursed his lips. “I’ve been following a course of disciplinary meditations three times a day over the past week. Plus, a careful examination of my alpha and my wolf had me primed to catch them both before they… I … rushed off half-cocked. I’ve had their leashes wound tight around my fists ever since you questioned why I let you accompany me to the hospital at the Septennial. Neither of my designations has had any slack for days. I won’t pretend that wasn’t convenient. I believe Eldon Styne is alive this evening because you alerted me that I needed to regain control of myself.”
Dean stared at his husband.
“Today was terrifying,” Cas admitted. “For all of us. But we cannot allow fear or rage to rule us. I am not going to exact vengeance, no matter how badly I want to, even if the judicial system fails me. And you’re not going to deny Michael his destiny, no matter how frightening it is for you or how convenient it is for me. If you do that, Dean…”
“I know, I know, I’m no worse than the asshats who lock their Omegas in the basement,” Dean sputtered. He sank down into his chair at the table and sipped his tea before sputtering and spitting it back out. “Gross. It’s bad enough when it’s hot.”
Cas pulled Michael’s chair up beside Dean, took both cups and shoved them out of the way and then took both of Dean’s hands in his. “I need you to trust me, alpha,” he pleaded. “I can see where this path is taking us. Dean, I can see it. Please, trust me.”
Dean lifted Cas’ left hand and pressed his husband’s knuckle to his lips. He closed his eyes. “What the fuck happened out there, Cas? What is my mate? What did he turn into? Why haven’t we ever seen him do that before?”
“He needed the right motivation, I suppose,” Castiel answered with a squeeze to Dean’s hand.
“Don’t tell me he hasn’t had motivation… You nearly throttled him a time or two.”
“It wouldn’t work on me, Dean,” Cas reminded him. “I’m stronger than his compulsion.”
Dean regrouped, shaking his head. “He let Jody put a rope corset on him, Cas. He’s a nineteen. That’s not just a number. It makes sense, right, that he’s brushing shoulders with the clouds and the angels and god and the crew, but that doesn’t explain why he would submit to any authority but yours, not when he can do that.” Dean shook his head in wonder. “None of this makes a lick of sense.”
“He’s Omega,” Cas noted, as if that explained everything. Then he added, “And he’s also human, Dean. He loves you. He honors your authority because he’s far more than just his wolf. His Secondary needs boundaries. You built him the stability that he craves, and he knows that it’s good for him. He honors Jody’s authority because he values the access she grants him to what he wants to accomplish with his life. Don’t miss the fact that in all the time we’ve known him, Michael has had this talent within him, and he only brought it forth in defense of the lives of his Pack. He regulated his rage even as he wielded that power for the very first time. He didn’t hurt anyone—more than was reasonable. That speaks to who he is at his core.”
“He didn’t know he could do that, CJ,” Dean argued. “Don’t go giving his restraint all the credit. He was probably as shocked as the crowd was.”
“Possibly,” Cas acknowledged. “But it proves that he has enough emotional control not to lose himself even in the midst of the direst incidents. That’s more restraint than I showed at his age. He’s been through some rough times, but it wasn’t until today that he reached his limit. Think about that.”
“All he talked about in the ambulance was wanting to find April and Alex, make sure they were all right. He needed to touch them to be sure. He didn’t care about himself at all even though he couldn’t even stand for about twenty minutes.” Dean’s voice faded into a musing whisper.
“He’s a good man, Dean Michael. You Mated a good man. He’s so much like you in some ways…”
“I’m the handsome one though, right?” Dean quirked an eye up to check Cas’ reaction, and the man smiled affectionately. All the fight faded between them, insufficient to stand against the simple touch of hands.
“Perhaps I’m biased,” Cas replied warmly. Dean softened at the look in Castiel’s ocean blue eyes. He leaned in and kissed the Alpha, pressing faith and gratitude into Cas’ skin.
“You promise to take care of him out there?” Dean begged. “Cas, promise me. Not with useless security guards. I mean really watch over him. Don’t let him become someone he’s not, CJ. This could go straight to his head. If I lose him to his own delusions of grandeur, you’re going fly up there and bring him home!” Dean sniffed with his head bowed and his face pressed close to Castiel’s.
“Trust me, love. I won’t let anything change him that’s not right for Michael. You have my word. I had to find the way through a domineering adolescent wolf on my own. I’m not going to make Michael do that.”
“Am I in trouble for shooting my mouth off just now? I said some…things. Unfair things. Disrespectful things. I’m sorr…”
Castiel set a finger over Dean’s lips and halted him.
“Dean, look up at me, please.” Dean glanced up and then licked his lips, straightened his shirt, swallowed uncomfortably, and sat up in his chair. He expected to hear lecture number seventeen, the one about It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it. But Cas smiled and cradled his jaw and cheek, stretching two fingers up into the short hair behind his ear.
“I know that our union isn’t a standard marriage,” he explained gently. “I know that you need me to hold you accountable for your bad behavior and to help you manage outpourings of emotion that overflow your capacity to funnel them constructively. But I never want you to feel that you can’t be completely honest with me. I can’t imagine being married to you without standing in the fearsome winds of your temper every now and then. You and I, we work best when we aren’t afraid to speak what needs speaking. And I think you needed to say everything you said. You’re not in trouble, sweetheart. At least, not more than you already were. I do wish you weren’t in the cage right now. We could both use a reconnect.” And there was that tone that turned Dean sloppy.
“Sir, I’m pretty sure I recall calling you an asshole. You gonna let that fly? You could, uh, move tomorrow morning’s swats up if you want, up to this evening?” Dean suggested hopefully.
Cas raised his brow. “Oh, really?” he huffed. “Every day isn’t enough for you?”
“Well, I mean,” Dean sputtered. “You kind of blew the finale on my birthday. Since then, they’ve been almost boring, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Castiel laughed and pulled Dean in closer. “I love you, baby, even when you’re insufferable.” He chuckled softly for a moment and then realized that Dean was awfully still in his arms. He released the man and sat back. “What is it?”
Dean frowned slightly. “My birthday,” he said hesitantly.
“Your birthday,” Cas repeated.
“Honesty, right?”
“Please, Dean. I can’t fix what I don’t know is broken.”
“Yeah, on my birthday. The apes, man. The guards. That was…felt like that was out of bounds. I mean, I know it was a punishment, and I know I greenlighted apes and strangers and showing off and public humiliations. I know all that. But… felt like a step too far, that’s all. It’s your call though. I deserve whatever. I’m not mad. But I figured you need to know where that landed me. You’re always going on and on about me telling you every last thing I feel. It set me way back. That’s all.”
Cas nodded and took Dean’s hands in his, hunching in close. “I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t expect them to masturbate in the window. It went further than I intended. But if they’d stayed in the cart as I had planned and served only as an audience, would you have been disturbed?”
“I dunno,” Dean admitted. “They were pricks, even the ones who kept their zippers up.”
“It’s critical that we go through the incident and figure out where it went off for you. And to be clear, that wasn’t your punishment. That was status and ritual. Your punishment didn’t begin until the next morning.”
“Whatever,” Dean dismissed. “Last year we didn’t do it at all. We never did it when we were scene partners. This year I got a triple count. But go ahead and say it wasn’t a punishment.”
Cas sat silently while Dean fidgeted. The Alpha was clearly taking his partner’s words to heart, thinking, assessing, tracing back through his own motivations as he was wont to do in the face of any accusation of overreach. After a pause, Castiel stood up and offered his hand to Dean.
“Come with me.”
“What? Where?”
“If you’re finished accusing me of loading Michael into my cannon, if your fears are somewhat mollified for the moment and you’re ready for a change of topic, let’s go. We need a contract review. We’ve had a misstep. Let’s go. I can’t alleviate all your worries, beloved, but we can fix this.”
Dean’s body slumped and his head rolled back. “C’mon, Cas, we don’t need a contract review. This isn’t rocket science.”
“On your feet, Winchester. No whining. We’re doing this. I don’t plan to go over the entire contract, just the sections that are pertinent to that scene.”
Dean grumbled but took his husband’s proffered hand and followed him to Castiel’s office. Cas rolled his chair back and sat before pulling Dean down to straddle his legs with his back to the Alpha’s chest so they both faced the screen.
Dean let a small grunt slip as he plopped onto Castiel’s thighs. Cas graciously ignored the pained sound. He activated his screen with his arms wending around his husband’s body and his chin propped on Dean’s right shoulder. Cas could feel Dean begin the slow spin toward a spiral. Focusing together on their scaffolds would help ground the man before he lost himself to the whirl. Dean sighed but focused on the screen as a document appeared, a very long document with a multitude of comments in the margins, highlighted text sprinkled throughout, bold-type initials in key spots.
Cas navigated to a section he felt was relevant, and he highlighted a portion of the text. He read aloud.
”The Submissive authorizes the Dominant to plan and implement scenes without the Submissive’s prior knowledge provided all elements of said scene are pulled from the Submissive’s Green List and the timing of implementation heeds the Submissive’s professional and personal time constraints.”
Dean nodded, engaging in the discussion.
“It wasn’t the surprise factor, Cas. I have no problem with that. You know I’m good with being hauled over whenever you want me.”
“All right,” Cas agreed, leaving the highlighted portion alone and scrolling deeper into the contract. “Let’s review the Green List, then.”
He found the segment that listed in exhaustive detail everything Dean had agreed Cas could do to him without a scene discussion. It wasn’t short. Dean shifted his weight forward, wrapping his lower legs outside of Cas’ shins and tucking his feet behind Cas’ ankles as an anchor. He took the mouse from Cas and skimmed as he scrolled through the list, pausing at relevant items.
He lingered over, Impact-play of level J-fifteen or lower. He licked his lips. Behind him, Cas waited.
“Yeah, I’m still good with that,” Dean decided. “It wasn’t the intensity.”
“All right,” Cas affirmed. “Keep going. The surprise and the count were acceptable. What about the audience? What was it specifically that felt alarming?”
Dean scrolled down, down to the newest entries at the bottom of the list. He rubbed a hand across his face and grimaced, reading his own Green List.
Non-participatory third-party voyeurs of the Dominant’s choosing
Humiliating circumstances and speech, provided they don’t affect the Submissive’s professional or social standing outside of the scene
Public displays of Submission either for disciplinary or recreational purposes, provided there is a reasonable effort made to shield primate minors or inappropriate audience members from unwitting nonconsensual viewing
Dean chewed his thumbnail thoughtfully as he read and re-read passages in his list.
“They weren’t non-participatory,” he commented. “That wasn’t just voyeurism, CJ.”
“I agree,” the Dom commented soothingly. “It was meant to be, but I failed to communicate appropriately with them. I failed to account for the fact that Primates don’t think the way we do. A wolf would have known better, but I didn’t realize their actions bothered you. I’m sorry, Dean. That was my fault. Is there anything else?”
Dean continued working his thumbnail over, reading his own words on the page where they laid out all his substantial predilections. It was a road map to a profoundly submissive mindset, and Dean’s mouth watered a little in reading through it.
’The Submissive retains the right to halt all recreational activities through the use of a pre-selected safeword, even should the scene in question adhere entirely to items enumerated in the Green List’
Dean leaned back into his husband’s chest. “I could’ve safeworded.”
“You believed it was a punishment scene. Safewords aren’t permitted during punishments.”
“I mean, you did say that it was my application to foster Kate that earned me that scene,” Dean craned his head to seek Castiel’s face. “Kind of a gray area, I guess? Birthday spankings are usually for fun, but your wolf was obviously making a point, man. That was no playful message. It was about blindsides. I get that. And I get how I worded the Green List. I think it was just that they were apes, Alpha. In that moment, what hit me was that I had no idea what they might do. I can’t trust apes the way I do wolves.”
“Even though there was a wall of glass between you? You never mentioned having a higher sensitivity to Primates than wolves. I assumed that the glass would feel protective enough to account for their proximity and unpredictability. But it wasn’t enough, was it? Even knowing they couldn’t touch you.” Castiel posed. “Even knowing I was right there watching out for you?”
“Yeah,” Dean sighed. “The glass didn’t feel like a boundary at all. I felt… vulnerable, I guess is the best word. What makes this Green List work for me is the certainty that you and I both know how each element is going to unfold. I trust you to control the wild cards. But apes aren’t controllable, and it scared me.”
Cas wrapped an arm around Dean’s middle and kissed his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Dean. I misunderstood and I miscommunicated. I won’t let that happen again. Thank you for explaining it to me. I want you to work some phrasing into your Green List that clarifies to what extent Primate witnesses can be allowed in our public scenes. If we need to alter the wording to prohibit them altogether, I have no problem with that. We will restrict such scenes to Lupin-only spaces like our Facility, our home—with the drapes closed—or a dog park.”
Dean nodded and pressed the side of his head into Castiel’s. “I left it too vague,” he observed. “It’s too new. I didn’t think it all the way through when I added those last lines.”
“Dean, this is my fault primarily, not yours. I am not unaware of your sensitivities during impact scenes in regard to witnesses. No matter how the list is phrased, I shouldn’t have added apes to a scene we didn’t choreograph together, not until we’ve played in their presence often enough to be sure how we’re both going to react.”
“I should’ve called ‘Red’,” Dean added. “Even if it was punishment and not play, you would have listened to me. But it never even crossed my mind.”
“I don’t take safewords lightly, Dean. I wish you would believe that. This cavalier abdication of yours, this refusal to engage in your own safety is dangerous.”
“I told you right then that I was freaked out,” Dean countered.
“Without a safeword, your complaints are no stop-action. How many times have you bitched and moaned at me during a scene, only to melt in my arms in satisfaction afterward?”
Dean dropped his head backward onto Cas’ shoulder. He rolled it sideways into Cas’ jaw, eliciting a huff of amusement.
“Was it a punishment, man?” Dean asked. “Sure felt like one.”
Cas stared at the screen and the blinking cursor in front of him, highlighting the word, public. He sighed. “At the time, I didn’t believe so. I wanted to drive my point home to you, love, but I had no intention of forcing you to hear it. Not right then, not exactly. I invited witnesses in order to level up the humiliation factor because I wanted you desperately turned on with no means to alleviate that need. When you ended the scene fully engorged and lustful…I guess I assumed that your complaint was window dressing.”
“Yeah, well, my cock doesn’t always listen to my insecurities,” Dean admitted. “I also ended that scene pissed the fuck off. That’s not my usual reaction to your touch.”
Cas chuckled and kissed Dean’s temple for good measure. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m not traumatized,” Dean confirmed. “Those guys in the guard house, man, I mean… It’s not new for you to use them to make sure I feel exposed. And I know they’re not random hires. You checked them all out carefully. There was no way those pricks were going to do anything but taunt me. They know the rules.”
“That’s really not the point, Dean,” Cas told him. “Some scenes, some punishments even, require no prior discussion because we know each other well enough reliably to predict the other’s reactions. Anything that has the potential to spark a reaction that neither of us expected absolutely must not happen in an ad hoc scene. Period. It is imperative that I understand your Green List, not simply as a menu of available items, but in the frame of mind that led you to add each item to the list in the first place. I cannot take that responsibility lightly, especially if you’re going to insist on leaving our safety entirely in my hands.”
“Cas, please. Having a safeword ruins the headspace for me…”
“I know that,” the Alpha huffed in frustration. “And as far as I’m able, I want to allow you your headspace. But Dean, I house a wolf who feasts on vengeance and an alpha who believes, despite all my efforts to sway him, that vengeance and justice are synonyms. In my darkest moments with you, in the heat of a scene that feeds us both, I don’t correct their impulses. I need to allow them a modicum of satisfaction in that arena, and if I can’t get that through you, then I need to find other routes. If you’re not going to manage your own safety, then I must be extremely circumspect about how I feed myself through you. Whether Thursday’s scene was a punishment or not, my wolf had a point to make about…as you said, about blindsides. I felt secure in allowing that statement because I believed you and I had thoroughly hashed out the evolutions of your sensitivities to exhibitionism. But come to find out I misinterpreted significant portions of your changing development. The misinterpretations are my fault, Dean. Failure to take responsibility and use that goddamn safeword, that’s on you. I’m not a mind reader, much as you wish me to be one.”
Dean swallowed uncomfortably. It always came back to this point. Internally, his battle intensified. Cas was never going to harm him, damnit! Only, hadn’t he just overstepped boldly enough to prove that declaration ridiculous? It was a mantrum repeated in Dean’s head so often, it barely held any meaning anymore. Dean fiddled with the cuticle of his thumbnail. Cas’ chin on his shoulder was warm, not heavy. There was a hand on Dean’s right hip and another tucked around his left inner thigh, pressed between Dean’s weight and Cas’ leg. Dean swallowed again.
“Take your time, baby,” Cas encouraged. “I know it’s hard.”
“I’ll change the Green List,” Dean told his husband. “Looks like I wasn’t as ready as I thought for adding exhibitionism to that part of the contract.”
Cas nodded. “Write the Green List however you feel most comfortable, Dean. That’s what it’s there for. But don’t assume that absolves you of maintaining your own boundaries. This really cannot be negotiable any longer.”
Dean sat back up and turned in Cas’ lap to face him obliquely. “No, but that’s the point, sir. If I get the Green List right, then that’s my boundary markers. It’s not that I’m refusing to safeword. It’s that I put the safewords right in the list so neither of us has to think about it during a scene. It’s not an abdication, goddamnit. I got ahead of myself and greenlighted some stuff I’m not ready for. That doesn’t mean we scrap my whole headspace! It means I need to put the kibosh on these last entries. Go back to what we both know I’m comfortable with. Save the public stuff for scenes we design together.”
Castiel nodded wearily in acceptance. It was as close as he was going to get from his stubborn partner. “All right,” he acceded. “Be sure to update the list under the Punishments section as well. I need clear limits. I’m managing my own impulses in that regard just as surely as I’m managing your limits. There can be no ambiguity.”
“And then you’ll let me float?”
“I’m not wholly comfortable with knowing you refuse to consider using a safeword,” Cas told him. “I admit that mid-scene, it’s a heady rush, and I make no excuses for that. But we cannot pretend that we aren’t both aware that in the heat of an intense moment, my wolf is fully capable of dealing a killing blow inadvertently. He doesn’t know his own strength, Dean. I know you know that. It worries me that after everything you’ve witnessed from him, that you’re still willing to throw caution to the wind in order to ride a hurricane without a harness. If your birthday scene proved nothing else, it proves that that hurricane can still throw you right out of the saddle and fling you into the trees.”
Dean shook his head. “That’s not going to happen if we stick to the script.”
Cas sighed. “You are, singularly, the stubbornest man I have ever known.”
“I love you too,” Dean replied. “And I trust you, CJ.” Dean stood and re-straddled the warm lap facing his husband. “Is it all right if I apologize now…for Kate? Alpha, I really blew it, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I knew good and well you wouldn’t leave Kate dangling in the winds, but all that mattered to me was what I wanted. I broke my vow of obedience, sir, and that’s not the husband I wanna be. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I act like I don’t trust you, man, because I do.
“If you say I need another two-week chastity right after I did four days, I’m not gonna fight you. Two weeks, it is. If you wanna layer bruises on my butt on top of bruises until my ass won’t fit into my jeans for all the swelling, dude, just point me where you want me bending over. If we need to find somewhere else for Kate to recover and do her therapy, Sir, that’s in your hands.
“I’m sorry for everything I keep doing that undermines your leadership. I want so bad to follow you without needing to question everything. Cause I respect you, Castiel. And I trust you. I swear I do. Sometimes I need to hear you explain it for me using little words. If you say you’ve got a vision in your head of where our war needs to focus next and that you can safely take Max and Michael and the whole population of Omegas in with you, then I’ve got your back. I trust you, Castiel James. Let’s do it, man. Game on. All I ask is that you keep my mate under your wing, and that you don’t pull your swats just because you know I won’t call red when it hurts.”
“You mean that?” Cas asked him tenderly. “You trust me with your mate’s safety? You had some serious concerns about my plans and how I’ve implemented them, I believe. Those did not sound like concerns that had only just occurred to you. If your faith in my leadership is faltering… Dean, if you worry that I’ve taken too callous a view of the people I make use of for my ends…”
Dean set two fingers over Castiel’s lips, smiling softly when Cas quieted and kissed them. “You scare me sometimes, Alpha,” Dean admitted intimately, leaving very little space between their mouths, breathing Castiel’s exhales into his own lungs. “What you show me when it’s just the two of us and you let your guard down…You know I can see it all, right? I know who you are, Castiel James Novak Winchester. I know you. And you’re not as tame as you want people to think you are.
“I know how your mind works. I know how far ahead of the game you’re setting your game pieces. I know how wide the net you cast really is. I know you can predict where every move the enemy makes is going to land. You’re a panther in the tree, waiting on your prey, and you know every move it’s going to make before it does. But, babe, I don’t have that kind of vision. I can’t predict these things the way you do. That leaves me blind sometimes to what’s really going down, and that’s scary as fuck.
“You give me too much credit. You believe I’m following the same lines of reasoning you are, but I’m lost a lot of the time. All I can do is trail along behind the action, figuring it out as I go, and trusting that you knew what you were doing the whole time. So, you see what it looks like? You see how baffling something like today’s mob march is to me? I’m accustomed to you predicting shit like that before it happens and playing your hand with expert finesse to win the match point instead of losing to Neanderthals like those people.”
Cas nodded. “I get it, Dean. If I had seen it coming, then what happened with Michael would have been intentional game play on my part. I assure you I didn’t, and it wasn’t. I won’t risk him like that. And I won’t use him at all without his and your full acquiescence.”
Dean’s eyes glistened with intense light. “But you vaulted right off the fiasco with your sword already swinging, and you had a plan in motion before Michael even regained consciousness. How can it take you three months to decide about something like fostering Kate, but thirteen milliseconds to shift your whole battle plan around Michael? Look, babe, I trust you, okay? You say you can see from here to there, and my mate’s going to be fine. I believe you. As long as Michael’s on board, let’s kick it in the ass. Right? But can you help me see it too? Cause I’m blind. You’re a scary motherfucker when you’re on the warpath. And I’ve seen you lose it once or twice. I can’t be certain without checking in with you that your eyes haven’t rolled to the back of your head. I can’t let that happen if Michael is your fiery sword.”
Cas nodded somberly. “Dean, I’m okay. I’ve got this. I decide slowly on some things because I’m not omniscient. I’m human. Where I can, I need to think important decisions all the way through. But where our war is concerned, hesitating would be disastrous. We don’t have the luxury of belaboring every moment when time is so critical. What I need you to understand is that I’ve done all those minute calculations already, way out ahead of time. I cannot foretell every eventuality, but what I can pre-plan are general counterstrikes to all kinds of attacks the enemy might level against us. Michael and April have both been on a track headed toward lives that showcase an Omega’s potential. A violent demonstration by the Stynes has likewise been imminent for some time. We didn’t know when or where or with what ammunition. We didn’t know what they might choose for their motivation. But we knew it was coming. And we’ve planned countermoves.”
“And Michael?”
“Please believe me, love. I had no idea our mates might end up right in the middle of that. I never would’ve allowed them to go had I known. I could never have guessed Michael had the power to freeze a riot in its tracks. I certainly didn’t leave them in the hands of an inept bodyguard and a beta teacher knowing their safety was in peril.”
“You suspected he might have The Voice though,” Dean reminded him, lowering his chin.
Cas huffed. “He’s a nineteen, Dean. I would’ve been surprised if he didn’t. Doms as low as sixteen have been logged with that talent. It’s rare, but it follows strength. We’ve seen him use muted forms of compulsion before. This is merely an extension of that. Michael’s never accessed it fully before today though. I had no intention of building plans around him and whatever talents he may turn out to possess. I’m not using him as a weapon. I’m using him to prove the heights that Omegas are capable of reaching when they aren’t left drowning in their own secretions. The correlation of events is serendipitous. Both tracks, our mates’ peaking prowess within their chosen fields and the cultists’ descent into violent demonstration, were approaching their apices independent of each other. I didn’t choreograph this. Michael’s an anomaly, but we can turn that to our advantage if we do it now. Dean, please. I need you to understand this. Do you trust me? Do you really?”
Green eyes bored into blue, and Cas opened himself up to the assessment.
Cas held his husband by the shoulders and pressed his case. “He wants this, Dean. I didn’t plant that in him. I recognized the spark, and I fed the fire, but I didn’t kindle it. He wants to do this. Dean, he needs to do this. It’s unfortunate that it’s coming to a head while he’s still got so much maturing to do, but you and I can help him with that.”
Dean nodded, reluctantly finding himself without any more arguments. He couldn’t argue Cas was using Michael inappropriately when Michael was desperate to be useful. It was no different, really, from the way Cas helped hand Dean into the fray all those years ago.
“Does it make sense to you now?” Cas checked.
“Yeah, Alpha. I said I trust you, and I meant it. Sorry about going off on you back there. That was, um, pretty disrespectful of me.”
Cas laughed softly. “I think we can give this one a pass considering you’re already in sufficiently hot water at the moment.”
“Oh, my, how very generous my Sir is all of a sudden,” Dean teased as he captured Castiel’s lips.
Cas chuckled, kissing back. He broke the kiss, turning his head a little. “Dean, if I don’t correct you for your tone earlier, am I going to have a brat provocation to smack down later?”
“Who, me?” Dean asked innocently. His eyes glittered playfully. Crow’s feet decorated his affectionate gaze as it shifted into something reverent. Cas was entranced as always. This was the man he married, the alpha who’d won his heart. Dean sat astride his lap, thumb caressing Castiel’s jaw, green eyes sparkling with adoration, a smattering of golden freckles across his nose, a mature if complicated man who knew his own mind and who breathed life into everything he touched. And his eyes, as he focused them on Castiel, held reverence. All Castiel could do was pray he reflected back to his love everything Dean’s forest green eyes spoke between them. How backward the world had become.
“Come here,” Cas whispered, tugging Dean back in and kissing him deeply. Reconnecting after an argument felt like coming back home to Cas, even if he was restricted to keep things chaste for now. He didn’t let it go too long. He pulled back again with a smacking sound, smiling into Dean’s warm acceptance. “Edit the contract for me, Pet,” Cas instructed. “And send the changes to me for review. We’ll sit down and go through them thoroughly. What happened on your birthday can’t happen again. Right now, we need to speak with our mates and prepare Michael to face the media. After that, let’s take the pups and let our mates have some alone time. I can’t speak for Michael, but I feel April needing reassurance that Michael’s unharmed. That will likely sink in better if they’re both naked than if they’re surrounded by infants.”
“Good idea,” Dean agreed stumbling backward to his feet. “I love the secondhand shivers. If I’m not getting any directly, at least I can get it vicariously.”
“That,” Cas chided, letting Dean pull him up. “Is entirely inappropriate. Behave yourself or I’ll tell your mate you’re spying on him.”
Dean scoffed. “Shows what you know,” he teased. “Michael loves an audience.”
“Well, April doesn’t,” Cas chastised. “Not when she’s with Michael. Close your bonds during their intimate moments unless she’s explicitly authorized otherwise.”
“Geez, cranky much?” Dean groused as he left the office ahead of Cas.
Cas chuckled and shook his head. “Yep, right on time,” he commented. “I knew your brat needed a reaction from me, but I never tire of watching it emerge like a cat under the bed swiping at my ankles. You’re adorable, Dean Michael.”
“I’m adorable, sir, but do I get that reaction now?”
“You have to wait until tomorrow, Pet. I have plans for you that involve the Facility cafeteria, the breakfast rush, the serving line, and a soup ladle. And since this is a punishment, no, you may not safeword out. Don’t even think about it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sir,” Dean grinned, strutting ahead so that his ass would be level with Castiel’s eyeline on the stairs.
Notes:
This one, chapter 13, and the next one, chapter 14, are being uploaded together for continuity. The conversation continues. Read on as you have time.
Chapter 14: Monday, January 28, 2019 (Cont. 3 of 3)
Summary:
Chapter 3 of 3. The end of a very long day. Michael and April finally get a say about what comes next.
Notes:
***Important Note***
Chapter 13 and 14 were posted at the same time. Be sure you've read the previous chapter before tackling this one.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, January 28, 2019
NOW:
Michael took the stairs two at a time, putting Dean out of his mind. He’d had it with Dean and his constant overbearing worries. Michael didn’t need an alpha putting up security fences all around him. Here he stood in the aftermath of the most intense experience of his life, chilled and thrilled and needing to share the exhilaration with his mate, and all Dean could do was throw a bitch fit over how unsafe Michael’s actions had been. Unsafe? Was Dean for real?
Michael grinned at his pups as he slipped into the nursery. He caught Alex around the chest and lifted him high into the air, tossing him playfully and catching him again. Alex chortled in glee. Dizzy as his heartrate caught up to his dash up the stairs, he decided swiftly that he’d be better off on the floor. Michael set Ace on his feet and then rolled down onto his back, still grinning.
“You’re pale,” Kate observed from the rocking chair where she was feeding Jimmy. “And sweating.”
“I’m fine,” Michael demurred. “How’s Alex been? He seems none the worse for wear.”
“It’s like nothing happened,” Kate remarked. Her eyes stayed trained on April, but April allowed Kate to answer. “He’s a resilient little guy. Unlike you, it seems. You look like you might pass out. Do you need a doctor?”
“I’m all right,” Michael repeated. He wasn’t about to talk about it to Kate. He found April sitting cross-legged on the floor across the room beneath the window. Emma turned pages of a book in her lap. “Big day, that’s all.” He sat up slowly. “Kate, I want to apologize for how I’ve been hovering. I don’t mean to make a pest of myself. Maybe we should just say if you need me, and if you want an ear, come find me. We’ll talk. I want to help. It’s, um, come to my attention that my help up to now hasn’t been all that helpful.”
Kate shot worried looks between the two Omegas as Jimmy wormed his way to sitting on her lap. She lowered her gaze to focus on the pup and blushed a deep red, saying nothing. April sighed quietly and hid her eye roll as she quietly pointed out a kangaroo to Emma. The air hung heavy with awkward tension. Michael frowned, uncomfortable and exhausted, but he couldn’t put a finger on what he was supposed to do now. Didn’t she want him to back off? He leaned back on his hands and shifted focus.
“Pete, are you okay? Do you need to rest?”
“I’m fine,” April answered, mirroring both his word and his tone. Kat climbed into her lap, squashing Emma a bit until April rearranged them both to share the space.
“How can you be fine?” he pressed, rolling onto his belly. He glanced at Kate but decided that she didn’t need to be shielded. “That asshole had you. He could’ve…”
Michael couldn’t say anymore. His vision swam. A wave of nausea washed over him. He pressed his forehead into the rug beneath him. Alex climbed onto his back, straddling him like a horse.
April was suddenly right there. “Here, Michael, hold my hand. I’m here. We’re okay. Just breathe. Breathe through it.” She removed Alex from his mother’s back one-handed, encouraging him to go read with his sisters. “What are you feeling?”
Michael rolled onto his hip and reached for her, burying his face in her belly. “I almost lost you today, Pete,” he whined.
April stroked his hair. “You saved me,” she reminded him. “You saved Alex. You did that, Michael. I felt you. I felt you grow bigger inside. You were magnificent. You were on fire. You were terrifying and beautiful. You were so powerful, the air felt like it was made of crystal, and if you’d commanded it to, it would have broken into shards and dropped all of those creatures where they stood. I’ve never felt so safe in my life.”
Michael kissed her hip, resting his head in her lap. In the corner, Kate rocked mutely, watching, granting no clue what she might be thinking.
“What happened, Michael? What was that?” April asked him. She trailed warm fingers down his throat, avoiding his Mating-scar. “Cas called it The Voice. Did you know you could do that?”
Michael huffed humorlessly. “We studied it in class,” he admitted. “Each of us got a chance to try to find the harmonic that sets it off, but no one in my class got anywhere close. It was funny, actually. All of these pompous dweebs shouting at each other trying to pretend they had powers of compulsion, going red in the face and spitting everywhere.” Michael chuckled. “No one expected an Omega to be able to do it. I think they only let me try because I’m Castiel’s in-law. Or Dean’s mate. Whatever.”
“Don’t be angry with Dean,” she whispered with a deep, worried frown. “He’s spooked. That’s all. He’ll come around.”
“Sweet Pete,” Michael replied. He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. “Always more worried about everyone else. I’m worried about you. How are you, April? What do you need?”
She pursed her lips and shook off his concern. “I need you to explain what happened back there,” she insisted. “I’m fine, Michael. Alex is fine. We’re fine.”
Michael sat up. “Say it a few more times and you might start to believe it yourself,” he murmured. “So, you’re following Gabe’s playbook? Shove it all down into a hole somewhere and pretend it doesn’t exist?”
“I should go,” Kate said abruptly. She stood and settled Jimmy on the floor with his siblings.
Michael held out a hand to her. “You don’t have to leave,” he told her. “April needs Omegas around. You’re not intruding. I think having you here helps. Please stay?”
“I’ll, uh, be right next door if you need me. Just buzz me. Eunice taught me how to use the intercom. I can watch the pups while you two talk. Just…I shouldn’t be here for this.”
Michael watched her go. “Terrific. Now she’s afraid of me. I suppose that solves that problem.”
April regarded him with a shuttered expression, and the conversation lagged. Michael engaged with his pups, forcing a smile, kicking off a round of tickle fights that eventually turned against April as well. And she tried. She tried to suppress the gut-wrenching sobs that broke through stilted laughter, tried not to spoil the game, tried to bottle it all up as she’d been taught to do, but her bottle sprung leaks from every corner, and soon she was weeping violently in Michael’s arms and four dismayed pups sat perplexed on a rainbow-colored rug with fingers in their mouths and wide eyes watching their parents.
“I know, baby,” Michael soothed. “Go ahead and cry. I’ve got you.” He wrapped an arm around Alex as the toddler pushed between the two of them. “I’ve got you both. You’re safe now.” He kissed her golden hair, scenting her. April sobbed and Michael trembled. He closed his eyes and shut out everything but the feel of family in his arms and the scent of family in his nose.
She didn’t cry for very long considering the ordeal, replacing tears with outrage. She pulled away from Michael, taking Alex into her own lap, and she glared at him through tear-streaked lashes.
“What the fuck, Michael? What did I ever do to those people? Why? Why me? And Alex? He’s just a baby! But then you were there. You were there and you… What was that? Why won’t you explain?”
Michael sat back, taken by surprise at the rapid shift. “I don’t know, Pete. It’s never happened before. I mean, I know how it felt, but I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know if I can do it again. All I knew was that I had to move heaven and earth to get to you two. You mean everything to me, April. I would do it again if I had to, even without the compulsion. I’d walk through fire for you.”
She huffed in exasperation. “You could’ve been killed, you idiot. And then where would I be?”
Michael held her chin in his palm and kissed her lips. “You would be fine,” he told her darkly.
“You’re not expendable, damnit.”
He chuckled. “Maybe not. But I like to think that perhaps I have a right to decide for myself when and where and how I get to sacrifice myself. If I can learn to pull that voice out of my ass any time I want, then no one’s ever going to make me do anything I don’t want to do…ever again. You get that that’s what Dean’s so pissed about, don’t you? That he’s losing control of me? He had a shaky grip in the first place, and now, unless I agree to play his pet Omega, he’s got no hold at all. You can feel them down there, can’t you?”
“Michael, don’t. It’s not like that.”
“They’re fighting again. You know what they’re fighting over? Over you and me, Pete. Over their Omegas. How do they keep us safe? How do they fix this? How do they…? How do THEY? Don’t you see? It’s not them anymore, Pete. It’s me. It’s you. We don’t have to follow their rules now. I dug us a way out. Stick with me and you and I will be able to make our own rules. I set alphas on their knees today with my voice. Don’t you see what that means? It means hierarchy is mine to upend. I belong above Dean and Cain and Sam and Kali…not below them.”
“No, I’m not going to be a part of that. And you shouldn’t either.” April stood up and faced him staunchly. “You’re not an alpha, Michael! I don’t care what your voice did! You’re going to…”
Michael chuckled. “Come here, baby. Sit down. Chill. I’m not starting a coup. I’m kidding. Emma, tell Mommy that O-Pop’s only kidding. It would be a trip though, wouldn’t it? Can you imagine Dean’s face? It’d serve him right.”
April sank down onto the daybed and pulled Kat into her lap. “Why did you do that?”
“Things were getting too emotional in here. Pete, I wasn’t trying to sacrifice myself. I really didn’t put that much thought into it.” Michael fell back again, spreading out on the floor and offering his body up as a climbing gym. “All that went through my mind was that you and Alex were in that goon’s hands and the last thing I said to you was that you shouldn’t have bothered coming along if you were going to be a bitch. You know what it would’ve done to me if I’d lost you today and those were my parting words?”
April laughed. “Always has to be about you, doesn’t it?”
“Pretty much,” he agreed, craning his head to check her upside-down expression. “So, look, I’m sorry I was a dick. It was a stupid thing to fight about. You forgive me?”
April tried to maintain a somber expression, but he looked ridiculous upside down and hopeful, and she huffed. “Are you honestly going to back off Kate and give us all a break?”
Michael rolled onto his belly, tumbling Alex and Jimmy both. The pups squealed and clumsily piled on again for more abuse. Emma tried to feed a block into his mouth, but he caught her hand and nibbled her fingers instead. She squealed too, abandoning the block to climb with her brothers. Michael rested his chin on folded arms and regarded April. “Tell me what to do,” he said lightly. “Lead me, oh great guru of the wounded Omega heart.”
April shook her head and stood up to change Kat’s diaper. “You’re a moron,” she quipped.
Michael didn’t respond. His gaze drifted into the distance. His focus trailed down the stairs. “They really are fighting about us. You feel that?”
“I feel it,” April told him passively. “It’s not about us though. It’s about them.”
“Pete, why did Cas send you away down there? Shouldn’t he be hanging on your every sniffle right now?”
April continued working with her back to him. “I didn’t want Cas,” she said. “I wanted you. He sat with me in the car. Stayed beside me while I spoke to the police. He did everything I needed him to do.” April straightened Kat’s skirt, flattened her disobedient hair, and set her on the floor with a toy boat. “But it’s not Cas who’s going to help me make sense of what happened. He’s not the one who rescued me. He’s not the one who defied our own security guard and ignored all the reasons there were to stay hidden and wait for the cops, or for alphas, or for superman to come flying in. It wasn’t Cas who put them on their knees, Michael. It was you. I need you right now.”
Michael’s mouth fell open, and he sat up, folding his legs Omega-style. He licked his lips. “So, you’re not mad at me for risking my life?”
April smiled shyly. She smirked and disappeared into the adjoining bathroom to wash her hands. She had to dry them quickly when Michael’s voice warned her she had a runner “Incoming!” but she caught the pup before he pulled himself up on the toilet.
“What happens now?” April asked seriously after cleaning Jimmy Dean’s hands and settling back down on the floor with him in her arms. “It’s all changing, isn’t it? It’s already on the news. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since we got home.”
Michael wrapped an arm around her. He tucked his chin over her shoulder. “I’m ready, Pete. Whatever happens. As long as they don’t bench me entirely or try to make me sit at home with a bullet-proof vest on, I’m ready for whatever. I’m itching to get out there and face all the assholes with their assumptions and biases and privilege.”
“Where did all that power come from?” she asked innocently. “What was it like?”
Michael rubbed his face and stroked Emma’s light curls with a finger. “You know those deep, deep holes you shove your traumas down into when you don’t want to show them to someone? I think I drew up eons worth of outrage and injustice from the dark holes in our heads. It’s like having every harrowing or discriminatory thing that had ever happened to an Omega all coalesce into one outraged howl.
“I don’t know how I knew I could make them listen, but I didn’t doubt for a second. I felt like I was made of electricity, of beams of light, and I just knew. I just knew. I couldn’t’ve held it for long. I wouldn’t have been able to use it for anything trivial. It had to come through my own outrage, tying into generations of Omegas and their communal outrage.”
“So, it’s not just a Dominant thing like Castiel said. He said some of the most powerful Doms have that talent.”
Michael licked his lips and shook his head. His eyes lit up with vehemence. “No, it was more than The Voice, Pete. It was that, but it melded with an ocean of Omega rage that I called on to back me up and give me weight. You know how you sometimes feel like you’re sipping experiences from deep within a metaphysical well, Omega experiences? Well, imagine that the straw became a whole wide tunnel, and you could suck all of it up, all of it, and wrap yourself in a cloak of powerful emotion. It’s like wearing impenetrable armor. It’s like…like being out of phase with reality and seeing right through physical existence to the truths we can’t see with our eyes, the eternal truths. For a few moments, I turned into a communal alloy of everything Omega, and it’s so, so much deeper than anyone told us. I wish I had a way to show you, Pete. I want you to feel it so you can put it to music!”
April smiled, reflecting his elation. She kissed him then pressed her cheek to his. “I felt it through you, Michael. Not all of it, but it was like looking into an endless abyss. It felt absolutely limitless.”
“It is, Pete. It’s limitless. Given enough motivation and practice, I could do almost anything metaphysical. Just think, alphas draw their power from some kind of spigot, sort of. I don’t know. But like a tap. The deeper the alpha, the wider the tap. But it’s not limitless, even for someone like Cas. Maybe he’s got a whole river of power at his disposal, but he only has access to what’s flowing between the banks. Omega power though, it has no banks. It’s an ocean. Or a sky, maybe. It’s the Universe itself, Pete! The Universe is Omega! Controlling it is about finding ways to bring it into motion, to create momentum, inertia, directional flow…you get me? The Voice empowered me to set it moving and create inertia, but being Omega gave me access to the whole shebang, not just a trickle like an alpha gets.” Michael’s eyes were wide and excited. He grinned. “Obviously, I’m a god, Pete.”
She laughed. “Your son is sitting in poop, Michael. I’m pretty sure you’re not a god.”
Michael grinned on, standing up. “How else do you explain it? Yeah, no, definitely a god.” Michael scooped Jimmy up and laid him on the changing table.
“Have you told Cas what you experienced?” she asked.
“Nope,” Michael said succinctly.
“But you’re going to.”
“Nope,” he repeated, popping the P percussively and focusing all his attention on his son.
“Michael…”
He turned with Jimmy at his shoulder and smirked. “Of course I am. Why are you always expecting me to mutiny? Alpha already has me down for a week of research interviews and exploratory tests after my last wolf-dream. So, we add another week after that. Whatever they wanna do, I’m game. But I’ll tell you one thing I really am willing to mutiny over: I’m not sitting on the sidelines anymore during their interviews and TV dates, seminars and conventions. I’m claiming my front row seat. I have things to say…about injustice, about Omegas, about Lupin repression in general. I’m gonna take on the Progressives, all dressed in their Sunday finest with their strings of pearls and their polished leather shoes, who’d as soon file off their own ear-points as admit they have Lupine needs. I’m going to take on the Ultra-Traditionalists with their god-awful theories that Omegas are destined to go insane if they so much as choose their own tie-clip. I’m going to go after the mom-and-pop nuclear families, Pete, like yours, like Dean’s, that try to pretend they can meet everyone’s needs with only three or four people in the house! Bring ‘em all on! I’m not sitting here anymore while the alphas do all the showboating.”
“What about Dean, then?” she asked carefully.
“I’d like to see him try to stop me.” Michael’s eyes flashed gold. He froze as April flinched at his passion. “Whoa, Pete. Are you afraid of me? I would never…”
She stood and faced him. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… it was overwhelming, what you did.”
She relaxed in his embrace. Letting him hold her up, surrounding her with his unique scent and his warmth, his tenderness beneath which lay a core of iron, April felt impervious…to attack, to violence, to statute, to compulsion, to falling…impervious even in ways Castiel couldn’t spare her. Or wouldn’t. “You and Dean being at odds over it is stressful. I hate it when you fight.” Jimmy tangled fingers into her hair.
Michael softened his expression. He nuzzled behind her ear, enjoying the explicit reality of her trust. She even smelled like trust. “I won’t fight with him if I can help it, Pete. But I can’t pretend the whole world didn’t change today. I can’t go back to who I was. He’s going to have to catch up. I’ve molted right out of my skin, and I’m someone new now. It would be terrifying if it didn’t feel so perfectly right.”
Cas knocked on the doorframe as he cracked the nursery door open. Michael left his arm slung around April’s shoulder, but he gestured for the Alpha to come in.
“Are you two finished shouting at each other over us?” Michael joked. “Did you reach any conclusions? Does the straitjacket go on now or after dinner?”
Cas held the door for Dean who slipped in and scooped Kat off the floor for a quick snuggle. He stood a few feet distant from his mate, feeling him out from the inside, offering Michael an olive branch of sorts as he shared his resigned state of mind with his mate. Cas followed Dean in. Dean shrugged.
“We need to talk,” the Alpha stated. “We four. We must institute some changes, and as there are media vans in our driveway, we need to decide quickly.” Cas took April’s hand and led her to sit beside him on the daybed. Michael disappeared with the pup to wash his hands and then plunked down right in the middle of the room, eliciting a cackle of laughter from J.D. and drawing the two remaining pups to his lap like a magnet. Dean hesitated briefly and then settled on his side behind and around his mate. He accepted a generous, if sloppy kiss from Emma, and allowed Kat to join her siblings in scaling their O-Pop’s body from all directions. Dean tugged Michael to lean back into him. Michael’s weariness lingered, and Dean could feel it.
“Michael, I need your undivided attention, please,” Cas advised.
“Well, then, maybe the nursery isn’t the place for this discussion,” Michael observed, catching Alex before the toddler tumbled clumsily off his shoulders.
“Unfortunately, the staff are occupied at the moment,” Cas admitted. “Perhaps you could get up off the floor so you’re not such an enticing jungle gym.”
Michael chuckled, hugging Emma when she embraced him with her whole self. “Please, Alpha. I’m listening. Dean’s listening. No disrespect intended, Sir, but we need our pups right now.”
April slid down onto the floor, sprawling onto her belly and reaching out to tickle Alex’s bare toes. He giggled and reversed course to play with her. Cas sighed and joined the Pack, smiling in spite of himself when all four pups immediately homed in on the Alpha as he hit the floor.
He caught the twinkle in Dean’s eye, and he shook his head. “All right, then,” Cas said, admitting that having a lapful of pups was just the therapy he needed. “But I need your full attention.”
“Right,” laughed Dean. “Go ahead, Alpha. Talk serious shit with someone’s fingers in your mouth.”
“Dean, language,” Michael objected for the hundredth time.
“Sorry. Stuff, I meant. Stuff.”
But Cas wasn’t distracted. He seemed to take solace and focus from his children making themselves at home in his personal space. “Today’s events will take us a great deal of time to digest,” he intoned. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time before we need to address it publicly or we’ll appear to be regrouping, hiding. It is imperative that this development be embraced for the magnificent evolution it is, and that means that I need Michael…” Cas met Michael’s eye with a weighted look and flaring nostrils, “to step more fully into the limelight. Do you think you can handle speaking to the reporters outside, Michael?”
“You mean it?” Michael asked, skeptical. He shot a look over his shoulder at Dean’s face as his hands moved to draw Jimmy back into his lap when the pup found no space in his Papa’s. “Not just to showcase that I’m unhurt, but to allow me to speak for myself?”
“Michael,” Dean put in hesitantly. “I told you we were going to get here. Someday. You’ve done several seminars now. You know how to present yourself well. You know how to speak to people who want to throw you off message. God knows the camera loves you. And after today, if you don’t brush yourself off and prove you’re not psycho, the opposition is going to take the narrative and run with it. You bloodied them, man, but you didn’t break them. They’ll be back.”
“What about pathologically stupid? What about that whole target-on-my-back thing?” Michael asked carefully. “The target’s still there, bigger than ever probably. There’s no way I’ll be able to pull off something like that every time someone gets in my face. Aren’t you afraid they’ll single me out for direct confrontation even more than before?”
Dean paused a moment. “There’s only one way to confront this now, man, and that’s straight head-to-head. Michael, unless you tell us you don’t want to participate, we need to write you into our public schedule.” Dean’s voice betrayed his discomfort, but he plowed through anyway. “And April needs to step up her public appearances too. You ready for that, kid?”
April gasped. “Me? What do I have to do with this? I don’t have any special message to deliver.”
All three men spoke at once:
“Are you kidding me?”
“You most certainly do!”
“You’re far more important than you know…”
They all stopped at once, and Cas continued when it was clear the others expected him to clarify.
“Kitten, it’s time for us to expand our message. You remember we talked about unrolling it in phases.”
She nodded.
“You don’t have to be anything but yourself and follow the path you’re destined to follow,” Cas continued warmly, reaching out to touch her thigh. “Let us design the script around you. We will shift our message from how to stabilize Omegas to what a stabilized Omega is capable of accomplishing. It’s not only you two who’ll be highlighted. It’s Balthazar, Dr. Harvelle, Donna—all radiant success stories. We’ll highlight professionals like Anna, you remember Anna from the wedding? Painters and artists, nurses, scientists, attorneys, social workers, business owners, child-rearers, teachers, the list is endless, because the possibilities are endless. What we need to know is how comfortable the two of you are about being poster-boys…and girls…for a campaign that may rub a great deal of friction into our daily lives.”
Michael sat forward immediately. “I’m in, Sir. Hundred percent. Give me a bullhorn and let me show them. I’ve been asking for a platform for ages.”
“Thank you, Michael. April? No pressure. Your career will be a highlight enough on its own without any help from me, but if you allow us to add your name to our campaign…”
“What if I fall on my face?” she asked uncertainly. “What if I embarrass you all by failing spectacularly? What would that prove?”
“That you’re human?” Dean smiled kindly. He touched her foot, wrapping a hand around it and squeezing. “But you’re not going to fail, kiddo. Your debut track earned a goddamn Grammy nomination.”
“On Nick’s coattails, Dean,” she protested. “It’s his show. I wouldn’t have even contributed if he hadn’t taken me under his wing…”
“Kitten,” Cas cut in. “The point isn’t how you got there. It’s that you’re holding your own now that you’re there. Your music is enthralling. It’s inspirational. It resonates. Seasoned musicians want to collaborate with you. And the blunt truth is that it wasn’t until you were clear of the stressors that made you fixate on your own safety that you really found your musical voice. That’s the message we’re trying to spread. I won’t include you if it makes you uncomfortable or adds too much pressure.”
“What would I need to do?”
Cas pressed in. “Let us use your name, your image, your music. Accompany me to events and speak to reporters sometimes. Keep attending seminar panels just as you’ve been doing. Nothing really needs to change, Kitten. You’re on your way to a very public presence anyway. Let us ride your coattails a bit. Let us showcase your brilliance and speak to a population of Omegas who’ve been beaten down, convinced by their own families that they lack the capacity to shine. We can talk about it all day but highlighting successful Omegas will do for our message in days what speeches haven’t done for years.”
“Inviting Omegas up on stage at the Cons would have helped,” Michael added, a touch sullen.
“Maybe,” Dean replied. “But the audience wasn’t ready for that before now. We ran through all the outcomes a million times, Michael. We had to warm them up bit by bit. It’s easy to second-guess it all, but when we started, an Omega onstage would have derailed us. None of us liked it. You gotta believe me. I didn’t like it any more than you do. I would’ve loved to give Balthazar a panel of his own. He’d have fomented orgies in the aisles, and it would’ve been awesome. But it also would have backfired. They weren’t ready. Not like they are now. And with your voice reverberating on the evening news tonight, everything’s shifting fast.”
“The target on my back?” Michael challenged. “You’re suddenly fine with that?”
“Fuck, no,” Dean adamantly stated, sitting up with a grimace. “I hate it. But there’s no hiding you now, man. You’re a target no matter where you go, so fuck it, let’s roll. Bring it on, dude.”
“Just like that?” Michael rolled his shoulder to bring Kat around from his back to his lap.
“Today was big, Michael. Really big. And I know you’re chomping at the bit to have your say. I can’t protect you from what’s coming. But they’re finally listening, man. Really listening. Even our adversaries are standing still with their eyes and ears on this house waiting for you to emerge and either start eating babies or talking sense. I trust Castiel, Michael. I think you should too. I think you should let him guide you in working the message, into how to work the camera crews, in how to process what you did out there, how to present your stories. He’s a hell of a game-player. And at first, it’s going to feel like you’re being used, but give it some time. Ride with training wheels for a bit. You won’t need them forever.”
Michael frowned, removing Kat’s fingers from his mouth gently. “You’ve stated again and again that you trust Castiel,” he pointed out. “But then when something scary happens, you prove that you don’t. Not really. How do I know this time’s different? I’m not going to risk taking a step out in public that you turn out not to be totally fine with and having you tackle me to the pavement for my own protection. I can’t fight our enemies and my own mate at the same time.”
Dean blushed slightly and dropped his eyes. “Man, I get why you feel that way. I’ve been all over the map with this stuff. Since we met, I’ve been teasing the line out to you and then snatching it back. At first, I assumed you were too much of an introvert to want to get up in the spotlight with me, so I kind of made that call for you, expecting I was going to have to coax you into it…later…much later. I made a lot of assumptions, and that was a shit thing to do. When it became obvious that it was my discomfort talking and not yours, I freaked. It’s the same worry as if one of our kids was right there beside us. And I know, Michael. I know you’re not a child. I know you’re not my property to hunker over and protect. But tell that to my instincts, man. This is unbelievably hard for me. You understand that what happened out there today was every bit as horrifying as I’ve been imagining? You could’ve been killed. You had no idea what was going to happen.”
“But I didn’t get killed, Dean. No one laid a hand on me. Maybe you can take a step back out of your own head for a minute and acknowledge that how you feel isn’t the most important driver of this thing. I know you’re scared, and I know you love me. But your fear is a shackle on us both. I’m scared too, alpha. But I’m never going to live in a world that isn’t scary until we stand up to this thing and defy it. You’ve been scared for me for a couple of years, but I’ve been scared since I Presented. Dean, I found something inside myself, and it gives me armor. And what’s more, I didn’t kill anyone, even though I really, really wanted to. I didn’t go white-eyed fury. I didn’t lose myself. No one shot me, and no one had their throat ripped out. Now we know that I’ve got access to the wellspring of Omega power. There’s no way we would’ve known that if I’d obeyed you or played it safe so you didn’t have to feel fear.”
“I know, Michael. I know, man. It’s a good development. But it makes you more vulnerable to attack, not less. The thing is, I get it. Trying to keep you safe, it’s a losing proposition. There is no safety. I’m playing into their hands by sheltering you.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, alpha,” Michael insisted.
“You and Cas, both,” Dean admitted uncomfortably. “You kinda forced my hand, here, buddy. Can you at least swear to me that you’ll follow Castiel’s lead? You may be powerful enough to level skyscrapers with your laser vision, but that voice of yours isn’t going to have any effect on Cas. I need you to let him guide you. We both need to trust him from here on.”
“Pa!” Emma babbled happily as she crawled toward Dean. “MMM-Pa!”
Dean grinned at her. “Really, sport? You got a D in your wheelhouse for Daddy?” He scooped her up and blew raspberries on her belly.
“She’s only babbling, Dean,” Cas placated his husband. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Stow the crap, CJ. Accept the fact that they’re all going to kiss your ass first.” Dean tickled his daughter, and she erupted in laughter, reaching for his hair. He caught her attention and enunciated carefully. “Da-ddy, Idge. Say Daaa-deeee.”
April laid down on her belly, resting one hand on Michael’s knee while she held Castiel’s hand in her other. “The goal here is to show people what you’ve been telling them,” she summed up. “That even Ozzies are just regular people once you handle all their individual special requirements. Guys, that’s not a new message. There are tens of thousands of Omegas living full lives. Look at my mother. No one modelled anything for her….”
“Your mother is hobbled, Kitten,” Cas interrupted reluctantly. “Your parents are as much a product of the times they emerged from as anyone else. Kathleen lives in a half-phase most of the time. She’s Balanced well in her Secondary, but she doesn’t get near enough support for her Tertiary, and it shows in her reluctance to engage in anything of her own. She is singularly focused on your father. That benefits him, so he’s got no motivation to alter it.” Cas had his eyes averted. April stared at him, shocked.
“You’ve been assessing my parents?”
“It’s difficult not to when Omega stability is a core focus of my career and they’re your parents. I didn’t mean to overstep. But you cannot use Omegas who aren’t actualized as examples of Omega actualization.”
“So, according to you, if my father beat the snot out of my mother, she would have opened a bookstore of her own?” April challenged in offense. “Maybe she stays at home and focuses on him because that’s what she prefers. Not everyone needs a spotlight, Castiel.”
“April, please. I don’t mean to be rude. Your mother carries a sour aftertaste in her scent. It’s the smell of regret and resentment. She covers for it well, but she has been stifled by her own mate. This is why she pushed for you to leave Oklahoma for your training. There was a brand-spanking-new training facility an hour’s drive from your home. I’m forever grateful to her for sending you to us instead. You would have been horribly abused there. But, April, she wanted to give you a chance to get far away from your father’s repressive hand. Love, your mother saved you from the life that’s strangled her. I need you to believe I’m not imagining what I’ve seen. She’s a wonderful woman, but she’s essentially powerless. You don’t have to be.”
“My father protected me! He isn’t strangling anyone!” April rose to her feet and stood defiant, glaring down at her mate.
Cas remained calm but he didn’t cave. “Your father protected you so that he could keep you as his little girl forever. He was never planning to let you go.”
“How dare you?”
“Cas,” Dean broke in. “Is this necessary?”
“Yes,” the Alpha affirmed. He handed Jimmy to Dean and stood up to meet April’s ire. He placed one hand on each upper arm, bracing her, meeting her eyes with honest fervor. “Kitten, it’s necessary. Listen to me. You’re right that many, many Omegas, Ozzies even, are living full unfettered lives. That’s true—far more now than twenty or thirty years ago. It’s not your father’s fault that his mind is caught in the culture of his upbringing. It’s not your mother’s fault that she was powerless to do more than make the best of what she had. But you don’t have to get stuck in the same web she’s trapped in. It’s not a death sentence, love, but she could have been so much more. We’re building a whole new culture, and it needs to be in place before our pups Present. Do you understand? I’m not attacking your parents. I’m showing you that even Omegas who seem content may not be living the ideal that they appear to be. Yes, there are certainly wolves of all designations who would find a lifestyle such as your mother lives to be a perfectly idyllic way to live. Not everyone longs for the stage. I know that. But your mother isn’t one of those people, April. And she desperately wants you to have a shot at what she’s been denied. She wants her grandchildren never to know that obstacles such as those that stopped her from growing to her fullest ever existed in this society. We can give her that, Kitten. You and I, Michael, Dean, all of us, if we work together, we can change the world.”
“Why didn’t she ever tell me?” April asked.
“What could she have said,” Cas asked back, “…that didn’t undercut the man you both love? He’s not a bad man, Kitten. He’s as much a slave to culture as your mother is. He had no idea there was another way. Even still, the resources someone like your father would need to educate himself and pull himself into a different way of thinking…those resources aren’t in place yet.”
“The point, April,” Dean added with a sharp look at Cas. “Is that until we strip away the institutions of patriarchy and systemic repression, no one can be sure what any Omega is capable of. You don’t have to play an active role at all. Just being yourself and making a go of a life under a marquee is enough to prove that people’s assumptions about Omegas are bullshit.”
“Language, please, alpha.”
“If you pull down the patriarchy, Dean, what’s left?” April asked naïvely.
Dean grinned from his spot on the floor where Jimmy and Kat were skirmishing for room on his lap, Alex attempted to climb onto his back, and Emma held tight to the real estate at his shoulder, bouncing herself on his thigh. “Pack hierarchy, the way nature, the Universe, and the moon intended,” he quipped.
She huffed. “Naturally. How do I know I’m not just as repressed, but instead of being shoved into a closet at home, I’ve been groomed for a life on the stage as your poster boy? Maybe I’ve been brainwashed.”
Cas drew himself up and looked down his long nose at her. “Your wish is my command, Kitten. We’ll cancel every event, watch the Grammys from our couch, and raise a toast to your One-Hit-Wonder status. You aren’t under anyone’s directive to do anything but follow the rules framed on your bathroom wall. You are free to quit making music today.”
April bit her top lip, willing her grin away, but it eked out anyway, and she wound up rolling her eyes as Cas tugged her in for a kiss to her Mating-scar that curled her toes. She shoved him off.
“All right. I’m in. Like I really had a choice anyway. I’ve got three interviews scheduled this week. Nick wants me in LA. before Sunday, but I’ve been putting him off. Can we turn any of that into messaging? I can fly to Los Angeles and rub elbows and stuff. Cain could go with me. We’ve been practicing our connections and our communication. I think we’ve got it down. Nashville went off without a hitch.”
Castiel touched her chin and kissed her nose. “How are you this resilient, Kitten?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just a day in the life of an Ozzie, Sir. Would you feel better if I curled up in my bed and wept?”
Dean and Michael laughed. Cas narrowed his eyes. “Leave the bratty rejoinders to the brat, my darling,” he reproved playfully, pulling her in for a kiss to her lips. “If you like,” he spoke intimately, just for her. “You and Michael may spend some time before dinner together.”
“Doesn’t he need to go down and speak to the reporters?” she asked.
“That won’t take long. No more than half an hour, tops. Dean and I will take the pups after the reporters leave with their stories. April, I know you need him right now more than you need me. Can we agree not to belabor that point? After all, it wasn’t me who came to your rescue when you needed someone. Go on, Kitten. Go on and tell him what that means to you.”
She smirked. ”Tell him?”
Cas swatted her ass, chuckling.
“Nooo, Papa!” Alex waddled across and reached for his Papa’s right hand. “Mommy!”
Cas laughed and hoisted the boy onto his hip. “You seem to have more than one knight-protector today, Kitten.” April snuggled her son in Castiel’s arms, bringing her arms up around them both.
On the floor, Michael’s head rested in close concert with Dean’s although they weren’t speaking. They held hands beneath their chins, resting their temples together and breathing. A calm sense of home, hearth, and Pack descended, turning the nursery into a secure nest. Slowly, Cas moved to lower himself and his mate to join their Packmates. Lying tummy down in a starfish formation with their heads all tucked closely, Dean, Michael, April, Cas…they lay still and breathed. Pups ambled happily, obliviously over them, and the four of them centered in their own scents, in their mutual warmth, in commitments powerful enough to stretch to the limits before bringing them right back here to this place.
“Is everyone else as scared as I am?” Dean whispered, reaching for Castiel’s hand.
“We’d be crazy not to be,” Michael reassured his mate.
“I think we need a four-way scene tonight after the pups are asleep,” April added softly. “I need to reconnect with my boys, all of you.”
“Even me?” Dean asked, intrigued.
“Of course you,” she grinned. “You keep promising to Sub with me, but you never do.”
Dean grinned back at her, biting his lip. He shot a look at Cas. “Permission to be an annoying brat this evening, Sir?”
“Denied, as always, Pet. Brat at your own risk. I authorize nothing, and you’re in chastity. Consider carefully what you provoke from me.”
Dean snickered and lowered his head to chuckle into the rug. He squeezed Michael’s hand and rolled his head sideways until he was in Michael’s space. Michael huffed in forbearance and made way for his mate. Hovering over Dean’s face, Michael looked reproachfully down at him.
“Some alpha you are,” he muttered. “I thought you were going to teach me a lesson about recklessly endangering myself. Where’s my punishment, Dean?”
“Mmm,” Dean hummed. “Maybe we’ll skip it this time considering that what you did was badass enough to stand on its merits.”
“What kind of message is that to send to my Secondary, Winchester?” Michael teased. “Letting me skip class and clinicals, shrugging off … what did you call it …pathologically stupid behavior that just so happened to flatten the Styne’s cult in one afternoon. Maybe instead of punishing me, you should bake me cookies. Plus, I hadn’t even told you yet, I got a stellar review from Lawrence Memorial and a note of gratitude for my work last week. Jody said I can almost skip the rest of the semester and I’ll still pass in the top half of the class.”
Dean caught Castiel’s eye. “You see what you’ve done to him, Alpha? I told you his head was too big for his shoulders already. Now he’s going to be impossible to live with.” Dean spoke from beneath Michael’s chin, and Michael angled his head to take hold of Dean’s cheek with his teeth. Dean squealed an unmanly screech, summoning all four pups into the cozy center of their tight circle. Soon they were all laughing too hard to continue their discussion and Cas had to scold two of his pups for emulating their O-Pop’s misuse of teeth on flesh.
The intercom buzzed. Fred’s voice carried into their relieved giggling.
“Alpha, as you requested, I’m alerting you that thirty minutes has passed. Would you like me to notify the guard house to begin signing in press representatives or do you need more time?”
Cas extricated himself and sat up. “We’re on our way down, Fred. We’ll set up in the foyer. Don’t let anyone in the house until I’m there to supervise.”
“Very good, Alpha. I will phone the guard house, directly.”
The other three sat up as well, each touching the others, each cuddling a pup. Castiel met their eyes, one by one. “Are we ready for this?”
Reporters, Lupin and Primate alike, swarmed the space before the grand staircase where Michael stood two steps up with Castiel at one shoulder, Dean at the other, and a busy hive of microphones in his face.
“Michael! Have you been training to use Compulsion on alphas?” The reporter shouted over several others with his hand waving high in the air. His voice carried, somewhat ironically.
Michael blushed but shook his head. “Not at all. No one trains for something like this. Most Dominants discover they have that talent by accident, during moments of duress. That’s what happened to me today. I was angry and frightened, and it came over me. I didn’t really control how it happened. What I did control was how I used it. All I cared about was freeing my Packmates. They had my son and my girlfriend. What would you have done? What would any of us have done? I got lucky to find that I wasn’t as unarmed as I thought I was. But I didn’t know that until it happened.”
Hands waved desperately in the air again. Another voice broke audibly through the ruckus.
“But you didn’t stop at simply securing her safety. You went on to threaten alphas and betas, to put them on their knees and humiliate them. Why the excessive force once your family was safe? What were you trying to prove?”
Michael flushed again, but this time in anger.
“Excessive force? What do you know of excessive force?” he blurted. “They were descending on us from every direction! Go back and watch the scene again. I stopped them in their tracks to prevent any kind of excessive force. Don’t put their humiliation on me. They humiliated themselves, acting like rampaging animals instead of people. They all got far less than they deserved. Every step they took onto private property with intent to disrupt was illegal. Putting their filthy hands on an innocent woman and her son was illegal…”
“Is Monroe Styne pressing assault charges? You appear to have broken his nose?”
Michael stifled a giggle and shot a look over his shoulder at Castiel’s stoic face. He reined himself in. “Not that I’m aware,” he answered. “He’s free to do whatever he feels he must as long as it’s within the bounds of the law. It’s still a free country to my knowledge.”
“Are you planning an Omega uprising?”
Michael laughed openly. “No. That’s ridiculous. Stop believing absurdities.”
“Why did the crowd kneel, Michael? Wasn’t this a staged demonstration, organized by your Pack Alpha to…?”
“There was nothing staged about it,” Michael broke in fiercely. “They knelt to a superior force. Just as you would kneel if a Deep alpha commanded you to using all his powers of compulsion to speak to your deeper designations. They knelt because I outrank them in Tertiary status and Secondary moral rectitude. It doesn’t take training or staging or manipulation or brainwashing to act authentically as wolves. We are who we are, all of us.” Michael’s voice echoed from the high ceiling, a crude mimic of his full power, but a notable effect, nonetheless. They all fell still under his vehemence. “A far better question is why am I the only Omega who’s done this in modern times? Our legends are full of Omegas who wield mystical, almost supernatural, powers. I proved today that there’s more to those stories than bedtime tales. So, where have Omegas like me been all these centuries? Why am I the first? I’m nothing special. I’m not some manufactured lab specimen. I grew up in Grand Prairie Texas, for Pete’s sake, on a horse and dog breeder’s estate. I mucked out horse stalls my whole childhood. Cleaned dog kennels. You know why I’m rare? Pure, dumb luck. Because I survived an adolescence that should have killed me, just as it kills countless Omega-Dominants every damn year. But I made it through, and I made it to Kansas where one small group of scientists is following data instead of dogma, and who are teaching the rest of us how to traverse the narrow strip of safe path between the bestial that our nature demands and the human that we aspire to. If I can find my true destiny through their guidance, anyone can.”
Michael curled into Dean’s nude body late that night, after an evening of simple choices and reinforced Pack connections, lying side by side in the big bed. He trembled, and he allowed Dean to hold him. Michael felt unaccountably sleepy. All of his muscles ached. He couldn’t stop shivering.
“Some four-way,” Dean quipped in disappointment over Michael’s head as Castiel approached from the bathroom. “One bloke down with the shakes. One in the cage. That’s fifty percent of the players right there.”
“You, I’m not worried about, my love,” Cas replied coolly. “If I feel like putting you to work this night, then work you will. But Michael deserves our support, and he needs rest more than he needs sex right now.” Cas turned toward his mate as she too emerged from the bathroom, her hair caught up in a towel. “You too, Kitten. Straight to bed. Tuck that lower lip in before I give you something to pout about.”
“Please, sir. I’m not tired” She draped her dewy body into his chest, and he chuckled and kissed her brow. “That’s a lie, love. You’re drained. We’ll put our foursome off until tomorrow, at which time all of us will be better suited to enjoy it fully—all, that is, except Dean, who is still not permitted to partake, more’s the pity.”
“Your false sympathy is patronizing bullshit,” Dean commented. “Keep it to yourself.”
“Mm, someone still seems not to have learned his lesson about speaking respectfully to his Sir,” Cas remarked with weighted promise. Dean smirked into Michael’s shoulder.
“How’re you feeling, champ?” Dean asked his wilted mate. “Anything going on but the trembles? You want me to take a look?”
Michael shook his head subtly. “I ca…can’t seem…to st….stop shaki…ing.”
“Aftershocks, chief,” Dean told him. “Nothing to worry about. Are you cold?” Dean tugged the comforter over Michael’s shoulder and rubbed his back vigorously.
“A little.”
“Cas?” Dean called over his shoulder, breaking the Alpha from snuggling with his mate. “He’s not calming down. Can you take a look?”
“Michael’s got to flush the heavy hormones out of his system, Dean. As long as he’s not feverish, we need to let the process run its course. Hold him and keep him warm. Kitten, climb in behind Michael under the blankets. Let’s surround him in Pack scent and let his body do the rest.”
Cas took April’s towel from her and tossed it lazily into the hamper. He regarded his bed as he approached, and he didn’t need Dean’s subtle nod to decide that his mate needed him more tonight than Dean did, but he agreed with a small smile anyway, appreciating the selfless gesture. He pressed his hand to Dean’s foot beneath the covers as he passed, and he tucked warmly in beside April’s damp body. Her hair left a moist spot on his pillow, and he affected a huff of annoyance before winking at her and flipping the pillow.
“We’ll make up for it all tomorrow, Kitten. You, me, Michael, Dean. Go to sleep, my little one. You’re safe now, right where you belong. No one’s going to touch a hair on your head ever again. I won’t allow it. Michael won’t allow it. Dean won’t allow it. We’ve got you, Kitten, all of us.”
April wrapped her arms around Michael from behind and pressed her cheek to his shivering back. Her face nearly disappeared beneath the comforter. Her voice found its way out. “Cas, did we overdo it earlier, when we fucked? He wasn’t shaking then. I thought he was okay. Is this my fault?”
Michael reached behind his leg and pressed a hand into her hip. Cas laughed softly. “I wasn’t there, Kitten, but I will say that a round with you is often quite rigorous. It wouldn’t surprise me if you made a practice of leaving men shivering, babbling wrecks in your wake.”
Michael snorted. April chuckled uncomfortably.
“You’re joking. That has to mean he’s all right,” she observed.
“He’s fine, April. Your play together earlier this evening hasn’t hurt him. This reaction is normal. He’ll sleep hard and wake up fine in the morning. He can expect to feel more fatigued than usual for the next few days, but it’ll be no worse than a runner who’s just completed a marathon. He isn’t hurt. You’ll have to up your game if you want to get a reaction like this on your own.”
She relaxed and laughed. She turned her head to shoot her mate an exasperated look that he met with a kiss and a smirk. “Go to sleep, April. I love you dearly. Let’s not dwell on today’s events. You’ll tell me if you struggle to process it and to let it go, but from here, I’ve got you.”
“I don’t want you to kill him, Cas. Can you promise me?”
“Unfortunately,” Dean mumbled.
Castiel sighed heavily, aborting his response and snuggling down behind his mate instead. He pressed into her, creating a tight sandwich and feeling too blessed to take anything for granted. Michael’s tremors continued long into the night, but the Omega slept soundly through the worst of the aftershocks. Dean and Cas listened to one another’s breathing, aware that they were both awake as their mates slept. They had too much to think about to succumb to sleep, even with the necessity to meet the morning at a run. Momentum might start slowly, but it took everything in its path along with it…that or crushed unwary victims under its mass.
Only the morning would tell. Even the Alpha couldn’t control everything. So much was no longer in his hands. So much depended on people and how they digested what they’d seen. Cas stretched his right arm along the headboard, over April’s head, over Michael’s, and he found Dean’s bicep. A little bit of jostling brought Dean’s fingers intertwining with Castiel’s at the head of the bed. With a squeeze, Cas closed his eyes and let sleep take him.
Conditioned to awaken before dawn to go out running before daylight traffic hit the pavement, Cas woke not to the usual stillness before day, but to a rhythmic, telltale shifting to his right. His mate’s breathing coarse, raspy, and desperate, Cas lay still with his eyes open in the dark and listened. He let the grogginess of a short night’s sleep linger. He rolled onto his side to face the couple who were too lost in themselves to care that they’d woken the Alpha.
He couldn’t see much in the rich darkness of ultra-early morning, but there was just enough light to make out the outlines of their bodies, pulsing slowly in concert with one another. Michael whined. Fingers gripped April’s hip, highlighted vaguely in the filtered sheen of moonlight through gossamer curtains.
Castiel rested his cheek in his palm and closed his eyes. He sent tendrils of awareness out to his mate and scoured her psyche, half vicarious pleasure and half examination.
“You told me not to do that,” Dean’s sleepy voice broke the near silence from across the languorous couple. “Why is it okay when you do it?”
Michael huffed. He rolled his partner over, right into Cas who had to shift backward to avoid being crushed. With a heavy sigh, Cas slid off the bed and circled it. Looming high over his husband, he set one knee on the bed and leaned down for a kiss.
“Because I’m Alpha,” he whispered.
Dean snorted and pulled him to lie down. “We need a rule that anyone who wants a midnight fuck needs to go find another bed,” Dean grumbled. “This is bullshit.” He cocooned himself in his husband’s warm chest and burrowed back under the warm blankets, seeking sleep.
Cas ran affectionate fingers through his hair. “You should be grateful that Michael’s feeling better.”
“And I will be,” Dean mumbled. “In the morning. When normal people are awake. Not in the middle of the night when Omegas who expended three quarters of their life force and need to recuperate should be sleeping.”
“It is morning, my love,” Cas explained. “Come out and run with me.”
“Not a chance,” Dean grumbled, securing his arms around Cas’ shoulders in a bid to lock him fast as a living pillow.
“It would be good for us both. Does wonders for your stamina. What about cycling? Would you rather ride? The streets are empty this early.” Cas allowed a teasing lilt to touch his tone, and Dean cracked an eye open.
“With the state of my ass right now? You wanna put me on a bike? Sadist.”
“Mmm.”
Michael grunted into the drive of his hips. The intensity of their coupling began to peak. April’s chin pointed high to the ceiling, and she clung to Michael’s shoulders.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “Please, Michael…”
“Oh, brother,” Dean groaned. “Yeah, Michael, for god’s sake, don’t stop. Don’t pay any attention to the other half of the bed who got…what? ...three hours of sleep what with worrying about you all night. By all means, keep going.”
Michael broke into a grin, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. He laughed and lowered his head to seek out a morning-breath kiss from April, who was only too happy to comply. The sounds of their breathing turned guttural and desperate, the bed pulsing beneath them, and they came one right after the other, moaning as they wrapped around each other.
Outside, the sky remained stubbornly black.
Dean rolled his eyes and his body until he lay flat on his back. “Good. Nice. Everybody done now? Can we go back to sleep?”
Michael left a kiss on April’s temple and a gentle smile for her and then he shifted across until his face was right in Dean’s space. “You’re being very rude, Submissive.” Michael’s tone deepened, setting Dean’s wolf on immediate alert. “Apologize to April.”
“Me?” Dean sputtered. “I’m not the one who woke everyone up at some ungodly hour. I’m not the one who took over three fourths of the bed, forcing Cas to find somewhere else to sleep. Why is this bullshit my fault?”
“Because I said so,” Michael replied. “Apologize, and I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
“Fuck that,” Dean shot, rolling back into Castiel’s chest and tugging the comforter over his head. Cas sighed heavily. He kissed the crown of Dean’s head where it peeked out of the blankets, and he extricated himself from the bedding and his lover’s arm.
Heading toward the bathroom, he said over his shoulder. “Apologizing would have been easier, Pet. I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t maim him, Michael. He has a great deal of work to do today.”
“This is bullshit,” Dean protested. He burrowed deeper and lay still and tense, waiting for Michael to put his foot down. “I didn’t do anything.”
Slowly, Michael eased his way off of April’s body. She lazily stretched out languid muscles, yawning luxuriously and snuggling down under the down comforter in bliss, and she closed her eyes. Michael eased the covers off of Dean’s head and shoulders, and he regarded his mate, searching inside him.
“Safeword, Dean?”
“Jerk,” Dean replied.
“Mmm, my brat craves my attention.” Michael licked a stripe up Dean’s cheek. Dean jerked back with a disgusted yelp and rolled over, disappearing under the covers again.
“Your brat craves another two hours of sleep!”
“Mm-mm,” Michael disagreed, following and digging him back out. “That’s not what your wolf is telling me.”
“Fine, then you and my wolf can go make happy noises together somewhere else, and let me sleep,” Dean grumbled. Cas emerged from the bathroom wearing his running togs and carrying a set of ear buds. He left without a word.
“Dean, look at me. Come on, sit up and look at me.”
“Man, it’s three in the morning! Can we please do this when the sun comes up?”
“It’s five-thirty, Dean. Breakfast is in an hour. It’s now or never. And I’m saying we do this now. Sit up.”
Dean reluctantly worked his way to sitting. He glared at Michael. “Why is it that everyone’s always trying to get me to sleep more, and then when I do, you’re all about waking me up?”
“Stop whining. It’s not all that early. You get up on your own at five o’clock often enough.” Michael straddled Dean’s thighs and cupped his face. Dean pressed his cheek into his mate’s palm.
“You’ve got me at breakfast, sir,” Dean grumbled. “Why wake me now too?”
“Because we need to talk and because you need me to take your hands in mine right now and carry you onto firm ground. You lost it on me a little bit yesterday, dude. You remember that? You remember what you said? Give me your hands, Dean. Don’t argue. Do it.”
Dean slumped in defeat. He held his hands out in front of him. Michael took them, holding them, rubbing firm circles on the backs with his thumbs. He held Dean’s eyes, green into green, and his expression sombered appreciably.
“Dean, I’m your Omega. That’s not changing. But that’s for out there, not for in here. In here, I’m your partner and your mate and your Sir. I will give you however many children you desire. I will dedicate my life to making you happy and building a Pack with you. I love you, alpha. I love you so fucking much.”
“But…?” Dean asked.
Michael sat back a little. “But this overlord protective alpha attitude that you and Castiel have going where my life choices are concerned, this alpha imperative authority crap where the two of you sequester yourselves so you can plan out how to protect and train me, that stops right now, Dean. No more discussing my safety or my role without me present. You’re not my keeper. I may not be alpha, but I won’t be gagged.”
Dean’s eyes widened. His mouth dropped open. Then he frowned.
“I wanted to discuss it with you, Michael, but you left! You walked out.”
Michael didn’t rise to the provocation. He licked his lips and centered himself. He shook his head. “I don’t think you even see it, Dean. Alpha privilege runs so thoroughly through your veins that you’re convinced that it has to be alphas who shepherd the Omega population through the scary trials ahead of us, and you can’t even see why that’s problematic.”
“Hierarchy is real…”
Michael set a finger over Dean’s lips. April sat up, studying her lap. “Hierarchy governs how we arrange our household, alpha, nothing more. I don’t need you designing my redemption. I don’t need a savior. I need a partner.”
Dean squeezed his mate’s hands. “We need leaders, Michael. This movement is momentum-fed. Without visionaries and leaders, it’s chaos, and it gets us nowhere.”
“How many Omega leaders do we have right now?” Michael challenged. “None, Dean. We have none. Alphas plan and direct everything, implement everything, herd the bewildered Omegas from one pen to another for their own good, for the vision of Omega empowerment. Don’t you see the disconnect? You wanted me to pay my dues before you would let me wield a sword on my own behalf, and I honored that request. That seemed fair to me. So, I signed up for training and I’m following through, gaining experience wider than my own life, broadening my view. What are you doing to broaden yours?”
“We’re not having this conversation at five in the morning, man.” Dean tugged his hands free and squirmed his way from underneath the Omega. “I pay my dues every day, Michael.” Dean stood next to the bed, sleep-tousled and grumpy. “I can’t be Omega. But I can dedicate my life to researching new approaches to overcome the mistrust and infantilization of Omegas. That’s the best I can do. I’m not blind to alpha privilege. I’m using it as part of my arsenal. You want me to step out and hand it over to Omegas so there’s no conflict of interest? Try it and see how much inertia you hold onto.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Michael argued. “I’m saying that a partnership that includes Omegas in key positions will allow for a far stronger societal edifice than anything alphas can build on their own. I’m not trying to weed you out, Dean. I’m trying to make you see that you’re working from a colonial perspective. But we aren’t savages. We aren’t children. We aren’t heathens in need of saving. And we deserve a voice in our own reclamation. I left you downstairs yesterday because you weren’t going to drop the alpha mask and really talk about what bothered you until your only audience was another alpha. You were too caught up in the A/O dynamic and holding me accountable for behavior that was too alpha for your comfort. It’s not my job to make you comfortable, Dean, not at my own expense.”
Dean ground his teeth together. “It’s not that simple,” he grunted.
“Which part?” Michael shot back. “The part where Omegas are unstable and unreliable?” Michael didn’t say the rest out loud, but the truth that over the last year Dean had been the far more unstable of the two of them. He didn’t need to say it.
“We’re getting there, man,” Dean tried again.
“So you’ve said,” Michael replied.
“Look, I told you. You’re in. There’s no going back now.”
“I know, Dean, and I appreciate the change of heart, but the issue isn’t where I’m allowed to go and who I can talk to, it’s who gets to decide where I go and who I talk to. You and Cas both talk a good game, but you hold your planning meetings without a single Omega in the room.”
“Are you ever going to stop pushing?” Dean decried. “What’s next? Are you going to lead the armies into battle with a machete in your hand?”
“If I have to.”
Dean huffed and shook his head. “We need to get you a hobby, Michael.”
Michael laughed. “Knocking alphas down a peg is my hobby,” he added. He slid to the edge of the bed and reached for Dean’s hands. “It’s a lot to think about, I know. But think about it. Please. The law treats Omegas as incompetent children. The Aboriginals treat Omegas as sexualized children. The Ultra-Traditionals treat Omegas as disabled children. And Castiel treats Omegas as salvageable children. Only the Progressives see Omegas as adults, and they miss the point completely. It has to stop. We’re not children. We deserve a voice. We deserve to be written into our own fight-plan. And as painful as it is to admit, we can’t do that ourselves. We have to be invited in. We hold no power without alpha grace.”
“I thought you were supposed to be flat on your back for a couple of days,” Dean grumped, stepping closer and carding fingers through Michael’s hair.
“Sex invigorates me,” Michael teased. “I feel loads better.”
The moment lengthened. Dean studied his mate with a solemn expression. “Baby, you’re not wrong. I need you to keep in mind how far we’ve come in a very short time. All of our plans going forward include Omegas in positions of design and implementation.”
“I’ll be sure you get a medal,” Michael told him flatly. “Forget about embedding Omegas at the Facility for a second. I’m talking about right here at home. If you and Cas don’t even include Omegas in your own discussions in your own home, what hope is there for the rest of the country?”
“At home is where hierarchy is the most important,” Dean countered.
“Good grief, alpha! Are you being dense on purpose? You two weren’t discussing household hierarchies down there yesterday! You were talking about me, about April, about how much participation you’re ready to allow us in a fight that affects us far more than you! I’m not going to argue that the final decision shouldn’t be in Alpha’s hands, but the two of us should have been a part of the conversation. We’re not your pets.”
Michael was keyed closely into Dean’s psyche, struggling to comprehend why the alpha had his stubborn feet set when Michael had expected a far softer version of his mate now that the two of them were finally allied soldiers enmeshed in the same war. Dean understood. Michael knew he did. The defensiveness was token. Something else was bothering Dean, but Michael didn’t know what it was.
He cocked his head in consternation, studying Dean inside and out. He narrowed his eyes.
“You’re emasculated,” he concluded after a minute or two.
Dean rolled his eyes and reversed into the bathroom with a disgusted huff. Michael followed. “Is that it? You spend all your time at home on your knees either for him or me, and now I’m cutting into your last alpha footprint?”
“I need to prep for breakfast, Sir,” Dean told him shortly.
“Alpha, we can redistribute time.”
“We just did that,” Dean reminded him. “You need more time in your nineteen. I promised to give you that, and I don’t take promises like that lightly.”
“So, we adjust again,” Michael argued. “As far as I know, there’s not a limit to how many times we can adjust the balance.” Dean flipped a towel over the glass wall of the shower and leaned in to turn the water on.
“You’re pale,” Dean diverted. “Go sit down before you fall down.” The backs of Dean’s thighs showed streaks of bruising leading up to fiery damage across his butt. He moved as if it didn’t hurt at all. He slipped into the shower alone and closed the door on his mate. Michael sat on the edge of the bathtub to wait. April squeezed his shoulder as she passed him on her way to the toilet. He touched the small of her back without comment. He felt a little shaky yet. Maybe sitting was the better choice after all.
When Dean emerged again, Michael picked up where he’d left off. “Alpha, we can’t ignore this and expect it to go away. You need to talk to me.”
“The pups are waking up,” Dean told him. He slipped into a soft pair of sweatpants and dried his hair with a towel.
“Damnit, Dean! Talk to me!”
Dean rounded on him. “What do you want me to say? That it feels like I’m losing you? Like I don’t know who you are anymore? That you need Cas and April more than you need me? That you traded me for her?”
Michael stared at his mate, stricken. “Is that what you think?” he whispered in shock.
Dean looked away.
“You don’t need an alpha at all, do you?” Dean grumbled. “A Dom mentor, maybe. A Sub who’ll stroke your nineteen. A girlfriend who lets you forget you’re a wolf. But you don’t need an alpha at all.”
Michael nearly laughed at the absurdity, but he caught himself. Instead, he approached his mate at a ponderous pace, giving Dean the chance to choose whether to meet him or flee. Dean stood still. “Your brat is a beautiful creature, my love, but he doesn’t get a vote this time. This is between your Secondary and mine. So let me make this very, very clear. Dean Michael, I am Omega. And I’m damn proud of that fact. You taught me to take pride in that fact, and I need you in all your aspects. I need my alpha mate like I need air to breathe and food to eat. I cannot live without you. I think your brat has something caught in his craw right now, so I’m going to spend the whole breakfast hour working whatever it is free. Right now, I want you to take me over your knee and remind me what an alpha is for.”
There was pain behind the crinkle of Dean’s eyes, but he sighed and rested his forehead on Michael’s shoulders. “Hold on, I’ll get my gun.”
“Your gun?” Michael asked, confused.
“You told me if you ever asked to be spanked that I should shoot you,” Dean reminded him.
“Wow. Look at me, then,” Michael said softly. “Maybe it’s growth?”
Dean felt weird about it, off-center, like the decision to turn Michael’s ass red was the wrong choice, but he did it anyway. And as his palm stung and Michael writhed on his lap, Dean clawed his way out of his own brat and found his alpha furious at himself, furious at Michael, at Cas, at a sea of thugs who’d threatened his mate’s life and forced a terrifying, irrevocable change. He spanked Michael methodically, powerfully, scrunching his nose into a snarl as he struck. Michael whimpered and clung to the comforter. Dean shifted to drop Michael’s right leg to the floor, and he attacked Michael’s inner thighs as if punishing his own brat.
He was still at it when Cas returned, sweaty and bright red. Cas raised a brow at them, but he didn’t intervene. He chivvied April back into motion in the bathroom where she’d stalled, and he showered the two of them clean.
Dean, back in his Secondary, poured his fear and his anger down his arm into his strikes, knowing full well that it was horribly unfair for Michael to bear the brunt of Dean’s emotions, but never had Lupin hierarchy been fair. Michael Released with an audible pop and a shout, and he cried shamelessly, kicking his legs against the assault.
Dean felt himself swinging back to balanced in his head, in his body, in his psyche, and he slowed to a stop, exchanging painful strikes for comforting caresses. Michael purred beneath him.
The Omega turned his body a little so he could look back up at his mate. “Still think I don’t need you?” he asked rhetorically. Dean slapped his ass.
“Come on, Sir,” Dean goaded. “Breakfast. Am I on my knees this morning?
“I’d like that,” Michael told him seriously. “Will you Sub for me?”
“Always,” Dean agreed with a pinch to Michael’s inner thigh.
“Ouch! Seriously? We’re having a moment here!” Michael slid off and found his feet with both hands rubbing his ass, rubbing between his legs. How did Dean even reach those spots with any force? Dean grinned at him. “Brat,” Michael accused.
“Hey.” Dean reached out and grabbed Michael’s hand, leveraging himself to his feet. “I hear you, Michael. I hear you about giving Omegas a voice. It’s a shift for us, man. But you’re right. I want to hear your input. We need it. It’s time. I want you and April to have a say in your own battle. Let’s figure out what that looks like.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Notes:
Finally, although my platform is tiny in comparison to some, let me just add my voice to the pulsing thrum that's all around, finally bringing people together in shared purpose. Black lives matter. Racial injustice is so rooted in this country that digging it out may never be possible entirely. But we have to keep at it. No justice, no peace.
My commitment is to keep watch over the institutions that pay lipservice to justice when the eyes of the world are on them but have a history of doing nothing lasting once the roars die down. Holding these institutions accountable to change is something we've never effectively done. Let's stay on their asses.
Love to the Pack.
Chapter 15: Thursday, February 7, 2019
Summary:
Disappointment for Gabe and Kali. A Pack meeting that's mostly fluff because I like it when my Pack runs like a well-oiled machine. And a glimpse into what it takes to balance the mysterious Cain.
Chapter Text
Thursday, February 7, 2019
NOW:
He cut a cold and lonely figure against the darkening sky, sitting curled in on himself in the middle of the picnic table’s bench, facing the mirrored stillness of the duck pond. The solitude he sought fit the cold air and the crystal clarity of the twinkling stars, those that flared bright enough to pierce through industry and modernity and an abandonment of the sacred cycle separating day and night. Gabriel was a lone wolf in the wrong century, on the wrong continent, out of phase with his roots and his people. All expression melted from his face, leaving behind lax defeat and eyes so familiar with grief that he needed no voice to communicate his loss.
He wore an old handmade shawl of his mate’s making. And he shivered because it wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
His fist curled around a plastic stick, poking ignobly from either end of his hand.
Sarah approached slowly through the crunchy grass. She expected him to send her away. Certainly, everything about his posture spoke of a desire to be left the fuck alone. But she had to check.
Gabe was family now.
“I brought you a coat,” she told him, stopping opposite of the table where he wouldn’t have to hide the devastation on his face. “You’ll catch pneumonia. Gabe, please.”
Sarah watched a ripple run down his back. A straightening. A cowl pulled over, metaphysical but almost visible. If she could have seen his eyes, she would have caught the moment his mask altered the light reflecting there. He sighed, lifting his shoulders and resettling them at a more respectable angle.
He turned his head slightly. “Thanks.”
Sarah took that as permission, and she picked her way around the table, handing him the coat and taking a cold seat beside him.
He huffed, looking at the coat in his hand. “Anyone else would have laid it across my shoulders,” he remarked. “I’m Omega, you see.”
She chuckled humorlessly, leaving him to shove cold arms into his coat on his own.
“How’s the class going?” Gabe asked, beating her to the opening topic.
Sarah stared at him for a moment and then decided to go with it. “It’s going well. We’re hobbled with the restriction that we can’t do any more demos with our students. We can’t really offer them anything they couldn’t get off the internet, but Sam’s trying to make up the difference with a lot of inside information.”
“Thought Alpha was going to win you some legislation that allows classroom contact,” Gabe observed with his eyes on the cattails at the pond’s edge.
“He’s working on it. Legislation is glacially slow. And even if they change the laws, it’ll take time to implement. It could still be years.”
“Why this, Sarah?” he asked pointedly. He turned to face her. “Why this class? Aren’t there more important aspects between our species that need attention? What about assaults against wolves by apes? Isn’t that more pressing than arming alpha apes to smack their subordinates around?”
Sarah frowned. Her jaw dropped slightly. “I…I suppose. But I’m not qualified to take on that battle. Not yet at least. This class, it fits with my dissertation. It’s a steppingstone. No one’s trying to claim it’s going to fix everything. But the more we apes understand where wolves are coming from, the less we’ll block you getting your packs established.”
Gabe nodded, worked his jaw, and turned back to face the water. Ancient light, caught in the webbing of his amber irises, shone for a moment on its journey from the sun to ricochet off the moon, through frigid empty space, refracting in the physicality of the atmosphere, reflecting from Gabriel’s timeless eyes and on into the depths of the pondwater where microscopic algae waited to capture it like fish in a net and exchange it for movement and heat. Gabe’s eyes flashed, and Sarah felt ephemeral in his presence. Gabe wasn’t of this moment. He was ancient somehow. She’d never seen eyes quite like his before. They were whiskey-amber, not brown, seeming to embrace Omega gold even during staid moments. In his eyes, the metaphysical whirled, so close to being touchable that Sarah could almost smell the scent of the ineffable links binding Gabriel to his family.
“Apes are clueless,” he grumbled, looking down at his lap.
Sarah chuckled again, a little uncomfortable. “I can’t argue with you there,” she admitted. “But they’re trying, Gabe. And they’re learning. It’s very rewarding to see their brains click over. Some of us get it.”
He rolled his eyes.
Sarah eyed the rigid stick in his hand and then averted her gaze. They sat in silence as the moon rose, a tug upon one of them, a mere illumination to the other.
“How’s the dissertation coming?” he prompted.
“I’m getting there. Close to the EBD point.” She clarified at his frown. “Everything But Dissertation. Most of it’s written. I need to finish up my observations with Jess and Michael. And now with Michael’s new evolution, I have to factor that in with how the Pack supports his Secondary. I plan to make the case that he’s only got access to The Voice now because his Omega is getting everything it needs from his mate and the Pack. I’m kind of stuck on how to present evidence for that assessment—on what counts as evidence. It’s tougher since he’s unique than it would be if I had more subjects to compare him to.”
Gabe nodded absent-mindedly, barely listening. Sarah reached across and laced her fingers with his, squeezing his empty hand. His chin quivered, but she pretended not to see it.
“Don’t give up hope, Gabriel,” she advised quietly. A chilly breeze lifted the hair on his brow.
“Ah, the optimism of youth,” he quipped caustically back. He opened his hand and looked down at the drugstore test stick. “If young people had any idea what’s in store for them down the road…” He paused and redirected himself. “But if they did, no one would be brave enough to try for anything. It’s gotta be how it is, I suppose, or we’d have gone extinct eons ago.”
Sarah had no reply to that. She turned at a crunch of stiff grass behind them. Castiel cleared his throat and held aloft a thermos and a stack of plastic cups. Gabe released Sarah’s hand and swept his feet over the bench to face the table and his approaching brother. Cas took the bench opposite the two of them and handed cups out. Gabe inspected his, turning it judgmentally.
“Multi-billionaire can’t afford real teacups?” he griped.
He caught Cas by surprise, drawing a frown from Cas who looked over his own cup in surprise. What difference did it make? Didn’t the tea taste the same? Cas’ frown turned to a scowl, and he snatched Gabe’s back out of his hand before twisting open the thermos and doling out a portion. “Drink it or pour it over your head. I don’t care. I thought you could use some company.” He held the warm cup out, then added, “Kali talked to me.”
“Oh,” Gabe answered. He took the cup and held it in one hand. He glanced down to his lap, down at the plastic strip in his other hand. With no warning, he turned and flung the test strip into the duck pond where it broke the surface into concentric ripples and then bobbed back up to float serenely.
“I’ll thank you not to trash the property, Omega,” Cas chided.
Gabe laughed. God, it hurt to laugh. His face crumpled a bit. He hid by lowering his head and scowling back down at his lap while Cas offered to fill Sarah’s cup with steaming red tea.
Sarah sipped, blowing steam across the surface.
The brothers communed in a place Sarah couldn’t reach. The wind ruffled their hair and stole wisps of steam from the surfaces of their cups. The moon won her freedom from the bare skeletal clutches of grasping winter branches at the property’s perimeter. Sarah watched silently, glancing back and forth from blue eyes to gold, noting when the hue in Gabe’s eyes slipped from amber to full gold. He shook his head, negating whatever Castiel wordlessly asserted. Cas reached a hand across, and Gabe shot his own out to clutch his brother.
“Try again next cycle, Gabriel,” Cas said at last. A simple imperative that sent Gabe’s mourning into utter despair.
“No. We’re done.”
“Give it some time.”
“I said we’re done.”
“Gabe, you’re torturing yourself. This isn’t your fault. It’s no one’s fault. But there are options. Kali’s young enough to be a candidate for fertility treatments. Hell, we adopted two already. Don’t try to tell me those boys aren’t Pack. Found family is still family.”
Gabe’s eyes glazed over. He shook his head slowly again. “The Universe is telling me something, Alpha,” he muttered. “I upset the balance years ago. It’s gotta swing back. I’m not meant to be a father. I was supposed to be a mother, but I spoiled that plan. The worst part is I spoiled it for Kali too. God, Cas, I was so stupid to marry her. What was I thinking? When am I ever going to learn my place? When am I going to stop thinking I can have…”
“Of all the self-absorbed, pathetic drivel,” Cas shot back. “Get over yourself, Gabriel. The Universe isn’t trying to send you a message that it wants you to drown in mud! You two have a glitch in your reproductive capacity. So? Millions of people have crap that goes wrong with their bodies every day. No one gets a smooth road from cradle to grave. If you were meant to be a mother, you wouldn’t have had a beta woman as your True-Mate in the first place. There is no ultimate design—only chance and circumstance. What a pile of horseshit!”
Gabe dropped his brother’s hand. His eyes flashed angry. “What do you know? What have you ever lost that you couldn’t buy back? How many times have you tried to stand up straight and proud and had the Universe crush you under its heel? Am I not trying hard enough for you? Am I supposed to be unquenchable? Why? For you? Because I’m your big brother, and you need me unbreakable? Fuck you, Castiel. It’s not your heart that breaks every cycle. I can’t do it again. I’m done. You hear me? Sometimes, even in the face of our best hopes, the Universe says no. Some people don’t get everything they ask for. I know you can’t relate to that, but believe me, it sucks, and there’s a limit to how many times a person can beg for one simple blessing and be laughed at by the cosmos before he just can’t fucking ask again. I may be a fucking joke to the universe, but I have some dignity left. Fuck you.”
Cas leaned low over the table and snatched his brother’s hand back. “Then stop asking, Gabe. Take it out of the Universe’s hands. Let me…”
”NO!”
“Damnit, Gabriel.”
Sarah looked stricken. She reached a hand out toward where the two men’s hands trembled and clutched. “Cas, now’s not the time.”
“Mind your own business,” he spat, and she startled back in her seat. “I’m sick of the defeatism. I’m sick of having to wade in and collect the towel he keeps throwing in. What have I lost? Do you really want to go there, Gabe? I know what it feels like to lose a son before I ever knew him, same as you. Marina was my family too, Omega. I watched my father stroll right past me as if I was a part of the furniture, so desperate to escape the agony of the same crushing weight I had to learn to control by myself that he didn’t even see me, a scared twelve-year-old kid who needed a dad. I lost my childhood that day, Gabe. I had to become father and mother and Alpha to you when I was twelve years old. I had to sacrifice my youth to figuring out how to muzzle a nightmare. And I’ve got scars from that fight, Gabe, scars you can’t see, scars that I’ll carry forever. Do you have any idea how many times I nearly chose the same exit Father did, how many times I despaired ever learning to tame it? But we don’t get to give up, Omega! I don’t and you don’t.”
Gabe wilted, exhausted. “No,” he said weakly. “I can’t do it again. I’m not giving up on my marriage, Cas. I’m not crawling into a cave and pulling a blanket over my head. I’ll devote everything to this Pack because this family you found is the best thing I’ve had in a long time. But you can’t make me pursue parenthood when it’s ripping my heart out over and over again. I’m not adopting. I’m not signing off on fertility treatments. We’re not going to find a surrogate. You hear me? You don’t decide this for us. And we’re done.”
“Will you at least consider putting your decision off for a while?” Cas prodded. “I know you were both hopeful this round. You’ve both had quite a blow. It’s going to take time to digest.”
“Cas, brother, read my fucking lips. I’m. Done. You want a bigger pack so bad, you go make some more pups. You’re good at it.”
Cas lowered his head in defeat and drew a long breath in through his nose. He squeezed his brother’s hand and then released it. “Will you please come inside? It’s too cold to sit out here.”
“Of course, Alpha. Whatever you say, Alpha. Would you like me to bend over and let you strap my ass for talking back, Alpha?”
Cas set his jaw and shook his head, standing up and swiping his thermos from the table in one motion. “Bring the cups with you when you come,” he added tersely. “I’d hate to lose priceless family heirlooms.”
“Jesus, you two,” Sarah mumbled. Cas didn’t pause. He stomped back up the incline toward the side entrance of the house, dumping the remainder of his tea on the lawn and muttering acidly to himself. Sarah half stood, but Gabe put a hand on her arm.
“Let him go. We aren’t going to be any good for each other right now. He’s got other fish to fry, and all I’m going to do is piss him off further.” Gabe sat staring at the house, bathed in security lights. He could hear faint strains coming from April’s piano. His index finger and thumb traced a line across his lower lip. His eyes had faded back to a muted yellow-amber. Sarah drained her cup and collected Gabe’s as well, stacking them. He glanced at her.
“Regret signing on to this shitshow yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she replied with a nudge of her shoulder and a smirk.
Sarah shivered. Gabe wrapped his hands around hers and blew warm air into his cupped hands to warm them.
“Can I ask why?” She broke the silence. “Why not try a route that doesn’t rely on mother nature’s good will? It was good enough for Jess and Sam. Your brother can pull strings and have …”
“Stop,” he pleaded. “Stop right there. Just…stop. You ever really watched Jess with the twins? You think she’s forgotten who they are, where they came from? What she’s lost? But she and Sam are young. They aren’t used up and riddled with bullet holes. They’ve still got resilience enough to hide that pain from their kids. Doesn’t mean they don’t feel it. Just means they can stuff it in a box so that it’s not the loudest fucking instrument in the band. Me? I’m all outta boxes, kiddo. I can’t do that to some poor kid who didn’t do a goddamned thing to deserve it.”
Sarah pulled her hands free and wrapped her arms around the Omega, resting her cheek on his shoulder. He froze for a breath and then reciprocated, holding her tight in the darkness.
“Whatever you need, Gabriel. I’m here.”
“Need a rewind button,” he grunted, stuffy as his sinuses fought the urge to well into his eyes and nose. “Got one of those?”
Sam followed the music. He scooped Hank up into hands big enough to wrap the boy’s torso as he crossed through the foyer, relieving a beleaguered Eunice with a firm nod and a wink to thank her. Sam carried his son, adjusting the goggle-style glasses across his nose. Glasses on a twenty-month-old pup were an exercise in patience and persistence. Hank didn’t mind them, generally left them alone, but he was boisterous. It wasn’t like the things came with thumbtacks. Hank pointed toward the end of the hall where the Pack was beginning to gather. Sam caught movement down the perpendicular hall to his right, but by the time he looked, Kali had disappeared into her suite, closing the door firmly behind her.
“Is there news?” he asked quietly as Jess rose to meet him and lift her face for a kiss.
“News?” she asked.
Sam nodded down the darkened hallway, silent now.
“Oh.” Jess collected Hank, unconsciously straightening his glasses as she settled him on her hip. She shook her head sadly.
“Damn,” Sam said under his breath. It hurt. There was a tightness under his ribcage. He wrapped an arm around his mate and drew her close, burying his nose in her hair.
“Gabe said he’s not putting Kali through another round. He’s pulling the plug.” Jess spoke to Sam’s breastbone.
“Mama! Down!” Hank wriggled his way free in a controlled slide down his mother’s body. She supported him until he plunked clumsy feet on the floor and then released him to scamper away to the open space beyond the piano where the other pups played. Jess let her mate hold her. Their bond fizzled and sparked in their heads, full of disappointments neither would be giving voice to. What was there to say? Had the result come out differently, it still would’ve hurt. But not like this. Something about a lonely pink stripe on a plastic stick felt like an unfathomable chasm in the Pack. It felt to Sam and Jess like a sticky, dense portion of that darkness oozed off their bodies, adding depth to a communal bereavement that no victory elsewhere would ever dent.
“Sam.”
Sam kissed the top of his mate’s head and nodded in acknowledgment of his brother’s summons. “Yeah. Coming, alpha.”
“You heard,” Dean confirmed.
“Just now. Are they sure? It’s early yet. Maybe it’s just not registering.”
Dean shook his head. “No dice. Doc says it’s no go.”
“Where’s Gabe?”
“Outside. Picnic table,” Dean told him.
“Alone?” Sam asked in surprise, peering into the darkness. The windows offered nothing but blackness and reflected cheerful light.
“Give him some time, man. He had his hopes pretty pinned on this round. He needs some time to himself.” Dean drew Sam into the room, heading toward the cart in the corner. He fumbled a few cubes into a tumbler and splashed a dose of the good stuff over them. He handed the glass to his brother.
Sam grimaced and looked around. He took the drink without really looking. “Michael could go out and sit with him. He probably needs another Omega. Doesn’t need to be alone, I know that much.”
“Cas said to leave him be for right now,” Dean advised. “Alpha’s spoken, Sam. Just leave it. We’re not gonna let him spiral. Michael’s on alert. Come on. Cas is prickly. He’s waiting.”
Sam took a sip, straining the cool liquor through his teeth before it coated the inside of his mouth and shifted from cool to warm. He followed his brother, counting heads as he crossed the room. Everyone but Kali and Gabriel were here, scattered about on the floor and furniture. Pups ambled about in the middle, ringed by adults who served as bumpers of a sort, shepherding them into a secure flock.
“JT, hand that to me,” Cas corrected stiffly, holding his hand out for the toy his nephew had just pounded Kat’s hand into the carpet with while she protested at her highest volume. He took it from the wide-eyed pup and tucked it into his pants pocket before striding right on past. JT’s head pivoted, watching the Alpha leave with his prize. Kat took the opportunity to plant her palms in JT’s back and send him sprawling.
Michael swept his daughter off the floor and waved Sam across to comfort the boy. “Can we get on with it, Cas?” Michael asked. He chose a chair some distance from where Sam settled with a protesting JT. “They’re getting restless. We need to get them bathed and in bed. Everyone’s here, everyone who’s coming.”
Cas nodded. He signaled April to stop playing, and she slipped off the bench and onto the floor where Jimmy, Emma, and Hank all scrambled toward her. Alex collected the toys his siblings abandoned and entertained himself with his new treasures.
Sam cuddled his son, commiserating with him and kissing his elbows in sympathy. Cas strolled by, casually handing Sam the wooden dowel he’d confiscated only moments before. Sam held it away from JT’s reach. “Do we hit people with our toys, John Thomas?” he prompted.
“Won’t, Daddy. Please?”
“Tell Kat you’re sorry.”
JT frowned across the distance. “She hurted me,” he protested, baffled.
“I understand that,” Sam told him patiently. “I saw. She was wrong to push you. But you were wrong too when you hit her hand. Do you want your cousin to be hurt?”
“No,” the toddler admitted glumly.
“Then are you sorry that you hurt her?” Sam lowered his head until he and JT could both watch a sheepish Kat from the same level.
“Yessir.”
“Good boy,” Sam praised warmly. “Now tell Kat you’re sorry.”
JT’s eyes hit the floor. “Sorry, Kat,” he mumbled.
“Good boy,” Sam praised again, lifting him into a hug.
Michael had Kat facing outward. He smiled across at his nephew. “All right, sweetheart,” he picked right up. “Your turn. Let’s give JT a hug, shall we? Pushing him down on the floor is naughty, Punkin. He could have been hurt.” Kat scowled and shrugged her body in an attempt to extricate herself from Michael’s grip, but he had her fast. He crossed quickly to where Sam held JT on his lap. Michael made a spectacle of hugging his nephew, helping Kat whether she wanted the hug or not. JT giggled and Kat squealed in protest, kicking her feet fruitlessly.
Michael laughed as he pulled her free. “If you don’t want to have to hug a sorry, don’t push people,” he reasoned firmly. To JT, Michael explained, “Kat’s too little to say the words, champ, but she knows what she did. She’s not going to get away with being mean. Don’t you worry.” He wasn’t especially concerned about presenting too stern a face for the pups in their misbehaviors. Not yet. The reins would grow tighter as they got older, but for now, simple consequences spoke louder than a harsh correction. And Kat hated to be manhandled. It was a fair consequence.
Alex followed when Michael took his chair again. As he climbed into Michael’s lap, Kat escaped back to the floor.
Cas waited beside the piano with a tablet in his hand. “Are we ready?” he asked. Was that an air of impatience? Sam cuddled JT close. Six pups under two years of age in the room, and the Alpha expected a quiet audience? Sam shared a look with April. They might get lucky, but more likely, Castiel’s meeting would be awash with unavoidable interruptions.
Portia trotted up to Sam’s knee and nosed at JT’s hand until the pup wriggled free to play with the dog. April slipped her shirt up over her head, baring her nursing bra, and enticed Emma and Jimmy with their favorite targets. Michael followed suit, silencing Alex for the moment. Hank watched, mesmerized at Michael’s knee, stroking Alex’s hair in a soothing, nurturing mimicry of a parent. Kat ignored everyone to sulk with her face hidden in the corner of a sofa, chewing on the end of her sleeve.
Cas leaned down and brought her up, bouncing her with her back to his chest and an arm under her little bottom. Her feet dangled.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll make this quick. We have a lot going on in the next week, and our usual Friday Pack dinner won’t include the whole Pack. Thank you all for making yourselves available tonight.” Cas met everyone’s eyes, turning at the last to include Cain, standing like a bodyguard behind the Alpha’s left shoulder. Cain nodded.
Cas turned his attention to Sam. “From all reports, the Chicago convention was a rousing success. Registrations are up. Violent incidents are down. Do you two have anything of note to add?” Cas cut his eyes to Dean with his brows up. “Anything we need to be aware of?”
Dean licked his lips and looked to Sam. Sam chuckled. “No, sir,” Sam answered. “Was our smoothest Con yet. The only issue is running short on space. Charlie is looking at convention center venues for next year instead of hotels. We need more room. Dean’s seminar on the new college coursework from his book was a hit, Cas. People are hungry for detailed information. We’re seeing a rash of new Pack registrations in each city we’ve visited following every convention. We’re going to watch Chicago closely. All in all, it looks good. Real good.”
Sam left Dean’s tantrum out. Michael knew about it, but it was over and dealt with now, and Sam had promised to let it lie unless Dean showed symptoms of needing his husband involved. So far, Dean acted solid. Some things didn’t need a federal case made, especially not this close to the end of Dean’s two weeks of obligatory morning swats. But Sam caught the speculative look Cas shot at Dean. He knew something must’ve happened. Sam was out of it though. He was keeping his promise to his brother. The rest was between Dean, Cas, and Michael.
Cas nodded, satisfied. “Good work, boys,” he complimented. “Get your numbers to Donna. We’ve got a budget deadline coming fast, and she needs the receipts. Congratulations on another record-breaking convention season. It will be refreshing to have you home every weekend. Please remember, we’re adding Keller content next season. It’s going to get far more complicated to coordinate. Let’s keep the momentum going.”
Dean grinned. “And here you thought the conventions were a waste of time.”
Cas smiled back and nodded. “I’m happy to be wrong, love. They really are a triumph. Our ability to get messages out directly to our people is invaluable. You were absolutely right, and I was wrong. Thank you for your persistence.”
“Dude, in front of witnesses and everything,” Dean laughed. “I’ll mark my journal.” Dean feigned a stylus and a notepad: ”February seventh,” he joked. ”Alpha admitted he was wrong about something…”
Cas laughed gamely, then held a hand up to quiet the murmuring room. “Put a star next to that entry, Dean. It will be one of very few. Moving on. We have a birthday imminent.”
“Alex turns one in two days,” Michael told the room. “Don’t you, Ace?” The pup ignored his mother, intent on draining every drop.
“Yes,” Cas agreed. “And unfortunately, we won’t all be home to celebrate. So, while we will be marking the date with a special dinner, I’ve decided to postpone his party until after the weekend so April and Cain can participate. Birthdays are important in this Pack. Where possible, I want us all in attendance.”
“I’ll arrange everything, sir,” Michael agreed. “I have some plans for toddler-friendly activities. But we can keep this one small. Alex doesn’t care yet.”
“Good. Thank you, Michael.” Cas consulted the tablet he had set on April’s piano, thumbing across it and typing swiftly with one hand. “April, you and Cain fly out to Los Angeles tomorrow morning. You’re with me tonight. I intend to send you off fully Balanced.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cas turned to address Cain. “Is her schedule in Los Angeles firmly set? I don’t want any uncertainty. No empty space that might allow a spiral to take root. She needs to know from moment to moment where she’s supposed to be and what she needs to focus on. You’ve woven in enough breaks to see to her stability?”
Cain, channeling an army quartermaster giving a daily report, answered crisply. “Yes, Alpha. We’re all set. A link to her schedule is on my calendar. It’s a good mix of work and down-time. I think she’ll enjoy the gown fitting. I’ve set that in between studio sessions. If it turns out to be a stressful engagement for her, I have the flexibility to postpone the second work session.” Cain spoke with confidence. He glanced at April, but he spoke to Castiel. “You, Dean, and Michael will join us Sunday morning. It’s only a couple of days of separation. In any other event, I would hasten to remind you that she’s been successfully separated from you for far longer. But this is the Grammys. It’s bound to be nerve-wracking. We’ll make it a point to check in with you frequently.”
“Thank you,” Cas said. “I’m more of a nervous wreck than she is, and I appreciate the consideration. How closely will she be tied to Nicholas? She needs breaks from him. He’s a terrible influence.”
Cain smiled a rare show of amusement. “I’ve got Nick on a very short leash, sir. The two of them won’t be alone together at all. But I promised him he could help her engage with several collaborative connections. It’s why we’re flying in early, after all. But where I am not immediately available, Mark will be there. Nicholas isn’t going to lead her into mischief.”
Cas grimaced for a second but reined himself swiftly in. “That man,” he added. “Sometimes I don’t know whether to clap him on the back or wring his neck. Don’t trust him for a second, Darius. Everything you know of brats, multiply that by twenty where Nicholas is concerned.”
“I know him well, Alpha. We’re associates from way back. He won’t be pulling anything over on me.”
“See that he doesn’t,” Cas told the alpha with a world of dark promise on his face.
“No, Sir,” Cain replied calmly. Cas held his eye for a moment longer than was comfortable. When he transferred his gaze to his mate, she was blushing.
“Do you understand me, April?” Cas asked. “You’re not a child. If Nick suggests anything that you know I would not approve, your ass is on the line as well as his. I expect Cain to correct you, and you’ll answer to me as well.”
“Yes, Alpha,” she cooed, sparking a hot flush high on his cheeks and a dilation of his eyes that was apparent all the way across the space to where Sam sat with Jess.
Michael cleared his throat.
“Yes,” Cas agreed with a start, breaking his eye-fucking and reverting his attention to his tablet. “Yes. Which brings us to Sunday evening. The after-party Nicholas is hosting begins at four o’clock. The ceremony will be live streamed since each nominee is allowed only one guest. Dean and I have made a decision about our attendance on Sunday. Please bear with me. Let me explain…”
Sam sat up straighter, looking around and noting that everyone seemed to be frowning. Explain? What was there to explain?
“We have decided that I will escort my husband to the after-party. Cain will join us once he’s handed April’s custody over to the event security team. Cain, you’ll be sure to keep both eyes on her between the limo and the venue door and remain a close enough distance to intervene should her safety be in question at any point before she enters the theater. Stay off-camera, please. It’s critical that April appear not to be heavily guarded.”
“Yes, sir. I have my route mapped. I can parallel her from just behind the cameras.”
“Good.”
“Alpha?” April asked in confusion. “You’re not coming? But…you’re my mate.”
Cas smiled softly. “I’m not sending you in alone, my kitten. Michael will be your escort.”
Everyone froze. “Michael?” she asked, seeking clarification. “Two Omegas? Together without an alpha? Without a beta, even?”
Michael’s frown deepened. “Castiel…”
“Yes, Michael? Do you not wish to accompany April to her first Grammy award ceremony? I won’t force you. I assumed you would enjoy it.”
Michael adjusted Alex on his lap. The pup was half-asleep, but he scrabbled for the nipple with his mouth gaping and dribbling. Michael turned him and offered the other side. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to. I’d love it. But it’s not a good idea. If you don’t want to go with her, then surely the better choice is Cain. She needs an alpha…”
“No, she doesn’t,” Cas intervened stoutly. “Nick is bringing Jenn, as usual, so there will be an alpha close-by. But I’ve vetted the venue’s security. Most of the attendees are celebrities. All of them travel with bodyguards. All of them share the same vulnerabilities. How ridiculous is it to assume that Celine Dion can attend without her own security, but April Winchester needs a bodyguard?”
“Celine Dion, Alpha?” Dean quipped.
Castiel ignored his comment, but he dropped Kat into Dean’s lap. “I asked you to bear with me. Please understand, this decision isn’t arbitrary. Nor is it spur of the moment. This is part of a larger effort to demonstrate the competence of Omegas who are fully balanced by their home packs. Both of you have agreed to participate in that messaging. Both of you begged, in fact, to participate. Can anyone offer a single cogent argument as to why April shouldn’t walk into that auditorium on the arm of her boyfriend?”
“Just the two of us?” Michael gaped. He stared at April. She stared back, speechless.
“We will be watching from Nick’s party, and win or lose, we’ll see you directly after,” Cas added.
No one said anything for several moments.
“Pete?” Michael prompted. “It’s your nomination. It should be your choice.”
She tore her eyes from Michael and addressed Cas. “Are you sure, sir?”
Cas softened. He knelt in front of her, catching Idgie when the pup vaulted for him. “Michael’s right, Kitten. It’s your decision ultimately. If you aren’t ready for this, we’ll put it off until your next Grammy nomination.” His devout faith that there would be a next time anchored the tone of his statement. April had no defense against him like this.
Jimmy fussed in April’s lap, rubbing his eyes. April pulled him to her shoulder to snuggle without breaking from her Alpha’s eyes. Sam watched, feeling the warmth, the trust between mates. He reached for his mate’s hand. Jess felt it too. She dropped her head to her mate’s shoulder, looking on with a soft kind of reverence.
“You think I’ll get another one?” April asked at a whisper.
Cas chuckled softly and cradled her cheek in his palm. “You’re just getting started, beautiful.”
She blushed again and looked at Michael. “Will you be my escort, Michael?” she asked shyly. “I won’t win. But I’d like to have you there all the same. You’ve supported every step I’ve taken. And you do look amazing in a tuxedo.”
Michael laughed. “I’d be honored,” he answered. They both flushed again and looked away at the same time, shy with the whole Pack’s eyes on them. “Glad Gabe isn’t here,” Michael mumbled. “He would never let me live this down. Think I felt less awkward asking a senior alpha to prom when I was a freshman.”
“So, we agree?” Cas prompted as he stood back up and resumed his post by the piano. “This is both a personal and a Pack matter. If anyone feels reservations, I need to hear them now. Dean?”
“It’s a risk,” Dean told them, more a catalogued statement than an argument. He felt that bringing the arguments that they’d unearthed in private out into the open with the full Pack might absolve him of arranging Michael’s participation without the Omega’s input once again.
“There’s little risk to their safety,” Cas disagreed.
“No, not that. What if she has an anxiety attack? What message would that send? It could spiral into a full-blown fall in public. This could blow up in our faces.”
“Michael can help her through if that happens,” Cas argued. “He’s nearly through his classwork. He’s logged months of clinical work.”
“You want him to treat her like a patient? At the Grammys?” Dean returned, unsettled.
“Dean, the premise behind treating patients is the same as responding to a Secondary attack at home. If he has the skills to handle it in clinic, he can do it anywhere, with anyone. You know me better than to imagine I would let my mate scurry off somewhere while she’s unsupported. Michael knows what to do.”
“Are you expecting him to speak to the reporters?” Dean asked.
“He’ll be at her elbow along the red carpet,” Cas responded. “I expect him to encourage April to stand in the spotlight she earned, but yes, if they address him directly, which I fully expect some of them to do, he should answer.”
Dean bit his lower lip. His commitment to Michael’s public campaign was being tested, and though he’d already signed off on the plan, things looked far more dangerous with Michael and April looking on. He glanced at his mate. Sam had his lips pressed closed, his eyes the only part of him in motion. Tension oozed into every space. Dean and Michael disappeared inside their bonds, both of their faces twitching with the friction. At last, Dean took a deep breath and broke the connection. “I’m with you, guys,” he confirmed. “Scares me. But he does look fucking amazing in a tux.”
“Jesus, Dean. Language!” Michael griped.
Dean grinned.
“New Pack rule!” Castiel announced spontaneously. “What number are we on?”
“We have seven, sir,” Cain answered in a sycophantic purr that pulled a possessive growl right out of Dean.
“Seven. Right. Rule number eight. No swearing in the presence of children.”
“Seriously?” Dean protested. “What consequences?”
“The usual, Dean,” Cas replied smoothly. “I will allow consequences to be at the Top’s discretion, but I advise that corporal punishment is my personal preference.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Fine. Be sure to tell Gabe. He’s worse than I am.”
“I will see to it,” Sam assured his brother.
“Thank you, sir,” Michael said with a smug look to Dean.
“Wait, wait. What counts as a swear word?” Dean interjected just as Cas began to move on.
Cas rolled his eyes. “There’s a quick way to answer that, Pet. Keep swearing and find out.”
“That’s not fair! What about damn? Can I say bitch? Ass?”
Everyone turned at the voice from the doorway. “Think of it this way, Dean,” Kali added blandly. “Any word you expect Michael to be proud to hear his pups repeat back to us as their first word is probably fine.”
Sam stood up and strode across to wrap his arms around her. His sniffle echoed off the high ceiling. Kali melted into him. Everyone waited patiently, hearts mourning with their Packmate’s loss. Sam released her after a while. He pressed back with his hands tight on her shoulders. She granted him a watery smile and a nod. Sam ushered her in with a hand across her shoulders, setting her beside Michael and leaving her with a kiss to the top of her head. She squeezed his massive hand as he left. Michael let Alex amble across his lap to his aunt. She touched the soft curling hair on his head. He touched her cheek with a curious expression, studying her face.
Cas gave her a moment to find her footing, and then he cleared his throat and drew everyone’s attention back. “All right. While we’re gone, Samuel, you’re in charge. I expect to be notified if anything comes up that deserves my attention. Please use your best judgment. You have my full support and my trust.”
“Thank you, sir. You can depend on me,” Sam answered. He felt surprisingly proud to hear Castiel’s confidence. They would only be gone for a few days, but somehow, being left with the helm felt momentous, even with the unlikelihood of any debacles while the alphas were away.
“The award ceremony is on Sunday night. Monday, all of us have engagements in L.A. We’ll be back on Tuesday. April and I will celebrate our anniversary shortly after, which of course means an impending cycle for us both. Advance apologies to the Pack if either of us grow snippy in the next week.” Cas grinned at his mate. She snickered, turning her focus on re-situating her shirt and encouraging the pups to shuffle off and play. The pups would get cranky soon, but if she could keep them awake a little longer, they’d make it to bath time and then crash hard when their pajamas went on.
“Dean, Michael, if you two would like, April and I agree that you’re welcome to join us after day one of our cycle. That’s assuming all of your responsibilities have been met, and you’ve secured care for the pups.”
Michael laughed. “Hear that, Cinderella?” he joshed toward his mate. “We can go to the ball if we finish our chores.”
Cas grunted and turned on him. “You’re already attending the ball, Omega. Mouth off enough to irritate me, and you won’t be going anywhere. It’s a good faith invitation. Accept it or don’t, but don’t push me.”
“Sorry, sir,” Michael said. He lowered his face with a frown. In the week since his explosive introduction to Omega compulsion, Michael devoted himself to hanging on Castiel’s every word. He’d been attentive to guidance and committed to cementing his roles, both inside and outside the house until each designation began to flow smoothly, one to another. And Cas had noticed. The Alpha met Michael’s newly minted dedication with a matching commitment to guiding him. Yesterday, for example, as Michael approached the alphas with the Q4 Pack expenditures report, tabbed and highlighted for easy reading, Cas halted him in the doorway.
“On your knees, Omega!” he’d snapped without warning.
Michael’s eyes hardly widened as he dropped gracefully to the floor with his folder still in his hand, and content eyes on his Pack Alpha. Michael waited calmly, no sign of impatience or undue submission, simply a peaceful, reverent deference befitting an Omega in the presence of authority. Cas had observed his posture, scenting the air while Dean watched on without comment. And then he’d nodded. Michael rose just as smoothly and carried on with his report, unharried.
Simple praise followed, and a tender touch to Michael’s wrist. And that was it.
When Dean brought the moment up later with Michael in private, the Omega smirked. He said that the knowledge that what his wolf was capable of, that in need he could wield a nearly supreme power, allowed him to release the struggle against everything his Omega needed. Simply knowing that his Pack acknowledged and honored his Tertiary strength took the pressure off his other designations.
Dean thought he understood, even as counterintuitive as it might seem. Dean experienced something very similar with people who saw him as Deep alpha first and Sub second. Having that groundwork as footing let him show a more vulnerable side when he needed to without risk of imprinting an impression of weakness. It freed him.
Michael had shifted right from kneeling placidly to reporting the Pack’s year-end net gain so smoothly, he might have been a veteran at Omega balance. All of the discomfort at being Omega seemed to evaporate overnight, leaving him snarky, occasionally grumpy, often bossy, but unequivocally Omega.
“Any other business to discuss?” Cas moved on. “Dean?”
“I’m cool,” Dean assured him. “Oh. We need to save a couple of hours on Monday to Skype in to the Project O planning board’s meeting. Max has made real progress. It’s his first meeting at the helm. We need to be there to support him.”
“Add that to my calendar, please. Cain?” Cas prompted. The man had hardly moved, still in battle stance behind the Alpha with his arms crossed over his chest.
“I assume I’m in charge during your cycle?” he confirmed.
“Only while Dean’s likewise indisposed,” Cas told him. “Same as always. We’re not out of town though. I expect to be notified if anything untoward happens. I’m not a teenager. My Ruts don’t incapacitate me to a degree that makes me incoherent. Call me if you need me.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“Anything else?”
“No, Sir.”
“Sam,” Cas prompted. “Anything we need to discuss?”
“Gabe’s sitting outside alone in the cold, sir. May I be excused to go check on him?”
“Please. Take him something hot to drink in case he refuses to return to the house.”
“Good idea,” Sam agreed, wasting no time in stepping over Portia on his way to a quick trip to the kitchen. She followed with her tail waving.
“Kali,” Cas continued. “Anything to add, dear?”
She shook her head mutely. Cas left her to her silence. He proceeded through each Pack-member in order of rank, addressing Kate before his own mate, a move that surprised the young Ozzie. She wasn’t Pack. It wasn’t her meeting. She had thought her attendance was as childcare alone. Kate had a habit of blending herself into the background whenever her presence was required in the public rooms. She never spoke unless spoken to, and even then she only uttered the barest minimum that was demanded of her.
“Nothing, Alpha,” she whispered toward her toes.
Cas paused on Kate for a beat. “Omega, while Dean is in Los Angeles, you may rely on Sam and Kali if you need anything. We won’t often leave you with no alphas in the house. It’s rare for all three of us to be gone at the same time. If you need an alpha in our absence, I’m leaving contact information for an alpha I trust. Ask for help if you need it. You’re not expected to power through if you falter. In fact, I won’t hear of it. I have a paddle with your name on it if we come home to find you in distress without your having notified anyone. Am I clear?”
“You, sir?” she asked nervously, looking to Dean. “Not my alpha?”
“Me, Omega. Dean is your foster, but I am Alpha.” His voice crackled with that indefinable compulsion that penetrated consciousness and activated instinct. His eyes offered no cushion, just steadfast solidity.
“Yessir,” she mumbled.
Kali got up and crossed to her, taking her hand. “We’ll be fine, Cas. Leave her therapy schedule with me, and I’ll see to it. I don’t have any pressing projects at work right now.”
Cas nodded. Kali could look after Kate, but Sam would be looking after Kali. She might find distracting herself by focusing on Omega care worked to get her mind off her disappointment, but she was in no condition to be left to her own devices. Kali wasn’t nearly as unaffected as she appeared, and she had Gabriel to support as well. Cas regretted sending Dr. Barnes off to Dallas to shore up the shaky leadership there. She had a way with distraught Omegas; had more than once proved essential in helping Gabe process the thunderstorm in his head. Cas had no doubt she could help Kali too. But she was gone.
Tessa, maybe?
“Kitten, sweetheart, I speak for the Pack when I wish you best of luck on Sunday. You deserve all the accolades. Anything to add before we adjourn?”
“Thank you, sir. No, nothing to add. Just, if we don’t get these little ones in bed soon, we’re going to have a six-way meltdown on our hands.” April hauled herself off the floor with Jimmy at her shoulder. “Jess, are you staying the night? We’ve got room in the tub for all of them.”
Jess replied tiredly, “Yes, Sam’s not going to leave Gabe until he’s sleeping. We’ll stay, run home in the morning for a change of clothes. We’ll just stay over the weekend. He’s needed here.”
“Off you go, then. Meeting dismissed. Thank you, everyone.” Cas helped situate little ones in secure arms, relieved to have managed a late meeting without losing out to weary pups or a spark of bickering between Dean and Cain. In short order, Jess carried Hank while Kali took JT. April had both Jimmy and Emma. Kate took Kathleen wordlessly from Dean, avoiding his eyes, even when he rested a palm across the back of her neck for a moment and sent comfort down along his bond with her. Alex clung tightly to Michael.
“I won’t let you down, Sir,” Michael assured Cas as the ladies worked their way toward the nursery. “I know taking your place at the ceremony is about more than just which of us escorts Pete. And I know it’s a gamble. We’re going to play our roles well. We’re going to make you proud. I promise.”
Alex grumbled and rubbed his eyes, annoyed at too much grownup talk, impatient for his routine.
“I have no doubts whatsoever, Michael,” Cas told him with a gentle stroke along Alex’s head. “I trust you both. Off with you now. Our boy isn’t going to make it through his bath as it is. Good night, Ace. Be good for O-Pop. I’ll come up and tuck you in.”
Michael hesitated for a moment and then shyly left a chaste kiss on Castiel’s cheek before following the others down the long hallway toward the stairs. Dean smirked at Cas’ surprise. He chuckled good-naturedly and joined his husband, wrapping an arm around Cas’ waist. Cas touched the spot on his cheek and watched Michael disappear. That boy was full of surprises.
“Oh. Cain. A moment before you go, please,” Cas called as he broke from his musing to catch the alpha.
“Sir.” Cain turned and strolled back into the room.
“I need your assurance that you have arranged to see to your own balancing before you accompany my mate halfway across the country. To my knowledge, you’ve not scened lately, and your scent is spiky. Do I need to arrange something for you?” Cas was relaxed, standing easily in Dean’s half-embrace, but there was no missing the authority in his question. “You’re not flying until your scent evens out. That’s non-negotiable. I will intervene if I must.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Cain agreed, deferential as ever. “I have an engagement tonight, as it happens. I realize it’s getting late, but these fellows, they aren’t available during regular office hours. Strictly after hours. They all have day jobs, you see.”
“Pushing it kinda close there, aren’t you?” Dean frowned, looking at his watch. “Who are these guys? Private contractors?”
“Not contractors, no,” Cain told him, far less polite in his demeanor than when addressing Cas. “Friends of friends. It isn’t a business arrangement. Rather, it’s…mutually beneficial. A club with exclusive membership. Selective.” Cain’s eyes trailed across Dean’s shoulders before boldly meeting his eyes.
“I would feel better,” Cas told him. “If you hadn’t waited until the last moment. You two leave first thing in the morning. Can you at least assure me that you will be physically capable of meeting your responsibilities tomorrow? We don’t have time to nurse a wounded alpha.”
“Sir, with all due respect, waiting until the evening before a separation between you and your mate is your modus operandi with April as well, is it not? I can promise you I’ve made my limits crystal clear to my compatriots. I shall be fresh and well-rested in the morning, and I’ll be fully balanced as well.”
“Do we know these guys?” Dean asked.
“Probably,” Cain answered. “Is there anyone in the region you don’t know? But if it’s all the same, alpha, and if I may be allowed a modicum of privacy, assuming you trust my judgment in selecting my own partners, I would very much prefer to keep my associates’ identities to myself.”
“Dean, leave him be,” Cas answered Dean’s not-yet-voiced retort. “He knows what we expect, and he knows there will be severe repercussions if he doesn’t live up to his responsibilities.” To Cain, he added. “I do trust your judgment. And I appreciate your preparations. Off with you, then. Enjoy yourself. Be safe. Text me when you get home, even if it’s very late. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Cain bowed his head with a stiff, formal dignity and reversed his way out like a butler.
Dean felt Cas take a bracing breath and steel himself.
“Gabe?” Dean asked, hoping to skip over the niceties and get to the point. He nudged his Alpha into motion, leaving the conservatory empty. Dean flicked the light off as they left.
Cas shook his head. “I want to, Dean, but I need to give him some space. I feel better knowing Sam’s with him. At least I know he isn’t going to harm himself tonight. Once the worst of the disappointment eases, I’ll set him up with a therapist again. Would you ask Tessa for recommendations? Now that Pam’s gone, I’m at a loss. She was so good with him.”
“Gabe’s a lot stronger than he used to be,” Dean reminded Cas. “He’s got a whole Pack at his back now, not just one brother. He’s going to get through this. Yeah, I’ll ask Tessa. Call Pam too. She’s bound to know someone suited to Gabe’s trademark brand snark-and-distract technique.”
“God, Dean, you should have seen him. He’s devastated. I don’t know why he’d set his hopes so specifically on this cycle, but he was convinced their bad luck was over. I was thrown right back to what it felt like to sit with him after his miscarriage—like there’s nothing left but a shell.”
“He’s still in there, man,” Dean stated. He turned Cas to face him at the foot of the stairs and set a palm on each of Cas’ shoulders. “He’s crushed, but he’s not broken. We’re going to see him through. Okay? Him and Kali both. He’s in the best hands in the world right now. Sam won’t let anything else happen to him tonight. Not tonight or tomorrow or any other day. Because he’s Sam Fucking Winchester, and he’s a fucking saint. You gotta trust that the Pack we built is solid enough to hold us up, Cas. Have some faith that we built it right. This is what a Pack is for.”
“Yeah. I know. It hurts. I wanted this so badly for them. They’ve had enough of getting the shit kicked out of them. And I feel guilty every time Gabe looks after our pups. It’s not fair, Dean. It’s worse than unfair. It’s a fucking travesty. And I can’t fix it. There’s no reason I can find why they can’t get pregnant. Biologically, they’re both sound. It makes no sense.”
“Castiel James.”
“I know.”
Cas set his forehead against Dean’s and closed his eyes. “I know.”
“I love you so much, Cas. So damn much.”
“I love you too, Dean Michael.” Cas wrapped Dean’s name in affection.
“Go fuck my little sis into the mattress until her head spins, and then get some sleep,” Dean instructed. “She needs to be glowing for her fans this weekend. She’s gonna win a fucking Grammy, man. A Grammy. Can you believe it?”
Cas chuckled softly. “They won’t win, Dean. These things are less unpredictable than they appear.”
“I see,” Dean teased. “Send Michael to the one she doesn’t win so you can sit beside her when she does?”
Cas laughed and pulled back a ways, still close. “You’re on to me,” he admitted.
But Dean shook his head, falling into a thoughtful pause. “It’s a brilliant move, Alpha. No one will expect her to stroll down the red carpet accompanied by Michael. The whole world knows you’re her mate. Puts an exclamation point on every interview Michael’s done in the last week. Backs up your declaration that Michael’s more than her Pack Omega fuckbuddy, more than a sidepiece. It proves they’re both serious about their relationship, that Omegas can have a serious adult relationship, and it’s not about to tear the Pack in two. Be ready for the press to push back. They’ll be searching for a crack in our story. They’ll want to provoke you into a jealous rage. They’re going to come at us hard.”
“At us, yes,” Cas agreed as he mounted the stairs with Dean’s hand in his. “But not at the Omegas. Not yet anyway. The press adores April and Michael, both. They’ll have a window of opportunity to get charm in over the cameras. Eventually, the gloves will come off, and they’ll be asked tough questions. But not yet. Right now, they’re the darling couple of the celebrity circuit. We have time.”
“How can you know that?” Dean challenged, trotting up the stairs to keep up.
“Intuition,” Cas told him. “Trust me.”
Cain passed them going the opposite way on the stairs. He winked jauntily at Dean as he slipped by.
“Prick,” Dean muttered under his breath.
“Jesus, these guys don’t play,” Cain mumbled to himself as he stepped into the empty playroom in a costumed prison jumpsuit. He was wary of gimmicky roleplays, but he’d been assured they could make it feel real. For headspaces, he’d have to wait and see, but for detailed environmental staging, yeah, this place gave chills. The rental space, appointed for play in a hotel-like facility near the KU campus bragged full amenities and security staff. But although monitored for safety, it wasn’t run by the building management. Anyone could rent a room and outfit it however they liked. Cain’s connection had encouraged him to join this particular club, swore it would be just up his alley.
He looked around. The room wasn’t cobbled together on the fly. It was a permanent fixture, with details hard bolted down that indicated a commitment to a realistic presentation. They’d spared no expense to create a room that would foster a suspension of disbelief. It was an encouraging sign. Club dues paid for rent and equipment, not to mention the odd first-aid bill. Dues paid for costumes too, and Cain appreciated the commitment to authenticity.
The room was laid out like a scummy prison cell, larger than a real one but not by much. There was a long bench along one wall and a single drain in the concrete floor that collected a trickle of slimy water from a crack marring one wall. In the middle of the cell, a single, bare, stained queen-sized mattress lay haphazardly strewn. It looked like an afterthought. It was cold and joyless—ugly—in here. Cain drew his shoulders up and then rolled them back down again, seeking a headspace that embraced the room he was in, trying to forget that on the other side of that door was a warm, welcoming carpeted hallway with alpha monitors at either end. He told himself he was deep in the bowels of a backwoods county prison where inmates were left to fend for themselves and pecking orders established quickly. Brutally.
The door slammed open, and Cain jumped, spinning to face the threat.
“Twitchy fucker, ain’t ya?”
“I hold my own,” Cain replied civilly with narrowed eyes. He assessed the man rapidly. Bulky and tattooed, the alpha moved like a cat, like he knew how to move, like danger itself.
The man smirked. “Is that right? We’ll see, won’t we? You get the skinny already? Normally, we’ll jump right in without all this jabber, but as it’s your first time, I’m gonna give you a quick intro.”
“I’ve read the leaflet,” Cain told him as the two began circling one another slowly. “I don’t need a bedtime story.”
The alpha laughed, throwing his head back. “I’m gonna love taking you apart, noob. You’re feisty. You wanna cut the bullshit? Let’s do it. You got a safeword?”
“Collette,” said Cain. He didn’t explain.
“Names aren’t usually allowed as safewords,” he was told, and Cain scoffed. If he ever scened with someone named Collette, he could change it, but that wasn’t likely to happen. He offered nothing further by way of response, still circling.
“Any questions?”
“Do the boys mind if I put up a fight?” Cain asked, watching his adversary’s eyes. Amusement met him again. Cain was beginning to tire of the patronizing humor in this jerk’s demeanor. What some men called play, Cain usually turned vicious. He had no use for playground equipment, feathers or wax or handcuffs. He knew what the club literature said, but he’d rarely encountered alphas as cold as he needed. “Don’t fuck with me,” he added. “I wouldn’t recommend underestimating me either.”
The amusement dissolved from his opponent’s face. “Long as you’re okay with the thunder you call down, bitch, you just do whatever you gotta. You understand me?”
“Hmm,” Cain replied noncommittally. “How many?”
“We decided to go easy on you, rookie. But I admit, the boys are hungry for fresh meat. Couldn’t tell them all no, now could we?”
“How many?”
“I got twelve outside the door clamoring for a taste of rookie ass. You think you can handle a baker’s dozen of us?”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Cain’s eyes spoke for him. A dangerous light sparked. Everything from the mold growing deep inside that filthy mattress to the cold concrete to the bright orange of both their jumpsuits took him there, and he was ready. He wasn’t in a roleplay. He was facing real peril, and he hardened his face to confront the danger.
The alpha across from him, Cain decided to nickname him “Tattoo,” slapped a flat hand on the door as he circled that way again.
“Do I get to know your safeword?” Cain asked, almost conversationally.
“Not something you need to worry about,” Tattoo said with an evil grin. “The monitors know it.” The door opened, revealing the biggest beta Cain had ever seen wearing a prison guard’s uniform, one that looked authentic as fuck, and a cowed line of orange-clad alpha prisoners shackled on an ankle chain, strung out like fish on a line, bound by their ankle cuffs. They walked in-step to keep from tripping. They filed in and stood in a line facing the back wall.
“Turn!” the beta commanded, and all twelve alphas rotated as one to face the room. “Sit!”
Cain licked his lips. He’d never been cowed by a beta in his life, but this dude brought chill bumps to his arms. He glanced toward Tattoo and found him cringing in the corner with his eyes on the floor. Cain took the hint. He backed slowly toward the far wall, turning his eyes, broadcasting with every muscle a non-threatening stance.
The beta ignored him. He knelt at the end of the row of seated alphas and unclasped the chain from the end cuff before violently stripping it out with a hideous clanking. Cain jumped. He felt eyes on him. A surreptitious glance up at the alphas on the opposite wall proved the crawl of his skin correct. They were studying him. All of them. Cold eyes and lewd tongues met his brief glance.
He was fucked.
Jesus.
Cain tasted the word Collette in his mouth, remembering the feel of it on his tongue.
The beta stood back up, mindlessly coiling the chain around his fist. “Behave yourselves, boys. I don’t wanna have to hose blood outta here again. We just fucking cleaned up after that last poor wretch. You do that shit again and doc’s gonna run the fuck outta knee splints. You hear me?”
No one answered.
The guard hung the coiled chain on the door handle, then he turned his back to the door, crossed his arms over his chest, set his feet into an immovable stance, and stopped moving entirely, blending into the background and turning the feeling of peril up several notches, a wordless menace blocking the exit, lending believability to the space without saying another word. Tattoo was the first to shake himself off and saunter into the room.
A pale red-headed alpha at the end of the line called to him. “Fresh meat, is it? You taste him yet, Pidge?”
Pidge? Cain liked Tattoo better, although, by the looks of these lowlifes, that nickname was meaningless. Not a one of them was unmarked.
“Nah,” Tattoo purred, easing closer to Cain. Cain stepped back. “No one’s ass is as sweet as yours, Jelly. I’m thinking of giving the noob a pass and sticking it where I know the meat is tender. You been our bitch a long time. I’m kind of a sentimental guy. I like my pussy well-used.”
“Cut the crap, Pidge, you promised! You said the first fresh meat that shows up, you’d move me up a peg. I’m done being the fuckhole! You promised!” Jelly was on his feet now, furious.
“Aw, Punkin, you didn’t think I’d go breakin’ my word now, did you? I am gonna miss the taste of your sweet pussy though.” Tattoo leered at the alpha on the end for a moment, allowing his threat to find its mark before turning back to address Cain. “But you know, we gotta tame this bitch before we can taste him.”
“You touch me, I’ll break your legs!” Cain promised darkly.
“Feisty,” Tattoo jeered. “This is gonna be fun.”
No one else seemed eager to usurp Tattoo’s authority. He was clearly the Alpha, and he strutted, completely at ease in his domain. Cain watched everywhere at once, watched his back, calculated his chances if he dodged versus engaging when Tattoo jumped him. It was only a matter of time.
The beta guard ignored the imminent threat. He picked at his nails, bored.
Cain would get no protection from the guard. He was on his own. He sized up the row of riveted alphas waiting impatiently on the bench out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t take his eyes off the clear threat in front of him. He considered his chances of winning himself some allies and discarded that thought just as fast. Some of them hadn’t even waited before freeing their cocks. They smelled blood, and they were right there, right there for it. Cain could smell the anticipation.
Fuck, he was in trouble.
His mouth went dry even as he found himself swallowing uncomfortably. He took a couple of steps backward, bumping into the corner.
“Going somewhere, bitch?”
“Fellas, let’s think about this, yeah? We don’t have to do this.” It was no good. He could have had their freedom in his back pocket, and they wouldn’t have heard a word he said. The stench of alpha aggression strangled the already musty air. Cain’s eyes watered with it. He put his hands up.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will,” he warned. “I’m warning you. Don’t you fucking touch me. Last chance.”
“Ooh, last chance? What happens after my last chance, bitch? You got nowhere to run. You got no friends but me. You get me? I’m your friend, man. You and me. These dicks all do what I tell them. They’re not all nice guys like I am. I can protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection. I can look after myself.”
“Is that right?”
And then he moved. Cain found himself lying flat on his belly on the concrete with his face inches from the slimy water trail snaking to the drain. Four alphas held him down, and he never even saw it coming. He struggled, landing a hard elbow across the bridge of Mohawk’s nose. Blood spurted. Mohawk’s hands disappeared to clap over his face, but a new set took his spot at Cain’s shoulder. There were too many of them, and they were rabid. Nails scrabbled to rip his jumpsuit. He shouted in vain fury and struggled with everything he had. He managed to roll onto his back and sit up, tangling an arm into Crosseye’s upper arms and flinging him onto his back with a huff of breath leaving his lungs. Crosseye heaved silently, trying desperately to get air with the wind knocked right out of him.
With his legs freed, Cain kicked out, landing a couple of vicious kicks. He couldn’t see through the press of bodies, but he heard the screams. Someone was down. The bench cleared, and it was a melee.
Cain’s dick was so hard, it hurt, independent of the hands and elbows and shoulders grinding against his crotch as their grappling flipped and turned and sent bodies crashing into one another. He fought like his life was in peril. He fought with nails and sinew and hard muscle and gritted teeth. Sweat and spit flew. His knuckles bruised with each landed punch, but they never so much as slowed.
He was sweating even in the frigid air, and he was losing. Badly. There were just too many of them. They pinned him against the floor by his hips and shoulders. It took seven or eight of them, and Cain could at least take pride in having been no easy piece of meat. A steady stream of throaty growls issued from his throat, as red eyes scorched holes in his assailants. But as they all found better grips, huffing against the struggle, and his view cleared, Cain looked up from beneath the lank curtain of silver hair hanging in his eyes, he saw Tattoo nursing a bloody nose.
Rage burned in Tattoo’s eyes.
Shit.
Maybe he should’ve simply complied.
No, fuck that. Fuck all of it.
“Put him on the mattress. Face-fuckin-down!”
Cain shouted in impotent rage. He struggled. Goddamn, he struggled. But for every hold he threw off, another took its place. They dumped him unceremoniously on his belly on the disgusting mattress. Hard palms shoved his face down into the moldy fabric. It smelled putrid.
And then a ritual ripping of fabric, orange fabric, bared his ass, and he lost it. Cain turned feral, vicious. If he’d held any vestige of a memory that he was engaging in a roleplay, it evaporated when he felt cool air across his backside and vestigial memories engaged. He moved entirely on impulse. When the panic set in, Cain’s instinct kicked in, and he broke cheekbones and fingers, digging to gouge eyes out but never quite connecting.
His vision tunneled to a crimson focus.
It was a hell of a showing, but he was going nowhere. For as deeply ensconced as Cain was in his headspace, the alphas above him had more experience in this space, and they knew each other. They didn’t falter, even as real bones snapped.
Soon he lay panting again, sweating and aching on his belly with knees in his back and pinning his legs. His throat grew raw as he screamed impotent rage.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” Tattoo growled.
“What,” Cain growled back. “No one’s ever drawn blood before? Turns out you bleed just like the rest of us. You might wanna get that looked at.”
“Keep it up, bitch,” Tattoo spat. He paced behind Cain. Cain couldn’t see him. He didn’t like the blindness, but he was held fast. “Gonna call you Wolverine cause you spit just like a feral fuckin’ animal.”
“Pull his legs wide,” Tattoo instructed bluntly. Cain felt the mattress dip between his legs as the alpha took to his knees. Cain clenched his muscles and his eyes. His fists balled. He pulled as hard as he could, but he couldn’t close his thighs.
And then his eyes shot open at the pain. With no warning, Tattoo breached him, forcing his way in through clenched muscles as through warm butter. Cain screamed and writhed.
“Take it, bitch! Shut up! We could’ve done this the easy way, but no! You had to be a fucking brat!” Tattoo pulled out and then thrust back brutally. “You like my blood? Yeah? Well, that’s what you wanted, that’s all you get. I’m a nice guy…” He fucked hard as he mocked Cain. “I usually offer my bitches a good, sticky dollop of spit. But you? All you get is whatever drips off my nose. You happy?”
Cain grimaced in pain, trying hard to stifle the tears in his eyes. He burst into motion, hoping in vain to struggle free, but the alpha gang doubled down, laughing at him.
“Fucking take it, you stupid bitch!”
Someone shoved a dick in his mouth, forcing him to drop his jaw by shoving his own lips between his teeth and wedging fingers in. It hurt. Cain gagged, but there was no escaping the intrusion. An alpha fucked his mouth hard enough to force tears down his cheeks, and that was when it happened.
Without any conscious decisions, Cain’s muscles softened. The sense of panic and peril evaporated, leaving him soft, pliable. His chest heaved in effort to draw in enough air through his stinging nostrils to feed his lungs, but he felt himself separate from the anxiety of self-defense, leaving his body open to the desires of men with vicious intent and axes to grind. Men powerful enough to bring him to heel by physical prowess alone.
This was what Dean couldn’t see about him because he buried it for his own self-preservation. He needed to give in, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it until every other possible option had been exhausted and all that remained was the inevitable. It always went like this. He fought until he couldn’t any longer, and then, only when his adversaries proved their prowess, Cain’s wolf rolled. And the Submission was sweeter than wine. Cain’s defenses rolled with his metaphysical body.
He floated away on the pain. He gurgled. Spit flowed down his chin. His eyes rolled back in his head. His muscles went lax. He spread his thighs, an easy shift since all the pressure against them was bent in opposition to his closing them. He softened his mouth, pulling his lips over his teeth and creating a gentle suction that pulled a lurid moan from above him.
“Fuuuuck,” Tattoo murmured. He rolled his body down to cover Cain, fucking with a roll of his hips, laving Cain’s neck with his tongue. “That’s a good bitch. There you go. Wouldja look at that? Relax, baby. Take it. Good boy. Fuck that bitch’s throat, Jesse. Mmm.”
Tattoo tugged on his hips, lifting him up onto his wide knees, and Cain whimpered when a calloused hand circled his cock, hard and frantic. But the dominant had no intention of offering a fulfilling reach-around. He cackled, picking up the pace of his thrusts, teasing Cain’s dick.
“Lookit our bitch, boys. He likes it.” Tattoo pulled out and stumbled to his feet. He didn’t offer any direction, but there was clearly an unspoken pecking order. The enormous cock disappeared from between his lips and slammed into his ass. Cain cried out.
A fresh one pressed into his mouth up to the swollen knot.
“Suck that dick, bitch!”
Cain went to work with a vulgar abandon. The pain morphed into flight. He flew. And he threw himself into pleasing every appendage offered to him. He sank deep into the ugly depths of depravity, sticky and sweaty and steaming, on his knees, on his belly, on his best behavior.
Time passed. They all got their fill. His ass was ruined. His body sported bruises, scrapes, smears of blood that wasn’t his, but he had a great deal to get out of his system, and he held nothing back. When he drifted off, they slapped his face to revive him, rolled him over or manhandled him to bend over the edge of the bench, and started anew.
Cain lay wasted, exhausted on the mattress, when Jelly finally got a turn. Most of the alphas sprawled about, spent and dozy. A few enjoyed easing Jelly into his new role as top, offering ridiculous advice, catcalling as he awkwardly approached the Submissive. They held Cain’s legs high. He lay lax on his back, eyeing the youth, drifting in and out of consciousness. Jelly jerked himself, biting his lip. His nickname explained itself as he struggled to maintain an erection.
“Get on top of the bitch,” someone advised helpfully. “Get his scent in your nose. Come on, kid, if you can’t get it up for a ripe pussy like this, you really need to see a doctor.”
“Would you shut up?” Jelly shot. “Gimme a sec!”
“C’mere, alpha,” Cain whispered. “Lemme take care of you.” He gestured, and the alpha fell to his knees at Cain’s shoulder. Cain held his eyes as he sucked the kid’s cock into his mouth. His jaw was exhausted. He really didn’t have much left, but the boy was beautiful, a stereotypical twink Bottom.
Cain used his tongue along the underside, and in no time, the boy hardened. Cain held his eyes. He relinquished his cock and rolled up onto trembling knees. He eased the boy down to lay flat on his back with his cock spearing the air. Without breaking eye contact, Cain asked, “May I, Sir?”
“Oh, Jesus,” the boy muttered, frozen.
The room chuckled in amusement, more of the weary alphas turning their attention to the mattress.
Cain threw a leg over and straddled, facing him. He braced the boy’s cock and sank slowly onto it, lubricated with sticky jizz that dribbled down his inner thighs.
Cain’s cock bounced with his effort, unfulfilled. He braced himself on his arms over the kid’s torso and rode him with all the energy he had left. He watched the young alpha’s face, anticipating his needs and wants and offering his service, such as he had faculties left at all. The kid was no Dom, but he was alpha, if young and untested, and Cain’s nerves pinged at the opportunity to please him, to set him soaring. Their eyes connected as Cain rocked above him. Silver hair swayed. Sweat dripped across his ribs.
Cain was in control of every move, but his mind focused so intently on his alpha’s pleasure that he felt bodiless. He sat back, pressing his ass into the kid’s groin, sitting tall and grinding down with his eyes locked on the deep brown of the stunned alpha below him. Cain pressed until the alpha’s knot slipped inside softened walls. The kid’s eyes flew wide. His hands clutched Cain’s waist. He pressed his groin up into Cain’s ass.
He whined.
“Do it,” Cain begged. “Knot me. Do it!” He ended on a shrill pleading wail.
Cain dragged home at about two in the morning, aching and bruised, stinking to high heaven. He’d waved off the offer of a shower, needing his own space more than he needed to sluice off the stench of sex. He dutifully texted Pidge after he closed the kitchen door behind himself.
Pidge. Tattoo. Whatever. Nice guy. It took an hour or so after the scene to come back to himself. Pidge held him shamelessly the whole time. His trembling eased slowly, buried in crisp white linens and soft, clean pillows. Pidge—his real name was Steve, but he never allowed anyone here to call him that—fed him and rubbed a cool lotion into his bruised skin.
Pidge’s nose had stopped bleeding.
They spoke softly, dreamily, easy. Cain apologized for the broken nose, not something Pidge could hide in his regular daily life, but the man laughed it off. His eyes were already blacking underneath.
“You warned me, man,” he admitted self-effacingly. “Won’t be my last trip to medical station. Look, we know what we’re getting into here. This isn’t the garden club, and none of us want it to be. What you did for little Jelly. That was good. He’s going to ride the waves for a week.” He laughed.
“Is that kid a Sub?” Cain asked. “I don’t really go for Subs.”
“Uh, you might wanna reconsider that,” Pidge chuckled. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“So, he is a Sub.”
“He’s a Neutral,” Pidge told him. “And he was playing a part. We don’t really work that way. It’s not a ladder climb. The bitch spot is yours as long as you want. He’s not a Sub, Cain, but he is a Bottom, so if you’re cool with it, we might team you two up next time, set you back-to-back maybe. Make you defend him. Take you both down together. It’s up to you though. If you want to solo as our bitch, no one’s going to complain.”
“Ah,” Cain wrapped an arm beneath his head and thought.
“So, do you?” Pidge posed.
“Want the bitch spot?” Cain clarified.
“You’re good at it.”
“Thirteen alphas in the roster, and I’m your only Sub? You’re kidding.”
Pidge laughed. “We have other Subs, man. Don’t flatter yourself. This club is two hundred strong. We’re pretty balanced. We keep four scene spaces outfitted in this one building, keep ‘em set for standard scenes. We have the prison cell, a school room, a doctor’s office, and an army barracks. The usual tropes. But we’ve also got two blank spaces. We can build whatever we want, so if you have any ideas, shoot them to me, and we’ll put them to a vote with the guys.”
Cain thought it through. His body ached, but he felt soft and alive.
“Is there anything else I need to know?” he asked.
“We’re not uptight, man,” Pidge replied with a touch of irony that evoked the role he’d just played. He lifted the blanket and eased out of the bed. “Our only stipulation is that our members’ privacy is supreme. You don’t give any details, not even to your Alpha. If he insists, you refer him to me. You got that? Quickest way to get your ass kicked out of the club without a refund is to divulge our business.”
Cain smiled. “First rule of Fight Club…”
“It’s no joke, Darius Cain!” Pidge rounded on him, and Cain felt his body flinch a conditioned surrender. “We know who you are. We know who your Alpha is. We don’t have a punishment matrix here. You don’t get to pay for mistakes with a paddle or a strap. Fuck this up and you’re out on your ass. No second chances! You forfeit your dues.”
“Yessir.” It slipped out of Cain’s mouth without his permission. He’d thought his alpha had taken back over and left his wolf where he usually stashed it, but evidently not. Pidge had his number and his dick on a leash.
Pidge smirked, reading his mind. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” Cain argued, irritated at himself.
“Go home, Submissive. Text me when you get there. Best not test me on this.” And there went Cain’s hope that Pidge hadn’t noticed the Claim-bond they now shared.
So, Cain’s first text as the door latched behind him was to his new Dom. He huffed at his own easy capitulation. Easy? Okay, not easy. But complete. He was Pidge’s now. He didn’t question it. He slipped into the parlor, his thumbs in motion on a second text to Castiel, but the man rose from his favorite armchair when Cain walked in.
“How was it?” Cas asked.
“Intense,” Cain admitted with a grimace. “But successful.”
Cas examined his face and ran a thumb over his bruised throat. He zeroed in on a smear of blood beneath Cain’s left ear. Cas touched it, but Cain pulled his head away with a frown.
“It isn’t your blood,” Cas observed. “Are you injured at all?”
“Just bruises and aches,” Cain told him. “A couple of surface scratches.”
“This weekend is big for her, Darius. We can’t afford time for you to recover. I need you sharp.”
“I’m fine, sir. She’s my priority. I need a few hours of sleep, and then I’m on. I know what this weekend means. I won’t let you down.”
“Get cleaned up and go to bed then,” the Alpha instructed. “Give Michael the receipt for your club dues. He’ll reimburse you. Expenses involving Tertiary balancing sessions are covered by the Pack. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, sir. If I may, have we considered installing an elevator?”
“If you can’t make it up one flight of stairs, you’re not fit to protect my mate,” Cas informed him, following as Cain limped into the foyer.
Cain grumbled but didn’t offer any substantive complaints. Cas grinned as he escorted his weary alpha up the sweeping staircase. “You smell terrible,” he observed. “But far more balanced. I take it Pidge’s tutelage suits you?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” Cain huffed, making slow progress toward his room.
Cas burst out laughing. “He’s perfect for you, Darius,” he said after achieving the top landing. “Those boys go hard. Next time, please don’t play this close to a journey. I’ve stitched members of that club up in the middle of the night more times than I can recall. And since you're wearing someone else’s blood home, I expect our clinic night staff is busy patching up whoever you clocked.”
“I did our Pack proud, Sir,” Cain boasted humbly. “It took thirteen of them to pin me.”
“It did, did it?” Cas teased. “Thirteen?”
Cain blushed with a subtle smirk. “Something like that. At least two broken noses and a leg that may or may not be fractured. I’d lay bets on more than two jammed or broken fingers. I didn’t roll easily.”
“Worth it?” Castiel asked seriously as Cain paused outside his own bedroom.
Cain dropped the flirtatious tone. “Worth it,” he agreed. “If you don’t mind, sir. I’d rather Dean not know the details. I’m not planning to engage in play this intense very often. A little goes a long way with my wolf, so it’s not something I need to make the Pack deal with. I can be in and out without raising a fuss if you understand my meaning.”
“Dean is your superior, Darius,” Cas replied without quarter. “And an alpha in this Pack. You don’t owe him any details further than you owe me, but you won’t keep secrets from him that pertain to your health and balance. This pissing match between the two of you is beginning to annoy me. Keep it up, and I’ll make you report to him about the wellbeing of your wolf instead of me to drive the point home. He outranks you. Am I clear?”
“Yessir,” Cain replied, chastened.
“Good. I will hold you to that. As will Dean. Provoke him much further, and he’ll take you down again. If that happens, Cain, I’m putting you on suspended leave as April’s guardian. Dean has no interest in hierarchical displays, so if he’s forced to Claim you twice, it will be because you goaded him into it. I have no patience with pointless posturing for rank. You can’t beat him. Spare us all the trauma of a confrontation.”
“Sir.” Cain bowed formally, if stiffly. “May I retire?”
Cas softened and placed a palm against his cheek. “Get some sleep. I’m proud of you, Submissive. You did well.”
“Goodnight, Sir.”
Cas watched him disappear behind the door. Closing his eyes and stretching out with his bonds, Cas surveyed his Pack. The house felt stable. All was quiet. Within Cain’s room, the shower started up.
Castiel’s link to his brother warbled shakily. Gabriel was weeping again. Cas cast back to the sense of dread that had overcome him at the start of the Septennial. He’d known then something was off with Gabe, but he hadn’t been able to put his thumb on what it was. It had made him jumpy and irrational. It had thrown him off his game in several directions, casting ripples outward that unnerved Dean, April, Cain, and Michael. Cas rubbed the bridge of his nose and then turned back to his own room. They were Pack-piled again tonight.
They seemed always to migrate closer together whenever separations were imminent.
Everything about that felt right to Cas. He needed his Pack in his bed, the whole foursome. Luckily, they all shared that sentiment. Likely, if he forbade co-sleeping, they would defy him anyway.
Creeping into the Master, he doffed his robe and tossed it over the corner chair. His eyes adjusted rapidly to the darkness, revealing that they’d left him the center. He huffed. He would either have to crawl up from the foot of the bed or stumble across Dean’s body to get to the open spot.
He weighed his options with a flat expression that was wasted on the darkness when Dean saved him the need.
“Here, Alpha. I gotcha. Waited for you,” Dean mumbled, rolling to his feet and holding the covers back for Cas to slip in, both of them nude in the darkness.
Cas graced him with a warm kiss as he scrambled in before rolling over to hold April, welcoming the sleep-warm body of his husband against his back.
“Night, Alpha.”
“Goodnight, Dean.”
Notes:
***Warning for discussions and repercussions of infertility***
***Warning for graphic violent rapey sex. Everything's consensual, but it goes way into the violent side.***
The plan from here is one more chapter at this stage of their lives before vaulting ahead a ways. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who reads, who comments, who's hanging with this pack. I love all of you.
Apologies for the continued torture of Gabriel. I can't help myself. Not sorry at all for torturing Cain. And for those of you who were looking forward to seeing where Michael's headspace wanders off to after his epic conflagration, here it is. It's like he feels seen now, so he can settle back on his heels and get on with chilling and just being Michael. Did any of us see that coming? I didn't.
Love to the pack.
Chapter 16: Friday, February 8, 2019
Summary:
Kate's putting in the work, but it's harder than she expected. April and Cain are feeling each other out with absolutely no help from Nicholas. And Dean and Cas are adorable supportive husbands. What can I say?
Notes:
It's been a while since I posted. RL is getting hairy. All kinds of things are changing. I'm taking the plunge on a Master's program that quite frankly scares the shit outta me. But staying my usual course is no longer feasible. So...
Wish me luck.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Friday, February 8, 2019
NOW:
“It hurts, damnit!” Kate complained. “I need a break.”
“Omega, there is no way to weaken the pull of the bond without stretching it. I need you to give me another five minutes.” Kate’s therapist stood behind her armchair with a firm hand on the back of her sweaty neck, rhythmically squeezing her grip. “Pull, Kate. Pull on it as hard as you can. Breathe.”
“I’m breathing! God!”
“Snapping at me isn’t going to help you. Try to funnel your frustration into your efforts where it will do you some good.”
The bitch’s patience was getting on Kate’s last nerve. A drop of sweat plinked from the tip of her nose. Her fingers clutched the armrests like vices. The awful pull of a mate-rejection knotted her gut into a lump of agony. “I don’t see why I have to be the one going through the hard work,” Kate grumbled. “She’s the one who knotted and Mated me. Make her do the therapy.”
“There is nothing fair about what’s happened to you…” Mildred murmured.
“What she did to me, you mean,” Kate shot back through clenched teeth.
“…but the only path to a freedom of any sort now lies down a path of hard effort and sweat. It’s going to be worth it in the long run. This is the hardest part right now, my dear. It will get easier. I promise.”
“Sure would go a lot faster if someone had a hand on the back of her neck too is all I’m saying. This hurts.”
Mildred nodded sympathetically. “Yes, it’s been likened to a reverse childbirth sensation. Instead of pushing something out of you, you’re pulling your bond-link back in. It hurts in much the same way, although the pain you’re feeling can’t be alleviated by medication. It’s psychic pain, not physical.”
“The fuck, you say!” Kate protested. “My gut is on fire here!”
“Calm yourself, Omega. You need that energy focused, not shooting out into the room to dissipate where it can’t do you any good. If it makes you feel any better, everything you feel, she feels too. At least you get to choose the time and place. She’s at your mercy right now, sweetie.”
“It’s been five minutes,” Kate wheedled.
“It’s been three.”
“Aaaargh! Life, and alphas, and Mating-bonds, and everything to do with this SUCKS!”
Mildred smiled placidly. “Pull, Kate. Like I showed you. Pull through your bellybutton. Breathe it out. It’s tight now, but it will loosen over time.”
“I don’t wanna do this,” Kate wailed even as she put her back into it. She suffered a moment of weakness and caved to the compulsion anchored in her belly. “I want to go home. I need my mate!”
Mildred didn’t ruffle at her despair. “That’s the bond talking, Kate, the one you’re trying with all your might to sever. It isn’t what you want. Remember, we talked about this. We anticipated that it would get hard, that the bond would fight back, would try to undercut your determination to be free. Remember, Kate. You told me what you want is freedom. Don’t give in. You can’t go back there. It isn’t your home anymore. Your pack membership is being dissolved.”
“She would take me back if I begged,” Kate whimpered with tears streaming down her face and her entire being engaged in pulling against the bond as hard as she could.
“No, Omega, that choice has been made. There’s no going back. Focus!”
Mildred pulled three more rounds from the imbittered Omega and then curled up with her on the couch. Mildred steadied the hot mug of tea as Kate brought it to her lips.
“There, now. That was superb work. You’ve made real progress today. I promise it will start getting easier soon. I want you using your heating pad on your belly at least four times a day, twenty minutes at a time. You can have Tylenol if it aches enough to be troubling.”
“I thought you said it was only psychic pain and drugs weren’t going to help,” Kate grunted into her tea.
Mildred helped her set the mug down and then pulled the weary Omega into her embrace. She sighed. “Your mind does the work, but your body feels the aftershocks. You’ll be sore for a while. No damage done though.”
Kate stared straight ahead, out across the living room, out through the tall windows to the swimming pool which was covered with a taut tarp for winter.
“I want this to be over,” she pleaded.
Mildred nodded into her hair, following her gaze. “You’re going to have to define for yourself what that means, Kate. We cannot free you from your mate entirely. She will always be a presence in your life, a shadow figure just out of sight. You can minimize her presence through regular therapy, but you’ll never eliminate it entirely.”
“Why can’t I just close the bond and keep it closed?” Kate’s voice eked small and uncertain.
“A bond’s natural state is wide open on both ends. Closing it takes mental and emotional energy that will drain you over time. By all means, close it for periods when you’ve got the emotional wherewithal to do that. But keeping it that way all the time will exhaust you. It’s not healthy or sustainable. Our goal here is to allow you a shot at an unfettered life without the drag of an unwelcome bond weighing you down. Taking the easy way out will hurt you in the long run. You understand?”
Mildred’s grandmotherly presence soothed Kate more than she wanted to admit, considering the Omega was determined to hold a grudge against the torture the old woman exacted. She couldn’t stay mad though. Mildred had never lied to her. She didn’t sugarcoat anything. She didn’t allow Kate to wallow in self-pity when there were far more productive uses for Kate’s outrage.
Sadly, Kate confessed, “I always feel the impulse to go back home…just to make it stop hurting. I need my alpha.”
Mildred kissed her temple and hugged her tighter. “You’re warring against millions of years of evolved instincts, Kate. Everything you’re feeling is exactly what you should be feeling. Keep in mind though, you are not your emotions. You are not your thoughts. You are your choices and your actions and the quiet observer inside your head who decides. When you feel those impulses, love, shine light on them. Examine them. Ask them if they are true. Ask them if they are your true path. And if they aren’t, embrace them for what they are and let them go. You’re going to be okay, Kate.”
“Dean’s leaving for a couple of days,” Kate observed.
“Are you worried about that?” Mildred asked.
“I’m…What if I freak out in the middle of the night and run home. I don’t trust myself.”
Mildred chuckled. “Oh, Kate. I’ve worked with a lot of unwanted Mating-bond holders in my life. Very few have been as determined as you. Besides, Dean isn’t leaving you all by yourself in this big house. Would it make you feel better to have an alpha stay with you? We can arrange that.”
“I don’t know. I think I’m afraid being alone. He’s kind of been my safety net these last weeks, even if I don’t always need him right at my elbow. Just having him close helps. I’ve needed him in the middle of night a few times.”
Mildred sat upright, letting the young woman go and handing Kate’s tea back to her to finish. “Dean said Kali has asked to fill in for him while he’s gone. Perhaps you could spend the next couple of days getting to know her better. I see that beta as a supremely solid presence in this house. In your alpha’s absence, I believe she’ll take good care of you.”
Kate took a deep breath, bracing herself. “She’s a Dominant,” she told Mildred as if that would explain her discomfort. Seeing that it didn’t, Kate shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing. But I can’t bring myself to trust a Dominant. Not yet.”
“But alphas are trustworthy?” Mildred challenged.
“Instinct battling with experience, maybe,” Kate decided. “I’m wired to trust alphas in spite of everything, especially one like Dean. He’s solid without being commanding. Know what I mean? But Doms have no presentation other than commanding. It’s their whole persona. The last thing I need is someone ordering me around right now.”
Mildred chuckled again and heaved herself to standing. “It’ll surprise you to know that I’m a Dominant, Kate. Or, at least, I used to be some years ago.”
“Figures,” Kate muttered, shaking her head.
“My wolf has passed on now. That part of my life is in the past. I miss it sometimes. But the point is, Dominants have a way of offering support in a way that alphas sometimes lack.”
Kate rolled her eyes and chanted, “All right. Fine. I will give Kali a chance. It’s only for two days anyway. I’ll have my hands full of pups who think I’m hiding their mothers and who want to nurse at bedtime. I should be able to distract myself well enough.”
Mildred considered her client, cocking her head slightly to the side. “You enjoy caring for the Winchesters’ pups. You like it here in this post.”
Kate ducked her head as a soft smile gave her away.
Mildred touched her shoulder and then lifted her chin with a gentle hand. “That will do you more good than any amount of therapy, Kate. You’re doing sacred work, and your soul feels it. The Universe smiles through your eyes already, dear one. Give it time. I am so blessed to know you.”
Kate held her eyes before nodding silently.
“All right, then,” Mildred said with a backward step. “That’s enough for today. Let me know when there’s an update from your attorney, would you please? Finalizing your Pack dissolution will help, and we’ll want to springboard off the emotional kickback from that. Call me any time you need to, Kate—any time, night or day, even if Dean is right down the hall.”
“I will, beta. Thank you. I’m sorry I’m such a pain to work with.” Kate helped her gather her bags and walked her to the front door.
Mildred dropped a kiss on her cheek, squeezed her forearm, and scuttled down the front steps like a woman half her age, off to her next appointment.
Kate stood in the open doorway, watching the little blue compact round the drive and pull away around the curve and out of sight. She knuckled into the softness of her belly with a pained face.
“May I escort you back inside, Omega?” Fred offered. “It is rather too cold to linger in doorways this morning.” Kate let him ease the door closed. And she didn’t mean to, she really didn’t, but she found herself sobbing into Fred’s chest.
“There, there, little Omega. Everything will improve in time.”
“I got her, Fred. Thanks, man.” Dean took Kate by her shuddering shoulders and directed her to the kitchen. “First, let’s get you a pain killer. I know you’re aching right now. Second, hydrate and protein-…ate. Then, a nap with a heating pad. Let me take care of you, kiddo. I know that was a rough one. I could feel it.”
“It’s all so fucked up, Dean,” she told him. “Everyone keeps telling me it will get better, but I can’t see how.”
“I know,” he assured her, taking her into his arms and waving Michael to fetch the heating pad. “Gotta trust the process and keep on keeping on. Okay? Trust me. I put my ass right in the fire to bring you here. Still don’t have full feeling down my left butt cheek. You hear me? I’m not giving up on you, and I’m not letting you give up on you. Besides, you’re the only person at this point that Kat actually likes.” Dean accepted the heating pad from his mate and acknowledged Michael with a bond caress. “I gotta protect my investment. We’ll get through this. Together.”
“Are you about ready to go…? April, why aren’t you dressed yet?” Cain stopped short in the doorway of her suite bedroom and checked his watch. “We need to get going. What on earth are you doing?”
April stood in the middle the lavish hotel room stark naked and staring out the window, eyes vacant.
“Sir?” she asked vaguely.
Cain huffed a heavy sigh and shook his head. “Omega, look at me.” He snapped his fingers to draw her eyes. “We need to leave in the next ten minutes or we’re not going to make it. Kimmel is on a schedule, and he’s not going to wait for an unknown who is damn lucky to get the guest chair on the last taping day before the Grammys. They’re doing us a favor, April, not the other way round. So, put that dress on, and let’s go.”
“Alpha, I…” She blinked vacantly.
“No,” he interrupted, assuming a stern tone. “No. We’re not doing this. Not right now. Stop thinking. Stop worrying about things that are not your job. Right now, all you have to do is get dressed. That’s it. That’s all. Can you do that, or do you need me to do it for you?”
She frowned and cast a puzzled glance to the dress, laid neatly out on her made bed. “For me?”
Cain licked his lips and cracked his neck. “All right. Look. I’m not fooled. And I’m not letting you sabotage anything. I know what this is, and I’m not falling for it. But I’ll go over it for you again, so we can understand each other. I can feel your jitters, April. I know your mind is moving ninety-to-nothing right now about the big crowds and the scary projects and what everyone is going to think about you. Stop. All right? Stop. None of that is your job.”
Cain guided her to the edge of the bed and sat her down. He knelt in front of her and commanded her eyes with his own.
“Your job… You listening? You have three jobs. That’s it. Just three. Number one…” Cain held a finger up. “You pick the career direction. Don’t worry about how you’re going to get there. All you do is point. Wherever you want to go, you just point. If you say you’re homebound for the next ten years to raise a tribe of rug rats and write showtunes and you don’t want to leave your property, that’s what I’ll make happen. If you want a world tour and filled stadiums every night, I can give you that too. The how isn’t your job. Just the what. You with me?”
She nodded.
He cleared his throat and lifted a second finger. “Number two. You put in the sweat and the hours. You do the music, April. You invest the hard work to make a sellable product. You write and collaborate and perform. Anything you want. I don’t care what it is. No one can do that but you. That’s yours.”
“Yessir.” Her voice seemed a trifle less distant.
“And number three? When I tell you it’s time to turn on the sparkle, you sparkle. Don’t claim you don’t know what that means. I know all about the little stage persona up there in your head. You set your mind to being charming and electric when you’re on a stage, any stage, and you and I will get along fine. This business is not kind to shy, delicate homebodies. And it doesn’t wait for Omegas to work their way through fits of self-sabotage. So, until you can wrench this part of your life away from your Omega and give it to your front-brain, I’m taking everything but those three things out of your hands. Everything else is my job. Not yours. Stand up for me.”
“Alpha?”
“No questions. On your feet.”
She stood, confused, discombobulated.
“Arms up.” Cain collected her dress and slipped it over her head, tugging it into place.
“No underwear?” she asked.
Cain laughed. “Our little secret. No one will know. You and Jimmy aren’t going to be doing cartwheels.”
A bubble of laughter escaped April’s lips, and she bit down on the lower one, oddly ashamed of having laughed. Cain zipped her up. She looked up at him as he circled back to her front, looking her over, nodding. Her eyes seemed locked in a wide, terrified stare. He took her hands in his and rubbed circles on the backs with his thumbs.
“April, I’m not ever going to put you into a situation you can’t handle. Don’t get flustered. Three jobs. Okay? Everything else is mine to worry about. This weekend is all gravy for you. You’re not going to win on Sunday. These things are far less unpredictable than they seem. Evan Hanson has it tied up with a bow. That takes the pressure off you entirely. It’s a hundred percent positive publicity and sparkle. You and Michael get to attend one of Hollywood’s most exclusive shindigs, and they are going to love you, sweetheart. In between now and then, you need to work. Right now, it’s Jimmy Kimmel. Tonight, it’s studio with Nick. You can do this. You can do everything I’m going to ask you to do. And if you get flustered, I will rescue you. Even that isn’t your job. I’ve got a bond with you, so we don’t need a rescue word or a secret signal. I’ll have both eyes on you every second. The moment you start to waver, I’ll sweep in like a knight and whisk you away on my horse.”
April released a long exhale and then nodded.
“Right,” Cain said with a clap of his hands and a glance around at the floor. “Shoes.”
“Closet,” she told him.
Ninety seconds later, he hustled her into the elevator with her earrings in a bag dangling from his wrist and his phone in his hand to summon her stylist to meet them at the car. He licked his lips again, suppressing an urge to fidget in his impatience. This had to be the slowest elevator on the planet.
“We’re not going to win?” April questioned as the door finally opened. “You’re sure?” Cain shook his head. He gestured her out of the elevator with his eyes scanning the lobby for danger while simultaneously checking his phone.
“No, you won’t. Not this one. But the Tonys now… Just you wait. April, you won’t just be nominated for a Tony, you’re going to win the big one. And I mean you, not you and Nick as a team. You, all by yourself for that anthem. You’re going to win. So, relax this weekend and enjoy yourself. Get familiar with the process. Learn the steps.” Cain flagged April’s harried stylist down and ushered both women through to the street and straight into the waiting car. The hotel doorman closed them in with a wave to their driver, and Cain slumped back into soft leather seats. “Your premiere professional release, April Renée, and you’re going to walk home with a Tony.” Cain stated the last sentence to himself, lost in his own musings.
April smirked across the seat at him as a woman she didn’t know ran skilled hands through her hair. Cain held out a hand to his charge, and she grinned and grabbed it, squeezing in excitement.
Standing in the wing with a sophisticated young man in a headset, April felt a bead of sweat steal between her shoulder blades. She wished at that moment that she hadn’t rejected underpants. At this rate, her dress would cling to her whole backside by the time she stood up again after her interview. She didn’t hear her own introduction, startling when her handsome escort chivvied her through to the stage. She glanced briefly at Cain, off the side where he could watch from offstage. He winked and pressed a knuckle into his dimpled cheek as a reminder to turn her sparkle on, and she grinned back, pulling her ringmaster in front and stepping out with a bounce to her stride that set her skirt in motion.
The applause from in studio was polite. It took goading by the production staff to get more volume from them. These people didn’t know her. They clearly felt themselves unlucky to have scored tickets on a day when a complete no-name was headlining. From inside her calculating headspace, April assessed. They didn’t know her well yet, perhaps, but they knew who she was. She could build on that.
Whatever had set her to sweating backstage in the frigid theater vanished instantly as she stepped out, replaced by a mind moving so fast it sent sparks from her eyes and fingertips.
She smiled and waved, reaching the host’s platform quickly and shaking his hand with a solid grip and accepting a kiss to her cheek before taking her seat.
“Welcome, April Winchester,” Jimmy introduced, taking his seat and turning to her. “It’s so nice to meet you. We’ve heard a lot about you, young lady.” He was teasing warmly, and she smiled back, working the charm and the camera angles as Cain had taught her.
“Mostly naughty things, I’m sure,” she laughed. “Something about Omegas always seems to precede our arrival, I’ve found. Not always the nicest things.”
“No, no, I promise. Nothing bad. All good things. You’re in town for the Grammys, is that right?”
“Yes, I am,” she agreed and smiled when the audience responded. “As well as a few projects I’m working on. I have some collaborations up my sleeve while I’m here in your lovely city.”
“Is that so?” Jimmy asked. “Can you share with us what you’re working on?”
“Not yet,” she teased. “But they are going to be very exciting. Keep an ear out for several announcements. Big plans, Jimmy. Big plans.”
“Well, then let’s talk about something you’re free to discuss. Have you ever been to the Grammys before?”
“No, never. Nothing like this before. It’s all quite overwhelming.” She laughed in her enthusiasm, and she captivated with the force of her charisma.
“You’ve really taken Broadway by storm, is how I heard it,” he prompted. “Everyone is talking about you. Never published so much as a commercial jingle before in your life, and then out of nowhere you come along and write this…just…smash hit for a Nicholas Maraby musical. What on earth was that like?”
April grinned and lowered her eyes coyly. “Nick is a trip,” she admitted. “He’s a brilliant, brilliant artist, and an incredible mentor. He really took me under his wing. He’s taught me so much. I never expected to have our show—his show, really—nominated. It’s a dream come true. My head is spinning.”
Jimmy leaned closer, entranced. “You’re Mated to a very famous, powerful man, April. How does he feel about your nomination?”
She laughed merrily and tugged at her ear in a playful gesture. “He’s a bit…honestly, Castiel is a bit befuddled by the whole thing. He doesn’t know what to think. It’s not his world, you see. He understands science and medicine and social issues, politics. He doesn’t quite know what to make of us musicians. We speak a different language. He’s adorably lost.”
Jimmy encouraged her to continue with a nod of his head, so she went on. “He’s incredibly supportive though. He’s really proud of me. In fact, when the nomination came out, he gave this hair comb to me as a gift.” She indicated the jeweled comb on the side of her head which sparkled under the stage lights. “It was his mother’s. It’s a family heirloom.”
“Very pretty,” Jimmy agreed. “Although a man of his means, I mean, used jewelry…? He couldn’t buy you something new?”
She laughed again, playing along easily, stifling her irritation at the entrenched misogyny. “Perhaps when I win, he’ll buy me something new.”
“So, first song you release wins a Grammy nomination…”
“To be clear,” she interrupted, setting a delicate hand on his arm. “It’s the musical as a whole that’s nominated. Most of it is Nick’s work.”
“But your songs play a key role, let’s not kid ourselves…”
She acknowledged the point gracefully.
He went on, a twinkle in his eye giving away that something was coming. “But it’s your first musical release ever, am I right?”
Her eyes shot wide as she caught on, and she pressed her lips together in mock-shock, hiding her face in her hands. “Oh! No! It’s not.” The admission came with a well-timed blush. She started to laugh again, blushing beautifully. “No, I used to have a YouTube channel. Oh my god. I can’t believe you brought that up!”
“Brought it up?” Jimmy played into her embarrassment. “We’ve got the videos. Can we show them?”
“You didn’t!”
“Of course, you weren’t a Winchester then, or a Novak. You were…” He picked up a title card and read from it. “April Anderson, also known as PookieBear-Ninety-Nine.”
“Oh my god!” April’s stage blush pivoted into near mortification. She followed his gesture to watch a video from years ago—a prepubescent Lupin girl with her blonde hair tucked behind her ears, warbling along to a synthesizer’s melody. The music wasn’t bad, but the voice missed its mark horribly, and April couldn’t stop giggling as she watched her younger self brutalize her own composition. She hadn’t watched any of those videos in ages. She had forgotten they existed, in truth, until they were dredged up from whatever chasm she’d dropped them into.
The internet is forever, after all.
He didn’t play the whole thing.
“That was…” Kimmel started.
“Just awful,” April finished for him, wiping tears of mirth out of her eyes.
“Oh, now, not that bad. Maybe not Grammy-worthy, but there’s potential there, no?”
“If you say so,” she giggled.
“You, young lady, are just delightful. We don’t have many Omegas on our show. I wonder why that is?”
“It’s a good question,” April retorted with a smirk, moderating her tone to be playful rather than confrontational—a suitable chastisement from an Ozzie. “In fact, did you know that Omegas make up less of a presence on late night talk shows than minors do?”
“Kids?” he asked, taken by surprise. “Really? Is that true? We have more child guests than Omegas?”
“It’s true,” she confirmed. “Maybe the Jimmy Kimmel Show will be the one to lead the changing face of Lupin representation. There are a lot of Omegas in show business trying to make an impact and getting precious little airtime.” It was a scathing comment, but she delivered it with such innocence and zeal, her host couldn’t help but be drawn in.
“We invite Nicholas Maraby often enough,” he defended.
“Yes, and who else?”
“Well, there’s…You.” Jimmy sought help from behind the camera but came up empty and had to admit she was right. “You know what? You’re right. Shame on us. Challenge accepted. And I promise when you come back next time, I can give you a longer list.”
“I look forward to it,” she grinned, rewarding him with a dazzling smile.
“We have to do a commercial break,” he stated. “You’re going to sing for us right after, right?”
“I would be honored,” she nodded graciously.
When they cut for the break, the set turned into a scurrying anthill of activity. April was whisked across to the grand piano, offered a bathroom break (which she declined), and a bottle of water (which she accepted). Cain appeared at her elbow with the light of victory in his eyes.
“Perfect,” he praised. “Almost done, beautiful. You good? Any qualms?”
“I’m fine, alpha,” she assured him. “This part is easy.” And she meant it. All her worries from back in the hotel room had melted away. She was in her element, begrudging nothing but the absence of her Pack. They would be watching when the show aired tonight though. She could still perform for them.
And she did.
April lit up the stage when the cameras turned onto her once more. She sang her show anthem, the one she’d written with Castiel in mind, the one Cain expected her to win a Tony for, and she held nothing back. Gone was the warbly, unpracticed voice of her eleven-year-old self. Gone was the self-doubt that held her hostage when she tried to dress herself in her hotel room. Gone was the myth that Omegas don’t belong onstage under hot lights and millions of eyes. April’s fingers flew. Her eyes flashed, glinting gold at heightened moments of the chorus. Her voice thundered with passionate outrage, driving the point—her plight as a second-class nobody—from fiction to reality, coming on the heels of her polite chastisement of an industry that considered her invisible.
And when her song ended, the audience cheered, not the reserved welcome of a disappointed theater house, but an enthusiastic, full throttled, resounding rumble of appreciation. April glowed with excitement, thrilled to her bones.
Once the cameras cut feed, Cain caught her up and spun her right there by the piano. “You were magnificent!”
“Did you see me? Cain, can you believe I just did that?” April bubbled over with excitement.
“This calls for a celebration,” the alpha announced, setting her on her feet and allowing the sound tech to rescue his mic, untangling the cord before it tripped anyone and sparked a lawsuit. “We’re meeting Nick for an early supper, and you can have whatever the hell you want.”
She laughed, full-bellied and happy. “You always let me have whatever I want.”
“Keep showing up like you just did, and I always will.”
She smacked him on the shoulder.
“Come on. Let’s go meet Nick and tell him the good news,” Cain encouraged, nudging her along.
Cas had opened his mouth to call out across the garage to his husband as he approached Dean’s Impala, but instead, he ducked a hurtling hammer that barely missed his head and clattered noisily against the concrete floor.
“Cease fire!” he called with his hand up in surrender.
Dean’s head popped up from behind the open trunk of his beleaguered car, a look of supreme dissatisfaction on his sweat-coated face. “It’s no good,” Dean stated. He wiped grimy hands on a shop towel and then slung it to the ground behind him and stared at the underside of his trunk. The gash splitting the trunk showed signs of intense manhandling, but it was barely narrower than it had been on its sad way home late on Christmas night. The hammer proved as useless as every other tool Dean tried.
The trunk was ruined.
Cas handed him half a beer.
They stood together, facing the mangled sheet metal, studying it collectively and thinking. Cas had suggestions on his tongue, but he knew better than to voice them.
Dean turned his head and his focus, studying his husband just as intently. “Go on and say it,” he prompted.
Cas shook his head, still staring straight ahead. “Nope. Not mine to solve.”
Dean huffed in frustration. He stepped forward again, touching the jagged tear carefully, feeling for any evidence he was making progress. “I should leave her like this,” he reflected. “A monument to being an asshole with no self-control.”
“You could do that,” Cas agreed stoically. “We have garage space. We could build a museum-style barricade around her and set a plaque in the concrete with the date and location of her demise.”
“You’re such a jerk,” Dean muttered. He drained the beer and tossed the bottle back to Cas.
Cas startled but caught it. “There are no shoulds here, Dean. You do what you want to do. Whatever that is will be acceptable. I don’t like that you’re in pain, but this isn’t mine to fix.”
“Would you fix it if it were?” Dean asked, crossing back to where Cas waited for him, facing his husband instead of his car.
Cas kissed him.
“You’re changing the subject,” Dean accused, breaking free. A hand slid down over Dean’s backside.
“No, I’m continuing the conversation through another medium,” Cas countered. “Keep up, Winchester. It’s a multimedia world.”
Dean leaned in and kissed back. He wrapped his fingers around Cas’ on the beer bottle and used the tangling of fingers as a lead-in to sway into a slow dance, circling slowly, nothing graceful about it other than that there was no audience to judge. Cas slipped his free hand into Dean’s back pocket.
Somehow, they found themselves staring intently into one another’s eyes. No matter how many hours he’d studied Castiel’s cobalt gaze, Dean never felt like he’d seen everything. Today, they glowed with a gentle light of affectionate amusement and wonder. Dean led the dance, rotating in place to a slow pulse in his head. His fingers smudged Cas’ perfect manicure.
“I’ll call Frank tonight and tell him I need a replacement for the trunk bonnet,” Dean murmured, careful not to break the spell.
Cas smiled with his eyes. “I miss your car far more than I expected to,” he admitted to Dean with a chagrined expression.
“Is that so?” Dean asked. “All that shit you give me over being obsessed with a damn car?”
“It’s true. I concede the point, Winchester. She’s much more than a car. She’s family. And it hurts to see her infirm.”
A shadow passed across Dean’s eyes, but Cas kissed it clear. They’d already talked the subject to death. Dean didn’t need another reassurance so much as he needed a reminder. Cas’ lips could remind him as many times as it took. There was no shame, no lingering blame or judgment. What happened, happened. It was over now, and neither man felt compelled to talk about it.
Instead, they slow-danced.
No words required.
And then they fell still.
Dean set his head against Castiel’s cheek. “That trunk is me, Cas. I’m not ever going to be better than this.”
Cas tilted his face to kiss Dean’s temple. “One: you have no way of knowing that. Two: I love you as you are, as you were, and as you might ever be. Three: How you are is all I ever wanted.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dean retorted. “How are you even real?”
“Good things do happen, Dean.”
“Huh, not in my experience.”
“I’ll try not to take that personally,” Cas replied sourly, pulling away and taking the beer bottle with him.
But Dean wasn’t listening to Cas anyway. He had already turned back to face the disgrace he’d made of his car.
“I can’t fix it, man. I broke it so bad, I can’t fix it.”
“That’s not true,” Cas told him.
“It’s always been you who fixes the shit I break. I can’t wrap my head around this.” Dean scrubbed both hands through his hair, leaving a black grease-streak along his forehead.
Cas lowered his chin and looked piercingly into his eyes. “YOU built us a new table. YOU took your midterms with a hangover for the ages and a puke bucket at your feet. YOU faced Judge Sterns and took accountability for breaking that man’s arm. YOU repaired my car after you wrecked it. you have been fixing things your entire life. Get on the goddamn phone to Frank Devereaux and find Baby a new trunk bonnet. And stop feeling sorry for yourself before I have to wail it out of you.”
“Aight, jeez!”
“Do it today. Who knows how long it’s going to take him to find such a relic? I miss my ride.”
“Bossy fucker,” Dean grumbled, closing the trunk carefully.
“You’re damned right,” Cas agreed. “Nothing else gets through that thick Winchester skull.”
As their private car pulled up to the curb, Cain put a hand under April’s elbow and stalled her, leaning in to whisper. “I don’t trust Nick, Omega. This close to a big award ceremony, he’ll be looking for a way to turn up the juice. Don’t believe a word he says, and don’t take any advice from him. Not right now.”
April rolled her eyes. “I know, Cain. I’m not stupid.”
“Consider yourself warned,” he added. “If he tries to pull you into some crazy plan, it’s your bare bottom on the line.”
She lifted a hand in acknowledgment as she let the driver help her onto the sidewalk.
“April, I mean it. It’s on your… Damnit.” Cain petered off to mumbling to himself as he followed. He had a bad feeling, but what could he do? Neither Omega had broken any rules yet.
Nick and Jenn were already seated at a long table sprinkled with people Cain knew. April squealed when she spotted them, ignoring the pop of flashbulbs from both sides. Cain followed at a slower pace, intent on drawing no eyes to his presence. The paparazzi didn’t know Cain from a random sidewalk junkie, and he wanted to keep it that way. Nick, on the other hand, glowed under the attention. He swept April into his orbit as naturally as sunlight feeds spring leaves, and she fit right into his space. He had a table full of guests with him, and he set to making introductions immediately.
Cain sauntered up to the far side and set a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. She was a sight for sore eyes. He’d missed her.
“Jenn.”
She looked him over without hiding her amusement. “You are a brave man, Darius Cain.”
“The more common accusation is ‘stupid’,” he quipped. He took the seat next to Nick’s alpha, glancing down the long table. Rowena was here. Interesting. That didn’t bode well. Rowena’s presence meant there were plans afoot that he didn’t yet know about.
“How does it compare to the old days?” Jenn asked him with a hefty nudge to his shoulder that sent him flailing momentarily for balance. He grimaced at her. Had he said he missed her? He meant she was a royal pain in his ass. She mimed lining up a sniper’s shot. “You, the girl, the Alpha? How does it compare to your days looking through a gunsight?”
“It’s very much the same,” he commented. “It’s all about precise calculations, impossible predictions, and making no mistakes.”
“You wanna see about getting our own table?” she asked hopefully. “It’s a bit crowded here. Nick doesn’t need me for this.”
“Mm,” Cain glanced around, but there were no empties nearby. “Tempting, but I’m on the clock. It looks like Nick’s making plans, and I need to know what goes down.”
“Jesus, Darius, Nick’s always making plans. Let the redhead take notes and get addresses. Take a lunch break for god’s sake.” Was she drunk? Cain grimaced again.
“The redhead will have April doing burlesque if I leave the two of them alone,” Cain pointed out, sending a gratuitous tight-lipped smile down the table to Rowena.
“Besides,” he added, turning to face Jenn. “Your boy is going to pull something tonight. I can feel it. And I am never wrong.”
“Pshh! Nick’s ass is eggplant-purple. He’s done, Cain. Got it all out of his system.”
“You’ll understand my skepticism, I’m sure,” Cain replied. “Seeing as I’ve known him longer and I fucked him before you graduated high school. I’m telling you. He’s planning something.”
“Thought we already established that Nick is always planning something,” Jenn joked with another shoulder into his arm.
“Blow it off if you want to,” he said darkly. “I’m only responsible for two people at this table, me and that beautiful girl down the way who’s drawing every eye in the room. If Nick sets the place on fire, it’s his funeral. And yours.”
She huffed into her wineglass and changed the subject. “Now that you’re in his Pack, man, you gotta tell me the inside scoop. What’s Novak like? What’s he really like?”
Cain gave her up for a lost cause and collected his menu and his water glass as he stood to seek another chair. The alpha was too soused to help at all. Cain was on his own. He leaned down to whisper into her ear, “He’s intense.”
“I knew it!” she whispered back in a fervent hush.
He put a finger to his lips as he backed away, and she mimicked him, nodding.
If Jenn was drunk at six-thirty, Nick was behind it. Cain had no doubts. Her wily Ozzie needed his alpha out of the way, and that meant that he intended to abscond with Cain’s Ozzie as well. There was no chance Nick meant to leave April behind. He saw himself as April’s mentor, although he was far more a Huck Finn to April’s Tom Sawyer. Whichever way Cain looked at it, it spelled trouble.
What’s more, Cain needed to be within hearing distance of Rowena. The look she was shooting April set Cain on edge. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, exactly. Rowena was good at her job, although not always bound by the strict letter of the law. She would never harm April. He knew that. But Cain and Rowena had different goals where April was concerned. Rowena viewed her, quite understandably, as a cash cow who was destined to make the diminutive Scot filthy rich. And Cain had already made the shift to view his charge as Pack. No amount of good will could ever convince Rowena to pass on a lucrative project for April, and no amount of money would ever convince Cain to put her into a vulnerable position.
If nothing else, Cain knew he would have to answer to both Michael and Castiel if he let someone use her.
So, he watched Rowena.
And he listened, contributing little, letting April soak in the spoils of entertainment industry success before its glitter ultimately wore off and revealed the griminess underneath. She was captivating, he had to admit. The place was an entertainment hot spot, set up for showboating would-be stars. Nick hauled April up to the piano for a couple of songs. The clientele loved it. What’s more important, the manager loved it. Cain slipped the maître d a crisp Benjamin to let them play as long as they liked. It was a ridiculous bribe since Nick all by himself was a boon to the restaurant, but these things weren’t always logical. How it was done would always be how it was done.
Cain kept April in his sights even as he smoothly felt out the players at the table. He eventually ordered April a meal and reeled her in to eat it. Nick followed like a puppy, annoyed that no one had thought to bring a plate for him. He ate most of April’s.
Cain enjoyed seeing her happy. It was keeping her that way that might prove the real challenge. Some of the members of their dinner party were people he never wanted April to know—underhanded, phony, slimy creatures who ate lovely young talent for lunch and left dried husks in their wakes. But there was simply no way to work in this town without feeding the sharks.
That was Cain’s job. April never had to touch that aspect.
That’s assuming he could keep a filter up between April and Rowena. The sophisticated agent would tell his ingenue everything if he gave her half a chance, just to see the color drain from her innocent face. Rowena was ruthless. And conniving. Cain longed to fire her short Gaelic ass and slide Mark Simpson into her spot. Why hadn’t that been the decision from the start?
And the funny thing about that was everyone assumed Cain was the same as Rowena, only he’d never seen the need. Perhaps being alpha bought him tickets to places betas couldn’t go without schemes. But Cain, entirely contrary to his reputation, had always played straight. Oh, he made the sneaky deals, caught glances that weren’t meant to be caught, overheard conversations that were thought to be private, but he never cheated anyone, and he never went back on his word.
Cain didn’t scheme. He worked.
Rowena couldn’t say the same. Cain knew that for a fact.
“We’re going out front for a quick smoke,” April announced with a touch to his shoulder on her way past with Nick.
“Hey, hey, hey, hold on there, cupcake. You’re not leaving this building without me, and you’re certainly not smoking. Do you know what cigarettes do to a performer’s voice?” Cain made a grab for her arm and caught her fingertips. “You barely ate a bite.”
“Please, alpha. It’s only for a moment. I’m not smoking. You know me better than that. It’s Nick. Come on, Cain. Please? You can see us through the window. We’ll stand right there, not three feet away from you.” April turned her pleading eyes to maximum, and the whole table was staring. What a predicament. Cain ran his tongue over his teeth beneath his upper lip. Treating her like a child in front of these people would undo half of what she was trying to accomplish for herself and Omegas everywhere.
But Nick was up to something.
Jenn smirked at him from one end of the table and Rowena from the other.
“Don’t leave my sight, Omega,” he told her sternly. “You have ten minutes.”
She grinned and kissed his cheek before skipping after Nick who waited for her at the exit.
Cain had a brief vision of trying to explain April’s disappearance to an irate Castiel, and it wasn’t a pretty image. He turned his chair and made no pretense that he wasn’t laser focused on her. She spied him through the window and suffered him an amused and exasperated shrug. He didn’t share her lightheartedness. But then, he wasn’t she.
Their roles were different.
And that’s why, when it happened, Cain was totally at a loss as to how. One moment April was leaning into the glass window shoulder-to-shoulder with Nick, and the next, Nick had dropped his butt to crush it under his heel before bending down to tie his shoe or collect a stray quarter or…whatever. He drew April’s focus to the ground beside him, and she doubled over as well, leaning low to investigate whatever had him fixated. Cain leaned forward, peering over the low transom, but just that fast, they were both gone.
He jumped to his feet, scanning in all directions, fuming. He cast along his bond and found a trace of her down the street to his right, but she snuffed the link almost as soon as he sensed it.
”Goddamnit!”
He scowled at Jenn, whose face had grown ashen. She appeared nauseated. “They can’t have gone far,” she tried helplessly.
“The hell they can’t,” he growled. “Come on. Move your ass. Think. Where would Nick take her?” He frog-marched her out the door, dropping a wad of bills at the front station to cover the table. If he lost his Ozzie, wasting Castiel’s cash would be the least of his worries. “I’m going to kill them both!”
Jenn stood stock still in the middle of the sidewalk with her eyes nearly closed, sniffing the wind, casting for something traceable. Cain pulled up the geo app on his phone and set it to searching for April’s phone.
“Come on, c’mon! Damnit!” he chanted. “I’m going to kill that reprobate!”
“Hey.” Jenn’s eyes flashed red and steely at the same time. “That reprobate is not yours to kill.” There was real danger in her tone.
Cain growled in disgust and took off down the sidewalk in the direction he’d felt April vanish. His phone seemed stuck on “Searching.” Jenn caught him up. “Darius, calm down. He knows cities. He knows L.A. He can take care of himself. He’ll keep her safe.”
Cain turned on his heel, brought a forearm up and flattened Jenn against the wall in a flash. He pressed hard enough into her throat to bulge her eyes and cut off her air supply. He brought his face awfully close to hers, exuding deadly calm. He licked his lips and regarded her, red-faced and struggling.
“It isn’t Nicholas Maraby’s job to keep April safe though, is it? Don’t you threaten me, alpha. Find. Them.”
“Y..ea…ah,” she choked, beating on his arm until he removed it and went back to his phone and the chaotic street in front of him as if he hadn’t just had her breath in his power.
“Gimme a second. Nick spends a lot of time in this city. I need to think. Where would he take her?” Jenn babbled, scrunching her face. “Somewhere he wants her to see or…experience. Somewhere he knows you’d never allow her to go.” Jenn snapped her fingers, a lightbulb popping in her mind. “I got it. I know where they’re going. We need a cab.” Jenn set two fingers into her mouth and brought a passing taxi to an immediate halt with an ear-splitting whistle. Cain scrambled in behind her, scowling as if his life depended on the hardness of his expression.
“Where to, alphas?”
“Bandit Highway,” Jenn told the cabbie. “You know it?” Cain sighed.
“Now, you alphas must be from out of town,” the driver scoffed. “That place is a myth. Doesn’t exist. How about you let me take you somewhere nice. Somewhere real. I got you.”
Jenn handed a wad of cash forward. “Don’t fuck with me, bud. I’m from New York. I eat Angelenos for fucking breakfast. Take us there. Now.”
“Look, I don’t know where it is,” the cabbie admitted, looking nervous. “They move it around. Different spot all the time. It pops up with no warning. Usually somewhere nice-looking New Yorkers like you don’t wanna be, and there aren’t a lot of taxis running that side of town, if you know what I mean.”
“Then you’d better figure out how you’re going to track it down, don’t you think?” Jenn argued. “Unless you think a couple of alphas like us don’t mean business.”
“Yeah, all right. You’re not gonna like it though. People always think they want to go slumming until they get stuck walking forty blocks past the worst this city has to offer. And I’ll tell you another thing. I’m not waiting around for you to change your mind. You pay me now. I take you there. I drop you. You get out. I’m gone. We clear?”
“Just drive,” Cain told him.
The cabbie texted rapidly into his cell phone, muttering unhappily. “Gotta hunt it down first. They don’t exactly hang signs on the door.”
They’re not here!” Cain shouted the obvious over the noise after picking his way through sticky, meandering, smoky aisles, if aisles they could be called. The cacophony coming from the stage set his last nerve aflame. It was hideous.
“They will be!” Jenn assured him, hollering over the noise. She squinted through the haze at the seat of a chair that looked to have been pulled out of a landfill. “Have a seat. They’ll come to us.”
“Unless they get tangled up in something else first,” Cain observed. A million scenarios ran through his head. This horror of a club was no place for April. Hell, it was no place for anyone higher on the evolutionary ladder than a cockroach. The stench of stale urine mixed with the sickening stench of fresh urine. And vomit. And, god, what was that smell? Cain pinched his nostrils and huffed to clear his sinuses.
He debated texting home. But if he did that, Cas would phone him straightaway, and he couldn’t field a phone call amid this din. Better to wait. At least a little while.
“This is a goddamn catastrophe,” he moaned, sinking into a chair beside Jenn.
“No. Look! Five o’clock. At the corner by the door.”
“Thank fuck,” he muttered, rising fluidly to his feet and stalking across the distance.
Nick had his head low to speak to April, waving now and then to people who called out to him. Cain descended on the pair like the angel of death, taking each of them by an upper arm, pivoting them on the spot, and marching away from the tumult. Up slimy basement steps they stormed, barreling over the incoming throng, fish swimming against the current.
“Alpha, wait! We need to stay!” April tugged against his hold, but she had no chance of fighting loose without ripping her arm off altogether. Cain hustled her free without sparing her a look or a word. “There’s a musician I need to meet! He wouldn’t meet us anywhere else. Cain, please! Would you just wait?”
But he didn’t wait. He hardly waited for her scuffling feet to keep up, much less slow to hold a conversation. Nick stumbled along willingly enough, no complaints on his lips, only an ironic half-smile as he waved at highly amused fans here and there. They drew catcalls and whistles. Cain didn’t slow until he’d put four blocks between them and that godawful screech.
Cain was no purist. Music could be whatever an artist deemed it should be. It could be dissonant. It could be painful if there was a purpose. But this? This was just bad. Nothing good could possibly come from a meeting here. He prayed she hadn’t been photographed. Her hairpin was no longer in her hair, and he prayed she’d had the good sense to tuck it somewhere for safe keeping. Heaven help them both if she’d lost it.
At what appeared to be a reasonably empty, well-lit intersection, Cain pulled them both around to face him and towered over them, furious. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Nick looked away, casually lifting his free hand to acknowledge a cheerful whoop from a passing pedestrian heading toward the underground club. April bit her lip, still outfitted for a much different audience. A car blasted its horn as it blew past.
“Aw, alpha, let ‘em go,” someone jeered.
Jenn caught up.
Cain shoved Nick toward her in disgust. “You are not my problem,” he told the obstreperous Ozzie. “Get out of my sight. Tonight’s studio session is canceled. Pray I don’t cancel the rest as well. Go away.”
“Darius…” Nick began, winding up to appeal to the greater good for her career. But Cain took one half-step toward him with a livid glower on his face, and Nick wisely buttoned it.
Resituating his hold on April’s shoulder instead of her upper arm, Cain turned and stalked off, marching her before him and calculating the fastest way back to the hotel.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” she grumbled.
“Save it.”
“But if you would just listen.”
Cain ground to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk and faced her. “What did he tell you? That no one makes it in this business without spending some time under the rocks with the worms? That you must pay your dues in the rough places so you can learn how real music is made? Meet the real business insiders who don’t show their faces where the light shines? He’s trying to make you walk the path he did, but it’s all a fraud, April. Don’t you get it? Maybe that helped fifteen years ago when no one thought an Ozzie could tie his own shoes, much less break into show business. But if there was ever any truth to that myth, it’s over now. The business has changed, and it isn’t his job to pave a path for you anyway, it’s mine. Now, march. We need to get back to the hotel and call home.”
“No, alpha, please!”
Cain set off again, this time taking her by the hand and hauling her along in his wake. It didn’t take long to find a bus route and work his way back to streets he felt safer for his Ozzie. They didn’t speak anymore until the doorman opened the door to the lobby of their hotel, a welcome sight.
“Everything’s canceled?” April asked in a small voice. “I have commitments.”
Cain growled and jammed a finger into the elevator button, pushing it two or three more times just for punctuation. “You are in a world of trouble, missy,” he told her. “Count yourself lucky we’re not boarding a plane and flying straight home. You lied to me.”
She wilted, waiting for the elevator with her cheek held between her teeth.
“Where’s your hair pin?”
“In my pocket.”
The elevator arrived. Cain began to feel safe. It was a slow process though. There were still eyes on her.
As the door closed on its springs behind them in their suite, April lifted her dress over her head, kicked her shoes off, and sank to the floor into her Submissive kneeling position. Cain put his phone to his ear with a sense of pacing inevitably toward his own gallows.
Castiel answered.
“Sir, she’s safe. She’s fine. We’re in the hotel,” Cain began with assurances, knowing Cas was likely to panic. “But there’s been a hiccup.”
”What happened?” There was the tone that Cain’s body responded to unwittingly. He turned his back—and thus his groin—on April.
“She and Nick hatched a plan to go slum-diving in search of music underground insiders. She managed to lose me for an hour or so and make it to a place neither of us thinks she has any business in.” There. That pretty much summed it up. In his mind, Cain went over his will, his insurance policies and beneficiaries, his end-of-life business arrangements.
Silence from the other end of the line.
“Alpha?” he asked. “Castiel?”
Nothing.
“Sir, Jenn and I tracked them down. I brought her home. No harm done. She’s fine. I’ve canceled tonight’s studio session, and I’ll be dealing appropriately with her for the infractions to your rules. I knew you would need to know what happened.”
“Put her on the phone,” Castiel told him in clipped words.
Cain sighed and held his cellphone out to April. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. Her mouth dropped slack. Cain had to waggle the phone at her before she took it.
“S-Sir?”
Cain strolled away, giving her a modicum of privacy considering the chewing out was not going to be pleasant. He rummaged a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge and leaned against the kitchenette counter while he drank. He couldn’t hear the Alpha’s words, but he could see April’s face grow pale and regretful. She Yessir’d into the phone more times than Cain felt possible in such a short time before finally holding the phone back out for Cain.
Cain returned and took it from her, holding a chilled bottle of water out to her with a pointed look. Once she took the water and put it to her lips, Cain put the phone back to his ear.
“Alpha,” he said.
“Darius, I trusted you with the safety and welfare of my mate. But you’ve failed to keep her under your care. Expect to pay for that when I arrive on Sunday.”
Cain cleared his throat. “Yes, Sir. Is…is that all?”
Castiel huffed in impatience. “Is there more to this incident than you’ve told me?” he asked.
“No, Sir.”
“Then, I believe one reprimand will be sufficient. See that you impress upon my mate that in my absence she continues to be bound by the same expectations she is under at home. I trust you won’t fuck that up. She’s depending on you, alpha.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And Cain. You did well to call me. Had you waited, had you attempted to keep this incident from me, even overnight, you would be searching for new employment in the morning. As it is, you may consider yourself on probation.”
“Understood, Sir.”
“I won’t countermand your decision to cancel tonight’s session,” Cas went on coldly. ”But her career is not a carrot for you to use to control her. If you can’t manage her health and safety without threatening to take her work from her, then you are the wrong person for this role. Consider your choices carefully.”
“Yes, Sir,” Cain repeated. Now all of April’s Yessirs made sense. Cain’s conversation sounded no different from this end of the phone. He ended the call with a sense of having barely survived. It was relief and dread both. Castiel wasn’t finished with him, and he deserved whatever was hanging over his head. Cain’s rarely seen Submissive side had begun a petition in the back of his head for accountability, and he wouldn’t find peace until he stood before Castiel and paid what he owed.
But first, he needed to complete the same circle for April.
Her head faced her thighs. Her fingers fidgeted. Random muscles flinched across her shoulders and her back. Cain paced a slow circle around her.
“You lied to me,” he reminded her. “You ran from me. You hid from me. You closed your bond and turned off your cellphone.”
He rounded back to the front and looked down upon the top of her head. She looked tiny like this, curled over on herself with not a stitch of clothing covering her body. She was an entirely different person than the vibrant young talent who charmed a theater full of people this afternoon and took them all on a bigger-than-life musical adventure by way of her piano and her passion.
“What was it you said in the car?” he asked rhetorically. “Oh, yes. You said, I’m not stupid in answer to a warning about following Nick’s schemes.” Reaching down, Cain lifted her chin. “You’re not stupid, April. And that tells me that you intended to ditch me from the beginning. How long have you two been planning this?”
April’s eyes stared plaintively up at him, remorseful. “A while,” she admitted. “He told me you and the others can only take me so far, and I believed him. He told me I have to get in with the street crowd to have any credibility where the real work, the revolutionary work, is being done. He said you and Mark are setting me up to be a show pony.”
“How does that seem now?” Cain narrowed his eyes.
April swallowed. He released her chin. “How do I tell who’s right?” she asked. “He’s the only Ozzie ever to make it this big, and he did it mostly on his own. I can’t disregard that. I don’t want to be a boy band with brand merch and a choreographed light show. Don’t you get how important this is to me?”
“I do,” he squatted right down in front of her, abandoning his towering hover. “I really do. April, my entire life is predicated on making you exactly the kind of success you most want to be. Now, if you don’t have the chops or the work ethic or anything sellable about what’s coming out your fingertips, I can’t manufacture it for you. But you do, love. You’ve got a vision and a voice that people crave. Your generation needs a voice, and you can be that if you work hard enough. But—and kid I can’t stress this enough—how you get there is not your responsibility. The reason you can’t tell who’s right and who’s wrong is because you’re too inexperienced, too green, and because your designations tangle you up. You’re stepping out of your sandbox where you don’t belong.”
April frowned. “Nick did it by himself.”
“No, he didn’t. I was there, Omega. I know better. He’s got his own designation tangles, and one of those includes delusions of grandeur that bear little truth to fact. What got Nick through the door was a dinner party where a Broadway producer heard him play and started talking projects. That led to a deal to create something experimental which exploded bigger than anyone anticipated. Nick has an ear for raw talent, a knack for fitting in with any crowd, a photographic memory for faces and connections, and more charm than anyone has a right to. Plus, he’s utterly fearless. But he didn’t make it on Broadway because he tied his street cred down with a sleazy underground network that secretly runs the entertainment industry. That’s his mythos. It wouldn’t be surprising to learn he believes it himself at this point. But it’s bullshit. And you need nothing from those people.”
She blinked.
Cain stood up and sighed heavily. “Look, Nick cares about exactly three things. He cares about his music. He cares about helping talented Omegas get the start they need to leave an impression on the world. And he cares about pissing off his alpha bad enough to get wailed on three times a week. He’s lawless, and he burns everyone who stays close to him for too long.”
“Are we talking about me or you?” she posed, glancing up without lifting her head.
“He used you for a joyride, April. You’re so much smarter than this.”
She lowered her eyes again.
“From right this minute, you and I need to form an iron-clad pact. I need you to be completely honest with me.” Cain planted himself several feet in front of her kneeling body with his feet apart and his arms folded across his chest. “Look at me.”
She breathed in. And out again. And then she raised her head proudly.
“Can you trust me?” he asked. When she paused, he clarified. “I’m not asking if you do right now. Clearly, you don’t. And I accept that. I have work to do to prove that I can give you the path you’re looking for. I know that following Nick got you here to the Grammys. He’s a mentor to you, and I can respect what he’s done for you. As a musician, you won’t find a better role model. But as a manager, April… … …I can do this. I know what I’m doing. But I can’t do my job if you’re trying to do it for me. I won’t try to write a sonata. You stay out of the business of selling sonatas.”
She cracked a small smile
“So, think it over,” he concluded. “You can only have one manager. Either that’s me, or it isn’t. If you think you can learn to trust me, I swear to you that you can count on my dedicated service for as long as you have a career to promote. If you can’t, I will step down as manager, focus on being your chaperone and bodyguard, and we’ll hire someone else to run your business. One thing I’m sure of though, there’s no one else out there who can do for you what I can from right inside our own Pack. You never have to wonder where my loyalties lie, April. Your success, defined however you choose to define it, is my entire purpose for living. I’ve found my calling. I believe in you. But to do my job, I need you to believe in me too.”
Her brow drew into troubled lines across her forehead.
“Don’t answer right now,” he decided. “Think it through. We’ll pick it back up when we get home.”
She nodded with a contrite frown.
“For now, we need to address the other side of our relationship. As your substitute alpha and chaperone, I cannot excuse what you did. Running from me this evening was a dangerous stunt. You broke Pack rules. You broke our rules. And you will be punished. On your feet.”
“yessir.” She rose gracefully.
Cain sat down on the suite’s oversized couch, right in the middle, and he beckoned. April trudged toward him until he leaned toward her and took her by the wrist to hurry her along. He pulled her over his lap, backside to the ceiling, face to the floor. He set to work, spanking the meat of her ass forcefully with his hand, meaning every strike to sting. He sent hard, loud smacks up to reverberate off the lofted ceiling and echo around the spacious sitting room. He covered both cheeks, catching her wayward hand when it broke free and splayed across her hot skin, and pinning it to her back without comment.
Cain was in no hurry. With nowhere else to be tonight, their schedule had suddenly opened, and he was entirely free to take his time. He spanked. And he spanked. And she writhed under his assault. But he pinned her legs with his right calf. And he spanked. Until she cried loudly, Released with an audible crack, and stopped fighting at all.
Cain was no disciplinarian. He had often been accused of having a stern and forbidding presence, but dispensing corrective discipline was an obligation to the man rather than a pleasure. He did what needed doing. Doing it well was a point of pride. April mattered to him in a way no client ever had before. Cain knew that had more to do with how Castiel had framed the role when he hired the man than it did anything else. Castiel hadn’t been kidding around when he selected Cain. He sought an alpha who could step right into Cas’ shoes whenever the mates needed to be separated. And Cain had swallowed that pill whole. April was more than his charge. She was the daughter he would never have. She was becoming his whole world. He brought his hand down in a powerful shower of blows that sent her back arching and wails escaping her throat.
At length, he slowed to a stop and set his hot hand on the backs of her thighs. He allowed the tactile presence of her heaving back and sweating skin convince him she was here. Was safe. Hadn’t been murdered or drugged or raped or kidnapped or… She was safe.
“Don’t disobey me like that again, Omega.”
“No, Sir,” she sniffled, looking over her shoulder.
“Go get my cane from my bag,” he instructed. He helped her up and swatted the back of her hand when she moved to rub the sting out of her cherry-red ass. She knew better. Castiel had her trained to perfection. She was testing him.
In fact, he reflected as she stumbled into his bedroom and back out again, her disappearing act with Nick itself had likely been a test of Cain’s resolve more than a professional crisis in the first place. If she was testing him, he considered, this last round with the cane ought to put the defining touches on that speculation. He took it from her when she presented it formally to him, holding it before her in two hands and lowering her head in deference. Cain heaved himself to his feet—spanking is an exhausting business—and shook each leg back to life.
“This is it, Omega. After this, you’re forgiven. We’ll say no more about it, me and you.” He pointed her around the couch and bent her over the back. “Keep your feet planted, please. You’re getting ten, and they are going to be ten of my best. I know you can take far more than this. I’m not trying to push your limits. This is crime and punishment. That’s all. Here we go.”
Cain touched the cane to the middle of her butt, just where the redness peaked. He set his feet to be sure of his swing, and he whipped the cane back and brought it in with a zip. Her breath caught. Her back tightened up. Her feet didn’t budge.
“Count, please.”
“One,” she squeaked breathlessly.
Again, he let the cane fly. Again, she sucked in an aborted breath and then managed a weak count into her arms. Her ass welted, swelling instantly to show him where he’d struck. In the bond they shared, Cain could feel the sensations as he laid them down. She counted three, four, five, in a steady rhythm.
He could feel how her brain processed the reprimand, feel it working, doing its magic inside her. Ozzies like April craved structure and accountability in a unique way. She needed this. It was far more than cause and effect or negative reinforcement. It fed her soul in a manner Cain couldn’t quite relate to. Where he too carried a primal need to account for his misdeeds, his was a need to reset himself back to rights, back to where he belonged. An Ozzie didn’t truly have a singular position that could be defined as where she belonged. Her right position was a constantly swinging pendulum, the apex that marked misbehavior no less authentic than the quiet, settled passivity of a well-balanced Omega mind. The key for Ozzies was to manufacture the full swing of that pendulum such that it reached those peaks at a time and in a way that they could be managed in private, on a schedule that didn’t cripple them in the public eye or sabotage their work-lives.
An alpha like Cain was well off his reservation when his behaviors broke rules. An Ozzie was in the thick of hers.
Cain whipped the cane to mark the crease of her ass, and for a moment, she flattened into the back of the couch and rolled half to her side, looking upward in distress. Wracking sobs obscured her count.
“Four more, April. You’ve withstood far worse than this before. I expect better. Back into position.”
“I’m sorry,” she sniveled as she rolled back and set her feet beneath her. “I’m so sorry.”
“From now on,” he told her, “anything Nick suggests for the two of you, anything you know is unacceptable, you are to bring it to me. Sneak off like that again, and you will face far worse.”
He swapped the cane down again, and she dutifully counted out a “Seven.” Her legs shivered.
Sitting through the awards ceremony and after-party weren’t going to be comfortable.
Cain shifted his stance, balancing on the balls of his feet, and then put his hips into his swing, landing a hard stripe at the top of her thighs. She screamed and bent her knees. She covered her head with both hands and rocked in misery, going slack over the couch.
“How many, April?”
“Eight,” she murmured amid sobs.
“Did you really expect I wouldn’t track you down and haul you back here? Did you think there wouldn’t be a price to pay? Did Nick convince you it was a harmless jaunt to go skating across the city without a guard? Or did he convince you that there was no other way to meet up with whoever it is he thinks your career can’t live without?”
“I believed him,” she sniffled.
“Perhaps next time you’ll reconsider giving your trust to someone who loves the thrill of the chase more than he cares about your welfare.” Cain struck her again with a whistle through air and a mighty Smack.
“Nine. Yessir.”
“Are we ever going to have to revisit this topic?” he asked sternly.
“Nosir.”
“No,” he agreed. And he whipped her mid-thigh, raising a welt on each leg in stark, vivid red and eliciting a bawling wail. Her heels lifted and thumped back down repeatedly. Her head, still hidden under her arms, rolled back and forth over the cushion.
Cain set his stick on the bureau before scooping her up bodily and carrying her through to her room, laying her down in the middle of the bed. She curled into him and wept pathetically.
Her stroked her hair and wiped her nose. He arranged her to snuggle into his chest with both of his arms around her. He delved into her head and carded his own mind into the wisps of her skittering thoughts, bringing peace and acceptance.
“You scared me,” Cain admitted softly once her sobs died down to weak snuffles. “You mean a lot to me, April. I love you far more than I knew I could love anyone after Colin. I thought I might have lost you.”
She blinked and pressed her cheek deeper into his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It seemed like an adventure.”
He huffed, ruffling her hair. “I know I’m not young and exciting,” he breathed. “But next time you need an adventure, take me along.”
She chuckled. “You wouldn’t have let us go.”
“No, probably not. But if it’s excitement you’re craving, I have some ideas. You don’t have to listen to Nicholas.”
She didn’t reply for a moment, lost in her settling thoughts, digesting the pain throbbing from her ass and thighs. “I was testing you, wasn’t I?”
“I think so,” Cain replied. He craned his head to look down at her. “Did you determine where our boundary lines are?”
“Mm-hm,” she smiled. “Loud and clear.” She adjusted position to roll further up onto her side to relieve the pressure on her backside, shifting more of her weight onto the alpha’s solid body. He kissed the top of her hair. “Are you in trouble at home?” she asked.
“Mm,” Cain admitted. “I lost custody of the Alpha’s mate in a large, unfriendly city. The accounting won’t be pleasant.”
“God, yeah, I’m sorry, alpha. I didn’t even consider that.”
Cain drew in a deep breath that lifted his ribcage and the Ozzie along with it. He could drive the point home with a reminder that her choices often had ramifications above and beyond just her own punishments, but the truth was, losing her in the city was on him, and he needed to stand and take the reprimand for it without dumping it onto April. He’d known before they ever walked into that restaurant that Nick would try to pull something, and Cain had allowed the two Ozzies to walk right out the door against every protective instinct he had honed over a lifetime of training.
The decision to flee was on April. But the success of the flight was on Cain.
“Don’t give it another thought, April. My mistakes are not your responsibility.”
“Tomorrow’s meetings, are those canceled too?” she asked in a small voice.
“No. No, you have important work to do before Sunday night. I shouldn’t have scrubbed tonight’s work either. I apologize for that. I was angry and upset. I needed you indoors in a place I control. That’s not a response I can justify when there are other professionals depending on you to show up.”
She mulled it over with a crinkle marring her brow. “I think I was relieved when you brought us back here instead of taking me to the studio. Maybe I’m anxious about these sessions. They’re all seasoned professionals, Cain. I’m just a kid.”
“Ah,” he responded. “There’s the other shoe I was waiting for. That’s the last puzzle piece. Everything makes sense. Okay. We can handle this. You hungry?”
“A little.”
“Let’s doctor your butt and I’ll call down for some dinner. Up you go.”
She rolled across the bed, hissing as she sat up. “I don’t need to think about it,” she told him vaguely as he helped her to her feet.
“Hm?” He braced her as he guided her to the bathroom.
“About you being my manager,” she clarified. “I want you, Cain, not someone else. I trust you. I do.”
He huffed a stilted laugh. He rifled through his toiletries, dug out a soothing paste, and turned her to face away to smooth it across her welts. “What about our division of duties? Yours and mine? Three jobs? Are you able to stick to that?”
She stood braced against the bathroom counter, leaning into her elbows while he covered her sore ass in a cool balm. She watched him through the mirror. “I’m scared, alpha.”
“I know,” he agreed, standing straight, looking her backside over for any missed spots. “But that’s not one of your jobs. Managing your fears is on my list, not yours. I have ways of helping you through your anxiety until you get embedded in your work and the fear evaporates. Which it always does once you’re actually working.” He met her eye through the mirror with a pointed look.
“And if it doesn’t? What if these studio sessions prove I’m a spoiled rich kid whose Pack Alpha mate is trying to buy her a spot in the big leagues and who has no real business in a room where the grownups are working?” April turned to face him. She looked up into his face, searching his eyes for a lie she expected.
He threw his head back and laughed. She hit him in the middle of his chest.
Gaining control of himself, he placed a hand on each of her shoulders and lowered his head to meet her eyes. “A Grammy nomination, April. A Tony award, maybe two. Those don’t get handed out to people who bought their way in. You belong in that room. You belong with these musicians. All that fear will vanish the instant you and they start talking notes and rhythms and key signatures. You’re no imposter. And you’re not a child. You’re one of the grownups in this conversation, and those people want to hear what you have to contribute.”
She stared into his blue eyes, drinking every word, desperate to believe him but finding it hard to fit her Omega’s self-image into the picture he was drawing.
“April, I didn’t have to beg people to collaborate with you while you’re here. I had to beat them off with a stick. We got the picking rights. You’ve got it all backward in your head. This isn’t you, a shy, sweet kid on the playground begging to be allowed to play in the cool kids’ sandbox. This is a line of cool kids that goes all the way around the block falling over each other to be noticed by you.”
“That makes no sense!” she protested. “I have four songs to my name! They don’t know me!”
“They will,” Cain told her. “Everyone will.”
Cas was a nervous wreck, but he looked like a million bucks in his tux. Dean tucked his chin over his husband’s shoulder, wrapping arms around the Alpha’s middle and rocking him slightly as they locked eyes onto an enormous screen mounted high above their heads in the ballroom where Nick’s guests awaited the big show.
Live footage of glamorous stars and performers rolled across the screen.
“Who’s sexier, do you think?” Dean posed, watching the screen. “Keith Urban or Shawn Mendes?”
“I can’t watch this,” Cas moaned. “I don’t know any of these people. I don’t understand what they’re saying. I feel like she’s a guppy in a school of sharks. I want her out of there. I changed my mind. Let’s see if we can get her a spot in the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra.”
“Cas, you’re going to have to chill. This bullshit comes with the territory.” Dean checked his phone when it buzzed. “She says they’re pulling up next. This is us, babe. Look.”
“Oh, God.”
“If you’re gonna puke, aim for the ice bucket instead of the carpet.”
On the screen above, a dark limo pulled up, and Michael emerged. On the far side, hardly in the camera’s view at all, Cain slid out and rounded the front of the car to disappear entirely. Michael grinned radiantly and waved as noise from the crowd became an uproar. He leaned down, extending his hand, and drew April from the car with the grace of a dancer.
Cas squeezed the blood from Dean’s hand.
“Unclench your jaw, Alpha,” Dean whispered. “Enjoy this moment. Look at them!”
But Cas was scanning the crowd for gunmen. The soles of his feet broke out in a cold sweat. All the blood left his face.
Dean swayed him slowly from behind. He kissed the side of Castiel’s neck, his eyes glued to their mates onscreen. “Look at them, CJ,” he repeated at a whisper.
Michael placed a guiding arm around April, his hand possessively in the small of her back, and the two made their way along the red carpet like royalty. They moved as one, each shifting with the motion of the other, making way and filling in, flowing more than walking. They looked Mated.
“You’re a fucking genius,” Dean observed into Cas’ ear. “I ever tell you that? This is perfect gameplay. We’ve got the media and the public eating out of Michael’s hand now. None of the fearmongering from either wing of the opposition has any traction. They can’t convince people he’s a psychopath when he glows like that in a tuxedo. Jesus, man, Michael could run for office if he wanted to, and he’d win in a landslide. This is working.”
“We’re in deadly waters, Winchester. One wrong move, and we’re finished.” Cas clutched Dean’s hands at his belly.
“Maybe. But we’re not going to make any wrong moves. Michael understands his role. He’s not going to fuck this up. Look at us, man.” Dean laughed. “We switched places. Thought I was the irrational one. But I’m loving this. Jesus, they’re gorgeous.”
Dean fell silent as the two approached a reporter and charmed her with wit and joy and effervescence. Cas breathed a sigh of relief when both April and Michael handled the short interview like veterans. Soon, the camera focus shifted to the next celebrity, and Michael guided April away.
Cas turned in Dean’s arms and lay his cheek on Dean’s shoulder.
“Just be grateful we have Michael, so you don’t have to do it,” Dean joshed. “The next five hours of sitting and listening to speech after speech is going to be awful. At least here we get food and drink and dancing. Wanna dance?”
“Um, no. I don’t want to dance.” Castiel’s gaze drifted into the distance, searching April’s emotions. He pulled away, wandering toward their table with his head in his phone. Dean chuckled to himself and followed. He, too, sent a querying touch down his Mating-bonds to touch base with the Omega at its other end, but he left his phone in his pocket. Social media could buzz along without him. Someone would fill him in on anything he missed if it were important.
Cas sat down without looking, nearly missing his chair. He scrolled through Twitter and Instagram, hunting for the take on the two Omegas’ appearance as a couple with no alpha mates in sight. “First impressions seem to be shock mostly,” he commented when Dean joined him and poured two glasses of Chardonnay.
“Good shock or bad shock?” Dean asked.
“Surprised shock at this point,” Cas replied. His eyes skipped across the screen of his phone. “The most common question I see is about whether she and I have parted ways.”
“You can answer that, you know. Tweet something.” Dean took a drink and then nudged Castiel’s glass closer to his husband with two fingers at its base. “And drink something. Need you to lighten up a little.”
Cas shook his head, continuing his scrolling. “Billie’s managing our social media response. She threatened me life and limb if I did anything but read.”
Dean scoffed. “It’s fraud to have someone else post to your accounts in your stead, Alpha.”
“I’m in no mood, Dean.” Cas imbued his voice with a warning tone that pinked Dean’s ears. “You’re pushing. Don’t.”
“You’re jumping at shadows,” Dean told him earnestly. “We thought of everything. It’s going to go smoothly because there are no loose ends. Let Billie do her job. Let Michael do his. Let April have the night of her life, even if she can barely sit down after you blasted her halfway across California with your switch. You and I have an evening to ourselves, man. All gussied up, no pups, no staff, no mates. Just you and me and a bottle of wine or two. C’mon, Cas, look at me. Don’t I look nice for you?”
That brought Castiel’s head out of his phone, and he did indeed appear chagrined. He set the phone down.
“You look wonderful, Dean. You always look amazing. I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“We’re going to ride the momentum and surf it straight into a whole new world, CJ. Billie will let us know if anything starts to swing wide. If she needs your input, I promise you we’ll know about it. Letting your Ozzie mate attend the Grammys on the arm of a man who flattened a cult with nothing but his voice proves everything we’ve been preaching for years. Once they get over their shock, they’ll see it for what it is. He’s not a psychopath. If he were dangerous, you wouldn’t trust him with this. Our messaging is working because it’s not bullshit. So, calm down. Drink your wine. And come dance with me. I’ll even let you lead.”
On the big screen behind them, the station cut for a commercial break, choosing a replay of Michael walking April down the red carpet in the sunshine as its lead-out. April was radiant. Michael, luminous. They were magnificent together, made to accentuate one another’s beauty. Cas gulped an inordinate amount of wine in one slug and then closed his eyes and chanted his mantrum inside his head. Dean pressed a hand into his thigh and massaged his mind through their bond.
“You’re right,” Cas told him. He set his glass down and stood up. “Let’s dance. You’re not leading though. You’ll follow my lead like the good boy you are, or I’ll take you over my knee in front of all of Nick’s guests.”
Dean grinned. “Promise?”
Notes:
This wraps up a section. I plan to jump a few years into the future from here. Apologies for shorting you on some of the hanging plotlines. The big ones carry through.
Deep, deep thanks for everyone who has continued to follow this story.
Finally, if you're an eligible U.S. voter, make a voting plan now and make sure you carry it through come hell or high water or plague or pestilence.
Chapter 17: Saturday, August 7, 2021
Summary:
A morning at the park lightens the Alpha's spirits and revs his engines - although honestly, what doesn't rev Alpha's engines? Sarah drills down into the crux of what differentiates a wolf from an ape. Our beloved butler is showing his age, foreshadowing that no one lives forever even if it's just something he ate. April drops a bomb that Michael is in no way prepared to catch.
And it looks like three years is about long enough to wait before cranking up the old baby-making factory again.
Notes:
There's a lot going on in this chapter, much more than I first anticipated. I jumped forward about two and a half years from where we were, bringing the timeline a year past the present moment. All kinds of things are still going on out in the wider world: Michael is deeply engaged in exploring his own strangeness, and he's letting the research teams tag along. The media junket is full steam ahead with all four main characters (and Sam) riding the churning waves of fame to keep getting their message across. Dean's still working on taming his own stability issues while simultaneously building a network of wolf resources for helping others do the same. They are all very busy and kicking it in the ass. At home, pups are growing, relationships are maturing, and some things stay exactly the same.
*edit: I fucked up the timeline initially, because I cannot math, and I had to go back and add a year to the date-stamp on this and the next chapters. 2021, not 2020.
I hope you enjoy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, August 7, 2021
NOW:
Castiel sat back upon the wooden bench at the periphery of the playground with one ankle crossed up on his opposite knee, entirely at ease. He stretched an arm along the length of the bench and inhaled to his lungs’ content, taking in the barely perceptible scent of wolves at peace, at play. He watched Dean push Jimmy in the swing. Dean’s grin echoed across Cas’ face, an unintentional mirror. Out further in the dog park, down by the pond, along the running trail, under trees, and sprinkled about on the vast green lawn, Lupins carried on with a relaxed Saturday air, unhampered by the restrictions of society on the other side of the tall, thick hedges.
In here, wolves could be wolves. And they made good on that allowance. Some of them shed their clothing at the entrance and let the sun warm their bodies the way nature intended. Some coupled playfully or filthily, lost in their own little bubbles of connection. Some, like the Winchester alphas and their pups, enjoyed the sense of unburdening without really altering their behaviors beyond what an outing to any public playground would have looked like. No amount of assimilation could ever alleviate the tension across their shoulders of being in shared spaces and knowing that anything they might do or say could as easily be misinterpreted as unacceptable. Spaces where only wolves entered made all the difference.
“Kat, kiddo, you have to let others on the slide too,” Dean called from behind the arc of Jimmy’s swing. “Slide down or step back. Take turns like O-Pop taught you.” He didn’t leave his post, but he had his eyes on his daughter, watching to see if she obeyed or not. The relaxed set of Dean’s shoulders spoke to there being no other place in the world he’d rather be in this moment. Cas felt crinkles form at the corners of his eyes as he looked passively on. His phone in his right hand was dark with disuse.
Cas chuckled all the more when Kat’s eyes cut quickly from her Daddy to her Papa, checking if she was in trouble. A ripple from Dean through their shared bond told Castiel that Dean saw her check and that it irritated him not to be obeyed on his own authority. Cas raised his brow at his daughter in silent expectation, and she hustled to settle her butt on the slide with a “Yessa,” and pushed off.
Dean soon joined him on the bench after extricating J.D. from the swing and encouraging him to join Idgie in the sandbox. Dean leaned back into Castiel’s stretched left arm, hinting that it should lie across his shoulders rather than along the back of the bench. Cas accommodated him.
“You’re not helping,” Dean observed.
“What? I backed you up.” Cas thumbed his phone back to active and frowned at his Twitter feed, having forgotten which thread he meant to follow.
“No, you agreed with me. Not the same thing.”
“Sorry,” Cas replied, looking up to check that his brood was all healthy and happy and socially engaged. Kat had a toddler by the hand and was escorting the boy up wide, low stairs toward the slide while the boy’s mother looked on in amusement. Alex and two or three other children were flinging pebbles up into the branches of a tree, playing a game of their own devising. Jimmy and Emma seemed to have teamed up to create the largest sand pile the sandbox could support. “What would you rather I had done?”
Dean nudged him with his shoulder. “What about, ‘Listen to your Dad, young lady’? Direct her back to me. ‘S’all I’m asking.”
“It amounts to the same thing, Dean,” Cas countered logically. “You gave her an instruction, and I essentially stood beside you. It seems to me I’m being more supportive by not adding my voice where yours has already stated the imperative. I think what’s got you irritated is that she looked to me for confirmation at all, but we don’t control that.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to look so smug about it,” Dean grumbled, sliding down on his tailbone and tugging Cas’ arm tighter around him. He snuggled into his husband’s side and turned his face to the sunshine with his eyes closed. Castiel’s chuckle was soft.
“If you and April were here together, they would look to you for the final word,” Cas added in consolation. “They’re exploring Pack hierarchy. It’s an important developmental stage. It’s not personal.”
“Smug bastard,” Dean muttered sleepily.
Cas grinned. His husband was beautiful and trusting and sweet. He’d turned out to be an exceptional father, to no one’s surprise. And Cas found that moments like this one, sharing small moments of peace while they watched their children grow were the ones that meant the most.
Sounds of sharp rebuke from beyond the playground drew his attention. An Omega and alpha couple, people Castiel didn’t know, had stopped short close to the playground’s perimeter. The alpha was incensed, the Omega chagrined. Little heads turned to watch the confrontation as the alpha put her mate on the ground. Castiel watched his pups observe a Lupin dynamic play out in real time. Kat stepped closer and pressed her face between the bars of the play-structure, watching with wide, fascinated eyes. Alex dropped his pebbles and ambled backward several steps, putting distance between himself and the angry words of an unknown alpha. He turned his head to pinpoint his parents and seek direction. Jimmy Dean and Emma looked up briefly but then turned as one back to their sand mountain and carried on.
“Don’t go drawing their charts yet, Alpha,” Dean told Cas with his eyes closed again. “Everything is likely to change between now and Presentations.” Dean could feel Castiel drawing conclusions that weren’t ready to be drawn yet.
The alpha across the playground from the Winchesters, realizing she had an audience of pups, left off her rebuke after a few well-aimed swats to her mate’s upturned backside before hauling the man back to his feet and stalking away with him, back toward the parking lot if their change of direction meant anything. The children mostly went back to their games. One pair of very young toddlers chose to mimic the adults. They even managed to work the little boy’s pants and diaper to his knees before one of the parents sauntered across to redirect them.
Dean wormed closer until his head tucked in close below Castiel’s chin. Cas tightened his embrace.
“How old were you when you first caught sight of your wolf, Dean?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question considering they’d discussed Dean’s Tertiary’s early onset at length already.
Dean scoffed. “I wasn’t three.” Indeed, it was too early to use their pups’ behaviors to predict the nature of the wolves they would someday house. But Cas wondered. They didn’t have enough studies on early childhood personality traits in relation to adult Tertiary traits yet. Kevin had several in the planning stages.
“If you were aware of your wolf at five years old though,” Cas pondered. “Then it probably had at least a shadowy existence at three. It could have influenced your behavior without anyone realizing it. Watch Kat, Dean. She leans in. Whenever there’s a hierarchical flare-up, she leans in. Perhaps it’s nothing. But maybe not. Maybe it’s predictive.”
“Maybe it’s confirmation bias,” Dean offered, still ensconced in his Alpha’s embrace. “If she presents as a Dominant or an alpha, either one, you’ll conclude that you called it.”
“Ah, but she’s my firstborn,” Cas pointed out. “Odds are against her being either. But watch her, Dean. Even at three, she’s barely submissive at all. I suspect we’ve got our work cut out for us to direct her upbringing. I suspect we won’t have much influence over Kathleen at all. She’s going to do exactly what she decides to do and to hell with the consequences.”
Dean chuckled. “She gets that from her brat of a Daddy.”
Cas sighed and tapped Dean’s back to sit him up. “Aaaaaand, we’re flinging sand. You want this one?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Dean used Castiel’s thigh to help him stand. He set a firm, forbidding expression in place and crossed the playground swiftly to intervene before anyone wound up with a scratched cornea. A dissonant pair of wails, some tears and some snot, and a short break from playtime later, Dean let Alex cajole him into a game of tag. The game drew pups off the play structures and out into the open grass until the swing set sat abandoned and squeals of laughter echoed across the duck pond.
Castiel sat his bench and watched. Strangers joined in, drawn by Dean’s vibrant charisma and gentle nature. If it were possible to fall endlessly and repeatedly in love with the man, Castiel was still falling. Dean made joy look effortless and inevitable. He drew people to him without lifting a finger, and every person he smiled at, no matter their age, felt accepted and appreciated and part of Dean’s world. He just had that effect. Cas watched him scoop up a child who seemed to want to play but hadn’t yet mustered up the courage. Dean caught him around the torso from a dead sprint, whisking him into the air, eliciting a squeal of delight, and tucking him under one arm like a football before dodging attackers from every direction.
Somehow, the game grew to enormous proportions in a matter of minutes, and the littlest participants could easily have been trampled or outgunned as far older pups let their adolescent wolves take the competitive bit. But Dean directed those he pegged as tops to look out for and engage with the tiniest players until rag-tag teams organized themselves around seeing that everyone had a chance to get into the melee. Cas tried to work out what the goal of the fracas was, but it looked random. It looked random until half of the runners all cheered at once and high-fived in celebration. Dean’s shy little buddy beamed as Dean ran a victory lap with the kid on his shoulders.
The impromptu game broke up. Dust drifted back to settle on the scuffled lawn. Dean, sweaty and red-faced and glowing, laughed his way back to Castiel’s bench with two of his own pups in his arms and the other two skipping happily along behind him. “Ice cream for the winners, Alpha?” he asked loudly enough to indicate he’d already promised as much to his brood.
“However did you determine winners in that chaos?” Cas asked as he lifted Emma onto his lap.
“We winned, Papa!” Jimmy bragged. “Did you see me?”
“I saw,” Cas assured his son. “You played hard. All of you did. I believe ice cream is in order.”
Five faces lit up at that pronouncement. Alex and Kat took Castiel’s hands and heaved until he stumbled to his feet. Emma slipped to the ground and took Kat’s hand, catching her sister up in a rollicking song and skipping ahead. Alex held Cas’ hand, satisfied with a slower pace in the Alpha’s company. Jimmy found his way onto Dean’s hip, leaving Dean free to stroll beside his husband, hand in hand in the sunshine surrounded by wolves and Pack and pups and victory and pleasure.
Cas squeezed Dean’s hand.
“You’re a sap, Alpha,” Dean remarked without looking away from his daughters who were nearing distant enough to be called back.
Cas let go of Dean’s hand and popped his ass smartly before reclaiming his hold and adding, “I love you too.”
The house was quiet when Cas led the way from the garage into the kitchen with small bodies zinging past his legs. At least it had been quiet until he brought his crew home again, stuffed with a lunch that Michael was sure to object to and topped off with enough ice cream to make their little eyes vibrate in their heads.
“Walk in the house, please,” Castiel reminded the brood before they skittered too far away. Four sets of legs slowed to a walk. “Everyone upstairs,” he directed. “Naptime.”
“Nooo,” Emma whined.
“No nap,” Ace agreed, backing his sister up. “We can play outside, right Daddy?” Alex turned deadly plaintive eyes on Dean, but Dean wasn’t about to fall for it. All four of them had been nearly asleep on the way home.
“Listen to your Papa, young man,” Dean told him with a pointed look over his shoulder at Castiel. “March.”
At the kitchen table, Sarah looked to be sharing a pot of tea and a chat with Kate. They broke off as the Pack bustled in. Sarah collected the tea things while Kate took up the point position in leading the pups up for their nap. Dean accompanied the throng, but Cas stayed behind in the kitchen and slipped off his shoes.
“Did you have a nice time?” Sarah asked.
“It was a lovely day,” Cas told her. “Just what we all needed. Did you get the quiet you needed to finalize your dissertation?”
“I’m so close, sir. Nearly done if you can believe it.”
“I do believe it, Sarah. You’ve worked hard, kept your focus, teased out the details you needed to make your case, and now it’s coming together. I applaud you. I hope it feels good. You deserve to.” Cas pulled two beer bottles from the short refrigerator in the butler’s pantry. He zeroed in on his connection with Dean and sent a summons tinged with a taste from the bottle he’d just opened. He smiled affectionately at the irreverent thumbs up he felt in return. Dean could slant any message with a brat’s tone. Cas couldn’t have put a finger on how he knew Dean’s thumbs up resembled a single raised finger more than anything else, but there it was.
Cas pried the top off of Dean’s bottle as well and returned to the kitchen. Sarah had a speculative look on her face as if she could hear Cas’ brief exchange with his husband but couldn’t understand the words. Cas took a swig and gloated.
“You’re in a good mood,” she observed.
“I just had the most wonderful day with my pups and my husband,” Cas replied. “Sunshine does wonders for a sour disposition.”
“You have chocolate on your collar,” she told him with a teasing tone before turning to load her ceramic tea service into the dishwasher.
“Oh.” Cas craned his neck to inspect his collar and then attacked the stain with a wet cloth. “We stopped for ice cream.”
Sarah laughed softly. “Afraid Michael will find out you stuffed his pups full of sugar?”
“They’re my pups too,” Cas defended pointlessly.
“Sure they are,” Sarah laughed.
Cas gave up on the stain and chuckled at his own absurdity. He wasn’t worried about Michael finding out. He wasn’t. Cas was Alpha after all.
Sarah watched him talk himself up one side of the issue and down the other. She shook her head and took a chair at the table. Cas joined her.
“The dynamics in this house are never going to make any sense to me,” she admitted. “I don’t know why I keep expecting it all to click.”
Cas pursed his lips and set his gaze on his hands, wrapped around the amber bottle before him on the table. “Without a sense of smell and access to the bonds we share, you must be at such a loss to follow what comes so naturally to us. You’re not wrong that I feel a certain degree of chagrin at treating the pups to ice cream without first checking with Michael about it. I’m Alpha, Sarah, but we all agreed that he would take the lead on their health and upbringing. He cannot do that effectively if his three partners keep undercutting his choices. Ice cream is not a significant mutiny to our setup, but Michael can’t direct his energies if he must constantly keep redirecting them.”
“Surely though, the Alpha gets to enjoy his own Pack without running everything through for approval,” Sarah questioned obliquely. She tilted her head in a perfect Castiel imitation and narrowed her eyes unconsciously.
Cas chuckled. “We’ll see, I suppose,” he answered.
Dean strolled in and swept his beer bottle off the island where Cas left it. He collapsed into the chair beside his husband. “Four exhausted three-year-olds and four pups adamant that they aren’t tired at all,” he complained. “Kate, April, and Michael are all on the job. It’ll probably take an army to get those puppies to settle. Michael’s already suspicious, man. He said they look to be on a sugar high. Think we’re in for it once he confirms his suspicions. It was nice knowing you, sir.” Dean winked.
“Godspeed,” Cas agreed with a touch of the neck of his bottle to Dean’s.
“May I ask a question before you’re both beheaded, while I’ve got you here?” Sarah asked with a note of changing the subject. She adjusted in her chair and looked to be readying to take mental notes.
“Shoot,” Dean agreed with a long drink.
“It’s just that…Primate culture is shifting toward acknowledgment that humans of all ages have the right to their own bodily autonomy. We’re finally, communally, allowing even very young children to decide who touches them and how. The speculation is that as children who’ve been taught that their bodies are their own grow to adulthood, they will be far less vulnerable to the kinds of abusive manipulation that pins victims in unhealthy relationships, uncomfortable saying no when they need to protect themselves. But it seems that Lupin culture teaches children the exact opposite. Do pups not warrant governance over their own bodies?”
“No,” Cas replied simply.
“But,” Sarah fumbled. “How do you teach them to protect themselves? To set appropriate boundaries?”
“It is not a child’s responsibility to protect itself,” Cas told her. “It is the responsibility of the child’s caretakers. Even adult Lupins, those who have deferential designations, cannot claim full bodily autonomy. Our brains are wired to thrive upon hierarchy. That colors every aspect of our social lives. If you will examine your own research closely, you’ll see echoes of this running throughout your own conclusions. You just haven’t put it all together yet.”
“So, you feel it’s appropriate to force a child to accept a hug they don’t want, don’t feel comfortable with?” Sarah frowned in dismay.
Dean reached a hand across and set it on her forearm. “We don’t let just anyone have access to our pups, Sarah. And we can smell one another’s intent. We can smell our kids’ emotions. If someone’s creeping our pups out, we would know. But the critical bit you need to understand is that subordinate Lupins don’t have body autonomy. It goes further than adults just having the right to give them a bath or change their diapers. Lupins need physical touch to process their relationships, and most of those touches are directional in nature.”
“Directional?” Sarah prompted.
“Hierarchical,” Dean clarified. “Half of what we do at The Facility in Omega or Sub classes is to undo the conditioning these poor schmucks were raised with from being embedded in ape society where they learned—wrongly—that they have a right to refuse hierarchical touching. Once we clear that out of their heads, the rest falls right into place.”
Cas nodded along, agreeing with Dean’s wording, thinking how else he could clarify the point. “Primate children who learn to speak up when they don’t want to be touched gain a feel for their own boundaries and their innate power,” Cas added. “It is empowering for Primates to learn to protect themselves this way. Wolves experience the opposite. Setting boundaries based upon personal preference distances them from the Pack. It creates artificial fences between them and their families.”
“But surely not every adult they meet is trustworthy. Not every child they meet is trustworthy either,” Sarah argued.
“No, indeed,” Castiel agreed. “It is critical that children be raised under the watchful eye of adults who protect them. No one approaches my children but through one of us. It is we who decide when touch is and isn’t appropriate for our children, not the children.”
Sarah’s frown deepened. “I can think of so many cases where the situation is rife for abuse,” she said.
“So can Michael,” Dean agreed.
Cas shot him an irritated look. “The point is,” the Alpha went on. “Lupin children who are raised as submissives under a firm social strata fare better in adult relationships later in life. And they experience lower rates of adolescent and childhood depression, anxieties, learning disabilities, and social incapacities. Acquiescence to Pack touch reinforces that stability. With our Pack connections and powerful sense of smell, Lupins don’t suffer the same frailties that some Primates do that predispose them toward abuse. I’m not claiming a superior moral position for wolves over apes, Sarah. We certainly do have our frailties. But abuse of minors is exceedingly rare. We are wired to nurture and protect.”
“Oh, come on,” she shot, disbelieving. “Crime against Omegas by rogue lone-wolf alphas? Rape? Violent attacks? You don’t think those count?”
Cas shook his head. Dean downed his beer. Cas leaned in and said, “We don’t sexualize or beat our children. Violent crime against Omegas is an entirely different social construct. It arises from instinct run amok with no outlet. Lupins do not have an instinct to harm children. And children need to learn to honor the Pack hierarchy. Where ape children must be taught to trust their gut instinct because there are Primate predators out there who will harm them, and because they have an inherent social responsibility to develop independence, Lupin children must be taught the opposite—that they cannot be safe but by trusting their elders to know their own best interest and to see to it.”
“Primate predators harm Lupin children as well, Alpha,” Sarah admitted bitterly.
“Only if they are allowed access,” Cas replied. His tone turned dark, hinting at a deep disgust of child sexual predators and the danger they posed to his Pack—a danger they would be sorely pressed to find a way to act upon.
“That’s why you take them to the dog park playground?”
“Dog parks allow us more liberty from social constraints, Sarah,” Dean put in. “But any public park would be just as safe with one or more of us watching. No one’s going to approach a wolf pup whose parents are nearby. The early years of a pup’s life are all about learning trust. We have to be worthy of that trust in everything we do and everyone we allow near them. Pups can tell when they’re in perilous conditions versus when they are instructed to hug Grandma but don’t want to. Your species is right to allow children their own boundaries and their own voices. But you gotta make allowances for how we’re built differently. This is why one set of laws governing both species doesn’t work. We aren’t the same as you. Deep, deep inside—way down at our core—we’re different.”
“There’s also the point that we don’t have to practice social distancing at the dog park,” Cas added with a touch of sadness.
Lupins, it turned out after rigorous studies, could neither carry nor catch Covid-19, but trying to enforce social distancing and mask mandates when authorities couldn’t tell from a distance who was Lupin and who Primate meant that public places required wolves to heed the same restrictions that apes were bound to. Raised on hierarchy, wolves made no fuss about abiding by the rules for the ease of governance it allowed city officials and retail shop owners. Better to adhere to rules as a group and set an example of compliance than risk adding to the cacophonous defiance of a Primate public who didn’t understand basic risk assessment.
But within their own Lupin confines, places like the city dog park and the ACRI Facility, the precautions weren’t useful. They turned their efforts rather to mustering supplies and coordinating medical staff to man beleaguered hospitals.
Sarah sighed. She didn’t want to talk about Coronavirus. “After they have a spat, the pups always have to hug and kiss and make up. Michael never lets them off the hook until they do.” It was an observation more than a question. “But what if they still have a grudge to hold? Doesn’t forcing them into a physical apology deny them a voice?”
Dean chuckled. “It’s hard to hold a grudge when you’re hugging someone you love,” he said. “That’s the power of Pack scent and skin-to-skin contact. Unless you’ve got real beef with someone, sometimes just a touch is all it takes to remind you who it is you’re put out with. We don’t make them hug until we’re sure most of the beef has had a chance to be heard. Everyone but Kat likes that part. Means the lecture is over and they’re out of hot water.”
“Kat hates it,” Sarah pointed out.
“Yes, well, Kathleen is the exception who proves the rule,” Castiel replied. He finished his beer. “She still benefits from the touch despite her protestations.
Dean nodded vehemently. “Yeah, and if we let Kat decide when she wants to be touched and when she doesn’t, she’d hide in her room and superglue the door closed. She’s three and already acting like an adolescent. She’s way too young to know what’s best for her. She needs Pack touch just as much as the rest of us.”
“Or more,” Cas put in.
“Or more,” Dean agreed.
“It’s a lot to think about,” Sarah concluded.
“It all fits together, beta,” Cas told her with his mentor voice engaged. “Tell you what. Think it over. Pelt me with questions after you’ve had a chance to digest it. Then write up your reflection for me, and we’ll go over it again in depth. I want you to consider how body autonomy has the power to disconnect subordinates of all ages from the Pack structure. Tell me what it does for apes and how that differs from wolves.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open. “You’re giving me homework? I’m finishing my dissertation.”
“You still have to defend your dissertation,” he told her with no sympathy. “You’ll be better positioned to do that if you understand this core tenet of Lupin psychology.”
Sarah grumbled. Dean cleared his throat, drew her eyes, and gestured toward Cas with a pointed nod of his head.
“Yes, sir,” she said, heeding the hint.
“Excellent,” Cas beamed. He stood up. “Good talk. Dean, you’re with me.”
“What? What’d I do?”
“I have no idea,” Cas told him. “Let’s go find out, shall we?” He offered Dean his hand, and after a conversation about how subordinates don’t have the right to deny a Top’s touch, he had no recourse but to take it and let Cas lead him out of the kitchen.
Fred stopped them in the foyer with a pained expression. “Ah, Alpha. Good. I do regret needing to abandon the household on short notice, but I’ve become unwell rather suddenly, and I need to go home. I will keep you abreast of my condition as it becomes more certain. If you will excuse me, please.”
“Fred?” Dean took hold of the butler’s elbow and supported him. He looked pale and shaky. “Let Cas look you over. You shouldn’t be driving in this condition. What’s wrong? It’s not your heart again, is it?”
“No, alpha, I’m certain it’s something far more tedious than that. I shan’t be driving. David is on his way to fetch me. I feel sure it’s something disagreeable that I ate. Please don’t fret. I won’t be infirm long. These things tend to work themselves out.”
Cas watched the man’s carriage and his eyes. He caught the spasm of pain as it passed across his face and tightened his belly. “Go home and tell David I said to take good care of you,” Cas instructed, winning a small smile from the butler. “Have him call me in the morning, Fred. And don’t come back to work until Tuesday no matter how much better you feel. If you worsen, I’m taking you to the clinic myself. No arguments.”
“Yes, Alpha. Thank you, sir.”
Fred shuffled toward the back of the house to the staff door behind the garage with a hand on his stomach. Dean worried. “Should we send a doctor to his house anyway? It could be Covid, CJ.”
“Unlikely,” Cas replied, sounding less sure than he meant to. “He doesn’t have any of the standard symptoms. But, yes, I plan to have him looked after in the morning, and that will include a Covid test. I’ll arrange it with David. In the meantime, Fred’s own bed and a release from his duties will do him the most good right now. He’s smart enough to know if he needs a doctor’s care in the immediate term. Let’s not stifle the man.”
“Cas…”
“It’s not our decision, Dean.”
“The hell it’s not,” Dean objected. “He’s seventy-five years old. He’s too old to keep spending twelve-hour days taking care of someone else’s house. I love him as much as you do, but you know damn well he’s not ever going to retire on his own. And as long as he’s in the job, he’s never going to turn things over to anyone else. He doesn’t delegate, man. He still gets down on his knees to dust under the clock by hand—every day.”
“I’m not going to force him into retirement, Dean. That would kill him. This is his home. It’s been his home far longer than it’s been mine or yours. His work here means more to him than his own husband does. If he’s not a butler, I fear he’ll find nothing meaningful to fill the void.”
“You’re going to let him work himself to death?”
“He isn’t working himself to death,” Cas disagreed. “The work itself isn’t a hazard to him. In fact, his work is likely keeping him healthy enough to keep living even as his body begins to weaken. So, yes, I intend to hold a place in his home for him to continue to do meaningful work for as long as he wants to.”
Dean frowned, eyes stuck on the window of the back door through which Fred had disappeared. “We should at least consider coming to terms with what the household might look like without him.”
“Oh, Dean,” Cas murmured, pulling Dean’s head around at the pain in the Alpha’s voice. Cas’ face was stricken, shattered at the very thought.
“I know, CJ. I know what he means to you.”
Cas’ eyes kept their haunted expression, a vision of loss he could hardly comprehend. “He’s the father who loved me,” Cas whispered. “The one who didn’t leave. He never left.”
“Shh. Come here. I know. He’s just got the runs right now, man. He’s gonna be fine. Probably outlive all of us.”
Castiel let Dean hold him as the reality of Fred’s impending feebleness struck home. Any fool could see it coming, but Cas had been diligently shoving the worry to the back of his head, as had Fred for that matter. Relative lifespans of otherwise healthy Primate humans to Lupin ones… Well, suffice to say, Castiel could expect to outlive the old man even if they didn’t have an age difference stacking the deck. Old age, decrepit deceleration, and infirmity was the price humans pay for extending natural life beyond the point where an individual could hold its own. Castiel wasn’t naïve. It just hurt. And he wasn’t ready.
Castiel didn’t push his emotions down this time. He let them come, safe in his husband’s arms. He centered himself in the present, as he’d learned to do through years of quiet meditative mind-training. He felt it. And it hurt. And he let it follow a tortuous course through his body until the burn of grief subsided on its own, leaving him softened but steady.
Dean left a lingering kiss on his temple and a couple of bracing stiff pats between his shoulder blades. Cas pulled himself together with a deep inhale through his nose. His eyes were dry.
“I’m all right,” he mumbled as he drew away. Cas felt wrong-footed in the awkward interim after their interruption. Dean was watching him, waiting for a signal. Castiel had seemed determined toward an outcome of his own making before they were waylaid by the family butler, but Dean didn’t know what it was. How could he know? Cas hadn’t filled him in yet. Cas stood still in the middle of the foyer with his eyes on the floor in front of him for several breaths, reframing himself. Worrying about Fred wouldn’t help anyone until they knew more about his ailment. And Cas had plans to see to.
Gathering himself and offering his headspace to his Alpha, Castiel let his eyes darken.
Dean’s eyes responded instantly in-kind. Quite suddenly, Dean did know.
“B…but…You…you gave me beer,” Dean stuttered in a non-sequitur that Cas had no trouble following. Castiel smirked.
“One beer now and again shouldn’t hamper us overmuch,” the Dominant replied.
Dean took an unwitting step backward. Castiel took a step forward.
“What’s wrong, Pet? Don’t you want to play with me?”
“Right now?”
“Have you anything more pressing to do?” Castiel asked with a brow raised.
And the truth was, as Dean stood transfixed by the weight of blue eyes tinged with crimson, he didn’t. He decidedly didn’t have anywhere on Earth better to be than right here. The simplicity of the connection between their eyes affected an instant supplication from Dean, whose instincts kicked in, flushed his body with pleasure at the thought of groveling naked on his back on the marble floor and hoisting his knees high in the air to present himself to his master. His face flushed. His fingertips tingled.
“I want to take you apart, Pet,” Castiel intoned with another step forward that Dean reacted to with a corresponding retreat, backing toward the stairway, uneasy as he warred with a desire to roll and a parallel awareness that he faced a dangerous predator preparing to pounce. Castiel’s fluid advancement married serpentine with feline, evoking the image of a dragon in stalk, even as he called forth the full predatory movements of canine grace. Dean captured his own drool with the back of his hand before it dribbled down his chin. “I want to devour you right here and right now, and I always get what I want.”
“I…uh…okay? Should I … undress?”
Castiel chuckled. The sound echoed off high ceilings, warm and rich and full of dark promise. “Here’s your instruction, Pet. Are you listening?”
“Yes, Sir.” Dean found his footing and pulled himself the fuck together. God, he loved this dance, this feeling, this connection. Time to prove he was no amateur who let nerves get the best of him, even as nerves zinged from his thumping heart to every extremity and back again. He stopped backing up, earning an appreciative half-smirk from his Sir.
“Your task is to climb the staircase. You may pause along the way briefly now and again, but your progress upward must not stall or stop altogether. Do not allow yourself distraction from your goal or you will find me most displeased.”
Dean glanced over his shoulder at the staircase. He had been up and down it thousands of times in his life, often paying it no mind whatsoever as his mind fixed upon his destination rather than his journey. It didn’t seem like a troublesome goal to set. Just climb the stairs? Seriously?
Dean bit his lip and faced Castiel again. The man was closer. “I think I understand, Sir. Is there anything else?”
“In addition,” Castiel told him, adding a provocative twinkle to his eye. “Obey my every instruction along the way.”
Dean nearly burst out laughing. The timbre of his Dominant’s voice changed between one instruction and the next, a detail no rookie would have noticed. But Dean caught it. And he knew what it meant. He grinned impishly at the challenge. Castiel was setting him up to be ground into meal between the imperatives of Castiel’s Alpha versus the commandments from his wolf. They frequently feasted off different things, needed very different things, and often enough, they chose to use Dean’s body in their tug-of-war.
It was the Alpha who set Dean the simplest of tasks: to progress from the ground floor, up ten steps, a square landing with a ninety-degree pivot, and then another ten steps, to the floor above. Castiel’s wolf had no intention of making it easy. The tension between the two was where Dean suckled on the drippings of power. His body answered for him. He hastened a quick retreat, backward away from the predator before him to the foot of the stairs. Mischievously, backward, he mounted the first step. His eyes sparkled. He rolled his tongue playfully along his lower lip.
“Strip for me, Pet.” Castiel moved slowly toward him. Dean gained another step without looking round. He doffed his t-shirt in one smooth motion and dropped it over the banister before attacking his belt buckle and backing upward to take the third step.
“No, Dean. Strip for me. I want to be entertained.” Castiel reached the bottom step and halted Dean’s next backward step with an arm around his lower back. Castiel leaned in and kissed Dean’s soft belly with a wet and open mouth, dragging his tongue across from hip to hip. Dean stumbled back down one step and caught himself on his husband’s shoulders.
He let his head fall backward at the sensation of wet heat at his navel. He closed his eyes and squeezed a fist into Castiel’s hair, holding him in place. The Dom chuckled again. Cas let him go, easing Dean’s hand from his shoulder to the railing to offer him support in case he was dizzy, and he stood up straight.
“Strip for me, Pet,” Castiel whispered.
Dean never presumed to be a dancer but showing off was a natural brat by-product. He held Castiel’s eyes with an intimacy that bordered on obscene, and he swayed his hips invitingly. Turning his back on the man, Dean stepped up. First one foot, then incorporating it into his striptease, he brought up the other. His hands roamed seductively over his hipbones as he rolled denim down on both sides, granting no more than a peek at the sharp bones underneath. Castiel loved Dean’s hips. This, he knew. Gyrating to a beat in his head, Dean flattened his back over the stairs and widened his stance, presenting his clothed ass for his master’s appreciation.
Castiel responded with a growl and a sharp swat, joining Dean at last on the staircase. “I said strip, Dean, not tease.” Dean smirked over his shoulder.
“Yessir.” But he moved no faster at relinquishing his pants, earning several more stinging spanks and a threat to have his blue jeans ripped unceremoniously from his body if he didn’t get on with it. Dean was on stair number five when he eased his feet out of his jeans and tossed them over Castiel’s shoulder. Whether fortunate or not he couldn’t have said, but the jeans were, in fact, his final article of clothing as well as his only entry in the strip tease. He’d dropped shoes off by the garage door upon their return home. Socks ended up in the hamper in the nursery when he ushered his troops up for a nap. And underwear, well, it’s hot out. Sometimes things gotta breathe.
They both hesitated for a moment, watching for a hint of what the other had planned, and then Dean turned and bolted toward the landing. Castiel tackled him flat and dragged him back to the fourth step. The Dominant straddled Dean’s hips, planting a knee on either side, applying teeth to the back of Dean’s neck and a vice grip to his waist. Dean grunted as he worked his forearms flat to the step at his shoulders and hauled himself upward. Castiel bit down, and Dean whined. The Sub craned his neck far to one side, offering his carotid to his superior without weakening the pull of his arms. Slowly, even with the grip to the back of his neck, Dean eased himself upward to where he could plant a knee on the stair and lift his torso—and his attacker with it—off the step. He grimaced with the effort.
“Good boy,” the Alpha whispered in his ear, at complete odds with the efforts Castiel’s wolf put into keeping him put. The great wolf would not countermand Dean’s instruction to climb the stairs, but he had no intention of allowing him to succeed either. Cas had set him squarely between the two impossible designations and made him fight to placate them both. For a brat as entrenched as Dean, born in a Submissive as desperate to please, it was a delicious challenge. And Castiel’s wolf was a cheater. If he could, he would seduce Dean to abandon his upward trek and give himself over to the pleasure the great beast offered him.
Castiel kissed Dean’s shoulder blades and down his back until he was forced to sit up upon Dean’s backside and take fistfuls of his hair to prevent him worming his way up any further. The balls of Dean’s feet dug into the carpeted step near the ground floor and pushed, straining tendons in his calves that Cas would have appreciated could he see them. They reached a stalemate of sorts. Dean couldn’t wriggle free on his belly, and Cas couldn’t devour his prey. Carpet burns turned Dean’s chest, belly, and knees pink. They both panted for a moment, locked in tension, each straining against the force of the other, equilibrium found and vibrating.
“Roll over,” Castiel commanded, releasing his hold and tipping up on one knee to let Dean go. “Roll over on your back.”
Dean licked the corner of his mouth, uncertain of trusting the relative freedom. But he rolled, planting his ass on the fourth step. He’d made no progress at all, and his knees and belly were irritated from the dragging. He looked up into blue eyes flecked with red. Castiel’s head was backlit from the arched windows to either side of the front door, casting a golden halo around his angelic features, and Dean melted before him. He lay back, uncomfortable on the uneven surface below him, and spread his feet wide. His arms went out to either side, bent at the elbow to leave his hands out beside his head, submissive. Nonthreatening.
Castiel purred and fitted himself back into place straddling Dean’s legs. He kissed Dean’s throat. Kissed. Nipped. Licked. Down his chest, suckling aggressively on Dean’s nipples one by one. Dean’s left hand closed silently around the square spindle of the wooden railing beside him. He moaned in unfeigned delicious erotic sensation at the pain/pleasure Cas’ lips and teeth wrought upon his nipples. But even as he reveled in sensation, he eased a foot into place on the step below him and slowly, with hand and foot, he slid his butt up to the next step. Castiel let Dean’s body slide upward, tugging the nipple from between his teeth in a stinging pull and presenting him with ribs instead—ribs heaving with exertion and expectation. Cas bit down on the sensitive flesh of Dean’s side, eliciting a yowl and rocketing Dean’s flattened body up into a V for self-protection.
Cas sat up and tssk’ed at his Sub. He soothed the spot with his thumb and cast an eye to Dean’s hold of the staircase spindle, drawing another sharp tssk.
Dean’s chest heaved. He released the spindle and planted his hands by his hips. Holding Castiel’s eyes intently, he pressed up and slid his ass one more step up, daring the wolf to respond, turning the tables on his Top and making Castiel’s Alpha contend directly with his own wolf instead of using Dean as a proxy. Castiel growled deep in his throat. His upper lip pulled back from his teeth. Dean held his Top’s eye and his own breath and scooted his butt back into the step, claiming it.
Lust fairly poured off of Castiel, leaving pink circles high on his cheeks and more black pupil to his eye than either blue or red in his irises. His eyes raked the length of Dean’s body, taut as a bowstring, aroused and sweating. Castiel closed his fist around Dean’s erection and stroked firmly. Dean’s breath caught and his eyes closed. A wrinkle formed between them. His hips thrust forward, losing him his balance for a moment, but he caught himself before he lost a step. Castiel fisted Dean’s cock for a handful of strokes, spreading the silky precome over the head with his thumb.
Dean licked his lips again, a tell he still wasn’t aware broadcast that his brat was about to make a move, and he lifted his right leg high into the air, crooked it around Castiel’s head and drew the man’s face toward his crotch in what couldn’t be perceived as anything but insolent. Castiel opened his mouth and engulfed Dean’s dick. Dean sprawled out on his back and cried out. Cas grasped Dean’s flanks and heaved forward, driving Dean’s hips toward his face, thrusting Dean’s cock down his throat. Dean clutched the stairway beneath him, holding on as best he could as Cas swallowed him.
He didn’t want to have to climb, but an instruction from his Alpha was commandment. He wanted to stay and revel. He wanted to pass out from the pleasure and wake up spooning in a warm, clean bed with the man who smelled like everything real and whole and righteous.
Castiel read his mind and growled menacingly without releasing his hold. And lemme tell you, a full-throated growl when that throat surrounds your sensitive bits… Dean set all of his concentration to not coming right then and there. It wasn’t easy. Castiel redoubled his efforts, adding a massaging hand to Dean’s balls that froze the Sub’s brain momentarily.
But then he swallowed his regret, took advantage of Castiel’s lax hold and turned over to scuttle up to the landing on his hands and knees. Castiel caught his foot and heaved backward, but Dean managed to take hold of the main post in the inside corner of the landing, and he held on. Castiel spanked Dean’s unprotected ass hard in a flurry of strikes. Dean held onto the post with both arms twisted around the wood and his teeth gritting in pain.
After twenty or forty strikes, Castiel gave in to his lust. Dean’s eyes shot wide as he felt a hot, wet tongue plunge into his entrance with no warning. Castiel’s palms kneaded the stinging skin of his ass as he licked, nibbled, and thrust into Dean’s hole.
“Ahhhh,” Dean grunted, tilting his hips to offer better access.
“‘Scuse me, fellas,” Monica said politely as she picked her way down the steps around their sprawling limbs with a laundry basket in her hands. Castiel ignored her. Dean couldn’t really have moved anyway, not without giving up his progress. At the foot of the stairs, she collected Dean’s jeans and shirt, adding them to her basket without slowing. Dean’s vision blurred as he gazed around the post he’d snugged his chest up to while his husband ate him out in full view of the front door.
And Castiel was feral back there. Dean moaned in hedonistic abandon. Precome dripped from the tip of his dick. He had no idea how to move from this spot, or even if there was any reason to. Cas could make him come without touching his penis. He knew the exact strokes that lit Dean up from the base and sent him shooting off like a bottle rocket, and Cas could feel what every touch did to Dean.
Dean blew his breath out in long deep huffs, gathering his motivation around him, reminding himself that a trained Submissive does not lose the instruction he’s charged with just because the tongue in his ass feels incredible.
Castiel’s wolf cheats, after all.
The landing was a wide square space, grandiose with its etched honey-oak paneling and deep plush green carpet. It might prove the toughest span to cross on his way to the top, but if he could cling to the corner post as he made the turn, he’d have a far better chance of not stalling out on the flat landing that offered precious few handholds.
Castiel flattened his tongue and dragged it up the length of Dean’s taint and over his hole. Dean whined a humiliatingly high-pitched wail and buried his face in his arms. He was near the jump-point of the mental countdown to his next break for the top when Castiel grunted and drove his arms beneath Dean’s thighs, lifting his lower half up into the air with his face still buried in Dean’s ass. Castiel stood up, inverting Dean and eliciting a squawk of surprise. Dean’s face turned bright red. He clung to his post even tighter as Castiel manhandled him to his own satisfaction.
Dean’s cock found friction against Castiel’s still-clothed chest, and the tactile sensation was nearly too much. He let go of the post and pressed himself up on his hands, shoving his ass into Castiel’s face and making the Alpha support his weight. Dean growled in effort and intense lust. Castiel cackled into his flesh, delighted to have torqued Dean beyond his self-control.
He spent an eternity working Dean’s hole over with tongue and teeth and lips, one foot braced a step or two down for stability. Dean hand-walked backward to win himself position and find better friction for his dick. All attempts to wiggle free or maneuver upward were abandoned.
Without warning, Castiel stopped licking and laid Dean out on the landing on his side. Two assertive strides up the steps brought the Alpha to the landing himself. He scooped Dean into his arms without breaking stride, turned him upright, still advancing across the landing, and slammed his back into the oak paneling perpendicular to the first rise of steps. Dean grunted and clenched his eyes closed, losing his breath for a moment. Castiel held him fully aloft with his arms beneath Dean’s thighs, leaning him into the wall for support. He attacked Dean’s lips hungrily, and Dean mewled back, offering up everything his Sir might demand from him.
Castiel hoisted Dean’s left thigh onto his shoulder and used his own freed right hand to attack his belt buckle and the button and zipper of his pants. Dean clutched Castiel’s left shoulder, haphazard in balance, but stable against the wall. Dean’s left hand pressed hard against the paneling. The kissing, if it could be called kissing, continued through the fumbling of clothes and grips. Both men lost themselves in the urgency of their wolves and the connection inside their bond. Castiel made a high, desperate, entreating sound in his throat, ravenous and frantic. Dean echoed him unconsciously.
Cas shoved his pants and boxer briefs to mid-thigh and slid Dean down his arms until their groins lined up, uncurling the man as he went. Thighs out wide, Dean watched breathless as Castiel maneuvered him perfectly, letting gravity do the work with perfect aim. Dean’s ass enveloped Castiel’s cock, sliding to the base where Castiel’s knot provided a stop to the pull of gravity. Both men stared down at the connection, riveted, panting, sweating, trembling.
“Cas,” Dean pleaded, urgency in his voice.
“Shh. You’re all right, Pet. You’re my good boy.”
Dean closed his eyes and shook his head frantically.
“Hey, hey, love, look at me.” Cas tempered his voice to tug at the inner walls of Dean’s defenses, tremulous now in the thick of being undone. “Dean, open your eyes.”
Dean’s breath hitched. His eyes snapped open.
“Calm down,” Castiel instructed, eyes very, very blue, adamant. Solid.
“I…” Dean trembled and frowned, but he matched Castiel’s slowing pace.
“Good boy. So good. Watch my eyes, Pet. Trust me.”
Dean nodded. He wiped his sweaty palm on his own thigh and then retook hold of Castiel’s shoulder. Wordlessly, slowly, Castiel drew back his hips, sliding his cock outward, and then snapped them forward again with power that slammed Dean’s body into the wall. Dean’s eyes flew wide. He moaned, gripping bruises in his Dom’s shoulder. Cas adjusted his hold, letting gravity do the work again until he held Dean braced against the wall doubled up with the Alpha’s hands gripping the back of Dean’s knees held wide. It would have been a humiliating position for most alphas, but Dean melted into the sturdiness of Castiel’s eyes, let his legs go lax so his Dominant could spread him open as he saw fit.
“Hands around my neck, Pet,” Castiel instructed. Dean laced his fingers around his husband’s neck like a Freshman at the school dance. A nod between them. And Castiel let his wolf go. He set his feet and thrust up hard and bestial, bracing Dean’s slick body as it slid across the wall in his own sweat. Dean’s head thumped against the wood, not hard enough to hurt but enough to keep him from thinking anything but this very moment. Castiel’s hips flew. The sound of thumping, slapping, squeaking skin as it slipped in its own sweat against the woodgrain paneling, and grunting breaths, echoed obscenely through the hall, down the myriad directional passageways, sending a message of ownership to every corner of the house.
Veins stood out along Castiel’s throat. He grimaced. Sweat dripped from the tip of his long, straight, noble nose. He was predator and nobleman and Alpha and beast all in one. He shoved upward with his hips and heaved down with his hands wrapped around Dean’s outer thighs to impale his husband on his knot, shouting hoarsely, face to the ceiling.
Dean tucked his chin and moaned so loudly, it sparked an echo of its own, and he came hard into the crook of his thighs. Castiel pressed in impossibly close with his tailbone tucked under and his shoulders rounded. He held Dean aloft more with his chest and hips than with his arms. Dean panted, folded tightly in the miniscule space between Castiel’s body and the unforgiving wall. Which of the two was more implacable, he couldn’t have said. Cas rolled his hips luxuriously, enjoying everything he could sense and feel and express.
God bless a flexible alpha body.
“Not sure I’m gonna make it all the way up the stairs, Alpha,” Dean confessed sleepily.
Cas chuckled. He rolled his hips again. He had his knot locked inside his Sub’s body, but he hadn’t come yet. Not yet. He was floating blissfully in that rapturous balance before the imperative of need took him over and made the decisions for him, and he was reveling in it. He let the balance point slide away from urgency.
“You’re sumthin’ else, you know that, sir?”
“I’m going to set you down. Hold onto me.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m good.”
“Yes. You are.” Cas lowered an arm and allowed Dean’s leg to slide off, easing it to the ground with support behind his thigh before following with the other. Standing together fully knotted was painful. Dean hissed and lifted his right knee up to wrap a leg around Castiel’s waist, taking the pressure off somewhat.
Cas worked his pants upward, tucking the waistband under Dean’s calf to keep him from losing them altogether. He nodded and tapped the outside of Dean’s left leg, signaling a readiness to catch his weight. Dean pressed his back into the wall and jumped that leg up as well. Cas caught him easily under his ass, took a moment to brace him against the wall and fix the other side of his waistband securely, and then staggered slightly as he eased him off the paneled wall and carried him up the remaining flight of stairs.
“S’cheating,” said Dean, leaning down for a kiss to swollen lips.
“In no way is this cheating,” Castiel chided him. “I gave you every opportunity to fulfill the instruction, and you allowed yourself to become distracted.” Cas carried him down the hall to the Master suite and folded over him on the bed, minding the connection of their bodies and renewing the kiss. Dean’s ankles crossed and locked behind Castiel’s back. At ease with a bed beneath them and gravity no longer their enemy, Cas picked up where he left off, rolling his hips and grinding hard into the tug of Dean’s tight musculature until he’d worked himself back up to the brink. He pulled his lips away with a smacking sound, eyes intent, and he came with a masculine moan and a frown of concentration. His eyes flashed crimson for a brief moment, lit from within at the moment of climax before fading back to serene blue.
“I failed, then?” Dean clarified once Cas seemed to have rejoined the party. “You gonna punish me?”
“What do you think?” Castiel asked severely.
“I tried my best, sir. Nearly tore down the banister.”
Cas scoffed. “Legs up,” he said.
Dean stalled a moment, biting his lip, watching Castiel’s eyes. Cas swatted his thigh.
“Up!”
Dean uncrossed his ankles and hoisted his legs up, freeing his Alpha to stand upright. Their connected bodies situated at the edge of the bed offered them a little wiggle room to pivot. Cas raised his left forearm to hold Dean’s legs behind the knees, leaning them a little to his left to free a bit of real estate along Dean’s ass and left thigh. With a powerful grunt, Cas slapped Dean’s thigh with his right hand. A hot red handprint sprang to life, creating a nicely centered target. Dean hollered in pain, flailing his feet and nearly kicking Cas in the face.
“Control yourself, Submissive! Do that again, and I’ll keep spanking until we untie.”
Dean groaned, but he reached up and gathered his errant legs up in his arms, tucking into a tight ball with his arms fastened around his shins. Cas massaged the spare section of cock behind his knot that was pulled taut and growing sore. That would have to be endured. He had a Submissive to correct. Cas braced his left hand against Dean’s opposite thigh, helping to hold him in place, and he worked the awkward angle to turn his butt and thigh bright red. Dean squeezed his eyes closed, sniffling hard every few minutes. Castiel let his wolf feast, denying him nothing, relishing the pain on his husband’s face. Dean’s foot slipped as his muscles tightened and spasmed, and he kicked Castiel square in the chest by accident.
A look of horror crossed Dean’s face. He scrambled back into position, rocking slightly in self-admonition. Castiel could practically hear the man castigating himself. He growled at Dean, rolled him to lean the opposite way, and started turning his right side equally red and burning.
“Stop that this minute,” Cas ordered, taking a breather as Dean continued his internal reprimand. “You don’t punish you, Pet. I do. Did you kick me on purpose?”
“No, no, no, I swear, itwasanaccident!”
“Of course, it was. So, let me take care of it. Just breathe, Pet. You’re doing so well for me.”
Castiel pulled his unbuckled belt from his beltloops with a telltale zzzpp! that made Dean wince. A sob broke from his throat. He curled tighter into his ball.
“Before I continue, Dean,” Cas posed conversationally. “Is there anything you need to come clean about? Any personal confessions we need to take care of?”
“No, Sir!”
“Are you sure? Nothing? We may as well clear the air while we’re at it.” Cas coiled the belt around his fist until only a short strap hung free.
Dean sobbed but shook his head.
“That’s a first, I believe, my love. Michael is a very good influence on you. Almost a pity, isn’t it? I do so want to bruise you up nice and dark.”
Dean didn’t speak, but he pulled his knee in tighter, opening up the curve of his backside. And he nodded with a sniffle.
“I love you enormously, Dean Michael Winchester,” Cas told him without a trace of his Dominant wolf or his domineering Alpha.
Dean set his jaw and nodded again.
Castiel splayed his hand across Dean’s shin, put a bit of pressure in to hold him, and whipped the strap back. Applying a strapping while knotted to the strappee was no easy feat. But Castiel had practiced the technique, and he had the tuck of his elbow mastered. The darkening welts across Dean’s thigh, hip, and butt sent a visceral pleasure coursing through, heating his blood, thickening his cock. But the pièce de resistance was the clenching of Dean’s asshole around Castiel’s knot as he worked through the pain. Forget psychological or metaphysical pleasure; this was corporeal, physical ecstasy, and Castiel came hard even as his strap continued to fly.
His vision whited out, halting his strikes, and when he came back to himself, Dean lay staring up at his face in astonishment with a fresh spritz of come smeared on his belly and inner thighs.
Cas laughed effacingly.
Dean reached for him with childlike grabby hands, and Cas tossed the strap onto the far side of the bed before leaning down over his husband to help maneuver them both up onto the bed without tugging too much on their tie.
“I needed that, Alpha,” Dean murmured into his ear. “You always know what I need before I do.”
“Don’t go giving me too much credit,” Cas demurred. “I did it for myself. You and I just happen to be nearly synced when it comes to need. Was it acceptable?”
Dean snorted and stretched upward and behind himself for a couple of tissues. “That was awesome, Sir. I love a good chase. That had everything I like about a chase without having to go outside in the sweltering heat.”
“Mmm. Yes, you have always responded beautifully to any opportunity to compete.”
“Was there a chance I was gonna make it up the stairs?” Dean asked after he scrubbed his belly and thighs mostly clean with the tissues. He tossed them toward Cas’ belt.
Cas licked his lips and made a self-important face before admitting, “If you had turned and made a break for it straightaway, I probably wouldn’t have caught you before you reached the top.”
“Hm. Good to know for next time.” Dean grinned at him and then lifted his left leg and rubbed behind it. Cas smacked his hand away before applying three fat swats to the spot Dean was rubbing. Dean giggled, rolling the pair of them over. He kissed Castiel soundly. Then he planted his hands and raised up to look down at the smug man beneath him.
“All set for your Rut? Anything you need me to take care of?”
“Yes,” Cas answered, turning slightly troubled. “I’ll talk you through the handover tomorrow night. But, Dean, more than worrying about my cycle, I’m beginning to feel that we’re losing ground on our mission. We need to fast-track our initiatives or we’re not going to be ready for me to hand over the Directorship, not to Miles or anyone. We’re not making the progress we need to have made by now. I only have two more years.”
Dean let his disbelief that the Alpha wanted to talk strategy while still sweaty and tied show on his face. But he humored the man. “Two more years before you transition to the Foundational board, Cas. You’re not abandoning us. We can do a lot in two years. And I’m telling you, it’s all in motion. You don’t see the difference yet, but everything is picking up steam. When shit starts clicking, it’s going to go fast. You’ll see. Trust me. We’re right where we’re supposed to be.” Dean stole another kiss. Cas’ hand was warm on his back. He crooked a half smile down at his Alpha, earning a half-smile back.
“We have something else of importance to discuss, Dean,” Cas told him.
Was that trepidation on his face?
Dean scoffed, breaking into a laugh. There it was. This was the one Dean had been waiting for, the reason Castiel James had needed a power-exchange spectacular in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday in the first place. “Look, if you’ve been trying to figure out how to break the news that you and April are all set to water the lawn again, save your breath. You both stink with fertility. She’s probably pregnant already.”
Cas registered shock. Or, surprise, at least. He lifted up onto an elbow, holding Dean steady with his other hand. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” he said earnestly. “The truth is, she and I haven’t even discussed it out loud ourselves yet. We both just…know. We’re both feeling it. We’re in sync with feeling it’s time. I should have brought it up formally with all four of us, but time got away from me. Dean, if you or Michael aren’t ready, we’ll postpone everything. But the pups are three now. Having another one or three in seven months puts them at an age difference of four years. It’s a good separation. And April’s coming to another building phase of her career where most of her work can be done at home or in the studio.”
Dean smiled softly and kissed the tip of Castiel’s nose. “I’m never going to feel anything but excitement about adding another pup to our Pack, baby. Michael isn’t ready to carry another one. He may never want that again. Alex took a lot out of him, emotionally. He’s a bit spooked. But April carried like a champ, and she bounced right back. If she’s ready, then you won’t hear any griping outta me.”
“Dean, I… well, I worry about controlling myself in there. I don’t think another quadruplet pregnancy is a good idea. I can’t bear to lose another due to…overdoing it. But I’m not sure I can hold back.”
Dean huffed a gentle laugh. He turned it into a grimace when the Alpha’s cock slipped free. “Euwrch!” he protested, untangling himself and clambering off the bed, ingloriously swiping himself clean with handfuls of tissues. “How the pregnancy evolves and whether it sticks or not, man, it sucks, but it’s mostly out of our hands. We didn’t lose Dylan because you overdid anything. Omegas have quadruplets often enough to know it’s a feasible thing. And Omegas miscarry single pregnancies too. It wasn’t you, Castiel. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. He just wasn’t viable. For whatever reason. And that hurts. But you can’t let it color what happens right now.”
Cas sighed and sat up. He crossed his legs in front of him. “I will feel better if we only fertilize one womb this time.” It was an admission, and Cas didn’t like making it. He peeked up at Dean standing above him.
“Then you do that,” Dean told him without judgment. “Michael and I, we’re here with you both, every step of the way.”
“Thank you, Dean.”
“Come on, Alpha. Get up and let’s shower. You made a fucking mess.”
Emma and Jimmy went right to sleep, but Kat pouted in defiance, and Alex whined sadly, clinging to April’s torso while she rocked him and hummed a soft melody.
“I’ll take her,” Michael whispered to Kate, easing a cranky Kathleen out of her arms. “Go on. We’ll get them napping and then drop the monitor off to you when they’re down.” Kate nodded docilely and caressed Kat’s curls before closing the door softly behind her. “I can’t believe they juiced them up on this much sugar and then dumped them on us to calm down.” But the griping didn’t match his cuddling and soft hands. No one was fooled by his irritated grumbling. Michael loved everything about being a mother.
Michael held Kat up against his shoulder, urging her to lay her head against him with a gentle hand at the back of her head. She settled her head but kicked rhythmically with her feet. Michael shifted her so that her feet didn’t strike any of his delicate places. He paced the length of the room, enjoying the simple loveliness of holding his daughter like this, of feeling her trust and offering her his strength to rest against.
“They’re getting so big,” April observed softly, noting how far down Michael’s body Kat’s legs dangled. “I miss having babies in the house. Don’t you?”
“Sometimes,” Michael replied, pausing to watch Portia bark at a squirrel halfway up the trunk of the live oak. “They’re still little enough to be a handful,” he offered.
“I suppose. But it’s not the same.”
Kat whined and scrubbed her face into Michael’s collarbone before turning her head to face his throat and settling down again. He rocked her side to side. “Not the same as having tiny fists curl around your finger while they nurse,” he agreed. He looked down at Kat’s face. She wasn’t kicking now but every now and again, but her eyes were still open. “Are you leading up to something, Pete?”
She smiled and averted her eyes. She shifted Ace to sit sideways on her lap and lie back into her arm, still rocking smoothly. “I can feel it again,” she admitted. “I want more. I’m ready.”
Michael nodded, half to himself as if that were the announcement that made all the pieces fall into place.
“What about you?” she asked. “Don’t you feel pulled to do it again?”
Michael set off slowly to cross the room once more. Across and back before he answered. “I don’t, no. I think one was enough for me. At least for a while.”
“Oh.”
Michael looked up at the patent disappointment in her voice. “Pete, what I feel about having pups shouldn’t have any bearing on you. You know that, right? I can’t father your children, and I’m not in a place to try for more of my own. But you have to do what’s right for you. If you want more pups, and now’s the time, then don’t let me stand in your way.”
April drifted away with a dreamy look in her eye, still rocking before adding, “You know alpha Maureen? She Mated an Omega man. Years ago, this was, and he died a long time ago. They didn’t have any pups.”
Michael continued to stroll without answering. Maureen wasn’t his favorite babysitter. He had an inkling where this was going.
“She told me that they talked about trying to get each other pregnant at the same time. Wouldn’t that have been romantic? Twins, carried separately, one for each mother. Both of them a mother and a father at the same time.”
Michael suppressed his dismissive scoff. April felt it anyway.
She blurted, “Okay, maybe it’s not that romantic. But it’s sweet anyway. She didn’t get that though. He died.”
Michael laid Kat carefully in her tiny bed, covering her with a soft blanket. She whimpered once and then fell still. “Out with it, Pete.”
She looked up at him as he loomed over her with one arm braced on the wall by her chair. “If you aren’t ready for another one quite yet,” she explained. “I can wait six months or so. I want this with you. I want to share something with you that’s ours and no one else’s. Being pregnant together is a way to bond that the alphas can’t share.”
Michael squatted down beside her. “Baby, what we have together is already ours and no one else’s. You mean the world to me. And I’m not surprised you’re ready for another litter.” Michael stroked Ace’s dark hair, struck as always by the boy’s resemblance to his father. “But I’m not. Don’t wait for me when I may never get there. I’m not thinking along those lines. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us if we set up an expectation that hurts us both. I know you’ve got those urges crawling around in your gut. Pete, I can feel it. You have a cycle coming up. What has Cas said about it?”
“We haven’t discussed it.”
Michael blinked at her and then stood up, looking down. “At all?”
“Not yet.”
“God, the two of you,” Michael exclaimed.
“Shh.”
“Are you telling me you’re going into a H/R cycle fully fertile, and you haven’t had one conversation with your mate, who is also, I hope you’ve noticed, fully fertile?”
“We don’t have to talk about it, Michael,” she clarified. “We don’t really have to talk about much at all. I can feel what he’s feeling and what he thinks about it, and he can sense me the same way. We’re of the same mind on this. He’s ready too. What’s there to say?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe, Hey, April, it seems like you’re thinking this round might be a good one to try for another pup or six? Am I reading that right?”
It was April’s turn to scoff. She reached for Michael’s hand. He helped her to her feet. She put Alex in bed next to Kat and drew his own blanket up over him. He curled into his sister. She threw an arm across him and snuggled in.
“We will put it all out there before we cycle,” April told him as she watched her pups sleep. “We’re not leaving anything to chance. You’ve met the man, right? You think he’s going to knock me up without asking twelve times if I’m sure? But it’s window dressing. We don’t really need it.”
Michael came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her belly, lacing his fingers with hers and setting his chin upon her shoulder so they could pup-watch together. “I’m worried for you,” he admitted.
She rested her temple against his. “Life is risky,” she told him. “But we still have to live it.”
“Mm,” he agreed. The heel of his hand massaged her lower belly gently. “And you look amazing pregnant with a million puppies.”
She grinned. “On the bright side,” she stated. “If you’re not pregnant or recuperating while I’m on the nest, I’ll have both of you free to help me through the horniness of the second trimester. Poor Cas barely lived last time. And you were on bed rest.”
“Don’t give me that,” he replied. “I remember your second trimester. It wasn’t a happy time. What do you think has me so worried?”
“Ahh!” She blew him off and wormed out of his arms. She straightened the room a little, tossing clothes in the hamper and toys in the toy chest.
“Pete, please. Just hear me out. Maybe don’t put yourself through the full gamut this time. I know it’s an Alpha’s birthright to plug you up until you pop, but his breeding kink puts you in danger. If you ask him to show some restraint, I know he’ll do it, even if it hurts. He’ll give you anything, but he shouldn’t expect you to give him your health, your life.”
April pressed her lips tightly together and then sighed. “All right, Michael. We can talk to him together if you want. You’re a part of my life and a co-parent too. You get to have your say. And if you’re that worried, he needs to know about it anyway.”
Michael smiled stiffly. He collected the monitor from its dock on the nursery dresser and moved to switch it on, but April caught his hand. He looked round at her and found her standing close enough to kiss. So, he did. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek into his chest where she could hear his heart beating stoutly.
“Marry me, Michael?”
He pulled back, holding her at arms’ length and staring into her face, stunned.
“What?”
“Is that shocking?” she asked, looking terribly uncertain. “I love you. We’re raising pups together. Your mate is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. My mate is the mentor you craved your whole adolescence. We’re never going to have to worry about growing apart. We’re perfect for each other. How could it be so awful to think about marriage?”
“It’s not awful, Pete. But why? What’s wrong with things the way they are? What does putting a ring on your finger prove? I thought we both agreed there was no point to … that.” Michael put a few more steps of distance between them. He scowled and slammed his Mating-bonds closed when he felt his mate’s inconvenient sensations overriding his own need to focus. April’s flushed cheeks told him she was feeling much the same.
She turned away. She leaned over Idgie and tucked her blanket in a little more snugly. She was hurt, and Michael hated himself just a little, but he couldn’t bring himself to take his reaction back.
“I love you, Peter Pan,” he whispered, drawing her back in close to him, turning her to face him. “You don’t need a ring and piece of paper to know that I’m not ever going to leave you. Is this about the pups? Do you think that if we marry Castiel might let you have mine?”
“It’s not about pups,” she told him with her spine in place. “It’s about wanting to be yours. Really yours. It’s about wanting to share your name between the two of us and not just through our mates. Do you know that the media has no choice but to keep calling you my boyfriend?” She put irritable finger quotes around the word, leaving Michael frowning with no good answer. “And I’m your girlfriend. In fifty years, I’ll still just be your girlfriend, only, they’ll add the word longtime in front. Michael, I don’t want to be your longtime girlfriend. Don’t you get it?”
Michael regrouped and shushed her. He collected the monitor, took April by the hand, and led her into the hallway. Kate poked her head out of her adjoining room. Michael flipped the monitor on, toyed with the volume a bit, and handed it off with a curt nod which Kate didn’t seem ruffled by. He drew April down the hall, pulling up short when the tops of their mates’ heads came into view on the stairway landing, accompanied by lustful moans. Cas was putting Dean’s flexibility to the test, apparently. Michael huffed and changed direction, heading toward the private study instead and closing the door. He was fairly certain their mates hadn’t even noticed their presence. Or departure for that matter.
“We said we didn’t need to get married,” Michael turned on her in adamance. “We said it was just another layer of rules and restrictions that we didn’t need. I don’t give a fuck what the media has to say about us, and that was the whole point! Cas and Dean got to decide for themselves how they wanted to define their relationship, and they said to hell with what anyone else thought was right. Even you. Even me! They didn’t ask anyone but each other. Don’t you get it? If we follow their footsteps, we’re just mimicking what was right for them, not finding a way of our own. No one thinks we’re for real, Pete. No one thinks Omegas can hold a relationship together—not a real one.”
“Wait. Do you care what people think, or don’t you?” April challenged. “Do you care what I think?” she asked on top of his sour expression.
“Don’t be stupid. And fuck off with your manipulative games. You know I care what you think. Pete, if I ever get married, it’ll be to you and no one else. And if I never marry, it’ll still be you and no one else.”
“So, that’s a no, then,” she said with her eyes bright and her chin high.
“Tell me why,” he demanded again. “Not about wanting a socially acceptable moniker for the media to use. Tell me what a ring changes. What do you need from me that you’re not getting now?”
She looked away, but he saw the tear break free and cascade down the cheek she hid from him. Michael put a hand on her chin and eased her face back around. He collected her tear with his thumb, drying its track and warming the coolness of her skin with his touch. “Talk to me, Pete.”
“I’m not afraid of layers of rules, Michael. That was your issue, not mine. Just because our mates beat us to it doesn’t mean that choice is locked forever. Growing up, I believed that same-Secondary marriages for alphas or Omegas were doomed to failure because I was raised to believe that. But it’s not true. Our mates are proving that to the whole world, and you and me, we’re learning it right alongside everyone else. I never wanted to be an alpha, Michael. I don’t want the responsibility. But I longed to be a beta if for no other reason than being allowed a partner who’s like me, not my polar opposite. I love Cas. But I love you too. I love you no less than him. I get to share parenthood with him, a Mating-bond, a scar on my neck that turns me into jelly when he just touches it. With you, I have…what? Sex? We get to share baby-puke experiences? What is there besides what we feel to set us apart from any two Omegas in any pack anywhere?”
“But, Pete, what we feel is everything,” Michael jumped in. “It’s the only thing that’s real.”
“It’s not the same as what Dean and Cas have, and you know it,” she told him tiredly. “It’s not the same. But if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do. Cas said we make important decisions about family growth by consensus in this Pack, and any no vote defaults to no action. So, unless we both want it, then we won’t go there.”
“Cas is full of shit about consensus,” Michael put in. “He always gets what he wants. One way or another. And I didn’t notice him calling for consensus about trying for another pregnancy next week when you two cycle.” He regarded her in silence for a few moments, working through the lines of inevitability from this point, and it made him angry to realize they all led to the same end, ultimately. She wouldn’t be happy without his ring and his name (whatever that meant), and a license filed with the state of Kansas contractually binding them as one flesh. As if any Omega needed yet another leash.
But she wouldn’t be happy until she fit him into her fantasy domestic life. God and the Universe help him, Michael needed her to be happy. It was that image of perfect domesticity that stuck in his throat and tried to claw its way out. He couldn’t be that man. He wasn’t husband material. Not in any way he’d ever understood the word. Michael’s heartrate kicked up when he tried to envision it. Him, a husband. Someone’s husband. Pete’s husband.
He scrubbed a hand across his eyes and tried again. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he admitted. “If loving you and standing beside you through whatever comes isn’t enough,” he shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to give you.”
April set her jaw in frustration. “You’re not going to turn into your father,” she said, less kindly than she intended to. “We’re still us, you and me. Nothing has to change.”
“Then why change anything?” he rounded on her, nearly shouting. “Why bring my father into this? What’s he got to do with…?” He froze. His father had everything to do with it.
“Pete, I can’t. Every picture of marriage I’ve ever seen is weighted. I can’t be that with you.”
“You’re nothing like him, Michael. Having a family doesn’t change that. Getting Mated doesn’t change that. Even being a Dominant doesn’t change it. You’re not him. You won’t morph into him if we get married.”
It was Michael’s turn to look away although his eyes didn’t overflow. She smiled up at him, compassion in her eyes. There was no pity, no judgment. Only acceptance and empathy and love. “I’m scared too,” she told him. “But I want our children to grow up knowing they are our children, and that there’s no difference between what their alpha dads have and what you and I have. I want it before we have anymore pups. I want to be your wife, Michael. I’ve never wanted anything this way before. Mating was a mandate. Music is a mandate. Having children is a mandate. Being Omega is a mandate. But this is something we can choose, something that no one else ever has to understand.”
Michael swallowed around the lump in his throat, unable to think of anything to say. She didn’t know what she was asking. What was a husband but another kind of alpha? How long before they fell into age-old roles of Top and Bottom? How deeply did patriarchy already have its clutches in Michael’s psyche, and how much deeper would it claw its way in if he put a collar around her finger, binding her to come when he beckoned? He wouldn’t mean to, not at first. But he had it in him. He could feel it. Hell, not fifteen minutes earlier, he’d strong-armed her out of the nursery and summarily marched her down the hall for a private audience. Even without knowing he was doing it, he was already lording his gender over her and treating her like a supplicant. Half of his friction with his father had always been having to answer to a man he felt superior to. Marriage was a one-way railroad straight to…that.
She thought he was gentler than other men. She thought he was different because he embraced maternity. But he wasn’t.
But think as hard as he could, Michael couldn’t see any way out, not without breaking up with her, and he’d chew his own leg off before he could bring himself to do that.
“I need to think,” he told her. “Give me some time. Please, Pete.”
She nodded and stood up on tiptoe to kiss his forehead. “Whatever you decide, my love, I’m with you. I will still be here, no questions asked, no expectations, standing beside you. I will always love you, whatever comes.”
It was the same thing she’d said years ago when he told her he couldn’t be her boyfriend, and the dynamics hadn’t changed. What she meant was that she would wait patiently while he came to his senses and stopped fighting the inevitable. The gritty part was that he knew she had the right of it, no matter what he thought right now. For all the Omegas liked to grumble that Castiel always got his way, the truth was, sometimes the Alpha had to compromise. But April never did. Not for long. She could wait as long as it took, but in the end, she always got exactly what she wanted. And in the end, Michael always found himself happier than he expected to be, than he deserved to be, happier than he ever would have been if he’d followed his own impulses. April was in control of all of them. Always had been.
Michael could fume about how backwards that was. Or he could accept that reality was what it was.
He needed to talk to Dean. No one knew how to cut through Michael’s shit better than Dean. Michael pulled her into his embrace and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll figure it out,” he told her.
Despite the pressure, despite the unfairness of it all, despite his misgivings, Michael meant it.
Notes:
I'm supposed to be doing real work right now. But if I wanna get a chapter out, it was kind of now or never. Don't tell on me. 😉
Final word: I love every comment and every commenter. Right now, especially as the standards for acceptable discourse in other outlets have fallen into chaos and everyone's nerves are frayed beyond civility, I ask for an extra helping of grace where you can bring yourself to grant it. It is not my role to govern what anyone has to say, so I won't try to censor adults. Say what you need to. But realize that I am interested in hearing input of all kinds, the good and the not so. I prefer to hear criticism spoken politely, but I can take genuine critique even in a blunt form as long as it's not offered for the sole purpose of tearing me down or what I've created. The rule always stands that no one is required to read this story. So if you do, and you are compelled to write to me about how it hit you, know that you have my gratitude regardless of what you might say.
Chapter 18: Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Summary:
Carefree days of summer are upon our Pack. Michael has a proposal for Cas, and the Alpha is listening. Evenings by the pool are routine with six pups to entertain. Routine, too, are Dean's mood swings. With another fall imminent, it's time to try a new tack.
And Gabriel being Gabriel.
And April on the torture rack because...Alpha.
And 3-year-olds are tattletales.
Notes:
It's election day 2020 in the US. For the love of this great Republic and all that it might someday be, cast your vote if you're eligible. Please, please, please.
I considered breaking this into two chapters because, as they tend to do, it got really long on me. But then I would be compelled to keep messing with it, and I needed to post today so I could focus on schoolwork.
Content warnings in the End Notes.
Y'all, my class is kicking my butt. I haven't had the free time I used to for storytelling, and what I have had has been stolen from things I should be doing. I should be working on projects. But my health is also crappy and writing this story is my escape, so even though chapters aren't coming as often as they used to, they're still coming.
Thanks to everyone reading. I still think we're all nuts. Thanks to Andi4, Jennyfly, Cake_Blindness, Falka_tyan, Wiseoldowl72, and Melodina for your continuous support when I'm bitching about my brain not working.
It's another slog through wordiness, but for once, I didn't skip the sticky stuff at the end. Enjoy.
(Edit: If your version turns to all italics a quarter of the way through, reload the page. I fixed it.)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
NOW:
Michael rode silently beside Cas, steering the golf cart down the bumpy lawn toward the guest house. Castiel’s eyes fixated on his tablet as usual. Michael navigated deftly between trees growing close to the barely-there path that meandered down into the shady copse where the two-story bungalow sat empty. He parked the cart and swung his long legs out of the driver’s seat, collecting a bundle of supplies from the back. Cas followed without looking up.
Michael unlocked the sliding glass door, entered, and plunked his duffel bag on the kitchen counter before making a beeline for the thermostat. “It shouldn’t need much cleaning, sir,” he called from the hallway. “It’s been locked up tight, and Monique does a run-through twice a month. Just clean linens and a once-over ought to do it.” Michael emerged again into the kitchen as the air conditioning kicked into high gear. “I’ll start dusting upstairs if you want to see to the jacuzzi.”
Cas thumbed his tablet off and set it down beside the duffel full of cleaning tools. “All right. Let’s make this quick, please, Omega. I have a conference at one and a great deal to accomplish before that.”
“It’s not going to take long. I have to be at work at noon, Cas.” Michael dumped the duffel out on the counter and selected the items he needed. With Fred still home sick and their three maids already picking up enough of the slack, Cas had volunteered to put on cleaning gloves himself and get down on his Alpha knees to scrub toilets in the guest house to ready it for the impending arrival of April’s parents. They’d offered to come pup-sit during April’s and Cas’ cycle. Too, Cas suspected, they wanted to be among the first to know if more grand pups were on the way. He prayed Michael was right that the house was kept up in good condition. Cas wasn’t above scrubbing toilets, but he didn’t have much time to devote to the task. Michael disappeared upstairs. Cas went back out into the heat and rummaged in the patio storage cabinet for pool care chemicals. He cranked up the circulation pump on the jacuzzi and tested it. It needed a full shock of chlorine, but it hadn’t yet begun to show signs of bacterial growth. It didn’t smell bad. Cas rolled his sleeves up, wiped his already sweating forehead, and measured chemicals in the shade of the upstairs balcony, humming tunelessly to himself. By the time Cas finished sweeping the porch and clearing dust off the large outdoor dining table, Michael was back downstairs, separating linens out into piles for the three bedrooms. They worked quickly and collaboratively. There wasn’t a lot to say. In an hour, Michael was cinching up a garbage bag and shoving cleansers back into the duffel.
“It’s hard to believe how much Fred gets done, day to day,” Michael observed. “For an old man, he’s so on top of things, we’re almost lost without him.”
Cas pulled two beers from the refrigerator, topped them both, and handed one to Michael before grabbing his tablet and heading outside. Michael collected the duffle and followed his Alpha out onto the back porch where a breeze through the greenery provided just enough cooling to make the patio comfortable. Cas checked his watch and then took a seat at the table.
“We need to bring in a trainee butler, Alpha,” Michael told him as he slid into a chair opposite the man. “Fred won’t be with us forever, and he’ll never accept a woman taking his butler’s duties. I’ve got a job listing drafted for you to look at. We can start advertising for an assistant on Monday.”
“Fred’s views on appropriately gendered division of labor within the Pack staff do not determine whom we hire to replace him,” Cas stated rather coldly. Michael frowned and took a cool drink.
“Right,” he said skeptically. “Sir, you would do anything for that old man. If he wants a man to take his place, then we’ll hire a man…and a Primate at that. You’re not fooling anyone.”
Cas thumbed a line through the condensation of his bottle and set his eyes into the tree line in the distance.
“You can’t stop him from aging, Alpha. And you can’t make him live forever by wishing it. I’m all for holding his place here as long as he wants it, but we can’t pretend it’ll be forever.”
Cas nodded. It took a moment before he solidified that nod into words, but he got there. “You’re right, Michael. Your job post draft. It’s saved where I can get to it?”
“It’s in my Pack folder on the shared site, Sir.”
Cas booted his tablet back up, navigated, skimmed, and nodded with a tightness around his mouth. “Yes, this will do. Post for another maid as well, please. I anticipate more work soon as the Pack grows.”
“God knows if we add another set of triplets, we’ll need more than one more maid,” Michael observed. He turned his face to the breeze and took a drink before taking a bracing breath and facing Cas again. “While I’ve got you here, Sir…” Michael leaned forward onto his forearms, studying the table before him. “I have an idea I want to run by you.”
“About?” Castiel set his tablet, dark now, onto the table and picked up his beer. The breeze ruffled his hair.
Michael licked his lips and looked up. “About a way to give our Pack hierarchy some teeth. I’ve been thinking about how you laid that out for me back when the pups were tiny. You remember? You swatted my nose and shoved it down into my own confusion about Pack and hierarchy, and a lightbulb came on for me.”
“I remember,” Cas said. “I doubt you would have characterized our discussion that way at the time.”
“Whatever,” Michael remarked casually, dismissively. “The point is no one but you in this Pack puts any teeth into maintaining their positions. You’re all teeth, Sir, but the rest of us are complacent. I’m worried about that as the Pack matures. We’re too comfortable sitting wherever you decided to rank us. It’s…tidy. Too…civilized if you know what I mean.”
“Hmm,” Cas responded.
“Do you see it?”
“Perhaps. What did you have in mind?” Cas leaned back in his chair and took another sip, but Michael could tell he was thinking. It was a gamble, Michael’s idea. Cas wasn’t shy about taking credit for how contented his Pack was. There was virtually no in-fighting, no jockeying for position, no lingering resentment as Castiel brought outsiders in and set them above family—Sam and Jess had both moved lower on the ladder because of the Alpha’s additions, and they seemed content to let things be.
“You said it yourself, Cas,” Michael continued. “The hierarchy is real, and it needs to have teeth.”
“Go on.”
“Well, Sir, last quarter’s Pack income broke records, as did the one before that. That’s even with the general economy in shambles with the pandemic. We’re doing really well, I’m sure you’re aware.” Michael’s eyes flashed golden as he took the bit in his teeth.
“Yes, your reports have made that abundantly clear, Michael. And your management of Pack resources has been stellar. What do you propose?” Cas met the man’s eye with a slight frown. He could so often predict what people were going to say to him before they spoke. It was an odd sensation to be caught flatfooted. He had no idea what Michael was about to ask.
Michael’s enthusiasm leaked out a bit more. He adjusted again in his chair, leaning even further forward. He licked his lips again. “I want to dole out distributions, monetary distributions. We can afford it. I want to build in a Pack-benefit that proves belonging to this Pack is about more than just prestige. I want it to be lucrative—personally and individually lucrative. And I want to adjust quarterly payouts based on Pack rank. The higher the rank, the more money a wolf takes home.” Michael’s eyes sparkled.
Cas sat back, shocked, staring. Then he leaned back in and steepled his fingers below his lips. “I’m listening.”
“Look, we set our ranks based solely on Secondary and Tertiary designation. That will hold for a while. But there’s more to a person than their ratings. Look at Dean and Sam. In a real scuffle, the winner isn’t always going to be Dean. If Sam challenged Dean at a vulnerable moment, the beta might take the trophy. And Cain? I’m convinced Sam belongs above him. He could challenge for it, but he’s so comfortable right now there’s no motivation. What’s the point in a rank challenge if there’s nothing at stake?”
“You want to engender bloodshed in my Pack, Omega?” Cas asked coldly.
Michael set his jaw and nodded. “Yeah, I do. Or some other form of challenge. Doesn’t have to be a knock-down-drag-out. Look, I want this Pack to hold forever, Sir. I want it healthy. I want ranks to mean something. And I want them to sort themselves out according to both the statistical truths from the ratings and the intangible realities no one can predict. To do that, there has to be a benefit to holding a higher rank than someone else, something better than the right to dole out punishments or get the biggest dessert. Only me and you would ever be motivated by control, Cas.”
Cas set his eyes into the distance over Michael’s left shoulder, deep in thought. “Talk to me about these distributions,” he said at last.
Michael grinned. Beneath the table, his knee bounced in excitement. “It works like this. You and Dean don’t get anything. You’re the Pack leaders. It’s yours to give, so taking a check is redundant. Omegas don’t get anything. Pack hierarchy, you see. Teeth. Hierarchies are real, and all that. It’s the folks in the middle who have a vested interest in shouldering into the highest position they can defend.”
Cas frowned deeper. “Michael, I’m not convinced a prorated distribution is in any way motivational…”
“Sir, no offense, but I don’t think you have a realistic perspective of money as a motivator. I know it means nothing to you. We can get into a debate about privilege and worldview all day long, but the point is, everyone in this Pack besides you and Dean is going to care how big that check is.”
Cas shook his head slowly with his brow knit. “Sam won’t care.”
Michael laughed. He rapped on the table with his knuckle and raised his brows. “If we set it up right, he will. Rank number three needs to walk away with more than what Sam and Jess take home together if they both stay where they are. That third spot needs to be the plum. A wolf must earn it and have the weight to hold onto it. You set the rules of a challenge, Cas. Put some safeguards in place. Make it fair and regimented. But at the close of each quarter, whatever the ranks are determines the size of the check they walk away with.”
“Jess will eat Sarah’s lunch,” Cas murmured, envisioning it.
“Then Sarah shouldn’t be ranked above Jess,” Michael finished for him logically. “You don’t have to let them beat on each other. Make it a challenge that pits determination and stamina as the characteristics being tested, not who’s better at gouging someone else’s eyes out.”
Cas sucked a long breath in through his nose and blew it out his mouth. “How much?”
Michael smirked. “Twenty percent of Pack gains for the quarter.”
“Jesus Christ, Michael!”
Michael continued without reacting to Castiel’s shock. “Split it into five checks. If we add more adult betas or alphas to the Pack, we can talk about whether to split it out more or leave it at five. But for now, third rank takes fifty percent of the distribution. Fourth rank takes thirty. Fifth rank gets ten. Sixth rank gets seven, leaving three for the lowest eligible wolf.” Michael let it sink in, and then he added, “As it stands now, Sam and Jess as a couple will receive thirty-three percent of the quarterly distribution. If you approve the recommended twenty percent payout, that’s not chump change, but to a man like Sam with a family and a head full of ambitions, that seventeen-point difference between his take-home and Cain’s is going to look mighty attractive. Make it clear that the winner of a direct formal challenge wins more than just the right to a bigger slice of chocolate pie at Friday dinners, and we’ve got ourselves a self-sustaining, defensible hierarchy that will stand up to critique from the outside.”
“Ten percent of quarterly gains,” Cas mumbled, still thinking hard. “We need those gains reinvested for the stability of Pack standing. I won’t bankrupt this Pack over a wild-hared gamble to buy the loyalty of my betas. And not quarterly. Semi-annually. We can’t afford to encourage disengagement of any of our members from their paying jobs.”
Michael scoffed. “Sir, it’s not enough for anyone to live on, even for the top spot. But as a motivational bonus…” He let the idea linger in the air. “Could turn out to be quite the recruiting tool as well, I’m sure you’ve noticed. One day we’ll want to expand again. We need more betas, Sir. We need some genetic diversity in our ranks, especially as our pups get older.”
Cas smiled slyly down at the beer in his hand. “You really have thought this through.”
“Sir, the stability of the Pack is of personal importance to me. Like I said, I’ve been mulling it over since you went all Alpha posturing on me and set me straight. We need something like this or we’re all going to grow fat, stupid, and lazy. Hierarchies don’t maintain themselves.”
Cas chuckled. He stretched across the table with his bottle and tapped Michael’s longneck. “I’m proud of you, Omega. It is an elegant plan. We’ll need to discuss how we prevent cheating, alliances, and cut-throat undercutting that would degrade Pack morale. Have you discussed it with Dean yet?”
“No, Sir. It’s your call, primarily. I figured if you nixed it straight outta the gate, there’d be no point bringing it up with Dean.”
Cas got up and checked the jacuzzi once more. He turned the valve to add more water and stood with his hip against the brick wall while the level topped off. He cut his eyes toward Michael. Michael was watching him.
Cas turned the water off.
“Sir, we can afford twenty percent, especially if you cut it down to semi-annual.”
“How many children do you want, Michael?” Cas asked abruptly. “Total.”
“Um, I dunno.” Michael blushed and broke his eyes away from the piercing blue of his Alpha’s.
“Yes, you do,” Cas contradicted. “You have a number, and you have a reason for that number.”
Michael scrubbed his hands over his face and emerged again with determination. “All right,” the Omega declared. “Fine. I figure ten. Somewhere around there. Ten should be about right.”
Cas nodded to himself and took his chair again. The smile on his face grew thoughtful. “You can’t field a soccer team with ten.”
“No, but you can play a full basketball game,” Michael parried. “Or fill a baseball roster with a relief pitcher.”
Cas chuckled. His bottle was empty. He checked his watch again. He had time. The guest house had needed less attention than he expected. April’s parents weren’t due until tomorrow evening. Cas’ meeting at one was remote, so he could dial in from here if he needed to. Nothing else on his agenda was more pressing than Michael right now. “Why ten?” he asked. This conversation was important, and it wasn’t often that he had Michael to himself.
Michael folded his arms on the table in front of him and cocked his head. “Back home,” he began, “Pop is Alpha, but there’s just Rachel and me as his heirs. Our house isn’t all that big or showy. It’s not the richest Pack in the Metroplex. But our compound has over thirty homes in it. What we lack in clout, we make up for in size and sprawl. I have cousins out the wazoo. A few older. Most younger. There were always pups around. All different ages. The older ones looked after the younger. It wasn’t even considered babysitting; it was just what we did. We looked after each other. Scuffled and fought like families do. But I’d protect any one of them with my life, Castiel. They’re my blood.”
Michael paused as he remembered. A beatific smile formed at the memories. He looked up. “The thing is, it’s the age differences that made it feel that way. Having pups at all different ages around all the time turns a family into something magical. There’s always someone to look up to, always someone to get into trouble with, always someone to hide from or teach or protect or pull pranks on. We were our own Pack within a Pack, complete with dynamics and ranks and the whole Pack experience in miniature. My Pop fucked up a lot with me. He’s far from perfect, Cas. But he surrounded Rachel and me with kids we could practice how to be Pack around. He taught us what that means for real.”
Michael suddenly chuckled. His eyes lit up golden at a memory. “I remember when I was thirteen and hungry enough to eat my folks out of house and home, I used to show up at Aunt Kelly’s table at five. She served an early supper so Uncle Jude could go work the night shift at six-thirty without missing supper with his pups. Our Pack, kids just kinda ate at whoever’s table was closest come mealtime. Most of the time, there were extra kids around, and we’d all get fed. So, yeah, Aunt Kelly’s at five. Then I’d sneak over to Uncle Jacob’s at six-fifteen and eat again.
“Mommy always served hers late because as Alpha-mate, she had to keep a formal table in case the Pack had guests. So, after supper with Uncle Jacob, I’d go on home and eat Mommy’s cooking.” Michael chuckled again. “She was so mad when she found out. Not for table-jumping—for lying about it. I was making up all these excuses for where I’d been every day. Man, that woman can wield a wooden kitchen spoon like you wouldn’t believe for someone her size.” Michael laughed fondly. “You wouldn’t think it to look at her. But I got it just as bad from Aunt Kelly because I lied to her too. Think I got permanent nerve damage from those spoons.” He swept an errant tear from his eye.
“Man, I…I want that for our pups. I want it so bad. I want all the adults in the Pack to feel like the pups belong to everyone. I want the pups to feel surrounded by grownups they can trust to keep their feet pointed straight ahead. It’s not the same with four of them all the same age. We need to space the rest out so they get the whole experience.” Michael realized he’d kind of gone overboard, and he looked back across the table and met Castiel’s eye again. The Alpha looked softer than Michael could remember seeing him for a long time.
Michael sighed heavily and stood up to stow their empty bottles and the duffel bag in the golf cart before turning back to face his Alpha. “Say something,” he prompted uncomfortably.
“Ten seems about right to me,” Cas said. “Although, I come to that number from the opposite direction.”
Michael stayed several yards away, rooted by the cart, watching and listening. It felt like Cas was confessing something private. The Alpha swallowed and went on. His scent was spiky, and Michael’s Omega read that as cautionary.
“I grew up here,” he pointed out. “It was just me and Gabe, Mother and Father. And Fred, of course, although we were never allowed to forget that there is a necessary distance between Pack and Primate staff. The head maid was a lovely woman named Nancy. I grew close to them both.”
Michael swallowed and edged closer. His instincts forced wariness when in the presence of a vulnerable Alpha.
Cas held his lower lip in his teeth for a moment, reminiscing, before he flicked his eyes back up to Michael. Cas huffed a soft laugh. “Dean had a nuclear family of four as well, but I gather our two experiences couldn’t have been more different. This house, back then…it was vast and empty and cold. And silent. There was a loneliness to the place that felt steeped into its bones.” Cas carded a hand through his hair and glanced away again. “Mother was a disaster, I won’t lie. But Father sometimes surprised me. He could be thoughtful and generous. He gave his time to us both. He was not unkind.” Cas frowned and retreated into his memories. “But he had no warmth,” he added at last. “Gabriel and I learned to lean into each other. What I learned about Pack, I learned from my brother…and later from his beautiful mate. I thought I knew how families worked. It felt isolated to me, but it was all I knew, and when you’re young, whatever you know feels normal. We had few friends outside the gate. Gabe was liked well enough at school, but he never made any close friends there. He was forever tangling into crowds much too old for him and not attached to school at all, from what I could tell. And me…” Cas chuckled again and shook his head. “I was ungainly and odd. And always in trouble at school. It’s possible I sat inside for more recesses than I was allowed to participate in. It was difficult to make friends when I was always in detention or standing in the corner.”
Michael chuckled softly, nodding his head. He could relate to some extent, although Michael had never struggled to make friends. He’d just never wanted them. His cousins were friends enough for Michael.
“The point is,” Cas sighed and straightened. “We are each of us scarred from our upbringing. We cannot change our past. But we can filter through what we experienced and reject for our future what hurt us back then. Even the most damaging past may have had moments of light. I refuse to mimic my childhood, Michael, but the house itself isn’t the problem. I plan to fill that great house with light and love, song and laughter, tears and arguments. We won’t always get along, but we will be alive and real. …And loud, as long as Dean is part of the mix.”
Michael studied the man before easing closer. “We won’t always be around, Alpha,” he said. “Even more than growing up with siblings to teach them how to be Pack, our pups need us to build them the foundations of a Pack the likes of which cannot be challenged from the outside. Ten pups mean a formidable second generation, no matter how many outsiders we bring in. They’ll be unassailable, a united front—ten second-generation families wide.”
“Yes,” Cas replied darkly. “They will be.”
“You mean not to let the Omegas go,” Michael guessed.
Cas glanced up at him in surprise. “I have no authority to hold them here,” he admitted. “But I intend to build a Pack that is difficult to walk away from, and I mean to welcome anyone who Mates an Omega member of my Pack into the fold, even if they are a Top.”
Michael laughed. “Just when I think I’ve seen the depth of your conceit, Alpha, you show me more.”
Cas laughed. He considered reprimanding the Omega for cheek but chose to let it go. Michael had a point. The Omega went on, “You really think we can put a Pack together that’s so prestigious it would draw an alpha away from their birth pack when they Mate one of our Omegas?”
“First of all,” Cas said in his own defense. “We don’t have any unMated Omegas yet. And second, I hear the Winchester Pack pays dividends quarterly.”
Michael laughed again. “Semi-annually, actually,” he amended, and Cas nodded. “Look,” Michael said, “I hear you. If I got to choose between my Pop’s Pack and yours, I’d pick this one every time. But no Pack Alpha is going to willingly sign away their own Tops to come live with us when there’s a Winchester Omega on the table to give their own Pack influence. The more successful we are at convincing Lupins to join up into large, powerful packs, the greater the chance our pups will Mate someone with an Alpha who holds their strings. And our Omegas will be prized.”
“You underestimate me,” Castiel told him. “I don’t play fair where my Pack is concerned.”
Michael shrugged and conceded. The man had a point. Given normal odds, Michael knew better than to bet on any other Alpha’s stubbornness over Castiel’s. Cas stood and stretched his arms over his head, baring his midriff, and then he picked his way around the table toward the golf cart. Michael stopped him with a hand on Cas’ arm.
“April wants to get married,” Michael said quietly.
Cas gave away that it wasn’t news to him by his unsurprised reaction. He sobered and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “I can guess what has you spooked about that, my friend,” Cas said gently. “But you are not your father any more than I am mine. We are all scarred by our upbringing. If it makes you feel any better, I see a great deal of your mother in you, and she is someone any one of us would be proud to emulate.”
Michael looked down and kicked at a pebble at his feet, sending it skittering. “Isn’t this where you explain to me that my mother smells repressed or something? That she’s stuck under my Pop’s heel?”
Cas smirked. “Like April’s mother? No, Michael. Your mother is not stifled in any way. She is strong and vibrant and living up to her full potential. Your mother is an example to the rest of us about balance and fulfillment.”
Michael shook his head. “No. She’s a perfect little Omega housewife. She’s never once contradicted my Pop, not on anything.”
Cas squeezed Michael’s shoulder. “Looks can be deceiving. Don’t think about what she could be, Michael. Think about what she wants to be.”
“They got married, you know,” Michael blurted. “I was ten. Rachel was seven. There was a weird movement running through the Universist churches back then, you remember? Extolling the virtues of marrying your mate, saying it tied mates together spiritually as well as metaphysically. Half the couples in our church got hitched that year. I was the goddamned ring bearer for fuck’s sake. Rachel was their flower girl. And the thing is, after they married, they were different than before. They were…less…Pop was less… abrasive before. He used to listen to her. Used to ask her opinion. I dunno what changed, but he put a ring on her finger and suddenly, he treated her like his property instead of his partner. And then I Presented a couple of years later, and he just swept me right into his pile of owned crap along with Mommy. Cas, I know what marriage is, and I don’t want any part of it.”
“I’m not here to convince you to marry April, Michael,” Cas told him.
Michael broke free and stalked to the cart. He climbed in and pressed the start button.
“Please don’t walk away from me,” Cas chided. Michael stopped the engine. He placed his hands in his lap and stared straight out in front of himself.
Cas slid into the seat beside him and allowed the distance of a side-by-side position to give Michael a little space. He left one foot on the ground. “I’m not negating what you experienced, Michael. I only ask you to consider. What you heard and saw from your parents may have had less to do with a before and after to their wedding vows and more to do with you emerging from childhood and reaching adolescence. If your wolf developed at a standard pace, then it would have been a tentative presence in your psyche at eight or nine, and a maturing designation…”
“…at ten,” Michael finished for him. “Permanent enmeshment in pack dynamic begins at ten,” Michael recited from his training. “Pups begin to understand the undercurrents of pack subtext…”
“Michael, your decision to marry or not is entirely between you and April. But you need to figure out if you’re reticent because you don’t want to be married or because you’re convinced that there is no version of marriage that looks different from what your parents did.”
“Dude, it’s not just my parents. Look at you two. Mating is unbalanced, right? But it’s natural and effortless. It doesn’t take any crazy untangling to figure out where everyone fits. Marriage though? I don’t have a clue how that’s supposed to shake out, but I’ve never seen anyone do it the way the movies make it out to be. It’s not a partnership. It’s always a power exchange, Cas. Always. It’s supposed to be a fucking partnership, but no one ever makes that happen. If we get married, I’m going to become a Top with her. Don’t even pretend that’s not what happens. Show me anyone who didn’t wind up that way.”
Cas pressed his lips tightly. “Michael, I think you may be missing the point.”
Michael stiffened. His jaw worked for a moment, and then he spoke through nearly clenched teeth. “I don’t want to hear it, Castiel, not from you. Forgive me, Sir, but ethically, you’re on shaky ground as it is where our relationship is concerned. You took me for granted and used me to give you some breathing space between you and Pete so you could go be Dean’s husband. You just took me through that whole discussion about fielding a baseball team to show that we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of our parents. I’m not confused about who I am. I am not my mother. Whether the darkness inside me resembles my father’s darkness or not is irrelevant. Don’t you get it? I can’t bind myself to anyone without owning them. I don’t carry that gene, Alpha. And she… She…”
“She what?” Cas asked tersely back.
Michael huffed in frustration. “I don’t know how, but she’s manipulating me…”
Cas laughed. “Yes, our lovely blonde waif has a bit of a Boy who Cried Wolf about her now, doesn’t she? Did she wheedle you into broaching the subject of matrimony?”
Michael looked at his Alpha and chewed on the question before softly admitting, “No, she asked me straight out.”
“It was April who proposed?”
“Yes.”
The men stared blankly at each other.
“Oh, fuck it all, Cas! Don’t you see? I can’t tell her no. She’s played it so that I’m stuck! It’s the first time she’s been that straightforward, and if I turn her down, it’ll just prove to her that direct communication is a dead-end street, and she’ll go right back to scheming below the surface! Damnit!”
“Quite the cynical view you have of this woman we both love,” Cas observed dryly.
“Don’t lecture me about trust issues,” Michael said. “She made her bed.”
Cas pulled his foot off the ground and settled more firmly in his seat. “Are you angry at April, Michael, or at your own reticence?”
Michael started the cart and turned to reverse back up through the trees. “You know what? I have no idea. I just know I feel fucking trapped, and I feel like she’s holding the key to this cage I’m in.”
“She has a right to ask for what she wants,” Cas said. “And no matter what message it might send, you have a right to answer in the way that is best for you. You aren’t trapped.”
“You’re going to go in there in a couple of days and knock her up again,” Michael added as a non sequitur.
Cas nodded, trusting Michael’s peripheral vision to catch it. “I agree with you about spacing pups out though. We plan to implement measures of restraint.”
Michael snorted, steering the cart around the house to the garage. “Measures of restraint? You know Pete wants to be married before the pup comes. Or pups. Whatever.”
“Michael,” Cas stopped the Omega from climbing out once he’d parked and extracted the key. Michael paused with an impatient air. “She loves you. Whatever you decide, she will always love you. Please be circumspect about how you communicate your answer, whether it’s a yes or no. Don’t burn bridges you don’t have to. And you two need to have some serious conversations about trust. If you don’t trust her to accept your answer and to honor your right to give it faithfully…”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t be getting married?” Michael finished for him with a pointed look. Michael cocked his head slightly. “So, you have no qualms about me putting a ring on your mate’s finger? All for it, are you?”
Castiel growled softly. “We’ve discussed this, Omega. Disagree with me all you want, but don’t be an ass.”
Michael mumbled an apology and left the garage with the duffel bag over his shoulder. Cas settled back in the seat and collected himself. That conversation had gone about as smoothly as he’d expected. Michael still needed to bounce his nerves and his reluctance off Dean.
Dean joined Jess, Gabe, and Kate in the pool as soon as he stripped out of his work clothes that evening. Joined them by cannonballing right into the middle with a “Whoop!” All six pups loved the swimming pool, but it wasn’t until the sun hit a softer angle and neared the tree line that the adults felt it safe enough to allow them more than a few minutes of water play that wouldn’t result in burned skin. It had become routine to let them wear themselves out just before supper. The Pack congregated on the back patio more evenings than not, sometimes eating al fresco between splashing cannonballs or elegant swan dives into the cool depths of crystalline blue waters. Kali was absent tonight, Dean noted. She had a monumental project underway and would be scarce for another few weeks. Michael was working the evening shift as usual. He wouldn’t be home until nine. Cas and April were probably off slaking a mutual rising temperature, working up an appetite of their own as their blood heated up for their shared cycle in a couple of days. No doubt Sam had his face in his books or shoved up Benny’s ass again. Sam and Benny had grown nearly inseparable as Benny prepared to hand his job title over to his protégé.
“Unca Dean! Back up. I’n gonna jump! Look how far!” JT vaulted off the side of the pool and into Dean’s waiting hands. Dean let him submerge with the force of his jump but brought him back up smoothly. The pup sputtered, clinging to Dean’s arms. He shook his head like a dog, laughing. Dean held his hand up for a high five and then launched the boy out across the water to splash Gabe full in the face before Gabe fished him out. Gabe returned the favor, pulling Hank and Emma into the battle as well until Jess called a cautionary halt to the mayhem before it got out of control.
Dean was still chuckling lightly as he eased over to the shallow end with Emma clinging to his neck. Kate sat on a step in the water with Alex on one side of her and Kat on the other. Jimmy was taking his turn clinging to the side of the pool and practicing kicking his legs behind him.
“Daddy!” Jimmy called. “I did it! Did you see? I swimmed all the way!” Jimmy’s enthusiasm brought a wide grin to Dean’s face.
“Show me, J.D. Let me see.” Dean pulled back a few steps, giving the boy a little room. “All the way to me, buddy.”
Kate held him steady as he turned, pressed his pruny toes to the side of the pool and kicked clumsily off. Hands clasped tightly to each other out in front of him, Jimmy kicked wildly, more noise and motion than force, and it was his push off the wall that propelled him forward, not his flailing kicks, but he made it two yards across and into Dean’s arms without stalling. Dean swept him up, tickling his ribs as he lifted his pup into the air. All the pups wore water wings. They were fearless in the pool. It took at least three sets of adult eyes to watch over them. They had all become water bugs over the summer, drawn to the pool over any other entertainment, so they had lessons to teach them swimming and survival skills. They all basked in showing off their new skills.
“My turn!” shouted Kat, clambering over Kate’s lap. Dean resituated so that the swimming route took the pups along the pool’s edge, putting him in closer proximity to Kate. He didn’t comment on her black swimsuit, so at odds with everyone else’s nudity. If Sarah had been here, she would be covered as well. There was room in the Pack for personal preferences that differed. No one cared one way or another. Kate wasn’t shy, just reserved. This wasn’t her Pack, and she found subtle ways to remind herself of that. Dean thought she might be finding it harder and harder to recall why she needed reminding, and he thought it might be time to force a lever into that doubt and pry it apart a little bit.
“How’d it go today?” Dean asked Kate as Emma climbed his back and resecured her arms around his throat.
Kate straightened her leg beneath the water to give Alex something to hold onto as he splashed off the step toward his dad. “The therapy or the coffee date?” Kate asked Dean.
Dean smirked. “Your date,” he clarified. He held his arms out, letting four pups dangle from various spots on his person.
“It wasn’t really a date, alpha.” But she blushed. Dean grinned knowingly. “All right, fine. It was a date. But it’s not serious. We’re friends. If something else is going to grow from that, it’s got a lot of growing to do.”
“Uh huh. Did you fuck him?”
Kate rolled her eyes. “That’s a swear word, Dean. Rule eight. I’m telling Michael unless you drop it.”
“Eh,” Dean shrugged. “I’m due with Michael anyway. So? Did you? You should, kid. You need it.”
Jess joined Kate by the step with both of her boys in tow, but she didn’t sit. Jess’ breasts were peppered with purple bite-marks and hickeys, and even beneath the water, the bruises on her ass were visible.
“Aunt Jess, Daddy said fuck,” Kat tattled.
“Hey,” Dean intervened, layering an alpha tone into his voice. “What did I tell you about that word? Huh? Grownups say that word. Pups don’t. Apologize, Kat.”
“Not s’posed to say that word, Daddy,” Emma agreed with her sister. “O-pop said. Papa spanks for that word.”
“You’re right, ladies. My mistake. I’m sorry. I’ll tell O-pop when he gets home, and he’ll set me straight. Right now though, my daughter still needs to say sorry for repeating it. Kat?”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“Good girl. Next time you need to tell on Daddy, you say Daddy said a bad word. There’s no reason to repeat words you’re too young to be saying. Come on. Dinner. I’m starving. Who’s starving with me?” Dean sloughed most of the pups into the shallow water, hauling Emma, still clinging to his back, out of the pool. He leaned low and let Emma slide down to her feet as her siblings and cousins climbed dutifully out of the pool and scampered toward the towels.
“Walk!” Kate called.
“Hey,” Dean turned his eyes from the pups once Gabe caught up to assist them with drying off. Dean stalled Kate at the pool’s edge. “Kate. Look.”
“Dean, it was just a date. All right? I’m not ready for anything more. I don’t need a lover, not yet. I just need some space.”
Dean crossed his arms over his chest and held his ground and her eyes. “You don’t need space, Kate. You’re stuck, and you know it. You need a pack. You need more out of an alpha than you’re letting me in on. You need to get laid, for one. I know for a fact you haven’t done the therapy you promised Mildred you’d keep up with. You’re making me look like a shit foster here. Let me help. Please. At least let me set you up with a quick contract session.”
Kate blanched, lowering her eyes, and then cutting them sharply when all six pups crowed in delight as Castiel emerged from the house wearing a light robe.
“Papa! Daddy said Nanny Kate was fuck!” Kat told her father enthusiastically. Kate snorted. Dean rolled his eyes.
“Hm,” Cas replied, pulling a chair out from beneath the table and sitting down. “I don’t like hearing that word, do I? What did I say would happen if I hear that word?”
Dean leaned close to Kate’s ear. “We need you, Kate. This Pack needs you, and you need us. I know you’re scared, but you can’t keep treading water. One of these times you’re not going to make it back up to the surface.”
“Alpha’s calling you, Dean,” she replied. Dean sighed and ran his hand through his hair, slicking it back. Kate pulled away in search of a towel. Dean chose to air dry, turning toward the table to face the music. Cas had Kat standing between his knees with her eyes fixed on his. Dean felt for her, but he’d tried to warn her. Kat was a child who learned most everything the hard way if she learned at all.
“Did you say a word O-pop told you not to say?” Cas asked his daughter.
“Daddy said it, not me, Papa,” she defended.
“Kathleen?” Cas prompted again.
“But he said it first!”
“You know that word is not for children’s mouths.” Cas glanced up at his husband, annoyed but confident that the little peccadillo would be swiftly handled. He let the moment lengthen just a bit until Kat dropped her eyes and shuffled her feet.
“Sorry, Papa,” she whispered.
Cas lifted her face with a finger under her chin, making certain his expression was stern. “Kat, it is not your job to correct your Daddy’s mistakes. That’s my job and O-pop’s. We don’t need you to tell us when he breaks my rules. Papa knows already. You need to leave Daddy to me, and then you won’t get in trouble when he does.” Cas turned her to stand facing his thigh, and he popped her butt twice with a cupped hand that delivered a loud smacking sound but only a little sting. Kat wailed and dove into his chest, sobbing disconsolately. Cas picked her up and cradled her, swaying, and whispering forgiveness and praise.
When he set her down and thumbed her tears off her cheeks, she was already finished crying. She sniffled a little. Cas nodded his head toward Kate to send his daughter off to dress for supper, and Kat went without a fuss, her bare little bum not even pinked. Cas turned his eyes to Dean, standing a few feet away staring into the sparse clouds high above them, his hands behind his back.
“Dean.”
“Yeah, I slipped, sir. Sorry about that.”
“That’s a Pack rule, Dean, not a preference.”
“It was a slip-up, Cas.”
“I suggest you take this seriously,” Cas growled. “Your slip-up just dragged your daughter down with you. Ten extra for using my name.”
“Ten?! It’s usually five!”
“Arguing earns you ten more.”
Dean opened his mouth to protest further but then snapped it shut and clenched his jaw. “Fine,” he gritted.
Cas cocked his head. “Interesting. I wonder if I allow you to keep digging just how deep you will go.” Cas’ eyes dropped to Dean’s dick as it twitched and stiffened a little.
“It’s a bullshit rule, sir. You only made that rule to suck up to Michael and to give you that much more leverage over making me your lapdog.” As usual, Dean had no idea his mouth was going to choose the direction it did until the words were out, but he wasn’t inclined to take them back. Cas’ face flattened. He’d registered the drop of a second forbidden swear word. And while Cas wasn’t going to argue that forbidding swearing in front of their children was anything but a control ploy, it was still a rule—one that Dean understood.
“Inside, Dean. My office. Now.”
Dean glowered for a moment with a snarl and then stormed through the door, nearly bowling over April and the tray of drinks she carried as she appeared in the French door wearing a robe that matched Castiel’s. Jess rescued April’s tray. Gabe steadied the girl. Cas rose heavily to his feet and followed the way Dean had gone. The Alpha paused by Jess as she set the tray on the table. Cas leaned over her with a cool hand on her towel-covered bruised backside.
“Is this okay, beta?” he asked her cryptically. “Are you injured?”
“I’m fine, Alpha,” she replied, straightening and unwrapping the towel to show him the damage. “I’m on the outs with Sam, and I owe him more than this, but he’s taking care of it.” Her lashes looked pretty against the blush of her cheeks.
“Have him check in with me,” Cas instructed. “I expect a report on any behavior that results in damage this extensive.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Jess responded. “I’ll tell him.”
Castiel cleared his throat and announced to everyone, “I don’t allow nudity at my dinner table, Winchesters. Please dress and assemble back here for dinner. I will return shortly. Wait for me before serving your plates, please.” Castiel left them with brusque words still ringing in the air. Gabe paused with his hands prepared to fasten his jeans and then shoved them down his legs again. Jess rolled her eyes and popped his ass while he was bent over to pull his feet free.
“Hey!” he protested.
“Save it, Gabe,” Jess chided. “He meant you, too. Put your pants on.”
“He said Winchesters. I’m not a Winchester,” he complained, rubbing his butt. Jimmy giggled and reached up to help him erase the sting.
“Don’t make this evening harder on your brother,” Jess pleaded. “He’s miserable enough as it is with his Rut this close. Didn’t you see his eyes?”
“Oh, please,” Gabe scoffed, but he put his jeans back on and helped Kate dress six little squirmy bodies.
“What happened?” April asked. She divvied glasses around the table according to everyone’s regular seats and preferred beverage. Like her mate, April showed signs of an impending cycle. Her skin was warm and flushed. Her eyes were bloodshot and dilated. Her hair hung lank. She had managed a full day with Matt, working out some technical intricacies on the piano, but her fingers felt tangled and clumsy, and she didn’t know that the work had gained her anything.
“Dean happened,” Kate answered. “He’s trying to convince me to join the Pack by showing me how much Top support there is here for Subs.” The pups understood little of what their nanny said except the phrase join the Pack, and with that, they began a raucous and joyful cacophony of celebratory cheering, jumping up and down jubilantly. Kate smiled at their joy and let them shout.
April grinned at her friend. She scooped Alex up and set him on her lap. “Dean isn’t the only one campaigning for you to join us. You belong here, Kate. With us.”
“Good god, what a noise,” Cain grumbled as he emerged from the house.
“Aufa Cain!” Jimmy greeted at the top of his lungs. “Nanny Kate is gonna be Pack!”
“Is she now?” Cain answered looking up and catching the girl’s blushing profile as she dodged him. Cain lifted Jimmy and set him in his chair with an affectionate ruffle to his soft hair.
Kat tugged at Cain’s pant seam, looking up. “Daddy said she’s s’posed to fu… To do that word. Daddy said it. That word. The fuh-word.”
“Kathleen Marie,” April rebuked. “Language. You mind your business, young lady.”
Alex looked up at his mother. “Papa spanked Kat, Mama. She said the word. Papa spanked her.”
“Oh, my goodness, what have you all been up to this afternoon without O-pop here to keep you behaving yourselves?” April laughed good-naturedly.
“We swimmed, Aunt April,” Hank explained, climbing into his chair. “I was best. I jumped so far. And Unca Dean throwed me.”
Cas closed the office door behind him. Dean was already bare and standing in the corner with his fingers laced behind his head. “What’s going on, Dean? I don’t smell a spiral.”
“No, sir. Just my smart mouth. It gets away from me sometimes,” Dean said without turning.
Castiel studied him, registering his posture, his language and tone. “Dean, I want you to tell me what your wolf is doing right now. Can you see him?”
“Yes, sir. He’s watching me right now with his head low and wary. He’s paying close attention. I think he’s hoping to slide in if we give him a gap to get through.” Dean’s shoulders were easy and relaxed. He was still beautifully naked and slightly damp from his swim.
“Am I right in assessing that you are fully Primary, then?” Cas asked him.
Dean scoffed. Cas didn’t need to ask that question. If Dean could see his wolf, he wasn’t in his wolf, and there was nothing alpha about Dean’s current attitude. The logic wasn’t hard on this one.
Castiel waited patiently. Dean rolled his shoulders and touched one knee to the wall a few times as he fidgeted. His butt muscles flexed. His heel began a rhythmic thumping against the floor. Cas sat down on the edge of his desk. He watched Dean’s discomfort in silence. Dean wouldn’t forget the question. Cas had no intention of asking twice. After a couple of minutes, Dean lowered his chin and tilted his head to check his Top’s position. Cas hissed at him, and Dean faced front again. A slow blush crept up Dean’s neck and tinged his ears red.
“Yessir,” Dean finally mumbled into the corner.
“I beg your pardon?” Cas asked.
“Yes, sir, I’m Primary.” Dean kicked at the carpet.
“Thank you, Dean. Then may I ask why you’re slow to show me the appropriate respect for the weight of this moment? You broke a Pack rule. Twice.”
Dean lowered his chin to his chest and sulked. Cas could tell he was pouting.
“Very well. It appears you need time to think. Stay here. Do not move from that corner. I will return after dinner, and we’ll try again.” Cas left him with two stark pops to his ass that surprised Dean enough to make him gasp and rise to tiptoe. It was a perfect mimic of the swats Alpha had given their daughter, but much different in form and power. Dean’s ass reddened.
“Papa!” They chorused together as he returned to the patio next to the sparkling pool. Cas smiled warmly. He could feel his blood beginning to heat and pool south as his semi-annual Rut approached. He could feel his nerve-endings tingle. Rut was imminent, and it set his belly queasy. He had very little appetite. He could scent each Omega’s distinctive bouquet separately. But the table set with Tony’s cooking and his Pack all in their places was a welcome, beckoning sight. Cas took his place at the head of the table. Dean’s spot was empty. And Michael’s. Kali was working long hours. Sarah scurried out on Castiel’s heels, apologizing as she slipped into her chair. Cas checked his watch and then met her eye with a stern nonverbal reprimand. She nodded, chastised. Cas let it be. Everyone else was in place and smiling. Sam and Cain had slipped in in Castiel’s absence, their stature enough to calm the family chaos somewhat without either of them needing a heavy hand. Castiel nodded to them both, imbuing his expression with gratitude.
“Where’s Daddy?” Alex asked, craning his neck to watch the door.
“Daddy won’t be eating with us, Ace. He’s standing in the corner for me.” Cas unfolded his napkin and set it in his lap.
“‘Cause he said a grownup word?” Alex pressed.
“Because he broke my rule and then argued with me about his punishment. He needs some thinking time.”
“Unca Dean’s in timeout?” Hank asked.
“That’s right,” Cas replied. “It’s a timeout.” He helped himself to a chicken breast from the center platter.
“Didja spank Daddy, Papa?” Alex wanted to know. “He was bad, right?”
“He isn’t bad, Ace,” Cas replied calmly. “He broke a rule, and he needs to be held accountable. Let’s have our dinner now, please, and talk about pleasant things. Tell me about swimming today. Did you make it all the way across the pool by yourself?”
Alex took the lead, waving his fork enthusiastically as he and Hank argued about who swam farthest unaided, and the rest of the pups contributed commentary. The pups occupied their own seats, assigned by Cas with careful consideration as to placement and temperament such that each child had one adult looking after them and Kate was usually free to fetch things or help the rest of them, or, as Cas hoped most frequently, to eat one meal a day in peace.
Whether they dined in the kitchen, the formal dining room, or outdoors on the patio, their places were set by more than habit. Castiel liked order, and that meant assigned seats. But with Michael and Dean both missing, Kate shifted to Michael’s place so she could fill Kat’s plate and see to the pup’s feeding. Cas nodded his silent thanks. Conversations died as the Pack settled in to eat. Swimming stoked appetites and gathering stoked a sense of wellbeing that even the Primate could feel.
“I looked in on Fred today,” Sarah told the table during a pause in the pups’ ebullience. “He’s on the mend. Tony sent some comfort food over for him.”
“Yes, I spoke to him this morning,” Cas replied. “I told him to take the rest of the week to recover. With the Andersons arriving tomorrow and Fred out sick, I ask those of you who can lend a hand to help with our Pack’s hospitality while we have guests. You can expect to be asked to cover some of the household duties as needed.” Castiel’s formality triggered Gabe to launch a dinner roll at his head, but Cas caught it mid-air and tore it in half before spreading butter on it and handing half to April.
“Gabriel, you win the chore of stocking the guest house pantry and refrigerator. Do not throw food at my table. Children, do not emulate Uncle Gabriel. He is no role model. Jimmy, eat your green beans. Sam, please don’t leave this evening without discussing your mate’s bruises with me. She has a court appearance tomorrow, and as a representative of the ACRI, she is expected to make a positive impression on the court, not limp about like a paddled child.”
Sam replied with a polite affirmative. Gabe caught Sarah’s eye from catty-corner across the long table and the two of them failed at stifling their laughter.
“Is something funny?” Cas challenged the ape to his left.
“No, sir,” Sarah said in between giggles. “It’s just…”
“You turn a little bit rigid when you’re coming up on your Rut, bro. That’s all,” Gabe explained. “Lighten up, Cas. It’s just dinner. We’re not going to wander off into traffic without you watching over all of us.”
“I’m being unreasonable?” Cas asked, setting his utensils down.
“Little bit, yeah,” Gabe replied bravely.
“Too controlling?”
“We can figure out for ourselves when the paper towel roll needs replacing.” Gabe ignored the sizzle of tension. He scooped a forkful of scalloped potatoes into his mouth. “Loosen up a little, man. Go fuck your husband and work the tension out as nature intended.” Gabe talking with his mouth full was obscene and obviously provocative. And that word…
The pups gasped and giggled, casting looks between the men who sat separated by the length of the table. Castiel’s chair grated loudly across the flagstones as he shoved it back. “Leave my table, Gabriel Allen. I will deal with you when I get around to it. Wait for me in the library.”
Gabe shared a look with Sarah and then sniffled loudly and rolled slowly to his feet.
“Wait,” Cas stalled him at the door. “Apologize to the children for your language and your terrible manners. They deserve a better model from you, Gabriel. You’re the oldest member of this Pack. You have a responsibility to set an example.”
“Really, CJ? How about you take your role modeling, and you shove it up your tight, rigid asshole. Fuck you.”
“Gabriel!”
Gabe winked at Hank. “Yeah, sorry, kids. Don’t grow up like your Uncle Gabriel. Your backsides will hurt a lot. Don’t talk like me either. Alpha hates my words.”
“Just go,” Cas snarled.
“Jesus, Gabe,” Sam muttered, pointing Hank back toward his plate. All the pups were wide-eyed and awed. Little eyes glanced back and forth between the Alpha and his brother as lightning bolts shot from the brothers’ eyes. Gabe smacked the doorframe a couple of times as he let himself in.
Castiel closed his eyes and gripped the back of his wrought iron chair. He breathed mindfully and chanted Rama to himself in his head over and over.
“Go on, Alpha,” Sam told him quietly. “We’re fine. We’ll see the pups through dinner and get them bathed. Don’t worry about us. Go take care of our brothers.”
Cas’ jaw twitched as he opened his eyes.
“Is it a full moon tonight?” wondered Jess. “What got into those two?”
“Papa?”
Cas sighed. “It’s all right, Emma. Eat your supper. Uncle Gabe isn’t feeling like himself right now. I’m going to help him feel better.” Cas left with a gentle smile for his pups.
“Everybody saying naughty words!” JT proclaimed, shaking his head, and shoveling in another huge bite.
“All right,” Cain agreed. “Show’s over. I believe Tony made a pie for little wolves who eat their vegetables. Everyone turn back to your plates and finish dinner. Kat, turn around and face the table, please.”
“Papa’s mad,” she told Cain.
“He has a job to do, so he’s gone to do it. You have a job to do too, little girl. Eat.” Cain glanced at April, the sole remaining parent of the Alpha’s foursome. He felt he might have overstepped. But April looked shaken herself, and she was distracted trying to refocus Jimmy toward his plate. Her hand shook. Cain reached across Alex and Jimmy to rest a warm hand against the back of her neck, and she leaned into it.
Cas stalked past his office door, choosing to confront his brother first. Gabriel leaned precariously back in one of the wooden chairs at the reading table with his feet up on the shiny surface, ankles crossed. It was iconic Gabe, a dare, and a statement both. Cas knocked his feet off without slowing, and he dragged an overbalanced Gabriel to his feet as he barreled past, bringing the Omega with him. Cas pressed his brother into the back wall and crowded into him, their faces centimeters apart.
“You think it’s funny, Omega? Keep laughing. I have no patience for your bullshit today. Strip everything off and get on your knees.”
“Ooh. Kinky,” Gabe quipped, but his eyes shot wide when Castiel’s full-armed slap landed across his cheek. Gabriel gaped at his brother, speechless, a hand touching his burning cheek.
“Naked, Gabriel. On your knees.”
“If you DF me,” Gabe warned his Alpha, “what will you have left in the tank for Dean?”
“You let me worry about my refractory time, Omega,” Castiel growled back, menacing.
Gabe stripped his t-shirt over his head and shoved off the jeans that he’d only donned because his brother insisted on clothes at the dinner table. He stepped out of them and kicked them clear with a bare foot. Cas stepped back, offering him room to kneel. Gabriel held the Alpha’s eyes as he lowered to his knees and dropped forward to all fours.
“Face the wall.”
Gabe snorted, but he shuffled around, turning his backside toward his brother.
Cas snarled as he smacked Gabriel’s ass. Hard. Gabriel grunted and rocked forward. Then he grimaced, his jaw set stubbornly, and he leaned back to goad Cas for more. Castiel stood beside Gabe pressing the side of his leg against Gabriel’s hip, holding his opposite hip firmly with his left hand bracing him, cinching him in, and he rained fire down on Gabe’s ass. Gabriel slipped downward onto his elbows and tucked his ass under. Castiel wasted no time setting his butt burning, and then he dropped onto his knees between Gabe’s feet, shoved his robe out of the way, pulled his cock free, and rocked forward into his brother’s channel, sheathing himself in one hard thrust.
Gabriel ducked his head and shouted, but Cas had hold of his hips, tugging the Omega backward into him, holding him tight. Like a dog, Castiel fucked him ruthlessly. Gabe’s breathing caught and hitched, punched out of him. He buckled forward, head striking the wall until Castiel regripped his hips and jerked him backward. It took no time at all until the Alpha rolled down to cover his brother and spilled into his channel with a huff and a metaphysical shotgun blast that curled Gabriel’s toes.
“Alpha, please,” he whispered with his cheek planted against hardwood.
“Apologize, Omega!”
“I’m so sorry. Please, little brother!”
“I don’t need this shit from you, Gabriel.”
“Please,” Gabe moaned, aching, stinging, burning. He worked shaking hands beneath him and pressed his torso off the floor. “Alpha, please!”
Cas pulled out of his brother and sat back on his heels. “Straighten up, and we won’t revisit this. Do it again, and I will turn my wolf loose on your ass while I’m in full Rut. Now. Go back out there and ask every Pack member who stands above you in rank to spank you, and then retire to your room. You’re confined for the rest of the evening. When Kali gets home, you’re to explain what happened this evening and ask her to put the finishing touches on your punishment. Grab your clothes and go, Gabriel.
Gabe used the wall to help him stand, wiping his cheeks and nose with a hand. His face showed a somber castigation but no remorse. Not yet. By the time he sobbed himself to sleep, remorse would come. Gone was the twinkle in his eyes that torqued Castiel to seeing red. Castiel’s Claim tingled under both their skins, setting Gabe’s ass and channel to throbbing. Cas tugged on it, pulling Gabriel’s gaze up to look into Castiel’s red-rimmed eyes.
“I expect you to take the lead on hospitality while the Andersons are here, Gabriel. I will take you at your word that you don’t need any guidance from me to know what needs doing. If anything is out of place in Fred’s absence, I’m holding you responsible. Until we get our butler back, you’re the butler. Am I clear?”
Gabe pouted for a moment, but Cas was rock solid and unwavering. Gabe swallowed. The Alpha’s reaction to his Omega brother was only overkill to someone who couldn’t sense or scent Gabriel’s need. As the man hesitated, Castiel stepped closer and wrapped a hand around the back of his brother’s neck, pulling him closer. He searched Gabe’s face and sent a beseeching tendril of inquiry into his psyche through their refreshed bond. Gabe gasped softly.
“Clear, Alpha,” he admitted. Cas nodded, squeezed his neck for a moment, and then turned to go, tying his robe closed. “Sir? Do I need to ask for swats from Dean and Michael? They weren’t there to witness my smart mouth.”
“Do they stand above you in rank?” Cas asked back.
Gabe’s shoulders slumped. He dropped his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“All right, then,” Cas concluded. “I don’t take kindly to blatant disrespect, Gabriel Allen, especially from Omegas. This is a punishment and a reminder and a status re-set. Go on now. I’ll see you in the morning to go over the duties you assign yourself or plan to delegate.”
Gabe leaned over and collected his clothing from the floor.
“And Gabe? I love you.”
Gabriel chewed his lower lip for a moment and then graced his brother with one of his rare, unmasked expressions, full of the raw trauma of too many hard years, and he nodded. “Love you too, Sir. Tha…thanks, Cas.”
Cas felt a sudden exigence in his gut, unrelated to Gabriel, through his bond-link with Dean, and his head whipped around. “Go on back to the dinner table, Gabe. Get yourself sorted. I need to see to Dean.”
As Cas opened the library door, the sound of scuffling bodies and the hitched breaths of a grappling match was audible before he rounded the door to see Sam trying his damnedest to shove Dean back into Castiel’s office. Cas strode forward, reaching the two of them just as Dean won a free arm and the leverage to haul back and take a vicious swing at his brother’s jaw. Cas caught his fist in a palm and halted the punch cold.
“What the hell is going on here?” Castiel demanded as Sam let Dean go and stepped back with a hand to his own face. Clearly, Cas hadn’t made it in time to stop every blow.
“He came out into the foyer bellowing for you, Sir,” Sam explained. “I told him to go back where he’d been placed and wait until you released him. He didn’t like that.” Sam shot a sour look over Cas’ shoulder at Dean, fuming in the office, still nude.
“You said you’d be back after dinner, Castiel!” Dean accused. “Where were you?”
“It’s after dinner now, Dean. I am here. Back to your corner, please.”
“You left me, Cas! For hours!”
“It hasn’t been hours, Dean. I needed to deal with Gabriel.”
“You expect me to stand in here sweating bullets while you soak yourself in Omega stink?” Dean was shaking with rage.
“I expect you to trust me and do as you’re told, Submissive!” Castiel roared back. Dean snarled, swiped his hand across Castiel’s desk to send papers flying, and then disappeared around the door jamb and back to his place.
“Are you hurt?” Cas asked Sam. He stepped up and peered into Sam’s left eye, touching the swelling at his cheek carefully.
“It’s not bad. I’ve had worse from him. He’s always had a helluva mean right hook. Dad taught him that back when we expected him to Present Omega. Alpha strength and a brat’s need to tantrum has only made it more intense.” Sam hissed as Castiel’s thumb passed over the apple of his cheekbone.
“Get some ice on it and take a dose of Tylenol.”
Gabriel slinked past the two Dominants on his way out to the back patio. Cas watched him go. “Sam, I’ve assigned Gabriel a full Pack roundabout. Don’t let anyone half-ass it, please. He needs to feel every member of this Pack staking their rightful place over him.”
“Oh. Wow. Okay. Yeah, sure, Alpha. It’s been a while since we did one of those. Any stipulations?”
From inside the office, Dean called, “Any minute now, fellas! Clock’s ticking!”
“Keep pushing me, Pet, and you can stand in there all night!” Cas called back. “Sam, I’d prefer the pups witness at least part of it. They saw Gabe act out. They need to see—and smell—what his resolution looks like.”
“Sure thing, sir. And…Michael?”
“Yes, Michael needs to participate as well. Everyone but Kate and April. And Sam? If Sarah wants to give it a shot, she has my permission. It’ll be her decision. Gabe still needs to ask her.”
“All right. Don’t worry about a thing, Cas. We’ll take care of your brother.”
“Send Michael to the billiard room when he gets through with Gabe tonight. We’re staying up late.”
“Yeah. Course. I’ll make sure he gets the message. We’re good out here, sir. Don’t worry about us.” Sam winced as his cheek throbbed, and he turned and strolled across the foyer in search of an ice pack. Cas closed his office door behind him. Dean was in his corner, but he was crowded tight into it, resting his forehead against the paneling, beating a syncopated rhythm against his thigh with his thumb and pinky splayed like drumsticks. Cas could hear beatboxing sounds even though he couldn’t see Dean’s mouth.
“What’s going on, Dean?” he asked.
Dean turned from the waist to look over his shoulder. “Who, me? You finally getting around to me?”
“Yes, I am. And I asked you a question.” Cas rotated his desk chair to face the corner and sat down, knees wide, fingertips steepled under his chin, assessing variables.
“I dunno, Alpha. You tell me. You’re the one with the agenda. What’s going on? I thought maybe you forgot I was in here starving.” Dean rolled his eyes and faced his corner again. He shuffled his feet until his position was textbook instead of provocative. He laced his fingers behind his head and touched elbows to the walls, letting his elbows and feet be his only touchpoints as per long established rules. Cas allowed him to stand that way for a couple of moments before breaking the uneasy silence.
“Come here and kneel for me, please, Pet.”
Dean moved with the grace characteristic of his wolf, a tell Cas needed to be certain of his mindset. He knelt smoothly, knees spread, shoulders relaxed, eyes glittering with a sense of injustice. He set his palms on his thighs without tension. His jaw was loose. It was only his eyes that betrayed his state of mind outwardly, and Cas was glad he’d turned the man around.
“You’ve waited on me far longer than this before,” Cas reminded his husband. “You can stand in a corner all day if I want you to. Talk to me, Pet.”
“During a scene, Alpha, sure, but not for this. Not for a punishment. Not when it’s Pack discipline bullshit.”
Cas tried for a moment to stay level, but his wolf broke in on him, and he snarled. “Whether it’s punishment bullshit, Pet, or any other instruction from me, I expect the obedience from you that you swore to give me! This is not a game to me. You not only broke Pack rules, but you also questioned my authority in front of the whole Pack. We agreed that we would discuss disagreements about policy in private. If you had something to say about Rule number eight before now, you’ve had ample time to bring it up! And if I put you in the corner and tell you to wait, you wait, goddamnit! I don’t care if it’s a planned scene, an improvised scene, a punishment, or just a fucking whim of mine. You obey me when I tell you to do something because I am your Top, your Alpha, your Dominant, and your boss, and you agreed to submit to me, Dean Michael!”
Dean glared back in petulant rebellious fury.
Cas cocked his head, reading the energy coming from his husband. “You struck your brother for no good reason. That’s Rule three.”
Dean had nothing to say. Cas continued to study him. He narrowed his eyes. Dean’s chest heaved as he fought to hold his position against the outrage in his belly.
“You’ve been having nightmares this week, haven’t you?” Cas guessed. Dean flicked his eyes away instantly. “Dean? Don’t lie to me. You’re in enough hot water as it is.”
Dean mumbled inaudibly.
“Speak up, Submissive.”
“I said they started two weeks ago!” Dean’s eyes reddened angrily.
“Shutter that alpha when you talk to me, boy!” Castiel reprimanded sharply, and Dean’s eyes returned to green instantly. Dean slid back in his posture until he was sitting on his butt, and he crossed his legs Omega-style in front of him. All the fight drained out, leaving him weary and sad.
He scratched a dark divot in the patterned rug and then smoothed it out again to lie flat with the grain of the fabric. He repeated the motion, dragging his nails through the weave again and again, staring at his fingertips.
“You’ve kenneled your wolf so he won’t throw a fit when he falls,” Cas accused, more a guess than anything else. “You’re stifling yourself and living in your front brain.”
“Won’t stop it for long,” Dean grumbled. “But I thought maybe I could get us right up to the brink with my front brain and then let the wolf in for the fire. Thought that might fulfill the pattern without hurting my family for once.”
“You almost broke Sam’s cheekbone,” Cas pointed out.
“Sammy knows better than to try to manhandle me,” Dean said darkly. “He never wins that battle. Never has, never will.”
“Dean, the point is, you hid this from me, and you tried an untested solution without allowing me to help you figure it out. Have you told Michael your nightmare is back?” Cas leaned forward in his chair.
“Dude, Michael knows everything that goes on in my head. I can’t sneeze without him saying Bless You ten seconds before it happens.”
“I want to try something new,” Cas said, bracing his hands on his thighs to stand up. “Come with me.”
“What? Where?” Dean stumbled to his feet and then stuttered backward when Cas turned back to confront him angrily.
“I’ve had enough of that, Pet. Follow instructions and do it without commentary or I will gag you.” Castiel spun on his heel and marched out into the foyer without waiting for Dean to find his balance. He disappeared around the back hallway and stormed down the wide passage. Dean scurried to catch up but only caught sight of his Alpha’s heel disappearing into the game room on the right, the one with the pool table in it.
“No ceiling anchors in here, Sir,” he observed, trying to work out what his Sir had in mind. “No spanking benches either. I guess the pool table could serve…”
“What part of shut your mouth is confusing to you, Dean?” Cas asked rhetorically. The Alpha fumbled about behind the wooden bar and clicked open a storage closet that Dean hadn’t known was there. It was deep, set into the space between the game room and the back of Michael’s office.
“Huh,” Dean said eloquently, watching with interest as Cas extracted a portable bondage bench and set it before the sofa by the back wall. “Didn’t know that was there. What else you got in there?”
Cas smirked. “You’re a handful when you’re pushing, Pet. Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of you tonight. You and April, both. No point heading into a Rut without letting off some steam.”
“April? What’s she got to do with this?”
“The bench is not for you, Dean. It’s for my Kitten who’s been diligently working on her orgasm-control. Go and fetch her for me, would you?”
Dean hesitated, eyeing the wooden frame as Cas turned it a few degrees at a time, pausing to check the angle and height, readjusting from different spots. It wasn’t a typical spanking bench, although it would work for that. It looked like it could be used for breeding or torture or nearly anything as it was a bare form with little structure, allowing direct contact from any direction.
“Scoot, Pet. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Yessir,” Dean mumbled, more curious than worried. He scuttled out, following his weak bond-link toward April, taking the stairs two at a time until he found her with Jess bathing all six pups at once in the nursery’s bathroom. “Alpha wants us both for a … thing, kid.”
April looked up with wide blue eyes. “Tonight?”
“Right now.”
“Um. All right.” Dean could scent her body react to the news, and this close to Heat, she smelled otherworldly tempting. His alpha keyed in on the eroticism of Omega-in-Heat, but he clamped down on it. “Give me a minute to get someone up here to help Jess, and I’ll be right there.”
“Game room downstairs,” he told her. “Make it quick.”
“No. Dean!” Jess called out into the nursery as he left. “Gabe needs you to spank him.”
“What, now?” Dean asked impatiently.
“Go down and give him your swats. He’s on a Pack roundabout. If you’re scening with Cas tonight, you’re not going to get a better chance than right now. Send Sarah up to spell April. Take care of Gabe. Then you’re both free for the rest of the night. We’ll get your pups to bed.”
“What the fu… heck did Gabe do?”
“Pretty much the same thing you did. Cas set him a roundabout as punishment. He needs all of us to step up.” Jess dodged a splash and went back in with a washcloth to scrub Jimmy’s face.
“Dangit! All right. Fine. Kid, get your butt down to the pool room as soon as you can.”
Dean hustled down, taking the back stairs that let out near the patio door. The patio was empty but for Eunice and Tony clearing the table.
“Parlor, alpha,” Eunice told him before he could ask.
“Thanks,” he mumbled and backtracked. Dean walked in on a miasma of hot Omega scent. Gabe was red-faced and crying, but he had an Omega’s fortitude holding his back straight. As Dean walked in, Gabe took a deep breath and then bent himself over one of the barstools from the kitchen island, holding on to the lower rungs. Sarah had a number five paddle in her hands. She set her feet a measured distance from Gabe’s position, turned them to a carefully practiced angle, and tested her swing a couple of times with the paddle centered high on his backside.
“Little lower,” Dean and Sam said at the same time. Sarah adjusted. Dean caught Sam’s eye, noticed the angry bruise peeking around the ice pack he held to his cheek and then looked away. Sarah delivered ten perfectly adequate swats to Gabe’s fiery red ass. She helped him stand and wiped his eyes with a tissue and set the paddle on an end table. She gave him a perfunctory hug, awkward with Gabriel’s lack of reciprocity.
“Who’s next?” Sarah asked, blushing as she let him go.
“That would be me,” Dean spoke up. “Need you to go relieve April upstairs for baths and bedtime. Alpha wants her with him.”
Sarah nodded and left without a word, clearly off-balance at having rendered her first Pack discipline and glad to have the excuse to leave.
“I’ll go with her,” Cain volunteered. “Bedtime for six is going to take more than two people.” In the foyer, Cain caught up to Sarah and put an arm over her shoulder. If Dean had to guess, he was congratulating her on taking a tough step toward full assimilation and doing it well.
Gabe huffed a tired sigh and presented Dean with the paddle. “Alpha, would you please discipline me for transgressions to the Pack?”
“Sure,” Dean replied, taking the paddle formally but then discarding it onto the tea table. “Over my lap, Omega. Looks like you could use some skin-to-skin right about now.” Dean sat in the middle of the couch and pulled Gabriel across his left leg, letting Gabe brace on the couch at a good supportive angle. “What’d you do, anyway?”
“Called my brother rigid,” Gabe said over his shoulder.
“The dude’s lost all sense of humor tonight,” Dean quipped back. He followed that comment with a hard smack to the back of Gabe’s left thigh. The Omega grunted and ducked his head into the sofa cushion. Gabe’s ass was beet-red, but his thighs were yet relatively unscathed. Dean altered that, bringing heat enough to spread the flush of pain down both legs to meld with the hue up higher. The musky scent of Alpha wasn’t subtle with Gabe’s backside naked and upturned. Cas was never subtle when he decided statements needed to be made.
Dean’s bare hand on Gabriel’s legs cemented them as Pack, firming the Claim-bond they shared, and mingling their scents as they both broke into a sweat. Unlike Sarah, Dean’s application of strikes was no classroom training praxis. Dean understood both instinctively and academically what the purpose of a roundabout was, and he knew he needed to get underneath the surface level of emotion to fulfill the ritual.
He knew when he’d reached the end in the same way a wild animal knows when its thirst is slaked from a cool mountain stream. He just knew. Wordlessly he hauled Gabe up to straddle his lap and chuckled as he embraced the man. Irony is a bitch, Dean thought.
“Glad you’re having fun,” Gabe grumbled.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see who limps harder in the morning,” Dean replied. He kissed Gabe’s temple and let the Omega work his way to his feet. “Night, folks,” Dean added on his way out. “Don’t wait up.”
“Dean…” Sam stepped forward with his hand half-raised.
Dean fled with a “Later, Sammy,” over his shoulder.
When Dean slipped into the game room, April was already naked on the oddly shaped structure, cuffed down on her hands and knees with support for her torso of a long-sloped beam that kept her head high and her hips low. Cas straightened up from kissing her. He wiped his lower lip with a thumb and eyed Dean, still naked, appreciatively. “Ah, Pet. Good timing. On your knees facing the couch, please. I expect complete obedience from you tonight.”
Dean eyed the Ozzie on the rack cautiously, but he did as bid. He folded onto the floor with his back to April, and he rolled his shoulders until he found his headspace and settled.
“As you know,” Cas said, strolling closer. “You are in hot water with me for breaking several of my rules, a situation that you incurred deliberately to…how shall we say? …unleash my fury and win you a chance to break your fall? It’s not going to go that way, Pet. Instead of taking you out to the woodshed this time, I’m going to take you somewhere entirely different. I have no idea if this will help at all, but it’s worth a try. Are you with me?”
Dean blinked up at his Dom in confusion as Cas came level with him.
“Dean, I’m asking for your consent to scene in response to tonight’s tantrum instead of applying the switching you would normally be getting right now.” Cas had himself reined in, but Dean could tell his approaching Rut was fueling the heat of his blood and his imagination.
Dean glanced over his shoulder where April knelt bound to the bench. She looked at him placidly, her eyes already hazy with warm sensation.
“April is not going anywhere, Pet,” Cas added. “No one is going to touch her.” The Alpha turned his head to follow Dean’s gaze. “And she won’t be touching herself either. Her role here tonight is part of her ongoing training in self-control. She is an observer to our play. Nothing more.”
“Si…Sir,” Dean choked out. “How is it self-control if she’s cuffed?”
“Hmm,” Cas pondered. “Good point.” Dean saw April shake her head desperately as Cas approached her again. Dean had a sinking feeling. The bastard had meant to add another piece to the structure all along. Cas disappeared behind the bar again and emerged from the closet with a shoebox. He set it on the bar and pulled out a carton of triple-A batteries and a wand vibrator. Cas loaded batteries into the compartment the way John Winchester taught Dean to load a pistol, with care and precision. Twisting the endcap into place, the Alpha turned it on, turned it all the way to max, and carried it slowly toward his mate. She squeaked and pulled at her restraints.
“Shhh. Calm yourself, Kitten. No one’s going to hurt you. I’m not even going to touch you. I’ll just leave this here.” Cas set the vibrator into a clamp below April’s crotch, and he tightened the screws. The support bar ended with a wide brace across her hips, but had she wanted, a mere shift of the angle of her hips would have brought her into delicious contact with the vibrator. Dean’s eyes were as wide as April’s. Self-control would be an agony this close to her Heat.
“There we are. That’s better.” Cas trailed a hand through her hair, stringy and unkempt at the moment. “This is training, after all. Thank Dean for looking out for you, Kitten. We wouldn’t want to rob you of the chance to practice.”
“Thank you, alpha,” April whimpered.
Dean groaned and turned back around to face the couch. The buzz of the vibrator set his teeth on edge. Poor kid. “You’re a sadist,” Dean told Castiel.
Cas laughed. “She’s quite comfortable up there, Pet. I tested it myself. Her weight is evenly distributed, and neither her wrists nor her knees are taking undue pressure. It’s a nicely constructed piece of furniture, isn’t it, Kitten?”
“Yes, Sir,” she said bravely.
“Good girl. April, love, your rule is simple. If you come tonight, I will give you every punishment that Dean earned for himself. He broke Rules one, three, five, seven, and eight. It’s quite a list. And I know this will challenge you to an extreme, but I believe in you, sweetheart. You can do this. All your training has led up to this test, and you’re ready.”
“I’ll try my best, Sir.” The kid was sweating already. Her knuckles were white on the handles she gripped. Dean guessed she could hold out for twenty minutes, tops. “And if I succeed?”
Cas laughed. “When you succeed, as I expect you will, I will kiss you goodnight and put you to bed with your hands bound to your bedpost, so you won’t be tempted to defy me in the middle of the night. Am I not good to you, my love?”
“And me, Sir?” Dean asked.
“Easy, Pet. All you have to do is please me. I’m not going to ask much of you. No pain. No restrictions. Enjoy yourself. Come as many times as you like. Release your wolf and wallow in pleasure with me. Do whatever feels good, whatever I ask of you.”
April whined behind him.
“Sir, how does this address my fall?”
“One thing we’ve never tried when your brats take you to the darkest depths is the opposite of cold rejection and punishment.” Cas was naked by the time he mosied back into Dean’s field of vision. He settled right in front of Dean on the couch and beckoned his husband forward. “We’ve never tried drenching you with affection and acceptance. We’ve never put your brat to a task it could satisfactorily complete.” Cas wrapped his arms around Dean when the man knee-walked forward to kneel between his feet. “Your wolf expects pain and distance from me. Let’s see what happens if he performs to his best abilities and incurs my approval instead of my wrath.”
“But, Alpha,” Dean said, closing his eyes as tender fingers carded through his hair. “I broke rules. Lots of them.”
“Oh, I won’t forget. We’ll deal with that. Perhaps I’ll assign you lines or extra household chores. For now though. Kiss me, Pet.”
Dean lifted high onto his knees and sank into the warmth of Castiel’s chest, raising his face to be kissed. Cas bent down and pressed their lips together. He reached downward with his left arm and hoisted Dean up to straddle his lap as his tongue plunged into Dean’s mouth. Dean let him control the kiss, let him take hold of Dean’s face and angle it how he wanted. Let strong hands dig hard holds into his thighs.
“Hands behind your back, Submissive,” Cas whispered. Dean let go of his Alpha’s arms and took his left wrist in his right hand behind his back. Castiel spread his knees, widening Dean’s too. Cas braced him and kissed down his throat to his clavicle, nibbling and licking as he went.
“Chest out,” Cas instructed, and Dean arched his back, no longer fighting a rebellious nature, softened into dutiful compliance, willful passivity. Whatever Castiel wanted, Dean would give it. Cas’ front teeth teased his left nipple until it stood out proudly, earning warm wet licks across the firm bud. Then he repeated the strokes on the right side. Cas dug his fingernails into Dean’s hips, rolling them into a smooth gyration. Dean picked up the rhythm, planting his knees in the couch on either side of Cas’ hips. Cas heaved him closer, bringing their groins into convergence and rising again to kiss Dean deeply.
Behind them, the vibrator buzzed, and April groaned, watching.
Cas reached around and pulled Dean in with handfuls of ass, putting off Rut pheromones that made Dean’s head spin. Dean rolled his hips.
“You’re beautiful, Pet. So good for me.” Cas broke his kiss to praise his Sub only to dive back in and kiss him again, deeper and wetter, more desperate.
They made out until Dean lost track of time, the contact at his groin insufficient to get either of them off. Cas pulled Dean’s head closer to his scent glands, and he attacked Dean’s earlobe as Dean buried his nose in Cas’ throat, snuffling for the scent of Rut. “Down on your knees, Pet,” Cas told him. “Take me in your mouth and make it good for me.”
“Yessir.” Dean kept his hands tightly clasped behind his back and eased backward onto the floor. Cas filled Dean’s mouth as Dean looked upward through his lashes at his Dom’s face. Cas looked transformed by want and lust, and Dean flushed thinking about how he was the one bringing that look to the man’s face.
“Up on your hands and knees, Dean. Put your whole body into it. Make it good. Show me you want to please me.” Cas moaned as Dean lifted and began rocking forward, burying his face as far into Cas’ crotch as he could sink. April panted in alarm behind him, turned on by the show, sorely tempted to do something about it.
The door creaked a little as Michael entered, still in his work scrubs. “That’s a pretty picture,” he observed, closing the door behind him. “Sam said you wanted me?”
“Michael…” Castiel’s voice grated with his arousal, like crazed glass. He snaked his fingers into Dean’s short hair, caught enough of it between his fingers to give him leverage, and pulled Dean down onto his length until Dean had to open his throat and concentrate on suppressing his gag reflex. “Have you dealt with Gabriel?”
“Yes, Alpha. We just put him to bed. Kali has him. He’s finished his roundabout.”
“Have you eaten?”
Dean tuned them out. Their conversation had nothing to do with his task, and it was distracting. He held his breath and counted beats in his head, trusting that Cas would allow him to breathe before he reached tunnel vision.
“Tony fixed me a plate, Sir. I’m good.”
“How was work?” Cas tried to compartmentalize, but Dean’s tongue flicked up his cock, and he ended his question on a groan that April mimicked.
“We had a close call tonight,” Michael told him. He settled onto the couch beside Cas and watched Dean work. Cas let go of Dean’s head, letting him suck in a few breaths and swallow the excess slobber in his mouth before drawing him back in. “Social services pulled an Ozzie outta his foster home. Kid was running a temperature of 106 and out of his mind in Omesol poisoning. Nowhere near his Heat. I’m not sure we got to him in time, but we did what we could. He fought us like a wild animal.”
“Who’s on call tonight?” Cas asked with little pulsing drives of his hips and a hand cradling Dean’s jaw.
“Dr. Harvelle has him. She’s going to sit up with him all night and watch him. Alpha, that was the worst I’ve ever seen in the flesh. He was completely out of it. We couldn’t sedate him until we got alpha spunk in him. Had to pin him down. It was awful.” Michael fell silent and watched Dean. He glanced up at April. “What are we doing tonight, Sir?”
Cas moaned and filled Michael in.
Michael got up and walked over to the bench. “You’re doing great, Pete. You’ve got this.” He kissed her on the lips and brushed hair out of her face.
“Michael, please,” she begged.
“Can’t help you, sweetheart. You have to do this on your own. I know you can. Hang in there and concentrate.” Michael gave her one more kiss and then turned back to the two men a couple of yards away. “Would you mind if I joined in, Sir? Two Doms better than one?” Michael pulled his top over his head, already reading the room well enough. Whatever Cas had in mind when he brought Michael in with Castiel’s toys, Michael wouldn’t be needing his shirt.
“Help yourself, Michael,” Cas replied. “Follow my lead if there’s a question, please. But other than that, he’s our buffet.”
“I love a buffet,” Michael said. He dropped to his knees behind his mate and buried his face in Dean’s ass, licking deep, licking long, licking wet. Dean bucked in surprise at first but quickly settled, closing his eyes.
“Eyes, Pet,” Cas reminded him. “Your rules don’t change just because your mate’s in your ass.”
Dean whimpered but complied. He prayed his Alpha could hold him steady against the onslaught from behind, and he clung to Castiel’s eyes like a lifeline. Cas’ eyes smiled back at him affectionately as his hips rolled slowly. Dean was close to lifting emotionally and floating away, but there was a weight around his neck pinning him to the ground. Remorse. Guilt. He didn’t deserve to feel this good. He didn’t deserve to be taken care of between the two men he loved most dearly in the world, not after the tantrum he threw. He certainly didn’t deserve to feel this good while the Ozzie who’d done nothing wrong looked on in frustrated agony.
Michael’s teeth nipped at his rim lightly as he pulled Dean’s hips back into his face. Dean gasped around his mouthful, still clinging desperately to Castiel’s blue, blue eyes. Dean’s feet and palms were sweating.
“Be good for me, Pet,” Cas crooned. “Show me. Show me you’re sorry for what you said, what you did, what you tried to do. Show me, Dean.”
Dean’s eyes welled mutinously. Damnit, he wasn’t going to cry over a blowjob, for fuck’s sake. Something about Cas’ intense stare was breaking through Dean’s defenses though. He felt weightless. He felt vulnerable, like a kitten in a tornado. He felt entirely at the mercy of the man with his cock in Dean’s mouth, and Dean…Dean wanted to feel this way. He focused his efforts and dug in hard to make it good.
Cas sometimes traded with Michael at breakfast, taking Dean in hand beneath the kitchen table instead of April and allowing the Ozzie to snuggle with her beau in a chair they shared. They didn’t do that often as April usually needed the grounding of a morning, and Michael couldn’t give her that. But now and then, especially on weekends when their schedules were a little freer, Cas let Dean fold up between his knees and rock softly with his mouth full of a far more substantial meal than Tony’s scrambled eggs.
This wasn’t that. Mornings were about self-control for both of them. Tonight was about the opposite. Cas was determined to drive Dean out of his mind, goading him until the Sub admitted he had nothing on Castiel’s willpower and gave over to Alpha’s control entirely. Right now, Dean was working hard, using his own control to guide his movements. For now, Cas allowed that. It would be a progression. Holding Dean’s eyes with his own communicated everything he needed to say.
Behind them, the timbre of the buzzing vibrator changed as April touched it against soft folds, grinding down to take the edge off. She sobbed and lifted free again without gaining any traction. Cas didn’t glance at her, but his eyes registered amusement and approval in equal measure.
Dean’s cock spurted a few stringy drops of precome onto the carpet. He moaned around the cock in his mouth and then sank deeply onto it, opening his throat, swallowing around the head.
Michael worked Dean’s asshole over with his tongue until his tongue went numb. Languorously, Michael eased his body up over Dean’s back, draping himself like a panther over a tree branch and leaned down to drag his tongue up Castiel’s cock from the base to the mid-section that disappeared into Dean’s mouth. He looked up at the Alpha from a lust-daze, letting Dean hold him up.
“Can we do the thing, Sir? Please. You promised someday.” Michael sounded drunk.
Cas continued to watch his dick disappear down Dean’s throat for a few pulses, a bit lust-hazed himself before answering Michael without breaking eye-contact with Dean. “You’ll have to get your mate’s consent, Omega. I have an agreement with him not to fuck you. If he consents, and if he convinces me that it’s not a consent under duress, we’ll do it.” Cas watched Dean’s eyes, waiting for him to connect the dots. Their scening rules forbid changes to the agreement in the middle of a scene because there was no way to be certain consent wasn’t coerced. If he’d had anyone else at his feet right now, Castiel would never even consider it, but first, this was his Dean, and he knew Dean better than anyone on the planet. And second, this scene wasn’t for fun. It was an attempt to push Dean through an emotional crunch-point that he usually needed a physical flaying to get past. Could a manipulated sexual experience that broke their contract do the same thing?
Dean had stopped blinking, so intense was his attention riveted to Castiel’s face. He was figuring it out. As a sexual Sub, Dean was the ultimate compliant slave. He would do anything once he sank into that mindset. And he trusted Cas. They set their mutual limits into stone in their contract, allowing for a constant back-and-forth negotiation far enough away from any scene headspaces that they could both speak honestly and in good faith. The contract was everything. Castiel had never broken it intentionally before. What Michael was proposing wouldn’t hurt Dean, but it altered the sanctity of their contract. It shifted the root of power firmly into Castiel’s control, a shift they couldn’t change once they took that step.
Cas knew Dean wouldn’t say no. But would there be fallout later? What would it mean for their dynamic? Michael would know if Dean was hiding a bad reaction. But Michael was not concerned. He was…well, he was drunk.
“Dean, listen,” Michael started, rolling off his mate sideways into an Omega puddle. He reached up with warm hands and stroked Dean’s cheek, pressing in to feel the girth of Castiel inside his mate’s mouth. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to put your back into it and make me feel it for days. But I want Alpha in there too. Can you do that for me, little alpha? Can you be my good boy and do what I tell you to do? Can you fuck into my dirty hole that’s already stretched wide on Castiel’s cock?”
Dean listened to his mate with his tongue and his mouth still in motion and his eyes fixed on Castiel’s. A droplet of sweat ran down his temple. April moaned loud and low, and the tone of the vibrator lowered again. It began to pulse as the Ozzie stroked herself against it. Cas didn’t move.
Everything about this was wrong. Dean could safeword, and any question of breaking the contract would be taken back into his hands. But he wasn’t going to safeword. Dean didn’t want Castiel fucking his mate. It was coded into their contract. And Cas was fertile as he approached his Rut with a plan to impregnate his mate. Michael was working the angle from a headspace of lust and hedonism. But Cas knew what it meant to Dean.
At the bench, April recovered her control and lifted back into place, panting miserably.
If they took this route and it pulled Dean through his fall without a blowout of violence and abject self-loathing, what would that mean for the future?
Dean pulled free of Castiel’s cock, kneeling literally and metaphorically at the feet of power, choosing whether to stand still and let himself be steamrollered or to step out and call a halt to scene that was going off the rails from what he’d agreed to. He had spit and precome sliming his chin. His lips were red and swollen. Power dynamics crackled between them. Hierarchies are real.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“I don’t wear condoms in my home, Pet,” Cas reminded him, offering him an out. “I am unprotected. Know that there is a risk.”
“Michael’s not fertile, Sir,” Dean murmured. “It’s okay. We can give him this. I want to. Tell me what to do. Wanna be good. Let me be good for you. Cas, please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Yeah, Dean understood what Cas was doing. “Dean,” Cas ran a hand into the hair along the side of Dean’s head. “I need you to be sure.”
“Yeah. Wanna be good.” Dean leaned in and lay his cheek on Castiel’s belly, looking up at him. Michael sat beside him on the floor, struggling to read the weighted looks between the alphas.
Still not breaking eye contact, Cas reached for Michael’s shoulder. “Come up here and straddle my hips, Michael. Let’s get you seated. Then you direct our Sub. Come here.”
Michael didn’t need to be told twice. Dean sat back on his heels, and Michael took his place, standing with his feet wide and then easing down with his knees outside of Castiel’s hips. April cried out, hungrily.
“Eyes on me, Kitten!” Cas corrected her without raising his head.
“Sir,” she wailed. “I can’t!”
“Your choices have not changed,” he reminded her. “You’re doing well, love. I’m proud of you.”
Michael craned his head sharply down and held Castiel’s cock at its base. He dropped slowly into place, adjusting to the girth easily until he was seated in Castiel’s lap.
“Kiss me,” Castiel urged. Dean watched Cas’ arms circle Michael’s back and help him find a gentle rhythm as the two kissed deeply. To Dean, the wait seemed interminable. He was on the outs with his husband, and he could only wait in the cold for an invitation back in where it was warm. He settled into his waiting posture: on his knees, butt on his heels, palms on his thighs, shoulders back, knees wide, toes… Dean had his toes curled beneath him, taking his weight. Castiel’s position, not Michael’s. His eyes were up as well, watching the play of muscles across Michael’s back, watching Castiel’s fingers dig into Michael’s flesh over his ribs.
Castiel’s position.
Dean considered. Michael would be the one directing him. But this was Castiel’s scene. Dean decided his first impulse was right and stayed where he was. Up on his toes. Such a little thing. He licked his lips, concentrating. He risked a glance behind him and caught April’s eye for only a moment before facing front again. She looked out of her mind in desperation. Dean didn’t need that in his head. For all the things Castiel had made him do over the years, all the painful, delightful, humiliating, and wonderful things, tonight felt different.
It felt like a test, and Dean was determined to pass. He watched Cas fuck Michael from a front-row spot, and he schooled himself to compliant. In his head, he could feel Michael rolling in pleasure. He could feel Castiel on the brink of something more significant than an orgasm. Dean whined involuntarily. He wanted to be good. But he wanted to touch.
Cas scooched down until he was back on his tailbone giving Michael a flat seat and leverage. He planted his feet and thrust upward into the soft channel. For a time, it seemed the Dominants had forgotten their Subs altogether. Dean concentrated on breathing smoothly and keeping his gaze situated on the back of Michael’s neck, straight through to Castiel’s eyes. A chorus of voices sprung up in his head, ridiculing him, castigating him, reminding him that he wasn’t worth his master’s touch. Dean swallowed.
Michael engaged his thighs, rising up and slapping back down into the Alpha’s lap. He threw his head back and groaned. April mimicked the sound and let herself enjoy a few pulses from the vibrator. Dean’s fingers clutched his thighs. It was an Alpha’s prerogative to fuck the Omegas in his Pack whenever he wanted. It was his right. A tear broke free of Dean’s eyelid and tracked down his cheek.
Damnit.
Michael slowed to a steady, rolling pulse, more circular than vertical in orientation, and he looked over his left shoulder.
“All right, Submissive. Up you go. Come up here and press in. I’m ready.”
Dean rose gracefully, blanking his mind to drown out the voices. He set one knee up on the couch outside Castiel’s thigh and braced his weight with the other foot on the floor. Like a seamstress threading a needle, Dean caught his tongue between his teeth and splayed a hand across Michael’s back, holding his rock-hard length to aim for the stretch of rim pulled taut around Castiel’s dick. Cas pulled out a little until his head and no more than a couple of inches remained inside Michael’s channel.
“Easy does it, Submissive,” Michael coached, leaning forward. “Give me that alpha cock. Make it good for me, boy. I wanna come on two cocks.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean replied. A drop of sweat dripped from his nose onto Michael’s back. Maybe it was a tear. Dean wasn’t logging his bodily fluids. He had a job to do. DP with two alphas was always a tricky business. They couldn’t have tried with anyone but an Omega. But Dean knew what he was doing. This side of the equation he had practice with. He pressed his head right at the tight play of muscle at the top of Michael’s rim, and he pressed forward, pulling Michael back by his shoulder.
There was a tight pain, pressure, a feeling that the task was impossible. And then his head slipped into vice-like tight heat. Cas surge forward as well, dragging Dean in with him until they were both well-seated. Michael cried out, clutching Cas’ shoulder, and reaching back to hold Dean by the hip.
“HOLD!” he ordered. “Dean, don’t move! God! Fuck!”
April gasped and moaned. She gave up entirely, pressing her crotch back and down and riding the vibrator aggressively. She came with a wail, panted for a moment with the vibrator pressed into her inner thigh, and then dove back in for more.
Dean spread his fingers wide and grasped Michael’s hips. He pressed his forehead between Michael’s shoulder blades. Sweat mingled and dripped down a fountain of three sculpted bodies to lodge in a dark stain on the couch. Dean sobbed, no longer capable of holding back the waterworks. He felt euphoric and agonized, righteous and wrong at the same time. Michael’s channel spasmed, stretching impossibly. Michael hyperventilated briefly, working through the pain. He adjusted his knees, forcing Dean and Cas both to press in deeper to stay seated, and Michael hissed.
All of them had trouble finding their breath. All of them were close. They wouldn’t last long.
“All right, Dean. Remember what I said,” Michael huffed. “Make me feel it. I wanna ache for days.”
Dean breathed heavily onto Michael’s back. He eased his hips back, feeling Alpha’s cock catch and drag on his even with the abundant lubrication of Michael’s slick. He pressed back in, watching the flesh of Michael’s rim pull tight and then invert with his thrust. Dean was hypnotized by the sight. Beneath him, Alpha’s thighs engaged, and the man began a delicious counterstroke. Dean whined and pulled out again, careful not to risk sliding free. With his length and Castiel’s they had room to move.
“I said fuck me, Dean, not slow dance!”
“Shit,” Dean breathed. “Yes. Yessir.” He picked up his pace, easing into it. Castiel maintained his slower rhythm so that they lost all coordination, working at cross-purposes on some strokes and in conjunction to both press in at once on others. Michael flattened his chest against Cas, holding on for dear life and arching his back. Cas grunted and grabbed his hips to hold him level. The Alpha snarled over Michael’s head, ducked down now. Without warning, Castiel picked up the pace and slammed home again and again, lifting his hips by pressing his shoulders into the back of the couch and taking over for all of them.
“Dean,” he growled. “Get after it, Pet. Come on! Harder!” Castiel’s voice crackled with effort and strain. He was holding himself back, goading Dean to be the first to spill. But a good Submissive knows better than that. Not without an instruction. Not before his Dominant. Dominants. Dean dug his toes into the carpet and fucked hard into his mate’s channel, feeling the friction of Cas against the underside of his dick at every pass. It was rapturous, glorious pleasure. He couldn’t stop crying.
Michael’s head lolled helplessly between Dean’s shoulder and Castiel’s chest. His channel bucked and tightened around them, clenched spastically, and then Michael came all over Castiel’s pubic hair, shooting streamers up to his navel.
“YES! FUCK, DEAN! YES!”
April came again with a corresponding cry.
Dean sobbed, out of control, helpless against the storm of hormones, voices, mixed messages, and contradictory emotions. Michael was buffeted wildly between the two men. He grimaced as he felt a rising tension at his lower back, and he screamed as he Released.
Cas gripped Michael’s hips in a bruising hold, pressed upward, and came with a loud grunt, holding supremely still as he spent himself around Dean’s cock. Dean couldn’t hold back anymore. The feel of Castiel surging, pulsing warm fluid all around him deep inside his mate set him off, and he pressed in as far as he could, close to knotting the man, but prevented by the physics of human skin elasticity, and he watched as a flood of white spend pulsed out along the channels their cocks left between them.
Dean’s cock slipped right out, expelled by the pressure of Michael’s channel once he lost the rigidity to keep it buried. Castiel’s cock softened too, but it stayed buried with the pressure off. Michael went limp into Castiel’s embrace. Dean sank back onto the floor, heaving sobs wracking him. He clutched at Castiel’s knee. He couldn’t control himself, and he couldn’t have named the emotion that had him in its grip—only that it was more powerful than he.
Michael felt it. Heard Dean’s hitching breaths and guttural sobs, and he climbed down to pull his mate into him. He rocked Dean and looked up to the Alpha. Cas slid down to join them on the floor.
“Would you go uncuff April, Michael? Bring her up to bed. I’ll meet you there.” Cas kissed Dean all over his face. “It’s okay, love. I’ve got you. You’re okay. You were so good.” He lifted Dean in his arms, watched over his mate as Michael helped her down onto shaky legs and turned the vibrator off. Cas led the way up the stairs. Dean shook in his arms, great heaving painful cries breaking from his throat. It broke Castiel’s heart. Hearing Dean cry like this always broke his heart, but it was the price of having Dean in his life. There was no way around it. Dean had fallen. That much was clear. What Cas didn’t know yet was if the child within his Tertiary could digest what Cas had just put him through as a punishment.
It needed to be real.
That’s what Dean said.
No roleplay would work.
“Shh. You’re okay, Dean Michael. I love you, baby.” Cas laid him out in the middle of their bed and then cleared the way for Michael to help April in beside him. Cas rounded the bed. Now for the tricky part. Both Subs needed care. Michael had to be hurting. And both Dominants needed to be close to both Subs. Michael climbed right in behind April and scooted way up high on his pillow so that April lay squished tight against his belly, and he could curl around her to hold Dean’s shaking form. April rolled her back to Michael and wrapped her arms around Dean’s waist. Castiel took the far spot, embracing all three of them at once.
He rocked them as a tangle. He shushed them, holding them steady. Dean’s cries eased, but his shaking carried on for a while. April whispered softly into his tummy. Michael stroked his hair.
Dean fell asleep before Cas got a drink into him. Michael extracted himself long enough to fetch a glass of water from the bathroom and hold it for April. “You were so beautiful up there, Pete,” he told her in a soft, bedroom voice. “I’m the luckiest man alive that you let me in for that.”
“I failed kind of spectacularly,” she told him.
“Yeah, but you failed beautifully,” he teased.
“Tell that to my ass. Now I’ve got Dean’s punishment to look forward to.” She smiled despite her words and snuggled into Michael’s chest.
“You’re going through with that punishment, Sir?” Michael asked over Dean’s head.
“Of course,” Cas replied, hardly listening. “But not tonight.”
“Sir, what’s going on with Dean? What happened back there?” Michael shoved upward again to lean against the headboard. He pulled April in to lay at his hip and kept a hand in motion in her hair while he pressed his other palm against Dean’s back. The alpha was out, dead to the world.
“We forced his fall,” Cas said softly with his face close to the back of Dean’s neck. Dean smelled delectable. “Now we wait and see if he’s all the way through it or if we just bought some time. We won’t know that for a few days. I want you to watch his dreams if you can. We need to know if the nightmares stop, and I don’t fully trust Dean to tell me.”
“Yeah, of course. I can see his dream colors even when I’m asleep myself. I’ll know.”
“Thank you, Michael. How do you feel? Do you need me to have a look?”
“No, Alpha. I’m good. That was amazing. Best sex of my life. Gonna ache for a week.”
Cas chuckled. “As scenes go, it was tame,” he commented dryly. “But I don’t suppose every scene hits the same notes for intensity. This one wasn’t a stretch of anyone’s stamina or pain threshold, but it hit deep inside Dean’s psyche, and it crossed a bucket list entry off for you. April got to test her training. I think I proved my point that there is still progress to be made in that regard.”
“And you, Sir?” April asked sleepily. “What did you get out of tonight?”
“I got to break the rules, Kitten. That’s a rare thing for a Dominant. I enjoyed tonight very much. I owe all three of you thanks for your parts in this evening’s very successful play. Tomorrow will tell if I made the right call or if I broke something between Dean and me.”
“He’s okay, Cas,” Michael said with his thumb swiping long arcs across Dean’s back. “It was intense. But he’s okay. Whatever that was that broke inside him, it was more like a logjam coming loose than something irreparable cracking open. I think it did him some good. He’s at peace right now.”
Cas settled in, feeling his body temperature climb steadily. He clung to his husband and whispered soft prayers that Dean’s fall was over for this cycle. If it weren’t, they would figure something else out.
Michael lay down, still curled around April so he could touch Dean too. Cas threw an arm across his husband to rest a hand on April’s shoulder. They fell asleep like that, entangled in each other, sleeping soundly, smelling like sex and redemption.
And before dawn, Alex climbed up from the foot of the bed and burrowed down into the bodies with his stuffed wolf and began to sing softly to himself.
Notes:
Warning for dubious consent re an established Dom/sub contractual agreement. Cas breaks his word about the degree of contact he has with Michael. There's consent, but consent within a scene, especially one that includes this AU version of Dean, is dubious at best. For all the things Alpha pulls rank and does in this universe, this one is one of the few times he's truly overstepped his rights. Even for Lupin Pack dynamics, this is wrong.
Warning for corporal punishment of a child. I mean, there was no way that wouldn't happen, right?
And a quick qualifier from the author: I don't condone nonconsensual corporal punishment IRL. Like, at all. Especially not for children. This story is intentionally skewed from my real world moral axis in order to highlight and explore my assumptions about that axis.
Seriously, folks, vote. And whatever happens after every single vote is counted, our work continues. WWCD.
Chapter 19: Thursday, August 12, 2021
Summary:
Breakfast in the Winchester Pack on a weekday is a business meeting, one that Castiel has no business attending. The man's in Rut, ffs.
Kevin is closing in on a breakthrough, thanks to Michael.
And Dean's swirling madly in the wake of his unprecedented fall and rebound. There's not chance he escapes this with his hide intact. But, I mean, do we really want him to?
Notes:
I'm not sure where to start on this A/N. There's so much to say about the finale, and all of it insufficient. I took some time to process. I wrote a coda that doesn't explore my immense disappointment at the choices made for the final two episodes. And I'm grieving and listening to Dire Straits' 'Brothers in Arms' on repeat. I wasn't prepared. I'm still not prepared. And while I found the final episode itself, as a stand-alone rather than as a finale, to be beautifully presented and acted, I'm in shock that they mean to leave it like that.
If you feel outraged at the erasure of multiple representative faces, if you feel personally stricken by the injustice of a show that more than once swore to have your back, you're feelings are valid. And I see you.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday, August 12, 2021
NOW:
“Alex, buddy, c’mere kiddo. Wake up for me. We need to change the sheets.” Michael eased the whining pup into his arms and out of the cooling circle of urine centered right in the middle of the enormous bed. Alex whined and clung to O-Pop, wrapping sopping legs around Michael’s midriff. The early summer sunrise turned their curtains a warm pink hue.
The heavy scent of Castiel’s impending Rut mingled with April’s sleepy cloud of rising delicious Heat-scent to leave a perfumed fog over the bed, turned sour by the smell of urine. Cas was gone, off on his morning run no doubt, but his scent lingered.
Dean rolled off the opposite side of the bed with a sour grumble about waking up in pee more often than not these days. He stifled his complaints at a look from his mate, instead, helping April strip the bed with practiced teamwork. In the bathroom, the shower spigot turned on. Dean stuffed the bedding into the hamper by the bathroom door and ushered April into the bathroom before following her in. The usual argument that if Alex was going to continue to sneak into their bed in the wee hours of the morning and pee in it then he should be wearing pullups under his PJ’s died on Dean’s lips when the preschooler dove for him from Michael’s arms with a heart-rending wail of sorrow.
Dean melted a little. “Okay, Ace, I know. Daddy’s not mad at you. It happens, kiddo. You’re okay.” Dean caught him and cuddled him close, rubbing warm circles on his back. “We’ll get you all clean and good as new.” All three adults and the little boy crowded into the shower together, sharing the three showerheads. Dean passed his son off to April after she soaped her own body clean. April held Alex warm under the spray while Michael shampooed her hair and Dean scrubbed his own body. They emerged fresh and pink, warm and dewy, still wordlessly passing Alex back and forth as each of them needed hands for different tasks. Ultimately, dressed only in a pair of loose sleep pants, Michael took the boy down the hall to the nursery to dress him. Dean wiped down the mattress liner while April fetched fresh sheets.
“This is the last set in the cupboard, Dean,” she told him as she shook the fitted sheet out and strew it across the bed. “If it happens again tonight, we don’t have another set of clean linens.”
“Fred’s out sick, kid. No one’s been keeping track of this shit. There’s probably a mountain of pee-sheets piled up in the laundry room. God knows what else is about to fall apart on us. First, it’s bedsheets, and next we run out of bacon. I swear, if that happens, someone’s head is gonna roll.” Dean arranged the sheets on his side of the bed and then cast the comforter back over.
“I’m sure there’s bacon, alpha,” April placated. “Fred hasn’t been gone that long. You’re just cranky because you woke up wet. Come on. I’ll get the coffee brewing for you before the rest of the munchkins wake up. You can put a list of household emergencies together for Gabe.”
By the time April had three oversized mugs poured and a second pot brewing, Michael was down with Alex. The boy reached for Dean again. Michael dressed Alex smartly in a soft pair of shorts and a button-down seersucker shirt. Dean set his son into the crook of his lap with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. April handed a sippy cup of orange juice to Alex, and he settled back against Dean’s chest, serene with his head resting in the notch of Dean’s armpit. It was early enough that they had a full hour before the routine of breakfast would demand the Subs doff their robes and take to their knees. Cas was out running. No one else was awake yet. One positive to Alex’s frequent early morning mishaps was that it bought Dean and the Omegas a moment of quiet before their busy schedules forced them apart for the day.
The coffee hit Dean just right, clearing grouchy cobwebs out of the corners of his mind. Waking up wet, cold, and smelly was unpleasant enough, but swimming through Heat-scent everywhere he turned didn’t help. April’s fragrance was a jarring mix of Omega-Heat, which Dean’s alpha drooled over, and feminine arousal, which he found repulsive. When he was awake, his front-brain catalogued and handled the disconnect for him, but when he was sleepy, it made him tetchy. Thank the Universe for caffeine.
Sunlight streamed through the window. From here, Dean would be able to spot Cas returning from his run, lithe and toned, sweaty and invigorated. Fragrant.
Michael slid into his chair at Dean’s elbow, and he scootched it around the corner until he was close to his alpha’s sleep-muzzed softness. Alex reached out and tangled his fingers into Michael’s hair, closed his eyes and sipped his juice. Michael rested his head against Dean’s shoulder, careful about how he sipped his coffee, tranquil for the moment. Then Dean cleared his throat and…
“I wanna talk to you two before Cas gets home,” Dean said, pulling April closer with his eyes. “I’m actually glad Ace woke us up. We need to talk about last night.”
“I peed in the bed, Daddy,” Alex informed him. “I didn’t mean to.”
Dean caressed the top of Alex’s head and patted his chubby thigh. “Not a big deal, Ace. Accidents aren’t your fault. Remember we talked about that. Sometimes stuff happens when we’re asleep, and there’s nothing we can do about that. It happens.”
“You not mad?”
“I’m not mad, bud. I’m not ever going to be mad for accidents you can’t help. We just change the sheets and clean the pee off and it’s over. You got me?”
“You was mad when you woke up,” Alex pointed out. “Said Icky!”
Dean chuckled. “Well, yeah, man, it was icky. But it was icky for you too, and it woke you up same as me. Doesn’t mean it was your fault. So, let’s just let it go and chill for a bit before everyone else wakes up.”
“What about last night, Dean?” April asked. “It seemed like that hit you pretty hard.”
“Yeah,” Dean wrapped both hands around his mug and sighed into Alex’s hair. Michael sat up to listen. “Look, guys, I need you both to understand before Cas gets in and stirs everything up again, wringing his hands and freaking out…I’m okay. All right? I’m not hurt and nothing between us is fu… is messed up.”
“You don’t have to explain to us. This is between you and Cas, Dean,” Michael protested.
“No, man. It’s not. Listen to me. This is about my fall, and you’re involved in those, same as Alpha is.” Dean shifted a little, adjusting to the itch between his shoulder blades at having to drag personal crap out into the light. “I don’t know how much of what went down last night made sense to either of you. But the thing is, it was awesome, and I’m fine. So, when Cas comes in here all white-faced and worried, you need to let me deal with his concerns.”
“He said you fell,” April said. “And he said he broke the rules.”
“He did,” Dean affirmed. “And, yeah, I did. Thing is, the way he broke the rules is going to freak him out. He’s going to think I’m hiding crap from him, that I’m pissed, that he destabilized everything, and that I shouldn’t trust him anymore. But I’m telling you both, it’s not like that. Michael, I need you watching inside my head. You know what the falls look like, and you can warn us all if you see one revving up to pounce—in case it’s not as resolved as it feels like. And April, I need you to distract the old man. Can you do that for me?”
“Well, that’s going to be a piece of cake this close to his Rut,” she observed with a quick grin. “He’s out there jogging with a hard-on right now. He’ll probably come home horny enough to forget everything else. But I don’t understand. What rule did he break? What had you so upset last night, Dean? You cried pretty hard for how soft a scene it was.”
“I know,” Dean sighed. “It wasn’t the sex. It’s hard to explain. We have a contract, kid. There are restrictions in there against what went down last night. And he never breaks the contract. You know Cas. Scene rules are sacred to the man. He hates what I put us both through when I fall, and I don’t think he planned this ahead of time. I think it was a Hail Mary experiment to shove me through without having to beat me for once. It was impulsive, and it worked—I think—but it broke his cardinal rule about scening. He’s going to be beating himself up about that this morning. Mark my words.”
April interrupted. “No, I don’t understand. You didn’t do anything last night you haven’t done before.”
“We’ve never done that before,” Michael disagreed. “I would remember.”
April tsked. “You have a line in your contract against double-penetrating your mate?” she challenged Dean skeptically.
Dean raised his hands to them. “The contract specifics are private, guys. The point is that Cas broke it. Just trust me on this. And that’s going to set him on his ear today. I only brought it up because I need you both to know going in that he’s going to be worried over nothing. Okay? You with me? I’m fine. Better than fine. Last night was amazing.”
Michael let his recall put a warm, sappy look on his face as he stirred his coffee and stared dreamily into Dean’s eyes. “It sure was…”
April cast worried looks between them.
Michael tapped his spoon on the edge of his cup. “Not to mention you slept all night without a nightmare for the first time in two weeks.”
“Exactly,” Dean agreed.
Behind them, Tony came in through the staff entrance with fabric shopping bags hanging from both arms. April rose to help him with his bundles and pour him a cup of coffee. Alex thunked his cup down onto the table and squirmed out of his daddy’s lap. He followed April hoping to be allowed to help unpack the bags and stock the kitchen with the day’s goodies. Michael used the opportunity to arrange himself further into Dean’s space, snuggling closer with his back to Dean’s chest and forcing his mate to put an arm around him. Dean cinched him in.
“Think the fall is really over?” Michael questioned over his shoulder.
“Feels like it might be,” Dean agreed, as confidently as he could knowing there was still a chance it could reignite if he and Cas had read the tea leaves wrong. “I feel like what happened was that he reframed things but set the same basics into motion—taking away all of my power and making me grovel to get it back, like pulling the ground out from under me and making me wonder if I’m about to slide down into the pit, making me put all my trust in him to carry me through. We’ll have to see. I’m hopeful, Michael. It’s been a long time since I felt hopeful about anything to do with those damn falls.”
“Language,” Michael said with a smirk. Dean shot his head round and breathed a sigh of relief that Alex was inside the pantry where he couldn’t hear. April released Portia’s gate as she returned with a small plate of Danishes. The dog made a circuit of greetings and then disappeared into the pantry to help Alex. April took the chair next to Michael, turned it to face him, and sat with her legs up in his lap, leaning back and reaching for a Danish.
“Tony has a little sous chef,” she announced. “Oh, and he said he brought bacon for your breakfast.” She nudged Dean with her toe.
Dean grinned into his cup. But his smile faded as he set the mug down and picked the topic back up. “So, instead of burning the house down like I usually have to do, last night we burned our contract. We managed to put my fall and the resolution of it all into the same moment. It sounds shitty, but it feels awesome. We’re closer than we’ve ever been to the kind of dynamic I want. I’d love to throw that contract on the pyre and take my chances with whatever his wolf feels like doling out. April, I didn’t mean to tangle you up in that mess yesterday. It’s not fair that Alpha tagged you with the punishment I earned. I deliberately broke all his rules. That’s more than you signed up for. I’ll talk to him.”
“Oh, really? Why would you do that?” April was suddenly prickly. She swallowed, set her feet on the floor, and sat upright. Her irises flashed golden. “I don’t need out of the consequence I earned, Dean.”
Dean shook his head. “He was just trying to turn up the volume on my headspace, kid. There’s no way he means to follow through. I earned myself a full caning, I think. He may even pull out the birches. You don’t deserve that. I can talk him down…”
“Dean, don’t you dare! What makes you think I want you to step in?”
“But…”
“I knew the consequences from the start, alpha. Nothing about this is unfair. He told me what would happen if I failed, and Dean, I failed. You would deprive me of my follow through?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “No, I know you need the consequences. But, April, you don’t know the extent… You don’t know everything I did. I pulled out all the stops to piss him off on purpose. Sam’s black eye, kid, that’s on me.”
“Not anymore,” she quipped firmly. “Now it’s on me. And if it’s all the same to you, alpha, I would like you to butt out and leave it there. My contract with the man is just as important as yours is. And just as private.”
Dean stared at her, speechless. Michael licked his lips and patted his knee to get her to perch her calves back on his thigh again. Dean glanced down at his mate, but Michael was determined to avoid Dean’s eye. Michael knew Dean could feel his amusement through their bonds. He caught April’s ankles when she lifted them back up and set to rubbing her feet in his lap.
“You’re not going to win this argument, Dean,” Michael advised. “She loves a good pissed off Alpha as much as you do. And she’s coming into Heat. I suggest you not get in her way. She’s not afraid of the pain she’s got coming. I don’t like it either, but it’s none of our business. And by the way,” Michael added as an afterthought, “Sam texted me for permission to collect on your little tantrum. I told him the ball’s in his court on that one. I’m washing my hands of this incident. So, when he’s ready, you have no excuse to put him off. Cas may have swapped targets, Dean, but we both know Sam hasn’t.”
Dean gulped. “Yeah,” he muttered into his cup. “I know.”
Alex emerged from the pantry with a bag of apples too big for him to carry, so he dragged them toward the island. April laughed and went to help him fill the fruit bowl.
Cas appeared around the curve of the drive, still jogging, slowing to a walk with his fingers at his throat, checking his pulse. Michael straightened in his chair, shooting Dean a bracing look and a nod before joining the morning business in the kitchen. He called Portia back into her corner promising her breakfast. April tracked Cas through the window too, grinning when he looked up and caught his mate and husband both watching him approach. He waved perfunctorily and then disappeared, on his way in through the garage.
“I don’t like it,” Dean grumbled again just in case he hadn’t made his case well enough the first time.
“No one asked you,” April whispered to him as she passed to go meet her mate. Dean growled. He buried his face in his coffee cup to mute the smell of Heat. It didn’t work.
Michael held the dog back with an assertive finger pointing her to stay out of the pup’s way and then handed Portia’s feeding dish to Alex to set down for her. Portia attacked her breakfast just as Sam appeared in the archway with Hank wrapped groggily around his neck.
“Morning, Sam,” Michael greeted.
Dean’s head popped up, then he rolled glumly back down over his coffee mug, reluctant to face his brother. Cas may have absolved him of punishment for his misdeeds, but Sam had made no such release. There would be no convincing Sam that April now carried responsibility for those punches. If Dean even tried that, Michael would put a stop to it.
“Morning, Michael,” Sam answered warmly. He set Hank on his feet to join his cousin supervising Portia hoover her breakfast, and he served himself a cup from the coffeepot. He brought the whole pot to the table and topped Dean’s mug off while he was at it. “Morning, Dean.”
“Sammy.”
“You’re up early.”
“Alex wet the bed again,” Dean told him quietly.
“I would have expected you to send one of the Omegas to deal with a wet bed,” Sam said into his cup.
“Dude, I’m not a sexist,” Dean ruffled. “I pull my share of parent-crap. Besides, he was in our bed when he wet himself. Kinda hard to sleep through that.”
Sam laughed. “You got me there. Nighttime pullups are a thing, you know. Hank still wears them.”
“I know. Michael has him convinced that he’s ready to go it like a big boy overnight, and he’s threatened the rest of us with disembowelment if we put doubts in the kid’s head.” Dean glanced up. Sam’s eye was a brilliant swollen shade of mottled blue. Dean hissed. “Jesus, Sam!”
“I know. Someone sucker punched me last night.”
“Sucker punched, huh? Sounds like your own fault. You still don’t keep your arms up, dude. I’ve tried to teach you. If you leave yourself open like that, someone’s always gonna take advantage.” Dean tried to keep his voice light.
Sam shot him a bitchface.
“Consider it free advice,” Dean tried valiantly.
“Thanks for that.”
“Anytime, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam.”
The door to the garage slammed accompanied by scuffling and moaning. Cas staggered in carrying April with one hand around her back and one under her ass, their faces smashed together, eyes closed. Her legs wrapped around his waist. The smell alone brought everyone’s heads up, attention riveted. Blindly, Cas worked his way into the kitchen on bare feet with his shirt already missing. He stumbled toward the island. He set April’s backside on it and pulsed his hips into hers with both arms holding her tightly.
“Yeah, he looks devastated,” Michael teased as he passed Dean’s chair on his way out of the kitchen.
Dean huffed. Michael ruffled his hair, and Dean dodged, annoyed.
“Dean,” Sam said.
“What?” Dean turned to face his brother confrontationally.
“We need to discuss this. You punched me.”
“And I’m sorry, man, but I don’t know what you want me to do about it now.”
“You’re sorry.” Sam imbued his voice with a touch of disbelief. “You’re sorry? Look, I’m sure Castiel roasted you for it, but you don’t get off the hook that easy. You still owe me. You gave me a black eye, you jerk.”
Cas released April’s lips to look round. “Sam, he hasn’t been punished for striking you. He’s all yours. You two have thirty minutes before breakfast. If you need more than that, I suggest you wait until your lunch hour.”
“Half an hour should do it, sir,” Sam told the Alpha without looking away from Dean’s face.
Dean rolled his shoulders and leaned in. “Look, Sam, it was a Tertiary fall. You know how I get when I fall. I’m sorry. I’d never clock you if I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in it myself.”
“A fall?” Sam asked skeptically. “Seriously? That’s your excuse?”
“Dude, and Alpha pulled me through it without a single swat. I think we’ve had a breakthrough here. You should be congratulating us. We’re onto something. Right, Cas?” Dean cut his eyes toward his husband, but Cas was already lost once more in his mate. April winked at Dean over Castiel’s shoulder. Her thighs were bare as her robe fell open. Apparently, Cas wasn’t going to wait until his shower to wet his whistle. He wasn’t waiting on breakfast or a private space either. Castiel’s running shorts angled sharply at his hips. He’d tucked the front elastic down behind his scrotum, and he had April seated right at the edge of the island. Dean couldn’t see, but there was no doubt Cas had her speared right there in the kitchen with breakfast preparation underway. He thrust assertively with his hips. April dropped her head back and moaned, throwing herself into Dean’s request to distract their mutual Dom.
Dean was on his own with Sam.
Be careful what you wish for.
Sam leaned in close to him. “I don’t care if the two of you cured cancer, Dean. You don’t get to throw punches without consequences. If it was a fall, then, man, it was right on pattern, and I know from experience there’s no resolution for you without consequences. Not to mention the fact that it’s just not going to happen that you don’t account to me when it was me you lambasted. You know better. Come with me…unless you want to do it here.”
“I need to help Kate get the pups up and dressed,” Dean argued as Sam helped him out of his chair by the arm.
“Michael’s already doing that,” Sam pointed out.
“Someone needs to stay here and watch the boys,” Dean tried again, stumbling after Sam toward the archway. Gabe raised an eyebrow at them as he entered with Kali.
“Kali and Gabe can watch two pups," Sam told him. Hank took Sam’s free hand and trotted alongside his father, intrigued.
“Yeah, bro,” Gabe smirked. “We got your pups.” He caught sight of Cas and April and rolled his eyes. “Ace, kiddo, come in here and show Uncle Gabriel the tricks Portia can do.” He led the pup into the parlor at an uneasy limp and whistled for the dog, leaving Cas and April alone with Tony, who couldn’t smell them the way everyone else had to. Sam handed Hank off to Kali with a nod and marched Dean to the library.
Once the door closed behind them, Dean’s demeanor changed. He tugged free of Sam’s hold and stalked a few feet away before turning back. “Look, you’re right. I deserve it. Blister me, Sam. But I need you to keep Cas out of this. Whatever you need from me, fine. Just don’t get him thinking about it anymore after this morning, you get me? We’re through here after this. I’ll even apologize and mean it.”
Sam blinked. “This isn’t about Cas. This is about you acting like a complete asshole and expecting me to have no issue with it. You fucking punched me, Dean! And you weren’t even going to apologize. Do I look like a doormat to you?”
“It was a fall, Sam!”
“So?! You think I don’t know what that means to you? Dean, I’ve been there for your falls when no one else was there for you. I’ve pulled you out of the fire in your head with my own two hands. And I know you need to throw down and draw blood when the floor drops out from under you. I get it, Dean. I really do. But that doesn’t mean we just brush it off like nothing happened. You don’t get to lash out like that and then treat me like I’m inevitable collateral damage, and it doesn’t matter. And especially if whatever happened between you two didn’t include any spanking, because you don’t work that way, and neither do I. We’re all out of sync right now, you and me, and I only know one way to fix it.”
Dean carded his fingers through his hair. He wilted visibly. “Sam, I’m sorry. You’re right. I knew what I was doing. Goddamn, I’m sick of this merry-go-round. It was the same damn thing as always, man. I panicked. I didn’t think he was mad enough to set me on fire. I needed the fire, Sammy. I told myself you deserved it because you should know better than to put yourself in between him and me when I’m that gone. I was mad enough to hit anyone right then. I would’ve punched April if she tried to shove me back in that office.”
“Dean, I’m never going to desert you when you need me. And you needed me. … Or you needed someone. You would have hurt yourself if I’d left you alone. But you know how this works. Fall or no fall, I can’t let you off. And frankly? I’m not feeling like letting you off anyway. If you and Cas found a way through this one last night, then I shouldn’t have had to drag an apology out of you this morning. You’re not that much of an asshole.”
“Apparently, I am,” Dean remarked, holding Sam’s eye.
“Drop the robe and put your palms on the seat of that chair,” Sam deadpanned, offering no reaction to Dean’s cheekiness. “And if this is you after the culmination of a fall by this new method, then I’m not a fan.”
Dean followed Sam’s pointing finger after tossing his robe over the long reading table. Sam was still in his pajamas. He didn’t have a belt or his paddle on him. It didn’t matter. Sam’s palm was immense, and his arm was muscled. Dean grimaced as Sam’s hand fell, rhythmic. Methodical. Sam set his left hand on Dean’s back and slapped echoing strikes that curled Dean’s toes until he felt Dean’s body release the clench of tension he was holding onto and slump a bit over his arms. Dean bore it as a rather routine exercise, more like an Omega than a Sub, and Sam realized there would be no exhalation of guilt.
Dean had no guilt to release. The jerk.
“That’s enough,” Sam muttered. “I know you don’t have total control of yourself anyway.” Sam helped him stand. “Look, just promise me you’ll let me know if there’s something about this latest fall I need to understand. You’re sure it’s done?”
Dean sniffled and scrubbed at his eyes. “I think it’s done,” he said soberly. “But I won’t know for sure until it comes back or doesn’t. It can’t be this easy, can it? Why would a soft touch work this time when it’s never worked before?”
Sam handed Dean his robe. “Did you goad me this morning to try to lock that down?” Sam asked. “Like a little insurance policy?”
Dean scoffed, wringing the robe between his fists. “Probably.” He glanced up at his brother. “You mad?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Come on, I need to dress for breakfast, and you need to finish your coffee before Michael takes it away from you for breakfast kneeling.”
Dean shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sam. I mean it. You come through for me again and again. You’re right. You don’t deserve to have me aim a fist at you. You don’t deserve that.”
Sam chuckled and took the robe out of his hands. He wrapped an arm around Dean’s shoulders and led him out of the library. “Well, one thing yesterday did was remind me to block when you’re throwing punches. If I’m going to bitch that you lambed me, at least I ought to defend myself better.”
“Dad would’ve said you did this to yourself,” Dean commented dryly.
“Dad was a bit of a prick, Dean. I think we can raise pups without putting them through some of the things Dad taught us.” Sam let him go at the stairs, but Dean caught his brother’s arm and reeled him in for a hug. Thumping Dean’s back, Sam said, “I know, man. Let it go. We’re okay. I forgive you.” He handed Dean his robe and touched his shoulder.
“Daddy!” Kat called as she worked her way down the stairs holding tightly to Kate’s hand.
“Hey, Kitty-Kat,” Dean smiled a watery smile, sniffling subtly as Sam left him to dress.
Emma pointed at Dean from halfway down the stairway. “See, Nanny Kate? Daddy’s naked. Why I hafta wears clothes for breakfast?” she asked. Dean scooped Kat off the steps and took Emma’s hand to ease her down the last few.
“Papa’s rules, Emma,” Kate answered smoothly. “Papa says no naked pups at the table; only grown-up Subs can be naked.” She shared a long-suffering look with Dean. Keeping Emma from stripping down to nothing was a constant argument.
“JT, walk!” Michael shouted from the landing just as forty-five pounds of four-year-old lost his footing and tumbled feet-over-head down the last half flight.
Dean skittered sideways and dropped instantly to his knees. He broke JT’s fall with his thighs pressed together at the base of the stairs, still clinging to Kat at his shoulder. Kate stood frozen, shocked at the speed of the fall. Emma burst into tears. JT lay on his back, eyes wide, head pressed into Dean’s groin. Dean muffled a pained groan.
Michael hurried down with Jimmy in his arms. “Jesus, JT! You could’ve brained yourself. Thank god you were there, Dean. That was some quick thinking. You’ve got lightning-fast reflexes.”
Sam shouldered past him and plucked JT off the step. He set the boy on his feet, dropping to sit before him with his son between his knees, feeling him all over to see if he was injured. JT recovered from his shock and joined Emma in wailing.
Dean released the breath he was holding. “I think he’s okay, Sammy. Just lucky I was here to break his fall. That floor is marble tiles, man. Here, Kat, sweetheart, walk for Daddy, would’ja? I need a breather.”
“You’re coming with me, young man,” Sam scolded. “You’ve been warned about running on the stairs.” Sam picked his son up, still wailing, and carried him back up toward the room he shared with Jess.
“Hey, go easy on him, Sammy,” Dean called. “He’s just had the life scared out of him.”
“Come on, Dean,” Michael eased his arm over Dean’s shoulder. “Sam’s not going to hurt him.”
“Says you. Sammy’s in a spank first, ask questions later state of mind.”
“Yes, I felt that through your bond,” Michael agreed as he joined Dean in herding their multitude to the kitchen. “Serves you right, you know. If Sam hadn’t asked to do it, I would have added it to breakfast. But he’s not going to hurt JT. Sam’s a terrific father. He knows when a bad choice is its own punishment. He’ll just help JT connect the dots and make sure he understands that falling is the consequence of running on the stairs. He’ll probably set up spanking as an expectation for next time. We could learn a lot from your brother, you know.”
Dean’s usual eye roll didn’t materialize. He found, strangely, that he had no impulse to ridicule his brother. Sam was a terrific father, and Dean was feeling decidedly peaceful toward Sam even as his backside still throbbed. He felt Michael exploring that emotion in his head and shrugged at his mate. Michael chuckled at Dean’s expense and kissed him chastely before calling pups to their seats at the table.
The rest of the family assembled for breakfast. Dean got the pups settled, checking that each of them would pass muster when the big dog appeared before he ducked into the butler’s pantry for his knee pillow and took a few deep, grounding breaths. He sought his wolf and coaxed it forward. He used his relative privacy to rub the sting out of his ass, then he carried his pillow out to his mate.
Cain set Dean’s chair beside April’s near the wall in its usual morning spot. Dean’s coffee mug was gone. Michael took the pillow from his mate with a soft smile. He placed it on the floor to his left, by the corner. A simple flick of his eyes put Dean on his knees. Inside their bonds, Michael took hold of Dean’s worries, his upset, his discombobulation, and he soothed everything. He massaged the sense of peace Dean felt after his morning spanking, and he teased at it to keep Dean focused on it. He took hold of Dean’s hair near his forehead and lifted his head back firm and tight, forcing Dean to meet his eyes.
Dean floated. Michael felt him lift from within and gently let go. Together they struck the harmonic that let them commune as one inside their heads, master to slave. Michael’s chest heaved at the intimacy and the trust. Dean blinked softly, adrift. Michael smirked and set his mate’s head back to level. He patted Dean’s cheek and handed him a piece of a Danish, feeding it into Dean’s mouth and reveling in the softness of Dean’s lips on his fingertips. It was nearly a kiss.
Michael used subtle mental direction to press Dean’s weight backward into his heels to accentuate the pain in his backside before the sting faded altogether. He felt the brief battle in Dean’s head over complying versus obstinate refusal. The debate ended with resolution to behave for his Sir and a bit of overemphasis to his grinding his ass into his heels. Nothing showed on the Sub’s face. As always, the knowledge that Michael, alone, would ever have access to that side of Dean was a rush. This morning, reveling in their bonds was enough. Michael clenched his core and fed the soreness of his channel to his mate like a morsel of breakfast.
Cas bustled in from the back stairway, showered and dressed, with his head close to Sarah’s, rattling off a quick stream of instructions before he looked up to check that his Pack were all in their places. “Where is Sam?” Cas was dressed for the office, crisp in a navy suit. The dry smell of scent-blockers preceded him.
“He’s discussing the dangers of running down the stairs with his son,” Michael offered. “He’ll be down in a bit. Where’s Pete?”
“I put April back to bed,” Cas said airily. He held Sarah’s chair for her and then took his own, a king in his court. “She needs to rest up. We’re locking in for our cycle tonight after dinner.”
Kali sneezed. “You’re not going out like that, Castiel, surely. You’re working from home today, aren’t you?” she asked in surprise. Tony brought a platter across and set it on the table near the head before returning to the island for the rest.
“I wish I could,” Cas told her, reaching for the serving spoon. “The new wing opens next week. There are critical decisions we must make today. And Monroe leaves for Washington with Bobby this afternoon. I can’t miss today.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Cas, you know I trust your judgement, but how can you trust that man to lobby for us after what he did? I don’t understand. It’s reckless. The Stynes are snakes. That whole family are snakes!”
Cas finished serving his plate and handed the spoon to Cain. “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we? And he won’t be there alone. He’s on Bobby’s short leash. If you can’t put your faith in me, then trust Bobby. The Stynes have made an about face, Gabe. With Eldon serving his sentence and Jacob and Eli both under Henrickson’s eye in Dallas, even if Monroe planned to double-cross me—which he won’t—I have adequate hostages to ensure he toes the company line. That’s to put it bluntly. There will be no need for Machiavellian tactics. I can smell their intentions, Gabriel. Eldon’s the only holdout, and he’s hobbled and out of favor. They all have the kind of experience that makes for effective lobbyists. I would be stupid not to use it. Monroe knows what I expect from him and his sons, and he knows the ramifications of letting me down. Or at least he will know after today. I may or may not have put this moment for his final instructions off until I’m on the cusp of Rut. Emma, leave your buttons alone. You are at Papa’s breakfast table; your shirt stays on. Monique, would you mind taking a plate up to my mate? She’s in her own room this morning. She’ll be eating light. No coffee.”
“Certainly, Alpha,” the maid answered cheerfully.
Sam returned at the tail end of Cas’ statement. JT had ahold of his neck and was clinging on with his face buried in Sam’s chest. Sam sank down into his seat with an apology to the Alpha and nodded Jess to shift toward Michael to allow Sam to deposit JT between them.
“Is everything all right?” Cas asked him.
“JT fell on the stairs, sir. He’s unhurt, but he needs to slow down. Right, champ?” Sam cocked his head toward his son. JT nodded but didn’t raise his head. “We were talking it over.”
“You’ve had a busy morning already,” Cas commented. “Let’s hope it doesn’t portend the same for the rest of the day.”
“No, sir,” Sam told him as Jess filled JT’s plate. “That’s enough for us for one day. But you can thank Dean’s quick reflexes that JT didn’t crack his skull open at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Is that so?” Cas looked to Michael.
“Yes, sir,” Michael agreed. “Instant reaction. He didn’t have to think about it at all.”
“Hm,” Cas answered with the barest huff and half a smile. “You know, his, uh, his reflexes slow considerably when he’s close to a fall.”
Michael stroked Dean’s head, down his hairline and onto his shoulder. “Then he must not be close to a fall,” Michael added with a corollary smirk.
“So it would seem,” Cas replied. “We’ll have to wait and see. Sarah, would you pass the scones?”
Breakfast was always Castiel’s first scheduled meeting of his workday. The Pack was accustomed to his style, but the Rut-scent at the head of the table punctuated his usual businesslike demeanor, turning up the volume on his innate dominance. He held everyone’s attention without trying. Cain barely ate for hanging on every word. Jess stared holes in her plate, eating mechanically with her nostrils flaring. Michael answered the Alpha’s questions almost before he spoke them. And Sarah sat at Cas’ left elbow, studying everyone and steadying Kate beside her. Sam appeared impervious, she noted. But even Kali licked her lips a little more often, a tell that she might be less unaffected than she wanted revealed.
Kali fixated on Gabriel, pestering him to eat well and wiping his mouth for him with her own napkin. Possibly the most telling aspect was that Gabe bore the attention without complaint.
Scents in a stable Pack affect everyone bonded within it, and scents from the Pack Alpha can set the whole Pack on its head. Cas mostly faced his plate as he spoke, addressing his bacon and eggs more than his Pack, oblivious, it seemed, to the heightened wariness. Michael fed Dean and petted him soothingly, whispering now and again into his ear and alternating his attention between his Sub and his daughter on his other side. Kat crawled into Michael’s lap and ate off his plate. That Michael allowed her to stay during a meal while he was Domming with his Sub below him, even if he had chosen a simple dynamic of casual interplay, proved Michael was no more immune to the Rut-scent than anyone else. Not a one of them was behaving entirely like themselves. Maybe Sam.
Maybe Dean?
“Everyone knows their responsibilities today?” Cas asked blithely. “Gabriel, you’re to meet with the staff this morning to delegate duties. Whatever the maids need help with is your job. The laundry, I believe, needs attention. Michael, please confirm with Dean that he has all the information he needs to collect the Andersons from the airport. And Michael, Kevin needs you at the lab at nine o’clock sharp. Do not be late.”
“Understood, Alpha.”
“Sam, have you settled up with my brat?”
Sam chuckled. “Yes, Alpha. If you have time at lunch, I’d like to discuss Dean’s fall with you and him—and with Michael if he’s got time. Whatever you did last night, sir, I’m not sure it worked. I have some concerns.”
“Be in my office at eleven-thirty, Samuel. I’ll have Dean and Michael there. I want to hear your input.” Cas swallowed a final bite and then thanked Tony who was busy chopping vegetables for a light summer soup. “If that’s everything,” Cas concluded. “You are all dismissed. Have a good day. Please notify me before seven this evening if you need anything from me before I lock myself in. Michael, I leave in thirty minutes. Please release Dean in time to join me.”
“Yessir.”
Cas swept from the room without looking back, headed to his office to begin reviewing emails. The room released a collective breath. Kate had her lower lip in her teeth as she shared a look with Jess. “He’s going to work like that?” she asked no one in particular.
“God help them all,” Kali agreed, catching herself wiping Gabe’s chin and casting a puzzled look at her napkin. Gabe leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Wanna play Littles with me later?” he teased. “I make a pretty good baby.”
“Absolutely not,” Kali replied.
Castiel wreaked havoc on The Facility. The staff and clientele were far less prepared for his scent than his own Pack, and his scent-blocker was insufficient to the challenge. But Cas persevered. Billie refused to meet with him in person. She banned him from her office after one whiff and met with him virtually instead. Only Billie had standing enough to make such a demand though, so the rest of his meetings carried on as usual. Benny offered more than once to drive him home. Bobby held his nose through the entirety of his report, huffing through his mouth and ignoring Castiel’s irritation. The remaining policy decisions for the new wing’s operation were finalized at a record pace with almost no argument, unsurprisingly all falling along the lines Cas most preferred.
Max trembled, crumpling his meeting agenda in a white-knuckle fist and palming his crotch below the table.
And Monroe Styne.
It would have been laughable to watch him fidget if it hadn’t been blatant and ethically gray manipulation of a subordinate. Cas didn’t care. He issued his final instructions and warnings with bullet-point efficiency and indisputable authority, and then he sent his emissary on his way, charging Bobby to keep him to heel with a flame sparking behind his red eyes that Bobby knew better than to challenge.
Castiel stalked through the hallway leaving mayhem in his wake. Finally, late in the morning, he slipped into Kevin’s observation booth, and the research techs all jumped to their feet in alarm. Before them, on the other side of the one-way glass, Michael and an Ozzie volunteer sat close together with electrodes attached to their heads and bare chests, talking but not touching.
“Sir!” Kevin almost yelped. “I didn’t know you were coming. Are you…sure you should be here today?”
“Relax, folks. I won’t stay long. Please carry on. I’m only here to observe. How is he doing?” Cas nodded toward the window to draw Kevin’s attention back to his experiment.
“Um. He’s…uh…yeah…it’s…he’s showing indications that…I mean…he seems to have access to both sides just like we suspected.” Kevin gathered himself with some effort, snuffling a little to clear his nose. “Michael and Stacey both register being able to sense the zeta waves. That’s from the neural harmonic that all Omegas feel. He’s talked her into Sub-space. It would be easier if he could touch her, Sir.”
“No,” Cas replied calmly, and Kevin flinched. “No touching. Dean was very clear on that.”
“Right. Yessir. Sorry.”
“Please continue,” Cas prompted.
“Of course. Right. So, they’re both Omega, so sensing zeta waves is a given for them both. You see the sensors we’ve placed at different ranges throughout the lab? Those mark the growing diameter Michael’s able to force her aura to expand to. So far, he’s widened it to five-point-two meters, skewed toward his center of gravity. That Ozzie is wide open on just his voice. I can’t imagine what he does to Dean’s aura. Or what you could do for that matter, Sir. I would love to put you and April in this lab setup. We’d probably need a bigger room to measure the expansion of your mate’s zeta radius.”
Cas shuffled some papers on the desk before him, skimming Kevin’s preliminary readings and experiment parameters. “We’re not discussing me, beta. And no one but Michael is an option. Please stick to the point. Tell me what you see from Michael.”
Kevin blushed and stammered, fumbling. “R…right. God, I’m sorry. I did…didn’t mean anything. No offense…”
“None taken,” Cas replied casually. “The data?”
“Yes.” Kevin regrouped. “Michael is also showing other indications that we predicted he’d have, that he’s got a capacity to manipulate the zeta waves. Our hypothesis is that all Doms can do that. The difference from other Doms being that he can actually sense—or see—what he’s handling. Being Omega lets him feel where the strands congregate. …or see, or smell, or whatever. We don’t know yet which sense Omegas use, only that they can tell where the waves are densest. And being a Dominant lets him grab hold of the waves and play with them. Sir, he’s a perfect Dominant. What other Doms have to learn to do blindly—even you, Sir, no offense—Michael does with a complete palette in front of him. He doesn’t guess about anything. He can see exactly what he’s doing.”
“That’s a big leap, beta. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He told you he can touch the zeta waves?” Cas asked, peering into the room. Michael’s face was millimeters from the Ozzie’s. Her eyes were closed. She bore a blissful expression. Her chest heaved, and her nipples were erect. Michael whispered rapidly, his lips almost brushing the curve of her ear.
He was sex incarnate, and Cas had to look away for a moment.
“No, Sir, not in so many words. He uses phrases like I can feel what I’m doing, and I just know, but he can’t verbalize what that means. But look, we’ve got eye line trackers on him, and we’re correlating the shift of his attention around the room with what the zeta sensors pick up. We’re tracking his output with hers, and they match in a way that no other pairing ever has before. I don’t know if he’s moving his own aura to the same space hers occupies.
“More likely, he’s pulling hers to him. He’s massaging her aura to…well, in a way…to mate with his. Not like a Mating, of course, not exactly,” Kevin demurred carefully, “but he’s got her aura overlapped perfectly with his, and they’re pulsing as one aura right now. Michael’s moving her zeta waves however he wants, to make her feel whatever he wants her to feel. I’ve never seen anything like this, Alpha. Not even you can do what he’s doing.”
“How do your sensors distinguish whose aura is whose?” Cas asked.
“They don’t,” Kevin admitted. “But initially, before Sub-space is achieved, we see a figure eight pattern around both subjects with each aura centered around its owner, no more than half a foot in radius. A good Dom can expand a Sub’s aura to…oh, a meter and a half is about standard. But the figure eight shape remains static. With Michael, we see both auras conjoined into one overlapping oval that pulses from side to side. And the movement tracks with Michael’s eye line, not Stacey’s”
“Stacey’s eyes are closed,” Cas pointed out. “She doesn’t have an eye line.”
“Damnit,” Kevin muttered. He pressed a button on his panel, and a faint click sounded in the room. The Ozzie’s eyes shot open. “I keep forgetting to watch for that.”
“Sir?” Robbie spoke up from his desk near the back. “I need to be excused for a minute. Please.”
Kevin nodded absently and waved him out. All three of the other techs fled with him, leaving the door ajar. Cas raised a judgmental brow and then closed the door behind them.
“You’ll have to excuse them, Sir. Sorry, but your scent, it’s, um, … … powerful.”
Castiel sighed. “Apologies, Kevin. I’ll let you get back to your work. Do please forward your raw data to me once this morning’s session is complete.”
“Yes, Sir. I will. We’re nearly done. And, hey, I’ve been thinking. If Michael can see a Sub’s aura, then he can probably also see his own. I know Tertiary waves are different from Secondary, but all auras have a zeta component. It would explain a lot about how Michael is his own Top. An Omega who isn’t a Dom can sense auras, but their fingers go right through the strands. They can’t wield anything. And a Sub who isn’t Omega can’t do either. But put an Omega’s senses with a Dom’s ability to handle zeta energy…If that’s really what’s happening, and I think it is, … … There’s a hefty zeta component to Omega auras even if the subject isn’t Submissive. It’s what all Bottoms share, even though they get there by different routes. Michael can see his own aura, Alpha, I’m sure of it. At least echoes of it. And since he’s a Dominant, he can take hold of the individual strands of energy and do whatever he wants with them.”
Cas stroked the side of his jaw with his eyes on the ceiling, thinking. “Only Omegas can sense zeta waves,” he mused. “We knew that already. But you’re telling me that only Dominants can manipulate them? How do you know?”
Kevin smacked his lips and began a furious shuffling of his notes. “We’ve been on the cusp of this for ages, Sir. It’s hard to test because while our sensors can tell us where the waves are in the lab, none of our test subjects have ever shown any ability to sense them well enough to indicate there’s any purpose to the way they apply force. Doms work blind. But really practiced Doms have learned to predict how zeta waves coalesce. Through…trial and error, I guess. There’s always a lot of random, ineffective motion to what Dominants do with the waves. But the thing is, none of our non-Dominant Top subjects ever move the waves with the kind of directness Doms do. It’s more like a ripple, like an upset in the surface. Alphas operate on an entirely different frequency, Sir. Put an alpha in this room, and they may as well be trying to corral sound waves for all the good it does them. Alphas don’t work zeta waves. They work back brain synapses and Claim-bonds. They might get an Omega’s aura moving, but they do it indirectly. Do you see? Michael doesn’t have to work indirectly. He’s moving it with his mind, and he’s doing it on purpose. It looks like the same kind of motion other Doms create but without any flailing.”
Cas watched Michael’s hand twitch, clearly longing to touch the girl sitting before him. Michael’s face was a study in concentration and power. Whatever he was doing, it was intentional. That much was clear.
“You, sir, you do it too. All Doms do it. The difference is efficiency. Michael doesn’t waste any motion. There’s no flailing. There’s no hesitation. He goes right for the strands of aura and picks them out like he can literally see them. Which he can. Because he’s Omega. “
Cas shook his head, skeptical. “Dominants may move zeta waves, but I see no clear evidence they do it intentionally.”
“No but look. It’s logic,” Kevin countered. “Doms can move them, even if they don’t know they’re doing it. But what if they did know they were doing it? What if they could see or feel what they were touching? Omegas can see auras. Dominants can manipulate auras. Michael is both. It stands to reason that he wouldn’t have to do it blindly like the rest of you do because he can see what he’s doing.”
Cas frowned. “Moving zeta waves is incidental to how Dominants achieve authority over their Subs, not instrumental…”
Kevin scrambled for his notes again, nodding vehemently. “I used to think so too. Right? We all did. But then I watched Michael. I’ve got it here somewhere. There’s a one-to-one correlation… It’s causative, I’m telling you. I just need to track him with more subjects. We’re close, Alpha. I’m sure of it.”
“No, we can’t make assumptions. We need to prove it. This isn’t proof, Kevin.”
Kevin sneezed and then cleared his throat. “Sir, I have to see him with an alpha-Sub. There’s always a chance that his Ozzie there is helping clue him in to what’s happening. They could form a harmonic feedback loop, even without a Claim-bond between them. I need to test him with an alpha-Sub—and a beta-Sub, for that matter. We have to blind the Submissive. An Ozzie can see what he’s doing.”
In the room, a wave of chill bumps spread down the Ozzie’s arms. Michael gently blew down her shoulder, and she shivered.
Cas sighed. Dean was not going to be happy.
“I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, run this experiment in triplicate.”
“Yes, Sir. We’ve got Michael scheduled three weeks in a row. Always the same day of the week and time of day. I’ve pulled three Ozzies with near identical ratings. If I could sequester Michael, that would be better, but…I know. That’s not going to happen.”
“No, that’s not going to happen,” Castiel agreed. He watched for another moment and then turned to go. “Thank you, Kevin. Please give my apologies to your team. I know I’m quite the disruption at the moment. It couldn’t be helped.”
“It’s not a problem, Sir. They’ll be back after they clear their senses. I’ll shoot the data to you as soon as I get it. Dean too?”
“Yes, please. Include Dean in all correspondence that has anything to do with Michael.” Cas aborted an impulse to shake Kevin’s hand, choosing an awkward abrupt exit instead. In the hall, all four technicians emerged from the nearest Blue Door far calmer than they went in, the last still tucking her shirttail in. Cas nodded to them and turned to walk the opposite way, thinking hard. He’d needed to play the skeptic in front of his lead researcher to keep from tainting the outcome, but Cas had been convinced for a long time that the combination of Omega and Dominant meant something special. Watching Kevin suss it out was validating and exciting.
If Dominants could be taught somehow to sense the presence of zeta waves the way Omegas did, there might be a way for them to affect a Sub’s headspace without the need to touch, simply by manhandling their auras. It offered the first real glimmer of a chance to balance Submissives without paddling or any other means of inflicting physical pain. The therapy options that that would allow for disabled Subs, alone, merited following this trail as far as they could take it. It could be the breakthrough Cas had been looking for. Of course, there were more ifs to the question than answers yet. Could the same thing work for Balancing Omegas?
Plus, if Dominants could learn to sense what they manipulated, then surely some of them would have chanced upon the secret on their own by now. What good was this discovery if only Omega-Doms could make use of it? For his own experience, Cas had never experienced anything that he could call sensing a zeta wave. He could smell people’s headspaces, in a way—smell being the closest approximate sense he knew to put to what he felt from people. And he understood Michael’s struggle to verbalize it. There simply weren’t words for any of this.
But Michael could self-Release. That wasn’t a mistake. It was purposeful. Something about him was different. And he could wield The Voice powerfully enough to compel a sea of angry strangers. Michael’s assertive confidence had really come alive in the last couple of years. He knew exactly who he was, and he walked with his chin high, his shoulders back, and a softness to his gait that let his knees hit the ground whenever he needed them to.
Adding Michael to Castiel’s public crusade was working. The public adored him. They hung on his every wink, and they believed him when he spoke earnestly about his experience as an Omega. He was as revolutionary a voice in the movement as Cas had been himself, years ago. With an Alpha-Dom, an alpha-Sub, and now an Omega-Dom speaking the same message from multiple directions, the message was triangulated powerfully, and it was driving momentum that filled every facility in the country. They had inertia on their side for the first time. Michael’s designations and his charisma, his moral compass, his passion, were almost enough to convert Cas to Universism. Nothing in his life—aside from his husband—had ever seemed so much a gift from the Universe.
As Michael worked his magic in the lab with a bouquet of electrode leads trailing off his body—and an ironic probe lodged in his channel—he became more and more the gift that kept on giving. Cas felt the hourglass running low on sand though. He had so much to accomplish before his five-year tenure ran out as Operational Director. There were milestones he needed to reach, milestones he trusted to no one else.
Cas understood Kevin’s enthusiasm. It felt like they were on the edge of an epiphany big enough to be a tipping point. They were getting closer every day. Michael was unique, but he wasn’t magical. Whatever specific combination of attributes allowed him these special abilities, there was a rational explanation that Cas was determined to adapt outside of Michael’s own special mix. If Michael could do it, then there had to be a way for others to do it too. There had to be.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. That would be Dean. He was late to his own lunch meeting.
He thumbed his screen on and smiled at the text.
“Hey, Thursday! Awaiting UR pleasure, my liege.”
Cas chuckled at his brat. “OMW” he texted back with a flirty wink-emoji and then added, “And don’t call me Thursday!”
Cas understood Sam’s concerns about Dean’s stability, but he didn’t share them. He’d spent the night with his nose pressed against Dean’s scent glands, and there was no hint of an imbalance. More likely, what Sam was sensing was Dean’s discomfort at having his frailties held up to the light. Dean was still a brat, even when fully balanced, and Cas suspected he didn’t feel remorse at having taken a swing at his brother, nor of connecting. That divide, accepting a punishment without feeling any remorse, could manifest in all kinds of ways, many of which might look like a Tertiary fall.
Cas suspected that Dean’s wolf craved a consequence for his misbehavior outside and above its need to fall.
“The contract wing reported a True-Mate Trigger this morning,” Dean informed Cas upon the Alpha’s arrival. “That’s four for the quarter.”
Cas’ brows went up in surprise. “One of our contractors?”
“No, two clients checking in. Betas. Both locals, but only one a regular.”
“And? Are they secure? Are there any concerns?” Cas asked.
Sam spoke from Castiel’s office sofa. “Everything’s fine, sir. No complications. Scent-room readings show a powerful match, and the deal’s done without injury. They’re Mated and healthy. Social services is working out the notifications, checking for unexpected Pack entanglements. We don’t foresee any problems.”
“Then unless you want me to send flowers, I don’t see that this is an issue that needs my personal involvement.” Cas moved toward his husband, easing the sharpness of his tone with an arm extended for an embrace. “Michael’s just finishing up with Kevin and his team. He’s on his way,” Cas said after pulling Dean in for a kiss. Sam stood up. He rubbed his nose vigorously for a moment and cleared his throat. Cas noticed the beta’s discomfort. “Right. Apologies, Sam. I am aware I’m unpleasant to be around today.”
“Speak for yourself,” Dean grinned, pressing his nose into Castiel’s throat. “You smell incredible. Wanna sneak off and do something about it?” Dean draped himself over his husband’s back, purring deep in his throat.
Cas laughed and leaned back to kiss him again. “Yes, I do, Dean, but that will have to wait. Busy day, what with Matings and ex-cult leaders shipping off and Max shitting himself over his grand opening...”
“Spoilsport.”
“Can we at least go outside?” Sam asked desperately. “The smokers’ table is preferable to being cooped up in here. Pardon, Alpha, but it’s really getting strong. I don’t know how you’re still dressed.”
“Yes, let’s convene elsewhere. How about the dog park? It’s walking distance,” Cas suggested stupidly before Dean growled a possessive negation in his ear and tightened his grip on Cas’ chest. “Okay,” he laughed. “Not in public. Where, then? We could co-opt one of the H/R rooms if there are any free. Or a scent-room. Those have the strongest vents.”
“Follow me,” Dean directed, tugging Cas by the hand. He beelined a path out the back of The Facility, catching Michael hurrying toward them, and he ignored Sam’s bitching as he picked his way down a nearly invisible path into the sparse woods to his favorite clearing under a particular tree.
“What is this?” Sam asked, looking around. “Dean, it’s chigger season. We’ll probably all get Lyme disease.”
“Lyme disease comes from ticks, Sam, not chiggers,” Michael corrected with his fingers tangled with Dean’s and his pupils enormous at the proximity to a Rutting Alpha. He followed Dean to the shade of the tree and sat in the V of Dean’s legs with Dean propped against the trunk of the only tree in the clearing.
Dean piped up. “Dude, this is where I Mated my Omega. Show some goddamned reverence. Do I go denigrating your freezer section at the Piggly-Wiggly? Sheesh!”
“You’re a jerk, Dean.”
“And you’re a …”
“Knock it off, both of you!” Castiel interrupted, very much an Alpha. “Sam, we have limited time, less now that we’ve wasted fifteen minutes of it hiking into the woods. Please, ask whatever it is you needed to ask.”
“Dean says you two discovered a new way to manage his falls, and I want to know what it is. I think I deserve to be in on the change since I’m part of the team that keeps him stable,” Sam asserted, seeming to expect to be politely cut out of the process and proactively refusing to allow that.
Cas scratched the back of his neck, standing in the shade and sweating. “I agree. You have a right to know what’s going on. Dean?”
“What?”
Cas blinked at his husband for a moment and then prompted him. “Would you mind filling Sam in, please?”
Dean narrowed his eyes at Cas. “You get sloppy when you’re in Rut,” he noted. “That was blatant.”
“I’m not in Rut!” Cas snapped rudely.
Dean quirked an eyebrow. “You kinda are, Alpha. I hate to be the one to point it out, but you’ve Tripped. You’re torturing everyone just being at work today, yourself most of all.”
“I cannot leave yet,” Cas objected, looking stricken. “People are depending on me.”
“We’ll survive, Alpha,” Michael added gently. “Billie knows what she’s doing.”
“Would you please just talk to Sam so we can get in out of this infernal heat?” Cas said with a crackle in his voice that pinked Dean’s cheeks.
Dean bit the inside of his cheek and glanced up at his brother. It wasn’t a fair demand. Cas was testing Dean’s response to their play last night, checking to see how Dean digested it, and he was doing it publicly. It wasn’t fair. But Dean knew there was no reasoning with the man while he was like this. “Sam, last night I was on the verge of a fall. I know I didn’t look it, but I knew it was coming so I kenneled my wolf over the past couple of weeks. I was letting my front-brain provoke little incidents now and then to see if I could spark something fiery enough to flame up and feed my wolf into without trashing the Pack.”
“You punched me to elicit a fall?” Sam checked with his fingers tracing his bruised cheek carefully.
“I punched you because you were being a meddlesome little bitch,” Dean shot back.
“No, Dean,” Cas interjected calmly. “Explain it to him.”
Dean ground his teeth and then refocused. “Yes. I thought if I torqued Cas up mad enough, I could slide my wolf out of its cave just in time for the grand finale without really breaking anything. When he showed up to dinner nearly in Rut and stiff as a corpse, it felt like the right time to knock his cap off. Of course, you had to butt in right when you did, so I didn’t actually succeed in getting there without hurting anyone, but it was pretty close, wouldn’t you say?”
“All right, fine,” Sam said. “If I had stayed out of it and let you bellow yourself hoarse, then what? What’s radically different? What did you do to resolve it? Cause, honestly? It doesn’t seem resolved to me.”
Dean licked his lips and rubbed his sweaty palms on Michael’s thighs. “Just. Hear me out, Sammy. He didn’t strap me like he normally would for that blowout shit. Cas, he went the opposite direction. He let me have a really sweet, hot-as-fuck scene instead. And, man, it worked. I bawled my eyes out. Came so hard I nearly blacked out. It was like a catharsis.”
“And that’s it?” Sam checked. His skepticism dripped from his tone. “Great sex took you through a fall?”
“Weird, right?” Dean agreed with his gaze following the rise and fall of Michael’s back.
“Dean,” Cas corrected stiffly.
“What?!” Dean spat. “Isn’t that what happened?” He raised his eyes to his husband in challenge, red now in his irritation.
“Whoa,” Sam said. He raised his hands in a placation and backed up a few steps. “Dean, what are you doing? Don’t rile him.”
But Cas only sighed, going lax in his stance. “Relax, Sam. I’m not going to bite anyone. Dean’s annoyed that I wanted to explore his reaction indirectly by making him explain it to you before I had the chance to talk it over with him.”
“You get pissed at me when I pull shit like that, Cas,” Dean pointed out. “I get the belt for manipulation like that. You don’t get to do it just because you’re the big dog, not if you want me to do better.”
“You’re right,” Cas acknowledged. “I’m sorry.”
“Damn straight, I’m right,” Dean muttered.
At the same time, Cas turned to Sam. “Look, we need to talk this over in private. I promise you’ll get the full skinny when we’re through with our discussion. You are an important member of Dean’s support network. And you have my gratitude for everything you’ve done, including putting yourself in harm’s way when Dean lost control last night.”
“I didn’t lose control,” Dean mumbled quietly. Cas shot him an annoyed look.
Sam sighed. “I don’t need all the details, fellas. All I really need to know is if it worked, if Dean’s solidly on the far side of this round, because frankly, he still seems stuck as a brat to me.”
“You’re a brat, Samantha,” Dean grumbled.
Michael smacked the outside of Dean’s thigh. “Would you cut it out?” he chided. “You’re not helping.”
“He’s pissing me off!” Dean griped back.
“I think we can all tell that, now would you shut up and let Cas explain?” Michael implored.
“Let Cas explain…,” Dean mocked.
Cas chuckled. “Ah, my brat. I know you’re horny. And I will not leave you languishing for long. I promise. There is no need for a provocation right now. Let’s stick to the topic.” Warm affection shone in his eyes.
Dean grunted and lowered his head again, grumbling under his breath. Michael reached his arms behind his head and pulled Dean’s face closer so he could nuzzle it fondly and whisper to him.
Cas picked it up. “Sam, what we did last night went beyond mere scening. I need to discuss that with Dean before I speak about it in detail with you, but suffice it to say, by all indications I know how to measure, he is safely on the other side of that exigence now. He smells and behaves balanced. And he...”
“Balanced?” Sam blurted. “He’s mouthing off like he’s desperate for a strap!”
“I dislike being interrupted, Samuel. And yes, Dean is exhibiting behaviors meant to elicit a stern reprimand. What he isn’t, though, is unbalanced.” Cas ignored Sam’s blushing apology for the interruption and instead, turned to Dean. “Dean, my love, tell me. Can you see your wolf right now?”
“My wolf? You mean the sleek, sexy fucker who likes to stir up trouble? Nah, he must be asleep or off hunting or some… … … Oh! Oh, shit! Seriously?”
Cas and Michael both laughed. Sam rolled his eyes. “So, this thing you did last night. Whatever it was. It worked? My black eye is the only collateral damage? He’s off the hook for a few months?”
Cas nodded with his eyes fixed on Dean’s. Dean smiled abashedly and shrugged.
“You’re sure?”
“Sorry about your face, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam, jerk.”
“Bitch.”
“Fine. I have work to do. I hope you enjoy chigger bites,” Sam muttered over his shoulder as he began to pick his way back to the path.
“What crawled up his ass?” Dean wondered before fixing his lips to the curve of Michael’s neck where it flattened into shoulder, and he began to suck. Michael threw his head back and moaned.
“All right, boys, it’s just us.” Castiel sat down, looking absurd, wearing a suit in the grass. The heat of the day was brutal, even in the shade, and his Rut added to that, sending rivulets of sweat down his temples and the back of his neck. “Let’s talk.”
Dean sniffed judgmentally, releasing Michael’s shoulder, sitting back into the tree with a disaffected expression, and clamped his mouth shut.
Cas sighed. “All right, fine. What do you want me to say?”
Dean leaned up again, engaging and using Michael’s hips to give himself a brace. “I want you to go ahead and let me have it. I know you’re having kittens up there in your noggin, and we’re just gonna go in circles until you spit it all out. So? Lemme have it, man. What are you beating yourself up over? Cause me? I’m good.”
“You’re good,” Cas repeated. “Well then, what more is there to worry about? If you’re good, then I’m good. Case closed.”
“Nuh-unh,” Dean broke in. “Not by half, man. Seriously? You’re gonna make me drag it out of you?”
“Dean, everything I did last night was to try to find a safe path for you through your fall. If you don’t have any concerns about how we did that, then who am I to plant anxieties where you aren’t feeling any?” Cas shifted up to his knees and then rocked back to his feet to pace. He stripped his suit jacket off and folded it over his arm, leaving his white, cotton shirt drenched and translucent.
“This isn’t about me, Cas. This is about you being too chickenshit to take the Alpha mantle that’s yours by right.”
Cas rounded on him in shock. “What did you say to me?”
“What are you gonna do about it?” Dean fired right back, finding his breath harder to catch as both alphas’ eyes reddened. Michael bravely held his place, rhythmically massaging Dean’s ankles and rocking slightly with his head down.
Castiel stared, huffing himself to a furious pitch, and then just as suddenly let it all go with an enormous exhale that took the wind out of his sails. He rubbed his temples and turned his back on his husband. “I broke our contract, Dean. I can’t undo it, and I can’t fix it.”
“There you go,” Dean agreed. “Keep going.”
“That contract is everything to me!” Cas mourned.
“Dude, that contract isn’t worth its weight in butt wipe. It’s just words, Cas. Throw the damn thing out and fucking own me like I keep asking you to do. What you did last night was incredible!”
“You don’t mean that,” Cas told him.
“The hell I don’t,” Dean argued. “Look, I know we get tangled in it sometimes. And I whine and complain over you putting a toe over the edge. But don’t you see? If we re-set our framework, take out all the frilly rules, let you be yourself. Cas, I want you to be yourself! I wanna know that guy. I wanna roast over your flames, man. Stop treating me like an equal and fucking own me for fuck’s sake!”
Cas snarled and grimaced, advancing on the couple beneath the tree. “That’s absurd, Dean! I won’t do it! You don’t know what you’re asking of me! You don’t know what he’s like! You don’t want this, and what’s more, I don’t want this! I get a say in this contract too! A free-for-all is NOT what I want. It’s not what I’ve ever wanted!”
“Yeah, well, whatever. You and your say can go cry over a broken contract all you want. I have no problem with it.”
Michael licked his lips and chanced a peek at Castiel. “If I can ask? What exactly was it that broke the contract? Was it me? Was it about fucking unprotected? Because I’m the one who asked for that.”
Cas scrubbed a hand across his forehead and stalked away a few paces before turning back to face them. “Michael, I don’t know whether Dean has told you. Some time ago, he told me he has possessive feelings toward you and that he would rather I didn’t penetrate you sexually without his permission. We wrote it into our contract. Our stipulations allow for single incident permission granted on a case-by-case basis at Dean’s discretion, but it’s also codified in our contract that no changes be permitted during a scene. Asking Dean for permission to fuck you once the scene commenced was moot. It doesn’t count as consent. Dean’s too suggestible a Sub to rely on his acquiescence once his headspace tips. And the point to the way I set last night’s scene up was that breaking the contract was the point. I manipulated Dean, and I used you and your libido. I needed him to feel that there might be nothing I wouldn’t do right then. I needed him to feel everything he knew to trust pulled up and scattered.” Cas looked at Dean. “I needed him to feel utterly vulnerable.”
Michael frowned and turned to look back at Dean.
Dean met his eye and then stammered a lame, embarrassed, muffled reply, blushing.
“What was that?” Michael asked.
Dean sighed heavily. “Yes! All right! Yes! I felt vulnerable as hell and the thing is, that feeling? Like he had all the power and I had none? Like he might actually do anything to me, and I would ride along on his tail lapping the drippings up as I go? It was the free-est I’ve ever felt in my life. So, look, Cas…” Dean looked beyond Michael and addressed Castiel, “…just, just let me have this. Please, Alpha? I swear you won’t regret it. Hell, keep the contract somewhere for yourself as a guide to what I jam to the hardest and what really pisses me off. Use it against me, for fuck’s sake! But please give me this.”
“Oh, Dean,” Cas said mournfully. “That wasn’t what last night was about. I can’t. I can’t do it. The contract stays or we don’t scene. That’s always been a hard limit, my love.”
“Then what the hell, Castiel?” Dean clambered to his feet and stepped over Michael. “No, seriously. What the hell? It’s a hard limit? Except it’s not, because you broke it on purpose. So, it’s a hard limit for me? Only for me? I got to really, truly freefall exactly once! ONCE! And that’s the end of it?”
Castiel’s eyes reddened fully. He drew himself up and stood adamant before Dean’s outrage. “That’s enough! This is ridiculous. I’m not having this conversation with you. Not like this. I admit that I bent the contract, and that was anything but fair to you—to you and Michael, both. And I am prepared to deal with whatever insecurities that decision may kick up for all of us. But, Dean, I will not tear up that contract. That is a hard no, and as I am your Alpha, you can take that to the bank. What you want is a child’s fantasy, not real life. You want to fly without a tether? Well, I can’t give you that! I won’t! I’m not willing to risk either of us enough to try. And I’m sick of having to say it! Talk Michael into it if you want to. Maybe he’ll give you what you think you want! I’ll be there to unscramble the pieces when you’re done.”
Dean fumed. “You want this, Cas! I know you do! You want it as bad as I do!”
“No, Dean! You want it. Not me. And the thing you’re so angry about is that you keep telling me to take the reins and BE Alpha, but what you really want is for me to do it the way YOU want me to! But that’s NOT what I want, so that’s NOT what we’re going to do! We’re doing this MY way, and that means the contract stays, the safewords stay, and you can obey me or face the consequences! I don’t want to hear another word about it. The subject is closed! Do you understand me?”
Castiel glowered for a moment and then stormed off through the overgrowth, shrugging back into his jacket, leaving Dean slack jawed in the clearing and Michael sitting forlorn by the tree.
“For the record, Dean. I’m not going to play without a contract either.” Michael stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants.
“Jesus, Michael, who’s asking you to?” Dean’s anger fairly dripped from every pore. He was embarrassed and chagrined, humiliated, ashamed, frustrated beyond measure.
“Hey,” Michael said gently. “Flip your eyes back to green for me. I need to see you, baby.”
“I don’t understand anything, man,” Dean told his mate, feeling lost. “He’s lying through his teeth. I know he is. He wants this as much as I do. We keep inching closer and closer and closer to the real thing, but at the last second, he keeps putting the training wheels back on. He’ll do the Pack Alpha thing. He’ll do the Top thing. He’ll do Pack Discipline like he was built for it. He watches over me when I’m so screwed in the head I can’t piss straight. But he won’t trust me enough to let go where I need it the most.”
“Dean, sweetheart, it’s not you he doesn’t trust. Don’t you know that?”
“That’s just an excuse, Michael. It’s a stupid, tired, overused, lame-ass excuse. Fuck it. And fuck Castiel! And you know what? He does trust himself. He knows exactly who he is. He knows exactly what he’s capable of.”
“Well, yeah. That’s the point, Dean. He knows he’s capable of ripping your body in half.” Michael kept his distance.
“Bullshit! That man would never put one hair on his head further than he means to. He would never take it too far with me. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. He knows exactly where that line is, and he’s dying to ride that edge with me. Michael, I… I don’t want to think that last night is the only time I’m ever going to feel that again. And he didn’t even DO anything, man! He teased it, and he made like the training wheels were off, and all he did was fuck my mate! Are you fucking serious?!”
“Dean, come on, man, take a breath. You’re spinning right now. I get that. Right now isn’t the best time to be trying to make a choice this big anyway. You just had a fall last night. Give it some time.”
“Don’t patronize me, damnit! I’m not a child. I’m not making shit up off the cuff. And this really doesn’t concern you anyway. Fuck!” Dean took off stalking down the path, following the direction Cas had gone, back toward the buildings, even larger and more complex with their shiny new adolescent training wing occupying the western side where the employee parking lot used to be.
“Lord, give me strength,” Michael sighed to the sky before trudging after him. “Dean, wait up! Wait for me, damnit! I haven’t told you about my lab session yet!”
“You can tell me tonight,” Dean shouted over his shoulder. Michael jogged and caught up.
“We have company tonight,” Michael reminded him.
“No, the pups have company tonight. Kathleen and Jerry don’t give a fig about us. And Cas and April will be busy making more pups. Everyone else is gonna make themselves scarce, just watch. It’ll just be you and me and Darius Cain.”
“Sheesh, you’re cranky,” Michael huffed.
Dean turned to him and halted, forcing Michael to a stop. “Look, do something for me, would you? Hang with me during this cycle of theirs. Don’t join in. Even when they unlock and invite us. Michael, do this for me. Please? Sit it out, just this once.” Dean’s eyes were pinched and pained. He searched Michael’s face.
“Of course, Dean. I’m your mate and your Omega. I go where you go. But would you at least leave the door open to change your mind? You might not; I get that. I’m asking you not to make any big announcements that might feel tough to walk back if you thaw some between now and then. Just keep an open mind. That’s all I ask.”
Dean scowled. “An open mind? Like you’re doing about April’s marriage proposal?” Dean asked sourly. He raised his eyebrows and pinned Michael with staunch green eyes.
“How did you know about that?” Michael was hurt, and he let his emotion pass unhindered through his bonds, blinking at the blindside.
“Everyone knew, apparently, except me.”
Michael let his head drop backward. He closed his eyes and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Dean, what the fuck? Can we just talk without all the bullshit? I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I just needed the right moment. Don’t drag me into your beef with him and make out like there’s some big Pack conspiracy to make you unhappy. I need you for this, man. I need my alpha. I have no idea what to do here. I know you’re mad, but you’re not mad at me. So, if you want to talk about it now, stow your crap, and let’s talk about this thing with Pete in a way that isn’t going to make me want to shove your face in the garbage disposal.”
“Yeah, okay.” Dean dropped the alpha tension and turned on his heel. “Inside though. It’s hot as fuck out here.”
Once inside, Dean took Michael’s hand and dragged him to the lunchroom. Checking his watch, Michael realized they’d have to hustle if he were going to get a meal in him before he had to be at work for shift change at one.
“I don’t expect you to solve this for me, alpha,” Michael told Dean as they collected trays at the counter. “But I need your perspective. Cas and Pete both think I’m afraid to get married because I’ll turn into my Pop. But it’s more than that.” Michael waved at Charlie as she dumped her tray and tapped his ass in passing.
“Look, Michael. If it’s this hard to decide, then it seems like that answers the question for you.” Dean chose a cheeseburger. Michael selected a cobb salad. “Split an order of fries with me?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Dean zipped his employee ID card through the reader, and Michael led them toward an empty table. “She wants to get married,” Michael said as he slid onto the bench opposite his mate at the end of one of the long tables. He made short work of spreading dressing over his salad.
“What do you want?” Dean replied, answering a question with a question.
“I want her to be happy.”
Dean leaned across the table, taking Michael’s wrist in his hand and stopping the progress of his fork. “Michael, what do you want?”
Michael wrenched his wrist free and stabbed the greens with abandon. “How do you go from being an out-of-control prick to being entirely rational in less than five minutes?”
“Years of practice and a compartmentalized brain,” Dean told him. “I’m a brat, not a prick, and none of that was out of control. Answer the question.”
“I want her happy, Dean. That’s what I want.”
“Then marry her.” Dean picked up his burger and took an inordinately large bite.
“I’m not sure that’s going to make her happy,” Michael confided. “It’s what she wants right now because she likes who I am right now. But if we tie the knot, I’ll change. I know I will.”
Dean chewed and ripped open a ketchup packet to squirt all over the fries.
“Dude! That’s not how you ketchup! Make a puddle, damnit.” Michael watched helplessly while Dean drenched the fries in ketchup. “You’re making a mess! I’m not eating that.”
“Suit yourself,” Dean shrugged. “More for me.”
“I have to be at work in fifteen minutes,” Michael said while he chewed. “You’re supposed to be helping.”
“You’re worried you’ll change just because you two get married? Everyone changes, man. It’s inevitable. Doesn’t have to be away from your own self-image though. Write your own fucking script, man. Pick your own growth.”
“It’s not that simple, Dean. We’re complicated creatures, you and I. Pete is too. None of this is simple. And there are power-exchange dynamics hardwired into our brains, into our Pack, into that whole house. I’ll wake up one day, and she’ll be cooking me breakfast and worrying she left the bacon too floppy, and I’ll drag her for it. It’s the little things. It’ll start small, but it will build into something I can’t control.” Michael picked the good stuff off the top of his salad and merely stirred the rest.
“Seems like those things could happen even if you don’t get married,” Dean pointed out as he swallowed. “You two are together. You’re a couple. You have your own relationship separate from everyone else, and it’s as tight as a marriage already. You have to know that’s going to change over time whether there’s a ring or not. There’s no way you can stop or control every change, Michael. You can’t even predict how things might evolve over the years, much less control it all.” Dean took another big bite and spoke around his food as he chewed.
“The best you can do every day is the best you can do that day.” He swallowed and continued more clearly. “Some days are mundane; you know what I mean? You cook bacon and try to get it exactly right ‘cause you know how that person likes it. Someone serves you bacon and you decide whether to pitch a fit that it's not crisp enough or to just eat it and say thanks because you care about their feelings. Some days are bigger than that. Like, the love of your life tells you she wants you for her husband. But it’s all the same thing, man. You take what you get each day, and you decide who you are, who you wanna be, who you want to be near, and how near you can let them get to you. You don’t get that many choices, really—just a couple each moment.
“There’s no scorebook keeping track except the people around you and how you make them feel. How you feel about them. And, man, if you don’t want to be your old man, then don’t. It’s literally that easy. You’re not in a coma here. No one’s taking away your ability to choose your actions for yourself. You tamed that monster in your gut all on your own with your Pop doing his damnedest to sabotage you every day. But you did right by yourself anyway. Man, that’s who you are. I can’t tell you whether to get married or not. But I can tell you that what you have with April is going to be tough either way. It’s not about a ring and a piece of paper. It’s about a commitment.”
Michael hung on every word. At the end, he grimaced and attacked his salad again. “I’m in it for the long haul, Dean. You know that. But why does she need to be just like everyone else? What does that prove?”
“Everyone else? Michael, how many wolves do you know who get married? It’s like ten percent of Mated couples and four percent of unMated couples. Something like that. Besides, you two live in the same house and share parenthood of the same pups, but none of that ties you to each other at all, not really. You’re only connected through your mates.”
“Yeah, that’s what Pete said.”
“And?” Dean stuffed a handful of fries into his mouth and waited for an answer.
“And I don’t know.”
“Your Pop really did a number on you, sport.”
“Yeah, looks like.”
“Hey, just…think about it, okay?” Dean set a hand on Michael’s and squeezed.
“You want this,” Michael cocked his head. “Why?”
“It’s like you said, man. I want you happy.” Dean spoke resolution into his bonds.
“I have to go.”
“Leave your tray. I’ll get it.”
“Thanks, Dean.”
“Love you too, Michael. Give me a kiss before you go.” Dean offered his cheek. Michael huffed, slapped his stern smolder into place and turned Dean’s head with a grip of his chin and kissed his lips. Dean’s eyes as he pulled away were captivatingly green. “Think about which would be worse,” Dean advised quietly enough that only Michael could hear. “Living the rest of your life fighting from turning into your Pop or living the rest of your life without being able to call her yours. What can you live with, Michael, and what can’t you live without?”
Once Michael was gone, Dean finished his lunch in a pensive fog. He cast a feeler or two toward Castiel, but the man wasn’t coherent enough to get a read on. Stupid bastard had no business being at work today anyway. Maybe his Rut was to blame for his stubborn self-control—he certainly had himself buttoned down tight. Maybe Dean was reading him wrong. But Dean’s wolf felt certain there was a chink in the Alpha’s armor. If he could just wedge a paw into just the right gap… Cas’ anger hadn’t been feigned though. Dean didn’t want to be a jerk. He just wanted…well, he wanted what he wanted. And his wolf insisted he fight for it.
What would it feel like to demand his Alpha’s attention and have those red eyes flare bright and hot at him instead of tamping down to cool blue reason? What would it feel like to bathe in Castiel’s rage outside of a fall? Could he provoke him to lose control? God, what would that feel like?
“You’re stinking up the mess hall, Winchester,” Meg told him with a rude shove to the back of his head. “Go fuck something and take a shower.”
“Go ride a porcupine, Lafitte!” Dean called back, using her Pack name instead of her Mated name just to piss her off.
She flipped him off over her shoulder and continued toward the exit.
Dean jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes and growled at himself. He sent his awareness down into his inner psyche, picturing a lineup of his designations in his head and fixing each of them with a stern glare. (Knock it off, all of you, or we’re not gonna be sitting for a week! Save it for the big man!)
Dean consciously sloughed out of the hide of his wolf, scratched the bratty creature behind its ears and then nocked his head to send it off into the tree line in his mindscape. With a lifting of his torso and a straightening of his spine, Dean stepped back into his alpha. He stared down at his empty tray for a moment, finding his bearings, and then he cleared both trays, fist bumped one of his teachers on her way in, and went back to work with a spring in his step.
Castiel gave up at one-thirty. He phoned his best friend. “Can you stand to be in your car with me long enough to get me home?”
“Get your ass to the parking lot, brother. I’ll meet you there. We can roll the windows down,” Benny replied.
Once on the road, Cas asked, “Benny, would you keep a close eye on Dean for the rest of the week?” Castiel gripped his own knees to ground him from the sensations in his body. “I’ve pissed him off again, and I expect him to act out enough to earn an official reprimand. It would be best if that happens sooner rather than later. He’s ramping up hard. Someone needs to give him a barricade to run into, and I won’t be available.”
Benny grunted unhappily. “What’s Michael doing? Why not tap him?”
“That’s a touchy subject,” Cas grumbled. “Michael’s at ground zero of the issue between us. Dean’s reopened his campaign to throw out our contract and freehand our scenes. I cracked the door open on that last night. I didn’t think it through, and now it’s biting me in the ass.”
“Cas, you can’t do that with a Sub as wily as Dean. He’ll find a way to take a mile if you give him a millimeter.”
“I know. It was stupid. But it’s too late to cry over it now. I’m worried about leaving him for a couple of days. He needs a tight leash, and he needs it from an alpha. It’s really shitty timing. I’d take him into the H/R room with me but we’re nesting, Ben. My alpha doesn’t want anyone near its mate right now. Dean might actually get bitten if he’s too close to her before we conceive. I have to isolate for the first two days.”
“You’re worried about hurting him?” Benny asked in disbelief. “About hurting Dean? This is Dean we’re talking about.”
Cas shot him an anxious look, and Benny whistled a long descending note.
Cas adjusted uncomfortably in his seat. “We’re in a tough spot. Now is not the time to lose my grip. He needs me solid and in control. We have this…thing…bubbling up between us, and the more I clamp down, the harder he rebels. I don’t know how to enforce my own will over him any stronger than I’m doing already, Benny. I set up the dynamics exactly how I want them, giving thought to what Dean needs as well as my own preferences, and he’s convinced I’m soft peddling the master/slave bit. He thinks I’m holding myself back. But damnit, Dean’s got his own image of how our relationship is meant to go down, and it isn’t mine. I’m at a loss, here, Benny. He wants me to step up and Be Alpha, trademark finger quotes and everything. That’s exactly what I’m doing. But since it doesn’t match the fantasy in his head, he thinks I’m lobbing him easy pitches.”
Benny turned in to the Winchester driveway and waited for the gate to swing open. He glanced at his sweating friend, flushed and itchy and miserable. “You need to get tough with him, Cassie. Stop reasoning with him. Stop explaining. That has always been your weakness where Dean’s concerned. You argue with him. You let him get under your skin. He’s begging you to put your boot on his neck, right? Well then do it. But do it your way, not his, and backhand him halfway across that oversized foyer of yours if he whines about it. He’s playing you Castiel. I’ll lay you good odds that he’s a model alpha at work the entire time you’re away on cycle leave. He’s got no reason to brat off if you’re not around … … unless he’s close to falling?” Benny pulled up by the garage door and put his car in park.
“No, he should be clear of a fall,” Cas told him with a frown.
“Hundred bucks says he doesn’t set a toe outta line while you’re out,” Benny prompted.
Cas looked at him and sighed. “Thanks for driving me home.”
Benny winked. “Andrea will be sending you flowers, no doubt, because now I have to go home and take care of this.” He indicated his lap.
“Tell her I said glad to be of service,” Cas added wryly as he climbed out of the car and tapped the roof.
April shot naked out of the front door, angling across the side lawn and into his arms. Benny chuckled as he scrubbed his nose and headed down the drive leaving all four windows down. He sent a voice-to-text message ahead to let his mate know he was on his way home. In his rearview mirror, he watched Castiel slam his mate against the sun-heated bricks of his stately Craftsman style manor and rock into her with his slacks at his ankles.
He could only hope his own relationship didn’t make him look as foolish as his best friend’s did. He loved Cas and Dean, both, but the idiots were just never going to figure each other out. They were endlessly entertaining, at least. Benny texted Sam from the walk to his own door that he was out for the rest of the day.
Notes:
I encourage show discussion if anyone needs to talk about it. I also encourage feedback on the story above. Tell me what you think. Holler at me about typos. Thanks for reading. 💝
Chapter 20: Friday, August 13, 2021
Summary:
It's a moment of 'Taking a Stand,' and everyone is claiming their own.
Billie Claims her domain and her Submissive. Fred claims his house back from Gabriel's incompetence. Dean claims his authority back from his mate. And Castiel claims everything, including his own bestial nature.
Notes:
***Warnings for excess violence.
This one breaks some rules. Sometimes, to make omelets, you have to crack a few eggs. And sometimes to drive the point home through a stubborn skull, you have to soften it up a little.
I acknowledge that Castiel's presentation in this chapter owes its inspiration to bendingsignpost's latest, "Dream Come True." I read it, loved it, and couldn't get that Cas out of my head. There's a shameless copying of tone and purpose here. I tried to alter the actual language, but... yeah.
It's long again. 😉😘
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Friday, August 13, 2021
NOW:
Billie strolled assertively through her domain, with its tall glass exterior, crystalline blocks sparking in the sun, and it’s sleek inner styling, checking in here and there to get a sense of the prevailing ambience of the place, its daily zeitgeist, if that was a thing. With Castiel out for his cycle, people’s moods might well be thrown out of whack. She lent a steadying hand in a couple of classrooms. She made a peremptory circle through the lunchroom, touching shoulders and chatting briefly, backing up a discipline situation that showed indications of needing support, wandered through the main lab. Things appeared stable overall. And Billie was pleased. The Facility was finally beginning to accept that Cas, while he would always be their Alpha, was no longer their Director. He had taken a much larger role, directing the full national organization. It wasn’t that the staff didn’t respect Billie, but with Cas still headquartering in Lawrence, it was hard to make the transition, mentally. He was just so present.
Cas had done all he could to support Billie’s leadership. He retained his own private suite, but he and Dean agreed that Billie deserved one of her own if custody of a suite, like a designated parking spot, was perceived in the company as a display of power, which it was. Dean swapped offices with her, forfeiting his own suite. He moved his junk into Castiel’s rooms, sharing with his husband. He barely used his own anymore anyway. Sammy shifted to borrowing Benny’s suite when he needed to pull an all-nighter these days. The transition was moving smoothly.
Dean liked his new office. It was closer to the cafeteria and the classrooms, and further from Castiel. That allowed more leeway to avoid micro-supervision and allowed for quick trips across the hall for warm cookies or a slice of pie. He also liked having Billie as his operational boss. She was brusque, but fair. She wasn’t intimidated by the imbalance of holding a superior management position to subordinates who owned the company, and Dean respected that about her. She had a job to do, and she made no bones about doing it. She proved a beta could supervise alphas and make it work.
She passed him in the hallway on her way back to her office.
“Report, Winchester. Anything I should know about?”
Dean turned in his tracks, walking backward with a thumbs up. “All quiet, boss. Like a well-oiled machine.”
“Excellent,” Billie replied stoically. “But Dean, I meant you, not The Facility.”
Her sharp gaze drew him to a stop. He reversed course, pulled toward her by her Tertiary charisma.
“Me? I’m good. Great, even. Firing on all cylinders. Why wouldn’t I be?” He halted just out of arm’s reach.
She cocked her head slightly and regarded him. He could feel her assessing, scenting the air. “No reason,” she remarked. “Benny had some concerns. You wouldn’t want to fill in the gaps on that I suppose?”
Dean huffed with a subtle roll of his eyes. “Benny’s been talking to Cas. And Cas is overthinking as usual. I’m fine. Got my alpha coat on, and it’s purring on all eight cylinders. Come take a whiff if you don’t believe me.” Dean lowered his head to the right, opening a space at the side of his neck, offering her a token submission and a chance to scent him directly but steering her clear of his Mating-scar. A ripple of chill bumps cascaded down his arms, raising the hairs. Dean’s ability to serve his Submissive up on a platter while firmly entrenched within his own alpha was a beautiful display of instinctive Lupin elegance. He winked from within his alpha, flirting shamelessly.
Billie scoffed. “Fine. But report to me if you slip.”
Dean saluted irreverently and skipped backward on his heels, jaunty. “I’m covering for Cas this afternoon. I’ll see you at two for Operation’s monthly recap. That’ll prove my headspace one way or another. Those assholes would test anyone’s stability.”
Billie smiled in spite of herself. Something about Dean always seemed to worm beneath her curt workplace demeanor, usually as an irritation. Sometimes as amusement. She shook her head, shrugged, and let him go. He had a point. Operations meetings had a way of droning on and on in sheer monotony that tested even the stoutest professional headspace. They had been known to drag on for hours under Cas’ leadership. Cas always wanted to hear minutia from his managers. Well, not Billie. Changes were being made. She wanted crisp, short, meaningful updates. People had far too much on their plates to waste time wallowing in someone else’s details.
She unlocked Castiel’s office door and checked the tray under his mail slot for any paperwork that had been left for him. It was empty. For once it seemed Becky remembered he wasn’t here and had rerouted his interoffice correspondence. She started across the hall to her own office but stalled several feet away as a familiar and unexpected scent hit her nose. Slowly, she approached, unsurprised when she found the door unlocked. She pushed it wide. She stood framed in the doorway and sighed tiredly.
“What are you doing here?” Billie asked rudely. She hated being caught off guard. It wasn’t about being put out with the woman in her office, it was entirely about the surprise.
Helene glanced up from the sofa, a shiny new deep brown leather couch that Billie never invited visitors to use. “I need to talk to you.”
“You should’ve called. You know better than this. There will be consequences, Submissive.”
“You wouldn’t’ve answered,” Helene replied calmly. Her dark curls framed delicate features and enormous liquid brown eyes. She was beautiful, and Billie felt anger bury her longing. She was in no condition for a face to face.
“I can’t do this. I told you that.” Billie let the door close behind her. She controlled her pace. Sedate, not bullish. She took her chair. She’d picked it for its height and weight and presence. It had a thronelike quality to it, and sitting in it, Billie ascended. She schooled her expression to forbidding. They had been over this. Decisions were already made. Billie considered briefly that Helene might have a fall imminent and had made the trip in desperation, but her nose told her differently. No, this was an intervention, and Billie determined to put a stop to it. “I don’t have time for a relationship. I need to focus on my work. I can’t afford distractions. You wasted a trip.”
“I’m going remote,” Helene blurted. “I’ll still travel a lot. That won’t change. But I don’t need to live in New York anymore. I’ll be able to set up a base anywhere. Anywhere, Billie. I want to live here…”
“You’re not listening…” Billie objected, scowling and leaning in.
“No! You’re not listening!” Helene shot back. “I know what you’re afraid of, Sharice!”
“Don’t call me that! We’re not scening…” Billie snapped.
“I’m in love with you.”
The words rang heavy in the air, reverberating in sound waves or memory, one of the two. Billie stared at the woman with her mouth gaping. She sat back in her chair, diminished somehow. Deflated. Pity pinched her throat closed. Was it for herself or for her Sub? That arm’s length between them had always been her safety zone.
Helene continued. “I don’t care about the sex, Sharice. I don’t care. I can do that bit for myself. You know I can. I’ve done it for years. I don’t need that from you. What I need is you. I need you, Billie. I want you. I don’t need it back from you like that. I know you don’t work that way. I just want to be your Pack. It’s all I want.” The silence dragged, a weight upon both their bodies, pressing them apart. Helene’s face fell as the wait lengthened, and she lowered her eyes. “Say something.”
Billie swallowed. She couldn’t form the words she needed. She couldn’t make them spill over her tongue. Billie was no liar. And it would be a lie to say she didn’t love this woman. But in love was a whole different thing, and Billie didn’t even really know what it meant. She’d never found a pathway through to that emotion, was certain she wasn’t wired to feel it at all.
“You deserve a mate who can return your feelings,” Billie replied dully at last. “You’re so beautiful. You deserve more than I can give you.” Staunchly, she held her chin up. “I won’t bind you into a loveless bond. I won’t do it.”
Helene stood up, glowering. “Goddamnit, you don’t get to make that decision for me! You don’t get to define what love is or isn’t, not for me. I know you love me. Maybe it’s not the same thing. Maybe it’s something different. But that doesn’t mean it’s lesser. Don’t you understand? I want YOU! Not some random Domme in the subway who Triggers chemically with me. Time’s running out for both of us, Billie. We both encounter new people every damn day. Either of us could Trigger at any moment. And then we’ll have lost our chance! I’m asking you not to let that happen. I’m begging you!”
Billie growled, but Helene stubbornly continued.
“I can move to Lawrence. Get a little house of my own. Live near you without moving right on top of you. You can have your space. I won’t stifle you. I won’t demand more than you can give.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” Billie asked in dismay. “Do you really think that little of yourself? That you would tie yourself to a half-existence as a sideline to a wolf who can’t love you? Jesus Christ, Helene!”
“You don’t believe that. It’s not a half-existence to you, beta. And it’s not to me either. You’re a coward,” the Submissive accused. Her eyes blazed. “I can smell the desperation in you. I can smell your longing. You can see it, same as I do. You want this—you want a Pack. You’re just so drowning in self-loathing that you can’t let yourself be happy, and you’re afraid to redefine what a Pack can be. Throw it all out, Billie. Toss out the sex and the romance, the insistence that there is only one kind of love that matters, and look at me. It’s only you and me. I don’t need romance from you, Sharice. I need you.”
Billie snarled. She was out of her chair in a blink, one hand wrenching Helene’s head back by her hair and the other arm around the small of her back, holding her tightly. “Don’t,” she warned. Words with sharp edges were slicing far too close to ones she’d given up imagining.
The conversation was a stunning blindside, and it was scraping at a deeply buried fantasy that Billie had been through a million times already. It couldn’t work. It couldn’t. Helene lived half a continent away. And Billie’s people here in Lawrence needed her. She had a roadmap to follow, and it didn’t allow for any side trips like Mating the most amazing woman she’d ever known. Mating was for romantic attachment, and Billie wasn’t made that way.
“Do it,” Helene goaded. “I dare you.”
Billie bared her teeth. Her grip tightened in Helene’s hair until she pulled a tight grimace on her Sub’s face. Billie’s wolf took her over, casting aside the controlled beta and driving her into a vastly different headspace, one where reason and life goals held no meaning, one where the audacity of a Submissive to goad had only one possible response. One where an aromantic ace could have a mate. It was folly, but Billie no longer held her own reins. A growl rumbled low in Billie’s throat. She shoved, and Helene stumbled backward onto the couch, breathless but unafraid. Billie followed, covering her with her body, sucking a bruise on her throat—not intimate, Dominant.
Helene lifted her chin in Submission, panting. “Please, Sharice. Please…” She fumbled with her skirt, kicking the hem upward to her waist and working a thumb under the waistline of her panties, tugging them down to her thighs, rolling her hips. Billie was lost inside her wolf, rolling her body on top of her Sub’s, squeezing her hips, pulling her hair, growling. She smelled Helene’s arousal, and her wolf took up the challenge.
It wasn’t sex, at least not in a conscious way. It was Claiming, and that would always be different.
Billie snarled and drove two fingers deep into Helene’s body. Helene arched her back into the intrusion, rolled her hips and whimpered.
“I…can’t…” Billie huffed, thrusting hard with her hand, slamming as deep as she could get them. “Don’t…WANT!… CAN’T!”
But whatever she meant to say died on her lips as she leaned down and closed her mouth over Helene’s right shoulder, sinking her teeth in and breaking the skin with a tortured sob. Helene fell lax beneath her, softened, floating. A Claim rippled outward from their bodies, tingling, curling their toes.
Such a little thing…
“God, oh god, oh god, Sharice! Yes!… God, yes!”
Billie was still growling. Her head tucked under the curve of Helene’s chin, rolling gently from side to side while her fingers under the hem of Helene’s skirt finished her Sub off, and her teeth held onto meaty flesh. She felt Helene come from inside the effervescence of their new Mating-bond, and her body erupted in second-hand chills. She removed her fingers slowly. She pulled her hand away, pulled her thumb off the hot button it had been stroking in her wolf’s effort to drive her Submissive out of her mind, to prove she had the upper hand. Who had the upper hand now? She placed her palm on Helene’s thigh instead. And slowly, very slowly, she released her jaw, tasting blood.
Billie lifted her head and found her mate’s eye. Both women stared motionless, shocked and overcome. It had happened so fast. Forty-five seconds at the most, and all of Billie’s years of denial were for naught.
Billie adjusted her knee up onto the couch so she could lean up a little and give Helene space. It was obvious that neither knew quite what to say. A part of her had always assumed that if she Mated, she would stop feeling like herself, but she didn’t. Billie squeezed Helene’s thigh, trying to reassure her until she found her voice. Billie wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at the russet streak in wonder. Within her mind, she reached out across a new bridge, exploring, enraptured. Sparks shot in every direction beneath her metaphysical touch. It was wondrous.
“You are in so much trouble, Submissive,” Billie croaked, at a loss.
Helene chortled a broken and uncontrolled laugh, half a sob. “I can’t believe you did it. You actually did it.” She tried not to grin, but her facial expressions weren’t exactly under her control. Tears escaped her eyes. She lay boneless, melted into the contours of the couch.
Billie huffed and leaned down to kiss her briefly. “It appears I still can’t say no to you for long.”
Helene laughed. Her hair lay in a picturesque halo around her beaming face, her eyes soft, her mouth curling into a gentle, satisfied smile. “You said no for fifteen years, kiddo.”
“Goddamnit,” Billie groused, shaking her head in bafflement at her own lack of self-governance. She extricated herself, climbed to her feet, straightened her suit, rubbed her temples, and blew out a long exhale. Mating? Damnit, that was for allo-wolves. She’d spent decades insisting there was no inherent compulsion for wolves to pair up. And she still believed that. There were other ways to connect, platonic ways. Packs could cleave in hierarchies built around domestic consolidation. They could. She’d been testing options in the research wing for ages. And now?
Goddamnit.
She picked up her desk phone and speed-dialed Benny.
“You got a minute? There’s been a complication. Plans have changed. Bring your meter.” And she hung up just as abruptly. Billie leaned against her desk and faced Helene who had fixed her clothes and rolled up onto one hip, looking entirely at home on the couch. Billie cocked a brow at her, pinning her in place. “So, here’s how this thing goes down from right now,” she stated assertively, brooking no dissent. “You go back to New York. Pack up your shit. Sell whatever you don’t want. Ship the rest here. Get out of your lease within the month no matter what you must do to make that happen and get your ass back down here to me. While we’re apart, I’m going to put everything in writing: what I expect, what I want, what I don’t want, and what our dynamic will and won’t be. You do the same. But don’t you dare ask me for what you know I can’t give. I’ll file the registration just as soon as I find an alpha stupid enough to sign on with us. I will have the Pack, Helene. Nothing’s changed.”
Billie frowned as an odd sensation rocked her with its core at the center of her breastbone where she could feel her Mating-bond lodge. It was pain, Helene’s pain. Helene’s emotional ache registered in Billie’s body, and she found she hated the sensation. Her wolf hated it. She cleared her throat and rubbed at her sternum and rephrased. “What I mean to say,” she tried again, feeling the tightness loosen, “is that we can work together to fulfill each other without either of us having to be anyone she’s not, and we can build a Pack around us. I have plans, Helene. There are more out there like me, and they need pack just as much as you do. They need a way to connect without having to pretend to feel what they can’t feel.”
Helene’s wide eyes glowed with happiness. She sat up gracefully, and Billie found herself kneeling in front of the couch to brace her mate without meaning to do that. Her body moved on its own. She traced a gentle thumb through the tiny trickle of blood at Helene’s shoulder. The wound stanched; it was already clotting.
Benny knocked once and cracked the door to peek in. His eyes flew wide, and he hustled in, casting a furtive eye behind him to make sure no one in the hall was close enough to scent inside Billie’s office, and closed the door behind him.
“This is a surprise,” he told the women, nonplussed. “I expected to find someone laid out, but I never expected this. Permission to approach?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Billie chastised, feeling embarrassed now that she was out of her wolf. “Just take the damn readings.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Benny grinned. “You want me to patch her up while I’m here?” Benny ran his Peliomometer around the outline of Helene’s body, smiling softly at her and patting her knee. Helene never took her eyes off Billie.
“We’re not bandaging it,” Billie stated. “And I can clean it myself, thanks.” A look from Benny ruffled her further. “And you can keep your stupid protocols to yourself. Be glad I allowed for readings at all.”
Benny nodded, unsurprised. Dominants rarely agreed to concealing Mating-bite wounds. He had insisted his mate wear off-the-shoulder tops for weeks after they Mated, just to show off her healing wound. He checked the readings, saved them carefully, and then turned a questioning look on Billie herself. Like Dean, Benny’s relationship with Billie was a contradiction in multiple layers. He topped her in both ratings, and he was part owner of the ACRI. But Billie was the Facility Director now, and that gave her a powerful leadership position. Institutionally, Benny reported to her now, not the other way round.
She sighed and nodded and held her arms out to either side so he could trace her aura with the meter. Benny made it efficient, mindfully following the curve of her body all the way around so he only had to do it once. He frowned at the reading. Billie took him by the wrist and turned the display so she could see it. She scoffed.
“Figures,” she said.
The overlap between their two readings was barely enough to register. But she could feel Helene in her body, in her head, sparkling fresh and new and delightful against her soul, snuggling in like hot cocoa and popcorn on a mid-winter movie night, and Billie smirked over her shoulder at the woman. That Mating-bond enforced itself in surprising ways, worming into Billie’s psyche to rewire her priorities. Billie was still Billie, but she had a whole new set of synapses homed onto Helene’s welfare. And she found the tug of those links delicious, pleasurable enough to override her gruff disposition—at least where her Sub was concerned.
Helene grinned. She stood up, reached her arms up over her head to stretch, and yawned. “I’ll get out of your hair then, Sharice. I know you’re busy. I’ll wait for you at your place?”
Billie fixed her with an unforgiving stare and pointed a regal finger at her back-office door into the suite behind it. “You march your ass through that door, and don’t you leave my suite until I come for you even if the place burns down around you. Do you hear me? I haven’t finished with you.”
Benny laughed outright. “Congratulations to you both. I feel like condolences might also be in order, but I don’t know which of you needs them.”
Billie transferred her imperious glare to Benny. “I do hope that’s not cheek I’m getting from you, alpha, because I won’t hesitate to write you up for it and make sure you pay publicly.” Billie scowled, and he pressed his lips together, mid-chuckle and shook his head. His eyes continued to dance though. He pocketed his meter. “Good,” she told him sternly, showing not a hint that she was freshly Mated. “Then get back to work. Not a word of this to anyone.” Billie waited for his respectful nod before shooting over her shoulder at her mate, “I thought I told you to scoot!”
“Yes’m,” Helene chirped, jumping to it.
“And don’t you ever call me Sharice again where someone can hear.”
Helene’s eyes flew wide. She flushed. Her eyes dropped to the floor, and she stammered, “Oh god, I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Forgive me…?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Billie said far more softly. “Ask Becky to pick us out a nice restaurant and make reservations. I’ll see you at six. We’ll untangle everything, Elenaki mou. I promise.”
Helene looked as if she might say something more but then nodded and disappeared through the suite door.
“Why are you still here?” Billie asked Benny with her eyes and hands on a stack of papers on her desk. She shuffled through them, organizing her thoughts to bring them back to her pressing tasks. Benny stood with his hand on the doorknob.
“You can’t bury this, Billie.”
“I’m not. But I have work to do, and so do you.”
“Would you like me to have Josie fill out the Mating certificate?”
“I can communicate with my own assistant, thank you.” She took her seat and scooted her chair up under her desk, booting up her computer and dismissing him.
“Beta?” he prodded, skipping into his Secondary to pull on her. She glanced up without moving her head and waited. “This is a good thing, Billie. And if you need help sorting through it, I’m here. Come and talk to me.”
She licked her lips and nodded.
Benny bravely continued. “You can do this without sacrificing yourself. But you’ll adjust easier if you don’t try to do it alone. I can help, Billie. You’re not the first asexual wolf to mate spontaneously. You won’t be the last. It’s going to take some adjustments, but it’s doable. There are strategies.”
“Benny. I love you. Get out.”
He chuckled. “Love you too, boss. See you at two.”
The door clicked closed behind him, and Billie’s gaze slipped into vague distance. She could feel her mate. She could have pointed right at her through the walls. The beta was curling up in Billie’s bed, stretching out to take a nap, unperturbed at being dismissed mere moments after the biggest event of her life. Or non-event. Helene felt rapturously happy in Billie’s sternum. But Billie just felt…settled.
Josie entered without knocking as usual and stalled in the door, stunned. Like Benny, she scuttled in and closed the door with a quick peek over her shoulder. “Oh my god!”
“Not a word,” Billie advised without looking up. “Nothing’s changed. What do you need?”
Josie’s eyes were bright with the promise of being in on a tightly kept secret, even if it wouldn’t stay secret for long. “Sign here,” she said in a strangled voice. “And here. Your twelve-thirty moved to one. I can bring you a lunch tray if you don’t want to go to the cafeteria.”
Billie graced her assistant with a rare almost smile. “Thank you, Josie. I would appreciate that. I have some things to work through before I go public with this.”
Josie smiled warmly and nodded. “I understand. I’ve got your back.” She let herself out.
Billie’s computer pinged with a notification, showing her the Peliomometer readings Benny had just sent over. She wanted to dig her heels in and hold onto the anger that had flared up so hot but so brief, but it was gone. She felt calm, at peace. She felt oddly fulfilled, despite the readings that showed a mismatch between her chosen mate and herself. What did the algorithms know anyway? She and Helene had been skirting the issue for years, but they always stuck on their shared ambitions. Neither would give up her career, and neither wanted the other to risk everything she’d worked for. Billie had been telling herself for years that there was no path to make this happen, even as she fell asleep often with a painful longing for something she couldn’t have.
She wanted a life partner, always had. She longed for a family, even though she preferred a family constructed platonically, people to share a home with, unwind with, gripe at when she was cranky, comfort when she felt nurturing, share the grist of daily responsibilities that made living alone exhausting. It wasn’t about romance, although she felt no real qualms over making herself available as the object of Helene’s romantic impulses—provided she wasn’t expected to perform a reciprocation. It was about friendships so intimate that they became effortless. It was about saying fuck social norms and building a platonic family with people who understood her. Helene got Billie down to her very soul. Billie had wanted this for years, to build a home with her best friend, her scene partner, her partner in crime, the one person she’d ever felt safe to let her hair down with.
She could not have asked Helene to relocate.
But it was done now.
Funny how life does that sometimes.
In the backwash, Billie felt startlingly still. Maybe it was shock. But what she didn’t feel was regret, and that was fascinating. Regret was what she expected. But it wasn’t there. Helene had provoked this. Surely, she knew what she was getting herself into. Billie had never been shy about her Dominance. It would be a critical part of any intimate relationship, platonic or otherwise. Helene wasn’t entering an equal partnership. She had provoked a Mating from a staunch Dominant, and that meant exactly what it sounded like. They had perfected the complexity of nonsexual scening over years of play. Their wolves vibrated to the same frequency even though Billie’s ultimate finish line wasn’t sexual, and Helene’s was. Billie had methods of offering her Sub a satisfying experience without crossing that line herself.
Helene had never once intimated that she needed a sexual connection or expected Billie to show sexual desire. Billie wasn’t wired for sexual attraction, couldn’t have described what it might feel like. That had always been okay with Helene. The woman was Universe-blessed, a gift in an unfriendly world. Why they weren’t True-Mates, Billie had pondered long into many a night. She had never known another allosexual wolf not to succumb to the drumming of its own libido and eventually need some reciprocation. Billie couldn’t give that. She could go through some sexual motions in service to a partner she valued—on occasion, in the right headspace. But she couldn’t perform desire. She couldn’t reciprocate sexual attraction.
But Helene had never needed her to. The beta, a professional journalist, sophisticated and successful, ambitious, brilliant, and driven, gloried in letting her hair down, in taking orders, in rolling over to show the tender white of her belly and grovel under Billie’s expensive Italian pumps without ever flipping into something sexual. That dynamic was everything to Billie.
Billie worked diligently for about half an hour before giving in and texting Cas:
“Call me when you’re down from your high. There’s news of a personal nature you should probably know. Do NOT call me while you’re tied, for fuck’s sake. It’ll keep.”
Her phone rang at once. Billie rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and answered.
“Whatever are you attempting to do, Omega?” asked Fred in the laundry room door.
“Fred! Oh, thank god! Are you back? Are you better?” Gabe abandoned the mountain of soiled clothing at his feet to launch himself at the butler in relief. “I missed you so much! Cas made me be you, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and the whole house is upside down!”
Fred’s perfunctory hug calmed the Omega. “No matter, no matter. We shall right this ship in no time.”
“Gabriel!” Monique called angrily from the hall. “I told you the bedrooms were already handled. You got us both doing the same damn job twice! Again!” She rounded the door and pulled up short at the sight of the butler. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, sir.”
Fred took the folded towels out of her hand with a cold expression. “That is no way to address your employer, Monique. And as it is Friday, you well know your assignment. Best get on it, yes?”
“Right away, sir. I’m so glad you’re back!”
Monique reversed her step and disappeared. Fred held the stack of towels with enough reverence that they might be employed to display the crown jewels and he raised an authoritative brow at Gabe, still standing knee-deep in dirty laundry and looking lost.
Gabe dropped the toddler bedsheet, stained with Alex’s nighttime accident, and fell to his knees. “Save me, oh wise and ancient one! I beg you!”
“Remove yourself from this catastrophe, Gabriel, before I summon assistance to have you removed.”
Gabe bolted to his feet, kissed Fred’s cheek on his way out, and vanished. He left Fred eyeing the mountain of laundry and wondering tiredly what else he would find in disarray. Fred carried the towels to the main linen storage, collected his clipboard, straightened his blazer, and began an inspection. He determined never to succumb to illness again.
Early Saturday morning Dean shook his hand out, stretching his fingers to alleviate the strain, and then he picked the pen back up and continued. A little hand reached over the ledge of the table and nearly slid his completed stack of lines off into crumpling fists. Dean slapped his free hand onto the stack just in time.
“Leave Daddy’s work alone, Jimmy. I’m not going to tell you again,” he grouched, lacing an alpha tone into his voice. The pup let go but continued to study his father. The worst part of writing lines was how long it took to finish. Dean would have rather a strapping any day of the week, and he would’ve preferred that even if he wasn’t a masochist. Lines were a living hell.
“What you doin’?” Jimmy asked. “O-Pop said leave you lone ‘cause you was in trouble with Papa.”
Dean sighed and lifted his son onto his lap. “If O-Pop told you to leave me alone, why are you here bugging me? Papa told me to write sentences, chief. Lots and lots of sentences. And if I don’t finish them by tonight, he’s going to make me write more. So, you see, I need to focus and not answer little boy questions all day long.” Dean dug his fingers into Jimmy’s ribs until the boy chortled with laughter.
“I can write them too?” Jimmy pulled up to kneel, driving sharp knees and toes into Dean’s thighs. Dean huffed and grimaced and adjusted his son on his lap.
“I wish you could, sport. But here, let’s get you some crayons and you can have some of my paper. Sit here with me as long as you want and write with me.” Dean lifted Jimmy onto his hip to dig a handful of crayons out of the kitchen drawer that had been co-opted for kid-friendly distraction tools. He set the boy up in a chair of his own with a stack of paper and a pile of crayons. Dean settled back down, arched his back, and then curled back over his own paper.
Jimmy watched him work for a bit and regarded his own paper.
“I don’t know how to writes sences, Daddy.”
Dean chuckled and kept going. “You don’t have to write sentences, kiddo. Remember, Daddy’s being punished. Writing sentences is a punishment, and Jimmy’s not in trouble like Daddy is. You can draw anything you want. How about a dinosaur? A dinosaur sure would make me feel better about how my butt fell asleep two hours ago.”
Jimmy whined and scattered his crayons. “I don’t wanna draw,” he grumbled.
“Mm-hm,” Dean agreed. “I’m with you there. Sure wish I could go play with my brats instead. But I’m stuck here. You won’t keep me company?”
“Not brats, Daddy,” Jimmy laughed. “Not supposed to call names.”
“Oh, yeah? Who told you that?” Dean shook his hand out and bent back to his task.
“Nanny Kate.”
“Ah, well, she’s usually right about these things. You should mind her.”
Jimmy watched, entranced for some reason.
“Why you in punished, Daddy?”
Dean peeked up for a moment but then concentrated back on his paper, finishing another sheet, and turning it face down on his stack. He caught the stack again when Jimmy moved to look at the pages. “I said leave it where Daddy put it.” Jimmy pulled his fingers away, still waiting for an answer and not ruffled at being sternly corrected. Dean exhaled, started a new page, and explained. “Daddy smart mouthed Alpha and punched Uncle Sammy. I broke Alpha’s Pack rules, champ. Gotta take my punishment. That’s how things work in this Pack.”
“Did Auwfa spank you?”
“Not this time. This time I have to write sentences. Uncle Sam did though. So, I got two punishments. Hitting people gets you in big trouble. Let that be a lesson, son. Don’t cross two Tops at the same time.”
“What’s Tops mean?” Jimmy asked, riveted as Dean’s pen flew across the page, scribbling words he had memorized. Dean set the pen down. He pursed his lips, thinking and then met his son’s eye, giving the boy his full attention.
“Jimmy, a Top is the grownup wolf who’s in charge. In our Pack, Papa’s the Alpha, the top Top.” Dean said it carefully to emphasize the capital letters, imbuing them with the honor they deserved, teaching the culture to his son in a way the boy would absorb into his psyche by childhood osmosis. “He’s the highest Top of all. But underneath Papa, most times Daddy is a Top, sometimes Uncle Sammy is a Top. And Cain, and Aunt Kali. It’s something you can feel in your bellybutton if you try. It’s not who has the biggest body. It’s who feels like the biggest on the inside.”
“Like the meanest?” Jimmy asked, intrigued.
“Not meanest, bud. Strongest and safest and most in charge. Do you understand?”
“O-Pop is most in charge besides Papa,” Jimmy pointed out.
“Mm, yeah, to pups he is sometimes. O-Pop is a Top too, kiddo. At least he is for you and me.”
“Not for Mommy?”
“Mostly not for Mommy. It’s confusing, I know. You’ll be able to feel it better when you get older. Alphas are Top for betas and Omegas and pups. Betas are Top for Omegas and pups but not alphas. But Dominants can be Top for their Submissives, and that makes everything messy.” Dean acknowledged the perplexed crinkle between Jimmy’s eyes. Except for his sandy hair, the kid looked just like Cas when he cocked his head and frowned in confusion like that, and Dean laughed. “Here, just think about it like this for now: for pups, every grownup in the Pack is your Top, and you must mind them. But you don’t have to mind your brother and sisters, or your cousins; you just have to be polite to other pups, not obey them. A Top is in charge, so if you do what they tell you, you won’t get punished like Daddy. That’s all you need to understand right now. Make sense?”
“Is Mommy Top?” Jimmy persisted.
“There you are,” Michael said as he came into the kitchen. “Squirrely little mongrel. Didn’t I tell you to leave Daddy alone?”
Jimmy laughed and vaulted from his chair, sending crayons scattering, rolling to the floor, and dashing into Michael’s arms. Michael lifted him with a wry look toward Dean. “Sorry, this one snuck away. How’s it coming?”
Dean blew a tired breath out upward toward his hair. “At this rate, I may finish by Christmas.”
“Twenty more minutes, and then take a break,” Michael instructed with the same Dominant air he’d used on Jimmy, a tone of command. The unspoken Do I make myself clear? hung heavy between them.
Dean stared at him for a moment and then set his pen down. “No,” Dean told him, unconsciously lifting his chest. “This is none of your business. It’s between Cas and me, and you can butt out. I don’t need you regimenting my schedule.”
“O-Pop is Top, Daddy,” Jimmy reminded him.
“Not right now he’s not,” Dean said acidly. “Not for me.”
What followed was a brief but adamant argument inside their bonds. Michael held his ground long enough to really piss Dean off. Ultimately, Dean’s expression solidified, and his irises reddened around the perimeter, and Michael flushed, dropping his eyes.
“Apologies, alpha,” he murmured. “I was out of line.”
Dean continued to bore holes with a resolute glare until Michael lifted his eyes. “It won’t happen again, Sir,” Michael said intently, blushing to the tips of his ears. His hands fidgeted as he held their son on his hip.
“Jimmy Dean, go find Grandma,” Dean said in a voice that widened Jimmy’s eyes. Michael helped the boy slide to his feet and gave a gentle nudge to his back. Jimmy trotted happily out toward the parlor. Michael kept an eye on him until Fred took him by the hand and guided him across the foyer.
“Alpha, I’m sorry…”
“I get that it’s confusing what with how fucked up I am most of the time, but …”
“You’re not fucked up…,” Michael protested.
“I was talking, Omega,” Dean snapped. “Kneel, for me, please.” His voice was resolute steel.
Michael swallowed, struggling with a sense of shame that Dean tugged against inside their bonds. He lowered onto his knees and dropped his eyes. Dean adopted a tone of prosecuting lawyer before a skeptical jury. “Outside of our scenes, which are frequent and intense, who of the two of us is the Top?” Dean questioned. He left his papers scattered on the table and kicked idly at a crayon to send it back toward the others on the floor. Michael followed it with his eyes.
“You are, Sir.”
“I am,” Dean agreed. “So why do you feel obligated to try to Top me outside of that? Are you not getting enough from me? What more can I give you, Michael? Should I go naked around the house and kneel at your feet twenty-four-seven?”
“No, Sir,” Michael replied with military crispness.
Dean studied his mate, more inside his head than visually. Michael fell very still in his head, wary. “Is it that I grovel on my belly for Castiel, and you want a piece of that outside the playroom? Is it that you see me as one of your pups? Breakfast not enough for you?”
Michael sighed miserably. “No, Sir. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes, stuck in my wolf. I spoke without thinking.” Michael blinked rapidly at the flush of hot hormones through his bloodstream.
“Are you out of Balance?” Dean asked at the same time he felt for it in Michael’s breast and shamelessly scented his throat.
“No, Sir. I Released the night before last when I bottomed for you.”
“That’s what I thought,” Dean agreed. “But I thought I must’ve been mistaken. You led that one. You bottomed from the Top. But it was a mild scene.”
Michael glanced up. “I Released myself, alpha. I used you for ballast, but I did it myself.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean grunted, still glaring at him. “So, you just… live… in that nineteen now? Fuck the hierarchy? Fuck your alpha mate? I could believe that bossy bullshit you just tried was an accident, but when I pulled rank, you fought me for it. I’m not gonna put up with a coup, Omega.”
“No, Sir.”
“Get up and strip and then back into position. I want you bare.”
Michael huffed hard through his nose, but he obeyed.
“Humble,” Dean instructed once his mate was back on his knees, knowing how much Michael hated submissive poses.
Michael caught himself before his distaste showed on his face. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the tile, lifting his hips slightly, raising his ass, clasping his hands on the floor in front of his crown. Dean began a slow circle around his mate, appreciating the graceful lines of the Omega, even as their bonds flared up inside them. Michael warred with himself, endeavoring to tamp it down on his own so Dean wouldn’t need to. Dean’s technique would be most unpleasant. He knew what was coming, and he knew it would be worse if he couldn’t get a lid on his wolf first. He might be a nineteen, but unless he was channeling the vast extensive Omega core at the center of his soul with his voice, his alpha mate outweighed even his wolf. And Michael wasn’t stupid enough to try that.
Dean glanced up as April’s mother gasped in the archway with Emma on her hip. “Oh! I’m sorry. Excuse me, alpha.”
“Don’t be alarmed, Kathleen,” Dean soothed. “Come in and get what you need. The kitchen isn’t off limits.”
“Thank you, alpha, We’ll c-come back later.” She scuttled backward, leaving a scent of distress.
Dean put her out of his mind. He fell to one knee behind his mate and slapped a handprint onto Michael’s right cheek. “Do you ever consider it, Omega? Revving up that superhero voice just for me? See if you can overpower me when I’m alpha the way you did all those assholes with their signs?”
“No, Sir!” Michael ground out against the floor. “Only when we’re scening and you okay it!”
“You sure about that?” Dean spanked him again. Michael rocked forward, flinching, and then put himself mindfully back.
“I wouldn’t! I swear! Alpha, I swear it!”
Dean freed his cock, scraped three fingers through the weep of slick at Michael’s hole, and coated himself. He didn’t need to pump his cock except to raise his own temperature and stoke his alpha. He was already hard. Hard and furious. This confrontation had been coming to a head for some time as the boundaries between each man’s dominion blurred. It was Dean’s fault. He’d grown complacent.
He threw exasperation into his growl. “You practically shit yourself for Castiel, but I still have to drag you kicking and screaming to get an ounce of respect from you. I deserve better, Michael Quentin! Say it!”
Michael huffed against the floor. He arched his back, rolling his hips to offer his ass, and he chanted, “You deserve respect from me, Sir. You deserve respect. I’m sorry, alpha. I’m so, so sorry!”
Dean slammed home, reaching forward and tangling his fingers into Michael’s hair, punching his breath out of him and lifting the Omega’s torso off the ground. Michael scrambled to get his hands under him. Dean took him hard. The sound of masculine grunting, slapping skin, and a high-pitched whine echoed up across the vaulted ceiling and out into the parlor. Michael fell forward and braced on his elbows, rubbing them raw, as Dean’s grip in his hair forced his head back painfully. Hot tears streaked the Omega’s face. He continued a desperate litany of apology, but Dean couldn’t hear the words, as his own blood coursed in his ears, deafening him to everything else.
Dean turned his face to the ceiling, stuttered his hips and came, groaning loudly. His Adam’s apple bobbed. A hot Claim-report popped harshly over them both, tightening their skin, flexing every muscle between them. Michael gasped.
“I dare you to try it, Michael,” Dean whispered into his mate’s ear before pulling out and standing up. “I dare you.” He tucked back in, still wet, and zipped up. Michael sneaked a tentative peek at his mate and then sank back into Humble, his least favorite position. A gloppy ooze tickled the inside of his thigh as it dribbled to the floor.
Dean stood over him for an interminable time, silent and uncompromising. Michael didn’t move.
“Did I make myself clear?” Dean asked at last. “You are not in charge. I’ve been patient. But I’ve had enough. I give you your share, Sir, and I’m happy to do it. But don’t you dare come rolling over my time thinking you get to run my life. I am alpha, Michael. You feel it? Dig way down in there, Omega, and feel it, goddamnit.”
“Yes, Sir, I feel it.”
“Good. Keep your mind tangled in it. I want you in the corner, thinking. Twenty minutes.”
“Yes, alpha.” Michael rose gracefully. He clenched his hands into fists to keep himself from wiping the ooze off his inner thighs.
“Why did I give you twenty minutes?” Dean asked stiffly. He paused Michael with a hand on his shoulder.
Michael’s chin rested on his chest, but he cut his eyes toward his mate. “Because that was the time limit I tried to set for you?”
“That’s right.” Dean squeezed, tapped Michael’s ass, and then took his seat again. “That’s exactly right. I want you submerged in our bonds the whole time you’re in the corner, feeling the weight of our Secondaries. Get real familiar with what it feels like, tastes like, smells like. No more slips, or I’ll pull way back on your helpings of my wolf until you remember who’s in charge.”
Michael sniffled pathetically. “Yes, alpha.” He laced his fingers at the back of his head and pressed each elbow to the wall, straightening his spine.
Dean stooped to collect the scattered crayons and put them back in their drawer. He wiped the smears of body fluids off the floor. He tidied his pages and sat back down in his spot at the foot. He picked up his pen, flexed his hand, glanced at Michael, and began to write.
The cane fell again, and April wailed, shaking in her grip of the bar over her head. She sobbed miserably. Castiel growled fiercely, way down deep in his sternum, a terrifying sound that sparked in his brilliant crimson eyes. April’s body throbbed, aching and heated and hungry, but her mate had ripped himself from within her mind, and that was the hardest ache of all. Her Mating-bond, it was closed. He’d never left her alone during a scene—not during a scene, or a punishment, or a therapy session. Not ever. Not like this.
“Two more,” he spoke through his wolf, cold and heartless. Distant. “Can you hold? Answer me!”
April could smell his arousal, and she stretched out within her bond, beseeching him to slake himself in her, beating against the wall between them. He needed her, but he was so far away. And she couldn’t reach him.
“Answer me!”
“Yes, Sir,” she answered, her voice shaking in pain and desperation. “Please.”
“No begging,” he growled, snarling. “Submissives take what they are given. Say it again!”
Her knees trembled, legs too shaky to be sure of, and her hands sweated in their grip. “Y-yes, Sir!” she affirmed breathlessly.
Castiel whipped the cane back and brought it down on the swell of her ass. April threw her head back and screamed. Before she caught her breath, he did it again, only millimeters higher. She lost her grip. Her legs gave way. She crumpled into a heap on the floor, bawling. Castiel strolled placidly to the wall of built-in drawers. He stowed the cane, arranging it just so with its brethren before closing the drawer and turning his back to the wall to regard his mate. He felt disconnected, cool and hot, but not entirely of this world. She rolled in agony, alone. She reached for him.
He felt his head tilt curiously to the side. She was beautiful. He narrowed his eyes. Her body called to his, and he went to her, hungry.
He scooped her up, making shushing noises with his mouth, no comfort in his efforts, more an attempt to muffle her pained cries for his own ease. He laid her out on the soft, raised, flat surface, a perfect convenient height for his use. Such comforts this world possessed.
April took to the bed and rolled onto her back, flashing her belly and whining piteously, instinctively currying favor, but he flipped her back over, unfazed, and dragged her by the ankles until she lay bent over the edge with her head buried in her arms and her chest heaving. April had never seen him like this. She’d long known he had it in him, and worse. But he’d never disengaged his front-brain entirely and left his wolf alone with her before.
Her ass stung like fire, swollen and welted. But it wasn’t the pain that rankled. It was the distance between them. It was the cold aloofness of his wolf. The wolf that adored her, had loved her desperately from the moment it first scented her. He had closed off every source of affection or regard and taken to beating her like a mangy dog. It was the first time April knew fear, and it thrilled her enough that she felt a trace of concern deep inside for her own depravity. She widened her stance, hoping the blows were ended. But he would do what he would do. And April would not contest him.
Wide, strong, hot hands wrapped around her body at her ribs and flexed into her flesh, squeezing, grasping. He purred behind her, snuffling like a beast, sounds that could be a chuckle or a hum or a grunt. April peeked out from beneath her arm, seeking him peripherally, daring not to look at him directly. She whined, a sound her voice box produced of its own volition.
Castiel purred again, grinding himself against her sit spots, driving his hips in decadent circles, flaring her heated welts, and making April cringe.
"Mine,” he grunted in an otherworldly crackle as the base of his cock and his knot ground hard against her body. April responded by widening her feet further and opening her hips, canting her pelvis upward so that the arch of her back ached. She ducked her head back down. If he wanted her face, he would put it where he could see it. He hummed louder, thrilled at her acknowledgment. His hands pulled a hard, stinging stretch downward from her ribs to her hips, and he used his grip to grind harder into the slick wetness of her crotch, rubbing harshly against her sensitive flesh, rutting, lifting her bodily until her feet lost contact with the ground and she had to press back with her palms splayed on the bedcover, searching for purchase, trying to lodge a knee into the bedding. “Mine,” he growled.
He dropped her back to the bed and sank down to one knee behind her, snorfling animalistic sounds, nosing into her channel, lapping at the flow, nipping at her rim and labia. April bit her lower lip and held. He wouldn’t harm her. Her wolf swam in a sea of trust, treading his waters. She dug her toes into the carpet and walked her feet wider apart, shamelessly opening her hips to his pleasure. Castiel seemed incapable of coherent human speech. Without his bond, she couldn’t read him well enough to be sure. She had to trust. Her wolf laid its ears back and bared its teeth in a submissive grin. He took to pulsing a steady, swaying rhythm against her, humming to himself, glorying in her scent, her taste, in the feel of her. He stood upright, incapable of settling, lifting her with a forearm under her belly, inverting her, continuing to eat her out, spreading the sticky slick everywhere his face touched. His stubble burned against her cane-reddened skin.
Without warning, he dropped her to bounce on the mattress, crowding in close with recklessness in his scent, and before she could brace or breathe or anticipate, he breached her, rutting frantically, his hands lifting her by her thighs to bring her into him as strongly as he thrust into her, crushing hard finger-bruises into her legs, splaying his hands.
April fell limp, giving over to him. The pain felt distant to the promise of a culmination of her Heat. Nothing mattered anymore, only the quickening and the inevitable. He’d already taken her multiple times, choosing to slake the desperation of their first night and day and into the next night before throwing caution and self-control to the wind for a mid-cycle scene that fulfilled her promised punishment caning and flavored it to feel like one of Dean’s punishments. This moment felt like a climax to that in every way. April’s empty channel spasmed as she came, flooding slick downward to where the Alpha’s cock disappeared into her cunt, his knot buried and straining. He groaned at the sight, pressed in, pulled her into him like he wanted to meld as one, and filled her with a roar of completion and a rigid pressurized Claim-bond that seemed to explode behind her eyelids in a firework of sparks, sending little mini-explosions to set her fingers and toes tingling.
April breathed out a long, shaky exhale as her Heat eased and the exhaustion of pain and fear and desperate want eased with it. If the Universe cared about the solace of Omegas, she would have passed out. Instead, she floated in a sea of buffeting waves, listless, too tired to swim, too tired to think or feel. Too tired to worry about whether she sank or floated.
Everything ached except the cool center where his seed coated her burning flesh.
He stood stock still above her, feet planted wide on the floor, nostrils flaring, and he breathed with her thighs still gripped in each palm. Her legs akimbo, she barely registered when he finally lowered them to the ground. Only his body, tied to hers, kept her from flowing off the bed to puddle on the floor.
At last, in a dreamlike state, Castiel eased them both fully onto the bed, curling around her on their sides, wrapping her in a possessive cocoon embrace, and he fell asleep with his nose snuffling at her scent gland. April pushed backward into him, drained, and followed him to sleep, throbbing.
But slaked.
A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Castiel awoke first, groggy but aware of himself. He scowled at the cold mess and groaned at the protest of sore muscles. But looking down between them in the faint light of the ceiling rails, the damage he’d wrought upon his mate’s body took him aback. Cas sighed softly and shuffled backward, sitting up. His muscles objected, but he ignored his own state. He nudged toward her with his side of the Mating-bond and found it still closed. Slowly, he eased it open, careful not to wake her, and he explored her physical sensations from the inside. He inspected the color of her dreams. He searched her mind, soft in sleep. She would need a painkiller and ointment.
She mumbled something incoherent and rolled toward him with her arms outstretched. Cas lay down beside her. With one hand he stroked her hair; with the other, he kneaded her lower belly. The swollen bruises would keep. Her awareness sparked all at once, and he felt her throw herself into their bonds. Cas widened his side as far as he could and mimicked the sense of his touch inside her mind. She broke into sobs before she fully awoke. By the time she reached full consciousness, she was weeping.
“That’s my sweet baby. I know. I’m here.” He cradled her and rocked her. “We’ll talk about it when you’re ready. Let it out, Kitten. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Now that she was awake, Cas had a conscious mind to delve into. Her thoughts were her own, but her emotions told him everything he needed anyway. He dug through her, readying the damage control he felt certain their relationship would need, but search as he did, she held steady under his probing. Her sobs were grounded in relief at having his bond back and in the physical pain she’d awoken to, but she wasn’t afraid, wasn’t emotionally strained. There was no falter in her trust. She was…okay, even deep within her nearly bottomless depths.
He found waning traces of residual fear, fading rapidly even as he watched. He found a worrisome knot of front-brain shame, enough that he would need to address it later. He found determination and pride inside her wolf and an echoing wallowing afterglow in her Omega. He didn’t find any weakening in their connection, any resentment, any distrust. She had taken him as a wolf, it seemed. That would have buffered her psyche.
At length, her sobs subsided, leaving her spent and hiccupping in his arms. He kissed her repeatedly. He massaged the soreness from her arms and legs and back. Finally, he eased out of her embrace and collected a warm wet cloth to wipe her sticky body down. He held a bottle of chilled water to her lips and helped her drink it. He changed the bedding beneath her without tumbling her from the bed, and then he dosed her with a pain reliever and fed her chocolate. All the while, in their heads, they nuzzled, locked in intimate convergence.
At last, laying her out on top of a clean bedspread, he addressed the damage to her backside, rubbing arnica in and inspecting every welt, every bruise, every swollen contusion.
It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. She had taken worse than this before. His whip had done more damage on other days, more than this. But in scenes past, when he’d whipped her, he had always stood right beside her in his head, giving her something stable to hold onto, giving himself an inside view of her state of mind. Although this incident hadn’t resulted in the worst physical damage she’d ever experienced, she had had to face it alone, and that made it harder.
He thumbed her cheek aside and inspected her channel, scenting the slick that oozed out. He smelled no sign that he’d entered her there, only fresh, clean, Heat-thickened slick and the delectable musky aroma of estrus. He might’ve caught a trace scent of saliva, but that was harmless. Cas meant to steer clear of her channel this cycle, but he wasn’t sure that he recalled everything his wolf did to her while off-leash. He thought he did, remember that is. But there were moments that felt fractured in his memory, as if recalled through the lens of a dream. He lowered a few inches and brazenly scented for a hint of fulfillment, but it was too soon.
“Do you always sniff your patients when you treat them?” April teased over her shoulder. Her voice was trashed. It sounded grated. Cas looked up at her in concern, releasing her butt cheek and crawling up the bed to stretch out beside her. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I do, as a matter of fact,” he taunted back. She smiled in reply and then lowered her eyes again, demurely. “Did I breach your channel?” he asked as an excuse to entice her to speak again as he pressed his thumbs into her throat to feel the lymph nodes against her trachea.
“No, sir. You did some nibbling. I think your tongue touched my cervix down there, but your cock went nowhere near my channel. Funny to think we’re hoping to get pups out of an experience like that, that we’ll have diapers and sleepless nights and onesies as a consequence of sex that raw. The two aesthetics couldn’t be more different, could they?”
He huffed a simple laugh and tapped the tip of her nose.
“It’s good to have you back,” she told him, luxuriously stretching her toes toward the end of the bed and pillowing her cheek in her arms.
“Are you ready to talk about it?” Cas asked.
“Are you?” she retorted playfully, feeling lust building, a simpler feeling now that their cycle was past its midpoint. The urgency tempered to a sultry warmth, not the driving insistence it had been, but if they didn’t reply to it soon, it would begin to burn painfully. He wouldn’t make her wait. He never made her wait.
Cas chuckled. “You’re being awfully cheeky for a girl who just stood face to face with my wolf. Are you not impressed?” Cas wasn’t certain that lighthearted was the best response, but it felt right, and he thought perhaps letting April lead with whatever tone came naturally might prove the best approach. He caught her grinning, and he swooped in for a lingering kiss.
When he pulled away, she had a thoughtful somberness to her. “Is that what you do with Dean? From your wolf?” she asked. “It was pretty cold, Cas. Does it go like that when you punish him? Were you trying to give it to me the way he would’ve had it? I mean since he’s the one who earned it originally?”
“No, no, no,” he was quick with an adamant answer, but then he frowned, turning troubled. “Well, not often. And not in years and years. We found our perfect intensity over time, Kitten. Yes, we have done…this together. But these days what we do is far less harsh. I never pull entirely away and leave him to my wolf. Not anymore.”
“I see,” she said. She bit the inside of her cheek, studying him. “But you didn’t have a real Claim-bond until your wedding… If it wasn’t like this, then how did you read him?”
“We’ve always had a bond, Kitten, just not a wide one. But you’re right. I couldn’t feel him the way I do you. I still can’t. No, I tempered myself from inside my own head. That provided the guardrails we needed to play safely. I never let my wolf off-leash without standing by in my front-brain as a spotter. I never left him completely alone with my wolf as I just did you. What I just did with you, Kitten, that was extremely dangerous.”
“I’m honored you trust me that much, Alpha,” she told him in a whisper, tracing the bridge of his nose with a manicured finger.
“April, I hope you understand…”
“I understand, Cas. You don’t have to explain.”
“Do you still trust me?”
“With every fiber of my being.” She rolled onto her side. “I trust all of you, however many of you are in there.” She poked his chest and then flattened her palm over his heart.
“Even though I’m a monster.”
April cocked her head, still studying him, curious. Did he need her to tell him he wasn’t a monster? Did he want to feel what her fear had felt like? Did he know how it felt to her to have come through that without breaking or cowering or fleeing or fighting? “I don’t scare easily, Sir,” she told him with a smirk. He laughed, and the tension left his brow.
“That’s the truth,” he agreed. “You are so perfectly matched for me. I will never cease being amazed. Now,” he stroked her hair and kissed her lips. “You’re going to eat something. I’m going to knot you as gently as I can, and then you’re going to sleep until mid-morning. By the time you wake up, you’ll be starving again, and we’ll get Tony to whip us up whatever the hell you want for breakfast. I’ll hand feed you with my knot tying us together. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to smell whether you’ve conceived or not.”
April beamed. She threw a leg over his hip and leveled her voice to sound like a newscaster: “Tony award winning songwriter, April Novak Winchester, beaten nearly to death by her beast of a mate for crimes committed by her mate-in-law, was granted three weeks R&R for her fortitude under duress during the conception of their newest litter.” The croak of her voice spoiled the delivery a little.
He kissed the grin off her face just to taste it. “Nice try. Those crimes are your responsibility even if you didn’t commit them. Also, you look far too pretty under my lash to get a three-week reprieve. You are going to let me take care of your voice though, Kitten. We can’t take chances with your vocal cords.”
“Dean’s mad you gave his lashes to me, Cas.”
Cas leveled a look at her pulled straight from his Alpha. “You leave Dean and his anger to me, April. He is not your responsibility.”
“I know,” she told him a mite petulantly. “I only thought you should know.” Her lower lip poked out into a pout.
Cas laughed. “I know all about his reaction to losing his swats. That boy is under continuous training, Kitten, just like you are. He requires inventive exercises in submission, not mere repetition of the same old drills.” Pulling away, Cas asked, “And speaking of drills, are you ready for another run-through? We can wait until after you sleep if you’re too tired or we can add an orgasm-control measure to this lazy round. You choose.”
“Me and my big mouth,” she groused, correctly deducing that talk of Dean and his tantrum put Cas in mind of Sub-training. “I’m too tired for a delay exercise…”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a commanded release. No long arduous efforts required, just a quick orgasm, a knot to cool you off, and a nice long sleep. Sound good?” He petted her hair and scratched at her scalp gently.
“How quick do you need me to come?” she asked, wary.
“Ten seconds of stroking then four more to come when I give the word. You’ve done very well in your training, April. You can do this, even if you’re tired. Especially since you’re still in Heat.”
She pressed into the touch of his hand and closed her eyes. “Yes, Sir. Reward?”
He did the thing with the brow and the lowered chin and the eyes, and he said, “Your reward is that you won’t be punished.”
April blinked rapidly and lost her powers of speech momentarily before squeaking out, “Yes, Sir. And…and the punishment?”
He softened back to a moderate persona and rolled onto his back with an arm behind his head. “Something mildly unpleasant. This is low-stakes training, Kitten. It’s just for practice. How about, let’s say if I’m not pleased with your performance, you can kneel in front of me for my next round and watch me get myself off without any assistance from you. Sound fair?”
“You are a monster!”
Cas beamed at her and pulled her to him for a lingering kiss. Then he whispered, “If the smell test is positive, are you ready to invite our boys in tomorrow after breakfast?”
“It’s your call, Alpha,” she answered with no hint of a preference, pressing up with a hand on his chest and finding her way back into the solidity of her front-brain. She offered him no hint of worry that their efforts toward impregnating her might not have been successful either. He liked her responsive and ready but reactive, not proactive. He loved it when she followed his lead.
He preened. “Yes. It is.” Cas touched his tone with his wolf’s voice, and she smiled widely. “But I would very much like to hear your opinion.”
April laughed musically. “If you’re ready, I’m ready. Although, if you don’t want a foursome scene, I’d rather you split off with Dean and leave Michael with me. You earned a little private time with your husband, sir. Of course, it’s entirely your call. Alpha.”
He slapped the outside of her thigh, and she dissolved into giggles, feeling light and free.
Dean relocated from the kitchen to the pool house as Tony busied himself short ordering a massive brunch tray for the H/R room. Dean hated absenting himself when half of his pups’ parents were locked away, but his husband had been quite clear about his expectations for those damned lines. And while Dean was still steamed at Cas, he meant to pick his battles. There was a method here, not anarchy.
Michael reassured him that the pups were well cared for and reminded him that any moment now, the Alpha would be unlocking that door in the basement and summoning them both in where steam fogged the mirrors and scents that pups didn’t need to be smelling hung heavy like incense. Dean only grunted, foregoing a reminder that he had no intention of following that summons. Michael wouldn’t believe him anyway.
And so it happened. Dean lacked a mere fifty iterations of that ridiculous sentence when his phone pinged on the table. He stared at it for a moment with his pen resting against paper. He’d laid the phone face down. But he knew what it would say when he looked. He felt the moment his husband cracked his bond-link open into Dean’s mind, and it was a tempting sensation. He could feel Cas in his head, anticipating, thrumming with carnal hunger. Dean could feel Cas salivating, his groin tingling, his muscles relaxed. Could feel Cas reaching for him.
Dean licked his lips, smacked them, chewed briefly on them, and then set his pen back into motion without looking at his phone.
It pinged again, accompanied by a tug at his navel.
Dean kept writing. Within his bond he sent a quick dismissive slap—light, but decisive.
The resultant sense of surprise from Cas made Dean clench his left fist on the table and rock slightly in his chair. Dean closed his side of their bond and kept writing.
His phone rang.
He picked it up, stared at his husband’s name for a moment, and then answered.
“Dean,” Castiel growled. “Open your bond. Don’t be recalcitrant. I need you.”
“I have work to do, man,” Dean replied coolly. “See if Michael’s interested.”
Castiel’s shock echoed through the silence in the phone connection and reverberated against the closed bond-link in Dean’s chest. He licked his lips and drummed his heel beneath the table. Eons of evolution fought to lift him from his chair and put him to work on his knees before his Sir, but he kept his butt stubbornly planted. Cas had made his decision. And Dean had made his.
“It’s Saturday, Submissive,” Castiel intoned reasonably, with a very unreasonable rumble at the back of his throat. “You don’t have any work that cannot be postponed. Open your bond this minute! I won’t ask again.”
Dean cleared his throat. “Lines, Alpha. I’m not done. You made it clear I had to finish them by tonight. Plus, Eileen is coming this afternoon for the pups’ checkups and shots. You wanna leave them without a parent for that? No can do, CJ, they need me more than you do. I’ll catch you later.”
There was a pause. Even without a bond-link or a scent in the air, Dean could feel the man coiling. He shivered, feeling an electric jolt in his nethers and at the back of his neck.
“This is about our argument in the clearing, isn’t it?” Castiel asked curtly.
Dean huffed audibly into the phone. “This is about you finishing your own cycle with your own mate like you’re supposed to and leaving me the hell alone to finish this goddamned punishment like you told me to!”
“Forget the LINES, Dean Michael, and get your ass to the basement immediately! This is not a request! It’s an order from your Sir!”
Dean feigned a yawn. “Look, if it’s all the same to you, Ceej, I’m gonna take a pass. Billie Mated unexpectedly, I’m sure you heard, seeing how she lives in your ass. Someone needs to check up on her regularly for a few days. The pups need me this afternoon. I got these lines to finish. Michael wanted a cobbler with dinner. I’m swamped today, man. You wanna maybe pencil something in for next week?”
The line went dead in Dean’s hand.
His heart rate picked up. He pursed his lips and blew out a shaky breath. His palms began to sweat, so he rubbed them on his jeans. With his bond closed, Cas would have to search him out. But the Alpha was coming. That much he knew.
It didn’t take long. Dean watched him slam the back door and stalk around the perimeter of the pool, wearing only a pair of fitted running pants, eyes red and blazing, fixed on Dean through the sliding door. Dean schooled himself to slouch a little and relax. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. He felt his eyes redden, and he couldn’t stop them. His heart pounded in his chest.
Castiel threw the sliding door open, took two strides into the little kitchen, and hauled Dean out of his chair by the back of his collar. Dean planted his feet and tore himself free.
“Get yourself another slave, asshole!” he objected.
But Castiel was prepared. He lowered his shoulder and picked his husband up bodily, draped over his shoulder like a sack and wordlessly carried him out of the pool house kicking and pounding and hollering a string of expletives. Dean managed to catch the doorframe on the way into the main house, and he held on with all his might.
Cas spanked him hard and wrenched his grip loose, taking the hallway to the left that led to the foyer where shocked pups had spilled out of the living room at the noise to gawk at their fathers.
Dean managed to shift his weight enough to overbalance himself and slide off Cas’ shoulder to land rumpled on the floor. He crab-walked backward until he was out of the Alpha’s reach and then got his feet under him in a crouch. Castiel stood glowering down at him. Kate and the elder Kathleen froze in their efforts to round up six dismayed pups as Castiel’s Rut-scent filled the cavernous space. His bearing took up the whole immense room, and no one moved.
“I gave you an order,” he barked, furious.
“And I said no,” Dean snapped, just as mad but far less powerful.
“You don’t say no to me!” Castiel reiterated, standing his ground, clearly expecting his Sub to come to him.
“You can’t have it both ways, Alpha,” Dean shot back, still in a crouch.
Michael appeared upstairs at the banister, Reginald right beside him with a newspaper hanging limp in his fist, awed and silent.
To Dean’s left, Sam and Jess took up posts in the parlor entrance, carefully still but ready to move.
Castiel raised himself to his full height, his eyes shifted back to cold blue, his jaw set like marble. “I am not going to count. I am not going to repeat myself. I am not going to carry you. You know what I expect, and I will wait until you decide to obey. The longer you make me wait, the less you will enjoy the outcome.”
Dean stood up. He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an impertinent brow. “Get comfortable then,” he told Castiel. “I can do this all day.”
”Dean!” Michael hissed.
Dean ignored him.
“This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion,” Cas said.
“That’s funny, because according to you, there IS no time or place,” Dean snapped. “You closed the subject. We’re done talking about it. You made up your mind, and to hell with what I want. You’re a patronizing, controlling asshole, and I just have to live with it. Well, maybe I’ve had enough of that blue-eyed control. Maybe I don’t wanna roll for you just because you say so. Maybe I only wanna roll for him. I want to talk to your wolf.”
“What is your safeword, Dean Michael?”
“Why? What difference does it make? Fuck the safeword, CJ. Forget it. It doesn’t exist. Fuck the contract! Fuck the rules! I’m not playing this stupid game anymore! This is not play to me! It’s never been PLAY!”
”NO!” Castiel roared. “I won’t do it! I WILL NOT cave to a brat tantrum! It isn’t your decision!” Castiel took a menacing step forward, and Dean backed up, throwing a warning hand up.
“Don’t you touch me!”
“Don’t touch you?” Castiel asked mockingly, taking another step forward. Dean matched him, stepping backward, eyes wary, body primed for defense. Arms up. “Or what, Dean? We can’t have it both ways. You said so yourself. If I take you up on your request to throw out your safeword, then what? Can I touch you then? Can I throw you over my lap and spank you like the unruly child you’re being?”
“That’s your call, isn’t it?” Dean taunted. “You can’t make me bow unless you MAKE me, and you’re too scared to do it. So, it looks like we’re stuck.” Dean clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling the soreness of his right hand after hours of writing lines, trying to flush the adrenalin through his system before it overwhelmed him. “Because I’m telling you no, Alpha. You hear me? I said no.” Dean was aware that no wasn’t a safeword, but he was ready to call the man’s bluff or die in the attempt.
“Dean!” Michael hissed again.
Dean looked up at his mate then around at the Pack. Gabe and Kali were at the mouth of the hall that led off toward their suite. He hadn’t seen them appear. Kali edged in front of the pups, still spilling around their Ozzie handlers. Cain joined Michael and Reggie at the banister. Sarah hovered in the shadows of the parlor behind Sam, clinging to Adam’s hand. Only April was missing. If there were ever a time to take a stand, this was it. Cas would never get more primed than right now. And Dean needed the audience. He wanted a precedent and witnesses.
He relaxed his defenses, but drew himself to his full height, solid within his alpha, eyes a brilliant red. He broadcast an intention to hold his ground. Cas might call it a brat tantrum, but that’s not what it was. Dean planted his feet.
“It’s your move, CJ.” His voice was deadly calm.
Castiel’s eyes flashed red and then rolled back to blue. His nostrils flared. His chest heaved. “You are not in charge, Dean. Go finish your lines.” With a dismissive jerk of his head, Castiel turned his back on his husband.
“That’s what I thought,” Dean goaded. “Too afraid to take ownership even when it’s shoved under your nose.”
The growl in Castiel’s throat should have been a warning, but he moved so fast, Dean didn’t even have time to back up. Sam’s arms shot out in front of his mate as a protective guard. Kali did the same. Kate and Kathleen snatched pups off the floor and hustled the whole flock backward toward the living room. Gabe and Adam crouched instantly, as did Michael. But Castiel, looming right in Dean’s face with a hand gripping each of his upper arms, livid, was not out of control. He was furious. But his eyes were blue.
“What did you swear to me at our wedding, Dean Michael?” he breathed.
“It’s not that simple,” Dean simmered. “I promised to obey you, but you promised to take ownership! Fulfill your promises, Castiel James!”
“You may not like it, Dean, but this is me fulfilling every promise I ever made to you. You’ve confused fantasy with real life, and I am under no obligation to fulfill your fantasies when they are dangerously reckless!”
“You’re starving your wolf, Cas. Don’t you see? He’s on a leash so short he can’t lift his damn head, and it’s for nothing! Pull the stick outta your ass and let go for once in your goddamned life!”
Castiel slapped him hard across the face. Sarah gasped and stepped into Sam’s orbit, clinging to his shoulder. Sam shifted to bar access to the parlor, shielding Jess and Sarah both, while Adam remained in a low crouch. Dean took the blow and then faced the Alpha again, defiant and fuming. Another slap, bringing a dribble of blood from Dean’s lip as it split. He ventured a surprised touch to the corner of his own mouth, and another straightening of his spine and a defiant stare.
Stepping close enough to loom, even with his lesser height, Castiel ripped Dean’s shirt down the front and left it hanging ragged from his arms. Dean’s breath caught in his throat, but he stood his ground.
“Papa, don’t!” Kat cried from her spot behind her grandmother’s legs.
“Take the pups away,” Castiel ordered over his shoulder, gruff, uncompromising.
Dean quivered. His breath shook, but still he held. Behind Cas, Kali shepherded the Ozzies and pups into the hallway and out of sight, dragging Gabriel with her. Cas watched their progress out of his peripheral vision with his head cocked at an oblique, never quite taking his eyes off his Sub.
“Your Submission, Dean Michael. Now. Kneel.” He turned back to face his husband, and his eyes held no softness whatsoever, crimson and glowing with an inner light.
“Make me,” Dean whispered.
The blow to the side of his neck crumpled his knees, landing him in a heap, ears ringing and head spinning. He found his way to his hands and knees, looked up at his husband and smiled. His teeth were stained with blood.
“Let go, Sir. Let go of the leash. Let go. I need it. You need it!” Dean spit blood to the marble floor and struggled up to his knees.
Castiel took a knee in front of Dean, his brows high, his face controlled, his eyes back to red. “You listen to me very, very closely, pup. I can beat you into surrender. I could compel you. But I’m not going to. You’re going to bow to me.”
“No.” Dean shook his head. “I’m not.” He moistened his lips, smearing pink. “You’re going to have to make me.” Dean struggled up onto shaky legs. He looked down on his Dominant, and he opened his bond-link. Into the bond, Dean shoved his obstinacy, the misery of his designations and his adamance to let himself suffer as long as it took, proving his backbone, and Castiel broke. He flew to his feet, hauled Dean by the dregs of his shirt and slammed him against the front door.
“You forget,” Castiel growled in a voice pulled from the depths of hell. “You forget who I am.”
“There you are,” Dean breathed in awe.
“Shhh,” Castiel’s wolf purred, a terrifying sound. “No words from you.” He traced Dean’s lips with a thumb. “That’s enough talking.”
“I need…” Dean started, but the hard backhand shut him up. His head bounced off the tempered glass of the door.
“Enough talking,” the wolf repeated, and it shoved Dean to his knees with both hands tangled in his hair. “I’m sad you’ve forgotten me. Perhaps a reminder…” He thrust Dean’s face into his crotch, rutting the hardness of his erection against his Sub’s cheekbone, crushing his head between the door and Castiel’s hips. Dean struggled to find his balance, to orient himself and get his mouth open and ready, but Castiel gave him no opportunity. He just ground Dean’s head into the door, crushing him, rutting, thrusting, grunting above him, rubbing his scent all over Dean’s face.
Castiel prided himself on having the prowess of his designations to win obedience through a dark, nameless promise within the weight of his carriage. A look into his eyes and a meaningful narrowing of his eyes told his underlings everything they needed to know. He didn’t have to threaten directly. He didn’t have to wield the power at his command. But if he didn’t call it forth when he was challenged, then it wasn’t truly his to begin with. Castiel held Dean in place with the strength of his body and the fortitude of his wolf, and he forced him to submit through the weight of his Alpha. Dean felt the air ripped from his lungs. The pressure in his bond stung worse than any full-armed slap.
Over his shoulder, Castiel’s Alpha called to Michael. “Omega, she waits for you. She is replete with my seed, and she has fulfilled her purpose. You may taste of her many flavors, but you may not couple her without a sheath. Do not cross me, Omega. You have my trust. Do not lose it.”
“I won’t let you down, Sir,” Michael agreed as he took the stairs two at a time and then disappeared around the back, down toward the basement. Reginald followed Michael more slowly down the grand staircase, but he veered to the left and took the hallway to follow his mate and the passel of pups. Cain stood sentinel at the upstairs banister, a spotter of sorts. Sam cut his eyes toward Cain’s and shared a look as the sound of Dean’s struggles echoed off the high ceiling. With a nod, Sam retreated, taking Jess, Adam, and Sarah with him.
Castiel, in his rutting, worked the waistband of his running pants down below his ass. He pistol-whipped Dean’s sore mouth, blows hard enough to bloody his nose, redden his cheeks, and widen the split of his lip. Dean braced himself with his hands on Castiel’s thighs, holding his face as steady as he could under the onslaught. Without warning, Castiel grabbed Dean’s throat just below his chin, forced his head up and thrust his cock into Dean’s gaping mouth and down his throat, dragging him in by hair and throat, tugging him into an impossible angle at a height he couldn’t support on his knees.
Dean groaned and snurfled, gagging, retching. Spit, pink with blood, dripped from his chin, and he flailed, struggling to find balance and brace to keep his head from bouncing off the door. But Castiel wanted it striking the glass. He thumped Dean against the door again and again. His grip of Dean’s hair pulled the skin of his face tight, and it ached. Castiel’s fingers at his throat squeezed dangerously, turning Dean’s face bright red.
It wasn’t until Dean nearly ran out of air that he realized what the wolf was looking for from him. Dean wasn’t normally this daft, but, well, he was pretty riled, and that always stiffened his spine. He’d taken the strikes and held still for the attack on his face and head, but he hadn’t yet rolled. He held onto his rage, standing pat from obstinance, not obedience. Castiel’s wolf didn’t play. He would just fuck Dean unconscious if that’s what it took to drive him to stop fighting. Dean struggled in the wolf’s grip just a bit more, got a harsh guttural growl in return and a ropey string of drool that fell from Castiel’s mouth to land on Dean’s cheek and roll down his chin, and a renewed tug to his hair that threatened to tear clumps out at the root.
Dean’s vision tunneled, and finally, as his grip on consciousness began to slip, his panic subsided. He calmed internally. He let go. His muscles went slack. His grip, one hand clutching Castiel’s thigh, and one on the wrist at his throat, fell loose. His head slammed hard against the door, his body following like a shaken slinky. Just as he nearly faded to blackness, Castiel pulled out and allowed him to suck in sweet, sweet air. Dean fell back against the door when Castiel let him go, crumpling onto his butt, chasing sparkles in his vision, and blinking his eyes in dismay.
From high above, still impossibly close, Castiel stared down at him, imperious and implacable, and he backhanded Dean across the face again. Dean’s head flew to the side, taking him down to hands and knees, where he stayed, panting.
“What do you want from me?” the wolf asked in a deep, guttural, impossibly broken voice. “Say it, Submissive. Say it out loud. Stop playing games with me and say it. I grant you permission to use that smart mouth.”
“I want you to own me,” Dean whined, looking upward tentatively.
“No!” Cas struck him again, sending him to the floor. “That is not what you want. That is a pathetic excuse.”
Dean fought for his breath. A healthy bruise swelled at his cheekbone, but he dared not touch it. He glanced up again. His conditioning kicked in under the mayhem in his head, and he sought his Dominant’s eyes.
“What do you want from me?” Castiel’s wolf repeated, haughty in his height over his Sub. “Say it, Dean Michael.”
Dean trembled beneath him. “This,” he breathed and flopped a hand between them. “I want this.” It came out like a hiss. Spittle flew from his mouth.
Another blow rocked him flat to the ground, and he cried out, prostrate on the floor, sobbing.
“What. Do. You. Want?” Castiel knelt above his trembling body, his broken psyche, dour and glowering.
Dean risked a glance over his shoulder, wary of that hand that kept striking him down. Nothing but the rawest truth would do, and Castiel could tell they hadn’t reached the deepest layer yet. It wasn’t about what Dean wanted. It was about why.
“I… I need…” He sniffled at the same time his breath caught in his throat, and he choked and swallowed and steadied himself. “I need you to hurt me.”
Cas rocked back on his heels instead of hitting Dean again, but his expression didn’t thaw. “And?” he asked shortly.
Dean felt stinging tears leave the corners of his eyes. His self-loathing lay bare and ugly and pitiful. Cas had taken him apart in moments, left him snotty and sniveling on the ground. He faced the tiles with his palms flat to the ground, leaving foggy handprints from breath and sweat and desperation. “And I need you to scare me,” he whispered downward.
“That’s right,” Castiel agreed, and he stood up. “On your feet.”
Dean blinked away stubborn tears, scrubbed the back of a wrist across the smear of snot at his nose, and rolled stiffly up to his butt. He was going to be sore for days. He pressed his back against the door to stand up.
“And you believe you need it from me, not him,” Castiel’s wolf intoned majestically. “But you’re wrong, Dean Winchester. What you need is to let go and trust. You have no trust.”
“That’s not true,” Dean argued, still sniffling. “I trust you.”
“You fear me. That is not trust.” Castiel shook his head. “You do not trust him, not like you should. Not like you swore to.”
Dean frowned in confusion. “Who, Cas?”
The great wolf lifted its chin, pulling Dean’s eyes to it. “You are mistaken about us, Dean Winchester. You believe me fettered. But I am no bound creature, and he is no lion tamer. He has but one pet.”
Dean blushed.
”Raise your eyes to me, Submissive!”
It felt like the air vanished from Dean’s lungs. His jaw dropped, the color left his face, and he looked into the infinite eyes of the king of wolves.
“Know this…” The words came from Castiel’s throat, but they were spoken by something far more ancient and otherworldly. Red eyes gleamed, traced by blue. “…You are not who you were. You are changing, and that frightens you. Do not be afraid, beloved one. Your hatred is leaving you, and in its place, there is little to cling to. Who you were may be gone, but who you are has yet to be defined.” Castiel stepped closer, pinning Dean with his eyes. He swiped his palm across Dean’s chin, clearing away the slobber, snot, and blood. This close, he brought chill bumps to Dean’s entire body. He cradled Dean’s aching cheek. “Do not replace loathing of one kind with that of another simply because you know no other way. You are beautiful, Dean Winchester. Your soul is bright and unblemished. You owe nothing to the Universe. You owe nothing but to me. You are… everything. Believe. Trust. Hope. And hold tightly onto him. Do not be afraid. You need pain, yes. You do not need fear.”
Dean shivered again. His expression registered soul-deep grief. “I don’t know another way to do this. It’s all I know.”
Cas chuckled affectionately. “That is why you require trust, little one.”
Dean felt five years old under the gentle agelessness of this great being. How could this be the wolf that Castiel feared? Who was this creature? “I don’t want to give up the pain. Please. Don’t make me give it up. I need it.”
“Yes.” Castiel’s face smiled at him, beatific. “Yes. You may fly when you need to, love. And I will take you there. I love you so much. I love you, my cherished alpha-brat. I will do this for us both. We are wild creatures, are we not? We are not tame. We are not meant to be. But pain is not fear. Release your fear, Dean Winchester, and fly free with me.”
Dean gulped around the lump in his throat. He nodded, holding Castiel’s hand against his cheek. The red in Castiel’s eyes faded to warm blue adoration, and Cas smiled at him. Dropping his eyes to Dean’s split lip, he frowned slightly. “The contract stays, Pet,” he stated. “Let this be the end of it. If I am in charge, then I am in charge.” He held Dean’s eyes, poignant in the sparkling prismatic light filtering through beveled glass. “Say it for me, please.”
“Yes, Sir. You’re in charge,” Dean breathed.
“Even if you do not like my decisions?” Cas prodded with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yessir. Kinda the whole point of being in charge, isn’t it?” Dean’s grip on Cas’ hand at his cheek tightened. He pressed his pained face into Castiel’s palm.
“No, love. The point is to provide us stability and trust, to ensure predictability, and to allow for room for each of us to fulfill our natures safely. It’s not to stymie your inclinations. We need limits. I would prefer that you joined me in this decision, but I’m past waiting for you to agree.”
Dean huffed. He tasted the blood at his lip. “Yeah, I got the message. Kinda hot though, you slapping me down.”
“No, Dean.”
Dean winced and lowered his eyes. But he nodded.
Cas sighed. He righted his pants and scooped Dean into his arms. Turning to carry him across the foyer, he noted that Cain was gone. They were alone. As they should be.
Castiel mounted the stairway. Dean melted into his arms, whispering, “She caught, then?”
“I smelled at least two distinct new scents,” Cas agreed.
“Congratulations, Papa,” Dean said with his head resting against Castiel’s chest. Boneless.
Castiel took Dean to the Master suite, closing the door behind him with his foot.
Notes:
Whew! Gimme a minute to catch my breath.
For those who didn't think Benny's advice to knock Dean's head halfway across the foyer was appropriate, you're right. Benny meant it hypothetically. But Castiel's wolf was obviously listening. And, well, Dean had stopped listening to words.
I fully expect questions, concerns, etc. This is the kind of development that could hit us either way. It's a love it or hate it kind of evolution. Cas went wildly OOC with both his mate and his husband.
Lastly, I overwrote Billie's section. But I felt compelled to give her a good long spotlight. Aces are underrepresented in stories, even considering how small a proportion of the population we constitute. And so often, where they are represented, it's often still depicted as a fulfillment of the drive to pair up romantically that other characters have in their arcs. I'm right here doing the same thing to Billie. So it seemed important to explain why. To clarify Billie's orientation, she's an aromantic sex-indifferent asexual. She can have sex. She just doesn't want it. And she isn't attracted to anyone romantically or sexually. But she craves a D/S connection, and she wants a Pack. She's been exploring options to build one based upon platonic and hierarchical bonds, not romantic or sexual relationships. And then Helene showed up. So that's fucked.
That is all. Carry on, Pack lovelies.
Chapter 21: Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Summary:
Jack's helping a novice Omega learn the ropes, and the kid learns fast. At the facility, it's just another day in the life. Cas is putting out fires and leaning on Billie and Dean to do it. The new assistant needs some breaking in. At home, things are running smoothly. There's a contentment making it feel cozy. But Cas and Dean still need to discuss what happened last Friday.
Notes:
This was a quick turnaround from the last chapter. For some folks, that'll be welcome. For others, it's tough to keep up. But I go back to class sooner than I'm going to be ready, and that means a serious slow down to my free writing time.
Y'all! Falka_Tyan wrote a crack-fic reply to the foyer scene in the last chapter: Find it here. It's awesome and had me rolling!
Thanks a million times! I'm honored.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
NOW:
“Take your time, honey. I know it’s awkward.” Jack embodied patience, trying to ease the young Omega toward a headspace that would let him think.
“There are just so many of them,” Erich whined, glancing over his shoulder at his Alpha father. “How do I know which one to pick?”
“Okay, well, first thing’s first,” Jack reminded him. “You’ll want to start with sexual orientation. How would you describe the gender you’re attracted to? Women, men, any, none, fluid, trans? We can work with whatever. What sounds most appealing?”
“I…I’m not sure. I like girls…but I kinda like boys too, I think? I’m not sure it matters.” Erich’s face flushed bright red, and he seemed unable to look at his father anymore.
Jack glanced at the powerful man looming behind them. “Alpha, this would be easier for him if he had a little privacy, I think. Would you consider waiting outside?” he asked, assertive but deferential.
“I’m not leaving, no,” the grizzled man replied with his arms over his chest. “Erich, come on, boy, make a choice. It’s not that difficult. You just look at the pictures, and you pick someone. This isn’t rocket science. It’s just fucking.”
“Right,” Erich sighed, licking his lips nervously and casting a worried look at Jack.
“Look,” stated the Alpha. Rodrick. “I’m not against taking the matter back home and handling it myself. You said you wanted to try some stranger in a lab coat, or whatever they dress up as. So, here we are. Now pick one or let’s go home.”
“Let’s make this easier, Erich,” Jack said into the tension. “You’re okay with any gender. That’s fine. That opens it up and makes it easier to match you. We don’t know your Tertiary designation yet, so let’s just…”
“He’s a Submissive,” the Alpha interrupted. “Give him a Dominant. A strong one. Kid needs a firm hand.”
“Erich?” Jack shifted the ball back to the actual client, trying hard not to lose his cool. Alphas always made these things harder.
“I…Yes. Yeah, that would be good. Only, I don’t know enough about submission to do it right. I don’t know the poses or anything. I played around a little with some of the websites, but they all have different positions and labels, different expectations, and I’m just not sure… I don’t know what to do. Would I get in trouble for that?” Erich’s terrified expression broke Jack’s heart.
“No, man. No. We’ll put you down as a Novice and Untested. They’ll guide you every step of the way. No one’s going to expect you to know things you haven’t been trained for yet, especially before your Keller test.” Jack leaned forward and typed into the computer. “I have just the thing for you. I actually have a duo who love to work with young Omegas who are getting familiar with it all.” He pulled up one of the contract Dominant’s profiles, a muscled man in his late thirties, handsome with a rugged face and broad shoulders. “He looks tough, but he’s a lot gentler than he looks…with newbies anyway. He can get rough with an experienced brat. I can attest to that myself. I sat in on his recertification test.” Jack laughed softly at the recollection.
“He looks,” Erich stammered, embarrassed. “Yes, I think he’ll be good. You said a team? You mean there would be two of them? I don’t think I want two…”
Jack cut in. “Well, only one is a Dom. The other is a Sub. She’s there to help show you what to do and to take the pressure off a little. It’s a safe way to handle the unknowns for a first timer. If you turn out not to be Submissive, then the scene can continue, but they adjust. Sometimes when that happens, the Dom uses the client as an object of submission for the Sub. He would make her take care of you. You know, that kind of thing. And you still get what you came for. And if you are Submissive, then having a mentor to show you the ropes is a clever way to break the ice, help you figure it out.”
Erich’s ears glowed furiously pink in embarrassment. Jack guided his hand to the mouse and encouraged him to click around in the profiles for himself. He wished he could kick the dad out and have a talk with this kid who was clearly an Ozzie, but who just as clearly had been conditioned to believe that Submissiveness was a shameful attribute. It must be crushing to grow to adolescence and discover you’d turned into everything your father despised. And an Alpha father at that.
Poor kid.
“I don’t think we can afford two…”
“It’s not a lot more expensive,” Jack told him. “They prefer teaming up, so they set a special rate.”
“Papa?” Erich asked over his shoulder. “He says I should pick this pair. Can I get two?”
“Do I have to pay extra to get him a good strapping while he’s in there?” the Alpha asked Jack.
Jack turned in his chair to face him, watching peripherally as Erich continued to trawl the profiles. “A certain degree of impact play is included in the package when you contract with a Dominant, sir. It’s the Dom’s discretion whether to employ it or not. But it wouldn’t make sense to hire a Dom and then tie his hands, so to speak. Of course, if you want impact play for its own sake and not as part of an organic Dom/Sub scene, then yes, there’s an extra fee for that. Everything is negotiable. We have an à la carte menu.”
“And if I’m not satisfied with what happens to him in there?” the big man challenged.
“There’s a full-satisfaction guarantee, Alpha, but to my knowledge, almost no one ever needs it. If you like, we will record the session so you can review it for yourself. A recording can be helpful in a case like this, more for Omega stability purposes than for quality control. You take the recording home with you and let Erich keep it. We find a lot of young unMated Omegas do well if they make use of their early contract recordings. Between-Heat masturbation sessions play a key role in Tertiary balance for Ozzies. They don’t take the place of spanking to Balance the Secondary, but they can keep a young Omega’s wolf comfortable until there’s a stable partner in the picture.”
“I want him handled, you get me? I want him fucked within an inch of consciousness. I want his ass roasted. I want him Dominated. Kid needs his cherry popped, and if he don’t want me to do it, then it’s gonna happen the right way here or he loses his chance to have a say. My mama died screaming, you get me? That’s not happening to my boy.”
“Papa.”
“Zip it, Omega. I’m not screwing around with this shit. Even if you wasn’t at risk of that Omega sickness, I know who you are deep down in there, and this is what you need. No arguing.”
“Yessir.” Erich’s eyes hit the floor. His hands fell to his lap.
Okay, yeah, maybe Jack had judged Alpha dad harshly. It could well be fear and not shame driving his distaste of his son’s designation. He was clearly Ozzie, and a Profound Submissive, at that.
“Standard scening rates start at fifty bucks for an hour. Add-ons are extra,” Jack said to the Alpha. “Liam and Lisa together are seventy-five. There’s usually insurance coverage for an Omega’s first time pre-Heat at sixteen. We’ll need your insurance information.” Erich had clearly tuned Jack out, back to scrolling through the pages. Jack noted he lingered on the profiles that included images of leather and bondage. He even touched a tentative fingertip to one of the pictures of a young man elegantly suspended in ropes. “You can look over the add-ons and decide what level you want to include. I wouldn’t recommend going past a level D-ten impact for a first scene. Best to save the straps for next time. See how he does with paddles.”
“Kid takes a belt like a champ,” the Alpha told Jack.
“At home, yes,” Jack explained. “But for a contract situation, the stakes are different. It’s safer to build up to it. I can get him on the schedule today, and let you take prep instructions home with you. When was his last Heat?”
“July twenty-eighth,” Rodrick replied at once. “What kind of prep instructions? He’s Omega, he doesn’t need prep.”
“No, not that kind of prep,” Jack assured him. “There’s a required infection screening, a hormonal prophylactic that’ll need to stabilize in his system, and a waiting period. All the details are in the booklet. It sounds like a lot, but it’s really not. It’s for everyone’s safety, Alpha. Plus, the contract spots fill up in advance. Even if he were already medically cleared, I’d still have to put you off six weeks waiting for an open appointment. But once he’s on the schedule, getting into the rotation is smoother. You can set him up on a cycle if you like. It’s better for his stability to keep with the same contractor as often as possible.”
“Two of them?” Rodrick asked skeptically, nudging his son in the back of the head.
Erich bowed his head deferentially and smiled slightly. “Just this once, Papa? Please. I don’t wanna face a Dom like him by myself on my first time.”
“Hmph,” Rodrick grumbled. “I’m not a fan of this new finagling attitude, boy. You get what I feel like giving, and you’ll be grateful, or you can go try your begging on the street corner. See what that gets you.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Erich replied respectfully. But he smirked at his lap where his father couldn’t see.
Alpha sighed a put-upon exhale but shrugged. “Sign us up, I guess. Better get this thing nailed down before we lose the slot.”
“That’s great,” Jack told him cheerfully. “Let me put the details into the system, and I’ll get you set. He can come in for the exam and blood tests any time next week. The clinic doesn’t require an appointment for that.” He reclaimed the mouse and keyboard from Erich, who seemed sad to see the profiles disappear to be replaced by dry forms. Jack patted his thigh reassuringly and nodded him toward a wall display rack full of brochures for different contract designations. The brochures held many of the same photos, and Erich busied himself perusing them.
“By the way,” Jack said over his shoulder as he typed the preliminaries. “We’re having a Facility fundraiser this month if you’re interested. Some of our contractors have volunteered for an auction. We’re holding daily events at lunchtime in the cafeteria. All students, clients, and staff are eligible to participate. As soon as I swipe your credit card for the deposit, you’re officially a client. So, if you want to grab lunch and buy a quickie with one of our contractors, the auction’s going on right now.
“No penetration, no genital-to-genital contact, and the contractor has to okay all play, but pretty much everything else goes. Most buyers like to just go for it right there in the cafeteria. It takes on kind of an orgy-festive feel once it gets going. But you can also get some privacy if you want to use one of the Blue Doors. Of course, an alpha monitor must go with you, so that costs a little extra. But seriously, don’t miss it. It’s a lot of fun, Alpha.”
“Can we Papa? Please?”
“What do you know about orgies, boy?” Rodrick challenged.
“Almost nothing,” Erich told him, pinking. “But I watched all the videos you gave me for my Heats. And Mitch and me traded blowjobs a few times after school. I’ll bet that sucked compared to a professional. Come on, Papa, please!”
Rodrick sniffed forcefully and glanced at Jack, who was searching the schedule for an open slot. “Well, we have to eat somewhere. May as well see what’s on the menu here. Mind you, I’m not promising anything. And I’m not buying you anything but food. You got your own money. If you wanna waste your allowance on a BJ, that’s your own business. But if I don’t like the looks of whoever’s in the lineup, you and Mitch can just keep practicing on each other.”
Jack was ready for his lunch break anyway, so he led the way once the preliminary contract was set up. Erich walked with a spring in his step and a flush to his cheek. He kept turning around toward his father and beaming. Rodrick tried to play it stern, but the boy was adorable, and his father couldn’t not smile as he followed.
At the door into the lunchroom, Adam distributed flyers for the day’s auctions showing today’s slaves for sale and the process for bidding and playing safely. Jack took one and then moved aside so his guests could each grab one of their own. The three of them moved through the cafeteria line together but then separated to eat and watch the auction.
A round was just ending, but Charlie at the microphone announced a new lineup would be in shortly and directed the would-be buyers to the correct list on their flyers. Jack kept an eye on his new clients for a while, but they looked fine, heads bent over their meals and pointing out names to each other on their lists. He chuckled when Rodrick smacked the back of Erich’s head in a fatherly chastisement that made Jack regret growing up without a dad. They looked happy together.
The room ruffled when Castiel entered with Dean. They appeared harried, speaking adamantly over Cas’ tablet, arguing maybe, but not upset. Just fervent. The husbands joined the queue for food without looking around, minding only their own business, but Jack noticed every student, every client in the room tracked them with their eyes. And it ruffled even further when Michael jogged in on his own and joined Dean at the head of the line, just picking up an empty tray. Dean smiled and kissed the man, but Cas frowned and pointed him to the back of the line. Michael scowled, but he obeyed, joining the end of the queue with a sour pout.
Once served, Cas and Dean continued their conversation as they sought seats. Without really seeming to watch where they were going, they aimed for Jack’s table and took seats, Dean next to Jack and Cas on the opposite side of the table, still arguing.
“…If I don’t go, he’ll just keep pushing. Crowley only understands one language,” Cas was saying. He’d clumsily stowed his tablet beneath his tray and as he sat, he fished it free.
“He’s taunting you, man. Don’t give in to that. Send Benny. Hell, send me. Aren’t you the one who’s always sayin’ submissives don’t make demands?” Dean retorted. “Hey, Jack.”
“Hi, Dean.”
“He’s not submissive, Dean,” Cas answered as he disassembled his burger to dress it properly.
“He is compared to you,” Dean pointed out, watching a panel of auction slaves slide in gracefully and assume naked positions at the little stage at the back of the lunchroom. They lined up wordlessly with their numbers wax-marked onto their thighs. The Subs set themselves side-by-side with their feet wide apart, facing away from the diners, and as one, they bent at the waist, legs straight, and displayed their backsides to the room with their hands on a long bench.
The Doms stood facing the crowd with their legs aggressively wide and their arms crossed over their chests. Some wore leather strap harnesses, but most were bare.
Dean lit up and clapped his hands playfully with an excited expression. “Can we, sir? Please? I’ll be good. Buy me a present!”
Jack laughed and Dean winked at him before stealing a fry from Cas’ tray and digging into his own meal.
Cas turned in his seat to regard the lines of contract slaves. “I suppose I could buy one for you. Who do you like, Pet?”
Dean grinned and blushed. “Pet? Damn, man, you’re in a good mood.”
“Rut and conception do wonders for my disposition, Dean. Don’t push your luck.”
Jack lit up. “Conception? Congratulations, Sir! That’s wonderful.”
“Thank you, Jack. It goes without saying,” Cas told him, “that this news is private for now. Please don’t spread it beyond your mate and Pack Alpha.”
“I understand, Alpha. Mum’s the word.”
“How about Rafio?” Dean asked Cas, practically bouncing in his seat. “I’ll even let you watch.”
“Try to stop me,” Cas told his husband darkly. “And I would expect you’d rather have Travis. You certainly have the most experience with his paddle.” Cas smirked.
“Rude,” Dean complained with his mouth full. Michael joined them, sitting close to Dean, and transferring his extra pie slice to Dean’s tray.
“Thanks, babe,” Dean greeted. “My favorite. Hey, look, Cas says we can buy a slave. You want one?”
Michael glanced up but didn’t spare them much attention. “No, I have everything I want at home.”
Dean scoffed. “What fun is that? It’s a fundraiser, Michael. It’s for the common good. Where’s your civic spirit?
“I don’t have time anyway. My shift starts in half an hour. But you go ahead,” Michael told him with a chuckle. “Just make sure, if they’re going to spank you, they need to ask my permission and fill me in on the count so I can double it at home later.”
Cas laughed out loud, drawing eyes from all around. “Now I see why you’re campaigning to go to Dayton to put Crowley’s dick in a vice.”
“You’re going to Dayton?” Michael asked his mate. “We’ve got Gabe and Kali’s wedding anniversary. Charlotte Con is this weekend. You’re leaving?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Neither of you has an ounce of fun in your souls. Lighten up. No, I’m not going to Dayton. Alpha has it in his head that Crowley needs another Come-to-Jesus meeting and no one but him can get through to the asshole. I told him to send Benny. Or Jo,” Dean said like an epiphany. “Jack, you ever been to Dayton. It’s a party town, man. You’ll love it!”
“Jo and I are both going to Charlotte, Dean,” Jack reminded him. “And so is Benny.”
Cas gloated. He took a big bite and made no bones about his I’m always right face. Dean kicked him under the table and immediately found his cheek pressed into the tabletop with the Alpha’s fist tangled in his hair.
Damn, but that man could move fast.
“Apologies, Alpha,” Dean squeaked up at him.
Cas let him go and went back to his lunch as if nothing had happened.
At the stage, Charlie tapped the mic. “Here we go, folks. Round two. Let me remind you that all proceeds go to Omega services. It’s a great cause. Don’t be bashful. You don’t need that big-screen TV anyway. We’re starting with the Subs. And just a reminder, if you’re a neutral, you can place wagers on anyone up here. These guys are pros, my people. They can switch it on and off. Aren’t they pretty? Can I get a round of applause?”
Dean stood up and wolf-whistled before whooping with his fist pumping the air.
“Really?” Michael sighed. “How is it that Sam has so much decorum and you’re like a five-year-old in a China shop?”
Dean snorted. “Look, man, feel free to trade me for Sammy, but I doubt Jess will go for it since it would mean a sexless life.” He popped another of Castiel’s fries in his mouth.
“I thought you straightened him out,” Michael accused Cas.
Cas shook his head, unbothered. “He won’t stay that way for long, no matter what we do,” Cas told the Omega. He watched the auction’s start over his shoulder while he chewed.
Dean leaned into Michael’s space. “That’s because there’s nothing straight about me,” he jabbed. “Get it? Straight? Because I’m not? Get it?”
Michael’s face flattened. “Yes, Dean. I get it. You’re gay. This is not news.”
“Pick me one, man,” Dean chirped, electric in his seat, eyes dancing. “Who should I buy?” He scanned the offerings, ignoring the Subs.
“Seriously, is he on drugs?” Michael asked Cas.
“You would know that better than me, Michael.”
Jack snorted. “The bidding’s started if you guys want to get in on it,” he pointed out.
Michael looked up at the lineup, scanned the options and then read over the flyer he’d been handed at the door. He flipped his flyer and noted he had a unique number in large print on the back. Michael took his pen from his shirt pocket, circled two names on the front and slapped it onto Dean’s tray just shy of his plate. “Here, Dean. You may buy either of these, but no one else. Don’t spend more than two hundred. If you lose out, too bad. Text me the results. And I wasn’t kidding about permission.”
Michael stood up, collected his tray, and kissed the surprised look off his mate’s face.
“You’re leaving? You barely ate a thing,” Dean asked, baffled.
“Lost my appetite,” Michael said. He nodded to Cas and Jack and picked his way through the growing crowd to discard his tray.
“Jesus, he’s a grouch.”
“He’s your True-Mate,” Cas pointed out reasonably. “I don’t write the rules.”
“The hell you don’t,” Dean replied immediately. “Jack, do you have to put up with shit like this at home?”
“I don’t,” Jack answered with a naïve, open expression. “But then, I stuck with only one Top.”
Cas smiled into his drinking glass and turned again to watch the bidding. It didn’t take long for the slaves to be bid on, paid for, and collected. Those who won one casually put them to work wherever they felt like it, generally opting for oral gratification, although Meg stripped bare, straddled Elaine’s lap, and then chose nothing harder than an intense make-out session with Ketch looking on and guiding Meg’s head now and then.
Dean wrinkled his nose at Michael’s selections. They weren’t who he had his eye one. But they weren’t awful either. Dean dutifully held Michael’s flyer up when Percy’s name came up, but he bowed out when one of the clients he didn’t know bid two-fifteen, apparently for his young son if the glowing face beside him meant anything. Geez, Ozzies were getting younger and younger all the time. Was that kid even legal?
Dean tossed his flyer on the table and attacked the pie Michael brought him. “I’mma be late for the meeting, Cas,” he said with his mouth full. “I’m all revved up now. If I don’t win the next one, I’m gonna need you to lend me a hand.”
Cas lost the humor to his eyes. He leaned across the table. Jack leaned back. “You’re to be on time to that meeting, Dean Michael. Don’t make me enumerate a consequence. You know my expectations.”
Dean sputtered. “But the auction winners have to finish up now or lose their chance. C’mon, Alpha.”
“If you don’t have time, don’t bid,” Cas replied. “I will see you at one-thirty. On the dot. Don’t test me, Dean.” Cas stood up and collected his tray to head back to work.
“You’re not staying? The auction, Cas. It’s a big deal. It would mean a lot to the contractors if you stayed at least a little while. You’re their Alpha. They wanna show off for you.”
Cas looked around, reading the room, and he found Dean was right. They were watching him. “Very well. I’ll stay for a while. But I need to get back soon.”
“You need a real lunch break anyway, Alpha,” Jack agreed. “It’s not healthy to scarf and run.”
Cas shot him a half-shrug. He couldn’t help it most of the time. His time was precious, and once he’d eaten, sitting about in the cafeteria ate away at his productive time. He had a hard enough time keeping his head above water as it was. But now that his lunch was consumed, Cas could wander the rows of tables and connect with his institutional Pack. There was that. And it counted as a break because Cas enjoyed these people. He touched Jack’s shoulder on his way around the table. He tugged Dean’s head back with a grip of his hair, and he kissed his lips upside down, leaving his tray for Dean to deal with, and he began a casual stroll between the tables to gladhand and catch up.
“‘Nother reminder, folks,” Charlie called. “For you noobs, there are absolutely no recordings of any kind allowed in the lunchroom. Phones in pockets, please. Alpha’s here, so you’re not going to get away with it. Don’t even try.” Cas held up a thumbs up in acknowledgement. Charlie went back to the auction.
“That’s your guy, Dean,” Jack reminded him as Charlie moved on.
“Nah,” Dean said. “No fun by myself. I’ll stick with my own fellas. I have the cream of the crop at home anyway.”
“I mean, look at him though. If I were gay, I’d probably bid on him myself.”
Dean laughed. “You would hate Jonas, Jack. He’s a prick. He has no sense of humor at all. He’s all business.” He eyed the portly Dom, reconsidering. Annoying a Dom who wasn’t amused at his antics was fun, more fun for Dean than for the Dom, even if they always got their own back in payment out of Dean’s ass. It was worth it. But Dean had so much to do today. And with Michael and Cas both out of pocket. His heart wasn’t in it like it had been.
“I might surprise you,” Jack said lightly. “You know Jo can be pretty harsh when she’s on a strict alpha kick. There’s not a lot of laughter when she’s reading me the law. But it’s satisfying anyway.”
“You dog,” Dean teased, finding his lightness kicking back in, throwing off the maudlin coverlet that had tried to swamp him. “You know, I’ve known her my whole life. She even showed me her wolf avatar the day she discovered it. But she’s never let me in on the intimate stuff. Told me there needs to be a wall. What’s that all about, huh? A wall? For what? I tell the bitch everything, and she wants a wall? So, tell me, what’s the deal? Is she kinkier than she looks? She is, right?”
“She’s my mate, Dean. And my alpha. I can’t tell you anything she doesn’t want you to know. I owe her more than I do you.”
“Okay, right. Fair. I get it. I love her too, man. But just, like, she’s not a full Top, right? Just tell me that. She switches, right? Cause in the Keller panels she switches. They use her as a fulcrum bridge. So, she’s gotta be a switch. It’s logic.”
Jack laughed. “I won’t talk about Jo,” he reiterated. “But I can talk about myself. I’m a switch, Dean.”
“HA! Knew it!”
“I didn’t know I had a Bottom side before I Mated, but I do. I enjoy Jo’s alpha designation. And I also enjoy topping. I’ll admit, there’s not much power-exchange to what I like. It’s mostly vanilla sex. But it turns out that I like catching almost as much as pitching. Who knew?”
“I knew,” Dean pointed out before hiding in his water glass and watching Jonas lead a young woman from the legal department away by the hand. “Just couldn’t ever get Joanna Beth to admit it.”
“Female alphas have a tough go of it, Dean,” Jack reminded him. “They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. They don’t truly fit anywhere. Expectations about their wants and needs are rife with misogyny and patriarchy, and it can be exhausting to address again and again. We should give her some space to be private about her preferences, Dean. Because we love her.”
“Well, look at you,” Dean said with a smile less patronizing than his words sounded. “She did good with you, Jack.”
“I consider myself the lucky one,” Jack told him seriously.
“Yeah, she is pretty great.”
“You know,” Jack caught Dean’s wrist casually but released it when Dean cast the grip a meaningful look. Jack went on unbothered. “She told me about her crush on you. We have no secrets. But I’m not worried. I’m not jealous. Jo has enough room in her heart for both of us, and you’ve been a good friend to her for a long time.”
Dean chuckled. “She tell you she only fessed up to that crush because of you?”
“Would it have mattered if you knew sooner?” Jack asked.
Dean raised his brows in a facial shrug and finished off his pie, thinking about his best friend. “Jack, she and I hand off the big job title in a few months. She’s gonna need a steady hand at her back for that. The job comes with a whole new level of pressure. She’s pretending she’s ready, but she’s actually freaking out on the inside. I’m gonna need you to take care of her, you get me. I can’t do it. It’ll look like I’m babying her, and that will undercut her authority.”
“She’s held that role before, Dean. Maybe not for long, but she did the job well.”
“I know, man. I know. But she had the lite version. Benny and Cas were fielding a lot of it because they were holding out hope that I’d come back. Plus, the Keller Institute adds a layer of complexity that wasn’t a part of it when she subbed in for me. And don’t get me wrong, Jack. Jo’s ready for this, really. But she’s going to freak out anyway. It takes time to wrap your head around it and find a rhythm. It’s bigger than anything she’s ever done before. Just be there for her, would you?”
“Of course,” Jack replied, solid.
Dean couldn’t put his finger on it, but Jack just had a way about him. He seemed hopelessly naïve, but he never seemed dismayed by the awful circumstances of many of the Omegas he worked with. He was sweet and kind and tough as nails. And unflappable. He was perfect for Jo.
“Stop ogling my mate, Winchester,” Jo chided as she strolled up and squeezed in between Dean and Jack even though no one was sitting on Jack’s other side. Dean held his ground, but Jack spoiled it by shifting over happily.
“Hello, Jo,” Jack said brightly. “How was your morning?”
“Shitty,” Jo replied with a kiss. “But I’m better now.”
“Gawd, kill me now,” Dean grumbled loudly with a shove to the back of Jo’s head.
“Go fuck yourself, Dean,” she told him and then promptly ignored him. Dean collected trays, offering to take Jack’s, and stacking it on top of Cas’. Then he slid Jo’s toward him too, feigning clearing it as if he weren’t aware she’d only just sat down. He barely escaped a fork stabbing through his hand.
“Jesus, Harvelle! That almost got me!”
“My name is Lafitte, Winchester. Don’t be an ass.”
“Only because you didn’t have the pull to get your Alpha to adopt your name,” Dean gloated.
Cas called him just then. “Dean!” and he waved Dean over.
“Gotta go, Lafitte, Alpha Winchester is calling. You get the trays.”
Dean skipped away before her slap connected. Cas looked like he wanted to ask but thought better of it.
“Dean, I want you to meet Alpha Johansen. His son Erich is coming of age. He’s scheduled a pre-Heat contract scene and will be Keller testing soon after. His Pack is out of Lincoln. It’s sizable and holds a significant degree of sway in Lancaster County.”
Dean shifted tracks in his head effortlessly and introduced himself with formal gravity. “Dean Winchester, Alpha Johansen.” He stuck his hand out for a firm handshake, an alpha grip from them both. “It’s good to finally meet you. I’ve heard good things.”
“The name’s Rodrick. That was you driving up the bidding on my boy’s birthday present, wasn’t it?”
“Oh. That.” Dean blushed and rubbed the back of his neck with a glance toward a soft mat near the stage where Percy had the kid on his back with a slick finger in his ass and the small Omega dick in his mouth. “Sorry about that. Didn’t know it was a special occasion. Percy is worth it, Alpha. He’ll take good care of…”
“Erich.”
“Right. I wasn’t trying to drive up the bid. I was honestly looking for a nooner myself. Jesus, he looks young. Percy knows he’s a virgin?”
Cas leaned in. “I’ll leave you to it. It was good to meet you, sir. Dean, if you have time, would you show the Alpha around before he goes?”
“You bet, Cas. I live to do your bidding, my Alpha.” He leaned in for a kiss.
“Alpha Johansen,” Cas said with a nod and then took his leave.
“I can’t stay for a tour, alpha,” Rodrick mentioned, looking around. “Really shouldn’t have stayed for lunch. Need to get back. Packs go squirrely when their Alpha’s out of town, you know. But Erich’s been antsy lately. Nervous about this birthday. He needed a little quality time with the old man.”
“Sixteen?” Dean asked.
“Mm,” Alpha Rodrick replied. “Kid’s covering for it well, but he’s scared out of his mind. Talked me into letting him get his nerves worked out of him before the big test day, but I’m going to insist that if he’s doing that, that he does it right. None of this hedonistic nonsense. I bought him a traditional scene. See if you people can knock his head back on right.”
Dean chuckled. Traditional Alphas retained some old-fashioned ideas about Omegas. But at least he’d taken his son somewhere safe. “When does he cycle next?” Dean asked. “You know it’ll be a doozy? Sounds like Erich knows already too.”
Rodrick nodded, watching the orgy build around him, unaffected. “Not until October. He lucked out on that front. We got time. He’s my oldest. Apple of my eye, and all that. Wanna do right by the kid. I’ve got folks back in the Pack telling me to do it by the old ways, let the Pack take care of him when his Heat hits. But you folks make sense to me, and I’m going to give you a chance.
“If this contract scene sets his feet back on the ground and his Keller test don’t knock him for a loop, I’ll give that Omega Services beta—Jack—a chance to talk me through the rest. That right there…” Rodrick nodded toward the mat where Erich’s head fell back, and his fists clenched at his sides. “That’s a good start. Kid needs to learn what his body can do. But it doesn’t get him through the hard stuff.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Dean agreed. “Alpha, if I can offer a little advice.” Dean pulled his own alpha out front, sizing up the Secondary of the man before him and finding himself weightier. He used that difference to affect significance in his tone. Rodrick’s pupils dilated, a sign his psyche registered the dynamic shift, and he listened attentively. “Keep Erich on the birth control we’re going to give him before his appointments here. If you don’t do anything else for your son, do that. Make sure he stays on it until he Mates, and then let him and his mate decide when the time is right to end it. The compound is safe long term. The whole staff here has used this cocktail for years, and we’re stable. It makes a world of difference for Omegas’ life choices, Alpha. It’ll mean a great deal to your son.”
Rodrick glanced away from Dean for a moment to check on his son. The kid looked to be in good hands, but he wasn’t trusting enough to let a strange man rim his boy without keeping watch. That was his oldest son, his only Omega for now. He nodded. “I agree. Wish we’d had the good meds when I was a pup.” He looked back at Dean and cocked his head. “Why do you care so much?”
Dean huffed at his own fervency. “There but for the grace of god, you know? I’m an oldest son, myself, Alpha. Felt like I dodged a bullet when my knot dropped. That got me thinking about why being Omega would have felt like such a death sentence, and it all grew from there. It shouldn’t mean a kid’s life is over just because he grows a channel. It should be a blessing, not a curse.”
Rodrick chuckled. “He’s a good kid,” he nodded. “Little flighty, maybe. But he’s smart. Wants to enlist like his old man. Go into high tech communications in the Navy. That wouldn’t have been thinkable in my day, Dean Winchester, not for an Ozzie. You and your teams here, you’re doing something important. Things are opening up for kids like Erich. But you still have a lot of convincing to do. I’m not putting my Omega son on an aircraft carrier that deploys for eight months if he’s not safe out there. And the Navy won’t assign him a high stakes role if he’s going to go wonky and put lives at risk. You get me? We gotta be sure. Your theories sound great. But the proof is in the pudding here, and the pudding is my kid.”
“Give us the chance to prove it, Alpha Johansen. We can show you how to support him, and we can teach Erich everything he needs to know to stay stable. Once he’s tested, we’re going to be obnoxious about getting him signed up for training. And if you’ve got younger kids, there are innovative programs for them as well. Safe ones. Talk to your Omega Services coordinator. You got Jack? That’s good. He’ll see to everything. It’s a whole new day for young wolves, Alpha.”
Rodrick laughed, watching a contractor who didn’t know his son outside of lapping at his virgin channel, cuddle and pet the boy with a warm smile on his face. “Cool it on the sales pitch, alpha. We’ll see.”
All around the room sessions were finishing up. With the limits proscribed on the contractors, no knotting, no reciprocation, the little scenelets were brief. Of course, as always, the scent of sex brought the wolves out in some of the observers, and several non-contractual tête-à-têtes continued even as the contractors disengaged. Erich stumbled back toward his father a little dizzy but fully dressed and grinning.
“Happy birthday,” Dean offered the boy, who beamed at him.
Dean left them, short on time now. But connections like that were critical to their mission. Dean would never take lightly the chance to win over a Pack Alpha who clung to skepticism and had the reach to affect the opinions of others. It was that equation precisely that would make the biggest difference. It was worth the time investment. And that Alpha had noticed that Dean himself cared enough to spend time with him even without an appointment. It was forward propulsion the hard way, but Dean had never been afraid of hard work. Once an Alpha joined their cause full force, they had an ally forever.
“Crowley, you’re moments away from a summons to appear in my office for a full accounting,” Castiel rumbled into his conference line. He could sense the meeting room on the other end of the line fall still. “I’ve had it with the stalling. Implementation was scheduled for two months ago, and none of your excuses is acceptable. I am not going to replace you. I am not going to excuse you. And I am not going to hear one more half-assed plea for another extension. Time is up. Get it done and get it on my desk and do it now!” Cas hated raising his voice in his official capacity, but the beta had a way of getting under his skin. There were initiatives in the wings fully planned and staged and waiting on nothing but funding, and Crowley had all the resources at his fingers to provide that, but he failed to live up to his promises quarter after quarter.
Dean would have come through. Dean always found a way.
Cas had even talked through Crowley’s excuses with his husband to get a lock on whether they were legit or not, and Dean had just rolled his eyes before unpacking each one and showing a viable path around them. But this wasn’t Dean’s job. It was Crowley’s. Crowley wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t incompetent. It was looking more and more like Cas needed to send someone out to Dayton to bring Crowley to heel, but he was loath to pull that trigger. Crowley needed authority over his staff. Undercutting him could have long-term repercussions. But the man was a brat of the same flavor as Nicholas Maraby, capable of burning everything around him down to get the attention his brat needed. Unlike Nick’s, Crowley’s brat was Secondary—a part of his beta, not his wolf, and that altered the response techniques. Crowley was no Bottom.
“Alpha, I assure you,” Crowley’s infuriating sycophantic voice purred over the line. “It’s coming. We’re close. There’s no hurrying government bureaucrats without greasing palms…”
“Do not bribe government officials, Fergus!”
“Indeed,” Crowley replied. “And so we continue our efforts to prod them, and we wait.”
“You have one day,” Castiel growled. “Either send the contracts by the end of the day tomorrow or get on a plane and bring them to me by hand. Your choice.”
Billie slipped into Cas’ office with her brows raised, a sign that Castiel’s voice carried into the hall. He glanced at her and raised one finger.
“I live to serve, Alpha,” Crowley mollified. “Will there be anything else?”
“One day,” Cas repeated and then hung up. “Damn that man!” he exploded at Billie. “He’s doing this on purpose!”
“You’re going to have to deal with it, Cas. He’s testing you.”
“Goddamn beta-Dominants! What is it with them?” Cas threw himself back into his chair with his fists mussing his hair loose from the artful toss Dean had shaped it into that morning with some product or other.
Billie cleared her throat and leveled him a meaningful glare.
He sighed, righting himself. “Present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course,” she replied. She dropped a file folder on his desk with a slapping noise.
“What are you doing here, Billie? You have a mate to bond with.”
Billie’s jaw tightened and she shook her head and dropped into Castiel’s visitor’s chair. “She went back to New York to close up shop. Got no one at home but the cat. Working helps.”
Cas steepled his hands and regarded her coolly.
“No, Castiel,” Billie said apropos of whatever he was thinking. “I made this mess. I’ll clean it up.”
He cocked his head and frowned. “It’s not a mess, beta. It’s a Mating. You’re going to be fine. Let it evolve organically. Don’t fight it, kiddo.”
“I’m not your kiddo, Castiel James.”
Cas grinned. He leaned forward and let the springs of his chair vault him to lean on his elbows. “It’s going to be good for you, Billie. Let your instincts build your bond. She’s an appropriate choice for you.”
“Not according to the readings,” Billie pointed out.
“Fuck the readings,” Cas replied. “Go with your gut. The bond formed. That means it’s a feasible connection.”
“She’s allo, Cas. This is insane. I’m going to let her down. I can’t… I just… I can’t. Jesus, I sound like Becky!”
He chuckled at that. “Look, Billie, this was a blindside. I know. But it’s not a terrible thing. She knows who you are. God knows she’s had every chance to choose someone else. But she wants you, and she put everything on the line to prove it. She’s allo and you’re ace. So? Get her a partner to play with. Add that to your Domme routine. Have fun with how you portion it out. Get creative. And build a life for the two of you that honors you both. Platonic bonds can be just as intimate as sexual ones. You know that. You’re the one who convinced me of that, for fuck’s sake. So, when you’re done moping and you pull your head out and look at the gift Helene gave you, then take a breath and start laying down a foundation.”
“I don’t have time for this, Alpha,” Billie moaned with her head in her hands. That earned a full belly-laugh, reminding her she’d get no sympathy on that front from the poster boy of making time.
“You’ll make time,” he laughed. “I have full confidence.” Then he pulled the file she’d brought closer to him. “This for the Adolescent Training opening?”
“Max asked me to drop it off. Glance over it, but nothing’s changed. He needs your stamp in a couple of places, and then it’s done. We’re only waiting on Monroe to come through with movement on the Minimum Age of Consent bill, and we’re off to the races.”
Cas opened the folder and began skimming the documents. “That and sustainable funding,” he grumbled. “We’ll be in beta-phase until we get the shackles off, and I need adolescent venues at every site by next year or it’ll stall.”
“Go to Dayton, Cas, and read Crowley the riot act. Plant his face in the dirt in front of everyone. Hell, do it out by the flagpole at the morning rush. Get that asshole’s attention. He’s baiting you.”
“And I won’t be baited!” Cas snapped, irritated at being pushed by everyone. “I have far too much on my plate to lose three days in Ohio for something that should have been handled three months ago! I’ve got a pregnancy to manage, a new training program, a research breakthrough…!”
Billie held up her hand in a stop, and he desisted. “I know your calendar, Cas. None of that needs you at the helm. Nothing is more pressing than securing the funds we need for expansion and administering the new program. Bobby’s got Monroe. The pregnancy will manage itself for a bit. Kevin can handle the research. Max and Deacon have the new wing in hand. It’s time for you to go get Crowley. No one can do that but you.”
“What happens when I step down?” he asked only half rhetorically. “How is Miles going to manage?”
Billie laughed. “Miles has ways, Castiel. As do I, which is what you’re really asking. We’ve been talking it over. It’s not lost on either of us that we’re setting precedents for the entire world to emulate. Seems to me that the only real difference between an Alpha administrator and a beta is weight and enforcement. So, I’m going to carry a big stick wherever I go and let her do the backup for me, kind of daemon of my very own to enforce my will.”
He nodded, still perusing the complex final drafts of his and Dean’s brainchild for preparing young teens for adulthood. “Just be careful with your big stick, beta. Josie is ambitious. If you don’t have her complete loyalty, you could be setting yourself up for a coup, end up with a demon at your side instead of a daemon. You’ll want a Claim on her, and that isn’t going to be an easy tumble. Anything less than a DF is doomed to dissolve too fast to be any use. She’s got an up on you, Billie. You’re going to need her help to make a Claim stick. You can’t topple her on your own.”
“Dean Claimed your ass,” she noted. “It can be done.”
“Agreed,” he said with a wry expression. “But it requires an alliance with the strongest designation of the person being Claimed if you don’t have the weight to do it naturally. Dean had help. But Josie’s strongest designation is her wolf. It’s going to be difficult to topple that.”
“We’ll see. I think she may have a Primary that can muzzle her wolf.”
Cas allowed the moment to lengthen without blinking until Billie looked away with a huff. “I’m working on it, all right? I’ve got this. Trust me.”
Cas picked up his pen and jotted his initials under a brightly colored arrow, transferring steely blue eyes to the paperwork. “What else?” he asked without pausing his reading. “You’re not still here so I can pick at your professional decisions. What’s up? I’m busy.”
Billie sighed heavily, a sign she had news he wasn’t going to like. Cas raised his eyes without lifting his head.
“Wilhelmina…” He drew it out, knowing it would get under Billie’s skin.
“That is not my name, you ass.”
He laughed, closed the file, dropped the pen with a flourish, and leaned back, crossing his ankles on his desk. “Let’s have it.”
“There are rumors again,” she told him.
“Ah,” he sighed. “Who is it this time?”
“Max,” she told him without wincing. “They’re saying he rose to the Omega lead because he takes your knot without bitching about it the way Dean does.”
Cas rolled his eyes and put his feet back on the floor. “Well, at least this one makes logical sense.”
“This will undermine his decisions if you don’t address it, Alpha.”
“Then let’s address it,” Cas said decisively as he put his feet back on the floor. “Any suggestions? I’m aware it’s not your job anymore, but I value your opinion.”
“Go with shock and awe on this one, sir. We can’t play up Omega purity culture. The kid is more promiscuous than Balthazar. He reports his outside sexual encounters in a spreadsheet.”
Cas laughed. He clicked around in his computer files looking for a template Billie had strummed up years ago when rumors of profligate use of his wiles were constant. He would rephrase it for this circumstance and distribute copies into every inbox, tweaking it to burn their eyeballs as they read.
“It astounds me that we must still contend with slut-shaming what with the results of our research. Copious sexual encounters are good for young Omegas. Good for Max. That boy is a paragon of Lupin decency and a damn funny guy. And he’s never had any contact—tactile or visual—with my knot. So, putting these rumors to rest should be a simple matter. I’ll send this out at four. Warn him, would you? Tell him he’s not required to dignify the rumor with a response, but he is to report every untoward conversation or insinuation to you. Alert me if we need to double down. Are there any specifics I need to know for the memo? Is the rumor wider than our institution?”
“It’s a standard trope, boss. It’s probably leaked to the satellites, but I don’t anticipate wider spread. If you word that memo well, it’ll probably leak to the press, so keep his name out of it directly.”
“You’re sure about shock and awe? He doesn’t deserve to become a pariah for someone’s loose lips and wild imagination. Can we tamp it down by tracing it to the guilty parties?” Cas tapped his keyboard with loose fingers. “I can make time to address it directly, even if it requires multiple iterations.”
She shook her head. “No, we need to address this institutionally. It’s got wings.”
“How the hell am I just hearing about it then?” Cas blurted.
Billie pursed her lips and averted her eyes meaningfully.
Cas huffed. “I don’t have time to train Mick. I need you.”
Billie leaned in close. “What you need is a handler, Cas, but you hired an assistant. It’s your own fault. He’s not up to this.”
He shook his head. “I promised to give him a chance.”
“Fine. You gave him a chance. And he let a harmful rumor metastasize under his nose, and it’s threatening a competent Omega professional in a company that promises to protect Omega employees from bullshit like that. We must be better than this, Castiel. Your representation IS this company. You can’t allow this kind of thing. Mick failed…” she asserted definitively. “Fire. Him.”
Cas sighed again. She had a point. But Mick needed the job. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll take him with me to Dayton, and I’ll make the journey unpleasant. I’ll know by the time we return if he’s got the chops for this assignment.”
Billie stood up and approached the door. “Send the memo through me, boss. It needs to come through as a team message.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He typed rapidly. “Also, you want to tweak my wording.”
“Of course I do,” she replied. “Because you suck at subtlety.” As an afterthought, she said, “You know what would help with Mick? Sic Dean on him.”
She shifted clear of the door when Mick-the-new-assistant poked his head in with a single abrupt knock. “I’m not interrupting, am I?” he asked as he slipped in. The alpha-Neutral seemed to take up far less room than Castiel’s former assistant, hesitant in his bearing. Billie eyed him down the length of her nose.
“We were just finishing up, Mick. Come in.” Cas returned to the manilla file folder on his desk and shuffled through until he found where he’d left off.
“Yes, Sir. I adjusted the agenda for today’s Top Staff meeting like you asked. And I shuffled tomorrow’s meetings to free you up at lunch. Will there be anything else?”
Cas finalized the signatures for Max, closed the folder and handed it to Mick. “Give this to Max Banes. Tell him I said he did an outstanding job, and that Billie will be phoning him on a different matter within the hour.”
“You know, Mick,” Billie added from beside the door. “When you fix the agenda, you can just fix the agenda. Doesn’t require a visit in person. Also, you’re going to need to pack a bag.”
Mick looked round. “Am I going somewhere? Alpha?”
Cas shot Billie an exasperated look. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes, I need to go to Dayton for a few days, and you’re coming with me.”
“Now? Alpha, it’s Charlotte this weekend.”
Behind his back, Billie mouthed, “Wow.”
“Are you planning to attend the Charlotte convention?” Cas asked, befuddled.
“No, Sir. But I always watch the live broadcasts of the ballroom panels. Your husband is a hoot.”
Cas blinked up at him, at a complete loss. “Billie, that will be all,” he said without looking away from Mick. “I’ll see you in the meeting.”
“Yes, Alpha,” she said in a dead-calm voice and left without a ripple.
Cas continued to stare at Mick.
“Too much?” the man asked his boss with a wince.
“Uh, yeah. Tone it down a little. You’re coming off as a rube. And there’s no need to disguise yourself around Billie. She’s trustworthy.”
“Sorry, Alpha, it’s just, this hiding in plain sight thing, it’s easier to do if I go method instead of turning it on and off depending on who’s in the room.”
“Mick, you’re not a double-agent.” Cas rubbed his forehead. “You’re my assistant in truth and I need you governing my media presence. The only thing we need to keep understated is the degree to which you serve as personal security.”
“Right. Yeah. I got it.” Mick’s English accent was thick, regional, and faked. The man was Irish, but he had chosen an affected persona, and Cas didn’t care enough either way to call him on it. He faked it well enough to pass. Except with Billie, who noticed immediately and had despised him ever since.
“Please arrange for the two of us to travel to Dayton on Thursday afternoon, staying through Sunday night. You have until we lift off to decide how to explain to me why I had to learn of a prevalent unfounded rumor of untoward sexual conduct between me and an Omega subordinate through my ex-assistant instead of hearing it early enough to stop it at its roots from you. That will be all. Thank you for adjusting the agenda and tomorrow’s appointments. In future, Billie is correct. I do not require a confirmation in person that you’ve completed assigned tasks. I don’t require confirmation at all, for that matter. Please just do as I ask.”
Mick blanched. “Sir, the rumor. I didn’t give it any credence because…”
“Not now, alpha. Later. We have the entire flight to Ohio to discuss it.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“You’re dismissed. Please be on time to the meeting. That gives you…” Cas checked the time on his computer screen, “ten minutes to walk that folder to the new wing, find Max, put it into his hand, congratulate him on a task well-done, and return. If you need to pee, do it quickly.”
“I…I… Yes, Sir.” Mick bowed his head formally and left, leaving behind a scent of humiliation and outrage and a vague sense that he had almost clicked his heels in a faux-military salute. Cas had pissed him off, but the alpha bit it back.
Cas ran his tongue over his teeth, hating himself just a little. But he couldn’t pussyfoot around this. He needed someone he could trust, not a fawning sycophant. God knew he already had enough of those. With the company growing faster than ever, the culture in the halls was shifting corporate in a way Cas could no longer fully control. Many of the new employees hadn’t been indoctrinated with the same sense of Pack that the old hands were. Cas found the doe-eyed lingerers outside his office and near his conference rooms an irritating distraction. He harried them rudely when he found them, but they seemed to multiply anyway. It had come to him rebuking all of the managers of The Facility to keep their employees reined in or suffer his displeasure, and he had told Billie he held her personally responsible for loiterers.
Dean had found it funny. Until he didn’t.
And now the rumors were starting back up.
“Hey, boss,” Dean opened the door and invited himself in. “You hungry?”
“We just ate lunch,” Cas protested, but Dean wasn’t talking about food. He grinned and slid onto Castiel’s desk with his knees to either side of Cas’ chair and he leered down at Cas’ lap. Cas laughed. “There isn’t enough time to do to you what I’d like, Pet.”
“Then just take a minute, babe. I felt you, CJ, through the bond. Felt you ready to blow your top, and now’s not the time for it. Wanna spank my ass? It’ll make you feel better.”
Cas grinned, matching his husband’s energy. He felt worlds better just having Dean’s hips under his hands. “I would, but then I would have to attend the meeting with a painful erection, and that would defeat the purpose. I will take a kiss though.”
Dean leaned over and planted his lips on Castiel’s, reveling as always. He sat back up and scooted back to a more stable position and ran a thumb across Cas’ lower lip. “Who put the burr under your saddle? Want me to take care of it for you?”
“Oh, would you? Yes, that would be greatly appreciated.”
“Who am I ganking?”
“It’s Billie, Dean. She’s out of control.”
Dean’s mouth fell open, and his face paled. “Oh. Uh, really?”
Cas laughed, standing and tugging his husband to the edge of the desk and grinding his hips in to feel a flash of delicious friction. “Damn, I love you so much. The things you do for me.”
Dean preened. “Anything for my Alpha.”
“Everything’s fine, love,” Cas assured him. “Just a little disagreement with my new assistant. We’re working things out.”
“Ugh, that guy. You’re kidding with that guy, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Speaking of which,” Cas said with a tilt to his head. “Did you know there was a rumor about me and Max Banes?”
“Oh, please. It’s a half-assed clumsy attempt at smearing you.”
“Billie says differently,” Cas told him. “She’s worried it’ll stick to Max even after I’m clear. I wouldn’t expect you to miss that point if it were a concern, Dean. Is she overblowing it? We’re planning a slash and burn site-wide memo.”
“Go ahead and lay waste,” Dean agreed. “But I don’t think it’s got the sticking power Billie expects. Your reputation here is solid. Like water off a duck’s back. And if folks don’t believe it of you, then there’s no mud left to sling at Max. Besides, that kid, man, he’s got friends. He can look after himself. He’s like the Omega version of you. Thinks in five directions at once. I wouldn’t even be surprised to hear he started that rumor for his own purposes.”
“Dean! That’s an appalling assertion! He’s in a vulnerable position and completely at the mercy of a misogynistic society. He shouldn’t also have to suffer the inequity of alphas making light of the situation.”
Dean raised his hands, palms out. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Look, if you could get to know him better, you’d understand what I mean. He’s not as vulnerable as a lot of Omegas. He’s got a cunning mind, and he makes use of it a lot like you do yours. ‘S all I’m saying. I know you have to keep your distance these days. And I’m sorry about that. The dude is good people.” Dean slid to his feet. “C’mon. Let’s get there early and scowl at people to freak them out.”
Cas landed a blazing swat on his ass as Dean reached his office door.
Dean knelt comfortably on the floor in front of Michael, bent double onto his elbows, nude, silent, still, flat-backed. Michael’s ankles crossed where they rested between his shoulder blades as he lounged in a cushioned chair and made use of his mate as a footstool. Michael’s view of Dean’s ass, quite explicit but artfully blocked by his own outstretched legs drew his eyes out of his tablet again and again. The pups played in their pajamas on the floor, up late and growing sleepy. They left their daddy to his Sub work. Explaining the expectation to them helped, but it was the scents surrounding Michael and Dean as a pair that had the biggest impact, made them temporarily unapproachable.
Michael kept an eye on his brood, content. No one was cranky yet, despite the late hour they’d allowed bedtime to stretch to allow Michael a chance to enjoy them for a few moments after his shift. Through the intercom, April’s playing accompanied their soft wind-down. It cast a drowsy spell on the whole room. As often happened, Kat sat beside Alex sharing a colorful book with him, dutifully turning the pages, and explaining the story she knew by heart. Alex named each pictured character for her, pointing them all out and looking to his sister to be certain she agreed with his assessments. Several feet away, Emma and Jimmy were building something. It had started as a tower of Legos, but they emptied several bins looking for building supplies and were now employing items of all kinds in their monstrosity of an edifice.
It was peaceful.
Dean shifted slightly, resetting his knees. Michael raised his feet to allow his Sub room to adjust and then set them back in place. Michael felt a purr rise from his mate, echoed within his own head and through both bonds, and he was content. Tonight was Michael’s night to make use of Dean. He didn’t regret trading a hard lash for a soft exercise in simple submission.
The door opened, admitting Cas with Kate at his heels. Pups looked up and brightened.
“Papa, we’re reading,” Kat informed him. “Come see!”
Cas beamed, catching Emma up into a tight hug and then dropping onto his knees to embrace Jimmy as well. The monstrosity they had been building toppled noisily. “What on earth are my children doing out of bed this late?” he asked them. Giggles all around. Alex took the book in one hand, dragging it along the ground, and took Kat by the other to lead her to the imposing figure in the middle of the room.
Michael calmly set his tablet on the table beside him next to his wine glass. “Just a one-off, Alpha,” he explained in a voice that didn’t break the hypnotic pulse of April’s piano. “There’s no harm in an occasional late night in PJ’s.” Michael set his feet on the floor to either side of Dean’s calves.
Cas nodded as pups crowded him from every direction, settling into his lap, leaning against his shoulders, touching him for support only Papa could supply. He took the book from Alex and opened it, wrapping arms around Emma, Jimmy, and Alex while Kat peered around his shoulder. “One story, and then it’s off to bed with all of you,” he decreed.
Warm backs and heads settled back into his body to listen and snuggle. Michael leaned back in his chair and tapped Dean’s hip with his foot to gain his eyes and then gestured him up into his lap. Dean’s eyes retained their soft glaze as he perched sideways on Michael’s lap and sought his mate’s scent glands with his nose. Michael cinched him in close.
“Papa, Daddy was be good for O-Pop,” Jimmy informed Cas. “We didn’t int-rupt. O-Pop said let him work.”
“That’s very polite of you,” Cas praised. “Thank you for listening so well. That makes Papa proud of you. Shall we read?”
Jimmy nodded with fascinated wide eyes, happy to have pleased his father and happier still to be in his lap with his attention bestowed. Cas turned to the first page, one hand holding the book and the other stroking down Kat’s back. He read to them, lightening his tone, leaning into the story, and animating his face playfully. Heads grew heavy against his chest. Kat sat down beside him and let her weight rest against his hip and Emma’s thigh. By the time the story ended, Jimmy was fast asleep with his mouth hanging loose. Alex slumped bonelessly in the middle, and Emma sucked her fingers, serving as a support for Alex and Kat both.
Kate stepped in and collected Jimmy, easing him up without waking him. Cas nudged Emma slightly, and she found her feet, still sucking two fingers, barely awake, moments from succumbing to tears. Cas managed to stand while bringing the other two up with him, and he freed a pointer finger for Emma to cling to. Two heads found his shoulders, and his daughter trailed along on sleepy feet as he led her from their play-space into their bedroom.
He glanced toward Michael and Dean with a gentle look of approval at the slacked look of glazed-eyed peace on Dean’s face. Dean followed him with a lazy expression, hardly shifting at all.
Cas paused briefly beside Michael’s chair and spoke very softly.
“I’m going to need to steal him from you when I return, Michael. Apologies for that, but he and I need to speak before I leave tomorrow.”
Michael nodded against Dean’s head. He answered just as softly and ran a hand through Emma’s hair, a simple caress. “We’re finishing up, sir. He did very well. He’ll be ready to re-emerge shortly. Just give us a moment.”
Emma sniffled sadly. She looked up and raised her arms. “Papa, carry me too,” she pleaded.
Grandma found them and collected Emma, shushing her tenderly when the pup complained. Grandma was no Cas. But even Alpha only had so many arms.
“Nooo,” Emma whined all the way into the bedroom. Cas followed at a sedate pace.
Michael kissed the side of Dean’s head and nudged him into sitting upright. “You with me?” Michael asked.
“Mmm,” Dean answered, blinking heavily. He stretched sore muscles. “I’m good. You… you get what you needed?” He nuzzled into Michael’s throat, behind his ear, into his hair. His muscles were soft and warm. His knees and elbows glowed a bright, irritated pink.
“You were so, so good for me, Dean. I enjoyed every moment.”
Dean smiled sleepily. “Happy to be of service, sir,” he answered.
Michael rubbed Dean’s thighs, working blood back into motion. “What does Alpha need you for tonight? Are you up for a talk with him? I’ll make excuses for you if you’re not. I can pour you into bed and release you for breakfast time to him. That might be better.”
“Nah, I’m okay, man.” Dean rocked to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. He yawned. “Gimme kiss. I’ll come to bed in a few. Leave me the outside.”
The sound of piano music desisted, leaving an oddly empty feeling in the pups’ little playroom. Michael pulled Dean close for a warm, sloppy kiss, savoring the warmth of his body and the laxity of his muscles. “Summon me if you need me, Dean,” Michael told him.
Dean chuckled. “I’m good, love. Go to bed.”
Castiel returned to hear the end of their exchange, and he chuckled as well, just a gentle affection.
Michael wordlessly pointed out the folded pile of clothing that Dean had discarded. Dean winked. Michael clicked off the intercom, buried his hands in his pockets, nodded respectfully at Cas, and then left at a stroll.
Dean pulled on a pair of boxer briefs, turning his back on his husband. “Flying out tomorrow?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Billie agrees with you about Crowley’s provocations. She’s certain it’s intentional,” Cas admitted. “But she agrees with me that it’s something I need to attend to myself. “ He dragged an empty toy bin into the middle of the room and knelt to begin clearing toys. “I’m taking Mick with me. I need some private time with him so we can clarify expectations.”
“You’re taking the jet?” Dean leaned over to help clean the clutter.
“Flying coach isn’t feasible anymore. I admit you were right about that.”
Dean huffed and plonked down onto the floor on his butt, stretching out to collect some toys that had rolled under the art table. “I’m always right, CJ.”
“And humble as well,” Cas joked.
“It’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect.” Dean tossed a couple of plastic stacking cups the length of the room into their specific bin, landing them perfectly.
“Indeed, how do you stand it?” Cas teased.
“It’s not easy,” Dean admitted.
It didn’t take long to tidy the room. Cas settled on the squashy couch and beckoned Dean. Dean straightened the bins along the wall and then ambled closer to his husband with his head cocked to one side. He collapsed onto the floor in front of Cas with his legs out wide, leaning back on his hands.
In the doorway, April appeared, demure, her hands clasped before her. “Sir? Do you need anything before I go to bed?”
“Pups are in bed, Kitten. I have nothing planned between us tonight. Go on to bed. I’ll take care of you in the morning after I run.”
“Night, Dean,” she said with a soft, happy drawl. “Goodnight, Cas.”
They both bid her goodnight.
Dean shifted to lean forward and play with the weave of the rug. He traced it with a finger and tucked a loose thread under.
“Don’t be nervous, Dean,” Cas soothed. “This shouldn’t be a hard conversation.”
“Says you,” Dean replied without looking up.
“What are you expecting?” Cas leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
Dean looked up but then returned to his study of the floor. “I’m expecting to puke my guts up before my flight to Charlotte.”
“Dean?”
Dean rolled up to his knees and knee-walked to wrap his arms around Castiel’s waist and rest his forehead against the man’s belly. Fingers instantly wove through his hair.
“I hate flying, Cas.”
“I know. Try to remember your coping strategies. Michael and Meg and Jo will be with you the whole way. You’re going to be okay, Dean. It’s scary but survivable.”
“Terrifying is the word. Scary is Dad-duty for an entire day by myself. This is so much worse.”
“Dean, we need to talk about Friday. Last Friday,” he clarified to head off any deliberate diversions.
“Friday the thirteenth, you mean,” Dean amended darkly. “The Friday when your wolf played handball with my skull.”
Cas laughed. “If you want to put it like that.”
Dean sat back on his heels. The blue in Castiel’s eyes glowed faintly in the lamplight. Dean shook his head, letting the last of his Tertiary go.
“I don’t get it, Cas. I don’t get what happened. I don’t get the message you or your wolf or whoever was trying to send. I thought it should clear things up, but I’m even more confused.”
“I’m not surprised,” Cas said. “Come up here beside me. Kneeling on the floor in front of me isn’t going to help us do this right.”
Dean rocked to his feet and then fell into the softness of the pups’ couch with his back to the armrest and he threw his legs over Cas’ thighs. “Is it okay if I’m mostly naked?”
“I think I can manage,” Cas said with a lilt of a tease in his voice and a pinch to Dean’s big toe.
Dean scratched his chin and nibbled at his lower lip, leaning back. “You gave me exactly what I wanted from you, man. But now you’re going to take it away. You are, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Cas said. “I meant what I said, Dean. We are not going to play without a contract structure between us. That’s not negotiable.”
Dean looked away. His chest rose and fell in a magnificent sigh.
“I understand that you’re disappointed.”
“Your wolf isn’t concerned about a contract,” Dean pointed out. “That was your wolf on Friday, right? Were you there too? Were you there at all?”
“I was there,” Cas answered. His lashes spread aesthetically against his cheeks as he looked at his hands in his lap. “And I know that what my wolf did must have felt like the kind of overwhelming no-brakes explosion that you want. But, Dean, let me reiterate, we are not throwing out the contract.”
“So you’ve said.” Dean refused to meet his eyes.
Cas smacked his lips. “Talk to me through your alpha, Dean. Why do you want this? I get the brat’s perspective. I need to understand what’s underneath it all.”
“Does it matter? Won’t change anything.”
“That’s your Primary brat talking,” Cas reminded him with his head lowered to catch Dean’s eyes. “I asked for your Secondary. I need you to level with me.”
Dean sat up and crossed his legs Omega-style. He licked his lips. “You keep saying that in a fit of passion, your wolf could break me. Right? But that’s not true. Cas, in a fit of passion it might fracture a bone or leave a bad bruise. But it’s not gonna do anything that won’t heal. Not to me. And a chance to feel that storm wash me out to sea…man, I don’t have the words to describe what the feeling is worth to me.”
“Your alpha agrees with that notion?”
Dean glanced away again and then regrouped, shifted his seat, and looked back to his husband. “Honestly, I don’t entirely understand it from my alpha. But my wolf wants it. My front-brain wants it. And it isn’t just that I want to play harder than you’re willing to go. There are times that I need to be humiliated, put in my place, you know?”
“I do know. I understand what Submissive means.” Cas cocked his head, thinking. “But I also know that you don’t want a twenty-four-seven arrangement. I know that you need space to be alpha and to stand upright, fully dressed, fully in command of your own fate…”
“No, that’s it, though, Cas. Fully dressed? Yeah. That’s true. But fully in command of my own fate? I really don’t think so. I think I want you to set me a peg or two lower than I am now. Shake me by the hair until my teeth rattle. Do it on a whim, man. Take me to the woodshed for no damn reason, not a frikken’ scene. For real. For real, CJ.”
“Why have you set limits in our contract if you want me to disregard them?” Cas pressed. “Why would you confront me, appropriately so, I might add, every time I’ve pressed the limits that you set?”
Dean scrubbed his hands through his hair, scratching his scalp as he fell backward into the arm of the couch and setting his feet flat before him with his knees up. He took a moment, dragging his hands over his face with a deep breath. “Okay, look. The thing is, what I try to do is to play nicely, be safe, follow the rules like a good boy, like you want me to do. But what I want is for you to tell me to stop whining and take whatever you dole out. That means that if you put apes to sucking me off without asking me to sign off on it first, then that’s what happens. No complaining. No refusing. No bitching and moaning about it afterward because it made me squicky. At the core of all of this is that I want to trust you, and if we never test that because we’re always following a script, then where does trust come in?”
For long moments they stared into each other’s eyes.
Finally…
“No, Dean. Not like that. It’s not worth the risk.”
Dean slumped backward. His mouth opened and closed a few times as he worked out how to reply. “Can you explain Friday to me, then?” he croaked out eventually with his eyes back on his lap. “Why then? Why not again?”
“I needed to get your attention,” Cas told him. “This is not blanket permission to turn up the volume every time you want to unleash my wolf. You don’t decide that for me.”
“Did you decide, CJ, or did he?” Dean licked his lips and raised his eyes.
“Do not mistake me, my love. I always decide.”
“You didn’t lose control?”
“No.”
Dean nodded, thinking. “But you did remove his leash. And you stepped out of his way.”
“I did. Yes.”
“Would you do that more often if I asked you to?” Dean glanced up carefully seeking to catch Cas feeling caught out.
But Cas only watched him back, studying Dean’s face. “On rare occasions, yes. Not in the way you’re asking for.”
“Whose was the Jedi voice back there?” Dean asked without preamble. “Wolves are abstract, Cas. And they don’t have language capabilities. Someone inside your melon either posed as your wolf or translated for it. What was all that talk about fear and pain and shit?”
Cas chuckled in spite of himself. “My wolf enjoys his flair for the dramatic. I’ll give him that.”
“That was no wolf, Castiel. Wolves don’t give a fuck about psychotherapy…”
“Ah, but you’re wrong there, my Pet. My wolf is surprisingly perceptive, especially where you and April are concerned. He’s been studying you a long time. It’s critical that he understands what motivates, what drives you, if he’s going to be effective as your Dominant. I think it reasonable to believe that while the words weren’t his, that the insight behind them was.”
“Whose words were they, then? Your Secondary’s, right? Your alpha teamed up to give your wolf a mouthpiece?”
Cas set a hand on the top of Dean’s foot and squeezed. “Yes. As I say, they share a certain flare for the dramatic. But, Dean, had I had the chance to voice what my wolf perceived, it would be different only in the grandiosity of the verbiage. He’s right about you. I’m sure of it. I sense you flailing for a new sense of self, one that doesn’t anchor in a sense of embedded shame. And I believe that a demand to relinquish all boundaries in our play is a manifestation of that—one that you will regret once this moment in your evolution passes.”
“Come on, Cas. Give me something. I don’t believe for a second that I’m the only one salivating at the idea here.”
Cas chuckled. “No, perhaps not. But you are the only one throwing caution to the wind so recklessly. We are not children, Dean Michael. I love you too much to risk you for a sexual high. Highs like that are fleeting. You and me…hey, look at me, baby… You and me, we’re not fleeting. We’re worth more than a flash of gratification, even an intense one, even one that feels like it’s going to linger. Because they don’t, Dean. They don’t linger. We must build our relationship on things that last. Things like love and communication, on honesty and trust.”
“I trust you, Cas. That’s the point.”
“I know. And I’m honored. Don’t doubt that.” Cas licked his lips and smiled tightly. “But you can demonstrate that in so many healthy ways. I don’t want to hurt you the way I did on Friday. Not like that, Dean.” Cas eyed the fading yellow at the apple of Dean’s cheek. “I want to hurt you beautifully. In ways that lift you up. Not in ways that suck you under.”
“Are we back where we started?” Dean asked in a clipped voice.
“We don’t have to be,” Cas told him with his eyes narrowed. “I can make a few allowances. I can make a bit of a change to the way I carry out unplanned scenes.”
“And what’s that?” Dean asked, sounding not especially hopeful.
“If it’s all the same to you, Pet, I’ll keep it to myself for now; allow you to acclimatize over time.” Cas raised his chin, and Dean sat up a little straighter.
“Really?”
“That pleases you?”
Dean blinked and nodded shyly. He discerned the Alpha’s Secondary in the wording, and it made his dick twitch.
“Also, as always, while the contract stays, what you choose to include as far as your personal limits is your choice, not mine. Do not blame me for avoiding acts that you specified should be avoided.” Castiel raised his brows, wrinkling his forehead. And Dean had to concede that one.
“Finally, to the heart of the matter,” Cas continued. “Let’s get this crunch point behind us once and for all.”
Dean frowned. “Crunch point?”
“Dean, when you feel slighted by my wolf’s refusal to slap you across the face in response to your backtalk or when my alpha allows no daylight between what you specify in our contract and what we do in the playroom, that is not a concession on my part; that is my choice, and I want one thing to be crystal clear so that we never need to revisit it.”
“Sir?”
”If I am in charge between the two of us, then I am in charge. That means that if I choose softer, not harder, more civilized, not more savage, control over bedlam, then that is my choice to make, and I expect your obedience. If I were to choose vanilla sex for the rest of our lives, then I expect your obedience. If I were to command you to strip bare at the door every time you walk into my house, then I expect your obedience. If I direct you to stand alpha-proud at my shoulder and back my word to the entire world, I expect your obedience.”
Dean blushed and lowered his head while keeping his eyes on his Sir’s. “Yessir.”
“Again!”
“Yes, Sir!”
“You have confused the fact that I frequently choose to hold myself to a strict level of civility with the notion that I have given up my head-of-house rights to go balls-to-the-wall. You are mistaken, Pet. So let me be perfectly clear. I understand I am not employing my wolf to its greatest capacity. I am equally aware that should I so choose, I could set you back on your heels until your alpha rarely sees blue sky at all. It isn’t that I am fearful of behaving that way, Dean Michael. It’s that I don’t choose to. And as we agreed at our wedding, and before…and after, for that matter, those choices are mine to make. Not yours. If you want to file a grievance, do so politely. Ask for what you want. You will not always get it, Pet. But you will always be heard. If you throw tantrums, you will be reprimanded. If you disobey me, you will be punished. Is that not what you want from this union?”
Dean’s mouth felt like Death Valley in June. He recalled vaguely that speaking audibly somehow involved lungs and air flow and something about his tongue. But none of that clicked for the moment.
Castiel took pity.
“A nod will do.”
Dean tossed his chin toward his chest with no poise or coordination, blushing.
“Good. Then we understand one another. I will not forget what my wolf had to say on Friday, Winchester, and neither should you. Both its actions and its words hold profound significance between us. Do not expect to goad me into repeating that performance. It won’t happen. I make the rules in this house, in this marriage, and in our Tertiary exploits. Unless you’ve changed your mind about acceding to that—and if you have, I promise nothing but will hear you out—I expect this discussion to put your outrage to rest.”
“No complaints, sir,” Dean whispered hoarsely.
“Come,” Cas summoned. Dean launched himself into the man’s arms, worming around until he straddled Cas’ hips and refusing to admit he might ever need to come up again for air.
“Did you enjoy your evening with Michael?” Cas asked, hours later with Dean still on his lap and fingers kneading into Dean’s ass muscles.
“Yeah,” Dean answered, kiss-drunk and sleepy. “He’s good at taking me there, Cas, even without a lot of work. Something he does with his bond. With his side of it, I mean. Something I can’t replicate when the tables turn and it’s my turn.”
Cas hummed, a bit drunk himself. “No need to try to mimic him,” he advised sagely. “You’re plenty talented enough in your own right. I have faith in you, Dean. Your mate is astoundingly well-adjusted. You’re doing everything right.”
“So you’ve said,” Dean murmured, seeking Cas’ lips again. “Fuck me before you leave me for Crowley?”
“Ugh!” Cas rebelled. “What horrifying wording. Take that back this instant!”
“Don’t go, baby. I’ll call off for Charlotte, and you cancel Dayton, and we’ll take advantage of the free babysitting and hide in a hotel somewhere and fuck each other blind.”
“Tempting,” Cas told him with a kiss to the tip of his nose. “Can’t do it. But here. What I can do is give you a little bit of an ache to distract you on your way to Charlotte.” Cas stood him up with a grip to his hips and divested him of his boxer briefs.
“I don’t leave until Friday morning, Alpha. Needs to be a helluvan ache to last that long.”
“On your knees. You have to the count of fifteen to get me hard. I’m going to penetrate you with whatever moisture you leave on my penis, so that is up to you, Pet.”
Dean grinned and dropped to his knees, swallowing as much of Cas as he could get his mouth onto. He broke free as Cas was counting down and peeked up. “Say that word,” he smirked.
Cas chuckled. ”Moist,” he teased before shoving Dean back onto his cock and driving his hips upward. It didn’t take to the count of fifteen, but Cas slowed his count toward the end anyway.
At the end, Dean slurped up the length of his oral fixation, taking his dribbles with him, leaving a minimal coating of spit that earned an eyeroll from his husband and a hearty whack to his ass. Cas picked him up by his hair and armpit and threw him lengthwise on the pups’ couch on his belly with his face crammed in the crack at the junction of arm, seat, and back. Cas smacked the inside of his thigh to get him to open a space, and then he took to his knee behind his Sub, aimed after swiping a spit-slick thumb across Dean’s hole, and pressing firmly in.
Dean’s breath caught. He clenched.
“Stop that,” Cas rebuked. He clutched Dean’s cheeks and pressed them outward, using the foot braced on the floor to muscle his way deeper.
Dean wheezed and white-knuckled the arm of the couch. He craned his neck to seek fresh air and keened.
“Relax, Pet, and let me in.”
Dean huffed desperately. He found his knees and pressed upward and back, curling his spine, opening his hips, bearing down, giving his Top more space.
Cas bottomed out to his knot and then held as Dean breathed through the burn. The Dom placed his mouth right behind Dean’s ear, bringing chills with his breath. “Defy me at your peril, Pet,” he breathed. Dean’s shudder wracked his entire body. He was still mid-tremble when Cas pulled back and then slammed in again.
On occasion the Alpha could make love with tender care, bringing shivers of pleasure to Dean’s body. But after a discussion like tonight’s, after the completion of a Rut, shortly before he left home for days, the moment demanded power, and power was what he delivered. Dean’s arched back ached. His asshole felt skewered and roasted. His grip on the couch as he pressed backward throbbed.
Pups woke and climbed out of bed, but Kate shepherded them back before they made it past the jack-and-jill lavatory to the playroom.
“Come for me, Dean Michael,” Alpha whispered, barely audible over desperately hoarse gulped breaths. Dean shunted his hips under, rolled his shoulders, engaged his thighs to pull one long, sublime friction-filled stroke against the canvas fabric of the couch, and came with his head thrown back. Cas embedded his fists in Dean’s hair and buried himself in his husband’s body and came too, mouthing at Dean’s shoulder until the skin messily broke. Dean groaned loud, long, ecstatic.
It turned out, an ache like that could last two full days and into a weekend away from home. Could even prove a helpful artifact to cling to when a flying phobia refused to respond to any other therapy. Michael sat beside Dean on the flight, offered his hand to be squeezed bloodless as usual, and smirked when Dean refused the sedative.
Geronimo and Shiloh, my furreal goodbois.
Art by Kodgrad
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed! New semester starts next month. It'll be back to infrequent chances to write for fun again, so a slowdown in output. But that's how it goes. I'm still writing.
For those who saw my plea here for a "vote" on a short story contest, I've taken the plea and link down based on further dives into that contest. It's run by a quasi-publisher with a sketchy business model. So... yeah. Thanks for voting, those who did. Your support means the world to me. ❤💖❤
Chapter 22: Thursday, August 19, 2021
Summary:
The new training wing is opening, but Benny still doesn't know the plan behind it. Cas has his hands full between his best friend's doubts and his new assistant's training wheels. Jo spends day one of CharlotteCon with her best friend, a reminder that Dean both a delight to know and a royal pain in the ass. And driving all of it is an increasing ACRI focus on developing strategies to support alphas and Omegas through the roughest stages of all, adolescence.
Notes:
This chapter needs a disclaimer so there's not a misunderstanding as to content. ***I am not leading in to pedophilia here.*** That's not what this is. I set my age of majority at 16 for this species, so canonically, in this AU, 16-year-olds are full adults. Younger than that, they're minors. That line isn't changing. But just as the previous storylines skew real life issues, intentionally making things uncomfortable re rape culture and orientation biases, in order to tell this story, we're getting uncomfortable in terms of age limits. Warning for mentions of dub-con contact between adults and minors, but there won't be any explicitly shown scenes of such. However, going forward, I anticipate showing some fully explicit scenes between 'consenting' minors as the story dictates the necessity - age ranges for that will probably be 14 and older.
That said, enjoy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday, August 19, 2021
NOW:
There were streamers, for fuck’s sake, and confetti that Castiel expected to be scraping out of uncomfortable places for the rest of the day. But as grand openings go, everything went smoothly. The Pack gathered, cheered, celebrated, drank champagne, gave rousing, optimistic speeches, chatted with the press, smiled for photo ops, and wandered the airy, welcoming spaces of the new adolescent training wing.
Cas’ internal chronometer buzzed a constant irritation inside his head, jabbing the fact that he didn’t have time for this. But he stayed anyway, smiling even into his eyes. Charlie kept him in her sights, holding him to his commitment not to sneak out once his speech ended.
Charlie was right. Cas needed to be here—to see and be seen and revel in hope-fueled success with his Pack. Jody and Donna brought the entire dorm down, and the young boarders were fascinated by the labs and workspaces, the gym, the private practice rooms, the spacious classrooms, and the intimate one-on-one therapy rooms. The students scampered from room to room, shouting raucously to one another and showing each other what they’d found. It was mayhem, but Cas let them be. Enthusiasm was a good thing, and the students were close enough to the target audience that watching their excitement was a comforting reassurance that the design would hit its mark in a month when the first waves of younger students arrived.
From the lofty reception area where the opening ceremony took place, Cas watched with satisfied amusement as teenaged students made their way up a wide, spiraling staircase to the floors above, leaning over the railings at each level to shout down to the atrium below for their friends, cascading handfuls of confetti from the highest levels, and playing with the echo.
Benny appeared at Cas’ shoulder with two glasses of champagne, one of which he handed to Cas. “It’s probably better that Bobby isn’t here after all,” Benny observed. “This chaos would give him apoplectic fits. I’m surprised you’re okay with it, to tell the truth.”
“They’re just excited,” Cas replied. “They aren’t hurting anything. It’s a party, after all. Did you have some of the cake?”
“Cas, I can’t get a handle on how you think this is going to work,” Benny said instead of taking the small-talk route. “We went along, built the thing, got it all in motion because you promised you have the vision to back it up, but we’re weeks away from having students in these halls, and we have no curriculum or guiding principles. What exactly are we going to be training the students to do? Masturbation classes?”
Castiel sipped his champagne and turned away to stroll toward a side hallway where it was quieter. Benny followed. In the cool recess, out of the sunlight and away from the echoing cacophony, away from the prying notice of the press, Cas glanced into one of the administration offices before facing Benny again.
“The curriculum is coming, Benny. I need you to trust me. But rolling it out before Styne comes through for us on the legislation is suicide.”
Benny crowded in close and dropped his voice into an urgent register. “What is this curriculum, then, boss? You can’t even show me? Man, I should have been part of the drafting of this thing from the start. What are you and Dean up to?”
“It’s nothing nefarious, I promise,” Cas assured him. “Dean adapted your theories. You’re all over this curriculum. It’s your premise at the base, Benny. Swing by the house tonight and get Dean to walk you through it. I’d do it myself, but I’ll be in Dayton through the weekend.”
“Why the secrecy? If you’re implementing my work, then I should have a say in how we go about it. Cas, brother, if you’re waiting on Styne, then we’re talking about sex with minors.”
Cas pursed his lips then looked away and took a sip.
Benny huffed and copied him. “You’re such a prick,” he grumbled.
“You’ve known this about me for a very long time,” Cas reminded his friend.
“Alpha, we can’t…”
Cas really didn’t want to have this conversation here in plain view, but apparently, they were doing it anyway. Out in the foyer, Max grinned, shook hands, pointed out his favorite design aspects to anyone who would listen, and basked. The kid deserved to bask. This was his accomplishment. He’d risen to the challenge spectacularly. Even more than the building, Max had played a crucial role in developing the prototype curriculum that Cas was reticent to show even to Benny. Benny wasn’t going to like it. But if Cas could convince his friend that thirteen wasn’t too young for some preliminary Tertiary play, then there was hope for the wider Lupin community. Max had been adamant. And Max was the man Cas trusted to tell him the gritty truth. Who better to understand the coming-of-age challenges of Omega youth than an Omega whose youth had been a gauntlet of horrifying experience?
First, they had to help the Omegas. Only then could Castiel worry about alphas like himself, like Benny.
“We should have found more O/D’s by now, Benny,” he said, apropos of the argument Benny hadn’t voiced out loud but was screaming between them. “The training we’ve offered for years now is taking root out there. Society is shifting. We’ve reached critical mass with the young adult population. Our people have made the commitment, and the ACRI methods are the new norm for sixteen-and-overs. And yet, Michael is still our only O/D. Now, I can believe it’s an extremely rare designation. I’ve read the reports and all the statistics, the probabilities and genetic circumstances that would preclude Omega-Dominance from occurring naturally. It’s rare. But it’s not impossible. There should be more. More than just one. They’re still dying at Presentation, Ben, dying on the streets or in prison before we ever see them. We have to develop schemas to carry them through to adulthood, and that means doing things the public isn’t going to like.”
“We’re not going to fuck children, Castiel!” Benny hissed furiously.
“No,” Cas soothed. “But we are going to teach them, and we’re going to encourage them to fuck each other. Under controlled, monitored circumstances. And we are going to develop techniques to validate their wolves’ designations pre-Keller test, so we can find the Dominants and ease them through. It’s all about young Doms right now.”
Benny frowned. “That’s creepy as hell, man. How are you going to keep them safe? How do we do this without looking like a voyeuristic peepshow for young twinks?”
Cas turned it around on him. “Why did you let me build it?” he asked pointedly. “What did you think we were going to be teaching them? Hygiene?”
Benny shrugged and downed the last of his champagne. “They’re teenaged wolves, Cas. You can’t teach too much hygiene.”
Cas laughed and chucked Benny on the shoulder. “Trust me, Ben. We built transparency and safeguards into the programs. I’ve got Jess heading up the legal team. I’ve got Max tearing every word of the policy manual to shreds. He’s ruthless. Nothing skeevy-seeming or even so much as hints at coercive or exploitive gets by his red pen. We’re teaching them everything about consent that no one ever taught you and me. There’s no mandate that any of these kids jump into beds they aren’t ready for. It’s not a boot camp. It’s a safe place for safe exploration of their bodies, their wolves, and their developing appetites. And yes, there will be a great deal of training directed at a wide array of masturbation techniques, with and without toys.”
“And when you spot an Omega whose behavior patterns show internal conflict?” Benny pressed.
“We provide them with extra support,” Cas told him vaguely.
“Extra support,” Benny repeated.
“No one dies on my watch, Benny. Not in my house. Not in my Pack.”
“You shouldn’t have cut me out of the planning,” Benny repeated with a glower.
“You knew what we were doing,” Cas said coldly, upping the metaphysical weight of his wolf. “And you knew you would be obligated to object if you were part of the drafting process.”
Benny huffed what could have been a chuckle or a scoff. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission?”
Cas laughed and touched the rim of his glass to his friend’s. “Always.”
Castiel shed his suit jacket the moment he boarded the company jet, shucking out of it like a boxer dropping his robe and rolling his shoulders. Climbing aboard behind him, Mick sensed the Alpha’s confrontational headspace and paused in the entryway. Cas chucked his jacket across the back of a chair and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. He turned and fixed his assistant with an icy blue gaze.
“Talk.”
At Mick’s back, the door cinched shut with a tone of finality, and he visibly flinched. “Sir, I knew about the rumor, but I did a cursory sweep of the matter and disregarded it. It’s baseless. There’s nothing there. I calculated it would flare up and die back down on its own. Why waste time chasing trivial matters when there are real threats in the wings just waiting for a break in our defenses?”
Castiel listened with his eyes on his sleeves as he rolled each to his elbows, tucking the fabric tightly and flexing his forearms nonchalantly. He nodded once, signaling his understanding. “Mick, do you recall at any time while you and I were establishing the scope of your responsibilities to me and this institution, hearing me say the word cursory?” His blue eyes lifted back to Mick’s while his chin stayed tucked, driving deep lines into his forehead.
Mick cleared his throat. “I can’t chase every rumor, Alpha. There are big fish in these waters, to put in sailor’s lingo for you. What you told me is that I’m responsible for protecting you from threats. Baseless rumors about you and some Omega in a place where half the staff has their dicks in their hands at a fucking staff meeting are not threats. Hell, most people who heard it were all for the idea that you might be on the prowl in the lunchroom there. Folks are hoping you’ll pick them next. Or am I missing something?”
“Have a seat, alpha,” Cas instructed. “Buckle up. Let me explain the definition of a threat to you.” Cas followed his own instruction, taking the window seat facing Mick and leaving his blazer carefully laid across the back of the chair to his left. A sophisticated woman in her mid-thirties approached from the back of the aircraft.
“Whenever you’re comfortable, Alpha,” she addressed Castiel politely, smiling gently, “Captain says we’re clear to get underway. What may I bring you this evening? Are we doing dinner?”
“We’re ready, Jill, thank you. And just drinks. We’re dining in Ohio,” Cas replied, lowering his intensity to match the flight attendant’s polite charm. “I would like a Scotch if you would, please. That smoky one you served me last time was delightful. The Octomore? Mick? A drink?”
Mick snorted slightly and shrugged. “I don’t suppose you have Guinness?” He glanced up at the woman sheepishly, feeling out of place and outclassed.
“Of course, alpha,” she said smoothly. “Have a good flight, gentlemen.”
Once she was gone, Mick had nowhere to look but across at his employer and those icy eyes, stern and forbidding. He leaned in. “Sir, I understand the concept of threats. I know they can come from anywhere, and they don’t always mean the barrel of a gun. But that kind of rumor? Sir, it’s whack-a-mole. I could run myself ragged stomping them out and there will always be more. Meanwhile, the cults dig in under the armory and blow us all up. You’re sending me on a wild goose chase when my focus needs to be on threats that can hurt you. Are you really that concerned about what the minions think you do in your spare time? Alpha, they worship you. You have to know that.” Veins began to protrude at Mick’s temples as his intensity peaked.
“Calm yourself, alpha,” Cas soothed when Mick’s tone lifted toward shrill by the end. “I need you to understand this. Listen to me.” He took the tumbler Jill offered without really looking, pausing briefly to thank her as she set a dark, foamy pint at Mick’s elbow as well. “One, don’t ever use the word minions again, not even in your own head. Two, rumors that involve Omega employees will always deserve your attention, even if you are pulled in eight directions at once already. Three, my reputation is not about me, Mick. It is about this institution and what it stands for. It is about the crusade we are on. If we allow a trace of sunlight between what I need people to believe about me and what others mean to paint me to be, we’ve lost the battle; we’ve lost the war. Threats are a constant reality, and they can sneak under the door while you’ve got your back to it staving off the battering rams. I need you to think outside of that box. I need your eyes and your ears everywhere. Because we are at war, here, Mick. Do you understand?”
“But Sir, that rumor is harmless…”
Cas slapped a hand down hard on the armrest. “It is not harmless! A young professional’s reputation is at stake, a young professional who bet everything on the promise that we are different from what he learned to expect from the world. His trust in us hangs by a spider’s silk strand, Mick, and we have an obligation to protect him! No, I don’t give a fuck what people think I’m up to, not from a personal standpoint. Half of what they suspect I do in my private life likely barely scratches the surface of the truth. But when those suspicions draw an employee into a light that crosses the bounds between private play and institutional abuse, especially an Omega employee, Mick, that is a threat to all of us, in every sense of that word, and I expect you to act, post haste. Is that clear?”
The engines below them fired and rumbled the fuselage. The jet turned, sending a flash of setting sunlight sweeping across the cabin at sharp angles. Mick squinted as the streak crossed his eyeline. “I hear you, Alpha. It won’t happen again.”
Cas held his eye, let the words echo as the jet left the ground. He sipped his whiskey. Warm, peaty vapor coated his mouth and filled his sinuses with a smoky richness. He eventually closed his eyes to savor the sensation. It really was delightful. At length, Cas sat back into the plush luxury and relaxed his shoulders. “Mick,” he said from the cocoon of his captain’s chair, “If this is to work between us, you need to know who I am. I must know I can trust you and you me.”
“No offense, Alpha, but isn’t that something we should have addressed before you hired me?”
“No,” Castiel said bluntly.
Mick stuttered, mused, frowned, and then nodded and wiped the foam from his upper lip. “All right. What do you have for me that I don’t already know?”
Cas smirked slightly. “Let’s dispense with the idea that you’re a special ops-trained security guard. I know who you are. I know your past. In fact, I selected you for this role because of your past.”
“Sir…”
“Relax, Mick. Let me explain. You and I share a philosophy, I believe. Do not mistake me. You bring to me a very specific skillset, and I need you to understand that it is that skillset I hired you to employ on my behalf, not the one you listed on your resumé. I expect you to protect me, my Pack, my associates, my facility, my interests, and my crusade, and I need you to do that in whatever way gets the job done.” Cas held his eye, sending more subtext than explicit communication. The men had no bond between them, but Cas could read the moment Mick caught on.
“Nothing can be allowed to impede my trajectory, alpha,” Cas continued at a low gravel-scratch, a voice too low for Jill to hear. Mick cut his eyes toward the rear of the plane anyway, astutely noting that the message Castiel imparted was one he would not appreciate spreading beyond one man’s ears. His face paled. “Whether that is a physical threat to my person or a rumor that threatens the promise I made to the Omegas I employ. It’s all the same thing. A threat is a threat is a threat. Do not allow anything to harm me.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Mick told him, stout and confident in a way Cas had not yet seen from him before now. “I understand.” He rolled his shoulders as if the metaphorical unbinding felt physical.
“Good,” Cas set his tumbler on the surface beside him, underneath his shed blazer, leaned closer toward his employee with his elbows upon his thighs, hands closer together, and caught Mick up in a private bubble, big enough only for the two of them. He grew philosophical, a heavy weight across the span of his shoulders and a light of destiny in his eyes. Mick fell captivated by the sheer weight of the burden in the Alpha’s eyes. “You and I, Michael Frederick Davies, we are going to rip up the ending to this tragedy our species is caught up in. We are going to rewrite it. We are going to subvert the role of fate and imperative, leaving for our people nothing but freedom… and choice. I…” Cas flicked his eyes up from his clasped hands to Mick’s awed face. “I’m getting ahead of myself.” Cas grimaced slightly and then regrouped. “Let me tell you my story.” The air between them crackled with purpose. “Let me tell you everything.”
By the time the jet began its descent through the clouds, Mick was nodding. He’d heard enough to recognize the twin darknesses within them, wolf to wolf. His eyes shot across the cabin in thought, sharp and wary, a mirror to his racing mind as pins fell into place in his head. His pint sat half-empty, traces of foam drying on the interior surface. Castiel told him enough to communicate that Mick would never get away with hiding anything from his boss, and enough also to feel confident his best interest lay in not trying. Castiel took the shackles right off and tossed them casually out the window to disappear at twenty-thousand feet. Mick understood he would walk away from this jet with carte blanche to do anything he needed to do in the interest of protecting his employer’s interests. That allowance, provided Mick’s efforts were successful, would never be questioned, as long as Mick kept the ultimate goals of Lupin welfare as his driving motivation, as long as he didn’t get caught. It was a heady conversation. Mick felt a little dizzy.
He’d missed the heyday of the IRA’s deepest engagements, but he had cut his teeth on generational outrage back home. The blaze of hatred against systemic inequity coursed through Mick’s veins with his lifeblood. It was the first language he’d learned to speak, taken in with his mother’s milk, and Mick had grown up feeling impotent to target his wrath upon the world with any potency. Castiel held his eye, solemn and stolid, unflinchingly pointing him toward a target.
“We understand each other, then,” Cas concluded, casting the darkness in his eyes back into whatever deep crevasse he stored it in and fastidiously rolling his sleeves back down. Outside, the blackness of the night obscured any view outside their cabin but an occasional sparkle of hamlets on the ground. Mick watched the Alpha button his cuffs, and he licked his lips.
“You’re not going to punish me, then?” he asked reluctantly, kicking himself for bringing it up. “I figured I was in for a right thrashing what with a cockup like that right out of the gate.”
Cas chuckled and reached for his suit jacket. “Do you need a strapping, Mick?”
“What? Me? No,” Mick was quick to respond. “Not usually the kind of thing folks get to decide for themselves, though, is it?” He eyed Castiel’s right hand disappearing into his coat sleeve.
Castiel’s eye twinkled. He slipped the jacket on, busying himself with settling it properly and adjusting everything, tugging his shirtsleeves down at the wrists. “Look,” he said. “Billie and I never needed that to reach an understanding. We tried it once with disastrous results. We never had a Claim-bond between us either. Wolves are not robots, Mick. There’s no magic formula to dictate what does and doesn’t establish a connection of trust between us. You are alpha. That means that our relationship is far more likely to be damaged if I use corporal punishment on you than if I don’t. It also means that the door is open to Dominance-Fucking, if that’s the most effective way for my wolf to explain its mind to yours. That door is wide open, alpha. But I intend to test the waters between us without relying on Claim-bonds to speak for me. If talking works, that is what we will do. The moment I lose you, do not imagine for one moment that I will hesitate to put you on the ground. I have too much at stake to risk everything I’ve built. However, that said, you need to understand that the only time I ever punished your predecessor, it was for softballing her dissent. Mick, when you disagree with me—and you will—I expect you to square your shoulders and tell me so directly. Do not manipulate me. Do not ever lie to me. Do not placate me or soothe me or bullshit me. If you need to raise your voice to me, then seek a private audience, and do it. Get my attention if you must. You will never be punished for adamance if your goals are pure. We are a team, you and I. This olive branch I’m extending is yours to pick up. I offer you my trust. What you do with it is your call.”
Mick regarded the Alpha with a cocked head and a scratch at his chin. Castiel, in one plane trip, put him into an impossible position and then casually offered him no real choice at all. By sharing his own full and sordid life story—all the juicy bits, anyway—Mick hoped that had been all of them—Castiel confided enough to Mick that the only options going forward were to throw all in with the man and follow him till death do they part or have the most powerful wolf in any known lifetime breathing forever down his neck until Mick Davies disappeared in a fog of mystery some gray, misty night in some gray, musty city.
“Trust, is it?” Mick asked airily, hiding, he hoped, the quiver in his throat. He knew enough now to be a threat to Castiel. “No bonding. No compulsion? No straps?”
“Straps are ineffective on adult alphas,” Cas repeated. “And my arm gets all the exercise it needs at home, anyway.” The offhand way he said it somehow broke the tension between them, and Mick laughed.
The overhead intercom crackled to life with an announcement from the pilot that they were approaching the runway and a request to buckle in for landing. Cas adjusted his hips, his clothing, and his drink, slugging the remainder in a single shot and handing the empty to Jill when she appeared.
“Are you going to continue to pretend you’re English?” Cas asked as he reached across to collect Mick’s glass so Jill didn’t have to stretch.
Mick chuckled, caught somehow by surprise. “Americans hear an Irish accent, Alpha, and they think Leprechauns and Lucky Charms. They hear a Whitechapel accent, and they think dark, dank, fog-blanketed riverfront and Jack-the-Ripper. It’s not hard to reckon which persona folks’ll respond to the quickest, especially when time is of the essence. Persona is about more than appearance, I’m sure you agree.”
Cas laughed. “You and I, Mick, are going to get along fine. Forgive me for letting you flounder for a few months. I needed to see what your instincts looked like before I could trust you with more. I need you at my six, watching what I cannot see, and I can’t let anyone into that position who doesn’t have my absolute trust.” The ground rushed up to meet the jet outside the tiny starboard window at Cas’ right shoulder, rubber tires squealing briefly as they made contact and gripped. “What I want you working on tonight while I meet with Crowley is an emergency code list. Put together a code for every conceivable crisis you can imagine. I’ll memorize it on the way home, and we’ll add whatever I feel may be missing.”
“Assuming I miss anything, of course,” Mick pointed out.
Cas cocked an eyebrow. “You have not yet lived in my orbit long enough to have the full experience, alpha. Cockiness does not win you points.”
“Bullshit, Alpha,” Mick returned the volley. “Cockiness wins when everything else fails me. Always has. Tell you what, I’ll wager a month of doing Billie’s filing for her that I don’t miss anything you can think of before we touch back down in K.C. on Sunday.”
“You’re on,” Cas accepted readily. “And if you win, I will cover your Guinness for the next year.”
The jet pulled to a smooth stop outside a hangar that was flooded with light. One shiny, black Escalade waited on the tarmac for them. Standing calmly by the back door, Crowley himself waited with his hands folded before him, looking every bit the oily salesman he was. Mick studied him through the port and then caught Castiel’s eye. “I do love my Guinness, Alpha, but are you sure my time wouldn’t be better spent ferreting out that guy’s skeletons? There is no way he’s not a threat to you.”
“Leave Crowley to me tonight, Mick. I know his skeletons. And no, he’s not clean. You can get up to speed from Billie’s notes and then do your own legwork to verify. But not here. Not in his own back pocket. Assume his people are watching your every move. Assume you’ve been bugged from the moment you step off the plane.” Cas unbuckled his belt and pushed out of his seat. Mick followed.
“If he’s so skeevy, Sir, why employ him?”
“Friends close, enemies closer,” Cas replied. Jill handed him his briefcase at the top of the stairs and accepted a warm kiss to her cheek and a squeeze to her upper arm in thanks. Mick only nodded to her with a tight smile. Cas descended quickly, letting momentum carry him right to the car where he appeared to intend not to pause even if the door hadn’t opened just in time for him to slide in. But slide in, he did. And he didn’t miss the quickly stifled look of alarm on Crowley’s face that morphed rapidly into one of annoyance.
Crowley grumbled under his breath, “Let me get the door for you, Castiel,” in a sarcastic tone that dripped with irreverence.
“That would be Alpha to you, Fergus,” Mick reproved on his way through to follow his boss.
Crowley lifted his head in distaste. “Ah, you’re the new page boy, are you? Nick, is it? How lovely to meet you. I’ve been needing my shoes shined.”
“Get in the damn car, Crowley, and let’s go,” Cas called to him. “I have things to do tonight and sitting on the tarmac isn’t one of them.”
“Of course, Alpha.” Crowley slid into the rear-facing seat opposite Cas, leaving the door for Mick to close. Which he did with a quick, sweeping look around first. “Dinner, first. I booked a private room at the Oakwood. It’s not Kansas City steaks, mind you, but it’s not exactly dog food. The wine list is acceptable.” Crowley tapped the back of his seat, and the driver steered toward the airport exit.
Cas grunted as he extracted his tablet and booted it up. “Take us through a drive-thru, for all I care. We have far more critical things to discuss.”
“Now, Cas, I know your people in Lawrence have you seeing this thing as an emergency, but you’ll see. We have time. Rushing miracles gets you nothing but shitty miracles. I’m finessing things here. There are relationships to foster, and if we apply pressure at the wrong time, in the wrong way… well, it’s like forging a fine sword. It takes a master to craft a masterpiece. You don’t want a sword that fractures with the first blow, now do you?”
“My god, you’re a pretentious blowhard, aren’t you?” Mick observed. The Scot shot him a dismissive scowl and otherwise ignored him.
“Crowley,” Cas said without looking away from his tablet. “Let me be perfectly clear. You can produce for me precisely what you agreed to produce, or you can grow accustomed to mental and physical pain until you do. Everything is waiting on you, and we do not have time to wait. I have four separate, unrelated major projects hovering at completion, requiring nothing but a stable source of funding. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but funding them is your job, is it not?” He finally glanced up, and by the stricken look on Crowley’s face, the beta would rather he hadn’t.
Crowley, being the salesman he was, though, recuperated swiftly. “Let’s not exaggerate, Alpha,” he blustered. “Your projects can’t move forward until the legislation to support them moves forward. And be honest, at least two of those bills are dead before they ever hit the House floor.”
“You let me worry about the legislation,” Cas snapped. “You worry about the funds. Stop playing for positioning. You are precisely where I want you to be, and unless you quit playing two years into the future and handle where you are today, that’s all you’ll ever see. Am I clear?”
Crowley smirked. “Crystal, Sir. As always.”
But he’d scored a point. Castiel’s time as Director was up in less than two years and after that, as everyone knew, he would be moving into Crowley’s position, taking a deliberate, Washingtonian step downward to allow fresh faces to keep the enterprise forever alive and vibrant. Cas didn’t need Billie’s incessant whispering in his ear to know Crowley was planning his exit strategy and fostering good will with people who could ease his landing when he left. Crowley had less than two years left, and then Castiel had no grip on the man. It was a bluff, and they both knew it.
But while Crowley might be oily enough to slip out of many a hold, he was no Castiel. He watched Cas scowl at his tablet, his distaste for his present company leaking from his pores. Then Crowley turned his near simper toward Mick.
“Up on the scores from the home front lately?” he asked, appearing in all visible ways to be breaking the ice. “Cork or Dublin?” Crowley prompted with a perfect Irish accent.
Mick didn’t ruffle. He hadn’t expected to fool the canny Scotsman anyway. He smiled. “I’m a Man-City man, meself, actually,” he quipped jovially.
“Is that so?” Crowley had a trace of teasing in his tone.
“I prefer winners, I do,” Mick added with a wink.
“Interesting,” Crowley mused, studying him.
At the restaurant, Mick let Crowley walk ahead toward the front door, and he caught Castiel’s elbow, facing away from Crowley and whispering. “This bloke is eight layers deep, Alpha. Nothing he says is on the level. Also, he’s fucking enamored with you. It’s creepy. Can’t take his eyes off you, but it’s not just fawning. It’s something else. Makes me skin crawl.”
Cas patted Mick’s arm and continued past him toward the door where Crowley waited, watching them with an amused expression. “Thank you, Mick. I appreciate your insight.”
Mick stood watching for a moment, letting Cas pull ahead of him before he sighed heavily and caught up. The steaks had better be damned good to be worth remaining in Crowley’s company. He diverted himself by inventing clever emergency code words in his head to add to his list and coming up with creative emergency scenarios in which to employ them.
A year’s supply of Guinness might make up for however many hours he had to spend in Crowley’s company.
Perhaps.
Jo swatted Dean’s ass on her way into the seminar room, cheerful with the ebullience of their freshly concluded panel.
“Watch it, kid. Michael logs every tap, swat, stroke, and strap. I think he implanted sensors in my ass cheeks while I was sleeping to keep count. Whatever you touch, he doubles.” Dean let the door swing closed behind him, followed Jo to the end of the long room where stacks of chairs waited and began helping her set up. “Thought the civvies were supposed to manage setup and tear down now that we’re big-name celebrities,” he groused, grunting as he tugged a dolly full of chairs into motion.
“Do you ever stop bitching?” she teased with a wink and a harder slap to his rear. Dean dodged too late, laughing.
“Seriously,” he said. “Are we in the wrong room? Charlie usually has us situated before we show.”
“I don’t think so. Text her.” Jo pulled a few chairs free and set them up facing one end of the room before returning for more. Dean put his phone to his ear, conducted a swift talk with the harried coordinator and then pocketed the phone again. He lifted a stack of chairs free, following Jo’s lead on arranging them.
“She said half the volunteers are no-shows,” he told Jo as they passed each other. “There’s no one free. It’s just us. How’s that for an ego-buster? No matter how many times my face shows on TV, I’m still here, unstacking chairs.”
“You live a rough life, Winchester,” she told him with no trace of a smile.
“You got that right,” Dean agreed. “Wanna see what Michael did to my ass last night?”
Jo snorted but signaled he should drop trou and prove his boasting. She marveled at the coloring, snickering when a vicious thump to the deepest purple surprised him into tucking under and whipping his pants back up.
“I swear I can’t leave you alone for ten minutes.” Michael’s voice caught them both, and they turned as one to greet the Omega at the door.
“Michael! Just in time. Help us out,” Jo beseeched. “This seminar has seventy-five registered. That’s a lot of chairs. It starts at three.”
“Hey, man,” Dean added as Michael joined them. “Where’s your escort? You walking the halls alone? You know better than that.”
“Steve dropped me at the door after he checked inside and saw you mooning your best friend,” Michael told him, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his arm, turning Michael to face him.
“Say that again. Look me in the eyes and say that again.”
Michael halted on his way back for another stack of chairs and faced his mate. Jo watched surreptitiously without slowing. “He saw me to the end of the hallway and watched me from there, Dean. I signaled to him when I looked into the ballroom and found you. I wasn’t unescorted.”
“Then why did you say he dropped you at the door? I can feel when you’re lying, Omega.”
“It wasn’t a lie, Dean. It was a manner of speaking. He didn’t take his eyes off me until I waved him off because I found you.” Michael rolled past Dean and heaved a stack of chairs into his grip, stumbling a little.
Dean disagreed. “You knew it was a lie, or your psyche wouldn’t have signaled to me.”
Michael arranged chairs and then addressed the stack Jo brought while she went back for more. She chivvied Dean, “Walk and talk at the same time, Dean, or skip the talking and just walk. Get a move on.”
Dean growled at her but followed anyway.
Upon dropping his stack at the end of the row, he handed the top one to Michael but didn’t let go. Michael looked up sheepishly, anticipating a lecture. He cocked his head. “Dean, are you mad that he didn’t walk the length of an empty hall with me or that I didn’t explain the distance between him and me when I joined you?”
“Maybe I’m mad about the shitty confrontational lippiness,” Dean quipped. He let the chair go and pulled several off the top of the stack himself, skirting Michael to line them up on the floor.
“Seriously,” Michael complained. He set the chair down and crossed his arms. “What was going to happen to me between there and here?”
Dean pressed his lips into a tight line and closed the distance between them. “Nothing,” he admitted. “The escort is supposed to stay with you until he sees for himself that you’re in safe hands. I know that rule pisses you off, Michael, but you signed the contract, and you promised me you’d abide by it. We had a deal, you and me. I’m not mad at you. But you’re feeling something—something from your Omega—and that tells me that you believe you broke our agreement. I kinda feel the same. You with me? We talked about this.”
“He watched me the whole way,” Michael repeated.
Dean nodded. “I know, man. But tell me what you feel right now.” Dean held his elbow and his eyes as Michael wrangled with his Secondary designation internally, their bonds flaring dramatically in the backwash. Michael lowered his eyes.
“Goddamn it,” he groused toward the floor when his Omega demanded redress. Dean patted his back and returned for more chairs, walking backward to keep an eye on his mate.
“Come on, Omega. Help us get the room in order and talk me through it.”
Michael ran a hand through his hair and trudged to follow. “This is ridiculous,” he complained. “It’s a nothing burger…”
“And yet?” Dean prodded.
“I’m unsettled and flailing,” Michael admitted. He took up the rear of the heavy dolly full of chairs that Dean heaved forward, pushing from behind to get it moving. Together they rolled it to the front and began another row. “My Omega needs a response,” he added. “I fucked up, and I feel like shit about it.”
“What kind of response do you need?” Dean asked after setting a chair in place and lining it up evenly with the others. “Dig deep and search it out. Can we talk you down? Is a confession enough?” He set a hand at Michael’s cheek and drew his eyes back to meet his own. Dean could feel Michael’s disquiet. But he was leading his mate to verbalizing what often went unsaid, a technique that had proven effective in settling Michael’s persistent lingering shame from his upbringing. He’d sloughed off so much of that damage, but Secondary punishments, especially for incidental peccadillos like this, irked him hard enough that Dean considered it a block.
“Yes?” Michael tried pathetically, shuffling his feet like a child.
Dean chuckled and went back to the chairs. Jo wordlessly dragged the empty dolly away and replaced it with a full one, and the setup continued.
“All right,” Dean said with his hands full, following Michael to the far end to begin a new row. “You confessed. Told me it was nothing. I agreed it’s nothing. If anything, the escort is the one with some explaining to do. You’re not in charge of commanding him into lockstep with you. He’s the alpha. So? Are we done with this?”
Michael avoided his eye, distracting himself with straightening the row. Dean put a hand at the back of his neck and squeezed. “Michael?”
Grudgingly, Michael straightened and squared up. “No,” he replied. “I need a correction, Dean. This feels terrible. It’s stuck in my throat, and it burns.”
Dean pulled him in by his grip and kissed his temple. “It’s okay, man. I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Don’t lie to me. You don’t have to do that. I’m on your side.”
“I know, Dean. I’m sorry.”
Dean didn’t torture him with a lecture. He leaned Michael over with his hands on a chair, reddened his backside with fifteen swift strokes of his own belt, and then kissed him thoroughly, smoothing Michael’s hair back into place. “Oh, and you’re grounded until the main panel tonight. Straight back up to our room and stay there.”
“Yes, alpha,” Michael answered, chagrined but calm.
“I’ll get your escort,” Jo offered. She stuck her head out of the room and disappeared briefly, returning with an older alpha of considerable weight. “This is Manuel. He’ll take you up, Michael.”
Dean stuck his hand out to shake Manuel’s hand. A hard squeeze and a red-eyed moment or two later, he let the man go. “And don’t wave him down the hall from the elevator either,” Dean cautioned. “Walk him to his room and watch him close the door behind him.”
“Of course, alpha. He’s safe with me.”
“Don’t worry, Michael,” Dean added with a kiss. “I’ll take care of your absence. It’s just one panel. Ellen can do it solo. I want you in the corner up there for twenty minutes, and after that, if you’re still unsettled, text me. I’ll come running. You got me?”
Michael nodded. He nuzzled his face close to Dean’s scent glands and then pulled away to follow the escort.
Once he was gone, Dean went back to work with Jo. She had a deliciously smug look on her face.
“What?” he asked, somewhat embarrassed.
“Michael’s good for you,” she told him. “And you’re good with him. It’s nice to see how much you’ve grown, that’s all. You’re almost like an alpha sometimes.” Jo found an unlocked closet in the back and rummaged through its contents until she found a couple of tall stools, mic stands, and a box with two mics and cords. Once setup was complete, they leaned into their stools at the front and rested.
“I hate having to do that to him,” Dean confessed. “He’s been looking forward to the Omega panel with Ellen for weeks. His Secondary sense of consequence, though, it’s tightly wound, Jo. Doesn’t matter what either of us feels is justice, it’s his Omega who sets the parameters. Going easy on him because neither of us thinks what he did was a big deal just kicks the can down the road. Then he turns into a brat, and let me tell you, Michael as a brat is not a pleasant experience. You think I can be a childish asshole? He’s that in spades and whole buttload more.”
She snickered and patted his thigh. “That’s what I said, Winchester. You’re good for him.”
“So, here you two are. Oh, thank god!” Meg exclaimed as she walked in. “I thought we’d have to do chairs in this room too. On your feet, alphas. You’re switching rooms with Benny. Your seminar got a glut of last-minute registrations, and this room isn’t big enough.”
Jo protested. “What? No. We just killed ourselves doing the setup in here. We own this room, Meg. It’s on the schedule.”
“Besides,” added Dean. “Since when do more people sign up for alpha class than Dominant class? That’s never happened in the history of our cons.”
“Where’s Michael?” Meg ignored their protests. “Steve said he dropped him off with you.”
“Steve is a dick,” Dean told her as he slid off his stool and put the mic he’d been toying with back on its stand. “He didn’t drop Michael off; he ditched him. Set him up for a Secondary dilemma that ended up getting Michael grounded. He’s up in his room until tonight’s panel. You’re going to have to tell Ellen she’s on her own.”
“What? No. Me? Fuck you, Dean. You tell her. She can’t do a room of two-hundred Omegas alone. We need a substitute.”
“Balthazar?” Jo suggested.
Meg rolled her eyes. “No way. That would be a disaster. The guy does panels like he’s on speed. Besides, he’s in one-on-ones all afternoon.”
“What about Adam?” Dean ushered Jo out of the room to follow Meg’s lead down the hall, trailing after the women. “He’s good in panels.”
“He’s modelling with Sam,” Meg told him.
“You do it, Meg,” Jo said assertively. “You and Ellen have great chemistry.”
“I’m not Omega,” Meg disagreed. They rounded the corner and found the wide hallway a turbulent mass of confusion as alphas whose seminar rooms were being switched around argued and fretted and shouted over one another. “Oh, good grief!”
“You don’t have to be Omega to assist in an Omega seminar, Meg,” Dean told her with a decisive finality. “I’ve seconded in that panel a whole bunch of times. You know the subject matter. You’re good with people…when you’re drunk,” he teased. “Step up for us, sweetheart. It’s a piece of cake for the best nurse the ACRI has ever had.” He winked. Meg rolled her eyes.
They both flinched and cringed when a fearsome shrill whistle sounded without warning from beside them. Jo’s fingers pulled out of her mouth as every eye turned toward her.
“Listen up!” she bellowed. “Seminar rooms are being switched to accommodate everyone. There’s no need to get your panties in a wad about it. I don’t care what your printed schedules say. Give us a few minutes to finalize the new assignments, and it’ll be on the convention web pages and posted on the main boards. Meanwhile, chill the fuck out, folks. The world is not ending. And clear the damn corridor before the fire marshal throws us all out on our asses! Thank you!”
Dean laughed. “I think you went into the wrong line of work, Harvelle. You should be in public relations with that smooth, calming tone of yours.”
She grinned at him, and he grinned back. “Alphas and Dominants, Dean, they don’t take direction well. Have to use blunt-force trauma to the brain.” The mêlée around them continued unabated, but Jo let them all fester. They weren’t her problem yet. “Where are we, Meg? And I swear if the room isn’t prepped, we’re all just going to squat on the floor like a big drumming circle.”
Meg scoffed and pointed them toward the end of the opposite hall. “You’re in the Mecklenburg room now. And finish up on time, because we’ve got to open that room back up into the main ballroom for tonight. Go check it out and make sure it’s ready. The support staff here is a disaster. Don’t talk to Charlie. She’s already having kittens about the volunteer coordination falling apart. If one more thing goes wrong, she’ll hide in the bar until the convention ends.”
Dean sobered. “I hear you, beta. You and me, okay? We’ve got this. Call me for anything Charlie doesn’t need on her plate. You hear me? I’m your coordinator now, Meg. We can do this. We need to pull Charlie through. We’ve seen worse. It’s a piece of cake, right?”
“Thanks, Dean,” Meg said with a somber expression. “I didn’t want to worry anyone, but I was picturing this thing turning into a catastrophe. We need the volunteers.”
“No, we don’t,” Jo asserted. “Let me do this next panel with Dean, and then the three of us will grab Benny, sit down and hash it out, redistribute whatever the volunteers were meant to be doing. We’ll put a plan together and present it to Charlie fully vetted. Hang in there, Meg. Get Benny involved. Fill in for Michael with Ellen, and then we’ll all meet after.”
Meg blew out a harried breath, looked around at the milling, grouchy alphas. “Okay. Okay. Shit timing to put our O/D on lockdown, by the way. But okay. One panel at a time. You know where you’re going?”
“Yep,” Dean replied. “See you in a bit. Get these folks situated. Send them down to us, and we’ll go from there.”
“Right. Thanks, Dean.”
One look into the new room, and Jo’s heart sank. It was a massive rectangular space with a row of dollies at the back—dollies filled with stacked chairs. She looked over her shoulder at Dean and grimaced. “I’m not doing it again, Dean.”
He nodded. “Leave it to me,” he told her. “Follow my lead.” He moved into the room where a low dais marked the front end. It was already outfitted with mics and high stools, the same style they’d found in the Graves’ room on the other end of the building. Dean grabbed one mic, took the stool on the left, his usual, and he smirked. He flipped his mic on and tapped it. Solid pop and no reverb. At least Charlie had checked the audio. That kid was a godsend.
Jo raised her brows at him but shrugged and followed him up. They had twenty minutes to spare, and Dean didn’t seem put out about the empty room. Jo took a deep breath. Trusting Dean to handle a mishap always went one of two ways: into big trouble or into a perfect solution. Jo felt willing to gamble on either outcome. Hanging with Dean was fun.
“Talk to me, Joanna Beth,” he opened into the short breather he’d found for them, letting his mic hang loose at his lap. “What’s going on with you? How’s Jack? How’s things at home?”
She’d been expecting the question for some time. Dean was worried about her through their upcoming transition at work, and he was worried she would show up to work pregnant following her Rut cycle one day, despite his utter lack of business worrying about any such thing.
“I’m not pregnant, boss. You don’t have to worry about me taking maternity leave while we’re transitioning. I know how big a serving I’m taking on. I’m not going to let your precious department drop.”
“Oh, kiddo, I didn’t mean it like that. Come on. You know better than that. I’m the last person to judge you on putting your personal life as a priority. I bailed entirely for six weeks, remember? Relax and talk to me. This is me.”
Jo side-eyed him and frowned. “What are you asking then?”
“You got a big change coming up. It’s scary. God, Jo, I know how scary. The whole national teaching crew looking to you for all the answers, blaming you when shit hits the fan, looking to you for direction in tone and cultural guidance. All the regulations you have to have at your fingertips now, all the curriculum reviews? All the teacher evals? This is big, Jo. You ready?”
She giggled, slightly hysterical. “Is anyone ever ready?” Her belly swooped and her feet broke out in a cold sweat. “But I can’t swim if I don’t jump into the deep end. Besides, you haven’t done a teacher eval in years, you prick.”
“You know I’m right down the hall if you need me.”
“I know.” Jo shot him a look, one he knew from childhood, an iconic Joanna Beth look that she reserved just for him. Here goes nothing, it said. Catch me if I fall, yeah?
“And, anyway, fuck stress and workload, kid,” he added. “You go ahead and get yourself knocked up whenever the hell you feel like. The training department will adjust. That’s between you and Jack.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Jo studied the trace of old duct tape marking mic stand locations on the dais. “Jack said he doesn’t feel old enough himself. Said he doesn’t feel like enough of an adult to raise pups. But really? He’s afraid, Dean. He didn’t have a dad, growing up. He thinks that without a model, he’ll be helpless.”
“Ouch,” Dean replied helpfully. “Yeah, Michael’s tangled up in daddy issues too.” He spoke quietly, all trace of brat and teasing and playfulness disappeared from his tone. “Maybe our next big research push needs to be about paternal influence on maturing pups. You think? Too many of us grow up shaky on the father front. Like you,” he said softly. “And Cas. Even April’s dad messed her up, and he tried hard to get it right.”
“My dad was doing a brilliant job of it…” Jo paused, the usual gut-kick hitting just as painfully as always when she remembered her father. “…until he died.”
“Yeah.” Dean remembered that day as clearly as Jo did, and that was a comfort as she looked across and met her best friend’s eyes. He huffed a humorless laugh. “Mine did great too until we lost Mom. We’re too delicate, emotionally, Jo. Every damn one of us sits right on the cusp of falling apart at the drop of the hat. I can’t say I blame Jack for being cautious. Nothing wrong with letting your Mating mature for a few years before you take that step. I mean, Cas and me, ours matured without us even knowing we were in a relationship at all, so once we married, it was already past time to start popping out pups.”
Jo laughed. “I’m not even going to justify that ridiculous statement,” she told him. “We’ve been Mated for four years now. I think it’s matured all it needs to. But Jack… I will say this: you need to keep your opinions and your worries to yourself around Jack. You hear me, Winchester? Don’t you go needling at him to change his mind. Don’t go inviting us to babysit so we can prove to him he’s great with kids.”
Dean adopted an expression so innocent, Jo burst into laughter and shoved him clean off his chair.
“Excuse me,” said a young alpha from the open doorway. “Is this the alpha seminar?”
“Yup,” Dean replied as he set his stool upright and tucked his chuckling back under. “Come on in. You’re early, but you’re in the right place.”
“Uh,” the guy stepped in and looked around. “Kind of bare, isn’t it?”
Dean slapped on a grin and summoned him closer. “Glad you brought it up. How would you like to participate in a research project our head researcher in behavioral science put together? It’s a practical social study.” Dean turned his back on the man briefly and winked at Jo. She schooled her face to interested, showing no tells that Dean was playing the guy.
“Um, what would I have to do? Is it involved?”
“Nah, man, it’s just a quick experiment in Secondary behavior patterns. It’ll all make sense in the seminar. But I need you in on it from the outset. You game?” Dean guided him in. “We’ve got a reward for you if you say yes. And it’s completely painless.”
As they spoke, another alpha appeared uncertainly in the doorway. She glanced around, nearly determined she was in the wrong place, but then spotted Dean and stepped anxiously forward.
“Even better,” Dean said encouragingly. “This experiment really needs two. Come on in. I was just telling…”
“Jackson,” said the first alpha.
“Jackson,” Dean repeated. “And your name?” he prompted with his hand extended.
She took it, falling more confidently into her alpha at his touch.
“Molly.”
“Okay,” Dean continued. “Jackson, Molly. Molly, Jackson. You two are a team. Here’s the deal. We need to get the room set up for the seminar that starts in a few minutes. You two are our coordinators.” Dean held up a finger in front of himself to draw their attention. Jo turned her back to hide her snicker. “IF…you succeed, we’ll give you both a free pass to any event you choose this weekend or free admission to next year’s convention.”
“I’m in,” Molly said. She dropped her purse behind the dais and began rolling up her sleeves as Jackson headed toward the back where the chairs were stored.
“Hold up, hold up,” Dean called. “There are four rules. You listening?”
They both paused and returned slowly to stand side by side in front of him, listening but wary.
“You’re coordinators, not workers. Here are the rules. Rule one: you cannot raise your voices. One shout, and it’s over.”
The two alphas glanced at each other but said nothing. Dean took that as agreement, and he went on, making it up as he went along.
“Rule two, you can help a little, but you can’t just do the work yourselves. You’re coordinators. You need to guide the other attendees to set up straight, even rows with an aisle down the middle, all under your direction. Rule three, you cannot simply dole out chairs to people as they arrive and have them place their own and then sit in it. This is a work project and an experiment in cooperative effort. The first alphas to arrive, after you two, are your worker bees, and they need to consider themselves conscripted until the whole room is set up. That means no setting out two chairs and then parking it. They gotta keep going until the job is through. New people who arrive should be considered extra hands. Get people involved. But don’t tell them it’s an experiment. Don’t tell them about the prize. That’s for you two only.”
“And rule four,” Jo broke in. “You need to succeed in convincing at least twelve alphas to participate fully—twelve alphas neither of you know. No texting your friends or Pack to come help.”
At the doorway, two more alphas poked their heads in.
“You’re on,” Dean told them, pointing them toward the door. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
Jo watched as Molly and Jackson considered the reward versus the headache, determine it was worth a try, at least, and put their heads together briefly to plan an attack. Nodding, Jackson headed toward the back, and Molly toward the main door, plastering a big smile on her face to greet the newcomers.
Dean backed away silently, and Jo started up the video recorder on her phone, narrating softly into it. Dean’s plan might not be an officially sanctioned research study, but the outcome would be fascinating anyway, and she knew Kevin would slap them both if they didn’t record it. As he remounted the dais to join her, Dean smirked smugly.
She shoved him, and he cackled.
“Shh!” she admonished. “What is it with you? Why do people always do what you want them to do? They wouldn’t have done it for me.”
“It’s because of my perky nipples,” he assured her. “And Shhh yourself, Harvelle.”
Jo recorded the next fifteen minutes on her phone, and honestly? It was a wonder they’d never thought to run this experiment before now. It was a fiasco. And hysterical. And inevitable. And sad.
Molly stood at the door, greeting newcomers and explaining they needed to help with the seating. Jackson started at the back, directing the first arrivals and starting the project moving forward. Right off the bat, three alphas entering together blew Molly off, wandered around for a minute before deciding that standing was uncomfortable and heading back to collect chairs for themselves. Jackson attempted to collect them, but none of them paid him any mind. They ignored the dolly he was heaving forward, chose chairs from a different stack, carried them to the front, set them down and sat, chatting among themselves. Jackson attempted once more to enlist them, but the oldest told him to go fuck himself. Meanwhile, more alphas arrived. Molly did her best. She was charismatic and earnest enough to cajole several into helping, but Jackson sabotaged her efforts. He was gruff and demanding enough that even the most affable of the volunteers soon flipped him off and settled into empty chairs near the front. Several of the enlisted volunteers got into a shouting match over the task, nearly coming to blows. Molly abandoned the door, pulled a laden dolly to the front, and adopted a drill sergeant’s tone, brusque enough that the alpha-Subs in the crowd responded, but quiet enough that she couldn’t be called down for rule number one’s volume stricture.
Jo laughed. “I didn’t consider she might flip Tertiary and try to speak to their wolves,” she laughed. “That might actually work.” For a few rows, Molly had a routine working. Jackson stepped into the role of heavy-lifting support, delivering the full carts and rolling away the empties. He was an alpha-Sub, obviously. But after about three rows, with no messaging at the doorway to conscript new workers and arguments breaking out all over the room, those putting in the work realized they were going it alone as the cherry spots near the front filled up with newbies who hadn’t lifted a finger. In droves, they abandoned Molly before all the best seats were taken.
A broken line of casual observers took up spots at the side walls, imperiously waiting for new chairs to be delivered upon which they could park their alpha asses and ignoring all summons from the two coordinators. Insults began to fly across the room.
Jo tried to hide her giggles, but she couldn’t. She pressed her face into Dean’s shoulder to share her glee with him. Dean gloated, steadying her hand on the phone. If the shouting led to fighting, he would intervene, but as no fists had flown yet, he found the unraveling of their efforts amusing. Dean felt confident he could repair the emotional ruffles once the seminar was underway. This? This was funny as hell. Alphas, the top of the hierarchical food chain, couldn’t cooperate long enough to organize chairs.
What had started as tidy, well-spaced rows with an aisle down the middle, devolved by row six into a free-for-all, especially once one Deep Alpha-Profound Dominant snatched a chair out of Molly’s grip and plunked it right square in the middle of the aisle at the very front. He fell into it with his knees and elbows spread wide and a self-important look on his face, glaring up at Dean and Jo. After that, all bets were off. Jackson dropped the handle of the dolly he was lugging right where he stood, snatched a chair, carried it to the end of the last unfinished row, placed it just so, and sat down. Molly blew a frustrated breath up to ruffle her bangs, and then followed suit, settling right beside him. They shared a defeated look and then occupied themselves on their respective phones, disappearing into the crowd, and pretending they hadn’t just been ordering strangers around in a room so stacked with testosterone that fights were liable to break out without a word spoken.
Once the delivery process halted, those standing along the sides, priding themselves on forbearance and patience, seemed baffled. Looks passed between them. More and more newcomers read the room upon entering and filled in the closing space toward the back with chairs pulled off stacks. And as the front and middle spaces filled, those who’d chosen to wait peeled off the side walls and took care of themselves. Dominants, Neutrals, and Submissives had casually striated themselves before Dean and Jo’s eyes. Kevin was going to eat it up.
Jo sighed and cut her recording, pocketing her phone. “At least no one came to blows,” she said with a grin. “Alphas, man. We’re not great at taking direction.”
“Speak for yourself,” Dean disagreed. “The Subs had this project whipped until your Neutrals fucked it up.”
”My Neutrals? It’s the fucking Doms who fucked it up. The Neutrals at least stayed out of the way.”
“Staying out of the way wasn’t getting the job done,” Dean returned. He hopped down off the dais and stalked to the end of what had originally been the front row but was now buried behind newly placed pseudo-rows crammed in right up to the edge of the stage. Dean arranged himself even with that row and pointed down its length. He raised his voice to carry. “Fire marshal rules, alphas! The first row starts here. If you’re in front of my arm, grab your seat and hoof it to the back. No complaining. There’s room for everyone, and you’re all gonna get your money’s worth. Gotta have safe egress, and that means sixteen feet minimum for the front aisle.”
It took them a moment, a pause of proverbial chicken as they waited to see if he was serious, but when he didn’t back down, they obeyed. Dean sent a wink to Jo and then repeated the drill to enforce his preferred aisle down the middle. The middle bit wasn’t part of the fire code, but Dean liked it when alphas obeyed him. He chalked it up to the Deep in his Deep alpha designation and years of teaching pretentious assholes who needed to be knocked down a peg.
Dean squared off in front of the big guy. There was no way this man wasn’t a Pack Alpha. But Dean needed only one whiff of his offensive scent to measure his Secondary. And Dean had him by a trace.
“I hate to have to do this, Sir,” Dean told him politely, hating it not at all. “But we need our middle aisle.”
He said no more but stood square and implacable with his hand out like a theater usher directing patrons, pointing toward the back. The rest of the alphas who had oozed into the empty middle space to gain themselves closer spots poised but waited. It was a standoff. Pack Alphas don’t like being told what to do, and Dean’s brat forbade him from offering the man a way to save face. He blinked and nodded toward the back. From somewhere in the back, someone shouted, “Dude, move your ass! We all paid for a seminar, same as you! You’re wasting everyone’s time!” Dean put a calming hand up in that direction, and that was enough to tip the balance toward good will. With a grunt and a sigh, the Pack Alpha stood up and made a massive production about hoisting his chair. Everyone else in the aisle followed suit. Dean returned to the dais, his ballroom messy, but functional, and his patrons compliant.
The Pack Alpha ambled three rows back and then dropped his chair next to the innermost left-standing chair and sat down with a look of challenge on his face, effectively redefining the inside edge. Dean let him have his half-victory and the rest of the middle-occupiers scrambled like competitors in musical chairs to align themselves with him. He winked again at his colleague as he remounted the stage.
“You’re a piece of work, Dean,” she told him without her microphone.
“It’s Michael’s influence,” he boasted.
“The hell. You’ve been like this your whole life.”
“You got me,” he teased back before tapping his mic and shushing the crowd. He welcomed them formally, clarified the name of the seminar, repeated that rooms had been shuffled, and waited a moment while a few confused-looking Dominants checked their printed schedules.
“Let me repeat,” he repeated, “if you’re registered for Straps, Sticks, and Dicks, you’re in the wrong room. Head down the hall, around the corner, and ALLLLLLL the way to the other end of the building to the Graves’ room where Benny will chastise you for showing up late.”
Jo elbowed him in the belly. “That is NOT what it’s called, Dean. Don’t be an asshole.” She turned to the crowd. “But seriously, if you’re looking for the Dominant class, this isn’t it, no matter what your schedule says. Out with you. Don’t mind Dean. It could happen to anyone. I swear we won’t all watch you leave.”
Shuffling followed. Several people made their way out amid snickers and mumbled repeats of the word ‘dicks.’
“All right,” Dean brought quiet to the room again. “For those of you who were here early enough to watch the chaos with the seating, answer me this: Why was it so hard to get any organization going with the set up?”
“Because we’re not paid to work here!” someone shouted.
“Nope. Wrong,” Dean replied. “In this same scenario, Omegas form a fireman’s chain and get the job done in half the time and with no shouting. And they manage straight rows, too.” Dean ignored Jo beside him with her judgy-eyes calling him for making shit up. They both knew it was true, or close enough to true.
“Because we’re leaders, not followers,” someone else stated to universal agreement.
“Okay,” Dean agreed. “Okay. But here’s the thing. Sometimes life gives you lemons, man. Sometimes there aren’t any followers to order around. The world is changing, alpha. It changed the minute we left the wilderness. You may be top dog in your home pack, but no corporation is holding the top spots just for alphas anymore. You got no guarantee of being anyone’s Top at work. Sometimes it’s critical that a roomful of alphas can set aside their instincts and work together.
“This here with the chairs, that’s low stakes. But out there? Alphas who can’t assimilate into work groups or cooperative bodies lose their chance to advance, maybe lose their jobs. Alphas who can’t hold down a job because they can’t work in a group are never going to be anyone’s Pack leader. This is real-world stuff with grave consequences. There are alpha gangs roaming the streets looking for violence. We all know it. We’ve all felt that call, let’s not lie to ourselves. Why does that still happen? Why do otherwise civilized alphas give in to that call? Because one, we aren’t feeding our alphas enough authority at home, and two, we aren’t teaching our alphas how to join a non-authoritative group at work.
“We can’t do one without the other, and we can’t succeed as a designation without both. We have to look around us and let go of the idea that alphas are the be-all and end-all of the food chain. We are who we are, and we have a role to play, but as you just saw, it doesn’t matter how Deep we might be, without the other designations, we can’t get shit done for ourselves.” Dean paused and let that settle. Then he looked around and said, “So let’s talk about how to mesh who we are with what modern society needs us to be. We can be both, folks. This here’s Jo. She’s going to tell us how. Then we’ll take questions and talk about it.”
Jo stepped up to the mic. She thanked him, throwing him a look that called him on his bullshit, but what he returned, a bracing look full of pride and confidence directed at her, speaking right to her alpha and her wolf in a language only Dean could speak, made her blush. She basked in it for a moment, holding his gaze, questioning if he meant it, and he grinned, nodded, winked, and gestured toward the microphone. The floor is yours, his look said, and you’ve got this.
This was why she loved him so fiercely even though he could be the biggest prick in her life. No one, not even Jack, made her feel so seen and so valued and so trusted. She put a hand to his upper arm and squeezed before facing the crowd, primed for her.
Yeah, she thought, I’ve got this.
Late that night, after the final raucous drum-thumping panel and a catered dinner in a smaller ballroom for just the staff, the staff leaders joined North Carolina’s Pack Alphas for a round table discussion. Castiel needed answers to some pressing questions, and they’d learned through trial and error that speaking to local leaders was the best way to get them.
The Scotch and merlot flowed steadily, and the Alphas knew each other well enough to speak freely. Benny presided. Affable and laidback, Benny ruffled no one’s feathers. They let the alcohol lead them into conversation more relaxed than they might have earlier in the day.
“The youth? Fuck, yes, we need help there, fellas…sorry, ma’am, no offense.”
Jo shrugged it off and held her tumbler for a waiter to refresh with a new glass. The Alpha continued.
“We’ve been waiting for guidance from you people for years,” he pointed out. “Word is you’re starting up a training program for younger teens, but not a one of us can find any guidelines on yours or anyone else’s website. Myself, I have four kids in my Pack past Presentation but short of sixteen. What the hell am I supposed to offer them? Two of ‘em are Omega. Heats every quarter. Screaming matches in the hallways with anyone who looks at them crossways. I can only spank them so many times before it stops helping at all. I can’t tie them to the house, and who knows what they’re up to out in public. Two years ago, we had two pregnancies, a fourteen-year-old and one fifteen.”
Another Alpha leaned forward and swirled her wine in her glass, watching the dark liquid run smoothly down the inside surface. “We’ve had pregnancies too,” she admitted. “And the last Septennial burned us bad. Look, I’m not gonna lie, I’ve got feelers out for mates for my Pack’s seven Omega youth. These kids hardly know what their favorite TV show is, and I’m trying to Mate them off. But I can’t let them founder like they are. Someone’s got to look after them, and those Heats… I know the legal age is sixteen, but… Someone’s got to help them.”
A third Alpha leaned in, taking the bit. “I get what you folks are doing, and like every Alpha in this room, I’m grateful. North Carolina is down to less than a sixth of the young Omega deaths we had a generation ago. That’s big, folks. We all know it. But those Omegas who survive, well, no one quite knows how to support them right. For one thing, there’s the Heats. If you haven’t lived in a household with a screaming fifteen-year-old in Heat and no way to alleviate it, then you’ve got no call to judge those of us who set up an intermediary. Fifteen is close enough to sixteen when that kind of pain is going down. And for another thing, I don’t understand the cultural prohibition against DNA-testing of pups for their Secondary designation. Why the fuck are we still letting kids be taken by surprise when the technology exists to warn them what’s coming?”
Benny hemmed a little, shaking his head, and then he engaged. “Look, Alphas, the Secondary DNA-testing isn’t cheap, and that, by itself, privileges wealthier families. But socially, the question is even more dire. If we make it the norm to prepare pups through childhood for what’s in store for them after, we’re practically guaranteeing a striated social experience on the play-yard and in the classroom, everywhere. Once it gets out that a pup is genetically an alpha, its peers are going to react to that. Find out it’s an Omega, and the social repercussions are even worse. We can’t condone early testing, not for any reason. I’m sorry, but just like their sexual orientations, some things are just best left to unveil on their own.”
“Right,” Michael agreed from Dean’s left. “But the question of adolescent support is one you deserve answers to. We’re building guidebooks right now, Alphas. That’s why we called this meeting. We need to hear from all of you. What do you need most? And what are your opinions? What’s worked for you? What hasn’t?”
Michael felt Dean’s pride stroke his Mating-bonds and all along his spine, but Dean didn’t say a word. He let Michael’s voice speak for itself.
“What hasn’t?” responded the highest-rated Alpha in North Carolina, a woman with bearing and gravitas coming out her pores. “The laws governing Lupin adolescence, that’s what hasn’t. It’s the Ozzies who take it on the chin. They’re still swimming in childhood submissiveness, but now they’ve got a wolf whining in the corner begging them to behave and please the bigger dogs in the Pack. You tell a kid like that the law forbids them from having sex, and they cross their legs and hope for the best. Beta-Subs, alpha-Subs, they don’t look to the Pack for approval. They go find themselves a young buck Dom to please, shove their knickers to the floor and go for it. But the Ozzies…It’s a fucked-up world when the pup most in danger of dying in adolescence is the one least likely to do the one thing that’ll save him.”
“It’s no secret,” said a quiet voice at the end who had been silent up to now. “That no one in this room lets their Ozzies suffer that way.”
“Chase!” three of the Alphas chastised at once. Chase glanced around and then shrugged. “It’s true.”
“Nothing anyone says here tonight is leaving this room,” Benny told them. “…Not with quotes on it.”
Chase sat forward. His voice rose in confidence. “I can tell what we do in my Pack.” Benny nodded for him to continue, so he did. “Kids get close to Presentation, and we homeschool them from that point on, all the way through high school. We give them ample opportunities to socialize, keep contact with the outside world, but I’m not putting fresh meat on the market for the alpha gangs on the street corner to feast off. And I’m not adding any alpha teenagers to society’s woes either. No, they do their maturing at home, no matter how they Present.”
“What about the betas?” Jo asked. “They have to stay home too?”
“I’ve allowed a couple of betas out for special school programs, but I figure, fair’s fair, and if the Omegas are stuck with homeschooling, then they all are.”
Dean shared a look with Benny. That kind of approach wasn’t good for kids, socially, and it wasn’t feasible for nuclear families. It wasn’t a new tactic. But Chase wasn’t finished, and his next point wasn’t new either.
“Kids grow up,” he pointed out. “And they mature at their own pace. We keep an eye on them. Once they reach a certain level of…curiosity, shall we say, we put our heads together and name a Pack mentor for them.”
“Yes, but, Alpha,” said a woman at the other end with a tone of having been over this before. “You’ve got the numbers to pull that off. My Pack is small, and most of us share a bloodline. No Omega wants her first time to be with her Uncle Ted.”
“So, you hire someone, Maribel, Jesus!”
“All right, folks, settle,” Benny said in the tone that brooked no argument. It worked despite the room’s cumulative designations. “What age, roughly, do you find works best for that kind of interception?”
“Fifteen, mostly,” replied a husky man near the middle. Michael, taking notes, nodded to himself and took a swig from his glass. “But even before that, I think we all look the other way when the pups find a friend or two to invite over for slumber parties. That kind of exploration is natural and healthy, no matter what the law says.”
“Let me turn it around,” Chase put in, crossing his arms in front of him on the table. “Each of you. How old were you the first time you had sex? Full-on, cherry-popped, penetrative sex?”
Jo scoffed and looked at Dean, who shrugged. “I was twelve,” he admitted.
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Twelve.”
Down between their thighs, Dean fist-bumped his mate, more about their similarity than because of any pride at early prowess.
“I was sixteen,” Jo told the room.
Uriel answered, “I was nineteen, but my twin brother is Omega, and he was thirteen. Your point is a good one. Omegas aren’t beta and they aren’t alpha. But a pup is still a pup. I’d like to see us support them as kids as long as we can. Just because their bodies are demanding sex doesn’t mean their minds are ready.”
“Then what do you propose?” asked two Alphas at once.
Benny nodded. “Uriel’s right. It’s a rough time for all wolves, even the betas. But our primary focus must be on saving lives first, and on raising healthy adults second. And while I don’t believe any pup is ready for sex at twelve years old,” he glanced at Dean and Michael. “I can’t deny that the earlier a wolf experiences their first time, the more likely they are to survive to achieve full stability later. And let’s not forget, Omesol poisoning that kills Omegas isn’t a Tertiary issue. An Ozzie’s wolf is what begs them to be compliant to the law and their Pack Alpha’s rules, but it’s not the wolf that kills them when they overdose on Omesol.”
“Where are the alpha sperm repositories we keep hearing about?” another Alpha demanded. “If we can get injectable spunk to cool our kids off when their Heat hits hard, most of us would be happy to make them wait until they’re older.”
“You can do that yourself, Sharif,” another on the panel told him caustically. The air took on a frisson of ozone as two adversaries sparked up in tension. Benny waited calmly for them to rein themselves in. “I’m just pointing out,” the Alpha went on coolly. “You can freeze it. Create your own cache. That’s what we do. Our Omegas go on birth control soon as they have their first Heat, and after that, we give them injectable, sterilized semen from a supply every alpha in the Pack contributes to.”
“Yes,” said the matriarch. “But alpha semen without the power-exchange dynamic and the act of penetrative sex only works about a quarter of the time. I mean, do it, by all means, but in the hardest fifteen-year-old Heats, I think any one of us would act to save our pups’ lives, even if it means mounting our own offspring. I know I have. More than once.”
“But you have more pups than god, Cecelia. You probably lost track of which ones are yours.”
The room laughed and the tension broke.
As Michael and Dean returned tired to their room that night, they both had a great deal on their minds.
“Dean…”
“I know, Michael. I know. Ace and Kat both. Maybe Emma. The only one we know for sure is Jimmy, and his being an alpha doesn’t protect him. Alphas have their own risks. We have to figure this out. We have to help all of them, ours and these Alphas’, and everyone. Michael, we have to save everyone. We have to.”
“Shhh, little alpha,” Michael soothed as he unlocked their door and let them both in. “Make love to me, and let your worries go for tonight. You took care of me this afternoon. Let me take care of you now.” Behind him, Dean’s arms snaked around his waist. Dean’s lips fixed to Michael’s Mating-scar, kissing, then sucking, and Michael moaned, losing his own train of thought, just as he’d wanted to.
Notes:
Thanks for reading, as always.
Love y'all. And y'all means all. 💖
Chapter 23: Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Summary:
Jack and Jo have the morning off. Claire stops by the ACRI to visit and encounters more than she bargained for. And Cas gets good news and celebrates Alpha-style.
Notes:
Straight up porn (mostly) without a lot of redeeming storytelling value here. You've been **warned**.
It's been an intense nearly three months since I've updated, but A) the semester is almost over, B) I have landed a new job that doesn't require me to work nights, and C) my health has stabilized. So a celebration is in order. I've been out on medical leave for an entire friggin year, but I'm re-joining the working grunts again. Holy fuck!
So, yeah. There's a tiny bit of plot in this chapter, but not enough to hold it together. Instead, it's gummed together by sex. I ain't sorry. I got to writing this chapter and realized I'd somehow made it this far without ever writing out a single scene with female alpha smut. Don't worry. I remedied that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
NOW:
“Uriel,” Cas intoned, catching the man on his way out of the showers. “A word.” Cas pulled off the wall and matched pace with his most Dominant contractor.
“Alpha,” Uriel replied with deference. “What can I do for you?” The hall was packed, but people flowed around them, opening a wake for them unconsciously, and both alphas filled the void as their due, also unconsciously.
“Have you spoken with Billie lately?” Cas asked. He saw no need for subtlety. Uriel knew what he was after. The large man scoffed and pulled up.
“Sir, I suspect Billie would prefer you not set up her dates for her. She’s a big girl. If she wants something from me, she’ll ask me herself.”
Cas sighed and scowled, stepping aside to allow the flow of foot traffic to pass unhindered. “You’re her only viable option, and you know it,” Cas grumbled.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Cas. Her mate trucked all the way in from the coast to the goddamn middle of the country. Seems like she could find a Pack Alpha willing to do the same if she put some feelers out. Billie’s got clout. Someone will bite that hook. Don’t know what you think you’re going to get from me.”
“She hasn’t approached you?” Cas cut straight to it. “Have you thought about it? Talked it over with Joyce? Your mate gets on well with her. I’m certain she’ll like Helene, too. Uriel, Billie’s got clout, as you say. And you’re not as settled as you like to seem. She needs an Alpha who will embrace who she is. And who she isn’t. She’s not going to get that from a Craigslist ad. And you, you’re looking to build prestige. It’s a good fit.”
Uriel glanced away and chuckled, his bass timbre vibrating his throat.
“The thing is,” Uriel added blithely, “it’s not on you to find Billie an Alpha. Now, is it? It’s not on you to look out for my prestige.” Dark eyes flicked back to meet Castiel’s. “Sir?”
“It’s not a matter of trust, Uriel,” Cas disagreed. “It’s my responsibility. I’m her Alpha…for now.”
“Great!” Uriel said, clapping Cas on the back. “Problem solved, then. Congratulations! She and Dean will be best friends in no time.”
“Are you going to tell her no?” Castiel pressed.
“No one’s asked me anything, Alpha,” Uriel replied stoically. “I can’t answer a question that’s not been asked, now, can I? And I can’t upset my own Pack with rumors of a flashy new couple moving in when there’s nothing coming from the couple themselves, even if Billie was my mate’s very best friend. I won’t do that to my people, Sir. I’m their Alpha.”
Cas growled. “She and Helene are culling their list right now, and you know as well as I do that when all is said and done, you’re going to top that list. I want to know what you’re planning to tell them. If you’re not entertaining the idea, I need to have alternatives in the wings. Billie is too important to me to let her flounder.”
“Billie is? Or her role here? What are you afraid of, Cas?”
Castiel was accustomed to the prickliness of Alpha-Dominants when their territory was encroached upon. He knew the steps to this dance. Reading the man’s body language and scent, Cas determined Uriel was pleased at the proposition of expanding his Pack. He got on well with Billie. Their Dominant wolves meshed. And Uriel was Traditional enough to run a tight ship in his home, Progressive enough that he held no compunctions to the unusual Mating Billie wanted or her idea of assembling a ragtag pack of misfits just to prove nontraditional domesticity was viable. Cas could see Uriel’s Pack growing into a sanctuary of sorts for atypical Lupins. He’d already taken in one such misfit, in fact.
Cas licked his lips and leaned casually into the wall, watching The Facility smoothly rotate on its well-oiled axis. The hallway smelled stable and homey, comforting and clean.
“How has Dorothy settled in?” he asked Uriel.
Uriel snorted and rolled his eyes. “She’s brusque, Alpha. Opinionated. Prickly as hell. Say, maybe you should ask Dorothy Baum who she wants in the Pack.”
“Uriel,” Cas rasped, frustrated.
“Look,” Uriel broke in, facing Cas directly and dropping the circling pattern. “I know what’s at stake. I know Billie is sweating bullets. I know what she means to you. Damnit, Alpha, she means the same to me. But you’re overstepping. I’m gonna need you to back up before you spook the woman, piss her off, and find her bolting off to set up a pack with that assistant of hers.”
“Josie Sands would be a catastrophe as a pack Alpha,” Cas growled. “You think I’m overstepping now? If she did that, I would take her in myself.”
“You know,” Uriel said, “sometimes it’s best to let things work out for themselves. It isn’t always necessary to apply a sledgehammer. Some things are delicate.”
“Billie isn’t delicate,” Cas retorted.
“Maybe not. But the situation is. I see you, Sir. I hear you loud and clear. Now, I can’t tell you how it’s all going to settle, but I can assure you that it will. You don’t choose my Pack for me though, Castiel. I am Alpha in my home, and I answer to no one there but my mate. If Joyce wants a hippie commune, maybe I’ll think about it. I have Omegas to protect. I have long-term stability to consider, and that comes before clout. I’m sure you agree.”
“I do,” Cas allowed. “We both value stability, Uriel.” Cas let a pause in the conversation emphasize that both Alphas were busily reading the other’s scent. “I’ll have the champagne on ice. You won’t regret this. She’s perfect for you, she and Helene, both.”
Uriel scoffed again, rolled his eyes, saluted casually with a backward step into the flow of traffic without looking. The flow parted for him as he had known it would, and he vanished. Cas smirked.
His smirk turned into a chuckle as Billie herself appeared and leaned into the wall beside him. Her shoulder brushed Cas’. Her clipboard nestled against her chest. Her eyes stared outward at nothing.
“I’m not six, you know.”
“I know you’re not.”
“Are you ever going to trust me to live my own life?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“I had nothing to do with your taking a mate,” he defended. “You got into that mess all on your own.”
Billie humphed stoutly and whacked his shoulder with her clipboard. “It’s not a mess, asshole. I love that woman. And I don’t need you to pick an Alpha out for me. We can do that for ourselves, thank you.”
“Who’s left on your shortlist?” Castiel asked. “Let me guess, William Baxter, Claude Joiner, Marcus Fleming, and Uriel. Am I close?”
“No,” she replied immediately, but she picked at her fingernails, cleaning underneath where there was no dirt, and hugging her clipboard to her breast. Her eyes gave her away. Billie wasn’t given to self-doubt. Seeing her uncertain made Cas smile. He chalked it up to the stabilizing effect of her new mate, offering her a pathway to heightened vulnerability. Cas liked it on her. “We’re still considering Raphael too.”
Cas laughed, wide and happy.
“Shut up,” she grumbled. “Don’t you have initiatives to implement? I heard funding finally came through. Shouldn’t you and Max have your heads together figuring out how to save the Lupin youth of America?”
“I’m on my way there,” Cas told her. He shoved off the wall, left a warm kiss on her cheekbone and a warm pressure on her shoulder before he pulled away, set his feet in motion and pointed back at her. “But you’re my top priority right now, beta. You don’t have to like it, and you can’t stop me, so you may as well get used to it.”
“Asshole,” she muttered affectionately. She pretended to find interest in an argument some distance down the hall, but there was nothing to the exchange but volume. It was over too quickly to be worth her attention. “So, what’d he say?” She kept her eyes on the traffic, watching her people like a junior high hall monitor.
Cas grinned.
Billie shook her head. “You’re going to be wrong someday, Castiel. I just pray I’m there to see it.”
Jo cocked an eyebrow at her mate, enjoying his approach. He was beautiful—naked and aroused. She writhed in the sheets, tangling her legs and jutting her chest outward, trying to entice him to hurry. But Jack sauntered. His head sat cocked playfully to the side. He made a show of biting his lower lip and slowly fisting his cock with a lascivious roll of his hips.
Pressure built inside Jo’s sheath as he taunted her.
“I’ll start without you if you don’t get your ass over here,” she warned. “Swear to god.”
His brows rose in an oh, is that so expression, and he stopped walking altogether, calling her bluff. Jo rolled over, humped into the bedding with a moan, and rolled up onto her arms so she could grind her hips into the mattress with more oomph.
She grimaced at the friction, feeling her cock unsheathe beneath her. That first sensation as her erection forced its way out of her warm body was one of life’s most visceral pleasures. Cool air surrounded her dick as it pressed through the muscular slit, and it always sent a shiver through her whole body. The muscled sheath tightened around her knot, still swathed in the heat of her body, as she clenched her core.
Jack was right there, falling over her, caging her body with his strong arms, kissing and nibbling her neck from behind, joining the roll of her hips in a delicious way. His cock left a slick trail up the crack of her ass. “Don’t need you anymore,” she groaned, continuing to find friction in the sheets. Jack chuckled.
“God, you’re sexy,” he purred as his hands found her hips and he rode her rhythm. He thumbed her ass cheeks apart enough to drive his length down into the valley between them, and he gave a dirty grind that elicited a hiss and an “Ahhhh!” from his mate.
She rolled over beneath him, tumbling him a little to the left, still heavy on her body, and she reached for him as he reached for her. Their bodies tangled, all heat and pressure and sweat and lips. “You’re going to need me if you want to start a family, alpha.”
“Jack,” she whispered into his mouth. Their Mating-bond hummed with promise and potential. If this was Jack’s breeding kink and not a change of heart, she was going to suffocate him in his sleep. But it felt new. It felt hopeful.
“Yeah. I know,” he answered. He thrust his hips into hers, and the friction ignited a responsive roll of hers right back. Their cocks slipped against each other. Jack’s caught for a moment in the sensitive slit that hers emerged through, and she squeaked, shuddering. “I mean it this time, Jo. I’m not just playing up the kink. If you’re ready, I’m ready.”
“Please, Jack,” she whimpered. His free hand found its way between their bodies, and he stroked them together smoothly, holding her eye while he flicked fingertips over the end, smearing slick precome around both heads. She was smaller than he, in girth and length, but she had him on sensitivity, and she threw her head back at the sensation. “Want you in me,” she moaned. “Please!’
Jack nibbled her throat, continuing to torture her with his fist—so slow, so careful, not nearly enough tension. He pointed his tongue and traced it along the cords of her throat, down toward her shoulder, over her clavicle, to her nipple. Jo fell still and let him play her body. She clutched his forearm tightly but didn’t attempt to move his hand from its ministrations or change his speed.
They rarely played power exchange, but when they did, every touch felt electric. Jo let him have control. They both knew if she wanted it back, he would roll belly-up without a second thought.
“You’re so beautiful,” he told her softly just before flattening his tongue and pulling it hard up across her left nipple. She whimpered, and he smirked and repeated the action, never altering the tempo of his fist. “Love you like this, alpha,” he added. “Love it when you let go for me.”
“Please, Jack,” she begged shamelessly. Her hips rolled and bucked beneath him, shattering his rhythm.
“Shhh. Slow down, baby. I’ll get you there. You can trust me. Right? Right, alpha? Say it for me, Jo. Tell me you trust me.”
“I trust you, Jack. God, it feels so good. I trust you. Could you? … Just a little … Ahhhh!” She panted in his ear, curling toward him until she could claim his mouth and bring him back up with her. They kissed sloppily. Tongues met around huffing breaths as his hand moved between them and she dug her fingers into the flesh of his arm and his back, tugging him closer.
Jack released his hold and threw his leg over her, straddling her hips. He grinned at her, sitting up high. He leaned down with a hand on each of her shoulders and ground his taint into the curve of her cock. She sucked in a breath and grinned back, rolling her groin up to meet him. He held her eyes as he reached behind himself, caught her up, slick from her internal sheath, held her cock upright, and sank down onto it all in one smooth motion.
“Oh, you jerk,” she protested as she took over for him and drove up into his willing body. “It was my turn to bottom!”
Jack leaned back over her, taunted her right nipple with his tongue and squeezed her dick with his internal muscles. He loved the tight, hot burn, and he pressed down to accept all of her, all the way to the swollen lips of her labia. “You’ll get your turn,” he assured her. “First, I’m going to make you crazy for it, and then I’m going to pull off and leave you begging to come and sink into your pussy so deep you’ll be able to taste me in your throat.” Jack punctuated his filthy mouth with sloppy slaps of his ass against Jo’s upper thighs, up and back like a dirty metronome. Her knot slipped out of the slippery crevasse of her sheath, swelling incrementally as her arousal spiked.
She threw her head back, gritting her teeth. “Keep talking like that, and I’ll come right now,” she warned. Her knot bulged between them, but Jack didn’t seek to press it in.
They never got a morning off at the same time like this, and with the entire house empty for once, neither of them felt the least inhibited. Two walls of their corner bedroom were floor-to-ceiling glass. They’d opened the blinds, and sunlight streamed in, lighting the contemporary space with its warm chrome and hardwood styling. Jo loved the house dearly, but sometimes she wished she’d chosen to live in one of the stand-alone cottages on the property instead of in the main Packhouse. They would have had more privacy in their own space. Benny wanted her close, though. And her mom needed her. Jo only regretted her choice when she wanted to scream her pleasure into the rafters, and the rest of the household was trying to sleep.
Jack had no such worry. He never cared who overheard or exactly what they overheard.
Jo grabbed the bars of her headboard, straining beneath her mate, set her feet flat to the mattress and tried to speed up the rhythm. But Jack knew her too well. He bit down deliciously on her earlobe, and Jo rolled into the pain. Her knees fell out wide as she gave over to the pleasure and the need to open beneath him. Her moan sounded loud and unfettered under the high ceiling.
Just as she felt a surge of tension building inside her sheath, Jack stopped rocking, bit his lip as his eyes danced merrily, and he toppled off, landing hard on his hip beside her. Jo had the bare start of a protest on her lips before Jack flipped her onto her belly, hoisted her hips into the air and rammed into her from behind.
All her lovely friction lost, Jo groaned and stretched her arms up into the wooden bars at the head of the bed and felt her body scramble to process the switch of pleasure sources. She rose onto her elbows to let the tips of her nipples ride teasingly across the sheets below her as Jack pummeled her cunt from behind. She widened the set of her knees, taking over holding herself up to allow her mate to concentrate on pulling her hips back into his thrusts. He slammed into her. Drops of sweat speckled her lower back as they flew from his nose, his chin, his hair.
“You want it, baby?” Jack asked between hard grunts of effort. “You want me to breed you up fat and swollen? You want my pups in your tight little belly, alpha?”
“Jack!” Jo cried. She wanted to reach down and stroke her own rigid cock, but she couldn’t let go of the bed. His filthy mouth was one thing. His breeding kink was quite another. It had taken her entirely by surprise the first time he pelted her with words like breed and fill and round with my pups, and the stream-of-consciousness during his least guarded moments had led to some heavy conversations over the last few years. But it was just a kink, not a promise. He hadn’t been ready to make good on his dirty mouth. And neither was she. At least not then. Now, though. She was accustomed to the dirty words by now, but recently, his mouth had begun to strike a different tone against her ear and her heart as images of a swollen belly and soft pink fingers wrapping around Jack’s fingers began to find a willing home in her soul.
“Please, baby,” she begged. She pressed back into him as his hips and his words both lost control. “Please don’t tease.”
“Yeah, Jo? You want that? Wanna make pups with me? Want to see how many we can stuff in this ripe, hot hole of yours?” Jack drove down into her so hard, he lost his balance and fell over her, squashing her flat, pummeling away into her body, willing her fertile with every touch of his body.
“Yes!” she cried. She craned her neck until she found his dirty mouth with her lips, and she shared the breath that formed those words of longing with him. Her cock found friction at last. She let her mate’s heavy body and furious rutting drive her into the soft bed. “Yes, Jack! Please, baby! Please!”
“I’m coming, Joanna Beth,” he whispered into her ear. His breath tickled and sent a shiver down to her toes. “I’m gonna give you so many pups, fill you up so full, here it comes, baby. Here it comes!” And he cinched his face up tight, tucked hard into the curve of her neck and shoulder, stuttering to a complete halt as la petite mort stole his consciousness for a moment. He picked the pace back up after the tiniest pause, and he fucked her through his release. Jo’s breath caught as she tumbled while he was still thrusting through his afterglow, obscene squelching between them where their bodies connected.
“Jesus Christ, Jack,” Jo grunted under him when he collapsed over her sweaty body. “Somebody should have warned me about your mouth.” Jack eased off and slid drunkenly to the side. He pulled Jo into the little spoon position and wrapped a hand under her arm to tease at her nipple until she shooed him off. He abandoned her breast but meandered those fingers lower to toy at the swollen slit of her sheath as it closed over her retracting cock.
“Knock it off!” Jo batted at his fingers in mock irritation. “I’m sensitive! Come here and kiss me, you dirty-mouthed heathen.”
Jack obliged happily as Jo flattened onto her back. He threw a leg over her waist, enjoying aftershocks against her hip. They kissed lazily for a while, fingers intertwining, bodies cooling.
“Did you mean it?” Jo asked before turning her head to let him nibble again at her sensitive earlobe. “What you said? Did you mean it this time?” She stretched her awareness through their bond and carded her attention through his mind.
“Hmm? What’d I say?” Jack asked, feigning ignorance. She sat up braced on her elbow and looked down at him with so much raw earnest hope that Jack let the teasing go. He blushed slightly, recalling the intensity of his kink. But his face cleared, leaving him blinking a sincere solemnity. “Yeah, Jo, I think I mean it.” Jo’s eyes lit. A joyous grin broke out. “But that’s crazy, right?” he continued. “How can you go whole hog at work, spend half your time in Dayton, take on a whole network of departments and try to get pregnant at the same time? You can’t do both.”
“Shh,” she quieted. “Yeah, Jack. Yeah, I can. We’ll do it together. You’re going to help me. We can do this. It’s not crazy. But I need you to be sure. Don’t rush it if you’re not sure.”
Jack traced her cheek and jaw with a finger. “I’m scared, alpha. But that’s not going to go away. I understand that. I get that now. So, I’m just going to jump even though I’m terrified. I trust my alpha to be there for me. I’ll help you if you promise to help me.” Jack’s expression bared his vulnerable trepidation as much as his Mating-bond did. Jo smiled softly at him. She leaned close and kissed his shoulder.
“Oh, god,” Jo moaned. “Winchester is going to get to say I told you so! I hate that! Damnit!”
Jack laughed softly. “Guess we’re talking to Benny when he gets home?” His eyes searched Jo’s. What he found there grounded him. He sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re talking to Benny. Tonight.”
“What’d I do to deserve someone as sweet as you?” Jo asked, twirling a short, curled tendril at the back of his neck around her finger.
“I thought you only liked me for my resemblance to Cas,” Jack quipped, comforting his nerves with a return to light banter.
“Mm, doesn’t hurt,” Jo said with a smile.
“I’ll bet you wish you’d chosen that Omega to mate right about now though,” Jack added, unaware that his uneasiness slipped through his bond even as he schooled his face. “Someone you could knock up?”
Jo kissed his lips.
“Not even a little. No Omega could expand my vocabulary during sex the way you do.”
Jack guffawed gruffly. He rolled off the bed backwards, caught Jo’s ankle and tugged her straight across her own wet spot and lifted her into his arms. “Glad to know I’m good for your enlightenment. Come on. Shower. We stink.”
“We’re talking to Benny tonight, beta,” Jo told him. She tickled the back of his neck with her fingertips as he carried her through to the bathroom. Her alpha voice clamped into his Mating-bond and made him shiver more than her touch did.
“Yes, my alpha,” he replied obediently.
“Kaia Nieves! Front and center!” Jody called on her way through the double row of dormitory beds. She let her office door swing closed behind her, confident the young alpha would follow without chivvying. Jody settled into her chair as her door cracked open.
“Come in, alpha,” she said. Kaia looked uncertain in the doorway. “Have a seat. You’re not in trouble.”
“What’s this about?” Kaia slid into her chair and perched right on the edge.
“It’s about a vacancy in C-group’s leadership, kiddo. I’m demoting Martha. She’s let your group down one time too many, and I can’t let her stay on as floor leader. Job’s yours if you want it. You’ve shown yourself to be reliable and gentle with the newcomers. You have better self-control than some full-grown adults I know, and you don’t posture for show. At the same time, you don’t take anyone’s bullshit. You fight your own battles, as well as those of a few who should be able to do the same but can’t yet. The Subs all trust you, Kaia.”
Kaia scoffed. “I don’t have any friends, Jody. I don’t know what you think you’re seeing, but it’s not like I’m close to anyone here.”
“I’m not talking about friends, alpha. I’m talking about a strong moral center and a firm grip on your wolf that lets you be the leader people need when shit goes down.” Jody held the young woman’s gaze unblinkingly, daring her to negate the statements. Kaia pursed her lips and looked away.
“I don’t need leadership points on my resumé, Ma’am. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll pass. Um, thanks, I guess, for…uh…you know.” Kaia fidgeted.
Jody sighed. “Look, it’s your call. I’m not going to make you step up. But I will say that next on my list is Gavin, and I really, really don’t want to go there.”
Kaia sighed heavily and stared at her lap as her jaw worked. “What would I have to do?” she asked at last.
Jody’s eyes lit with warmth and affection. “Inspections twice a week,” she recited, “with reports for me or Donna to review. Same stuff you already know. Stand as a go-to for petty squabbles. Help the newbies settle in. Answer questions. Anything starts to get sticky, you let me know and I’ll take it over.”
“You could just install cameras if you wanted to spy on us,” Kaia said sourly.
“There are cameras everywhere already, sweetheart,” Jody answered back. “What we need are live human people who can tell the difference between a steam-vent-squabble and a genuine escalation of tensions. No one wants to hire staff to be dorm monitors, Kaia. We believe it’s better for the formation of Pack mentality to have the boarders manage themselves day-to-day.”
“Fine,” Kaia grumbled. “But this is extortion.”
“That’s my girl. And don’t worry. Easygoing group leaders make the best in-house support. I’m not worried this will go to your head like it did to Martha. Just keep being yourself.”
“And tattle on whoever leaves toothpaste globs in the sink,” Kaia muttered. “Is that all? Can I go?”
“That’s it, kiddo. And thanks.”
Kaia rose from her chair and then swooned and clutched the chairback. She gasped and faltered, nearly falling. Jody hurried around to stabilize her. Kaia’s face flushed, her pupils dilated, and her irises turned red even as Jody grasped her upper arms. Sweat broke from her hairline and tumbled down her face and throat.
“Kaia? Breathe, alpha. What is it? Here, sit. What’s wrong?”
“Jody,” Kaia panted. “Smells…What IS that? I need… I need out. Out of my way.” She shoved past Jody and made for the door, but before she reached it, a single assertive knock prefaced the door opening to reveal a familiar blonde troublemaker. Jody’s face broke out in a wide grin.
“Claire! What are you…?”
But on second glance, Claire’s complexion showed the same ruddy glow, brighter even than Kaia’s across Claire’s pale cheeks. Her eyes matched the alpha’s, only, gold in a tight circle around an impossibly wide pupil, where Kaia’s irises were crimson.
“Shit,” Jody swore. She pressed the panic button on her belt radio and pressed her body between the young women to buy time. They were having none of it, reaching desperately for each other in the tiny space. Jody knew better than to try very hard. She knew a True-Mate Trigger when she saw one, and Facility protocol was to attempt to stall the act if it could be done safely. If it couldn’t, then to do what could be done to make the environment safe for a Mating. Hard, running footfalls sounded outside in the dorm—security stationed at the dorm entry, summoned by Jody’s red button.
Claire shoved Jody aside, wrapped a hand around Kaia’s neck and pulled her in, locking their lips together and climbing her like a tree. Kaia’s arms wound around Claire’s back, under her ass, lifting the Omega into her arms, and slammed her back against the plate glass of Jody’s office window. It rattled but held. Jody caught herself on the corner of her desk, grunting at the bite of desk into the back of her thigh.
“Jodes?” Donna asked in alarm, following as two burly alphas stormed in with Jody’s mate on their heels.
“I’m fine. It’s Claire, Donna. Claire and Kaia. It’s a Code Four!”
One of the alphas wrestled Kaia’s arms free of Claire while the other helped Claire find her feet only to drag her away from her alpha. Both women wailed and struggled.
“It’s okay, ladies. We just need to get you somewhere secure. Hang tight for us,” the larger alpha soothed even as he held Kaia’s arms tightly behind her back and wrenched them to stand her on her tiptoes. It looked brutal, but there was no other way to secure her, and the policy for onsite Mating was clear: if at all possible, separate the couple long enough to confirm consent, get scent readings from both partners, and ready a monitored processing room for them with enough support to intervene if the deed went sour.
”MINE!” Kaia wailed fruitlessly. ”FUCK YOU! LET ME GO! THAT’S MINE!”
“ALPHA!” Claire screamed back, lifted wholesale over the security alpha’s shoulder and hoisted right out of the office. She kicked and pummeled him the entire way to the stairwell, screeching.
”SON OF A BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH HER?!” Kaia’s hair flew wildly about her face.
“Just breathe, alpha,” the security guard soothed. “She’s not going anywhere. We’re going to put her in a room and have her ready for you to Claim her. You’re fine. She’s fine. Just breathe for me and calm down a bit.”
Donna’s eyes were huge. She had pressed herself into the corner of her mate’s office, seeking to shrink into the wall. Jody went to her and held her arms open. Donna dove into them. “Do they have to be so violent about it?” she whispered.
“Shh.” Jody stroked her hair. “Let the team do its job. Calm down.”
“Jody, please!” Kaia screamed. She fought valiantly, landing some unforeseen hits and kicks, but the alpha holding her was better positioned. He avoided her teeth and worked his arms around her torso so that her arms were pinned.
“Kaia,” Jody called with her eyes firm, and her chin lifted. “Sweetheart, listen to me. What’s happening to you right now is scary and out of control. But listen to me, alpha. You’re going to be fine. That girl who just flipped your switch is an Omega-Neutral. She’s a wonderful girl. She’s perfect for you, alpha. You couldn’t have matched better if you’d had a thousand other Omegas to scent. And you’re going to go down to where she is in just a little while. We have to run a couple simple tests first. It’s for your safety and hers. I know you want her safe, Kaia. Let’s keep her safe.”
Kaia panted hard, clutched the guard’s wrists at her solar plexus and watched every syllable fall from Jody’s mouth like it was her entire religion. “Her name, beta,” Kaia gasped. “What’s her name?”
“Her name is Claire Novak,” Jody told her, brushing Kaia’s hair back from her face. “She’s like a daughter to me. Donna and I couldn’t be happier that she matched with you, alpha. You’re going to make her happy. I just know it.”
Kaia drank in every word, thirsty in a way she’d never experienced before. “Claire,” she whispered.
Jody smiled, pleased that the young woman was calming without Claire’s scent right under her nose. “Are you back with us?” she asked affectionately. “All things considered, think I’ll give the group leader position to Gavin after all. No offense. I suspect you’ll be too busy over the next few weeks to fill out inspection reports.”
“No…I…I can’t Mate, Jody. You don’t understand.” Kaia’s eyes looked wild under her mane of hair, but she seemed to be gathering herself back. “What I do out there…I can’t take a mate. Jesus, I want to. Want her so bad.”
Jody forced the alpha to look at her, and she sent some kind of grounding maternal vibes through to Kaia that slowed her down. Kaia panted and drank in Jody’s every breath. “You can have this, alpha, if it’s what you want. Claire has…complications too. If you want, I’ll tell you everything I know. Then you can decide for yourself what happens next. Baby, you can have this. I swear. Don’t fight it if it’s what you want. Let’s get downstairs, and we’ll talk. Then you can take her home.”
“How long?” Kaia asked. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
Jody kept a serious countenance and gave her a straight answer. “It’ll take about half an hour to get the tests run and the room set up. We need to register your scent-responses for the Mating license. Having a third party vouch that yours is a True-Mate Trigger saves you reams of paperwork and affidavits later. Trust me. It’s a little pain now to save you a lot when you file. The scent readings will prove there was nothing nonconsensual about your Claim.”
“Here,” Donna said, holding up an open water bottle. “Drink a little.”
Kaia sipped gratefully. The alpha holding her allowed her to take the bottle and sip from it on her own, but he didn’t release her.
“At least you don’t have to wait for them to get her Alpha to sign off,” Donna added. “She’s a ward of The Facility. Bobby or Cas can both approve her Mating. I think maybe Benny or Dean, even. Someone’s bound to be on-hand.”
Jody’s phone pinged. She checked the screen. “That’s the green light. Let’s get you downstairs.” She turned to her mate. “Stay here and watch the dorms for me. I’ll call you out from your office; let them know you’re covering an emergency. I need to be there for the girls. I can’t leave Claire right now.”
“Yeah,” Donna nodded stoutly. “Yeah. You go. Take care of them, Jodes. Love you.”
Jody kissed Donna’s cheek. “Love you too, Omega. Call me if you swirl.”
The scent of Triggered Omega hung heavy in the stairwell, even with the powerful venting fans at work overhead, and Kaia whined high in her throat. She didn’t struggle overmuch though, so her escort allowed her to stay on her feet. At floor two, they exited the stairwell to find a pair of alphas ready to escort Kaia through the corridor to her scenting room. Cas hustled up just as Kaia entered her own room, contiguous to Claire’s.
“Jody! Where’s Claire?”
Jody huffed. “Right next door, Alpha. Will you sit with her? Someone should stay with Kaia.”
“Yes. I would like that,” he replied. “This Trigger. Jody, is it a good match? Will Claire be safe? She’s been through so much. I won’t let some alpha hurt her again.”
Jody smiled and nodded, touching his arm. “They’re perfect, Cas. It’s going to be fine. You go in there and tell Claire that her mate’s name is Kaia. Kaia Nieves. She’s an alpha-Neutral. You tell her that Jody says she can trust this alpha. Tell her, Mama says it’s a good match. The best. She’s going to be happy with Kaia. She’s good people, Cas. She’s one of us.”
Cas released a slow, careful breath, found he trusted the fervency of Jody’s assurance. He nodded, patted Jody’s shoulder and hurried away, mumbling Kaia’s name to himself so he would remember.
“Where are you staying?” Cas asked during the interminable wait for the scent readings to come through and the room’s readiness to be signaled. Claire looked up at him through her messy side-braid and smudged kohl eyeliner.
“Figured Jody would spot me a bed for a night or two.”
Cas leveled a reproving look at her. “Claire, you know we can’t allow an unaffiliated Omega to stay in the student dorms.”
“Who’s unaffiliated?” she challenged. “I’m part of The Facility Pack too. Just because no one but you and Bobby know that…” she petered off with a resentful shrug as she curled over her lap. “I liked her old house.”
“I don’t know where Kaia lives,” Cas began as he took a seat beside her. She made a face and shuffled a few inches away, unsettled at his alpha scent. It was the wrong scent. “But I would very much like for both of you to stay with me until your living arrangements are settled.”
“Cas,” Claire whined. “I mean, thanks and all, but…”
“I insist, Omega,” Cas interrupted. “It’s an offer and a requirement, both. I will have a room prepared for you.”
“Ca-as,” she whined even more shrill, and she drew his name out to multiple syllables and rocked in her seat. “I don’t need living arrangements. We’re on a job. Krissy has a hook right now. She just sent me off to give her a chance to set it. You can’t tie me to Lawrence just because…” she made a vague gesture with her hand up toward the scent vents near the ceiling that had recently had her panting against the wall and trying to climb up to lick them.
“I’m not tying you anywhere, Claire,” Cas told her. “You have an alpha mate of your own to answer to now. I suggest you work it out with Kaia. But for the short interim while your bond settles, you’re both staying with me. I reserve the right to get to know the alpha who Triggered my namesake.”
Claire sighed in the defeated way only the young could manage, right on the cusp of the depths of utter despair. “She’s going to make me stop hunting, isn’t she?”
Cas chuckled. “The thing about True-Mate Triggers is they only happen to people who are ideally suited to each other. I won’t lie to you and tell you it’s never happened that an alpha mate has put their foot down and prohibited their mate from activities they enjoyed prior to the bite. But when that happens, if it’s really a True-Mate connection, it always follows that both partners find the change a positive one. If curtailing your outside endeavors isn’t what’s best for you, if hunting is really an intrinsic part of who you are, then the Universe will not match you with someone who insists you stop. You can trust this instinct, Claire. That, and try talking to Kaia about what’s important to you.”
Claire shook her head. “No. She’s an alpha. She’ll make me stop. She’ll make me sit at home and dust…”
Castiel laughed. “I would love to see anyone try to make you stay home and dust.” He smiled at the image. “Besides, Krissy is an alpha, and she doesn’t try to stop you. There are alphas like that out there, Claire.”
“Yeah, well, Krissy is a foul-mouthed, vulgar bitch, and no one but me was ever able to stand her enough to work with her.” She grew somber and looked away. “Me and Alex, that is.”
“Don’t be afraid, Claire,” Cas told her. He caught her chin in his hand and brought her around to face him. His eyes gentled. “I know what you’re feeling right now. I’ve been in this very room, myself, and I remember my mind running in circles with a million worries. You’re going to be fine.”
“I won’t be a Novak anymore,” she told him softly.
He smiled. “It’s not the end of the world. I’m not a Novak anymore either—not in name. But we will always be Novaks in here, Claire,” he patted her sternum and his own. “We are who we make ourselves to be, New Men, people of our own devising. I believe in you. You have never faced a challenge you didn’t overcome brilliantly.”
“Can we at least have your guest house, so we don’t have to see Gabriel slouch around in the nude every morning?”
Cas grinned. “I think that can be arranged.”
The intercom by the door buzzed. “Alpha? We need Claire’s Heat schedule. When was her last cycle?” It was a processing tech that Cas didn’t know by name. He missed the days when Jo or Charlie would have taken point on coordinating a Mating of Pack this close to the Alpha himself.
Cas raised a brow toward Claire. She blushed and rolled her shoulders. “June fourteenth,” she mumbled, embarrassed.
“Mid-June,” Cas called louder. “She may Trip today. Could go either way.”
“Someone should tell Ash,” Claire sighed. “He’s gone to ground around town somewhere. Probably somewhere disgusting. We were planning to drive back to Fresno together.”
Cas nodded. “Bobby will know where Ash is.”
Claire popped out of her chair, scratching at her arms and grimacing. She stripped her shirt off and tossed it behind her, then released the front catch on her bra and doffed that too. “It’s all so embarrassing, Alpha,” she whined. “Why me? Why now? Why this alpha?”
Cas maintained his calm. “Claire, if you say the word, I will sneak you out the back door and have you four-hundred miles from here come sundown. I’ll get you to Christian, and he will put his entire team to unclamping the Trigger before it sets for good. You don’t have to do this.” He fixed her with an expression so earnest she hugged herself tightly and melted a little.
“My body wants this, Alpha. My Secondary wants this so bad. If I just knew for sure what she’s like. If I knew for sure that she’s not going to try to tie my feet to a bed somewhere and make me have babies!”
“So ask her,” Cas offered, pointing at her with his phone. “Jody is in there with her. Text Jody and ask.”
Claire reached into her back pocket for her phone, but she stood staring at its black screen, thinking. “Jody likes her, huh? Said we would be a good match?”
“Jody adores you both,” Cas told her. “But Jody won’t be there to mediate between you after you Mate. If you have reservations, it’s better to let Kaia know now.”
Claire bit her thumb and glanced up at the Alpha through her lashes. “Or I could take a leap of faith and see if the Universe is as much of a bastard as I always thought. See if maybe this once it’s looking out for me for a change?”
Cas stood and went to her. He embraced her. “It’s not a test, Claire. And this is your life. I’ve never known a True-Mate Trigger to sour if the individuals involved gave it their all. But you decided a long time ago that you were through letting someone else make decisions for you. Now is not the time to forget that commitment. It’s not being selfish to tell your alpha what you need and to expect her to honor that.
“What I’m saying is that TM Triggers only happen between people who are already aligned to honor the unique needs of their partners. Abusers don’t have True-Mate matches, Claire. If Kaia was the kind of alpha to demand you give up the work that you love and that makes such a difference to so many people, then she wouldn’t have Triggered with you. But don’t take my word for it; ask her.”
“I can’t,” Claire breathed. “I can’t make myself do it. It feels like she might reject me before she even bites me, and that thought is making me crazy. Will you do it?”
“Sure,” Cas told her. He texted Jody that Claire had a vital question for Kaia, but that she preferred a go-between to ask it.
The intercom buzzed again. It was Bobby’s voice this time. “We got the room all set up, folks,” he said cheerfully—as cheery as Bobby ever sounded. “Just need the happy couple. Omegas first. You ready, Pup?”
“Give us a moment, Bobby,” Cas answered. Jody’s reply came through. She sent a thumbs up followed by a quick note: “This is Kaia. What’s wrong?”
Claire read it and sobbed abruptly before covering her mouth and looking mortified.
Cas patted her back and stroked her hair. Then he paced away a few steps and typed, “Claire works an important and dangerous job, the details of which she will share with you later. She is concerned that once you Mate, as her alpha, you will confine her to your home and prohibit her from working. She wants to make it clear before you Claim her that she has no intention of stopping. That is her demand, and she has support here at The Facility in making that choice.”
“Jody explained it to me. I understand. I won’t make her stop. I won’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. I’m really not like that. Tell her. Please?”
Then Cas’ phone rang. He answered and put it on speaker. Claire’s jaw dropped. Her face paled. She stared at the phone.
“He…hello? Kaia?” she asked, trembling.
“Claire,” Kaia’s voice sounded strong and stable and firm and soothing and so very put together that Claire felt like a child in an instant. “I won’t, baby. I swear. I would never. That’s not me. I need you to know. That’s not me. Please. Claire, please.”
Claire sobbed again. “Alpha, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I doubted you. I need you. Need you so bad!”
“I need you too,” Kaia replied. Her voice softened. Claire trembled under Castiel’s arm.
“I’m ready,” she told him. “I’m ready, Alpha.”
“Atta girl,” he praised. He left a kiss on her nose. “Bobby, we’re coming out.”
Claire was shuffled quickly to the nearest processing room. The remainder of her clothing fell just inside the door, and a tech fitted her with a set of unobtrusive electrodes. Cas was pleased to see Ellen helming the controls. He got Claire squared away in the bed, collected her clothes, and retreated into the booth to stand witness.
“Did you prep her, Sir?” Ellen asked.
“No, I most certainly did not,” he replied with a huff. “She’s practically my daughter. Besides, Omega channels don’t need prep to take a knot. She’ll be fine.”
Ellen smacked her lips and rolled her shoulders. “Why do we even have protocols if we don’t follow them?” she grumbled under her breath, readying the instruments to take readings and the cameras to capture everything. “All right, folks,” Ellen called to the technicians. “The alpha’s inbound. Here we go. Eyes front!”
The far door swung open, and a very naked Kaia stormed in, wasting no time. Cas had never known Claire to show much of a submissive side to anyone, but she rolled instantly for Kaia. The alpha covered Claire with her body—her mouth and her hands all over the Omega’s body. Claire kissed back hard and then broke free of Kaia’s lips as she craned her head back to display her throat to her alpha mate.
“Good girl,” Ellen whispered, reading the sensors and typing furiously. Jody slipped in quietly.
Kaia’s alpha aggression took on a confident flavor. She wasn’t harsh or demanding. She said little except to croon sweet epithets of adoration and praise, but every movement was hers to choreograph, and every touch happened precisely as she chose. She was a natural. Kaia was an alpha who knew her place in the pecking order and never doubted the sanctity of her Pack position. She knew her own mind. Cas respected that in a woman as young as Kaia.
The alpha had Claire’s legs wrapped around her waist, and she rocked their bodies together, grinding in hard and close while she suckled a nipple into her mouth and squeezed the back of Claire’s neck with her right hand. Claire looked to be doing her best just to hold on for the ride, matching the rhythm of Kaia’s hips.
“Has she mounted yet?” Bobby asked from behind Cas. He worked his way into the control room proper, dodging technicians. “It doesn’t look like it.”
“No, not yet,” Jody answered. “Hard to tell from this angle, but I don’t think she’s even unsheathed yet.”
Bobby whistled and raised his brows, shooting her a look.
Jody agreed. “I told you she was special,” she said to the room in general. “She’s got more self-control in her little finger than most alphas have in a lifetime. I don’t know her history, but something taught her to be careful. She’s always like this. She’s going to be good for our Claire, guys. I’m telling you.”
“There she goes,” Cas nodded toward the couple as Ellen clicked into a new camera angle that showed the girls from head-on. In the room, Kaia’s erection hung free for a moment, her knot still encased within her sheath, before she ground down and dragged her pelvis upward to send delightful sparks shooting through Claire’s body. Claire moaned and tightened her embrace. She locked her ankles together over Kaia’s back. Kaia thrust against Claire’s clit, working her furiously, and Claire arched into the contact and came hard, bucking at the waves of pleasure passing through her. Slick coated them both.
Mating sex wasn’t like every day sexual expressions. It was transactional, a Claim. And as such, only rarely did the Bottom partner receive direct attention meant to grant them release for its own sake. For Kaia to deliberately see to Claire’s pleasure before completing her own connection spoke all that Cas needed to know about her as a person and as a mate for this girl he felt so responsible for.
“That’s it, baby,” Kaia crooned. “Come for me. You’re so beautiful. Can I? Claire, can I knot you? Say yes, baby. Say yes. Want you so bad.”
“YES! God, please!” Claire wailed.
Kaia pulled up onto her knees. She had her lower lip in her teeth again, but the asking was over. She was done asking. Done giving. Something flipped behind her eyes, and just like that, Kaia took. Her eyes twinkled with feral joy and light. “Roll over,” she instructed. “We’re gonna do this right. Up on your knees, Omega. Show me that pretty hole.”
“Good girl,” Ellen repeated, typing again as the hormone sensors began to spike. Claire hesitated. Her eyes flicked to the one-way mirror, knowing who was watching from the other side.
Kaia’s face scrunched in a tight grimace. “Do it, Claire! Fucking roll for me! NOW!”
Claire gasped and flipped onto her belly. Before she could get her knees under her, Kaia pounced and lifted her by her hips. She flopped over her Omega and rutted animal-like for a warm orifice with her fingers laced together holding the back of Claire’s head down into the pillow. The moment her cock sank into Claire’s channel, the pace of her fucking picked up. She worked feverishly, thrusting like a jackrabbit and pressing down with her entire upper body. Claire was motionless except for the pulsing drive from behind that scooched her toward the headboard in increments. Kaia’s knot popped free of her sheath, already fully swollen, enormous and bulbous and impossibly hard.
Alpha knots usually swelled to full size through the entirety of an encounter. Driving a half-engorged knot into and back out of a channel was a pleasure of its own. But Kaia’s emerged already full-sized. There would be no slow stretching to get that monster seated. She would have to shove it in all in one go and then leave it there.
Ellen shot an annoyed look over her shoulder at Cas when the knot dropped and it became clear they were dealing with an anomaly. Women usually had knots proportional to their penis size, quite some factor smaller than a typical man’s. Kaia’s was enormous for her size and gender. Her knot was every bit as large as Dean’s despite her penis showing somewhat under average girth.
“Jesus,” Bobby whispered. “I hope you prepped her.”
In the processing room, Kaia’s bare back glistened with sweat. She’d slowed her pace, working on depth more than speed now. She grunted like a tennis player with each hard thrust. Her pressure against the back of Claire’s head redoubled until Kaia was straddling the Omega’s hips on the balls of her feet, nearly flattening the woman into the bedding and pounding furiously away at her from directly above with all of her weight against Claire’s head and backside.
Claire’s hands came back to grasp at Kaia’s, tangled in her hair. She spread her knees and tried her best to keep some lift to her hips. Claire’s thighs trembled. Kaia let go of her head and wrapped an arm under her right shoulder, circling it to give her better leverage, and she hauled the Omega backward into the shift of her hips. She circled them, trying to force her knot in, falling back to her knees. The two of them seemed to stop moving altogether, but every muscle stood tense, centered at the impossible stretch before them.
Then Claire lifted her face and screamed. Kaia’s grip tightened, her flank quivered, and the knot slipped smoothly in. Kaia sucked in a long, painful sounding breath and then curled over her mate, took the meat of Claire’s shoulder between her teeth, and bit. Tears squeezed out of clenched eyes as her hips shunted and rolled her release into her mate’s body.
Claire’s Omega gland Released, sending the tracer lines on their monitors to register a sharp peak and a dramatic drop followed immediately by the even higher parabolic line of the alpha’s Claim connecting at the juncture of Kaia’s teeth with Claire’s shoulder. The technicians watched their monitors. Cas’ eyes remained locked on the women, watching them, watching for a mirror response, watching for the lines of pain on Claire’s forehead to smooth. He could feel the Mating-bond forming between them, but only time would tell if what it revealed to each woman about her new partner was grace-blessed or terrifying.
Cas didn’t realize he was holding his breath until a slow, sappy smile formed on Claire’s face, turned toward the window, and her fingers twitched as her mate reached out to stroke her face. He exhaled. He stretched an arm around Jody’s back to return the hug she offered.
“Get going, folks,” Ellen chided, sending her techs into motion making sure every instrument caught the moment and recorded it, each employee responsible for a separate concern. “Stacy, count to twenty and then get in there for the Pelio-reading. Alpha,” Ellen said as she rotated in her chair to face him, “if that had been anyone but you who delivered that Omega unprepped for her own Mating, I would write them up and swing the paddle myself.”
Castiel growled. “You overstep, Omega,” he barked back. “She is not harmed. She was not going to be harmed. You have another think coming if you believe I would let anything harm that girl.”
“That woman,” Bobby put in as he made his way to the door, “would have been better prepared to accept the softball her mate just shoved up her ass if someone had thought to stretch her for it. The alpha is in training classes here. I guarantee someone onsite knows she’s got a basketball between her legs when she’s ripe. Would it have killed you to check up on her before you turned Claire over to catch…that?”
“Had this been a Keller test, I would agree with you,” Cas said doggedly. “But it’s a Mating. There should be as much natural hierarchy as we can give them. Claire wouldn’t have been prepped in the wild, and she would have been fine. She is fine. I grow tired of this argument. If we make it too easy, then the Top cannot bring enough aggression to bear to make the bond stick! Claire is midline Omega and midline Tertiary. I’m sure Kaia offsets that. They’re both too close to the center line to expect a lot of natural aggression.”
“Seems to me Kaia pulled the aggression off without any help from you, Sir,” Ellen said flippantly.
Cas squared up to her, but Bobby took him by the arm and turned him. “Leave her be, Alpha. She’s not wrong, and it’s her job here more than it is yours. Drop it or she’ll end up taking swats she don’t deserve. If you want to blow off, give it to me, not Ellen.”
Stacy returned to the control room and checked that her readings all fed through correctly. She holstered her meter and sank back into her chair, looking small with the scent of annoyed Alpha cloying in everyone’s nostrils.
“I’m taking them home with me,” Cas told everyone and no one. “I’ll be leaving at six. Let me know before then if there’s any reason they shouldn’t be moved.” He left without waiting for a reply and made his way into the processing room.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said softly as he approached the bed. He kept a good yard between himself and the Omega, but Kaia just rolled her head sleepily and peered up at him with one eye closed.
“You’re the Alpha,” she remarked drunkenly, recognizing him even through her stupor.
“That’s right. I’m a friend of Claire’s. In fact, she’s very important to me. May I speak to your Omega directly, alpha? I won’t touch her without your permission.”
Kaia snorted. “Ask her, Alpha. She’s a grown woman.”
“That she is,” Cas said with a smile, liking Kaia even more as she stretched with a languorous yawn and licked slowly at the open wound on Claire’s shoulder. Cas waited until Claire turned her head on the pillow to face him.
“What?” she asked somewhat rudely but quite in character with the Claire Cas knew.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I’m happy for you. If you experience any pain, be sure to tell your coordinator. Nothing should hurt right now. I’ll leave you two to it. I will pick you up at six and take you home.”
“Home?” Kaia asked, sounding high and looking sleep-muzzed. “Where ‘zat? You live around here, baby?” She kissed along Claire’s neck and tongued the shell of her ear. Claire shivered.
Claire demurred. “I’ll tell you all about it after we untie. I don’t want to talk yet. I just want to feel. You feel so good, alpha. Love your damn knot. It’s fucking huge! Bigger than most men’s! Roll your hips again. Mmm!”
Cas looked at the mirror before him and winked, then he excused himself. He headed straight back to his office, notifying Christian that his star hunter was out for a while, telling him to spread the word to those who needed to know. He alerted his household that guests were imminent, possibly to be in-cycle when they arrived. He returned to his office and booted up his computer.
Michael texted back, “What is it with you and collecting blonde Omegas?”
Mick slid in and set a thin dossier on Cas’ desk before him. Cas flipped it open and began reading everything Mick could find on Kaia Nieves on short notice.
“Well, that explains the self-control,” Cas hummed as he read. Mick nodded. His eyes remained dark. “And the fact that she Triggered with Claire,” Cas added as he turned a page. “I’m surprised they never stumbled over one another in the field. She’s got quite the list under her belt.”
“She does at that,” Mick agreed.
“Kaia did the Tampa raid? You’re sure? Alone?”
“Yeah, looks like.”
“What is an alpha like this doing boarding in my training school, Mick?”
“If I had to guess, Alpha, I’d say she was working on maintaining a viable alter ego. Alphas her age do training. So here she is, making a go of looking legit in case she needs to hide in plain sight. I don’t think she has a team behind her. It’s just her on her lonesome, out there fighting the good fight with no backup. She needs aliases, an identity to sink back into when the pressure’s on. She’s got stuff like this sprinkled all around.
“If someone looks into her past, someone who doesn’t know how to dig, it’s close enough together that you might not notice the holes in between. What I don’t know yet is where she gets her funding. She’s a registered Contractor in Oregon, but that doesn’t pay well enough to bankroll the kind of ammunition she carries.”
“I need to talk to Bobby,” Cas said, closing the folder. “If he doesn’t know her, he’ll know how to find out. If he does know her, I want to find out why I’ve never heard of her. She should be on our team, that much is clear.” Cas slid the dossier back across to Mick and changed the subject. “Did Crowley come through?”
Mick smirked and smacked his lips smugly.
“Everything?” Cas asked in disbelief. “All of it? Not just the adolescent training funds, but…?”
“Every dime,” Mick answered, grinning. “Half of it pulled together before his blood even dried on your dick. But you knew that much. The rest finalized this morning. Word is he’s limping around from one face-to-face to another with his hat in his hand, apologizing for being insufferable, promising quick returns, and begging for whatever he can get. It’s such a drastic about-face that they’re all writing checks. And he’s got promises from three more big donors as fallback security. Even if something falls through before it clears the bank, we’re still flush. He can just plug in a replacement. Oh, and Styne phoned in while you were in the processing room. He’s down to needing two votes. He may stick there though. If you have anything else up your sleeve, now is the time to show your hand. You’re this close,” Mick said with a gesture.
Cas leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “I may have an in. I’ll call him tonight. Damn, it feels good when things come together. I wonder if Dean’s free for lunch.” He sat forward again and brought Dean’s calendar up on his computer.
“I marked tomorrow’s dissertation defense down in stone, sir,” Mick told him. “Sarah asked me to remind you, so did alpha pastor Murphy, for that matter. Seems neither of them trusts you to remember on your own.”
“Hmm. Is that tomorrow? I thought it was on Friday.”
Mick rolled his eyes.
Cas picked up his phone and dialed. “My suite. Right now. We’re celebrating. Don’t plan to sit again for the rest of the day.”
“Eww,” Mick commented dryly.
“I won’t miss the dissertation defense, Mick. That’s my girl right there. Think I would leave her standing on her own?”
Dean burst in, enthusiasm making his eyes sparkle. “Crowley?” he asked.
“Every dime,” Cas told him. “And then some.”
“WHOO!” Dean cheered, catching Mick into a tight embrace and lifting him off the ground.
“And you wanted me to send Benny,” Cas chided happily.
“No, man, you were right. Sometimes it takes the Alpha and his ginormous knot to drive the point home.” Dean set Mick down. Mick took the chance to slip out.
“Speaking of ginormous knots,” Cas said with a smirk.
“Yes, please,” Dean begged, sliding to his knees beside Castiel’s desk.
Cas chuckled and let Dean attack his fastenings. “No, not me. Claire.”
“C-aare ha’ a ‘ig kno’?” Dean asked with his mouth full.
“No, Dean, Claire doesn’t have a big knot.” Cas scratched at Dean’s scalp and pressed his face in closer. “Her new mate has a big knot—really big for an alpha-Neutral woman. Big for anyone, really. It almost didn’t fit.”
Dean popped off. “What are you talking about?” He hadn’t checked his messages, clearly.
Cas laughed. “I’ll tell you at lunch. First: get up, in my suite, naked and spread for me.” Cas guided Dean toward their suite. “News this good makes me horny, and I want you. Badly.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Cas fucked him first. Normally, he liked to build to it with the kind of foreplay that left Dean swollen and sweaty and stinging, but Cas found himself driven to animal rutting after Kaia’s performance. Matings usually did that to him. There was just something about the primal aggression overcoming otherwise placid people that stirred the base in Castiel, and he couldn’t wait. He pumped lube from the bottle beside his bed, and he growled as he spread it over Dean’s hole, nipping harshly at his husband’s throat. Dean suffered the marks with a desperate whine, pressing his ass down on Cas’ fingers.
“Yeah, Cas! Need it, baby!”
“Calm down, Pet. Be still.” Cas drew smooth circles around Dean’s rim with the pads of two fingers, smearing a thick layer of lubricant as he went. Dean took hold of his own knees and lifted them toward his shoulders, spreading as wide as he could. He rolled his lips between his teeth, closed his eyes, and focused on the touch to his entrance.
Cas teased him with firm pressure that didn’t break through yet, bringing a keening moan from his husband and a subtle rocking. But Cas didn’t want to wait long either. With his eyes on Dean’s face, marking the tension there and reading the quick ascension into raw lust, Cas breached Dean with two fingers at once, pressing inexorably deep in a single slow push, reveling in the soft, velvety slickness of Dean’s warm inner walls.
Dean moaned.
His muscle-tension slackened, letting Cas in and making way for him to move as he wanted. Cas spread his fingers. His eyes left Dean’s face to watch his fingers disappear into Dean’s ass and widen the entry. He pulled out with his fingers still separated, stretching the rim around him and pressed back in with another finger to add to the stretch.
“Uuuunnnrrgghhh!!” Dean groaned, tightening up.
Cas grinned, running the pads of his fingers over Dean’s prostate before easing back and slamming home to the webbed skin at the base of his pinkie. He lifted his body and stretched out beside Dean, finding the man’s mouth with his own as he continued to fuck Dean on his hand. His kisses were hard and searching, driving and hot. Dean’s wolf rolled. His alpha rolled. Dean’s brats offered no provocation. They wanted nothing more than what Castiel offered: his touch, his attention, his lustful passion. Dean’s entire, complex mix of contradictory personality traits agreed that under the weight of this man was right where he belonged.
Cas left his mouth, still fucking Dean with his hand, all of his fingers at this point, his thumb curled in as well, and shifted down, mouthing and tonguing at Dean’s skin as he moved. He nibbled Dean’s strong jawline, so gorgeous and stubborn. He sucked down the hot trail of Dean’s carotid, leaving a cooling line of spit in his wake. He clamped his teeth to the thin skin at Dean’s clavicle where he growled a threat to meet upper teeth to lower and leave behind a throbbing bite-wound.
But he didn’t.
Dean would have bruises. But his skin didn’t break.
Cas clamped his mouth down at the juncture of Dean’s neck and shoulder, a place sacred and sensitive, and he sucked and worried the flesh between his teeth until the spot ached, hot and swollen and purpling in his mouth.
His fingers squelched through the wetness around them.
Dean’s dick throbbed and wept, jouncing at his belly. His chest heaved. His lungs strained.
Cas released his shoulder with a pop and lifted up to examine his work. Dean’s lips were swollen and red. He sported a trail of bright pink bite-marks down the side of his throat and at his jawline. His pupils were blown. His legs shook in his grasp, thighs trembling with want.
“Please,” he murmured. “Please.”
Castiel removed his fingers and wiped them indelicately across Dean’s belly. “Sit up and get me wet,” he instructed.
Dean scrambled to obey. He took as much of Cas’ length into his mouth as he could fit. He mouthed at the flesh filling his mouth, spreading moisture as far down the length as his tongue could reach. Then he pulled off and covered the base with wide swipes of tongue and lips, smearing saliva with his hands. If Cas asked for wetness, he meant not to use any more lube than he’d fucked into Dean’s ass on his fingers. Dean had a vested interest in doing this part to his best ability, aside from how hot he knew Cas found the sight.
“Want you on your hands and knees like a bitch, Pet. Wanna fuck you like a dog, breed you like a brood mare.”
Dean salivated at the image, leaking drool as he pulled his mouth away and took his position before the stallion he’d married. Cas crowded behind him and lifted Dean onto his knees with both arms around his chest. He mouthed hungrily at Dean’s throat, kissed the side of his mouth, and rutted against his lower back. One hand slid down his belly and wrapped around Dean’s cock, squeezing his knot rhythmically.
“Who owns you, Dean Winchester?”
”You do, Alpha. Always you.” Dean rolled his hips into Cas’ fist. He let Cas set the rhythm, and he followed. Always followed.
“I’m going to fuck you until you scream yourself hoarse, and then I’m going to paddle your ass until you can’t sit. You know why?”
“Why, Sir?” Dean moaned, rocking into the pleasure.
Cas whispered gruffly right into his ear, “Because I can.”
Dean’s breath hitched.
Cas torqued Dean’s torso around, plying him hard and making liberal use of Dean’s flexibility, to clamp down on his left nipple and grind it mercilessly between his teeth.
Dean cried out. Adrenalin coursed through his blood and sweat broke out from his palms and feet.
Cas released his bite, shoved Dean down, and sank his cock right into him. He fell over his husband’s body, a mimicry of Kaia’s Claim, with his palms pressing Dean’s head into the bed beneath him.
From there, he was momentum and inevitability. Animal need took over. In his head, Cas saw Kaia’s enormous knot disappear into a too-tight channel again and again, and he would have been hard pressed to fight the lust to feel that rapture for himself.
Dean wasn’t really prepped enough. And Dean was no Omega. But years of practice—conditioning—had taught the two men to read each other. Dean worked his knees extra wide, recognizing Castiel’s endgame. He opened his hips, bowed his back to press his center out and upward, and he bore down against the intrusion, making room for a knot that shouldn’t fit, but did.
Cas screamed deep and loud and let his wolf take the bit. His knot caught on Dean’s rim and stuck, and Dean whuffed in pain, fighting to open for it. Then, just like Kaia’s, Castiel’s knot sank in with a smooth, slow irrevocability, and Dean screamed himself hoarse.
Cas came endlessly, it seemed, shooting off inside Dean’s body with a jerking pulse that rubbed hard against Dean’s prostate. It only took Cas wrapping his fist around Dean’s sensitive knot to send him tumbling too, soiling the comforter below the two wolves.
Cas bit down once more on Dean’s shoulder, leaving a brilliantly painful bruise that would purple the deep tissue and last for weeks. Dean whimpered, longing to collapse under Cas and sleep the rest of the day away.
Sex at work was always a mixed blessing.
Cas read Dean’s drowsiness through his bond and laughed a throaty sound around his teeth. “Not yet, Pet,” he chided. He released Dean’s shoulder, and it throbbed, feeling hot and bruised as blood rushed into the damaged tissues. “I still plan to make you sing under my paddle. Call it a maintenance spanking if you like. After your latest tantrum and new agreement, I mean to implement regular reminders of what we decided between us. What did we decide, Dean? Tell me.”
Dean flattened his body to the bed, cold with his spend under his belly. “You’re in charge, Sir.”
“Very good,” Cas praised. He spread random kisses along the back of Dean’s neck. He held himself above his husband, connected by his knot and braced on strong arms. “And if you ever need me to stop what I decide to do to you?”
“I call my safeword, Sir,” Dean repeated sleepily.
“That’s right,” Cas agreed. “So, unless I hear a safeword, I’m going to assume you’re in full agreement with everything I do. Is that fair?”
“Yessir,” Dean mumbled.
“Do you trust me to wield that power safely, Pet?”
“Mmmm,” Dean agreed vaguely.
“Words, Pet.”
“Always, Alpha,” Dean replied with a touch of annoyance. He knew he was going to get his butt roasted anyway, and right now, while they were tied, he wanted to sneak in a short nap, not reiterate their dynamic.
Cas pinched the back of his arm.
“OW! JESUS!”
“Try that again, Dean.”
That was Castiel’s no-nonsense voice.
Dean swallowed and looked up at him with a hard twist of his body.
“I trust you, Cas,” Dean told him with a wince.
“Thank you. Now, you may sleep.”
Dean awoke when the knot gave way to a persistent tugging and a gush of sticky fluid. Cas didn’t give him much time to shake off the grogginess, bringing him fully awake by hoisting him to the end of the bed and draping him over it, naked, sticky, and chilled.
He didn’t stay chilled for long. Castiel’s favorite number eight paddle, made of stout oak and drilled with six half-inch diameter holes, made an immediate impression. Dean found full alertness with a shout and a startle. He dug his toes into the carpet and bent his knees. His ass went from dull throbbing deep inside, in the core of his body, to a hot, blazing fire on every inch of the surface that throbbed independent of anything else.
Dean buried his face, mindfully embraced the pain, and then slowly reached behind him and pulled his ass cheeks wider to bare the most sensitive flesh to the ravages of Castiel’s paddle. In his head, Dean felt Castiel’s lust peak, and he matched the Alpha, riding wave upon wave of torturous fire until he felt dizzy with it. He pulsed on the balls of his feet. He floated. He moaned and rocked and soared.
And Castiel tethered him safely from the ground, smiling into every solid Thwack!
Cas ordered trays delivered to the suite from the cafeteria. They’d sneaked away late in the morning, so their meal arrived at the peak lunch hour. Cas fed Dean finger foods and wiped his chin for him. He slapped Dean’s hand away whenever Dean reached for the napkin himself.
“Test me, Pet. Keep it up. I can make you scream again before I send you back to work.”
“I have drool on my lip, Sir,” Dean protested.
“If I’m not wiping it off, you can assume I want it there. Leave it alone or suffer my displeasure.” Cas slipped another broccoli floret into Dean’s mouth to protect the brat from his own smart mouth. He kissed Dean’s nose. The cafeteria offered a selection of finger foods just for this sort of sharing. It wasn’t Dean’s favorite lunch, but he did enjoy the feeding itself.
Dean worked bits of broccoli out of his teeth with his tongue and then changed the subject.
“Cas, are you seriously considering letting the Pack fight for rank? I thought you were all about peace and a settled household.”
“Michael made a good case. Things may not be as settled as they appear. If there are resentments stirring under the surface over an ascribed rank that someone can outdo if given the chance, then that’s not peace, now, is it? Dean, I want this Pack to grow. I want to bring in new bloodlines and spread our footprint beyond the estate. Maybe that won’t happen until our progeny take mates, but it will happen eventually. We have to be flexible to different perspectives, different approaches if the Pack is going to survive and flourish when we take on members who aren’t connected through blood ties.”
Dean scowled, but Cas subverted that by slipping a cheese cube into his mouth followed by a few whole almonds. Dean chewed and swallowed before answering. He rolled onto his belly on the soft blanket Cas had thrown in front of the couch. Dean folded his arms beneath him, bracing his torso on his elbows. “Cain is never going to best me, Sir. It’s not very nice to make him think he stands a chance there.”
Cas chuckled. “Well, true. But with the membership our Pack has now, it wasn’t a matchup between you and Cain I had in mind.”
“Cain and Sammy?” Dean checked, feeling stupid for having missed that on the first pass.
“Michael thinks they’re mis-ranked as they are. He thinks Sam can best Cain in a fair confrontation.”
“Cain’s an eighteen in his Secondary, Cas. Michael’s smoking something. No way Sam can best that. No way. I’ve stood toe-to-toe with Cain, and I know I was hobbled what with having his Claim on me, but he’s got real weight in there.”
“Hm,” Cas answered vaguely. “Sam topples you whenever he sets his mind to it. But you know, even if Sam lost, it would be fairer than ascribing him a Pack rank on Secondaries alone. At least that would solidify that we made the right call from the start. And if Sam is resentful, even if it’s an unconscious rumbling, his wolf will be aware of it, and it will eventually poison the top echelon of my Pack. I won’t have that.”
“And if Sam won?” Dean asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Cas huffed and fed him four chilled grapes big enough to pouch his cheeks. “Don’t think I don’t know how gratifying that would be to you, Pet. Not only would you get to play proud big brother, but you’d get to rub Cain’s face in the mud.”
“Be worth it just for that,” Dean agreed after he swallowed. He envisioned Sam stepping up over Cain’s defeated body to take his place right below Dean again, where he rightfully belonged. “You may have a point. Sir.”
Cas carried on, ignoring Dean’s remark. “Of course, the other pair that bears watching is Jess and Sarah. Kali won’t be interested one way or the other. If anyone challenged her, she would concede rather than fight. Kali wants none of the trappings of rank. All she cares about is Gabe. But if there are resentments besides Sam’s, it would be from his mate. Sarah is a Primate. I’ve wondered more than once if we weren’t too cavalier about setting her rank above Jess.”
“So, we design a test for her. I’ve been watching her, Cas. I think she’s a Sub. Take some of those non-sexual pre-tests you’re working up for the adolescents and give them to Sarah.” Dean sat up as an epiphany struck, showing no sign that sitting on his reddened backside hurt. “Hell, let Kevin design a study around it. Get the volunteer corps to sign up a whole slate of Primates. Make it a legit study. We have to legitimize those tests anyway. Why not get Sarah rated while we’re about it. Then let her and Jess duke it out. Can we put ‘em naked in an oil pen and make them wrestle?” Dean’s eyes were alight with glee.
“What do you care?” Cas rebuked, a reminder that naked women slathered with oil wasn’t Dean’s usual preference.
“Sexy is sexy, man. Everyone loves a good nude wrestling match. Then Jess wins and we hold a Pack orgy to celebrate. Sam would owe me big for that.”
Cas snorted. “And Michael’s idea of cash distributions? Where do you stand on that?”
Dean’s expression solidified, losing the twinkle as he considered it from a business perspective. “We’d have to run it by the Board, Cas. Our income comes from the business ventures that none of us but Michael pays any attention to. We would need to be sure they understand how it’s dispersed.”
“Why? It’s not their money, Dean. Do you get the ACRI’s approval to spend your paycheck on groceries? Or Metallica albums? How is it the Board’s business how we distribute Pack income?”
Dean frowned. “I’m not sure. Maybe you’re right. But I would feel better getting their stamp. There could be something about it we don’t know.”
“Besides,” Cas continued before he popped an apple slice into his mouth, “the growth Michael’s planning to distribute isn’t earnings from business profit, it’s investment income from Michael’s shrewd eye in the market. He’s only talking about distributing the growth, not the business earnings.”
“So, Michael wins us big quarterly growth on what the Board pays out to us, and then he gets nothing out of the deal? That’s what he said, right? Omegas get bupkis? Nah, I’m not cool with that. If he gets nothing, neither does anyone else.”
“We could raise his salary,” Cas suggested. “Make it a percentage of the quarterly earnings he secures.”
Dean took the celery stick Cas held up to his mouth, but he didn’t bite into it. He leaned close to his husband and offered half of it to Cas to bite, turning the exchange into a kiss. “I love you, Alpha. Thank you for looking after my mate the way you do.”
“It is my absolute pleasure, Dean. I love you too. And I love the man you Mated. I love my life with you. I love everything about us, our family, our work, our connection. Let’s put this idea to Cain and Sam. I want to hear my whole leadership team’s take. Meanwhile, present for me again. I want to take another pass with my number eight now that the sting has worn off.”
“What?!” Dean squawked, covering his ass with his hands and sitting on it at the same time. “Why?!”
“Because I want to,” Cas replied. “Do I need another reason?”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Move your ass. Get on your hands and knees, Pet. Crawl for me to the picture window. Present your ass to the lawn and all the people in the parking lot. No more talking.” Cas opened the blinds as he spoke and then disappeared into the bedroom for the holed paddle he’d used before their lunch arrived.
“Sir, please, there are people out there.” Dean settled into position even as he whined.
“I told you to zip it,” Cas said sternly as he returned. He struck Dean’s right thigh with the paddle. “No complaining.” He hit Dean’s left thigh. “No whining.” He hit Dean’s right ass cheek. “No.” POP. “Talking.” POP. “At.” POP. “All.” POP.
“OW!” Dean’s brow furrowed in a petulant pout. He scowled at the floor.
“You don’t like those people? Fine. Follow me.” Cas opened to suite door leading into the hallway. Dean groaned and began to stand.
“Crawl!” Cas corrected, and Dean dropped instantly at the tone. His eyes widened as he realized Cas wasn’t playing.
“shit,” Dean huffed under his breath. Cas popped him hard on his way past the doorway. Dean yiped but kept going.
Cas led him down a hallway that had never seemed quite so long before, all the way to the lunchroom, still mostly full. Along the way, Dean earned catcalls. Cas earned cheers of encouragement. Cas applied his paddle the whole way. He never let Dean slow much.
Billie’s alpha assistant, Josie, crossed her arms at the entryway into the cafeteria, leaning back against the jamb, and she cocked her head playfully. “Look at you, Winchester. I do love a man on his knees. You look good down there.”
Dean growled, and Cas smacked him hard enough to knock him forward. “Manners, Pet,” Cas said blandly. As Dean crawled into the spacious room, people crowded in from the hall, delighted at the show. The volume in the room picked up. Cas pointed Dean toward the dais at the back. It held a couple of structures used frequently for public punishment. The stocks were empty today, as were the spanking benches.
“Yeah, Dean! Sway those hips!” The yell could have come from anyone. Dean didn’t know who, but he blushed. His boner swung as he crawled, tugging with the pull of gravity.
“What’d he do this time?” Dean heard Michael ask as he sauntered forward.
“Failed to follow simple instructions,” Cas answered before popping Dean’s ass again.
Dean grunted. The lunchroom cheered. The smell of arousal and excitement lifted the hair at the back of Dean’s neck.
“Okay, well,” Michael checked his watch as Dean glanced up at him. “Remind him I plan to work him over after my shift. Tell him I love him and I’m proud of him. I gotta run.” Michael’s scent was firmly Omega, and he didn’t smell aroused like the flood of randy voyeurs behind them. Michael knew better than to address Dean directly while Castiel’s paddle was in his hand, but the Omega’s nonchalance was an added humiliation, and Dean felt a stringy drip of precome leave the tip of his cock.
“Have a good shift, Michael,” Cas said. He swatted Dean’s thigh almost lazily. Even at that, he still left a sting that burned the soles of Dean’s feet through his leg. Around them, an orgy felt imminent. More people arrived, brought through frantic texts, no doubt, to “get your ass down here!” A double line of onlookers arranged themselves like a kindergarten class at story time, sitting politely on their bottoms in a semi-circle that gave Cas plenty of room to swing. Behind them, the lunchroom shifted in energy, rousing to full orgy mode. Anyone still eating lunch fled with their trays or disposed of the remainder of their food and joined the festivities. Clothing flew. Bare skin flashed. Wolves howled with the effervescence of a Pack communion. Friends called dibs and scuffled for rights.
Cas pretended to ignore them, but in truth, he preened at the feel of all those eyes on him and his Pet. He held his paddle casually, leaving blazing pain behind whenever he bothered to land it. As the volume and the fervor rose around them, Cas rose with it, a regal lion sharing his domain and patiently allowing the Pride to suckle on his fingertips, licking the excess from his fingers like a Renaissance noble in his own grand portrait.
Dean dropped onto his elbows and settled in. Castiel’s scent had grown replete with a self-absorbed spikiness. Dean knew from experience that scent meant a long ordeal ahead. He didn’t know whether he had stoked the man on purpose or not. It didn’t matter just now.
Maybe it didn’t matter anyway.
Maybe that was the whole point.
A glance at the clock on the wall above him told him there was plenty of time before he or Cas had somewhere pressing to be, and experience told him Cas would milk that.
A shiver wracked Dean’s body just before the paddle landed again, and Dean closed his eyes and floated.
Behind them, Dean heard Benny’s voice rise above the fray. “Check in with me real quick, Cas. Are you good, Alpha?”
Cas chuckled and swatted Dean with a wide, backhand swing. “I’m terrific, Benny. It’s good to be king.” He glanced around at the madness, the audience ringing him, the wild fracas just winding up, and he laughed and struck Dean again. “Oh. Benny!” he called. “Go see if Max wants to suck you off, would you? That shock and awe memo I sent out seems to have scared everyone off touching him, and that won’t do at all.”
Benny shook his head in mild annoyance. “I’ll pass,” he replied. “But I’ll have someone see to making sure he doesn’t get the pariah treatment. Enjoy your…lunch.”
“Thank you,” Cas gloated and let his paddle fall with a Thud that brought Dean up swearing. “I intend to.”
Notes:
Poor Dean. I can't even say he got himself into this one. I think the Alpha had it in for him from the moment he saw Kaia's knot disappear. Cas is one kinky-ass dude.
There is still a story embedded here somewhere, but I admit it's not taking center stage right now. I hope y'all are okay with world-building smut for its own sake.
I promise to do a review of tags soon. I haven't updated them in ages, and there are some missing. Point out any that you notice, if you don't mind. My mind really doesn't work along those lines.
I missed you so much! It's been a long spring. MWAH!!
Chapter 24: Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Summary:
Things are looking up, way up, so up that even Cas has to admit that a party is the only way to go—even if it's Wednesday and they all have to be at work bright and early tomorrow. Can there be such a thing as too much good news? Is the truism that what goes up must come down setting them up for a crash?
Maybe, but not tonight.
Oh, but little ones are starting to ask the big questions. So, there's that.
Notes:
Last chapter was all about the smut. This chapter is all about the happy. Fair warning, there's almost no storyline conflict here. It's a check-in with some of the characters, mostly Sarah, Michael, and Cas. It's a good moment to take the Pack's temperature and see how it's doing.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
NOW:
“Let me be the first to say, congratulations, Doctor Blake,” Cas said with a beaming smile as he took his ingenue into his arms for an embrace. He could feel her exhaustion in the slump of her arms, in the way she leaned into him. She hugged him back, weary but glowing.
“That was awful,” she murmured.
“Be glad the university is still using Zoom for dissertation defenses and didn’t make you fly all the way to Providence,” Cas said sagely. “All that fidgeting you did in your lap didn’t show onscreen. You looked confident, Sarah. You sounded sure of yourself. And your research stands up to scrutiny. You earned this. You’re a bona fide PhD, and I am so very proud of you. No one can ever take this away from you.”
She blushed and stepped away from him. She dropped onto the loveseat in his office. “It doesn’t seem real.”
Cas chuckled. “It will. Give it some time. Let’s enjoy this moment. The hard work starts soon, kiddo. Now that you’ve completed the rigorous demands of Brown University’s program and you’re out from under their heel, you’re all mine. And I have plans for you.”
“Oh?” she asked, wide-eyed and nervous. “I thought the continuation of my premise was… What plans?”
Cas settled his ass on the edge of his desk and looked down into her eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re going to run point on my new adolescent research division. I want you leading the charge in early adolescent Tertiary designation research. You’re going to figure out how to characterize a teenager’s wolf, and you’re going to find me some Omega-Dominants before they flame out from the inside. Together, we’re going to save them.”
Sarah’s jaw dropped. “Me? Cas, I’m just a newborn doctor. Shouldn’t someone with more experience lead? Someone with more experience should lead! I can’t do this! Alpha, I can’t.”
Castiel’s brow rose, and his expression hardened. “You can’t? What have we said about that word?”
“I…I…I mean…” Sarah stammered as her face turned a brilliant red.
“That’s ten, Doctor Blake,” Cas clarified. “You said it twice. I suggest you walk that back right now before you earn more.”
Sarah blinked up at him, pressed her lips together, and turned away to study the credentials framed on his office wall.
“I know it’s intimidating,” he soothed, uncrossing his arms and relaxing his body somewhat. “But I do not make mistakes where my Facility is concerned. You are the right researcher for this position. You won’t be alone. I’m putting a team together, and they will be suited to you and your research style. I’m going to make sure you have all the support you need to succeed at this, and I will always be here to assist. Always. I’m not dropping you into an impossible situation. I’m giving you the chance to challenge yourself and make a difference to millions of young people.”
Sarah nodded mutely, still staring at the wall.
Cas chuckled again and stood up. “Come, beta. Let’s get this over with. I do not abide negative self-talk in my Pack. It is acceptable to have doubts, but it is unacceptable to voice that word when I have assured you otherwise. Do not say Can’t in my hearing, Sarah. On your feet.”
Sarah licked her lips and stood on shaky legs. She stepped forward, familiar enough with the Alpha’s process by now that she didn’t require direction. She stood before his imposing presence, head bowed, hands behind her back. Cas cradled her face in warm hands and kissed her crown.
“I love you too much to allow you to tear yourself down,” he said, lifting her chin so he could see her eyes. His hands dropped to the fastenings of her slacks, and he unbuttoned her easily. He moved to the side and cleared her way to lean across his desk. She didn’t need prompting.
Once she was in place, Cas tugged her slacks down. With careful fingers, he eased the delicate fabric of her panties to bare the roundness of her ass, and he ran a warm palm over her backside before bracing it at the small of her back. “This in no way negates how very, very proud of you I am, Sarah.”
“Yes, Alpha,” she whimpered. She tightened her core and clung to the far side of the table.
“Relax.”
She scoffed.
“All right, then. Suit yourself.” Cas whipped his hand down in a brilliant flurry of strikes that stole Sarah’s breath but was over before she fully comprehended what was happening. As the pain caught up and set in, he lifted her with a grip to her shoulder and rocked her against him. A paternal hand braced the back of her head while another ran soothing circles across her back. He seemed to find the experience warm and familial, and Sarah went with it. She sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist. She rested her head against his collarbone. She felt a nudge of shame at the back of her head, a remnant of the life she’d fled, but she chuckled at its persistence and showed it the door. She wasn’t that girl anymore. This wasn’t her first time under his iron hand, not her first time by miles.
Cas smelled solid and homey and safe.
“You can do this, Doctor,” he repeated quietly. “Your research aligns with where we need to focus from here. And your species allows you an unbiased distance that’s going to give you the edge in separating out the strands of fact from assumption. Once Sam catches up to you, earns his doctorate, the two of you, working together, will be revolutionary in the field of adolescent development. I can see it, Sarah. I can see it from right here in this moment, and my visions are never wrong. I need you to trust me.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir,” she told his chest formally.
“Your best is pretty damned good, beta.”
She laughed.
“Can I pull my pants back up now? This feels weird.”
“You may,” he replied, pulling away. “I’m going to send out a group text to the Pack letting them know the outcome of your defense and summoning everyone home to celebrate.” Cas collected his phone from atop his desk and busied himself. Sarah whisked her slacks back up, covering herself before he moved far enough away to allow a full-frontal eyeful. She had mostly thrown off her old self, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable this bare. But he wasn’t looking. Embarrassing her was not part of his intent.
“Please don’t, Alpha,” she added in a small voice. “I’d rather keep things small. It’s really not a big deal. It’s not like Dr. Murphy would have let me defend if he wasn’t sure of the outcome.”
“Not your call, Sarah,” Cas told her without looking up. “But what I can do for you, if you would rather not have the whole spotlight, is add a few more items to the celebratory agenda if that would make you more comfortable…take the focus off of you a little. Be honest though; are you really uncomfortable, or do you merely feel as though you should be?”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“One of these days,” he told her with a firm nod, “you’re going to let go of that shame. I hope I’m there to see it. In the meantime, until you’re ready, I will shield you from your own inner judges. I’m still bringing the Pack back to the house, and we are still going to celebrate, but I’ll not make you the sole focus of the festivities. After all, we have much to celebrate. It’s a good day in the Winchester Pack, Doctor Blake, a very good day.”
She grinned shyly. Doctor sounded pretty damn good on his tongue, and his faith in her abilities set a flutter in her belly that she’d not felt in years.
“Call your mother,” he instructed. “Let her know.” Cas settled into his chair and woke his monitor with a shake of his mouse.
“Sir…”
“Sarah.”
Sarah sighed. “She won’t understand. She never got why I pursued this in the first place. She thinks it’s frivolous and wrong-headed. She thinks it’s a self-indulgent waste of time.”
“Be that as it may,” he told her, glancing across his desk, “she is your mother, and this is a milestone in your life. Her failure to grasp its significance doesn’t detract from its significance. You do not control your mother’s response. You control only yourself. And you need her to know.”
Sarah frowned and fidgeted. She felt nine years old under his eye. “Do I?” she challenged petulantly. “She was never there for me. Not like you are. Not like the Pack is.”
Cas didn’t let her hide. He continued his infernal blue-eyed eye contact, waiting her out, non-judgmentally letting her work her way through her own question.
“She never got it right with me, Cas. Not once. Why does she deserve to be a part of my success? All this shame that you see? That’s from my mother. You know that.”
Castiel folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his office chair. His head cocked subtly to one side, and his lips pressed together. He wasn’t going to answer the question. He didn’t let her look away either.
“I have a right to let go of relationships that hurt me,” she protested.
“That’s true,” he replied. But he offered nothing more.
She sighed heavily. “She’s not going to give me the response I want,” Sarah said with eyes moistening and a trace of steel in her voice.
“No,” he agreed. “But you do not control…”
“I know, I know! I only control myself!” She pouted.
Cas let the silence lengthen while Sarah chewed on it. She bit her lip. He cleared his throat and touched his own lower lip with a significant look. She released her tortured lip and straightened her shoulders.
“How do you know?” she demanded abruptly. She squared up to him. “How do you know I’m not okay with walking away from my birth family? They let me down in so many ways, Alpha. I haven’t even told you everything…”
“No, I’m sure you haven’t. But I also know that you long to be seen and validated for the magnificent woman you are. Even if that never happens, even if she never changes, never stretches out a hand to you, you’re not yet ready to cut that tie. Sarah, that day may come, and if it does, I will be here to hold you while you grieve. But you’re not there yet. And she may surprise you. I don’t make this demand lightly. I will never force you to maintain a connection that harms you, but if I allow you to pull back your hand and deny her the bridge to reconciliation while there is a chance it could still happen, while it remains so important to you, I would be remiss as your Alpha. Again,” he struck that tone that she felt she could fall right into and never hit the ground, “I ask you to trust me.”
Sarah swallowed but she nodded. “Yessir,” she mumbled.
“That a girl,” he praised warmly. “Feel free to make your announcement as short as you like. It need not be detailed.”
“What do I say?” she asked, feeling stupid. She extracted her phone and stared at the screen.
“There are two approaches I suggest,” Cas answered. “One. Text, I passed my qualification exams and successfully defended my dissertation. I earned my doctorate. Short, sweet, simple. Or two, write out what you would want to hear from your own daughter in this moment if roles were reversed, if you were the parent, and to hell with how your mother will digest it. Re-parent yourself, Sarah. Be the mom you needed. You deserve no less than to have your family gush over your accomplishment. However…” He held up a finger. “Take that route only if you are prepared to hold onto your re-parenting headspace even if she belittles your accomplishment, because she may do that. It’s a very real possibility.”
Sarah stared at her phone; her thumb poised above the screen. She shook her head slowly. “I’m not ready for that, Cas.”
“Simple and to-the-point, then,” he affirmed. “You don’t have to stand in the doorway between the two of you, holding the door wide as it crushes you. Jam a rock in there and walk away from it. Keep the door cracked. I’ll watch over you, dear one. I won’t let it go too long. I won’t ever let her harm you.”
Sarah nodded seriously. She huffed. She began to type with both thumbs. “She wanted me to be a preacher’s wife,” she mused. “Wanted me to be a chaste little homebody who teaches Sunday school and somehow has two-point-five children without ever realizing how that happens. She thinks I’ve sold my soul to the devil. She thinks I walk around this den of depravity stark naked and let myself be used for the sexual pleasure of everyone who walks through. She’s praying for me, Alpha.”
Cas chuckled. “I should introduce your mother to mine,” he remarked. “Now come on. Enough melodrama. Let’s celebrate.” He hit Enter with a flourish, sending whatever he’d staged, and he rose, collected her with an outstretched hand, and left his office at a determined pace. She stumbled after him, shoving her phone back into her pocket and putting it out of her mind. They didn’t make it three steps into the main foyer before a cacophony of noisemakers and a shower of confetti startled Sarah into pulling up and flinching.
“Congratulations!” they shouted.
”Woo-Hoo!”
That was Sam’s voice.
Tiny shrill pup-voices squealed in glee. Dean had both hands over his head, baring his stomach in his enthusiasm. April put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Benny laughed heartily at the tumult, clapping his meaty hands. Even Cain grinned and stomped and launched streamers above their heads to tangle in Sarah and Cas’ hair.
Everyone was here. Everyone. Sarah’s breath caught. Tears sprung unwanted on her cheeks as her chest tightened. Adam rushed forward, swept her up, lifted her feet off the ground, twirled her, grinning so proudly he looked ready to pop his shirt-buttons.
“You did it! I knew you would! I’m so proud of you! Damn, I love you so much!” He set her on her feet and dove in for an open-mouthed kiss that singed her socks and made her dizzy.
The whooping intensified. Sarah began to laugh even as Adam’s tongue plunged her mouth, and soon he laughed too. They broke apart, giggling.
Castiel cleared his throat, and Adam blanched, looking stricken. But a glance at Cas proved he was teasing. Sarah whapped her Alpha’s chest as he sauntered past the couple, much as April often did. Out of her peripheral vision, Sarah saw Benny clap Cas on the shoulder and reach out for a handshake.
Jack popped a cork, followed by Benjamin, and soon champagne rained over Sarah’s head, spraying high into the air as Jack shook it and created a fountain. But it was when Michael protested that turning the marble floor slick as ice was unsafe that Sarah began to feel the reality that her PhD ordeal was over. She started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Soon she found herself in the middle of a sea of proud, ebullient faces. They surrounded her, hugged her, touched her shoulders, whispered warmth and shouted pride and engulfed her. She felt the maudlin worries over how her mother would react vanish as the Pack embraced her, celebrated her, SAW her.
“You’re brilliant!” April told her with a tight hug. “You’re my hero! I knew you’d do it!”
Adam plastered himself at her side, glowing in her orbit, nearly speechless.
The pups looked thrilled despite having no idea what the fete was for. They grabbed handfuls of confetti from the floor and clumsily tossed them into the air, aiming at each other’s faces and into the pools of flat champagne. It was Alex who figured out that he could slide across those pools on bare feet and tumble onto his butt in a heap, and it was that disaster-waiting-to-happen that moved the party outside. It was hot out in the late afternoon, but the breeze managed the worst of the heat as the Pack took to the pool and the shade of the stone porch.
Sarah couldn’t stop grinning. April slid an arm into hers and guided her to a poolside lounge chair, slapped a cold beer into her hand, plopped down opposite, and demanded to hear everything.
More people arrived as the shadows lengthened. Electronic speakers appeared. And a makeshift stage. Microphones. A DJ began to spin tunes. Sarah caught Castiel’s eye from across the pool as Dean danced ridiculously, possibly already drunk, and he winked at her before going back to ogling his husband.
Ellen hugged Sarah tightly with a maternal sniffle and a touch to her face.
“Never doubted for a minute,” Ellen asserted. “Welcome to the club. Don’t let those Y-chromosomal assholes push you around. You earned the same degree they did. You’re not lesser than they are. You just let me know if you need a sister at your shoulder, and I’m there…or a Mama-bear.” Ellen slurred her words a little, and Sarah beamed. She shot a look toward Cas where his head was close to Bobby’s. “I can be that too.”
“She’s not kidding,” Jo agreed as she appeared beside her mother. “She’s pretty damn scary when she’s in Mama-bear mode.”
“I’ll remember that,” Sarah replied.
Jody and Donna arrived as the sun sat on the horizon and Portia zigzagged hopefully from one cluster of folks to another, seeking handouts of the bite-sized morsels on their plates. There was something impossibly kind and warm about Jody’s smile, and Sarah didn’t really want to let go of her hug. Jody sensed that. She rocked Sarah enthusiastically from side to side for a few moments, letting her pride sink right into Sarah’s bones.
April graced the party with her synthesizer and her voice. Michael joined in, serving as emcee, and forcing Dean to take his share of songs, keeping the atmosphere light and lively. Sarah danced with everyone. She ate until she couldn’t quite breathe without surreptitiously unbuttoning her slacks. She sang along as Gabriel and Donna performed an old Eagle’s song together.
She couldn’t recall ever feeling like this before in her life. She wanted to drown in the emotion. It was Pack. It was the people, all of them. It was their adulation, their faith that the outcome of today’s grilling was a foregone conclusion. It was their acceptance that no matter how different she was, how hobbled by circumstance and emotional quandaries, that she was one of them. She felt Adam’s lips breathe a warm trace along the back of her earlobe, and she leaned into his solid body at her back.
Dean and Ben finished a joint rendition of an AC/DC relic, and the beat of music slowed, turned evocative and sultry. Adam wrapped his arms around her, pressed into her from behind, swayed. She went with him.
“Jo and Jack,” he whispered into her ear as he rotated her to focus on the couple across the dance floor. “Watch them. Something’s up with them. Benny won’t tell me. You see it though?”
Sarah watched, but she had no idea what he meant. “You think they’re expecting?” she guessed.
“Mm-mm.” He shook his head. She couldn’t see him, but she felt the motion against her head. “I would smell if she was pregnant. Same as I smell April. April’s got at least two buns cooking. It’s pretty obvious once it gets past the first week or so.”
“You have a good nose,” Sarah remarked. “Dean said he can’t smell April’s pregnancy yet.” Sarah turned in his arms and let herself enjoy the closeness.
“Really?” Adam said, sounding skeptical. “Huh.” His eyes seemed remarkably warm as they abandoned Jo and Jack and everyone at the party but Sarah. “I wouldn’t have thought. It’s not subtle to me.”
“So?” she prompted. “Jack and Jo? What’s up, do you think?”
“Not sure yet. I’ll let you know.”
“You could just ask them,” Sarah suggested. She glanced over her shoulder. The couple swayed with their eyes glued to each other.
“Nah, that’s no fun. I’d rather sleuth it out.”
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble,” Sarah warned him. “Benny hates it when you snoop.”
“Meh,” he dismissed. “I won’t let it go too long. Gimme a week. If I haven’t figured it out by then, I’ll ask.”
Sarah laughed. “I’m not going to feel sorry for you when your ass is roasted. In fact, I’m going to promise you right now that if you get caught and spanked, I’ll double your count.”
Adam gaped. “Et tu, Blake?”
“Besides,” she said, laying her cheek against his chest. “There’s only one logical answer to that level of sap between them. No sleuthing required.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?” he asked. He didn’t seem to be paying attention so much as he had committed himself to groping her ass with the hand that was meant to be at the small of her back.
“Maybe they haven’t conceived yet, but they’re clearly ready to start a family.”
Adam snorted. “Unlikely. Jack’s dead-set against. He would’ve told me. I’m his best friend.”
“Jo’s his best friend,” Sarah corrected. “He’s not going to tell you everything. Just look at him over there. Those are baby-making eyes. I’ve seen that look before. All my school friends from college got that look, and now all of them, to a one, are knee-deep in diapers and caffeine. Keep your sniffer primed. I promise it’s coming. And soon.”
“Huh,” he repeated, still feeling up her backside, still swaying her gently, still watching the couple across the way. He grew quiet as they danced, pensive. A heavy press altered the easy space between them, and Sarah felt him grow somber.
“Hey,” Sarah prodded, looking up at him and poking his rib without releasing his hand. Adam looked down. He was tall for an Omega, and she liked that about him.
“What?”
“You’re thinking too loud. Just dance with me, okay?”
Adam smiled a gentle smile that turned his eyes soft. “Okay.”
Castiel kept his word to take a little of the focus off Sarah, a fact she was grateful for. He read her from across the distance, as he was wont to do, and once she showed signs of tiring under the spotlight, he took to the stage with his mate and formally announced they were expecting. It came as a surprise to no one, but the Pack had wisely waited for the announcement before speaking too openly about it. He announced also, since he had a mostly ACRI crowd, the resolution of their funding impasse and the likelihood that legislation would soon be going their way. While that was good news, the crowd rightly fixated on tiny April and her condition. The shift in attention from Sarah to April was a welcome one. Sarah joined the rest of the Pack in congratulating the happy couple. She watched in fascination as Michael beamed as brightly as Castiel did. Sarah couldn’t help watching for a chink in Michael’s joy, but for the life of her, she found none. Michael’s smile glittered. His brilliantly white teeth gleamed in the stage lights that appeared as the sun disappeared.
Sarah found herself beside Michael as Dean took the microphone to serenade April with a song of celebration. Michael’s expression, now that he wasn’t right under April’s eye, turned a muted sad. There was a strange line of tension at the corners of his eyes, and Sarah had to credit him with his ability to utterly mask the emotion when he wanted to.
Sarah studied him for a moment as Michael clearly had no idea he was being watched. She leaned her shoulder into his, startled him, and let him put an arm around her in a one-armed hug.
“If you need someone to talk to about her,” Sarah offered. “I’m pretty good at listening.”
Michael huffed a surprised laugh without looking away from April. “You think I’m jealous,” he guessed. “Everyone does.” He paused for a moment and then turned to face Sarah. “But it’s not that. I’m not jealous of Cas. He’s good for Pete, right for her. He makes her happy. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need to be a dad.”
“Then what is it?”
Michael snatched two beer bottles from a passing waiter’s tray and handed one to Sarah. Waiters? Where had waiters come from? Sarah’s eyes followed the tuxedoed man’s back. Portia followed him as well, her flagged tail waving brightly. “It’s complicated,” he answered after a long drink.
Sarah snorted. “Tell me about it.” She let sarcasm into her tone and mirrored his deep pull. Michael found that unaccountably funny. He nearly spewed his drink as a hearty laugh forced its way up his throat. His eyes sparkled. He tapped his bottle against hers.
“I’ll bet we never stop seeming insane to you,” he observed. It would have been an ugly comment from anyone else, but Michael seemed to operate under a different set of interpersonal rules, and Sarah couldn’t deny that the idea had struck her more than once. At the very least, they were endlessly complex if not half crazy to tangle themselves up as intricately as they had done. Sarah had lived as family among them for some time now, and she still found herself baffled at how they worked. Michael sighed as if debating with himself before squaring his shoulders. “She wants to get married,” he announced flatly.
Sarah didn’t know what she had expected, but it hadn’t been that. She felt her eyes widen before she took them in-hand and schooled her face to something less shocked.
But Michael saw it, and he nodded to himself before facing the stage again, watching April beam at Dean as he crooned to her.
“But you don’t,” Sarah concluded.
Michael shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
She studied him for a moment, but his mask was back in place, and Sarah didn’t need to be Lupin to know when pressing would be unwelcome. Michael stood next to Sarah in companionable silence that was only slightly uncomfortable until Kaia and Claire turned up, and then he melted silently away. If Sarah didn’t know better, she would have said the air he left behind him smelled charged and scorched.
“Something you said?” Jo questioned as she appeared at Sarah’s shoulder, watching Michael retreat toward the house.
Sarah debated how much to divulge about Michael’s Tertiary dislike of gay women, and then determined it wasn’t Jo’s business. At least he left before something inappropriate slipped out. As a central figure in Sarah’s research, Michael’s internal struggles with his wolf were thoroughly explored. She knew him intimately in ways that transcended their species, and yet he was still a complete enigma to Sarah.
One thing was certain, the heightened states that the newly Mated couple broadcast in their scents would put Michael’s wolf on a hair trigger.
“He’s just being Michael,” Sarah said dismissively. “Probably worried about keeping the pups up this late and filling them full of sugar.”
“Right,” Jo quipped. Sarah didn’t miss the subtle signal Jo sent to her mate, dispatching him to follow Michael. Jack meandered slowly toward the patio door, moving slowly enough not to draw eyes. He glanced both ways at the door and then slipped inside. Sarah felt a secret smile form as she dropped her eyes. The Lupin ways were a mystery, but they looked out for each other in ways her family would find foreign and invasive. There was an intimacy to their social connections, built upon a sense of smell that meant no one’s weaknesses stayed secret for long.
“Adam thinks you and Jack have a secret,” Sarah told Jo, and the alpha spewed her wine at the unsubtle prod.
Sarah thought she might have overstepped, but Jo’s mirth once she got herself under control proved she was startled and amused, not offended. “Oh, I’m going to have fun with that,” Jo admitted, looking around to make sure he was out of earshot. “He wants secrets? I’ll give him secrets. Be ready to pick him up off the floor, because I’m going to have him so turned around, he’ll be dizzy for weeks.” Jo snorted in her glee.
Sarah laughed softly. “So? Are you going to let me in on your secret?”
Jo raised her brows jauntily a couple of times and smirked. She looked away, her eyes drawn to Dean on the stage where he’d roped several others into a surprisingly in-tune a Capella version of Seven Bridges Road. “He’s such a goddamn showoff,” Jo muttered.
“Well, if you ever need a babysitter, I’m your girl,” Sarah told her. Jo smiled without cutting her eyes from Dean.
“I’ll take you up on that,” she said quietly.
The group onstage finished their song, and Dean did a quick visual sweep that ended at the door through which his mate had vanished before he slapped his grin back on and announced Claire’s Mating to the crowd. The scathing look she shot him had those who knew her chortling. She outright refused to join him onstage. Kaia watched the interaction with disengaged interest. She looked unperturbed and mildly amused at Claire’s fiery outbursts and raised middle finger.
“Party’s outside,” Jack commented. He lingered in the door to the game room where Michael was racking billiard balls for a solo game. Michael glanced up, lifted the triangle, leaving the balls set, and wordlessly collected a cue stick from the wall. He handed it to Jack. He nocked his head toward the table, granting Jack the break.
They played without talking until the third game commenced. As Jack took over from Michael’s scoreless break, each of them with one win under his belt, he dropped the two into the side pocket and chalked the tip of his cue stick.
“How do you know someone’s keeping an eye on all four pups out there?” Jack asked, his eyes scoping his next shot. “Aren’t you nervous leaving them out at the pool?”
Michael didn’t move. He stood leaning against the wall, braced on his shoulders with his stick loose in his grip. His eyes followed Jack as the man rounded the table and leaned across to line up his shot.
“Kate’s got them,” Michael said. “She’s good at conscripting people to help when she needs more eyes. She had Donna, Ben, and Balthazar triangulating when I left.”
Jack shot Michael a surprised look. “You trust your pups to Balthazar?” He missed his shot and retreated to the old-fashioned bar to see if it were stocked.
It was.
Jack helped himself to bourbon and poured a tumbler for Michael while he was at it. Michael moved sinuously forward to take his turn. “I trust Kate. Besides, Balthazar is surprisingly good with children,” he said as he addressed the ball. His shot was abrupt and spare, and the nine sank into the corner pocket. Jack watched him, chewing on that tidbit. Michael sank the three next, and Jack had to shift to give him room for his next shot.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Jack observed. “Four pups and two more on the way? I’d be a nervous wreck.”
Michael chuckled. He shook his head and missed his shot. He collected his bourbon on his way by the bar and reclaimed his spot on the wall. “Pups are easy,” Michael said. “They just need your love and your time. The rest takes care of itself. It’s not rocket science.”
“Really?” Jack asked before lining up his shot and making an embarrassing dog’s breakfast of it. “How do you figure? Everyone I know is in therapy because their parents fucked them up in one way or another.”
Michael grinned. “What does that tell you?” He paused at the wall. Jack studied him.
“That it’s a near impossible job that even smart, well-meaning people mess up?” Jack blurted.
Michael nodded and touched the side of his nose. “Bingo. And that takes the pressure off, doesn’t it?”
“What?! No!”
Michael laughed. “Look, kids’ needs are not all that complex. But, yeah, no matter what we do, they’re going to grow up messed up somehow. That’s not something we can prevent. Our job is to give them the tools to know themselves well enough to know when to seek help with the rest of it. It’s our job to teach them how much space to take up in the world and to make space for others as well…to recognize they matter but that others need space too. I’m not saying that’s not messy, just that since it’s impossible to get perfect, there’s no real need to sweat it. You love them. You meet their needs. You teach them what trust looks like. You show up. You enjoy them. The rest falls out however it’s going to.”
Michael looked to be reflecting on his own words for a moment and then he sniffed and sauntered back to the table and casually dropped the eleven, the thirteen, and the one. The fifteen was trapped, so Michael’s eyes tracked the five, judging his chances and calculating angles. He frowned. He wasn’t near the player Dean was.
He misjudged and missed. The cue ball fell into the corner pocket. Jack fished it out.
“Jo wants to start a family.” Jack shot and then shifted to line up another shot.
“I’ll say one thing,” Michael said. “It’s easier to raise them when you’re young, yourself. Wait until your body starts to creak and grind, and just keeping up with the little fuckers is a nightmare. My folks waited too long. I think half of why Pop was such a grouch was that his knees hurt and trailing after Rache and me was a chore.”
“It’s bad enough that Jo’s biologic clock is ticking,” Jack added. “But Ellen’s breathing down my neck too. I mean, she’s got Beth and Bella to dote on. But that’s not enough, apparently.”
“Jack,” Michael said with a heavy look. Jack looked up and then away. “What do you need to hear? What do you want me to tell you? That having pups is a big deal, and you need to be sure? That it’s a breeze and you’ve got this? That you can’t let your mother-in-law push you into anything? What are you looking for?”
Jack huffed, shook his head in frustration, and lined up an awkward shot with his stick high. He missed. “I have no idea. All I know is the very idea makes my blood grow cold. But I told Jo it was time, so it’s academic anyway. I committed already. We’re doing this. Jo’s waited long enough.”
Michael grimaced and then whistled to himself. “Yeah, good luck walking that one back.” Michael had a better shot at the fifteen now that Jack had opened up the little cluster in the corner. He sank it easily and then turned his attention to the five again. He looked up from his spot bent low. “Have you considered exploring what it is that’s making your blood go cold?”
Jack sipped his drink. “Daddy issues.”
Michael jerked and missed his shot.
“Bastard,” he grumbled.
Jack snickered as they passed each other.
“What do you know of daddy issues?” Jack asked sourly. “Everyone says you’re the model parent. Even Castiel defers to you where the pups are concerned. Someone taught you how to be a parent.”
“It wasn’t my father,” Michael grumbled softly right away. He watched Jack’s eyes until the beta dropped his gaze and took his shot. Jack sank the four and then turned his attention to the eight. He touched the far corner with the tip of his stick. But he missed. Jack looked up, smelling tension. He frowned at the distant look in Michael’s eyes.
“Touchy subject?” Jack asked. “I’m sorry, man…”
“No, it’s not that.” Michael rounded the table and lined up an easy shot. The five disappeared. He studied the table. He squatted along the edge and scowled at his choices. Finally, he sighed, stood, crossed to the opposite end and pointed to the corner pocket to his right. He adjusted his grip, slid the stick through his fingers a few times, and then sent the eight the length of the table to drop elegantly.
He looked up. Still bent at the waist.
“April wants to get married.”
Jack froze with his tumbler staged at his lower lip.
“Oh.”
They regarded each other for a beat.
Then Jack began to laugh. He set his drink down and threw his head back in unrestrained mirth.
Michael pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. He broke his dramatic pose and began collecting balls out of pockets and sending them rolling down the green-felted table. “Glad to amuse you,” he said sourly under his breath.
Jack chortled. “No, but don’t you see?” he managed. “We’re both stuck on the same thing.”
“How do you figure?” Michael asked. He set the triangle and began a ritual plucking of balls to get them oriented in the correct configuration.
“It’s fear of the unknown,” Jack told the Omega. “It’s fear of our shortcomings and whether we can meet the challenges that’ll pop up years from now when we have no idea who we’re even going to be by then. Man, I’m not scared of newborns. I was there for Andrea’s twins. I did my share of midnight walking the floors with a screaming infant in my arms. It’s later. You know? When they’re not infants; when they’re people.
“What if they think I’m lame? What if they don’t respect me? What if I let them down? What if I think I’m doing a bang-up job, but I’m actually fucking everything up? What if Jo and I can’t agree, and we pull them in two trying to fight each other with the pups as leverage? And you. You’re worried in the same way. Except, Michael, man, I hate to break it to you. You’re already married, dude.”
Michael rolled his eyes again. He placed the triangle at its hook on the wall and then leaned over and put his irritation into his break so that three balls jumped right off the table.
“Damn, son,” Jack observed coolly. “Did I touch a nerve?”
Michael set his stick on the table, lengthwise, bent over onto his elbows and buried his face in his hands.
“Hey,” Jack said. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. If anyone gets the dead-cold terror here, it’s me. My dad was gone before I was born. Do you have any idea what kind of crazy stories that puts running through a boy’s head as he’s growing up? Everyone else had a dad. But, I mean, at least having kids…parenting…it’s a natural state for Lupins. It’s an instinct. You know? Getting married, though. Michael, man, that’s something we’re not wired for. I wouldn’t even know where to start with that. What’s it even mean, really? Because I’m serious, it looks from here like you two are already there.”
Michael laughed into the palms of his hands and then rubbed stiffly at his face before standing and making a beeline for his drink.
He drained it and then poured them both another round. He downed that too. Jack simply held his. He watched Michael.
“You’re right,” Michael told him. “It’s fear of the unknown. But it’s fear of the known too. Jack, I know who I am. I know who I have the capacity to turn into. I’ve got a whole…” Michael paused and made a vague circular motion at his head. “…Mr. Hyde thing going on in my Tertiary. And with Dean…” He sighed. “He can take me like that. It’s nothing to Dean. He looks into that fucked up mess and salivates, you get me? He’s also got the weight to slap my wolf down when it sticks its neck into places it doesn’t belong. He can go toe-to-toe with the asshole in my head, and when worse comes to worst, Dean wins. He’s always going to win. He only rolls because he wants to. When it comes right down to it, I can’t make him do shit if he chooses not to.”
“But April…” Jack mused, following the logic.
“Exactly.”
Jack’s eyes followed Michael’s trek around the table as the Omega collected the lost balls from the floor.
“Why is that only a worry if you marry?” Jack asked.
Michael lobbed the balls gently to roll onto the table. “Semantics, maybe,” he replied. “I don’t know. It feels more permanent. Feels significant. Like I’m promising to never change into a dick even though I know I will. At least now, if I morph into the monster at my core, she can break it off with me, and there’s no fucking paperwork.”
“Does Dean know about all this?”
They regarded each other across the table.
“Yeah.”
Michael’s jaw worked. He abandoned the billiard table and slid into one of the leather-upholstered barstools. He tipped more bourbon into his glass.
“And Cas?”
Michael nodded. “And Cas. Hell, I think I’ve polled everyone but my kids at this point.”
Jack opened his mouth to reply, but Michael sat upright in startlement and pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Dean’s sending me something.” He frowned at his blank screen. “In my bond. Something surprising. Come on, Jack. My alpha summons.”
Jack trailed Michael down the hall. There was a bustle in the foyer, and as Michael rounded the corner, his jaw dropped. Jack hung back.
“What are you doing here?” Michael asked his mother in shock as Rachel dove into his arms with a shout. Dean and Cas looked to have just concluded greetings. Pups scurried in from the patio, three of them naked.
“Baby,” Beatrice cried. She held her arms open.
Perhaps it was Michael’s conversation with Jack, so fresh on his mind. Perhaps it was the months apart. Michael felt like a child in her presence, and she was unequivocally the most welcome sight he’d seen in forever.
Rachel let him go. Michael huffed a breath and reached his mother in two long strides.
He was taller than she by more than a foot, and yet her embrace cocooned Michael as only a mother’s can. Her delicate hand at the back of his head was warmth and protection and home and security.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he mumbled. He felt his father stir nearby, but Michael put off letting her go for as long as he could. She shushed him softly. There was an entire world of comfort in the sound.
“O-Pop, Paw-Pah’s here!” Jimmy cried. His bare little feet slapped the marble as he jumped.
Michael sniffled and grinned, pulling back. “I see that,” he said as Emma attached herself to his hand and hid behind his leg. She would warm up soon, he knew. With Emma at his right leg, Alex claimed Michael’s left, taking O-Pop’s hand as well. Michael lowered into a squat to provide his shyest pups a solid body to lean into. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?” Michael asked in dismay.
“April said it would be a nice surprise,” Rachel said from behind him.
“Pete knew?”
“Everyone knew but you,” Michael’s father told him. He scooped Kat off the floor and propped her on his hip naked as the day she was born. “And Dean,” Jerry added with a grin toward Michael’s mate. “We figured he would give the game away.”
“It’s Grandmommy?” Emma asked from halfway behind Michael.
“That’s right, Idgie,” Michael confirmed. “Remember when we visited her house? She helped you and Jimmy make brownies.” Emma nodded but stayed where she was. Her eyes were impossibly wide.
“Come here to Papa, love,” Cas cajoled, and Emma bravely broke from her hiding place. Cas lifted her and then approached the visitors to help her greet them. Emma shoved two fingers into her mouth and clung to her father’s neck. “Say hello to Aunt Rachel. She’s come a long way to visit you.” Emma cut her eyes to Cas’ face, studying his expression before looking back to Rachel. She didn’t say hello, but she nodded in understanding and acknowledgment.
Alex warmed more quickly. He released Michael’s hand and threw his arms around his grandmother when she stooped for him. The sight melted Michael’s heart. She looked rapturously happy. Michael stood up and brought Jimmy with him.
“And you?” he asked his sister. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Pssshh, it’s nine o’clock, doofus! Work ended hours ago.” Rachel smirked.
Michael’s face flattened. “You know what I mean. What kind of modern professional woman hangs out all the time with her parents? Where’s what’s-his-face?”
Rachel’s face blanched. She licked her lips and broke eye-contact. Michael felt like a heel. “Oh. Rachel, I’m sorry. I thought you really liked him.”
“Yeah, well, it was less mutual than I thought, turns out.”
“I’m sorry.”
She braved a sad smile and tucked Emma’s unruly curls behind her ear. “Me too.”
April appeared from the back door with a high-pitched squeal that startled everyone but Cas. She skitter-stepped across the foyer and into a hug with Rachel as if the two women were both starved of each other rather than in constant communication…mostly about Michael, he assumed. He watched them from a lens of wondering what this greeting might look like if April were his wife and not his girlfriend.
He glanced away with a jerk, only to find his mother leveling a look that was a lot too knowing at him. Michael blushed and dropped his eyes. Dean took up Michael’s right side, smoothly catching Jimmy as the boy leaned across for him. Michael used the transfer to change focus.
He extended his hand formally. “Pop.”
Michael’s father looked affronted for a moment, gazing uncomfortably at Michael’s offer of a handshake before he pulled his son close with the hand that wasn’t cradling Kat. Michael was taken aback. His father was not a hugger. It took Michael a moment. But his arm went around Jerry’s back. It felt…unfamiliar, but nice. There was still enough Alpha about his father to ground Michael’s Omega in a sense of security. Some scents speak forever, and now that his wolf wasn’t constantly in the way, the scent struck differently.
When Michael extricated himself, he had Kat in his arms. She didn’t stay long. Kat never stayed with anyone long. She slid down Michael’s body and presented herself to her grandmother quite formally, hands behind her back, eyes up, head tilted curiously.
“You become more and more the spitting image of your Papa every time I see you, young lady.” Beatrice knelt down before Kat and offered her the kind of hug that only comes from grandmothers.
“I don’t spit,” Kat protested. But she hugged hard.
“Good girl,” Beatrice praised. “At least, don’t do it in the house.” Grandmommy winked. Michael was reminded of the first time his mother had stepped across this threshold, terrified of the world her son had fallen into, silent and grave.
“I can’t believe you’re really here. What’s the occasion?” Michael asked as his pups untangled themselves and joined their cousins and Benny’s twins through the open back door and back out to the pool.
“A mother needs an excuse to visit her only son?”
Michael snorted. “And it’s pure coincidence you show up just when we’re having a party,” he observed. He put an arm across his mother’s shoulders and guided her toward the patio.
“Oh? Is there a party?” Beatrice feigned ignorance badly. Dean slipped a fresh glass of chardonnay into her free hand, and she beamed at him. He grinned back.
“Jerry?” Dean prompted. “Bourbon?”
“You know me well, alpha,” Jerry said cheerfully, although he stretched his travel-weary body before following Dean. “Michael, what are my grandpups doing out of bed this late?”
Michael affected an innocent expression, a mirror-image of his mother’s. “Ask their Papa, sir. I’m just the Omega.” His mother guffawed beside him. Michael grinned. He felt lighter.
He needed this, he decided. He needed his family. And not simply his found family, although, that too. He needed his birth family. There was an unspoken kind of belonging, and Michael’s heart lifted. He escorted the three of them outside into the chaos.
Dean left him to mount the stage again. He wasted no time in summoning Michael up with him, and when Dean plucked the first cords of Simple Man out on his guitar, Michael did not hesitate in joining him in a rendition. From the vantage up high on the stage, Michael could see everyone. The faces of people he adored looked up at him, singing drunkenly along. His children splashed into the pool, closely monitored by Donna, Kate, and Kali. Surprisingly, Claire and her new mate were right in the thick of pups, treading water in the pool. Michael couldn’t remember the alpha’s name, but she seemed a grounded sort to Michael, laid-back and unruffled. The pups were all quite taken with her, as was Claire, for that matter, drawn instinctively to alpha solidity. And that was funny as hell to Michael. His few encounters with Claire had always left him with the impression she would sooner dig her own eyeballs out with a rusty scoop than submit to an alpha mate. But here she was, virtually fawning with a lovesick gleam in her eye.
“You missed your cue, genius,” Dean said with a kick to Michael’s shin.
“Blame it on the bourbon,” Michael told him as Dean worked his way back through to give Michael another shot at the refrain.
“Right,” Dean chided. “Lightweight.”
Michael’s eyes found Pete. His family surrounded her, and his mother’s hand resting on April’s lower belly told Michael that her news was not news to them. They’d probably been in touch with April’s folks, only freshly returned home after their recent visit. Lord, the two families were so tight already that Michael and April might as well already be married. April looked relaxed and happy with Michael’s father standing over her, probably grilling her if Michael guessed right. April held his hand intimately in hers. She laughed up at him, spirited and glowing.
“Dude, you gonna sing with me or just stand there looking pretty?”
Jo booed. Meg tossed peanuts at the stage.
“Sorry, Dean. I’m here. Hit that cord again. Let’s start from the second verse.”
The party lasted late into the night. Eight pups fell asleep tucked into heaps on the pool lounge chairs wrapped in bath towels. The adults lugged the surprisingly heavy deadweight up the stairs once they were fully out, and they tucked worn out little bodies soundly into beds. Sam led the way to the room beside his and put his boys together into one bed to let Andrea’s twins have the other. Four floppy-limbed pups offered no resistance to dressing in pajamas before exhausted pups curled into each other with nary a peep even with the noise from the floor below ringing up through the window.
Cas left Sam at his usual door and guided the small parade of helpers to his own pups’ nursery, followed by Gabe, Kali, and Claire, to whom Jimmy had taken such a liking he’d made her swear she would tuck him in. Cas handed out PJs from the dresser. Three of the pups snuggled right in, but Kat stirred as Gabe set her into her toddler bed. She protested loudly, sitting up and stretching her hands out to her father.
“I’ve got her, Gabe,” Cas said softly. “Go on back to the party.”
“Papa!!!” Kat wailed. She climbed out of her bed and galumphed tiredly toward Cas, clinging tightly to his legs. She took an ominously deep breath, winding up to scream.
Cas knelt before her and lowered his chin.
“Kathleen,” he said sternly. “Listen to Papa. Take a breath and listen.”
“Papa!!” she cried.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said in a firm voice. “Kat’s very tired, and you feel awful right now. Would you like me to hold you for a while? Will that help you feel better?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded, reaching for him.
Cas picked her up and cuddled her. It was rare that Kat looked for physical comfort, and the feel of her in his arms was precious and all too fleeting. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and rested her head on his shoulder. “Your brothers and sister are sleeping, little one. I need you to be very quiet for me and not wake them up. Papa’s here. Let’s use quiet voices to talk. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded into his collarbone. “I’m not sleepy,” she told him around her thumb.
“No?” he asked rhetorically. He strolled across the room and then back again. “You had a big day today.”
“We had a party, Papa,” she explained.
“We sure did.”
“An, Mommy’s got new babies in her tummy.”
“That’s right,” he said, far more quietly than she, leading her to lower her volume. “You will be a big sister when the babies come. You’re going to make such a good big sister, Kat. Papa’s always so proud of his big girl.”
“Papa, how did the babies get in there?”
“Papa put them there,” he replied.
“You did?”
“I sure did. Just like I put you into Mommy’s belly when you were teeny-tiny. There’s a little bit from Papa and a little bit from Mommy, and then those little bits come together and make a tiny, tiny little ball of cells, much too tiny to see. And the ball grows bigger and bigger, and it changes, and in a bunch of months, it’s a baby.”
Kat fell quiet, thinking about Papa’s words. Then she laughed. “No, Papa,” she argued, still loud. “That’s silly.”
“Oh? How did the babies get in there, then?”
Kat sat upright and waved her hand vaguely. “They just…growed in there.”
“Like a seedling?” he asked, strolling slowly.
“What’s a seedling?” she asked as she settled back onto his chest.
“A baby plant that grows from a seed in the ground.”
“Mm-hm,” she agreed sleepily.
“All right, little girl,” Cas whispered. “It’s time for you to go to bed. If you’re not tired, just close your eyes and count numbers in your head.”
“Papa, I don’t want you to put a seed in me, okay?”
“Okay, Kat. Papa’s seeds are only for your Mommy. Don’t you worry, little one. No one is going to do anything to you that you don’t want them to. Papa would never let that happen. You’re my daughter, and I’ll look after you.” Cas ended his strolling at the side of her bed and leaned low to lay her down. She tightened her grip and clung with hands and legs.
“Papa, stay!” she demanded.
“Shhh, Kat, don’t wake your siblings. Remember Papa’s rules. You must mind me. Papa says it’s bedtime for little girls. Down you go.”
He leaned over at the waist and let gravity feed her into her bed. He took to a knee beside her, settling her onto her back and pulling her blanket up her chest. “Lie still, Kat. Close your eyes.”
“Does the seeds go in Mommy’s belly when you kiss her?”
“No, sweetheart, the seeds go in when we have sex. I need you to go to sleep now, Kathleen.”
“Do they go in Daddy from sex?”
Cas stifled a laugh. He wondered how much of this line of questioning was genuine interest and how much was a diversionary tactic. “They do,” he replied. “But Daddy doesn’t have a uterus, and he doesn’t have a mother’s eggs. Babies need a mother and a father, both. Daddy has the father parts, like me. He doesn’t have the mother parts like Mommy and O-Pop.”
“O-Pop has mommy parts?”
Cas kicked himself internally. He unwittingly kept feeding her new tidbits to keep the conversation going. “We’ll talk about it during the day, Kat. I know it’s confusing. Right now, it’s time to sleep. Lie down. Close your eyes. Papa loves you dearly.”
“Papa, stay!” she demanded again, beginning to cry. Castiel leaned over her. He kissed her forehead.
“Shhh, go to sleep, Kathleen. Papa won’t be far.”
By the time Cas made it back to the party, many of the guests were gone. Dean handed him a water bottle instead of another beer.
“Thanks,” Cas said. “I guess I needed that.”
“Nothing about Kat is easy, Alpha,” Dean told him. “Don’t know why you thought you would be above it all.”
Cas scoffed. “Because I’m Alpha.”
Dean smirked. “And how’d that work out for you?”
“It was humbling,” Cas admitted. He reached down and scratched Portia’s neck. “But in the end, I got her safely to bed, so it was a victory, if a messy one.”
“Hey, messy counts, babe.”
“Thank you, Dean.” Cas glanced around. “I see we’re down to the hardliners.” He spotted Max in a deep conversation with Matt and found that odd for some reason. Rachel was wrapped around Charlie on the dance floor, and that seemed like an ill omen, but Cas couldn’t have said why. Dean followed his eyes.
“None of your business, Alpha,” Dean whispered. “They’re both un-Mated grownups, and they both know their own minds.”
Cas scowled but left the betas to their risqué dance. “Did Sarah go to bed?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Dean replied. “Adam’s car is still here, so I doubt she’s asleep.”
“I suppose she’s entitled,” Cas added, turning away from their lingering guests to fix his eye on his husband.
Dean had a weighted look in his eye. Cas sighed.
“What now?” he asked.
Dean smiled. “Nothing. Just feels good, you know? Feels good to have so much good happen at the same time. And the weird thing? Time was, I would be bracing for the other shoe to drop. But I don’t feel that right now. Not that it can’t. Not that bad shit doesn’t happen sometimes. But I don’t feel like it’s on me to keep it out, or that if I stop worrying about every conceivable thing that could go wrong, it’ll blindside us just for spite, and it’ll be my fault. Feels like…I dunno, man, feels like it’s okay to enjoy the good stuff even if bad stuff might be coming. We’re going to be parents again. And we’re fully funded. And the legislation is all but passed. Dude, it’s better than Christmas.”
“Alpha?” Kate interrupted with a terrified look on her face.
Dean pulled up short, feeling a premonition that he’d spoken too soon. Was this the other shoe dropping?
But no. Kate lowered her eyes with a shy smile and then dropped to her knees.
“Kate? Sweetheart, what is it?” Cas asked her, perplexed and vaguely alarmed.
She raised her face and reached for his hand. “Alpha, I’m ready. Sir, if you’ll accept me, I’d like to join your Pack. Please? Will you have me?”
No one moved for a breath, but then Dean let out a whoop of excitement, reached for her, lifted her into his arms, and hugged her until her lungs protested. The smile on the Alpha’s face registered his joy as well, and once he peeled Dean off of her, Cas offered her a hug too.
“Of course, Omega. Of course,” he assured her. “We’re blessed to have you. Let’s put a formal Pack ceremony together for this Saturday. I don’t want to wait any longer than that. We’ve all been anxiously awaiting your decision, Kate. You belong with us. You’re a Winchester, through and through.”
Dean made a smug little sound beside him and couldn’t stop a quiet, “Told you so,” from slipping out. Cas glanced over and shot Dean a quelling look, but Dean just grinned back at him. “I told you she’s a Winchester, Sir. I called it. You can’t deny…”
Cas narrowed his eyes and let Kate go. “We will discuss your smart mouth later,” he told Dean. “And you,” he spoke to Kate, who looked beatific in reflected pool lights. “You have been family since the day you entered this house. It will make me very proud to make that official.
Dean’s whistle, shrill and high and loud, startled Kate and Cas, both. Dean pulled his fingers out of his mouth and shouted over their heads, “Winchesters, circle up! Front and center! Got another big announcement to make!”
“Dean, honestly,” Cas protested with a pained expression and a fingertip at his beleaguered ear. Kate giggled. Dean scoped the party and found a few people too distant to have heard, so he whistled again.
”Winchesters! Samuel, that means you, dude! Assemble! Tout suite! Get your ass over here!”
Sam didn’t look up, still in deep conversation with Mark, but Jess collected him by the shirtsleeve and tugged him toward the pool.
“You know there’s a microphone, Dean,” Kali remarked casually as she brought Gabe close enough to hear.
“Don’t need it,” Dean quipped back. “That’s what the whistle’s for. Where’s Michael?”
“I’m right behind you, alpha. Can’t you feel me? That’s what your bond is for.”
“Smartass,” Dean grumbled cheerfully. “Is this everyone? I think Sarah’s a little preoccupied. Everyone else here?”
“Dean, what’s going on?” Sam asked. The rest of the partygoers made a wide circle around the Pack, equally curious.
Dean nudged Kate. “Go on, Omega. Tell them.”
Kate blushed. “It’s really not a big deal. I just…I just thought maybe it was time to make it official. You guys welcomed me so warmly when I was in such a mess. And I really wanted to trust that it was for real. But I didn’t. No one had ever treated me like that before, like I’m a person who matters, like what I want matters.” She huffed, looking about her, embarrassed but steadfast. “I’ve never seen a Pack like this one. I was afraid to believe there might be room in it for me. I have this freaky bond inside that’s always tugging me off-balance, and it makes me feel like I’m never truly at home unless I follow it back to where no one cared about me. But I dunno, I watched everyone tonight, all the ways you reach out to each other, all the ways you help and support each other, just how much love there is in this family, and I figured…figured I’d be crazy stupid to miss my chance of belonging. I want in. That’s all. I want a place. I want to belong.” She looked up at Dean, standing behind her with his hands on each of her shoulders, beaming at his little blonde ward. “I want to be a Winchester too.”
Dean wrapped his arms around her from behind, but he was quickly shunted off to allow the rest of the Pack to welcome her with as much joy.
“Her Heat is in a week,” Cas remarked to Dean. Cain stood close enough to hear, and he peeled back to join their conversation. Cas brought him in with a steady look and nodded to include him. “We will hold off on Claims until she’s near Tripping. I would like to hold the induction ceremony before she’s feeling the effects of estrus though. I want her to be fully present.”
“So,” Cain said, “ceremony on Saturday, Claims on…Tuesday? And then…has she made a request for a specific alpha this round?”
“I’ve got Craig scheduled to spend four nights with her,” Dean told him. “But if she’s freshly initiated, maybe it would be better if one of us does it this time. Or, hell, all of us. We could take it in shifts. We need to shore up the Pack connections.”
Cas shook his head. “That would be ideal, yes, but neither of us has four days to spare, Dean.”
“I can do it,” Cain suggested. “I don’t have anything going that I can’t postpone, and April is at home for the next two weeks. She doesn’t need me while she’s at home.”
“Man, that’s going to get real uncomfortable for you once the hormones peter off,” Dean advised. “You sure?”
But Cain shook his head. “It’s no different from what I do for April. It’s not personal, it’s Pack. I’ll be fine. And she trusts me already.”
Cas looked up from their little conference and summoned Kate.
“Love, for your next Heat, would you be comfortable seeing it through with alpha Cain? We believe having close Pack instead of a contractor to help solidify the Pack connections would be preferable. I would like to hear your opinion. It is your Heat, after all.” Cas’ eyes glimmered with a red halo for a moment.
Kate blinked in surprise. “Whatever you think is best, Alpha.”
“Kate, it’s okay to have an opinion. If I thought strongly on the matter, I wouldn’t be offering you a choice. But you will be freshly initiated and freshly Claimed. Sending you straight from that into the arms of a stranger feels like a lapse in support. Alpha Cain has offered to spend your Heat with you. I’m sure Dean and I can each make time as well for a stopover.”
Dean nodded. “Kiddo, we want to signal to your deeper designations that this is your home. This is your Pack. It might not feel much like it matters from a conscious perspective, but your back brain will hear the message and hopefully start to untangle that sense you still have that you don’t fully belong. Riding out a Heat with a Packmate can help with that.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Bigtime,” Dean confirmed.
Kate glanced to the side where April waited, listening, with an arm around Rachel’s waist. Claire stood a little way back, leaning back into her new alpha, looking disheveled and uncomfortable. Kaia had her head low with a frown on her face, studying Claire’s eyes. Gabe sauntered up and insinuated himself between Cain and Dean.
“Heat orgy?” he asked. “That what I’m hearing? I could get in on that.”
“No, Gabriel,” Cas said tiredly. “No orgies.”
“C’mon, Cassie! Set the Pack connections. Strengthen the bonds. Everybody Claims everybody. Just think. We could be one big, happy, bonded, connected mass of sweaty limbs.”
Cas rolled his eyes. “No.”
And as Gabriel turned toward Cain to try to cajole him to subscribe to the idea, Cas excused himself. He caught an unsubtle signal from Charlie several yards away that was meant for Rachel. Cas watched as Rachel leaned into April, whispered something in her ear, squeezed her arm, and then skipped lightly toward Charlie, who took her up, ferreting her swiftly toward the kitchen door. Cas raised his brows at April, but she simply shrugged.
Cas took stock.
It was late, and it was a worknight. He had already determined to nudge Billie into being lax on arrival times in the morning for those who had attended the Winchester’s impromptu fete. But that didn’t extend to himself. Cas had to be up and out and at work at his usual time. And so did Dean. Michael had the day off. April was working from home with Matt and Mark, both of whom were still here, so their timing would likely coincide.
Cas thought on what Dean said about taking the good and simply enjoying it while it lasted rather than worrying anxiously that something would soon spoil it. Cas had long worried over Dean’s inability to take joyful moments at face value, but if Dean’s newfound outlook held, then he had stridden right past Castiel and taken the lead on healthy perspectives. Cas wasn’t there yet. Something felt ominously imminent. Something dark. It was too much good too quickly.
Portia maneuvered her head under his hand. Her liquid eyes gazed adoringly up at him.
“Good girl,” Cas murmured, stroking her face and over her silky ears.
“What the fuck!” Meg bellowed from the kitchen door. “The bitch ditched us! How are we supposed to get home?”
Cas continued petting his dog. An amused smile broke on his face. Some things never changed.
Sam would lend the van keys to Ketch, and the straggling remainders of the Lafitte Pack would be ferried safely home. Cas didn’t even need to get involved. His Pack would see to the emergency without him—because they were competent, thoughtful, and kind. Cas sat down on a patio chair. Silver lights danced from the pool. Portia laid her head in his lap, and he fondled her ears affectionately.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cas caught sight of Billie, and he watched her furtively as she disappeared behind the pool house with a slap to the side of her arm. The mosquitoes were out. Cas mused without moving, even as April took to his same chair and settled sleepily into him. He dropped a kiss to her temple and cinched her in.
At length, Castiel’s vigil proved founded. Uriel emerged alone from behind the pool house, and a few minutes later, Billie rounded the far side as well. Cas chuckled to himself, and April snickered. She’d seen them too.
“They have a lot to learn about being subtle,” April commented. She snuggled under his chin.
“Perhaps,” Cas said softly. “It’s also possible they had every intention of being seen.”
“Billie? Maybe,” April agreed. “But Alpha Uriel isn’t a player, Cas. He wants her in his Pack, but he wants to feel like he wooed her himself. Having you set it up for him is a kick in the balls. But if she approached him here, even if it’s right under your nose, he can’t let the opportunity pass. He can’t risk her giving up and going elsewhere. Billie has more options than I think she knows. And Helene is as connected as she is. Uriel would be stupid to mess his chance up by playing hard to get just because it’s your win as much as his.”
Cas laughed warmly. “I love the way your mind works,” he told her. “How do you know all this about people you rarely see?”
“I pay attention, and I have spies,” she told him shamelessly.
“That’s my girl.” Cas slid back in the chair so he could nest April between his legs and fall sloppily into a puddle of tired muscles. She scooted right back into him. “It’s too bad they had their little meeting after the party’s breaking up. We could have had yet another announcement to make.”
“Billie would never have forgiven you for that,” April added.
“No, probably not.”
They watched the stragglers collect themselves and their belongings, wending their way between waiters cleaning up and a sound tech coiling wire. They bid goodnight as people stopped by on their way out. Helene leaned over and kissed Castiel’s cheek, paused for a moment, and then kissed April’s as well. Billie tugged on her arm impatiently, seeming in a hurry to dash before Cas asked her what she and Uriel had been discussing behind his pool house. But Cas let her go without embarrassing her. There would be time for that later. Snuggling while the party broke up around them seemed more important.
“Is Sarah in trouble for ditching her own party?” April asked over her shoulder after Lisa and Ben said their goodnights.
“No,” Cas told her. “She’s allowed to celebrate today privately if she prefers.”
April made a disgusted sound. “That’s unfair. You blistered my butt for sneaking off with Michael after my Grammy win. Said I had responsibilities to the people who came out to show me their support. Said it was the pinnacle of rudeness.”
“Did I?” Cas teased sleepily.
“Jerk,” she muttered.
Cas laughed. “You forgot conceited, arrogant, arbitrary…what else?”
“Inconsistent,” she added.
“Yes, inconsistent. Unfair. Preferential. It’s favoritism, I admit. Kitten, I’m hardest on you because I love you more.”
April couldn’t help laughing at his absurdity. She tugged his hands down to cover her lower belly, and he snugged them right in, gripping a little, massaging a little. He scented her throat, turned on at her proximity and softness.
“All right, Mr. Darcy,” Dean said from over his shoulder. “Put a cork in it until you get upstairs. Fucking on the pool chairs is a bad idea. Trust me.”
Cas chuckled into his mate’s hairline. Dean had a point. The chairs weren’t balanced well for the kind of motion required for where Cas’ mind was heading.
Michael helped April to her feet and then reached a hand down to Cas, who took it. The four of them, alone now on the back patio but for Cain who was overseeing the cleanup crew, made their way as a unit into the house. It was quiet.
“Claire and Kaia got back to the guest house all right?” Cas asked.
“Michael drove them in the golf cart,” Dean replied.
“Barely got there in one piece,” Michael grumbled. “Claire’s Heat just Tripped. I think being around so many alphas so soon after she Mated sent her hormones spiking. But they’re delivered safe and sound. We need to arrange an airdrop of food and clean sheets for the next couple of days. And Gatorade.”
They mounted the stairs together, Dean leaning on Cas and Michael’s hand in April’s. Cas hmmed at the news that he had an Omega in Heat in his guest house. He would set Gabe on watching over them.
“And the Lancets all found their beds?” he asked as he reached the landing.
Dean chuckled. “Rachel took off with Charlie. The elder Lancets are in their usual space. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me they were coming, Cas. Don’t you trust me to keep a secret?” Dean reached the top step and rounded on Cas.
“From your mate?” Cas replied. “Not even a little. He can read your mind. What you know, he knows.”
Michael smirked. “He’s not wrong, Dean.”
“What? I’m not that transparent!”
“You kind of are,” April told him. “It’s one of your most lovable traits.”
Dean scowled, but April smiled at him, and he shrugged.
“Now, who’s going to fuck me?” she asked, turning to face the men at the door to the Master suite.
“Not it,” Dean quipped. He squeezed her shoulder on his way in, and he stripped his shirt over his head without looking back.
Michael glanced at Cas, brows raised in question. Cas looked back.
“Both?” Cas prompted.
Michael turned his gaze to April, running his eyes the length of her body in contrived assessment and then turned back to Cas. “Both,” he agreed.
Dean scoffed, down to his underwear inside the room. “You three have fun with that.” He slipped on his bathrobe. “I’ll be down the hall. Don’t wake me up when you join me, whoever’s coming. And I better not wake up to an empty bed.” Dean kissed the top of April’s head in the doorway, then pressed himself close to Michael and ravaged his mouth, hot but brief, before pulling Cas in for a warm embrace and a very different, far more romantic kiss. Dean swiped Castiel’s bottom lip with his finger as he pulled away, then he left them to seek Michael’s bed at the end of the hall and eke out a few hours of sleep. He knew Cas wasn’t going to let him sleep in.
Who schedules a party on a Wednesday, anyway? What were they thinking?
Cas stripped April’s clothes from her body. He felt her let go inside her head. He felt the moment she began to float and to feel subhuman, to turn into little more than a hole to plunder. It was a headspace she reveled in, one of her favorite alter egos. It wasn’t one Michael enjoyed, and that meant Cas needed to guide them both. Michael’s eyes flared golden as he lost his own clothes, fully immersed in his Secondary. Cas rolled with it. He had a Tertiary wolf Submissive and a Secondary Omega ingenue. He could work with that.
Michael might have qualms about Topping his girlfriend, but he had no qualms about sex in general. And if April was going to put it on offer, who was Michael to turn it down?
Golden-eyed, he swept up behind her and fixed his lips to the side of her throat, right beneath her ear. She moaned and leaned her head to the side. At her front, Cas took hold of her hips and guided her forward and to the bed. He leaned her over it. Michael allowed the change of position to lead him to kneel on the floor and snake his tongue through the thickening flow of slick at the crack of her ass.
She gasped and spread her legs. Cas set a hand to the back of Michael’s head and pressed him closer. He could feel the reach of Michael’s tongue through the Mating-bond he shared with April. It was delicious. He felt her shiver in his own body.
“Touch yourself, Michael,” he urged. “I want you to help me take her apart. I need you hard, my little sex toy. Get yourself revved.”
Michael mumbled something that got lost on its way out. His fist closed around his dick, moistened by his own slick, and he stroked slowly, already revved.
Cas climbed into the middle of the bed, propped slightly on April’s many frilly pillows, and he spread his legs. He watched April writhe at the foot of the bed. She kept her eyes on him, waiting for a summons.
Good girl.
Cas stroked himself as he watched her and felt her through his bond. He squeezed his burgeoning knot just right and had to close his eyes to the pleasure for a moment. Michael’s tongue explored down into her folds, seeking every little crevice and touchpoint that curled her toes, collecting her slick and redistributing it. He nipped at the insides of her thighs, and he reached up to tweak her nipples and roll the softness of her breasts in his hands. Castiel’s mouth fell open. He panted with want, watching them.
“Crawl to me, Kitten,” he commanded.
Eyes fixed on his, April pressed upward and gained the bed on her hands and knees. Her eyes had grown a golden halo as well, and her mouth hung lax in a mirror of Cas’. Michael followed behind, still lapping at her ass. He held tightly to her hips as the two of them traveled the length of the bed in slow motion. April set her knees wide apart, straddling her mate’s hips. She was drawn in to kiss him, nearly out of her mind with pleasure. His kiss burned with urgency, and she floated away in bliss.
Cas felt Michael’s hand circle his knot, fingers interweaving with the Alpha’s to stroke him together even as Michael’s face never paused its ministrations at April’s core. The sounds his mouth made were obscene. Slick dribbled from April’s channel down to tease her clit and then drip onto Cas’ cock. It lubed the slow strokes of the two men’s conjoined fingers.
Cas wrenched his lips free and pressed his mate’s body into his chest.
“Michael,” he breathed, hungry. “Come…”
The words stuck in his throat, but the Omega understood. Michael slurped loudly as he ran up the split of April’s body, holding as much slick on his tongue as he could collect, and he draped himself over her, stretching out to kiss the Alpha in a filthy transfer of fluids. Cas licked into his mouth, crushing April between them.
Michael’s body responded to the congruence of body parts. It knew this alignment all on its own, and the spread of his knees brought his cock in line with her channel. Without thinking, Michael pressed in and thrust lazily while he plundered Castiel’s mouth. It was the best of both worlds, and Michael gave no more than a passing thought to how delicious it would feel to have Dean at his back, filling him even as he filled Pete.
There would be another time for that.
They’d done it before.
But Dean had to be in the right headspace, and he wasn’t just now.
That was fine. Michael could wait.
For now though…
For now…
He pressed his hips closer and ground a hard, tight circle. One hand braced against Cas’ shoulder and the other at Pete’s hip. Michael’s chin was sloppy with slick and spit. He felt enraptured with pleasure.
Beneath him, April moaned with abandon. Her hips pressed back into his. Her hands held her steady, splayed against the bed to either side of Cas’ ribs. Their knees and calves crushed together, leaving little room to shift.
Cas lifted her bodily until his cock stood proud and desperate, and then, canting his hips just so, minding the connection Michael maintained, he lowered her onto himself, spearing her, splitting her wide. Cas and Michael found kissing a challenge, but they kept their lips close, their breathing shared, their eyes locked on one another.
April disappeared. She’d tucked her head down to Cas’ chest, flat and disengaged, and the men fucked each other through her proxy. Cas could feel Michael’s thrusts through the thin tissues separating their cocks. It felt delightfully wrong and right and incredible. Cas set his feet, forcing Michael to sit upright and press into Cas’ thighs, giving him support to fuck harder, deeper.
Cas couldn’t look away from Michael’s eyes, golden and glowing. Michael panted hard. Sweat dripped down his temple, his chin, his hairless chest.
And Michael, too, was lost in Castiel’s eyes, crimson and intense.
“Hang on, Kitten,” he whispered. “Need you to be still for me. Be still and take it…”
“Jesus Christ,” Michael answered back. He whined. He rolled his hips. It was like she wasn’t even there. Cas grew a line across his forehead, one between his eyes, his expression turned dark and desperate as his pace and vigor picked up. Michael let himself match the pace, thrusting viciously while he sank into Alpha’s eyes, into that endless depth.
Cas’ mouth pulled into a scowl. Harsh, guttural grunts escaped his lips. His hips drove relentlessly up into the proxy’s body.
“Yeah, Alpha,” Michael panted. “Yeah. Come on!” Michael’s toes dug into the bedding behind him.
“Kitten,” Cas ground out between clenched teeth. “Come! Come right now! Now, April!!”
She dug fingernails into his ribs and pressed her body back and down and into the impossible pressure, and she climaxed on waves and waves of YES!
Sweat dripped off Michael’s chin and dribbled to the small of her back. She rocked subtly between them, squeezing her channel, massaging Michael as he moved in her. He growled at the sensation. His balls slapped against Cas’ cock, teasing over his knot as he drove up into his mate’s body and used her for his pleasure. The aftershocks from her orgasm clenched around him, and he grunted and thrust straight in, lodging his knot, and stealing Michael’s breath at the sudden pressure.
“Come for me again, Kitten,” Cas whispered into her ear with a voice torn in half somewhere deep in his throat. She moaned and clenched hard. To Michael, it was a fist around his dick, squeezing rhythmically. He stuttered his hips, ducked his head, squeezed his eyes tightly closed, gritted his teeth, and came with his knees splayed wide and his hips tucked in. The undulation of April’s climax milked every drop from his body until he felt utterly drained.
Michael took a moment to catch his breath, rocking with the motion of Cas’ thrusts. Then he pulled back, scrambled to kneel between Cas’ knees and watch the pull of his knot behind April’s slick, stretched hole. It was alive, pulsing. Her position gave Michael just the right view to see it writhe inside her, blocked on the upthrust by Cas’ sack and his thighs. Michael reached out a hand, dredged a finger through the mess leaking from April’s channel, and traced down across the tight stretch of tissue holding tight to Cas’ knot, and then on down to cup his balls, massaging them gently, feeling for the inexorable draw upward that signaled imminent release.
Michael drooled onto his own leg. He flattened onto his belly and risked getting his face close enough to taste. Cas threw his knees wide, groaned loudly, and came. From his vantage, Michael watched the pulse of semen as it flowed in spasms into April’s body, watched the tension of Cas’ inner thighs tighten, his ass clench, his arms wrap around her lower back and hold her down.
Michael breathed a hot line across the connection between mates, and Cas clenched again as another spasm took him. Michael waited until his thighs relaxed and then he reached out and pressed Cas’ legs upward, lifting his ass off the bed.
Michael’s tongue was millimeters from Cas’ hole, where rivulets of slick and sweat dribbled into the crack of his ass, when Cas’ fist caught Michael’s hair and yanked.
“No, Omega!” he gritted, breathless. His legs wiggled free of Michael’s grip, and he flattened to the bed. “No one touches me there.”
Michael winced and licked his lips. “Sorry, sir. Got carried away. This view. It’s hot. You should see what you two look like together.”
Cas growled and tightened his grip. “This is no laughing matter. You respect my rules or get out of my bed!” Michael heard the reverb even before he felt the press of compulsion against his mind. His breath hitched and he skittered backward to kneel on the floor with his head lowered.
“Apologies, Alpha. It won’t happen again.” Michael’s body trembled.
When Cas spoke again, it was softer and without the depth of his Secondary. “See that it doesn’t. Next time there will be consequences. Come back up here, please.” Cas wiggled a little and eased himself over onto a hip, arranging April to lie comfortably beside him. He stroked her hair away from her face with a soppy softness around his eyes.
He kissed her gently as Michael crept back up and stretched out at her back. She lay boneless between them.
“Did you enjoy that, little one?” Cas asked in a whisper. April nodded mutely.
“Shh, it’s all right, love. You don’t have to talk. Just rest.” He stroked her hair, her shoulder, her back, holding her as a wave of tremors passed down her body.
Cas looked up and caught Michael’s eye. “Blanket,” he said softly.
“Water?” Michael whispered back. Cas shook his head.
Michael fetched a thick comforter from the closet and threw it over them. He crawled back in. “She’s okay,” Michael said out loud, even though Castiel needed no assurance. They read her through different lines of connection, but each man could see enough to assess her status.
“She’s fine,” Cas whispered back. “She enjoyed that immensely. She’s already fast asleep.”
“Sir, I’m sorry,” Michael repeated. “I hope I didn’t spoil it for you…”
“It’s already forgotten, Omega. Get some sleep.”
“Yes, Sir. Would you like me to bring a wet cloth? I’m going to wipe down and go sleep with Dean. I can get you set up with a washcloth for when you untie.”
“Yes, thank you, that would be appreciated.” Cas’ eyes were back to soft blue in the lamplight. He waited for Michael to return from the bathroom, clean and naked.
“Michael, that was intense, and it was something we’ve never done before, not without Dean. You understand that there need be no shame in what we did, don’t you?” Cas’ expression was fervent and solemn. “It was what April wanted, what you and I wanted, and it was pleasurable and powerful. Don’t let yourself believe otherwise.”
“Sir, no offense, but I understand power play.” He set the bowl with two steaming cloths on Castiel’s bedside table.
“You usually play from your Tertiary or your Primary, Omega. I’ve never known you to let your Omega in on the kind of play we just did, especially not when April is our fodder. I want you to be prepared for a drop and to let Dean or me in on what you’re experiencing. Wake him up when you get in there and ask him to watch over you tonight.”
“I’ll be fine, Cas.” Michael leaned down and brushed a kiss through April’s hair. “Goodnight.”
Cas took hold of his wrist. “I will be checking up in the morning. If I find you disobeyed, I will spank you.”
Michael frowned but lowered his eyes and whispered, “Yes, sir.”
Michael eased sore muscles into the bed already warmed by his mate’s body. “Dean. Baby, wake up.”
“Mmmph? Damnit, dude, I said to let me sleep.” Dean huffed but lifted an arm and a knee so that Michael could slot in with him.
“Need you to keep an eye on me, alpha. Cas thinks I might drop. Can you just…maybe…hold me for a while?” Michael wormed his way into Dean’s space.
“Drop? Man, what did you three do in there?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning. I’m not going to drop, but Alpha made me swear I would give you a head’s-up.”
“Good grief,” Dean grumbled. “Somebody owes me a blowjob.”
Notes:
I have to say, Kat stole the limelight to me. That little convo came out of nowhere. Also, I'm bout to whack Michael on the head for taking his worries to everyone but the girl in question. However, a little birdie clued me in that bringing Michael's mother for a visit may have been the girl in question's idea. Sometimes, a boy needs his mother's advice. Sometimes, the girl figures that out before HE does.
The new job is going well. It's been a month, and they haven't fired me yet. Thanks for all your kind words and warm wishes. You guys are the best.
Happy Pride, Y'all!
Chapter 25: Saturday, August 28, 2021
Summary:
Sam's not happy about his new Pack assignment. At all. But it's for a greater good. Too bad the ends and the means are so far out of alignment. Do we trust Cas?
Michael and April get started on an important conversation but don't get to finish it. Sarah and Adam hit a brick wall. Kate joins the Pack. And at the clinic, crises never end.
Notes:
Content warnings for this chapter in End Note.
Sorry for the long break. I'm still getting accustomed to the new schedule. Class starts soon, so I'll be even further limited on free time. It was important to me to get at least one chapter written over the summer.
I had the great honor of enjoying the breeze on Jensen's back porch last month while I began putting this chapter together. There is something bratty about writing fanfic in a place that belongs to the characters' avatar. I'm not a stalker. But if you're ever at Family Business Beer Company, I recommend the Cosmic Cowboy or Hamilton Pale Ale. Take your tablet and write smut.
Oh, but there's no smut in this chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, August 28, 2021
NOW:
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Sam said as he appeared in the doorway to Castiel’s office on Saturday morning.
“Samuel. Come in.” Cas flourished a smattering of keystrokes and then left his keyboard. He turned in his seat and ushered Sam to a seat on his loveseat. “Have a seat.”
“Samuel?” Sam asked in surprise. “Am I in trouble?”
Cas raised his left eyebrow, challenging the question in his inimitable way. Sam took a deep breath and abandoned the line of questioning. He cleared his throat and sat.
“What’s up?” he tried instead.
“Sam, I want you to participate directly in next week’s Claimings. You’re going to set Kate a Claim of your own.”
Sam sat back in surprise. “Me, sir? Why?”
“Because I told you to,” Cas replied.
“No, but...what’s the justification? I’m no alpha. Why make her submit to more than she needs? Isn’t that...? I mean... Sir, I’m not comfortable with this. Does Kate know?”
Cas frowned. “Sam, I’m shifting the leadership matrix of the Pack, and I’m moving you into a more direct authoritative role. Ultimately, as a Profound Dominant, you will assume disciplinary authority over all Pack Omegas and Submissives. We need to tighten up the discipline, support the subordinates better than we’ve been doing, and I want you leading that change.”
Sam’s jaw dropped. For a moment he was speechless. Then, “All the Omegas and Subs? Cas...that’s everyone. That’s the whole Pack. That’s…that’s exactly what I said I didn’t want. Sir, I’m lost. What is this about?”
Cas grunted. “It’s about sustainability, beta. And it’s not everyone.”
“Fine,” Sam interjected. “It’s not you and me and Kali... Everyone else, though.”
“Sarah,” Cas added.
But Sam shot him a look. “Sarah’s a Sub, and you know it. She takes correction more often than Dean does, and it’s not because she’s Simian. Level with me. What’s going on?”
Castiel rolled his eyes. “I have no intention of explaining my decision,” he answered sourly. “All I need from you is to fulfill the assignment I’ve set for you. Do you understand me?”
Sam rolled his lips between his teeth and ruminated under his Alpha’s increasingly impatient eye.
“Samuel?”
“This is not okay with me, Sir. Not at all,” the beta finally ground out. “And yeah, I understand. But I already play that role at work. Plus, I’m wading up to my ass in my research project, working on my doctorate. I’m trying to catch up and make enough progress to take over for Benny, and it’s not going well. I’m raising two boys who never stop moving and trying my best to balance my mate, who I’m sure you know is far more of a challenge than she looks. Where am I supposed to find the time to manage the Pack’s discipline? Why me? Why not Michael? He’s a higher-rated Dom than I am, and he would jump at the chance. Hell, he’s already doing it for Dean, for Kate, for the pups... For Gabe, even. Come on, Alpha, don’t make me do this.”
Castiel steepled his fingers and rested his elbows on the smooth walnut surface of his desk. He didn’t reply.
Sam glowered. He looked away and fumed. He knew he wasn’t going to win, and he calculated furiously as to the merit of standing his ground and taking the repercussions on principle. Was this the hill he picked to die on?
Then a thought occurred to him, and his eyes shot back across the expanse between them before he could stop them. Cas watched him.
“This is about Michael’s asinine plan to make us scrabble and scratch for rank, isn’t it? You want me to make a move. Why?”
“It has nothing whatsoever to do with rank challenges.”
“I’m not interested, Castiel. You can’t force me to scratch Cain’s eyes out. I’m not going to dance to Michael’s stupid tune.”
“Calm yourself, Sam.”
“Why? You stoked me on purpose. You knew I didn’t want this. You knew it would piss me off. What’s it for, Alpha? So you can knock Cain down a peg? What the fuck will that prove? Is this about ingratiating yourself with Dean? He can fight his own damn battles. Cain bends over backward for this Pack, and he gets precious little recognition for it. He deserves the same respect the rest of us get, not an undercut.”
“That’s enough.” Cas cut through Sam’s harangue like a flipped circuit, and Sam’s mouth clicked shut at the tone. “If you’re finished jumping to conclusions?”
“It’s not fair to burden Kate with an extra Claim she doesn’t need.” Sam pulled back into his original argument. “If we were alpha-shy, maybe. But we’re not. We’ve got three solid alphas. Three Claims is enough to stabilize an Ozzie like Kate, even with her Mating-bond tugging her off-balance. You don’t need me.”
“Perhaps not,” Cas conceded. “But I want you. Whether you ever leapfrog over Cain in rank or not, you’re a solid, stabilizing influence in this Pack, and it’s high time you took the mantle that is your natural birthright. This is as much for your good as it is for the Bottoms. Sam, your wolf is lazy. It needs stimulation that it’s not getting.”
Sam shifted in his seat. “All due respect, Alpha, that’s bullshit. I don’t need...”
Cas slapped his hand down hard and flat on the desktop, and Sam snapped his mouth closed again. His jaw worked silently. He shook his head slowly in frustrated defiance.
But Sam’s mind worked fast. He was brighter than most alphas gave him credit for, and he’d been enmeshed in Castiel’s thought processes long enough to recognize a chess move when he saw one. If his first impression had not hit square, then there was another target in the Alpha’s crosshairs: something Cas wanted desperately enough to goad him into alienating Sam. If it wasn’t an attempt to give Sam a leg up in a challenge for the third ranked spot, then it was something.
It was something.
Cas could see Sam working on it.
“Is it about Michael?” Sam asked uncertainly.
Cas chuckled in spite of himself. “It’s about Pack sustainability, Samuel.” He paused with a contemplative expression before leaning forward with a conspiratorial air. “I have no access to bring in more alphas right now. But I have a line on filling out the Omega ranks. If I do that, we have to be prepared to support a bottom-heavy membership until we can rebalance. And even if every Omega I approach turns me down, setting up a beta-Dom in a position of authority is a fair and tenable approach. I’ve thought this through, Sam. Besides, this is not a negotiation. You made me an oath, and I intend to hold you to that.”
Sam’s chin lifted in a nod of recalcitrant acknowledgment. His lips formed a hard, tight line. “Yes, Sir,” he answered stiffly. He rocked to his feet. “May I go?”
“Sam, I do not require your approval. But I would appreciate your trust.”
“Trust?” Sam stalled at the door. “You’re up to something. I can smell it. And you want me to trust you?”
Cas sighed. “I’m not certain what you’re accusing me of, beta, but I advise you to tread carefully.”
“Alpha, you’ve already got my obeisance. Do you also need me kneeling at your feet?”
“Tread with caution, Samuel,” Cas repeated with a trace of alpha compulsion ringing in his tone.
Sam stared in disbelief. Caution? “You know what? How about you just strap me now and buy me the right to say what I’m thinking? This is bullshit, and it’s intentional, and I don’t appreciate being your pawn. Fine. So, it’s not about Cain. It’s not about Michael. You say it’s about Omegas? You want to lure more Bottoms to the Pack? Sir, you don’t need me to dance for you for that. If you send out a signal that the roster is open for auditions, they’ll be lining up outside our door from here to Nebraska for a shot at joining this Pack.” Sam huffed, red-faced. His mind continued to run at a mad pace. He licked his lips. His hand fell away from the doorknob. “But you’re not interested in just any Omega, are you? You want someone specific.”
Sam thought furiously, and it hit him all at once. “You want Adam.”
Cas didn’t deny it.
Sam stared and then let a stream of consciousness show where his mind whirled.
“You think Adam is unhappy with the Lafitte Pack. You want him here. You want him badly enough to risk a spat with Benny. You would try sneaking Adam right out from under Benny’s grasp to bring him here, here where Sarah has better access. She’s in love with him. You know that, right? You understand that fucking around with this, with his Pack membership, is playing with fire? It’s a dick move, Sir. They’re both going to get burned. You can’t buy her a husband.”
Cas pursed his lips and frowned. “Benny’s concern is and always has been Adam’s best interest. If Adam would be happier here, Benny won’t protest. And Adam is unhappy where he is. He spends more time here than at home for a reason, Sam.”
“Adam is bonded to Benny,” Sam disagreed. “He adores his Alpha…”
“That’s true,” Cas interrupted. “But Benny doesn’t have the time to spend with him anymore. Adam’s care has been turned over to Lisa and Ketch. Adam’s feeling like an afterthought in Benny’s Pack. Or a burden, which is worse.”
“Adam adores Lisa too, Cas.”
“Maybe,” Cas conceded. “But he despises Ketch.”
Sam snorted. “Everyone despises Ketch. But you have to admit the guy is good at stabilizing Subs. They don’t have to be best friends with him. Doesn’t mean it’s in Adam’s best interest to switch Packs. What happened to Family is forever? Don’t you think it would be better to let the Lafitte Pack work out its own internal issues? How would you react if some Alpha came after one of your Omegas?”
Cas regarded Sam with that same cool calm that irked Sam like a wasp under his saddle.
Sam squared up. “Adam’s aging up, Alpha. He’ll Trigger any day now. His days as a single man are numbered. You can’t fix that. You can’t change it unless you contract with a burner, and neither you nor Benny would ever do that. His relationship with Sarah is doomed, and you know it. His True-Mate will be an alpha-Dominant, and there’s no way he and Sarah can survive that intact.”
Cas sighed. “She loves him, Sam. And he’s in love with her. Maybe I can’t protect him from Mating, but I can...” he faltered.
“You can what?” Sam challenged. “You can throw the weight of the Winchester Pack legal team against a Mating-bond infringement charge? Alpha, he’s Omega. He’s not you. He’s not Dean. You’ve got no legal standing against a mate-Claim. I know Sarah means the world to you, but you can’t protect her from this.”
Castiel held Sam’s eye for a moment. Alpha’s eyes hardened. “You’ll participate in the Claiming ceremony. Understood?”
Sam shook his head. “Yes, sir. You’re the boss.”
Cas nodded. “Dismissed.”
“Thank god,” Sam muttered as he threw the door open.
Cas growled behind him, but Sam affected not to hear it.
Sam pulled up short as he exited the Alpha’s office. Michael stood with his shoulders braced against the wall across from the door, waiting for a chance to speak to Cas. Sam was too angry to be amenable to Michael, and he snarled gruffly before stalking away. Michael stared after him.
“Something I said?” he asked as he shifted his weight and slowly approached Castiel’s doorway.
Cas turned back to his keyboard and monitor. “What do you need, Michael?”
“Tonight’s shindig. Are we good with a full catering service? Do you care who I call? There’s only a couple of places that can mobilize fast enough to get us covered. Do you have a preference?”
Cas sighed. “Do what you feel is best, Omega. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Sir?”
“Was there something else, Michael?”
Michael glanced down the hall toward the foyer. Sam was gone. “Something I need in on, Alpha? Sam’s usually hard to ruffle. If there are undercurrents...”
“Mind your own business. You have your own assignments to worry about,” Cas told him tiredly.
“Right,” Michael whispered with his eyes still fixed on the horizon.
“Pardon me?” Cas challenged. He was in no mood.
Michael jolted back to the present and blushed. “Yes, Sir. I’ll call Jerome’s. They have that mini-quiche Dean likes.”
“That would be fine. Perhaps find out what Kate prefers and see if they can accommodate her,” Cas added.
Michael nodded with an absent expression. His eyes stole back toward Sam’s path, and he stalled.
“Michael?” Cas pulled him from his revery.
“Okay, but...” Michael began.
“I’m not going to discuss it with you,” Cas chided. “So if that’s all?”
Michael sighed. “That’s all, Alpha.”
“Close the door on your way out.”
Cas managed another half hour of administrative organization and process reviews before Dean slipped soundlessly in and rolled onto the loveseat in his bare feet. He leaned into the arm of the couch and propped his feet on the cushion in front of him. Cas ignored him for a few weighted minutes. Once his eyes lost focus on his screen for the fourth time and the words on his spreadsheet blurred irrevocably, he rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair.
“Who sent you?” he asked. “Michael or Sam?”
Dean looked up from the screen of his phone.
“Neither? Why?”
“Try again.”
“Okay, well...”
“Let me interrupt you, then,” Cas growled. “I don’t want to hear any bitching about how I’ve allocated Dominant resources in my own Pack. So, if that’s what you’re here for, save it.”
“Who, me?” Dean sat up and put his feet on the floor.
“Dean, I warn you to consider your words carefully."
Dean’s visage underwent a shift. Elbows bracing against wide-spread knees and eyes fixed on his fingers, Dean dropped all Tertiary tells. A line of concern appeared across his forehead. “You’re putting him in charge of all the discipline?” he asked carefully. “Even Cain’s? Cas, Sam doesn’t have the weight to Top Cain. He’s only got the oomph to knock me around because he grew up in my back pocket and he knows all my ins.”
Cas nodded, deep in thought. Dean studied him furtively, his chin still low.
“Sam knows it’s a play for something,” Dean added. “So does Michael.”
“I know.”
“Which means you wanted them both to know,” Dean concluded. “Cas, what’s going on? Talk to me.”
Castiel chuckled. “What did Sam tell you?”
Dean huffed. He rolled his shoulders and sat back, facing Cas directly. “Sam thinks you’re prowling for a new Omega. Thinks you’re trying to steal Adam away from Benny…which, yeah, I made it that far too. Adam’s a good addition. But there’s more to it, isn’t there? Adam’s just a steppingstone.”
Cas didn’t answer.
“Will you tell me if I guess right?” Dean asked. His voice held a hint of playfulness.
Cas quirked a brow, mirroring the trace of amusement that twitched Dean’s mouth upward. “I’ll tell you straight out if you want me to,” he said.
“No, I wanna try to work it out,” Dean told him. “Maybe work backward.” He sighed heavily, thinking.
“All right,” Cas nodded. “What have you got?”
Dean rubbed a hand across his mouth and bit his lower lip. He scooted forward on his seat and frowned.
“You want a beta-Dom as discipline-czar. That’s exactly how Benny set up his Pack. That frees the alphas to be above the daily frisson, and it makes the Omega ranks a safe place to settle. Sam won’t throw his weight around and posture just for powerplays. He’s fair. He’s comfortable.”
Cas let Dean think it through without interrupting or signaling whether he was on the right path or not.
“And it sets our Pack up as a place where alphas aren’t burdened with excessive responsibilities. Yeah? You thinking of using this as a recruiting tool? Draw more alphas and Omegas? Who does that benefit?” Dean seemed stalled, but Cas didn’t rescue him.
“Okay,” he regrouped. “So, Adam switches loyalties. Somehow you convince Benny to just release him. Whatever. We’ll pretend that’s going to happen.” Dean shifted in his seat. “We get another Ozzie—one who’s going to tumble for a mate any day now and then get ushered out into a whole ‘nother pack…” Dean frowned at his hands and shook his head in consternation. “No, man, I’m not seeing anything coming from that but a strained friendship with Benny and an Ozzie with no stability.”
Cas watched Dean and then lowered his eyes to his desktop in a rare dropping of walls. He licked his lips.
“Dean, the assumption that an Ozzie must needs join their Top mate’s pack is not a legal question but a cultural one. Mating-bond infringement law is sketchy and unchallenged in the courts.” He raised his eyes without moving his head, and Dean found Castiel’s irises suffused with crimson. He felt the weight of Castiel’s wolf heavy on his words.
Dean blinked slowly as he followed the line of reasoning. “You need an un-Mated Omega as a test subject,” he surmised. “Someone you can use as a guinea pig to test the temperature of the water for challenging a Mating-Claim.”
Cas didn’t nod, but he didn’t deny either. “For what it’s worth, Dean,” he said carefully, “I am Alpha over the whole Lupin Pack, at least for now. And I mean to assert that status and claim anyone who Mates an Omega member of my Pack as a de facto Winchester. I don’t expect an alpha-dom to acquiesce to that claim without a legal fight. But the law is unclear…”
“And you’re Alpha,” Dean concluded for him. “You stand a good chance of winning, overturning precedent…”
“Setting precedent,” Cas corrected.
Dean sat up straight, cocked his head, and pondered. “Adam’s the test case,” he mused. “You wouldn’t take a dry run on someone you can’t afford to lose. You need to know how the courts will decide before you risk someone irreplaceable.”
“It’s not that mercenary,” Cas protested. “Adam is not replaceable. However, he is resilient. He’s strong enough to withstand a legal battle, to let the alphas bickering over his custody do whatever they decide to do, and to stay the course and focus on the things he needs to foster, not the ones outside his control. Adam is the perfect guinea pig, as you say. I have no intention of surprising him with a legal challenge that he isn’t on board for.
“If he switches packs, Dean, it will be under the understanding that I mean to help him stay here, that I mean to fight for his right to maintain a relationship with Sarah that is outside his Mating-bond. I mean to normalize polyamory in the wider Lupin culture. If marriage outside of Mating is a viable route for you and me, then it has to be made viable for Omegas as well. The only way to effect that is to provide a path for an Omega to maintain a relationship he values even if he Triggers with an alpha-Dom True-Mate.”
Dean sat speechless. His jaw dropped.
They stared motionless in the charged space. Every second that ticked by felt destined to spark into some kind of metaphysical detonation. Dean’s wolf stood ready to slide in and diffuse the tension, but Dean waved him down with a subtle gesture, and the wolf lowered its body to the forest floor, waiting.
“This is about Michael,” Dean concluded at last. “Michael and April. It’s about proving to Michael that marriage is a feasible option. If Adam gets to keep Sarah even after he tumbles for a TM, then the idea of Omegas choosing their own intimates becomes less weird. It’s about removing the barriers for your mate to get what she wants.”
Castiel didn’t reply, but the tension in his body shifted slightly, and his eyes flared subtly redder for a moment before returning to blue.
Dean sighed. “Except that Michael’s barrier to marrying Pete has nothing to do with worrying over an alpha mate slamming the gate on him.”
Cas shook his head. “You’re thinking about it too literally, Dean…too linearly. Michael’s hesitance is borne of a fear of how his marrying April will appear to the wider community.”
“He’s terrified of turning into his Pop…” Dean argued.
“No, he’s not. He’s afraid of looking like a copycat with no imagination to pave a road of his own in securing a romantic relationship outside of his Mating-bond. It’s not Michael’s Omega throwing spanners into the works; it’s his wolf. It’s a matter of pride. But if we normalize marriage as a separate Pack connection…if marrying for love in spite of being Mated isn’t a unique hail Mary sought by two desperate alphas with the means to make it stick…”
“Man, the turnaround time on your ploy is years; to get this through the courts could literally take years,” Dean added in dismay. “How long to get Adam on our roster? How long before he Mates? How long is the legal fight and what are the casualties? What if you win the fight in the courts, but Sarah and Adam crumble under the pressure and are then stuck together in a Pack with a resentful alpha who has to sit across from a rival Primate for the rest of her life?”
Cas raised his brow and leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed.
“You’re telling me you think you can control all the variables here?” Dean challenged. He scooted to the edge of the loveseat and dug his toes into the rug. “And Sam! Cas, Sam has no interest in being Pack muscle…”
“Sam’s wolf is growing complacent, Dean. I’m certain you’ve noticed. He’s stepped back at The Facility, focused on his studies and learning Benny’s role. His only outlet is Jess, and that’s not enough for a fifteen.”
“He’s still got me,” Dean said stubbornly.
“No. He doesn’t,” Cas countered. “Michael and I have you. Sam hasn’t been an active part of your balancing in years, not to any significant degree. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your wolf reaching out to him, but Dean, it’s not enough to feed Sam’s wolf in any sustainable way. He’s starving slowly, and he’s slothful enough to allow it to happen.”
“You’re calling Sam lazy?” Dean shot. “Sam? Sam Winchester. That Sam? Lazy.” Incredulity dripped from Dean’s tone.
“His Tertiary is lazy,” Cas nodded. “It’s grown corpulent and complacent. It’s decided that it doesn’t need to hunt anymore because it’s secure that it will be fed. Consequently, it slumbers away in its den and only rouses when prey is right under its nose.”
Dean pursed his lips. He couldn’t argue that one now that he considered it. “How many birds are you killing at once?” he asked.
Laugh lines appeared at the corners of Castiel’s eyes. “Three.”
Dean nodded, deep in thought. “Adam, Michael, Sam. Am I missing anything?”
Cas chuckled. “I guess I see it more as Adam, April, Sam,” he added. “But that’s clearly a mate perspective. The goal there is one and the same. Changing Michael’s mind is a precursor to making my mate happy. And Dean? I want her happy.”
Dean huffed a soft laugh. “The lengths you go to, Sir.”
“The positive outcomes are legion, if you think about it,” Cas replied. “Lupin culture will be irrevocably changed for the better. Our Pack, in specific, will be far more stable and resilient. Our pups will have precedent in their favor to remain in the home Pack no matter how they Present.”
Dean made a clicking sound with his tongue as the last pin fell into place. “Four birds, Alpha? You looking ahead twenty years?”
“Always,” Cas conceded shamelessly. Then he sighed. His eyes grew distant. “Dean, everyone stands to get what they want. Sarah is in love. It’s not a crush, not an infatuation. If she had a secure route, she would marry Adam without another thought. And Adam is just as strongly committed, but he’s holding her at arms’ length because he’s a realist. And Sam? Sam may claim he wants no part in discipline in this Pack, but his Tertiary is screaming otherwise. And if we can nudge him to challenge for rank, we’ll be able to lure his wolf out of the shadows to claim a place at the heart of the Pack that he’s been complacently ceding to Cain out of expedience. Whichever way that challenge goes, Sam and Cain will both benefit from the exercise.”
“Sam’s not going to beat an alpha as strong as Cain,” Dean mused.
Cas shrugged. “It doesn’t matter who wins, Dean, only that they have an opportunity to flex. Really flex. We are not tame creatures—at least not all the time. We need an opportunity to snarl and snap on occasion in a way that doesn’t have a foregone conclusion.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “It’s a foregone conclusion here, Alpha,” he repeated. “Cain’s going to whip his ass and hand it to him on a platter.”
“I’m not so sure of that. I might even be willing to wager on the outcome,” Cas said with a predatory grin that stood Dean’s wolf up.
Dean bit his lip.
“Rule Eight is a bitch, sir,” he murmured. “You get to do anything, and none of the rest of us can say shit about it. Michael’s going to blow a gasket.”
“Then as his mate, you’ll want to run interference before he gets himself into trouble,” Cas said. His damned eyes gleamed with potential and promise. Dean didn’t respond. He studied the floor with a wrinkle in his brow. Cas allowed him a moment to think and then broke the silence. “You wanted to know,” he reminded his husband.
Dean nodded slowly, still staring at the floor. “Yeah, I did.”
“Do you trust me?” Cas asked.
Dean laughed and looked up. “You’re a piece of work, Winchester,” he told Cas.
Cas grinned. “That’s my line, Pet.”
“Whatever. It’s fitting. You have to know you can’t control this snowball as it picks up downhill steam. In the end, it’s the Omegas standing right in the path of the avalanche. But you have to know that too. And that means your vision already has mitigation steps in place. Cas, you know I trust you. And it’s your world, Alpha. I’ve got your back. I’m just not seeing how you jump from Adam to Michael. How does challenging a Mating-bond infringement convince Michael he’s safe to marry April?”
Cas’ eyes continued to twinkle. “The world is a complex place, my love. I don’t pretend to understand all the intricacies that lead people to act the way they do. I’m no psychiatrist. But I can predict how people will respond to certain pressures against sensitive trigger-points.”
“Man, if you hurt my mate…” Dean began. He let the threat stand without the need to complete it. Then he added, “Or yours, for that matter.”
“I know,” Cas agreed. “I will be careful, Dean.”
Dean looked away and put his thumbnail between his teeth. Cas cleared his throat, and Dean lowered his hand without conscious thought. “Gotta say, Alpha…I like that you told me. I have no qualms about any of this if you’re sure you can pull it off. I like seeing you embrace your Machiavellian side without having to couch it in some bullshit moral justification. I like to see you embrace being Alpha. You’re all kinds of hot to me right now, you know that?”
“Is that a yes, you trust me, or simply an expression of lust?”
Dean chuckled. “You’re sure?”
“I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t sure,” Cas reproved.
“Is there a role for me in this cockamamie plot? Am I supposed to reel Michael or Sam in? What about Jess? Are you going to chivvy her into challenging too?”
Cas put up a calming palm. “Patience, Grasshopper. One step at a time. Please do not relay any of this to your mate.”
Dean couldn’t contain the bubble laugh that burst out. “Man, you didn’t trust me with Michael’s parents coming for a surprise visit! You think I can keep this under my hat? He’s my mate!”
Cas grinned. “Do your best, alpha. I have faith in you. Don’t forget, I know you very well, and I’m aware you consider yourself the king of manipulation. Prove to me you’re worthy of that title.”
Dean pursed his lips and averted his eyes. Asshole.
Michael and April sat side-by-side on the kitchen floor with their backs against the wall, watching over pups laying out wooden train track on the floor beyond the island. Beatrice sipped tea at the table, running appreciative fingertips over the smooth surface of Dean’s table and tracing the patterns in the wood.
Kate bustled about in the kitchen, tidying up after the pups’ snack. She had a veritable glow about her, and she couldn’t seem to stop smiling softly to herself. Michael watched her for a moment, and then he let her be.
For now, there was no squabbling over track pieces or favorite train cars. Kat directed the layout, Emma played quartermaster, sifting through track sections and handing out the appropriate bit when called for, Alex connected the track pieces, and Jimmy provided musical accompaniment, lying out on his belly and watching.
“You’re doing a wonderful job with them,” Beatrice observed. “They are delightful pups, all of them. And each so different. Balancing separate needs when your pups are so close in age is not an easy feat.” She sipped from her cup. Michael saw Kate nod subtly as she entered the pantry.
“A lot of that is Kate’s influence,” he told his mother.
But she shook her head. “It’s a group effort, Michael. It’s an effect of how all of the adults approach them.”
“They don’t always get along this well,” April added. “They seem to be on their best behavior for you.”
Beatrice smiled. “That means they feel safest with their parents but that they are learning to understand social cues as well. It’s good parenting. I won’t be dissuaded.” She leaned down to examine the train engine Jimmy brought for her to inspect, and she agreed with him that it was a powerful piece of locomotive equipment.
Michael stretched his legs out before him, crossed at the ankles and smiled. His mother had a stubborn streak, and if she said there was no dissuading her, then her word was cemented.
Beatrice slid off her chair to kneel in front of the children’s track and engage them. She peppered them with questions, and they all lit up with the chance to tell her stories about trains.
Michael nodded when Kate emerged from the pantry with a gesture asking permission to vanish up the back stairs for a break now that the kids had plenty of adults in the room.
“Hold this one for me, O-Pop,” Alex demanded, handing his mother his favorite engine. “It’s my turn with the green one. Don’t give it to Kat, okay?”
Michael took custody of the toy and promised Alex to keep it safe until the track was complete. April smiled and laid her head on Michael’s shoulder. He put an arm around her shoulders and watched their pups play.
“Out with it,” April prompted after a couple of quiet minutes.
“Out with what?” Michael replied softly enough that his mother and children wouldn’t hear.
“About Wednesday night,” she said.
“Wednesday night?” he parried. “The party?”
April smacked her lips, sat up, and sighed.
“The threesome,” she clarified.
Michael saw his mother tilt her chin a bit, but she didn’t stop chatting with her grandpups.
“What about it?” he asked blithely. “We had fun, right? What am I missing?” Michael rolled the toy’s wheels back and forth with his thumb, studying the axle as it rotated.
April waited for a moment.
“Michael, please,” she said quietly. “It’s practically oozing out of your pores. Talk to me.”
“Kat, keep the track out of the walkway,” he called. “You need to put a turn in now and bring it back around to connect up.”
“No, O-Pop! We going around the kitchen. All the way to Portia’s bed. It’s gonna be the biggest ever!”
“You don’t have enough track for that, kiddo,” Michael replied calmly. “And we have to keep the walkway clear for safety. Safety is a Pack rule.”
“Nooooooo!” Alex cried, teaming up with his sister. “Look how many tracks are left! We can do it. Promise, O-Pop! We can do it.”
“You know,” Beatrice broke in with a deeply furrowed thoughtful expression. “I’ll bet you have enough risers to make a bridge all the way up to the windowsill, and then you can run the track up high in the sunshine.” The bay window had a long, low sill, less than a foot from the floor. The Omega selected a couple of bridge risers and held them out to Alex. Jimmy scrambled to snatch them and lead the charge in bridge construction.
“Thanks, Mommy. You’re brilliant,” Michael told her.
April curled over her knees with her lips pressed tightly together.
Michael watched the construction of the bridge. April picked at a trace of nail polish on the cuticle of her big toe.
Michael scratched the side of his nose.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked at length.
“I’m not asking you to reveal your darkest secrets, Michael,” she huffed softly. “But something’s eating you, and I deserve your honesty. We shouldn’t play like we did that night if we can’t talk about it in the morning. What’s wrong? Was it the power exchange? You know I enjoyed every second.”
Michael’s jaw ticked with tension. He pulled his knees back up in front of him and folded his arms across them, leaning forward. He looked back at April, searching for what to say. April turned her body to face him and block out the pups a bit. She crossed her legs in front of her and held Michael’s eyes.
“I didn’t want to go there, Pete,” he admitted. “But in the moment, I didn’t even give it a second thought. I was thirsty for Cas, and his frikken’ Alpha/wolf hybrid persona, and I jumped right into it without giving it two seconds. Two fucking seconds…” Michael glanced up to make sure his pups hadn’t heard the swear word. “…is all it would have taken for me to think it through and call for a revamp. It didn’t need to go that way. I used you like a cheap fleshlight. You have to know I’m sorry about that. Pete, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be that guy.” He frowned and rested his cheek on his arms, watching as the pups accepted Beatrice’s guidance to build the bridge braced against the wall to provide better support for the height they needed. She fetched them cups from the cupboard to provide blocks when they ran out of risers. All four of them were riveted to the task. “It was only a matter of time, though.”
April furrowed her brow and touched his cheek. She trailed her hand back to card her fingers through his hair and sweep the longer strands off his forehead. “You know I’m not against adding a power dynamic between us, right? You know this is entirely your preference we’re dealing with? Baby, I’m not belittling your preference. I just need to be sure you know I don’t need protection from you or your sexual appetites. If you tumble for Cas, and he takes you there, why is that wrong? It was clearly what you wanted. I’m telling you right now that it’s what I wanted. We both know it’s what Alpha wanted. Where’s the problem?”
Michael shrugged. “It’s a floodgates thing,” he told her. “If I lose control once, it’ll happen again. I start down the slippery slope, and next thing I know, I’m treating you like my Sub.”
“This really bothers you,” she observed.
Michael adjusted his head so that his chin rested on his arm. The pups had achieved the windowsill and were busily adding track to span the whole length.
“I’m fighting so hard right now, Pete,” he confessed. “I’m trying to determine who I am, and I’m terrified that it’s not something I get to decide for myself. So much about me is out of my hands. I need to have something, you know? My Tertiary isn’t giving me an inch. And now that the door’s open on playing power exchange with you, he’s going to be that much harder to control. I feel like I can’t hold him back forever. He’s going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until he wears down my defenses and I roll for him.”
“How do I help?” she asked. “We’re in this together, right? If you don’t want power exchange, then we’re equals, you and me. Let me help.”
He chuckled humorlessly and turned his head back to face her but stayed curled over his knees. “Equals,” he huffed. “I don’t even know what that means. My wolf sees you as a Bottom, as a Packmate who needs to be watched over. That’s entirely separate from being my girl. Where do we even begin? Our dynamic is skewed from the jump.”
“You’re such a pessimist,” she told him airily.
“Yeah, well, that was hard-earned,” he groused.
April scooted closer and insinuated herself under his arm until he shifted and pulled her in.
“I thought you would try to convince me it was no big deal,” Michael told her.
“It’s a big deal to you,” she murmured back.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“Mommy, look!! We did it!!” Jimmy squealed.
“Magnificent job,” she praised. “Did you thank Grandmommy for the help?”
“Yeah, yeah, we did! She helped tons!”
Alex dashed across to collect his prized green engine, and Michael gave it to him.
“Step carefully, pups,” Michael advised. “And play nicely. There’s room for everyone. Somebody give Grandmommy a train.”
“Wanna show Paw-Pah!” Emma enthused, looking about for her grandfather.
“Well, go find him, then,” Beatrice directed. “He’s either in the parlor, the living room, or the toilet.”
All four pups scuttled out. They tripped over each other in their ebullience. Beatrice stood up, standing with a groan and a hand at her lower back.
“You’re amazing with them,” April told her warmly.
“I taught that young man,” she indicated Michael, “everything he knows about raising pups. So, you’re all in good hands.”
Michael blushed under April’s smug smile.
In no time, the pups returned, dragging Jerry with them, laughing and hollering much louder than Papa usually allowed inside the house. They settled in on their bellies, occasionally prompting both grandparents to coo and admire their work.
At length, April put a quelling hand on Michael’s arm, and cut her eyes toward the back hallway. He frowned, but April put a finger to her lips and then behind her ear in a silent command for him to listen.
April stood and pulled Michael to his feet along with her, then she crept toward the back stairs. As they neared the rear of the kitchen, Michael heard it too. Raised voices one floor above.
Michael’s wolf shot April a cautionary look. It wasn’t any of their business and sneaking up to eavesdrop broke Rule Three stoutly enough that if they were caught, they would be punished.
April shook her head and tugged on his hand.
“…won’t you just talk to me?” Sarah asked loudly.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Adam replied at the same volume. He sounded tired, frustrated. “It’s a dead-end road. What exactly do you think I can do here?”
April tugged Michael silently up the stairs and stopped near the top. She pressed her back into the wall. Michael rolled his eyes, but he slipped past, right up to the open door and matched her. They were hidden by the sharp corner.
“You can fucking try, Adam! You’re giving up like you don’t give a damn! How do you think that makes me feel?”
A sharp whistle cut off Adam’s reply, and Cain’s stern voice put an alpha into the mix. April made a worried grimace at Michael, who shot her a deadpan expression. If Cain scented them…
”Not in the hallways, if you please, young lady. If you need to caterwaul at each other, please seek a soundproof room. I’m trying to read.”
“Sorry, alpha,” Sarah mumbled.
Michael risked a peek around the door jamb and saw Sarah drag Adam down the hall and away from her suite of rooms. Cain stood sentry, wearing a ridiculous morning jacket and with one finger marking his place in a book. All that was missing was a Sherlock pipe and a pair of antiquated spectacles.
Cain’s room sat above the woodshop, where Sarah’s was over the garage. They were neighbors, of a sort, both happy to be ensconced far removed from the Master suite. But they made prickly neighbors at times. Michael watched as Cain monitored Sarah disappearing down the hall. He thought he caught a flick of Cain’s eyes toward the stairwell, but the alpha only shook his head and retreated back into his room with a snick of the doorlatch.
April broke cover around Michael and snatched his hand again. She moved with surprising stealth. Michael wondered if sneaking around the corridors was how she kept so abreast of everyone’s business. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
Sarah and Adam had tucked into the upstairs study, a room meant for pups to complete their homework but where Sarah had spent hours uncounted working on her PhD. The door was ajar.
April’s eyes went wide, and she plastered herself against the wall, out of eyesight unless someone came along down the wide corridor—unlikely at this time of day. She put an unnecessary finger to her lips.
“…because you want children,” Adam was saying, far calmer than before but no less tiredly. “And so do I. But no agency in the world is going to approve an adoption to a mixed-species couple. There aren’t surrogates who will contract with a mixed-species couple.” He seemed to be ticking items off on his fingers. “And there are damned good reasons that mixed-species couples make poor parents. It’s too much of a mixed message no matter which species they adopt. And, bottom line, Sarah, at some point, probably very soon…”
She interrupted. “If you bring up that damn True-Mate Trigger to me one more time, I swear…” she sounded near tears.
“I can’t fight my own destiny.” Adam sounded just as torn. “What do you want me to do?”
“So, you were just…what…playing with me all this time? It never stopped you from making love to me. Never stopped you from telling me I’m your whole goddamn world. Never stopped you from bending over and letting me blister your ass when you needed a Release. Did all that mean nothing to you? Fuck you, Adam Milligan! You knew this whole time, and you knew I wanted to get married, and you sat on that and said nothing!”
“Sarah…”
“You knew I was waiting on the doctorate. How can you stand there and look at me like that and be such a bastard? I feel sick!”
There was a shuffling, and a short scuffling, and a loud huff.
“I do love you,” Adam told her very quietly. Michael found himself glued to Pete’s gaze, unblinking and heartsore. “And I swear I never meant to hurt you. Damnit, Sarah, I wanted this to work as badly as you do. But nothing I can think of lets it happen. Ozzies don’t get choices like that.”
Michael’s mouth went dry. His fingertips went numb. His eyes went golden, and he fought the instinct to crouch until the peril passed.
“Cas can do something, baby,” Sarah pleaded without real hope. “We can talk to him. He’ll think of something. I know he will. He can help us adopt when we’re ready. He can find a way to keep you from Triggering.”
The eavesdroppers in the hall heard Adam’s disbelieving huff and smelled the rancid scent of offense. Michael’s Omega threw its hands up in warning, uselessly advising Adam not to say it…
“Keep me from Triggering?! You would do that to me? You would keep me from my own True-Mate? Do you have any idea what a True-Mate means to a Lupin, Sarah?”
Michael grimaced and thunked the back of his head soundlessly against the wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
“I see.” Sarah’s voice was cold. “Some alpha woman you don’t even know means more to you than I do.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Adam backpedaled, but to no avail.
“Look, I get it,” Sarah continued. “I thought, you know, based on all the things you’ve said to me over the last couple of years, that you were growing to consider me your True-Mate, and that you might jump at the chance to close the window to some stranger. You know, just like would happen if I were Lupin and we could really Mate.”
“But we can’t Mate,” Adam broke in sharply. Michael was impressed the Ozzie had the wherewithal for that. “And there’s no magic pill that turns the TM Trigger off. So, it’s going to happen to me someday, Sarah, unless I quarantine myself in the house for the rest of my life. I can’t stop it. And damnit, I wouldn’t want to! Yes, I love you. I never lied to you about any of it. But if you don’t get how a TM is special, how they’re just as crucial to a wolf’s life cycle as his parents are, then you still don’t know jack shit about wolves, despite the doctorate!”
“Get the fuck out!”
“No. Not until you understand.”
“Oh, I understand.”
April took Michael’s hand.
“You’re living in a dream world,” Adam protested. “I’m Omega, Sarah Blake! Omegas roll for their mates. And we all have mates! A True-Mate is a unique gift from the Universe, someone so perfectly suited to match me that we become nearly one person! That’s not something I would walk away from even if I could! If you were Lupin, I would never expect you to walk away from it either, not for me, not for anyone! I wanted…” Adam sighed and calmed himself. April blinked, still plastered against the wall. Michael stared, stricken, into her eyes.
“Wanted what?” Sarah asked in an emotionless voice.
“I wanted what Cas and Dean have,” he admitted. He sounded utterly defeated. “But I’m Ozzie. And I’m not Castiel’s. And nothing I do will ever change what’s in store for me, no matter what I want. I want the fairytale True-Mate and the doting wife. But marriage isn’t something wolves understand. It’s doomed. Maybe it can work out long term for high-ranked alphas. Shit goes wrong for them, they can just…muscle through it…force the world to bend for them…”
Michael seethed, and it played out in hard twitches across his face. The whole world was shit, and Michael was past waiting for it to be fair.
“You want me to play second wife to an alpha?” Sarah asked in disbelief.
This time, Adam’s sigh was defeated. “I’m sorry,” he said with gravity. “I never meant to hurt you. I thought you understood. We should have talked about this a long time ago. I love you so mu…”
“Don’t.”
“I’m so proud of you for earning your doctorate.”
“Just go.”
Adam appeared around the corner. His eyes looked red-rimmed and swollen. He pulled up sharply when he spotted the Omegas, huffed in disgust, and then hurried down the hall toward Sarah’s suite to collect his things.
In the room, Sarah cried alone.
April dropped Michael’s hand and rushed in.
Michael stood rooted to the spot, held up only by the wall and his locked knees.
Every word Adam spoke had been truth. Hard truth. And yet, Michael couldn’t find it in himself to commiserate with Adam’s stance. If the Ozzie had wanted it badly enough, even were it doomed, he would have fought. Should have fought.
In Adam’s place, Michael would never have given up, not over a piddly barrier like circumstance.
And yet, what hope was there, really? Maybe it was better to get it all out in the open now. It had gone too long already, hadn’t it? Sarah felt strung along, and Adam felt wrongly accused in the face of realities that came as no surprise to either of them.
But what if Castiel could have found a way? He’d worked miracles before. He’d made no bones about feeling a special ownership over Sarah’s wellbeing. What wouldn’t he do for her?
It was too late to find out. Sarah was devastated. Adam was too. There was no fixing this.
Michael clenched a fist, trying to work feeling back into his fingers, but they stayed numb. He felt numb and angry and afraid. He could hear Pete whispering comfort to Sarah. He could hear heartrending sobs, and it tore a hole in Michael’s designations, all of them, straight through his soul. Michael sank down along the wall, shaking. He wrapped his arms around his knees and tucked his face into the shadow, away from the light, feeling hopeless and defeated.
“Michael?” Dean hurried down the corridor from the front stairs. “Omega, look at me.” Dean slid to his knees beside Michael and lifted his head into warm alpha palms. Tears streamed down Michael’s cheeks. “Oh, baby,” Dean sighed. He pulled Michael to his feet then lowered his face to catch Michael’s eye. “Hey. Hey. Whatever this is, we’ll fix it. Okay? Man, stop avoiding my eye. Look at me. We’re going to take care of it. You’re okay. Yeah? Michael?”
“It’s not me, Dean. It’s Sarah. She and Adam, Dean…”
“Oh, man, no. Seriously? Today? Seriously?”
Michael nodded sadly. Dean stepped back a pace, squeezed Michael’s forearm and received a squeeze back. He ducked his head around the corner and peeked into the study. Michael heard the sobbing intensify slightly as Sarah realized her plight had stirred the household.
“Please don’t look at me, Dean,” Sarah pleaded. “Please, just…”
“Just tell me you’re not about to do anything drastic.”
Sarah huffed. “You can call off the suicide watch, alpha. I broke up with my boyfriend, I’m not jumping-off-high-buildings desperate.”
Dean raised his palms. “Hey, I’m just checking. Weirder things have happened. April, you got this?”
“Yes, alpha.”
Dean nodded, collected Michael, and guided him across the hall to the gallery and closed the door with his foot. Dean took a moment through the intercom to alert the security team at the gate that the Ozzie on his way out needed to be intercepted and driven home, telling them Adam was distraught and in no condition to drive.
He got a crisp assurance from Sal at the gate.
Dean put Michael into a high, cushioned chair and sat on the hassock with his knees wide and his eyes alpha-red. His brows lifted, furrowing his forehead. “What’s got you panicking, Omega? Sarah and Adam? Why are you freaking out here?”
“We eavesdropped, alpha,” Michael admitted. “It was awful.”
“Okay. I mean, kinda shitty of you to listen in on a private conversation. But it’s not the rule-breaking that’s got you upside down. Dude, your pupils are pinholes, and your heart’s beating ninety-to-nothing. What gives?”
“Dean, we’re not built for marriage.”
“Marriage,” Dean stated. “Okay? We still talking about Adam, or have we skipped straight to you?”
“It’s not funny, Dean!”
“Dude, I’m not laughing. You’re sitting there hyperventilating like someone just shanked your mom, and as far as I can tell, there’s no fire. I need you to level with me. Is this about you and April?”
“If it can’t work out for Adam, what chance do Pete and I have?”
Dean snorted rudely. “The two situations are night and day, man. It’s apples and oranges. You knew their relationship was short-term. Everyone knew. Adam’s un-Mated. But, Michael, you’re not. You already jumped that hurdle. Seriously, man, look at me. Omega, damnit, look at me.”
Michael lifted his eyes and glared. “He wasn’t even willing to try, Dean, and I know for a fact he loves her. But he put her in the backseat over some alpha chick he’s never even met, who might not be near the connection that Sarah is, and he did it without even blinking an eye. Just walked away!”
“And that makes you angry,” Dean surmised cautiously.
“You’re damn right it makes me angry! When it comes right down to it, Omegas know they don’t stand a chance in hell to hold onto something they chose for themselves! But alphas! Alphas don’t hesitate! They jump right out there and take what they want and make everyone else deal with it! This mindset, it’s so ingrained in Adam that he just walked away from his perfect match because the Universe might have a better one in store! Well, I’m sorry, alpha, but it’s bullshit!”
Dean pressed his lips together and gathered himself. “So, we are talking about you and April,” he said at last, making Michael hold his eye. “Or at least, we’re back to talking about you and me.”
Michael slumped. “No, Dean,” he said in a regretful voice. “I don’t mean it like that. It’s just…What I mean is… It’s this mess about being Omega. Man, I want to trust this Pack and believe what’s on offer here, but I’m terrified it’s a mirage—this notion that I can really have Pete for my own. Adam’s a smart man, and he loves Sarah. She loves him. But he wouldn’t even try. I mean, she was fucking begging him just to hold on until they could talk it over with Cas at least, and he…”
Michael fell silent, pleading through his bonds in emotions he didn’t have words for.
Dean’s grim expression spoke for them both, and he gathered Michael in his arms.
“Do you want to get married, Michael? Is that what you want?”
Michael pulled out of the embrace. “I want to be sure it’s one of my choices, Dean! I have no idea what my choices are! Adam, walking away like that…I relate to how he’s feeling. That hopelessness. I get it.”
The door cracked, and April poked her head in. Both men looked up.
“Cas has Sarah,” she explained. She slipped in and closed the door. Dean held out a hand to welcome her. She crossed the space and took his hand, smiling sadly. “I wanted to talk to Michael.”
“That’s a good idea,” Dean agreed as he relinquished his perch to her. “He needs you more than he needs me right now. Maybe that’s mutual. You all right, kid? You have to be careful where you eavesdrop.”
April nodded. “I’m shaken. Alpha’s coming back in a bit to … deal with the eavesdropping.” She shot Michael a look, and he grunted.
“Holler if you need me,” Dean told them both. He smoothed Michael’s hair and then closed the door behind him.
The air felt charged. Michael leaned forward and ran his hands over her knees and up her thighs, seeking connection. He tucked his head until the air he breathed smelled like her. She stroked his hair and cradled his head. Michael’s arms wrapped around her hips and drew her forward on the ottoman until she sat right at the edge, and his face could hide in her lap.
“I just want you,” he said, muffled. “Why does it have to feel so complicated?”
“I’m yours, Michael. I told you that. I’m not going anywhere.”
He breathed for a few more moments and then righted himself. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Pete. One minute I’ve got it all figured out: I’m a nineteen, and I have powers of compulsion that no one can explain, and I can do all these magical things that no one else can do, and the next minute, I’m just another fucking Omega.” He left his hands on her legs. He needed the touch.
“You’re not Adam, Michael,” she soothed. “Our situation is different.”
“Only because we’re Mated,” he replied. “If we weren’t, we would be in precisely the same position, and we would make the exact same choice he did, and to hell with love or commitment or…forever. You know what I was thinking when Adam dug his feet in? I was thinking, Jesus, dude, just marry her and then make your mate deal with it. Like an Ozzie is ever going to have the standing to make that shake out right. Adam’s right. It’s a hopeless fantasy.”
“Michael…”
“I just want you, Pete! And I want you to be mine, really mine, for the rest of our lives! Not like ownership. Not like that at all. I don’t want to be your Top. But I need to know that no one can drive a wedge between us and tear us apart. Right now…if Cas and Dean split up, you and I are toast. We would never survive that, not as a couple. I’m tired of feeling like I’m a leaf blowing around wherever the wind takes it. We didn’t choose our Pack, our household, our lifestyle. We didn’t really even choose to fall for each other. And I’m starting to feel like no matter what I choose, it’s not truly me making the decision. I feel like someone else is guiding every step I take and leading me toward some ultimate destination whether it’s what I want or not.”
April cried silently as she listened to him pour himself out. She clutched his hands on her thighs.
“Maybe I’m just being stubborn,” Michael continued. “Maybe I’m only fighting because I don’t like being told what to do, and I feel like the weight of the entire Universe is telling me what to do. But in the end, Pete, all I want is you.”
“I’m here, Michael. I’m always going to be right here.”
He huffed. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he said wryly. “There’s no risk if I take the passive road. Sarah made it clear that if marriage was off the table, then so was she. Honestly, Adam and I, we’re doing the same thing here. Aren’t we? We’re both riding the easy path for as far as it takes us, skating along without having to buckle in and really commit. But it blew up on Adam. He gambled and lost.” Michael looked up and caught April’s eye. “What am I gambling, Pete? What’s at stake here?”
April thought about it for a moment. She lifted Michael’s hands into hers and held them tightly. She brought them to her sternum. “There’s a fundamental difference in the way the whole world relates to couples who are married,” she said uncertainly. “And that bleeds through to how the couple relates inside their own bonds. It’s just different. I don’t know more than that. You and me, we don’t feel like we have the same solidity that our mates have for their relationship, not to me. To me, we feel…distant, untethered, I guess. Michael, I can’t promise you that if our mates separated, that I would ever see you again.”
Michael broke in. “If we married, we still can’t be sure of that. If they break up, no ring on either of our fingers is going to protect us.”
“Yes, it will,” she asserted. “It will. It has to. Maybe if we were Mated to some other alphas, we would be more vulnerable. But not Castiel. Not Dean. If nothing else, our Mating-bonds would drive them to try to make us happy, and I won’t be happy without you. Michael, I want to marry you because I love you with all my heart, and I want to sanctify that. I want a legal, binding contract that tells the world that you are my partner, that you and I chose each other as family. But just think of the layer of protection we’ll have if we marry, a layer that has muscle and legitimacy outside of this house. I don’t care if it’s the Universe driving me to feel this way. I don’t care if it’s too elegant an outcome to seem realistic. Michael, I don’t care! I just want you!”
“Layer of protection,” he repeated. “Baby, I know you’re scared. But how many more layers will you need before you stop feeling naked and vulnerable?”
April sobbed, abrupt and ugly. But she rallied. “One more,” she whispered.
“Pete,” he whispered back. He took her into his arms, lifted her into his lap, and curled over her. “I don’t want to get married out of fear. I love you so much, but it just feels so… I don’t know what to do.”
“You won’t leave me though?” she murmured.
“Never.”
Kate’s initiation was lovely. Michael dug out every candle and twinkle light in the house and arrayed the parlor in a soft, flickering glow. Kate’s large, brown eyes shone with fervor as she agreed to the rules and made her vows. April had helped her practice, and the gentle rhythm of the ritual took on a hypnotic flow. The two at the center of the ring of Pack had a timelessness about them. They were beautiful together, Kate naked on her knees in deference and Castiel, authoritative in his formal suit, crisp and potent, the intimate connection of his fingertips at her throat. April wished she could take pictures. She considered suggesting formal portraits to mark the event.
Alpha wasn’t going to go for that though. Inner circle Pack rituals were private. It wasn’t a wedding, after all.
April felt constrained in her dress. She wanted to shrug it off and stand nude. Ozzies should always be nude at formal Pack events. But Cas had dressed her, and that meant the clothes stayed on. The formal portion went quickly, and soon Kate was clothed and crying and hugging. The pups skittered about in glee, beside themselves with joy. Cas let them be, despite the noise. They weren’t hurting anything in their rambunctiousness, and honestly, the liveliness did something beautiful to his spirit. April loved meandering through his emotions and watching the vibrancy of the colors explode when his children were joyful.
April smiled.
He was happy, her mate, and his effervescence overflowed to saturate the Pack.
They both kept an eye on Sarah, impervious to the scent Castiel put out, who had stumbled down to the parlor a few minutes late with her blouse mis-buttoned, and the cuff of her pants only half-folded. Her hair was unbrushed. She looked bereft. But she was present.
Michael, too, was muted, but as that was typical of Michael, no one commented. April noticed though. Where he was usually aloof, this evening he was disheartened. April’s backside smarted, so she knew Michael’s did too. But he showed no sign he noticed. His somberness drew Alex to circle back to him repeatedly, trying to cheer his mother up. Michael squatted and reassured the pup with a warm hug and a promise that his sadness wouldn’t linger forever. Watching Michael with the pups always melted April a little. His instincts seemed always canted to make the pups feel seen, heard, and validated. He didn’t try to convince Alex that he wasn’t sad. He admitted it straight out and then let the pup know that sadness is normal and happens to everyone at times and that it would pass. April found that she loved him a little bit more whenever he had pups around, and her hand pressed into her lower belly, seeking what she knew she wouldn’t be able to feel for a few months yet.
Dean appeared at her back, wrapped his arms around her waist and slid his hands beneath hers on her belly.
“You’re glowing already, you know,” he told her. “You don’t need any of that glitter dust they put on your face and shoulders when you’re onstage. You shine with some kind of internal light. You’re beautiful, kid. And you’re carrying our pups. I’m so grateful.”
“Thanks, Dean,” she replied, and she leaned her head back to rest at his clavicle.
“Look at us,” he huffed. “Who could’ve predicted?”
She laughed. “You’ve been into the whisky. It makes you reflective.”
“Pack initiations make me reflective,” he told her. “It’s appropriate. Has nothing to do with the whiskey.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” she laughed and turned. “Escort me to dinner?”
“You got it.” He offered her his arm. “You’re eating for three, after all. Can’t let any of you go hungry.”
Portia skirted about everyone’s feet as the Pack began moving toward the dining room. Sam whispered in JT’s ear, and the blushing boy offered his little arm to Kat, who grinned and took his hand, tugging him forward. Jimmy escorted Hank as formally as he knew how, and Hank, accustomed to being led when he was in unfamiliar places, graciously accepted Jimmy’s offer even though he knew the space. The two boys looked regal in their blazers and patent leather shoes as they approached the dining room arm in arm.
Alex secured a place in Michael’s arms, and Emma walked herself. Cas chuckled as he followed the brood. He collected Sarah from the sofa, and he wrapped an arm over her shoulder. Cain, in a rare spirited good humor, swept Kate off her feet and carried her into the dining room to squeals of laughter from the children and the nanny alike.
“Gabe?” he asked the Omega who was clearly the first to be seated. “Have you forgotten someone?”
Gabriel looked up and grinned. “Nope. I’m right where I belong. Where’s the grub?”
“Formal meals require decorum, Gabriel,” Cas reproved sternly. “Go back in there and escort your wife to the table like a gentleman or kneel at her feet for the entire meal and eat only what she chooses to feed you.”
“What?! Jesus! This Pack needs to lighten up.” But Gabe slunk out and came back with an amused Kali.
“That really wasn’t necessary,” she quipped. “I wasn’t incapable of seating myself. I merely stopped off at the restroom. But I always appreciate Gabe’s reaction when threatened with taking away his access to a sumptuous meal.”
“Don’t put me on the floor, Kali. Please? There’s a rack of lamb! And mint jelly!”
April laughed along with the Pack, and then she arrested Jimmy’s attempt to toss a dinner roll across the table to Kate. She felt Cas’ eyes on her as she placed the roll on the pup’s plate, added a pat of butter, and warned him sternly against a repeat attempt. April imagined fitting two more booster chairs to the long table, working out where they would sit, and she giggled to herself. She could feel a rising sense of chaos spring up at the idea of that many pups at the same table; the sensation was tinged with a trace of hysteria.
Cas placed a hand at the back of her neck and squeezed gently. The manic sensation dissipated at his touch. April swallowed. She looked up at him and nodded. Sarah sat woodenly opposite April. April used her Mating-bond and a subtle gesture to hint that Cas might need to try the same move on the Primate.
The automatic doors to the clinic opened to noise and motion and blood. A middle-aged woman carried the boy through in a rush. She called for help, and clinic staff rushed forward. The pup, who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, writhed bloody in the woman’s arms. A man followed behind, looking lost and desperate.
Everyone was shouting, and it took Bobby’s alpha voice to break through and shut them all up. He pointed toward an exam bay, and the woman followed his direction. She laid the boy onto the bed, and the clinic staff descended. Bobby shepherded her back and brought the man in as well.
“What happened?” he asked them. At first glance he struggled to tell where the blood was coming from, but as he watched, he realized the boy’s forearms were slit and gushing, and the lad was clawing at them as if to rend the flesh from his bones. “Jesus, what happened?!”
“He’s been threatening to try to cut it out of him for months, but I didn’t think he would really do it,” cried the woman. “He got into the kitchen knives. I found him sitting in a pool of blood in the kitchen, chanting and carving himself up.”
“Chanting? Chanting what?” Bobby asked. Behind him, his team secured the boy’s elbows to the bed to keep him from worsening the damage, but the kid shrieked and thrashed and screamed, ”It’s IN me! Get it out! Get it out!”
The desperate man said, “Chanting that. It’s inside me and Get it out. It’s like he’s possessed.”
“You’re his parents?”
“We’re his Pack,” the woman broke in. “The boy has no parents. Our Pack took him in. He was found walking the streets a couple of years ago, completely on his own. He’s always been jumpy, on-edge. Hell of a temper. But then he started acting really strange.”
“When was that?” Bobby asked.
“About six months ago, maybe,” the man said.
“How old is he?”
“We think he’s nine. It’s hard to tell.” She couldn’t look away from the hospital bed, stained with blood and surrounded by grim faces speaking terms she didn’t understand. “Please, he’s lost so much blood. He’s just a pup.”
“What’s his name?” Bobby asked, bringing her focus back to him.
“Gage. His name’s Gage. He’s been through so much. Please don’t let him die! He doesn’t deserve any of this. He’s a good kid.”
“We’re going to take care of him, Alpha. I need you and…?”
“My name’s Heath,” the man said into the pause. “I’m his foster parent. Alpha here is Elise.”
“I need the two of you to wait in reception and fill out our forms. Gage is in the best hands.”
Behind them, the shrieking slowed and petered off to a muted moaning as the sedative they administered kicked in and calmed him down.
“Doc, we need Cas,” the attending told him.
“Yeah, I’ll get him,” Bobby replied calmly as he ushered the two adults out to the waiting room. He sat them down. An orderly brought them bottles of water and a clipboard with a stack of forms with a pen crammed into the clip. “Call Alpha in,” Bobby told him as he turned to go, and the orderly nodded.
The Alpha took the clipboard and began to fill in the top form. Bobby pulled a chair across to sit opposite them. He focused on Heath.
“I need you to level with me. That kid’s life might depend on your answers, so don’t hide anything from me.” His tone pulled from his alpha designation, and the man swallowed. He nodded.
“Are you a hundred percent sure he did this to himself?”
“Yes, alpha. He was alone in the house, and he’s been talking this way for months. Keeps talking about having a monster inside him, about being a monster. Talks about how he can’t control it, and he just wants it out. We think his wolf is rabid.”
“Heath,” the Pack Alpha spoke up without looking away from her clipboard.
“What? It’s true! Everyone’s thinking it. The poor kid hasn’t even Presented yet, but he’s got some kind of mutant Tertiary tearing him apart from the inside!”
Bobby let that stand without comment. “Has he ever spoken about his life before your Pack took him in?”
“Not much,” Heath said. “Just that it was dark a lot, and he was often cold and hungry. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him mention any adults in his life before us. Is he going to be okay?”
“He is,” Bobby said. “But he’s got a tough road ahead of him, no matter what’s causing his troubles.”
The Alpha flipped the form over and tackled the back. She scanned it and then handed it to Heath. “You know more of these details than I do,” she told him. She addressed Bobby, very much a Pack Alpha. “He’s just a pup, Doctor. He doesn’t have a wolf yet. I want to know what this is really about. It’s clear he’s been mentally compromised for a long time. We thought all he needed was stability, security, and a kind hand, but he’s only gotten worse.”
Bobby met her eye-to-eye. “Nine-year-olds do have Tertiaries, Alpha. By nine or ten, a kid’s most mature aspect is their wolf, and that sets them up for just this kind of mess. If they have a willful Tertiary and an immature Primary, usually it just means a rough transition from tween to full adolescence. Pups can get mouthy and obstinate. Most of the time, a firm adult hand is enough to control their Tertiary. But for folks with a wolf who rates way up at the top of the charts, the kid doesn’t have the means to control it. Now, if we can just get Gage through to his Presentation—and we’re going to do that—then his Secondary can take custody of his wolf.”
“What if he Presents Omega?” Heath asked.
“Even an Omega has some tools in its toolbox to manage an unruly wolf. Plus, we can teach him to gang up, pit his Primary and his Secondary together to wrangle the wolf. There are techniques that work.”
Elise broke in. “This is all well and good once he Presents, but the pup is nine. He may not Present for three more years!”
Bobby’s phone rang. He checked the screen.
Castiel.
“Excuse me, please. I need to update the Alpha on Gage’s condition. I won’t be long.”
Bobby walked far enough away that they wouldn’t overhear.
“Cas.”
“I’m in the car, Bobby. I’m bringing Michael. What have you got?”
“It’s a prepubescent Tertiary crisis, Alpha. The boy’s nine or ten, we think, but Presentation smells imminent. I suspect he’s got a Tertiary just like Michael’s, but his Primary is too immature to manage the friction. When his wolf went on a psychotic bender, the kid tried to carve it out of his own flesh. Sliced both forearms all to hell. He’s lost a great deal of blood. I don’t know how bad the damage is.”
“Call Lawrence Regional and have a surgeon ready,” Cas told him. “Is he stable? I’ll want him transferred as soon as we can.”
“I’ll go get the update, Alpha. We’ll have a full report for you when you arrive.”
“We’re not losing this pup, Bobby,” Cas stated.
“No, Sir. We’re not.”
“Get an Omega coordinator assigned to him,” Cas added as an afterthought.
“We don’t know that he’s Omega,” Bobby reminded him.
“I just have a feeling,” Cas answered. Michael’s voice muttered something in the background, but Bobby couldn’t decipher what he said. “If he isn’t, then no harm done. If, as I suspect, he is, then we’ll be ready to support the fight that’s about to happen when his Tertiary learns there’s a foreign and very unrelatable designation that takes precedence.”
Cas arrived in a bustle, accepted his white coat from the beta aide who had been sent scurrying to fetch it, and wasted no time finding the boy’s bed, chart, and care staff.
“Tell me,” he said shortly.
“Vitals are shaky but stabilizing. Pulse is fifty-eight, temp ninety-nine, BP is sixty over forty and holding. He’s under mild sedation. Arrived in hysterics, and his panic was elevating his pulse. We had to control the bleeding, Alpha.”
“How extensive is the damage?”
“It’s severe. He’ll need a vascular surgeon and even then, it’s going to be ugly. He’s severed veins, nerves, and tendons in both arms. The left is by far the worst. It may not be fully reparable.”
Cas scanned the chart as he listened to his attending physician’s statement.
“Is he conscious enough to speak?”
“He’s in and out, sir.”
Cas handed the chart to a nurse and approached the bed.
“Gage. Gage Lundgren. Can you hear me? Wake up, pup.”
The boy’s chest heaved, and his face pulled a terrible scowl as his eyes fought to open and his head thrashed from side to side. Cas felt the tell-tale prickle of a Tertiary overload. The kid shouldn’t be capable of wielding enough juice for Cas to feel it.
“Gage, open your eyes.”
“That’s NOT my name,” the boy hissed in fury.
“No,” Cas agreed. “You are not he. And what, pray tell, are you called?”
“Humans cannot say my name,” the boy’s wolf sneered. His eyes stayed closed, but his nose searched for Castiel’s scent. “Their mouths are weak.”
Cas scoffed and leaned over him to check the response of his pupils with his penlight. “That’s a shitty name then, isn’t it? How do you expect anyone to be able to address you properly if they can’t pronounce your name?”
The provocation struck and the wolf snarled and snapped. Cas let his wolf snarl and snap harder, the two occupied an ineffable metaphysical space that, if Cas guessed correctly, the boy would be able to envision in all its glory while he lay drugged and weakened. Cas felt the moment the wolf inside this child caught full sight of Castiel’s wolf, flattened its ears, tucked its tail, and cowered. All fight drained out of him in an instant.
“There we go,” Cas chided gently. “You with me now? Listen to me carefully. Here’s what is going to happen. You are going to tuck into your den while we mend the damage Gage did to his body trying to scrape you out. You’re not going to make a peep while he’s healing unless I call you forth to speak to you. I want you sleeping. I want you disengaged. Do not test me. I can make your life a living hell without harming a hair on this pup’s head, and I’ll do it at the slightest provocation. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Alpha,” the wolf whined. It rolled to its side and averted its face.
“You have a great deal of growing up to do, and you’re going to have to do it quickly. Battling your own Primary is a surefire path to an early grave. You do not run this body. Gage does. And very soon, his Secondary will ascend, and all three of you will need to make peace and learn to work together. It won’t be easy, but we will teach all of you. For now, go on into your cave and lie still. Be still now.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The child’s lips moved with the careful words, so at odds with the brash assertion the wolf had begun with. That the wolf had access enough to the boy’s front brain to utilize his language center and form communicative speech was concerning. Gage was on the brink of losing himself entirely to his Tertiary, and if that happened, there was no coming back. He would descend into madness and violence. There was no cure. Most youth who lost that battle succumbed to suicide or some other form of violent death. Most never got the chance for an intervention such as this. Most clinics didn’t have a doctor on call who could be counted on to outweigh an adolescent Tertiary in crisis. How many of them were way up there like Cas or Michael?
Michael appeared at the bay entrance with a clipboard in his hand.
“He’s an orphan, sir. Or, as good as. No one seems to have any idea what his birth family was like or how he ended up on the street. I checked out the registered Pack that took him in, and they’re clean. No record of abuse, neglect, or complaints against them, either internally or externally.”
“Yes, I know the Lundgrens, Michael. They’re good people. They foster a lot of the Omegas from our programs. They have a huge compound with a working farm, stables, plenty of room, loads of pups.” Cas looked past Michael and summoned Bobby. The three stood in a tight knot at the foot of the pup’s bed.
“Michael, have an orderly get him cleaned up and changed. Get rid of all this blood. Have him put into a private room. Bobby, once he doesn’t look like a horror film, let the Pack in to sit with him. No more than two at a time. He’s in for a long night. Let them know we’ll be transferring Gage as soon as we’re certain he’s stable. Stage a transfusion in case he needs it.”
“On it.”
“Oh, and Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“You and I need to talk about Kaia Nieves. You’re going to tell me everything you know about her. I want her on my team. If you have reservations about that, now’s the time to divulge them. We have a few hours free tonight, so I plan to put them to use getting a full data-dump.” He turned to Michael. “Get comfortable, Omega. We’re here for the night. I want you on point at his bedside. Don’t leave him for a moment, even if the family asks for privacy. I authorize you to employ your wolf to gain compliance if you must—only if you must. And be ready to turn your wolf on the pup if he wakes up snarly. We’re going to drum that fucker into the ground if we have to to give the kid a chance to learn how to manage it.”
“What are you going to do?” Michael asked, his eyes on the pup’s ashen face.
“I’m going to talk to Elise and get permission to do a genital exam. He smells close to Presentation. At this point, we’ll be able to tell his Presentation through palpation. I want to know which way it’s going to swing.”
“He can’t be older than nine, Cas. That’s too young for Presentation,” Michael observed.
“Blame it on malnutrition, Michael. This child is at least twelve. The genital exam will confirm that. He is within a day or two of Presenting, and if that happens while his wolf is still rabid, it’s going to get ugly fast.”
“Come on, Cas. I’ll take you to the family,” Bobby suggested.
“Michael?” Cas prompted.
“I’m good, Alpha. He’s in good hands. You can count on me.”
“I always do, Omega. You have my gratitude.”
Gage Presented Omega at 12:54 in the morning. Michael had never witnessed a high-risk Presentation before, but he sat by the pup’s head, mopping his sweaty brow until the painful process of rupturing the channel passage concluded amid groans and writhing. The boy’s arms were still fastened at the elbow, which kept him from hurting himself further. It didn’t take long, but it hurt like a firebrand, Michael knew. Michael arranged ice packs between his legs and massaged his stomach. This first Heat would be miserable even without the damage to his arms as he was too raw to use a dildo in his newly formed channel. He needed to heal before he could allay the hot, pressing need with toys. Once the bleeding from his channel slowed, they could insert a rod-shaped cool pack coated in lube. That would help a little.
Cas checked on him frequently through the night, but he didn’t hover. Michael coordinated his care through the shift change and stayed by his side. He calmed the frazzled family members. Heath refused to leave him once he got the all-clear to sit by his side, but the second visitor’s chair rotated every hour or so. The Pack’s presence in the waiting room swelled until the staff was forced to find them a conference room of their own to park in.
Michael texted with April and Dean until they dropped off to sleep. Dean focused on feeding Michael information about Presenting Omegas and what to watch for if things grew dicey while April concentrated on making sure Michael was minding his own wellbeing. She sent him silly memes and GIFS, distracting him from the stressful scene without taking his mind off his work.
At ten, an orderly brought him coffee without being asked. At one, another brought him a chocolate bar and a small bag of chips.
The pup’s vitals hovered between solidly stable and worrisome, and the attending decided to put off transferring him until morning.
At six, the Alpha trudged in looking rumpled. He probably napped in his suite without taking off his white coat. But he checked the chart, touched Gage’s face and the side of his forearm with the back of his hand, checking for systemic or localized fever, and then smiled tiredly at Michael and Heath. “He’s going to be okay.”
“He’s O/D, sir,” Michael said. His voice sounded gruff to his own ears. “He survived the night, but it’s going to be a rollercoaster from here.”
“How do you know he’s a Dominant?” Heath asked.
“I spoke to his wolf last night, beta. It addressed me directly and challenged me. I got a read on it.” Cas pulled up a chair and sat before the man. “We’re really not supposed to discuss adolescent Tertiaries prior to confirmation testing because science hasn’t locked down a testing method for pups yet. But this child is probably at least a seventeen. He came at me full throttle with no expectation of confronting someone higher ranked than he. That kind of cockiness is typical above fifteen. What’s more, I have a rare ability to feel the strength of a Tertiary directly. Against Michael here, he rates slightly lower. Against yours, he’s significantly higher.”
“You can read the strength of a wolf directly?” Michael asked in surprise. ”Directly?”
Cas glanced at him in slight annoyance and sighed. “Directly. Yes.”
“So then, you knew before I tested how I would rate.”
“Yes.”
Michael stared at him. “You know the outcome of all of them?”
Cas blinked. “I’ve been off by one point on occasion.”
Heath’s eyes swiveled between them.
“And the Secondary?” Michael asked.
Cas narrowed his eyes. “Less accurate, but ballpark, yes.”
There was a weird tension between them that brought a frown to Heath’s face. But then Michael broke it.
“Can you teach me?”
Cas chuckled. “I can try. Meanwhile, let’s get this young man transferred to the hospital. He’s stable. We have work to do.”
Notes:
Warning for explicit gore and life-threatening self-inflicted injury (Not our Pack)
There was a lot in this chapter, and while it feels like it's new stuff introduced instead of cleaning up the older stuff, it's all leading somewhere, I promise.
Chapter 26: Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Summary:
Michael and Hank both hear from the those who may actually know best. But do they believe what they're hearing? Kate's been accepted into the Pack; now it's time to make that official-official. As usual, it's not a straightforward path, as Alpha has a habit of killing multiple birds with one stone.
Billie takes a stand and makes a decision. And Sarah...well, I'll let you just read it.
Notes:
The thing about having to wait this long to get back to telling this story is that all the characters start shouting in my head to let them move forward. I feel compelled to tell everyone's part of the tale all at the same time, and mammoths like this chapter are the result. For everything I included, there are four more in the wings clamoring to get out.
Today is the lovely and wonderful MM's birthday. Happy birthday, Sister-mine.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
NOW:
“Michael?” Beatrice poked her head around the open steel door of Michael’s Chevelle, parked just so, polished until it shone in the garage’s track lighting. Michael, stretched out along the front bench with arms crossed over his chest and feet sticking right out the passenger door, jolted upward and crunched his left shoulder on the steering wheel.
“Mommy?”
She laughed softly and nudged his legs out of the way so she could slide in and sit beside him. “You don’t have to jump, baby. It’s only me. Were you napping?”
He sighed and straightened up, his spine finding perfect posture in his mother’s presence. “No, just thinking. I’ve got to go back up to the center tonight after the Pack ritual. It’s going to be a long night. Gage’s Heat should taper off soon, but until it does, he needs a round-the-clock vigil. Onset Presentation Heats are miserable enough without injuries and psychological trauma like he’s got.” Michael shifted the bench seat as far back as it would go so he could turn to face her, their knees nearly touching.
“That poor little boy,” Beatrice cooed. “But I know that if anyone can help him, you can.”
Michael scoffed good-naturedly. “You’re biased,” he deflected with a soft, pleased smile.
“I’m not the only one who thinks so highly of you, you know.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief.
He rolled his eyes. “If this is about Pete again… I told you…”
“No, Son, I only came out here to tell you we’re heading out. It was wonderful to visit…”
“Now?” he interrupted. “Before tonight’s dinner? Dean’s grilling salmon.”
Beatrice pressed her lips tightly together, then she smiled graciously. “Your pop isn’t ready for a full Pack Claiming ritual, Michael. He’s trying to put on a brave face, but… It’s better we leave the Pack to celebrate without his sourness smelling up this beautiful home. That little Ozzie has enough to deal with without old grouches like us ruining her moment.”
“He doesn’t have to watch, Mommy,” he argued. “Besides, you and Rachel aren’t grouches. Please, won’t you stay?” He paused and added, “Charlie’s coming to babysit.” He hoped to lure her into relenting for Rachel’s sake.
She leaned forward and patted his knee. “You have enough on your mind with that scared, broken pup up at the hospital who needs you. Your children need you. Your mate, your Pack Alpha…everyone needs you, Michael. I’m very, very proud of you.”
Michael sighed and covered her hand with his own. “Thank you for coming, all of you. Keep working on Pop for me. I want Rachel to move up here. I’m serious about that. It’s the best thing for her. She needs a change of scenery. He can survive without her.”
Beatrice nodded and grew quiet.
“Mommy…” Their breath in the confined space began to fog the windshield.
“Michael, listen to me.” She scooted forward and took both of his hands in hers. She frowned. “April is a patient girl. I know you love her. But she needs something from you, and your stubbornness is going to poison what you’ve got together all too soon if you let it.”
Michael huffed and looked away. There it was. She’d danced around it all weekend, but Michael hadn’t told her about April’s marriage proposal. Still, it would be absurd to think she hadn’t been informed. “You drove all the way up here to tell me that,” he accused with a flat tone. “How did you even know…?” Then he rolled his eyes. “Rachel,” he guessed. “She and Pete text all day every day.”
Beatrice wasn’t dissuaded. She had things to get off her chest, and she wasn’t leaving without saying them. “You two are just like your pop and me at your age.”
Michael scoffed loudly, rudely; he turned to face the windshield and clasped his hands behind his neck and stared at nothing. He couldn’t even see the Impala anymore in the growing humidity. Then he rotated back to face her. “I’m not sure I’m ready to hear this but go ahead. God knows you’re going to say it whether I want you to or not. You and Pop? Mommy, he’s Alpha. He’s nothing like me. How do you figure?” It came out more a challenge than he meant it to.
“He didn’t want to get married,” she told him. “Fought me on it for years. But I… Michael, Sweetie, I needed something that being his Ozzie mate couldn’t give me. I needed a chance to show him I chose him back. April needs the same from you…For you. There aren’t many ways for an Ozzie to make a statement like that.”
“What are you talking about?” Michael asked.
“Marriage,” she said with a frown, as if he were frustratingly dim.
“Mommy, he knows you love him. He’s always known. He can feel you. You take care of every little whim and notion he gets in his head. You take care of his whole Pack! You didn’t have to marry the guy to let him in on that.”
She shook her head. “The Mating-bond, it took so much of that out of my hands. What I do for him, that’s the bond between us. It’s my wolf and my Omega, Michael. No, I’m talking about us on a different level, a human level. I’m talking about how Ozzies have no real choices to make. But putting a ring on that man’s finger…That was me, Michael. That was me and him in a way that isn’t about being mates. It took me over ten years to talk him into it. Our church,” she laughed, “of all things, had some kind of a strange movement sweep through it.”
“I remember that,” he told her.
She smiled sadly at him and laid her palm against his cheek. He pressed his face into the warmth of her touch.
“I would give anything to that man,” she told him. “But I couldn’t express it to him until we married. It wasn’t the same thing.”
“I’m not a good person, Mommy,” he confessed at a whisper. “Not like you are. I can’t do this without hurting her.”
“You are a far better person than I have ever imagined being,” she disagreed.
“Anyone who can put up with Pop for thirty years is a saint in my book,” he said to cut the weighty, uncomfortable scent of heavy emotion.
“Oh, you,” she shoved lightly at his chest. He caught her hand up and kissed it to show he held no hard feelings. Her adoration of the man Michael had struggled against his whole adolescence had once felt like a choice she was making, like a rejection of Michael and his growing needs, but those days were long past now. The resentments of youth had faded as he accepted how much everyone struggled with the complexities of their own internal clashes. None of this was as simple as choosing one Pack member—one family member—over another.
“Michael, listen to me,” she said seriously. “I know what has you worried, and it isn’t your father. It isn’t fear that you’ll turn into someone brutal. Look at me, Son. I know you better than anyone—better than April, better than Dean—because I know who you were before you were the wonderful man you are now. You don’t have it in you to hurt that young woman any more than you could hurt me. And deep down, you know that.”
Michael swallowed and sniffed. She was perilously close to striking him squarely between the eyes, and he dreaded what she might say. She had a way of seeing right through him. He took an abrupt breath and let it shakily back out. He licked his lips and met her eyes. Both gazes shifted to a soft golden glow.
She squeezed his hand.
“Whether you marry your girl or not is between you and her, but be honest with yourself. If you were scared, that would be one thing. But you’re not scared. I know what a scared Michael looks and smells like. And I know your scent when your wolf has its back up. This isn’t about protecting April, Son. It’s about your pride and nothing else. Someone is writing the script for you, and you don’t like that. Your wolf doesn’t like that. You’ve never been able to swallow someone else’s direction. You’ve never been one to dance along to anyone else’s tune. But this time, you just might stubborn yourself right out of the best thing you’ve ever had.”
“Mom…” he whispered. “No, it’s…It’s not like that.”
“Are you trying to convince me, Michael? Or yourself?”
Hank ran gentle fingertips over his Aunt April’s lower belly, right where Daddy told him the pups were alive and growing, and his wonder was palpable. Eyes wide with awe, he traced a small circle and then grinned. He was certain he could feel them in there. He looked up into April’s eyes. They were warm with affection. This close, he could see the details of her smile, feel the comfort of Pack.
“How are they inside you?” he asked. “How did they get in?”
“That’s how babies grow big enough to be out in the world with the rest of us,” she replied. Hank frowned.
“I was never inside …” He stumbled, and then rallied. “How do they breathe?”
Daddy and Aunt April chuckled. “They don’t have to breathe until they come out,” Daddy explained. He lifted Hank to sit on his lap. The parlor began to fill as the Pack gathered in the late afternoon. “Their tiny lungs won’t be ready to fill with air for a long time yet.” Hank frowned again. It sounded crazy. Why was no one worried that the little babies in there were in danger? Daddy sensed his concern and gave him a hug. Hank could only make Aunt April out as a pink blur, but he knew the shape and the scent of her. “It’s okay, Hank,” Daddy said. “All pups start out this way—even you, even JT. Even me. Mommies grow pups inside their bellies from teeny-tiny, so small we wouldn’t even be able to see them, until they are big enough to come out and be our new babies.”
“Even me?” Hank asked.
“That’s right,” Daddy told him with a squeeze.
“I was inside Mommy?”
Daddy made a deep sound, like a breath that took too long to come out. His eyes stopped smiling as Hank watched. He looked like a thought had got stuck inside his head on its way out. He looked down and pressed his lips together. Then he looked up, made sure his face was close enough for Hank to see it well, and he shook his head a little.
“Hank, remember how on yours and JT’s birthday, we lit an extra candle and said a special thank you to your other mother? We’ve done that every time you’ve had a birthday. Remember that?”
“Uh-huh,” Hank nodded with a frown.
Daddy nodded along with him. “Well, you and your brother didn’t grow inside Mommy’s belly like Aunt April’s twins. You grew inside your other mother’s belly. She was a lady that none of us ever got to meet because she got very sick when you and JT were born, and she died.”
Hank stared at Daddy in puzzlement.
“She died before we could know her. But she was very brave and very strong. She made sure you and JT grew big and strong inside her and that you could be born. She fought hard to stay with you, to stay alive. Hank, your mother fought for you. She didn’t want to leave you. But she was too sick. And then some nice people that we know, they took the best care of her they could, and they took the best care of your brother and you, and they made sure you had a good family to go to so you wouldn’t ever be alone after your mother died.”
Aunt April watched silently as Daddy explained. She had a hand on her belly. Hank couldn’t see much, but he could see that much. His glasses were in Mommy’s bag. Sometimes they made his head hurt, so when he was at home or at Alpha’s house, sometimes his parents let him take them off. He scented more than saw that the Pack stood all around, listening, and he could tell they thought that what Daddy said was important.
But Hank was baffled. JT jogged in and crashed into Daddy’s knees all in a rush before climbing up on the couch beside them.
“Pizza’s here!” he shouted. “Come on, we’re watching Nemo and Brave! Race you up the stairs!” JT tugged at Hank’s arm. “Put your glasses on!” Somehow JT only ever seemed to shout.
“John Thomas,” Daddy said in his mad voice, “if I catch you running on the stairs one more time, I’m going to spank your bottom. Hard. Take your brother’s hand and walk up the stairs with Charlie. Mommy will bring him his glasses in a little bit.”
“Daddy?” Hank asked as he slid to the floor with his brother’s hand at his back to steady him. “Did you tell JT? About other mother? How she died?”
Daddy leaned closer to let Hank make out his face, and he nodded. “A few days ago, JT asked the same kind of questions you did. Don’t worry, Buddy. We’ll talk about it more later. We’ll answer any questions you both have. It’s important you understand and that you always know how hard she fought for you, how important you were to her. We can’t know her, kiddo, but we can know that you meant everything to her.”
Hank nodded with a serious frown. At his back, JT tugged on his shirt to get him moving, afraid that Charlie would start the movie and divvy up the pizza without them. But Hank leaned into Daddy’s lap and reached for him, looking for another hug. He didn’t know why exactly, only that something about what Daddy said, about how he said it, seemed crucial, made him feel a little like crying. Daddy gave the best hugs. Warm, strong arms encircled the pup. Daddy’s soft whisper in his ear felt safe.
“I love you, Hank. Mommy and I will always be here to watch over you. You go on now and be good for Charlie. We’ll talk more soon. I promise.”
As the hug ended, JT shouldered forward to claim one of his own. Daddy laughed as he hugged his son, lifting his feet right off the ground in a bear hug that swamped the boy. Soon Daddy found himself shepherding them both toward the staircase—JT on his back and Hank clinging to his leg with both feet balanced on Daddy’s enormous shoe.
Alpha ruffled Hank’s hair as they passed him, and he winked.
Mommy met them at the bottom of the stairs, smelling hassled, and she fished Hank’s glasses case out of the bag on her shoulder, the one that had everything in it. She helped him fit the strap over his head until the world sprang miraculously into focus.
Daddy helped JT slide to the ground, reminded him sternly not to run, and swatted his bottom for good measure. Hank felt he would have been mortified if Daddy did that to him right in front of everybody, but JT just grinned, grabbed his brother’s hand and set off toward the pizza.
“What is it?” Jess asked as Sam took her by the hand.
“Hank’s putting two and two together what with April’s pregnancy,” Sam told her. “He wanted to know about his mother.”
Jess nodded. “It’s only natural,” she agreed. “They’re getting to that age. What did you tell him?” She handed her bag to Monique and followed Sam into the parlor.
“Same thing we told JT last week. They’re both on the same level now so we can begin to work more references in as we talk to them. It won’t be easy, Jess. There are some hard truths buried in those talks. At some point they’re going to be curious about their father too.”
Cas stepped toward Sam, drawing eyes, becoming a focal point in the room. “Sam, Jess,” he said, “let’s make a deliberate effort to include stories of people making great things of themselves after coming from dubious beginnings. Work those stories regularly into their daily routines, at bedtime and the like. We’ll set them a firm foundation to understand that no matter how they were fathered, there are no limits to whom they may grow to be. One step at a time, beta. You handled that well just now. Please keep me informed of your progress and concerns. I want to be involved.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” Sam said. “Sorry for the distraction. We’re ready now.” He took a seat and tugged Jess to kneel at his feet. Surprisingly, she kicked her shoes off and folded into place without batting an eye.
Castiel glanced around. The Pack fell still, each member arrayed according to formal hierarchical lines. Dean stood proudly at Castiel’s right shoulder with his chest out, feet planted. Michael and April, both nude now, each knelt at their mates’ sides, heads lowered. Cain stood at Cas’ left shoulder, about a foot further from the Alpha than Dean. Kate trembled on her knees in the middle of the room. A soft, warm cloak draped across her shoulders hid her nakedness but did nothing for her nerves. Her Heat was imminent. She was in the throes of its ramping up, past the nausea but nearing desperation.
Arrayed about her, seated on the plush furniture, Sam, Kali, and Sarah watched, stoic and silent. Gabe slouched on the floor at Kali’s side with his head in her lap while she stroked fingers through his hair. Jess found her balance uncomfortably, unaccustomed to kneeling.
Cas cleared his throat. “Sarah.”
“Sir?” she asked, fidgeting.
“Kneel, please. You may remove your shoes.”
She startled and glanced toward Sam, then Kali. Her voice wavered. “You want me on my…knees? Why?”
Cas paused a moment and tilted his head slightly, regarding her. At last he said, “Because I believe you will benefit from the position. It’s all right, beta. This is not a punishment.” Another pause, and then, “Trust me, Sarah. I know you are grieving. I know tonight’s ritual may be difficult for you even if we do it behind closed doors. You may lean into Kali for support if you like.”
The Pack seemed poised motionless, stunned and wondering what the ape would do. But Sarah locked her eyes on Castiel’s and slipped gracefully to the floor. He raised his chin and then smiled with his eyes.
“Better?” he asked gently.
Sarah huffed, surprised to find that she did indeed feel more secure on her knees. But she was alone with no one near enough to lean on. With a soft chuckle, Kali beckoned. “Over here, beta,” she said. “No one should have to kneel alone.”
Sarah licked her lips, stumbled back to her feet, and crossed the room to Kali without meeting anyone’s eyes. As she sank back down, Kali put a hand across her shoulders with the barest pressure, and Sarah sagged against her.
Castiel waited for her to settle, and then he clapped and clasped his hands, rubbing them together, drawing everyone’s attention back to him, away from Sarah.
“All right, folks,” he said. “We have much to celebrate. This is a very good day in the Winchester Pack, but it is also a worknight and our newest Ozzie will need focused attention very soon, so let’s get down to business. Here is how tonight’s events will go. We are going to be striking two birds with one stone, so to speak. Several of you have approached me about the idea of creating a pathway to challenge one another for rank within the Pack. I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and while there are concerns of which we must be cognizant, I am convinced that, if done with care, rank challenges can be good for the health of our Pack as a whole. Therefore, I have decided to allow occasional, controlled challenge events under monitored conditions. Does this pronouncement come as a surprise to anyone?”
He looked around, to his left and right at his alphas, toward his betas. The Omegas, he ignored. No one spoke. No one seemed the least surprised. Cas drew a deep breath in through his nose and let it out slowly.
“Very well,” he nodded. “Tonight will be our first challenge opportunity. The rules are as follows. One. Omegas do not participate. This ritual is for betas and alphas only.” No one registered a reaction to that. It surprised no one. Cas had developed a strong Traditionalist bent in response to his years of research. The idea of an Omega in Alpha’s Pack being permitted to challenge for rank over a beta stood less chance of happening than a guppy learning to fly.
“Two. Individuals choosing to challenge must do so during the open session only, not before, not after. There is to be no intimidation, threats, or trash talk ahead of time. Further, if you lose your chance tonight, you must wait until another challenge is opened. Hear me now. I alone am authorized to initiate a challenge session, and I have no intention of making them frequent, not by any stretch of the imagination. Commit now or lose your chance for several years.”
“Wait. Years?” Dean asked, startled.
“Years,” Castiel confirmed. “We are not creating chaos, merely a chance to settle discontent.”
“Yikes,” Dean whispered to himself. He refrained from glancing across at Cain.
“Three,” Cas continued without responding to Dean’s commentary. “Once the outcome of the challenge has been determined, there will be NO resentment or retribution based upon that outcome. The result is final. The ranks, whether they remain the same or shift, are final. I will tolerate nothing but acceptance. If you cannot abide by that rule, do not challenge. If you lose your position to a challenger, you and I will discuss it thoroughly, and I will help you to assimilate the shift.”
Sam whistled softly. He shot a look toward Michael, but the Omega-Dom seemed barely to be listening. He looked bored at Dean’s side.
“Four,” Cas continued. “Challenges will proceed according to my instructions. I alone have the authority to name the activity, to judge the outcome, and to decide the limits. There will be no free-for-alls in this Pack. Challenges will be fair, appropriate, monitored, controlled, and safe. Do you all understand me?” Cas lent an Alpha tone into his question and received Yes, Alphas from everyone.
He took a deep breath. “Five.” He paused. He seemed to be weighing his words. “Much as I feel uncomfortable in creating incentives to drive your behaviors, I have polled the Pack, and have been assured that doing so will not up-end our stability. Should I feel that it is doing so, I will put a stop to it. So. Each non-Omega adult member of this Pack, other than myself, will receive semi-annual distributions from the Pack coffers, provided the previous two quarters were profitable. The details of the distributions are stated on our Pack home page, worded by our attorneys, naturally. Michael will be happy to clarify if the wording is confusing. Suffice it to say, the amount of each distribution depends upon each wolf’s rank. Distribution payouts will occur each March and September. Omegas receive nothing. As Alpha, I receive nothing. Complaints, appeals, and concerns should be directed to me and me alone. Are there any questions so far?”
“What kind of challenges are we talking about?” Jess asked.
“We will get to that in a moment,” Cas told her.
No one else spoke up. Thoughtful expressions, cautious glances, and furrowed brows replaced spoken questions.
“Six,” Cas went on after a pause. “There will be no leapfrogging. You may challenge only the wolf one rank above you, be they alpha or beta. Should you succeed, you must wait for the next challenge event before making another move.” He watched their faces. With a Pack this small, there were very few individuals with any play. If the Pack grew, though, that would change. “Seven. When challenged, you must accept or forfeit. There is no negotiation allowed. If I learn of alliances of any kind, all individuals participating will be punished and will summarily lose one rank. If the challenged successfully defends their position, the ranks remain as they are. If they forfeit or lose, they switch places with their challenger. Again, the results are final. Appeal to me if you believe you have grounds to believe that something unjust occurred, but do not whine at me. If you lose, take it like a Winchester, be accountable to yourself and your Pack, and move on.”
Cain chuckled softly and sucked air through his teeth with a sharp sound that drew eyes. He rocked slightly on his heels and then fell still. Cas side-eyed him before going on.
“Eight. Challenges proceed from the top, downward. If the wolf you planned to challenge wins a higher rank before you get a chance, you may challenge the loser of that contest but may not step over that individual to attack your original target.”
“Wait.”
“Hold up!”
Dean and Sam both spoke at once.
Sam deferred to his brother. Dean licked his lips. “You mean that if Cain challenges me, and I lose, then Sam can kick my ass that same night, and I drop down twice?!”
“Exactly,” Cas replied. “What’s more, should that happen, Kali is within her rights to have a go at you as well. I hope you’ve been eating well and have been continuing the strength training regimen I set for you. Understand also, if you do lose to Cain, you cannot challenge him again until our next event, however long that might be in coming. Individuals can move downward until they win but can only move upward once based upon an original challenge.”
“Whoa,” Dean breathed.
“What does any of this have to do with Kate’s Claiming ritual?” Gabe asked. “The chick is sitting there, shivering, feeling like shit, and you’re all tugging each other’s wieners. Get on with it, Alpha.”
“There is a method here, Omega,” Cas answered calmly. “And it is this. For our first challenge, the top three below me need make no formal announcement. Dean, Cain, Sam, you will each be judged according to the strength of the Claim you set here tonight. Do your best, all of you. Use your Secondaries or your Tertiaries, as works most effectively for each of you. I don’t care what method you employ. I don’t care if you choose a CF, a DF, or something yet uncharted, so long as the meter in my pocket can read and measure it.”
Cain frowned. “Did Kate know about this?”
“Kate is Ozzie,” Cas said, as if that were answer enough.
Cain continued to stare at the Alpha until Cas sighed. “Yes, of course she knows. I explained everything. This challenge changes nothing for her except the guarantee that she will receive your best efforts. That is, unless any of you intend to throw the challenge.”
Cain scoffed and Dean choked. Sam simply looked contemplative. Jess squeezed his calf in support. Sam shared a bracing look with her. The parameters of the challenge were a complete surprise. It pitted the strength of Cain’s alpha against the power of Sam’s wolf. Indirectly. Using a third party as the target.
Sam had thought he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Michael’s ridiculous ploy to humiliate Cain. But now that he was here…
Cas was going to make him Claim Kate anyway. Sam had no intention of doing that halfheartedly. He’d already committed to putting his shoulder into it so the Ozzie would have a triangulated support system to help her keep her balance against her persistent hated Mating-bond.
What if…?
If Sam did his best, already a foregone conclusion, and it was even a little better than Cain’s…?
Sam’s eyes found Dean’s.
He let out a shaky breath and nodded subtly. Dean looked away with a hint that he was stifling a bratty rejoinder.
“Questions?” Cas asked the room.
“After the Claiming…?” Jess asked.
“Yes,” Cas answered her unfinished question. “Once the Claiming is concluded, challenges continue until we reach the Omegas. And then we share a toast and retire.”
“So…what is the challenge for the rest of us?” Jess asked. She sat up higher on her knees, fidgeting a little.
“You must challenge first, and then I will explain the contest,” Cas told her.
“What happens when new members join?” Kali spoke up. “Do we fight for rank?”
Cas put a hand up. “No. New members will be placed according to my judgment—mine and my second’s—until the next round of challenges, and then that new member will be allowed to participate along with everyone else.”
Dean chewed the inside of his cheek. Cas had said my second’s. Dean felt a wad of something slimy turn over in his belly. Beside him, Michael leaned against his leg and buried his discomfort in a barrage of internal support through both bonds. Dean nearly laughed out loud at his mate’s overreaction.
But it stopped his doubt dead in its tracks.
Dean was not only significantly stronger than Cain, he was also far more practiced.
But then, so was Sam. Sam had learned tricks for Claiming Omegas. As a beta, Sam couldn’t do it purely through his Secondary, not if he wanted it to stick. Not if he wanted it to be more than a piece of twine looped around their bellybuttons. Sam knew how to lay a solid Claim, but betas were hard-pressed to stretch into the reaches an alpha could hit.
What Dean didn’t know was Cain’s range. Some alphas were better at Claiming than others.
“Alpha,” Dean said uncertainly, “you said no leapfrogging. But if Sam beats both of us?”
Cas chuckled. “That’s right, Dean. In this one instance, ranks fall according to my meter, however that falls out. Are we ready?” Cas looked around, affecting not to notice Dean sharing a look with Michael. “Kate? Are you ready?”
“Yes, Alpha,” she croaked. “Past ready.”
“Come on, then, Omega. Follow me.” Cas helped her up. “Dean, Cain, Sam. Follow me. The rest of you wait here.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steadied her as she stumbled along beside him. Dean shot a look at Cain, who shrugged and reached out to pull Sam up. Sam didn’t get far before Jess assaulted him with a hug and a deep kiss for good luck. Michael, for his part, remained silent and kneeling. He let Dean go without a word, but he followed his mate with his eyes.
The three challengers ambled awkwardly in Cas’ wake, out into the foyer, down the back stairs, into the playroom one by one where Cas held the door wide for them.
Up in the parlor, they heard the door slam. Fred circled among them, refreshing drinks. Michael helped April to her feet. His face looked pale, and he breathed shallowly for a moment before feigning solidity with a, “Well, that went well,” that no one replied to.
Gabe tossed Michael a robe, held April’s wide for her to step into, and then took her by the hand and led her toward the conservatory still naked as the day he was born. April stutter-stepped behind him.
“Cas said to wait in the parlor,” she protested.
“Tell him we got lost,” Gabe shot back. He sat her at the piano and plunked down beside her. “We’re only Omegas, after all.” Her hands went inexorably to the keys, and music flowed down the hall, summoning the rest of the Pack.
Michael took up the rear of the little parade, nonchalantly watching Jess eyeing Sarah eyeing Kali eyeing Jess. He texted Charlie who instantly demanded video footage. Michael chuckled and slipped his phone into the pocket of his robe before Kali suspected him of spying and confiscated it.
Michael posted up beside the piano bench and watched from right beside her as April’s ears and face turned bright red. He felt a wave of lust rise inside her from his bond, and he settled in to wait.
One way or another, tonight would signal a change in the Pack, one that Michael meant to ride.
“Do you want the pears or the oranges?” Helene asked Billie as she settled onto the seat beside her mate and offered both bowls. Billie took the sliced pears, but she set the bowl on the table by her keyboard without noticing it. She went back to typing, tabbing swiftly between screens and scrunching her face with an annoyed huff.
“You’ve been over it all a thousand times already, Billie. None of it’s going to change. What do you think reading and re-reading is going to tell you this time that it didn’t the last twelve?”
“He can’t always be right,” Billie growled to herself. She flipped her notebook open and traced a finger through many scratched-out names, looking for one that must have been crossed out by mistake. “No one is always right.”
“This is about Castiel?”
Billie threw the notebook down with a slap and buried her face in her hands. She ended the flow of motion with her chin cradled in steepled fingers and her eyes on her keyboard. Slowly, she tilted her head to look at Helene beside her.
“Let’s move to Scotland,” she suggested. “Just you and me. No pack. No Alphas. No family. We’ll raise sheep. Get one of those sheep-herding dogs.”
“You mean a shepherd?”
Billie growled.
“Doesn’t that guy Crowley have roots in Scotland?” Helene teased. “Would you really want to risk running into him on market days?”
Billie looked away.
“Forget Castiel, Billie. This is for us. We’ve been over everything already. You like Uriel.”
“No, I don’t; he’s a pompous blow-hard,” Billie objected. She stood up, picked up her bowl of pears and rinsed them into the sink without realizing she hadn’t touched the snack. “He’s rigid. No sense of humor.”
Helene cocked her head. “Castiel says he’s the funniest alpha at the ACRI.”
Billie rolled her eyes and planted herself against the kitchen counter, staring into space, thinking.
“You don’t have a sense of humor either, so what does it matter?” Helene quipped, but her joke fell flat. “You know what the trouble is?” Helene asked, turning in her chair and peeling lacy white rind from her orange section. “You and he are too alike.”
Billie’s face flattened. Her head turned slowly to glare on full throttle. Helene wasn’t cowed. Unless the two of them were scening, they kept the dynamic between them muted. The final decisions—about the big things—were Billie’s to make, but neither woman felt the need to insist Helene watch her mouth or tamp down her strong opinions. Billie didn’t need fawning. They were as close to equals as was feasible given the needs of their Tertiaries.
“And protest all you want,” Helene continued. “You do like him. You like him a lot. Plus, he was the only Alpha we interviewed who listened to you say you have no intention of mimicking any kind of normative Lupin family structure who didn’t mumble Yet under his breath. Uriel is no Traditionalist, Sharice. He’ll let us define this however suits us. He’s bought into the idea of creating a safe place for misfits. I know that appeals to you. Imagine, having a Pack structure with no mandate for hierarchical sex. No sex, Billie. No expectations. No demands for sexual fealty. No Claims. You get to go home every day to a family that accepts you for you, and we’ll let Uriel figure out how his Alpha will speak to your beta. You’re not going to get an offer like that somewhere else.”
Billie grumbled. “Pack Alphas don’t Claim betas…”
Helene stalked across to the kitchen and stopped right in front of her. “They do if the stability of the Pack is wobbly because the beta isn’t sexually secure in her own relationships.” Helene glowered, daring Billie to contradict her, but Billie simply frowned and focused over her mate’s shoulder, grinding her teeth. “Especially if the beta is a highly rated Pack Dominant. No other Alpha would be willing to let you chart your own course on this. The research into alternatives is still in its infancy.”
Billie huffed a sharp laugh. “The research all says a Pack can’t hold together without sex,” she added acerbically.
“Then let’s try it and be the exception that proves the rule.” Helene shifted closer until she pressed right against Billie’s body. She nuzzled behind Billie’s ear, sparking her scent gland, and she huffed the delectable odor of mate. She clasped her hands at the small of Billie’s back. “We’ll find a way that works, Billie. You’re not the only wolf at stake here. There are others. There has to be another way. Uriel is open to help us try. Why are you balking? Just call him.”
Billie’s arms closed around Helene’s waist, and she mirrored her mate’s actions, scenting her, taking solace in the warmth and closeness of her body. “I wanted to be the one who figured it out,” she admitted softly.
“Good,” Helene coaxed. “Good. Then let’s do it.”
“No. Helene. I wanted to be the one. I wanted to build my own Pack. No Alpha. No hierarchy. No sex. I wanted to build the bastion for misfits and lead the charge against…”
“Against Castiel?” Helene guessed.
Billie dropped her hands and pulled away. “Not against him. He knows what he’s doing. The research, it’s…unequivocal. But just as there are exceptions for the likes of him and Dean, for the likes of me and you, there have to be other routes that work for those of us who don’t fit the allo-normative Lupin mold. Evolution put asexual wolves on the planet. That wouldn’t have happened if there was no route to stability but through sex. We would all have been selected out.”
Helene opened her mouth to remind Billie that not all asexuals were opposed to having sex, but Billie stuck a finger up and forestalled her with a sharp, “Don’t.”
Helene changed tack. “Look, the prevailing wisdom is that even sex-repulsed wolves need sex of one kind or another at some point in their adult lives. Right? But break it down into all the constituent possible needs and a lot of wolves slip right through the cracks. I mean, hierarchical? Maybe alphas and Omegas, but not betas like you. DFs? Only if you’re faced with a challenge that can’t be solved in another way. Billie, there’s always another way. You…you face confrontations in your job all the time. Have you ever faced one you couldn’t solve without mounting someone? You’ve gone years without Claiming anyone except as a panel member. Mating, yeah, there’s no way through that one without doing the deed, but that’s behind us now. It’s done…”
“Stop!” Billie demanded. “Just…stop.”
Helene let her pace slowly away. Billie touched her mouse and woke her screen back up. She stared at the list that only had one name still pristine. Unconsciously, she picked up an orange slice and bit into it, staring at her screen.
“I had plans, Helene.”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Helene replied formally. “I messed up your plans. You didn’t plan on me.”
Billie huffed again. “Yeah. I did, actually.” She turned and regarded her mate. “But I was going to build the Pack first. Needed it to be strong and ready for you.”
“We could still do that,” Helene offered. “Together.”
Billie shook her head. “It was a fantasy, Helene. Packs need an Alpha. Institutions need an Alpha.” Her exhalation shook as she looked back to her screen. “I’m fooling myself.”
Helene sighed. The eyeroll was audible if not actual, and she stomped back across to her mate. “They aren’t the same thing at all! Packs are private. They have to be capable of supporting the vulnerable aspects of our psyches. Institutions don’t. Don’t you dare start doubting your right to hold the Directorship. You earned that the hard way! And you’re magnificent! They would be lost without you. Castiel would be lost without you. Give it a couple of years and Uriel will be lost without you. Lean on an alpha at work to be the dumb muscle that the institution needs. Seems to me that Josie is perfect to play dumb muscle, but don’t think for a second that the ACRI has to have an alpha sitting in the chair you fought for. It doesn’t. But our Pack? Yeah, probably does. That’s not the end of the world, Sharice.”
“Just because he promises there won’t have to be any sex doesn’t mean there won’t have to be any sex,” Billie snapped, staring at Uriel’s name.
“Oh, for the love of god!” Helene cried. “Are you afraid to be happy?! Pick up your fucking phone and call the man!”
“All right!” Billie shouted back. She turned her back on her mate.
They both mumbled, “bitch” at the same time in the same tone.
Neither of them meant it.
It was anticlimactic in the end. Uriel accepted. A meeting time was set to hammer out the details. But negotiations would be simple. He’d already agreed to let Billie determine her own domesticity. She didn’t even have to move into his sprawling compound north of the city. She didn’t have to move at all. Uriel shrugged and said he was comfortable filing her official residence onsite and letting the state figure it out.
He told her he was far more concerned at the moment with Dorothy, campaigning to contract out for Mating-burners for herself and her girlfriend, than he was whether Billie wanted a sexless private life or a house near the college campus.
Billie grimaced at his woes, cut the call short, and thanked her lucky stars not to have to consider the idea of a burner ever again. Not that she never had. But with her mate sharing her life and her home, she would never be tempted by the notion again.
Dorothy needed a swift kick up the wazoo.
“He won’t be very pleased with you if you intervene,” Helene warned. “He said it’s not your business.”
“Fine,” Billie said with a sharp sniff. “I’ll let our Pack Alpha handle Dorothy. However, Dorothy’s girlfriend is a full-time employee of The Facility. And there, I am Alpha. Charlie and I are going to have a discussion about the dangers of burner-Matings. They never end well. I’m not letting her make that mistake.”
Helene opened her mouth to reply and then snapped it closed again. But she tried again. “It’s a scary world out there, Billie.”
Billie cut her off. “You’re damned right it is! And it’s all the scarier to think people I care about might hitch themselves to total strangers just to kill the possibility of a True-Mate Trigger! What could they be thinking?”
“Don’t tell me you never thought about it?” Helene asked. She watched her mate and filtered through her stirred-up emotions. “We both know you’re strong enough to beat the tug of a Mating-bond, to fight it long enough to make it a bare buzz in the back of your head. We both know it could have offered you a kind of peace that I never can.”
“Peace?!” Billie spun around and stared in horror at her mate. “You think I would find peace Mated to some asshole I don’t know, much less care about? You think I would do that, just to have it over with?”
Helene didn’t rise to the outrage. “Yeah, Billie, I know you considered it. So did I. In fact, I did more than consider it. I was on a train, halfway to Nantucket to meet up with a man I found advertising a contract for a burner. I checked him out, vetted the dude. I did all the research I could think of doing on him. He was clean. Legit. Just…desperate not to Trigger. He’s alpha. His girlfriend is alpha. They just want to be able to stop looking over their shoulders, freaked out every time either of them catches a whiff of a tantalizing scent in the air that maybe this time is for real. Worried they’re about to lose each other to some stranger. He signed a contract with me, sight unseen. That’s how desperate he was. He was going to pay out of pocket for the therapy sessions to weaken and stretch the bond. For both of us.”
“Why would you do that to yourself?” Billie asked in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Helene laughed a humorless laugh and shook her head. “Tell you? Billie, I begged you to Mate me. But you wouldn’t. Swore you would never Mate anyone. But I don’t want a fucking True-Mate! The very idea creeps me out! At least with a burner, we both know what we’re getting. This guy…he was nice. Laid back. Kind of sweet, actually. But I’m gay. I’m no threat to his girlfriend. Even if the bond turns out to be harder to fight than we expected, I’m still no threat. The worst we would be is…siblings, of a sort.”
“Of a sort,” Billie repeated, stunned. It seemed to be hitting her slowly, just how close she’d come to losing Helene for good. “You thought you were doing that for us? For you and me? We would never have survived you Mating someone else. There’s no way I could accept that. I just… Are you insane?”
“I wouldn’t have been Mated to him, Billie!” Helene shouted, incensed. “Any more than he would be to me! But you know how this works! I lived in New York! There are millions of people all crammed in close proximity. People Mate on the subway every fucking day! You refused to protect me from my own Trigger, so what else was I supposed to do?! At least with a contract, both parties know what they’re getting into. It’s not personal; it’s just business. I kill his Trigger; he kills mine. It’s done but for the therapy. And you should have seen him, Sharice! He was ga-ga for this chick. He wasn’t going to falter and change his mind once the bond locked. Neither was I.”
Billie stared at her. “You Mated me already planning on a sexless relationship,” she accused. “Don’t pretend that you couldn’t have done the same for him. Do you have any idea what the statistics are for burner contracts? How many of them actually work out? It’s in the single digits, Helene! Most of them end miserably for everyone involved! Maybe a third end with a Mated couple that can throw away the contract and make a life together when the dust clears, but to actually set a Mating-bond and then both of you walk away from it to pursue separate lives…to do it successfully? It’s practically non-existent! What’s worse, a lot of the time, one side of the bond sticks to the plan and does the therapy while the other side gives over to it and tries to make a go of the match! It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen! What were you thinking?!”
“I didn’t go through with it,” Helene defended lamely.
Billie’s nostrils flared with her seething. Slowly, she calmed herself. Finally, she asked, “What stopped you?”
Helene took a deep breath and let it out. “I knew you would be livid.”
Billie scoffed. “You’re damned right about that.”
“I only made it halfway before I switched trains and hightailed it back to New York. Bought a plane ticket. Came straight here, determined to have it out with you once and for all.”
“Wait. You mean you just pulled this stunt? Is there some pimply-faced neckbeard with a breach of contract lawsuit out on you? I’ll fucking kill him!”
“Damnit, Billie, chill! He understood. He tore up the contract. Said he’d been having second thoughts himself.”
Billie collapsed into a chair. “I think you aged me forty years in the last ten minutes, Submissive. Jesus, what a fucking mess.”
“It’s your own fault, Sharice. You’re the one who said no when every molecule in your body wanted to say yes.”
Billie took a long time to think, her eyes fixed on Helene’s deep brown ones. Finally…
“Come here.” She held a hand out and helped Helene slide down to straddle her lap. “You are in so much trouble. I’m going to take this out of your ass. You realize that. You’re going to regret telling me.”
Helene laughed. “No I’m not. I’ll pay your price, Ma’am. And I’ll help you talk to Charlie. And the other one…Dorothy? If we’re joining Uriel’s Pack, then we’re jumping in with both feet. Smartest thing I ever did was get off that train.”
“Tcch! Right after the stupidest thing you ever did, which was get ON that train.” She tugged Helene down to kiss her lips.
“It all ended well,” Helene said between kisses.
"I would have had to murder him,” Billie added, still between kisses. “You would have to visit me in prison.”
“Dominants Trigger in prison more often than the general population does,” Helene snarked. “I would have had to break you out to keep you mine. …Or murder your True-Mate.”
Billie froze in the act of kissing her mate and pulled back. “You think my True-Mate is in prison?” Her brow arched high.
“Uh,” Helene tried. Nothing else came to mind in time to save her, and Billie did indeed take it out of her ass.
As promised.
The playroom door closed on its spring, securing with a satisfying thud. Cas escorted Kate to the mattress pad and took her cloak. She scrambled up, all modesty abandoned as her Heat came crashing in on her. The scent of cycling Ozzie set the alphas’ nerves on edge. Sam’s too. No one remarked on it, but all of them breathed deeply, drawing it in, savoring the appeal.
“Samuel,” Cas commanded. “You will be the least affected by the scent. I want you to serve as my spotter. Dean, Cain, step out. Wrap a hand around something and don’t let go. Do either of you need to be cuffed?”
“No, Sir,” they both answered.
Dean hoisted himself into the hammock chair, setting it swinging and taking Castiel’s instruction literally. He shoved his hands through the ropes and wrapped them around both wrists over his head. Cain sauntered toward a spanking bench near the back. He put the heavy furniture between himself and the mattress and took hold of the hand-bars, flexing his fingers twice before solidifying his grip. He nodded. He would not let go until Alpha gave him permission.
Sam nodded. He backed away enough to be no challenge to the Alpha’s wolf.
“We go in descending order,” Castiel explained. He made no indication he noticed Sam’s careful positioning for the acknowledgement that it was. He began to unbutton his cuffs and then slowly worked his fingers down his shirt, unfastening his buttons as he went. “To the extent that we can control it, I ask you not to knot her. Waiting out three knots might lead to fatigue which would impact your performance, and I want each of you to have a fair shot, not to mention we need a full night’s sleep tonight. Any questions?”
“Let’s do it, Alpha,” Dean called. “Get those pants off! Show me your ass!”
Sam grunted. “Dean, could you please show some respect? For once? Kate doesn’t need you cheapening her Heat.”
Dean scoffed. “Kate’s not irritated, Sammy. That’s all you. Pay attention to your job and let me ogle my husband.”
Castiel ignored the fraternal bickering. His clothing hit the floor. He kneed up onto the mattress, wasting no time but moving deliberately and gracefully. He said nothing but, “Good girl. Good girl…” He covered her, lying trembling on her belly. Kate offered herself, an Omega in Heat seeking relief and an Omega supplicant at the foot of the Alpha. Cas moved with no outright aggression, simply the surety of his position. He pressed in, leaving her channel to the others, knowing a stronger Claim could be manifested through her channel.
Castiel didn’t need the help.
Still chanting, “Good girl…” in ever softer iterations, he wrapped around her, moving sinuously. Kate fell utterly still beneath him, holding her breath, awaiting relief. Castiel did not make her wait. He moved with grace and power but without any force, and he Claimed her as his own, climaxed without fanfare, whispered praise into her ear, and caressed her throat, her neck, her cheek, before kissing her sweetly on the temple and extracting himself with care.
Cas cleaned her efficiently while Sam collected the Peliomometer from his discarded pants and ran the monitor over him.
“Did it take?” Dean asked, surprised at his husband’s gentle approach.
“I’ll say,” Sam said. He held the meter out for Dean to read.
“A hundred sixty-three?” Dean gaped. “How the hell, Alpha? She should be sobbing and bleeding to get a number that high.”
Cas smiled as he dressed. He winked. He said nothing.
Dean untangled himself from the ropes and hopped down. He swiped the meter from his brother. “This thing’s broken.” He opened the battery compartment and jiggled the batteries.
“It’s not broken, unless you break it, Dean,” Cas admonished. “I refreshed the batteries this morning, and Michael calibrated it before dinner.” He held out his hand for its return. Dean slapped it into his palm.
“That was bullshit, sir. You didn’t even do that one eyebrow thing, didn’t even break a sweat. You’ve been working with Michael,” Dean guessed.
“It’s your turn,” Cas told him.
Dean scowled. “You know,” he quipped, “I’ve already got a strong Claim on her. We have the readings on record. There’s really no point in my going again just to rub it in Cain’s face.”
Cain scoffed, still holding tightly to the handholds of the bench in the back. “Take your shot now or forfeit, Winchester,” he said. But his face clouded with doubt, and he looked to Cas. “Alpha, Dean’s previous Claims, will they help him tonight?”
Cas shook his head as he tucked in his shirt. “Only insomuch as he’s familiar with what works for Kate. His prior Claims are not cumulative. Each effort resets the connection at a new strength. I considered his history with her before I set this challenge. The truth is, Darius, if you have the power to set a stronger Claim than Dean does, you will beat him regardless of how many previous Claims he may have set.”
Cain frowned at the use of his first name, but he nodded and went back to watching.
Dean stepped up to the side of the mattress and put a hand on Kate’s foot, a warm, familial touch. “How you doing, Omega?” he asked. “Feeling shaky? Need some water?”
“Water would be nice,” she told him softly. “I feel a little like there’s flashbulbs in my head.” She took the bottle Sam handed her. “Feel hot inside, the usual. But it’s not at full power yet. Alpha’s Claim feels…different from yours.”
“Right?” said Dean. “Feels good though, doesn’t it? Safe.”
“Yeah,” she admitted with a blush and a quick glance toward Castiel, who smiled back.
Dean took her bottle after she’d downed a quarter of it. He set it on a counter and began removing his clothing. “Kate, are you up to this right now?” Dean asked her. He doffed his collared shirt and then tugged his T-shirt over his head. “How are you feeling? Are we a go? Talk to me. It’s okay to say no.”
Dean’s pants hit the floor, but he left his underwear in place until she answered.
“I’m ready, alpha. I feel good. I want to be a Pack Omega. I want to have your Claims, all of you.”
“Yeah, all right,” Dean agreed, lowering his boxer briefs. “Had to check. You shout if you need me to stop.”
“I’m not going to safeword,” she chuckled. “And I’ve got my Mating-bond wide open right now. I want that bitch to feel everything.”
Dean raised a brow in surprise. “Yeah? Can you feel her back?”
“She’s annoyed right now,” Kate told him. “She’s trying to concentrate on something, but she’s distracted already. Let’s piss her off, Dean.”
Dean laughed. “Your wish, little Ozzie. Come here. On your feet. We’re gonna do this against the wall.”
Dean could already feel how her Heat was swamping any inhibitions she might still have against him. She was in that playful, lively, game-for-anything mode that struck during a Heat when the urgency had been temporarily slaked but the fatigue hadn’t sunk her under yet. She grinned as she slid off the bed. She wanted to be fucked, and she knew Dean could deliver.
He usually contracted a professional for her Heats, but he always dropped in at least once to renew his Claim, and sometimes in the middle of the night she sought him out for the relief of a quick tumble. He treated her like a little sister—a little sister whose sexual balance was his responsibility. He liked to let her decide the tone and the depth. But he was her alpha, and that meant that sometimes he swamped her in power and command.
Kate knew Dean’s rhythm, his patterns. As Heat became an insistent thrum in her body, she craved the familiarity of his touch. She had fallen for the sparkle in his eyes, the way the corners crinkled, the way he smirked when his brat raised its head, the way his hands never dropped her. The way his knot filled more than just her body.
It was that Dean she went to as she climbed down. Alpha’s come slipped out of her. Dean held out his hand, and she took it. He directed her, back to the wall, and he leaned down for a comforting kiss. She didn’t need the comfort, but Kate would never say no to his kisses.
“Here we go, sugar.” He held her eyes. A smoky smolder replaced his concern. He held her by the waist and lifted slightly. Out of habit, she wrapped her legs around his waist. His expression grew severe, and he snarled as he speared her. Dean, too, left her channel untouched. He chose the more difficult path, inexplicably. But Kate didn’t care. She threw her head back and tightened her legs.
“Eyes, Omega! Look at me!” he snapped. There was power in his voice, and it startled Kate. She gasped and met his eyes. They were crimson. Dean grunted hard and long and fucked into her, driving her spine into the unforgiving wall. She clutched his neck. His hands grabbed her legs, one at a time and wrenched them apart, holding them at the back of each knee to open her wide and give him room to plow her.
He was hot and big and driving and unstoppable. Kate gasped at every thrust. He snarled, gritting his teeth, his eyes brutal, so hard to hold.
Without warning, he dropped her right leg and supported her lower back then wrenched her away from the wall, carried her four long paces toward the spanking bench Cain had chosen to anchor to, and laid her out on it, still buried inside her and throbbing with life and imperative. Kate’s eyes flew wide at the change of position and the intrinsic danger of an Omega in Heat between two virile alphas. But Dean’s eyes held her. He grunted, fucking her with his hips and back and strong legs. There was challenge in his eyes, in his actions.
Cain reared up, pulling back, but he maintained his grip. He growled a warning that Dean returned at a higher intensity. Dean’s red eyes left Kate’s to fix upon his challenger with open disdain.
In Kate’s nostrils, two alpha scents mingled. Her head spun. Her body pleaded. Her head, jostled with the force of Dean’s thrusts, rested on the bench only inches from Cain’s arm pit. His scent was masculine, powerful, alpha, and Kate’s Omega swam in confusion between the two of them.
“Omega!” Dean growled. “Look at me! Mine! MINE!!”
Kate’s eyes locked with his again, and she felt the Claim snap hard, stinging against her flesh and raising chill bumps all over her body. His orgasm slammed into both of them. He groaned, lips stretched tight over his teeth, breath reducing to a hiss as he sucked air and rode the glorious waves.
“Come for me,” he hissed, eyes adamant, Claim ringing, making her dizzy. She had no control over her body, and it obeyed.
“DEAN!” she wailed, overcome. Her orgasm went on and on, pulsing against his touch, reaching for him. She flew out of her body, overwhelmed, uncontained, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…
“Shhh,” he soothed, brushing her hair back. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re okay, Kate. Breathe. Breathe for me, Omega.”
Kate found her lungs and sucked in a painful gasp.
“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.” He soothed. His cock slipped loose. For all his intensity, he hadn’t knotted her, and she immediately felt the loss.
“No!”
“Shhh. Kate, sweetheart, look at me. Need you to breathe with me. Come on back.” He pressed a flat palm to her chest, between her breasts, over her lungs, and he helped her find the rhythm of breath again. Red rimmed eyes promised surety.
The flashbulbs in her head sparkled with a dizzying carbonation and a spectacle of lights. It tickled the inside of her skin.
She giggled. She lay balanced along the long axis of the spanking bench with her hair damp and her back sweaty, her legs wrapped around Dean’s waist. She grinned up at him. Cain remained rooted by her head.
“There you are,” Dean teased warmly when her eyes refocused. “That’s my girl.”
“Let’s get her on her feet again, Dean,” Sam suggested, appearing at her shoulder, ready to ease her into sitting but waiting for Dean’s approval before touching her.
“I got her,” Dean said. Matching action to words, he scooped her up. He set her gingerly on her feet and steadied her. He checked her pupils and her balance. “You good? If I let go, are you going to fall?”
She huffed at him but clung to his arms. “I’m sparking, kind of…fizzy inside.”
“That’s the effervescence of multiple Claims,” Cas told her. “Take a minute. The fizziness will fade.”
Dean guided her to sit on the side of the mattress. He squatted in front of her. “Close your eyes.”
“I’m okay, alpha,” she batted his hands away, but he cleared his throat, and she desisted. Sam appeared with two warm cloths. Dean took them and wiped Kate down with one, tipping her backward to lie down and offer him access. He inspected her, thumbing along her crevices until he was sure she was clean and undamaged. She huffed at him which earned her a swat to her outer thigh before Dean left her to clean himself.
Sam ran the meter around Dean’s body, watching the readout. “That was stupid, Dean,” he chided. “…putting another alpha’s scent in her nose. You could have undermined your own Claim, and then where would you have been?”
“Third, Sammy,” Dean laughed. “I would have been third. But I know what my Claims feel like with this girl, and I didn’t undermine anything. Did I? Show me.” Dean indicated the meter with his chin. Sam turned the meter around. It read ninety-eight. Dean chuckled. “See?”
“Well, you could’ve,” Sam grumbled.
Cain would have to pull something extravagant to beat a ninety-eight. Dean beamed at Kate, and she grinned back. Castiel’s expression turned contemplative as he reached through his bond with the Ozzie and assessed her.
“We’ll take a fifteen-minute break,” he announced. “Cain, I suggest you use that time to strategize.”
Cain scoffed. He finally let go of the bench and stood upright. “This challenge is a farce, Alpha. You knew going in what the outcome would be.”
“Take your shot now or forfeit,” Sam snarked.
“Oh, I will,” Cain snapped back. “She is Omega, I am alpha, and she needs my Claim, challenge or no. But to premise the exercise as a chance to alter the rankings in the Pack…forfeiture is the only way any of us would have changed rank. Pretending otherwise is folly.”
“Maybe,” Sam said with bald challenge in his voice.
“Thought you weren’t interested in Michael’s plan to pit us against one another. You called it stupid,” Cain prompted.
“Oh, I’m not interested in beating you. I’m just following the direction of my Pack Alpha,” Sam said decisively, but the gleam in his eye spoke otherwise. He tossed a bottle of orange juice to Kate and left the playroom to allow her her break without their sniping in her ears.
The wait was interminable in the conservatory, and the tension sat viscous, like thick mud dragging at their feet. Kali ignored it to the extent she could. Her only potential challenger was Sarah. Surely Sarah knew better than to level a challenge against a Domme Lupin. Had it still been Jess just below her, Kali guessed she wouldn’t even have answered the challenge. That is, Kali would step aside and let Jess have it. But to give way to an ape without a fight…Kali rankled at the thought.
Her wolf bristled. She tried to keep her thoughts on April and Gabriel. And Michael, whose shoulders stood tight with the unresolved tension all around. A tense Michael was a danger to everyone.
“What kind of challenge do you think Cas might set for the rest of us?” Sarah asked nervously.
Oh, for the love of… Kali rolled her eyes. “The rest of us?” she asked, looking around. “How many of us are you counting? I count three.” The stark tone made Sarah feel ridiculous. She hadn’t meant to lay it all out there so bluntly. Really, she only meant to break the awkward silence with banal chatter. Instead, she cut right to the heart of the tension.
Jess laughed. “Are you worried the Primate will Top you, beta?” Jess wasn’t usually so rude, but her wolf stood proudly out front, and it made her prickly.
“Are you?” Kali shot.
“Cookies!” Gabe blurted. “Anyone hungry? Michael, get Fred on the horn. Tell him the butter ones with icing.”
Michael stood at the entryway to the conservatory, facing the hallway with his hands clutching the woodwork over his head. “Call him yourself; I’m not your maid.” Michael’s eyes traced Dean’s path as the alpha climbed the stairs and rounded the corner into the hallway. As soon as he spied his mate, Michael dashed down the hall and wrapped himself around Dean. Sam brushed past them and headed toward the parlor, probably toward the kitchen.
“Michael, it’s fine. Relax, dude. We’re just letting Kate breathe for a sec. Her first two Claims hit fast, and they’re bubbling up enough we needed to let it chill before we hit her again.”
“You felt powerful to me, Dean,” Michael said. He searched Dean’s eyes for a signal either way. “Was it strong? Did you hit the mark you needed? Are we good?”
“We’re good, man. Get off me. Jesus, Michael, were you that worried?”
“What?” Michael realized he was practically hanging off Dean, and he scuttled back, reasserting his own backbone. “Of course not. Sorry. It’s just…it’s thick in there. I guess the tension got to me.”
“Got to you? Dude, you smell scorched. You’re the source of the tension. Put a cork in it, Omega, before you vibrate out of your skin and take the whole Pack down with you.”
“I’m fine, Dean,” Michael lied. “Just…you’re sure you pegged it hard enough?”
Dean chuckled. “I don’t do any pegging, man. But I scored a ninety-eight. Cain can’t hit the eighties on his best day. We’re good. I promise.”
“And Sam?”
“Michael, would you stop? This whole charade is a joke. No one’s changing ranks here. If anything, this is a chance for all of us to recognize that Keller scores mean exactly what they’re advertised to mean. It’s scaled that way for a reason.”
“Where’s Cas?”
“Looking after Kate.”
Michael took Dean’s arm like a Victorian lady, and he steered his mate toward the kitchen. “Come have a cookie. Take one down to Alpha. Take a breather.” They met Fred coming down the stairs with a tray of pizza boxes and used plastic plates. “Fred! We need dessert!”
“Yes, Michael. I have already passed Gabriel’s request on to Anthony. We will deliver your repast as soon as it is prepared. Would you care to await us in the parlor, where your Alpha requested you remain?” Fred swept past them, assured they would take his suggestion as a command. Gabe scuttled by, still nude, and Kali followed more slowly with April’s hand in hers. Michael touched April’s cheek as she went by and shared an affectionate look that didn’t linger.
Dean snapped his fingers sharply in Michael’s face, and Michael startled. “What’s going on?” Dean asked. “Why are you so freaked? You had to know I wasn’t in any danger of losing my rank. Right? Michael? Do you have that little faith in me?”
“No! Nothing like that. I swear.” Michael looked chagrined.
“Okaay?” Dean led his mate. “But?”
Michael shook his head. He watched Cain emerge into the foyer, shoot a dark look toward the Omega and leave them there.
“Michael?”
“He deserves to be knocked down a peg, Dean.” Michael’s eyes followed Cain’s back. They burned with a fierce light. “I didn’t mean to get you swept up in it too. You were supposed to be exempt.”
Dean sighed. “That’s ridiculous. You set this whole thing up to try to goad Sam into kicking Cain’s ass. But, seriously, man, Sam doesn’t have the juice, not in a challenge like this. We’re not doing anything down there but reinforcing the way things already stand. Alphas sit on top for a reason. I don’t care how dominant Sam is. He can’t beat Cain in a Claim battle.”
Michael tucked in close and lowered his chin, speaking at a hoarse whisper. “Okay, but you know the keys to trigger Cain’s wolf. You’ve sparred with it before. What if you…you know…tease his wolf forward a little so he’s not working solely from his alpha? Sam’s wolf versus Cain’s wolf is no contest. Right?”
Dean shot him a deadpan expression, raised his finger in admonishment, stepped away, and said, “That’s ten, Omega. I’m not going to cheat, and neither are you. When this is all over, I’m going to spank you. Do not interfere with this challenge. Kate’s stability is at stake. And your integrity means more than that. Damn, Michael.”
Michael sighed and slumped. “I didn’t mean cheat, exactly.”
But Dean wasn’t having it. “You meant precisely what you said. Go upstairs and help Charlie. You don’t get to participate in the rest of tonight’s events. You’re grounded to the upper floor.”
“Dean…” Michael whined.
Dean simply pointed, and Michael had no choice but to obey. Dean’s jaw twitched with anger, clenched. He didn’t meet Michael’s eye.
“What was that all about?” Sarah asked, trailed by Jess. They seemed to have found themselves alone together in the conservatory and to have realized they weren’t the best company tonight.
“Nothing.” Dean caught a whiff of the stiff, ugly friction developing between the women, and he softened. “Hey, both of you. Come here. Listen, whatever the Alpha is going to set as a challenge, it’s not going to be something you struggle to do. You know? Sarah, he’s not going to make it sexual. And Jess, sweetheart, it’s not going to be something only a Domme can accomplish. He’s going to make it appropriate for who the two of you are. That’s assuming there’s a challenge at all.” He focused on Jess. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?”
Her eyes flattened and she lifted her chin. “I may be a Sub, Dean, but I’m still a wolf. I have to try or how do I look myself in the eye ever again? How do I look my mate in the eye?”
“And you?” Dean turned toward Sarah, who squeaked and startled back.
“I…” she stammered. “Alpha ranked me where he did for a reason. I’m not crazy enough to challenge Kali, but I owe it to Cas to stand my ground. I may not be a wolf, but I’ve got as much pride as she does. I’m not forfeiting unless he asks something of me that I can’t give. I mean, if it is something sexual, that would be hard for me…but not…impossible. I have to try.”
Jess gaped at Sarah, and Dean realized he wasn’t faring any better. He licked his lips and cleared his throat. “Well…be that as it may…Cas isn’t going to make it sexual. You know him better than that. Come on.” He guided them toward the parlor.
“Dean,” Cas called from the back hall. “Gather the others. Kate’s ready.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Dean stuck his head around the parlor doorway and whistled sharply. Sam emerged from the kitchen, chewing something and wiping his hands on a napkin that he handed to Jess. She stopped him, whispered into his ear, straightened his shirt, and kissed his lips before stepping aside to let him proceed.
Cain stood alone by the fireplace, staring at the portraits on the mantle. Every Pack member had a framed photo, all of them crammed tightly as new pups and new members vied for position. As of three days ago, Kate’s portrait had joined the others. Cain seemed to be contemplating it. At Dean’s summons, he strolled toward the foyer without addressing anyone.
“Good luck, alpha!” April called from the kitchen. Cain paused in his stride and met Dean’s eye. Dean shrugged. With a quick wave, Cain acknowledged his charge’s blessing. Clearly, he hadn’t expected to have a cheering section. Dean let Cain pass him before he shot a thankful look and a nod toward April, meeting her eyes.
Back in the playroom, circling up, Castiel directed Cain to proceed without fanfare. The alpha stepped up toward the wide bed. Kate stretched across to hand Dean her empty bottle, and then she set her attention on her newest partner. Cain stood imperiously above her, looking down on her with shoulders ramrod straight and chiseled jaw set. Between one blink and the next, his eyes flipped.
“Dean,” Cas whispered. “Step back and give him space but be ready.”
Dean nodded and moved toward the back wall. His view was impaired from here, but he could still smell them. He would know the instant a distressed scent hit the air, and from here, he had better access to tools that might be useful in disengaging a feral alpha. Too, from here, he was less visible to Cain, an acknowledgement that Cain would do better without Dean all up in his space. Dean wasn’t sure what was driving him to pull out all the stops to give Cain his best shot. He didn’t examine the impulses. But he believed in acting on instinct when his Secondary and Tertiary nudged him.
Dean let Cas serve as spotter. Sam chose to anchor himself to the St. Andrew’s cross. He set his back to it and held the handles just above his shoulders, relaxed but removed from the action.
Undressed now, Cain pulled the Ozzie toward him by the back of her head until she faced him on her hands and knees. He fed his cock into her mouth. She choked almost immediately, but he growled and shoved in deeper. Kate dropped to her elbows, closed her eyes, and put her limited Sub training into action. She opened her throat, drooling as he thumped the back of her throat with the head of his dick again and again. She found a grip with her hand as his fingers reached across her back to bury themselves in her channel.
Her Heat rising once more, Kate found the harmonic she needed, and she forgot anyone else was in the room. She slobbered and smacked, swallowed around his girth, licked along his length, and all the while, he dredged slick from between her cheeks and pummeled her hole with his long, bulky fingers.
Kate whimpered, redoubling her efforts. His fingers stimulated all that needed attention, but they didn’t soothe. They couldn’t stem the rising fever. She rocked back against him, spit-roasted between his cock and his fingers, and she couldn’t decide which was more unhelpful to her in her need. The cock, certainly, she needed. But not down her throat. She needed them reversed. She needed to feel impaled on his knot while his fingers tightened on her throat. She sobbed. The fires stoked at her core. She couldn’t hear anything but the rush of blood in her ears. She had no idea she was vocalizing in meaningless warbles around the tears that joined the spit on her chin.
Cain used his free hand to catch her hips and spin her to face the wrought iron headboard. He followed behind her, mounting the mattress on his feet. He squared up behind her, leaned forward to take hold of the headboard, and pressed deep into her channel. Kate, for her part, lowered her chest to the bed and tucked her face into the plush pillows, raising her hips. Cain had to employ strong thighs to keep his position functional, but he rocked into her viciously, snarling over the headboard at Dean. Square at Dean.
Dean raised his brows, crossed his arms over his chest, and set his feet. He glared right back. But where Cain’s irises were pure alpha, Dean’s stayed green, flecked with an amber gold and a steadfast petulance that spoke not of alpha, but of brat. Cain’s grip on the headboard turned his knuckles white. His hips tucked under and drove upward and deep into the Ozzie’s core. She had to splay her palms flat on the scrollwork above her head to keep from being driven right through it. Cain’s nostrils flared with his challenge, aimed straight through the Omega, arrow-straight to Dean. Could Cain aim a fist or two at Dean’s jaw from this position, his expression indicated he would’ve done it.
That, and more.
“You can’t siphon it out of me,” Dean told him with a sneer. “It’s either yours, or it’s not.”
Cain roared at the jibe, squeezed his eyes closed, transferred both hands to Kate’s hips, and drove his knot in to lodge as he fell onto his knees behind her. He curled down over her, hunkering like a beast defending prey, and his Claim burst across the room like fireworks going off in a crowd. Dean’s eyes shot wide. He nearly ducked as the percussive report echoed in his mind.
Whoa.
Cas approached slowly, letting Cain catch his breath. “Be easy, alpha,” he soothed as he laid a hand on Cain’s shoulder. “Ease up a little. Let her breathe. You did well. It’s a good Claim. We can expect it to last for months, maybe a full year.”
Cain panted above her. His back heaved as he gulped air. Dean found himself walking closer too, taking one slow step at a time, scenting the air for rankled, defensive alpha, but Cain didn’t bristle at his approach. As Dean came close enough to peer over the headboard, Cain released his jaw, leaving a bright pink circle of teeth marks on Kate’s right shoulder, directly over her Mating-scar.
Dean whistled lowly. “That’s one way to turn up the volume, dude. Kate, are you in there? You okay?”
Kate stirred beneath the alpha. Her head untucked, and her shoulders rolled. A sleepy smile graced her sweaty face. “Mm-hm,” she murmured.
Dean nodded with an ironic expression. “Yeah, I’ll bet you are.” He transferred his attention to Cain as Cas helped the man sit up. “What about you? Everything cool? No pulled muscles?”
Cain scoffed and let Cas mop his face with a warm cloth. “I’m fine.”
“Dean,” Sam called from across the room, “the meter’s on the counter behind you.”
“Yep,” Dean agreed, skipping backward to fetch it. But when he approached Cain, eyes already on the readout, the knotted alpha growled. “Whatever, man,” Dean chided. “Don’t get skittish on me. It won’t change anything now.” But he handed the Peliomometer to Cas, who took the reading.
“It’s not like I could cheat on the reading or anything,” Dean grumbled. “Here, guys, roll. Get comfortable. You may stay tied for a while.” He helped them situate and then circled back with a choice of snacks and more water. Cain insisted Kate eat and drink at least a little, but he refused anything for himself.
Cas pocketed the meter and retreated to where his phone lay on the counter. He picked it up, presumably to text his mate. Or Michael.
“Well?”
“The rankings stay as they are for now,” Cas said without looking up. “Although Sam still deserves a chance.”
“Seriously, Cas. What was the number?” Dean advanced on him and took up the meter to see for himself.
“Ninety-four?! Are you kidding me?” Dean was in shock.
Cas leaned back into the counter and crossed one ankle over the other, totally at ease. “His alpha is an eighteen, Dean. And you played games with your attempt, trying to tease him a win he shouldn’t have access to, maybe trying psyche him out. I really don’t know what your game was, nor do I care. The truth is, Cain’s got more juice than you gave him credit for, and you nearly blew it so you could showboat. If we ever do this again, I suggest you cage your brat and pay attention to the job at hand.”
Cain snickered at him, and Dean shot him a death glare.
“I still won,” Dean grumbled. “And you had to pull up into your dislike of me to get you even close.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Cain laughed back.
“Asshole,” Dean griped. He walked out, hit the stairs, and found Michael on the floor in the TV room, covered in pups, watching Brave.
“Daddy!” they chorused. “Uncle Dean!”
“Hey, Munchkins. Shh, pay attention. Merida is about to see the will-o-the-wisp. Look.” He directed them back to the screen, and they followed his finger and fell back into slack-jawed stupor.
“Well?” Charlie asked from the couch, beating Michael to it.
“Still the queen of the hill,” Dean declared with his arms wide and a graceful curtsy.
“That’s sexist,” Charlie protested. “Why do you assume the queen has to be second in power?”
Dean leaned over her and whispered, “Because she’s not Cas.”
Charlie laughed and smacked him.
“What are you doing up here with us?” Michael asked quietly. “Shouldn’t you stay for Sam?”
“Cain knotted,” Dean told him, taking a spot on the couch by Charlie and helping himself to her popcorn. “We’re waiting on him to untie.”
Michael shrugged off the blanket of small bodies draped over him and turned on his butt to face Dean. “How wide was the margin?” he asked. “I hope you wiped the floor with him.”
“I mean…” Dean mumbled.
Michael’s eyes flipped golden. “How close?”
“He tied, man. A knot always gives a Claim more oomph.”
“How close, Dean?”
“Plus, I hate to say it, but I kind of grandstanded just a little, tried to psych him out with a little…”
“How. Close?”
Dean studied the popcorn kernel in his fingers. “Four points.”
“What?!”
“Shhh!” Kat chided. “It’s the magic lady!”
“Hey,” Dean diverted. “Did you coach Alpha on laying Claims without aggression? He did something with Kate that looked a lot like what you do.”
Michael scowled, a promise that he wasn’t finished talking about this yet, but he let Dean change the subject. “He already had the rudiments in place. I just showed him that it’s possible. He had it after a couple of practice rounds. He’d never thought to try, that’s all. He only needed to believe he didn’t need the feather to fly. He had it in him all along.”
Dean let the joking pass. He narrowed his eyes at his mate.
“Who did he practice on?”
“On his mate, who do you think?” Michael replied.
Dean held his eye a little longer. “Not on you? Not even once?”
Michael was hurt, and he sent his injury straight through his bond. “Without you in the room? Dean, we’ve never. Neither of us would do that.”
“Right,” Dean huffed. “Right. Sorry. Cain’s got me on edge. Right. You coached him and helped him practice on April. That makes sense.”
“Shhh!” Kat turned and scowled at them both.
“Sorry, Kitty-Kat,” Dean said. “Daddy will be quieter.”
“It’s her favorite movie,” Charlie observed.
“We know,” both Winchesters said with identical long-suffering eyerolls.
“Hey,” Dean nudged her foot with his. “Thanks for dropping everything on a weeknight for our little ritual. You’re their favorite babysitter.”
“No prob, Dean. I’d rather be here with this crowd than just about anywhere else.” Something in Charlie’s voice perked Dean’s ears up.
“Something going on at home, Chuck?” he asked. Softly. With an eye on his daughter.
“At home?” she asked airily. “No. Not at home.”
“At Dorothy’s home?” he guessed. “Trouble in un-Mated paradise?”
Charlie’s eyes grew wide, and then she fixed them on the screen, affecting deep interest in the tale unfolding before them.
“Charlie?” Michael prodded.
Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she set the popcorn on the end table and turned her whole body to face Dean.
“It’s this waiting on a True-Mate Trigger. It’s got me so antsy, I’m going crazy. I feel like it’s right around every corner. It’s this doom hovering over my head. Dudes, I’m on anti-anxiety meds and seeing a shrink over this.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Michael asked.
Charlie didn’t answer him. “Dorothy thinks we should just find burners and get it over with. She wants to find a gay couple, our mirror-image, so to speak, and pair up, Mate with them, maybe do it all together in one sticky pile, make a whole not-Mating each other ritual out of it, and then put the work in to turn the Mating-bonds into just a nuisance instead of a connection. Maybe it’s crazy, but she’s beginning to make sense to me.”
“What?” Michael spat. “No, she’s not!” He grabbed the remote and paused the movie. “Kat, Alex, y’all go grab a board game off the shelf and start setting it up. I’ll be there in a sec. No fighting. It’s Hank’s turn to pick.”
“O-Pop!” Kat whined. But he fixed her with that look, and she took Hank’s hand and tugged him to the opposite side of the room.
“Maybe this is a stupid idea, Charlie,” Michael started, “but the best way to keep either of you from Mating against your will is to Mate each other. I mean if we’re brainstorming crazy ideas.”
“No!” Charlie stated. “Just…no. That’s not on the table.”
“But letting some guy you don’t know bite your shoulder and leave a permanent scar IS on the table?” Dean challenged. “Kid, you’ve seen what an unwanted Mating-bond did to Kate…”
“Yes, and she’s fine now!”
“The hell she is!” Dean retorted. “It’s like climbing a fucking mountain every morning before Kate ever gets out of bed. She wakes up already exhausted. And then she has to fight for every step, every foot of elevation she overcomes all day long, with lead weights dragging at her heels. She does it because she doesn’t have a choice! Anyone who does it on purpose, who puts themself and someone they love through that bullshit on purpose is delusional! Don’t you dare, Charlie! Don’t you fucking dare!”
“All right! Jeez! It was just an idea.”
“It’s a shitty idea. And it’ll tear you and Dorothy apart in weeks. Days, maybe. And then you’ll be bonded to a stranger who can’t give you what you need, and you’ll be fucked…or…not fucked, for the rest of your life.”
“Easy, alpha,” Michael said. He watched Charlie’s liquid eyes fill with angry tears.
Eventually, she squeezed Michael’s proffered hand and faced Dean again. “Dorothy joined Uriel’s Pack because she thought she was feeling unsettled over being a lone wolf. He doesn’t put the same kind of store in all the trappings of Pack as most of the Alphas around these parts do. He lets her do her own thing. But nothing changed. She says she still feels like there’s ants crawling in her blood. And I feel the same way. Like there’s a mate on the horizon moving closer every day. It’s just a matter of time.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so dead-set against biting each other,” Michael whispered, one ear on his pups’ burgeoning argument.
“Because we shouldn’t have to!” Charlie hissed. “I don’t want a mate. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to Mate the burner any more than I want to Mate Dorothy, but at least that way, the Trigger dies, and I can get on with not being Mated to the woman I love!”
“Jesus, Charlie,” Michael said in dismay, “being Mated, it’s…it’s incredible.”
Dean said, “Michael…”
And Charlie shouted, “For YOU! Not for ME! I’m not you, Michael! Goddamnit!!”
“Oooh, Charlie, not supposed to say that word,” Jimmy observed. Dean glanced across. All six pups were staring in awe. He sighed and stood up.
“All right. Good point. Let’s see about this game. What are you playing?”
“Mousetrap!” Emma told him excitedly. She took his pointer finger and dragged him across.
“Wonderful,” Dean groaned. It was his least favorite of their board games.
“Go on back downstairs, Dean,” Michael told him. “Cain will be loose any time now, and Sam will need you. I’ve got this.”
“Be easy with her, Michael. She’s in a pickle. There’s not a simple solution,” Dean advised his mate.
“I know,” Michael admitted. “I’m just mad at the Universe, I guess. I want her to have what we have. I want that for everyone. …except Cain.”
“Asshole,” Dean said softly with affection. He kissed Michael.
“Papa said baby-seeds only go into the mommy parts from sex, not kissing,” Kat told Dean with a tug on his hand.
Dean looked down. “Well, Papa’s usually right about those kinds of things. And he would know. He certainly has a lock on where to put baby-seeds.” Dean winked at Michael, squeezed his hand, and then patted Charlie’s knee on his way by.
She smiled sadly at him. How had he not noticed sooner that she was stricken and struggling?
“We’ll figure it out, Red,” he promised. “Trust me.”
“Thanks, Dean,” she told him.
“No burners though. Promise.” He pointed at her from the doorway and waited for her nod before he pulled the door closed.
Sam didn’t try any fancy tricks. His wolf shouldered into it the way he always did, with brute force and raw aggression. Of the four of them, Sam was the only one who truly required a spotter. He had very few limits when his leash was off. He liked to overwhelm his prey, to set it reeling. He liked to toy with his conquests.
He tackled Kate half off the mattress, wrapped an arm around her throat and heaved backward, arching her spine clear off the bed while her feet struggled to find the floor. He hissed into her ear, threats, promises, warnings. Her face turned red with the crook of Sam’s elbow restricting her air. She clawed at his arm.
“Don’t fight, Submissive,” he suggested helpfully. “Let go. Hands at your back. Cross your wrists.” His voice was an emotionless metronome, but Kate couldn’t bring herself to submit. Sam, she knew. But his wolf was another story. There was a brutal wildness about the Tertiary playing with her like she was a plastic ring between a cat’s claws, and she fought.
Dean stayed close. She was distressed, clearly, but she wasn’t in danger, and Cas had already warned her how things were likely to go with Sam. He’d told her to expect it to feel dicey. He’d told her he wouldn’t allow Sam to harm her.
Sam’s hand crashed down onto her flank.
She yelped.
“Hands. Behind. Your. Back.”
She let go of his arm and crossed her wrists at the small of her back, but her eyes were still wild. Cain glanced from Cas to Dean and back again, wondering if either of them were going to apply any brakes.
“There you go,” purred Sam’s wolf. “Good girl.” His grip across her throat eased. “On your knees.”
Panting, Kate dropped. Her enormous eyes stared up at him. Her body quivered all over.
“You look good enough to eat,” he told her. He walked a tight circle around her, looking at his prize from every angle. Her eyes tracked him. Coming around front, he slipped four fingers deep into her mouth, flattening her tongue, gagging her. He stretched her jaw wide. Then he pinched her nose closed and angled her face back, straining her neck. He let a thick dollop of spit drop straight down her throat from high above.
His snarl curled his lip. His eyes flashed a warning.
“Swallow it,” he commanded without taking his fingers out of her mouth. Awkwardly, her head still back at a miserable angle and her tongue still crushed by strong fingers, she managed an open-mouthed swallow that gurgled.
“Good girl,” he crooned rudely, jeering at her. Laughing. He released her nose and squatted before her. “What shall we do together, huh? Should I make you lick my asshole? Would you like that? I’ll bet you would. I bet you’re filthy, aren’t you? Bet you like it dirty and humiliating.”
Kate broke her eyes free, finding the floor outside his wide knees, and he slapped her.
Cain took two strides forward, but Cas stopped him with a wordless palm out.
A bright red handprint blossomed on her cheek. Sam gripped her jaw by curling the fingers still in her mouth, and he shook her head slowly to and fro. “Keep your eyes right here, Submissive. Right here. He pointed at his own eyes, and she nodded to the extent that she could, mumbling a stifled, Yessir.
“This is a scene, Alpha,” Cain hissed. “Not a Claim. She didn’t consent to this.”
“Noted, alpha,” Cas replied calmly. “And overruled.”
“Dean!” Cain tried.
Dean huffed. “She’s been prepped for Sam’s wolf, Cain,” he said without breaking into Sam’s headspace. “You don’t have to watch.” Dean circled around, keeping a couple of wide yards away, never taking his eyes off the pair. Dean’s wolf stood just within the shade of the treeline in his mind, hungry for the tone of Sam’s reprimand, if not the sex it promised. He licked his lips, shot a glance at his husband, met Castiel’s eye briefly, and then went back to watching. Cain frowned in worry, but he kept himself equidistant between Cas and Dean, and he stayed.
Sam smirked. He used strong legs to stand slowly and straddled Kate’s legs with his feet. He still wore his jeans, but his zipper was down, and they rode low on his hips. A dense thatch of coarse hair showed at the V of his zipper. He rubbed it along Kate’s cheekbone as he gyrated in her face, shifting her face this way and that.
“Or would you rather blow me? Maybe both? Let’s find out what you like, Submissive.” He smeared his wet fingers across the bridge of her nose. “Keep your hands where they are and get my pants off. Let’s see you get creative.” Sam rotated his hips in front of her face. Kate bit her lower lip, rocked slightly on her knees, and then seemed to decide. She leaned forward, took the loose waistband of his jeans in her teeth, and worried it back and forth until she had his jeans at his knees. A glance up into his face showed her he wanted them all the way off. She widened her knees and leaned way over until she could grasp one outer seam in her teeth, balancing to keep her hands at her lower back, and she tugged downward.
She lost her balance and toppled onto her shoulder, ending up on her side. But her hands stayed fastened at her back. Sam shook his head in disappointment. He leaned low, braced himself with a hand on her hip, and he spanked her until she cried out and kicked back, rolling onto her tummy.
Her hands stayed. Her grip on her wrist was locked tight enough to turn both hands white.
Sam kicked his jeans off, hauled her up with a grip beneath each arm pit that threatened to wrench her wrist from her grip, and set her back on her knees.
“Not bad for a first try,” he praised, even as his handprints scorched her outer thigh. “Knees wide,” he instructed. He nudged them with his foot until her hips protested.
Kate sobbed. “Please.”
He slapped her again, deepening the blush on her cheek. “Shh. No talking.” His eyes said he was disappointed again.
“You want something from me?” he teased. A thumb traced the outline of his hand along her cheek and jaw. “Want my Claim in here?” He touched her sternum. “Or in here?” he knelt and wiggled his index finger into her navel. “Or in here?” he asked, sinking a thick finger up her cunt.
“Want me to fuck you, Submissive? All those alphas and you’re still not satisfied? It’s because you’re not hungry for alpha. Shh, don’t tell them. It can stay between us. You and me. You don’t want to be coddled, do you? Are you as filthy as I think you are? Nod for me.”
She nodded at once, desperate eyes locked onto his.
“Ahhhh, there she is. I knew you were in there.” He grinned a Cheshire smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Pretty little bitch like you. You’ve been in this house all this time, and my brother kept you all to himself? He doesn’t even like the taste of snatch. What a waste. We’ll have to fix that, won’t we? My mate wants to sample a wider selection. I think you might just be perfect for that. What do you think?”
Dean sighed. “Dude, would you move it along, please? My feet are falling asleep.”
Sam stood up smoothly, gracefully reached Dean before the alpha could react, took him by the upper arm, continued walking until Dean tripped and folded across a spanking bench, and then unleashed a spate of hard swats that curled Dean’s toes.
“OW! OW! OW!” Dean cried uselessly.
Sam left him there and went back to the Ozzie waiting for him on her knees. He picked her up and threw her on the mattress as Dean wiped his brow with a swipe of his arm and pushed himself up. Kate bounced.
“Ass up,” Sam instructed, carrying the energy he’d just used to stifle his brother into his play with Kate. She scrambled to roll over. Sam struck her ass dead-center, ten or twelve times fast, far harder than he had Dean. He tangled his fingers into her hair and wrenched her head back. She squealed, trying to maintain her grip at her lower back, trying not to let her imbalance force her to piss him off again. She hung from his fist in her hair, precarious on her knees, working hard to raise her hips and present her ass with her chest dangling the way it was. She widened her knees. That helped. She arched her back and raised her hips.
“Good little bitch,” Sam purred.
He descended upon her, letting his weight fall, letting his hand crash to the mattress over her head without letting go of her hair, and he fished around with fist and cock until he found her channel.
After that, events followed a predictable trajectory. He fucked. She panted. He came. He set her a Claim that felt like running through a clothes-wringer, and he dismounted, leaving her aching and breathless.
Kate slumped onto her side then to her back. It took her a moment to realize the position was uncomfortable because she still had a death-grip on her wrist. She flexed her fingers and then peeled them loose one-by-one.
Sam returned. He took to one knee on the bed beside her, a cloth in his hand and a look of concern on his face. He watched her for a moment, reading her eyes, testing through his new bond, and then he smiled and touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I don’t think it’s going to bruise,” he remarked softly.
Kate touched his fingers, pressing them into her reddened cheek slightly. “Next time, maybe,” she told him. She rolled her head and kissed his knuckles.
Sam laughed. “Maybe. We’ll see. That’s a topic for another day.”
Kate nodded and took a deep breath. She sought Cas and found him near the back of the room, gathering empty bottles and a plastic bag of soiled washcloths. “Alpha, may I sleep now? I’m tired.”
Cas handed his burdens to Cain while Dean ran the meter around his brother’s naked body. “Of course, Omega. You should be able to sleep through the night. You’ll awake in the morning in the full throes of Heat, but you won’t be alone. Are you still comfortable with alpha Cain? It’s okay to change your mind.”
She glanced behind Cas where Cain juggled bottles, lost them, and sent them skittering every direction. She laughed. “Yes, Sir. Alpha Cain is fine.”
Cas smiled down at her. Sam nudged her into rolling so he could clean her thoroughly.
“I’m proud of you,” Cas told her. “You were a real trooper. That was an ordeal. But it’s done now. We won’t put you through that again. I promise. Get some rest.”
“Let’s get a shower first,” Sam decided, scooping her up, giving up on trying to wipe her off. “I’ll put her to bed in the H/R room, Alpha. Go ahead with the next phase without me. Jess doesn’t need me getting into her way.”
“Thank you, Sam,” Cas agreed. “Don’t worry. I have something simple in mind. Jess will be fine with or without you.” Cas turned his attention to Dean. “What’s the reading?”
“Eighty-one,” Dean read from the meter before shutting it off.
“Oh,” Cas said, surprised. “That’s excellent for a beta. Nicely done, Sam.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And you,” Cas held the door for Cain and his armful, but he pointed at Dean.
“Me?” Dean asked.
“You can’t keep your brat from nosing in on someone else’s scene for five minutes,” Cas accused. “Go upstairs to the Master. Get naked. Bend over the end of the bed and wait for me.”
“What?! And miss the rest of challenges?”
“Don’t think I missed your wolf drooling for a taste of Sam’s hand. I won’t have that kind of impertinence during an event of these stakes. March!”
“Impertinence? He’s lower rank than me!”
“One.”
“But, Sir, I’ve got Michael on the hook tonight for unsportsmanlike behavior. I can’t follow up with him if I’m waiting for you.”
Cas let the door close on Sam and Kate inside the playroom, and he frowned at Dean in the hall. “What kind of unsportsmanlike behavior?”
“Um,” Dean licked his lips. “I’m not going to tell you that.”
Cas’ eyes bored into Dean’s. “I see.”
“Sir, please. Nothing happened. He didn’t do it. He just suggested it.”
“Two,” said Castiel.
Dean swallowed, lowered his eyes, and scuttled for the stairs.
“Ladies,” Cas proclaimed once he had them gathered. “It’s getting late. Let’s wrap this up.”
“Don’t we need the boys?” Sarah asked. She was pale.
“Boys?” Cas asked, raising a brow.
Sarah looked around. “Sam, Michael. Dean. Shouldn’t we wait for them?”
“Sam may join us shortly,” he told her. “He is putting Kate to bed. Michael and Dean are both on short leashes this evening. Neither of them managed to stay on my good side long enough to enjoy the final segment of tonight’s events.”
“Oh,” Sarah said, blushing a deep crimson. She put her thumbnail in her mouth and gnawed it nervously.
Castiel cleared his throat, and Sarah dropped her hand immediately, blushing impossibly deeper.
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “Challenges proceed from the top down. Sam was the most recent, and he failed. Kali, do you wish to challenge Sam?”
Kali snorted inelegantly.
Cas simply waited.
“No, Alpha,” she said when it was clear her nonverbal commentary wasn’t sufficient.
“Very well. Sarah, do you wish to challenge Kali?”
Sarah’s deer-in-the-headlights eyes made Gabe laugh. Cas sent him a quelling look, and he stopped.
“No, Sir,” Sarah managed weakly with a glance at Kali.
“All right.” Cas turned to Jess, and before he even opened his mouth…
“I sure do,” Jess nearly shouted. “I mean…Yes, Alpha. I challenge Sarah.”
He smacked his lips. “All right. Sarah, do you accept the challenge or forfeit?”
Sarah blanched. She had to have known it was coming. But to confront it was another thing entirely. She stammered for a moment before eking out an uncomfortable, “Accept, Alpha.”
“Good. Here’s the challenge. Are you both listening?”
Jess looked at Sarah, who only looked at Cas, although she could clearly feel the weight of Jess’ eyes on her. “Yes, Sir.”
Cas began. “Dominance in Lupins takes many forms, some of them sexual and many of them not. We will test each of you tonight against a uniquely Lupin form of Dominance that is in no way sexual but is very much an aspect of personal Tertiary power, as that is exactly how ranks are determined. Are you with me so far?”
“Sir, I don’t have a Tertiary,” Sarah said awkwardly. She knew that wasn’t news to him, but she wasn’t sure how she fit with his plan.
“No,” he replied. “But if you would maintain your ranking, offered based upon the supposition that a Primate is a natural Neutral, you must prove it. You do not require a wolf to complete this challenge.”
Sarah nodded, still very nervous.
Her nerves made her miss the hint of humor at the corners of his eyes, but Jess caught it, and she frowned.
“Your task is to corral three pups each and put them to bed.”
“What?!” Jess shouted.
“Not your own, naturally,” he interjected.
“Sir?” Sarah asked, puzzled.
“It may sound simple,” Cas went on. “And it is. But the skill of managing the behavior of small children is handled almost exclusively by the Lupin Tertiary. As a general rule, the more Dominant a wolf’s Tertiary, the more easily they manage children. This is a competition that will test your ease with that particular skill set. Were you both Lupin, the higher-rated Tertiary would win easily. I will judge the winner not by she who first eases her three pups fully to sleep, but by whomever is first to leave her prescribed nursery first and have no pups cry out or follow her. Baby monitors will be employed to ensure neither of you alert your charges to the nature of the challenge nor bribe them into compliance.”
Sarah’s mouth fell slack. “Alpha, you struggle with the pups more than April does.”
He nodded with a self-effacing shrug. “That may be true. But I do not allow my wolf to interact directly with my pups. My dynamic is unusual.”
Jess’ brow knit tightly. “Who gets Kat?” she blurted, stealing a glance a Sarah.
“You do,” Cas answered. “You have the advantage of being a mother already. Sarah, you’ll have JT, Hank, and Jimmy. Watch out for Jimmy; he flirts as a means of buying extra time. Jess, you get Kat, Alex, and Emma. As you already know, I’m sure, putting Kat and Alex together is your best bet.”
Sarah scoffed. “Unfair! You’re going to put Alex and Kat on the same team?”
“I’m also putting JT and Hank on the same team,” he reminded her. “Would you like to split them up? You may trade JT for Kat if you like.”
“No, sir,” she said immediately.
“Very well. Any questions?”
“Any means we choose?” Sarah asked.
“Any that are safe and age-appropriate.”
“I’m in,” Sarah said with a what-the-hell shrug.
Jess snorted a rude laugh. “Absolutely. Bring it!”
“This way,” Cas announced, and, turning on his heel, he left the parlor, leaving both women to scurry after him.
Kali passed them on the stairs. “Castiel, Jess is a mother of twins!” He ignored her. “This isn’t a fair challenge. I protest!”
“It’s not your place to protest,” he told her calmly, taking the stairs two at a time. “If both contestants agree—and they have—then the challenge proceeds.”
Kali fell back. Everyone else overtook her. Gabe grabbed her hand as he headed upward and tugged her back into motion. “This is absurd,” she grumbled. “Whoever heard of anything this ridiculous. He’s using you both to get his pups to sleep. Everyone knows Omegas are better with pups than Dominants!”
Jess shrugged, and Sarah simply looked over her shoulder and then followed him around the corner and down the hall.
In the end, Kat proved Jess’ undoing. She thought she had it in the bag when she slipped into the hallway after a mere twenty minutes of rubbing backs and soft songs, but Castiel’s requisite five-minute wait saw a sleepy Kat drag her blanket into the hallway where only Jess waited in full view to scoop her up and try again.
Sarah was sure that after a miserable hour and forty minutes, she had lost by a mile. But Gabe started his stopwatch at her appearance, waved to her that the game was still active, and began to cheer silently as the clock counted down. As it cycled to zero, she had to hurriedly hush him when he almost whooped a celebratory cheer right there in the hall. They both giggled uncontrollably, shushing each other and scrambling down the hall to alert those waiting by the staircase.
Jess emerged ten minutes later, saw Sarah, and wilted.
“This is bullshit,” she grumbled. “Kat should be drugged at bedtime.”
Everyone waited by the staircase landing, hunkered along the wall on the floor or the lone bench. They chuckled, stretched, hauled each other to their feet, and began to make their way to bed. Dean was there, although he grimaced as he walked. Kate and Michael were the only ones missing—Kate fast asleep on the ground floor, and Michael off shielding a young man’s delicate psyche from further violence until he was strong enough to face his own demons.
Jess shrugged at the outcome and offered Sarah a cursory hug.
Sam pointed Charlie toward an empty bedroom, and Sarah accepted their congratulations, picking her way toward the hall that ran the long axis of the house, letting Cain drape an arm across her shoulders and kiss her cheek.
“Sarah, a moment, if you would?” Cas’ voice pulled her to a stop. “I won’t keep you. I know you’re tired.”
Sarah waved Cain to go on without her. She joined Cas in the gallery, dark now except for moonlight through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Cas stood observing a portrait of his grandmother in the moonlight. He turned to her.
“Congratulations. I know you believe that challenge to be a pale facsimile of a true Lupin contest, but it wasn’t. Under the same conditions, Michael or Sam would both have completed the task in less than thirty minutes, no matter which children they drew.”
She scoffed. “So you say. But it takes you longer to put Kat to bed even than it took Jess.”
Cas smiled ruefully and nodded. “Yes, well, Kathleen and I have…let’s just say…a complicated relationship developing. I want to assure you, Sarah, this contest was both fair and appropriate to the question of Pack rank.”
“It’s fine, Alpha. I’m just happy not to have made a fool of myself.”
Cas smiled and gestured toward the portrait. “My father’s mother. I never knew her. Gabe did. He has fond memories. She was a powerful and a very kind woman.”
“Perhaps you favor her, Alpha.”
“Mm. I like to hope so.”
“Sir?” Sarah didn’t know how to prod him to get to the point. He stood gazing at the painting for several more moments.
Finally, he sucked in a deep breath, let it out, and then said, “Beta, it’s time we face the incontrovertible evidence that regardless of the outcome of tonight’s contest, you are a Submissive, if not a type we have experience managing, and it’s time we make allowances for that.”
“Castiel?”
“I’m certain you’ve noticed.”
“I…don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean,” he said, turning to face her, “that our commitment to keep all Pack dynamics chaste for you is clearly ill-advised, especially now that you are nursing a broken heart. You are a Submissive, Sarah, and it’s time we act upon that.”
“You mean…?”
“Sexually, yes.”
She stared at him. “You want to put me in the training classes?”
“No. I want to care for you at home. Specifically, I want our Pack Dominants to care for you at home. We can train you right here. Be assured, nothing will ever be done to you without your consent—the explicit and enthusiastic kind.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” he challenged.
“Don’t you need a Keller test for that?” Her voice shook.
“Not necessarily,” he replied. “But if it would make you feel better, I can hire a contract panel and mimic the test here. I cannot, I’m sure you’re aware, put you in the real test. That would be misuse of company assets.”
“There are readings for hormones that I don’t secrete in the Keller,” she reminded him.
“Those are Secondary measurements,” he parried. “I’m not concerned about which Secondary you align with. I’m happy to keep you ranked as a beta.”
She blinked at him. He could smell her interest, her intrigue. He knew she’d been growing more and more curious, less and less inhibited. “You would rate me solely on behavior and vitals?”
“That’s right. I’m sure Dr. Harvelle would agree to assist. I’m convinced, after watching you struggle for years in ways we expect to see unsupported Subs struggle, that you would benefit from regular scening exactly as we would provide for a Lupin Sub.”
“You would do that? For me?”
Cas finally cracked a smile. “If you want. I won’t force you. This is a strongly recommended suggestion.”
She bit her lip and matched his smile. “I think I might…want that. Sir.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Alpha? The Pack Dominants? Who would we…be talking about?” Her eyelids fluttered slightly.
“Me, Sam, Kali, and Michael,” he clarified as if reading off a grocery list. “I haven’t determined whether to assign one Dominant to you or put in a rotation. Let’s try a few things and see what works for you.”
“Oh,” she said. She curled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “Oh.”
Cas laughed. “We’ll work out the details later. For now, Submissive, go to bed.”
She blushed at the moniker and the clear command, but she lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
“Yes, Alpha.”
“Good girl.”
Notes:
He wouldn't be Cas if he wasn't pushing boundaries. But he's right about Sarah. She can only live in that house for so long before she's going to want in. And with her heart and her dreams dashed, she's hungry for an outlet that will let her scream her agony to the sky and break down into sobs in someone's strong arms.
Who, I wonder, will that turn out to be?
If you're not exhausted after reading the longest chapter I've ever posted, drop me a note to tell me what you thought.
Love, as always, to the Pack.
Chapter 27: Monday, September 6, 2021
Summary:
Cas is worldbuilding, and he offers comfort to Charlie and Dorothy. The other side of the coin is a little harder. Where are the boundaries anyway? Michael and Cas kick them down the road, and Dean's pissed.
There's another evening Pack dinner where it all spills out. Some of the spillage is uncomfortable, but it's all necessary.
Right?
Notes:
Be warned, I'm dropping two chapters at once. It's 21K words total, so pace yourself. I've been wanting to get to Gage's stuff for a very long time.
Humor me, folks.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, September 6, 2021
NOW:
“Bradbury,” Castiel called in a foreboding voice as he stalked down the hall in an open bubble of space. It was the kind of tone that set every wolf within hearing distance on its toes. Heads turned.
Charlie’s sentence stopped mid-word. Her eyes widened. She swallowed, begging silently for Meg to find her a way out of facing him when he was in a mood like this. Meg only bit her lip and shook her head sadly.
Meg couldn’t help.
“Charlie,” he insisted, nearly upon the two women.
She grimaced and turned to face him.
“Yes, Alpha?”
“You’re with me,” was all he said, and he continued right past without slowing. He set a pace with his steadfast stride that forced Charlie to jog in his wake.
“Sir?” she asked at his heel. “Is something wrong?”
“In here,” was all he replied. He opened the door to the scenting room, and Charlie stopped cold.
What on earth?
“I’m not going in there, Cas,” she asserted. “You can’t make me go in there.”
His eyes offered no reprieve. He held the door and her eyes, both his arm across the wooden panel and his expression inflexible.
Charlie’s heartrate kicked up.
Subtly, he tipped his head to gesture her in.
Charlie slouched past him into the spacious room, built with high ceilings and comforting styling. Charlie wasn’t comforted. But she pulled up short, finding herself joining Billie…and Dorothy…already there. Waiting, it seemed. For Charlie.
Dorothy turned, spotted her girlfriend, and sighed expansively.
“You didn’t tell me you were back in town,” Charlie greeted lamely. “Why didn’t you call?”
Dorothy shrugged. “I heard you had found a warm body in my absence. I wanted to give you space.”
A warm sense of affection turned Charlie’s eyes soft. “Thanks,” she murmured, slightly mushy, a lot in love.
Dorothy held out a hand, and Charlie crossed the room to take it. They shared a brief kiss.
“What’s going on?” Dorothy asked softly. “Do you know?” She looked from Charlie to Billie to Cas.
“I have no idea,” Charlie told her. “He kidnapped me in the hall…”
“Have a seat, ladies,” Billie interrupted. “This is an intervention of sorts. We’re putting a stop to this burner nonsense. Sit down, shut up, and listen. Alpha has something to say.”
Castiel set a calming hand on Billie’s shoulder, squeezing as he passed. “Relax, Billie. There’s no need to frighten them.” She shot him a wry look.
Charlie’s brow darkened. “Alpha, I don’t want to do this. You can’t make us Mate.”
“Relax, ladies. No one is going to force you to Mate—not strangers and not one another. We’re here to talk. And to try an experiment. I promise you’re safe.”
Dorothy sank down onto a chair in the middle of the room, still holding Charlie’s hand. “Look, the burner thing, that wasn’t anything more than an idea…”
“A shitty idea,” Billie broke in, tense and stiff.
“That’s enough, Billie,” Cas said.
“I don’t want to do this,” Charlie stated again, clearly terrified.
Cas sat her down with hands guiding her upper arms, gently placing her beside Dorothy. He knelt before her. “Charlie, look at me. Trust me. I can’t make you Trigger. And I’m not doing that. Calm down.”
“Then why are we in the scenting room?” she demanded.
“Because we’re going to test a hypothesis,” he said. He spoke gently but firmly, eyes directing her submission as stoutly as his words did. Billie glowered behind him. “Trust me.”
Slowly, she nodded.
Warmth crinkled the edges of his eyes, and he patted her knee affectionately before standing back up. “All right. Here’s the point.” He took a file folder from Billie as he began a slow stroll about the room, lowering the tension with the ease of his carriage. He opened it and studied its contents. Billie followed him with her eyes. “The two of you are under the impression that you have timebombs awaiting you by way of unnamed, unidentified True-Mates who will enter your lives unwelcomed and sweep you away from one another, and that the only recourse to prevent that unwanted eventuality is to snuff your Triggers with a false Mating. Correct?” He looked up and faced them both, brows raised.
“It was just an idea,” Dorothy muttered petulantly, shooting a glance toward her new Pack Dominant and then lowering her eyes again. Billie offered her no reprieve. Dorothy could feel Billie’s glower through the crown of her head.
“But the dangers of burner Matings, ladies,” Cas went on. “Is that they don’t work. Wolves are not built to deny a Mating Claim. Whether established by accident, on a whim, or through conscious effort with the intention of refuting it later, a Mating Claim digs its claws and teeth into our very cores, and it re-wires our brains.”
“I can’t just live like this though, Cas,” Charlie said. “I’m going crazy! What else can we do?” He gazed down on her with compassion and frowned, worried on her behalf, genuinely torn at her obvious torment. “Please don’t tell me I have to Mate Dorothy just to get it over with.”
“No, Charlie. I have a theory I’d like to share with you both if you’ll hear it.”
Dorothy squeezed Charlie’s hand, drawing her eyes. They shared a bracing look and then synchronized deep breaths and turned back as one and nodded.
“You see,” Cas continued, taking up his meandering stroll once more and focusing down on the papers in his file. “I believe that an urge to Mate—or not to Mate—is not a question of inherent Lupin humanity, but of personal identity. It seems evident that it is as much an aspect of our Secondary designation as are all the other discernable traits that we characterize through testing.”
“Sir?” Charlie asked.
He looked up. “Charlie, you aren’t simply averse to Mating. You have a deep-seated need not to Mate, and that is a part of your very identity, like your sexual orientation, like your kink index, like your inherent sense of self. And that, that is something we can measure.”
Charlie’s eyes flew wide. She scooted to the edge of her chair and leaned into the words. “You can measure? How?”
Billie picked it up. “We ran your scents…”
“How did you get our scents?” Dorothy challenged.
Cas chuckled. “Every time you enter this building, you submit a sample…”
“The kiosks?” Dorothy asked, shocked. “You’re sampling scents through the kiosks?”
“Don’t sound so shocked,” he affirmed without heat. “Of course we sample your scents. Hormone output is part of the medical assessment performed automatically on every employee. It’s used to determine your fitness for duty.”
“But who gave you permission to apply our scents for another purpose?” Dorothy’s eyes glinted angrily. “I know I didn’t.”
“No,” Cas acknowledged. “But I did so anyway. May we proceed?”
Dorothy’s jaw gaped. She could find no response to his blatant, unapologetic overstep. Charlie looked between them and then squeezed her love’s hand. “Let’s hear him out,” she begged. “If it’ll help…”
Cas didn’t wait for Dorothy to agree. He continued as if she’d offered no objection. “As you know, the Mate-match system has grown over the last few years by two orders of magnitude. What was once a simple cross-industry sharing of resources has become a fundamental part of Lupin support. Virtually every young wolf coming of age receives Keller testing now, and sampling scents is standard practice during the test. Our database of scents is vast. Our ability to synthesize scents based upon chemical structure has improved to the point that we no longer need to send physical samples between the facilities. We can now download digital files from the cloud, synthesize them onsite, and have access to every sample in the Keller database within an hour.”
Billie rocked on her heels, looking smug. Dorothy glared at her but remained silent.
“But we aren’t in the market for mates,” Charlie reminded him carefully.
“My hypothesis stands, Charlie,” he told her. “And now we can…well, perhaps not prove it, but establish some parameters around it, maybe.” He turned to Billie and nodded. Without warning, Billie pressed the button on the remote in her hand, and the overhead vent activated, sending a wave of scent into the room.
Charlie and Dorothy both shot out of their chairs in alarm, panicking and attempting to hold their breaths at the same time.
“Shhh. It’s fine, both of you. Calm down.” Cas held out his palm patiently, calmly. “Just breathe. Even were you to identify a potential Trigger, it cannot activate from the concentration of scent in this room. You’re safe. Both of you. I promise. Trust me.” His voice was a metronome, and it soothed the betas. “Breathe.”
Charlie frowned, finding herself unable to hold her breath, finding the scents leaking through her defenses to subtly register in her perception, and her frown deepened.
“We selected the closest fifty matches for each of you,” Cas went on. “We’ve amalgamated the scents to expedite the process. But if there is a Trigger within the mix, your brain will extract it, and you will know. This is but one of the two mixes.” He spoke as if he had no worries either way. “Tell me, ladies. What do you sense?”
Charlie slumped back into the chair, panic abated but confused. Her efforts not to smell the sample had failed, but she sensed nothing notable—certainly not a Triggering scent. At length, she felt confident enough to draw it fully into her lungs and examine it. Beside her, still on her feet, Dorothy did the same.
“I think this one must be yours.” Charlie murmured. “There’s…nothing. I can’t even pick out separate scents, really.”
“Charlie,” Dorothy replied with her eyes closed.
“There’s lemon, maybe,” Charlie continued. “…and…moss? I don’t know. What do you smell?”
“I don’t smell anything identifiable,” Dorothy told her. “Lemon, you said? No. There’s nothing.”
“This one’s Charlie’s,” Billie explained. “It’s the top fifty, worldwide. This is culled from everyone in our database, betas. If you have a True-Mate, kiddo, this sampling would include your match.”
Charlie’s eyes brightened hopefully. “Do Dorothy! Do her next! I need to understand this.”
“No, wait!” Dorothy objected. But Billie had already pressed the button.
A new mix of scent replaced the previous, carried by carefully designed vent systems that shunted the air in the room to replace one sample with the next. Dorothy’s panic softened to slow, deep breaths. Her shoulders eased.
“It smells…nice,” she admitted. She huffed a few lung-expanding breaths. “Smells like the ocean in the fall.” Her eyes slipped closed. “It almost smells like you,” she told Charlie. “…but it’s not anything I would ever be compelled to follow.”
Cas nodded to himself and looked back down at the folder in his hands. “We ran your scents, as Billie said. And neither of you scored any higher than a forty-five percent match, not even to each other.”
Charlie stared at him, shocked. “You mean…Cas, put it into terms I can take home with me.”
Cas snapped the folder shut. “Your chance of having a True-Mate at all, Charlie, it’s…well, it’s not zero, but statistically, it’s virtually nonexistent.”
“Alpha,” she whined.
He smiled at her. “Beta, you don’t have a True-Mate. You can stop worrying about it and get on with your life. You too, Dorothy.”
“But…how?” Charlie wondered. “Cas, what’s wrong with me?”
Cas laughed and crossed the room to place himself before her and place a hand on the side of her throat. “Listen to me carefully, Celeste. There is nothing wrong with you.” He held her eyes with such intensity that she couldn’t blink. “This drive to Mate that the majority of Lupins experience, it isn’t a part of your make-up. You were constructed without it. But…and listen very closely…it isn’t missing. It’s simply not there. There’s a difference. You aren’t deficient. You’re just unusual—rare, so to speak—a unicorn of sorts.”
“A unicorn,” Charlie repeated.
“Think of it like this,” he went on, bringing Dorothy in with his eyes. “Some people are born with polydactyly. But for those who aren’t, we don’t consider that they are missing a sixth finger on their right hand. It’s not missing. It’s simply not there. We are each born with a unique set of identities, a mix of traits that combine to define who we are. As a culture, we have never considered Mating-drive as a part of that mix, but we should. We should. And we will be initiating research into the topic. I estimate that perhaps three percent of the Lupin population is wired to eschew Mating altogether. And, Charlie, that drive is just as powerful and just as definitive for the individuals who experience it, as a strong urge to Mate is for those who experience that. You are valid in your needs, beta. It’s important that we as a culture acknowledge it as a need, not a want, and that we make space for all of you. You are as open to all other forms of bonds and emotions—connections—as everyone else.”
Billie stepped forward. “So, let’s put an end to all talk of burners, yes?”
Dorothy barked a laugh. “You know, you could have just emailed us the statistics. We can both read.”
Cas chuckled. “I prefer a more dramatic presentation. I wanted you to experience the fact that you are, both of you, under no peril. You’re not going to Trigger. Words on a computer monitor do not speak to your Tertiaries the way scent does.
Something about that broke all the way through Charlie’s years-long worry, and she threw her arms around him.
“Thank you, Alpha!”
Dorothy watched her girlfriend. She sagged a bit. She looked away.
“You don’t fool me, Dorothy,” Billie told her haughtily.
“I already knew,” Dorothy told her. “I knew.”
“Charlie didn’t.” Billie’s stare didn’t falter. Dorothy didn’t return it. “You didn’t either if you panicked that much at the thought of a scent or two.”
Dorothy cast a quick glance toward Charlie, still nestled in Castiel’s arms. “Were those truly our matches, or did you just pick some random slobs?”
Billie snatched the folder from Cas’ grip and offered it to Dorothy. “The data’s all there, beta. Check it for yourself.” Dorothy accepted the folder and opened it slowly, glancing across columns of data. “Cas put an alert on both of you. If a scent uploads that hits higher than eighty-five percent, you’ll get a notification.”
“Thank you, Billie.”
“You’re welcome.” She caught Charlie’s hug when the woman transferred out of Castiel’s embrace. “You’re both welcome. We’re fixing what our grandparents’ grandparents broke, guys. Fixing it for everyone, you two included. But you have to trust us. Don’t go throwing yourselves into traps of your own making. Trading one scary uncertainty for another is not the way to manage your worries.”
“Not for nothing, boss,” Dorothy quipped, “but you’re not exactly the posterchild for managing an aversion to Mating.”
Cas laughed and agreed. “Maybe, but things have worked out for our Wilhelmina better than she anticipated.”
“That’s not my name,” Billie growled. She released Charlie to snuggle in Dorothy’s embrace. The couple smelled relieved enough to override the lingering manufactured scents. “The point is, not everyone with an aversion is truly oriented against Mating. Some of us have baggage. Some people need to mature further before they are ready. You two, you and Balthazar…” Billie squinted as she thought. “…You’re different in a fundamental way. It’s not about growing up like it was for me. It’s not about learning to manage your emotional crap.”
Castiel agreed with a hum. “It was Balthazar who first caught my attention and got me thinking along these lines. Our lead contractor is Omega, over forty, and un-Mated. He’s also exposed to hundreds of alpha and beta scents, new scents, new people, every month. And he’s never Triggered despite being rated in the middle of the pack where the majority of wolves reside. With his rating, he should have Triggered by nineteen in a town this size.”
Charlie’s jaw dropped as she considered the chances of that happening. Dorothy frowned.
Cas continued. “Billie, what’s the likelihood of a Central Omega-Neutral reaching forty without Mating?”
Billie ran her tongue over her teeth and then answered. “Seven percent chance.”
“And to reach fifty un-Mated?”
“Five percent. And most of those who haven’t Mated belong to packs where they are kept as concubines, restricted from exposure to strangers. Out in society, it’s even lower. For someone like Balthazar, whose reach is massive, it’s extremely rare.”
“Would you say, perhaps, less than three percent of the Omega population?”
Billie chuckled. She patted Castiel’s cheek impudently. “Wait for the research, Alpha. Wait and see. Meanwhile, everyone should get back to work.” Billie escorted the betas to the door. Cas followed. He didn’t ask for the folder back.
“You’ll let Benny know?” Charlie paused in the door and asked him. “I think he’s worried about me.”
“Tell him yourself, beta. He’s your Alpha. Be sure and come clean about looking into burners too, though. Let him clean your slate for you.”
“That’s not the phrasing I would use,” she grumbled. She let him guide her out with a hand at her lower back. The warmth seeped through her blouse, and she smiled.
Michael sat before the boy. Their knees nearly touched. They both hunkered forward until they were in each other’s space, but they didn’t touch. Eyes closed, hands on knees, they converged and concentrated. Gage’s wounded forearms remained tightly bound. He had weathered his first Heat, mostly sedated. He’d tolerated the surgery well, but the hospital had no place for an adolescent with his degree of emotional scarring, so he had been transferred back to the ACRI facility for his rehabilitation. It was either that or go into one of the care facilities for at-risk youth. Castiel had put his foot down to that notion.
Gage flinched hard, dodging something in his mind. He grimaced, gasped, and whimpered.
“Steady, Gage,” Michael coached. “Hold your ground. Where is he now? Talk to me.”
Gage shook his head. He lowered his face to the left, baring his throat. Tears squeezed out between his eyelids. He reeked of terror.
Without warning, he screamed, shot to his feet, and curled up between Michael’s feet, shaking in fear. He clutched Michael’s shin and tried to vanish, squeezing his eyes shut tight.
Michael sighed and opened his eyes. He placed a hand on Gage’s head, shushing him. He pried the boy’s grip loose and knelt beside him. Gage practically climbed into his lap. Michael loosed his own wolf and made quick work of shooing Gage’s Tertiary back into the far reaches of its inner cave. He cuddled the boy for a moment or two and then transferred him into the arms of his foster father.
“We’ll take a break,” Michael told them both. “I’ll be right back. I need to talk strategy with our team for a sec.” To Gage he said, “Go through your calming exercises. Don’t rush them. I need you calm before we try again.” Michael hated having to stand firm against Gage’s pleas. But there was no way to give him a chance at surviving his adolescence but to plow straight through. Michael couldn’t show any cracks in his armor. Gage needed him to stand strong.
Lord, but his heart was breaking though.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and eased the door closed behind him. Castiel stood leaning against one of the desks behind the one-way glass, watching the boy struggle to reclaim his emotions and manage his fear. Cas’ expression told Michael they were both of the same mind.
“It’s not working,” Michael stated. “I can’t tell where the attacks are going to come from. His wolf is fast. It’s too fast for me to anticipate from the outside. I need an inside view.”
Cas huffed. “We’ve got to keep trying. Maybe we’re going at it all wrong…”
“Alpha, I have an idea,” Michael blurted. He licked his lips. “Hear me out here, okay? I know it’s risky, but…” He glanced through the window. Gage sat upright on the side of his bed. His eyes were closed again, shoulders down. But his grip on his knees whitened his knuckles, and his eyelid twitched.
“But?” Cas prompted.
Michael swallowed and then turned to face Cas. “I need to Claim him.”
“No,” Cas told him immediately. “He’s a child, Michael. Absolutely not.”
But Michael wasn’t dissuaded. “Sir, I can’t tell what I’m doing in that room. I’m blind. I need a bond-link. And I can form it without sex. You know I can. I need a hand on him, but that doesn’t have to push any inappropriate limits. This isn’t sexual, Cas. It’s a Tertiary thing. Please. You have to let me try…”
“We don’t Claim twelve-year-olds, Omega,” Cas snapped. “He’s not mature enough. We don’t know what a bond-link will do to his immature psyche. It isn’t a matter of where you touch him. It’s a matter of long-term damage…”
“All due respect, Cas, but he’s not going to survive long enough to have long-term anything at this rate.”
“There are lines we cannot cross, Michael… We can’t Claim a child!”
“There’s a mountain of data on Claimed adolescents, Alpha. It just comes from an unsavory source, so we’ve never examined it. But you know as well as I do that it isn’t the Claims against early adolescents that scars them. It’s the rape. The Claims themselves don’t leave a trace.” Michael’s voice held an angry edge. His eyes flashed gold before returning to their usual color. Castiel’s cheeks took on a deep red flush. Alpha irises answered Michael’s heightened state, just as angry, and tamped just as fast. Traditionalist households, the old Packs, the ones buried behind thick compound walls, had their own ways of seeing youth through the perils of Presentation. It wasn’t uncommon for a Patriarchal Alpha to force himself on every Presenting Omega during their first Heat, Claiming them, breeding them, securing their physical safety at the detriment of their emotional health. Omegas like that typically gave birth to their first pups before turning fourteen, and they never succumbed to Heat-distress or Omesol poisoning, but at a devastating cost. But Michael was right. The Claims set by monstrous Pack Alphas dissipated over time, leaving no trace later in their lives.
Christian’s research on the Omegas he rehabilitated proved that. And Michael hadn’t even seen that research.
“Sir, listen. What we’re doing in there, it might work. He’s working really, really hard. But he doesn’t have the instincts he needs to set his stance and hold, and his wolf knows all his weaknesses. I can help him. I know how this goes. I’ve got a sense of his wolf. But I can’t do jack if I can’t see it for myself. Just let me try. If it doesn’t work, the Claim dissolves on its own in a couple of months, and no one’s any worse off than they are now. I know what I’m doing with a sexless Claim. I used to do it all the time. I still do it with Dean sometimes.”
“You weren’t successful when you tried it with April,” Cas pointed out.
“What? No. No, I didn’t even try with Pete. That was different.”
Cas rubbed his eyes. “Jesus, Michael.”
Michael squared up in front of him, grateful they were alone in the booth. “Look, I know he’s a kid. I’ll be careful. I’m asking you to trust me. We’re never going to make headway from the outside. We would have to put a twenty-four-seven watch on the kid until he comes of age before we could set a Claim the old-fashioned way. He won’t live that long, Sir.”
Cas sighed and succumbed to a defeated posture. He waved generically toward the inner chamber. “Talk me through it,” he muttered.
Michael brightened. “Okay. So, I set the Claim. It’ll be my Tertiary tied to his Secondary—wolf-to-Omega. I’m not there to direct, just to coach. But if I can enter his wolfscape, really see what he’s seeing, I can talk him through how to confront his Tertiary and leash it. But I have to see what I’m doing.”
Cas frowned. “See it?” he asked. “You mean feel it.”
Michael hemmed a bit, shrugging and dodging Alpha’s eye. “Uh. Yeah. Feel it. Right. Same thing.”
“Michael…?”
Michael stepped backward and rolled his head on his shoulders before coming to a decision and pressing his lips tightly together and then sucking a deep breath through his teeth. “Okay,” he said. “Look, it’s not what it sounds like. Work with me here…”
“Out with it,” Castiel warned.
“I’ve been practicing my access to the wolf-dream, practicing with Pete. And I can do it now whenever I want. It just takes concentration. I can enter her Tertiary’s home environment, meld it with mine, and see it visually just as if it were my own imagination constructing it.”
Cas was floored.
“She’s still in control of herself. Or, well, her wolf is in control of itself. But I am there in the flesh, just as present as she is, and we can interact with each other and the environment. It works, Cas. It works. I’m telling you, I can do that with Gage—get in there and really see what’s going on. It’ll let me react in the moment, not after the fact.”
They both startled when the door cracked open and alpha Heath poked his head through. “Everything okay in here?” he asked. He checked behind him to make sure Gage hadn’t followed and then he eased through and closed the door behind him.
Cas studied Michael’s face briefly. Michael could feel him sifting through his mind. And then the Alpha spoke.
“Heath, we want to try something.”
At the word, we, Michael bit his lip. Hope soared in his expression, but he quickly shuttered it.
“It’s risky,” Cas continued, “but it may give us the leg up Michael needs to make headway with Gage’s Omega. We would need you to sign off on us going off-track. Michael here has a few tricks up his sleeve that may serve Gage well, tricks not just anyone can do. Please allow me to explain. We will need your approval before we try anything.”
Michael backed up to sit on top of the desk and surrender the conversation to his Alpha. He listened as Cas explained. He kept his gaze on his knees. He answered the few questions Heath threw his way, but he let Cas handle the explanation.
Dean was going to be furious.
Within an hour, Michael stood shirtless behind the boy perched on a bare stool. Gage stripped his own shirt over his head and handed it to his foster father, his alpha, the only parental figure he could remember.
“You sure?” Heath asked the boy.
“Will it hurt?” Gage asked Michael over his shoulder.
“Not at all,” Michael told him. He rested his hands on Gage’s thin shoulders. “But it may feel intense. All you have to do is trust me and stay centered in your Omega. I’ll do the rest.”
“I’m not very good at that,” Gage reminded Michael.
Michael sighed. “Here’s what you do,” he coached. “Clench the muscles of your channel tight. Super tight. That’ll draw your awareness into your Omega.”
“What? Gross!” Gage protested. “Is this what adult Omegas do? Sit around tightening their buttholes? No way!”
“Not your butthole, you little brat,” Michael snapped back. “Your channel. Higher in. Way up in there. Look, I know it’s uncomfortable, but it works, and I need you Secondary for this, so concentrate.”
Gage huffed.
“Once you’ve got it, think hard of a sunflower opening its petals to the sun.”
“You’re joking.”
“I will spank you,” Michael reminded him.
“Fine.”
The banter disguised a deepening trust between the two Omegas. Gage’s Secondary clung to Michael as a big brother, almost as an alpha. He would do anything Michael asked of him. The protests were more to save face against humiliations he was beginning to recognize were only the tip of the iceberg. Too, they covered for stark terror, still so present in his body and mind.
“Alpha, unless you want to be included in this Claim,” Michael said to Heath, “I’m going to ask you to give us the room.”
Heath wasn’t pleased at being dismissed by an Omega, but Michael’s wolf sat right up front. Its command was backed by presence, and Heath retreated. “I’ll be right outside, Gage. I’m not leaving you. It’s okay.”
Gage didn’t reply.
Michael steadied himself and then moved in close behind the boy. He wrapped his right arm around Gage’s torso and tightened his grip. He held Gage against his chest, making use of as much bare skin as he could touch. It had taken a while to find a stool high enough to align Gage’s back with Michael’s chest, but Kevin had a couple of height-challenged lab techs with adjustable bench stools, and Michael pulled rank. Okay, Cas had pulled rank.
Whatever.
“Eyes closed,” whispered Michael. “Tighten up your core. Relax your shoulders.” He waited until he felt Gage’s body tension respond. “Flower petals, Omega. Sunshine. Open up to me.”
And then he fell silent and retreated into his own head, into a place of moist soil and deepening moon-drenched darkness. Pine trees swayed at dizzying heights.
Michael’s wolf needed no guidance. He sensed the vulnerable Omega, and he zeroed in. It felt like groping blindly in the dark, searching for Gage without all of his senses, but the boy’s scent was in his nose, and warm skin guided Michael’s wolf. Cautiously, Michael shifted his sense-of-self behind his wolf’s eyes, and the world jumped into an altered vision, so much more than his imagination. He felt powerful protective instincts clamoring for action. His Omega needed him, needed him to take ownership, needed him to cover, to claim, to guard and shield and protect. Michael snarled. He drooled. He hunkered over the frail body of the young Omega, barely more than a child, but fertile and newly spent and unbred and exposed.
Out here in the wild, this young pup’s scent would draw the worst villains. They would rend young flesh and devour it whole. Michael growled.
No one was going to touch this pup. It was Michael’s, and Michael meant to tie a cord around its body and hide it away for himself. His Pack. His pup. He felt it like an ocean wave rising from his center, rising up his chest, heat and pressure and intent blackening his eyes. His hands clutched flesh. His lips pulled away from his teeth. And the heat flowed up his throat, into his mind, into his fingertips, and Michael roared as he cast it outward, slammed it down, caught the fragile boy up in his snare and then pulled it hard and tight against him.
HIS PUP!
Michael didn’t linger within his Tertiary. As soon as he felt the ricochet of the Claim snap into place, he stepped out of it, into his own Secondary. He opened his eyes and loosened his grip. He checked his teeth for the taste of blood. He shifted his hips to feel for the constriction of his waistband.
All good. He was still jeans-clad and blood-free. He stayed curled over Gage though, letting each of them find their breath and their feet. Feeling carefully along the bond-link, he found Gage tracing down it from the opposite direction.
Gage huffed.
“You bruised my shoulder,” he complained. “And your dick is digging into my back.”
Michael chuckled and put enough distance between them to clear his groin from contact. He wasn’t surprised to have hardened. Claiming always aroused Michael.
“Little prick,” Michael teased like a big brother. He straightened slowly, keeping his hands steady on Gage’s upper arms in case the kid went woozy.
“I’m not the prick,” Gage parried. “You’re the one with a hard-on for a kid. That’s disgusting, you know.”
Michael laughed and tousled Gage’s hair, a move he knew the pup hated. “Don’t flatter yourself,” Michael replied. “You should be so lucky.”
The door cracked open. An uncomfortable tech entered with a Peliomometer and ran it first over Gage and then over Michael. “Ellen’s going to be pissed,” she muttered. “And Dean’s going to have a cow. Can’t believe you actually did it.”
Michael ignored her. He helped Gage dismount from the raised stool, watched him for a moment to assess his steadiness, and then handed him back his shirt. Heath hurried in and promptly smothered the boy with worried questions and hands checking for injury.
“Alpha, stop!” Gage protested. He tried to swat the man away, but the bulky bandages on his arms made him clumsy and ineffective. “I’m fine. Jesus, get off, Dad!”
They all froze. Michael could feel Gage panic at the familiarity. He’d never called Heath that, had never acknowledged the growing trust between them, and Michael felt him teeter between embracing it now and rejecting it. Gage’s eyes flicked to Michael.
Michael raised his chin and sent a sense of support down the fledgling bond-link. He felt more than saw Gage swallow. He felt Gage steady himself and pick a direction.
Gage turned back to Heath, pleading with his eyes for the alpha to play it cool and help them both through the transition with a minimum of embarrassment. “Sorry,” he said. “What I meant was, would you mind giving me some space, Dad? I’m a little tired.”
To his credit, Heath simply nodded and tapped Gage’s shoulder with his hand. His eyes found Michael’s though, and they spoke volumes about hope and trust.
No pressure, Michael thought toward his wolf. His wolf licked itself and curled up for a nap, utterly at peace with itself and its expectations. “Get some rest, Gage,” Michael said. “We’ll try the exercise again tomorrow. You’ve had enough for one day.”
“You did what?” Dean exploded. Cas had decided on a tug-the-band aid-right-off approach. He’d summoned the whole leadership team, everyone who could attend at the drop of a hat, and he laid it out for them. “Are you crazy? He’s just a kid, Cas! He’s twelve! The fuck is wrong with you two?”
“Dean, it was…”
Dean silenced Michael with a look. “I’ll deal with you in a minute,” he growled, enraged. His eyes shifted fully, and his nostrils flared. He put Michael out of his mind and confronted Castiel. Everyone else sat witness but gave the alpha his head. “We don’t CLAIM children, Cas! There are laws about this shit for a reason.”
“Dean, calm down. I’m not discussing it with you until you control yourself.”
“You know, for a while I thought Michael might be a good influence on you, but it looks like it’s gone the other way!”
“It was the best recourse we had,” Cas began.
“He’s a kid!” Dean repeated.
“Yes, we’ve established that,” Cas told him calmly.
“Does his Alpha know?” Dean challenged.
“His custodian signed off,” Michael answered before regretting speaking up when crimson eyes flashed at him.
“His custodian? You mean his foster? That Heath guy? So, their Pack Alpha has no idea you tied a leash to one of her Omegas. Oh, we are so fucked.”
“Is it litigation that worries you, Dean, or the moral conundrum of having to choose between a dead Omega and a scarred Omega?”
“Oh, you know what, Cas? Kiss my ass. Don’t play your morality games with me. I know who you really are.” Dean stood aggressively posturing. He glanced around. He had all of their eyes, but no one else seemed irate the way he was. “No?” he asked vaguely. “None of you? No one but me has a problem with this?”
“What would you suggest, alpha?” Bobby asked. “Have you got an alternative?”
“No, I don’t,” Dean admitted. “But I do trust that if we got the right folks putting their brainstorming hats on, we could’ve hammered out a better solution than Claiming a little boy. Not that it does us any good now.”
“He’s not a little boy,” Cas defended, beginning to sound annoyed.
“You know what, Cas? You’re a fucking child.” He ignored the sense of sucked in inhales from around the table. No one met his eye but Michael and Cas. Bobby studied the ceiling. Ellen studied her hands on the table. Jo and Sam locked eyes with each other. “Just because you can do anything you want doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. There are limits for a reason.”
“He will die if we don’t intervene…”
“He’s a child,” Dean repeated.
“Great, then he’ll be a dead child,” Cas shot back.
“You know what else saves twelve-year-old Omegas’ lives?” Dean blurted. “Raping them. Is that next?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s a slippery slope, man,” Dean insisted.
Cas sighed. He worked his jaw. He thought. He opened his mouth before closing it again and tilting his head to rethink. “He isn’t harmed. Michael pulled it off cleanly.”
“You don’t know that,” Dean disagreed. “How much access does he have to Michael’s Tertiary? What’s he going to sense in there that he has no business viewing? How much of Michael’s wolf is available to him? How much of Michael’s sex life?”
“Come with me for our session tomorrow, Dean,” Michael suggested. “Help us figure this out. Help me guide him through.”
Dean didn’t look away from Cas. Stubborn bastard. Cas had that cool expression that told Dean that it wouldn’t be Cas shifting in the end. He shook his head in disgust.
Michael tried again. “You want us to wait four years? Claim him when he’s sixteen? How much suffering should one kid have to endure before we’re allowed to help him? You don’t know, alpha. You don’t know what it’s like with a wolf like that and no means to control it. He wasn’t responding to the coaching. He was too frightened because he’s in his head all alone with that beast. I can scare it into the background, Dean, but I can’t keep it there. We don’t have enough high-rated Dominants on staff to keep a round-the-clock vigil.”
Dean rounded on him. “Then we send him to a specialized facility with the resources to…”
“No one’s got better resources for this than we do!” Michael retorted. “No one can guide him through this better than me. Or don’t you trust me?”
“Well, I did before you pulled this stunt.”
“Enough,” Bobby interrupted. “Don’t take it out on Michael. It may have been his idea, but it’s not his call. Cas and the boy’s custodian approved the treatment. Everyone involved was fully informed. We didn’t sneak anything by anyone. That meets Facility requirements.”
“Yeah, but you’d…” Dean sneered, winding up to cut Bobby’s legs out from under him.
Castiel broke in. “Stop right there, alpha,” he snapped. “Whatever you were going to say, don’t. We’re not stooping to personal insults. Let’s take this offline since it appears the issue needing resolution is chiefly between you and me. Let’s not waste everyone else’s time.”
Dean glared. He fumed. He surveyed the conference room table. “Billie?” She met his eye and said nothing. “Josie?” Josie looked surprised to be consulted as her presence here was mostly to support the beta’s point-of-view and lend it an alpha’s weight. She shrugged. Dean moved on. “Ellen.”
Ellen looked up at him. “Sometimes hard choices have to be made, alpha,” she told him sadly. “It’s just a Claim. We’ve done worse.”
Dean crumpled. Fine. He collected his belongings and pulled the door open. “If Benny weren’t out on cycle leave, he would be on my side,” he groused in the doorway. He paused and looked back at them. Cowards. “He’s highest ranked local alpha,” he pointed out. Cas no longer counted as local. He was still based in Lawrence, but his presence was incidental. That put Benny in the natural position of authority. Billie rolled her eyes. It was a sore point how frequently Dean skirted her authority because his instinct told him it was fraudulent. “He’ll back me up.”
“You owe Billie a public apology,” Cas told him that evening over a strategy session.
Dean looked up from his tablet screen, across the library table. Beside him Kat drew a picture of Portia, and Jimmy sat in the middle of the table trying to build a tower with Legos. Alex and Emma ran laps around the center table, testing their speed against one another. Portia bounded after them, barking.
“What, the Benny thing?” Dean asked. He caught a rolling crayon and put it back in the box.
Cas simply held his gaze.
“Fine. I’ll apologize. Does that mean we’re offline now? Can I tell you what I really think?”
“Haven’t you done that already?” Cas asked. “Jimmy put your bottom on the table or get on the floor. I won’t tell you again.” Emma screeched as she overtook Alex. The alphas ignored the noise.
“Oh, I can think of a few choice words I kept to myself out of professional courtesy,” Dean said.
“Huh, I’ll bet,” Cas replied meanly. “And no. Words that can’t be voiced at work are not suitable for our pups’ ears.”
Dean rubbed his face.
“You mad, huh, Daddy?” Kat checked. She climbed into his lap. He hoisted her the rest of the way and shoved his tablet far enough away to protect his data and give her room for her drawing.
“Yeah, Kat. I’m mad. Stuff isn’t great right now.”
“Mad at Papa?”
Dean chuckled. “You know me so well,” he joked, ruffling her hair.
Cas watched the exchange without engaging. He was thinking. “Dean, I want you to tell me what alternatives we had.” Dean leaned in to reply, but Cas put a finger up. “And for the record, I know that Gage is a minor. Repeating that ad nauseum isn’t getting us anywhere. You’re the best ideas man the Facility has ever had. Give me your ideas.”
But Dean deflected. “What were you even doing there today?” he asked. “Therapy sessions are not your job anymore.”
“This is the first Omega-Dominant youth we’ve ever encountered,” Cas replied earnestly. “This kid is everything to the future of our movement. We can’t screw this up. Of course I’m personally involved.”
Dean rolled his eyes and held Kat’s paper still for her. “Of course you are.” He handed a blue crayon to his daughter when she pointed. “Tell me, Alpha. Who’s steering the ship while you’re off playing at ground level?”
“Jonathon is if you want to be specific,” Cas said blithely. He caught Jimmy when the pup recognized that Kat had claimed a lap and chose not to miss out, leaping without fanfare into Castiel’s chest.
“Oh, well, there’s nothing quite like being top dog for getting away with making other people do your work for you.”
Cas laughed. “Right you are, my brat. Now back to the point.”
“Hell if I know, Alpha,” Dean admitted. “Double-team the boy with two therapists at a time, maybe? One to occupy his wolf while the other practices control techniques.”
Cas shook his head. “We tried that, Michael and me. I had only to be in the room to keep the wolf holed up, but Michael can’t run enough simulations to do any good. Plus, my wolf and Michael’s don’t play well together. Gage froze every time his wolf poked its head out. So, then we tried just talking Gage through the encounters live, but Michael couldn’t tell what was happening well enough to coach him. That wolf has never been fed, Dean, not once, not one morsel. It’s famished, and it’s furious. Gage was too weak, too malnourished and neglected to have had the slightest chance to offer the emerging wolf a means to snack. And now his wolf is tired of waiting, especially now that he’s Presented Omega. It’s lost hope that it will ever be supported.”
“Well, so, then, we start there,” Dean suggested. “Feed it until it’s fit to bust its buttons. Give it a meal fit for a king and convince it there’s hope. If nothing else, it’ll make its next confrontation slow and sloppy.”
Cas shook his head. He helped Jimmy to the floor to join the racing and began slowly to dismantle the oddly shaped Lego tower on the table between them. “No, we can’t reward this behavior.”
“Right,” Dean mumbled. “Right. I forgot. Because it’s more crucial right now to make sure the wolf is properly trained than to, what was it? Oh yeah, save the kid’s life. So, Claiming a pre-teen, that’s cool. Sending a starving wolf a mixed message, though? Completely off the table. I get it.”
“Jesus, you’re on a roll,” Cas muttered sourly.
Dean set Kat on the floor to run with her siblings and he leaned closer. “You know, that kid’s wolf is a part of him. If he’s starving, then feeding him is as much remedial therapy as training the kid to put a leash on him. One stone, two birds.”
"No, Dean,” Cas said, mirroring his body language. “We can’t use the same stone here. A wolf like this, it can’t be offered an olive branch before it acknowledges that it’s second to the body’s owner, lest it become the body’s owner. We don’t have a choice. It’s in discomfort right now, but as long as it’s allowed a space in the boy’s psyche, it won’t starve. There has to be a deliberate process to this. First, Gage learns how to handle his Tertiary, and then we teach him how to feed it.”
“You did yours the other way round,” Dean pointed out, not from experience, but from listening to Cas tell his story countless times.
“That’s right,” Cas agreed fervently. “And it was infinitely harder to reassert control once my wolf had that much freedom and strength. Had I not been a Deep Alpha, I don’t know that I would have succeeded before he did some real damage.” He softened his glare once he realized he was glaring.
Three of the pups skittered to a stop at his chair, grabbing hold of the spokes of his chair-back and crying, “BASE!” Racing had morphed into tag, apparently. Alex stumbled past, frustrated, waiting for someone to break and run.
Cas pondered a moment, then he said carefully, “Dean, we have to trust Michael to see this boy through. He and Gage need one another. Michael needs this as much as Gage does, don’t you see? And as hard as it is to watch, what we’re really seeing here is a replay of what Michael had to do on his own—on his own and against great obstacles. Think of the validation for him if he shepherds Gage through unharmed.”
“Oh, brother,” Dean whined, leaning back in his chair. He reached out into the aisle behind him to scoop Emma off her feet, turn her upside down, and blow a wet raspberry on her tummy.
“Daddy, no! I was winning! Down!!”
“‘Scuse me, your highness.” Dean righted her and put her on her feet.
“You don’t mean to mock Michael’s experience, I’m certain,” Cas said.
“Don’t go there, man. Michael and me, that’s between Michael and me. You’re not going to play us off each other. I ain’t as easy to manipulate as I used to be.”
“You misunderstand me, Dean.”
“Oh, I understand you perfectly, CJ. You want me to back off so Michael can get his full, uncomplicated win and let him prove to everyone who’s whispering he slept his way to the top that he’s the real deal, that he’s every bit the messiah you sold him as. But this thing isn’t going to be uncomplicated no matter how much space we give him to work. He doesn’t need space, Cas. This is Michael’s wolf running this play, and he doesn’t care in the end how messy it turns out. He doesn’t need space. He needs guardrails. He needs boundaries. Oversight. He needs a monitor and someone who’ll tell him no. And the kid needs to see that a Dominant Omega is still an Omega. Or did you forget about that in your rush to find common ground with my mate? Just because you and Michael both fought through adolescence on your own doesn’t mean the two of you are the only experts on the topic. Call in your network, Alpha. Get some more SMEs on the project. Fund it through research grants if our budgets for Dominant reclamation is low.”
Cas scoffed. “Dominant reclamation,” he muttered.
And then Alex stumbled, careering straight onto his belly and then face-first into the table leg at the corner.
“Shit,” Dean said as he hurried to the pup before the wailing started. He’d felt the percussion of Alex’s skull through the table and knew this wasn’t one they should wait and see how hurt he was.
Three pups stood wide-eyed and scared as blood began to pour down Alex’s face to drip off his nose and chin. Dean scooped him up, took a quick look, found with relief that the cut wasn’t near his eye, and handed him off to Papa without a second thought. Cas cradled him in his arms long enough to assess preliminarily and then hustled out to find first-aid supplies. In their wake, three pups began to cry. Dean went down on one knee and opened his arms to the lot of them. He let them bawl for a moment, handing out hugs and soft assurance, and then he stood up and changed direction to interrupt their rhythm.
“Shhh. He’s okay. It looks worse than it is. Cuts on our heads bleed big, but they heal up just fine. He’s okay. Let’s clean up in here and go wash up for dinner.”
“What happened to Ace?” Michael asked. He trotted into the library, breathless, clearly hunting down the rest of his pups to certify they were all safe. “He’s bleeding.”
“Ah, yeah,” Dean said. He handed Michael the tub of Legos. “I’m not sure who won the race, but Alex and the table leg lost.”
“You let them race in the house?” Michael asked. Shock and judgment hung heavy in his tone.
“Papa let them race in the house,” Dean told him. “Who’my to disagree with Papa?”
Michael shot him a disgusted look and scooped Kat off the floor. He balanced her against one hip and the tub against the other. “Did you tell him about your nightmare?”
“Uh.” Dean herded the other two pups out the library door before giving up and carrying them both. “It didn’t come up before the big fiasco,” he admitted. “I’ll tell him though. I promise.”
“You’ve been saying that for three days, alpha. Tell him before bedtime or I will.”
“We’ve got a scene planned, man. When exactly am I supposed to slip that little nugget in? And stop bossing me around.”
Michael stopped right in the middle of the hallway and turned to face Dean. “Stop bossing you around? Then stop acting like you’re three minutes from a full meltdown. You aren’t out of control. You have at least two more weeks before you Fall. That’s if you’re careful. But all day today you’ve been pushing like you need one of us to smack you down.”
Kat tugged on Michael’s shirt collar. “Daddy’s mad at Papa,” she tattled. “Papa’s gonna spank him.”
“No, he’s not,” Dean replied churlishly.
“He will if you need it,” Michael reminded his mate. He put Kat down, collected the coloring supplies from Jimmy and Emma, and told them to go with Daddy to wash their hands.
“Is Papa gonna spank Alex?” Emma asked, sticking close and holding his hand on the way to the restroom.
“For getting hurt?” Dean looked down at her. “Definitely not. Papa’s as worried about Alex as we are. No one gets mad at pups for getting hurt.”
“O-Pop does,” Jimmy disagreed. “He got mad at me for jumping off the table.”
“Oh. Well, yeah,” Dean nodded.
“Papa spanks you sometimes, right, Daddy?” Emma checked. “Same as us?”
“Not the same, no,” he replied. “Differently. But yes, Papa spanks me sometimes. You already know that, Idge. He’s done it in front of you before.”
“Was it because you got mad at him?” she asked. Dean ushered them into the bathroom where a wide stool could hold four little feet at once.
“No, Papa only spanks me when I break his rules or I need him to be my Dominant.”
The pups argued about who would wash up first and who had to wait their turn until Dean pointed out that whoever went last got to share the sink with Daddy, and then the argument flipped upside down. Eventually, Dean set the order. And once the water was running, they began to argue over what it meant that Papa was Daddy’s Dominant. Dean bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
“Isn’t O-Pop your Dominant too?” Jimmy asked.
“Sometimes,” Dean answered. He expected to be peppered with the same questions for several years as they worked out the complicated connections. “And I’m his alpha right back, which is kind of like a Dominant. We’re what you call a switch couple.”
“Nobody is Papa’s Dominant,” Kat told them all sagely.
“Right you are, Kathleen,” Dean agreed. He considered Michael’s words. Was he pushing? Was his brat unsettled and nudging Cas for attention? Nothing about Dean’s anger over their handling of the Gage situation was manufactured. But in and around messaging loud and clear in his finest Jiminy Cricket voice, Dean recognized a telltale cry for a firm hand. The truth was, he thought, he hated being angry with Cas. He felt guilty every damn time, even if it were unavoidable, and he felt wildly out of control. Provoking a punishment let him feel solid again.
It was an entirely Omega reaction to scary emotions, and it set Dean wondering.
They found the Pack gathering for dinner. Alex sat on the counter with bandages pinning a gauze pad to his forehead. His face was washed clean, and his crying stopped. He still sniffled every now and then. Cas peered into his eyes with his penlight. He had one hand wrapped around the back of the boy’s neck to comfort him and hold him steady. April had an icepack ready.
“There you go, kiddo,” he pronounced. “Good as new.” He set Alex on his feet. Alex ran to Michael and threw his arms around Michael’s legs.
“What did we learn today about racing in the library?” Michael asked, lifting him to inspect what he could see of his injury.
“Not to,” Alex answered dutifully.
“Hmm,” Michael made an unconvinced sound. He placed Alex into his chair and smoothed his hair. “Until next time you’re in the library.”
All of the pups visited Alex at the table, hugged him, peered at his forehead, attempted to lift the bandages to see better and had to be sent packing toward their own chairs. April handed the icepack to Kali, and the beta pressed it to the child’s forehead as she sat beside him.
Cas washed his hands. Dean sidled up to him and leaned back against the kitchen counter, staring at the floor.
“May I help you?” Cas prompted. “Something on your mind, perhaps?”
“Sorry I was a dick. I know we can disagree without stooping to being assholes to one another. You remembered that better than I did.”
Cas dried his hands and regarded his husband. “I assumed you were trying to wind me up for tonight’s scene.” Dean’s troubled expression sobered Cas. “You weren’t winding me up.”
Dean shook his head. “No, but at this point, we need to deal with it anyway.”
Cas frowned in worry. He placed a hand ‘round the back of Dean’s head, leaving his thumb free to stroke down Dean’s cheek. “How are your dreams, love? Are you due for a Fall?”
Dean scoffed and looked back at the floor, embarrassed. “About that.”
“I see. So. Dinner first. Then give yourself fifteen minutes in the H/R room to get yourself centered. Then strip and place yourself on your safe square. Then wait. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dean?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good boy. And for the record, I understand what so angers you about what we did to Gage. I agree to the extent that I can. I hear you. I’m sorry it had to go this way. But time is not on our side, and we had to act. Maybe we’ll have better strategies in place for the next one. Maybe guiding O/Ds through adolescence will one day be commonplace. Maybe someone will write a textbook about it.” Cas touched his forehead to Dean’s. “Come eat. Tony made lasagna.” He cradled Dean’s face between his palms, touching him with utmost, reverent care, and he kissed Dean’s lips.
“Ace doesn’t have a concussion, right?” Dean asked.
“He’s fine,” Cas told him.
“Papa! Look! Garlic bread!” Jimmy bellowed.
Cas’ eyes twinkled as he pulled back, but then they shifted to stern as he gently admonished his son about shouting at the dinner table. He did, however, accept a piece of toasted garlic bread from Jimmy, and he made a great show of enjoying it as he took his seat.
The dinner table groaned under the weight of a meal large enough to feed the Winchester Pack. Claire and Kaia took Sam and Jess’ seats. The table was full. Dean had not overestimated when he fashioned it long enough to fill the kitchen space lengthwise. The island had served well when the pups were younger, but now they each had space of their own at the table proper. And there were more little ones on the way. Elbow room was becoming a dear commodity.
Luckily, aside from lighthearted, petty bickering, the family sitting crammed cheek by jowl mostly liked one another. Meals together were a time for basking, bonding, and building connection. They laughed together. They communed. They rolled around in each other’s unique scents.
Sarah, alone, ate quietly reserved. She kept her eyes on her plate. She answered only direct questions, and those with as terse a reply as she could get away with. Occasionally, Cas reached across and squeezed her shoulder.
“Michael and I have a preliminary training plan drafted, Cas,” Dean announced. “We can get started as soon as we have some time carved out that works for both Sarah and Kate. We’re thinking joint sessions twice a week, one hour each in the evening, and then one-on-one sessions for practice and homework two or three times in between. Those can be shorter. But we’ll play it by ear and see what works.”
Cas frowned and put a comforting hand on Sarah’s knee under the table, sensing when she stiffened. “Michael often works in the evenings, Dean. How do you expect to be able to set him to training work?”
Dean shook his head and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “No, no, Michael’s not the trainer. He’s just coordinating and standing in for extra tutoring and modelling when we need a hand. He’s a backup. Sam and I are going to do all the sessions. We’re splitting up the work so neither of us is hit real hard. We’re going to want you to take a couple of nights too if you can, Cas. The more we spread ourselves out, the better for everyone. Can I book a few sessions on your calendar?”
Cas nodded. “Yes, do. Thank you for putting the plan together, both of you.” Cas turned his attention to Sarah and Kate, side by side to his left. “Ladies? Are you ready to begin Sub training? Do you have any concerns or reservations?”
Sarah shook her head mutely. Kate glanced down the table at Dean. “You’ll let us go at our own pace, right, Dean?”
“Every step of the way,” he confirmed. “We’ve never tried private, at-home training before. We’re all in new territory here. But you two have the best trainers in the business at your disposal. We’re going to take care of you.”
She nodded and exhaled a long, telling breath. “I’m ready then, I guess. Thanks for letting us train together.” Kate glanced at Sarah with a gentle smile. “I’m glad you’ll be there with me,” she said. “Less scary that way.”
“I’ll be there too,” April said. “As often as I can. I can help guide you for some of the more difficult parts. And, I mean, it never hurts for me to review the material.” She huffed a soft, self-effacing laugh and gave Cas an adoring smirk. He leaned across and kissed her softly.
“You know, kid, I was meant to be your first trainer way back,” Dean commented. “I’m kind of sad to have missed out on it that first time. Would’ve liked to watch you blossom.”
“That was your own fault,” April told him cheekily. “You could have stayed, worked things out with Cas like a grownup and trained me to be the good girl I’ve become.” She winked down the table, and Dean grinned.
“I could’ve,” Dean agreed. “But then we would have missed out on all the telenovela drama and angst, and what’s life without drama?”
Michael rolled his eyes. He pushed back his chair. “You people are going to make me throw up,” he said. “And I’m not the pregnant one.” Standing, Michael kissed Dean. He cleared his dishes and then rounded the table to kiss April. “I’ve got to run,” he told her with a light brush of his fingers through her hair. “I’ll be home late. Don’t wait up. And don’t let Dean bully you into committing to every session. You don’t need another commitment on your plate right now.”
April graced him with a soft smile and reached into Castiel’s lap for his hand. “I’ll be fine, Michael. Alpha’s watching out for my workload. I’m looking forward to these sessions. They’ll be fun.”
Kaia frowned as Michael departed. “Why’ve you put the two busiest guys on training duty?” She nodded toward Kali. “She’s a Domme. I can feel it. Why not tap her to lead the training?”
Kali scoffed. But Gabe perked right up.
“Say, that’s a great idea,” he told her. “What do you think, babe? You and me as a tag-team?”
Cas cleared his throat. “Kali is a natural Dominant, but she is not a qualified trainer. There is far more to consider than simply teaching our Subs to kneel and obey. Besides, Gabriel, Sarah is not Omega. Your guidance is welcome in assisting Kate’s progress, but I ask that you not confuse Sarah by leading her to Omega behaviors that are not her responsibility to master.”
“You don’t think I can separate Sub training from Omega?” Gabe asked. “I can totally separate Sub training from Omega.”
“You’re no Submissive, Gabe,” Cas countered, but Gabe scoffed. He snatched another piece of garlic bread from the bowl in the center of the table and tore it in half.
Then he spoke with his mouth full. “Maybe not, but I’ve lived with you people long enough to be able to recite the Pledge of Submission backwards and forward and upside down.”
“The what?” Sarah asked, startled.
“There’s no such thing,” Cas assured her quietly. “Look, Gabe, if you want to help, and you swear not to turn it into an opportunity to sabotage our efforts, we’ll work you in. I’m pleased to know that the Pack is so united in this endeavor. That will certainly take the onus off of Sam and Dean to do it alone. Let me clarify, since most of us are here—we need to proceed with caution. We are committing to training a Primate to the ways of the wolf. That is a fraught and precarious undertaking. I charge all of you to take extreme care. There is to be no explicit contact until I greenlight it.”
“What about explicit contact with Kate?” Dean asked. “We’re good to go at the usual pace there, right? As long as she’s ready at each new stage?”
“Of course,” Cas agreed.
“And can we do that in Sarah’s presence?”
Cas glanced at Sarah. “Let’s plan to,” he said to Dean with his eyes on the ape. “But if she shows any indication of discomfort or backsliding, we’ll need to separate them.”
“Nah, it’s going to work, Cas,” Dean told them, eyes skittering from Kate to Sarah, then to Cas. “Sarah responds well to overt sexual behaviors. They arouse her. Touching Kate is going to be the best lead-in to get Sarah ready for the same.” Kat slid out of her chair and tugged at Dean’s arm. He lifted her into his lap without losing focus and let her attack his apple cobbler. There was more warming in the oven.
“That is our prediction, yes,” Cas nodded. “But we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Be sure to teach them both how to gut an attacker,” Claire added. “In fact, if I’m still here when you get to that section, I’ll do a demo, teach them how to take down someone three times their size without getting blood on their shoes or breaking a nail.”
Everyone laughed, although Sarah’s was a discomfited chuckle.
“We would be honored to host you as a guest speaker,” Cas told her warmly. “Perhaps you and Gabe…and Kaia,” he amended, “would do a whole self-defense module for us.”
“That’s if we’re still here,” Claire pointed out. “Krissy says there’s movement at the Utah compound we’ve had our eye on. We may need to cut and run.”
“Oh?” asked Cas. He handed April the pitcher of milk from outside her reach so she could refill Jimmy’s cup. “And would both of you be involved in that together?”
Kaia snorted inelegantly. “You mean did I sign Bobby’s contract?” she asked.
“That is what I meant, yes.”
Kaia sighed and looked at Claire. “I’m going to give it provisional try. For Claire. I don’t have a good feeling about working like this. I’ve always worked alone. I have…trust issues…I guess you could say. I’m not signing anything unless I’m sure it’s going to work out. But I’ll give it a shot…once.”
Cas nodded his gratitude in her shaky faith. It was all he was likely to get before Kaia had a chance to experience life under Bobby’s (and Claire’s) direction. He transferred his attention to his brother. “And you? Are you going with?”
All hint of mirth left Gabriel’s face. “Utah is big, Alpha. We’ve been looking for a way in for ten years. If there’s movement, then there will be weaknesses in their defenses. I need to be there. Ash will need me.”
Cas looked from Gabe to Dean, brows raised in question. Dean only nodded subtly, and Cas returned to Gabe. “While you are gone, you are to remember the limits of your scope at all times. I trust you don’t need a reminder. If TV crews show up and televise gore that puts our work in jeopardy, you won’t be leaving this house again, not to swat mosquitoes on the back porch. Do I make myself clear?”
“Tcch!” Gabe scoffed. Kaia mirrored him.
“This is why I work alone,” she mumbled into her dessert.
“Both of you listen to me,” Castiel commanded. “The limits are in place to allow us enough stealth to keep working. All it will take is one blowout that attracts attention, and everything we do is imperiled. You’re both smart enough to understand the big picture. Swear to me.” His Alpha left little wiggle room.
Gabe cocked his head and gave an impudent thumbs up, which Cas accepted. Kaia sucked in her cheeks and set her jaw before responding. But when Claire leaned in close and wrapped arms around her with whispered words, Kaia rolled her eyes and agreed. Claire rewarded her messily.
“When do you leave?” Cain asked. He and Kaia had begun to bond as unlikely friends, and he smelled concerned.
Claire ended their kiss with a smack and replied without any sign that they were discussing a dangerous mission, “As soon as Krissy sends word. Could be tonight, could be next month. She and Ash have to get a full recon done, and Maureen has to get resources in place. There’s no point crawling all over the site like fire ants until we can get in.”
“Well, in that case, perhaps we should move the self-defense portion of Sub training closer to the start,” Dean said as he wiped Kat’s hands with his napkin. How did one pup get so sticky so fast?
“Is it just the two of us in training?” Kate asked him. “I mean, Cain’s a Sub, and he’s never had formal training. Jess too. Why Sarah and me by ourselves?”
Sarah paled.
Dean snickered. Wouldn’t that be a fun class?
“Cain’s choice to train as a Submissive or not is his decision,” Cas told them. “He is alpha. And he has his Submissive needs well in-hand. As long as that is the case, he may choose for himself. Either way,” Cas shot Cain a look, “should he need training, we won’t be doing it at home. There are contract trainers we can employ.” Gabriel laughed outright. “And as to Jess,” Cas continued over his brother’s guffaws, “that is Sam’s decision. Thus far, he has been satisfied with his mate’s performance. It wouldn’t surprise me if he picks one or two sessions to bring Jess along to, either as a classmate or as a behavior model. It’s entirely his choice.”
“Sir…” Sarah finally spoke up. “Are you sure about Sam leading my…our training? What about…Jess? She and I…we’re not at odds…but, he’s her mate. I’m guessing that at some point along the way, the stricture against explicit contact will end. By the end of training, he’ll be…” she glanced across the table at Jimmy, “…engaging in explicit contact with both of us? Is Jess okay with that? Wouldn’t Michael be a safer choice?”
“It’s for training, Sarah,” Dean answered as if the question were a non-issue. “And you’re Pack. Jess really doesn’t figure into it.”
“I’m not comfortable getting in between them,” Sarah said. “All the time we’ve worked together, Sam has always kept a line marked clearly between everyone around him and his relationship with his mate. I won’t be the cause of breaking that boundary line. I won’t. It may be training, but we’re right here in our home where it would be so easy to forget where the boundaries are between training and… not-training,” she ended with a blush.
In Sam and Jess’ absence, Dean didn’t want to speak for either of them directly. Sarah’s point wasn’t academic. Everyone knew she and Sam gave off chemistry vibes like sound waves from a subwoofer. Their mutual crush was no secret. Jess had to know. Along Pack lines, of course, it wasn’t any of Jess’ business if her Dom chose to take a sidepiece, provided he continued to see to her welfare. But Jess’ happiness was a part of her welfare, and Sam would never put that at risk.
Kate broke the uncomfortable silence. “He said Jess has been craving another player,” she told the table. “Remember, Dean? During the Claiming ceremony. He said he might want a threesome for her sake.”
Dean scowled. “That was just his wolf running a scene, kiddo. It didn’t mean anything. At least, it didn’t have to mean anything.”
“But if he was telling the truth?” Kate prompted. “Maybe something could grow from our training courses, later on, once we’re trained. We’ll both need a Dominant. Right? I’m fine with Michael. He’s good with me. We gel. But Michael’s too busy to take Sarah on too.” Kate glanced around the table. No one spoke. She braved a little more, taking Sarah’s hand under the table where only Cas noticed. “Kali is straight,” she added. “Cain’s alpha, but not a Dominant. Cas is way too busy. Sam’s the only one in the Pack besides Kali without two Subs.”
Dean shrugged and rescued the penultimate bite of cobbler before surrendering the last to Kat. It was a fraught topic for sure, but it got Dean thinking. Was Sam beginning to loosen up his monogamy bent? Was Jess? It wasn’t any of Dean’s business. He knew Sam felt blessed to have landed the woman of his dreams despite those undoubtedly being strange dreams. And Sam had always guarded his bond with her jealously. There’d never been a crack of daylight between either of them. Sam’s professional responsibilities were professional. His private life was private. He was devoted exclusively to Jess, and that was that. But as Kate said, Sam’s wolf seemed to be hinting (if saying so outright might be called hinting) that there was room now for a third wheel—at least for Tertiary scening. He’d offered that spot to Kate. But was it really Kate he wanted?
Dean stood up and carried Kat to the sink to wash her hands, giving up on the napkin. “For one,” he said firmly, “which Dominant Sarah winds up with is not your call. For two, we’ve got a contract facility not fifteen minutes from here with all the Doms we can stomach. Let’s get started on training and see how things shake out before we tie ourselves up over who gets to bed Sam.” Dean set Kat on the floor and beckoned Emma to him with a light snap of his fingers and a flick of his head. Cas collected Jimmy and Alex and joined Dean at the sink.
“Yes, alpha,” Kate replied, chastened.
April took custody of Alex, saying, “I’ll put our little injured warrior to bed early, Alpha. Do you want me to give him some Tylenol?”
“We’ll do it together, Kitten,” Cas replied. “My Pet needs a little time to himself before we begin tonight’s scene.”
Dinner wound to a close with a clattering of cutlery and porcelain and a jumble of people moving in different directions. Claire and Kaia found themselves conscripted into doing the dishes with Kali while Gabe and Kate took the three pups who weren’t bandaged into their playroom for story time and wind-down activities. Dean slipped out alone to prep for Cas. Cain watched him round the back doorway before excusing himself, collecting his keys, and vanishing through the garage.
Sarah stood alone, watching the industrious flurry in the kitchen for a moment before sliding out the back door and slumping onto a lounge chair by the swimming pool. The moon was new, offering no warmth, no light. She wanted to find solace in all the effort the Pack was making on her behalf, but for every image they painted of where they hoped they could take her, her imagination supplied that Adam would have fit into that image beautifully. But he wasn’t here. He was never going to be part of those images.
She craved him like a hunger for food; she craved him more deeply than she’d ever craved food. She fought not to cry. She rocked herself slightly under a dark sky. Silently, Kali took the space beside her, opened her arms, and held Sarah as she wept.
Notes:
Don't stop here. Go on. Go on. All the smut is in the next chapter. For once, I actually wrote it. **winky emoji**
Chapter 28: Monday, September 6, 2021 (Cont.)
Summary:
It's a very serious d/s scene. It is. No laughing.
And Gage and Michael brave the big bad wolf on his own turf.
Notes:
This is a shorter chapter than most of 'em these days, but it's a continuation of the previous, so taken in total, it's almost as long as this sentence.
Enjoy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, September 6, 2021
NOW:
Dean floated.
His bare body felt warm, relaxed, gentled.
He lost track of time.
Sir said wait.
So he waited.
And he floated.
Eyes sleepily cracked just enough to see the door, soft, but not closed, he could feel Sir as he went about his business upstairs.
He would come to Dean when he was ready.
Meanwhile, Dean floated.
A gentle quickening brought Dean’s awareness to the surface as his Sir approached the door to their playroom. Nothing visible gave away his emergence from a subtle trance, but his eyes found the center of the door just as Castiel opened it.
Cas exhaled when his eyes found Dean’s, a soft unintentional release, awe and reverence and hunger.
“You are so good for me, Pet,” he said. Something profound passed wordlessly between them. Castiel never ceased feeling surprised at the depth of awe he held for this man who loved him. Dean never ceased taking his breath away. In small ways and big, Dean reminded Castiel every day that beauty and grace, power and righteousness, could exist in one irreverent human and could be Castiel’s for as long as he was careful, grateful, and worthy. No. Scratch that. Castiel could never be worthy. And yet, Dean was his anyway.
“I love you,” he told Dean.
Just in case Dean needed to hear it.
The slightest tightening around Dean’s eyes marked his acknowledgement. He didn’t answer but through the bond that shouldn’t exist. Cas fought not to grin.
He lost his fight.
He snickered softly to himself.
He straightened his expression.
“Ah, Pet. Whatever will I do with you?”
Subtle crinkles appeared at the corners of Dean’s eyes then vanished as the Sub schooled himself.
Cas took a deep breath and signaled with one hand. Dean shifted with the grace of his Tertiary. He stood tall beneath rings anchored into the ceiling and strung with hoisting ropes. He looked up briefly and then stilled in place. Castiel followed more slowly.
“We’re going to be edging this evening,” he explained as he collected a long coil of rope from its storage drawer. “And I’ll be putting you into suspension as well. Feel free to float and enjoy, Pet. But mark me. Obey my instructions or face stiff punishment. If you drift away on endorphins and miss my commands, I will not be pleased.”
“Yes, Sir,” Dean replied.
Cas signaled Dean to lie on his back on the floor and bend his knees. Cas knelt astride his belly and leaned low over him, the coil of rope pressed flat to the floor in his hand. He kissed Dean deeply. Dean hummed in delight. Pulling away just enough to focus on Dean’s eyes, Cas whispered, “What’s your safeword tonight, Dean?”
“Impala, Sir.”
“Very good.”
Cas heaved himself back to standing and began the methodical, hypnotic work of winding hemp around Dean’s right thigh, knee bent sharply, binding his lower and upper leg together. “And what do you say if you lose feeling in one of your appendages?” He didn’t pause his work as he talked.
“Yellow, Sir,” Dean replied sleepily.
Cas surveyed his droopy expression but let the statement stand. He could feel the waves of gentle pleasure easing Dean into an alternate place. “Very good.” He continued for a few moments, testing Dean’s circulation and sensation in his feet as he went before moving on to the other leg. “Good?”
“Wond’ful,” Dean replied in a slur.
“How is your knee?” Cas asked as he bound Dean’s left leg. “Is the angle acceptable?”
“Mm-hm.”
Cas worked efficiently. He eased Dean up to sitting and bound his torso in an intricate weave that tugged his legs in close, mindful of thirty-year-old hips, and set them spread wide. Dean balanced on his butt and the balls of his feet while Cas worked. Cas collected more rope when he needed it.
“Check in, Pet. Toes, knees, hips. Feeling in your legs? Is anything too tight?”
“I’m good, Sir. So fucking good.”
Cas chuckled. “Good. Be sure to tell me if you need anything adjusted. Give me your hands.”
Cas bound Dean’s arms close to his chest in a prayer position. Dean curled his fingers beneath his chin, a comfort position for his wolf. Cas stood, strung the ends of his ropes through the hoist-lines over his head and tied them firmly. He eased Dean over onto his back and kissed him.
“If you need out quickly, Pet, say Red or use your safeword. I’ve got the shears. I won’t hesitate to release you if you need out. Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
Cas tugged slowly, and Dean’s lower half lifted off the ground, leaving him braced on his shoulders. Cas wedged a stiff cushion under his shoulders to ease the angle and protect his neck. He raised Dean’s ass high enough to give Cas comfortable access. From this position, Dean was a veritable sex toy for the Dominant. Cas had free rein with his entire lower region. Kneeling between Dean’s feet, Cas leaned over and ran his tongue the length of Dean’s penis, over his flaccid knot, down his balls to his taint. He hummed and set to work with lips and tongue and nipping teeth.
The flavor of Dean, the scent of musk and mossy alpha, the feel of his flesh on Castiel’s tongue, everything about him and knowing Dean was trussed up and helpless sent Castiel soaring. Time could easily have slipped away on him. Dean’s buttocks tempted his hands, and his fingers didn’t try to resist. He wanted to strap Dean’s perfect ass. He couldn’t leave Dean in this position long, though. An awake, present part of Cas’ mind remembered to press a thumb into his toe and check the color.
Within his bond, Cas could feel Dean float away entirely, ass in the air, cock half-hard on his belly, leaking an ooze of precome. His feet flexed whenever Cas’ tongue breached his ass. His toes curled.
Cas loved it when Dean’s toes curled.
He fouled his own lower face with spittle as he pressed deeply into Dean’s body, swaying him slightly in his ministrations. Dean began to moan.
Cas wrapped a hand around Dean’s cock and stroked slowly.
“Ohhh,” Dean groaned, finding no leverage to press his hips into the motion. Cas built him quickly, bringing him close, and then he let go, licked one solid stripe upward and then stood up and stepped away. Dean’s eyes didn’t open, but a wrinkle formed between his eyes.
“How are your legs, Pet? Do we need to shift?”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, keep going, please…. ‘M good.”
“Shoulders okay?”
“Sir, please!”
“Mmm, keep that word handy,” Cas told him. “Wiggle your fingers.”
Dean straightened and flexed his fingers beneath his chin. “Please,” he begged, rock hard and growing desperate.
Cas let Dean suffer the uncertainty that he might cut the scene short for a few more moments. He couldn’t leave his Sub dangling like this for hours, but he had a good view of Dean from the inside. He would know when Dean’s body approached danger. His bindings held his weight across his hips, splayed evenly over his ribs, and gently anchored in his shoulders. They had time.
Cas returned to his knees and kneaded Dean’s butt in his fingers. “Well, if you’re sure…”
“Please…”
Cas took Dean’s very erect, very desperate cock in his mouth and hummed as he swallowed it down.
“OHHHH!” Dean’s whole body jolted at the pleasure. Cas let his fingers roam where they would. Unsurprisingly, they found their way into his asshole. He pressed both thumbs deep inside while he sucked Dean’s cock, lubricated on spit alone. He dug his fingernails into the meat of Dean’s ass.
“Unngh!”
He worked Dean over quickly and slowly, bringing him to the edge over and over and then denying him release as he systematically stretched his hole. Still fully dressed, Cas let his tie drape across Dean’s belly and chest, let it tease his cock when Cas stretched forward to suck his nipples or nibble the sensitive flesh of his ribs between ropes. Cas spent a long time on his knees, far longer than he usually found appropriate. But Dean’s noises were delicious, and his tied-wide legs offered too tempting a beacon. Cas pushed the limits of safe rope-play, but he found Dean impossible to resist.
Finally, panting, Castiel pulled away and stood up. He made quick work of lowering Dean back to the ground, and he massaged his shoulders for him, his neck. His lips. And okay, Dean’s lips didn’t technically need massaging, but they were right there, plump and open and wanting.
Dean lost his balance and rolled to his side, unable to arrest his momentum. Cas let him remain poised with his cheek planted in the floor and his leg keeping him from tumbling all the way to his belly.
“Check in for me, please, Pet.” Cas retreated to the far wall to select a paddle.
“Feet tingling,” Dean admitted.
“Do we have a few minutes, or should we untie now?” Cas asked him. He slapped the paddle against the inside of his arm.
“You gonna paddle me?” Dean asked, craning his neck to try to see his Sir. He knew that sound.
“I am,” Castiel confirmed. “You earned a full punishment with your attitude today, love. We’ve talked about arguing with me that way in front of others. Disagree with me all you want to, but keep it civil and professional, especially in public.”
“Oh. Right. I’m good for another five minutes, Sir.”
“Good boy.” Cas brought the paddle down onto Dean’s exposed ass, deftly avoiding his foot. Dean sucked in a hissed breath and twisted his spine.
“HOLD!”
“Sir.”
“Don’t you dare dodge my paddle,” Castiel corrected. He swatted Dean hard, losing count in his rhythm. Dean gritted his teeth. Every few strokes, Cas took hold of Dean’s foot and slapped the smooth wood onto the bottom of his bare foot, and Dean huffed, willing himself to hold still and take it.
It hurt.
His dick sagged back to half-hard, incapable of deciding whether to perceive the pain as pleasure or punishment. It was overwhelming, especially with his face still pressed into the cushioned floor. He couldn’t see enough. He felt flush with adrenalin, and his legs fought to kick out with no intention on Dean’s part. He was tied too well for it to affect anything but the curl of his spine.
“Eh-eh!” Cas corrected again. “Do I need to punctuate my instruction? My next move is to tie your balls if you can’t follow instruction. Hold. Still.”
“Aaahhh!!!” Dean cried as the relentless paddle fell. His dick decided once again. It read into Cas’ tone, and it hardened instantly.
“There you are,” Cas crooned as he sweated and swatted and reveled. “Don’t come, Pet. Not unless I say.”
“Unless?” Dean asked in dismay.
Cas scoffed. “Do not enter my play space with the expectation of orgasm, Pet. There is no guarantee. Now behave your ornery self and hold still!” Cas turned his ass bright red, and Dean struggled against the tone. He wanted to come so badly. Nerves zinged up and down his dick, through the sensitive central core at its base. His knot swelled. He huffed hard.
He pulled his knees up high and curled his spine to offer his ass as well as he could while bound. He screamed his frustration into the drool-coated floor. He slipped and slid in his own sweat.
But he didn’t come.
“Goddamn, Dean,” Cas blurted in wonder. He tossed the paddle clear and helped roll Dean onto his chest, braced up on his knees and forearms. The rope would be digging hard into his flesh by now but shifting him to a new pressure point bought them a little more time.
Edged and prepped until he was near weeping with desperation, Dean rolled his backside into a shameless presentation. And hoped.
Unable to contain himself, Cas shoved his pants clear, spit onto Dean’s hole, and sank in. Dean moaned and shuffled his knees until they were as wide as they would go in their ropes, closed his eyes, and let the sensation take him. Cas pummeled him until the peak of his ferocity was spent, and then he pulled out and slowly stood.
He kicked off his pants, his underwear, his socks, leaving his work shirt and tie in place. Breathing heavily, he set about freeing Dean of the ropes. He carried the man to the bed and set him down. He made a careful study of massaging each sore point, bringing blood back into the places constricted by ropes. Dean stretched his body the full length of its impressive height, arching his back. Cas climbed up to straddle him, looking down in adoration before falling onto his hands and kissing every part of Dean’s face and throat.
It didn’t take long to work himself to a fevered pitch again.
“Don’t move,” he instructed.
“On my honor,” Dean promised.
Cas stumbled off the bed and scrounged in his drawers for lube, swearing when two bottles turned up empty before finding a fresh one in the spares cabinet. Dean called, “Everything all right over there, Sir?”
“Mind your own business,” Cas chided, returning. He lifted Dean’s leg by the back of his knee and squirted cool lube straight into his ass. Dean shrieked and laughed, breaking the tone of the evening. But that shit was cold, damnit. He rolled onto his belly and began to crawl away.
Cas had other plans.
The Dom captured Dean’s ankles and dragged him back, bent him over the bed, and folded down over him, pinning him in place.
“I’m not laughing,” he announced straight into Dean’s ear. “I am not amused.” He shifted his hips and sank into Dean, thrusting up hard, earning a yipe and then a groan as Dean’s wolf sensed it was on perilous footing and fell lax. Cas went at it like it was his job, steady and steadfast. Thorough. He grunted on every third stroke or so as he put his back into it, but he ignored Dean completely other than to focus every molecule of his attention on the man.
He shifted Dean’s positioning frequently, favoring curling Dean onto his side and arranging him so that his ass hung right at the edge of the bed and then moving him to lie flat on his back with his hands behind his knees to hold himself open.
On and on and on.
Cas began to feel it in his thighs and his lower back. He climbed up on the bed, curled Dean back on his shoulders, and drove into him from above.
“Got any more laughing to do, Pet?” he goaded, winded slightly.
“Nuh-uh,” Dean grunted, pressed into the bed so hard he folded almost in half. “Not laughing.” Dean began to whine at the incessant abuse to his prostate and the gaping stretch of his hole. “Am I being good enough to come?”
Cas plunged his knot all the way in and ground down with his hips. “See, the thing is, Pet,” he rotated his hips in a brutal grind that had Dean squeezing his eyes closed. Castiel’s face was right there, and Dean averted his own on instinct. “Look at me when I speak to you.” Dean cracked an eye open but kept his chin pulled high and away. “The thing is, Pet, it isn’t about rewards or punishments. It’s about control. If you laugh at me, who has the control, you or me?”
“It’s you, Alpha,” Dean hissed through clenched teeth. “It’s always you. You know I’ll do anything you say. I’ll be anything you want. I won’t laugh. Aaahhh!!” Cas bent Dean into a pretzel with his body weight behind his thrusts.
“And why is that?” Castiel asked him, getting his knees planted and driving downward as if trying to meld Dean’s body with the mattress pad.
“Unnnnggghhh! Because your wolf is fucking terrifying, and I don’t stand a chance against ‘im,” Dean whined.
Cas laughed and let up enough to let Dean breathe. “Is he now?” he asked rhetorically. “You don’t seem very frightened.”
“I’m quaking on the inside,” Dean told him, still holding the backs of his knees.
“You are such a brat,” Cas rebuked, uprighting himself to kneel high over Dean. He spread Dean’s legs wide and hoisted him into his lap. He wrapped an arm behind Dean’s back, bringing Dean in close and falling to sit back on his heels.
“Hey there, stranger,” Dean said once their faces were close. He bent his knees to wrap both legs around Cas’ hips. “Did you notice you knotted me? Kind of snuck up on us this time.” He kissed his husband’s lips softly.
“Snuck is not a word, Winchester,” Cas said between kisses.
“Oh, well, pardon me, I forgot to bring my dictionary to bed with me.”
“Thought you were done laughing at me,” Cas teased with a nip at Dean’s lip.
“You asked for that one,” Dean chuckled. He bared his throat and Cas took him up on the offer.
“I did no such thing.” Cas rocked his hips gently, and Dean moaned at the tug. “Kiss me.”
“You didn’t come yet,” Dean observed.
“Neither did you,” Cas replied as their lips met.
“Mmm,” Dean pulled back, looking down into Cas’ face. “But I’m not meant to have. You, on the other hand. You’re knotted. Gonna be tough to get enough play to build up to it from here.”
“Well, then I guess we’ll just have to wait until my knot releases and then start all over again,” Cas told him. “Kiss me, Pet. Shut up and do your job.”
“Yes, Sir.”
As enjoyable as it was to wrap around Dean rather than provide him the scene he needed, letting Dean’s brat hijack the evening couldn’t be allowed to stand. They made out until Cas’ knot slipped free. It wouldn’t have taken long if allowed to diminish on its own, after all, without a climax, the knot wasn’t fully locked in place. But Dean cheats, and all it took was an arousal that kept his erection strong for his knot to stay rooted. Dean knew he was in for it once they separated, so he pulled out all the stops.
His ass ached already. Once he was free, Cas would blister it, but good.
“I’m going to have to punish you,” Cas pointed out, still kissing Dean.
“To be fair,” Dean replied, “things were already off the rails. You’re as much to blame as I am. More, actually, since it’s your wolf who’s supposed to lead this thing. If he can’t hold the pressure on, that’s not on me.”
“Oh, you want pressure?” Cas peppered his face with kisses, hands splayed on the sides of Dean’s head, holding him still for the deluge. Dean laughed outright.
“Like it matters,” he quipped. “You’re gonna take it out of my ass anyway.”
“I am,” Cas confirmed. “And then I’m going to put it back in.” He kissed Dean again. “Out.” Kiss. “In. You see how this works?”
“Mmm. Sounds redundant.”
Cas chuckled. His knot slipped free.
“Now, boss…” Dean began, pulling back, leveraging out of Cas’ lap. “Before you do anything rash...”
“I like rash,” Cas said. “Rash works for me.”
“Maybe I could just blow you and we call it a night. It’s getting late. Work in the morning. Wouldn’t want to fall behind.”
“Get my strap, Pet. Bring it to me.”
“Damnit,” Dean grunted. But he didn’t stall. “Which one?” he called over his shoulder as he perused the options.
“Three guesses,” Cas answered.
“Damnit,” Dean grumbled again quietly to himself. He collected the tawse and placed it in Cas’ palm. He slipped to his knees. Cas sucked his teeth as he inspected it.
“On your feet. Stand up straight. Lace your fingers behind your neck. Don’t move. Keep your feet planted.”
“Damnit,” Dean muttered.
“Shut up,” Cas advised.
This was going to hurt. Dean knew coming in tonight that there would be pain. He’d counted on it. Craved it. In fifteen minutes, he would be rife with endorphins and floating blissfully. Right now, though, all was dread and anxiety.
Pain hurt.
The first stroke cut off his ridiculous thoughts. He yelped.
“Up on your tiptoes, Pet. Balance.”
Cas hit him again. Hard. The tails wrapped his hips and left stinging welts. His already pained ass throbbed and burned, and his balance was precarious as the blows landed. His toes splayed and dug in for stability. Dean counted ten in his head. Then twenty. At thirty blows, tears escaped to streak his face, and he struggled with an even breathing pattern. At forty, he was hard-pressed to keep from outright bawling. At fifty, his bawling was ragged and ugly.
Cas dropped the tawse on the floor, dragged Dean to the edge of the bed, bent him over it and rammed straight into him, rock hard and incapable of drawing it out one moment longer.
“Laugh at me?” he spit into Dean’s ear. “Laugh at ME?”
“I’m sorry,” Dean hiccupped. “GAH! SIR!”
Cas wrenched his head over with a grip in his hair. “Come right now, Dean. NOW!”
“Unnnnnhhhh!” Dean groaned, Cas slipped his knot in, and they spasmed together. Dean’s body milked all the fluid from Cas’ knot it could relinquish. Cas moaned above him, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing.
They stayed rooted in place for several minutes. Cas kissed Dean’s temple over and over again. Dean worked his breath back into a standard in-out pattern, not easy with his Alpha’s weight lazy against his body. Cas had practically melted. But Dean didn’t want to move, either. Moving meant peeling Cas away, and that was going to sting like a motherfucker. Better to lie here and die quietly.
Cas pressed up on his hands with a sour huff. He eased himself upright, ignoring Dean’s pained hiss. Once he got his legs under him, he tested the tie. He was locked fast. One thing about fucking Dean twice, the first round usually caused some swelling. The second meant that Castiel’s knot tied good and rooted, more like an Omega’s channel clung to it than like an alpha’s. He wouldn’t be going anywhere until his knot deflated to its pre-arousal state.
“Tomorrow morning is going to suck ass,” Dean groused. He worked a knee up onto the bed, checked Cas’ readiness, then lofted the other until he was ready to ease forward with his ass low. Cas held his hip and followed. They made a comical sight, but ultimately, they got situated with a minimum of griping at each other.
“I’mma burn that tawse, Sir.”
“You already burned one of them, Pet.”
“Oh. Shit. Right.” Dean made a grimaced face over his shoulder, ready to apologize for making light of a still touchy subject. But Cas gifted him a gentle smile. Dean returned it.
“Can we sleep here tonight?” Dean asked.
“Go on to sleep, my love. I’ll wake you when we untie. Need to clean up…” Cas began snoring softly before he finished listing plans.
“Sap,” Dean whispered. He jostled around a bit until he was little-spooned right up into the nest Cas’ body made for him, and he fell asleep while sweat dried on his warm body.
In the morning, Dean found he ached just about everywhere. A hot shower soothed some of his sore muscles, but there was a lingering stiffness from his shoulders to his toes. Cas made him take a pain reliever.
Cas sat April at the breakfast table rather than on the floor so they could discuss her upcoming schedule. As Michael was still in bed, Dean took her place. He sat cross-legged on his green pillow next to his Alpha, and he leaned sleepily against Cas’ leg, accepting morsels of breakfast from the man’s fingers, dazed and floating.
“Have you seen this morning’s TikTok stats?” Cain asked Cas. “Her impromptu piano riffing at the airport lounge is viral. People love the notion that she might turn up anywhere in public and offer a free performance. I told you it would work.”
“Nice job, Kitten,” Cas praised. “You’ve really flowered beautifully into a confident performer. You’re at ease in the spotlight, and you’re approachable in settings like that. Well done.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” she blushed. “I think that kind of setting may be my favorite. There’s no barrier between me and the audience. I get to see them face-to-face and feel their energy respond to the music. I get to meet them and speak with them and know them a little.”
Cas set a hand on hers on the table, and she turned hers over to lace their fingers.
Cain said, “We need to decide on her concert attire soon, Castiel. April and Rowena want to go with the corset. I’m still firmly set on something more conservative. We’ve agreed to go with whichever outfit you prefer. How much of your mate are you willing to allow the public to see?”
Cas scoffed. He slipped another bite of bacon down to Dean and let the man lick his fingers. “She was nude at my wedding, and photos of that are in the public domain.”
Cain pressed. “This is different. It’s an entirely different perspective. She’s Ozzie, and the world is canted to see her as a sex toy. If we’re intending to prove differently, then throwing her onstage trussed up like a porn star is a bad decision.”
“April?” Cas asked, throwing her the baton.
She steadied herself, unaccustomed to being part of a breakfast conversation. She glanced around the table. No one else was paying any attention to their conversation. “It’s not just a question of trying to prove I’m more than your kitten, sir. We’re trying to prove I’m a whole person. Being sexual is a big part of who I am. I’m not the shy, virginal teenager I was when I first started in the business. I’m a grown woman with adult relationships, four pups and two on the way, a business and a career and a Grammy. It’s time I stopped acting the role of the schoolgirl onstage. I’m not planning on a slutty public meltdown, Cas. I’m planning on a very deliberate shifting of my public persona. I want to take a piece of my private self and show it off for what it is—a healthy, confident adult sensuality. It’s okay to be Omega and feel sexy. It’s okay to be confident and Submissive at the same time. I want to quit acting like I’m twelve. Please, sir.”
Cas cut his eyes back to Cain. “I don’t see how you win this one,” he told the alpha. “She makes a fair point.”
Cain leaned in. “It’s a genie we can’t put back in the bottle, Cas. Once we do this…”
Cas shook his head. “If she decides overt sensuality doesn’t work for her anymore, then we let her reinvent herself again. As far as I know, there’s not a limit to how many times an artist can change their image as they evolve.”
Cain sighed and looked at April. “A corset it is, then. Fishnets too?”
April laughed. “I haven’t decided about the fishnets. I’m focusing on the set list. I’m okay with Rowena putting the outfit together.”
“Terrific,” Cain grumbled.
At Cas’ flank, Dean chuckled.
In the end, Dean chose to assist Michael in his effort to coach Gage. Michael assumed it was to make sure Michael didn’t do anything else stupid. Whatever.
“Gage, this is Dean. He’s going to be helping us out today. He’s not a Dom, but he is Deep alpha. He can help navigate around your wolf.”
Dean busied himself adjusting and calibrating the sensors.
“He’s pissed at you already,” Gage observed. “What’d you do to him?”
Michael rolled his eyes. “I didn’t do anything to him.” As an afterthought, he added, “He’s my mate.”
Gage’s brows shot up and he laughed. “Well that certainly explains the hostility.”
Michael cuffed him upside the head. “What did I say about My Cousin Vinny references?”
Gage laughed. Michael could tell he was covering for a severe case of nerves. Light playful banter was a good way to stiffen their bond. Michael kept up a constant, gentle pressure, like a psychic massage, along with taking Gage’s ribbing. He was growing attached to the boy in a way that had nothing to do with the Claim. Gage was bright and witty, guarded, wary, but hopeful. He accepted Presenting Omega far more readily than Michael had, but Gage’s life had already thrown so many disappointments at him, much heavier burdens than this, and Gage had long since stopped expecting the Universe to be fair. It was almost a relief to be Omega, he’d said.
Dean signaled readiness, and Michael nodded. Gage was right, Dean was still annoyed with his mate. They hadn’t even gotten into the fact that as Michael’s mate and alpha, Dean had the final say in who and where and under what circumstances Michael would be allowed to Claim someone. Michael knew they would eventually. Dean wasn’t one to let something like that slide.
And it simmered at a slow boil, lidded for the moment but growing pressure under that lid.
“I’m going to sit behind you,” Michael told Gage. “We can keep our shirts on this time. But I need to have the same point of view you have. From here, I can look over your shoulder and see what you see.” Michael sat down on Gage’s bed, right up against the headboard. He placed Gage’s pillow against his own belly, ostensibly for Gage’s comfort, but also because Michael knew he was disposed to arousal while in his wolf, regardless of appropriateness. It would be best if Gage wasn’t forced to deal with another erection pressing into his lower back.
Michael patted the pillow and spread his legs to give Gage a place to sit.
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Gage snarked.
“Shut up and get on the bed.”
Dean made some kind of a snorting sound. He clicked the control panel to readiness and took a seat on a stool behind it. He gave a thumbs up and began an intense study of the readouts as they reached onset points.
“All right, kid,” Michael said with a deep breath. “I’m going to let you in on a secret.”
“Something to help with my wolf?” Gage asked.
Michael nodded. “Yup. See, the thing is, the wolf, he’s you. He’s a part of you. He’s a lesser part of you, no matter what he wants you to believe. Listen to me, Gage. Your wolf won’t harm you. If you bleed, he bleeds. But even more importantly, he can’t harm you. You hearing me? He can’t hurt you. He doesn’t have that power.”
Gage scoffed. “The hell you say.”
“I’m serious, and we’re going to prove it in just a minute. Most people don’t know this. Your Secondary, the Omega? He’s the one with all the real power. Your Primary can funnel power from the Secondary and use it like a weapon, use it to establish primacy. But it’s all the Omega’s power really. The wolf is…it’s all intention and want and drive, but it’s like a ghost in your head. It can’t actually do you lasting damage.”
“He’s bitten me, Michael,” Gage argued. “He tore a chunk out of my face!”
“He only did what you allowed him to do.”
Gage huffed in disbelief, eyes welling with frightened tears.
“Your wolf,” Michael went on, eyes locking on Dean’s across the room, “cannot leave the wolf dream. He lives there. It’s his home. But it’s also his prison. You, on the other hand, both your front brain and your Omega live out here in the real world. And your Omega can cross into both worlds. There is no more powerful aspect of who you are than your Omega.”
“I don’t get it,” Gage admitted. He pressed his back into Michael’s chest and pulled his knees in, curling into a tight ball. Michael wrapped his arms around the boy.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Michael told him. “You know that plexiglass stuff that is bulletproof? Real thick sheeting of impermeable plastic, or whatever. I don’t know what it’s made of. You know that stuff?”
“Yeah?” Gage answered.
“Okay. I want you to imagine that. Make it as thick as you want. Make it totally impervious to everything. You got it?”
“Uh…okay.”
Now, form it into a cylinder. It’s hollow. It’s big enough to fit over you. Put small holes in it if you want so you can breathe. Make it extend way up into the sky if you want. Or put a lid over it. Form it however you want so that nothing could possibly break through it to get to you. Are you with me?”
Gage trembled. “What if he digs?”
“It’s your world, Gage. Shoot the edges of that fucker deep into the earth. Hell, wait until he starts to dig and then shoot it into the earth and guillotine his toes off. It wouldn’t hurt your message if he walks away from this with a scar or two to help him remember who’s in charge.”
“Jesus, Michael,” Gage murmured. But his back stiffened slightly.
“He can’t hurt you, Gage. He has no power that you don’t grant him. I used to think there was no way an Omega could hold the leash of a big wolf, but I was wrong. Omegas are powerful mofos. You can do this. You have all the strength in your first and second designations to make your wolf mind you. I’ll prove it. You ready? You got your shield? Standing inside it. Trust your power, Gage. Trust me. I will be right there with you.”
“Are you inside the cylinder or outside?”
Michael hugged Gage tightly. “This is your exercise. But I’ll be close enough to guide you, talk to you. I won’t let anything happen to you, kid.”
Michael felt a surge of emotion from Dean, and his chest tightened. He took a deep breath.
Michael rested his hands on Gage’s shoulders, drawing him to lean back against the pillow, back into Michael. Their scents mingled. The bond vibrated, pulsed. Michael closed his eyes. After a few breaths, Gage did the same. Behind the glass, Cas, Heath, and Bobby observed.
Within his head, Michael focused on the bond, followed it with his mind, drew on his own imagined wolfscape. Surrounded himself with the smell of it, the feel, the humidity in the air, the breeze through the alpine canopy, the soft soil broken by jagged granite outcrops. He shifted to four feet and a muzzle. His sense of smell sharpened. He felt his chest expand into a different dimension. He felt himself prick his own ears forward and adjust the furl of his tail to his swift padding across a patch of snow, finding balance.
He could see it as clearly as if his eyes were open.
Every wolf had access to this, to this imagined world within their own heads. Once they characterized the image of their own wolf, the world it occupied built itself, growing in depth and complexity as the person matured, gained complex experiences that the wolf interpreted in its own way. Some of the building was intentional through one of the other designations, such as when a Primary inserted a kennel with a locking door rather than a cave that opened with a gaping maw. The kennel wasn’t a natural occurrence, but once it was installed, it became an irrefutable part of the wolfscape, and its physicality worked just as incontrovertibly as the mountains and the rain.
What made Michael’s abilities unique was that in moments of high psychic arousal, he could shift his entire cognizance into the wolfscape until the real world fell away, and his mind was there in every sense of the word, not just picturing it. He could manifest two designations at once, splitting himself into two disconnected beings that could interact with each other. He’d not yet managed all three, but he was hopeful it was possible.
And now, Michael had also mastered the ability to connect his psychic mind directly into someone else’s wolfscape, combining his own with theirs like fitting two jigsaw puzzle pieces together to form one picture. Michael postulated that every Lupin’s personal wolfscape was a part of one whole reality. When he dwelt there, he sensed an entire population seemingly just beyond the horizon. He had never found another wolf spontaneously, but he had begun to explore further and further afield in the hopes of meeting someone else with the same unusual capacity.
For now, Michael let his wolf lead the way toward Gage. He knew he would find the youngster at the end of the bond-link they shared. It was a matter of following an invisible path through the trees. He put his nose to the ground and scented his way.
He found the boy hunkered shivering under a tree, back pressed against the trunk, naked and very human, ugly scars running the length of his forearms from wrist to elbow, healed but angry.
“Did you forget your shield already?” Michael asked.
Gage struggled to his feet and threw his arms around the gangly black wolf. He was crying in fear and relief. Michael ignored the tears.
“And put some clothes on, kid. This isn’t that kind of show.”
That earned a startled laugh. Gage looked down at his body, frowned, and dressed himself in layers.
“Atta boy,” Michael praised. “Okay. Your shield. This is your show. You’re the director. Make it what works for you…”
Gage stepped into the open reluctantly, steeled himself, put on a brave face, and turned toward the mountain face where his wolf abided. They could both feel it watching. For an instant, a shiny round circle surrounded Gage, and then it winked out.
“Concentrate.”
Michael spoke words with his human body, putting instructions in Gage’s real physical ear, but they rang through the crisp air of Gage’s mental landscape, seeming to come from Michael’s black wolf without the need for human lips or vocal cords.
“This is bizarre,” Gage observed.
“Concentrate!”
The shield popped back into existence, planted firmly in the ground, rising to several yards over Gage’s head. It had a tight circumference, pulling in close to the boy. He had no more than a couple of feet in any direction.
“Okay. Shove against it,” Michael told him. “Test it. Make sure it’s strong.”
Gage planted his palms in the shield and shoved hard, lending all of his weight to the effort.
“Remember, he can’t get through that. He can’t hurt you.”
Tears welled up again as Gage beat his fists against the shield. He was terrified. “Michael…”
“I’m right here, Gage. I won’t let anything happen to you. Take your time.”
Gage huffed a few hard breaths. His expression passed through a multitude of facets as he worked himself up. Michael watched in awe, astounded at the boy’s courage. He tried very hard not to think back to his own adolescence. Outside the room they occupied, a whole emerging approach to youngsters in need was finding its feet, digging in, and gaining traction. Gage’s room was just one of a whole floor on the adolescent wing built for teens in crisis, plumbed with high tech monitors and sensors, built for every kind of emergency they’d encountered so far.
This one was new though, and they had no script for this.
Michael kept his hands on Gage’s body to keep at least a part of him grounded in the physical world.
At last, shakily, Gage set his jaw and nodded, chin low, eyes on the mountain.
Michael followed his gaze and released his hold on the beast.
Gage gasped and crouched even before sighting the wolf.
“Stand on your feet, kiddo,” Michael whispered. “He can’t get to you. All you have to do is watch from inside your shield.” Michael saw the creature bounding down from the heights, but he kept one eye on Gage. The boy looked ready to pass out. “It’s just like being at the zoo,” he coached. “You can see and hear and smell him, but he can’t get to you. You’re safe, Gage. Hold… … … Hold.”
And then the wolf was upon them, slavering, snarling, red eyes aglow, crashing through the underbrush and flinging himself against Gage’s shield, furious, out of its head with rage. Its claws stood inches long, torn and broken into jagged points. It raged, up on its hind legs, taller by far than Gage.
Gage shrieked and ducked, curling into a fetal ball and covering his head with his arms.
“Gage, HOLD!” Michael shouted. “HOLD!”
“Michael, HELP!” Gage cried.
The wolf stood on impossibly tall legs, gangly and monstrous. Its jaw gaped red and steaming. It wasn’t a wolf at all. It was a monster. It threw itself at the shield again and again.
Michael moved into the open, making his presence known, snarling. A growl started deep in his throat, much bigger than the wolf it came from. Gage’s wolf ignored Michael, too furious to be distracted.
“Breathe, Gage,” said Michael. “One breath after another. You’re safe. You’re safe, kid. He can’t hurt you. All he can do is scare you. He’s all bluff. We’re going to wait him out. Concentrate on your shield. He’ll get tired eventually. I promise. You’re doing great.”
Gage rocked on his feet, feeling utterly overwhelmed under the onslaught. The wolf dug its enormous claws into the dirt, sending dirt spraying behind him in a fan. Gage watched through squinted eyes and cringed.
“He’s mad, Gage, but we’re going to help him get what he needs. Not like this though. He can’t be allowed to bully you. Let him wear himself out.”
The wolf gave up digging when it found no edge to the shield and took to throwing himself bodily at it instead. The shield reverberated and swayed, but it held. Hot drool sprayed from the wolf’s mouth as it raged. White showed all the way around both irises. Michael kept up a constant low assurance for Gage.
After what felt like forever, even as the wolf continued its attack, Gage sniffled and raised his head, cocking it hard to one side as if prepared to submit. He blinked rapidly.
“There you go,” Michael urged. “Trust the shield you built. You’re safe. I want you to watch him. Get a good hard look. Get to know him.” Michael paced slowly around the clearing, circling Gage, his shield, and his angry wolf. The wolf wisely chose not to engage Michael although he kept a wary eye on him, and he kept Gage between himself and the black wolf with enough confidence for ten wolves.
Gage slowly began to trust that the shield wasn’t going to fail. He raised first his head, then his spine. He watched the wolf circle and sneer, tear tracks streaking his young face. He sat on the ground, arms around his knees, mirroring his physical body out in the real world, and his breathing evened out.
“He’s not a foreign actor, Gage. He’s you. You and he are one. He can’t hurt you, but you can hurt him. He’s a smaller part of your psyche than you are. We’re going to teach you to get to know him, to leash him, control him, feed him. We’re going to find out if it’s possible to build trust with him. He’s not a monster. He’s just a wolf.”
As Michael talked, Gage watched his wolf circle, circle, endlessly pace, its head low now, panting in frustration. Its legs seemed less tall. Its throat seemed shorter, thicker, more wolflike. Gage blinked, turning his head as the wolf paced.
He pressed a palm to the inside of the shield. His wolf stopped about a yard away. Its front legs splayed wide, its chin only inches from the ground, watching warily. Gage met its eye, and it snuffled aggressively like a bull in a bullfight. But Gage held anyway.
Michael stood oblique to the distrustful pair. Ready to intervene. Barely breathing.
“Speak to him,” Michael whispered into Gage’s ear. Slowly, Gage pressed himself up, standing to his meager height. His palm slid upward along the shield wall, still pressed into it. The breeze stopped. All the world held its breath. The wolf pawed at the earth, sending loam flying. Gage clenched his jaw.
“Calm down,” Gage said in a shaky voice. “I’m not your enemy.”
“Atta boy,” Michael urged. As he watched, the wolf diminished. It shook its head, blinked and snuffled and shrank. As they both watched, it took on an entirely new form. Soon a deep russet desert wolf growled at its own Omega, impotent to continue its façade any longer.
“Calm down,” Gage repeated, more confident. “I can help you get what you need,” he said. “But you have to listen to me.”
The wolf snarled and huffed, prepared to attack, but it didn’t attack. Michael decided it was time to give Gage a break. He stepped into the wolf’s space, loomed over him with a snarl of his own, answering his challenge with one the wolf couldn’t win, and shouldered him onto the ground, snapping hard and fast and irrefutable in his face, meeting teeth with flesh enough to prove it wasn’t a bluff. The wolf whined, yiped, and rolled.
Michael couldn’t speak directly to it the way Gage could, but he didn’t need words. He glared into the wolf’s eyes until it averted its gaze and bared its throat. Michael gave one mighty shove into the wolf’s chest with his two front feet, making it wince and cringe, and then he stepped out.
“If you’re ready,” Michael told Gage, “let the shield go.” Gage’s eyes shot wide and flicked to where his wolf lay still but watchful on its side. “If you’re not ready, that’s okay. We’ll take it at your pace.”
“He won’t bite me? You promise?”
“He won’t. One day I’ll convince you he can only bite you if you let him.”
Gage’s breath came hard and fast, and Michael was just about to call it done and successful and time to emerge back into the room with a bed and a window and miniblinds when the shield evaporated into mist. A gentle breeze lifted Gage’s hair and ruffled Michael’s fur.
“I’m so proud of you,” Michael told him. “Come put your hand on my shoulder. Show him you’re not afraid of me. Let him know you and I are united.”
Gage pressed his lips together. Something steeled behind his eyes, and they shifted to gold, He stepped forward. He looked strong, but Michael’s bond with him told him Gage was shaking fit to come apart. None of it showed in his carriage though.
Strong like an Omega.
Michael felt chill bumps erupt down his real arms. He swallowed hard.
Gage reached Michael and held out his hand, palm down. Michael licked it once then rubbed the side of his face along Gage’s hand, arm, hip. Gage laughed, abrupt and unexpected. “You’re such a dork,” he said.
Michael let his tongue loll, grinning with his wolf’s eyes. Gage knelt though. He put his arms around Michael’s thin ruff and buried his face in black fur. “I’m not ever going to let him hurt you, Gage. I’ll stand beside you however long you need me, and I’ll teach you to stand up to him on your own. I’m going to teach you everything I know.”
“Can you teach me how to close the bond so I don’t have to feel you jerk off again like last night?” Gage asked cheekily, replacing terror with a whistling-past-the-graveyard sophomoric humor.
“Little asshole,” Michael groused with a nip to Gage’s ear that had him laughing and dodging.
His wolf lifted its head and thumped its tail once. Gage regarded it. He licked his lips. The wolf mirrored him.
“That’s enough for one day,” Michael stated. His tone left no room for argument. “This is a marathon, not a sprint, and you made a lot of progress fast. We’re going to need to let that sink in before we take the next step.”
Gage tore his eyes off his wolf and looked back to Michael.
“Okay.”
“When you’re ready, pup, open your eyes.”
Michael remained until he saw Gage’s image wink out. He turned a cold eye on the rust-colored wolf lying in the dirt, and he growled a threat and a warning, and then he retreated.
Michael opened his eyes. The lights of the room had been dimmed. Gage lay against his chest, still, staring straight ahead. Michael touched his arm, squeezed. Gage took hold where Michael held him and squeezed back.
“Thank you,” he said in a tattered voice. It sounded like Gage’s screams had not been entirely metaphysical. His throat sounded shredded.
“You’re welcome,” Michael told him. He glanced up and met Dean’s eyes. Dean’s face was grim. Dean’s chest rose and fell like a sprinter’s. His mouth hung slightly open. Within their double bonds, Dean wrapped himself around Michael and clung hard. Michael embraced him back and let his head fall onto the headboard. He sagged with the pup in his arms and his mate in his head.
Notes:
Okay. So, here's the thing. I will never abandon this world until the story is done. But I'll be going dark for a while. And I know that's saying something considering how my pace has already slowed way down from when I took a new job in May of '21. Used to be a chapter a week, then a chapter a month, then one every couple of months. Now, I expect maybe about four months before I can write again. I will get back to this. But give me a few months to work on a project that requires my weekends.
Love to the Pack, all of you.
Chapter 29: Saturday, September 11, 2021
Summary:
Sarah's attempting a Keller test. Dean tries his hand at songwriting. And Sam and his protégé get real.
Notes:
I'm back. My project was a spectacular bust, and I'm very glad I tried (and failed). Never let it be said that success is the goal.
Little word of thanks to everyone all over this fandom who continue to keep the faith even after they stopped feeding us new episodes. I keep watching so many of my favorite authors move on to new fandoms, and it hurts my heart a little because these two? They are it for me. I'm a monogamous shipper, apparently. That's the "O" in OTP, after all.
Not judging. To each their own. But I will carry on. Glad to have you guys with me.
Some of you will recognize the lyrics herein. My Radio Company boys gave me the best gift in the world, two entire albums that fit my AU so beautifully it takes no stretching to assume alpha-Sub Dean Winchester wrote them. Seriously, all those tunes, and only two of them can't be directly applied to a Dean characterization. How cool is that? It's time I put it in writing.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, September 11, 2021
NOW:
A bead of sweat tracked down the side of Sarah’s face. Her lips parted in a soundless whine, and her head fell back as she surrendered to the sensations. Naked in the H/R room, Sarah fell back onto the bed from a seated position and finally, finally gave in to her baser desire. Three handsome, patient men eased her with careful touches and soothing whispers.
She wanted to go there. She really did. But casual sex had never been Sarah’s thing. She didn’t know any of them, and she found that trust wasn’t enough to loosen her inhibitions, not without persistence that bordered on biblical devotion. Devoted, they all were—devoted to their task to get her thoroughly riled and prepped without tipping her over the edge, to easing her into a headspace where libido took over, to lowering those infernal, pesky inhibitions enough to cut through the nerves.
Her mind wasn’t about to forget that a whole team of Castiel’s best waited across the hall to watch her go one-on-one with contractors of her Alpha’s choosing. But as she craned her head back to roll in the luxurious bedding, knees wide, chest heaving, Sarah set that annoying little tidbit of information on the highest shelf and nudged it way toward the back where dust and forgotten books lay waiting to be found only once a new occupant sought to refurnish staid old décor.
She put it out of her mind.
Her toes curled.
She no longer cared who they were. Their touches were magical.
“There it is,” someone murmured. “Go let them know she’s ready.”
Hands left her flank. The H/R room door opened then closed. The tongue on her labia persisted.
Maybe this was an insane idea.
But she didn’t care. She’d spent enough time watching, watching and maintaining a researcher’s detachment and silently longing to jump into the pool they all swam so easily in. She had been edging closer and closer to the pool, searching silently for a way in. The topic embarrassed her dreadfully. How do you state right out that though you do not come bearing any of the prerequisites for Pack life, that it looks like heaven and you want in?
Sarah moaned.
She had no idea what was about to happen, but she wanted it.
A warm, wet mouth closed around her big toe…
“Go get Aaron,” Cas instructed the bright young Ozzie assisting Ellen. Ellen ran a quick test of her sensors, set around the room on poles and taped to cabinets. Attempting a Keller test in the Winchester’s playroom was going to be a shitshow if she didn’t keep on top of all the equipment. Luckily, she had her dream team arrayed about her, Jo at her left elbow on vitals, Charlie on the sensor readouts. Meg sat her usual place on video, ready to jot down everything in a running journal, ready to catch what the sensors couldn’t. It had been years since this particular team all worked together.
Ellen smiled. These were her girls, all of them.
“Get the Omega right in the middle of the bed,” Ellen instructed no one in particular. “We’re assuming a beta-Neutral panel test. Expect she’ll Top the Ozzie, and if she doesn’t, that’s all the more telling…”
“Not our first rodeo, Mom,” Jo told her.
“Sorry, alpha,” Ellen said, cutting her eyes toward her daughter. “I know. It’s just that this setup has me weirded out. I need my control room around me. I don’t like knowing she can see us. It will throw off the results.”
Cas leaned down and squeezed her shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, Ellen. We’re not filing the results with the Institute. This is only for private use.”
Ellen and Meg both scoffed.
“Private use and to stroke your ego, Alpha,” Jo said under her breath, watching her screen as the calibration ran.
“What was that?” Cas asked, turning sapphire eyes on the back of her head.
“Nothing, Sir!” she sang.
They heard the playroom door open. Standing privacy screens hid all but their direct view of the bed, so they didn’t see Aaron slide in, surrender his robe to his attendant, and make his way toward the bed until he kneed up onto it, nude and lithe. He ignored the little team of technicians. Nothing about this arrangement was according to protocol, but Aaron knew how to follow someone’s lead. Cas had promised him it would be a test just like any other test, and he trusted the Alpha.
“All right, Sandy,” Ellen called. “Go fetch our testee. Check that she’s comfortable before you bring her in. Answer any questions. Make sure she’s hydrated. If we need to wait, we’ll wait. Don’t bring her in until she’s ready. The test begins when the door closes on her.”
“Yes, doctor.” A disembodied Ozzy voice floated past the screens, and the sound of the door reached them again. Ellen glanced up at Cas.
“I hope you know what the hell you’re doing here. If you get my license revoked, you’re going to pay,” she quipped.
Cas laughed. “I don’t have the first idea what I’m doing, Ellen. That’s why we’re doing it.”
Kevin finished a circuit of the room, angling sensors at Charlie’s direction, and he slipped behind the curtain to drop into a rolling chair. Gracefully, he pivoted until his knees slotted under his desk. He collected his tablet and logged on. “You know, Alpha, this could lead to all kinds of great cross-species studies. I know you said it’s a one-time deal…” he said.
“It’s a one-time deal,” Cas repeated with his eyes on the tracer lines as they found Aaron’s output and stabilized on it.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You said. But then, what am I doing here? I’m already seeing a hundred directions we could spin this off into. We’re all mammals, after all. We’re all sentient hominids. There’s crossover ties, I can feel it.”
“You’re here, Kevin, to capture any data the rest of us miss. We are only doing this once, so we cannot afford to miss anything. I plan to go over the data with a fine-toothed comb, and you’re going to help me with that.”
The door to the hallway opened before Kevin replied, and a hush fell. All eyes scanned the monitors that had been hastily arrayed in a corner of Cas’ playroom. Sarah’s scent reached them before the woman herself emerged from behind the screens. She smelled appropriately aroused, albeit nervous as hell. A whispered voice urged her toward Aaron, lying ready and waiting.
“Take it as it comes, Sarah,” Sandy murmured. “Do whatever feels most natural. There are no wrong answers here. I’ll be right over in that corner if you need me. But try to pretend we’re not there as much as you can. No one’s going to judge you. We’re only here to help.”
“Thanks, Sandy. I’m good. I’m ready.”
As Sarah passed the screens, approaching the bed, she kept her eyes on Aaron, ignoring with Herculean effort the team in the corner whose heads all turned to watch her slide up beside the bed. Cas could only guess what she was thinking, but he had to give her credit for courage.
With a swipe at her lip, her tongue darted out and then disappeared again. She sat awkwardly on the side of the bed, smiling softly as Aaron rolled to meet her. They reached for each other, neither commanding, neither beseeching. Slowly, she leaned over him and kissed him. Her hand splayed across the back of his head, plying into his hair and tugging him in as she stretched out to lie beside him. They ended up on their sides, facing one another, hands in motion over each other’s bodies. Sarah was the first to commit. She wrapped her top leg over his hip and tugged him closer. She rolled until he lay spraddled on top of her, and she kissed feverishly.
Aaron whined. His back curled in a classic Omega submissive posture.
Charlie’s hands flew on her keyboard. Her eyes remained glued to the couple. Ellen’s gaze alternated from screen to live show and back again constantly, watching for telltale cues that would prove what was happening internally. No one quite knew what to look for from Sarah, although she had all the usual sensors pasted to her body. But Aaron they could read. His near-immediate roll told them something, if not everything. From the gentle start, Sarah led things inexorably into predictable territory. She rolled her hips upward as she gripped his ribs and kissed his throat. Aaron went with it without attempting more than simple reactions. He clearly enjoyed her touch. Cas congratulated himself on selecting a perfect Keller lead-off. Aaron was sweet and gentle, responsive and submissive. He would ease Sarah in without spooking her.
Aaron scratched an itch Sarah had had growing in annoyance since Adam’s unfortunate departure. Cas assumed she knew that. But she didn’t balk, she leaned into it. She rolled them over and spread her knees wide around his hips. She pulled up to look down into Aaron’s dark, soulful eyes, holding them with heat as she reached for his penis. He’d hardened between them, and Sarah took advantage of that fact to skip any further unnecessary intermediate play. She held him in her hand, lifted her hips, and slid into place without breaking eye contact. Aaron held supremely still. He breathed slowly out as she sank into place above him, seeming almost to be trying not to break the spell.
“Good,” Cas found himself whispering. “Good boy.”
“Shh,” Ellen shushed quietly. “Don’t forget, they can hear you. Don’t intervene.”
Castiel found his eyes glued to the gently undulating couple. He knew there would be no Claim, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what he hoped to accomplish here today. Perhaps it really was all about his own ego. Perhaps it was his hedonist Alpha eager to ply its voyeur, eager for a simple thrill. But his instinct told him to follow this experiment all the way through to its culmination. Something told him Sarah needed him to bear witness and to provide her something outside of either of their two species’ cultures. He felt the oddest sense of riding harsh waves with her in a roughshod dinghy through hail and lightning. Just the two of them. He didn’t know what yet, but he knew this moment meant something important.
“She’s holding steady in the beta zone,” Charlie whispered. “Solid read. It doesn’t waver. Not with this Ozzie, anyway.”
“Shhh. Write it down. No talking.” Ellen chided without leaving off the flow of her typing fingers.
Cas glanced down to Charlie’s monitor and confirmed Sarah’s hormone outputs all fell central in the beta region of the chart. That much, they could have guessed already. Beta was a species default. It took a developmental process leap to alter an individual’s progress into either an Omega or an alpha. Philosophers and phylogenists alike opined that every species had betas. Only, without the outer two designations to highlight their unique features, there was no point in characterizing them.
Behind him, Cas could hear Kevin typing furiously.
On the bed, Sarah led Aaron through a simple round of fucking that focused on the connection of their mouths more than their genitals. Cas was pleased to see how readily she allowed herself to show vulnerability like this. She rode Aaron with a quickening pace, but she struggled to maintain a seat in a position that shortened his already reduced reach. His cock simply couldn’t penetrate far enough at this angle. Sarah abandoned her seat as he slipped out again. She slid backward down his body, stretched out over his legs, and swallowed his cock with her eyes closed.
From there, it didn’t take long. Aaron grunted with his hands tangled in her hair, and he came with a tremor across his belly, eyes squeezed tight. Sarah took it down, swallowed it, caressed him with her lips as she pulled off, and smirked smugly up at him. She dragged her arm across her mouth by way of cleanup and then flopped out beside him. Tentatively, Aaron rolled toward her for a simple appreciative kiss.
“But you…” he whispered.
“I’m good,” she replied.
His eyes cut toward the bank of collapsible tables with their myriad cords and monitors and faces. Sarah chuckled softly. “They said to behave authentically. So I did. If that leads them to make false assumptions, that’s on the test, not me.”
Aaron kissed her again. She closed her eyes and let him. He didn’t linger though. With one final touch of lips, Aaron pulled away, sat upright, eased himself off the bed on the far side, raised a hand toward the techs, and left. Sarah sat up more slowly. Sandy appeared at her shoulder with a Peliomometer, and they ran it the length of Sarah’s body, frowning at the reading.
Sandy ran the scan four more times. Eventually, they determined the readings weren’t going to change and holstered the meter, transferring their attention to Sarah with a warm smile.
“Really good first round,” Sandy praised. “Let’s get you up. We have to wait a while before we go again.” They held Sarah’s robe open for her.
“Kind of feels like what I always imagined filming for porn would be, all hot and moist for a few minutes and then a cold, hard stop.” Sarah shrugged on her robe and accepted the bottle of water Sandy offered. No one behind the screens spoke to either of them. They were all busy with their various lines of data.
“You’re cold?” Sandy asked. “I can get you a warm blanket.”
“No,” Sarah said. Sandy held the playroom door for her. “No, I just meant sexually. I’m used to some cuddling and whispering after. The ending was abrupt.”
Cas listened with a researcher’s ear until the door closed and cut them off, ending the test round. He caught Meg’s eye to make sure she had recorded that final statement. A testee professing a preference for cuddling over coming was relevant, and he wanted it factored in. Meg winked at him.
“It doesn’t mean she’s a Sub though,” Kevin remarked with his eyes on his tablet and his fingers still in motion, reading the subtext between Cas and Meg. They were all thinking it. “A Neutral might make the same choice. It’s the lack of any clear Top or Bottom behaviors that makes this round muddy.”
“What scene were you watching?” Charlie countered. “She Topped him. Easy. He rolled for her. His vitals confirm a Submission, don’t they, Jo? Even if she went easy on him. Plenty of Tops run scenes for the pleasure of their Subs.”
Cas hummed in agreement, but he frowned at the Peliomometer results. They were all over the chart. There was a reading. The meter had detected hormone output, but it followed no pattern a Lupin’s body would have produced. It was useless for the purpose of Rating Sarah and priceless for the purpose of interspecies research.
“Ellen?” he posed.
“Too early to make any decisions, Alpha. We need to see the whole pattern. If I were rating on this round only, she’s a Neutral.”
“Fair enough,” Cas said. He dropped his tablet onto the table and backed up. He lifted his hands over his head in a hard stretch that pulled his shirt up and showed hipbone. “Lock it down, folks, and let’s reset. Kitchen’s open. The house is yours. Get a break. We meet back here in ninety minutes.”
Charlie, Meg, and Jo bustled out together with their heads close together. Kevin wandered out alone, still staring intently at his tablet, muttering to himself. Sandy busied themself changing the sheets. Ellen rotated in her chair to face Cas. She looked up at him and cocked her head slightly, trying to read him.
“What are we doing here, Alpha?” she asked. “What is this for? Your Pack doesn’t need another Sub.”
“If Sarah has needs that aren’t being met, we need to rectify that,” he said, still studying his tablet, searching, searching for a pattern. “She’s mine, and I mean to do right by her.”
“She’s not a wolf,” Ellen told him. “They aren’t needs. This is for you, isn’t it? You’re curious about how the differences might manifest, and you think it’s fine to exploit her because she’s yours. If that’s what it is, it’s wrong, Castiel.”
“Noted,” he said. “But I’ll stop you there. You aren’t required to participate, as I’ve already said.”
Ellen huffed. “You know I’m not leaving. If it’s a shitshow just by nature of being unsupportable, at least I can try to steer it out of falling entirely apart. But that sweet girl is likely to walk away scarred.”
Cas laughed. “She didn’t seem scarred to me, Omega. I believe she’s got an unexplored exhibitionist kink. Besides, she knows that every step of this process is voluntary.”
Ellen scoffed. “Right. Cas, that child idolizes you. She would do anything you even suggest you’d like to see her do. She would jump out of an airplane without a parachute if you told her you could catch her.”
“That’s ideal between a Pack Alpha and his underlings,” Cas told her. “The rest of them could take lessons from her level of trust.”
“You’re hopeless, you know that?”
He laughed again. “It’s been said. Go on, Doctor Harvelle. Go get something to eat. I’ll see you back here at one.”
But they didn’t congregate in the kitchen. Once Cas finished pouring over all the data thus far gathered, he sought his Pack and found them in the conservatory surrounding a jeans-clad Dean on the couch with his guitar and a soft Henley. Cas’ eyes found him instantly upon rounding the doorway, and his usual heart-flutter paused him right there. It was such a familiar sensation, this ever-present melting of his insides while his heart reset itself to the presence of his husband. Dean looked radiant. He wore a simple smile as he strummed and sang, so casually happy. Michael rested on the floor between his knees. April sat with Jimmy at the piano. The Keller team all sat scattered here and there with plates of food. But none of that really registered to Cas. He saw only Dean.
“Papa!” Emma called, running straight into him and embracing his legs. “Come hear Daddy. He wrote you a song!”
“He did?” Cas lifted her onto his hip. “What song?”
“And Jimmy can play it! Come see!”
“Jimmy’s playing the piano?” Cas felt he must have missed something if his four-year-old son was holding his own at the keyboard. When had that happened? Inside the room, Kat, Alex, and JT ran tight circles around the furniture in the back corner. Alex’s forehead still bore a bandage from his last crash. Michael seemed not to notice. His attention was all on Dean. Cas couldn’t really fault him.
But he also didn’t want a repeat of the collision in the library. He strode assertively in and whistled. Emma clutched her ears. Cas rubbed her back in apology but kept his attention on the rambunctious others. “Walk! All of you! No more running in the house. Find a different game.”
“Aww, Papa,” Kat begged. “I was winning.”
“Win at something else,” he told her sternly. “I don’t want any more blood spilt over racing games. Racing is for outside.”
“Can we go outside?” JT asked immediately, still hopped up on adrenalin, his inside voice forgotten. The other two joined him in jumping up and down and begging. Emma slid down his body.
“I’ll take them,” Kate offered. “Dean has been waiting for you. He wants you to hear something.”
Cas felt torn. As much as he was pulled toward Dean, his opportunities to play unfettered with his children were too few to allow such a chance to pass him by. Dean whistled sharply at him and nocked his head. “Dude, c’mere a sec. Need to show you something. April’s been helping me put some tunes together. Come listen.” And how could Cas argue with that?
“Papa, listen!” Jimmy agreed. “Mommy showed me. I can do it!”
Cas grinned at his enthusiasm. He felt April’s pride ringing through their bond. “Everyone come sit,” he called to his pups. “Everyone find a place and plant your bottoms. Let’s hear Daddy’s song. We’ll go play after.”
Ellen scooted over to let Kat settle beside her and lean in. She let Kat steal a slice of summer sausage from her plate. Portia plopped in front of Kat. Emma settled into Michael’s lap. Alex climbed onto the couch beside Dean. JT joined his brother at Jess’ side. Sam scooped him up and sat with him on the floor. Cas couldn’t stop the flutter in his breast, his Alpha purring at the sense of family. These were his people.
“I didn’t know you were dipping your toes into songwriting, Dean,” he said. He took a seat on the floor where he could watch both the piano and the guitar. Alex jumped off the couch to join him. Cas wrapped his arms around his son and kissed the top of his head, casual, easy, thoughtless. It simply happened. But he was struck by how different his easy affection with his own children was from his father’s approach to childrearing.
How had that happened? How had he learned to show affection so easily?
Dean.
Dean was what happened.
Cas swallowed hard and hugged Ace.
Ace.
A.C.
Alexander Castiel.
His son.
Michael’s son.
Cas’ chest heaved. Alex turned his face upward to observe his father, searching his face with Dean’s eyes. It didn’t help Cas find his footing. It made the swimming in his head worse. He chuckled, self-effacing, and wiped the corner of his eye.
“Papa, what’s a matter?” Alex asked him. “You crying?”
“A little,” Cas admitted. “Sometimes I’m just so grateful for my family it takes my breath away. Do you ever feel like that?”
“Huh-unh,” Alex told him, baffled.
“All right, you old softy,” Dean interrupted. “Get comfy and shut up a minute. We’ve been working on this for weeks.”
“Weeks?”
“Dude,” Dean told him. Cas snapped his mouth closed.
“‘Kay, Jimmy. Hit it,” Dean said, setting his feet and adjusting his guitar. April set Jimmy onto her lap and pointed to specific keys. Jimmy followed her instruction and then watched her count him off. His little fingers stretched wide to reach the keys, but he began to pulse in a steady rhythm. April’s fingers tinkled a quick tune, and Dean began to strum. It was jaunty and rich, and Cas found himself entranced. April helped Jimmy keep the rhythm with a gentle pulse of her body and whispers into his ear. Dean locked eyes on Cas as he began to sing.
“Oh, I’ll be anything you want
Beyond the need to hide away my fault
I’m here for you
Here for you now
Here for you now”
Cas listened, loving every word. It was suggestive without being obvious. It spoke to some of the truths he and Dean had always taken for granted but had only been able to put into words as their relationship matured into mutual trust on levels they had never dreamed possible when they were younger.
“Tried to tie things to those times they tell
And you know
When we wonder which way we went wrong
It ain’t wrong”
The alliteration caught Castiel’s attention, and he wondered how much Dean and April had collaborated and how much was all Dean. It sounded like Dean.
Dean’s eyes twinkled with pride and mirth. Cas grinned at him.
When it ended, Dean handed his guitar to Michael and climbed off the couch to collapse flat on the ground beside Cas and laugh with pure joy. “Man, you don’t even know. We worked on that song for ages. Can’t believe you finally got to hear it.” He stared up at Cas, looking down on him in adoration and astonishment. “Did it make sense to you? It’s you and me, Cas. You and me.”
“It made perfect sense. You’re brilliant, Dean. Thank you.” Cas leaned low, upending Alex as he went, and he kissed Dean’s lips.
“You liked it?” Dean asked brightly as he sat up. “There are more songs. April thinks we could do an album. Probably no one would buy it because it’s all super-autobiographical sap like this one. But what do you think? Even if it tanks, it would be cool to have it out there.”
Cas laughed. “When did you find the time to write songs? A whole album?”
Dean looked sheepish. He lifted Alex out of Cas’ lap and used him to hide his embarrassment. Dean scrubbed at Alex’s upper lip with the end of his sleeve, wiping away a crust of dried milk. “I mean, I kind of scribble little tunes here and there all the time. Never thought any of them might be good enough to play for anyone. But, uh, April found my stash…”
At the piano, April and Jimmy were plinking away together, talking over chords and whatnot. She looked up at her name.
“What was April doing going through your belongings?” Cas asked. He caught her eye, and she licked her lips and refocused on her lesson with Jimmy.
“That’s not the point. No, Cas she and I were hunting for something I’d misplaced. This isn’t about her. Look, the point is, for ages when shit gets too overwhelming for me to process fully, especially back when I didn’t have your full attention, back when I was in grad school and shit, sometimes the best way for me to work through it all was to write it down and play through it on my guitar. Only ever did it in private. Didn’t want anyone to hear it. Cause it’s not for performing. It’s for therapy, you know?”
“You have a whole stash of songs you’ve written?” Cas asked.
“I…uh…yeah?”
Alex shoved himself to his feet and ambled toward the French windows to join the other pups. Kate led them out onto the patio. Pups’ attention spans might hold for music, but once the song ended, they drifted back toward the need to run. Cas watched them go, all but Jimmy who showed no sign of wanting to leave the piano. His mind supplied a multitude of topics Dean might have needed to work through in his youth.
He really, really wanted to hear those songs. What would they tell him about his husband that he didn’t already know?
“So anyway,” Dean went on, bashful. “Yeah, there’s a bunch of them. Most of ‘em are about you. You and me.”
“Will you show me?” Cas asked. It seemed no one else was in the room. It seemed they were alone. Dean reached over and took Cas’ hand. He turned it palm up and traced the creases of Cas’ hand.
“If you want,” Dean said. “If you swear you won’t laugh or tell me they’re shit. Even if they’re shit,” he added as an afterthought with a huff. He glanced up. Cas kissed him.
“I would be honored to hear them, love. I’m sure they’re brilliant. And if you want to polish them up and record an album, I would be honored to be your first customer and biggest fan.”
Dean snorted inelegantly.
“Can you play me another one?”
Dean lit up. “You sure?”
“I’m positive,” Cas assured him.
Dean bounded to his feet. He collected his guitar from Michael, who beamed back at him. “Yeah, yeah, there’s this anthem kinda thing I did. It’s about the whole Lupine species and the struggle to keep our heads above water. I wrote it thinking I might could play it at conventions, but then I chickened out. It’s been gathering dust in the back of my closet for six or seven years. April likes it though. Maybe we could…. You know, maybe…”
“Just play the damn thing, Dean,” Sam laughed.
“Yeah,” Dean agreed, flushed with enthusiasm. “Okay. But just this one and then we go outside and play freeze-tag. Too pretty a day to waste inside…” Dean began to strum before he finished babbling. “It’s called Drowning. Hold on, lemme get the right key…”
At the piano, April caught the tempo and key, and she directed Jimmy. The pup obeyed, rapt. His part was simple, an alternation between three keys in a syncopation. His forehead wrinkled in concentration, and his tongue poked out between his teeth. Michael joined Cas. He sprawled between Castiel’s feet, leaning into his chest, twining his fingers with Cas’ and tugging the Alpha’s arms around him. Cas let his nose find the scent gland behind Michael’s ear.
Happiness came easy. It settled into his skin, and it took no effort to keep it there. Dean did this. Dean brought this energy to Castiel’s home. He burrowed in and rooted out the old, tired ghosts of neglect and cold judgment until they fled, unequal to the intensity of his radiance. Michael melted into Castiel’s body as Dean sang.
Castiel was in awe. Awe so often traced his emotions for Dean that he sometimes forgot it was there. But moments like this…
Michael’s fingers found Castiel’s wedding ring, rotated it, caressed it. Cas lifted their hands and kissed the side of Michael’s thumb, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. Michael pressed his temple into Cas’ throat, and Cas felt choked up.
When the song ended, Jimmy vaulted off the piano bench, raced across the space and threw himself at his Papa and O-Pop. Michael caught him with a shout and a laugh. He congratulated Jimmy and thanked him for the music.
“You gonna thank Daddy too, O-Pop?” Jimmy asked. “Supposed to thank him in grown-up way, right?”
Michael laughed. “That’s a good idea, Jimmy. Maybe later. Yeah, I’ll thank Daddy too. Go play outside with the others. We’ll catch up with you.” He set Jimmy on his feet and tapped his bottom to get him moving. Jimmy took off.
“Walk!” Cas reminded him.
“You liked it?” Dean asked nervously. “Really?”
“Dean, I think it’s brilliant. I think you’re brilliant. I had no idea you wrote songs, but now that I know, I want to hear all of them, any that you’ll share with me.”
Dean beamed. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”
“How’s Sarah?” April asked as she joined the small pile on the floor. Sam perked up and crossed to sit by Dean. Jess followed more slowly, remaining on her feet but listening intently.
“She did well,” Cas told them all. “We will need to study the data closely to determine her results. We don’t have the usual patterns to follow. But we have her behaviors. What’s more, it appears that she registers as a beta Secondary. That, at least, is not vague.”
Michael laughed. “Did you expect her to test as an alpha?”
“No, indeed not,” Cas replied. “But it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that she would fall into standard beta ranges. Her measurable outputs could have randomized. I’m considering having her wear a meter round the clock so we can set up some cross-species set-points.”
“Hey,” Dean kicked at Michael’s foot, “at least he’s taking the focus off you for a while.”
“Have you mentioned this to Sarah yet?” Sam asked.
Cas cut his eyes toward the beta. “No, the idea just came to me as I reviewed the data from her first round. If she’s a beta, and those data points are measurable, what else can we correlate?”
“We’re getting her consent before we do anything,” Sam stated.
Dean nudged his brother with his shoulder. “See? Right? He gets carried away. Gotta keep the brakes on or he runs away with it. You all thought I was overreacting where Michael was concerned. You see?”
“We are absolutely getting her consent first,” Cas agreed with a smirk. “And if Sarah isn’t interested, we’ll conscript some Primate volunteers…”
“Volunteers aren’t conscripted, Alpha,” Michael pointed out.
Cas pinched his ass for interrupting, and Michael yelped, laughed, and rolled clear.
Dean hauled Michael to his feet. “I get it now,” he told his husband. “You’ve been planning this since you told Sarah to train as a Sub. That’s why Kevin is here.”
“Leave me out of it, if you please!” Kevin called from a chair in the corner.
Cas simply raised his brows in a happy tease and took Dean’s hand. He let Dean pull him up. “Would you like a grown-up thank you, Dean?” he asked. “I am so grateful you shared your music with me.”
“Mmm,” Dean hummed as he accepted a deep kiss. “Yeah. But later. Right now, tag. Benny will be here soon with the twins. He’s bringing Ketch. That many pups, we’ll need to run off some energy or they’ll tear the house down. Need to keep them out from underfoot so you and your team can work. Sarah deserves our full attention.”
Cas followed Dean out the door into the cool shade of the porch. April, Michael, and Sam joined them. On the lawn, pups ran ebulliently, shouting, dodging, ducking. Kate had the hose turned on them, and they raced through the spray, squealing as the cold water hit them. Cas grinned. What would his father have said?
Something rude and cold, something quelling.
Fuck Zachariah.
Cas kicked his shoes off. He stuffed his socks into them and lined them up with the smaller pairs on the porch.
“All of it, Alpha,” Dean goaded, tugging at the waistband of his slacks. “You’re not dressed for water play. Take it all off.”
Cas unbuttoned his shirt with a wicked grin. “Fine, but you’re leaving yours on. I love you in wet denim, and that Henley is a sin, the way it hugs your biceps.” Cas stripped down to his white cotton boxers, caught Dean’s hand, and raced with him out onto the lawn where water spray, sunshine, and pups awaited.
By the time Benny arrived with his girls, everyone was drenched, everyone, that is, but Dean. Dean’s jeans bore a smattering of dark splash-spots, but his agility and willingness to sacrifice his own pups, years of training Omegas to the chase, and his stubborn prideful resistance to giving Cas the wet T-shirt view he craved, led Dean to skirt the worst of the hose. Castiel was not so fortunate. His hair plastered to his skull and rivulets running down his face, Cas couldn’t have been wetter if he’d been pulled from the deep onto a rescue craft eight miles out to sea.
“Daddy, can we play too?” Bella begged as she and Beth appeared on the patio by the pool.
“Hold on, darlin’,” Benny called, grabbing at her before she took off. “You don’t have a spare change of clothes like your friends do. Go ahead and take it all off. Then knock yourselves out.”
Both girls were soon bare, pink, and racing down the slope to join the fray just in time to watch the Alpha give up on trying to catch his husband with the spray. Cas dropped the hose, tripped Dean up as he scampered past, hoisted the man to his shoulder, and marched him up the hill. At the pool safety gate, he made quick work of the latch. Dean caught on to his plan and began to writhe and holler. But Cas had him fast. Without pausing, Castiel launched himself, Dean still on his shoulder, into the deep end. Pups lined up at the fence, shrieking in laughter as the two men emerged spluttering from beneath churning waters. Dean sent a retributive hard splash into Castiel’s face. Cas simply laughed, considering himself victorious.
“Y’all go on now and play,” Benny told the route of wolf pups at the fence. “Your dads and I have some things to talk about. Go on now.” He shooed them off, pointing out that Benjamin had taken custody of the hose. Ben tempted them back down the hill with a thumb over the nozzle that created a starburst spray straight into the air. JT challenged a race, and all of them bolted after him.
Benny leaned over the side of the pool to haul Cas out first.
“He’s going to get you back for that, you know,” Benny advised with a hard look. “Watch your six from here out.”
“Little help here,” Dean demanded. But Benny knew better. He pointed toward the ladder and then turned his back. Dean huffed, spluttered the water out of his mouth, and then set off for the far side and the ladder. His failure to protest told Benny that Dean had indeed fully intended on leveraging him into the pool for his good will.
Cas stripped his boxers off and pulled a towel out of the cabinet, still chuckling.
“Does Ketch need anything from me?” he asked.
“Nah, he’s promised to run the Bridge as close to pattern as he can.” Benny tossed a towel to Dean, but Dean dodged. It fell into a heap in the sunshine.
“Asshole.” Dean muttered. He sat on a lounge chair and began the torturous process of peeling off skin-tight, soaked denim.
“Good,” Cas replied. “That’s exactly what we want from him. Sarah did fine on the Lead-off. I have no concerns about her Bridge. But we pulled Meg out of the room for this round, and I would like to view it from elsewhere too. Ketch doesn’t need any Doms in the room. Dean, do you want to watch this round?”
Cas schooled his face to disaffected as Dean struggled with his shirt, flinging both arms ineffectively to free himself of both stuck sleeves.
“Um,” Dean tried, still fighting with the sleeves of his shirt. “You’re going to your office? Tight fit for three alphas.”
“Let’s go sit in the game room. We can talk there and watch on closed-circuit,” Cas replied. He took pity on Dean and tugged his Henley free. “Meet us there once you’re free of your jeans. Don’t drip in my house.”
“Don’t drip in my house,” Dean mimicked.
Cas chuckled and gestured for Benny to lead the way.
“Fred, would you ask Monica to deliver a change of clothes for Dean and me to the billiard room?” Cas asked. Fred shut the door behind the pair and agreed. “Sarah should be ready shortly,” Cas told Benny. “They will have directed Ketch to the gym to prep. If you need to speak to him before we get underway, you can find him there.”
“He’s a big boy, Cas. He doesn’t need me to tie his shoes for him.”
Cas nodded and led the way down the hall. “Aaron was a model Keller Lead this morning.”
“Cut the crap, Cas. I know how my contractors perform. I wouldn’t have assigned him this role if I had doubts about him. Why is your Pack all outside playing in the sprinklers when Sarah’s going through an ordeal like this? You trying to prove something by making her do it all alone?”
“Hardly.” Cas held the door and then took up a spot behind the bar. He pulled his best Scotch off the shelf and lined up three tumblers. “She’s got the usual support. Keller tests don’t allow family in for a reason, Benny.”
“This isn’t a Keller test, Cas. It’s you masturbating. Everyone knows that. Why the pretense?”
Cas shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. There’s something right on the edge of some kind of clarity, and I need to follow my gut on this.” He slid one of the glasses to Benny.
“Your gut or your wolf’s?” Benny ran the glass under his nose.
Another shrug.
“You really think you can train her up to be a Sub?”
“Benny, she IS a Sub. The only question is whether she can learn to speak our language. It’s entirely possible she isn’t capable of going to the places we go. It’s possible we can’t provide her what she needs.” Cas pointed a remote at the screen above the bar and navigated to the household network. The image showed an empty bed and several technicians idle and wandering. “But I want to try. More importantly, she wants to try. She’s my Pack, and I’ll move planets to give her what she wants.”
“Is that so?” Benny asked, less rhetorically than it sounded. Cas met his eye and then sighed. He rounded the bar and took a stool beside his friend. Water dripped from his hair down his back.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Benny. She means the world to me.”
“Don’t you think my Pack means the same to me?” Benny asked with a touch of disbelief. “You’ve got some gall, man.”
“Maybe,” Cas agreed reluctantly. “No one ever accused me of being fair.”
“I promised Adam I would always be there for him.”
“And you have been,” Cas said. “For as long as he needed you. Benny, he doesn’t need you anymore. He needs something bigger. No offense.”
Benny snorted. “There are other Omegas in the world, Alpha. And he and Sarah called it quits. I don’t know what you think you stand to gain by putting him right under her nose again.”
“It’s not about forcing Adam into a relationship with Sarah,” Cas said with a shake of his head. On the screen, the tech team took their seats. Cas watched with a careful eye. They would bring Sarah in first this time, and that might prove unsettling for her. “In truth, he’s a poor life-choice for her. They are both Submissive.”
“His wolf presents as a juvenile, Castiel. You get that? He’s never going to be independent. He’s never going to grow out of it. He’s a full-grown man with a juvenile Tertiary. You get how rare that is?”
“I know,” Cas replied. On screen, Sandy led Sarah in and took her robe. “In fact, we’re better suited here to manage his needs than you are. Ketch doesn’t have the patience. Lisa doesn’t have the weight. But here, we’ve got Sam and Michael both. Adam would have the very best Tertiary care.”
Dean came in carrying a pile of dry clothes for Cas. He was fully dressed in track pants and a fresh Henley. His wet hair was combed tidy. He kissed Cas and collected his drink. Cas dropped his towel and wasted no time pulling on slacks and a casual button-up.
“Did I miss anything?”
“They’re just about to bring Ketch in,” Benny told him. Dean glanced at the screen but then slid in next to Cas.
“Not what I meant,” he said.
Benny addressed Cas too. “You really believe that Sarah won’t notice her ex living right down the hall just because you set her up for Sub training? What’s the end goal here? You said it, brother. They would be a disaster together.”
Cas shook his head. “It’s not that complicated, Benny. I want Adam in my Pack. I want him here for keeps. I want him here even after he Mates, and I believe I can swing it to get my way.”
“You always get your way,” Dean put in.
“Hardly,” Cas said. “But be that as it may, Adam fits here. We are ideal for him, and we want him. I believe he wants us, Sarah notwithstanding.”
“What do I get out of this deal?” Benny asked directly. “I stand to lose clout if I surrender a valuable asset with no recompense.”
Dean choked. “You plan to sell him?”
“Well, I sure as hell ain’t giving him away, alpha!” Benny shot back.
“Damn, Lafitte!”
“Shut it, Dean.”
On the screen, Ketch appeared, and they all watched in silence as he strolled arrogantly toward the bed. Sarah panted and writhed, every ounce a Submissive. Ketch, true to his standard pattern, fell on her without speaking. He flipped her bodily, hauled her over the end of the bed, and pressed right in. Cas watched her go boneless. She offered no resistance, a very Lupin reaction to a higher authority. She offered no input either, something Primates often struggled to manage. She let Ketch fuck her, going supremely still but for the ragged breath heaving in her chest.
But Ketch wasn’t satisfied with passivity if it was easy. He growled and pulled out. He aimed a stiff hand at her ass and spanked her hard enough to redden. Sarah seemed to poise on the pinnacle of indecision for only a moment before planting her feet and angling her hips straight into the blows.
“Atta girl,” Dean muttered. “There she is.”
“It’s for show,” Benny said, uncharacteristically pessimistic.
“No, it’s not.”
“You’re telling me she wants to be spanked?” Benny challenged. “She’s no masochist, Dean.”
“No, but she’s a Sub, and she wants to be good. She’s figured out the pattern. If she submits to the challenge, she gets the reward. She wants that reward, Ben. She wants his admiration. She wants him to be proud of her. It’s the key she missed out on when she was a pup.”
“She’s an ape! She was never a pup!”
“It’s all the same thing, Benny!” Dean shouted back, watching Sarah lean hard into blows that had to hurt. “Children need certain things, and sometimes, when they don’t get them, some people carry a magnified version of that need into adulthood. She wasn’t a pup, but she still got a raw deal from her upbringing. Maybe this isn’t perfect, but it helps. Damn, look at her go.” Dean watched Ketch offer her his cock, and Sarah latched on like it was a lifeline. Benny might claim it was performative, but it looked genuine to Dean.
The sensors would tell in the end. People can fake enthusiasm, but they can’t fake some of their body’s responses. Arousal wasn’t something she could fake.
“You know, Cas,” Dean went on with his eyes glued to the screen, watching Sarah’s fingers work the Dominant’s balls. “I think you’ve got this Adam thing upside down.”
“How’s that?”
Dean tore his eyes from the screen and faced his husband. “You want to build a Pack with central power concentrated right here, a fortress, some kind of unassailable hill fort in the middle of the prairie. Right? You wanna make something no one can break into? The world’s most exclusive club?”
“Something like that,” Cas agreed. He sipped his drink and watched the screen. Ketch had her by the hair, and he was pumping his hips to bury his sizable cock down her throat.
“Look, the US has three, maybe four established Packs that can challenge you once you fill us out, but none of them got as prestigious as they are by walling themselves off. They don’t do a nuclear nest. They do buds. They send out Omega offspring into every Pack for miles around…”
“Sure, by selling them off at auction,” Benny grumbled.
“And you’re so much better?” Dean posed. “What price are you putting on Adam?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Benny defended. “The Prentiss Pack, the Danovics? They expect fealty for every Omega they send out. They’re providing fertile brood mares and in return they expect obeisance from every Pack that takes a Prentiss Omega.”
“Plus, their method of producing Omegas in the numbers they do is distasteful to say the least,” Cas supplied. “We’re not setting up a breeding program in my house.”
“Obviously,” Dean agreed. “But the point isn’t their method. It’s the outcome. Instead of trying to challenge the law so that you get to keep Mated Omegas and sign their new mates up as well, the way to build a network of allies is to pepper the countryside with links and ties and connections. How many Packs in the States have blood ties to the Prentisses?”
Cas snarled. “I have no interest in peppering anything.”
It wasn’t a surprise that everything that smacked of those larger Packs turned Castiel’s stomach. They were all notorious for their unsavory practices with young Omegas. The best of them at least waited until ripe young Omegas reached fourteen. The worst took them at their first Heat. It was a rite of passage for freshly Presented Omegas to endure a full Pack roundabout while in Heat. Some of them used a ceremonial room that any interested alpha could visit during an Omega’s Heat, and some of them strapped the Omegas out in the open and left them there while the scent of Heat drew wolves from miles around. Offspring conceived that way became wards of the Alpha. Their paternity was irrelevant. They proved the Omega’s fertility, raising their bride price, and multiplied the number of pups in the Alpha’s house.
It was an ugly and exploitive practice, not to mention illegal. But the law found few ways into compounds heavily fortified by wolves who would defend them to the death.
Dean was right in that the true power of those Packs wasn’t in their reproductive practices, but in their reach. Their Omegas and Submissives found mates in Packs for a thousand miles around, and the network of connections grew more enmeshed with every generation. It mimicked what the wild Lupin packs did, but it was abusive to young Omegas, and it defied every effort Cas and his people wanted to foster.
Dean scratched his chin. “We can’t defeat them by holing up in here and countering their every move by doing the opposite. I’m not seeing your end game.”
Cas chuckled. “Keep working on it, Dean. What will happen to our home if we keep every adult—alpha, beta, or Omega—who comes of age here?”
“We outgrow the house within two generations,” Dean said. The TV showed Ketch thrusting to completion down Sarah’s throat and tossing her aside as if through with his toy. Sarah bounced on the mattress, limp. Her dark hair lay tangled and matted, and her backside glowed red.
“And then what?” Cas prompted.
Dean sighed. “I dunno. Build more houses? The law requires Packs to occupy homes within five miles of the central compound. If we send our kids out into the world, they either give up membership or they move right next door.”
Cas smirked. “If they give up membership, Dean, they don’t stop being our children. And if they start Packs of their own, what does that do to our clout?”
Dean frowned. “Maybe it would work, but you’re talking about a hundred years before it takes root enough to show a benefit. You’ll be long gone by then. You want to seed offshoot Packs across Kansas and Missouri that will each take forty years to mature enough to send out offshoots of their own. Meanwhile the Prentiss Pack gathers in four to six new Packs every season.”
Sandy escorted a woozy Sarah out of the room. Cas turned the monitor off.
“The Prentiss Pack puts abused, exploited Omegas into Packs that swear lip service to following their lead. Politically, it’s the weakest possible tie. And it’s not working. For every Pack that keeps its promise, four blow off. It may be true that every half-assed Pack in the west has ties to Joel Prentiss, but he still hasn’t managed to get his son elected to Congress. With his numbers, that should’ve been a done deal.”
Benny laughed. “You aiming to send Alex to Congress, Alpha?”
“Actually, I’m thinking Emma,” Cas told him wryly.
“And it all hinges on Adam?” Benny returned.
Cas sighed and drained his tumbler. Dean reached for the bottle.
“On Adam? No. But it does hinge on my being able to make a defensible claim that my Omegas and Submissives are mine unless I relinquish them, or they choose to leave me. I could set my sights on someone else. I could bide my time until my pups come of age. But I believe Adam presents a win-win opportunity. He wants to make the jump, Benny. He just doesn’t want to hurt you. He owes you a great deal, and he’s not deaf to that.”
“Three mil,” Benny said into his glass.
“Excuse me?” Cas asked.
“That’s my price. I’ve got twins to put through college.”
“You’re really okay with selling Adam?” Dean sputtered.
“Oh, please,” Benny objected. “Adam is going to go wherever he wants. I’d have to be an asshole to try to stop him. This isn’t for Adam. This is for the standing of my Pack. I can’t let you take him and not compensate me. We wouldn’t recover from a blow like that.”
“Jesus, Benny. Three million dollars? To switch one guy? He’s a short timer anyway. Soon as he Mates, he’s gone for free.”
Benny pursed his lips to volley back, but Cas cut him off.
“Done.”
“Cas!” Dean blurted.
“It’s only money, Dean.”
“Are you insane?! Three million dollars?”
Benny chuckled and tapped his glass against Castiel’s.
“Dude, you can’t sell a human being! Slavery got nixed ages ago.”
“Tell that to the auction houses,” Benny said sourly. “Dean, this isn’t a sale. It’s restitution. Adam is an asset in my Pack, and your Alpha wants to slide in and filch him…”
“He’s not a possession!”
“The hell he’s not,” Benny shot back. “Don’t lose sight of the basics of Pack dynamics. We can talk day and night about a new Lupin world order, but Omegas will always be chattel down at the heart of it all. You know me well enough to know that if Adam wants to switch, I’m not going to stand in his way. But if there’s no compensation, I would have to challenge Cas. We all know how that would turn out. End of the day, my Pack loses standing. I love Adam, boys. I do. But I can’t let his choice damage my Pack.”
“Three million?” Dean asked.
“It’s got to be painful, or it’s meaningless,” Cas supplied.
Dean whistled. “Michael’s not going to be happy. There go our dividends.”
“And then some,” Cas agreed.
“Who’s got Sarah right now?” Benny asked by way of changing the subject.
“Sandy.” Cas said into his glass. “And Sam. I put Sam on aftercare for rounds two and three. I expect Ketch might prove to set her on edge. She may be primed for a drop. Finishing with Raphael is going to push her limits. True domination is hot when it’s in the abstract. The real thing may be more than she can handle.”
“Especially if Raphe can’t sense a Tertiary in her,” Benny added. “How much leeway does he have?”
Cas sighed. He rotated on his barstool and lumbered to his feet. A slow pace toward the pool table bought him a few breaths before he spoke. “Sarah and I talked it over. Raphael and I talked it over. We’re in agreement that he takes her on just as he would a wolf. The clincher is whether or not she can find a safeword if she needs it. If she panics, we may not clue in before damage is done.” He turned and leaned against the pool table. He crossed his ankles. He swirled the Scotch in his glass.
“I’ll be there, Alpha,” Dean told him. “I know her tells. The sensors can read her well enough. We’ve got this covered. Did you decide about Sam? You know my thoughts. He should be present too. Two spotters are better than one.”
Cas nodded. “All right. Text him. Confirm that I expect his wolf to be kenneled. The last thing Sarah needs is a DF between Doms while she’s naked and vulnerable. You know my expectations.”
“It’s Sam, Cas. He won’t let you down.”
Castiel raised a single brow.
Benny swapped Dean on the shoulder and broke the intense connection between their gazes. “What’s this I hear about you throwing in as a songwriter? April’s contagious? Or did she ghostwrite for you?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Dean protested. He shoved at Benny’s chest. “Nobody ghostwrote shit. I write my own crap. And if you heard it, you would know that.”
Cas chuckled. “All I can say is that what I heard was delightful. Whether it’s quality work by musical standards, I couldn’t say. But I predict that if you produce an album of your own work, there is a readymade fandom of your mate-in-law’s that is very likely to support your efforts whether the songs are good or not. It’s possible we’ll never know one way or another.”
“Validating vote of confidence there, Cas. Thanks.” Dean smirked and then closed the distance to kiss his husband.
“What are they about?” Benny asked. Dean broke away and wiped Castiel’s lower lip with his thumb.
“Mostly about my non-existent love life during the years I was pining. Turns out there’s some therapeutic benefit to strumming your bottled-up emotions out into a guitar. Maybe Taylor Swift is on to something. I’m just not sure that putting all that vulnerable personal crap out into public spaces is a good idea. It’s pretty private stuff, some of it. Don’t want folks to get the idea I’m a fucking whiner.”
“Dean, everyone already knows your disposition,” Benny told him. “You lay it all out at your cons. You make it crystal clear that being vulnerable is no weakness. You set the stage for folks to understand that dealing with emotions directly is a sign of strength. If you release an album of songs that show that process straight on, folks are going to eat it up—that is, unless the songs suck ass.”
“April liked them,” Dean mumbled.
“Well, there you go,” said Benny. He drained his glass and set it on the bar with a decisive thump. “What say we go see what mischief our pups have managed in the back yard?”
“You two go on,” Dean told him. He followed Benny’s lead with his own glass. “I’mma go check on Sarah; let her know her Pack is still watching out for her.”
“Give her my support as well, Dean,” Cas told him as he set his own tumbler down with the others. “Remind her I’m staying away not from any neglect but because the Keller test protocols forbid a Pack Alpha from contacting the testee. The point is to mimic the test as authentically as we can.”
Dean nodded. “I’ll send word if she seems to be on shaky ground. If you don’t hear from me, assume we’re a go for four. She’s gonna be fine, Alpha. She’s had enough exposure. She knows what she’s doing.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Sarah, it turned out, didn’t have any idea what she was doing. Raphael came on like a comet, blazing hot, spiky and implacable and furious. Sarah froze in shock as his presence filled the room and the very real imminent threat loomed heavy. He wasted no time. There was no opportunity to set her stance or brace herself. It was an assault from the very start. She scuttled backward on her butt, clutching at the headboard, trying nearly to climb it in her panic. Raphael snatched her ankle and hauled her off the bed. He stood her up, her back pressed against his chest, supporting her with arms like shackles, and he growled a fearsome menace into her ear.
“Don’t move a muscle,” he hissed.
Sarah’s chest stuttered as she tried not to breathe. Terror quickened her shallow huffs so that she panted fast. She rolled her face away and clutched at his wrists.
She didn’t say a word.
Sam took two steps closer. Dean held up a palm to him, poised on the balls of his feet.
“Sarah,” Dean called. “Look at me.”
Eyes clenched tight; she shook her head.
“Hold,” said Dean. “Nobody move.”
Sam snarled.
“Damnit, beta, hold!” Dean growled at him.
Raphael stood stock still. Every muscle bunched and strained, ready to unleash a furious onslaught, tight with potential energy and intent. Dean moved a little closer. “I need your color, Sarah. We’re not moving forward unless I get your okay. We don’t have to do this.”
She swallowed hard. “I want to… know. I need to know… what it’s … … like.”
“Color, Sarah!”
“Dean, I…” She was trembling from head to foot.
“It’s not worth it, beta,” Dean soothed, easing closer still. “It’s not worth standing there and letting us rape you. Look at me.”
Sarah gasped and then sobbed. Her knuckles stood rigid and white where they clutched Raphael’s wrists. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Raphael shifted his weight back onto his heels, easing the press of his body against hers. He disengaged from his wolf but left his alpha standing guard. Whether Sarah could feel the change or not, no one was sure right in that moment. But the Lupins felt it. The tension in the room eased. Dean relaxed slightly and moved closer still. Sam closed the distance a bit but stayed out of reach.
“Open your eyes, Sarah,” Dean urged. He reached out and touched the back of a knuckle to her cheek, collecting a tear from its route down her face. “You’re okay. No one’s going to hurt you. It’s over. Look at me, love.”
She shook her head, sending dark locks tangling into the sweat at her neck and the tears on her face. “I promised,” she whined. “I want to know.”
“No, beta. That’s as far as it goes.” Dean put a hand on Raphael’s shoulder and supported him as he slowly released his grip and pulled away. Wordlessly, Raphael transferred Sarah’s custody to Dean and backed clear. Dean held his eyes. He nodded gratefully as the statuesque alpha took his leave with far less impact than he arrived. Sam hurried forward and caught Sarah as she sagged.
“Easy does it,” he crooned. He carried her to the bed and laid her out. Dean collected a soft blanket and covered her. “You’re all right,” Sam told her.
“Get up there with her, Sam,” Dean told his brother. “She’s got the shakes. Just lie down and hold her.”
Sam slipped his shoes off and climbed up to spoon her, keeping the blanket as a layer between them. He stroked her hair. He wrapped her up in his embrace and kissed her shoulder.
Dean signaled to the technicians. Charlie slipped him a meter, and Dean ran the readings that would serve to end her test. They would be meaningless, really, especially with Sam in the way, but they would allow Ellen to finalize the outcome and close her file. No one expected Sarah’s measurable data to be useful in rating her anyway. It was really her behavioral data they were after, and Dean decided her reaction was telling enough without seeing the deed through.
No test was worth traumatizing the girl.
She wasn’t a wolf.
Dean handed the Peliomometer back to Charlie. “Have someone check on Raphael. See if Cas wants to come in. Let the team know we’re through here. We’re not resetting and trying again. We’re done.”
“Yes, alpha,” Charlie replied. “Tell her we’re all really proud of her.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Sam lifted his head. “Can we get the room cleared, folks. Need a little privacy, please.”
“Better yet, Sammy. If she’s stable enough to move, take her across the hall and lock the door. There’s food and drinks in the fridge.”
Sam didn’t need telling twice. He asked Dean to get the door, and he carried a silent and trembling Sarah in his arms, disappeared into the H/R room, and let the door close behind him.
Outside in the hall, Castiel hurried down the stairs to Dean. The tech team began to pack up. Benny found Raphael dressing in the gym. A scurry of activity bustled up and then settled.
Inside the room, Sarah fell into Sam’s embrace and wept.
“I thought I could do it,” she whimpered. “I really thought I was ready.”
“Shh,” he soothed. “It’s not a failure at all. You did just fine. Your job in there was to behave authentically and let the algorithms read your base settings. Sarah, sweetie, we got that. We got what we were looking for. You didn’t fail at all. And going through with more than was necessary would have been assault. We weren’t going to let that happen. No one’s ever going to let that happen to you. I need you to understand now that it’s over, and you’re not still in there. He’s gone. He’s dressed and gone. You’re here with me now, and you’re safe. That happened, and it was scary, but it’s over. You’re safe.”
She snuggled closer, burying her face in his chest. He sat down on the bed and pulled her into his lap. Her blanket slipped, but she didn’t notice. None of her panic traveled across the hall with her, only the dregs of its aftereffects.
“Why do I feel so awful?” she asked in a broken voice.
“It’s a drop, Sarah. It’s perfectly normal. Your psyche interpreted that as true danger, even though we would never have let you get hurt. It may have been a simulated assault, but trauma is trauma. And his very real, very naked body was in direct contact with yours. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t finish. He still touched you. Let’s don’t try to act like that didn’t happen. We’re going to deal with it. Okay? But right now, let’s get you calm again. It happened, but it’s not still happening. Come back to me now. Right here where you’re safe. Right here with me.”
Sarah craned her neck to find his face, to feel the empathy and confirm it was real. She found him studying her face with grave concern.
“Will you kiss me?” she asked, shaky.
He stroked her hair and smiled kindly down at her. “Not today,” he said. Gentle. Not teasing. Not rejecting. “Someday. But not today.”
A wave of shame pinked her ears. “Oh, god, why did I say that?” She buried her face in her hands. Sam huffed softly and pulled the blanket back up over her shoulder.
“You’ve had a shock, Sarah. It’s natural for you to reach out in search of something comforting. There’s no shame in that. And we can go there when the time is right when we’re both ready. Right now you’re vulnerable. Let’s shelve that notion until we get through the preliminaries of your Sub training. It’ll be way better then anyway. I promise.”
“Are we still doing that? I didn’t ruin it?”
Sam adjusted and shifted until he could lay Sarah out on the bed. He tucked her in and then stretched out on his side facing her. “That’s entirely up to you,” he told her. “If you want to explore what it’s like to be a Sub in a Lupin dynamic, we’ll show you. But we’re only going to take it as far as you need us to go. If that means we keep it chaste, there are plenty of ways to delve into the dynamics without sex. If we get into it, and we build enough trust, and you feel comfortable enough with me to try, I can take you there. It’s important though, that we don’t get ahead of ourselves. We need to take it one step at a time.”
Sarah nodded and pressed her head deeper into the pillow with a sigh.
“Are you feeling better?”
She nodded. “A lot, actually. Thank you, Sam.”
“Good. I’m going to get you a drink and a snack. You’re going to finish it all. Sit up for me.” He helped her shove upward and lean against the headboard. He tugged the duvet out from beneath her and helped her wiggle her way beneath it until she was well and truly covered, and then he arranged the squishy blanket Dean had wrapped her in over her shoulders so that only her hands, throat, and head poked through.
“Is this what it’s like after a real scene?” Sarah asked while Sam rooted about in the minifridge.
He scoffed. “That was a real scene, Sarah. And yes. This is exactly what it’s like. I want you thinking about how I can make the experience better for you. If there’s anything you want that I don’t offer, just ask. This is for you. Whatever you need.”
“I would feel better if I had some clothes on,” she said shyly. She accepted a bottle of orange juice from him.
“Oh. Right. Sure. Hold on, there’s some stuff in the drawers here. Lemme find you something.” Sam dug through several drawers with various supplies before he found a clean pair of sweats, probably April’s. “Will this do? I think they’ll fit well enough.”
Sarah nodded and tugged her blanket tight again. Sam disappeared into the bathroom to set the clothes on the counter. When he came out, Sarah sat perched on the side of the bed clutching her blanket tightly about her.
“Here, hold on. Let me help you. Let’s see how steady you are on your feet.” Sam tucked an arm around her and helped her stand.
“Thank you for being so good to me,” Sarah said with a blush. “Makes me feel a little bit… I don’t know, awkward?”
“Don’t give it a second thought, kiddo. We don’t leave Subs to flounder in this Pack. I’ve got you. You deserve it, and I want you to say it out loud for me. Say, I deserve it.”
She laughed but repeated the words. Sam helped her to the bathroom and then left her to change with a promise to wait right outside.
“Preliminary guess would put her at a negative eleven,” Ellen told Cas. “Her balking on the Anchor round is going to muddy the results because while she didn’t mount any kind of a challenge to Raphael, neither did she submit.”
“She’s no Neutral though,” he countered. “We agree on that much.”
Ellen sighed. “Not by Lupin standards, no,” she admitted. “But, Alpha, it’s possible that our parameters are meaningless in terms of rating an ape. We may misinterpret the basis of her behaviors. We have no context for this.”
“The entire point of the exercise was to rate her by Lupin standards,” Cas pointed out. “Whatever the basis of her behaviors, if she behaves like a duck, we need to rate her as a duck.”
“Well, from a Lupin perspective,” Jo added, joining them in the hallway, “her first round pegs her as a Neutral. She led the action, but only because Aaron allowed her to, not because she took control. They had sex with no power exchange. It was fully Neutral start to finish, even if we couldn’t get a read on a Tertiary component.”
“Agreed,” Cas nodded. “But her second round was a full belly-up roll. And what’s more, it looked to me like that scene sets our starting point for Sarah’s limits. That will be instructive should she decide to proceed with training.”
“If?” Jo asked with a brow raised. “Are you giving her a choice?”
Cas frowned. “I want to say no, Jo,” he admitted. “I believe your mother is right, and Sarah’s rating should stand firmly in the Submissive zone. Subs in my Pack should be trained. But I can’t pretend she’s not Simian, and I must allow for the difference. A Sub is not an Omega.”
“How’s Raphael?” Jo asked. “Testing for Winchesters is becoming something of a perilous task for him. Are you going to start offering him hazard pay?”
Cas chuckled. “He’s fine. He earned a full contract wage today for three minutes of work.”
Jo pressed. “He got called down by a Sub, Castiel. He was in full foliage and had to come to a screeching stop on the word of a Submissive. No matter how you spin it, that hits an alpha-Dom hard.”
Cas shook his head. “He understood the assignment before we started. Raphael is a proud man, but he’s not so proud that he has any interest in raping young women. He knew precisely what Dean was there to do. And Dean played his role with tact and assertiveness, not as a Sub. Everyone did well here today.”
“Did you get what you needed, Sir?” Ellen asked. She hoisted her satchel up onto her shoulder.
“Thank you, Ellen. I did. I knew I could count on you and your team. You’ve never let me down.” Cas brushed a strand of hair out of her face and smiled warmly.
“I still think you’re nuts to try to assimilate an ape,” Jo added as she placed a hand at her mother’s back to guide her toward the rising stairs. “Calling her Pack is one thing. Putting her into the scene is another entirely. It’s going to blow up in your faces just like it did here today with Raphe.”
“Duly noted, alpha,” Cas told her as he escorted them to the foyer. “If it does, I will accept all the I-told-you-so’s you feel compelled to lay upon me.”
“Pssshh! Right. I may look stupid…”
Sarah opened her eyes slowly, blinking, feeling disoriented. Beside her, she felt someone shift. She was warm and comfortable from head to foot, surrounded by fluffy white bedding. She turned her head and found Sam watching her with his head resting on his upstretched arm. His shirt was gone, and he too was buried beneath the covers. He wiped at an eye with his fingertip to clear away the crumbles of sleep.
“What time is it?” she croaked, then cleared her throat.
“No idea,” Sam said in a sleepy voice. “I left my phone in my pants.” He pointed toward the foot of the bed and then rolled onto his back and stretched his arms over his head. Sarah’s eyes followed his muscular arms.
“Wait. You’re not wearing pants?”
Sam laughed. “It’s hard to nap in denim,” he said, seeming not the least bit perturbed.
Sarah huffed in disbelief and struggled to sit up. She shoved her hair out of her face. She felt sore all over. She stretched her arms out in front of her. “What’s Jess going to say?”
Sam sat up too, revealing his bare torso and a peek at the elastic band of his navy boxer briefs. “I’ve trained a lot of Subs,” he told her. “She knows what my job is.”
“This isn’t part of your job though, Sam. It’s personal. Please don’t dismiss it. It’s different.”
Sam pressed his lips together and then scrubbed his hands over his face to help get blood flowing. “Look,” he said. He rolled onto his hip to face her. “I get that it’s different. But it’s also not. Sub training is Sub training. There are boundaries. There are rules. It’s a regimented process. There are safety guiderails in place for a reason. It can get very personal and vulnerable very quickly. We have ways to…”
Sarah put a finger over his mouth.
“It’s different this time, Sam, because it’s you and me. I know you feel it. Unless I’m crazy over here, we both feel it. I need to know what Jess thinks. I’m not signing onto anything if she’s not a part of it.”
Sam removed her hand with supreme care. His touch sent a frisson of energy through Sarah’s hand, down her arm, straight to her chest. He turned his hand until it cradled hers. She stared at their hands. It was easier than looking into his eyes.
“Whenever you’re ready, we can go talk to Jess,” he whispered. “I’m not doing anything without her agreement either. If I thought this would stop at simple Sub training, I’d say it’s none of her business. But I don’t know that. And the thing about Jess…”
He paused. A thumb traced Sarah’s knuckle, drawing her eyes.
“About Jess,” Sarah repeated.
“She’s been asking for things, things I never thought to take seriously.”
“What kinds of things?” Sarah prompted.
A smile played secretly on his face as he relived a memory for a moment, and then he pulled Sarah’s eyes. “It started during scenes. Only during. It won’t surprise you to hear that we don’t take suggestions made mid-scene as true prompts. People get horny. They get carried away. They ask for all kinds of outlandish things…”
“Polyamory isn’t outlandish,” Sarah pointed out. “It’s quite common, in fact.”
Sam didn’t answer. His eyes dropped to their joined hands again.
“Sam? Is that what she wants?”
“It’s terrifying,” he said. “You get that, right? This could go so badly wrong. Everyone involved could get hurt. I don’t want to hurt her.” He looked back up at her. “Or you.”
“Or Kate?”
Sam chuckled. He released her hand and rolled backward. He sat on the side of the bed with his back to her. “Kate is the safe choice.”
“Why?”
Sam curled down over his knees, resting on his elbows. The vast stretch of flesh and muscle over his back played under the lights dimly shining overhead.
“Because you’re not crazy, Sarah.”
“You want me?” she whispered, watching his back, entranced.
Sam stood up. The curve at the small of his back pulled her eyes downward.
She had seen him nude before. Hell, she’d seen him in action before. But there was something about him right now, naked in a way she’d never seen, that caused her to flush. Her lips parted slightly. Sam collected his clothes from the counter. He pulled his jeans on, followed by a t-shirt that pulled tight across his pecs. He faced her and leaned back against the counter, backlit.
Beautiful.
Dangerous.
“I’ve come to understand that Jess isn’t simply getting carried away in the heat of the moment. She’s got several kinks that align with a penchant for a poly experience. But part of what she wants is to be humiliated watching me enjoy another. That makes it a fraught situation. I can’t predict if she might lash out at our third wheel once the scene ends. I can’t predict her feelings. And it’s my responsibility to protect her feelings. I’m her mate. First and foremost, that’s always going to be the most important role for me. I would be crazy to risk it.”
“Then why even try the training?” Sarah asked cautiously. “Dean can handle it. Can’t he?”
“Yep,” Sam agreed with a nod of his head. “Dean would take excellent care of you both. But…” Sam frowned down at his thumbnail.
Sarah pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “But…”
He looked up at her. “I don’t want him to.”
An electric jolt struck Sarah’s heart dead-on, like a cupid’s arrow, at the heat in his gaze.
“Sam.”
“Look, it’s all still on the chopping block here. If Jess wants to play it safe with someone who’s not Pack, I’m going to give her what she wants.”
“She knows what you feel for me?”
Sam chuckled again, kind of a burst of ironic humor that wasn’t funny. “She knows. We’re mates, Sarah.”
“Sam, you don’t have to feel guilty. We haven’t done anything wrong. Neither of us can help what we feel. Neither of us was going to act on it. We both had people in our lives who matter more than any carnality. And as much as I’m attracted to you, I know your mate will always come first. I had that too, you know, until I didn’t. Adam was…”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to say it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s gone anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded it. She looked at him as if puzzled.
“Would it be just the scening?” she asked.
Sam licked his lips. “I don’t know. I don’t want it to be. Maybe that’s too dangerous to even try. Maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t want to hurt you, Sarah. You’re too important—to me, to the Pack.” He dropped his eyes again, shy. “A lot of it depends on you, you know. Jess and I get a say. You get a say too. I know you’re hurting. Don’t jump into something just to have something.”
She nodded. “Sam, I…” she swallowed. Why was it so hard to say when they had already said it? Why was it so hard? “I want this, whatever it might be. I want to learn from you. I want to learn to serve you. I want to learn to be good for you. I watch Dean on his knees, and I want to be that. I won’t do it without Jess’ stamp though. That’s a hard limit. And if we have to draw the boundaries at scening, then I’ll learn to live with that. But…”
He looked up sharply. “But?”
“But Cas and Dean have already proved that it’s possible to hold onto more. If you and Jess are both open to exploring more, I am too.”
“You’re fresh off a traumatic experience…”
“Samuel Luke Winchester, don’t you dare! You know damned well this isn’t a spur of the moment emotion.”
He put his hands up. “Yikes. Shit. Sorry.” He laughed. Sarah laughed a little too. But it didn’t hold, and it didn’t reach her eyes.
“I don’t want to get hurt,” she told him. “But if I’ve learned anything from you, it’s to be brave and pursue what I want. Nothing ventured, Sam.”
He shuffled his feet with a deep inhale. “You know, there’s another side of this I have to bring up.”
“What’s that?” Sarah asked, stretching her legs back out in front of her.
“You’re not blind. You have to know by now that Cas is going to make a play for Adam.” He glanced up at her through his lashes, checking her response.
She rolled her eyes and then grimaced. She threw the covers off and swung her legs over the side. “He thinks he’s saving my heart from breaking.”
Sam frowned. “I’m not sure it has anything to do with you, actually. I think it’s more about testing for weaknesses in Omega law. He wants to know how to keep his pups in the Pack when they’re grown, even if they Mate, even if they’re Omega.
Sarah shot him a look that called him an idiot. “Right. And the timing is pure coincidence. Sam, he could have any Omega in the world. Aaron Bass isn’t affiliated at all. He’s un-Mated. He’s a strong contractor. He’s every bit as resilient as Adam. What possible reason other than me and my broken heart for Alpha to pick Adam when Ozzies like Aaron are out there? Huh?”
Sam sighed. “I don’t know. Alpha does things that seem random until all the wheels are turning. I’m not saying I get it; I’m saying it’s probably bigger than just you. What happens between us if Adam moves in?”
Her jaw dropped. “Sam, are you jealous?”
“It’s not an unreasonable question.” Sam grew animated. He gestured with an energy he’d been suppressing. “If Adam joins us, if he Mates and we manage to hold onto him, what with Michael and April sitting right underfoot breaking every notion about Mated Omegas, you and Adam right under his new alpha’s nose, there could be all kinds of parallels. I want to try to think it through before you and I…”
“Before we what?”
Sam closed his mouth with a snap. He looked to be beating himself up.
“Sam?”
“I’m not looking for a wife,” he stated bluntly. “I have a mate.”
“I get that,” Sarah told him.
Sam stared at her.
She stared back.
Finally, he frowned and said, “We’re talking about setting up a three-way relationship between you on the one side and me and my mate on the other. Why are you willing to consider it with me when you wouldn’t with Adam?”
Sarah’s face paled. It took her forever to work out what he was saying.
Finally, in a tiny voice, “Is it the same thing?”
“Isn’t it?”
From his bedroom window, Cas watched three figures creep on foot through the darkness toward the front gate. He felt Dean come up behind him, and he leaned back just as his husband’s chest found the proper position to support him.
“We’ll need to check that Kali’s okay before we go to bed,” Cas said. “It’s been some time since they’ve been separated like this. I doubt he gave her any timeline at all for when he might return.”
Claire slipped out of sight around the bend first, followed by Gabriel and then Kaia. They travelled light, it seemed. Cas supposed Ash was on his way to pick them up.
“They’re going to be all right, Alpha,” Dean assured him. Warm arms circled his waist and soft lips touched his shoulder.
“I know.”
“Did Bobby ever explain where Kaia got her funding from before you took her in?”
“Not with anything but vague hemming.” Cas left the window. Dean released him, choosing to sit right on the sill and let Cas have his space. “He said it’s a complicated trail.”
“You know that means it leads straight back to Bobby, right?” Dean posed. “There are no trails too complicated for him to untangle. So, if he’s using that excuse, he’s hiding his own involvement.”
“That was my conclusion too, yes,” Cas confirmed. He unbuttoned his shirt just as a parade of rowdy preschoolers tore down the hall and past their door.
“Walk!” Michael called to them, following more slowly.
Cas rolled his eyes.
“Why would he hide that he’s funding her?” Dean asked. “It’s obvious she’s good enough for our payroll. Why not just mesh the two?”
Cas stripped his shirt off and then tackled his belt buckle. He disappeared into the closet, but his voice carried. “I assume because Bobby is likewise funding other agents that he wants me not to know about.” He lowered his voice again as he emerged wearing nothing at all. “If he takes credit for Kaia when none of the rest of us knew of her existence, that leads to questions about the likelihood that she’s the only one off the books.”
“You think he’s skirting your rules again?”
“Again? Dean, I believe he never stopped. The question is whether I should do something about it or let him have his head.”
“That’s not a nautical metaphor, Alpha.”
Cas rummaged through his dresser and pulled on a soft pair of Dean’s sleep pants. “Come on,” he said, holding his hand out to pull Dean to his feet. “Let’s go give baths to pups and stop thinking about dark things.”
“I could use a reprieve like that,” Dean admitted.
Cas shouted down the hall as they turned toward the pups’ bathroom, “Everybody better be naked by the time I get there or it will be tickle-monster time!”
Dean grinned and followed.
Notes:
Yeah, just to be clear, Steve Carlson and Jensen Ackles wrote the lyrics. Buy Radio Company albums if you can. Even more fun, listen to the lyrics with an ear to Caniformes. It's a trip.
I missed y'all so much. Hugs and kisses to everyone. I know I still have a bunch of comments to reply to. I swear I won't forget.
Chapter 30: Sunday, September 19, 2021
Summary:
Sarah begins training. They're taking things very slowly. Sam needs to understand where his mate is coming from and gets a whole face-full of surprise. He was NOT expecting THAT.
Cas isn't moving slowly at all. Once he decided he wanted Adam, he's not letting anything get in his way.
But then, catastrophe strikes. Everything had been looking up for so long. We all knew it couldn't last.
Didn't we?
Notes:
TW in the end notes.
It's been too long. I had the luxury of spending Spring Break in a quiet retreat drinking beer and writing fanfic. What could be better? The Texas weather cooperated beautifully. My dogs cooperated marginally. It all evens out.
Thanks, Jennyfly, for being there with me and for driving the endless miles to make it happen. Thanks for climbing countless stairs lugging crap we barely used. Thanks for being a good sport. I love you so much.
Y'all, I know everything is fucked up beyond words right now. Please accept some escapism as a token of the necessity to refuel so you can keep going. Sorry, there's no smut in this chapter. You're warned.
Love!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sunday, September 19, 2021
NOW:
“The Feds are bringing an indictment on the Nikolai syndicate for the bombing in Oklahoma,” Dean read from his tablet. He sat lounging on the floor in blue jeans and bare feet, leaning against the sofa between Castiel’s legs.
“Is that a fact?” Cas asked in a distracted voice with his own eyes on his phone and a gentle hand in Dean’s hair.
Dean turned bodily to address him. “Did you hear me? Cas, this is huge. How can they have enough evidence for an indictment when Nikolai didn’t commit the crime? But if there’s an indictment, that means they have actual evidence. Maybe it points toward the wrong culprit, but what’re the odds they can’t wrangle out the truth? What if they find enough to lead them to us?”
Cas set his phone on the end table and exchanged it for a steaming cup of tea. He sipped. Dean hauled himself to his feet and set to pacing with furrowed brow. “This is bad, man. This is very bad. There’s no way this ends well for us. If they think they have leads pointing to the syndicates, that means they have leads. Gordon’s dead, but this case is gonna follow us…”
“Follow me, you mean,” Cas interrupted. Dean spun on his heel to face him.
“It’s not funny, CJ. Don’t you get it? Four years on and the Feds are still sniffing at your heels.”
“If they were sniffing at my heels, they wouldn’t be raiding the Nikolai compound,” Cas pointed out.
Dean shook his head. “I don’t like it. I don’t like anytime this thing hits the papers. Bobby promised it would fade to black and vanish in a cloud of mist…not enough to go on, not enough evidence left to make heads or tails of anything. It was supposed to get relegated to the cold cases file. Why are they still gumshoeing this thing into the pavement? Huh? What do they think they know?”
“Dean, relax. It’s under control. Bobby found a clever way to take Nikolai’s gang down without ever raising a pistol to them. He simply substituted the actual evidence for a masterful facsimile, made it just opaque enough that it would feel to the FBI like a breakthrough when they worked out where it pointed.”
“You knew there was movement on this thing?” Dean asked with a telltale crossing of arms and setting of jaw. “Goddamnit! What am I, your pet basset hound? When were you going to tell me?”
Cas drew himself to his full height and matched his husband toe to toe. His eyes flashed cold blue. “When I thought you needed to know. When I knew which way the FBI would feint. When I was good and ready and not one second before.” The air seemed to ripple from his body, bathing the room in a surreal haze.
“Jesus, Cas,” Dean whispered, taken aback at the rare display of raw power outside of their play. His eyelids fluttered in a very unwelcome rush of endorphins. Dean fell to his knees, and Cas softened. He sighed. He stepped forward, stepped close, cradled Dean’s head against his hip and carded fingers through his hair.
“I apologize, Dean. That was unnecessary. It seems you struck a nerve. I am not vexed with you, love.”
Dean shifted his head and kissed Castiel’s palm, eyes closed and body zinging with promise. “You were going to tell me though, right? Sir?”
Cas chuckled. He pulled Dean to his feet. “That is precisely why Bobby’s joining us this evening for dinner. I had no idea any of this was moving, only that he had a plan ready to implement.” They faced each other, neither blinking. Dean’s height provided scant advantage when faced with an Alpha of Castiel’s strength, but he employed what he could. The hormone rush faded enough to lend stability to his legs. He raised his brows in a wordless question. Cas scratched the back of his own head and grimaced before turning away and collecting his phone. “We should wait for Bobby.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know enough to tell you anything,” Cas admitted.
“You know enough that you aren’t worried.”
“Dean, Bobby has never once let me down when it comes to diverting attention from areas I need the authorities not to notice. He says he has this handled, that he can put an end to the endless investigation that will endanger us as long it continues. And he says he can use it as a weapon against an organization that shamelessly, brutally traffics Omegas. I call that a worthwhile effort. But I do not yet know the details. I didn’t know he had put anything in motion.”
“Are you going to tell Michael?”
“No. Nor will I tell Gabriel, although my brother may sleuth it out for himself.”
“This is risky, Alpha. Bobby’s good, but no one’s perfect. All it would take is one breadcrumb dropped in the wrong direction, and we find ourselves standing naked under a spotlight.”
“We’ll hear him out this evening. I expect what he has to say will ease your fears, love.”
Dean snorted inelegantly. He stooped to collect the tablet from the floor and gestured with it. “I thought this thing was in our rearview, Cas. It’s been four years, man. Feels like it’s going to keep popping up every time we get comfortable.”
“Not if Bobby’s scheme works,” Cas told him. “We have a chance to put it to bed once and for all. Criminals who are guilty of the worst kind of human abuse will go to prison, one of the syndicates will be utterly destroyed, and the feds will have a conviction under their belts and no further case to follow. It’s worth the risk, Dean. We haven’t talked about it much, but this investigation has never gone away. And the longer it continues, the greater the chance one of our errant breadcrumbs comes to light.”
“Trust you,” Dean said just as Cas began to speak the words himself. “Right?”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you’re angry. I’m asking you to give me the benefit of the doubt and withhold judgment until we hear Bobby out.”
“Get Benny here too, Cas. If we’re pulling off a band aid, we’re doing it right. No secrets.”
“I can do that,” Cas said. “I would appreciate your discretion where our mates are concerned though. This isn’t something I want either of them in on.”
“They can both read, CJ. If Nikolai goes to prison, don’t you think they’ll notice the headlines?”
Cas leveled Dean with a glare until the man backed down. “Fine. When they ask, I’m sending them to you. Keeping secrets from your mate is a douche move though…or your husband.” He said the last phrase under his breath on his way out of the TV room.
Cas watched him go with a sense of having barely escaped with his skin intact. He’d heard, and he had no good defense. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried to keep his promises to his husband, events always played out to cut his feet out from under him. If the timeline of Bobby’s ploy found the FBI already moving, then Bobby couldn’t have been honest with Cas either. He’d made it sound like the plan stood at the earliest stages of development, not nearly fulfilled already. And Castiel’s pride in his own decision to bring Dean in at the outset fell apart, prey to a scheme that was eight degrees further along than Cas knew.
He thumbed his phone alight and put it to his ear.
“Forget dinner, Singer. Get your ass here now. It’s in the goddamned papers, Bobby!”
Sarah chewed her fingernail as she watched Sam read over her responses to the kink questionnaire. She studied his eyes for any sign of judgment or amusement, but he may as well be holding a full house for all his face gave away.
Finally, he shuffled the stack back together and set it down. He looked up with a kind expression. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Submissive. I’m honored.”
Sarah blushed. “Did I have a choice?” she asked.
Sam frowned and eased himself closer to the edge of his chair although he didn’t reach out to touch her. “You could have lied,” he told her. “You could have omitted things. You could have refused.”
“How do you know I didn’t lie?”
“Some of what you stated,” he said carefully, “let’s just say it seems unlikely you would have put down what you did if you had other things you were hesitant for me to know.”
Sarah blushed scarlet and dropped her eyes. “I promised to give this my best effort, Sam.”
“Sir.”
“Sorry. Sir.”
“And you’ll get no less from us, Sarah,” Sam assured her as Dean slipped into the brightly lit morning room with them and closed the door behind him. “But we won’t be ready to explore most of what’s on that list for some time yet. I’m going to ask you to be patient and trust us. We know what we’re doing, and we won’t steer you wrong.”
Dean shoved the questionnaire over and sat on the end table where Sam had placed it. “How are you feeling, kiddo? Nervous?”
“Maybe a little. I’m curious why Kate is already so far ahead of me in her training. You said being Omega doesn’t prepare her for Sub training.” Sarah sat cross-legged on the floor in a black leotard and ankle-length leggings.
“Kate can communicate with us metaphysically, Sarah,” Dean told her. “We have to be more careful since you can’t. It’s not about a judgement. We don’t figure her to have better potential than you. It’s about our ability to scent each other, and it’s about our instincts that allow us to skip some of the preliminaries. We have to find another way to ensure we can read you and you us. Until we figure that out, we’re going to move slowly. Do you understand?”
Sarah tore her eyes from Sam’s gently entreating gaze to Dean’s earnest expression, waiting for a reply. “Yes, alpha.”
“Atta girl,” he smiled. He eased down onto the floor across from her and mirrored her position. “Okay. If we’re all on the same page now, I’ll talk you through today’s lesson.” He looked over his shoulder at his brother. “Sammy, did you get a chance to study her answers?”
“Yes, I did. And it’s ‘Sam.’”
Dean grinned and winked at Sarah. “Good. None of that matters yet. Put it out of your head. Today is just generic stuff. Rules. Basic postures. Some preliminary red flags to watch for. Nothing sexual. No one’s going to touch you sexually today, Submissive. But pay attention. You’ll be expected to remember the rules and obey them. You go ahead and ask any questions you think up.”
“At what point do rewards and punishments start?” she asked with her ears still a vibrant pink.
“Not today,” Dean told her.
“As soon as we all agree you’re ready,” Sam added. “Although if you work hard for us, you’ll always be rewarded in one way or another.”
“I’m ready now,” she told him, eyes switching between them.
“I said when we all agree,” Sam reminded her with steel in his voice. “You don’t make a call like that. Your Tops do.”
Sarah swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
Dean grinned like a little boy, joyful and mischievous. “We’re going to have fun, kiddo. Relax. This is for you. Don’t be scared. Okay, up on your knees. Let’s get you in first. Watch me.” Dean knelt in front of her, casual and easy, no strain anywhere in his body. “You ever had a yoga class? Some of it translates.”
Sarah copied him as Sam stood and paced around her, studying her posture.
“Spine straight but not stiff,” Dean continued. “Shoulders back and down. Tits out and proud. Give ‘em something to look at, sister. You’re beautiful, and you’re offering. Chin up. Never lower your chin unless you’re told to even if your eyes are on the floor. Sit back on your heels. Get comfy.”
“How are your knees?” Sam asked as he pressed a hand between her shoulder blades and another to her sternum to correct her posture. “You stated you have no joint problems. Does this position feel comfortable?”
“I’m fine here, sir,” she told him. He raised her chin higher with two fingers beneath it.
“Being Submissive doesn’t mean being ashamed, Sarah. Don’t hide.”
Her eyes followed him as he rounded behind her and then they cut to Dean and found him smug. She blushed again.
“You’re holding tension in your neck and shoulders, Blake,” Sam said. “Relax.”
“You will be spending a lot of time in this pose,” Dean said. He rolled his shoulders and settled, closed his eyes and then opened them slowly. “Let it be a comfort to you. Let it be your meditative peace, your go-to when you’re stressed. Nothing bad can happen to you here. That’s a rule, Sarah.”
“But you put the Omegas in this position when they’re in trouble,” she said with a frown.
“You’re not Omega,” Sam reminded her. “First position has a different purpose for Omegas than it does for Subs.”
Her frown lingered. “Alpha puts Dean on his knees when he’s angry too.”
Dean laughed. “Good catch, kid. But that’s Secondary-to-Secondary more than it is Tertiary. He Tops me as an alpha too, don’t forget. Sam here wouldn’t put me in first when he wanted to read me the riot act, that is, unless he was too pissed to think about the implications.”
“Which has doubtless happened before,” Sam admitted.
“First will be your starting pose for any scene, no matter what we’re doing,” Dean continued. “You will be expected to hold it for as long as your Dominant pleases, hold it correctly, without slouching, fidgeting, stretching, or whining. When commanded to your knees, you hit this pose. If you’re told to kneel, it’s this pose. If you’re instructed to wait, you do it here. Understood?”
“Yes, alpha.”
“Are your toes tingling?” Sam asked. He went to one knee behind her to press his fingers into the pads of her toes.
“No, sir. They’re fine.”
“Good. Let’s talk rules, then.”
“Eyes front, Submissive!” Dean barked when Sarah turned her head to find Sam. “Keep your face forward no matter what. If he lights a fire behind you, you keep your head forward. You’ll be instructed if that changes. He knows you can’t look at him. He knows the limits of the pose.”
Sam went on as if Dean hadn’t spoken. “Rule number one is obedience to your Tops. Do I need to clarify?”
“Sir, that’s already a Pack rule. Why does it need to be restated?”
Dean shook his head. “There’s a difference between Pack hierarchical relationships and a D/s one. Yeah, we expect you to obey us from a Pack perspective, but the difference is we wouldn’t try to order you around unless we felt we had to. Now that we’re here, doing this, that’s going to change. And we expect you to jump smart when we tell you to do something, whatever it is.”
“Like what kinds of things?” Sarah asked tentatively.
“Like meals and exercise and bedtime and self-care in general,” Sam told her. “Like service and attention. We’ll set those expectations by the end of every lesson. You’ll know what to expect, and you’ll know how to please us.”
“Or displease us,” Dean added helpfully.
Sarah smirked.
“Don’t slouch,” Dean reminded her. She straightened.
“I’m expected to obey you both?” she asked. “Who takes precedence?”
“Both of us,” Dean told her.
Sam huffed. “What he means is, we won’t knowingly give you conflicting instructions. If we do, we expect you to speak up, and we will decide how to break the logjam. Not you. Got that?”
“It’s not usual for a Sub to have two Tops, is it?” she asked, catching Sam as he finally walked back in front of her.
“It’s pretty standard during training,” Sam said. “At least early on. If you were in class, you would have both a classroom instructor and a Dom. Some classes have two teachers.”
“I’m here to give you the inside view,” Dean said. “You will only have one Dominant for any lesson, but it might be any of them, Sarah. They will rotate. Sam will be your primary. Sometimes I’ll join you in your exercises, help model for you, guide you. Sometimes I’ll stand alongside the Dom and reinforce what they’re doing or play spotter, give you insight. You obey us both.”
“You’ll always be here with me?” Sarah asked Dean.
“Usually, but not always,” he admitted. “At the outset, we’ll make sure you have another Sub in the room with you. If I can’t make it, April or Jess can fill in, or we’ll get you and Kate back together. It’s not ideal, but we’re all busy. This is important though. We’ll make time. Point is, until you’re completely comfortable, you won’t be alone with a Dom.”
“Rule two, Submissive,” Sam continued, “is no lying in any form or fashion. Do I need to elaborate?”
“No, Sir. I understand that one.”
“Good to know Cas’ paddle has made an impression,” Dean said with a wide smirk.
Sam cuffed Dean as he passed. “Do you have any misgivings, Sarah? Anything you’d like to get off your chest?”
“Will I be scening in front of the others?”
“Do you want to?” Dean asked, raising a brow.
“No. At least, not yet.”
“Your limits define what we do, Submissive,” Sam said. “You’re in charge of how far we go. If you don’t agree, then it doesn’t happen.”
“Except for setting my bedtime,” she added, catching his eye.
“Look, this isn’t going to stray into a full-time gig,” Dean drew her eyes to him. “We have your best interest at heart. We’re not going to overstep and run your life unless you tell us that’s what you want.”
“Or the Alpha decides it’s what you need,” Sam added. “How are your knees and feet now?”
“I’m good,” she told him.
“Okay, spread your knees wide and flip your hands over. Rest the backs of your hands on your thighs at an outward angle. This is second. Raise your chin higher than in first. Shoulders back. That’s right. Elbows further back.” He guided her as Dean held the position and let her copy him.
“Arch your back, Sarah,” Dean coached. “This position signals your status as a vulnerable Bottom. You are open to use, defenseless and willing. Some Subs find it uncomfortable at first. It will feel different when you’re nude. Widen your knees. Tits out. Don’t hide anything.”
“What are you feeling?” Sam asked, watching.
“Um, I’m a little embarrassed, I guess. But I could easily find this pose arousing, I think, under the right circumstances.”
“Put your hands behind your back and raise your chin. Look at me,” Sam instructed. Dean obeyed as well. “This is posture three. Cross your wrists and leave your hands open, like a butterfly behind your back. Don’t ever make a fist in my presence unless I tell you to.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good,” Sam praised. “You’re getting the hang of the honorific. It’s not easy for apes to master the difference between sir and Sir.”
Sarah beamed. Dean caught Sam’s eye.
“Rule three,” Sam said. He began a slow stroll around her once more. “Tell me what you want. Take ownership of your progress. I may not give it to you right away, but I’ll listen. This is your journey. It’s your responsibility to be direct about where it leads. That includes telling me what you don’t want.”
“I understand, Sir.”
“Good girl,” he replied smoothly. “Back to first position.”
She shifted, watching Dean’s body for confirmation. He made it look easy. Graceful. She felt clumsy in comparison. Even in blue jeans, Dean looked utterly relaxed. He made a show of rolling his shoulders back and down, and Sarah copied him. Why did it feel difficult to kneel? That’s all it was, really, just kneeling. Why did she feel wrong-footed? Why did she feel adolescent and awkward? It had been years since she last felt like a child, but something about this made her feel ungainly in her own skin.
She realized Sam had stopped circling and was simply watching her from in front. He stood behind Dean, his eyes sharp, boring into hers. “Where did you go just now?” he asked.
Sarah lowered her eyes.
“Look at me,” Sam corrected.
She glanced back up. “The past, I guess.”
“The past,” Sam repeated. “What has the past got that’s more important than I am right now?”
“Nothing, Sir. I’m sorry. I’ll stay present.”
Dean stood up and closed the distance before dropping to one knee before her. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, beta,” he whispered. “He’ll hold you to them. If this work brings up baggage from the past, that’s something to be honest about.”
Sarah let out the breath she was holding in a rush of affection for the Submissive. He understood, didn’t he? He could see into her soul. He knew why she’d drifted away, or he seemed to, anyway. He smiled and tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear. “We’ve got you, kid,” he said softly. “You want to try answering again?”
She nodded and then looked past him to Sam. “Sir, when I was younger, I went through an awkward stage. I felt like a klutz. Looked like a colt, all legs and wobble. Trying to be graceful just now, trying to match Dean…alpha…it brought those years back. My mother criticized and tore at me constantly. Nothing I did was ever good enough. But I want to do it right.”
“Very good, Sarah,” Sam said. “I understand. No one gets as fluid at this as Dean is without years of practice. He isn’t here to make you feel clumsy. He’s here to help. And you’re doing very well. You don’t look awkward to me. Confidence will come with time.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Sam addressed his brother. “Dean, show her how to get down to first from standing and back up again. Sarah, watch him first. Then we’ll have you try. Don’t fret if it feels clumsy at first. Eventually, I’ll expect you to make it pleasing to watch.”
Dean shifted his weight back toward his heels and flowed upward without a trace of a quiver, hands loose on his thighs, eyes downcast. He made it look sensuous and elegant. A ballet dancer couldn’t have been more graceful.
Sarah sighed. She knew she had a long way to go.
They worked at postures and poses for a full hour. Sarah found her core and her thighs ached by the end. But every time she nailed one, Sam beamed at her. His face shone with pride, with pleasure, and Sarah found herself desperate to pull that light from him, to win those gentle praises. She stopped blushing by halfway through the session. At some point, she threw her insecurity into a deep dark hole somewhere in her psyche, and she buckled down to learn. It felt right, this simple exercise. Obeying and winning his smiles made her feel worthy; she felt light and floaty. She felt as if she might finally, actually be enough for once.
Dean guided her, demonstrated, and stayed close enough to ease her body into alignment when she strayed. But she wasn’t focused on Dean. Nor did he seem to expect her to be. He offered whispered instructions, but always his words served to guide her toward pleasing Sam. It was all for Sam.
And Sarah? Sarah basked.
She caught an understated smirk from Dean when he clearly thought she wasn’t looking. But she didn’t care. She felt buoyant and calm and determined and righteous. If Sam could bring these feelings out simply by asking her to kneel before him, how would she feel when they moved on to more explicit play?
“I expect you to practice on your own time, Submissive,” Sam told her at the end of the hour. “No cheating. We’ve trained enough Subs to know what progress to expect if you work at it. Don’t neglect any of your other obligations. If you struggle to manage your time, let me know, and I’ll assist you.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good girl. You’ve done very well today. I’m proud of you.” He pulled her to her feet and offered a bear hug, which she accepted enthusiastically. A probing study of her face told Sam she needed no involved aftercare. Still, he planned to look in on her before he left for the day. “Do you have anything to add or ask?” he checked. “My door is always open.”
“Will things be weird now between us?” Sarah asked, searching his face. “Outside of this room, I mean?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out. I’ve Dommed for coworkers before, and it’s never been weird. But they were always wolves. Lupins flip dynamics easily.”
Dean touched Sam’s shoulder. “I need to run. Got a meeting. You two okay?”
Sam raised a brow at Sarah, and she nodded. “Thanks, Dean. Good work today,” Sam told his brother. Once he was gone, Sam wrapped his arms back around Sarah until he felt her begin to pull away.
“You take your time in here. Get yourself situated. Sometimes there’s a little bit of a rebound feeling after a scene. It can be jarring to go back to your everyday state of mind. Give it a few minutes before you try to put that mantle back on. If you like, I’ll stay with you.”
“I think I could use some alone time, sir,” she told him. “A little time to process.”
He smiled. “Of course. But listen, you text me if you begin to feel any of the emotions we talked about, any that might indicate a drop. Don’t sit in here by yourself and wallow. Promise me.”
“I won’t. I promise. I’m okay. I feel good.”
“Good. That’s what I like to hear.” He let her go and collected his papers, her questionnaire, shifting to a different kind of bearing, shrinking somehow back to the Sam she’d known for years. “On the other side of that door,” he nodded toward the exit, “we’re out of the D/s dynamic. No need to call me sir out there. The lesson’s over. But I’m always here for you if you have questions or need to talk.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Any time, Submissive.”
Day waned, and Sam returned to his family home late that evening. He ran his fingers through his hair, uneasy as he approached the room he shared with his mate. He was home late enough that the boys would both be sound asleep by now. He considered stopping in to check on them but discarded the thought almost as soon as it occurred. Putting off the looming conversation wasn’t going to help anything. They had already put it off too long as it was.
As Sam cracked the door to his bedroom, Jess appeared down the hall, slipping silently out of their twins’ room and pulling the door behind her, leaving it cracked slightly. Sam couldn’t resist smiling softly at her, and she greeted him in-kind. Warm hands circled his waist, a warm body tucked up under his chin and pressed into his chest. Sam sighed. Home was so much more than a place. Home was Jess. His sons safe and warm, sleeping, dreaming, growing…his family, that was home. Sam kissed the top of her head.
“How did it go?” she asked at a whisper.
“Flawless,” Sam admitted wryly. “She’s watched us long enough to have internalized some of it already. She seems committed. Polish will come with time. But she had no trouble with the dynamic.” He guided Jess into their bedroom and peeled her bathrobe from her shoulders. He disappeared into the bathroom to strip and brush his teeth. Jess waited for him up on the bed, her back against the headboard that had been his parents’, long legs stretched out before her. Her white cotton night dress glowed eerily in the moonlight streaming in through the window.
Sam emerged still wiping his mouth on a small towel. He tossed it onto the counter and joined his mate on the bed. “She’s a natural,” he continued as if he hadn’t paused. “I believe she’ll take to the training like a champ. I just wish I knew for sure that her submissiveness was a real need and not just a kink. We could do her real damage if we force her into a role that’s artificial to her.”
“Sam, Cas has been domming her since she first moved into the manor. And when he didn’t do it hard enough at the outset, she bratted until he took her in his teeth. How can there be a question of it being merely a kink?” Jess sat upright and turned onto her hip to face him. “Besides, kinks deserve attention too.”
Sam sighed again, a very different exhale than the expression of contentment earlier. “Yeah. Maybe. But you know it doesn’t have to be me, don’t you? Jess, I… It doesn’t have to be me.”
Jess chuckled. “Why would you even say something like that? Of course it has to be you. Who else? Michael? Kali? I mean, Dean can prepare her, teach her the steps, but he can’t take her through the dance. Sam, she needs you.”
“No, I don’t get it,” he said. “Why are you pushing me at her? You’ve been right there this whole way urging me toward her. What are you up to, Jess? Have you and Cas designed this thing together? Tell me what’s going on.”
Jess huffed and pulled back. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”
“You don’t even like Sarah,” he pointed out.
“I like her just fine,” she countered.
“Jess,” Sam warned.
“Let me talk to your wolf,” said Jess. Her jaw set stubbornly.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. This isn’t a Tertiary matter.”
She scoffed. “How can you say that? How could it be anything else!?”
Sam leaned over her, angry. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Jessica, but I love you. You hear me? I’m not messing that up just because you get it into your head that my wolf needs an extra meal from outside our bond. You’ve always been it for me. You and the twins are all I need. Now, I’ll do this thing with Sarah to the extent I have to, but there’s a boundary line that I’m not going to cross. So stop shoving at me.”
Jess scowled and got off the bed. She stood at the window, staring out at the moonscape, her lithe body outlined by moonlight through cotton. “You don’t get it,” she said softly.
“Understatement,” he agreed. “How about you enlighten me.”
“Sarah’s not in love with you, Sam,” Jess said, turning to face him. “She loves Adam.”
“Okay?”
“And you’re not in love with her either…”
“Jess…”
“No, just listen for a minute. You’re not in love with her, but you’re in lust. That much has been clear for some time. In Sarah, you’ve got an intellectual equal, someone who shares your crusade. She’s a lot of things to you that I’m not…”
“You’re my intellectual equal,” he insisted.
Jess frowned. “In some ways, maybe. But not the way she is. Plus, all the ways you hunger for her, she’s just as hungry for you.”
“This is ridiculous,” Sam scoffed. He rounded the bed to join her at the window. He took her hands. “I don’t care two shits for Sarah, Jess. Not the way I do you. Don’t you understand by now? You…the boys…my family is everything to me. I’m not built for an open relationship. It’s not who I am. I need you to be straight with me and explain where this is coming from.”
“You want her,” Jess stated simply, unweighted by the tidal wave that loomed heavy above them.
“So?” Sam replied, just as oblivious. “I want cheeseburgers three times a week too, but I’m a grownup and I know that’s not going to be good for me. You think I would put us in jeopardy just to dabble? Jesus, Jess, you don’t know me at all. This…” he gestured between them… “This is what matters to me.”
“And what about what matters to me?” Jess asked, growing frustrated. “Does being your Sub mean kowtowing to everything you say? Do I get a vote at all?”
“What the hell are you talking about? You want me to go fuck her? You want me to have an affair?”
“I want you to have a harem!” Jess blurted. Her eyes blazed, and her chest heaved. Sam stepped back under the sheer force of her will.
“What?”
“Sam, your wolf, he’s brutal. He’s bestial. He’s a possessive bastard. Can’t you see it? Cas does. Why do you think he put you in charge of all the Subs in the Pack?”
Sam stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Speechless.
She shook her head and lowered her energy slightly, seeming to realize he was never going to take her seriously unless she bridled herself. “Look, Sarah loves Adam. Adam will join the Pack soon. There’s really no danger between you and her. That’s not what I’m proposing. I’m proposing that you allow your wolf to collect all the loose Subs in the Pack, put them under your hand, all of them. Kate, Sarah, Adam, even Cain. I want to see every Sub’s head turn when you walk into the room, every Sub flinch and move to kneel just in case your eye lands on them. I want to know my mate fucking owns that whole Pack.”
“Castiel owns the Pack,” Sam warned.
“Alpha has his hands full. Someone needs to take the Bottoms in hand. Someone needs to be the hammer and the hearth. Sam, can’t you see it? You’re perfect to play this role. Your wolf has the appetite for it. He can wield the ax, bloody the upstarts, teach them all manners, teach them to step smart, and then offer a warm embrace when it’s all over. Look to your wolf, love. What does he want?”
“Where would you fit in all this? This…harem?” Sam let the word slide out of his mouth. It tasted foul.
Jess smirked. “I’m First Concubine,” she teased. A finger traced down his chest. He caught her wrist.
“Don’t fuck with me, Jess. This is about our life, you and me. Don’t think you’re going to pull my Tertiary into the conversation. We’re settling this as betas. Talk to me and drop the simper.”
“Sam, it’s actually very simple. I’m not asking for a three-way. I’m saying that the role Cas assigned you, where you take prime disciplinary Dominant, is perfect to feed your wolf. Take that role one step further, Samuel. Become their primary Dominant. Fulfill the role your wolf craves. It’s a perfect alignment. Everyone wins.” Jess stepped out of his personal space and cocked her head, studying him.
“Everyone wins,” he parroted. “What about you? What would you get out of this alignment? How do you benefit from my split attentions?”
“Put me right in the middle of your work with everyone else. Make me watch. Make me assist. C’mon, Sam, think about it. The things your wolf puts mine through…think of how much richer that will be with witnesses and human props.” She smirked. Her eyes twinkled playfully.
“You’ll get tired of sharing me, and things will turn sour,” Sam predicted. “There’s no way to control how it all plays out, especially if we involve Sarah. Kate, maybe. Hell, Kate, probably. But Sarah…” He trailed off, uncertain how to express the source of his malaise. But Jess didn’t need an explanation. She backed up to the bed and sat down. She held out a hand to him, and he took it. He slid in beside her, shifting her hips with his knees until he sat astride her thighs.
“I’m not afraid of Sarah, Sam,” she whispered as she kissed his lips. “And I trust you. I trust what we have together. I trust us. No one, not even Sarah, will ever come between us.”
“Famous last words,” he whispered back. He deepened the kisses, surging forward enough to ease her into lying flat. Her knees came up around his hips.
“Sleep on it, Sam. Put the idea to your wolf, and see what he thinks. That’s all I ask.”
“You ask a lot,” he teased, earning a grin.
Cas left Gage’s room in the adolescent wing feeling hopeful. The boy showed determination. He learned rapidly. The techniques Michael offered him proved effective and easy to master. Cas couldn’t help comparing Gage’s progress to his own efforts at that age. Where Cas had attempted to cram his own wolf into manageable form, an upright and noble creature of stature and refinement, one that bore no resemblance to the true nature of the beast, Gage looked his dead in the eye and saw it for what it was. Gage would never need to suffer the torment of a slowly dawning realization, struggling to comprehend a wolf that was more beast than dog. It had taken Cas years even to see his own wolf for what it was, much less learn to control it.
Michael seemed to think that teaching Gage to harness the power of his newly minted Secondary was the key to controlling the wolf, that somehow, being Omega gave him power other designations lacked. But Cas wasn’t so sure. There were Profound Dominants who Presented as betas and alphas by the tens of thousands. The vast majority of those Lupins learned to kennel their own wolves somehow, utilizing power from somewhere. Clearly, Michael and Gage both were harnessing power from their Omegas, but either that power wasn’t unique to Omegas or alphas and betas had a parallel source at their disposal.
Thinking back to his pre-adolescence, Cas recalled struggling mightily to curb his impulses. Before his Presentation, his wolf nearly swamped him with its violent urges, with its carnal cravings. Just as that pressure seemed insurmountable, he underwent his Presentation, emerged an alpha, and found within his new designation all the weight he needed to rein in his wolf. Not that it had come easy. No part of that had been easy. But being alpha tilted everything toward a balance he could handle. Had he been else, had he been beta… he didn’t know how the struggle would have turned out.
Regardless, it was clear Michael had insight that was making Gage’s journey passable, and for that, Cas felt relief and gratitude. If they hadn’t had Michael, weak supposition and shoddy research would have guided Gage, contradictory opinions and scrabbling guesses. Cas sighed. Without Michael, Gage would be lost, even after a decade of painstaking research into the inner workings of the Tertiary. Michael hadn’t employed any of the findings from Cas’ research team. He’d gone entirely with his gut. He worked on instinct. And he nailed it on the first attempt.
Cas had to admit to feeling a bit emasculated, but he set that aside and walked on, heading toward his office.
There was still so much to accomplish.
Soon he would relinquish his Directorship and step into a role of far less influence. He had important initiatives still to set in motion.
But first, a personal matter…
Cas entered his office to find Adam already waiting for him inside. The Ozzie startled and then flushed.
“You could have taken a seat, Adam,” Cas chided gently. “I don’t require you to behave like a supplicant.”
“No, Sir,” Adam agreed. “I wasn’t entirely sure how long you would be. I only just got here.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Let’s go through here, shall we?” Cas led the way through the far door into his private suite. “This isn’t Facility business. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink?”
Adam appeared flustered. “I’m still on the clock, Alpha.”
Cas rolled his eyes. “Juice, Adam. Or water? A beverage. April makes me drink this kale concoction daily now, but I won’t foist that on you. It’s vile.”
“Oh. Water, please.”
“Ice?”
“No thank you.”
“Have a seat,” Cas said with a wave toward the couch.
“I like what you’ve done with the suite, Alpha,” Adam observed as he sat. “It looks stylish and more modern than it did.”
“Another adaptation for my mate’s sake,” Cas said, letting the fridge close. “She insisted it was dated. If it were up to me, it would still resemble a modest-budget long-stay hotel. Honestly, what difference does it make?”
Adam didn’t seem to have an answer handy for that, so he muttered a repeat that the updates looked nice and accepted a glass of water.
“Adam, do you know why I asked you here?” Cas sat opposite him in his favorite chair. He set a tall glass of vivid green liquid on the side table without looking.
“Is it to do with my latest eval, Sir? I only slipped a little. I’ll look into what happened and correct it immediately. I’ve always prided myself on having the highest customer service. Whatever caused the lower reviews, I’m sure it can be amended.”
“I’m sure it can, Omega. And I trust you to see to it forthwith. But no. I’m not interested in discussing your ratings. You’ve never given us cause for worry where your work is concerned. You are a top-notch contractor and an ideal Keller panelist. This is something very different. It’s not professional, son. It’s personal. I wondered, purely out of interest, if you might already have been clued in about it?”
“Clued in, Sir?”
“Ah, I suppose not.” Cas sipped his verdant concoction, pulled a grimace and then wiped his upper lip with his index finger. “Adam, I have thought long and hard about avenues for shifting the trajectory of societal acceptance of Omegas as people with full human rights. We still have so far to go, and unfortunately, we may have pushed things as far as they will go using typical methods. It’s time, I fear, to lean into the atypical, to shake things up a bit. What I am considering is definitely atypical. It may not be feasible. It may be a pipedream. But I’m interested in hearing your input if you’ll allow me to explain.”
“Of course, Alpha. Anything.”
“Indeed. Well, hold your agreement for the moment and hear me out.” Castiel steepled his fingers, forearms resting on his thighs, forehead furrowed. “Adam, if you could design your most perfect Pack, what would it look like to you?”
Adam frowned and leaned in, unconsciously mirroring the Alpha’s body language. “Uh, well, Sir, I suppose it would be large enough to have standing and power, diverse enough to have all the bases covered, if you know what I mean. Not so large that people slip through the cracks or don’t know each other well. There would be a sense of family, even though there might be several unconnected bloodlines. There would be a sense of a mission, a purpose toward something greater. It would be led by an Alpha who sees worth and dignity even in the youngest pup.”
Adam caught Cas’ eye and blushed, breaking the contact uncomfortably. “I mean, it’s pretty much what I have already, sir. Alpha Benny has been so good to me. He’s built a Pack that meets everyone’s needs. He looks out for me, doesn’t let me get pushed around. He listens to me when I have something to say.”
“Hmm,” Cas replied noncommittally. “I wonder though, as ideal as Benny’s Pack is for a young beta like Ben, for an alpha like Jo, I wonder if it truly is ideal for an un-Mated Ozzie.”
Adam pressed his lips together before responding. Something about Cas’ thoughts gave him pause enough to consider saying something disloyal. “I’ll be Mating soon, Alpha. I’m old enough that it’s inevitable. I want to wait for my True-Mate, but there’s no way it will be much longer.”
“And what of Sarah Blake?”
Adam’s gaze drifted into the distance, and a cloud formed over his expression. “Alpha, Sarah broke it off with me. That’s over.”
“She broke it off? I had reason to believe, I thought, that it was a mutual decision.”
“Mutual? No, sir. I love her. If she would have me, I would go back in an instant. Only, she’s right to say that trying to make a go of something when there’s an alpha-Dom somewhere with my name carved into her wrist is a non-starter. She doesn’t want a poly-relationship, Cas. She made that abundantly clear, and I can’t ask her for something that goes against her… values, or whatever…her wants and needs, I guess. I can’t ask that of her. The thing is, I want her to be happy, and she wouldn’t be happy with me. What’s more, no alpha-Dom is going to want me with a girlfriend in tow. The minute I Trigger, Sarah’s history anyway. So, what would be the point?”
Cas sat upright, expanding his chest, stretching. He placed both hands on the arms of his chair and shoved himself to his feet. “Adam, I’m curious why you believe your True-Mate has the power to forcibly strip you of your prior relationships. In my experience, what you bring to the union is a full amalgamation of everything you are, everything you have, everyone you know. You did not cease being Adam Milligan when you took Benny’s surname. You would not cease being Adam Lafitte when you Mate.”
Adam’s mouth dropped open. “Maybe for the alpha, Sir. But for an Ozzie…”
“Ah, but this is my point, my boy,” Cas said with excitement. “For an Ozzie just the same as for an alpha. Don’t you see? You are human. Fully human. And you have the same rights!”
“I don’t have the same rights,” Adam argued. “Omegas cannot live without alpha support. We can’t be independent.”
“That’s true, Adam, but only so far as it goes. There must be limits to the reach of an alpha’s hand, and that limit must extend no further than precisely as far as it must. That far and no further.” Castiel’s face beamed with excitement, with promise. But Adam frowned.
“Alpha, my True-Mate, whoever she is, has the right to rename me, to move me anywhere she chooses to live, to strip me of my property, my family and friends, my job…She has that right.”
Cas spun on his heel mid-pace and confronted the young man. “No, Adam. She has that power. She doesn’t have that right!”
“You think you can change a Top mate’s right over their Bottom? Castiel, how would you begin to make headway on something like that? Even the Progressives follow those customs. It’s instinct as ingrained as breathing to us.” Adam stared up at him, flummoxed.
“I have an idea.” Cas held his eye with the weight of destiny. Adam found he could barely blink. Something propitious was on the wind. “It involves you, specifically. But only if you agree.”
“Me?”
“Adam, are you content in the Lafitte Pack?”
A multitude of expressions crossing the Ozzie’s face gave him away before he slid his mask in place and stammered a convoluted yes.
“This is important, Omega,” Cas said with a trace of Alpha warning. “You won’t face any repercussions regardless of what you say…unless you prevaricate.”
Adam looked away. He chewed his lip. “Alpha, the truth is, it started off so well. Jack and I are good friends. Lisa means the world to me, and so does Ben. But Meg and Ketch…I don’t know, something about them rubs me the wrong way. And they seem to be everywhere. I can hardly turn around without Ketch monitoring my movements and criticizing my choices, even good ones. And Meg, always with the snide comments…”
“Have you spoken to Benny?”
“Alpha is only home for short bursts,” Adam explained. “And when he is, he wants to spend time with his girls.” He sighed and rolled his head on his shoulders. “It really doesn’t matter. As soon as I Mate, I’ll be leaving anyway. I can put up with Ketch and his heavy hand a little longer.”
“What if I offered you a position in my Pack?” Cas asked airily, all trace of weight gone from his tone.
Adam’s jaw dropped. He stared speechless for a moment, but then he gathered himself. “That would be very generous, Sir, but I couldn’t do that to my Alpha.”
“That’s loyal of you, Omega,” Cas nodded. He strolled past the side table and picked up his green juice. “But you know as well as I that Benny will be fine. You know as well as I that Benny wants only your happiness.”
“You think I should defect?” Adam checked with a narrowing of his eyes. “From Benny?”
“From Ketch,” Cas reframed. “From feeling neglected and monitored. Come join a Pack that is large enough to have standing and power, small enough to feel like a family, diverse enough to have all the bases covered, one where teasing and bullying will never be allowed no matter how busy the Alpha might be.”
“But, Sir, like I said, as soon as I Trigger, it’s all irrelevant anyway.”
“Then what have you got to lose?”
“Tell me why.”
Cas drained his glass. He tapped Adam’s water glass as he passed on his way toward the kitchenette, reminding the Ozzie to drink. “Omega, as I said, I have an idea that may turn the tide in our society’s understanding of Omegas and their standing as people. I have an idea that would allow you the right to plant your feet in a Pack of your own choosing and stay there, come what may. My plan requires,” Cas set his glass on the counter and held up one finger. “One, your full participation. If you aren’t one hundred percent invested, then we don’t pull the trigger. Two, it requires you to be un-Mated at the outset. So, just understand, our time is limited to set things in motion. And three, it requires that you are a full active member of the Winchester Pack.”
“Why me?”
Cas dropped all of his salesmanship. “Adam, I want you specifically. You are bright and determined. You’re stubborn to a fault when you want something. You are strong. You would be a boon to any pack you join, but you would be especially well-suited to our family dynamic.”
“Do you believe there’s still a chance I could get back together with Sarah?” Adam asked. “Is that a part of your plan too?”
Cas scratched his chin. “Adam, I don’t control Sarah. What happens between the two of you is your business. What I will say is that if your relationship were to start back up, I will fight for your right to continue it after you Mate.”
“You would… How so? No one comes between an alpha and their Ozzie mate. I mean, would you ever have allowed April to keep a boyfriend on the side?”
“She has a boyfriend on the side,” Cas pointed out.
“Okay, but I mean initially.” Adam scooted to the edge of his chair. “If she had been dating someone when you two Mated, is there any chance he would still be in the picture?”
“Probably not,” Cas conceded, thinking of Nate in his green-grocer apron. “But that’s why we need to change the way society views Ozzies. That’s precisely the point. Dean and I got engaged before he Mated Michael… or, well, before Michael Mated Dean. Neither of us gave any real thought to our authority to force our relationship on him. We discussed how to win his buy-in, but we didn’t strategize how to make the engagement stick. If Michael had stuck to his guns and filed a Mating-bond infringement lawsuit, my lawyers would have shredded it into cat chow. I am Alpha, and everybody knows it.”
“So, you close the loophole now that you’ve got what you wanted?” Adam asked.
Cas shrugged. “The world is not now, nor ever has been fair. And the point is that when we win this battle—and we will—it won’t be that Alphas lose the prerogative to hold onto their prior relationships if that is what they choose, it will be that Ozzies gain that right as well. It puts Omegas on the same footing as alphas in this very real, very human landscape. That is, after all, the whole point.”
“What if once I Mate, I have no interest in Sarah? A lot of people lose their appetite for their significant other when the Trigger hits. Don’t they?”
Cas nodded. He approached Adam and knelt before him. He took the water glass out of the Ozzie’s hands and set it on the coffee table. “They do. And that’s a very real possibility. I’m not trying to set you up to battle for Sarah unless it’s what you and she really want. But I do intend to create a situation where you stand as a figurehead of sorts. I want to force a court battle, pitting your new alpha mate against your Pack Alpha for your Pack membership. I want to stake a claim on you whether you’re Mated or not, and once you swear to me, I don’t mean ever to let you go.”
“Oh,” said Adam, dumbstruck. “I’m bait?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Cas agreed. “But only under the condition that once you Mate, you still prefer to be a Winchester. That’s the part of this scheme we can’t predict until it happens. I intend to make membership in my Pack exceedingly attractive, rather tough to give up. I can be quite persuasive, I’m told.”
“And I would be allowed to continue working?”
Cas chuckled. “It is entirely in my own best interest to have you continue working, son. You’re an excellent contractor, as I’ve said.”
Adam lowered his eyes and thought hard and fast. “I don’t know what Benny will say. I’d hate to let him down; he’s done so much for me.”
“Alpha Benedict will not be without suitable remuneration,” Cas confided. He stood up and swept Adam’s glass away.
“You’re going to pay him to let me go?”
“That is none of your business, Omega. It’s between Alpha Benny and me. However, suffice it to say, he has already been alerted, and he’s agreed that the matter now stands solely in your hands. It’s your choice, Adam. Everything to do with your life is now your choice.”
“Not everything,” Adam reminded him.
“No, perhaps not, but far more than you woke this morning expecting to control.”
“What would it be like if Sarah doesn’t want me back? I have no reason to think she might. What am I going to do, just live down the hall? Pass each other in the morning in our bathrobes? Pretend nothing ever happened between us?”
Cas gave the matter a moment of thought. He scratched his temple. “I’m not saying it would be easy. We can find you a room far from where Sarah sleeps. I’m not blind to the fact that you and she will need to work out a new Pack-based dynamic. You will need to consider carefully both what you may gain by switching Packs and what you’re giving up. Sarah knows my Pack rules. She understands the necessity to treat her brethren with respect and consideration. She is also currently undergoing Sub training. That may queue her up in a way to be especially amenable to you when you move in.”
“When I move in?” Adam asked.
“If.”
Adam laughed. “If. Right.”
“It’s a lot to think about, Adam. Take your time. But don’t take too long. As we’ve established, your clock is running low these days.”
“It is a lot to think about, Sir,” Adam said with a deep exhale. He stood up and faced the Alpha. “But I don’t need more time. I’m in. I’ll be your canary in the coal mine, your guinea pig, whatever we’re calling it. I need you to promise me that Benny will be copacetic. I need you to promise me you’ll take care of me.”
“I promise, Omega. You have my word. I protect and defend what’s mine…”
“My wolf is a pup, Castiel,” Adam blurted. “He’s not just an adolescent, Sir. He’s a red fox. You know what they’re like. He’s a handful at the best of times. Benny knows him, knows how to take care of him…of me. Can you promise he’ll be in good hands?”
“Adam, every Dominant in my Pack will be available to you. Sam is our lead. You know he understands the special requirements of a fox Tertiary. Michael too. We will look after you every step of the way. I will never let you falter, pup.” Cas moved in close and cradled Adam’s cheek and jaw in his warm palm. Adam rolled his head into the touch and closed his eyes.
“There. Just like that,” Cas whispered. “Do not be afraid, little one. We will look after you.”
Adam startled when the door to the suite opened. Cas shushed him gently and turned to see Dean entering from the hallway. Dean took one look at the two men, their proximity, their touch, the scent of promise in the room, and he grinned.
“Just like that? You move fast, Alpha. Adam, welcome to the family,” he said warmly. “It’s about time we got some real class up in that house.”
Adam found himself surprised at the welcome. Somehow, he’d framed it in his mind as a ploy of Castiel’s alone, assuming he would need to work to gain acceptance from the others. Dean gave a quick, casual, one-armed hug and then turned to Cas.
“Oh, hey, I’m cutting out early. I have a thing to do at home,” he told his husband. “You can find a ride home, right? Maybe ride with Jess?”
“Yes, I can fend for myself,” Cas assured him. “I’ll be on time for dinner, so please give Tony word that I expect a full spread tonight. Everyone eats at the house. We’ll make the announcement that Adam has elected to join us permanently. After dinner, we’ll break for whatever Tertiary work everyone has planned, and then you and I have work to do on the wording of the Age of Consent bill. It’ll be a late night, I’m afraid, Dean.”
“I’ll bring the coffee,” Dean quipped cheerily. “Maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of three million bucks’ worth?” He pecked Cas on the cheek, slapped his ass, and then grabbed his keys and disappeared.
“Three million…? What was that?” Adam asked with a frown.
“Never mind,” Cas replied. “Shall we call Benny? I think it would be best if we talk to him together.”
Cas had changed out of his work suit and chosen pressed tan slacks and a thin pullover sweater. He’d just worked the slacks over his hips and begun to fasten them when his Mating-bond spiked in a moment of abject horror and then went glacially cold and still. Cas buttoned his slacks and beat against the stillness in his mind. He couldn’t even tell where she was if she was in the house or elsewhere. His blood ran cold.
Cas threw his sweater on in a hurry and then snatched up his phone. But whom should he call? He stared at the screen, lost. He dialed April but was unsurprised when no one answered. He texted Michael and Dean, hoping against hope that one of them had a benign explanation.
It seemed to take forever to get a response. Finally, his phone rang. The first ring hadn’t finished when Cas put the phone to his ear.
“Dean.”
“Cas! Alpha!” Dean’s voice was an assault through the phone, and Cas winced at the volume. “God, I’m so sorry. Fuck, I’m so, so sorry! You gotta get here, Alpha! Get here now! I fucked up so bad!”
“Dean, slow down! What’s happened? Where are you? Are you all right?”
Dean’s breath came ragged and torn through the line. Cas could hear urgent voices in the background. “Dean!”
“I’m okay, Alpha. It’s not me. Got some bruises, I think. A couple of cuts. Nothing serious. It’s…it’s April, Cas. She’s hurt bad.” Dean’s voice muffled as he spoke to someone on his end of the line. “Hold up, I’m riding with you.” And then some shuffling noises, and then he was back. “We’re in the ambulance, Alpha. We’re headed to Lawrence Memorial. Meet me there.”
“Dean, talk to me! Is she okay?” Cas scrambled to cram his feet into a pair of shoes and vaulted down the stairs three at a time. “How badly is she hurt? What happened?!”
“The Range Rover,” Dean said cryptically. “We had a collision. Hit a tree. I don’t know how hurt she is, but she’s unconscious. EMT says it could be a simple concussion, or it could be worse. They can’t tell anything about her pregnancy yet. Oh, Jesus, her face is bloodied up… Cas, I’m so sorry! I did this!”
Cas stopped short in the kitchen. He put a hand over the cellphone receiver and caught Sam’s attention. “Beta, there’s been an emergency. April’s injured.” He spoke in clipped tones. “I’m going to meet the ambulance at the hospital. Please follow standard protocol while I’m gone. I’ll send word when I know more.”
Sam’s face paled. He nodded and squeezed Cas’ arm. “Don’t worry about us, Alpha. Go take care of her. Let us know when you can…”
“MICHAEL!” Cas bellowed toward the parlor, hoping the Omega was within earshot. Just then, Michael rumbled down the stairs, pulling a shirt over his head.
“Dean’s bond is a mess, Cas!” he said urgently. “Something’s very wrong. But he won’t answer his phone.”
“That’s because he’s on the phone with me,” Cas explained. “Here. You talk to him. I’ll drive.” Cas snatched his keys from the hook and stormed through to the garage with Michael on his heels.
Castiel’s hands shook as he made his way through town to the hospital. Michael kept the phone to his ear. But Dean didn’t know much. At the hospital, April was hurried through double doors on a wheeled gurney, and Dean found himself scraped off like butter from a spreading knife. He stood staring at the closed doors well after they latched behind the medical team. Then he ran trembling hands through his hair and turned to make his way to the ER waiting room where Cas and Michael would arrive.
He met them at the sliding entrance doors. All three of them spoke at once, all three faces were pale and drawn.
“Where did they take her?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How is she?”
“Cas, I don’t know! She’s hurt! Hit her head. Glass in her face. I don’t know how bad!”
“Who’s in charge of her care?” Cas stormed past reception, letting himself into the hospital proper, using his bond link to guide him.
“I don’t know, man!” Dean hustled along in his wake. Michael followed at a jog. “Cas, slow down! They have to assess her first.”
Michael caught Dean’s arm. “Are you hurt, Dean?” At that question, Cas slowed to a halt and turned to face his husband.
“Of course,” he said tiredly. “You were in the collision too. Are you injured? Dean, talk to me.”
Dean raised his left arm, showing the bandaging he’d received at the scene. On closer inspection, Cas could also see a number of shallow scrapes across his face. His eye appeared to be blackening. “I’m fine. Just a little banged up where I tried to fling my arm across and brace April from the impact. It happened so fast.”
Cas nodded, clearly relieved, but then frowned. “Dean, how is it your left arm that’s cut? You would brace her with your right.”
Dean sucked in a breath and paled further still. He held his palms up in a placating gesture. A finger splint tied his pinky and ring fingers together. “That’s the thing, Cas. Like I said, this is all my fault.”
“What. Happened?!” Castiel’s voice reverberated down the hall, laced with alpha compulsion and a Dominant voice.
Dean flinched and grimaced. “She wanted me to teach her to drive,” he said rapidly. “I thought we could practice out on the county roads outside of town where there’s almost no traffic. I put her in the Range Rover because it’s the safest thing we own. Cas, I swear, I thought I had it under control!”
“You put my mate behind the wheel of a car?” Cas asked in utter disbelief. “Without telling me? Without asking me? Without any training? Without even so much as a learner’s permit? Dean Michael, what the hell were you thinking?!”
“I’m so sorry,” Dean whimpered. “She was doing so well. She was really getting the hang of it. We would have been fine if some asshole in a hurry hadn’t tried to pass us with oncoming traffic bearing down. April panicked and swerved, and then she lost control. We veered off into a culvert, bounced out and crashed into one of those massive oak trees.”
“I don’t give a fuck what kind of tree it was!” Cas spluttered. “You put my pregnant mate at risk for no good reason, and now she’s hurt badly enough that they took her who knows where without even contacting me!”
“Gentlemen!” a white-scrubbed nurse appeared around a doorway to their left, looking severe. “Take your shouting outside. Now!”
Cas singed him with a withering look and then turned on his heel and stormed deeper into the hospital. Michael shared a terrified look with Dean, grabbed his hand, and followed.
Around a blind corner, Cas pulled up short. He towered over a nurse at her station, intimidating and fierce. He gave April’s name and demanded information. The nurse pecked at the keyboard in front of her, studied the monitor for a moment, and then looked up at the Alpha. “What is your relationship with the patient?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Cas snipped. “You know who I am. Tell me where she is. I need to speak with whoever’s in charge.”
The nurse sighed. “They’re prepping her for surgery,” she told him. She picked up a phone receiver and spoke a few quiet words. Setting it down again, she looked up at Cas and then at his companions. “She’s awake. They’ll need your approval before they can put her under. It’s down the hall. First left. Room 243.” She pointed. Cas took off at a trot without so much as a thank you. But when Michael and Dean followed, she bolted from her desk and barred their way. “Only next of kin allowed back there. Are you next of kin?”
“What?” asked Dean. “Of course we are. That’s my husband!”
The nurse scowled and stood her ground. “You’re his next of kin, Dean. Not hers. It’s no good. You can’t go back. Hospital policy.”
“Okay,” Michael said, stepping forward. “But I can go. She’s my…” his breath caught. He raised himself to his full height and held the nurse’s gaze with a stubbornness born of a lifetime of hearing no.
“She’s my girlfriend.” He thought for a moment and then added, “My fiancé.”
“No dice, love” the nurse told him apologetically. “Fiancé doesn’t count as next of kin. You gotta be legally married, Mated, Pack Alpha, parent, or adult child to meet the hospital’s protocol. I’m sorry.”
Michael stared past her, reaching through his bond with April. He felt his stomach drop. He felt his knees weaken. He considered strong-arming the human barricade and forcing his way through. Dean touched his arm. “Cas will look after her, Michael,” he said. “Come on. Let’s find somewhere to wait and we’ll set up a nest.”
Michael resisted his alpha’s pull at first, but then gave in with a whimper. “She’s hurt, Dean. She needs me.”
“I know, man. I know. It won’t be long. She’ll be in surgery soon anyway. We just have to wait until she’s out, and then we can see her.”
“Did you hear, though?” Michael asked. He trailed Dean with his eyes behind them, watching the nurse’s station disappear. “If I’d married her, they would have let me in. How ridiculous is that? What difference does it make? It’s not like I would love her more, not like a gold band means she’s more mine than she is now. What a stupid fucking rule!” Dean sat Michael on a padded bench in a tiny waiting room near the elevator.
“I know, Michael. It’s a stupid rule. Either way, right now, all we can do is wait.”
“She’s going to be all right, isn’t she, Dean? What did the EMTs say?”
Dean let out a shaky breath and sank down onto the bench beside his mate. “She’s going to be fine, baby. Cas won’t let anything bad happen.”
“What the hell were you doing letting her drive?” Michael asked. His mind was whirling, and he found it necessary to grab onto anything he could just to stop the spinning. “Especially right now? She was out of balance all day. She has no business driving when she’s in that state, even if she had a license.”
“Out of balance?” Dean muttered. “Was she? She seemed fine to me.”
Michael scoffed. “Did you test her before you threw her through the windshield?”
“Michael, don’t lose it on me. I know I fucked up, okay? I know. But I need you to hold onto something stable right now and not lose it. Use your bond link with Alpha, maybe. Let him hold you up.”
“Don’t deflect,” Michael countered. “This isn’t about me. The love of my life is lying in there, injured I don’t even know how badly, and all because you thought you were too good to follow the law. There’s a process for people to earn a driver’s license for a reason, alpha! You don’t just hoist yourself up into the biggest vehicle you can find and hit the road and hope nothing bad happens!”
“I know! All right! God!” Dean couldn’t stay seated. He popped up and paced. His fingers tore at his hair as a sensation of electric shocks crackled from fingertip to fingertip.
“Why did she even want to drive anyway?” Michael asked the floor before him. “It’s not like she’s ever going to be allowed to go anywhere alone.”
Dean paused in his pacing. “She said she wanted to be able to take the pups to school or club meetings. She wanted to be able to help out with carting them around once they’re older.”
“What if she loses the twins?” Michael wondered. His eyes looked lost, too shocked even to form tears.
“Shh,” Dean sat back down beside him and gathered both of Michael’s hands in his. “She’s going to be fine. The twins will be fine. Hold on for me, okay?”
Michael caught a whiff from the scent gland behind Dean’s ear, and he shot out of his seat and turned to stare down at his mate in horror. “Holy fuck, Dean! You’re falling! This is a fall? THIS? You chose this to make your big destructive display?! You put April behind a wheel when she’s out of balance and YOU’RE FALLING?!”
Dean froze. He stared at Michael without blinking, mouth agape. “Michael… I… No, it’s… not…”
“My god, Dean!” The moment lengthened. Dean had no idea what to say. His head had begun to spin madly. He couldn’t think. Michael seemed to be waiting for an answer, and when it became clear he wouldn’t get one, he huffed in disgust. “I’m going to get some air.”
Dean watched Michael go. He didn’t try to stop him.
He didn’t respond at all.
He frowned. Was it true? Could it be true?
The pit of Dean’s stomach, already low and sinking, dropped through the soles of his feet. He made a break for the trashcan and vomited noisily. He felt wretched. Every tell he knew to mark when he Fell was waving like a flock of red flags.
But he couldn’t have pulled this one on purpose. He hadn’t intended April to crash. Perhaps he’d intended to manufacture a situation that would piss Cas off? He couldn’t tell while nausea twisted his guts, his mind whirled madly, and his palms were clammy with cold sweat. He couldn’t tell. But in the aftermath, he felt exactly as he always did in the midst of a hard fall. He wanted Castiel to storm through those doors, grab him by the scruff of his neck, slam him against the wall, and give him hell. He wanted the Alpha’s wrath to light him up and burn him clean.
Dean retched again. He closed his eyes. He sat down on the floor by the trashcan, curled in on himself, and wept.
Castiel found him there once his mate’s custody was transferred to the surgical team. Dean heard him sigh heavily as he came through the double doors and saw his husband curled up on the floor, holding his belly and rocking in misery.
“Come on, alpha,” Cas urged gently. “Up off the floor. Nothing to do now but wait. She’s going to be fine, Dean. I’ll take care of everything.” He hauled Dean to his feet and deposited him on a bench. Cas sank down beside him and laced his fingers with Dean’s. Dean turned his face away, ashamed, but he leaned into Cas’ warmth. For several minutes they said nothing. Cas passed a handkerchief to Dean, and Dean silently wiped his face and blew his nose.
Finally…
“Michael says I smell like a Fall.”
Cas sighed again, heavy and sorrowful.
“Yes.”
“I did this, Alpha,” Dean whispered. “She asked, but I’m the one who put her in that car. I’m the one who decided he’s some kind of driving master, so superlative that I can guide her there by osmosis and proximity. I thought if we could just get going out on an open road, that I could foresee anything that might happen and steer her around the hazards like I had my own hands on the wheel. But it was just my Fall, wasn’t it? My stupid fucking explosions trying like hell to turn everything I care about into mincemeat. Goddamnit, Castiel, I can only say I’m sorry. And what fucking good does that do?”
Cas’ face remained stoic, stony. He blinked on occasion, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t wrap an arm around Dean. He held his hand, and he stared straight ahead.
“Do they know the extent of the damage?” Michael asked as he joined them again, looking calmer.
Cas shook his head, a barely there motion. Michael read the silence for what it was and chose not to add to the tension. He sank to the floor between Cas and Dean’s feet, crossed his legs, and leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. Dean rolled a booted foot into Michael’s lap, embracing him down the length of his body with his leg.
When Cas’ phone rang, he stood up and crossed the room to answer it privately. He spoke with his back to Dean and Michael. They couldn’t hear his words. Michael turned his eyes from the ceiling tiles to his mate, assessing Dean’s state of mind.
Dean looked right through him.
Within the hour, most of the Winchester Pack found their way to the waiting room, along with many of the Lafitte Pack and a number of ACRI affiliated wolves. April was in surgery for four excruciating hours, during which time, a police officer summoned Dean and Cas to inform them Dean would be issued a citation for endangerment of an Omega and reckless operation of a motor vehicle.
Cas snatch the documentation out of the officer’s hand and dismissed him curtly.
The Range Rover was totaled, the towing company informed them. Of course, the insurance adjuster would make the final call on that, but tow-drivers generally know vehicular damage well enough to know what’s fixable from what isn’t. Dean only spoke when he had to. Cas didn’t speak at all. The Packs gave them space.
Billie stepped up to filter through curious questions, accept good wishes and concerns, answer the phone, and point folks toward the vending machines. She kept a wary eye on Castiel, but she didn’t attempt to speak to him.
Finally, at eleven that night, a surgeon appeared in the doorway and summoned the Alpha with a raised hand. Cas rose to meet him.
“She’s experiencing swelling of the temporal lobe,” the surgeon told him. “Until it abates, we won’t know if there’s permanent damage. We’ve done what we can for her for now. She’s resting. She has a broken left clavicle and two fractured ribs on the right side.”
“And the twins?” asked Michael, joining them. “Is her pregnancy in danger?”
The surgeon cut his eyes to Michael but addressed the Alpha. “The pups are fine. She’s very strong. She’s very stubborn. She’s going to fight hard, and we’re going to give her the best possible care.”
“May we go in?” Cas asked bluntly.
“She’s sedated, but you can sit with her,” the surgeon said. He scanned the number of people in the room and added, “Immediate family only, and no more than two at a time.”
“How long until she wakes up?” Michael asked hopefully.
The surgeon shrugged. “That depends on her brain and the swelling. It’s a waiting game at this point, I’m afraid.” He turned his attention back to Cas. “We’ve patched up the lacerations on her face for the time being, but you’ll probably want a plastic surgeon involved in the repair. I know several I can refer if you need names. Sir, I know her face plays a role in her livelihood. If you want to limit the scarring, you’ll have to move quickly.”
“Thank you,” Castiel said. “I have a plastic surgeon in mind.” He held out his hand. “Thank you for your work this evening, doctor. We owe you immensely.” They shook, and the surgeon departed looking grim.
“The pups are okay,” Michael whispered. “Everything is going to be okay.” He seemed to be trying to convince himself of that more than communicating it to anyone else. “Sir, you’ll let me come in too, won’t you? I need to sit with her.”
Cas nodded without really looking at him, appearing lost in his own thoughts. Dean simply stood beside his husband in silence, feeling like a smoking gun that everyone wanted to pretend didn’t exist.
A nurse appeared, offering to show the Alpha to April’s recovery room. Cas gestured for Michael to go on ahead.
“It’s good news,” he announced. “She’s not completely out of the woods, but she’s in the best hands, and there’s nothing more we can do tonight. I appreciate you all coming down to show your support. Dean and I appreciate it more than you know.” He cast his eyes around to include everyone. “But it’ll be best for April now if you go on home and tend to your own families. We will let everyone know when there’s a change in her condition.” The room began to shift and grunt as people hauled themselves to their feet and collected their belongings.
“Billie,” Cas called. When she approached, he lowered his voice. “Take Dean home. See him put to bed. Don’t leave until you’re convinced he’s asleep.”
Billie frowned. “Sam can do that, Alpha. Why ask me?”
“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. If I wanted Sam to do it, I would’ve instructed Sam.”
“Cas,” Dean said as Cas turned to follow the way the nurse had led. “Please don’t. I need to stay with you. Alpha, I need you.” It was the first words he’d spoken in hours.
“No, Dean.” Cas spoke with his back to his husband. “I can’t. Not tonight. Go home.”
“Cas… Castiel?”
Cas turned his head and quirked one eyebrow.
“Yessir,” Dean said sadly. He watched his husband disappear around the corner. He fought the rush of tears that threatened to subsume him. He found himself lost in a torrent of sorrow and fear, and he began to shiver.
“Come on, alpha,” Billie urged. She turned him with an arm across his shoulders. “Get some sleep. Things will look less dire after a night’s sleep, I promise.”
“He’s never left me before, Billie,” Dean told her as she led him out of the empty room. “Never. No matter what I did. No matter how bad it was. He always stayed to see me through it.”
“He’s coming back, Dean. But he’s got two of you to worry about right now, and she’s in worse condition. Don’t blow it into something it’s not.”
“I warned him this would happen,” he lamented. “Warned him that saddling himself to me was a shitty choice, that it would lead to nothing but heartache. Now look. April’s facing brain damage, and I’m still fucked up.”
“Just get some sleep, Dean,” she urged. She helped him into her car, waving at Sam who had paused his own vehicle to ensure she and Dean were safe and on their way. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Sam followed closely behind as Billie drove Dean home. At the house, they planted Dean squarely into his bed together and double-teamed him to make sure he stayed there. Cain took over the mantle of Pack alpha, organizing refreshments as those who’d haunted the hospital waiting room reconvened in the Winchester kitchen. No one seemed to want to go home or try to sleep. They waited for news from the hospital that everyone knew wouldn’t come until morning at the earliest. Maybe they just needed one another.
Kate took to her knees beside Kali, and after a moment, Sarah followed suit by Sam. His hand found its way to the back of her neck where it felt warm and secure and steady. His other arm embraced Jess where she snuggled in close to his side.
The pups were all fast asleep, unaware of the night’s emergency other than to have been told that Papa, O-Pop, and Daddy would be home in the morning to greet them with big hugs. No one else so much as considered going to sleep.
No one but Dean. Dean followed his Alpha’s instruction to the extent he was able, but sleep refused to come. He tangled in the bedding as he twisted and tossed. Horrific images danced behind his eyelids whenever he closed his eyes. It occurred to him more than once that a sleepless night alone was punishment more severe than any whipping Castiel could have given him. It also occurred to him that a nightmarish night alone would not reset his Submissive psyche enough to vault him over the hurdle of a Tertiary Fall. Perhaps this time there would be no vaulting it. Perhaps this time Dean was meant to learn to live in the hellscape of his own doing.
That would be true justice, wouldn’t it?
Dean woke to Michael shaking his shoulder without ever realizing he’d fallen asleep. “She’s awake,” Michael said. “She’s asking for you. Come on. Get dressed. I don’t want to be gone any longer than I have to.”
Dean groaned and sat up. He hurt all over, every muscle group ached and protested. His head throbbed.
“I know, Dean,” Michael acknowledged as Dean clutched at his own forehead. “That collision shook you up pretty bad. Cas said to expect you to feel banged up this morning. Here, take these.” He held out a couple of white tablets, but Dean shoved his hand away and dashed for the toilet instead. His stomach didn’t have anything but bile to relinquish, so it was a miserable experience, heaving hard into the porcelain.
Michael braced his shoulders. He held Dean’s forehead with a cool hand that felt heavenly to Dean. “It’s going to be okay, Dean. She’s going to make a full recovery. Doc’s already been in to see her. She’s okay.”
“Thank god,” Dean croaked.
“And you,” Michael told him as he turned Dean around and sat him on the toilet seat to wipe his mouth with a towel. “You’re going to be okay too.”
“I’m not,” Dean shook his head and dodged the towel. “Cas won’t even look at me. I need him, Michael, but I don’t deserve him. What am I gonna do now? I nearly killed her, man.”
“Come on,” Michael tugged him to his feet. Dean groaned in pain and rubbed the bruised patch at his right shoulder where his seatbelt had left a mark. “One thing at a time. She wants to see you. She’s worried about you.”
“She shouldn’t be,” Dean whined. “No one should. I’m not worth it.”
Michael slapped him hard across the cheek. “Stop it! That’s not helping anyone! We’re going to get through this, and it’s going to be okay. You have to trust me. Slide into your wolf and let me take over for you for a while. Stop torturing yourself, Dean. I know what happened. I know what you did. Okay? No one’s going to forget if you don’t keep reminding them. We’re not letting you off scot-free. We’re going to deal with it. All of it. But one thing at a time. We can’t fix that until we fix this. So? Put your clothes on and get in the car.” Dean stared at him. “Say Yes, Sir.”
“Yessir,” Dean repeated dumbly.
“Good. We’re stopping for coffee,” Michael added. “You’re buying.”
Notes:
Trigger warning for a severe car collision that results in life-threatening injuries.
Trigger warning for neglect of a Sub in need.Please donate to reputable support organizations for Ukraine if you can. Share information to get it out there, but only if it's verifiably true. We can only do so much, but we do what we can.
Love to the Pack.
Chapter 31: Monday, September 20, 2021
Summary:
Fallout from the accident hits hard. Everyone has an opinion. Things are far from normal, but what can an alpha-Sub do?
Notes:
I have responded to none of the wonderful comments I received after the previous chapter. But I will. Trust me.
Chapter Text
Monday, September 20, 2021
NOW:
Cain sat in a stiff plastic chair outside of April’s hospital room, reading a paperback. He looked up as Dean and Michael approached. One finger marked his place as he rose to greet them.
“The plastic surgeon just arrived from Toronto. She’s in with them now. Alpha booted me so he can discuss a treatment plan privately. Give them a bit before you go in, Dean.”
Dean nodded. “Did Castiel sleep at all?” he asked Michael as they found a place to sit in a windowed alcove within sight of the door. Michael grunted a negative.
“Neither of us did,” he added. “She’s in rough shape. No one was sure she would wake this soon. It’s a good sign that they were able to address the swelling. But she still has quite a recovery in front of her.”
“Plus a pregnancy,” Cain put in with a sigh. “And the media have picked up the tale,” he added. “Your citation is in the public record, Dean. They know or guessed most of what happened.”
Michael shared a dark look with his mate and squeezed his hand. “We’re controlling what we can,” he said. “I texted with Billie this morning. Security has been deployed at all entrances to this wing. As soon as she’s stable enough, we’re going to move her to a private facility.”
“We’ll need to issue a statement,” Cain said calmly. “It seems some in the media are interpreting your charge of reckless endangerment as code that you drove drunk.”
“They think I was behind the wheel?” Dean asked.
“Until there’s an official story released,” Cain said, “some outlets will invent their own.”
Dean turned toward the window to watch a flock of blackbirds saunter and hop across the parking lot three floors below. He licked his lips and spoke without turning. “Did he…uh…did he bring up what he plans to do about me?”
Cain went back to his paperback.
“He wants you examined by an ACRI doctor this morning. He set it up. Other than that, we didn’t talk at all,” Michael said.
Dean didn’t have anything to add to that. They waited in uncomfortable silence for half an hour. The analog clock on the wall ticked with agonizing regularity. Every now and then, Cain turned the page. Dean watched the flock make its way across the tarmac and into a weed-infested empty lot adjacent. Michael sat hunched over, leaning low on his elbows with his fingers entangled and forever in nervous motion.
“You know I didn’t put her in this state on purpose, don’t you?” Dean said when the silence dragging bloodied slices into his psyche became a cacophony too loud to abide.
Michael’s sigh echoed through their bonds like a stone plunked into a bottomless pool. “Of course, Dean. No one thinks you hurt her on purpose.”
Dean darted a glance at his mate, looking to read the truth in his gaze, studiously avoiding searching it out in their bonds. He found himself regretting asking a question to which he didn’t want to know the answer. He rolled his shoulders and stood up. He strolled across the hall and peered through the narrow window into April’s room, but he couldn’t see anything but a TV mounted high on the wall and a whiteboard stenciled with vitals and staff info. He turned and leaned his back against the wall by the door and shoved his hands in his pockets. His skin felt alive with miniscule crawling salamanders just under the surface, slithering with an uncomfortable ooziness.
His connection to Cas was closed from the far side. He left it alone.
Dean could feel Michael trying to catch his eye, but he stared straight ahead, right at the room marker across the hall.
At last, the door opened.
“…should have no trouble getting on the schedule. I’ll let you know once it’s confirmed. If she continues to strengthen through the day, I’m confident we can go ahead with her reconstruction tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Dr. Bevell,” Cas said as he held the door for the woman, tall and elegant with a sleek upsweep of blonde hair. “The sooner the better.”
Dean stood upright. “Cas.”
Castiel ignored him. He shook the plastic surgeon’s hand and then disappeared back inside. The door closed on its spring. Dean frowned at it but then turned his attention back to the doctor. “You can fix her face?” he asked.
She raised her brows at him and then nodded. Clearly, she knew who he was. “She may have some persistent scarring, especially if we can’t get to it in the next couple of days, but I believe there’s a good chance the lasting effects will be minimal. You’re Dean.”
“I’m Dean,” Dean confirmed holding his hand out to shake. “And you’re Dr. Bevell.”
“Toni,” she agreed. “Your Packmate was very lucky. Most of the damage appears superficial. It helps that she’s young.”
“She’s tough even for an Omega,” Dean agreed.
“Even Omegas aren’t immune to bouncing their faces off a shattered windshield at fifty miles per hour,” she told him caustically. “In fact, being Omega complicates the process. Omegas are predisposed toward scarring. It would be much easier a process if she was alpha. For an alpha to scar permanently takes…” her eyes darted briefly to Dean’s right shoulder, and she didn’t complete her thought.
Dean stammered. “No. I mean…of…of course... I only meant…”
“If you’ll excuse me, alpha. I have some arrangements to make.” She left in a whirl of perfumed air and judgment. Dean stood blinking stupidly wondering if Castiel had downloaded the entire sordid tale to her or only the highlights. Michael touched the small of his back.
“Go on in, Dean. She asked to see you.”
The door stretched impossibly tall in front of him, heavier than a medieval rampart, implacable and impenetrable. But Dean had no choice. It was either buck up and face this or turn around and bail for good. With his lower lip caught between his teeth, Dean shoved the door open and walked in. Cas lay on the bed, a narrow double, with his mate in his arms and his shoes on the floor. One hand stroked the elegant neck escaping a turban of bandages. Her face was mostly obscured by bandages too. They covered her left eye entirely and most of her left cheek, disappearing into the tightly wound dressing at her forehead. Cas didn’t turn to face Dean.
“They shaved her head.” Castiel’s voice was lifeless.
“She awake?” Dean asked softly, creeping forward.
She stirred. Her head lifted slightly, bringing her shoulders into motion and proving her bandages framed a support that held her neck in static alignment. “Dean?”
“Hey, beautiful,” Dean offered. He rounded the bed so he could approach from her free side. She lay with her back to Cas, so Dean was able to see what was visible of her face. He smiled and took her hand. “How do you feel?”
“Wrecked,” she whispered. “Like my head is full of cotton and railroad spikes.”
“Sounds about right,” he told her. “You know we weren’t meant to get to the tree-dodging lesson until week four. You’re precocious, I guess.”
She huffed. “Not precoc…not…I didn’t dodge the tree, did I?” She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, alpha. I’m so sorry. You could’ve been killed. Are you hurt? I was so worried. No one would tell me…”
“Shhh, shhh. Hey, look at me, kid. I’m right as rain. Not a scratch on me.”
She raised her eye to his face and frowned as she worked to focus. “You have two black eyes. Bruise on yer…cheek…chin…”
“April, I’m fine. I’m okay. Let’s concentrate on you right now.”
“I wrecked the car,” she told him. “I hit a tree, I think.”
Dean glanced from her face to Castiel’s. Cas looked away.
“Do you remember it?” Dean asked.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I remember the sound and the…sp…speed. It happened fast. Didn’t it? You were there.”
“That’s right. I was there. The tree hit on the driver’s side, so you took the brunt of the impact. The airbags deployed, and that’s what saved us. But you took a harder hit than I did.”
“Oh…glad yer…okay…” she said sleepily as her eyes slipped closed. “Love you, Dean.”
Dean stroked her hand with his thumb and stifled a sob behind the lump in his throat. “You too, love. I’m glad you’re going to be okay too. I don’t know what we would do without you.”
She had fallen asleep. Her hand went lax in his. Her breathing deepened. Dean stood beside her with her tiny hand in his while the sun’s light shifted angles across the wall and floor. There was nowhere to sit that he could reach and still touch her, so he stood. He sneaked a glance at Cas and found the man’s eyes closed, his nose tucked behind April’s ear. The bond was still sealed. Outside, Michael waited patiently. Dean wanted to send him home to get some sleep, but he didn’t feel entitled at the moment to direct Michael. At the trough of a Fall was no place to pull Secondary rank and try to insist it was for the Omega’s own good.
He felt wretched in every sense of the word.
Dean stood there with April’s palm loose across his, his knees and his jaw locked, until a nurse entered to check her vitals and see to her medications. Cas roused when the door opened, and although he hadn’t closed his eyes, Dean came to like waking from a deep sleep. Cas rolled onto his back and sat up a bit. Dean relinquished April’s hand and stepped out of the nurse’s way with a soft apology.
“She’ll sleep a lot for a few days, maybe a few weeks” the nurse told Cas. “That’s the best medicine right now. She’ll do a great deal of healing in her sleep.” He nodded mutely. “Have you eaten, Alpha?” she asked. “She needs you to take care of yourself. She’s going to be pulling strength from you directly. You have to maintain your side of the Mating-bond. I’ll have a lunch tray brought in.”
“Don’t bother,” Cas grunted. “I won’t be able to keep it down.”
“Cas, you have to eat,” Dean told him. “And you need to sleep. Resting your eyes isn’t good enough.”
“I’m fine, Dean,” the Alpha told him coldly.
“It’s not about you, Alpha,” Dean replied sharply. “It’s about April.”
April frowned and stirred while the nurse fiddled with her IV. “Her blood pressure is rising,” she commented. “I have to insist that there be no arguing in this room. She needs peace and support.”
“I’ll go,” Dean offered. “Please bring him a tray even if you can’t make him eat it.” He leaned low and kissed April’s cheek. He whispered, “We got you, kiddo. Everything’s going to be back to normal in no time. You’ll see. I love you.” She managed to squeeze his hand a bit in farewell.
“Dean,” Cas said as he approached the door. Dean stopped just short of it and stared at the dark faux wood veneer. “Get yourself checked out. The EMTs could have missed something. After that, if you get a clean bill, Michael will address your Fall. Please work the details out with him. See to it before you return to visit. April doesn’t need the cloying scent of distressed Submissive while she’s healing.”
Dean stood frozen in place, robbed of all sense of time, robbed of oxygen and thought. Air rushed down his throat, an unwilling gulp that tore ragged lacerations down the inside of his throat. He began to shake and made a break for the door before he collapsed into a puddle on the floor. He planted himself against the wall outside the room, gasping and trembling. His knees held him up out of habit only. He doubled over and vomited noisily on the floor.
“Dean!” Michael braced his shoulders and peered hard into his eyes.
But Dean couldn’t let the man see the shame inside him. He closed his eyes and shook his head, muttering, “no, no, no, no, no…God, no, I didn’t mean it to come to this…”
“Go check on her, alpha,” Michael demanded of Cain, speaking from his wolf. It was a command, and Cain didn’t question it. He stepped clear of the mess at Dean’s feet and slipped into the room. A brief scurrying in the hall brought an orderly with a chemical absorbent and a nurse to escort Dean and Michael toward chairs.
“I’m all right,” he swore as she checked him for indications he might be contagious. “Got worked up. I’m not sick.”
“What happened?” Michael took over the inspection once the nurse was mollified that Dean was reasonably stable and in the custody of a competent Dominant. “Jesus, you’re shaking like a leaf. Hold on, I’m going to get you some water.”
“No!” Dean clutched his wrist. “Don’t leave me.”
Michael knelt between his mate’s knees and peered into his eyes. “I’m not leaving you, Dean, I’m fetching a cup of water. You won’t even lose sight of me. The cooler is twenty yards away.” He pointed. But Michael didn’t need to leave Dean even for the short time it would take to fetch him a drink. A calm hand on Michael’s shoulder signaled the nurse was back. She held a bottle of water out to him.
“Thanks,” Michael murmured.
“Happens all the time, love. Hospitals bring out the scary side of bond-links sometimes.”
Michael held the bottle and let Dean sip from it. He slapped Dean’s hand away when the alpha reached to hold it himself. In a handful of minutes, Cain joined them again.
“Her condition is unchanged,” he told Michael. It seemed the word, Sir sat ready on his lips, but he stopped himself from voicing it. Instead, he sank down into the chair beside Dean. “Apparently, Castiel wants you to handle Dean’s Fall. Looks like that’s what sent Dean’s system into overdrive. Alpha said he was fine until that moment.”
“Fine,” Dean murmured to himself.
Michael’s eyes traveled from Cain’s to Dean’s and back. “He didn’t say anything else?”
Cain shrugged.
“Dean? Did you and Cas argue? Did he accuse you of anything? C’mon, alpha, talk to me.”
Dean shook his head. “No, no, no, he didn’t say anything to me until I was leaving…”
“You were in there for two hours!” Michael blurted. “You didn’t talk at all?”
Dean frowned and shook his head.
“Son of a bitch,” Michael grumbled. “This is not the time…” He tried valiantly to control his ire, but it slipped out anyway. “Goddamnit, he’s an entitled asshole!”
“Not his fault, man. It’s mine. All my fault.”
Michael rolled his eyes and huffed in disgust. “Perfect! This is just great.” He trailed off to mutinous grumbling about how he’d asked for years to play a direct role in helping Dean through a Fall and had been summarily dismissed until it was convenient to plug him in, about how if ever Dean needed Castiel’s reassurance that despite being angry and worried, they were still husbands and always would be, it was right now, about how selfish the prick with the ego bigger than his Rating could be when his feelings were bruised.
About the sheer irresponsibility of leaving Dean to weather this incident without him.
None of what Michael muttered made it through the barbed wire Dean had wrapped himself in, but Cain sucked in his cheeks as his ears reddened. He let Michael rant unanswered. Michael plopped into the chair on Dean’s other side, still muttering, still holding the water bottle. Dean eased it out of his hands and took a long, pacifying drink. See, Michael, your mate’s looking after his own wellbeing. No need to fixate on all the ways things are fucked up.
Michael scowled and offered him the cap. “Come on, Dean. You have an appointment at the clinic. Then I’m taking you home. We need to figure out what you need to see you through this Fall. Apparently, we have to do it alone.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Dean croaked miserably. He let Michael pull him up.
“I’ll head out too,” Cain said. “If Dean’s out for the count until you manage his Tertiary, someone needs to be available at the house.”
“Someone needs to be here too,” Michael told him. “Someone needs to be available in case something happens. The Alpha is in no condition to handle things on his own, clearly. He’s too busy wallowing in his own hurt.”
Dean put his hands on Michael’s shoulders. “You stay,” he declared. “Cain can run me to the clinic and then take me home. You shouldn’t have to leave, man, she’s your… girlfriend too.”
Michael answered him with a sour expression and a curt, “Come on,” before stalking away toward the elevator. Cain rolled out of his chair and followed. On the hoof, Cain obeyed Michael’s directive; he texted Sarah and gained her agreement to come sit sentry over Castiel’s vigil. He left them in the parking lot for his own car, so he was only victim to their pointed foul moods for as long as it took to stride purposefully out the automatic doors and dig his keys from his pocket.
Dean spent a full two hours at the clinic, underwent a physical exam and CT scans of his head, neck, chest, and abdomen, suffered a lengthy interrogation about what he experienced, remembered, and felt concerning the collision, and answered multiple lines of questioning about pain before getting an assessment that he was not harmed more substantially than already identified.
Michael remained at his side with at least one hand touching his flesh through the entire ordeal. In their bonds, a sense of gradually lessening worry lightened the connection as each test came back negative. But beneath the worry for his mate, Michael’s mood remained dark, and the mates continued to snipe irritably at each other, echoing harshly. The ACRI staff physician in charge of Dean’s assessment carried out his duty with tight-lipped reserve and fled as soon as he completed his appraisal.
Dean and Michael sparred the entire way home over who was the more burdened at leaving the hospital while Castiel remained glued into April’s bed like a mattress liner. Cain stood awaiting them in the garage at the house. When he found them still bickering, he growled and hauled them both onto their tiptoes by the collars of their shirts.
“Knock it off, both of you!” he snapped. “You’re grown men! Act like it!”
Two shocked expressions and a resounding silence followed.
“Sorry, alpha,” Dean murmured.
Cain released them both and stormed into the house.
“What’s his problem?” Michael asked. His expression shifted from mulish irritability to baffled innocence so quickly that had Dean not been swamped in dizzying amounts of stress hormone, he would have burst out laughing.
“No idea,” Dean replied. “What’s with everyone always expecting me to act Balanced when I’m not?” he added. “No one expects an un-Balanced Omega to act like a grownup.”
“I know,” Michael agreed. He caught Dean’s eye and shrugged, silently admitting to having been guilty of that himself more than once. “I suppose it’s our way of setting you up for the fulfillment that carries you through it. Your wolf looks for a certain tone from the Top. Shame plays an important part in your centering. I hate that it takes that, but that’s how you work, Dean.”
Dean followed him into the house. “How about we make this quick,” he suggested over Michael’s shoulder, “so that you can grab a long nap and a shower and go back up to the hospital?”
“Make what quick?” Michael asked.
“Balance me,” Dean told him in a tone of explaining that clouds contain moisture. “Deal with this Fall I’m in.”
“It’s not that simple,” Michael told him. “I have to think it through, make plans.”
“What? No you don’t. That time I flipped the table over, you didn’t plan anything, and that worked, didn’t it?” Dean trailed Michael through to the foyer and up the stairs.
“That was before your wolf knew what we were up to,” Michael reminded him. “He’s not going to fall for a simple strapping this time.”
“So make it a complicated one,” Dean prodded.
Michael stopped at the top of the stairs and rounded on him, offering up a clear indication of what was driving his sourness. Michael obviously felt he had no idea what he was doing. His lip curled up in a snarl. “Look, I know you’re off-kilter. I can feel your skin crawling. I know the light-hearted provocation is covering for a bottomless self-loathing that’s festering until you feel like you’re covered in blisters. I’m not fooled, and I don’t believe you expected me to be. I know you want me to spank you right now, but I’m not going to until I’ve thought it through. I’m not going to put you through more punishment than I have to. I’m going to take some time to plan this out so I can do it right the first time. Meanwhile, I want you waiting for me. Go into our room, strip off, sit on your butt in the corner, and don’t move. Leave your phone with me.” He held his hand out.
Dean didn’t hesitate longer than it took to digest Michael’s instruction. The crinkles vanished from his eyes as his brat turned tail and vanished. He dug his phone from his pocket and held it for Michael to take. Michael pointed down the hall, watching as Dean slunk down the middle of the corridor with his shoulders hunched.
Everything felt wrong. It shouldn’t be Michael; it should be Castiel. And it shouldn’t be a careful, researched application of suitable therapy. It should be fire and brimstone flaying coupled with a razor-tongued scourge that peels his soul away from his flesh and holds it up to the light for judgment. But Cas was too angry with Dean, too worried for April, too distracted to process his own emotions quickly enough to manage Dean’s in real time.
Dean crossed his legs Omega-style in the corner and folded his hands in his lap. Michael deserved a chance to try, but Dean couldn’t fathom how he would hope to succeed. Michael didn’t understand the process. It wasn’t about punishment. It was about the fear of abandonment. Always had been. It was about being dragged through the thorny tangle of Dean’s base fears until those thorns smote his flesh from his body and left him nothing but a skeletal ruin. Mates didn’t have the capacity to destroy to that degree, especially not True-Mates. Michael was in over his head.
Michael paced in the library. Several tomes lay open on the table, turned to chapters offering guidance in managing an alpha-Sub’s Tertiary Falls. But none of them hit the mark. None of them were predicated on Dean Winchester’s particular Fall pattern. And Michael was at a loss. He was tired after a sleepless night, worried about Pete. He felt a constant pull at his navel to drop everything and return to the hospital.
He wondered briefly if that might not be a reasonable course of action under the circumstances—send Dean up to wait naked in the bedroom and then leave the house altogether. It would certainly reinforce the rejection kink Dean so desperately clung to. But in the end, it wouldn’t haul him back out on the other side, and Michael figured one night of that was enough even for Dean. Michael bit the inside of his cheek and wracked his brain.
He imagined that if he tried, he could mimic what Castiel did. He knew his wolf could affect a cold, dispassionate brutality if he asked it to. But one constant strain through all of his training had sunk deeply in: Be yourself; don’t try to be him.
No, Michael needed to approach this from a place authentic to himself, not as a facsimile Castiel.
Most importantly, he needed to find a way to take Dean’s guilt into his own hands, to strip it out of Dean’s psyche, acknowledge it for what it was, hold the man appropriately accountable, punish him, and reconcile him back onto firm footing without allowing Dean to make a grab back for that guilt.
How to make sure he could let it go in the end?
“Can I help?” Sam asked from the doorway.
Michael sank into a chair and gestured for him to come in.
Sam took a chair across the table and leaned in on his elbows. “Michael, I’m not sure that what happened, happened the way that we think it happened.”
“Meaning?”
Sam tugged the closest book toward himself and glanced at the text before closing it and steeling himself with a deep breath. “It doesn’t have the hallmarks of his usual pattern. Dean’s Falls lead him to self-destruction. That’s not what this was. I’ve never seen him risk harming someone else, especially not someone in a lower stratum, not someone he loves. I just want to be sure we’re addressing the root cause, not the symptom.”
Michael nodded. “I thought of that too. I believe he was aiming to provoke anger at the recklessness of his decision to let her drive on public roads with no training…not to put her in actual danger.”
“No, but don’t you see?” Sam persisted. “Even if that was his goal, even if he was certain he could guide her well enough to get her out and back unscathed, it’s still not at all like him. He knows she’s a Deep Omega, and he knows that means she requires constant support. He knows that risky, complicated mechanical processes may be beyond her. He had to know she would need more than a good mentor before she was ready to try driving. And he damn sure knew she can only be trusted behind a wheel if she was freshly Released. For him to try it without getting permission from Cas…that doesn’t sound like a Fall to me.”
“He flipped the table over with the two of us right there in the line of fire,” Michael said. “And he stole Pete’s knee pillow…”
“He flipped the table only after he knew you were both clear.”
“What are you suggesting?” Michael asked.
Sam paused a moment. “I’m suggesting Dean may not have been the ringleader. He may have been the patsy.”
Michael frowned. “His Fall is real, Sam. He’s in the soup right now, as deep in it as I’ve ever seen him.”
Sam nodded agreement. “That’s right, and everyone in this Pack knew it was coming, April included.”
Michael stiffened. “You think she orchestrated something that would push him over the edge and shove him through…what? Just to get it over with?”
Sam shrugged. “Seems like something she might do if she was worried about him.”
“These books are useless,” Michael observed, slamming another one closed.
“Go with your gut, Michael,” Sam urged. “Just…don’t hold back. Whatever you can dish, he can take. He needs to feel degraded.”
“I know.”
“No matter whose fault it was, Dean needs to be held accountable or he’ll only try again.”
“I know.”
Sam shook his head and reached across the table to set a calming hand on Michael’s arm. “My point is, you have to go hard to make it stick, but more importantly, you have to go hard with the right ammunition. Find his weak spot. Press in there. What is he most afraid of?”
“This is beyond fucked up,” Michael complained.
“I know,” Sam admitted. “Think of it as fantasy play. You know that nothing you say in there will ever happen in real life. He’s afraid of being rejected, and you aren’t ever going to abandon him. You know that once the scene is over, you get to reassure him of that, and he’ll believe you because it’s true and he can feel that. But he needs to feel, just briefly, that it might be true. All you’re doing is setting fire to his fear so it can burn itself out.”
Michael sighed. “And then he gets to deal with the fact that Castiel is currently in the middle of pulling away for real. Isn’t that going to be a hoot?”
Sam didn’t reply to that. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment and then asked, “Do you want me there?”
Michael stared into the middle distance, thinking hard. “Yeah. Can you gather the Pack? Let’s do it in the foyer. Get Fred too.”
Sam nodded and stood to leave. “You can do this, Michael. I know it’s hard. But you can do it.”
Michael nodded glumly.
Michael frog-marched Dean down the stairs, naked and shivering.
“Right here, alpha,” he spat. “Right here in front of everyone.”
Dean jerked his arm free of Michael’s grip and glowered at him. “Bring it,” he said, more bravado in his voice than he could back up. Michael’s eyes narrowed, cold and hard.
“You see, here’s the thing,” Michael continued as he strolled a wide circle around his mate. His tone dripped with contempt. “We talked it over, all of us, and we decided you’re full of shit, Dean Winchester. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
“That’s right,” Sam agreed. Both Dominants stood firmly situated in their wolves, both stared Dean down with iron in their gazes. Dean turned his head slightly at Sam’s affirmation but didn’t look at him. A tic pulsed at Dean’s jaw.
“What are you talking about?” he asked when the pause drew on too long.
Michael licked his lips and pulled up tight into Dean’s personal space. He set his mouth close to Dean’s ear, careful not to touch the man. “You think this mess is your fault, don’t you? But the thing is, it’s even worse than that. The thing is… You got played, alpha.”
Dean didn’t flinch. He didn’t respond at all, which was all the proof Michael needed. Dean had already come to the same conclusion. Drawing back again, Michael studied his mate’s face. “Didn’t you?”
Dean scowled at him.
“You wanted us to believe setting an Ozzie behind the wheel was your idea,” Michael went on, adopted a light tone, “because as fucked up as that is, at least if it was your idea and not the Ozzie’s, then it wouldn’t mean that on top of everything else, you let the Ultimate Omega in the Pack pull the wool over your eyes.” Michael stopped circling to stare right into Dean’s face and add, “Again.”
Disdain dripped off the word like a rancid infection.
“How does that feel, Dean?” Michael whispered. “You play at being an alpha, stomp around this house flinging your weight around, pretend the natural order gives you authority. But really, you’re just a scared, stupid, foolish, broken little boy, aren’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Dean growled.
“How does it feel knowing your real purpose in this Pack is to play the chump?” Michael goaded.
“Fuck. You.” Dean repeated.
“Put your hands on the third step,” Michael told him with a sneer. “Let’s see if we can beat a little sense into you.”
Dean’s jaw twitched. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed a retort. He didn’t move.
Michael moved like quicksilver, grabbed the back of Dean’s neck and bent him double before the man could react. Michael doubled over with him so that his mouth stayed close to his mate’s ear. “I said.” He fisted the short hair at the back of Dean’s neck between his fingers and tightened his grip. “Put your hands on the third step and present your ass the way nature intended.”
“Make me,” Dean gritted through clenched teeth.
The wrestling match that ensued was short-lived and one-sided, and in short order, Dean stood bent at the waist with his palms splayed on the step and his bare feet wide on the marble, panting hard. His knees trembled. A line of sweat tracked down the throbbing vein at his temple.
The entire Pack stood watching, bearing silent witness. No one moved.
It was too bad Gabriel wasn’t home. He would have loved this.
“It’s really too easy,” Michael taunted, hovering above him. “All of that alpha muscle, and your wolf can’t resist rolling over to the lowest Ozzie in the Pack. I figure,” Michael went on. “you knew she was having you on, at least on some level. Your wolf just craves being told what to do, doesn’t he?”
A line of drool dribbled out of Dean’s mouth, landing on the back of his hand.
“And what does that make you, Dean Michael? Huh? Second in command. Deep alpha. Dupe.”
Dean shook his head. “No.”
“No?” Michael asked. Out of nowhere, Michael seemed to expand in size and power. His voice took on a reverberation that echoed from the high ceiling and set the crystals on the chandelier tinkling.
“You let her PLAY you, alpha! Admit it!” he snarled, bigger than life. “ADMIT IT!”
“YES!” Dean shouted with his eyes squeezed tightly shut against the onslaught in his ears and his bonds. His entire body reverberated in phase with Michael’s voice. He had no defense against Michael’s wolf in full fettle. “Yes, and everything is fucked to hell now,” Dean cried. “She wasn’t supposed to wreck! She wasn’t supposed to get hurt! She swore she’d driven before, that she knew how! She swore! She said nothing would happen but that Alpha would freak and take it outta my ass! She said it was the perfect ploy!” Dean broke down into ugly sobs. “She wasn’t supposed to crash,” he sniveled.
“She’s pregnant,” Michael reminded him. His voice returned to normal and sounded all the starker by comparison.
Michael picked up the thin cane from the hall table where he’d left it and wasted no time in laying it hard across Dean’s backside. It whistled through the air before it struck.
“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!” Dean cried.
“Do you remember the last time you were involved in a motor vehicle incident with a pregnant Omega?” Michael asked. He swung the cane again. Dean screamed.
“It’s becoming something of a habit for you, isn’t it?”
He struck again, lower, leaving parallel stripes welting hot in his wake.
“You know what’s going to happen next, Dean?” Michael asked. He put his shoulders into his swing, and Dean screamed. His fingers dug into the carpeted runner on the stair like claws.
“I’m going to marry that Ozzie.” Michael’s announcement was cold and brutal, not warm as it should be on carrying such a statement. He snapped it out like a rejection of his Mating-bond.
He swung again.
“I’m going to marry the one who isn’t a chump.”
He swung again. The first welts began to turn a brilliant red and swell impossibly across both cheeks.
Dean sobbed in anguish. He trembled from his wrists to his knees.
“I’m going to go back up to the hospital and sit right by her side until she’s whole again, and then I’m going to ask her to be my wife.”
He struck again.
“Michael,” Dean moaned. “Please.”
No one else spoke or moved. The eyes of the Pack watched the stripping bare of Dean Winchester’s darkest fears.
Michael hit him with the cane, scourging him, bringing the festering, bubbling cauldron of fear to the surface and forcing Dean to stare into its depths.
“She played you for a fool,” Michael said. He tossed the cane at the stairs beside Dean’s right hand, and it rolled downward and clattered to the floor. “But you’re not a fool.”
“I am,” Dean whimpered. He tucked his face into his arm and wept hard, wracking sobs. “I fuck up everything I touch!”
“No,” Michael repeated. He laid a gentle hand on Dean’s trembling shoulder and softened his voice. “You made a mistake. You trusted a Packmate who should have been trustworthy.” Michael hauled Dean to his feet, braced his shoulders, and peered into his face, ignoring the wash of tears and snot. “You made a mistake, Dean. And you’ve been held accountable. And you’re going to let it go. None of that bullshit is true, none of what your head is chanting at you. Look at me! None of that is true. Let it go, alpha.” Michael pulled him in, wrapping his arms tightly around Dean. “Let it go.” Dean sobbed uncontrollably. Michael held him. “I know. I know, Dean. I can see it in you. I know. It’s not true.”
Dean wrapped his arms up under Michael’s, clasping onto his shoulders and weeping with a hiccuppy heaving of his sore body. He clung to his mate and sobbed. “He’s going to leave me, Michael. I went too far. He can’t forgive this.”
The Pack slowly dispersed, granting the two men privacy now that the necessary roles were fulfilled.
“Dean, look at me.” Michael disentangled himself from Dean’s grasp. His eyes, when Michael found them, were less clouded. But with the shifting of the fog, his pain shone through all the clearer. “I can’t promise it’s going to be easy or uncomplicated, but I can promise that he will forgive you in the end. More importantly right now, I need you to forgive yourself. I punished you. You’ve been held accountable. You made a mistake, and someone got hurt. That happened. But it’s in the past now. You can’t change it. I can’t change it. All we can do is pay the debt and then handle the work of dealing with the outcome. I forgive you, Dean. Forgive yourself, my mate, and let’s move on. Let’s go take care of April.”
“And Castiel?” Dean asked in a tiny voice. “If he kicks me out?”
Michael’s face clouded. “He’s going to have to find his own way home, Dean. Give him some time. But don’t be his whipping boy. And if he tries to kick you out, he’ll have to go through every member of this Pack. You’re more to us than just his husband.”
“It’s done?” Castiel asked, worried and exhausted.
“I did my best,” Michael told him. “Only time will tell though.”
Cas nodded and turned back to April. Michael’s nose wrinkled. The hospital room stank of anxiety and grief. April lay asleep. Cas curled around her as if contact alone would make her whole again. Michael kicked his shoes off and eased up onto the bed, into the narrow strip left on her far side, and he stretched out on his side, pressing close.
“You got Dean’s medical assessment?”
“Yes, I saw.”
Michael fumbled about, trying to balance on the spare strip of bed, adjusting and re-adjusting.
“Be still,” Castiel griped. “You’re jostling her.”
Michael ignored his irritability.
“Sir, he needs you to talk to him.”
“Keep out of it, Omega,” Cas snapped. “It’s none of your business.”
“The hell,” Michael grumbled back.
Castiel sat up so he could glare down at Michael. “If you can’t maintain a calm demeanor, you’re excused. I only allow you here because April loves you. The moment I feel your presence is not conducive to her healing, you’re out. Do I make myself clear? Whatever beef you have with me can wait.”
“She’s not the only one hurt in the accident, Alpha. Dean’s aching in every sense of the word…”
“He’s not fighting for his life right now though, is he?”
“He needs you as much as she does,” Michael insisted quietly.
“He’ll have to wait,” Cas insisted. “I cannot leave my mate until she’s out of danger. She needs every ounce of strength I can lend her.”
“You’re not going to be able to keep funneling her your strength if you don’t see to your own wellbeing,” Michael told him. “You’re not sleeping or eating. You’re not dealing with your anger or your hurt. You’re just lying here, festering. You think that’s what she needs?”
“I’m not angry,” Castiel said dully.
Michael snorted.
“Omega, I am in no mood. Shut up or get out.”
Michael had plenty more to say, and Castiel knew it. But they both knew that if pressed in his current state, Castiel wouldn’t hesitate to go through with his threat and kick Michael out. Suffering his presence at all was a concession of Castiel’s Primary designation at the expense of his Secondary, and Michael was on thin ice.
Michael fell silent. He held April’s hand. He breathed her jangled scent. He passed affection through his bond-link. He dozed.
He thought about marriage.
“Sir, if we had been married, the hospital would have considered me next of kin, same as you,” he said quietly, some time later.
Cas grunted.
“That wouldn’t make me her Alpha, obviously,” he went on. “But at least I would have been allowed in and the doctors would have talked to me. I wouldn’t have had to wait for you to say something. I would have had standing.”
“You have standing, Michael,” Cas replied in a gravelly voice, sleep deprived. “I grant you status.”
Michael huffed. “There’s no point trying to talk to you right now,” Michael groused. “But suffice it to say, I plan to marry your mate as soon as we can set a reasonable date.”
Castiel’s muted disgruntlement spoke volumes through his scent. He didn’t reply in words though. He didn’t say anything at all.
Dinner trays arrived. Cas insisted Michael eat. He helped April swallow a few spoons of broth soup, encouraging her with a gentle touch and warmth touching his gaze. His own tray sat ignored and cooling. Shift change brought a chipper nurse in place of the dour one. He explained in an upbeat voice that only one family member could stay overnight, preferably a mate. Michael knew a lost cause when he heard one, but he didn’t leave until he was forced out at nine.
He eased himself off the bed, slipped his shoes back on, kissed Pete’s chapped lips, squeezed her hand, and promised to return in the morning with anything she wanted brought from home.
She mumbled a sleepy farewell and turned her nose into Castiel’s throat.
“He’s going to run himself into the ground,” Michael insisted. “He can’t keep this up. It’s been four days! It’s unsustainable. He barely eats except when April tells him to. He hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time. He smells.”
“What the hell do you think I can do about it?” Dean asked. He reached across his desk in the pool house where he’d finally set up an office of his own and shuffled through a stack of papers before extracting the one he needed. “He’s not speaking to me.”
“He would if you forced the conversation, Dean,” Michael disagreed. “He’s pissed and scared, but if you would just go down there and call him out, there’s no way he wouldn’t engage at this point. The two of you are both avoiding the other, and it’s making everything worse.”
“And a shouting match in the hospital courtyard would solve everything?” Dean asked. “I can’t make him come home, man. I can’t make him take a shower. All I can do is keep my nose to the grindstone and keep the wheel turning while he’s out. That’s what I can do, so that’s what I’m going to do.” Dean frowned at the page he’d culled from the pile and then returned to his stack to dig for a different one. “How’s Gage?”
Michael scowled. “Gage is a pain in the ass. His stitches come out tomorrow. His wolf launched a full mutiny last night that ended with him tied to the bed again. I swear it waits until he’s exhausted and then finds the most ridiculous reasons to tear shit off the wall. It’s two steps forward and three steps back right now with that kid. He’s so frustrated, I’m worried he’s going to throw in the towel.”
Dean said, “It’s time to start feeding his wolf. Get him signed on for VR therapy. With a Tertiary like his, I think you can skip the PG beginner’s games and go straight to full predator mockups. Let him hunt and kill. Wear the fucker out. Outside of that, just keep supporting him, Michael. Never disappear on him, and never give up.”
Michael sank down into a wide armchair by the window. “I know. I won’t. He reminds me too much of myself.”
Dean looked up at him and lay the page he was holding on the desk. “In what ways?”
Michael didn’t answer right away. He worked his jaw, thinking along lines of memory, wondering about all the ways he’d been lucky and all the ways he hadn’t. “Being on edge all the time,” he said at last. “Expecting an attack from the inside every waking moment and trying to work out how to avoid it. Balancing feeding the beast against controlling it. Resentment that half the population doesn’t have anything of the sort to deal with. The chip on his shoulder is a stone just like mine. God, Dean, he’s me. It's like looking into a mirror to the past.”
Dean got up and rounded his desk. He squatted in front of Michael. “Do you want to tell me what it was like?”
Michael scoffed, but Dean held the space, and eventually, Michael shrugged. “It was a shitshow, man. You know that.”
“You never talk about it,” Dean said. “But you can. If you want to. If it would help.”
“The only reason I’m not dead is that my father had me by the wrist and controlled my wolf through the seat of my pants,” Michael told his mate. “Same way it works for most Doms. Only, he had no idea it was my wolf at the other end of his belt. He thought it was an Omega. He got the tone so wrong for the purpose, that it fucked with my head. My wolf felt invisible and emasculated, and my Secondary felt rejected. Not that I knew it in those terms back then. All I knew was my Pop was a prick who made me feel like a delinquent no matter how hard I tried, and my wolf was an asshole who needed to set the world on fire just so the glow would show him for what he really is.”
“Most people had no idea they were parenting Tertiary wolves in those years,” Dean reminded him. “But an alpha-Dom needs a similar kind of care for both designations, so it works either way.”
“But an Omega-Dom,” Michael put in sourly, “doesn’t.”
“Right. Neither does an alpha-Sub,” Dean agreed. “So, your Pop strapped your wolf and just pissed it off. Thought he was strapping your Omega. But, god, Michael, Omegas don’t do the kinds of adolescent shit that teenaged Doms do. It makes no sense. You were out there picking fights and picking up floozies, drinking and partying and getting arrested for stealing cars to go play mailbox baseball. That’s not at all what Omegas get in trouble for.”
“My Pop didn’t know that,” Michael said. “All he knew was: Omega, trouble, needs correction. It was that simple to him. Luckily, he was enough of a hardass that my wolf never gained any momentum.”
“You see yourself and what those years felt like when you look at Gage,” Dean observed. “You know, I don’t. I don’t think you and he are much alike except that you got the same mix of designations.”
“Gage isn’t bisexual,” Michael said. “He’s straight.”
“Close enough,” Dean muttered. “But he’s not a caregiver like you are.”
“He’s too young to know that yet,” Michael disagreed. “No one’s a caregiver when they’re twelve, especially not when they’ve been through trauma that stunted their development.”
“I was,” Dean put in with a pointed look. “And so were you. Even at twelve.”
“Bullshit.”
“You want me to ask Rachel?” Dean threatened. “I’ll bet you fifty bucks she says you were a mama bear even then. We are who we are. Gage is different. He doesn’t have that anchor in Pack life that will help ground him. He’s going to need something, Michael. He needs something outside of himself to help him keep his feet on the ground. For you and me it’s always been family, siblings to be specific, and a strong sense of Pack hierarchy. Gage doesn’t have a family, not really. He lost it before he got his feet set. I worry about what he might find to replace it. Some substitutions are dangerous.”
Michael sucked his teeth. “His Pack is a good one, Dean. But he could get lost in there. It’s too dispersed. There’re too many pups. He needs something tighter, something with fewer pups and more alphas.”
“No, Michael. Don’t even think about it.”
“He’s surrounded by kids, Dean. Once he leaves The Facility, he’s going to get lost in a sea of foster pups. They take in as many as they can. And, like, that’s terrific. It really is. It’s great for most of them. But Gage is… he’s special. He needs one-on-one attention. He’s not a candidate for a group home, Dean. What he needs is a Pack, a real Pack.”
“We’re going to have to support him with what he’s got available to him, Michael. Get his Alpha and his foster-dad onboard. Make sure he has one-on-one attention from both of them. Help them develop a small cadre of support within the Pack so he doesn’t get lost in the crowd. But, man, he’s not joining our Pack. Look around you. Do we look like we’re ready for a teenager? Man, I don’t even know if my marriage is going to pull through.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Damnit, Dean, you’ve got to stop assuming things are falling apart every time you and Cas hit a snag…”
“A snag? April’s in the hospital with a brain surgeon on stand-by in case her brain starts to swell again. She’s barely coherent, and she sleeps twenty hours a day. We don’t even know if her face is going to survive in one piece. This isn’t a snag, Michael. It’s a helluva lot bigger than that.”
Michael sighed. “I know it’s big, Dean. I was there. I caned you into the floor with an existential threat to our Mating-bond that I’m pretty sure your wolf still thinks was real. But your marriage isn’t falling apart. The truth is, Cas is being a child right now. He’s figured out that it had to have been April behind the plan, but he can’t allow himself to be angry with her, so he’s stuck in a holding pattern while she’s still in the hospital. It’s unfair, Dean. It’s unfair to you. But what can we do? He’s Alpha. Unless he’s ready to hear us, we’re going to be spitting into the wind.”
“It’s not a we,” Dean pointed out. He leveraged himself to standing with his hands planted on Michael’s thighs and a hearty grunt of a man in his thirties, and he returned to his desk. “It’s me. Stay out of it.”
“Hey, it’s my Pack too, Dean. Shit that affects you affects me.”
“Stay out of it, Omega,” Dean repeated with a touch of compulsion in his voice for good measure. “He’s not going to hear a word anyone says until his mate is in the clear. It sucks and it’s unfair, but it is what it is. Nothing anyone cares about matters more than the welfare of their own mate. When that’s in jeopardy, everything else disappears. No one ever said it would be fair. I knew that when I married him.”
“You deserve better,” Michael told him darkly. “Marriage is supposed to mean more than this.”
“We can only fight our own nature so far before it snaps,” Dean returned. “Don’t go pushing him right now, Michael, or this marriage really will be in danger.”
Michael grunted an unhappy acceptance. “It’s not right that everyone else is held to a higher standard of behavior, and he gets to slink off and be a child whose toy got broken. That’s all I’m saying.”
Dean sat back down at his desk. He shuffled papers. Michael put his hands on the arm of his chair and paused in the act of pushing himself to his feet. Dean glanced up at him. Michael seemed to have skipped a track. His eyes glazed over.
“Michael?”
“Yeah. I know.” He blinked and stood up, but he didn’t leave.
“Man, are you really going to get married, or was that just scene-play? I need to know.”
Michael blinked again and turned to frown at his mate. “Scene-play? You think I would lie about that?”
Dean scoffed. “Well, I’m hoping at least some of what you said was exaggeration,” he said caustically. “Because at least some of it was pretty damning. You really think I’m a dupe?”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Okay, you know what? I’m done talking to you.” He moved to leave, but Dean shot out of his chair and intercepted his mate at the door to the hallway.
“Hold up, hold up,” Dean interjected. “I know you didn’t mean that. I know it was just to pull me through the Fall. You did good, Michael. Way better than I thought you could. I honestly thought you would scrape your knees on trying to hurt me deep enough to make the ploy work. I know how hard that was for you to pull off. I really do. And I’m grateful. You struck a chord, that’s all. Like, you hit a nail on the head that I didn’t even know was there to hit.”
“They wouldn’t let me see her, Dean, because we aren’t married. At the hospital. Is that what it comes to? In the end, does it just come down to civil law and policy rights? Why does a hospital get to decide who she is to me? Why is it the insurance companies who mandate what a family is and how it’s aligned? Why don’t Pete and I get to decide that for ourselves? Why don’t we get to decide anything for ourselves?”
“What do insurance companies have to do with you and April?”
Michael sighed in frustration. “Nothing,” he added. “Because we’re Omega. But the point stands. Marriage isn’t just a private institution, Dean. It’s not just about people who want to tie their lives together. In fact, it’s hardly that at all. Marriage is a civil contract more than it is anything else. It buys you the right to claim a bond with someone else even if there’s no bond there. It legitimizes a relationship that really isn’t anyone’s business except those in the marriage! I hate this! I hate being compelled! But I can’t let something like that happen ever again. How do I turn something that pisses me off this much into something joyful that I can take to Pete and say, Hell, yeah, let’s do this? It’s not her fault.”
Dean cradled Michael’s face in his palms and kissed him softly. “You take all the bullshit out of it, and you focus on just her, man. Strip it down to just you and her and the life you want to have together. Think about what she means to you. Think about where you want to be with her in ten years, all the things you’d like to do together. Focus on that, Michael.”
Michael smiled subtly, more with his eyes than his lips. He nodded and returned the soft kiss. “I’ll try.”
“Good lad,” Dean whispered. “Now get out of here. I have work to do.”
Castiel finally returned home a week later. He was bloated and pale. His eyes, tinged with alpha-red, were bloodshot and puffy. He smelled every bit as bad as Michael said he did. He barely spoke to anyone.
April was on the mend enough to have kicked him out for a well-needed respite. Michael filled in in his absence, and Cas allowed the replacement owing to the fact that work had piled up beyond his ability to continue ignoring.
Dean made himself available to his husband to the extent that he could and still maintain his self-respect, but Cas didn’t take the offer. A frosty chill followed the Alpha’s wake, especially in Dean’s presence. They spoke of work matters and Pack matters and global events. They didn’t talk personal matters. They didn’t share a bed. They didn’t eat lunch together in the cafeteria. Dean had plenty of work to take his attention off his marital strife, as did Cas for that matter, but where Dean had Michael to help him stay balanced, Cas had no one, and the strain showed.
Cain cornered Dean in the laundry room with an urgent whispered confrontation pushing Dean to find a way to end Castiel’s moping. Sarah texted him multiple times a day looking for advice about how to deal with Cas in this state. Jess and Sam stopped coming by for dinner in the middle of the week.
Dean grew worried about his husband but helpless to think of any effective means of drawing him back to the land of the living. He began spending more and more time in the pool house, sleeping there some nights when he’d burned the midnight oil in his office a little too late. It seemed pointless to creep back into the big house just to trade one empty bed for another when the bed in the pool house was just as comfortable. Michael spent many nights at the hospital. If neither of his Sirs were available for him to snuggle against, what difference did it make where he slept?
“You look like shit, Dean,” Sam commented from Dean’s office door at The Facility. “Come on. Come have lunch with me and then ride with me out for a house call. I checked your calendar. You’re free this afternoon. No excuses. Grab your keys.”
“I can’t, Sammy,” Dean disagreed. “I’ve got a deadline. My schedule’s free so I can hunker down and knock this out.”
“Your deadline isn’t until Friday,” Sam told him. “I checked. Grab your keys.”
Dean opened his mouth to protest but made the mistake of looking up and meeting his brother’s eyes. Sam’s wolf looked back at him, and Dean lost his argument before he managed to speak it. He sighed and stood up. “Lunch. Fine. But I don’t have time for any house calls. I’m not kidding.”
Sam held the door for his brother, and the two men left the cool of the building for the sweltering heat of the parking lot. “I pick the dive,” Dean griped as he started his car. “And no bitching about my cholesterol intake.”
“Deal,” Sam told him. His long legs folded comically to fit under the glove box. “I’ll even let you order a beer,” he joked. Dean shot him a look before backing out.
Lunch turned out to be a welcome respite from what had grown into a constant sense of doom hanging over Dean’s every waking hour. He didn’t even realize until he felt the pressure ease just how tight his every muscle was. Sam’s perceptive eye noted the change. Dean could tell his brother’s assessment picked up the difference, but he felt so much better that he let it slide without comment.
He needed this, he decided.
He ordered a beer. He ordered one for Sam too.
And a bacon cheeseburger with cheddar and grilled jalapeños.
“We can’t go on like this, you know,” Sam said after he swallowed a bite of spinach salad. “We need to find a way to jar him back to himself. And I hate to say it, Dean, but I think it has to be you that does the jarring.”
“Forget it,” Dean said with his mouth full. “No can do. He’s too pissed. You saw him at the meeting today. He won’t even look at me. Until April comes home, we’re just going to have to live with things like this.”
Sam leaned low across the table. “It’s bullshit, Dean. It’s abusive, at this point. This isn’t okay, and you know it.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked his brother.
“Get in his way and make him talk to you.”
“Make him.” Dean snorted. “Because that always works so well with Castiel James.” Sarcasm dripped from his words like acid.
“Dean, he’s taking something out on you that, one, you’ve already paid for, and two, wasn’t entirely your fault in the first place. I know you’re past your Fall, and that’s great. It looks to me like you’re in a mature and healthy place about what happened. I’m proud as all get-out of you right now. A few years ago, you’d have been beating yourself up, punishing yourself, self-destructing over this. But you’re not. You’re managing. You’ve grown so much, don’t you see? But he’s sabotaging your progress…”
“How? By not being perfect, himself?” Dean challenged. “Look, I appreciate that you even noticed how much progress I’ve made. It hasn’t been easy. You know that. But it’s not fair to expect Cas to be in perfect lockstep with my progress. Let’s see how well you cope if it’s your mate with brain trauma that someone in your own bed caused…”
“You didn’t cause it, Dean! It was an accident. Maybe it was poor judgement, but April was just as much at fault there as you were, probably more. You can’t be held responsible for what you do when you Fall, I don’t care what you say. I know you have some ability to direct the action, but we both know that eventually it’s all going to erupt out of you no matter what if you don’t find a viable path soon enough. Dean, I could smell you getting close for a few days before you blew. I’m certain April did too. I’m sure she posed that plan to you to give you a route to piss Castiel off.”
“Who told you that? Did April?” Dean asked.
“You did, you moron. You told the whole Pack.”
Dean looked away.
Sam pressed. “Protecting her isn’t going to help Cas find his way out of this any sooner. The truth is, he’s mad at you alone when he’s got equal cause to be just as mad at his mate. But he can’t bring himself to admit he’s pissed at April because she’s Ozzie and she’s injured. So, you get the full brunt when it’s not all on you. Dean, you don’t deserve this.”
“Enough!”
“It’s not right, Dean!”
“I said enough!” Dean shouted. Heads turned. He lowered his voice. “I know all that, ‘kay? I do. I know there’s going to be hell to pay once he figures out that at least half of what he’s mad at isn’t on me. The blowback from that could level half the Pack. What no one’s taking into account is that Cas falls just as hard as I do. Thing is, he does it less often. I always beat him to it. You get me? I Fall hard, he responds. The dance sets us both back on our feet and resets the timer. That’s why I never let Michael deal with my Falls. I need it to be Cas because Cas needs it to be Cas. He’s in the middle of a Fall right now, but without a target, we have no way to fix it.”
Sam sat back in his booth with a frown. “Dominants don’t fall.”
Dean shrugged. “Call it something else then. I dunno. Call it imbalance. Call it a drop. Call it a hormonal spike. All I know is that he needs to lose it on my ass. His fury is at least as much for him as it is for me. But I can’t force it. I don’t know how to fix this. If I try to trigger some kind of blow up, the repercussions might come with a whole buttload of unintended consequences. And it’ll bounce back on April, I know it will.”
Sam stared at his brother, slack jawed. “You’re just going to let him keep punishing you until he feels better?”
Dean shrugged again. “Tell me about this house call.”
Sam allowed the diversion. He filled Dean in on a foster care situation with a young alpha who defied Pack hierarchy, seeming to be immune to his Alpha’s authority. Dean chuckled. “This should be fun.”
On the drive over, Dean changed the subject again. “You want to explain why Kate’s been moved off of Michael’s plate and onto yours, Sam?” he asked with his eyes on the road.
“Hmm?” Sam responded. “Kate?”
“Kate,” Dean repeated. “You’re supposed to be training the new Subs, Sam, not Domming for them both. Michael’s got time. Why’d he get the boot? What’s going on?”
“Who says he got the boot?” Sam demurred.
“Don’t fuck with me, Sammy,” Dean warned. “I’m stressed, and I’d love nothing more than a chance to vent my shit on a beta who’s twice my size.”
Sam scowled. “It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t think anything,” Dean countered. “That’s why I’m asking. Just level with me. You’ve got full custody of Sarah, of Jess, now you’ve got Kate. Adam’s coming onboard in the next couple of weeks. Are you going to Dom for him too? When do you study? When do you research?”
Sam sighed.
“Spill, brother,” Dean ordered.
“Jess has this idea that my wolf needs a harem,” Sam blurted.
Dean drove in silence for two beats, maybe three, then he burst out laughing. He threw his head back and chortled, triggering Sam to make a dive for the wheel.
“I got it!” Dean protested as he elbowed his brother back to the passenger side. “Whew, buddy, that’s awesome, Sam! I did not expect that. A harem! Holy fuck! Are you going to Dom for Cain too?”
“No,” Sam said. “Cain isn’t my type of Sub. He only responds to alphas.”
“Heh, tell that to Michael,” Dean said.
“Oh?”
Dean shot Sam a look. “Michael’s commanded him a few times now, and Cain hasn’t even twitched. Obeyed without a second thought. Seemed to me like a Tertiary thing. I’m not sure Cain even noticed, but I know Michael did.”
“We’ve all been stressed lately, Dean,” Sam said heavily. “We tend to go Tertiary under stress.”
“More to my point then,” Dean added. “Time’s ripe to add an alpha to your harem.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Sam grumbled.
“Don’t be a bitch,” Dean grumbled back.
They rode in silence for several minutes. Dean couldn’t fully suppress the smirk that kept forming on his face. Finally, Sam turned in his seat and faced his brother.
“You know my wolf better than almost anyone, Dean. Does it need a harem of Subs? Or is it a stupid idea? Sometimes I can’t tell if Jess is on the level or provoking me.”
Dean nearly quipped something rude back, but he glanced across the bench seat and caught the expression in his brother’s eyes, and he changed tack. He licked his lips. “Need? Probably not,” he said carefully. “No one needs a harem. But the truth is your wolf would be good at it. Subs do well under your hand, Sammy. I feel like if anyone would do it justice, you would.”
Sam’s brow knitted at the unexpected praise. He studied his hands in his lap. Passing trees cast shadowed patterns across his fingers and the fabric of his slacks. “You mean that?”
Dean chuckled. “Jess really wants you to fuck every girl in the Pack? Has she thought this through?”
“Hell if I know. Her scent says she means it, but I don’t know if she’s really considered where it could lead. Thing is, Sarah and me… things could get out of hand if we’re not careful.”
The smirk disappeared from Dean’s face. “Would that really be a disaster?” he asked.
Sam looked at him, taking in the weight of Dean’s perspective. “I’m not you, Dean.”
“I never expected to be me either, Sam,” Dean countered illogically.
“You say that…” he trailed off and turned his eyes out the window. He regrouped and faced his brother again. “You were always going to be predisposed to splitting your affections, Dean. To put it bluntly, simply even, you are so overflowing with affection there’s no containing it. You would embrace a family four times the size of our Pack if you could.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Easy with the hero-worship; you’re gonna make me blush.”
Sam chuckled. “Maybe that’s overkill then. Point is, having two intimates suits you. It never suited me. And I’m scared. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Dean pursed his lips, pulling telltale dimples into his cheeks. “Sammy, you’re not going to hurt your mate. Jess knows you love her. She knows she’s got you locked in. She isn’t what’s at stake here.”
“Then what’s at stake?” Sam blurted.
Dean glanced at his brother and saw a far younger version biting his lip, seeking affirmation. “If you break out of the box you built around yourself,” Dean told him, “you might realize that those walls were a prison, not a home.”
Sam looked away. “Or that I’ve just torn down my own house out of an infantile attempt to have more than I want or need.”
“Or that,” Dean agreed blandly. He huffed. “You’re a long way from razing your house to the ground, Sam. Taking on the role of House Enforcement Officer doesn’t equal taking in resumés for a poly-bond. Just because you Dom for us doesn’t mean you let everyone in. It’s okay to keep your boundaries up.”
“I know,” Sam agreed. “But I’ve been taking closer stock of my wolf’s appetites since Jess brought it up, and…”
“Oh yeah?” Dean asked with a brow raised. “Sam, you dog.”
“Cut the crap, Dean. You’re not helping.”
Dean laughed. “So, what does he want, then? A cozy cottage with a white picket fence and a crackling fire at the hearth?”
“No,” Sam admitted. “Turn here. It’s about two blocks down.”
Dean pulled up outside the modest house and put Baby in park. “Talk to Cas, Sammy. You’ve gone your whole adult life terrified of your own wants. Your wolf isn’t evil, and what he craves isn’t wrong as long as it doesn’t cause harm. If Jess is on board, Sarah’s on board, where’s the harm?”
“Sarah’s in love with Adam,” Sam reminded Dean quietly.
“Yeah, and they broke up.”
“He’s moving in, Dean.”
“So add him to your harem!” Dean shouted, exasperated.
“He’s straight!”
“No one’s straight in their Tertiary!” Dean shot back.
They glared at each other. Ultimately, it was Sam who looked away. He licked his lips and tried twice to speak before the words made it out. “What if… What if we fall for each other, and we build a bridge to make that work, and then she chooses him? Dean, I don’t know how I would…”
“There is no sure thing under the sun, beta,” Dean told him. “But some things are worth the risk.” Dean held his brother’s eyes for a moment, waiting for Sam to protest. But he didn’t.
“Come on,” said Dean. He cracked his door and shoved it open with a squeal of hinges. “We’ve got a kid to rescue.”
“It’s hardly a rescue,” Sam grumbled. He unfolded out of the car too. “Unless we’re rescuing the family from the kid.”
“You have no idea, Sam, what it’s like to be an adolescent alpha. It blows. Have some patience for the kid. He could be battling a Dom wolf and a teenaged alpha. Just being fifteen is a shitshow all by itself. Let’s just go inside and see what we’re working with.”
Patience proved hard to come by in a home where everyone was fed up with everyone else and accusations flew almost as hard as the crockery that shattered against the wall. But they left two hours later with a minimum of cuts to their faces and a quiet (if not peaceful) household. Rudimentary plans had been drawn up. If all parties abided by the agreements they’d signed, there was hope. If not, new accommodations would need to be arranged for the kid.
Dean grumbled all the way to the car. Sam stalked.
“Smart-mouthed ingrate,” Dean mumbled as he slid into the driver’s seat.
“It’s hard to be an adolescent alpha,” Sam reminded him.
“Shut up,” Dean suggested.
Sam snickered as Dean pulled away, perhaps gunning the gas a scosche harder than necessary. “You did good in there though,” he said. “Thanks for coming with. It was easier with you partnering. Felt like old times.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Dean agreed with a snarl. “Feels like these kids are getting younger and snottier though, doesn’t it? Is it just me?”
“Kids are still just kids,” Sam replied. “If anything, they’re getting braver about showing us their wounds. They’re getting less good at hiding what’s wrong. Think about what that says about the society they have been raised in. Even damaged kids like Josh back there feel safe enough to display attention-seeking behaviors that attract help. That’s not the pattern adolescents showed when we were teens, Dean. Things are improving even in spaces where there’s abuse and dysfunction. Young people have hope that there are people out there who can help them.”
Dean didn’t answer. Sam’s comment set him to thinking back. It was true that at that age, Dean had been certain no one but Bobby would ever be able to help him in any appreciable way. And even Bobby wasn’t allowed to be privy to all of it. Dean still had secrets that no one knew. Not even Cas.
“Dean?”
“Hm?”
“Light’s green.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
He pulled through the intersection with a grim set to his jaw. Secrets gnawed at him. But there was no fixing those now.
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
“Bout what?” Dean asked gruffly.
“Your scent has gone spiky,” Sam told him. “Something I said?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re white-knuckling the steering wheel, and there’s no traffic.” Sam watched him deliberately ease up. “Is this about your Fall?”
“The Fall is over, Sam. Michael dealt with it. Period.”
“I know. I can smell that much. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lingering concerns. You guys handled the hormonal side of things. What about the emotional side?”
“I’ve got it handled. You said so yourself.”
“Hmm,” Sam hummed, watching his brother. “Except it occurred to me,” he added, “with Cas as distanced as he is right now, there’s really no way you’re as healthy about the whole thing as you seem. You’re masking, aren’t you? Just like you did when we were kids and Dad spent every night curled up in a bottle.”
“Sam, I swear…” Dean growled as his fists tightened back up on the steering wheel.
“I know it wasn’t all your fault. April isn’t entirely at fault either. You get that, right? An off-Balance Ozzie isn’t liable for…”
“Of course I get that,” Dean interrupted. “I don’t blame April!”
“And she doesn’t blame you.”
“I know that,” Dean said with less vinegar in his voice.
Sam swallowed, watching the tension in the chords of tendons down Dean’s neck. “Who do you blame, Dean?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Dean snapped.
“It wasn’t your fault. April’s injuries, Castiel’s anger, it wasn’t your fault.” Sam let Dean chew on that, appearing to be literally chewing on his words as his jaw clenched and unclenched.
Finally, Dean found a way to put words to his thought.
“Sammy, I’m only going to say this once. This thing that happens inside my head every few months or so, this desperate explosion? It’s bullshit. Okay? It’s a cry for attention from the weakest part of me that craves being the center of the spotlight, that throws a temper tantrum if people don’t move fast enough or shine a spotlight bright enough. So, my fault? You’re damn right it’s my fault. Because at the end of the day, it’s those screaming tantrums that cause ninety percent of the strife in this Pack. And Castiel has just figured that out. You see? He’s finally taken off those fucking rose-colored glasses and taken a good hard look at what he’s tied himself to, what it means.”
“Dean, it’s not like that at all.”
“The hell it’s not. But he’s going to chew on it until he chokes, and then he’s going to shove it deep underneath somewhere, and he’s going to pretend things are all better. And I’m going to let him do it because I can’t live without him. Because the only way the rest of the Pack has room to build their own lives is if Cas and I hold steady. So that’s what we’re going to do. That doesn’t mean it’s right. Doesn’t mean it’s not my fault. Doesn’t mean I won’t tear it all down eventually.”
“Dean, pull the car over. Pull over now!”
“The fuck?”
“Stop the fucking car, alpha!”
Dean frowned, but he scanned the road ahead and behind and found a wide stretch of shoulder to ease onto. He coasted to a stop and threw it into park before turning his glare on his brother.
“Get out,” Sam ordered, curt and implacable.
Dean shrugged. “I don’t wanna join your harem if it’s all the same to you.”
Sam climbed out onto the shoulder and stood waiting silently for his brother to join him. Dean followed at a ponderous pace, strolling around the front end of the sedan with his hands in his pockets. “I’m not in my brat, Sam. You’ve got no feet to stand on to spank me.”
“No?” Sam asked. His eyes flashed. “Then what about this?” And without warning, he hauled back with his right fist and decked his brother across the cheekbone. Dean went flying. He landed hard on his left shoulder and rolled ignobly down the incline toward the ditch at the road’s edge, ass over teakettle. Sam advanced down the hill after him. “You think you’re the only one with anything at stake here? You think everything that happens is on you to fix or fuck up?”
Dean stopped sliding. He dug the heels of his boots into the dust and scrambled up to sitting. He put a cautious hand to his cheek and winced before casting a disbelieving look up at his furious brother. Sam skitter-stepped down the gravel-strewn incline to him, and Dean’s eyes widened.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve had to listen to you bitch and moan and take ownership of crap that isn’t yours?” Sam asked rhetorically. “And just when you were finally climbing out of that hole, figuring out that you’re only one piece of this shitty, messy, complicated tangle we live in, all it takes is one fight with Cas and you’re right back in that hole all over again! Wake up, Dean! He’s blaming you because he’s afraid to blame his mate, afraid to blame himself! This is not your fault! Goddamnit! Are you just going to sit there in the dirt and let him steal all the progress you’ve made? Are you going to make it that easy for him to use you as a scapegoat?”
“I knew what I was doing when I put her behind the wheel,” Dean said in a defeated voice. He didn’t try to stand up. He sat hunkered over in the dry, settling dust with his elbows on his knees.
“Did you?” Sam challenged, disbelieving. “Or is that a revisionist view that fits your Fall and your need to be held accountable? What did you really mean to do?”
Dean glanced over his shoulder at his brother standing high above him, not only taller than an average giraffe, but also planted well up along the incline and glowering down. He chose not to risk neck strain and turned back around again. Tiredly, Dean huffed, “I don’t know, man. Maybe I didn’t mean to do anything at all. Closer I get to a Fall, the more static I hear in my head. It’s actually damn hard to really plan anything with any clarity.”
Sam scuttled down the last couple of feet and turned around in a squat. “Exactly. You weren’t in any condition to make decisions.”
“That doesn’t get me off the hook,” Dean said in a tone that said it was an argument he’d made many times before. “And it doesn’t mean it’s Cas’ fault either.”
“Dean, it doesn’t get you off the hook in terms of providing fodder for your Falls. Those scenes require you to feel repentant and at fault. But that’s all scene-play. I need you to see the difference. I thought you understood the difference!”
“It’s not scene-play when my little sister is in the hospital, Sam!”
“It was a mistake, Dean!”
“It wasn’t a mistake! You’re not listening!”
“No, man,” Sam countered. “You’re not listening. You’re not superhuman. You would never hold a Sub accountable outside of a scene for acting in the lead-up to a Fall. And you’ve made so much progress over the last few years.” Sam leaned forward and rested his palms on Dean’s knees. “The only reason you think this is something bigger is that Castiel is giving you the cold shoulder, and your wolf has no means to frame that except as your own fault. What’s the point of you doing years of work untangling your insecurities and all that shame that was never yours in the first place if your husband can just crook his finger and put you right back in it up to your neck?”
Dean looked away. “Are you done?”
“Go talk to April,” Sam suggested.
“No.”
“Tell her you forgive her for planting that idea in your head while she outranked you.”
Dean scowled. “That’s not what happened. She was out of Balance.”
“Not as far as you were,” Sam disagreed.
“Jesus, Sam! You’re a dog with a bone! Let it go! You can’t fix this!”
“Ask her if she forgives you, then.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll say yes, but in the end it makes no difference. It doesn’t matter if she forgives me, Sam, because I don’t. That’s the end of it. Topic closed!”
“Dean.”
Dean looked up from the cutting board where he was dicing mushrooms. “Sir?” It seemed appropriate these days to answer every summons from the Alpha with a formal title.
“Your convention summary on Portland is late. You have until ten o’clock tonight to get it to Billie or you will receive an official reprimand. Don’t make me mention it again.”
Cas turned on his heel, slapped the archway on his way through, and disappeared, leaving Dean speechless in his wake. In the parlor, Dean could hear Castiel greeting his pups with warmth and affection. He could hear them ask after their Mommy, as always since the accident. He heard Cas reassure them that she was healing, sends her love, and would be coming home soon. Dean set the knife on the cutting board, made a garbled excuse to Sarah that he needed to go upstairs and check…something, and he bolted for the back stairs.
Cain intercepted him before he made it four yards down the wide hallway along the long axis of the house.
“Dean.”
“Darius, I swear, the next person who tells me to confront him, I’m gonna start throwing punches!”
Cain blinked. “Actually, I wondered if you would be interested in helping me choreograph a scene for my club. Jelly wants to do a schoolgirl bit. I thought I might try my hand at designing the setup. I could use an expert opinion.”
Dean frowned.
“Never mind,” Cain said, blushing. “You’ve got more important things on your mind.” He took a step backward and half-reversed before Dean stopped him with a quick gesture.
“Actually, Submissive, that sounds like exactly the thing I need right now.”
Dean wasn’t ignorant of the smug half-smile that Cain tried to hide from him, but he was grateful enough for the gesture that he didn’t care. He followed the alpha into his bedroom, glanced around, aware he’d never actually been in Cain’s room before, and shrugged. “How deep do you wanna go?” Dean asked. “Who are your players?”
“How deep can we safely take it?” Cain parried with a twinkle in his eye.
“Brother,” Dean warned. “Don’t tempt me. I leave Subs hospitalized when I get done with them.”
“Let’s aim for outpatient care, then,” Cain chuckled, pointing Dean to a chair.
“Spoilsport.”
Chapter 32: Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Summary:
Nothing is settled yet between the alphas, and that throws off everyone's game, from a simple committee meeting where no one's in a good mood to a marriage proposal that feels more like a concession than a celebration to a Claiming ceremony that Dean can't bring himself to watch. As always, shit runs downhill and smacks the lowest wolf hard in the face.
Dean's biding his time.
Notes:
Did I just mash out 25K words of absolute babble? Um, yes? I split it into two chapters though to make it digestible.
Things have been hard around these parts lately. I think it shows in the discombobulated storytelling, but as sometimes happens, messing with it further isn't making it any better. So, I'm posting and walking away. This chapter is all tension-build. The resolution is coming though. Read on, dear friends.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
NOW:
Castiel sat at the head of the conference room table, Dean to his left around the corner as always. A small cadre of legislative committee members watched him frown as he reviewed the draft that Monroe Styne and his team of lobbyists would hit the storied halls of Congress with, seeking a brave sponsor and trying to ram legislative change down the gullets of stubborn apes. It was meant to be a final draft, but Castiel had brought his red pen with him.
His red pen and his contrary mood.
Dean studied his wedding ring silently as his wording met a violent end at the razor-sharp blade of a pen.
“No,” Cas said, finally breaking a tortuous silence. “It’s too direct. Confronting the issue straight-on only begs the opposition to level grooming and sexual assault accusations at us.”
Dean huffed and pushed his chair back. He shook his head as he stood up and made his way to the water cooler in the corner. “Direct is the only way to get this through, Alpha. We can’t be seen to try sneaking something like this by and hope no one notices what it really means. We’ve got the data to back it up. They hit us with grooming claims, and we hit them with the statistics. Call it what it is and stand our ground.”
“Fantastic,” Cas snarked. He let the packet flop to the table. “It will be a comfort to the Lupin adolescents of this country who run aground before they reach maturity to know that we have statistics.”
Dean’s jaw twitched. He didn’t back down. “Sir, we can’t win this on a sneaky approach. They’ll spot the true implications from the jump. We won’t fool anyone. They’ll call us out on day one, and then what do we have? We’ll be spotlighted naked with our hands in the cookie jar and no reasonable explanation for it. We’ll be on our back foot and furiously reframing before anyone’s even read it all the way through. Not only will we lose the vote, but our credibility will be shot, maybe for good. There’s a whole buttload of enemies still clawing at our door waiting for a misstep.” Dean tossed his empty cup in the trash and leaned over the table between Max and Miles, pressing his fists into the shiny redwood surface. “We can’t afford to fuck this up.”
Cas narrowed his eyes. Every muscle tensed. Cold air shimmered between the two men. His eyes blazed arctic blue. “I have no intention of fucking this up, alpha. You’re missing the bigger picture.”
Dean stood up with a huff and a veritable rolling of eyes that definitely didn’t roll in the Alpha’s presence. “You always think it’s necessary to play games to win, Sir.” Looking down at his husband from above, Dean summoned all the bearing he could. “It’s not. I’m telling you. We’re close to losing this one.”
Cas growled and leaned in, but Dean beat him to it. He advanced around the corner and bent down over the table again, this time right in Castiel’s space. Cas sat back, avoiding the intimacy of shared space. “Can we hit pause and discuss this in private?” Dean asked, boring into his husband’s eyes, desperately seeking a way in.
“Say what you need to say, Dean,” Castiel said coldly. “I want this finalized before we adjourn.”
Dean opened his mouth and then closed it. His brow furrowed. He backed up and ran a hand over his eyes. Finally, he resolved. He turned back, pulled his chair back up and sat, leaning in close and putting everyone else out of his mind.
“Look, Cas, you remember when we were fresh outta school and brand new at this? Huh? You remember you didn’t have three pennies to rub together? Who fixed that for you? Who kept the tap running and the lights on when we were barely making ends meet? Who solves your problems for you when people put their back up and don’t wanna say yes even when it’s in their own damned best interest? Man, you have to trust me. I know you’re not naïve. But you’re reading the room wrong here. We can’t afford to miss. We won’t get another chance at this for a generation if we don’t play it straight. We have pups less than eight years from needing this legislation personally. I know you’re pissed at me…”
“Leave our personal affairs at home, please, alpha.”
Dean sighed, long and frustrated. He snatched the draft off the table. “This, Cas, this is our personal affairs. This is about us and our family.” He turned and gestured toward the other committee members, all watching in silence. “It’s about Max. It’s about Benny’s daughters. It’s about Gage. It’s about every kid who gets their legs swept out from under them before they’re old enough to Mate…”
“I understand the significance,” Cas retorted. “But your strategy is flawed. The median age in Congress is sixty-four. It’s an old man’s club, and there’s no direct way to convince a pile of Primate geezers to give credence to the welfare of Lupin children!”
“We’re not appealing to them though,” Dean replied calmly. “We’re appealing to their constituents. Public opinion is in our corner for the first time. If we break their trust with a manipulation right now, we’ll never win it back. Alpha, people are finally paying attention. They’re watching us.”
Cas fell silent, visibly mulling it over. No one moved but Dean. Dean rolled the draft into a cylinder and crammed it into his back pocket. “You gotta trust me,” he said. “Win or lose with the bill, we can’t afford to lose the public’s good faith. People don’t like being played.”
Cas flicked his eyes up to meet Dean’s and then broke the moment with a deep breath. “Max,” he said, looking further down the table. “This bill is your baby. What do you think?”
Max visibly swallowed. His eyes cut back and forth between the two alphas for a moment. “Um, Sir, I agree with…Dean.” What must it have cost the Omega to say that? “But, honestly, it’s way outta my wheelhouse. I don’t know anything about lobbying. All I know is that if it were my kids and somebody tried to fool me into backing a law to lower the age of consent without saying so straight out and I figured it out, it would feel skeevy as hell.” Benny set a hand on Max’s shoulder to steady him.
“Thank you,” Cas nodded. “Miles?”
“Direct is the way to go, Alpha.”
Cas’ eyes flicked back to the end. “Benny?”
“Cas.”
They held each other’s gazes for a drawn moment. Years of history spoke for them. Benny raised his brows, offering a nonverbal accusation—perhaps the Alpha’s stance wasn’t rooted in the welfare of post-Presentation pups at all. Cas shot a glance at Dean and then sighed.
“All right. We’ll do it your way. Spruce it up and get it to the legal team by two. Meeting adjourned.”
Cas held the door for Billie but was gone before Dean collected his belongings. He had to hustle to catch up.
“Alpha, wait!” he called, jogging in the man’s wake.
“I didn’t appreciate that, Dean,” Cas grumbled as he let himself into his office. Dean followed.
“I tried to do it in private. Hell, I tried to have this conversation with you last night at home. Don’t blame me.”
Cas rounded his desk and took his throne. “I have been understandably occupied lately at home.” He busied himself with the screen in front of him.
“Tending to April’s care and rehabilitation, I get it,” Dean finished for him.
“So, it’s not unreasonable to expect that we handle our work at work,” Cas continued.
“Which is what we just did,” Dean argued.
Cas slapped the desk. “I don’t appreciate being contradicted in public.”
“A, it wasn’t in public,” Dean growled, losing his temper. “It was in a committee meeting where the whole point is working out the wording for our lobbyists. And B, I fucking tried to take it private with you, and you rejected that idea. So don’t get mad at me that folks all watched you lose an argument, god forbid.”
A knock on the door preceded Mick’s head sliding in. “A word, Alpha?”
“Give us a minute, Mick,” Dean told him.
“Come in, Mick,” Cas said.
Dean huffed in disgust. He hoisted his satchel on his shoulder and paused on his way out. “Eventually, you’re going to have to talk to me.”
Cas said nothing as Dean let the door close behind him.
April smiled wanly as Michael joined her on the side porch. She sat in a cushioned chair with a light blanket tucked around her. He lifted her easily and maneuvered into a hammock chair hanging from the ceiling so that she nestled against his chest as the hammock began a slow circular pattern over the flagstones. The turban over her bald head had been replaced by spare bandages and a cute cotton cap, and she was down to a simple dressing on her cheek and temple. She was healing rapidly, but she was still skittish and sleepy.
“Close your eyes, Pete,” Michael urged. “I’ve got you.”
“I can’t seem to get enough sleep,” she told him in a weak, scratchy voice. On the lawn in the sunshine, the pups played raucous running games. Portia frolicked happily amidst shouting and sprinting children. It was a picture-perfect moment. Kali tossed a beanbag, hollered GO, and sent them all scurrying after it in glee. Michael smiled and stroked April’s arm with his thumb.
“Sleep all you need to,” he whispered. “There’s no rush. It’ll get better in time.”
“Will it?” April asked. Her eyes slid open at a furious shriek from Kat, claiming that she’d been cheated. They watched Kali calmly saunter across to untangle the kerfuffle. “Will things ever be the way they were?”
Michael chuckled and hugged her. “Doc says you’ll be yourself in a couple of months. Your hair will grow back, Pete. Your face will have minimal scars.” He ran his fingers over the deep dimple that now decorated her cheek near her mouth, a new permanent fixture that the surgeon swore would look charming once fully healed.
“But what about everything else?” she asked. She craned her neck to look back at him, noting that his expression seemed grim. “It’s all my fault, Michael. They aren’t even speaking to each other, and it’s my fault.”
“It’s not all your fault,” he disagreed. “Dean has to answer for his role in it too.”
“But he’s done that,” she protested. “He’s answered for more than his role. You know he has. Meanwhile, no one has said anything to me, when really, this whole mess is on me. It’s not right.”
“He can’t punish you yet, Pete…”
“He could talk to me!”
She fell silent. The chair slowed to a barely there sway. Michael nosed behind her ear.
“I was so afraid, Pete,” he told her softly. “All I could feel was Dean. I couldn’t sense you at all. For a few minutes, I thought you were gone. And my wolf went feral thinking Dean was hurt. I had to fight him to so much as remember you exist at all, even though you were clearly the worse off of the two of you. I ended up shoving my wolf into his kennel and locking the door just so I could focus on you at all. Then all I could think of was getting to where you both were, touching you to prove you were breathing. But they wouldn’t let me in. They said I’m not your kin.”
“Oh, Michael.”
“Not your kin? You believe that shit? Honestly though, they had a point. I had every chance to make you mine and I didn’t do it. Damn, I’ve been so stupid and stubborn and… I put up this wall between us, Pete, and I don’t even know why. I thought I was outsmarting everyone by refusing to play by their rules. But really, all I did was build a barrier between us, between you and me.”
“Their rules are stupid, baby,” she soothed. “No one should have had the right to keep you away from me.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done. But it got me to thinking.”
“Of course it did,” she muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s funny to me,” she whispered, “what gets your attention and what doesn’t.” She looked up at him for a moment then focused back on the pups. She whistled sharply to call Portia out of the duck pond. A wad of wet black fur clambered free and galloped up the slope toward them. April told the dog to sit, and she obeyed joyfully, beaming and dripping. April reached down to scratch her head and released her to return to the scrum on the lawn.
“You’re very good with her,” Michael observed.
“If I was good with her, she wouldn’t keep swimming with the ducks.”
“Pups will be pups,” he said. “Swimming is fun.”
“Michael,” she prompted.
“Look, don’t be mad at me, okay? It’s not that I put greater weight on everyone’s input but yours. You matter more than they do. It’s just that…” He stopped. Frowned. Struggled.
She waited, and when he couldn’t find the words, she offered him another avenue. “So what’s changed?”
“Pete, I want to marry you.”
“Oh.”
“And I will understand if that pisses you off. I get it. I’m stubborn and foolish, and it didn’t matter until someone in a position of authority told me no. But I need you to understand. It was never about that.”
“Until it was.”
On the lawn, Emma squealed as Portia knocked her down and soaked her through in an attempt to kiss her face. Before Kali could get to her, she was wailing. April whistled again, but the dog ignored her this time. Michael grunted and worked his way free.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Michael, I’m not mad,” April said. She took his hand before he made it out of reach. “We should talk about it. I want to understand you. I need to feel like you changed your mind for the right reasons. But I’m not mad. Why would I be?”
He kissed her fingers, touched her cheek, and turned to go.
“Michael, Kali can handle this. Please stay.”
He squeezed her hand. “I don’t know how to explain this,” he said. “I don’t understand it myself. Does it matter? Can’t we just…?”
“Get married?” she laughed.
Michael rolled his eyes. “What, you don’t want to now?”
April sobered. “You know that a hospital can still refuse to allow you in to see me even if we’re married, right? It doesn’t matter what’s just or fair. You’re Omega, Michael. To some people, that’s all you’ll ever be.”
Michael stared out over the tree line at the back of the property. “I want you, Pete.”
“You’ve got me.”
“No,” he countered, turning. He knelt before her. His eyes glinted gold, and he clutched her hand. “I want you. Marry me, April Renée. And to hell with everything else.”
She snickered, a bubble of mirth that couldn’t remain under wraps. “I knew you would eventually see it my way. To hell with everything else,” she repeated as he leaned in and claimed her lips in a reverent kiss.
He pulled free and let a touch of his wolf layer through his Omega. Just the slightest touch. “But just so we’re clear, if you ever endanger my mate like that again, I’ll skin you alive,” he whispered fiercely into her ear. “We both know Dean’s not solely to blame. I’m not kidding.”
April gasped. Her eyes shifted instantly to golden and widened in shock. He pulled back with a dark look.
Michael left her on the porch with the scent of disbelief and arousal in his nose. She wasn’t greenlighted for sex yet, and that fact wasn’t lost on either of them. He trotted down the slope to the rowdy greetings from his pups. Emma’s tears dried forgotten on her cheeks. Michael hoisted her into the air and flipped her before catching her securely and setting her back down to let Alex have a turn.
Alone on the porch, April chewed her lip and frowned.
Tensions in the Pack intensified daily. They bled into every interaction no matter how far removed from the echelon from whence they emanated. Short tempered bickering replaced affectionate touches and soft smiles. Kali and Jess both vanished from the public rooms altogether. A powder keg seemed destined to blow, and everyone but Cas worried that it would sweep the legs from under whoever stood on the lowest rung when it struck.
Could Adam have chosen his moment to switch loyalties, he wouldn’t have chosen now. But the timing was not his to name.
Defecting from one Pack to another is no easy matter. A court hearing to finalize Adam’s dissolution from the Lafitte Pack took a few weeks. Cas couldn’t file to be Adam’s Alpha until Benny approved the move. Red tape tangled around their ankles, slowing the process. Michael blew a gasket, as predicted, when he found a monumental chunk of his portfolio missing from the accounts, obliterating all their gains—and then some. Castiel offered him no explanation, although it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out where the money went.
At last, moving day arrived. Adam showed up on the front porch with Jack, Jo, Ben, and Lisa to help him move in. He didn’t bring much with him, but the show of support gave him the strength to step over the threshold and take up a new life. The Winchester Pack turned out in all its glory to welcome him, as instructed by the Alpha whom no one was in any position to defy. Adam stepped into the foyer to a rousing chorus of cheers. They may have been on tenterhooks behind closed doors, but everyone felt the need to present a unified face to the new guy. None of this mess was Adam’s fault, after all.
Jack and Ben hauled luggage in and passed it to the house staff. Lisa had one arm wrapped around Adam, hesitant to let him go. Kate took him by his free hand and tugged him toward the stairs. He stumbled along, Lisa in tow.
“Let’s figure out which room you want,” Kate said, giving Adam no real choice but to go along. He caught Sarah’s eye as he mounted the stairs. She shrugged noncommittally, following at the tail end of the parade. Cas fell in beside her and put a hand at her back as the Pack surged to the second floor en masse. Kate dashed from one unclaimed room to another, following no logical progression, opening doors, flicking on overhead lights, pointing out various views, explaining who occupied neighboring spaces and where routes of egress led. Adam already knew most of the house, but he couldn’t resist her enthusiasm. It bled through, and soon Adam, Jack, and Ben were caught up in the search for the perfect bedroom.
“Adam,” Ben called. “This one’s huge! It’s bigger than Meg and Ketch’s whole house!”
“No it’s not.” Adam poked his head in. It was enormous—cavernous even. But Adam knew that Sarah’s room was right next door, and he knew better than to try to settle here. He knew she bore a quiet longing to join the two spaces and carve herself a suite like Gabriel’s. “Come on, squirt. There’s another one down the hall. I’m thinking something smaller. Think about what you know about Ozzies, Ben. I need a nest, not an auditorium.”
“Okay,” Ben agreed cheerfully. He closed the door and darted back down the hall, delighted at the opportunity to tour the big house. Adults smiled at the teen’s fervor and energy. Pups fed off the momentum and soon took to racing down the length of the hall, screeching at the top of their lungs.
“Welcome to the jungle, man,” Sam shouted over the bedlam.
“Where do the pups sleep?” Adam shouted back, rounding the corner from the tearoom. “Find me the furthest space from there.”
Both Packs laughed.
“Why?” asked Michael. “You don’t wanna bunk with them? They would love that.”
“Piggyback, Adam!” Jimmy yelled at a volume better suited to a rugby match. Adam stooped and let the boy clamber up. “Go, horsy, go!” He kicked his heels viciously into Adam’s ribs.
Adam galloped forward, trailed by a gaggle of pups all clamoring for a turn.
“You’ve put your foot in it now,” Dean told him as he pulled Jimmy off the Ozzie. “Now you have to give each of them a go. You thought twins were rough. Get ready for quads.” Adam laughed and let Alex climb onto his back. “Or, really,” Dean went on, “when you think about, Sam probably wants a piggyback ride too, so…”
“Jerk,” said Sam.
Dean grinned at him. But as Sam slid past, Emma hanging from one hand with her feet off the ground and Kat from the other, Dean’s eyes landed on Cas, and his smile vanished. The Alpha was watching Dean, forbidding and unyielding. Dean’s mouth fell slack. Cas pulled off the wall he’d been leaning against and followed Adam and the rest of the Pack, leaving Dean and Sarah standing forlorn and alone in an instant and unnatural quiet.
“Dude!” Ben shouted, rounding the corner again. “There’s a dumbwaiter!” He pulled up short. “Where’d they all go?”
Dean pointed.
When Ben jogged away, Sarah stepped closer and held out a hand to Dean. He took it. He squeezed.
“It’s going to get better,” she said with perceptive eyes on his face. “No one ever said marriage was easy.”
“I know,” he agreed. “I hate feeling helpless in this though. I can’t force anything. All I can do is wait for him.”
“Says who?” Sarah challenged. “Who says you can’t stand right up in his face and demand he look you in the eye and let his walls down?”
“I mean, it’s kind of what we agreed to,” Dean muttered. “Me taking a back seat and following his lead.”
“Bullshit” she blurted. “Dean, that’s ridiculous!”
“This isn’t a roleplay to me, Sarah. I gave him that power. I gave it to him, and I’d do it again.”
“Dean, seriously. This isn’t about the power exchange. He’s using you as the rug he beats his feelings against!”
“I know that,” Dean replied under his breath.
“You do. You know.”
Dean sighed. At the far end of the hall, the tour re-emerged. Michael led the way back toward Dean and Sarah. He ushered Adam into a room in the middle of the hall. He cast a curious look down at his mate, but he didn’t divert.
Ben dragged Jack all the way down to where Dean stood with Sarah, trailed by all six pups now. Jess had obviously arrived with her boys, and the twins had folded themselves into the flock. “Come see this! It’s a dumbwaiter!”
“Ho!” Dean threw a hand in his path. “Hold up, Ben. The pups don’t know about that risky bit of technology yet. We don’t need any broken necks.”
“Oh shit, sorry, alpha.” Ben pulled up. Six preschoolers tumbled past and then reversed to race back up the corridor.
“Language, beta,” Dean grumbled, sneaking a peek down the hall where Michael was just re-emerging from what appeared to be Adam’s new chosen bedroom. Michael frowned at him and cocked his head in question. Dean shook his head. He reciprocated when Sarah wrapped an arm around his waist. They stood near the end of the hall and let the boisterous mood dodge and feint about them, cocooned in a bubble of their own.
Cas came back out of the bedroom with a warm smile and his arm over Adam’s shoulder, his other hand in Kat’s. Dean averted his face. Sarah tugged him into motion and led him to her room. She closed the door behind him. His sniffle clued her in that they’d dodged out of sight just in time before the waterworks overwhelmed him. She found herself within his embrace with his face burrowed into her shoulder. Sarah wrapped him up in her arms. She couldn’t fathom how the alpha who seemed so powerful and self-assured in public could be this vulnerable in private. He seemed smaller. He seemed younger. She teared up as his shoulders shook, and she rocked him slowly.
The door cracked open, and Michael stepped in. Sarah eased Dean onto his mate’s shoulder. Michael included her when he brought his arms up. She chuckled wetly. “Group hug?” she posed with a sniffle.
“Best kind,” Michael agreed.
“This isn’t okay, Michael,” she told him, speaking over Dean’s head. “He’s going to Fall again. He can’t take repeated hits like this. Like, there’s no letup; it’s just hit after hit after hit. Someone has to talk to him. April’s fine. She’s down there chilling out in the parlor with a ginger ale waiting for the Pack to come down for dinner. She’s not dead, for fuck’s sake! What the hell is Castiel’s problem?”
“I know,” Michael told her. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.” He let Sarah out of the hug. She planted herself a few feet away.
“Well then quit trying to understand it and go make him listen! Your wolf is closer in rating to his than anyone’s. You’ve gone toe to toe with him before. Dean is your mate, Michael! You have a responsibility to protect him! Look at him!”
“You don’t understand the dynamics,” Michael told her with his hands in motion over Dean’s back and shoulders.
“Bullshit,” Sarah charged. “I understand just fine. You’re worried that he’ll step in and put a stop to your wedding. That’s what this is.”
Michael made a frustrated face, cast his eyes to the ceiling and grumbled, “Yeah, that’s what this is,” in a sarcastic tone.
Dean pulled out of Michael’s arms and wiped his eyes with his sleeve, then his nose. “This isn’t helping, guys,” he complained. “I’m okay. I’m not falling. I’m not going to fall. It just got a little thick out there and I needed a minute.” They both watched him critically but neither contradicted him. He took a centering breath. “Tonight isn’t about me. It’s about Adam. And that means,” Dean focused his attention on Sarah, “it’s about you more than me. Are you okay to join us downstairs? It’s okay if you’re not. I know this is a lot.”
Sarah smiled gamely and held her hands wide. “Ready and raring to go, alpha. It’ll take more than an ex sleeping right down the hall to keep me locked in my room. Besides, it’s not my job to make this any easier on him than it is on me.”
“That’s my girl,” Dean smiled.
“I was here first, Dean.”
“Yes, you were,” he agreed with a smug grin.
Michael sat down on the side of the bed. “So, answer me this,” he posed toward Sarah. “Did Cas bring you in on his plans with Adam or did you get blindsided?”
“Why? Are you looking for more reasons to be pissed at him?” she asked in return. “Don’t you have enough already?”
“Seriously?” Michael ruffled. “Okay, I’m done talking to you.”
Sarah laughed. “Calm down, Michael. Yes, I knew. He talked to me about all of it. His long game is a doozy this time. But it makes sense.”
Michael leveled her with a disbelieving look, and she shrugged.
“Did it have to be Adam he brought in for this? Probably not,” she admitted.
“He’s playing matchmaker,” Michael told her, watching her carefully.
Sarah snorted. “That’s ridiculous. Adam was the best candidate out of the list that Cas already knows. It’s either tap him or put out an ad online and take applicants.”
It was Michael’s turn to wax incredulity. “Come on, Sarah. You’re not this stupid.”
“Ohhhhhh-kay,” Dean broke in. “Time to break this up before someone takes offense. Come on, both of you. Celebratory Pack dinner. Benny and crew are probably here by now, and we still have to unload the truck and get Adam’s crap in off the driveway.” He led the way to the door, shrugging Michael’s hand off of his shoulder when his mate offered a supportive touch. “I’m fine, Michael. Leave it.”
Michael growled under his breath, but he let his mate go.
They single-filed toward the back stairs that led down to the kitchen, skirting the stream of heavy-lifters carting Adam’s books and sundry belongings to his new bedroom. “Did you notice which room he chose?” Michael asked Sarah airily. “Right next to your office? Right next to the room you two broke up in? Think that was accidental? It was Cas who suggested it.”
“Michael, you’re a dick,” Sarah muttered, squeezing past him at the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey,” Dean put his hand in the center of Michael’s chest and stopped him at the base of the stairs. “What the hell, man? Isn’t today hard enough for her? Why press into the wound?”
Michael took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I dunno,” he answered. “Something’s fishy. Tell me it hasn’t occurred to you that Sarah may have put Alpha up to this, that you haven’t thought it might have come together as a plan after she cried in his arms and sparked his Papa Bear instincts. You know he sees them together.”
“Damnit, Omega, that makes no difference either way right now. You might suspect something, but you don’t know a damned thing, so err on the side of not being an asshole for now. That’s an order. Lay off her.”
Michael rolled his eyes and started to push past Dean, but the alpha took hold of his bicep and pulled him up short. “Apologize to her, Michael,” he said.
“Fine,” Michael spat.
“Omega?”
“Fine!”
Dean glowered. His hand clamped like a vice on Michael’s arm. Michael deflated, softening, meeting his alpha’s eyes at last. “Yes, sir,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know you don’t need any more pressure. I’m on edge. This thing between you and Cas, it fucks up everything, everybody. No one’s settled right now. All it takes is the slightest tweak to set us at each other’s throats.”
“Man, you need to lock it up. You’re one of that girl’s Dominants. You can’t act like a petulant child with her. If you have suspicions, you can bring them to me. Hell, you can ask Sarah directly. Be an adult here. Talk to us. But don’t shoot barbs at her on the single hardest day of her fucking life! And don’t blame Cas. This isn’t Cas, Michael. It’s you.”
“Damn, alpha, are you for real? Look around you, Dean. This Pack is standing on a crumbling cliff. I need to feel solid ground under my feet. Does this feel like solid ground to you? And we’re bringing in another Omega? I’m expected to Dom for,” he counted off on his fingers, “Kate, Sarah, Adam, you. But I’m not feeling supported at all. My Secondary feels like it’s on quicksand. So, did I lash out at Sarah? Was that unfair? Man, I don’t even know. Okay? I can’t tell. You say I’m being a dick, and maybe you’re right. I’ll go apologize. I’ll back off her. Whatever Adam’s doing here…he’s here now. I’ll do my bit for him. It’s not like I don’t know how to manage his wolf. He’s a piece of cake compared to Sarah. We can even Top him together if you want. But…just…Dean, things are fucked up, and Cas is the source. I need you to see that so we can fix it. Someone needs to hold him accountable!”
Dean pulled Michael’s head forward and kissed his forehead. “We’re going to fix it, Omega. Trust me. First though, you need a Release. You’re wound tighter than a steel drum.”
Michael sighed. “Can you put it off until bedtime?”
Dean smirked. “If you don’t goad me to act sooner.”
“I’ll try,” Michael groused.
Dean hugged him. “You know, Sarah told me once that Adam still has a crush on you. I figured back then that it wasn’t actionable information, but now…”
“Actionable information,” Michael repeated. “No. Sam’s the one building a harem. I’m just the substitute teacher. I’m only supposed to fill in when everyone else is out of pocket to keep Subs from falling through the cracks. Alpha promised I wouldn’t need to take a bigger role than that. My Tertiary focus is you, Dean. And it always will be. Not them.”
Dean smacked his lips. “Maybe. But your Primary and Secondary focus is going to be on planning a wedding and managing a marriage. And you still have Gage under your wing. Add Adam, even as a fallback Dom, and your dance card is fucking packed. It wouldn’t hurt to lean your wolf into playing with Adam, so it has another route to let off steam.”
“We don’t want an extravagant wedding, just something intimate and elegant. Aside from the wedding, nothing else really changes.”
Dean chuckled. “Right.”
“Come on, alpha. Dinner. Something smells amazing out there.”
Two Packs crowded around the dining room table, extended to its maximum length. The Lafittes took places in amongst the Winchesters, bringing their own vibe to the table and offering Adam a gentle farewell, a show of support proving that his happiness mattered more than any Pack roster. Benny brought a bottle of absurdly expensive champagne, handed it over with a wink, and let the unspoken message lie in subtext. Michael grunted in irritation, quickly stifled at a look from his mate.
Castiel presided from the head of the table, a king in his court, solemn and formal, but attentive to his mate, to his new Ozzie, whom he placed at his left-hand, opposite April. He moved Sarah to Gabriel’s spot at the other end of the table, setting her between Dean and Kali. Enough distance separated the head from the foot that conversation was virtually impossible down its full length. Dean kept an eye and a hand on Sarah to brace her. Kali kept her engaged in distracting conversation. A pall lingered in the liminal conversation spaces, mostly ignored by Ben and Meg, whose laughter cracked the tension just enough to highlight it.
Surreptitious glances down the table, where husbands held separate conversations without acknowledging each other, created a constant tug that both alphas pretended not to notice. Dean’s sparkling mask hid his hurt. Practiced at wielding it, even his scent carried no hint that he wasn’t as copacetic as he seemed. But he was reactive more than his usual proactive, letting Jess and Kali direct most of the conversation. His light quips landed, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Sam and Michael mostly ate in strained silence. They leaned across Jess a few times to whisper with one another. Dean pretended not to notice that too.
After dinner, the group moved into the parlor to witness Adam’s oaths. Adam had asked that the Alpha merge his acceptance of the Ozzie’s oaths with his Claim ceremony, marrying the two steps into a single ritual to help Adam’s psyche make a tough jump from one Pack to the other. Adam asked to make the Claim public in the main room, and the Alpha agreed. It turned out that decision lit a spark that ignited some of the tension. Unfortunately, it was young Ben who took the brunt of the conflagration.
Shit always runs downhill…
“Head on upstairs, kiddo,” Lisa told her son as she chose a seat on one of the sofas. “I’ll come get you when the Claim is done. You remember where the TV room is?”
“Follow me, Ben,” Charlie told him with her hand out toward him. “I’ll show you.”
“What?” he asked with a step back. “No. I wanna stay. I wanna see too.”
“Sorry, beta,” Jo said, agreeing with Lisa. “You’re too young to witness this.”
“Bullshit,” Ben argued. “You and Jack fuck all over the house! I’ve seen all kinds of things. Why is this any different? I’m old enough!”
Lisa sighed and stood to face her son. “Because it’s a Tertiary Claim, and because I said so. You’re too young.”
“You never let me do anything! I’m thirteen! I’m not a pup! Why do you always have to embarrass me like this?” Ben’s face reddened as his outrage exploded, funneling hours of pent communal tension into an angsty outburst. “You’re the worst mother! I fucking hate you!”
Jack whistled sharply from the kitchen doorway with an uncharacteristically stern expression. He beckoned Ben with a nod toward the kitchen. Ben glanced around, realizing he had every eye, including both Pack Alphas, and he paled.
“Alpha, please,” he petitioned Cas.
Cas didn’t reply. Benny cleared his throat.
Pressure weighed heavy.
“Ben,” Jack said. “Now.”
Ben sighed, putting the injustice against a million teens into the sound. He trudged toward Jack, still stone-faced in the archway. Jack collected the boy with a hand on his upper arm, a hard swat to his backside and a hard whisper into his ear as he led Ben away.
“That was not acceptable, beta.”
“You’re not my father, beta,” Ben shot back, loud enough to be heard in the parlor.
Jack marched him out into the garage and then turned him loose. Ben turned on him, confrontational, his wolf right up front with its ruff standing upright.
“Don’t,” Jack warned. “Don’t test me. You won’t like how it goes.”
“How am I going to understand this stuff if no one ever lets me see anything?” Ben challenged. “I Presented. My wolf is mature. Jack, I’m ready! Why does everybody treat me like a fucking baby?”
“Maybe because you’re thirteen,” Jack replied. “And your shouting at your mom isn’t doing you any favors, kid.”
“Thirteen! Not three!”
Jack pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No one thinks you’re three. You’re at the toughest age though. We know it’s hard, Ben. We know how hard it is to have a wolf demanding things you can’t give it yet. You’re curious, I get it. And I’m here for you. Ask me anything. But when your mom says no, the answer is no. You don’t get to lash out like that. There are consequences for a reason.”
Ben glowered, furious and impotent.
“Can you bottle that wolf up on your own or do you need help?” Jack asked patiently.
Ben clamped his jaw tightly, refusing to answer.
“Look, Ben, I get it. There’s a reason Alpha put me in charge of managing your wolf. I know how hard it is, man. I’ve been there. I really do know what you’re going through. I grew up without a dad too. No one’s saying it’s easy. No one’s saying you should be able to manage it all by yourself. No one thinks that. No one thinks you’re a bad pup. But you’re not ready for this, Ben. I’m telling you. It’s not sex. It’s violence. You think you’re ready because you’ve got the internet and you’ve seen some things on a screen, because you’ve seen things at the dog park. I’m telling you; this is different…”
“I know it’s different!” Ben shouted. “That’s why I want to be there! You think you know what it’s like for me, but you don’t know anything! You’re a Neutral, Jack! There’s no way my wolf is Neutral! I need to feel what it’s like in there! I need to see it! I need to scent it! I need my wolf to see it!”
Jack hardened his features, growled with menace, and advanced on the boy. Ben flinched instinctively and averted his eyes. Jack halted and softened. “There, Ben. You see? That response?” Jack said calmly, easing himself back to base level. “That’s a Submissive reaction. You did that because you’re not a grownup yet. I don’t know how your Tertiary will shake out when it’s mature. No one does. Your childhood persona still controls your instincts. Man, that’s perfectly normal. But if nothing else, it proves you’re still a pup.”
“I hate you,” Ben groused, humiliated.
“Yeah, I know,” Jack said sadly. “I know. Look, I can get some videos of the real deal and you and I can sit down together and talk them through. You’ll have the Facility adolescent training in a few months. We’re going to make sure you get all the support you need before you come of age.”
“Keep it,” Ben snarled. “I’ll do my own research.”
“You’ll do as you’re told,” Jack replied without missing a beat. “Which starts with drop your pants and hold onto the table.” He pointed.
“Whatever,” Ben said coldly. “Use me as your practice pup. You’ll replace me the second you get one of your own. We both know this is just so you can pretend you’re someone’s dad.” He shoved his dress slacks to his ankles and took a well-practiced position. Jack bit his tongue in favor of seeing the process through. He wasn’t under any illusions that he could make much headway with Ben while the boy was in full tantrum mode. Managing an adolescent Tertiary strained the best parent-pup relationships, and Jack wasn’t Ben’s father. But the thirteen-year-old needed someone holding his wolf’s leash until he learned to do it himself.
He needed to know his Pack cared about him.
And Ben needed to know the entire Pack had his back, not just his mother. Lisa was good with Ben, but she needed a Pack behind her. Raising pups alone could be a nightmare when they reached the tween stage between Presentation and full maturity.
Jack spanked Ben efficiently. He made it impersonal and nonconfrontational. He didn’t talk. He didn’t demand anything from Ben but to stand and take it. When he finished, he offered Ben a hug but wasn’t surprised or hurt when he was rebuffed.
He let Ben pull his pants back into place and wipe his eyes with his sleeve while facing away.
Jack felt like a jerk, like he’d betrayed Ben’s need for an older brother, despite the truth that what Ben truly needed was a firm hand.
“Head on up the back stairs. Before we leave tonight, you’ll apologize for your outburst to Alpha Castiel. You’ll apologize to Alpha Benny. Most of all, you’ll apologize to your mother.”
Ben nodded, chastened, facing the worktable. He sniffled. Jack held the door for him and made sure Ben took a left up the stairs from the kitchen. Jack returned to the parlor slowly so as not to draw attention to himself. Adam was nude, on his feet with tears running down his cheeks, his arms wrapped around Castiel. Cas kissed the Ozzie’s temple and hugged him back. Jack smiled as Adam extracted himself to accept hugs from the rest of his new Pack. He applauded along with the crowd, noticing the ambience was much lighter now than when he’d escorted Ben out. Lisa mouthed him a thank you, and Jack offered a gentlemanly bow. Jo joined him with a soft kiss and proud twinkle in her eye. He pulled her close and kissed her deeply.
“That was hard,” he whispered to his mate.
“Buck up, you big loser,” Jo teased, and Jack bit her earlobe in retaliation. Jo laughed and jerked free. But their lighthearted teasing damped at the sound that broke from Castiel’s throat. All of the Omegas, all of the Subs lowered at once. It looked like the floor had dropped half a foot. Cas’ formal attire lay crumpled on the floor where he’d discarded every stitch. Each face turned toward the Alpha as he manhandled his Ozzie off the floor and crashed with him against the wall beside the fireplace. Adam grunted. His breath left him. Castiel attacked his shoulder with Alpha teeth, reveling that he could bite to his wolf’s heart’s content and not risk Mating the boy.
Adam’s knees gripped Cas’ ribs, shaking, kicking out. He clearly felt utterly overwhelmed. His fingers clawed at the Alpha’s shoulders, digging gouges in his flesh—bleeding stripes that wouldn’t scar no matter how deeply they scored. Adam whimpered as Cas breached his channel, thrusting hard with a deep growl in his throat. Blood dribbled down Adam’s chest from puncture wounds on his shoulder.
Unnoticed, Dean slipped out of the parlor and took the stairs two at a time. He sent a silent apology to Adam, but he couldn’t watch his husband unleash passion that wild when he hadn’t felt it for weeks.
This mess was stretching into weeks, and Dean had no idea what to do. He wanted to confront the man, demand to be taken seriously, demand to be seen and not looked straight through. But Castiel was in the throes of something he hadn’t experienced since his adolescence. Dean could feel the disconnect in him. Pressing him before he was ready would only drive him away. Never before in their history had the two men’s needs so disastrously diverged. Dean hadn’t seen a hint of Cas’ wolf since the last time they scened two days before the accident. Cas had been ensconced in his alpha for three weeks. Right now though, downstairs in front of a host of people, Cas’ wolf was taking that young man apart.
For Adam, the wolf showed up. For Dean, he still hid. No matter the reason, it hurt.
Dean heard wailing from his pups’ room, and he picked up the pace. Monica looked up as he came in, clearly frustrated. “Thank god,” she said. “I didn’t want to interrupt downstairs, sir, but they’re all mad, all of them. They want their Alpha. I tried to distract them with music, with games, with a book. They aren’t going for it.” As she spoke, six angry preschoolers rushed Dean’s legs. He dropped to one knee and reached for Emma and Hank, letting the others crowd close, each of them yelling their own disgruntlement. He sat down right in the doorway when they began to seek his lap.
Drying puppy tears offered Dean the route to prevent his own meltdown. He spoke soothing, calming words—words he craved hearing, words of reassurance and unconditional devotion. Eventually he made it up to his knees and knee-walked further into the room. He let Monica go, promising he had the pups until they were asleep.
Dean had no intention of returning to the parlor. Adam didn’t need that resentment in his nose on his special day.
Dean wasn’t Alpha, but evidently, he was a suitable substitute. Six pups settled, especially when Ben poked his head in and asked if he could help, saying that Monica prompted him to come check in and offer a hand. Dean smiled and ushered him in. JT gravitated to the cool older boy, and Jimmy trailed wherever JT went. Dean found it adorable, preschooler hero-worship or whatever it was. Ben seemed to enjoy the spotlight. He settled on his back in Alex’s bed with a book, one boy in the crook of each arm and Ace watching with wide eyes and two fingers in his mouth, and he read to them.
Dean lowered the lights as pups started yawning.
Eventually, all six dropped off.
“Their routine always goes to hell when we have Pack functions,” he whispered to Ben. He adjusted the blankets over Kat and Ace, sharing Kat’s bed. “It’s way past their bedtime, but they can feel the aggression from downstairs even this far away. Can you smell it?”
Ben nodded, blushing in the darkness. “Why aren’t you down there?”
Dean had been expecting the question, but it rankled anyway.
“Aren’t you going to make a Claim too?” Ben asked. “Omegas need a Claim from every alpha, right?”
“Yeah, eventually,” Dean said dismissively choosing to answer the last question and ignore the first two. “Lots of time for that. Tonight is Alpha’s gig.”
Ben nodded and watched the convoluted emotions play across his face until Dean cleared his throat and looked away. The boy said nothing while Dean fiddled with the intercom to set it to white noise at the softest volume.
“Dean can I ask you a question?” Ben asked before biting his lower lip.
“Sure, sprout, but I can’t promise I’ll give you a different answer than your mom did.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks. I noticed no one rushed to my defense.”
Dean chuckled and sat down on the floor between beds. “You do know what we all do for a living, right? You think anyone in that room down there is confused about what impact a DF from the Alpha might have on a thirteen-year-old? Come on, Ben. You know better than that.”
“How old were you the first time you did it?” Ben asked.
“A DF?” Dean queried.
“Nah, alpha, I mean sex. Like, at all. With another person.”
Dean chuckled at the clarification. “Too young.”
“How old?”
“Different time, kid. We didn’t have the support structures then that we have now, even with strong families like mine was.”
“So, you’re not going to tell me?”
Dean licked his lips and rolled his shoulders. “I was twelve. And I was stupid. And I was way too young.”
“You were twelve?”
“Look, I Presented Alpha at a time when we didn’t know that the wolf emerges first. I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was broken, dude. My dad didn’t know how to talk me through it because his wolf was so different from mine. He assumed I needed the same things he did. But I needed…ugh…I haven’t thought about this in ages. I needed a firm hand that wasn’t Dad’s. I needed something I couldn’t put a name to, and it was embarrassing and confusing, and the only thing I knew to do was go looking for it in secret. I thought my dad would be ashamed of me, an alpha, playing the Bottom role, but when I tried it, it felt so right I never looked back. But, man, I did some stupid things, risky things.”
“Did your dad ever find out?”
“You looking for pointers? Planning to sneak out?” Dean asked.
Ben shook his head. The tips of his ears reddened. “I’m not ready to try any of that. Like, I’m not even tempted to actually do it. But the curiosity is killing me. I wanna know what it’s really all about. And I…can’t keep my hands off…you know…myself. I guess I just wanna know that’s…not weird?”
Dean smiled softly at him. “It’s not weird, Ben. It’s normal. Everything you do with your own body is normal. It’s healthy. For almost every one of us, it’s necessary. Couple of important things though. Make sure you’re in private because you’re still really young, and it’s no one’s business but your own. You’ll get a whole boatload of information dumped on you about consent and self-care when you’re a little older. It’ll tie into all the lessons they’ve given you already, but it will be more explicitly tied to sex. Doing anything sexual, even to yourself, where someone who hasn’t consented is exposed to it, is not okay. But masturbation rules are simple, man. Don’t harm yourself. Don’t neglect your life and your family and your friends. Do only what feels good to you…or…right… Do what feels right. Do whatever feels right, even if that’s different from what your friends talk about liking.”
Ben nodded, embarrassed but intrigued. “Is there a difference between what feels good and what feels right?” he asked with a frown.
Dean cleared his throat. “Some people like pain. Some people crave things that don’t necessarily feel good, but they serve a purpose.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, I knew that…”
“Just keep it on the lighter side if you feel like going there. Don’t injure yourself. Ben, your wolf is still figuring out who it is, what it feeds off of. Masturbation is a great way to let it speak to you, to tell you what it wants. Close your eyes and let the fantasy reels roll through your mind. Nothing is off-limits in fantasy. Don’t be afraid of those images. Don’t let your front-brain assign judgments to them. They are what they are. Some of them might turn into plans for your adult play when you’re grown. Some of them will stay fantasy. Some of them might never pop up again.”
“Okay,” Ben said, a little breathless.
“I’ll level with you. That’s where I got tangled up when I was your age. I didn’t know that Tertiary play doesn’t have to be examined by my front brain every damn minute.” Dean shrugged in the dark and then changed direction. “I have a question for you now.”
“Um, shoot,” Ben answered.
“Why are you asking me instead of someone in your own Pack?”
Ben rocked a little and frowned. “It’s not that I don’t trust them,” he said. “It’s not. It’s just, it feels like they still see me as a little kid, and I can’t tell if I’m getting the whole story.”
“Do you know what shame feels like?” Dean asked, thumbing the seam of his slacks to give him somewhere to look other than the boy who seemed antsy. “Do you think you might be having trouble working your wolf to the front sometimes?”
“Wolves don’t experience shame,” Ben said. “That’s what Benny told me.”
“That’s right,” Dean agreed. “So, if you feel shame about what you do in private, you’re not in your wolf. And that’s okay sometimes. Lupins are sexual beings in all of their designations…except the aces of course. Or, well, shit, that’s not true either. Aces can be sexual too.” Dean scrubbed his hand over his face. “Sorry. I’m getting off topic. At your age, at your level of maturity, it’s time to let your wolf up front sometimes and give it something to chew on. If you find yourself too embarrassed, too ashamed of those moments on your own, with your own hand or whatnot, it might help to try luring your wolf out of the shadows. You should have practiced that at school by now.”
Ben didn’t answer. He looked troubled. Dean caught his eye by lowering his head. “I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong here, kid. And you don’t have to tell me anything. I’m just reading your vibe. It’s been a minute since I was thirteen, and I didn’t have a smooth go of it.”
“No, I… I think my wolf is… he’s there most of the time. I don’t feel ashamed when I’m… when it’s happening. It’s just hard to talk about later, I guess? Like, I have questions, but it’s embarrassing to ask them. What does that mean?”
Dean chuckled softly. “Probably means your wolf leads your alone time and your Primary is in front when you’re talking about it. Perfectly normal, Benjamin. Your wolf will emerge more and more as you get older. Right now, it’s sharing space with the Submissive inside you from your childhood. It’s a confusing time, I know, especially if your wolf turns out different from your Secondary and different from your juvenile designation.”
“Juvenile designation?”
Dean nodded. “All pups are Submissives. The juvenile designation lives in your Primary, but it fades out when you come of age. When the wolf appears somewhere between six and ten, it may reinforce that Submissiveness, adding a sexual tone to it that isn’t there initially… that’s how mine went. Or it might clash with that juvenile Sub. Even a solid Neutral wolf is jarring next to a pup’s Submissive designation. It makes it so hard to navigate the social rules when you’ve got this crazy push-pull of opposing designations inside you.”
“Is that what’s wrong with me, Dean? Why I get so mad?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Ben. It’s hard for everyone, adolescence. Sometimes you’ll lose your temper. Sometimes you’ll feel so sad or lonely or misunderstood that you can’t stand to be in your own skin, can’t stand anyone around you. Now, I have no idea what your wolf might turn out to be. We don’t have a way to measure it until you’re sixteen. Maturing Tertiaries get too tangled up with fading juvenile Submissives. The only clear differentiations show up during sex, which we can’t explore with pups. But whatever it is, it’s you. It’s normal. It’s wonderful. It’ll be so much of what makes you you that no one else in the world will be quite like you. This confusion you’re feeling, it’ll get better. I promise. You’ve got some amazing people on your side, and they are all pulling for you.”
“Controlling me, more like,” Ben added sourly.
Dean kicked at his foot to get him to look up. “Yeah. Controlling your wolf. Because you can’t yet. Don’t get your panties in a wad over it. It’s necessary. Pay attention to what your Pack reacts to and how they respond. As you mature, you’ll learn to take over for them. You’ll learn what parts of your wolf to give to a partner and what parts to manage for yourself. No one’s born knowing how to do that. It’s learned. And the best environment to learn it is a Pack exactly like yours. You won the lottery, Ben.”
“Except for not having a dad.”
Dean sighed. “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”
The door clicked softly as it opened. Michael peeked in. He whispered, “Lisa’s ready to go. She’s looking for Ben.”
“He helped me get the rug rats to bed,” Dean explained as he hauled himself to his feet.
Ben followed them into the hall, and Michael closed the door behind them. “Michael, Jack told me I needed to apologize to Alpha Winchester before we leave. Is he still downstairs?”
Michael nodded. “He’s in the kitchen. Want me to come with you?”
Ben hesitated, clearly warring over whether to man up and handle it on his own or request backup. Michael took the choice out of his hands. “I’ll come with you. Come on, squirt. Apologies suck, but they’re a part of life. Might as well get used to them.”
“Ugh!” Ben protested, but he let Michael lead him away.
Dean wandered to the top of the stairs and stood peering over the banister, reading the scents unconsciously. He had desperately missed the particular scent Cas gave off when ensconced in his wolf. It was balefire. Sharp. A mix of lightning and dread, and it brought prickles to the hairs at the back of Dean’s neck.
Jess spotted him and gestured for him to join her with the Packs on the lower level. Against his better judgment, he trudged down the stairs and took the hand she offered.
“We’re going out,” she told her brother-in-law, “all of us. Adam wants to let his hair down a little.”
“Hard pass,” Dean grumped.
“Dean, come on,” Jess urged. “It’ll do you good. You haven’t left the house except to work in weeks.”
“Someone needs to stay with April,” he pointed out. “And for the pups. You go. I’ll look after your boys.”
“This has gone on too long,” Sam said darkly.
“You stay out of it,” Dean warned his brother. “Don’t go thinking you can get a few drinks in you and challenge him. He’ll wipe the floor with you. Back the fuck off, Sammy!”
“I’m not scared of him,” Sam countered. “Someone needs to put a stop to this!”
“Sam, I mean it. You get yourself into a scrape and I’m going to leave your ass there. You don’t have to like it, but it’s my business and Cas’. Stay out of it.” He stared Sam down until the beta raised his hands and turned away, fuming in silence. Dean was nowhere near occupying his wolf, and he wasn’t having it. A Deep alpha in full fettle would always Top a beta, even if the beta had a point.
“Oh, hey, Jack,” Dean called into the parlor. “Got a second?” He put one beta out of his mind and looked instead to a brief chat with Ben’s mentor.
Three weeks dragged into four. A weary ACRI/Keller contingent dragged themselves back from the Las Vegas convention, drained but triumphant. Dean entered his own kitchen, still ramped on the high of success and pulled up short when his husband reversed course in the archway with a mumbled welcome home.
“Goddamnit,” Dean muttered under his breath.
Michael collected the duffel from Dean’s shoulder and walked backward with his and Dean’s luggage in hand. “Enough,” Michael said. “You have twenty-four hours to talk him around, or Sam and I will do it for you.”
Dean wilted. “You’re only going to make things worse.” His wolf was beginning to fray around the edges with only Michael looking after it. Dean had abruptly gone from a scorching six or eight scenes per week, split in a whiplash frenzy between two Doms with very different appetites, to a staid three or four that were beginning to rub more than they eased. Michael was doing his best, but his best couldn’t make up for Castiel’s absence. Michael slowed and weakened in his fervor as the weeks dragged by. He was a sprinter, not a marathoner. At his mate’s ultimatum, Dean couldn’t summon the will to stake an alpha’s prerogative against him this time. Cons wore him out on top of all his other stressors.
“Then you do it,” Michael said reasonably. He faced forward again and dropped his burdens when April vaulted into his arms with a delighted squeal. Dean sighed and picked his own bundle back up. With a hand at the back of April’s head, he pried her lips free of Michael’s and kissed them chastely before studiously returning her to her make-out session. He lumbered into the parlor, leaving them to it.
She giggled. “Welcome home, Dean!” she called over her shoulder. Michael reclaimed her lips.
“Glad someone’s in a good mood,” Dean muttered.
Wednesday morning rolled around far too early for Dean, still groggy from too little sleep and general jetlag, but he hauled himself to work, dark bags under his eyes or no. He went through the motions, congratulating himself on holding it all together.
And then, quite without warning, it all tumbled out.
One moment he and Jo disagreed about a curriculum change, an occurrence they had navigated countless times without bloodshed, and the next:
“Fuck this, Harvelle! You know so much about it, take it! Fucking take it! I don’t give a fuck! And you know what else? Fuck you, while you’re at it. I don’t need this bullshit! I’m done! I’m over it! I’m out. Quit.”
“Dean…” Jo’s expression registered utter shock. Traffic in the hallway came to a dead standstill. “I didn’t mean…” Jo had no idea what to say. She and Dean bickered constantly, but he never talked to her like that.
“Winchester!”
Dean looked up to see Josie Sands strolling purposefully toward them. Jo sighed. She shot Dean a worried look, but she couldn’t stop Josie from leading him away. Though Dean shrugged her hand off, he let her take him to Billie’s office. Billie put a finger up as they entered, but one look at Dean’s face and she cut her call short.
“What happened?”
Dean stood mute so Josie filled the Facility Alpha in on the details of Dean’s very public outburst. Billie listened impassively, watching Dean’s face. She pulled a correction slip pad from her top desk drawer and checked multiple boxes, Then she called the hallway camera’s footage up on her desktop and watched it play out. Three more boxes earned tick-marks on the slip.
“In the middle of the hallway?” Billie asked him. He ground his teeth. “At lunchtime. Right across from the lunchroom. That’s an Ozzie class walking out from lunch. What am I going to do with you, Dean? I can’t let this go.”
“Then don’t,” he told her coldly. “You do whatever you gotta.”
“That’s a G-fourteen infraction at the very least,” she said, measuring his scent and his tension. “It’s been a long time since we had to go there with you. What’s going on?”
“I’m done, Billie,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “I’m out. Take your pound of flesh or whatever and post an ad to replace me. I’m through. I can’t do this anymore.”
Both women stared, shocked, disbelieving.
“Should I…?” Josie began.
“Get Cas,” Billie finished for her.
Dean grunted in displeasure. “Cas isn’t going to fix this,” he protested. “It has nothing to do with him.”
“If you say so. But be that as it may, he needs to know that his Training Director has plans to quit, and he needs to know his husband is in distress.”
“I’m not in distress, Billie. I’m quitting. Maybe it’s burnout. I don’t fucking know. I have four—soon six—pups at home, and none of their parents spend anywhere near the time those kids need. I’m doing nothing here that someone else couldn’t do better. It’s stressful as hell, and I don’t need it.”
Billie’s desk phone rang. She answered it on speaker.
“Sir.”
“I’m in a meeting, Billie.”
“Then postpone it, Cas!” Billie retorted. “We have a situation here.”
“You’re the Director. Handle it!”
“Sir, with all due respect, haul your ass down the hall and talk to your husband!”
“Good grief!” Cas exploded. “Of all the…”
The phone went dead. Billie hung it up and smiled sweetly at Dean. “He’s on his way.”
“Terrific.” Dean sank down onto her sofa and put his feet up. He rested his arms across his eyes, trying to drown out the world and the sense of doom.
Castiel burst in with Josie on his heels. He glanced at Dean and then addressed Billie.
“Well?”
“Dean’s put himself on the EO roster, and he says he’s quitting his job. You should watch the video. It’s impressive, even for him.” Billie blinked back at her boss. His stony face barely registered a reaction.
“And why does that require me to cancel my meeting?” he asked into shocked silence. Dean tongued the inside of his mouth, wondering the same.
“Cas, look at him. Scent him. What’s gotten into you?”
Cas picked up the slip Billie had filled out for Dean’s punishment as Josie related it. He read it then tossed it back onto her desk. “Send him to HR,” he said. “Or do the strapping here and then send him to HR.”
“Castiel!” Billie croaked.
“He’s a grown man, Billie. He knows his own mind, and he makes his own choices. This is not a brat upsurge, so it doesn’t require my involvement.”
“How can you say that?” Josie wondered bravely. Cold blue eyes silenced her.
“Dean,” Cas turned to address his husband. “You’ll accept the consequences for your actions, and then you’ll accept double from Sam when you get home. We will discuss your job this evening at home.”
Dean sat up slowly. “From Sam? What? No.” He stood up as the realization of what Cas was proposing struck home. “No. I didn’t agree to that...”
“You agreed to OBEY me!” Castiel cut him off. His eyes reddened, and his shoulders raised. If he’d had hackles, they would be standing. “So obey.”
“No fucking way!” Dean shouted back. “I’ll take my swats here, but either you double them, or I don’t take another lick! Sam’s not a part of this. I don’t care what title you give him!”
Cas stepped closer, ominous in every muscle. “You’ll do as you’re told, Submissive.” he said quietly. Far too quietly.
“Billie, give us the room,” Dean returned just as softly.
“Billie, please stay,” Castiel countermanded. “Josie, I believe you have a strapping to carry out.”
“Don’t you dare walk out that door,” Dean warned his husband. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Or what?” Cas prompted with his hand on the knob. “You’re in no position to make demands, Dean.” Something in his voice stopped Dean in his tracks just as if he’d been slapped. Castiel threw the door wide and left without a backward look.
“Josie, wait outside,” Billie instructed. Her voice sounded monumentally intentional, controlled with all the bearing she could manage.
“But…” Josie stammered.
“Outside!” Billie snapped. Dean stood defeated by the couch, aimless. He didn’t resist Billie’s tug when she guided him into position. He didn’t flinch when the strap landed. He didn’t even blink.
When it was over, she stood with him, her hands on his arms, her dark eyes affixed to his blank expression. “What do you need from me?” she asked kindly. “I will stand with you. I’ll stand right beside you if you need me to.”
He shook his head. “No, I… I need to do it by myself. He will shut down for anyone else.”
“He’s already shut down, Dean.”
“No, he’s in there. I don’t know if I can reach him, but I think I’m the only one with a shot.”
“I don’t like you going by yourself,” Billie confessed. “You’re not his punching bag.”
Dean chuckled humorlessly. “Yeah, I am. Or hadn’t you noticed.”
She didn’t laugh. “Are you really quitting?”
“I can’t…keep…” he couldn’t find the words, so he closed his mouth and looked away. “My pups need me,” he said after a lengthy pause.
“We need you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s their turn.” Dean sighed and touched the doorknob. “We done here?”
“Apologize to Jo,” Billie instructed. “Do it publicly.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“And don’t call me Alpha.”
Notes:
To the lovely folks who have recently left me comments on chapters of this work and the previous, please know that I read and loved them. Thank you. I will try to respond. But my bandwidth is tighter than it used to be. If I don't get back to you, please excuse the slight. You're appreciated endlessly.
Chapter 33: Monday, October 11, 2021
Summary:
Part two of two: Dean finally manages to wedge a foot in the door and get the Alpha talking. It doesn't go quite how either of them pictured. There are complications. As always.
Plus, something snaps between the Omegas, for good or for ill. I have a feeling Alpha saw that coming. I know for a fact that Gabe did.
Notes:
See end note for content warning.
Buckle up, friends. It's gonna get weird. This honestly didn't go the way I thought it would, but as usual, the characters do what they want.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday, October 11, 2021
NOW:
Dean paused outside Castiel’s office, a room he’d spent countless hours in, a room he’d never struggled to enter before. Voices of doubt and anger chanted in his head, but he shook them off. Dean felt sore used, drained, exhausted. But something was underfoot that dwarfed Dean’s precious emotions. He wasn’t caught in his wolf, he was merely miserable.
Castiel needed him, needed Dean to see through the tempest and the tantrum at the core of the Alpha’s discontent. It was more than fear over an injured mate or anger at a husband’s recklessness. Cas was shaken. He was reeling, even a month after the incident. And he was hiding. Hiding from Dean.
Time to go find him.
Time to be a Deep alpha.
He didn’t knock.
The room was a shambles. A clean sweep had cleared every artifact off the polished surface of Castiel’s desk, leaving paper and monitor and expensive desk accouterment jumbled haphazardly on the floor by the wall. The Alpha stood rigid facing away with his hands clutching his hips, head bowed. Panting.
“Is that helping?” Dean asked. “Should we keep going?” He wedged a hand behind the nearest book on the nearest shelf and swept it casually down the line, dropping the whole row onto the floor in a thumping and fluttering of pages. Knick-knacks went too. Something cracked if the grind of ceramic against itself meant anything. Dean didn’t check. He watched Cas’ shoulders for a reaction.
Nothing.
“That felt kinda good, actually,” Dean quipped. He cleared the shelf above in the same way. “Wooo!” And another. He cackled. Shoving booted feet through the mess, Dean rounded the desk, squatted before it and braced his feet before lifting with his legs to upend the whole thing. It crashed into the loveseat, making a disappointingly soft landing and sliding to rest upside down.
“Great idea, Alpha,” he said. “We should install a rage room in the Behavioral wing and charge a fee to let folks wreck it. What do you think?”
“You can’t quit, Dean. The Facility needs you.”
Dean vaulted over the arm of the loveseat and landed casually on his ass with his feet out before him, propped on the far arm. He regretted it immediately as Billie’s strap spoke one final word. “My family needs me more,” he said. “Besides, I can still support the mission, go to the Cons, sit on the Board, keep up with the research and write books. In fact, I can do that much better if I’m not tied to a nine-to-five. Jo can handle the Lawrence site. Maggie can manage the Corporate level. I’m redundant.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cas said tiredly as he finally turned around. He ignored the mess. Rescuing his office chair and swinging it as close to the loveseat as he could without digging, he fell into it and buried his face in his hands. “You’re not redundant,” he said although whether he believed his own words was anyone’s guess. He looked up. “You’ve never wanted a seat on the Board. Why now?”
Dean shrugged. “There’s still work to do.”
Cas sighed. “Dean…”
He trailed off. His eyes followed the trail of detritus along the floor, and he sighed.
“It can’t go on like this,” Dean told him, dropping his light tone and sitting upright with his feet on the underside of the desk. Cas shifted with his cheek still resting in his palm and regarded his husband.
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” the Alpha told him.
“It’s been a month, man. Everyone’s feeling it. They need you…”
“And you?” Cas asked before regret reminded him he’d meant not to ask.
“You’re wondering if I need you?” Dean asked, incredulous.
Cas looked away. “I don’t have it in me to fight with you, and I can’t see any way through this without going there. I’m tired, Dean.”
“So, you’re just going to freeze me out until…what…you think it’s going to go away on its own? We just thaw slowly until we can pretend I didn’t nearly kill your mate? Never talk about it again?”
Cas’ eyes flashed red before he closed them and breathed hard through flared nostrils.
“You’re pissed at me,” Dean said. “I get it. I do. And I deserve it. But there are healthy ways to deal, CJ, and then there’s whatever this is. You have to talk to me. No matter what you feel about all this, I’m still here, still your husband. I’m not going away just because you refuse to look at me.”
Castiel stood up and stumbled through the pile of books to his suite door.
“Cas, come on!” Dean called. But Cas left him there.
“Goddamnit,” Dean mumbled, following, nearly turning an ankle when a book shifted under his foot.
With his phone at his ear, Cas said, “Mick, I’m leaving for the day. Reschedule my appointments.” He collected his keys from the bureau by the door. He slammed the door behind him, taking the shortest route to the parking garage.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dean groused, still following, jogging to catch up. “Now who’s being ridiculous?” he called. “Alpha, leave your car for Michael. I’m driving you home. Damnit, man, wait up!”
“What part of I’m not ready to talk about it didn’t you understand?” Cas spat as he turned on his heel to confront Dean.
“The part about it’s been a month!” Dean retorted quickly. “And your Pack is falling apart around us.”
Castiel pursed his lips and paused to think. His fingers drummed against his thigh, restless. Dean slipped Cas’ car keys out of his hand and took him by the elbow. “Come on. I’ll take you home. You can ride the whole way in silence and think violent thoughts at me all you want.” Dean summoned Charlie with a piercing whistle as she made her way toward the building from her car, and he tossed Cas’ keys to her with instructions to get them to Michael.
“I’m not a child,” Cas grumbled as Dean held the door for him.
Dean snorted. Then stop acting like one hung visible in a thought bubble over both of their heads. Cas bristled, but Dean slammed the door and rounded the car chanting, “Patience, alpha, patience…” in his head.
Cas took Dean up on the offer to ride in silence. He kept his eyes fixed upon a point on the horizon out his side window and said nothing. Dean snapped his tape deck off and let the silence ring. If Cas wanted to stew in it, he could fucking simmer.
“Thank you for the ride,” the Alpha muttered. Baby pulled into the garage, and Dean put her in park.
“I didn’t come all the way home just to drop you and head right back to work,” Dean said sourly. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.” He stalled Cas from exiting by taking hold of his arm. Cas rolled his eyes but acquiesced. He looked across at Dean with a What? expression.
“Look,” Dean started. He huffed a heavy breath and regrouped. “Sam and Michael are both inches away from a mutiny over this bullshit. I know you can take them. I know they don’t stand a chance to topple you. But please don’t let it come to that. Cain too. They’re all fed up with waiting for you to emerge and remember you’re our Alpha. So, whatever is stuck in your gullet, man, talk to me! Hell, shout at me!”
Cas rolled his eyes again and pulled loose, slamming the door behind him.
“No,” Dean said to himself. He left Baby with an echoing clang as his door-slam shook the whole car and vibrated the concrete at his feet. “No, goddamnit. Castiel, get your ass back here! Enough! You hear me? Enough!”
“Enough?” Cas challenged, turning sharply in the middle of the kitchen and glowering for all he was worth. “Is it? Is it enough? You want to hear from me? Yeah? You first, Dean. How about you spill first? How about you tell me the truth and stop lying through your teeth? Let’s start there.”
The air crackled with heat lightning between them. Dean pulled up short and frowned. “Lying? What the hell are you talking about?”
Cas raised an imperious brow and waited. Distantly, the Grandfather clock ticked.
“Alpha?” Dean prompted. “What lie?”
Castiel’s jaw tic’ed. He said, “The builder is here, and I want to speak to him before he leaves.” He spun again and stalked away.
This time, Dean let him go. “Builder?” he wondered.
Dean found April in the conservatory, watching through plate glass as a small team of designers and contractors toured the back yard with Cain and Mark.
“Oh, your recording studio,” Dean realized out loud. “Didn’t know that was today.” As they watched, Cas joined the group, changed into casual clothes and shaking hands formally.
“They’re still working out the best location,” April explained.
“Why aren’t you out there with them?” Dean asked, putting his arm over her shoulder. “It’s your studio.”
She smiled up at him. “I don’t care where they put it. When it comes down to the functional stuff, I’ll have my say. Besides, Cain doesn’t want me out in the heat.” She watched Dean for a moment, reading the stress around his eyes and the set of his mouth. She took his hand and led him to sit down where they could still see most of the lawn. “I felt him a few minutes ago,” she said. She curled her legs beneath her and tucked her skirt in. “Was that aimed at you?”
Dean nodded, watching Cas. “What there was of it. I can’t crack him though. He’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”
“Can I help?”
Dean huffed humorlessly and took her hand. “I don’t know. He says I’m lying.”
“Lying?” April asked. “About what?”
Dean tongued his upper teeth. “Do you really remember nothing from the accident?” he asked. “Nothing at all? Where do your memories stop? You remember talking it up into a plan with me? Do you remember coming up with the idea?”
April frowned and cast her gaze down at her lap. Her hand twitched in Dean’s. “I remember the planning. I know how that all happened. But after that, there’s only flashes. I remember the sun in my eyes and you telling me not to grip the wheel so tight. I remember the feeling when we veered off road and the tires left the ground—that sense of having no control. I remember a sense of flashing greenery rushing by. That’s all I can remember. And Dean, I’ve tried so hard.”
Dean nodded and licked his lips. He leaned closer. “Do you remember what you were thinking before we decided on a plan? What made you suggest it in the first place? April, what can you remember? Anything you can tell me will help.”
She leaned in too and met his eyes with a gold ring taking over the blue in hers. “I wanted to help you fall,” she breathed. “I know that much. I wanted to force a situation that would make Cas angry enough to confront you and give you leverage.”
“Right,” Dean agreed. “That wasn’t a secret. You told me that much. But what else? What didn’t you tell me? I need to know the rest.”
“The rest?”
“Kid, something was stewing up in that head of yours before I ever put those keys in your hand. I know it’s scary, but I went to bat for you, and now I need you to level with me. April, please. Don’t make me use compulsion.”
“Went to bat for me?” she asked in dismay. “Dean did you lie? To Cas?”
Dean pulled away. He stood up, searching through the window, but the contingent had moved on. He couldn’t see anyone. “This is my marriage, April. He’s in free-fall. He’s floundering. I can’t help him until I understand what really happened. I need you to tell me everything you had planned.” He turned back to face her. She looked terrified. “What have you said to him?”
“He hasn’t asked me anything,” she told him. “Except to check what I remember, which is virtually nothing.”
Dean sighed. He knelt in front of her and took her hands. “I won’t be mad, April. Kay? I just need you to be honest. What really happened that day?”
“I don’t remember, Dean!”
He pressed. “But you know what you were thinking beforehand. You know what you were planning. April, why did you veer off the road? Why did we wreck?”
“What?” she asked. She jerked away from him and avoided his eyes, pale beneath the stylish cap that hid her nearly bald head. “Because that car came into my lane! You said there was a car! I don’t remember, Dean, but you said!”
From the hallway, jogging steps thumped closer. Michael appeared in the doorway, out of breath. “What the hell?” he asked. “Why did you two take off like that in the middle of the day? I felt rage, Dean. Did you finally get him talking?”
Dean fell back onto his heels. “Damnit, Michael, what are you doing home?”
“The whole Facility is buzzing that you just rage-quit your job,” Michael explained. “When Charlie said you took off, what was I supposed to think? I thought something drastic happened. And then I felt you go livid, and I needed to get to you. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Dean said. He stood up, casting an annoyed look at April. “Cas wanted to meet with the builder, so I drove him home. We didn’t want you stranded at work. There was no need to bail on your clients, man. A phone call would’ve sufficed.”
“Did he open up to you?” Michael asked. “Any headway?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dean said sarcastically. “We’re aces now. Everything’s top-notch.”
“Dean.”
“He thinks I’m lying about what happened,” Dean told his mate with a look at April.
“Lying? Are you?”
And really, Dean should have known better than to make a statement that unequivocal and set his mate up with a straightforward question to which Dean could only answer truthfully or … not. Michael could read Dean as clearly as if he were lodged inside Dean’s skull. Dean’s hesitation destroyed any chance he had to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“What. Happened?” Michael asked with his own eyes taking on a golden cast.
“Ask her,” Dean said with a sloppy gesture toward the Ozzie.
Michael glanced at April but addressed Dean. “She doesn’t remember anything,” he reminded his mate. “But you do. Are you telling me you’ve been lying all this time?”
“So it would seem,” Cas said from the doorway.
“Terrific,” Dean muttered.
“Is that why you refused to confront him?” Michael pressed. “Because you felt guilty? Didn’t want it all to come to light?”
“No!” Dean’s vehemence echoed from the high ceiling. “No, nothing’s changed here, guys. The details are the same. April and I hatched a hare-brained scheme. I put her behind the wheel, thinking we’d go out and get back in one piece…er…two pieces…whatever. Thinking we’d walk back in and have a pissed-off Alpha breathing fire down our necks for taking the risk. But we didn’t get back in one piece. We wrecked. April ended up in the hospital, and I walked away. That’s it! That’s what happened! And none of that justifies our Pack Alpha tucking in like a tortoise and leaving me out here swinging in the wind! So, no! Get off my back, Michael! I’ll handle my own marriage troubles! And you!” he turned his wrath on Cas. “You and I need to hash this out. I’m not sleeping alone in that bed one more fucking night!”
Cas stared at him. April appeared to want to sink through the floor. Michael crossed his arms over his chest.
“Let me tell you what I’ve deduced,” Cas said calmly. “Shall I?”
“This oughtta be good,” Dean groused.
“First,” Cas said with a sharp eye on Dean, “I can always tell when you lie to me.”
“That’s not evidence,” Dean countered. “Not admissible.”
“You’re not in court, Dean,” Michael told him. “It’s admissible if it’s true.”
“Whose side are you on?” Dean snapped back.
“So, I began considering what you’d told us,” Cas continued. He struck up a ponderous pacing. “And I visited the site of the collision.”
“You’re a forensics expert now?” Dean quipped.
“Clearly, you weren’t lying about you and April both being involved in the accident. Your respective injuries clarify that you were both there in the car. The damage to your left arm corroborates that you were in the passenger seat. Your immediate descent into a Tertiary Fall corroborates your stated motive.” Cas paused and faced Dean. “It was a stupid plan, by the way. You had no way of knowing if I would have been incensed enough to drive you through a Fall.”
“Can’t blame a boy for trying,” Dean replied coolly.
Cas began pacing again, lifting one finger in thought. “So, I had to consider the other details of your tale and what possible reason you would have for lying on one point when the rest of the ordeal was already enough to scorch you where you stand.”
“Self-preservation?” Michael wondered, caught up in the mystery.
Cas shook his head. “But you see, while Dean is a master at drawing out an incident until he’s squeezed the last possible drop of consequence, once the hammer is falling upon his head, he wants all of it. He wouldn’t accept accountability for endangering an Ozzie but refuse to accept some unknown component related to the deed. It’s possible I’ve read wrong, but I don’t think he was protecting himself.”
Michael looked back and forth between Cas and Dean. “Protecting Pete?”
“Mm,” Cas agreed, frowning.
“From what?”
“Good question, Michael.” Cas turned to face his husband. “Dean?”
Dean shook his head. “You have my statement, fellas.”
“It’s a pity April doesn’t recall the accident,” Cas mused. “However, I can state from my forensic examination…” A pointed look at Dean. “There are no skid marks on the road or the shoulder. No one applied any brakes.”
“She’s a novice, man,” Dean objected. “She panicked. Didn’t think to brake.”
“No, perhaps that’s reasonable,” Cas admitted, “but nor were there signs of braking from the opposite direction as one might expect in an instance like this when oncoming traffic encountered a speeding driver in their lane barreling down on them as you say happened.”
“People can be bad drivers,” Dean said.
“What’s more,” Cas went on. “I visited the site on the same day of the week and time of day as your collision occurred, and do you know what I noted?”
Dean grunted. April peeked up.
“There was no traffic on that road whatsoever.”
Michael looked up sharply at Cas then at Dean.
“I stood there for half an hour, Dean, and I encountered one vehicle. One.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Different day. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“What really happened?”
“I told you what happened!” Dean answered.
“There was no other driver, was there? No oncoming traffic. No panicked swerving. Tell me the truth.”
“April?” Michael asked in dismay.
“I don’t remember!” she told him.
“Leave her alone,” Dean said, stepping between Michael and April and taking the heat of Michael’s eyes.
“My god, it’s true,” Michael whispered. “Pete, did you wreck on purpose?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Dean countered.
But Michael hardened. “When I walked in you were grilling her,” he pointed out to Dean. “You were asking hard questions; I could tell by the tones in your head. Tell me, Dean. Tell me the truth! Maybe she doesn’t remember, but she had to have had a plan if it was intentional. Don’t tell me she doesn’t remember that!”
Dean lowered his eyes and ground his jaw.
“Pete?”
April looked stricken. Speechless, she looked from Michael to Dean to Castiel and back to Michael.
Michael’s voice went cold. “My mate was in that car that you crashed on purpose. My MATE, April! And you! You both could have died!”
“I know,” she whispered.
“You know,” Michael repeated, disbelieving. He stared for a long beat. “Son of a bitch,” he concluded, stood glaring for a moment, and then stormed out without a backward glance.
“Happy now?” Dean asked Cas.
“Go to your room,” Cas told his mate. “I’ll deal with you when I’m ready.”
Alone in the billiard room, Cas and Dean struggled with where to start. Both angry and both aware that some of their anger was misplaced, they each processed in silence.
“You should have told me,” Cas stated by way of breaking the ice.
Dean scoffed. “At the time, I had no way of knowing if she would even survive,” he pointed out. “You think I was going to let you add a layer of rage on top of grief if you lost her? If you were only mad at me, that we could deal with. If you were mad at her, and she died, that’s a rock in your belly for the rest of your life, man.”
“It wasn’t your choice to make,” Cas said. “I don’t care how much the truth hurts. I don’t ever want to be lied to. You know that.”
“Plus,” Dean went on as if Cas hadn’t spoken. He leaned down over the bar and wrapped his fist around a bottle of Scotch on the lower shelf. “I didn’t know she meant to do that. She kept that little nugget of the plan to herself. In the afters, I couldn’t really think straight. I doubted my own account. Things got hazy.”
“You thought well enough to invent an utterly fictitious one.”
“I scrambled, okay? Sue me. I needed time to think it through. I needed to figure out why she did it…”
“Are you certain it was intentional?” Cas asked. “Is it possible there was an animal in the road or a slick spot?”
“Did you see an oil-slick when you Columbo’d the scene?” Dean retorted.
“It was worth checking,” Cas snapped. “I never imagined she would do something like this.”
Dean snorted. “Have you met the girl?”
“Dean, both of you could have died or been permanently impaired. Don’t tell me that’s like her. It’s not. This is not who she is!”
Dean sighed. He collected a glass from below the counter and poured generously. “She didn’t mean for it to be that… bad. I’m sure of it. She thought it would be a minor offroad scrape. But she really doesn’t know anything about handling a car, and it got wildly away from her. I had been urging her to pick up speed. She was driving too slow on the pavement, and then way too fast when the wheels hit dirt.”
“Tell me what you remember,” Cas instructed. “All of it.”
Dean drained his glass and poured again. He related everything he could recall, from April muttering, “not here, not here,” under her breath, to her sudden death grip on the steering wheel, to his shock when she purposefully twisted the wheel on a wide, straight, empty stretch of road without even slowing down, sending them careering into a ditch and then launching them airborne off the far incline, airbags already deployed and losing air before they crashed into an oak tree.
Her scream still echoed in his head. He could still see her jamming both feet into the brake after the car was in the air, too late to have any effect.
“I should’ve told you,” Dean admitted. “But then you went radio silent on me, and all I could think about was how unfair that was.”
“It was unfair,” Cas told him softly. “I’m sorry I moved out of our room.”
“Look, man, nothing’s really changed from my side of things,” Dean said staunchly. “I still did what I did. It was my fault she was in any position to pull a stunt like that in the first place. It was my fault, Cas. I hadn’t Fallen yet. I was still alpha. She’s still Ozzie. And Michael says she was un-Balanced.”
Cas frowned. “No, she wasn’t. I Balanced her that morning.”
Dean turned to look at Cas. “Okay, that’s weird. I didn’t pick up on anything off in her designations or I wouldn’t have gone along with it at all. But it’s not like Michael to misread something like that.”
Castiel’s sigh carried a heavy burden on its shoulders. Dean poured a Scotch for him and crossed the room to deliver it. He sank down beside the man on the couch. He handed Cas his drink. He laced the fingers of their free hands.
“I need you, Cas. I need you back. But we have to go all the way through this thing or it’s gonna keep smacking us upside the head forever. Please talk to me.”
Cas set the glass on the end table beside him and turned toward Dean. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Why couldn’t you even look at me?” Dean asked carefully. “Even if you’re furious with April—and I don’t blame you if you are—even if you are, you won’t give her the silent treatment like you did me. That was just for me, and it hurts. It was cruel. What was that?”
Cas licked his lips. Dean’s eyes followed the movement.
“Dean, I lost myself. I’m sorry. I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t look at you. How was I going to face you when I couldn’t make sense of what was happening inside my own head? I was so… angry. So lost.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Dean prompted. “Your wolf hasn’t shown his face in weeks. Do you even know where it is? He popped up to Claim Adam, so he’s in there. But he’s vanished again. That’s not like you, not angry you, anyway.”
Cas shrugged with a brow-raise. “You noticed that, did you?” He collected his glass and drained it.
“Do you know where he is?” Dean pressed.
“Adam?”
“Your wolf,” Dean growled.
“Since the accident, he’s a ghost,” Cas admitted. He swallowed uncomfortably and turned the crystal tumbler in his fingers. “He’s keeping out of sight. I wasn’t even certain he would make good for Adam’s Claim. I was braced to do that through my Secondary.”
“Pissed or sulking?” Dean asked bluntly.
Cas huffed. “I don’t know. Both maybe? I can’t process something like this without him, and he bailed on me. The last time he did that was…”
“When you were a teen,” Dean finished the sentence for him. Cas met his eyes for a moment and then focused back on the glass and the sparkling prismatic rainbows it cast on the coffee table in front of him. He nodded.
“And you couldn’t just tell me that because…?” Dean pushed.
“I knew you weren’t being truthful about the accident.”
“No,” Dean contradicted. “No, that’s not it. Calling me out on a lie has never given you pause. I don’t buy it.”
“Let me just add that I dislike being confronted for being less than direct when you were out-and-out lying your ass off…”
“Noted,” Dean agreed. “But that you will carve out of my ass, whereas this we can only discuss. So, talk.”
Cas ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I need another drink,” he said and got up to fetch himself more Scotch. Dean waited.
Finally, Cas turned and leaned against the bar, sucking Scotch through his teeth. “What do you want me to say?” he asked at length, watching the amber liquid swirl in his glass.
“I want an explanation,” Dean insisted. “You owe me that. This last month, CJ, you know how vulnerable I am to rejection. There’s no quicker way to wound me. You went for my jugular, and you didn’t let up for a month. You’re fucking lucky I’m not a babbling mess, trembling on the floor and wetting myself. You risked everything we’ve built, and all for what? Because you’re angry? Because I hurt you first? What kind of an asshole…”
“Because I was angry?” Cas interrupted. “Need I remind you…?”
“I remember what I did, Castiel James,” Dean shot back, rising and planting his feet. “But the appropriate response isn’t to throw a wall up and lock me out in the cold until you feel good and ready to come to the table and talk it out!”
“Appropriate?” Cas repeated, incredulous. “My actions were inappropriate? Where do you get off…?” He stopped mid-sentence and fell still as he regarded Dean standing firm on the other side of the room. Cas’ head cocked in curiosity. His brow furrowed. “Dean, why aren’t you more distraught?”
“More distraught? You’re kidding, right? I just bawled out my best friend in front of the whole fucking building. I’m hanging on by my fingernails, and I’m down to my last two.”
Cas shook his head and swallowed. “But you are hanging on. You’re Secondary right now, and yet your eyes haven’t fully shifted. You are in control of your faculties. Time was an ordeal like this would send you reeling into your Tertiary, and you would need a full caning to draw you back out.”
Dean’s eyes glinted red for a moment before shifting back to icy green. “Disappointed?”
“No,” Cas shook the barb off. “No, you misunderstand. I prayed you would summon the wherewithal to stand firm and hold the Pack together while I was…” he sighed and shrugged. “…otherwise occupied. But I hardly dared to hope. I do know your vulnerabilities, Dean. I know this month has been a trial.”
Dean scoffed. “You’re a real patronizing piece of work.”
“I’m aware.”
Silence drew a hard line between the two ends of the pool table where each man made his stand. Dean clenched his jaw and waited. He resolved not to ask again. After four weeks of the silent treatment, he felt due a modicum of turnabout. Cas seemed fascinated by the play of light between his fingers around his glass.
“Why are you so steady?” Cas asked again. “I need to understand.”
Dean scoffed and shook his head. He turned his back on his husband with his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “You need to understand,” he muttered under his breath. “Unbelievable.”
“Please,” Cas asked, finally looking up.
Dean faced him again. “Someone had to be Alpha,” he said cryptically. “You weren’t doing it.”
“Dean,” Cas said in his most exasperated tone. He pulled more than three syllables from a one syllable name.
“You needed me, all right?” Dean blurted and then blushed furiously. He sighed. “Look, I hated every second of it, but what you were going through… I knew you would need me when you surfaced.”
Cas blinked. Rarely was the man shocked speechless, but he seemed to have no words at his disposal.
Dean huffed. He stammered. “You…you’ve always be-been there for me when I drown in my own weaknesses. You always fish me out and hold me up until my legs find their footing. You’ve never blamed me or shamed me for what I can’t help. I don’t get a lot of chances to pay you back for that. I owe you more than I can repay, CJ.”
“Dean.” This time there was reverence in the word.
“Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s not a natural state for us, and I don’t want habits made just because I didn’t curl up catatonic.” Dean felt the tips of his ears burning. He lowered his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Thank you,” Castiel said simply.
“You’re welcome,” Dean replied with a sour twist that spoke to his extreme discomfort as the conversation turned maudlin. He shuffled his feet. He scratched his eyelid. He studiously avoided biting the inside of his cheek. Eventually, he felt his spine stiffen. He drew himself up and let his eyes redden. “Are you through now? Are you on the other side? You don’t need me to cane you, do you? Because I think I might just puke a little if you ask for that.” Dean watched offense flash across Castiel’s face before it vanished. “You know I’ll support you, Alpha. Whatever you need.”
Cas shook his head in disbelief. “You took a month of silence from me, and all you concluded from that was that I needed support? What about you, Dean? What about what you need? Did you discuss it with Tessa? Are you certain you’re not subordinating your own needs for my sake?”
Dean made a wry face and tongued the inside of his lip as he thought about how to respond to that. “I learned a lot from you, Sir. Over the years. You taught me to look past the tantrum and see the need underneath it. I admit I was… I was hurt. I was pissed. Still am. But you’re my husband, man, and you had something going on between your designations that I’ve never had to wrangle with.”
“You saw that even with the bond closed?”
Dean chuckled. “Don’t need a bond to read you, Cas. I know you. Know you to the marrow of your bones. I knew you needed time and a punching bag. God knows you’ve stood and let me wail on you often enough…”
“It’s not the same thing,” Cas interrupted. “You’re my subordinate. The power dynamics at play require us to be careful. I can’t do to you what I take from you, Dean. Our roles don’t allow it!”
“Our marriage allows you to be human and fallible.”
Cas had no immediate response to that.
“And it allows me to read an evolving situation and decide how I’m going to react,” Dean went on carefully.
“You needed me,” Cas said, laced with regret.
“I knew you were coming back.”
“Did you?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Yes, dumbass! Yes. You spent the last four years convincing me you’re not ever going to walk away. Are you taking that back now?”
“No!”
“Then quit fighting me and let me help you for once! I fucking love you, Castiel! And you were hurting! And I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t do anything but plant my feet and refuse to bail or crumble!”
“I don’t know what to say,” Cas said.
“You owe me an explanation,” said Dean.
Cas grimaced. Clearly, he didn’t want to say it.
“Castiel…”
The Alpha’s face contorted in discomfort. He seemed on the verge of speaking three times before he got it out.
“It’s shame, Dean,” Cas said in a rush. “It’s really that simple, I think. I’m ashamed. I couldn’t face you until I managed my own emotions and worked out how to get ahold of myself.”
“Shame at losing control of your wolf?” Dean asked. His tone said he didn’t buy his own guess. “What have you got to be ashamed of? At losing your temper?”
Cas looked down at the floor and shook his head. When he looked up, pain etched the lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked older. Exhausted. Hopeless. “Without access to my wolf…” he stopped. “I don’t know that that’s what caused this, but…” His eyes danced across the floor as he fumbled with how to phrase it all.
“Come on, CJ. Spit it out. I’m listening.”
“I couldn’t feel anything for you at all, Dean. All I could feel was her. It’s like you stopped existing. I feel devastated just saying it out loud.”
Dean stared at him. “What do you mean? Right after? In the hospital? For how long?”
Cas tucked his lips between his teeth and looked away again. A grimace pulled his face tight. “I can’t answer that,” he said tightly.
“Still?” Dean asked with his brows at his hairline. “You can’t feel me? Dude, you closed the bond, of course you can’t feel me…”
“No, Dean, I didn’t. My wolf did that, and then he took off to pout in the woods somewhere. But I’m not talking about our bond. I’m talking about what we have together, about how I… how I love you. I couldn’t…can’t… Dean, I can’t feel it! What does that mean? Does it mean only my Tertiary is in love with you? Does it mean that fear for my mate’s life is enough to chase everything else out? I have no idea! So, yes, I’m ashamed! What does this say about me? What does it mean? What do I do with that?”
Dean chuckled. “Wait. Hold up. Let me get this straight. You don’t love me right now? Haven’t since I gave your mate the chance to kill us both? That what I’m hearing?”
“Of course I love you, Dean!” Castiel protested. “But that emotion is locked to me. I can’t get to it, wherever it is. And in the immediate aftermath, I couldn’t even think about you, not even to worry about your wellbeing when I knew you were in that car too! Don’t you get it? Why are you laughing?”
Dean threw his head back and clutched his sides.
“Dean!”
“You gotta give me a second, Alpha.” He wiped tears from his eyes, slowing to a soft chuckle.
“It’s not funny,” Cas griped.
“I’m sorry,” Dean said, scooting to the edge of the couch. “You’re right. But, man, you caught me by surprise. I did not expect that. Whew! All these weeks, the cold shoulder, the gruff orders, locking your bedroom door, all of that was because you think it’s a crisis if you don’t have a shining beacon in your chest pointed at me every second of every day? Because when your True-Mate was in a life-threatening situation, your brain gave you tunnel vision until you knew she was okay? Because you need your Tertiary to process emotion? Damn, CJ.”
“It’s more than that,” Cas growled.
“Did you worry about the pups” Dean asked.
“What?”
“While you were at the hospital with April.”
“The Pack had custody,” Cas muttered. “I knew they were cared for.”
“Did you?” Dean challenged. “Did you think about them at all? Be honest.”
Cas blinked. “I don’t remember.”
“And if I had asked you at the time, do you know for sure you could have pointed to where in your brain your love for them lives? Right then when we didn’t know if April would live or die?”
Cas rubbed his mouth with a hand. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Did you stop loving your children, Castiel?” Dean pressed.
“It’s not the same thing!”
“Are you kicking me out?!” Dean answered a shout with a shout, standing up and rounding the billiard table to take up the entirety of Cas’ field of vision. “Do you want a divorce?!”
“Of course not!”
“Do you love me?” Dean asked quietly. The abrupt change in intensity and volume caused Cas to gasp in surprise at the bold question.
“Always,” Cas answered in kind.
“But if you can’t feel it, how can you be sure? Maybe it’s run its course.” Dean closed the space between them with a half-step. He reached for his husband and felt hands take his hips.
Dean swallowed. His body hungered for the man before him. “Don’t say something you don’t mean.”
“Don’t you understand?” Cas asked desperately. “I can’t live without you, but you were gone, every trace of you vanished, from my head, from my heart, from my designations, and all that was left was her.” Anguish colored Castiel’s words. “Dean, I love her, but she’s who nature chose for me. She’s not you. Where were you?”
“Shhh, little Alpha. Shh. I’m right here.”
“I’m so ashamed of myself, Dean. I couldn’t face you. How could I face you? And I was so angry. I couldn’t fathom why you chose to Fall with a reckless plan like that, what you were thinking. I thought we’d found a better way through the Falls. We did it last time without violence or rejection. Didn’t you trust that we could do that again? Why didn’t you come to me? Why go to April? You swore you would let me help you, and then you… you…”
“I know,” Dean agreed, curling in tight to Castiel’s embrace. “I know. Look, that last time was amazing, but it wasn’t a miracle. It knocked some shit loose. It set us up for a wildfire that took us about as far off the reservation as I’ve ever seen your wolf go. He nearly gave me a concussion.” Dean pulled back and held Cas by his upper arms, seeking his eyes. “And it only bought me a couple of months before I Fell again. That’s not enough. Two months? Cas, I can’t afford to be fielding Falls every couple of months. I need the formula that we know works. That’s not an excuse…”
“Were you desperate? When you and April made your plan?” Cas asked. “Were you that desperate? Enough that you couldn’t see any other way?”
Dean scrunched his face and backed up with a hand across his face. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve been over it a million times. She came to me sounding so concerned. Had this great idea to force it before it grew into a tidal wave, and I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t give it two thoughts. She said Hey, Dean, I know how we can drive up the stakes and set Cas’ blood boiling without hardly lifting a finger, and I said Great, let’s do it. I had no idea she meant to crank the stakes off the charts by driving into a tree. Was I desperate? Nah, man, I was just reckless. I was suggestible, just like always. I lost my goddamned mind and let an Ozzie take the reins.” He huffed a self-deprecating laugh. “There’s a reason we don’t let Ozzies run the show.”
“The more we look into this, the less I believe you’re at fault at all,” Cas said after a moment. “April knows your weakness, your suggestibility when you’re on a descent into your wolf. She took advantage, clearly.”
“No,” Dean asserted staunchly. “No, I did this. It was her idea, that’s true. But I’m alpha. And I hadn’t Fallen yet. We’re not pinning this all on April. Don’t overcompensate now that you can’t only blame me. And there’s a reason no one’s taught her how to drive before now. An Ozzie with her ratings, her mental instability? She can’t handle heavy machinery, Cas. I had no business giving her the keys. Man, I can’t apologize enough. Even if she hadn’t pulled that ridiculous stunt, it would still be on me for letting her behind the wheel. I’ve seen how she is, Cas. I know she phases out on a dime. I know she freaks at the slightest pressure. I know she needs a wingman at her elbow to nudge her back into motion all frikken day. I knew all that, and I still said yes. You wanna talk about feeling shame? I did that.”
“Dean, shame isn’t a contest.”
“You said you didn’t think we could get through this thing without fighting,” Dean changed the subject. “What were you picturing?”
It was Castiel’s turn to chuckle. “You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, I’ll bet,” Dean agreed. “You wringing your hands over a completely natural reaction to almost losing your mate. Thought I would kick your ass…”
“Damnit, Dean!”
“No, seriously,” Dean defended. “You couldn’t have changed it. Tunnel-vision is a thing. It’s a documented thing between mates, and the closer the mates, the tighter the tunnel. CJ, you didn’t stop loving me. That’s not a thing. But it’s hysterical to me that you’re forty and still don’t know how love works.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dean chuckled again and rubbed his nose as he turned and hoisted himself to sit on the pool table. Cas frowned at the risk to the felt from Dean’s rivets, but Dean ignored it. “You think it’s a constant emotion, never dims, never wavers, only ever grows. Shines true and brilliant and forever exactly the same. And if it doesn’t, something’s terribly wrong.”
Cas grunted. “No, no, I don’t.”
“Really? Then what’s with the self-immolation? Are you saying you’re comfortable with an ebb and flow to this thing between you and me? You’re done freaking out?”
“It’s not an ebb, Dean,” Cas said with finger quotes. “It disappeared entirely.”
“Pshh! You got pissed. You got scared. Those two things combined with the seizure of your emotional faculties by your Mating-bond when April lost consciousness, and you stumbled around in the dark for a while. Plus, your wolf disengaged. It would throw anyone.”
“It’s never happened to me before,” Cas said with a petulance that matched his pout. “And I’ve been plenty angry with you often enough to have had lots of chances to experience feeling less than enamored.”
“Yes, it has. It’s happened before,” Dean said softly, bringing Cas’ eyes to his face. “It happened when you Mated. Same thing, CJ. Same exact thing. It didn’t mean anything then and it doesn’t mean anything now. Except we need to get in there and lure your wolf out of hiding. You’re going to need him to deal with April.”
Castiel’s face clouded. “I believe it would be more effective if I give my alpha free rein in that conversation. The wolf holds too much affection for her.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Dean warned.
“She could have killed you both!”
“She should never have been given the opportunity!” Dean argued vehemently. “Besides, she also has to deal with Michael. He’s not going to go easy on her.”
“Michael’s reaction is not my responsibility,” Cas said.
“Uh, yeah, Cas, it is. She’s still your mate. He’s an Omega in your Pack. When crap gets heavy between them, managing it is your responsibility. Goes with the Pack Alpha gig. You don’t have to spoon feed them, but you can’t let them scar each other either.”
“Jesus, what a mess!” Cas ran his hands through his hair.
“Hey, c’mere,” Dean slid down until he only rested his ass on the table, and he reached for Cas. “We’re okay. You and me, we’re okay. You got me?” Cas let Dean embrace him. “I know that scared you. I know you didn’t have a clue how to handle it. An’ I’m sorry. None of this should ever have happened. It was my fault. I know that having your Tertiary skip out made it feel like you couldn’t control a damn thing, but that out-of-control feeling? That’s the adolescent Cas, not the full grown one. This is what I need you to see, man. It’s not who you are anymore. This thing with your wolf is small potatoes, not a crisis. We’ll go dig him up, wherever he is. You’ll hold your mate accountable for making a shit decision. You won’t go overboard. You’ll hold me accountable for making a shit decision, and you’ll go as overboard on that as you want. We’ll get this thing in our rearview mirror and one day soon you’ll wake up and realize you can feel me in there again.” Dean pressed his hand to Castiel’s chest. “Right here where I belong. And you’ll realize I was never really gone at all. It’s who we are, Cas. Wolves go to extremes. It’s who we are. Don’t let it convince you that everything’s irreparably broken.”
Cas’ chest expanded beneath Dean’s hand as he took a deep breath. “Thank you, Dean. This conversation didn’t go at all how I expected it to. Thank you for… for holding space for me, for waiting me out. Jesus Christ, thank you for weathering what you should never have had to weather. I’m sorry for the past four weeks. I was wrong to lay that all at your feet. I was wrong to pull away from you. But it’s… I’m so relieved to have you back.”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no. Whoa there, Cochise. No, this isn’t over. Still pissed at you,” Dean reminded him. “You don’t get off that easy. I said I understood and that I knew you would need me when you made it back to the surface. I never said there wouldn’t be consequences. You fucking tortured me for a month because you’re too Alpha to reach out for help when you get tangled inside. We’re not done talking about this.” Dean kissed Cas’ lips. He whispered, “But we’ll get there. I swear. We’re gonna get there.” Dean escorted Cas toward the door with an arm over his shoulder. “Starting with, no way is Sam doubling my swats. Michael, sure. Sam, no way. Hard no.”
Cas chuckled. “I’m glad we talked before we went through with that. It would have killed me.”
“Was never going to happen,” Dean said at the door. “I’mma go have a chat with my mate and then help Tony get supper on the table. Tonight, after we eat, you’re going to make up for a month off. I need you on your game tonight, Alpha. This Submissive is making a demand, and this time, you’re going to take it. You’ve got a punishment to double. If you don’t want to stop there, you won’t hear a complaint from me.”
“Are you really quitting your job, Dean?” Cas asked as Dean pulled away to seek Michael.
Dean walked slowly backward toward the foyer. “Tell you what. I’ll let you try to talk me out of it once this all blows over. But as of now, yeah. Take this as my notice. I’ll give you a month. If you can’t come up with something that’s more attractive to me than staying home with my pups, it answers itself.”
Cas nodded. “That’s fair enough,” he conceded. “I’m not sure I’ll be motivated to try especially hard considering the benefits to my Pack.”
Dean grinned with a hand in the air. He spun on his heel and disappeared around the corner. He felt like he’d won the frikken lottery. Somehow, he’d held his own, made damn sure Castiel knew his mind, but he hadn’t succumbed to the impulse to scream and swear. He hadn’t begged to be let in from the cold. After all, it was Cas on the outs, not Dean. Dean had spent the month cut off from Cas but supported by everyone else he knew. Surely, it was from there he’d drawn the strength to hold steady under the onslaught without taking it personally, without taking a mortal wound that would rot his marriage from the inside. And he’d finally, finally convinced the man to drop his wall long enough to give Dean a glimpse of what was going on back there.
Dean considered as he climbed the staircase, what did it mean that Cas was only now realizing that the very human, very imperfect emotion they call love has a pulse to it? Was he truly that much of a romantic? Had he never felt it wane, when he was tired, cranky, when he was fed up? Dean didn’t believe for one moment that his husband had stopped loving him. The idea was absurd. As soon expect the sun not to rise in the east as imagine Castiel might fall as easily out of love as he fell in. Certainly, there had been a time not so very distant when Dean would have heard those words and died inside. Cas had to have been imagining exactly that to have struggled as long as he did before fessing up to what troubled him.
On his way down the hall to Michael’s room at the end, Dean felt giddy. Not only had he helped shepherd his husband back to terra firma, he hadn’t once experienced a moment of doubt that they wouldn’t find their way back together.
How’s that for a Profound Submissive?
Cas stood leaning against the wall by the billiard room, wishing his brother would come home. Sometimes a man needs his brother. He put his phone to his ear, hoping Gabe was in a place he could answer.
Dean found Michael pacing in their bedroom, muttering murderously to himself. Dean wasn’t even all the way in the room before Michael rounded on him.
“I’m going to MARRY her? She tried to kill you!”
Dean sighed. Two steps forward, three steps back. “No, she didn’t. She miscalculated. She thought that big car would be easier to control than it was.”
“How can I consider going through with it now?” Michael asked.
Dean eased up onto the bed, leaving his shoes on the floor. He pressed his back against the headboard and patted the bed beside him. Michael joined him with a huff. “I’m not going to tell you what to feel or what to do. But think about it before you act. You know who she is, Michael. You’ve known for years. Don’t pretend you didn’t. You and me, man, we both got sucked in by manipulative bastards. Maybe that was stupid of us, but it’s how things went. I married Castiel knowing good and well he’s got blood on his hands. I know he’s got an ugly dark side. I know what he does in the murky places to get what he wants. I know he’s not tamable. April’s the same flavor. She’s his mirror image. You know she is. You’ve known all along. Jesus, Michael, you fell in love with her over the casual way she played all of us.”
“It’s not the same thing!” Michael declared. “This is so much worse. Did you know she meant to wreck the car? No? No! Because who would? Because it’s certifiable! She’s insane!”
“She made a stupid mistake,” Dean disagreed. “She overestimated her ability to handle that monster truck. She thought she could steer it and slow it…”
“You’re lucky she didn’t flip it and kill you both!”
Dean laughed softly. “You know, it’s nice to know we’ve got a bond strong enough to shut everything else down while you’re worried about me. So, it’s not just Cas who zeroes in on his mate after a crash.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“I love you too, Michael.”
“What the hell do I do?” the Omega whined.
“You get off your ass and go have it out with her,” Dean told him. “Don’t be afraid to lay into her. Let her answer to you. Let her give you her side. Damnit, Michael, talk to her. Maybe stop kenneling your wolf around her.”
“Dean, I…”
“I’m not saying you have to be her Dominant,” he clarified. “But your wolf is a part of you, man. Hers is part of her. Take your whole self to her and see what happens. I don’t know if you can work through this but talking to me isn’t going to get you there.”
“She’ll be grounded to her room at least for tonight,” Michael pointed out. “Tomorrow we’re interviewing butlers all day. I won’t get a chance to talk to her until tomorrow night at the earliest. That’s probably a good thing. I’m mad enough to take her head off.”
“Figure out what you need from her,” Dean told him seriously. “Everyone fucks up sometimes. I can honestly say I don’t believe she meant to hurt anyone. She was just too inexperienced to realize she was playing two-ton chicken with a fucking tree. But whether you can find a way to work through it and come to terms, that’s all you, man. I can’t make that decision for you. Just, be fair about it. You have to know what you can accept from her and what you can’t before you make her any ultimatums. You need her to commit to certain promises, to abide by some standard of behavior? You need her to apologize and make restitution? Whatever it is you need, Michael, tell her. Give her a chance to respond. Can you do that?”
Michael’s voice was tight when he answered. “I can do that.”
“Good.” Dean patted Michael’s leg and then scooted off the bed. “I’m going down to help Tony with dinner.” He stretched his arms over his head. “Damn it feels good to be out of the doghouse.”
“You’re not out,” Michael told him, peevish, lacing his hands behind his head. “You got strapped at work today. Jo said you lost it right in the hall in front of everyone. You owe me. You owe Cas too.”
“That? That’s a piece of cake compared to where I was at this morning. I did good, Michael. You should be kissing my ass. Alpha’s back.” Dean opened the door and looked back. “You’re welcome.”
They didn’t get to talk until the weekend. April was still prohibited from engaging in sexual contact, but by Friday afternoon, she was cleared for corporal therapy. By the time Cas settled her on a sunny chaise lounge in the living room, her eyes bore signs of lengthy weeping. Michael hadn’t eavesdropped on their private discussion. He knew enough about Cas to know it was an ordeal for them both and that April would be chastised and reserved afterward.
Perhaps now was not the time.
But Michael had to know.
She didn’t look up at him as she accepted a mug of hot tea with trembling hands. He steadied her grip while she sipped, keeping a hand on hers until she set it down.
“Is it over?” Michael asked.
She shook her head somberly, eyes on the sparkling blue of the pool where four pups frolicked under watchful eyes.
Michael sat down on the matching chair beside hers. He wasn’t at all sure how to begin. He watched her drawn face. She looked utterly spent. “How much longer?” he asked at length.
She swallowed. “A month.”
“Wow,” he said quietly. “Harsh.”
“I deserve it,” she croaked with a voice shredded from screaming.
“Yes,” Michael agreed.
Her breath was shaky on the inhale. She still didn’t look at him. She reached for her tea, and Michael placed a hand under the bottom of the mug to steady it.
The moment lengthened, punctuated by playful shrieks and splashes from outside, admonitions from adults to WALK! and joyous laughter from tiny throats. April didn’t watch them. Her eyes glazed over. Her hand caressed the flat of her belly. Fat stores were rounding out her hips, but her navel didn’t show any signs yet of pregnancy. It was too early.
“I need to understand,” Michael said.
“I can’t explain,” she told him. Her voice lacked any trace of the Omega or the Submissive.
“Try,” he said coldly.
Finally, she looked at him. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”
Michael pursed his lips and nodded, looking away. “Yeah, that’s what Dean said.”
“Dean didn’t know,” she told him. “He thought…”
“I know what he thought,” Michael broke in. “I’m asking what you were thinking.” He snapped it out like the crack of a whip, and April flinched. She scrunched her face for a moment, fighting not to cry. She didn’t want to cry in front of Michael. Not like this. A deep breath and a hard swallow, and she steadied herself.
“I thought I could help,” she said in a small, broken voice. “I know that was stupid.”
Michael scoffed. “Unbelievable.”
April frowned at her lap. Unbidden, a tear broke over her lid and tracked down her cheek. She turned to hide it from him. Michael scowled and rubbed his face hard with both hands before squaring up and leaning closer.
“Explain this to me in tiny words, Pete. What would we have done if either of you had been killed? What the hell would we have done?”
Her face when she turned to look at him was a mask of remorse and devastation. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Her breath hitched. “I thought I could control it. Michael, I’ve always been able to control the outcomes when I… When I…”
“When you scheme? When you throw people you love under the bus? When you put your own life on the line for nothing?” he snarled. “It wasn’t your job! Dean’s Falls are way above your paygrade, Omega!” He was full-on shouting at this point, and he felt his wolf wrestle the reins from Omega fingers. He didn’t try to intervene. “A Submissive is the responsibility of Dominants! Dominants, April Renée! What the hell were you thinking?!”
Tears burst free from her tired eyes and coursed unchecked down her face. She threw a hand over her mouth and wept. She offered no defense.
Michael bolted from his seat and paced. Back and forth before the window. Back and forth. So much repressed outrage poured off him he couldn’t sit still another moment. He rubbed his temple. His lip curled. Twice he stopped and squared up to her only to bail on whatever he meant to say and begin pacing again. He came to a stop facing the pool. Light danced merrily across his stony features.
“Are we over?” April asked bravely.
Michael huffed. He cast his eyes to the ceiling.
“I’m scared, Pete,” he admitted. “I don’t know who you are. I thought I did. But this?”
“I know,” she said. She sniffled. “I know. I can’t make it okay. I’m not trying to say it’s okay. Please.”
He chuckled mirthlessly and turned back to face her, pointing. “You were going to let it pass without telling any of us what you did.” He advanced. “You were going to let Dean take the rap, even when you knew it was tearing him and Cas apart. And Dean. Dean was going to let you! Because that’s who he is. If there’s blame on the table, he’s always going to claim it. You KNOW that! And you were going to use him to soak up your guilt!” He stood high above her, glowering down in fury. “Maybe that cockamamie plan was just a mistake. Maybe it was the product of an Ozzie mind. April, I’m not expecting more from you than your designations allow for. I know you have limits. But, goddamnit, once it was all said and done, you damn sure should have spoken up! You should have told us what you did. Dean didn’t deserve any of that, not the wreck, not the blame, not watching you bleed out in an ambulance, not a Fall rooted in a fucking LIE!”
“I know.”
“You know?” Disgust colored his tone to the point it poisoned the air between them. “You know. Great. That’s terrific.”
“I wanted to speak up,” she told him. She sniffled again loudly enough to echo. “But I was too afraid. Every time I tried, I got swamped inside my own head. I never meant for any of this to happen, but when it did, I froze.”
“That’s your excuse?”
April wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It’s the truth.”
“No,” he countered. “No, you orchestrated it this way. Why else would you play un-Balanced for my benefit? You wanted me sympathetic. You wanted me defending you. You had to play it straight for Dean so he would go along with it. But you wanted me to think you were off your mettle. You wanted me to turn on Dean. So you passed as Un-Balanced. That’s not a mistake, April! That’s a manipulation! You swore you wouldn’t play me!”
“All I can tell you is I’m sorry,” she said, defeated and flat. “And I love you. I do love you, Michael, whatever comes.”
“Damn you,” Michael told her. He sank back onto his chair. All the fight drained out of him.
April shifted onto her hip with a pained grimace and a grunt. She faced him. Waiting.
“Damn you,” Michael repeated to himself.
He looked up at her and met her steel-blue gaze, and something inside him clicked. A cold, hard reality settled in and replaced everything Michael had built between them. The wall he’d so fervently insisted upon, the barrier between April and his wolf disintegrated into a dusty pile of rubble, and Michael looked upon her with icy calm resolve.
“I’m in love with you,” he told her. “And I can’t do anything about that. Do you understand me?” He lowered his chin and raised his brows and spoke to her Tertiary designation through an ancient pathway. “As of right now, as of this moment, everything changes. No more playing Primates. No more pussyfooting around who we really are.”
“Michael…”
“Shut up!”
She gasped. Her eyes shifted to golden, echoing his.
“You answer to me! You obey ME! And if you ever… EVER pull a stunt like this again, you’d better pray Castiel gets to you before I do. Am I clear?”
She frowned. “Yes, sir?”
“Say it right!”
“Yes, Sir!” She sat upright on swollen flesh and leaned toward him, drawn inexorably to power. “Please!”
“Please? Really April? You think you’ve got a say here? You’re going to try begging? Shut your fucking mouth!” Michael fell on her with the strength and aggression borne of losing every ounce of his own will and succumbing to something he swore he would never want. He hauled her to her feet and bent her over the chair, bathed in sunlight and under the eyes of destiny. Michael took her ear between his teeth, and he bit down hard. He scrambled with clumsy fingers to bare himself. He scrabbled her loose skirt up over her hips. He thrust in with a fearsome growl. She fell supremely still under the assault.
“Fucking bitch,” he muttered between clenched teeth. His hold worried divots in her ear until blood seeped across her cheek and she howled. “Is this what you wanted?!” he asked around his grip. His teeth ground harder, stained with crimson. His hips rutted fast and hard. She screamed as the tip of her ear came loose in his mouth. He spat it onto the back of her splayed hands, digging helpless fingers into the crushed velvet beneath them. She cried out, but she didn’t struggle.
“Is this what you wanted?!” Michael shouted. He grabbed hold of her hips and fucked furiously into her channel.
April didn’t answer in words. A Claim snapped into being, pulsed and throbbed beneath them, encircling them, tightening around them, and she let her answer course down the metaphysical pathway until Michael came with a shout and a brutal thrust.
He came to a stop laid over her back, panting. Blood stained his chin. Ropey saliva trailed from his lips to the throbbing ear he had mutilated. “Is this what you wanted?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she breathed, sobbing.
Michael huffed and stood up. He ignored the rush of fluids that streaked her legs and smeared across his groin. He blew out an exhausted breath and fell boneless onto his chair. “Jesus fucking Christ, April.”
Shakily, April eased a knee onto the chair and shifted her weight until she rested on her hip. Between thumb and finger, she clutched the small wad of flesh that had been the pointed tip of her left ear. She stared at it, disbelieving, and reached up with a trembling hand to touch the bleeding wound.
Michael fell back onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He scrubbed a hand across his mouth and studied the bloody streaks on his palm. “That’s one way to go, I guess,” he said. He felt his wolf settle.
“You Mated me,” April told him, still entranced by the souvenir in her hand.
“Whatever you wanna call it,” he replied. “I guess it was never going to last without our wolves in the mix. I know you weren’t supposed to go there before you got medical clearance, but I’m thinking that’s the least of our worries.” He looked across at her. He sniffled hard as his body began to shed the sense of urgency that had driven him to act on instinct. “To answer your question,” he said with steel undertones, “we’re still getting married. But I have rules for you, Pete, and you’ll obey every damn one of them or you’ll regret it with your last dying breath. Don’t think I haven’t figured out that this whole shit-fest was part of your scheme.”
“Yes, Michael.”
“Rule number one. You ever harm my mate again, you ever so much as think about hurting him, your mate will have to sew you back together with dental floss. Do you understand?”
“I understand, Michael.”
Four days later, they married with very little fanfare and no press release. Bobby officiated in the parlor under a little-known certificate he’d found useful to apply for twenty years ago. Rachel stood as April’s maid of honor. Charlie stood for Michael. There was no reception aside from a buffet dinner and a house open to all their friends.
Castiel looked on as guests greeted the Omega couple, feeling calm and content at last. Gabriel handed him a bottled beer, already capped.
“Honestly, Alpha,” he snarked, “can’t trust you not to burn the house down if I leave for two weeks.”
“You were gone longer than two weeks,” Cas said. “Maybe let’s don’t make a habit of that.”
Gabe laughed. “You know it was always going to go this way.” He nodded across the room where Michael hand-fed a canapé to April with his hand at her lower back. “You’re all right with it? For real? He scarred her, man. That’s never going to grow back.”
Cas took a long swig from his beer and exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for months. “Sometimes the safest scars are the physical ones,” he told his brother cryptically with a pointed look across the room to where Dean stood laughing with Adam and Jo.
“And sometimes the Tops are full of shit,” Gabe replied.
Notes:
Content warning for nonconsensual body mutilation.
I'm not going to promise not to go back in and mess further with this. Something about it still doesn't sit right. I wanted our alphas angry and letting each other have it, but they just wouldn't rev up where I wanted them. Michael was the only one taking the bait. Ah, well.
Love you all. Hang in there. Shit is all fucked up out there in the real world. I'm glad you chose to spend some time escaping here.
Chapter 34: Saturday, October 23, 2021
Summary:
A lazy morning reflection is interrupted by unsettled pups, but it's just how Dean prefers his Saturday mornings. Pups have questions. Dean has answers. Papa knows just what the pups need.
But there's much planned for this lazy Saturday, and tensions are running high.
Notes:
CW in the end notes.
Much, much thanks to Melodina whose brilliant idea kicked me past my block. Much thanks to Jennyfly who bullied me into posting today and into getting off my ass and out of the house for an adventure. Thanks to Andi4 for her constant, constant cheerleading.
This chapter is one of three. The other two should not be far behind, universe-willing.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, October 23, 2021
NOW:
Even dead asleep, Castiel kept a hand curled around Dean’s bicep. His grip stayed claw like…perhaps talonlike as he snored peacefully. Dean wouldn’t have had it any other way. That grip stated unequivocally that Dean was going nowhere the Alpha didn’t want him going. It put paid to the notion that Cas might not care at his deepest core self. After all, nothing says you’re mine quite as clearly as a death grip maintained while the claimant is unconscious. It’s kinda hard to view that as performative.
Clearly, Cas’ wolf was back. And it wasn’t comfortable enough with the status quo to allow daylight between itself and its Submissive.
Dean felt no desire whatsoever to test the limits of its patience. Or the range of its reach.
He snuggled closer, arranging his scent gland to butt up against wide nostrils and felt the hold on his arm tighten appreciably as Cas slept on.
The sun wasn’t up yet. Cas had slapped clumsily at his alarm when it tried to nose him into getting up for a run, and he went straight back to sleep…holding tightly to Dean.
Dean lay dozy but awake in the early hour. Alone in the big bed together, the two of them had wandered across to the far side where Dean now perched hard against the very edge, pursued by his husband, apparently. But again, not complaining.
Dean’s mind jumped lightly—and heavily—across the events of the last month or two. April and Michael had another week to themselves down in the guest house. Mostly to themselves. Cas looked in on them daily, unwilling to trust that his mate’s condition was stable enough without constant oversight. Too, Cas kept his bond with his mate open. What did an Ozzie need privacy for anyway?
Dean, on the other hand, only opened his bonds with Michael during their phone check-ins. But Michael wasn’t hard off a brain surgery and prone to im-Balance at the drop of a proverbial hat.
In this earliest of morning, before the birds had even fluffed their feathers and lit upon near and sundry boughs to begin the ageless ritual of waking up the whole fucking world, Dean basked in the absence of his mate and his new in-law. Was she a new in-law? I mean, not really. Right? She was already his in-law through Cas. And now through Michael. Two lines leading out and coming right back, a square of connection that finally, finally closed up fully. Somehow, Dean felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. He could have examined that sensation and found troublesome implications about… well, about ownership and responsibility and agency and how Omegas tie everything up in knots when they get thrown into the mix that had once seemed so simple.
He didn’t examine it. He yawned and scootched closer to his husband’s warm body, his back to Castiel’s chest as usual, and he felt the stiffness of morning wood slot into place between his thighs. He shuffled and squirmed until he had it where he wanted it, clenched between his thighs, pressed tight in the channel of his taint, held just as securely as Cas had his arm. Warming his Sir as he ought to.
Dean hummed in sleepy contentment. Cas grunted, muttered something unintelligible, and shifted to wrap his arm around Dean’s chest and find hold on the lower arm. Dean chuckled soundlessly and let him have it.
They had come a long way in a couple of weeks, from barely speaking to nigh on inseparable. But it hadn’t been an easy road.
Necessary, but not easy.
That scene.
That night.
After everyone else was asleep, after they had finally cracked through Cas’ stony exterior and broken through layers of anger and shame so deep he couldn’t see the other side, they finally faced each other as nature intended.
Sleepily, Dean thought through the events of that night, here in the darkness, here with the man he loved in defiance of every scrap of societal wisdom. He remembered…
Dean had waited for hours it seemed. Kneeling nude alone in the playroom on the night after their breakthrough, he waited. He couldn’t feel his Sir; that bond was still closed as they fumbled through how to right a foundered vessel. Everything between them felt fucked beyond repair, upside-down. Neither of them felt right in his skin, but neither knew quite how to fix it. Dean felt twitchy as he waited. He needed someone’s hand on his neck, someone’s boot planted between his shoulder blades. He was angry and self-righteous and resentful, and he didn’t like it one bit.
He wanted himself back but was powerless to extract the strands that defined his true persona from the muck they’d become entangled in—not by himself. For that, he needed Cas. It was like a fall, but less out of control. More like a logjam.
When the door finally cracked open, the Castiel who entered was no closer to a scene headspace than Dean was. Cas let the door close behind him. He blew out a quiet sigh and ran a hand through his hair. He leaned against the counter by the door in casual slacks and a crisp white button-down and worked his jaw, not looking at Dean. His shoulders slumped.
Dean huffed in annoyance, drawing Cas’ gaze. A brow lifted. But Dean didn’t possess another ounce of patience. A full month of this navel-gazing, woe-is-me sentimental crap was more than enough for one lifetime. Staring at the clouds wasn’t helping anybody.
Anger flared in Dean’s chest. He took his life into his hands. Stupidly, perhaps. “No one cares that you’re broken, Castiel. Clean up your mess,” Dean sputtered, still on his knees.
“My mess?” A trace of anger leaked through without its owner’s permission.
“Every bit of it,” Dean doubled down. “You’re Alpha. The buck stops, Sir.” Cas’ eyes flashed red for a moment before he turned and hid them from his husband. But the set of his shoulders told Dean he’d struck a mark. So Dean pressed. “You could have reined April in years ago. You could have set boundaries that she would know not to step over. Right? But you didn’t. You encouraged her. Play us all, Kitten, just don’t get caught. That’s what you told her. You’re Alpha. Sir. Our balance is your job. It’s on you. All of it.”
Cas scoffed and scratched at his temple. He shook his head in disbelief. Dean’s brat had never chosen a less opportune moment to twist a dagger in his gut. He turned back around and approached his not-very-Submissive.
“I’m under no illusions. I know where faults lie. But that isn’t the point right in this moment, Pet.”
“Pet?” Dean asked, incredulous. “Seriously?”
“Get up, Dean. This is becoming a farce.”
“No.”
“You challenge my right to claim dominance right now, but you’re unwilling to pause the scene long enough to re-set? What exactly do you expect from me?” Cas stopped about three feet away and glowered down at Dean. “We’re not leaving this room until…”
Dean scowled. “I can’t fix this, man. Only you can do that. But you come in here pouting about how sad it is that no one understands you, about how heavy your burden is…about why Firefly never got renewed…I don’t even know how many layers of angst you have on your shoulders right now. But you’ve got two Subs who need you to shake it off and do your fucking job, Alpha! And you’re stuck in your front-brain! What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Huh? You wanna take me out dancing? Maybe go for milkshakes? Write another grant proposal? Where are you, Cas? Don’t call me Pet with your Primary. And don’t bail. Don’t half-ass this! Stand the fuck up!”
Cas leapt forward and grabbed Dean by the hair, wrenching him up onto his knees with a grimace of pain that mirrored his husband’s. “Don’t you tell me to stand up! Don’t you fucking dare!” Identical red glares bored into each other. Identical flaring nostrils tried in vain to bring oxygen to flaming minds and calm to cool a heated moment. Neither of them wanted calm.
Dean hissed. “You don’t get to Top me unless you’ve got the weight to hold me down. Put away the poetry book and the emo eyeliner…”
“What did you say to me?” Cas transitioned fully into his Alpha. His fist tightened in Dean’s hair.
“I said,” Dean gritted, “stop tickling my ass. I’m going to think you’ve got a crush on me…”
“Fucking brat!” Cas spat. He threw Dean to the floor and stalked across to select an implement of pain and catharsis.
Lord, please let it bring catharsis.
Dean scrambled away, finding his feet and bolting for the door.
“Dean!” Cas grabbed a wide strap and gave chase. He left the moribund petulance behind him, embraced his Alpha, and he ran—up the stairs, following the thundering of his prey’s footfalls as Dean broke for the back door and… freedom? Cas’ legs knew the beat and thrum of a runner’s pace, but sprinting was not his style. Anger though, drove him on angel’s wings, up to the foyer, out the door still swinging wide, past the pool. The gate gave him a brief pause. Dean had hurdled the three-foot fence, already well ahead and pumping his legs for all he was worth. Castiel fumbled with the latch and then tore after him.
A wide pool of light silvered the back lawn, but only for thirty yards or so. Dean vanished into the darkness.
Castiel growled deep in his throat. In his soul. The strap slapped against his thigh as he pumped his arms and tried valiantly to catch up.
It was dark back here. A hulking shadow coalesced into his grandmother’s live oak and then vanished behind them both. Dean ran barefoot, but the absence of footwear didn’t slow him. Cas kicked his dress shoes off without slowing. His eyes glowed crimson at the edge of wide black pupils. His mind raced along with his feet…where was Dean headed? How best to overrun and ensnare him? Would an Alpha’s compulsion work on the man from here?
Every convoluted puzzle piece that had tangled his thinking for a month vanished in the pursuit. Whose fault? Whose betrayal? Whose heartache? Who the fuck cared right now?
Spittle flew in the wind behind him as Castiel raced down the hill and into the trees. Stones and roots knew better than to snag his toes or tug at his once crisp white shirt, already drenched in sweat. He ascended as he ran, and everything ephemeral fell behind him.
Castiel hunted with the will of a million predators. He knew Dean had training and practice on him, but Castiel had instinct and conditioning. And blind, stubborn will. The moonlight caught in his eyes and set them to an eerie glow.
This was no scene, choreographed and cautious. This was the Alpha unleashed. In all his excess. In all his glory. Few who knew him understood the base truth at the heart of his Secondary. Whiplike switches of live foliage beat at him as he shot through. He ignored the scouring. Only April really understood… Even Dean hadn’t yet fully grasped…
Or perhaps he had, and this was his way of luring the Secondary to abandon its restraint. For certainly, that was what was happening right now in the moonlight.
His breathing came harder now. Cas cut to the right, angling along a narrow deer track, barely visible at all, driven by instinct through dense vegetation.
No, Dean hadn’t yet fully grasped…Castiel’s most depraved, most bestial designation wasn’t his wolf, despite its depravity. His wolf was tempered by heart. His wolf hungered and drooled and raged and ached, but it was driven by a depth of emotion too vast to allow unfettered violence without measure.
But the Alpha…
Cas roared as he sprinted. He felt his lungs squeeze and his feet blister against the unforgiving ground. Still Dean stayed out of reach. Without his bond, Cas couldn’t feel him ahead. But he knew that man. He knew where Dean was going. He knew without thinking. He just had to get there first.
Cas’ Alpha honored no code but its own. It was untamable but to the extent it chose civility of its own free will. No trivial emotion or sentimental affection would stay it when it had a burr under its saddle.
Ahead, the snap of dry brush and scattered leaves followed by a hushed breathless curse. Castiel zeroed in, cutting soundlessly to the left and finding a parallel trail. He strained against the burn of his muscles and the screaming of his lungs to make headway.
So close…
On instinct he lifted his arm out straight and pivoted just as Dean rounded a dark corner, blind, and took the solid, immovable arm to his throat at top speed.
Dean gasped and crumpled, naked. Scratched and scored from face to feet. Castiel sneered and hauled him wide to slam against an aged maple. All the breath left Dean in a rush. His legs buckled. His eyes rolled back in his head. A deep, painful grunt bespoke his fruitless attempt to draw breath. His hands clutched Castiel’s sleeves.
Castiel punched him across the cheek, snapping Dean’s head against the tree trunk.
“Fucking brat,” the Alpha spat. “Think this is a fucking democracy? Who do you think you are?” Wild red eyes glowed with madness and rage. Castiel curled his fist and pulled back to land another blow… “Run from me?”
Dean slumped against the tree, propped but boneless, chest heaving futilely for air. His arms up, he tried to shield himself. He could only withstand a few blows before his bones would shatter…
“Cas,” he groaned with insufficient air. “Cas, no… Please… Sir.”
Castiel’s lip rose to show his teeth. They glowed white in the moonlight.
“Please…”
Dean winced, expecting another blow to jar his brain and break his jaw.
But the blow didn’t come.
Castiel had him by the hair at the side of his head. His fist trembled, drawn back, poised…
But he didn’t land another blow. He panted. He stood motionless. Tense like a wound spring. Frozen as the reality of the moment dawned on him and his awareness triangulated back into three dimensions with the arrival of his missing piece, drawn from hiding by an exigence too desperate to ignore.
Dean peeked out from clenched eyes, careful and wary. He could feel the wolf’s return, the shuttering of unfettered rage, funneling outrage through affection and connection, through bonds of love and commitment until it all began to make sense again.
Castiel’s expression was devastated. He looked bereft under the full judgmental moon. His fist quivered.
Dean sniffled loudly. His chest heaved. He didn’t trust his legs to support him. His throat burned where he’d been clotheslined, and his cheek throbbed. His lungs screamed, struggling to fill. His scalp ached, the all too familiar sensation of sharp pain under his Dominant’s fist kept him present, made him feel alive.
An age passed in terrible stillness as clouds scudded overhead.
Castiel’s red eyes glared, furious but contained now. The depth behind his eyes grew to a fathomless, limitless window into raw canine power. Contained…
Contained by…
“Welcome back,” Dean whispered. “Took you long enough.”
Slowly, Castiel released his grip and stood upright, towering over his husband with a cold calm replacing the battle rage.
“Open it back up,” Dean dared to demand, and Cas responded by lifting his chin and sneering.
“You don’t deserve that,” Cas’ wolf told him.
“Tch!” Dean scoffed and sank to the littered ground on his ass. “Pot. Kettle.”
“Silence!”
Dean sighed and thumped his head back against the tree. He closed his eyes.
“You don’t make demands, Submissive!”
“Need you to open it back up, Sir,” Dean begged. “Please. I need it. I’m dying over here. Need you, Sir. It’s too quiet…” Dean swallowed. “I can’t do it without you, any of it. I need you to do it for me. I’m lost. Please… Been holding it together… But…”
Castiel’s brow drew low in concern. He took to one knee over Dean’s slumped form. He reached out a hand to gently caress Dean’s scourged cheek. Dean flinched.
“Shh.”
“I can’t do it, Alpha,” Dean repeated.
“Shh, you don’t have to,” Cas told him sternly. “I’m here.”
“Still closed,” Dean reminded him carefully with a sharp knock against the bond. He cracked an eye open.
Cas regarded him coolly. With the return of his wolf, the wildness of his temper smoothed into a deep and wide kind of passion, rich and real, terrifying in its way, but not perilous. All the chaotic throes of power fountaining from the Alpha like sheet lightning found their way back into the funnels that allowed him to direct them with intention. His stature expanded under the blessing of the moon, and his expression hardened.
Dean opened both eyes and peered up at the man who held his whole life between massive paws, and his body released a month’s worth of strain. His eyelids fluttered. He sagged.
“This won’t do, Pet,” Castiel intoned. He stepped fully into his birthright and assumed the mantle of all he owned and held sway over. The bond between the men swung open at a ponderous pace, hardly seeming to move at all while the moon ducked behind sweeping clouds and peeked out again. “Your behavior has been reprehensible.” Castiel watched Dean absorb the pronouncement, but then the Alpha shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue. “But so has mine, I fear.”
“I can’t fix it, Alpha,” Dean said. “Tell me how to fix it.”
Cas lifted the strap in his hand and ran a thumb over the smooth leather. Dean followed the strap with his eyes. Castiel felt the jarring misalignment of designations slide back together, and his way forward crystallized. He couldn’t strap Dean. Cas too, needed accountability, needed to be…
…punished.
They wouldn’t both be free of this debacle until they had both paid.
Cas held the strap out to his Sub.
Dean didn’t move.
Cas shook it and stretched his arm closer.
Dean jaw dropped. “Are you insane?”
“Take the goddamn belt, Dean. Do it!”
“Fucking hell,” Dean muttered as he pressed himself up with his back against the tree. “I’m not going to hit you.”
“Perish the thought,” Cas told him coldly. “But neither am I in any condition to apply a strap to you. So, we’re doing something different.” He thrust the strap into Dean’s hand and closed his fist around Dean’s fingers. “Do you know why you’re in trouble, Pet?”
Dean scoffed loudly and let the strap dangle by his side.
“Dean?”
Dean sighed. “Yeah. Where do you want me to start?”
“It’s not about the minutia, Pet,” Cas told him. “It’s about one thing and one thing only.” He paused and held Dean’s eyes. The bond between them continued its gradual widening. Castiel could feel Dean pulling on it, stretching through it, digging for Cas with all his might. Cas ignored it. The bond would do whatever it was going to do. Dean would find whatever he was going to find.
“I ran from you,” Dean said. Shame pinked his cheeks enough to make out even in the darkness. “Rule Number One.”
Cas lifted his brows to elicit the honorific, and Dean gave it to him…
“Sir.”
The strap smacked rhythmically against Dean’s calf as nerves found a route down to his fingertips.
“You didn’t trust me,” the Alpha elaborated.
“I didn’t trust you,” Dean agreed softly.
“Which led to…”
Dean huffed, struggling to hold the man’s eyes. “All hell breaking loose?”
“Is that a joke?” Cas demanded through his wolf. He advanced, pulling up into Dean’s space and filling his field of vision. Dean took a step backward and tripped. He landed on his hip and then scuttered further away on his butt. Castiel followed. “This is funny to you?”
“No, no, it’s not,” Dean argued. “It’s not funny at all. I fucked up everything. I put April at risk. I put myself at risk. I threw off the balance of the whole Pack in one stupid moment. I blew a hole in our hull the size of the Allen Fieldhouse. I broke something between you and me that might not be fixable. Sir, I’m not laughing. But you have to concede that this?” He shook the strap at Cas. “This is an absurd gimmick. I don’t even remember the training. It’s been, what, nearly a decade since we tried this?”
“Get up,” Cas commanded. “Don’t lie to me, Dean. You’ve been self-flagellating your whole life.”
Dean struggled to his feet, but he shook his head. “What I do, Sir, what I used to do, that was for me, not for you. It’s not what you want to see. It won’t meet your standards.”
“Perhaps you’ll allow me to be the judge of that,” Cas replied stoically. He crossed his arms across his chest. “Keep in mind, Pet. You got yourself into this mess because you attempted to manage something that isn’t yours to manage. You didn’t trust me. You didn’t trust Michael. You stepped into the role of a Dominant and in so doing, you upended the entire Pack.”
“Michael already caned me for that,” Dean tried. He peered at Cas with his head low, half-expecting to be backhanded for gall.
Cas merely cocked his head, prompting Dean to continue.
Dean closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Okay, fine,” Dean agreed. “Tell me how.” He examined the strap in his hand, pliable and stained and oiled to a sleek shine.
“Let’s just see what your instincts give us, shall we?” Cas said. “And we’ll go from there.”
Dean licked his lips. Cas was right about one thing—Dean may not have recalled much about the formalized training in self-spanking strategies they’d once explored, but he didn’t need any of that institutional crap to know how to land an implement against his own flesh. That’s something he’d been doing since he was ten years old.
“You know, it’s ironic to punish me for usurping your role by putting your strap into my hands,” Dean observed as he turned and paced out into a wider clearing, free of trunks and brush. “Kind of a contradiction in terms.”
“Oh, is it?” Cas asked rhetorically.
Dean glanced about him, thinking through the process. He looked up at Cas who had settled at the edge of the clearing with his back against a tree and his arms still folded over his chest.
“Explain why I’m doing this and not you,” Dean challenged. “Not that I’m arguing. I just need to understand.”
Castiel didn’t answer right away. Nor did he call his Sub down for stalling. He stared into the trees and gathered his thoughts. “We’re in a place we’ve never been before, Dean. You and me. If I punish you according to our usual pattern, you will find redemption. But I will not.”
Dean stared at him.
Cas squirmed under the attention. “Look, I know it’s messed up,” Cas continued. “You need this from me. From me, not Michael. Not Sam. But I can’t give it to you right now. Not until I’ve faced consequences of my own.”
“And watching me do myself is a punishment for you?” Dean asked in disbelief.
Castiel flushed.
“Right,” Dean said. He turned back to the task at hand with a sense of the utter absurdity of his life. He found a dry, flat area and sat down with his legs wide in front of him. “Any directions?”
“Don’t stop until I tell you to.”
“A fucking strap though?” Dean groused, slapping it into his palm and then wrapping it once more about his hand to shorten the length. “Anything else would make more sense.”
“Don’t push me, Pet.”
“You know when I do this, I don’t go for my ass the way you do.”
“I’m aware,” Cas replied. Impatience colored his tone, warning Dean that another round of commentary would be pushing it.
Idly, Dean slapped the strap against the inside of his left arm.
“Now, Dean.”
Dean cast him one sullen glance, then scowled and brought the strap down hard on the inside of his thigh with a circular swing. He repeated the motion several times, bringing up a hot, pink irritated flush to a small section of pale skin. Then he shifted to strike his chest, right across his nipples.
“Harder!”
“Damnit,” Dean groused as he slid up to his knees and set the strap whirling. From chest to thighs to back and across his dick, he turned most everything he could reach bright and welted. Wide stripes crossed his belly.
“Harder, Dean! Do it right!”
Dean grunted with effort, swinging, landing blow after blow in a practiced pattern that left only his neck and head untouched. He strapped the soles of his feet until they ached.
“Would…be easier… with a… cane,” he grumbled. “Or a… paddle.” His flesh took on a scrubbed-raw glow as the strap circled and slapped. Dean stood up on sore feet and spread them wide apart.
“I’m not interested in what would be easier. You’re soft balling,” Cas warned. “Put those alpha muscles to work. I know what you’re capable of…”
“Aaaagghhh!!” Dean cried as a particularly vicious blow landed between his legs and wrapped all the way up behind him. His thighs quivered. He shifted to spread them wider and did it again. The angle was awkward, but he’d been doing this a very long time.
“Again!” Castiel ordered.
Dean slapped the strap down across his cock from the side, letting the end of the strap welt his hip. It was all in the wrist once the technique was mastered. Dean rolled down onto his back in the dirt, planted his feet, raised his hips off the ground, and went to town on the lower half of his body. He gripped his tongue in his teeth and stifled a high whine. The front of his body usually received minimal attention during corrections, but so much of the front was sensitive beyond belief. The sting intensified under the onslaught.
Cas growled. “Harder!!” Outrage bubbled up from the depths of Cas’ psyche, and he embraced it as it overflowed. Dean’s skin was coated now in a fine sheen of sweat. Grit clung to him where he rolled in the dust and leaf litter, stretching, contorting to reach awkward places with the most ill-suited implement for the purpose. Castiel’s lip quivered into a snarl, infuriated at not wielding the strap himself and the sense that Dean was pulling his punches. He rushed forward and wrenched the strap out of Dean’s hand, tangling Dean’s fingers as it unwound.
Castiel clutched Dean’s wrist and raised the strap high over his head. Dean cried out and curled up instinctively, protecting his head and his tender belly, rolling onto his side to hide his genitals.
But the Alpha didn’t bring the strap down. He huffed in disgust and threw it into the trees. “You’re toying with me!” he accused.
“I need a stick, Alpha,” Dean cried, looking round with tears in his eyes. “I can’t land a good blow anywhere but my back with a strap! I know that’s not what you want, but I can’t do it. I need a cane!”
Cas ground his jaw. His cheek twitched with unsaid words, frustrated and furious. He looked around. “It’s a fucking forest, alpha! Find a stick!”
Dean snarled as he clambered painfully to his feet. “If you’d just listened to me in the first place…” He scrubbed at the tears on his cheeks with the back of his arm, incensed, angry, and was taken by surprise by the blow to the side of his head from Castiel’s forearm that sent him crashing to the ground.
“Unacceptable, Submissive,” Castiel declared. “Apologize and try again.”
“Apologize,” Dean mumbled as he spat out a leaf. “Right. Yeah. My fault.” He struggled to hands and knees and then up to his feet. “Thought you were keeping your hands to yourself this round, Sir.”
“I will never allow insubordination from you during a correction, Dean,” Cas told him. Red eyes glinted in the moonlight. “If you cannot find your way to a Submission, tonight will be unpleasant in the extreme.”
Dean huffed. He searched the ground, kicking leaves and pine needles as he walked until he found a likely stick a little less than two feet long. He picked it up and assessed its give. “I’m doing it,” Dean protested with a petulant whine. “What more do you want?”
“You know what I want,” Cas snapped back. “Apologize for the bratty mouth and do it right!”
Dean rolled his eyes.
“I’m starting a tally, Pet. That’s one.”
Dean clenched his fists. Cas could feel the struggle inside him. Submission was easy for him when he wasn’t offered a choice. He rolled like a filly in the sunshine if Cas wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and forced him to his knees. This was hard though. Dean could continue fighting it all night, and Cas would let him. It wouldn’t be a pleasant experience, but it was still Dean’s choice. No one was going to make him roll. Not tonight.
Dean shot Castiel a deathly glare over his shoulder before bracing his chest against the trunk of a tree and spreading his legs. He swung the improvised cane a couple of times in preparation and then began a furious onslaught across his own backside. The stick managed what the strap hadn’t, and soon, Dean was gritting his teeth in pain. He lowered his strike zone to leave stripes on his upper thighs.
“I’m still waiting on that apology, Pet,” Cas reminded him. He could feel the shift inside Dean’s head. He was buckling.
Dean gasped in pain, pressing his shoulder into the tree trunk and abrading the skin at his clavicle. Tears wetted both cheeks. His hand never slowed in its fierce application. “So…sorry, Alpha. My big mouth… Jesus!”
“Sit down,” Cas instructed. “Pay some attention to your feet.”
Cas had suffered near perfect chastity for the last month. The swirling arousal lifted him and set him spinning as he watched his husband hurt himself at the Alpha’s direction. Cas had weathered the scarcity with his own hand. It was a particularly unsatisfying strategy, and he’d had to supplement by incidentally feeding on unwary underlings at work. His Alpha had always found immense satisfaction in playing out a hierarchical dynamic under the auspices of work-authority. Mostly it fell to calling down shirkers and half-assed efforts from his subordinates. But throwing his weight around at work could never be more than a stopgap for Castiel James. Without sex. Without corporal play. Without someone he could dig his teeth into without an HR policy getting in his way, his empty belly gnawed holes in itself. The hunger had grown unbearable.
And now his wolf was back. And it was time to eat.
He watched in amazement as Dean obeyed. The Sub sat on the cold, filthy ground with his back to a tree, crossed his right leg over his left to gain access to the bottom of his foot, held his own toes to give him leverage, and began a vicious attack with the stick he’d found.
Castiel’s entire body heated, awash with endorphins. His chest heaved. His mouth fell slack.
Why this moment and not the ones before? Dean’s body was riddled with stripes, with pink and red and bruising marks. But it was the ignominy of caning his own feet that sent blood rushing to Castiel’s groin as he watched.
A look at Dean’s lowered face proved Dean felt it too. High pink circles on his cheeks marked his humiliation. But he didn’t pull his strokes. And he wasn’t bitching anymore.
Bare-assed in the dirt, Dean rolled belly up. He stopped fighting. He stopped complaining. He stopped questioning. He furrowed his brow, and he blazed his own feet until Cas thought he would need to be carried back to the house.
Cas felt lightheaded, watching. Giddy, almost.
There it was.
Something profound clicked back into place inside his mind.
“Now move to your penis and testicles,” he said at barely more than a whisper.
Dean didn’t hesitate. He spread his knees wide, dug his heels into the dirt for leverage, and set up a rapid but gentle rapping across his lap. Strikes to the genitals need not be powerful to carry a punch after all, and Cas didn’t want Dean injured. Just aching.
Dean’s breath grew shallow as he snapped his wrist again and again. He reached beneath his balls with his free hand and lifted them into the line of fire. His cane-wielding hand began to shake.
“Sir, please…” he whined with no let up to his pace.
“Should I fuck you, Pet?” Cas stepped a little closer. He crowded in and knelt between Dean’s knees. He took Dean’s chin in his hand and lifted his face. Dean’s rhythm faltered.
“Ah-ah,” Cas corrected. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”
“Hurts,” Dean hissed.
“You didn’t trust me, Dean,” Cas reminded him. “None of this would have happened if you had come to me and asked for help instead of going to another Sub.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean cried on a sob. “Please, Sir!”
“You know I don’t enjoy watching you hurt yourself,” Cas told him. “That’s my job.”
The stick swung high with Dean’s tremors and caught Cas in the belly.
“Steady, Pet,” he soothed. “Only one of us needs the cane.”
Dean lost all rhythm. His strikes fell to little more than jumpy taps, often missing their target altogether. He cried openly and curled a hand into the fabric of Castiel’s soggy shirt.
“We’ve been working on trust for so long, haven’t we, love?” Cas asked with a thumb wiping tears and sweat from Dean’s cheek.
“Yeah,” Dean whispered, his strokes falling further into little more than a twitch at his lap.
“Since the very beginning,” Cas added.
“I’m sorry,” Dean wept.
“Shh, it’s okay, Pet. It’s okay. We’ll just keep working at it. It takes consistency. Doesn’t it? And I haven’t been consistent this past month. That’s why I couldn’t punish you myself. This has been very hard for me too, tonight. I want you to know that.”
“Can I stop?” Dean sniffled miserably.
“Did I tell you to stop?”
“Please, Master!” It came out as a whine.
Cas chuckled. Dean rarely called him that. They had tried that moniker on years ago and found it didn’t quite hit the mark. Most of the time. Sometimes, the word slipped out. Dean wouldn’t remember in the morning.
“Hand me the stick,” Cas said.
A rush of relief swamped the bond between them. Dean lifted an exhausted arm and let his Dom pluck the stick out of his hand and toss it aside.
Cas leaned down and kissed Dean’s lips. They were soft and pliant. They were wet and swollen. They felt heavenly against his mouth, his tongue.
“I have rarely been this angry with you, my Pet,” Cas scolded quietly. “If ever. I have far more practice being angry to this extent with myself.” Cas unbuckled his belt and undid his pants. He freed his cock, fisting it as he shoved his pants to his knees. “What you did, what April did, that mustn’t ever happen in this Pack again. Do I make myself clear?”
Dean nodded sharply. He scootched downward onto his tailbone and raised his knees into the air. Cas spat onto his own fingers and put them to work at Dean’s hole. Dean whined.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” he mumbled with his eyes closed. “Won’t happen again, I swear. Only…only, I gotta know…”
“Know what, Pet?”
“Do you still love me? Is it back?”
Cas smiled subtly and pressed a digit into Dean’s body. “I won’t lie to you, Dean. No, shhh, listen to me. I can’t tell in this moment what my emotions are doing. I’m overwhelmed. I’m lustful. I’m too aroused to think clearly. But that’s okay.” Cas pumped a finger in and out of Dean’s ass and then he let a dollop of spit fall right on the rim. It soothed the pulse of another finger into Dean’s core. “Everything is okay, Pet. I need your trust. Of course I love you. I will always love you.”
Dean keened loudly and pulled his knees to his shoulders with his hands.
Castiel continued. “Whatever is going on inside my designations is my issue, not yours. I’ll figure it out. I promise you. And I’ll be honest with you about what’s happening. I can’t tell you how terrifying that is to me, admitting when I’m frightened, when I don’t have all the answers.” Cas slipped his fingers out and fished a small bottle of lube out of his pants pocket. He coated his dick, watching his own hand slide the length of his cock from the knot to the head and back. Dean’s thighs trembled against Cas’ knees. He moved in closer and leaned over Dean’s body to manage the angle. He hoisted Dean’s lower body into his lap with his knees spread wide and pressed himself against the tight-furled muscular target, pink and glistening and gorgeous.
“But I trust you, Dean,” Cas told his husband as he breached him.
Dean gasped and bit his lip.
“Even after everything that’s happened. I trust you.” Cas pressed in and then held, about half-buried in Dean’s body. Experience told him to take it slow after so long a break. “I trust you with my heart. I trust you with my insecurities. With my doubt.” Cas pulled back. He pressed Dean’s legs up with a hand at the back of each knee and folded him in half, lifting his ass clear off the ground. “I trust you to see me naked, Dean.” Cas pressed back in and shuffled his knees up under Dean’s hips, setting them wider to give him support. “To see me naked and still love me through all of it.” Cas fucked slowly, serenaded by Dean’s breathy whining. “I’m a mess, as you know,” Cas reasoned. “I’m flawed in ways I can’t defend.”
“Sir!”
“Shhh. Be quiet, Pet. I’m talking.”
Dean sobbed. He craned his chin high to expose his throat.
“I hurt you this past month. For that, I’m sorry.” Cas let his hips move as they would, but he kept his pace measured. “I’m honored that you made space for me. You didn’t have to do that, Dean. You took on a Top’s burden, and you saw it through despite the hardship to yourself.” Cas shifted again to flatten his back and give himself a deeper reach. Dean’s already tender upper back scraped along the base of the tree as Cas readjusted him to lie on his back in the dirt. Deep moans began to punctuate the night air, and grunts, and punched breaths, as Castiel’s hips picked up their pace. His cock stretched Dean’s hole impossibly on every inward thrust. “So, despite everything that went wrong between us, we’re still us, my love. And of course I love you.”
“Unngghh!” Dean replied cogently.
“You did well tonight, Pet,” Cas said. “You pleased your Sir. And that wasn’t a foregone conclusion, was it?”
“I…” Dean rolled his hips into the motion of their coupling. “Yeah…?”
“Do you want to come on my cock or by my hand?” Cas asked, looking deeply into his husband’s eyes.
Dean grimaced at the stretch and the sting of Cas’ sweaty palms on the striped backs of his knees. “I…”
“It’s your choice, my very good boy,” Cas crooned as he pressed in up to his swelling knot.
“God,” Dean breathed. “I… wanna… On your cock. Please, Sir?”
“Of course,” Cas praised, pleased with the choice. “Put your hands on the tree trunk, Dean. I don’t want you to hit your head. Brace yourself.”
“Oh god,” Dean whimpered.
“Shh, I’ve got you, Pet.”
Dean situated his hands above his head and bent his elbows. He braced himself. He let Castiel do the rest.
It had been over a month, but their bodies remembered just fine. Dean’s toes curled in the nippy air. Cas aimed precisely on the inward thrust to strike Dean’s prostate just right. He paused every few thrusts to grind in deep and hard until Dean’s legs quivered in his hands. He could feel Dean in his head. He could feel Dean’s pleasure mix with aching, stinging pain. He could feel Dean’s body begin to zing with promise as every nerve struck the harmonic that set him soaring. The man was beautiful, laid out there in the dirt—sweaty, gritty, splotched with red and pink and mottled stripes. Dean’s face crumpled under the onslaught, a tell that Cas knew all too well.
So he pressed. He fucked fast and deep. His grip on the back of Dean’s knees hurt. Cas had to hold himself back as he began to crest before his Sub got there. But he didn’t need to hold for long. Dean’s hips opened to Cas as his thighs relaxed as wide as he could splay them, letting Cas in, welcoming him home.
And Dean came with a pulsing around Castiel’s cock that felt sublime. The two men shouted together, a sound that disappeared into the treetops and could probably be heard in the main house where their mates were likely roused from their slumber.
Dean wrestled his legs free and wrapped them around Cas’ waist, trying to pull the man in enough to sink his knot inside Dean’s body. But the knot was fully engorged. It wasn’t going in now. And Cas was riding the downside of his climax anyway. He caught his breath and chuckled at Dean’s exuberance.
Now, two weeks later, alone in the Master bedroom with his husband, Dean ran his hands over his own thighs and hips in the darkness. None of the sting from that night lingered. But he would cherish the memory forever. Something had snapped that night. Something shifted between them. Something inside Dean opened up, something that had been locked tightly his whole life. It felt ungodly good, and it terrified Dean.
There was a surety now to how he understood his husband. Cas was never going to leave Dean. He was never going to tire of him. He would never grow so enraged that he couldn’t live in the same house, buckle down, and set to fixing things when they shattered. Dean knew that to his bones now in a way he’d never allowed himself to believe before.
What that meant for his Falls, Dean could only worry about. He couldn’t face it directly yet. There would be no rejection-play between them. Dean’s wolf would never buy that argument again, no matter how furious Castiel’s red eyes glowed.
“Go to sleep,” Cas whispered into Dean’s neck.
Dean rolled over. “You know,” he said into the cavity at Cas’ throat, “now that they’re married, it isn’t right that they can’t have pups of their own. You’re not still going to try to hold them to that, are you?”
Cas let his annoyance out with a hard sigh and a roll to distance himself from Dean and his provocations. He sat up. “I only sleep late about four or five times a year, alpha,” he grumbled. “The least you can do is let me enjoy it.”
Dean snickered into the sheet and curled over onto his side. He propped his head up on his hand. “The pups will be up in less than twenty minutes, Cas. It’s no good to fight that. But we’ve got time for a quickie if you’re up for it.”
Cas smirked. “I’m always up for it.” He leaned back down and wrapped his arms around Dean’s sleep-muzzed body and kissed him as he stretched out and reached a knee over Dean’s legs to tangle him up.
“Papa!” Emma wailed from the doorway. More feet thumped down the corridor behind her.
Cas sighed and kissed the tip of Dean’s nose. “Raincheck,” he whispered. Then he sat up and hauled his daughter onto the bed between them. “What’s wrong, Punkin? Bad dream?” Kat and Alex scrambled up behind Cas and clumsily worked their way into the center of the bed as well. Portia trailed in with them, jumped onto the foot of the bed, and flopped down with an exhausted floomf. Jimmy sleep-walked around the bed dragging his blanket and held his arms out for Dean to hoist him up too. Dean snuggled the boy close and kissed the top of his head. He loved the scent of sleepy pups. Jimmy nestled down into Dean’s lap and put his head on his Daddy’s shoulder.
“Kat turned the lights on,” Emma complained. “We can’t sleep with the lights on. She wouldn’t turn them off. Tell her, Papa! Tell her only grownups s’posed to touch the lights.”
“Kathleen,” Cas asked in a stern voice. “Did you wake everyone up?”
“It’s too dark, Papa! Is morning. Time to wake up!” She sat between Cas’ feet, facing him, leaning back on her hands. Unashamed. Uncowed. “It should be sunshine already, but the sun didn’t come up. Jimmy said leave him alone. Ace was crying…”
“Only cause you waked him up!” Emma accused.
Cas held a hand out to Alex. “Come here to me, son. There’s nothing to cry about. The sun isn’t late. It’s still nighttime for a few more minutes. Let’s sit together and watch the daytime light up the sky. Hmm?”
“It is late!” Kat protested. “I always wake up and it’s daytime already. Always!”
“Kat, sweetheart,” Dean soothed, “the sun is always on time. But as the weather gets cooler, it comes up a little later every day until Christmas. It’s like this every year, kiddo. You woke up a little earlier than you usually do, and the sun is rising a little later. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
“Christmas?” Jimmy asked, looking up into Dean’s face hopefully.
“Now you’ve done it,” Cas warned his husband. “Four-year-olds have no sense of seasons, Dean.”
Dean laughed. “Christmas isn’t for ages, JD. Don’t get ahead of yourself. No, what we need to be thinking about is Halloween. I know four puppies who don’t have costumes yet. You can’t go trick-or-treating without costumes.”
“I’n gonna be Dr. Strange!” Alex hollered. “With a cape!”
“How do you know Dr. Strange?” Cas asked in bewilderment.
“Jesse saw it on the movie. And he has all the books at his house,” Alex explained. “An’ Jimmy can be Iron Man.”
“Yuck,” Jimmy said with a sneer. “Jesse is a poophead!”
“James,” Dean warned. “No name-calling. You don’t have to like Ace’s friend, but you don’t get to be mean about him.” Jimmy squirmed to hide his face, so Dean lifted him bodily and turned him around. “Do you get me? That’s your one warning.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy mumbled. He shot an annoyed look at his brother, but Alex wasn’t paying him any mind. He was giving Cas a run-through of the MCU characters, all from the influence of the infamous Jesse, a friend from church who had taken an instant and mutual liking to Alex. But not to his siblings. It was a sore point.
“Where’s O-Pop?” Emma asked with her face buried in Papa’s chest and her arms snugged in tight. “Want O-Pop.” Cas kissed her temple and hugged her close.
“O-Pop and Mommy are having their honeymoon right now,” Cas explained for the thousandth time.
“They’re having sex at the guess house,” Kat announced.
“Guest,” Cas corrected softly. “The guest house.”
“They c’n do that here,” Emma groused.
Dean snorted.
Cas chuckled. “Tell you what. We’ll call down there after breakfast and see when we should drop by for a visit later. How would that be? Plus, they’ll be here at the house this afternoon for a while. You can see them then. I know they miss you too.”
“Papa and I got a whole month-long honeymoon after we got married,” Dean teased. “Mommy and O-Pop are only asking for a couple of weeks.”
“That’s true,” Cas agreed. “And we didn’t have any pups running around underfoot either. We got the whole month to ourselves.” He tickled Alex and then caught him when Alex launched onto his lap, both laughing.
“You like us underfoot,” Jimmy protested.
“Yes, we do,” Papa agreed with a wide smile. “But it’s easier to have sex with no children around. And sometimes, grownups need to have sex.”
“Mm,” Dean hummed, leaning over to claim Cas’ lips. “Sweaty sex,” he added.
“Yuck, Daddy!” Jimmy said as he bailed from his lap.
“Yuck?” Dean asked in mock dismay. “Pssshh! Spoilsport.”
“All right, troops, is everyone awake now?” Cas asked with a touch to each of them. “Sun’s almost up, Alex, look. Out the window? See the sky getting lighter. It’s morning now for real. Who’s going to help Papa brush his teeth and hair?”
Emma and Jimmy both chortled. “You have to brush teeth yourself, Papa!” Emma explained.
“Who says?” he asked as he extracted himself from the tangle of limbs. No one made much note of his nudity as he crossed the room toward the bathroom, trailed by three of his pups—no one but Dean that is. Long-distance running as a hobby had sculpted that man an amazing ass and thighs like oak trees, and Dean was never not going to notice.
Kat stayed behind. She crawled up to the head of the bed and curled in beside Dean. He put an arm around her. “What woke you up, Kitty-Kat? Something in your dreams?”
She shook her head.
“How come the sun comes up later when it’s cold?” She took Dean’s hand in her tiny ones and began kneading the meat of his palm with her fingers. Dean allowed her to play with his hand as she wanted, wondering if it was a tell of some kind to an anxiety she didn’t yet know how to put into words.
“It’s just the way the world works,” he told her. “In the summer, there’s more sunlight. In the winter, there’s more night. Not by a whole lot, maybe, but enough to notice. Sometimes in the summer, the sun is still up when it’s your bedtime, but in the winter, it’s dark before we even eat dinner.”
“Nanny Kate said it’s Fall right now.”
“That’s right. Fall is when the days go from longer to shorter and the weather starts to get cold before winter.”
“Oh.”
“Kat, were you scared when you woke up? Scared of the darkness? Did you feel like you weren’t safe?” Dean watched her fingers play along the lines of his palm and dig into the heel of his hand. “It’s okay to tell me what you were feeling. You know that, right?”
“I wasn’t scared, Daddy,” she said in an offended voice. The very idea…the rise of her left brow told him. “I was mad. It felt like time to get up, but everybody just wanted to sleep.”
Dean huffed. “So, you turned the light on and made them wake up? That wasn’t nice. You could have just come in here by yourself. Papa and I wouldn’t have minded getting up early with you.”
“I don’t like it when they say no, Kat, go away. Makes me mad. Jimmy thowed his Nebbie at me even. Daddy, he’s not s’posed to thow toys!”
“No, maybe not,” Dean conceded. “But he’s pretty fond of his sleep time, and having the lights come on early when he’s not ready to wake up probably surprised him and made him mad. You’re not their Top, Kathleen. You don’t get to tell them when to wake up, even if it feels like morning to you.”
“An Idgie yelled at me,” Kat went on, ignoring the reprimand.
Dean sighed. “I’ll bet.” He rolled to the edge and put his feet on the floor. “Come on,” he said reaching for her. “Potty time. Your bathroom or mine?”
“Yours,” she decided, pointing.
“Naturally,” he agreed. “But hey, no one wet their bed last night, right? So that’s a big win.” In the bathroom, three pups sat on Cas’ counter facing him, each with a toiletry item in their hands. Emma scrubbed at his teeth with his toothbrush. Jimmy scrubbed his cheek with a dry shaving brush. Alex stretched up to run a comb through his hair, turning it into a bedhead nightmare.
“Looking good, Alpha,” Dean told him with a touch to his shoulder that trailed down into a caress of his butt. He carried Kat into the tiny toilet chamber and set her down. He helped her slide her pajama pants to her ankles and lifted her onto the seat.
“Hold on to the seat, Kat. Don’t make me fish you out. Keep your bottom out of the water. It’s yucky.”
“That’s what Mommy said too,” Kat told him as she peed into the bowl.
“Mommy’s way smarter than me,” Dean told her. “You should listen to her.” He leaned against the door jamb where he could see his daughter and the tribe lined up on the counter as well.
“Nuh-uh,” Kat argued. “Mommy is Ozzie.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Do you need to poop?” She shook her head, so he helped her wipe and then lifted her down and set her on her feet. He knelt in front of her. “Kathleen, listen to me. Your mommy is Ozzie, that’s true. And that means that some things are harder for her to do. Some things are easier. But her mind? How smart she is? That has nothing to do with being alpha or being Omega. Your mother is a brilliant lady. She’s the most talented musician I’ve ever met. She’s way smarter than all of us in some ways. I need you to understand this. Being Ozzie doesn’t make her less than me or Papa or anyone. It certainly doesn’t mean she’s not as smart. Do you understand?”
“I have to wash my hands now, Daddy.”
“Kathleen…”
“What?”
“Tell me you heard what I said.”
“Mommy’s smart?”
“That’s right.” Dean stood up and ushered her toward his sink with a hand at the back of her head. He met Cas’ eye in the mirror and shared a look.
At breakfast, Cas managed things less formally than he did on weekdays. It also helped that his Pack manager was absent, giving him no target for his usual bullet-point agenda redress. Dean sat up at the table. Adam knelt on the floor.
“When your mate’s back in the house,” Gabe asked Cas with his mouth full of eggs, “where does Adam shift to?”
Cas trailed fingers through Adam’s hair, pausing at his neck to provide a simple supportive pressure. “Kali has agreed to assist on rotation,” Cas replied. “And Cain.”
“Oh yeah?” Gabe turned his attention to his wife. “He’s drafted you finally? I knew you wouldn’t escape this nuthouse forever.”
Kali shrugged. “Adam doesn’t kneel every morning. It’s not exactly a hardship to feed him when he needs a hand steadying him. It’s nice, actually. And it’s not like you’re about to get on your knees any time soon.”
“Touché,” Gabe said glumly. “Didn’t know you were looking for that kind of thing.” His expression closed, and his shoulders hunched.
Kali sighed tiredly. “Can we not?” she asked quietly.
“You’re in MY chair! Get off!” Kat proclaimed loudly from the other side of the table, elbowing Jimmy hard in the chest.
“Hey!” Dean broke in with a percussive tap to the table in front of her plate. “No! Unh-uh. Hands, feet, and elbows inside the ride at all times. Put your bottoms in your own chairs. Eat your breakfast.”
“O-Pop says to claim your space,” Kat argued. “He said to say so when someone’s too close.”
“Does your elbow talk?” Dean posed. “Besides, how does that even come up? You’re four.”
“He’s in my chair!”
“He reached across you for the syrup. He’s not hurting you. You could just as easily handed it to him as elbow him.” Dean reined his impatience in. Kat had a way of tweaking him in just the right ways to make him tetchy. “And you,” he turned to Jimmy. “When you want something that you can’t reach without getting in someone’s way, be polite and ask. Magic words, kiddo. Magic words.”
“Sorry, Daddy,” Jimmy mumbled and then drowned his pancake in syrup. Dean reached across Kat to catch the bottle up and remove it from his son’s sticky grasp.
“When’s O-Pop coming home?” Alex asked.
Cas cleared his throat.
“Is Mommy going to get baby seeds from O-Pop?” Kat broke in.
“Baby seeds?” Dean challenged with an eye toward his husband at the far end of the table. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
Cas looked uncomfortable; he squirmed and readjusted his cutlery. “I was trying to put her off so she would go to sleep, Dean, not give an anatomy and sexual reproduction lesson. I abbreviated the lesson for expedience.”
“Was this the same lesson where you explained that Omegas have mommy parts?” Dean smirked as he sipped his coffee. The air quotes went un-gestured but were just as obvious as if he’d bothered to make them explicit.
Cas rolled his eyes.
“O-Pop has mommy parts AND daddy parts,” Alex clarified for Dean.
“Is that right?” Dean replied cheerfully, gloating at his husband. “What parts are those, again? I forget. Maybe Papa could explain it for the whole class.”
Cas set his fork down beside his plate and wiped his mouth. “I would be happy to explain. But we’ll do that later today when we can take our time with it. This is important stuff. There’s a picture book I’d like to share while we talk it through. Would that be all right with you, Dad?”
Dean chuckled and winked at Alex. “Don’t go holding lessons without me. I want in on this conversation. I need a refresher too.” Under his breath he added, “I think they’re going to eat your lunch, Alpha.”
“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out, Dean. But in the meanwhile, today is a big day for the Pack. How is everyone feeling? Are we all ready? Sarah?” He turned his focus to his left where she froze under the unexpected spotlight with her mouth open to take a bite of oatmeal.
“Um.” She lowered her spoon and flustered. “Yes. Of course. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. I’m ready, sir.”
Cas nodded and watched her body language for another moment before sliding his eyes down one chair. “Kate?”
Sarah really had been waiting a long time—her whole adult life, actually. Fantasy and porn only take a person so far. She had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the training, frustrated at the slow pace and caution that had put her firmly on the far side of the barricade while the other Subs in the house were already sore from intense scenes. Sarah had mostly just watched and practiced. And hungered.
They broke the prohibition a week ago after taking what she felt were absurd safeguards. But finally, finally, Sam had fucked her. And it had been glorious. She loved every touch, every word, every sensation. She loved the aftercare and the detailed debrief. She loved the warmth in his eyes when he told her he was proud. She loved the heft and size of his cock and the weight of his dominant persona.
And she had loved the palpable relief in Sam’s face when they completed the scene successfully. He worried that taking that last step would break them, but it hadn’t. It felt deliciously naughty, too good to be true. She had ended up laughing in his arms, and that might have been the best moment of all.
But now…
Training continued, of course, but today marked a sea change, and Sarah was nervous despite being all in for it. She had watched the others work long enough, watched and been prohibited from joining except as voyeur. Today was a Pack scene designed to test the notion of group play. And she’d been warned they planned to take the gloves off and get raunchy.
Everyone had jumped at the idea when Jess posed it. Sam molded it into a training assessment of sorts, a chance for the trainees to show off their skills, to compare their own performance to one another’s, and to find out if Sam was built for ensemble work. It started out as a joint class concept but quickly morphed into, well, a full Pack orgy, when nearly everyone in the Pack wanted in.
Sarah was nervous, naturally, but she’d grown to trust Sam and Michael. She’d discovered that she had no trouble compartmentalizing the side of her brain that rolled belly up for her Doms from the side that made toast for those same men in the morning without a trace of a power imbalance dynamic or the side that teased them for watching Floor is Lava. Inside the practice room, they were Sir. Outside of it, they were family.
She was ready.
Except this time Cas would be there.
Alpha had taken part in a few lessons, but only the chaste ones up to now. The idea that he would be there taking notes, possibly giving direction, while she was naked and vulnerable made her palms sweat. Was he going to be in play?
Sam would tell her that if she asked, but a part of her wasn’t ready for the answer, whichever answer.
At the breakfast table, Alpha’s hand found its way to the back of her neck even as he continued talking to Kali. He could scent her nerves, she knew. His thumb traced a soothing path behind her ear. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the touch. He was a father figure, but he was so much more. The erotic potential between them hadn’t faded with his assumption of her own father’s place in her head. She didn’t know if that was sick or not, she only knew it felt right.
Conversation shifted topics. Pups interjected, spilled drinks, earned a string of praise and reprimand, laughed and sang and ate and competed for Aunt Kali’s and Papa’s attention. Sarah floated.
“What time’s your flight?” Dean asked as he stacked plates. Sarah zoned back in. Cas answered.
“Six tomorrow evening. I need to tie up business in DC by Tuesday afternoon so I can hop up to Boston for their annual site review. If I can swing it, I want to meet Bobby in New York for an update on the Nikolai trial.”
“Sir, my presentation is on Thursday,” Sarah reminded him quietly, earning her a soft smile.
“I remember. I’ll be there. You’re pulling the whole adolescent program together for us, Doctor. Nothing’s more important than that.”
“I need an hour with you this week to finalize the slides,” she told him, feeling unaccountably bereft.
Cas patted her arm. “Throw an hour on my calendar for tomorrow afternoon. Or two. Whatever you need, beta. You’ve got my full support. You know that, right?”
“Of course, Alpha.”
But her chin quivered.
“Sarah, what’s wrong,” Cas asked. He handed his plate to Kate when she stood to help Dean clear.
“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted. Cas studied her for a moment and then squeezed her hand. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and then pushed his chair back.
With practiced grace, he helped Adam rise from the floor and included him by holding his hand. “Let’s see if today’s work helps shake loose some of that worry, shall we? A good scene can halt anxiety in its tracks. I think you can trust Sam and Michael to take care of you, beta. I’m guessing it’s exactly what you need right now. If it doesn’t do the trick, we’ll address it, okay? Together. You and me. You’re okay, Sarah.”
“You’re still leaving,” she muttered toward the floor, too aware of Adam not three feet away, emerging from his Submissive headspace and making calm look easy.
“I won’t be gone long, sweetheart. I promise. And you are not alone here.” Cas searched the kitchen with his eyes and snapped a couple of times to draw the beta’s attention. “Kali, what’s on your plate for Tuesday and Wednesday?”
Kali dried her hands on a towel that she tossed to Dean. “Just studio work, Alpha. Design stuff mostly. I can do it anywhere if you need me here.”
“Would you keep an extra-close watch on Sarah for me while I’m gone?”
“Of course,” Kali replied without hesitation. “But isn’t that Sam’s wheelhouse?”
Cas nodded. “Sam will be around. He’s got training sessions in the evening with both of them. But I’d like for you and Gabe to fill in around the edges. Watch over her unscheduled hours. We need to stay on top of this anxiety. It might be nothing new, but it might be something else. Don’t leave her alone.”
“Yes, Alpha. Happy to.”
Cas smiled tightly at his beta-Domme. He leaned close and kissed Sarah’s temple with a squeeze to her shoulder. She grasped his hand and squeezed back.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“I’m proud of you, Sarah,” he said. “Once upon a time, you would have pushed that kind of oversight away. Now you accept it as your right. You deserve to be looked after. You matter to us. We love you, you know that, right?”
“I know, Cas. I love you too.”
Warm crow’s feet traced the corners of his eyes. He patted her shoulder and then turned to see to Adam’s transition out of Subspace.
“Sarah has mommy parts too,” Kat declared from her perch on a stool at the sink. “You can tell because she has boobies.”
Sarah snorted.
“Flawed logic, padawan,” Gabe corrected with a wink her way. “O-Pop doesn’t have bazongas, and he’s a mom.”
“O-Pop is a boy!” Jimmy shouted in a tone that marked it as an old argument. “Boys have penises!”
“Look,” Gabe defended, “I never said it wasn’t complicated.”
“What are mommy parts, anyway?” Emma asked. She sat on the countertop with her feet banging against the cabinet doors below her. “Because I thought it was boobies? But O-Pop has man boobies.”
Dean chuckled. “Excellent question, Idge. Excellent question. Come on upstairs with me, all of you. It’s time for a talk. We can look at Papa’s picture book later. You and me, we’re going to learn the real words for all the body parts, so we don’t sound like Progressives when we talk to each other.”
“Penis is a real word,” Alex pointed out, letting Kate dry his face.
“Good,” Dean praised. “What other words do you know?”
“Boobies!” Jimmy cackled.
“Wrong!” Dean led them away like a pied piper. “But keep that word handy. It’s useful.”
Adam grinned as he watched them go, four little bodies all vying to hold Dean’s hand and win his attention. Dean swung Kat to his hip and let Alex clutch his hand. Adam collected his bathrobe from its hook and eased it on, still snickering. The sleeve got tangled around his arm. Sarah wordlessly untangled it for him and then adjusted the shoulders to sit centered. She tied it closed.
“Thanks,” Adam said.
“Sure.”
Looking around, Adam realized they were alone in the kitchen. He glanced back at his ex, but she blushed and turned to go.
“Hey, wait.”
Sarah stopped walking, but she didn’t turn around.
“Are you sure you’re okay with me being there today?” Adam asked. “We don’t have to do it this way. I know you’re not that far into your training. Seems too soon for a no-holds-barred group scene.”
She faced him, resting a hand on the counter and fidgeting slightly with her right foot. She didn’t even try to look up. “I’m okay, Adam. I promise. It’s not like we’re virgins. Not like we haven’t already done everything in the book.”
“Sarah, look,” Adam took a step closer. “I know this is awkward. I know you’re not built the way we are.”
“Please don’t drive a wedge in where I’ve worked so hard to get rid of it,” she protested. “I may not be Lupin, but I AM a Sub. I know that now. And I trust my Tops. I’m ready for today, and I’m fine with having you there. I trust you too, Adam. I know you. I know how it works for you. Group scenes are ideal for your wolf…or…fox. You need this as much as Kate and I do.”
He shook his head. “It’s different now. I don’t want to…” He frowned.
“Don’t want to what?” she challenged with a glint in her eye.
“You know I still care about you,” he said softly. “I’m always going to love you. I can’t change that just because you…”
“Adam, I can’t be with you,”
“I know.” He put his hands up and stepped closer. “I know. I’m not asking for that. I get it. But I need to ask for one thing if we’re going to do this and not make a mess of it. I need us to be honest with each other. After every scene we do together, I want to sit down with you and talk.”
“What? Why?” Sarah took a half-step back.
“Because it’s primal stuff, beta!” Adam blurted. “It’s personal! We bare our souls in there, and we need to be able to unpack it afterward.”
“That’s the Doms’ job,” Sarah said bluntly, dismayed.
“No,” Adam disagreed. “No, it’s not. For solo scenes, yeah. But when you play with multiple Bottoms, we all have to trust each other. There’s just as much at stake between you and Kate, between you and me, as between you and Sam. You can’t pretend we’re just housemates after this.”
“I’m not trying to pretend we’re housemates. But there’s no reason we can’t do our follow-ups through Sam.”
Adam wilted. “You used to trust me,” he observed sadly.
“It’s not that I can’t trust you, Adam. It’s that it isn’t appropriate. I don’t answer to you or Kate. I need to keep my focus where it belongs. I’m still very new at this. It doesn’t come easily to me like it does you.”
“Are you in love with him?” Adam asked abruptly.
“That’s none of your business,” Sarah shot with a hard look.
“Sorry.” He backed up. He sighed. “Yeah, sorry. That was stupid.” He bit his lip and considered then regrouped and tried again. “I’m not asking for anything inappropriate. Bottoms do this all the time. It’s considered part of the process. It helps to have someone with the same perspective you have talking through what you both experienced together. It’s vital to have support. Didn’t they tell you that?”
“Dean talks me through,” Sarah told him. “And Kate.”
“But now I’m here too,” he said. “And if I’m going to share your sandbox, I need to be included in the debriefs. Or should I just go try to handle it by myself?”
Sarah looked away.
“You always took care of me, Blake. I don’t believe you’re going to shut me out just to keep your walls up.”
“I have a right to my boundaries,” she stated.
“Then we shouldn’t play together at all,” he announced back.
Sarah’s mouth fell slack. She looked stricken. She looked shattered.
Adam licked his lips and pressed in. “You’re so close to understanding us. So fucking close. If you build a wall between us right here, right now, this thing won’t work. I’m not asking you to take me back. I’m asking you to let me sit with you and Kate…and Dean, I suppose…in the afters, so we can help each other process. Sarah, it’s going to get intense in there. Coming out of that…some of it is the Tops and how they support us. But some of it is how we support each other. I need to know there’s support for me before I go in there. I need to know you have my back. This could be amazing for all of us. But if we can’t talk honestly with each other, it’s going to be a disaster.”
“Just…talking?”
“It comes naturally to wolves,” he told her. “You and Kate have probably already been doing it. I’m just asking you not to freak when I join your little decompression sessions. Let me in, Sarah. Please? I’m Pack now, and I’m ranked below you. It comes with the ranking. You’re supposed to help me.”
Sarah nodded. “All right. I can do that. All three of us though. Not just you and me. I’m not ready to be alone with you when I’m that vulnerable.”
“Understood,” Adam told her and then he turned to go. “Thanks.”
“Hey, Adam?” Sarah frowned at the ceiling. He paused and looked back. “Look, I still care about you too. I’m…glad you’re here. I want us to be real friends, not just Packmates. I just have to be careful. I’m still hurting. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m nervous. You make me nervous,” she finished with a self-deprecating chuckle.
He nodded. “See? A little honesty can help us know how to be in the same house without hurting each other. I don’t want to hurt you. But I’m bad at guessing what you need from me.”
“You think we can be friends?” Sarah asked.
“I’d like that,” he answered in the same soft tone.
“I, uh, I told Sam I was okay if he worked you and me together today. I think he’s planning on pushing my limits.” Sarah’s heart ached. She felt a chasm churn within her, one that she knew Adam could fill. She shoved it down.
“I know,” Adam nodded. “He told me.”
“I should have asked you directly,” Sarah said with an uncomfortable shrug. “I shouldn’t have just assumed that you being a contractor means you’re game for anything. This isn’t a contract scene.”
“Don’t sweat it,” he said with a gentle smile. “It’s Sam’s job to get everyone’s limits on the books and coordinate contact between all of us. If I wasn’t comfortable, I wouldn’t have agreed.”
“It won’t happen again,” she said with a trace of shame on her tongue.
Adam’s eyes twinkled. “No, because we’re going to schedule sit-downs with no Tops in the room, and we’re going to figure out what we want and how to get it.”
“Careful, Omega,” she chided. “That’s insubordinate talk right there. You’re gonna get us strapped.”
“Mmm,” he mused. “Yeah, hope so. That would be hot.”
Sarah laughed, and a dam broke between them. She shook her head. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” he quipped. “See you at two.” He turned on his heel and escaped with the last word.
Dean sat on the piano bench with his guitar in his lap, plinking softly and humming to himself. Sam found him there as the sun cast a warm, hazy glow across the keys. He took a seat nearby, waiting for Dean to reach a stopping point.
“Sounds good,” Sam commented when Dean paused. “The album is taking shape?”
Dean snorted. “Album,” he repeated. “It’s a joke, Sammy. It’s a rich white guy throwing crap at the walls and calling it art.”
Sam laughed. “Whatever, man. Your songs are plenty good enough to record. Shut up and do the work. No one cares if you win a Grammy. Just do it for fun. What have you got to lose?”
“My pride,” Dean said.
“Too late for that. We already know you.”
“Bitch,” Dean shot back with no heat.
Sam chuckled. “When do you think it’ll be released?”
Dean set the guitar in its stand and stretched his fingers over the keys, playing a bluesy riff off the top of his head. “Not yet,” he answered with his eyes on his fingers. “April needs to concentrate on her own album. Cain’s on her to get back to work. She’s way behind schedule now. The plan was for her to release the one that’s written, let it get some airtime, see if it gains a following, then follow it with another that she puts together while she’s pregnant. Once the pups are born, she and Cain will assess how those two albums land and make a plan from there. Maybe a tour in a couple of years. Maybe another Broadway project. Maybe something entirely different. But she needs to publish something in the next few months or risk falling off the radar. She has to prove the wreck didn’t knock her off the horse. My little ditties can wait.”
“Why can’t you both record at the same time?” Sam asked.
“I need her help,” Dean explained. “She’s going to arrange for me.”
“Ah.”
Dean turned around and faced his brother. “Hey, man, you sure about this thing today? Is Sarah ready?”
Sam smiled. “Yeah, Dean, she’s ready. She’s chomping at the bit. She’s taken a swing at everything I pitched her and hit that shit out of the park. She’s going to give up on me if I don’t let her in the deep end soon.”
“Yeah, but a group scene? It’ll be a gangbang, Sam. Up to now you’ve only lobbed her easy ones.”
“The hell,” Sam disagreed. “Did you read my notes from last week?”
“I dunno,” Dean frowned. “Something’s off with her.”
“Yeah, it’s called impatience. It’s called need, Dean. She needs to take it up a notch. She’s antsy because she can see the destination from where she is, but she can’t touch it.”
“Look, maybe she needs to take it up the notch, okay, but Adam? You’re putting Adam in the middle of it?”
“You’re damn right I am. Adam is pivotal to this scene. That band-aid needs ripping off. The sexual tension between those two is thick enough to walk on. I want her to have something in her peripheral vision that takes her mind off the scary stuff in front of her. Trust me, Dean, I know what I’m doing. I just wish you were going to be there.”
Dean clucked his tongue. “Someone has to watch the pups. With Kate, Michael, April, and Cas all in there with you, that leaves four-year-olds running roughshod over the house. We can’t keep dumping them on Kali. Besides, the last thing Sarah needs is another voyeur.”
“She trusts you,” Sam told his brother. “Having you there would help steady her.”
“Nah. Baby birds gotta leave the nest eventually. If you say she’s ready, let’s give her the chance to succeed without giving her a crutch.” Dean stood and carried his guitar across to the window where he’d left the case. “Besides, you don’t need your brother in the room. You do better work when I’m elsewhere.”
Sam cocked his head, studying Dean. “This isn’t about you and Cas, is it?”
Dean sighed and slammed his case. He flicked the latches closed. He rotated on his knees. “Cas and I worked it out. I told you that.”
“You told me he made you beat the crap out of yourself.”
“Yeah, and it was a friggin’ catharsis, and I’m fine. We’re fine.”
“But you’re still quitting The Facility that you built with your own two hands.”
Dean returned slowly. “It’s not an impulsive decision,” he said. “I’ve been standing on the edge for ages, watching for the right time to jump. I’m not leaving the mission, just re-zoning my priorities. I’ll join the Board. I’ll manage research initiatives. I’ll consult and write. I’ve still got a hand in it, man. But I’m drowning in the day-to-day. And my kids barely have one parent right now, even with four of us. Cas wants to look into starting a co-op school for them. They’ll be hitting kindergarten next year, and we haven’t even started looking into their educational options except to reject the integrated public schools. The state has fucked up Lupin support since we were there, Sammy. We can’t send them into that.”
“Yeah,” Sam scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “I know. The twins’ school is adequate, but only marginally. And only because the staff for the early years are Lupin. I don’t even want to think about what it would be like if they drew a Primate teacher.”
“I need to be at home so I can figure this shit out, especially if we’re founding something from the ground up,” Dean added. “But I’m not leaving, not really.”
“Hey, look at me,” Sam held Dean by the shoulder and peered intently into his eyes. Dean’s irises flicked red and back to green. “You’re good with Michael out of pocket? You’re stable while he’s in the guest house? They married pretty suddenly.”
Dean pulled away and scoffed. “Pretty suddenly? Try sudden as hell. One minute it was a possibility, the next they’re feeding each other cake and April’s got a Primate ear and a bald head.”
“You don’t deal with abrupt change well,” Sam reminded him. “And this one comes with an absent mate. Just check in with me real quick. You good?”
Dean had a bratty rejoinder on his lips, but he caught it and sighed. Sam knew him too well. After a moment, Dean looked at his brother. “I’m processing. ‘Kay? I know I can’t blow this off without risking sending myself into a swirl. No one wants that less than me, especially since I just climbed out of one.”
“You’re talking honestly with Cas?”
“He’s making me journal,” Dean admitted.
Sam nodded. “Good. And how can I help?”
Dean sniffed and stood up. He gathered the scribbles of sheet music April had left for him off the piano. “You can take good care of your polycule,” he replied. “Stabilize the Bottoms, Sammy. Hold this Pack together from the base. Give me a safe place to figure all this shit out. If I’m working out my own crap while the Pack is wonky, I’m going to make a mess. Don’t let us get wonky.”
“I can do that,” Sam assured him. “I can also take a swing or two at you like old times if that would help.”
“My ass gets enough attention,” Dean told him.
“Hmm,” Sam sounded unconvinced. Then he pivoted, “Polycule? Is that what we’re going with?”
“Harem is a pejorative,” Dean told him. “Cas thinks it’s dehumanizing. Aside from that, he’s tickled pink that you’re embracing your wolf. You stand to win massive brownie points if you pull this off.”
“Yeah, well, today will be the real test, won’t it?” said Sam. “Even Gabe signed on.” Sam shook his head. “What the hell am I supposed to do with Gabe?”
Dean laughed. “Keep him busy,” he advised. “Don’t give him a chance to come up with mischief of his own. He’ll tear it all down. And Cas won’t intervene. You know that, right? Cas is going to stand there and take notes. He won’t save you if you get into trouble.”
“Oh, god. This could be a disaster.”
“It’s not going to be a disaster,” Dean countered. “It’s going to be the beginning of something great. Turn your wolf loose, Sam. Go with your gut. Pay attention. Run it like the expert you are. You know I wouldn’t have signed off on Kate’s participation if I didn’t trust you to see her through. I’m not trusting my girl to just anybody. I’m trusting her to you.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, thanks. That, uh, that means a lot, actually. So. Jess, Kate, Sarah, Adam, April. Five Subs and Gabriel. Michael and me by ourselves. You sure you won’t join in as a spotter?”
“Cas is spotter,” Dean reminded him. “He’ll stay out of it unless you get into real trouble, but he’s not going to let anyone get hurt. Relax, man. Enjoy yourself. You’ve got this.”
Notes:
Warning for some CBT.
Hey. y'all, the world is fucked up. Let's be Pack and watch out for each other.
Chapter 35: Saturday, October 23, 2021
Summary:
A chapter of pure het smut. It's rare for this AU, so I hope you enjoy.
Also, Sam struggles to rein in his mate and isn't sure he really wants to.
Notes:
It's super long again. But that's how we roll.
Thanks to Melodina for reminding me when my internet cable gets severed in sacrifice to Father's Day compost bin installation that my phone can be a hotspot. These kids and their new-fangled technology.
Thanks to Andi4 for the banner. Sometimes subtle just isn't going to cut it. 😉
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, October 23, 2021
NOW:
And really, Dean was right. Sam knew stage fright would vanish once his wolf had the reins in its teeth. He worried about Jess in the aftermath. He worried about Sarah. He worried about Jess in relation to Sarah and vice versa. But there was no way to know how that would shake out until they did it. Unless they did it.
Jess swore that jealousy wasn’t going to pop up as a hurdle. Her only concern was that Sam might pull his punches. She wanted him fierce and merciless. She wanted everyone in the Pack to acknowledge his power, his greatness. She wanted to gloat. She wanted to be debased in front of everyone and to withstand the assault and to rise above it, a glorious phoenix in full splendor after an explosive inferno destroys every vestige of who she used to be.
Sam waited in his bedroom until five minutes after he’d instructed them to present. He was thrumming. Horny. His wolf tugged at him, nipped at his heels. Slowly, he stood up and cinched his robe tighter. He measured his pace, deliberately slowing down. His hazel eyes glinted with feral light, channeling brisk, sharp wilderness and brutal indifference.
He opened the door into the hallway and pulled a long breath through his nose. He stepped out and turned left. He kept his pace ponderous, evoking power and intention. He rounded the corner and found Kate dashing across from her room. She squeaked when she saw him and dove into the morning room. She slammed the door behind her, and Sam smirked.
He followed her in.
“You’re late,” he pointed out coldly.
She skidded to her knees beside the others, face crimson, eyes down. “I’m sorry, Sir!”
“Oh, sweetie,” Sam told her, “we’ll get to that. Be patient.” He drenched his tone in dark promise.
“I was here on time, Sir!” Kate babbled. “But I forgot to take my earrings out…”
April touched Kate’s thigh subtly with the back of her knuckle to arrest her verbal overflow, and Kate snapped her mouth closed. Her face turned bright red. Sam’s eyes flicked down to April’s hand as it returned to her thigh where it belonged, but he said nothing. He strolled slowly around the line of Subs kneeling motionless in the middle of the room. Each wore a simple bleached white t-shirt and white scrub pants. Each bowed their head in waiting. Sam examined them, their posture, their tension, their amalgamated scents. He nodded toward Castiel, seated by the far wall with a legal pad on the table beside him and a pen in his hand, dressed in fitted black jeans and a white cotton button down shirt. Sam acknowledged Michael leaning against the wall perpendicular to Castiel’s chosen perch. Michael was bare-chested in a soft pair of track pants. Barefoot. Solemn. Calm. Michael’s arms folded over his chest, and he crossed one ankle over the other, utterly at ease.
Gabriel sprawled naked on the chaise, sloven but interested. Gabe offered Sam a bro-chin-lift version of a nod as the beta-Dom glanced his way. Sam’s bitch-face answered the Omega back, and Gabe smirked.
Winked.
Sam left him alone. He was only here as a prop.
“Let me make our purpose here today very clear,” Sam’s wolf announced. “Today is a test. It’s not about making you feel good. It’s not about pleasure. It’s a test. And make no mistake, it’s about making me happy. Does everyone understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” they answered in unison.
“Everyone in this room has approval to touch you however I choose. Everyone. But this is not an orgy. No one touches anyone without my clear instruction. Your safewords must remain ready upon your lips. You are, indeed, all empowered to manage your fates. However, short of a safeword, I am in charge. Any questions?”
No one spoke.
“Good. Then this will be a simple exercise. Do what you’re told, and it’ll be a piece of cake. Remember your training.” He touched April’s thigh with his foot. “Keep your hands and advice to yourself. Most of all…Submit to me… and we will get along fine.”
Sam gestured toward Michael. “Michael? Anything to add?”
Michael’s wolf cast a large shadow. His eyes seemed unfathomably deep. He didn’t move. Coldly, he said, “April doesn’t get to come.”
Sam raised his brows and set his gaze on the blushing Ozzie kneeling between Kate and Adam. “Oh? Something I need to know about?”
“No,” Michael replied.
The flush crept around the back of her neck and under the edge of her shirt collar. Sam reached down and lifted her chin. He studied her eyes and then released her. “All right. I can live with that. Let’s get started.” Sam paced back a few feet and took in the row before him. Sarah, Jess, Adam, April, Kate. His wolf purred inside his breast at the compliance. A Sub on its knees set a soft rumbling within his wolf.
“Sarah, on your feet. You’re on the stasis bar.” She looked up in startlement and displeasure, immediately on edge. “Go sit down, take hold of the bar, and don’t move unless I tell you to.” He pointed to the wall beside Michael where a grip-bar had been installed parallel to the floor about three feet up. A firm cushion rested beneath. It bore the persistent impression of Sarah’s backside after hours of immobility, relegated to merely watching during their practice sessions when she’d been so very keen to join in. Sarah’s mouth dropped open.
“But…” She looked back and forth from the bar to the Dom and back again. “Sir, no! Not again!”
Sam sighed in disappointment. “Remind me, Submissive, what are your choices when given direction during a scene?”
Sarah spluttered, looking to her colleagues.
“Don’t look at them!” Sam corrected fiercely. “You’re answering me. What are your choices?”
She regurgitated the answer by rote: “Obey, disobey, safeword, or ask a question.”
Sam nodded. “I shouldn’t have to repeat myself, but I’ll offer you one chance. Your instruction is to go over there and plant your ass at the stasis bar. You have four choices.” Sam stared right through her soul. “Choose.”
“A question,” Sarah said with shaky breath. She rose slowly to her feet.
Sam raised his brows.
“Are you benching me for the scene? Like before?”
“Yes,” he told her. “Unless I change my mind. Any other questions?”
“Sir, please! I’m ready!”
“That isn’t a question. It’s a defiance.” Sam’s glare froze her in the act of stepping toward him to beseech.
“No, no, I don’t mean it like that. Only, I thought you said I would be playing too this time.”
“I said no such thing.” He paused long enough to draw tension straight out of the walls. He sneered. “I said I would test you. My role here today is to Dominate. Yours is to…?”
Sarah’s breath quivered. Her mouth went dry.
“Sarah?”
“To submit,” she whispered.
“That’s right.”
She looked to the wall and whimpered. “Please, Sir…”
“Adam, on your feet,” Sam interrupted.
Adam stood smoothly, his face a pleasant blank.
“You’ve been practicing?” Sam asked vaguely.
“Yes, Master,” Adam replied easily.
Sam pointed toward a table by the door. “The number three, please.” Adam trotted across to collect the paddle. “Sarah, present,” Sam instructed. He sounded almost bored. He turned and paced away, leaving Sarah alone. He wasn’t even watching. She huffed a frustrated, wordless complaint, but she bent at the waist, spread her feet wide, and placed flat hands on the ground. This, at least, she’d been allowed to practice. She walked out until she perched on hands and the balls of her feet in a nearly downward-dog posture. Her knees weren’t overly fond of this position.
Her ass didn’t like it either.
“Five, Adam,” Sam said as he examined a still life on the wall.
Adam tugged Sarah’s scrubs down over her hips and then popped her a steady five-count with the flat of his paddle. He returned the paddle to the table without waiting to be told, leaving Sarah to drop her knees to the ground and then work her way awkwardly to standing again, tugging her pants back up. Anger flashed in her eyes. But she obeyed the instruction this time. She trudged into the corner and the hated cushion. She crossed her legs Omega-style in a position she’d grown far too accustomed to and took hold of the bar above her head.
Sam looked over his shoulder. “Atta girl.”
She glowered at him.
“April,” he said, leaving Sarah to her dissatisfaction. “Take my robe.”
“Yes, sir.” April flowed forward and crawled the distance gracefully. She raised up on her knees and attacked the knot with her teeth.
Sam carded his fingers through her hair as she worked. He hummed in pleasure and found Jess peeking up, brazenly meeting his eyes. Sam held Jess’ gaze as April’s chin grazed his cock beneath the robe. His mate’s face was inscrutable, but inside their shared bond, he felt her ignite to a slow smolder.
Every Lupin’s wolf stood centered, ears erect, tail bristling. The Tertiary replaced the Secondary. It opened channels to carnal connections that felt taboo outside of this sealed enclosure. They all hummed in expectation and desire. The taboos evaporated. Wolves, indeed, eschew societal stricture when it limits sensual pleasure.
Who was Sam to April? Today, in this moment, he was Sir and nothing else.
April tugged the knot of his belt loose and then rose gracefully to her feet to ease the robe off his shoulders. He bowed his shoulder blades and allowed the robe to slide free, then trailed the back of his knuckles over her cheek in a caress, and she lowered her eyes demurely as she carried the robe away.
Sam had loose pants on, but his bare chest, muscled and lightly oiled, served as power statement enough without needing to be nude just yet. April folded the robe and set it on the implement table…just so. Then she returned to her place and dropped back onto the floor. She was the very picture of grace and compliance.
“Very nice,” Sam praised. One more look toward Cas, toward Gabe, toward Michael whose chest was smattered with angry red bite-marks, and then he clasped his hands and turned back to his Subs.
“Kate, we’ll start with you. Come to me, beautiful. Strip it all off. Climb up on my lap.” Sam sat down on the leather couch behind him and spread his knees wide. Kate wasted no time. She was naked before she took three steps, and she slid in to straddle his lap with no hesitation. Sam caught her chin and drew her into a deep, succulent kiss. His hands wandered down to her ass. He clutched and kneaded. She rolled her hips under his fingers.
At her back, the others raised their eyes and watched. They could smell the slick, could see the light sheen of sweat on Kate’s back. Her ass in Sam’s grip sent shivers down everyone’s spines. Eroticism ignited instantly, clicking each witness into overdrive within their own wolves. Could they see it, within the metaphysical otherworld, a pack of pacing, hopeful canids circled the central couple, heads low, jaws gaping, tongues lolling and dripping in hunger, searching for a way in.
Castiel’s pen glided smoothly across the page as he took notes.
Jess cast a glance at Sarah and met her eye with a smug smile. Sarah scowled.
Sam made out with Kate until the scent of arousal grew thick. He ducked his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth. He laved it with his tongue and nibbled it lightly, drawing a gasp. His hands kneaded her hips, waist, ass. Her lower back.
“Adam,” Sam summoned, breaking free. Sam leaned to his left and deposited Kate on her back on the couch. He sat up again and took Adam by the hand when the man joined him. Sam drew Adam’s hand to Kate’s warming crotch and got him started drawing breathy noises from her. “Don’t make her come yet, son, but keep her going for me.”
“Yes, Sir!” Adam said enthusiastically. He dropped to his knees and oriented his hand for best effect. Kate let her head fall over the arm of the couch and put an elbow over her face. She moaned.
“Good boy, Omega. We’re going to edge this little one until she’s screaming to come. Can you do that for me?”
“Mm-hm.” Adam’s eyes were wide and hungry. Sam pivoted and propped a knee on the couch so he could watch for a moment.
At the wall, Sarah fumed and tugged futilely on the bar. Michael tapped her knee with his foot.
“Settle down,” he told her.
Sarah glanced up. Michael’s expression, one that bore no resemblance to his day-to-day mein, chilled her instantly, and she gulped and stilled. She faced front once more and found Sam watching.
Shit.
“Actually, Adam,” Sam seemed to be making it up as he went along. Or perhaps it was a studied casualness meant to disarm his Subs. “Drop your pants. Present your backside to the room, kiddo. There you go.” Sam smiled in pleasure as the man obeyed him without question. Soon, Adam was back to work on Kate. His ass curved enticingly, pale and smooth. Omega perfection. His scrubs crumpled tight around his knees as he widened them.
“So pretty,” Sam praised. He ran loose fingers down Adam’s crack. “Use your tongue some if you like,” Sam told him. “We need her wet and ready. Make her squirm for me.” He watched Adam work, enjoying the pure porn of the thing and the rush of simple power. They would do whatever he told them to.
“Michael, you seeing this good boy?”
“I see him,” Michael replied.
“April, sweetheart, it’s your turn,” Sam said once he could finally drag his eyes away from Kate and Adam. “I want Adam’s balls in your mouth. Come here, love. Your mouth is wasted if it isn’t warming a man.” April licked her lips and crawled forward. “That’s a good girl. Get way down low. Don’t suck. Just hold. Warm my boy up for us. Do whatever you want with your hands. Damn, you make that look easy. Someone’s been well-trained.”
“Someone’s on a short leash, and she knows to be on her best behavior,” Michael commented dryly.
Cas said nothing.
“Nobody comes without permission,” Sam warned. “If you’re close, you say so.” He watched for another moment or two and then turned to face his mate. “You ready?”
“Yes, Sir.” Jess’ voice carried an inscrutable edge.
“Get your ass over here. Lose the clothes. Michael, would you mind monitoring my little perpetual motion machine here?” He indicated the trio at the couch as he stood and shoved his pants to the floor. He stepped out.
“I’ve got them,” Michael confirmed. “And this one,” he nodded down at Sarah.
“Great,” Sam said in a distracted voice as he picked Jess right up off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist and settled onto his dick as he situated her.
Sarah snorted rudely. All this setup just to watch Sam fuck his mate?
Michael cleared his throat and scowled down at her. “Someone needs a gag, apparently. Gabe, come gag my obstinate friend.”
“Really?” Gabe asked, sitting up. “You sure?”
“Do I ever joke about sex?” Michael shot back. “She needs something in her mouth.”
Gabe wandered over, half-hard, head cocked, eyes on Sarah. He addressed her. “You don’t have to do this. You get that, right? I mean, I want you to, obviously. Really, really want you to… But…”
Sarah was too angry to be cautious, and she didn’t want to be babied. How many more ways were there to tell them she wanted in? She held Gabe’s eye with a challenging glint, and she opened her mouth. Beside her, Michael exhaled audibly. Gabe grinned and strutted forward, swinging his dick in his hand.
“No,” said Cas abruptly.
When had the man crossed the room?
“Not Gabriel.” Gabe looked over his shoulder at his brother and then shrugged. “Go help Sam,” Cas told him.
“Sir, she needs to work up to size. You’re too big for her,” Michael told him, clearly thinking Cas meant to take Gabe’s spot.
“You’re not,” Cas replied back, glancing down at Michael’s track pants. “I don’t want a Neutral touching her. Not yet. But Sam’s right, she needs to be culled from the pile…at least for now.” Icy blue eyes shifted and pinned her. She swallowed her complaint and tightened her grip on the bar over her head, unable to look away from his eyes. Those piercing eyes.
How did he do that?
That look.
On the couch, Sam had Jess arranged spraddling his lap facing outward. Sarah couldn’t see from the angle if he had her mounted, but their hips moved together…so it was likely. But from the tilt of her hips, he’d entered her through the back door, leaving her open to welcome another from the front. Sam brought Gabe in to sandwich her between their chests, and Sarah whined, imagining herself in Jess’ place. Gabe didn’t need any encouragement. He shuffled position until he had the angle, and then he pressed in with his hands clutching Jess’ waist. Sam began a whispered litany into her ear as he pulled her thighs wide open.
But then Sarah lost her view altogether. Michael’s bare hips blocked it. And his very erect cock. And his flat belly. Sarah looked up at him, stymied. She wanted to watch the others! No. She wanted to join the others. She could hear them. Kate’s breathy moans and softly urgent begging. Slick, wet sounds of April’s mouth doing far more than simply warming Adam’s sac. Adam, muttering admiration and encouragement as his fingers and tongue took Kate to a happy place.
And Jess.
Jess bore down into the abuse like a woman on fire. Her voice box engaged. Half grunts, half moans, half demanding, Jess’ cries rose loud above all other players. Sarah whined, looking up at Michael smirking down at her. He raised a brow and tapped her lower lip with his dick.
“Oh, for the love of god!” Cas exclaimed. With a hand to the back of Sarah’s head and another at Michael’s lower back, Cas thrust them together. “Either do it or stop pretending you’re going to!”
Sarah squawked and morphled around the dick in her mouth, but she didn’t balk. She adjusted her position, worked herself up to her knees, and pressed her face in tight. They were right that she had no trouble with the size. Michael slid in up to the root, just tickling the back of her throat, not triggering her gag reflex. Michael chuckled meanly. He twisted his fingers into her hair and thrust lazily into her mouth.
“Is this what you wanted, Submissive?” he asked.
Sarah growled and shook her head slightly. She clutched his thighs and dropped her jaw. She listened to the moans and thumps and heavy breathing behind him, and she imagined what they were doing.
“Gabe, please!” Jess moaned, deep and masculine.
But Sarah couldn’t see anything.
Michael slid slowly in and out of her mouth, dragging at her lower lip, guiding her face with a claiming hand at the side of her head. He angled her face to look up slightly.
“Do you know why you’ve been singled out, Blake?” he asked in a sultry croon.
She frowned with eyes and forehead.
“Put your hands back on the bar,” he instructed. “I never gave you permission to touch me.”
She transferred her grip from his thighs to the bar. The sounds from behind Michael tore her attention in two. Sarah was growing beside herself with want. It wasn’t fair.
“Look at me, Submissive,” Michael said, soft but commanding, and he pulled Sarah’s eyes up, straining from the angle and the persistent downward tug to her jaw from the stroke of his cock.
“Do you want to join them?”
She burbled an assent with her mouth full. Was this an offer?
Michael smiled subtly and cocked his head. “Do you? And yet you are here. Not there. Why are you in the corner and not on the couch?” His eyes narrowed. “What’s missing, Sarah?”
She whined, unable to answer even if she knew what he was looking for. It was because she wasn’t a wolf, wasn’t it?
Kate interrupted, “I’m close! STOP! Please stop!” And Sarah could hear Sam praise her. More shuffling sounds. They were re-adjusting. Maybe switching partners? Oh, why couldn’t she just see…?
“I need your focus,” Michael reminded Sarah. “Where’s your mind right now? On me? Or on them?”
“Aaah-hn Uuu,” she mumbled. She straightened her spine and opened her throat. She reached with her tongue to touch his balls, something Adam used to melt for.
But Michael shook his head. “No, it’s not. You’re all about the other side of the room. You want to play in the deep end with the big fish.”
“S…ihr p…eez!” Sarah garbled.
“Here,” Michael said, “take note.” He turned at the waist and looked behind him. Sarah couldn’t see anything. “Pete. Adam. Disengage. Back to position one, both of you!” More shuffling. A wet slap, maybe to someone’s ass, and a few loud smacking kissing sounds, and two figures pulled free and entered Sarah’s peripheral vision beyond Michaels’ right hip. They knelt calmly on the floor, side by side. The rhythmic fucking continued without them.
“You see?” Michael turned back, tangled his fist in her hair, and tugged back until she was forced to raise her chin and pull higher on her knees. “What does that tell you?”
Okay, so it was about compliance? Sarah thought furiously. But she hadn’t even been granted the opportunity to show how compliant she could be before they viciously cut her and relegated her to the corner. And fuck Adam. He didn’t have to be such a suck-up. What happened to having her back?
“How’s it going over there?” Sam called to Michael.
“We’re stalled,” Michael answered over his shoulder. “But she’s got her thinking cap on. We might get there eventually. Oh, and the girl can give a blow job. I’ll tell you that much. She’s not a novice at everything, looks like. Her tonguing skills are adept.”
“Hey, Blake,” Sam said loudly. “If you like, you can remove your top. It’s your choice, not an order. Nothing hinges on this choice but your own preference. Take it off or leave it on.”
“Mmmph,” she replied, and she pulled back to strip her shirt off instantly. Michael didn’t give her a chance to linger or sneak a peek past him. He leaned over slightly, jerked her head back with a fist in the sensitive spot down by her neck, and he ran possessive fingers over her breast, her nipple.
Sarah had never been this turned on in her life. Or this frustrated.
“I’m still waiting for an answer,” Michael prompted.
“I’ll be good, Sir,” she promised. She craned her head to the left to offer him room to grope her chest or whatever he chose to do. “I’ll be so good!”
“Ah, I know you will. But you’re missing the point.”
“Please, Sir, I don’t know…PLEASE!” Sarah begged desperately.
Castiel, close enough to observe and catch their interactions, clucked his tongue. Sarah sobbed. Michael jammed his dick back into her mouth and fucked as deeply as he could. His fist still tangled in her hair, he wrapped his other hand around her throat and squeezed.
“You look very pretty like that, Sarah,” Cas observed, watching closely. She felt a flush spread through her entire body, right down to the tips of her toes. She wanted him to stretch out his hand and squeeze her breast, maybe slide a thumb into her mouth beside Michael’s length. She wanted Cas to touch her.
But he toed backward and wandered toward April and Adam, both still waiting to rejoin the party. Sarah couldn’t hear what Cas said to his mate over the gurgling in her own throat. She heard Jess climax though. She heard absolute filth spill from Sam’s mouth as he deliberately dehumanized his mate.
She heard Gabe groan.
“Remind me again why we don’t have a standing Friday night orgy,” Gabe said breathlessly in a wrecked voice. “I could get used to this.”
“How are you with your tongue, Gabe?” Sam asked. “Kate’s had enough of a break.”
“I’ve never had any complaints,” Gabe retorted cheerfully. “Come here, little one. Where did that boy leave off? Ready for a real man?”
Kate cackled.
Sarah growled.
Michael pulled out and slapped her.
She gasped and looked up into his face. A storm cloud glared down at her. “Where’s your head, Sub? Focus!”
“I’m sorry!”
Cas spoke up from several yards away, too distant, surely, to have heard the sound in her throat, but he spoke to Sarah. “You’re on your last chance, beta. I don’t care what Sam has planned. Straighten up or I’ll pull you myself.”
“No, please! I’ll be good!” Sarah cried.
“Let’s get her out of her pants,” Sam suggested as he strolled regally into view. He was gloriously naked. “What do you say, Blake? Ready to show off that amazing ass?”
“Yes!”
“She figured it out yet?” Sam asked Michael. Sam squatted behind her and lifted her into the air with his hands beneath her arms. Michael stripped her scrubs off cleanly, all one motion.
“Not yet. I think all the blood has left her brain. She’s not usually this slow.”
Sam laughed. Sarah caught a look toward the couch. Gabe had his face buried in Kate’s crotch while Jess suckled her tit. Adam leaned over her from the opposite direction and kissed her upside-down while she clutched his upper arms, holding on for all she was worth and writhing. April stood watching with her arms wrapped around herself, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. April’s ass was a splotched, bruised mess.
Sam brought Sarah back to her knees, still squatting easily behind her.
Into her ear, he whispered, “Did you ever expect, back when you met me, that you would one day be…here?” Chills swept through her body at the feel of his breath and the poignancy of his question. “Because the truth is…whatever you chose to do, you were always going to be… mine. Whatever choices you made, whatever details you altered, we were always going to end up… Here.” He ran light fingers over her nipple and took her ear lobe between his teeth. He took Michael by the hip and drew him back in. “Open,” whispered Sam. He grasped it and eased Michael’s cock into her mouth, a move that felt intimate to the exclusion of Michael. “Be good for me, Submissive. Take him in.”
Sarah leaned into the muscle at her back and wrapped her lips around the dick Sam fed her. His face crooked right up against hers. “That’s it. That’s my girl. Don’t think. Don’t worry. Just suck. Close your eyes and drift. Suck that cock like the filthy slut you are.”
“Sam,” Jess whined. “You promised we’d get to have Michael.”
“Excuse me, love,” Sam said into Sarah’s ear. He stood up, leaving Sarah’s back feeling cold. “I need to go take care of something.” To Michael he added, “Keep the pressure on. She’s close.” And then he disappeared toward the couch.
Jess’ spanking went on forever and had her screeching. Sarah redoubled her efforts with Michael, determined to create a contrast in Sam’s head between the behavior of his mate and that of his Primate Sub. She could be good. She’d prove it. This was a competition. She’d worked out that much. April’s refined, perfected grace and Adam’s practiced softness versus Jess’ raw passion versus the noobs’ clumsy earnestness. Who would carry the day and win the crown?
Michael held her head and pumped his hips, chasing his orgasm. Sarah clutched the bar in a white-fisted grip, giving over to it. Blowing Michael wasn’t exactly a punishment. His length fit inside her mouth without the usual pain of a hard face-fuck. It let her drop her jaw and take all of him.
“That’s much better,” he praised. His grip in her hair hurt in just the right way. “Unngghhh!” He pressed in deep and pulsed there before drawing back and unleashing a furious onslaught that ended with him spilling down her throat. He let his head drop back for a moment while his fists tightened and released in her hair. Tightened and released.
Sarah held his softening cock warm on her tongue. Her scalp tingled.
He looked down. “You figure it out yet?”
Sarah shook her head. Michael grinned and pulled free of her mouth.
“Is it about my attitude? I’ll do better, I swear!”
“Nope,” said Michael, popping the P. “Has nothing to do with your temper tantrum. And I already know you’ll do better. I’ll make sure of that, don’t you worry.”
“Sir, please!”
“Hey, Sam,” Michael called, turning away from Sarah. “Have you let Kate come yet?”
“Not yet,” Sam answered, driving his cock into April’s channel like a hydraulic pump. He had her bent over the arm of the couch with his foot pinning the side of her face. Kate knelt on the ground between Adam’s splayed legs as he sprawled loose on the couch with his hip pressed against the top of April’s head. Kate’s hands clasped behind her back, her mouth in furious suction, working to get him off. Jess lay between Kate’s knees, eating her ass with enthusiasm with her nose pressed into her vaginal folds, and Kate appeared to be trying hard not to grind down into the pleasure. “She edges like a champ. But she earned a stiff reprimand for arriving late. That’s not an insubordination that can go unaddressed.”
Sarah startled. “Edging? Is that what this is? You pulled me out as a way of edging me?” Sam didn’t slow, but he shared a look with Michael.
“Sam?” Sarah asked when she received no answer.
His face darkened instantly. “I beg your pardon?!”
“Sir! I meant Sir!”
“I think Gabe’s right,” Michael said. “We should make this a regular thing. This is fun.”
Gabe was back on his chaise, sprawled with legs wide and soft cock retracted nearly to his balls. He waved a lazy hand. “Needs more chicks though. This here’s a sausage fest.”
“Take a nap, Gabriel,” Cas told him. “This event wasn’t for your benefit.”
Sarah shifted on her pillow, pulling as high onto her knees as she could get and still technically be kneeling. “Am I right?” she asked no one. “I got sidelined just to torture me? No other reason?”
“It’s not about pleasing you, submissive. It’s about what I want. If you get into a snit every time you don’t get what you want, where’s the submission?” Sam answered, fucking April with glee and power.
“Claim her, Samuel,” Cas directed, looking down at his mate, still pinned beneath Sam’s foot. “It’s time.”
“Just don’t make her come,” Michael reminded him.
They were back to ignoring Sarah. Kate at least had the pleasure of, well, pleasure, even if she hadn’t been allowed to reach completion. Yet. Sarah had been granted nothing more than a couple touches to one breast and the briefest moment with Sam’s body pressed tightly behind hers. The unfairness rankled. She frowned and opened her mouth to protest.
“Ah-ah,” Cas forestalled her with a powerful stride forward and a finger up. “No, you don’t. Zip it! You’ve already been given more slack than is good for you. On your feet. Come here.”
“Finally,” she muttered.
Cas took her by the arm and delivered five stinging swats to the middle of her ass.
“Your cheek is unacceptable,” he seethed. “You get no more warnings.” His grip on her arm raised her to her tiptoes as he marched her to the couch and threw her over the back. She caught herself with splayed hands on Adam’s shoulders.
“Think you pissed the Alpha off, kiddo,” Adam whispered into her ear.
“At least I’m out of the corner,” she whispered back.
Sam’s Claim over April jolted the floor. The beta hollered with his head thrown back, tugging at the Ozzie’s hips and grinding deep into her.
“Michael, please,” April begged. “I need to.”
Michael ignored his wife, instead shooing Jess and Kate away from Adam and hauling him to his feet. “The ape wants to play,” he said to no one in particular. “How many dicks do you think we can shove in there in one session, Sam? Think she’ll come on a cock? Primates have a harder time with that.” Michael led Adam around the couch where Cas was tapping Sarah’s feet with his to widen her stance.
“One way to find out,” Sam agreed. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and patted April’s backside to nudge her into motion. “Go sit with Gabe,” he told her. “You’re done.”
“Wait. What?” April asked in surprise. She glanced between Sam, Michael, and Cas. “Done? I can still…”
“You can do what you’re told, is what you can do,” Michael snapped.
“I obeyed every order,” April protested, riling. She pulled her tiny, naked frame to its maximum height and flashed golden eyes at Michael. “Sarah was a spoiled brat! Why does she get to come, and I don’t?”
Michael took two steps toward her, but Castiel got there first.
“Oh, shit,” Gabe startled upright.
Cas hauled his mate to the wall and pressed her into it with his forearm. “What did you just say?” he asked in a deadly calm voice that belied the pressure against her chest.
“I…” April’s eyelids fluttered. All the blood drained from her face. Her legs gave way. Cas let her slide down the wall into a cower. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
“Get out,” he told her coldly. “Wait for me.”
Michael sighed as April fled. The door slammed on her.
“Apologies, Alpha,” Michael began, but Cas cut him off.
“If this is your influence, you and I need to talk. I won’t have it. I trained her to perfection, Omega. And no one’s going to spoil that.” Cas’ eyes flashed crimson.
Michael licked his lips. “No, sir. I’m not spoiling her. But a certain degree of boundary-checking is normal when a relationship shifts into power exchange. She’s testing me.”
“Well, she’s about to find out where that boundary stops,” Cas announced. “And she’s on the wrong side of it.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“I knew this session was a bad idea for April,” Cas grumbled. “You don’t need her here.”
“We wanted a veteran as a model,” Sam defended weakly.
“You’ve got Adam for that,” Cas groused. He squared up to Sam. “I am not impressed with your first effort, Samuel. Not at all.”
Sam licked his lips. “Kate and Sarah have both done admirably, Sir. It’s not fair to punish them for my shortcomings. Please allow us to finish.”
Cas glared at Sarah. “You call this admirable?”
“Sir, she’s giving us precisely what we expected. She’s authentic, and she’s primed. Let us see it through.”
Cas turned on his heel and threw one hand in the air in a go-ahead gesture. Sam and Michael shared a look. Michael’s brows met his hairline, and Sam shook his head. All of the Subs waited motionless, watching in silence as the Doms showed uncharacteristic dishevelment.
“Gabe?” Michael asked without looking. “Are you up for another round?”
“Count me out,” said the Omega, taking a bottle of water that Cas handed him. “I’m a one-trick pony these days unless I’m in Heat. But you youngsters go to town. I’m filling my spank-bank just watching.”
April fled in distress and self-castigation. What had she been thinking? She knew better than to challenge a Dom’s decision mid-scene. Now she was in for it. And that on top of Michael’s recent incessant, dogged reminders that she’d practically forced him into a D/s marriage against his will.
And that on top of everything she owed for throwing Dean into a tree on false pretenses. She dashed for the stairs, knowing her mate would want her in the playroom where he had the most choices for how to deal with her. Not that he needed more than his own hand and stern Alpha glare. Her body tingled with the effervescence of a new Claim, but the sensation soured with her disgrace.
But Dean was coming up the stairs as she reached them. Tears streaked her face. The pups flowed up behind Dean, chattering happily with each other.
“Hey, slow down, princess,” Dean intercepted. He put out a hand and caught her around her waist before she could dart past. “Where’s the fire? What happened? You okay?” He frowned and searched the hallway behind her. “Where’s Cas?”
“I’m in so much trouble, Dean,” she wailed. “He kicked me out. I need to go.” She tugged at his hold, but Dean tightened his grip and led her and the pups away from the fall hazard. He set her on a bench in the wide, bright hallway.
“Slow down,” he told her. “Take a breath. What happened?”
“Mommy’s crying?” Alex asked with his fingers in his mouth. He tugged at Dean’s shirttail.
“Hang on for me, Ace. Wait just a sec. Don’t go anywhere.” Dean knelt in front of April and took her shaking hands in his. “April, slow down. Tell me what happened.”
She shook her head, unable to stem the flow of tears or manage her ragged huffs. “I pushed,” she said vaguely.
Dean raised his brows and made an “And?” face.
“I never do that,” she explained. “You know me. I’m good in the scene. It’s how I work.”
“Then why push? April, look at me.”
“I don’t know,” she blurted. “I don’t know! Sarah was pushing. She broke, like, every rule they gave us. And I was good. And Michael still wouldn’t… But she gets to? It wasn’t fair! And I thought Cas was just there to observe, but he got involved, and I… I lost my head.”
Dean glanced back up the hallway toward the morning room where they had headquartered the new Sub training courses. He tongued his teeth and sighed.
“Kiddo, you must be really spinning to try something like that with the Alpha in the room.”
“I feel terrible, alpha,” she cried and put her head on his shoulder. “What was I thinking?”
Kat climbed onto the bench and wrapped her tiny arms around her mother’s naked torso. Emma and Jimmy sat down on the floor and began working their shoes off. Alex stood beside Dean, holding onto his shirt with wide eyes.
“Come on,” Dean said. He stood, taking Alex with him and pulling April to her feet. “Let’s get them to their room, and we’ll talk. You and me.”
“I can’t, Dean. Alpha told me to wait for him.”
“Did he say where?”
She gave him a deadpan expression in reply. They both knew where Cas expected her to go.
“They won’t be through for ages yet. You’ve got time. Besides, you’re already in the soup. One more transgression isn’t going to make much difference.” Dean took her hand and led her to the pups’ new bedroom in the main hall, a recent transition out of the nursery that was winning mixed reviews from the pups. “Nuh-unh, Jimmy. Go back and get your shoes. We don’t leave crap all over the house.”
April collapsed onto the daybed under the window and buried her face in her hands. “Why did I do that, Dean? He’s going to kill me.” She looked plaintively up at him. “Even worse, he’s disappointed in me. I embarrassed him in front of the others. I embarrassed him!”
“What’d Michael say?” Dean asked as he ushered Jimmy in and closed the door, only to have to open it right back up when Portia scratched. The black dog ambled in, jumped onto the daybed beside her mistress and laid her head in April’s lap.
“He didn’t get a chance, but he’s mad too.”
Dean nodded with a bite to his lip. “Both Doms with one shot. Nice job.”
“It’s not funny!”
“It’s not the end of the world, either.”
“Not for you, maybe,” April persisted. “But I’m no brat.”
Dean scoffed rudely and flopped onto the ground in front of her. “All evidence to the contrary.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dean looked away for a moment and then scootched closer to her. “Okay, look. You’re not a classical brat. Not like me. I get that. But what you do, kiddo, it’s still provocation. Call it whatever you want. But the manipulation crap? That’s long-game brat. You have to admit. You pull that shit to get the Tops moving where you want them, same as I do. I just play closer to the action than you do. You do it way out at a distance and hope against hope that it won’t bring thunder down on your head, even though it always does. Don’t come crying to me denying you’re a brat. I know better.”
“Wait, are you mad at me too?”
Emma climbed into Dean’s lap. “Don’t be mad at Mommy, Daddy. She’s nice!”
“What’d I tell you about grown-up talks?” Dean posed to Emma. He kissed her hand and set her on the floor. “Go play with your blocks.”
“You said we could paint!” Kat reminded him loudly.
“And we will,” Dean replied. “When the grown-up talking is done.”
He watched them all find toys to occupy themselves. His legs stretched out before him as he leaned back on his hands on the floor.
April didn’t repeat her question. She scratched Portia’s neck and watched the dog’s devoted eyes studying her.
“I am mad at you, if you want to know,” Dean said after a pause. “I kinda figured you’d seek me out before now and apologize without me having to chase you down. Doesn’t feel much like a heartfelt apology if I have to ask for it.”
“You blame me too?” she asked sadly.
Dean huffed. “Is there another way to see it?”
April accepted a box of crayons from Jimmy, then the coloring book, then she helped him onto the bed and settled him against the cushioned arm to color. “We went into it together,” she said. “You and me. It was both of us.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed, “but you didn’t tell me everything, and I wasn’t in my right head. You know I’m a suggestible Sub. I Fell so hard I didn’t even remember there had been a plan in the immediate aftermath. I was swirling, and I doubted what I knew to be true. I thought I’d somehow run you off the road, and I had no recollection why we were truly in that car in the first place. Not until I’d sat in the waiting room for hours, waiting to find out if you were dead. You left me to weather Michael and Cas both figuring out that you were driving a car you had no business in and that I was the one who put you there. You left me to that, April, and then once you were on your feet again, you allowed them both to think it was entirely my fault. When really, you fucking drove off the road at fifty-five miles an hour on fucking purpose! You blindsided me and set me up to take all the heat!” His voice rose in intensity as he talked. All four pups stared at him in shock.
“Daddy, that’s a spanking word.”
“I know, Ace. Sorry about that. Sometimes it slips out.”
“Don’t yell at Mommy,” Kat demanded with a frown.
“Play with your truck,” he told her shortly.
“I thought it would be easier to handle,” April said tonelessly. Her eyes glistened and shuttled between blue and gold. “The car.”
“Based on your years of driving experience,” Dean grouched as he looked away. “Or whatever.”
“I never meant for either of us to get hurt.”
“You know,” Dean sighed, “I could forgive the reckless endangerment. I get it. I guess. You’ve seen it on TV. It looks doable. You picture it in your head, and it’s a big cloud of dust and a screech of tires on gravel as we roll to a stop in a ditch. Something like that, right? But damnit, those are professional drivers under controlled circumstances. It takes years to learn to control a vehicle well enough to land something like that safely. But whatever. You miscalculated. And you took the brunt of the wreckage to your face and head. Fine. Punished enough, maybe. But here’s the thing that’s sticking for me. You tricked me. You lied to me about what you meant to do. You lied to me about why. And you let me take the rap for a month. Were you ever going to come clean? If Cas hadn’t gumshoed it out, would you have fessed up on your own?”
Tears spilled again from her eyes. Jimmy left his crayons to roll into the crevices. He crawled into her bare lap. She cuddled him with shaky breath.
Dean huffed angrily and stared at the ceiling.
“You’re still pushing for correction,” he said flatly. “So, obviously you know you did wrong. No one stokes the Alpha that badly by mistake. All I’m asking is for you to level with me. Tell it to me in little words I can understand. I’m tired of being pissed and waiting for you.”
“You is gonna spank Mommy?” Emma asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Dean told her honestly. “I’m not convinced it would do any good.”
“I’m sorry I took advantage of your Tertiary headspace,” April said.
Dean waited for more.
Silence dragged. Alex and Kat argued over the red truck. It was everyone’s favorite. Dean snapped his fingers in their direction, and they desisted without bloodshed.
April pressed her lips together, miserable. “I knew how close you were to your Fall,” she told him at length. “I knew you would go along if I worded it like a brat does.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean agreed. “And?”
April sniffled. “And I knew Cas would be angrier with you than with me. I don’t think he realizes how swamped you already were. You didn’t have much access to your front-brain just then.”
“So, you intended to walk me off the end of the pier? Just let me fall off and drown? But it was never about me at all, was it? It was about Michael.”
April sighed in irritation. “It was about both of you.”
“Bullshit.”
Emma clapped her hand over his mouth. He removed it with a stern, “Don’t.”
“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “I said I’m sorry, and I am. I can’t take it back.”
“Are you serious? No. April. What I want is for you to explain. You tricked Michael after you promised to let him find his own way and go at his own pace.” Dean gestured wildly. “You told him you didn’t need a dynamic. You told him you would be his however he wanted you.”
“Leave Michael out of this,” she snapped.
“The hell I will. He’s my mate, and he’s the key to this whole thing.”
“Dean, it was never going to work his way!”
“So, you tricked him? What the hell is wrong with just talking about it? Why couldn’t you just tell him what you wanted?” Dean was baffled and irritated. She wasn’t getting it, and he couldn’t figure out why.
“That would’ve been no less of a manipulation,” she told him. “Michael gives me everything I ask for, even if he doesn’t want to, even if it’s at his own expense. We were too skewed, and in the wrong direction. It was upside-down and unsustainable.”
“That’s the weakest fucking excuse for pulling a bait-and-switch I’ve ever heard, April! You don’t do that to people! You don’t convince them you care about what they want and then sledgehammer your own agenda over their damn head! Every part of this bullshit is messed up.”
“Daddy, have to be nice!” Jimmy said, incensed on his mother’s behalf.
“I AM being nice,” Dean snapped.
April frowned and added, “Don’t take it out on the pups.”
Dean grunted. “I don’t know how to get past this, kid, if you won’t even admit what you did was wrong. I can’t do this for you. Michael stands to martyr himself at the altar of you. And all you had to do was be straight with him. If you didn’t want a vanilla thing…”
“It wasn’t a matter of wanting,” she interjected.
“…Then you should have been a fucking grownup and said so. He deserves better! That was a shitty, low-down, manipulative trick, and your marriage will be scarred forever over it.” Kat planted herself between April’s knees, facing Dean with a scowl. April smoothed her dark hair over her brow and then rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“No it won’t,” April stated fiercely. “He gets it now. He’s got exactly what he wants, what he was too afraid to admit he wanted, even to himself.”
Dean shook his head is dismay. “You’re a selfish bitch, you know that?”
“Daddy, NO!” said Kat.
Alex began to cry.
“Sorry, guys. I’m not mad at you. Come here, Ace.” Dean held his hand toward his little doppelganger. Alex dove into his lap and bawled.
“I can’t take it back, alpha,” April said.
Dean’s voice flattened. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t even if you could. We’re all just chess pieces to you.”
“That’s not true…”
“You know, I have defended you at every turn. I stood up for you, went to bat for you. Even Cas worried you’re too manipulative for your own good, and I’m the one who showed him you’re basically a mirror image of himself. But Cas would never have pulled a stunt like that, even if it was the only way to get what he wanted…”
“Because he has other ways!” April blurted.
“So did you!” Dean returned hotly. “There’s no prohibition against telling the man you love what you want from him! Then, whether he gives it to you or digs in his heels against it, that’s his choice, and he’s making it in plain daylight! I couldn’t figure it out, April. Why Michael was so resistant when marrying you was all he wanted to do. But I get it now. He’s got a sixth sense about people, but he struggles to read you. He couldn’t see into the black box, but his instincts told him you weren’t fully on the level.”
“Michael can speak for himself, Dean. We’ve been talking. It’s going to work out.”
Dean snorted even as he rocked Alex in his arms with a gentle hand at the back of his head. “Of course it is. He’s too stubborn to give up. That doesn’t make it okay. The ends don’t justify the means. And you still haven’t owned up. You’re just biding your time until it blows over, counting on our protective instincts because you’re our Ultimate. But here’s the thing—I can forgive a hell of a lot. But I’m not writing you a pass when you won’t even face up to what you did.”
“Dean…”
“You’re not a child, April. You’re an Ozzie.”
“You accept it from Cas,” she said indignantly.
“No.” Dean kissed the side of Alex’s head and eased him back to join his siblings before standing up and smoothing his jeans over his ass. “The hell I do. Cas pulls ugly shit. That’s true. But he would never trick me into a marriage on terms I didn’t see coming.”
The bedroom door opened, revealing the Alpha in his bathrobe. Cas stood backlit and framed to Fibonacci perfection in the doorway. Power emanated without him saying a word.
April jumped to her feet.
Dean shielded her with his body. “I waylaid her, Alpha. It’s not her fault. I pulled rank.”
Wordlessly, Cas took a step back and to the side, unblocking the exit. April darted past him and presumably headed toward the basement. “What were you talking about?” Cas asked. He stooped and collected Emma into his arms.
“Some long overdue air clearing,” Dean told him.
“Daddy was mad,” Emma explained. “He said all the bad words.”
Cas sighed. “I see.” Glancing toward a sheepish Dean, he strolled in and took April’s spot on the daybed. “Would it do any good to ask you to refrain from fighting in front of the pups?”
“Probably not,” Dean admitted. “Sometimes shit has to air in its own time.”
“See?” Kat said, pointing to Dean. “Bad words.”
“Indeed. I do see. Thank you for keeping Daddy honest. I will take care of it from here.”
Dean ignored the subtle reprimand. “She’s just going to keep turning up the volume until one of you—you or Michael—finds a way to get through to her and pulls the accountability she needs out of whatever lockbox it’s stashed in. She’s stuck, Cas. She can’t access it herself. And traditional routes aren’t doing it.”
“I’m aware, Dean. I understand how my mate’s mind works.”
“You put her in today’s scene to give her a chance to act up?”
“Michael put her in today’s scene,” Cas said. “And his motives are his own. But, yes, it served that purpose.”
“What are we going to do if we can’t get through to her? Cas, she’s spinning. Her Primary has her locked in a jail cell. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“So, you thought confronting her with a direct assault might shake her loose?” Cas asked.
“She hates it when I’m mad at her.”
“This goes deeper than her discomfort, Dean. And I’ll remind you once again that it is not a Submissive’s job to manage another Submissive’s Falls. That is, after all, what got us into this mess in the first place.”
“I’m not in my Tertiary, Alpha. I’m looking at it as an alpha, as a Pack lead, and as her fucking family! The anger isn’t a front. It’s very real.”
“Watch your mouth in front of my children, alpha!”
“Oh, right, because that’s where the real concern is.” Dean retorted in disgust. “Kids, don’t say bad words. There. You happy?”
Cas massaged his brow with one hand. Kat pressed into his knee to get his attention. “Have to spank Daddy, right Papa?”
Cas chuckled. “Thank you, Kat. I’ve got this.”
Dean stomped his foot. “Would you please pay attention? This is important. Everything could fall apart. Not just their marriage, Cas. Everything.”
“And I’m handling it,” Cas replied tiredly. “It looks impenetrable to you because you’re a Sub. You can’t confront this thing from your Secondary and make any sense out of it. It’s rooted in April’s wolf…”
“It’s rooted in her Primary.”
“Keep interrupting me and I WILL spank you,” Cas warned.
“Daddy called her names,” Kat reported.
“Oh?” Cas looked at Dean. “What names?”
“He said…” Kat stopped midsentence when Cas raised his palm to her.
“I’m asking Daddy.”
Dean scowled.
“Answer me.”
“Called her a selfish bitch.”
Cas raised his brow. “In front of the pups.”
“You didn’t see her, man. She was balled up tight. No light was getting through at all.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Dean. I don’t take issue with your confronting her. That needed to happen. You and she have to heal your relationship at some point. She needs to stand to account. If possible, she needs to make restitution for putting you both at risk the way she did. But address that. Not her Tertiary im-Balance, not her Fall. You’re right that she’s spinning, but that is not your burden to manage. I thought we clarified this point already.”
“Papa, Daddy said we could paint!” Emma said with a tug to his wrist. “Can you get down the paint stuff?”
“Go put on your big shirts,” he told her. “Give me a minute.”
Emma grabbed Jimmy’s hand and hauled him to the bureau where their oversized O-Pop hand-me-down t-shirts, already speckled with paint stains, were folded neatly.
“It’s just, I don’t see you or Michael doing anything about it,” Dean said with a petulant kick to the rug and a deliberate refusal to look directly at Cas.
“Trust is hard when the lights are out,” Cas told him softly. He stood and walked closer. “Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not there. Go back to your training, Pet. You’ve practiced this. You can do this.” He set a wide palm on Dean’s cheek. “Trust, Pet.” Castiel’s eyes struck hard and held. “Trust.”
Gabe started off watching from his chaise, sprawled lazily. But as Sarah jolted under the affections from behind her and her center of gravity threatened to send her toppling over the sofa back, he drifted forward, taking to his knees on the couch beside her and touching her heated skin. He avoided drooling by sheer force of will. She turned her head and looked up into his amber eyes with a grimace of pleasure that looked nearly overwhelmed. She panted and pulsed as Michael took her vigorously.
Kate lay flat on her back on the floor with her knees spread wide. Adam, entirely naked now, lay on his belly with his hands wrapped under her thighs and tired tongue swiping incessantly at her clit. Her fists clenched around nothing. Her body writhed.
Michael finished.
Without ceremony, he pulled out, stroked her flank once, and backed away with a drunken stumble.
“Easy, Omega,” Sam soothed. “That was perfect. Don’t wobble now.” He stood firm in the very center of the room with his hand on the back of Jessica’s head as she attended him on her knees, keeping him fluffed. Floating in bliss. “Gabe, are you sure you don’t have another round bottled up in there? It might be some time before we offer you another chance like this. Outside of this room, the limits slam right back down. She won’t be available to you as she is now.”
“Mm,” Gabe agreed hungrily. “Good point.”
Sarah’s head dropped toward the seat. Her skin was still flushed with exertion and want. Stoked now to a fever pitch, she wouldn’t have said no to anything delicious no matter who offered it. She wanted to swim through everything they could throw at her. She wanted it all. She wanted to bring fantasy to life and make every once shameful imagining as real as the sweat dripping down her cheek. She raised her head and beseeched Gabriel.
“Please, Omega. Please.”
And Gabriel answered the plea as he was always going to do. He vaulted the back of the couch and slid slowly in with a gritty chuckle. Her ass clenched around him and then eased, already loosened enough by Michael’s attentions. Already lubricated. Sarah gasped and set her toes digging into the rug.
Everyone’s eyes locked onto her.
“You see?” said Jess, replacing her mouth with her hand on her mate. “She wanted to know what it’s like. You think she’s getting a taste now? Do you see? Why this was inevitable?”
Sam looked down at her with his eyebrow cocked before turning her head toward Michael and setting her to cleaning him with tongue and lips. “Mind your own business,” Sam ordered harshly. But indeed he did see. She had a point.
“No, STOP!” Kate cried. “I can’t!”
“Steady, Omega,” Sam soothed. He knelt behind her and raised her to sitting as Adam pulled away. “Have you anything to say to me?”
“I’m sorry I was late to your scene, Sir! It won’t ever happen again. Please let me come! I can’t take it anymore.”
“Hands and knees, Kate.”
Kate sobbed and rolled over to present for Sam, hoping for fulfillment. But once she was in place, he spanked her instead. She shrieked and fell to her elbows.
“Watch Sarah, Kate. Keep your eyes on her.” He reddened her with sharp strikes while Sarah groaned under harsh thrusts that sent her jolting and straining against the furniture. Her arms locked stiff against the cushions and the brutal thrusts. Gabriel had more power in his legs than one might expect. The sofa jumped steadily forward, gathering the rug into folds along the way. “Do you think she can take a beta cock up her Primate ass? An alpha? Should we bring in a female alpha and let her know the joy of gender ambiguity in the throes of passion? Do you think she has a Tertiary buried somewhere in her psyche after all? Shall we dig it out?” He spanked her steadily. Sharp, loud smacks echoed above the moans from the couch.
Castiel slipped back in and closed the door. He raised his nose and scented the room. He took it all in and nodded, satisfied.
“Better,” he commented regally.
“Thank you, Alpha,” Sam said. He rose to his feet and rested a foot upon Kate’s lower back. She re-set herself onto her hands, flattening her back to give him a stable footrest. Together, they watched Gabriel use Sarah impersonally, impassively, neutrally but with animal enthusiasm, spill inside her guts and then grunt in satisfaction and roll sleepily back to his chaise.
Sarah licked her lips and panted. She caught Cas’ eye and whimpered. “I want…”
“Ah, but it isn’t about what you want,” Sam told her coldly. “It’s about submitting to my will and finding completion in achieving mine. I want you gaping, Submissive. Dripping with the spend of a promenade of men. I want you wondering if you’re even still human. Or if you’ve devolved into nothing more than an empty vessel filled to the brim with filth that overflows and stains the floor. Can you contain it all? Can you be our rancid come dump? Can you take it, Submissive?”
“Mmm,” Jess hummed loudly, turning from Michael’s crotch to look longingly and hungrily upon her rival.
“Who told you to stop?” Michael growled.
Jess snapped around, found Sam scowling at her, squeaked, and went back to suckling the Omega.
Sarah pressed up onto straight arms. Her breasts hung heavy, flushed and nearly gravid. Her hair hung lank and sweaty. Her mouth hung open. She was a mare in heat, desperate for the next stallion’s attentions. Her wide eyes rolled.
Sam beamed. His protégé. She was coming along nicely. And his mate stewed, simmered.
“Go over there and kiss her, Jessica,” Sam ordered. “Taste those ape lips. Tell me if they taste different.”
Jess moaned, offered Michael’s balls one last long stroke of her tongue, and then crawled the distance to the couch and dove at Sarah’s mouth. Sarah fell against her, utterly lost to lust.
“You remember?” Jess asked between sloppy kisses. “You remember asking me? What it was like inside the whirlwind?”
“Unngh,” Sarah replied. She stretched for Jess. She lifted a knee onto the back of the sofa to give her leverage.
“Feet on the floor!” Sam snapped.
“God,” Sarah whined. “More.” She complied but continued to reach for Jess.
“Alpha?” Sam asked over his shoulder. “Are you interested? She’s been stretched.”
“She hasn’t been stretched enough for me,” Cas told him blandly. “Still,” he continued, “other orifices offer as delicious a temptation. You have done an admirable job stoking her to an altered headspace. She is quite outside of herself. And very enticing like this.” He made no move toward her though. He merely watched as Jess despoiled the straight Primate submissive. They pulled one another in with hands on the backs of each other’s necks, desperate to deepen the kisses.
Cas blinked calmly, observing with a detached air. Michael and Sam watched greedily.
“Adam,” Sam called. “Your turn. Take her. As I taught you.”
“Sir? Are you sure?”
Sam snorted. “Quite,” he said. “One more Omega up her ape channel ought to drop her right down into the deepest subspace. She’s right there. Look at her. Take her now. Do it right. Hard and fast. No mercy. No softness. Obey me, Omega!”
Adam stumbled to his feet, stood staring at the two women in frenzied, unexpected convergence. Didn’t they despise one another? Weren’t they rivals for the man’s affections and attention? Was this a hate-fuck between them? Or was it something else?
“Adam!” Sam snapped.
“Sir.” Adam rounded the couch. Sarah’s belly had to hurt by now, but she ground it into the wooden frame in her eagerness to reach Jess’ open mouth. Up on her tiptoes, every tendon strained forward. Her thighs shone with fluids as they leaked from her hole and streaked down the curve of her ass. Adam wanted her so badly, he ached. His cock needed no touch to stand ready. Truly, it reached for her with no instruction from the Ozzie.
Daddy told him to take her, had shown him how, had prepared him for this moment. Adam looked to Sam once more, got a firm nod, and that was all he needed. His wolf scampered into place, so eager to make Sam happy, so eager to feel Sarah clench around him once more. He had missed her so terribly.
“Oh god,” she muttered, breaking free of Jess’ kiss and turning in slow motion to seek him over her shoulder. “Oh god, yes! Fuck YES!”
Adam approached in a trance. He pressed in. Sarah gasped and then whined so high the sound disappeared at its apex. Jess grabbed her face and pulled her back in, swallowing her desperation as Adam wasted no time in pummeling into her. He bent over her, twisted his fingers into her hair and shoved her head toward Jess.
Sam preened, proud to bursting that he’d ushered Sarah past all of her Primate inhibitions and into utter depravity. He required no accoutrement. No leather or specialized trappings. No latex. No rope. No wax or toys or vibrators. All she’d needed was a slow build and a succession of stymies. Frustration was her motivating trigger. Push her hard enough, it seemed, and she rolled into full submission.
Adam took her rough, bruising her belly and her hips against the hard edge of the sofa back.
Michael dropped to his knees, bent low, and ran his tongue along Kate’s labia. She shrieked at the touch to her oversensitive flesh. Sam pressed hard with his foot, holding her in place. She sobbed. “Please! I can’t take any more!”
“You’ll take what you’re given.”
Smoothly, Michael shifted to sit down, and he pulled Kate into his lap. He sank his half-hard cock into her channel. He tugged on her hips to seat her, trusting the heat and clench of her muscles to draw him back to full standing. Kate leaned back into him and ground down in a rotational motion. She reached back over his shoulder and clutched his neck. He wrapped his arms around her middle and met her motion circle for circle.
“Good girl,” Michael moaned. “That’s it. We’re going to get you there, little one. Move with me. Hold on. Don’t come yet. I’m going to make it so good for you if you’ll trust me. We’re going to bring you both to your reward together. Would you like that?”
His touch never stopped moving. His cock swelled inside her. He couldn’t thrust, sitting flat on his butt as he was, but his strong arms shifted her body and pulled her in tight where her grinding found traction against him.
“Set your feet, Kate,” Michael told her. “Up and down, love. Bounce for me. Slowly.”
Adam lowered his hips, bent his knees, and drove up hard into the welcoming, gaping softness of silky-smooth walls. Spent come splattered with his forcefulness. He wept in relief, thrusting mindlessly. He lost himself in the unfathomable pleasure granted him inexplicably. He knew in the back of his mind that taking her like this was…problematic at best. But Daddy told him to do it. And it felt so good. He had believed he’d never feel this again. These hips under his hand. This jet-black hair, so silky and strong beneath his grip. This channel—no, not a channel. She wasn’t Omega. But did it matter? Adam threw everything into the drive of his hips, used his legs and his shoulders, and found his rhythm.
And then he was coming.
Oh heavenly host. Oh divinity and all creation. Adam came. Sparks danced behind his eyes. He felt dizzy and euphoric and spent.
He slumped over her back, panting. He whined as he slipped free of her ass. A gush of fluid followed, despoiling his own legs and hers.
Jess slowly pulled away. Her eyes danced as they searched for connection with Sarah’s. Her chest heaved.
“Do you feel it now?” she whispered. “It’s him, Sarah. It’s all him.” Jess looked over her shoulder at her mate, standing tall and imperious. “Look at him. Feel the power. He can make you feel anything. Anything at all. He can be your master. He can rule you from head to toe. He will never be yours as he is mine. He will never be yours.” She looked back to Sarah, her eyes wild, nearly mad. “If you understand that, if you truly understand, then you can join with us. Be one of us. Kneel for him as I do. Let him be your master. Stay one step below me, Sarah, and you can have it all. He can make you fly. I need to watch him make you fly.”
“Oh god,” Sarah moaned.
“Exactly,” Jess whispered. She set her forehead against Sarah’s and closed her eyes. “Forever.”
“Slow down, Kate,” Michael soothed with a hand down her back. “Not yet.”
“Step away, Adam,” said Sam.
“She’s ready.”
“Oh god.” Sarah looked up, letting Jess slip away, transferring her attention to the man strolling slowly toward her. He pulled Jess to her feet and tapped her ass with a gentle wink to send her to Gabe. The Omega welcomed her in and wrapped her up on his chair, tangling her in arms and legs until she was quite embraced down the length of her body. Jess clutched him and rested her cheek on his chest. Watching.
Sam held Sarah’s eye as he rounded the couch. He eased her up slowly in case the change of orientation made her dizzy. “Come with me,” he said softly. By her shoulders, he guided her around to the front. He stood her front and center and held her steady. “Did you understand Jess’ offer?” he asked. “You don’t need to answer now. There’s time. Think it over later when you’re back to level ground. Ask us anything.”
“Sir, I want…” Sarah blinked helplessly up at him. “Anything. Everything. I want…”
“Shh. Not yet. Later.” Sam led her to the couch and sat down. Slowly he turned his hips into the back corner and spread his legs wide. He reached for her and guided her to sit in his lap facing the room. His erect cock nestled between her thighs.
“Listen to me, Sarah,” he said into her ear. “I know what you’re feeling right now. I know how the hunger builds until you can’t think straight. I know that right now you will say yes to anything that offers you relief.” His hand gripped her chin hard and turned her face until she couldn’t but stare into the faces watching her. All of them, watching her. “But I need you to believe that where we’re taking you is precisely where you need to go. It isn’t random. It isn’t wrong. No sin. No depravity. Only need and reclamation. You need this, Submissive, just as we do. Trust me, Sarah. Come with me. Ride me. Feel all your shame fall away, all your inhibitions.”
Deliberately, Sam lifted her bodily and settled her, spearing her and letting gravity do all the work to seat him fully inside her ass. Sarah’s chest heaved as she took him in.
“Sir! Sam!”
“Shh. Listen to me. This is going to get intense. Trust me. Slow down. You can do this.”
Sarah hardly heard him, so taken by the sensation of fullness and seeking something that felt to be just beyond the next turn. But she startled to find Cas directly in front of her, standing nude between her knees. He was stark naked and engorged. Huge. Intimidating as hell. And Sarah began to hyperventilate and press back into Sam’s body.
“Easy, beta,” Sam whispered. “You can do this.”
“Oh god.”
“Yes,” Cas agreed as he set a knee on the couch outside her hip. “Quite.” He held her eyes, distracting her from the roll of Sam’s hips.
“Both of you?” she asked in a squeak. “At once?”
“Shh,” Cas directed with a stern furrow in his brow. “No talking. Just feel. Trust. We’ve got you.”
Sarah nodded. She spread her legs wide as Cas leaned close to suckle a nipple into his mouth. She threw her head backward onto Sam’s shoulder and moaned loudly. Adam settled on the floor against Gabriel’s legs, spent, tired and sated.
“Slowly now,” said Sam. “Let him in. You can do this.”
Sam felt enormous in her ass. How was Cas going to fit?
“Shh,” Cas repeated. “Let me in.” He nudged up close, arranging his hips and the set of his legs to give him access. Sam adjusted downward onto his tailbone. It opened Sarah even further. She had no idea where to put her hands. So, she reached backward and wrapped them around Sam’s neck, clasping her fingers.
“Good girl,” Cas approved. And then he was entering her soft, pliable, engorged cunt, driving forward and filling her impossibly full. Her knees came up around him of their own volition.
“Steady,” Sam repeated into her ear. Castiel’s chest pressed against Sarah’s in a slow roll and then pulled away. He was sinuous in his motion. He was timeless and graceful and powerful. Sarah found it difficult to breathe.
Michael lifted onto his knees, shifting Kate until she was in a classic Omega presentation position, and he had leverage behind her. But his eyes were on Castiel. He matched the pace and the depth of the Alpha. Kate keened softly.
“You’re amazing,” Cas told Sarah. “You’re something so special, Submissive. You feel it? Are you with us?”
“Mmm,” she agreed wordlessly.
“Can you take more? I’ll give you all of it. Ask me to give you all of it.”
“Oh please, Alpha! God, please!”
“Good girl,” he praised with his mouth millimeters from hers. He closed the distance and kissed her if it could be called a kiss. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a claim. Sarah surrendered to it with her whole self, melting on the spot. Overwhelmed at the glut of sensation and pressure and intense focus.
She wasn’t going to survive, but she would die happy.
Cas began to drive harder into her. He held her waist and her shoulder and his face furrowed in concentration. This close, it was terrifying.
Sam shushed her constantly. His hips barely moved, but it felt like a surging pump at her back, in her core. And at her front, Castiel’s size proved overwhelming. How was he even getting it in? Where was it going inside her body? His face was too close. His body was too much. Everything built and stretched and pressed and demanded…
“Give over to it, Sarah,” Sam whispered. “Let go.”
“Oh god!”
And then, just as she nearly felt so overcome her safeword stood perched upon her lips, Castiel kissed her with the softest touch imaginable and whispered, “You’re loved, Sarah. You’re so very wanted. You’re precious to us. Let us in.”
Her body responded with an adrenalin flush that took her breath away and she cried out. Both men picked up the pace and the depth. Michael matched them from the floor. Kate kept her eyes locked on the triad at the couch and pressed backward into Michael.
“I’m close,” Sarah said through gritted teeth.
“Yes,” Cas agreed. “Let it happen, love. Come for us. Feel it as you’ve never felt it before. Fall apart. You’re safe here.”
He thrust in brutally hard, driving deep, up to his knot. Sam lifted her hips enough to give him room to really punch upward. Sarah squealed. She let go of Sam and grabbed Castiel’s shoulders, leaning forward. The pinch of flesh that caught and tugged between the two men burned, but she couldn’t imagine stopping. She felt so close to the edge. So fucking close.
The look in Castiel’s eyes burned holes through the back of her head. She stared into them, breathless. Lost to sensation as it built, built, built.
So blue.
Hands and eyes and fucking and pressure and pleasure and sweat and sticky, sticky skin…
And Sarah closed her eyes, threw her head back and came with a driving pulse that was pure, raw pleasure.
Castiel closed his mouth around the curve of her shoulder and bit down hard. Not hard enough to break the skin. Hard enough to bruise.
Sarah screamed.
Sam pulsed his orgasm into her stretched channel. Kate groaned with the release she had been building to for so long. Michael simply sighed into his.
Cas released her shoulder and growled. He redoubled his grip, punched his hips forward, and buried his knot inside her with a possessive roar. Sam instinctively averted his face, but Sarah couldn’t look away. She couldn’t breathe.
The ache. The pulsing throb. The pressure. It was all too much. Her body cramped at the impossible penetration. Everything ached.
“Castiel!” Her vision whited out and then went dark, and she wilted between the two men.
She didn’t stay out long. When she opened her eyes, she was on her back on the couch, dismounted from Sam, but still tied to Cas. He braced above her on his arms with a concerned look on his face, calling Sarah’s name in a calm, steady voice as Sam scurried for some water and everyone else gathered close. She felt an unpleasant ooze from her ass and a sense of emptiness.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Just overcome. Sarah, open your eyes, love. Look at me.”
The pain where he was tied made her groan and attempt to reach between her legs.
Castiel caught her hand and held it. “Shh, it’s okay. It aches, but you’re not damaged. Give it a few minutes, and I’ll be able to safely separate.”
Groggily, she nodded and instead touched her sore shoulder. “You Claimed me?”
“To the extent that I can,” Cas said gently. “I told you; you’re mine, Sarah. Feel it all the way to your toes. You’re mine.”
“I thought today was about making me Sam’s…” A wave of dizziness made her close her eyes and lie back.
Cas wrapped a hand around the base of her skull and watched her face closely. “You’re pale, Sarah. Just breathe for me. You’re going to be all right. You did so well.”
Sam returned with a glass of water and helped ease her up to sip. “Yes, kiddo, you’re mine as well,” he told her to fill in the gap. “That’s real. But everyone in the Pack belongs to Alpha first and foremost. His claim comes first. God, you and Kate were incredible.”
“Is April okay?” she asked with her eyes closed.
Cas growled softly. “April requires attention. She probably will for some time yet to come. But she’ll come back to us eventually. She has two Doms to support her now. For now, she’s been spanked and lectured and sent to her room. It’s the best I could do without abandoning you on your big day. Michael will take her back to the guest house tonight. We’ll complete her consequences to whatever extent we feel necessary over the coming days. We’ll go from there.”
“She didn’t do anything I hadn’t already done,” Sarah mumbled. “Why so harsh?”
Cas sighed. “That question is beneath you, Doctor. Answer it yourself.”
He placed a hand at her hip and tugged gently backward with his core. There was a tight hard catch, and then he slipped out. Sarah’s breath left her in a rush. Even softening, he was enormous. She felt a hand in her hair and turned to see Kate sitting on the floor beside her. They shared a soft smile. Kate rested her forehead against Sarah’s cheek. Sarah reached for her friend and pulled her closer by the shoulder. Tears appeared on both faces.
Cas kneed upward and climbed off. Sam took his place with a warm cloth to sponge Sarah down. Soft words were exchanged. Sarah floated. Endorphins swam through her bloodstream, lulling her into a gentle soft place where nothing hurt and everything was safe. Kate didn’t stop touching her even as Cas examined the Ozzie and Michael worked to clean her up.
Adam knelt at the end of the couch and rubbed Sarah’s shoulders, carefully avoiding the spreading bruise near her neck. She hummed into the touch. Gabe settled against Kate’s back, rubbing her hips and reaching around to stroke her thighs.
Sarah looked up at Adam with sleepy eyes. How had she ever imagined doing this without stretching out to him for support? She practically purred into his touch. Above her, Sam chuckled.
“I see you’re already finding solace in the Omega puppy pile. Should I leave you four alone?”
Sarah’s eyes shot open, and she grabbed Sam’s wrist. “Please stay,” she entreated.
A soft, warm light touched his eyes, earnest and kind. “I’m not going anywhere. However, we do need to get you on your feet and transfer you to a bed. All of you. That was intense. Everyone gets snuggles and chocolate and all the praise I can heap on you.” He eased backward to give Sarah room to sit up. “Take it slowly. You’re going to hurt.”
Jess offered her a hand and supported her rise to sitting fully upright. The dizzy spell passed more quickly this time. Michael scooped Kate into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder, eyes closing. Sam pulled Sarah to standing, peered closely into her eyes, and then followed suit.
“Cancel that. Standing is overrated. I’ve got you.” He followed Michael into the hall and to the end to Michael’s own room where a king-sized bed awaited them. Cas escorted Jess and Adam, one hand around each of their waists. Gabe trailed behind them, following like a puppy.
It was a tight squeeze, almost a puppy pile in truth, but they rolled into each other, clung on, tangled up and basked.
Three hours later, everyone stumbled down the stairs to an informal buffet dinner spread out on the kitchen island that they ate in the parlor seated on the floor or slumped on the formal furniture in utter disarray. Sarah felt warm and lazy. Every muscle rolled loose under her light clothing, massaged to a pudding consistency. She lolled back into Adam’s legs. His fingers carded loose through her hair. Beside him on the couch, Kate melted into his side. Together they made a veritable softened pool of spent, sated contentment. They spoke only in soft murmurs so as not to pop the delicate bubble. Adam reached down and offered Sarah a morsel of cheese, and she let her lips linger over his fingers as she accepted it.
From nearby, Sam watched with a smug expression. Jess too. They seemed a unit as they shared a wide, plush chair. Jess’ legs draped across her mate’s lap. Sam’s hand held them firmly.
Jess wasn’t going anywhere until Sam let her free. And that might not be for hours yet if the grasp of his fingers meant anything.
Sarah observed them lazily, wondering without worry where she really fit inside their dynamic. It didn’t much seem to matter right now while endorphins flooded her bloodstream. Adam’s hand slid down to her neck. His thumb traced the divot behind her head, a possessive touch.
She closed her eyes.
“They’re practically Jell-o,” Jess observed to her mate. “I’d call today a rousing success. You turned the Omegas into a puddle.”
“Mm,” Sam hummed. “Except they aren’t all Omegas.”
Sarah smirked and shifted to lean more heavily against Adam’s leg. Could she join the Omega puddle? Was there room for an ape beta in their nest? Or was she an interloper pushing in where she didn’t belong? She imagined sloppy, sensual interludes and carnal excess without extraneous societal expectations. She’d always been fascinated at storied Omega connections, where sex was free, affection flowed easily, and kinks found expression without judgment or limit. Omegas, they said, feel differently…about each other, about touch, about sensation. They can roll exhaustively around in sticky, moist, unfettered ecstasy with one another, and emerge uncontaminated by emotional entanglement.
Omega orgies existed quite outside of all their other bonds. The Winchester Pack hadn’t fostered an Omega pool before now. But it had never housed this many Omegas before either.
The idea that a standing orgy might be in the making intrigued her…if intrigued was even the word. And she wondered if there might be an invitation into their midst with her name on it. Above her, Adam purred happily. Omega orgies drove out the excess energy that built to a pique sometimes without ensnaring one another into deeper emotions.
But Adam’s touch didn’t feel unemotional to Sarah.
And watching Sam watch them together, Sarah didn’t think Sam thought so either.
He didn’t appear jealous though. No, Sam was calculating. She knew him well enough now to know that face.
Sarah licked her lower lip and rolled her shoulder into Kate’s touch. Maybe it would make sense later. For now…nothing truly registered except soft pleasure, a sense of utter wellbeing, and a hint at an opening doorway.
From the real doorway, Michael chuckled.
“I think you broke them, beta,” he said. “All their bones have melted.”
Jess smiled. “Say the word, Michael, and they’ll let you join the Omega pile. We’ve finally got enough of them for a real harem.”
Michael sauntered in and stood looking down at Sarah with an appraising expression. “You too, Blake? You’re a lone swan in a flock of ducklings.”
Kate scoffed and kicked him in the shin.
Sarah rolled her head backward onto the couch cushion to look up at him. “No, sir, I’m just a goose in a flock of gorgeous swans,” she said sleepily. “You’ve got it backward. I’m lucky they’re letting me crash here and soak it in.”
Michael laughed. “You’re more wolf than you want to admit, I think, Submissive.”
“Either that, or I’m just a shameless slut like my mother claims.” Her wink defused the remark somewhat, but Adam, Michael, and Sam all ruffled at the implication.
“Where’s Castiel?” Michael changed the subject.
“Playroom,” Jess told him. “With April.”
“Again?” Michael glanced toward the foyer as if he could see them through the walls and floor. He frowned.
“He said they had things to iron out before he leaves for DC.”
Dean came galumphing down the stairs with a passel of pups in tow before Michael could respond.
“Heck, yeah! A picnic!” Dean enthused, sending the kids toward the kitchen where platters of food awaited. He stopped off to offer his mate a quick kiss. “You’re going to tell me everything,” Dean said as he continued past Michael, pointing at his mate as he walked. “I want all the details.”
“What happens in-scene stays in-scene, alpha,” Michael teased. “If you’d wanted to know, you could have joined in.”
Dean scoffed. “Fine. I’ll just read your report over Cas’ shoulder. There are perks to being the number two. He’ll let me in on it. Besides, he’ll tell me without any teeth pulling.”
Michael grinned. Dean jogged into the kitchen to catch up with the pups and prevent catastrophe. Michael followed more slowly. Clearly, Dean was digging his way back out of the crusty paralysis of waiting on the Alpha to thaw. He wasn’t free of it yet, but he was finally making real progress. Dean’s grip on himself was strengthening by the hour. He no longer smelled of desperate gritty determination and existential dread.
Michael’s Omega purred inside his breast. His alpha was close, was strong, was firmly entrenched…was maybe…hungry? Michael pressed up against Dean’s back as the alpha worked to fill Jimmy’s plate. Dean smirked.
“Didn’t get enough?” He turned and nuzzled Michael’s temple.
“You weren’t there,” Michael pointed out as Alex tugged on his pants leg. Michael hoisted the boy to his hip without pulling away from his mate. Ace tangled his fist into Dean’s shirt and leaned over his shoulder. He held onto Michael’s neck, reveling in having two parents within easy reach and soaking up the affection, the playfulness, between them.
Emma, too, climbed onto the island from her stool and scooched her way into Dean’s space.
“Everyone wants to be close to you, alpha,” Michael whispered. “You’re like a Pack magnet. We missed you so much.”
Kat grabbed Michael’s free hand and lifted her legs clear off the ground in an effort to bring his attention around to her. He swung her gently in acknowledgment.
“More kiwi!” Jimmy demanded from his perch on the barstool, trying to bring Daddy’s focus back to his plate. “Daddy! Kiwi!”
Dean laughed. “Keep your shirt on. Would I let you starve?”
“An alpha in his natural habitat?” asked Sarah as she came in to refill her plate. She was starving. Couldn’t seem to fill up.
“O-Pop said Daddy is a magnet,” Emma told her.
“So I see,” Sarah laughed. “But you might get to eat sooner if you give him a little space to work.”
“We’re having a picnic in the house!” Alex shouted over Michael’s shoulder. Michael winced. He handed Alex off to Sarah when she offered to help fill another plate.
“Meet me in our room later?” Michael whispered into Dean’s ear. He lifted Kat to his hip and pulled away to round the island and attack the buffet from the far side.
Dean smirked. “Seriously? A full orgy scene, and you’re still hungry?”
“My wolf’s sleeping it off,” Michael admitted smugly. “But my Omega is feeling a little overlooked. Maybe you can help me with that?” He shot his mate a ravenous, teasing look, complete with raised brows and deep dimples. “All the other Omegas are going to bed sore tonight. Don’t make me be the only one left out.”
Sarah snorted, and Michael shot her a playful grin. “And some of the non-Omegas,” he amended.
“I am your plaything to do with as you please,” Dean agreed. “Have knot, will travel.” Crimson ringed his eyes for a beat.
“And the chicken!” Jimmy pointed.
Dean followed his son’s instructions to the letter and then carefully set Jimmy on the floor before handing the plate into his hands.
“Slowly, now,” he advised with a hand under the plate until he was sure Jimmy had it. “Watch it doesn’t tilt. Go sit at the coffee table on your knees.”
Michael shepherded the crew into the parlor, leaving Dean with Sarah as Sarah plucked tidbits from the picked-over platters, stalling unconsciously as she waited to hear Dean’s voice break the silence.
Dean mirrored her random movements, slowly filling a plate of his own. Sarah could tell he was reading her. Scenting her. Finally, she set her plate down and faced him directly.
“What?”
Dean huffed a soft laugh and mimicked her. He placed his hands on the counter and smacked his lips.
“You smell…replete,” he told her.
“Replete? That’s what you’re going with?”
“Did Cas fuck you? I know that was on the table.”
Sarah blushed crimson. She dropped her eyes.
“Was it good?” Dean asked with a teasing lilt.
She thought it through for a moment. “It should be more awkward than this. Right? He’s like a father to me.”
“Or a daddy,” Dean added. “Maybe?”
“Hmm,” Sarah mused. “No, it’s not like that. But, god, Dean, his knot…”
Dean studied her. She picked at the grapes on her plate, separated one, and began to peel it with her fingernail.
Dean smirked for a moment, and then he softened. “You know, when the Alpha turns his attention on his Pack, it’s normal to roll. That’s how it’s supposed to work. We all belong to him, kiddo. His knot is what ties us together.”
“That’s gross,” she quipped with a snort. “But honestly, I’m not supposed to have access to that connection, Dean. Am I fooling myself? Am I riding on a crest of lustful abandon that’s going to come back to haunt me later? Am I appropriating Lupin culture, pretending to feel things I don’t? He Claimed me.” She pulled her shirt collar to the side and showed off her bruise. “And I loved every second of it.”
Dean shot her a deadpan look. “Did it feel skeevy?”
“No,” she admitted. “It felt hot. I passed out. Hardest orgasm of my life.”
“Then chill. Roll with it. You could easily talk yourself into a drop if you can’t trust your instincts here.”
“Why do I feel compelled to curl up with the Omegas?” she pressed earnestly. “I’m not Omega. Feels like I’m close to being totally out of control. Feels like I’m trying to be all the designations at the same time.”
Dean sighed. “Look, there’s not a Sub among us who hasn’t felt pulled toward the O-pile when they all sprawl out like that. It’s irresistible, especially as you’re coming down from the high. Plus, you’ve got your own draw to be part of it. Don’t think we don’t know you still carry a torch for that little Ozzie in there.”
Sarah blew out a breath. “It’s all too tangled, Dean. What am I doing? Why am I so reckless? I can’t have it all. No one can. Why do I just keep jumping into the thick of it like there won’t be any consequences? I mean, Adam? Sam? Now Cas, even? Where does it end? Who do I end up with? What do I even want here?”
Dean rounded the island and set his hands on her shoulders. He held her eyes with his alpha in front. “Be still,” he told her firmly. “Stop for a minute. Stop flailing. Look at me. You don’t have to do this alone. We’re not going to leave you to manage by yourself. We wouldn’t have put you into this position if we didn’t mean to support you on the back end. All your worries are valid, sweetheart. We’ll get to them. But right now, slow down and remember the training. What should you be doing?”
Sarah’s chest heaved. She dropped her chin to her sternum. Dean lifted it again and raised a brow.
“What should you be doing?” he repeated.
“Reaching out to my Dominant?” she guessed.
Dean smiled with his eyes. He nodded kindly. “You’re not alone, Submissive. You’re not ever alone.”
Sam stood framed in the archway. Sarah startled when he spoke… “Thank you, Dean. I’ll take it from here.” Sam stepped forward as Dean left a kiss on the top of Sarah’s head and a squeeze to her shoulder. “Your pups are in need of another parent,” Sam added wryly to his brother.
Dean rolled his eyes and collected his plate.
“Hey,” Sam touched Dean’s arm. “Thanks, man.”
“Don’t let her drop.” Dean’s eyes flashed red for a moment, highlighting his earnestness and his authority. “She’s Pack.” Then he followed the call of rambunctious shrieking from the other room.
“Yes, alpha,” Sam answered from his Secondary. He turned to assess Sarah, deciding to remain Secondary to keep from overwhelming her in her vulnerable state. He wasn’t certain she could sense the difference. But he could, and he needed the distance and the control.
But Sarah turned away, facing the stove, avoiding Sam’s intense, probing gaze. Maybe she expected him to give her space. Instead, he crowded right up close behind her and pressed his lips into the curve of her neck where it met her shoulder, right where her bruise shone livid. Chill bumps erupted down her body. She shivered. Sam moved on instinct. If Sarah was beginning to swirl, she didn’t need space. She needed structure. A cage. Or a lair, maybe.
His hands found her hips, and they pulled backward, tugging her into him. He was warm and firm down the length of her body. She went easily, seeking his body’s strength.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” Sam whispered. It wasn’t a suggestion.
Sarah huffed and rolled her head to give him space along her throat. Sam’s wolf perked up inside his breast. “I don’t know,” she said. “Shame, I guess. I want to roll. I AM rolling. But I feel like I shouldn’t. At least, it shouldn’t feel this natural. I’m scared. The things we did in there…”
“Everything we did was glorious,” Sam reassured her. “You were magnificent. Shame is a construct built to control others. It’s an implant, not a natural state. Can you just breathe with me for a minute? Let me hold you?”
“Mm-hm,” she replied. She leaned back and let him support her. She closed her eyes.
Sam allowed a modicum of Tertiary to funnel through, but he led with his beta. She didn’t need to feel pressured right now, only lifted up and held. Constrained. “Those feelings, Sarah, Dean’s right. They’re real. We’re not going to ignore them. We’re not going to wish them away. We’re going to take our time, explore them, inspect them, figure out where they come from and what they mean. But I want you to listen to me. You get to decide for yourself what you want. Sex is not a sin. Lust is not a sin. Submission is a beautiful, cathartic state, and it’s right for you, beta. It will free you from the shackles of all those societal compulsory norms you grew up with. Fuck the norms. You don’t have to comply with rules you didn’t consent to. Not anymore.”
Sam massaged her hips with strong fingers. How many times over the last few years had he imagined being this close? And now he had permission? He felt weak in the knees. He felt his mate’s eyes on him through their bond, and she was riveted.
“You’re no Puritan, sweetheart. Your body is your own. If what we did today was a stretch too far, then we pull back.” Sam’s breath warmed her collarbone. His hands steadied her center of gravity. Her eyes closed on their own. “But if it was a revelation, if you felt free, if you soared and you want to feel that way again, then the shame is only a hurdle in your way, not a wall. We can work our way through whatever you’re feeling. Just…I need your trust.”
Her breath left her in a shaky whuff. She leaned her head into his, and she clutched his hands on her waist. “I want…”
“Tell me what you want.”
God, their bodies felt good melding together like this. Could she feel it the way he did?
She whispered, “You said… back before… back when I tried to complete the Keller and I fell apart… Remember? You said you wanted more from me. I thought… But then you pulled back. Sub training isn’t all we talked about. I didn’t forget.”
“Sarah,” he whispered back gruffly. “I remember.” His voice came out wrecked.
“Do you still?” she asked softly, unable to look at him. “…want me like that? I don’t know what I’m doing. I want you both. I want all three of you. I’m dizzy with it. It’s not just sex… It’s… Sam, I’m spinning…”
“My sweet girl,” he crooned, finding his center again. “Brave, brave girl. Let go. Float for me. I’ve got you.” He welcomed his mate as she approached. Maybe having Jess close was just what Sarah needed to reassure her they weren’t all on the precipice of calamity.
Another warm body cuddled in close along Sarah’s left side. An arm came up across her chest. Soft curls cascaded down Sarah’s shoulder and over her breast. A delicate perfume joined Sam’s musk, fitting easily in the vacuum where masculinity left off.
“Shh,” Jess shushed. Her body was warm and comforting. “Shh. It’s going to be all right.”
Somehow Sam’s mate sent Sarah tumbling over the edge. A broken sob tore out of her chest. She clutched Jess, and she cried.
“Ride the hurricane with me,” Jess whispered into her ear, close enough that their breaths and hair mingled. Their fingers tangled. “I didn’t think you had it in you,” Jess went on. “I thought you would crumble. But, god, you were incredible! Don’t you see? We can have this together.”
Sam stiffened. His mate was jumping the gun here. Way too soon, beta! Damnit, Jess! He thought furiously at her, but she wasn’t listening.
Support, beta! Not a sales pitch!
“Jessica, stop,” he interrupted. He pulled back, bringing his mate with him. Sarah sagged against the stovetop. “Not yet,” he admonished. “She needs room. She needs to process.”
“No!” Sarah disagreed. She turned, licked her lips, and steadied herself. She reached for Jess. “No, I need to understand. What is it you’re offering me?” Her eyes flashed, and Sam stopped cold. This could go so wrong so quickly. But she looked resolved to press on.
Jess smiled at her. It could have been interpreted as predatory, but it felt conspiratorial instead. Sarah was captivated. They held each other’s elbows with their noses only millimeters apart.
Sam was torn. Things he desperately wanted stood nearly within his reach, and he couldn’t think clearly at all. He didn’t intervene. His eyes danced between the two women. He should put a stop to it. But he didn’t.
Straight out of a scene like that was not the time…
Sarah swallowed.
“Play with us,” Jess said, lowering her chin. “Come stay with us whenever you want. Be a part of our lives. We can try it however you want. Come be a part of the twins’ lives. Join us, beta.”
“Be your third wheel?” Sarah asked, breathless, frowning.
Sam held his breath. What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he allowing this?
“More than that,” Jess said with a frown of her own and a shake of her head. “Come see if we can make something out of this. Something meaningful.”
Sarah’s hand tightened on Jess’ elbow. “What about Adam?”
Sam’s fingers went numb. His pulse throbbed in his throat. He felt paralyzed.
Jess chuckled. “What about him? I thought you were done with Adam?” There was a challenge there. Sarah’s eyes shot a warning. Clearly, she could feel a prompt opening up. She hmphed, then sighed, then pulled away. Sam backed up to let her breathe; it seemed all he was capable of doing in this fraught moment that he’d ceded entirely to his mate and her reckless abandon.
“Was this the plan all along?” Sarah asked. “Bring Adam in and build a poly-nest? A pack within the Pack? I don’t know… I don’t know if I can do this… I don’t know if Adam can do this. Who says he even wants to? And then when he Triggers? What then? What are we setting us all up for? It’s too much…”
“Shh,” Sam found a shaky voice. “Like I said. There’s no rush. We still have a scene to process. You’re rushing into…”
A sharp rap against the archway broke the tight convergence, sending all three of them into a rapid guilty step backward. Michael eased his way in looking suspicious and annoyed.
“Sorry to interrupt. Pete and I are heading back down the hill. Is our ape okay? You need anything from me before I go?”
Sam prompted Sarah with a gesture and a look.
She took a deep breath. She turned to face Michael who approached with a wary smile. She accepted his hand, then his embrace.
“I’m okay,” she confirmed with a self-deprecating chuckle and a glance toward Sam.
Michael pulled back and studied her face. He too looked toward Sam. He frowned. “You’re not pressuring her, right?” Michael asked the beta. Somehow, he read more from Sam’s expression than Sam said aloud.
“Sam, it’s too soon.” A judgmental Michael glared hard, reading everything at a glance. And a judgmental Michael is difficult to face straight-on. The bubble popped. Feeling rushed back into Sam’s extremities.
Jesus, what had he been thinking?
Sam flushed and stammered. He put more distance between himself and his Subs. “Shit, man. Fuck, I’m…you’re right. We… got carried away. Sarah, I’m sorry… He’s right. It’s too soon.”
“I’m all right, fellas,” she said with a telltale straightening of her spine.
Michael scalded Sam with a withering look that seemed to promise a future discussion on the dangers of taking advantage of a precarious Sub-state. Sam had the grace to look chagrined. Jess simply examined her fingernails.
“I wanted to know,” Sarah went on. “I asked. I needed to understand. This is all very new…”
“Too new,” Michael agreed sourly.
“No,” Sarah shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I feel better for having it on the table. I feel less…untethered. I get it.”
Sam scratched his forehead and grimaced. “Look, Michael’s right. There’s time to consider what we might want to grow into, we three, maybe four, whatever. There’s time. You reached out to me for a solid footing. This wasn’t the time to throw a whole lifestyle change at you. I apologize. I lost my head.”
“Jesus, Sam,” Michael muttered, clearly wondering if Sam had simply thrown out years of training when confronted with something delicious right under his nose. It was no secret to Michael that Sam was falling head over heels for the idea of a harem. Once flat against the notion, it had wormed its way into his imagination and taken root. But there was a pace to these things.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Fuck.” He chuckled awkwardly and backed up further, realizing only now how close they had all been. No pressure? Right. Sure, Jan.
Sarah wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t feel taken advantage of. But then, the spiral Sam had arrested in her might still have her in its clutches. How was she supposed to tell? She was still whirling inside her head. Jess’ fingertips subtly touched Sarah’s down between them where neither Michael nor Sam could see. An electric frisson passed into Sarah’s hand at the touch, and she gasped slightly. She met Jess’ eyes and read the warning there. It was time to move on before the Doms decided to make ultimatums.
“Who’s with Kate and Adam?” Sarah asked to break the tension. April appeared, limping slightly, and joined Michael.
Michael put a possessive arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her close. He said, “Gabe’s pulled them into an Omega tête-à-tête. He’s appointed himself aftercare-lead, apparently.”
“He left out two Omegas,” Jess observed, quirking a brow at Michael and April.
Michael scorched her with a glare, and she lowered her eyes. Michael huffed. “If we’re agreed that no one moves into anyone else’s bedroom tonight, I think I’ll take my bride and go back to our retreat. This has been fun, but we still have some words to exchange in private.” He turned to a blushing April. “You ready? Dear?”
Jess snorted. April stammered an embarrassed assent and touched the bandage still covering the tip of her ear.
Sam began gathering empty platters for rinsing.
In the parlor, children laughed. Castiel’s voice, raised in jollity, echoed as he chanted a quirky children’s rhyme. Dean hooted, clearly entertained by his husband’s dorkiness. The alpha teased loudly, and the pups broke into gales anew.
Sam scraped food into the garbage.
Jess squeezed Sarah’s hand. “We’ll pick this up later.”
Sarah nodded and squeezed back.
Tension sizzled.
“I give up,” Michael muttered. He guided April toward the garage where their golf cart waited to ferry them back to the guest house. “You did great, Sarah,” he said over his shoulder at the door. “We’ll need to work on that defiance though. We went easy on you for your first foray.”
“That was easy?” she asked in dismay.
“Tcch!” Sam couldn’t stop himself from scoffing as he ran water over an empty platter. “You should be roasted right now with how much fight you put up.” He reached for a Dominant headspace with both hands and hauled himself back into his wolf by force of will. He couldn’t get a handle on what was wrong with him, only that he felt close to a drop himself.
Damn Jess.
Sarah blanched. “I thought you said I was acting authentically.” Wide eyes caught Sam’s as he finally looked up. What she saw looking back at her froze her blood. “Oh,” she breathed. “Fuck.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Sam added when it was clear she was doing precisely that. “That’s why we call it training. No one’s perfect right out of the gate.” His heartbeat finally slowed as he regained his footing, somewhere familiar and safe.
“And they ALL came tumbling down!” Castiel sang joyfully from the other room to the sound of thumps as six little bodies threw themselves to the floor. Dean cackled and clapped and whoomphed as someone tackled him.
Sarah moved closer to Sam, aware of Jess following. Dark eyes found his hazel ones, and for a moment Sarah wished that betas’ eyes had a color shift of some kind. She wanted to mark the intensity of his gaze. Surely, he was fronted in his Tertiary? She could nearly smell it, she thought. It felt different than when he was in his beta. There was something electric in the air that she felt sure should show in his eyes the way red outlined an alpha’s irises at moments of high arousal.
Calm, assertive, hazel eyes gazed back.
“I know what I want, Sir,” she told him with a sigh. “It isn’t that I’m confused. It’s just…I don’t know what I deserve. I don’t know what’s really on offer and if I have any right to reach for it. It’s too much. Isn’t it? No one gets everything they want. This poly-thing…it’s a step closer, but it’s not everything. What I want…”
“What do you want, Sarah?” Sam asked, helpless against her.
“I want to be someone’s one and only,” she said nakedly. “I want to bask in the wide-open sensual free-for-all of a polyamorous connection and feel no shame. I want to try it... with you. With Jess. I want to know what it’s like to share a footprint with people who have my back wholeheartedly.”
“A footprint?” Jess asked from behind Sarah.
“A bed? I guess,” Sarah admitted, still looking at Sam. “A home, maybe?”
Sam took her hand.
She went on. “But I also want to know that at the end of the day, someone loves me above everything and everyone else.” Her breath faltered for a moment, and she fought imminent tears. “I can’t have that with you. You’re Jess’ mate. But with Adam? With any wolf? Can I have both… the polycule and the marriage? Is there any path for me to get what I want along this track? Or is it a dead-end?”
Jess put her arms around Sarah’s shoulders from behind. “We can help you figure that out,” she said. She dropped the Tertiary bratty simper. “At the very least, you’ll have someone on your side.”
“Jess,” Sam warned. “We’re not…”
“I know,” Jess defended weakly. “It’s not pressure. It’s support.”
Sarah huffed and turned to Jess. “I don’t even know who you are,” Sarah laughed, meeting Jess’ eyes, surprised at herself. “You’ve never looked twice at me. You’re straight, aren’t you? Why me? What’s in it for you?”
God, they were back at it. Sam couldn’t let this continue. Everything he’d hoped for was on the line, and pushing for it too quickly was a sure shot toward having it all fall apart before they got it going at all…
“Ladies, stop!” Sam tried from his wolf.
Jess laughed merrily, ignoring her mate. “You remember back when you first interviewed me for your dissertation? I tried to describe what it’s like inside his fire? You should’ve seen your face. You were fascinated and terrified.”
“So, this is about trying to see me lose my shit?” Sarah asked. She turned to square up.
Jess grinned. “It’s about sharing the ride with someone who appreciates the inferno.”
“You never even liked me,” Sarah mused.
Jess scoffed. “Isn’t that beside the point?”
“This is a bad idea,” Sam growled. “The time isn’t right. Jess, we can’t.”
“You’ll resent me,” Sarah spoke over him. “You’ll come to feel I’m stealing your mate.”
“I will never be jealous of you,” Jess countered immediately. “You can’t bond with him. There’s no safer person to try this with. Besides, Sam wants you. And it’s my job to give him what he wants.”
“Are you talking about a full home-sharing?” Sarah returned, raising the energy, the tension. “A real poly-relationship? Laundry and grocery shopping and three bodies in the bed in the morning? Coffee for three and pancakes on a Saturday?”
“If you want to do my laundry, I’m not going to stop you,” Jess replied with a feral grin.
Sarah rubbed a hand across her mouth and glanced at Sam who looked frustrated and furious. The volume from the parlor picked up. They seemed to be playing musical chairs now.
“What about vanilla sex?” she asked Jess. “Is that on the table?”
“You aren’t ever going to want vanilla sex again,” Jess said with a scoff. “Not now. Not anymore. Trust me.”
“So, I’d be a Sub under Sam’s hand,” Sarah clarified. “But not yours?”
Jess rolled her eyes. “Sweetie, you outrank me, remember?” She turned to her mate. “Stop growling at us, this is for you as much as me.”
Sam huffed. But he couldn’t think of an effective response.
“But it’s your house,” Sarah pressed. “I’m not going to be anyone’s whipping boy.”
Jess turned and sighed heavily. “You’re making it harder than it needs to be. Seriously, look at Sam. Would he let you be a whipping boy? Do you trust him or not? Has he ever done anything to make you feel unsafe? Hasn’t he been an amazing trainer? An amazing Dom? All I’m asking is if you want to snuggle right up inside his orbit with me and see if we can learn to fly together. Hell, we’ll have a contract in place to keep things legit. There’s no way Alpha would green light it any other way. So, say yes, say no, say it’s on a trial basis. It’s your call here. I’m just letting you know what the offer is.”
“That’s enough,” Sam cut in with a tone of finality.
Jess snapped her mouth shut.
“Sarah,” Sam said gently, “you don’t have to answer this right now. Today has been a lot. This wasn’t supposed to happen right now.”
Sarah blew out a lengthy breath and then looked up at him through her lashes. “I think I’d like to give it a try. God knows skulking around here with Adam masturbating just down the hall isn’t doing me any favors.”
“We aren’t an escape hatch,” Sam began, and then he stopped himself. He sighed. “Sleep on it,” he advised instead. “You’re hyped up today. Give it a couple of days at the very least. And then we’ll talk.”
Sarah grinned. “I did good today? Sir?” She batted her eyes coquettishly.
Sam groaned. He leaned in. “I look forward to turning your backside shiny red with my favorite strap…the private one that never leaves my house.”
“I’m counting on it,” Sarah said, feeling her entire body flush.
Behind her, Jess beamed.
“You,” Sam said assertively to his mate. “You are in a world of trouble.”
So, fine, he lost control for a spell. He let himself be railroaded into going along with something he knew was wrong. But looking at Sarah now… She looked hopeful. Sam had no idea where this thing was going. He had no idea how to fit Adam into it. He had no idea how to contain his mate. But the ball was rolling now, and damned if Sam wasn’t going to ride that fucker for all it was worth.
He growled deep in his throat and watched Jess’ pupils respond.
All that was for later. Right now, he had a Submissive to punish.
Notes:
I had something else to say here, but I don't remember now what it was. Thanks, y'all.
Chapter 36: Saturday, October 23, 2021
Summary:
Sarah makes an important decision and has a tough conversation. April and Michael face off. None of this is easy. The hardest conversation is yet to come
Notes:
Did I say there were three chapters in this final stage before jumping forward? Yeah, that got away from me again. So here's two more, not just one.
Sorry for the delay. I succumbed to the plague, and I lost a week. Had to cancel our vacation. Spent the time off at home, recuperating instead of touristing. That sucked. But we're okay now. And I got some writing in.
I hope you like it. There's a bunch of stuff coming to a head here. Resolving this much crap required lots of words.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, October 23, 2021
NOW:
“How’s Jess?” Sarah asked sleepily as she rolled her head into the pillow and eased her shoulders.
Sam quelled her with a look. “Your mind should be on your own path, Submissive. You need to be resting and healing up.”
“She’s okay, though, right?” Sarah rolled to face him. “I know you were angry that we talked over the threesome. But it wasn’t too soon, Sam. I was ready.”
“Do I need to spank you to get you to drop it?” Sam asked with a quirk of his brow. Calmly. Not threatening.
“Hmph,” Sarah grumbled. Sam pulled her blanket up over her shoulder and caressed her cheek.
Behind him in the bathroom doorway, Adam finished toweling his hair dry and appeared with bare chest and droopy pajama pants. He paused, framed by vanity lights from the mirror.
“Are you sure about Adam staying?” Sam asked quietly, too softly for the Omega to hear.
Sarah’s eyes flicked from Sam to Adam, and she nodded. “I don’t want to be alone tonight, Sam. I feel a little shaky in my head. He knows me, knows what to do when I get like this.”
He nodded and carded his fingers through her hair. “I’ll stay if you’d rather.”
“No, it’s fine. You’ve got Kate to watch over too. And your mate. Adam knows me…”
“Maybe too well?” Sam asked pointedly.
“I’m okay,” she repeated.
Sam glanced over his shoulder and nocked his head. Adam left the doorway, rounded the bed and slid under the covers.
Sam sighed and retreated as familiar warm arms encircled Sarah from behind. “No sex you two,” he warned from the doorway. “And don’t stay up all night talking. Go to sleep. I’ll be looking in on you later.”
“Yessir,” they both answered and then giggled softly, curling into each other. Sam flipped the light out and closed the door behind him. Sarah felt warm, loose limbed, and safe.
“Shh,” she rolled over and tucked her cheek onto Adam’s chest. His arms were familiar. She felt protected. “Let’s not talk at all, hmm? I don’t want to spoil anything.”
Adam huffed. Her head jounced on his chest with the breath. “Hey, listen Blake,” he said into the darkness in a sleepy voice. “I’m not dumb enough to try to turn this into something it’s not, but, just, it’s nice to be back in your bed. That’s all. I missed this. I missed you. It feels good to be holding you. Feels like I’m where I belong.”
Maybe it was the hormones flooding her system. Maybe it was regret. Sarah couldn’t be sure. But she knew she couldn’t contradict the sentiment. He was right. Everything about his presence felt right. And right now, she was too drained and too defenseless to wrap her mind around a reason to refute him. She snuggled in closer. Her body remembered how to fit against the planes and divots of his muscles, his joints. She found the valley beneath his shoulder on rote, and her head relaxed as he cinched her in and kissed her crown, just as he’d done a thousand times before.
“You did good today,” he went on. “I knew you could handle it. I know you. You have a wolf in there, Sarah, and it needs to be fed.”
She chuckled tiredly. “I don’t know about that. I think I just got carried away. It’ll hit me in the morning that I’ve now fucked every man in the house who isn’t gay. Looking at myself in the mirror tomorrow is going to be tough.”
“Hey, shh, shh,” Adam shifted, sitting up and guiding her by the shoulders until she was taking her own weight and there was space between them. “No, it doesn’t have to be that way. Remember that you were in your front-brain when you okayed the scene…”
”Forebrain,” Sarah corrected. “Primate brains don’t have the same structure. We don’t have a front-brain. It’s not the same thing.”
“Whatever. Don’t pull research-doctorate rank on me. You know what I mean.” Adam let a sour punch through in his tone. Sarah sighed heavily and sat up with a wince when a cramp tightened her rectal musculature. He went on, “The point is that everything you’re feeling right now was predicted beforehand. And you still wanted it. Everyone in that room had the greenlight while you were outside of Sub-space.” Sarah shifted as if to interrupt him, but he put up a finger and forestalled her. “And not because you’re a hedonist, sex-crazed slut. Don’t even say it. It’s because you want to feel the sensation of a freefall. You want to taste all the amazing things life has to offer, but you only want it where it’s safe, where you’re loved. Damnit, Sarah, I don’t care if you’re Lupin or Primate or some fucking alien from Jupiter—those things you crave, that’s not wrong! It’s human! You went into this knowing what Sam might do, and I saw your eyes light up, kid, when he suggested a full gangbang. Damn, I was proud of you for being brave enough to admit it’s what you want. We have that in common, you and me. Rolling into a Sub trance during a scene and letting the juices flow is a gift, Blake, and you have that gift. Fucking revel in not being stuck in a vanilla marriage lying flat on your back while some limp-dick sweats on you and ignores you unless he needs somewhere to pump it out for a second or two.”
“Jesus, Adam.”
“You escaped that life,” he told her. “Don’t bring it here with you.”
She swallowed and frowned. “But… Castiel… He’s… Crap!... He’s my… And I… I wanted…”
“When you look in the mirror tomorrow,” Adam interrupted. “You do it naked. Throw your shoulders back. Chin up. Eyes locked in that mirror. And you say out loud, I fucked every prick in this house, and I knocked that shit out of the park because I’m incredible!”
Sarah laughed.
“You’re an amazing Submissive, Sarah,” Adam told her less stridently. “I know. I work with a lot of people. Lupins. Natural Subs. You’re good at this. And you need it. It lights you up. It calms you down. It helps you regulate.”
“Yes, but don’t you think…?”
He interrupted her again. “What I think is that your Dominant jumped the shark with this scene. You weren’t ready for something this big. Sam should have eased you in better. If you drop, it’s on him, not you.”
“I asked for it,” Sarah said lamely with her hands in her lap. “Kate and I asked for it.”
“Only because Sam was stalling you to build your frustration.”
“Hmm,” Sarah replied noncommittally.
“I mean,” Adam went on, “I get why he did it, the stalling tactic. It’s standard for Subs with an inhibition block.”
“With a…?”
Adam frowned at her. “Sam hasn’t gone over this with you?”
“I don’t think he called it that. He said he had a strategy to help me over my qualms.”
“Qualms. Right. The point is,” Adam said with a sigh, “Maybe a full Pack round robin wasn’t meant to be the next step. You’ve only had one or two full-contact scenes. You went from one successful fuck and a blowjob to taking on all of us…”
He faded off with a sense of an incomplete thought hanging in the air.
“Maybe that’s what this is, this sense of unease,” Sarah agreed when Adam didn’t continue. “Maybe it was too much too fast. I can’t believe I’m saying that after begging so hard for more all these weeks.”
Adam chuckled. “Do I owe you an apology for participating?”
Sarah didn’t answer. She sat upright and crossed her legs. “Why would Sam rush things after being so careful? That doesn’t make sense.”
Adam scoffed. “Are you kidding? Kiddo, he can barely control himself around you in committee meetings, much less when you’re kneeling in front of him. You and Kate dangled this thing in his face, and Sam snapped.”
“You think it was a mistake.”
“I think it may have been premature.” Adam watched her carefully. “But you were amazing. If you’re reeling right now, you need to let Sam know that he went too far. But if you’re just…” he searched for the right phrase. “…feeling like you should be reeling, then maybe it was exactly what you needed after all?”
“Some help you are,” she scoffed back. “You went all the way in a circle.”
“Come here. Lie down. Close your eyes.” Adam pulled her back in as he slid down and arranged his head on the pillow. “I’ve got you. We’ll look at it again in the morning.”
Sarah curled back into him with a whispered thanks. She closed her eyes when his lips brushed her hair. So predictable. So sweet. So missed.
“Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“You heard Jess’ proposal, right?”
Sarah’s head bounced again as he laughed. “Do they have a spare bedroom for you to move into or are going to camp in their bathtub?” he asked.
Sarah smacked his belly. He whoofed slightly and then grunted as he sat back up. He reached for the lamp. Soft yellow light highlighted his profile. He looked tired.
“She wants me on the inside of their relationship, not just in the scene,” Sarah added.
“Uh, yeah, I figured out that much.” Adam scratched his hairline and set his eyes on the ornate cornice on the far side of the room.
“There might be a way to bring you in too…if you want to think along those lines.”
Adam smacked his lips and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You don’t have to answer right away,” Sarah said shyly.
“Answer what, exactly?” he asked with an edge to his voice. Sarah sat upright too, reading his body language a moment too late. “Jess hasn’t offered me anything. And last time I checked, she’s Mated.”
“Oh, shit, Adam, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Didn’t mean to throw in my face the exact thing you broke up with me over?” Adam set his feet and curled over his knees, face in his arms. Sarah thumped her head backward onto the headboard. Neither spoke for several minutes. He sniffed. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. A muscle in his jaw tic’ed.
Sarah didn’t move a muscle.
Finally, he licked his lips and looked across at her. “Is it because they’re already Mated? Is that it? Because you know both sides of the equation? Or is it that they’re betas? Why is this okay with you when I wasn’t?”
Sadness and regret hit Sarah like a freight train. Her voice didn’t work in the face of his raw pain. Here the man was, offering his comfort and the protection of his experience, generously choosing to sleep next to her after an ordeal she’d brought on herself, and… What must he think of her?
“It’s not the same thing,” Sarah said weakly. “I never had any hopes of marrying Sam. I’m not in love with him.”
Adam blew a slow breath out. “Right. You just hoped to fuck him.”
“Adam, I still love you.”
He looked away.
“And I’m sorry I hurt you. That wasn’t my intention. The truth is, sharing Sam doesn’t hurt the way it would if I had to share you.”
“So, breaking it off is better? That’s love to you?”
Sarah bit her tongue.
Adam studied her. “You’re going to take them up on it,” he concluded.
“Probably,” she said.
“And you want me in it too. Why, so we can pretend we’re still together?”
Something about his tone pulled her eyes. There was resentment and bitterness, but there was something else too.
Was that hope?
“Why did you participate today if you’re not okay with me?” she asked. “Why are you here now? Is this you pretending we’re still together?”
“Jesus, Sarah, I never said I wasn’t okay with you. I told you how I feel. I’m in love with you. It was never my idea to break up in the first place. But that’s what you wanted, and I respect it. Now, though, I’m supposed to pretend that latching on with a Mated man so you can be his side piece right under his mate’s nose isn’t what turned your stomach between you and me in the first place? And you want me to believe that somehow it’s not about me? About how Sam is somehow magically different? Am I supposed to be flattered that it means you love me more?”
“You would have dropped me the second you Mated,” she accused bitterly.
“So you beat me to it,” he snapped.
“I… I couldn’t watch someone take you away.”
His laugh held no humor. “Cas was willing to fight for me. Why weren’t you?”
Sarah’s mouth fell slack. “I didn’t think you wanted me to,” she whispered. “I thought I would be third place no matter how things settled. I thought you were just biding your time, waiting for someone more perfect.”
“Yeah, except I told you that wasn’t true. I told you the truth. I want what Cas has. Is his husband third place? Is his mate? Damnit, they make it work, ALL of them. Maybe it’s not easy, but they stuck to their guns, and they pulled it off! But you said that wasn’t what you wanted, and I believed you. Then you say yes to Jessica! To Jessica? Are you shitting me? I would have fucking fought for you come hell or high water. Hell, I would’ve married you at lightning speed just to make sure the ink was dry before my Trigger hits. And Cas has been planning to bring me into this Pack for fucking months, way before you broke it off with me, so you know what? Alpha was on board to give us a leg up from the very first hint that being with me might be what you wanted.”
“You can’t predict how you’ll feel when you Mate,” Sarah said churlishly.
“Ah, but you can,” he retorted. “Magic eight-ball in your pocket?”
They stared at each other.
Sarah’s brow furrowed. Adam’s jaw worked as he clenched and unclenched it.
“You want me to fight for you?” she asked carefully.
“Not a lot of people in my life have been willing to try,” he said. “Only Benny. And now Cas. I guess I thought you would’ve been on the list.”
Sarah reached across and picked up his hand. She held it while her heart thumped in her chest. “Cas believes he can win. He thinks he’s got the weight to override a Mating claim and keep you here.” She sighed. “That’s assuming you still want to stay once you’ve Triggered.”
Adam watched her fingers move over the back of his hand for a moment and then looked up and caught her eyes. “It might be easier to make that stand if I knew I had something here worth staying for.”
She held his gaze. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“So you’ve said,” he replied.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
She frowned again and shook her head. “How would this all even work? You’re tied to Sam now, same as me. He’s your Pack Dominant until you mate. He’s mine unless I call it off.”
“That doesn’t mean we ever have to work together,” Adam reminded her. “Ketch was my Pack Dom for years, but I’ll be damned if I was ever going to scene with Meg.”
“But you and I work well together. We knew that even before Cas tapped me for Sub training.”
Adam smiled at the memories. “You swing a mean paddle, Blake.” His fingers finally curled enough to reciprocate her hold. She watched the tendons in the back of his hand as he rolled hers over and squeezed.
“Et tu?” she quipped, recalling how enthusiastically he’d applied the wood during their scene that afternoon. Adam chuckled meanly.
Then he fell still. “Look, I’m not hurt that you want to see what Jess and Sam have to offer you,” he explained. “If that appeals to you, then you should say yes. It just hurts that you told me the reason you broke us off was that you can’t be a part of a three-person bond with mates. That wasn’t true.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” she countered. “It was true of you and me.”
“Is it still?” he asked.
“I dunno. So, if I join Jess and Sam, figure out what that looks like, then I … rekindle,” she looked straight into his eyes, “with you and wait for you to Trigger. Then try to shoulder in between you and your mate. Instead of joining one threesome, I join two of them? Two separate threesomes? How does that make sense?”
“It makes sense if it’s what you want,” Adam told her carefully. “You don’t break any rules as long as you’re honest with everyone and everyone consents. Sarah, I know you want Sam. Jess knows it too. She’s offering you a way to feed that hunger, but only if it goes through her. I’m telling you. Being just his Sub without a key that unlocks more than just his wolf will make you crazy. You need more than that. You need more than a contractual relationship with him, even if it’s not love. But if you let Jess hold onto some of the control, you’ll get to have Sam in a whole new way.”
“Where would that leave you and me?” she asked.
Adam thought about it for a moment. “You already have a good model in front of you. Look at Cas. He has Dean. He has April. But Dean and April aren’t together except as Pack. There’s a boundary line there that no one crosses. It doesn't negate what Cas feels for either of them. It’s really pretty simple. You’re Cas.”
“But where he has single partners, I would have multiple?” Sarah scrunched her nose.
“Sure, in a way,” Adam chuckled. “Except we both know that you’re not in this for Jess. All you really want is Sam.”
“And you,” she added. Then she blushed scarlet at the admission. “Jesus, what a mess!”
Adam leaned over and kissed her very softly on the lips. “How about we just take things one step at a time? Right now, you need to sleep.”
She huffed. “Sleep sounds good. Both holes ache. I feel like I gave birth to a cannonball. In reverse.”
Adam laughed. This laugh held none of the bitterness that his voice had been tinged with so heavily since he moved in. “He’s got quite a knot on him. Be glad he didn’t take the back way in.”
“I would’ve torn in two,” Sarah agreed. “As it is, I may cramp all night. Does it ever stop?”
“You’re asking an Omega. My ass is built for fucking. I don’t cramp.”
“It’s not really cramping, per se.” She shifted onto her side to relieve the pressure at her tailbone. “It’s muscle spasms. Dean says he loves this part, but he’s a masochist, so why did I listen to him?”
“You want me to rub it?” he offered, only half teasing. “Or get you a heating pad?”
“Last time I bared my ass to you, you stuck your dick in it. And the time before that, you paddled it.”
“Following orders, both times,” Adam defended with his scout fingers up and a very straight face. “Give me direction, Doctor. I’m good at following instructions.”
“Hmm. Well, then, how about you just come over here and kiss me?”
He obeyed with enthusiasm, laughing into the kisses. Somehow, Sarah’s cheeks were wet, but she kissed back without pausing to dry them or figure out where the wetness was from. He tugged, and she rolled, and too soon she was right back where she’d begun, safe and warm in his arms, head on that perfect divot, arms around his waist. His lips found her hair and stayed.
“Does this mean we’re back together?” Sarah asked into the darkness once he’d extinguished the lamp.
“Go to sleep,” he replied. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
“It’s a yes or no question,” she pressed.
He sighed. “A Pack Ozzie needs an alpha’s permission before starting a serious relationship. I can’t answer you until I talk to Dean.”
“What? Why? Why Dean?”
“Because he’s my custodial alpha,” Adam reminded her. “He’ll say yes. It’s just a formality, especially considering the whole reason they picked me is to give me back to you. But, yeah, nothing’s official until I get his say-so.”
“That’s not why they picked you,” Sarah muttered. “And it’s a stupid rule.”
“Go to sleep, Sarah, or I’ll tell Sam we talked all night.”
“Did you have to ask to date me the first time?” she craned her head to look up. She couldn’t make much out.
“Benny likes you,” he replied. “Now shush. No more talking. Only sleep.”
Sleep didn’t come easy down in the guest house either. April felt unsettled. Michael deposited her on the couch and set to bustling about in the kitchen heating her a cup of mulled cider as a nightcap. Cas had forbidden clothing during her monthlong punishment, so the trip from the big house had chilled her. And too there was the shock and ache of what the Alpha had just done to her.
She hadn’t even known it was possible for him to Claim her that way.
She clenched her core muscles around the ache, but that made it worse.
“You’re pale.” Michael returned with a steaming mug and a blanket. “And you’re shivering. Here, drink this. Stretch out.”
“I’m fine.” She obeyed anyway. Michael, she’d learned, had a shorter fuse for soft defiance than her mate did. She could say anything, but her actions had better toe the line.
Michael let her hold the mug with two hands. He draped the blanket over her bare form and then settled in on the end of the sofa at her head, put his arm around her and cinched her into his chest.
“Tell me what happened.”
April swallowed uncomfortably and then hid in a sip of cider. Steam swirled, tingling her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Michael waited. His fingers and thumb stroked absently down her arm beneath the blanket.
“You can feel what happened,” she said at last. “What he did.”
Michael hummed and stretched out through their bond to inspect the pained region. “Was it a Claim?”
“There’s always a Claim,” she told him.
Michael shifted beneath her, bringing more of her weight onto his lap. He laid her across him and stroked her hair, leaving her just enough upright stability to continue sipping from her mug.
“Did he hurt you?”
“It wasn’t pleasant. But I’m not injured.”
“Did he say why?” Michael’s eyes glowed gold in the soft lamplight. His brow didn’t furrow though. He had himself contained. April could still feel the edge to him beneath the cool exterior.
So much rage boiled beneath his surface these days. She wondered if he knew about all of it.
“It was punishment…” she sighed.
“No. Not punishment. If he told you that, it was a lie.”
April sighed and took another slow sip. “Maybe a dynamic re-set then,” she said as she lowered the mug, bracing it on her thigh.
“Hmm, a statement?” Michael took the mug and set it on the table at his elbow. On a coaster, naturally. “So, he didn’t explain the purpose? That’s not like him. Are you warming up?”
“Michael, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”
“He could have torn something…”
“He didn’t. It’s not like he doesn’t have practice at anal penetration…”
Michael growled. “You’re Omega. It’s not the same thing…”
“Dean enjoys it…”
“Dean’s not Omega!”
“He was careful!”
“Jesus, you’re going to defend this?” Michael slid out from beneath her and stood up to face her. April slumped into the empty space and rolled onto her back. She buried her face in her hands. “Pete, it wasn’t a punishment! It wasn’t a rebalance. It wasn’t a resettling of your dynamic. He’s trying to force your Primary to the front. And he could have hurt you!”
“He’s a physician, Michael! He knows what he’s doing. He didn’t hurt me.”
“Oh yeah? Then why are you clenched to your teeth just sitting on the couch?”
April felt him roil up into a froth internally. “It’s just pain, sir,” she said softly. “I know how to manage pain. I thrive on it. You know I do. Please sit with me. I need you to hold me.”
“Sir,” he mumbled to himself. But he softened. And he sat. And he held the mug while she sipped.
“Why is he pulling out all the stops to reach your Primary, Pete?”
“I can’t talk about his reasons. It’s private.”
Michael held her while she warmed and settled. His body felt solid and strong. His mind though, simmered. He let the topic drop and switched to focusing on her physical wellbeing. The disconnect streaming through the bond that linked them was jarring: His touch was gentle. His thoughts seethed.
April fidgeted.
“Let’s get you to bed,” Michael said as the sun finally dropped beneath the tree line. “You’ve had a big day.”
“It’s okay if you ask me about what’s bothering you, Michael,” she offered as he pulled her to her feet. “About that wreck, the tree, what I did to Dean.”
“No,” he said shortly. “Not yet. You’re not ready yet.”
“I can feel how angry you are. I know it’s eating you alive.”
Michael guided her to the stairs with a hand at her back. “I said no.”
“We can’t put it off forever,” she tried again. “At least Cas is finally letting me explain. He may not like all the answers…”
“I said NO!” Michael shouted at the top of the stairs.
“Why did you marry me if you have so much resentment you can’t even talk to me?” she shot back. “This isn’t marriage, Michael! It’s custody!”
He growled. “We’re not doing this right now, and that’s final. That’s your last warning. You have five minutes in the bathroom, then get your ass into bed and stay there.”
“Tell me why,” she said. She sucked some of his rage through and wrapped it around her like a shield. She planted her feet.
He approached slowly until his face was centimeters from hers. He whispered, “Because you’re not ready.” And he took her by the upper arm, marched her into the bedroom, tugged her over his lap on the edge of the bed, and spanked her bruised bare backside with a hard, stern palm.
April wasn’t tempted to cry out or struggle. The sensation soothed her. She felt safe under his hand. The day’s tumults tumbled down around her until she succumbed to exhaustion and relaxed over his lap.
Michael sighed and tapped her thigh. “Go brush your teeth. Get to bed.”
“Yes, Michael.”
He fucked her dutifully before tucking her in to sleep, and he held her securely all night. His arms wrapped her with infinite tenderness despite the distance in his mind. He wasn’t tempering his affection. It was there. It was real. He loved her just as deeply as ever. But the chasm that separated his mind from hers blotted out the warmth of his touch.
Something was broken, and it didn’t take a genius to understand what it was.
April slept fitfully. She had imagined a very different honeymoon.
Castiel dropped in early in the morning to fulfill his promised daily attention and to examine her for damage. The pups accompanied him as usual. Michael played hide-and-seek with them in the woods while Cas attended his mate, and then they shared laps and snacks while Netflix lit up the living room with sparkles and grand, singable tunes.
When the movie ended, Cas drew Michael onto the porch for a hushed and serious conversation, mostly one-sided while April zipped the pups back into their jackets.
“Your bottom hurts?” Jimmy asked as April struggled with Kat’s sleeve.
“Only a little,” April replied.
“Is bruises from spanking?” Alex wondered with wide eyes on his mother’s bruised backside.
“That’s right. I broke Papa’s rules. Several of them.” She eyed the men on the porch. She fussed with Kat’s arm as it fought the errant sleeve, but her mind was inside two men’s heads, trying to work out what they were saying to one another.
“Papa spanked Emma yesterday, and she doesn’t has bruises. See?” Jimmy tugged Emma’s leggings down to reveal her bottom which was pink, not reddened. Emma craned her head over her own shoulder to inspect it with him.
“Papa doesn’t leave bruises on pups, Jimmy. That’s just for grownups. And please don’t undress your sister. Hands on your own body. Her clothes are for her hands. Not yours.”
Emma let her mother tug the leggings back into place.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Daddy’s taking us to the zoo today,” Kat told her. “He said we can get popcorn.”
“You can come too?” asked Emma. “Please, Mommy!” She took hold of April’s arm and tugged her toward the door.
“You’ll have lots of fun with Daddy. I need to stay here. O-Pop and I still have some things we need to do.”
“How come you keep getting more bruises?” Kat asked suspiciously. “And how come you’re always naked now? It’s cold. Nanny Kate made us wear sweaters.”
“Pups need to mind their own business, little girl,” she reproved gently. “This is between O-Pop and Papa and me. I’m fine. I’m naked because I’m supposed to be naked. I’ll get my clothes back when Papa says so. But don’t you fret, this isn’t something he’ll ever make you do.”
“It’s grownup stuff,” Alex explained to his sister.
“Who’s ready for the zoo?” Cas asked his brood as he re-entered through the French door. “Everyone dressed?”
“Mommy’s naked.”
“Indeed she is,” Cas replied smoothly. “And she’ll stay that way unless she wants another trip over Papa’s knee. Come on, you lot, everyone on the cart. Who’s turn is it to sit in the front?”
They all tumbled through the door, stopping to hug and kiss O-Pop on the way to the golf cart. Cas reached for April, and she sank into his arms.
“Be good while I’m gone,” he said with a soft kiss. “Cain will be delivering your daily swats. I’ll call you every day. We’ve got you, Kitten. Please don’t be afraid. We’re going to untangle this.”
“Sir, Michael won’t talk to me. I don’t know how to reach him.”
“Shh, it’s not your job to reach him. You just mind him and let him lead. He’s got a tough job to do. Don’t make it harder. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Castiel.”
“That’s my girl.”
The golf cart’s high-pitched horn meeped a couple of times to a chorus of DON’T, ALEX! and PAPA’S GONNA BE MAD! Cas chuckled. His eyes sparkled with amusement and affection as he left an easy kiss on April’s cheek, then he turned away with a fearsome play-growl that had all four pups squealing.
“Dean’s not taking them to the zoo by himself, is he?” April asked Michael when he rejoined her and closed the door. “That would be a nightmare.”
“He’ll figure it out,” Michael said airily, seeming far less stressed than he had last night. The rage was still there. It shimmered and hovered about him in an aura of controlled pain, but his shoulders stood relaxed now. His jaw wasn’t clenching. “He’ll probably make Gabe go with him. You hungry?”
“I’m not hungry. I need to review the studio plan that Cain sent over this morning.”
“Do you want me to take a look?” Michael asked.
“Yes, please. I want your opinion.”
Michael collected juice cups and coffee mugs from the living room and carried them to the kitchen. April followed to assist.
“Go sit down. I’ve got this.” He avoided eye contact.
“I’m not delicate, Michael, just pregnant,” she said as she wet a cloth under the tap.
“I’m not asking,” he told her. He took the cloth out of her hands.
April stood flummoxed, watching him stride past her to swipe drips of apple juice off the coffee table.
“Sir, please. Please talk to me. Pretending everything’s normal isn’t working. We need to figure this out.”
Michael gave off waves of frustration through his very pores as he stalked back to the kitchen and rinsed the cloth. He slammed the empty mugs into the dishwasher hard enough that April was surprised they didn’t shatter.
Then he stopped. Stood still. Stared at nothing. Blinked.
Sighed.
“Come here,” he said to her. He held out his hand and caught hers up. He led her to the living room and sat down. He pulled her to straddle his lap with her knees pressed into the back of the couch. His face was drawn, but his touch was gentle.
“Pete, do you know what’s happening to you right now? Do you understand why we have to be careful?”
“Everyone’s angry,” she told him carefully, reading his face, listening to the speed of his pulse. She licked her lips.
“Baby, you’re Falling,” he said. “You’re in a state of limbo right now, and we can’t snap you out of it.”
“I’m not Falling,” she disagreed with a frown. “I know what a Fall feels like. Michael, I’m just an asshole, and I need to come clean. I need to talk to you. I need to explain.”
“No, Pete, listen to me.” He eased her chin around until she had no choice but to meet his eyes, golden and flecked and too intense this close up. “During your recovery, you hit a wall inside your head, and you Fell. Or at least, you began to. But then something got caught. Something stalled the progress. And you’ve been stuck like that ever since.”
“I’m not in my wolf. I’m Omega,” she disagreed. An ominous cloud darkened the space between them, one she couldn’t quite place.
“That’s because you’re stuck,” Michael said patiently. “You can’t access your wolf at all, can you? Even when Cas spanks you, you’re Secondary, not Tertiary. That’s why the punishments aren’t helping.”
April scoffed and shifted to climb off his lap, but Michael held her fast. She gave up the struggle without much effort. But she didn’t give up the argument. “Then why keep up the punishments?” she challenged.
Michael rolled his eyes and eased back a bit into the cushion. “Because your Omega needs extra support until we figure this out.” He rubbed his palms firmly over her thighs. “No one’s going to let you fall apart, Pete. It’s messy, but you’re going to be okay. We’ve got you.”
“Cas is leaving,” she blurted, accidentally revealing a snippet of her disquiet.
Michael’s brow shot up. “He doesn’t have a choice, kiddo, and you know that. He’s not leaving you without support. Hey. Look at me.”
"…And you’re so angry with me you can hardly breathe,” she went on, going for broke. “I can feel it, Michael. I can see it. I see you as clearly as I ever have, and you’re seething. I don’t want your support right now. I want you to talk to me.”
He dropped his head to his chest in exhaustion or defeat. “All of that will keep,” he said quietly.
“And yet you married me like you were paying penance,” she accused. “Am I your punishment for losing control of your wolf?”
His eyes caught the bandage on the tip of her ear as he raised his head. “Nothing of the kind, Pete,” he said tiredly. “Being married to you…it’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me…”
“…aside from Dean and Alex,” she finished for him. He growled with menace. His palms tightened on her thighs.
Then he calmed himself. “But we have to get to know each other all over again.” The gold faded from his eyes leaving gold-flecked brilliant green that bored into her soul and made her squirm. “It’s like a Mating, April. Wolves Mate perfect strangers all the time. You and I are strangers to each other. I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are anymore. And you’re in psychological crisis right now. Trying to rush this would be a disaster.”
She pulled back, away, and she frowned hard. “You know me, Michael. You know me. I’m still the same girl.”
“Are you? Pete, the girl I knew wouldn’t have endangered her own unborn pups like that, wouldn’t have risked Dean, herself… That’s not the person I thought I knew. So, no, I don’t know you.” He let her dismount his lap and collapse, stunned, to sit on the coffee table. He pressed, leaning forward, “Cas keeps saying this isn’t you, that you’re not like this, whatever that means. But the truth is, you are. Because you did. And then you continued to play the scheme out well after it all turned terrifying. Pete, there’s no getting around it. You did that. This is who you are. And I need to wrap my head around that, make allowances for how to manage it, how to account for it…fuck, April…for how to control it. Because we can’t ever let something like that happen again.”
“But you married me…?” she whispered in shock.
“I needed to tie you down. You were screaming for help. You were grasping at anything you could hold. I get it now, Pete. You need me as much as you need him. I don’t know why I didn’t catch on sooner.”
Tears threatened to overflow as she asked, “You think that what I did was just a cry for help?”
Michael scootched to the edge of the couch and collected her hands in his. “I’m not making excuses for you,” he told her sternly. “And I’m not letting you off the hook. But I’m also not walking away. So that leaves us in a place that will take time and hard work to climb out of. Starting with… you’re going to tell me everything you remember. I need to understand who you think you are…”
“I’m not that!” she exclaimed. “Michael, I’m not! I’m not who it looks like I am…”
“Maybe not,” he allowed, “but you’re not who you want us to believe you are either.” His eyes flicked back and forth between hers, seeking to read what was happening inside her head. But her head was spinning.
He leaned in closer, barely braced on the couch cushion at all. “I need to talk to your Primary, Pete. We’re not going to get anywhere as long as it’s in hiding. It wasn’t your Omega who pulled that stunt. It wasn’t your wolf either. Your front-brain felt a Fall coming and grabbed the keys and vanished. Nothing’s moving until we get it back. You’re stuck. We’re stuck.”
She licked her lips. “You think Castiel took me rectally to try to shake my Primary loose? Was that what that was about?”
Michael laughed and sat back. “Who knows. Maybe he’s just a kinky asshole who’s always wanted to slide up your poop-chute.”
“Michael, this isn’t who I want to be,” April told him plaintively. “I fucked up. I’ve never had a scheme go bad like this before. But I wouldn’t hurt anyone in this Pack, not on purpose. You have to know that…”
“But you did, April,” he sobered quickly. “And you didn’t just hurt Dean, you brutalized him. You ground your heel right into the side of his face and held him there while he could barely breathe…”
“No!” she clapped her hands over her ears. “That’s NOT who I am!”
“Then prove it, damnit! Go dig up your Primary! Let her stand here and explain this to me!”
“I…”
“There’s no one here but you and me, Pete. And you know how I feel about you. You can feel it. You’re safe here with me. But I’m not going to put up with anything but absolute honesty from you. You owe me that. Whatever the truth is, I can take it. Look at me! I can take it. Just don’t play me. Don’t lie to me. Don’t ever hurt my Pack…”
“I didn’t mean to hurt the Pack!”
He pressed hard, eyes shifting back to gold. “What did you mean to do then?”
“I… I needed you, Michael! I need your wolf! I need to be safe!”
He bolted off the couch and paced furiously, “Jesus Christ, Pete! Safe? You need to be safe? How many times have we asked you what you need? How many fucking layers is it gonna take?”
“Michael, please!”
“No!” he rounded on her, braced his hands on either side of her legs and leaned in close. “No. This is it. This is the last of it, the last layer. You, me, my wolf, this marriage. It’s done. No more layers. No one in the world could ever keep you safer than I will. So, we’re done. You’re done.”
A new Claim snapped out from him and wrapped them both. They flinched as one. Michael sank backward to perch on the edge of the couch in dismay.
She couldn’t have stopped the tears if she had wanted to. She felt warm from head to toes. The tightest Claim she had ever experienced encased her and squeezed her flesh almost to the point she couldn’t breathe. It felt like a binding, one that sank into her skin and lodged there. Michael’s eyes widened when he realized what he’d done, but he didn’t release the casing. April could feel his wolf preen, smug in its triumph.
Michael exhaled slowly and dropped his head. April reached tentative fingers, shaky but brave, to stroke through the black strands of his hair that hung loose over his forehead.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He looked up, fearsome and angry. “You’re welcome.”
Her fingers trailed down his temple, his cheek, the pulse at his throat, as she dropped her hand back to her lap. She let him dig into her mind, his face too close for comfort.
“You know why the scheme went wrong on you?” he asked.
April blinked at the unexpected question and settled further back on the table. She leaned back on her arms. Michael stood up, breaking the tension. He carded his fingers through his hair, resettling it neatly. “You get what was different this time?” he asked on his way to the open kitchen. April followed him with her eyes but stayed put.
“Because I don’t know fuck-all about driving?”
Michael scoffed and filled a glass from the tap. “Because it was a brat-move, not a ringmaster move,” he explained. “You have no idea how to be a brat. You weren’t moving chess pieces behind the curtain this time. Normally,” he strolled back in and handed her the glass. “You like to move in secret and have the outcome remain secret. Right? No one is ever supposed to know what you did to make things fall out how they do. But this scheme needed to come to light in order for it to play out right. If I never knew that you endangered Dean and our pups, I wouldn’t have lost control of my wolf…”
“…and Mated me,” she concluded softly.
“I didn’t Mate you,” he replied.
“Says you,” she argued. “I can’t tell any difference between your bond and Castiel’s.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Michael groused. “You came out of this with a high-and-tight that’ll grow out in a few months, an adorable new dimple, and exactly what you wanted from me. The only thing that went wrong was…”
“Possible brain damage,” she interjected. “And a ruined relationship with Dean. I didn’t win, Michael.” Her voice flattened halfway through her assertion.
He studied her. His head cocked slightly. Gold faded from his irises. “There you are,” he murmured. “Finally.”
She rolled her eyes and sipped from the glass.
“Let your wolf go,” he instructed. Bluntly.
“It’s not a prisoner,” she said.
“Bullshit.”
“What power do you think I have?” April asked. Her voice had deepened and leveled.
“I think you have absolute control of your wolf,” he replied, just as flat. With his thumb, her wiped a tear-track from her cheek and then eased his thumb into her mouth. She dodged, and he growled. He grasped her chin and held her. “Who are you?” he snarled. He shifted into his front-brain Dominant and stared her down, seething. “Who are you really?”
She looked into his eyes coolly. “I’m the one asking you for help,” she said without emotion. “I can’t do this without you. I tried. But I’m tired. I failed. Alpha doesn’t have the insight that you do, Michael. He can’t see me in the way you can.”
“Why didn’t you just ask?” Michael wondered, dismayed.
“I tried. So many times. God, I wanted to. But all I had access to around you was my Omega. And she refused.”
“There’s no way that’s true.”
“Think about it, Michael. My Omega trusts the schemes. They’ve always worked. And after every move, she’s safer. She’s more secure. But talking? Asking straight out for what I need? How often has that worked for me?”
“Jesus Christ, Pete, it always works for you! Cas codes whatever you say into your contract! He bought you an entire production team just on the hint that you might want a music career! Is this about your marriage proposal? I didn’t jump fast enough for you? I took some time to think it through and you decided to hell with talking, it’s better to crash into a tree?!”
“It’s not about getting married, Michael!” she yelled, standing and straightening her spine. She still barely reached to his collarbone. “It’s about how desperate you were to keep me from knowing the real you! All of you! You thought we could be together, but you only showed me curated portions of yourself! That’s not a relationship! And it’s not fair! Because you also made it super clear that you never wanted to see all of me either! Fuck that, Michael! I love you. I wanted you! I begged for you! But you shut me out and then wanted to play house with just the civilized bits that shine up pretty for the cameras. There was nothing I could ever say that was going to break through that façade.”
“You listen to me,” growled Michael. He pointed her back to sitting on the coffee table, and he mindfully held onto his Primary headspace to keep her Primary as well. “You absolute bitch. It ends. You hear me? Right now. It ends. You wanted me? You got me. I know what drives you, and it’s not a lovey-dovey need to get to know the real me. You’re terrified, and your fear drives everything you do. Don’t stand there and lie to me. You’re so frightened you can’t sleep at night, so frightened you risked killing your own pups.”
April’s eyes flickered to gold. Michael grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “No! You stay in your Front! Don’t you dare shift on me!” He stared her down until she stabilized back in her Primary and the gold faded to blue.
“I have a rule for you, April Renée, and a promise, and you’re going to listen to every goddamn word like your life depends on it. Nod your fucking head!”
She gulped and nodded.
“Here’s the rule. You listen good. When you feel fear? You tell me. You say it out loud. And I will take care of it. No matter what it is. No matter if you think it’s stupid or baseless or ridiculous. I don’t care. If you feel it, you tell me. I’m taking ownership of your fears, Pete. You get me?”
She swallowed again. “Cain has already made the same rule,” she whispered. “And Cas watches my emotions.”
Michael snarled again and knelt right in front of her. “Fuck Darius Cain. And fuck Castiel while we’re at it. If they were sufficient without my input, you wouldn’t have needed to scream into the void. So, you just let them keep doing whatever it is they do for you. This is between you and me. Your fears are my job from now on. I am your last fucking layer.”
She stared into his eyes. The stillness of her gaze belied the whirlwind in her head. He could feel her momentum pick up and she lost her footing and slid with increasing velocity toward a cold, dark pit.
“That’s the rule,” he repeated. “Accept it. Say it.”
Her jaw set.
“SAY IT!”
“I accept it! Damnit!”
“You’ll obey me,” he chanted, watching her wolf descend into darkness. “No bratting. No defiance. This isn’t a scene. It’s not cat and mouse. It’s not for leverage during our play sessions. You don’t play me, April. You don’t torque me up to get a rise and a hard lashing. You obey me, and I will keep you safe. That’s my promise. I am not your mate, Pete. I’m not your playmate. But I am your Dominant, and you’ll give me the respect I command, or you will suffer my displeasure. I won’t have this. Not ever again. You belong to me now. Tell Castiel whatever you want. Fuck with his mind however he allows. I don’t care. I’m not playing. Between you and me, I’m the Top, and you’ll obey. Say it.” His words clipped harshly. His eyes flashed without a hint of Omega gold or a whiff of his wolf.
April’s jaw hung open, useless.
“Fucking SAY IT, APRIL!”
“Yes,” she whispered, barely audible. “I’ll obey.”
He huffed.
His face twitched with the snarl that curled his lip. At last, as he stood over her, rising to his full height and looking down, he let his wolf in.
“Get me a ruler,” he demanded. “A wooden one. Look in the desk upstairs.”
She hesitated, and he grabbed her by the neck and forced her to look up at a stiff angle. “A ruler, April. Now.”
She pressed her lips together and broke for the stairs. Michael heard her rifling through the desk. The ruler wasn’t there. It was in the nightstand. She would find it.
Michael collected his phone from the end table and keyed Cas on his speed dial.
“Any progress?” Cas opened with.
“I’m in,” Michael told him. “Do you want to be here?”
“What broke her?”
“She’s not broken, sir.”
“Michael, don’t play with me. Answer the question.”
Michael cleared his throat. One ear stayed locked on the search upstairs. “Your idea to assault her motives was what did it. Her Primary hates to be misconstrued.”
“Good. Yes, I can feel her from here. She’s hit the bottom. Fucking finally.”
“So, are you coming down?” Michael asked. The thumps from upstairs shifted to the opposite side of the room.
“This is your victory, Omega.” Cas told him. “It’s your call. Do you need me there?”
“Cas, I always need you.” Michael heard her blow out a huff of frustration from above. “But maybe this time it would be best to see if I can finish it on my own. It will set a critical precedent. We still have a long way to go.”
“You have my trust, Michael. You can do this. I’ll be watching. I’m proud of you, son.”
“Not your son, sir,” Michael muttered. “And maybe later we talk about anal penetration of Omega channels and whether that’s suitable punishment during a Tertiary Fall.”
Cas laughed. “My ears will be waiting to be singed, Omega. Go take care of your wife.”
April trudged down the stairs with the wooden ruler in her fist. Michael hung up the phone a tossed it onto the cushioned chair by the window.
“Knees.”
Michael pointed to a spot in the kitchen, well clear of the carpet. Warm knees met cold tile. April held the ruler aloft, laid across both palms. Her head bent low.
Michael took it.
“Reach out to your mate, April,” Michael instructed. “Keep your gaze on him. Hold his attention.”
April nodded subtly. In her head, Michael could feel her attention shift away from his bond. He narrowed his eyes and focused into her mind, searching. Stretching. If he entered her wolfscape now, would Castiel be there?
No, now was not the time to experiment.
“Lean back into the cabinet behind you and spread your knees wide. Hold the backs of your knees. Back on your tailbone.” He tapped at the back of her thigh with the ruler to lean her way back. Don’t move your hands. Don’t move your feet. I’m aiming for the insides of your thighs. Nowhere else. If you move, you could get hurt. Stay still.”
“Yes, Michael,” she murmured, slipping into her wolf, swirling away into darkness. Her feet trembled in the air. White streaks showed on the back of her legs where her fingers dug in. She closed her eyes and held her breath.
Michael positioned his feet. He held the ruler tight and torqued it back until it threatened to snap, and then he released it to pop against soft flesh. A bright pink streak sprung up instantly, lined top and bottom with thin red lines that welted. April flinched and grunted. Michael didn’t give her time to think. Before the sting fully set in, he lowered his strike zone and popped her again. Closer to her delicate genitals, this one made her kick out and gasp.
“Be still.”
She couldn’t Release. Her pregnancy had stunted the release of Omesol. But she didn’t need a Secondary response anyway. She needed a ladder of pain for climbing out of the pit. And unlike Dean, her psyche didn’t require a complicated roleplay to get her there. Just hot pain.
Michael struck her again and again. Now that she was past her block, the process followed predictable steps. She would wail and kick. She would cry and beg. But she would hold her legs in the air while the sweat down her back and belly turned her seat slippery against the tile.
And moment by moment, pop after painful pop, April would lose her grip, lose herself, come apart under the onslaught, explode into absolute nothingness, rise screaming and shaking, naked and glorious, ugly and tortured and beautiful, to rekindle into something so ineffably gleamingly perfect that Michael had to avert his eyes or risk burning them out.
Her screams warbled and crested under the blows. It seemed they would never stop. She was on fire. And from the darkness of the pit, as it caught and kindled, April fed everything—all her pain and remorse and doubt and fear and guilt. She fed it into the pain. She embraced everything, opened herself to it, saw it in all its revolting truth, and she screamed as it consumed her.
He didn’t stop until she was bawling hysterically, shaking apart, screaming in despair.
He set the ruler on the counter above her and knelt to take her into his arms, both of them sobbing.
“What have I done, Michael? Oh, god, what did I do?” she wailed, clutching him. She curled up in his arms and shuddered under the weight of her own guilt.
“You can’t undo it, my love.” Michael whispered into her hair. “All we can do now is make restitution. You’ve been punished enough. Let’s take it in, you and me. No more hiding. No more deflecting. Look right at it. I’m not going to leave you to do that alone. But don’t flinch. Look at it. Accept your part in it. Find the line between what’s yours and what’s Dean’s. Then own it. Talk about it. Make amends.”
She cried as he talked and rocked her in his arms. He searched her mind. The darkness of the pit was gone, but her wolf turned its muzzle toward the moon and howled in despair. Michael closed his eyes, embraced his own wolfscape, and joined her. He added camaraderie and hope to her music, bending it away from despair even as new tears coursed down her face. He followed the bond-link in his head until he saw her in his mind, outlined by silver moonlight, mournful and repentant. He stepped softly to join her. He rubbed the side of his muzzle against her head, up over her ear, over her neck. She ceased howling and turned to lick his chin.
Michael stood steady while she leaned into him. He looked around. He saw no other wolves, but he sensed a presence just out of sight. Close. Watchful. Here but not here.
Castiel was with them.
Michael could feel him as if he were the wind that ruffled Michael’s fur.
He turned his attention back to April.
Was she right that Michael had Mated her? He no longer knew what might prove possible. He had no idea how to distinguish the difference. His connection to her was weaker than his tie with Dean. But not by much, and not by condition. By feel, they were close enough to be classified as the same. But April’s scar wouldn’t form sensitive nerve-endings that lit up at his touch. Would it?
April’s wolf whined in the cold wind. Michael nuzzled her. Her left ear in the moonlight ended blunt, not pointed. Even in her wolfscape, Michael’s mark carried through.
He didn’t really know her, perhaps. But he would soon. He would batten down the final lash that she had needed secure, and then he would be there to watch her take flight as a phoenix. Or a dragon.
Whatever.
Michael pulled free of the wolf-dream, opened his eyes, and found her calm.
“You’re okay,” he assured her. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
April sniffled. “I need to talk to Dean.”
“Dean’s at the zoo, sweetheart. We’ll get to that.”
They sat up together when Cas opened the door and stepped in.
“Alpha,” April breathed. “Cas, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” She leaned away from Michael, and he let her go. Cas went to one knee in front of them and caught his mate in his arms.
“I know, Kitten. I know you’re sorry. I’m proud of you. You did it. You made it through the hardest part.”
“I can’t believe what I put everyone through. I can’t believe I did that. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Shh. That’s what Pack is, April. That’s who we are. Of course we can forgive you.” Cas smoothed her hair as Michael rose to his feet.
April watched him, secured fast in her mate’s arms. “What about Dean?” She asked. “He’s so angry. I’ve never seen him like this. And I… I deserve it. What I put him through…”
Cas smacked his lips lightly. “You know, Dean… He… he feels things more acutely than, well, than anyone I’ve ever known. So, in time, he will work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on. He will need time. He may flare up and rage for a bit. He will most certainly need a confrontation. He’ll have things he needs you to hear, things he will need you to say. He will need that. But he will forgive you. Of that, I’m sure. It’s not broken, April. Not for good.”
“What do I do?” she asked in a small voice. Michael watched her closely. He rifled through her head as she turned frightened eyes on her mate and sought guidance. Everything about her body language screamed Tertiary. But Michael found her firmly situated in her Primary headspace.
Cas exhaled slowly and nodded. He cast a glance up at Michael standing above them, and he nodded again, as if discussing within his own head. “You stop hiding, April. And you talk to him. There’s a process to redemption. It isn’t free. It requires commitment and accountability and change. First you acknowledge your fault. Then you fix what you can. Then you apologize. Apology without change is meaningless.”
Michael huffed. “This isn’t all on Pete,” he added. “Dean had a hand in it. I’m not allowing us to scapegoat the Omega just because she’s the easiest to pin everything on.”
“No, nor am I,” Cas told him with a grim expression. “All three of us have amends to make. We’ve broken one another’s trust in so many ways.”
“All three of us…?” Michael said with a frown and a tone of indignation.
Cas sighed in irritation. “Not you, Omega. I meant me. Dean. April.”
Michael squatted before them and put a hand on each of their knees. “Then stop agonizing about it. Lock yourselves in the playroom and sweat it out. Rebuilding trust, Alpha, is a part of our dynamic. It’s hierarchy.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Cas protested. April buried her face in his chest. “It isn’t that kind of trust. Look at her flesh, Michael. She’s been whipped within an inch of her life. She’s been Claimed and re-Claimed until I can’t find any new holes to Claim her through. We’re dealing with strictly human emotions, here, not wolfish ones. Some things aren’t easy to fix with a strap and a bottle of lube.”
April sniffled and looked up at Cas. “You’re back with us though. You’re back now.”
He smiled down at her. “And so are you, Kitten. Everything is going to be fine. You’re safe and whole. The pups are unharmed. Dean is unharmed. I never really liked the Range Rover anyway. And an oak like that one—it needs a few scars so it has some stories to tell the seedlings a hundred years from now.”
April snorted a surprised laugh.
Michael looked pensive for a moment, unamused. “We can’t fix this if we try to do it through singular conversations,” he said thoughtfully. “We’re a foursome now. We’re interconnected. Every relationship affects the others. We have to approach it holistically.”
Cas nodded. “Ultimately, yes. But it’s critical first that Dean and April have some space of their own. Only they know what was said when the plan came together. Only they can untangle the lines of culpability and determine a pathway through.”
“Dean said you don’t love him now,” Michael added. His standard nonsequitorial confrontation technique didn’t catch the Alpha out though. Cas squeezed April and then stood them both up. Michael mirrored.
“Dean talks too much. And he presented a skewed version of what I said if that’s what he told you. This doesn’t concern you. It’s between us.”
“We just agreed that the foursome takes precedence…”
“No, we didn’t,” Cas countered. “We agreed it exists. Stay out of my marriage, Omega.”
“Like you’re staying out of mine?”
“Desist, Michael. Your calculated outrage is ill-timed and pointless.”
“Do you still love him?”
April put a hand on Michael’s arm. He scathed her with a look, and she retreated.
“Don’t be absurd,” Cas said half under his breath. “Of course I love him.”
“Then what the hell? Why tell him you don’t? What could that possibly achieve except to convince him he’s on a bubble?”
“Honesty, Michael! I told him the truth! I told him I don’t know how to catalog what I’m feeling and that it scares me! And you know what he did? He laughed at me. Called me naïve. He told me the only reason I find it unsettling is because I have an immature view of romantic love in the first place. Does that sound like someone who’s shattered to you?”
Michael stared at the man in shock.
“Unless you have a deeper view of Dean’s state of mind than I do,” Cas muttered sourly. He turned and strolled into the living room to collect his keys.
“Well, is it back?” Michael asked into the awkward lull. “Your romantic love?” His finger quotes didn’t ingratiate him with the Alpha.
“No,” Cas clipped. “Not yet. But it’s in there. Somewhere.”
“Fake it till you make it?” Michael asked in astonishment. “That’s what we’re going with?”
“I have to go,” Cas told him. “Sarah is waiting for me.”
“Cas, come on…” Michael sighed. “I didn’t mean…”
“No more corporal punishment,” Cas interrupted. “She needs to recover. Thank you for managing her Fall.”
“Look, I know you two aren’t in real trouble here,” Michael said. “But Dean needs surety, not doubt.”
Cas turned to April and wrapped an arm around her waist. “You behave while I’m gone.” He kissed her sweetly. “Go talk to Dean. Don’t get defensive. Stay in your front-brain if you can. And listen to him. He’ll be fair. Tell him I said no punishments. If the two of you determine swats are owed, it waits until I get back.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Cas touched her face, running a finger over the deep new dimple in her cheek and smiling with his eyes more than his mouth. “I love you, Kitten. I won’t be gone long.”
“I’m scared,” she told him. “He’s really angry.”
“Baby, it’s Dean. You don’t have to be afraid of Dean. He loves you more than the rest of us do.”
“Speak for yourself,” Michael grumbled as he took April’s support from Cas and eased her away.
Cas chuckled. “You’re in good hands, Kitten. Take it one day at a time. There’s nowhere to go from here but up. Yeah?” He peered deep into her eyes until she smiled weakly and nodded.
When the golf cart disappeared around the bend, Michael walked April to the couch and sat her down. “You’re Primary,” he said bluntly. “So, what’s with the Kitten cosplay?”
“It’s not a cosplay,” she told him tiredly. “And if that’s what you think, you really don’t know me at all.”
“My point exactly,” he reminded her.
“Can I at least wear a robe?” she asked.
“No. He said no more strappings. He didn’t say clothing. I’ll turn up the thermostat if you’re cold.”
“If you’re so angry with him, why obey his strictures?” she called to him around the corner where he’d gone to check the heat-setting. “Especially if he’s not even home. It’s not like he’s going to drop in from DC to check on me.”
Michael laughed. “You’re really bad at bratting, Pete. You should leave it to the brats.” He settled down beside her with the TV clicker and called Hulu back up.
She snuggled right in. Her skin felt alive and tingly where layers upon layers of marks marred the gentle curves and softening planes. She would start showing soon. Michael’s hand found its way to her belly.
“Do you want me to go with you to talk to him?” he asked while the TV loaded his show. April shook her head. “Because I will, Pete. I’ll stand with you.”
“I need to do it on my own. I owe him that.”
Late in the afternoon, shortly before he needed to leave for the airport, Cas stepped onto the back porch to find Alex tossing a tennis ball with Adam. The Alpha raised a brow at Adam half-lying between Sarah’s legs on a lounge chair, both of them utterly relaxed and intimately entangled. Adam bounced the ball off the far wall and laughed as the pup took off running across the lawn to collect it.
“What’s this?” Cas asked the couple. “Not still aftershocks from yesterday’s scene, surely.”
“No, sir,” Sarah said with a blush. “New development.”
“I see,” said Cas. He smoothly caught the tennis ball and tossed it back with a high arch. Alex missed the catch and scurried after it again. “Adam?” Cas prompted. “Have you forgotten something?”
“No, Alpha.” Adam sat up and scootched to the foot of the chair, putting distance between them. “Nothing’s official yet.”
Cas laughed. “Tell that to your girlfriend.”
Indeed, Sarah, for her part, grunted and smacked the back of Adam’s head. “You’re not going to make this hard on us, are you, Alpha?” she asked. Alex launched the ball over the squat, stone wall and landed it on the chair between them. She caught it up and tossed it back. Down by the oak tree, the other three pups chased Portia, trying to retrieve their frisbee. She didn’t look like she planned to give it back.
“No one’s asked me anything yet,” Cas pointed out. He lifted Alex to his hip with ease, and the boy wrapped his arms around his father’s neck.
“Do we really need to do that?” Sarah asked, looking between Adam and Cas.
The brow lift told her more than his head tilt did.
“Fine,” she replied. “Alpha, do we have your permission to date?”
“Not you, beta,” he said. “My Ozzie.”
“Who’s Ozzie?” Alex asked with a hand on Castiel’s cheek.
“Adam is Ozzie,” Cas replied. “And he has a question for Papa.”
“Adam?” Alex said, turning his attention toward the lounge chair. “What question?” But before Adam could respond, Portia pounced upon the tennis ball left abandoned on the porch, and Alex squirmed from Cas’ grip to give chase. “NO! Pahsha! Mine! My ball! Bad girl!”
Adam bit his lip and glanced up at the Alpha and his brow.
“Sir, I love Sarah. It’s not just dating. I need her. Please, do we have your blessing?”
Cas pulled one of the wrought iron chairs closer and sat. “You two hurt one another badly. And as far as I can tell, none of the circumstances that led to that have changed. But you experience one strong dopamine hit together, and you’re back in each other’s bed? You’ll need to convince me this isn’t a rebound following strong emotions. Besides, last I heard, Sarah, you’re considering an entirely different role in an entirely different bed. Have you decided to turn Jess down?”
Sarah looked at Adam and then back at Cas. “No, Alpha. I’m going to say yes. I’m going to join Jess and Sam and build a poly-relationship. But Adam and me, we want to make a go of it too. Separately.”
“Is that so?” Cas asked in surprise.
Adam leaned in. “Sam’s my Dom too, sir. Sarah and I are in the same lineage here. Sharing Sam’s scene-space will only strengthen our relationship. It’s not a conflict. It’s a natural extension. We’re both Subs, Alpha. We didn’t understand that the first time. Now that we do, we can make it work. We both need someone else holding our reins and stuff. We can’t be the whole gamut for each other. But we don’t have to be. Plus, if Dean’s going to be my alpha, and he’s Sarah’s mentor, that…that just strengthens everything.”
Cas held Adam with a stern countenance. “Omega, you will Mate soon. Dean’s custody is temporary. So is Sam’s.”
“Sir, we’re willing to take that chance.” Adam’s chest heaved as he took his stand. He reached back and took Sarah’s hand. “If you meant it when you said you would fight for my right to stay in this Pack, then fight for my right to choose my own relationships too.” He blushed hard but didn’t drop his eyes. “I love Sarah. That won’t change when I Mate. I know you understand. Please, Castiel.”
Cas studied them both. Alex returned and climbed into Cas’ lap with the soggy tennis ball.
“What you’re asking of me, to my knowledge no one’s ever succeeded at such a challenge.”
“Michael did,” Sarah told him with her chin high. “And that was against an Alpha of great stature.”
Cas laughed, amused in spite of himself. “If I used Michael as an example in a Mate-infringement suit, I’m not sure a court would allow precedent from my own home.”
“Why not? It’s still relevant. It happened. Michael challenged your right to negate his relationship with April, and he won.” Sarah spoiled it by biting her lip. Adam scooted back into her space and leaned back to kiss her cheek.
“Alpha,” Adam said quietly. “We’re not asking for a deathmatch against a mate I don’t even know yet. We’re just asking for your permission to date. Sarah is good for me. Surely you knew this was a possibility when you recruited me. Did you really not expect this?”
Cas smoothed Alex’s dark hair over his brow. “Someone’s tired after a long day at the zoo.” Alex clutched his ball and curled into Papa’s chest.
“Sir.”
Cas wrapped Alex up in his arms and rocked him slightly. “Here’s the deal,” he said solemnly. “I’ll approve this on a probationary condition. I will be checking in regularly. You will both report to me and answer my inquiries fully and honestly. And I make no promises not to withdraw my approval if I deem the relationship anything but healthy for you both.”
“And how do we get out of probation?” Sarah asked, half incensed and half amused.
“I’ll let you know,” Cas snapped.
“Thank you, Alpha,” Adam broke in before Sarah could sabotage their progress. “You won’t regret it.”
A thin wail made it to the porch from the lawn, drawing their attention. Dean had Emma seated by the oak with her legs crossed and her hands on her knees. The structured position meant that she had already put up something of a fight against the discipline her daddy had implemented. There was a process to these things. Emma had her head thrown back as she sobbed. As they watched, she kicked out and thrummed her heels against the ground. No one could hear Dean’s answer, but his stance and his expression exuded alpha power, discernible even from the porch. Cas hummed in approval. Soon, the pup stood facing the tree with her fingers laced behind her head and Dean standing vigil. Kat and Jimmy began the trudging climb up the hill toward the porch with Kate. Emma stomped her feet several times but stilled at a word from Daddy.
“Looks like playtime’s over to me, huh Ace?” Cas asked rhetorically. Alex nodded into his chest and put his thumb in his mouth. “Let’s get you washed up for supper. Papa’s got to go soon.”
“No, Papa!” Jimmy called. “Stay!”
“I’ll be home before you know it, kiddo.” Cas set Alex on the ground and held an arm out to Jimmy. Kat climbed into Adam’s lap. “You won’t even have time to miss me.”
“Idgie pinched me,” Kat told Sarah. “An’ she didn’t say sorry.”
“When’s Mommy coming home?” Alex asked.
“Very soon,” Cas told him. He stood with Jimmy in his arms and signaled for Kat to follow him. She slid to her feet and caught up his hand. Alex shoved the door open with a clumsy push.
“Sir, you won’t regret it,” Adam called with a grin for Sarah. Cas disappeared into the house with three-fourths of his brood. Alex slammed the door behind Kate.
“You know he planned this whole thing, don’t you?” Sarah said. “I thought it was only about challenging settled law. But I get it now. He arranged everything. And now he’s pretending to do us a favor.”
“Shh,” Adam put a finger to her lips. “Take the win.”
When Dean joined them with a sniffling Emma in his arms, Sarah and Adam followed him into the house. “Well?” Dean asked.
Sarah shot him a thumbs-up and stole Emma from him. Dean caught Adam with a hand to the Ozzie’s chest. “Look, you know I think this idea is jacked. But I’m trusting you here. If you need anything, Adam. Anything at all from me. You say so. Speak up. That’s what I’m here for.”
“Yeah, alpha, I get it. And look, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Shoot, kid.” Dean pulled him into the dining room where they had a modicum of privacy for the moment. “What’s up?”
“Dean, I know we have plenty of knots in this house. I can live on what’s here. But it’s just…they’re all guys. I’m not used to that.”
Dean chuckled. “Sausage-fest not your thing?”
“It’s not like I’ll trip out or anything…”
“Relax, Adam. I’ve already handled it. Lisa’s coming by tonight. Just for you. I’m betting she’ll even let Sarah watch if that’s what floats your boat.” Dean winked.
“Oh, thank god,” Adam breathed. “I’m starving.”
Dean laughed and caught him up around the shoulders. “And don’t be shy next time. I had to figure it out from your scent.”
“I’m straight, Dean! It’s not rocket science!” Adam let himself be hauled toward the bustling kitchen.
“Give me a break,” Dean protested. “I’ve been distracted. You want something in this house, you have a responsibility to say so, not wait for your crappy alpha to guess.”
Cas caught the end of Dean’s statement, growled, flattened him over the island, bared him in a flash, and popped his ass until Dean lifted onto his tiptoes and hissed.
Adam laughed. “I love this Pack,” he grinned, watching Dean pull his jeans back up with a red face.
April didn’t get a chance to speak to Dean alone until a full week later. Kali shuttled the pups into her suite to finalize their Halloween costumes and organize all of the accessories. The week had flown. Dean worked feverishly to hand off responsibilities, complicated by Jo’s unexpected absence. Who takes a vacation in the middle of October?
Michael spent long hours holed up with Gage and the boy’s alpha. Gage’s control over his unruly Tertiary was making strong and rapid leaps, but every time he visited his home, he regressed. Michael worked feverishly to figure out a strategy to hold him steady. The kid couldn’t live at The Facility forever. He needed to learn to manage himself without using Michael as a crutch.
Construction broke ground on April’s studio in the back of the property, behind the garage. She spent the week hunkered over her laptop with a keyboard at her elbow, thrumming out melody drafts and searching for a harmonic that felt like something deeper. Her team clustered tightly around her. Together, they gave off vibes of frenetic, chaotic creation.
Cas returned weary but triumphant. He’d secured the votes that Max’s bill needed, ironically finding it was Styne’s persuasion and Dean’s wording that turned the tide, although it may have been Bobby’s skilled back room wheedling that locked it down. Cas had needed only to shake hands in front of the right cameras and make stout assurances to the press that the bill would stabilize, not exploit, the nation’s young wolves. The final votes locked into place.
And the trial, not televised or glorified thanks to pressure applied through dark channels with funding that came from shady sources, proceeded exactly as Bobby planned. The evidence against the Nikolai syndicate wasn’t forged, it was real. It just…well, the link that tied that evidence to the explosion may have been exaggerated, although it would have taken scrutiny far more diligent than the government was willing to pay for to uncover that fact. Prosecutors had jumped on the absolute glut of evidentiary proof against a crime boss they had been hungering to take down for decades. When Bobby handed it to them, tied up with a bow, they didn’t question it. He’d anticipated an answer to every question and supplied witnesses that seemed to have no tie back to him. He was a ghost in the works. That Nikolai was the ultimate scumbag whose takedown would pad prosecutors’ resumés for the rest of their careers was a slick selling point Bobby had in his favor. Not only wasn’t there a downside, even if there had been, it would take a forensic genius to spot the disconnect. And the US government doesn’t employ forensic geniuses.
Castiel monitored the trial’s progress from a safe distance. Or Mick did. Whatever. Cas wasn’t about to be caught flat-footed in the wake of his husband’s anxieties over the outcome. He needed to stay abreast of the developments as they evolved. Dean’s peace of mind was at stake. Cas vowed to take that peace home with him. Dean had been through enough.
Too, Cas monitored Sarah in the days following Sam’s breakthrough scene. He knew that participating the way he did was risky, but it seemed a calculated risk. Worth it if she emerged into a fuller understanding of Pack connections. He watched her closely, judging nonverbal cues that she didn’t know she was exuding for signs that she had rolled into Pack mentality. Or not. Cas couldn’t pin down just why he wanted this so badly. But he did. He wanted Sarah in his Pack. He wanted her secured right up into his chest. He wanted her owned. He felt it a positive sign when she opted into Jess’ proposal, although he was livid when he discovered Jess and Sam had pressed their case the very evening after the scene. Neither of the betas could justify that satisfactorily, and both paid for it with their asses and a postponement of all planned threesome activities until Cas reviewed the plans himself.
Cas returned from his trip to find that his mate and his husband still had not reconciled. April told him that Dean had been too busy to interrupt. Dean told him he’d not seen April more than in passing all week. It was enough to make an Alpha throw his hands up.
“Must I do everything myself?” he asked, only half rhetorically.
“Knock yourself out,” Dean quipped as he handed a bowl of minced garlic to Tony. “Oh, and the new butler started on Monday. Stay clear of Fred. He’s on a tear.”
“Ugh!” Cas exclaimed in frustration. “Priorities, Dean!”
“I’m not chasing her down, Cas,” Dean told him. He sliced off the end of an onion and peeled it. “She knows where I am.”
“She’s not the only one who owes an apology, alpha,” Cas said with an edge to his voice. “You’re not innocent. And you’re no victim. Get it cleared up before I have to involve myself.”
Dean shrugged. “Tell her that, not me. She rides this house like she’s immune to the rules. When that changes, I’ll take my fair share of the heat. Until then, get off my ass.”
“Dean, it’s not like that.”
“The hell it’s not. She’s supposed to be Ultimate, man, but she gets every inch of her ride slicked for her. You clear all the barriers out of her way and make me crawl through barbed wire to get to the same finish line. And look, I know watching her comatose in a hospital bed freaked you out. I know you’re still treading water and barely keeping your head up, but don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. I may be Profound, but I’m not stupid.”
Castiel stared at his husband, shocked. But Dean only glanced up before dicing the onion with a practiced stroke.
“I already owned up to my side of this shitfest,” Dean went on. “And I asked her to talk it through with me. Hell, I begged her to be straight with me…”
“She was stuck in a Fall, Dean!”
“That’s never gotten me off the hook!” Dean slammed his knife flat on the counter and turned crimson eyes on Cas. “She’s been on level ground for days now, Alpha. Days! And I’m not asking to be groveled to. I’m only asking for an explanation and a simple fucking apology. She’s got mine. But all I have in return is lip service and a pile of shitty excuses. And you come storming in here and point fingers at me, not her. I’m not rolling this time, Cas. Not for this.”
“Is this where we are?” Cas asked. He calmed the ragged beast in his chest and fell still.
“I think so,” Dean replied. He picked the knife back up. “Your move, Sir.”
Cas moved closer and put his hand over Dean’s on the knife handle. Dean stopped slicing. “I’ll take care of everything,” he said softly. “You trust me?”
“Yeah, I do,” Dean breathed without looking up. They stood still for a few moments. Tony looked across at them and then went back to tending the stove. “You love me?” Dean asked.
Cas huffed a laugh. “You mean in the grander sense?”
“I mean right here.” Dean touched Cas’ chest with the tip of his knife.
“I’m working on it,” Cas told him. “This…block. Or whatever it is. It’s persistent and frustrating. But it’s not real.”
Dean kissed him. “Keep looking, Alpha. I’m in there. Go find me.”
Cas nodded. He looked thoughtful.
“And give April a chance to stand on her own for a change,” Dean added. “She’s stronger than you think.”
“That goes for more than just April,” Cas murmured. Dean glanced up at him.
“She’s got a lot to answer for,” Dean told him. “Now isn’t the time to fall into those baby blues and rock her to sleep.”
Cas nodded sadly. “I thought,” he mused, “that once she was out of danger, my instincts around protecting her would cool off, would go back to normal. But I’m still on edge. My wolf is convinced you’re a threat to her.”
“Good thing you’re a master at controlling it,” Dean replied flatly.
“Indeed,” Cas agreed. He picked up a slice of onion from the cutting board and nibbled it, thinking. “You’re in no danger from my wolf, Dean. Obviously. But I expect that’s where my insistence that you fix the disconnect between the two of you is coming from.”
“That’s a you problem, Sir,” Dean told him.
Cas huffed. “Yes, well, give me some time to untangle it.” He stepped back and looked around. “If you need anything from me…”
“Aside from backing the fuck up?”
“Yes. Aside from backing the fuck up,” Cas repeated stiffly.
“I mean, if you wanna take your Zippo into the conservatory and light a fire under the Ozzie’s ass instead of mine, be my guest.” Dean upended the cutting board into a prep bowl and scraped the dregs of onion with his knife. He wiped his hands on the towel over his shoulder. “Oh, and go introduce yourself to Alfie. Get a read on our newest butler-in-training. You’re going to be playing referee a lot between him and Fred, I suspect.”
“Alfie?” Cas frowned. “I thought his name was Sam…?”
“Samandriel,” Dean said with a wry twist to his mouth. “His folks were obviously smoking the same thing yours did when they named him. He goes by Alfie, thank god. Adorable as an eight-week-old puppy, and just as much trouble.”
“Samandriel is a Lupin name,” Cas said, on edge. “Michael didn’t hire a wolf, did he?”
“He’s an ape. Relax. But he’s weird, man.”
“Weird is acceptable,” said Cas, calming. “Hell, he’ll fit right in around here.”
“If Fred doesn’t kill him.”
Tony scoffed from his station by the stove and then blushed when both alphas turned to glare at him.
Notes:
This is 1 or 2 chapters posted back to back. Keep going to get the full effect.
Love to everyone.
Chapter 37: Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Summary:
When everything happens at once, sometimes it makes your head spin...at least it does for Dean.
And Adam. And a new alpha.
Notes:
CW in the end notes.
This is 2 of 2 posted together. So much is going on at once, it took 2 chapters to say it all.
I'm really hoping it doesn't feel chaotic or rushed.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
NOW:
Evidently, Cas followed through in his promise. April slipped into the TV room while Dean and Michael finished up an educational interactive reading game with the pups. It was supposed to be a calming activity, but the pups found it riveting.
“Do me next, O-Pop,” Alex begged from Dean’s lap.
“Yup, okay, so we start with what letter? Aaaaaa-lex. What letter says Aaaaa?”
Dean pointed at the screen. “It’s right there at the front of the list, champ. Very first letter.”
“This one?” Jimmy asked. He stood up and pressed his finger against the screen.
“What letter is that?” Dean prompted. “What do we start with when we sing the alphabet song?”
“Aybee ceedee!” Emma cried.
April laughed along with the men. She caught Jimmy around the middle and pulled him into her lap as she settled beside Michael on the floor, joining the impromptu rendition of the alphabet song. Spelling Alex’s name onscreen went smoothly although a brief argument broke out when Emma learned he had an E in his name. She felt ownership, apparently, and didn’t feel like sharing this close to bedtime.
“There’s an E in O-Pop’s name too,” April told her. “And in Daddy’s.”
“And in Papa’s” Michael added. “Letters are for everyone, kiddo. And bedtime is for sleepy pups. Come on, troops. You’re with me tonight.”
“No! Daddy!” objected Emma. She flung her arms around Dean’s neck and clung tightly. “It’s Daddy’s turn!”
Dean stood with her and cradled her. “It’s O-Pop’s turn, sweetheart. He takes good care of you; you know that. I’ll be in to check on you later. I’ll make sure you’re fast asleep and tucked in right.”
Kat rose from the floor slowly, too sleepy to engage. She held her arms out silently to April and then laid her head on her mother’s shoulder when April picked her up.
Michael held Alex’s hand and instructed his pups to say goodnight, grab their goodnight hugs and kisses, and follow him into the hall. What might have turned into a tantrum died on Emma’s lips at a soft look from her O-Pop and an incontrovertible summons. A Dominant’s power need not reach full effect in the presence of young children. They feel and respond to subtle touches. Trust becomes implicit when authority is well-wielded. Kat slid to the floor, and all four pups trudged into the hall and disappeared with Michael.
He made no indication he knew that leaving April with Dean was a powder keg.
But he had to know.
It really was Dean’s turn at bedtime after all. Michael had just knowingly cleared the way for them.
Dean turned the monitor off and tucked the controller into its storage box.
“You’ve got Cas tonight,” he said airily without looking at her. “Any plans?” His tone was surface-level gentle, but his body tension spoke differently.
“I don’t think so,” she answered softly. “He’s letting me heal. We’ll probably just cuddle a little. He’s been very touchy-feely lately. His hand is never far from my belly. It makes him sappy.”
“Hmp,” Dean grunted. “Yeah. Maybe you’ve had enough intensity for a while.”
“Dean, I know we need to talk.”
“It’s late,” Dean said coldly, turning to face her. “Don’t get into this if you’re too tired to see it through. I’m sick of feinting. Either settle in right here, right now, or go to bed. It’ll keep if you don’t have it in you right now.”
“I’m not tired,” she said. She faced him. His glare smoldered with excess baggage, but April stood squared to him with no defenses raised. “We should talk now.”
He studied her. His jaw worked. He looked her up and down. April stood motionless under the onslaught. She could feel the tug of his Claim at her navel, but she didn’t lower her eyes.
“Don’t go hiding in your wolf,” Dean warned. “I deserve your front-brain designation. I deserve answers, April.”
“I know.”
“You’re Primary?” he asked as his wolf sniffed the air. Sometimes he could read designations easily, and sometimes they were obscured.
She nodded. “I’ll do my best to hold it. I’ve kenneled my wolf.”
“Michael carried you through your Fall,” Dean said. “Is it over?”
April sighed and bit the inside of her lip as she sought the comfort of a wide leather armchair. She sank down into it and tucked her feet beneath her. “It’s over. I got stuck. Recovering from the accident…”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Dean reminded her.
“…recovering from the collision threw me into a psychological stasis. I couldn’t Fall safely until I was healthy enough to handle the whole process. And then, once I was stuck, getting unstuck was a whole process of its own. Michael managed it for me.”
Dean sat down opposite her. He drummed his fingertips on his knee and focused his attention out the darkened window. “Keep going,” he said when the silence lengthened.
“First, let me say I’m sorry, Dean.”
“For what?”
“I took advantage,” she admitted.
He didn’t thaw. Bitterness and resentment frosted his bearing. Every muscle stood taut. The tiniest muscle in his jaw pulsed. “You used me,” he clarified. “And you manipulated Michael. And neither of us deserved that.”
“No,” she agreed. “You didn’t. And I’m sorry.”
Dean huffed. He glared. “So that’s it? You’re sorry?”
“What I did…Dean, I can’t fix it. It was terrible. And I did it. It was me. I fucked up, and I hurt everyone. I put us all at risk. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. I didn’t mean to wreck the truck. I only meant to…”
“To what?” he demanded, leaning forward. “Tell me everything. Everything, April.”
She licked her lips. “You were swirling, Dean. But you still had a grip on your Secondary. I could feel the tension getting heavier inside you.”
“You can feel that?” he asked. “Through our bond?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t need a bond to feel someone’s stability. When they get shaky, I can practically see it. Or smell it, maybe. I don’t know. But I can tell when someone’s on the verge of a tumble, whether it’s im-Balance or a Fall or a drop. Whatever. It’s like I have a Peliomometer in my head. I can just tell. You were close, but you weren’t quite there yet.”
“So, you figured I needed a little nudge?” Dean watched the light play behind her eyes. He saw no hint of a helpless waif or a needful adolescent prodigy. She was calm and pensive.
“Your last Fall was a bust,” she told him. “Cas hadn’t figured that out yet, but you and I know. He tried to softball you through by wrapping you up in affection and acceptance. But you don’t work that way. You need him angry.”
“So do you,” Dean reminded her.
She nodded and looked away. “Maybe. But I don’t need the real deal the way you do. For me, a roleplay works. He and I tap into the swell of anger he has rolling around in his gut all the time. It doesn’t take much to bring it out. It doesn’t have to be a legitimate trigger. I just offer him a lame excuse and he goes digging into the bottomless rage in his core, and it works for us. The anger is real, Dean. It never fades. It’s always there, locked behind a partition, just waiting to be tapped. I wish you could use it the way I do. It’s safer this way because he’s got it wrangled.”
“Well, I can’t,” Dean grumbled. His hand swept his hair back and then settled on the back of his neck.
“No. No, you need a true spark. But you’re running out of outrageous stunts that won’t damage the Pack, won’t damage your marriage.” She watched her words settle in. His eyes turned glassy. “It was going to be a beautiful ploy. I didn’t plan to wreck at all, Dean. I was just going to skid out a little on the gravel shoulder. I was just planning to scare us enough to make the point that I shouldn’t be driving.”
Dean scoffed loudly. “Point made, Omega. You shouldn’t be driving.”
“I know. I know that now.”
“But look, I let you do it. Okay? I gave you the keys and told you I wouldn’t let anything bad happen. And you’re right, I still had my alpha…”
“You did, Dean,” she interrupted, “but I shoved you into your wolf!” April panted as her words rang from the high ceiling. “I forced you Tertiary so you wouldn’t object.”
Dean glared at her. He crossed his arms over his chest.
She grimaced and then went on. “You were so close to Falling. All it took was my Primary and the right wording, and you slipped underneath me and begged for direction.”
“I did what?” Dean stood up. Outrage poured off him. Violence seemed inevitable in the lines of his arms, his legs, his eyes.
“Your wolf is submissive to my Primary, Dean.” April met his eyes. “I promised you I could take care of you. You were so close to the edge that you just sank into that promise like tucking the pups to bed. That was the last I saw of your alpha until after I left the hospital. Everything you remember from that day, once we climbed into the Range Rover, was from the eyes of your wolf. He’s very good at impersonating your alpha. He fooled even you, I think.”
“You did that on purpose?” Dean asked, shocked. “You did that to me intentionally?”
April nodded. “I believed that if I could stay Primary, I could shepherd you through. I thought I could skid a little in the gravel on the side of the road, scare us both enough that you would take the keys back and drive us home, then fess up to Cas. I thought that would be enough to trigger your Fall.”
“Jesus, no wonder my memory was fogged up! What the hell, April?!” He turned and walked away, thinking hard. Spinning on his heel, he challenged her, “Did I know any of this beforehand? Did you tell me you were going to fishtail in the dirt? I can’t imagine I’d have gone along blindly with that, but my memory is shit on the details.”
“No, I didn’t tell you. You’re not misremembering, Dean. You’ve just assumed you were alpha at the time, when really, you were Tertiary. You would have done anything I suggested.”
He stared at her. He couldn’t think of a response.
“So, you see, it’s actually not your fault at all,” she pointed out. “None of it. It’s mine.” Her breath caught slightly as tears welled in her eyes. “It’s my fault, Dean.”
“Hunh,” he huffed in astonishment. “I’m just a game piece to you.”
“I know you have no reason to trust me,” she said through tears that tracked down both cheeks. “But I swear, Dean. I won’t ever do something like this again. I’ve learned my lesson. I mean it. I get it now in a way I never did before. I’m sorry I manipulated you. I’m sorry I put us all in danger. I can’t change what I did. I can’t change who I was and how I played everyone. But I swear I won’t do it again.”
Dean scoffed. “Why would you have to?” he asked sourly. “You’ve got everything you wanted. You got Michael. You got two Dominants. Two alphas. A house full of Omegas. You got more pups than you can lift. You got a career that goes wherever you point and an entire cadre of slaves to take it there. You’ve got fans who think the sun rises and sets out of your ass.”
“But I lost you,” she said sadly.
Dean snapped his mouth shut and glared down at her with his nostrils flaring. He looked away. Seething came so naturally to him that it felt as easy as breathing, but his chest ached.
“Explain how Michael fits in,” he commanded.
April watched him turn and cross the room, putting space between them. She didn’t answer until he reached the far wall and settled against it, livid and impatient.
“Cas was going to be angry enough at you to force you through your Fall,” April explained tiredly. “And Michael was going to be angry enough at me to show his wolf.”
“Why would Michael be pissed at you and not me?” Dean asked.
April leaned back in her chair and cast her eyes to the ceiling as she thought it through. “Michael sees through me better than you or Cas,” she said. “I expected him to realize right away that I played your wolf. I expected him to rise to your defense.”
“But he didn’t,” Dean concluded. “Because you were hurt. He blamed me instead.”
She nodded. “Dean, I need his wolf. I tried so hard to give him all the time he needed to figure it out. I didn’t want to manipulate him to get him there, but I was drowning. You know what that feels like. I know you do. Desperation makes brats out of all Subs. Starve us long enough, and even the most compliant Subs turn into brats.”
“He deserves better,” Dean said.
“I know,” she replied. “If it helps, I’ve apologized to him and taken accountability. We’re working through it. I’m not trying to sweep it under the rug. I know you feel protective of him, Dean, but Michael and I need to work this out for ourselves.”
“Yeah, fine. But one question.” Dean pushed off the wall and paced closer. “You say you’ve learned. You’ve changed. You’re not going to pull another stunt like this. But tell me this… If you hadn’t snagged Michael’s wolf yet, if this thing hadn’t concluded to your satisfaction, would you still be gaming us? I mean,” he stood before her, an alpha with an ax to grind. He licked his lips. “You held that rudder steady until Michael fell into your trap. You didn’t flinch even through your own mate’s struggle to find himself, even as you knew I was taking hit after hit after hit. You just hunkered your ass down to wait until the tension crested so you could ride it to absolution and a Mating you don’t deserve.”
She scrubbed at her cheeks.
“Answer me,” Dean demanded. “If you didn’t have that wedding ring and tipped ear right now, would you still be playing the game? Letting me drown? Letting Cas drown?”
April swallowed and met his reddened eyes. “I don’t want to be that person, alpha. I don’t like what I’ve become.”
Dean didn’t answer. He didn’t look away. He watched golden swirls flow through her irises and then vanish as she beat her Secondary back.
“What I did,” she continued. “It was ugly. It was wrong. All of it. I broke everyone’s trust, and I don’t deserve to get it back. Not yet at least. But I will. Dean, I will. I’ll prove to you that I’m not that person. Whatever it takes.”
“One more question,” Dean said calmly. He watched her brace. She winced slightly. “Was it want driving you, April, or fear? Do you know?”
April dropped her head into her hands. Dean had his focus homed into their shared bond. He could easily have misread the wave of shame that threatened to overwhelm her, but he felt the shiver of terror at the base of her psyche, underneath everything else, and he sighed.
“All right, Omega. All right.” He touched the top of her head. She began to tremble under his hand. “Shh. Listen. I told you I’ll always give you what you need. Right? No matter what it costs me? April, there’s no easy way out of this. You broke my trust. You risked my pups, my husband, my mate. You hurt me. You hurt yourself! I can’t… I can forgive you. But I can’t trust you. And I can’t punish you or Claim you. That’s not what this is, and it’s not going to fix anything. You and me, we have no choice but to get through this the hard way. Maybe if I didn’t love you so much, it would be easier. But it feels like you betrayed me at my most vulnerable. I got someone living in my house, sharing my bed and my mate and my husband who can’t be trusted not to use me when it suits her. Maybe you’ve grown from this. Maybe you have. And I’m sure Cas and Michael have both made their feelings known. God knows your ass is swollen enough to prove they haven’t blown it off…”
Dean sighed and sank back into his chair. “I don’t know, kid. I don’t know where to go.”
She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. “I’m sorry, Dean. I’m so very sorry.”
Dean nodded. “That’s what I needed to hear. But it doesn’t fix it, does it?”
“No,” she agreed sadly.
“Still,” Dean sighed, “we can’t poison the household.”
“You don’t have to pretend, Dean. I won’t melt if you’re honest with me about how you feel.”
“Truce,” he said abruptly. “I’m not going to growl at you at the dinner table or hold it over your head forever. You want to win back my trust, have at it. We start from ground zero. But I’m not going to sabotage you. You have a marriage to stabilize. You’re growing our pups in your belly. April, I know the strain you’re under. And I know you need two Doms. I won’t ever understand why you couldn’t just tell Michael that. But whatever.” He shook the thought out of his head. “Whatever. So…truce.”
She nodded somberly. “Is this the part where you remind me that you’ll take my head off if I ever do something like that again?”
He shook his head and said, “I don’t need to.” Her eyes turned gold instantly. “Do I?”
“You’re kidding!” Dean blurted as Jo stood beaming in his office doorway with a pregnancy test in her hand. “Holy fuck!” He bolted from his chair and caught her up. He twirled her in a tight circle and then set her back on her feet.
“Right? Can you believe it? First try!”
“You weren’t even in Rut,” he reminded her, as if she’d not noticed.
“You’re not serious,” Jo said. “Have you forgotten basic Lupin biology? Mid-season ovulation, Dean. I may be an alpha, but I’m also still female. It’s not rocket science.”
Dean grinned at her. “This is awesome, Jo! I’m stoked for you.”
“Yeah, thanks. Me too. But, like, also fucking terrified. God, what if it’s triplets? Or more?” She sat across from his desk.
Dean laughed. “You’re not Omega. Multis are rarer for alphas. And if it is triplets, you’ll cope. There’s something to be said for having a whole brood at once. There’s nothing like it.”
Jo sat beaming at him. Dean grinned back. The simple, unfettered joy between them knocked loose the last of the cobwebs lingering from Dean’s explosive outburst weeks earlier.
“Oh, hey, celebration,” she said, breaking the silence. “Tonight. Bastion’s. Everyone’s invited.”
“You’re celebrating getting pregnant by going to a bar?” Dean asked.
“Pshh, I won’t drink. They’ll have seltzer or something. Whatever people drink when they don’t drink. I dunno. I’ll figure it out.”
“Why not Zeke’s?” Dean frowned.
“Bastion’s is bigger. And they have a dance floor. Live music. Come on, Dean, it’ll be fun. You remember fun, don’t you?”
His frown deepened. “That place pulls apes, not just wolves. It’s an integrated crowd, Jo. You think there might be a security risk? We have to be more careful than in the old days.”
“No one would dare make a move on any of us with Alpha there.”
“The Lupins won’t,” he agreed. “But apes don’t know what Alpha means. They just think he’s hot. And rich.”
“And surrounded by security guards,” Jo added. “It’s a night out, Dean. Arrange for a babysitter and drag your ass to my party, for fuck’s sake.”
Dean smiled. He chuckled. “Yeah, okay. It’s not every day your best friend gives up her crush on you and gets herself knocked up by a substitute.”
“Asshole.”
Dean cackled.
The Winchesters jumped at the chance to celebrate Jack and Jo’s good news. Cain volunteered to stay home with the pups. Everyone else piled into two cars and presented themselves to the bouncer at the front door dressed for a night out. They were admitted at once into a loud, boisterous scene. Flashing lights and dark corners and jammed bodies writhing on the dance floor reminded Dean of a sex club, although there were no apparatus or bindings or spotlighted stages.
Everyone appeared to be clothed.
Just drinking and dancing and the smell of perfume and sweat.
“Stay with April, no matter what,” Cas shouted into Michael’s ear.
Michael nodded and took her hand. April tugged him deeper into the club, pointing and squealing when she spotted Jo dancing with Benny.
“Drink?” Dean had to get ridiculously close to his husband to be heard, but Cas nodded and led the way to the bar. The rest of the Pack melted into the mayhem or sought tables. Dean turned his back to the bar while Cas placed their order. He scanned over the heads of the dancers until he spotted Michael and April in the throng and also noted the three security guards stationed to watch the Omegas. They were triangulated well, and they appeared immune to the frivolity about them. Secret Service had nothing on Castiel’s hand-picked security team.
Cas handed Dean a beer, took him by the hand, and led him deeper into the club.
“Castiel Novak!” a woman shouted as they wormed their way through the press.
Cas stopped short. “Marie?”
“My god, it is you! Come here, we have to catch up. What the hell?”
Cas laughed. “What do you mean what the hell? I live here. What are you doing here? Last I heard you were in Los Angeles!” Dean followed them to a table already scattered with drinks. “Dean, this is Marie Trudeau! She was a very good friend to me in college.”
“Marie,” Dean shook her hand. “Don’t be shocked, but Cas named his firstborn after you. I’m not sure good friend covers it. It’s wonderful to meet you at last. I’ve heard great things.”
Marie threw her head back and laughed. “I read about that. I have to admit I wondered if it was a reference to me or if it was a family name.”
Cas blushed to the tips of his ears. “No, Dean’s right. You’re the only Marie I know. And I do owe you a great deal.”
“Well then I’m honored,” she gushed with her hand on her chest. “You’ll join us, won’t you? My mate is around here somewhere.”
Cas accepted her gesture toward a chair, and Dean followed. “We can’t stay long,” Cas told her. “We’re having a Pack celebration.”
“Oh? What’s the occasion?”
Dean listened with one ear while continuing to scan the room and wave to friends as they passed his table. Marie’s mate Edward turned up, and the introductory ritual began again. Cas glowed under the soft smile of his former mentor. Dean couldn’t keep his eyes off his husband. He kept trying to watch the crowd but found himself fawning over Cas’ vivid expressions and breathtaking joy. For every effort to hold vigil over his Pack Omegas spread across the darkened club, his eyes returned again and again to his husband’s animated features as he caught up with his old friend.
“Come dance with me,” she said with a hand on Castiel’s arm. “For old times’ sake.”
“I…uh…” Cas cut his eyes toward Dean.
“Dance with the lady, Cas,” Dean told him. “I’ll go get another round.” He stood up and shook Edward’s hand. “It was great meeting you folks. Give us a call before you leave town, and we can chat somewhere quieter.”
Edward nodded in agreement. Dean knew he wouldn’t call. The man looked nervous with the Alpha sharing his table. Dean laughed softly to himself as he wended his way back to the bar. Jo slapped him on the back of his head as he arrived.
“Where have you been? Everyone else is dancing!”
“OW! The fuck, Harvelle?”
“Sam said you got here an hour ago.”
“Cas met an old friend,” Dean told her. “We’ve been at her table.”
“Holy shit, is that her?” Jo pointed toward the dance floor where Cas had her pulled close with his hands in motion over her back and her ass, his mouth very close to her ear. His eyes were closed.
“Yup, that’s her. Marie.”
“Mar… THE Marie!? Jesus, Dean, she’s gorgeous! What the hell?”
“Would you chill?” Dean grumbled. “He knows where he lives. They’re just dancing.”
“They’re fucking standing up,” Jo disagreed. “Or close enough.”
Dean chuckled. “Old habits.” He watched his husband grope the woman who shared a history with him. And she groped right back. Dean felt his groin stir. Blood pooled south. He widened his bond with Cas and felt the heat of arousal spike from within it. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself, suffused with lust just from watching. “I’m turning into Sarah.”
“What?” Jo shouted over the thumping music.
“Nothing. I need a beer. You? You need a refill?”
“Come dance with me,” Jo said, tugging his arm.
“In a minute,” Dean hollered back, pulling free. “Go dance with your mate.”
Jo flipped him off and disappeared into the crowd. Dean turned to the bar and waved to the bartender.
He had to wait for the man to work his way over, and then he had to wait while the harried man juggled multiple orders. Dean stood with his back against the bar, watching the kaleidoscope of people shift and change beneath the sparkling lights. He didn’t notice his drink arriving. Not until his elbow nudged it did he realize the bartender had slid it to him and moved on. Dean collected it and sipped, but he remained at the bar, enjoying the collage before him. He knew most of the people here, although it truly was an integrated crowd. Friends waved and shouted as they passed him. Many of them touched his shoulder or raised a fist for him to bump. Dean grinned as he watched.
He floated.
A gentle blissful sensation rolled his senses under until the colorful cacophony before him blurred into swirls and noise.
Dean stumbled in his footing and barely caught himself. His elbow slipped on the bar. His knee locked and then gave way, and he was falling. Nothing made sense. Blurs of motion confused him.
Someone caught him, but the scent was all wrong. Dean struggled to make sense. He felt dizzy. He couldn’t focus. And then something covered his eyes, and the world went dark. The dizzy floaty feeling thickened into a casing on his brain, and he couldn’t think. Someone took hold of his arms and hoisted him to his feet. He was being hauled somewhere…by someone… someone wrong.
“DEAN!”
Dean startled from within his muzzy, puzzled thoughts. That was April’s voice. He couldn’t see her. But he could hear. And she sounded horrified.
“What are you doing? Who are you? Let him go!”
Dean shook his head in the darkness. Why was she frightened?
“DEAN!” she screamed. “HELP!”
“Shut her up,” someone close by growled. There was a sickening thump and the sound of a body crumpling.
Dean had no idea what was happening. He couldn’t think clearly enough to put any of the pieces together, but he knew April was in trouble and that he alone knew that. Where was Michael? Where were the security guards? He tugged at the hold of his arms. The grips didn’t loosen at all. He began to flail and kick, but his muscles weren’t working, so he merely flopped pathetically. He tried to cry out, but all he could manage was a weak grunt. They pulled him further. The music faded. A door closed.
Everything was darkness.
They smelled wrong.
Alphas. But wrong.
Sick, maybe. Or mad.
Dean tugged at the insistent cobwebs in his head.
Think, Winchester!
He couldn’t think.
Cas, please! ALPHA!
But he didn’t get more than that sent down the length of his bond before the door crashed open, and the scent and sound and fury of Alpha was everywhere. Dean collapsed, unable to stand without support. He lay listless upon whatever lumpy stock he’d fallen onto, and he whimpered into the blurry, nonsensical mayhem unfolding around him. Castiel was there, but he didn’t say a word. The man was feral. He was violence unleashed. Shelves and boxes and bodies crashed about him. Dean could only curl up tight and try to make sense of the throat-rending howls and flesh-tearing gurgles. Someone screamed, but the scream cut short at its peak. The sound from Castiel’s throat stilled Dean’s blood, even in his drug-addled fog.
The hood over his head vanished, and Dean blinked in the bright light to find Michael looking down at him. “My god, what did they do to you? Are you all right?”
Dean closed his eyes at a wave of dizziness and fell back against the floor. Whatever fight remained ended swiftly. The scent of blood and human excrement clouded Dean’s already muddled nose, and he sneezed. He opened his eyes slowly to find Castiel, splattered in blood, chest heaving, eyes wild, snarling in the middle of the storage room.
“Jesus, Cas,” Dean muttered. He wasn’t sure the words came out intelligibly. “April?”
“She’s fine, Dean. She’s okay.”
“Thnk gd.” Dean closed his eyes again. “Think I gt roofied, Mchl.”
“Watch the door, Benny,” Cas said, sounding more in control of himself. “No one comes in but the police and the EMTs. I want to know who these men are…were. This was a targeted attack. These men were wolves. Lupins know who Dean is. They wouldn’t drug him by mistake.”
“Alpha,” Michael said urgently.
“Yes,” Cas knelt before Dean and touched his cheek. He thumbed Dean’s eyelid open gently. “Dean. Can you hear me? Can you wake up for me? Baby, please. Open your eyes.” Dean melted into the man when Cas pulled him into his lap, cradling his head. “Benny, see if we can collect his glass. There will be traces of the drug in it.”
“Alpha,” April said from the doorway. “You killed them?”
“Take her away,” Cas growled. “Get her out of here!”
Michael squeezed Dean’s hand and then shuffled away…to April? Dean didn’t know.
“Kild fr me?” Dean slurred, smiling sloppily up at the blurry face above him.
Cas scoffed and leaned down to kiss Dean on the lips. Dean couldn’t feel the touch much, but he could feel the warmth of Cas’ breath. “And I would do it again, Dean. My love.” The words reached inside the fog in Dean’s head. Said with infinite tenderness and proven by the tang of fresh blood still clogging his nose, those words passed through the cloud to lodge in Dean’s sternum.
He hummed in pleasure and floated.
Dean had never felt this safe in his life. His head and shoulders lay supported in Castiel’s lap. Alpha’s lap. The Alpha. The only one. And Alpha was in love with Dean. He could feel it. It pulsed down the bond they shared. That impossibly wide bond. Dean closed his eyes and soared on the feeling. Gentle fingers wove through his hair.
At some point he realized Cas was talking.
“…never should have been possible. How they got to you… My god, Dean, I could have lost you. What would I do without you? Love you so much, baby. I love you. Please don’t ever leave me…”
“Alpha,” Benny called from the doorway. “Cops are here. Ambulance right behind. You ready? It’s about to get hairy.”
Cas patted Dean’s chest. “Baby, can you stand up? We need to get you moving. Let’s see if you can stand.”
“Yeah.” Dean blinked and sent every ounce of strength he could muster down his arms and legs. He stirred. But it was weak. Alpha braced him and sat him up.
“Ho. Dizzy. Fuck did they give me?” Dean put his hands out and braced himself against the floor.
A wave of bustle entered the room all at once.
“See to the Ozzie in the hallway first,” Cas instructed. “They knocked her down. This one’s drugged but not injured.”
“And you, Alpha?” asked the medic. “Are you hurt? That’s a lot of blood.”
“It’s not mine,” Cas said shortly. “Help me stand him up.”
Arms circled Dean’s chest and soon he was retching, doubled over, spilling the night’s alcohol all over the storeroom floor. “We need to get him outside,” someone said. “To the ambulance.”
“NO!” Dean shouted. “I’m not leaving Alpha.”
“Sir, you need medical attention.”
“He’s my doc,” Dean mumbled, clinging tightly to Cas.
“Everybody shut up!” said an assertive voice from the door. “If no one’s injured in here, I’m taking control here.”
“This man has been drugged,” the medic protested.
“M not leaving,” Dean groused.
“Then sit down before you fall down and I’ll get to you in a minute,” the cop told him. Dean didn’t need telling twice. Standing was vastly overrated. He slid down Cas’ body and crumpled against the shelving. Cas sighed above him.
“Officer, these…men…drugged and kidnapped my husband. They assaulted my mate.”
The cop surveyed the room. “We’ll take statements from any witnesses who come forward. In the meantime, Alpha, I hate to do this, sir, but I need to put you under arrest.”
“NO!” Dean protested. He struggled to his knees.
“Dean, stop!” Cas commanded.
“He was protecting Pack!” Dean announced. His feet wouldn’t cooperate. His arms flailed clumsily. The cop’s partner collected Castiel’s hands behind his back. Dean heard the cuffs click. “That’s not illegal! It’s Pack law! You can’t take him!”
“Dean, knees!” Cas ordered. “Now!”
“Cas,” Dean whimpered.
“Easy, Dean,” Benny said, sliding in to stand beside the wavering man on his knees. “It’s a formality. The lawyers are already on their way. We’ll get this sorted. Come with me.”
Dean finally managed to shake the blurriness from his eyes as Benny stood him up. He looked about him. There was blood everywhere. Two bodies slumped lifeless among the boxes of alcohol and various sundry bar supplies. One had his throat ripped out. The other had a gaping hole in his belly.
“Oh my god,” he whispered. Looking toward the door, he saw Castiel’s back, shoulders straight, head high, just as the cops led him out.
“I want you looked at,” Benny told him. “Come on. Hold onto me, alpha. You’re wobbly.”
“I’m okay, Benny.” But he leaned on his friend as they made their way out. The club was brightly lit now. The music stopped. Most of the people were gone. The Lafitte and Winchester Packs remained, clustered in tight groups, talking quietly. Michael took up Dean’s other side, and Benny let the Omega take over. Sam followed.
“Dean, you okay?” his brother asked. “What the hell happened?”
Benny turned to Sam, “Beta, we need you to keep an eye on our Packs in here. Keep everyone calm. Don’t let anyone leave yet.”
“They arrested him, Michael,” Dean blurted.
“This way, alpha,” Michael said.
“Where’s April? She saved me. Did you know? She saw them drag me away. ‘S why they hit her. She raised a ruckus.”
“I know, Dean. She’s here in the ambulance. Man, they really did a number on you. You’re floating somewhere between heaven and nirvana right now. You’re gonna have one hell of a hangover after this.”
“No, no, man, they took him away in handcuffs. HANDCUFFS, MICHAEL!”
“Ouch! Don’t shout in my ear. I know. Here, step up.” Michael helped Dean climb up the short stairwell out of the basement club.
“This the one that got roofied?” an EMT asked.
“Yeah,” Michael replied. “We got the glass too.”
“Hey, Michael,” Dean called, although his mate wasn’t more than a foot away. “You know what? Cas loves me again.”
“Congratulations, Dean,” Michael said in a distracted voice as he supervised the medics who scurried around Dean and April.
“No, Michael. You’re not listening.”
“And you’re stoned out of your mind,” Michael replied.
“It’s true though,” April said. “I can feel it. Whatever was blocking him is gone.”
Dean snorted and dodged the oxygen mask. “And all it took was an assault and a double homicide.”
“Sir, I need to put this on you. We need to get your O2 number up.”
“My O2 is fine,” Dean griped, pushing the mask away. “I just need to walk it off. Wait, you knew about the block?” Dean asked April.
She scoffed. “He’s my mate, Dean.”
Dean studied her face. She looked earnest and worried. A flashbulb popped, startling all of them.
“Back up!” one of the cops ordered. But the cameras multiplied even as they watched.
“Terrific,” Michael muttered. He shifted to put his back between April and Dean and the cameras. “We managed to keep the wreck private and then they find us in the back of an ambulance anyway. Hey, can we close the doors?”
“We’re done here,” said the EMT in charge. “You’re both free to go.”
“What?” Michael protested. “He’s still loopy as a roller coaster.”
“He’s refusing care,” the EMT told Michael. “And he’s alpha, so he’s entitled. He’ll be fine once the drug wears off. We have the samples we need to verify the assault.”
“He’s not refusing care! Are you, Dean? Dean?”
Dean climbed out of the ambulance and stumbled toward the police car on the corner. The door was open, and he could see Cas sitting awkwardly inside with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“Don’t approach the vehicle,” said the cop by the fender.
Dean sat down on the curb where he could still see Cas and Cas could see him.
“Are you okay, Dean?” Cas asked.
Dean grinned. “Do you love me?”
Cas laughed.
“Answer the question!” Dean shouted drunkenly into the mass of paparazzi and onlookers gathering.
“With all my heart,” Cas beamed.
“All right, all right, that’s enough of that,” grumbled the cop. But Dean ignored him. He basked, his bond with Cas stood wide open and glowing.
“He loves me,” he told Michael when the man caught up.
“He just killed two people with his teeth and bare hands. I think we have bigger fish to fry right now.”
“Nah, that’s just legal crap,” Dean argued. “It’ll wash out. Pack Alphas are allowed to protect their Pack. What’s way more important is that he loves me.”
Michael chuckled. “I know you’re in there somewhere. But I have to admit, you’re adorable like this.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Dean warned. He tapped the tip of Michael’s nose and got his hand swatted away for his trouble. “Roofies are illegal.”
They both looked up at the crowd when a single scream broke through the tumult. It was a woman, and she was trying desperately to break past the short line of police holding back the onlookers and photographers.
“Let me go, my mate is in there!” she cried shrilly. She struggled desperately, eyes wild. It bore all the hallmarks of a True-Mate Trigger.
“Oh fuck,” said Dean. He stood up on shaky legs and turned toward the club. If the woman in the crowd was Triggered, then so was someone inside. “Michael, see if you can catch them. This is no place to Mate. The cameras. Jesus.”
“Yeah, hold on.” Michael positioned himself in front of the stairs, watching both sides. He signaled the bouncers to be ready. But they were Primate and clueless.
The woman broke through and dashed for the door. Tall and lithe and pretty, her face was a mask of gritty determination and sweat. Michael intercepted her, catching her shoulders and whispering in her ear. “Not here. Somewhere safe. Trust me, I can protect you. Not here, alpha.”
And then the door flew open. Cas bolted from the police car and dashed across the distance with Dean on his heels. Adam emerged from the club like a rutting bull. The door slammed hard on its hinges with a sharp crack. Adam reached Michael first, and he tore at Michael’s hair. He threw Michael to the ground and melted into the woman’s arms. She wrapped him up and walked him toward the stairwell with a determined stride.
“Shit, shit, shit,” muttered Dean, trying to get between them. Cas threw his shoulder into the woman, and she fell free and tumbled down the steps.
“Get Adam!” Cas ordered. Dean’s floating had faded into a dull buzz, but his limbs were still not entirely his own.
“I can’t! Michael, help me!”
Benny appeared from nowhere, followed by Lisa and Ketch. Together, they wrangled the couple into the club, away from the cameras, but separated from one another.
“What the hell?” Dean wondered, blinking.
A team of four cops collected Cas back and stuffed him unceremoniously into the car. They slammed the door.
“What’s their deal?” Dean asked no one. He sank down onto the step, woozy, and leaned his head against the broken door. Inside, he could hear shouting. Sam’s voice. Benny’s. Adam shouting for his mate. Dean closed his eyes.
“Hey, hey, alpha, you’re okay. Just breathe.” Michael eased Dean over until he was leaning into his mate instead of the wall. Dean took a deep breath through his nose and smelled Michael and April. His eyes stayed closed. Everything spun a little less with his eyes closed.
“They need a Pelio…meter,” Dean mumbled to Michael. “Cas has one. Cas always has one.”
“Dean half The Facility is in that club. Someone in there has a meter.”
“They arrested Alpha,” Dean said. “Put him in handcuffs.”
“We need to get him home,” Michael told someone. “He can give his statement after the drug wears off.”
“Can he walk?”
Oh, thought Dean. Kali. Good. Kali will take care of everything. He slipped into a light doze that was immediately interrupted when he was hauled to his feet. “Hey!”
“Come on, alpha,” Kali said. “Short walk. Then you can sleep.”
“Tell Jo great party,” Dean mumbled.
“Memorable, at least,” Kali agreed as she walked him down the sidewalk with Michael’s help and April trailing behind.
“Adam Triggered,” said Dean. “Did you see that? Some chick with a camera.”
“I doubt she’s going to meet her print deadline tonight,” Michael told him.
“He’s gonna be okay though, right?”
Kali squeezed his hand. “Yes, Dean. They’ve got it under control. There’s enough alpha muscle in that room to manage this thing.”
“No scent-readings. Cas won’t like that.”
“Cas will get over it,” Michael said.
“Cas is going to jail,” Dean remarked, stunned to hear himself say it out loud. “He should have put his foot down. He’s Alpha for fuck’s sake.”
“Here, Dean, here’s the car. Slide in the back.”
“Why didn’t he fight?” Dean asked, braced against the door frame and refusing to be placed inside. “He should have put up a fight. It’s not illegal to protect your Pack.”
“He didn’t fight because the process works, and he wanted to prove he’s a citizen above being an Alpha,” Michael explained patiently. “They’ll take him into custody, and then he’ll be released.”
“There’s gonna be a trial?” Dean asked, dismayed.
“There’s not going to be anything tonight except a long night’s sleep,” Michael said, less patiently. “Get in the car.”
“Adam Triggered, man. And he’s in there without us.”
“Damnit, Dean, get in the car. Adam still has Pack around him. Sam will take care of him.”
Dean’s eyes shot wide. “Michael, Sarah’s in there! You gotta get her outta there!”
Michael shared a look with Kali. She huffed. “Wait here. Don’t leave the car. I’ll be right back.”
“Get in the car, Dean. Right now. Don’t make me use my voice.” Michael stood firm, eyes glinting golden. Dean bit his lip and slid in. He laid his head on April’s shoulder and fell instantly to sleep.
A bottle of water and a pair of Tylenol met him late in the morning when he stumbled blearily to wakefulness. Dean recalled very little from the night before except motion and emotion and spinning.
“How do you feel?” Cas asked him as he rolled over in bed and sat up. Dean accepted the pills and the water, downed both, and rubbed his eyes.
“No talking,” Dean said with a gruff voice. “Words bad.”
“There is a police investigator downstairs who needs to speak with you,” Cas told him.
“Gah, what the hell, man? Can’t we just have a normal night out without involving the cops? Weren’t you in jail last night?” Dean managed to get his feet on the floor.
“Dean, I ended two lives last night. I hardly think now is the time for jokes.”
“You were justified,” Dean shook his head and immediately regretted it.
“Be that as it may,” Cas began, and then he stopped and changed direction. “Let’s get you dressed.”
“You’re not taking any blame for this, CJ,” Dean said sharply. “Don’t you dare fucking roll over and let some DA put you in irons. You did what you had to do.”
“I understand the law, Dean. And I understand that it needs to run its course. I’ll be cooperating fully. As will you. Get up and put some pants on.”
“Oh, shit! Adam!”
“Yes, it was an eventful night.”
“Did you meet her?” Dean snatched the slacks Cas held out to him and shoved his legs into them.
“Not yet. Sam took them to The Facility to sleep it off. He judged that surrounding the alpha with Adam’s Pack might stress her, so he didn’t bring them here. I believe he chose well.”
“How’s Sarah?”
“Understandably distraught,” Cas told him. He handed Dean a pressed white shirt.
“What’s this? Why am I dressing for the office?” Dean frowned.
“Because two of the cops downstairs are Primates, and power statements are subtle. Tuck in your shirt.”
“Man, my memory is a mess. It’s all a blur.”
Cas took him by the hand and led him into the bathroom. “Brush,” he said, pointing to Dean’s toiletries. “Don’t worry about what you do and don’t recall. Tell them what you do remember. They know you were drugged. They mostly want to hear the lead up. How did someone manage to drug your drink?”
“Mm,” Dean hummed with his toothbrush in motion in his mouth. “Gd question.” Dean spit into the sink and rinsed his mouth. “Did we ID the guys? Who were those assholes?”
“They were alphas. Members of the SSL, we think.”
“Those pricks!”
“They both had distinctive tattoos,” Cas went on, “so we’ll know for sure soon. I told you we weren’t through with the opposition yet.”
“And what did they want with me?” Dean asked. Cas took the hairbrush out of Dean’s hands and styled his hair for him.
“I don’t know. But they don’t want anything anymore.”
“Heh,” Dean chuckled smugly. “My hero.”
Cas turned him around and pulled him closer with a knuckle beneath his chin. “No one touches you without my permission, Pet.”
“Damn right,” Dean whispered as their lips met. “You look hot all covered in blood.”
A knock on the bedroom door preceded a young man poking his head in. “Alphas? Sirs, the police downstairs are rather insistent. Are you decent?”
Cas rounded the bathroom door with Dean’s hand in his. “You must be…Alfie?”
“The new assistant butler, sir, yes,” Alfie said, straightening up. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise, Alfie. Welcome to our home. In future, if my bedroom door is closed, leave it that way.” Cas strolled past the boy, taking Dean with him. Dean winked at Alfie as he skirted by him.
“Yes, sir,” the young butler said with a hard blush that lit up his face and ears. “My apologies.”
The interview with the police went swiftly. Castiel’s attorney sat beside Dean looking formidable, but he didn’t interject at all or advise Dean. Dean answered what he could recall. He admitted that there was a window of opportunity when his drink sat unnoticed on the bar. He admitted his attention was elsewhere briefly. The police dug into that moment extensively. Had anyone been close? Did he smell ill-intent? Could the bartender himself have been involved? Dean scoffed at that.
He described April’s outrage when she saw them dragging Dean away and how hearing her voice helped rouse Dean enough to seek help through his bonds, summoning help.
“If it hadn’t been for her,” he told them, “I would have just floated off to La-La land on the drugs and let them haul me away. I was too out of it. I remember being startled when she screamed my name. She’s lucky to be alive. They could have killed her.”
“Yes, well, they won’t be killing anyone now, will they?”
Dean frowned at the ape woman. He couldn’t make out if she was disappointed or pleased at the prospect. Primates often made no sense to Dean.
Once they had his full statement, they bundled away in a veritable cloud of bureaucratic fluff.
Fred appeared at Castiel’s office door with a tray. “Would you prefer breakfast here, alpha, or elsewhere? I believe you’ve had a rather trying morning already, so I’ve asked Anthony to cook you something special.”
“Bacon!” Dean cheered. “Put it down here, Fred. You’re the best! Tell Tony thanks.” Dean stuffed two pieces into his mouth. “Oh, and maybe coach the new kid on how to alert us to visitors when we’re otherwise occupied. He came into our bedroom without a summons. Could have gotten an eyeful.”
Cas laughed, but Fred growled.
“That boy has much to learn and spends too little time listening,” Fred said.
Cas added, “You’ll whip him into shape, I’m sure.”
“If I live long enough,” Fred griped.
“Bacon?” Dean offered the attorney.
“No, thank you. I’ve had breakfast.” The man tucked one file folder into his briefcase and pulled out another. He addressed Cas. “Alpha, I suggest you have at least one of us on-hand when you speak to this new alpha who Triggered last night. If you still plan to offer her a place in the Pack, there are legal considerations to how that conversation happens.”
Cas accepted the folder from him and opened it. He reviewed the contents briefly. “No, Efram, I’m going to speak with her alone. This isn’t a legal matter. Not yet. Whether she joins the Pack or not, she is now family, and I mean to approach her in good faith.”
Dean leaned back in Cas’ office chair and looked back at his husband. “It’s not bad faith to get your ducks in a row, CJ.”
“My ducks are as straight as ducks come,” Cas told him. “But she’s not Helen of Troy, and this is not a fight.”
“Nah, she’s not Helen in this metaphor, Cas. She’s Paris. Adam is Helen.”
“You’re coming with me, Dean,” Cas said. “Only you.”
Dean stuffed scrambled eggs in his mouth and then downed the entire mug of coffee. He came up spluttering but grinning. “Ready and willing, Mon Capitan.”
Cas smiled happily at him. “And you call me a dork.” He led Dean out of the office. “Efram, wait here. I’ll call soon with our next move. Be ready. I’m not losing him. He’s mine, and he’ll stay mine.”
In the kitchen, the pups were juiced, sensing the Pack was in upheaval, and no one paid them any mind or reined them in. Kate sat at the table with Sarah, who was weeping. Sarah bolted to her feet when Cas and Dean appeared.
“Alpha, please! I can’t lose him. I can’t! Not now!”
“Shh, beta. Please calm down. I’m going to bring him home. I need you to trust me.”
“And then what?” she wailed. “I knew this was going to happen! I can’t lose him again! I just got him back!”
Dean hugged her. “Hang in there,” he told her. “We’re going to do everything we can. I promise you’ll get a chance to talk to him. I know he loves you. Let’s just take it one step at a time.”
Sarah nodded, but her eyes looked hopeless. Kate hugged her, surrounded by rambunctious preschoolers.
The drive to The Facility took forever. Cas drummed incessantly on his thighs. Dean couldn’t stop clenching his jaw. The Tylenol wasn’t up to this by a longshot. They entered through the front, empty on the weekend, and let themselves in with Cas’ passkey. From there, it was a short skip down to the processing room where Sam sat vigil over the newly Mated couple.
He stood up when they entered. He looked wasted.
“You didn’t have to stay all night, Sam,” Cas reminded him.
“I didn’t feel right leaving him,” Sam said. “I don’t know her, and Adam is mine. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him while I was away.”
Cas frowned. “Has there been any indication that she might be dangerous?” He peered through the one-way glass. All he could see was the tops of their heads. They were clearly fast asleep.
“No, sir. It looks to be a good match. He’s clinging right on. He’s mirroring. And from what I’ve witnessed, she is taking excellent care of him. They knotted without incident. Several times. They’ve talked a little. She made him get up and shower a few hours ago. She made sure he ate. So far, it looks good just from a caretaking standpoint. She’s got his Tertiary number too. They pulled a mini scene off in the middle of the night, and he rolled like a puppy.”
“Hmm,” Cas hummed. “Dean?”
Dean was reviewing readings. They had missed the actual Mating, but the effervescence sparkled even an hour after they sealed the deal. All of the readouts spiked up hot. Dean shuffled through the printed versions and then pulled up the digital ones. “It looks good, Alpha. They’re True-Mates. Strong bond. It looks like we’ve got a keeper.”
“Hmm,” Cas repeated with his eyes on the top of the unknown alpha’s head. “What did we find out about her.”
“Well, pretty much nothing,” Sam admitted. “All I have is a first name. Patience. She wouldn’t talk to anyone but Adam.”
“Get them some breakfast,” Cas said. “I’m going in there.”
Cas entered quietly, but the alpha startled at the door’s click, and she shot upright, baring her breasts and pulling Adam in close. She snarled. A low growl emanated from deep in her throat.
“Settle,” Cas ordered. “No one’s going to take your mate. Do not growl at me.”
“Get out,” she demanded.
“No. We’re going to talk. You and me. Calm down.”
“What do you want?” she asked. She was still on edge, but the snarling had ceased. Cas eased closer.
“I want you to eat a big breakfast when it gets here. And I want you two to take a shower.”
“We did that.”
“Yes, and then you fucked several more times, and now you reek again. No offense.” Cas pulled a chair up close to the bed, much too close, and sat down. He crossed his legs casually.
“What the hell are you doing?” the alpha asked. “Back up!”
“Adam, are you okay?” Cas asked, ignoring the alpha.
“Uh…yessir. I’m really happy, Alpha.” He ducked his head as the alpha petted his hair.
“Excellent. Then I’ll introduce myself.”
“I know who you are,” she said.
“Good. Then may I know your name, please?” he asked with exaggerated politeness that was angled to get under her skin.
She frowned and looked at Adam. “I’m from the Frampton Pack,” she told him. “My name is Patience.”
“Thank you, Patience. And do you have a Keller score?”
“What’s it to you?”
“You have Mated one of my Omegas, young lady. I’m just trying to ascertain how well you and he are suited.”
“It’s okay, alpha,” Adam said quietly to his new mate. “He’s not going to hurt us.”
Cas broke in, “Omega, if you please, the alphas are speaking.”
“Yes, Sir,” he said, and he fell still.
Dean’s voice crackled through the intercom. “Got her Keller pulled, Alpha.”
“And?”
“Seriously?” Patience protested, staring at the mirrored glass.
Dean went on. “Alpha-Dom. Seventeen-Eleven. She’s legit, sir. She’s a nice offset for our boy. Z-rating is at twenty, so she fits him there too.”
“How did you get my Z-rating?” Patience demanded.
“Calm yourself, alpha,” Cas said coolly. “I just want to talk.”
“This is ridiculous. Get up, Adam. We’re leaving.” Patience began climbing off the bed and taking Adam with her.
“Can we shower first,” Adam asked softly. “I’m sticky.”
Patience sighed. “Of course.” She eased out of the bed. Adam winced slightly as he followed. They disappeared into the bathroom. She slammed the door.
Dean came in. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “You’re gonna put her back up before she ever hears the plan.”
“I need to know she has some mettle to her,” Cas explained.
“No you don’t. We don’t care if she has mettle. We’re in this to keep Adam. The alpha gets a free ride. That was the deal.”
“No one enters my house without passing muster, Dean,” Cas reminded him.
“You tell me this now?” Dean asked, throwing up his hands.
Cas chuckled. “Okay, look. You get Mick digging up whatever he can on her. I’ll tone down the inquisition. My instinct is that she’s a solid character. I think she’s going to be good for us. She feels stable.”
“Ten-four. But don’t blow this, Alpha. Stop measuring dicks. Yours is bigger, I promise.” Dean retreated, and Cas settled in to wait. Eventually, the door cracked open again and a cloud of steam escaped. Patience emerged wrapped in a towel.
“You said something about breakfast?” she asked. “Adam’s hungry.”
“Naturally,” Cas agreed. “You both burned a lot of calories last night, and you may have a cycle imminent. You need to eat well. And hydrate.”
“I know how to manage a cycle,” she said. Her hackles were still up, but she was calmer. “I want to know what you think you’re doing here.”
“This is my facility, alpha,” Cas replied smoothly.
“No, I mean, here here. In this room. Do you give the third degree to every couple that Mates spontaneously during a bar brawl?”
“It wasn’t a brawl,” Cas explained. “My husband was assaulted last night. My mate as well. And I put the two thugs who committed the act down.”
“You…put them down?” she asked in disbelief. “You killed them?”
“Indeed. No one fucks with my Pack, Patience. I defend what’s mine.”
A knock at the hallway door turned their heads. An orderly in a crisp uniform wheeled in a serving cart and left it without a word. Cas stood up and wheeled it close to the bed. “The kitchen here is quite good. I think you’ll enjoy this. Please eat as much as you can. You will need your strength. I suspect you’ve Tripped.”
“When you say you defend what’s yours,” Patience said, ignoring the food although Adam scurried over, losing his towel in the process, and began opening covers and serving himself a plate. Patience eyed him but made no move to stop him. “You know he’s not yours now. Right?”
“Hmm,” Cas answered. “And why would that be? His name is on my Pack roster.”
“I’m alpha,” Patience said slowly like she was explaining to a small child. “We Mated. He’s mine.”
“Is he?” Cas asked. “Under which statute?”
Patience crossed her arms. Her brows went up. “You can’t keep him, Alpha. He belongs to me. I Mated him. He rolled. He wants me.”
“Agreed,” Cas said. “I have no intention of challenging your right to him, only his Pack alignment. Adam is a Winchester, and a Winchester he will remain. You may feel free to do with that what you will.”
Patience laughed bitterly. “How would that even work? Mates that belong to different Packs? That’s ridiculous! This is a farce! That’s not how it works.”
Adam continued to eat calmly. He looked like he planned to consume the entire cart by himself.
“Adam, may I ask your allegiance?” Cas asked, turning to the Ozzie.
“He doesn’t get to choose!” Patience declared, placing herself between Adam and Cas. “This isn’t how it works!”
“You’re invested in your mate’s happiness, are you not?” Cas put in, unruffled. “Don’t you want to know what he wants?”
Patience rolled her eyes and turned toward Adam. “Well? Tell him!”
Adam stopped chewing but didn’t swallow. “Um.” He looked back and forth between them. He swallowed with a gulp. “The Winchester Pack has a lot to offer, alpha.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Did he put you up to this?”
“Yes,” Adam said simply. “I want to stay with you,” he said. “But I want to stay with them too. It’s a great family. It’s a great place to raise pups.”
“No!” she shouted. “No, it doesn’t work like this.”
“So be it,” Cas said, standing up and brushing his slacks with his hands. “My attorney will be in touch. Meanwhile, do not leave the city. If you take him across city boundary lines, I will pursue a kidnapping charge.”
“You’re joking!”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Patience stared at Cas in shock, and then she shook her head out like a ruffled dog and looked back at Adam. The new mates shared something unspoken, something that shifted their expressions through multiple phases. Finally, she turned back to Cas.
“Tell me why.”
He stopped in the act of putting his chair back in the corner, surprised at the question. “Why what?”
“This isn’t how it’s done. So, I want to know why you’re fighting tradition. What’s so special about Adam?”
Cas scoffed. “You Mated him. I would presume you already think he’s special.”
“Yes, but I’m his mate. You’re not. Why do you want him?”
“Because he is my family. And I am Alpha. What’s mine, I protect.”
“Do you control him?” she asked bluntly. “If he’s yours, do you decide who he is?”
Cas felt her wolf edge in over her alpha, and he sniffed the subtle change. It smelled deep and rich.
“Certainly not,” Cas answered honestly. “He is himself. Entirely. He is just as you found him. I am not a monster, Patience. I am Alpha. But that man is a Winchester.”
She nodded and turned to consult Adam silently again. He shrugged.
“What’s on the table?” she asked, looking first to the mirror and then to Cas. “Are you offering me a place? You don’t know me.”
Cas glanced at the mirror too. “This isn’t a negotiation,” he stated.
Patience cocked her head. She sniffed the air. She laughed softly. “You want me to fight,” she said quietly. “You need me to fight you.”
“Alpha, please,” Adam said, tugging at his mate’s arm.
“But there’s something you don’t know about me, and it might just change your mind. There’s no way you think you can keep Adam without taking me. So, whether or not it’s a negotiation, you expect to add me to your roster too. That’s a part of this. Am I right?”
“What don’t I know about you?” Cas stepped closer, and Patience stiffened, blocking his access to Adam. Adam froze behind her.
“Don’t.”
“Alpha, start talking,” Castiel warned.
“You say you don’t control him,” she said staunchly. “That he’s allowed to be whoever he is. I wonder if that would be true if he told you he’s not who he appears to be. If he identified as someone different?”
Cas watched her closely.
“At home, I’m one of twelve alphas,” she said. “And each of us has a role to play—a role that was chosen for us whether it fits us or not.”
“I can offer you a very different experience,” Cas said, sucked in by the need to save someone stuck in a painful trap. He forgot he needed her to challenge him. He forgot his lawyers on standby at the house. Her eyes spoke something painful, and he wanted to lift her out of it with his bare hands.
Dean opened the door and came slowly in. He joined Cas and tangled their fingers together.
Patience regarded him coolly and lifted her chin slightly. Dean lowered his in easy deference to her wolf.
“Can you offer me freedom to be someone you don’t see with your eyes?” she asked with a stubborn set to her jaw.
“Who are you, alpha?” Dean asked as he stepped closer. “What don’t we see?”
Red eyes engaged him. Her arm reached behind her to guard her Ozzie mate, holding him in place. She perched in that perilous place between the cognitive and the physical. She was on a hair trigger, so close to violence.
“Dean,” Castiel said quietly, touching his arm.
“She has something to say, Alpha. We need to hear it. I’m guessing no one else has ever given her that chance before.” Dean took another step and raised his palms outward. “No one’s threatening you, Patience. Your mate is safe. Just talk to us.”
In a deep, guttural voice, she said, “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.” She seemed to grow in size, puffed up with only a towel for clothing. Behind Dean, Cas flipped Tertiary too. Dean could feel the poised potential for violence.
“Shh, Cas, chill. She’s not going to hurt anyone.”
“SHE?” Patience roared with an aggressive step forward. Cas yanked Dean by the arm and stepped in front of him. “She?” Patience repeated with her wolf’s voice. “I am not she.”
“Ah, okay,” Dean replied over Castiel’s shoulder. The Alpha stood rooted, almost trembling. “I get it.” Dean eased around his husband slowly. “You’re trying to tell us you’re, what, transgender? You know that’s not a big deal to us. We can support you. Whatever you need.”
“No, goddamnit,” she muttered, shifting back into her alpha. She shook her head out again, grimacing. “Trans is a Primary designation thing. My Primary is cis-female. She is Patience.”
“Okay? Then who are you?” Dean asked the alpha. Her eyes flashed as she scowled at him.
“What difference does it make?”
“I mean,” he said, touching Castiel’s arm as he closed the gap toward her slowly. “You opened this dialog. You did that for a reason. You gonna fill us in or stonewall? I’m guessing your Pack at home hasn’t been much of the listening type. Is that where you wanna take your new mate home to? What if he’s like you?”
“Leave Adam out of this,” she snapped.
“No. Not a chance,” Dean replied. “He’s our Pack. No matter where he goes or lives or who he bonds with, he’s our Pack.”
“Perhaps a lighter designation would suit us all better in this fraught moment,” Cas suggested. He shifted into his Primary and relaxed. “Patience, we just want to talk. We need you to know you have options. We need you to know that whatever you’re keeping private, whatever you’ve had to hide, it’s safe with us. We’ve seen every designation and gender combination under the sun. And we’re well aware of the fluid nature of every aspect of identity. You aren’t going to shock us. We aren’t going to negate your identity, whatever it is.”
She watched him relax. Her eyes followed him across the room as he strolled toward the one-way glass and settled at the wall. He was no threat that far away. Patience and Adam had a door into the hallway behind them. They weren’t trapped.
Cas gestured to the bathroom door. “I believe there are bathrobes on a hook in the restroom, unless you were given a room that wasn’t properly outfitted. Feel free to clothe yourselves if you like.”
Patience glanced toward the bathroom and then nodded to Adam. He poked his head inside and came out with two robes. He handed one to his mate, and she donned it without taking her eyes off the Alpha.
“What’s really going on here?” she asked. “You wanted me to fight you for Adam.”
“What’s it like in your home Pack?” Cas countered. “Are you safe there? Will Adam be safe?”
“Of course it’s safe,” she snapped. “They love me. We take care of each other.”
Dean watched her eyes. “Do they even know you?” he asked. “Do they really?”
She cut her eyes toward him and then looked away.
“Look,” Dean pleaded, “you don’t have to tell us a thing. But if you’re a member of a Pack where you can’t be yourself, where it’s not safe to let your closest kin know who you are, I’m begging you not to take Adam into that.”
“How old are you?” Cas asked.
She glanced at him and frowned.
“Adam’s twenty-six,” Cas went on. “He’s on the older side for an un-Mated Omega, especially an Ozzie. You look younger. An alpha taking on an Ozzie mate…it’s a big responsibility.”
“I’m twenty,” she said. “I’m a Junior at KU. Getting a journalism degree.”
Dean scoffed. “So, last night, you joined the paparazzi crowd as a school project?”
She scowled. “Winchesters are news, whatever they do in public. You don’t like it? Stay private. When a whole squad of cop cars descend on a KC nightclub en masse because one of the Winchesters is coated in some mook’s blood, cameras are going to show up. That’s not paparazzi, Dean, that’s journalism.”
Dean rolled his eyes, caught Cas’ eye, and shrugged.
“Where’s my camera?” Patience asked.
“Benny has it,” Cas replied.
“Did you delete the shots?”
“Why would we do that?” he asked in a calm reasonable voice. “You missed your deadline, and there were twenty other photographers there who scooped you. Your shots are redundant now anyway.”
Dean growled. “Can we stick to the point, please?”
“What IS the point?” Patience growled back. The crimson ring around her irises flowed inward and overtook the soft brown.
“Who do you want to be, alpha, and where do you want to call home for you and your new mate?” Dean asked bluntly.
“What happened to needing me to plant my feet and fight?” she snarled back. “Are you using me?”
Dean laughed. Cas chuckled softly.
“Yeah,” Dean admitted. “Yeah. A little. But look, I’m sensing there’s more going on here than we factored in when we hoisted the pirate flag on you. And thing is, Cas and me? We’re not the bad guys. We’ve made a life out of carving out space for folks who don’t feel like they have any.”
Patience looked back at Adam, waiting calmly behind her. When she turned around, her eyes spoke of a hunger to speak things that had been silenced for far too long.
Cas raised a palm. “Patience. Alpha. Listen to me. For every aspect of the human condition, the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the metaphysical, there is the capacity for variation. We are not all constructed from a template. Everything is fluid. If you’re convinced that you aren’t transgender because your Primary gender matches your anatomy, then I beg you to think wider. Maybe you aren’t trans from a Primary gender perspective. But you’re telling us there is a disconnect of some kind within your designations. I assure you, that’s not only possible, but it is a valid, documented phenomenon. We have the resources to protect and support you, whatever you need from us. We don’t have twelve alphas, but we have a home where everyone is valued as they are.”
Her eyes had grown wider as he spoke, and her jaw unclenched. The crimson faded in her gaze until there was only the barest ring.
“No one believes me,” she whispered.
“We will believe you,” Dean said earnestly.
Adam moved up behind her and took her hand. He laid his head against her shoulder.
She sighed and backed up until she and Adam could both sit on the edge of the mattress. She wrapped a hand around his shoulders and kissed his temple. She licked her lips and looked up at Dean. “Everyone uses the genderless pronouns for their Secondaries and Tertiaries anyway,” she pointed out. “They’re always IT, not she. So, what difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference to you,” said Cas.
“Yeah, but…” she laughed. “Why should it make me an outcast in my own Pack?”
“It shouldn’t,” Dean assured her.
“But it does,” she insisted. “My front-brain is female,” she repeated. “But my alpha is genderless.” She panted as she watched for their reactions. Both alphas nodded simply, waiting for her to continue. She frowned. Clearly, that wasn’t the response she expected. “They’re not an IT,” she said with fierce emphasis. “They’re completely agender. It’s not the same thing!”
“I hear you,” Dean replied. “And your Tertiary?” he asked. “Not trying to pry here. You don’t have to…”
“My wolf is male,” she stated harshly, sitting up very straight, ready to accept the coming challenge.
Dean nodded. “Okey-dokey, then. When you’re Tertiary, we shift to male. Can do. Have you got a separate name he goes by?”
Patience blinked at him in shock. “Wait. That’s it?”
Cas shifted and pulled her attention. “Patience, most of us refer to our Secondaries and Tertiaries with a genderless, material pronoun because we view those designations as more creature than human, not because we see them as truly genderless. When my Alpha designation becomes especially ensconced in a bestial mode, he shifts in my mind to an IT. That’s true. But he never ceases being male. He is aligned with my Primary gender. I am cis gender all the way through. I believe Dean will say the same. What you’re telling us about your deeper designations is substantively different. If your home Pack cannot appreciate and validate that difference, they are a danger to your wellbeing. You deserve better, alpha.”
She huffed in disbelief. “And you’re offering better? Just like that? You don’t even know me.”
“We know you Triggered with Adam,” Cas pointed out. “That tells us a great deal.”
“And you’re offering me a place in your Pack, no questions asked?”
Dean laughed. He looked at Cas and threw his hands wide. “So much for your big plan to tear down the patriarchy, Alpha. She wants in. You didn’t plan on that. The lawyers have nothing to file.”
Cas offered an ironic smirk. “We’ll just have to re-set the gameboard and try again,” he said.
“My Alpha isn’t going to like this,” Patience told them.
“Fuck your Alpha,” Dean grumbled hotly. “They had their chance to win your loyalty, and they blew it.” He pulled a couple of water bottles out of the mini fridge in the corner and tossed them to Adam and Patience. “What’s more, you don’t need anyone’s approval to switch packs. You’re alpha. As long as you take care of that boy right there, we’ll get along fine no matter which pronouns we’re using on any given day.”
“Are we decided?” Cas asked.
“Patience?” Dean prompted.
“Fuck me,” she muttered. She sighed. She glanced at Adam downing water like he was parched. “Is this what you want?”
He spilled as he jolted and righted the bottle. “Me? I’m the Ozzie.”
“Fucking hell, Adam,” Dean groaned.
“Hsst!” Patience hissed at him. “Back off! I’m not asking you!”
“Yes, sir!” Dean acquiesced with a sub-step backward and his eyes down.
Adam snorted. “That was awesome,” he laughed. “Do that again, sir. Please.”
“Knock it off,” Patience grumbled.
Adam touched her shoulder. “There’s more you need to know about me and this Pack,” he said as his eyes turned golden. “Can we talk in private?”
Patience touched his chin and kissed his lips. “What’s wrong, baby?
Adam glanced at Cas and then at Dean and then shot a worried look at his mate. “It’s just…I kind of have…a girlfriend. And she’s really important to me.”
“We should go,” Cas said. He gestured toward the control room door. Dean nodded. Cas held the door for his husband. “Congratulations, both of you. Please give these choices serious thought before you commit to anything permanently. We won’t be far. Call us when you’re ready. Remember you have options.”
As the door closed behind them, they heard Adam ask, “So, your male wolf, does he prefer girls?”
Notes:
Content warning for physical assault. Dean's drink gets spiked, and they attempt to kidnap him while he's drugged. April is also assaulted. No one is permanently injured.
Hey, y'all. I just want to say, if you feel dismayed at the state of the world and wonder how we're all expected to just keep on as if we live in normal times, you're not alone. I don't know the answer to that either. But at least we have friends and family and Pack, however we define that. I love you dearly. I hope you found some escape here. Keep fighting the evils that arise, but don't forget to rest too.
Chapter 38: Saturday, November 20, 2021
Summary:
It's almost Thanksgiving in the Winchester household, and things are beginning to get back to normal. Cas enjoys the morning with his Pack, taking solace as the Universe intended. An outing in the park offers him a chance to clear the air with his husband. And an ill-fated trip back to her home Pack proves more of a challenge than Patience bet on.
Damnit, Nudge, quit spoiling the story!
Notes:
See the endnote for content warning.
A big, big thanks to MOEM for allowing me the use of their astounding artwork. The Autumn walk through the woods was already written when I spotted this painting on Twitter, and the timing was pure kismet. Please go visit their Redbubble and support fan art! Autumn Kiss by M O E M
A quick note about pronouns used for Patience. Assume the narrator is reliable and the pronouns reflect the appropriate designation headspace she/they/he is occupying at that moment: Primary=female, Secondary=agender, Tertiary=male. One unexpected positive to writing this character this way is that I get to highlight more easily just how smoothly and how often they all slip from one designation to another. They are often in this kind of flux, but it doesn't always show unless there's a reason to mention it.
Patience is very much OOC from canon, but I had to. I love her calm steadiness. I'm working on bringing her back to that aesthetic.
Please enjoy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, November 20, 2021
NOW:
Castiel emerged from the lower stairwell with Kat in his arms. Over his shoulder, Kat clumsily practiced signing with her pediatrician. Dr. Leahy trailed Cas into the foyer. She repeated the sign for Kat’s new ASL name—a stylized K crossed with cat’s whiskers and an assertive fist—and the pup grinned as she mimicked, adding a touch to her chin with four fingers, a thank you, to the doctor for creating a unique sign just for her.
“Watch, Papa,” she urged. She leaned back in his arms and showed him what she’d learned. “It’s me!”
“It certainly is,” he agreed. He flashed a grin at Eileen. “She managed to capture your entire personality in two gestures.” He set his daughter on the ground and smoothed her hair. “Run on into the conservatory, kiddo. I’ll catch up. Go show Daddy your new name.”
Kat took off like a shot.
“Walking feet, Kathleen!” Cas called after her.
Eileen chuckled. She adjusted her satchel over her shoulder. “They’re all doing well, Castiel. I would like to see Alex in three months to check on his fine motor development. I don’t believe it’s a true lag, more just a slower pace. But I’d like to be sure. I sent Michael a list of exercises that will help hone the specific motions he’s less adept at.” She spoke clearly, not bothering with signing as Castiel’s ASL skills weren’t up to snuff in real time.
He faced her directly and replied, “I’ll have him set that follow up appointment. We can come to you next time. There’s no reason for you to make the trip just for one pup.”
“I don’t mind,” she assured him. “House calling to this house has its perks.”
“Oh?” Cas asked as he escorted her slowly toward the front door.
“April’s masseuse arrived at the same time I did,” she explained cheerfully. “Your mate insisted on giving me a turn on the massage table before I looked at the pups. If I got this kind of VIP treatment all the time, I would exclusively do house calls. Can you imagine?”
Cas laughed. “You’re welcome to stay for lunch. I believe Tony made a Tuscan stew.”
“No thank you, sir. Unfortunately, I do have things I need to do today. I’ve got a whole rash of appointments to fit in before Thanksgiving. I’ll follow up with you about Hank’s test results as soon as they come in. We’ll make a gameplan.” Her eyes trailed toward the hallway where Kat had disappeared. “Think about what we discussed for Kat, Alpha. There’s a chance to catch her in the earliest stages if you want to go that route.”
She accepted a hug and a warm squeeze to her shoulder and let Alfie get the door for her.
The underbutler gently closed the door behind the pediatrician and then cleared his throat softly. “Sir, Fred says the linens need replacing? At least some of them.”
Cas stared at him with a mild frown, waiting for context. When none was forthcoming, he cocked his head and asked, “And…?”
“Uh, I thought you would want to know?” Alfie replied, more a question than a statement.
Cas felt his jaw go slack. “Perhaps…obtain replacements,” Cas told him as his frown deepened.
“Uh, right. Yes, sir. I’ll let you pick what you want…just to be sure.”
A baffled retort died in Cas’ throat when Michael appeared from the parlor at a jog and intercepted the hapless Primate butler-in-training. Michael led the man away, wisely putting space between him and the Alpha, guiding him toward the kitchen with his head close to Alfie’s, whispering feverishly. Cas watched them go. He shook his head. He sighed. Surely Fred had never been this incompetent, even as a young boy.
But Michael swore Alfie was butler material.
And Cas had put management of the household in Michael’s hands. He couldn’t override Michael without due cause. But, oh, the cause was beginning to push being due with this kid.
Linens? Honestly.
Cas could hear clumsy piano scales from the back hallway, so he headed that way, putting Alfie and his ineptitude out of his mind.
In the conservatory, April sat with Jimmy at the piano. Dean had the other three pups squished about him on their bellies by the window focused on his tablet flat on the ground. Emma looked up first, bolted to her feet and dashed across the distance and into her Papa’s arms.
“Come see, Papa! Baby bats! They’re all wrapped up in tiny blankets! Like real little babies! Look!”
Cas grinned and lifted her to his hip. “Do not ask me for a baby bat, Idgie. One pet is enough.”
She giggled and clung to him as if he’d been absent for weeks. “O-Pop said we should get a kitten!”
“Absolutely not,” Cas told her firmly. “No cats. No hamsters. No rabbits. No bats. We have a dog. That’s plenty.” Portia circled his feet as he entered the room, guiding him toward the Pack. She preferred having her whole flock in one place. Cas reached down and scratched her behind her ears, and she gave him an adoring look with a sloppy grin before rejoining the puppy pile on the floor.
Dean turned the tablet over to Alex and struggled his way to his knees, shedding small bodies as he shifted. Kat swiped the tablet and flipped around, holding it high in the air to dodge Alex’s attempt to retrieve it.
“Hey, hey!” Dean corrected sternly. “No. Knock it off. Give it back. Do that again and you’ll lose your turn.”
Kat pouted but returned the tablet to her brother. Dean stood up and greeted his husband with a kiss.
“Go take over for April, Pet,” Cas said quietly after setting Emma on the floor and nudging her to rejoin her siblings. “Send her to me. I need her mouth.”
“Sir, I don’t know the first thing about teaching piano…”
“It’s just scales and arpeggios, Pet. You read music well enough to monitor his practice.”
Dean nodded, marking the use of his scene name and reading Cas’ scent well enough to know not to cross him.
Alex called out, “Papa we got shots today. And we didn’t cry! I got a Superman band-aid!” He craned his neck to look at the spot on his arm.
Cas nudged Dean toward the piano with a hand at his lower back and made his way to a chair near the corner under the tall windows, bathed in sunlight. “I’m proud of you for taking your shots without arguing,” he replied. “But it’s always fine to cry if you feel like crying. There’s no reason to hold it in, Ace. Everyone cries sometimes.”
Alex set his jaw stubbornly and ambled to his feet, hugging the tablet to his chest to keep Kat from taking it. “Jesse said only babies cry.”
“Jesse is a poophead!” Jimmy shouted from the piano bench.
Cas sighed. “James, that’s your last warning about name-calling. We don’t do that in this Pack, and that’s final. Alex, Jesse is not the authority on safe, healthy emotional management. If Papa says that crying is encouraged, then crying is encouraged, and that’s final too.”
“Sorry, Papa,” said Jimmy, head bowed.
Cas corrected him, “To your brother, son, not me.”
Jimmy frowned. “I didn’t call Ace a poophead. Why do I gotta say sorry to him?”
Dean set a hand on his shoulder. “Because Papa said so,” he answered in his alpha-parent voice.
“Because you insulted someone he cares about,” Cas added calmly as he sat down.
“Jesse’s not Pack,” Jimmy protested.
“That’s irrelevant,” Cas added in a tone that was quickly losing patience. “He’s your brother’s friend.”
“What’s irrevalent mean?” Jimmy asked.
“It means that it makes no difference whether Jesse is a member of this Pack or not. You owe Alex an apology for insulting his friend.”
Jimmy scowled but muttered an apology that Alex ignored, lost as he was in whatever he had pulled up on the tablet. Dean leaned down and whispered into April’s ear and then took her spot next to Jimmy. Dean trailed a touch down her arm and along her fingers as she left. Castiel noted the touch, its tenderness, the intentionality of Dean’s efforts to rebuild his relationship with her. Too, Cas caught April’s glance back down at the alpha she had so wronged, the alpha she had saved, and he noted the gratitude in the emotional swirls in her head. They were both trying hard to reconnect. But trust would only grow over time. There was a sadness to April’s thoughts about Dean. Cas could feel it every time his name came up. They weren’t fully healed yet.
But they were trying, and that was enough for now.
Dean frowned at the practice book open in front of him. He brought Jimmy’s attention back to the keyboard and pointed to the first scale in the book.
“Here, chief, show me what you’re working on. Teach me how it goes.”
April picked her way through the sprawled little bodies and sank to her knees before her mate. Wordlessly, he widened his knees and watched her with a charged electricity behind his eyes. April’s headspace clicked instantly into her wolf. Inside her mind, inside her Mating-bond, she rolled. Soon she had settled before him with her mouth around as much of his soft cock as she could comfortably encompass. She closed her eyes and floated. Cas stroked her short blonde pixie-styled hair and communed with her in metaphysical space.
He could picture his own wolf-scape. He knew his wolf’s home to intimate detail, but his mind’s eye was a far cry from what Michael was able now to call up with little effort. Inside Castiel’s head, it was a mental image. To Michael, it was a visual reality. Cas couldn’t see April’s wolf. He could sense her, as if her scent filled his wolf’s nose and she was only just out of view, as if he could hear her snuffling just behind him and if he turned, she would be there. But he couldn’t yet do what Michael did.
Not that they weren’t both trying to make it happen. Michael put just as much effort into their sessions as Cas did, working to take apart Michael’s approach and reassemble it for an alpha’s access. They had hit nothing but brick walls so far, but neither was anywhere close to giving up.
Cas closed his eyes for a moment and let the soothing sense of connection with his mate lull him. Jimmy dutifully picked his way through teaching Dean a scale. Three pups entertained themselves with wildlife photos on the tablet. April relinquished herself to his touch as he guided her head into a gentle motion. Things were beginning to get back to normal. Cas had discovered over the weeks since the disastrous party at the nightclub that, strangely, he needed more soothing than anyone else in the Pack. April had bounced right back with barely a wobble even as she had taken the most violent blow that night…and that on top of her pregnancy and still being tender after her near-fatal collision in the Range Rover.
Even in the murkiest depths of her mind, she was stable.
Dean bounced back to near normal with astonishing speed. He was skittish about anyone going anywhere they didn’t strictly need to go, and he insisted on reviewing security’s enhanced protocols on the cusp of the attack. But overall, day to day, he had recovered from the shock far faster than Cas had.
Granted, Dean hadn’t neutralized two men with his own hands…and teeth. Psychologically, despite the fact that Cas felt no compunctions or remorse, he struggled to digest what had happened. He felt like he’d failed to protect his husband and his mate. He felt that any circumstance that couldn’t be solved but through violence was a failure in planning. He should have thought that night through more thoroughly. He should have anticipated an opportunistic attack. He had known their enemies might stalk local venues. He had discussed that possibility with Billie more than once over the years.
And then the unthinkable happened right under his very nose! They had gone after an alpha, not the Omegas, and that was a reality that Cas had not anticipated.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened…
He couldn’t stop berating himself.
Preliminary investigation had identified the two attackers. They were clearly toadies, planted there on the off chance that an opportunity might present itself. And that thought spurned the assumption that similar plants might be warming barstools across the region, watching for Winchesters to poke their heads out of their gilded gates and put themselves in the crosshairs. The Winchester Pack’s propensity to let its hair down in local joints when wanting to celebrate wasn’t a secret. Mick was hard at work, digging backward, searching out the ringleaders.
Surely, whoever planted them there knew they probably wouldn’t survive the encounter, not if they were caught in the act. So, they were expendable. That spoke of an organization. Something big and well-funded and hierarchical. Cas thought he knew exactly who they were, but he had no access yet to get at them.
Cas couldn’t allow himself to get fully involved. Red-hot hatred singed his bones every time he thought about it. He had no choice but to let Mick, Bobby, and Billie scramble their forces and decide how to respond once they confirmed who was responsible. Cas suspected the second-rank dregs of the Styne organization had splintered and reformed as disorganized bands. At least one splinter obviously wasn’t disorganized any longer. But they would be harder to snuff out if they had decentralized. Hydras required a whole new strategy of attack, lest they simply keep sprouting new heads every time one was extinguished.
Cas’ mind never stopped racing these days.
What if his guess was wrong? What if the attack wasn’t from Styne’s broken remnants? What if the syndicates were on to Cas and his team? Nikolai might be incarcerated while his trial dragged on, but his organization still functioned. That thought turned Cas’ blood to ice and fire.
He was in a brand-new place. Knowing someone out there, some nameless, faceless, shadowed entity, had pointed at Castiel’s Pack and given the order to take them—to take Dean—was a red-hot poker in his gut. Cas had never allowed someone else to lead an investigation or counterstrike of this magnitude. Certainly, he had pretended on numerous occasions that he’d not been involved, had not directed the teams. But to actually step out and trust that his people knew what they were doing was a brand-new place for him to be, and it ate at him every day that they didn’t come back to him with an answer.
But he couldn’t be a part of this investigation. His hatred burned too hot. He felt his Secondary precariously perched right on the cusp of madness, and he couldn’t allow a glimmer of daylight that it might be allowed direct vengeance, or he would lose it altogether.
April’s lips caressed him. Her eyes searched his face. At his nod, she reached forward and stroked the outsides of his thighs. Her palms were warm through his slacks. Her touch was soothing.
Only reassurance like this truly brought him comfort these days. Dean and April switched out on the regular. They were both attentive and obedient. Dean tucked his brats down somewhere inside himself when he worked with his husband lately. They both knew the tension would eventually crest. Ultimately, if Castiel was going to work through everything bottling up within him, only a brat’s defiance could give him enough ammunition to set it all on fire and burn it out.
But he wasn’t ready for that yet.
He closed his eyes again, focused in closely to April’s mind, feeling her delicious submission, and listened to Dean copy Jimmy’s directions. He listened to his children. He heard and smelled Michael join them.
Time with his Pack was the best form of therapy Castiel could imagine just now. Time would ripen his need to turn the volume up. But not yet. Things were in flux within the Pack. Michael was set to join the Novak Industries Board of Directors. That would take the Omega into a growth phase that would need Cas in mentor mode for some time to come, especially if Michael was ultimately to take a seat on the Keller/ACRI Omega council as Cas intended. And Dean would be joining the Facility’s Operational Board alongside his husband. Cas expected Dean’s brats to act out his anxieties around mastering so many new skills. He anticipated an upsurge in provocations. That damned syndicate trial looked like it was going to drag out for months at the least. Cas knew Dean was watching it far more closely than he admitted, worried some trail or other might still lead back to the Winchesters. Castiel needed to get his own bullshit in order sooner rather than later so he would be primed to manage all those who depended upon him.
April’s belly bulged with her ripening gestation. Two healthy pups grew inside her, gaining weight every day, tumbling her into fits of hormonal rollercoasting that were tough to predict. Too, something was eating Gabriel…something was eating Kali. They snapped at each other, bickered like siblings, and gave off cold vibes often enough to be troubling. Cas knew he needed to intervene, but finding the time…
There just wasn’t time.
Cas spent a great deal of his workday mentoring Jonathon, prepping him to assume the Directorship. When he wasn’t doing that, he was monitoring the fledgling adolescent training staff, jetting to Washington, to New York, to Las Vegas for meetings that required his presence. Wherever he was at any moment, it seemed he was always needed more urgently somewhere else.
But the spate of seminars would wind down for the season soon. He had only two more before there was a pause for the holidays. He’d carved out a hole in his schedule.
Cas was tired.
But there was no opportunity to rest. Not yet.
He signaled to his mate, and she purred and went to work on him. Her hands shifted from his thighs to wrap around his cock and stroke him. He could feel her focusing on the sensations coursing through from her touch to his body through his mind and into their shared bond. She knew precisely how to touch him.
“Papa, tell Alex it’s my turn!” Kat wailed.
Michael intercepted before Cas even opened his eyes, so he put the pups out of his mind. He put his sense of failure out of his mind. He put the impossibly packed schedule out of his mind. He had the entire weekend off for once, and he meant to revel in it. He lost himself inside the warm caress of his mate. Dwelling upon failure wouldn’t help him protect his Pack, and it wouldn’t make Dean feel safe again.
April, of course, would never truly feel safe. Cas surmised she showed the least trauma after the attack simply because in some part of her mind, she lived in trauma, lived with the assumption that she was always at risk of just such an attack. She dwelt in that distress in a way none of the rest of them ever would. That it happened was no great surprise. Nor did it come with any special psychological blowback. Her safety wasn’t her own responsibility anyway. The world April lived in would always be awash in perils. Her deepest fear was in being taken. And since she hadn’t been targeted, merely knocked out of the way, the blow hardly landed in her head as something she’d even truly been involved in.
Jimmy completed his scales. Dean elbowed him in the ribs with a wink and then began to extemporize a tune. He helped Jimmy fit his fingers to the keys and plucked out a simple, repetitive melody that Jimmy copied. They pecked in tandem for a few bars, and then Dean veered off into play. He tinkled around Jimmy’s base, weaving in and out, laughing as they played, praising his son.
Cas chuckled with his eyes closed. He should have known Dean wouldn’t stick to the lesson plan. But listening to Jimmy keep up, it was clear Dean’s strategy would prove just as educational. Jimmy loved playing music, even the scales, even the repetitive warm-up exercises that the rest of the pups whined about. Already, Kat had flat refused any more lessons. Alex and Emma plinked their way through April’s lessons with heavy fingers and bored glances out the window. Jimmy, on the other hand, would spend ninety percent of his time in the conservatory if they let him. April claimed he had perfect pitch, although Cas wasn’t convinced yet.
April rolled her tongue over the head of his cock, and Cas let his head drop backward against the back of the chair. Sunlight played across his closed eyelids. Her touch brought him peace. His family all around him made him feel secure.
No one was harmed.
Everyone was still whole. Still his.
Cas stretched a tendril out toward Dean and shuffled through what he could sense. Dean had his fears shuttered for the moment. But they were still close to the surface.
First, Cas would manage his own trauma. And then he would deal with Dean’s. He exhaled self-doubt and recrimination. He breathed out hatred, fury, blood and spittle and rage. He exhaled.
He inhaled.
Rama. Rama. Rama.
April’s pace picked up, and Cas began to pant shallowly.
The pups laughed uproariously at whatever the tablet showed them, and soon they all talked at once, each vying for O-Pop’s attention. Michael laughed with them.
Cas groaned quietly as he came. April swallowed every drop, sucking the last dribbles from the tip to clean him thoroughly. She tucked him back away and fastened his slacks. Cas patted his leg, and she climbed up into his lap, curling down beneath his chin.
Yes, things were beginning to get back to normal.
But there was still work to do.
And then there was the other thing.
Cas’ newest Ozzie had vanished with his new alpha mate. One minute they were Tripping into a triggered cycle at The Facility, planning to request Pack membership…or at least professing to…and the next, they were gone.
Castiel had to admit that the tantrum he threw when he learned no one knew where they’d gone was not a good look.
But goddamnit.
Mick got a searing earful. Billie barely survived her first encounter with the Alpha after the fact. The poor monitors on-shift that night escaped being fired only through Benny’s intervention.
It took Dean and Benny in concert to calm him down and bring him back to level ground.
Cas had first assumed that Patience had taken Adam and gone back home to her Pack in South Dakota. If that were the case, Adam was as good as gone. Possession is nine points of the law, after all, and the Frampton Pack had tradition on its side and a host of Mating-bond infringement precedents to stand on if Cas tried to pry Adam out of their compound on legal grounds.
Cas had nothing but his rating as Alpha and a weak agreement to switch loyalties by a twenty-year-old alpha still in the effervescence of a new Mating-bond.
Security footage showed the couple climbing into a car with a Lyft marquee in the front windshield. Mick tracked them down. Luckily, they hadn’t gone all the way back home. They were holed up in a swanky Heat/Rut hotel outside of Topeka. They had weathered their cycles there and then dug in for the entire honeymoon. As far as Cas knew, Patience hadn’t seen anyone from her Pack. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe she wasn’t in contact with them though. If she informed them that she had not only Mated, but scored a prestigious Ozzie, they might just acquiesce to her demands to have her genders honored.
Cas was on precarious footing, and he knew it.
Every day that Adam was gone, he kicked himself for putting him into such a vulnerable position. Adam had been secure and safe with Benny. He might not have been happy, per se, but he’d been safe. And Cas upended that security for a chance to play god with the Lupin culture. Now Adam might be vulnerable to a life of servitude with people who didn’t see him as human.
Cas didn’t like what he was learning about the Framptons. His research turned up signs of a Traditionalist and ultra-conservative Alpha who led with an iron fist.
If it took his very last breath, Cas would bring Adam home. He bore that responsibility after conscripting him into this mess in the first place.
Mick had wanted to storm the hotel and drag the couple home kicking and screaming. But once Cas reined his temper in, he told Mick to watch the place and leave them be.
They were entitled to a month of isolation, after all. And Patience had not made any statements rescinding their request to join the Winchester Pack.
The wait was killing him though. All of his instincts told him to go get his Ozzie.
Cas had a team of attorneys sitting by their phones day and night ready at a moment’s notice to file a host of court actions. But Cas couldn’t predict this one. He didn’t know enough about this alpha. He didn’t know enough about her upbringing. Or her connection to her Pack. Or her desperation to find a home that would be accepting of her identity.
Sarah paced just as impatiently. She clung like a lifeline to the spare few texts that Adam had sent her. They didn’t promise anything, but they were affectionate and calming in tone.
Wait. He told her. Be patient. Will explain soon.
I love you.
Sarah bailed on Pack life. She threw herself into work, staying at the Youth Annex until it was too late to drive home and it made more sense just to crash in Castiel’s suite at The Facility. Cas called her on it at last night’s Friday Pack dinner. He put his foot down and commanded her to put in no more than nine hours on a workday and to stay at least four miles from The Facility all weekend, every weekend.
Sarah nearly mutinied, but a stern look from Cas steadied her, and she nodded instead. She seemed to sense that she and Cas both struggled with the same premonitions of impending doom, and that they both sat helpless against the interminable wait. She leaned hard into Sam on Friday night, staying over at his house with Jess, calling in the morning and letting Cas know not to expect her back before lunch.
Cas let her be. Sam would take care of her. Clearly, Jess wanted her there. It would keep. The Pack structure was working as designed, and that at least, was a comfort.
So much was now in Adam’s hands. Or, well, in the alpha’s hands. Would they listen to Adam at all? Would they take his interests to heart? Who was Patience, really?
Why had they run in the first place?
Perhaps riding out their Rut in Castiel’s Facility was simply one emasculation too many. It was too much the Alpha’s turf, maybe.
Cas’ mind swirled with unanswered questions. In his lap and inside his head, April soothed him as nature intended. The pups played happily, inventing games and switching loyalties with an ease that would dissolve as they grew into the household hierarchy. Right now, they were equals. Soon enough, they would striate and fall into the constraints nature demanded of them.
His mind floating on post-orgasmic hormones, Cas wondered what Adam had been like as a pup. The Ozzie’s Tertiary presented as a juvenile and a fox, both aspects that lent him to needing to be taken in hand. Together, they meant that Adam could never be expected to gain personal independence. While fully Balanced, he was perfectly competent, but he fell out of Balance too swiftly and too frequently to be capable of managing his own affairs. Foxes were notoriously mischief prone. And juveniles were…well…juvenile.
Adam required a predictable, enforced routine to his day. Much like April, he needed to feel a reliable base of support beneath his feet. For Patience to abscond with him without letting him reach out to his home base beforehand worried Cas.
All Cas could cling to as a comfort was the clear fact that Patience was Adam’s True-Mate. Her instincts would help her manage his needs. She would be naturally inclined toward his predilections. But instinct has limits.
True-Mates sometimes still made poor choices for one another, especially early on before they knew one another well enough to understand why they were True-Mates.
“Shhh,” April murmured as she snuggled in and wrapped her arms around him. “Your mind is pacing again. It will be all right, Alpha. She’ll bring him home. Have faith. The Universe knows what it’s doing.”
He huffed unhappily. “Not she, Kitten. They. It’s Adam’s alpha who stole him from us, not her Primary. We need to accustom ourselves to the distinction.” He stroked April’s back, tracing the feel of his own touch through his Mating-bond. Then he continued, switching to address her assertion. “Besides, this Universe you trust so blindly is just a system of chemical and metaphysical bonds, and it isn’t infallible. At its core, it’s still made up of the choices people make.”
“It brought me you,” she disagreed. “It brought us Dean and Michael. It brought us all this.” She glanced around to include the whole house. “It will bring Adam home. And it will give us our first female alpha… female in anatomy, anyway. I’m not sure how that works? But in any case, they’re someone we’ve needed for so long to fill out our dynamic. A house full of male alphas is top-heavy. We need Patience. And they’ll come back eventually. We’re going to be okay, Cas. Just breathe. Trust in providence.”
Cas didn’t have any faith in providence, but he couldn’t deny that his Mating-bond provided a gentle hum of comfort. His family, comfortable and at ease all around him, was a soothing balm.
“Lunch is served, Alpha,” Fred intoned from the doorway.
Cas closed his eyes and sighed. Then he rallied. “Did Sarah make it home?” Cas asked as he sat upright, hugging April to his chest.
“She’s upstairs freshening up, Alpha,” Fred told him.
“Thank you, Fred. Please ask Gabriel and Kali to join us.”
“Sir,” Fred bowed his head subtly.
“What’d Eileen have to say?” Dean asked with his mouth full of crusty Italian bread. “Everybody healthy?” Tony set another basket of bread on Cas’ end of the table.
Cas nodded and steadied Jimmy’s grip on the serving spoon. “No real concerns,” he said. “She suggested a Tertiary analysis for Kat. She suspects there may be an early development we should be watching.”
Dean snorted. “No kidding,” he said sarcastically. “Ya think?”
Cas frowned. “Our ability to distinguish Tertiary Presentation is in its infancy though,” he pointed out. “What real benefit is there to defining a pup’s wolf before they reach adolescence? What does it gain us? What does it do for the pup? Tertiaries need the space and freedom to emerge to their full capacity without restrictions on their development.”
Sarah swallowed her bite and said, “The sooner we know which way a wolf is leaning, the sooner we can begin to teach a pup to manage it. Early identification is everything, even if it turns out to be imperfect. Imperfect is better than nothing, especially for the Dominants.” It wasn’t a new argument. Cas and Sarah saw the point from opposite sides, and they wrangled with it regularly as they built the adolescent program and nailed down its direction.
“Besides,” Dean added to Cas, “You’re chomping at the bit to get a glimpse into that kid’s shadows. You know as well as I do that there’s something huge going on here.”
“What kid?” Emma asked with her mouth full. “Who’s huge?” She looked at Kat but seemed hesitant to point her out. The pups hadn’t yet been introduced to the concept of Tertiary designations outside of some simple explanations of the adults’ behaviors. As far as they knew, everyone in the Pack was a wolf. They didn’t know yet what that might mean.
Cas shot a quelling look down the table at Dean, but Dean didn’t need the warning.
“Eat your stew,” Michael told Emma. “We’ll talk about it later.” He cleared his throat. “So…uh…the doc had nothing else to say?” he asked Cas.
“All vaccinations are up to date, so they may be cranky this evening,” Cas replied. “She wants to see our firstborn again to watch for some possibly lagging motor skills.” Cas couched the statement in a way that the pups wouldn’t be able to suss out. None of them really knew that Alex wasn’t a twin right along with the rest of them. “But she said she isn’t overly concerned.”
“Doctor taught us signing,” Jimmy piped up. He pulled up onto his knees in his chair. “She made up a name just for me! It goes like this!” Jimmy signed, “J” then “D” then a one-handed sign for “piano.”
“I got one too!” Kat yelled. She rose onto her knees as well. “Like a kitty! Look!”
“Mine is like a airplane-flier…LOOKIT!” Alex shouted over her. “It means Ace!”
And soon they were all sharing their ASL names, teaching them to their Pack, giving the adults all the new signs they knew, and the conversation turned playful.
From the foot of the table, Dean beamed at his husband.
“Daddy, look!” Emma demanded. “You’re not doing it right.”
“I’m looking,” Dean told her.
“You’re making goo-goo eyes at Papa,” she disagreed. “And you missed the last part. It goes like this.” Emma’s “E” flattened into a rising step for “Builder.” She explained it as she helped her Daddy form the symbol with his hands.
Dean repeated the sign. “Doc does know that you knock down more stuff than you put up, right?” he teased.
“Do not!” Emma protested.
The doorbell rang.
Cas looked round with a frown. “What on earth?” Theoretically, no one should have had cause to ring the bell now that security had been tightened. Visitors had to clear Sal before being allowed past the gate, and security would have alerted Fred that someone was on the premises and approaching the house.
Alfie scurried through the kitchen on his way to answer the door. Behind him, Fred followed more slowly with a frustrated countenance.
“Fred?” Michael asked.
“It’s Adam,” Cas realized with a start before Fred could respond. Cas could feel his bond now that he was paying it due attention. “He’s home.” He checked his phone and found a text from Mick confirming what his bond told him. He set his napkin on the table next to his plate and wasted no time hurrying toward the entrance.
Sarah shot out of her seat and bolted for the door as well, followed by the entire Pack. In the foyer, Patience and Adam stood rooted and stunned right in the entrance, taken aback by the influx of people all talking at once. Everyone crowded around, all asking questions.
“Silence!” Cas ordered above the hubbub. He laced his voice with compulsion, and every mouth snapped shut. Adam tucked shyly behind Patience, and she touched his hip without taking her eyes off the Alpha. Tension crackled between them briefly, as cold as the November chill that sneaked in before Alfie closed the door, and then Cas lowered his hackles. The alpha before him was no threat, and she had bravely chosen to present herself right here in the Winchester stronghold. That spoke volumes that Cas skimmed in mere moments. He judged swiftly. And he lowered his energy. An entire boatload of weight fell from his shoulders at the return of his Ozzie.
“Welcome, alpha,” he said. He extended his hand formally. “Please come in.”
“Adam,” Sarah breathed with a step forward. But Cas shot her a glare, and she halted.
Patience dropped her eyes from Castiel’s face to his hand briefly, and then she stepped forward and shook it. “Thank you, Sir. We’re sorry to barge in like this. Adam needs a few things.”
“You’re not staying?” Dean asked her. “Come in and have some lunch with us.”
“I, uh, that is, we’ve already eaten. But thanks,” Patience answered stiffly. “We’ll be out of your hair in just a minute.”
“Out of our hair?” Cain broke in. “Don’t be stupid. Come in. Make yourself at home. We’ve been dying to meet you.” He offered his own hand to her. “I’m Darius, but please call me Cain. I’m the resident bachelor. That’s a good man you Mated; I hope you know.”
She shook his hand firmly. “Yes, I know.” She didn’t follow up with any further niceties. “Look, if we could just…”
“What does he need?” Gabe asked from behind Castiel’s shoulder. “I can grab it if you like.”
Patience glanced at Gabe. “He needs some clothes. We left in kind of a hurry. All he has is the shirt on his back.”
“Come on, Adam,” Gabe beckoned him. “I’ll help you.”
“Me too,” April agreed, taking Adam by the hand and leading him away. Sarah turned to follow them, but again, Cas stopped her.
“Stay here,” he said quietly. “Leave it to the Omegas. Now is not the time.” His voice was tender.
“But sir,” Sarah protested, casting her eyes from the alpha in the doorway to her Pack leader.
Patience seemed on edge as she watched him disappear through the kitchen, but she didn’t protest.
“Why does Adam need clothes?” Kali demanded with her chin raised in challenge. “Are you going somewhere? Taking a trip?”
Patience ruffled, goaded, and he slipped right into his wolf. His eyes flashed. “That’s none of your business, beta.”
Cas raised a hand to prevent a retort from Kali. “Everyone go back to the kitchen and finish your lunch. Patience, please come with me if you will. We should talk.”
“Papa, is that our new auntie?” Alex asked, tugging at his hand. “She’s pretty.”
“Does she live here now?” asked Emma. “Do you like Star Wars or Marvel?” she asked the alpha.
“Mommy lets us have a spa day sometimes and get our nails done,” Kat told Patience. “You wanna have spa day with us?” Kat held out her hand so that Patience could see the pale pink chips of polish that remained from their last manicure. It was spoiled somewhat by traces of dirt under her fingernails.
“Come see my train tracks,” Jimmy interrupted taking Patience by the hand. “It goes out the door and down the hall all the way to the stairs almost! You can build some too. There’s lots more pieces!”
Dean whistled high and sharp. “Back to the table,” he ordered with his arm outstretched to point. “Everybody. There will be time to haze the new alpha later.”
“What’s haze mean?” Emma asked as she joined him and swung from his arm with her feet off the ground. Cas waited until they had all cleared out, taking the wind out of the room with them. Sarah dragged her feet. But she obeyed.
A startling silence lingered in the foyer with their departure. The grandfather clock ticked. Patience looked shocked to silence by the tumult and ensuing stillness.
“This way.” Cas ushered her in the opposite direction.
“We really didn’t mean to intrude,” Patience told him as she joined him. Her carriage was stiff and uncomfortable. Cas noted her retreat back down from her Tertiary and Secondary into her Primary. Pups have that effect sometimes. He filed it away in his head. Some Dominants responded to pups by shifting into their Tertiaries and some found it most comfortable from their Front-brains. Patience’s shift told Cas something about her, something solid.
“You had to know that appearing in the middle of the day on a weekend would mean facing the whole gang,” Cas pointed out. He veered away from his office and led her instead to the library. “They are eager to know you. They care about Adam a great deal.”
“We have that in common,” Patience told him. She eyed the chair he offered as if debating the relative power display in standing as opposed to sitting, but she took the seat. Cas rounded the table and sat opposite, allowing her to have unfettered access to the door but making her sit with her back to it. He leaned back and steepled his fingers beneath his chin.
“I feel certain that Adam’s wellbeing is your chief concern right now,” he agreed diplomatically. “But we may disagree about what is best for him, you and I.”
“What’s best for him is my responsibility now, Alpha,” Patience told him firmly. Their alpha reasserted itself with Castiel’s subtle dig.
“He is still my Omega,” Cas replied, matching their energy and watching their eyes redden.
“I know that if I assert my rights as his mate, you will fight me,” Patience said. Cas was impressed with their fortitude in facing him. But he wasn’t about to let them have Adam, fortitude or no. “Adam explained everything to me, what you had hoped to accomplish when he Mated. I know the score between us. I can’t beat you in a direct challenge, Alpha. But I need more time to think this thing through. Legally, it’s another matter. Precedent is on my side. It’s my choice in the end.”
Cas studied them. They didn’t fidget. They didn’t lower their eyes.
“You mean to take him back home with you,” he concluded.
“Yes, sir.”
“For good?”
“Probably not.”
“To what end?” He watched for any sign of hesitance in their gaze, but they held steadfast. Dean came in soundlessly and sat on the edge of the table on the end, facing Patience. They flicked their eyes toward him and then refocused on Cas.
“I need to know,” Patience said vaguely. “Perhaps it’s foolish. But I need to know how my people will acknowledge my mate…my Mating. I need to give them another chance to acknowledge me. Perhaps I’ve misjudged them. Or perhaps I just need closure.”
Dean said, “You can get closure without dragging Adam into a situation where he’s likely to get hurt.”
They shook their head. “I can protect him.”
“Don’t do this,” Dean beseeched. “It’s not going to end well.”
“You don’t know them,” Patience disagreed.
“Don’t I?” Dean countered. His alpha stepped in behind his eyes, and he stiffened. “You don’t think we’ve met Packs just like yours a thousand times over? You think they’ll look at Adam and see a person? They’ll see breeding stock, and you know it.”
“It’s not like that,” Patience said adamantly.
“Really?” Dean asked. Red flowed over the green in his irises like a flood. “You wanna try convincing me that your Pack Alpha doesn’t break new Omegas in by breeding them? How many pups in your Pack are sired by the Alpha? Do you even know who your own sire is?”
“Dean!”
Dean sighed and sat back down. “Sorry. That was out of line.”
Patience dropped her eyes to her fingers on the table. She was silent for a moment. Then…
“My sire is the Alpha,” she admitted. “That’s true. But Mom’s mate is my Dad. He raised me as his own, me and my sisters. It’s not as fucked up as it sounds.”
“Sweetheart, it is,” Dean told her gently. “It doesn’t have to be that way. There are healthier ways. Please don’t take Adam into that after he’s tasted freedom. It’ll destroy him. He wasn’t raised in it.”
Their cheeks flushed and their eyes reddened. Their jaw twitched. “I need to go back home, maybe not for good, but I can’t decide without seeing them again,” they said. “I’m taking a leave from school. I filed for a temporary Mating break. I’ll go back in the spring and pick up where I left off. So, either way, I’ll be back in Lawrence soon. But I can’t make this decision without giving both sides equal thought. They raised me. They’re my family. They deserve a chance.”
“You have a chance here, Patience,” Dean pleaded. “A chance at a new start, a ready-made family. We can give you everything you never got at home…”
“Except my family,” they told him adamantly. “My sisters are in that Pack. My brother. All my cousins. My Dad…”
“Your mother is gone,” Cas said tenderly.
“Yes,” they agreed with some discomfort. “She died years ago.”
“In childbirth,” Cas added.
Patience realized he had been digging into their history. “Yes.” Their eyes bored into his, searching for something. “We’re not a cult, Alpha,” Patience said at last, dropping seamlessly back into her front-brain.
“It’s difficult,” Cas told her, “to reconcile the sense of what is normal that one is raised in with what the wider world believes to be normal, especially when those two ideals clash. Especially when one comes to understand that their own normal may in fact be harmful. Our species has been adrift for centuries now, alpha. And as we’ve struggled to find mooring, many of us have cleaved onto practices that offer protections from one kind of torment only to find false security that causes brand new suffering. In our desperate wanderings as a species, we have fractured and found high ground in disparate places. We have broken from one another and forgotten the full meaning of Pack. You belong to the Pack, Patience. You are wolf. And I am the Patriarch of all that is wolf. You belong to me. Your home Pack is misguided. They will never be capable of supporting you as you are. And they will harm Adam even if they never lay a hand on him.”
“It’s not like that,” Patience repeated staunchly. “We’re not barbarians.”
“Your mother died needlessly,” Cas told them in the same steady tone. “Your mate runs the same risk if you take him into that.”
Patience’s protest died on their lips. Their red-rimmed eyes skittered back and forth across the tabletop as they processed. Cas could feel the conflict that sent Patience hopping from one designation to another.
“I cannot allow you to endanger him, Patience,” Cas said, every bit The Alpha. “But I do not believe it will come to that. His well-being is your primary responsibility now. Everything else pales beside that need.”
“I have to say goodbye,” they whispered. “I am pulled to go home, sir, even if it’s for the last time. My sisters…”
“Would you like one of us to go with you?” Dean asked carefully.
Patience snapped into his wolf like the springing of a trap. “Absolutely not.”
Dean flinched. Cas covered Dean’s hand with his own. “It was an offer,” Cas soothed, “…not a demand. Calm yourself, my friend.”
Dean huffed a laugh at his own reaction and then relaxed into his alpha. “Damn, your wolf packs a punch, kid. That’s the second time he’s knocked me back on my heels. How did you do that?”
Patience didn’t answer, but she did sheepishly slip back into her Primary. She rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. Cas took it as a sign she was beginning to trust that he wasn’t planning to try to kidnap Adam. He could tell she was antsy with the Ozzie out of her sight, even if she didn’t think they would take him anywhere.
Cas leaned forward onto his forearms. “I have every intention of working with you, Patience,” he told her. “We needn’t be adversaries. But make no mistake, I am prepared to fight for Adam’s custody. And I expect to win that fight if it comes to a suit.”
“What makes you think you can protect him better than my Pack can?” she asked. “We may be backward, but insular has its benefits. There’s no spotlight on our home,” she said, “No target on us. No one lurks around in nightclubs hoping to drug any of us. What claim can you make that he’ll be safer with you when your own mate was attacked right there in public? We’re not famous activists who are regularly targeted by extremists.”
“No,” Dean quipped under his breath, “because your people are the extremists.”
“We’re really not,” they said flatly, flicking red-rimmed eyes his way. “We’re just like you, struggling to reclaim our humanity and save our Omegas in the face of a whole cultural upheaval. My Alpha chooses to listen to his instincts, and most of the time that works. It may not be pretty. It may not be what you prefer, but it works. Our Pack is stable. No one’s clamoring to leave.”
“Except you,” Cas said.
They scoffed. “Young alphas always want to leave their Packs,” they told him dismissively. “But they usually return.”
“I’m not talking about sowing any oats,” Cas said coldly. “The truth is, if you leave this time, you won’t be going back, and that scares the shit out of you.”
“They’re all I know,” they admitted. “It’s my job to keep my mate safe, and you’re asking me to gamble that safety on a Pack I know nothing about except what I read online. What happens if I cut ties with them and then it doesn’t work out with you? I’d be left with no Pack, no degree, no job, no money, no insurance, and a mate to support.”
Cas glanced at Dean and then back at Patience. “I’m going to level with you,” he told her. “You are young and malleable right now, and that could work in your favor. But you’re also impressionable. From where I sit, you would be astonishingly easy for me to manipulate. If I chose to, I could turn you against your birth Pack as easily as flicking my fingers.” He made the simple gesture, and it drew Patience’s eyes. She blanched. “You are far too naïve to navigate a tug-of-war safely between Isaiah Frampton and me. You’ll get torn in two, and Adam along with you.”
“I’m not a child,” she said with a frown.
“You are precisely that,” Castiel countered. “You are a child making an adult decision.” He held her gaze for several breaths. She met him bravely. “But you don’t deserve to be a pawn in this high-stakes game, not while you’re seeking schooling and trying to establish your adult persona. And I don’t want you to be chewed up and have to come crawling back here broken. So, I swear to you, alpha, I will not engage in any manipulations to win your agreement to join us. You have my word.”
“Cas, this is…”
“Dean, stay out of it.”
Patience couldn’t keep their eyes from reddening again. The air felt heavy. “How is it not manipulation to tell me that?” they asked.
Dean barked a laugh and then briskly shut himself up.
“I don’t make promises like this often,” Cas said, ignoring Dean’s outburst. His instinct told him to roll the dice this time and gamble hard that Patience would weigh the two Packs in direct comparison and decide in the Winchester’s favor. “You are free to go home. Take Adam with you. Decide for yourselves. I won’t interfere. And I will be here when you return. If you return.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then my attorneys will be in touch.”
“There you are,” said Adam from the doorway. “I’m packed, Sir. I’m ready to go.”
Patience held a hand out toward him, and Adam rushed forward to take it. The sight warmed Castiel. There was real affection in their touch and in their eyes. Adam slid to his knees beside his mate with no tension or hesitation, looking up at them with adoration in his eyes. Patience leaned down and captured his lips in a soft kiss.
“Will you come meet everybody,” Adam pleaded. “Please, alpha?”
Patience stroked his hair with a soft look in their eyes. “I suppose that won’t hurt anything.”
Adam gracefully flowed back to his feet, took his mate by the hand and dragged them from the room. “C’mon! You’re going to love them!”
Cas followed slowly with a hand around Dean’s waist.
“So, you already met Cain,” Adam said happily. “And you know Dean and Cas, obviously.” He passed straight through the foyer into the parlor, dragging Patience. JT hurtled into the foyer from the back hallway, nearly toppling when he lost his footing on the marble, sliding right past his Alpha. Cas startled, spun on his heels in the wake of the rambunctious pup and then caught him up in an embrace as the boy bounced right back into the Alpha’s space.
JT was breathless. “Alpha! Daddy said we would go to the park. We came over to see if you can come too!” As always, JT spoke at a volume far exceeding what was necessary. Cas took him by the hand with a grin.
“I’d like that,” he answered. “Let’s finish what we’re doing here, and then we’ll go.”
“Who’s the lady?” came the inevitable question. “Is she gonna live here? Why was Adam gone so long? Can we go to that one park where we played football? There’s ducks there, can we feed the ducks too?”
"Possibly,” Cas replied. They made their way into the parlor to find the entire Pack assembled. Adam was making introductions. “Hush now, JT. Let the grownups talk for a moment.”
“This is Michael,” Adam was saying with a noticeable blush. “He’s more down-to-earth than he seems on TV. He’s a really good Dom. I think you two could be good friends.”
“Alpha,” Michael said tonelessly as he shook their hand. He lowered his eyes briefly in deference but offered no other overt respect. But Patience didn’t show any sign they noticed the impertinence. They shook Michael’s hand with a brief smile and then moved on.
“Jess is an attorney,” Adam said by way of introduction. “She works for The Facility.”
“Is that so?” Patience asked with a glance toward Cas.
“She’s an institutional attorney,” Cas added, “not a private one. Jess is not involved in Pack custody matters.”
“My job is far less interesting than it sounds,” Jess said with a grin. “It’s mostly drudgery. Welcome, alpha. It’s great to meet you.”
All six pups stood in a semi-circle facing the new alpha, faces upturned in awe and delight. Patience had to reach over them to take the proffered hands as Adam introduced each adult.
“And this is Sarah,” he said with a nervous break in his voice. “She’s the one I…uh…I told you about.”
Sarah stiffened her spine, held her head high, and stepped forward to greet her adversary. Cas winked at her when she glanced his way. The handshake was perfunctory. Sarah didn’t offer a trace of obeisance. Patience didn’t seem to expect any. But Sarah did retreat to stand with Sam as soon as the intros moved on. He tucked her under his arm and whispered into her ear. Cas watched her nod and smile grimly with her eyes glued to Adam.
“April,” Adam continued, “Patience is a big fan. She has all your singles on her playlist. I told her there would be an album sometime in the future, and she’s very excited to hear it.”
“It’s an honor,” Patience told April, taking the Ozzie’s hand in both of theirs. April dropped to her knees and bowed her head. “Please,” said Patience. “There’s no need for that. It’s your home after all.” And she helped April to rise with a hand on her elbow. “Really, the honor is mine. Your music is amazing.”
And then the pups could wait no longer. They all began to speak at once. Patience got a crash course in sign language and all of their favorite movies. Whatever tension remained from the couple’s unexpected entrance evaporated as the children tumbled over each other to put their best feet forward and win a smile from the statuesque alpha.
“Why is your name Patience?” Kat asked bluntly. “That’s a word. Names aren’t words; they’re names.”
Patience smiled kindly. “My sisters have words for names too,” she said. “Grace, Joy, and Faith.”
“You have three sisters?” Emma asked.
“Mm-hm, and an older brother.”
“Is he a word too?” Alex broke in. He leaned onto her knee where she had lowered onto one knee to talk to them all.
She laughed. “His name is James.”
“That’s my name!” Jimmy blurted, ecstatic. “And Papa’s too!”
“And my Dad’s,” Patience explained. “My Papa named his son after himself just like yours did.”
“Did you hear that, Papa?” Jimmy asked. He tripped over Kat in his exuberance and nearly tumbled head over heels, but April caught him and set him back on his feet.
“Tell Patience and Adam goodbye,” Cas instructed. “They have a long drive ahead of them.”
“Where are they going?” Alex asked in dismay. He clutched Adam’s hand tightly.
“So much for getting out of here with no manipulation tactics,” Patience muttered to her mate as she stood back up. Adam grinned.
“I told you you were going to love my Pack. They’re awesome.”
It took another twenty minutes of goodbyes and sundry chatter before the mates finally made it to the door. Michael carried Adam’s duffel and stowed it in their car, huffing in the cold. Dean gripped Adam’s shoulder, struggling to let go. Cas heard him make Adam promise to call if even one Frampton gave him weird vibes.
And then they were gone in a crunch of gravel and a hum of the well-oiled gate around the bend.
“They’re gonna come back, right Alpha?” Hank asked. “I like her. She smells nice.”
“They’ll be back, champ,” Cas told him. “Someday. Hopefully soon. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
“They should live here with us,” Emma announced. “They can sit by me at the table.”
“Adam sits by me!” Kat argued hotly.
Cas broke in before the two could really get a fight going , “Papa decides where everyone sits at the table. Go put your shoes on so we can go to the park.”
Cheering broke out and everyone dashed from the doorway back into the house, visitors forgotten.
“And get your coats!” April called from just inside the front door.
“Guess we know where Adam rates. They’ve already moved on,” Michael said with a shrug as he followed to help them locate their shoes. “Walk in the house!” he hollered as he jogged up the steps into the house.
A chill wind drove most people out of the park as the afternoon waned, but the pups swore they weren’t cold, and the adults wanted them tired for bedtime. Cas took Dean by the hand and strolled with him toward a stand of trees, leaving the pups to the other adults and the security guards, following a meandering sidewalk that turned into a dirt path as it entered the copse. “They’re safe, Dean. Relax and walk with me.” An occasional jogger passed them, sometimes with a monosyllabic greeting, sometimes with a startled flash of recognition, usually without a word.
Dean took a deep breath beside Cas and let it out in a release of tension. Sunshine and fresh air wasn’t just for pups, after all. Dean swung their hands a little, soaking up the soft feeling of connection. Cas smiled at the ground in front of him. He could feel Dean choose to trust him, even as Dean’s insecurities at leaving the pups wailed inside his head. The feeling warmed Cas more than his winter coat did.
“You pulling me off into the woods for some hanky-panky?” Dean asked coquettishly, and Cas had to snicker. “‘Cause I would be down for that.”
“It’s a public park, Dean. I don’t particularly want to get arrested today.”
“I can be quiet,” Dean protested.
“The hell you can,” Cas teased.
Dean laughed. “Come on, Sir. Test me. Not a peep, I swear.”
Cas chuckled again but didn’t answer. A squirrel skittered across the path before them. They both watched it leap onto a tree trunk and disappear into the branches.
“Check in with me, Dean,” Cas said softly. “Are we okay?”
“Oh, so that’s where we’re going on this walk.”
“You seem to be recovering your sea legs to me,” Cas told him, frowning at the ground, watching his feet. “But I find myself assessing you as your Dominant and your alpha. I’m having trouble finding my footing again as your husband after everything that’s happened. It occurred to me that there’s no reason I have to make that judgment myself. I can just ask you.”
“So this is you asking?”
“This is me asking,” Cas agreed with a squeeze to Dean’s hand.
“Huh,” Dean huffed. “Strange tactic.”
“Don’t tease,” Cas grumbled. “Straightforward is difficult for me. Let’s see if we can’t make it a positive experience so I’ll be encouraged to try it again sometime.”
Dean laughed. “You’re going to positively condition yourself?”
Cas shrugged. “I’ve been conditioning myself since I was twelve.”
They walked on in silence. Dean broke it at length.
“I don’t feel like anything’s missing, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said. “Is that what you’re getting at?”
Cas sighed. He couldn’t really put his finger on what he was getting at himself. Expecting Dean to figure it out wasn’t really fair, now was it? Except that Dean so often did figure out what was eating Cas.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Cas told his husband. “Or maybe we’ve swept things under the rug so thoroughly that we forgot to deal with them at all.”
Dean clucked his tongue. “Yeah maybe. Or maybe it’s not necessary to do a postmortem on every blink and yawn between us.”
“Dean,” Cas said softly, frustrated.
“Okay, fine,” Dean took the conversation into his hands. “Here’s where we are. I’m as in love with you as I’ve ever been. You’re in love with me. We have a terrific family. We have two rugrats on the way who will turn the chaos we’re already managing completely on its ear. I’m gonna build us a school that will be the model for wolves all over the world. Man, I couldn’t be happier. All cylinders, chief. All cylinders.”
Cas smiled wanly at him and nodded, and then found himself watching his feet again. “Thank you, Dean.”
“But?” Dean scuttled ahead a couple of steps so he could turn and walk backward and catch Cas’ eyes. “Talk to me, CJ.”
“I can’t help but feel like we haven’t addressed the elephant in the room.” Cas raised his brows. He could see the instant Dean caught his meaning.
“Alpha, there’s always an elephant that needs addressing.”
“That’s right,” Cas shot back, “and they pile up if we ignore them. Then we have rooms full of elephants.”
“The pups would love that,” Dean laughed.
Cas chuckled at the image.
“You never stopped loving me, man,” Dean gave in and cut to the chase. “Your psyche went into survival mode and buried everything but your mate.”
Cas nodded. “I’m not convinced that you didn’t suffer blowback over it. Come on, Dean, that had to hurt more than you let on. You know you can trust me with it.”
“I know,” Dean admitted. “And I do.”
“Well?” Cas guided them toward the left fork when the path split. Dean followed his lead without a thought.
“It seems to me like the blowback hit you more than it did me,” Dean told him. Cas frowned. “Tell me you don’t still feel guilty.”
Dean had him there. “Yes, I feel terrible.”
Dean faced him and pulled to a stop. “Terrible about what though, man? That you struggled for a while to swim back up to surface after trauma tried to drown you? That you had to let me take the rudder for a bit? Cas, man, I’ve got you. You know that. I’m not going to let you fall. When you need to go inside yourself and do some psychic digging, I will always man the wheel for you while you’re gone.”
“But that’s not what I did. I wasn’t doing any psychic digging. I was lashing out at you unfairly, punishing you for everything, even things that weren’t your responsibility at all. For a Dominant to do that to his Sub, Dean, it’s…”
“No, listen.” Rarely did Dean interrupt outside of a bratty insurgency, but he was adamant, and Cas stopped abruptly. “You got overwhelmed by your emotions. Cas, that’s human. I get that it was shitty, and you shouldn’t have given in to it. I get that there are healthier ways to handle that shit. But, man, emotions don’t come with an owner’s manual, and they don’t always make sense. They don’t have to make sense. You didn’t stop loving me. Love isn’t a warmth inside your chest. That’s not what it is. It’s choices that we make. It’s who and what we put first. It’s where we spend our time, our energy. It’s how we build our lives. Emotion is only one piece of that. And yeah, it’s an important piece, but that clench in your chest isn’t the only marker as to what you love, Cas.” Dean pressed his hand into Castiel’s shoulder and kneaded it. “April sits right in the core of everything you are. She’s so much a part of you that there’s no separating you from her. When she faced danger, your very existence was in peril. It all closed up around that core bit of you that ensures your survival.”
Cas wilted. “None of this makes me feel better. I should have been there for you too, Dean.”
Dean smiled, took his husband’s hand and walked on. “Whatever.”
Cas snorted inelegantly. “I feel like I did have a choice about how I felt and behaved and that for a month, I chose to lock you out. Out of spite. Out of anger.”
“Welcome to the human condition, Ceej.”
Cas huffed in frustration. “You know what this is?” He stopped short and pulled Dean to a stop with him. “I think you’re afraid to be angry with me. You think something will break between us if you get mad that I treated you like that.”
“I’ve been pissed at you plenty of times,” Dean argued. “Getting kind of annoyed right now, in fact. You’re dragging this out when it’s not worth that.”
“This is different,” Cas said. “This is a core premise of our marriage. Think about it…”
“I’ve thought about it,” Dean told him. “Thought about it day and night while I slept alone and drove to work alone and ate lunch alone. Don’t think I haven’t been over this and over this in my head. But damnit, Cas, you’re allowed to fuck up sometimes. That’s all this was. You were spinning plates, man. Too many plates at once. You had a mutiny in your head, a mate who both crashed AND Fell, and a crapload of emotions to process, and you needed to snap at something. You snapped at me because I’m the safest target! This isn’t rocket science! If anything, it proves you do love me because I was the one you felt safe enough to dump the weight you couldn’t carry on. You knew I could handle it; would handle it! And I did! And now it’s over! Let it go, for fuck’s sake!”
Castiel’s sigh expressed more things than Dean could name. Dean strolled to the nearest tree and set his back against it with his arms crossed over his chest. “We gonna just keep hashing this out again and again forever?”
Cas stared up into Autumn canopy above his head. A woman with headphones ran past, too lost in the beat of her music to notice them. “It all broke apart like a logjam when you were drugged,” Cas remarked stoically.
“I know,” Dean agreed with his eyes on the ground. “I felt it break.”
Cas looked round at him. “You did? How? You were loopy.”
Dean chuckled and kicked at a rock. “I dunno. But I did. I felt you zero in on me, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Never felt so safe in my whole life.” Dean finally looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed. “You killed for me, Castiel. You didn’t stop to wonder whether you loved me enough to make it worth the legal tangles or the moral and ethical shit, the publicity nightmare…you didn’t hesitate at all. I was in trouble, and you tore a hole through reality to get to me. Tell me, how do you think that makes me feel? Dude, you killed for me.” Dean was panting heavily by this point. “Did you hear what I said, Castiel? You killed. For me.”
Castiel growled from somewhere deep in his gullet. His eyes flashed a wicked, blood-red, and he snarled with a menace Dean had never seen face-on before. Dean held his ground.
“That’s it right there, Sir. That fire from your belly. It’s not something that a little scare could ever put out. That’s the true depth of what you feel for me. Feel it, man. Really feel it. You don’t feel guilty. You just want me to think you feel guilty, so you don’t have to explain that what’s really in there is so powerful it terrifies you.”
“Dean…” It came out two octaves lower than usual.
Dean huffed. “Damn, I wish we were somewhere private right now.”
Cas grabbed Dean by the back of his neck and hauled him forward, mashing their mouths together so violently they both tasted blood.
Someone behind them wolf-whistled.
“Play with me tonight, Sir,” Dean begged between kisses.
“It’s Michael’s turn,” Cas mumbled back into Dean’s lips. An edge of desperation tinged his words scarlet.
“Let me negotiate a trade,” Dean countered, going in for a deep dive into Castiel’s mouth.
“I need…” Cas tried, but the words got tangled on his tongue as Dean’s pressed forward between his lips and stole his thought.
“I know.” Dean pulled back and met his eyes. Dean’s pupils were blown. A pink flush glowed across his cheeks. He grinned. “I know, Sir. Please let me. I know what you need.”
“God, Dean,” Cas breathed.
From behind, a camera shutter clicked.
“Goddamnit,” Dean whispered, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against Cas’ shoulder.
Cas laughed and took Dean’s hand. He threaded their fingers tightly and squeezed. “Come on,” he urged.
“Hey,” Dean tugged him to a stop and caught his gaze back up. “Listen. This is important.”
Behind them, a passerby chided the small crowd gathered to watch and snap photos and chivvied them to go back to their business. A faint scent of communal shame wafted across Cas’ nose and then dissipated just as quickly. He ignored it. Living here in the heart of Lupinicity, in the heart of this country where sharing space with Primates came easier, bought his Pack some protection. Hometown folk watched out for each other, and Cas was grateful. He cocked his head and drowned for a brief moment in the beauty of Dean’s flushed visage. He mirrored Dean’s smirk. He kissed him again, tenderly this time.
Dean squeezed his fingers. “I do trust you, CJ. I trust you with everything that I am. Every single day I wake up and choose you all over again.”
Cas chuckled. “I thought you said it wasn’t a choice.”
Dean’s eyes grew somber. “Loving you isn’t a choice, Cas. But staying here and building a life with you? There’s nowhere else I ever want to be. I’m choosing to stay right here, even when you block me out, even when things get hard, even when you choose her over me.”
Cas couldn’t keep the cloud of pain out of his eyes. He knew Dean could see it. “That scares me, Dean,” he confessed. A cloud passed over the sun, taking the warm glow from Dean’s cheekbones. “It means I could hurt you and you’ll let me.”
“It means we’re sticking together even when we both fuck up,” Dean countered. “It means we get to fix things after we fuck up, no matter how many times that happens. I trust you to fix things, man. I trust you not to keep hurting me. I trust that you love me enough to grow and change however you need to. Everything changes, Cas. We have to change too. Trust means I’m giving you the space to work out how that looks for you. I trust that you won’t let yourself grow away from me. And yeah, that’s scary as hell. But it’s exciting too. Right? Think about it. In fifty years, we’ll be completely different people. I don’t know who you’ll be, but I know you’ll still be right by my side, and I know I’ll still be kneeling for you and taking you apart with my rapier wit.”
Cas snorted and repeated, “Rapier wit,” under his breath. He kissed Dean softly. He sighed. He smiled. “I love you, Dean Michael.”
“Love you too, Alpha,” Dean answered. “Come on. I’m starving. How about we go for burgers? Huh?” Dean tugged Cas into motion. “And ice cream.”
“Ice cream? It’s thirty-five degrees out!” Cas followed him back along the path.
Adam phoned in the middle of the night, a sobbing, distraught mess, and Dean, Cas, and Gabe drove the distance in four hours, breaking every traffic law along the way. Omaha barely registered their passing, and Sioux Falls saw their taillights before the sun touched the horizon.
Castiel stormed through the front door of the main house, eyes blazing, and demanded the return of his Omega. He found the Pack already arrayed in their grand foyer, alphas in front, bathrobes tied haphazardly. Isaiah stood calm right in the middle with his arms over his chest facing Patience down with his Pack at his back. The Pack formed a wide semi-circle around Patience and Adam. It appeared the Winchesters had interrupted a confrontation in the offing, but as they entered, no one was shouting. The air shimmered with tense, violent potential. They’d reached a stalemate, perhaps. Patience stood rooted in place with her chin high, jaw set. Adam cowered at her side, trembling.
Castiel snarled as the scent of blood hit his nose and the ache of sore, beaten flesh touched the tremulous bond-link he had with his Ozzie. He made a beeline for Adam, ignoring the people lining marbled walls all around. But Gabe got there first. Gabe shot past Castiel to kneel before Adam and cup his face in gentle hands. Adam sank into Gabe’s touch and sobbed. Cas pulled up short and chose to divert. Gabe could handle Adam for the moment. Patience turned tortured eyes on him, and Cas placed a hand on her back as he joined her, offering her his support, the support of his whole Pack. Her cheek was bruised and swollen, narrowing her left eye slightly.
He took the situation in swiftly and faced Isaiah Frampton with fearsome conviction in his eyes. “I’ve killed for less,” Castiel growled.
“I read about that,” Isaiah remarked calmly. “I believe you’ll find it a harder time taking all of us down. And you won’t walk away with a slap on the wrist from the Feds this time either.”
“Shut up!” Castiel barked. Rage bubbled up in his gut, making it difficult to focus. His alpha wanted blood for blood. His wolf stood ready. “We’re taking them home. We’re leaving now. I advise you to walk away.” Cas could feel Dean just behind him, touching Patience’s shoulder and whispering into her ear, preparing her to commit to departure. She smelled torn. But there wasn’t time for indecision. The entire Frampton Pack perched upon the cusp of violence, belying their Alpha’s cool presentation. Gabe eased Adam to his feet, supporting his elbow.
Blood tracked from Adam’s broken nose, down his throat to smear his bare chest. A vivid purple bruise spread down his side to disappear beneath the elastic band of his underwear. He wore only a pair of white boxer-briefs. No shoes. His knees glowed agonized red. How many hours had the man suffered kneeling under threat of pain? Gabe stripped off his own coat and threw it over Adam’s shoulders.
“I said disperse!” Castiel ordered. “Go back to your rooms!” The crowd ruffled as the Alpha’s compulsion forced their legs. A few people slipped away. Nude Omegas dotted the gathering, all on their knees, all their heads bowed. None of them left without permission from their alphas, but their fear suffused the air in that elegant hall. Near the edge of the crowd, one Omega sported a leather collar and a leash. She tugged helplessly at the collar, crying.
“Stay where you are,” Isaiah snapped without turning. “No one orders my Pack in my house. No one but me.”
Castiel growled and stepped forward. “You think so? Test me,” he breathed, sounding every bit as if he relished the chance to engage physically. Doubt passed across Isaiah’s face, touching his scent, and that was enough to decide the battle. Isaiah’s confidence was a bluff, and his scent gave him away. The Framptons balked in the face of Castiel’s wrath, saving themselves the true terror and trauma of a full Dominance display.
Patience shook with rage, facing off against the might of the only Pack he’d ever known. He didn’t smell undecided anymore. He smelled furious. Bleeding and bruised, Patience faced his sire. He seemed finally to be reaching the conclusion Dean had tried to explain back in the library: Isaiah cared about nothing but his own power. He had already put Patience out of his mind and zeroed in on Castiel. Cas felt the young alpha pull himself to his full height and harden his expression. There would be no going back after today.
Gabe slung an arm over Adam’s shoulder, turned him without a word, and escorted him through the front door and out to the idling Impala, parked aslant in the driveway.
Patience watched their mate go and then turned back to face their Pack with Cas and Dean at their shoulders, shoring them up. The rage faded as they slipped out of their wolf. But the resolve in their bearing remained.
Their Pack Alpha growled, “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.” Cold steel echoed from his throat. His eyes flashed. His alphas stood motionless behind him. They looked smaller somehow.
From somewhere in the back, a tortured whine sounded. A shuffling of bodies drew Castiel’s eyes to a trio of young women clinging to one another. “Hush, Faith,” snapped Isaiah without turning his head. “She made her choice!” The whine cut off with brutal finality, but the scent of aching lingered.
Dean picked up the duffel and suitcase from the floor at their feet. Cas touched Patience’s shoulder and turned his back on the Pack. “Say whatever you need to say, alpha. It’s time to go.”
Patience nodded to him. They took a bracing breath. They cast their eyes past the wall of alphas barring them from the rest of the Pack and found their sisters. “I’ll keep in touch,” Patience told them quietly. “I love you.” Patience shook their head sadly. The alphas in front, they ignored completely. They spoke to the Pack betas, the Neutrals, those whose compliance allowed the hierarchy to exist in a precarious, top-heavy tower. Without the betas’ compliance to lend it legitimacy, the hierarchy would tumble. Patience spoke to them. “It doesn’t have to be this way. There are new techniques. There’s a different way. Please, just think about it. For the Omegas. Think about it.”
“Get out,” Isaiah spat.
Patience wilted. They turned to go but then stopped and looked back. “Just know,” they told him, “If you slam the door behind me, that’s your choice. Not mine. And if you need me…any of you… I’ll be there. You’re my family. That doesn’t ever change.”
“Get. Out!” Isaiah thundered, pointing toward the door and shaking in rage.
Patience nodded, caught her brother’s eye briefly then her Dad’s, standing well back from the front, then she smiled grimly at her sisters and let Dean put an arm over her arm and walk her out the door with her head high. Castiel remained, one staunch figure facing off against an entire Pack, calm but deadly in his wolf.
“I stake claim upon this alpha,” he said coolly. “They belong to me now. And no one approaches my Pack but through me. My attorneys will be in touch. Expect to face putative consequences for the harm you have inflicted. Expect to be held duly accountable.” His voice echoed from the high ceiling. “Have a nice day.” He waited a miserable awkward stretch of lingering time, as if goading them to retort, and then he nodded respectfully to the Alpha and turned on his heel. He left the door gaping in his wake, trotted lightly down concrete steps, along the dry, brown, crunchy lawn to the driveway, and slammed his passenger side door.
He didn’t look back as Dean executed a three-point turn and fishtailed out through the gate. Two miles down the highway, as the sun began to rise to their left, he turned in his seat with an arm over the back of the seat and glared at Patience, huddled against the door behind Dean. “Well?” he clipped. “Did you get what you wanted? Are you satisfied now?”
Adam flinched and curled into Patience’s arms. Patience scowled at the Alpha. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Dean scoffed rudely with his eyes on the rearview mirror.
“We’ll find a clinic. But we need to get the bleeding stopped. Clean them up, Gabe,” Cas said. He turned back to face front.
“Already on it,” Gabe agreed with gauze and a bottle of drinking water in his hands. He squatted in the footwell, focusing up at Adam’s broken nose, scowling. “Could you try to hit every pothole on the road, Dean?” he asked sarcastically. “I think you missed one.”
“Cram it, Gabe,” Dean replied. “We need to put miles between us and them. That wasn’t as easy an out as it looked. They were close to a throw-down. They might still come after us.” They all felt prickly as the temperature drained back from precipice-level to baseline.
“They’re not going to come after us,” Cas disagreed with his eyes on his phone in his lap. “They’re not ever going to challenge me.”
“Good,” Gabe muttered. “Then can we slow down so I don’t end up giving this kid a black eye to match his nose?”
They bickered testily for a few miles and ultimately pulled off at an urgent care center in the next county for real medical attention. Castiel insisted on filing assault charges right there outside of Sioux Falls. It took hours. By the time they made it back on the road, Adam fell asleep instantly, draped across Patience and Gabriel, both, his head resting on Patience’s chest. White gauze and medical tape across his nose hid most of the bruising on his face. Under his shirt, a wrap of tight bandages supported his broken rib.
Patience was quiet. Castiel’s silence spoke volumes. Dean side-eyed his husband, clearly debating whether to turn on the tape deck or let the ugly hush force them to start talking. Gabe slurped his fountain drink unnecessarily loudly and mumbled to himself about alpha pheromones stinking up the car.
Finally, Dean couldn’t stand it any longer. “The cops’ll handle it, Cas. We have to walk away.”
“There are too many packs still operating this way,” Cas snapped instantly, as if predicting precisely what Dean was going to say. “We were lucky to get him back in one piece at all! He’s not conditioned for a life like that. He couldn’t have adapted to what they demand from their Omegas. He could have been destroyed before we knew what was happening!”
“Patience wouldn’t have allowed them to destroy him,” Dean countered. “Right, alpha?” Dean caught their eye in the rearview mirror.
Patience glanced up but then went right back to stroking Adam’s hair and kissing his crown.
“Right,” Dean answered for himself. “He got Adam out of there the moment things went sideways.”
“It wasn’t Patience who called us,” Cas grumbled. “He would have tried to face them down on his own with just his own wolf to stand against that whole Pack.”
“They wouldn’t have tried to stop us leaving,” said Patience with a tired sigh. “Not really. They just wanted me to know they were united behind Alpha. It was a dominance display, nothing more.”
“Your nothing more broke Adam’s rib,” Cas reminded them, turning around to glare.
“Easy, Alpha,” Dean soothed. He placed his hand on Cas’ thigh and squeezed. “We’re taking them both home. It’s over. We won this one.”
No one said anything as Interstate 29 carried them south toward Nebraska. They stopped for a mid-afternoon meal, and Castiel insisted they eat at a table rather than on the road. It was an uncomfortable meal, broken only by inappropriate jokes from the elder Omega, whose attempts to break the tension weren’t appreciated by anyone in the group.
It wasn’t until they neared the Kansas state line that Patience spoke.
“Alpha, I’m sorry. You were right. I couldn’t protect him on my own.”
Cas closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. He let it out to a count of eight. He could feel Dean’s gaze on him. Cas opened his eyes and turned in his seat. She looked so young in the back seat by the window. Her arm around her mate protectively seemed natural though. Anger melted out of the Alpha even as he tried to hold onto it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he heard himself say. “They’re your family. I understand that you had to try. We’ll speak no more about it. But from here on, no more foolish, reckless…” He couldn’t keep to his own assertion that it was over. He felt his temperature rise…
“Rein it in, Cas,” Dean interrupted. “Don’t wind yourself up again.”
Cas snapped his mouth closed and ground his teeth. Patience nodded. Message received.
Gabe chuckled. Cas turned a scowl toward his brother, and Gabe threw his hands up with an innocent expression.
“What? It’s funny.” Gabe’s innocent expression irked Cas.
“What part of this is funny?” Cas challenged.
“Uh.” Gabe didn’t have an answer.
“Exactly,” Cas snapped. “So shut it.”
A couple of beats of silence passed, and then Dean snorted softly under his breath, followed by a chuckle that burst from his mouth unwittingly. Dean bit his bottom lip and cast a sideways glance at Cas. “Sorry,” he mumbled, facing the road again.
“You too?” Cas said. Dean shrugged. His mouth quirked in an aborted smirk.
“Need I remind the two of you that you are bound by Pack rules. I expect your respect and your obeisance. This situation isn’t funny in the slightest. Adam is gravely injured. I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate being laughed at.”
“Not laughing at Adam, Cas,” Gabe retorted. “But your face does this thing when you get pissed…”
Cas interrupted. “I see no reason to wait until we get home to spank you,” he told his brother. “I’m happy to do it on the side of the road.”
Gabe scoffed. “Fine by me. I’m in no hurry to get home.”
Something in his voice pulled Cas’ response up short. He turned more fully so he could really look at his brother. Adam silently reached over and took Gabe’s hand. Gabe averted his gaze, staring out the window, seeming to realize he’d said more than he intended.
“Gabriel?” Cas asked more gently. “Omega, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” Cas realized that Gabe had begun pushing for a correction. Laughing at inappropriate times was classic brat, but even Gabe wouldn’t snicker at another Omega’s pain, not unless he needed Castiel’s attention. He was only on the bare cusp of his usual pattern, but the first steps were there, plain as ever.
Gabe rolled his eyes and shifted so that Cas could see his irises ringed with gold. “I’m just not in a hurry to get home, that’s all.”
“Is it Kali?” Dean asked pointedly, his eyes on the rearview mirror briefly.
Gabe let the Impala’s tires eat another half-mile before he found the words. “I don’t even know what’s happening between us right now, Dean. She’s pissed at me when she wakes up and pissed at me when she goes to bed. I can’t do anything right. I can’t do anything to make her happy.”
“Jesus, Gabe, why didn’t you say something?”
Gabe scoffed. “To who, Dean? To you? You kinda had your hands full lately! You’ve been frying all the big fish…”
“You’re a big fish too, you moron!” Dean snapped back.
“Stop it!” Cas commanded. Adam flinched. Patience pulled him closer. Cas took a deep breath to lower his tension. He chanted his mantrum inside his head and stroked his wolf’s hackles with a firm touch.
“Gabriel,” he said slowly, “Dean’s right. You matter as much as everyone else. If you’re hurting, we need to know about it.” Gabe rolled his eyes, but Cas persisted. His position in the car made an earnest connection difficult, but he pulled his knee up onto the bench seat and rotated as far as he could without straining. “What do you sense inside your bond with Kali? Is it anger or something else?”
Gabe studied his hands in his lap. His jaw clenched and unclenched. Finally, he looked up. “We don’t have a bond,” he said almost too softly to be heard over the road noise.
Cas frowned at him. “What are you talking about? You’ve been married for four years. You scene together weekly. She sees you through your Heats. How can you not be bonded?”
Gabe only scowled and turned back to his window.
“Gabriel?”
“She just never wanted that with me,” he mumbled. “I’m not her mate.”
Cas stared at his brother, speechless.
“What?” Gabe asked defensively. “Marriage isn’t Mating, Cas. She’s my wife. That doesn’t come with bond-links.”
“Of course it comes with bond-links,” Cas said, baffled, frowning hard. “You’re Omega! How the hell do you scene without being bonded?”
Gabe scoffed. “It’s easy, man. We just do. She smacks my ass; I say harder, what’s the confusion?”
“Gabe, she’s a Domme,” Cas argued. “Even if you didn’t want a bond, one is sure to form eventually just through your play.”
“Yeah, well, it never has,” Gabe grumbled sourly. “Obviously, she doesn’t want one.”
“Wait,” Dean broke in. “Have you asked her? Did she tell you she doesn’t want one?”
“She doesn’t have to say so,” Gabe countered. “She’s made it plenty clear that she isn’t interested in a dynamic between us. She wants a marriage, not a hierarchy. She’s fine with kink. She just doesn’t want me inside her head.”
Dean stiffened and broke in harshly. “Oh, yeah, fantastic, Poindexter, and that shit worked out so well for April and Michael.” The car jerked as he faced front again and found himself veering out of his lane.
“We’re not April and Michael,” Gabe quipped. “Please don’t drive us off the road. I’d have thought you got enough of that already.”
Cas sighed heavily. He rubbed his eyes. “Okay,” he said, centering himself. “Dean, watch the road, please. All of this is moot if we die before we reach the house.” Dean shot him an offended look but held his tongue. “Gabe, this is fixable. I don’t care whether you’re married or Mated or just fuck-buddies. You and Kali need a Claim-bond between you. We’re setting things straight the minute we get home.” He breathed hard through his nose as the car moved inexorably toward home. “Patience, I’m moving you into the manor house. In time, if you prove yourself, I’ll allow you to live in a home of your own nearby. Right now, Adam’s welfare takes precedence.”
Patience nodded silently.
“How the fuck is a bond-link supposed to fix anything?” Gabe argued. “If she doesn’t want one, she doesn’t want one.”
“For fuck’s sake, Gabe,” blurted Dean. “You’re a grown fucking man! You know better than this!”
“You don’t know a damn thing about it, alpha!” Gabe shouted back.
“I know that a Domme needs someone bonded to her if she’s gonna maintain any kind of stability over the long term!” Dean growled. “And you know that too. What the fuck are you playing at? Goddamnit, Gabriel!”
Gabe sneered. “Oh, so it’s my fault? Since when does the Bottom decide where the dynamic goes?”
“Since forever, Omega!”
“Enough!” Cas broke in. “Dean, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what, now?” Dean asked as if oblivious. He blinked innocently.
“I thought we agreed you would stop using your brat to ramp the Omegas.”
Dean sighed. “He needs a…”
“I know what he needs,” Cas groused. “But either you trust me to handle it, or you don’t. Which is it?”
Dean waffled for a moment, at a loss for a good explanation before he shrugged a weak apology in the rearview mirror at Gabe and mumbled another toward Cas. He reached across the front bench and clasped Cas’ hand.
Cas let Dean think about it for a moment, and then began again. “Good. You, drive. Gabriel, no it’s not your fault, and Dean knows that. But as you said, a marriage isn’t a Mating. You’re an equal partner with equal say. You’re under no expectation to sit on your ass and wait for your wife to decide everything. Kali has been showing signs lately that her wolf isn’t getting fed. That’s not acceptable…”
“I’m no one’s Sub, little brother.” Petulance flavored Gabe’s grousing, spoiling his adamance.
“Be that as it may,” Cas went on, “you are Omega, and as such, you and Kali need to engage with each other’s Secondaries and Tertiaries. Your Omega has the wherewithal to feed her wolf, but only if you’re bonded.”
“Tell her that,” Gabe said with a pout.
“Jesus, Gabe, are you six?” Dean asked.
“You’re not helping!” Cas told his husband.
“Four years, Cas!” Dean said with a wild gesture. “They’ve been married for four years! How did you not know they weren’t bonded?”
Cas scowled. He sighed and faced the front. “That’s a fair question. Obviously, it slipped under the radar.”
“That seems to happen a lot,” Patience observed, seemingly without judgment.
Adam turned her head to face him with a hand on her cheek. “Alpha, please don’t,” he beseeched. He kissed her lips. She smiled at him, softening her eyes.
“Shh. It’s okay,” she told him. “Close your eyes. Rest. We’ll be home soon.”
“Terrific,” Gabe muttered, closing his eyes as well and laying his head all the way back on the seat, facing upward toward the cold, scudding clouds.
“I miss Sarah,” said Adam to himself as he faded back to sleep on the soft, comforting waves of his pain meds. “Miss her so much.”
Cas met Dean’s eye and shook his head. They needed time before they tried to face that challenge. Patience deserved a chance to assimilate with the Pack. Sarah needed time to fully register what Adam’s Trigger meant for all of them. Adam needed time to adjust to the rapid changes as well. Trying to confront the situation head-on right now would be disastrous. Cas scented the air, seeking a hint as to what Patience might be thinking. But she was calm. She swept a stray lock of hair off Adam’s forehead and then nuzzled along his temple as she watched the landscape fly by.
Soft snores filled the cabin as Adam struggled to sleep and breathe through the bandages over the bridge of his nose.
Patience held him.
Dean drove.
Gabriel pouted.
Castiel brooded.
As they entered Lawrence, Patience said to no one, “I just need him to be safe and happy. That’s all I need.”
“Then we’re on the same page,” Dean told her. “Because that’s what he deserves.”
“And Sarah?” Patience asked vaguely.
Cas glanced over his shoulder at her. “That remains to be seen. No one’s going to usurp your rights. No one’s going to force you to accept something if you can’t. But it won’t take anything away from you if you keep an open mind about things that may have seemed unthinkable in the past. Your upbringing left much to be desired, Patience. From here though, you’ll have to find your own boundaries, your own limits. It’s important that you keep both yours and Adam’s welfare at the forefront of your choices. His happiness matters. So does yours.”
“So does Sarah’s, for that matter,” Patience pointed out.
“That’s true,” Cas agreed. “But you didn’t Mate Sarah. You Mated Adam. No one matters to you now more than he does. And Sarah has strong lines of support already in place within the Pack. She will be okay either way.” Cas turned back around and added, “Eventually.”
“Eventually,” Gabe repeated from the back seat.
“I don’t think I can bend that far,” Patience said, looking down at her sleeping mate. “It’s too much. Adam is… He’s everything to me. I can’t give him away; I only just found him.”
“Just get us home, Dean,” Cas murmured. He couldn’t quite read Patience. But he had to take heart in the fact that she had taken Sarah’s happiness into the equation, and the idea was already circling through her head. She seemed to be trying to find a way to cram a square peg into a round hole. Despite the fact she hadn’t solved the puzzle yet, that effort said something about her. Something solid.
“Yes, Sir,” Dean agreed. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator for the last leg through town.
Notes:
CW: mention and evidence of physical abuse (the abuse is offscreen, but there's physical injury that requires medical care).
Did I say I was going to skip ahead a few years? Yes, I did. But then I didn't.
Soon, friends. Soon. Really needed to tie some stuff down first.
The next episode may come at a slower pace. I'm unfortunately not 100% stable medically, and I sometimes need to spend more weekends recovering from my day job than I'd prefer. I would much rather write than wallow. Just know, I'm always coming back. And don't worry, I'm taking care of myself to the extent I can.
Love to the Pack!
Chapter 39: Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Summary:
Michael has joined the Novak Industries Board of Directors. Is he a little fish in with big sharks? Cas sets Dean a new goal in Sub training. This one is the hardest he's ever been asked to master, and Dean doubts he can do it. Cas is working his way through the fallout after Dean's near-kidnapping.
Gabe and Kali have to untangle their crap. Who's here for it? Can Michael help orient Gabe for the confrontation at hand?
Cas puts Patience through a Pack lunch, complete with agenda items and schedule additions. It's a lot.
Then Michael feels Patience out himself.
Seems Michael is everywhere these days, yeah?
Notes:
I'm back! It's been FOREVER! Holy shit!
So, I had surgery on my foot. Then crap went wrong, and I was knocked back on my heels for a couple months. Add CRPS to Long Covid and autoimmune disorders, and I barely kept my head above water lately. Y'all, so many days I wanted so badly to write but my brain wouldn't clear long enough. Brain fog is a bitch. I can't promise this chapter is up to snuff, but it's what I managed to scratch out.
One positive outcome from the last few months, while I'm foggy I can't write, but I can edit. So I have been back through all 1.3M words of Caniformes, cleaned it up and reposted. I reworded some bits, added a little context, fixed inconsistencies. I fixed the formatting. I swear I'm done messing with it. It's done now. So if you're interested in a re-read from the start, now's the time to do it.
But for now:
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
NOW:
“That concludes the agenda for today,” the stodgy old relic intoned. He spoke at a ponderous pace, slow enough to drag out a meeting that should have been over half an hour ago. Michael scribbled the last of his notes and closed his folder. “Before we adjourn,” the Chairman continued, “allow me to formally welcome our newest member.” He gestured toward Michael, who braced for a patronizing barb about his youth, his Secondary designation, or the fact that he was the first member of the Pack to bother sitting on the Board of Directors in decades.
“We are pleased to have you join us, Michael. Please feel comfortable approaching anyone at this table if you have questions. I expect you will have questions; everyone does at the outset of managing an organization of this size. Your presence here as a representative of the Novak family is a welcome addition.”
Michael felt the weight of institutional eyes from every direction. How many years of executive experience did those eyes represent? He cleared his throat. He wished Dean were here. Or Alpha. But he was alone. On his own as the sole representative of the Pack.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best to speak for the Pack’s interests and uphold them with integrity. I’m honored to be here.”
A flash of surprised approval came and went in the old man’s expression. “I’m sure you’ll do your Pack proud, young man,” was all he said. Around the table, others echoed him. Michael felt an uncharacteristic tightening in his chest at the authentic welcome where he had expected to be talked down to. Would that welcome hold when he had something unpopular to say? Would they listen to his input or was he seen as a figurehead?
Only time would tell.
The Chairman was a Primate. Perhaps he wouldn’t act on bias like a Lupin could be expected to. But more than half the Board was Lupin. As an Omega, Michael suspected he would have a hill to climb to win them over no matter how progressive they might think themselves. But for right now, after only one Novak Enterprises, Inc. Board meeting, Michael was bolstered. It was an auspicious start.
Michael’s security guard quickly finished up whatever he was doing on his phone when the door to the boardroom opened and Michael appeared. He lumbered to his feet and fell in beside the Omega. The ride down in the elevator was awkward as no one else had a security escort.
One middle-aged woman broke the tension by saying, “I don’t know whether to envy you or pity you, Michael. It must be nice to have company wherever you go. But a little solitude is nice too.”
Michael chuckled. He caught Leon’s eye and shared a weighted look. It was a subject they had already discussed. His assigned guard was a good guy, personable and interesting. But the man had a job to do, and he guarded those boundary lines religiously. He wasn’t Michael’s friend more than he should be. He wasn’t company.
The elevator doors opened. Through tall glass windows Michael saw Dean leaning against the fender of his Impala on the curb—illegally parked and shameless about it.
Michael didn’t even try to repress a grin. Board members streamed out of the elevator around him giving off envy vibes enough for Michael to taste them on his tongue. Dean looked every bit the rock star with one ankle crossed over the other and the sun glinting off his aviators.
Michael put a hand on Leon’s shoulder. “Looks like I have a ride home, alpha,” he said cheerfully. "Go on and get yourself some lunch. Take the afternoon off.”
Leon nodded and gave Michael some space. He lingered just outside the sparkling glass rotary-door in case Dean had a different instruction. But Dean didn’t even glance at him. Dean only had eyes for Michael.
“So? How’d it go? Should we start packing up for the estate sale? Are we about to be liquidated?”
Michael kissed him and squeezed his waist. “No faith, alpha? Don’t you think I can contribute without running the business into the ground?”
Their Mating-bond and the pride gleaming from Dean’s eyes told Michael everything he needed to know about Dean’s faith in him. “Michael, kiddo, they aren’t even going to know what to think of you once you find your feet in there.”
“Hmm,” Michael demurred.
“Hop in. I’m buying lunch for the newest Novak Industries director.”
They headed for the edge of town for an Indian restaurant Michael wanted to try. Dean’s wary gaze watched every direction at once while Michael described the plodding meeting, the seemingly endless agenda items about company minutia, and the numerous self-important speeches from around the table when all that was needed was a simple up or down vote.
Dean chuckled. “Welcome to American capitalism, I guess. I give it four meetings before you have them all whipped into shape.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “I appreciate your faith in me. But Dean, I can’t get to my wolf. I’m Secondary. I can’t get anyone’s attention like this, as an Omega. I feel like I’m little more than a pup in there, all wide-eyed and lost.”
Dean’s hand covered Michael’s on the bench seat. “Your Omega is a powerful motherfucker, man. You’re not lost; you’re learning. And you don’t need your wolf for this. Let your instinct guide you. I feel like you’re wanting to lean into your Tertiary out of fear and discomfort. Give it a little time. You’ll see. Your Omega is perfect for this.”
Michael scoffed. “That’s your therapist talking, Dean. I swear you sound more and more like Tessa every day.”
Dean laughed. “Consider it free therapy by proxy,” he quipped with a smirk.
Dean’s scalp tingled. The meat of his ass throbbed. He felt light and euphoric as he snuggled beneath the comforter. His erection lingered, but he didn’t give it much thought. Neither Cas nor Michael ever made him suffer more than a day without an orgasm. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t about true denial, just statements of power and control.
And that Dean could respect. He sighed in visceral, languorous pleasure.
Castiel kissed his temple and then crooked his arm around Dean’s shoulder to bring him in close. Dean practically purred as he laid his head upon Cas’ chest and found the heartbeat thudding in his ear. He closed his eyes.
“That was a deep dive, Pet. How do you feel now?”
“Words hard, Sir,” Dean mumbled. His head bounced as Cas laughed. “No words. Only feels.” He sent a lump of warm, sleepy emotion through their bond into his Sir’s lap.
“Mmm,” Cas hummed as he filtered through it all. “Very nice. Exactly what I wanted for you tonight. I love watching you drift.”
They shared body heat for some time in silence, each breathing the essence of the other in gentle repose, neither asleep. Dean drifted slowly back to the ground, and he lit lightly to a stop with no regrets. He let go of his Submissive headspace with a tender touch to its forehead, replete.
Castiel acknowledged feeling the switch with a soft squeeze of Dean’s shoulder.
Dean felt whole. He felt sleepy and strong and solid. He smiled against Cas’ chest. “I don’t know how you do that,” he said. He could have chosen the softest route and slipped into his Primary, but he went with his alpha instead.
“It’s not rocket science, Dean,” Cas replied. “I simply follow your wolf wherever it takes me and give it what it craves. Once you’ve received what you need, the cravings are slaked.”
“For now,” Dean added.
“For now,” Cas agreed. “It’s such a heavy burden upon my beleaguered shoulders to have to see to your ever-present Tertiary needs, knowing I cannot possibly hold you for long before you need me to strap in again.” He delivered the line with a straight face, and Dean snorted.
“You poor, poor son of a bitch. Why do you put up with me?”
“We’ll never know, I suppose,” Cas replied. “Perhaps I’m a masochist.”
Dean snuggled in tighter. He wrapped an arm around Castiel’s waist and cinched him in with his cheek against Cas’ sternum. Cuddling while in his Secondary felt almost taboo, but Dean knew that was just old conditioning. Cas shifted out of his Tertiary too. They wrapped around each other’s alpha designations in solace and acceptance, each delivered of hunger, each snug in his position within their relationship.
“You bruised me up,” Dean remarked. “I thought Michael asked you to refrain.”
“He did.”
Dean looked up at his husband with a questioning expression. “Power statement?”
“I have little need for power statements, Dean. And you need not concern yourself with the dynamic between Michael and me.”
Dean scoffed. “Right. Because there’s no chance I’ll get squished between you two when you start posturing. I’d kinda like to know which way you’re moving is all.”
“Call it a trust fall, my love.” Cas wormed his way up to sit against the headboard with his pillows cushioning his back. Dean fell to lie with his head in Cas’ lap, looking up. “I want you to let it be. Don’t obsess. Don’t keep watch over the two of us as if we might crush you between us. Trust us, Dean. There will never be a moment we’re not both watching out for you.”
“Sub training?” Dean asked with a grimace.
“Indeed,” Cas responded fondly. He stroked Dean’s hair. “You are not Omega. You don’t have to watch every door and window. You don’t have to predict the wind’s direction. You are not in any danger. Can you trust me that much?”
“You’re asking a lot, CJ. I’m gonna be honest here. It doesn’t feel safe. Stop keeping an eye on which way the wind is blowing? I wouldn’t even know how to stop. It’s instinct.”
“I know,” Cas conceded. “I’m not asking for a miracle. Nor do I want you to go completely lax within our relationship. What I’m asking for is for you to feel confident that Michael and I always have your best interests in mind even while we posture between ourselves. I want you to let go of the impulse to intervene. Let my relationship with Michael alone. Trust us.”
Dean blew a breath out. “You don’t ask for much, do you?” Then he frowned in thought. “Even when Michael’s Secondary? Primary? I mean, it’s my job to look out for him, Alpha.”
Cas smiled down at him. “No, I’m not asking you to relinquish your obligations as his mate. This request is solely targeted to our roles as your Dominants. Can you handle that, Dean? Will you try for me?”
“I’m never going to tell you no, man. You know that. But give me a hot sec to figure out what it looks like. I can’t stifle a lifetime of observational instincts overnight.”
Cas nodded with pride shining from his eyes. “Observe all you like, love. Just don’t draw conclusions and act on what you’ve observed.”
Dean snorted again. “I liked it better when your training goals were how much girth you could stuff up my ass. That was a lot easier.”
“That’s why those lessons came first, Dean. I have faith in you. You can do this.”
“Every one of my instincts is screaming at me right now,” Dean confessed.
“I know,” Cas told him.
“How will you even know if I’m doing it?” Dean asked. “It’s not like you can see what I’m thinking.”
Cas arched a brow at him and cocked his head. Dean rolled his eyes and earned a pinch to his sore backside.
“Ahh!” he flinched.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Cas said. “I expect your brats to take this assignment as a challenge to see how deeply underground they can operate without me knowing. I warn you now, Dean. Take heed. Learning to let go of your management of my dynamic with Michael will be as painful or as painless as you choose to make it.”
Dean groaned. His cock twitched in betrayal beneath the covers. “I’m screwed however you look at it,” he said. “The deck is stacked against me here.”
“Maybe. But the journey will be a rewarding one if you choose to allow it to be.”
Dean didn’t bother bargaining. He could smell the direction of the winds and knew the futility of attempting to steer against them. “Throw something in our contract,” he sighed. “I want clear parameters. Are you making a Rule?”
“Eventually,” Cas told him. “But not yet. You need practice first. This is a significant change. I want to be fair and realistic.”
Dean shifted slightly, down Cas’ lap, to get a better view of his husband’s face. “You’re serious about this,” he observed.
Cas frowned. “You think I would broach the topic on a whim?”
Dean frowned back. “Nah, I don’t mean to belittle your training plan, CJ. It’s just that… It feels like it came out of left field. Does Michael know?”
“Michael knows.”
“He’s getting better about guarding his thoughts,” Dean said. "I had no idea.”
“Sit up a moment, Dean.”
Dean rolled up, grunting softly as the throb intensified briefly. Cas took both of his hands.
“Look at me, love. Listen to me right now.” Castiel’s gaze was sharp, commanding, and loving. Dean’s lower lip found its way between his teeth. Cas smiled softly without easing the force of his gaze. “I’m offering… No, we’re offering you a chance to live within a matrix of trust. I know that at the outset, when you and Michael first Mated and everything felt so precarious, it was critical for you to watch every shift and move and feint as if your life depended upon not missing the slightest swing. I know that your careful eye held us steady more than a few times during those early months. I’m grateful, Dean, as is Michael. But we aren’t where we were. And both of us want you freed from the responsibility. We want your Sub to feel freed to be Submissive to us both. Let go, Dean. Let go and trust.”
Still sitting firmly in his alpha, Dean heard the impassioned speech through ears conditioned to hear the big screen, panoramic message.
He pinched his nose between thumb and knuckle and sat back against the headboard. “And if I see something coming? Something that’ll get me hurt?”
Cas replied carefully, watching Dean’s eyes. “You have a safeword, Dean. Scene spaces aren’t the only places that can be employed. If you observe something that makes you feel unsafe, your safeword will get my immediate attention. Michael’s too.”
Dean sat silently for a few moments. Then, instead of responding, he changed the subject.
“Michael did good in the Board meeting today.”
“I’m not a bit surprised,” Cas said.
“But he’s worried that he gets stuck as an Omega. He thinks he should be Tertiary. He thinks he won’t be able to swing a credible presence without his wolf.”
“That’s understandable,” said Cas thoughtfully. “Facing off against decades of experience from an Omega perspective must feel intimidating. But I predict that in time, he’ll layer his wolf through his Omega and strike an ideal headspace for business dealings. He’s exceptionally bright. And he’s instinctive. He’ll figure it out.”
Dean nodded. He scratched idly at his thigh before moving his hand upward and around back to rub the crease of his ass, shifting his weight.
“Stop that,” Cas corrected with a mere trace of his wolf.
Dean desisted without ever realizing he’d rubbed at all.
“Maybe I should take a page out of Michael’s book,” Dean said, thinking out loud. “Maybe I should try sitting through ACRI Board meetings as a Sub and layer my alpha through for added weight. God knows I don’t have any more idea what I’m doing in there than Michael does with the Novak Board.”
It was Cas’ turn to scoff. “Dean, your alpha was made for Board meetings. They may be dull, but this is where directional decisions are made. And you are ideally suited for this work. We’ve needed you there for years. Hell, half the time I speak with what I envision is your voice. I chant my mantra—What would Dean do—until the way forward becomes clear. Please don’t listen to your insecurities. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Just go in there and listen to the issues and work each question like you’re chairing your own department. You know how to do this. You’ve done it for years.”
“I dunno, Cas. It’s different somehow. The Board of Directors?”
“You’re a Director, Dean! You’re an owner!”
“It felt safer just sitting at home in my bathrobe with a glass of whiskey telling you which way the company should turn.”
Castiel chuckled.
As they fell once more into silence, Dean leaned in and rested his head on Cas’ shoulder. Cas could feel Dean rifle through his head.
“What are you looking for?” Cas asked softly.
“I’m not sure,” Dean replied.
Cas allowed Dean to rummage about for a few breaths. Then, “Dean.” Alpha weighted the word to ping Dean’s three designations at once, and Dean stopped searching. He sighed and focused on his lap.
“I’m not falling,” Cas said. It was a radical shift in topics. The faction behind the attack on Dean was still at large, and that fact was a poison beneath Castiel’s flesh, eating away at him night and day.
Dean shook his head, agreeing with the statement. “Maybe not. But you’re not finished with it yet either.”
“I won’t finish with it until Bobby tells me they’re dead.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Cas, they could get arrested, charged, arraigned, tried and convicted, sentenced… They might serve decades in prison, but your Alpha won’t be satisfied until they’re six feet down. Man, you killed the perps. They’re already dead…”
Castiel growled, fierce and feral from deep in his throat. He snarled, “I’m not interested in the perps, Dean! I want the head of that snake roasting in hell! Someone sent those men! Someone signed their marching orders! It’s been a month!”
The barely reined fury didn’t faze Dean. He placed a palm on Cas’ chest. “You promised to give Bobby time. And you promised not to use Pack Justice on this. We have a legal system.”
Castiel snorted. “If not for Pack Justice, I would be in jail, Dean. I murdered two men.”
Dean sighed. “Whatever. Call it a hybrid model. By that logic you’ve already dealt out Pack Justice. The fools stupid enough to let themselves be used are dead. That should placate your wolf. Let Bobby and the legal system handle the factions.”
Cas grew distant, staring into the cornice as if it held answers. “Bobby won’t use the legal system.”
“All the better,” Dean agreed, showing his hand. He knew Cas relied on him to help rein in the worst impulses of his Alpha, but Dean only did it for Cas’ sake. Personally, Dean felt no qualms about piano string, a cinder block coiled around their knees, and a swimming lesson in Clinton Lake.
“Quit fighting your instincts, CJ. You’re not going to be able to let it go until you unleash it. I’m trying my damnedest here. I know you want to go at your own pace. I’m not in charge, remember? But, man, my brat is chomping for a change in tone. I may not be able to hold him back much longer. You get me? I’m letting you in on what’s going through my head because that’s what you said you wanted, and my ass is tired of hearing you repeat yourself. You need to let it into our scene, CJ. That’s the only way to let it go.”
“It’s no less a usurpation of control if you tell me what to do than it is if you manipulate me into it.” Cas cast a cold disapproval over his tone.
“I’m not telling you what to do, Alpha. I’m telling you honestly where my head’s at. It’s still your choice. I ain’t making demands here.” Dean met his eye. “I’ll keep spotting your training sessions with your wolf as long as you want me to. But be honest, is that going to get you through this?”
“They tried to kidnap you, Dean. I can only imagine what their plans were.”
“I know, CJ. I get it. No one’s judging you. I see you tossing and turning all night. You’re not sleeping. You’re short with the pups. You refused April permission to go to Nashville. Cas, she needs to go to that session. This thing is frying you. What we just did? That’s not what you need. You don’t need pleasure, Castiel. You need outrage. Now, you tell me what I’m supposed to do with that knowledge.”
Cas looked at Dean and then looked away.
“Right,” Dean said. “Exactly. I’m not a saint, Castiel. You keep on like this, and I’m going to break. I’m trying so hard not to instigate this thing. But I can’t hold forever.”
“What would you have me do, Dean? Beat you? Beat April? I can’t play hard enough to shove it down my gullet. What good will a provocation do?”
Dean watched his husband without answering. His silence unnerved Castiel.
“No, I won’t do it,” Cas stated firmly.
“We taking bets?” Dean quipped.
“Is this a game to you?” Castiel let his anger lend spikes to his words. He was certainly angry enough. But he wasn’t angry at Dean.
“You do it for me when I need it,” Dean reminded him. “Why don’t you deserve the same? Aren’t you worth it?”
Cas replied with a disgruntled sound. He climbed out of the bed and headed for the bathroom.
“Okay then,” Dean said to himself. “Good talk.”
Gabriel pretended to be asleep when he heard the door open. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He knew it wasn’t his brother. Cas he could feel approach. In fact, none of the alphas in the Pack could sneak up on him.
But Kali didn’t hold a bond with Gabriel, and that meant he couldn’t track her.
He had taken to facing the wall most of the time in his bed so he would have a chance to close his eyes when she slipped in as softly as she could.
He assumed a studious stillness that he hoped approximated sleeping closely enough that she couldn’t tell the difference. He heard a strident sniff from the doorway but heard no movement. Through his eyelids, he could sense a strip of hallway light cutting across his covered form. He wondered why she was just standing there in the doorway.
Gabe was surprised to hear Michael speak instead of Kali.
“You can just keep lying there pretending, but I’m not going away so you may as well sit up.”
Gabe opened his eyes to find Michael’s silhouette on the wall before him. Gabe didn’t sit up. He pulled a face though, and he knew Michael could tell.
Michael closed the door behind him.
“Talk to me, Omega,” Michael said, coming in and sinking into a chair without turning on any lights.
“Go away.”
“You’ve barely been out of that bed in weeks, Gabe. And Kali practically lives at her shop. Cas is about twelve seconds away from locking the two of you into the smallest room in this house until you deal with your crap. So, if that’s what you want, by all means, kick me out and let your brother handle it.” Michael sat with knees wide, leaning onto his elbows, casual and relaxed but invested.
Gabe sat upright, throwing the covers off and glowering at his Packmate before turning to sit on the edge of his bed facing away.
“Look,” Michael continued, “you were there for me when I cracked. You’ve been there for me every time I’ve cracked. There’s no shame in needing another Omega’s ear. You need to talk to someone. Obviously, that’s not going to be your wife until you untangle whatever has you in knots.”
Gabriel shook his head to himself.
Michael gave him a minute to think and then said, “The code, man. I’m here to take my share. Don’t carry this alone. I’m not telling you I can solve anything. All I’m asking is for you to hand me a share. You’re buckling under the weight.”
Gabe turned enough so that he could see Michael, and he scowled.
Michael put his hands up. “I know, Gabe. I know. It’s not fair.” He didn’t flinch at Gabe’s tortured expression. He didn’t show Gabe any pity either. “Talk to me.”
Gabriel sniffled and scrubbed at his nose. He reached to his bedside table and switched on the lamp. Soft yellow light instantly changed the tone of the room. Michael’s amber eyes glowed in the gentle light. Gabe glanced at him and then stood up and swiped his robe off the floor in a huff. He covered himself. He stalked across the room to his in-room bar. He poured two tumblers of bourbon.
Michael eyed the glass when Gabe held it out to him. “It’s nine-thirty in the morning, Gabe, for fuck’s sake.” Gabe slammed the unaccepted glass down beside Michael and threw himself into a chair oblique to Michael’s.
“Does this have anything to do with what you saw when you went to pull Adam from that lion’s den Patience threw him into? He said there was a harem.” Michael left the bourbon where Gabe had thumped it.
Gabriel sipped from his glass and then said in a gruff voice, “We didn’t see the harem spaces. The whole Pack was turned out against Patience in the main house—right there in the foyer as if they planned to throw her out on her ear.”
“Sounds like you got there just in the nick of time,” Michael said carefully.
Gabe’s eyes flashed. “The nick of time would’ve been before they used Adam for a punching bag!”
“So this is about Adam?” Michael’s face said he didn’t think that was the core issue. “Since when does abuse against an Omega send you curling up fetal position and sucking on your own bitterness for weeks? What happened to walk past it?” Michael churlishly employed finger-quotes and got a snarl for his troubles.
Gabe emptied his glass. His bloodshot eyes tattled on it not being his first of the day.
Michael sighed hard. “Gabe, I can’t do this myself. And clearly you can’t either.”
“Cas gave us an ultimatum,” Gabe blurted. “Set a bond between us or move into separate rooms.”
Michael’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
Gabe’s eyes were haunted. He half-stifled a sob and broke eye-contact.
“Wait, don’t you have a bond already?”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
Michael slipped into his wolf, incensed. “Answer me, Omega! Has she left you unbonded all this time, or did it simply wear off? A renewal shouldn’t require an ultimatum from the Alpha.”
Gabe worked his jaw and his lips. His eyes cut to his now-empty glass. “We never had a bond. Not from day one.”
“Why not?” Michael insisted.
Gabe scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “The truth? Because I balked at being owned and she didn’t want to push me, and we just never resolved shit. We’re both carrying crap from our Matings, crap we’ve lugged for decades. It’s the stupidest, simplest thing in the world, Michael, but it’s been festering between us now for four years. We can’t just pretend we don’t both resent the hell out of the other.”
“A Claim would make untangling all that resentment a piece of cake.”
“I don’t want to take the easy way out!” Gabriel snapped.
“Excuse me?” Michael snarled from his wolf.
“Don’t try that with me,” Gabe snarled back. “I’m no Submissive.”
Michael blinked in surprise. Submissive or not, Gabe shouldn’t be immune to a Tertiary nineteen. “Look,” he said, backing down and lowering the energy. “It’s not taking the easy way out. It’s how we’re wired. You and Kali got your wires crossed, had a miscommunication right out of the gate, and didn’t know how to fix it because you were blind to each other. I don’t care if you’re Mated or married or going steady, Gabe. Adult wolves are not wired for longterm relationships without a Claim bond.”
“Bullshit!” Gabe said. “Half the wolves in this Pack aren’t bonded, and they manage not to resent each other. What you mean is that Omegas aren’t wired for longterm relationships without being bonded.”
Michael huffed in frustration. “No, that’s not what I meant. You and I aren’t bonded. You’ve never Claimed April. You and Jess don’t need a bond. It’s not about Omegas, Gabe. It’s about romantic relationships. We can’t maintain them blind. Stop being a dick and present your damn ass to your wife!”
Gabe let all the fight drain out of him. He stood and crossed to Michael, seeming calm but determined, only to steal his drink and go right back to his own chair. But he paused before sitting, swirling the drink, facing the far wall. Without looking at Michael he asked, “You don’t think I’ve tried that?”
Michael processed that for a moment or two. “During a Heat?” he asked.
“Jiminy Christmas, Omega!” Gabe exclaimed. “How stupid do I look? Of course during a Heat! And outside of one. At night. During the day. On a whim and with a whole plan mapped out. She won’t take the bait! I can’t make her! She doesn’t want that from me! What else do you want me to say? Jesus effing Christ! I’m not a virgin here!”
“Gabe, Gabe, I’m sorry!” Michael broke in. “It’s just, this is the first I’m hearing. I assumed you two sealed the deal before you even married. We all did. How could it have gone this long without anyone knowing?”
“Because no one can scent non-Mated bonds,” Gabe said tiredly. “And no one bothered to check.”
Michael scoffed. “Bothered to check? You weren’t sworn to secrecy, Gabe.”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Our entire wedding vow to each other amounted to only one thing. We weren’t going to demand more than the other was willing to give. So, when it became clear that Kali wasn’t willing to Claim me, what could I do but accept it? She is who she is.”
“Cas sees it differently though,” Michael concluded. “And his ultimatum breaks your wedding vow.”
“Breaks our vow? No. Cas isn’t beholden to our vow. But it forces her to do something against her will, and that’s something he promised her he wouldn’t do.”
“Did he? That doesn’t sound like him.”
Gabe made a facial shrug. “Yes, well. You and I don’t see that side of him very often. But Kali did.”
“You and Kali have talked this over?” Michael asked with a sharp look. “You have, right?”
“No.”
“Gabe.”
“What is there to say?”
Michael scoffed, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe, how do you really feel about Claiming me? Or, what’s got you so uncomfortable? Or even, do you still want to stay married? You can’t just ignore this, Omega. When has that ever worked for us?” Michael’s chest rose and fell with his frustration. “Would it help to have a facilitator? I know some conversations are harder than others.”
“No fucking way,” Gabe stated.
“Kali didn’t say anything about the ultimatum?” Michael pressed.
Gabe’s expression turned sad. “She saluted and then turned on her heel and left. I haven’t seen her much since.”
“Fuck, Gabe.”
“Yeah, so tell me it’s too early to get shit-faced.”
Michael stood up and squared his shoulders. Looking down, he took the tumbler out of Gabe’s hand. “It’s too early to get shit-faced. Go take a shower. Get dressed. Then come to the kitchen. You have half an hour. And don’t bitch to me about not being a Sub. I don’t care. You’re lower ranked, and you’ll obey or we’ll discuss this in a very different position.”
“Lower ranked? I’m directly below you, asshole!”
“That’s right. Below. So get you ass in gear. The clock is ticking.” Michael took the bourbon bottle with him when he left.
Gabe kicked the wall and then groaned at the pain in his toe.
He made it to the kitchen, scrubbed clean, with four minutes to spare.
It was quite the tableau in the Winchester kitchen as wolves who had resentments festering in their guts all converged at once and studiously refused to address any of their elephants. Gabe watched Michael who watched Dean who watched Cas who watched Patience who watched Sarah who watched Adam.
Adam ate quietly with his head down.
Cas broke the uncomfortable pall. “How are you settling in, alpha?”
Patience raised their head, startled at the faux-warmth in a room that felt chilled.
“Fine, sir,” they replied shortly.
He studied them for a moment. Dean saw his eyes narrow as he engaged Patience. Cas was in testing-the-hull mode, poking at Patience’s limits to find a weakness. Although it didn’t take a rocket (or research) scientist to know where Patience’s weakness was.
“We need to address your Claims of the other Pack Omegas,” Castiel stated. “Every alpha in this Pack must hold claim over every Omega. You have some assignments to complete.”
“Yes, sir. I understand. I am at your disposal unless you would prefer I handle it without a formal schedule. Do you need to witness the act or shall I manage the Claiming in private?”
Cas sat up straighter and raised his chin. “I do not know you well enough yet, young alpha, to allow you unfettered access to my Omegas without supervision.”
Patience caught the barbed lob smoothly and tossed it back. “Naturally. Then, as I said, I am at your disposal. We should maybe try to schedule things before the spring semester starts. My Mating leave ends after the holidays.”
Cas nodded stiffly with his soup spoon halfway to his mouth, dripping into his bowl. “Agreed. Michael manages the schedule. Please arrange it through him. And do you foresee any conflicts?”
Patience raised their brows. “Conflicts? In Claiming Pack Omegas? You mean from my sexual orientation? No, sir. Claiming is a Secondary process. My Primary orientation will not interfere.”
“Cas, come on,” Dean moaned. “Is this necessary? We’re eating.”
Patience waved him off. “If it’s my orientation you’re interested in, Alpha, you could just ask.”
Cas set his spoon down in his bowl and wiped his mouth. “Don’t be absurd,” Cas said shortly. “And don’t be rude. You’ve jumped quite inappropriately to the wrong conclusion. I do not require you to announce your orientation to the Pack over lunch. However, not every alpha is familiar or comfortable with the process.”
Patience paused with her eyes glued to his, then she said, “I’m familiar with the process. … … Sir.”
Castiel nodded regally, unfazed by her spikiness. “Excellent. Please see Michael about the details and feel free to ask any questions you may have.”
Dean caught Patience’s quick, seemingly unintentional, glance to Cas’ left, toward Sarah. Michael touched his knee beneath the table, catching Dean’s attention. Dean leaned close to his mate.
“Give me the nod,” Michael whispered, “and I’ll find out what they’re thinking. The tension around here is thick enough to walk on. Sarah’s likely to get roasted.”
Dean frowned and whispered back, “Don’t press ‘em, man. Patience is learning a brand-new lifestyle. Too much too fast is going to set her wolf off.”
Michael snorted out loud. “That’s rich, Dean. Too much too fast? You can’t be serious. Do you even remember what you put me through?”
Dean sighed and pulled Michael in with a hold at the back of his neck. He rested his forehead against Michael’s. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean that. Just be careful. Please. Go talk to Patience. Find out what they’re thinking.”
Michael scoffed softly as he pulled away. “Any idiot can tell what they’re thinking, Dean. Question is, what might they be open to accepting?”
Dean glanced toward the head of the table and then leaned closer to his mate. “Michael, I know you love Sarah. I know you’re protective of Adam. And I also know you want to not be the only Dom in the Pack who had a third wheel crammed in between you and your mate. But please be careful.”
Michael touched Dean’s cheek. “Trust me, alpha. Have a little faith, would you?”
Dean’s eyes spoke three little words. He turned his head to kiss Michael’s palm.
Just then, Kali appeared in the archway. She offered a quick apology to the Alpha for intruding on a lunch she meant not to stay for. “Gabe,” she said with somber expression. “We need to talk.”
Color drained from Gabriel’s face. He stared at his wife, unmoving until Castiel’s “You’re excused, Omega,” startled him. He lumbered to his feet, clutching a linen napkin, and followed Kali as she left the kitchen. Behind them, the Pack watched silently.
April stifled a sob.
“Mama, what’s the matter?” Emma asked, pulling up onto her knees and leaning over her plate to look down the row.
April sniffled. “Aunt Kali and Uncle Gabe are sad, sweetheart. Let’s be extra gentle with them for a while.”
“Sad cause why?” Jimmy asked.
“Sometimes it’s hard to be in love with someone. Sometimes things hurt between you, even when no one has done anything bad. Let’s all just be as kind as we can while they find a way through the hurting.”
“What?” Gabe demanded when they reached their suite. “My lunch is half-finished. It’ll be cold now.”
“Forget about your lunch, Gabriel! I can’t do this anymore. We have to talk about it!”
“Can’t do this anymore?” asked Gabe, gobsmacked. “Do what, exactly? We haven’t been doing much of anything for months! You skulked off to your shop in a snit at the mere mention of Claiming me! So, what the fuck are you talking about—can’t do this?”
“Skulked off…?” Kali stared at her husband. “Gabe, you practically threw me out.”
“What?” asked Gabe in astonishment. “No I didn’t. I’m Omega, Kali, I can’t throw you anywhere.”
Kali closed her eyes and took a long, deliberate, calming breath. “Listen. I know you don’t want a Claim. I know you resent every alpha who’s bent you over. And the last thing I want is to add to that. But you love your life here, Gabe. I’m not going to be the reason you lose that. I’m not going to stand between you and your brother. You need him more than you need me. If he says we have to do this thing to stay together, then I’m okay with being the one who leaves. I’ve thought a lot about it. No, don’t interrupt me. Just listen. I’ve thought a lot about this, and the truth is, if the only options for us to be together is to cut and run from the Pack or plant a bond on you that you can’t stomach, neither of those options are okay with me.”
Gabriel gaped at her. “The fuck are you talking about?” he asked in dismay.
“I’ll go,” she told him with tears blurring her vision. “I’m okay with it, Gabe. All I care about is you. So I’m okay with it. I really am. I’m lucky to have had all this, to have had you. For as long as it lasted. But I should have known it couldn’t last.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” Gabe said. “Who the hell asked you to fucking sacrifice yourself? Do they give out medals for the deepest cut these days?”
Kali scoffed. “I’m not going to stick around in this Pack without you!”
“Who’s asking you to?!” Gabe shouted. “What a frikken tantrum, you big baby! You don’t get what you want…marry the Omega without paying for him…and you throw your toys around and storm out! Grow up, Kali! Sometimes things aren’t free! Sometimes you have to do the responsible fucking thing like a fucking adult! I’m sorry your fucking wolf got too heavy to carry, but I’m not the one who was born a Dominant!”
“Without paying for him? You’re not for sale, Gabriel, and I am not your owner! We made that abundantly clear right at the start! Do you have any idea how hard it is for a Dominant to resist Claiming her own husband! Fucking hell, Gabe, I’ve practically had to tie myself up to keep you unbound!”
“You poor, poor baby!” Gabe spat back. “Why did you marry me if you find me so repulsive?”
Kali startled back as if slapped. She stared at him. “Repulsive?” she said quietly. “Gabriel, you’re everything to me. Everything.”
Gabe’s chest heaved. He snarled, ready to parry her next stroke and return it. His mouth was already opening on a retort, but it simply froze there, slack. He glowered, sifting through the words for the barb he was sure she had hidden inside them. When he couldn’t find one, he cocked his head and asked, “Then why didn’t you ever take me?”
Kali mirrored his stance. Confused. “Because you asked me not to.”
“Asked? … No I didn’t.”
Kali’s brows climbed her forehead. “Are you kidding me? More than half of our conversations before we tied the knot were about how very much you considered me Claiming you as anathema. Gabe, I’ve had to tie my wolf in knots to keep her from tying a chain to your navel. But I can’t do it anymore. So I’m asking you to let me go before I do something to you that I can’t take back.”
Gabe stepped aggressively closer with his finger raised between them. “Are you telling me?” he asked, “that all this time you thought I didn’t want your Claim?”
Kali scoffed. “Thought? Gabe, you told me so explicitly! Are you telling me now that you do?”
“Oh, no, no, no! This is not on me, beta!” Gabe retorted. “I said I didn’t need an owner. I never said you couldn’t set me a Claim! Hell, I don’t even know how you prevented it. Or why you would wanna try!”
“What the hell is the difference between being owned and being Claimed?!” Kali shouted. “Can you tell me? Are you saying that all this time we had a damned miscommunication on a matter of semantics??”
All the air had been sucked from the room. Their feet no longer stood on firm ground. Nothing felt solid. Nothing felt real.
“Gabriel?”
Gabe blinked. Stunned, he said, “They’re not the same thing.”
Kali calmed herself. She took a careful step backward. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what you want.”
“I…” he seemed utterly outside of himself. He seemed flummoxed.
“Gabriel, are you okay?”
“I… I’m in love with you.”
“Yes,” Kali confirmed. “That much I know.” Her eyes sparkled suddenly, with hope. “But what do you want?”
“I want you,” Gabe replied.
“Damnit, Gabriel! Our ultimatum ends in two days! What do you want!”
“The fuck do you think I want? I’m your Omega, Kali! Do you want me to be or not?”
“Damn you, I’m not doing a thing unless you say it! Say it, Gabriel! Fucking say it, Omega!” She stepped right back up in his space.
“Why do you still want me when I can’t give you pups?” Gabe asked with a watery sniffle. “You’re gonna be childless on account of me.”
She touched his face. “I’ll take you, Gabriel Allen, however I can get you. We’re childless together, you moron. It’s no more your fault than it is mine. I’m content with having a house full of pups, whether they’re ours or not. Now. Before I rip your face off out of frustration.” She spoke with slow, deliberate words. “Tell me what you fucking want.”
He blinked up at her, shorter than his wife by a couple of inches that had never felt important before now, when he needed every ounce of dignity he could summon.
“Would you please Claim me, ma’am?”
Kali’s breath hitched. Her voice broke as she said yes. “I swear, Gabriel, if I go gray before my sixties, I’m blaming you.” She wrapped her arms around him. He was warm against her body. She had been so cold for months. She held him as her wolf stepped forward.
“Oh,” Gabe said against her collarbone. “We’re doing this now? On an empty stomach?”
“I think you’ll live,” she told him. She unbuttoned his shirt and shoved it backward off his shoulders.
“But…lunch.”
“You’re not going to starve, Omega,” she said as she unfastened his pants. “Drop it all. Step out. Lie down over my lap.”
“What? A spanking? Why?”
“Because we’re killing your sense of guilt before we do anything else.”
Gabe stood there, ridiculous with his pants and underwear at his ankles, quibbling. “What sense of guilt? I mean, I’m good. We can skip this part.”
“I’m not above counting at you the way Cas does,” Kali said.
Gabe studied her long enough to know for sure that she meant business. He grumbled as he kicked off his pants and shoes. With one sock still in place, he closed the distance between them and lay down across her lap on the bed.
She swatted him thoroughly, bringing a grimace to his face as his fists closed around the duvet.
“None of this is your fault, Omega. And if you don’t get that message the first time, we’ll do this again and again until you do.”
Gabriel chewed on the contradiction that rose up in his throat. Of course it was his fault. Hadn’t he thrown a wall-eyed hissy over her desire to fit him with a leash when a leash was exactly what he needed? What he wanted? He could protest all day long that he hadn’t understood what she meant by the word owner. But what was the truth?
He grunted at a flurry of hard smacks.
Did he understand? If he thought about it, he still didn’t want to be owned. He didn’t want to be anyone’s property. He didn’t want to be expected to kowtow, to bow and simper and serve. But that wasn’t what a Claim was about. A Claim wasn’t slavery. It was a bracing hand on his shoulder that steadied him when his designation made him feel like a drunken klutz balancing on one leg. Claims offered stability. They gave. They didn’t take.
Kali picked up the speed of her strokes, and Gabe curled tightly over her.
No, this wasn’t his fault. What he had said no to was slavery. That wasn’t a statement he was taking back. But they hadn’t meant the same thing, although neither of them knew that. Did he bear some responsibility for not digging to the heart of such a touchy subject at the outset?
“OUCH!”
Maybe. But by that logic, so did Kali.
She slowed. She stopped.
She ran a calm hand over his back.
“Who’s fault is it, Gabriel?” she asked.
Gabe sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Ours, Ma’am,” he answered. “It’s both of ours.”
“That’s right.” She eased him up. “That’s exactly right. Gabe, I’m sorry. If I hadn’t been avoiding you this last month maybe we could have resolved it sooner.” She held him by the hands to keep him from rubbing the sting out.
“Yeah, well, I never reached out to you either, so it’s not just your mess. There’s two of us in this marriage.
Kali smiled. “I don’t think we need to do anything different from our usual scenes. My wolf has wanted to Claim you from the start. If I take off the leash, she’ll see to the rest.”
“Uh, how do you want me?”
Kali chuckled. “You’re the one who chooses the positions.”
“Well, okay. But, I mean, this one is more your dance than mine.”
“Tell me what to do, Gabe,” Kali said heavily. Her nostrils flared.
Gabe’s pupils dilated in response. He could feel her wolf engage. “I, uh, I need to hear that word, Kali. I need you to control me.”
She kissed his brow and nodded. “Go get on the bed for me.”
He obeyed. Slowly.
Gabriel carried inside him a powerful submissive strain. But unlike a Sub’s, it only showed itself in moments of great trust and only through his Secondary. Gabe’s wolf was a hedonist like his brother, but it wasn’t Submissive. It was his Omega that craved a leash, not his wolf.
Gabe fell to all fours on the bed, presenting himself to be Claimed.
“No, Omega. On your back.”
“Please, Kali…”
“NO! I said lie down!”
As he rolled over, his burgeoning erection proved Kali had struck the right tone. She knew he was counting how many times she said that word. She knew he would record it in his journal.
She didn’t know what his record was, but she thought perhaps she could break it.
“No, pull your knees up. Not like that, no. Hold onto your legs. Get your legs out wide. No, Omega, open your eyes and look at me.”
Gabe’s eyes glowed golden.
Kali wore a simple skirt, which allowed her to mount her husband without disrobing. She swung her leg across his body and slid into practiced place.
“No more miscommunications,” she told him as she set up a rocking rhythm. “No more assumptions. I’m taking the reins, and you’ll answer to me. Do you hear me, Omega? Castiel may be your Alpha. But I am your wife. I am your Dominant!” She leaned forward and clutched his shoulders for leverage as she slammed her body down against his. The slapping sounded wet and obscene. “I’ll have no more of this bullshit from you! No more, Gabriel!”
“Kali!”
“NO!”
He shuddered down his entire length. He clutched her hips as if he feared falling if he didn’t hold tightly enough. “I want…” he tried in a small voice.
“No,” she cut him off. “It’s not about what you want. Not anymore. No.” She lifted up on her knees until only the tip of his cock remained to guide her back to her seat. Gabriel sobbed. She slammed back down, squeezing his shoulders in an impossibly tight grip—tight enough to spark the faintest glimmer of a mating-scar nerve response.
Gabriel’s breath caught. His knees came up behind Kali, tumbling her into his chest. His eyes flew wide. One hand at her waist and one at her wrist where she gripped his nearly invisible mating-scar, he opened his mouth to protest.
“No,” she whispered. She switched to a rotating grind in his lap. Staying seated with his knees up was a challenge. He wasn’t long enough to reach easily. She angled her hips and pressed backward. “No, Gabriel. I claim you, Omega. I claim all of you! Let go of me. Put your hands on my waist and keep them there.”
Her eyes flashed. Gabe whimpered. He removed his hand from her wrist and took a shaky hold of her waist as she continued to ride him. Gabe had seen this side of his wife many times. They both enjoyed the unfettered freedom of a good scene. But he had never felt this from her, this barbed imperiousness. This implacability.
Gabriel felt no desire to challenge her, even as her thumb pressed tingles out of his Mating scar. Marina’s teeth marks had faded until they could only be seen by applying pressure to his shoulder. You would have to know where to press to feel them at all. It was no accident that Kali’s grip triggered the faint vestige of a bond long lost.
“You can’t lose her again, Gabe. Stop holding on so tightly. I’m not taking her away from you.”
Gabriel nodded and closed his eyes.
Kali sat back up and made a deliberate study of finding every angle their bodies could come pleasurably together. She chuckled at the myriad expressions that flashed across Gabriel’s face. Her grip on his shoulders didn’t ease. The trace of pleasure from his old scar added its voice to the rising tide that lifted Gabe’s feet from the earth and sent him floating.
“Mmm,” he hummed.
“Look at me,” Kali instructed after several minutes of mutual bliss.
His eyes opened slowly, like a babe awaking. He lay flat, boneless except for the all-important bone that stood erect right in the middle, cleaving them together.
“You belong to me, Omega,” she told him. “I’ll play with your wolf, and I’ll adore your front-brain. But I own your Secondary. No more dodging. No more pretense. No more self-pity.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now get up on your knees and fuck me like you mean it.”
The claim struck with a deep, sonorous clang like an old church bell tolling from ten miles away. It came on the heels of twenty minutes of thrusting, grinding, red-faced shouting, sweat dripping, huffed breaths through slack jaws and eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. It came like the fulfillment of a promise left dangling so long it had nearly lost all hope. It came on the heels of Kali’s shouted “NO” as she drove the point home with her hips.
“Nooo,” Gabe echoed, relishing the word. He grabbed hold of the bond the moment it solidified, and he clung to it like a rescue buoy.
“You’re insufferable,” Kali said affectionately once her husband lay calm in her arms. She kissed his temple.
“I blame it on poor parenting,” he quipped back sleepily.
Michael’s eyes followed Sarah’s path from the kitchen to the back stairs after lunch, but his body followed Patience. Dean and Cas had work to do. April was conferring with colleagues by video conference. Kate bundled the pups into warm outerwear for a romp in the backyard.
Patience wandered, seemingly at random, into the formal living room. Michael scratched his chin—growing a beard was an itchy business—cast a furtive glance around and followed her.
“Just because your honeymoon is over,” he said, catching her by surprise, “doesn’t mean you have to keep your distance from your mate.”
Patience seemed surprised by Michael’s opener. “Oh. Um. I didn’t think I was. Adam and I spend time together.” She frowned. It came out almost as a question.
“In private, maybe,” Michael said airily. He sat down and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “In public, you’re both distanced. Do you want to explain what that’s about?”
Patience’s eyes narrowed as she weighed him. “Are you challenging me, Omega?” She seemed stunned at his Moxy.
Michael laughed. “Call it looking out for a wolf below me in rank,” he answered. “Why is Adam getting a cold shoulder in Pack spaces? Is he being punished?”
Patience sighed. “He’s not being punished. He hasn’t done anything wrong. And it’s not distance.”
Michael tongued the inside of his cheek then said acerbically, “Right. Your wolf is entirely comfortable living in a house with your mate’s ex-girlfriend.”
“I trust him,” Patience said coolly. She drew herself up and appeared to be holding onto her Primary by her fingernails. She huffed in frustration and faced the window, watching the pups tumble over each other in their haste to reach the open lawn.
Michael studied her for a moment, every muscle in her body wound tightly like a coiled spring, and he found himself sympathetic. He dropped the confrontational tone. “I know you do.”
His soothing words brought her head around.
He went on. “I know how hard it is to leave your birth Pack for a world that is completely foreign. I know it feels like stepping into another universe. You only know one way to go about things, and even if they never worked the way you were promised they would, it’s still all you know. I know that talking directly with an Omega feels wrong to you. But I’m not another species, Patience. And neither is Adam. You were lied to about that. We’re just people. We’re your family now. We want to know you—all of you, not just your alpha, not just your wolf.”
Patience took a seat opposite Michael. He was pleased to see her remain in her front-brain. He could tell it was a challenge for her to maintain.
“It is different,” she agreed. “Back home, you would be restricted to the Omega wing when you’re not in your mate’s quarters. You and I would only see each other on formal occasions under strict guidelines. Even if you and I were twins, once we Presented, we live in separate spaces. This is a big adjustment.”
Michael buried his disgust for the moment. “Surely, you had Omega friends at school. Clubs? Soccer teams?”
She nodded. “Sometimes, sure. But mine is a sizable Pack, and it has resources. It runs its own grade schools. There are retail stores within the grounds. We didn’t leave the Pack compound sometimes but two or three times a year. Michael, I didn’t go to a public school until high school, and that was almost as segregated. Most of the Packs in the region are arranged the same way, and that bleeds over into the schools. Omegas have their own wing.”
“But you chose to go out of state for college,” he prompted. The why was unsaid. The demand for an explanation was not subtle.
Patience popped into their alpha at Michael’s perceived impertinence but then cooled off again with a deep breath. “I wanted to see for myself what the wider world was like. Alpha couldn’t isolate us completely. We still had TV and internet and news outlets. The ACRI and Keller made bold statements that seemed to fly in the face of everything I had been taught. I needed to weigh it for myself. I thought I would be able to go back home and proclaim that the big wide world was a travesty. I genuinely thought my upbringing would prove stronger.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out that way for you,” Michael told her.
Patience shot him a disbelieving look.
Michael was quick to explain. “I’m not sorry you had to walk away from terrible teachings. That’s a good thing. It’s growth. I’m just sorry that to do that, you had to lose your family.”
Patience looked away. “They beat him,” she said flatly. “When he didn’t know how to behave like the other Omegas, when he tried to get back to my room during training hours, they beat him. I had no idea. Michael, I’ve lived there my whole life, and I had no idea that Omegas were beaten into compliance. I thought they behaved the way they did because it came naturally to them, always nude, always kneeling, always amenable if an alpha needed a receptable. I thought that’s what Omegas are. All they are.”
Michael held her eye until she looked away again. He wasn’t about to offer her salvation. “Privileged ignorance of an unjust system is no excuse,” he said coldly. His wolf’s frostiness and a trace of his Voice brought Patience’s head whipping around.
“I’m twenty years old, Omega,” he said, matching frostiness. “I got out as soon as I could, ready to challenge everything I’d been taught about our designations. Was I supposed to go up against the Alpha when I was sixteen? Twelve? What would have been early enough for you?”
Michael sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I know. I’m not angry with you, Patience, not really. The whole system that oppresses everybody in one way or another just hits Omegas so much harder than everyone else, and it pisses me off.”
Patience cocked his head, bemused. Michael was Omega, but as he spoke, so calm, so confident, he did so exclusively through his wolf. Patience hadn’t known Omegas could do that—skirt right over their Secondaries and situate their consciousness in only their Tertiaries. Michael outpowered Patience from their Tertiaries. Michael outranked him. It was a paradigm-shifting sensation to listen to the man speak.
“…could fight this battle for centuries and not make any headway as long as Packs like yours are allowed to…” Michael stopped, catching on that Patience wasn’t listening. “What?” he asked.
Patience shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just…”
“It’s the O/D thing, isn’t it?” Michael asked, annoyed. “I should be asking your permission to speak?”
Patience huffed. “I just need some time to adjust, that’s all. It’s not you.”
“Damned straight it’s not me,” he retorted. “God, the number of times someone’s looked at me like that. It always comes right before they tell me to remember my place. My place!”
“I’m sorry, Michael. You’re right. But I’m learning. You said it took you a while when you got here too, to adjust. Don’t I deserve a little time to learn the ropes?”
She looked impossibly young. Michael only had six years on her, but the chasm between twenty and twenty-six was a gaping maw. At Patience’s age, Michael had been rage-filled and self-destructive. He’d been out of control. And while he too had left home searching for a wider perspective, he hadn’t done it on a suspicion that the wider world might offer equity he couldn’t find at home so much as he did it as a means of finding a stage from whence to broadcast his superiority.
He sighed and shrugged. He stood up and approached the windows so he could check on his pups. They were playing freeze tag, appropriate in the frosty air, he thought.
“Can I ask you something?” Patience asked. “Something personal?”
Michael measured the feel of the air behind him. Patience had shifted into their alpha. Did they do that to reclaim the high ground? Michael matched the shift, dropping easily into his Omega as he toed backward to face them.
“Shoot,” he said.
“When you and Dean Mated, he was already engaged, wasn’t he?” they asked, watching Michael’s face carefully. But if they were looking for subtle hints, they were disappointed. There was nothing subtle about Michael’s scoff.
“Yup.” Nor was there anything subtle about the resentment in his tone.
Patience frowned. “You were angry about that?”
“Were?” Michael challenged the tense. “Sure. Were, are, will be. He’s my True-Mate, alpha, and he shoved a fiancé down my throat the moment we met. I’m not ever going to stop being mad about that.”
“That’s not how it looks from the outside.”
Michael nodded. “I know. And it’s not that simple either. I don’t resent their marriage. I don’t have a festering wound inside me. I’m angry. That’s all. It’s there. But it doesn’t control me. It doesn’t poison me. We’re all so much more than our emotions. I’m honest with my family about what I feel, and they give me space and support to help me understand and manage it. Being angry doesn’t mean our relationship is in danger.”
Patience studied him for a moment and then raised their brows and exhaled powerfully through their nose. “If you say so.”
Michael sat on the edge of the chair leaning on his knees. “No one is going to force you to accept a three-way union with Sarah,” he said.
“God, Michael,” she said, sliding down a level in designations and matching his position at the edge of her chair. “I’m scared to death here. I don’t know what to do. All I can think about is making Adam happy. What do I do if Sarah is what’s going to make him happy? I can feel how much he loves her. Michael, I can feel it! But how do I…?” she cut off. Her eyes looked lost. “What do I do?”
“What do you want to do?” Michael asked calmly.
“I don’t even know her,” Patience said.
Michael chuckled. “Then it’s going to be hard to decide yes or no on a polycule. I mean, you can just say no. You’re alpha, after all. That’s your decision. But if you’re wondering if you have it in you to allow Adam to love someone else romantically, you’re kind of going to need to know the person.”
“I keep going over it and over it,” Patience mused, almost to herself. “If our roles were reversed, Adam would have access to both of us without needing to ask permission. Alphas do it all the time. In my birth Pack, Alpha’s Mated to his Omega. But he’s also with an alpha and a beta. He has three intimates. It’s been that way my whole life. Everyone knows. It’s not a secret. It doesn’t seem strange. But then, he never married the others, and James, his mate, is his primary.”
“James?” Michael asked. “Your father?”
Patience shook her head. “No, Alpha is my father, biologically. James is his Omega mate—James Frampton. I was raised by my mother’s mate, James Turner. He’s my dad.”
“He’s your dad, but you go by Frampton?” Michael watched her eyes. She looked sad.
“I would’ve been proud to be a Turner, but Alpha insists his offspring keep his name.”
Michael snorted. “Naturally. He gets the fun of conception, and the clout of a million pups carrying his name, but none of the daily upbringing responsibility. That’s some serious powerplay right there.”
Patience sighed with a soft chuckle. “I suppose. You know, before I came here, I never imagined a Pack Alpha might play with his own pups. The first time I saw Castiel on his knees giving the pups a bath I almost fell over in shock.”
Michael laughed outright. “I’ll bet. And don’t think you’re going to hand your own pups off to the Omegas to raise either. Get used to the idea of changing diapers.”
Patience fell into quiet reflection. “Adam and Sarah could never have pups together. He needed me for that.”
“Meh,” Michael disagreed. “Sperm aren’t that hard to come by…for either of them.”
“That’s not true,” Patience countered. “Neither of them would get approved if they have a cross-species relationship on their application. Either they lie or they get rejected.”
“Or they get their Pack Alpha to take care of it for them,” Michael added a third option.
“Would he?” Patience seemed shocked. “Really?”
Michael shrugged. “Probably. There’s not much Cas wouldn’t do for either of them if it’s what they really wanted.” He caught Patience’s eyes and made sure they knew what he was saying.
“Is he powerful enough to give them what they want?” they asked.
“So far,” Michael said.
Patience processed that for a moment then leaned in. “Is there any viable model going forward where they don’t end up married?”
Michael laughed heartily at that question, thumped his hands down on the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet. “That depends on you, doesn’t it, Patience?”
She caught his sleeve as he walked by and drew him to a stop. “Michael if you and April had been an item before you both Mated, would you have been able to keep her? Please, I’m doing my best here, but it just feels impossible.”
“It doesn’t matter what might’ve happened for me. You could come up with a million hypotheticals, and none of them would help because they’re not this one. The thing is none of that matters. You’re alpha, Patience. You can do whatever you want. You get to do whatever you want. So all you have to figure out is what you want and what you can live with.”
Patience nodded then scoffed as a Pirates of the Caribbean reference echoed inside his head.
“What a man can do and what a man can’t do, eh?”
Michael took his hand and held it. “What you want matters here, Patience.”
Patience looked away as tears filled their eyes. “It doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel like I have a choice in the end.”
“You know,” Michael knelt before them on one knee. “When Pete told me she wanted to get married I felt just like that. It didn’t matter what I might want, not really. In the end, she was always going to get what she wanted. She always does.”
“And now you’re married,” Patience pointed out. “This isn’t convincing me our situations are different.”
“Turned out, I wasn’t opposed to being married at all. I was opposed to an equitable marriage. I was so afraid of turning into my pop, so afraid of getting forced into something I didn’t want, that I was blind to what I actually wanted. Figuring out what you want is a matter of paring back the unnecessary crap and peeling off what you don’t want until all you’re left with is the core of what you do.”
“I want Adam! That’s all I want!” they declared loudly as if Michael wasn’t listening.
“Then why not let them be together? If all you want is Adam, having Sarah in the picture doesn’t take him away. In fact, nothing is going to take him away from you now short of death. So, kiddo, you’ve got what you say you want.”
Their eyes flashed red at the familiarity. But Michael didn’t balk. Alphas no longer intimidated Michael. “Keep paring and peeling, alpha,” he told her. He stood back up and turned to go. “Figure out what you really want. You might surprise all of us, yourself included. It might look very different from what you’re imagining your options are right now. Don’t rush it. You’ve got time. None of us are going anywhere.”
“Michael,” her call pulled him to a stop in the doorway. “Thank you. You’ve been very…welcoming.”
He nodded. “We’re a small Pack,” he said. “But we have the resources to support you. No one in this Pack is petty or vindictive. Well, Jess can be petty, and I’ve been known to be vindictive. And Cas is…okay, scratch that. But we’re going to help you fit in here. You can bond with Cain if you need the perspective of an alpha. Kali, Sam, and I are always available to talk when you need a Dominant’s viewpoint. Kate and Pete are your age if you need some girlfriends. That is…I don’t mean girlfriends…that is…”
Patience laughed. “I’m not going to steal your girl, Michael.”
“Which begs the question, actually,” he prompted. “Which way do you swing?”
“You’re wondering if each of my genders has its own orientation?” she asked with one brow quirked upward.
“Not really,” Michael replied. “Secondaries and Tertiaries don’t much get hung up on gender at all. They tend to be of all orientations and none.”
“Pansexual, then?” she asked.
“Mmm, in a manner of speaking, more that they simply fall outside the confines of orientation altogether. What I’m asking is how you self-identify.” Michael leaned against the door jamb with his shoulder, completely at ease.
Patience looked quite the opposite.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Your Pack back home only accounted for one orientation, didn’t they?” he asked. “Jesus, it’s 2021!” Then he stood up straight and slipped into a furious wolf. “What did they make you do?” he asked, on edge and one step short of enraged. “What did they make you do?!” he repeated.
“Nothing! I’m pan, Michael!” she panted in her fervor to appease him in all haste. Where the hell had that come from?
He calmed. “You’re pan. And the others? Those whose orientations can’t pass? They get to opt out of Pack rituals?”
“No one does Pack rituals from their front-brains anyway,” Patience said quietly.
“No forced Matings? No gifts or favors? Does anyone in your Pack face coercion to couple against their orientation?” Michael’s fierce golden eyes sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, bright off the flagstones outside.
“Probably,” Patience said with her face lowered. “I never gave it much thought.” It was an admission.
“Because it didn’t affect you,” Michael said with a sour twist, disgusted that no matter how much progress they made, it always felt like they were moving backward.
“Because I was a kid,” Patience replied. “I didn’t even know I wasn’t straight until I went to college. I assumed everyone had the same kinds of attractions I did but that they only paired up in heterosexual couples because it was the moral thing to do, because scripture tells us so.”
Michael gaped, dumbfounded. “You’re joking.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“You knew you were trans,” he pointed out.
She shrugged.
“What about same-sex True-Mates?” he asked in bafflement.
“I dunno, I guess I thought they just kept things Secondary or Tertiary.”
“Forever?”
She shrugged again. Michael rolled his eyes spectacularly. “The mental gymnastics,” he said, looking for a way to express himself. “…Wow,” was what he came up with. “You didn’t know anyone, the whole twenty years you lived with that Pack, who was willing to admit to not being straight.” Michael blinked and waited for an answer.
She didn’t have one.
“It’s a cult, not a Pack, is what it is,” Michael told her angrily. “And you took Adam there and expected he’d be safe!”
“It didn’t look to me then how it looks now,” she said with a sad flop of her arms that might have been headed toward forming another shrug.
“You have a crap risk-assessment meter, sister,” he told her. “You’re terrified of letting him have a girlfriend who he can’t Mate, can’t bond with, and can’t impregnate, but you got no problem turning him over to a medieval cult that beats him and breaks his ribs!”
Patience’s eyes hit the ground in front of her. She fidgeted under his furious eye. “I couldn’t act on what I didn’t know, Michael. But I know now. I do.” She grew stronger as she spoke. “I learned a phrase in my ethics class: When you know better, do better. I know now. I can make better choices now. Will you help me? Will you help me figure this out? Michael, you more than anyone else here understand what I’m going through. Please help me.”
Michael’s head cycled rapidly through the stages of acceptance. Why did these things always seem to land in his lap? Why not Cain’s? Why not Sam’s? Maybe he could foist Patience off on Pete. Pete needed a project to keep her out of trouble.
Michael wilted and nodded. “I’ll help however I can.”
Portia trotted in, sniffed Michael’s foot, sniffed Patience’s, then trotted out again.
“They’re outside in the backyard!” Michael hollered down the hall to her.
Patience laughed.
“What?”
“You talk to the dog?”
Michael looked abashed for a moment. “I mean, obviously.”
The verdict against the Nikolai Syndicate came down early in March. Powerful, high-end attorneys drew the proceedings out until it felt like it was doomed to end in a mistrial, if indeed it were allowed to end at all. But ultimately, the prosecution prevailed, Nikolai was sentenced to life without parole on multiple counts. More importantly, as their leader was hauled off to prison, inside information about their laundering operations and offshore accounts allowed authorities to seize their assets, leaving them nothing with which to rebuild.
Castiel sat in Bobby’s office with Dean on the floor at his feet, sprawled lazily after a long day. Bobby relayed everything he knew from his insiders, outlining the Syndicate’s utter annihilation as a cleanup crew took the last crumbs of information and swept up the dregs.
As of tonight, the streets were safer.
“That’s two,” said Cas coldly. He stood and pulled Dean to his feet. To Bobby he said, “Three to go. We’re not finished until the syndicates are all worm food and the underground that trades in Omegas with them.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Bobby replied. He picked up his phone and began to dial.
Notes:
I missed y'all so much. I'm so glad to finally have something new to post. I hope not to go so long between posted chapters again, but I can't promise. Just know, I'm not going to abandon it. I may have to plod, but these idiots are far too important to me to jump ship. (LOL, Cas' marine metaphors are contagious)
Love all y'all.
Chapter 40: 2022 (Yep, the whole year)
Summary:
Cas needs to get his shit together, like, right tf now. Adam & Patience have some crap to talk about.
Notes:
Warnings right up front on this Chapter:
Warning for mentions of pedophilia (there is no pedophilia in this story). Warning for exploitation of a minor (not the Winchester pups). Warning for transphobic language.This format is a little different than what I usually post. It's the entire year in one chapter. Then we're moving on from here, and it'll settle back to my usual snail's pace.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday, January 8, 2022
Cas’ growl came from deep inside his chest. Kate and Adam both dropped instinctively into a crouch as the Alpha stormed into the TV room in full unleashed fettle, eyes glowing red, body stiff and unyielding. The three-year-old pups startled from their game. They rose as one and backed up several steps toward the corner of the room in a clump. Michael joined Dean in forming a barrier between the fuming Alpha and his children, but the fear in Michael’s eyes showed that doing so went against every instinct.
Dean took hold of his mate’s hand to steady him.
“Alpha?” Dean asked. He licked his lips. “You’re scaring the pups, man. Let’s bring it down a bit. Take a breath. Maybe stop growling.”
Every eye in the room stayed trained on Castiel. He cast his glare around the room to take them all in but seemed not truly to be seeing them at all except to acknowledge that none of them were the source of his ire.
“Where is she?” he asked, clearly livid.
“Daddy?” Kat piped from behind Dean and Michael. Her tiny voice trembled.
“It’s okay, Kat,” Dean assured her without taking his eyes off Cas. “Papa’s not mad at you pups.”
“Answer me!” Cas spat.
“She’s not home right now, Alpha,” Michael blurted in response to the compulsion lacing his Alpha’s tone. “She went up to the university admin office, Sir. Something to do with registration.”
“Goddamnit!” Castiel exclaimed. He pivoted on his heel and threw his phone at the wall behind him where it shattered and left an ugly scar.
“Whoa!” Dean surged forward with his hands up as the rest of them cowered. Broken plastic pieces scattered across the floor. “Stop it, Castiel! Get a hold of yourself for fuck’s sake!”
“She’s defied me again, Dean!”
“Then address it with her, Alpha. Don’t take it out on us!” Now was not the time to correct Castiel’s pronouns even if it wasn’t likely Patience’s Primary designation who had defied the Alpha. They would fix the pronouns after reeling Cas’ wolf back in.
A vicious snarl curled Castiel’s lip as he focused on Dean, approaching slowly. Cas was practically foaming at the mouth. “She thinks she can keep testing me. She’s about to find out how I respond to being tested.” His words crackled with cold certainty and promise.
Dean shivered. “I know, Alpha. But she’s not here right now, and those of us who are here don’t deserve your rage. You have to rein yourself in. Look at me, sir.” Dean kept placating hands up, kept his stance ready to pivot. He maintained a cool green iris. Shifting into a heightened, red-eyed aspect would only exacerbate the situation. Dean stepped forward in front of Michael. He stood on the cusp of stepping into his alpha, but for now faced his husband from his Primary, hoping to reach Cas’ human side. “You’re mad at Patience, not Adam, not Michael or Kate. Not your pups. Man, look at me. Calm down. Please.”
Adam quivered in his crouch with his arms over his head and whimpered in powerless defense of his mate, “Please don’t hurt him, Sir. He didn’t mean to defy you. I swear.” Hiding behind the sofa, Kate shot him a frightened look and shook her head to shut him up. Drawing the Alpha’s attention right now was a terrible idea.
But Castiel didn’t seem to have registered Adam’s plea.
“Dean…”
“I know.” Dean heard Michael gathering the pups behind him. But Cas was blocking the exit, and Cas’ wolf was rabid behind the Alpha’s eyes, completely off-leash. A break for the door right now might spark his chase reflex. Dean needed to get him out of the room. “Come across the hall with me so we can talk in private. You can shout at me all you want. We’ll figure an appropriate response. Together. Sir.”
Cas glared at him for several moments before flicking his eyes over Dean’s shoulder and seeming for the first time to register his family cowering. Between one breath and the next, he blinked his eyes back from red. His nostrils stayed flared though, and his wolf remained fuming.
He swallowed.
“I…”
“I know, Sir,” Dean filled in for him, knowing Cas had no idea how to excuse himself. “Come talk?” Dean eased toward the door and proffered a hand, no compulsion—Submissives don’t make demands, after all—merely a request for Cas to join him.
Cas ran a tired hand through his hair, eyed the shattered remnants of his cell phone and then said to the room, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. That was…inexcusable. Please forgive me.”
“Michael’s got them, Sir,” Dean told him. “Let’s you and me go talk. We can straighten things out with them in a bit.” He widened his fingers, reaching for Cas to take his hand, and he whispered, “Come on.”
Dean could feel Michael’s glare on the back of his head. [Classic], Dean heard his own wolf snark inside his head, [Cas loses his shit, and my mate’s going to take it out on me.] Damnit, Michael, get a grip.
They weren’t even a full week past their mutual H/R cycle, but Michael was off somehow. He was irritable and snappish and impatient despite being Released and hormonally Balanced. An echo began to take form within Dean’s mind. He recognized it immediately. All it took these days was a seed irritation in either of the mates’ heads, and a swirling downhill snowball began careering into a full blizzard.
Dean stomped on the echo with both feet until he felt himself disentangle from Michael’s annoyance, and he dimmed his Mating-bond.
Another thing to take care of. Later.
This first.
Cas sighed and slipped a hand into Dean’s. Both palms were sweaty. Dean squeezed as he led the way across the hall to the formal gallery. Cas closed the door behind them.
“Fuck me,” Cas sighed with his hands in his hair. “I can’t seem to control my temper anymore. I don’t believe I did that.”
Dean watched his husband descend into pacing and observed, “Actually, it’s a wonder you’re maintaining as much control as you are what with everything you’re dealing with up in your grapefruit there.” There was no judgment in Dean’s voice, and that caught Cas by surprise. He stopped in his circuit and cocked his head.
“What I’m dealing with?”
Dean was going to have to spell it out. “This isn’t about Patience, Castiel. It’s about you. You get that, right? It’s not going to settle until you take a whip to one of us—me, April, hell you could even take a swing at Cain if you want. Doesn’t really matter which Sub you target; it’s about you as a Dom. Your imbalance is throwing everyone in the Pack off.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned on Cas, and he rolled his eyes. “No, Dean. I’m not going to take my aggression out on my Subs. We’ve been over this. I’ll think of another way. Leave it be.”
“Sure,” said Dean. “Great. Except you’re not thinking of another way. You’re just festering, man! This has been going on for months, getting worse. And you lose your grip often enough now that the pups are starting to be afraid of you!”
“I can’t scene through this,” Cas told him adamantly.
“Well, your way isn’t working either. Either you scene through it or you lay waste to half your Pack for minor infringements that deserve no more than an OTK or a telling off. I’m not seeing another option here.”
Dean braved a few steps forward to stand directly before him. “Patience isn’t defying you, Castiel. She’s—they’re—untangling a fucked-up upbringing and trying to figure out what’s real and what’s brainwashing. The truth is your grand scheme to give Sarah a husband isn’t working out the way you planned, and you’re taking it out on Patience and everyone else in this house! But at the heart of it all, it has nothing to do with them. It’s you. You’re still wrestling your own wolf. He’s pissed you left them to the authorities—whoever sent my attackers. No one touches your precious Subs and walks away. Right? This isn’t about Patience at all, is it? It’s unsustainable, Cas. You need to find a way to let it out because it’s eating you alive! I’m standing right here. Offering. I can take it; you know I can.”
Castiel’s eyes flashed red, but only for a moment.
“How many apologies are you going to owe before you do something about it?” Dean asked. “This is…this is exactly what Pack is for! This is the heart of what we’re doing with our research. Individuals can’t just muscle their way through imbalances like this. You need help. We both know what you need, and I’m standing right here.”
Cas sank down onto one of the padded black leather benches in the middle of the room. “Maybe Gabe is right,” he said. “Maybe I should take an axe into the trees behind the house and take a few of them down.” His hair stuck up in every direction giving him the look of a madman.
Dean grimaced. “I don’t think picking up an axe is the best course for you right now. All due respect. Sir.”
Cas glanced up at him, unimpressed with his flippancy. But Dean merely winked and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I need my mate,” Cas said toward the floor.
Dean scoffed. “You won’t unleash on me, but you think you can work through it with her? How does that make sense?”
“Not to scene with,” Cas explained tiredly. “I just…I miss her. Having her gone while she’s carrying my pups feels…I’m coming out of my skin. It’s making everything worse. My instincts want me to go fetch her home and keep her here.”
“I know,” Dean said. He dropped to one knee. “Cas, I know. But like I said, this is what Pack is for. You promised her a chance to go where her career takes her, and right now that’s away from home. You have to keep that promise, even if it makes you itch all over. So, tell me what other options we have?”
Cas shook his head mutely, still staring at the floor.
Dean set his palms on his Alpha’s knees. “I know you want to protect me. I know you hate using me as a punching bag. But things are getting out of hand. What if that phone you launched over there had shattered and hit one of your pups? What if I hadn’t been there to divert your attention? Would you have hit Michael? Would you have lost it on Adam? Man, you’re white knuckling… You can’t keep going like this. I’ve seen you calmly juggle six Subs at a time—all in full brat tantrum and never break a sweat—and then stroll down the hall and lead a staff meeting where everyone at the table was at everyone else’s throat. And we all walk away feeling like we won.”
From the doorway, Sarah’s meek voice broke in before Cas could reply. “Alpha? Do you have a minute?”
“Not now, beta,” said Dean.
“Come in, Sarah,” said Cas.
Dean huffed in frustration and rose to his feet.
“It’s the research excursion, sir,” she said, closing the door behind her. “We’ve hit a snag.”
“This can wait,” Dean growled at her, but Cas stood and held his hand up to forestall Dean.
“What is it?”
Sarah swallowed and darted a glance at Dean but spoke to Cas. “Their Pack Alpha is insisting we have an Alpha in our party. He won’t let us enter his territory without one.”
“You have an alpha,” Cas said with a frown. He’d selected the research group himself to make the most out of the chance to study an Aboriginal Pack firsthand. The group was diverse. “You have two, in fact.”
“No, not an alpha, sir. An Alpha. They’re insisting upon a Pack Alpha as part of the party.”
“Why?” Dean asked.
Sarah explained, “Apparently, he’s not willing to take responsibility for the safety of the team when he knows nothing about our ways. He said he expects to have his hands full managing his own Pack, keeping them safe from us. It’s our responsibility to provide someone to watch our backs and enforce our rules, not his.”
“He wants a babysitter?” Dean asked in dismay.
“He’s not budging, Dean. Benny tried everything.”
Dean scoffed. “Guess Benny’s going camping then.”
Cas scratched the back of his head. “Benny can’t leave right now. He’s overseeing the new adolescent curriculum.”
“Jo’s overseeing the curriculum,” Dean broke in.
“Jo just went out on bedrest as of yesterday,” Sarah told him.
“She what?” Dean dug his phone out of his pocket to check for missed messages and shoot her a text.
“If you were still onsite, we could free Benny up,” Sarah told Dean while he frowned at his phone, thumbs flying across the keyboard. “But as it stands, Benny can’t go.”
“Uriel…” Dean started.
“No,” Cas said. “Uriel is in charge of the contract trainees.”
Dean caught the thoughtful look on his husband’s face and raised a finger to stop Cas in his tracks. “No way. Not happening. You’re in no condition…”
“It’s the only viable alternative,” Cas told him firmly.
“It’s not viable, Cas! You’re in the middle of a fall here.”
“Dominants don’t fall, Dean!”
“Keep telling yourself that!”
Full-on shouting at the Alpha was never a good idea. Shouting at him while he was this unbalanced was nigh on suicidal.
Cas pulled up short and cut off his own retort. He closed his eyes with his lips pressed tightly together and seemed to count in his head as he drew in a deep breath and then let it out at a measured pace. “We’re not having this conversation over and over again.”
“All evidence to the contrary,” said Dean acerbically.
Sarah stood rooted and silent, looking back and forth between the two men.
“I’m between projects right now, Dean. I can carve out time to accompany Sarah’s team as long as we manage the length of the trip. And while I’m there…”
“This is a bad idea,” Dean interrupted.
Cas growled at the impertinence which only served to highlight the extent to which Dean wasn’t being a brat. But it pulled Dean up short anyway. He snapped his mouth shut.
“If you would be so kind as to let me finish my sentence?” Cas asked with mock patience.
“Of course, Sir,” Dean replied, no mockery in his tone.
Sarah seemed fascinated by their interplay, by Dean’s ability to jump from one headspace to another in a single blink. It felt like he was several people at once, one outraged, one deferential, and one logical.
Cas turned to her. “Is that everything?” he asked.
“Um. Yes, that’s all of it.”
“Would you please excuse us to discuss this then?”
It was a dismissal, not a request. Sarah glanced at Dean with a frown, clearly wondering why he merited a place in the conversation and she didn’t. It was her project, after all, studying how Packs in the wild ushered their youth through from Tertiary Presentation to full sexual maturity. But Cas didn’t offer her an in to object. He ushered her to the door and closed it behind her, leaving her flummoxed on the other side of the frosted glass panel.
“Sometimes, when life deals us conundrums, The Universe comes along with an elegant solution,” Cas said, turning to face Dean.
“No Aboriginal Pack Alpha is going to let you work out your aggression on his Pack, Cas.” Dean followed him with his eyes as Cas strolled past to stand before the French doors to the balcony, surveying the back lawn, his domain. “Besides, why are they fodder and I’m not?” Dean’s hurt eked through.
“Because I love you,” Cas said simply without turning around.
“You’re serious about this.”
“I am. Aboriginals are culturally conditioned to accept aggression from their Tops. They will respond to me instinctively without the constraints of modern society or interpersonal connections to dampen the flow of dynamic interactions.”
Dean snorted, and Cas looked round. “You wanted an alternative,” Cas said.
“No, that was you wanting an alternative. Me, I want to go downstairs with you, strip naked, and crawl out two days later dehydrated and bleeding.” Dean didn’t back up when Cas shouldered past him to seek his bench again.
Cas chuckled as he sat. “Nevertheless.”
“And what if I said it feels like infidelity if you go into the wild to pick fights with total strangers?” Dean asked him, glowering.
Cas seemed startled. “Does it?”
Dean frowned and kicked at a scuff mark on the shiny hardwood floor.
“Dean?”
“You’re the Alpha, Cas. I follow your lead. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to fight for my own until you say enough.”
“I’m asking for your opinion, Dean. I want your input. If you feel vulnerable or hurt… I have to take that into account. Are you hurt? Or are you envious? Because if it’s the latter, I won’t indulge you. But if it’s the former… You’re my husband. I won’t commit infidelity.”
“What if someone dies?” Dean asked instead of answering the question. He knew he couldn’t make Cas believe he saw it as cheating.
“No one will die.”
“What if you derail Sarah’s project?”
“I won’t.” Cas remained seated. He took Dean by the wrist and tugged until Dean straddled his lap. He wrapped his hands around Dean’s hips and kneaded.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Dean whispered.
“Then we try something else,” Cas whispered back seeking Dean’s lips with his own.
“I wish I could be there to watch,” Dean murmured, breaking the kiss before starting another right back up again. The connection between them fell effortlessly into place. The argument faded against the truth of their mutual adoration and trust. Dean rolled his hips and hissed when he made contact. He was shocked at his own quick acceptance, but the fact was no matter what Dean said, Alpha was going to commit to this thing now that his wolf had latched onto the idea.
Dean could fight it, but he wouldn’t win. And as he rolled his hips, the fight went completely out of him.
“Does that mean you’re okay with it?” Cas asked, helping guide the thrum of Dean’s hips in a rotation that sparked them both.
“You know,” Dean posed between kisses, “there are serious…[kiss]…ethical…[kiss]…questions to consider…[kiss]…in using wild packs to…[kiss]…placate your wolf.”
“Are there?” Cas asked. He slid one hand higher up Dean’s back and the other down the back of his jeans. He leaned in closer and worried a stinging bruise into the side of Dean’s throat with his teeth. “How so?”
“I mean,” Dean whimpered. He planted his knees on the bench to either side of Cas’ hips and jostled forward until he could grind into Cas’ groin with intention. “Do they just become a release valve for those of us with societal constraints?” Dean craned his head and offered the full expanse of his throat to his Alpha. Cas hummed and took the offer lustily. He rolled his own hips in answer to Dean’s. Dean’s breath hitched when Cas’ tongue darted into the notch at his throat. But he didn’t lose the thread of his argument. “What’s in it for them?”
“Mmm,” Cas licked a line up to Dean’s ear and whuffed wetly behind it, taking in Dean’s signature scent. “They get access to an Alpha stronger than their own.” He didn’t seem to mean that ironically.
Dean laughed. “Still as conceited as ever,” he whined. His jeans were becoming uncomfortable.
“I love you, Dean,” Cas told him. He leaned back enough to find Dean’s eyes. “Thank you.”
“For keeping you humble?”
“For being the love of my life.”
Dean growled. “Goddamnit, Cas, talk dirty to me!”
Dean clambered to his feet and made short work of his jeans. He didn’t even bother to kick both feet free. Already barefoot, he left tangled fabric hanging from one leg and straddled the flat bench lengthwise with his chest flat and his legs straight so that his presented ass offered a lure no Dominant could resist. He looked over his shoulder. “You wanna move this thing along or keep melting sap all over me?”
Cas swatted him stiffly on the back of his thigh. “You think I can’t do both?” he jibed. Cas lowered his face and licked up Dean’s perineum to the dimpled end of his ass-crack. “I’m in love with you, Winchester,” he whispered. He kissed wet and sloppy over Dean’s hole. “You’re the love of my life and you always will be.” With pointed tongue, he drove deep into the tight muscle. He squeezed Dean’s hips and tugged him backward onto his face. He could feel the stubble scratch through his bond-link. “I’m so grateful for you, my love. You keep me humble, but you also lift me up.” Cas’ face was wet now with his own slobber as he salivated into his ministrations.
Dean whimpered. “Need you, man. I need you to fuck me.”
“Shhh.”
Cas sat up and shoved Dean’s henley down his back to his shoulders. He ran tickly fingers across the expanse of Dean’s back to watch him shiver. Down around the curve of his glutes, down across the handprint on his thigh, down to the backs of his knees. Chill bumps followed in the wake of his fingertips.
“You’ve been so good for me, Pet.”
“Please, Alpha. I don’t need wooing; just fuck me.”
“So good for me.”
“Can you make it quick then?” Dean begged. He waggled his ass to draw Cas’ eyes and got another swat instead.
“You protected our pups and our Omegas when I lost myself. You drew me away from them and talked me down.” Cas kissed Dean’s spine, then set to worshipping every inch of skin he could reach with his mouth. His hands never stopped moving.
“You didn’t use your brats as a diversion, Pet. That may be a first. And you have resisted interfering between Michael and me other than when Michael needs your protection. You’re a model alpha, a model mate, a model husband, a model father, a brilliant scientist.” Cas pressed his body over Dean’s so he could whisper right in Dean’s ear. “A model lover. I will never deserve you, Winchester. You’re miles out of my league.”
“Sir, can we leave the pups out of this? My brats are foaming at the mouth in here. You want to prevent an upsurge, we’re gonna have stop throwing them easy lobs and pick up the pace.”
Cas laughed. He kissed and licked and nibbled back down Dean’s back. Hard nips to Dean’s backside earned a full flinch. “How prepped are you, Pet? Do you need my fingers?”
“Need some lube,” Dean told him in a husky voice. “I’m still stretched from this morning, I think.”
“You think?” Cas spit on Dean’s hole and eased both thumbs in to test the give.
“Pretty sure,” Dean said with a grimace.
Cas hummed at the stretch and leaned in to roll his tongue along the elastic rim between his thumbs. Sitting up again, he mused, “I didn’t bring lube with me in my haste to find Patience and rip into them.”
Dean thumped his forehead onto the bench. “Jarvis,” he called to the home automation app, “Text Michael.”
“What do you want to text?” a disembodied male voice sounded from the intercom.
“Bring lube to the gallery,” Dean enunciated as Cas chuckled.
Jarvis repeated the instruction and confirmed sending.
“We have a staff, Dean,” Cas said playfully with another bite to his flank that had him squirming. “Poor Michael.”
“Hierarchies don’t maintain themselves,” Dean quipped back. “Michael needs some humility that being my gopher might give him. He’s been short on the deference lately.”
“That’s my fault,” Cas said. “I’m throwing the whole Pack off balance.”
Dean said, “That’s my point exactly. But it doesn’t really matter. He’s Omega. He needs a reminder. I’m just saying, if you want to keep it from happening once I set his head and his ass back in their respective places again, we gotta get you some help.”
It didn’t take long.
Cas busied himself rimming Dean’s ass, enjoying himself at Dean’s squirmy expense. Michael slammed the door open, bouncing it off the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the plaster. “Seriously, Dean?”
“You bring the goods?” Dean asked, looking round with glassy eyes.
“Your fucking lube, your highness,” Michael sneered. He tossed a bottle at Dean’s head. Cas snatched it out of the air, thanked Michael and dismissed him.
“I’m not patching another hole in the wall, Omega!” Dean shouted after the door slammed. “And it’s Your Majesty!”
He hissed on the last word as Cas breached him before he got it all out. “Goddamnit!”
“You said you were sufficiently prepped, Pet. I took you at your word.” Cas spoke through clenched teeth. Straddling the bench on his feet, he braced himself with palms flat on the small of Dean’s back, sunk in all the way to his knot, quivering. His head fell back, eyes closed, just feeling everything there was to feel. “I’m so in love with you,” he whispered. “So fucking in love…”
“That’s great, sir. But can you move now please?”
Cas drew back slowly. The slide of flesh eased by synthetic slick sent electric shocks up both their spines to dance behind their eyes. Reversing course, he buried himself to his knot again. This time, he didn’t stop. He ground down hard and insistent, popping his knot past the ring of firm muscle and earning a startled, “Oh!” from Dean.
Dean gripped the bench with both hands and pressed back, bearing down.
“That’s it,” Cas encouraged. “Push back into me.”
“Again,” Dean grunted.
Cas chuckled, eased his knot free and pulled out to the tip. His knot would fill quickly as his arousal quickened, but he took his time fucking in slowly, grinding in hard until a firm pop marked his knot sinking in past Dean’s rim, and then carefully easing it out again.
“Hand on your cock, Pet,” he instructed. “Match my pace. Grip your knot when I sink into you. Let’s do this together.”
“Okay,” Dean huffed breathlessly. He let his chest and cheek take his weight. He fumbled a little getting situated and then matched Cas’ rhythm. “So good, Sir.”
“Feels so good, Dean,” Cas agreed. “Open up to me. Open your body.” He fucked in, pop, out again. In. “Open your mind. Reach through and stroke me through my bond. I’m going to Claim you very slowly. I’m going to draw this out.”
POP.
“Unnnggghhhh!”
“That’s it, alpha. You belong to me, don’t you?”
“Yessir!”
“I belong to you,” Cas confirmed on his next thrust. “I’m every bit as much yours as you are mine.”
POP!
“Aaaarrrgghh!”
“I love this ass so damn much, Dean Michael! You were made for me. For my knot!” Cas fucked him at a gradually quickening pace until they both broke out in a heated sweat, until both panted shallowly.
Dean lost track of time.
“Please, Alpha!”
Cas pressed hard. The knot was fully engorged, as big as it was going to get, and it pressed against Dean’s rim, stuck. Cas re-set his feet, regripped Dean’s hips, snarled, pressed, growled, and slipped it in.
Dean panted below him, squeezing his own knot as tightly in his fist as he could.
“Hold still, Pet,” Cas commanded. “Open yourself as wide as you can.” Cas’ thighs quivered. Every muscle in his body stood taut as he focused all of his intention outward, down the link between them, out into the liminal metaphysical space around them, willed with everything he had, and sent a Claim into Dean’s mind.
They both gasped. Shuddered.
Cas came.
Dean whined, grinding backward in tiny pulses.
“Stroke yourself, Pet,” growled Castiel. “Come for me.”
Dean began to move his fist. Cas held supremely still as his Sub worked himself.
“Take it easy, love,” Cas crooned. “There’s no rush.”
Dean couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He felt outside of himself as if Cas’ Claim had sucked him clean out of his own body into the link between them. Dean wasn’t sure who guided the pace of his hand, but it felt perfect. It was slow enough to build tension at a measured pace, tight enough to keep the pleasure constantly rising. He flexed his other hand, letting go of the bench, locked his knees, and sighed when he came.
Cas groaned and spurted anew as Dean’s rim milked his knot.
They collapsed onto the bench together.
Cas began almost immediately to snore softly.
He draped boneless over Dean’s body.
“Dude! I’m going to need to breathe down here.”
Cas snorted and woke. “Ah, shit, sorry.”
“Sex invigorates you, huh?”
Cas pushed up to sitting, still tied. “Perhaps you’re rubbing off on me.”
“Or maybe you’re showing your age,” Dean teased.
Cas pinched his ass.
Dean pressed up on his arms. He winced at the sticky mess beneath him. Without consciously coordinating between them, they used Dean’s henley to scrub the bench and Dean’s belly mostly free of the mess and eased Dean into Cas’ lap so they could ride the knot out upright, sitting astraddle the bench.
“Go on, Alpha, say it one more time,” Dean urged. “I know you want to.”
“I love you, Dean,” Cas said. He nipped Dean’s earlobe.
“So predictable,” Dean murmured. After a moment, he said softly, “I love you too.”
A pregnant pause.
“Are you comfortable?”
“You Claimed me, Alpha, go in and see for yourself.”
Cas propped his chin over Dean’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around the man from behind, content.
Another lengthy pause.
“Did you know Jo was having gestational problems?” Dean asked.
“No, I hadn’t heard. It’s working its way up the chain as we speak, no doubt. I’m so far removed now from the day-to-day that I miss a great deal. Still, someone should have notified me. She’s a Director, after all. I’ll call Billie this afternoon. I trust you’ll contact Jo?”
“She’s probably already replied to my text. I threatened her with every mad emoji there is.”
They fell quiet after that. Cas ran firm hands up and down Dean’s thighs, enjoying the freshness of his new Claim and how vibrant the sensations were through the bond. Dean hummed in pleasure. Cas’ touch was like no other touch he had ever experienced. It never failed to spark something ineffable in his body.
Cas broke the silence again. “What did you and Michael have planned for tonight?”
“We’re going to do a Secondary reset,” Dean told him with his eyes closed. “Michael’s Omega is begging for a restatement of our boundaries. He needs his alpha mate.”
“It’s also possible that his reaction to being threatened by his Pack Alpha not an hour ago is what’s responsible for his peevishness.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said. “We need this. Our Secondaries need this. He’s missing April too. It’s got him on edge. If I don’t act, he’s gonna pull something drastic.”
Cas didn’t respond in words. He acknowledged Dean’s authority over his mate through the shimmering bond-link between them.
“That was quite a trick you pulled there, Cas,” Dean remarked with a touch to the effervescent bond. “You’re getting good at that.”
“I haven’t mastered a Claim without sex yet,” Cas said. “But I’ve got the hang of setting it without aggression. Michael is a good teacher.”
They fell to a companionable silence again. Dean studied the portrait of Cas’ grandmother on the wall in front of him.
“You look like her,” he said. Cas followed his husband’s eyes and murmured agreement.
“I’ve been told.” He studied Dean’s neck and planted warm kisses on the marks he could reach.
“Gabe looks like your grandfather.”
“Emma is beginning to look a bit like Gabe,” Cas replied. “Don’t you think? Although I didn’t know my mother’s side well enough to be familiar with family traits. The triplets may have Leaven characteristics I don’t know how to spot.”
Dean rolled forward on the balls of his feet and tugged, but Cas’ knot held him tight.
“Ow, not yet,” Alpha groaned. He grabbed Dean’s hips and stilled him. Dean fell back against him and relaxed into Cas’ body.
“So, what did Patience do to piss you off this time?” Dean asked, looking round, looking up into Cas’ face. He felt out the touchy subject tentatively now that Castiel was out of his tantrum.
Cas said, “Patience has no business restricting their mate’s friendships, especially not within the Pack.”
“Patience told Adam to cut ties with Sarah?” Dean asked in surprise.
“The new Rule they gave Adam is that he’s not allowed to be alone with Sarah. Which is ridiculous. I told Patience there are limits to their authority. They knew a Rule like that wouldn’t be allowed to stand, but they made it anyway. Adam is distraught; he’s afraid to leave his room without an escort!”
Dean whistled. “Damn. So much for intrinsic True-Mate trust.”
“That Pack of theirs really did a number on their head, Dean. Patience has no instincts at all.”
“We’re going to have to take our time with this,” Dean advised. “It’s not going to get fixed overnight. And we’re going to have to resign ourselves to the fact that Adam may never be allowed a relationship with Sarah. We can’t control everything.”
Cas growled. “I’m not ready to concede yet. Sarah has done everything Patience asked of her. As has Adam for that matter. But I can feel the longing when he looks at her. I can smell it. He needs her Dean. I’m convinced Sarah needs him just as much.”
“Sarah’s with Sam and Jess now, man. Maybe the sting will ease with time and the problem will solve itself.”
Cas squirmed a little then lifted Dean to his feet with a gentle trickle of fluids as his knot slipped free. Dean found his feet and snatched his shirt off the ground. He reached between his legs and mopped his inner thighs then tossed the soiled shirt to Cas.
Cas said, “The problem never solved itself between you and me, not until we stopped fighting it.”
“Not every stymied couple is us though, Alpha. Our solution might work for some folks, but it won’t for everyone. There’s no way around that. If you push Patience on this, I guarantee they’ll fight you tooth and nail.”
“It’s killing me to see Sarah this miserable. I promised her better. I promised her a life free of her Primate societal, heteronormative constraints. And here she is, stuck living in the same house as the man she loves, open to sharing him with his mate, and no access to so much as try to make it work.” Cas threw the shirt to the floor and cast about to find his pants. “I wrenched Adam away from Benny’s Pack specifically to give him this!”
“Level with me,” Dean said. “Did you honestly expect this to work out for them?”
“I did, Dean. I could see it. I’m accustomed to trusting my visions.”
“You can’t win them all.”
“Yes, well, perhaps not.” Cas stepped into his slacks as Dean sat on the bench to untangle his jeans and re-dress himself, shirt discarded. “But as I said, I’m not ready to concede. I’m a long game kind of guy.”
“Don’t I know it,” Dean cheeked with a wink. “For today though, hold Patience’s feet to the fire on the defiance stuff. Make them roll that ridiculous Rule back. But don’t try to force something they aren’t okay with down their throat. You’re going to have to insist on Alpha-Dom classes, man. If they’ve got no instincts to fall back on, we’re playing with fire.”
“Wise advice, my love,” Cas agreed. He set the knuckle of his index finger beneath Dean’s chin and drew him in for a soft kiss.
Michael poked his head in, still angry. “Dean, answer your damn phone! Jo’s driving me crazy!”
Dean dug his phone out of his pocket and frowned at it. He realized he’d left the ringer off. He had five missed calls and countless texts.
“Take the call, Dean,” Cas told him. “And thank you. I feel much better.”
“Michael, hold up,” Dean said with his phone to his ear.
“What now?” the Omega asked. Cas slipped by him and disappeared round the far corner.
“I’m not waiting until tonight when you’re pushing me this hard. Head to your room and assume the position. I’ll be right there.”
Michael thought about arguing, but a hard look from his alpha changed his mind. He paled and slunk wordlessly from the doorway, leaving Dean alone under the glare of multiple of Castiel’s elder family members.
“Dean?”
“Joanna Beth! How do you not call me when your doc sends you to bed three months early? What the hell’s going on?”
Friday, January 28, 2022
Adam rested his head on his mate’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, soft sparkles danced to the tempo of his beating heart and the throbbing from his bleeding mating-scar. Patience held his face close to her throat where their scent was intense. It was a firm hold, an alpha hold. Adam floated on the aftershocks. He lifted a hand to run gentle fingertips across the newly opened wound on his shoulder and chuckled softly.
“Were you afraid it was fading?” he asked his mate. “Afraid I would forget who owns me?”
“Don’t be cheeky,” they chided. They caught up his hand and moved it away from the clotting wound. “Leave it alone.”
Adam shifted from verbal communication to intra-bond. He rolled into them, wrapped his arms around their waist and rifled through their tetchy emotions. “I didn’t mean to touch a raw nerve, alpha. You know I love you.”
“I know.”
A shift within the bond, then she kissed his brow and laid her cheek against the top of his head. Her fingers glided across his back in a barely-there caress that made him shiver. Her touch felt electric and soothing. Perhaps now was not the time to spoil a soft moment. The mates seemed not to have many of those somehow. Their schedules rarely aligned, and they hadn’t yet unveiled the secret of why The Universe paired them together. They seemed to be feeling one another out still, even months after Mating.
But Adam was growing tired of pussyfooting around the very real, very present roadblocks marring their potential intimacy. He wanted a True-Mate, and he didn’t feel he had one. Not yet. Not as long as her walls remained impenetrable.
The age difference was one thing. Adam wasn’t simply older, he was miles more experienced, more attuned with the world and all its ugliness. Patience had a quiet, solemn reserve about her and a stubborn streak that made even Dean roll his eyes. But she was also naïve. Too, she carried her Pack-imposed shame right up front where it got in the way of everything.
Adam was slowly learning how to goad her into dropping her masks, but that only worked so far when they were alone. It only really worked when Patience could slip into his wolf. The first time Adam called his wolf Daddy ignited a spark that didn’t burn out for three days. It felt almost like a Rut cycle as Patience sloughed off years of sexual repression in one sweaty go.
Adam had called in sick for two days.
But then the fever cooled, her backlog slaked, and she calmed back into quiet, reflective reserve.
She didn’t want to talk about it.
Adam shifted against her, making sure his cock didn’t go unnoticed at her thigh, feeling out her headspace.
Her.
He noticed he was gendering her as her Front-brain. Somehow, his subconscious always knew which designation fronted his mate, and his internal thought patterns adjusted seamlessly. Although, in truth, her alpha didn’t care how it was gendered. Only her wolf really protested being thought feminine.
The hand at his back slid down to still his hips, stopping the post-coital rolling that matched his aftershocks and quelling his attempts to remind her physically that he was at her disposal.
“Spoilsport,” Adam muttered into her collarbone.
She pinched his ass.
Hard.
Perhaps she meant it to be playful, but Adam wasn’t in the mood to be reprimanded for trying to connect with his mate. He sat up, scooted to the edge, and left the bed altogether. Naked, he collected their scattered clothing and dumped the pile into a hamper inside the bathroom. He turned the showerhead on without looking back, without acknowledging the growing gulf between them, tested the temperature with his hand, and rounded out of her sight toward the toilet to relieve himself.
Patience hoisted herself to sit against the headboard and sighed heavily.
He could feel her frustration in his head, but he was growing tired of being the one to make concessions, to talk her around.
They seemed to get nothing but the sex right so far. Neither knew how to bridge the divide that appeared every time words were required to communicate.
Adam let her stew.
He showered efficiently, dressed in soft sleep pants and an old t-shirt, left their bedroom, and closed the door decisively behind him.
“Your shoulder is bleeding.”
Adam wheeled around to find Sarah behind him in the hallway with a steaming mug in her hands. Her bathrobe hung open, and her nipples showed clearly through her light pajama top. Adam touched the wound without trying to look at it.
“Uh. Right. Should’ve bandaged it, I guess.”
Sarah nodded and turned to go. Adam glanced at the closed door to his bedroom and took a step toward Sarah. She paused.
They stood immobile for several beats before Sarah’s face heated and she stammered. “Um, I should…Just wanted some tea… I’ll see you.”
“You leave in the morning for Manitoba?” he asked.
“Early,” she confirmed.
Adam nodded, unable to think of anything else to say.
After a moment, Sarah nodded too and disappeared behind her own door.
Adam huffed. He rubbed his face with both hands. Vigorously.
This was ridiculous. He threw the door to his bedroom open, catching Patience sitting morosely on the side of the bed, and he stormed through. They stared at Adam, startled into an alpha headspace as Adam slammed the door.
“Enough,” he stated. He crossed his arms over his chest, making a stand.
Patience stared at him as if salamanders were slithering out of his ears.
“Enough!” he repeated. “Go ahead and start a tally, alpha, because I’m going to break a few Rules right now, and you’re going to listen.”
Patience seemed to have no clue how to respond. They sat frozen and mute on the side of the bed, still nude.
Adam glowered. “First of all, I’m sick of being shut out. If you think you’re protecting me, I’m a grown-ass man, and I’m not afraid of you or your demons. I’m your goddamn mate, damnit, not your child. I don’t give a fuck what you’re hiding in there; I promise I’ve dealt with worse. I’ve run contract scenes for alpha murderers in prison, Patience. I think I can handle you.”
Her forehead furrowed in shock as her brows attempted to meet her hairline. “Why on earth would they send you into a prison?” they asked.
Adam shrugged. “Prisoners are less violent when they get a chance to blow off steam with an Ozzie a couple times a month. That’s not the point.”
“I’m not shielding myself to protect you,” they told Adam. “Truth is, I don’t even know I’m doing it most of the time. It’s probably a conditioned thing from years in a Pack where I had to hide everything.”
“I get that,” he said. He dropped to one knee before them. “And I’m trying to be patient. But you have to talk about it, or you’re never going to find the edges of this thing. It’ll eat us from the inside. You’re bottled up so tight I don’t even know what’s you and what’s roleplay and what’s been hammered into you. I don’t think you know either. But, alpha, I’m strangled here. I can’t move in any direction without feeling like I’m betraying you. I’m losing my own friends, my own interests…I’m losing myself to you. You have to give me something here!”
“Pushing me isn’t going to get you anywhere,” they told him with a chill in their tone. “I told you, I’m doing the best I can.”
“No, you’re not.” Adam’s nostrils flared. He knew he was stepping over the line. “You’re half-assing it, hoping I won’t notice that after every scene you get swallowed by shame and have to curl around yourself and lick your damn wounds. Goddamnit, alpha, you have nothing to be ashamed of except shutting me out and pushing me away! You’re not wrong for your kinks! You’re not wrong for taking care of me and wanting to hold me. It’s not wrong to get hard when you spank my ass. It’s not wrong to want to rock me on your lap like a child and fondle me as I fall asleep! Because I’m not a child, Patience! I’m an adult! You can’t hurt me like that! But you can hurt me by shutting down on me, by tying me to your hip and forbidding me from having a life of my own!”
Patience flushed, deeply embarrassed to hear him speak the words out loud.
“I need age-play from you,” Adam pressed, trying to recapture their eyes when they diverted their gaze. “But you tell yourself it’s your duty. That you’re only doing it because it’s what I need. Pretending it doesn’t fulfill you too. Don’t you get it? I need you to be my Daddy. And you need me to be your little boy. We fit together. There’s no shame in that.”
“You don’t understand,” Patience told him. “What they made me do. They made me. Back home, they made me tend to the little ones. They knew what my wolf is like, how his unnatural urges were there, always there. And they assigned me to the toddler room as a punishment. They tried to pound it out of me by surrounding me with pups.”
Adam studied them, the fear in their scent.
“Are you sexually attracted to pups, alpha?” he asked. His voice sounded dead still against the thumping of Patience’s heart that drowned out the natural hum of their Mating-bond.
Patience frowned and squirmed free, standing and putting some distance between them. Adam remained on his knees, giving them space.
“No, I don’t think so,” they said. “It’s muddled in my head. I’m not drawn to the pups. I’ve never felt like…touching them. It’s not them, Adam. It’s the…the…environment. I can’t explain it. It’s the feel of the dynamic.”
“You think you’re alone in that? Look around you, alpha. There’s a whole community here for you.” He watched his mate stumble their way through finding words to something buried so deep they had never looked directly at it before. He gave them space, waiting patiently. He could feel how hard this was for his alpha, and his heart went out to them.
Patience went on. “The soft lighting. The picture books. The cartoonish figures painted on the wall. All of it. Everything about the nursery turned me on. It was hell. To my mind it was like trying to raise pups in the middle of an orgy because they were always right there in their innocent safe space while my mind concocted arousal from the smell of baby powder.”
“Your Pack put you into that role on purpose?” Adam seethed quietly.
Patience laced their fingers behind their head and groaned. They pulled their elbows in to obscure their face. “Not in so many words. But the thing is, I couldn’t ask for a reassignment without explaining why. I tried. I told him my skills could best be used elsewhere. I’m a goddamned alpha, for fuck’s sake! Alphas don’t do childcare! But he refused a reassignment. I could tell he was trying to make me admit that being around cribs and playpens made me hot. God, what he would have done to me if I had said any of this out loud…”
Hot tears spilled from both eyes and scorched their cheeks.
Adam went to them. He wrapped his mate up in strong arms.
“Shh, you’re okay. Oh, my sweet alpha, it’s okay.”
Patience clung to him and sobbed.
“This has been so hard for you. Go ahead and cry. Let it out. I’m here.”
“I’m so ashamed of myself, Adam,” they confessed. “How can you look at me? How on earth can you love me?”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, sweet, sweet alpha. I’m not leaving you. We’re going to figure this out. It’s okay. I swear.”
“It’s not! This is anything but okay!”
“Patience, my alpha, don’t you get it? You’re not a pedophile. It’s just a Daddy kink. It’s my opposite. It’s how you express your wolf’s Dom nature. You’re not attracted to children, just the power imbalance. Believe me, I’m super familiar with that world, and I know the difference between a true pedo and a kink. You had no means of expressing your kinks back at home—your old home. So it came out when the environment triggered it. If you had adult playmates, you wouldn’t even have flinched to be around the nursery.”
“You don’t know that,” they insisted, pulling away.
“Don’t I? Have you felt aroused around our Pack pups here? Around their stuff? Do little shoes trigger you here the way they did in your birth Pack?”
A quick retort died on Patience’s tongue. They stared at Adam for a moment or two. He could feel them scanning recent memories, searching for that familiar twang of sensation at inappropriate times.
“No,” they said. And blinked. “No.”
“And why is that?” he asked, stepping into their space again.
They reached out to caress his cheek and smiled softly. “Because I have you.”
He whispered gruffly, nosing into their hair and scenting behind their ear. “And I am your very good boy.”
Patience chuckled. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” Adam agreed with a smirk. “So, listen, here’s what we do. We change rooms. This one’s too small for an alpha anyway. If you’re going to be number three in the Pack, you can’t live in a smaller room than Cain does. We take one of the big rooms on the end and we retrofit it. Turn it into a suite with a playroom—an age-play space complete with crib and rocking chair.”
Patience shook their head. “The only room open for that is right next to Sarah. I don’t want you that close to her.”
“Fuck Sarah! This isn’t about her! It’s about you and me. We can build a nursery inside our own suite. I’m certain Cas will approve the expense.”
“And what happens if we have pups?” Patience asked. “They just share the space with you? No way!”
“Crossing bridges, alpha. One thing at a time. There’s room in this house for us to make a baby nursery. Maybe this room right here could be ours for our little ones. They don’t ever have to see our playroom. We’ll keep it locked. We just have to compartmentalize. Sex-play and pup-rearing are totally different headspaces. And, baby, both of them are okay.” He tugged her to the bed and sat her down. He knelt before her and held her forearms.
She had slipped back into her front-brain, forlorn and hopeless.
“Your birth Pack did this to you, baby. They tied it all together in an unnatural way, and you believed them because you had no outlet to learn better. I’m telling you, you don’t have to be ashamed of who you are.”
She snorted. “You’d be singing a different tune if I was actually drawn to pups like that.”
He nodded. “Sure. But you’re not. I know you’re not. And if you were, we would get you help. Wolves have all kinds of psychological crap going on in their heads…”
“Pedophilia is more than psychological crap!” Patience interrupted.
Adam sighed. “Do you honestly believe you would be my True-Mate if you were a pedophile? Patience, we wouldn’t have Triggered at all! I can’t meet that need for you. There’s no way The Universe would feed my pups to you as fodder for abuse! It doesn’t work that way!”
Patience stared blankly over his shoulder. “I feel so…dirty after we play. I hate it.”
“But not while we play,” Adam added knowingly.
“No. Not while we play. I suppose it’s true that my bastard wolf has no shame.” She hung her head.
“We can help you work through this—the hangup, that is. Because until you’re comfortable embracing who you are, you’re going to be miserable and you’re going to make me miserable.”
Patience huffed unhappily. “I don’t mean for you to be miserable, Omega.” They rubbed their thumbs across his forearms. “Tell me something. Did you and Sarah ever engage in…age-play? Did she do that for you?”
Adam chuckled and blushed. “Yeah. A little. Mostly when I needed a Release. We tinged our spanking sessions with it.”
“Is that why you’re still drawn to her?” Patience forced themself to meet his eye.
But it was Adam’s turn to dodge. He fidgeted in place before his mate. Their bond vibrated uncomfortably. "I…uh…” He sighed and rolled his head back on his shoulders, then firmed. “No. I’m drawn to her because I love her. It’s deeper than sexual play, however kinky. It’s deeper than anything I’ve ever known until I Mated with you. But it’s not fading. You need to know that. It’s still there, still just as strong as ever.”
“Compartmentalized,” Patience added sourly.
Adam tried to think of a way through this that wasn’t quite so inescapably disloyal, but there wasn’t one short of dishonesty. And the horse was already out on that one.
“I guess.”
“Fantastic,” said Patience sarcastically. “Really, really great. Thank you.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, alpha. But I know where my loyalties belong, and that’s with you. Always with you. So if you say don’t, then I won’t.”
“She has a polycule!” Patience blurted.
“I know! What part of I won’t did you not just hear?”
“It hurts,” Patience told him as she lowered her energy again. “It hurts that I’m not enough for you.”
Adam bit his lower lip. He could feel her squirm inside their bond. She felt vulnerable and young and very much not alpha, not Dom. He caressed the tremulous, quivering line between them. “I’m never going to betray you,” he said.
“But you’ll be unhappy,” she muttered.
Adam tucked in close until they were breathing one another’s exhales, and he whispered, “No. Not unhappy. I love you, my mate. We’re going to make this work.”
Within their bond, Patience felt the honesty crystallizing around his entire soul, and she leaned in to rest her forehead against his.
“Let’s go take a look at this bigger room and talk to Alpha about turning it into a suite.”
“One bridge at a time,” Adam said. “There are Dom classes that will help you out with the headspace. You’ll get to meet the community too, and then you’ll understand it’s not sick to play this way. I’ll be right by your side. Just…please stop shutting me out.”
Patience clenched her jaw and closed her eyes for a moment. “All right,” she agreed with a tone of reluctance. “I’ll try.”
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Castiel awoke to the sound of shouting and cries of pain from beyond the wall of his log hut, and he groaned and tugged the goose-down pillow over his head, rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But it was no good. Out here in the wilderness, the Pack rose every single day before the sun. Like clockwork, they awoke and greeted the day with raucous rituals that broke through the deepest of slumbers. No one but the infirm was ever allowed to sleep in. Cas grunted unhappily and sat up. He massaged his lower back where the lumpy stuffed mattress hadn’t been up to the challenge of the kind of lumbar support Cas was accustomed to. His bare feet dug into the thick, warm bearskin rug laid across the plank floor. He wiggled his toes to get blood flowing and listened to the sounds from outside.
By this time tomorrow he would be home.
Someone outside was getting railed. And someone was getting thrashed. It seemed that every day started exactly the same way.
How did they find the energy?
Clearly though, they did. The log hut was small but cozy, well-maintained, and warm in the frigid winter. Across from Cas, Kelvin stood and stretched. Heavy dark circles beneath his eyes told Cas Kelvin hadn’t slept well either.
“Morning, Alpha,” the Omega mumbled before conscientiously straightening the blankets over his cot. “They’re back it again. Do they sleep at all?”
“I think they’re on rotation,” Cas grumbled. It came out far gruffer than he expected. His throat hurt, a victim of his shouting from the previous night. Feral roaring had a way of tearing into the lining of a man’s voice box. Cas scrubbed his face in his hands and ran his fingers up into his hair. He didn’t have a mirror, but he didn’t care especially whether his hair sat neatly or stuck up in wild abandon.
Dean wasn’t here to tease him about it.
Kelvin smirked and slipped his overcoat on, gathered his toiletries and a towel for a visit to the bathhouse. “Impressive,” was all the Omega said about Cas’ hair. Kelvin slipped out and pulled the door quickly closed to preserve the warmth in the little room. A cold wind swept in anyway. Cas shivered. On a pallet by the wall, the boy Aroniel shivered under his thick wool blanket. The Aboriginal Ozzie curled in tightly and tucked his face into the covers.
Cas knelt beside him and gently shook his shoulder. “Up you go, son. Let’s get it over with while it’s just us.”
Aroniel startled awake and cast the blanket off his naked body all in one motion as if ashamed of being caught sleeping. He rose to his knees and bowed his head.
“Alpha,” he breathed with reverence in accented English. “Please punish me.”
Cas grimaced. Somehow, he still hadn’t managed to communicate to the poor kid. It wasn’t punishment; it was simply Release. But the concept of corporal therapy went right over the Pack’s heads. Their culture allowed no concept of anything of the sort. The Omegas and the Subs alike were hard conditioned to accept blame for their own needs. They rolled at the drop of a hat.
It annoyed Cas no end. It set a negative controlling manipulative hierarchy into every interaction, far more strident than was truly necessary for their sanity or health.
Cas huffed and lifted the young man to standing with a grip under his arm, spun him to face the wall and let him catch himself with his hands.
“Feet wide,” Cas instructed. He didn’t need to nudge the Omega’s feet; the boy set them perfectly on Cas’ command. Aroniel pressed his hairless chest to the cool logs of the outer wall and turned his cheek to the wood.
“Stick your ass out,” Cas ordered.
Honestly, Cas didn’t need to say the words. The Omega was already presenting beautifully. Cas touched the back of the young man’s neck with his fingertips and watched a shudder run down his body.
So beautifully Submissive.
Their morning ritual had become routine. Granted, it was already routine to the Ozzie whose backside rounded so beautifully under Castiel’s hand. Aroniel had awoken to stinging swats every morning since the day he Presented Omega, as with all un-Mated Omegas here in the uncivilized wild. Cas had picked up the necessity to mete out pain unprovoked without blinking an eye. He was a visitor in their world.
Alpha status came with responsibilities.
When in Rome.
Cas retrieved a sanded wooden plank from the nail by the door and set to turning the young man’s ass bright red. His plaintive wails sank deep into Castiel’s psyche, spurring him to release the leash holding his wolf and really let the kid have it. Their Claim-bond quivered between them. Castiel’s eyes reddened. His chest heaved. A line of sweat traced from his temple to his chin.
And the boy screamed.
When Aroniel Released, Castiel stumbled in his footing, catching his arm as it drew back for another strike. He stuttered to a stop, breathless, and stood trembling in place for a few moments as he gathered himself back up.
“Good lad,” he said between heavy breaths. “You did so good…for me. Let’s get you…cleaned up…Get you…ready for your day.”
The boy nodded and sniffled. Cas helped him to stand. He wet a cloth in a basin of cold clean water beneath the only window, and he mopped Aroniel’s face. He kissed the boy’s brow and repeated, “Good boy,” until the kid managed a watery smile.
Cas sent the Omega out to fetch back breakfast before dressing himself in several layers of snug thermal clothing. He sat on his bed to tug boots onto his feet and then drifted softly in his head, thinking over the last week. It had been a culture shock, as always. But it had also served its purpose, ethically questionable though that was.
The Pack didn’t care that Cas had brought emotional baggage to their doorstep, looking to work his psychological frustrations out on their bodies. He was Alpha. It was his right. It was his privilege.
Aroniel couldn’t be older than seventeen, and he was sweet, charming, beguiling even. But he rolled too easily for Cas. There was no way Cas could convince his wolf to take the kid hard enough to relieve the logjam in his psyche. But Aroniel wasn’t the only young body in the village.
Alpha Joniel had assigned him to Cas on their arrival, offered the young Ozzie’s body up to Cas as is fitting for a visiting Pack Alpha, and Cas accepted the gift and the responsibility that came with it. To do otherwise would be a grievous insult.
Of course, Cas scented the young man before he touched him. Had the pup smelled anxious, frightened, or otherwise unwilling, Cas would have found an excuse not to accept the offer. But the kid was eager and responsive, lively, fun-loving, playful, and randy. His fresh scent spoke to Castiel’s designations clearly enough to alleviate any worry that he might not be a suitable candidate as a Pack offering. He was anything but unwilling.
If only he had more of a brat-streak.
But no.
Alpha Joniel had placed Aroniel’s hand in Cas’ and loudly declared his hope that the young Omega would be left the gift of life-blessing after the research party’s departure. Evidently, genetic diversity between the small wild Packs was maintained through small inter-Pack forays in which visiting dignitaries each had their own assigned un-Mated fertile youth to Claim and care for during their visit.
Pups born from those interactions were treasured, their mothers communally cared for.
That was a new finding on this trip. They hadn’t known there was a culture of cross-breeding between Packs. But it made sense. Each Pack was too small to be entirely self-sufficient for its own breeding needs to be sustainable. The inbreeding would have long since led to genetic problems.
At the greeting ceremony, prompted by their guide, Cas dutifully pointed out each member of his own party whose nature as a Top could support the responsibility of caring for an Omega. They all took the obligation seriously, honored at the extension of trust, and mindful to meet it with integrity. But they couldn’t fulfill the expectation, not fully.
Cas had awkwardly broken the news to Alpha Joniel that his research team was all on contraceptives. None of the Pack’s Omegas would be life-blessed on this particular visit. Joniel didn’t understand the point of bringing your most powerful alphas so far into the wilderness if they couldn’t even spread their seed, but he hadn’t withdrawn the gifts. Thus, each alpha and Dominant research team member gained an Omega shadow for the extent of the visit.
It was an awe-inspiring and unexpected honor, and Castiel came up empty at how he could possibly reciprocate other than to do his best to return Aroniel in prime condition. He loudly praised the Ozzie as often as he could. He spoke well of him to the Pack leaders. He made certain there were Pack members within earshot to overhear the best of the boy’s efforts, to hear how well he pleased the Alpha. Cas watched over the week as the Pack’s leadership began to smile softly and nod whenever Aroniel successfully completed another task for Cas.
The Ozzie’s status would rise from this assignment if Cas had anything to say about it.
“Everyone decent?” Kelvin asked as he peeked through the door into the cabin.
“We’re finished, Omega,” Cas told him gruffly. “Come in. Breakfast will be here soon.”
“It’s freezing out there.” Kelvin slammed the door behind him. “How do they cope in this cold year after year? You’d think they would migrate to a warmer climate.”
“You’ve said that every morning,” Cas pointed out. “And every morning I’ve reminded you that the Pack is limited by treaties and regulations outside of their control. Please let’s find something new to discuss.”
Kelvin mumbled under his breath, grumpy at having his attempt at small talk stymied. Cas aborted a kneejerk swat aimed toward the Omega’s backside. He managed to stop himself before he connected. Barely. Kelvin was a research scientist, not an Aboriginal, not Castiel’s home Pack. Cas was beginning to forget the boundary lines out here in the wilds where every instinctive impulse was free for open expression. His alpha and his wolf wanted him to make a statement to adjust Kelvin’s surly attitude.
Kelvin dropped his overcoat onto his bed and dug through his duffel for a reasonably clean change of clothes, oblivious to Castiel’s internal struggle.
Out here, Omegas were managed—regulated—within an inch of their lives. Kelvin’s presence had caused quite a stir, especially once it was made clear that he wasn’t on offer for a trade of services. They were shocked to learn Kelvin was free to meet his own needs and manage himself. Cas had taken the Omega into his own cabin simply to stop the astonished whispers. But he adamantly refused to allow the Pack to take ownership of Kelvin.
That’s not to say that the young researcher didn’t enjoy himself. Kelvin found ways to relish his stay. He proved popular with the Pack when he wasn’t working. But who he coupled with was his choice, not Castiel’s, and that puzzled the wild Pack. They didn’t understand Castiel’s boundaries, his limits.
The trouble was, as the days passed, Cas found himself sinking more and more into the culture of the Pack, forgetting who he was when at home. This world felt so intuitive. If he wasn’t careful, he could lose himself entirely to instinct and privilege.
They breakfasted in the cabin, Aroniel curled up at Cas’ feet, stroking his calf and simpering, Kelvin eating cross-legged on the floor. Then Cas excused himself. He donned his overcoat, left Aroniel behind so that Kelvin could continue to pick his brain Omega-to-Omega, and trudged through hard-packed snow to the village center to meet his research leads.
Sarah was there waiting for him.
“Alpha,” she said cheerfully. “How did it go? Did you get any sleep at all? There are rumors.”
“Indeed?” he asked. He raised a brow in her direction, unamused. “I’m certain you’re not engaged in rumormongering, beta. You know better than that.”
She laughed. “I think we’re a few steps beyond rumormongering at this point, sir. Literally everyone is talking.” She clearly hadn’t picked up on his churlishness enough to cool it with the teasing, so Cas stepped up the Dominant tone.
“Well, considering that certain specific someones have spoken oaths of obedience to me, I suggest that participating in spreading rumors might be unwise considering that my paddle arm is already warmed up this morning. When I tell you not to engage the rumors, I mean it.”
Sarah laughed again, oblivious. “Speaking of…where’s your shadow?”
Cas sighed and glanced back toward his cabin. “Aroniel is in interviews this morning with Kelvin. They’ve bonded well enough that I think inroads are finally possible.” She wasn’t going to be cowed this morning. She was enjoying the project too much. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Grab your gear. We’ve got a trek to make this morning. You’re with me.”
Sarah scrambled after him as he strode away to collect the rest of his team. “Cas, wait! You’re not even going to check up on them?”
Cas didn’t slow or turn back. He knew who Sarah meant. Last night had been a torrid frenzy of bestial abandon, and he had no doubt that his Claimants were going to need some recovery time before they made it to their feet again. But he hadn’t damaged them. Exhausted them, yes. Harmed them, no. Checking in on them without a summons from their Pack Tops would be seen as a sign of weakness. He’d had his say and then turned them over to their Pack to look after them.
Castiel stomped through a little-used path, heavy with fresh snow, and ignored Sarah huffing along behind him. The cold, crisp February air felt crystalline in his lungs. His vision seemed sharper. His sense of smell seemed almost preternatural with the slight breeze across the valley, speaking of a herd of elk over the rise and a cougar some two-hundred yards to the east. For all his gruff, almost surly mood this morning, Castiel felt refreshed. He tugged a disgruntled mein around him like a cowl to stop him from crowing in delight. To skip and dance after what he’d put those two through last night would be worse than unseemly.
Have a little dignity, Novak.
“Alpha, wait!”
“Sarah,” he said, spinning on his heel, coming to a stop so abruptly that she bounced off his chest. He grabbed her arm to steady her. “We’re leaving in three minutes. Come along or stay here. Those are your choices. I’m not discussing last night with you. It’s not your place.”
She stood gaping at him.
Cas grimaced, looked away for a moment, and shrugged uncomfortably. “Okay, look. You already know the gist of it. The details are of no consequence. What happened, happened. Add it to your observations if you must. Interview the Subs. I’m not going to talk about it. It had nothing to do with our goals here.”
She looked astonished. “The Subs have names, Alpha.”
“I’m aware,” he replied coldly. “We leave in two minutes. There’s a great deal to accomplish this morning.” Glancing over Sarah’s shoulder, Cas spotted another member of his team and shouted to her. “Ava! With me, beta!”
“Yessir!” the tiny woman hollered back. “Coming!”
Castiel turned his back on Sarah and trudged to the edge of the village and dropped his pack onto a boulder to check it. It wouldn’t do to get caught out in the forest with no provisions.
Hannah met him there.
“Good morning, Castiel. Did you sleep well?”
Cas rolled his eyes. Leave it to Hannah to wrap a barb inside a perfectly formal greeting. No, he hadn’t slept well. He’d barely slept at all, as she already knew.
Everyone knew.
“Adequately,” he lied.
Hannah snorted. “I stopped by the longhouse,” she told him. “Peschus and Aratheul are sleeping it off. Their wounds have been tended.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said with his hands and eyes on his pack, flipping through his supplies. “They have caregivers. I didn’t leave them to fend for themselves.”
“You left them bleeding, Alpha.”
“It wasn’t their first time,” he told her. “It won’t be the last.”
Hannah touched his shoulder. “They’re fine, Cas. That’s all I’m saying. In case you were worried. I know you can’t be seen to coddle them this morning, not after… But I know you.”
Cas looked up at her. “I’m aware of their state, Hannah. I’m the one who put them into it, and I’m a rookie neither in inflicting damage nor in assessing it. Please don’t presume to follow along behind to clean up after me. That isn’t necessary. This is a functional Pack, and they look after one another.”
Cas felt his alpha flex inside his chest as his wolf yawned and stretched sore muscles. He felt expansively powerful this morning. He felt magnificent, like his head brushed the clouds and his reach encompassed the entire mountain range.
Last night had finally been the breaking point that Castiel had been hoping for. Two wayward Submissives, bickering amongst themselves in their own tongue, had stumbled into him on his way back from the latrine, drenching him with the bucket of well water they carried, and he’d snapped.
Their eyes had widened in horror.
Castiel, the terrifying Alpha, had ripped the bucket out of their hands, roared in fury, released his wolf, and let them have it with both barrels.
Cas barely remembered the details at all in the light of the day. His memory blurred around flashing skin and yelps of pain, grunts and yipes and stinging smacks. He’d knotted one while wailing on the other, all teeth and claw and furious snarling. It had been late and dark and cold, and they hadn’t expected anyone to be trudging the path to the cabins—obviously. But Cas had offered them no mercy, as months of bottled-up aggression poured out of him. He’d tangled his fingers into long blond strands and shoved the younger one to his knees in the snow, wrenched his head back with a grip in his hair. He bent the girl over a low stone wall and held her hands together in the small of her back.
He didn’t have a paddle. He didn’t have a lash. He wasn’t even wearing a belt. But he hadn’t needed one.
He used his hands.
And his cock.
And his teeth.
And his voice.
And he conveyed his displeasure in a language that required no translation.
It felt liberating.
It felt righteous.
Ghosts fled his mind and his soul as he struck them, Claimed them, fucked them until they screamed. All his impotent frustration, all his fear, all the rage and the nausea and the self-loathing that had been bottled up for months surged out of him, flung free with the sweat of his body onto two cringing Submissives in the snow.
Castiel still felt mild aftershocks vibrating along his tendons, his muscles, his very core this morning. The sun shone brilliantly overhead, and his mind was sharp. He hoisted his pack onto his shoulders and set out for the path down to the river without looking back.
His team would follow.
He needed to tie up this last survey before noon. The helicopter was due to arrive in the early afternoon to take him back to civilization, and Cas hadn’t packed yet.
Sunday, March 20, 2022
“I forgot how small they are when they’re born.” Michael cuddled the furry little body close to his bare chest, giving it warmth and Pack scent and skin-to-skin contact. “He’s tiny.” Little fingers wrapped around his index finger. “Tiny, but perfect. He looks like you, Pete.”
Dean mopped beads of sweat from April’s brow. He squeezed her hand and got a weak pulsing squeeze back. She was exhausted. The pallor of her face marked the ordeal behind her as a trauma she wouldn’t soon want to repeat. But both pups were safely delivered, and April needed only to deliver the afterbirth to emerge relatively unscathed.
Still, the delivery had been a hard one. April was dead tired.
The Pack had been sent to bed this time around instead of being allowed to draw tightly in. Their presence added to April’s stress enough that Missouri shooed them all out. The quads had wanted to stay up and welcome their new siblings, but they too had been banished as the night deepened when April seemed on the verge of emotional and physical collapse.
Cas snipped Mary Ellen’s cord and collected the pup up in his arms, still damp but squalling. Cas glanced at the clock and smirked. “Twins with different birthdays. Midnight came and went while this little one took her sweet time. She’s got an older brother in her own twin. Here, Michael. Take her.”
Michael laid their son into April’s waiting arms, secure against her chest where she wouldn’t need to hold him up with strength she’d already expended. She smiled weakly down at the pup as Michael took the little girl from Cas.
“Sean Michael,” April murmured. “As close to Dean Michael as we can get without junioring him.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t say no to a junior,” Dean joked with a stroke down his son’s cheek.
“No juniors,” Michael disagreed. “It sets up untenable expectations and pits siblings against each other.”
“Blah blah blah,” Dean countered. “If Cas offered to name one of them Michael, you would change your tune.”
Michael ignored him, smiling dopily down at his newborn daughter. “On the other hand, naming them after grandparents is a whole ‘nother story. Right Mary Ellen?”
Cas leaned over Michael’s shoulder to watch his infant daughter’s eyes drift closed in the safety of O-Pop’s embrace. “She’s perfect, Kitten. You are amazing. You did it.”
April smiled wanly, kissed Sean’s fuzzy head and then closed her eyes as a contraction furrowed her brow.
Dean lifted the pup out of her arms. “Mommy’s got a little bit more work to do. Let’s let her get through it, then you can sleep on her and scent-bond. C’mere, Junior.”
Cas chided, “Stop that, Dean. No juniors.”
Dean chuckled down at the pup. He whispered into his tiny ear, “It’ll have to be our secret, mini-me.” Out loud, he said, “All right, then. He needs a nickname. Wasn’t there a Sean Michael in The Quiet Man? That was a John Wayne movie, and John Wayne always gets a pass.”
“John Wayne was a racist asshole,” Michael argued.
“Language, Omega,” Dean quipped happily. “That’s a Rule infraction.”
Michael yelped, “They’re all asleep!”
“The older ones are asleep,” Dean shot back. “But the two in this room have ears too.”
“Newborns don’t count against Rule Eight,” Michael stated, but he cast a worried glance toward Cas, posted up again between April’s knees to deliver the placenta as April moaned quietly into the waves of muscle contractions. Behind the Alpha, watching over his shoulder, Missouri chuckled at their antics.
“Easy does it, April, honey,” she said. “There’s no rush. I know you’re tired.
“The little Irish guy, then,” Dean concluded, bringing their attention back to The Quiet Man.
“The whole cast was Irish,” Michael said with an exasperated sigh. “Why does he need a nickname anyway? Sean is one syllable. How does a diminutive even make sense?”
“You know—the little matchmaker,” Dean continued, ignoring Michael’s logic.
“The drunk one?” Cas asked with his eyes on his work.
“That’s the one,” Dean agreed. “Michaleen.”
“You’re going to change a one-syllable given name to a three-syllable nickname?” asked Cas. “You’re ridiculous, Dean.”
April smiled softly without opening her eyes and whispered, “Michaleen.”
“You’re both ridiculous,” Michael told them.
Sam entered the H/R room, bags under his eyes and a cell phone in his hand. “Notifications are out. Ellen says to tell you congrats and she’s honored. How are we doing?”
“We?” asked April before a contraction made her tense up and grunt miserably. “We are doing just great.”
“M.E.,” Dean proposed, strolling around the bed to peek into Michael’s arms with a sleeping newborn son in his own. “Mary Ellen. M.E.”
“Emmy? Dean, we already have an Emma. Could you not?” Michael handed Mary Ellen off to Sam so he could help brace his wife’s upper body and support the last stage of birth. He climbed all the way onto the bed and clumsily worked his way behind her. “What’s wrong with just Mary? Or Mary Ellen, for that matter. I like her full name. It has a good flow.”
“Emmy, it is,” Dean said with a firm nod to himself. He winked at his brother.
Sam rolled his eyes.
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Dean juggled the pudgy six-month-old pup over one arm as he collected a soiled diaper with the other hand. Emma tugged at his pants leg, sobbing, something about Jimmy absconding with the paste right when she needed it most. Dean had puke on his shirt collar and snot in his hair. He had stopped trying to find a moment to change his clothes. How many days in a row in the same sweats was this now?
His cell rang, but he let it go to voicemail. Kat screeched from the bathroom that the toilet paper roll was empty.
Somehow, adding the twins had turned the workload for whoever had the pups into a whole new ballgame. It hadn’t doubled the work; it was more like quadrupled. Dean used to be able to corral four pups into a single space to play peacefully. With the addition of Emmy and Michaleen, peace was a distant memory. He’d begun to long wistfully for quiet days in his office at The Facility, talking to adults about grown-up things.
Stolen nooners in Castiel’s suite were a distant memory too. Hell, they barely had time for two scenes a month anymore, not good ones. They were all surviving on quickies.
His only saving grace with the pups was a strict daily schedule. Having April still nursing was arguably also a boon since at least he could feed the quads on their own while April had the babies elsewhere. Michael was around early in the mornings to get them all dressed and fed.
And Kate was a frikken godsend.
Without her, Dean would have fled screaming months ago.
But Kate had begun online coursework for a degree in early child development. And she had a test coming up. Michael was working a shift at the clinic. Dean couldn’t even remember offhand if Cas was in town or travelling. And April was downstairs working.
“Put the crafts away, gang,” Dean instructed. “Clean up for lunch.” Four dissonant whines kicked up before he even finished speaking, but Dean had long since learned not to argue. It couldn’t turn into a negotiation. He was outnumbered, and they could smell a less-than-solid commitment from him.
Across the room, on her own neatly spread blanket, Emmy wailed miserably.
“I know, kiddo,” he called as he washed his hands. “Daddy’s coming. I didn’t forget about you.”
His cell rang again. Dean dried his hands, tossed Kat a roll from beneath the counter, slid the pups’ footstool into place in front of the sink, clapped his hands percussively and then snapped to get the three who weren’t already in the bathroom moving that way.
“Dad, I dropped it!” Kat whined.
“Then go get it. I have faith in you,” he told her and then fished out his phone and knelt over Mary Ellen, letting her crawl into his lap and curl into him, still unhappy.
He swiped to accept Cas’ call.
“Winchester house of chaos and mayhem,” he greeted. “To which demon should I direct your call?” He had to speak loudly over the din.
“Eileen has been trying to reach you,” Cas said without reacting to his snark. “She said you ghosted the school board meeting.”
“The… Crap! Was that today?” Dean glanced at the wall clock.
“That’s three in a row you missed.”
“But who’s counting?” Dean sighed. “I know, Emmy. I know. Lunch is coming.” To his husband he said, “It’s been one of those mornings, Cas. All six of them are out of sorts…”
“Where is Kate? You’re not trying to manage them alone, I hope.”
“Kate’s studying, Alpha. I gave her the morning. She’s got a test…”
“Dean, this is becoming a problem. Do you need me to step in and set some firm boundaries? How could you give her the morning off on a board meeting day? We’ve talked about this.” Cas didn’t sound the least bit sympathetic to Dean’s frazzled plight, which seemed unfair and unrealistic. Dean prepared to tell him so, but a crash from the bathroom cut him short.
“I have to call you back, Cas.”
He ended the call and dashed into the bathroom with Emmy on his shoulder, nearly tripping over Sean sitting oblivious in the doorway, to find all four scattered on the floor in disarray and bawling. The stool lay toppled against the wall.
Dean activated the wall intercom and growled to April, “Any moment now would be great, thanks!” He knew that wasn’t fair. She wasn’t late. The schedule was his own devising, and she had commitments she couldn’t dodge. But Dean’s nerves quivered on the brink of snapping.
He squatted to check for injuries and try to piece together what had led to the spill this time. He didn’t have to wonder long.
“Kat pushed me off!” Alex accused, rubbing his head.
“Did not!”
But the thing about having four pups of the same age, there was usually no He said/She said about it. They spent nearly all their time together, and they were brutally honest about ratting each other out. When three pups pointed out Kat as the instigator, that was enough for Dean.
“Corner, Kathleen. Right now.”
And if he thought the volume had been loud before, that was nothing to the decibel range Kat’s outrage reached. She howled as she trudged toward the corner to do her time.
Despite his frazzled state of mind, Dean’s plans for a local community Lupin school were progressing well. He owed that to the fact that he had appointed bright people to put it together, found them funding, and then got out of their way. Eileen chaired the board. She and Dean recruited a diverse group of interested wolves from the Lawrence area, parents and educators, organizers and civic leaders. By the time the quads were ready for kindergarten, a small pilot program was ready to launch, starting with only three primary levels of one classroom each.
They enrolled thirty pups with a waiting list longer than the Primate pup population put together.
As administrator, they appointed a rigid British woman with a reputation for bringing order from chaos. Dean wasn’t fully sold on alpha Bevell, but Eileen vouched for her. In the end, Eileen got her way on the condition that the alpha’s sharp edges would be gentled somewhat by giving her an assistant with a softer, more pup-friendly touch.
Thus, a little school welcomed its first tiny pupils on a bright, sunny September morning with Toni Bevell standing ramrod straight in the entrance while Dr. Mosely’s mate Felix (sometimes Felicity) crouched to hug the pups and welcome them on their way in.
“How on earth do you expect the children to follow your ever-shifting gender identity?” Toni had asked the beta as they helped one another move their belongings into their offices over the summer. She had canted into her tone that the very idea of gender fluidity was ludicrous. But Felix was long accustomed to being challenged and merely smiled.
“Pups have no problem whatsoever with my identity, alpha. Only adults. I expect they will call me Beta F. That’s usually what we settle on.”
“I’m not calling you Beta F,” Toni objected coolly. “You have a name.”
“I have two, in fact,” Felix agreed. “Today, I am male. I prefer Felix today.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we shall see.”
“Ridiculous,” Toni muttered and went back to sorting books on her new bookshelf.
Dean squashed the contempt the moment he heard about the exchange. He pulled up his alpha persona, confronted Toni with a hard face, and told her in no uncertain terms that if she expected to keep her new position, all traces of bigotry must vanish from every interaction, no matter how small or innocent-seeming. Dean had been well-conditioned through years of subtle digs from Naomi, and he could practically smell disdain even if nothing had been said out loud.
Dean knew microaggressions, and he wasn’t about to put up with that kind of bullshit from Toni Bevell.
One hard, silent staring contest proved enough to convince the woman he meant business, and she apologized and swore there would never be a repeat. Felicity thanked Dean for the support and promised him she had no qualms about working with the Brit.
“It’s not my first rodeo, alpha,” she had told him over drinks at the manor. “We’ll bring Toni around. The important thing is to provide a nurturing space for the pups. Some of those pups will be trans, alpha. Some of them will need support they may not be getting at home. We have a chance here to make a difference.”
Missouri had clinked her glass against Felicity’s and smiled warmly at her. Leaning back in her armchair, she gloated, proud of her mate. Over the years, the two of them had perfected the introduction of Felicity’s gender-fluidity and her preference of shifting names when her gender shifted. They wanted desperately to promote a culture where, like Felicity had done, pups feeling themselves out felt safe to try out whatever strategies worked for them.
Cas had nodded his agreement. Standing beside the fireplace with Scotch in hand, he rocked back on his heels. “It’s all about making the biggest difference with the tools we have available. Having access to the curriculum we present to the pups at this age is going to give us unprecedented control over how they come up in this world. We can’t blow this. If Toni continues to fight the direction we’re pointing, she’s out. That’s final.”
“Patience, Alpha,” Felicity said. “There aren’t many of us in the Lupin population. Most cis people don’t know anyone who’s trans. Many have never met someone who’s gender nonconforming. It’s mostly a game of familiarity right now. She’ll come around. Give me some time with her. It’s astonishing to me how quickly people go from being baffled to reading me in a moment and gendering me correctly.”
And so the four quads, wide-eyed and nervously clutching soft-sided lunch boxes held hands as they approached the little out-building by the Universist church where they would attend kindergarten while the permanent school was under construction. Kat led the way, fearlessly approaching Felix who smiled and offered her a hug and a welcome. Alpha Bevell introduced herself to the pups and ushered them inside.
Michael stood beside his car in the parking lot, watching his pups fledge from their nest, fighting back unexpected mistiness and an urge to follow them to make sure they didn’t get lost somewhere inside. He clenched his fist against the wave of sadness, managed to return a wave when Felix saw him watching, and then climbed back into his car.
They wouldn’t get lost. There were competent adults in there. His babies were safe. They would love school. They were all still together. Michael sniffled and started the car. He couldn’t see any of them anymore. His pups were gone. He sat there, unmoving, for several minutes with the engine idling. Several other families approached the building and went in. He felt like his heart had left his body and gone through a door into darkness.
His phone chirped with a text.
It was from Dean.
“It’s going to be okay,” it said. “Come home and help me with the twins. We’ll get through today together. I love you.”
Notes:
I'm still fighting brain fog and all the shit that goes along with that. Please let me know if anything isn't making sense to you. Write me and ask.
Love to all of you.
Thanks to Jennyfly for some of the ideas in this and the next chapter.
Chapter 41: Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Summary:
Six years old is a tough age. So many questions, so much to learn. Family-centric chapter with all the generations.
Notes:
Warning for death of a minor character.
Other content warnings in the End NotesNote: Lupin pups develop more rapidly through early childhood than Primates do. Wolves start Kindergarten at 4, 1st grade at 5, second grade at 6, etc. (If your schooling follows a different pattern than K - 12, I can't translate for you, sorry.)
Full disclosure, parts of this chapter are not entirely my work. Thank you JennyFly for adding your amazing ideas about Cousin Bolivia and for doing words so good.
I have a passel of comments still to respond to from the previous chapter. I haven't forgotten. Thanks, y'all. for sticking with my while my brain won't.
Let me reiterate for the record, the integration of pups into Packlife includes witnessing but in no way participating in some of the adults' sexual behaviors. This, plus a bit of heavy-handedness in childrearing, is ideal for Lupins.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
THEN:
Monday, February 7, 2022
Cas didn’t phone ahead from the airport. He and Sarah skirted the crowd, grabbed a taxi home, and let themselves in through the garage, dirty, tired, a little strung out from their time in the wild. They were coming home with a powerful new strategy to shepherd young wolves through their adolescence, and both of them were hopeful.
But Castiel’s decision to accompany the research party, for personal reasons, left a lump in his throat as he lugged his duffel into the house.
The kitchen was empty.
Cas manhandled both bags up the back stairs and dropped Sarah’s off at her bedroom door with a kiss to her forehead and a soft word to get some rest before dinner. Then he went in search of his husband.
Dean looked up from his spot sitting cross-legged in the middle of their bed with pages and pages scattered around him, reading glasses perched on his nose. He looked a veritable snack to Cas, but something charged in his scent stalled Cas in the doorway. Dean looked away without speaking. He reached across and selected a page. He inspected it.
“I missed you,” Cas said, testing the waters.
“You too,” Dean replied stoically. He continued to peruse the page in his hands, looking as if the distraction of a returning spouse were the utmost irritation while he was trying to accomplish whatever he was working on. The vibe dug claws into Cas’ heart and scraped deep gouges. Clearly, Dean was pissed.
“Um, okay. Not the reception I anticipated.” Cas hauled his duffel into the room and tossed it gently against the wall where it settled in a slump much like letting the air out of a balloon. He stood several feet from the bed trying to read Dean.
“I’m swamped,” Dean told him. “Gotta wade through this before Monday.” He squinted at the page before him and then set it upon a stack to his right before sliding a new sheet from the strewn pages. “Deadlines to meet.”
“Dean.”
“Stew for supper okay?” Dean asked without looking up.
“Yours or Tony’s?” Cas took a tentative step forward and shrugged out of his trench coat.
“We can do pasta if you’d rather.”
“Dean, honestly.”
Dean spread his hands and gathered the whole collection of pages like a deck of cards and then stood. “I’ll go have Tony switch to pasta. You get cleaned up. I know you’re tired.”
“Stop,” Cas told him. “Stop it.”
“It’s good to have you home,” Dean told him tonelessly. “The pups missed Papa’s bedtime stories.”
Cas cut him off at the doorway with a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Stop this. What the hell, Dean? I’ve just flown eight hours to get back to you. What’s with the cold shoulder? What have I done? You agreed to this approach. You told me you were fine with it.”
Dean’s nose twitched as he checked his husband’s scent, trying to do it unobtrusively. But Cas noticed, and his eyes narrowed. “Dean, you told me you were fine with me seeking outside assistance.”
Dean shrugged. “You do what you need to, Alpha. Smells like it worked. So we’re good. I guess. No more rages in front of the pups. It’s a win.”
Cas scowled. “I’m too tired for games, alpha. I spent two weeks without access to a shower or central heating. I’m sore, and I’m stressed. The cold seeped clear to my bones, and I came home expecting my husband to give some indication I was missed. Instead, I’m clearly in the doghouse here. You’re going to spell out why. You’re not leaving this room until you explain.”
Dean sighed and slumped beneath Cas’ hold. “You smell good, Cas. Balanced.”
“You’re angry that I succeeded in releasing my block?” Cas asked him. “That’s what I went there to do. If you had a real problem with it, you should have made that clear before I left.”
Dean dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet under the intensity of Cas’ glare. “I didn’t know it would feel like this,” he muttered.
“Feel like what? Betrayed?” Cas put a hand under Dean’s chin and lifted his head.
Dean shook his head. “Like I’m irrelevant, I guess. Useless to you. Forget it. It’s stupid.”
Cas leaned in and pressed his lips to Dean’s. “Your feelings are not stupid,” he whispered. “But I wish I had known before I committed to it that you felt that way.”
Dean shook his head again, more vehemently. He backed away and crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you hurt them?”
Cas raised his eyebrows. “The people I used? Yes.”
“And they let you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I want you to come with me next time we go out there,” Cas replied. “It will make so much more sense if you see and smell it for yourself. Their natural approach, unfettered by social mores and civil regulations, penal codes and expectations, Dean their way is elegant and beautiful. There’s a majesty about it that is pure. It’s the closest to true freedom I’ve ever felt.”
Dean scoffed. “Alpha-Dom freedom, you mean. Not quite the same thing for those of us on the bottom. No thank you. I’m whipping boy for enough psychopaths already. So, look, you’re home. It’s done. Whatever. I’ll get over it. Okay? I will. Doesn’t mean I have to throw you a parade.”
“This tantrum is unnecessary,” Cas chastised. “I understand you’re feeling something frightening, and I regret that we didn’t see this coming before it smacked you between the eyes. But please just talk to me.”
“Don’t patronize me, Cas. I’m not seven.”
“Why are you angry?”
“Why did you have to fly halfway across the continent to work up enough of a sweat to let your demons loose?” Dean answered his question with a question. “Seriously. I’m right here. The airfare alone…”
“It wouldn’t have worked, that’s why!” Cas shouted.
“Bullshit!”
“Goddamnit, Dean! Your safety and threats to it are what drove me into that mindset in the first place! I couldn’t break free of that by putting you back into peril! If I had put you to the lash, it would have driven me deeper underground! It would have made me worse!”
“Or April…” Dean began.
Cas cut him off. “April’s pregnant!”
Dean pouted and turned his back. Cas turned him aggressively with a hand on his shoulder and a hard grip. His eyes blazed. “I had no other options. You know that!”
“It wasn’t supposed to work!” Dean protested. “You were supposed to go off and try to find balance out there in the mountains, realize I’m the only one who can give you what you need, and then come home to me where you belong!”
Cas pulled up to his full height and glowered. “I am home. Dean, I will always come home to you. Always! But you need to trust that I know what I need. I couldn’t have worked this out with you, not when you’re the…”
“The what? The cause of all your stress?”
“Do not interrupt me!”
“What good am I to you if you have to go find some fucking stranger when you’re upset?!” Dean blurted at the top of his lungs.
“Come here.” Cas held his arms wide. “Shh, shh. I’ve got you. God, I’ve missed my sweet brat.” Cas buried his nose in Dean’s hair and nuzzled into his scent. “You’ve got this one all wrong, love. All of my instincts were blaring to protect you, not to whip you. I needed to unleash on a villain, not on my husband.”
Dean sniffled. He clung to Cas with his head tucked below Cas’ chin. “Villain. You know what else would have worked? Pack Justice. You wanna take out a villain, go take out the fucking villains, man.”
Cas huffed. “No. There are laws…”
“Civilized laws,” Dean agreed. “Laws you fled from in order to set yourself back to rights.” He pulled back out of Cas’ embrace and met his eye. “Your insistence on going legit—going civilized—is going to put you in an early grave. We could have avoided all this if you would just aim your fucking gun at the right target.”
“I said no, Dean. Just…no. The only way we win safety and security for our people is by meshing our culture with theirs.”
Dean stood firm. “What happens when all the wild Packs have died out? Where does the Alpha go to release himself then?”
Cas sighed. He crossed to the bed and sank down on it in exhaustion. He unbuttoned his shirt. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
Dean watched him for a moment. “Cas, you’re already stretched thin. Why do I smell a new initiative? Are we starting a zoo?”
“Dean, honestly! That’s offensive.” Cas shrugged out of his shirt, tugging it free of his pants. “They’re not animals!”
“Semantics,” Dean defended. “They aren’t yours to babysit. They aren’t yours to use! They’ve survived on their own for eons. If they die out, that’s on them, not you.”
“It’s on contemporary civilization,” Cas argued. “Of which we are a part. Ergo, we have a responsibility to support the Aboriginal way of life.”
“To give us a vacation destination when we need release,” Dean finished for him.
Cas cocked his head. “You know, I find it fascinating where you draw your moral perimeter. Pack Justice is acceptable, but hierarchical release isn’t? What’s the difference? They are both innate needs of a sort.”
“Justice, Cas,” Dean said. “It’s right there in the label. Whoever you went out there to beat to a pulp didn’t do a damn thing to deserve it. The Stynes? Man, they’ve had it coming to them for years. You pulled Monroe out, castrated the man, made him a pariah in his own Pack. But you barely made a ripple in their progress overall. They came after me in public, in the middle of a packed club, because they’d have to be insane to try that. And now we know they don’t have any limits. Cas, there’s only one way to counter that kind of momentum.”
“This argument is exhausting,” Cas said, sounding wrecked. “I’m sorry you were blindsided with unpleasant emotions we didn’t anticipate. I’m a little concerned at the degree of disconnect you seem to be experiencing where emotions arise without warning when you expected to feel very differently. But the truth is, I had no real options other than the one I chose, not if I want to avoid sabotaging everything we’re building. What we want for our people, Dean, it all lies down this path. And if we descend back into vigilante justice, the core mission won’t survive.”
“Why do I feel like I’m just out here dangling on my own then? Like you don’t need me?”
“Oh, Dean.” Cas held his hand out and drew Dean between his knees. “I will always need you.”
“Two weeks is a long time, baby,” Dean grumbled.
Cas pulled Dean in tight. “Way too long.” He looked up at Dean.
Dean ran fingers through Cas’ hair. “Did you fuck anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Nnngh!” Dean grunted unhappily. “Your dick, Alpha, it’s been some places without me. You know I can’t let that stand.”
“I certainly hope not. I’m feeling a little grimy.”
“You smell like Ozzie.”
“Well, I’m Mated to an Ozzie. I suspect that’s not expungable.”
Dean set his hands on either side of Cas’ head and leaned in for a kiss. “Who talks like that?” Cas snorted and wrapped an arm around Dean’s waist. He tugged him off-balance and fell to his side with Dean next to him. They faced one another on the bed with warmth in their eyes. “You come home with filth on your cock and expect me to just clean you up and get you smelling right again? Asshole.” He kissed Cas again.
Cas began tugging at Dean’s belt buckle while he plundered Dean’s mouth with his tongue. Dean snickered against Cas’ lips.
“Brat,” Cas muttered.
“Get your dick in me, Alpha,” Dean replied. “Give me a taste of that wilderness. I gotta feel this magical pussy that’s worth traveling a thousand miles for. That must be some grade-A pussy.”
“You’re ridiculous, Winchester.”
“Was she hot?” Dean lifted up to allow Cas to shove his jeans down to his thighs. Cas fished Dean’s cock out of his boxer briefs and wrapped his hand around the knot at the base. He nipped Dean’s lower lip.
“They have nothing on you,” Cas whispered into Dean’s ear.
“They?”
“They.”
“You mean that in the non-binary way?” Dean asked. He closed his eyes and rolled his hips into Cas’ strokes.
“Roll over, Pet.” Cas slotted his body against Dean’s back, taking the big spoon position and reaching around to take him back up and renew his grip. “I mean that in the plural way.”
“God,” said Dean with his teeth clenched. “What’s the body count? Do I want to know?”
“Wet your fingers, Pet.” Cas waited until Dean slipped two fingers in his mouth and then said, “I would never keep that a secret from you. Put those fingers to work so I don’t rip you in half when I fuck your ass.”
“Lube?” Dean asked over his shoulder.
“In a minute. Start like this.”
“Missed you, baby.” Dean whined as he sank his fingers into his warm, tight hole and pulsed them. “Needed you.”
“I need you too, Dean. So badly.”
“You gonna answer?” Dean rolled his hips. He lifted his knee high into the air and pressed his digits deep inside. Cas kissed Dean’s bare, unblemished, unscarred shoulder through his shirt.
“Six,” Cas said softly. “All necessary. None of them hold a candle to you.”
“And no showers?” Dean asked. “Gross.”
Cas laughed. “Would you like me to go take a shower?”
“Before you Claim me? Fuck no.” He pressed his head backward, offering his throat. Cas took the offer. He licked a stripe from Dean’s collarbone to the special scent glands behind his ear, following his carotid. Cas let go of Dean’s cock. He gripped Dean’s thigh and supported it while he pressed against Dean’s back.
“Hurry up down there, Pet. I’m impatient to wash this horrible scent off my body and bathe in you once more.”
“Real smooth there, Sir.”
Cas growled. Not a playful growl. Dean’s head craned back further. He dropped the humor from his eyes and his tone. He whined and pressed his ass back into Cas’ groin, searching for the feel of his erection, instantly needing.
Cas let go of Dean’s leg. He unbuckled himself. He shimmied enough to free himself, and he batted Dean’s hand away. He rocked his hips into Dean’s body, letting his cock ride the crease of Dean’s crack. “Can I Claim you through frottage, Pet?” He rolled his hips several more times.
“Need you inside me, Sir.”
“Beg me, Dean.”
“Pretty, pretty please, Alpha,” Dean breathed against Cas’ temple. “Scrape off that nasty-ass crusty wilderness slick and get yourself rooted back inside me where you belong.”
Cas chuckled. He rolled backward to fetch synthetic slick from the bedside table. “Go on,” he urged as he slicked himself up and wiped the excess across Dean’s entrance.
“I need it so bad. Michael can’t fuck me as deep as you.”
“Comparing your lovers is shitty, Dean. Michael has plenty of delightful attributes. Perhaps I should punish you to teach you manners.”
“No, please! Please, I need you.”
Cas pressed the head of his dick against Dean’s hole. “You need me? Why?”
“Nnnnggghhh!” Dean held his body rigid so that when Cas pressed in, he sank deep. “Because you’re the love of my life, and I need you. I missed you so bad.” Cas pressed in tight, tugging Dean into him and nipping his earlobe. “I wanted to be all that for you. Wanted to be everything for you.”
Cas pulled back and pressed in again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that, Dean. I wish I’d had another alternative.” His voice went husky as he pulsed his hips.
“Another alternative but to fuck strangers?” Dean reached over his head and pulled Cas in with a grip behind his neck. Cas caught his hand and moved it, kissing his knuckle to assure Dean it wasn’t a rebuke. Interlocking their fingers, Cas wrapped their arms around Dean’s torso and groaned. Dean met his rhythm.
“I’m under no illusions,” Cas told his husband, soft, only for Dean. “It’s not fair. I know it’s not fair. The rules are for thee, not for me.” He fucked deeper, punctuating his own hypocrisy. “I’m possessive. I would blow a gasket if you fucked a stranger. We both know that’s true.”
“Much less six,” Dean agreed with his eyes closed. On their sides, Cas could stroke inside Dean’s body in a smooth, gliding stroke that warmed them both all over.
Sweet, gentle but firm, possessive. Alpha-to-alpha.
“How do we reconcile this, Pet?” Cas frowned as the sensations sparked all of his designations to perk up and pay attention.
“Guess you’ll just have to make it up to me,” Dean grunted. “Ahhhhh! Just like that, Sir! Yeah!” A deep thrust turned Dean’s volume up.
“Brat.” Cas pressed in deep and held.
“Look, I respect the fuck outta you,” Dean told him. “But right now isn’t the time for this discussion.”
Cas laughed. “Fair enough. Later, then.” He rolled them, Dean facedown. He pressed Dean’s legs wide with his knees. He fucked him aggressively. The sounds of slapping skin, ragged breaths, grunts, and whines took over for their conversation. Dean splayed his hand wide, and Cas took hold and pressed their joined hands into the bed.
“No one else is you, Winchester. No one feels to me like you do.”
“That’s because I’m yours, Novak. All yours.”
“I’m going to Claim you now, Pet. I want you to come for me when it strikes. Can you do that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, give it to me good, Sir. Fuck me hard! So hard!”
Cas unleashed. He drove hard, almost mindlessly, lost in pressure and pleasure and heat. His knot engorged, but he didn’t press it in, choosing speed and friction over the tight pressure of a full knotting. He snarled, growled deep in his chest. He felt the Claim build in his gut, and he cast it outward as he plunged into Dean’s body.
A tingling, sparking flare set Dean’s brain igniting and that tumbled him over the edge.
“Good, yes, just like that, my lovely, lovely man,” Cas chanted. “So good for me.” Dean’s body tightened around Castiel’s cock.
“Come for me, Sir. Please! Want you!”
Cas kept up his pace. He grunted an animalistic groan. He hissed through his teeth. He felt the tension coil and ignite, and then it burst. He shouted above Dean’s head. The muscles in his arms tightened. He pressed his hips in and pulsed slightly as he emptied. He felt their bond-link widen and glow, hot and urgent. He felt the sense of relief as Dean’s scent replaced wild mountain fir and cedar in his nostrils.
Was it Cas’ relief or Dean’s?
Cas had once promised to respect Dean’s possessiveness, had sworn off sex with strangers. But there had been a caveat to the promise, and they both knew that. Cas, as Alpha to the entire Lupin population, couldn’t restrict himself that way. He belonged to the species as a whole in a way that Dean didn’t. Cas had sworn to touch no one without Dean’s permission. And he had that permission before he flew out to the wilds of Canada.
But that didn’t mean it was okay. Didn’t mean Dean was okay. Cas had returned home expecting his brat to be in full tantrum, expecting Dean to need a turn over his husband’s knee in reassurance he wasn’t being replaced. He hadn’t expected a direct honesty, a vulnerability showing hurt and fear without the brat commandeering the conversation.
Sure, Dean had salted his accusation with a bratty tone. But he wasn’t acting through his brat, merely speaking the language he was most comfortable with when injured.
Cas pressed a kiss to the back of Dean’s neck.
“Thanks, Alpha,” Dean said, turning his head, pressing up on his hands. He rolled a little, and Cas let himself slide out, slide off.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“Glad you’re home,” said Dean. He folded his arms under him and rested his cheek on them, taking in his husband’s beautiful expression. “I was s’posed to come fetch you from the airport. What gives with just turning up while I’m still moping around here like a toddler. You gotta give me some warning.”
Cas huffed. “You were planning on hiding your feelings from me? Giving yourself a firm talking to on the way to pick us up and then pretending you were fine? That sounds dangerously close to dishonest to me. It also sounds like usurping your Dominants’ roles. Is that allowed, Pet?”
“Depends on whether or not I get caught,” Dean told him with a wink.
Cas laughed. “All right. Come here.” He edged toward the side of the bed, tucked himself back in and zipped up. “Looks like we’re doing swats after all.”
NOW:
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
“Straight up to your room, young lady,” Michael instructed as he followed four pups through the kitchen door.
Dean looked up from the manuscript in front of him on the kitchen table. He didn’t have any trouble picking out which of their second-graders was in the hot seat. Kat flung her backpack at the island, knocking over a barstool, and stormed past.
“Hold it right there,” Dean said. He leaned back in his chair and stopped her with a cool palm in the middle of her chest. “No. Pick it up. You know better than that.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” she muttered sulkily, but she retreated, righted the chair, and scooped her bag off the floor. “You’re not even my Dad.”
“Is that so?” Dean challenged. “Not how I remember it. You wanna explain?” Dean’s eyes flashed with stern authority.
“O-Pop told me to go to my room,” Kat pointed out, and she skirted her Dad and vanished through the arch.
“What was that about?” Dean asked his mate. He rose to greet Michael and kiss the tension off his face. Michael dodged the kiss. He tried to pass Dean with a closed off expression. “Hey.” Dean caught his arm. “Michael.”
Michael let himself be pulled to a stop.
Alex climbed onto one of the stools and picked through the apples in the basket. “Kat’s mad because beta Fitzgerald told her she’s foolish to think all four of you are our real parents,” he quipped. He chose an apple, hopped down, and sauntered out with a loud crunch. Jimmy plopped his backpack onto the kitchen table beside Dean’s papers and began to dig through for his homework.
Second grade was drawing to an end, and with it, a spate of last-minute creative projects that had everyone’s head spinning.
Emma emerged from the butler’s pantry, looking harried. “Where are my cleats? We’re going to be late to practice!”
“I have to run Idgie to soccer practice,” Michael said. “Kat mouthed off enough on the ride home from school that she needs to stay in her room for at least an hour.”
Dean frowned. “But what happened?”
“Dad! Where are my cleats?!”
“Back porch,” Dean told her impatiently. “The mud should be dry. Knock as much off as you can before you get into O-Pop’s car.”
She hustled toward the back door. Dean was aware of Jimmy, trying not to be obvious at listening in. He didn’t know enough yet to know if he and Michael should be speaking privately. He raised his brows to prompt Michael, and the Omega sighed and scratched his forehead. “Just like what you saw. She stomped around, throwing crap. She said I’m not her father,” Michael explained. “I told her it didn’t matter whether I was father or mother, that she still has to mind me, and she lost it. Cussed me out, Dean.”
“Because you’re their mother, not their father?” Dean was baffled.
Michael shook his head. “No, Dean. Because she figured out today that I’m neither, not for her. Apparently, their science unit is covering inherited traits like hair and eye color, and Kat asked something about how eye color gets passed down when there are four parents. The class laughed at her.”
“Crap,” said Dean. “Pack your gear up, Jimmy,” he told his son. “Hustle up to the homework room. Knock it out before supper, and we’ll play catch for a few.”
“C’mon, Dad. Please can I stay here and work with you?”
“JD just wants to hear what kinda trouble Kat is in,” Emma announced as she returned wearing mud-caked soccer cleats. Clumps of dried mud flaked off and left a trail behind her.
“Cleats off in the house,” Michael reminded her. “Let’s go. JD, listen to Daddy and hustle your butt upstairs. It’s rude to take pleasure in your sister’s troubles.”
Dean hauled Michael back with a grip to the back of his waistband, wrapped a hand around his hips, and whispered, “I love it when you call me Daddy.”
“Keep it in your pants, Winchester,” Michael grouched. “Focus.”
“Oh, I’m focused all right,” Dean told him with a roll of his hips.
Michael pulled free without acknowledging the tease. He was clearly more upset by Kat’s outburst than Dean first realized. Dean let him go.
“Are you gonna spank her?” Jimmy asked as he stuffed his book back into his backpack, crushing a stack of papers within into a crumpled mess.
“What do you care?” Dean asked. “Does Kat’s sore bum affect you?”
“She always gloats over me when I get it,” he said. He slung the bag over one shoulder. “Seems only fair.”
Dean shook his head. “Look, I don’t even know yet what really happened. Maybe you could fill me in a little? What happened in class?”
“I dunno,” Jimmy told him. “Wasn’t there. I was… Um.” Jimmy paused. His ears turned red. A quickly lowered eyeline told Dean there was a whole ‘nother story there. “But I heard the pups laughed at her, and now she’s mad cause apparently O-Pop’s not our real dad or our mom.”
Dean asked, “Where were you? And don’t tell me the bathroom.” He lowered his torso by leaning his elbows on his knees.
Jimmy cast him a furtive look and then dropped his eyes again. His blush deepened, and he stammered. “I, uh, well…I got sent to alpha Bevell’s office. But it wasn’t my fault! Taylor pushed me first!”
Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Do you have a note from the Principal?”
Jimmy dug into his bag and produced a crumpled notification with a place for a guardian’s signature. He handed it over reluctantly. Dean glanced at it, folded it and stuffed it into his back pocket.
“We’ll get to this after dinner. What happened on the way home?” Dean asked.
Jimmy’s head popped up. He had a strange glint in his eye. “Is it true? That you and O-Pop aren’t our folks? Is that true?”
Puzzled, it took Dean a moment to register that however many lessons the quads had had about birds and bees, genitals and sex cells, attraction and consent and preference, somehow they had never explicitly clarified whose parents were whose. Dean nodded somberly. He realized, looking at the hurt on his son’s face, that they had made assumptions about what the pups understood. “You guys know where babies come from. How did you not know that you couldn’t have four parents?”
“So it is true.”
“Jimmy, come on, kiddo. You watched the twins grow in Mom’s belly. Seriously, this makes no sense. How could any of you have more than one mom and one dad?”
“Who’s whose?”
Dean sighed. “We put this off way too long, sounds like. I’m sorry.” He lifted Jimmy onto his knee and held him balanced there. “Yeah, okay. Look, you, Idgie, and Kat are triplets. Your biological parents are Papa and Mom. Alex is…”
“And Alex is yours and O-Pop’s?”
“That’s right.”
Jimmy furrowed his brow in thought. “Sean and Emmy are Mom’s. But, so, who’s their dad? Her and O-Pop are married, right? You said male Omegas can be both moms and dads.”
“Papa is the twins’ father,” Dean said.
“But how do you know?”
“Papa and O-Pop are careful around Mom’s estrus cycle—her Heat. That’s when she’s fertile. Papa is her mate. He’s the only one with the right to breed her when she’s fertile. I promise this will make more sense in a few years.”
“Kat was really mad,” Jimmy said. “She hates to be laughed at.”
“Don’t we all,” Dean said rhetorically. “That doesn’t mean it’s okay to swear at her parents.”
“But O-Pop’s not really her parent, is he? Or mine.” Jimmy seemed saddened by the revelation. “You’re not either.”
“Hey, hey,” Dean lifted his chin. “The hell I’m not. It takes more than sex cells to make a parent, chief. I’m every bit your Dad, now and always. Nothing changes that. Nothing.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Dean sighed. He didn’t have a great answer for that. “We were waiting for the right time. We needed you all to be old enough to understand.”
“So, Alex isn’t really my brother. Only Sean. I just have one brother.”
“You have three brothers.” Something in Dad’s voice caught and halted Jimmy’s train of thought. There was a steel certainty to the words. “Brothers are forever.”
“Three? You mean Alex and Sean, and… You mean the one who died?”
“That’s right.” Dean hugged him. “Whether alive or dead, biological or not, your brothers will be your brothers forever.”
“Kat called O-Pop a son-of-a-bitch.”
“Hmm, yup, that was disrespectful. We’ll be following up with her on that. For curse words it sounds borderline spankable to me. But remember, we have a Rule about repeating a swear word when you’re telling on each other—or Daddy. So, if she said anything worse, how about you don’t quote her?”
“She said even worse,” Jimmy confirmed, nodding. “It was bad.”
“All right. I think I’ve got the picture now. Go on up and get your homework done. Papa’s going to want to sit down with all of you to talk this out. Let’s have the schoolwork packed away before that happens.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And James?”
“Sir?”
“You’re my son. I love you more than you’ll ever know. Nothing is ever going to change that.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
An hour later Kat scowled fiercely as her dad knocked and cracked the door open. The pup looked up briefly but then went back to glowering at her lap. Dean let himself in. He slipped to the floor and leaned against the side of Emma’s bed, facing his petulant daughter.
“Jimmy should be in worse trouble than me,” she told him without looking up. “He got paddled in the office today.”
Dean said, “I’m not here to talk about Jimmy.”
“You lied,” she told him. “All this time, my whole life, you lied. You’re not my dad.” She was seething, too angry even to weigh the authority and proceed judiciously as most pups did in the presence of a Deep alpha.
Dean cocked his head and weighed her. “There are things that make no sense to try to explain to very young pups. We needed to wait until you were all old enough.” The excuse sounded flimsy in his ears. “I mean, how would we even go about explaining to the twins who fathered them and who didn’t and how we’re both still their fathers? C’mon, Kat, look at me.”
“I’m not two!” she growled. She sat up and flung her legs off the side to face him. “They’re babies! I’m not a baby! You should’ve said!”
“I know,” Dean agreed sadly. “We honestly thought you guys picked it up when we talked about fertilization and conception. We made it pretty clear, I thought. One egg. One sperm. There’s no room in that formula for two extra parents.”
“Everybody thinks I’m stupid now,” she told him. “I trusted you.” Betrayal edged her tone, and Dean’s heart broke.
Damnit.
He pulled up and knee-walked across the carpet to her. He touched her face, testing her willingness to have him close, and then he pulled her into a tight hug. “Shh, kiddo. I know. No one meant to hurt you or make you look foolish.”
Dean felt tears on his neck, trickling down to his shoulder. Her back heaved as she began to sob.
“Why can’t you be my dad too?” she asked.
Dean pressed her back so he could look into her eyes and put all of his conviction into his voice. “I am your dad, Kathleen Marie. I am every bit your dad, same as I’ve always been.”
“No, you’re not!” she insisted. “Neither is O-Pop! You’re not even my family!”
“Kat!”
“Well it’s true! And everyone’s always saying that me and Alex have the same hair, but how can that be when he’s not my family either?”
“You have Papa’s hair,” Dean said softly. “Alex has O-Pop’s.”
She looked so bereft Dean felt at a complete loss for words.
“He’s not my brother. He’s no one’s brother.”
Dean sighed and settled back to sit on the floor. “Look, I know this thing has hit you upside the head. And I know you feel like the bottom just dropped out. We’re going to get through this, honey. All of us together. But I need to make one thing real clear right now. Alex is your brother. Don’t think for one minute that just because you have different genetics that he’s not your brother.”
Michael slipped in the room and sat on Emma’s bed. “Where’s everyone else?” he asked Dean.
“Homework room. Figured a little one-on-one right now might be best.”
Kat stiffened. She eased herself back up to lean against the wall on the far side of her bed. She crossed her arms over her chest and went back to scowling at nothing. She closed herself off.
Dean turned back to her. “Kat? Hey. Knock it off. We were making progress here.”
“Tell him to go away,” she mumbled. “You’re alpha. He’s Omega.”
“And you’re five,” Dean pointed out. “You don’t get to decide where the adults in this house go. He’s your mother, just as much as Mom is. You’re going to show him respect, you hear me?”
“Dean,” Michael began.
But Dean cut him off. “No, man, she doesn’t get to decide who gets respect, not in my house.” He addressed the pouting pup, “Do we need an attitude adjustment before we continue this talk?”
“No, sir,” Kat groused.
“Because last I checked,” Dean went on, “you were obligated to mind every grown-up in this Pack, not just the ones who sired you. You think Papa’s going to be proud of you for mouthing off at O-Pop on the way home?” His alpha tone sunk into Kat’s psyche and grounded her. The implicit threat brought her head up.
“But Dad…”
“Listen, I really do get it. ‘Kay? I do. You’re embarrassed because of what happened at school. And you feel like we should have had this talk ages ago. You feel like maybe everything you believe about your Pack is a lie. Right? But it’s not. Kat, I need you to understand this. Nothing changes. No one’s telling you that you can’t feel whatever way you feel about it. But you don’t get to lash out. Swearing at anyone in this Pack is gonna get you spanked each and every time you do it. That’s against our Rules, and you know that.”
“So is lying!” she blurted. “All of you lied!”
Michael sighed. “We didn’t lie, Kat. We…”
“You did too lie!” She climbed off the bed and confronted him with fists clenched by her side. “You said you were our parents! All of you! And I believed you! And now everyone’s laughing at me and I’m in trouble, and it’s not fair!”
“Hold up, little pup,” Dean planted his palm in the middle of her chest again to stop her from getting right up in O-Pop’s face. “Calm down. There’s no need for shouting. No one’s shouting at you, so let’s bring it down and just talk.”
“It’s not fair, Daddy!”
“No one said it was fair,” he told her, still heavily into his alpha designation. “I know, kid. I get it. O-Pop gets it. We have a couple of things that need addressing, and we’re going to need to pry them apart and deal with each one separately.”
She turned wide sad blue eyes on him, looking so much like Cas that Dean felt a clench in his chest.
He said, “First off, we need to deal with your behavior. Then we’ll talk about the rest of it with Papa after dinner. You have a right to be heard. You got a right to say what you need to say and expect your Pack to hear you. You just can’t say it disrespectfully. And you can’t swear at O-Pop. So, stop shouting. Adjust your attitude so I don’t have to do that for you.”
Michael leaned toward her and said, “I tried to explain it to you, Kat. Just because I’m not your biological mother doesn’t mean I love you any less, that I love Alex more. It doesn’t mean anything but how you and your siblings came into the world. If there was a way for all four of us to have had a hand in conceiving you, I swear we would have done it that way.”
Dean snorted. “I’ll just bet you would,” he said under his breath. Michael shot him a quelling look.
Dean ignored it. He took hold of Kat’s hand and said, “This is going to take some time to sink in. But when it does, you’ll see. Nothing’s really changed.”
She sank into his lap and laid her head on his chest. “You promise?”
“I promise. Have I ever lied to you?” He tickled her ribs just enough to make her flinch.
“Oh ha ha,” she said sarcastically. “Papa’s gonna spank you for lying. All of you.”
“Papa lied too, if we want to be specific,” Michael added. “Who’s going to spank him?”
Kat shot him a surly glare. Dean eased her chin back around until she was looking at him instead. “Why is O-Pop getting the stink eye? He’s no more guilty here than I am.”
Kat shrugged. And sulked.
“Kat?”
“He’s gonna punish me. I don’t want a spanking,” she admitted.
“O-Pop’s not spanking you, Kathleen,” Dean told her. “I am.”
“What? Why?” She leapt out of his lap and put several feet of distance between them.
“Honest answer? Because O-Pop is the one who has to be the big bad meanie more than the rest of us, and that’s not fair to him. None of us like punishing you, and it’s not fair that he has to do it more than I do when you’re all of ours just the same.”
Tears welled in Kat’s eyes. “No, Daddy! No! I’ll be good! Don’t! Please!” She backed right up against the slatted closet door, bumping her heels against the door with a clatter. “O-Pop, please!”
To Michael, Dean said, “See? Now you’re off her list, and I’m on it.” Then, to Kat he said, “Kiddo, the drama isn’t going to make this any easier. Did you raise your voice to O-Pop? Did you swear at him?”
“I didn’t mean to,” she objected. “I was mad!”
“I know you were mad,” Dean agreed. He held his hand out to her to urge her closer. “That wasn’t the question. Come here. Talk to me. Did you raise your voice?”
She shuffled her feet and approached as slowly as possible. “Yes, sir.”
“And did you swear?”
Kat swallowed uncomfortably and shot a look at Michael. “Yes, sir.”
As she came close enough, Dean took hold of her hand and drew her in to stand in front of him. He sat on the carpet, feet flat to the floor, set wide with bent knees. He pulled Kat between his knees and rested his hands on her sides. Gentle.
“Tell me what words you said.”
Kat looked horrified at being asked to repeat her shameful harangue, but Dean held her steady and offered her no leeway. His eyes commanded a response.
Kat turned around, pleading with Michael to help her, but Dean caught her chin again. “No, Kat. Look at me. Answer me.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?” Dean wasn’t buying that. “Did you call him names? What did you say?”
“I said…” she gulped. “I said he wasn’t my dad and to shut his, um, his…d-word mouth.”
“D-word? Damn? His damned mouth?” Dean stayed calm but assertive.
Kat nodded. She fidgeted.
“What else?”
Kat whispered, “Called him a son of a b-word.” She couldn’t look at Dean any longer.
“Okay. Is that all?”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed glued to the side of the bed at Dean’s back.
“Michael?” Dean prompted. “Anything else?”
Michael paused for a moment to give Kat a chance, and then he said, “Kat? What was the last one? There’s one more.”
Kat shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed.
“If you can shout it at me when you’re mad, you can admit to saying it when it’s time to come clean,” Michael reminded her. “You said I was a … something … liar. Right? What was that word?”
“I’m sorry, O-Pop, I didn’t mean it!”
“Hey,” Dean said softly. “We’re not trying to torture you here. But it’s important that you learn to take accountability when you mess up. No one expects you to be perfect. Everybody messes up. But one way pups learn is by standing to account, admitting what they did, and taking their punishment for it. If I just spank you without making you face what you did that was wrong, you won’t learn the lesson.”
“I will! I swear! Please, Daddy!”
“What was the word, Kathleen?”
“The F-word,” she whispered.
“I see.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy!”
“Yeah, maybe say sorry to O-Pop. Not me. How do you think that made him feel? He loves you, kiddo.”
Kat sniffled loudly. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She turned and flung herself at Michael, who caught her up in a hug. “I’m sorry, O-Pop! I didn’t mean it!”
“I know you didn’t, Kitty-Kat. I forgive you. I love my girl so much.”
When Kat eased back out of the hug, she continued to cling to Michael. “I don’t wanna spanking,” she whimpered. Michael stood up and guided her back to Dean as Dean slid upward to sit on the side of Kat’s bed. “Please, I’ll be so good!”
Michael told his mate, “I’ll give you two some privacy. I need to check on the others anyway.”
Dean rested a hand over Kat’s shoulders and told Michael, “Jimmy had a trip to alpha Bevell’s office today too. I told him we’d be discussing that after dinner.” Dean fished the notification out of his pocket and handed it to Michael. “Red-letter day for the Winchester pups.”
Michael took the note and left, reading over it as he pulled the door closed.
“Just us now,” Dean said with a quiet exhale. “Don’t be scared.”
Kat began to cry in earnest.
“I know you’re sorry, Kat. But in this Pack there are consequences for breaking the Rules. Let’s take care of that and get through it. Neither of us wants to be here.”
He lifted her bodily and draped her belly over his left thigh. He let her brace herself on the bed, and he held her legs still with his right leg. With a practiced hand, he tugged her pants down her thighs, revealing only her little pink bottom. With a hand on her back, he said. “Twenty licks, Kathleen. You know better than to speak that way to anyone in this Pack.”
His hand fell. A sharp smack sounded louder in the small room than the sting it left behind, but Kat howled anyway. And squirmed. His hand was big enough to cover her whole bottom with each strike, so he aimed dead center and turned her butt bright pink.
As he spanked, he said in a hard, stern voice, “Puppies who can’t clean up their language earn a trip over someone’s knee. Every. SMACK. Single. SMACK. Time. SMACK. Do you understand me, young lady?”
“Daddy!” she wailed.
“You respect your parents all the same, and you obey them, or we’ll end up right back here doing this again. And next time will be worse because you’re meant to learn from this and behave yourself better.”
He reached twenty and halted. Kat cried into the bedding. Dean lifted her from his lap and set her on her feet. He helped tug her clothing back into place. He thumbed her tears from her cheeks and pulled her in to kiss her forehead. She melted into his hug.
“I love you so much, Kathleen,” said Dean. “So very much. We’re all done here. We won’t speak about your language again. You’re forgiven. But, listen.” He lifted her face toward his again, seeking her eyes. “We’re all here for you. I know this is hard. It’s hard for you and for your brothers and sisters. We messed up, and we owe you all an apology for that. After dinner, we’ll sit down, all of us, and we’ll talk it over.”
“Mommy’s not home,” Kat said as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Maybe Mommy’s free to FaceTime with us tonight,” Dean agreed. “I’ll check. She should be part of this.”
Kat tugged at Dean’s sleeve. “Will Papa be super mad?”
“Mm, probably. But you had your punishment. He won’t punish you again. And he’ll forgive you. Papa doesn’t stay mad, especially not at his pups. But you’ll be sure to tell him you’re sorry, right? Then we put it behind us, and we move on.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?” He stood and lifted her into his arms.
“Do you swear you love me as much as Alex?”
“Every bit as much,” Dean promised. “Cross my heart.” And he made an X across his chest with his finger. “Forever.”
Saturday, June 8, 2024
“Come on, Ace, get the lead out,” Michael called down the hallway leading to the boys’ room. “Guests are arriving. Party’s starting. Everyone’s in the pool.” He nudged the door open and found his six-year-old son huddled in the corner of his room with his shoulders hunched, his face hidden from his mother. Michael eased his way in and touched Alex’s back. “Hey, chief, what’s wrong? You’re missing the fun.”
“It’s not fun,” Alex groused over his shoulder. “It’s not fun for me.”
Michael slid to his haunches against the wall beside Alex, head cocked curiously. “It’s a pool party, kiddo. What’s not fun about that? Hey, look at me. What’s going on?”
Alex shrugged out of Michael’s grip when a touch to his chin tried to ease his face out of the corner. “I just don’t wanna go to the party. That’s all. I don’t feel like it.”
“You would rather stay up here and pout than swim with your siblings and your friends? Since when?”
“I’m not pouting,” Alex pouted.
“You kind of are.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Tone, Alexander,” Michael corrected gently. “Watch it. Try again.”
Alex turned around and crossed his arms over his chest. “I shouldn’t have to go to a party. It’s not school. It’s not church. It’s not the doctor’s office. I should be able to skip a party if I don’t wanna go.” Petulance turned his inflections spiky.
Michael studied him and then nodded. “You don’t have to go,” he agreed. “But you’re going to miss out on a lot of fun, and your brother has been counting on you to be his three-legged-race partner.”
“He can pick Theo for that,” Alex said. “Theo’s faster than me anyway.” He avoided meeting his mother’s eye, and Michael sighed.
“Does this have anything to do with what Dad said about the cakes this morning? How there’s three cakes, not four?”
“No.” It came out snipped. Alex shrugged uncomfortably.
Michael stood up. “Are we going to do this every time the triplets have a birthday? Ace, you got a birthday party when you turned six too. Don’t they deserve the same? Wouldn’t you be gutted if they sulked in their room during your birthday?”
“Everybody gets a cake but me!” the boy cried vehemently, pushing up to his feet. “There’s presents for everyone but me!”
“There are presents for everyone whose birthday was yesterday.” At six, Alex shouldn’t still be this self-absorbed. Michael found it concerning.
“Everyone has the same birthday but me! It’s not fair!”
Michael knelt back down. He held his arms open and let Alex dive into his embrace. A hand cradled the back of his son’s head as Michael hugged him. “I get that it feels that way. You four are so close to each other, so close to the same age. I know you’ve got big feelings about this, bud. But birthdays aren’t something anyone has any control over. They just are. Everyone has one and only one, and we can’t change that three of your siblings were born on the same day. I’ll bet if you asked them, they’re all a little jealous that you get one all to yourself and don’t have to share. I’ll bet they’re jealous that you will always get to have your birthday first. You turned five first; you turned six first. All your friends come to your party where half the triplets’ friends are out of town for their birthday. Plus, your birthday party is all your own. The triplets will never know what that feels like.”
“They’re not jealous.” Alex shook his head. “They were mean to me all morning. I don’t want to go down there. They don’t want me there. They’re only friends with each other.”
“That’s not true,” Michael said. “You’re very important to everyone in this Pack, especially the triplets. You’re each other’s very best friends.”
Dean appeared in the doorway with a two-year-old Mary Ellen on his hip. “What’s the holdup in here? Everyone’s down on the patio. Can’t have a party without the Ace. C’mon, kiddo. Let’s boogie.”
Alex buried his face in Michael’s chest and clung on, refusing to answer. Dean looked to Michael with brows raised in question. “Are we having a meltdown again this year? Thought he was past that.”
Michael nodded with a tender touch to Alex’s hair. “It kind of snuck up on him, I think. Seeing three cakes lined up side-by-side in the kitchen is hard when you share everything else with your siblings. Give him a few. I’ll talk him around.”
Dean came in. “Here, take Emmy down. Leave this to me.”
“Oh-Pawp! Lookit!” Mary Ellen held out her prized bath toy—a little blue whale—thrilled to be allowed to take it into the pool as a special treat. Dean handed the preschooler off to Michael. She reached for him with chunky arms and wrapped her bare legs around his torso. A swim diaper was all she had on. “She needs sunscreen,” Dean added.
Michael nodded, touched the side of Alex’s face, and then carried his daughter out, leaving Dean with Ace.
Dean sat down on Alex’s unmade bed.
Silence stretched as Dean watched his son squirm and resist looking at his dad.
“Talk to me, sport,” Dean finally said, nearly an order but not quite. “Thought we hashed this out this morning. What’s going on?”
Alex glanced at him with guilt in his eyes and then looked away.
“You said you were cool with it,” Dean reminded him.
“I tried,” Alex told him.
“Then what changed?”
“Nothin’.”
“Alex,” Dean said with warning in his tone, and tears sprung up in the boy’s eyes.
“Why can’t we all just have the same birthday?” he blurted. “I hate having mine in winter anyway. I want a pool party like everyone else!”
Dean caught his son’s hand and held it when it flailed in wild gesticulation. “We’re not moving your birthday, Ace. Your birthday is the date you were born on. It is what it is. But you can’t go around throwing a tantrum every year when someone else has a birthday and you don’t. I know you feel left out, but I need you to take a breath and remember that spoiling someone’s birthday party because you don’t have your own cake is not okay. It’s okay to feel sad, but it’s not okay to sulk in your room.”
“O-Pop said it is,” Alex disagreed. “He said I don’t have to go down there. He said it’s okay to go off by yourself when you feel mad so you don’t spread it to everyone else all the time.”
Dean sighed heavily, annoyed at his mate. “I’m alpha, and I’m overruling your mother. You’re going to the party.”
“It’s not fair,” Alex protested.
“It’s absolutely fair,” Dean countered. “Everybody has exactly one birthday, and everybody gets exactly one cake on that birthday. You got one. I got one. Papa got one, and he’s Alpha. If anyone is entitled to extra cakes, it’s Alpha.”
“It’s not the same thing.” Alex broke Dean’s hold and collapsed on the ground, boneless. He stared at the ceiling fan with his arms and legs akimbo. “They’re my best friends, and everyone says we’re all like twins together! But then they have their birthday without me! I’m not really a twin at all! Why does everyone have a twin but me?!”
“I don’t have a twin,” Dean pointed out. “Neither does O-Pop or Mom or Papa.”
“Hank and JT are twins!” Alex countered as he sat up and glared. “Kat and Jimmy and Emma are twins! Beth and Bella are twins! Sean and Emmy are even twins, and they’re just little!”
“Not sure what being little has to do with…”
“It’s only me who’s not a twin, and I hate it! Why can’t I have a twin too?!”
“It’s just how you came into the world, son. Omega men like your mother can’t have twins. They can’t have triplets. Only singles. Maybe that sucks, but that’s how it is.”
“Why?” Alex asked, fascinated in spite of himself.
“We’re not really sure,” Dean told him. “It has something to do with the way the posterior uterus works, whether in a man or a woman. Any Omega who conceives in the backdoor is only ever going to get one pup at a time that way.”
“You said O-Pop is my mom. But Mommy’s Omega too, right? How come none of the others are like me? Didn’t any of them come from her…from the back? From the one that comes out through the butt? That’s gross, Dad. Poop comes out through the butt.”
Dean scratched his nose and cleared his throat. “Um, well, yes, it does. But the two channels aren’t actually connected,” Dean told him. “Poop comes from the digestive system. It’s not attached to the reproductive system except right where they both exit the body. Pups aren’t swimming around in poop, son. There’s nothing gross about being a backdoor baby. And you’re not alone in that. Your sister was a posterior birth. You and Kat are our two backdoors. So in a way, you and Kat are kind of like twins with different birthdays.”
“Kat’s one of the triplets,” Alex insisted.
“Not really. Jimmy and Idgie are true twins. Kat was in a womb by herself, so she’s actually a single, like you.”
“You’re confusing me,” Alex griped. “I’m not twins with Kat. She’s twins with Idgie and JD. Everyone says! It’s her birthday too!”
Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Okay, look, here’s the thing. Papa and O-Pop and Mommy and me, we have six pups altogether. All six of our pups are just as important to us as all the others, no matter how they were born, when they were born, or who their biological mother and father are. All six of our pups have a birthday, and all of them get a party and a cake on their birthday, no matter if they share their birthday with someone else or not.
“And even if we feel sad and left out when some pups have a cake and we don’t, we’re going to go down there and celebrate with them because we’re all Pack, and we love them. Bad feelings or not, sometimes it’s important just to show up. Ace, if you don’t wanna swim and play the games, I’m not going to make you. But you are going to dry the waterworks, stow the whining, and put your game face on so you don’t spoil their party. No sulking. Deal?”
“Can I stay with you?”
“Like glue,” Dean promised. “If you want. But that means I get to steal your fries.” He tickled Alex’s ribs. “Any fries within a foot of my plate are fair game.”
Alex giggled in spite of himself and curled his body down protectively. Dean smiled over his dark curls. “Nuh-unh. I’ll stab your hand with my fork!” Alex warned.
“Pshh! A plastic fork ain’t gonna deter me, kiddo. I dare you to try it!” Dean stood and lifted Alex into a deep hug. “I’m a masochist. I eat plastic forks for dinner!”
Alex snorted but he wrapped arms and legs around his father and returned the hug. “That’s dumb,” he mumbled into Dean’s chest. “You can’t eat a fork.”
“I’ve had worse things in my mouth,” Dean pointed out as he set Alex back on the floor.
“Eww! Gross, Dad!”
“Swim trunks. Now.” Dean tossed a small pair of board shorts at his son’s head. “I’m missing the cannonball contest, and I planned to win that.”
“You like to put penises in your mouth,” Alex teased. “That’s where pee comes out!” He laughed at his own observation.
“Hmm, good point,” Dean agreed. “Maybe I should rethink that. Think I should stop?”
Alex chortled at the idea that his dad might be giving second thoughts to his habit of sucking dicks at the table. They both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Papa won’t let you,” Alex pointed out with a smirk. “Or O-Pop.”
“Guess I’ll just have to keep putting penises in my mouth then,” Dean agreed sadly. “Poor me. Such a hard life.” He tugged Alex’s swim trunks over his skinny hips and cuffed him playfully on the side of the head. “C’mon, Ace. Those extra fries aren’t going to steal themselves.”
“Hey!”
Alex scampered after his dad as Dean made a break for the hallway.
Dean stole enough of Alex’s fries to let the pup know he meant business, but Alex only grinned at his father and moved his plate a little closer. He seemed to feel a special connection to Dean over the past month now that he knew his dad only had one biological son. To Michael as well, but honestly, Alex’s bond with Michael had never waned from the time, well before his memory was permanent, when he nursed alone from his birth mother’s teat while the triplets shared April’s. He’d always been a bit of an O-Pop’s boy.
The revelation that his parentage was unique thus far had made him question a great deal about his place in the Pack, and it had made him clingy.
As sad as Alex was to be singled out as the only quad not to get a birthday cake today, knowing he was also Dean’s only son seemed to feel like a privilege. He clung to Dean and to Michael like he hadn’t since he was a toddler.
Last year, the triplets party had been a nightmare for Alex. A little sulking and a little extra attention didn’t seem too high a price this year to avoid screaming fits and thrown toys. He was learning to manage the hard feelings—certainly he was trying—and that’s all they could ask of him. Six was not an easy age for anyone, except perhaps Emma who slid from one developmental stage to the next like she had her own private cheat codes to guide her.
After lunch and another round of swimming, the cakes came out to much fanfare. Dean watched Alex, but the boy kept himself under control.
“Only Papa can have some of my cake!” Kat shouting, muscling her way to the center of the table. “It’s mine!”
“You may have the first slice, Kathleen,” April told her as she pulled the spent candles out and wielded a knife while Jack handed her a plate. “But everyone gets some of whichever cake they want. You must share.”
“All cakes!” little Sean Michael declared, getting a knee on the table before Michael pulled him clear and set him back in his chair.
“One plate with a little of all of them coming up,” April answered smoothly, licking icing from her thumb. “But only if you plant your bottom in your chair and leave it there.”
“You want ice cream, Michaleen?” Dean asked with a scoop of dripping chocolate poised over Sean’s plate.
“Mickle-een don’t like choc-lit,” said his twin, speaking for him as she often did.
“I wasn’t asking you, Emmy,” Dean chided cheerfully. “I was asking your brother. Sit down before you spill that cake and give Portia a tummy ache.”
“I don’t like chocolate,” Sean parroted. April and Dean shared a look. They had no idea which of Sean’s stated preferences were actually his own and which were internalized from his sister. Regardless, April handed the plate over with no ice cream.
Jo’s son Billy asked, “How come the big kids get to eat on the grass? I wanna eat with the big kids. Pleeeeze?”
“You must be over four years old to eat on the lawn,” Cas proclaimed. “Anyone under four eats at the table in a chair. That’s the rule.”
“Thanks, Papa,” said Jimmy as he accepted a serving from his mother and moved to join the little pack settling on the lawn. “Little kids spoil everything.”
“Do not!” Mary Ellen shouted at him.
Cas directed her back to her plate with a sharp snap of his fingers. “Sit down, Emmy, if you want to keep your plate.”
“Cas?” April asked with knife poised and three cakes before her.
“A little of each, please.”
“Telephone, sir,” Alfie announced. He pulled the door closed behind him and handed Cas the cordless land phone. “It’s your mother’s facility. They said it’s urgent.”
Cas froze with his hand out to accept his plate, blinking at the assistant butler as his mind tried to switch tracks swiftly enough to process. He eyed the phone, held extended in Alphie’s hand. Urgent news from a retirement home was rarely the cheerful kind. And Naomi’s recent descent into poor health had been head-swimmingly rapid over the last several months.
Today’s was the first of her grandchildren’s birthdays that she had been too feeble to attend.
“Cas?” April prompted. She set his plate on the table to await his return and nodded toward the phone.
His hand found its way to the top of Sean’s head, seated in front of him and craning to look up at his Papa. Touching the pup grounded Cas enough to snap himself out of his brief paralysis.
He took the phone and heeled backward to put some distance between his conversation and the festive mood of the triplets’ birthday celebration. Every grownup’s eye watched as he put the phone to his ear and strolled toward the glittering blue pool.
“Castiel,” he said into the receiver.
An aneurysm, they had said.
The end was swift and painless, they said, although how anyone knew if she’d experienced pain as she died was a mystery to Cas.
He mused in the quiet moments of the late afternoon, after the party guests departed and the mess was cleaned up, that he should feel some sort of continental shift in The Universe following the death of someone who moved through his life like a black hole, her gravity inescapable, her charisma poisonous. But he felt very little.
He wasn’t numb. Numb would make sense, as shock was a common experience in the loss of a close relative. But he wasn’t numb. He felt…slightly perplexed—more to do with the fact that he wasn’t feeling much of anything at all than that the mysteries of death caused him existential ennui.
Cas dutifully followed the facility director’s call with a spate of conversations to set the wheels of funeral rites in motion. He called his attorney. He called the hospital. He called Naomi’s property manager. He called three of her closest friends who all agreed to notify everyone else she was close to. He called Mick to begin funeral arrangements and other time critical tasks.
Soon he needed to dress and drive out there himself.
April knelt at his side in his office. Dean and Michael took the pups. Gabriel sat in the kitchen tipping drams of whiskey into a cup of coffee that Fred kept topped off while Kali worked Tony through what to expect over the next few days as a horde of mourners descended on the house.
Because they would.
“I’m here, Cas,” Dean had said. “Whatever you need. Things can get complicated fast when you lose a parent. It’s not easier just because you’re grown, just because you didn’t have a close relationship. Just know, whatever you want, I’ll give it. I’m here.”
But none of those complicated emotions had hit Cas yet. He wondered if he had already done his grieving as Naomi had slowly drifted away from herself over the last several years.
He wondered if he just wasn’t going to grieve at all.
There was a bland sense of relief now but little else to point to her being gone.
Naomi had been out of the public eye for five years, but she was still a daughter of the Kansas elite, and she was still highly regarded. The Pack knew her send off would be a very public affair, many of the mourners diametrically opposed to the political leanings of her sons and their built family. But mourners deserve support, no matter how they lean. The house needed to be ready.
“She wanted a religious service,” said Cas later, at dinner. “I haven’t stepped foot inside a Christian church since I was fourteen. This won’t be easy.”
“Playing devil’s advocate,” Jess said, “Naomi won’t exactly be there for her own funeral. Would it really matter if you held it in a church? Aren’t funerals for the living more than the dead?”
“She was a Christian,” Gabe said to no one in particular, and that was that.
Fred briefly rested his gnarled hand upon Gabe’s shoulder before collecting his untouched dinner plate with a shaky grip.
Gabe reached up and returned the touch to Fred’s hand. Cas took note, but try as he might, he couldn’t find anything within him to connect his feelings with theirs.
Monday, June 10, 2024
“Ah, he’s just returning, sir.”
Cas perked up from the doorway at Alfie’s overheard phone conversation. He checked to make sure his pups were following. He held up a finger to Alfie to let his butler know he’d heard and was coming.
Alfie had the cordless hall phone to his ear. “One moment.”
Cas ushered the pups in beneath his arm, holding the door wide, and made room for April to follow on his heels. Alfie placed a hand over the receiver and held it out toward Cas.
But the Alpha was windblown and slightly frazzled after his walk with the pups and dog in tow. He entered the foyer with a string of instructions on his tongue, a little breathless.
“Jimmy don’t leave your shoes on the floor. Emma, please take Portia’s leash off and hang it up. Come along, Emmy, we can pick flowers after lunch. Jimmy, would you mind helping Sean up the steps? No, don’t pick him up, just hold his hand.”
Cas huffed, waiting in the doorway for Kat and Emmy to leave Philip’s immaculately manicured flower garden and tackle the steps onto the front porch. What was meant to be a walk to the nearby park for sun, exercise, and stress relief—and to get the pups out of the house while Michael tied up details for Naomi’s funeral—had accomplished only that last goal. They never made it to the park. Two-year-olds move at a different pace than Cas recalled.
The quads hadn’t been two in years, and he’d forgotten.
Multiple meltdowns and a close call with a passing car had cut the walk short, although a glance at his watch told Cas they had been gone for two hours already.
Now he understood why Kate always packed them into the van and drove them to the park instead of walking.
“For me?” Cas asked Alfie.
“Papa, I have to go pee!” cried Sean. He dashed around the staircase toward the little powder room beneath them.
Cas wiped his brow and closed the door. Fred ushered the remaining pups toward the kitchen. Dean jogged down the stairs just as Michael emerged from his office. April stooped to collect abandoned shoes by the front door.
“He said his name is Abraham?” Alfie told Cas.
“Is that a question?” Cas asked, taking the phone.
“No, Alpha. That’s what he said,” the assistant butler replied, blushing. “Uh, Abraham.”
“Who’s Abraham?” April asked Dean. “Someone from work?”
“Bram!” Cas said with a smile into the receiver. “It’s good to hear from you. I wasn’t expecting a check-in for another month. Is everything okay?” He slipped into his office and closed the door.
Michael peeked into the powder room to check Sean’s progress then joined Dean and April in the foyer. “Not that Abraham? From Bolivia?”
“Cousin Bolivia?” April asked in wonder.
Emmy darted back into the foyer from the back hallway with a purple popsicle. She paused at the open door to the powder room to show off her treat to her twin and screeched, “Daddy! Mickle-een gotted water all over the floor! Look, Daddy!”
Michael intercepted. “Relax, Emmy, it’s just water. Let’s just help him instead of screaming.”
“It’s a mess! It’s slippy!” she screeched. “He could fall and bang his head on the floor!”
Dean left Michael to calm their panicked daughter. He could feel surprise bordering on mild shock through his bond with Cas.
Dean knew several Abrahams. It was a common choice for Lupins moving out of the wilds looking for assimilated names. But he only knew one who went by Bram, one for whom Cas might register this degree of surprise to get a phone call from. Dean followed Cas into his office and found him listening intently to his ex-pat Omega Pack mate. When Cas noticed Dean in the doorway, he put the call on speaker and set it on his desk.
“Dean’s here, Bram. You’re on speaker.”
“Hi, alpha.” Bram had the Novak gruffness in his voice, but he sounded chipper where the gravel often made Cas seem annoyed when he spoke.
“Hey, stranger,” Dean greeted. “How’s the jungle, kiddo?”
“I may be Omega, Dean, but I’m not your kiddo. I’m fifty-three for cripe’s sake.”
Dean laughed.
“You said it was important,” Cas broke in. “Is Carlos okay? The pups?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, everyone’s fine. Well, I mean unless you count Margarita getting lost in Seville on her first day in Spain. I thought I was going to have to send Carlos out there to rescue her.”
“She’s starting her first year abroad already?” Dean asked. “Damn, they grow up fast.”
“Don’t I know it,” Bram answered. “Better take a lot of pictures, Dean. Yours will be up and grown before you can blink, just like mine. It goes by so fast.”
“And in that vein, Omega,” Cas interrupted, “We’ve got a houseful of overexcited pups to get down for their naps. They’ll be swinging from the rafters if we don’t get back to them.” Michael and April appeared in the open doorway, curious. Michael had Mary Ellen in his arms. He gestured her to be quiet and she nodded with wide eyes and put her popsicle in her mouth.
“Shit, I’m interrupting. Look, I can call back later.”
Cas shook his head, although the man couldn’t see him. “Please just cut to the chase, Bram. What’s on your mind?”
“I was wondering if I could fly in for the funeral. Maybe stay over for a week or so, Alpha. I have a few things I want to talk to… well, to Michael about.”
Dean startled. “Michael? What for?” He glanced at his mate with a frown.
Bram hemmed a little, looking for the best way to approach the request. “It’s, well, it’s my work down here, fellas. I’m writing this book, you see. My research. I’m trying to get it all tied together in one place.”
“What research?” Dean pressed. “And what does Bolivian research have to do with my mate?”
“It’ll make more sense in person, Dean,” Bram told him. “The research isn’t widely known. In fact, no one but Carlos knows anything about it. It’s kind of been a private project. The book isn’t for publication, just for documentation so I can…I’d really rather explain in person.”
Dean looked to Cas. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
Cas shook his head. “No idea. But I can’t think of any reason he and Michael shouldn’t be allowed to talk to each other. Can you?”
“You weren’t close to Naomi, were you?” Dean asked the Omega.
Bram laughed. “Ha! Naomi wasn’t close to any Omegas to my knowledge. Still, she was Pack. Her Christmas parties used to be the highlight of the social season once upon a time. I’d like to pay my respects, even if my presence was never her priority.”
Cas sighed. “Abraham, this is your Pack. It’s your home. You never need to ask permission to stay here. You’re welcome, always. I assume Carlos is coming with you?”
“Omegas can’t travel alone, Sir,” he replied. “But honestly, now that he’s stepped down as mayor, his retirement is driving us both crazy. I need to get him out of the house before he refurbishes the kitchen. Again.”
“Have your custodial alpha send me a transfer of authority before you fly, Bram,” Cas told him. “The funeral is Friday. I’ll expect your itinerary in my email by Wednesday at the latest. Safe travels, Omega.”
“Yes, Alpha. Thanks.”
“Oh, and Bram, Naomi named you in her will. I’ll have the details for you when you arrive.”
Saturday, June 15, 2024
The attorney read slowly and with appropriate gravitas. “To my youngest son and primary heir, Alpha Castiel James Novak, I leave the total of my estate less those items and sums herein specified and all incurred debts owed by the estate; additionally, I leave to Castiel all the lands and properties I inherited from my family, all that I inherited from my late mate, and the house in Washington DC I purchased with my own means with all of its furnishings.”
Castiel’s jaw twitched. That was his only outward reaction to his mother’s wording, so very Naomi. He could almost hear her voice through the pinched, nasal twang of her lawyer.
“To my eldest son, Gabriel Allen, I bequeath the jewelry given to me by my late mother-in-law and that given to me by my late husband, Alpha Zachariah Francis Novak.”
He paused and glanced nervously at Gabe as if to measure his reaction to being nearly cut out of the will entirely. But Gabe seemed fine, at least on the outside. The attorney cleared his throat and frowned back at the dense text before him.
“To Abraham Zachariah, my second cousin once removed, I leave the rocking chair given to me by my late mother-in-law as he is the only person who ever used it.”
Bram smiled a private smile into his lap, crinkling the corners of his eyes. His mate looked to him for an explanation, but he gave nothing but a soft chuckle. Of all the things for Naomi to remember all these years later, for her to recall telling him off at catching him standing on that chair, repeatedly rocking it into the nursery room wall and whooping in glee during one of her fancy dinner parties, was patently absurd. Bram couldn’t have been older than four at the time.
He was being a cowboy; Bram remembered that much almost fifty years later.
Carlos took his hand.
“To my three beta nieces I leave the sums of fifty-thousand dollars each, primarily for them to pursue their own aspirations in politics. To my daughter-in-law, April Renée, I leave the paintings in my Kansas residence and those from my private study in Washington DC, including the small Matisse, to be held in protective custody and gifted to my eldest grandson, James Novak, on his maturity. It is my sincere hope she will make appropriate gifts of other pieces to my other grandchildren as she sees fit and at her alpha mate’s discretion.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Cas grumbled.
“We’ll get it sorted, Alpha,” April said with a squeeze to his hand in her lap. “She can’t hurt us.”
“When did she write this?” Cas asked the attorney.
Citing the signature line after flipping nervously through the pages, he replied, “Um, four years ago?”
“Before or after her medical crisis?”
“After, Alpha. It lists the grandson by name.”
“Partial name,” Cas growled. “Leaving his middle name out when everyone else’s is included was an intentional dig. And Jimmy isn’t her eldest. There is clearly cause to contest this. That painting was the most valuable thing she owned. She wanted to set them up to bicker for the rest of their lives. I won’t have it!”
The attorney seemed frozen in apprehension.
“Go on, man,” said Gabe to him. “Might as well spill all the tea before we try to clean any of it up.”
The man swallowed and looked from Gabe to Cas, waited for the Alpha’s surly nod, searched out his place, and then continued. “To my friend Michael Quinton, I leave the sum of five-hundred thousand dollars for him to improve his life as he sees fit.”
Dean snorted.
“To my personal secretary, Angela Fielding, I leave my automobiles.”
The long pause and the removal of his reading glasses signaled that the lawyer was done with the reading. Castiel squeezed Dean’s hand and sighed.
“Damn, I really wanted that Buick Enclave,” Dean snarked.
The Alpha raised an eyebrow. “Not now, Pet,” he scolded, sotto voce before addressing the lawyer. “Is it going to be a problem that she deadnamed me?”
The attorney shook his head. “No, Alpha. Legally, you carry your prior names forever in reference to contracts. You will never stop being a Novak. To be safe, we’ll petition the court to recognize the corrections, verify that Castiel James Novak is Castiel James Winchester, but that will be simple, given your profiles.”
“Thank you, Vernon. I’ll look for the confirmation.” Cas stood up. He brought April with him. He drew Dean to his feet and left the parlor with them, heading into the kitchen without another word.
“Do we have any recourse about the Matisse?” Michael asked quietly, approaching the attorney on his own. The man licked his lips and looked over Michael’s shoulder to seek an alpha, but Michael shifted into his eyeline again. “You can talk to me, beta,” Michael growled, lacing Voice into his speech. “You’re not going to get arrested for speaking to an Omega.”
Vernon frowned and focused back on Michael. “Recourse in what sense?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“Jimmy isn’t Naomi’s oldest grandson,” Michael said with conviction. “The will sets out conflicting statements. He’s not even the oldest of the triplets.”
“She, uh, that is, to my knowledge, the boy James is her eldest direct male descendant… Unless there is a previously unacknowledged bastard? I suppose that might throw the will into doubt. But she did name him explicitly. That usually trumps any misstatements in pedigree…”
“What is this, the 1820s? There are no bastards,” Michael snarled. “But her eldest grandson is Alexander. She knew that!”
“Ah,” the attorney said as comprehension sparked in his eyes. “Alexander Castiel, I believe. Yes. The adopted one. The Alpha’s namesake.”
“That’s the one,” Michael confirmed. Castiel had indeed adopted him legally, even as Dean and Michael retained their parental claims. The legal gymnastics to have four legal parents hadn’t been easy.
“The child is not related to the deceased, Omega. So, unless she names him explicitly, he inherits nothing.”
“And if Castiel decides otherwise?” Michael challenged. “Ten years from now when they all reach maturity, who’s to say the painting’s not going where the Alpha wants it to go? What’s to prevent him from selling it and splitting the proceeds among all of her grandchildren, natural and otherwise?”
“Well, um, probate law, actually. The painting does not belong to Castiel. None of them do. They belong to April for the moment. Once James is sixteen, he inherits it. The remaining paintings have a less clearly designated intention. You see, Mrs. Novak says right here…”
“Never mind,” Michael huffed in disgust. “Unbelievable.”
“Michael, leave the poor beta alone,” Dean called through the archway. “It’s not his fault Naomi was a bitch. None of them need a fucking Matisse anyway.”
“It’s not the painting, Dean! It’s the principle!”
The funeral had fried all of their nerves. Opening the house to a horde of their political enemies had tested the limits of their forbearance. And now the will.
Naomi’s attorney had cautioned against a formal reading, but Castiel wanted to hear it. He wanted Naomi’s people in the room with him. He wanted no differences of interpretation to lead to endless feuds going forward.
Most of Naomi’s friends huddled together in the parlor as the reading broke up, talking in whispers with hard glances through the archway toward the Winchesters. Cas picked at a tray of fruit and cheese, listening to his own attorney babble about possible challenge options.
Cas didn’t give a single fuck about any of the stuff. He was Pack Alpha. He was the heir. He heard nothing particularly unexpected, but her decisions about whom to name and how to name them set Cas seething. Dean’s name was omitted entirely; Gabe and April were referred to without surnames as if their given names were all they were as people. Her own daughter-in-law. Her own goddamned son!
And too, the Omegas’ Secondaries—none of them so much as mentioned their designations, not even Michael, as if being Omega were too shameful to mention. Oh, yes, all of that was calculated to irk her heir.
And irked he was.
“Do you need anything from me right now?” Cas growled.
His attorney snapped his mouth closed instantly. He thought for a moment and said, “Authority to speak on your behalf and open a probate challenge. I assume you would rather not be involved?”
“Not unless I have to be.” Cas put an arm around Dean’s back and leaned into him. “I want to put all of this behind me as completely as possible. I authorize you to act on my children’s behalf. All of my children. I don’t care how you fix this. Just fix it!”
“Yes, Alpha,” he said with a yellow pallor showing that all the blood had left his face.
Dean caught Cas by the hand and tugged him toward the patio door. “Come on, man. You’ll feel better with your pups around you.”
But as they passed through the back hallway toward the pool patio, one of Naomi’s staff stage-whispered to her colleague in shock, “Heavens! His children run around stark naked like little savages!”
“They sure do!” Dean said loudly. Through the window, a passel of pups shrieked and darted about on the lawn, most nude as they had been swimming before switching to a game of keep-away. “You might try it sometime. That stick up your ass will fall right out, I swear.”
“Ugh!” she scoffed in disgust.
“Enjoy that Buick,” Dean quipped. “Rides like a dream, I hear.”
Notes:
Warning for corporal punishment of a small child
Warning for death of a minor character
Chapter 42: Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Summary:
Parenting is hard, y'all. Time for a long overdue talk with the pups. Then Dean has something for Cas to hear, Bram has something Cas isn't sure he wants Michael to hear, and Cas finds his center and the key to his tangled emotions right at his core.
Notes:
This is a big chapter, folks. I'm finally clear enough to pull some stuff together and say it the way I mean to. Yay me!
For your visual images, Bram looks like Charlie Capen.
If you feel inspired, go check out Radio Company's newest album, Keep on Ramblin' As the two before were, this one is a gift to Destiel fanfic writers. Link to the referenced song in the end notes. For those not in the SPN fandom, Radio Company is Steve Carlson and Jensen Ackles. They write and perform all the songs, so we get to hear our Dean sing and play for realsies. I love that for us.
I have to include in this chapter a qualifying statement: The idea behind Bram's tale is not mine, it's Jennyfly's, as are pretty significant chunks of the text itself. She's co-author of this chapter. Thanks, Jenny, for lending me your brilliance.
Also, we borrowed some root words from a culture we don't belong to. The term 'Tiwunuku' is derived from 'Tiwanaku', the name of a culture lost to the Incas and Lake Titicaca in ancient Peru. 'Ayahuasca', 'Ayawuascaita', and 'Awahuoscato' are derived from a word referencing the mystical culture and a mystical hallucinogen of rural Bolivia. In this work, Tiwunuku refers to a completely different culture in that region. We mean no disrespect to the native peoples of Bolivia or Peru. This work is fiction, and I ask that readers immerse themselves in the imaginative world.
As an aside, Dean's reference to CBT in this chapter refers to cock and ball torture, not cognitive behavioral therapy (just this once).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
THEN:
September 18, 2010
“Hold that thought, Pet. Don’t move a muscle.” Dean’s Sir winked like a goddamned Sadist, leaving him here, sweating in this goddamned squat, legs screaming, ass on fire, just for a fucking doorbell? There’s a butler, for fuck’s sake! “I’ll be right back.”
“Sir!” Dean gritted through clenched teeth. His thighs quivered. The line of sweat trickling down the crack of his ass was just the wrong side of so distracting he might just keel over.
The playroom door slammed, and Dean was alone.
“Goddamnit!” he grunted. If he could just rebalance his weight a little to the right… He huffed uncomfortably. What was with the Alpha and his incessant need to test his Sub’s physical conditioning? Dean was no athlete. And squats onto a lubed syntho-knot was just mean when he wasn’t allowed to grind down into it.
But to hold position halfway down?
That was pure torture.
“Aaaaargh!!” Dean cried. He’d never seen a camera in here, but he just knew—somehow he knew—Sir would know if he broke form. Dean tried rocking up to the balls of his feet just for a moment to ease the burn in his thighs and glutes. He mumbled the lyrics of Ramble On under his breath through clenched teeth. He made himself hold on through the first stanza, through the first chorus. He told himself if Sir wasn’t back by the time Dean got to ‘I met a girl so fair,’ Cas was likely to find him passed out on the floor. The slide of the toy in his ass warned him he was dangerously close to dropping it.
The door crashed back open. Alpha entered in a rush, completely thrown out of his headspace. Dean tumbled forward, catching himself on his hands.
“Dean, I’m sorry. I need to call a halt to our play. This is terribly bad timing, but…” Castiel sighed heavily. “My mother has just arrived unannounced. She’s upstairs.” Cas helped Dean find his footing and swept the knotted dildo off the floor where it had been suctioned. He tossed it into a deep wash sink at the back of the room.
“Come here, Dean. Let me see you for a moment.”
Cas stood Dean up, then held Dean’s upper arms and peered deep into his eyes, searching. “Are you all right?”
“I’m… uh… fine, Alpha. Little bit jarring, maybe, crashing to a stop like that, but no worse for the wear. What’dya mean your mother?” Dean grabbed his bathrobe and slipped it on while Cas watched him closely for signs of emotional whiplash and handed him a box of wet wipes.
“My mother,” Cas repeated. “You know, the… woman who gave me birth? My mother.” Cas’ expression turned irritated at Dean’s idiotic question. He was flustered. Dean couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen Cas flustered before. “I know this is all kinds of terrible scene-play, but would you be okay if we skimp on the aftercare?”
“Alpha, I’m fine,” Dean laughed. “Truth is, I’m not heartbroken your torture session got axed. My thighs are filing for divorce as it is. You want me to slip out the back or wait for you here? Raincheck? I could still make it to the library for some research.”
“Slip…? No, Dean. I’m not hiding you from my mother.” Dean’s eyes widened, and Cas flushed slightly. There was an implication there, maybe. No? “That is, naturally you don’t have to meet her. But I would be happy to introduce you. I expect we’ll run in to her together now and then anyway if our project gets off the ground. I doubt we could work as closely together as we intend to and not…” Cas stopped. He stared helplessly at Dean and dropped his shoulders. “Would you like to come upstairs with me and meet my mother, Dean?”
Dean laughed again and shook out his legs one at a time. “Like this?” He gestured down at his robe.
“Perhaps dress first,” Cas agreed, finding his footing again and remembering that he wasn’t eight. “And stretch. You held that pose long enough to set your muscles on fire if you don’t stretch them loose again. You need to cool down so you don’t cramp up.”
Dean couldn’t repress his grin. Castiel Novak, flustered by the unexpected arrival of his mother during a scene.
Who knew?
This woman, Dean had to meet.
“Up in the parlor when you’re ready, please, Dean. We’ll wait for you. If her business is important enough she’ll likely be staying for dinner with us.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dean happily. He preceded Cas through the heavy spring-loaded door and slipped across the hall to Cas’ H/R room where his overnight bag awaited him with fresh clothes. Dean didn’t crack the bag open though. He shimmied back into the clothes he’d had on when he arrived an hour earlier. Hopefully, once Madre said her piece and departed, they could get back down to ripping their clothes off and working up a sweat, hopefully sans squats.
Dean tossed the bathrobe on the bed and stretched tight muscles out. He took a few moments to massage his thighs and butt with the heel of his hands. He yanked his t-shirt over slightly damp skin and pulled his button-down on over it. With his worn, stained jeans, he knew he wasn’t presenting a take-him-home-to-meet-the-folks kind of impression, but he was who he was. It wasn’t a job interview.
Obviously, Cas didn’t care how he dressed, so it must not matter.
Cas had already introduced Dean to some of his political contacts, hoping they could provide funding leads or at least networking ideas. Dean had found all of them, to a one, personable and down to earth. Where he had been expecting Washington-types with chiseled jaws, cold stares through assessing monocles, and silver-tipped walking sticks, instead he met—well—just some folks.
Dean cast a quick look in the mirror, tousled his hair just so. He winked at his reflection and took the stairs up to the ground floor two at a time.
“May I offer you a beverage, alpha?” Fred asked before Dean even made it all the way into the parlor. “Bourbon, perhaps?”
“I’ll take a longneck if you’ve got one cold,” Dean said.
“Of course,” Fred replied.
Fred didn’t usually offer him alcohol, but Dean wasn’t going to turn it down if it was there. He found Cas by the fireplace, standing stiffly with a blank countenance. Dean nodded cheerfully as the butler left toward the kitchen. Cas hadn’t stopped him, so it looked as if beer was on the menu for once.
“Mother, may I present,” Cas intoned formally. “My project partner and colleague, alpha Dean Winchester.” It wasn’t until Cas spoke past Dean that he thought to turn. Nearly behind him, all the way across the room by the window, a woman well past her prime but oozing the trappings of wealth and power stood looking regally down her nose at Dean. “Dean is a graduate student at the University. He is a genius at fundraising. I believe his family is as rooted in Lawrence as is ours. Dean, my mother, Congresswoman Naomi Novak.”
Dean’s eyes widened again. Had Cas told him his mom was a Congresswoman? Shit, had Dean known that and forgotten? How the hell do you greet a Congresswoman?
Naomi didn’t move while Dean fumbled for a greeting and untangled his hands, feet, and tongue. Her eyes were icy and motionless.
“It’s…great to…” he stuck his hand out only to have her frown slightly at him, appearing puzzled. She cocked her head slightly. “That is… Congresswoman… How do you do? Dean Winchester.”
“Yes,” she said slowly as Dean realized he’d repeated Cas’ introduction. “So I heard. And what brings you here at this hour of the evening, alpha? Something in the basement, was it? A project the two of you are working on? Someone like you, I expect you are particularly adept with your hands. Perhaps there’s a leak in the plumbing that needs a real man’s touch.”
Dean glanced awkwardly at his own hand, still out in front of him. He closed and opened his fist before dropping his arm and looking to Cas.
“Dean is here at my invitation, Mother,” said Cas coldly. And hole-lee fuck if that tone couldn’t chill lava. “Unlike yourself. So, if you don’t mind, rather than interrogate my guest, perhaps you’ll share with me your purpose so that we may continue our evening uninterrupted.”
Fred handed Dean an amber beer bottle with the cap removed. Dean thanked him quietly.
“Why must we always argue, Castiel? Coitus interruptus can’t be a foreign experience for you what with the kind of promiscuity I’ve come to expect from you these days. I’m sure that what slips out can just as easily be slipped right back in once you’ve shooed the old woman back into the cold. Can a doting mother not look in on her son on occasion without striking flint to tinder?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Cas told her. “I have never had a doting mother.”
“Oh,” Dean muttered to himself, backing from between them. “So, that just happened.”
Cas glanced at him but then returned his attention to Naomi.
“Fundraising, you say?” Naomi diverted, looking abruptly from Cas to Dean with the most terrifying smile he’d ever seen on a live human. “How practical. Lord knows Castiel is a disaster where funds are concerned. Perhaps you can teach him how to… oh what was it? Clip coupons? Perhaps a bake sale?” She smiled for exactly one second more, and then her smile disappeared as if it had never been.
“Must you cast yourself always as the villain, Mother?” Cas asked, sounding tired. “This is really unnecessary. Dean is no threat to you. He is my colleague and my friend. If you cannot be polite, you may leave.”
Naomi bustled into movement, snapping open her handbag and then closing it again without retrieving anything. “Actually, Castiel, I cannot stay anyway. I’m only here to see your brother…”
“Gabriel is not here, as you well know,” Cas snapped. Red-hot ice flashed in his eyes. “Whatever business you have with him, you may conduct with me. I am his Alpha.” Where Cas had seemed annoyed with her for her tone toward Dean, the mention of Gabriel turned him livid.
“Oh, pish-posh! Alpha! Alphas and Omegas and betas, oh my!” she singsonged. “What ridiculous drivel. I only stopped by to tell him that Marjory Faulkner is home from abroad, and she’s brought three French girlfriends along with her.”
“French girlfriends?” Dean mouthed.
“Friends who are girls,” Cas clarified for him.
Dean replied with a soundless, “Oh.”
“Mother, Gabe isn’t interested in dating your society friends’ daughters OR their rich French girlfriends. Is that all?”
Naomi frowned. “Don’t be so controlling, Alpha. He’s still a young man, he needs to meet people.”
Dean’s eyes bugged out at her inflection in the way she said his title. Surely Cas wasn’t going to allow…
“It isn’t any business of yours whether your big brother dates or not,” she continued.
“Gabe is in mourning, Mother!” Cas exclaimed.
Dean stumbled backward and nearly tripped.
“Do be careful, dear,” Naomi chided sweetly. “The stench of beer is so difficult to remove from fine chintz.”
“Mother, so help me!” Castiel’s exhale was hard and bitter.
“Come now, son. You can only expect so much politeness from me when you bring in hookers from the street to swill suds in your father’s formal drawing room. This house used to be a home to a proud, upstanding, and dignified family. And now it’s a brothel!”
“Goddamnit! I shouldn’t have let you in in the first place. Fred, please fetch Mother’s things. She’s leaving.”
Dean’s mouth hung slack. His fingers went numb around the cool, wet glass, and he set the bottle swiftly down before he dropped it. He didn’t fully register the flurry of movement or the barbed linguistic arrows that zinged between mother and son before the house fell silent.
Dean heard a rushing noise in his head. He felt precariously situated in a tiny white room set directly between his own eyes as if a mere passenger in a Dean-mobile, nothing more than a silent observer. He swayed on his feet.
“Fred, next time she shows up unannounced, we turn her away. I’m serious. Tell the gate!”
“Yes, Alpha. Of course, sir.
“Dean! God, I’m so sorry. Are you all right? Here, sit.” Cas supported him until he managed to fold his legs correctly and plop onto his butt in a fine fabric chair. The textiles caught his attention: ratty, worn denim, barely even blue at all anymore, against delicate chintz. “Fred, water.”
“Right away, Alpha.”
“Dean, look at me, alpha. Eyes right here.” Cas snapped a couple of times, and Dean flinched and then blinked. The rushing slowed in his head, and movement stopped looking blurred. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you. Here, sip a little.”
Cas held a glass to Dean’s chin and helped him drink.
“Did she say hooker?” Dean asked, still a little dazed. Cas’ face turned murderous briefly, but he shuttered his expression quickly.
“My mother,” he extolled, “can be an absolute nightmare when she’s displeased about something. That was inexcusable. Please believe me, I had no idea she was going to behave that way. I need you to understand, her beef is with me, not you. She’s usually very charming to people outside of the family. I’m accustomed to her contempt, but it’s usually reserved for me. I’ve never seen her like that. She’s been condescending to my friends for most of my life, but I’ve never seen her actively cruel, not like that, not to a complete stranger. You have to know I would never have brought you up here and subjected you to that if I’d known.”
“S’okay, Sir. S’just words. Sticks and stones and all that shit.” Dean chuckled, but he couldn’t really find the humor just then. One day, if this scene-partners thing between them lasted, they would probably laugh their asses off at Congresswoman Naomi Novak’s introduction to grad student Dean Winchester.
“Are you okay?” Castiel asked again, still and solid. Dean started to shove his hovering hand away and reclaim his beer, but Cas wouldn’t be moved. “Dean, really. Tell me the truth. Are you okay?”
Dean scoffed. “Right as rain, Alpha. You think that’s my first run-in with high society? I’ve been called way worse than a hooker. In fact, I’ve been way worse than a hooker. Nothing wrong with the sex trade, man, long as it’s all SSC and legal. Beats flogging it all for free at a packed dive just to get your rocks off and pick up who knows what kind of STDs on your fifteenth round over the pool table without a rubber.”
Cas narrowed his eyes. Dean couldn’t tell if it was the lie Cas didn’t like, the slut-shaming, or the string of Joe-no-names from Dean’s cumdumpster days.
Dean sniffed, loud and abrupt. “Seriously, Alpha. I’m square. What about you? I mean, that’s your mother? God, man, I’m sorry. No one deserves bullshit like that, but from your own mom. Jesus Christ. Hey, how about we nix the playroom tonight, pop a bucket with extra butter, crack open a sixpack or two, and watch the whole Hell Hazers franchise until the sun comes up? The library can wait.”
“That…sounds like an excellent idea.” Cas’ eyes still held wariness and pain, but he smiled gamely at Dean. He squeezed his knee and stood up from his crouch. “Fred, do we have more of that beer?”
Cas fell asleep at about two, right before the big reveal on Hell Hazers III. The Alpha had stretched out along the couch, slotted into the V of Dean’s legs with his head pillowed against Dean’s shoulder. And he was drooling slightly.
Dean watched him breathe.
For a moment, if he were very careful, he could pretend Cas was his boyfriend, not the hardass who made his backside ache and his brain hurt, who demanded results in the planning room and the playroom. In the flickering orange light from the screen, Cas’ features looked sharp and soft at the same time.
Dean used a hesitant finger to ease a tiny lock of hair back into place over his brow. Someone on the TV screamed, and Castiel startled, snorted, rolled onto his side with an arm around Dean’s belly, and mumbled incoherently before falling still.
Fucked.
Dean Winchester was fucked.
A FEW WEEKS BEFORE NOW:
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Cas entered the kitchen dressed in his rumpled suit and tie, his omni-present trench coat over his arm and a leather briefcase in his hand. Bags under his eyes and a dark shadow on his jaw spoke of a long day battling for the future of the company whose leadership he had handed off to Jonathon Miles a year hence. These days, Cas led the Foundational Board, a position that gave him access to the purse strings and priority lists. In some ways, he had become a figurehead. But anyone who truly believed that was blind.
Jonathon didn’t make a move to tie his shoe if he thought Castiel wasn’t on board with it.
Granted, Cas had prepared Jonathon well, and his guidance was rarely necessary to keep the heading firmly set and all engines on full forward thrust. That left Cas free to spend most of his time looking toward the future and defending against incursions from all sides. He’d become something of a guardian angel over the great ship that plowed steadfastly through treacherous waters.
Cas let Alfie take his coat and case. He kicked his shoes off at the door and wiggled his toes to release them of the pinched feeling of compression. Looking down, he noticed a hole at the toe of his left sock. He grumbled to himself as he wrenched both socks off and shoved them into the garbage bin just inside the door.
No one but Tony was in the kitchen.
Which…odd.
Cas wandered to the stovetop and dipped the tasting spoon into a bubbling pot. “Creole?” he asked as he tried to place the spices.
“Cajun,” Tony replied.
“It’s good,” Cas told him as he set the spoon back down. Michael came thumping down the back stairs two at a time, and Cas looked up. “Where’s the fire, Omega?”
“Good, you’re home. We need to talk.”
Cas blinked. “Ominous. Can it wait until we’ve gathered for supper? Or is it… one of those conversations?”
“It’s the pups, Alpha. They learned today that we aren’t all their biological parents. It didn’t go down pretty. I wanted to fill you in before it blindsided you over jambalaya.”
“Oh. That, um, wasn’t what I was expecting. What on earth happened?”
Michael turned a barstool backward. He mounted it with his knees wide around the wrought iron back with his arms folded in front of him, and he relayed the afternoon’s incident. Cas listened with a frown as Tony readied the details of his dinner service for the table.
“Oh, and Jimmy got swatted at school today for fighting,” Michael said at the end. “Dean’s promised to follow up with him about that after we eat.”
“Fighting? That doesn’t sound like JD.”
“Some kid picked on Emma,” Michael explained.
“Ah.” Cas poured himself a glass of wine from the chardonnay bottle Tony had just opened, and he took a solid drink. “Well, this is going to be fun. You wanna call the kids down to set the table?”
“Dean told them you’d want to sit them all down this evening to get the biological thing straightened out.”
“I see no reason to wait until after we eat. Just let me go change. I don’t want to go into this conversation dressed like a lawyer.” Cas paused in the archway though. “Hey, Michael. Are you okay? That can’t have been easy for you today, absorbing the brunt of Kat’s outrage.”
Michael chuckled. “All part of the majesty of parenthood, Cas. There’s no place I’d rather be.” He tapped the wall on his way back to the stairs to rally the pups. In another dimension, a different Michael—a younger Michael—might have threaded sarcasm into that statement. But this Michael meant it one hundred percent unironically.
Cas sighed and left with his wine glass.
“I want everyone’s attention on me right now.” It was an Alpha phrase, and it didn’t require his Alpha tone. They all gave him their eyes at a mere Papa timbre. “Go ahead and keep eating but listen carefully. This is very important.”
Cutlery froze all down the length of the table.
Whatever.
Cas wiped his own mouth, pushed his nearly empty plate back a few inches and clasped his hands before him on the table. “I hear my children learned something unsettling today at school. I’d like to talk to all of you about that. And I’d like to apologize that it came out the way it did. It was never my intention to hurt anyone in this Pack, least of all my pups.” He roamed his eyes down one side of the table and up the other, noting Kat’s flush, Emmy’s curiosity.
“Please believe that I love you all very much. You mean the whole world to me, and I know I speak for Daddy and O-Pop and your Mom as well. We have no favorites among our pups. We love you all the same.”
Emma leaned in. “Kat says you lied to us and lying breaks a Rule.”
“I did not!”
“Did too!”
Cas cleared his throat. “Girls. Bickering at the table likewise breaks a Rule. Let’s discuss this like people who care about each other.”
“How come you didn’t say?” asked Alex meekly. “How come you said we were brothers and sisters?”
Micheleen looked to Dean and asked, “Who’s brothers and sisters?” Dean smiled and hoisted the boy into his lap.
“All of our pups are brothers and sisters,” he told the two-year-old.
“No we’re not!” Kat argued, turning from Papa to Daddy. “That’s the whole point! That’s a lie!”
“We are too!” Sean yelled back in defense of his Dad.
“That’s enough shouting,” said Michael. He placed a calm hand on Kat’s shoulder.
Cas tapped the table with four stiff fingers. “First, I’m going to tell you the truth, and then I’m going to explain why we haven’t talked about this before. Would that help?” He directed the question to Kat. Her glare faded to a sour resignation.
“Yes, Papa.”
“Kat, when I met your mother, I was already deeply in love with Daddy. He didn’t know that at the time, but I was. That’s a very uncomfortable position to be in. Many adults believe that if you strongly love one person in the way that makes you want to join your life with them and have children together, that you must turn away from everyone else that you love that way too.” His eyes darted briefly to Patience, whose eyes were affixed to the center of her plate, jaw clenching. Beside her, Adam looked on edge.
It was probably best that Sarah was at Sam and Jess’ tonight.
Cas turned back to his daughter. “But Mommy told me that we should be brave enough to believe love can make room in our home for everyone, not only the two of us, not just her and me. She told me to ignore what those other people think.”
As Cas looked at Jimmy, the pup offered a watery smile. Cas took it as encouragement.
“So we decided to try something that not very many of our friends do. We decided to try building a family where everyone who loves us that way can be a part of our union, the kind of union that is often only two people—two Mated people.”
“What’s a union?” Alex asked. He rose onto his knees and leaned heavily onto his elbows.
“It’s people joined together in some binding way,” said Michael. “Sit on your bottom, please.”
“But we know this already,” Emma argued. “Everyone knows. You and Mommy are mates. You and Daddy are husbands. Daddy and O-Pop are mates, and O-Pop and Mommy are married. Like a circle. We know.”
“Yes,” Cas agreed. “But it’s critical to reiterate that point to explain why we are all your parents. You see, once O-Pop joined us, before he and your Mom even fell in love, we had a problem. We wanted our union to include raising children, but we can’t change how pups are made. That’s nature, and it’s not something we have any say over.”
Jimmy and Emma both chortled. Cas smiled patiently at them. “What we wanted to have was a family where every person in it feels just as important and loved as everyone else. Even more importantly, we wanted to make sure that any pups we have among the four of us, we four who are in this special, unusual union with each other, all feel valued just as much as all the others. But pups, no matter how loved and wanted and cherished, cannot ever have more than one biological mother and one biological father.”
Cas met all of their eyes, noting particularly that Alex now looked uncomfortable. “Come here, Ace. Come sit with me,” said Cas. He pushed his chair back enough to make room for the boy on his lap. Alex climbed up sideways and leaned into his chest. He focused his eyes on Cas’ hand, kneading the meat of his palm. “We all wanted children,” Cas went on.
“Some wanted a lot of children,” Dean added. He winked at Emma.
“We all wanted to be parents,” Cas agreed. “In fact, for many Omegas, it is crucial to their health that they have pups of their own if they can. O-Pop had reached a point in his life where he needed a pup; and he wanted one desperately. So did Daddy. So we all agreed that the best thing to do was for Daddy and O-Pop to have the first pup in our union.”
Dean snorted. “We all agreed to that, did we?”
Cas laughed. “I’m telling this story.”
“That was me?” asked Alex, looking hopefully up at his Papa.
“That was you. But Mommy and I were right behind. In fact O-Pop and Mommy were both carrying pups at the same time for a couple of months. But here’s the thing. When we talked about what kind of parents we wanted to be, when we imagined that usually whoever the biological parents are get to be the only parents and everyone else is just helpers—maybe uncles or aunts or nannies—that hurt our hearts. Our union, with the four of us, was strong, and it didn’t feel like any of us were uncles or aunts, not among us four. So we decided that we would all be parents, full parents, to each others’ pups. Mine, Mommy’s, O-Pop’s, and Daddy’s, all of us the same, all of us equal partners, equal parents. That lets us be just as much yours as we are each others’. It lets you be ours, all of you.”
“What about Hank and JT?” asked Kat.
“Remember who is in our special union,” Cas told her. He pointed around the table. “Daddy. O-Pop. Me. Mommy. As much as we adore Hank and JT, they have parents. You six pups are our children, no matter who gave birth to you, no matter whose blue eyes you have or whose freckles or whose talent picking out a tune on the piano.”
“Or whose temper,” Dean added cheerfully. Emmy laughed as if that was the funniest joke ever told.
“Yes, thank you Dean. That’s helpful.”
“Just keeping it real, Alpha.”
“And the reason we didn’t tell you, Kat, darling girl, is that we wanted your very first years to be a time that you never had to question where you belonged or how much you’re loved. We wanted you to know from the very first memory you carry, that you are all brothers and sisters, that you’re mine, that you’re all of ours. And that all four of us are yours.”
He held her eye firmly. She looked back, head cocked slightly, weighing his answer.
“How come Alex is the only pup from O-Pop and Daddy?”
“It’s just worked out that way so far,” Michael told Kat. “It doesn’t mean anything except that I haven’t been ready yet to have another baby. Someday, I will. Probably.”
From the middle of the table, Emma asked, “What about you, Daddy? Do you wanna have another pup?”
“Who, me? Sure. But I kinda gotta wait on this guy,” he aimed his thumb toward Michael, “to be ready. Can’t really do it by myself, and it’s a serious breech of consent rules if I tried to persuade him before he’s ready.”
“You’re waiting on me?” Michael asked.
“Uh, obviously,” Dean replied, confused. “Like I said, not something I can do solo.”
Emmy cackled again. Dean grinned at her. She probably wasn’t following the conversation very well, but she adored her Daddy’s irreverent tone.
“Maybe we should, um, talk about that?” Michael suggested quietly. “In private?”
“Hey, I go where you go, champ. You want me to shoot my shot, you just tell me when and where and then hold on, cause I’ll…”
Cas cut him off. “That’s colorful enough, Dean.” Dean chuckled.
“Do you understand now?” Cas asked Kat.
She nodded with a calculating expression. “How come O-Pop and Mommy can’t make a baby together? Or you and O-Pop?” Kat thought about it and made a face as she got tangled inside her own head. “Or you and Daddy?”
“Daddy lacks a uterus,” Michael told her. “And your Papa doesn’t let anyone put their penis in his channel.”
“No, I don’t have a channel,” Cas groaned. “Honestly, Michael.” He turned back to Kat. “That’s a very good question. It’s difficult to answer because young wolves, before they Present and begin to feel sexual connection with other wolves have trouble understanding what it means to have a Mating-bond, what that bond feels like. My bond with your Mom makes me feel very unhappy with the idea of anyone else helping her get pregnant. Daddy is the same way with his mate. It helps us maintain our union together if we keep that part of our Mating-bonds sacred.”
“Does that make sense to you, kiddo?” Dean asked.
Kat nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, but we get in trouble if we don’t tell you the whole truth. You said it’s the same as lying to keep secrets like that.”
“I know,” Cas agreed seriously. “And I’m sorry that this looks like a lie by omission.”
Dean raised a hand. “I mean, you can talk semantics to the ducks outside if you want, Alpha, but the kid has a point. You never let the rest of us off on technicalities. It doesn't look like a lie by omission. It is one. We’re busted here, like it or not. We may have had valid reasons for holding back the info, but we still held it back.”
Castiel closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose, probably counting to ten in his head. “Be that as it may,” he said as he opened his eyes. “This is not a democracy. As their parents, we decided that it would be best to wait before sharing the information with them, and it is our right to do so. We can uphold our positions as leaders of this Pack without succumbing to charges of hypocrisy.”
“Or we can demonstrate to the pups that no one is above the Rules,” Dean argued back.
“Except that isn’t true, is it?” asked Cas. “I am Alpha. I am above the Rules. And I say that this lie by omission was justified. However, I do feel we owe an apology for the fact that we misjudged the ripe moment to explain, and that as a result, Kat experienced a moment of humiliation at school that was not her fault.”
“That’s fine for you, Alpha,” Dean persisted. “Me, though? I’m kinda feeling like we owe more to the pup. Put yourself in her place, Papa. She was so sure that she was right, she stated it big and bold as anything right out there in front of the whole class because WE…” Dean pointed at Michael and then at Cas “…told her she had four equal parents, and she trusts us! You wanna pat her on the head and tell her that just this once we let her believe something that wasn’t true but that we swear it won’t ever happen again? You think they’re gonna trust us after this?”
“What would you have me do, Dean? What do you expect will fix this?”
Dean huffed and spread his hands wide. “What do we usually do when someone lies?”
Cas sat motionless, staring the length of the table. Kate and Kali, Patience, Adam, and Gabe, who had been casually eating still, all looked stunned. Dean raised his brows. “Seems like a simple question. When I lie to you, if I lie to Kali, to Sam, even to one of the pups, if it’s not Pack-sanctioned, I’m getting blistered. That’s all I’m saying. You always say it helps us to establish trust again. You want them to trust you after this…?”
Michael had to look at his lap and bite his lip to keep from laughing. Gabe rocked his chair back on two legs with a wicked smirk. Cas glared at his brother.
Cas said, “By that logic, every adult in this Pack would owe recompense, every adult who knew the pups’ parentage and didn’t tell them. You’re ridiculous.”
“I didn’t know,” Patience pointed out. “Kind of figured they were all yours, to be honest, Cas. So, I’m off the hook, right?”
Adam laughed outright. “Actually, love,” he told her, “We all lied to you too then. No one explained to you or the pups. So I guess spankings for all the adults, Alpha included.”
“Is Papa gonna get a spanking?” Sean asked, his little chin pointing upward as he tried to talk to Dean from within his lap.
“Seems like the only fair thing to do,” Dean told him.
Cas’ face flattened. “You’re not helping.”
“The only question is who should give it to you,” Dean went on, eyeing his husband. The pups were enthralled. Emma’s eyes danced with mirth. Jimmy was all the way up high on his knees and bouncing against the table. Even Kat looked mildly amused. “Would have to be someone with authority.” Dean squinted one eye, pretending to consider the options.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Cas asked with a deadpan expression.
“We should probably keep it in the Pack,” Dean decided. “So Benny and Bobby are out.”
“This is far less funny than you think it is.”
But Dean didn’t pause. “Of course, Patience is the logical choice since they’re alpha and weren’t also guilty like the rest of us. We could all just line up, drop trou, and they could run down the line with your number seven paddle and give each of us…I dunno… five? Ten? Most lies get at least ten.”
“Just let me know when you’ve finished,” Cas said.
“Or…No! I know! Fred! Fred’s a Top. He knows how to swing a paddle. And he’s done you before, hasn’t he, Alpha? Fred paddled your backside when you were, what, seven?”
“Something like that,” Cas replied dully.
“Castiel was ten,” Fred said coolly from the doorway. “And he had stolen money from my wallet, a crime I could not allow to pass without a response.” He began collecting plates from around the table.
“You paddled Papa?” Jimmy asked with disbelieving eyes. “Really?” He turned in his chair as Fred passed behind him.
“He wasn’t an alpha yet, young James. He was a boy, like you. And he made a mistake. I had to choose between correcting him myself or turning him over to his father. Considering what I knew of Alpha Zachariah’s methods of discipline, I opted to handle the matter… privately.”
Dean beamed at Cas. Cas rolled his eyes.
“You stole from Fred? From Fred?”
“It was very wrong of me,” Cas replied. His voice maintained a cool outer tone, but his ears turned bright pink. “And I apologized profusely.”
“And you never did it again,” Fred added with a tone so Top that all of the pups straightened in their seats.
At last, Cas laughed. “No, that I did not. You got your message across quite effectively.”
“We can’t spank Papa,” Kat said as the laughter and ribbing died down. “He’s Papa. He’s Alpha. Alpha doesn’t get punished.”
Michael touched the back of her head and leaned in to touch his forehead to hers. “That’s right, Kitty-Kat. Daddy’s just teasing.” He sat up straight and addressed all of the pups. “But that doesn’t change the fact the he’s very sorry for hurting you. We all are. It’s going to feel for a while like you don’t know for sure if we’re still the family you thought we were. But we are. Papa and Mommy have adopted Alex legally. That means that in every way, he’s just as much theirs as he is ours.” Michael looked at Dean and took his hand. “And Dad and I did the same thing with the rest of you. No one can say you aren’t ours. No one can ever take you from us or make you feel like we’re split as a family.”
“All you rug-rats and crumb-munchers ain’t getting rid of us, no matter what,” Dean added. “But if you ever want to talk about how you feel about it, what you’re thinking, if you got any questions or just wanna spout off—as long as you don’t get mouthy—you can come to us, to any of us. You got it?”
A general affirmative noise rose from the table.
“Kat?” Dean urged. “You got it?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I got it, Daddy.”
“Cause nothing in the world is more important than to us than you monsters.”
Kat looked from Dean to Michael and said, “I’m sorry I was mean to you. I’m sorry I said those words.”
Michael hugged her to him. “It’s already forgotten, kiddo. Clean slate.”
“Are we ready for dessert, Alpha?” Fred asked.
“Absolutely,” Cas told him.
NOW:
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
“Alpha, there are two routes we’ve identified to challenge the Congresswoman’s will.”
Cas groaned with the phone receiver to his ear, rubbed his left eye, and muttered, “Let’s have it. What are they?”
The attorney cleared his throat. “They’re both longshots, sir, but with enough preparation and the right team, I believe we have a chance.”
“BYRON! What are they?”
“Well, Alpha,” the attorney began and then stopped to clear his throat and his sinuses. “The first is the only truly viable option at the moment. That is to declare that since young James is named as a Novak, not a Winchester, a name he has never borne, that his identity through the will can be called into question. We would offer the court the supposition that Mrs. Novak may have been under the impression that she had another grandson, perhaps through Gabriel—just for instance—a grandson also named James. If there is enough doubt cast as to whom she refers, we can argue for a liquidation of the asset and equal distribution to all of her known grandpups. There are precedents.”
Cas sighed. “That sounds like a longshot. Gabe’s never given birth. His medical history is not a secret.”
“Perhaps, then, if we were to suggest that you may have fathered…”
“What’s the second option?” Cas interrupted.
“Oh. Yes. Well. As to that. We could approach this from the direction of primogeniture. As Naomi mentioned intending to pass the painting to her eldest grandson, skipping over Kathleen, who is older but female, we could argue that she meant to follow the ancient laws of patriarchal inheritance, whereby her oldest son’s oldest son inherits.”
“Gabriel doesn’t have a son,” Cas repeated impatiently, feeling they were repeating themselves.
“Well, no he doesn’t, and nor would this avenue work if we attempted to pare it back one generation and argue that as the eldest, Gabriel himself inherits because…”
Cas grunted. “Because Gabe is Omega, and Omegas don’t inherit except by explicit direction.”
Byron agreed. Then he said, “If Jimmy were to Present as an Omega, Sir, that would be a third option. But if memory serves, his Secondary designation was unveiled when his identical twin was assessed at the time of its death. Jimmy is alpha. Correct?”
Cas growled. “Not it, Byron. HIM. Dylan wasn’t an it!”
“Your forgiveness, Alpha. My point stands. Our best route to untangle this would be for Gabriel to provide issue— male, non-Omega issue. Then, although the painting would still go to one grandchild in preference to the others…”
“It would skip ALL of my pups equally,” Cas finished for him. “Yes, that would be an adequate solution except for the annoying truth that Gabriel has no sons.”
“Precisely, Sir. Then I expect you prefer me to follow up on the first option? None of the pups have ever been Novaks by name, only by heritage. And as Mrs. Novak mentions the name Winchester nowhere in her will, I am confident we can make a case that she intended the Winchesters never to…”
“…To get their grubby hands on her stuff. Except for Michael. Exactly.” Cas sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Goddamn, my mother was a bitch.”
“It is a longshot, Castiel. But it’s the best I can do unless Gabriel has children.”
“So it’s about our first projects together?” Cas asked, trying like hell to follow his husband’s mile-a-minute verbal projectile vomiting.
Dean shook his head. “No, man, I wrote it from your point of view. It’s, like, an attempt at an inside, behind-the-Alpha-curtain perspective that Castiel James doesn’t show to just everybody. So it’s intimate.” Dean tugged Cas down the hall toward the conservatory, excited to finally play his newest composition now that he and April had laid down all the musical tracks.
Two quirky albums under his belt in quick succession had bolstered Dean’s confidence both in his songwriting prowess and his ability to carry a tune well enough to be moderately marketable. His name recognition and ties to April didn’t hurt, obviously. Her career seemed to be rocket-fueled and made of money. Her ever-growing fandom was practically rabid in its fanaticism. But there were enough fans with diverse demographics buying Dean’s album to make him consider it might not be purely nepotism leading album and streaming statistics.
“Have you considered,” Cas intoned as he allowed Dean to drag him, “that there may be a personal reason that I don’t show that side of myself to everybody?”
“Don’t worry, CJ. I left it vague enough that I’m not spilling your beans. No one’s going to find out you snort if you laugh while you’re drunk and that you pee at least twice every night. I’m not telling them you’re into CBT on your own wolf when he gets outta line. Here. Sit.” Dean shoved him into an armchair and swept his guitar from the stand where he’d left it. “Although you really should let me tell that one.”
“No, Dean.”
“This is about your vision,” Dean explained as he sat cross-legged on the floor and began to tune the guitar. “The big picture. From way, way back when I was in grad school, and you were selling me on the whole kit and caboodle. It’s about how you secretly loved me and wanted to change the world for me.”
“You think you have an inside view of that, do you?” Cas asked, quirking one meaningful brow. “I kept a great deal from you in those days.”
“Pieced it together over the years, what with little slips of the tongue here and there,” Dean told him with a flirty wink. “Or are you going to pretend now that you weren’t head over heels for me then?”
“Perish the thought,” said Cas. “Wait is the song about the vision or about us?”
“But here’s the thing.” Dean looked up and left off strumming, ignoring the question. “It didn’t matter how bad you wanted me or how bad I wanted you. We were both so damned sure that we weren’t the perfect match for the other, that somewhere out there someone else had that perfect magic that I couldn’t spin for you and you couldn’t spin for me. Like there were True-Mates out there who would take away every little trouble and make the whole world into gumdrops and lollipops. It’s what kept us from being honest about what we wanted. Man, I hate that. I hate what it did to me, and I hate what it did to you, what it robbed us of.”
“So you wrote a song. From my perspective?”
Dean grinned. “You don’t remember talking about it once, years ago, I’m sure. But you once told me there was a better man out there for me, better for me than you. Was one of those sleepy aftercare moments when we kinda forgot to keep our walls up. I didn’t put two and two together then, but I remember you saying it. You told me a better man was coming for me.”
“I wasn’t wrong.”
Dean eased up onto his knees and leaned over Cas’ lap to kiss his lips softly. “It’s not about that, CJ. Michael’s not a better man for me than you are. I need you both. Always have.”
“Let’s hear this song then.”
Dean nodded happily and returned to his place on the floor. He fished a remote from his jeans pocket and started the recorded track with a push of a button and then joined in on his guitar. He played the intro, watching as Cas leaned in. The Alpha always fell into a besotted sort of awe when Dean sang something original. And, sue him, Dean sort of lived for that look.
He began to sing, clear and strong, meeting Castiel’s eye with a glint of playfulness:
“He said I wanna be the one that people turn to
Even if it means I may be wrong”
Cas could tell Dean was pulling himself into the Alpha’s point of view. They had talked for hours and hours back then, all night sometimes, expanding on the vision, thinking strategies through. Cas had bared his soul to Dean. Everything he hoped for laid bare. Almost everything.
“Can’t believe the tides are finally turning
Just as I had planned it all along”
Cas smirked at the overtly nautical theme as Dean unveiled it. The tides were indeed beginning to turn now. Cas had used that exact phrase many times. Somehow, despite living his whole life landlocked, whenever he felt prophetic, a mariner always slipped off his tongue.
Back then, they had celebrated every nuanced shift, watching for the one that would prove a tipping point. If they had known at the start how difficult the war would be, they might not have kept to it.
Dean sang:
“And I’ll howl at the moon until you hear me
And make all the other voices go away”
Cas blushed, thinking of how desperate he had been back then for Dean to notice him, to cling to him, to need him. Hearing it stated so plainly through Dean’s own words turned Cas’ ears hot. Howling at the moon wasn’t far from the truth.
“Knowing somewhere in the dead of night
A better man with a bigger fight may show
And give it a go”
Dean knew now how hard those years had been for Cas, waiting for Dean’s True-Mate to appear and sweep the alpha away. It had been difficult for them both, but Cas had always imagined Dean’s mate would mirror the brilliance of Dean’s soul so thoroughly that Cas would seem little more than a work colleague in the aftermath. A better man, indeed.
“Til then I’ll sail through waters no one has the nerve to
Tryin’ to reach rock bottom though I’m swimming in a bottomless sea”
Now if that didn’t just about hit the nail on the head… The mission had seemed insurmountable so many times, and just as often, Cas had been advised that his vision was a pipedream. Nothing had ever swayed him from pursuing his course though. He’d always said he would do it alone if he had to. He still felt that way. But he’d never had to go it alone. Dean had always battled right by his side.
“So many knots and kinks out here on the ocean
May as well live it up while I’m still free”
Cas scoffed. There was a Dean Winchester line if any existed anywhere. Dean winked at him and repeated:
“And I’ll howl at the moon until you hear me
Make all the other voices go away
Knowing somewhere in the dead of night
A better man with a bigger fight may show
And give it a go”
Dean played the bridge, adding his guitar to April’s recording, then he repeated the refrain, slowing and trailing until he ended quietly with a final sequence of notes. He kept his head down as the reverb ended.
“Well?” He peeked up.
Cas slid to his knees in front of Dean, took the guitar and laid it gingerly on the chair behind him. He cradled Dean’s face in his two hands and drew him in for a kiss. “Did I howl enough for you to hear me, Dean Michael?”
“Loud and clear, CJ,” Dean whispered back. “So I can put it on the new album?”
“I would be honored,” Cas told him. “Come here.” Cas pulled him in close and met his lips in a deep, sweet kiss, warm and passionate and so full of love that Dean’s toes curled inside his socks. Dean rocked forward and climbed into Cas’ lap, holding on fiercely.
“FOUND EM!” Emma shouted from the doorway. “They’re making out again.”
Cas peeled away from Dean’s lips with a snort. Dean wiped Cas’ mouth with his thumb to clear the slobber. Cas cleared his throat and then helped Dean to his feet. Michael trotted into the conservatory on Emma’s heels.
“Was that really necessary, Idge?” asked O-Pop. She shrugged, turned on her heel and vanished toward Uncle Gabe’s suite.
Michael heard Gabe exclaim in response to a quiet question from Emma, “Cookies? Do I have cookies? Child, who do you take me for? Get your scrawny ass in here!”
Michael rolled his eyes. “If I’m interrupting.”
“Not at all,” Cas assured him. “Dean was just playing me one of his new ones. He’s nearly got an album of them again.”
Michael softened and wrapped an arm around his mate’s waist. “That’s because he’s brilliant.”
Dean rewarded him with a kiss and a warm smile. “You were hunting for us?”
With a nod, Michael added, “Bram’s ready. I figured you would both like to hear what he’s up to. Have you got time now?”
Cas said, “Actually, Omega, I would like to speak with him myself before we unveil whatever he’s got behind the curtain for general audiences.”
“General audiences being me,” Michael inferred flatly with his head canted, frustrated. “God forbid I talk to the man on my own.”
“On your knees, Omega,” Dean said softly but with gravity. He joined Cas, shoulder to shoulder as Michael lowered gracefully to his knees and stared right at his mate’s thighs, eyes dark. “That’s the tone that’ll get you singed. Adjust it.”
Michael’s jaw worked silently for a moment while he decided on a course. Dean waited. Cas touched Dean’s shoulder and then left the mates to their attitude-tweaking. Dean gave Cas a chin-upward nod and then faced Michael again.
It was a bit of a standoff.
Michael stared straight ahead. He eventually managed to stop grinding his teeth, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to capitulate further than kneeling silently. Dean began to chuckle.
“You’re cute when you fume,” he remarked. That got him Michael’s eyes flicking briefly up to meet his own, but it didn’t last. Dean walked backward until his calves touched the chair behind him, and he perched on its arm. He crossed his arms over his chest and raised a prompting brow.
“Taunting me while I’m down here is beneath you, alpha,” Michael told him.
Dean huffed. His affection for his mate made the sound fond rather than contemptuous, and his eyes glittered warmly. “Come on, man. Give it to me so we can go share a beer and figure out what the hell is going on in Bolivia.”
“I’m already kneeling, sir. What more do you need?” Michael was less amused, but it wasn’t Dean he was annoyed at.
Dean laughed. “How many times have we done this?”
“Fine.” Michael took a deep breath and let it out in a loud huff. He chanted, “I’m sorry I spoke with a disrespectful tone to the Alpha. There. Happy?”
Dean grinned, surged forward with his hand extended, and hauled Michael to his feet. “You’re fucking adorable, you know that?”
“Explain to me why Alpha needs to vet whatever this is. The dude is Pack. What’s he gonna do, start a mutiny?”
“Doesn’t really matter, Michael. It’s Alpha’s prerogative to filter what we hear.”
“It’s bullshit, Dean.”
“Fine.” Dean smirked. “Then let’s do an end-run around him and find out before he can stop us.” He caught Michael’s hand and jogged down the long hallway to the foyer. “Fred! Which way did they go?”
Fred paused. “They are speaking in the library, alpha. Will you be joining?”
“Nah,” Dean dragged Michael to the stairs. “But, hey, it’s just Cas and Bram in there, right? Carlos isn’t with them?”
“Omega Abraham’s mate is currently reading on the second-floor balcony, alpha,” Fred informed him. “I intend to deliver his tea to him after I’ve served in the library. How many shall I plan to pour for upstairs?”
Dean grinned, taking the stairs two at a time. “Think we’ll join him out there, Fred, it being such a nice day and all. But wouldja make that tea something with barley and hops instead of warm leaf water?”
“Dean, slow down!” Michael wrenched his hand out of his mate’s and followed him up the stairs. They tumbled through the gallery door and on out the French door onto the balcony overlooking the live oak and the entire back lawn. April’s small recording studio sat new and still pristine to their left, beyond the pool. The duck pond glittered down the hill to their right. Carlos glanced up and immediately reached for a bookmark.
“The mates Winchester! Fellas! Join me. It’s hard to stay indoors when June in Kansas is so much cooler than back home.” Carlos’ Spanish accent enriched his welcome. He turned on the lounge chair to place both feet on the floor and face the Winchesters.
“It must be unbearably hot back home if this feels cooler,” Michael said. He pulled a chair away from the round table, angled it toward the visiting beta, and sat.
“Think he was joking, Michael,” said Dean.
Carlos laughed. “Maybe. The truth is, our summers aren’t much different, seems like. Hot. Muggy. Too many bugs. Not enough beer.”
They all laughed.
“The weather, I can’t fix,” Dean told him. “But the beer is on its way.”
“Bless you, my brother.” Carlos smiled wide and warm, quite the politician without feeling phony in his affect. “I’m surprised to see you here just now, Michael. I had thought Bram was ready to explain our journey, and the need to keep it…” He looked both ways with a furtive air. “…hush-hush.”
“Castiel waylaid him,” said Dean. “Pack business, I think. Something to do with his ex-pat status.”
It was a bald-faced lie, and Michael tried hard not to glance at Dean. Within the bond, he pinched Dean’s thigh. Dean flinched but turned the jolt into a slapping motion as if swatting a mosquito.
“We’re dying to know though,” Dean continued. “What on earth is this all about?”
Carlos beamed. “What do you boys know about the Tiwunuku people? What do you know of Ayahuascaita?”
“Um,” said Michael eloquently. He looked at Dean. Dean shrugged.
“Not a damn thing?” Dean admitted.
Cas kept it to small talk until Fred dropped off two tumblers and a crystal carafe of amber liquid. Once Fred retired and pulled the door closed behind him, Cas lifted the stopper from the carafe and offered wordlessly. Bram nudged one of the glasses closer by way of accepting, and Cas poured two generous portions. Bram took his from the Alpha and began a slow stroll among the shelves, perusing book titles at leisure and wafting Scotch into his nostrils.
“This is quite a collection,” the Omega commented. He squinted at a musty title, worn nearly illegible with age and then moved on. “Your father wasn’t the collector though, was he? I’m assuming most of these were here before he was born.”
“I believe so, yes,” Cas agreed. “Although I’ve added here and there.” He sat and leaned back. He raised his feet to the table and crossed his ankles comfortably. “You’re free to borrow anything you’d like. The Pack library is indexed now, thanks to Michael, so even once you’re home, we can fix you up if you find something on our shelves that interests.”
“Mm. I may take you up on that.” Tearing his eyes away from the tomes, Bram reached into his back pocket and withdrew a folded packet of printer paper. Approaching Cas, he unfolded the sheets and tossed them on the table before his Pack Alpha. “But right now, my interests are more, well, let’s just say they lie down a different path than your Great Grandfather’s business acumen.”
Cas frowned at the pages. It was a photocopied article. He turned it right-side-up and looked to the heading. There was no publication name or date. “What is this?”
Bram licked his lips. “It’s an article that was never published, although it aimed for the journal Nature back in the sixties.”
Cas began to skim, frowning hard. “Why unpublished?”
“I’m not really sure, Alpha. Actually, if I read the portents correctly, someone in a position of power nixed it from going out. It got…quashed. And all the better for it if you ask me.”
Cas skimmed quickly, catching the gist without reading any details. “Bram, this is an anthropological exposé on a tribe of pre-Columbian natives … on an island … in Peru. What does this have to do with your research? I thought you were collecting dying languages. Surely, if these dates are correct, this one is long gone.”
“Yeah, not quite gone, Castiel. And I may not have been entirely forthcoming about the extent or the topic of my research over the years.” Bram pulled a chair out opposite of Cas and sat down. He slid the article toward himself and leafed through it to reveal a crudely sketched map. “You see this island in Lake Titicaca? There are people living there, people who don’t accept visitors of any kind. Not a tribe, Castiel. A Pack. This unpublished article lays it all out, gave me a place to start, anyway.”
“If it’s unpublished, how did you get it?” Cas pulled the map closer so he could get his bearings. Not in Peru, in Bolivia.
“I…uh…I’d rather not say.”
Cas glanced up without moving his head, pinning the Omega under a cerulean spotlight. “That wasn’t a request.”
“I can’t tell you, Sir. There are delicate considerations. Some of my sources are in precarious positions.”
Cas frowned again. He cocked his head and studied the man before him. “What on earth is this about?”
Bram’s eyes gleamed wickedly and he leaned forward. “It’s about us, Alpha. It’s about who we are—who we really are!”
Castiel held Bram’s eye, scenting his excitement, his fervor, trying to read if the man were mad or merely passionate. Bram waved him off and shoved his own tumbler down the table, clear of his wild gesticulations to keep from overturning it. “You have to listen, Alpha. This is the most exciting thing to come out of Lupin anthropology in decades!”
“Why do you need to talk with Michael about it? What does it have to do with him?” Cas narrowed his eyes and abandoned the paper.
“I’ve met them, Castiel,” Bram breathed as if telling a secret. “I’ve lived amongst them. They let me in. I’ve seen it for myself.”
“Abraham, stop babbling, and talk!”
Bram continued, “The researcher who wrote that article, he was just postulating. He had some old folktales to go by and some poorly referenced texts, and he put together this whole theory that the inhabitants of Donamaní Island weren’t Simians like the vast majority of the Peruvian-Bolivian population in the region, but were wolves, living separate, totally cut off from all other societies. He theorized that they were the extant survivors of a Pack that had lived there, unbroken and undiluted since way before the Aztecs moved north.”
Bram’s eyes glittered and his cheeks flushed. “The same Pack, Castiel, for thousands of years in one place, with one language and one culture, no outside influences to fuck it up or pollute it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Cas scoffed. “The lack of biodiversity alone would make such a population too unstable. That’s not to mention that the colonizers wouldn’t have simply ignored one island during their rampage across the Americas.”
“I don’t have all the answers, Alpha. But what I do have is verifiable proof that they can manage their own population without input from outside. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the author of this paper disappeared in the middle of the night from his locked bedroom with no signs of forced entry and was never seen again. Somebody knows something that they don’t want becoming common knowledge.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Cas declared. His palm came down on the table with a decisive slap. “Whatever this is, you’re to walk away. If it’s dangerous enough that people are vanishing just for theorizing about it, you’re not to touch it again. I won’t allow you to risk your life. And I certainly won’t allow you to involve Michael.”
“Castiel, listen to me. I’m telling you, you need to hear all of this. You need to let Michael in on it. These people, they know things the rest of us have forgotten. They have access to something… something almost supernatural. It isn’t just metaphysics, Alpha, it’s… It’s myth! But it’s real!”
“The Primate population of that region is already violently anti-wolf, Abraham. You risk your safety just living there!”
“Carlos won the Mayorship five times in a row, Alpha! We’re not in any danger, not from the apes. We’ve got a buffer, and it’s holding. You underestimate his charisma.” Bram retrieved his glass and took a bolstering gulp. He measured Castiel as he drank, watching through his lashes with his lips still on the rim of his glass. As he lowered it, he lowered his own fervor too. “Look, we’ve all been missing the key to this whole balance thing since we threw away our hunting lances and put on rubber-soled trainers.” He paused and let the hook sink in. “But if it’s too dangerous, it’s too dangerous. Not worth risking anybody’s skin. I get it.”
Cas rolled his eyes and downed the remainder of his Scotch. “Carlos is the politician of the two of you?” He scoffed loudly. “All right, out with it. What supernatural myth have the rest of us forgotten that a tribe…”
“Pack…”
“…PACK of islanders still remember that means I have to let two of my Pack Omegas put their lives in jeopardy?”
“Ayahuascaita,” Bram said with a gleeful grin. “The Alpha-Omega Balance.”
Cas stared at him without speaking. Bram seemed surprised that the Alpha wasn’t following, so he tapped the article rapidly and leaned in close. “Ayahuascaita, Castiel!”
“Saying it on repeat isn’t going to convey to me what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Alphas don’t rule, Cas! Balance rules! Alphas and Omegas in perfect balance. We’re only getting it half right out here on the mainland. These islanders have the key. Look, all your research pegged the alpha supremacy thing ages ago. It’s instinct for wolves to roll for the strongest alpha. We didn’t need double-blind studies and a state-of-the-art lab to tell wolves to kneel to the highest Alpha. But all of our studies have been going off the premise that the hierarchy is linear and sloped, that the Alpha sits alone at the top and below him are all his underlings, all arrayed by Secondary power with the meekest Omega at the very bottom. You never looked for another model, so you had no idea any other configuration was possible! You rate the power of the Secondary, but not its depth.”
Cas leaned forward onto his elbows too and scowled. “Go on.”
“It’s not linear, Castiel. It’s a diamond. There is indeed one Alpha.” Bram gestured at Cas who shrugged. “But there’s also one Omega. And the Omega carries just as much power, only it’s arranged differently. It’s not quite the blunt-force bludgeon upside the head that an Alpha’s power is. It’s… The best way I can phrase it is… think of a floating iceberg. The Alpha’s power at the pinnacle is visible above the water’s surface. It’s almost tangible. It’s instinctive and undeniable. Everyone can see just how high up there it goes. Then the configuration gets wide and stable in the middle—all the Neutrals and betas and whatnot. But the Omega…” Bram grinned and shook his finger in excitement. “…The singular Omega wields exactly as much power as the Alpha, only it’s not something anyone can see. It’s sneaky. It gets under your skin and in your veins and hooks you into something you had no idea you were at risk of… It’s the underwater part of the iceberg. It moves us just as surely as Alpha power moves us. It’s no less potent. But it’s completely intangible, ineffable, even.”
Bram sat panting for a moment then drained his glass and gestured for more. Cas refilled for him and turned to thoughts of Michael and of April. Both of them—either of them—could, Cas knew, with virtual infallibility and commitment of purpose, direct the Pack to their own liking. They would employ different strategies, but in the end, it would be whatever the Omegas wanted it to be. If Cas didn’t admit to that, he’d be lying to himself.
Bram re-centered himself, calmed himself.
“We thrive off of balance, Alpha. We can’t survive without it. With it, we can’t fail. We can live in perfect sustainability forever, in harmony with ourselves, in harmony with our environment, one with The Universe itself. But so far, all your data has only given you one half of the equation. We’re top-heavy.”
“Where does Michael come in?” Cas was curt, his misgivings laid bare.
Bram licked his lips. “I’m not publishing my findings, Sir. The research, the work I’ve done, we can’t let the public know. This Pack has maintained its anonymity for ages. That won’t last if it becomes known they’re there. But I’m getting on in years. I’ve got, maybe six, seven more years in me before Carlos is going to demand I hang it up. He worries about my knees. I’m getting to the bald spot, ends of my trousers rolled, mermaids singing point of my life, and I need someone to pass the torch to.”
Bram could practically hear his scientist cousin’s mind whirring to place the arcane reference. He smirked but didn’t elaborate. Castiel probably didn’t read much modernist poetry.
Bram sipped.
Cas studied him.
Eventually, Bram set his tumbler down and steepled his hands. “The Tiwunuku Pack has this concept,” he told his Alpha. “Ayahuascaita. The ultimate balance between the Alpha and the Omega. The best metaphor I have to explain it is midichlorians”
“Midi-what?” Cas asked.
“From Star Wars. The Force. You know, midichlorians.”
Cas simply shook his head with a baffled expression. Bram threw his hands up and slapped the table with both palms. “Honestly, Alpha, I’ve been in the jungle for thirty years, and I know more pop culture references than you do. Midichlorians. Tiny little symbiotes that congregate in and around a person’s body and lend extra-cellular power to specific privileged individuals, allowing them to… you know… move things with their minds and crap. Use the Force, Luke, and all that Jedi stuff.”
“Midichlorians.” Cas stared at him. “At some point, you’re going to need to start making sense.”
“Okay. It’s like this. We don’t know how to characterize what it is about you that makes every other wolf roll. Right? They just do. You’re powerful. You have some kind of innate strength that no one but your father ever came close to. It’s metaphysical. That’s half of Ayahuascaita, the alpha half. The Tiwunuku call that power Awahuoscato. Every Lupin has some, but on the alpha end of the spectrum, the amount goes off the charts. If we could read yours, I suspect it would take up two city blocks in radius from wherever you are.”
“Awahuo-scato?” Cas repeated awkwardly. He pulled a ballpoint from his shirt pocket, clicked it, and pulled the article close. “Spell it.”
“No, Castiel, it’s not the word, it’s the meaning. Every Lupin population, no matter the size, from nuclear families to all of us as a species, as long as there are all three Secondaries present, aligns by the amount of power each individual has. The more power, the fewer individuals at that rating. It’s a bell curve. Right? But you’ve only been looking to the alpha side of the bell for strength and stability—for balance. And you’ve only been looking at the hormones used to form and maintain bond-links, the power of the Secondary. There’s a whole other dimension, one we can’t measure yet, and that’s the amount of depth or force in a person’s Secondary.
“And here’s the important part. The Omega side of the bell curve has the same shape, the same ratio of individuals, the same degree of power AND force. Only, it’s Omega force. The inverse of Awahuoscato, or alpha force, is Ayawuascana, the force and depth of the Omega.”
“Omega power,” Cas repeated. Then he shook his head. “No. Hierarchies are not bell-shaped in power. They’re linear. If what you said was true, then the lowest-ranked wolf in any Pack would be the strongest Omega, and that’s just not the case. That kind of configuration doesn’t hold.”
“This falls outside of hierarchical rankings, Alpha. It’s a whole different dimension. Think of the lowest ranks as the middle of the diamond, the thickest part. Both points are equal in power and importance, but it can’t be measured with a Peliomometer. It’s not the same as raw power.
Bram took the pen from Cas and sketched on the back of the article. He drew a sloped line marked with dots at regular intervals. Then he numbered the topmost dot as 1. He continued numbering down the line. “Here’s your rankings by hierarchy, right? It’s based on Secondary, sometimes Tertiary, strength and Claiming capacity.”
Cas nodded. “Okay.”
Then Bram drew a diamond shape and labeled the topmost pinnacle as 1, tapping the number one on the sloped line. “The Alpha is at the top in both models. But on the diamond, the one that measures Secondary depth, the bottom is the strongest Omega.” He tapped the number 8 on the sloped line.
“...from somewhere near but not on the bottom of the ranking. And all the other ranked wolves fall somewhere in between with most of them puddled right in-between Alpha and Omega, right near the middle.” He began writing in numbers willy-nilly inside the diamond so that most numbers were near the center, equidistant from both Alpha and Omega, and he connected them with a jagged line in sequence. It looked like a scribble inside the diamond.
“Look, here at Winchester Central, you and Michael are the points of the diamond, and in-between fall all the other wolves in order of where they fall on that continuum. If we could measure it, you’d find that your Pack rankings get all jumbled in the middle because someone’s Secondary strength isn’t equal to their Ayawuascaito level. The islanders, somehow they tap into it, sense it. They can see it or smell it. Or…something. And there’s always balance. The highest-powered Alpha is always offset by the highest-powered Omega.”
“This is Universist dogma.”
Bram licked his lips. “No. No, it’s not. It’s subtle, but there’s a difference. There’s a reason Michael was drawn into this Pack, Castiel, this one out of the thousands he had access to. After all the time I’ve spent with the Tiwunuku, I’ve learned to smell it, if smell is the right word. Michael is every bit as powerful as you are and obeying him is every bit as instinctive for wolves. It’s just that it flies under the radar, so to speak. It lives in our subconscious. We don’t roll overtly, it’s something else. There’s a… almost a…”
“Supernatural quality to it?” Cas finished for him.
Bram nodded eagerly.
“Are you saying that Michael Triggered with Dean to get to me?”
“Uh… no? No. It’s way more complex than that.”
Cas leaned back. He sighed. “Assuming I decided to join you on this flight of fancy, what’s the practical application of this theory?”
Bram looked startled to hear the scientist seem less than ecstatic about discovery for its own sake. “Stop building linear Packs. Stop stuffing them with Omegas just to give Omegas a safe place to live. The Alpha may wield the visible power, but the Omega, and that’s a capital O, wields all of the intangible power. Every Pack needs true balance. Institutions need true balance.”
“I don’t like the vulnerability this puts on Michael,” Cas murmured. He scrubbed a hand across his mouth. He swallowed uncomfortably.
Bram nodded. “Man, I saw him on TV, some big festival or something. And he lit up the screen. The man practically glows, once you know what to look for. I knew immediately that he’s Ayawuascana, our species Omega.”
“Capital O,” Cas confirmed. Bram nodded.
“I need him, Castiel. I need to teach this to him. The species needs him, same as we need you. And I need him to be my protégé. I can’t hand this stuff off to anyone else. I need him to meet the Tiwunuku and let them show him how to use his gift.” Bram chuckled. “He’ll be a god to them.”
“That’s the last thing Michael needs,” mumbled Cas. “An island nation of pre-Columbian wolves worshiping him.”
Bram laughed. “No doubt.”
“Where does the supernatural come in?” Cas pressed his palms against his eye sockets and grimaced. “I’m not getting it.”
“It’s when the two come together, Alpha. The Ayawuascana and the Awahuoscato in the same place, working as one to achieve perfect balance, that’s when harmony happens. It’s true sustainability. It’s direct access to generational memory, to instinct, to driving our own destiny. On that little island in Bolivia, a Pack has survived everything this planet could throw at it because they don’t just live in the present day. They live in the future and the past. They live in the physical and the metaphysical worlds. They commune with all that is canine. They don’t need genetic diversity. They can pull from any epoch and any population to self-correct their own genome!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute! That is patently absurd!”
Bram chuckled. “I know. I thought so too. But I can get you genetic samples. Run the codes yourself. No one but me has entered or left that island in hundreds of years. You’re not going to find markers for anyone but Tiwunuku, and you’re not going to find any evidence of inbreeding.”
“Impossible,” Cas protested. “Titicaca isn’t the moon. It’s not so remote that it’s unreachable. I mean, they will have traded with local economies for whatever resources they lack if nothing else. And where there’s trade, there’s genetic tourism.”
Bram crossed his arms and said nothing. His smug expression said everything for him. “I’ve got all my notes, Alpha. I’ll let you read them. But only on the condition that you don’t turn them over to anyone outside this house, you guard these people like your life depended on it, and you let Michael take over when I retire.”
“Do not give me conditions, Omega. If I want the notes, you’ll give them to me.”
“Yes, sir. I will.” Bram’s eyes sparkled. “If you ask me to.” Something was going unsaid. Cas felt uneasy, tempted to call his bluff and demand the notes just to prove that no underground Omega current tugged at his hands. But he didn’t. Bram sat calmly, unbothered by the stirring of the Alpha’s mind. “Are you asking me to?”
“What is this going to do to Michael?” Castiel asked instead of demanding the notes.
Bram shrugged and made an I dunno noise. “I’m just sitting here in the fat part of the diamond, sir. I’ve got no idea what he’s capable of. But I suspect it’s more a question of what Michael’s going to do to the Force than what the Force is going to do to Michael.”
Cas pursed his lips. He chewed on the whole convoluted idea. He leaned in on his forearms with his hands clasped. “Answer me this. In all their history, this Pack, does the ultimate power on both extremes always sit with one Alpha and one Omega individual, or can it be split into a…into a… committee, if you will?”
“Come again?”
Cas frowned. “Michael is extraordinary. I’ll give you that. But there are two other Omegas in this Pack with rare gifts. I’m asking if it’s possible, hypothetically, if say, the Pack Alpha were far more powerful than an average Pack Alpha, would it be conceivable, to achieve this balance for the…?”
“The Ayawuascaita.”
“Yes, the Ayawuascaita, if the Omega power was split among multiple individuals, who, in sum, equal the power of the Alpha?” Cas drew three dots close together at the bottom of the diamond.
“Three Omegas as Ayawuascana to balance one Awahuoscato? Hell, I dunno. On the island, since I’ve known them, I’ve only heard tell of one pinnacle at each end.”
Cas thought about it. “Michael, April, and Gabriel are all directly tied to me. All Omegas with an inner sight into people and situations that seems to defy explanation. All of them with deeper access to instinct than the rest of their Keller-score cohort. Between the three of them… Let’s just say, your premise that being Alpha doesn’t always mean I get my way holds more merit than if we consider Michael alone.”
He tapped fidgety fingertips on the table. “April has described the sensation that she can, with effort, access tribal memory from a deep well of innate knowledge. I haven’t heard the like from many Omegas, nor from many wolves at all for that matter. Yet there are folktales, and Michael says the same. Michael sits nowhere near April in Secondary Rating and she’s as far from he in Tertiary. They shouldn’t share a common gift. And Gabriel seems downright psychic half the time.” He rubbed the wrinkle between his eyebrows.
Bram watched Castiel churn through it, giving voice to his ponderings.
“Something sets Michael apart,” Cas concluded. “We’ve known that for a long time.”
“It’s the opposite end of what sets you apart, Castiel,” Bram agreed. “But his is less brute strength and more pixie dust and magic fairy rings.”
“Does this have anything to do with Michael being a Tertiary Dominant?” Cas queried.
“It’s got everything to do with Michael being a Dominant,” Bram said with a slowly growing smile of such radiance, Cas smiled in echo. There was that smugness again.
“Explain.”
“Alpha, the Tiwunuku are never—not ever—without an Omega-Dominant as their spiritual leader.”
Cas blinked. “What size population?”
Bram snorted. “Somewhere around four thousand.”
Cas blinked again. “Four thousand individuals in the entire Pack?”
“Give or take. Might depend on the harvest. They do get disease and drought. I mean, they’re human like the rest of us. Bird flu did a number on them a few years ago. But it’s been a pretty steady four-K since at least the sixties. My digging into their lore seems to indicate it’s a plateau. They hold that number stable, year after year, century after century. The pups are healthy. Everyone gets a True-Mate Trigger if they want one. Those that don’t usually specialize in a service or craft of some kind that distinguishes and connects them. They don’t have a police force or a jail. There’s no crime.”
“It’s Utopia?” Cas asked.
“Pssh! I’m not that naïve.” Bram stretched his arms over his head. “It’s just that, there’s an Alpha who directs the physical Pack, and there’s an Omega who directs the spiritual, metaphysical Pack, and they are equals. Absolutely balanced. Any upset in the balance gets the attention of both. The Alpha defers to the Ayawuascana on matters of the spirit, all things bond-related, all things outside of the material. And the Omega defers to the Awahuoscato on matters of objective reality.”
“And when one dies or becomes incapacitated?” Cas couldn’t deny that he was falling headfirst into full fascination.
Bram chuckled. “The Universe replaces them.”
“The Universe.” Cas wasn’t buying that one.
“I told you, Alpha, I don’t have all the answers. I asked my mentor that question once, and she just pointed up to the heavens and told me the ‘Will Would Be’.” Bram put finger-quotes around the odd phrase. “I do know that in the scant records I have in my notes, the death of an Ayawuascaita has never left a vacancy for more than a season before the next one ascends.”
“Ascends how?”
“They just…smell the potency of the right individual. Someone steps into the empty shoes. May as well ask how you’ll be replaced when you kick off. Who knows? But you will, one way or another, just as you assumed the mantle when your number came up.”
“Hmmph.”
“That’s the thing about all this, Alpha. It’s instinctive. We act on this whether we know we’re doing it or not, if we’re well-centered. It’s natural. It’s in our coding. But we have way too many people out there floundering, needing to have the structure spelled out for them because we lost our faith in instinct when we gave up our night vision. We forgot too much, and now we go haring off after every whim, thinking every impulse is instinct, thinking it’s all about knots and kinks and sweat and straps. That’s not it, Castiel. This is it. Ayawuascaita. We just needed a guide to remind us what to tune into and what to tune out.”
Castiel drummed his fingers on the table. “You’ve sat on this for thirty years?”
“They deserve to be protected.”
“Bram, I have no doubt they deserve our protection, as do so many other isolated populations. But you knew what we’re up against. You believed this could provide a breakthrough in theory if not in practice, and you sat on it? Forgive me if this seems cold, but your credibility cannot but be questioned when you attempt to persuade me without presenting evidence on the one hand but you so callously allowed the entire Lupin species to fumble about for thirty years while you had, you believed, critical insight into our instinctive nature on the other. Why?”
“What will you do with the notes, Alpha?”
“I am not in possession of any notes, Omega.”
“If I give them to you, do they get handed over to your research staff?”
Cas parried. “If the epiphanies are as consequential as you claim, how could I do anything else? Abraham, people are dying.”
Bram nodded. “They deserve to be protected, Sir.”
Castiel sighed heavily and stood up. “I will consider the matter and render my decision tomorrow.”
“Your decision?”
“Whether to allow you to present your findings to my Ayawuascana. You’re dismissed.”
“Paaaapaaaaa! Paaaaaaapaaaaaa!”
Cas looked up from his notes in surprise as a shrill voice, loud and moving steadily closer, trailed down the hall outside the TV room where he had set up a late-night work session. Cas set the legal pad on the table beside him and no more than made it to his feet when Sean toddled by the doorway with a blanket dragging behind and red-rimmed eyes. The pup spotted Cas and made for him with arms outstretched. Cas sank to one knee and wrapped his son up in strong, warm arms as the boy bawled into his shoulder.
“Shhh, shhh, Papa’s here, punkin. I’ve got you.” He rose with the pup in his arms. “What’s a matter with my big boy? Couldn’t sleep? Bad dream? Come sit with Papa and tell me all about it.”
“Was dark, Papa,” Sean sniveled, clutching Cas’ shirt collar in his chubby little fist. Cas settled back into his chair and held him close.
“Oh, it was dark. I see. Did that frighten you?”
“Nuh-unh.” Sean tucked into Castiel’s body, making himself a nest on his father’s lap. One hand grasped the corner of his blanket and the other reached up to touch Papa’s five o’clock shadow.
“Would you like to sit with me for a little while?” Cas asked. “Papa could use some company while I’m finishing my work.”
Sean nodded silently and curled up even tighter. Cas kept one arm secure around him and picked up his notepad with the other.
“Whassat, Papa?”
“Some of my work,” Cas told him. “I need to find a way to put everything in this list in order of importance and decide which parts of the list to throw out this year. We can’t do all of it. It’s not an easy choice, and people are counting on Papa to get it right.”
“Papa gets it right,” Sean told him firmly. He rubbed the tear tracks from his own cheeks with the back of his hand and scootched himself upright on Cas’ lap. He pointed at an item about halfway down the list. “This?”
“Thank you, Micheleen. That’s precisely what I thought too. I’m glad you’re in my corner.” Cas adjusted his posture a little so that he could cradle his son and hold the pad at the same time, freeing his right hand to retrieve his pen. He put a bold checkmark beside the line Sean had selected. “How about you just settle in with me. Close your eyes if you want. Papa will take care of everything.”
“Not sleepy, Papa,” Sean protested feebly.
“Not at all? It’s very late for small puppies to be so wide awake. I’ll bet you and I are the only wolves still awake in the whole house.” Cas maintained a dull, steady tone of voice, soft and soporific. “Everyone is fast, fast asleep, dreaming good dreams, all warm and safe and cozy in their beds. Just you and me here together with Luna shining her beams in through the window to say goodnight. Shall we tell the moon goodnight?”
Sean nodded but didn’t speak.
“You know, I quite like this. It’s nice.”
Sean let his weight go slack as he melted into Cas’ body. His head was the last to relax. Soon he rested motionless against the crook of Cas’ shoulder with his eyes barely open as Cas marked the list in checks and squiggles and exes. He said, “Papa watches over all his Pack and keeps them safe all night long. You, dear boy, are an extra special part of Papa’s Pack, and I love you very, very much.”
Cas felt more than saw when the boy finally dropped off to sleep. Selfishly, he stayed in his chair and held on as his watch ticked on his wrist. His infernal list argued back for every strike he drew across a vital program. The twins were growing far too fast for Castiel. Already individuals with their own personalities and temperaments, already vocal and willful and headstrong and curious. Moments like this, with soft, downy almost-fur tickling Cas’ nose as he nuzzled Sean’s crown, felt fleeting in the whirlwind of rearing them into whoever they would one day be.
Today, Sean was just this. Just Cas’ sweet, snuggly cuddler with a head that smelled of wild berries and peanut butter and a jaw that worked in his sleep to grind his baby teeth flat. They would need to address that eventually. Right now, it simply endeared the boy to Cas, made Cas feel protective. Micheleen seemed to shoulder more than his two years mandated, so like Dean in so many ways. Cas scooped the blanket off the floor when it slipped from Sean’s slack grasp and tucked it between their bodies for safekeeping.
Best not lose it. Not again.
Michael rapped softly on the doorframe. “Hey, I’m home.”
“Shh,” Cas shushed. “I’ve got a co-worker tonight.”
Michael chuckled. He came into the room. “Is he out?”
Cas nodded. “He’s out. I’m finished for the night. I’ll tuck him in.”
“Another nightmare?” Michael asked as Cas stood and arranged Sean in his arms, resting against his shoulder.
“I think so. He managed to find me here, and he was none too pleased in the moment. He must have wandered the halls for a bit on his own before he found me. It didn’t take much to comfort him though. He may have just woken and needed a cuddle.”
“Don’t we all?” Michael added. He switched the light off and followed Cas toward the family’s hallway and the nursery. “Cuddles with the Alpha go a long way when the night is dark and full of terrors.”
Cas snickered quietly. “Go to bed, Omega. This one may sleep in, but the others will all be wide awake by six-thirty. We’ll need to address your punishment before they wake.”
“Uh, punishment, sir?”
“You and Dean went behind my back and pumped Carlos for information you were not yet entitled to. That’s a Rule infraction, Michael.”
“Yes, sir,” Michael whispered with a heavy feeling in the bottom of his tummy. He eased a lock of fine hair off Sean’s forehead and kissed him just there. Barely turning, Michael kissed Castiel’s cheek too.
Cas turned toward the nursery. He found the door still ajar and Kate’s bedroom door, just inside, shut tight. On her little cot bed, Emmy lay contorted and tangled in her bedclothes after some kind of slumber-gymnastics. Cas shushed Sean softly as he laid the pup down and covered him with a light blanket.
The boy snorted and rolled onto his tummy with his cuddle-blanket tucked against his cheek. Cas flipped the closet light on to let a little more illumination eke out from under the door to add to the nightlight’s incandescence. Cas untangled Mary Ellen without waking her and re-tucked her securely before kissing them both. He paused in the doorway just to watch their little chests rise and fall. With a slight scowl, he cracked Kate’s ensuite door open slightly and pulled the nursery door closed behind him.
Sean shouldn’t have been able to gain access to the main hallway on his own. Kate would hear stern words about that in the morning. The pup could easily have tumbled down the grand stairway in his distraught state as he searched for his father. What if Castiel hadn’t still been up? Sean was too short yet to reach the brass door handle of the Master suite.
How had he even escaped the nursery? The doorknobs were even higher there. Someone must have left the door open. Cas stood puzzling and worrying. The main hall and the stairway were too wide to be gated effectively.
April poked her head into the hallway as he stood wondering about it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked sleepily. Her pixie cut stood out in all directions. Cas went to her. She must have awakened to his bond-link thrumming with worry.
“Nothing, Kitten. Just, we have a Houdini on our hands. We may need to install a gate in the hallway to the nursery.” He helped her back inside and tucked her into bed with a kiss.
“I didn’t hear anything,” she mumbled. “Baby monitor’s on.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it sorted in the morning. Everyone is where they belong now.” He stripped, tossed his clothes over a chair, and crawled in beside her. He held his arms open. “Come,” he whispered. She slid in against him, soft in her sleepiness. Her lips were warm against his.
Quietly, to match the hour, he asked, “Kitten, do you ever feel that you have access to a spiritual power greater than you can fathom?”
“Hmm?”
He nuzzled her temple. “Oh, nothing. Just something Bram said.” Cas held her closely in the darkness. She wasn’t sleeping. But she drifted. He whispered, “Roll over for me.”
She purred her agreement and turned with a long, body-lengthening stretch that touched him in all the right ways.
“Real easy, now,” he said. “Shhh. Just relax.”
Cas kissed the back of her neck and rolled his hips. April moaned quietly. “Cas…”
“Shhh.” They moved sublimely, as one. His hands travelled the hills and valleys of her body, his touch gentle and slow. His lips and tongue traced her neck, her collarbone, her scar. When he was hard, after lazily rolling against her back, he angled his hips and entered her channel.
“Shhhh.”
He moved inside her like a rudderless boat on a sluggish sea, rocking gently, no destination charted, no engines engaged. Just drifting into her body and out.
“My Kitten,” he mumbled against her throat.
“My Alpha,” she replied as she craned her head back to offer him her whole life. His hands were restless.
“Need you,” he whined. “April, I need you.” The urgency in his voice sounded out of place beside the comforting assurance of his body.
“I’m here, Alpha.”
His pace picked up marginally. He ran his teeth across her carotid artery.
“Mmmm,” he hummed. “Mine.” Barely a whisper, possibly nothing more than a thought.
“Please, Alpha.”
“I…” He forgot what he meant to say. He felt a slowly rising desperation tugging at him, driving his hips, keeping his hands from settling. “Kitten, I…”
“I know, Cas. Shhh. I know.”
He pressed his forehead to the knob of her spine and whimpered as his thrusts began to drive with intention. She stilled his restless hands with her own, crossing her arms over her breasts and threading her fingers through his, clutching him back. His grip tightened and he grunted into his thrusts.
His own voice sounded jarring in his ears, as if for the moment, he was more her than he was himself.
Breathless, he drove into her again and again. His eyes prickled dangerously, and an oddly shaped lump formed in his throat. A high-pitched keen left his throat. He crushed her against his chest and drove into her, losing himself inside his Mating-bond in all its steadfast surety. Inside, he was home. Here, he was wanted and welcomed and adored and trusted.
Castiel let his knot catch, and he came with his chin to his chest and his eyes squeezed tightly closed. With his thumb, fingers still entangled in hers, he caressed the edge of her mating-scar.
She shuddered as he emptied inside her.
Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing.
“Shhh,” he repeated. “Sleep.”
“Sleep.”
He didn’t know if he said the final word, or she did. He didn’t know for whom the word was meant.
He felt grief crest over him like the turning of a tide.
April held onto him.
He slept.
Notes:
Thanks to SpreadYourWings for the idea of showing Dean's introduction to Naomi. Yeah, that needed to happen.
There are two other songs on this new album that I immediately co-opted as Caniformes!Dean's personal ramblings:
Every Light is Dean telling Michael's story, and Restless Man is Dean's longing to Cas to notice Dean loves him, written back while they were just scene partners.This chapter is a lot, y'all, but I kinda love it.
As always, if you are confused by my fake science, that's my fault, not yours. Ask me anything and I'll be happy (thrilled actually) to clarify.
Chapter 43: Thursday, June 20, 2024
Summary:
Michael's been handed more than he can stomach, at least that's what he thinks.
Notes:
Warning: references to underage sex, both consensual and nonconsensual.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday, June 20, 2024
NOW:
Cas crawled out of his warm bed with his eyes barely open. After decades of early rising for his outdoor running habit, his body required no alarms to know when to stir him to groggy wakefulness well before the sun peeked over the horizon. This early, he was all autopilot, muscle memory tracing the exact same path through to the bathroom as yesterday, as a thousand yesterdays.
Last night had been wearing. Cas had eventually fallen asleep, but the weight of unanticipated grief where it had whammied him like blunt force trauma to the back of his head as he closed his eyes left him groggy in the early hour. He felt raked over a hot bed of molten gravel as the reality of his mother’s death sank in. In his head, Castiel’s wolf howled miserably, knowing he would never again have a chance to reconcile with the woman who disdained everything he had chosen to make of himself.
He would never have the chance to convince her.
Cas had long ago given up trying. Or he thought he’d given up trying. Evidently, his wolf still retained a glimmer of hope that on some level, Naomi would one day come around, that they would be able to share some semblance of Pack together.
Now that chance was gone.
He’d tucked tightly into his mate’s welcoming body and let the pain of loss and missed opportunities overwhelm him before succumbing to a restless sleep.
Cas flipped the bathroom light on with bleary eyes trained on the path in front of him, and he almost missed the dark-headed figure curled over itself in the bathtub until it stirred. The sound of jostling water pulled Cas’ eyes just as Michael looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes from a full tub of hot water, and all thoughts of his mother flew right out of his head.
“Michael? Sweetheart, what on earth are you doing in here alone in the dark?”
Michael stirred the water slightly as he raised a hand and rubbed his brow. “Weird dreams,” he said quietly. “Unsettling as fuck. Sorry, Alpha, I just needed…”
“No need for apologies, Omega.” Cas knelt by the tub and touched Michael’s shoulder. “You’re doing nothing wrong. I just worry that you’re alone when you’re clearly upset. Where’s Dean?”
“He’s, uh, still in bed. I didn’t want to disturb him. He needs his sleep.”
Cas leveled him with an irritated expression. “You know better than that.”
Michael glanced up at Cas but went right back to gazing at his own kneecaps just breaking the water’s surface. “I didn’t know how to explain it to him.”
Cas sat down on the tub’s wide, marble edge, mindful to keep his hand touching Michael. “How about you try to explain it to me?” Cas trailed his hand down Michael’s back to the waterline to ensure Michael wasn’t sitting in a chilly bath. He wasn’t especially worried though. Michael wasn’t Dean. The temperature felt warm and inviting, comforting. Amniotic, in a way.
“I’m not even sure it was a dream at all,” said Michael. His voice echoed in the bathroom despite his soft volume. High ceilings, a body of water, and hard, marble surfaces lent their efforts to give his voice an acoustic boost. “And it isn’t the first time. I’ve felt them before. They come a lot, actually.”
“Who comes?”
“I don’t know. Wolves. Some strange wolves. They come into my dreams sometimes and just watch me. It feels like they’re right there, close enough to touch, close enough to talk to. Their scents are right in my nostrils. But I can’t actually see them. They never speak. Up until last night, I’ve never seen them, only felt them. But last night…”
Cas caressed the back of Michael’s neck with a firm touch. “It’s okay, Michael. You’re safe. No one can harm you in your dreams. Just tell me.”
Michael took a deep breath and looked up. His eyes glinted amber. “I don’t think they mean me harm, sir. But there’s something about them. It’s like they’re weighing me. Judging me. Trying to figure me out, maybe. Has anything like that ever happened to you?”
“Other wolves in my dreams? Not that I recall,” Cas told him.
“I needed to get out of that bed, to get away from my own head for a bit. I didn’t feel like I was quite alone in there, and it creeped me out.”
Cas nodded. “That’s perfectly understandable.” He thought for a moment and then asked, “How did your wolf respond to them?”
“Curiosity, mainly,” Michael admitted. “He wasn’t alarmed. Wasn’t threatened. Didn’t get aggressive or territorial. So that’s something, I guess. I just…I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t a dream, that they were really there in my wolf-scape with me. And I know I’ve travelled into some others’ and joined them there before, but no one’s ever been in mine. I had no idea it was possible to get into someone’s Tertiary space without a Claim. And these guys, whoever they are, they don’t have a Claim on me. They aren’t anyone I know.”
“How many of them were there?” Cas asked.
“Four, I think. Sometimes it’s just two. This time there were four.”
“And you saw their wolf forms?”
“Or dreamed them, yeah. I can picture them now. I remember it clearly—way clearer than I usually remember a dream.”
Cas patted his shoulder and stood. “Come out running with me. We can talk it over as we jog. I want to make sure you don’t forget any details of your vision. But I want you moving right now. I want you shaking off this maudlin tarp you’ve pulled over yourself. Let’s go outside and breathe fresh air. Come on, Omega. Up you get.”
“I…” Michael hauled himself up. Water cascaded down his bare frame. He stepped out with Cas supporting his elbow, and he took a towel from the rack. “Okay. That sounds like a good idea. I guess I’m just a little spooked. I’m not used to having strangers in my head.”
“Yes, it’s a disturbing idea,” Cas agreed. “Especially in light of everything Bram had to say yesterday.”
Michael froze with the towel under his chin. “Why? What did he say?”
Cas sighed. He pulled a clean pair of running shorts off the shelf just inside his closet. “We’ll explain it all later today. I’m not happy about it, but he’s right that I can’t protect you from what he has to reveal to you. I have a suspicion that these strange visitors in your dream are connected to Bram’s study.”
“What? The Bolivian wild Pack?”
“Go grab a pair of running shoes and some shorts and meet me in the garage.” Cas paused before closing himself in to use the toilet. “We need to talk.”
Dean awoke to an empty bed, not how it was when he fell asleep. By the temperature of the bedding beside him, he’d been alone for some time. He squinted as he looked around the empty room. Sunlight peeked tentatively through the sheer curtain at his window. He grunted as he dropped his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes.
Damnit, Michael.
Dean’s morning wood strained at his groin, seeking eagerly for something that wasn’t there. Cas would be out running at this hour, so without Michael, Dean’s prohibition against self-care meant no early morning jisms.
And that…
That was not the way to start a weekday off.
Dean cast his awareness outward, searching for his mate and was surprised to find him over a mile away from the house, right beside Cas, the two of them huffing along in step with each other in the muggy summer morning. There was a synchronicity pulsing through their bonds with him. Dean groaned and rolled out of bed for a quick shower before his legions of offspring arose to create chaos.
By the time Cas and Michael appeared red-faced, shirtless, and sweaty in the kitchen, Dean had all six pups dressed and seated at the table and was pouring milk into their cups as Tony served them scrambled eggs.
“Coffee’s hot,” Dean said. “Grab a cup on your way to the showers. You want me to wait breakfast on you?” He handed Emma a full glass and steered Sean back to his seat before setting another at the boy’s place, this one with a lid.
“That depends,” Cas said as he dug two coffee mugs out of the cabinet. “Are you kneeling this morning?”
Dean’s brows went up. “You’re asking me?”
Michael brought a small pitcher of cream from the table and took the steaming mug Cas handed him. Michael said, “If it’s all the same to you two, I’m not up to playing this morning. If you want to, knock yourselves out.”
“What’s up with you?” Dean asked. He zeroed in tightly to Michael’s headspace, realizing for the first time since he awoke that his mate was off kilter. “Hey. You okay?”
The pups all chorused cheerful good mornings as April entered the kitchen in her bathrobe. She slid briefly into Castiel’s embrace with a sleepy smile and a soft kiss before doing the same for Michael, ignoring the sweat. The kiss she bestowed upon her husband was longer, deeper than her mate’s, and she left him with a softer gleam in her eye.
She touched Dean’s arm as she passed him on her way to greet her pups, her face lighting up into a beaming smile for them. Dean brought Michael’s attention back to him with a sharp snap of his fingers.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Weird dream,” Michael muttered. He stirred his coffee.
“And you didn’t wake me? Dude, what’s the point of having a mate if you don’t make use of the bond?” Dean took Michael’s coffee out of his hands, took him by the elbow and escorted him toward the stairs. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Cas watched them go and then turned back to his Pack gathering around the table. Cain was seated already, as was Kali. April stood over Emmy, helping her set a napkin in her lap. Patience stared dully into her coffee cup.
“Have you got them, Kitten? I need a shower.”
“We’re good, Cas. May I have some coffee while I wait?”
“Sure. Actually, would it bother you if we don’t play this morning? I think Michael would prefer having you available to talk to. He could use the support.”
“Oh. Of course,” April said with her eyes following the path Michael had taken. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, love. I’m sure it’s fine. He had a disturbing dream, and it’s unsettled him. That’s all.”
“Papa! I didn’t pee in my pullups! All night!”
Cas beamed. “What a wonderful accomplishment, Micheleen. You are growing up far too quickly for your old man. Eat up now.”
Cas found the Master suite empty. Dean must have taken Michael to their shared room down the hall, more’s the pity. He showered perfunctorily, and he dressed swiftly too.
The pups had all left the table by the time Cas returned to it and refreshed his coffee, all of them off preparing for some summer adventure or another. The adult members of his Pack were still trickling in though.
“Running a bit later than usual, aren’t you, Alpha?” Cain asked as he folded his newspaper and laid it beside his plate.
“A little,” Cas agreed. “This morning’s run went long. Michael and I had some things to discuss.”
Bram looked up from his plate. “Does that mean what I hope it means? Did you tell him?”
Cas sighed and reached across to stab a thin slice of pan-fried ham from the platter. “I haven’t told him much yet, but I will. He needs to know. It turns out, he had a few…visitors…last night in his wolf-scape.” Cas fixed Bram with a hard expression. “Is that something these villagers of yours know how to do?”
Bram looked surprised. “What? Visit people in their heads?”
Cas simply raised his brows.
“Um…”
“The truth, Omega”
“There…may be some… rumors to that effect,” Bram admitted.
Cas glared. “And how would they have known how to find Michael? He said this wasn’t the first time but that it’s a relatively new phenomenon. How long ago was it that you first recognized Michael’s unique…” Cas shot a look at Cain but proceeded, “…station?”
“You think I put them onto him?” Bram asked.
“There seems to be something of a coincidence in timing,” Cas said coolly. “If these visitors are connected to your wild Pack.”
Bram frowned. “No, sir. I didn’t say a word. I haven’t even been out that way in a couple of years.”
“What’s going on?” April asked. “What’s happened to Michael?”
Cas grimaced and began to eat. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Sorry I’m late,” Kate said as she entered and slid into her chair. “I overslept.” Patience collected her own empty plate and waved a mute goodbye. She refilled her mug from the carafe before disappearing up the back stairs, still too sleepy to interact.
“Mmph.” Cas wiped his mouth with a napkin, swallowed, and gestured toward Kate. “Kate. Good of you to join us. I wonder if you’re aware that one of your charges was out wandering the hallways alone late last night. Care to explain how he had access to do that?”
“Sir?”
“He’s two, Omega,” Cas went on. “He’s too little. He could easily have fallen down the stairs. What’s more, he was distraught, screaming his little head off. If I hadn’t been awake and in a room with the door open, who knows where he might have ended up. Why was the nursery door ajar? And why was yours latched?”
Kate’s mouth dropped open. “Um…”
“The responsibility to ensure their safety lies primarily with me. They are not your pups,” Cas told her. “I’m aware of that. But you asked for this duty. And they are your Pack. If you’re not in a position to keep them safe, I beg that you let me know so that I can appoint someone who is.”
“Sir… I didn’t…” She furrowed her brow in thought as she considered the matter. “I closed my door for a little privacy. I meant to open it again when I finished. I guess I fell asleep.”
“You fell asleep.”
“He’s not hurt, is he?” Kate asked. “He’s okay, right? God, I’m sorry. I must not have closed the nursery door all the way. Poor kid. He must have been so scared. Did he have another nightmare?” Her eyes looked bereft as she imagined Sean seeking comfort first from his nanny and then wandering the halls alone when he couldn’t get to her.
Cas found it difficult to maintain his anger in the face of her dismay. Her first thought was for Sean’s wellbeing, not her own. He sighed. “I believe so. He came looking for me. Luckily, he sought me on the same level and didn’t attempt to tackle the stairs.”
April spoke up, “I don’t understand how I didn’t hear him. I had the monitor on. I didn’t hear a thing.”
Cas caught the flush that turned Kate’s ears and throat bright pink. He set down his utensils. “Omega? Something you want to tell us?”
“I turned it off,” she blurted, going scarlet. “My room isn’t soundproof. I didn’t want anyone to hear. I meant to turn it back on after… I guess I fell asleep.”
“Unacceptable, Kate. Your masturbation habits cannot impinge upon your responsibilities to the pups, not if you want to continue in the role of their nanny. I don’t care what you do in your bedroom, or anywhere else for that matter, but you don’t do it at my children’s expense!”
“Yes, Sir,” she said with her eyes on her lap. “It won’t happen again.”
April reached across the table and touched Kate’s hand. “You need to get out of the house for more playtime anyway. It’s not good for you to spend so much time alone.” She turned to her mate. “Can we do some digging and find her a good match? She’s been on her own too long. It’s time, Cas.”
Cas shook his head sadly. “The mate-match program is only for un-Mated Lupins. There’s no way to search for a compatible partner that way.”
“What about good old-fashioned dating then?” April suggested. “We both know a lot of people. Surely someone we know could fit the bill.”
Kate looked up. “April, don’t. I don’t want to.”
“It’s hardly a matter of wanting,” April told her, assuming a big sister tone.
“No, seriously,” Kate protested. “All I did was accidentally leave the door open. One time. I’m not Falling. I’m not un-Balanced. I’ve never let any of the pups come to any kind of harm. Alpha’s going to take care of this incident—take it out of my ass—I’m sure. Outside of that, it’s not really any of your business.”
“Tone, Omega,” Cain said firmly without looking up from his newspaper.
Kate shot him a look. “Why is everyone always so interested in my love life? I’m behaving myself. I Submit to my Dom and my alphas when I need to. I stay in my lane and respect the hierarchy. I’m damaged goods though, and no one is ever going to want to date me. So what if I have to rely on my own toys to get off at night? So what if I need a little me-time at the end of the day when I’ve had toddlers climbing all over me since dawn?”
Cas placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “No one is bothered by your sexual habits, Kate. Get off however you like. But April’s right. You’re not thriving here without a partner. Some people do, but you’re not.”
Kate scoffed. “My ability to thrive was stolen when I was sixteen, Alpha. There’s no getting over that.”
“Nonsense.”
“Papa!” Mary Ellen tottered in and reached her arms toward him to be picked up. Cas caught Gabriel’s eye in the parlor and waved to let his brother know he had Emmy. He hoisted her onto his lap. She helped herself to a strawberry from his plate.
Cas centered himself. “April’s right. You do need to get out of the house, take some time away from the pups. Meet people. Go on dates. Find something to do that you enjoy.”
Kate sighed. She propped her head on her hand and glared balefully at the Alpha. “In my spare time? What spare time?”
And like a clockwork mechanism ticking over the hour, Castiel gave one sharp nod and slapped both hands onto the table. “Right. Time for a shift.” He raised his eyes up toward the refrigerator where a sleep-rumpled Adam had just appeared wearing a onesie with feet, digging for jam. “Adam. How would you feel about taking on some pup-care responsibilities?”
“Me, sir?” Adam looked frozen to the spot, caught in a sticky web he hadn’t seen coming at all. “I’ve already got a job.”
“In the evenings, on occasion,” Cas clarified. “To allow Kate to develop a personal life outside of school and nannying.”
Kate’s jaw clenched. Her eyes shifted to a glittering gold as she met April’s eyes across the table. April gave away no hints as to what she was thinking, but her eyes shifted as well, and she didn’t blink.
Adam set the jar of rhubarb jam on the counter and allowed the fridge door to swing closed. “Is that a good idea, Alpha? What with Patience’s history around that subject? It’s kind of sticky.”
“I’m not asking Patience to participate against their will. I’m asking you.” Cas wiped Emmy’s fingers with his napkin and then realized a dry wiping wasn’t going to cut it. He carried her to the sink to wash them thoroughly. “And over time, with no pressure on them, Patience may find themself gaining confidence and comfort around the pups. It would be a win-win. Or Patience can leave the pups to you and keep their distance if that’s what they would prefer. The goal here is to offer Kate an alternative to hiding in the nursery and shuttering herself away from the world.”
Adam’s eyes darted to Kate’s face. “I’m, uh, happy to help the Pack, Alpha. You know that. And I love your pups.”
“That’s settled then. I’ll have Michael draw up a schedule.”
Kate huffed. “Alpha, please.”
“Come swim with us, Papa?” asked Emmy as Cas dried her hands and set her on the floor.
“Papa has to go to work, sunshine,” he told her. “We can swim this evening. You go to Mommy now while Papa finishes up some morning business.”
April let the pup climb into her lap as she reached across the table once more. “Kate, I know it’s scary…”
“You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it’s like having this presence in my head every second of every day, sitting in there watching everything I do.”
“Don’t I?” April challenged gently.
Kate shook her off. “You don’t have a rapist stuck forever inside your brain, April. You think I can just shut her out and go on a date? Get to know someone? How do you think that conversation is going to go when I have to explain that not only can’t I Mate, but that there will always be a voyeur watching me, no matter who I’m with, no matter what we do together? How many guys are going to want to be with me knowing she can feel them?”
“You’re selling people short without so much as trying to give them a chance,” April argued. “You’re sitting up in your room, planting your nose in your books, running your vibrator and getting pasty and bitter in the dark. That’s no way to live, Kate!”
“Look, Ultimate,” Kate retorted hotly. She stood up, sending her chair grating along the floor. Emmy’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you to tell me how to live my life? I may not be very high on the ladder here, but I’m above you, and I expect some deference. Alpha?” She turned her golden eyes on Cas. “You wanna back me up here?”
Cas glanced at April. “Not especially. She hasn’t said anything disrespectful, Kate. In fact, I rather think she’s got a point.”
Kate crossed her arms and glowered at the floor. “Fine. Whatever.”
“Nanny Kate, we can go swimming?” asked Emmy, scrambling across to a chair beside her mother’s. “Me an’ Mickeleen loves swimming.”
Kate licked her lips and sighed. The pup had popped the tension like a soap bubble.
“Yeah. Yeah, in a little bit. Go let everyone know. See if your Dad will help you with your sunscreen. I’ll be there in a little while. I have to…” She paused. Go get my ass beat was what she meant, but she left the sentence hanging unspoken. Emmy scurried away. Kate looked back up at Cas, who stood waiting calmly. “I’m sorry I left the nursery door open. I swear that won’t ever happen again. I just don’t see how one mistake like that means we have to retool my whole life and we’re now gonna go out and find me a husband all of a sudden.”
Cas chuckled. “It’s not all of a sudden, Omega. We’ve been worried about you for some time.” He ushered her toward the archway, and she followed him, dragging her feet. “No one’s saying you have to get married. Just…date.
“Oh, that’s so much better,” she groused quietly. “All of you talking about me behind my back?”
Cas chuckled again and opened his office door. He let Kate precede him through and then closed the door behind him.
“Please don’t take the pups away from me, Alpha,” she said. “I’ll do better. I swear. I was honestly trying to protect them. I didn’t want them walking in on me or overhearing. I’m not always quiet, you know.”
“I know,” Cas agreed. “And nor should you need to be. But the pups don’t need shielding from that kind of play. They won’t so much as blink at witnessing you pleasuring yourself any more than they would blink at seeing you brush your teeth. Their physical safety on the other hand, is paramount. And you put them at risk of grave harm by prioritizing your privacy over their wellbeing. You understand that this is a Rule violation?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And that I’m going to punish you?”
She wilted. “Are you going to tell Sam?”
“Of course. Your Dominant needs to know when you’ve been corrected and what your transgressions are. What he does with that information is between you and him.”
“He’s going to roast me alive,” she mumbled.
“I have every confidence that he will respond appropriately and without undue severity, especially as he will be made aware that you have already been punished. Pants off, please.”
Kate stripped from the waist down and let him guide her over the top of his desk. “I’m not taking the pups away from you, sweetheart. You’re good with them and they adore you. However, we will be adjusting your hours to free you up some time to develop a steadier social life.”
Cas rested his left hand on the small of her back and set his feet.
“You cannot continue to survive on manufactured scene-play alone. You need friends. You need lovers. You need to get out there and let the sun touch your skin, have some fun. Remember what it is to be alive and a wolf.” Cas slapped his hand down hard on her upturned backside.
She flinched.
It hurt.
He did it again. Her flesh responded beautifully to the strikes. She pinked right up, and the firm flesh bounced under his palm.
Castiel put his shoulder into it. The tactile pleasure of the heat and sting in his hand stirred his blood. Better than caffeine or a three-mile run as a morning wakeup ritual, an early morning spanking could set the tone for the whole day ahead. He’d often thought about mandating it in one form or another.
Both of his Subs would be only too pleased if he put such a ritual into effect, albeit with the requisite bitching for show. Maybe the Aboriginal Packs were onto something. For Cas, somehow a formal mandate had never been necessary. His Pack had a way of providing him what he needed.
Castiel felt alive as he pelted his young charge’s body with hot slap after hot slap. Soon, she Released with a shriek and then went limp over his desk.
“There it is,” he said softly. “Good girl. That’s what you needed.”
He spanked her a few more times, allowing his wolf to feast, swallowing chunks of Submissive whole. With his left hand he unbuckled his belt and unfastened his suit trousers. He tangled his fingers in her hair as he freed himself from his clothing, stroked himself a couple of times, and entered her channel in one smooth movement.
“Relax, Omega, I’ve got you.” He thrust smoothly, curled tightly, possessively over her back and gripped her neck between his teeth. Already near his peak, it didn’t take more than a few harsh drives with his hips, powered by thick thighs before he came with a feral grunt and a tightening of his jaw. His Claim smothered the Ozzie beneath him in a tight metaphysical embrace.
He ground his teeth into her flesh once more for emphasis before he let her neck go. He braced up on his arms, panting, and then pulled out and stepped back to let her stand.
Kate trembled slightly as she pushed herself to standing. Cas dug a box of wet wipes from his desk drawer and cleaned them both up, matter of fact as hell. The scent in his nose told him Kate had found her footing. It was starkly cleaner than what she’d arrived for breakfast with.
Within his own designations, he felt solid. He felt Alpha.
“Were you behind schedule with your Releases?” he asked as he buckled his belt. He handed her a tissue.
“I don’t think so,” she told him as she dried her face. “I didn’t think so. Maybe?”
“Well, you’re Balanced now. I’ll check in with Cain to make sure he’s on top of your schedule. Don’t you worry about it. That’s for your alpha to arrange. It’s not your job. Come here.” He brought her in for a tight hug and kissed the top of her head. “Are you okay, love?”
She nodded. Pulling out of his embrace and collecting her pants, she said, “Sam told me to make sure I come at least once every day. I usually do it just before I go to sleep. I don’t want the twins wandering in during that. It throws me off. So I close my door. I don’t really know how to manage it without risking falling asleep with the door closed.”
Cas laughed gently. “I’ll permit you to close your door, Omega. No one’s suggesting you need to put on a show for the twins nightly. But you need to leave the monitor on, and the door to the hallway must be latched. In the event you do fall asleep before cracking your own door open again, there must be a failsafe. A fall down the stairs, even just to the landing, could result in a broken neck. The twins are too little to be on their own yet in a house this size.”
“I’m sorry, Alpha.”
“You’re forgiven. Are you and April quarreling? Was that simply your im-Balance or do you and she need to talk it out? She cares about you, Kate.”
“She’s not my mother,” Kate said sourly. “She’s just one more person telling me what I need.”
Cas thought about it. “If those same words came from one of your Tops, you wouldn’t ruffle so badly.”
“Maybe. But she’s not my Top. She’s supposed to be my friend.”
“Don’t friends speak truth to one another?” Cas asked carefully. “Don’t they worry about one another?”
“Friends offer support, Alpha. They don’t try to tell you how to live.”
“She’s worried about you, Kate. You’re too young to cloister yourself away like this. You never go anywhere or do anything you’re not required to do. There’s a whole great big world out there with millions of fascinating people. And you, you have so much to offer. Anyone would be lucky for a chance to go on a date with you, to be your friend. But you sit up in your room and you cling to Cain and Dean and Sam like you don’t need anyone else, and you sacrifice your youth to my children.”
“It’s my life to sacrifice,” she told him. “I happen to think it’s a noble calling, raising pups.”
“And I agree with you, but not at your own expense.” He held her eye until she blushed and looked away. “So from now on, I’m adding to Sam’s commandment that you seek sexual release daily and declaring that at least once every other week, your orgasm must come at the hands of someone outside this Pack. And no contractors. Get out there and meet people, Kate. Make friends. Let your hair down.”
“Aw, Cas, really? Come on, please?”
“And don’t blame April. She was just following my lead. You two are too important to each other to allow this to come between you. Now go check on the pool party. I’m sure Dean could use another set of hands.”
Cas opened the office door and dismissed Kate. He checked the time and realized he was running late. From the foyer, he could hear April at the piano in the conservatory in jagged phrases of music on a stop-and-start as she and Mark hammered out something new. Somewhat torn, Cas stood indecisive for a moment. He hadn’t kissed his mate goodbye, and that was something they tried to prioritize when they were both at home because both of them being home was becoming rare. April’s stardom pulled her away from him as often as his mission tugged him from her.
But neither had he said goodbye to his husband, and that tug felt more immediate just now. A thundering of small feet set the plaster walls shaking, forcing Cas to look up toward the upper level where all four of his six-year-olds collided with the upper banister and began tumbling over one another in their ebullient haste to get to the ground floor. At the railing, Dean appeared behind them, Emmy on his hip and Sean by the hand.
“Walking feet, please!” Cas called to his troops. “Isn’t it a bit early for swimming?” he asked.
“Daddy said we could spend all day in the water!” Alex shouted. “We can even eat lunch there!”
“Ho, now, hold on, I didn’t say you could eat in the pool. I said you didn’t have to come inside for lunch.” Dean made his way down the stairs, taking it at Sean’s slow pace. “Running late, Cas?”
“I’m heading out now. How’s Michael?” Cas reached out for Dean’s waist. He drew the alpha in for a soft kiss.
“He’s okay. Weirded out. Are you going to let us in on whatever Bram’s here for? Michael says there’s a connection between that and his dream?” He made it a question. Dean set Emmy on her feet. “Hey, hey! No one goes outside until I’m there too. Just hold your horses for a sec!”
“We’ll put it all on the table this evening. Don’t plan any activities. This conversation may take a while.” Cas lowered himself to one knee and beamed toward his brood. “I need goodbye kisses! Who’s got Papa’s kiss?”
Six excited pups swarmed him, knocking him onto his ass and rolling right over the top of him. Laughing, Cas fought through them all, making sure each received their own kiss and hug and warm smile. “Be good today,” he told them. “I love you. Mind Daddy and Nanny Kate.”
Luckily, the staff kept the marble floor spotless. Cas dusted his suit off anyway as he stood back up. “Tell April goodbye for me?”
“You got it,” Dean replied airily. “Knock ‘em dead out there. Go save the world.”
“Don’t I always?” Cas gloated. He pulled Dean in for one more kiss, losing himself briefly in the sparkle of apple-green eyes and sun kissed freckles. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he whispered with a filthy grin and a hand traveling down over Dean’s ass. “Two of my Pack went against explicit instructions yesterday. I believe we have a reckoning coming to address that disobedience.” He slapped Dean’s ass.
Dean grinned and hugged him tighter. “Well, whoever that was, I hope you roast ‘em, but good.”
“I intend to.” Cas stepped back and looked his husband in the eye. His face, but for the slightest crinkling trace of humor in his eyes, told Dean to be ready for pain come nightfall.
“Damnit, Gage! Concentrate!” Michael snapped. “You’ve got infiltrators flanking you to the south! Shift, damnit, shift!”
“Stop budging up in my space!” the teen hollered back, rolling his shoulders as he worked his controller, jabbing it forward as if he could physically move the on-screen characters by force of will.
Granted, he could direct them by force of will, his wolf’s will, but he hadn’t reached a level of trust yet that he had the wherewithal to pull it off. He was still relying on his controller almost exclusively. His wolf snacked on the drippings, but it wasn’t directing anything yet.
“You’re thinking too much. Stop thinking and act. Who’s the Dominant here? You or them? Control, Omega. Make them give.”
“There’s too many of them.” Gage grimaced as his avatar fell back toward the security of its stronghold.
Michael placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It makes no difference how many. You just have to believe that. They will submit to you if you get your head right.”
Gage snarled, executed a complex series of actions with the buttons and knobs of his controller, growled from deep in his chest, and slammed his intention into the game. The vista before him sparked into a conflagration, consuming all his enemies in one enormous blast. Michael whooped in glee. When the smoke cleared, the landscape stretched picturesque. An army of soldiers knelt in neat rows, awaiting his command. The sun was setting.
All was at peace.
In his head, Gage felt his wolf preen.
Michael took the controller from him, beaming. “How did that feel?”
Gage breathed tension out in a long exhale. “Good. He really went for it that time. He feels…not as hungry.”
“That’s what we’re going for. Nice job. We’ll make a Dominant out of you yet.” Michael smiled at his protégé. The kid had come a long way. He was beginning to slough off the bitterness and spiky resentment of his childhood traumas and to face the reality of coming of age as an Omega-Dom. Adolescence wasn’t easy for any wolf, but an O-D had the deck so stacked against him that to get through it alone was almost impossible.
Gage was only a year away from sexual maturity. He’d been carefully, diligently shepherded through the harrowing years between Presentation and adulthood by the ACRI staff, never allowed to stray too far from Michael’s watchful eye.
And the kid was blossoming.
Feeding his wolf through game simulations, a new experimental use of technology was proving revolutionary. Young Tertiary wolves couldn’t tell the difference between gaming and real life. Battlefield victories especially worked to fill young Tertiary tummies, alleviating much of the angst that sent teenaged Dominants into violent headspaces, into making dangerous decisions.
“When do I get to try the game that has sex in it?” Gage asked Michael. “I mean, warfare is great. Ripping people’s throats out with my teeth is awesome, but where’s the fucking?”
Michael chuckled. “Sex in a video game isn’t going to fool your wolf, champ. Not like violence can. Hate to say it, but you’re not going to get anything out of that game.”
“Why have it then?”
“Some wolves go for it.” Michael didn’t explain further.
“Mine would go for it, man. I’m sure of it. It’s like interactive porn. Who wouldn’t go for that? Come on, Michael. Please.”
Michael laughed. “Your wolf would be pissed if you put a computer-generated Sub in its face but didn’t back it up with scent or touch. Trust me. That one is not for you.”
“Gah! What the hell then? A man has needs!” Gage followed Michael into the hallway of the adolescent wing.
“A man has access to all the toys he could possibly want and plenty of practice rooms,” Michael replied calmly. “And don’t think I don’t know about you and Spence on the roof after hours. You’re not starving, kid. You’re just horny. Focus on your lessons. The rest will take care of itself.”
Gage pulled up short, blushing. Spence had sworn their shenanigans were off the grid, so to speak, tucked in a little cubby between the A/C compressors where the cameras couldn’t see them. The boys didn’t know that rooftop access was a carefully crafted trick, and that nothing that happened up there went unmarked. The Facility had several secret hiding places where teens could sneak off to get up to things that weren’t openly permitted, places they thought the powers that be didn’t know about. But hormone sensors and twenty-four-hour monitors managed the safety of the goings on.
No one touched anyone in this Facility without the staff knowing about it.
“Spence isn’t a Sub though,” Gage protested. “He’s just a casual fuck. I need to try my hand at scening, Michael. I’m almost sixteen. Don’t make me go into my first adult Heat with no experience at all.”
“You don’t scene during Heats,” Michael repeated for the thousandth time. “You present your ass and get pounded into the mattress. You don’t need practice for that. By the time you’re old enough to leverage some control through the Heat hormones, you’ll have all the Dom experience you need.”
Michael held the door to the common room open and Gage slunk inside, still muttering under his breath.
“How’d it go?” Jody asked.
“His wolf is starting to take the bait.” Michael let Gage creep away toward his own dorm space. “He really went for it today. Sensor readings show a real improvement. It looks like simulated violence is going to be Gage’s get-out-of-jail-free card. I want to try him on the wolfpack simulator next.”
“In which role?” Jody asked. She pulled up a chair and sat. Michael followed.
“I’m not sure. The game wasn’t designed for O-Ds. I’ll probably see how he does as Pack Alpha. That should be fun.”
Jody made a skeptical face. “You could be sending the wrong message to his Secondary if you let him pose as an Alpha. Playing Pack muscle might work better, a beta-Dom. He’s at a tough stage right now. Any little push in the wrong direction could derail his progress. And Michael, he’s made a lot of progress. You should be proud of what you and he have accomplished.”
“I’m holding off until he’s of age and makes it through Dominant class.” Michael was practically holding his breath for that day. So much could still go wrong.
“He’s gonna be fine, papa-bear,” Jody told him. “He’s got a great role model.”
“Jody, he hits sixteen on the Septennial. I can’t… I can’t fail him. We have to protect this kid.” Michael sank into the chair beside his mentor and ran his hands through his hair. He dropped his over-confident mask, letting his insecurity peek through. “Maybe we should bite the bullet, pay the fine, and enroll him in Dom class early. I can’t shake the feeling he’s not going to be ready.”
Jody studied Michael for a moment. “Are we still talking about Gage?” she asked. She placed a hand on his forearm.
Michael’s face flattened. “It’s going to hit him like a freight train. He’ll have so many conflicting messages vying for primacy—his body, his mind, his designations—all begging for different things, opposite things. I can’t stuff the knowledge into him any faster than I’m doing, and it’s still not going to be enough.”
“You’re keeping his wolf fed,” Jody reassured him. “That’s ninety percent of the battle right there. Stuff it as full of blood and gore as you can. Don’t let an inch of daylight shine through to let it work up a hunger. Hell, maybe enroll him in boxing classes and let him work out some aggression for real, not just on a monitor. He’s going to be fine, Omega. He’s a strong, resilient kid. He’s figuring himself out.”
“Yeah.” Michael’s gaze drifted into a thousand-yard stare.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on with you now?” Jody asked him. Her eagle eye had clearly picked up on his uneasiness. She was too perceptive by half.
Michael rubbed his eye and grunted. “You ever wonder what the center of a snowball rolling down a mountain feels like?”
“You feeling overwhelmed?” she asked. Her eyes were sharp on his face. “You know I can have Dean here in a snap. You just say the word.”
“Nah. I’ll be okay. Just…got some things to think over.” His eyes found the wall clock. “And I’ve got clinic hours. You look out for that boy for me.” He shoved himself to his feet.
“You know I will.”
A bright red light flashed from the ceiling and a klaxon sounded from Jody’s office. With a wry grimace she rose too. “That’ll be Aiden again,” she said. “Josephine has told him no countless times, and he’s not getting the message. Beta-Dominants, Michael. Can we just kill ‘em when they’re born?”
He chuckled and waved her out as she went to follow the alarm and rescue the young alpha-Sub who wanted nothing to do with her suitor.
Letting the teens feel their way through. That had turned out to be the key to shuttling them through adolescence. Rules were one thing but providing them with subtle nudges toward putting their fledgling training to work on one another in free play was making all the difference. Of course, the teens couldn’t be told that that’s what they were being guided to do. That would spoil the mystique and ruin the fulfillment.
What the wild Packs did by scent and a whole array of watchful eyes, The Facility did with hormone sensors. There was nowhere the young wolves could go on campus that wouldn’t pick up a scent of alarm or distress. For students in the Adolescent wing—those over fourteen—any mutually consensual coupling that happened was allowed, provided the participants managed at least a modicum of discretion. But the klaxon sounded any time even the faintest release of fear, pain, or distress hit the sensors.
What Gage and Spence did most nights on the roof fell right in line with the program’s goal, to equip young wolves with enough confidence and experience that they wouldn’t be easy prey for predators back in their hometowns, whether Omega, beta, or alpha, whether Dom or Sub.
What Aiden was currently trying to do was just the opposite. The kid was proving stubborn and persistent but hadn’t managed to fathom the fundamental necessity of consent yet. When Jody waved off the alpha jogging her way and strolled into the empty classroom, Josephine had him prone on the floor with his arm wrenched back painfully.
“One of these days I’m just going to let her have at you, beta,” Jody told him from the doorway. Josephine released him. She shot him a disgusted look and then left. “Come on. You know the drill. That’s a visit to the EO and another meal-time display.” She hauled Aiden off the floor. “I swear I’m beginning to think you like presenting your paddled backside to the whole cafeteria.”
“Come on, Jody,” he whined. “I thought she was into me.”
“Last week’s black eye didn’t clue you in?” Jody asked him flatly. “Boy, you are one slow son of a bitch.” She held the door for him. “Repeat after me: Enthusiastic. Explicit. Verbal. Consent.”
As early evening haziness cast a dreamlike blur over the treeline along the back perimeter of the Winchester estate, Michael let his gaze go unfocused. He felt numb. Dean eased a warm hand into his and tightened his hold. Bram and Cas sat with them in a tight cluster around the central coffee table in Zachariah’s formal living room.
Cas almost never came in here.
“You okay?” asked Dean. “It’s a lot.”
Michael scoffed. “A lot hardly scratches the surface,” he said without humor. “I don’t know what’s worse, that I’m supposed to be equal somehow in power to him…” He tossed a thumb Castiel’s way. “…that I’m somehow the spiritual guru for a whole population of people I don’t even know, or that this is probably all bullshit and I’m just being punk’d here.”
“It’s not a prank,” Bram told him. “But I know it’s a lot to digest.”
Michael looked at him. “And you think these wolves in my dream are, who exactly? Their Pack elders? What does a tiny tribe of medieval South American wildlings want with me?”
Bram raised his palms. “I don’t know anything for sure. They’ve never visited me like that. But some of the things they’ve mentioned in passing now and then, I think it’s possible they know how to travel the wolf-scape. At least the Ayawuascana does.”
“I thought you said I was Ayawuascana,” Michael objected. He stood up and crossed to the tall windows opening out to the pool in the back. He put his back to the glass and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yes,” Bram agreed. “For all of us. But each balanced Pack has one of its own, all with varying degrees of insight and power. They may be observing you to weigh your relative strength.”
“Fabulous,” Michael quipped sourly. “I’m auditioning for a part I don’t even want.” He met Cas’ eye and then quickly looked away. “Who’s to say these jokers get to make that call in the first place?”
“It’s not their call,” Bram argued. “Any more than it’s our call to say whether Cas is Alpha or not. But after centuries without an Ayawuascana for the whole population, they have to be curious about you. If it’s true that they can traverse the wolf-dream, there would be nothing keeping them from seeking you out.”
“How did they find me?” Michael asked. “Nothing’s changed for me in several years. Why now?”
Cas leaned forward onto his elbows. “We think something Bram did or said put them onto you.”
“Oh, well, now, I wouldn’t go that far,” Bram put in. “Like I said, I haven’t even visited them in years. You said Michael’s been practicing navigating the wolf-scape himself lately, and he’s been getting better at it. The amount of Ayahuascaita Michael’s loaded with would be like a beacon fire on a mountaintop to anyone who knows what to look for. He probably triggered some kind of alert within the metaphysical matrix.”
Dean scoffed.
“This is funny?” Michael challenged.
Dean snickered. “Yeah, I’m picturing your wolf getting tangled up in a tripwire of bells and rattles.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “How do I talk to them? Tell them I’m not interested. Tell them to find someone else?”
Bram shrugged.
At the same time, Cas shook his head. “Omega, it doesn’t work that way. If this is real, you can’t shirk the responsibility. You are who you are. There’s no escaping that you have power that other Omegas don’t, that other humans don’t. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced there’s something to this balance thing.”
“And what exactly am I supposed to do about it?” Michael demanded.
Cas didn’t have an answer. He frowned in thought and worry.
Bram stepped in. “Just be open to the experience,” he offered. “Let the metaphysical guide you. Don’t run from it. Don’t deny it. If you can make contact with these dream visitors, talk to them. They may have answers that I…that we…don’t.”
Michael licked his lips. Nervously. He knew Dean could feel the thumping of his heart and the sweat break out on his palms. He squeezed his hands into fists and then splayed his fingers. Involuntarily, his eyes skipped to his mate’s and then broke away again. “Pass,” he said.
Bram pressed his lips together, frustrated.
Dean rose and placed himself squarely in front of Michael. “Maybe you’re hearing all of this with the wrong designation. God knows I don’t want you pressured into anything you don’t wanna do. But honestly, man, being A-number-one Omega of the whole Lupin Pack? Kinda sounds like something your wolf would want to jump on. What’s going on in your head right now? Why the nerves?”
“I have a life already, Dean,” Michael said with a touch more vehemence than he meant to weave into the statement. “I have my hands full.”
“So does Cas,” Dean pointed out.
“I’m not an alpha!”
“That’s the whole point!” Bram told him. He bolted to his feet.
Cas rose too and put his hand up to gentle Bram. “Easy, Omega. Michael deserves a chance to process this new development.”
“I deserve a chance to opt out, is what I deserve!” Michael told them all, furious.
Bram didn’t back down in the face of his ire. “Maybe so, but I don’t think you can. I don’t think the Ayawuascaita gives much of a fuck what any of us want or deserve. You get the choice of carrying the burden badly or carrying it well. That’s your choice; it’s the same choice Castiel got. Whether to be who you were born to be isn’t one of them.”
“Would you two give me a moment with Michael?” asked Cas. Michael huffed in disgust and turned his back on the room. Dean held Cas’ eye for a moment then collected Bram and led him from the living room with a hand at the small of his back.
“Believe it or not,” said Cas softly. “I get what you’re feeling.” He released a heavy breath and sat on the arm of the chair with his knees wide. “When I first began to realize that my rating put me at the very pinnacle of all of us, it was the last place I wanted to be.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Michael said sourly.
“It is and it isn’t,” Cas agreed. “But the point stands—it never mattered what I wanted. I am Alpha whether I choose to be or not. The burden I carry is my responsibility. If I shirk it, people get hurt. There isn’t anyone else to fill the gap. If I don’t do it, no one will.”
“We’ve gotten along just fine without a lead Omega this long…”
“We’re anything but fine, Michael. Over the last hundred years, our species has come to near catastrophic ruin. If there’s even a chance that that slide can be reversed by finding Pack balance, we have to try.”
“That’s not fair,” Michael grouched. “It’s not fair to put all of that on me. I’m just one guy, an Omega at that.”
“You are uniquely powerful. You are uniquely insightful, empathetic, genuine. No one said any of this was going to be fair. But you were born with tools that none of the rest of us have access to. Whatever your feelings about those tools, you’ve never shied away from using them. I suspect that fulfilling this role will be less about accepting some great coronation and more about simply embracing the authenticity of who you are. You’re Ayawuascana just by being you, Michael.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Michael. “You don’t have the four wolves of the apocalypse in your dreams rating everything you do.”
Cas laughed. “If you think my every move isn’t weighed and judged, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Michael shot him a glower. “I don’t feel like anybody’s spiritual leader. I barely even go to church anymore.”
Cas laughed again, this time freely and openly. “Oh, Michael.” He chuckled with a warmth that skirted Michael’s sour mood. “Modern Lupin religion is a pale reflection of the depth our spirits once reached. It’s a sad copy of ape religions mixed with what little instinct we retained after the fall. Our wolf spirits don’t belong inside stone buildings standing in neat little rows. We are wild animals who howl at the moon. We are brutes and hedonists and interconnected travelers. Our spirits are free. Your spirit is free.”
“If I embrace this, would it move me up in Pack rank?” Michael’s wry question made Cas grin.
“Not one bit. But it will put you outside of ranking altogether in a sense.”
Michael hmphed. “Typical alpha double-talk.”
Cas approached him, put two hands on Michael’s shoulders, caught his eye and held. “Read Bram’s manuscript. Get familiar with the concepts he lays out. Keep doing what you do. No one can ask more of you than you’re able to give.”
“Tell that to the mutts in my dreams.”
The look in Cas’ eyes sharpened. He used his grip on Michael’s shoulders to press the man to his knees. “Do you want to trust me, or do you want to keep fighting me? Does that ever work out for you?”
Michael closed his eyes and worked his jaw. He fought the slide into deference, but the pull was too strong. His Omega shouldered roughly into the space his wolf had occupied and slammed the door in its face. “Sir,” he murmured as he pressed his cheek into Cas’ palm. “I’m scared of this. It’s too big.”
Cas ran his thumb along the ridge of Michael’s cheekbone. “Would I ever let anything hurt you, Omega?”
Michael scowled. “I just wanna… Wanna be a family man. Wanna help young people. I don’t want… want…”
“What, to be world famous and influential?” Cas asked with his brow lifting. “Somehow I don’t believe you. I suspect if you let the idea marinate for a bit, you may find it begin to appeal to you. And you know I would never expect you to walk this road alone. Nor will your mate.”
Michael’s gaze dropped from Cas’ face to the bulge directly in front of him. “Comforting Omegas is a turn on for you, Alpha?” he asked softly.
Cas chuckled. “You on your knees is erotic, Michael. I’m only human.”
“Hardly,” Michael snorted. “More like watching me succumb to your manipulation tactics gets you hard.”
“Well are you?” Cas asked with a smirk. “Succumbing?”
Michael leaned in and nuzzled the smooth fabric, seeking the warmth inside. “How about I just keep doing my thing and let things unfold? For now. If this thing really is as inevitable as you and Bram say, it’s going to catch up with me one way or another no matter what I do.”
“A wise choice, Michael.” Cas closed his eyes and basked in the electric pleasure that was Michael’s breath through his slacks. “Another wise choice would be to seek comfort in your Pack Alpha’s touch.”
Michael snorted. “Ever the humanitarian.” He reached up and slowly lowered the Alpha’s zipper.
Sam jogged up to the picnic table, dusty, sweaty, grinning and thirsty. Sarah mirrored his expression and offered him a canned soda dripping with condensation. “JT’s helping Hank cheat,” he laughed. “I’m out. They ganged up on me. Now they’ve set their sights on Uncle Dean. Better make yourself a plate quickly; once they tag him, he’ll take his frustration out on the spread and there’ll be nothing left for the rest of us.”
Sarah laughed. “Serves him right. All the times he and Michael ganged up on me.”
Sam slid his long legs over the bench and reached for a plastic plate. “This was a good idea. It’s good to have the whole Pack out here just having fun for once.”
Rowena cleared her throat delicately. “The whole Pack and sundry affiliates, if you please.”
Sarah nudged Ro with her shoulder. “You’re Pack too. You know that.”
“I’m glad you thought of a monthly Pack play-day in any case,” Sam said to Sarah. “We need it. All work and no play is wearing.” He began assembling sandwiches for his pups as both of them were too busy playing to do it for themselves. The lake sparkled beyond the wide, green lawn, dotted with summer boats in the distance and swimmers closer in. If you didn’t know what to look for, you could easily miss the security guards lounging at regular intervals, looking bored but keeping nosy Pack-watchers and fans from interrupting the outing. They left joggers with their dogs alone but casually redirected anyone who seemed fixated on the famous faces enjoying the brilliant sunshine.
April planned to pause on the way out to sign a few autographs. She enjoyed meeting people who appreciated her music, chatting briefly with them, putting faces to the numbers behind her success.
Rowena nodded and began to fill her own plate from the plethora of serving platters. “Speaking of work, how is that dissertation coming, Samuel?”
Sam snorted. “Alpha warned me not to discuss it today. I’m supposed to be taking the day off.”
“Well, he didn’t warn me,” Sarah said conspiratorially, sliding in closer on her elbows between the cold cuts and the sandwich bread. “Sam here is untangling the Tertiary Presentation puzzle for us. He’s brilliant, and he’s going to make a huge difference in how pups come of age.” She practically glowed with pride, side-eyeing him and noting the flush that circled around his neck and up over his ears.
April noted the hitch in her breath and a quick darting of Sarah’s eyes when the wind carried Adam’s voice from out on the lawn as he cackled with glee at something to do with the game of tag. She saw Sarah swallow uncomfortably and drop her gaze for a moment.
“Is that so?” Rowena smiled. Her eyes flicked from Sarah to Sam and back again. “Rather close to what you yourself researched, is it not?”
Sarah shook her head and shooed a fly before laying a cloth over the meat tray. “My dissertation covered Secondary Presentation and adolescence in general. Sam’s looking at an earlier stage, the Tertiary Presentation. That happens when pups are eight or nine.”
“Sometimes earlier,” Sam put in. He couldn’t resist adding to the discussion. “But we don’t know yet how to pinpoint the moment a wolf emerges inside a pup’s mind. Even strong Dominants get swamped by the juvenile Submissive.”
April continued to unpack the large hampers that Dean and Cain had hauled from the van, laying the spread out so that it could be accessed from any side of the table.
Sarah’s face lit with enthusiasm. “But Sam’s homing in on some tells that we can study. Things that fly under the radar of even the pup’s natural inclination to submit to authority.”
“Fascinating,” Rowena purred with her eyes on Sam.
Castiel reached over her back for a plate. “I do hope you’re not talking shop, beta,” he scolded.
“Just answering Rowena’s questions,” Sarah told him. She didn’t fold under his stern gaze, pivoting instead and following his progress around the table with her eyes. “You know, sir. This environment right here is ideal for a test. You could put Sam’s premise under scrutiny, see if it holds up.”
Cas scowled. “Considering we won’t be able to verify the outcome for another ten years, I don’t see how we could judge the test’s effectiveness.” He shook the mustard bottle.
“Don’t give me that,” Sarah goaded. “You know the outcome, at least for one of them.
“Running experiments on our own pups isn’t exactly what I had in mind for today,” Cas said as his squirt of mustard splattered with a rude noise. He checked the front of his shirt but found no yellow stains. April handed him a napkin to clean his hands, and she took the mustard bottle to give a hearty shake. They moved as if they were one person with four arms.
From the lawn behind them, a raucous shouting rose with the dust and everyone still in the game converged in one spot to dogpile Dean. Cas looked on and chuckled. “That’s one way to beat him, I guess.”
Not to be put off, Sarah licked her lips and cocked her head. “Please, Cas. Just one quick test.”
With a look that spoke of an expectation of regretting this later, Cas held her eyes and called out toward the lawn, “Kathleen! Come here, kiddo!”
Kat disentangled herself from the fray and trotted across the distance. Her face was ruddy and her eyes alight. A layer of fine dust clung to the sweat on her arms and legs. “Yes, Papa?”
Cas emptied a bag of potato chips into a serving bowl, crumpled the bag and held it out to his daughter. Mindfully, deliberately, he shuttered his alpha designation entirely, slipping easily into his wolf, and noted Kat’s spine straightening in response. He held out the empty bag and pointed out a small clump of crumpled paper towels further along the table. “Take this and that garbage at the end of the table and throw it away in that trashcan across the way.” He pointed toward the parking lot where a refuse barrel stood about forty yards distant. To his left, another trashcan was a mere five yards away in the opposite direction.
Kat collected the refuse. “Yes, sir,” she chirped. But as the adults watched her mutely, her eyes darted to the closer can. Cas hadn’t lowered his hand or his intensity. His instruction was clear. Any juvenile Lupin should obey him without a thought, precisely as he had instructed. Kat’s feet carried her three steps toward the parking lot and then she paused and frowned.
“That one’s closer,” she said pointing over her father’s shoulder with a puzzled expression.
“I sent you that way,” Cas confirmed, still directing her toward the distant trashcan. “Do I need to repeat myself?”
Without his alpha in the mix, Cas’ command should not have been questioned. There was nothing between his wolf and his daughter to temper the compulsion. She shouldn’t have been able to question him.
“No, sir,” Kat answered. Her cheerful voice belied the look in her eyes. She was puzzled. But she jogged away, following his finger, still baffled but apparently not so badly that it was worth it to defy him. Adults didn’t always make sense.
She didn’t see the fond look on her father’s face as crow’s feet formed in the corners of his eyes. But April did.
Behind him, Sam said, “She shouldn’t have been able to question you. Hell, I nearly went over there myself.”
Sarah agreed. “None of the others would have thought twice about it, Cas. Not JT, not Emma, not any of them.”
“It doesn’t prove anything.” Cas’ eyes tracked her, noting with approval the security guard’s alert stance as well. He watched his daughter rejoin the fracas and find herself IT. “She’s only six.”
“Exactly, Alpha. She’s only six! At that age, she should be obeying you without question, without even thinking about it. She didn’t just think about it though, she spoke up. It was a direct challenge to your authority.” Sarah was downright gleeful. Her full-of-glee-ness made her eyes sparkle. “She almost obeyed without pausing, but something stopped her. She’s got a wolf already, and it’s a powerful one.”
Rowena spoke up, “So, let me get this straight. You think you can suss out a pup’s Tertiary gender by giving it illogical instructions and seeing if the bairn resists?”
Sam nodded. “It only means something if the instruction comes from a Profound Dominant without their Secondary participating. Secondaries have a way of humanizing the authority figure, and that allows the pup to use their own logic. If you blast them full force with a Profoundly Dominant Tertiary, the kid’s juvenile submissive should have no recourse but to blindly obey.”
Sarah added, “Unless the pup has access to a Profoundly Dominant wolf of their own.”
April found her mate looking intently into her face, searching for a reaction. She smiled, and his expression softened.
“Fascinating,” Rowena breathed.
“You see, up to now,” said Sam, scooching over to let Cas sit next to him, “our only means of isolating a person’s Tertiary behaviors from Primary or Secondary ones has been through sexual means. Sex is the only activity where each designation behaves in measurable, characteristic ways. Before a Lupin reaches sexual maturity, there’s been no way to distinguish whether they are Dominant or just naturally assertive, Submissive through their Tertiary or simply because they’re young.”
“Well, and we still can’t isolate the Sub wolves and the Neutrals until they can be sexually Claimed,” Sarah added. “But it’s not the Subs and Neutrals we need to identify early anyway. It’s the Dominants, especially the Profound Dominants. Sam’s idea of testing Tertiary compulsion on juveniles and adolescents is brilliant. Generally, the pups will still obey an illogical command like that, but we’re learning to look for those little pauses like Kat just demonstrated so beautifully.”
“The poor wee child,” Rowena lamented. “Only six and already wrestling with such a beastie in her chest.”
Cas swallowed his bite. “She’ll be fine. Her juvenile submissive is still predominant and will be for years. What we’re seeing—if indeed that is what we’re seeing—is the emergence of her Tertiary in its infancy. Tertiary designations do not spring fully formed from their owners’ foreheads the way Secondaries do. They creep out slowly, a product of the metaphysical headspace of abstract thought within a person’s mind. At this stage, Kat’s wolf cannot be more than a whisp of an idea, more impulse than designation.”
“And if we can identify now that she’ll grow to be a Profound Dom,” said Sam, “we can start guiding her all the sooner into adolescence and all the way through it. If she Presents as an Omega, we’ll need the earliest start we can get. The same goes for pups all over the world.”
“Sam,” Cas said setting his sandwich down. “While I appreciate the gravity and scope of your project, especially in light of my daughter’s situation, I must insist. Today is about enjoying our family. Put your dissertation away.”
Just then, the rest of the Pack stumbled up. “WINNER!” Dean crowed with Hank on his shoulders, raising the boy’s arms high in the air.
“O-Pop, oweos!” Emmy begged as she tugged at Michael’s hand.
“Oreos are for after you eat your lunch,” Michael told Emmy.
Bram dug through the cooler for a drink. “Your kid cheats, Sammy.”
“Nonsense,” Jess argued with a ruffle of Hank’s hair as Dean set him on his feet. “He just plays strategically. You could have formed alliances too.”
“Leave it to the lawyer to find a loophole,” said Cain. He and Carlos began setting camp chairs up all around the picnic table that was far too small to hold them all. The pups obeyed their parents’ directions to sit at the low folding table that had been carted out for this purpose, and Adam joined them. As a unit, they began slamming their fists on the table and chanting, “Feed us now!” at the top of their lungs.
“It’s too bad none of the pups are hungry!” Dean shouted to April over the din. “Guess we’ll just have to feed their portions to the ducks!”
“Especially the s’mores,” April agreed, waving a pudgy bag of marshmallows. “Ducks love s’mores!”
“NOOOOOOO!!” they all yelled, Adam chorusing happily right along with them.
Rowena leaned in toward Sarah. “So tell me, this new strategy of Samuel’s, would it work on Primates? Would it work on you?”
Sarah handed the bowl of chips to Michael for delivering to the pups’ table and made room for Patience. “No. We’re still working on the best way to rate Primates. Apes don’t have a Tertiary. Of course, we can still be tested. There are ways to rank a Primate’s impulses to lead versus to follow. Some of us are dominant and some submissive. That doesn’t have to be sexual. But since we can’t sense when a Lupin shifts into their Tertiary headspace, we have no way to isolate whether we’re responding to a Secondary or Tertiary command. It’s less three-dimensional.”
“I’m curious.” Rowena tugged at Michael’s sleeve when he leaned over for the fruit salad. She whispered into his ear, and he frowned as he stood back up. He leaned back in for a quick whispered conversation but then shrugged.
“Ace,” he called. “C’mere, pup.”
Alex used his cousins’ shoulders to hoist himself out of his chair and approached Michael cheerfully, walking past the nearby trash receptacle. Michael handed him a wad of paper towels that had been used to mop up spilled potato salad. Through his wolf he said, “Go throw this away for me over there.”
And he pointed out toward the parking lot in the distance.
The adults paused their conversations as Alex took the paper and without a backward glance, sprinted the forty yards across the lawn. He was back in a flash, grinning happily at Michael who rewarded him with a thumbs-up.
“You see?” said Sarah. “Most pups won’t even notice the compulsion. A Dominant’s instruction is obeyed blindly.”
“That’s enough,” Cas told her sternly. “Later.”
Dean smirked. “Oh, did you do the thing? How’d it go? What’d she do?”
“You owe me twenty bucks,” Cas told him.
“What? Cas, she’s six!”
“Wait,” said Sam to Cas. “I thought you were against labeling them this young.”
“As a general rule, I want to allow them all to grow and mature in their own time. But I cannot pretend not to know what I know. However…” And now he turned to watch the pups dig in with rowdy and messy enthusiasm. “…Let me be clear. We must proceed with caution. We must not let on to any of them that there may be something exceptional developing. All of them deserve the chance to be pups while they are still pups. And we have not yet established that an early Presentation correlates to a Profound adult rating.”
The pups weren’t listening. They were trying to gross each other out by showing mouths full of chewed food and laughing uproariously. Kate met Michael’s eye and shifted her chair to face away from the pups’ table.
Michael stood over them and cleared his throat but didn’t otherwise intervene. They weren’t hurting anything, and they were having fun.
From a camp chair under the tree, Gabe yelled, “Hey, Jimmy!” And when the pups all turned as one to look, he opened his mouth wide and let his masticated mouthful dribble out onto the ground. “Bleaaaaahhh!”
To a chorus of “Ewwwwwwws!”
“You know,” Sam observed, “We might not have to worry about which designation the pups have when they mature. Around here, maturing isn’t a foregone conclusion.”
April grinned down at her plate. Warmth above and beyond the sun’s rays suffused her body, into her bonds, and right to the tips of her manicured nails.
This.
This is what she most missed while on the road meeting obligations and making a name for herself out from under her mate’s shadow. Maturity might not be a shared Winchester trait, but loyalty and affection ran straight through every one of them, each for the others.
Beside her, Dean jostled her shoulder. When she looked up at him, he winked. As always, in the face of his joy, she felt lighter than air, utterly free, and so incredibly grateful it caught in her throat.
Looking back, her life seemed divided into two portions, not a before and after Mating as many wolves described, but a before and after her catastrophic choice to wreck the family car. She had come out of that experience a new person altogether. Gone were her childish tantrums and selfish schemes. Gone was the insecurity of an untethered Omega with no innate power. Gone the ever-present fear of being abandoned. In their place stood a full-grown woman: a mother, and a mate, and a wife, and a performer—a person in her own right, fallible and complicated, but deserving of every drop of adoration her Pack buried her in.
April laid her head on Dean’s shoulder for a moment, breathing in his alpha scent and letting him feel her gratitude. Her pixie-cut prickled against his throat, but he hugged her close anyway.
The worst fallout from that fateful decision had been her alienation from Dean. It had lasted long enough that she’d begun to despair the two of them ever rediscovering their easy affection for one another. Perhaps, she’d thought, she had broken things irreparably. But as the months passed, slowly Dean began to thaw. April made damned sure that he need never doubt her again, and trust rekindled slowly but steadily.
In the end, Dean’s effervescent joyfulness couldn’t be contained, and he’d softened. He’d lowered the wall between them bit by bit until it vanished.
And now she had him back, just as vivacious and irrepressible as ever. Just as irreverent.
April felt eyes on her. She looked up to see Castiel watching his two Subs, a look of pride and fondness in his eyes.
“We’re going to miss you next week,” Cas told her.
“I’ll be home in time for your birthday,” she promised. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
“You better not,” said Michael from behind her, on his feet with a plate balanced in one palm, talking with his mouth full. “I’ll need you for my Heat right after. My mate’s getting too old to keep up with me.”
Michael flinched violently and threw his plate high into the air with a screech before clapping both hands on his butt. “Ouch! Dean!”
Dean simply winked at April again and stuffed his sandwich into his mouth.
Closing the door to the nursery behind him, Michael blew on his fingernails and mimed polishing them on his shirt. “Two two-year-olds, OUT for the count,” he bragged. “Who’s got the O-Pop magic?”
Dean wrapped a hand around his mate’s waist in the hallway and steered him toward the stairs. “You’ve got it all, baby,” he said warmly. “And what about you? Feel like a siesta? We’ve got nowhere we have to be right now.”
“No, I’m not tired,” Michael told him as they reached the staircase. “I want to talk to Bram. I need to pick his brain. I want to understand this thing better. Those wolves in my head were creepy. I need to know what they’re up to, what they want.”
Emma met them on the stairs. She was climbing as they descended. “O-Pop, tell Jimmy it’s not his turn to pick the movie! He got to pick last time!”
“Do you all have to watch the same thing?” Michael challenged.
“Yes, ‘cause he made me watch Power Rangers!”
Dean chuckled. “Oh, yeah, he owes you bigtime. Tell him I said he can take turns and watch what you want this time, or he can join the twins in the nursery for a nap.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said with a disarming smile. Dean winked at her. She hit the top stair already bellowing down the hall toward the TV room.
Michael lowered his head to hide his smile.
“What?” Dean asked.
“Nothing.” But Michael’s eyes glittered with mirth. “You’re so screwed.”
“Dude, he made her watch Power Rangers!”
Michael had picked up the bare structure of the thing from his talk with Carlos, the talk that got him and Dean in hot water for going over their Alpha’s head. (That spanking had been completely worth it.) And much of the meat had been filled in by Cas as they huffed along together in the early morning yesterday before the world woke up. But hearing it in detail from the Omega who authored the manuscript and had tentative connections to a culture that should not have survived, overwhelmed him.
Michael wanted to start dissecting this Ayahuascaita thing strand by strand, if only to prove to himself and his Alpha that it was nonsense.
He had new words floating around in his head now, exotic words that didn’t feel like they could have anything to do with him. But Michael couldn’t reconcile the nonplussed lump in his belly with Castiel’s decidedly plussed demeanor. Cas seemed to have reconciled himself to having an opposite equal in the house, but Michael didn’t believe it. Nor did he feel equal to the Alpha.
Inside his Tertiary though, a smug kind of posturing took up most of the kennel. Michael’s scrappy, black-furred wolf gloated quietly. It wasn’t pressing its claim. Yet. It seemed content to wait for the dust to settle, a circumstance that unnerved Michael no end.
After cornering Cousin Bolivia in the little calling room by the front door, Michael paced and watched Bram’s iconic Novak eyebrow lift in amusement at his disconcert.
“What do they expect from me?” Michael asked.
Cryptically, unhelpfully, Bram simply said, “You’ll have to ask them.”
Notes:
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with this story. I really do have an ending planned. We'll get there eventually. In the meantime, come chat with me in the comments.
Chapter 44: Sunday, June 23, 2024
Summary:
Michael goes on a journey through the looking glass, and Dean has some bad news.
Notes:
We're jumping the shark here, folks.
I'm back! That was a longer break than I intended. I'm finding I have to pace myself more than I used to. No more 16-hour writing marathons. In fact, virtually all the typing callouses are gone from my fingertips.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. Things are getting hairy for Michael, which of course means they're going to get hairy for Dean and Cas.
This THEN section is for Andi4, who requested a chance to see the first time Cas and Benny faced off in a status challenge.
This NOW section is for Alessi. Happy belated birthday!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
THEN:
December 12, 2003
Benny growled, and it was a feeling almost more than a sound, a feeling no sane person ever wanted to experience coming toward them in the dark.
On their way back to their shared apartment after their final semester joint presentation, Cas and Benny should have been celebrating a successful project and the end of another challenging semester, another milestone toward earning their masters’. But Benny had taken exception to Castiel’s claim of being the group’s project lead. In fact, Cas had practically claimed credit for the whole goddamn project, right there out loud in front of their course professor and fellow students, relegating Benny and their third partner to helpmates. When in reality, it had been Benny who managed their deadlines and pulled all the critical pieces together into one cohesive paper.
Benny’s name should have topped the paper. Hell, even if you went by alphabetical order and not contributions Benedict came before Castiel. Lafitte came before Novak.
A brief and hushed argument in the hallway following the presentation had yielded nothing but a shrug from Castiel, whose entitlement and presumption, Benny now realized, stretched miles beyond a normal person’s. The jerk seemed honestly not to have the slightest notion that he’d overstepped.
And Benny fumed.
He knew Cas could feel his ire. He wasn’t attempting to hide it, and it rolled off of him in waves.
Rich people!
Cas rolled his eyes at the growl and kept walking. “Would you give it a rest already? What difference does it make? We both got the same grade. No one cares how the work was divided. Perry sure isn’t bitching; he took his A+ and bolted.”
“It makes a difference, Novak,” growled Benny, “because you didn’t lead the project. I did! And now it looks like I skated. I need a good reference from Doctor Townsend, man. I need him to know who I am and what contributions I make. Not all of us can fall back on family funds and connections after graduation. I’ve got my whole future on the line. You made me look bad to someone I need in my network.”
“I have no intention of falling back on family connections to find a job after graduation,” Cas argued defensively. “You’re making a big deal about nothing.”
“God, you’re such an asshole sometimes!” Benny snapped. “I stepped up to manage the whole damn project because you needed to, what was it? Work on mastering your wolf? Which we both know is just code for getting your freak on with Marie. And then you fucking sidelined Perry and me both in there! You see nothing wrong with casually taking credit for someone else’s work, someone who’s a friend, or was meant to be anyway.”
“Oh, so now we’re not friends?” Cas asked as he pulled to a stop and glared at the alpha.
“It was a dick move,” Benny told him.
“Fine.” Cas huffed. “Dick move. Got it. Sorry.”
“Goddamnit, Castiel, what the fuck is your problem?” Benny stepped up into Cas’ space aggressively. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, it’s your way or no way. No one else gets a voice! Why do you always have to be the top man in any interaction?”
Out of nowhere, something weighty and intangible hung between them. Something long developing, a strain they’d been ignoring for years was coming to a head right now, right in this moment. They both sensed that the tension in the air had little to do with who got credit on a course assignment. They could almost sense bolts of lightning striking all around them, alone on the sidewalk near the student union.
Benny’s wolf snarled viciously, showing its teeth. Castiel’s face remained impassive, but within his eyes, a storm gathered.
Castiel didn’t back up. He held his ground, lifted his chin, and said coolly, “Because I am the top in any interaction. You don’t have to like it.” And he turned on his heel and strode away.
He casually dropped the gauntlet and let Benny decide whether now was the moment to take it up. Two alpha-Dominants, best friends since undergrad, couldn’t continue forever without establishing the status between them. Ultimately, a test of strength was inevitable. Castiel didn’t seem concerned with the outcome, and Benny found that fueled his rage all the more.
Benny snarled behind him and dropped his backpack. Blood raged in his veins. His eyes flipped instantly to a shimmering crimson. He launched himself and tackled Castiel from behind, sending him flying. They landed in a tangle of fists and legs and snarls. Cas’ bag soared, spraying pens and highlighters down the sidewalk.
Benny had a good forty pounds on his best friend.
Panting and huffing, trying to land a solid blow to Cas’ jaw, Benny muttered, “Arrogant! Fucking! Asshole! … Think you’re…”
Castiel, startled but not repentant, only took a moment to catch up and begin to fight back. His own eyes reddened as the beast within him tore loose from its prison and threw itself into the fray with deadly resolve.
Slobber spattered from its jaw as it engaged, pummeling the larger man whose punches kept going wide in his wrath. Benny tangled Cas’ feet up between his legs and tried to roll them, but Cas got his hand in Benny’s hair and a knee in his belly, and he landed punch after punch along Benny’s jaw.
Unearthly sounds erupted from Castiel’s mouth as his wolf punished the upstart who dared challenge him. Soon, Benny curled in on himself, raising his arms to protect his face. Completely feral, Castiel stood and dragged him by his hair onto the lawn, away from the overhead lights, threw him onto his belly, and then tore his pants down his legs, baring Benny’s backside to the night.
“Don’t you dare!” Benny shouted over his shoulder. He tried to turn over, tried to get some traction, but Castiel had him pinned. “Don’t you fucking DARE!”
“You wanna know, Benedict?” Castiel goaded in a voice that sounded like the residue at the bottom of a rock quarry abandoned for decades. “Wanna know why it’s my name at the top, why it’s me giving the presentations, why you’re always going to be second?” Moving as fast as he could, Castiel unbuckled his own belt and shoved his pants down. He was furious and bestial as he stroked himself to hardness and spit on his cock. He flattened himself over Benny, reducing his friend to ineffective struggling. Benny huffed hard into the dirt.
Cas leaned low so he could speak right into Benny’s ear. They were both trembling. “Because I’m ALPHA!” Then he clamped his teeth around the back of Benny’s neck and shoved himself into his friend’s ass. His thrusts were minimal and few. Mostly, he held the position with just the tip of his cock buried inside Benny, forcing his friend to recognize their power imbalance and to truly digest it.
Castiel growled from deep within his chest, waiting for something from Benny he couldn’t have explained. He'd never attempted a DF before; he was operating purely on instinct. But he knew it when he felt it. Somehow, he felt Benny’s wolf give, felt it submit, felt it roll.
One more percussive thrust, and Cas released Benny’s neck and pulled up onto his knees. He paused, kneeling behind the man for a moment while dizziness skewed his vision, then he let his weight pull him to the side, landing on his hip and curling over himself into a slump. He panted into the grass, trying to calm down.
Benny lay motionless for a moment or two, just breathing. Slowly, tentatively, he pushed himself off the ground. He stood up long enough to fix his clothes, eyes on the horizon and jaw clenched. Then he collapsed back to the ground beside Cas. They didn’t look at each other. They sat like that for some time, allowing the breeze to cool them as they found center again.
Cas eventually sat upright. He swallowed uncomfortably and gazed upward at the stars—what few he could see with the lights of the city polluting the sky.
Benny finally broke the silence in a soft voice. “That’s been coming for a long time, I think. Doesn’t change the fact that taking credit for someone else’s work is a dick move.”
Cas chuckled. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I got…carried away. That was a shit thing to do to a friend.” He paused, then, “Are you hurt?”
Benny touched his split lip and examined the blood on his fingers. “Not more than a typical day with my brothers back home.”
“Your brothers DF’d you?” Cas asked dryly.
“Oh, was that what that was?” Benny joked. “Hmph, I thought you wanted to go steady.”
Cas snorted. He seemed to realize all at once that his penis was still out, and he hastily tucked himself back in and buckled his belt, shifting his position in the grass until he was sitting with his legs crossed Omega-style. He looked around and found his backpack with its scattered contents along the sidewalk, and he sighed.
He said, “I never wanted to be Alpha. You know that, right? God, I never wanted this.”
Benny finally looked at him. “Fat lotta good that does anybody, brother. I don’t remember anyone asking us what we wanted outta this life. Guess all we can do is play the hand we’re dealt. You know I’ve always got your back. Right?”
Cas glanced toward him, looking vaguely chagrined. “Even after…?”
Benny scoffed. “Like I said, long time coming. I can’t say I’m enjoying the aftereffects, but I kinda feel solid now in a way I didn’t before, like I can see better where I sit relative to…well, just about everything. Remind me never to pick a fight with your wolf, cher. He don’t fight fair, and he’ll whoop up on me till I’m nothing but paste if you let him.”
Cas rolled his eyes. “My wolf is an asshole.”
“Not gonna fight you on that one,” Benny agreed.
They chuckled softly. Cas hauled himself to standing and offered Benny a hand. Holding onto Benny’s hand, their raw, grazed palms crossed upright over their chests, Cas asked, “So we’re good?”
Benny tongued a loose tooth and dabbed at the blood on his face, but he nodded. “Yeah, Novak. We’re good.”
NOW:
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Bram wasn’t much help.
They talked for hours, alone together in Michael’s office. But the upshot was…Bram didn’t know anything truly helpful. In the end, he pressed a copy of his manuscript into Michael’s hands and told him to trust that everything would make sense eventually.
Michael didn’t want to go to sleep that night. The looming presence he felt in the back of his head pressed in closer as the moon rose. They were waiting for him, those four strange wolves. He could feel them.
Dean massaged his shoulders, kissed the back of his neck.
“Come sleep in my den with my wolf,” he advised. “I’ll sit vigil with you. There’s no need for you to face any of this alone. Besides, I want to see if you can maintain the link once we’re both sleeping. It’d be a trip if we could share dreams.”
Michael scowled down toward his lap, sitting on the edge of the big bed. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay away from the wolfscape world if we don’t want to encounter visitors there? And anyway, we don’t both need to be in danger. It would be better if you’re clear so that if those assholes try anything, you can wake me up, get me out of there.”
“Michael,” Dean argued. “I don’t want you going to sleep alone, not if there’s a way for me to go with you. Two sets of eyes, two noses, four ears, someone to watch your back. If this isn’t just a really vivid dream, if there truly are wolves who can enter your wolfscape, you need someone beside you, someone you trust.”
Dean’s earnestness struck a chord with Michael. The alpha wasn’t claiming Michael needed protection, needed to be shielded under an assumption that an Omega couldn’t defend himself. He was merely pointing out that having a mate along meant less of a power imbalance against four unknown wolves.
Instead of answering, Michael sighed and reached out along his bond-link with Dean. “Give me a sec to reach your wolf’s den.” He cast his consciousness deep inside himself, feeling along well-trodden paths to his very center and then down the shimmery connection between the two men. At first, everything was darkness, and then a gray fog, lit from everywhere and nowhere, replaced the black. Slowly, the fog lifted to reveal Dean’s wolfscape.
Michael had become familiar with this place over the last few years. Where Michael’s wolfscape was forested and loamy, with enormous pines stretching to brush the clouds and a humid warmth that helped carpets of dead pine needles decay back into the soil, Dean’s was high upon a craggy winter mountaintop. Perhaps not wintry so much as just high in elevation. Michael hadn’t given it much thought. All he knew was that the snow never melted, and the air was always frigid and dry.
He turned his nose into the wind and began an easy lope toward Dean’s den, a deep cave on the side of the mountain. Dean met him at the mouth, tail high and waving, jaw loose in a grin of welcome. His green eyes caught the light of a high, distant sun and flashed.
Dean licked Michael’s chin and wriggled his body, whining happily, showing his belly. Michael led the way into the den. Finding Dean’s bed of dry sand, hollowed out through years of nesting, he circled several times then curled up at once, whining in satisfaction when Dean joined him. Two canine bodies wrapped so intricately around one another that only color delineated whose appendages were whose.
In the concrete world, the two men snuggled into soft warm bedding, Michael’s arms around Dean’s torso, and they fell deeply asleep. As they drifted off, Dean’s consciousness remained outside, in his alpha, in his human body. Michael’s turned inward, into his wolf. Thus, Dean could keep an eye on everything happening in the real world, and Michael didn’t have to sleep alone in his wolfscape.
They had never tried this—holding onto the Tertiary connection while sleeping, but Michael found it easier than he could have imagined. He felt safe with his nose buried in the ruff of Dean’s throat. He felt safe enough to close his eyes and let sleep take him.
Over the years, as Michael’s experience in the wolfscape grew, he learned that the wolves within didn’t simply pop into existence when their owners turned their consciousness Tertiary. To the wolves themselves, the world of the wolf was the only reality that existed. Every action, every interaction that a Lupin engaged in in the real world, was mirrored somehow in the wolfscape. A Lupin sleeping in their bed had a mirror image wolf sleeping in its den. A Lupin grocery shopping on two legs would reflect in the wolfscape as a wolf hunting or foraging for its next meal.
Granted, many of the activities that humans engaged in baffled their Tertiary counterparts. Board meetings and sitting in traffic didn’t translate directly very well to any kind of one-to-one interpretation by the wolves, so there were times when the wolfish avatars simply napped while waiting for their Secondaries to turn back toward activities that made sense: eating, sleeping, coupling, nurturing, fighting, hunting, eliminating waste.
Activities from the physical world that a wild wolf couldn’t comprehend often amounted to little more than unfathomable dreams inside the wolfscape. Most interpersonal interactions though, merited careful observation by the wolf. So, even if it didn’t understand what its human was doing, it was busy reading social cues and preparing to respond.
And that social aspect of Pack life translated quite strangely into metaspace. Family and friends existed on that plane, and could interact with one another, but only abstractly. Wolves did not share space with each other directly, only by way of scent and presence. They read input from their human’s experiences through an ineffable awareness of the physical world.
At least that’s how most Lupins’ wolfscapes worked. Michael—and four odd strangers—were so far the exception.
Thus, even without Dean’s awareness within his wolf, Dean’s wolf was itself very present, curled tightly around Michael’s, mirroring what his human avatar was doing at that moment, snuggling with its mate and sleeping with a portion of its awareness keyed onto Michael’s presence.
Michael fell asleep, very much liking the feel of warm fur and the scent of mate as he drifted away.
He couldn’t have been asleep for very long.
He came to with a slow, rising sense of being watched. Without moving, Michael roused his senses. He opened one eye and sniffed the crisp air of the cave.
He was still within his wolf, still in Dean’s wolfscape, still curled around his mate, nose-to-tail in a yin-yang of fur. Moonlight drifted lazily into the cave, silvering the rocky ledges over Michael’s head and the empty dog crate near the back.
He couldn’t see anyone.
But someone was out there.
Dean slept on.
Michael allowed the sensation to grow until he was certain the sanctity of Dean’s wolfscape had been profaned, that a trespasser or several had broken in. With great care, he eased himself out of the nest, glanced at Dean to make sure he hadn’t woken his mate, and crawled, belly flat to the ground, to the mouth of the cave.
With the moon full behind them, four wolves stood upon a rise, silhouetted to colorless outlines.
They clearly meant to be seen.
Somehow, they had followed Michael from his own wolfscape to Dean’s.
How on earth were they doing that?
One by one, each lifted its head and sent a harmonious chorus up toward the moon. The sound sent chills down Michael’s back and raised his hackles. He lowered his head, wary and unnerved, watching them sing, resisting the pull to join their hymn.
In his Tertiary as he was, Michael felt no fear, but also no instinctive aggression toward them, only curiosity. His Omega was deeply distrustful though, and present enough in his awareness to lend him caution.
The strangers bayed in overlapping chorus for several minutes, echoing timeless refrains that every wolf sings within its own heart. Michael crept out of the cave, slinking toward them in the shadows.
Communicating with them might be tricky as wolves don’t speak in words. But Michael needed answers.
If he had to, he could thread a trace of his Omega in to speak for him. He assumed they knew how to do that too.
He didn’t think they could see him in the dark, with his jet-black fur and stealthy movements. Too, he stayed upwind as he crept closer. But they ceased howling as he approached. Every muzzle pointed directly at him as if he were spotlighted on a stage. Whatever sense they were using to track him, it didn’t rely on light or odor or sound.
As Michael reached the foot of their escarpment, three of them turned and disappeared over the back side, heading into the moonlight. The one remaining, amber eyes glowing in the faint light that had no source, perched alone against the moon, intense in its visage. It blinked once. It turned and looked over its shoulder at its companions on their way to wherever they were headed, and then looked back to Michael.
Those brilliant eyes, intelligent and dominant, canny and subtly amused, spoke to Michael as clearly as spoken language. Then it turned tail and vanished over the rise.
Michael broke into an easy lope and followed.
A Lupin’s wolfscape isn’t a readymade play space. It’s constructed over years, part imagination, part reaction to a person’s lived experience. Each is unique, each crafted by the mind that inhabits it. Some are abstract, some gritty and realistic, some soft and whimsical. The size depends upon the amount of effort an individual puts into world building, limited only by their inspiration and need for space. Most wolves stick pretty close to their dens though, roaming the same general territory their whole lives, so running into the edge of a wolfscape, its extremity, isn’t something most people experience.
Michael followed the small wolfpack down from Dean’s mountain to the crystalline, snow-filled valley below, across a swiftly moving stream where Michael’s fur became water-logged and heavy, up toward the rising peak on the far side. A cool breeze brought the scent of rabbits and wild boars. Occasionally, animal tracks in the snow intersected with the path the wolves took.
The pack made good progress, noses low, pointing right into the moon as it dropped toward the horizon to greet them, their bodies undulating in the snow in graceful, ground-eating leaps and swiftly placed paws, one after another, in single file.
Michael had no trouble keeping up, but he left a wide gap between himself and the pack ahead. He didn’t allow them out of his sight, even with the clear trail through the snow that meant he could’ve followed them easily even if his nose failed.
So he was struck stupefied when, without losing sight of the wolf who had commanded him to follow, the world around them all changed in an instant. Where one moment, they had all been galumphing through frigid snow, ice clinging to their tails and vapor billowing from their mouths in bright moonlight, the next moment Michael found himself slowing to a walk in dismay as bright, warm sunshine cast a field of wildflowers into brilliant relief on a flat, grassy plain.
None of the leading wolves slowed or made any indication they noticed the switch. But Michael came to a stop. He glanced back over his shoulder and found no sign of the snowy, mountainous lands of his mate’s wolfscape, only more meadow. Butterflies and bumblebees flitted from blossom to blossom, and a warm Spring breeze danced in and out of the long grass.
Perplexed, Michael turned and retraced his steps. Eight steps on, he stood in deep snow, bathed in moonlight. Turning again, a single step turned the world back to warmth drenched in sun.
Carefully, Michael straddled the line, one eye in darkness and the other in light. It made him dizzy. He pulled on his front-brain, tugged on it to come and explain this seeming incongruity that a wolf’s intellect wasn’t capable of wrapping its head or tail around. He wandered back fully into the meadow, his body still damp from the river crossing and enjoying the feeling of bright sunshine on his black fur.
Had he just left Dean’s wolfscape? Was this someone else’s? Did they butt up against one another? And could an individual simply step from one to another like walking into a different room of the house? In Michael’s previous experience, he had always simply flowed from his own wolfscape into Gage’s or Dean’s or April’s without a stark barrier like this. There was a similitude in all of their homes that lent them to meld together seamlessly.
Not like this.
He sat on his rump, intrigued by the dizzying path of a butterfly. He turned his face to the sun and soaked in the pleasure of its rays on his fur. He dropped to his belly and rolled in the grass, feeling sensual and lethargic. He flung his head and tail back and forth over the warm ground.
As much as Michael loved his own wolfscape, there was definitely something to be said for one this delightfully pleasant. Hunting here would be a piece of cake. Surely, deer and wild turkeys were easy prey. Surely, long lazy days in the sunshine beat shivering on top of a snowy mountain freezing your tail off.
He moaned in hedonistic pleasure as he rolled, planning on the spot to build a meadow like this for his own wolf. Forests had meadows sprinkled about within them, right?
A flash of movement caught his eye, and he righted himself with a start. The amber-eyed wolf stood watching him, keeping its distance, its head cocked curiously. It blinked and then turned and darted away again.
Michael gave chase with a joyful yip.
This time when his surroundings changed, he reacted with less surprise. Abruptly trotting along a sandstone butte high above a flat desert of reds and browns, stippled with saguaros, Michael flinched and looked about himself but didn’t pause.
The pack pointed its noses toward the setting sun and jogged on. His amber-eyed friend cast him a look over its shoulder, its tongue hanging loose, eyes alight, and seemed to chuckle at Michael’s dismay.
Three more disparate environs came and went before the pack slowed to a stop beside a deep pool of sparkling water fed by a high waterfall in a cool oakwood glade. Moss covered every ancient trunk and boulder. Placid fish touched the surface of the water as they glided peacefully. It was as idyllic as a storybook.
Michael wouldn’t have been surprised had Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood appeared within the hazy beams that broke through the canopy overhead—or, such a thought would have crossed his mind if he were here to witness this scene as a human.
Each wolf dropped its head to the pool and drank. Michael slowed to a walk, thirsty but cautious. He had just made up his mind to approach and get himself a drink of what appeared to be refreshingly clean water when the lead wolf raised up again, rounded the pool and vanished behind the waterfall.
If Michael could frown in this form, he would be frowning. What kind of nonsense was this? How does a wolf pass behind flowing water? Some doorway into another wolfscape?
The second wolf followed the first.
Michael repressed his misgivings and sauntered forward for a drink as if he had not a care in the world. He shouldered in between the two remaining wolves, ignoring what sounded like an amused huff from one of them and made himself vulnerable by lowering his head to the water’s surface.
Surely, if they wanted to fight him, they’d have attacked by now. Michael could sense the power of their Tertiaries. If they did want a scuffle, they wouldn’t win.
At least, he didn’t think so. His wolf was stronger, but maybe if they all ganged up on him at once…
Michael lapped at the water lazily, as if utterly unconcerned. When he stood back upon four feet, only the amber-eyed wolf remained.
It winked at him, wagged its tail, and then turned and trotted behind the waterfall.
Michael whuffed. Had he been human, he’d have rolled his eyes. But he followed.
In for a penny, and all that.
As he rounded the waterfall, he saw that a path of fractured, water-ravaged boulders formed a slippery path into a tunnel. Creeping along it in the dark, Michael’s breath hitched when he rounded a corner and found himself in an enormous cavern, lit from above by breaks in the upper ceiling. Green ivy and moss draping down from above, traced the path of light as beams almost bright enough to appear solid cut the room into sections.
Michael wiped his face, running his hands through his hair and stepping carefully down the last few stones onto the floor before startling and looking at his hands.
Wait.
Hands.
Not paws.
Two bare feet, pink toes sinking a little into the firm mud of the ground level.
Michael was human again, although he hadn’t shifted anything in his mind, and he was still Tertiary.
He wore a simple pair of sleep pants and no shirt—Dean’s clothes, actually, that he had on when he went to bed in his mate’s arms.
Michael stared at his hands for long moments, stunned. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He had, with great effort, managed to project his human form into his wolfscape before, even held it in Gage’s wolfscape for a short while once. But his wolf had always been there too, as a separate entity, one he could interact with. For his wolf to vanish and be replaced by a human man, without supreme effort, on its own… Michael hadn’t known that was possible.
“Why do you look surprised, Great One?”
Michael jumped at the voice. Deeper inside the cavern, four people of powerful presence, all oddly dressed, stood in a cluster, staring up at him.
“Um,” Michael said eloquently. “I, uh, where are we, exactly?” He stepped forward and worked his way down the gentle slope toward them but stopped before moving close enough to touch. He had so many questions. He shifted with great care into his front-brain. Great One? Yeah, nah, this was not a conversation to go into from his wolf.
Three men and a woman watched him impassively. Crimson outlined two of the men’s eyes, and gold highlighted the woman’s and the remaining man’s. Two alphas and two Omegas. Michael recognized the eyes of the male Omega as the wolf who had beckoned him forth. It was to him Michael addressed his questions.
“Who are you? What do you want with me?”
The man stepped forward but stopped when Michael took a step back. “Forgive the trespass, Great One. We mean no impertinence. It has been long since last we felt the shift of the earth around Ayawuascana. We needed to see for ourselves.”
“Aya…” Michael paused and took a deep breath. “So you are the villagers Bram met.”
“This world has been out of balance for long ages, and we wait.” The woman spoke, stepping closer still, almost reaching out for Michael. He maintained a cool visage. “Our wait has at last come to an end.”
The Omega man, his eyes liquid with emotion, said, “Tell us, Great One, will the Packs come now? Have you called them home?”
Michael’s mouth fell open.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who you are or what you think I am. I’m just a guy. Just a guy who lives in Kansas and tries to raise a family. I’m not anybody’s Great One. So just can the weird titles. Tell me where we are.”
“We are in the Center,” said the woman.
“The center of what?” Michael asked.
“Of…all,” she replied with a look of confusion. She looked about her and raised her arms to indicate the whole massive cavern. “The epitome. The Center.”
“Okay, helpful,” Michael grumbled. “And I’m here because…?”
“This is the only place we can speak,” said the Omega man. “We cannot seek you out in your human realm. We do not leave our home but through the Route.”
“The…route?”
“The pathway of the wolf.”
“Lupin wolfscapes?” Michael asked. “So we were passing through some random dudes’ home environments, right? And now we’re at the center. Of what? Of Lupinicity? Of everything canine? Of the metaphysical world?”
“We are within the core of Ayawuascaita,” said the woman. She enunciated the word strangely. It had a flowing, melodic lilt on her tongue.
“Riiiiiiiight,” Michael said slowly. He glanced over the Omegas’ shoulders at the two alphas who hadn’t yet said a word. “And who exactly are you?” Michael attempted subtly to pick up their scents. He watched them carefully, weighing them and their intentions. He was confident they weren’t villains, but that didn’t necessarily mean they shared his values or priorities. Or his goals.
The male Omega shifted in front of the alpha, capturing Michael’s gaze. “Forgive me, Great One.” He lowered his eyes for a moment in deference to Michael and then placed his hand upon his own chest. “I am Cuatémoc. I am Ayawuascana for the Tiwunuku Pack. This is my mate, Bahram.” He gestured to one of the alphas behind him. “And this is Antiogu, our Pack Awahuascato, and his Omega mate Vaishnavi.” He pointed out the other alpha and the Omega woman in turn.
Michael frowned and stepped closer. “Awahuascato, that means the Pack Alpha?”
“Indeed,” Vaishnavi agreed, smiling maternally. Up closer, Michael could see silver highlighting her long dark hair and fine lines on her face. He couldn’t have said her age though. Perhaps not yet old, but… not young.
None of them were young.
Michael tried not to smile back. He wasn’t ready to seem approachable. But she reminded him of his mother—Omega mate to a powerful Pack Alpha.
The alphas lowered their eyes and remained passive behind the Omegas, even though by the sound of it, the woman had no particular rank of note in the Pack other than Alpha-mate.
“I’m Michael. But I’m guessing you already know who I am?”
A troubled look passed across Cuatémoc’s face, and he chose a sturdy stone to sit down on. Michael thought he resembled an elderly Obi Won Kenobi. He certainly had an Alec Guinness resemblance in his carriage and demeanor. The floor-length draping robe didn’t hurt the image either.
On an exhale, as he sat, he said, “We know of you, Great One, but we would—if you allow—we would know you.”
“That sounds alarmingly biblical,” Michael commented. “Entailing what, exactly?”
“Bring us news of the world at large,” said Vaishnavi. “Command us as you will in aiding the rebuilding of our people. We offer you our labor and all our effort as you and your Alpha strive toward Balance.”
One of the alphas cleared his throat.
Michael huffed. “Okay, see, I don’t know what you’ve heard or what you believe about me, but I’m really just a guy. This walking through the Route thing is pretty damned cool, but I’m not about to command anything. I’m not your savior. I’m nobody’s Great One, you hear me?”
The alpha—Bahram—scoffed.
“He is young,” Cuatémoc said to his mate. “Were we any different? He will grow into himself. He is well Mated. He has borne life. He is ripening. In time, he will mature.”
Michael laughed loudly, thinking they make me sound like an avocado. The sound echoed, carried into the depths of the cavern.
“He is a boy,” Bahram said in a sonorous voice. “Depth is wasted on the undeserving.”
Cuatémoc shook his head. “He is inexperienced. He has only begun to walk the Route. He knows not who he is or what eternity asks of him.”
“Hey, folks, I’m standing right here. I can hear you. And eternity can take a flying leap for all I care. I’m nobody’s bitch.”
Antiogu chuckled. In the Pack Alpha’s eye, a glittering of delight. “He is feisty.”
“I haven’t begun to show you feisty, old man,” Michael shot back. “Look, you reached out to me here, so if you want something from me, how about cutting the shit and saying it in plain English?”
“In English?” Vaishnavi asked in surprise. “Not a one of us know any English but what young Abraham taught us years ago. He is your kin, is he not?”
Michael frowned. Weren’t they conversing in English? He rolled back aurally through the words she had just said, listening to them, and he realized the sounds were not familiar despite his having understood them perfectly.
Damn, this is a weird dream, he told himself.
Whatever language they spoke was translating itself within his head.
“Um, Bram is Pack by marriage, sort of,” Michael hemmed to buy himself some time to think. “He’s my Alpha’s—that is, my Awahuascato’s—third cousin or something. Hey, how did you find me anyway? Did Bram say something to you?”
Cuatémoc assessed Michael for a moment and then said, “Your wolf has been walking further and further afield in its forays over the last few seasons. Only Omegas deeply ingrained with Ayahuascaita can touch the Route. You are not the first to find it, but you are the first to traverse it with ease in many an age. We have been watching for you for many years, Great One.”
“Seriously, would you stop calling me that? I’m Michael.” Michael sank down onto a stone and put his head in his hands. After a while he looked up and asked, “If you guys can access this Route place, why don’t you step up and be Ayawuascana? Why wait for millennia for me?”
Vaishnavi stepped up to him and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “None of us equal your Pack’s Awahuascato, not by a long shot. There would be no Balance.”
Michael looked up at her, finding himself drawn in by her maternal warmth. “What is it I’m supposed to do?” he asked plaintively. “I don’t understand what you’re asking of me.”
Her eyes expressed compassion and acceptance. Her fingers tightened slightly on his shoulder. “Bring healing to the world, Michael. Bring Balance. Let the eternal back into this world torn asunder by the hands of chaos.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” he told her. “I’m just a guy…”
“You are more than you imagine, Michael. But you hide from yourself and make yourself small.”
She said it with such calm conviction that Michael blinked and straightened. The weight on his shoulders felt immense, and yet looking into the Omega’s trusting eyes, he felt bolstered by her trust. “Why do you shy from your Omega? It has much work to do.”
“Will you help me?” he asked her, sliding easily into his Omega designation. “I need a guide. I don’t know where to start. I don’t even know what the goal is.”
After taking this little interchange in, Cuatémoc slapped his hands down onto his thighs decisively. “You start by learning the Route. Watching you fumble about has been entertaining, but there are dangers here you’re ignorant of. It wouldn’t do any of us much good if you got yourself killed by accident.”
Michael rolled his eyes. His wolf bristled. “I think I liked Great One better than this flippant tone.”
Antiogu laughed, deep and rich. “You were right, my heart. He’s not a deity. Is he? It appears the world is further into chaos than we imagined. But perhaps, if his spirit is as…feisty… as it seems, there’s hope anyway.”
Michael ignored the Alpha. He turned back to Cuatémoc. “You’re Ayawuascana. Right? So, you’re an Omega-Dominant? Like me?”
The man seemed puzzled by the term. “I am as I am,” he answered.
Yeah. Right. Stupid question. There were no testing labs in Lake Titicaca. There’s no reason these wolves would have the vocab to describe Tertiaries. It was instinctive to react to them and to employ them, but talking about them was a relic of modern science, not traditional Lupin culture.
“What I mean is,” he tried again, “you lead other wolves, you call the shots between you and your mate… in… when… you… um… when you fuck, when you couple?”
Cuatémoc raised his brows and then turned to look to his mate. “What does fucking have to do with anything?” he asked in amusement.
“You do though,” said Bahram, sharing his humor. “You hold more Claims over me than I do you.”
“I am Ayawuascana,” Cuatémoc replied as if that answered the question. Michael detected a note of pride in the statement.
“It is late,” Vaishnavi said abruptly. “This young man will get chilled, and he will be missed. We should return him to his mate’s bed before the night wanes.” She turned to Michael and said, “Walking the Route expends much energy. You will be tired tomorrow and will need rest.”
“To his bed?” Michael repeated. “What do you mean missed? My mate is occupying his Secondary. I’m not missing there. I’m still at home in my bed, aren’t I? Isn’t this whole thing a metaphysical journey?”
“This whole thing is a very real journey,” Antiogu told him sternly. “While you are here, you are not there. Even the Ayawuascana cannot be in two places at once.”
“I’m here…in the Center…in the flesh?” Michael asked in dismay. “As in, if Dean wakes up, the bed will be empty? You pulled me from my bed??” His voice rose toward hysterics.
Cuatémoc shook his head and rose from his seat. “We did not pull you, Michael. You came of your own free will. I asked you to join us, and you obliged. We do not use compulsion on Omegas of another’s Pack.”
But Michael felt a cold chill go up his spine. He began to back away from the puzzled wolves, back toward the mouth of the cave. “How are you doing this?”
“Calm yourself, child,” said Vaishnavi with a perplexed expression. “We have no power over you. Quite the reverse in fact. We will escort you back to your mate’s side. In time, you will learn to navigate the Route on your own. And then you will only have begun to explore the eternal and all its possibilities. Only then will you and your Awahuascato achieve Balance and let us all start to heal. But not tonight. Come. It is late. There will be other nights. We will meet again.”
She led the way back toward the falls. Cuatémoc followed Michael but the two alphas remained behind as the three Omegas passed back into the glade beside the sparkling pool. Quadrupeds once more, the trio drank their fill and then set out through the wolfscape in its ever-changing forms until a familiar mountainside, blanketed in snow, appeared before them.
Michael awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed, gasping. The spot beside him was empty. The sheet beneath him was cool. The bedclothes hung draped off the side, Dean’s side, as if he’d fled from the bed in a hurry. The clock told Michael it was just after three. He sat panting in alarm for several minutes, nearly hyperventilating before deliberately calming himself. He ran his hands over the smooth softness of the duvet, using a tactile realism to ground himself. He slowed his breathing.
He reached out through his bond for his mate.
Dean hustled through the bedroom door and hurried to him, reaching back for Michael in relief. He slid under the covers and touched his mate. “Dude, where did you go? You had me frantic. I couldn’t even feel you!”
“Dean. God! I was… I can’t even say… It’s… Was I really gone?”
“And why are your feet all muddy?” Dean asked as his hand touched grit on the sheets between them and looked down to investigate.
Michael swallowed. “Where’s Cas? We need to talk.”
“Bodily?” Castiel repeated. “You were actually there?”
“Dude, look at his feet! He didn’t get that dirty inside the house,” Dean exclaimed. “I woke up in the dead of night, looked over next to me…NO MATE! And sure, that’s no biggie, right? He’s taking a piss or raiding the fridge. Only, he’s not. ‘Cause I can’t feel him at all. He doesn’t even exist, Cas. It’s not that the bond is closed. No, no, it’s not closed; it stopped existing!” Dean was freaked right the fuck out, gesticulating wildly, red in the face. “I looked everywhere in this house for him, only to feel him pop back into existence right where I left him, tucked safe and sound in bed, muddy and smelling like river water.”
“Dean,” Michael said stoically. “Breathe.” They couldn’t both fall apart, and Michael figured he had that prerogative at the moment.
Cas touched April’s shoulder gently. “Kitten, would you please wake Bram and Carlos and have them join us in the kitchen?”
April nodded. She pulled a robe on over welted shoulders and slipped out of the playroom where Dean and Michael had roused them from an exhausted slumber. She caressed Michael’s cheek with the backs of her fingers as she passed.
“Come on, you two.” Cas mirrored her, his own bathrobe sliding on to cover his nudity. “This calls for a stiff drink.”
Michael’s phone told him it was barely 3:30. They had a long day ahead of them, and he’d had almost no sleep. His legs felt heavy as he trudged up the stairs to the main floor and followed his Pack Alpha into the kitchen. Cas flipped the light on, and the brilliance dazzled Michael’s eyes.
Dean supported his trek toward his chair with hands upon his shoulders and sat Michael down before leaving him to fetch something to drink.
Cas started the kettle heating and dug several mugs out of the cupboard, evidently backtracking in terms of stiff in reference to drinks. Michael’s hand shook slightly as he laid it on the table in front of him.
Perhaps tea would be a better choice than brandy.
Or brandy and then tea?
He let the alphas decide. He rested his forehead on top of his hands on the table and tried to stop trembling.
He breathed.
“There’s no way that just happened,” he said out loud into the tabletop. “I imagined the whole thing. It had to have been a dream. I must’ve been sleepwalking. Went out into the yard, got dirty, whatever. I didn’t just leave the physical plane and enter metaphysical space. That didn’t happen.”
April took the seat beside his and took hold of his hand. Michael lifted his head, turned toward her, and leaned in against her shoulder. She scritched the nape of his neck gently.
“They came back?” asked Bram in excitement as he entered. “You talked to them? What did they say? What happened?” Carlos followed his mate, both of them in pajamas and slippers. April carded her fingers through Michael’s hair.
Michael closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself, then he sat upright and faced Bram. “Yes, I talked to them,” he confirmed. And he relayed the entire tale from his and Dean’s decision to try to spend the night within Dean’s wolfscape to protect Michael from interlopers, to waking up in shock between the sheets with mud-caked feet.
“They know who I am,” Michael concluded. “And they can evidently go anywhere in the metaphysical world they want. I have no idea how to keep them out of my head, if it’s even possible to do that.”
Dean swirled his Scotch, watching the amber fluid flow along the sides of his tumbler. “Doesn’t sound like they mean you any harm. Honestly, it kinda sounds like they intend to teach you, mentor you maybe. I just wish I could get the Twilight Zone theme song out of my head.”
Cas’ expression was grim though. “Regardless of their intentions, the power to snatch a person from the physical world and take them bodily into metaspace is a terrifying development. No one should have that power.”
Bram placed a hand on the table toward Cas. “I don’t think they pulled him in, Alpha. I believe they simply showed him how to do it himself.”
Cas turned on him sternly. “You told me that a researcher, the one who intended to publish that article, disappeared from a locked room without a trace. Now we find that it is somehow possible to take a person’s physical body into metaspace. Tell me there isn’t something nefarious going on. Tell me those two facts aren’t related.”
“Okay, sure,” Bram countered. “And we need to follow up on that. But don’t you see? This explains so much. Imagine what kinds of possibilities this opens up. This is how they’ve kept their Pack stable and isolated all these centuries. If they can visit people outside of physical space, they can influence what those people do.” Bram’s excitement gushed.
“What would’ve happened if, instead of coming back here last night, Michael had traveled to the Tiwunuku’s Pack? He would have essentially transported there! Maybe they can even visit other times! Doesn’t the hive-mind instinct theory propose that the well of canine knowledge is timeless? Imagine visiting an earlier time and another place entirely to access a different population! Imagine breeding with them to diversify the gene pool and then coming back home to deliver the pups! I know it sounds crazy. We don’t have to do anything of the sort, but even so… If Michael learns to do this, he can impact people anywhere.”
Dean commented, “You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“That is a ridiculous leap of logic,” Cas argued.
Bram tapped the table with a stiff finger. “It looks like a leap to you because you don’t know them. I’m telling you, the Alpha and the Omega, working in concert, have almost a magical ability to skew reality in their favor. Castiel, in our favor! Don’t you get it? It’s not us versus them. They are us! They are wolves! And they’ve unlocked the secret of sustainability. They don’t walk the Route for greed or self-aggrandizement. They do it to protect their way of life, to maintain balance, and nothing else. We need to learn from them. We need to know what they know.”
Dean swallowed the last of his Scotch and thumped the glass down, drawing every eye. He said, eyes on the table, “These people came into my head last night while I was sleeping and took off with my mate. I’m not chalking this one up in the Let’s Do It column until I get some answers. And if we learn how to Walk the Route or whatever, what’s to keep someone from getting in there and doing all sorts of horrifying things?”
Bram frowned. “Not everyone can do it. The premise is actually pretty solid already, but it’s exclusively an Omega gift, and only Omegas with strong Ayawuascaita have access.”
“There were two alphas,” Michael reminded him. “It wasn’t just the Omegas.”
Bram told him, “The alphas can’t get in by themselves. They have to be hosted.”
Dean sat back abruptly. “You mean if Michael had wanted to, he could have dragged my ass along too?”
Bram opened his mouth to answer but Cas spoke first. “I thought you said this was merely a rumor, this wolfscape travelling? Now you’re telling me you already know the rules?”
“I didn’t have any proof, sir,” Bram admitted. “I’ve heard the stories though. It was clear that they have long had some means of… dream walking, at the very least. And with what Michael has been able to figure out on his own just by fumbling around with Claims and bonds and other people’s wolfscapes, I was confident there was truth to those stories.” He paused and licked his lips. “And of course, there’s always been the missing researcher.”
“So, what?” Dean pressed. “These villagers find out their community is about to be spotlighted on PBS and ran a hit on him before he could publish? They pulled a Ghost of Christmas Future on the publisher to scare them into pulling the story?”
“I don’t know, Dean,” Bram told him. “Hell, the researcher may have simply joined them on their island. He may have been convinced of their need for secrecy and abandoned his research after speaking with them. Maybe they moved him to Nepal. Who knows? I can’t think of any reason to assume he met a violent end. I haven’t ever had vibes like that from them.”
Dean turned to Michael. “What about you? What vibes did you pick up?”
Michael considered the question carefully. “They weren’t violent or dangerous. They started off seeming in awe of me, but once they realized I have no idea what I’m doing, it felt more like they were adopting me as a little brother or a son. I didn’t get any dubious vibes.”
April’s hand snaked into Michael’s lap and squeezed his hand. “You’re tired,” she whispered.
He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.
“I don’t want you going alone again,” Cas stated. “You said that in the vision, within Dean’s den when you first awoke, Dean’s wolf was asleep beside you? You were able to hold that designation?”
“Yes,” Michael answered, glancing toward Dean. Michael wrapped his free hand around the warm mug in front of him.
Cas went on, “And if you had awoken him, would he have been able to go with you?”
“Um,” Michael considered. “I expect so. He looked to be sleeping peacefully. I feel like his wolf was as present there as I was. I’m guessing it wouldn’t have been his physical body traveling in the same way though, since his consciousness wasn’t Tertiary. But his wolf could have come with us, I suppose.”
“Good. Then the next time you sleep, I want you in my den with me.”
“Hey, hold on a second, he’s my mate,” Dean argued.
“And I am your Alpha,” Castiel reminded him. “You will obey me, Dean Michael. No one’s going anywhere alone. I need to check this out before I allow any further exploration.”
Michael slumped against his palm, elbow resting on the table. “Feel like I could sleep for a month. I’m not doing any more exploration tonight. I swear. I just wanna go back to bed.”
“And if they come again?” April asked softly.
“Then I’ll tell them to fuck off,” Michael replied. “Besides, if I’m not in a Tertiary headspace when I fall asleep, it’s probably a lot harder to pull it off, the Route thing.”
“Probably,” Dean grumbled. “I don’t like the sound of probably.” He helped Michael to his feet. “All I know is it looks like our research has just completely jumped the shark. We’re not in Kansas anymore, and the whole thing gives me the creeps. Where the hell is this taking us? And who’s leading the parade?”
“All questions we’ll need to answer as quickly as we can,” Cas told them grimly. “For now, take Michael back to the big bed. I’ll be right up. I want to attempt to bring him into my wolfscape where I can protect him.”
April took Michael’s hand and joined them as they left.
Still seated, Bram said, “Castiel, it’s vital that no one says a word about any of this outside of this house. Better still if no one who doesn’t already know finds out, even within the Pack. Whatever the Tiwunukuans are up to, we need to let it play out. And we need to keep it hush hush.”
“I’m making no promises whatsoever, Omega, until I speak to these people myself. I don’t trust them. I don’t have any way of determining their intentions toward Michael, and I’m not taking any risks.”
Bram scowled into his tea. “Can you at least hold off on alerting the media until you’ve made that assessment? This is a genie we can’t put back in its bottle once it’s out.”
Carlos hadn’t said a word yet. He’d been leaning somberly over his mug, one hand on Bram’s back, gently stroking up and down with his fingertips. Up and down. “You know what confuses me?” he said abruptly. “Why would Dean and Michael’s Mating-bond go silent when Michael entered that place? He wasn’t dead. His wolf was still in metaspace. They should still have been connected.”
Cas glanced at the dark sky through the bay window and considered. “The bond-link is metaphysical,” he murmured. “But its connection point is in the physical plane. It has to have something of substance to connect to. Perhaps when Michael’s corporeal body left the physical plane, the bond couldn’t follow where he went.”
“Well, that’s terrifying,” Carlos grumbled. “If his body didn’t exist enough to maintain a bond-link, did he exist at all while he was in there?”
Bram said, trancelike into his mug, “His feet were muddy. He existed.”
“Go on back to bed,” Cas told them. He swallowed the last of his tea and then collected the empties from the table and set them in the sink. “We’ll know more soon. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Cas trudged slowly up the stairs. His body felt heavy. His legs were reluctant to carry him. How the hell was he going to protect Michael from a world no alpha could enter on its own? Who the hell were these people with the entitlement to just show up in his head and whisk him away to places that shouldn’t even exist?
He closed the bedroom door behind him. All three were in bed, cuddled tightly together, not asleep yet. The bedside lamp cast a soft glow over their wan faces. Cas tossed his robe across the chair by the dresser and slid in beside Dean. He clicked off the lamp and then opened his arms to let his husband spoon up against him. They shuffled about, getting settled, adjusting arms, legs, shoulders, finding that sweet spot where they all fit together like puzzle pieces: Dean’s curled back rested against Castiel’s chest, Michael lay flat on his back with his head turned toward his mate, nose against Dean’s throat. On her side, April rested her head in the hollow of Michael’s shoulder with his arm cinched around her, mindful of the welts on her back.
She clutched his hand between hers and tangled her leg over Michael’s and Dean’s, a veritable tangle of limbs.
“Michael,” Cas said softly. “Open yourself. Close your eyes. Let your wolf seek mine in my den. Come find me, then sleep.”
“Mm-kay,” Michael mumbled.
“Keep him safe, Alpha,” Dean whispered—not a request.
Within Castiel’s wolfscape, a gangly black wolf trotted through low scrub and then leapt boulder-to-boulder until it reached a natural hollow between two enormous rocks. The enormous beast within, its own blackness merging with the dark of its dwelling until there was nothing to see but the red glow of its eyes, greeted the wolf with a single thump of its tail. Michael shuffled around in the dark, found a spot between Castiel’s huge front paws, and curled up.
He fell asleep instantly.
Castiel’s wolf kept watch long after the man himself lay snoring in his husband’s arms, dreaming of faceless, nameless threats.
But no one appeared at the mouth of his den, and morning arrived bright and warm, just at it always would. By the time Cas awoke, Dean was downstairs, and Michael’s wolf was already gone, slipped back into his own wolfscape as the Omega washed his face in the bathroom and tried to shake off the strangeness of the night.
“Hey, champ, how you feeling?” Dean asked as Michael entered the kitchen for breakfast.
“Like a million bucks,” Michael told him flatly, deadpan sarcasm in full effect. “Last night was awesome. Just awesome.” He pulled a box of cereal out of the cabinet and grabbed a bowl straight out of the dishwasher.
“You didn’t see anything of your friends again after we went back to bed, right?”
“Not a peep.” Michael juggled the cereal box, his bowl and spoon, and a jug of milk from the fridge, all balanced carefully so he didn’t have to make two trips.
“We’re gonna figure this out,” Dean told him as he nudged Michael’s chair out from under the table with his foot. “You gotta trust us. We won’t let anything happen to you, Cas and me. Hey, I’ma make breakfast in just a few.”
Michael ignored the offer. “I’m still in shock, Dean. How the hell did that even happen? How was it real? Feels like we just stepped out of real life and into a storybook. Like we’ve just decided to toss reality in the dumpster and taken a bus to crazytown.” Michael collapsed into his chair and filled his bowl with a doleful scowl.
“You want me on my knees?” Dean asked. “Would that help you get centered? I didn’t want to assume, but I kinda figured you might rather talk this morning.”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t really wanna talk about it, no. But we probably need to. No, don’t kneel. Stay here. Please?”
“Whatever you need, babe.” Dean poured milk over Michael’s cereal.
“Sorry I scared you last night.” Michael took a slow bite. “I’m surprised you woke up; you usually sleep straight through.”
“Yeah, I, uh, so, um…” Dean waffled in his response and then went silent, facing his coffee instead of his mate.
“Dean?” said Michael with a perfect mimicry of Castiel’s raised left brow.
“I had a nightmare,” Dean admitted quietly. “Woke up screaming, sweating, thinking I was on fire. You know the drill.”
“You had a nightmare?” Michael’s eyes widened. “The fire nightmare?”
“It’s possible it was triggered by our Mating-bond going dark,” Dean hedged. “That’s the first thing I noticed when I woke up—that you were gone, from the bed, from my head, everywhere. My subconscious probably sensed you vanish and raised the alarm.”
“You don’t know that,” said Michael. “Those nightmares have never been anything but a Fall warning before.”
Gabe and Patience arrived at the same time from opposite directions, both looking barely awake. A sleepy chorus of “Morning” was all the talking they seemed interested in. Dean got up to start cooking breakfast, abandoning the topic of nightmares and nocturnal visitors. Soon the kitchen began to fill, and the energy of the day took over.
Dean knew he hadn’t heard the last of Michael’s concerns about his nightmare. Hell, he was pretty damned concerned himself.
Dean hadn’t had a full Fall in years. He’d stumbled a whole host of times—had little falls, perhaps—been picked up by Cas and Michael, brushed off and set back upon his feet. But the kind of Fall that stole his capacity for rational thought and required a soul-flaying response from his husband, those had disappeared. Seemingly.
He also hadn’t had a nightmare like this one in all that time.
Not since his last Fall, just before April wrecked the family car and put herself in the hospital.
If a Fall was imminent, the timing sucked. Right now, everyone’s attention should be on Michael. Plus, Dean recalled with a sick lump in his belly, they’d never revisited their strategy for coping with Falls, not since Cas’ old technique stopped working. Dean had no idea how to manage this one—if that’s what this was.
He scrambled the eggs, toasted some bread, sliced fruit, and poured juice for the pups. April and Kate would have them dressed and scrubbed and down to eat in a few minutes. Dean glanced at the clock.
By silent agreement, Michael and Dean didn’t say anything to the rest of the Pack about the downright unbelievable adventure Michael had experienced last night. Nor did they mention nightmares. Dean served up the food on platters, placed along the axis of the table, and let the Pack’s usual morning rituals distract him.
He and Michael both needed the stability of routine.
When the pups arrived, the noise and energy levels skyrocketed, and Dean was lucky just to keep up. With the Pack ever-growing, seating everyone at once was a challenge. For breakfast, the quads usually sat on barstools at the kitchen island, but that put them overseeing, and commenting on, Dean’s short-order cooking skills.
Cas sensed the two men had something unsettled between them. Indeed, how could they not after last night? But he too avoided the topic.
The words, FOR NOW, hung practically visible in the air over his head. Dean eyed him as the Alpha settled at his place, worrying his lip and trying to decide when to drop the nightmare bomb.
Sooner rather than later, he reminded himself. Gone were the days when Dean tried to hide his mind’s inner turmoil. He’d been thoroughly trained out of that habit. In truth, training or no, Dean didn’t want to hide anything from Cas. He needed his husband’s input if they were going to come up with a viable plan to get through a Fall.
…If this was a Fall.
Cas cleared his throat and wiped his mouth. Everyone turned toward him.
“Without going into undue detail,” he said imperiously, “I would ask for discretion concerning last night’s events from those of you who were made aware of them. Please, if you have anything you need to say, come find me. Do not discuss this among yourselves. Not yet.”
Perplexed frowns appeared up and down the table. They looked at one another, seeking clarity, and then frowned back at Cas. But he simply stood and began helping twins serve their plates without elaborating further.
Kali met Sarah’s eye across the table, brows raised in question, but Sarah shook her head and shrugged. She didn’t know. Asking outright, now that Cas had forbidden talking about it, was…well, forbidden. But it didn’t take a sleuth to figure out who knew and who didn’t. Whatever it was.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dean said to the table at large. “It’s just some personal crap. You know me, I kinda like to keep some stuff private.”
Unbothered, Cain shook out his newspaper and said, “You might tell Alpha that the best way to keep something private is to avoid bringing it up at the breakfast table.”
Cas pretended not to hear the comment.
Michael squeezed Dean’s hand down in his lap and offered him a tight smile. Then breakfast resumed.
Emmy knocked her juice glass over, sending everyone scattering to their feet to avoid a lapful of orange juice, and they promptly forgot about the cryptic instruction.
Once the mess was mopped up, when breakfast was consumed, Dean excused himself quietly, and he followed Cas back up the stairs.
“One of those nightmares?” Cas clarified.
Dean nodded. “Timing sucks, I know.” He watched Cas from his spot on the unmade bed as the Alpha began to pace.
“The issue isn’t the timing,” Cas said with his thumb at his lips, one arm crossed over the other, thoughtful. “It’s that we haven’t suitably prepared for this moment. We’ve been complacent.”
Dean didn’t fully agree. “I thought maybe the Falls were over and done with, that maybe I’d outgrown them. I’ve felt so solid now for… for years. Why now?”
Cas stopped in front of Dean, looking down at him. “According to Tessa, you will experience Falls for the lifespan of your wolf. We should have been planning to handle them.”
“Plus, we don’t even know for sure that that’s what this is. My Mating-bond…”
“We cannot take any chances,” Cas said, cutting Dean off. “If this isn’t a harbinger, then it’s a timely reminder, and we’d better get our asses in gear and make a plan.”
Dean sighed and fell backward onto the bed with his arms out wide. “I don’t wanna do this anymore, CJ. It’s been so long, and I got used to not having that weight around my neck. I thought maybe having some stability once the Pack matured, with two Doms, no office hours, and domestic bliss, meant I wouldn’t go flailing around seeking assurance that someone’s gonna catch me if I tumble. That’s all this is, you get that, right? It’s just my wolf worried that everyone’s forgotten it’s there.”
Cas laid down on the bed beside Dean, propped on his elbow, and he touched Dean’s face.
“Whatever the reason, whatever the frequency, I will be there for you. It’s okay, my love. We’ll get through this, all of us together.”
“Our attention needs to be on Michael right now,” Dean argued. “It’s not every day the laws of physics and space-time get tossed out the window.”
“Guess we’ll have to multitask,” Cas said with a soft twinkle in his eye. He stroked Dean’s hair, easing it off his forehead. Dean closed his eyes. “Thank you for telling me,” Cas whispered. “I’m very proud of you.”
“You say that now,” Dean grumbled without opening his eyes. “Wait till the house burns down.”
Cas chuckled, kissed the corner of Dean’s mouth, moved to speak directly into his ear, and said, “Bring it, Winchester.”
Mick knocked on Cas’ office door and let himself in with his phone to his ear. “CBS wants to know when you’ll be in New York next and if you can squeeze in an appearance on the morning show.”
Cas frowned. “What topic?”
“They didn’t say, Alpha.”
Cas waited for a moment and then suggested, “Why don’t you ask them?”
Mick startled. “Oh, yeah, right. Hang on.” He diverted his attention to his phone. “What’s the topic of the interview?”
Cas leaned back in his chair and motioned for Mick to come in and close the door.
“Uh-huh, okay. Hold on, I’ll ask him.” Mick put his hand over his phone’s mic and said, “They want you on with Gayle King to talk about Lupin designations and the crusade to integrate with Primates. That’s what the man said.”
Cas sighed. Always the same questions, the same topic. They never seemed to progress past lesson number one, and he felt exhausted at the thought of rehashing the same information for the ten billionth time. “Tell him I can do the week of August nineteenth. That’s right after my Rut. I’ll be in New York all week, and I should be suitably on my game. Ask him if we can plan to go off-script this time. See if they can scrounge up some new questions. Otherwise, just see if they’ll broadcast any of the previous interviews we’ve done so we don’t end up just saying the same damn things all over again.”
Mick looked uncomfortable, but he dutifully opened his mouth to relay the message.
Cas interrupted. “No, never mind. Don’t say that. Just tell them I’ll be there.”
Mick booked the gig and hung up. “Sir, you need a vacation. You’re fried, with all due respect.”
Cas inflated his cheeks and blew out a harried breath. “You’re right, Mick. Where should we go? I was thinking perhaps… Bolivia.”
Notes:
As always when the AU world gets dense, if you need clarification, just ask. Happy to answer any questions.
Closing on a smaller house at the end of next month. Wish me luck. Downsizing is fun, y'all.
Chapter 45: Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Summary:
Castiel wrestles with the implications of Michael's journey inside the wolf-dream. Dean is inching towards a fall, and April gets caught up too. And Patience is at her wit's end.
Notes:
Hi friends!
It's been forever. I struggled to write while my head's been fogged and dizzy, much as I really, really wanted to. This chapter has been taking shape literally all summer and into the fall. But at last, TA-DA! It's finished.Sadly, it may be necessary to go back to the previous chapter for a reminder of what the hell is going on.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
NOW:
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Castiel let his head sink into the cradle of his hands as Bobby’s eyes left laser burns across his face.
“You wanna run that by me again?” the elder asked in patent disbelief. Benny stood motionless in the corner of Cas’ office, frowning at nothing.
Cas rubbed his eyes and emerged with a tired sigh. “I don’t have any idea what’s happening to Michael. I’m out of my depth here. I keep thinking it can’t possibly be true, but the evidence is right there smeared across the sheets of my own bed. Bram insists we have to keep it all a secret, but I need the two of you in on this. Any moment now Michael’s wolf will really process what’s on offer from these indigenous wolves and decide to take it with both hands. I can’t control him in a place I can’t access.”
“You can forbid him from entering,” Benny suggested quietly.
“Hold on,” said Bobby. “Are we really buying that there’s a metaphysical pathway to someplace outside of reality where Omegas can just walk in with their physical selves?”
Benny shuffled his feet. “Whether it’s that or something else, Michael believes it’s real, and he’s the kind of wolf to find a way to turn it to his advantage. This feels like a cult origin story to me. If we don’t want Michael starring in his own version of Stranger in a Strange Land that boy needs some boundaries set, and fast.”
Cas leaned back in his chair. “Metaphysics has always made my skin crawl.”
“What’s Dean’s take?” Bobby asked.
“Appropriately freaked out,” Cas replied. “Although he’s got his own concerns too. He’s showing signs of an impending fall.”
“I don’t like it,” Bobby murmured. He sat forward and put certainty into his voice. “I want to talk to Bram. He’s running a con of some kind—slipped mushrooms to Michael or something. I intend to get to the bottom of this charade and then I’m going to blister his backside until his grandchildren can’t sit down.”
Cas shook his head and stared into the distance. “I don’t know what this is, alpha, but it’s not a con. I’ve known Bram a long time. I read his manuscript. It bears the ring of truth, although it’s incomplete and vague in too many areas for me to piece a coherent narrative together. Nothing he’s said or done contradicts what Michael claims happened. I can’t see any way forward from here but to try to meet these wolves myself.”
“How do you plan to do that if only Omegas have access?” Benny asked.
“Apparently, Michael can serve as a host.”
“And how do you ring them up? They leave a calling card?” Bobby scoffed.
Cas sighed again. “We seem to be at their mercy to some extent. I’ve had Michael sleeping right in my wolf’s den for the last two nights, but we’ve not seen hide nor hair of them.”
“Michael’s sleeping with your wolf?” Benny asked in surprise. “How do you pull that off?”
Cas huffed. “Honestly, I have no idea how he does it, but he’s right there in my mind, fully integrated within my Tertiary headspace all night. He seems to have full control of his consciousness within the wolfscape, even while sleeping.”
Bobby raised his eyebrows. “And how’d he learn to do that?”
Cas shrugged. “Figured it out on his own, as far as I can tell. He’s been making strides toward metaphysical control for years now, Bobby. He can share Tertiary space with people he’s bonded to as easily as walking through a door.”
Benny said, “But that’s while he’s awake. He uses the bond-link to send his consciousness into their heads. It’s unusual, maybe even unheard of before now, but at its core, he’s just taking advantage of links that exist, that Lupins already know how to utilize. If a person can master the sense of touch through a bond-link, then why not awareness? Why not joint visions? Sleeping though? I can’t even imagine how that would work.”
Cas pressed his lips together. He clenched his jaw. He said, “I’m frightened for him. How do I protect him from this?”
Bobby huffed. “Sounds like roles are reversed in there, in the wolfscape. Maybe that’s not your job, Alpha. Maybe it’s Michael’s job to protect you.”
Castiel scoffed. “Over my dead body.”
An uneasy pall settled over Castiel’s office. Each alpha turned inwardly pensive as they considered what might prove to be fact and what was ultimately a flight of fancy. Surely, Michael hadn’t truly vanished from his bed. Surely, he’d simply closed his Mating-bond and gone for a late-night walk. They all knew his wolf well enough to suspect it of fabricating a scenario that ascribed it mystical powers.
But they also knew Michael’s front-brain and Omega aspects. In his forward designations, Michael was an introvert. The alphas couldn’t envision either his Primary or Secondary putting up with a deception so brazen, one with the probability of bringing attention raining down upon him like flooding from a Spring thaw. It didn’t fit with who Michael was at his core.
Benny eventually broke the silence.
“We have to get out front of this thing or it will eat our lunch. I can picture the headlines now: Omega-Dominant discovers teleportation and time-travel, Asserts new hierarchy.”
Bobby scoffed. “The PR team is going to have a field day with this.”
“No,” Cas broke in. “No PR. No headlines. None of this leaves this room.”
“You don’t think someone is going to notice an Omega popping up instantly in another hemisphere?” Bobby challenged.
“We don’t know that he’s capable of that,” Cas maintained stubbornly. “And in any case, his movements within the Route will be closely monitored. I’m not letting him out of my sight, Bobby, not for anything, not with unknown actors in the mix.”
“You gotta sleep sometime, Alpha,” said Benny.
“Wanna bet?” Cas snapped.
Bobby studied his colleagues for several moments and then shook his head. “What are we doing here, fellas? Is our entire mission going to skew into fantasyland? How do we adapt to this, whatever the hell this is?”
Castiel’s nostrils flared. Crimson ringed his irises for a beat or two. “We’re going to keep a lid on it. No one can know, no one who isn’t already aware.”
Benny said, “Cas, if there’s even a smidge of truth to the story, Michael’s set to learn more about our species in his sleep than any of us have uncovered in over a decade. We can’t conceal new understanding if it turns out to be helpful to the cause. If there’s a pathway for Omegas to grab even a moderate handful more self-governance than they have right now, we have to explore it. We have to disseminate it.”
“I agree,” Cas told him. “But we cannot reveal the source of that new understanding. Our society wouldn’t survive the outfall.”
“You’re back to playing god, I see,” Bobby mumbled.
“Damnit, alpha,” Cas shot back, “the stakes on this thing have global implications! We’re talking about cosmic consequences if we mess this up. We have more than simply an indigenous pack to protect; we have the very fabric of our fledgling culture on the line. If people start poking at their wolfscapes in ways they aren’t naturally prone to, if they learn to walk into a metaphysical space without guidance, it could unleash unimaginable horrors on the world! Not to mention the spotlight on Michael that could unhinge him beyond what Dean can manage. Dean’s good, but Michael’s wolf has the potential to set the world on fire if he’s not…”
“Controlled,” Bobby finished for him.
Cas looked for a moment as if he intended to contradict Bobby’s assertion, then he nodded. “Yes.”
“All right, look,” Benny said as he stepped out of the corner and sat beside Bobby on the couch. “Let’s go ahead and pretend it’s all true. You can’t keep these dream-wolves out of Michael’s head, and you can’t stop the man from exploring the vistas out there. Hell, if I had access to it, I’d be poking my snout into every crevice and cubbyhole I could find just to see what’s possible. And whatever Michael learns, he’s going to want to act on. All you’ve got is your authority over him as his Pack Alpha and a set of Pack Rules that may or may not hold in the wolfscape. If you insist he take a companion alpha whenever he goes in there, he’ll probably oblige you. But you have to be aware of the fact that you can’t make him.”
Bobby snorted, still caught in the absurdity of the conversation. “And we, what, tell the world that whatever new knowledge Michael dredges up from his dreams sprang fully formed from his forehead? Where is it meant to come from? Even a Eureka moment has a spark that ignites it.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Cas told them both. “We don’t know that the wolfscape has anything new to teach us. All we have is the assertion of a couple of Aboriginal wolves whose knowledge of themselves may not be deeper than any other wild packs living off the grid.”
“Psshh,” Benny scoffed. “Tell that to the dude whose research paper got him snatched off the face of the Earth.”
Cas couldn’t counter his friend. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “Whatever the Route reveals to Michael, he will share with me, and I will pass on to you two. Depending upon what we learn, we must decide how to proceed. I intend to mobilize the full resources of both the ACRI and Keller research facilities to make sense of the metaphysical revelations, whatever they are. If there is a hidden well of Omega power in there that we can use to mitigate the suffering of even one individual, we’re going to do it. If, as these tribal wolves suggest, there is a route to achieving species-wide balance somehow, we’re going to explore that too. That said, it is imperative that we guard the source of the revelations with our lives. That may mean setting Michael up as a prodigy of sorts, whose intuition offers him preternatural leaps into… well, whatever is out there.”
Cas paused. “I don’t like this at all. You both know me well enough to know my mind when it comes to vulnerabilities within my Pack. Michael’s wellbeing is my responsibility, and I don’t take that lightly. But as you say, I can’t keep him from exploring, rules or no rules. If this ancient Bolivian culture has something to teach him, we would be reckless not to take advantage of it.”
“I notice Dean isn’t here to weigh in,” Bobby pointed out. “We’re not going behind his back, are we?”
Cas cleared his throat uncomfortably. “No. Not really. He has given me the go-ahead to bring the two of you in and let you know to anticipate new realms of research. He wants to keep an arm’s length away from the research though. He worries he could get caught up in the epiphanies and lose focus on Michael.”
Benny chewed on the idea for a bit, then said, “This is big, boss. Could turn out to be the biggest breakthrough any Lupin researcher has ever had access to. This could break the field wide open. It’s all of Dean’s nightmares about Michael made true. Everyone is going to want a piece of the phenom Omega-Dominant.”
“No one has access to Michael but through Dean and me,” Cas replied in an alpha tone that brooked no pushback. “I don’t care what they want. He’s not for sale.”
Bobby nodded once, stiffly. “Glad to see Dean finally got that point through your thick skull.”
Benny braced for a retort from Cas, but the Alpha merely offered a tight-lipped half-smile in acknowledgement. “He can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”
Benny and Bobby shared a weighted look which Cas chose to ignore.
“I need your support if we’re going to pick a safe path through this mess,” Cas told them. “Can I count on you? Both of you?”
Benny leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You said an Omega can take an alpha in with them? Cas, man, I’m dying to see what’s in there. Any chance you can get me a ticket?”
“It’s not a midway ride, Benny. Fuck’s sake.”
Benny’s eyes glittered with excitement. “Sure, sure. I know. But…”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Cas told him. “To my knowledge, Michael doesn’t know yet how to do that, so there aren’t any tickets to hand out anyway.”
“Before I sign on, just let me get it all straight,” said Bobby, scooting forward in his seat and mirroring Benny’s posture. “Michael’s got mentors in the metaphysical world set to teach him things no one knew was real—including jumping through space and time—as a means of restoring global Lupin balance, and we think some of the things he learns will turn out to be applicable to the lives of Omegas on the physical side of things. And we intend to exploit him, use those teachings to improve those Omegas’ lives, but we’re going to pretend that Michael just—Poof!—came up with this knowledge all on his own?”
“That’s about the shape of it, yes,” Cas agreed. “If we can do it safely. Are you in?”
“Alpha, when this turns out to be a con, we’re all going to look mighty foolish.” Bobby grunted as he sat back again.
“Is that a yes?”
Another scoff from the oldest alpha in the room. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Fortune favors the bold,” Benny added. “Count me in.”
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Kate smoothed a cooling aloe gel across Ace’s shoulders and clucked at him maternally. “Be still. Let me get it on you. I know it hurts; this will help. I promise.”
“I’m hot,” the pup whined. “It stings!”
“Of course it stings, it’s a sunburn. They hurt. Now hold still.”
April brushed past Dean in the doorway to the boys’ room, and she knelt in front of Alex with a white pill in her hand. “Here, Ace. Papa said to give you Tylenol and cool you down. You’ll need to stay out of the sun for a few days. Can you swallow the tablet or do I need to get the syrup?”
“He can swallow pills just fine, April.” Dean was irritated and defensive, and he felt useless as the women doctored his son. “You don’t have to baby him. It’s just a sunburn.”
Meanwhile Alex implored his mom with his eyes. “I can’t stay inside tomorrow, Mom; it’s Papa’s birthday party. Everybody is going to be out back!”
April acknowledged his protest with a touch to the side of his face and a kiss to his forehead. “We’ll figure something out.”
Then she glared at Dean. “Just a sunburn? He’s in pain, Dean. And it was totally preventable.” Softening as she turned back to Alex and accepted the cup Kate held out, “Here, baby, take a drink.”
“It’s a sunburn,” Dean shot back. “He’s not dying. Every kid has them. He’ll heal.”
April stood upright and ruffled Ace’s hair. Then she turned and stormed out of the room. Dean followed.
“You’re making a big deal about nothing,” he said, close on her heels.
April took the corner quickly and descended down the back steps toward the kitchen. “Sunburns increase the risks of getting skin cancer later in life, Dean. And all you had to do was remember to put sunscreen on the poor kid. Now he’s blistering.”
“He’s not blistering,” Dean argued. As they entered the kitchen at full volume, Patience silently collected her books and slipped away into the parlor. “He’s red. It’ll heal. One sunburn isn’t going to cause him skin cancer.”
“That’s not what the research says,” she told him. “Plus, now Kate feels like it’s all her fault for going out on an afternoon date and leaving them. We’re trying to ease her out into the world, trying to help her find friends, a companion maybe. It would really help that effort if she wasn’t worried about the pups every moment she’s away.” April pulled a bottle of raspberry tea from the fridge and shook it up with more vehemence than the precipitate demanded.
“For fuck’s sake, April, they’re my pups too! Why are you acting like I let them juggle knives? I didn’t realize he’d spent that long outside, okay? It was chaos here this morning, and I lost track of who had sunscreen and who didn’t. I’ll surrender my father of the year trophy—would that make you happy?”
“No, you know what would make me happy?” April blurted, slamming the bottle onto the countertop.
Dean stepped closer, riled and ready to engage.
But he didn’t get to answer her question, and she didn’t get to clarify. Dean felt Michael’s pace pick up speed as he approached from the garage. The door crashed open, bouncing violently off the wall. Clearly, Michael was tuned in to them both.
“Whoa, whoa, what the hell?” Michael intervened. He entered the kitchen and quickly put an arm between them. The air crackled with aggression. The two Subs glowered at each other for a moment and then each took a slight step back. “Did you forget you’re both adults here?” Michael sized them up. He scented the air around them.
“Dean?”
“Oh sure,” Dean spat. “It’s all on me. Well, join the line, Sir. They’re queuing around the block.”
“Pete, what’s going on?” Michael transferred concerned, green eyes to his wife.
“He had the pups all morning, and he let Alex sunburn badly. He just keeps trivializing it. He won’t even admit he screwed up.”
“The hell I won’t,” Dean blurted. “I never said I didn’t fuck up! I said it’s not the fucking end of the world! You and Kate are practically ready to call Child Protective Services on me for a goddamn mistake!”
“It’s not just this, Dean,” April countered. “You’re all over the place lately.”
“Here we go,” Dean muttered churlishly.
“I mean it,” she insisted. “We used to be able to count on you handling the pups on your own for a few hours. Kate has had one chance to go out on a real date, and she comes home to this? She’s afraid to leave the house unless Michael’s home.”
“Now wait just a minute,” Michael said.
Dean scowled and slipped around his mate to get right up in April’s face. “And how would you have even noticed one way or the other? I’m surprised you even remember you have pups! You’re barely here, and when you are, you spend every moment on Cas’ knot!”
“ME? I’ve had him twice in the last week. Twice! You’re the one scampering after him begging for more like a deranged Oliver Twist!”
“STOP IT!” shouted Michael. His jawline twitched. Dean and April desisted, but their eyes continued to spark with self-righteous indignation. Michael surveyed the two of them. He read their posture and their scents. He watched their eyes.
Finally, he pointed toward the kitchen table. “Sit.”
April flounced to the far end and took Cas’ seat at the head with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed to a distant cornice. Bright pink circles highlighted her cheeks. Dean slunk slowly into his chair at the foot, slouched and insolent.
Michael sighed. “Dean are you sabotaging Kate’s social life?”
“Am I what?” Dean said in dismay.
“She’s a part of the Pack, alpha,” Michael went on. “Even if she meets someone and they get serious, it doesn’t mean we’re going to lose her.”
April scoffed.
“Knock it off!” Michael told her.
“Can I go?” she asked. “My son needs me.”
Michael studied her expression and leaned in close enough to scent her. She dodged his approach with an irritated huff. To himself, Michael muttered, “Both of you at once?”
“Both of us what?” queried Dean. He narrowed his eyes.
“Two falls at once,” Michael clarified. He stood upright again and considered the situation.
Dean corrected his own posture and drew himself up like an alpha. “No one’s falling, Omega. I’m just sick of being the whipping boy any time anything goes wrong.”
April snarled, “You left him outside in the sun for hours with no protection!”
“Shut up!” Michael intervened.
“Oh, sure, take his side. You always take his side.”
“Crimeny, Pete, are you six? Get a grip! Just…sit there for a second and let me think.” He glowered down both ends of the table in turn until he was satisfied they would hold their tongues for the moment. “I don’t need this right now,” he added. “Honestly.”
“No, you really don’t.” Dean shoved his chair back and began to stand. “Look, this is fun and all. I’m having a ball. Seriously. But I have things to do.”
Michael’s eyes flashed. “Park your ass in that chair, Winchester, and stay there until I tell you to move.” He pointed, freezing Dean halfway between standing and sitting. Slowly, with less nonchalance than he would prefer, Dean sank back into the chair. “Tell me what your wolf is doing right now, alpha,” Michael commanded.
“Psshh!” scoffed Dean. “How should I know? The fucker’s probably out chasing rabbits or something.”
Michael leaned close, all his weight on his fists on the table. “What is your wolf doing, Dean Michael? Right now.”
Dean blanched and shrank back from his mate. “Uh.” He shrugged lightly. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Michael’s.
“Not a fall?” Michael questioned rhetorically, quietly. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”
April sighed in disgust. “Seriously, Dean? You roasted your own son on a sweltering summer day, giving him third degree sunburn all as impetus for your fall? Are you crazy?”
Michael pivoted and nailed her to her chair with his glare. “I told you to shut up. You’re in exactly the same condition he is, so climb on down off your high horse, your majesty.”
“No, I’m not,” April whispered. She too had gone pale under the sizzling spotlight of Michael’s eyes. He raised a probing brow at her, and she rallied. “I’m not,” she insisted with more fervor. She found her backbone and frowned back at him. “What makes you the grand arbiter of everything anyway, oh Mighty Great One, Savior of the Lupin People?” She employed finger-quotes.
Dean snorted in spite of himself. He promptly stifled his laugh, glancing up long enough to catch the anger in Michael’s eyes.
“Are you finished?” Michael asked him.
Dean shrugged.
“I swear,” Michael grumbled. “The two of you at each other’s throats, and you think there’s not something Tertiary going on? Since when do you bicker with each other? Like, at all?”
“She’s hogging Alpha’s knot,” Dean said sourly.
“He’s half-assing the childcare,” April added with little conviction.
“Yeah,” Michael sighed. “All right you two. On your feet. You know what happens next.” He took a step back and gestured toward the tabletop.
Dean rolled his shoulders and pushed himself up to standing with a fatalistic expression.
But at the indication of impending consequences, April’s face melted. Her wolf rolled and writhed. A pleading desperation replaced her obstinacy so swiftly Michael did a double take. “Please, Michael! I won’t fight anymore! I’ll be good, I swear!” She gaped up at him with horror and dread written all over her face. “I didn’t mean to fight!”
Michael glanced at Dean for a moment. The Omega seemed reticent to shift fully into his wolf for some reason with his mate right there in the thick of April’s meltdown. Dean raised a curious brow and then made a show of lowering his pants to his ankles and bracing himself on the table.
Michael’s jaw stiffened. Dean felt the moment he allowed his wolf full control, and Dean’s eyes slipped closed in relief on a long exhale.
Without saying a word, Michael lifted April from her chair by her upper arm and placed her beside Dean. She didn’t fight, but her sobs engulfed her, and she collapsed over the table, burying her face in her hands. Michael reached around her waist to unfasten her shorts. He pushed them to her knees. He maintained a cool demeanor even as his wife shuddered, begged, and wept. For his part, Dean stood waiting without any sign of distress. Side-by-side, they were a study in opposite Sub presentations.
Michael regarded them.
“This may not fix the issue at the core of this,” he told them. He swept his eyes across the kitchen and opted for a flat, slotted wooden stirring spoon. “But I need time to make a plan. And I need to get Alpha involved.” Michael swooshed the utensil through the air in a practice swing. “So think of this as a stop-gap.”
Michael stepped up and tangled his fingers in Dean’s close-cropped hair, but he addressed April. “Deep breaths, little Ozzie. You’re okay. Daddy’s gonna see you through this.” He clenched his fist, making Dean grimace, daring Dean to make a teasing quip about Daddy. Michael’s wolf drooled in its fervency. “Goddamn but you two look pretty side-by-side, two sweet little backsides all jiggly and ready for me.”
Dean growled, drawing his mate’s attention. Michael slapped his ass. Hard. And Dean hissed.
“Jiggly my ass,” Dean muttered to himself.
“Hmm,” Michael answered. “There’s my brat.” He turned his attention to April, tapping her backside with stinging, staccato swats. “And what about you, Pete? Got anything more to say?”
“No, Sir,” she sniffled. She seemed to have resigned herself to her fate.
Michael barely let her answer before he sneered and landed a hard blow to the center of her ass. He set a stiff pace, so that the slots in the spoon left a crisscross of welts behind, and April rose to her tiptoes.
The air grew dense with the cloying scents of tension, pain, and desperation. Dean clenched his hands into fists as he awaited his turn. His head hung heavy above the tabletop. April wailed and shrieked. Michael’s spoon flew, picking up speed and power.
“Where’s that smart mouth now, little girl?” Michael asked. Rhetorically, of course. “Got any more names you wanna call me?”
She shook her head violently.
“Still feeling good about picking fights? Thought you’d crank up the tension and try to get a little attention?”
“No, Sir!” she squealed.
A stiff stroke caught her on the inside of the thigh, and she yelped.
“Thought you’d provoke me into giving you a Release, didn’t you? But I’m not going to do that.” Michael eased up and took a step back. “I want you to tell me what you want from me.”
Dean shifted impatiently. Michael touched the small of his back in a soothing gesture, quieted him.
“I don’t know, sir! Please!” April whined.
“You just stay there and think it through, then,” Michael told her. “I’ll come back to you in a few. Best think of something to tell me.”
As Michael moved his focus from his wife to his mate, Dean adjusted his arms and spine, bracing.
“And what about you, Dean? Do you have anything to ask of me?” Michael’s hand on Dean’s bared ass was a warm caress. Dean closed his eyes.
“Hit me, Sir. Hit me good and hard. I need it.” Dean rocked up on the balls of his feet and back again. “I don’t wanna feel like this. Please.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at Michael. His flank quivered beneath his mate’s hand.
Michael shuffled in close. He drew in the delicious scent from behind Dean’s ear, and he clenched his hand, taking a hard handful of his mate’s muscular backside. “So polite,” he whispered.
Dean whimpered.
“Be certain, Dean, that you know what you’re asking for. This is not play. You’re asking me to take your safeword and lock it up until I’m done with you.”
Mutely, Dean nodded his head.
“Go inside your head, Dean. Give over to your wolf. I will meet you there.” Michael unbuckled his belt and removed it. He doubled it over in his fist. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and handed his consciousness off to his wolf, lock, stock, and barrel. In his mind’s eye he could see Dean’s wolfscape, could see the dog-wolf hunkered in the snow outside its den, groveling and trembling half on its back, paws in the air.
A cool calmness took Michael. He grew in stature until he towered over his mate. In the kitchen, Michael’s left hand gripped Dean’s hair and shoved his face into the tabletop as his right hand wielded the belt. In the wolfscape, he growled and snapped, driving Dean to his feet and away from the comfort of his den. He harried Dean with vicious bites to his flanks, chivvying him into running flat out toward the forested valley far below.
Dean panted, both within his wolfscape and outside of it. Pain in his rump made the whites of his eyes flash. He felt flames lick at his feet, panic tug at his mind. Michael was everywhere.
Dean tucked his tail and threw his muzzle into the wind, and he ran. Every time he slowed for a moment, Michael bit his haunches. The O-D paced him, keeping up easily. Michael shouldered him hard, and Dean lost his balance. He tumbled, ass over teakettle in the snow before finding his feet and dashing away again with Michael on his heels.
Michael’s belt landed again and again as Dean’s mouth gaped wide.
Dean keened and Michael snarled, snapped.
Dean ran until his breath tore ragged cuts down his throat and his legs burned. He stumbled, fell, rolled, and looked upward at the sky from his sprawl on his back. Instantly, Michael pinned him fast. Black fur and gleaming white teeth eclipsed the moon. Glowing amber eyes reflected firelight that wasn’t there.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Dean whimpered. “God, I’m sorry!” He buried his face in the backs of his hands on the table. “That was stupid of me. So careless! So damned careless! I’m sorry!”
Michael stopped the strikes. He caught the loop of his belt in his left hand. He panted slightly, standing upright. Dean’s back heaved as he tried to catch his breath. “You’re not being strapped for forgetting sunscreen. That was just an oversight, alpha,” Michael told him gently. “I know you won’t do it again. No, you’re being strapped for acting like a six-year-old, bickering with Pete instead of talking it out like grown adults. It’s all done now. You’re forgiven. Be sure to put sunscreen on the pups when they play in the sun.”
“I swear.”
Michael watched his mate curl over the table. He scented the air. He dug about within their bonds. Dean’s wolf writhed in the dirt where he’d fallen, whining an entreaty for forgiveness from the gangly black wolf watching him from above. Michael’s wolf lowered its head and touched Dean’s nose with his own. Their gazes connected, and Dean fell still. An echoing chant of mate/mate/mate/safe/safe/safe ricocheted between them.
“No more squabbling with Pete,” Michael instructed. He raised Dean to his feet and thumbed wetness from beneath his mate’s eyes. “If I hear that again, I’m going to let her strap you. You hear me, alpha?” Michael held Dean’s chin and looked searchingly into his eyes.
“Yes, Sir,” Dean answered. He gulped with a sidelong look at his fellow Sub. A full-body shiver wracked his body, but he collected himself. He nodded gamely when Michael pulled back slightly and employed the connection between their gazes to silently ask after him. Dean assured him silently he was okay. Michael smiled. He drew Dean in close with a hand at the back of his head, and he kissed his temple.
“Sir?” April asked softly. “You wanted me to tell you what I want? That. I want that. What you did for him. I want the same.”
Michael huffed and pulled away from Dean. “Go stand on the wall, Dean. Give me a minute with my girl. We’ll go up and check on Ace in a moment.”
Dean nodded placidly and moved to place himself on the stretch of wall where Cas usually doled out lashings. Michael left him to it. He turned his attention back to April.
“That? What about it, Pete? You asking for a taste of my belt?” He tapped her ass with his belt. “Get back into position.”
“I want to feel your wolf both inside and out at the same time,” she clarified. “Like you do with Dean. I want your wolf with mine while you whip me.” The temper tantrum had vanished. She was calm and certain. She smelled of determination now, not fear.
Michael smirked. “I think I can do that for you, Pete. Close your eyes now. Go way down deep.”
Cas frowned in thought. “Yes, it seems your response was quite effective on April. She’s fully Balanced now. Dean, though.” Cas glanced out the plate glass window of the ground floor living room to find Dean pushing Sean on the swings. He looked fine. He didn’t appear close to a fall. But Cas wasn’t fooled.
“I know,” Michael agreed. “But it was the best I could do. He needed an immediate reaction. You should’ve heard them, Cas, going at each other’s throats like middle-schoolers in opposite cliques. I’ve never heard them fight like that before.”
From down the hall in the conservatory, April’s voice echoed fervently. Something about chord progressions and pacing. Mark’s steadfast voice replied, just a soft murmur in a calm tone that absorbed April’s temper and buffered it.
Michael didn’t try to work out what they were saying. April was fully engaged in writing, solid and passionate. She often got loud when the tap of her creative juices opened like floodgates. April’s falls took much less violence to overcome than Dean’s. And once on the far side of one, after being stripped of the noisome buzz of cumulative stress, the freshly emptied vacuum within her psyche sucked in inspiration from the Universe at a pace she could barely ride without losing the strands completely.
Something profound would come from this session in the conservatory.
She was due for another smash hit, Michael thought.
Her fans would go rabid.
A shrill whistle from the backyard drew Michael’s attention back to the window. Dean called Portia out of the pond and admonished her for harassing the ducks. Portia grinned up at him in delight as her fur dripped into the grass beneath the play structure.
“I can’t help him, Cas,” Michael admitted. “Whatever his Tertiary is looking for, it’s not me. I honestly don’t know what to do. I thought maybe taking him through it from inside the wolfscape would… I dunno… double up the impact. And it did feel incredible, I’m not gonna lie. My wolf loved it, both of us in there with all our attention on him. But it didn’t end his fall if that’s what this is.”
“That’s what it is,” Cas said distractedly. “Maybe not one of the brain-scalding ones that crack his foundation. A fall, not a Fall, so to speak. But it will quickly grow out of control if we don’t cut it off soon.”
“I don’t know how to help him, Alpha.”
“We are in uncharted waters, Omega. We’re going to have to feel our way through this time. Trust your instincts. There must be a way.”
Michael turned toward Cas. “Can’t you just do what you’ve always done? Take him in hand and…”
“No, Michael.” Cas cut him off. “That ruse will not work anymore. And it would be abusive to put him through a feigned rejection for no purpose. We need a new strategy.”
Michael felt impotent with frustration. “All my wolf has to suggest is violence—more and harder and longer. Are we just going to beat him until he loses consciousness?”
Cas pursed his lips and didn’t answer.
Michael sighed. “I’m guessing we have a week or so to figure it out. After that…” He scratched the back of his neck and looked away. He couldn’t finish the thought. “I’m going to go check on Tony, see how close he is to serving dinner.”
Cas stopped him with a light hand on his shoulder. “I want to try again tonight. Wake my wolf once the household is sleeping. If your self-professed guides don’t show, we’ll just keep searching for this Center on our own. You’ve been there once, I expect that a little persistence will allow you to find it again without their aid.”
Michael opened his mouth to answer but then thought better of it and simply nodded.
It wasn’t their first attempt to walk the Route without guidance. They hadn’t gotten very far yet. Michael could rouse Castiel’s wolf in its den, and they found they could communicate easily enough by threading a touch of their Secondaries through the funnel in their minds. But they hadn’t managed yet to actually go anywhere. Michael was free to explore Cas’ forbidding wolfscape, and Cas could choose to accompany him or let him wander off alone. No amount of nosing at the borders had yet offered up any access to a wider metaphysical world, though. Michael could re-enter his own wolfscape from Castiel’s, but he couldn’t bring Cas with him, and he couldn’t find any other habitats.
And their Bolivian guides seemed to have fucked off to parts unknown. Michael couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching his feeble attempts with mirth. He often suffered the feeling that there were unseen eyes following his movements. Michael’s wolf didn’t like that feeling one bit.
He was beginning to grow churlish whenever the subject came up.
If he were meant to be the be-all and end-all of metaphysical gurus, shouldn’t traversing the metaphysical world come naturally? He found it humiliating having Castiel’s enormous wolf witness his ineptitude night after night, despite Cas’ reassurance that he didn’t expect Michael magically to construct from nowhere the knowledge to do something no one in living memory had known was a thing at all.
That didn’t stop Michael from feeling stupid and clumsy.
Where was Cuatémoc?
When exactly were these lessons of his supposed to begin?
Michael had grown more than simply distracted by the development, he was struggling daily to stay focused at work and to maintain his responsibilities at home as well. Dean was doing his best most days to offer Michael extra support while still on the cusp of his own imminent meltdown. Michael had to give him credit for that considering the degree of discomfort this whole thing caused Dean, not to mention that Dean was more than halfway off his own usually stable rocker at the moment. But Dean had come to the conclusion that whatever lay in store for Michael was beyond any of them to alter now that it had begun.
Maybe there had never been any choice to begin with—no more than there had been for Cas.
The Universe takes no direction from anyone, and it’s never cared what any of them want.
And the more Dean thought about it, he’d told his mate, the more logical it felt that if their species demanded a singular preeminent Alpha to form the peak of the hierarchical pyramid, that it stood to reason there would also be one Omega who served as the lynchpin at its base. Too, it seemed logical that the two of them, at opposite poles but wielding a balanced degree of power, should reside in the same pack, given the need for packs to find balance in the microcosm to match the macro.
Still, Michael was fully aware, Dean didn’t like it. No amount of cramming logic through his brain was going to change that. And Michael could feel the disquiet that didn’t show on Dean’s face.
Squabbling with Pete notwithstanding.
Michael began to feel antsy and impatient. The Tiwunukuans had dangled a carrot in front of his face, tempted his wolf with ridiculously aggrandizing promises, and then vanished to leave Michael treading water alone.
Within his mind, in his wolfscape, he paced.
Every day that passed brought more illumination to Michael’s wolf, a promise of something exciting that it was clueing into, and Michael wanted to try to cut his wolf off at the pass. He didn’t trust himself to handle the staggering level of power seemingly on offer. But he couldn’t prevent his wolf from snatching the reins and riding off on its own to glory or disaster, not if he had to do it on his own.
Michael needed a mentor.
What he had, though, was his Alpha breathing down his metaphysical neck. All right, that was unfair. Cas was doing the exact opposite of breathing down his neck. Cas was patiently encouraging Michael to explore, to try new tactics, to poke his snout into uncharted corners. Cas was persistent in his belief that Michael could figure it out, despite a multitude of failures.
Michael put the conundrum out of his mind as he entered the kitchen to confer with Tony and get dinner on the table. The whole Pack was eating in tonight; they had decided to make a weekend of Castiel’s birthday. He found Dean washing his hands and sending pups scurrying up to their rooms for something or other.
Michael leaned casually in and offered his mate a kiss and a soft touch to the small of his back. Dean winked at him before asking Tony what needed doing. Dean seemed grounded and calm. From his bonds, Michael only felt cheerful industriousness.
And physical hunger, as always.
Damn, but Dean could hide his vulnerabilities when he wanted to.
Michael startled as a head of Romaine lettuce nearly smacked him in the face. He caught Dean’s toss just in time.
“Chop that up for me,” Dean instructed. “Maybe another one too. We’ll do the salad and asparagus and let Tony concentrate on his masterpiece. Beef Wellington, man. It’s gonna be amazing! Can you smell it? Cas’ favorite!” Dean leaned over Tony’s shoulder near the oven and took a deep whiff.
Michael let domesticity and Dean’s (possibly forced) good mood usher him into a tranquil state of mind as the Pack began to gather. He shoved his worries into the back of his mind.
Bedtime would come soon enough, and with it, another fruitless attempt to break out of Castiel’s wolfscape.
Michael opened his eyes. The dark of Castiel’s cave had become familiar over the last few weeks. He reached forelegs out in front of his lean body and stretched out into a downward dog with a yawn before shaking out his fur and stepping away from the enormous black dog at his back. Cas’ eyes were still closed.
Michael trotted easily to the mouth of the cave and glanced out, scenting the air. Here in the wolfscape he struggled to keep a leash on his wolf and lead with his Omega, but he’d had a great deal of practice lately. He no longer found himself split into multiple bodies, not when entering the wolfscape this way.
“You’re not going out there alone, are you?” Cas’ voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn’t tied to his wolf’s body as it would’ve been in the physical world. It wasn’t tied to anything. It simply existed. The large black mastiff stood up, shook himself, and joined Michael.
“Of course not, Alpha,” Michael answered automatically.
Cas didn’t wait to study his surroundings before jogging down the well-trodden path and leaping with astounding lightness of foot from one boulder to another until he reached level ground. Michael followed.
“Have you ever considered making the entrance to your den easier to navigate?” Michael asked. He looked back at the tumble of boulders, some of breathtaking scale.
Cas barely glanced back. “I’ve had need of an avalanche or two over the years, something to trap my wolf in its cave and buy me some time. It never seemed necessary to move the rocks again beyond granting myself access to the mouth of my cave. Besides, the rocks serve as a good reminder for my Tertiary. It didn’t enjoy being so thoroughly caged.”
Michael watched as brilliant crimson surrounded Cas’ pupils, swirled and flashed, and quieted again. Cas’ wolf seemed to have a word or two to say to its Alpha about cages, a protest that the Alpha put a quick stop to.
Michael changed the subject.
“Clear night,” the Omega observed. “Weather’s mild. Maybe that’ll make it easier to explore.”
“Let’s try south tonight,” Cas suggested. He didn’t wait for a reply before vanishing into the underbrush.
Michael moved to follow but pulled up short as a flickering off to his left caught his eye. As he watched, a beautiful, elderly wolf appeared where a moment ago there was no one.
“Cas!” Michael called. He didn’t take his eyes off the intruder, but it took him only a moment to recognize Cuatémoc, standing some way apart with his head low and ears pricked forward.
“You follow when you should be leading,” the Bolivian wolf chided gently. “Lesson one, Omega. This realm is not his. It is yours. Listen to your instinct. Generations of Omegas will guide your impulses.”
From the bushes, the sound of a beast of immense mass crashing its way toward them broke the peaceful stillness of Cas’ forest. Cas re-emerged with twigs and leaves caught in his fur and a worried expression in his wolf’s face.
“Michael? What is it? Did you find something?”
Without breaking eye contact with his guide, Michael replied, “It’s all right, Alpha. I know him.”
“Oh!” Cas pulled up short as he spotted the strange wolf. The usually well-appointed Alpha looked disheveled. But he moved quickly to put himself between his Omega Packmate and the stranger. “Who are you? How did you get in here? This is my wolf’s den. You’ve not been invited.”
Michael shushed him softly and then took a hesitant step closer to Cuatémoc. “It’s okay, Cas. This is a good thing. He’s the one we’ve been waiting for.”
Cas bristled, standing his ground. “We meant to find a path to common ground, Omega!” Michael couldn’t tell if Cas was speaking to him or to the stranger. “Not to host an incursion onto private land! You’re trespassing! Explain yourself!”
Cuatémoc regarded the incensed Alpha curiously for a moment, then he disregarded him and his warning growls. He turned instead to Michael.
“You’ve made great strides since last we spoke, young Michael. Tell me, what have you learned?” With no apparent consideration for Castiel, he joined Michael and steered him away from the brush, toward a wall of steeply rising craggy rock. Michael fell in beside him, matching his pace, leaping easily from one stone to another.
“Learned? Not a damn thing,” Michael protested. Behind them, Cas huffed before following. “I can’t find my way out of any wolfscape I don’t already know, and I can’t figure out how to bring anyone with me even from their den to mine. This place, it’s confusing as fuck.”
Cas called, “Where are you taking him?”
“Hmm,” Cuatémoc hummed. Gracefully, he leapt a small stream coming down from the heights above them and made tracks across a short expanse of snow. Michael followed, glancing over his shoulder to where a grumpy Alpha took up the rear mumbling to himself and shouting an occasional, “Wait!” or “I want to talk to you!”
“But you slip from one den to another with ease now. That has not always been the case.” The grizzled wolf paid no mind whatsoever to the Alpha.
Michael shrugged internally. “Well, yeah, if I share a bond with the owner of the den. But what you led me through last time, that was different. I didn’t even know any of those wolves, much less have a bond with them. How do I do that, travel into places I don’t already have a feel for? I haven’t had any success at that yet.”
Behind them, Castiel cursed as he slipped on an algae-coated rock and fell into the stream. Michael looked round, but his companion continued on.
Cuatémoc chuckled. At the crest, he slowed to a stop in a clearing that opened up to a breathtaking view of a lush valley below. “This place,” he said cryptically to Michael. He indicated the sunshine-soaked landscape before them. “Do you imagine it existed before this very moment?”
Michael surveyed the valley then raised a brow in question as Cas joined them. “Have you ever been up here, Cas?” Michael asked. He had no idea where this was going.
Castiel’s eyes took in the view while he shook out his paws. He tilted his head curiously. “Not that I recall. It’s possible.” Water dripped from the fur around his face.
“Nonsense,” Cuatémoc contradicted. “This particular spot in this particular den is my own making. Unless an Omega chooses to alter it, it will forever persist just as it is. It is not your design, Alpha. It is mine. Thus, had you followed the trail up here on your own in days past, you would have seen a very different vista before you. Had you been here before, it would have been your imagination, not mine, that constructed this view. Now, it is too late for you to have your say here. Now, what you see before you is truth. It is my truth, but it will endure nonetheless.”
“How can it be brand new? Surely something was here before right now?” Michael asked in confusion. “That makes no sense. Did the world just stop? End in endless black emptiness?”
“Let go of logic, my friend. Let go of the physical. Open your mind to limitless possibility. Here in this realm, for one such as you, there are no limits. No rules. For you, what you wish to exist, exists.”
Cas said nothing.
Michael paused a moment and then asked, “So, if I wanted it to rain, it would rain?”
“You could make it rain fire and blood should you so choose,” Cuatémoc answered. “Although that would be rather unpleasant.”
“Then why am I having such a hard time in here?” Michael sat down heavily on his haunches. From a tree above him, a blackbird cawed raucously.
Cuatémoc chose not to reply directly. Instead, he cocked his head and asked, “Why do you only enter this space lately with an alpha in tow? I’ll be honest, my mate suspects your Alpha fears being left alone and follows you about from insecurity.”
Castiel growled.
Cuatémoc flicked an ear his direction but remained focused on Michael.
“No, he, um, he’s here to protect me.” Michael glanced at Cas. “He didn’t want me wandering around alone.”
Cuatémoc’s mouth fell open in a clear laugh as he threw his head back. “Protect you? From what?”
“Well, from you, I suppose,” Michael explained. “Maybe from myself? From the dangers of this place?”
Cas stepped closer, displeased and prepared to say so. With no warning, Cuatémoc lifted a paw and slashed the enormous dog across its nose. Castiel recoiled with a snarl and a furious glare. Blood welled up from four gouges across his muzzle. He gathered power in his haunches, ready to spring. But then he froze, off balance, motionless but for his eyes rolling in alarm, secured by an invisible force.
Cuatémoc approached Cas and sniffed at his throat. Castiel’s stance defied the laws of physics as he was leaning too far back, preparing to pounce. Now he simply couldn’t move at all. Blood dripped from the underside of his muzzle to the ground.
Somehow, he was held fast without a rope or a tie on him with his center-of-gravity awry.
Michael’s jaw dropped in shock. Cold wind continued a solemn exploration of the near-tundra, lifting the fur of all three wolves in gentle waves. From deep within Castiel’s chest, a warning growl rumbled. Cuatémoc showed no alarm whatsoever.
“What did you do?” Michael asked. “Release him!”
“Oh, but surely he does not require my permission to move freely. I am a mere trespasser. And he is, after all, here for your protection.” Cuatémoc’s eyes twinkled with light humor.
“Fine,” Michael said with exasperation. “You’ve made your point. I don’t need an alpha’s protection inside the wolf-dream. Now let him go.”
Cuatémoc glanced at Cas where he stood paralyzed, and with a nod of his head, the spell broke. Castiel toppled gracelessly before finding his feet, snarling as if just released from the pits of hell, and launching himself at the Omega.
Michael startled and scampered back, putting space between himself and what was now clearly an untethered Dominant Wolf.
Teeth flashed and claws rent into flesh. Blood flowed red on the rocky mountainside as Castiel’s wolf took its revenge. Cuatémoc accepted the attack without defending himself and soon lay motionless on his side, spilling spurts of blood from his throat as his chest heaved.
Michael stood riveted, unable to move or speak, shocked at the flurry of violence. He gaped at Cas, at Cuatémoc’s lifeless body, back at Cas.
What had they done?
Then the bleeding stopped.
Wounds closed swiftly, stitching themselves back up without any scars, all in the span of a moment or two.
Cuatémoc blinked a few times, eased himself to his feet under Castiel’s astonished gaze, shook his coat thoroughly, and winked at Michael.
His throat was unblemished again.
His injuries had vanished even as his blood continued to stain the ground. Even as Castiel’s blood still ran hot and red from the slashes across his muzzle.
It all happened so fast, Michael had time for no more than a startle, a step backward, and a tensing of every muscle before it was all over. He and Cas mirrored one another’s baffled head tilt.
“If you’re finished putting me in my place, Alpha,” Cuatémoc said to Cas. “Perhaps we may continue with the lesson.” And without another word, he trotted off under stunted pines, following the cliff face, working his way higher up the mountain, to the very summit, and out along a barren ridge of rock.
Michael read warning in Castiel’s eyes, but after a moment’s hesitation, he followed. As he caught up, Cuatémoc resumed speaking to him without slowing.
“A wolf cannot come to any harm in the Route, Michael. You cannot kill anything but prey here, nor can you injure permanently. What you can do is to engage in the ancient language of wild creatures: You can Claim. You can Top or Bottom. You can inflict pain, fleeting though it will be. You can mount and couple, although you cannot conceive unless your physical form is likewise engaged. You can comfort and connect.”
“Then why am I still bleeding?” Castiel grumbled as he too caught up. He sounded incensed to Michael, but he seemed to realize he didn’t have many options but to follow and listen.
Cuatémoc looked round. “Because I have willed it.”
Michael huffed. “Then would you please stop the bleeding now? What purpose does that serve?”
Cuatémoc stopped. He turned to face them as they joined him near the ledge of a steeply jagged cliff high above the river valley below, dotted with houses and farms. A little village sat huddled against the far slope. “Michael, surely you understand that we wolves are hierarchical beings. As I’ve observed your interactions here, I noted that you do not hesitate to claim your rank when the need presses. And yet, you falter before one who, in this space, is lesser.”
“My Alpha is lesser?” Michael found meeting Cas’ eye difficult just then. “But his wolf Tops mine. His wolf Tops everyone.”
“Were that true,” Cuatémoc told him with his brows raised, “then he would not continue to trail crimson droplets behind him. I cannot force my will upon a wolf of higher rank.”
“No, but I’ve measured my strength against his, and I have nowhere near the power he does.” Michael was at a loss.
Cuatémoc looked out across the valley. “Power comes in a variety of forms, Michael. You speak of a kind of power that is manifested in the physical realm, not here. Here, Ayawuascaita reigns. Only those endowed with its gifts can occupy the highest echelons of the hierarchy. And only Omegas blessed with Ayawuascaita have the power to mold what exists here. Your Alpha does not have that gift, no matter how cranky his wolf.”
Michael felt uneasy. “But you believe that I do?”
“You are more powerful in Ayawuascaita than any Omega I have ever known,” came the simple answer.
Michael swallowed. Cas stood a few steps away, nervously licking the blood from his muzzle. “Can I make his bleeding stop?” Michael asked quietly.
“Of course you can.”
“How?”
Instead of answering, Cuatémoc gestured with his head out to the valley before them. “This vista, how did it come to be?”
Michael frowned. “You said you imagined it, that Castiel has never been up this far before. But how is that possible? We’re no more than a couple of miles from his den.”
“You see, Michael, where Omegas tend to build their wolfscapes with their dens in the center of their territory, alphas more often situate themselves at one extreme boundary so that their entire world lies before them and they’ve nothing but stone to their back. Since we are now above and behind your alpha’s den, we are in a place he has never ventured. And yet, here this landscape is. As has been pointed out, I am trespassing here. I shouldn’t have the wherewithal to create a permanent fixture in the den of a wolf who hasn’t welcomed me. How did I do that, do you suppose?”
Michael considered. “Are you certain he didn’t fill it in as we climbed? I’ve done that in my own space lots of times, build as I travel.”
Cuatémoc shook his head. “We arrived at the summit before he did, and the valley was already there when he huffed his way up the last few steps.”
“There’s no need to be rude,” Cas griped. “I didn’t huff.”
“Okay, so you built it,” Michael conceded to Cuatémoc. “Somehow, even though we’re in his wolfscape, you created this view. No, I don’t get it. How is that possible?”
“Ayawuascaita grants me license to mold and form the reality of this place, of any place within the Route,” his mentor told him. “If indeed, reality is what we are experiencing, and I have reason to question that it is.”
“You can build something into the empty spaces in someone’s den?” Michael asked. “Is that all?”
Cuatémoc smirked. “Not just build where there was nothing, Michael. We can create, destroy, and alter anything we wish.”
“You can alter any wolf’s home territory?” asked Michael in disbelief.
The twinkle returned to Cuatémoc’s eyes. “As can you, pup. Would you like to have a go?” He looked out over the valley stretching miles in all directions.
Castiel observed the lesson silently. Infuriating as it was, he couldn’t deny that the elder Omega had slapped him down effectively enough that he didn’t crave an immediate re-do. Oddly, he didn’t even really particularly want to challenge the old wolf, despite the astounding level of impertinence. (In a back corner of his mind, an incisive left brow rose in judgment of himself as one or another of his designations noted how easily the big dog capitulated.)
Instead, he turned his attention to the world around him. It was as familiar as his own body, in its way. But Cuatémoc had also spoken truth; Cas had never climbed this far around the summit of his own territory. The valley that spread out below the far side of his den was one he’d never seen.
Far below them, villages of human people, probably primates, Cas guessed, went about fictional lives. It would never have occurred to Cas to people his wolfscape with humans.
Were they sentient at all? Did they know they were fictional? He saw no evidence of pre-industrial technology down there, but a boat with a crude sail worked its way against the current of the river.
As he studied the vista, Cas let Cuatémoc’s lesson to Michael fade to a hum behind his conscious attention. And that was when he noticed the sound of it. Castiel closed his eyes, the better to listen, not to the words, but to the…was it sound?
There were no words. It wasn’t English at all. In fact, it wasn’t sound, he realized. Frowning in concentration, Cas really listened in a way he hadn’t when conversing with the wolf. He found his pricked ears useless to pick up anything at all from Cuatémoc. And yet, he understood precisely what was being conveyed.
Cas scented the air, eyes still closed, and ruled out olfactory and visual senses as the means of communicating. He couldn’t put a finger—or paw—on how he was perceiving the words.
Michael seemed oblivious to the odd experience, taking at face value that he and Cuatémoc were communicating in a standard fashion. From Michael, Cas heard sentences. From Cuatémoc, he heard… what was it? Intention? Telepathy?
And yet Cuatémoc managed to convey precise concepts, complex imagery, regional idioms even. His phrasing had syntax and structure.
Castiel was baffled and so intrigued that he forgot his anger and his distrust and began to listen closely. Perhaps the anger and distrust struggled to exist in this place where Cas had far less control than he was accustomed to. If he’d had the notion to examine his mind about it, he might find his abandonment of his outrage its own mystery.
That’s not something Cas’ wolf ever did.
Oddly enough, he accepted the mindframe shift without even noticing.
He took a step closer and lowered his head in a sign of respect. The scientist in Cas’ alpha took over. Both wolves glanced at him briefly before continuing their discussion.
Michael had since made a few efforts to alter the reality before them, to no success. Nothing below so much as flickered despite Cuatémoc assuring Michael it was only a matter of will.
“You do not believe it possible,” Cuatémoc advised. “You fight your own capacity. You are too firmly entrenched still within the physical realm.”
Michael grunted in frustration. “I’m also distracted,” he muttered. “Alpha’s still over here with blood dripping off his muzzle and my mate is back at home floundering. Maybe it’s not a good time for something this big.”
He flopped down onto the ground and put his head between his paws.
Cuatémoc glanced again at Cas. In the physical world, the blood would have stanched by now. Here, it continued to flow freely.
“Perhaps something smaller, more pressing. Here, heal your Alpha, Michael,” he said. “Envision him whole, as he was. Make it truth. See it and create it.”
Michael studied Cas’ face. His eyes narrowed. His ears lay back against his head, and he shifted onto his ribcage to face his Alpha more directly. Soon, his mouth fell open as he began to pant, and he stood up. Slow steps toward Cas that he didn’t seem aware he was taking brought him right up beneath Castiel’s chin. He didn’t blink.
Cas stood motionless and silent, letting Michael concentrate however he needed to.
A spark of electricity sizzled behind Michael. A flash and a pop, then a riot of them popped like sparklers on the Fourth of July.
Then the bleeding stopped, and Cas felt the velvet smoothness of his muzzle made whole again. Painless and scarless it was. Not a healing, but an instant negation of the wounds, as if they had never been.
“Yes!” Cuatémoc praised. “Yes, that’s it, Michael.”
“What did I do? I don’t know how I did that. Are you sure it was me?” Michael sniffed at Cas’ nose. He licked along Cas’ mouth where a trail of blood had just been. On the huge beast’s face, there was no trace of red. But smears of blood still discolored the ground.
“Strange that you would struggle to realize your power here, pup, when you yourself have taught young wolves to create and manipulate the Route to their own ends.” Cuatémoc said.
“I have?”
Cas felt briefly puzzled as well, but then caught on. “Gage,” he said. “You had Gage build himself a barrier against his own wolf. He followed your directions and learned to protect himself while he tamed his Tertiary.”
“You see, Michael? This is instinctive to you when you stop thinking about it.” Cuatémoc laughed easily before changing the subject entirely. “Now. Tell me what’s going on with your mate.”
Michael hesitated. He met Cas’ eye with a questioning glance, asking permission. Cas found it odd that Michael would seek approval, but as he studied Michael, he understood. Their shared responsibility for Dean’s welfare meant even if Michael wasn’t of lower rank here, he wasn’t about to make any unilateral decisions about Dean. Those days were long past.
Cas felt affection for the Omega well up in his chest. Michael was under intense pressure lately, but even now, as he was handed a degree of authority Omegas had been conditioned to believe they were incapable of handling, he centered back to Pack and connection and shared loyalties.
Cas nodded to him before turning to address Cuatémoc. “I don’t know if the malady that Dean is under translates to your culture. I am certain you’re familiar with it, but whether you catalog it the way we do, well… Put simply, it’s a dysregulation of the Tertiary designation. Dean’s wolf is Submissive to Michael and to me. Every now and again, Dean experiences episodes of psychic crisis. He requires firm handling to alleviate the painful symptoms of the episode. Such is the case for many Submissives. It's important to manipulate him into a heightened emotional state and essentially let him cry it out. There is usually a fair amount of wailing and sobbing.”
A knowing glimmer flashed briefly amber in Cuatémoc’s eyes, and he nodded sagely. “I wondered. When last you were both here,” he said to Michael, “it was clear your mate is in need of a tumble, although you stopped short of giving him one.”
“A tumble? You mean a fall?” Michael cocked his head. “Yes, that’s it exactly. We call it a fall. Dean’s close, but we sort of got ourselves into a jam with his falls. He’s had some real humdingers in the past, but what with our Pack getting stronger and more cohesive, Dean and Cas getting married, the old playbook—where Cas pretends to pull his affection, make Dean think he’s being dumped—that doesn’t work anymore to shepherd him through those falls. This one may not be as severe as those before, but we still have no idea how to address it.”
Cuatémoc looked upon Michael in confusion before glancing at Cas. “But surely such a dramatic roleplay is unnecessary in the first place. Where is your compassion for the man? Why would you…?” He paused midsentence as his confusion cleared. “You don’t know how to tumble, do you? You’ve been attacking his episodes purely on the physical plane.”
Cas abruptly shouldered past Michael. “Are you saying there’s a technique for addressing it here? In metaphysics? Tell me!”
Cuatémoc narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin. His gaze turned flinty until Castiel took a slow step backward and said, “Please.”
Michael added, “Dean’s had a hard time of it his whole life. Every so often he falls so hard the whole Pack is at risk. If there’s a way, please, you have to teach us. No one in the wider world remembers anything from before our society broke.”
Cuatémoc sat. With his hind leg he scratched the base of his ear and then settled back on his rump. “It’s the simplest thing in the world, Omega. He needs to fall.”
Michael shared a look with Cas. “Right,” he said. “I get that. But how?”
Cuatémoc cast his gaze out over the steep cliff upon which they perched, the wind lifting their fur and making the stubby junipers sway. It was a long drop. Straight down along a sheer bluff. “Just…fall. There is a reason, after all, that most…Submissives, as you call them… place their dens at high altitudes.”
“You want me to throw him off a cliff?” Michael asked in disbelief.
Cuatémoc chuckled. “I don’t recommend trying that in the physical world. But in here…”
Michael gaped. “There’s no way he would let me. He may be Submissive, but he’s still alpha.”
The old wolf nodded. “It’s less throwing, in practice. More chasing!” He said it with an enthusiasm that told Michael Cuatémoc had probably participated in his share of chases. “It gets the blood pumping, all of the senses heightened. It primes the afflicted wolf for a complete release of control.”
“He cannot die here,” Cas murmured as he began to understand. “He can’t even truly be injured. But the moment of realization as the ground disappears from beneath his feet, and the moment of impact… Yes, that is approximately the frame of mind we try to invoke—raw, abject… sensation. Emotion and release.”
“Terror,” Cuatémoc said, cutting through Cas’ bullshit.
“Hold up,” Michael interjected. “Last time we spoke you told me this place was dangerous, and that if I wasn’t mentored, I could get myself killed.”
“Indeed, pup. That is a very real possibility without proper training. You see, for most wolves, entry into the Route—other than through mental images of their own home space—is impossible without a host, and even then, they can only cast their minds into this space, not their bodies. But you are not most wolves, my friend. Should you stumble upon any of the multitude of crosspoints, you could easily, unwittingly, enter the Route bodily. Were that to happen, whatever injury you take here would be real. If you died here, you would be dead.”
Beneath his black fur, Michael paled.
Turning to Cas, Cuatémoc continued. “And you, Alpha. You are strong in Ayawuascaita too. While you cannot reach beyond your own den without an Omega host, with one, you may also step inside bodily. There is peril here, make no mistake, for even though your physical body must obey the laws of the natural universe, this place is not bound to any of those laws. It takes guidance from the wellspring of canine perception—there is a… resilience here—but it is infinitely malleable.”
Castiel believed him. For all his bluntness, the grizzled wolf radiated honesty. He had a nurturer’s presence, gruff though he was.
“What are these crosspoints?” Michael challenged.
“Here and there,” Cuatémoc explained, “within dens built by imagination, one comes across portals of a sort. At these junctures, it is possible to step across the metaphysical boundary and enter places that may or may not exist in the physical world, places of sanctuary, of respite usually. But take heed, it is possible to exit that sanctuary and continue on in the Route IN your physical form. From there, you would be vulnerable to whatever the Route chooses to challenge you with.”
“Sanctuary. Like last time,” said Michael in a rush. “In the Center.”
“Quite,” Cuatémoc agreed. “Although the Center is a special case. It is more than simply a sanctuary, Michael. It is THE sanctuary. It is unique and timeless, and it has no relation to any individual den. Or, rather, it is the connection point of all dens, all of them from the beginning of time to the end.”
Cas found himself intrigued and charmed by the idea, preposterous as it seemed. Wasn’t this whole journey improbable enough to seem preposterous? “All dens are connected?”
Cuatémoc’s eyes smiled. “You’ve seen the seedhead of a dandelion. Not the yellow flower, mind you, but the fluffy white seedhead, ready to burst.”
Cas nodded. Michael listened, entranced.
“Think of the Center as the base where all the seeds connect. It is enormous in scale, a perfect sphere. Each den begins as a pinprick of intention rooted to the base. As a wolf matures and builds its world, the seed expands outward, bounded by its neighbors on all sides except forward. And forward is infinite. It widens as it extends further from the base, widens to be as expansive as the wolf requires.”
“As a wolf resides within its den, it explores outward, always outward, into infinity, and thus never crosses the border into another’s den by accident. Only those of us with a little guidance learn to move laterally from one den to another, or to move backward toward the center, only those of us who can call on Ayawuascaita to fuel our journeys. Mind you, the shape I describe is not literal. A wolf’s den can take any shape or size they choose.”
Michael said, “But these crosspoints, they could be anywhere?”
“No one knows why they originate,” Cuatémoc told him. “Only that not every wolfscape has one, and that they cannot be seen, smelt, or heard. My grandfather claimed he could feel their presence, but I’ve never noticed any sensation attached to a crosspoint.”
“How do you know where they are then?” asked Michael.
Cuatémoc seemed slightly abashed as he said, “We stumble upon them. It can be very unsettling.”
Cas couldn’t stop a quick laugh at the image of a wolf jogging along in the moonlight before pulling up short, suddenly finding itself human without warning. At his swiftly stifled chuckle, Cuatémoc stood up and shook out his coat.
“That’s enough for one day, I think. You’ve plenty to be working on until I meet you again.” He set off back into the trees and began the descent toward Castiel’s cave. Cas let Michael follow before taking up the rear.
Cuatémoc spoke as he walked. “Remember, pup. You are the master of this place, and you can bend it to your will. But take that power with caution and respect. You may not be able to injure or kill here, but you can cause pain and fear. Wielded badly, without conscience or compassion, this realm has the capacity to be a place of nightmares.”
“What if I screw it up so badly it can’t be fixed?” Michael asked. He leapt the burbling stream where huge smeared footprints showed Castiel’s previous slide into the water. “Like, could I accidentally mess with reality so much that it won’t hold together?”
Cuatémoc laughed. “Be cautious, respectful, but do not be afraid of your power, pup. This place is ancient. It knows what it is. It feeds off of canines of all kinds, from all eras. It will always swing back to its roots, whatever you or any of us choose to push it toward. The Route is a place of safety for us. You can mold it, but you cannot break it.”
“I want to learn how to host an alpha from one den to another,” said Michael. “How do I bring Dean here to Cas’ wolfscape?”
Cuatémoc stopped near the tumble of large, rounded boulders that formed the path to Cas’ cave. He turned. “You are limited only by the strength of your will, Michael. If you choose to do it, you will do it.”
Cas joined them. The whole way back, as the Omegas discussed the possibilities of the metaphysical world, he scanned the terrain and the sky. He took it in in a way he’d never done before. Perhaps it was all a dream, but it felt more substantial, more vivid, and more visceral than any dream.
Cas took stock of his own designations. He stood situated in his Secondary, layered through his Tertiary, with his Primary carefully observing, taking notes so to speak. He felt concretely himself, and yet his instincts sent him an unfamiliar message. Where he was accustomed to serving always as the protector-general of others, the unchallenged leader of any gathering, here he felt disinclined to try to spearhead anything. He was well and truly content to follow both of the Omegas before him.
Strange.
But not uncomfortable.
He startled out of his revery as Cuatémoc addressed him.
“Alpha Winchester. It was an honor to meet you. You’ve constructed a robust den, one any wolf would find hospitable. I expect we will run into one another again at some point. Do feel free to explore your new valley and get to know its people. You should find them warm toward wolves unless you decide to make them prey, of course. Your choice.”
“Omega,” Cas said with a nod. “The honor is mine. Thank you for taking an interest in Michael. We are intrigued by your assertion that this fellowship between our Packs may lead to a societal re-balancing. That is quite a claim, one I am invested in seeing through. Please let me know how I may be of service.”
Michael shot him a baffled look but said nothing.
In short order, the old wolf took his leave, and Cas found himself alone with Michael in the shade of a sun setting behind the mountains.
Michael huffed. “Now that’s something I didn’t expect.”
“What’s that?” Cas asked.
“You. Drinking the whole jug of Kool-aid in one go.”
Cas chuckled. “It’s hard to argue with a man who can back up his claims to the extent he just did. Besides, I don’t see any harm in seeing this through to find out where it can take us. Come on, let’s grab a laptop and get some notes down before we forget the details.”
Michael followed Cas back into the cave and curled up under his chin upon a soft pile of old quilts.
“Did you get a chance to notice the language he was speaking?” Cas asked into the darkness.
Sleepily Michael asked, “Language?”
“He communicates metaphysically, Michael, in such a way that our brains translate whatever he has to say into words we understand, even down to delicate nuance. It’s fascinating.”
Michael hummed a response, hoping as sleep took him that Cas didn’t mean to discuss the point just at that moment. Wadded quilts were comfortable enough for a wolf in a cave, but back at home, Michael had bamboo sheets and a fluffy comforter to snuggle into.
He couldn’t help feeling smug at his Alpha’s rapid capitulation to the charm and credibility of the Bolivian Omega. He’d tried to tell them all, and no one truly believed him. It only took one visit for Cas to determine there was a way forward for their mission here.
And Michael’s wolf was going to lead the way.
Castiel had deferred to them both.
To Michael.
He smiled to himself in satisfaction as he adjusted the pillow under his head and let sleep take him into a warm dark place even wolves didn’t tread.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Through the front door, Patience and Jess stumbled together, clutching shopping bags and laughing. Jess turned in the doorway and waved to Charlie as the redhead tooted the horn of her little yellow Gremlin and sped off in a shower of gravel with Jo in her passenger seat.
“We should do that more often,” Jess said on a lingering chuckle. “They’re so much fun. I haven’t laughed that hard in ages.”
“Hand me your bag; I’ll put it in your room.” Patience started for the stairs, but Jess declined, instead taking the handled paper shopping bag from the alpha.
“I’ve got to go up anyway. Why don’t you see if there’s any lunch left. I’m starving.” Jess headed up the stairs. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Over the last couple of years Jess and Patience had bonded unpredictably as fast friends, as had Patience and Kali. The young alpha served as an unlikely pivotal go-between for the women of the Pack, drawing them together where they had once been somewhat fractured. She tended to lead with compassion and calm consideration, and that made her a trusted confidant.
For all of them except Sarah.
Sarah and Patience hadn’t bonded.
They didn’t antagonize one another, but there was little love lost, even as the rest of the Pack leaned in to Patience’s cool surety.
So Patience pulled up short upon entering the parlor and finding Sarah curled up in a cushioned chair by the window.
“Oh. Um. Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can go around.” She made to turn on her heel and seek a route to the kitchen by the back stairs.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sarah told her, closing her book. “The kitchen is literally thirty feet away. And anyway, I was just leaving.”
Patience waved her off. “Don’t go. I’m not staying, just passing through. Is there anything left from lunch? We haven’t eaten.”
“I have no idea,” Sarah told her stiffly. “I haven’t been in the kitchen all day. Caterers have been in there prepping for Alpha’s birthday party, so Tony’s in a mood. You’ll have to look for yourself.” She unfurled from the chair and strode past Patience, heading for anywhere else, anywhere the alpha wasn’t. But as she drew abreast, picking up speed, Patience caught her arm, halting her.
Patience was struck with a startling sense that the moment might have high potential to help her resolve something that was growing more and more urgent over the last few months.
Somehow the time never seemed right to talk to Sarah, to try to bridge the gap between them. For Adam’s sake. But perhaps now? She was in good spirits after a morning with friends shopping for a gift for the Pack Alpha’s birthday. The sun was high, and the air was clear.
Maybe the time was ripe to clear more air.
Patience let her arm go and said, “Don’t you think we’ve had enough of this, beta?”
“Beg your pardon?” Sarah unceremoniously rubbed her arm where the unwelcome grip had slowed her. “Of what?”
Patience sighed. “Look, I get it. You don’t like me. You don’t have to. But there’s no reason we have to be at odds all the time. If we can’t be friends, can we not at least be civil?”
Sarah scoffed. “We’re not uncivil. Do I not give you the respect an alpha is entitled to? But I’m not going to bow and kiss your ring if that’s what you’re after. If you’ll excuse me, alpha.”
Patience cut off her exit. “Please, Sarah. We need to talk.”
“Pass,” Sarah quipped and tried to dodge the alpha’s block.
“Please.”
“What?” Sarah snapped. “I’ve got nothing to say to you. I’m not trying to steal your mate; I haven’t even spoken to him in weeks. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“But that’s just it, Sarah. Adam needs you,” Patience told her breathlessly.
“Come again?”
Patience swallowed and strolled into the parlor to flounce into one of the deep chairs. “I’ve known for a while now. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it.” She looked up at Sarah, frozen in the entryway, staring at her. “He loves you. And I’m not enough for him. I can’t give him what you can. And all the while you’re right down the hall. I know what he feels for you.”
“This is a cruel joke.”
“I swear it’s not.”
From the kitchen they could hear Jess rooting about in the refrigerator, chatting with a terse Tony.
Patience glanced that way and then faced her rival again. “Look, I know you have a Dominant already. I don’t know how Sam’s going to feel about it, but I’ve talked to Jess. She said that it won’t be an issue if you and Adam want to… She said you can continue on as before with her and Sam no matter what happens with Adam.”
“If Adam and I want to what, exactly? Fuck?” Sarah approached but didn’t sit. “I’m not interested in a purely sexual relationship with your mate, alpha. I have access to all the sex I can handle as it is—more than I can really handle if you want the truth.”
Jess came through the arch with a plate in her hand and a mouthful of something. “Sandwich?” she suggested once she swallowed her bite. “There’s turkey. I put your bag on your bed, alpha.” But she paused as she scented the air and realized the mood between the women in the room was tense. “Um, did I interrupt something? Is this about Adam?”
“You didn’t interrupt,” said Sarah. “I was just heading back to your house, Jess. Would you mind giving me a ride?” She collected the book she’d abandoned, clearly done talking and ready to flee.
“He loves you, Sarah,” Patience told her, and Sarah pulled up short. She let her eyes fall closed. “He’s never going to stop loving you.”
“What difference does that make?”
Jess set the plate down and held a hand out to Sarah. “Just listen to them, beta. They’re offering you a chance here.”
Sarah stiffened. “He’s not a parcel to be traded back and forth or some gadget to be regifted if it doesn’t go with your décor. He’s not even here! You waited to bring this up until he was out of state at a training seminar? What the hell? I’m not your couple’s therapy counselor! Whatever’s fucked up in your relationship isn’t my job to fix! Figure it out! He’s your true-mate!”
“He is,” Patience agreed fervently. “But he’s not fulfilled with me. He needs you!”
“Too bad! He made his choice before he even knew you!”
Jess whimpered softly. “Sarah…” She took a step toward her riled Packmate.
“No,” Sarah cut her off. “No, I’m not doing this. Find him a girlfriend or something.” She skirted Jess and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Well, that went well,” Patience grumbled. “I told you she wouldn’t go for it. She doesn’t trust me.”
“Give her time,” Jess advised. “She was crushed when they broke up. But she still loves him; I’m certain of it.”
Patience let her head fall against the back of the chair, forcing her gaze upward. “His wolf is so perfectly suited to mine, Jess. He unlocked something in me I never even knew was there, something my birth pack would have tried to beat out of me. But his Omega needs something I can’t give him, something not alpha. And I can feel him longing for her. I can feel it. Whatever they were together, it’s left a hole inside him that isn’t healing.”
“This is the right decision, Patience. I know it is.”
“I don’t even like her.”
“You don’t have to like her,” Jess pointed out. Then she chuckled, “I’ve never liked her all that much either, but she makes Sam come alive. Our scenes since she joined us have been red-hot. She’s willing to try anything, and she’s not afraid to fuck up. She’s generous, and she’s observant… She’s endlessly pliable.”
Patience scowled. “If she and Adam get back together, she’ll probably drop out of your threesome. I don’t see Sarah wanting to keep that up with a full-on boyfriend at home.”
Jess paused, thinking. “I suppose that’s a risk that’s worth taking. I know I would miss her. Sam will probably be devastated. But we have to do something. Adam is really starting to flounder. Everyone notices.”
“Everyone blames me, you mean.”
“No.” Jess set a hand on Patience’s and squatted before her to meet her at eye level. “No, no one blames you, alpha. No one blames your wolf or your gender nonconformity or whatever else you’re telling yourself. We all know how hard it is. We’ve all been there. The first few years newly-Mated is always an adjustment, and even for True-Mates, it’s not easy. The Universe knows why you two were mates, but it doesn’t exactly provide you a user’s manual to explain itself.”
Patience studied her face as if desperate to believe her but finding it impossible. She said, “I’ve been over it and over it in my head. I hate it, but I keep coming back to the same thing. He loves her. And by all accounts, when they were together, he was well balanced. Somehow, our Secondaries don’t quite match up though. I mean, I can force it, make him adjust to my alpha’s preferences and get him Released, but it’s not seamless the way it is between our wolves. But when he was with Sarah, apparently it all just flowed. I don’t know what else I can do.”
“What have you discussed with Adam? Does he know you’re throwing Sarah a line?” Jess sat back on her heels.
“I haven’t been able to bring it up,” Patience admitted. “It feels wrong to offer him hope before I know that Sarah is even interested.”
Jess frowned. “That seems backward to me. He’s Omega, but he’s still a person. He’s not going to appreciate you handing him off like leftovers that you no longer feel like eating.”
“That’s not what I’m doing!” Patience snapped from his wolf. Then they calmed themselves with a long, slow breath, eyes closed. “That’s not what I’m doing.” After a couple of moments, Patience rooted herself back in her Primary and shook her head.
“We’re all wrong as a couple in so many ways, Jess. Alphas are supposed to Mate in their thirties to much younger Omegas. The Top/Bottom dynamic is supposed to get a boost from the age difference. And here I am, almost half a decade younger than my mate, and his wolf into age-play. It’s a mess! He’s more educated than me, more experienced, more world-wise. He makes almost three times what I do, but I’m supposed to be his alpha! He’s in a different league than I am, and I can’t catch up no matter how much I study. No matter which way I look at it, he needs Sarah.”
Jess gave her a tight smile and squeezed her hand. “I’m glad to hear you say that, alpha. I know it’s hard, that it hurts. But it’s the right choice, I’m sure of it. Only, you have to talk to your mate about all this before you blindside Sarah again. It’s not going to work for you to smoosh their faces together and try to make them kiss. You need to let them work that out for themselves.”
Jess laughed softly. “This feels like déjà vu. I swear we all went through the same exact thing when Michael and April were circling each other.”
Patience scowled. “I suppose I’ll have to let Cas in on what’s happening, what might happen. Like he doesn’t have enough on his plate right now.”
Jess stood upright and looked down at her friend. “For this, he’ll make time. I promise.”
“Jess. Thank you. For being a friend I can trust. I may have just fucked everything up with Sarah, but maybe it’ll all come right in the wash anyway. It’s not as if we have a strong bond to screw up.”
Jess nodded firmly and tugged on Patience’s hand. “Let’s grab some lunch and see if we can track Cas down. He’s bound to be around here somewhere, probably hiding, hoping his birthday will pass before we find him. He’ll know the best way to proceed.”
Patience glanced longingly at Jess’ abandoned sandwich, but she followed her friend toward the library.
Notes:
I hope you enjoyed. We've moved into the new house, downsized, got all the projects done off the move-in checklist. I'm very hopeful there won't be another months-long break before I can get more chapters done. I hate letting this story just hang there unfinished.
To everyone who commented last chapter but didn't get a reply, please know that I read and appreciated every word. I'm in a place where my spoons run short very often, so I may not go back and answer those comments. But they mean the world to me. I love everyone who's still reading. I love you all so much.
Thanks, as always to Jenny and to Melanie, Maria, Michelle, & Marilyn.
Chapter 46: Monday, July 1, 2024
Summary:
Cas had a lot of fun at his birthday party last night, maybe too much fun. But the needs of the Pack never rests.
Notes:
I've got more almost ready to post, so you won't have to wait 3 months for the next episode.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
NOW:
“Papa, get up! It’s morning! Wake up!” Emma and Kat scrambled onto the bed and crawled over him. “You’re gonna be late for work! You missed breakfast!”
“Mmmm,” Cas murmured as he cracked his eyes open and found the morning sun slicing the room into painful splinters. He groaned and reached for Kat. “C’mere, pup. Let me explain hangovers to you.”
He hauled her up to lie beside him and then he blew a wet raspberry on her cheek.
“Papa! Yuck!”
Cas chuckled and rolled over, taking his pillow with him to tuck his head under. Emma slid back off the bed and tugged on the covers until her father was bare.
“Tickle him, Kat!” Emma urged.
“Don’t you dare,” Cas warned from beneath the pillow. “Don’t start something you’re not prepared to finish.”
Kat wrested the pillow out of his hands and tossed it to Emma. She stood upright beside his head, looking down at him. “Daddy said to come get you up and to not leave until your feet hit the floor.”
“And neither of you thought to bring me coffee?” Cas asked in dismay. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
Emma poked him in the ribs. “Come on, Papa, get up!”
“Ugh! You two tormentors are the worst!” he groused. But he rolled over and sat up. “Who’s in charge here anyway? What’s an Alpha got to do to get a little respect?”
“Get up, get up, get up!” Kat bounced on the bed in rhythm with her chanting. “You missed the whole morning!”
“If I get up, will you promise to bring the volume back down to your inside voices?” His head throbbed. Reaching for his phone on the bedside table, Cas checked for messages. He had fifteen or so, but nothing urgent. He thumbed a quick text to Mick that he would work from home and to reschedule all of his in-person meetings.
Emma climbed up onto the bed to help Kat tug on his hands and get him moving. Cas decided Tylenol was more important in the moment than coffee, and he let his feet find the rug, let his hands rub the sleep out of his eyes.
“Okay, okay, I’m up, you monsters. Go tell your dad I need breakfast and coffee. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Dad said not to let you go back to bed,” Emma asserted with a sassy cant to her hip.
“Yes, well, Dad isn’t the boss of me,” Cas told them. “Now scoot.”
Kat leapt from the bed, getting some substantial air and landing with a thump on both feet. “I’ll race you!” she hollered to her sister as she vanished around the bedroom door.
Cas winced at the volume.
“Hey! That’s cheating!” Emma exclaimed. Oblivious to her father’s pain, she tore off after Kat before Cas could even get in a word about not racing in the house. The man sat on the edge of his bed, bare feet massaging the plush rug. He massaged his temple too and gritted his teeth.
Birthday parties were stupid.
Birthday parties where most of the gifts contained alcohol were egregiously stupid. What had he been thinking? He wasn’t a pup anymore. Why did he insist upon opening and tasting each bottle? Slowly, he leaned forward over his feet and then stumbled, hunkered over, into the bathroom to splash water on his face. His reflection, green-tinged and judgmental, told him he was an idiot.
He would hear the same from Michael, he was certain.
Out in the hall, through his open bedroom door, Cas heard the walloping thumps of more of his children tearing down the hall after each other, shouting about whatever amusement they’d found, and the sound made him grimace. He stood for a moment in the middle of the bathroom, deciding whether a shower would lessen or increase the pain in his head when a pair of arms settled around his waist and a scruffy cheek nuzzled the side of his throat.
“Hey, old man,” Dean greeted softly. “Thought you were gonna sleep straight through, and here I made you a perfect day after breakfast, all greasy eggs and sausages and one of Tony’s famous Hair of the Dog concoctions.” He kissed Cas’ jawline. His lips were warm and soft.
“I drank too much last night,” Cas explained needlessly. “My head is throbbing. Sending the pups in to rouse me was particularly cruel, Dean.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean chuckled as he turned Cas in his arms until they faced each other. “I get so few chances to really shove your face in it, you have to let me have a little fun. Besides, they volunteered. Everyone missed you at breakfast. It’s bad enough that April had to leave; the twins thought you had snuck out last night and gone on a business trip without telling them.”
“Oh,” Cas said as his stomach dropped. “Dean, I hate that that’s their first assumption. I should go find them.”
“Let’s get you functional first. Meds, then shower, then breakfast, then puppy piles.” Dean left him to dig in the cabinet for pain tablets and fill a glass at the sink. Cas turned the shower on and then opened his mouth to let Dean deposit two Tylenol on his tongue. “And get some water in you too, Alpha. You forgot water last night. That’s why you feel like shit.”
Did Dean have to speak so loudly?
“Is that what it was? I thought it was the alcohol.” Cas slipped into the shower and let the hot water ease the tension across his shoulders.
“Pretty sure it was the lack of water,” Dean argued. “I crawled as far into the gutter as you did, and I’m not zombie-ing around like the crypt keeper this morning.”
“Be very careful, my love,” Cas chided over the flowing water. “My sense of humor fades when I am hungover.”
Dean grinned at him, but he let it go. “You’re not missing anything critical up at The Facility this morning?” he asked. “Do I need to make any phone calls for you?”
“Nothing I can’t reschedule,” Cas said. Soap suds ran down his flank, over his knees, and to the drain. “Mick knew better than to schedule me anything urgent the day after my birthday.”
Dean smirked. “Finally starting to get him trained, huh?”
Cas deadpanned with his hair plastered to his head. “I honestly don’t know what you have against the man. He’s a competent assistant and bodyguard.”
“He still uses a fake English accent, dude, even after we all figured out that he’s Irish.” Dean let distaste show on his face. “That doesn’t seem a little pretentious to you?”
Cas shrugged and turned into the showerhead to rinse the soap off his face and out of his hair. “His accent makes no difference to me, nor do his reasons for adopting one.” He smoothed the layer of water off his face.
“Whatever,” said Dean. “Point is, if he’s hiding his origin, what else is behind the curtain we don’t know about?” He handed Cas a towel as the man stepped out of the shower. “He could be a fucking terrorist.”
Cas chuckled with no humor and let the soft towel rescue his eyes from the stabbing of the bathroom lights. “There is nothing behind the curtain. I already know his full life story, and he’s only a terrorist by technicality. The British Empire has much to answer for after all.”
“He’s IRA?”
“He’s an executive assistant,” Cas replied coolly. “The IRA was decommissioned almost twenty years ago.”
Dean whistled softly. “You do have a type, don’t you?”
Cas responded with a sigh. He didn’t want to talk about Mick. In fact, he didn’t want to talk at all. What he really wanted was to slide back into bed with the drapes pulled and the sound-proof door closed to nurse his pain, his mate and husband tucked up against him.
But April was off to LA again, and Dean was in a Machiavellian mood.
Maybe Michael would agree to cuddle with him?
Dean disappeared into the closet and emerged not with Cas’ work suit, but with an old pair of jeans and a soft henley. Cas slumped briefly, prepared to stand firm against taking the day off when so many projects needed him, but Dean set his jaw, raised both brows, and mutely drew a line in the sand. He held the jeans out to his husband.
Submissives don’t make demands in Castiel’s household.
But…
Cas took the jeans and trudged back into the closet to dig through his bureau for underwear. When he emerged half dressed, Dean kissed his cheek tenderly and handed him another glass of water. Then Dean shook the shirt out, tucked his hands inside, and held it out, oriented for Cas to slide easily into it.
“There you go. Feel a little better?”
“Marginally more human,” Cas agreed. “Still queasy.”
“Come on down. Breakfast will help with that.” Dean led him out by the hand. “And I was kinda hoping I could sit with you while you eat.”
Cas frowned. “Of course, Dean. Why wouldn’t you?” He paused on the landing to the stairs. Dean got him going again.
“No, I mean, sit for you. I know you feel like yesterday’s garbage. I know you’re in no condition to dominate anything right now. So say no if you can’t face it just yet. I know I can be a lot…”
“Dean.”
“Just, I’m a little twitchy. And Michael’s got his hands full with preschoolers. Sam’s at work. I even thought about asking Kali, but she’s got some errand or other…”
“Dean.”
“Yeah?” They reached the bottom of the stairs together and paused there.
“I would find it very soothing for you to kneel for me and give me comfort while I eat.”
“You sure?”
“You may be a lot,” said with finger quotes, “but they are all good things. Please desist skirting the razor’s edge of self-deprecation and warm me up a plate. While I’m happy to assist you by giving you something to appease your oral fixation, the screaming that would result from my having to punish you for negative self-talk would be beyond my capacity to bear this morning. Let’s try to get through today with a minimum of screaming. I’m getting enough of that from the pups already.”
Dean smirked and led the way to the kitchen.
Cas followed, watching the way Dean’s hips shifted, the way his ass rounded out the fabric of his jeans, and the way his bowed legs carried him, bare feet comfortable in a way that announced Dean felt completely at home. He carried tension up in his shoulders as always. Cas knew exactly what to look for in Dean’s body language, what kind of scent meant what level of stress. But at his core, beneath the turbulence of his Submissive needs, Dean himself was solid.
He was happy.
Cas just hoped that this bizarre new wolfscape technique of scaring the living daylights out of Dean’s Tertiary wolf without harming his physical body would prove as effective as Michael’s guide swore it would. Cas couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Sarah stood up from the table as the two men entered the kitchen. At the back hallway, Adam lowered his eyes and toed backward, disappearing up to the second floor and presumably his bedroom. The scent of unresolved angst spiked the air between them like heat lightning on a summer evening.
Sarah, too, lowered her eyes. She muttered, “Excuse me,” and vanished into the parlor. Dean’s eyes followed Adam while Cas’ followed Sarah. Then they met one another’s gaze. Dean shrugged. Cas’ head throbbed.
A problem for sure, and a growing one at that, but one that Cas was working hard to alleviate. Mostly behind the scenes. He eased himself into his chair. At least the bay window was behind him so the brilliance of the merciless sun wasn’t right in his eyes.
Dean slid a plate of greasy breakfast foods in front of Cas and poured him a mug of coffee from the full carafe. Cas took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them and nodded to his Sub.
Dean’s eyes sparkled. He efficiently shed his clothing and took his place upon his pillow under the table. In short order, Dean had opened Castiel’s jeans. Warmth enveloped his cock. A soft, huffed breath warmed the inside of his thigh. Stubble pricked at the delicate skin of his groin. And Cas let his eyes fall closed again.
For a few moments, he didn’t move to eat. He let his knees widen, giving Dean more room, inviting him closer. The Sub snuggled in tightly and wrapped his hands around Castiel’s calves. His breath came steadily through his nose.
Cas felt him settle.
Waiting until his own breathing fell into rhythm with Dean’s, Cas picked up his fork and began to eat.
Such a simple exercise, cock-warming. One of the very first things young Subs are trained to do, in fact. Many Profound Dominants Cas knew eschewed the practice because of its simplicity, saying it offered their Subs too little of a challenge to be worthwhile.
But to Cas, it sparked an intense sense of raw power. His wolf preened under the attention. His alpha reveled in the gentle tactile pleasure. He felt omnipotent with a full-grown Deep alpha at his feet, mouth agape, working to take as much of Cas’ mass as he could hold and remaining passive to Castiel’s whim.
That and the simple eroticism of having a warm mouth on his cock.
How could Dean possibly have believed Cas wouldn’t jump at the offer this morning, headache or otherwise? There was no better medicine in the world.
Michael emerged from the back stairway with two whiny pups at his heels.
“Because I said so,” he told them both, eliciting full wails from the twins…
…wails that stopped instantly upon their spying Papa at the table.
“Papa!” they chorused over one another, and they dashed toward him. Cas wrapped his arms around his pups, kissed both of their brows, reminded them that he loved them infinitely, straightened their hair affectionately, then patted their bums to gently shoo them back to their O-Pop.
“What’s on the summer agenda for today?” he asked Michael. “Something fun and educational?”
“We’re going to the library and the nature preserve,” Michael told him. “Hopefully, all of us will be able to go. Right now, it looks as if a couple of pups may end up staying home and missing the outing. Pups don’t get to go hiking if they don’t obey their parents, after all.” He met his children’s eyes with a meaningful glance before pouring himself some coffee.
But there was a light and gentle tone to his words. Michael knew he couldn’t expect perfect behavior from his preschoolers. He was confident he could bring them around to better moods before it was time to leave, making moot the threat to leave either of them behind. Last night’s party had messed with everyone’s sleep schedules, and the twins were too young to bounce back from that instantly.
“Not going into work?” Michael asked. He leaned against the counter and blew gently across his mug to cool the surface.
“My second-in-command grounded me,” Cas replied with a touch to Dean’s hair. “He seems to think I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“O-Pop, I’m thirsty!” Mary Ellen reminded him.
Cas winced again. “Let’s try to keep our voices softer today, Emmy,” he suggested. “Papa’s head hurts, and shouting makes it worse.”
Sean sidled back up to him and leaned in for a cuddle against his side. Cas put a welcoming arm around his son. With wide eyes, Sean beseeched Cas, “O-Pop said we gotsta pick up all the toys in the playroom, but how come Jimmy and Idgie don’t have to help?”
Cas smiled. “Did Jimmy help make the mess?”
“Uh-huh,” Sean said, looking downright angelic in his fervor.
Michael closed the refrigerator door after removing a jug of apple juice. “That isn’t true, Micheleen,” he said. “Jimmy hasn’t been in the playroom since the weekend. That mess is all yours and Emmy’s.” He poured juice into two small cups and set them on the island where the pups could clamber onto chairs to reach them. “Now, you can buckle down with me and get it tidied up quick as a wink and then come with us to the library, or you can dig your heels in, throw a fit, and stay here with Daddy while the rest of us go have fun.”
Mary Ellen spoke up, “Kat said it’s supposed to be Nanny Kate who picks up the toys. How come we gotta do it?”
“Kat said what?” Cas asked in surprise. He felt Dean shift beneath the table. Mary Ellen transferred her gaze from Michael to Cas, cocking her head, puzzled.
“She said it’s Nanny Kate’s job to pick up. Cause she’s s’posed to look after us.” Mary Ellen took a long drink, emptied the cup, and climbed down from the high stool. Carefully, she carried the other drink to her brother and handed it off. Cas tapped Dean’s forehead to signal him to retreat. With a regretful sigh, Cas zipped up.
Sean stood sipping his juice, taking no notice of Papa’s suddenly sour demeanor, but Mary Ellen paled. She took a step back. Cas stood and took her by the hand. “We have something we need to straighten out, sweetheart. Come with me.”
“Cas, I can take care of this,” Michael told him. He set down his coffee and moved to intercept them.
“I want them to hear it from me. By all means though, come along. A united front will make the message more meaningful. Where are the older pups?”
“Game room,” Michael said, falling in with the Alpha as Dean scrambled to dress. “They’re playing Minecraft.”
Dean fastened his pants and then scooped Sean into his arms and hit the stairs at a jog.
In the doorway to the game room upstairs, Cas said, “Pause your game, please. I need your attention, all of you.” The pups obeyed instantly. Jimmy and Emma lay sprawled on the floor with game controllers in their hands, and Kat sat on the couch opposite Alex, watching their progress. But they all sat up and turned away from the screen at the appearance of their Alpha. In the corner, Kate tapped away at a keyboard. She too, straightened and stopped working. She lowered the laptop screen with a soft snick.
“It has come to my attention that some of my children may not correctly grasp the intended role of your nanny in my household. I mean to clear that up right now.”
“Papa?” Emma asked. Four sets of eyes found Kate and then refocused on Cas. Dean set Sean down and nudged him toward his siblings. Cas lowered himself into a chair and gestured for the pups to gather around him. Dean and Michael settled against the wall. Kate frowned but stayed where she was.
“Nanny Kate is nice, Papa,” Jimmy told his father. “She takes good care of us. She even helps me with the really hard homework and stuff.”
“And she lets us have a cookie after lunch,” Alex added. “Not the yucky ones…the good ones with chocolate chips.”
Cas nodded patiently. “Yes, yes, I know. Nanny Kate is an important member of our Pack, and she takes exceptional care of all of you. She loves you very much, as I know you do her. But I want to discuss something with all of you for a moment, so please listen.”
“Yes, Papa,” they chorused.
Cas continued, “Nanny Kate has volunteered to help care for you pups when we, your parents, need a helping hand. She does not have to do this work for us. Do you understand?”
They all nodded eagerly.
So Cas went on. “And we are very grateful to her for all the things she does everyday to show how much each of you means to her. She serves your meals, helps you dress, helps you bathe. She teaches you things and offers you hugs and takes you to interesting places. She saves the Spiderman band-aids just for you, Ace. And, Jimmy, she let you put Batman stickers all over her bathroom mirror. Kat, didn’t she help you plant flowers that you can see from your bedroom window? She is patient and kind, and she adores you all. Is that not so?”
“Uh-huh,” they agreed. Alex said, “Yes, sir.”
“Nanny Kate’s primary obligation is to help keep you safe and healthy and to support your growth. This she is exceedingly good at, and we trust her because she has shown herself to be trustworthy.” Cas drew himself up a little in his chair. His face hardened enough to secure their absolute attention. “It is not, however, her responsibility to clean up after you. She is not a servant. Listen to me, all of you. In this house we have rules. Pack Rule number four says that each of us is responsible for keeping our home tidy and well-tended. Whoever makes a mess is responsible for cleaning that mess up themselves. That is our Rule. Do you all understand me?”
Alex, Jimmy, and Emma frowned in puzzlement at the stern reprimand against some sin they hadn’t committed. But Kat lowered her face and chewed her lip in consternation. Cas sought each of their eyes in turn with brows raised. One by one, they answered in the affirmative. But Kat wouldn’t meet his eye.
“Kathleen?”
Kat mumbled under her breath.
“Look at me, Kat, and speak up,” Cas corrected.
“She’s just an Omega,” Kat replied with an air of repeating herself. She finally met his eye, and her gaze held stony defiance.
As the Alpha fell utterly motionless, Kat’s siblings shifted away from her. Sean retreated to the wall and took hold of Michael’s leg. Mary Ellen followed him, taking up a mirrored position by Dean. Alex, Jimmy, and Emma slowly scooted to the side, out of the line of fire.
For there was fire in Papa’s eyes now.
“Just?” he challenged Kat. “What do you mean by that?”
Kat faltered for a moment, glancing toward her sister briefly and then back to her own lap.
Cas saw her jawline twitch as she worked out what to say.
“Omegas are supposed to obey and serve,” Kat stated with as much adamance as she could muster under Cas’ furrowed brow. “It’s how nature made them.”
“Is that so?” Cas asked. “And whom do you suppose Omegas are meant to obey, pup?”
Kat looked up. Cas could see the wheels grind within her mind. “Um, other wolves and stuff?” she tried feebly.
“So, to your thinking,” said Cas, “by leaving your belongings strewn all over the house for Nanny Kate to pick up, you’re simply reinforcing the natural order of things? Is that it?”
Kat knew it was a trap. She knew she was no match for her father with his impossible questions. But stubbornly, she set her jaw and made no answer.
“What about Monique?” asked Alex, trying to break the tension and find a solution that would allow his sister to save face. “Isn’t it her job to clean up? And Alfie? Aren’t they servants?”
Cas startled. “Servants? No. They are household staff, Alexander. And their job is to maintain the house, keep its surfaces free of dirt and dust, manage sheets and towels and supplies and the like, so that we can live here comfortably. It is not their job to pick up your toys and books and shoes from wherever you left them. Tidiness is your job.”
Cas’ head throbbed. Alex nodded silently at the chastisement and settled back, clearly regretting intervening on Kat’s behalf. Cas turned back to his daughter.
“We’ve discussed this before, Kat. I’m losing my patience with you. Omegas are not at your beck and call. You are a child. Adults do not answer to you, no matter what their designation. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Papa,” she whispered.
“And we’ll have no more of this entitled attitude. I’m not concerned that any of you make messes. Nor are Daddy, O-Pop, or Mommy. Messes happen sometimes. But when you do make a mess, I expect you to take responsibility for it and clean it up yourself. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to expect some help. It’s not okay to walk away and expect an Omega to follow behind you.”
Kat lifted her chin. “Carolina said we’re rich, and rich people have servants to clean up for them. She said her Pack doesn’t have a nanny at all. Or a butler even. She said rich people make other people do their work for them. She said that’s what Omegas are for.”
Cas sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Dean smothering a chuckle. Michael rolled his eyes, obviously wanting to jump in and explain to the pup.
Cas held a hand out to Kat and drew her to him. He lifted her onto his knee. “In this Pack,” he explained, “Carolina doesn’t define our values. In this Pack, pups mind their parents so that they may grow into good citizens and into healthy, independent adults.”
“Are we rich?” Kat asked softly.
Cas nodded but followed it up with, “We are very fortunate to have access to whatever we may need and much that we want. But far more importantly, we are wealthy in family and friends, in health and love and affection and support. No amount of money could ever make up for a missing Pack support system if we didn’t have that.”
Cas let Kat digest that for a moment. “Healthy, supportive Packs don’t build themselves, Kat. They must be diligently maintained. They only hold together if the value system—the way the wolves in them think and believe and behave—provides the right kind of environment for all of the Pack members to thrive. If we take advantage of the Omegas in our Pack, make them into our servants, take them for granted, or abuse them, then our Pack would stop being the safe place we want it to be. And not only for the Omegas, but for everyone.”
He watched her to see if his words were making an impression. She seemed to be thinking.
“It’s true that Omegas must obey betas and alphas in some things, just as it’s true that pups must obey adults in some things. But there are important boundary lines between safe, healthy relationships with Omegas and outright abuse. I will not allow anyone in my Pack to be taken advantage of. Nor will I allow any of my pups to grow up to be entitled or unkind.”
“What’s entitled?” asked Alex.
Michael answered, “It means someone who expects things to always go their way without any acknowledgment of their own duties and responsibilities to others.”
“Well said,” Alpha agreed. “But for the split infinitive.”
Michael rolled his eyes.
Cas focused back on his pups. “That starts right here with the rule that you pick up your own belongings, that you take accountability for your own spaces. So, to help the message sink in, you will be assisting the twins in tidying up the playroom. All of you, please.”
“Aww, Papa!” Emma protested. “That’s their mess!”
“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “Emmy dumped the bins over on purpose!”
Cas smirked. “Two-year-olds will two-year-old. But perhaps spending some time on someone else’s mess will help you appreciate how inappropriate it is to expect Nanny Kate to pick up after you.”
“But that wasn’t us,” said Jimmy. “That was just Kat.”
“You pups are a miniature pack of your own,” Michael put in. “In a way. I expect you to stick together. Watch each other’s backs and help each other out. You heard Papa. Go get it done and then we’ll head to the library.”
Ever practical, Emma was the first to accept that there was no arguing their way out of the work. She stood up, took Mary Ellen’s hand, and led her skipping out of the room. “C’mon!” she shouted to her siblings over her shoulder.
Kate gathered her laptop and began to follow to oversee the work, but Dean stopped her. “I got this,” he said. “You have a paper due.” Dean filed out with the rest of the pups. He swung Sean onto his shoulders and followed his gaggle to the messy playroom, ducking at the door to ensure Sean’s head cleared.
Kate made her way toward the kitchen where it would be quiet this late in the morning. A slight blush colored her cheeks and ears, and a quiet, “Thanks, Cas,” slipped out as she passed him.
Kat was the last to trudge out. She looked resentful, but she obeyed. She didn’t look back. Cas expected Dean had his hands full getting real cooperation from her, but he trusted Dean could handle it.
Cas looked at Michael and shrugged. “Think any of that got through this time?”
“I wish I could tell,” Michael replied. “Her views about Omegas are really starting to worry me. I don’t know what more we can do. We already model the values we want them to take up. It’s not like anyone in this house treats the O’s as servants. No one’s domineering. None of us are assholes to each other. Where is this coming from? It can’t be all her school friends. She and Emma have the same friends.”
Cas shook his head as he stood up. “I hate to say it, but I suspect she’s getting it from her wolf. There is definitely something stirring behind her eyes lately.” Cas rubbed his face with a hand. He still felt queasy.
“Why would her wolf target Omegas?” asked Michael.
Cas pursed his lips for a moment. Then he said, “She can’t sense Tertiaries yet, Michael. She can feel the growing power in her own, but she cannot smell anyone else’s. At this age, her perception of rank is two-dimensional. All she sees is the Secondary, where Omegas are at the bottom.”
“You say that,” Michael put in, taking a spot on the couch and leaning on his elbows, “but they all respond to my wolf. And yours. They can sense Dominance.”
“Yes, but what they sense is subconscious. They don’t know what it is they’re reacting to. It’s just instinctive. They won’t be able to distinguish relative levels of Tertiary power consciously for years yet. Kat’s wolf is in there, demanding someone sit at its feet, and all she can conjure up is the Secondary scale. So, Omegas it is.”
Michael blew out a heavy breath. “At least she isn’t bullying the little ones.”
“Yes, but we should be watchful for that now that I’ve taken Omegas off the table.”
“She’s going to keep us on our toes, Cas. Sometimes, I find myself so focused on Kat that the others are half-neglected.”
Cas joined Michael on the couch, moving the game controller Jimmy had abandoned out of his way. “I don’t believe that. None of our pups are neglected, Omega. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing your best, and it’s an admirable job. Between you, Dean, April, and Kate… and me, I suppose… these pups have everything they need. We cannot fail to respond to the exigence that is developing within Kat’s psyche though. She needs us to set firm boundaries. She will need a great deal of support in the coming years while she learns to manage her wolf.”
“Cas… her wolf. Is it… going to be like yours? Can you tell yet?” Michael struggled with the question. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
Cas licked his lips. “Like mine? I don’t know. You and I both house very powerful wolves, yet they are quite dissimilar in nature.”
“Not that dissimilar,” Michael muttered.
“Kat’s is going to be powerful, Michael. Very powerful. But I cannot characterize its personality. We will deal with whatever comes. Together. Meanwhile, we continue to hold the line concerning our Pack values.”
“We can do that,” Michael agreed. “But no matter how close to the water we lead her, we can’t make her drink. If she doesn’t adopt the values we set out for her, there’s not a lot we can do about it.”
Cas hmmph’d. “Do not underestimate me, Omega. I am quite stubborn and not a little influential. I have rarely met anyone I couldn’t sway.”
“You’ve rarely met anyone who matches you in power though,” Michael reminded him. “If she turns out to be your heir…”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Cas frowned.
Michael paused a moment, thinking. “How will we know, Alpha? About Kat?”
“Know what?”
“If she’s fated to take your place as Alpha?”
Cas choked briefly and then cleared his throat. “Well, first, she would have to Present as an alpha, and that’s years off. She’s more likely to take your place than mine. I expect she’ll be Omega.”
“Do you have any way of knowing or is that a guess?” asked Michael.
Cas sighed. “It’s a guess. I don’t know anything for sure except that her wolf is emerging and is commanding. Or will be.”
Michael eyed him. “With a wolf like that, if she did Present alpha, Cas, she might really be the next species Alpha. Like father, like daughter. It’s a sobering thought. But it’s not outside the realm of possibilities. After all, you took it from your own father.”
A weariness passed over Castiel’s face. “I did. And with no guidance.” He rubbed at his face again, at his temples and forehead, trying to dispel the headache. “In truth, I’ve been concerned about how best to identify the next Alpha in time to provide support. I’m at a loss unless, as you suggest, they arise from within our Pack. Although the thought makes me worry. I would save my pups that burden if I could.”
“How did you know, sir?” Michael asked, speaking directly to Cas’ Secondary. “When you took the mantle, how did you know it was yours? It’s a big world out there. There could’ve been a higher ranked Alpha somewhere in the world where the Keller test isn’t common.”
Cas hummed an acknowledgment, but he shook his head. “I cannot explain it except to say that I knew. Somewhere around the time I was seventeen—maybe not yet seventeen—I became aware of a strong urge to widen my concept of Pack. As I explored that inclination, I found there to be no bounds to it. Indeed, everyone became my Pack. I used to make a study of people as I walked about in public, challenging myself to admit that since I did not know one person or another, total strangers of course, that they shouldn’t belong to me. But the instinctive answer to every challenge remained solid. Not only were they all Pack, but I was their Alpha.”
He sighed and shrugged. “It felt absurd to me then, maybe less so now, but I was so young, so naïve. I had not yet been tested for rank or rating. I hadn’t even experienced intimacy for myself of any kind but fraternal. And yet, I ascended, as I’ve since learned to name it. Somehow, I surmise, my Secondary had access to the entirety of the Lupin population as it thus stood—to all of their relative strengths and various powers. My alpha designation knew, and my wolf backed it up. And that was that. There was no arguing my way out of it as there is no one to argue against but myself.”
Michael cocked his head. “And all the wolves around you just accepted you as their Top? Did anyone balk?”
Cas chuckled. “Benny did.” He smiled at the memory. “But I suspect that was more for show than any real dissent. I knew then, as you must be aware now that you are following a similar path, that to be of superlative status can easily become a burden upon one’s friends and family. Benny loves me. He has been relentlessly patient with the bells and whistles of my rank. But he was not so complacent as to let it stand without a single challenge. Nor should he have been. No wolf should stand above others without contest.”
Michael scoffed softly. “You took a challenge from Benny as your heavy-weight championship match? There’re probably forty higher-ranked alphas than Benny in a five-mile radius from here. Shouldn’t you face off against the strongest?”
“It’s all academic in the end, Michael,” Cas admitted. “As I said, my alpha knew, as do other alphas. Someone told me once it’s as though my head is ringed with a halo to mark me out.”
“A halo,” Michael repeated, just this side of impertinent. “Right.”
To this, Cas laughed heartily. “Not my word, Omega. Although I admit it’s as pretentious as it can be. Whatever sense it is that wolves use to measure one another can read relative strength well enough to distinguish me as perched upon the pinnacle. Lupins of all nationalities will defer to me, regardless of language or culture. From what I experienced within the wolfscape with you, I expect they will offer you the same courtesy in the metaphysical world. Certainly, I felt righteous in doing so.”
Castiel seemed not to hold any lingering resentment about that night, whether his injury at the claws of a distant stranger, nor that his instinct led him to settle back on his haunches and let Michael lead. He seemed curious about it, not bitter as might be expected. The widening vista of the wolfscape fascinated him, and he was eager to learn more.
Michael only grunted.
“Have you returned there since taking me?” Cas asked with a discerning look.
Michael shrugged. “In my dreams every night, although I often don’t remember the details in the morning. Cuatémoc is usually there, sometimes with his mate. He’s been guiding me, I guess you could say. Not always gently. The lessons of the wolfscape are hard ones. I think I’m making progress though. He’s letting me observe him with his Packmates. He wants me to try to access the wider realm while I’m awake. I thought I should probably check with you and Dean about that before I tried it. I’d like a spotter in case it turns out to be like a VR rig and I go tumbling out a window or something.”
“Surely that’s unlikely,” Cas said with a frown. “I’ve seen you work with April and Gage while awake. You didn’t go stumbling around in a blind fog those times.”
Michael’s face grew worried. “It’s not quite the same thing. Then I was casting my consciousness into their wolfscape while anchoring my body in the physical world. At all times I remained at least subconsciously aware of where my body was and what it was doing. Cuatémoc wants me to let go of all awareness of the physical realm and travel about like a bodiless shadow, no more than a consciousness in the wind. I mean, half the time I’m in there now, he’s no more than a voice in my head—no body, not even a wolf. He’s just there, watching, guiding, pushing, as if he was outside of a snow globe and I in it.”
“What about your first Claim with April? You were pretty deeply entrenched that time. Is that the level of engagement you’re aiming for?”
“Maybe. I guess. I dunno.” Michael shrugged his shoulders. “Probably. I was pretty deep in the metasphere that time. But that just proves I need a spotter. I fucked her, Cas, without even knowing it was happening.”
Cas watched him in silence for a bit. He still couldn’t quite read whence Michael’s discomfort arose. While this whole adventure was something radically new for all of them, Michael’s wolf was not usually careful or reticent to do anything that might display its prowess. At length, Cas drew a deep breath and let it go. Michael would find a way through, just as Castiel had done so many years ago.
At least Michael had a guide of sorts.
“How close are you to wanting to give Dean’s fall a try?” Cas asked instead of poking Michael in the disquiet. “He’s managing himself well, but there is an expiration date imminent. I know you feel it.”
“Yeah. I know.” Michael stood up and crossed the room idly. “I was hoping to learn how to host another alpha into Dean’s den before time ran out on that. That way I could bring you along into Dean’s head, and we could run him together. He always responds better to you than to me in a fall. When I do it, there are always lingering traces that have to be swept up later.”
Cas nodded but said, “If I understand this technique though, it is absolute. Do it well, and Dean should emerge refreshed and completely balanced. Could it be that you’re stalling?”
Michael didn’t answer, he parked himself by the window and stared down at the front lawn.
“Have you told Dean about this new method?” Cas asked into the silence.
Michael shook his head without looking round. “Have you?” he asked Cas.
Cas said, “I rather hoped to follow your lead on this one, Omega. It is your realm, after all. And you’re his mate.”
Michael chuckled. “Coward.”
Cas snorted. He too rose to his feet. “Be that as it may…” He trailed off and headed toward the door. At the doorway to the hall, he paused, one hand on the door jamb. “If you’ll allow a change of subject, I wanted to tell you, Michael. I’m exceedingly pleased with the work you’ve done with the Novak Industries Board of Directors. You seem to have even old Gruning panting at your heels trying to please you. Was it your idea to enter us into the banking sector? I must say, that is a genius idea. The time is ripe, and the benefits would be copious if we do it right.”
“Hmm?” Michael turned. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I thought we could save a lot if we had a way to finance our own initiatives. That thought just naturally widened to opening the operation to a full engagement. There’s a lot of money to made, and we’re well-positioned to get in on it if we move now. Shipping and logistics may be profitable, but it’s too limited. They can still be our bread and butter, but… What?” Michael stopped midsentence at the proud, fond look from his Alpha.
“Just as I said,” Cas told him. “Genius. The board is all a-flutter.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “I’m no genius, Cas. Any of them should have seen the opportunity.”
“But they didn’t,” Cas pointed out. “Only you did.”
Michael grumbled under his breath. “Whatever.”
“Take the compliment, Michael,” Cas said with vehemence, annoyed. He studied Michael and then sighed. He came fully back into the room. “Where is your wolf? Why are you stifling him? This is the sort of moment to let him run free. He should be basking in the praise right now, not pacing in a corner while you pretend you don’t care what anyone on the board thinks. What’s going on with you?”
Michael squared his shoulders up to his Alpha at the tone—a signature Omega shift—and he lowered his eyes. He said nothing.
Cas studied him. “Where’s your confidence, Michael? What’s happened to you? Why are you stuck in your Secondary? Is it Cuatémoc? Is it the wolfscape? Talk to me.”
Michael settled down onto his knees, sitting back on his heels. Cas scowled and dropped opposite the man, mirroring his pose. He lifted Michael’s lowered chin. “What’s going on?” he repeated softly.
Michael licked his lips, but he didn’t look away. It took him a moment, but at last he muttered, “It’s too much for me, Alpha. I can’t do it. I’m not that man.”
Castiel’s face softened. He couldn’t express how strongly he related to everything Michael felt in this moment. He was thrown back over twenty-five years to when he struggled to accept his own ascendency—the scope of it, the risks, the weight of responsibility with no hope of escape. He’d felt the scorching heat of an entire population’s expectations since he was seventeen years old. He knew exactly how Michael was feeling.
“I know it’s frightening,” Cas said. “I know you’re intimidated, worried you’ll let our people down. But you’re not alone. And, Michael, your wolf can bear this weight. I know he can.”
Michael shook his head. “He’ll fuck it up. He’ll run roughshod over everything.”
“Michael, that’s bullshit. You can do this, but you cannot do it without the weight of your wolf. It’s time to trust him. He’s not done anything destructive in years. Whatever you’re sensing from him, perhaps it needs to be given a voice.”
“Cas, he’s drooling over this whole Ayawuascaita thing. I’m holding on by my fingernails here, but I can’t hold him back forever. He’s going to snatch it up and throw it on like a royal ceremonial robe, craft himself a scepter made of Beta-Neutrals, and crown himself king of the underworld!”
Cas chuckled. Michael buried his face in his hands.
“You were afraid of letting him in on your connection with April too, if you recall.” Cas settled onto the floor, sitting at ease with his arms resting on raised knees. “That’s turned out rather well, I think.”
Michael didn’t respond.
“Didn’t it? …Michael?”
Michael whispered, “This is so much bigger.”
“Perhaps,” Cas agreed. “But if you take it one day at a time, one issue at a time, it might turn out to be more manageable than you’re imagining right now.” Cas tilted his head, searching Michael’s face. “I’ve read Bram’s manuscript. As I understand it, the Ayawuascana leads through the power of his wolf, tempered by the humanity of his Omega, Michael. You need them both. You’re going to have to let him out of the kennel, for starters. You’re only going to aggravate him keeping him on lockdown all the time.”
Michael sighed. “I let him scene with Dean, sometimes with Pete. He’s not starving.”
“No, it’s not enough,” Cas argued. “…Not with something this big on the table. This you cannot do without him.”
Dean appeared in the doorway. “Success!” he cheered. “Minimum of whining, a little redirection, a whole playroom set back to rights, and two little ones fast asleep for a quick nap before their outing.” He entered the room with a quizzical expression. “What’s going on?”
Cas rose to his feet and set a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Michael’s going to stop kenneling his wolf and put his full effort into learning his new role in the metaphysical world. You and I are going to support him fully in that, whatever it takes.”
“Meaning?” Dean asked with a probing study of Michael’s mindset from within.
“Get up, Michael,” Cas instructed. He offered a hand. “Meaning—as counterintuitive as it may sound—that I want you putting his Tertiary on a strict diet while seeing that his Secondary gets well-fed. Make sure all of his Omega needs are met promptly, but back off on the Dom/sub scene-play. Make his wolf a little less comfortable in the physical world. Give it no recourse but to find its own food, so to speak.”
Dean’s jaw dropped a little. “Wait. You want me to starve him? I mean, that hasn’t ever worked out well. Plus… not to put too fine a point here, but I’m kinda… not in the best shape myself right now.”
“I’m aware, Dean. We won’t let you down. There is time to manage your fall. Michael has an idea for that.”
Dean’s forehead furrowed. “He does? Can I ask what it is?”
“You may ask,” Cas told him. “But we aren’t answering that question yet. It’s meant to take you by surprise, I think.”
“By surprise. Terrific. Thanks, guys. What I really need right now is anxiety about when and where and how the ax is going to fall.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Actually, Winchester, that’s exactly what you need.”
“Through your wolf, Michael,” Cas corrected.
Michael stood motionless, turned inward, grinding his teeth. And then he shook his head, flexed his fingers a couple of times, and left them without another word.
“I don’t get it,” Dean said as he watched his mate vanish. “He should be eating this up. I would’ve thought he’d be spending every waking moment in the wolfscape, gobbling up whatever it has to offer.”
“It’s a big adjustment,” was all Cas said. He then turned his eyes on his husband with a predatory expression and signaled him onto his knees.
“Eyes on me.”
Dean obeyed instantly. His eyes glazed over. He turned his face upward, losing himself in adoration as Castiel pushed three fingers into his mouth.
“Forget Michael for a few moments. I want you, Pet.” He caressed Dean’s cheek with a thumb while his fingers plunged the back of Dean’s throat. “All this talk of the power of our Tertiary wolves has me hungry. I want to sink my knot into you until you cry.”
Dean garbled a response. Cas buried his fingers into Dean’s hair and gripped with his knuckles. Electricity sparked between them.
“Undress.”
In short order, Dean was nude and crawling toward his Alpha. Cas led him to the couch and laid him out on his back with his knees wide enough to grant access to everything. Lowering to his own knees before his banquet, Castiel nibbled the inside of Dean’s left leg and squeezed his thighs in meaty hands.
“Hands behind your head, Pet.”
Dean’s breath came ragged and coarse from high in his throat.
Cas watched his eyelids flutter, and he felt the familiar zing of connection and pleasure that his beloved’s obedience always engendered. Lust built to a thunderstorm in his veins. He wondered briefly if he should signal to his partner that a brat’s insurgency might suit the timbre of the moment even better, but he discarded that thought quickly. Dean’s current condition, on the edge of losing himself, meant he would have a tight grip on himself. Asking him to let go of that would likely force the fall before it ripened, an outcome that never ended well.
Instead, Cas sent praise through his bond-link and kissed Dean’s belly. He got a flinch at the tender touch. Cas smiled to himself. So it was pain Dean expected, was it?
Interesting.
Cas pushed Dean’s knees higher, wider, and he settled down lower and gently suckled Dean’s right testicle into the warm cushion of his mouth.
Dean moaned and opened his hips, welcoming the sensation. His elbows relaxed out to the side. His every muscle released, and his head collapsed backward against the arm of the couch.
Cas gently took the tender skin of Dean’s sack between his teeth, applying no pressure, just tugging ever-so-gently and then laved his balls with a flattened tongue.
“Very good,” he praised. “Wide open for me.”
Dean’s slightly burgeoning knot formed a shapeless bulge above his balls, and Cas moved his attentions there. He rolled his tongue around it, applied soft suction to its base, and breathed hot air to its moistened form.
Dean shivered.
“Papa, can we have a popsicle? We did all the tidying like you said.”
Idgie stood in the door with her hand on her hip, Jimmy at her shoulder.
“Ask Adam,” Cas replied. “You know better than to interrupt while our wolves are working.”
“Sorry, sir. I forgot.”
“Mm-hm, well, forget again and I’ll tell you no just on principle. Now scoot.”
“Sorry, Papa,” Jimmy told him as the two of them vanished down the hall toward Adam’s room.
Dean whimpered at the jarring interruption. His wolf needed those blue eyes back on him. Cas shushed him gently and licked a stripe up and then down his dick. “Shh, I’ve got you, Pet. Stay focused on me.”
“Will you fuck me now, Sir?”
“You need me to?” Cas whispered.
“Yeah.” Dean seemed to struggle to regulate his breathing. Cas’ tongue was everywhere. His lips. His teeth. His hot breath. The grip of his enormous palms applied a bruising pressure against the backs of Dean’s knees. They pressed high and lifted Dean’s tailbone clear off the couch. Cas shifted lower to tongue Dean’s hole.
“Oh, god!” Dean writhed. Behind his head, Cas could feel Dean’s fingers laced together, clutching the back of his head for all he was worth.
“Mmm,” Cas hummed happily. Hangover forgotten, he went to work. Diligent work. Lips, tongue, and teeth set about rimming his husband with the fervor of a man half his age. He explored and delved and slobbered like he’d never experienced anything so delectable before, lost in the filthiness that made his blood sing.
Dean couldn’t hold still, though he tried. He pooled all of his efforts into his throat so that he practically sang his pleasure. Behind his clenched eyes, colors hot and shifting rolled and curled at the movement of his Sir’s mouth. Nonsense syllables of pleading dribbled from his lips.
Cas shifted his hands. He left Dean to maintain his own opened legs. With spit-slick fingers, Cas plumbed Dean’s entrance, licking in deep as he stretched the rim wider and wider.
Dean panted. He pressed his head backward, craning his neck over the arm of the sofa, bending himself into a whorl of tension and appetite. As good as this was, he wanted more. But he knew better than to ask at this point.
Cas buried both thumbs and widened the entrance. He spit into the darkness and followed up with his tongue. Somehow the man’s tongue never seemed to tire.
“Relax, Pet. Be still.”
“Sir!” Dean had not the slightest ability to follow that instruction, though Cas had not expected him to.
Three fingers twisted deep in past the rim, stretching, pulling, tugging, pressing, reaching, wiggling. Dean huffed and squirmed.
“Do you know why I’m offering you this reward, Pet?”
“Re-reward?” Thoughts in Dean’s head collided and bounced off one another. Nothing stuck. Only fragments pinging about from one corner of his mind to another. He couldn’t have confidently said he knew anything at all.
Cas continued to ply the elastic tension of Dean’s rim while he continued conversationally. “I admit it’s true that I take as much pleasure as you do, so perhaps it’s a reward for us both.” Again he spit into the growing cavern. “But I’m immensely proud to call you mine, love, and I want you to feel that before we must once again travel a painful path. Do you understand?”
“Uh-huh,” Dean gasped. He bowed his back and then arched it, trying to shift both toward and away from the electric sensations.
“Do you?” Cas asked. He dragged his tongue over Dean’s hole.
“No,” Dean admitted in a whine of desperation.
Cas chuckled filthily. “Perhaps we should better talk about this later.”
“Okay,” Dean managed. His toes curled and flexed.
“I do so love the taste of you, alpha,” Castiel told him before diving back in with his face, rubbing stinging stubble burns into Dean’s flesh.
Dean whined still louder.
“Are you rea…?”
“YES!” Dean shouted.
Cas growled and bit Dean on the inside of his thigh. But he didn’t try to complete the question. He stood and left Dean long enough to dig synthetic slick from a nearby drawer. Cas unzipped his jeans and lowered everything just enough to give him room to move. The waistband settled below the fullness of his ass. He felt relief as the pressure of his pants vanished. Cas needed no fluffing, already stiff and straining.
He lubed his cock before smearing more lube across and into Dean’s entrance.
“Can you take my knot?”
Because, sure, a rim-job like that would stretch Dean pretty well. And, sure, Dean had accepted his knot on less prep before. Cas knew the limits he had to work with. But this was a reward. He didn’t want to hurt Dean. Not this time. Not if he could help it.
“C’mon, Sir,” Dean begged. “I need you. Want it so bad. Please!”
Cas pulled Dean into a canted position by his legs. Standing bent over with one foot planted on the floor, he pressed the head of his cock to Dean’s hole and bore down. Dean’s legs flexed high to his chest. His knees curled over Cas’ shoulders.
His fingers remained laced behind his head.
His eyes found Castiel’s and held, wide and desperate.
Deep into Dean’s body Castiel slid. Their bodies came together where heat and sweat and breath and an eternity of promise mingled their essences into one.
Dean’s mouth hung slack. His eyes were wild and naked. Cas captured his lips in a kiss that tasted of conquest. Dean had no defense against the rape of his mouth, nor did he want one.
Outside the room, voices of the household continued unbothered. Children chattered. Adults conversed. Sounds echoed down the hall, and the sounds of movement here and there showed no sign that anyone took note of the alphas in their desperation to meld into one another.
The alphas heard none of it.
Cas pulled out slowly. The slide felt perfect from both sides of the bond. Cas wondered for the millionth time how he had been so lucky. He forced himself to keep the pace measured, to give Dean a chance to adjust to the intrusion.
“Nnnngghhh,” Dean whined. He shoved his chin high and offered Cas his throat.
Cas tucked his head close and breathed hot, moist air onto Dean’s carotid. He pressed back in, bringing his hips flush with Dean’s, all the way to his knot. He put his right knee on the couch, lifted Dean’s hips with his hands to adjust the angle, and began a slow in-out motion, grinding his knot into Dean’s rim on every thrust.
Cas placed a flat palm on Dean’s lower belly, trapping Dean’s cock beneath his hand, giving Dean something to roll against. But Dean shook him off.
“Wanna come on your knot,” he slurred. “Lemme try?”
“I would love that,” Cas’ wolf told them both.
Dean almost laughed, but the connection between their eyes held him. Castiel’s wolf was no one to laugh at.
And it was right there.
Not a foot from Dean’s face.
Cas could sense it all through their bond, the flare of humor, the quick stifle, the thrill of peril, and the wash of arousal. Dean clenched around Cas’ cock as he pushed in. A full-body shiver passed across Dean’s torso, down his legs, curling his toes.
“Excellent, Pet.”
Clutching the back of the couch with one hand and its arm beside Dean’s head with the other, Cas began to move with more speed and force. Dean’s body jolted with the powerful thrusts. The couch shuttled in quick jumps over the hardwood floor, bunching up the rug under the table by the window.
Castiel snarled, and Dean panted heavily. All space between their bodies vanished. Castiel pummeled Dean’s body in an assault of sweat and slaps and wet, wet sounds.
Then, raising his torso, Cas altered the angle and, on his downward thrust, pressed. Hard, hard, hard. Pressure and a clench of pain that he could feel through his mind, he shoved all his intention into the meeting of their bodies.
His iron will strove against physical reality. He brought all of his control into forcing Dean’s opening wider, wider, impossibly wider, but at a pace that drove the man below him wild with sensation.
It didn’t pop inside.
It settled.
So smooth, so controlled.
Dean exhaled long and shaky as his body accepted the intrusion. White showed all the way around his irises, themselves barely a ring of crimson slashed with green in the wide pools of his pupils.
Again Cas altered his angle, shifting his hips upward. The angle sparked Dean’s prostate, and he shouted. He flexed.
Cas ground in a tight circle with his bestial eyes fixed on Dean’s.
The assault proved too much for Dean. He spasmed, clenched, drew tightly inward, and then came explosively.
Cas rode the movement, the recurring waves of Dean’s muscles. He picked up the motion in tight little thrusts until his pleasure peaked and he too tumbled over the cliff.
Dean lay boneless and sloppy over the couch beneath his husband. His eyes were closed. A shallow pool of sweat collected in the hollow of his throat. His chest rose and fell in great heaving thrums.
Cas held himself up above Dean, using his arms to brace himself. He watched Dean float. Bliss ran in little curls and waves from Dean’s face, from his body, through their bonds, into his spirit. It came to Cas in a fleeting thought that perhaps this was his favorite part. Dean, swept clean of all his adult, worldly cares, free of all tethers, pleasured beyond reason or time, was beautiful.
So goddamn beautiful.
Cas grunted quietly as another pulse of his orgasm passed from his body to his beloved’s. He trembled a little. And then he firmed again.
Dean’s eyes fluttered open. He lifted his head. He wiggled his body down enough to rest his head on the arm of the couch and gaze upward.
He said nothing.
He said everything.
He reached upward and touched Castiel’s cheek with the back of his fingers.
Cas leaned in close and kissed him.
Soft, this time. Not commanding.
Dean opened to him.
Kissed back.
Closed his eyes.
Wrapped damp arms around Cas’ clothed shoulders.
Together, they moved.
Just small motions.
Their whole bodies entwined and pulsed.
The mess between their tummies got no notice.
The pain in Dean’s core didn’t either.
Dean pulled Cas down to lie between his knees while they made out.
At length, the kisses grew slow and clumsy, and then Dean began to snore.
Cas tucked him into the back of the couch, shifting and rolling until they both balanced there without too much discomfort. He watched Dean sleep.
He had no words.
He knew a dark road lay before them. But they would face it together.
Together, they would support Michael’s path. Together, they would carve a way through the fear and doubt still rancid in the wider population. Together, they would shepherd their pups into adulthood. Together, they would keep April sane and grounded while her career tried to wrestle her from them and turn her into something plastic.
Together, they would face whatever The Universe had in store for them.
God, he was beautiful.
Light from the window played off his chin and cheekbones, off the tips of his long lashes and the curving pout of his lips. The tip of his not-quite-straight-anymore nose, broken in a bar fight when he was twenty, angled ever-so-slightly upward like the end of a ski slope. Sunlight gifted him a spattering of golden freckles.
Sunlight adored Dean Winchester, whatever his mood, whatever the angle, whatever the circumstances. He was a child of The Universe, of light, of everything bright and golden, and Castiel ached with how powerfully he loved this man.
Dean’s golden features lay soft and guileless in the sunlight.
At peace.
Slaked and sleeping.
With care not to wake him, Cas settled beside him and rested his head on Dean’s shoulder. A hand came up behind and carded through Cas’ dark, messy hair.
“So good,” Dean mumbled.
“Shhh. Sleep a little.”
Notes:
Love to all of you!
Chapter 47: Friday, July 5, 2024
Summary:
Something untoward has been going down over at Sam's house. But there are deeper currents than show on the surface. Who's running things here, anyway? Oh, and it's time for Dean and Michael to hole up for a mutual cycle. Can they sneak off somewhere no one else can go? Michael's learning some new skills and making some crazy assertions that has his mate's head spinning.
Notes:
Warnings in the end notes.
See? I told you it wouldn't be too long a wait this time. There's a lot going on in this chapter. And it ran long again. *shrug*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
NOW:
It began as a standard Friday night Pack dinner.
April was home briefly, although not for long. In the morning, the jet she’d bought herself would whisk her away again to catch up with the road crew setting up her next venue in Seattle. One concert performance and then a swift flight back home to catch the end of Michael’s Heat. Offering the mates a few breaks after the first thirty hours or so enhanced both their stamina and the overall Pack connections. Alphas could slip in (so to speak) during a Heat/Rut cycle and renew Omega Claims. And spouses could take advantage of the spike in sexual appetites.
April’s frequent absences for concerts, writing collaborations, and various appearances meant she cherished the time she had at home all the more. Time with her pups came at a premium, eclipsing even her own mate on occasions. And while Friday night Pack dinners had become an attendance-mandatory ritual for the Winchesters, the pups often found them tedious. Just this once, April convinced Castiel to let her skip it, dining instead in the kitchen with her brood for a little quality time with Mom before she disappeared on them again.
Cas didn’t take much convincing when he saw the delight on the pups’ faces at having all of April’s attention for the whole meal.
Tonight’s argument though, didn’t have anything to do with April.
It was about Sarah.
And it came about in a most unexpected way.
The whole Pack knew Sarah belonged to Sam these days, as far as these things went. She spent at least three nights a week at his house, curled around his enormous pinky finger, happy as both a sexual and a domestic servant. She played risqué games with Sam and his mate. But she also helped with the housework and the childcare. And while she might have been vulnerable to being taken advantage of, her manner suggested the arrangement was entirely mutually beneficial.
So Cas wasn’t inclined to poke at it much.
The change that Sarah’s role over there wrought on her life was indisputable. She emerged confident and content after each long session. Her face glowed with the bloom of vivacious enthusiasm, a zest for life that had never been there before. She exuded self-confidence and a stout pride in her performance both in and out of the scene. And her work at The Facility reached new levels of excellence. The adolescent wing had taken off, sparking mimics all over the world trying to match the ACRI’s success at stabilizing young wolves.
But Sam’s reports to his Alpha on her performance as a Sub tended to be vague. Sam offered no details but to say she was thriving, that his twins adored her, and that she got on well with Jess. So it came as a surprise on that Friday evening when the Pack assembled in the dining room for its weekly ritual dinner to find Sarah naked and kneeling in the corner of the room with her hands laced behind her head, her toes nestled into the corner, and her face turned shyly downward. Although not directly on display, the pink tone of her backside peeked out from behind her like a nervous pup expecting to be called out.
Dean and Cas, arriving together, pulled up short in the doorway. Patience and Jess were seated already at the table together, chatting alone. Jess looked smug, glancing now and again at the woman on her knees. Patience adopted a studied air of disinterest.
“Good evening, Alpha,” Jess greeted cheerfully. “Something in the kitchen smells amazing! My mouth is watering already.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean replied suspiciously. He tried to read the dynamic at play between the women but came up short. “Where’s Sam? What’s happening here, beta?”
Cas squeezed Dean’s hand and left him for the opposite end of the table. Dean couldn’t quite read his state of mind either, which…suspicious.
Jess grinned. “Nothing, alpha. Just a little foreplay. It seemed time to take our play outside of the house. I thought she’d progressed well enough in her practice to stretch a little. I believe she has an exhibitionist hiding inside her to match her voyeur. Isn’t she pretty there?”
Dean slid into his chair. “You thought? What’dya mean, you thought?” He studied Sarah—the pink tips of her ears, the relaxed slant of her shoulders. She had loose leather cuffs binding her wrists together.
She was indeed beautiful.
Her posture was ideal. She was a veritable study in Submissive posing.
But the timing was off. Dinnertime, according to the Rules, was for Primary designations. Yet Castiel said nothing. And anyway, why would a fellow Submissive take credit for the woman on her knees?
Puzzled, Dean looked to Cas. “Do you understand this?”
The others had begun arriving by then. Each took their place at the table, casting curious glances at Sarah but saying nothing. Sam ignored her completely. Adam pulled up short, blushed furiously, and then lowered his eyes and stumbled to his place beside his mate. Patience met him with a wide, warm smile.
Cas cleared his throat, drawing the eyes of the Pack. “Samuel?” Cas prompted. “Is there something you wish to tell us?”
“Hmm?” Sam looked up, followed Cas’ facial gesture toward the corner, and adopted a wide-eyed innocence. “No, sir. Not really. Whatever this is, it isn’t my doing.”
“Whatever this is?” asked Dean, leaning in. “You’re the Dominant, Sam. It’s your household. If you don’t know, who does, Hank? What’s going on?”
A chill passed up Dean’s spine as he felt Castiel’s wolf engage. Something pivotal was in the air, and the Alpha was in on it. Dean added up the clues as he scented his Packmates. It didn’t take a sleuth to determine that Jess and Patience were both aware of the undercurrent, while everyone else but Cas seemed clueless.
Sam seemed not to care one way or another.
Dean didn’t buy it. No one remained blasé when the wolfest of all wolves made an appearance at your dinner table.
Tony and Monique appeared with trays and began serving plates.
Sam leaned back to give Tony room to set a plate before him as he explained. “Jess doesn’t always inform me when she and Sarah play. I don’t require her to.” He let himself become engrossed by the beef filet before him, and he made no more comment as he was clearly lost in the meal and ravenous. He unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap.
“Samuel.” Castiel snapped. “Forget the food. Look at me, beta. What the hell is Jess doing playing with your Submissive? She’s a Sub herself.”
Dean narrowed his eyes, studying his husband’s body language. Cas was definitely up to something, but Dean had no choice but to let it play out.
The room fell still. Sam’s pallor faded to a dull gray. “It’s just play, Alpha. All the standard rules are in effect.”
“No,” Cas disagreed shortly. “The standard rules do not allow for a Sub to direct another Sub, not without supervision and instruction from a Dominant. What’s more, I do not allow scene play at my dinner table, especially not on a Friday.”
Castiel was doing his best, but Dean knew him well enough to see the tells. Cas’ roleplay skills were advanced but not foolproof. The outrage was feigned. Dean sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the other shoe to drop.
Sam faltered. His eyes cut to his mate, who looked to be trying to pretend she had no idea what the fuss was about. Before Sam could compose a response, Michael broke in.
“Hold on. You’re telling us that you gave Sarah to Jess? That Jess is her Top?”
“It’s not like that,” Sam argued.
Dean studied each Pack member in turn and categorized each as In-The-Know or Oblivious according to their scents and demeanor. Cas, Jess, and Patience registered in the In-The-Know column, as did Adam for some reason, although he hadn’t contributed any commentary. No one else seemed to have any idea they were smack in the middle of a set-up. Kali and Carlos didn’t even seem to be interested. Dean pursed his lips as he listened, annoyed at the manipulations he sensed from his husband and too close to his Rut for the Tertiary posturing to force him into his wolf.
“What’s it like then?” Michael shot back.
Great, now Michael’s wolf had engaged as well. Evidently, being close to Heat didn’t prevent a nineteen-rated wolf from poking its nose in.
Sam stammered uncomfortably. Every eye bore into him from every angle. In the corner, Sarah had not moved. But the deepening red of her ears said she was listening.
Bram put a steadying hand on Adam’s shoulder but kept his eyes down.
“I just… Sometimes Jess likes to… It’s completely consensual! I… I… I guess I should’ve made a rule that they can only do it at home.”
Castiel’s expression was stony. His lips formed a thin hard line across his face. “Simplify this for me, Samuel. Who put Sarah in the corner?”
Jess opened her mouth, but Michael silenced her with a palm up. He clearly wanted to hear it from Sam. Michael too, appeared incensed, but Michael’s outrage was real, where Castiel’s...
“Jess did,” Sam answered.
“And who pinked her bottom?” Cas steepled his hands on the table. Every steak sat ignored and cooling. Midway between the two top Dominants in the Pack, Sam didn’t know which way to look.
“I assume Jess did,” Sam replied.
“You assume?” asked Michael. His eyes glinted amber. Sam shifted in his seat to put some distance between himself and Michael’s wolf.
“Clearly, she did,” said Sam.
Watching it all unfold, Dean had to compartmentalize to keep watch on the manipulation as it unfolded while simultaneously digesting what was being revealed. Sam had no business leaving his two Subs to run their own power-exchange experiments. Dean found himself echoing Michael’s anger. What the hell, Sam?
Castiel stood and crossed the room to Sarah. He helped her to her feet with gentle hands. “You’re released, Submissive. Please go dress and then join us for dinner. Take a few moments if you need to gather yourself and set aside your wolf. We have some things to discuss, and I will need you present.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Sarah whispered. As she left, the extent of damage to her ass showed clearly for the room to see. She had deep bruising across both cheeks, cane stripes, and overlapping handprints on her thighs. In places the skin had abraded.
“You did that?” Dean asked Jess once Sarah was gone.
“We do it all the time, Dean. She’s amazing under the lash. She can take it as well as a Lupin Omega.”
“What she can take is not the point, Jessica,” Cas put in. “The point is, without a Dominant leading you, you have no business even touching another Sub.”
“But Sam gave her to me! He told me to play with her however I wanted! How is that not guidance? It’s a full-on instruction!”
“‘Zat true?” Dean asked his brother. “You told Jess she could have Sarah? What, like as a pet?”
“She’s my slave,” Jess announced.
Cas growled, “I detest that word, beta. I won’t have it in my house.”
“Fine,” Jess said, somewhat flustered. “She’s my plaything. And like Sam said, it’s all consensual.”
Michael tossed his napkin onto the table. “Consensual or not, it’s bullshit! What the fuck, Sam? Are you just too busy to care for two Subs? What happened to the harem you said you wanted? If you can’t manage two, how on earth are you going to manage a harem? And who in the world would trust you with one? I knew your wolf was lazy, but I never thought he’d…”
“This ends right here,” Dean announced, startling even himself. Set-up or not, this situation couldn’t be allowed to continue. “It’s done. You both hear me? If you want your Subs to play together, that’s fine. But you know better than to let them play alone. Goddamnit, Sammy, you know better!”
“I put limits in place, Dean! They aren’t doing anything I didn’t know about and greenlight ahead of time!”
“Corporal punishment?” asked a shocked Michael. “You greenlighted caning? Sam, how many lessons has Jess had in impact play? She’s not certified; damnit, she’s not even been to a training course! What’d you do, teach her at home?”
Sam stammered.
“Jess?” Michael gave up on Sam.
“Yeah, he taught me some things.”
“Taught you some things?” Michael repeated, astounded. “You know how much education it takes to get an impact license?”
“Of course I do!” Jess replied hotly. “Sam’s a great instructor. I know what I’m doing. And besides, home play doesn’t require a license.”
“Regardless,” Dean announced to Jess. A pin had just clicked into place in his head. “It ends now. This is not okay. And I think you knew that when you put her on display at dinner for the whole Pack to witness.”
“She has a humiliation kink,” Jess reminded him sulkily. She didn’t seem quite as sure of herself now, not with Dean’s Deep alpha reddening his eyes and Michael’s wolf glaring at her.
“I’m aware,” said Dean. “But it’s not your job to feed that kink.”
Sarah slinked back into the room and took her seat. The blush on her cheeks blazed. She met no one’s eyes.
Cas, in an effort to ensure she wasn’t still caught in a Sub mind frame, addressed her. “Did you notice on your way through the kitchen how the pups are getting on with their dinner?”
“Yes, Alpha. They’re fine. They appear to be behaving well for their mom. Everyone’s seated and eating. It seems to be a lively discussion.”
He nodded. “Good. Now, Sarah, I have a few questions for you.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Was everything that happened between you and Jessica consensual?”
“It was, Alpha. All of it.”
She noticed that no one was eating. She had the Pack’s full attention, an unwanted spotlight with everyone present but April. She couldn’t stop a short glance across the table at Adam, but he simply shuffled vegetables around on his plate. He didn’t look up.
Dean was intrigued.
Cas continued. “And you had full access to a safeword?”
“Always, Alpha.”
“Have you ever used it?”
“With Ma’am? No, Sir.”
Castiel’s left brow shot up. “She has you calling her Ma’am?”
Sarah nodded and squirmed under his gaze.
“Have you and she played power exchange without a Dominant present?”
Sarah’s eyes met Sam’s and she blushed harder. “It isn’t sexual when we play without Sam. It’s control-based, but not sexual.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” Cas crossed his arms over his chest.
She sighed. “Yes, Sir. We play without a Dominant.”
“Often?”
“Yes, Alpha,” she whispered.
“How often?”
She didn’t want to answer, clearly, but just as clearly, she had no choice. “Standing house rules,” she muttered and dropped her eyes.
“Standing rules,” Castiel repeated. “Sam’s?”
“Yes, Alpha. It’s the hierarchy of his household. Jess is second. I’m third. The rules state I’m to obey everyone above me while I’m there. Initially, it was all about managing the household. But it’s taken on a life of its own. It’s evolved into a play space Jess and I both enjoy.”
Dean frowned. “Why?” He couldn’t wrap his head around this. He’d forgotten entirely about his husband’s machinations.
Sarah shrugged. “I can’t say. I just… like it.”
Patience rolled their eyes. “She’s Primate, folks. She can’t sense the wrongness of it like you and I can. To her, a Top is a Top. I think you’re focusing on the wrong player here.”
Sarah shot Patience a grateful look as attention shifted back to Jess.
“This is ridiculous,” Sam objected. “What we do in the privacy of our own home is no one’s business but ours. I’m sorry it spilled over into the Packhouse. That won’t happen again. You have my word. But you’re acting like I’m irresponsible, and I’m not. I may not always have been there, but I know what’s happening to both of my Subs.”
“Do you?” Michael challenged. “So you knew Sarah was going to be tenderized and displayed here like a suckling pig tonight? All that’s missing was an apple in her mouth!”
“Mind your own business, Omega!” Sam shouted. “I don’t have to take that from you!”
“You know,” Michael continued, standing up and glowering down at Sam. “There’s more to this than inappropriate scene play. You’re telling us that all this time, Sarah has been the Ultimate Sub in your house. All this time. Have I got that right? Jess Tops Sarah?”
“So?” asked Sam.
“Do they switch?” Michael asked. “Ever?”
Sam sighed, frustrated and defeated. “No.”
“Then how the fuck does Sarah deserve a higher Pack rank than Jess?” asked Michael.
Sam smoldered. Icy daggers shot from his eyes. “Pack rank has nothing to do with it. What happens in my house is my business.” He looked toward Dean. “You wanna rein in your Omega here, alpha?”
Dean shook his head with a facial shrug. “Not really. He’s got a valid point. Why are you and Sarah blocking out your own mate’s ranking? Talk about acting against your own self-interest. There’s cash on the line with that rank. You’re only cheating yourself, Sammy, cheating your own mate. What gives?”
Sarah sat forward and looked down the table. “I could lose my rank over this? Seriously? It was just play!”
“It’s precisely that kind of play that determines rank, kiddo,” Dean reminded her coolly. “So, yeah. Looks like we need to reconsider your placement.”
“But…”
Jess had not spoken for some time. She sat still and calm, letting the argument bubble about her. Michael reached down and turned her to face him with a hand on her chin.
“This is why you displayed her here tonight, isn’t it? You’ve been Topping her for ages now, and the Pack ranks don’t reflect the reality of the situation. You thought it was time to let the Alpha know. I’m guessing Sam didn’t want it divulged for some reason? Did he tell you to keep it a secret?”
“Don’t touch my mate!” Sam bolted from his chair, knocking it over backward. He manhandled Michael clear of Jess and shoved him hard into the wall. “Keep your hands off, Omega! No one invited you to butt in!”
But Michael wasn’t cowed. And calling him Omega wasn’t enough to force his wolf out of the center. He threw off Sam’s hands, fisted his shirt, and flipped their positions.
“You have been cheating your own fucking mate!” he growled. “I oughtta whip you myself!”
“I’d like to see you try it,” Sam told him coldly.
Cas sipped his merlot.
Michael wasn’t finished. Rage poured out of him. “How many times has Jess asked you to request a rank challenge? How many times have you laughed in her face? What sort of sick, twisted game are you playing?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sam said through his own wolf.
But he was no match for Michael’s.
“She had no choice but to show the whole Pack what you tried to keep quiet at home,” Michael snarled. “You think ranks are a joke? You think it’s funny to force your mate to stay ranked below her own Sub?”
“I didn’t force anything!” Sam protested. “And get the fuck off me! Dean, put a leash on your dog!” He broke Michael’s grip and put a few feet of distance between them. He stood there panting and furious.
Dean scratched idly at his own ear and then picked up his flatware. “Not my fault if you can’t hold off an Omega, Sammy,” he said with his mouth full.
Cas held a palm up. “Let’s lower the volume, gentlemen, before I’m forced to deal out consequences for swearing loud enough for the pups to hear. Please have a seat, both of you. We can discuss this calmly.”
Sam straightened his pressed white shirt, glowered at Michael, and then righted his chair and sat. Michael followed with an equal glare.
“Now,” said Cas. “First of all, as Dean has declared, this dynamic cannot stand. It must end. There is to be no more scene play between Subs without a Dominant’s presence. Understood?”
“Yes, Alpha,” they all answered—Sam, Jess, and Sarah.
“If—once I’ve investigated fully—everyone involved finds it rewarding, I will likely allow you to continue playing in Sam’s presence and at his direction. No more on your own. I mean it. Do not seek loopholes. I will have no patience for that.”
“Understood, Alpha,” Jess answered for all of them.
“As for the rankings,” Cas continued, “I am disposed to hold a new round of challenges, the results of which would be final and may alter how you are allowed to play in future.”
Gabe snorted. “I hope you come up with a better contest than last time, Cas. Last time was a shitshow.”
Cas pursed his lips and shot his brother a withering look. “Indeed. So I have heard.” He huffed in annoyance. “Give me a few days to develop an appropriate challenge, and we’ll resolve this as nature intended.”
“And if Sarah wins again?” asked Michael.
“Then she maintains her rank, and her status within Sam’s polycule will be placed under review. It is inappropriate for a higher ranked, same-Secondary wolf to take the Ultimate position in a play group.”
“But… Dean takes the Ultimate position in group play all the time,” said Adam, confused.
Cas told him, “Dean is alpha. His rank is based upon his Secondary, not his Tertiary. For the distribution of ranks among betas, the Tertiary designation comes into play. If Jess were alpha, then even if she was more Submissive than Sarah, she would still outrank her. However, all things being otherwise equal, their relative levels of Submissiveness determine their placement. If Sarah always Bottoms, she cannot sustain a higher rank.”
Adam nodded pensively, and Dean wondered.
Who had that question been for? Adam knew the intricacies of Pack rank theory. Had he asked as a means of clarifying for his mate? Patience had taken well to the Pack’s ways, but they still sometimes struggled with the finer points. But Patience didn’t look lost. On the contrary, they watched the drama unfold with an air of disinterest that fooled Dean not at all.
No, Patience was riveted. Patience was invested in the outcome far more than they had any obvious reason to be. And Adam’s question had been unnecessary for his own understanding. Who was he targeting it toward then?
Dean studied Adam’s expression.
Cas urged his Pack, “Please eat, all of you. Our dinner is growing cold. Samuel, Jessica, I will speak to you after dinner.”
“What about me?” Sarah asked softly at his elbow.
Cas regarded her. “Please remain here at the Packhouse tonight. I must insist you refrain from scening with Sam and Jess until I understand fully what has been happening.”
She lowered her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“Dude, that was hot!” Dean gushed when Michael joined him in his bedroom after supper. Dean’s Rut lay just around the corner, and it affected his libido enough that just watching Michael breathe turned him on at the moment. But watching Michael face off with Sam…
“What, body-checking your brother?”
“Hell, yeah! Nobody manhandles Sammy like that. His wolf’s the size of a moose, and he has a hair trigger.”
“He doesn’t scare me, alpha.”
“Obviously.” Dean beamed. “Gotta say, I’m impressed you have that strong a hold on your wolf when we’re this close to a cycle. This round is going to be…” He mimed a chef’s kiss and then winked.
Dean started a bath running, tested the temperature with his fingers in the flow of water. He shed his clothes.
Noticing, Michael loitered in the doorway. “Want company?”
“You got time?” Dean asked.
“I don’t have to be at work until ten,” Michael replied.
“Then yeah, get your ass in here. I’ll wash off some of that pre-Heat scent and smear alpha musk all over you before sending you out into the big scary world—a banner that says, He may be in Heat, but he belongs to Dean Winchester, and I’ll tear your tonsils out through your asshole if you even think about touching him.”
This close to his Rut, Dean’s mind spun and whirled in a chaotic cacophony that, adding in the tug of an impending fall, he only managed to hide through years of practice. Cas was keeping him stable as his hormones swept up into a vortex of arousal, no mean feat considering his base level already skimmed the top of the charts. But Michael had been a little more skittish—not stand-offish per se, just less focused on his mate’s balance than usual.
Dean put it down to Michael’s Heat hormones making as much noise in Michael’s head as Dean had swirling in his own. People reacted oddly sometimes to stress.
Michael eased himself into the steaming tub and settled between Dean’s knees. “I’m not in Heat yet.”
“Close enough,” Dean said. His hands found the curves and planes of Michael’s naked body, and his nose found its way to the sweet spot behind Michael’s right ear. He huffed the deliciously ripening scent of mate. “You smell incredible.”
But Michael resisted the call of the wild within Dean’s gruff tone. Soon enough he would feel compelled to press his need, losing his grip on his wolf and demanding attention enough from his mate that even Dean in Rut would be hard-pressed to keep up with him. For now Michael wanted to suppress those strengthening urges. He still had a full work shift to get through. He assumed that giving in to his desire would Trip him into Heat early, and the clinic was short staffed.
Dean wouldn’t Trip for another couple of days. If he could, Michael wanted to align their cycles.
“Can I come find you tonight after you go to sleep?” Michael asked, adopting a businesslike tone.
“Don’t you always?” Dean whispered against the shoulder he’d cupped hot water over. He followed with a kiss to warming skin. He assumed Michael meant after his work shift, in the wee hours before dawn when his mate dragged himself home.
“In your wolfscape, I mean.” Michael met Dean’s lips over his shoulder as steam clouded the space around them, turning their expansive bathroom into a private cloister of sorts. “I’m trying to get in some practice manipulating it while I’m awake, while there’s a physical distance between us. I’ll only do it on my breaks.”
Dean sighed at the brush off of a perfunctory kiss. “Dude, I’m trying to take the edge off here. You’re revving up, and tonight’s going to suck ass if you go in without releasing a pressure valve or two. Now is not the time for metaphysical Tertiary exercises. If you need to do clinical work, then work. Don’t let your wolf be a distraction while you’re on the clock. And don’t ignore your pre-Heat. You’re setting yourself up for a miserable shift.”
Dean leaned his forehead against his mate’s and then shifted back to massage Michael’s shoulders. “And anyway, Cas wants us Secondary,” he reminded the Omega. “For now. In the wolfscape, you’re Tertiary. I think you should avoid that place until your Heat is over.”
“Dean, you’re falling. I can feel it. I doubt I’ll be able to deal with that before we cycle. Which means this round is going to be chaotic as fuck. Tertiary makes more sense. It gives me better control. Besides, I’m not talking about scening in the wolfscape. I just want to curl up with you. I just want to see if I can get to you when we’re apart and only one of us is sleeping. If that carries over into the H/R room—if some Heat/Rut sex happens in there—so be it.”
“Is that what Cuat-a-dick told you to do?” Dean’s fingers kneaded into Michael’s shoulders with fierce pressure. “Lock me down as a wolf when we Trip so you can top during your Heat? Lemme guess, the Ayawuascana shouldn’t bottom even though he’s Omega ‘cause he’s really a Top?”
Michael scoffed. “Don’t be stupid.” But something in Dean’s tone made Michael turn his head to study his mate. “Are you jealous?”
“Jealous? Hell no. I just don’t like him. He seems like an asshole.” Dean shook his head to clear his mind. The vortex of thoughts and worries had knocked him off his footing. What had they just been talking about?
“You haven’t even met him yet,” Michael chuckled.
Dean shifted. Water sloshed and then settled again. “Don’t think I don’t know he’s been sneaking around watching me in my own lair,” he groused. Damnit, how had a planned seduction turned into whining about the wolfscape and Michael’s new mentor?
Focus, Winchester!
Dean could feel himself sliding into his brat, and no amount of internally chanting Pull up! Abort, abort, abort! Damnit, Winchester, lock it down! slowed the descent.
Michael sat upright and turned to face him. “He’s been in your den?”
“Someone has been stalking me there. And what you told me about him mauling Cas… Who else would it be?”
“Hmm,” Michael sighed. “I’ll ask him. I guess it’s possible. Maybe he’s checking on me by watching you.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense,” said Dean sarcastically. “Go where the O-D isn’t so you can keep tabs on him.”
But Michael wasn’t really listening. “You know,” he said. He turned and adjusted his position until he faced Dean directly. His legs found themselves wrapping around Dean’s hips, and his arms slung loosely over Dean’s shoulders. “Mauling the Alpha was a necessary step.”
“Oh, was it? Gotta draw Alpha blood as step four of your grand ascension? Or is it only step two?”
“Don’t be a baby,” Michael chided gently. “Cas isn’t hurt. His pride, maybe…”
“That was just plain asshole behavior…”
“Do you remember back when I first moved to Lawrence?” Michael interrupted. Dean stopped short and glowered with a stubborn pout. He didn’t want to talk about the Bolivian Ayawuascana. He didn’t want to talk at all. “I was blind to Alpha’s Tertiary power, remember? And I was making an ass of myself. The only way through that was for him to unveil his wolf and show me. He had to show me the truth, how we really stacked up against each other.”
Dean’s chin pointed down. His jaw twitched. He was listening unwillingly and hating every word.
“Until I truly fathomed that my wolf was less powerful than his, nothing he had to say would get through. I wasn’t getting it because in my whole life, no one’s wolf had ever been more powerful than mine. Dean, this is the same thing. Cas had to experience the power difference for himself. And he had to feel the utter powerlessness of his wolf against the strength of an Ayawuascana.”
“You two made a chump of him!” Dean exclaimed. Water flew off his fingertips as he gesticulated wildly.
“No more than he did to me when we met,” Michael replied softly. Self-assuredly. “It was necessary, Dean.”
Dean huffed. “You finally got your revenge. Took the Alpha down a peg.”
“If that’s how you need to see it.” Michael’s head tilted. He searched for Dean’s eyes, but the alpha wouldn’t make eye contact. “What’s really bothering you, alpha? Cas is a big boy. He can manage his own affairs, and it’s not going to destroy him to find that there’s one realm in The Universe where he doesn’t reign supreme.”
“I don’t like seeing him emasculated,” Dean whispered, as if the very words would prove that the deed had been apocalyptic to Dean’s world view.
“I think he would argue whether we emasculated him,” said Michael. “Five minutes into it, he’d accepted the status quo and stepped down a rung. Cas isn’t fighting the rankings in there. Why are you? Do you think he needs you to fight his battles for him?”
“It feels wrong,” Dean declared. “He doesn’t belong on a lower rung!”
Michael laughed. “I’m just going to have to bring him to you in there and show you myself. Once you feel it, it’ll make so much more sense.” Michael grimaced and added under his breath, “I just gotta figure out how to do that.”
Dean grumbled and dodged when Michael tried to guide his face up for a kiss. “Fine. Bring Cas to my lair. But if I see that prick of an Aya-who-whatsit, I’m ripping throats out. Swear to god.”
“Cas already tried that. It doesn’t take.” Michael smiled softly and tried again to kiss him. Dean gave in grouchily. The kiss, soft and simple, plump lips meeting in a moment of truce, lasted no more than a few seconds. Michael pressed his temple to Dean’s. “Come back to me, alpha. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your fall when it’s time. For now, come back to me. Your Omega needs you.”
“My Omega needs his ass whipped, is what he needs.” It was a surly grumble, but the melancholy had faded from Dean’s demeanor.
He made Michael turn back around, a sloshing, ungraceful jumble of man-sized legs and knees colliding with one another that made Dean laugh out loud. “Don’t try to run off to the ballet,” he jibed. But he settled back into relaxation with his mate leaning back into his chest. Dean wrapped his arms around Michael’s narrow waist and caressed his belly with his fingertips.
Into Michael’s damp ear, Dean whispered, “Forget Cas. I can feel you heating up. Can’t wait to breed you up again, little Omega. You looked so pretty all glowing and ripe—plump with my pup.”
But the next moment, a startled and very alpha Dean had flinched back. He released Michael’s belly and sought his face. “What was that?” Dean asked.
Michael played dumb. “What was what?” He busied himself soaping up a loofah.
“That flash of fear that just skipped through you like a lit fuse,” Dean clarified impatiently. “I thought you wanted to discuss the subject of more pups. I got the notion you were ready. You said you it was time to talk about it.”
Michael let the loofah hang limply in his hand. Soap suds spread from it as it floated on the surface of the water. “I do,” he said. “Dean, you know I want more pups of my own. It’s just…” He deflated. “I’m scared.”
“Yeah, no shit. I noticed. Scared of what, though? Something specific or the whole rigamarole in general?”
Michael shifted to an oblique angle and curled his shoulder into Dean’s chest like a pup seeking comfort. “I keep thinking that what happened with Dylan is likely to happen again, this time to me. Men struggle to carry pups safely to term, Dean. The miscarriage rates… The maternal and newborn mortality rates… And the older the Omega, the more the risk. I’m almost thirty. What are the chances I make it through a whole pregnancy without scarring complications? Or worse. What if a pack of rogue alphas…? I can’t get the scene out of my head—the blood, that man’s lifeless body with his womb cut open. I feel like we got lucky with Alex. I’m afraid to tempt fate by trying a second time. If I lose a pup…”
Comforting fingers carded through Michael’s hair. “I wish you’d told me sooner you were this spooked,” Dean murmured. “I don’t ever want you going through scary shit by yourself. And look, we’re not going to do anything you don’t wanna do. If you tell me tomorrow that your baby-maker is closed for business, then that’s it. It’s closed.”
Michael scowled. “But you want more pups.”
“Psshh! I got pups coming out my ears, man.”
“You know what I mean,” Michael grumbled. “Pete says she’s done. She told me she’s planning to ask Cas about getting her tubes tied. If we’re ever going to have more, it’s my womb that’ll grow them.”
“Michael, listen to me. This Pack we have here, this family? It’s a place where everybody gets to make choices about their own lives. It doesn’t make a difference what any of us would like. If you don’t want another pregnancy, then that’s the end of it. I’m serious. We’re not going to have you sacrifice your womb to the Pack.”
“But that’s just it, Dean. I do want more pups. I want a houseful of them. I want them coming out our ears, noses, mouths… every orifice we have.”
“Okay, gross.”
“I want them spilling out onto the lawn and struggling to all fit into one cargo van. But Pete’s done her share of the gestating. She’s had five pups in four years. No one can ask for more than that. Hell, she’s getting body-shamed for the lingering baby weight by the public as it is.”
Dean sighed. “Dude, she would get body-shamed if she weighed ninety pounds. People on the internet are assholes. The people who love her don’t care if she carries baby weight the rest of her life.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want more pups,” Michael continued. “It’s that I’m afraid of losing one. The risks start to get pretty high once an Omega turns thirty.”
Dean hugged him close. “There are risks to everything we do. There’s no getting through life without risk, and there’s no getting out of it alive. So, all we can do is manage the risk the best we can and be there for each other when shit goes sideways.”
“I know, Dean. I know. My head has told me that a thousand times…”
Dean interrupted. “We’re going to put a pin in the idea of knocking you up, sweetheart. You’re not ready, and that’s fine. You’ll get no pressure from me. There’s time to go spelunking into your psyche and find out where your fears intersect your wants. We’ve got time. Forget thirty. It’s just a number. Meanwhile, as your alpha, I’m making this call. It’s not on the table right now. Now, stretch out, lie back, and let me make you feel good.”
Tension drained instantly from Michael’s body. His chest expanded with a deep inhale and then softened as he let it all go. He closed his eyes and laid his head on Dean’s shoulder.
“Are you sure you’ve got a fall coming?” Michael asked sleepily as comforting hands roamed over his body. “You seem completely alpha to me.”
“I’m compartmentalizing for all I’m worth,” Dean told him. “That fall won’t peak for a little while yet.” He chuckled nervously. “I’m thinking I may be able to just muscle through it myself with how slowly it’s building. Might turn out to be a nothing burger after all.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, alpha. When are we ever that lucky?”
Sarah paced in the foyer outside Castiel’s office while Sam, Jess, and Cas held their discussion. She bit her thumbnail and watched the door.
“They’ll be fine.”
Sarah startled and spun to face the statuesque alpha entering from the parlor. Patience regarded her with a cool countenance.
“He’s not going to punish them, is all I’m saying.” Patience said it as if there were no doubt.
But Sarah had doubts.
“If he thinks we weren’t playing safely… Or if he thinks Sam and I were somehow blocking Jess from her rightful rank…” She turned back to stare at the stubborn door. “What do you think they’re saying in there?”
Patience leaned against the wall by the bench. They crossed their arms over their chest. “Were you blocking Jess from her rightful rank?”
“No!”
Patience didn’t seem to believe her. “And yet, every quarter you deposit that distribution check Michael hands you. I’m guessing you haven’t been giving the money back. Or trading checks with your Ma’am. Higher rank has its benefits.”
Sarah frowned. “Most of what I make off the distributions goes right back into the household over there. I pull my weight. And I share everything with Jess! She’s practically my family!”
“Practically?”
“I know you don’t like me, don’t really trust me,” said Sarah. “But what we’ve built together over there, the three of us, isn’t what you’re making it out to be. It has nothing to do with Pack ranks, and it’s private.”
Patience looked startled. “What makes you think I don’t trust you?”
Sarah gave a despairing look to the obstinate office door and then sank down onto the stair. Patience took a seat upon the bench and faced her.
With cheek in hand and a weary expression, Sarah struggled to answer. “You know… The whole Adam thing… or whatever.”
Patience smiled in spite of themself, lowering their face to hide the swiftly stifled chuckle.
“Oh, are we pretending that’s not a thing now?” asked Sarah with a pointed raising of one brow. “We went from Keep your dirty mitts off my mate to Hey, my mate’s bored, why don’t you take him out for a casual fuck. It’s obvious you have no idea what to do about me. Now we’re best friends? You’re suddenly copacetic about the other woman living right across the hall?”
“You can’t be the other woman unless we’re both women. But, I mean, I guess,” said Patience.
“Really. Since when?”
Patience got up and joined Sarah on the step. They took Sarah’s hand and looked her right in the eye. “It’s been coming for a long time, beta. I told you that. You and Adam? Whatever happens is fated to happen. I’m not about fighting it anymore. Adam needs me. He loves me. He’s not going anywhere. You can’t hurt us, and I don’t feel like you’re going to hurt him.”
“I would never want to,” Sarah told her.
“I know.”
Sarah saw the alpha swallow as their eyes turned glassy. Patience looked away, toward the sparkling prisms dancing in from the beveled glass at the front door. They looked troubled, maybe a little frightened. Patience seemed to be trying just as hard to convince themself as to convince Sarah.
But why?
Sarah squeezed their hand. “He loves you,” she pointed out.
“I know,” Patience repeated. “He loves you too.”
Sadly, Sarah answered, “No. I swear, alpha, that’s in the past for both of us. I’ve got Sam and Jess. Adam has you. He and I were finished before he even met you.”
“You’re wrong,” Patience disagreed. “You broke up, maybe. But he still loves you the same. He needs you, Sarah. He needs things I can’t give him.”
Sarah scoffed. “So you’ve said. But he hasn’t. Not to me. I don’t even know what it means. What things? And you’re so good with him. When he’s a Little, you’re always the perfect mix of affectionate and stern. You’ve brought out his wolf in a way none of us ever managed. He’s so comfortable now in his pup mindset. He never showed me the depth of that need, not for the whole time we were together. I didn’t really even know he was a true Little. I thought it was just roleplay.”
Patience took a bracing breath and squeezed Sarah’s hand in return. “Look, I’m not trying to pressure either of you into anything. I’m really not. I would much rather have him all to myself. But the reality of the situation is complicated. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know whether you and he belong together-together, or just as fuck buddies, or if I’m seeing shadows, or if I’m just tired and frustrated. All I know is that he has cravings I don’t know how to manage, and that he loves you so much he aches.”
“You’ve been talking to Michael,” Sarah guessed with a churlish, pessimistic scoff. “He’s been feeding you alternatives. He’s grooming you, alpha. You know that, right?”
Patience laughed again and settled her back against the staircase wall. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t a wolf,” she said cryptically. “But Michael’s advice isn’t what I’m steering by. I’m just trying to do right by my mate. His happiness is more important to me than anything else. And I’m starting to see that some of Michael’s alternatives might not be as apocalyptic as I first assumed.”
Sarah studied her, noted the honesty in her Primary’s eyes and the surety of her grip. “You’ve spoken to Adam about me? What did he say he wanted? Is this your alpha’s permission? Officially?”
With a grimace, Patience let go. “In truth, Sarah, you don’t need my permission. You need Adam’s. And the only way you’ll know what he wants is to talk to him. It’s his say that matters in the end.”
Sarah scoffed. “Tell that to the betas in that office right there getting their asses reamed for building something outside of the standard rankings.”
“He’s not mad that you built something outside the rankings, you moron; he and Dean are the poster boys for unconventional pairings. He’s worried you’re in a conspiracy to cause Jess harm, and he worries about unsafe scene play. Even if it’s only financial harm—even if nothing bad develops from the two of you trying to play Dominant—her own mate shouldn’t be able to conspire to keep her on a lower rung without damaging the Mating-bond. It isn’t about you, really, or you’d be in there with them.”
“Two Subs playing alone together,” said Sarah tiredly. “We should’ve known better. We were so stupid.”
“Not stupid,” Patience disagreed. “No more stupid than two alphas getting married or two Submissives having a relationship even though one of them is Mated to a transgender alpha-Dom and the other is an ape. Careless maybe. Carried away. Not stupid.”
Sarah chuckled softly. Then she sobered and said, “No. I told you I won’t do anything of the kind if Adam isn’t part of the discussion. I won’t take part in designing his life without his input. Even then, I’m not sure I can. If it didn’t work out… it would devastate both of us.”
The office door opened, and a pair of weary betas emerged followed by Cas. He rested his hands on their shoulders as he ushered them from his space. “Keep me informed,” he said. “I expect regular progress reports.”
Sarah stood up. “Is everything okay?”
Sam smiled and went to her with his hands out for her to take. Behind him, Jess wrapped a familiar arm around Cas’ waist and leaned comfortably against him.
“Full reports,” Cas said into her ear with a meaningful look.
Sam told Sarah, “Everything is fine. We’re going to pause our play for a couple of weeks though. It’s just a pause, kiddo. We’ll get back to work soon enough. Don’t go getting sloppy on me. I want you practicing, you get me? Stay sharp. We may start back up without much warning.”
“Weeks?” Sarah asked him in dismay. She searched his face.
“You’ll be fine,” Sam assured her. “If you need a stand-in, we’ll get you situated. Cas is here. So is Michael.” Sam glanced at Patience as they rose from the stair. “And Patience too, if you’re willing to try something out-of-the-box.” Sam’s voice faltered for a moment, and Sarah found no words to express the ache that passed across his face. What was he really saying? Was this the end for their polycule?
Was he simply trying to ease out of it with a minimum of heartbreak?
“It’s not forever? Right?” she breathed.
“Just a pause,” he repeated. He kissed her cheek.
Sarah felt her eyes well up, and she swallowed hard and fought to keep her voice steady. “Can I still come spend time with the boys?”
Jess strode forward. “Of course. You’re family. They would be devastated if you abandoned them.”
Cas stepped closer. “Come here, pup,” he urged softly, and he wrapped his arms around Sarah. “I know this is hard. But the reasons are sound, and one day, you’ll understand.”
“No, I… I get it,” she said into his chest. “I get it.”
“Good girl,” Cas whispered. He stroked her hair and hugged her close. “Now.” He raised her chin. “Do we need to rethink the Pack rankings, beta?”
She bit her lower lip. His kind blue eyes twinkled with light amusement, but his question demanded an answer. After a moment, she found herself nodding.
“Good girl,” he repeated. He tucked her head beneath his chin and hugged her tightly. “I’ll stop in before you go to bed. I’ll see to your balance tonight, and we’ll make a plan.”
Sarah’s breath caught. Was he saying what it sounded like? It’d been a long time since she’d experienced the Alpha in that way. She felt faint for a moment. His strong arms held her up.
He chuckled.
“We’re just going to talk this time,” he clarified. “It’s an assessment and a planning session to figure out how to get you through the blackout.”
“This time,” she repeated dumbly.
Cas nodded. “Be thinking of suggestions. I’m open to a range of alternatives.”
Sarah licked her lips and glanced at the others before fixing her eyes back on Cas. “Do any of those alternatives include you, hands-on, directly?”
“I’ll see what I can arrange,” he told her. “I’m not against it, but I would need to secure Dean’s and April’s approval.”
Patience broke in. “You don’t need April’s approval, surely.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” Cas agreed over Sarah’s head. “But in this Pack, even Omegas are allowed their concerns, their insecurities. If April is adamantly against the idea, I will respect that.”
Michael appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed for work, and jogged down. “Looks like I missed the party,” he quipped as he noticed the convergence of Packmates. “Anything I should know?”
Sam bristled. “I think you know enough.”
Michael strode past him without slowing, but he turned to walk backward. “Don’t blame me for the stew you’re in, beta. You did that yourself.” To Cas he said, “I’m off to the clinic. I’ll be home by three.”
“Have a good shift, Omega. Stay safe. Call me if any emergencies arise, and bail if you Trip into Heat. It’s not worth risking anything.”
“Unbelievable,” Sam muttered in disgust. “What difference do the rankings mean anyway if Omegas can point fingers at a beta and get away with it?”
Castiel snapped his fingers in Sam’s face, startling him. “Michael was addressing your Tertiary choices, Samuel. You know he has the authority to do that. If you don’t like it, I suggest your wolf adjusts its attitude. I will not interfere unless Michael oversteps. So far, I’ve seen nothing to indicate he might do that.”
Sam fumed in silence, staring at the empty archway through which Michael had vanished.
In an easier tone, Cas said, “Off to bed, all of you. We promised all the pups a trip to the lake tomorrow, and we’re getting an early start.”
“I’ll pass on that, if you don’t mind,” Sam said sourly. “Jess and I need to talk this over. Would you take the twins with you and give us a few hours alone?”
“Of course,” Cas told him. “They can stay the night if you and Jess would rather head home. We’ll go ahead with tomorrow’s outing as planned. They’ll be fine.”
Sam looked as if he had something more to say, but in the end, he simply caught up his mate’s hand and led her up the stairs to kiss their sons goodnight. After a moment, Sarah too climbed the stairs. But she took a hard left at the top, toward her own room.
Cas followed her with his eyes.
“Did you and she talk?” he asked Patience.
“A little. She doesn’t trust me yet.”
“All you can do is keep trying to prove to her that she can.” Cas cut his eyes from the top of the stairs to his youngest alpha. “And don’t do anything to break her trust. Give her time. Keep Adam apprised, but I would rather you continue running interference for him for now. If this thing between them is going to develop with any stability, it needs to be alpha-sanctioned and carefully managed. He's in a very vulnerable spot just now.”
“Answer something for me, sir?” Patience held his eye. “All this outrage against Sam, was any of it genuine, or was it all a ploy to drive Sarah to me?”
Cas tilted his head slightly. “Does it matter?”
Patience frowned. “I’m trying to figure out how you think,” they admitted.
“As are many who become familiar with our beloved Alpha,” Fred commented smugly on his way through toward the back hallway.
Cas huffed and rolled his eyes. To Fred, he shot back, “The peanut gallery is much appreciated, my friend. But perhaps you have other matters to attend to. What are you even still doing here? Go home.”
“Indeed, sir. I am just finishing my tasks for the evening. If you’ll excuse me.” Affection sparkled from Fred’s wizened but crystal-clear eyes.
The exchange left Patience shaking their head in puzzlement. “Every time I think I’ve got it, I hear something that puts it all on its head again.”
Cas chuckled and ushered Patience toward his office. “Let’s chat, alpha. Things are likely to begin moving swiftly now. I want us aligned. We’ve a whole household to balance, and you’re pivotal in that effort. I haven’t any other alpha-Doms to rely on.”
“You have Dean though.” Patience perched on the edge of Cas’ loveseat. “And Sam. In combination they’re pretty much the whole package—when one or the other is not yanking your chain.”
“Perhaps,” said Cas. “It might be possible to implement a joint effort between the two of them. They do work well together when they’re both stable. There’s a synergy to their efforts sometimes, almost like mates in their ability to read each other’s nonverbal cues. But I cannot subdivide some of the oversight responsibilities into Secondary versus Tertiary. Dean is not equipped to uphold Tertiary supervision, and Sam can’t take an alpha’s role. I need an alpha with the weight of a Dominant wolf behind it.”
With a frown, Cas’ protégé shook their head. “No one trusts me enough to oversee their balance state. I’m still on the outside in this household, Castiel. I’m just an entry-level photojournalist failing at freelancing. I don’t have the expertise in designation theories the rest of you do. Plus, I’m the youngest adult in the Pack.” Patience studied their clasped hands. “I don’t have the credibility for a role like that.”
“Patience, you’re an alpha-Dominant. Your age is irrelevant. Your authority comes from the innate hierarchy of the Pack. Dean is a powerful alpha, but he’s prone to falls, and he’s a brat of the highest caliber. Cain is barely home enough to have an impact on the household one way or another. Sam has his hands full monitoring the Subs, and he can have only minimal impact on Omegas, as Michael eloquently demonstrated this evening. I mistakenly put too much on Sam’s shoulders when I asked him to oversee all of the lower echelon. We need to adjust his responsibilities. He’s going to drown if I continue to try to rely upon him to oversee the Omegas as well as the Subs. It’s too much of a stretch. That’s my fault. I was hoping to stir his wolf to full wakefulness. Instead, I inundated it.”
“So, you’re asking me to… what? Supervise Omegas?”
“I want your help tying off the loose ends of Pack interconnectedness,” Cas told them.
Patience shifted in their seat. “I’m already adjusting to the idea of letting Adam play with Sarah. What more is there?”
“Play with?” Cas cocked an interested brow. “Is that what we said?”
“I’m working on it,” Patience growled. “Saying it’s okay to open up my relationship and doing it are two different things. I won’t be pushed into more than I’m ready for. You told me we could do this at my pace.”
“Your pardon, good sir,” Cas replied calmly. “I misjudged your progress on the matter. Let’s come back to that after a little more development, shall we?” Cas waited until Patience grunted a reluctant acceptance. “More to the current moment, I’d like you to encourage Adam to get an Omega circle started here within the Pack, and I would like you to monitor it.”
“An Omega circle? Like, a standing Omega orgy? That kind of circle?”
“Precisely,” Cas nodded. “We have enough Omegas to provide them sufficient depth.”
“Michael isn’t about to sign off on that,” Patience protested. “He barely wants to share his wife with you.”
“Michael doesn’t get a vote on whether or not the circle exists,” said Cas coolly. “He only has his own participation to determine, not April’s. If he doesn’t want to play, he can opt out.” Cas paused a moment, then added, “He’s not going to opt out though.”
“And I’m the spotter?” Patience asked.
“You’re the spotter,” Cas agreed.
“Wow. Not where I thought this was going.” Patience sat back and regarded the Pack Alpha upon his throne. “Have you run this past Kali?”
“Not yet,” Cas answered. “But Kali will not protest. All she cares about is Gabe. If he’s happy, she’s happy. And Gabe isn’t going to protest either; he’s too much of a hedonist.”
Patience thought it over. “Omegas only?”
“It isn’t an Omega circle if betas and alphas participate,” Cas pointed out.
“So, no Sarah? No Jess? And no scening?”
Shaking his head and leaning onto his arms upon the flat of his desk, Cas said, “The Submissives have their own outlets. Where there is crossover—Kate, Adam, and April, that is—we will ensure that we ask no more of them than they can handle, that this activity fulfills whatever remaining needs they have that are not otherwise managed. What we are seeking with this initiative is to unlock the Omegas’ access to their inborn guttural power base, to open them up to the metaphysical source of Omega strength. Something powerful happens in packs that have a robust Omega circle, yet precious little research exists to characterize it.”
“You’re going to study your own Pack?”
“Passively,” Cas acknowledged. “It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last.”
Patience shrugged. Cas’ research didn’t interest them much. “Should we bring in contractors to shore up the numbers? We only have five Omegas. Back home, there were dozens.”
“Let’s give it a try without outsiders to start,” Cas decided. “I’d prefer to keep things within the Pack, and you can include Bram for now; Carlos shows no sign of wanting to take him home. If it comes to needing more, Benny’s Pack would probably be happy to join. That would be preferable to contractors. But one thing at a time. If you’ll instruct Adam, he can get the ball rolling. He has experience at coordination of this type.”
He watched Patience absorb the instruction, searching for any sign the alpha was uncomfortable at the idea of their Omega mate leading Omega orgies.
Cas didn’t see any discomfort. Which, all to the good. Omega sexual play among one another, especially within the same pack, had always felt natural and inevitable to most Lupins. Packs assumed their Omegas found each other irresistible. Very few packs limited Omega contact, more predisposed to encourage it. And, of course, it was another baby step toward Patience accepting that their Omega mate could benefit from intimate contact with others aside from his mate.
If Patience could allow this, perhaps they were truly loosening their grip on Adam’s shackles.
For all they seemed to have accepted that Adam needed an alternate line of support, Cas knew that secretly Patience was hoping all Adam really needed was a casual playmate. Allowing a full romance and perhaps more… Well, one thing at a time.
It had taken longer than Cas expected—laying Adam’s hand in Sarah’s as he’d promised—but it would happen. He was certain of it. It was now only a matter of time and patience.
Patience.
They nodded. “All right. I’ll speak to Adam. Do you care where we set it up? My old Packhouse had a wing devoted to Omegas. I never went in there, but I think one of the rooms was specifically for sex, Omega sex.”
“I leave the details to you, alpha. I trust your judgment.” Cas said with a firm nod. “That’s all for now. You’re dismissed.”
They stood up and paused in the doorway. “Sir, the rank challenge you’re considering, will it be open to everyone?”
“You want to challenge Cain?” Cas asked.
“He’s a Submissive, Alpha. My wolf doesn’t like the standings as they are.”
Cas arched that brow again. “His alpha outweighs yours.”
“Barely.”
Cas sighed. “Very well. Let me discuss it with Dean. I’ll let you know.” He rose from his chair. “But be careful what you wish for, alpha. Cain is no one to be trifled with. He will not go easy on you, and with how he chooses to spend his free time—both how and with whom—I suspect he has somewhat of a leg up on your wolf’s experience.”
“All I ask for is an opportunity,” Patience said. Stiffly, they nodded in a respectful show of deference before excusing themself.
Cas sat down again behind his desk, alone in his office. As always, he felt like he perched within the eye of a hurricane, buffeted from all sides by movement and bustle. Yet, he felt singularly calm.
He felt content.
Softly, he smiled to himself.
He couldn’t see the weariness in his own visage, so firmly was his mask affixed.
His hand brushed across a small box next to his keyboard, unnoticed until now. Startled, he picked it up. It had been placed here only recently, as he’d not seen it before. Rectangular, but barely the length of his palm, the box looked to be about sized for jewelry of some sort. He lifted the lid.
Inside, tucked into velvet, his mother’s pearls glistened.
She’d worn them most of her adult life.
They were as familiar to Cas as her face. Most of the associations he held of his mother included these very pearls.
He fingered them pensively.
Their luster gleamed undimmed by Naomi’s passing. Idly, he realized he’d assumed she had worn them to the mortuary. From there, he’d thought no more about them.
They were Gabe’s now, as with all of his mother’s jewelry.
The only items bequeathed to her eldest son.
But how had they appeared here? And why now?
“I beg your pardon.”
Cas tore his gaze from the pearls to find Fred at his office door. Through inexplicably tear-filled eyes and over an uncomfortable lump in his throat, Cas found himself studied in turn. Fred let himself in and closed the door behind him. He produced a cotton handkerchief, clean and pressed, and he offered it to Cas.
Cas sniffled softly and took the proffered square. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” he muttered. “She was monstrous, and she never gave a damn about any of us. Why should a string of beads make me tear up?”
Fred let Cas turn his back to pull himself together. “She loved you, Castiel. She loved Gabriel. She hadn’t the slightest idea how to show it, and she was hobbled by resentment and bitterness. Envy is an acid that eats at the soul. More to the point though, you loved her despite being devastated by disappointment in her choices. Castiel, you cannot hide from me as you are wont to do with yourself. You are grieving, Alpha. And your grief requires an outlet. You need to carry that grief for awhile, carry it right up front. Grief is a living entity, my friend. I want you to live with it, look at it, hold it. Talk to it. To that end, I asked Gabriel to lend you those pearls for a while.”
A protest that he already had plenty of outlets to expend his grief died in his throat, unspoken, as Cas took the string of pearls from its nest and ran calloused fingers over the perfectly smooth spheres. “Hold it,” he repeated softly. He wrapped the necklace around his fingers so that it nestled in his palm. A fresh spate of tears broke over his eyelids and tumbled down his cheeks.
“All I ever wanted for us was to be a real family,” Cas said. “I wanted to build a Pack where she could find sanctuary, where she could put away the spikes she surrounded herself with. She had to be so very lonely. But we never… We never spoke the same language. I wanted her to be proud of me.” To himself, Cas sounded petulant, like a child.
Fred smiled. “She was proud of you, Alpha. In her way.”
“In her way,” said Cas sadly. He fingered the pearls. “Grief makes no sense to me, Fred. What am I grieving? We barely spoke, and never without rancor. Why do I feel like I’m so much more alone than I ever was before? I’m at a good place in my life. The Pack is strong. The Facility is making powerful inroads. The pups are healthy and growing. I have it all. I have everything I ever wanted. Why should I be set back on my heels by a string of pearls from a woman I fought with ceaselessly from the time I was twelve? They’re just snobbery on a string. They represent everything inflexible and judgmental about her, everything I detest.”
“They were your mother’s,” Fred said simply. “Keep them with you for a time. Perhaps some answers to your questions will come.”
Cas wanted to drop them into his waste bin. But Fred’s expression held him. “All right,” Cas conceded. “For you.”
He shoved the necklace into his pants pocket and wiped his face with Fred’s handkerchief. “I don’t know whether to thank you for your wisdom or dock your pay for impertinence,” Cas added brusquely. “Meddling old man.”
Fred met that with a smirk. “Indeed, Alpha. I’ll leave you to decide. Good night.” And he let himself out, presumably heading home to his husband.
Cas fished the pearls back out of his pocket and frowned at them as if they’d soiled his perfectly white bed linens. Then he wrapped them twice around his left wrist, into a bracelet, and he tried to put them out of his mind.
Michael regretted not allowing Dean to take the edge off his pre-Heat. As it was, left to build on itself, he Tripped shortly after midnight in the middle of intake of a feral alpha teenager to the clinic’s mandatory hold wing.
The young man fought every step of the process. Three beta nurses, two alpha security goons, and Michael wedged tightly in his wolf’s most Dominant persona managed to secure the alpha to his bed and calm him enough to answer some preliminary questions. Then the alpha’s wild, untamed scent wove its way into Michael’s psyche, and he descended into a full-body flush and a massive release of Heat-scent. His slacks caught the streaming slick as it issued in a humiliating gush from between his cheeks to coat the insides of both thighs.
Thank god for white clinic coats. Although everyone could smell him, at least they couldn’t see the stain.
The youth’s pupils dilated, and his nostrils flared, and then he lunged for Michael. Even cuffed, he managed to catch Michael by the lapel. He dragged the Omega in and pressed his lips against Michael’s with a hand groping around back in search of the source of the slick scent.
Michael escaped the room mussed and frayed under the protection of the security personnel. His white coat now sported a ragged tear from the front pocket to the waist. He could still hear the possessive screeching of a young man, bound to his own hospital bed, who had suffered brutal disappointment at having a cycling Omega so damned close and then having him ripped away.
Dean, not yet in Rut, but hot and itchy in his clothing anyway, was already on the road toward The Facility when the call came in that Michael needed him. Dean hadn’t needed the phone call; he’d felt his mate Trip. He hit the turnstile like a battering ram, blind to the escort on the other side of the room, waiting to spirit him past the usual protocols and straight into his suite behind Cas’ office. It took four of them waving and shouting to get his attention and usher him away from the infernal turnstile that refused to turn, barring his entrance. Once his alpha spotted the open door, it re-routed, trampling security guards and alpha escorts alike, following the scent of mate/mate/mate.
He shed his top layers as he sprinted the twenty yards of corridor between the guardroom door and the suite’s entrance. He needed to reach the door before Michael decided to peek out in search of him. No one else could be allowed access to Dean’s mate.
Not even a glimpse or the barest trace of scent.
Dean’s bare feet slapped the tiles as he ran.
He left his escorts jogging in his wake, collecting discarded shirts, his keys, his wallet. His sweatpants remained tied fast, so he was unable to shove them down past his hips as he ran.
Slamming the suite door behind him, Dean caught Michael up in his arms, awash in hot, damp skin and need. He pivoted with Michael and slammed him against the door he’d just closed. Mouth found mouth. Grasping hands curled around whatever they could clutch. Dean pressed a knee between Michael’s legs and ground his pelvis into his mate’s.
Michael whined and bared his throat.
“Alpha, please…”
“I got you, sweetheart,” Dean rasped.
Michael pawed at the tie to Dean’s sweats, but he couldn’t manage it with most of his focus engaged in rolling belly up for his alpha. Dean loosened his own drawstring with one hand while his lips sucked a bruise on Michael’s throat. He let Michael manage undressing him from there.
Michael sank to his knees as he shoved Dean’s pants down his legs, and he engulfed Dean’s cock in his mouth. He choked himself in his enthusiasm and pulled back, and then pressed right back in, swallowing around the head and whimpering in distress.
With frantic fingers, Michael managed to wrench Dean’s pants from his legs and cast them aside.
Dean tangled his fingers in Michael’s hair. He tugged. Hard. Michael only whimpered and tongued down around his knot.
“Easy, tiger. Let’s get that thing where you need it. C’mon, up you go.”
Michael was, of course, already nude. Torn clothing littered the floor. Spilled water dribbled from an overturned glass on the kitchen counter onto the tiled floor below. The suite spoke witness to a desperate man’s interminable wait for his mate, all unkempt and abandoned efforts toward self-care that Michael was fated to fail at. Dean hoisted Michael into his arms and carried him to the bedroom, kissing hungrily the whole way.
“Knew I shouldn’t have let you out of the house tonight,” he mumbled. He deposited his mate onto the bed and swept April’s stupid throw pillows onto the floor. “Shh, I got you. Breathe, baby boy. Just breathe. I’m going to make it all right.”
Dean climbed up over Michael and recaptured his lips while he busied himself aligning their bodies. The bonds between them reverberated and pulsed with light and color and music. Everywhere skin sparked against skin. Sweat pooled. Breath met and mingled. Golden irises begged wordlessly for relief, and red promised sure footing.
Dean angled his hips and guided himself into his mate. He pressed in deep, letting his burgeoning knot slide easily inside Michael’s drenched channel. Michael groaned and spread his knees. He rocked his hips to accommodate Dean.
“You want it easy or hard, Omega?”
“Dean, please!” Michael begged. “Don’t tease me!”
“Hard, it is,” Dean concluded smugly. “Hang on, chief.” He felt the squeeze and release as his knot slipped free, and then he scowled and slammed home again. Frantic to soothe his desperate mate, Dean grunted and swore and fucked.
But he couldn’t hold out.
At all.
In a matter of moments, his knot reached its full girth, and it locked tightly inside the Omega as Michael’s orgasm sent out pulsing muscle spasms to fix it fast. Michael threw his head back and shouted. He wrapped his legs around Dean’s hips and drew him even closer, tugging at his hair and clawing at his back.
Dean trembled and stuttered in his rhythm against the tie. He felt that timeless sense of inevitability draw up tight and tense and delicious before cresting in unspeakable pleasure that ricocheted between the two men’s bonds and sent him into a freefall of sensation.
His eyes squeezed shut, and he grimaced against the overwhelming thrill of spilling into his mate’s body.
Dean wasn’t sure if he whited out or if his brain just skipped a track or two, but he came back to himself with his heart pounding in his ears and his mate clutching him close by the shoulders, shivering.
“Shh, shh,” he soothed. “That’s better. Who takes care of you, sweetheart? Michael, open your eyes. It’s all right. I’m here.”
He urged Michael to unclench a bit and focus up at him. When Dean managed to get Michael to ease up, he found the man’s eyes had returned to their usual brilliant green.
Michael suffered a moment of disorientation. He searched the room as if unsure where they were. But he caught and held Dean’s eyes once he found them. Through the bonds, Dean felt him begin to settle.
“That’s right. You’re okay. We’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe and sound right here where you belong. I’m going to take good care of you.” Dean crooned softly to him and brushed fingers through his damp hair. Michael clenched his channel as if to prove to himself that Dean was right, that they were tied safely, that he’d been knotted by the correct alpha.
Not by a seventeen-year-old degenerate cuffed to a bed.
Michael shivered in revulsion at the thought.
As Michael’s channel gripped him tighter, Dean moaned and closed his eyes to let the sensation fill his body and his bonds.
“I got jumped, alpha,” Michael muttered. He hid his eyes with an arm and turned his head. Dean felt a spike of shame throb through the Mating-bond. “I hate being this vulnerable! Barely got out of there intact. Stupid alpha kid and his stupid out-of-control teenaged alpha hormones.”
Dean growled. He swamped the shame with possessive outrage, and he caged Michael’s torso between his arms. “I’ll kill him! I’ll tear his heart out!”
Michael tucked his chin and curled himself beneath Dean’s chest. He wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist and tugged until the alpha settled right on top of him with his full weight. The idea that Dean might leave, even just to go justifiably vanquish an enemy, seemed to terrify Michael.
All he managed to say was, “No. Stay.”
The growling ceased. Dean kissed his mate. Deeply. Lovingly. Soothingly. Between kisses he murmured, “Okay, you win. Not going anywhere, baby boy. You’re stuck with me. At least until your wife gets home.”
Michael scowled. “Don’t want Pete. Need you, alpha. Just you.”
Dean chuckled. “Well, that’s good, ‘cause you’re only getting me for a couple of days. We’ll give your Omega a good hard run, get it all out of your system, and then see if you don’t change your mind before your Heat wears off.”
“Not gonna change my mind,” Michael mumbled as sleep began to drag him away.
Dean laughed fondly and kissed his nose. “You say that every cycle,” he whispered. “We’ll see.”
As Michael sank into a shallow, uncomfortable slumber, Dean kicked free of the bedding which had entangled his legs. His core temperature had spiked over the last couple of hours, and the queasiness he had been ignoring for the last week finally dissipated. It was a dance he knew well. Soon, he would sink into a veritable stupor of need and pressing want, all sweaty thrusting and grunting and pressure and demand to breed/breed/breed.
But not yet. For now Dean was just horny and touch-crazed, not all that different from his usual baseline, if a degree or ten more intense. Dean rolled them both masterfully. The tie didn’t even pull. He pulled his sleeping Omega up close under his chin as he settled back into plush pillows and reveled lazily in the overpowering scent of his mate in Heat. For all that he couldn’t bear the stifling heat of a single layer of fabric covering him, every inch of his skin that wasn’t touching Michael felt cold.
Bereft.
“Alpha,” Michael muttered in his sleep. He buried his nose in Dean’s throat and clung to him.
“Right here, sweetheart,” Dean whispered back with a kiss to the top of Michael’s head. Dean’s inner alpha preened, proud of its performance and the expectation that its mate would emerge fully bred with Dean’s pup. Mental images of Michael’s belly, tight and swollen, passed across his mind unbidden.
[Keep that shit to yourself,] Dean warned his Secondary. [He’s not ready, and we’re not going to pressure him.]
In response, Dean felt a sour shrug and a dissenting huff from his alpha that picked up a mirroring agreement from his wolf.
[I swear, the two of you,] Dean grumbled inside his own head. [Behave yourselves or I swear I’ll rat you both out to Cas. Don’t think I won’t.]
“Rat them out for what?” asked Michael inside Dean’s mind as the lanky black wolf looked sleepily over its shoulder within the warm, sandy interior of Dean’s lair. The two wolves lay back to front, knotted and content, as a blizzard gusted and moaned out in the dark beyond the mouth of Dean’s cave.
Dean’s imaginary wolf den came into sharp focus in the alpha’s head, and without any push of his own, his consciousness shifted into his own avatar’s mind.
“Hmm?” Dean questioned, pricking his ears forward and feigning confusion to buy a little time. “Who? What now?” He licked Michael’s muzzle and ears.
Then he changed the subject.
“You made it to the den. I knew you would. Get ready for three days of raunchy, doggie-style, bestial, animal fucking, kiddo. This is gonna be epic. Always wondered what my wolf experienced during a Rut. Now we finally get to find out. If we can maintain it, that is. Keep that tail out of my way or I’ll amputate it myself.” Dean’s wolf grinned in the darkness. “With my teeth.”
“You’re so weird,” Michael observed. But he nuzzled against Dean’s furry throat and nestled back down into the nest to sleep until his need spiked again. By that time, Dean will have fallen into full Rut, and then all holds would be cast aside.
“You have no idea,” Dean agreed softly. He rested his chin over the ruff of Michael’s neck, wrapped protectively around his mate to wait out the knot and their mutually growing fever.
They would need their strength, whether in the physical or metaphysical world. Sleeping between spikes was just common sense for wolves as well as humans. It was entirely natural.
In fact, everything about occupying the wolfscape felt natural to them both. They didn’t so much as contemplate that Michael’d achieved his goal for the evening, finding Dean’s internal lair, but in the reverse circumstance from what he’d intended. It was Dean who was awake, and Michael mostly asleep, not the other way around. But it felt like coming home, curling up, covered in fur, in a sand-filled nest high upon the peak of a rocky cleft in a wintry mountain-scape.
Their wolves were both at home here.
Dean hoped he and Michael could hold onto this consciousness within the wolfscape long enough to enjoy themselves as beasts, casting aside all human entanglements and societal strictures—not that they felt bound by many of those anyway. He knew much of it would be the same: the desperation, the raw need, the power and the pressure and the heat. But, as Dean’s wolf was Submissive, and Rut was primarily a Secondary experience, he wondered how that translated in the metasphere. How did a Submissive Tertiary wolf experience a Rut that was performed through an alpha headspace?
For now, it seemed that his alpha predominated within his wolf’s mind, subsuming the Submissive even within its own territory.
How was that possible? Wasn’t the wolf…well… his wolf? How could his Tertiary Submissive be overwritten by his alpha? Dean’s head swam with the implications.
He didn’t realize he’d spoken his thoughts aloud until Michael answered.
“Goddamnit, alpha, give it a rest,” Michael groused with his eyes still closed. “You’re overthinking it. Of course, your Secondary can occupy your wolf. The wolf is a reflection of you. It has all the same layers and complexities that you have.”
Dean sat up in his bed in The Facility suite, very human, and stared down at his very human mate with moonlight streaming through the window nearby. “What the hell did you just say?”
Reluctantly, Michael cracked his eyes open. For a moment, Dean felt dizzy with converging images of Michael’s human form superimposed over his fur-covered wolf. Then the human form dissolved, and he was left back in his den looking into the green eyes of his mate’s black wolf.
“Your metaphysical wolf, Dean.” Michael’s voice seemed to come from nowhere. It sounded within Dean’s mind without need of a mouth or larynx that wolves lack. “It’s you. It’s all three of your designations, just like you are. We only associate it with the Tertiary because we have the most access to visualize and embody it through our Tertiary. But it’s always there, and that means it’s got just as much depth as our human forms. Our wolves aren’t a singular designation. They’re everything, just like our human forms.”
Dean’s mind reeled. He felt like someone had just slapped his face with a snow shovel. Michael though, closed his eyes and snuggled back down to sleep, utterly unconcerned.
“How do you know that? Where did you get that idea? You just casually upended fifty years of designation theory, and now you’re taking a nap?”
Michael’s wolf sighed. Dean’s knot released, and the two bodies separated in a surge of warm, sticky fluid.
“Think about it,” Michael told him as Dean went to work diligently cleaning his mate with his tongue. “The metaphysical world is a reflection. It has to be as vivid and layered as the physical. There is no disconnect between our designations in our heads; they all run together, interweave and interconnect, ebb and flow and layer with each other in ways so complex we could never untangle them completely. How can the wolfscape not reflect that?”
Dean’s furry forehead furrowed between his pointed ears, obscuring the white stripe down the middle of his head. A back leg reached forward to scratch behind his ear as he tried to think it through. “Okay, professor, but answer me this. Why is it that the only time I cannot see my own wolf in my head is when I’m occupying my Tertiary designation? Doesn’t that indicate that my wolf is my Tertiary?”
Michael shrugged. “No idea. Probably means that your wolf is primarily Tertiary, just as your physical self is primarily Secondary.”
In Dean’s mind, little fireworks composed of the Mind-blown emoji exploded in every direction like yesterday’s Independence Day festival at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. “The Bolivians taught you that?”
“What? No. Dean, the Bolivians don’t even make a distinction between the three designations. They have no words for Secondary and Tertiary. All they see is the whole, not the parts.”
Dean simply stared at his mate, speechless.
Michael rolled his eyes. “Blame it on Ayawuascaita though, I suppose. Having access to the sum total of all canine experience and knowledge had to be good for something. Can I sleep now? I’m going to need my strength. You too. You smell ripe. I give you about four hours max before you fully Trip. I’m game to try to cycle from this side of the metaphysical barrier if you are. It’s not bestiality if we’re both quadrupeds. Or, what’s that other phrase? It’s only kinky once?” He chuckled in a self-satisfied way, then he stood up, shook the sand out of his fur, stretched with his front paws extended outward, circled the nest a few times, and collapsed back down in a tight curl.
“C’mon, Dean. Nap time. You can gape at my brilliance later.”
Dean shook his head to kick himself out of his stupor. The movement caused another visual overlay of physical and metaphysical realities. Back in his bed, in the bedroom of his suite, in the tangible world, he and Michael were employing their very real voices to hold this conversation, lying side-by-side on a rumpled comforter.
It was a singular sensation from a wolf’s perspective, something Dean had never fully appreciated before.
Like before, as the overlay faded, Dean remained a wolf in a familiar lair with its mate. He wrapped himself around Michael and snuggled in. At least, he thought he did. More likely, Dean pondered, rather than manifesting a reality in which they were both quadrupedal animals, Dean was merely dreaming. He had fallen asleep. Right?
But dream or no, Michael’s epiphany that the wolfscape mirrored the entirety of Lupin complexity and not just the Tertiary Id of it all bore remembering, if only to examine it with all of Dean’s human faculties engaged. Just the concept made his furry head spin.
That was for later.
For now, a whole cycle ahead of them and a chance to experience it as wild animals…
It was going to be epic.
Dean chuckled to himself. Cycling with his mate as dogs, that was just plain filthy.
And dream or no, this place felt as real as any world Dean had ever known. It felt limitless in possibility. Here, he was very much himself, and yet he was very much not a human. Dean knew human artifacts could be added to the wolfscape, as evidenced by the wire mesh dog crate left haphazardly at the back of his den. Yet, there had to be limits. He couldn’t speak here, not physically. He had no need of indoor plumbing or data storage or dryer sheets or engine manifolds.
But were there sex toys? Condoms? What happened if he bred Michael here? Did their birth control hold if they weren’t humanoid? Was this truly a different plane of existence or merely a psychological reflection of the real world?
Current accepted theory suggested that the wolf inside each Lupin perceived the world of its human in some fashion. Perhaps, if they could hold themselves here long enough, Dean would learn how his human world translated into this wilderness of his wolf, might learn which one was real and which the reflection. Like, how did the wolfscape translate the Lupin process of corporal punishment? How did it process the tedium of PTA meetings? Of math homework? Of Champagne toasts or social media or lipstick?
He lost the thread of his thoughts as the body next to him thrummed softly with breath and warmth and a steady heartbeat. Already, Dean’s mind began to cloud. His Rut rolled lazily over the tipping point. His body turned away from intellectual pursuits in favor of erotic ones. Just before lusty dreams swept him over, he managed to pluck up a mental pin and affix it to the theory Michael had dropped into his lap. Soon, the flush of Rut and thrill of pleasure at Michael’s proximity wiped it from his mind entirely.
Out of the darkness of enveloping sleep, one last fleeting thought flashed against his human’s mind like a Balrog’s fiery whip.
If every activity in the physical world had an analog in the metaphysical, then im-Balances and their resolutions did too. Dean wondered as he drifted off if there might be a way to manage his falls from inside the wolfscape.
Something to talk to Cas about when his Rut was over.
And with that, he slept.
Notes:
Warning for attempted sexual assault.
Warning for acute grief over death of a parentBy the way, I'm stoked to announce that Caniformes has achieved a stunning record of 1500 kudos. Thank you guys so very much of the years of support and encouragement. You mean the world to me. You've changed my life, and I love you all!
Chapter 48: Saturday, July 6, 2024
Summary:
A day at the lake with his pups has Castiel on edge, but Gabe's there to talk him down. Dean and Michael are trying something new as they cycle and find out, in more than one way, that it's not all it's advertised to be.
And Dean's falling, falling, falling.
None of this is his fault.
Notes:
Warnings in the footnotes.
Hey, Pack! Don't you hate it when you think you understand something, only to learn you don't and to have it all go horribly wrong? Yeah, Michael hates it too.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
NOW:
Saturday, July 6, 2024
“That’s pretty, Papa. Can I see it?” Emma scrambled onto the low stone wall circling the picnic pavilion by the lake and reached out to touch the delicate lustrous pearls on his wrist.
Castiel slid the string over his knuckles and handed it to his daughter. “Be careful with them. They were Grandmother’s. They’re very old.”
Late morning at their secluded rental cabin shimmered as the temperature rose.
“She died, huh? She was your mama, and she died. I bet you miss her.” Emma held the necklace up in the sunlight and studied the gentle glow off each of the beads. She tucked it against her throat as if wearing it doubled up.
“I suppose I do,” Cas answered. “Although we had a contentious, complicated relationship. Families aren’t always straightforward, and sadly, your grandmother was not a kind person.”
“She gave us presents when she came home from big trips. An’ she let us try on her shoes when O-Pop took us to visit. Even the sparkly ones.”
Cas chuckled and lifted Emma from the wall. He settled onto a wide bench beneath the awning and placed his daughter across his lap. He wore only a damp pair of swim trunks and flip-flops. Absently, he touched the necklace dangling from her fingers. “You do recognize that the giving of favors is not the same thing as kindness, right?”
“You were really mad at her, huh?” Emma asked. “How come?”
Emma’s damp towel moistened Castiel’s lap slightly. The other pups had vanished into the lake house for a snack when Papa called them out of the water for a break. But Emma lingered under the pavilion with her father.
“My mother hurt people I care about, and she did it frequently. I loved her, of course, and I’m very glad she never hurt you pups. But for all she should have known better, she never learned to be nice when being nice would have been so easy.”
Emma thought about that for a moment. The pearls swung in her grip, glistening with refracted light even in the cool shade. “Maybe because she was really important,” Emma guessed. “She was in Congress. A lot of people knew her. Maybe having to be nice to so many people she didn’t even know made her lose patience. Like Kat does when she doesn’t get to be alone all day.”
“I would hope that, by the time she’s my mother’s age, Kat learns some coping strategies to keep her from being unkind to people who haven’t done anything to harm her.”
“How come you’re wearing her necklace if you’re so mad at her?”
“I’m not sure, Idge. Something between us feels unfinished, I suppose. I would like to get to a place where I’m not so angry. After all, neither of us can do anything to fix our relationship now. It doesn’t do much good to be angry at someone who isn’t coming back.”
“I won’t ever be so mad at Mama that I don’t even cry when she dies,” the pup observed. “Wasn’t your mama ever nice? Did she read you stories at bedtime when you were little? Did she sing to you when you couldn’t fall asleep?”
Cas tightened his arms around his daughter in a gentle hug. “No, she didn’t do any of those things. But she did shield us a bit from my father’s temper. She made sure we had a good education. I don’t think she wanted to be angry all the time. The world just didn’t turn out the way she expected it to, and she didn’t adapt very well. And besides, I have cried some. No matter what she did to hurt people, she was my mother. It hurts to know we won’t ever see her again.”
Emma’s gaze felt a tad too perceptive for a moment as she watched emotions flicker across Castiel’s face. She wrapped skinny arms around his shoulders and hugged him back before pressing the necklace back into his hand. “It makes you extra sad because now she can’t say sorry?”
Cas sighed. “Maybe so. I would like to think that she might have one day realized the harm she did and tried to make amends. But the truth is I don’t believe that was ever going to happen. I guess I’m keeping the pearls close at hand to remind me that it’s important not to take people I care about for granted. Grandmother would have been a much happier person if she had allowed her family to be a part of her life, if she had been able to accept us as we are. It makes me extra sad to know she was unnecessarily unhappy, and I wasn’t able to change that.”
Emma laid her head against Cas’ chest. Together, they watched clouds scudding listlessly across the sky. A pair of mockingbirds argued with a squirrel in the pecan tree by the lake house. “I’m sorry your mama was mean and your papa was mad at you like that.” Emma’s voice caught in her throat as she imagined growing up without warmth and kindness from her parents. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It wasn’t fair,” Castiel conceded. “It wasn’t fair for Uncle Gabe, and it wasn’t fair for me. We were pups, just like you. We made plenty of mistakes; we were far from perfect. But I believe that pups don’t have to be perfect to deserve to be loved by their parents. And I’m so grateful to have the honor of being your Papa. I can’t fix any of the things that went wrong between me and my mother. But I can be different than she was. I can look at the way she treated people and make different choices than she made.”
Emma carefully took the pearls out of Cas’ hand. She wrapped them back onto his wrist and arranged them to her liking. “I get it. You wear Grandmother’s necklace so you remember not to get mean-mad when we mess up or break the rules.”
“Mean-mad?”
“Yeah,” Emma said. “Like, scary-mad. Like you do with Daddy when he’s a smart mouth.”
Cas laughed. “You know that most of that scary-mad stuff is make believe, don’t you? It’s part of a game Daddy and I play when our wolves are hungry.”
“Not always,” Emma argued with wide eyes. “Sometimes you’re really, really mad.”
“Yes, well, sometimes Daddy really really provokes me.”
“What’s provokes?”
“Provoke means to do something on purpose to get a specific reaction from someone else. Your daddy is a brat, and that means he breaks rules on purpose so that he’ll get punished. The punishments are one way he feeds his wolf. Handing punishments out is one way I feed mine.”
“So, you’re only pretending to be mad?”
“Mm-hm, most of the time. Daddy and I don’t have many real arguments anymore. We mostly agree with each other.”
“But Grandmother wasn’t pretending?”
“I’m afraid not,” Cas said.
“How can you tell? Maybe she was just feeding her wolf.”
“I wish it were that simple, Idgie. Grandmother’s wolf was a Neutral. It didn’t need to feed the same way mine does.”
“What about your papa? Did his wolf get hungry like yours?” Emma dug her heels into Castiel’s thighs and adjusted her position in his lap so she could peer into his face.
“I believe it did,” he replied. He loosened his grip on her to let her adjust. “Although he didn’t have a brat in his house to help him feed it.”
“Uncle Gabe was there,” Emma pointed out.
Cas laughed again and hugged her. “Excellent observation. But adults don’t feed their wolves on pups. At least, we shouldn’t. We need grown-ups in our lives who mirror our wolves’ appetites. My father didn’t have a grown-up around who needed the kind of wolf that lived in Father’s mind. His wolf was always hungry and never got fed. Even with Uncle Gabe around, he never felt full because he didn’t get to play the way he needed to.”
“And that made him cranky?”
“Cranky is a perfect adjective for my father,” Cas agreed.
“He died a long time ago, huh?”
“A very long time ago. I was still a boy. I had to grow up very fast.”
Emma curled tightly into his chest. “I don’t want you to die. You won’t, will you? Please don’t.”
“I won’t, love. I’m staying right here. I’m going to keep watching out for you pups until you’re all grown-ups yourselves and you get sick of having me around.” He kissed the top of her head and held her close.
“Never,” Emma mumbled.
“Never?” Cas asked with a wicked grin. He tickled the back of her neck. “Not even if I turn into a tickle-monster?”
She thrashed, squealed, and hopped out of his lap. Flushed and giggling, she asked, “Can we get back in the water yet?”
Cas checked the time on his watch. “Sure. It’s been half an hour. Run in and get a good drink of water. Bring me the sunscreen so we can refresh. Let the others know the water’s open again.”
“YAY!” Emma shouted and dashed toward the cabin door already shouting.
It took another half hour to re-apply sunscreen to all eight small bodies. Gabe started heating the grill while Kali and Kate prepped burger patties and fixings. Cas waded into the shallows with Mary Ellen and Sean, both fitted with water wings. The older pups shouted and splashed, swimming the short distance to the diving platform and competing to cause the biggest wave as they cannonballed one after another.
Emmy tugged at her bathing suit.
“OFF!” she demanded.
None of the pups were accustomed to wearing anything while in the water, but here in a public setting, allowances had to be made.
“Leave it alone, kiddo.” Cas offered her a shiny stone from the shoreline that sparkled with crystals of quartz. “Here, look at this one. It’s like a diamond. See how the sun makes it sparkle?”
“Pretty!” the preschooler gushed.
“Papa, watch!” Jimmy launched himself from the platform, catching some serious air before curling into a ball and plunging into the water.
Then JT stepped to the edge. “No, Alpha, look at this one!” He backed up and got a running start.
From his position in the shallows with the little ones, Cas had the perfect vantage point for judging their efforts. JT easily earned the top rating as he had the most bulk and the most experience.
“When’s O-Pop gonna come?” Sean asked as he climbed into Cas’ lap with little waves undulating around their hips.
Cas smoothed his wet hair. “O-Pop can’t come this time, Micheleen. He’s in Heat. He and Daddy are busy. They’ll come to the lake with us next time.”
“SOUP’S ON!” Gabe shouted from the pavilion. “Come get it while it’s hot!”
Cas rose to his feet, hauling Sean to his hip and taking Mary Ellen by the hand. “Let’s go, troops! Lunch time! Everyone out!” Six simultaneous splashes marked their instant compliance as all the pups raced for the shore.
Forty yards out, a motorboat trawled slowly past. Castiel watched one of the passengers raise a camera and train it on the Winchester pups wading out to claim their burgers. He took a couple of steps into the water, growling a menacing warning as his eyes flashed crimson.
The boat’s motor kicked up, and it sped off, knocking the cameraman off balance.
“Easy there, Alpha.” Kali lifted Emmy from the water. “You’ll scare the pups.”
“Take them both. I’ll be right back.”
Cas set Sean on his feet. Kali caught up his little hand and led him toward the food as Cas headed the opposite direction. At the treeline, he found his security team already radioing to dispatch an interception at the marina.
“Are pictures of my pups about to be posted to the internet?” he asked.
The Primate guard replied, “We can’t keep people from taking photos, boss. All we can do is try to stop them from putting them out there. Sal’s on the way to cut them off. But if they upload the images to the cloud before they dock, there’s not a thing we can do about it. Not legally, that is.”
“Damnit, how did they even know we’re here? You can barely see this cove from the lake, and you can’t get anywhere near it from the road.”
“Lake’s public, Alpha. Day like this, half the city is out here on the water. We’ve been watching, but there have to have been ten or twelve boaters take note of you folks by now.”
Cas sighed. “Fantastic.” He swept his gaze across the wide flat surface of the lake. None of the many boats seemed to be obvious about skulking for a clear view, but this end of the lake appeared overpopulated with watercraft compared to the unbroken stretch of water at the far side.
“Sir, if I may. Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Go back and have a good time with your family. No one’s going to get close enough to hurt the pups.”
Cas scowled, but he put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and nodded. “Tell Sal I want that camera wiped. Tell him to pay whatever it takes.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Cas fixed his burger the way he liked, with two slices of cheddar and rings of white onion. He sat surrounded by rambunctious pups, all talking with their mouths full.
Gabe squeezed in opposite Cas at the picnic table. His own burger toppled sideways on his plate, top-heavy with piled goodies. Gabe reconstructed it and then licked his thumb. “Time’s running out on you being able to keep them out of the public eye, Alpha. They’ve got all kinds of away-from-home activities coming. Sports, music lessons, clubs, who knows what else. Even just a run to the grocery store with Michael puts them in the crosshairs. You can’t tie them up and shove them in the basement.”
“I know, Gabe.”
“I mean, you could. But they wouldn’t thank you for it later, and the tell-all book that comes outta that plan will knock you off your throne.”
“It shouldn’t be too much to ask that we be allowed a day at the lake like everyone else,” Cas groused.
“No one’s stopping us having a grand time today, little brother. Ain’t nobody dumb enough to try landing on this beach with your goons lining the shoreline.”
“They’re not goons,” Cas argued.
“The most anyone is gonna get is a blurry photo of some kids splashing in the water. Big whoop. Everybody’s privates are covered. Nobody’s snorting coke or fuc… doing anything risqué. From a tabloid perspective, your Pack is a snooze-fest. Drop your hackles, man, and have fun with your kids.”
Cas looked down the table. Kat and Emma had a deck of cards and had devised some kind of game that involved snatching random cards off the table before the other could grab it. Hank and Alex were in deep discussion, planning to try building a raft out of the driftwood on the beach. Jimmy was singing one of April’s hits at the top of his lungs while JT and Adam pelted him with grapes.
Gabe leaned low across the table. “They’re just pictures, Castiel. Let it go. There are more important things to protect them from.”
“Alpha, make him stop!” JT begged. “He’s been singing that same song for three days!”
Michael growled menacingly at his mate, snapped at Dean’s throat with his ears laid flat, and shouldered him toward the rear of his lair. Backed against the wall, Dean raised his hackles and snarled back. Michael ignored the warning. He pivoted, lowered his chest to the ground and presented. He lifted his tail high and waggled his back end in Dean’s face. Desperate and miserable, Michael whined and whimpered with his chin in the sand and his ass in the air.
Once presented with Michael’s channel instead of his teeth, Dean dropped his snarl. He fixated on that channel.
He wasted no time.
He mounted the black wolf, hanging onto his ribs with front paws curling around Michael’s torso and teeth clamped to the back of his neck. Michael screamed and yipped in desperate need. Ragged breaths fell from both muzzles as they coupled in a frenzy of muscled fur and wet squelching.
Dean’s jackrabbit thrusts opened Michael’s channel to the swelling length of the alpha’s pointed penis. Michael’s tongue hung loose over the side of his jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he whined in the dirt. His back legs trembled in the effort to keep his ass lifted as Dean took him. Michael could feel the pressure against his entrance as Dean’s knot engorged.
With a huff of effort, Dean pressed the knot into place and then panted and stilled, his chest heaving, his body fulfilling its purpose. Dean closed his eyes. He let go with his front paws and stood over his mate, catching his breath as his seed continued to spill into Michael’s body. After a moment, Michael shifted beneath him. Dean clambered off and turned so that they stood tail-to-tail, held fast by the knot.
Michael rose to his feet and looked over his shoulder.
“Thank god! Thought I was gonna boil alive that time.” He tried to take a step, but Dean yipped and halted him in his tracks. “What now?” Michael asked. “Is that it?”
“Shh,” Dean shushed with his eyes still closed, swaying a little on his feet. “I’m having a moment here.”
“Dude, I didn’t even get to come.”
“Don’t look at me,” Dean protested. “You wanted to get mounted, I mounted you.”
“Wanted?” Michael challenged. “Try needed.”
“Mmm, yeah. Needed.” Dean eased himself down to sprawl in the sand, and luckily, Michael went with him. “I love it when you get so needy you turn bitchy.”
“But I didn’t come,” Michael whined. “Can you reach my dick?”
“I don’t have cock-sucking lips in this form, Omega. All I could do is lick you.”
“Good enough.”
Dean laughed. He didn’t try to reach Michael’s groin. “Breeding as wolves, not all it’s cracked up to be, is it? Although, gotta say, knotting like this… the ejaculation part… lasts longer. Feels like floating on waves. So good.” He trailed off and turned inward to enjoy the repetitive pulses as his muscles continued to pump semen.
“Selfish bastard,” Michael grumbled.
“Selfish? Who nearly bit who just now?”
“You were trying to leave,” Michael objected.
“I was thirsty, man. I just needed a drink. I’m not going anywhere. No one’s leaving you here to suffer on your own.”
“Yeah, well, when the need spikes, it spikes.”
Dean didn’t respond. Michael lifted his chest to look across at him and found the alpha fast asleep.
“Selfish bastard,” he muttered again. He lifted his rear leg and curled himself until he could lick his own sheath.
It didn’t help, didn’t feel like masturbation. More like scratching a mosquito bite.
The excitement of this wolfscape Heat experience was rapidly wearing off. For one thing, Michael’s body wasn’t so much aroused as it was burning with painful need. And then, of course, as wolves, they instinctively addressed that need through the shortest path. No foreplay. No fun. No intimacy, really. Just a rising desperation, a flash of temper, and then a mounting that tied them ass-to-ass but offered Michael no pleasure except a reprieve of the pain.
“Fuck this. I’m going home.”
“We are home,” Dean mumbled.
“You know what I mean. This is not worth it. I want my hands back. I want your mouth back.” Michael shifted again, rolling to lie on his chest instead of his side. His tail flailed as he sought his balance without tugging on their connection.
“But I didn’t get to bottom yet,” Dean said.
Michael told him, “I’m not sure we can do that here. These bodies aren’t equipped for anal penetration. Have you seen this thing in my sheath? It’s barely a dick at all. It’s like a little dicklet.”
“It’s cute.” Dean leered playfully.
Michael kicked him.
“Ow!”
“You’re lucky I’m secure in my masculinity.”
Dean grinned. The corners of his wolfish eyes crinkled, and his mouth hung open, showing sharp, gleaming canines. “You’re the most masculine mama of all.”
“Damn right,” Michael agreed. “Come on. I miss my bamboo sheets and down pillows. And I need a shower.”
“A shower? Dude, I’ve got a whole-ass lake down in the valley at the foot of the mountain. We can go skinny dipping.”
“I’m serious, Dean. This has been fun and all, but it’s not doing anything for me. You can stay if you want, but I’m going back.”
Dean pulled himself slowly to his feet. His knot gave way, and the two wolves separated. “I can’t stay here without you, Michael. I’m on your coattails. If you go, I go.”
“It’s your den, Dean.”
“Yeah, but I’m not just here in my head, I’m metaphysically here here. I can’t do that on my own.”
“So, you want to stay, is that it? You want me to just write this cycle off?”
“Nah, man. I just wanna make sure we gave it our best effort. If we can just keep our wits when we rev up, maybe we can make it good for both of us.”
“There’s no keeping our wits, alpha. The Heat spikes, and my brain turns to mush, and all that matters is getting your knot in me as fast as possible. Then you get to take a fun ride, and all I get is a break in the agony. I’m done.”
Dean rubbed his muzzle over Michael’s throat and the ruff near his ears. “I hear you, babe. Was worth a try. Let’s head back.”
“We need a shower.”
Michael’s voice sounded alien in Dean’s ears as he blinked his eyes open. He found himself sprawled naked in the cushioned reading chair in the suite’s bedroom with Michael curled in his lap.
“We stink.”
Colors assaulted Dean’s eyes, vibrant colors in hues he’d already grown accustomed to lacking. Michael’s scent in his nose fell to a muted hint of what it had been in the wolfscape. But Dean had to admit, for humans, their scents were rank.
“I’m starving,” Dean added as he helped Michael stand. “You get the water going. I’ll order something to eat.”
“Ugh! Your jizz is everywhere! It’s all over the chair, the carpet. Dude, it’s even on the curtain! How did you get it on the curtains? You’re a fucking animal, Dean.”
Dean giggled. He pulled Michael into his arms. “You’re damn right. I didn’t hear you complaining when you needed my knot.”
“Spare me,” Michael said in a deadpan. But he smirked and kissed the tip of Dean’s nose. He whispered, “Go hunt me up something to eat, you wild beast.”
Dean swatted Michael’s ass and then let himself out into the suite’s living space. Instantly, he smelled beef.
“Oh, dude! Score! Somebody loves us! Philly cheesesteaks! Forget the shower, Michael. Come eat!”
Michael shouted back from inside the bathroom. “At least rinse off. The cleaning bill is already going to be ugly. Gross! Can’t believe you rolled all over our chair like this. Do not take this into the kitchen!”
Emerging from the bedroom, Michael took the sandwich out of Dean’s hand and set it back on the platter. He steered the alpha into the bathroom and dunked him under the hot, running water.
A minute-and-a-half later, the two of them raced back to the kitchen, dripping wet and laughing, shoving one another out of the way and grabbing for their food.
They ate standing up in the kitchenette, grinning at each other.
With his mouth stuffed, Dean asked, “Hey, you think our birth control works when we’re in the wolfscape?”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Michael asked, instantly motionless and somewhat alarmed.
“I dunno. It’s a metaphysical space, but everything there works along animal rules, pretty much. Our sense of smell, your dick, our instincts, our bodies… All those wolf things become entirely wolfish in there. The hormonal birth control we’re on as human wolves isn’t the right mix for a canine wolf.”
Michael paled and clutched his lower belly. “You mean I could be pregnant?”
Cluing in to Michael’s apprehension, Dean set his sandwich down and touched his cheek. “No, no, I’m sure it doesn’t work like that. Calm down. I was being stupid. That was a dumb thing to say.”
“Dean…”
“Look, we can get you some Plan B. Okay? Don’t freak out on me. It was just a dumb joke. Eat your sandwich.”
But the mention of pregnancy, coupled with off-the-charts estrus hormones, rattled Michael, dropped him square in the center of his insecurities. His breath hitched. All of the playfulness dissipated as fear like a frozen fist squeezed his heart.
A sudden wash of tears flooded Michael’s eyes and he jerked free and turned his back on his mate. He couldn’t keep Dean from feeling the bottom drop out, but he didn’t have to let the alpha see him lose his shit.
“Michael. Sweetheart, it’s fine. We’re okay. Please don’t…” Dean embraced Michael from the back, rested his chin on Michael’s shoulder and held him tightly.
Michael sniffled and clung to Dean’s arms. “I really do want more pups. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I’m such a basket case about it all of a sudden.”
Dean tightened his embrace. “You’ve got gallons of hormones running through your veins right now, man. Don’t sweat it. Nothing wrong with a good, hard cry now and then. You know I ain’t gonna judge you.”
“I hate being afraid,” Michael whispered.
“You’re the bravest person I know,” Dean whispered back.
“Liar,” Michael answered. But as Dean nibbled the lobe of his ear, he chuckled a little. He rested his temple against Dean’s head and let the alpha sway with him for a moment or two.
“I love you, Michael Quentin Lancet Winchester, whether we ever have another pup or not.”
Michael sniffled again and pulled away with a heavy sigh. He leaned in and kissed Dean’s lips, his eyes dipping to Dean’s mouth and then finding his gaze again. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve lost track of time. What day is it?” Michael asked in a cracking voice. He retrieved his lunch from the counter and scrubbed his cheeks dry. He adjusted his expression and bottled up the anxiety.
His mate let him.
Dean had to fetch his phone from the table by the door. The staff had left it charging. He thumbed it on.
“Sunday,” he told his mate. “Four-thirty in the afternoon. We lost a whole day in the wolfscape. April will be home tonight. What do you want to do? Wanna try to go home? I can get security to escort us to our car. We should be safe from there.”
Michael looked around. “It’s nice to have this much space, actually. Can we just park it here? We can have Pete and Cas join us tomorrow.”
“That bed isn’t big enough for four,” Dean pointed out.
“Says you.”
“Dude, no. I’m not so gone that I want girl juice stinking up my bed.”
Michael scoffed. “You are such a liar. When your temp spikes, all you care about is finding a hole and filling it.”
“And then my temp comes back to normal, and that hole better be male because if it’s not, heads are gonna roll.” Dean caught Michael around the waist and manhandled him facedown over the alpha’s lap. With rapid swats, he slapped Michael’s ass until it turned bright pink.
Michael laughed and struggled in Dean’s grip.
“Ow! Stop it! Dean! Cut it out!” He writhed and kicked. Dean didn’t hit him hard enough to hurt, just enough to get a warm sting pulsing. With an arm holding Michael around his ribs, Dean reached between the Omega’s legs to fondle his balls.
“Stop it? You sure?”
He let his thumb sneak upward, tickling Michael’s taint and teasing his rim.
“No, don’t stop.”
“I miss your tail, Omega.” Dean plunged his thumb into Michael’s channel as far as it would go. “Miss those teeth. Love it when you snarl at me and shove your ass in my face. Needy, bossy Omega.”
“Fuck, Dean,” Michael whined. “I need to get off. Please, alpha.”
“Mmmmm, love it when you beg.” Dean took Michael’s cock in his fist and massaged it with a slick grip. “Beg for me, baby.”
“Please, please, please, Dean!” Michael braced himself with his arms and widened his legs, trusting Dean to keep him safely balanced across his lap. “Make me come!”
“Your hole is puffy and red and fucking gushing wet, baby boy. Somebody’s been having a good time down here.” Beneath Michael’s belly, Dean’s cock hardened. Michael groaned and rolled his hips in sync with Dean’s fist. “I wanna bury my face in your channel.”
“Fucking hell,” whimpered Michael. “Dean, I can’t… I’m gonna…”
“Do it. Give it to me. Come all over my lap, and then we can lick each other clean.”
“God, you’re so fucking filthy!” Michael writhed and humped Dean’s lap shamelessly, shoving back with his hands against the floor. Slick ran in rivulets from his hole. Dean’s fist stripped Michael’s cock with abandon.
“Dean!” the Omega shouted. His ass cheeks clenched. The muscles across his back rippled.
He came with a deep moan into Dean’s hand.
A fresh wash of slick oozed from his channel and coated Dean’s thigh.
“Beautiful,” Dean praised.
Michael slumped boneless over his lap. “I’m never going back to the wolfscape. I couldn’t even come on your knot there. It was just…nothing. No wonder we evolved away from that.”
Dean laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure natural selection was entirely focused on making sure you got to come.”
“Laugh all you want, alpha. I’d like to see you go a day-and-a-half in Rut without an orgasm.” Michael found his footing as Dean helped him up.
“It only proves Omegas don’t need orgasms during Heat,” said Dean smugly. “They just need a big knot. Alphas, on the other hand, the orgasm is the most critical part of our cycle. Gotta spread that seed.”
“You spread your seed all over Castiel’s bedroom. He’s gonna be pissed.”
“Hey, it’s my bedroom too.”
Michael pulled Dean to his feet. “C’mon. Help me change the sheets. You’ll be ramping up again soon.” Dean followed as Michael disappeared into the bedroom closet. With quick movements, Dean stripped the bed and dumped the soiled bedding in a heap by the door.
He peeked round the closet door when his mate didn’t appear.
“You find the spares?” Dean asked.
Michael stood motionless, touching a leggy metal apparatus in the corner of the closet, folded flat. He looked up as Dean approached, and he blushed.
“I didn’t know he had a breeding bench in here.”
Dean smirked. “Uh, yeah, that’s been here forever. He likes to spank me on it. Among other things.”
Michael’s hand passed over a cushioned leather knee-rest. “Do you think he’d mind if we borrowed it?”
Dean’s brows shot up. “You wanna do it over a bench? You?”
Michael turned to face him and shot him a look. “If you tease me, I’ll take it back, and then you’ll never get another chance.”
Dean threw his palms up. “Uh, no, no, not teasing. By all means, haul that fucker out here. It’s got cuffs too. Get the cuffs.”
“I’m not letting you bind me, alpha.” Michael hoisted the folded metal contraption to his shoulder and passed Dean. In the bedroom, he set it on its feet and then fiddled with it until it unfolded and all the cushions oriented correctly. “Which way is the front?”
“Here,” Dean handed the headrest piece to his mate. “That slides in right there. You can lay your face in the little pillow. No neck strain. Gotta take care of my Omega. Make sure you’re comfy while I drill you from behind.”
“You think of everything,” Michael said with a vixenish smirk.
“Here, Michael. Climb up. I swear I won’t bind you…” Dean’s brain short-circuited once Michael was in place. “Oh my god…” His voice fell to an awe-filled whisper as Michael situated his nude body on the bench. All of Dean’s Primary faculties evaporated. His Rut asserted itself with a whoosh that blurred his vision and destabilized his footing. His capacity for jovial banter vanished, and he stood slack-jawed and famished.
“Dean, are you still with me?” Michael looked over his shoulder to find his mate’s crimson eyes glued to his ass. “Oh.”
Dean’s ears picked up nothing over the thrum of blood coursing through his veins. He swayed where he stood. A dribble of drool escaped the corner of his mouth.
Michael tightened his grip and braced.
Inside their bonds, all was static and white noise.
And brilliant, swirling color.
Dean surrendered to the desperation, to the flush of hot blood and the need to stake his claim. Two steps brought his hips flush with Michael’s ass. Dean dug his fingernails into Michael’s shoulders and snarled. He found his target and sank in, slick and smooth and hard.
His knot throbbed.
BREED/BREED/BREED
Dean whined, took hold of Michael’s hips, and tugged into his thrusts. He shrank from sentient to bestial at the sight and smell of his mate, and he let himself have it all. Everywhere he touched came alive. Everything flowed. Everything squeezed. Everything thumped, thumped, thumped. And the fever in Dean’s blood roared down his throat, across his eyes, into his legs and shoulders and fingernails.
He consumed his mate. He yielded utterly to the demands of his alpha; it demanded abject subjugation to its will.
The need to create life.
Dean groaned at the pressure around his knot as he forced it into Michael’s channel.
Michael groaned at the fullness when it seated.
With his face to the ceiling, Dean muttered, “So good… So good for me… Take it, Omega…”
Michael squeezed his core tight. To Dean, the grip to his knot felt like an anchor finding purchase enough to halt a massive clipper ship. Dean felt rooted to the earth. His hands flexed on Michael’s hips. His vision swam. He felt masculine and powerful and grounded.
He felt exhilaration in every cell of his body.
He felt Universally balanced, precariously perched upon a psychic pinnacle. Bare feet planted on the floor, strong legs positioned just so, thrumming with tension, hips and belly quivering with the delicious promise of release, shoulders curling, spine curling, mouth open to take Michael’s scarred trapezius between his canines, Dean drew the moment out.
He felt drunk and hot and on the cusp of insanity.
Michael trembled beneath him and whimpered.
The Omega didn’t move a muscle.
Slowly, Dean added pressure with his jaw. Just a grip at first. Then a firm grasp. Then a clamping hold that brought a grimace to Michael’s face.
Dean thrust with his hips, grinding hard and wet and squelching.
He exhaled through his nose, snarled, and broke the skin of Michael’s right shoulder with his sharp teeth.
Michael screamed and clenched down harder on Dean’s knot, forcing time to pick up where it left off. Dean came, his eyes tightly closed, his jaw grinding into the meat of Michael’s shoulder.
They rocked like that together for some time. The pulsing of Dean’s orgasm set the pace that throbbed through their bonds. Dean’s body committed itself to inundating Michael with his seed, and Michael’s body hungrily sucked up every drop.
With his eyes still closed and his brain still on standby, Dean let go of his mate’s shoulder. He stayed curled low over Michael’s back. “Puppies, Michael,” Dean murmured into his ear. “Gonna give me so many puppies. Can you feel them?” He reached under Michael’s leg and massaged his balls. His fingers curled around Michael’s erection for a moment, but then they wandered upward. Only the lowest part of Michael’s abdomen was reachable, but Dean pressed his fingertips into the soft flesh there as he nibbled Michael’s ear. “Breed my mate up nice and round. Get you fat on my seed.”
“Alpha,” Michael whined. “Don’t. Please. I can’t… Please say you’ll wait for me to catch up to you. Just…don’t leave me.”
“Leave you? Baby, I’m not going anywhere.” Dean kissed the fragrant spot behind Michael’s ear and then nuzzled it with his jaw to transfer scent.
“Even if I don’t get pregnant?”
The swirling in Dean’s head came to an abrupt halt. He blinked. “Even if you don’t… Wait. What were we talking about?” Dean pushed himself to standing, locked tightly to Michael. The room still spun a little, but he shook his head and it settled.
“Breeding,” Michael confirmed. He craned his head to look back at Dean. “But we’re not fertile, neither of us.”
“Uh. Right. Shit, man, I’m sorry. Got carried away. You on a breeding bench… I lost my head.” Dean glanced down at the connection point between them. He sent reassurance through Michael’s bond. He braced Michael’s emotions until the Omega felt seen and supported again.
“We’re okay, babe,” Dean said. “It’s just…you know how it is in the throes of the moment.”
Dean shifted his weight to press himself in tighter and reveled in the delicious clench of Michael’s channel responding. “An alpha wants what an alpha wants. Kinda the whole point of Rut in the first place. But hey, don’t worry. I’m not pressuring you. You can’t take personally what falls outta my mouth when you present your ass like this. A man only has so much self control.”
“You’re sure?”
“Was just the cycle talking. Swear to god.” Dean ran his hands down the long axis of Michael’s back. He kneaded into tight lumbar and gluteal muscles. “You okay? Do we need to move to the bed?”
“I’m comfortable, alpha,” Michael replied. “But you’re stuck standing up. We can shift if you’d rather.”
Dean moved the focal point of his massage to Michael’s hips and ribs and then up to his shoulders, kneading right over the weeping wound Dean had just placed. “I’m good. I like having you right here where I can keep touching you, looking at that gorgeous body with my knot tied tight inside it. Damn, Michael…”
Dean inundated Michael’s designations with affection and lust and wonder.
Michael searched his mate’s mind, his feelings, for any sign that Dean was disappointed at their failure to conceive. What he found reassured him. Yes, the alpha craved the completion of its reproductive mandate, but that hunger sat in Dean’s primitive back brain. Up in his front-brain, patient and accepting, Dean had himself in hand.
He would wait as long as it took. He would let the longing go if Michael never came round.
Michael didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t Dean moved heaven and earth when they Mated to make sure Michael got the pup his body demanded? Hadn’t Dean put his very marriage on the line?
“Don’t go down that road, Michael,” said Dean. “I’m not hard up. I can wait.”
“You don’t even know what I was thinking,” Michael replied.
Dean scoffed. “You were thinking that if Cas can succumb to a pup-making mandate, then so can I. You’re worried I’m on a downhill slope who’s only solution is to knock someone up.”
Michael didn’t answer. He folded his arms on the headrest and laid his cheek on his forearm.
“We have pups, babe.” Dean draped his body over Michael’s, smearing sticky blood on his temple from Michael’s wound. “I’m good. I swear. Don’t let my alpha, shouting about breeding when it comes, convince you I’m losing my footing.”
“And your fall?” Micheal asked. “Are you sure that has nothing to do with your hope for another baby?”
“Dude, I don’t have the slightest clue what my fall is about. But I can tell you one thing: until we’re both ready for another pup, the whole idea is on ice. Michael, I swear.”
Michael craned his head a little, then he nodded. “Thanks, alpha.”
Dean made omelets, although neither of them knew if it was morning or the middle of the afternoon.
“Why do we usually trap ourselves in the H/R room for our cycle when this suite is just sitting here empty most of the time?” Michael asked with his fork halfway to his mouth. He continued speaking before he finished chewing. “I mean, having the kitchen and a living room for the between sets cool-off periods is awesome.”
“Because Cas doesn’t want cycle scents clinging to the place. He brings folks in here sometimes for meetings and crap.”
“Can’t he just get it cleaned like they do for the contract H/R rooms?”
Dean shrugged. “Bottom line, the Alpha wants his Pack to cycle at home. He likes the control he has over us there.”
Michael attacked his eggs again. “Then are we going home for the rest of this round? I think we’re safe to travel now, at least if we time it well.”
“Nah. Not worth the effort,” Dean said. He collected Michael’s empty plate and his own. At the sink, he rinsed them and set them down. Turning his back on the counter, he regarded Michael. “Better to just ride this out here. Don’t wanna stink up the hallways with Heat and Rut. Some of the clients are already twitchy.”
“You know, I never clocked out from my shift,” Michael told him with a chuckle. “Biggest paycheck ever.”
Dean laughed too. “I’m not sure The Facility pays wages for getting your ass plowed by your own mate.” He watched Michael’s eyes dance in amusement. Michael seemed to be coming down from the height of his Heat, although his cheeks still bore the tell-tale flush of an endocrine system at extreme output.
Dean hemmed for a moment, watching his own toes. Then he broached the subject that couldn’t be addressed until Michael had passed through the throes of Secondary desperation.
“April should be home from Seattle now. You ready to call her?” Dean glanced up at his mate through his lashes, feeling off-balance somehow.
“We don’t have to,” Michael replied carefully. “We can make it just you and me this round. Pete will understand.”
“That’s not what I’m asking for,” Dean told him. “You were pretty damned adamant a day or so ago that you didn’t want her here. I’m just feeling you out. You ready to change your mind?”
Michael considered. “Crazy how fast that changes, isn’t it? All I could stand touching me was alpha. Just the thought of an Omega, my own wife, just…” Michael shivered in remembered disgust.
“Dude, you’re still in Heat. I’m not suggesting it’s run its course. I’m just saying you’ve plateaued and you’re probably at a point where you don’t need a knot and an injection of my spunk every fifteen minutes. You can let your hair down and just enjoy the ride. It doesn’t take an alpha for that stage.” Dean sat down at the table and took Michael’s hand.
Michael caressed Dean’s knuckles with his thumb. “Okay, but you’re still in the needy phase. If I skip out, you don’t have an Omega channel to plumb.”
Dean grinned to himself and lowered his eyes.
“What?” asked Michael. “You got a side piece I don’t know about?”
Chuckling, Dean told him, “Cas lets me fuck his throat.”
Michael, predictably, rolled his eyes. “You’re weird. You know that, right?”
“Hey, don’t judge me. Like you don’t have some freaky kinks when you’re cycling.”
Michael shook his head in dismay. “I think you damaged your psyche going so long into your adult years without an Omega when you Rut. It’s not natural, Dean.”
“Whatever. It’s hot. That’s good enough for me. Go phone ‘em. Tell them we’re ready.”
“Are we staying put or going home?” Michael asked as he got up to dig out his phone.
Dean left the table as well, searching the fridge for something stouter than water to drink. “Billie will kill us both if we open the door and get Heat scent in the hallway. Best just sit tight, finish up here, then fumigate the place. Maybe replace the curtains.” He tossed Michael a bottle of Gatorade. “Here, electrolytes. We go again in fifteen minutes. I’mma go take a power nap.”
Castiel wasn’t a fan of the idea of finishing their cycle at The Facility. He wanted them under the Pack roof where he could protect them. But Dean refused to pull up anchor, so in the end Cas drove April to join their spouses in the suite.
The Omegas didn’t make it out of the living room space before entwining naked bodies, locking lips, and curling into each other to the exclusion of everyone and everything else.
Cas closed the suite door then calmly collected April’s clothing from the floor where she’d flung everything and laid it all over the back of a chair.
Dean clicked his tongue and quipped, “Ah, to be young and hot-blooded again,” as their mates rolled and coiled in a passionate frenzy on the floor. “Shower?” he posed to Cas.
Cas laughed. “We’re not that old, Pet. Come here.”
A day later, Michael had crossed the finish line, sticky and exhausted, slaked and ready to sleep for a week. Dean had a bit more in him, but he’d slid out of his Secondary designation and into a sloppy, needful Submissive headspace. Michael and Cas double-teamed him into the wee hours of the morning while April snored on the sofa and the television ran through episode after episode of The Bear with no one watching.
By four in the morning, the men were fast asleep too, tangled together on crusty sheets while the hormone sensors tracked Dean’s descent back toward a baseline reading. Dean slept deeply with his nose crammed hard against Castiel’s scent gland and his hand thrown behind him to hold Michael by the hip.
Inside his wolfscape, something stirred.
Within his head, Dean’s wolf already paced and whined, even as his physical body slept. The loosening of his Rut’s grip on his psyche unleashed the backlog of Tertiary psychic tension that had steadily grown in the background over the last few weeks. Dean’s fall presented itself as an imminent certainty.
Michael and Cas had attempted to address Dean’s fall through scening, at least to an extent, as the dregs of Dean’s Rut began to wane. They put his wolf through a gauntlet that few Subs could weather.
But Dean didn’t work that way.
No one really expected their efforts to work.
Still, they had to try.
Now, as his Primary designation slept off the exhaustion of three days of unbridled sex, Dean’s wolf wrung its hands and worried. Something terrifying lay on the horizon, and it hadn’t the wherewithal to handle whatever it was alone. It whimpered and howled and sent every shade of red flag at its disposal toward the side of Dean’s brain with the tools to diffuse the emergency.
The clouds above the wolf’s lair darkened. The winds picked up. Dean flattened his ears to his head, his body to the ground. And he moaned in misery and terror.
Within his dreams, a fire raged. A deep, tortuous crevasse opened a maw into hell, and Dean twitched in his sleep. He moaned and curled in on himself.
His fall struck while he slept.
Michael crept around the bed and shook Castiel awake.
“He’s dreaming, Alpha. A nightmare. It’s time. Do you want me to try to bring you in? I think we should try.”
Cas blinked for a moment in befuddlement before Dean’s twitches and Michael’s words woke him fully. “Already? Oh. Dean, sweet man.” He sat up and reached for his husband’s shoulder. But Michael caught his hand.
“It’ll be easier going if he’s asleep.”
Cas frowned. “He’s in agony, Michael. We can’t leave him to this.”
“No. No, sir. I’m going to go get him out. I might be able to take you with me. I’d like to try.”
But Cas shook his head. “Now isn’t the time to master something new, Omega. Go in there and do what you need to do. End this. I can’t let him suffer while we waste time trying to do it together. I trust you. Go.”
Michael sighed nervously, but he nodded. “All right. Give me room.” He climbed into Castiel’s lap and crossed his legs. “Stay in contact with me, sir. Skin-to-skin. I may be able to siphon some images to you if we’re close.”
Cas swallowed, pursed his lips, and wrapped his arms around Michael’s torso. He propped his chin on Michael’s shoulder so that he touched the Mating scar Dean left there, and he closed his eyes.
Michael too let his eyes drift shut. He rested a cool hand on Dean’s sweaty brow and the other on Dean’s Mating scar. In his sleep, Dean whined and flinched but then leaned into the touch.
“Good boy,” Michael whispered. “I’m coming. Hold on, love.”
Within his mind, Michael’s wolf crashed through the underbrush of his own wolfscape, mindless of the snarls of roots trying to trip him up. He leapt the river in one stride and careened past the barrier between their spaces, barely noticing at all when he left his own low forests and entered Dean’s mountaintop snow-scape.
Michael could feel Cas close-by.
He could also feel Cuatémoc.
Watching disembodied.
Whatever.
Michael found Dean pacing neurotically outside the mouth of his cave. Dean’s head popped up at the Omega’s appearance, but instead of relief, his eyes widened in deeper fear.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dean demanded. His gaze swiveled from horizon to horizon as if expecting a swarm of wasps to descend upon them. “You have to go! Now! Something’s coming!”
Michael didn’t answer in words. He raised his hackles and snarled at his mate. He set his front feet wide and lowered his head. His eyes glowed with a brilliant blue light.
Dean took a couple of steps backward and angled his head submissively. “Michael?”
Michael advanced slowly, growling.
“What are you doing?” Dean demanded. He backed up further until his rump met the stone wall near the cave mouth.
Michael, in full hunter mode, stalked closer until he was within pouncing range. He gathered the muscles of his back legs beneath him. Spittle dribbled from his jaw.
Dean hesitated another moment. Shocked. Then he bolted.
Down the steep mountainside he ran, leaping from boulder to soft, flat grass to gravel stream embankment.
Michael pursued him with all the ferocity of a hunting predator.
They splashed across the swift-moving creek, startling fish and turtles. Birds took flight above them as Michael snapped at Dean’s heels and harried him forward.
Dean’s legs carried him like a roadrunner, fleet and agile, and Michael followed, cutting short the angles as Dean wove in a zigzag trying to shake his pursuer.
Dean had no breath for protests, but Michael snarled and growled in his wake to ensure his mate couldn’t mistake this chase for anything benign. Michael needed Dean terrified.
At length, the landscape began to rise again. Michael had no idea if the cliff faces they dodged between and twisted up were of Dean’s making or his own, or if they had crossed into someone else’s territory entirely. He only knew he had to get Dean climbing up, up, up, into the highest places, up where the air was thin and clouds drifted below them.
Small rocks buffeted Michael as they tumbled past him, scraped loose by Dean’s claws. The alpha scrambled for footing on the steep mountainside. For a few moments it seemed he might outpace Michael and escape. But then he lost his footing, sliding backward as he dug desperately into the loose gravel with his paws.
Michael caught up. He snapped viciously at Dean’s flank.
Dean curled his rump under and found his footing just in time to tear free and dash away.
Upward.
Michael’s breath came ragged. Vapor clouds swept from his nose and jaw with each painful gasp.
It grew cold and windy all about the two wolves. Gravel turned to bare stone. Turned to ice and snow.
They ran.
Climbed.
Steep, deadly cliffs dropped away on both sides.
They reached the cloud level, sometimes losing sight of each other in the gloom.
But they didn’t need vision to stay on course.
Dean’s eyes looked wild when he glanced over his shoulder without slowing. The whites showed all the way around. His breath, too, misted to leave a trail of fear.
Michael could feel him tiring.
In his head, Michael heard Dean scream his name. Dean called to his mate.
Pleading.
Michael’s head spun. Maybe it was the thin air. His heart went out to his mate, and Michael stumbled.
Dean slowed. He turned and faced his mate.
Michael’s pace slackened until he was walking. Behind Dean, Michael couldn’t make out a landscape. To his right, mountainside rose, obscured by fog. To his left and straight before him—nothing.
He panted. He slowed.
“Michael. Please. What…?” Dean huffed. “Why?”
Michael hesitated. The fear in his mate’s eyes stayed him. A lump formed in Michael’s throat, and he balked.
He couldn’t do this.
Not to Dean.
They stood motionless, staring at one another as a storm brewed above and below them. Winds swirled and whipped their fur in every direction.
Dean’s expression morphed slowly from terror to outrage. His eyes reddened, and he growled. Pure anger and menace, and his teeth gleamed white in the gloaming, reflecting light that came from nowhere.
Michael’s chest heaved. His own snarl came in fits and starts. He gathered himself. He reminded himself, nothing that happened here could harm Dean. He bullied himself to stand firm, to rally.
He had to pull through.
He HAD to.
And without warning, he leapt. He struck and tangled his body with Dean’s. They rolled together, turning over and over, each desperate to come out on top. Teeth flashed. Legs kicked.
They landed with a whoopf on their sides just as Michael kicked out with his back legs.
The last thing he saw was Dean’s eyes, shocked and dilated as he vanished over the side of the cliff, scrabbling madly for safety.
Then silence.
Dean felt nothing for a space of a second and a half before the sensation of falling caught up to him. His belly dropped to his toes, and Michael’s shocked face slid upward at an astonishing rate. Wind whistled in his ears. His body flexed and curled, seeking upright, seeking anything, anything firm to hold onto. Anything to hold onto at all.
Existential terror struck Dean square between the eyes as he writhed in the open air. Misty clouds rushed silently by. Dean fought the tumble, desperate for anything to grab hold of. But there was nothing. He couldn’t tell up from down but by the direction of the wind.
He fell.
And fell.
Rocky mountainside streaked past his face as he twisted frantically in the air.
Abject terror froze his blood and stole his breath.
His mind went blank except for the chanting of “No, no, no, no, no, no, nononononono….” from all three designations.
Writhing brought his terrified eyes downward, and he caught sight of bare, jagged stones rushing up to meet him.
He screamed. Perhaps only in his mind.
Terrified, betrayed, and shocked, he clenched his eyes and wailed within himself.
It couldn’t end like this. Not like this.
The speed of his descent shocked him. He despaired. Utterly.
Michael did this.
Michael, his mate. The mother of his son. Michael, who loved him…
Dean felt his broken heart utter one hopeless wail of pure agony and fear. He fell, and fell, and fell. A forever of descent that was simultaneously much too short a time for Dean to process.
He flailed. It had all happened much too fast. He didn’t have time to wonder anything but…why. He couldn’t think at all through the haze of panic.
Dean gave a final horrified spasm as the spiky ground rose to meet him.
“Nonononononononono……”
He struck with a sickening thud/crunch. He felt every bone snap, felt his skull cave in, his soft organs attempt to continue on even as the ground stopped him cold.
Pain replaced fear.
For a nanosecond, all was fire and agony and despair.
He gasped and bolted upright in his bed, eyes wide, fists curling around Michael’s wrists.
Dean sat stock still in the dark while his chest heaved and he wondered why the afterlife looked like Castiel’s suite at The Facility.
A door opened, backlit. A young woman’s voice called out in alarm, “Dean? Are you okay?”
Dean’s head rang like a gong. He couldn’t catch his breath. All was confusion and darkness. Beside him, someone moved. A hand stroked his head, down to the back of his neck, and he flinched away.
“Shh, shh, you’re all right. Breathe, Dean.”
Michael.
Comforting him?
“You’re okay. I’m here.”
Yeah, no.
NO.
“You’re here?!” Dean rasped. “The fuck? Get away from me, you psycho!” He bailed from the bed and set his back to the wall, as far from his mate as he could get in the darkness. “This is not all right! Nothing about this is all right! What the hell were you thinking?!”
Castiel tumbled from the bed and rounded it with his arms outstretched. “Calm down, Dean. You’re okay.”
Trembling, Dean flinched back. “I am not okay! Do you know what he just did to me?! Do you know?! Get away from me! Everybody just get the fuck away from me!”
April flipped the switch, and all three men, squinted against the glaring overhead light. “Dean, what happened?” she asked. She came forward and reached out for him. “Calm down. Breathe. There’s nothing here.”
With a terrible whimper in his throat, Dean scrambled back into the corner and cowered. “Don’t touch me!”
Michael scooted across the bed and fell to his knees before his mate. He left several feet between them and lowered his voice carefully. “You’re safe, alpha. Please believe me. You’re not hurt. No one hurt you. It was all in your head. I would never harm you, Dean. Just take a breath.”
“Quit telling me to breathe, goddamnit! You tried to kill me!” He pressed his back to the corner.
“No! No, I didn’t! It wasn’t that at all! Cas, what do we do?”
“Give him space, Michael. Back up.”
“You were in on this too?” Dean accused Castiel. “Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” Angry now enough to override his fear, Dean rose to his full height and stormed past them, snatching his clothes from the bureau on his way out. He dressed quickly, ignoring their pleas to listen to explanations, ignoring Cas’ attempts to apply compulsion. He shoved his sockless feet into boots, grabbed his car keys, and slammed the door behind him.
Michael dropped to the sofa and buried his face in his hands. “What have I done?”
Cas pointed at him. “Get back in there and find Cuatémoc. I want an explanation. Now!” Then he snatched up the landline phone and dialed the security desk. “Don’t detain him,” he said into the receiver. “But follow him. Phone me back with his location when he stops. If he puts himself in danger, intervene and then call me. Do not allow him to come to any harm.”
“We should go after him,” April pleaded. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
Castiel embraced her. “Not yet. Let’s give him time. I fear that rather than manage his fall, we’ve merely triggered it. He needs to let it scorch through him now, or it’ll flame up worse than ever. I sense we may have turned a simple fall into a full-fledged Fall. Fuck.”
“What happened?” April asked warily. “Michael tried to kill him, he said.”
“I didn’t, I swear,” Michael moaned.
Cas rounded on him. “You have a job you’re supposed to be doing! I want answers!”
“Yes, Alpha,” Michael muttered. He closed his eyes and lay back on the sofa. He rested the heels of his hands over his eyes and hummed to himself, trying to calm down enough to shift into the wolfscape.
Dean drove. His red eyes barely blinked. He paid no attention to where he was going until he was well out of town and flying down straight blacktop. A pale light began to argue with the night’s darkness to his left. His jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth squeaked now and then against each other.
He sniffled. He struggled to fight back tears that would blur his vision. A painful cramp lodged in his gut, attempting to curl him over.
An hour passed.
Then two.
Morning broke, hot and muggy.
Dean stomped out every thought that tried to find its way to light. The last thing he wanted right now was to think.
Somewhere north of Joplin he ran out of gas, and he stifled a sob as he coasted to a stop on the shoulder. His phone vibrated in his pocket again, but he didn’t answer.
Didn’t even look at it.
He couldn’t feel any of his bonds, although he didn’t recall closing them.
Dean sat in his car and stared at the steering wheel, unmoving. He didn’t know how long.
A rap at the window startled him, and he looked up to find a highway patrolman leaning down to peer into his face.
Dean rolled the window down with a sigh.
“You all right, son? Car trouble?”
“Ran out of gas.”
“It’s not safe to sit here on the verge. People get killed that way. You got a phone? If you want, I can call you a tow, but there are cheaper ways to go.”
Dean could tell the Primate didn’t trust that he had no nefarious plans. The cop’s eyes scanned the interior of the car, front seat and back, as he spoke. Subtly, he sniffed, probably for alcohol.
Dean adopted his most practiced mask. “Uh, yeah. I can call Triple-A myself. Was just getting my bearings for a minute. I’m good.” He did his best to give off benign traveler vibes. He showed his teeth in an effort to smile.
Charming always worked.
The cop studied him. “You been driving all night? Not to be rude, but you look a little rough to me. How much have you had to drink?”
“Aw, no, nothing like that. I’m sober, officer. Couldn’t sleep. Went out for a drive and lost track of time. Say, do you know where I can find a motel close-by? I should probably take a nap before I head home.”
The officer scowled, but he couldn’t suss out probable cause, so he directed Dean to the nearest town and told him to get his car off the road ASAP. He told Dean he would swing back this way in an hour and expected him to be gone by then.
Dean offered him a respectful salute and a practiced submissive “Yessir.” He watched the cop all the way back to his cruiser where the man settled in behind his steering wheel and seemed in no hurry to leave.
With a sigh, Dean called for roadside assistance.
An hour later, Baby had a full tank and a parking spot in the shade outside a seedy motel on the interstate.
Dean paced in his rented room.
He’d already been over and over the events of last night. It could have been a dream. Except, it wasn’t.
He could have misinterpreted Michael’s intentions. Except he didn’t.
His mind showed him that fateful microsecond over and over again: Michael kicking out just so, followed by a glimmer of smugness before his eyes widened in shock. The reel in Dean’s mind kept pausing upon the smugness. He hadn’t imagined it.
Michael wanted him to fall to his death.
Again and again, Dean’s rage filled him to the brim before he stuffed it back down again.
There had to be an explanation.
But there couldn’t be, not one that excused what Michael did. The fucker threw him over the side of a fucking mountain! Threw him over a cliff to fucking crash among razor-sharp rocks!
Fucking tried to murder his own mate!
Dean growled as he paced.
He doubled over in pain.
He clutched the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Rage looked back at him, rage and self-loathing. What was it about him that turned even his own mate against him? Why did everything he touched ultimately turn to ash? He rocked against the counter and shoved the lump in his throat down.
His core bubbled and spat—hateful, violent, boiling fury. His jaw clenched and ground. His eyes glared at their own reflection.
Alpha red.
He scoffed. Some alpha. Bested by an Omega. Scared out of his wits by a fucking dream. It had to have been a dream. Had to have been…
No. That was no dream.
Shove it down, Dean. Swallow it. Bury it. Lock it up, goddamnit!
His nostrils flared, and his cheeks flushed, and the rage exploded out of him.
Dean threw his fist into the mirror, shattering it and slicing his knuckles to ribbons. Hot blood flowed down over his wrist to his elbow and dripped into the sink, onto the floor.
Dean punched a bloody hole through the wall by the clothes rack. He swept the TV off the bureau to crash in a sickening heap of broken glass and plastic on the threadbare carpet. Dean picked up the small round table beside the window and flung it across both beds to crash into the far wall.
He turned his face to the sky, clenched his fists, and screamed until his throat gave out.
He overturned the mattresses. He knocked all the paintings off the walls and smashed them over the headboards. The headboards he couldn’t destroy as they were bolted to the wall, not that he didn’t try. He braced his hands on the dresser and kicked it with all his strength until the drawers splintered and sagged in their tracks.
He felt his big toe break just as a sharp knock on the door echoed through the trashed room.
“Management! Open the door!”
“Fuck,” Dean sighed. He sank to the floor amid broken glass shards and leaned against the foot of the bed. He dropped his head into his hands.
“Open up!”
Dean didn’t answer. Tears trailed down his cheeks to be scrubbed away by furious palms.
“I’ve got a key! I’m coming in! Don’t shoot me!”
“This way, Alpha. He’s right through here. We patched him up, but he’s cut up pretty badly. You’ll need to have someone keep an eye on that hand. It could get infected.” The officer led Castiel past the reception desk and the station’s open floor of workstations to the holding cell in the back.
Sitting despondently on the single bench along the back wall of the otherwise empty cell, Dean glanced up when Cas entered but then lowered his eyes back to the floor without speaking. His right hand was bandaged tightly in white gauze. Blood stains speckled his clothes.
“Dean, are you okay?”
Dean averted his eyes, staring at the wall.
“He’s looking at felony destruction of property, Alpha,” said the cop. “But the judge here is wolf-friendly. He’s already ruled I can turn him over to his Pack Alpha if I get a sworn statement he’ll show up when we set the court date. He’s putting it on your word, Mister Winchester.”
“Alpha Winchester,” Cas corrected calmly. “Dean, look at me. Are you all right?” He stepped closer to the cell.
“What d’you care?” Dean snipped, still not looking at his husband.
“Open the cell,” Cas instructed the officer.
“Sir, we have to do the paperwork first. I can’t let him out yet.”
“Open the damned cell,” Castiel demanded. “I need to talk to him.”
“Um. I can…let you in?”
“Fine.”
The cop sprang forward and twisted his key in the grimy lock. The door swung wide. Cas wasted no time in hurrying forward and dropping to one knee in front of Dean. His hands found Dean’s skin, warm and dry and alive and safe. Something clicked instantly into place in his psyche. He exhaled in relief.
“I was so worried, Dean. Thank god you’re safe. Are you hurt anywhere but your hand?” Cas ran his hands over Dean’s arms, his torso, his legs.
“Think I broke my foot,” Dean grumbled.
The officer at the door broke in, “Uh, we didn’t know anything about a foot injury, Alpha. We would’ve seen to that too if he’d said something.”
“Thank you, you can go,” Cas shot over his shoulder. The man withdrew to the holding room entrance with a disgruntled mumble.
“Dean Michael, look at me.”
Dean struggled to look anywhere else, as Cas’ face was no more than two inches from his own, and his hands felt so warm on Dean’s face. He struggled. He didn’t want to see pity.
Eventually, he caved.
He braced to see disgust, judgment, ire at Dean’s appalling behavior, sure to make the news and tarnish the Pack’s hard-won reputation. He expected to see disappointment that Dean couldn’t hold up his side of the Pack structure.
Instead, he saw warmth, worry, affection.
Acceptance.
Castiel’s eyes filled with unshed tears. He studied Dean’s face and then he pulled his husband in and held him tightly. “I’ve got you, Pet. You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you. I can explain everything, I swear.”
“Don’t know what I did to him, Cas. Why’d he turn on me? God, it hurts.” Dean clung to Cas’ back and buried his face in the navy suit jacket that smelled like Alpha. “Feel like I’m gonna vomit.”
“You’re still in Rut, love. That’s heightening every emotion. It’s really not as bad as it feels. Shh, let’s get you home. Sit tight for a minute while I get you sprung from this dump.”
With a sob, Dean released his grip. “I can’t go home, Alpha. Michael hates my guts!”
“Michael doesn’t hate you, Dean. He adores you. He was trying to help. It just went sideways on him, that’s all. I’ll explain everything. First, I have to get you released. Give me a few minutes.”
“You’re not pissed?”
“Not even a little,” Cas assured him. “We fucked up, Dean. This is our fault, not yours.”
“They said felony, Alpha.”
“I know. I’ll handle it. Trust me.” He stood up and kissed Dean’s unblemished left knuckle. “Sit tight.”
“Don’t really have a choice,” Dean muttered.
Turning, Cas addressed the cop. “Where is his car?”
As with all dealings with the government, springing Dean and getting his car released took far longer than it should have. Cas signed the custody forms to vouch for Dean’s appearance before the court whenever they chose to set a date. He found the closest hospital and had Dean’s foot X-rayed. Cas spent that time on the phone with his attorney and arranging for Patience and Kali to drive down to collect the car.
Dean wanted to drive his baby home, but Alpha squashed that request. Dean couldn’t drive with a broken right big toe. He wound up in a walking boot and felt ridiculous clomping out of the hospital and sliding into the passenger side of Cas’ Lexus. His hand throbbed. His foot felt twice its normal size.
He felt like an idiot.
All the rage had settled back to the pit of his stomach where he could ignore it.
But his abdomen still ached, and his mood remained sour.
Castiel stayed close, stayed warm and accepting and attentive. He cast a look across the car as he readied to pull out of the parking lot, worry etching deep lines in his forehead, but Dean merely stared out the side window.
“Take one of the pain pills they gave you, Dean. Then try to sleep a little. We’ll be home before you know it.”
“I don’t want Patience driving my car,” Dean groused into the window.
“What about Kali?” Cas suggested.
Dean shrugged.
“We’ll meet somewhere on the way back to give them your keys. I’ll let them know. Just relax, baby. Try to rest.” Cas signaled and merged onto the highway. Dean wasn’t allowing him to see his face, but Cas could smell the man’s despair. His pain.
Cas reached for his hand and drew it close. “It’s not your fault, Dean. We’ll get it all straightened out. It’s going to be okay.”
At last, Dean turned to face him. Cas’ heart shattered. In Dean’s eyes, utter despondency. All Cas could think was that his husband looked… broken.
“You said!” Michael shouted. “You said it was foolproof! You told me to chase him over the cliff and that he would be safe!”
“Calm yourself, pup.” Cuatémoc chided gently.
“I’m not a pup! And I’m not about to calm down until you explain yourself!”
“Your mate is unharmed, just as I said he would be.”
“You call that unharmed!” Michael screeched. He gesticulated wildly, calling attention to his human form in relation to his mentor’s four-legged body. “He’s traumatized!”
Cuatémoc sighed. “Your mate is in Rut. Your timing…”
“You never said anything about timing!” Michael spat.
The wolf didn’t flinch. He went placidly on as if giving a college lecture. “Further, you didn’t commit, Michael. You let your commitment and your attention stray. You allowed yourself to doubt, and that gave Dean room to shift into an unfortunate headspace before he fell.”
Michael stared at the wolf incredulously. “This is my fault? Oh no, this is your fault!”
“These things are delicate…”
“You. Told. Me. It. Was. Foolproof!”
“Well, it is,” the wolf proclaimed, “if you front your wolf during the chase. But you, you chased him as a man, not a wolf. To make matters worse, you allowed your Omega to take over when he confronted you. No alpha submits to an Omega. You needed to go at it wolf-to-wolf, not alpha-to-Omega, not man-to-man. Not once did you center your wolf, Michael.”
Michael glowered. “What do you know of headspaces? Huh? You said all my designation theories about Dominants and Submissives were fluff and nonsense. Now you’re telling me I needed to make sure I was in my Dominant and Dean was in his Submissive before he fell? What kind of double-talk is that?”
Cuatémoc sighed in frustration. “Michael, within each of us lives a host of selves. We are not one self, but many.”
Michael gaped. “Are you trying to explain designation theory back to me now? To me? I spent three whole days trying to drive it through your thick, furry skull, and you laughed in my face. We are who we are, you said. We are who we are willed to be. Now, suddenly, when my mate’s just had his body and his mind broken, you’re all about a triplicate psyche? Fucking hell, Omega!”
“Ah, was that what you were jabbering about?” Cuatémoc seemed idly fascinated but not put out. “Language, even within the wolfscape sometimes defies our intentions.”
“Hold up. What makes you think I wasn’t in my wolf? I was a fucking wolf for god’s sake.”
With a weary expression, Cuatémoc explained. “An Omega, fronting its wolf, at the height of arousal or passion… its eyes glow golden. Yours were blue.”
“My eyes aren’t blue. They’re green.”
“The Ayawuascana pulls power from the Universe, my friend. Here in The Route, that sometimes manifests as a brilliant blue light from the eyes, where they would normally be gold, but only while it centers its human self. During moments of great significance, great passion, your human self becomes something almost…celestial.”
Michael scratched his head. “I was Primary during the chase? Is that what you’re saying? I was using my front-brain dominant? Goddamn, this is confusing. You told me it was simple. Now it turns out to be anything but!”
Cuatémoc shook his head. “You think too much. Let go, Michael, and let your instincts guide you.”
“Use the Force, Luke,” Michael muttered. “What a fucking mess. Dean’s furious at me, and I don’t blame him. There’s no way he’ll let me try again. That was horrible. Did you see his face?”
“Ah, young one. The drama in your heart. So much noise and kerfuffle. All of it unnecessary.” Cuatémoc settled onto his belly in the sunshine. He rolled and let the grass scratch his itchy back.
Michael sneered. “It’s so kind of you to care.”
“Sarcasm is an ugly communication style,” the wolf told him. He uprighted himself and grinned at Michael. “Here, I have an idea. There’s a pup in my village ready to fall. Come observe.”
“You’re not listening,” Michael protested. “I’m done. We’re not putting him through that again. I’d rather die.”
Cuatémoc glided out of the clearing. “I do miss the absolutes of the young,” he said over his shoulder.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Michael followed him. He soon found the going difficult, the underbrush too dense, so he shifted into his quadruped form.
As Michael trailed his mentor, he thought it over.
How stupid could he be? Of course Dean needed to be in his Submissive if a therapy to balance his Submissive was going to work.
Trying it while Dean was in Rut?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But Dean was on the back half of his Rut, the time when he always shifted into a Tertiary headspace. Michael padded across a stream and shook his head in consternation. He was sure he’d pulled Dean into his wolf, at least during the chase. Perhaps Dean’s Rut gave the alpha designation the power to subvert its wolf when they faced off.
Had Dean found his footing back in his alpha at the last moment?
His eyes had reddened at the pinnacle, Michael recalled. But they would’ve done that anyway. Moments of high arousal, as Cuatémoc said, whether Secondary or Tertiary, usually caused a change in iris color for alphas and Omegas alike.
Michael’s training as a Secondary therapist mostly focused on these issues from the opposite side, but one thing he knew about alphas: they universally responded to fear and pain with outrage. If Dean had been Secondary, he wouldn’t have surrendered to the inevitability of gravity; he would’ve fought it. He would tense up and struggle.
He would seethe.
Michael stopped walking.
“My god, you’re right.”
Cuatémoc paused and looked round. “Come and see. There is no trauma when it’s done well. There is only surrender and release. We must set the spirit free of the body, let it burn away the scars of discord and strife, and then find its way home again. All is not lost, Ayawuascana. I will teach you.”
Michael opened his eyes hours later to a pale, worried April and a host of missed phone calls.
“Did Cas find him?” he asked.
“Not before he trashed a hotel room,” she told him sadly. “It’s already in the press.” She handed him a glass of ice water and knelt on the floor at his feet.
“Damnit. Is he okay?”
“You mean besides the stitches and broken bone? Yes, he’s going to be fine.”
“I fucked up so bad, Pete.”
“Cas is bringing him home. We’ll fix it. We’re going to fix it, Michael.”
“He’s still closed to me. Can you feel him?” Michael looked hopefully into her eyes. But April shook her head.
“He closed everyone out,” she told him. “But it’s going to be okay. Cas told me what you tried to do. He’ll understand. Eventually.”
Michael huffed. “Eventually. Wonderful.”
“Did you find any answers in the wolfscape?”
Michael stroked his wife’s head, down her hair to her temple, down to her chin. “I think I’ve got it now. I just don’t know if I’ll get a second chance to try. That bastard takes so much innate knowledge for granted, stuff I have no concept of. I thought my instincts were good, but I wasn’t built for any of this.”
April pulled up on her knees and entreated, “Could I come with you next time? I think I can help. I could reinforce what you’re trying to do.”
“Pete, I haven’t figured out how to host anyone into a third-party lair yet.” Michael frowned.
“You don’t have to. I believe I can get there myself. I’ve made it into Cas’ headspace a few times now.” Her eyes sparkled with promise and excitement. “I can’t lend weight to the Dominance you need to show, but I can model the Submissive part.”
Michael scoffed. “You would let me throw you off a cliff to prove to Dean it’s safe?”
“In a heart beat,” she said stoutly.
Notes:
Warning for psychic terror and trauma of a main character and for the violent lashing out that arises from that trauma.
I hope that fall was as exciting and unpredictable as it was meant to be. Not to worry, they'll get it all sorted. I keep trying to write H/R scenes with the characters out of their minds with lust, but they always wanna talk rationally while they're cycling. Stubborn bastards.
Love you all!