Authors: Kim Dare
Bayden did as he was told.
Axel tapped the cushion. In his wolf form, Bayden had the same build as a large Alsatian. He hopped onto the cushion. It seemed about the right size. Axel smoothed Bayden’s ears again before turning his attention back to lunch.
He was aware of Bayden watching him, but he ignored him, just letting him get comfortable being a wolf around him. Axel’s mind went back to when he’d enjoyed doing puppy play with humans. That was easy. He could do that without even really needing to think about it. But, it wasn’t actually helpful in this situation. All the qualities that puppy play aimed to bring to the surface were already visible in Bayden. Anyway, it was one thing to have a human act like a dog, but another thing to expect a wolf to.
Suggesting they play fetch would probably be a bad idea. Going for a walk with Bayden on a lead wasn’t an option—especially not when Axel was willing to be damned before he risked putting Bayden off the idea of wearing his collar by letting him link it with being treated like a dog.
The food was ready before Axel had worked out any answers. He turned to Bayden.
“If you’re coming to the table, now’s the time to shift back.” Casual, accepting, as if he wasn’t the least bit uncertain how to command a man who currently looked like he’d make a damn good guard dog. At least, that was what he hoped he sounded like.
Axel kept an eye on Bayden as he shifted. The boy had barely settled into his human shape before he pulled himself to his feet.
“Take it slow,” Axel ordered.
Bayden shook his head, dismissing any concern that he might get dizzy this time. “I wouldn’t bite you, sir.”
Axel chuckled, turning his attention back to their food now that he was sure Bayden wasn’t going to topple over.
“I wouldn’t do that, sir,” Bayden reiterated. There was no humour in his voice.
Axel looked over his shoulder. “If I treated you like a dog rather than a wolf, you’d have every right to be angry with me,” he translated.
Bayden shook his head. “Things are supposed to be the way you want, sir. You don’t need to make allowances for me—you can treat me just like you would a human or…” He only faltered for a moment. “Or the way you’d treat a dog.” It was obvious how much he hated the latter.
Axel held out a plate. Bayden took it with hands that had been paws just a minute earlier. His coordination seemed to be fine. He glanced at the sink.
“You don’t need permission to wash your hands before you come to the table.”
Axel didn’t mention his clothes, wondering if Bayden would ask for them, but Bayden washed his hands and sat at the table nude as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
The food was almost finished before either of them spoke.
“I wouldn’t bite you, sir,” Bayden said again. “Not for any reason.”
It was obvious just how important that was to him. Axel held his gaze as he studied him, trying to work out why that should be the thing that bothered him more than anything else
“I believe you,” Axel promised.
The first time Bayden nodded, it was a sharp little gesture. A minute later, he nodded again, and seemed to relax a little. For some reason, his world was a better place when he knew his dom wasn’t worried about getting bitten.
* * * * *
“Since when do you call Axel sir?”
Bayden put Griz’s beer on the bar in front of him. He looked from Griz, to Hale and Drac who were sitting alongside him. They all appeared more than a little bit amused.
Bayden ran through everything he’d said to Axel since the pub opened that afternoon. There had been orders—the kind Axel always gave Bayden when he was working a shift. Bayden’s answer to every one of them had included the honorific.
“Well?” Hale pushed.
They were Axel’s friends, telling them to piss off and that what he called Axel was none of their business probably wasn’t an option. “Since last night,” he said.
“Made an impression, did he?” Drac asked.
Bayden put Hale and Drac’s drinks down in front of them, marked their tabs and wiped down the bar.
“Are you ignoring us?”
“Whatever Axel wants you to know, he’ll tell you,” Bayden said. It was far safer that way. There was nothing Bayden could say wrong if Axel did all the talking.
“If you’re going to be a sub to one of the Dragons, you should call all doms who ride with us sir,” Hale said.
Bayden met his gaze across the bar. Polite—he had to be polite to him, even if he was a cop—especially because he was a cop. Bayden took a deep breath. “If Axel tells me to, I will.”
“Does he really have to spell it out for you?” Hale shook his head. “Poor sod. He must be regretting taking on a wolf already.”
Bayden tensed, his fist tightened around the cloth he’d been using to wipe down the bar. Hale couldn’t know that was true, he was just guessing.
“Axel’s taking a hell of a risk on you. Whatever you do is a reflection on him and his skills as a dom.” Hale looked Bayden up and down as well as anyone could from the other side of the bar. “How you address other doms, how well you obey their orders, it’s all a reflection on Axel.”
Bayden studied him carefully. There was a human brand of logic attached to everything he said, but his scent was off and there was something around his eyes. Not everything he said was true. He was no more honest than any other cop.
“A good sub knows what’s expected of him,” Hale went on. “He knows what he’ll be expected to do for his dom’s friends, and an honorific isn’t even the start of it.”
There was some truth to that. It was Axel’s choice who he did those kinds of things with. Anything that looked even vaguely like a scene was Axel’s decision. If Axel said Bayden would do something, whether there was cash on the table or not, it was Bayden’s job to prove that what Axel said was right.
Bayden had known what that might involve when he agreed to submit to Axel, but he should have asked for more specific information before his shift started. Suddenly, that was obvious. He’d let himself get distracted by his own worries, and screwed up, again.
“Axel’s a good dom, but you’re making him look incompetent,” Hale said.
No, Bayden was the incompetent one for not checking with Axel before anyone else turned up. Just then, Axel came back up from the cellar where he’d been switching over the barrels.
Bayden went straight across to him. No excuses. No trying to hide anything. Bayden wasn’t going to make his mistakes even worse. “I screwed up, sir.”
“Someone’s drink?” Axel asked. “Who—?”
“No. The rules about bets and obeying other men, I—”
Axel held up a hand. “The rules are very clear—you don’t take a bet on anything other than a fight.”
“Not without your permission,” Bayden agreed. “I should have asked—”
“Asking won’t get you my permission,” Axel cut in, before Bayden could say anything else. “So if you have taken a bet with anyone, you’re going to untake it right now.”
Bayden tensed as he sensed the anger building in Axel’s scent. He forced himself not to take a step back, but when everything he said just made things worse, silence seemed by far the better choice.
“Well?” Axel pushed.
And there went silence as an option. “I said that I’d only obey someone else if you told me to, sir.”
Axel frowned for a second. “That’s how you think you screwed up?”
Bayden nodded.
Axel’s anger disappeared as quickly as it arrived. “That’s not screwing up, pup.” He pushed Bayden’s hair back from his face.
The whole truth, on this subject at least. “Even if the guy I said I wasn’t going to obey was a Dragon?”
Axel sighed, but he smiled, as if he wasn’t really worried about anything anymore. “Give me the whole story. Who said what?”
Bayden recounted the conversation.
Axel leaned against the edge of the counter on the wall opposite the bar and tugged Bayden closer by his belt loops. They were still within sight of the men at the bar, but Axel didn’t seem to care. “And now you want to tell me that you’ve found one of your limits,” Axel prompted.
Bayden shook his head. “No. I wanted to ask you if I should wait until after my shift, sir.”
“What?”
“When I was taking bets—I had to wait until after my shift.”
Axel raised an eyebrow at him. “So, you have no problem submitting to them?”
Bayden hesitated. “Obeying, sir. Submitting is different—you said we shouldn’t confuse what the two words mean.”
Axel studied him carefully, until Bayden had to say something.
“A bet’s not about the money on the table, sir. I’m used to proving I take whatever humans throw at a wolf. Proving I can be a good submissive for you isn’t so different.” He looked down for a moment, before forcing himself to meet Axel’s gaze. “I won’t embarrass you in front of them, sir. I just wanted to check if the rules about when I’m working are the same.”
Axel straightened up. “The rules did change—they’re the complete opposite to what they were. The only time any of them are allowed to give you orders is while you’re working.”
Bayden nodded. That wasn’t so bad. It was a small price to pay in exchange for being able to spend the rest of his time with Axel, and—
Axel slid his hand behind Bayden’s neck and pulled him closer. Pressed against him, with Axel’s grip on him tight and perfect, Bayden had no doubt that whatever commands he had to obey in order to keep on submitting to Axel, it would be worth it.
“The orders they’re allowed to give you are limited to
get me another beer
, or
check how much I owe on my tab
,” Axel bit out. “They get to give the
bartender
orders—that’s it. They don’t get to lay a hand on you. They don’t get to play the dom with you.”
Bayden blinked up at him. Axel’s instructions were very clear, but if he’d wanted perfect higher brain function, Axel probably should have left a couple of feet of empty air between them.
“You’re not their submissive, pup. You’re my submissive. Mine.” His voice was almost a growl.
Bayden managed not to whimper with pleasure, but it was impossible for him to keep his cock soft. Axel had to have felt his erection pressing against his leg, but he didn’t mention it.
“Something obviously got lost in translation before, so I’m going to be very clear and give you a complete list of the people I expect you to submit to—and this covers all the different kinds of submission, from calling someone sir to letting him collar you, understand?”
Bayden nodded.
“Me.” Axel caught hold of Bayden’s chin. “That’s the beginning and the end of the list. You submit to me, no one else in any way. I took control of those decisions so I can
stop
you from doing things with other guys, not so I can order you to.”
Bayden nodded again.
Axel studied him carefully. “Tell me what a wolf would say,” he ordered.
Bayden licked his lips. “He wouldn’t, sir.”
Axel frowned. “A lupine dom wouldn’t want to keep you for himself?”
Bayden shook his head. “He wouldn’t have to say. It’s… A wolf doesn’t need to say that he wouldn’t expect someone to pretend to obey a less dominant wolf. Humans are the ones who—”
Axel laughed.
Bayden hesitated. When all past experience of humans made him see an insult, he forced himself not to jump to any conclusions. “I wasn’t making a joke, sir.” He kept his tone carefully polite.
Axel pressed a kiss to his temple. “No, pup. But you have explained exactly why they’re giving you such a rough ride. Have you noticed how they’re all nicer to Evan than they are to you?”
“Because Evan’s human, sir.”
“No, because he finds them all as intimidating as hell. Giving him a hard time would be like kicking a kitten.” He chuckled. “It’s obvious where he’d fit into the group, but you confuse the hell out of them.”
Bayden wondered if he should admit that he didn’t have a clue what Axel was talking about. It would be honest, but would it be polite?
“They all assume that because they’re doms in the sack they’re automatically more dominant than you in the real world,” Axel explained. “They don’t understand why you aren’t acting like Evan and deferring to them all the time.”
Bayden opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. Dismissing the other Dragons from mind, he focused on what was important. “Would you prefer me to be more like Evan, sir?”
“Why would I? I’ve never doubted who you consider to be the most dominant man between the two of us, and I don’t give a damn about anyone else.” He tucked a knuckle under Bayden’s chin.
He kissed him, slow and lingering, obviously not caring who was watching.
Bayden blinked as Axel eventually pulled away.
“If they become a problem, tell me, and I’ll get them to back off. Otherwise, deal with them however you see fit.”
Axel let Bayden go, only to stop him before he’d gone more than an inch. “You understand ‘as you see fit’ refers to sarcasm and trash talk, right?”
“It’s against the house rules to tear anyone’s throat out, sir,” Bayden recounted.
Axel smiled and stroked his cheek. “Good boy.”
“Well that was disappointing,” Griz said as Axel and Bayden both made their way to the Dragons’ end of the bar.
“He’s not as gullible as he looks,” Drac chipped in. “I was sure we’d at least get a temper tantrum out of him.”
“You’re not that believable a liar,” Bayden told Hale.
“Bollocks.” Hale tossed back the rest of his beer. “All cops are good liars. Part of the job. So is spotting trouble. I’m good at that too.”
Bayden shrugged and turned away to serve someone else a drink, but a cop even mentioning trouble was enough to make his hackles rise. He automatically ran over everything he’d said in front of Hale, just like he had so many times since he found out the guy was a cop.
His conclusion was the same as always. He’d lied about certain things when playing up to the rich and stupid idea, but he hadn’t actually lied himself into admitting that he was guilty of any crime against the anti-pack laws.
Serving another man a drink on complete automatic pilot, Bayden glanced along the bar. Axel was talking to Hale. Hale looked pissed off, but Axel looked amused. And it was Axel who was the important one.