Axel's Pup (44 page)

Axel remained patiently silent.

“No one wanted to fight that night, but there were guys back there. One of them offered me twenty quid for a blowjob. I made my choice.” Bayden frowned at his reflection in the shining paintwork and rubbed at it with the cloth. “It didn’t take me long to realise that the real money came from guys who wear leather. They like using wolves because they don’t have to feel guilty about hurting us—it’s not the same as beating up a human.” He cleared his throat and forced himself to square his shoulders. “And proving to a man like that, that a wolf isn’t easy to break, is different from dropping to your knees in a back alley.”

He turned to Axel, not sure what to expect.

Some humans didn’t understand that it was different. Some humans…

Axel brushed his lips against Bayden’s very gently. “Good boy.”

Bayden remembered how to breathe. He nodded. Telling the truth meant he was good.

* * * * *

“How uncomfortable were you last night?”

Bayden shuffled his feet in the bedroom doorway. He wanted to lie—Axel would have bet his life on it.

“Maybe six out of ten, sir.” He spoke softly, the same way he always did when asked questions like that—as if he didn’t want anyone but Axel to hear the answer, didn’t want anyone else to know that he was admitting things like that out loud.

Axel nodded that he’d heard. Bayden could take a more uncomfortable bondage arrangement. He’d do that before the end of the penance, but not tonight. Tonight Axel had a different kind of discomfort planned for him.

He dismissed Bayden to the bathroom and took several items out of the wardrobe where he kept his toys. When Bayden came back and stood naked in front of him, Axel wasted no time.

“Sit down.”

Bayden sat on the blanket Axel had spread out on the floor.

Axel quickly fixed the black leather wrist and ankle cuffs in place. They were padded and designed to be comfortable. Bayden watched in silence as Axel completed the arrangement by sliding a short length of chain through the D-rings on each cuff and padlocking it in place. Bayden’s hands and feet were all staying close together for the rest of the night.

“Eight weeks in—you’d been working for me for two weeks,” Axel said. “You knew me pretty well by this point—well enough that you should have realised that I don’t judge a man by how much he has in his wallet.” He didn’t give Bayden time to answer before he took his turn in the bathroom.

When he came out a few minutes later, Axel went straight to his bed without even glancing in Bayden’s direction. Making himself comfortable, he picked up one of the books from his night stand and opened it to the old envelope he’d used as a bookmark.

Bayden hadn’t tried to lie down and make himself comfortable. He sat exactly where Axel had left him, staring at Axel with an intensity that made it difficult for Axel not to squirm.

Forcing himself to focus on the book, Axel did his damnedest to pretend that he was completely oblivious to Bayden’s presence. Minutes ticked past. He turned the page and began a new section of the book.

Bayden continued to stare. His attention was like a physical pressure against Axel’s skin. Another few pages. A new chapter. Bayden didn’t move, didn’t stop staring, didn’t speak.

“If you have something to say, pup, you’ll have to say it out loud. I’m not a mind reader.” For the first time, Axel set his book down and turned to face Bayden.

“There’s nothing I want to say, sir.”

Axel smiled. More likely, Bayden thought everything he wanted to say to him was too rude to be considered respectful. “If you want to read them after I’m done, you’re welcome to.”

“No!”

Axel rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his hand.

Bayden looked down. He took a deep breath. “No, thank you, sir.” His voice trembled with the effort it took for him to adopt a polite tone.

“Oh?”

Bayden shifted his weight in an effort to find a more comfortable position on the thin blanket. It took him a long time to find a response. “I already know what human books say about wolves.”

Axel glanced at the book he’d been reading. It had been written by a wolf. It spoke about wolves with respect. But what he was actually reading wasn’t as important as what Bayden thought he was reading. “Tell me what the books say.”

Bayden glanced pointedly at the book laying on the bed in front of Axel. Axel pretended not to notice.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not important,” Bayden mumbled.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Bayden’s jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth. “It all happened a long time ago.”

“You’re thinking about what the books say about the Captivities?” Axel asked.

Bayden nodded.

“This book hasn’t mentioned them yet.”

“It will say the same as all the human books say about the Captivities. It was all very wrong, very
unfortunate
, that humans hurt the wolves they caught,” Bayden spat the platitudes out with obvious contempt. “But then they’ll go on to say it all worked out for the best—that it’s because of the Captivities that wolves are able to live among you today. If wolves hadn’t been tamed by humans, we’d have been too dangerous. Really, you did wolves a favour.”

“That’s what the books I studied in school said,” Axel admitted.

Bayden stared down at his bound wrists. He took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “They’re wrong.”

“Anyone who defends the Captivities is wrong.”

Bayden shook his head. “I mean about who modern wolves are descended from. They never managed to breed us. Werewolves don’t breed in captivity—no matter what the humans do to them, no matter what they make wolves do with humans, with other wolves, with…” He closed his eyes.

“After they were freed,” Axel began.

“No. The things they did to those wolves. Even after they were freed, none of them were in any condition to breed.”

Axel straightened up.

“They wanted to make sure the male wolves they freed would be as docile as possible. They called it gelding.” He met Axel’s gaze for a moment. “The female wolves…that wasn’t so intentional, but there’s a limit to how much cruelty even a wolf’s body can heal from.”

Axel sat up and dropped his feet over the side of the bed. He tossed the book on his bed-side cabinet. Forget how long ago it had happened, the pain Bayden felt was there right now.

* * * * *

Bayden tensed as Axel got to his feet. With the worst of human’s cruelty right in the front of his mind, he had no idea what to expect from Axel. Could a man who shared a species with the people who had done all those things really be so different?

Axel sat down on the floor next to him, just as naked as Bayden was.

Bayden’s heart raced. Sweat trickled down his spine, but he didn’t flinch when Axel reached out to him.

His hand was gentle against Bayden’s cheek. Axel slid his fingers through Bayden’s hair and pushed it back off his face. He was going to say it was okay. Bayden braced himself for it, hoping like hell he could nod and agree without Axel calling him on lying. Because, it wasn’t okay, nothing that was anything to do with the Captivities had been okay—it never would be.

But Axel didn’t say that. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, with only a few inches between them, occasionally stroking his fingers through Bayden’s hair.

Slowly, Bayden felt his heart stop racing. His breaths became more regular. Anger began to burn less fiercely inside him. The tension in his muscles eased.

Bayden glanced up. Their eyes met and Bayden realised that Axel had been aware of it all, had somehow known that a gentle presence would help more than lies and platitudes.

Axel moved away, but only far enough to lean back against the chest of drawers. He beckoned Bayden closer. Moving with his hands and feet bound wasn’t an elegant process, but being close to Axel was the only thing that really mattered. When Bayden got to him, Axel guided him to sit between his legs, curled in against his chest. Bound as he was, Bayden couldn’t reach out to Axel, but that became irrelevant when Axel wrapped his arms around him and held him close.

“You were telling me that today’s wolves are all descended from the wolves who remained free, the ones who were never captured,” Axel reminded him after a few more minutes had passed.

Bayden nodded, taking the chance to rub his face against Axel’s tattooed skin in the process. “My dad used to say that was a tactical error on humanity’s part,” he whispered.

Axel stroked Bayden’s side, encouraging him to snuggle against him.

“He said that what doesn’t kill a species makes it stronger. Humans caught the weakest, the slowest, the least intelligent wolves. They saw to it that only the fittest ones survived, that modern wolves are stronger than any of the previous generations were.”

“What do you think?” Axel asked.

“I don’t think every kind of pain makes people stronger. Some pain just hurts,” Bayden said. “Nothing good comes out of the way humans treat wolves.” He glanced up at Axel. “At the way
other
humans treat wolves.”

Axel pressed a kiss against his temple. “One of the books Hale gave me was written by humans about the anti-pack laws. The other one was written by a wolf.”

Bayden glanced across to the book on the bed side table.

“His name’s Kincade Wolf,” Axel said. “Have you heard of him?”

Bayden shrugged.

“He’s leading a campaign to have the anti-pack laws overturned.”

The campaign wouldn’t do any good. Nothing would change. Humans would still be humans at the end of it. But, Bayden leaned a little more firmly into Axel’s embrace, enjoying the way Axel’s voice reverberated through his chest as he spoke, even if the topic he wanted to talk about wasn’t of particular interest to him.

“If he’s successful, wolves would only have to obey the same laws as humans,” Axel went on. “Humans who committed crimes against wolves could be charged.”

Bayden took a deep breath, inhaling Axel’s scent, loving the way the warmth of Axel’s body wrapped around him.

“Is that something you’d like to be involved in?”

Bayden blinked, wondering if he’d missed a whole segment of the conversation while he’d been relishing Axel’s closeness.

Axel smiled, obviously realising that Bayden had been distracted and by what. “Would you like to get involved with the campaign to overturn the anti-pack laws?”

“No!” The moment he realised what Axel was suggesting, Bayden blurted out his answer—almost as vehemently as he’d been when he rejected the idea of reading Axel’s books. “No, thank you, sir,” he corrected a moment later.

Axel stroked his cheek. “You don’t want to?”

Bayden’s hands tightened into fists. “I don’t want any trouble, sir.”

Axel nodded slowly. “Okay. Nothing that could cause any trouble for us.” Bayden frowned, but Axel raised an eyebrow at him. “Anything that causes trouble for one of us, causes trouble for both of us.”

Bayden rested his head on Axel’s chest. He could hear Axel’s heartbeat, slow and steady. He listened to it as his own pulse gradually slowed and his panic at the idea of getting involved in that campaign faded away.

Axel didn’t rush to say anything, but it didn’t feel like he was waiting for Bayden to speak. Axel just held him, idly caressing him as if to remind Bayden he had the right to touch every bit of him. It was perfect, but such silence couldn’t last forever—humans enjoyed talking far too much for that.

“You’ve been very good today. You told me the truth about a lot of things.”

Bayden snuggled into Axel in response.

“I’m proud of you, pup. I know it wasn’t easy for you.” He pressed a kiss against Bayden’s hair and slid his hand up Bayden’s thigh.

Bayden didn’t have much room to move in his bondage but he kept his legs even closer together than he had to. Axel noticed. He looked down and immediately saw what Bayden had been hoping to conceal.

Axel chuckled. “You won’t get in trouble for getting turned on, even if you are still under penance.”

Bayden slowly let his legs fall apart as far as the cuffs allowed. Axel trailed a fingertip up Bayden’s flourishing erection.

“You never need to hide enjoying my touch. I’ll never be mad at you for it.” He caressed Bayden’s cock very gently, teasing him with soft sensations, and tapping the tip to make the whole shaft bounce and bob for his amusement.

Bayden watched Axel toy with him. The bondage made it difficult to move, but it was his submission that really kept him there, feeling vulnerable and cosseted in equal measure.

“Such a good boy,” Axel murmured.

Bayden had to ask, even if he didn’t have the right words. He tilted his face up and hoped. Axel granted him his kiss—a gentle touch of the lips, far more chaste than Bayden would have preferred, but still enough to send tingles down his spine.

“Do you want me stay here with you while I finish the chapter?”

Bayden glanced at the book. “You’d be more comfortable—”

“I didn’t ask where I’d be more comfortable.”

Bayden took a deep breath and nodded.

“Good boy.” Axel brushed their lips together briefly before reaching across and snagging the book.

Bayden closed his eyes and rested his head on Axel’s shoulder. Unsure how long it would take Axel to finish his chapter, he refused to waste time worrying about the words Axel might read. It was far more important to enjoy being held close.

It would be so easy to end the penance early.

As Axel led the way up to the flat at the end of the third day of Bayden’s penance, he’d never been more tempted to say to hell with all other considerations. He was the dom. It was his decision. Bayden wouldn’t complain about being allowed to skip the final part of the penance.

Axel stared at the patch of carpet where Bayden’s blanket had been spread out the previous three nights. It had taken all his self-control to force himself to leave Bayden there when he’d finished the chapter he’d been reading and was due to go back to his bed.

Bayden had accepted his punishment so well, he deserved to be let off early for good behaviour, didn’t he? Axel looked over his shoulder. Bayden stood in the bedroom doorway, patiently awaiting an order.