Authors: Kim Dare
Axel rubbed the back of his neck. He could punish his sub for needing money to bury his grandfather. What the hell kind of man did Bayden think he was? He frowned as he considered that line of thought more carefully. There were other people whose opinion Bayden cared about, and being a dom didn’t give Axel the right to think the whole world revolved around him twenty-four hours a day. “Your grandfather wouldn’t want me to pay for it, would he?”
Bayden swallowed. “He’d say it’s not your responsibility, sir. He’d be right.” He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. “He was right about a lot of things.”
“Things about humans?” Axel guessed, wondering if he was about to find out another reason why Bayden hadn’t rushed back to a human’s side.
“No. About what it means to be a good wolf. He was.” Bayden looked up. “He was a good wolf, sir. The best. I’d have given up anything for him to have been okay. I would have.”
Axel stroked Bayden’s hair back from his face. “What if we call it a loan? I won’t
give
you the money. I’ll just lend it to you. You can pay me back. You and your grandfather will both know that you were the one who really paid for it.”
Bayden nodded. “I can pay you back quickly. I’ll—”
“You won’t do it by taking a bet that looks like a scene.”
Bayden nodded and sighed as if the entire weight of the headstone had been lifted off his shoulders.
When Axel smiled, Bayden smiled back. For the first time since he’d returned, the expression didn’t look forced.
“You’ll pay me back slowly. No rushing. No deadlines. Understand?”
When Axel held the money out again, Bayden took it.
“I need permission to leave the pub to pay for the stone,” he admitted.
“I’m driving you there.”
“I can…” Bayden trailed off when their gazes met and he apparently realised he would never win that argument. He remained silent as Axel led him out to the car.
The funeral parlour that Bayden directed Axel to catered to humans as well as wolves. There was no need for Axel to ask if humans were welcome or if he had to wait in the car while Bayden went in on his own. He didn’t actually need to work up the self-control to let Bayden out of his sight. As soon as he realised that, Axel felt much better about the world.
Bayden took his sunglasses out of his pocket as they left the car, then he seemed to realise they weren’t necessary. He pushed them back into his jacket pocket. Inside, was a marble floored lobby with a receptionist’s desk. Axel hung back while Bayden approached the woman at the desk. He kept his voice down in deference to the sombre surroundings. Axel didn’t hear what was said.
Bayden nodded and returned to Axel’s side.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll need to wait until Mr. James is free to see me.”
“It’s fine.” Axel shepherded him toward a row of chairs on the other side of the lobby.
Bayden turned to the exit instead. “I can wait outside.”
Axel couldn’t blame him for wanting to get out of the place. “Okay. I’ll tell the receptionist we’ll be out there.”
“She knows, sir.”
Outside, Bayden seemed to breathe a little easier. Axel led the way to a bench and nudged Bayden until he sat down. The sun was shining. The building was set back from the road and surrounded by well-kept gardens. It was almost possible to believe that they sat in a park and that there was no reason to consider their surroundings to be melancholy.
“After we finish here, do you want to stop by the cemetery?” Axel asked.
“It’s not the same one humans use, sir.”
“We can still go, if you’d like.”
Bayden nodded, but he didn’t speak. Axel would have bet the entire seven hundred on that being because Bayden was worried about how much emotion would be audible in his voice.
A few other mourners came and went. When two separate sets of people seemed to have jumped the queue in front of them, Axel got up. “I’ll check they haven’t forgotten about us.”
“Humans get seen first.” Bayden stared at his hands. “They won’t keep a human waiting while they deal with me.”
“They told you to wait outside,” Axel realised. They weren’t out there because it was depressing as hell in there. They were outside because of, what? Some screwed up no dogs inside rule?
“You don’t have to wait, sir. I can make my own way back to the pub. I won’t go anywhere else. I’ll just—”
“There’s no need for that,” Axel cut in.
Bayden glanced up at him. “You’re angry.”
Bloody furious would have been closer to the mark. “Not at you.”
Bayden stood up. “I don’t want any trouble, sir.”
“What?”
“You’re not used to it, sir. There’s no reason why you should be. But…” Bayden looked down. “I don’t want any trouble. Not here.”
Axel stared at him, completely speechless.
“There has to be a stone, sir.”
And if Axel caused a scene they might refuse to make it. He swallowed down his anger as best he could. “Sit down.”
Bayden obeyed, but his movements were wary. He didn’t entirely trust him not to storm in there and screw everything up for him.
Axel sat down next to Bayden and rested his hand on the small of his back. “I’m not going to create a scene. There’s not going to be any trouble.”
Bayden nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Axel managed a smile, but it wasn’t easy, not when Bayden apparently lived in a world where he thought that was something he had to be grateful for.
Bayden rubbed his knuckles together. The sleeve on his jumper slipped back. Axel’s predictions had been accurate. There were bruises around his wrist from where Axel had held him the night before.
Axel ran his thumb over the discoloured skin, remembering the last time he’d seen bruises around his wrists.
“I like them, sir.”
“What?”
“The marks, I like them”
“Why?”
“Because you left them on me.” He watched with apparent fascination as Axel caressed the bruises. “I’d like any marks you left on me.”
“Because they mean you belong to me?”
Bayden focused on them even more intently. “These ones do. The marks from the bets didn’t mean that.”
“No, they didn’t mean a damn thing.” Axel slid his arm further around Bayden’s shoulders. Maybe he had to keep his tongue about anti-werewolf bullshit, but he’d be damned if he’d tiptoe around and be wary of any homophobes hidden in the bushes too. Bayden was his.
Several more human clients came and went. It was another hour before the receptionist appeared in the doorway and signalled that they were temporarily allowed in the building. The actual meeting took all of two minutes. Bayden checked the wording he wanted on the stone once. Mr. James checked that Bayden hadn’t short changed him twice, and they were back out in the fresh air.
Axel rolled his shoulders. He’d never realised that simply standing in the background and watching an undertaker act like a bigoted wanker could be so bloody exhausting.
“Which way?” Axel asked, as he drove out of the funeral home’s car park.
Bayden shook his head. “We don’t need to go to the burial, sir. It’s already taken longer than—”
Axel put his hand on Bayden’s knee. “Just give me the directions, pup. Unless you want to stop off somewhere first. Flowers for the grave, is that something your grandfather would like?”
Bayden shook his head. He gave the directions quietly, almost as if he was afraid to interrupt Axel by uttering them.
The lupine burial ground was set right on the other side of town, near an old industrial park. Axel pulled into a layby not far from a set of heavy iron gates. There were no other cars in sight.
Bayden got out without a word. He didn’t say anything about Axel following him in. There were no headstones, or at least none that stood upright. The stones all lay flat on the ground, line after line of them. There was moss growing on some, making the marble and granite slabs blend into the ragged strips of grass between them.
Bayden pushed his hands into his pockets and kept his head down. He seemed to know where he was going. Axel fell into step beside him. There were no flowers, no trees, no benches. There wasn’t anything to look at apart from the inscriptions on the gravestones that flanked the path.
Every surname was the same. No way to tell which wolves were related or what pack they belonged to. Most of the stones were about six foot long by three foot across, but every so often there was a smaller one. They were halfway across the grave yard before Axel realised why. They were the graves of children. The gravestones were smaller because the graves they covered were smaller.
Axel looked along the rows again. There were far too many small ones.
Bayden came to a halt, but he didn’t approach a particular grave.
Poor little sod. “It’s easy to get turned around and lose track,” Axel offered.
“I know where he’s buried, sir,” Bayden said. “I just have to wait until they go.” He nodded to a couple standing about a hundred yards away.
“They’re at your grandfather’s grave?”
Bayden nodded.
“Do you know them?”
“A little, sir.”
“You could go and talk to them.”
Bayden shook his head. “I’ll wait until they’re gone.”
“If lupine families are anything like human families I’m guessing that part of the family stopped talking to another because what his auntie said about her cousin when they were at so and so’s wedding forty years ago?”
Bayden smiled, but shook his head again.
Axel touched his cheek. “What if I give you some privacy to talk to them on your own?” It would be easy enough to be out of earshot without having to actually let Bayden out of his sight. Axel could manage that.
“You’re not the problem, sir. It’s three wolves that people object to,” Bayden reminded him.
Axel looked around them. The couple at the grave were the only people within sight. “Who’d know?”
“It’s better not to take the risk.”
Axel frowned.
“After you get caught a couple of times, you learn it’s better not to take the risk, sir.”
“What about you talking to one of them?”
“It’s fine, sir. I’ll wait. Or, we can go back. It’ll be time to open soon and—”
Axel slid his arm around Bayden’s shoulders. “We’ll wait.”
Bayden cautiously leaned into him, just slightly, as if he was desperate for comfort but wasn’t sure if it would be snatched away at an unexpected moment.
Axel took Bayden properly in his arms and encouraged him to rest his head on his shoulder while they waited. Whether it was coincidence or because they were aware that someone else wanted to approach the grave, the other couple didn’t linger for more than a few minutes.
It was the only grave with freshly turned over earth still visible. Every other one was covered by a stone.
When Bayden knelt down near the base of the disturbed area of earth, Axel remained a few steps back.
“He was a good wolf, sir,” Bayden suddenly said.
Axel moved closer and crouched down behind Bayden, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“He always said that a good wolf’s aim should be to die peacefully in his sleep of old age. Not many wolves of his generation managed it, but he did.” Bayden ran his fingers over the weed strewn grass. “You keep your head down, you don’t cause trouble, and you survive. He was right.”
Axel squeezed his shoulder. “He lived with you and your mother for a long time?”
“Since my dad died. My father, he…wasn’t the kind of wolf who would ever die of old age.”
“Is his buried here too?” Axel asked.
Bayden nodded.
“Do you know where?”
Another nod.
“Do you want to visit his grave as well?”
“No.” The word was sharp. Bayden glanced over his shoulder. “I’d prefer not to, sir. Today’s not about him.”
“That’s fine, pup.” Axel ruffled his hair.
“It’s only wolves that are buried here?” Axel asked, when Bayden had been quiet for a long time.
Bayden nodded. “My granddad would have enjoyed that, being surrounded by wolves.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet him.”
“You’d have liked him, sir.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
The minutes ticked past. Axel’s feet started to fall asleep, but he remained crouched down beside Bayden.
“He’d have liked you too, once he got to know you,” Bayden whispered. “It’s just that other humans, so many other humans are… He was scared of humans, sir, but he had a right to be. You’re different than the others. He’d have seen that in time.”
Axel pressed a kiss to the top of Bayden’s head.
The time when the pub should have opened came and went. Axel shifted his weight far enough that a little bit of blood could reach his toes and slid his arm more comfortably around Bayden’s shoulders.
He had no idea if Bayden was aware of the time passing. He seemed lost in his own world. Axel could easily imagine the days when he was away from the pub passing the same way. Or in waiting until all the humans were seen first.
Bayden glanced up at him. “He was a good wolf,” he said again.
“So are you,” Axel said.
“No, I’m not. Not the way he was.”
Axel pushed Bayden’s hair back from his face. He wanted to kiss him gently on the lips, purely for comfort, but he doubted it would be considered respectful given their location. He kissed his temple instead. You couldn’t get more chaste than that. Hell, he’d have done that in front of Bayden’s grandfather when he was alive.
Bayden turned his head and pressed a kiss against Axel’s hand—his first real movement since his hands fell still in the grass over an hour earlier. It was cautious, but not the least awkward due to their location. Axel stroked his cheek in praise.
They walked out of the graveyard arm in arm and drove back to the pub in silence.
There were already a couple of Dragons outside. Sometimes a short submissive was a blessing. Axel shook his head and shot a look at them above Bayden’s line of sight. Whatever they’d intended to say, they stowed it away for later.
Inside, Axel nudged Bayden to go on ahead. Griz waited until Bayden was out of hearing before he spoke up. “I was starting to think he’d disappeared again.”
“We were visiting his grandfather’s grave.”