Axel's Pup (68 page)

“Humans heal really slowly.”

Axel chuckled and guided Bayden to roll over and curl into his side. “It’s only the marks from the fights that need to disappear before the collaring, not ones we put on each other.”

Bayden looked down at his knuckles.

“It won’t take long, a day or two at the most.”

That still felt like forever, but Bayden nodded his acceptance of Axel’s decision.

“You can use the time to think about what your new limits are going to be.”

Bayden shook his head. “Mates don’t have limits.”

“Submissives do, including collared submissives.”

Bayden tried to shake his head again, but Axel stopped him short. “Do as you’re told, pup. Think about it for me.”

It was impossible to disobey an order put like that. Bayden nodded and pressed another kiss against Axel’s wrist.

“You’re perfect.”

Bayden turned away from the mirror on the wardrobe door. The hour he’d just spent in his wolf form had finished the process. The marks from the fight were all gone. If that was the only thing Axel was waiting for, there was no reason to put off the collaring for another second. Bayden held his breath and hoped.

Axel beckoned Bayden out of the bedroom to sit next to him on the sofa. “Have you been thinking about your limits?”

“Mates don’t have limits,” Bayden reminded him, very politely.

“Limits are the sub’s version of rules. If you can’t have limits, does that mean I can’t have rules?”

Bayden shook his head rapidly. “Wolves don’t have limits,” he corrected. That was a much better statement. “Humans can have rules.”

Axel stroked his cheek.

“I like it when you set rules,” Bayden offered.

“I like it when you set limits,” Axel shot back at him.

Bayden frowned. Things that Axel liked were important, but… “A list of things you’re not allowed to do with me would be…” He shook his head.

“There’s nothing you can think of that you wouldn’t ever want me to do?” Axel asked.

Bayden shook his head. “Whatever you want.”

Axel stroked his fingers through Bayden’s hair. He thought for a long time. Bayden sat in silence, unable to come up with a single helpful thing to utter.

“What’s the worst thing I could do to you?” Axel asked.

Bayden glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

“I’m not asking you to set a limit, I’m ordering you to answer my question.”

Bayden looked down. “Tell me to leave, sir, that you don’t want me to be part of your pack or your mate anymore.”

Axel slid his arm around him and tugged him closer. “That’s not going to happen. I mean while we’re together—what’s the worst thing.”

Bayden stared down at his hands, where he’d wrapped his fingers into a complicated knot. The answer was obvious but it was several minutes before he could force it past his lips. “My bike, sir.”

“Take your bike away and leave you riding pillion behind me?” Axel asked.

Bayden nodded. The air had lodged in his throat. Speaking was out of the question. All he could do was repeat over and over again that Axel wasn’t like other humans. Axel would use that information to hurt him.

“I’ll give you a choice,” Axel announced. “You can set that as a limit.” Bayden shook his head, but Axel ignored that and carried on. “Or, you can set it as part of the punishment you’ll receive if you ever break my most important rule for you.”

Bayden looked up at him.

“If you break that rule, you’d lose your bike, but that would be the only reason you could ever lose it. I’d never take it away from you for any other reason, or because you broke any other rule. Your bike would be completely safe as long as you obeyed that rule.”

“What’s the most important rule, sir?”

“You’re not allowed to let yourself get hurt if you have a choice.”

Bayden met his gaze.

“You don’t take bets that involve letting someone hurt you—whether it’s a whipping, a beating or anything else. If you take a bet on a fight, you fight back. If someone tries to start a fight with you outside a bet, you either walk away or you finish the fight without letting them hurt you. You don’t just let anyone hurt you.”

Bayden stared into Axel’s eyes. He’d seldom seen him look so serious about anything. Memories flashed through Bayden’s mind. “I…” He closed his eyes. “I don’t want trouble.”

“Tell me what the end of the rule is,” Axel ordered.

Bayden thought back. “When I have a choice, sir.”

Axel nodded. “I know there have been lots of times in the past when you didn’t have a choice.”

Bayden shook his head. “Free wolves always have a choice. It’s—”

“Not what a human would call a choice,” Axel cut in. “With a cop like Granger, there was nothing you could do to stop him abusing his position.”

Bayden shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his heart beating faster and faster.

“With Ford and Richards, you had a different sort of choice. You could have chosen not to let them hurt you. There wouldn’t have been trouble if you did that, would there?”

Bayden took a deep breath. Memories rolled through his mind, all the different choices he’d made over the years. He studied where Axel’s hand rested against him, holding him close for no other reason than because Axel liked doing that, except maybe because Axel knew Bayden liked him doing that.

“You’re not allowed to let yourself get hurt if there’s a choice which allows you to avoid both getting hurt and getting in trouble,” Axel said. His voice was expressionless. His lips curved into a smile. His scent was sad.

“I can do that. I won’t break the rule, sir.”

“And you’ll know that your bike is safe.”

Bayden nodded. Axel’s sadness didn’t disappear. Bayden’s willingness to follow the rephrased rule hadn’t really fixed anything. Pulling his feet up onto the sofa in front of him, he wrapped his arms loosely around his knees.

“What do you feel most guilty about—your old pack still being important to you, or me being more important to you?”

Bayden closed his eyes. “Both, sir.” Thinking his bike was important just because it had been important to his last alpha was wrong. Ignoring what his father had wanted just because he was with Axel now was wrong too. Everything he did was wrong.

Axel stroked his hand up and down Bayden’s arm. “When I came out, a lot of things changed. I lost a lot of things that were important to me.”

Bayden opened his eyes. Axel rarely spoke about that time in his life, but when he did pain still touched every syllable, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Bayden stroked his arm, instinctively copying the method Axel used when trying to make him feel better.

“Most of my family and friends stepped back. My community, my church, it all disappeared from under my feet. When I realised there was no way to fix what I’d had with them, I built a new family, and new community. There’s not one man who rides with me who I wouldn’t take a bullet for. Losing them would kill something inside me.” Axel tucked a knuckle under Bayden’s chin, keeping him looking him in the eye. “If it was the choice between you and them, it would be the easiest decision I ever made. It would be you. Every time. No hesitation.”

Bayden swallowed.

“That’s not about betraying your pack, pup. It’s about putting your mate first. It’s the difference between people you love and the person you’re in love with. It’s nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I do love you, sir, so much,” Bayden whispered.

“I love you too, pup.”

When he smiled, he made it impossible for Bayden not to smile back. Axel’s sadness gradually faded away. Everything was fine. Relief rushed through him, making him almost as dizzy as he’d felt when Axel stole the oxygen from him the previous night. Bayden dipped his head and rested it on Axel’s shoulder. From there, it was impossible not to move on to nuzzling against his neck.

“Not so fast, pup.”

Bayden looked up.

“One more. I want one more thing from you. If you don’t want to call it a limit, you can call it something that would work as a punishment.”

Bayden rested his head on Axel’s shoulder.

“It can be big or little. Something we’ve done that you don’t like, or…” Axel coaxed Bayden into looking up. “There is something we’ve done that you don’t like.” His ability to read people like a wolf was getting better all the time. He spoke with complete confidence.

Bayden swallowed. “It’s not important, sir.”

“I’ve decided it’s important,” Axel corrected. “That means it is.”

“It’s not a limit, sir.”

“But it is something that would make an effective punishment?”

Bayden said nothing.

“If you knew doing a particular thing would lead to it, you’d avoid doing that thing?” Axel pushed.

Bayden nodded.

Axel looked more serious than ever. “Tell me.”

Bayden stared at Axel’s shoulder.

“You can take whatever time you need, pup, but you are going to tell me.”

“It’s not…” Bayden sighed. “You only do it when I screw up anyway, sir, so…”

Axel stroked his hair and whispered in his ear. “Tell me. You won’t be in trouble.”

Bayden squirmed. Axel ignored that.

“I don’t like it when you change your mind, but you wouldn’t change it unless I did something you don’t like, so it’s—”

Axel stroked his thumb back and forth over Bayden’s lips to silence him. “Slow down.” He frowned as if he didn’t understand. “You don’t like it when I change my mind about what?”

“Screwing me,” Bayden whispered.

A few seconds passed and Axel’s frown cleared. “You don’t like being prepared but not topped?”

“It’s my fault for—”

“I’ve never changed my mind about screwing you,” Axel cut in.

Bayden glanced up at him.

“Every time I stopped it was because I never intended to top you to begin with. It wasn’t about getting you ready, it was about teasing and making you frustrated.”

Bayden frowned.

“But I think it did more than that. It made you feel rejected.”

Bayden shrugged.

Axel pressed a kiss to his temple. “You’re good for telling me.” He tipped Bayden’s head back to press another kiss against his lips. “Do you think you can keep telling me things like that?”

Bayden hesitated.

“If you can give me information on what would work as a punishment, I’ll stop nagging you about setting limits,” Axel whispered in his ear.

“Yes, sir.”

Axel smiled at his enthusiasm and tugged him closer.

Bayden nuzzled his neck and pressed a kiss against the tip of a tattoo.

“Wait, pup. There’s something important we have to do first,” Axel corrected.

* * * * *

Bayden pulled back, all tense again.

Axel couldn’t hold himself in check for another second. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of silver chain.

Bayden relaxed the moment he saw it. He slipped out of Axel’s embrace to kneel on the floor at his feet. His hand rested on Axel’s leg, and he soon had a tight grip on his jeans.

Axel turned the tag so Bayden could see the inscription.
Bayden Wolf.
And, on the other side,
Axel Carmichael’s Mate.

For several seconds, Bayden just stared at it. He didn’t reach out to touch, but his longing was palpable. The lupine wording had obviously been a good choice. Bayden looked up at him. “Please, sir?”

“I’ll be the only one with a key.” Axel showed him the padlock that would link the ends of the chain together. “If you ever want to take it off, you’ll have to ask me to remove it for you. I might not say yes.”

Bayden shook his head. “I’d never ask, sir.” He squirmed on his knees. “Please?”

Axel smiled at his earnest expression. He undid the padlock, looped the chain around Bayden’s neck and locked it in place. The actual collaring only took seconds.

That was it. Bayden was his. Axel stared down at him, taking in every detail.

Bayden naked was always hot as hell. Bayden naked and collared was a whole new layer of perfection.

For a full minute, Bayden knelt still and silent. Finally, he spoke. “Can I?” He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “Just for a minute.”

Caught off guard by the request, Axel found himself nodding permission that he’d had no intention of granting.

Bayden was back just as quickly as he’d promised. “I know you said the more dominant mate doesn’t get anything, but…” He handed Axel a small paper bag.

Something rattled within the wrapping.

Axel peeked inside. At the bottom of the bag was another length of silver coloured chain, and a loop of leather. Axel took it out of the packaging. A lead. The quality of the workmanship implied that it had been bought in a leather shop rather than a pet shop, but it was still undeniably a dog’s lead.

“It’s what you talk about with the other Dragons, sir,” Bayden whispered. “Not just about putting a collar on me. A collar and lead.”

Axel looked up.

“You don’t say it when you talk to me, because you’re worried that I’ll think it means you want to treat me like a dog.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think it’s something you want, sir. And I think you’d want the same if I was human.”

“Yes, I would.”

Bayden nodded. It was obviously an idea that he was still uncomfortable with, but the determination in his eyes was stunning. Axel was Bayden’s mate now, and Bayden’s mate was going to have exactly what he wanted.

“This is why you wanted permission to go out,” Axel realised. “That’s where you went with Evan—to buy this for me.”

Bayden nodded.

“Thank you.”

Bayden hesitated for a few moments before he spoke again. “There used to be a tradition. When a wolf joined a new pack, he took the new pack’s name. We can’t do that anymore.”

“If the campaign to overturn the anti-pack laws succeeds, you’ll have a few extra options.”

Bayden nodded, but the idea didn’t seem to make him feel better about anything.

Axel stroked Bayden’s hair back from his face as he realised why. “I’m sorry the names were lost, pup.”

Bayden “They weren’t lost, sir. They were outlawed, to stop wolves from thinking of themselves as part of a pack.”