Pretty Poison (14 page)

“Mia’s your niece.” Noah bit his lip, resisting the urge to snatch at his forearm crutches to walk into Wade’s arms. Resisting, too, the compulsion to beat the alpha bloody with those same crutches. “Grace is your sister, which means Fletcher is your brother-in-law.”

“In human terms?” The alpha arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“And I’m the next alpha,” Chase said through the cookie stuffed in his mouth. He glared at his mother when she reminded him of his manners with a soft smack on the back of his head. The boy lifted his toy gun and pointed it at Noah. “Help my sister or suffer the consequences.”

Staggered, Noah bounced his gaze between Fletcher and Grace, then to Wade. “I’m just...me. Nobody important. You realize that, right?”

Thwok!

The foam dart smacked Noah’s forehead this time.

“Mia!” Wade growled in dire warning. “For God’s sake, Fletcher, take that away from her.”

Chase smirked. “Mia’s not as sweet as me.” Then, he shot Noah, too.

“I’ve had enough,” Fletcher shouted, grabbing the guns from his son and daughter before Noah could be assaulted with another volley. “Temporarily isolating you two from this pack is no excuse for disrespecting an alpha mate. We raised you better.” He frowned at Mia. “
Both
of you.”

Grace nodded in agreement, eyes mean and flinty. “Essays.”

Struggling with everything he’d seen, the little he knew, and what he guessed, Noah wandered to the front porch while the parents and Wade seated the pair of kids at the kitchen table with paper and pencils inside. If nothing else, to escape the girl’s distrustful and antagonistic glare. Wade’s wary stare stirred answering nervous flutters in Noah’s chest.

Kids. A mated sister. Fletcher as his brother-in-law as well as his most trusted beta. Wade had a family, demonstrably a much beloved one. So cherished, Wade had been willing to leave his home pack, where he would have certainly ascended to alpha, to seek medical treatment for the girl in Loganville.

Family must be important to Wade. Yet, Noah hadn’t been aware they existed. The piercing pain of that warred with Noah’s panic, because Wade loved those kids. Adored them. His affection towards his niece and nephew had been evident in the palm he scrubbed over Chase’s head that mussed the boy’s hair and the gentle squeeze on the girl’s shoulder when she’d glowered at Noah from the kitchen table. Wade loved those kids.

Did the alpha want children of his own?

Of course, he must. Noah couldn’t fail to notice Wade’s fondness as he helped Fletcher and Grace settle the kids to their work. The boy was young and playful, but he was also right. Nobody could mistake the power maturing inside Chase. He would become an alpha like Wade one day. Natural for Wade to dote on him, but Wade also rained affection on the girl. Wade didn’t appear to notice or care his niece was missing half of one leg or that she was mute. He talked to her in a firm, but soothing voice. Warned her to behave and write the best essay about the courtesies of pack politics ever, but he accompanied that order with comforting pats that traced small circle’s between Mia’s skinny shoulders. Wade wasn’t just nurturing a future leader of the pack. He seemed equally devoted to both children.

Why had Wade held such a significant piece of himself back? And what did this mean for Noah?

Noah had never considered kids. Isolated at the farm, he hadn’t been around them. Leaning against the porch rail, he wasn’t even sure he liked children.

As alpha mate, he would be expected to produce a litter for his alpha, though.

Rapidly.

An alpha mating wasn’t truly cemented, according to some, until the alpha bitch had whelped a litter.

Could he do that? Was his body capable? He stared at the cornfields beyond the dusty screen enclosing the porch. He wondered. And worried. Most shifters could have children, including guys under special circumstances. If a pack’s numbers were low and women were scarce, shifter men carried children. Male alpha mates were rare, but they invariably bore litters, too.

Noah felt good, stronger. The tests at Vanguard had confirmed that. After years of little progress, his body was healing again. Enough to carry Wade’s whelps? Considering how little the pack was likely to accept him, did he even have a choice about trying?

Wade hadn’t mentioned children, though. Despite the traditions and expectations, the alpha hadn’t said a solitary word about breeding Noah even once.

The screen door creaked as it swung open behind him.

“I apologize,” Wade said, the wood boards squeaking beneath him as he shifted from foot to foot. “When I took over as alpha, we protected the kids from everyone except close family members in Loganville. Isolation isn’t natural for whelps so Mia grew very attached to the few adults permitted around her, especially me as her perceived alpha. Chase, too. We talked to them about you, but none of us counted on them being this jealous. We never meant for them to consider you an enemy.”

Sadness washed through him, but Noah didn’t alter his stare from the corn. “That’s the longest string of words you’ve said to me outside of bed.” He smiled, proud when it wobbled only a little. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister or that Fletcher was more to you than your most trusted beta.”

“We’ve always kept a low profile so no one in town knows.” Wade blew out a long, stuttered breath. “They can’t know. It isn’t safe for the kids yet.”

“You haven’t let me near anyone except Fletcher and Trudy, and you ordered them not to get close, to keep me at a distance.” Noah laughed, a bitter sound that twisted his stomach. “Who would I tell, Wade?”

“We’ve only been mated a few days.” When Noah glanced over his shoulder, the alpha’s mouth had thinned. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d misunderstand what I meant to accomplish with this mating.”

“You mated me because you wanted shifters to accept your niece and you believed I’d smooth her way.” Fury exploded inside him. He pivoted, crossing his arms over his chest. “I suspect you also wanted me to persuade my doctors to help that little girl. What, exactly, have I misunderstood?”

“My motives weren’t purely selfish.” Wade shoved agitated fingers through his hair. “I knew I could help you and your family.”

“Great. I’m not just a duty then.” Noah sniffed in contempt. “I’m a charity, too.”

“And a fantastic fuck.” A flash of red lit Wade’s eyes as he strode across the porch. He towered above Noah, crowded against him. Muscles tensed, Wade scared the hell out of Noah, but also turned him on. Arousal married with fear and anger. Not in Noah alone. The musk of desire mixing with anxiety and impatience perfumed the alpha, warming Noah’s blood and stiffening his dick. When Wade stepped between Noah’s legs and pushed his hips forward, trapping Noah between his mate and the wooden rail of the porch, Noah gulped. The hard shape of Wade’s cock pressed into him. He’d never been so painfully aware that only a couple layers of cloth separated them.

“Don’t say you don’t like my dick in your ass.” Wade’s mouth curved as, nostrils flaring, he scented the air. “Even your wolf wants that.
Craves
it.”

Noah reached for his mate, his grip settling on Wade’s blue-jean clad hips. He trembled at Wade’s unsubtle thrust in response and barely smothered an answering moan. He dipped his head and angled his chin to the side to offer his submission as well as his neck in invitation.

Wade snarled and grasped Noah’s biceps. Noah’s stomach flipped as Wade pushed his chest and shoulders backward against the sagging screen of the enclosed porch until Noah’s weight held against the flimsy screen. The fulcrum of his ass pressed to the porch rail thrust his groin into Wade’s.

“I want you.” Wade rubbed his cheek against Noah’s temple. “All the time.” Wade bucked his hips and Noah gasped. The brush of their dicks, despite the confining clothes, was that good. “Sex isn’t just a requirement for our mating or a convenience. Don’t lie. You feel it, too.”

Destined mates were a fairy tale. Noah understood that. Even when his mother was alive and his parents had been blissfully happy with each other, he’d known the human perception of shifters falling magically in love at first sight was a romantic fabrication. Sex and pheromones lured shifters together and held them captive. Unlike humans, mated shifters never cheated or strayed. But the physical pull delivered both agony and ecstasy. Sex promised mating alone. Bonding with a mate, the kind of love his parents had shared, demanded more than writhing bodies. Unless mates learned to care for more than orgasms, sex could be a prison neither could escape.

“Do you even like me?” he dared to whisper, wincing at the breathlessness of his voice. “I know you don’t trust me, but—”

“I trust you,” Wade said on a growl. When he bent to sniff at the bite on Noah’s neck, Noah’s skin prickled. Worse, Noah’s mouth watered.

Heart thudding against his ribcage, Noah pushed the unwelcome desire away or at least tried. “Fletcher never left my side at Vanguard. Not for a single minute.”

“They
poisoned
you.” Noah shuddered at the wet lick of Wade’s tongue across the wound that stamped Noah as Wade’s mate. Forever.

“I promised I wouldn’t take human medicines,” Noah said.

“You think I didn’t believe you?” Wade grunted against the bite, then nuzzled it.

Ignoring the shiver that raced up his spine, Noah clenched his fingers on Wade’s hips and only blearily realized that he was tugging the shifter forward. “You lock me in your rooms, away from your pack and the outside world. Order Fletcher not to talk to me too much.”

“If I could, I’d take you onto the hunting grounds until the full moon and keep you to myself. All mine. Only mine. If you didn’t need to be close to a pack healer, if I didn’t have a pack and a business to run, I’d take weeks to hunt for you. Fuck you until I’d had my fill. Then, feed and fuck you some more.” The heady aroma of Wade’s excitement intoxicated Noah, as much as the alpha’s sly nip at the mating bite in the crook of Noah’s shoulder. “Your wolf is recovering, but once you’re healthier, your senses will speak to you as eloquently as my wolf speaks to me. It isn’t you I don’t trust. It’s
them
. Others. Anyone. Even Fletcher, who is as good as a brother to me.”

“Why?” When Wade’s arm looped around the small of Noah’s back, pulling them chest to chest, heat to heat, Noah could only whimper. “It can’t just be the tradition to mate in privacy. You know I can’t run, that I won’t.”

“There is nowhere you could run that I wouldn’t chase you.” Wade scraped his teeth over the bite, wringing a groan from Noah. “You have no idea how much I want to hunt you, then hold you down and fuck you until you scream with the pleasure of me inside you.”

Noah shuddered.

Wade did, too, but his grip gentled. “I underestimated the intensity of mating instincts, how fierce the urge to protect you and keep you only for myself would become.” He blew out an uneven breath. “I think about you. At the job site this morning, I couldn’t get the memory of your taste out of my mouth, and the noises you made when I slipped into you still echoed in my head.” He chuckled against the bite. “The innocent but hungry shock rounding your eyes when I suggested you lube your hole for my dick.” Noah squirmed as Wade lapped at his bite. “You maneuvered me to leave your family unpunished so I could have you, and you’ve stood up to me ever since, demanding your cursed human poisons and your computer...when others only tremble. You’re fearless. And so damn smart. You fascinate me. I want to know everything. What foods you like. Your favorite movie. What makes you laugh?”

Twining his arms around Wade’s waist, Noah rested his cheek on Wade’s muscled shoulder. “Then why won’t you talk to me? Spend time with me?”

Stiffening, the alpha jerked, tearing Noah away. Dark eyes glittering with temper, he held Noah at arm’s length. “It isn’t supposed to be like this.”

Stomach knotting with anxiety, Noah nodded. “I was a tool for you to help your niece. I wasn’t to become your mate. Not really.”

“Yes!” Jaw clenched, Wade glared at him. “I mean, no.” His shoulders vibrated with tension. “I don’t know what we were supposed to be anymore.” He shook Noah once, hard. “You mess up my head and you won’t yield an inch. You draw away from me in your sleep, won’t refresh your bite when I could hardly coax you to mark me the first time...”

“You feel threatened.” Despite Wade’s anger, hope blossomed inside Noah. The taut bunch of his muscles relaxed. “That’s why you warn everyone away and keep me hidden.”

Wade tightened his grasp on Noah, like twin vises. “You don’t feel this...this...obsession. Not like I do. Maybe it’s because your wolf is still recovering, but mine is healthy. I can sense your bond to me is tenuous. Your resistance is maddening. This infernal pull toward you builds every day, and you couldn’t care less if anyone touches me, if anybody other than you is near me. I leave you alone for hours, all day, and your sole burden is boredom. Not longing. Not this terrible ache,” he said on a furious snarl. “You don’t feel it.”

Noah lifted his hand, heart skipping a beat when Wade initially shied from his touch, but his mate allowed Noah to trace the line of his jaw, Wade’s glare flared fiery rage. An anger, Noah suddenly realized, was born of terror as much as anything else. He sighed at the rough
scritch
of stubble under his fingertips. “I feel it. I do.”

Slowly, never dislodging Noah’s caress, Wade shook his head. “Some in the pack object to this mating. Vehemently. They could hurt you. Insult you.” The alpha trembled. “Persuade you to reject me as your mate.”

Why hadn’t Noah seen this? Understood it? “You aren’t making sense. We’re mated. No one else will ever be enough for me or attract me. You know I can’t leave you.”

“
Can’t
is a biological drive holding us together,” Wade said, angling into Noah’s open palm. “Why don’t you
want
to be with me?” His stare brimmed over with insecurities and fears that rocked Noah’s world off its foundations. “Why won’t you renew your bite? Why?”

If the absurdity wasn’t so tragic, Noah would’ve laughed. “Probably the same reason you won’t spend more than a few minutes with me unless we’re fucking or I’m throwing up.”