Slings and Arrows 4

Slings and Arrows IV

Victor and his silent friend flanked Scott. They were both big men, not NBA big, but still big, arms as long as orangutans, legs suspiciously wide and sturdy, and more than Scott could take on. One of them could have slung Scott over his shoulder with no more trouble than if he were a child. Getting away from both of them would be impossible.

Scott gulped the air as they left the restaurant, glad for its coldness and dampness. His feet scuffed along the cracked and broken pavement. They were walking quickly, fast enough that Scott had to pay attention to his footfalls. He felt his breathing quicken, tugging the winter air into his lungs.

“In.” Victor pointed to a panel truck, the simple words “Organic Meat” painted on one side in royal blue lettering. Victor’s companion said nothing but climbed into the truck, swinging easily into the high cab. Scott hesitated and felt Victor’s hand on the small of his back, pushing and aiding him into the cab. The seat was vinyl, cracked and marred in several places and partially covered in a seat cover of an indescribable color.

“Where are we going?” Scott asked, wishing he’d run from these two men instead of climbing into this truck with the smell of diesel and wet fur. Oreo smelled this way when he was wet.

“To Monty, where you belong,” Victor said as he turned the key over in the ignition. The truck roared to life with a choking cloud of black smoke.

“Hey,” Scott protested as they lurched out onto the street with a grinding of gears. “I work. You can’t just cart me off. This is kidnapping.”

“Shut up!”

The other man talked, or maybe more correctly snarled. Scott felt the hair on the back of his neck rise up in alarm, and he snapped his teeth together in a suppressed half snarl.

“Brent,” Victor said in a soft voice that did nothing to lessen the menace in the tone.

“He’s an omega. He should be silent,” Brent snapped back.

“He’s Monty’s and Monty will have you for lunch.”

Brent growled and spat on the floor.

“Not inside.” Victor, without turning from the wheel, landed a sharp backhand on Brent’s cheek. “You weren’t raised in a barn.”

“Practically,” Brent snarled back, but at least he didn’t spit again.

Scott stared resolutely ahead. He wasn’t getting into these men’s argument. The truck sped across town and onto the freeway. The only sound in the cab was the throb of the engine and the rattle of the tailgate as they hit the potholes. Brent stared out his side window, a scowl on his face. Scott wished they’d turn on the radio, anything to pass the time. The truck had a radio; it looked like it was AM only, but anything would be better than this silence. 

“Where does Monty live?” Scott asked as they bumped off the freeway and onto a state route.

“This way,” Victor muttered in a tone that suggested further questions wouldn’t be welcome.

This way was toward small towns that Scott didn’t recognize. They slowed as they entered a series of quiet and dilapidated villages with half boarded up main streets and low grade franchises on the perimeter. Vast barren fields interspersed by the occasional long, gravel driveway lined the road. This time of year it wasn’t green, but brown and desolate. Scott smelled the hogs long before they passed the rows of low slung, white barns. They turned onto a country road, its sign pole a lonely steel post missing the green metal identification. The road was narrow, not two trucks wide. Black and white cattle stood in a mud lot pulling hay from giant steel racks. A scruffy dog shot in front of them and vanished into the roadside thicket.

Several miles farther, they turned onto a gravel drive marked only by a battered mailbox missing its door and flag. They bumped and lurched through several hair pin turns and stops to open sagging green farm gates. Sheep grazed on a hillside, not looking up as the truck rumbled by. The house stood banked against the hillside, a ramshackle farmhouse with a crumbling sidewalk and peeling paint on the shutters.

Monty stood in the yard, a bucket in either hand and black rubber boots that went nearly to his knees. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, and behind wire mesh strung between posts of all sizes, a flock of chickens pecked at the mud and rocks. Cattle, Angus, Scott thought from the black coloring, were grazing in a large field behind a black barn with a silver roof starting to show rust spots and a silo that had long ago stopped serving its function with no roof and the top third gone on one side.

Paradise, Scott thought brutally. He wasn’t Farmer Bob. He needed a high speed internet connection and modern conveniences like a grocery store closer than thirty miles.

“We made it,” Victor said unnecessarily and turned off the engine.

Scott wanted to ask was “it” this paradise of mud and peeling paint, but neither of his escorts were friendly nor had a sense of humor. Monty was the safest of the three, and maybe as soon as he stopped slopping hogs or whatever he was doing, Scott could talk some sense into him and return to civilization.

Scott dropped from the cab, glad to be away from Brent despite the damp and the mud. He wasn’t wearing the right shoes for this.

“You made it,” Monty said in a booming cheerfulness that would have been more appropriate if Monty was landing in the airport in Jamaica and looking forward to a week of sun and surf. “I’ll take him inside.” Monty dropped a heavy arm around Scott’s shoulders, preventing any easy avenue for escape, as if there had been one anyway. 

They walked to the back of the house past overgrown flower beds where even Scott with his zero horticultural knowledge could recognize honeysuckle and English ivy. The screen door banged, one hinge missing several screws. Monty pulled his boots off in a room full of boots, towels, coveralls, and stained baseball caps. Scott kicked off his own shoes; even in the short walk, they’d already picked up mud.

“One of these pair of boots will fit you,” Monty grunted, waving his hand at the boots cluttered into the corner.

Scott was expected to stay long enough to need boots? Of course he was; they wouldn’t have bothered to drive him out to this paradise if he was only having a cup of tea. He needed more than tea. Whiskey might be appropriate in this situation: neat, burning, and hopefully mind numbing.

They stepped through the door into the main house and Scott stopped and stared. The floors were a wide pine covered in colorful throw rugs. The kitchen gleamed and smelled of stew and baking bread. Potted plants, some in bloom, lined the deep windowsills.

“The outside is intentional. It keeps people away.”

“No Jehovah Witnesses,” Scott said with a harsh laugh full of his earlier panic.

“They’re stubborn. It takes more than a little mud, but yes, that is the idea. Sit down.” Monty pointed to a kitchen chair. “I assume you ate?”

Scott nodded, watching Monty fill a glass at the sink and drink great gulps. He was handsome, the flannel shirt tight over his broad shoulders, his trim waist accentuated by the thick leather belt.

“Thirsty?”

Scott’s throat was dry, but it wasn’t from thirst. He couldn’t stay here. Monty couldn’t kidnap his bride. This wasn’t The Arabian Nights. Scott had rights, and he had responsibilities.

“Nice house and I’m sure it’s a nice farm.” Farms were nice in oversized coffee table books with beautiful pictures of white barns and grazing horses. Mud and rickety gates weren’t nice. “I can’t stay here.”

“Scott,” Monty said too gently, his hand reaching to touch Scott. 

“Get away.” Scott moved to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Are we going to start circling the island?” 

Scott looked down at the butcher block in front of him, the wood scarred by several deep knife cuts. 

“The knives are in the drawer if you feel you need a weapon.”

“God, no. I don’t know. I want to go home.”

Monty propped his hip against the counter, not moving any closer. His eyes were steady, half hidden behind his dark brows. “We can’t turn the clock back. You are a werewolf, and you are my omega.”

“What is the omega?” Scott shouted, frustration making his voice rise to undignified shouts. “Everybody keeps saying I’m the omega. I don’t want to be the omega. I want to go home.” He wished for the millionth time in his life that he hadn’t been born small and fine boned. He couldn’t just walk by Monty. Monty wasn’t a huge man, but he was big enough to grab Scott and hold him dangling helplessly by his collar. Plenty of other guys had enjoyed that sport.

“An omega is my mate.”

“It’s also the bottom of the barrel, the last letter in the Greek alphabet, everyone’s whipping boy. Mister high and mighty alpha, I plan to be no one’s toy to kick around.”

“Scott.” Monty pushed his dark hair back from his face, accentuating his sharp brows and cheek bones. “You are in my protection. No one will touch you.”

“Don’t you fucking get anything? I don’t want to be in your protection. I’m an independent human being.”

“Stop.” The growl wasn’t loud, but it made Scott freeze, the hair on the back of his neck erect. “Good pup.” Monty, in the short second that Scott had stood frozen from the growl, had crossed to him. Monty’s hand rested heavily on the back of Scott’s neck. 

“Get off me! What do I have to do to be left alone?” Scott cursed himself, his voice sounded high and frantic, not the calm and reasonable demand he wanted to project.

“No. Stand here and listen.”

“Fuck off!” Scott tried to fight. It was useless. Monty was three times as strong and three times as practiced. 

“Stop it now, pup.” Scott’s teeth were shaking in his head. Monty had him by the scruff of the neck and was effortlessly sloshing Scott’s brain back and forth in his skull. “No more.”

“Yes, sir.” Scott dropped his eyes and licked his lips.

“Good pup.” Monty gently ran his finger down Scott’s cheek as he put him back on his feet.

Scott jammed his hands in his pockets and slouched against the counter. There was no way to look casual when you had just been so comprehensively shown that you were weak and nothing. 

Monty’s fingers glided through Scott’s hair and he nuzzled Scott’s cheek, the rough traces of Monty’s beard scraping Scott’s smooth chin. “Don’t pout. It’s not becoming.”

“And being forced to be the wife of Farmer Bob in this hellhole is?”

“Your tongue will get you in trouble,” Monty said after the echo of Scott’s shouts had faded. “I can and will give you space and time when we’re alone to adjust. You cannot speak that way in front of the pack. This is hard for all of us.”

“How do I get out of here?” Scott sagged against the counter. He had to hang on to his rational side. His body was reacting to the smell of Monty: sweat, hay, and a pungent masculinity that was overwhelming his senses.

“Is that what you really want?”

With Monty this close, Scott couldn’t think. Pheromones, hormones, electrical charges across synapses were all muddying his reason. He shivered as Monty stroked his cheek.

“You’re body knows where you belong.”

“I’m not your pet,” Scott spat, jerking away from the caress.

“No, you’re my omega,” Monty said flatly, hooking his arm around Scott’s neck in what should be a friendly gesture, but with Monty had an overtone of control. “Don’t fight.”

“Accept being a doormat.”

“Don’t,” Monty growled.

Yield. Don’t yield. It would be easy to bury his head in Monty’s shirt, to enjoy the fingers caressing his hair, not to think of what happened next. He was an independent human with his own job, his own house, his own future. He didn’t belong here.

“Monty,” Scott started, trying to sound calm and rational. “I can’t just disappear into the country. I have responsibilities. People will look for me.”

“Violet will explain it to your boss.”

“Explain that I’ve deluded myself into believing that I’m a werewolf. That should go over well,” Scott said sarcastically.

“No, she will say that you have family responsibilities. She is persuasive and believable; all seers are.”

Monty’s hands were warm and searing. The dress shirt and the tie made them no less branding. Scott wanted them on his skin. He wanted to taste and to feel and not to think, not to be rational, not to do the right or safe thing for once. 

“Werewolves have strong and visceral feelings. Let yourself feel,” Monty whispered in Scott’s ear, his lips brushing against the thousands of nerve endings that lined the delicate skin.

“I have responsibilities,” Scott said, the protest sounding hollow to his own ears.

“A responsibility to yourself, to me, to the pack.” Monty brushed his fingers over Scott’s lips. “You’re mine, pup. You want it. I want it.”

Did he want it? It would be easy to surrender to Monty’s demands. If only there wasn’t the werewolf part, Scott might be able to cope with the submission. No, who was he kidding? He’d known he was a submissive since he was old enough to know that he leaned toward men. He’d tried to hide it. What man didn’t? He didn’t even have the physical presence to halt every wannabe dominant trying to have a go at him, but Monty didn’t feel like a wannabe dominant. He felt like the real thing. He made Scott’s blood sing and his head spin.

“Are you done with the shouting and the protests?” Monty asked.

Scott shrugged. “For now, I guess.”

“My good pup.”

Scott should protest the nickname. He might be submissive, but he wasn’t into doggy games. He needed to stop thinking about submission and games. He needed to think about getting home. His dog was at home.

“Oreo’s at home. He can’t stay alone.”

“I sent Gregory for him.”

“The house is locked.”

“I took the spare key from the shelf by the sink.”

“What?” Scott spun in Monty’s loosened grip and backed away. He wanted space between himself and this man. He’d taken his keys.

“Round two,” Monty said with a ghost of a smile.

“You took my keys? You had no right.” Every muscle in Scott’s body was vibrating. If only he were big enough to punch Monty out. Scott would lose; Monty had already demonstrated how easy it was to control the little pipsqueak.

“As a human, I had no right,” Monty said in a far too agreeable voice. “I believe humans have a law against stalking and theft.”

“You...you admit it’s wrong, and you did it anyway.”  Scott couldn’t even verbally spar with Monty. He sounded like a nerd, a wimp, a useless kid.

“Yep.” Monty nodded. “It’s wrong for humans; they have different rules, but we are not human.”

“Shift for me!” Scout shouted. “I don’t believe it. I was drugged. I was hallucinating.”

“And you hallucinated the restaurant? I’ve been there; it’s hardly an ordinary family restaurant.”

“People have odd dining habits. I’m not responsible for their tastes.”

“Odd?” Monty questioned. “Didn’t it seem more than odd to you? Ethnic restaurants with unpronounceable foods are odd.”

“Thousands think they’ve see U.F.O.s. People embrace the illogical,” Scott said.

“You embrace the illogical by refusing to accept what you saw and felt. You are a werewolf.”

“Then why can’t I shift?” Scott had tried this morning. He’d stupidly stood in the shower, the water dripping into his eyes, and tried to change. Nothing. It wasn’t fucking possible. This was an elaborate hoax. But why him? Scott clenched his fists; he wasn’t going to fall apart any further. He wasn’t going to admit how hard he’d tried. 

“Did you try?” Monty asked gently.

Scott nodded, worrying his lower lip with his teeth.

“You’re young and inexperienced. It will take time to control the shift.”

“It’s bullshit! It can’t be done.”

“Sit.” Monty hooked his foot around the kitchen chair and pulled it out. 

“Oh, good, I can play the doggy again.”

Monty smiled and shook his head, his black hair brushing his shoulders in a way that made Scott swallow and think of things he was desperately trying to push to the back of his mind. It didn’t matter that Monty was drop dead gorgeous, that he sent dominant signals that made Scott quake in his socks, he insisted that he was a shifter. The gorgeous guys never looked at Scott, and when one finally glanced in his direction, he was psychotic.

“Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf might be more appropriate.” Monty slid his belt through the loops and coiled it on the counter. With deft hands, he undid the top three buttons of his green watch plaid flannel shirt and lifted it over his head, followed by a white T-shirt. He toed off his socks and unselfconsciously dropped his jeans and his briefs. 

Scott knew his eyes were bugging out of his head. The muscles rippled over Monty’s shoulders, and he seemed completely relaxed with his body exposed to the fully dressed Scott. 

“Wolves have fur.”

Scott stared. It happened so fast. He’d been staring at a man, a great looking man, and now... Scott drew back in his chair—the giant teeth, the eerie yellow eyes. Fear, the primordial fear of ancient man. Wolves were the enemy. They stole babies; they ate sheep. Scott’s breath came in short fast gulps.

Monty was in front of him again, reaching for his briefs and jeans. “Did that help?”

Scott gulped. Monty had been so huge. He hadn’t fit on the floor between the table and the stove. Scott had only seen wolves in pictures and maybe at the zoo. No, he’d been with Monty that night, but that was all a blur. Scott couldn’t remember—the cold, the moon.

Monty stroked the back of his hand down Scott’s face. “It’ll be awhile before you’ll shift that easily. I’ll help. The literature suggests that the omega only shifts when the alpha is present.” Monty pushed his black hair back from his face. “It’s complicated; little is known.”

“This really happens,” Scott mumbled. Monty had changed before his eyes.

“You are not having serial hallucinations.” Monty’s grasped Scott’s wrist, his hand firm, the fingers roughened from outdoor work and all very real.

“Shit!” The simple expletive was woefully inadequate, but Scott was a computer guy. He didn’t have similes and metaphors filed away neatly in his brain, and he didn’t have the vocabulary for what he’d seen. It had been real. No one was that good of magician. They weren’t at the movies with the three dimensional animation and computer generated graphics. Scott understood that. He didn’t understand why when Monty touched him that he licked his lips, swallowed, and only with massive willpower suppressed a whimper. He wanted to rub against that man, that creature. He wanted to bare his neck and show his belly.

“Good pup. I know it’s overwhelming.” Monty’s hand rubbed along Scott’s ear, the way Scott had rubbed Oreo’s ears thousands of times. Scott leaned into the caress. He couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t stop the whimper from his lips.

“What am I doing?” Scott pulled away, jerking his head away from that wonderful touch.

“Letting your mate show affection,” Monty said, still standing far too close for ordinary conversation. Scott couldn’t escape his scent. It filled his lungs and curled into his brain. Scott’s nostrils flared, trying to take in more.

“You’re not my mate. I hardly know you,” Scott tried to snap, but he felt as if he were in a drunken stupor. His tongue was too big for his mouth. He could hardly form the words.

“Damn! You’re shifting.” 

Monty pulled Scott up from the table. He stripped the tie from Scott’s throat and jerked Scott’s shirt over his head, the buttons flying across the room like small missiles. Scott flailed and howled; his pants were in all the wrong places. The room was a funny color, not dimmer, more like a television with bad color control, too many shades of gray for which he didn’t have a name. He swayed on the slick floor, his nails tearing grooves into the soft wood as he tried to find a purchase.

“Easy. Can you shift back for me?”

That was man. Man had fire and guns and dogs. Scott snarled and scrambled backward, his tail bumping the table legs. No, the smell wasn’t right. The man smelled like wolf, but the picture was wrong--jeans and bare feet with long toes. He should have dark fur and strong paws. This man wasn’t man at all. Scott took another sniff as he growled a warning to the jeaned legs. This was his mate.

His mate’s voice was gentle and coaxing, the words unimportant. Scott crawled forward, his belly pressed to the floor. He needed to touch. Scott drew a long breath through his nostrils as he lay whimpering in the shelter of the table. He could smell wolf and sheep and some sort of human cleaning product that stung the lining of his nostrils.

“Good pup.” The voice was for Scott. Monty was on his knees, his arms wide, but not reaching. “Come on, pup.”

Scott slid forward, wanting to touch. The hand grazed his forehead and rubbed his ears. Scott whimpered and turned belly up, warm urine splashing between his legs.

“I’m not angry” Monty’s voice was gentle. He stroked the fur on Scott’s chest. Scott whimpered and licked the hand. “Good pup. Can you shift back for me? Think about two legs, reading the paper, driving your car, playing those games on your computer. Think about your mother and holiday meals with your family sitting around the overburdened table.”

Scott yipped and nuzzled the hand. His vision grayed and then faded to a crazy swirl of lines and dots. He was cold. His teeth chattered in his head.

“Very good.”

Monty’s arms were around Scott. The stiff jeans rubbed against Scott’s bare skin. He was naked with a fully clothed man whom he barely knew.

“You shifted. How do you feel?”

Shifted? Scott was dizzy. He might throw up. He clutched his stomach, the room spinning in front of him, the colors so bright that they scorched his eyeballs.

Scott was hoisted up and pushed toward the sink. He clutched its shiny edges, his stomach roiling. 

“Being sick is common. Let go. It’s OK.” Monty was rubbing Scott’s back, his hand heavy and reassuring.

“Water,” Scott croaked. He swallowed hard, the bile revolting in his throat. At least his stomach no longer felt as if it were exiting in that direction.

Monty handed Scott a glass of water. Scott clutched at the glass, his fingers feeling awkward; they’d been pads only a few minutes ago. The water cooled Scott’s throat.

“Better? It’ll get easier.”

“This is awful.”

“I know,” Monty said, stroking Scott’s short hair.

“Why me? I can’t do this.” Scott clung to the sink. He knew hot, undignified tears were dripping down his face, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted out. He wanted to go back a week where this didn’t exist.

“Shh.” Monty kissed the side of Scott’s face, seemingly not disgusted by the shameful crying. “My pup. I’ve got you.” Scott was enveloped in those strong arms and plastered against Monty’s chest. 

Scott didn’t know how long he stood there, but at least the room had stopped spinning, and he could stand without shaking. He was buried in Monty’s chest. Every sense covered by the essence of Monty. 

“Oh, God.” 

“Praying probably won’t help much,” Monty said with a smile in his voice. “We’ve always been on the wrong side of that divide.”

“Can I have my clothes?”

Monty unwrapped his arms and pointed to the scattered pieces of cloth. “What’s left of them.”

Blushing furiously, Scott scrambled for his shirt and pants. He hadn’t realized his chest could turn crimson. Even his cock, had a hideous blush, and entirely inappropriately was stirring between his legs. No, this wasn't the time. Get dressed. Analyze the data. Scott was good with data; he liked numbers and projections.

His pants weren’t too bad, only the top button missing. His boxers would have to be consigned to the rag pile, and Scott’s cock bumped uncomfortable against the suddenly scratchy khaki. His shirt was missing half its buttons and hung open, making Scott feel like a perverted image of a college kid at a leather bar, not a fully dressed professional.

“Gregory is bringing clothes also. You’ll be needing them.”

Scott flushed darker, his skin burning from the redness. Maybe the ground could just open up and swallow him. He turned into a wolf; swallowing ground couldn’t be that difficult. Stop it! He had to live with this! Oh, God, he had to live with this.

“Deep breath. You’re getting shaky again.”

Scott clutched at Monty’s hand and shut his eyes. “It really happened?”

“Yes.” Monty’s voice rumbled deep in his chest. “You are a werewolf.” If only Monty’s tone wasn’t so practical and real, if only Scott had been drinking, if only he was suffering some rare and unheard of fever from the darkest reaches of Africa, he could convince himself this was all an illusion. It wasn’t. He turned into a creature with sharp teeth and a bushy tail. He was hanging onto a guy who turned into an even bigger creature with yellow eyes and teeth that had gleamed impressively in the small confines of the kitchen.

“Shit. I’m sober.”

“You are.” Monty kissed the side of Scott’s face. 

“God! What do I do now?”

“You stay. We learn to control your shift. You become my mate, my omega, my most valuable asset in the pack, my lover.”

“Simple,” Scott snorted and grabbed harder at Monty as his body recoiled at the sudden motion. 

“Calm,” Monty said with an authority that probably would have been frightening in any other situation, but here with the world spinning around Scott’s ears it was reassuring. 

“I’m trying for calm. This isn’t a calming situation. I’m a freak who only belongs in a science fiction movie right with the killer tomatoes.”

“Stop it,” Monty growled. “You’re my mate; you don’t insult yourself.”

“No, your henchmen did it for me,” Scott spat and immediately regretted that he hadn’t whispered. Shit! His stomach still wasn’t behaving.

“Sink?” Monty asked, way too calm.

“No,” Scott said grimly, willing the nausea to pass.

“What did Victor and Brent do?” Monty rubbed Scott’s neck, which felt way too good.

“Victor looked at me like I was a bug on the floor and Brent practically spat on me.” Why was Scott telling Monty these things? He could deal with rude people on his own.

“Victor looks at me like I’m a worm, so you’re one step up, but I will speak to Brent. No one spits on you.”

“It wasn’t on me; it hit the floor of the truck.”

“No manners,” Monty growled. “He’s strong as an ox, but sometimes... I’ll deal with him.”

Monty said it in a manner that was a hell of a lot more ominous than Scott’s boss on his worst day. Scott peeked at Monty’s face. His teeth were clenched, and his eyes were hard. This was not someone that one crossed if survival was high on the priority list. 

“He knows his place. I’ll just remind him,” Monty said in a softer tone.

“Victor slapped him.”

“I’m sure Brent deserved it. Victor is very loyal. He was a beta in my grandfather’s pack and now in mine. He’ll protect me and what is mine with his life.”

“He’s not friendly.”

“Most betas aren’t. Their job is to defend the pack.”

“And what’s my job?” Scott asked. To get pushed around by everyone. He was the bottom of the pack—bottom as in endless pit. 

“You’re my mate,” Monty said.

“I’m the omega,” Scott said, his frustration ringing in his ears.

“That isn’t a bad thing.” Monty kissed Scott’s forehead in a gesture that was too possessive for comfort. “An omega is a precious gift. I will cherish you, and my pack will cherish you. You are my life blood. The bond will be unbreakable.”