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“So, what, you will share him?”
“Depends on what you are offering, Mr. Daehler.”
“How about a manor? At the Silver Lakes?”
“Generous.” Raeken took a drag of the pipe. His unblinking, narrowed gaze did not move from Daehler’s red face. He smiled. “You can have him at the Silver Lakes, then. Let us make it an annual summer trip.”
Daehler stretched his lips in return under the sound of weak applause from the men sitting around the lounge.
“Nice deal.”
“The whole summer?”
Raeken lifted his cognac glass. “The whole summer.” He took a sip. “I know what a prize he is, after all. It would be cruel of me to keep him all to myself. Though I do ask for some private time during the honeymoon, gentlemen, as I am sure you understand.”
“Do you reckon he will fight?” asked Harris, his eyes glinting with excitement at the thought.
Old bastard. Raeken gave him a knowing look.
“You never change, Adrian,” he drawled. “He will not fight while he is in heat. Won’t remember much, either, so if any of you are concerned about anonymity…” He spread his hands. “You are welcome in the Raeken estate in, say, two months.” His eyes darted to the crackling fireplace and the man standing silently beside it. “Even you, Alpha Hale.”
At first, it seemed that the wolf had not heard him. His thumb slid along the edge of his glass, empty aside from the melting cubes of ice clinking against each other. The fire reflected in his unseeing, red eyes. Hale had been quiet all evening, though it was not uncommon for him. He congratulated Raeken only once upon entering this small bachelor’s party the night before the wedding, giving him nothing more than a handshake under the cold, deadly stare of a predator.
Raeken fought a shiver as those eyes caught onto him again, but he held his ground. His lips twitched in an amicable smile. He lifted a glass.
“It is time for us to bury the hatchet, don’t you think?” said Raeken, holding Hale’s glare. “I know you have been asking Stilinski for that omega for years.”
“He is not the only one,” someone grumbled.
“Who wouldn’t want that boy along with all the money?”
“Stilinski had been sitting on that land for too long, damn greedy old man.”
“Thank god he’s dead, right?” Raeken smirked at the chuckle that rolled throughout the room before focusing back on Hale. “I do apologize, but I could not help myself and snatched him first. You of all people should understand.”
Hale’s jaw twitched. He turned away without a word.
Raeken took another gulp. The cognac spread into his stomach in a warm trickle.
He could not afford to have Hale as his enemy, not right now, when he was about to inherit everything that Stilinski owned. That old man had struggled for so long trying to stay alive, knowing full well that his only son would not see a dime of his life earnings. All that money and to land in the hands of some omega? What a joke.
But not for much longer.
Raeken stood up and crossed the lounge to the fireplace. He rested his elbow on the shelf above it, pinning his gaze on the werewolf.
“I shall give him to you,” he murmured. Desperation shadowed his voice despite his attempts to hide it. “On the wedding night. I shall have him first, and then, for the rest of the night, he is yours. You can do whatever you want with him; just let me fuck him once.”
Hale lifted his eyes. Their heavy gaze pinned Raeken to place akin to claws around his neck.
“You want to pay your debt with an omega?” he asked coldly, his lip curling.
“Forgive me my crassness, Alpha Hale, but have you seen him?” Raeken chuckled, breathless for a moment. “The rest have already agreed.” Hale’s eyes swept over the room. Raeken licked his lips. “What about… permanent access? He lives with me, but you can… You can come and have him whenever you want.”
Hale’s claws clicked against the glass. The wolf hummed. The muscles in his jaw ticked.
“We shall see to that,” he muttered, put his glass on top of the fireplace shelf, sent Raeken a strange, hungry smile, and marched out of the room.
Raeken breathed out, putting on a quick smile for the rest of the men. They agreed, all of them. Now, Hale did as well.
Tomorrow, he would be married. Married and debt-free.
Raeken lifted his glass. “To marriage!”
“To marriage!”
*
Damn it, he should have taken the bouquet. That way, he would have something to clutch onto with his sweat-soaked, trembling hands. Funny how his father had prepared him for this exact moment for his entire life, yet Stiles was ready to vomit at the sight of the man waiting for him at the altar. At least, this way, there would only be one man in his life.
It should not matter that the thought of being with him sent Stiles into an abyss of panic.
He did not know Raeken. He never knew any of the suitors who begged Stiles’ father for his hand. Perhaps it seemed to be for the best back then, but now Stiles could not help but see the flaws in secrecy. What kind of man was Theodore Raeken? Would he be kind? Gentle? That smile did not promise anything good.
Whatever. Kindness was a luxury forbidden to him.
Everyone stared. Not many of those faces were familiar, and those who were brought little comfort. No one walked him down the aisle. While Raeken had a boisterous bachelor’s party, Stiles stayed locked in his room, heaving up his dinner until the only thing coming out was bitter bile.
Tomorrow, he would not have to worry anymore. No one would come to snatch him away in the night; no one would tear him apart in pursuit of his virtue. There would be only Theodore Raeken. Stiles would have to learn how to bear his presence. And his weight, pinning him to bed.
“Took you long enough.” Raeken grabbed his hand as the omega ascended the steps. Stiles winced at the painful grip. None listened to the monotonous speech of the priest. “What’s with the veil?”
Stiles tore his dry lips apart. “It was my mother’s,” he rasped, not looking at him.
“You are too pale to wear it.” Raeken’s gaze stripped him naked in front of hundreds of murmuring guests. “Won’t be a problem for long, huh?”
Stiles closed his eyes and swallowed against a tight throat. He fought a flinch when Raeken lifted the veil and tossed it over Stiles’ head.
“A smile would be nice.” The man inclined his head. He glanced down at Stiles’ firmly shut, downturned lips, then back at his eyes. “Stubborn, huh? We must change that.”
All dreams of gentleness evaporated upon the impact of Raeken’s smile.
Standing here, at the altar, surrounded by nobility, with his hand caught in a stranger’s grasp, Stiles had never felt more alone. As he tried to gather his thoughts and stave off the panic, a murmur rolled over the hall. Raeken frowned. His head swiveled to the side as he heard some shouts from the outside.
“What—”
He never got to finish the thought. The entrance doors swung open, eliciting strangled shouts, and then, the carnage began.
*
Blood sprayed upon his face, thick and scalding. Stiles opened his mouth in a gasp, already tasting it. The liquid splattered his hands, his chest, and his white garments in vicious streaks of red.
Raeken’s hand shook as it flew to his severed neck. The insides glistened, bubbling out blood with awful gurgles. The man’s knees weakened; he crumbled in an instant, falling right onto Stiles.
The omega shouted, going down under his weight.
The blood poured out of Raeken’s neck right onto Stiles’ chest. The last gasps of his life warmed Stiles’ neck. The gown stuck to Stiles’ skin in a hot, unwanted embrace.
The redness blinded him. The cacophony of terror, tripled by the stone walls, deafened. Bodies were everywhere, women wailed, men shouted, and the wolves... The wolves howled in victory. Done with the chaos, they prowled around, snarling at the guests they left alive, reveling in their cowering. Pieces of flesh were stuck between their teeth, their tongues lolling.
Stiles’ gaze, however, spared those wolves. Lying on the cold stone floor, half-way up on his shaking elbows, he stared, wide-eyed, at the man towering over him. His angular features, his drawn dark eyebrows, his red eyes, short beard, and a splatter of blood across the cheek — he looked wild.
It was the alpha. His heavy scent cut through the metallic blood and soaked into Stiles’ lungs, spread into his blood like myriads of tiny needles, sending his body aflame.
Stiles startled at his sudden movement and tried desperately to crawl backward, but Raeken’s stiff body lay upon him like a boulder. The breath caught in the omega’s lungs, when suddenly the alpha grabbed Raeken and tossed him to the side.
He extended his hand, red and sticky from the blood. His face darkened when Stiles flinched away, ready for another deadly strike.
“I am not going to hurt you.” His voice, strangely quiet, slapped Stiles out of the fright, before the words registered in his mind.
He would be a fool to trust them.
“What do you want?” Stiles asked, his voice braver than his heart.
The wolf studied him for a moment, then leaned down all the way and, ignoring Stiles’ stifled gasp, grabbed him, and lifted him to his feet. Stiles’ head spun from the sudden change. He clutched at the wolf’s shoulders, though it seemed to go unnoticed.
He fought a shiver at the heat of the hand pressing into his lower back. Their gazes locked.
The hunger in Raeken’s eyes could not compare to that of the wolf’s. It trembled inside those eyes like a distant flame, barely hidden but all-consuming nonetheless.
“I apologize for the mess,” said the wolf, his gaze devouring Stiles’ face. His voice was strangely gentle, as were his hands that trapped Stiles in the snares of the embrace. “But your father left me no choice.”
“What does my father have to do with this?” asked Stiles.
“He refused me. Raeken paid for his mistake.”
With his heart hammering at his ribs, Stiles started to look down at the body when the wolf caught his chin in a firm grip.
“Do not look,” he warned. “He will not touch you anymore.”
“What does it matter to me?” Stiles’ voice shook from rage and fear. “You are as much of a stranger as he was.”
“He agreed to share you in exchange for closing his debts.” Stiles went pale as the wolf’s words sank in. His stomach dropped. “My wolves killed those who agreed.”
But the entire room was red…
“Do not look,” the wolf repeated, catching Stiles’ chin once more. This time, he cupped Stiles’ cheek to keep him in place. His claws landed an inch from Stiles’ eye. “They are your problem no more. Consider it a courting gift.”
Courting—
“You think I will marry you?” asked Stiles, digging his fingers into the wolf’s shoulders.
The alpha smirked. “I think you have no choice. The wedding will commence. Since everyone is already here…” He nodded at the hall.
But I don’t even know you, thought Stiles and instantly dismissed it. He did not know anyone. He stood alone. His parents were dead, his friends non-existent. Stiles spent his entire life locked and pampered for this exact day. He was a key to his father’s treasure trove, nothing more.
What did it matter who held him?
Stiles’ throat went tight, his chest constricted from despair. None of it mattered. Tonight, he knew he would lie with a beast. The difference in the face did not change much.
“Who are you?” he asked instead.
The wolf’s hands slipped from his waist. The alpha took a step back and brought Stiles' glove-covered hand to his lips. His breath coated Stiles’ knuckles in a gentle wave of heat.
“Alpha Derek Hale,” he replied, looking the omega in his widening eyes. His fangs glinted as he smiled. “Ah, so you do know me.”
“Only the deaf have not heard of you,” said Stiles, barely able to find his voice. “The merciless wolf beast of Beacon who leaves graves in his wake.”
The alpha did not seem offended at such a description. He stretched his lips in a smile, though with the fangs peeking out and the blood still smeared over his beard, he looked like a nightmare.
“Then surely you see that the safest place for you is by my side,” he murmured, his eyes glinting. “No one will touch you but me.”
A stray tear slid down Stiles’ cheek. Alpha Hale picked it up with the edge of his claw.
“Do you remember your vows?” he asked solemnly.
“Yes.”
For the second time that evening, a man who wished to be his husband took his hand. This time, however, the blood-stained grip was almost… gentle.
The wolves dragged in the runaway priest, who pleaded for his life with his face tear-soaked and red, and put him at the altar. The blood rushed away from the priest’s face as he realized who stood before him. His voice shook as he officiated the ceremony, barely heard over the sobs and sniffles of the terrified guests.
When granted the permission to kiss, alpha Hale surprised Stiles once more. Instead of grabbing him and laying a possessive claim, he cupped the omega’s face, pulled him close, and placed the softest kiss upon Stiles’ lips. He lingered, breathing Stiles in. A second kiss, a third. He did not go past Stiles’ lips; there was just a hint of tongue, a slight press of the fangs. Each of those kisses was so painfully and strangely gentle that it left Stiles shaking.
At last, the alpha leaned away. His thumbs stroked Stiles’ cheeks, smearing the blood.
With a smile, he took off his fur-covered cape and laid it over Stiles’ shoulders, covering the omega’s stained attire.
“Let us go celebrate, hmm?” he said, a strange glow to his eyes. “The night is young.”
*
Throughout the dinner, Alpha Hale kept his hand on Stiles’ knee. Hidden below the table, it looked and felt so big and heavy, stroking Stiles’ inner thigh. The omega placed his hand on top, silently begging it not to go further up. At least, not here, where anyone could see.
The heat of it colored his cheeks red.
The wolf fed him from his own plate. Stiles drank from his goblet, letting the wine loosen the fear coiled inside. He knew he’d need it for later.
They did not dance, but the rest of the wolves did. Their howls rang through the halls in excited yips. Leaning close to his ear, the alpha told him about his home and his pack, pointing out the closest members. They were to stay here, in Stiles’ childhood home, for some time before meeting the alpha’s family in the North. There were no questions as to how the alpha planned to spend his time.
Stiles' back hurt from the constant stiffness, though by the end of the feast, he started to soften. He leaned into the wolf more, his blinks slow and tired. His chest was cinched tight, hiding desperate sobs that would burst out of him sometime soon. He felt them in his throat, bubbling like a bile.
The only consolation was the wolf’s softness toward him. Alpha Hale could have taken him right on this very table in front of everyone and be in his full right to do so, but instead it was just that — his soothing palm on Stiles’ knee, his thumb stroking back and forth, his breath upon Stiles’ ear.
Would he be gentle?
Stiles glanced at him from the corner of his eyes. A scary thought had taken over his mind. Just one little word.
Perhaps.
*
Trapped under the wolf’s weight, he sobbed into his pillows. His face, sweaty and splotchy-red, was covered in salt-tracks, fresh tears, and the alpha’s kisses. Desperately, he clutched at Alpha Hale’s hand — his only anchor in this unfamiliar storm.
“You’re doing so good,” a deep, breathless voice murmured into his ear. Hot lips descended upon his cheek. “So good…”
The alpha’s hairy front pressed tight to Stiles’ back, rubbing it with each thrust of his hips. Stiles’ legs lost all feeling, his small, spent cock trapped between his body and the sweat-soaked sheets. With each thrust, Stiles moved up on the bed, held in a tight embrace of the wolf’s muscly arms as the alpha fucked him deep and slow.
The sobs that burst out of him weren’t from the pain, not really. The ache of the intrusion and the stretch was on the back of his mind, while on the forefront there was only one — the wolf.
His cock, thick and engorged, fucked into Stiles’ hole, aided by the slick and the wolf’s come left from the previous load. Alpha Hale praised him for every inch taken, though he never relented, never eased up, no matter how much Stiles begged or cried. He pushed and pushed, undulating his hips, circling them, and reassured Stiles that he would take it all, that it would fit.
Stiles didn’t know how it did. But the wolf was right.
It was suffocating here, under him, and unbearably hot. Stiles cried as the wolf spread his legs and pinned them apart so he wouldn’t close them; he cried when Derek licked him open and mounted him, stretching him impossibly wide. Everything — every drop of sweat, every exhale, every groan — everything in Stiles belonged to him.
“Just a little more,” said the alpha, breathing hard. “Hold onto me, angel.”
“Uh, uh, uh…” The noises fell from Stiles’ lips, loud and wanton. It was not something he expected from himself or on their first night. The alpha seemed to like it; when Stiles, embarrassed by his moans, tried to silence them with a pillow between his teeth, the wolf grabbed his chin and lifted it, forcing him to open his mouth.
“None of that, sweetheart,” he tsked, sinking into him, then pulling back, then sinking again, and again, and again…
“Alpha…”
Another round of kisses all over his flushed face.
“I’m here.”
Stiles’ stomach clenched under the wolf’s hand. He wailed when the alpha bore down and started working his knot into him, pushing and sliding in so easily because Stiles was leaking so much…
And Alpha Hale knew it. He felt how wet Stiles was, he heard Stiles’ pleas, he could smell how much Stiles wanted to be fucked despite the fear lingering in his heart. What did that say about Stiles? What was the wolf thinking? That Stiles was ready to spread his legs for every stranger? Could he tell that Stiles did not truly mind only because it was him?
Stiles gulped down another sob and squeezed his eyes shut. Alpha Hale tightened his grip around his hand. Holding him through it all.
At last, the knot popped. The wolf groaned into his cheek and all but slammed into him — something he clearly kept himself from doing during Stiles’ first time. Whether it was his cock, settling deep between Stiles’ quivering walls, his weight, suddenly doubling and forcing Stiles into the bed, or his come that flooded Stiles’ insides, he did not know, but everything felt heavy. The only thing the omega could do was lie there, impossibly vulnerable and open, spread by the alpha’s cock.
They lay there for a few minutes, catching their breath, until the wolf pulled Stiles by his chin. The omega obediently opened his mouth, taking him in, kissing him back, letting the wolf stroke his tongue. Already, it felt familiar.
“It’s over. Over, love. You were incredible,” the alpha muttered into his mouth. Stiles’ cheeks heated even more. God, how was he supposed to look his husband in his eyes after this? “The noises you made, and the way you looked…” He groaned, slowly bucking his hips forward. Stiles let out an embarrassed squeak of pleasure and clenched around him. “Did it feel good for you?”
Stiles blinked down, unable to meet his gaze. His chest was strangely light, now free of sobs, though his heart felt raw and tender. He did not know what he felt. He did not know.
“Intense,” he rasped, unable to form a full thought. He closed his eyes, squeezing the last of his tears as alpha Hale leaned in and began to leave kisses over his face as if he couldn’t help himself. His hand rubbed Stiles’ back, spreading shivers upon the omega’s skin.
The wolf hummed. Both knew that alpha went easy on him tonight. It was slow and soft and long, and so achingly new. Stiles wanted to hide from the thought of what the hard sex with him was like.
“You’ll get used to it. To me,” said the wolf, stroking down to Stiles’ ass and back. The omega fought a squirm, which was ridiculous, considering he was full of the alpha’s cock. “Wolves don’t take lovers once mated. We shall take pleasure and seek comfort in each other.”
Stiles opened his eyes and found himself under the wolf’s unblinking stare.
The alpha stroked his cheek, reverent. “You are not alone anymore, Stiles. I will not let anything happen to you.” He leaned over, jostling his knot and smiling at Stiles’ mewl. He kissed the corner of the omega’s mouth. “Rest, for now. I am not done with you.”
Stiles shivered. Tentatively, he sought the alpha’s lips and was rewarded with a deep, slow kiss.
He liked kissing, he decided.
He liked the wolf.
Though more than anything, he wanted to be held.
The wolf, it seemed, could tell. Lying on top of Stiles, he pushed his arms under the omega and wrapped them around Stiles’ slim body, holding him close.
With his heart beating out of his chest, Stiles pushed his nose into the alpha’s cheek. His throat was too tight for any words to come out.
Stiles held onto the wolf’s hand with all his might and felt him tighten the grip in return.