Chapter Six

What is privacy if not for invading?

—Quentin Crisp

 

THEN, IT HAPPENED. Thomas stared in frozen fascination at the man Ryan had become. No doubt it was him. It was his mate. Thomas rapidly filled his nose with the best scent and burned it into his memory.

Mate, Wolf confirmed.

He studied every move Ryan made as he bent and picked up sticks from the ground, cracked smaller limbs with strong hands, and stacked them in the crook of his arm. Gathering firewood never looked so… Thomas realized his tongue was hanging out, now dry, and pulled it back in, wetting it again.

Thomas could barely breathe as he took in the finer details.

That beard had to go. Thomas snorted at himself.

Ryan looked up, and Thomas froze. Ryan smiled as he looked around, taking everything in before heading back inside. But his hair. Oh, that hair. It was still a beautiful nightmare, and Thomas wanted to cry at the thought of touching it again. He whined low and lay down to wait. Ryan had grown. He was a man like Thomas was now. Formidable still, as he’d been in his youth.

Yes. Thomas nodded. Ryan would be an incredible Wolf.

If he agreed to become a Wolf, join their pack, and agree to be Thomas’s mate. If he forgave Thomas for everything else. Thomas couldn’t wait to return to the packhouse, shift, put on some clothes, hike back over, reveal himself to Ryan, and get started on their lives together and this plan. But first, he’d have to tell his father and the pack.

Father, come and see him. He’s my mate.

A shockwave flooded back to him through the pack. The subliminal chatter was worse than an operator’s switchboard in the 1950s. Thomas halfheartedly listened because his father was coming to see his mate. Finally, Ryan had been found, and all Thomas could think through the shared links was finally.

It’s him, Thomas said as his father lay down beside him.

They watched silently as Ryan dumped ashes from his fireplace and chopped the wood he had gathered into shorter pieces with an ax. He picked up more wood, began cooking something, and swept the porch clean. Thomas turned to his father as he observed his mate working hard, and he felt proud. They spied together as Ryan hauled chairs out onto the porch. He soon sat and ate from the pan and regarded the world around him with an appreciative smile on his face. His eyes took in everything, and he was happy.

Thomas could see scars on Ryan’s arms, and he whined. His father nosed him. It had slipped; Thomas had been so caught up in the emotions he sensed from Ryan. Ryan was scanning the tree line now. He had heard him. Malcolm crept backwards, still crouched, but Thomas stood and darted through the trees. He wanted Ryan to see him, to see him as Wolf.

Wolf liked this idea very much. To run and display their speed, their strength. To show their mate they were a superior Wolf. Thomas knew they were just showing off. He didn’t care. He looped back around and met up with his father farther away from the cabin.

It’s him, my mate, Thomas said excitedly.

Calm down, Thomas, his father said. We need to figure out how to approach this situation.

Approach. Thomas laughed. I’ll just go say ‘Hello, Ryan. I’m not dead after all. Let’s get naked.’ I bite him. Boom—mate. Wolf. Done. Just as the council agreed to.

You can’t just walk up there as Wolf, Malcolm scolded.

Obviously not; I would shift.

Naked, his father reminded him.

Well, it would speed things up—nothing he hasn’t seen before. Like ripping off the Band-Aid.

I hate when you say that. I’ll need to confer with the council…

Oh no, the council decided. They gave the allotted time for the Pillars to reject their decision. I have the decree. I don’t need the council telling me or micromanaging how I go about courting my mate. He is here. He is my mate. If he agrees to the bite, he will be part of the pack—protected and mine.

Can you just give me a day, please, Malcolm asked.

One, Thomas agreed, sensing he would not win this argument. But if they start backpedaling, you know the score, Father. I will always choose him.

You would go feral, Malcolm said sadly, and then he left him to confer with the council.

And it was a good thing his dad had left because Thomas suddenly smelled arousal in the air. The front door to the cabin was open as Ryan… Yep, Thomas sniffed and confirmed. He walked up to the porch and quietly up the steps. There lay Ryan, stretched out over the end of the bed, shirt yanked up and pants at his thighs as he jerked off hard and fast. Thomas was frozen in place as he unabashedly stared at Ryan, at what he was doing in that intimate moment. Thomas licked his lips, his own arousal almost too much to stand.

Then, the stab to the heart came when Ryan spoke to himself as he finished: “Tristan.”

Wolf leapt from the porch and ran to hide in the woods, still focused on the cabin. Ryan stomped onto the porch and glared down at the floor. Thomas looked down at his muddy paws.

Damn.

He was so busted. He’d forgotten about the mud from the lake.

“You dick,” Ryan shouted and pointed right at where Thomas crouched low. “That’s crossing a line. You can’t just go around creeping up on the porch and watching a man…well…watching!” Ryan threw out his hands. “Can’t a man have a private moment?”

Thomas didn’t know how he held it in, hurt as he was, but his whole body shook with silent laughter as Ryan grabbed a broom and furiously swept at the muddy paw prints, glaring out towards the woods every few minutes. Oh, the joy Thomas felt. Ah, the plans he made. Yes, he would tromp through the lake mud and walk all over that porch, marking it back and forth so that Ryan would know.

Then he remembered the name he’d just heard Ryan say in that intimate moment and what that meant. Thomas’s heart felt like it cracked—Ryan didn’t love him anymore; he loved someone else now. Of course. It had been years since they’d been together.

You’re dead dumbass.

What else was Ryan supposed to do, be alone forever? He wasn’t in the wrong for moving on with his life, but that didn’t change how much it hurt in Thomas’s heart, his soul, and his Wolf.

We’ll win him back, Thomas said to his Wolf.

Eat other man, Wolf suggested.

Or that, Thomas agreed. But let’s go with winning him back first; then we’ll consider your plan.

Whatever they did, Ryan would know Wolf was after him, Thomas realized. And that would not do. Thomas needed to think of some way to let Ryan know that he/they were not a threat. Ryan could not fear Wolf because he was Wolf, and Wolf was him.

Gifts, Thomas told Wolf.

Ryan loved gifts because he never got any, except from the staff or from Thomas. He liked little things, and he loved Nature.

With Ryan back inside and doing pissed-off cleaning, from the sounds of it, Thomas left the cabin land. He headed out to hunt for treasures he could leave for Ryan while his father conferred with the council while Thomas waited for their approval. No matter what the council decided, Ryan would figure out he was Wolf. And if they wanted to thwart him, Thomas would find a way to work around their archaic rules and backwards traditions.