Alpha Second [Whithowe Forest Pack 1] Violet Joicey Cowen

Whithowe Forest Pack 1

Alpha Second

When Charlie Michaelson stumbled onto the pack as a teenager,
Alpha Perry Wyndham was overjoyed to realise the young wolf-

shifter would one day be his mate. Then Charlie vanished just
before his 18th birthday, the age at which he could have been
claimed.

Now, three years later, Charlie has finally been found, but he is
starved and broken and not expected to last the night.

As Charlie begins to recover, things come to light which will
change the lives of the entire pack forever. As the full story

unfolds, a deeper wedge is driven between him and his mate,
leaving both men feeling rejected and alone. Charlie is devastated

to feel Perry backing away, and Perry cannot hope Charlie will still
want him after all the young shifter has suffered through.

Will they be able to find their way through the misunderstandings

and the shadows of the past to finally claim each other?

Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Paranormal,
Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 39,687 words

ALPHA SECOND

Whithowe Forest Pack 1

Violet Joicey-Cowen

EROTIC ROMANCE

MANLOVE

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance ManLove

ALPHA SECOND
Copyright © 2013 by Violet Joicey-Cowen
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-002-2

First E-book Publication: June 2013

Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

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PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

If you have purchased this copy of Alpha Second by Violet Joicey-
Cowen from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you.
Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy

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DEDICATION

For the encouragement and the criticism (negative and positive),

thank you. Without both this book would not be here today.

Specific thanks go to Val L Hughes. Thank you Val for all the

work, editing the book with me and helping me get it ready to send
off. Thank you also to Marieke and Sandie. It blows my mind how
much both of you (and Val) believe in me! You will both get there
too, I just know it.

Also thank you to my son for putting up with pizza and pasta and

other easy foods when I am editing, and my dogs for getting me out of
the house and making me get some fresh air.

This is for all of you.

ALPHA SECOND

Whithowe Forest Pack 1

VIOLET JOICEY-COWEN

Prologue

“You stupid mutt! What the hell have you done to yourself? You

poor bastard.”

The words came at Charlie through the haze of pain that had been

steadily growing worse for the last day or two.

“Well then, let’s see what we can do about…” The voice, which

sounded vaguely familiar, paused. “Holy shit! Charlie? Is that you?”
The voice managed to sound both stunned and horrified at the same
time.

Charlie whined, struggling to lift his head and open his eyes so he

could look at the owner of the voice. The days caught in the trap with
no food, and only a little rainwater to drink, had taken their toll on his
already nearly broken body, and his head fell heavily back to the hard
ground.

“Easy, man, fuck! This is going to hurt like a bitch! Try and hold

still, I have to get this thing off you.” There was a metallic scraping
sound, and then the pain in his foot intensified. It felt like it was
getting ripped off. Then there was blessed relief as the pain began to
ease a little.

Charlie lay there panting for a few minutes with darkness circling

and a roaring noise in his ears before his head slowly cleared. Able to

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lift his head now, he glanced back quickly to check his foot was
actually still attached, then struggled to rise and stand on three very
shaky legs. The fourth leg ended in the mangled mess that the trap
had made of his foot. He didn’t want to look at it too closely, afraid of
what he might see. His liberation from the trap had given him the
necessary energy to stand and look properly at his rescuer. It was a
much older Jason. The boy he had known was nearly a man, taller,
broader across the shoulders, and his face was slimmer. Charlie
chuffed at him, the first face that was both familiar and friendly that
he had seen in a very long time.

“Can you make it to Carden?” Jason asked, looking at him

doubtfully, and Charlie chuffed again, hobbling forward a few paces.
Every movement sent a wave of agonising sensation through him, and
he had to struggle not to be sick. But he would let nothing stop him
now that he was so close.

The last time he had seen Jason, the boy as he had been then had

been unable to shift yet. That had obviously changed as he started to
strip out of his clothes. Once he was naked, his body rippled and
sprouted fur, bones twisting and contorting in a very painful looking
transformation. Though, as Charlie knew, after the first time it
happened there was no pain involved. The transformation took only
moments, and soon there was another wolf standing next to Charlie’s
own furry body. The second wolf’s fur had a more rusty edge to it
than his own brown colouring, and he was quite obviously not fully
grown yet. His leggy form stood in stark contrast to the pitiful figure
Charlie made.

Jason’s wolf sniffed at him, whining at the scent of the unusual

sickness his situation had caused, that and the filth of the cells that
still clung to his fur. They set off slowly, shoulder to shoulder,
making their way through the trees. Charlie leaned against Jason
when he needed the support. He needed it often, and he thanked Jason
with a whine or a lick to the ear every time. There were long periods
where all Charlie could do was stumble forward, letting his paws

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swing under him as his head swam. Jason kept him upright, and
Charlie knew he would have never made it without him.

Several rather long hours later, they broke through the tree line

around several houses that were spaced apart. They were going even
slower now than their initial painstaking pace, but they eventually
approached the largest house. The houses, along with a few others
that were still out of sight among the trees, made up the hamlet called
Whithowe-cum-Carden and were made up of a mixture of brick and
stone. Most of the residents just used the last part of the name, calling
it Carden.

When Charlie collapsed at the bottom of the front steps, Jason

shifted and bolted to the door. He hammered on it and rushed inside
without waiting for a response.

Perry was concentrating heavily on the numbers in front of him

when the banging on the front door tore his attention away from the
screen.

“Perry? Perry! Where are you?”
“In the office, Jase, what’s wrong?” Perry rose and went to stand

half out of the office door. He watched while a naked Jason slid to a
halt in front of him, skidding slightly on the glossy finish of the
parquet wood floor. Each and every one of the boy’s thousands of
freckles showed vividly against the paleness of his body.

“He’s here, man! He’s real sick, but he’s back!” Jason turned and

ran back the way he had come, vanishing again.

There was only one person Jason could be talking about. Going

pale for a moment and leaning heavily against the doorframe, Perry
drew a deep breath, the ever-present ache in his chest pulsing with a
new awareness, then he took off after the other man.

Perry found Jason crouched outside next to an unconscious,

emaciated brown wolf. “What…”— Perry swallowed, trying to
contain his terror at the sight of Charlie— “what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I found him hours ago, stuck in a damn bear trap.

He must have been there for days, judging by the state of him. I didn’t

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know if he would make it back here. God knows how he did. I would
have come to get help, but I couldn’t leave him. Not after the way he
disappeared last time. I couldn’t leave him alone.” Jason looked
between Perry and the wolf at his feet rather wildly.

Perry laid a reassuring hand on Jason’s freckled shoulder. Jason

had done well and should know that Perry was proud of him and how
he had reacted to the situation. Perry’s gaze swung to the wolf’s feet,
and the big man fell to his knees and moaned as if in pain himself.

“Charlie, what happened to you?” He buried his trembling fingers

and his face in the dirty and matted fur around Charlie’s neck. The
smell of sickness worried him even more than Charlie’s tattered
appearance. “Get Doc.” His voice was muffled slightly by the fur, but
Jason’s enhanced shifter hearing must have picked the words up
easily enough because he set off running once again after jumping up.

Back less than four minutes later followed by a tiny brunette

woman clutching a heavy black bag, Jason led the way into the house
and up to Perry’s bedroom, knowing that’s where he would find his
Alpha and the wolf. Perry would not have taken his mate anywhere
else. Hannah, the brunette, let out a gasp of horror at the state of the
wolf on the bed before getting her game face on and setting to work.

“Jase, go tell Betts to make a light broth, lots of it.” She sent her

younger brother off immediately as she bent over Charlie’s body. She
glanced at Perry, feeling the puzzled look he was giving her. She
explained as she sat on the edge of the bed that Charlie had been
starving, slowly and for a long time by the look of him. The quicker
they got some nutrients into him the better, but that his stomach
would not be able to handle proper food right away.

Perry paced and looked on while Hannah opened the medical bag

she had brought with her, got out a syringe, and drew blood. She
talked Perry through some of what she was doing as she was doing it.
She said she would have put an IV with saline in, but with Charlie
being a shifter it was probably a better idea to wait for the broth. It
would hydrate him better with his faster metabolism. Hannah then

Violet Joicey-Cowen

cleaned and did her best to set and stitch the mess that was supposed
to be a foot back together. Once Charlie could shift again, a lot of the
damage would start to heal, but left as it was the paw would heal
wrong. There were other, smaller, injuries that she found. Those
would heal on their own if he pulled through, so she cleaned them and
then left them alone. Some of the injuries she observed but left out of
her notes and didn’t mention to Perry as he came and went from the
room. Charlie’s physical injuries would heal, but the mental scars
from some of what she could tell had been done to him would take
longer. Shifters were tough and extremely hard to kill, but it looked as
though someone had been having a good try with Charlie. Hannah
wasn’t sure if, in the pitiful condition he was in, Charlie would
survive the night. She would do everything in her power to help him.
Not only was Charlie someone she cared about, but if he died it would
destroy Perry.

Alpha Second

Chapter One: Charlie

It felt like he had been unconscious for a long time. He struggled

to open his eyes, but he couldn’t even feel them. Guards must have
really done a number on me this time. He drifted off again.

The second time he surfaced from the darkness, he felt his body

go through the shift. He became aware that he was resting on
something soft. The bones of his joints no longer rubbed against the
hard pallet bed or the even harder stone floor. Nothing soft in my cell.
What’s going on now? Where did they take me?

The third time he swam up from the clinging blackness, he

remembered his escape and the endless slog back to Carden after
Jason had helped him out of the bear trap he had so stupidly got
caught in.

The light stabbed at his eyes when he finally managed to lift his

lids, despite the weights that seemed to be attached to them. He must
have flinched or made a noise because something drew the attention
of the man in the chair next to where he lay.

“Charlie?” A shudder ran through him at the sound of that voice,

and he felt one large, trembling hand cup the side of his face and
another slip into one of his own smaller hands where they lay on top
of the covers. He realised he was lying in a bed.

“Bright,” he managed. The hands disappeared, and he missed their

touch, but they were not gone for long. He felt the sun on his face
grow dim as he heard curtains hurriedly drawn then the hands came
back. Charlie opened his eyes again and focused them on the red-
rimmed and green ones in the pale face hovering above his own. They

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were filled with worry as they looked down at him. “You look like
hell, love,” he whispered.

Perry choked out a startled laugh then pulled away. Charlie heard

the sound of plastic on plastic being unscrewed, then something being
poured and splashing into its new container. Perry turned back to
Charlie with a bowl and spoon in hand.

“You need to eat, Charlie. Everything else can wait.” He looked at

Charlie, then down at the heavy stoneware bowl, and back to Charlie
again before putting the bowl down once more. He stood and slid his
arms carefully around Charlie, gently lifting his upper body to slip a
few extra pillows behind him as a bolster.

Charlie took a deep breath as Perry leaned over, the scent of his

mate burning into him. Perry’s warm hands set his nerve endings on
fire where they touched him. Being in Perry’s arms felt so good. It
was somewhere he had longed to be so many times over the last three
years and Charlie revelled in the brief closeness. He thought he could
feel a slight tremble in Perry in the moments he held him, but the
contact was over too soon for him to tell for sure. Perry sat back down
and picked the bowl up again. He started to feed Charlie its contents,
and the moment Charlie tasted it his stomach started growling
ferociously.

“You have been taking a light broth almost continuously over the

past few days, whenever and however much we could get in to you.
At first we had to use one of those syringes without needles to inject
the food into your mouth. After you shifted it became easier to feed
you.” Perry gave a rather wobbly smile as he held another spoonful
out.

“How long have I been here?”
“Five days,” Perry spoke softly. “Doc didn’t think you were going

to make it to start with. She didn’t tell me that, but I could tell what
she was thinking. Then yesterday your foot started to look a little
better. You began to heal. Sometimes you seemed almost conscious
and even drank the broth through a straw, but Doc didn’t want to push

Alpha Second

it and risk you choking, so we had to wait until you came around
before giving you this slightly heartier soup. We had some on hand at
all times for when you finally woke up. Doc says your stomach would
have to be eased slowly into eating real food.”

Once Charlie had eaten enough, Perry put the bowl and spoon

down. “I’ll go get Doc.” The big man stood abruptly and moved
towards the open door.

“Wait!” Charlie wanted to talk to him some more, hungrier for the

sight of his mate than he had been for the food, but Perry had already
gone. “Don’t leave me,” Charlie whispered sadly to the empty room.

Now he had a full stomach, Charlie felt sleepy again and rather

than try and get rid of the extra pillows, he merely slid down the bed
slightly and was asleep in moments.

When he woke again, Jason stood by the window, looking outside.

It was darker than it had been before, but there was still light coming
in.

“Hey, what time is it?”
“Charlie! How do you feel?” Jason rushed over and perched on

the side of his bed. “It’s about seven.”

“Got any more soup?”
“Hungry, huh? Yeah, well, no…but, ugh. Eggs. Hannah said you

could have some eggs. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Charlie nodded, and Jason ran out of the room. He came back a

few minutes later carrying a covered plate. Charlie’s stomach started
growling again at the smell of the food.

Jason helped him to sit up against the pillows and uncovered the

plate. A golden-brown omelette lay on the plate, with chopped up bits
of ham and fresh tomato showing along the open edge. Jason cut a
piece off with the side of the fork and held it out to Charlie.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m under orders. Hannah said to

feed you myself, so feed you I will. Don’t make me do the
aeroplane.” Charlie nearly giggled at the image of Jason zooming the

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fork around in the air while making aeroplane noises. He obediently
opened his mouth.

After the first few mouthfuls, he caught Jason looking at him with

an odd expression.

“What?”
“Um…well…I was…um…”
“Spit it out, Jase. It’s okay.”
“Where were you? All this time?”
“Oh.” Charlie winced, feeling the sharp pain of his rib being

broken for the first time, all over again, and hearing the smack of fists
against his flesh. “I…I can’t, Jase, not yet.” Tears welled up in his
eyes, and he suddenly felt sick.

“Oh god! I’m sorry! Forget it, forget I said anything!”
Charlie found himself cradled against Jason as the younger shifter

quickly put the plate down and hugged him gently. Jason smelled like
the forest, all earth, flowers, and spring rain. He took a deep breath,
calming the shudders that ran through him as Jason’s warm hand
rubbed his back.

“I’m okay.” Jason eased him back against the head of the bed

again.

Charlie ate most of the omelette, only leaving a couple of bites.

Jason made no further mention of where Charlie had been. Instead he
told Charlie of what had happened in the pack in his absence.
Matings, new cubs, and some other things. Merc had left overnight
with no warning, about a year after Charlie had vanished. At first they
thought he had just disappeared as Charlie had, but Bobby had heard
from him a while later. No one knew why he had left. Jason had been
rather distracted at the time because he had just started shifting, so he
had only started to wonder about why later on.

When Charlie had finished, he wanted to sleep again, so Jason left

after giving him another hug.

“I’m glad you’re back, Charlie.”
“Me, too. Thanks, Jase.”

Alpha Second

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye.” Charlie snuggled down under the covers and went to sleep.

* * * *

Over the few days that followed, most of the members of the pack

came to visit him, but he didn’t see Perry again. When Charlie had
been in that place, he had gotten used to picking out various scents
past the miasma of filth and evil that hung in the air. Now he was free
again, it was all too easy for him to tell when the other man was in the
house, even with the strong scent of Perry coming from the bed he lay
in and all his personal belongings around the room. They must not be
all of his things though, because Perry must have removed clothes and
other items before Charlie first regained consciousness, as he never
came in for any. He occasionally heard Perry pause outside his door
and waited, hoping for the door handle to turn, but he was
disappointed every time. After all he had been through, clinging to
thoughts of his mate to survive, and after finally escaping and getting
back to the man, Perry no longer wanted him. Charlie’s heart was
breaking. He was left confused as to why he had been put in Perry’s
room in the first place. Even if Hannah had not wanted to move him
to one of the other houses, which were close enough, there were three
other bedrooms he could have been carried to when he had arrived.
Then Charlie decided he didn’t care. He would take what little
closeness to his mate he could get. The framed picture of himself with
Jason and the triplets that rested on top of the chest of drawers
opposite the bed seemed to mock him, reminding him of a time he
had felt accepted by Perry.

Charlie did the only thing he could while feeling ignored and

rejected by his mate, he threw himself into his recovery. He knew
most injured werewolves had plenty of stamina and that they used
those reserves to heal, but one that was more than half-starved had no
energy stores to fall back on. His body needed fuel to recover, so he

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ate. And he ate and ate and ate. He tired quickly. The lengthy ordeal
he had been through would take more than a little time to recover
from, so when he wasn’t eating he was sleeping. It took four days of
switching between stuffing his face and being comatose for him to
heal enough to put any weight on his once-mangled foot.

Undoubtedly, had he been human, his foot would have taken

weeks or months to heal or maybe even been amputated. He had
thanked, more than once, whatever god had given shifters their
incredible healing abilities. He did so again as he stood for the first
time, balanced carefully with one arm around Jason’s shoulder and
the other around the older and more solid Nathaniel’s. The two men,
and a couple of others, had carried him to the bathroom several times
a day so far. They had waited, assisting when needed, with physical
modesty not being a big issue for shifters. This time, though, he took
the steps himself, albeit with their support, and had time in the
bathroom to himself. He hissed in pain a few times, but made it there
and back. He was shaking and sweating heavily by the time he was
sitting back on the bed but feeling triumphant.

After that, his progress moved rapidly. Still eating all he could

manage without feeling like he was going to explode, Charlie
continued to heal, quicker and quicker now, and started to put weight
on. In the matter of a week, following on from him taking those first
assisted steps, he went from looking like an inmate in a concentration
camp to a healthy, if still rather slender, young man. He was walking
on his own, too, by that point, without a cane but still with a
noticeable limp, though that would not be with him much longer.

Another week passed, the end of which found him sitting with the

playing cubs at a pack family BBQ and trying to ignore the fact that
Perry still wouldn’t talk to him. Since the time Perry had fed him that
bowl of soup and gone to get Hannah, Charlie had barely laid eyes on
his mate. “My mate, hah!” Charlie muttered to himself.

“You okay, Charlie?”

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Looking up, he recognised the skinny youth in front of him as the

younger of the two identical brothers, though younger only by
minutes. Astley and Miles had, along with their triplet, Milly, reached
puberty in the last couple of months, and they were all revelling in
their new shifter forms. Miles must have just shifted, because his
clothes were nowhere to be seen. The older boy, Astley, was still in
wolf form as he raced over and pounced on a patch of bare earth in
front of his brother. His head was down low, near the paws that
looked too big for him, with his ears pricked and his back end up in
the air wagging along with his tail. He yipped a puppy bark that
turned into a yelp as he got bowled over by a flying fur ball that
turned out to be Milly. They raced off with Miles in hot pursuit after
he had quickly shifted again. He caught up, and they fell in a ball of
flying fur and fangs, sounding as if they meant to do murder. Charlie
giggled, finding their play amusing.

“Boys!” Grace uttered with all the disgust only a preteen girl

could produce about her brothers, conveniently ignoring the fact that
one of the trio was female. Grace was only eight years old and still a
long way from her first shift, so she tended to stay with the other cubs
at these gatherings. She had twice the attitude and self-confidence of
her older sister, though, and wasn’t shy about letting people know it.
If she thought it, she said it. There were three cubs around Charlie that
day. They were not yet old enough for their first shift, but old enough
to want to play away from their parents. The triplets had been the first
cubs to be born in over two decades in the pack, and their parents
seemed to be trying to make up for the previous lack all on their own.
As well as the thirteen-year-old triplets and Grace, there was five-
year-old Danny and two-year-old twins Ellen and Faith. The only
other cub in the pack old enough to be mobile on his own was a six-
year-old boy called Matthew, though there was a baby and both
Matthew’s mother and another woman in the pack were pregnant at
the moment. Technically, Charlie supposed, Jason was still a child at
seventeen, though his parents had joined the pack after he and his

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much older sister, Hannah, had been born. The pack has had fairly
stable numbers for a very long time but it is now going through a bit
of a boom since several of the straight members have found their
mates. It tore at his guts that his own didn’t want him.

It is nice to have the young ones around me, Charlie thought as he

sat backwards on the bench, leaning against the top part of the heavy
wooden picnic table on his elbows. His head canted back so he could
feel the warmth of the sun beat down on his face through the slight
chill in the air. Oh! I have missed this. The sun, the sound of the slight
breeze rustling the leaves in the trees around us, Grace, Danny, and
Matt laughing and shouting as they play, everyone else talking. He
took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh, crisp air, the delicious smells
coming from the BBQ, and the comforting scent of pack all around
him making him feel safe. There were a couple of unfamiliar shifters
he could pick out, the few that had joined the pack or been born while
he had been gone, among the other scents that crowded together, but
most he knew well. He could even detect the milky smell of Edward’s
baby with his new mate, Florence. Such a normal day, one the rest of
the pack took for granted, and he hoped that none of them ever felt
any differently. It was Sunday, and the whole pack was together.
They normally got together like this once a month or so. If only the
one that matters most… Charlie wouldn’t let himself finish the
thought. The realisation that his mate didn’t want him was too new,
the hurt too bright and searing in his gut to be able to think of it
without feeling like he was being ripped apart. He had fought for
years to stay alive so he could get back to Perry, only to have the
other man avoid him as if he was Typhoid Mary.

He tried to push the thoughts of Perry away again and listened to

the sounds of the cubs playing happily. Grace had started teaching
Danny and Matt a ball game. The boys’ aim wasn’t very good yet, so
there was a lot of good-natured laughing and running after the ball
going on.

“Here, latest top-up!”

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Charlie opened one eye and squinted past the sun that shone in his

face. Jason had arrived and was holding out a plastic plate full of food
in his direction.

“Thanks.”
Charlie had been feeling the need for more food for a while but

had been reluctant to move. He hadn’t wanted to go over to the grill
only to see Perry run away yet again before he could get there. He sat
up and then took the plate from Jason and ate his way through the pile
of sausages, drumsticks, and other food quickly. The heat and rich,
smoky flavours bypassed him in his body’s demand for nourishment.

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Chapter Two: Perry

Watching from the other side of the busy picnic area, Perry saw

Charlie tilt his head back, enjoying the sun. His wolf growled inside
him, wanting his mate.

“God, I’m jealous of a bunch of kids.” Perry groused at himself,

“just ’cause they get to be near him.” Then louder. “Hey, Jase! Take
this over to Charlie would you?” His mate was still playing catch-up
with calories and needed food frequently. The protein-rich chicken
wings, BBQ ribs, and other assorted meats that he had piled high on
the plate were exactly what Charlie needed to build his muscles, and
the portion of Jess’s garlic-and-rosemary potato dish would give him
energy.

Jason looked at Perry for a beat, obviously debating the wisdom

of speaking his mind directly to his Alpha, and instead grumbled to
himself as he carried the plate over to his friend. “Ugh! When are they
going to talk? They need to talk to each other. What’s wrong with
them both?” Perry had seen the spark of teenage defiance in Jason’s
eyes but had stared him down. Letting Jason know it was not his place
to lecture Perry about his relationship with Charlie. Perry might be
about as easygoing as any Alpha you would ever find, but he had his
limits, and he needed his pack to respect his authority.

Perry’s sharp ears picked up what Jason should have kept as an

inner monologue. He was thankful when Jase closed his mouth as he
got closer to Charlie. Oh, Jase, it’s not that easy, Perry thought. All he
could see, every time he looked at his mate, was the starved and
broken body

which had appeared in front of his house.

Alpha Second

Darkness was falling by the time Perry went inside. He had just

done his last check around the picnic area behind his house, and
everything was tidied away, which was good. The picnic site was fifty
of Perry’s paces across and nearly square in shape, with several tables
dotted about. He had wanted a place for the pack to gather and had
recently also been thinking about putting in a pool now that there
were cubs being born. No litter was something he insisted on, and he
always checked one last time after everyone else left to ensure that
those who had been assigned clean-up duty had done their job.

Perry had been alive long enough to remember the industrial

revolution, had lived through the world wars and seen the advances
current computer technology had brought to the world. He had seen a
lot happen to the planet and the increasing numbers of people
crawling all over its surface. Shifters were closer to nature than most
humans were and knew they had to take care of the world around
them. Even the plastic plates they used for the picnics were tough and
reusable. If they got broken, they went to be recycled.

As he had looked around the abandoned picnic site, he had taken

note of the heavy wooden tables, with their built-in bench seats that
he had bought a few years previously. They were holding up well to
the traditionally wet English weather and still looked almost new. The
tables and grassy areas were clear and the rubbish bags taken to the
purpose-built enclosure a hundred yards down the road. Alan had
knocked it together one afternoon to keep the wild animals from
digging through the rubbish, not that many came close to the
settlement with the strong smell of wolves that clung to the place, but
it kept the local council types happy. There were some investments he
needed to look into further before making a decision, so Perry went
inside and started up the stairs to his study but froze when he heard
something he did not ever want to hear. Charlie was crying.

Jason and Charlie had been growing close, spending a lot of time

with each other. As long as shifter lives tended to be, the four years
separating the two young men would seem like nothing when they

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would count their lives in terms of centuries, not decades. The pain in
his chest increased whenever he thought of someone else getting to
spend so much time with his mate, and Perry’s wolf was not happy
about the situation either. His wolf wanted to be the one keeping his
mate company, but Perry knew that Jason was a suitable friend for
Charlie. Not only that, but also the younger wolf had shown
remarkable fortitude in sticking with Charlie all the way back to the
pack that first day, when everything in him must have been crying out
to run for his Alpha. The two had grown close since that day, and
Perry was not surprised when he detected Jason’s scent in the house.
However, the hairs on the back of Perry’s neck bristled in a protective
fury when he heard his mate’s low sobs. What is going on? What is
wrong with my mate?

“Charlie, talk to me, please.” Jason’s voice reached Perry’s ears

where he stood, poised at the bottom of the stairs.

“The others, they are still there.”
“Others?” Jason enquired.
Perry wanted to know, too, so he stayed where he was and

listened.

“Where Dad put me, there were others being held, too.”
“Wait, your dad did this to you? God’s name, why?”
The outrage in Jason’s voice was mild compared to the emotions

running through Perry after what Charlie had just said. His wolf was
trying to rip out through his skin, but he fought the shift back. This
was not the time to hunt Michaelson down. There was obviously more
to the story, and Perry wanted to hear it. Even so, his skin itched with
the need to shift as he raged silently about Charlie’s dad. Son of a
bitch.

He lied to me. How did I not catch that? How did I not see he

was lying? Or smell it? More than half of his anger was aimed at
himself for not rescuing Charlie years earlier.

Charlie’s sobs had quieted enough for him to talk more easily.

Perry heard him blow his nose before he answered.

Alpha Second

“That bastard isn’t my father. God, I told myself I would never

call him dad again!”

“I know Perry went to see him and your mother when you

disappeared. They said they didn’t know where you…Oh my god!
Your mother. Does she know you are back?”

“No, I couldn’t risk contacting her without him finding out. But

him?” Charlie spat. “Oh, he knew where I was all right.”

Perry knew he shouldn’t be listening in on this, but he couldn’t

tear himself away from the sound of his mate’s voice. Keeping the
man at a distance was killing Perry. The moment Charlie had gone
missing it had felt like part of him had been ripped out, leaving a
gaping, jagged hole in his chest. That hole closed when his mate came
back, but it still ached and pulsed with the simple need to hold
Charlie, to comfort and protect him. Perry knew though that if he got
close enough to offer the solace Charlie so badly needed, that the
mating instincts would start to take over. That was the last thing
Charlie needed right now, though. God, it would have been so much
easier if we had mated before he disappeared. I could hold him now,
without our wolves trying to take over and mate. He needed to know
what had happened to the man he loved in the time he had been
missing, but every time Perry got close enough to ask, he could feel
his wolf getting stronger, and he could not risk losing control. Not
being able to ask Charlie himself, this was the only way.

Charlie continued, “I always thought that bastard had fathered me.

My mother never told me any different as I was growing up. He
wasn’t so bad when I was a kid, kind of cold, but I guess I get why
now, knowing I wasn’t really his. I did not really know how to feel
when I learned, after my first shift, that Karl was not my real father. I
guess some part of me must have always known or something because
it did not really make much of an impact on me. It was just a fact and
did not change life for any of us in any way, unlike learning about
being a shifter. Anyway, as you know, I turned for the first time right
after we moved to Penrith. I got to know the pack when I met Bobby

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in the woods when I was letting my wolf have some exercise. Mum is
a wolf, but she didn’t tell either of us about that, me or him, until after
I had shifted for the first time. It was kind of hard to hide when that
happened.”

Perry, thinking about that, just bet it had been. The first shift was

very painful. Centuries later and he could still remember being
dragged from his human body through to his shifter body on the night
of a full moon when he had been in early puberty. Bones and muscles
twisting and snapping as they reshaped, joints popping. His skin had
burned and itched as if fire ants crawled and stung him all over when
his fur grew in for the first time. It had been impossible to hold back
that first shift, even when he had known it was coming, let alone for
someone who had gone through it not knowing about it ahead of the
event itself. Keeping quiet was also impossible while the shift
happened. He continued to listen.

“He was home and wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Mum told him and then shifted to prove what she was. He seemed
pretty cool the next day but didn’t really say much about what had
happened. Despite the pain of that shift, I thought the whole thing
totally rocked! Mum and I spoke about it briefly. She said it should
not hurt after that, and that I would learn to shift at will.
Da…Michaelson was quiet about it all, though Mum and I thought he
was only trying to process the whole thing. God, if we had only
known what the bastard was getting up to.

“He was interested in the genetics of what we are, and what made

us tick. Mengele could have taken tips from him. After he found out
about us, he started gathering a little group together of men who
would work for him and carry out his every nasty little command. I’m
not sure what his endgame is, or even if he has one.

“They began to capture shifters, then vampires and other

supernatural races, too. They were starved, beaten, and tortured. He
wanted to find the limits of what they could endure, what they could

Alpha Second

and couldn’t heal from. Of course I knew none of this at the time, not
until later, until he was dishing out the same to me.

“When I met Bobby and then the rest of the pack, meeting

everyone and getting to know them, I was so drawn to Perry. Mum
hadn’t told me much about shifters. She never really did. I had no clue
Perry was my mate. I didn’t know what mates were supposed to be to
each other, I just thought I had this massive crush on the guy.”

Charlie laughed softly just then and a spasm of need went through

Perry. His arms ached to hold Charlie, feeling useless and empty
without him. Thinking Charlie needed this, to tell someone what had
happened to him without the pressure of the mate-pull distracting him,
Perry did not want to interrupt. Jason was there, being what Charlie
needed. So, Perry stayed where he was, halfway up the stairs, and
listened.

“Then I found out about mates. Perry and I talked about mates,

and he told me I was his. I could scarcely believe it and I ran home
that evening, high as a kite on the news, and told Mum. She said she
was happy I had found my mate, but she was acting a little weird and
didn’t really want to talk about mates with me. I wanted to know
more, and I wanted to know about my real dad, who I had not asked
her about until then. Had he been her mate? But she just wouldn’t talk
to me.

“He had heard me tell her, though. He wasn’t happy about me

being gay at all. They came for me that night. The last thing I
remember is going to sleep, thinking about going over to the pack the
next day to find out more about mates and mating. I was excited to
see Perry again, to spend time with him now I had found out there
really would be an us. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a cell,
handcuffed to an iron bed frame. The man I had grown up thinking of
as my father was standing over me. He told me it was one thing
raising a freak as his son, but another thing entirely for the freak son
to be gay. He thought being gay was sick, and there must be

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something wrong with me. He started off by…by having the crap
beaten out of me on a regular basis. I healed quickly to start with.”

Perry felt sick. He remembered so clearly the first day Charlie had

been missing. Charlie had seemed so happy to find out what they
really were to each other, that fate had paired them together. Perry
remembered half expecting Charlie to turn up on his doorstep first
thing the next morning and bug him to talk to him about it more. He
had fully expected to be tortured with his mate’s untouchable
presence hanging around him until he reached his eighteenth birthday
a few days later. As the day had rolled on, he had begun to grow
concerned when Charlie had not shown up but had thought it possible
that he had been kept home. When the next day had arrived with no
word from Charlie, he had tried calling, but no one had picked up.
That was when he had gone to see Charlie’s parents and found out
that Charlie was missing. He remembered the devastation he had felt
at the thought of Charlie running from him, from the news that they
were mates and from the kiss they had shared. But he hadn’t run, he
had been taken. While Perry had been in a self-pitying funk at the
thought of his mate not wanting him, Charlie had been having god
knows what done to him at the hands of his sadistic stepfather. Perry
had to struggle with the nausea so he could continue to listen.

“The cells didn’t have solid walls, not when I was first thrown in

there. They were cages. Rows of barred cages with no privacy at all.
They changed them later, covering the bars with plasterboard walls
when they realised how much we were all talking to each other. I say
‘all’ because there were a lot of us in those cages. None of the others
would talk to me once they found out that I was his son. Only I
wasn’t, was I. They all saw, after a while, I wasn’t treated any better
than they were. If anything I was treated worse. He was ashamed and
disgusted by what I was, more by the fact that I was gay than my
being a shifter. Over time it took longer and longer for me to heal
from what they did to me.

Alpha Second

“I got to a point where I knew I didn’t have much time left. So,

when one of the guards…made a mistake, I…managed to get away. I
was so scared of being caught and dragged back that I wasn’t paying
enough attention to where I was putting my paws. When the jaws of
the trap sprang shut, shit! I thought my paw had been cut off! I had
shifted the moment I was free, though months had passed since I had
been able to do so. I think the adrenaline of the escape gave me
enough of a boost to make it possible. I was grateful because I could
be faster in my wolf form. What an idiot. If I had been human when
the trap sprang, I might have been able to get the damn thing off me.
Maybe not, though, I was probably too weak. I was so scared of them
hearing and catching me again. I didn’t want to howl for help. Doubt I
would have had the energy to howl loudly enough anyway. So I
waited and prayed someone would find me. Being close enough to
pack lands, I thought someone might. The rest you know. All I can
think about now are the others still trapped there.”

Perry rose from the step he had sunk down onto and slipped back

out of the house. He could not be with Charlie at the moment, but he
knew what he could do, both for him and for the others he now knew
about.

The next day Perry got to work. He knew he and the other

eighteen men in his pack were, for the most part, big and strong, but
he knew in order to have a chance at rescuing the rest of the people
Charlie’s dad still held captive he would need help from someone
who knew what they were doing. No, mustn’t think of him as
Charlie’s dad, he’s Michaelson! Perry thought as he did some
research on the internet. After a few hours he found that he kept
getting pointed back at one company in particular, AlphaSec. The
name seemed like a positive omen. He sent them a message from one
of his rarely used e-mail accounts.

To Whom it May Concern:
I am in need of some aid with a situation I have just become

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aware of. I would appreciate someone getting back to me to discuss
things with all possible speed.

P. Baxton

He added the number of a prepay mobile phone at the end, but

nothing else. Perry was not computer literate enough to even think to
do anything about his IP address. If he had thought about it, he would
still have been more concerned about the content of his message than
about where it came from. He didn’t want to put too much
information in the message, needing to meet someone in person
before he would trust them with the details. The people still to be
rescued were too important to Charlie. He did not want to know what
would be done to the people still being held if Michaelson caught on
someone was going to try and rescue them. They would probably
either be moved or slaughtered.

Less than an hour later, the phone rang.
“Hello?” He picked up, answering quickly.
“Is this P. Baxton?” He had not given his real surname in the

message.

“Speaking.”
“Hello, my name is Daniel. I’m calling about an e-mail you sent

AlphaSec. I believe you are in need of some help with something.”

“Yes, thank you for getting back to me so soon.” Perry paused,

uncertain of how to begin.

“What can we help you with, Mr. Baxton?” It was strange for

Perry to hear someone refer to him by that name. P. Baxton was an
identity he had created a few years before so he could do some trading
on the internet. Most shifters these days had several identities so they
would not draw too much attention to themselves. It would not do for
anyone to discover the person they had been doing business with was
far older than any human could be.

“Would I be able to meet you, or someone else from the company,

in person so I can explain?”

Alpha Second

“Certainly we can come to you. Where do you live? Or where

would you like to meet?”

“I live in Cumbria, near the north end of the Lake District. Can

you get to Penrith?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. How soon would you like me

there?”

“It’s not too far?”
“Not at all.”
“There are…people in trouble. To be honest I’m not comfortable

talking about this over the phone. The situation is a bit nasty and
rather delicate.”

“As soon as possible then.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, hold on a minute.”
Perry waited, hearing the faint clacking of keys on a computer

keyboard through the phone. After only a minute or two, Daniel spoke
again.

“There is an overnight train I can take. With a couple of changes it

would get me to Penrith station for 7:49 in the morning.”

“That would be great.” Perry could hear the smile in his own

voice. “I will be there to meet you myself.”

“A colleague will be accompanying me, so expect two of us.”
“Okay.”
“I will ring you when our train arrives at the station.”
“Sounds good to me. Thank you, Daniel. I will see you in the

morning.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Baxton.”
“Good-bye.” Perry hung up after hearing the click of the call

being disconnected on the other end.

Perry was waiting in his car early the next morning for the train to

arrive. It was the new Ford Ranger, a double-cab pickup, and was
comfortable enough even for a guy Perry’s size. The night had been
long, full of worry, and had not brought nearly enough sleep. He was

Violet Joicey-Cowen

currently looking around for things to distract himself from the
possibility of this not working out and from what Charlie would say
when he found out what Perry was up to. He watched cars go through
the drive-through of the McDonald’s next door to the train-station car
park. Ugh, how can people eat that stuff? He had walked in to one
once, turned around, and walked right back out at the synthetic smell
of the food. He felt a momentary pang watching the ordinary people
go about their ordinary lives. What they were did not give
psychopaths reason to study them and try to take them apart. They did
not have to deal with people like Michaelson.

Several trains came and went, on their way to and coming from

Carlisle. Daniel had let him know the train route they would be
taking, and it was a silly roundabout way to come. If they had had
more warning, they would have been able to get a more direct train,
but as they had not had much notice they had to take whatever they
could get. They were coming up from London to Manchester, then
changing for Leeds, changing again to get up to Carlisle and once
more to come back down to Penrith.

He looked over at the castle. The stone had a hint of red in the

morning light, growing blacker the higher Perry looked, as if it had
burned at some point in its history. The castle had been in ruins for as
long as he could remember. It’s sad, he mused, I bet it must have been
a lovely building once. Now the place stood as a reminder of bygone
times, in a town park surrounded by neatly cut hedges, grassy areas,
new walls made of stone and railings, with signs all over not to climb
on anything. Sanitised history. Look but don’t touch, ’cause you might
get hurt.

Thoughts of other lovers he had over the years briefly crossed his

mind. He had hardly been celibate before meeting his mate. There had
been other lovers. Some had been human, some shifter, but he had
taken no one to his bed since the day he had met Charlie, and none of
his other lovers were still in his life in any other capacity either.

Alpha Second

The sound of another train arriving coincided with the ringing of

his phone.

“Hi, we are just pulling into the station now.” It was Daniel.
“Okay, come out of the main entrance to the station. I’m in a

silver 4x4 by the low wall next to the road out the front,” Perry told
him.

They hung up. Perry got out of the car and leaned against the side,

waiting. There was no one for a minute or two, and Perry felt an
unfamiliar flutter of nerves. He knew they were here, but this was so
important. There were a lot of lives at stake, and he prayed these
people would be able to help.

Perry might have been aching to be with Charlie with every bone

in his body, but even he could appreciate the looks of the two very
different men walking out of the entrance to the station. He had found
his mate, he wasn’t dead. One of the men, the first by moments to
appear, was nearly as tall as his own six foot eight. He also had black
hair, like Perry, and a powerful looking body. The other must have
been just under Six feet, with honey-blond hair and a slimmer, more
wiry, build. They had dressed comfortably for the journey with both
men dressed in faded jeans. The shorter one teamed his with a dark-
red hooded sweatshirt and the taller one wore a navy V-neck jumper
over a white T-shirt. They looked around for a moment before
heading in his direction, so he pushed off from the car and stood
ready to greet them.

As they approached, his wolf went on alert. Wolf. It growled

inside him. He caught the scent on the air and saw the larger man’s
eyes narrow slightly, a moment later, in recognition.

“Er…Dee?” The black-haired guy stopped the smaller man with a

hand on his shoulder.

The blond looked at his companion, looking a little confused.

“Yeah?”

“He’s a wolf.”

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Perry lifted both hands, palms towards them, in a pacifying

gesture. “So are you. He’s not, though, is he?” Perry nodded at the
smaller man and said, “My e-mail was genuine. I mean you no harm.
I just need the help I asked for.”

“You’re P. Baxton?” the blond asked.
“Yes, well, sort of. It’s actually P. Wyndham, Perry. Baxton is an

alias I use sometimes when I need to keep my identity hidden.”

The blond spoke again, “I’m Daniel, this is Ant, and yes, you

were right. He is wolf and I am not. Now we have that out of the way,
shall we go somewhere to discuss the problem you got in touch with
us about?” He thumped his companion on the arm. “Quit glaring at
the man.”

Instead of one of the small cafes in Penrith town centre Perry had

been intending to go to, he drove the thirty minutes out to Carden. It
would be easier to talk with no other ears around to listen in. He knew
Charlie would be out all day, he and Jason having headed out early
for some fun on the nearby lake, so he did not need to worry about
him wondering what was going on just yet. He did not want Charlie to
find out about what he was trying to do before he knew for sure
whether or not these people could help.

Perry took Daniel and Ant back to his house and told them all

about how Charlie had disappeared, how he had returned to them, and
the state he had been in when he had done so. He also told them about
overhearing the conversation between Charlie and Jason. Though he
did not spell out everything he had heard, he did tell them about the
main reason he had called them. There were others who were still
being held.

Before Daniel or Ant would go any further and tell him any

details of their company or what they did, Daniel pulled out his phone
and made a call. “Jake, we arrived…There is a lot going on here…We
need full support…Yes…No, the whole team…Hang on.” He looked
at Perry. “Have you got room for nine of us to stay for a few days?
We can get a hotel if it’s a problem.”

Alpha Second

Perry nodded and mouthed, “It’s fine, you can stay here,” at him.
Daniel spoke into the phone again, “Yes, for now…No, can’t wait

that long, today…Yes, it’s urgent…Please, the crate with the star and
the two underneath…Okay, let me know when you will be at the
Penrith station.” He hung up and then chuckled. “Probably should
have told him you are a pack. Oh well, it will be a nice surprise for
him.” Daniel’s smile was highly amused and slightly evil.

Perry got the feeling that though the man was human, he was not

someone you wanted to mess with. Ant was looking doubtfully at his
friend, grumbling something Perry couldn’t quite make out,
something about “don’t blame me” and “your neck.”

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Chapter Three: Charlie

After a nice day out on Parkenmere, Charlie and Jason returned to

the settlement to find Perry, Henry, Jeremy, Edward, and a bunch of
strange men getting out of cars outside the Alpha’s house.

“Charlie, would you…mind, um…staying at Jason’s tonight?”

Perry looked at him guiltily, like a teenager caught sneaking in long
after curfew. “And if you see Bobby or Sam on your way, can you
send them both over?”

A couple of the strangers eyed him curiously as he nodded mutely

at Perry and turned away. Now he wants me to leave his house. He
will ask me to move out next. If being in his house is as close as I can
get to him, then I will take it. Please don’t make me leave, Perry! I
don’t want to go. Charlie was thinking miserably as he and Jason
walked off, and he nearly missed one of the people behind him
saying, “That’s him?” That’s who? Charlie thought. Me? Perry
looked real uncomfortable with me being around them. Bastard!
What’s going on? What doesn’t he want me to know?

“Jay, you ever see any of those guys before?” he asked once they

were in Jason’s house and safely out of earshot of the group outside.
On the way they had passed the house where Bobby lived and had
knocked, alerting the man to his brother’s request for his presence.

“No. Juice?” Jason said as he went over and opened a cupboard.
“Please. I wonder who they were.”
Jason got two glasses out, filled them with cordial and cold water,

and handed one to him.

They both made appreciative noises as they finished their drinks.

The icy water from the settlement’s own borehole was very welcome

Alpha Second

after the busy day. Charlie had been thirsty and could feel the liquid
flood down his throat and into his abdomen.

“Who do you think they were?” After the long confession with his

friend, when Jason had found him crying the previous day, Charlie
was feeling a lot more at ease. Jason might not know everything he
had gone through at the hands of his father’s people, but he knew
some and only wanted to be there for him. It was enough to have been
able to unload onto his friend’s shoulder. Jase wanted him to tell their
Alpha, but he was going to neither tell tales on him nor would he
pressure Charlie to inform Perry himself. Charlie wanted to tell Perry,
he just needed to work up the courage to do so. The thought of Perry
seeing where he had been held, of finding everything out, tormented
him. The man didn’t want Charlie now, how would he react after he
knew everything, including what he had not told Jason.

Jason shrugged. “Not a clue, but they were shifters, most of them

anyway.”

Even though Charlie’s mind kept returning to Perry and the men

who had been visiting him, he had a nice cosy, family evening at
Jason’s house. It was something Charlie had never really had. Even
when he had been happy growing up at home with his mum, his
supposed father had always cast off a chilly air. He found a great deal
of comfort in the mundane family night with his friend and his
friend’s family. Jason’s mum, Patricia, had cooked a large quantity of
a very tasty casserole, and they sat down to eat with Hannah and
Allan, Jason’s sister and father. After supper they put on a movie, a
watchable enough, yet forgettable once over, recent blockbuster. Then
Hannah left, to return to the house she shared with a few other adult
singles in the settlement, and the rest of them went to bed.

Most of the houses in Carden had more bedrooms than were

currently needed, except for Sam and Jessica’s, but then they did have
seven kids. When Perry had settled here many years before and had
additional houses built as more joined his pack, he had not seen the
point in houses with only one or two bedrooms. He knew the number

Violet Joicey-Cowen

of children many shifters could have when they chose to have them.
Since Hannah had moved over to one of the singles houses a couple
of years ago, right after Merc had left, Jase told him, there were
several rooms Charlie could pick from.

He climbed into bed, feeling like a kid on a sleepover, wearing a

borrowed pair of Jason’s pyjama bottoms. The duvet and pillows,
which had a pattern of light-on-dark cream stripes, were soft and
fluffy and the sheet and pillowcases were crisp and cool. Everything
smelled faintly of the bluebells currently flowering throughout the
area. He felt relief at not being able to smell Perry all the time. The
man had made it plain, by his total avoidance of Charlie, that he no
longer wanted him as his mate. Knowing this and being around his
scent all the time was torture. He snuggled down under the duvet, his
wolf content to be right where he was for a change. He was able to
fall asleep not listening for any movement in the house, for the
smallest clue as to what Perry was doing. The last thing he heard
before he slept was the faint hoot of an owl a mile away.

The next morning Charlie was up early. Bright eyed and literally

bushy tailed. He giggled to himself as he shifted, wagging his tail in
delight, and went for a run outside to work out the kinks. The sun had
been up for a while, but the air was still fresh and clean smelling. It
had rained a little in the night, and the damp earth clung to his paws.
He returned by seven, when everyone else was just beginning to stir.
He put his jeans and fitted grey long-sleeved top back on while still
on the wide porch outside the kitchen, where he had left his clothes
before his run, and went inside. He felt like he needed to change. He
had had a shower before going to bed, but he had been wearing the
same clothes the day before out on the lake, and though they looked
clean, he felt grimy wearing them again. Since he had escaped the
filth of the cells, he could not stand feeling dirty for long.

He took a big pack of sausages out of the fridge, along with an

equally large pack of bacon and some eggs, and made a start on
breakfast for everyone. He had spent enough time at Jason’s house in

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the past, and since his return, for him to feel comfortable enough to do
this. The sausages were soon under the grill, and the bacon was
sizzling and popping in the pan. As he cooked, Charlie thought about
what he was going to do with himself. When he was at Perry’s house,
all he could think about was his mate, but now he didn’t have the
constant distraction. Though his thoughts did keep straying back to
Perry, he thought about his future.

He had just finished his A levels before he had been taken to that

hellhole. He couldn’t even remember anymore what he had wanted to
be back then. The following three years had been all about just
surviving and dreaming of escape. Now he was out, he had no idea
what he wanted to do with his life.

Perry’s job, as Alpha, was to look after the pack. It was a job he

did well. The care he had shown Charlie, even if it had been from a
distance, since his return could not really be faulted. Perry had seen to
his physical needs with Hannah’s help and had made sure he had
clothes to wear and somewhere to stay. Charlie just wished he had got
some personal attention from the man. He wasn’t just a pack member,
he was Perry’s mate. Charlie sighed in frustration as he tried to drag
his thoughts back to the subject.

He knew his mate had many investments. Perry was about two

hundred and fifty years old. Though still relatively young as far as
shifters could get, he was old enough and had enough experience to
get a pretty good feel for what would do well and what would become
just a passing phase and disappear. Thanks to Perry, the pack was
financially well off, not having to worry about money at all. Most of
the individual members of the pack had their own jobs, though and
contributed a portion of their earnings to a common account
accessible to any of the pack for food and basics. Allan, Jason’s dad,
ran a construction company with his wife. Patricia was an architect,
an unheard of job for a woman back when she had started out. They
had met through work on a common project. Betts owned several
restaurants, though he rarely cooked in any of them these days.

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Hannah, who was commonly called Doc by the pack, was trained as a
doctor, surgeon, and a veterinarian. She wanted to be fully prepared
for any medical needs the pack had. Perry had paid for her vet
training, the rest having been completed before she and her family
had joined the pack. Charlie was glad of all her hard work and
learning, having benefited so strongly from it. He just wished he had
the same drive for something. He felt rudderless and lost.

Right now, he was supposed to be cooking, so he turned the

sausages again. Once the bacon was nearly done, he put on some toast
and did the eggs. He couldn’t see a coffee machine, but there was
plenty of instant, so he set the kettle to boil and put out mugs for them
all to make their tea or coffee how they wanted. The smells of the
bacon and the other food drew everyone to the kitchen like flies, and
the breakfast he dished up got eaten quickly.

“Oh, it’s so nice to have someone else cook for a change. Thank

you, Charlie.” Patricia laughed when they were all finishing up,
looking pointedly at her husband and son.

“Yes, ma!” Jason rolled his eyes at Charlie just as the phone rang.

He jumped to his feet and went to pick up the handset. “Hello?...Yes,
sir…Okay, I’ll send him right over.” After hanging up, he looked at
Charlie. “Perry wants you at his place.”

Charlie thought in Jason’s general direction, you could have

chosen your words better. Perry doesn’t want me at all.

He dawdled on the way over, kicking through a few leaves and

twigs on the ground. It was all still slightly damp from the rain, and
some bits stuck to his shoes. He didn’t really want to see Perry,
knowing the moment he did his wolf would start howling inside him,
wanting to be with his mate. It’s not just my wolf, though, he thought
glumly. Charlie himself craved Perry’s touch like he had craved open
skies, sunshine, and real food during his three-year incarceration in
the cell.

The instant he opened the front door at Perry’s, the scent of his

mate rolled over him like a caress. Inside him, his wolf sat up to

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attention. Mate! Gotta claim, gotta be claimed. He sternly gave the
order to back off. Not that his wolf was a separate creature, not
exactly, or at least he did not think of them as separate beings. It was
more like his wolf was all the instinct and need he felt while he was in
his wolf form. Sometimes those instincts made themselves known
rather clearly, like when he thought to himself in words in his head.

“Charlie? We’re in here,” Perry called from the seldom-used

dining room.

We? Who is we? It’s eight in the morning, who else is here? As

Alpha, Perry frequently had people coming and going from his house,
and there were often extras around at mealtimes, though not often at
breakfast. The house had a large dining room, but more often than
not, it was the sizeable table in the kitchen that was used.

Charlie went to the dining room and hovered in the doorway.

Perry was at the head of the table, and the strangers

he had seen

getting out of cars upon his arrival back from the lake the night before
were spaced out around the rest of its length. They must have eaten
already, judging from the smells still lingering, and cleared the room,
though several of the men present still cradled steaming cups of
coffee. The seat at the other end of the table was empty, and at Perry’s
gesture, Charlie reluctantly went to sit there.

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Chapter Four: Perry

Everything about Charlie said he did not want to be there. It was

written all over him, from the way he avoided looking at anyone to
the way he slouched in the chair. A pang of guilt went through Perry.
He did not want to hurt his mate, but he needed to protect him more
than he wanted to avoid offending him. And there were the others to
think of. He pushed his wolf back. It wanted to go over to his mate,
twine around him, and herd him away from all the strangers. His wolf
slunk to the back of his mind and crouched there, growling softly.
There was no easy way to start this, so he might as well get on with it.

“Charlie, I know we haven’t really spoken about where you have

been for the last three years.” Charlie looked up sharply at this,
suspicious and frowning at him. “I should have talked to you about it
sooner, but I have been thinking, I know someone must have been
holding you somewhere. The state you were in when you came back
was not something anyone would do to themselves.” He had to
choose his words with extreme care. He didn’t want Charlie to know
just how much he had listened in on during his mate’s conversation
with Jason and had warned the other men in the room not to let on
either. He gestured to the man sitting on his right. “This is Jake. He
runs AlphaSec, a private security firm which provides a wide range of
services. One of those services is the rescue of people like yourself
from the kind of situation you must have been in.” He paused,
thinking over his next few sentences. Perry saw that Charlie’s eyes
were still on Jake. He glanced at him again. Jake’s brown hair, hazel
eyes, and light tan gave him a warm, friendly appearance, despite the
frown of concentration on his face as he studied Charlie in return.

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Perry’s wolf shifted inside him, unhappy with so much attention from
the other man on his mate.

“They are here in case whoever held you represents an on-going

threat to both you and the other members of the pack. Would you be
able to tell us what we are facing?” He tried to gauge Charlie’s
reaction, but his mate’s face had shut down, and he was giving
nothing away. Perry found himself randomly thinking how much he
never wanted to play poker against the man, as Charlie remained
silent for some minutes. Everyone else stayed quiet, too, to let Charlie
think.

Charlie nodded sharply, seeming to come to a decision. “I can.

But, it’s not just me, or even the pack. There is a lot more than that.
They had me in the basement of a warehouse. It’s out in the sticks, a
couple of miles off the M6, though there is no direct access from
there. I would guess it’s about eighteen miles from here. The…people
who held me are holding others there, too. I’m sorry, I didn’t know
how to ask for help for them.”

Perry thought he saw a look of shame cross his mate’s face for a

moment before he wiped his expression clean again.

“I don’t know if things have changed since I got out, but during

the day there are normally about ten guards around,
plus…Michaelson…and his doctor.” Charlie was sticking to what he
had said to Jason. He was no longer going to refer to Michaelson as
his father. “At night there are around five or six guards. I don’t know
how many people they have there at the moment. Unless things have
changed a lot, the numbers could be anywhere between thirty and
fifty. When there was more in there, the noise grew noticeably, and
they had to double us up in our cells. The most we ever had numbered
just over a hundred.

“There were at least twenty guards working for him, plus a couple

of scientists, all on different shifts. That’s…um…all I really know, I
think.” Charlie finished, fidgeting in his seat, “Can I go?”

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“In a couple of minutes,” Jake said, taking charge. He then went

on to question Charlie in some detail about particular things he may
or may not have noticed.

After Jake finished questioning Charlie and it had been made

plain to Charlie they would be going in to rescue all the others still
being held by Michaelson, Charlie left. Perry sat in on the rest of the
meeting. He needed to concentrate on anything other than the speed
with which his mate had hurried from the room. He was unable to
shake the feeling that his mate had not just run from the room, but that
he had also run from Perry.

Jake and his men obviously had a lot of practice at what they did.

They quickly had an initial plan in place for scouting the area around
the warehouse and gathering information about the operation that was
going to be performed inside. They also had a tentative date, just over
a week away, for the rescue itself.

Watching the men strategize, a thought which had been floating

around in the back of Perry’s head for the last few hours crystallised.
“Is this your whole pack?” He looked at Jake.

“We all left our packs over the years, winding up meeting each

other in the service. We don’t really have an official pack, but yes,
this is all of us,” the man replied.

“Would you like one?”
“Excuse me?” Jake raised an eyebrow.
“Would you like to join a pack?” Perry elaborated slightly.
“Why do you ask?” Jake looked curious now. The rest of the men

were all looking at him, too, most with rather hopeful expressions,
which boded well for his next question. The one called Cass looked
ready to jump out of his seat and bite Perry’s hand off in his
eagerness. His lean frame was almost vibrating, and his intense brown
eyes were wide with excitement.

“I know it’s rather sudden, but I want to ask you to join my pack,

all of you. We are not a large pack, but we would welcome you all.
Wolves are happier when in a pack.” Despite how obviously close

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knit and self-sufficient this group of men appeared to be, Perry was an
Alpha, and he felt the constant need to look after the other wolves
under his command. He wanted these men to be a part of that
command.

“That is something my men and I would need to talk over between

us before we could give you an answer.” Jake looked around at the
other men seated at the table. “Before we can even go discuss it,
though, you should probably know most of us are gay. It is the reason
several of us had to leave our birth packs.”

Perry gave him an assessing look and then said, “As am I. Shifters

in general have a much higher percentage than humans of their
population that are gay. Did you not know this?” Jake looked
confused, so Perry continued. “We live such long lives, and those of
us who

are not gay tend to have rather a lot of kids.” He smirked,

thinking of Sam and Jess, then shrugged. “Shifter libidos. If most of
us were straight, our population would get out of control. I think fate
makes most of us gay to help regulate our numbers. We have five
mated pairs in the pack who

are male/female. One pair has seven kids

from four pregnancies, and I doubt they are done yet. Only two other
pairs have had pups yet, and those were single births. There are at
least two pregnancies I know of, at the moment, between the five
couples, and I think there may be an announcement of a third soon.
Three of the couples have only mated within the last six years. I think
there will be quite a few more pups on the way over the next six.

“You might…hear things, about myself…and Charlie.” He

nodded at the door Charlie had closed behind him when he had left. “I
suppose you should know. Charlie is my mate, but we have not
claimed each other yet. It’s…complicated, but nothing to do with our
gender. The point is, more shifters are gay than are not. How can you
not know this?”

“The packs we left were pretty conservative. Most of them hold

rather different, and inflexible, views on sexuality to what you are
saying, more old-fashioned ones. There were very few mated gay

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pairs in our packs, well, except for Cam’s, but that’s his own tale to
tell.” Jake nodded apologetically at a spiky-haired blond. “Those gay
pairs were…treated very badly. Though that was not always the
reason all of us left our packs, it was a factor. After we met up and
decided to stick together, we have tended to avoid other shifters. Not
because we didn’t want to belong to a pack again, but we have been
wary of the issues that made us leave our birth packs becoming a
problem with any new pack we might join.” He glanced around again.
“I can already see none of that would be a problem here, and I like
you. I could respect you as my Alpha. We still need to talk things
over in private, though, before making the decision.”

Perry nodded and stood up. “Well, I have pack business to attend

to. I will leave you to your plans for the rescue and to talk.”

He walked out of the room, leaving the group to talk where they

were with some privacy. He really hoped they would take him up on
his offer to join the pack. They were clearly a hard-working and
dedicated group of men who would be an asset to any pack. More
than that though, he liked them and felt they would fit in well with his
own people. Perry had learned to trust his instincts.

He had never liked Michaelson, but he had gone against his

instincts and trusted his word when the man had told him he had no
idea where Charlie was. Michaelson had acted angry and belligerent,
blaming Perry and his “little band of freaks” for having something to
do with Charlie’s disappearance. They had a brief standoff, glaring at
each other with the sound of Charlie’s mother crying in the
background until Perry had left.

Perry had lied. He did not have any official pack business to see

to. Sometimes even a strong Alpha needed a break, so he walked
along the lane to one of the other houses, knocked on the blue door
that led into the kitchen, and walked in.

“Hello? Henry?” After a few moments, he heard a door open

upstairs.

“Perry?”

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“Hey, bro, you busy?”
“Not really, just doing some research.” Henry was an historian.

He had been an archaeologist and crawled all over Egypt fifty years
before Howard Carter got there as well as all sorts of other places. He
also wrote historical mysteries, and his experiences brought the
people and places in his books vividly to life. Henry walked into the
kitchen, and Perry was faced with his almost mirror image, if the
image had shrunk three inches. Henry’s eyes were a little lighter
green, but his hair was just as black, and their features were very
similar. No one looking at them could mistake them for anything
other than brothers.

“Got time for some lunch?”
“Sure, you want to eat here?”
“I thought we could go into town.”
“Oh, okay.” Henry went slightly cross-eyed for a moment,

focusing on the glasses still perched on his nose. He took them off
and put them down next to the battered chrome toaster.

“Why do you wear those anyway?”
Perry’s brother looked confused for a moment.
“The glasses, Hen.”
Henry chuckled. His eyesight was perfect, like all shifters.
“It’s silly really. I got into the habit when I used to go on digs.

Dust in the eyes was a pain. Plus, the humans seemed to like little
things which made me seem a bit more like them. I never caught any
of the bugs they did, and none of the flying bugs or creepy crawlies
ever bit me, so I had to come up with something.” He shrugged.
“They help me concentrate. Where do you want to go for lunch?”

“Craving one of Mike’s burgers.”
“O’Neill’s it is. Is Bobby coming?”
“I’m going to get him next.”
“Okay, I am going to close down my computer. I will meet you at

yours in five.”

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Perry was grateful neither of his brothers made any mention of

Charlie over lunch in their favourite pub. The bar was an easy mix of
traditional style and modern comfort, with dark wood and cream
walls. Squashy sofas and low tables, semicircular booth seats and
higher tables with chairs around them, they were all there. Old and
young in Whithowe flocked to the place for the good food, reasonably
priced drinks, and friendly atmosphere provided by Mike and his
daughter, Kasey, who ran the place together along with a few extra
members of bar staff.

Perry went home after the long lunch around three and tried to

study some investment figures.

Crack! “Damn it!” He really had to stop thinking about

Michaelson. He had been thinking about him and Charlie on and off
all day. Perry had been wiping down the counter in the kitchen after
supper when the man had crept back into his brain yet again, bringing
back all the feelings of anger, frustration, despair, and everything else
Charlie’s disappearance had originally wrought in him. He let go of
the cracked edge of the counter and sighed when a chunk fell to the
floor with a thud and a puff of marble dust. He made a mental note to
call Allan in the morning to see when he could replace or repair the
blasted thing. He went upstairs to take a shower, leaving the chunk of
marble where it had fallen.

Perry could hear Charlie getting ready for bed. He could also hear

Jake and Seb in their rooms. He had a full house tonight. The nine
members of AlphaSec were spread out throughout the houses of
Carden wherever there was a spare bed. They had already decided
they were going to join the pack. They were not going to live at
Carden, though, they were instead going to find a place nearby for
themselves.

The sounds of Charlie in his room made Perry think of earlier

when they had spent more time in the same room at a stretch than
they had since Charlie had first been carried up, in his wolf body, to
Perry’s bed. Once Hannah had finished her initial examination,

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stitched, fixed and bandaged what she could, Perry had barely left his
mate’s side for days. He had not dared leave the room for longer than
it took to go to the en-suite bathroom in case anything had happened.
Once Charlie had awoken, though, Perry had found it next to
impossible to be in the same room. The drive from his wolf to claim
his mate had simply been too strong. An unconscious and injured
Charlie had been something his wolf was okay with hovering over
and protecting, but an awake Charlie with a look of love and trust in
his eyes was something he had to back away from quickly before his
wolf took over. It had tried, that was why he had left the room so fast
that day. The conflict between what his wolf wanted and what he
knew his mate needed was tearing him apart inside.

Perry wanted so badly to claim Charlie but could not bring

himself to believe his mate was healthy enough for that yet. Now
every time he caught Charlie looking at him, there were too many
questions, too much hurt on his face. There was also too much
suffering he knew his mate must have been through, and Perry did not
know how to face any of it. Things would be so much easier if Charlie
was just another member of the pack, but his wolf would not allow
Perry to treat him that way.

He went into his bathroom now, very aware as he passed his bed

of the fact that Charlie had lain there for the all-too-brief time. As
soon as Charlie had been able to walk, he had moved out of Perry’s
room into one of the spares Perry had not been using, and Perry had
gone back to his once again empty bed.

He turned the shower dial high, needing the heat to unwind, and

stepped into the cubicle once the water had a few moments to warm.
He moved under the spray and let his head fall forward, rolling it as
the drops trickled hot paths through his hair and down over his scalp.
He moaned softly as a rivulet of water collected and flowed down his
back. He imagined the sensation to be Charlie running the tips of his
fingers over the tight muscles. He could almost feel the smaller
presence of his mate behind him in the shower. He closed his eyes

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and grasped the heavy length of his cock. In his head, it was Charlie’s
hand reaching around his waist from where he stood, pressed up
against Perry’s back. His breathing sped up in time with his racing
heart. Charlie’s hand stroked his shaft slowly, the streams of water
giving fiery licks of heat to his balls and around the base of his cock.
Charlie kissed his back and sped the pace of his hand slightly, adding
a twist on the upstroke over the head. Perry stumbled when his knees
almost gave way, so he spread his feet and braced a forearm against
the tiles directly under the showerhead. The openmouthed kisses
being pressed against his shoulder blades and the echo of the smell of
Charlie’s skin were enough to finish him off. A grunt was dragged
from his gut as he shot stream after stream of seed into the water,
which swirled around the bottom of the shower stall. He wobbled,
trying to catch his breath as his head cleared. As amazing as his
orgasm had been, the moment it was over the good feelings
disappeared down the drain as fast as his cum had. Perry rubbed a
tired hand through his hair, flipping the wet strands off his forehead.
God he wanted his mate! Charlie, a voice whispered in his head.

Perry finished his shower. He towelled off quickly and fell into

bed naked. His jaw cracked when he yawned heavily, and he
collapsed in a jellied heap after the accompanying bone-popping
stretch. The only muscle in his body capable of movement was his
cock. That was waving hello again already and demanding he go to
his mate. Not gonna happen, Charlie does not need that right now, he
told it. He felt like punching the damn thing but settled for ignoring it
and let his mind wander until he fell asleep.

Perry wandered through his house in his dreams. He saw scenes

that had never happened, in each room, with himself and Charlie.
They cooked together in the kitchen, dancing as Michael Bublé
played on an old gramophone. They made love on the table in the
dining room, Charlie straddling Perry as he leaned back on his arms.
Charlie leaned forward, their foreheads pressed together and staring
into each other’s eyes while Charlie rolled his hips slowly and

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rhythmically. Sweat glistened on their bodies and their loud, heavy
breathing and the creak of the table were the only sounds to be heard.
In the sitting room Perry watched a movie while stroking Charlie’s
hair where he had fallen asleep with his head in Perry’s lap. The fire
crackled and sent up sparks and smoke in the hearth. One of the spare
rooms had turned into a view of outside and the pool Perry had
thought of having put in. They stood in the pool, both laughing as
Charlie tried to get Perry to fall over and into the water by sweeping
Perry’s legs out from under him. In Perry’s room Charlie’s things
were everywhere, new pictures of them together were scattered
around, clothes lay over a chair by the bed, and other personal
belongings were dotted about the room. But in that room Perry could
see himself sitting alone on the bed, heartbroken tears running down
his face and Charlie himself nowhere to be found.

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Chapter Five: Charlie

The last week had been very unsettled, mostly in good ways.

Since Perry had called the men of AlphaSec up from London, life in
the pack was changing.

After that first day, they had all taken off again, leaving only the

human Daniel behind. The others had gone back to London to pack up
their old house while Daniel checked out their new one.

The house they were going to be living in was one that Perry had

ordered built when he, Henry, and Bobby left their pack back in the
late seventeen hundreds. They had lived there for a while but moved
when the town began to grow and enveloped the land around the
house. He and his brothers could not risk the humans noticing that
they did not age as they should do. Perry had stubbornly clung to the
place, though, refusing to sell. Over the years, there had been several
tenants living there, but it had stood empty for decades now. Charlie
had gone with Daniel, in Perry’s pickup, when he went to have his
first look around.

Daniel had been driving, with Charlie in the passenger seat and

Jason bouncing around in excitement in the back. The house was
ridiculously enormous, and they all sat there for a couple of minutes,
staring in openmouthed astonishment.

“Wooooow.”
“I know, right?” Jason shifted forward so he could look between

the car seats and up at the house. They had just come to a halt on the
gravelled drive in front of the enormous house. They could count
fifteen windows on each of the three stories in this section of the
house. Apparently where each of the two wings stretched back there

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was an additional level on each side. It was spring, so the ivy covering
most of the façade was bright green.

“I repeat…wooooow!” Charlie drew the word out again as he had

before.

“So, big enough for you?” Jason asked the silent Daniel.
“Er…yeah, I think that’ll do us.” His expression was slightly

awestruck.

They all got out of the car, which beeped and locked behind them

when Daniel pointed the keys back over his shoulder, pressing a
button. The sky had clouded over on the drive, and a fine misty rain
started just as they got under the white-painted porch jutting out two
metres from the house, sheltering the couple of steps leading up to the
front door. Daniel fished around in the pocket of his blue jeans for the
keys Perry had handed him.

They walked inside and looked around. In front of them, but

slightly offset to the left, was a wide staircase that curled off to the
right after the initial sweep up twenty steps or so. They could see a
back door underneath where the stairs curved right, opposite the front
door. There were a couple of doors along the wall to their right, and
to their left was a large, open hall with an enormous dining table.

“That’s a big table.” Charlie stared at it, counting the chairs

spaced at intervals around it. “Twenty-four.”

“Huh?”
“Sorry, Jase, twenty-four seats around the table.”
“Oh, right. Why isn’t the place covered in dust?”
“Perry said he pays a company to come in and clean once a

month.” Daniel walked off around the side of the table, making for a
door set in the wall at the far end.

“But nobody lives here! Why not just dust sheet the good furniture

and have done?”

“I don’t know.” They went after Daniel, who had disappeared

through the smooth-surfaced and white-painted door. There was a

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corridor in front of them, and another to their right. Daniel’s scent
trail went right.

A couple of hours later they were ready to head back to Carden.

Daniel had written down a lot in a notebook, and he seemed pretty
happy.

“Jake and the guys are not going to believe this place!”
“Yeah, now we know why Perry gets the place dusted once a

month,” Jason commented.

“Ha! Chronic furniture-buying addiction!”
Charlie smiled as he remembered the snarky aside he had made in

response to what Jason had said. It hadn’t been quite true, but Daniel
and Jason had laughed anyway. The house was filled with the most
gorgeous old furniture, which had been bought over the years by
Perry and installed there even when no one lived in it.

When Jake and everyone else had returned two days later with

most of their belongings, they were just as taken with the place as
Daniel had been. The rest of their things were brought up in another
couple of days by a removals company. They moved into the thirty-
bedroom house. It might be larger than they really needed, with only
nine of them going to be living there, but they would be running their
business from there, too, and would need space for offices. There was
also the hope they would one day find their mates and bring them to
live there, too. The house did need some work, though, and with
Perry’s permission, they hired Allan and Patricia’s company to make
some changes. Allan had enough men on the books to be able to get
some of the alterations started right away. The rest would take more
time, but they felt no immediate rush now they had found somewhere
they wanted to settle.

Perry decided to trial Jake with the position of secondary Beta to

the pack. Jake’s men were already used to him being in charge, first
from their time in the military and since then from him heading up
their company. He had done a good job of looking after his men, and
Perry felt he would do just as good of a job with the additional

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responsibilities that came with being one of his Betas. Perry’s other
Beta was Sam. He had always done a good job, but in the many years
since he had become Beta not only had the pack increased in size, but
the man’s personal responsibilities had increased since he met his
mate and they had numerous children. Perry had no problem with the
job Sam did, he was great, but an additional Beta would give
everyone extra support. Also with both of them working together Jake
would learn all he needed to know about the pack much more quickly.

Jake had heard out Perry’s offer with some surprise, but Perry had

become a fairly shrewd judge of character over his life, and the trust
he had developed in his instincts had only ever let him down once. He
told his prospective beta he had faith in him and asking was not just a
whim on Perry’s part. Jake had accepted the position. Time would tell
for both of them if it had been the right thing for the pack, and they
would revisit the subject after a while to see if they were both still
happy about it. The only time Perry’s instincts had let him down,
Charlie knew, had been when the Alpha had believed Michaelson
when he had denied knowledge of Charlie’s whereabouts. Even
though Perry no longer wanted Charlie as his mate, he probably felt as
though he had let Charlie down, and that must burn.

Everyone liked the men of AlphaSec, including Charlie. The

wolves of the group, who was everyone except Daniel, were all young
as far as shifters went. They were all under forty. Daniel, at twenty-
seven, was only a few years older than Charlie, and he liked the other
man a lot. After what Charlie had been through at the hands of
Michaelson and his men, he couldn’t help but be wary of other men,
especially ones he did not know. He had thought he had known his
stepfather, and look how that had turned out. Daniel was different,
though. Though he had spent time in the military with the other
AlphaSec men, and he could take care of himself, he was not as
physically imposing as the others. However nice the rest of them
might be, Charlie preferred Daniel’s company, his and Jason’s.

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Most of the pack had known Charlie for years, and there was

always something in their eyes when they looked at him these days. It
wasn’t pity exactly, more of an awareness of what he had gone
through and a carefulness in the way they spoke to him. He flinched
inside every time he caught one of those looks or heard one of their
carefully worded sentences. He did not want or need the eggshell
approach, as he had come to think of the way everyone treated him.
Neither Jason nor Daniel were like that, so he felt free to enjoy
spending time with them both, and the three of them were fast
becoming friends. Triple trouble, was how Cameron had taken to
referring to them. He always said it with a smirk.

Daniel was unpacking his stuff. He had brought one laptop with

him the first time he had come up, then a crate containing another
laptop and a PC after the packing-up trip to London when they had
made the arrangements for their move. Charlie had thought that would
be all of them. Boy was I ever wrong. he thought, watching Daniel
unpack in bemusement. Out came computer tower after tower, screen
after screen. The human kept using words like repeater, hub, and
router, but Charlie had no clue what he was talking about. Charlie was
having fun watching, though, the room was starting to feel like
something out of a spy movie or that computer nerd’s office on the
crime drama programme Jason’s mum liked to watch. The one about
those FBI agents who profiled criminals so they could work out who
they were in order to catch them. Except Daniel has more gadgets, he
thought.

The rest of the men were doing other unpacking, though a few

were installing elements of a security system throughout the house.
Security was their thing after all, and it would be a bit embarrassing to
have anyone break into the security expert’s house, especially when
said experts were shifters with heightened senses. There had been a
very basic model installed already, but they had ripped that out and
got busy putting their own in.

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There were many boxes still to be emptied, stacked up in the

corridor outside the room Charlie and Daniel were in. Not all of the
computers in the house were Daniel’s, far from it apparently. There
was also to be a security room, though Daniel said any computer in
the house would be able to access the system. Each of the men had
their own computer, too, some laptops, some PCs. God, I was only
out of the loop for three years, Charlie thought to himself, might as
well have been a decade the way computers have developed. I know I
was never up on all the latest stuff, but what’s an iPad for fuck’s
sake?

There were several of the things floating around, and Charlie,

though he hadn’t gotten his hands on one yet, thought they looked
pretty cool. There were computers at Carden of course, but nothing
like what was being unpacked at Blue Gables.

“Yo, Charlie!” Daniel bellowed, making him jump.
“What? Why are you yelling?”
“Only ’cause I had to say your name like eight times…You

okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, just kinda spaced out. Been thinking about all that’s

been going on since I met you guys. It’s been, what…a week? It feels
like the whole pack is being turned upside down, and I only got back
less than a month ago myself. Plus I can’t get over all this.” He waved
a hand around the room at all the equipment.

Daniel grinned. “These are my babies.”
“You have an awful lot of babies,” Charlie observed dryly.
“Can you pass that cable?” Daniel asked, then elaborated after

Charlie looked at the eight million cables laid out on the table and
raised an eyebrow at him. “Ha! Jake does that, too, the eyebrow thing.
The grey cable with the USB jack on one end.” Charlie found the
right one, then handed it to him and watched while Daniel got down
and wiggled behind one of the desks. “Now the yellow one with
phone-type jacks on both ends.” His hand appeared from behind the
desk and waved around in the air until Charlie put the right cable in it.

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“Uh, Dee?” Jake asked from the doorway. Charlie caught a

glimpse of a peculiar expression on his face. The Beta was looking at
Daniel’s rear end while the smaller man wiggled back out from
behind the desk. The look was wiped away when Jake noticed Charlie
was looking at him. Hmmmm, what was that about? Is there
something going on there? he wondered. No, there can’t be. Daniel is
straight. Besides, there is no smell of either of them on the other.

“Hey, Jake.”
“Hi, Charlie. Dee, the security system is all in place, and the

computer and screens are all set up and ready for you,” Jake said.

“Okay, I will be there in…actually I suppose I can come now.”

Daniel looked around. “I can hook it in with the rest once the network
is up and running. Best to get the cameras working ASAP.” He said
the acronym as a word, not the initials as Charlie would have.

“Oh, Charlie, Jason is here to pick you up. I told him he could

make himself something to eat, so he is in the kitchen emptying the
fridge.”

Charlie barked out a laugh at Jake’s words. It was true though. He

sometimes thought Jason ate more than he did himself. Given the way
he had been eating to pile weight back on and heal, that was saying
something. Charlie was very happy to see the old and new pack
members all accepting each other so easily. It’s only been a few days
since Perry asked them to join us, and they are already mixing in like
family.

Charlie left the room and went off in search of the kitchen. He

followed his nose until he came across Jason with a massive sandwich
in his hands.

“Can you even get your mouth around that?” Charlie instantly

wished he could take back the words as he heard how the sentence
sounded when said aloud. He mentally slapped himself and held back
a giggle as he looked at Jason, who was rather more innocently
minded, but Jason did not even notice the way the words could have
been taken.

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“Of course,” Jason replied and proceeded to prove it.
The sight of Jason stuffing his face with the giant sandwich woke

up Charlie’s stomach, which sounded out a loud growl.

“Make me one? Er…slightly smaller, though.”
Charlie had been at Blue Gables, the house now lived in by Jake

and his men, for most of the day. While he had been there, Jason had
been taking the last of his A level exams, and he had been psyched
that morning that they were almost over.

“So how did they go today?” Charlie asked his friend.
Jason shrugged. “Guess I will know when I get my results. Not

too bad I suppose.” He was not the type to stress over something that
could not be changed. He stood and went to the fridge, getting things
out, stacking them in one arm.

“I did say smaller!” Charlie watched his friend put half the things

he was holding back again and then go over to the counter in the
middle of the kitchen to make the requested sandwich. They ate in
happy silence for a few minutes, then went to say good-bye to Daniel
before going back to the pack settlement for a run in the forest.

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Chapter Six: Perry

At first glance, the smallish building, which stood underneath the

large collection of what appeared to be some kind of communication
masts, seemed harmless. That’s what Perry thought anyway. The
others with him plainly thought differently as they looked and
whispered away to each other via the secure comm system Daniel had
set up.

Perry listened to the chatter and gradually began to notice the

cameras and guards in unobtrusive positions. Then he watched the
guards and couldn’t quite believe how inept they appeared. He would
not have normally spotted them unless he was close enough to scent
them. Yes, they were there, and yes, they were fairly well hidden, but
they paid minimal attention to their job and more to their mobile
phones and each other than their surroundings. So back to my first
thought—he gave a feral grin—maybe they are not totally harmless,
but they are certainly incompetent and ripe for their upcoming and
well-deserved arse kicking!

His grin turned utterly evil as he contemplated what he would like

to do to the guards who had helped hold his mate prisoner, beaten and
tortured him. Charlie’s stepfather may be a rat bastard and, after the
primary objective of rescuing the other prisoners, one of Perry’s
targets. The guards, however, they had been the ones in charge of him
from day to day, and they had been the ones to follow Michaelson’s
psychotic orders. Perry’s wolf was pacing inside him, growling and
eyeing the guards with as much anticipation as Perry. The tips of his
fingers itched as he struggled to stop his claws from ripping through
them. Right now, he needed to be able to think clearly, not be ruled by

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his instincts. The time would come, and soon, but for now he had to
hold his wolf back. Darkness had begun to creep in since they had
arrived to begin scouting around. Two of the men were going to be
coming back in a few hours, and again for the next couple of nights so
they would be able to get a good indication of the routines the guards
at the warehouse used. They wanted their first look at the place to be
in daylight.

“Huh.”
“Problem?” Daniel was doing something techy Perry didn’t fully

understand. He watched as Daniel typed away furiously on the on a
netbook he had gotten out and attached to another gadget. Seb
watched from Daniel’s other side, smirking slightly at the way Perry
was frowning in confusion at what Daniel was doing. Seb, with his
black hair, green eyes, and six-foot-five muscled build, could have
been mistaken for another one of Perry’s brothers, if it had not been
for his darker, more Mediterranean complexion. He was a quiet, well-
spoken man, and Perry liked him a lot.

“Exact opposite actually.” Despite his assertion, Daniel was

frowning at his netbook.

“What is it then?”
“Oh, sorry! I already knew there were no external internet

connections to the place, but there is no wireless network either.
Those are not fake security cameras, but I don’t have any access. It
must be a closed system, meaning there is only access from inside the
building. That may not sound like a good thing, but it means when we
hit the place, it will only be the guards present we will need to worry
about. There will be no one watching from another location, ready to
jump in and help them.”

“So why the scowl?” Perry was puzzled. Daniel had explained the

situation well once prodded into it, but the reason behind his scowl
was still unclear.

“Just seems too easy.”
“Huh.”

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“What?” Daniel glanced away from his netbook and over at Perry.
“Annoying, isn’t it.” Perry shot a cocky look at the smaller man.

Then he said, “Some people are never satisfied is all. Nothing wrong
with being easy, right?”

“I suppose not, but whenever things seem too easy is usually

when the smelly brown stuff hits the big swirly thing.”

Perry paused before laughing quietly at Daniel’s peculiar phrasing

of the well-known saying. The human was way too young to be that
cynical.

Everyone jumped at the coffee upon their return to Blue Gables

then went to gather in the dining room. Perry agreed with most of
them, the name of the large house was way too cute. The subject of
changing it at some later date had been raised briefly, but there were
other things to concentrate on at the moment. One of the tenants that
had occupied the house years ago had somehow managed to sneak the
name registration through. They all picked up their mugs and
wandered through to sit around the enormous dining room table.

“So we don’t actually know how many people are being held in

there.” Perry knew he was stating the obvious, but they had to start
somewhere.

“No, but from what Charlie said, there could be anywhere up to a

hundred of them,” Jake replied.

“Back to where they will all be staying. You are sure they will be

okay to stay here? If there were not many of them, then they could
stay at Carden, but if there are more than ten we would have
problems. I think they will find it more comfortable if they are all in
the same place. If we start splitting them up, they may get suspicious
of what could be going on. We want them to feel at ease, not that they
have gone from one horrible place to somewhere which could be
worse.”

Jake scratched his head absently while he thought. “They should

be fine here. A lot of the place still needs attention, though. And not
knowing how many of them there will be could be a problem when it

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comes to how many beds we will need. Where will we get a lot of
beds on short notice?” Jake looked at Daniel.

“I can look into that.” Daniel bent his head over his Tablet. “Give

me a few minutes.”

How many computers does the man have? Perry wondered. I’ve

seen him with a laptop, a netbook, an iPad, and that’s not even
starting on all the equipment in his lair, which looks more like the
bridge of the Enterprise than an office.

They talked between themselves for a few minutes until Daniel

looked up again. “Beds won’t be a problem, though I will need to
know numbers so I can put orders in. There are several companies
who do next-day deliveries, even for large multiples of items.” He
shot glances between Jake and Perry, waiting for a decision to be
made.

“Okay, here then,” Jake spoke, “how about this? Forty singles and

ten bunk beds should do to start with. Duvets, pillows, sheets, and
covers for all sixty, with twice that number spares.” He looked at
Perry for confirmation, who nodded.

“Pack funds will cover this. Let me know how much you spend,

and I will have the money transferred. You better order some clothes
for them, too, in a selection of sizes. Use your own judgement on
quantity. We can always order more or give it to charity later on. Get
some night things and comfortable, soft clothing for the daytime.
Sweats, T-shirts, hoodies, socks, that sort of thing. Forget shoes, we
can sort those out when we know sizes.” Perry finished speaking to
Daniel, then looked at Jake. “We need to figure out a plan for the
aftermath, too. Not just where people will sleep, but guard duty and
other things. There will definitely be a need for food and medical care
after we get them all out, so I will have Betts and Doc waiting here
ready for them. I can have several men come over for guard duty so
you guys don’t have to do it all. Let me know how many you think
you will need and we can talk shift length and schedules.”

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They talked for some time, making lists of things they thought

would be needed, guard rotas, transport, and all sorts of other things,
including when the mission itself would take place. Its original date
had been pushed back a little while Jake and his friends made their
move up from London. The rescue was planned for four days later at
11:00 p.m. Not only did a lot of guards tend to be less alert at night,
but Charlie had told them he knew of at least one vampire being held
there.

While daylight wouldn’t kill a vampire, exposure to the sun could

be very painful for him or her, depending on their age. So, a night
rescue it would have to be. Betts and Doc were called in, too, and
were consulted on lists of food and medical supplies they thought
needed to be laid in.

While the discussions went on, Perry noticed Daniel using a few

minutes to do the ordering online. He had to use two different
companies for the beds. Neither one currently had enough stock for
the numbers that had been agreed upon.

* * * *

“Perry! That one is going up to the second floor. Can you give me

a count when you come back down?” The beds were arriving, and
Daniel was checking lists and directing traffic, telling everyone where
they were all supposed to go. At the moment the beds were all being
lined up in corridors so they could make sure the right ones got to the
correct rooms before they were all unpacked and put together.

Perry hefted the single mattress over his shoulder, bending

forward slightly to balance properly, and walked carefully up the first
flight of stairs, along the balcony and up the second flight. The thing
was not heavy, not for him, but it was rather awkward to carry. The
plastic sheeting wrapped around the mattress was a little slippery, and
he nearly dropped it on reaching the top when he had to move aside
quickly when two of the kids, young Danny and Matthew, went flying

Alpha Second

past him to run downstairs. The house was bustling with activity. As
well as the arrival of the beds, bedding, and clothing that had been
ordered, Allan was trying to get some work done on the bathrooms
with some men he had brought in. Some of the bathrooms would be
fine as they were, but some would need gutting and complete
refurbishing over the next few months. Basic repair would have to do
for now though.

“Slow down, boys.” Perry did not want them falling.
“Sorry, sir.” two young voices called back.
There was the thunder of baby elephants as the kids continued

their speedy descent. Perry shrugged, nearly dropping the mattress
again. As long as they are okay. He took the mattress through to the
right wing of the house and did a quick count. Eleven plastic wrapped
packages leaned against the walls here, twelve once his own joined
them, and six of the big brown cardboard parcels that each contained
a single bed.

“Twelve mattresses, six single beds,” he told Daniel when he got

back downstairs.

“Okay, another six singles, two bunks, and four mattresses up

there and that wing is full. Cameron?” Daniel looked at his friend, an
athletic blond who always looked bright and chipper, whom everyone
adored.

“Third floor left wing, fourteen single beds, nine mattresses.”
“Just five more mattresses up there then.”
Daniel sent them both up with plastic-wrapped packages to the

third floor left wing another couple of times before moving them on
to other things.

“Ow! Bloody thing.” Perry swore, nearly throwing the Allen key

across the room. The hexagon-shaped key kept slipping in the little
metal head of the screws and every time it did, he banged his hand in
the exact same place. He shook it and tightened that screw a little
more before moving to the next one.

Violet Joicey-Cowen

“Ready for me in here?” Charlie spoke as the door swung open.

“Oh, um, hi, Perry.”

“Charlie, what are you doing?” Ready for him? Christ! What does

he want? Perry could feel his cock hardening already with the
presence of his mate. His wolf began to stir, and he could almost feel
fur break out across his skin. It’s a good job I’m lying on my front at
the moment. Perry did not want to scare Charlie with the bulge in his
jeans that would be rather too obvious once he rolled over, so he
stayed where he was.

Charlie waggled an electric screwdriver at him. “Oh, that’s you

with that job, is it?” Perry could have smacked himself. Of course it’s
him with that job. Why else would he be here with it, you dumbass?

“Are the beds in here ready?”
“That one is. Nearly done here, too.” Perry finished as quickly as

he could with the remaining two screws, hyperaware of Charlie
making his way round the other bed, tightening the screws in it. With
careful movements, he stood and spread the wooden slats that would
support the mattress across the base of the bed. He turned to slip out
of the room just as Charlie stood, and they nearly crashed into each
other.

“Shit!”
“Oh!”
They both froze, inches apart. He looked down at Charlie and

watched as Charlie’s eyes slid over his chest and up to meet his own
heavy-lidded gaze. An electric current went through Perry when their
eyes met, and he trembled, battling to hold his wolf back. Charlie’s
scent curled around him in tendrils. He could almost feel it rolling
over his skin, caressing and teasing. His breathing sped up. This close
to Charlie and he could hear his mate’s heart rate grow faster.
Charlie’s eyes dilated, and the smaller man began to pant softly as he
stared up at Perry. Unable to move, all Perry could do was stand
there, feeling his breath coming in little pants as well, as it
synchronised with Charlie’s.

Alpha Second

Distantly, as if from underwater, he heard a noise approaching.

Charlie must have heard it, too, because a small whimper of protest
escaped him.

“Oof!” a young voice grunted.
Then Perry was spitting feathers. He was not angry, he was

actually spitting feathers out of his mouth. They were everywhere. He
looked over at the door. Milly and one of her brothers, also covered in
little white feathers, stared at him and Charlie in horror. It had to be
Miles because Astley had stayed home that day.

“Oh, sir. I’m so sorry!” Milly turned to her brother and smacked

him around the back of his head. “You idiot.”

“Me? What about you? It’s not my pillow that burst.” Perry

noticed both kids were clutching pillows and that Milly’s was leaking
feathers.

“Yeah, but you started it.”
“Did not,”
“Did, too,”
“Did not.”
“You so did,” You little liar.”
“Did not.” Miles turned and ran from the room. “I’m telling

Mum!”

Milly paused. “Sorry, Perry, I’ll get the Hoover.” Then she turned

and ran after her brother. “Don’t you dare tell Mum, you little liar!
You know you started it!” she shouted. Her voice got fainter as they
ran off.

Perry went to look back at Charlie, but he had turned and was

walking out of the door. What just happened? Perry could not quite
figure it out. It’s almost as if he wanted me, too. He can’t have,
though, it’s too soon for him. Way too soon. No, I have to wait until
he is ready. I have to wait for him to come to me.

Two days later, they were all set up for an influx of new residents

at Blue Gables. Jake and his men had all doubled up in the bedrooms
they were using, and they had finished setting the new beds up

Violet Joicey-Cowen

throughout the house. Allan had finished the initial work he had
planned, and Betts had been cooking up a storm, laying in rather vast
amounts of supplies to feed a large array of different supernatural
creatures. Perry had asked him to prepare for the most common
supernatural beings. He had known how much food Charlie had
needed when he had first got out of that place, and Betts had to be
ready, times a lot more. They didn’t know how long the rescued
prisoners would be with them either, so they thought it best to plan for
a longer stay—err on the side of caution, as Patricia said.

Alpha Second

Chapter Seven: Perry

The scent carried on the air had Perry’s wolf on full alert. Jake

and his men had trained and had tamed their natural reactions, which
was a good thing, because judging from how Perry and his men were
feeling, the natural reactions of their wolves to the scent was to run as
far and as fast as they could away. Perry’s men were not running,
though. He felt immensely proud of them. They were ready for the
job they had to do, but were obviously fighting an inner battle with
their wolves at every step. The scent spoke of death, sickness, and
starvation. More than that though, the place stank of evil, the dark
intentions of twisted souls. While his men wanted to run away,
Perry’s wolf was Alpha, meant to look after and protect those in his
charge and those in need of help. Perry’s wolf wanted to run toward
the building in front of them, wanting to help anyone at the mercy of
those running the place. It wanted to destroy the building and prevent
the evil inside from harming anyone else and kill the perpetrators.

Perry had an eye on his watch, marking the minutes as they

passed. At five past eleven, he made a motion in the air with a closed
fist, signalling his group the agreed time had arrived. As one, they
began to creep stealthily forward.

Reaching the designated entry point for their group, Perry paused.

Placing his ear to the cold metal door he listened for any activity
within. As Daniel had no access to the security cameras, he was
making do with thermal imaging, but there was always a chance
something might not show up because it was being shielded
somehow. Hearing nothing, he cracked the door open and paused
again, this time letting the scents from within wash over him. The

Violet Joicey-Cowen

scent they had all detected earlier increased tenfold once the door
opened and even Perry’s wolf quailed for a moment at the stench of
suffering wafting out. He mastered his feelings and led the way into
the building, followed closely by Ant and the other two in his team.
He was proud of his men, how they were able to carry on despite what
their wolves must be going through inside them.

They followed the floor plan they had memorised from what

Daniel had managed to dig up and quickly made their way to the
stairs heading down into the basement level. Charlie had told them the
basement was where they were all kept, and it had been vastly altered,
several times, so once they were below ground level any blueprints
would be about as useful as a chocolate frying pan.

Perry began to hear noises filtering up from the prisoners’ cells.

Despite his prior knowledge of what happened down there or maybe
because of it, the sounds fingered his soul with an icy touch, and he
shivered. Sobs of despair mingled with whimpers of those in pain. He
pulled his wolf closer to the surface, strengthening his Alpha Presence
to calm the men with him. They had started to shift about uneasily,
and Perry could feel their wolves’ discontent, but they settled again,
reassured by their Alpha.

Daniel was coordinating the assault, and Perry listened as he

spoke quietly over the group’s comm system to Jake, warning him of
the presence of one of the guards. The thermal heat sensors they were
using to try to keep track of the guards’ whereabouts were doing their
job well and were picking up six guards. As soon as one of the teams
found the computer that had control of the cameras around the
warehouse, they would manually jack into it with the equipment
Daniel had sent with each group. After a moment, Daniel gave Jake
the go-ahead to continue.

As they made their way down the last few steps, the noises from

the cells around them began to fade, the occupants becoming aware of
their presence and falling silent.

Alpha Second

There were no guards in the immediate vicinity of Perry and his

group, so the moment they were outside the cells, they began to open
them. The cell doors had no locks on them, just a bolt and latch
system which would be impossible to open from the inside.

Perry thought the first cell he opened was empty until what he had

thought was a bundle of rags on the bed moved. He approached
cautiously, not wanting to scare whoever lay there. He inhaled
carefully, trying to pick out the scent of the person in the tattered
clothing and blanket, and smelled wolf. He crouched next to the bed
so he didn’t appear to loom threateningly over the wolf shifter and
gently pulled the thin blanket down enough to see the person
underneath.

“Easy,” he whispered after clearing his throat a couple of times.
The dull brown eyes staring back at him from the emaciated face

damn near broke him. How could anyone say they lived in a civilised
society when some of them did things like this? There was no fear or
any other expression on the man’s scruffy, bearded face. He looked as
though he no longer cared one way or another what happened to him.
Perry cleared his throat again to try to get rid of the sudden lump,
which

had arisen, making it difficult to speak without his voice

cracking.

“What’s your name?” The man didn’t answer. “We are here to get

you all out. Can you walk?”

The man didn’t move, he just continued to look at Perry blankly,

so Perry bundled him up in the grimy blanket and carried the gaunt
bundle to the door. He was so light in Perry’s arms Perry could hardly
believe this guy was still alive.

Daniel gave the all clear just then. Jake and his men had taken

care of all the guards and found the computer system. They must have
jacked in like had been planned and checked there were no more
guards lurking somewhere. They were too professional a group for
Daniel to give the announcement without being very sure of his facts.
The taking of the facility, if anyone could even call the place that, had

Violet Joicey-Cowen

been very quick and apparently relatively painless. Perry felt free to
walk straight up and out with his fragile cargo. He took the man over
to one of the trucks they had hired for tonight’s use. A couple of the
men had stayed with the trucks and moved them closer once Daniel
had given them a signal it was safe. Perry left the man in the care of
Henry, one of Perry’s two brothers, and headed back to help someone
else. He passed several of his men assisting others out of the building.

Once underground again he found another shut door and opened

it. His jaw exploded with pain, snapping his head back as he took a
blow right on his chin. The blow wasn’t enough to knock him down,
though, and he quickly blocked the second hit aimed at his ribs and
the third which came back at his face.

“Whoa! What the hell? We’re here to help.”
“Wolf?” a deep voice growled at him after Perry heard a snuffling

sound.

“Yes.” He sniffed at the other in return. “Bear?” The other man

growled an affirmative noise in response. “I promise we are here to
help, to get you all out. Come on.” He stood back and ushered the
large man out of the cell. Good lord, the man was huge. Taller even
than Perry, which

was saying something. He was broader, too, though

if he was a bear that was understandable.

“Where is she?”
“Who? You know someone else here?” Perry watched as the bear

shifted from foot to foot for a moment, obviously unsure of whether
to answer Perry’s question or not.

“My mate,” the bear admitted.
“We will find her. You go on out to the trucks. She may have

already been taken out to them. If not, then please wait there. We will
get everyone out, but we don’t want anyone to get left behind when
we leave because they came back in.”

Ant was passing with a body clutched in his arms and a scowl on

his face, so Perry sent the bear off with him and opened another door.

Alpha Second

The last cell Perry went into appeared empty, just like the first one

had. He paused uncertainly in the doorway and heard a noise from
under the bed. He edged into the room, moving very slowly when he
smelled the sour stink of fear in the air grow stronger. Whoever was
under the bed was terrified.

“Please…no more.” A faint whisper pleaded, “Not again.”
Perry knelt down on the floor, uncaring of the filth and slime

coating the hard cement surface. He kept his voice low and calm. “Hi.
It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you.”

The small figure, which wasn’t much more than a vague shadow

in the poor light, shuffled backwards. It was trying to flatten itself
against the wall to get as far away from Perry as it could. He could
not tell at the moment whether this person was male or female.

“Hurt, you all hurt me and take what you want. It’s not my

choice!” The last three words were almost shouted. Their implication,
of exactly what the guards had done to this person, left Perry feeling
sick. He thought the person under the bed was male, from the tones of
the voice, but was not entirely sure. Had the guards been raping the
prisoners? Bile rose in his throat. Had they raped Charlie? He
swallowed hard and shut the thoughts away, ignoring his wolf. The
person under the bed was the one needing his help right now. The
stink in the cell was overpowering, and Perry found it hard to
distinguish the individual scent of this one person.

“Here.” Perry held his hand out, just under the side of the bed.

“Smell me. I’m not like them. There are a group of us here to get you
all out. We won’t let the guards hurt any of you anymore.”

There was the smallest of sounds under the bed, and then Perry

found himself with an armful of tiny male as the person scrabbled out
from under the bed and threw himself at Perry, clinging to him and
shivering with nerves. Yes, definitely male, Perry thought as the
person wrapped his skinny limbs around him with surprising strength.
But how old is he? He is pretty small, even accounting for being

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starved in this horrible place. But why would they have youngsters
here? I have not seen sign of any others so far.

“Wolf! You can help me, you can protect me!”
“Take it easy.” Perry ran a hand over the youth’s back in what he

hoped was a soothing movement. “Come on, let’s get you out of
here.” He stood carefully, wary of letting any further hurt come to the
person in his arms, and carried him out to the trucks.

It looked like all the prisoners had been got out but Jake,

Cameron, Seb, and Cass went back in to do a final sweep.

Perry watched the four men lope off to have a last check of the

building. He moved to the rear of the truck to help the young person
he held up into the back, but the youth clung to him like a monkey
with his face buried in Perry’s neck. Perry waved Ant off when he
tried to help, and instead climbed into the truck and sat down. This
person had been through enough, and it seemed like a very small
thing to let him get what comfort he could by sticking with Perry for
the ride back to Carden.

Alpha Second

Chapter Eight: Charlie

The last few hours had been hell for Charlie. He knew he could

have got in contact with Daniel at any time to find out how things
were going, but he had not wanted to interrupt or distract the man at a
crucial moment of the operation. As he would have to contact Daniel
to find out if they were at a critical point, he felt stuck. He drank
coffee and paced, and paced and drank some more coffee.

“Charlie.”
Charlie growled back at Hannah and paused in his pacing to

twitch back one of the heavy, maroon velvet curtains, which hung in
each of the window bays in the long dining room. His worries were
going round and round in his head, and he did not want to talk. The
dining room overlooked the gravelled driveway and the long
sweeping Tarmac road which led to it. He glared out into the night at
the shadowed part where the road split, half leading up to the front
entrance and the other half disappearing behind the house.

“Come on, Charlie, calm down.”
He growled at her again. He did not look her way, but he could

see her reflection clearly in the window glass. She hovered a couple
of feet behind him, one hand fluttering, undecided, halfway between
her side and reaching out to him.

“Wearing a trench in the floor is not going to do any of them any

good, sweetheart. Why don’t you go help Betts in the kitchen?”

He could not help it, his growl got louder and deeper at the same

time. His wolf was warning her to back off and leave him alone. Her
wolf must have heard the bite that had entered into his growl, because
she backed away a few paces.

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“Okay, I’ll go.” He could see both of her hands had risen, as if to

pacify him, or ward him off, he was not sure which. “Just…ugh,
never mind.” She left him in peace.

There was not much peace to be had, though. He knew what the

prisoners in the warehouse had gone through, and he wanted them out
of there. However, he knew seeing them again would bring back all
the unwanted memories for him he was only just barely starting to get
over. His stupid imagination kept throwing pictures at him. His head
was full of visions of Perry getting hurt, lying bleeding on the floor
with no one able to help. Images of someone else getting hurt and
their family blaming Perry and Perry in turn blaming Charlie danced
around in there, too. He could hear Perry telling him he wished
Charlie had never escaped, that he was more trouble than he was
worth. It was driving him crazy.

Finally, after what seemed like days, he heard the trucks pull up

and raced for the back door. He ran outside to see what he could do to
help. He was distracted by the first thing he saw. A knot of tension
inside him unwound at the site of his unharmed mate climbing
awkwardly out of the back of the truck. Then Charlie’s wolf snarled
inside as he looked again. Perry held someone in his arms.

The person Perry held was small and, judging from the skinny

arms and legs that were currently wrapped around Perry, clinging on
tightly, rather obviously underweight. Charlie scented the air carefully
and picked up the smell of his mate along with another’s twined in
with it. The other scent told of mistreatment, starvation, and filth, but
it also said male, and it was all he could do to hold back the throat-
ripping snarl that bubbled up. Perry would not come near Charlie, but
he would hold this person and let them wrap themselves around him
like ivy. Charlie turned his attention back to the bindweed in his
mate’s arms. The clinging clematis had reddish brown hair, no, the
hair was red and brown, Charlie realised, a dark brown streaked with
mahogany red. The colouring was very unusual and somehow
familiar. Charlie did not meet Perry’s eyes as the Alpha looked

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around, glancing first back into the truck then at the back door of the
house where Charlie waited.

Charlie followed Perry into the house and up to one of the

bathrooms. He stood, watching, while Perry tried to persuade the
wisteria to let go of Perry’s neck, and get the twiney, winding legs
from around his waist. Something about the scent was bothering
Charlie, but he could not quite place it.

“Nononononono! Need to stay with you. You will protect me.

You said you would. You have to protect me.” The words came fast
and high pitched in panic.

As much as Charlie wanted the best for whoever this person was,

his wolf did not care about the too-fast breathing, the scent of fear, or
the terror in the voice. His wolf just wanted this person away from his
mate. Charlie was having a hard time staying back and out of reach of
the other two.

Perry sighed. “Come on, you need to calm down.” His words

echoed what Hannah had been trying to tell Charlie earlier, and his
voice was low and soft as if he talked to a wild animal. “You are out
of there now. You are safe here. I promise. What is your name?”

“Ke…Kediah.” The reply was much quieter than the first rush of

words had been, and Charlie thought for a moment he must have
heard wrong. Then his brain caught up with his ears and everything
came together, the hair, the scent, and the name.

“Kedi?” Charlie took an involuntary step forward, disbelief

written all over him.

The figure, which was still wrapped around his mate, jerked and

looked up for the first time, his silvery-blue eyes meeting Charlie’s
over Perry’s broad shoulder. Charlie gasped. It was Kedi! Christ, it
was no man that Perry cradled, no threat for his wolf to worry about,
this was a boy, and one Charlie had thought two years dead.

“Charlie?” Kedi whispered. He stared at him over Perry’s

shoulder for a long moment before abruptly letting go of the Alpha
and sliding down the big body only to push past him and throw

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himself at Charlie. He got a brief glimpse of Kedi’s whole face, with
his delicate and elfin features, before Kedi crashed into him. He saw
Perry turn and stare in astonishment. Charlie ignored Perry, pulled the
boy close, and clutched at him just as tightly in return. He could
scarcely believe the boy was alive.

“You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re alive.” Kedi was repeating the

words over and over in his ear as if he was praying, or just trying to
convince himself of the truth of Charlie’s existence.

When Charlie had first been thrown into hell by his stepfather, he

had been in the barred cages, before they put the walls in. In the cage
to the left of his, there had been a boy of barely thirteen years. The
boy, Kedi, had told him he had been in the place for a couple of
months after being caught on his first run after shifting for the very
first time. Kedi had been a sweet boy, and Charlie had given him what
comfort he could, protecting him as much as he was able from the
horrors the place held. Kedi had been the only one of the other
prisoners not to turn on him after they all found out he was
Michaelson’s stepson. At one point, they had even been housed
together for a few weeks and had huddled together for the additional
warmth. When the guards had come to have their fun with Charlie, he
had made Kedi turn away so he would not have to watch them violate
Charlie after beating him.

After the bars had been covered over, turning the cages into cells,

and Charlie and Kedi had been separated again, they had still
managed low-voiced conversations. They had been friends, and he
had cared about Kedi very much. After Charlie came round from a
particularly brutal session with the guards, they took great delight in
informing him that his friend was dead, and he believed them. He had
been devastated to learn those monsters had killed such a sweet kid.
Though, by that point, it was hardly a surprise that they were capable
of such callousness or that they had killed Kedi. But here he was,
alive and clinging to Charlie as if he would never let go.

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“I am alive, and you are, too. Keds, they told me you died. I’m so

sorry I believed them. I won’t let anyone take you away again.”
Charlie heard Perry shift his weight, but he kept his attention on Kedi.

Kedi needed to get clean and dry so he could get checked out by

Hannah, and fed. Charlie rubbed the boy’s back a couple of times
then drew his hands back to Kedi’s shoulders.

“Keds, you need to get clean so we can make sure you are okay.

Let’s get you undressed.”

The boy released his hold on Charlie only to clutch at the ragged

and dirty clothing he wore. Charlie picked up the sound of Kedi’s
heartbeat as it got faster, and the boy seemed to shrink, cowering, as
he stared over at Perry in wide-eyed fright. It did not matter that Perry
had helped him once already, he would not undress in front of him.
The thought of taking his clothes off around the large Alpha plainly
terrified him.

The last time Charlie had seen Kedi, the boy had been beaten,

starved, and experimented on, but left alone sexually. Something in
the way Kedi got a death grip on his clothes and his terror-filled eyes
told Charlie the guards had turned their nasty attentions to the boy at
some point. Charlie’s heart broke at the thought of what he must have
gone through. He shuddered for a moment as he remembered being
there himself, being beaten bloody and all that had come after. He
froze with his hands still on Kedi’s shoulders, the memory taking
over, his entire body both numb and on fire with pain at the same
time. His upper body lay across the mattress, the smell of dirty cloth,
sweat, and his own blood filling his nose. While the sound of two
guards jeering from the doorway faded to background noise amidst
the pain.

Charlie’s wolf whimpered inside him, not liking the feelings

running through his body. A low growl from Perry and the sound of
Kedi’s pained gasp brought him out of his memories, and he looked
down at the boy. Charlie realised his grip had tightened into a bruising
hold on Kedi’s bony shoulders, and he quickly let go.

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“God, Keds, I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” Kedi whispered, understanding clear in his gaze, which

had returned to Charlie while he had been lost in the past. Charlie
took a deep, shaky breath. Perry’s growl had stopped. His wolf is
already feeling protective towards Kedi. Charlie did not know
whether to be glad of that or jealous.

“Let’s get you clean.”
“But…But…No.” The fear returned to Kedi’s face. His eyes,

horror struck in his too-thin face, darted between Charlie and Perry,
where the other man still stood by the shower.

“Perry, would you mind going downstairs please?” Charlie hated

having to ask. It was not often he got to be close to his mate. The man
usually ran in the opposite direction whenever Charlie came near, but
right now Kedi was the important one. Perry did not look happy about
being asked to leave but relented when Charlie gave him a pleading
look. Charlie doubted that Perry’s reason for not wanting to go was
the same as Charlie’s for wanting the other man to stay.

“All right, let me know as soon as he is ready to see Doc. I will go

see how things are going with everyone else.” When Perry stepped
lightly around Charlie and Kedi and moved towards the door, Charlie
found himself with an armful of Kedi again as the boy tried to
scramble up and over him to avoid Perry. Kedi clung on, shivering
and shaking, small, almost inaudible bleats of fright escaping him,
until Perry closed the door behind himself and they both heard his
footsteps move away.

Charlie gently persuaded each piece of clothing away from Kedi.

He threw the disgusting things into the large bin in the corner of the
room, which had been put there specifically for that purpose. It was
for the clothing that they knew each of those rescued from the
warehouse would be wearing. The old clothing was all going to be
burned.

Once naked, Kedi huddled in between the glass of the shower stall

and the pale-blue wall, crouched down and balancing on the balls of

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his feet. Charlie leaned on the edge of the shower cubicle and reached
in to turn it on. Charlie jerked back as the water began to pour from
the white plastic shower head. He stayed there for a minute or so,
dipping his hand under the flow of water now and then until he felt
the water warm up.

“Come here, honey.” When Kedi did not take his outstretched

hand, Charlie bent and took hold of one of the boy’s tightly clenched
fists and tugged him to his feet.

“In you go.”
Kedi would not get in.
“Would it help if I went in with you?”
Visibly trembling from head to foot, Kedi nodded. Charlie

stripped out of his clothes and draped them over the side of the roll-
top bath on the other side of the room. Then he tugged the boy to his
feet once more from where he had shrank back into his balled-up
shape again and carefully stepped backwards into the shower stall,
pulling Kedi along with him. Kedi’s breath jerked a couple of times
when the water hit his very skinny little body.

“It’s warm.”
“Yes, honey, it is. Is this okay?”
“The water was always cold there, when they hosed us off.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t like being dirty.”
“It feels much nicer to be clean, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t remember.” Kedi sounded puzzled, his brow wrinkling

and his nose scrunching up as he thought, as if he couldn’t quite
remember his life before the dark and the dirt.

“You don’t ever have to stay dirty again, sweetheart.”
“I missed you, Charlie.” Kedi’s soft whisper brought tears to

Charlie’s eyes.

“I missed you, too.”
Once Kedi was thoroughly soaked, Charlie reached for one of the

tubes of medical shower gel and poured some out onto one of the

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baby sponges. They had not known what condition many of the
people they were rescuing would be in, so the bathrooms had all been
stocked up with products that would be easy on the skin. Charlie
turned Kedi around and slowly soaped up and rinsed his back, noting
every bruise and fresh scar. Many of the scars would disappear once
the boy was receiving decent nutrition, like Charlie’s own had, but
right now Charlie wanted to get his hands, and wolf-claws and wolf-
teeth into one of the guards that had hurt this boy. Charlie reluctantly
admitted to himself that he must have looked even worse than Kedi
did when he had escaped. Charlie’s tears slipped unnoticed down his
face, mingling with the water and being washed away. He had to rinse
the sponge and refill it with the shower gel a couple of times as he
cleaned Kedi’s back, legs, arms, and chest, then he handed it over to
Kedi so the boy could clean his genitals. He made Kedi clean those
parts himself, but he saw with horror the fresh bruises that littered his
lower back, hips, and upper thighs. Charlie recognised many of the
bruises from when they had marked his own skin. Nausea swelled in
his throat, but he held it back through sheer willpower alone. Kedi
shuddered against him, letting out a single sob and leaning his head
and chest on Charlie while he reached between his own legs and
cleaned behind his balls and between his buttocks.

By the time they had managed to wash Kedi’s hair and get his

body clean all over, Kedi was shivering with cold, despite the warmth
of the water. I suppose when you have zero body fat and almost no
muscle to speak of either, then you are more sensitive to the cold.
How quickly you forget once you are out of it. Charlie’s own recovery
had only just happened a few weeks before, but he knew his mind had
muted a lot of things already.

Charlie turned the water off and cracked the door so he could snag

two towels, ready for the moment they stepped all the way out into
the now cold-seeming bathroom. He rubbed one over Kedi’s hair, as
he would a child, and then wrapped it around him snugly. The boy
still shivered with cold, so Charlie hurriedly dried him and dressed

Alpha Second

him in the utilitarian grey sweats and first top that he laid his hands
on. The sweats were the smallest size they had stocked but were still
baggy on Kedi’s thin, five-foot-two frame. The top was a navy-blue
hoodie, and it fell nearly to Kedi’s knees. Oh well, he can curl up in it,
Charlie thought. There is something nice about a big slouchy top to
cuddle into.

Charlie put on some of the stocked clothing, too, his own needing

a wash after coming into contact with the filth that had coated Kedi’s
old things. He took his time working a brush through Kedi’s hair. The
silky mass reached nearly to his waist when the countless knots had
finally been removed, and would need a trim at the very least. Then
they went to see Hannah. Kedi checked out as very underweight but
otherwise okay. His few lingering injuries had closed and would take
care of themselves fully once his body got some food into it.

Hannah gave him an orange card to take through to Betts in the

kitchen. They had colour-coded meal types for different species and
bodily needs. Orange meant shifter, one that needed light food at first.
Kedi got chicken soup and a single piece of fresh bread. Betts had
several huge vats of soup ready and waiting. Some heavier than
others, but all were easy on the stomach and as tasty as Betts’s
cooking always was.

Kedi ate the soup. Charlie, who was also hungry by that point, had

his own rather bigger bowl of chicken soup, with added vegetables
and lentils. They ate side by side at the kitchen table, Charlie shooting
glances at Kedi between mouthfuls to make sure he was not
imagining the boy was really there. After three bites of the bread and
halfway through the soup, Kedi began to flag. He had fumbled the
spoon a couple of times, and his head was drooping with tiredness.

The weary boy followed Charlie as Charlie led the way back up to

the first floor and along to one of the smaller bedrooms. There were
two beds in the room, the other one already occupied by a huddled
shape under the covers. Charlie laid Kedi down on the free bed and
pulled the duvet up and tucked it in around him.

Violet Joicey-Cowen

“Don’t go.”
“You want me to stay until you fall asleep?”
“I want you to stay.”
“I can stay until you go to sleep.” Their conversation was kept low

so as not to disturb the other person.

“Don’t leave me.”
“I will be back tomorrow.”
“Please!”
“Shhhhh…shhhh…It’s okay.” Charlie settled himself gingerly on

the edge of the bed and cuddled up to Kedi. He stroked the boy’s hair,
his fingers combing through the soft, fine strands until he knew Kedi
slept, and then he slipped quietly from the room.

Alpha Second

Chapter Nine: Perry

Perry’s hands were deliberately light on the steering wheel as he

drove back to Carden. One side of the wheel had been flattened where
he had gripped rather too hard when he first got into the car. There
were still things going on back at Blue Gables, but the worst had been
taken care of, and the next shift of people were looking after
everything. It was half four in the morning, and everyone was tired.
There were a couple of others in the car with him. They had been
involved with the rescue and helped with the aftermath. Sam, Perry’s
Beta, had been one of the truck drivers. He had stayed with the truck
and driven its fragile and wounded cargo back to Blue Gables. He had
known enough to suspect the state they would find their new charges
in, and upon seeing them, he had stayed afterwards to help for as long
as he could. Gerry sat in the back seat. He shared a house with
Hannah and a couple of the others who had no mate yet. Gerry had
been on one of the other teams during the rescue, with Cass,
Cameron, and Davin.

All three men were silent as they made their way home, trying to

absorb the sights they had seen. The abuses inflicted on their fellow
shifters were horrifying. The terror of some of those they had only
been trying to help had been heartbreaking, and others had sat in the
filth in total apathy, not even seeming to notice when they were being
taken away from their cells and abusers.

Perry opened his front door, very glad to be home. His wolf and

his heart were both in agreement. They wanted the comfort of holding
his mate in his arms. He ached to wrap himself around Charlie and
never let him go again. His arms felt empty without his mate in them.

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“Charlie,” he allowed himself to whisper out loud, “I need you.” The
house felt colder when Charlie was not there. The sight of some of the
people had reminded Perry of just how far Charlie had come in the
few weeks since he had come back into Perry’s life. Then a thought
occurred to him. Maybe I don’t have to wait. Maybe Charlie is
waiting for me to be the one to make the first move. The thoughts
made his heart beat faster. He dropped his keys on the old oak stand
by the front door, in the china bowl with the pheasants painted around
the outside. He had been staring at the bowl for several minutes while
his thoughts wandered. He walked toward the stairs so he could go up
and shower, then grab a few hours’ rest. His heart had lightened a
little, and he was now looking forward to seeing Charlie again, to
trying to talk to him. As his foot rose to land on the first step, he heard
a loud knock on the front door.

Perry let his head fall back for a moment, and he stared at the

ceiling. No rest for the wicked Alpha. He sighed to himself.

He opened the door to see an equally exhausted-looking Sam,

accompanied by a rather sleepy-looking boy in a pair of dark-blue
pyjamas, one of Sam’s sons. Is that Astley or Miles?
Hmmmm…Astley, I think, he decided. What are they doing here?
Oh, Sam, go home, go to sleep.

“Sam, what’s up?” Perry yawned after he spoke, too tired to beat

around the bush.

“Sorry to come back, Alpha.”
Perry rarely insisted on his title being used. He preferred to be on

friendly, easier terms with the members of his pack, and only insisted
on his title being used in official situations when he needed to enforce
his authority. The pack had all been using the title since they had left
the warehouse earlier in the night. Perry knew they must be needing
to feel the security of their pack and had not commented other than to
use his Alpha Voice more and reinforcing his Presence.

“I looked in on the kids as soon as I got home. I…uh…needed to

check on them, after tonight…needed to know they were safe. Astley

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here”—Perry gave himself a mental pat on the back for correctly
distinguishing between the identical boys—“he woke up and said he
needed to see you right away.”

Perry’s gaze settled on the boy. Milly had her first shift about six

months ago now, and then the boys had followed about three months
after, right after the triplets’ thirteenth birthday.

“Well, lad? What’s wrong?” Perry made himself ask the question

when the boy just stood there, fidgeting from foot to foot and staring
at the floor. He might be tired and frustrated with not being able to get
upstairs for a shower and bed, but he did not want to take it out on a
plainly nervous young boy.

“It’s…it’s my mate, sir,” Astley said, his voice unsteady with

nerves.

“Your what?” Sam’s shout rang out at the same time as Perry felt

his eyebrows shoot up in astonishment.

Perry held a hand up to keep Samuel quiet. “I know how old you

are, boy”—he glanced at Astley’s father—“and I know you cannot
actually be mated yet. Please explain.”

“I smelled him, sir. I…I smelled my mate. My father has been

with him, he…he must be one of the people Dad went to help.”

“Your mate is definitely a he? You are sure of this?” Perry

interrupted briefly.

“Oh, yes, sir. I know I am too young to mate, but I know my mate

is male and my father has been with him tonight.” Now he had started
talking properly he seemed to be shedding his nerves. “If he is one of
the people you and Dad helped, then I need to go find him. What if he
doesn’t stick around? What if he leaves before he knows I am here?
What if I never get to see him?” Astley was working himself up rather
nicely with a flair for the dramatic.

“Breathe, Astley.” Perry laid a calming hand on the young

shifter’s slender shoulder. Such a difference from Kedi, god, Kedi
should be twice Astley’s weight at the age he is, but I doubt he weighs
even half. “None of the people over there will be going anywhere

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tonight. I understand how frantic you and your wolf must be to go
search out your mate, but you must wait for a few hours. You will not
lose him. You cannot arrive there at”—he looked at his watch and
inwardly groaned—“five in the morning and demand to meet every
male in the house until you find him. Go home and go to bed. Come
back here at half eight in the morning. I will take you over, and you
can stick around all day until you have met them all. But”—and here
Perry put on his Alpha Voice and a stern look—“you will go easy on
them. One of the men there is your mate, one. You will need to be
rather more grown up about this than you actually are, because there
are a lot of very troubled people over there. Some of them have been
through a lot, more than you can imagine, and they do not need you
jumping all over them in your eagerness to try and locate your mate,
putting them through unneeded stress. Do you understand me?”

The boy, cowering back slightly at the force of Perry’s Alpha

Presence, reluctantly nodded and accepted Perry’s edict. He left with
his father, and Perry went upstairs for his longed-for shower. Despite
wanting to scrub for hours to rid himself of the lingering ghosts that
swirled around him since he had entered the warehouse, he made his
shower a brief one. Then he went to bed, falling asleep before his
head hit the pillow.

The next morning Astley turned up at half past eight on the dot,

bright and eager. He was dressed smartly in a white-and-blue striped
button-down shirt, tucked into his clean and ironed, tan chinos.
Megan turned up, too. Apparently, when Gerry had gone home in the
middle of the night, he had woken Megan, one of his housemates,
when he had walked past her bedroom. She wanted to go and find her
mate, too. They left together in search of their mates, Astley no longer
needing Perry to drive him over because of Megan’s presence.

Perry was still staring at the front door after it had closed behind

Megan and Astley when he heard the shower turn on upstairs. He had
barely woken when Charlie had got in around six. The reminder of his
mate sent an unaccustomed feeling thrumming through Perry. Forget

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butterflies, I think I have a whole flock of birds doing the hula in my
stomach. The large Alpha did not often find himself fighting nerves,
but they were attacking with a vengeance as he thought about
approaching his mate.

Half an hour later Perry realised the shower continued to run

upstairs. He became concerned and went up to check on Charlie. It
was not like Charlie to be in the shower for so long.

He knocked on the bathroom door softly at first, then louder, but

he heard no response. Turning the knob, he opened the door a crack.

“Charlie? Is everything okay?” When he still heard no reply, he

pushed the door open further and looked around it. What he saw
clawed at his heart.

Charlie sat on the floor, in the corner of the grey-tiled shower,

head resting on his knees, arms clasped tightly around his legs as his
shoulders shook with the force of his silent sobs. Unable to bear the
sight of his mate in pain, Perry strode in and grabbed a towel. He
turned off the flow of water and gathered Charlie up in his arms,
wrapping them and the towel around his mate’s shaking body. Charlie
barely reacted when Perry lifted him, merely turning his head into
Perry’s chest as he was carried through into Perry’s bedroom. Perry
settled them both on his bed and held Charlie as he cried.

Perry could feel the dampness of Charlie’s tears seeping through

his shirt as he cried against his chest. When the tears began to slow,
Perry reached for the box of tissues on his bedside table. He held
them for a few moments until Charlie noticed and took one, then blew
his nose noisily.

“Thank you,” Charlie whispered, his body limp against Perry.
“Not exactly how I pictured the first time I got you in my bed,”

Perry attempted to joke.

Charlie let out a noise halfway between a sob and a snort of

laughter. “Me either.” Then he froze in the act of sitting up, his body
halfway lifted off Perry. “You…you thought about having me in your
bed?”

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“Well, of course I thought about it.” Perry gave him a look, but

Charlie was not looking back so he missed it. “You’re my mate.” Why
is this surprising to him? No, there are other things to talk about first,
he decided and then asked, “What has you so upset?”

“Kedi.”
“That young man?”
“He’s not a young man. He’s still a boy. Keds is only sixteen, and

they…” Perry saw Charlie’s chin quiver again, and a single tear
escaped and trickled down his face as he avoided Perry’s eyes.
Charlie brushed it away angrily when it reached his jaw. “They raped
him. At sixteen. God, at least the rest of us were older.” The words
burst out in a rush. A look of horror crossed Charlie’s face, and he
clapped a hand over his mouth, realising what he had just said.

The blood froze in Perry’s veins.
“They raped you.” Perry ground the words out as a statement,

rather than a question. His mind struggled with the facts of the
statement even as he managed to say the words. When he found Kedi
and with what the boy had said to him, Perry had suspected Kedi had
been raped, and the possibility had crossed his mind Charlie had been
through the same thing, but he had hurriedly shunted the thoughts
away, unable to deal with them. Now he was facing the reality that his
mate had been raped, he struggled to accept it. His wolf howled inside
him, battering at Perry’s control so the beast could break free and go
destroy those who had violated his mate, not understanding most of
them were dead already.

“But…your father…Michaelson…”
“Shit, Perry. Don’t you get it?” Charlie threw himself off the bed,

stumbling for a moment when the abandoned towel fell to the floor
and caught around his feet. He went to go stand in the middle of the
room. “Don’t you get what a sick fuck the man really is? He gave me
to them!” Charlie shouted, gesturing wildly. “The first time it
happened, he fucking watched. He watched them beat me until I
couldn’t move, then when they hesitated, he told them to do it. The

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man I thought of as my father ordered them to rape me.” His voice
broke, tears streaming down his face once more. He stared back at
Perry, anguish carving deep lines into his face.

Without being aware of moving, Perry found himself standing

beside his mate, his arms wrapped tightly around Charlie’s naked
body. “Charlie—”

“No, Perry, no more please. I can’t talk about…” He paused after

interrupting and tilted his head back from Perry’s chest so he could
look up at him. Perry looked down into his mate’s tearstained face
and reddened eyes, and he could not stop himself from bending to
press a gentle kiss on Charlie’s mouth. He only sought to offer his
mate some comfort, not anticipating his mate’s reaction.

As he drew away, he felt the hiss of Charlie’s quickly indrawn

breath. Then Charlie raised himself up and brought their mouths
together again.

Perry stood there, stunned and unmoving for a moment. Then he

slid one hand up over the smooth skin of Charlie’s back to cup the
back of his neck. The kiss deepened slowly as Perry ran his tongue
over Charlie’s bottom lip, tasting his mate and coaxing his mouth
open. Charlie swayed, his hips bumping up against Perry’s, then
arched his back and moaned when Perry’s tongue dipped inside his
mouth. Charlie clutched at Perry’s shoulders, trying to pull him
closer, and the feel of his still-slender body moulding itself up against
him had every sense Perry possessed blazing to life.

He could taste the delicious flavour of his mate’s lips, smell his

scent, and feel every flex and shift of his body. He could hear the
sounds of their kiss, Charlie’s small panting breaths, and skin moving
against skin and clothes. He could even see every feeling running
through Charlie’s body written on his face between each kiss.

Breaking apart for a moment for air, they looked at each other.

Charlie breathed hard, his lips glistening and swollen and his eyes
heavy with desire. Perry pulled him back and plundered his mouth in
a kiss of pure ownership, staking his claim on his mate. Charlie

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moaned in surrender, his cock hard against Perry’s. As he did so, his
wolf, which had been quiet, made its presence known. His fangs
elongated and his wolf growled possessively, Mine! Claim my mate.
The strong flood of satisfaction from his beast shocked some
semblance of awareness back into Perry, and he staggered back from
Charlie.

“Wait, stop.” Perry gasped for air and fought for control. No way

would he take his mate like this. Charlie had been through way too
much to be rushed into sex without settling things between them first.
Perry knew his mate was healed physically, but was he mentally over
what had been done to him by his father and the guards? Perry wanted
to know Charlie really was ready to be claimed.

“What?” He could see the moment reality crashed in on Charlie.

His eyes cleared and pain flashed through them before the shutters
came down. “You won’t…I mean…you don’t…”

Charlie’s body was ramrod straight as he turned and walked stiffly

out of the room while Perry still scrambled for words.

Shit. I went too fast. One kiss, one stupid kiss. I meant to offer him

comfort, and like a complete idiot I lost all reason. Perry thought in
despair. Though he had frozen when he had seen the pain written on
Charlie’s face, his brain would not stop. He was just telling me about
being violated by the guards when he was a prisoner for fuck’s sake,
and I go and maul him. Some mate I am. I wouldn’t blame him if he
never speaks to me again. Perry’s rant at himself was interrupted as
he realised the irritating noise blaring from downstairs was the phone
ringing. In a bit of a daze he went to see who was calling.

Alpha Second

Chapter Ten: Charlie

“Allan, can I talk to you?”
“Sure, Charlie, what’s up?”
“I need to ask you a rather big favour.”
“Okay, so what is it?”
“Um.” Charlie looked around the dining room at all the shifters

and others that had been rescued a couple of days before. Betts had
set out a buffet lunch, and everyone was loading up plates or standing
around talking. “Would you mind if we went somewhere a little
quieter?”

“All right.” Allan looked puzzled but put down his still-empty

plate and motioned at Charlie to lead the way. They walked out of the
dining area and turned left after the stairs, then out through the back
door that led onto a patio area. Allan closed the door, but Charlie saw
Kedi heading towards them through the small glass panes in the top
half. Kedi was turning into Charlie’s shadow, but this was one
conversation he needed to have without him present. Charlie went to
the door and, opening it slightly, poked his head through to talk to
Kedi.

“Keds, I need to talk to Allan for a couple of minutes. Can you

wait for me in the dining room?”

“But…I…” Kedi looked a little panicky. He went pale and his

breathing sped up as he gazed pleadingly back at Charlie.

“Kedi, nothing is going to happen to you in the dining room, you

will be safe with everyone else around. Please, Keds.” Kedi shuffled
off along the red-and-brown tapestried carpet runner and back into the

Violet Joicey-Cowen

house, his head hanging dejectedly. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief
and turned back to Allan after shutting the door again.

“I wanted to ask if you would let me move in.”
Allan’s blue eyes narrowed slightly, studying Charlie. He thought

for a moment before speaking, and Charlie’s heart was in his mouth.

“You want to leave Perry’s?”
“No, but I have to.”
“Perry asked you to leave?” Allan looked shocked now.
“No, he didn’t ask me to leave. I…I need to.” Charlie’s voice

nearly broke as he spoke past the lump in his throat that was now
present every time he thought of Perry. He thought about Perry all the
time. He knew his eyes held a glassy sheen, and he did not want to
sway Allan by getting emotional, so he looked away and blinked a
few times in an effort to rid himself of the tears.

“Charlie?” Allan’s voice was softer, tentative as he spoke. “Did

Perry…uh, is everything okay?” Charlie realised with horror that
Allan was asking if Perry had done something to hurt him. With all
the injured, now ex-prisoners that they had spent so much time with
over the last few days, he could understand why Allan’s thoughts
would go there. Even if Perry did not truly want him, Charlie could
not let anyone think that about his mate. Perry was a good man, a
good Alpha.

“Oh god. No Allan! He hasn’t done anything to me. He would

never hurt me. It’s just…he…he won’t claim me. He doesn’t want
me, and it’s driving me insane.” He started pacing. “I can’t be there
anymore, under his roof. I can smell him so strongly all the time. I
can’t sleep at night because of my wolf. It howls inside my head all
night wanting my mate. I want him, too, I—”

“Whoa, Charlie. It’s okay. You don’t have to say any more, not if

you don’t want to. I believe you. I did not like to ask that, I did not
think for a moment that our Alpha would be capable of that. It was
just with all the after effects of abuse I have seen with everyone”— he

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waved a hand at the house — “I had to know. Of course it’s okay for
you to move in.”

Charlie stopped, each breath coming fast on top of the one before,

and his tension had tightened the muscles in his shoulders. Allan’s
words eased him a little. “Thank you.”

“Will young Kedi be coming, too?” Kedi had moved in to Perry’s,

to be closer to Charlie, the day after the rescue.

“I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you first. Would it be okay if he

did?”

“I am not sure if he would let you go anywhere without him. I will

speak to Pat, and you can bring your things over this evening.” He
checked his watch. “Now, we should go eat. You need to eat. You are
still not up to what you should be with your weight.”

“I haven’t really felt like eating much for the last few days.”
Allan looked concerned. “Because of everyone from the

warehouse?”

“Because of…Perry.”
“Ah. Come on then, you need to have something now.”
They went inside together. Kedi hung a few metres away from

him, looking nervous, as they filled plates with slices of meat pie,
glazed chicken legs, salad, and other things. Charlie picked up a paper
napkin, folding it under his plate, and wandered through to one of the
sitting rooms. He waved the scared-looking boy over to sit beside him
on the dark-brown, leather sofa. Charlie ate as much as he could, not
nearly as much as he should, but more than he had been able to in a
while now he could relax a little. He was very aware of the boy next
to him. He was not looking forward to talking to Kedi about moving
over to Allan and Patricia’s. Kedi was scared of everything, and
Charlie just hoped he would take the move okay.

Astley had curled up on one end of an identical sofa at the other

side of the room, watching a shaggy-haired blond man eat, who was
sitting at the other end of the same sofa. Astley was gazing at the man
with a look of worship on his face, but the blond kept sneaking

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glances over at Charlie as well as back at the boy. Charlie had not met
the man before, and he was curious.

“Hi, Astley.” Astley jumped, glancing away from the man guiltily.
“Charlie, hi.”
“Are you going to introduce me?”
“This is Noah. Noah, this is Charlie and…do you know Kedi?”

Astley had met Kedi the day before.

“Hello.” The blond nodded at them both. “Yes, I know Kedi. We

knew each other, in there.” His deep voice rasped a little as he said
the last word. “I know who you are, too, Charlie. I can never thank
you en…never say…” Astley inched closer and slipped his hand into
Noah’s much larger one. It seemed to help. Noah took a deep breath
and held it for a moment before breathing out slowly. “Thank you,
Charlie. If you had not got away, we would all still be there. My
brothers and I would have died there. I would not have met…” His
gaze slid to Astley.

“He’s your mate?” Charlie was surprised. He knew Megan had

found her mate, but he had not heard about Astley.

“He will be, when he is old enough.”
Noah looked at Astley, who blushed, then shrugged and muttered,

“He needs a friend right now.”

Charlie met Noah’s gaze and nodded in understanding, Astley did

not know how true his words were. There was a pain in Noah’s eyes,
which Charlie saw in the mirror whenever he thought about what the
guards had done to him. Maybe it was a good thing that Astley was
not old enough yet. The wait until Astley was 18 would give Noah
time to heal and give them both time to get to know each other before
Astley was ready to mate.

Today was the first day that Charlie had really had the opportunity

to meet many of the other people who had been rescued. Until now,
he had mainly been caring for Kedi, trying to get him to emerge from
his room at Perry’s. He knew a few of them, but they all knew who he
was. They were all thanking him for getting them out. Like I had

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anything to do with it, he thought as yet another person, this time it
was Noah’s older brother, Solomon, shook his hand. He smiled and
said something appropriate to the man. All I did was run away, as fast
as I could, the moment I had the chance. He felt like a coward for
running and ashamed that he had not said anything the moment he
had first awoken with Perry hovering over him. Perry, it all comes
back to him, doesn’t it. Charlie’s wolf shifted inside him and
whimpered at his thoughts of his mate, wanting Perry.

Back at Carden, later, Charlie sat on his bed, surrounded by small

piles of clothing.

“Hello? Charlie?” Jason’s voice sounded from downstairs.
“Up here, Jase,” he called back. A few moments later, his friend

opened his bedroom door and walked in.

“Hey. Are you really moving over to mine?” Jason seemed

excited, almost bouncing in his black trainers. He paused. “What’s the
matter?”

“I don’t have a bag.”
“Here.” Jason had a large holdall over one shoulder. He unhooked

the strap and put it on the end of the bed. “That’s why I came. Dad
thought you might need one. You okay?”

“I guess.” It had started to hit home that he was going to be

leaving Perry’s. It seemed so final, an end to what there should be
between them, but wasn’t. Charlie stood and picked up one of the
piles of clothes and put them in the bag after unzipping it. He was just
about done when the door, which Jason had not shut fully, swung
open.

“What’s going on?” Kedi stood in the doorway, hanging back

nervously once he saw Jason. He eyed the bag in front of Charlie.
“What are you doing?”

“Come in, Keds, I need to talk to you.”
“Are you going somewhere?” The boy’s voice had risen, and fear

radiated off him in waves. Charlie heard a door close downstairs and
footsteps coming up the stairs.

Violet Joicey-Cowen

“I am moving over to Jason’s parents’ house. Jason’s dad says

you can come too if you would like to.”

“No!” a voice thundered from behind Kedi, making the boy jump

and run over to hide behind Charlie. Perry appeared where Kedi had
stood. He looked furious.

“No?” Charlie did not understand.
“You are not going anywhere.”
Charlie looked at Jason. “I will see you later, at yours.” He took a

steadying breath. He could feel Kedi shivering behind him and hear
his rapid heartbeat. “Keds, could you go to your room please?” Kedi’s
fingers had latched onto the thin material of Charlie’s green T-shirt,
making it twist around him when he turned to give Kedi a quick hug.
He tilted Kedi’s head up to look at him. “I will be fine, Keds, I
promise.” Kedi let go of his hold on Charlie’s top and timidly ducked
past Perry, leaving the room, followed by Jason. Perry did not move
as they both slipped by him.

Charlie looked at Perry, his heart a heavy weight in his chest. “I

spoke to Allan today. I am moving over to their house, for a while at
least.”

“No! You are not going anywhere, Charlie.” Perry repeated, his

hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides. A muscle
ticked in his jaw.

“You can’t stop me. I’m going.”
“Maybe not, but you are not taking that boy with you. He stays

here.”

“What the hell, Perry?” Now Charlie was getting mad, too.
“I’m Alpha, and as such, he is my responsibility.”
“The whole pack is your responsibility. You can be responsible

for him from Jason’s.”

“No. He stays here.”
“Why do you care where he lives?”
“Why don’t you just say it?” Perry growled.
“Say what? For god’s sake.”

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“Why you want to go.”
“Fine. You want me to say it? You want me to say that I can’t

take living here any longer? Fine. I can’t stand smelling your scent
every minute of every day.” Charlie was yelling. “I can’t stand being
around it all the damned time. We’re not together, Perry. We never
will be, and my wolf is driving me fucking insane.” he finished,
panting, glaring at Perry, whose eyes had gone cold.

“Do what you want”—his voice was icy and uncompromising—

“but the boy stays here.” He turned and left the room, closing the door
with a quiet click.

Charlie’s knees gave way, and he twisted as he fell, landing on the

bed with a small bounce. He stared at the floor in shock for some time
before gathering the rest of his things and leaving for Jason’s. Kedi
cried when he left, clinging to him as if he would never see him again.

He went to see Kedi every day, refusing to abandon the boy

despite not being allowed to take him with him. Perry was rigidly
polite every time they had to speak, but more often than not Charlie
felt like he just did not exist to his mate.

The days without his mate turned to weeks and the weeks to

months. Charlie kept busy with Kedi and helping Jess out with
teaching Kedi and the other children. Kedi had missed a lot of
schooling.

The day dawned bright and sunny, which boded well for the

planned pack BBQ.

Charlie had gone into town the day before with Jason and Kedi to

gather the supplies needed to feed everyone. A very bouncy Cameron,
who had brought news from Blue Gables, had joined them. The few
hours with just his friends, rather than the whole pack, had been good.
Both he and Kedi were still getting used to being around people again.
Charlie knew the worst things that had happened to him in the
warehouse had always been when there were just a couple of guards
with him, or the doctor, but that made no difference to how he felt.
Large groups still sometimes made him feel nervous.

100

Violet Joicey-Cowen

Everyone living at Blue Gables had come over to Carden for the

day, arriving at just after half ten in the morning. All the men of
AlphaSec were there, and the other shifters and supes who had stayed
on after their rescue. Astley, Miles, and Milly promptly appeared and
started bouncing around. Noah, who was one of four lion-shifters,
gave his brothers a wave and followed the young pups off in the
direction of their family’s home. Charlie watched them go, slightly
envious of the innocence shining in young Astley’s eyes. He was
happy the boy had found Noah, and Astley would not have to wait
unknown years to find and claim his mate. What hurt was the look in
Noah’s eyes every time the older shifter looked at the boy who would
grow up to be his mate. A warm affection showed there, and
sometimes a disbelief that the boy was quite real, like he was too
good to be true. Charlie’s own mate never looked at him with the
same simple affection.

Charlie tried to shake off the melancholy feelings plaguing him

but found it hard to do. Ever since the morning after the rescue, when
they had kissed, Perry had been making even more of an effort than
before to avoid him. The only exception had been the day Charlie had
moved to Jason’s, when Perry’s anger had flared up and he had shown
that odd possessiveness towards Kedi. What the hell was fate thinking
when it paired us up? I would dearly love to know. He is attracted to
me, that much was made rather obvious by his rock-hard erection
digging into my stomach when we kissed. But then it is just as plain
the man wants nothing to do with me. The same thoughts were going
round and round in his head, and had been over the couple of months
since he had moved. Another thought occurred to him for the first
time. Is it because I was with those other men? Is that what has put
him off me? Christ. It’s not as though I wanted it. I had no choice. But
what else could it be?

When he had looked up at Perry and the man had kissed him,

Charlie had been ecstatic, thinking his mate might actually want him.
But then Perry had pulled away, and Charlie had known he was not

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101

what the big Alpha wanted after all. He had gathered his tattered wits
along with what little dignity he had left and walked out, refusing to
beg his mate for attention.

After his move, the weeks had dragged by. More than half the

rescued shifters and other supernaturals had left, leaving about fifteen
who were staying. Perry had made it plain they were all more than
welcome to stay or go, it was completely up to them. The fey had all
gone, so had Andre and Raff, the vampires. The lion brothers were
staying, as were the mated bear couple and Megan and her mate, and
his brother and sister.

Kedi was one of the ones staying. No sign of his parents had been

found or of his sisters, both of whom were younger than he was. Kedi
was getting better, though his progress was slow. Physically Kedi had
healed, but crippling bouts of shyness still struck him, and he suffered
from panic attacks. He spent a fair bit of time with Charlie, Jason, and
Daniel, though Daniel had been away for the last week. And hadn’t
what happened after he came back, the night before last, been a
surprise. Charlie grinned to himself about the development over at
Blue Gables the day before, very happy for his friend.

He sat with Daniel now, who had his own rather permanent-

seeming grin plastered across his face. Charlie looked at the other
people standing around in groups, eating, talking, and laughing with
each other. He felt a stab of pain when his gaze slid over to the grill,
tended by Perry. His feelings must have shown on his face, because
when he returned his attention to Daniel, the other man watched him
sympathetically. However, Cameron, who had just joined them with a
plate full of food, had a rather wicked gleam in his eye.

“What?” Charlie asked, more nervous about whatever the man

was planning than actually wanting to know. Yeah, I probably don’t
want to know.

“Oh, nothing.” Cameron’s attempt at looking innocent did not fool

Charlie for a moment. “So…when did you meet Perry? You weren’t
born in the pack, were you?”

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Charlie did not see what Cameron was after but decided to answer

him anyway. Just as he opened his mouth to reply, Jason arrived and
sprawled on the grass in the open space between the two picnic table
benches, which sat at right angles to each other. He grinned at them
but did not say anything.

“Hmmm…where to start…okay. I knew I liked guys before we

moved here but had never felt anything like the pull I felt towards
Perry. The older I got, the more I just wanted to be near him all the
time. Then as I got older, still I wanted to be touching him, to wrap
myself around him and lick every…uh, yeah…you get the idea.” The
others grouped around him all giggled. Charlie felt his face heat a
little, glad that Kedi was not with him for once.

“But you know Perry, Mr. Alpha himself. How was I supposed to

even think about how to approach someone like that? Like him. Why
would he have had any interest in some silly teenager?”

“A silly teenager? You?” Cameron laughed. “I doubt that Perry

ever saw you that way!” He ate his food while listening to Charlie.

“Anyway…Mum was uncomfortable about talking to me about

being a shifter, I don’t know why. She was fine with me making
friends with the pack, and even sort of being a member of it myself,
though she kept herself apart. So I spent a lot of time here.

“A couple of weeks before I turned eighteen, there had been a

pack day. It might have been fairly early in the year, but the weather
had been red hot for days, so we were all wearing very little. I was
putting leftovers away in the kitchen downstairs. There actually were
leftovers. The heat had dampened everyone’s appetites. Perry came
into the kitchen. We both went to move out of each other’s way and
crashed into each other instead. It was like walking into a brick wall.
The guy is kinda big. I sort of bounced off him and nearly fell over,
but he caught me, and we just stood there, staring at each other. The
next thing I knew, we were kissing, and I was climbing him like a
tree. I felt like I had been struck by lightning. Sure, I had played
some, with toys and lube and stuff, and I even kissed another guy

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103

once to see what it was like, but I had already met Perry at that point
and kissing someone else felt so wrong. I had never felt anything
before, not like what I felt when Perry kissed me. We kissed until he
pulled away.

“God, I was pissed. I didn’t understand why he stopped, but then

he told me about mates, and that he had known we were meant to be
together and had been waiting until I turned eighteen. Fuck. I couldn’t
believe it. I was going to get to spend the rest of my life with him?
After nearly five years of drooling over the guy, finding that out was
like discovering Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny were
real after all.

“That night was the night I got taken. Days before my damned

birthday when we could have bonded. He would have been able to
track me if we had. And now…Now he doesn’t want me.” Charlie felt
like he was on a rollercoaster, the high of remembering those heady
hours when Perry had wanted him, followed by the crushing low of
the reality of Perry no longer wanting him. He felt shame at the
admission. What is wrong with me that the one person fate thought I
would be perfect for does not want me?

Cameron hooted with laughter, bending forward and nearly

dropping his empty plate. Well, that’s a bit rude, Charlie thought
indignantly. It’s not exactly funny.

“Not want you? Oh, come on!”
Charlie quickly looked back at Cameron. He had glanced over at

the grill again, but Cameron’s laughter had drawn Perry’s attention,
and he did not want to be caught staring.

“You really don’t see it, do you?” Cameron had sobered and now

looked puzzled. Then the gleam in his eyes from earlier returned. “He
wants you soooo bad.”

“He doesn’t hide it very well,” Daniel put in.
“If he wants me so damn bad, why the hell does he never come

anywhere near me?” Charlie asked, exasperated.

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“Yeah, I noticed that.” Cameron scratched his chin then noticed

he still clutched his empty plate in his other hand and twisted to dump
it on the table behind him. “I don’t know what his problem is, but
trust me, not wanting you isn’t it. The only time he stops looking at
you is when you are looking at him. And we can all see the want in
his eyes when he does so.” Cam’s expression turned pure evil for a
moment. “Fancy a little experiment?”

“Uh, I think I will pass, given the look on your face.” Charlie

deliberately moved a foot farther along the bench and away from
Cameron.

Cameron grinned and moved closer, putting a hand on Charlie’s

thigh. He leaned in towards Charlie and said in his ear, “Just throw
your head back and laugh. That’s all, but try and make it look real.
Like I said something funny.”

Charlie was not sure what Cameron was up to, but what he asked

seemed pretty harmless, despite the hand that was now not just on his
thigh but stroking it. When did Cameron get so close? Charlie gave a
mental shrug and did as requested and laughed. He felt so fake. Surely
everyone could tell. A moment later, they all jumped as they heard a
roar of fury. The cubs that had been playing nearby scattered, and
seconds later Jake appeared and dragged Cameron away just as a
furious looking Perry arrived. Charlie quailed in his seat. Perry looked
really angry. His eyes had narrowed in vertical slits, his wolf
showing.

“What the hell are you playing at?” Perry shouted, the rest of the

picnic area suddenly quiet as everyone tried to pretend they were not
looking their way.

“Excuse me?” Charlie could not seriously believe Perry’s anger

stemmed from the little scene Cameron had just played out.

“With him.” Perry gestured in the direction Jake had dragged

Cameron. “What the fuck is going on with you and him?”

“Nothing!” Charlie exclaimed.

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105

A shudder seemed to go through Perry, and he suddenly leaned in,

pulled Charlie to his feet, and then swung him over his shoulder.
Charlie could see Daniel and Jason both gaping at Perry’s retreating
back as he bounced along with every one of his mate’s long, angry
strides. He felt half frightened, half turned on by Perry’s caveman act
and his cock started to fill with every drop of blood that was not
racing to his upside down head. After several minutes of being carried
through the trees, he had had enough and pounded on Perry’s back.

“Put me down!”
His head swam as he found himself upright again immediately,

and he wobbled a bit until he got his balance. Perry glared at him, his
eyes now human once more and cold as ice. Charlie shivered.

“What the hell, Perry?”
Perry’s eyes narrowed. “You and Cameron. What is going on?”
“I told you, nothing is going on.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“How can you ask me that?”
“Well?”
“Well what?” Charlie was exasperated.
“Are you fucking him?”
“Jesus, Perry. No!”
“Then what the hell was that little display back there? You two

looked pretty cosy.”

“Oh my god. He was right.” Charlie felt gobsmacked. He stood

staring at Perry with his mouth hanging open for a moment. “I don’t
believe it.”

“Who? Right about what?” Perry looked suspicious.
“Cameron. You do want me.”
“Of course I fucking want you. You’re my mate. Now what the

hell was that back there?” Perry yelled.

Charlie snapped, thinking, Right, that’s it! He saw Perry’s eyes

widen when his hands went for the top button of his trousers. He
twisted the button open while he toed off his shoes.

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“What are you doing?” Perry’s voice had reduced to a whisper.
Charlie just smirked at him and kicked his jeans off. His cock was

hard as nails and had slapped against his stomach when he had pushed
his trousers down, drawing Perry’s gaze.

“Charlie?”
Charlie didn’t answer but whipped his white T-shirt off over his

head and very deliberately held his arm out to one side before
dropping the shirt from one finger and thumb. His eyes were now
locked on his mate’s.

“Charlie?” Perry’s voice had grown husky.
“Yes, Perry?” he purred. Now completely naked, having dumped

his boxers and socks with his trousers, Charlie stalked towards his
mate as Perry backed away. The big bad Alpha was the one looking
scared now, but the growing bulge in his jeans said something else
and his eyes had filled with need.

Once he had Perry backed up against a tree, Charlie dropped to his

knees in front of him, looking up through his shaggy fringe into
Perry’s face as he reached for the man’s big silver belt buckle. Perry
had frozen in disbelief and stared, looking like the proverbial rabbit in
headlights, down at Charlie. He quickly dealt with the belt and pushed
Perry’s jeans down to fall in a blue puddle around Perry’s ankles.
He’s gone commando. Excellent. Charlie thought. Freed from its
confinement, Perry’s cock sprang up and bounced off his lower belly.
Charlie inhaled Perry’s musky scent and ran his tongue along the
ridge of muscle above his mate’s hip bone. Perry whimpered. Charlie
almost came on the spot. God, my mate smells divine. He felt
powerful all of a sudden, with his big strong mate hard and wanting in
front of him.

He took Perry’s cock into his mouth, and the hard cock pulsed and

started leaking pre-cum. Charlie’s mouth watered at the taste. He
worried briefly at whether he was doing it right, but then decided he
did not care. Perry seemed to be enjoying what he was doing. Perry
groaned above him and buried a hand in Charlie’s hair, the other

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clutched at the tree behind his back. He didn’t handle Charlie roughly
but cradled his head gently. The tenderness in the touch together with
the evidence of Perry’s desire for him was cranking up Charlie’s own
need for his mate. They stayed there for a few minutes, little grumbles
and groans of need escaping Charlie as he licked and sucked on
Perry’s hard cock, trying not to gag at first when the head knocked at
the back of his throat. Charlie finally pulled off with a little slurping
pop. He stood, bits of leaves and dirt clinging to his knees, and he
jumped on Perry. He threw his arms around Perry’s neck and his legs
around Perry’s waist, he felt large hands catch underneath his bottom.

“I need you, Perry, don’t make me wait anymore!” He thrust his

face into his dazed-looking mate’s neck and licked a path from his
collarbone to his earlobe, which he suckled on, making Perry
whimper again.

Charlie had no idea where his sudden bravery had come from, but

he was not complaining. He had waited long enough for his mate, and
now he knew he was wanted, Charlie had every intention of making
the big man claim him. He did not know why Perry had pushed him
away but no more! He could not stop his body rubbing up against his
mate’s.

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Chapter Eleven: Perry

All Perry could do was keep breathing as his mate stripped and

went down on his knees in front of him. His breath stuttered and
clogged in his chest, but he did not care. His head fogged with desire
as his mate jumped up and wrapped himself around his body, grinding
his erection into Perry’s stomach. There was only so much willpower
one shifter had, and Perry’s had run out. He couldn’t take any more.
He had to have his mate.

Perry held Charlie up against him with care, toeing off the shoes

and jeans still hampering his ankles. He couldn’t get his socks off, but
you can’t have everything. Once his legs were unfettered, he turned
them around and pressed Charlie up against the tree. He supported
Charlie’s weight with one arm and pulled the man’s head back so he
could look into his face.

“God, Charlie, what are you doing to me?” he managed.
His mate’s lips were swollen from being wrapped around Perry’s

cock, and his cheeks were flushed with desire. “Please.” he gasped.

“Is this really what you want?” Perry had to know. He needed to

hear his mate say the words.

“Please, Perry. I want this, I want you. Don’t push me away again.

Please claim me! Please!” Charlie almost sobbed, his eyes bright.

“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, not this time.” He

brushed Charlie’s hair back off his forehead and kissed him there
softly before repeating, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I need to feel you inside me,” Charlie whimpered.
Perry felt his balls tighten. He crushed the smaller man’s lips with

his own. He lost himself in the feel of his mate held firm between his

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body and the tree and the taste and smell of the man. He only distantly
heard the sound of tearing cloth when his T-shirt got ripped off by
Charlie.

They kissed until both were breathing heavily and their cocks

were hard enough to pound nails. One of Perry’s hands mapped the
edge of Charlie’s back and lower down to where the crease of his
buttocks curved away from the tree. Charlie mewled and wiggled,
trying to push back onto Perry’s fingers, but his somewhat precarious
position between Perry’s large body and the rough bark of the tree
made moving much impossible.

Something niggled at the back of Perry’s mind, but he could not

think. Charlie filled his senses. He circled Charlie’s hole and felt the
quiver under his very dry finger. Fuck, he thought, that’s what I
couldn’t think of. We don’t have any lube.

Charlie must have felt him tense and start to draw away, because

he growled the moment their lips separated. “Don’t you dare stop
now.” There were hints of desperation and panic back in his eyes,
scared Perry would push him away again, belying the confidence in
his voice.

“Lube. Don’t want to stop. Don’t have lube. Need it.” Perry knew

his words were not entirely coherent, but he felt vaguely surprised at
what he managed to put together.

“Trousers…” Charlie wiggled against Perry, this time to be put

down.

“Huh?” He wants to leave? Perry was stunned, and he didn’t want

to let Charlie go.

“Down, Perry, put me down. Gotta hunch.” He wiggled again,

which Perry rather enjoyed but he stepped back a pace and let Charlie
slide down his body until his feet were on the ground.

Charlie staggered over to where he had dropped his clothes and

searched through the pockets of his jeans. “Hallelujah.” He waved
something in the air and tossed it at Perry.

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Perry reached out and snatched the object out of the air as it

hurtled towards him. He looked down to see he held a small tube of
lube.

“God bless Cameron.” Charlie grinned happily as he stood and

sauntered back over, his surprisingly large cock bouncing with each
hip-hitching stride.

Wait, what? “Why would Cameron be giving you lube?” Perry

felt the jealousy stir again, cooling his ardour.

“Oh, stop it. I felt him slip something into my pocket right before

Jake dragged him off, and thank god he did. Now we have lube…”

“Just out of interest…you never answered my question…” Perry

suddenly got mighty interested in what Charlie was doing behind his
back. His as yet unclaimed mate had grabbed the tube back, squirted
some lube out onto his own fingers, and reached behind himself while
they were talking. He braced a closed fist, the one holding the lube,
on Perry’s chest and leaned in towards Perry.

“Uh…” Charlie’s eyes glazed over a bit, and his breathing grew

faster. “Which…which ques…tion…again?”

“Back at the picnic, what was…”
Charlie gave a small moan.
“What was going on with Cameron?”
“Oh, that…He…wanted to…provoke you. I’d say…it worked.”
“Oh, I’ll say.” The sight of his mate’s flushed cheeks and hectic

breathing became too much and Perry growled. He grabbed Charlie,
who yelped as the jolt jogged his fingers from his body.

Perry hurriedly laid his mate down on the smoothest, grassiest bit

of the forest floor he could see. He pushed Charlie’s legs up to expose
his twitching hole. Taking the lube back again, he squeezed some out
directly onto Charlie’s crease and found he could immediately slide
two fingers in with ease after Charlie’s own ministrations. Charlie
gave a small cry and arched his back up as Perry began working his
fingers in and out and leaned down and took just the tip of Charlie’s
cock into his mouth.

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“Shit. Gonna come.”
Perry sucked harder, bobbing his head up and down, and hummed

around Charlie’s cock just as his fingers found the small gland farther
in. He wanted Charlie as relaxed as possible and knew that, thanks to
their shifter bodies and libidos, his mate could be ready for round two
in moments if he kept stimulation up. Charlie went rigid as if he had
been electrocuted and gave a hoarse cry, seed exploding from his dick
in a rush down Perry’s throat. Charlie seemingly hadn’t even noticed
Perry had slipped a third finger in with the first two and had him
nearly ready.

Perry licked at Charlie’s barely softened shaft. While it filled

again and hardened, he continued to loosen the ring of muscle. When
he thought Charlie ready, he withdrew his fingers and rose above his
mate. Charlie squirmed under him, begging without words for Perry
to fill him. He slicked himself up and positioned his cock at Charlie’s
entrance. He smiled tremulously down at his mate, hardly able to
believe they were here together and about to do this. There was a
flash of something in Charlie’s eyes, something Perry did not like.

“Hey, you with me?”
“Yes.” Charlie’s shoulders had gone slightly stiff.
“Charlie, I can still stop.”
“No! No, I want you. Please.” Charlie closed his eyes and took a

deep breath. The tension eased out of him, and he opened his eyes
again. The shadows had gone and they were clear and bright once
more. “Okay.”

Moving forward oh so slowly felt like torture as he felt Charlie’s

guardian muscles give way. As much as he wanted him, Perry was
hyperaware the only experience his mate had to date had been
extremely violent, so he went slowly. A sweat broke out on his
forehead and body as he struggled to keep himself in check. He
braced himself with his right hand next to Charlie’s head on the
ground and trembled to feel his cock being accepted into Charlie’s
body as he guided it with his left hand.

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Charlie looked up at him, panting softly and making little noises

of pleasure, his hands hooked behind his knees, holding himself open
for Perry. Finally, Perry felt his balls squash up against his mate, and
he held still to let Charlie’s body adjust, his dick fully seated.

“Move!” Charlie groaned after a moment.
“That an order?” Perry huffed out a small laugh.
“Yes, damn it. Move.” He flexed his body so Perry slid out and

back in slightly.

Perry slowly withdrew and gripped Charlie’s hip with his left

hand then thrust back in a little faster. He set up a pace, which built
bit by bit until he pounded into him, and Charlie writhed and cried out
under him on the forest floor.

He could barely believe the moment was real. He looked down at

his mate spread out, at Charlie’s body stretched around his thick cock,
feeling the tight heat clenching rhythmically around him. Sweat
trickled down his back, and he gasped for air, breathing in the
combined scents of their arousal and sex.

When Perry slowed for a moment, changing the angle of his

thrusts, Charlie let go of his legs and wrapped them around Perry’s
hips. Perry felt Charlie’s hands slide around his waist, and one
reached down to clutch at the flexing muscles of his arse, encouraging
him to drive into Charlie faster, harder. There was a look of total
ecstasy on Charlie’s face now that Perry’s cock was finding Charlie’s
prostate. His head was thrown back, and the throaty little groans
escaping his mouth, which hung open, on every one of Perry’s inward
plunges would be engraved on Perry’s brain forever. He could never
let him go now. God. Charlie.

Perry’s gums began to itch just as he felt the tingle start, heralding

his orgasm. He did not even need to say anything, though, because
Charlie angled his head back further, deliberately exposing his neck.

“Claim me.”
Perry licked the underneath of Charlie’s jaw, his tongue rasping

over a slight hint of stubble. He scraped his teeth along the tendons

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joining neck to shoulder and bit down, tasting the metallic rush of
blood. Charlie’s scream echoed with a note of his wolf’s howl, and
Perry felt the wetness of Charlie’s release against his stomach at the
same time as he felt Charlie’s body tighten around him. He saw stars,
joining his mate in an earth-shattering release.

He pulled his teeth from Charlie’s flesh, and his wolf instincts had

him licking the jagged tear closed before he could even think about
the wound. It was not an instant fix, but ensuring the edges of the bite
lined up and stimulating the area would encourage Charlie’s already
supernaturally fast shifter healing. The blood-flow was already
stopping. His arm shook now, and he did not want to crush the
smaller man, so he fell sideways and rolled onto his back, still buried
in his mate’s body and taking him with him. Charlie sprawled on his
chest and made a noise, which would have sounded suspiciously like
a purr if it had not been for the fact of him being a wolf.

Perry chuckled. “What was that?”
“Like it?” Charlie rested his chin on his right hand, which lay flat

on Perry’s chest, and grinned at him. Charlie was glowing with
happiness.

“Hell yes.”
Similar noises of regret escaped both of them when Charlie

moved and pulled off Perry’s softening cock, his happy expression
fading a little. He sat up and back, with Perry’s cum dribbling down
his inner thigh and onto Perry’s. They both felt sticky.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Perry sat up and cupped a hand under

Charlie’s jaw. Charlie leaned into Perry’s touch and kissed the heel of
his palm.

“Nothing. Uh…It’s just…Will you tell me why you didn’t want

me before?” He would not meet Perry’s eyes and fiddled with the
sparse hair scattered over Perry’s chest.

Perry pulled him in close and held him in a tight embrace. “Come

on, let’s get dressed and go back to the house and we can talk there.”

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He did not want any more misunderstandings between them. They
were well overdue for a long talk and needed to clear the air.

“What time is it?” Charlie saw Perry check his watch as he picked

it up off the grass. It must have come off at some point, but Charlie
had not noticed.

“Nearly half four.” Perry was smirking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Perry.”
“We have been out here for hours.” The big man grinned and

picked up his trousers. “I didn’t notice hours going by, did you?” His
words lightened Charlie’s mood a little, and he giggled.

“Nope. Yes, yes, I know… Doesn’t time fly when you are having

fun.” Charlie trotted out the worn phrase obediently. He knew he was
right about what Perry had been thinking when Perry’s grin widened.

They dressed, squirming slightly at the feel of dressing while

covered in cum and sweat, and walked home wrapped around each
other. Both were reluctant to let go for even a minute. They had spent
too much time apart.

The BBQ had quieted by the time they reached the settlement

again. Perry must have carried Charlie farther than he had realised,
because it took them longer than expected to get back. They avoided
the people still hanging around and slipped round the front of Perry’s
house and inside, unnoticed.

Charlie led the way upstairs. They could hear Kedi moving around

in his old room, where he hid when he wanted to be alone, and gladly
shut themselves in Perry’s bedroom.

Now that it was Perry’s turn to undress his mate, he felt free to

take his time. He delighted in this new freedom and pulled each piece
of clothing from Charlie’s body slowly, kissing every new inch of
skin he uncovered. He tossed each item of clothing behind himself to
land on the floor as he guided Charlie carefully backwards into his en-
suite bathroom. The browns, creams, and green tones of the room had

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always felt peaceful, but now they also felt like an extension of the
forest where he had just claimed his mate.

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Chapter Twelve: Charlie

Now he was naked again, he felt more vulnerable than he ever had

before in Perry’s presence. Charlie stood awkwardly in the shower.
During the claiming in the forest had been too caught up in the
moment to be aware of feeling exposed in front of Perry. His large
mate stood behind him under the spray, with his strong arms wrapped
around Charlie. Charlie leaned back against Perry’s chest and tried to
relax. He had never felt so aware of the size difference between him
and his mate. Perry had nearly a foot on him in height, and even
though Charlie had reached his pre-kidnap weight once more, Perry’s
frame was wider and more muscular than Charlie’s. He felt small and
delicate next to the Alpha, but that was not the reason for his
vulnerable feelings.

He had held on through three years of hell at the hands of

Michaelson and his men with only thoughts of his mate sustaining
him. After he had escaped, he had made his way back to his mate,
nearly dying in the process, but, on reaching him, had been pushed
away for months, being made to feel as though he was not wanted by
the man he longed for with every fibre of his being.

Charlie held onto the arms wrapped around his waist, his heart a

painful lump in his throat as he tried to work up the courage to get
Perry talking. His earlier bravery had deserted him. He knew now
Perry wanted him and wasn’t sure quite why his stomach fluttered
with fear. His fingers tightened fractionally on Perry’s wrist, who
must have realised something was wrong, because he gently turned
Charlie to face him.

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“Now, what’s wrong?” Perry hooked a finger under Charlie’s

chin, lifting his face up to meet his rather searching look.

“You said we would talk.” Charlie caught his bottom lip between

his teeth, worrying it.

“Ah. You wanted to know why I did not want you before.”
The plainly said words sent a stab of pain through Charlie, and he

flinched. “Yes.”

“No. Baby, that’s what you asked. It’s not how I felt.” Perry

rubbed his hands over Charlie’s upper arms, looking anxious, then he
brought both hands up to cradle his mate’s face. “God, I always
wanted you. There was never a moment when you have not meant
everything to me. You are the most important thing in my life.”

“But what about the pack?” Charlie couldn’t quite believe the

words spilling from the other man’s lips. How could they be true?

“I love my pack, but you are my mate. I love you so much more. I

will always be your mate first, Alpha second. Please believe me.”

“Then why?”
“When you first got back, Doc didn’t know if you would make it

through the night. She never said as much, but I could see the
thoughts in her eyes. I needed you. So badly. For three years I had not
known where you were or what you were going through, and then
suddenly you were back. But you had been through so much. It took
every ounce of willpower I had to stop my wolf from claiming you.”

“Why didn’t you just let it happen?” Charlie asked in a small

voice.

“You didn’t see yourself, baby. You were the most beautiful thing

I ever saw, my mate come back to me. But you were also the most
broken body I had ever seen. How could I have claimed you when
you were like that? How could I have…”

“Fucked me?”
“Made love to you.” Perry corrected the not very helpful

suggestion Charlie had thrown in when he paused. “How could I have
made love to you in the condition you were in? Even if I had, how

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could I have bitten you? One more injury might have been enough to
tip you over, and you would have died.”

“But I didn’t. I got better. Why did you stay away?”
“I had two pictures of you in my head. The first image I had of

you, in your wolf form, collapsed at the bottom of the steps, so
destroyed you couldn’t make the last few paces to the house. The
other one came from after you shifted while unconscious back to your
human body. You burned with a fever you should never have gotten.
You were so run down and in such a bad state, barely moving the
covers with the slight rise and fall of your chest as you breathed. I
spent hours just watching you breathe, willing you to keep going.
Those images, both were branded onto my retinas. I saw them every
time I closed my eyes, even after you began to get better.”

Charlie could hear Perry’s heart thudding in his chest, and he

heard the man swallow audibly over the rush of water. Perry took a
deep breath and cleared his throat.

“Every time I got anywhere near you I wanted to pounce and drag

you off to my bed. But I still kept seeing those images of you. I kept
thinking, just a bit more time. He needs to be a bit stronger.”

“I was stronger. After the rescue, when you found me in the

shower, you held me, you kissed me. What stopped you then?”

Charlie had to push back the feelings of rejection flooding him

and remind himself of what had just happened out on the forest floor.
Perry had claimed him. He was wanted. He held onto Perry’s arms,
not wanting to let go, they felt like an anchor in the storm of emotions
he could not control. He felt rejected because of the way Perry had
held him away for so long. He also felt the love and desire he had for
the man. There was anger at the fact that the one person supposed to
want him had been the only one who had apparently wanted nothing
to do with him. He also felt a lingering jealousy, wondering who
Perry had been with since he had disappeared, joy and satisfaction at
finally being claimed by him, and lastly, the need to hear Perry’s
explanation for pushing him away.

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“I know you were stronger. I know you recovered, but…” Charlie

could feel the struggle in Perry as he searched for the words he
needed. “The…things…you went through while they held you.” He
took a deep breath, his chest heaving as he held the breath then
exhaled quickly. “The things they did to you.” His voice grew firmer,
taking on an edge of the anger Charlie knew his mate felt. “I had
already known about the abuse and the experiments, but I had only
just found out about…the rape. I needed to know you were ready for
us to be together, that you wanted a physical relationship, sex, with
me. I couldn’t push you too fast. You might have been physically
healed, but scars come in other forms, too. When I kissed you, my
wolf wanted to throw you down and claim you, but I had to know you
were ready first. So I pushed away, wanting to talk to you, but the
moment I did, I could see you remembering what had happened to
you. Then you left, and I had to let you go.”

“That’s not what happened.” Charlie twisted in Perry’s embrace to

free his arms and reached up to cradle Perry’s face in his hands.
“When you kissed me, yes, I had been emotional and upset over what
had happened to Kedi, and yes, it reminded me, for a moment, of
what they had done to me. But I had already accepted what they did to
me. Kedi was different. They had held him for years, but they had
never touched him…like that…before. They only started on him after
he turned sixteen. I guess even raping, psychopathic assholes have
some morals. When you kissed me, all of it went away. There was
only you and me. You wanted me. But you stopped, you pushed me
away again and confirmed what I thought. Your body wanted me, but
only because fate put us together. You didn’t want to want me. What
had happened to me might not have been my fault, but you didn’t
want a mate who had been with other men, not in that way. You
thought I was dirty.”

“God, Charlie. Never.” Perry choked out.
“I know that now.” He smiled sweetly up at his lover, brushing his

thumbs over his cheeks in gentle reassurance. How did I become the

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one comforting Perry? Charlie didn’t know, but the last couple of
hours were giving him strength and a faith in their mating he had not
previously dreamed to feel.

Of all the words they had said to each other, words of explanation,

reassurance, want, and need, none had been words of love, but Charlie
no longer felt afraid to say them. He could not hold them back any
longer.

“I love you, Perry.”
“Oh, Charlie, I love you, too. So much.”
“Air, Perry. Need air.”
Charlie gasped a moment later. Perry’s arms, already around

Charlie, had tightened until he couldn’t breathe as the bigger man
buried his face in Charlie’s neck. He loosened his grip slightly, and
his head shifted. Charlie felt a warm tongue lick a path up his neck.
He moaned at the sensation and shivered, despite the warmth of the
water and Perry’s body surrounding him. His blood began to pool in
his groin, and his cock filled as all the emotions raging through him
turned to want for this one man.

It didn’t take long before Charlie was pinned between the tiles of

the shower and Perry, his legs around Perry’s hips, and Perry balls
deep inside him again. The water pouring down over them both added
even more sensation. The feel of Perry stretching him wide was
incredible. He was still a little tender from earlier, and Perry kept his
thrusts slow and even. His hands were under Charlie’s butt, which
was a good thing because Charlie did not think he would be capable
of holding his weight up right now. He was pure sensation with
Perry’s cock driving deep inside him. Every slow, grinding push
within his body dragged the engorged head just close enough to his
prostate that he could feel it but not enough to finish him off. The tiles
were cold against his back, but the water was hot and ran in rivulets
down to collect between their bodies before their movements released
it to fall to the floor. Charlie pulled Perry’s head closer, wanting to
taste his mate’s lips. Perry moaned into his mouth. The sound had the

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slow, burning desire inside Charlie flare with heat, and he felt his
inner muscles tighten around Perry, whose hips jerked reflexively.
Then he felt heat flood deep inside him as Perry pulled him down
harder onto his cock and froze there for a long moment, his hands
tight on Charlie’s backside, before growling long and low against
Charlie’s lips. Holy shit that’s hot! Charlie could not help thinking.
His own orgasm was close, and when Perry leaned back slightly,
closing his right hand around Charlie’s shaft, it only took two strokes
before Charlie went off like a geyser. His balls drew up tight to the
base of his cock, and the head exploded with ropes of pearly white
cum. He did not know if he whimpered or screamed. He came so hard
the world faded around him, and he nearly passed out, spots
swimming dizzily in front of his eyes. When he came back to himself
properly, Perry had pulled him close once again, and his arms hung
like limp noodles around Perry’s neck.

“Wow” was all he could manage.
“Ha, y’think?” Clearly Perry was good with the words at that

moment, too. Charlie mustered the effort to grin into Perry’s neck.

Later, as Charlie drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help thinking

about how quickly things could change. Only yesterday, he had been
hopelessly in love with a mate who didn’t want him, struggling
through every day not to show how much he hurt without him. Today
he went to sleep in his mate’s arms, claimed and very well loved.
Tomorrow they would have to start thinking about the pack and Kedi
and everyone else again, but tonight was for them. He cuddled closer,
his head resting in the hollow of Perry’s shoulder, and listened to his
mate’s heartbeat.

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Epilogue

Perry woke with Charlie curled up in his bed. The smaller man lay

on his side, his back pressed tightly up against his chest. He could feel
the scratchiness of the hair on his mate’s legs where one of his own
rested between them. Charlie felt warm and solid in his arms, where
Perry had dreamed of him being for so long. Perry’s rumble of
contentment as he lightly rubbed his chin over the top of Charlie’s
head had the other man stirring.

They had made love again twice more in the night. The last time

had been around three in the morning, and he had thought Charlie
would have been too sore, but Charlie had begged, saying he needed
to feel Perry inside him again.

Sex does you as much good as sleep. Huh, who knew? Perry

thought as he eyed the digital clock on his bedside table, which read
06:17. Even with the early hour and as little sleep as they had both
had, Perry felt wide awake. There was no desire to get up, though. He
felt perfectly happy to lie in bed, cocooned under the duvet with
Charlie, warm and comfortable.

“Mmmmmm, good morning,” Charlie murmured sleepily,

snuggling back more closely against Perry.

“Yes, it is.” Perry tightened his arms around him, sliding his left

arm underneath Charlie so he could hold him close with both. His
wolf curled up in a corner of his mind, fully content for the first time
since Charlie had disappeared. He buried his nose in Charlie’s hair
and breathed in deeply.

“Did you just smell me?”

Alpha Second

123

“I like your scent.” He could almost feel the smirk on Charlie’s

face when his mate took hold of his right arm and brought it up from
around Charlie’s waist and angled the wrist so he could run his nose
along it.

“I like yours, too.”
Heat flooded Perry, and his cock started to fill. Charlie moaned,

feeling the dick, which pressed up in the crease of his backside,
harden. Charlie pushed back against him then stiffened slightly.

“You sore?”
“A little, but I want you.” Perry could hear the pout in Charlie’s

voice.

“Hmmmm, I think...” He slid his right hand down Charlie’s

abdomen. “We can always find…” His hand found the hardening
length it was searching for and went past it to roll the balls gently
before he took Charlie’s cock in his hand firmly and began to stroke
from root to tip.

Charlie bucked in his hand and gasped.
“Perry.”
Charlie began to leak pre-cum from the head of his cock, and each

stroke of Perry’s fingers gathered more, using it to slick and ease the
glide of his hand. He twisted his other arm and grazed Charlie’s right
nipple with the edge of his thumbnail.

“Aghhhh.” The moans and cries escaping Charlie, and the flexing

of Charlie’s buttocks up against Perry’s dick, was rapidly bringing
Perry close to the edge. He sped the strokes of his hand, Charlie’s
cock suddenly hardening further. Charlie went stiff in his arms, letting
out a choked whimper, and Perry smelled the cum, right before he felt
the wetness cover his hand. The smell of his mate’s release triggered
his own, and he came against Charlie’s arse.

“Mmmmm, definitely a good morning.” Charlie panted in his

arms.

Their cum was cooling and felt sticky now. Perry reluctantly

released Charlie but rolled him over onto his back and pressed his

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Violet Joicey-Cowen

mouth down on him in a closemouthed kiss before he sat up and slid
out of bed.

“Let’s get cleaned up.”
They both rose and showered, no playing this time but lots of soft

touches and smiles. Charlie kept blushing. Perry thought it was
adorable. They stripped the bed and remade it together then went
downstairs, stomachs growling, for breakfast. Charlie wore a
borrowed top and sweats which drowned him, his own clothes
needing a wash, but he looked happy.

Around eight, they realised Kedi hadn’t made an appearance yet.

Perry had previously noticed the boy habitually rose early. Charlie
was a little concerned but left him alone. They discussed Kedi and the
fact that both cared deeply about him. They wanted him to feel
comfortable with them, to be happy. By the time nine rolled around
with still no sign of him, they were both worried, so Charlie went up
to check on him.

About half an hour later Charlie came back downstairs with a

rather pale and scared-looking Kedi. He was still dressed in the green
chinos and black T-shirt he had been wearing the day before. The boy
kept his eyes on the floor and quivered under the arm Charlie had
around his shoulders.

“Talk to him, Kedi. It’s okay, I promise.” Charlie’s words got no

reaction from the boy, and he sighed then spoke to Perry. “He heard
us last night. He thought you hurt me, but he is also scared you will
tell him to leave.” Charlie’s eyes pleaded with Perry to reassure the
boy.

He wasn’t sure which to address first. “Why would we ask you to

leave?”

“Charlie is back,” came the shaky reply.
“But why would that make us ask you to leave?” Perry frowned.

After Charlie had moved out, he had thought Kedi had settled. The
boy had certainly seemed to grow more comfortable with Perry. They

Alpha Second

125

had eaten together in the evenings, and he had even been persuaded to
watch a few films with him over the last few weeks.

“You…you won’t want me here now.” Something in the way the

boy said the words, along with the way he held himself, had a rather
nasty idea crop up.

“Oh my god.” he exclaimed. “No, Kedi. That’s not why you are

here. Christ. You are here because you needed somewhere to live, and
as Alpha I took you in. I care about you.” He looked at Charlie. “We
both do. But not like that. You are not here to”—he struggled for the
words—“satisfy any…needs…I might have. Even if Charlie wasn’t
my mate, I would never do to anyone what they did to you. Anyone in
my pack tries that, and they will be lucky to leave my land with their
hide intact, and they certainly would never be allowed back.

“As for the other thing…Charlie is my mate. I love him and would

never hurt him.” He looked to Charlie desperately for help in
reassuring Kedi.

Charlie turned the boy and held him by his shoulders. “Keds, I

love Perry, too. What you went through, what we both went through,
was so wrong. Sex doesn’t have to be like that, though. With the right
person, be that another man or a woman, loving someone can be
wonderful.” He looked searchingly into the boy’s face. “When you
latched onto Perry, and were carried out, how did he make you feel?”

“Safe, protected. I didn’t care if he wanted me then, at least it

would only be him. And he was a shifter. He wouldn’t do the other
stuff, too.”

Perry swallowed the noise of protest bubbling up. Of course he

wouldn’t repeat any of Kedi’s torture or the other things, but he’d had
no idea Kedi had thought he might want that from him. The thought
made him feel physically sick. Not only had the boy been repeatedly
abused, but also though he might be sixteen he looked much younger.

“I loved living here with him. He was teaching me to cook while

you were gone. We also talked about my education. I did not think he
wanted that from me, not after I got to know him. Just, last night

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Violet Joicey-Cowen

when I heard you, I couldn’t help remembering and I panicked.”
Kedi’s breathing was getting faster and a wild look had started to
creep into his eyes again.

“Safe and protected,” Charlie repeated. “That’s what you should

hold on to. Perry is a good man, and a good Alpha. He takes care of
this pack and every person in it. We”—he glanced at Perry then back
at Kedi—“would like you to stay with us. I know I am not much older
than you, but Perry more than makes up for that.”

His mate shot him a cheeky grin which Kedi caught as he looked

up.

“We would like you to be part of our family, to be our son.”
Perry nodded when Kedi looked at him. “We would like that very

much.” This was one of the things they had spoken about earlier,
before Charlie had gone up to check on Kedi.

Something in Kedi seemed to unwind, releasing a tension Perry

had not noticed before in the bony frame, and he stood a little
straighter.

They talked for a little while and would more as the weeks passed

but just then, they were distracted by a knock at the door. Perry’s
brother arrived with a pack emergency for Perry to deal with. Some
young shifter kids were in trouble and needed help.

Perry left to go deal with the latest problem. He was gone all day

and returned exhausted. When he got home that night, he could smell
oregano, tomato, and meat before he even opened his front door. He
could hear Olly Murs playing on the radio, and the funky beat rang
through the house, livening up the atmosphere. He followed his nose
to the kitchen. Charlie was elbow deep in hot water and suds in the
sink. Kedi stood beside him, drying a chopping board with a brown,
stripy tea towel. Perry stayed in the doorway for a moment, watching
them. He felt joy at the completed bond between himself and Charlie,
but that was now enhanced by the presence of Kedi. He had always
known he was gay and had never thought to have a child of his own,
despite the orders from his father so many years ago to breed the next

Alpha Second

127

generation of his line, which had prompted him and his brothers to
leave their birth pack. The thought of having sex with a woman he
cared nothing for, just to breed a child for his father’s plans, had been
abhorrent to Perry. Children should be wanted for their own sake.
They should be loved and cared for. They should not be brought into
existence just because someone ordered them to be. His pack had an
increasing number of children, but none were his, and he realised now
how much he had wanted them. He resolved to talk to Charlie about
the subject, as he now knew he would love to have more kids with his
mate. Maybe they would adopt, maybe they would find a surrogate,
but either way he knew Charlie would make a wonderful parent.

“Hey, you.” Charlie had spotted him and was walking towards

him, drying his hands and arms with the tea towel Kedi had been
holding. He wore some of his own clothes again and must have gone
over to get them from Allan’s.

“Hey.” They hugged, and Perry leaned down to kiss his mate

tenderly. “I love you,” he whispered, earning a bright smile from
Charlie.

“I love you, too,” Charlie whispered back.
“What’s cooking?”
“Kedi and I made some Bolognese. I hope you like it. Pat taught

me to make it while I was over there.”

“Yum. I love it.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet.” Perry laughed at Kedi’s unexpectedly

dry remark. Kedi smiled shyly at him from over by the sink.

Now Perry was home, Charlie put the pasta on to boil. Once it was

ready, they all sat down to eat at the kitchen table. The meal was
delicious.

Before Charlie had come back into his life, the future had loomed

in front of him, dark and bleak. Now Charlie had returned and they
were finally together, he knew life would not be perfect, there were
bound to be problems along the way, but as long as they could keep
talking to each other, as long as they loved each other, Perry knew

128

Violet Joicey-Cowen

they would get through anything. They would face the future one day
at a time, together. He remembered the dream he had a few months
before, of the scenes taking place in each room of this house. The
dream had nothing on the reality of Charlie being in my life, he
thought, and he smiled and ate his pasta.

THE END

WWW.VIOLETJOICEYCOWEN.WORDPRESS.COM/ABOUT

-VIOLET-JOICEY-COWEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Violet Joicey-Cowen is the proud owner of one rather chaotic life.

This includes her son, her menagerie (currently – two dogs, one cat,
one guinea-pig, one fish and five stick-insects), her friends and a
rather battered laptop she would be lost without. She lives in North
Yorkshire in England. When she is not writing she plays a lot of pool
and is on a couple of teams.

She has been writing since she was about ten years old and has

always loved escaping into other worlds where the people living there
would tell her their stories and she would just have to write them
down. She always dreamed of having her stories published so her
characters could get out there and meet other people who might begin
to love them as much as she does.

As well as her WordPress account Violet can be found on

Facebook and would love to hear from readers.

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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