STORY EXCERPT

Tim rubbed his face with his hand, trying to get some sense back into himself.

He was going to be all right.

Maybe.

But he was seriously considering turning himself in to ORAS.

The Omega Return and Safety people might not punish him too badly for leaving, and maybe he’d get a different alpha.

The one he’d heard he was going to had a nasty reputation.

Tim shivered, thinking back to when he heard the councilors talking about him in the halls.

“That guy’s a fucking freak. All of his omegas either run away or get returned so fucked up they can’t even—”

“So what? He overcorrects them a little. That’s his job.”

“Are you serious? That’s not just overcorrection. That’s sick.”

“Maybe, but we have to give him someone.”

“The last omega nearly lost his eye. I feel bad for the poor bastard to get him next.”

“Well, if he fucks around with this omega enough, we might finally ban him from the services.”

Yeah, no fucking way was Tim going to get caught up in that.

Going to one fucked-up alpha and getting jerked around so much that they could finally stop serving him was not what Tim wanted to do with his time.

So he ran away.

He felt a little bad for the next person that sick alpha got, but it wasn’t going to be Tim.

Maybe if he went back, he’d get a meal or two, and they’d have someone else ready for him?

God, he was so fucking pathetic.

A few days going hungry, a little chill in the air, and he was ready to rush back to ORAS with his tail between his legs and beg for mercy.

So fucking sick.

But it was getting chilly out. The nights were the absolute worst.

It was the end of September. The leaves were turning. Tim came from a family of wolves, but he had absolutely no shifting abilities, and every night he got colder and colder.

He brought his knees up, conserving some heat and putting his head down, and just wishing that he could go home.

Home to his little box of a room with the toilet and sink inside. His three small, warm meals a day, and the beta who sneaked him and the other omegas some chocolates and chips from time to time whenever they had a movie night.

Life in ORAS wasn’t all bad.

Tim must have dozed for a few minutes because when he opened his eyes, he was shivering with the cold. Rain drizzled all over him, and the sky was such a dark shade of gray that he questioned whether or not it was night.

A cold nose also poked and prodded at him.

Tim’s brain was so sluggish that it took him a solid minute before he remembered this was a bad thing.

He sucked back a breath, a brief shock of adrenaline shooting him to his feet before whatever the fuck this was could decide he was a snack.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said as if he wasn’t also freaked out. As if he had any control of the situation at all.

“Easy, okay, easy.”

Fuck, his legs wobbled.

Tim blinked the crust out of his eyes but could only see a huge animal in front of him. A huge, monstrous—

“What are you doing here?”

Tim exhaled a heavy breath.

A shifter. Probably an alpha with a size like that.

He didn’t even give a shit anymore. Not with how tired and cold and hungry he was.

Tim sank to his knees.

Partly from exhaustion and partly to show respect to an alpha.

“I’m lost, sir.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The voice was gruff. Shifters who spoke while in their animal shapes usually did sound like they’d just smoked fifteen thousand packs of cigarettes in a row.

“I’m sorry. I…I’m trying to get back to ORAS.”

He looked up. The rain was getting heavier. It was cold and in his eyes, but he could now make out that it wasn’t a bear shifter in front of him but a wolf.

Natural-born wolves were already huge. Alpha wolves were twice the size of even the largest animals.

Omega shifters, the ones who could shift, were barely larger than German shepherds.

The wolf in front of him was definitely an alpha, and it was raising his very hairy brow at Tim.

“You ran away from ORAS?”

Tim nodded, defeated.

The hunger and cold won out. He wasn’t strong enough to withstand it.

He was weak, and he deserved what was coming to him.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

Tim swallowed. “They were…I was getting paired to another alpha.”

What would have been his fourth one, and he was getting older. He was thirty-four, but the guy didn’t ask for his life story, and Tim wasn’t about to offer that up.

The alpha sighed.

Then he turned around. “Turn yourself in.”

Tim blinked.

What?

The alpha was walking away, his tail waving lazily behind him.

Tim stared at him as he went.

All he could think of was how he would die if this alpha left him.

More adrenaline his body could barely afford surged through his body. Tim rushed to his feet, his whole body wobbling, his movements slower than even he was used to.

Jesus. Was he really this weak? All the more reason to get this male’s attention.

“Please!”

“Handle it yourself,” the alpha growled.

He looked as if he was about to run away. Tim tried to be fast. Tried to be agile, but he was slow and tar gooped up in his joints, making it incredibly easy for a stray root to catch his foot and make him fall flat on his face in the mud.

Christ almighty, he wanted to cry. He wanted to sob as his hands made fists in the muck.

He pushed himself up as much as he could.

“I’ll die here,” he said, believing it. “Please.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Tim inhaled a sharp breath at the first touch of Braedon’s fingers.

“That’s it, sweetheart, open up for me.”

Tim huffed a breath, his hands coming down onto his knees, exposing himself more for Braedon.

The wolf inside his head cheered at this.

Braedon prepared and stretched Tim with one hand, kissing his back while his other hand snaked around Tim’s body.

Tim made no complaints when Braedon took ahold of his smaller but still nicely sized cock and stroked him lazily through the preparations.

Tim sighed. “Oh my God.”

Need. Want. Mine. Hurry.

Braedon grit his teeth. The peace his wolf seemed to have just a moment ago was suddenly gone.

Gone and impatient for more. That’s what it was.

That was fine. He could handle it. They were almost to their goal.

Never again. He would never send Tim away again, and he would never allow any harm to befall him.

When he was satisfied there was nothing more he could do for the man, Braedon pulled his fingers back, noting how nicely stretched Tim was.

Braedon leaned back, stroking his cock with more of the sunscreen.

“Come back here,” he said. “Sit down, with your back to my chest.”

Tim glanced back at him, more of that questioning look in his eyes, but he did as he was told.

Tim was as careful as ever, bracing his weight onto the couch while Braedon took his dick in hand and brought it to Tim’s hole, letting the male do the rest as he sank down slowly, achingly slow, onto it.

Braedon grit his teeth. “That’s what I want.”

He was tight. So beautifully tight as his body clenched in that warm, lovely way around Braedon’s cock.

“Fuck.” Tim sighed, holding still, catching his breath.

Braedon realized he might be too big. That Tim might be having some struggles as he waited for his body to adjust.

Braedon wanted to fuck into him immediately. The pleasure was too good. The desperation to seek it out.

The wolf inside him, normally the most impatient creature in the world, was fine to wait, and Braedon’s own self-control, weak as it could be at times, also held him back.

He kissed Tim’s shoulder. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

“Right,” Tim said, laughing a little. “Christ, you’re big.”

Braedon preened at that. “I am a good size,” he said.

“No shit. Jesus,” Tim replied, canting his hips ever so gently, testing the waters.

Braedon slid his eyes shut, enjoying the pleasant heat of it, resting his hands on Tim’s hips as the male moved in slow, shallow thrusts.

“Lean back against me,” Braedon said, pulling Tim closer, needing the man closer, needing to touch his mate in absolutely every place he could be touched.

Another kiss to Tim’s shoulder, more gentle stroking and petting along his skin.

More love and attention as Tim slowly found more of his rhythm, as the good began to outweigh any discomfort, and he started to move in earnest.

“Oh fuck.” Tim sighed. “You fucking feel so good.”