The Duty of a Beta (8 page)

“Why are you screwing around with the pack’s omega?” the younger wolf tossed back at him. “Do you have a death
wish!
”

Gunnar growled as he pushed his hand through his hair and shook away the worst of the forest floor that still clung to his skin. “That’s nothing to do with you.”

“The hell it’s not,”
Caden
shouted.

Gunnar glared down at the shorter man as they both sprung to their feet. He was probably right, in his way. They had joined the pack together. His actions would no doubt affect his brother’s relationship with the pack.
But still…
“I’m not bound to Alfred yet.”

Caden
shook his head as if he couldn’t believe how stupid he was being, but Gunnar pushed forward regardless. “Talbot’s not mated either. We’re just two wolves who are free to do whatever we want until—”

“And does Talbot know that?”
Caden
demanded, still determinedly holding his gaze. “Does he know you’re just amusing yourself at his expense until you finally grow up and do what’s expected of you?”

“Talbot knows exactly how things are,” Gunnar growled. “Do you really think I’d lie to him about that—about anything?”

He stalked forward. The smaller wolf resolutely held his ground.

“Is that what you think of me?” Gunnar demanded.

“I think you’re quite capable of being a complete bastard any time it suits you,”
Caden
threw at him. “It’s practically a beta’s job, isn’t it? And we all know how good a beta you are.”

Gunnar growled, low and deep in the back of his throat as he ground his teeth together. Despite his best efforts, it wasn’t the kind of noise a man made when he was squabbling with an annoying younger sibling. It was more like the sound of a wolf’s last bit of patience being torn from his grasp.

“Don’t do this, Gun?” Suddenly,
Caden’s
voice was different. The anger drained away so abruptly it was hard to remember it ever being there.

The soft little lilt he was so good at employing with others when it suited him to smile and flatter and get his own way in that manner was absent too. For once,
Caden
sounded perfectly serious.

It was a simple request. Unless
Caden
was a better actor than even Gunnar realised, it was also an honest and heartfelt one. And it came from the one wolf who Gunnar would have said could have asked anything of him.
Anything
.
Gunnar held
Caden’s
gaze for several long minutes.

At least part of him knew his brother was right. He was acting like a fool, risking both their places in the pack to screw around where he had no business. But still, the words he should have said lodged in his throat.

Promising to walk away from Talbot was the sensible thing to do, but his voice box didn’t seem to want to be sensible right then. A growl emerged instead, and even Gunnar had no idea who he was snarling at.

“You know who the alphas want you to be mated to,”
Caden
reminded him.

Gunnar pushed a hand through his hair. “Of course I do.” Every wolf in the pack bloody well knew it.

“Since when do you avoid doing your duty?” his little brother pushed.

Since I met Talbot.

Gunnar glanced at his brother.

I love him, Cade. I’m in love with our omega, and I don’t know what to do.

Gunnar cleared his throat. That wasn’t the kind of thing a beta said out loud. A beta didn’t ask for advice off a gamma. He didn’t admit to weakness or uncertainty.

“Remember our places in this pack,” he advised the younger wolf. “You’ve no right to—”

“Bollocks! You’re the one with a fetish for the established bloody hierarchy, not me.”

Gunnar squared his shoulders. No, the last thing he could do was let
Caden
see him wishing he could act in any way other than that which would best please the alphas of the pack. An example had to be set—both for gammas and brothers.

“The others won’t realise you don’t mean it, if they hear you talking that way,” Gunnar said, his voice sounding strangely dead. “They won’t understand that you—”

“Will they understand why you’re screwing their omega?”
Caden
cut in.

No, Gunnar doubted they would. Hell, he didn’t understand it either. Turning away from his brother, Gunnar slowly made his way back up the slope, away from the river.

A bitter wind blew through the forest. Without his lupine fur to protect him, Gunnar soon felt it sink into his bones and chill him to the core. Even so, he stayed in his human form for the walk back towards the farm house.

A wolf’s body might be more suited to the cold, but its mind was far less suited to unravelling the confusing mess of thoughts that tangled themselves in his head.

* * * *

Gunnar kept his eyes fixed firmly on the fireplace as Francis and
Steffan
finally levered themselves up from the sofa opposite him and made their way up the stairs to their bedroom. All the other members of the pack had already drifted away from the blaze. Soon after Alfred had left, even
Caden
had stomped off, with a glare in Gunnar’s direction and a warning glance towards their omega as a parting shot.

The only wolf who still lingered in the main hall with him was Talbot.

Gunnar could feel the younger wolf watching him, studying him. It was all too easy to sense that Talbot was looking for any signal that might let him know how he could best please his more dominant mate right then.

Except he’d never be the omega’s mate, dominant or otherwise.

Even knowing that, even having lectured himself on that very fact all the way back to the farm house earlier that day, Gunnar found himself helpless to do anything but turn his head and meet the smaller wolf’s gaze. Their eyes locked. A hundred different emotions swirled inside the other man’s expression.

The only thing Gunnar didn’t see there was a challenge.

The beta closed his eyes for a second. “It’s time you were in your bed.” Against all Gunnar’s expectations, his words came out as strong and as steady as any he had ever uttered. As he pushed himself up from his seat on the far end of one of the sofas, there was no audible hint of the pain saying them had caused him.

Talbot hadn’t moved to occupy a more comfortable seat as the other wolves had left and the sofas became free. He still sat on the floor by the fire, his knees pulled up in front of him, his arms wrapped around his legs as if he were trying to hold himself together when he might easily crumble.

Gunnar knew he should walk away without another word, but somehow he found himself walking across to the fire and damping it down himself rather than leaving the task for the other man to attend to. As the fire died, a chill quickly crept into the room.

He couldn’t leave Talbot there. It was too easy to imagine him remaining exactly where he was, getting colder by the
moment,
unless a more dominant force ordered him to do otherwise.

Gunnar held out a hand. The little omega blinked up at him as if he had never seen him before, but he also reached out and offered his fingers to Gunnar’s palm, quick to put himself in another man’s hands as soon as the opportunity was offered.

It was easy for the beta to pull the smaller man to his feet—too easy. Talbot damn near left the floor as Gunnar forgot to keep both his anger and his strength in check for a moment.

Unable to find his footing, Talbot tumbled against Gunnar’s chest. His hand skidded against Gunnar’s shirt. His fingers tightened around a fistful of fabric as he fought to steady himself.

Gunnar froze. Every instinct he’d ever possessed told him to wrap his arms around the smaller man, but as soon as Talbot had steadied himself, Gunnar forced himself to take a step back.
Caden
, annoying little sod that he was, had been right.

Talbot looked up at him in confusion. He probably didn’t have the slightest clue how tempting that made him look, how in need of leadership and protection he appeared. Putting his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, Gunnar determinedly moved Talbot away from him.

Turning him towards the stairs, he gave Talbot a nudge forward. With one hand remaining on the smaller man’s shoulder, he did his best to make sure the omega didn’t turn to look at him as they made their way out of the hall. If their eyes met again, Gunnar knew there was far too much of a chance that he’d forget why he was making the right decision in directing each of them to their
separate
beds that night.

Talbot didn’t say a word as Gunnar damn near frog-marched him up to his room. Opening the door for him, Gunnar gave Talbot a gentle shove into his room before reaching in to close the door behind him.

That was a mistake.

Talbot turned to look at Gunnar, just as the beta’s hand wrapped around the handle. The little wolf looked so lost, so confused. But he didn’t utter one word of complaint. Gunnar held back both a growl and a sigh. He’d probably have felt like less of a bastard for closing the door between them if the other man had screamed and cursed at him.

The other wolves in the pack might think they were helping Talbot by cosseting him so much, but it had never been more obvious to Gunnar that all they’d succeeded in doing was making the omega think
himself
weak and worthless. He didn’t even think he deserved better than to have his lover walk away without a word.

In spite of everything, Gunnar somehow managed to shut the door. And he only let himself stare at the woodwork for the briefest possible moment before he made his way towards his own bedroom. He was halfway down the hall, when he stopped, unable to take another step.

Gunnar closed his eyes for a second, digging into reserves of strength and determination until he reached the very bottom of the barrel, then digging through the thick wooden base in a desperate search for more. When he opened his eyes, he was half surprised that there wasn’t actually a thick metal chain wrapped around his waist and leading back towards the omega’s room. There might as well have been.

Suddenly, it was obvious that it wasn’t just Talbot getting attached to him that he should have been worried about. The omega was exactly where he belonged, alone in his own room. Gunnar glanced towards his own bedroom door for a moment, but putting Talbot in the right place had taken everything he had to give. There was no control left, only desire. Muttering curses at
his own
weakness, under his breath, Gunnar stormed back down the corridor and pushed open the door leading into Talbot’s room.

The other wolf was still standing in the middle of his bedroom. His arms were wrapped around his torso again. They remained there as Talbot lifted his head and met Gunnar’s gaze.

He was far too small, far too vulnerable to be left to sleep on his own. An omega needed a stronger wolf in his bed to hold him close and let him know that he was safe. No matter what nice, logical, dutiful thoughts Gunnar tried to push into his head, those were still the facts of the matter.

Talbot could be made stronger and more confident over time, but he’d always need that. Gunnar stepped inside the room. He closed the door firmly behind him, shutting out
Caden
, the pack, and every other inconvenient reminder of reality. Talbot remained perfectly still as Gunnar strode towards him. The only tiny movement the omega made was to tilt his head back in invitation as Gunnar’s hand threaded into his hair and brought their lips together.

Never losing any hint of his momentum, Gunnar kept striding forward, giving Talbot no choice but to walk backward until they tumbled onto his bed together. It wasn’t a large room. It wasn’t a large bed, either. The whole space might have been perfectly proportioned for Talbot’s small frame, but it wasn’t designed to accommodate a beta wolf nearly twice his size.

Gunnar’s elbow slammed into the wall as he tried to stop his weight crushing the smaller man. He cursed into the kiss, but if he was risking everything, it was pointless to try to hold back. It would have been a crime to join the other man in his bed and not take to everything he could—not to
give
everything he could.

Talbot squirmed beneath him. His hands moved frantically against Gunnar’s body, as if he really was as desperate as Gunnar to touch every inch of his lover all at the same time. A second later, the omega let out a scared little whimper, obviously unable to do everything at once, or to choose what to do first.

Gunnar quickly caught hold of Talbot’s wrists and deftly pinned them against the mattress on either side of his head, taking both the decision and the problem away from him. “Stay still.” Leaning over the smaller man, he tightened his grip on him, making sure he knew exactly who was in control of him right then.

Talbot’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His lips parted as he drew a deep breath into his lungs. Gunnar hadn’t switched on the light when he deposited the omega in his room, or when he returned to it. The only illumination came from the moon outside Talbot’s window, but it was still more than enough for a wolf to see by.

Gunnar took in every detail as Talbot stopped trying to work out what he should do and simply handed over control of all those decisions to the other man. His arms relaxed against the blankets. He fell still but for his rapid breaths.