Authors: Marcy Jacks
Tags: #none
“Well enough that I could hear the heartbeat of those hunters from a mile away, hear your scream from even farther than that, and then smell your blood from trap. I’ve never smelled your blood before.”
No. He hadn’t. That would explain his surprise when he sniffed Adam's face and got his scent.
“That’s why James wants you here? To teach us how to better use our ears and noses?”
“Bingo,” Nick said on a small chuckle.
Adam was at a complete loss for words, and he and Nick walked until the sounds of the construction happening on the small cottages reached Adam’s ears, the smell of sawdust and oil, and the sounds of
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the children playing.
Nick stopped before they could step out of the shade of the trees. “I’m going to transform here. Hold on to my fur, and we’ll keep going.”
“Right.” Nick always had been the shy type.
With Nick now in wolf form and the pups safe from seeing anything on him, Adam was led into the center of the houses.
Omegas stopped what they were doing as he and Nick passed by. The scent of blood and Adam’s hobble were obvious to them. James
was coming to meet them before they could even get to the main
house.
“What happened?” he demanded, looking down at Nick, whose eyes were as pale and sightless in his wolf form as they had been when he was a man.
“Hunters,” Adam said. “They put up some bear traps by Deacon’s old land. We’ll have to send someone over there to clean them up in case there’s more.”
James nodded. “We’ll deal with that in a minute. Come on inside,
and I’ll call Maggie to have a look at you.”
Eli came forward and let Adam lean onto him instead of the wolf.
Adam watched Nick’s reaction, noting how not surprised he was when Adam’s weight left his back.
He knew that someone else was stepping forward by the scent of the man and sounds of his coming steps.
He really had mastered his other senses.
It was too bad Adam hadn’t mastered his emotions or his desire
for the other man as much as he thought he had. For the first time in a long time, he felt a depressing sinking feeling in his stomach, and all because he was being led away from Nick.
* * * *
Nick felt sorry for Adam. He heard the screams of his former
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lover all the way from the cabin James had offered him as Old Maggie, their wise woman, disinfected Adam’s injury and wrapped it.
From the smell of it, so strong that it made its way all the way into Nick’s room, it was pure alcohol they were using on him.
Ouch.
Doctors and real medicines weren’t the kind of things packs came by easily. Anything that required a prescription? Yeah, good luck getting your hands on that stuff. It was all over-the-counter stuff or nothing at all.
Which was the reason Nick had gone blind. He was sure of it.
Phillip’s wise woman, Beatrice, had transformed one day and growled at him, nipping along his nose and brows, as though trying to remove something that was not there, something that was hurting him behind the scenes.
Sometimes the instincts of a transformed werewolf weren’t that
different from a real animal. Nick had heard of cases of pets attacking
their owners’ legs, chests, and whatnot, not out of spite or anger, but because they were trying to bite out something on the inside that was harming the owner. In all the cases Nick had researched, this was usually a cancerous tumor they were trying to remove. Looking back on it, he could see that Beatrice's reaction was pretty much the same. Her wolf had been trying to remove whatever it was that had been destroying his eyes.
Beatrice was as blind then as Nick was now, and to this day she
relied solely on her other senses to get around.
Those heightened senses and the instincts of her wolf were how she’d known something was wrong with Nick. Cataracts most likely, and because he was a werewolf, seeing any sort of doctor was out of
the question. They would look into his eyes and know something wasn’t right with him that had nothing to do with cataracts. They would see his wolf eyes.
That first year, becoming used to total darkness, had been a complete bitch, and he had been a miserable bastard for every day of
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it.
By the end, he could barely see more than light and some colors anyway, but not until the day he woke up, tried to turn on his lamp but couldn’t, and then slowly realized that the warm heat on his skin was sunlight that he couldn’t see did he completely lose his mind to the rage that had been building inside him.
The lamp and his window were shattered seconds later.
Had it not been for Beatrice, he probably would have killed himself, and he would always be grateful to her for not giving up on him.
Today’s lesson had been put on hold because of Adam’s injury and the need to clean up those hunter traps, so Nick decided to pull out one of the books Beatrice had given him and read a bit before the real work began.
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Chapter Four
Adam was still having a hard time believing it, and when Old Maggie―the evil bitch―finally released him from her care with a smile and a pat on the hand after all the pure alcohol she’d poured into the punctures on his ankle, he made his way over to one of the smaller cabins where Nick was to stay.
This house was more of a shack until just recently. No one had used it in a while, and there was only one small bedroom, with a living room and an old kitchenette inside. Apparently Nick had requested this to make his days and nights easier. Fewer people who didn’t understand to not move his things about where he couldn’t find them, no children to get underfoot, and privacy.
Nick Larosa was always the private sort.
Because of this, James and Isaac had worked to make the shack
more livable while Nick stayed. It was still ugly as shit on the outside, though Nick wouldn’t care because he couldn’t see it, but the roof had been repaired to prevent leaks, the walls redone, new furniture and counter tops placed inside, the exterior painted, the whole nine yards.
The door wasn’t kept locked, which was a good thing. The curtains on the left side of the small house were shut, so that meant
Nick was in the bedroom.
Adam didn’t want to announce himself. He just wanted to see the other man with his own eyes and not have to worry about making awkward conversation, and even though Nick was blind, Adam didn’t want Nick looking at him with those sightless eyes, the eyes that were still as uncaring as they had been the last time Adam had seen them.
He stepped quietly inside, the carpet muffling the sound of his
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feet, one heavily wrapped, and the other bare. The cane he used to
keep his balance also made no sound.
It was as quiet as death in here. There was a radio, and James had
found an old TV for the sitting room, but they weren’t on. Adam didn’t understand the need for the TV at all. Maybe Nick just liked listening to the shows.
The small bathroom was behind the kitchenette, and aside from
that, the bedroom was the only other door in the tiny square house. It was the equivalent of being inside a one-bedroom apartment, so Adam walked over.
The door was already open. Nick was sitting in a chair in the corner by the window. A blank book was sitting in his lap.
At first Adam thought he was just holding it, staring off into space the way people did when they were thinking. He wasn’t sleeping. His
eyes were open.
Then Adam noticed the way Nick’s fingers gently moved over the
pages, and the tiny bumps that pimpled the paper became more
prominent.
He was reading. His eyesight really was gone.
Nick blinked. “What are you doing here?”
Everything inside of Adam froze up in mortification and fear.
Without answering he turned and started for the door.
“Wait!”
Yeah right.
He would have made it in time if it weren’t for the stupid cane and his goddamn ankle, pulsing with every rushed step he took, but it slowed him down considerably. Nick grabbed him by the shoulder before he could make it to the door, and he spun him around, gripping his arms.
“Why did you come here?”
Adam wanted to shove him off, but then Nick would know what
an effect his touch was having on him. “How did you know it was
me?”
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“I’m familiar with your scent again.”
Right. Stupid question.
“Why did you come here?” Nick asked again.
Goddamn him. Adam couldn’t lie. “I just—I wanted to see you.”
Nick released his arms, his mouth popping open in clear surprise.
“That shocks you?” Adam asked.
“I thought for sure you wouldn’t want to come anywhere near
me.”
Adam couldn’t help the anger that spilled into his voice, and he was glad Nick couldn’t see his sneer. “Why would that be, I wonder?”
“Adam, please don’t,”
“Don’t what? You were the one who left me without saying why. Now you’re back, and I’m supposed to follow your orders because James said so?”
“Yes,” Nick snapped back. “You will follow my orders because your pack alpha is commanding it.”
Adam looked away from him. He wanted to punch him. Would punching a blind man who deserved it be wrong? Nick would probably catch his fist like the ninja he was before he could land a hit
anyway.
“Adam,” Nick said, his voice soft and gentle, his hands back to touching his shoulders in the way he used to do whenever he was trying to calm him down. “What happened, that was ten years ago now. Maybe you should let that go.”
Adam shoved Nick’s hands away. “Easy for you to say, prick. I thought we were mated to each other.”
Nick made his surprised face again.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “I know it didn’t mean anything to you except that you wanted something shove your dick into, but it meant something to me, and then you left and told me not to follow you.”
“You—” Nick cleared his throat. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Adam. I didn’t realize you felt that way.”
“I did,” Adam snapped. He still did. But they couldn’t be mated,
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there was just no way. Nick wouldn’t have left him if they were, and they were both alpha males.
Two males was rare enough, but two alphas coming together, whether it be a male alpha to a female alpha or two male alphas, was just in its own other category.
The personalities would clash too much for them to be a proper fit, and right now, Adam and Nick were clashing.
Adam wanted to hit Nick, and Nick was clearly struggling not to shake some sense into Adam, something that made Adam want to attack him all the more.
Then he realized that they were both saying nothing at all. Adam was just staring at Nick, and Nick’s breathing had gone heavy.
Fuck, Adam was aroused. His cock had gone hard as they yelled at each other, and Nick could smell it.
Looking down, he saw how Nick was in a similar state.
That was one of the things they enjoyed about each other. Whenever they fought with each other, it always led to Adam’s bedroom or a private glen where they could get naked and fuck. Even then it would be a battle over who would top the other.
They were both alphas, after all.
Nick’s hands came up. The calloused fingers touched Adam’s throat, gripping his neck and shoulders in a way Adam hadn’t known in years. It felt familiar and good.
“Adam, I ”—
“Fuck it.”
They both came together, lips clashing, hands gripping. His mouth was as soft as Adam remembered it. He also recalled the way that mouth felt wrapped around his cock, and his dick gave a needy throb in response.
Soon. He was getting to that very soon.
They might not even make it back to Nick’s bedroom, what with the way they were tearing at each other’s clothes. Adam unclasped his belt and got his pants down to his knees, and without so much as
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asking or giving Nick any sort of signal, the other man knew what he
wanted as he fell to his knees and sucked Adam’s cock between his