The Reluctant Wolf (Book 1 Cloverleah Pack) (7 page)

Rolling off his mate,
his true mate
, Kane pulled Shawn with him, holding the man’s back against his chest as they lay on their side. He gently stroked his hands up and down Shawn’s arms and torso feeling the man’s breathing slowly return to normal. 

“You okay babe?”

“Yeah, that was awesome. Um…thanks.”

Kane chuckled, pleased that he had pleased his mate.

At least I won’t die a virgin.
Kane heard the words…in his head.

What the fuck?

Oops, sorry…yeah, the mind thingy.

Kane pulled his mate’s head around so he could see his face.
 

“I know about the ‘mind thingy’
as you call it, with mates.  But this was your first time?  Why didn’t you tell me?” He growled.

Shawn blushed
, pale pink but didn’t say anything.  He went to shift away from Kane but as he was still impaled on Kane’s cock, he couldn’t go very far so he pushed at Kane to release him.

“Oh no, you aren’t going anywhere.” 
Tightening his arms around his man and softening his voice, Kane said, “I am not angry at you; I just would have been a lot easier on you if I had known. So why didn’t you tell me?”

“What, wasn’t I enough of a freak for you already?  With my magic and everyone wanting to kill me.  Think about it Kane, how could I be anything else but a virgin, aye?”
  Shawn still thought he was being mocked, and it hurt.

Images flooded into Kane’s mind, of Shawn being shunned, beaten, and humiliated.  Of being incredibly lonely, always wanting something he felt he couldn’t have.  Never being touched, cared for
or made to feel special in any way.  Kane felt like his heart would break.  Shoving aside the anger he felt at those who had hurt this precious man, he cracked a grin at his mate.

“Well at least I won’t have to kill anybody who might have had you first.  If you had been a slut I could have been real busy breaking heads.”

“Humph. You are a nutter, you know that.” But at least Shawn was smiling now. Kane felt himself warming at the way Shawn’s face lit up when he was happy and he knew he wanted to see that look on his mate’s face every day.

“That is ‘nutter mate’ to you, thank you very much.”  Carefully slipping his hardening dick from its warm
tight cubby hole, he turned Shawn over towards him and aligned his whole body along his mates’.  Their cocks, both hard again, rubbed against each other with delicious friction as Shawn’s hands rested on Kane’s ass.  Shawn looked up at Kane, with a smile on his face.

“So
can I touch you now?”

Chapter Nine

An hour or so later both men had come again, spectacularly, and then fallen asleep in each other’s arms.  When Shawn had woken up he was lying across Kane’s lap, and he took am moment just to enjoy the closeness that came from being with someone special.  Shawn had never experienced this type of connection, the sheer joy of being with someone else and he knew it was something he could quickly get used to.  But as he looked up into his new mate’s face he could see that Kane was troubled and he wondered if he might be having second thoughts.

Kane was thinking about the night before, when Shawn had taken over and pleasured Kane.  He
had been surprised and a tiny bit hurt that Shawn didn’t seem to want to fuck and claim him despite the fact his mate was extremely talented with his hands and mouth.  He lay there remembering what Shawn had done with his tongue that had Kane flying off in a raging climax while his hole had quivered with anticipation and ached when it had remained unfilled.

Stroking Shawn’s silky soft hair, Kane knew he had to ask especially as he felt Shawn’s concern seeping into his head.  Not used to feeling a bit tongue-tied Kane blurted out “Why didn’t you
take and claim me?  Didn’t you want to?”

Shawn’s eyes flew open and he sat up. 
“Shit, is that’s what worrying you? Of course I wanted to.”  He cupped Kane’s face and leant in to give him a scorching kiss.  Then twisting he sat with his back to Kane, leaning so his back was flush with the larger man’s chest.

“Then why…?”

Shawn’s head was down and Kane thanked the fates for his wolf’s enhanced hearing as Shawn started to speak quietly.

“A couple of reasons, if you must know.  Firstly, there is this whole Alpha thing and then there was the little matter of me perhaps not knowing exactly what to do, and not wanting to fuck up and hurt you
…”

“What has me being an alpha got to do with it?”

Shawn shook his head.  “Ugh, this is why I don’t do the pack thing.”  He turned and faced Kane, sitting on his knees and Kane idly wondered if he realized how awesome he looked sitting there naked, on his knees with his cock already standing to attention.

Not helping here.
Shawn’s voice in his head was like a tap around his ears.

Okay, Kane went back to looking at the man’s face.

“You are the Alpha of this pack.  I have been told more times than I can count that an Alpha never bottoms, it freaks their wolf out or something.  Who knows? I know I don’t know enough about this sort of thing, so I have to go with what I am told, do you get that?”  Shawn’s face was deadly serious.

“But you’re an Alpha, too.”  Kane knew that Shawn was.  He could feel the man’s strength and power as he wallowed in Shawn’s caresses.  He had sensed how hard Shawn had fought to control his own wolf
not to claim him as he had climaxed the goodness knows how many time.

“I know I am.  I know what I had been bought up to be.  Hell, if those blokes hadn’t shot at me yesterday I would have assumed that my father was already dead because those feelings have gotten stronger over the past six months.
  But I have NEVER wanted to lead a pack.  Not mine, not yours, not anybody’s.  But I am still a walking target because I am a threat to bloody Alpha’s…present company excluded, of course.”  Kane growled at the thought of anybody hurting his mate, but realized he had to let Shawn know that he, at least, was more than willing to be both fucked and claimed, and he didn’t care what anybody else thought about it.  He tried to think of a way to explain it without just blurting out, ‘fuck me.’

“You know that mates claim each other, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course I know that and when it is a man and a woman together nobody thinks any less of the man being claimed by his woman because of course it is obvious that only she is being fucked.  But what about two gay men?”

Kane tried to think about it but he kept getting distracted by the thought of Shawn fucking him and biting
into him - of him wearing a mating mark he could, no, he would be proud of. His own cock, already hard, twitched in anticipation. He grinned and Shawn groaned.

“So
not helping here!”  Kane pulled out of his little fantasy and could see that Shawn was still deadly serious, which was pretty amazing considering he could see the drops of pre-come glistening on the head of Shawn’s impressive hard on.

Yeah, well you project really well
.

“You know that Griff is an Alpha too, don’t you?  He is bigger than me, stronger than me, and he is my first cousin so he had the potential to lead my home pack as well
as this one.  But he decided to follow me and stay with me even though that cost him his pack.  He is my best friend and I trust him with my life.”

“But you have never let him fuck you either.”

“Ew, no, I have never thought about him like that - we grew up together for goodness sake.”

“Okay, so have you ever bottomed, or even wanted to before today.”

Kane winced, and knew he had to be honest with his mate - not that it was possible to be anything but honest, but still.  “No, I haven’t.  But then I’ve never really been involved with somebody else before.  A few casual hookups…”  Shawn fixed him with his eyes.  “Okay more than a few casual hookups, and yeah, but never anything more than one encounter per person, and yeah I have always topped.”  His voice dropped at the last bit. 

“Just as well I am not into breaking heads, then isn’t it
, or I would be real busy?”  Shawn smirked as he spoke, “but the point still remains - you are the Alpha of this pack at least.  Is your wolf going to let you be claimed in that way?  Hell, do you even want to?”

Kane reached over to grab the gorgeous man still kneeling beside him.  Arranging Shawn’s limbs over his, with their cocks nudged against each other, he rested his forehead against the slightly smaller man’s and flooded his mates head with images.  Shawn fucking him, buried deep in his
ass, on the bed, against the bed, up against the wall, over the couch, outside in the forest under the night sky. Shawn moaned at the onslaught and bought his lips down to crush Kane’s with a need that resonated with them both.

I don’t do so well with words.

You don’t need to… God, you don’t need to.

Lost in the passion it took a moment for Kane to register that someone was banging really loudly on the bedroom door.  Raising his head, he sniffed.

“Griff, you bastard, this had better be important.” He roared.

“You got a visitor, boss.
” Griff’s concerned voice floated through the door. “Michael.  Says he has to speak to you, urgently.”

“Michael?  Our cousin
, Michael?”

“Yeah.  You’d better come boss, sounds important.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Or not as the case might be. 
Shawn’s voice sounded amused as he rolled off his lover and threw Kane’s jeans at him.  Unsurprisingly he was already wearing a pair himself.

“Man, I love how you do that…and this
…we are not finished, not by a long shot.”  Kane looked fierce even as he drank in the way his lover wore his jeans, slung low and fitting just perfectly.

“I know, hon. But hey we could probably take a food break anyway.  From what I do understand about mates we have a lifetime to do this - don’t we?”

Feeling a bit ashamed because yes they had been in bed all night, and half the day if the sun overhead was any indication, and noticing for the first time, that yes he was hungry too, Kane said, “Come on then, we can get fed while we listen to what Michael has to say and then we are coming back to bed, agreed?”

Shawn came over and pressed another blistering kiss on Kane’s neck.

Agreed.

Chapter Ten

Shawn was feeling more than a little shy as he followed Kane down the stairs, through the
living room and out to the kitchen where the rest of the pack were sitting at a huge wooden table.  Dean was on cooking duty and the air was filled with frying bacon, sausages and eggs.  Dean caught his eye and blushed.

“Thought you might be a bit hungry, not having dinner and all.” 

Shawn smiled at him. “Thanks, Dean. Smells awesome.  Anything you want me to do?”

“No, I got it.  Sit down and I will get you a plate. Coffee?”

Coffee - hmmm.  “A big cup please.”

He went and sa
t in the chair beside Kane who was glaring at a tall blond man with a bland round face sitting opposite him.

Don’t eat him, breakfast is coming.

Couldn’t stand the twerp when he was a kid and I don’t take kindly to having my fun interrupted.

Then stop glaring at him, ask him what he wants and eat your breakfast.

Looking at his mate, Kane could see that Shawn was smirking at him. 

Faster fed, faster to bed.

Kane laughed and bent down to lick Shawn’s neck.

Would rather eat you.

Later, talk to your cousin, is it?

Yeah.

“Okay, Michael, what’s bought you out to my little neck of the woods?”

“Firstly, explain to me why the pretty thing beside you is wearing a
bite mark, yours I presume?”

“Yeah, it’s mine so what, we’re mates.”

“Sick fucks like you don’t have mates, so why did you bite him.”

Kane was over the table and on Michael’s neck before the last word was spoken. Both of them fell to the floor. Wrapping his hands across Michael’s throat he bent low and
growled “Shawn is my MATE and don’t you dare speak about him.  Don’t even look at him, you get me?”

Michael tried to speak but all that came out was a squeak.  Griff came over and grabbed Michael out from under Kane
, dragging him upright and holding him his big arms locked across the blond’s chest.

“Say what you gotta say and then get out of here.”

“That man’s Shawn?  Shawn Bailey?”

Shawn got up and went to stand beside Kane. 

“That’s me, what do you want?”

“
God, you’re lucky you guys can’t have true mates and he had claimed you, or you would be fucked.” Kane growled at him and Griff hit him aside the head.  Turning back to Shawn, Michael said, “There’s a price on your, man.  We got the word from some hunter’s heading down this way.  They called into the pack to see if they could get any trackers to come down here with them. There’s good money in it for us.”

“So why are you here?” Kane growled.  Shawn could see th
at the man was fighting to hold onto control of his wolf.  If Kane shifted, Michael was dead.  It seemed Michael knew that too.  He dropped his head to the side, baring his neck - the classic submission.

“I’m the courtesy call, all right.  Me, Frank and Ben are in town with
some hunters.  I didn’t come here expecting to find their mark sitting with you eating breakfast, for God’s sake.  You’re the only pack in town, so it is the courtesy call, that’s it.”

“Who has put the money up?  My Dad?”  Shawn might be quietly spoken but his words dripped with menace.  Kane felt the chill go right down to the tip of his cock, which sprung to attention.  Whoever said a strong man wasn’t a turn on was an idiot.

Michael dropped his head.  “Your Dad’s dead, man - this past six months, so I heard.  It’s your Uncle Xavier that has got the contract out on you.  Claims you’re some weird freak that’s gone mental in the head and is a threat not only to your own pack, but everyone else’s.”

“So why is he picking up trackers from your pack, instead of using his own?”
  Griff asked the obvious question.

“The guy we talked to said that you would know any of the trackers from your own pack, so he
wanted to recruit others you wouldn’t know.”

Kane growled. “Doesn’t that seem a bit stupid to you?  We’re shifter’s man.  Shawn doesn’t need to know the wolf, to know there is a wolf, does he, idiot?  His pack is too scared to come after him
, with good reason and if you have any sense you will tell your Alpha to have nothing to do with this, either, regardless of how much money is at stake.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.  Is this ever gonna stop?”  Shawn went to move away from Kane, but was quickly caught by Kane’s strong arm. 

“So now what, Shawn, you’re the Alpha of your home pack now your Dad’s dead?”  It was Scott that spoke up and Shawn flashed him a warning look but it was too late.

Michael stammered.  “Your uncle has put out a contract on the legit Alpha of his pack? 
He didn’t challenge you himself?  Fuck man, we didn’t want to get involved in any of that shit.”

Shawn stepped up to Michael and glowered at him.  “I am NOT the Alpha of that pack.  I am the MATE of the Alpha of this one and I AM one freaky shit so if you know what is good for you, you will get your two friends and get the hell out of town Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?”

“And don’t bother with any more courtesy calls.” Kane was now standing next to his mate, just as powerful and just as angry. “Send the word back to your pack, any one of you comes back into this town without good reason and you are dead.  You. Got. That?”

The room fair bounced as the power of the two Alpha’s focused on the hapless, Michael.  He wilted, cringing and if Griff had not still had hold of him he would have fallen to the ground.  Kane looked at him in disgust.

“Let him go, my breakfast is getting cold.”  Griff dropped Michael to the ground and then followed him as he half scrabbled, half ran out the door.  As soon as Michael’s butt got beyond the door step, Griff slammed the door on him.  He sauntered back, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“Well, that was fun.  Any more of that grub, Dean?”

“Yeah, sure, heaps.  You want yours reheated Shawn?”

Shawn looked at Dean, and then at the others and sighed.  “No, thanks anyway.  I had better get back into town and deal with this shit otherwise you are going to have hunters on your doorstep.”

“Nope,” said Kane.  “You are going to eat breakfast.  Dean, do him up a fresh plate would ya, and more coffee, heaps more coffee, please.  You,” to Shawn, “are sitting down and finishing breakfast.”  Kane turned him around, back to the table and then dragged him over to his seat.

“But Kane, you heard what he said.  He’s getting other packs involved now and there are innocent wolves that could get caught up in this.  Now they are going to be targeting your pack as well.”

“OUR pack.  I made you a promise sweetheart and I’m keeping it.  You are not going to be facing these hunters or any others on your own anymore.”

“I don’t want you guys getting hurt over me, okay.  You were all doing fine until I came along…”

“Yeah, we were fine,” said Griff with a smile, “But it has been a bit boring lately.  Taking on a few hunters and a couple of misinformed wolves isn’t going to put too much of a cramp into our day.”  He rippled his muscles and the other’s all laughed.

“And yeah Shawn, if you think we are letting you go after last night’s roast, you are sadly mistaken - none of us can cook up a meal like that.”  Troy grinned.

Shawn couldn’t help but laugh.  “You guys are all nuts.”

“Nope,” said Kane.  “We are a pack and you are an integral part of that pack now.”

“Yeah,” Scott broke in.  “And face it, if you left, Kane would be like a bear with a sore head or worse and we would all suffer.  You wouldn’t do that to us, would you Shawn?”  He batted his eyelashes at the man across the table and then ducked when Kane threw the salt canister at him.

Soon they were all sitting around the table, eating the fresh food Dean had cooked up, the boys laughing and joking with each other.  Only Kane noticed how quiet Shawn had been but when he tried to peer into Shawn’s head he got nothing.  His mate was blocking him, not a good sign. 

He looked around the table and saw that everyone was pretty much finished.  They all looked up at his banged on the table with his knife.

“Okay, here’s what we are going to do.  Griff, can you go into town
and make sure Mike, Frank and Ben have got the message and left town.  Also do a bit of a scout around and make sure those hunters haven’t picked up any more trackers from other packs.  If you do sense any, just get numbers at this stage and then head back here.  You can take Dean with you.  He should keep your fighting instincts in check.”  Griff grinned but nodded.

“Scott and Troy, I want you two to head out to the local motels, within about ten miles of town.  Find out where these fuckers are staying, but like the other two, just get numbers, names if you can get them and where they are situated.  Then head back here.”

“Oh and all of you had better grab stuff if you need it from your homes, cos I think it would be best if you all stayed here until these hunters have gone.  Any questions?”  He looked around the table.

“Nope boss, we’ll get on it.  You be okay here just with your mate?”  Griff smirked.

“Did you see what those two did to Michael, man?  They are more than all right.”  Scott laughed.

“My mate and I still have a few things to work out…in private.  Now get going and keep in touch.  I will see you all back here in about three hours.”

“Are you sure that will be enough time to ‘work things out” with your new mate, Kane.  We could always go to the diner for dinner.”  Now Troy was smirking.

“I’ll do dinner here for you all - one way or another.” Shawn said.

“Exactly, so I want you all back here by six at the latest.  Phone me if anything comes up. Now go.” Kane made shooing motions with his hands.  “Leave me and my mate in peace.”

Laughing the boys all headed out the door and moments later the sounds of two vehicles took off down the driveway.
The big house was finally quiet.