Fighting the Call of the Wolf(14)

How was Aelius expected to live in a world where Kyle and his pup were dead?

Aelius all but smashed through his door, kicking it shut when he was inside with his mate, and the first thing he did was kiss the man. Keeping Kyle in his arms, he put his hand on the back of the man’s soft head of hair and pulled his face forward, thrusting his tongue inside and claiming his mate as he licked deep into his mouth.

Kyle wound his smaller arms around Aelius’s neck, and just the feeling of having Kyle’s arms sliding around him, holding onto him tight as his eyes shut for the kiss, nuked Aelius’s damned heart.

He had to pull his mouth away. He couldn’t contain himself anymore. He was going to implode with all the emotions that were threatening to break free of him.

“I love you,” Aelius said, and he didn’t stop talking even when Kyle didn’t answer him back. “I love you. I love you. I fucking love you, and I’m so damned sorry that I didn’t get my shit together sooner. I’m fucking sorry that I wasn’t there and that you almost died. I would have died if that motherfucker had killed you. Kyle, please believe me.”

Aelius had never felt this desperate for anything before in his life. Well, maybe he’d been just as desperate to chase after and kill the vampire who’d hurt Kyle, but this was entirely different.

Kyle sniffed, and Aelius waited for his reply with heart-throttling anticipation.

Kyle nodded, and his features twisted up as he pressed his face into Aelius’s neck. “I love you, too!” he said through his tears. “I–I don’t care if you’re only saying it now because you have to. I love you, too.”

“I’m not saying it because I have to. I’m saying it because I mean it,” Aelius said, stroking his mate’s back. Only his pride kept him from crying right along with the man.

He wanted to put Kyle down, but the bandages on his feet suggested that was a bad idea. He sat his mate on the bed instead and forced the man to look him in the eyes, cupping his cheek. “I mean it. I promise on everything that I am that I mean it. We’ll go back downstairs right now and tell everyone in the pack that I mean it. I’ll get a plane with those smoking letters or the signs that they drag behind them to announce it to the entire fucking city if that’s what it’ll take to prove it. I’ll do it.”

“Aelius—”

“No, I’m serious! I’ll do it, I really will!”

“Aelius. I believe you,” Kyle said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and then he seemed to choke on a laugh. “I believe you. I…I was scared of not seeing you again either when you chased after that vampire. I’m not going to argue about this anymore. I want this to work.”

Aelius leaned in and kissed the man again, and this time there was so much more happiness and relief within the touch of their lips than desperation and fear.

Christ, Aelius’s heart was still thumping. He never wanted to feel that terrified ever again.

Adrenaline did something to the alpha male that made him want to fuck and claim his mate, to touch him and feel for himself that he was alive and well, and Kyle’s mind seemed to be in the exact same place, because when Aelius put his hand between Kyle’s legs, the man’s cock was hard, and Kyle moaned when Aelius squeezed his palm around the man’s swollen dick.

Kyle had a tight grip on his shoulder. The man’s claws were coming out, and his eyes were glowing that pretty shade of gold that some wolves had as he looked up at Aelius. “I–I want you to claim me. Right now, please.”

Aelius kissed him, and their clothes came off with amazing speed. “You never have to ask,” Aelius said. “I’m always ready for you.”

Aelius’s first thought was to get behind his lover, to make love to him like that, hugging Kyle to his chest, but Kyle stopped him. “I want to ride you,” he said, and then scrambled to grab for the little purple bottle of lube he kept in his side drawer.

“What about your feet? Will that hurt?” Aelius asked, though he wouldn’t be shocked if Kyle couldn’t feel any pain at all, considering how dark his cock was. The head of his dick was damn near the same shade of dark purple as the bottle in his hand, and there was a drop of pre-cum forming at the slit that Aelius wanted nothing more than to lick away.

He wanted to put his mouth on Kyle’s cock, and press kisses to the man’s swollen belly where their child slept.

“I’ll be on my knees, so I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem,” Kyle said, grinning down at him as though he’d won an amazing prize.

It was the other way around. Aelius was the winner in this situation, and after fumbling the ball for so damned long, it was a miracle that he’d gotten this far at all, that he’d made it to the finish line.