As the hot water poured down on him, washing away the intoxicating scent of him and Urho together, clarity descended and another realization hit. He sank to the floor of the shower, his heart twisting hard. “I’m wolf’s own evil,” he whispered.
Because of his wicked nature and inability to resist temptation, he’d let Caleb down yet again. He’d left Urho’s house without the needed pills for Caleb’s next heat. He truly was the worst alpha in the entire world. Caleb didn’t deserve being stuck with him.
And he’d lured good, upstanding Urho into temptation as well. He scrubbed himself ruthlessly. He didn’t deserve Urho’s scent.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Urho woke coldand alone in his library, the air still swirling with the scent of his and Xan’s come. He hadn’t meant to pass out like that, but three nights of no sleep and riled up emotions—followed by exquisite and filthy sex with the man he couldn’t shake from his head—had wiped him out.
Rolling onto his side and into a sitting position, he pulled his hands through his hair and peered around the room, hoping to find Xan in some corner, or standing by the window. But no. There was no evidence of him aside from the remaining dried semen on the carpet and table, and the vivid scent of sex on the air.
Urho exhaled a shaky breath, filled with uneasiness. Where had Xan gone and why? A sick sensation slipped into his veins. Had Xan felt coerced into the sex they’d engaged in? Had he reallynotwanted it despite his trembling lust and relentless orgasms? Had Urho taken advantage of the boy?
He wasn’t used to negotiating sexual encounters outside of acting as a surrogate during heats. And wolf-god knew Urho hadn’t planned to have sex with Xan today. Not like that, anyway. When he’d made his offer, he’d imagined it as a future thing. A situation where Xan, unable to withstand temptation, would come to him and drop to his knees, look up at him with those big blue eyes, and ask for…
Wolf-god, he was getting hard again.
Apparently, he truly was a pervert. There was no getting around it. He’d had sex with another alpha and now yearned to do it again. Obviously he’d also lost his mind somewhere in the last few days. There was that to consider as well.
He tilted his head to gaze at the portrait of Riki, endlessly smiling. No change there. And he’d committed this sin right under his beloved’s watchful eyes. Why didn’t he feel more ashamed? He wiped a hand over his face and set about cleaning up the remainder of the mess his collision with Xan had left behind. It looked as though Xan had already tried his level best with the napkins.
As he scrubbed the carpet, his ears peeled for the footsteps of beta servants, all of whom seemed to have thankfully found something terribly important to occupy them after Xan’s arrival in the house, he tried to process the events of the day.
He’d been overwrought. He knew that much. But as for what had led him to order Xan to his knees? That had been lust and something more—a refusal to watch Xan walk away and into the arms of a man who didn’t value the beauty of his form, the vibrancy of his mind, or his passionate need to be handled with the same command and respect as an omega.
Urho gasped, sitting on his heels and gazing back up at the portrait of Riki.
How had he come to that conclusion? He’d sensed it from the beginning perhaps. So when Xan had turned on his heel to walk away from his offer, some part of him had simply known what to do: treat him like an omega, command him to his knees, and own him.
And he’d done it.
His balls filled and his cock rose. He closed his eyes and saw Xan’s arched back, his small hole presented to Urho complete with quivering haunches and flushed need. He’d licked it, kissed it, and demanded ownership of it, and Xan had given him all of that without hesitation. He’d given his seed, and his pleasure, and Urho wanted more. Needed more.
And he needed to know Xan was safe.
Rising from his cleaning, he wiped a hand over his sweaty forehead and peered up at Riki again. “Forgive me, beloved.”
But he knew, somewhere deep inside, that Riki didn’t mind. He’d only ever wanted Urho’s joy, and if he found happiness again in this madness with Xan, then Riki—far away in wolf’s cozy den of death—would support it. Even if the world called it sin and he might be imprisoned? If his soul might burn for this and be separated from Riki and their child forever?
Urho shook his head.
He didn’t believe in a wolf-god who punished, though he knew many did. Perhaps because he was a military man and a doctor, and he’d witnessed so much suffering that he truly believed the only thing wolf-god might offer is peace to all but the worst of humanity. Life was otherwise too full of misery to believe in anything else.
He took the stairs up to his rooms, avoiding the servants and glad for the betas’ relative lack of scenting abilities. He locked the door to his bathroom, flicked the shower on, and then hesitated once he was fully nude. He stared at himself in the mirror, taking in his wiry chest hair and dark skin leading down to his thick, alpha cock.
His pubic hair was pitch black, unlike the salt-and-pepper of his head. He was still muscled and strong, and he imagined lifting Xan into his arms, holding the boy like a treasure, and impaling him thoroughly.
Shuddering, he shut his eyes, took his cock in hand, and simply held it. The heat of his palm and clench of his fist kept him at the peak of arousal. He slipped it up and down his shaft, watching his cock grow harder, amused and amazed.
He hadn’t been so easily aroused since the last heat he’d acted surrogate. Omega pheromones were a guarantee for excitement, though. Odd that just thinking of Xan had a similar effect.
Wolf-god, what had he done?
As he reluctantly showered off the mixture of his and Xan’s come, he replayed Xan’s arrival and the brief conversation that had led so suddenly to what the people of the Old World had called fellatio. He recalled Xan asking him for pills for sexual stamina. The boy hadn’t needed help in that regard today.
But if he was truly unmanned, obviously, he wouldn’t.
Urho released a long breath. The slur unnerved him, playing at the edges of his mind. He’d accepted it and now he took responsibility for it. If Xan were truly unmanned then Urho would keep him safe. And if Caleb needed help with heats, if Xan needed pills to make it through, then he’d provide those too.
