“Do you feel you have a mating bond with Todd?” Jax asks me.
I nod. “Yeah. I can’t explain what happened earlier this morning as anything but that. And it’s not just this morning, either. It’s a feeling that’s been growing more intense over the past couple of days, but this morning it felt… It felt like a missing piece slipped into place and I was exactly where I needed to be, and with the guy I should be with.” I look at Jax. “I’d rather you kill me than banish me because the thought of being without Todd makes my entire soul hurt.”
And it does, too. Just thinking that so that I can verbalize it to Jax yanks on deep-seated fear and pain and sends it gurgling to the top of my brain in a toxic soup that also threatens to make me heave chunks.
“No one’s getting banished, much less killed,” Jax says before he looks at Todd. “Do you feel it’s a mating bond you have with Mal?”
“Yes, sir,” he says. “I really do. I’ve never felt like this before. About anyone, ever. He’s right that this morning something inside me…transformed. I felt it, too. I mean, you know me, Jax. You’ve known me nearly all my life. You know I don’t get hung up on a guy like this. I don’t fall in love and never have. Like a guy? Sure. Fuck buddies? Absolutely. But in love beyond friendship? I don’t think there’s anything to explain what I feel except that it’s a mating bond.” He meets my gaze, and my heart does that somersault again. “It has to be,” he softly says, “because the thought of ever losing you shreds me. I’d rather die than lose you.”
I squeeze his hand as I blink back tears.
“Good,” Jax says. “I’m not ordering you to marry Mal, but he needs a?—”
“Yes,” Todd says, still looking at me. “If he says yes.”
Jax smirks. “You didn’t let me finish. At the very least, Mal needs a protector, a declared sponsor. And you need to be his first during his first heat. To ensure?—”
“Yes, Jax,” he insists, his gaze never leaving mine.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“He wants me to help trigger your first mating heat,” Todd says, his smoldering gaze churning my insides into molten need. “And for me to rut you during your first heat. Since you’ve never been through a mating heat, whoever fucks you first during that heat, you should end up smelling like them and it’ll dilute your birth pack scent. By the time we both come down from that, you’ll smell so much like me that after the pack finishes with your initiation, no one will be able to tell you weren’t part of the pack from birth. Also, you’ll smell more like an elk than a wolf.”
“Will…will that work? Have you done that before?”
“We haven’t,” Jax says, “But we’ve already asked Father and Dad and others for advice. We learned another pack successfully did something similar for someone. Although in that case, it wasn’t the omega wolf’s first heat, and their partner was a bison. The omega was being pursued by his birth pack, and triggering his heat allowed him to mask his scent.”
I fight the urge to squirm over the thought of Todd railing me. Again. “I don’t know how to trigger my mating heat.”
We all look at Shawn, who’s remained quiet this whole time, sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Oh, suuuure,” he jokes, one corner of his mouth quirking. “Now you need the slutty omega to take over.” He leans forward and opens his laptop. “In theory, ideally you two would have experienced an instantaneous mating bond. But you didn’t. So we’ll have to assume what you two feel is a true mate bond and not just a bunch of great-sex lust.”
That point, the doubt, stabs into my heart like a knife, but I remain silent.
“We’ll use a four-pronged approach to give us the best shot at success,” Shawn continues, ticking points off on his fingers. “For starters, I’ll get the herbal recipe from Carlos in the Spokane pack that will hopefully help trigger your heat. It’s different from what I use for mine, and I’m a coyote, not a wolf. The situation he told me this recipe was used for was to trigger a wolf’s heat. But that was between two wolves—an Alpha and an omega—and wasn’t a life-or-death issue. The omega was single but wanted a baby, and the Alpha was already mated and was a good friend of him and his mate. It was only the wolf’s third heat, meaning he still wasn’t experienced in triggering it on his own. We’ll start there and, hopefully, we’ll get results.”
Shawn holds up another finger. “After giving you that, we’ll need to edge you literally to the point you’re almost in pain because you’re so horny and desperate. To make you absolutely lose your fucking mind so you can completely sink into the heat. The best way to do that is by using other wolves or canines. Jax and I will take the lead there, because neither of us will put others in this pack at risk.
“However,” Shawn holds up a third finger. “To give this whole process the best chance of working and thoroughly masking your scent, you must be taken for the first time by someone who’s from our pack but who isn’t a wolf or other canine. Meaning not Jax or me. And it needs to happen ASAP, because we’re under the gun and can’t do a full initiation. And the best shot for all of this to work with this deadline is if it’s someone you can genuinely submit to, not just have sex with. But we’re not absolutely positive if what the two of you have is a true mate bond. Meaning…”
He motions at Todd and then holds up a fourth finger. “We need to chase you, a mating hunt, with everyone worked up and horny, so it gets Todd worked up and wanting not just to bang you, but to fully claim you as his before Jax can get to you and do it.”
I can’t help it—I squeeze my thighs together. “That doesn’t sound… bad.”
Sounds the opposite of bad, if I’m being completely honest.
“The problem is that Todd’s a beta, not an Alpha,” Shawn continues. “And for all of this to happen the way it needs to, we have to pit Todd and Jax against each other in a mating hunt to claim you. Because this must have real stakes that everyone gets caught up in for the best chance of it working to trigger Todd’s rut. Not just his sexy-time initiation fucking mode—a legit mating rut. Because, unlike a canine, it apparently isn’t possible to artificially trigger an elk’s rut—it either happens naturally, or his hormones get worked up so much it triggers it. Fighting for you, when you’re vulnerable and smelling like sex personified, is the best way to do that.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound good, but I’m not sure why.”
Todd turns to face me. “Jax is already mated. And we want you to smell like me. But me just chasing you likely won’t trigger anything because you’ll want to roll over and get fucked, and I’ll be happy to do it, but there’s no…stakes for either of us. Not really.”
His cocky smirk makes me want to drop to my knees and beg to suck his cock. “So the stakes have to be artificially manipulated,” he continues as his smirk fades. “Meaning I have to challenge Jax’s position as Alpha to claim you and fuck you before he does and trigger that response in him, too.”
Still doesn’t sound great, and now I’m more confused. “I don’t understand.”
“If Todd doesn’t win and get to you first and claim you before he then submits to me,” Jax says, sounding nearly distraught, “I might accidentally kill him.”
