When No Doesn't Cut It (24 page)

Damien looked at the men in front of him and felt… inadequate.  For the first time in his life he worried that he wasn’t enough.  His age, his experience, his strength as a wolf and as an Alpha just weren’t enough if he wasn’t pleasing his mate.  He could plainly see the love that flowed between Kane and Shawn, and Griff and Diablo.  It was so solid and so real it was almost tangible.

“It’s too soon for love,” Damien almost whispered, knowing as soon as he opened his mouth, that something stupid would come out of it.  It was never too soon for a wolf to love his true mate.

“We never know how long we are going to have, Damien.”  It was Diablo who spoke this time; his voice as low and melodic as ever.  “I didn’t think I could tell Griff I loved him until after I left the FBI.  I was waiting for a sign - the perfect day to tell him.  I’m glad I didn’t wait, because before my time in the FBI was up, I had been abducted and was hours away from being sold into slavery before being killed.”

“I couldn’t wait either,” Kane chimed in.  “My mate had to face an Alpha challenge where I knew he was going to die.  I wasn’t sure I could bring him back.  So many things could have gone wrong.  But if Shawn had died without him knowing how much I loved him, then it was nothing more than a wasted emotion on my part.”

“I get that, I do,” Damien said.  “But you said yourself, Shawn, Scott already knows I don’t love him and probably never will.  I’m not capable of loving anybody, not anymore.  I gave that up long before Scott was even born.”

“You are going to be hurting your mate every single day of your life together.  Are you strong enough to live with that? More to the point, do you think Scott is strong enough to handle that?”  Shawn’s gaze pierced him from across the room and all of a sudden Damien needed to get out.  Get out of the house, away from these men and the love they had for each other.  He couldn’t breathe.

“I’ve got to… I need to go,” he said gruffly.  He stormed out of the front door of his house and stripped off his clothes.  Seconds later a huge grey wolf was seen running away from the houses in the compound.

Back in the living room the five men sat there for a minute.  Then Shawn started to laugh and after a moment, the other men joined in.

“Well that went a bit better than I thought it would,” said Shawn.

“I know you’re trying to help Scott and Damien, lover, but was it fair to upset Scott like that?”  Kane asked as he nuzzled his mate’s hair.  He absolutely adored Shawn’s hair.

“Scott’s already upset about his mate not loving him,” Shawn said as he leaned into Kane’s touch.  “But he’s been hiding it from Damien.  Now Damien knows about it
, so it is up to him to do something about it.  It won’t take him long to get the right idea.”

“So, bets on how long it takes for the mighty Damien to realize he has fallen in love after all?” Griff said.

“Ten dollars says he will do it in a month,” Dean shot back.

Kane was more thoughtful.  “Ten dollars on two weeks.  Damien’s not thick
, and he’s got a lot to think about thanks to us.”

“I reckon he’s too stubborn to realize how he feels
.  I mean have you seen what those two are like together?  Damien is seriously besotted and if Scott can’t see that, then he is an idiot.” Griff said.  “I’m going to go with six weeks because of Damien’s pig-headedness. What about you Diablo?”

“He’s coming to our wedding, lover,” Diablo said smiling down at Griff.  “I give him a week to cave.  What about you Shawn?”

“Well, considering I think he’s already in love with Scott,” Shawn said with a smirk, “I would have guessed the wedding as well.  But Damien’s got an Alpha challenge before then, on the Friday, so I’m putting my money on Friday.”

“Do you know something we don’t, mate of mine?” Kane said, his hand caressing the back of Shawn’s neck.

“Nope,” Shawn grinned, “no divine intervention on this one.  But it will happen, and when Damien does realize he has fallen in love and actually gets around to telling Scott, he’s going to make the four of us look like amateurs in the mate department.”

Chapter Twenty Six

Damien felt like he had been running for hours, but nothing could stop the ache he felt in his chest.
  Why did it feel like his life falling apart so badly?  The problems in the pack.  Those poor, poor boys. God, Damien couldn’t get over the guilt he felt at having something so fucking terrible happening on his pack land. That’s without factoring in the deception from those he believed close to him.  For so many years Damien had trusted that he had built up a good, solid pack.  The sacrifices he had made in his personal life - never let anyone get too close - never take a break or a holiday.  Just work and keep the pack strong.  And now, with meeting his mate, which should be the icing on the cake of his life, what had he actually achieved?

Financially the pack was one of the richest in the country.  Most of the money came from Damien’
s club and while Damien’s personal wealth was staggering, given his long life, most of the money from the club went to the pack.  Numbers wise, again the pack was one of the most solid anywhere.  Men wanted to get into Damien’s pack as often as they did his club. 

Damien was respected in the city as a strong, but fair business man.  He had helped many of the smaller businesses in town
, and had seen to it that basic essentials like rubbish removal and graffiti cleaning was done, to keep the riff raff out of what he deemed his area. He was forever being asked to sit on this committee or that, and for the most part he participated where he could.  If anyone questioned why it was that the owner of the club never seemed to age, no one said anything.  Damien had been a part of the fabric of the business community for so long, no one thought to comment on his presence and only a fool would ask him about his looks.

But what was any of that
worth at the end of the day?  All the money in the world couldn’t take away the ache in Damien’s heart, or the guilt he was feeling.  For all of his huge pack, there wasn’t anyone around who actually cared enough about him to be with him when he wasn’t at his best.  No one, but his mate. 

Damien had been so happy to find Scott, and okay he would be the first to admit that he did stuff things up at the beginning, but he really thought things were getting better between them.  Scott seemed to care about him.  He had saved those boys
, even though he risked his own life to do it.  What was more, Scott had taken the spanking that Damien had given him, when he knew he wouldn’t get anything out of the experience.  Damien would never do that again.  Since the day he arrived in Texas, hell even before then, Scott had stood by Damien’s side through everything. Never wavering in his support of him, and since coming to Texas, his new pack.  It was Scott who convinced the Cloverleah pack to come in and help when Damien didn’t have the resources he needed. Darn near everything that Scott did was for the betterment of his mate or the pack.

And Damien was hurting the man every single day. 

Damien hated that thought.  He hated the idea that Scott was hurting because of him - again.  Damn it to hell, Shawn was wrong.  Damien
had
been thinking about love in connection with Scott.  Okay, the thinking had been largely abstract for the most part, but Damien had been thinking about it.  It was really hard not to, when you had a mate who was perfect for you in every way. And Scott, damn it, was perfect for him in every way.

Damien looked up and saw that he had run almost in a full circle. He was back near the pack members’ houses.  His own house sat to the side of the others.  Closest to the gated entrance, it was the largest house in the area. A huge two-storey affair
built out of sturdy wood. Damien scanned the lights on the second floor, automatically looking to his bedroom window.  Even in the depths of despair and confusion, Damien’s wolf wanted to be near Scott.  Given the ache that still resided in his chest, Damien knew his human half wanted the man just as much.

But why did Scott still want him, if his mate believed him totally incapable of ever loving anybody?
  Damien crept up onto the porch in his wolf form and sat for a while in the shadows, just listening to the sounds of the night.  There was a time when he really loved this place.  But over the years, once he became Alpha and ‘out’ as a gay man, he spent more and more time at the club he had created.  He felt more at home with the men in the club, than he did with the families that remained on pack land. Not ever really being part of a family, Damien didn’t know how to relate that well with women and children, especially when he had no desire to be with a woman, or to have any children of his own.

As he thought about it, Damien knew that his thinking was outdated.  A hundred years before when Damien first became Alpha, it was illegal to be homosexual.  That was why Damien had built the club.  So men like him would have a safe place to be who they were.  As social thinking changed and sexual experimentation became more accepted the club had morphed into a BDSM club,
probably because of the clear Dominant/submissive nature of wolves.  The club was open to humans for lunches, dinner and dancing, but only wolves were allowed membership into the BDSM side of the club.  This allowed the wolves to express their true nature without fear of revealing that same nature to the humans they worked and lived among.

Maybe I’m getting old,
Damien thought as he sat and let the calm of the area soothe him. 
Or maybe it’s because I am mated now.
Damien didn’t feel the need to be at the club, like he usually did on the infrequent visits he made to the compound.  He only went to the compound if there was a major problem, or if he had to face Alpha challenges.  But sitting on his porch, in front of the house he had built and owned for more than 100 years, Damien did feel a sense of peace and belonging that had eluded him in the club.

Of course, that could have something to do with his mate, who was probably waiting for him upstairs, in their room.
Damien didn’t know what to say to him.  He couldn’t tell Scott that he loved him, because he honestly didn’t know if the feelings that he was so confused about, where actually love, or a residue from the fact that the two men were fated mates.  Damien hadn’t said those fateful three words since he was twenty years old and at the time, when those same words were so cruelly flung back in his face, Damien had vowed then and there to never utter them again.

Now, more than a hundred years later, that vow felt more like a curse.  Damien was a smart man.  He knew that holding onto pain that was way older than Scott himself, was just plain stupid.  Damien’
s first, and up until now only love, was the reason that Damien had kept himself from having meaningful relationships.  It is why he had relegated the act of sex to be something as meaningless as cleaning his teeth.

Laughing to himself, Damien stood up and shifted back to human form.  Sex was something else his mate had shown him could be so
full of love, and so wonderfully amazing. Damien didn’t think he could ever, or would ever tire of the way Scott made him feel when they were naked together. His mate didn’t believe in having a snack - every time with Scott was like a ten-course gourmet meal and with Scott, Damien found himself sharing more of himself than he ever had with anyone else.  He wanted to please his lover - another first for him.  Everyone else Damien had fucked before, had claimed how wonderful he was sexually, but it took Scott to show Damien that sex and love combined was a far more potent way of doing things.  And Damien was already addicted.

Did Scott love him?  After his little display in the living room that evening, Damien had to assume that
Scott did.  Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so upset at all of the talk about love and mating going together.  Shawn had also said that Scott loved his mate, so the Cloverleah pack must be seeing something he was totally oblivious too.  Perhaps the better question might be, Damien mused to himself, did he want Scott to love him? 

That was easy to answer.  Hell yes!  Because if Scott loved him, then he wouldn’t leave
him, and that was Damien’s biggest fear.  That Scott would leave him.  So could he love Scott back?  Damien scrunched up his face as he thought.  No… Yes… Maybe… Definitely?  Damien settled on probably.  If they were together long enough, and Scott stayed loyal and sexy and as loving as he already was, then it was a definite ‘probably’.  But was this something the two of them had to talk about tonight, he wondered, because he really didn’t want to.

Thinking things through
, Damien figured that he didn’t have to talk to Scott right now.  Maybe Scott was already in bed and they could just cuddle up.  After being starved for affection for so long, Damien realized how quickly he had come to rely on Scott’s easy touch and the need to have the man in his arms became overwhelming.  Opening his door, Damien strode, naked, up the stairs to the room he shared with Scott.  Even if Scott did want to talk to him tonight, hopefully he could do it while Scott was safe in his arms where he belonged.

/~/~/~/~/

Scott could sense that Damien was nearby.  After he had thrown his mini temper tantrum at Kane and stormed off out of the living room, he had heard the men downstairs talking for a bit and then heard Damien leave the house.  He could tell that his mate hadn’t gone far, although with Damien in his wolf form, Scott only got impressions of open grass spaces and tree lined areas, when he tried to tap into the man’s mind.

Sighing, Scott rolled over on the bed and tried to get some sleep.  After his talk with Troy, he was deathly tired but he found no matter how often he closed his eyes, sleep eluded him.  For the tenth time that evening, he replayed the conversation he had with Troy
, over in his mind. He remembered being angry because Troy had followed him.  Scott was embarrassed about his little outburst and worried that it might have upset his mate.  Troy didn’t think it was a big deal and tried to say so.

“But Troy, he’s my mate.  Storming off like that, is like, being disloyal or something.  Now Damien’s going to think that I have a problem being mated with him, and I don’t”

“Actually you do,” Troy said.  “You have a problem with the fact that you think he won’t ever love you, and that’s a big problem for any mating pair.”

“No, it doesn’t have to be.” Scott was adamant on that score.
“We get along fine in every other way.  He’s a great Alpha, a good business man, he seems to want to be with me, even if he doesn’t love me, and the sex is out of this world fantastic.  How could I not be happy with all of that?  Have you seen the man?  Troy, have you really looked at him?  He is a walking sex god.  I have nothing to be unhappy about.”

“I have my own mate,” Troy reminded him.  “I don’t need to be perving on yours.  But what about your feelings?  Does he care about them?  Does he cherish you the way you deserve to be looked after by your mate?”

“He doesn’t know about my feelings,” Scott remembered whispering to his brother.  “Because if I tell him, then he is just going to feel bad, because he will never feel the same way about me.  And I won’t do that to him.”

Scott remembered Troy’s hug, and while it had comforted him to a degree, the feeling was nothing like it used to be for Scott.  All Scott wanted was Damien’s arms around him.  Damien letting him know that he wasn’t upset with the way Scott had let his guard down
and possibly let his feelings slip.

“Well, I kinda think you let the cat out of the bag tonight, Scott.  Honestly brother of mine, why did you go off at Kane like that?  You know Kane didn’t mean any harm.  He was just asking what any one of us would be asking by now.  You’re Damien’s mate. You deserve to be recognized as such in a pack ceremony. Hell, given Damien’s standing in the shifter community, it should be the biggest Alpha Mating Ritual
ceremony us wolves have ever seen.”

“You’re not helping, Troy. 
I’m just damn glad the man hasn’t asked me.  I wouldn’t say no, because I can’t deny my mate anything, but I wouldn’t want to go through that, in front of so many people.”

Troy laughed at him and punched him on the arm.  “Since when were you shy, little brother? You’ve never struck me as the retiring wall-flower type.”

“God, Troy, could you imagine it.  The vows we would have to make to each other.  I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from telling him, and every damn other wolf in the area, how much he means to me.”

“Why would that be so bad?  That’s what the ceremony is for.  For each person to say why the other is important to him, and to the pack.”

“Oh yeah, that would be just peachy fine.” Scott thrashed his head back on the bed in frustration.  “Me pouring out my heart about how much I love the man, and my mate, the Almighty Damien, explaining how I am good for pack moral and how wonderful it is to have an Alpha Mate after so many years.  Real romantic,
not
.  I’ll look like a fucking pussy.”

“Don’t let Diablo hear you say that,” Troy said as he laughed.
  “Seriously though, if it comes to that, then I’ll write your vows for you.  I don’t have any love for the man and I can write you a set of vows that discusses ‘utilizing and combining pack resources to the benefit of all wolf kind’.  You’ll see.  I can make it sound like a business merger.”

“Well, if it happens, and I hope it doesn’t, I’ll take you up on your offer,” Scott said as he sat up and looked at his brother fondly.

“He will fall in love with you,” Troy said with all seriousness.  When Scott looked at him with his patented ‘whatever’ expression, Troy continued.  “He will fall in love with you without even realizing it.  You have that knack, Scott.  That knack of just being yourself and having people care about you.  His wolf will already be in love with you, and no matter what the man has been through before in his life, eventually his human half will come to know the same thing.  With Damien, it’s just going to take time.  Now you’re mated to him, you have all the time you need.”