Page 51 of Fixer
After a quiet, warm minute, Dustin said, “Have you ever wondered about a mate bond?”
“In general, or… or you and me?Isn’t it too soon?”My breath caught.I wondered if he might take that as a rejection.
“Whoa, yeah, way too soon for a bond that can only be broken by death.No, just in general.What it feels like.My dad said it was like the bond to an Alpha, except more personal and without the absolute power.He knew when Mom had strong emotions, felt when she died, but he couldn’t have commanded her like an Alpha does his pack.”
I didn’t like to look back, but I told him, “My mom was half-destroyed when Dad died and her bond broke, but she was so strong.She didn’t like the rest of the pack, worried they’d make her marry another wolf.She traveled all the way to the only other pack she knew of, to ask Alpha to take us in.She was never the same afterward, so I guess the mate bond could be a curse as well as a blessing.”
“Alpha bonds, too.I heard packs are traumatized when the Alpha dies.”Dustin scooted over, and I rolled onto my side so we could face each other.“We don’t need a bond, to be together as wolves, do we?”
“Not by my reckoning.”
“I love you.”Dustin brushed a fingertip along my cheekbone.“I want to stay with you because you matter.Not because I’m tied to you.Not because I can’t leave.”
“Agreed.”I caught his fingers in mine and hung on.“Together by choice.No stupid wolves can tear us apart, no bonds to lock us together.Choice, every time.”
“We’ll build something good.A life.This old building full of a human pack.”He grinned.“Maybe the Justice League will ride again in a good cause, even if it’s not to our personal benefit.”
I wondered what Dustin’s slightly flexible morality would consider a good cause, but I trusted him to talk issues over with me.“Like Paul Newman and Robert Redford.”
“I’m Paul Newman,” Dustin said quickly.“He’s better looking.”
“And older.”
“And yet better looking.”
I laughed.“You ever wonder if those two find a dark corner on the set sometimes, and have a walk on the wild side?They sure have chemistry in those movies.”
“Eh.Movies.They’re good actors.But maybe.I wouldn’t mind being a fly on that wall.”Dustin curled in against me, but fidgeted and cursed.“I’m sticky as hell.What do you say, share a shower?Followed by a snack?”
Something long suppressed in me, something that yearned for casual snacks and movie nights, for shared spaces and love that included sticky aftermaths with yawns and itchy thighs from stubble, opened and bloomed like a desert after the rain.This was the life I wanted.This was the man I wanted it with.
Mate.Told you.My wolf curled into a ball down inside me, tail over his nose, relaxed and content.
I didn’t need any bond to know what Dustin was to me.“Come on,” I told him, swinging my legs out to sit on the side of the bed, my ass perfectly achy.“Shower, yeah, if you don’t expect me to get it up again any time soon.Snacks, definitely.I got those cookies you like.Afterward, I should oil the door to the stairwell.It creaks.”I stood, reached down, and hauled him to his feet against me, loving the way the impact of his muscular body made me stagger.“Come on, mate,” I told him.“Let’s get to work on that to-do list.”
Epilogue – a year later
Dustin
Spring had come late in Ontario the next year, and the apple trees still wore a haze of pink and white blossoms in mid-April.We’d missed seeing the beauty of it when Wade and I had arrived late the previous evening, but this morning, the sun and flowers made a lovely backdrop for the event we’d come to witness.
“I still don’t get why they want a wedding,” Wade grumbled, as we set out chairs on the back lawn.“It’s not legal.It’s never gonna be legal.It just calls attention to them being gay.”
I shrugged and moved my next chair over six inches so the leg didn’t go into a gopher hole.“They haven’t been hiding their relationship among friends.Anyone who wants to know can probably find out.So I guess Zay liked the idea of being something more than boyfriends.”Or wanted to rub his and Shawn’s coupledom in people’s faces.Zay still carried a chip on his shoulder, carved by the parents who’d cast him out without a second thought, not a chip of anger but of reclaimed pride.Sometimes he liked to make a point that he was neither ashamed nor second best.I understood, even if it warred with my desire to keep them low-profile.
With Shawn to protect him, Zay was safe from random humans unless they caught him alone.They were as safe from werewolves as I could make them, too.I doctored the photos on their farm brochures enough to make Shawn unrecognizable.I’d made sure Shawn and Zay could recognize the enforcers of the packs in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, and all the rest of the top hierarchy too.I’d concealed the latest in video cameras along the driveway and behind the house so they could check for signs of surveillance.The guys had three different escape plans, depending on where trouble caught up with them.
Beyond that, I had to let them live their lives, and right now, that meant this commitment ceremony cum unofficial wedding outside their home.The celebrant was a human pastor who’d helped other gay and lesbian couples.The audience would be small, the legality nonexistent.Which meant less than nothing to the boys.When we’d arrived late last night, Shawn’s face had glowed with contentment, and Zay’s high energy seemed more settled, more mellow.Their joy had been so strong I could almost touch it.Laws couldn’t diminish that.
“Dustin!”Alice and Nola, Shawn’s foster parents, approached across the grass.Alice wore a pretty blue dress, Nola black pants and a men’s dinner jacket that suited her tall, angular figure well.
I turned to greet them.“Hi, how’ve you been?”They both hugged me, Alice a little misty-eyed.
“Can you believe this?”Alice waved around the pretty scene.“Just eight years ago, you landed us with a traumatized teen, and now he’s getting married to the love of his life.”
“Partly your doing,” I reminded her.“Not just for giving Shawn a safe place to heal, but for taking in Zay as well.Hey, did you ever hear?Did his parents ever try to find him?”
Nola glared into the distance.“Not that we could tell.They sold the farm and moved away about two years ago.”
