Axel's Pup (4 page)

Griz’s turned to him again. “Bayden?”

“Yes?” Bayden glance toward them, doing a stellar impression of someone unaware that anyone had spoken to him before that moment.

“Have you twigged that most of the men who drink here are gay or not?” Griz demanded.

Bayden took a swig of his drink. “I know.” That was it.

“And?” Griz prompted.

Bayden glanced at him but didn’t say anything.

“Are you gay?”

Axel was quite interested in the answer to that question himself. It wasn’t as if there was a sign above the door advertising the fact that The Dragon’s Lair was a gay pub. Straight bikers came in all the time, not realising The Black Dragons were a gay motorcycle club. Of course, there were some self-declared straight guys who kept coming back time and time again—generally, they were the ones who became less straight the more they drank.

Bayden thought about it for a few moments. “It’s different for wolves. Preferring men or women, that’s a human thing.”

“Do you screw guys?” Griz pushed.

Bayden kept his attention on his drink. “Yeah, I do guys.”

“What about kink—do you know that most of the guys here don’t just wear leather because they ride bikes?”

Bayden failed to look the least bit shocked. “I’ve heard that.”

“Is that another human thing?” Drac asked from the stool next to Griz.

“Wolves play too.” Bayden met Axel’s gaze. He looked away so quickly Axel failed to get any kind of read on him. Still, Axel found himself all kinds of interested in what that look might mean.

“Do you play as well as you fight?” Hale asked, leaning back in his stool to see past Drac and Griz.

“Yeah, I do.”

“That doesn’t mean much.”

Axel glanced past the Dragons to the young man standing behind them. One of the hangers-on had obviously been eavesdropping. As Axel watched, the guy moved down to stand closer to Bayden. “You winning last week was a fluke. Ford’s an idiot—no challenge at all.”

Axel tried to place the guy. He’d been around for a while, watching the play in the backrooms while he worked up the guts to try it for himself. Peterson? Something like that.

Bayden glanced over his shoulder. Peterson wasn’t as muscle-bound as Ford, but he was still bigger than Bayden. Bayden shrugged as if he really didn’t care what the guy thought.

“I’m right,” Peterson said, full of self-satisfaction. “A fluke. Wolves aren’t half as tough as they like people to think they are.”

“Ford was sure enough to put one hundred on himself to win,” Bayden pointed out.

Peterson squared his stance. “I’d put one hundred on myself too.”

Bayden looked him up and down and failed to appear the least bit impressed.

Peterson’s eyes narrowed. “Any time you want.”

Bayden shrugged. He put the top back on his bottle of Coke, got off his stool and picked up his helmet.

“Now?” Peterson asked.

Bayden nodded.

Axel moved down the bar toward them.

“You want us to take it somewhere else?” Bayden asked.

Axel stared down at him as if he was weighing his options, but he’d already made his decision. Bayden was better off where someone could keep an eye on him. “Here is fine.”

The routine was the same as last time. Bayden stowed most of his stuff away in his panniers. Axel wrapped his knuckles and, despite what he considered deep provocation, managed not to launch into a lecture worthy of his grandmother in full fire and brimstone mode.

By the time Bayden and Peterson squared off against each other, Axel felt like he’d been holding his breath for hours, waiting to see which of the two boys had been talking out of his arse.

Peterson. Within seconds, it was obvious that all of Peterson’s bluster about being able to take down a wolf was complete bollocks.

Ford hadn’t been a fluke. Bayden had skill—and not the kind a man developed in a gym sparring with friends. Bayden moved like he’d learned to fight the hard way. He kept his guard up, because he’d been hit too hard and too often to forget to protect himself.

Peterson landed one good punch to Bayden’s eye. The next moment Peterson was face down on the ground. He pulled himself up, fair play to him for that. But he didn’t manage to touch Bayden again before he was down for the count.

One of Peterson’s friends, another voyeur from the pub’s fringes, cautiously crept forward to check on him. Bayden watched it all without any visible expression.

Axel stepped forward.

Peterson said something to his friend, who hurried across to where Peterson had left his jacket. Peterson took the money out of his wallet without a word of protest. He was about to hand it to Bayden when the blood stained wraps made him hesitate. Apparently feeling more than a little queasy at the sight of his own blood gracing another man’s knuckles, Peterson handed the money to Axel instead.

Axel watched with amusement as everyone headed back inside. Peterson’s tentative standing had gone up dramatically. What Ford and Jarvis had lost by being arseholes after the last fight, Peterson had gained by proving he could take being beaten fair and square.

No longer largely ignored, Peterson suddenly had a lot of friends willing to buy him a drink to commiserate.

“Has it ever occurred to you to tell someone who challenges you to a fight to just bugger off?” Axel asked when he and Bayden were left alone in the yard.

Bayden frowned. “No.”

Axel shook his head. “It’s not your job to take down every idiot who insults wolves.”

Bayden seemed to think about that very carefully. “What would you do if someone said all gay humans are cowards, that none of them can fight worth a damn?”

“Laugh,” Axel said, honestly. “If I started hitting everyone who wound me up, I’d never have time to do anything else.” He tucked a knuckle under Bayden’s chin. Bayden obediently tilted his head to let him see what damage had been done this time.

“You’re going to have a hellish black eye.”

“Wolves heal quickly.”

“That’s no reason to go looking for injuries, pup.”

Bayden glanced up. If he seemed surprised by the nickname, he made no protest against it. Content that no real harm had been done to the boy, Axel let him step back.

“Grab your stuff, and come inside.” He kept an eye on Bayden until he was sure he would do as he was told, then went in.

A quick glance confirmed that Matt was coping well enough behind the bar. And if that changed, it wouldn’t kill people to queue. Axel left him to it and took a seat on one of the barstools. The fact that he hadn’t retreated to his usual side of the bar seemed to throw Bayden off his game. He hesitated a few yards away.

“Come here.”

Bayden shuffled a bit nearer, only to hesitate again, two feet away. Axel caught hold of his belt loops and tugged him closer. Bayden made no complaint when Axel took his things and set them on the stool next to him. He stood in front of Axel in silence while Axel began to undo the wraps.

“This isn’t a hobby, is it?”

Bayden glanced up at him.

“You’ve been here twice. Each time you’ve left a hundred pounds richer. Taking fights in pubs, it’s how you make your living.”

Bayden frowned. If that made his eye hurt, he didn’t wince. “The money’s not the point.”

Axel raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’d fight anyone who spoke about wolves that way for free,” Bayden said, after only the slightest hesitation.

“The money’s just a bonus?”

“Something like that.” His voice was off.

“But not completely like that?” Axel finished with one hand and turned to the other.

“Centuries ago it was simpler. If a human picked a fight with a wolf, it would be clear who won, because the wolf would have torn the human’s throat out with his teeth.” The moment the last word left his lips, Bayden looked up. He obviously regretted saying it.

Axel didn’t give him the chance to backtrack. “So, the money’s a way of keeping score?” he asked, calmly. “When a man hands over the money, it’s obvious who won and who lost.”

Bayden nodded but his expression remained wary, as if he expected Axel to freak out just because he’d mouthed off and bigged up his species.

“You said you’d heard that this pub’s for guys who are into leather?” Axel said.

“Yes.”

“Well, there are house limits that everyone has to abide by. Ripping out throats isn’t allowed—regardless of species.”

Bayden opened his mouth. Just in time, he apparently realised he was being teased. He smiled slightly. “I can follow the rules.”

“Good boy.” Axel ruffled Bayden’s hair, pushing the scruffy brown stands back off his face. “Sit down, I’m not done with you.”

Bayden obediently climbed onto a stool. He pulled the rest of his clothes on as Axel went behind the bar. Grabbing some ice, Axel wrapped a towel around it to form a make shift ice pack and handed it to Bayden.

Bayden looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Put it on your eye.”

“I’m fine.”

Axel kept holding the ice pack out until Bayden finally took it.

“On your eye,” Axel repeated.

With obvious reluctance, Bayden put the pack on his eye. Axel left him to his own devices while he went to help Matt clear the backlog of guys waiting to be served at the other end of the bar. He didn’t come back until the ice had been on Bayden’s eye for a solid twenty minutes.

Bayden only removed the pack when Axel stopped in front of him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, pup.”

“I should get going.” Bayden pulled himself off his stool. He didn’t seem to know what to do with the ice.

Axel absentmindedly took the towel off him, dumped what was left of the ice into the sink and tossed the damp towel on the bar. “How’s your eye to ride?”

“It’s fine.”

Reaching across the bar, Axel angled Bayden’s head to get the best view. The ice had done its job. His eye hadn’t swollen up.

“Close your good eye.” He waited until Bayden obeyed. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.” Not the slightest hesitation. No squinting.

“You’ll do,” Axel allowed. He handed over the money Bayden had won that night.

“Thanks.” Bayden picked up his things. He took a step back and paused. “What you said last time…”

“You can consider it a standing invitation.”

Bayden smiled. Then the sunglasses were back on, and he was heading out of the pub.

“Tough little bugger, isn’t he?” Drac said.

Axel turned toward his friends. “Seems like it.” It was certainly what Bayden wanted people to think.

“Wolves are trouble,” Hale observed. “Always have been, always will be.”

Axel raised an eyebrow, well aware he was being baited.

Hale grunted. “It’s true. You can’t trust a wolf. I’ve arrested enough of them over the years to know. Thieves, drunks and troublemakers—every one of them.”

“We’re still talking about the guy who drinks regular Coke and barely talks to anyone, right?”

“Actually, we’re talking about the guy who just stole your towel.”

Axel turned around. The towel he’d wrapped the ice in. It had been on the bar, but it was gone. Bayden was the only man who’d been within six feet of it. He must have snatched it when he gathered up his things.

Hale smirked. “I told you. The boy’s trouble.”

Axel smiled to himself when he looked up and saw who’d just walked into his pub. Two nights in a row. At this rate, Bayden would be turning into a true regular any day.

As Bayden approached the bar, Axel looked him up and down in a quick but thorough inspection. The boy obviously had very set ideas about appropriate attire for a biker’s pub. He wore exactly the same as he had on his last two visits—right down to those bloody stupid sunglasses.

There was that same slight tension in him too, as if he was aware that he didn’t quite fit in but he was doing his damnedest not to let anyone know that.

A yard away from the bar, Bayden seemed to remember Axel’s orders from the day before. He took off his glasses. Another half a step forward, and he stalled.

Axel noticed the way Bayden’s shoulders tensed, but it took him a moment to realise why. Apparently, people frowning at Bayden freaked him out.

“You weren’t joking when you said you heal quickly, were you?”

Bayden shrugged, but the fact was, his eye should have been a mess and it wasn’t. No swelling at all. There was a smudge of purple underneath his eye, but it looked like it had been healing for a week rather than a day.

He gave no indication of being about to approach the bar of his own volition.

“You’ll need longer arms if you want to drink from over there,” Axel said.

Bayden came closer. Another slight hesitation, and he passed a carrier bag across the bar. “Thank you.”

Axel took the bag and peered down into it—the towel Bayden had walked off with the previous day. It had obviously been laundered. It looked suspiciously like it had been ironed too.

Axel looked up, realised that Bayden was watching him warily, and bit back his amusement. “You’re welcome.” He set the towel on a shelf under the bar.

Bayden’s lips twitched into a brief smile, obviously relieved that his gesture had been so well received. Axel gave a mental shrug. As quirks went, ironing towels was a damn sight less annoying than those dark glasses.

He didn’t bother to ask Bayden what he wanted. He got his Coke and set it on the bar in front of the same stool he’d sat on during his last two visits. Bayden obediently took his seat.

“How was your ride over?” Axel asked.

“Fine.”

Axel studied him carefully. An answer that short from most humans would have been a brush off, but Bayden didn’t seem to talk much to anyone, and, hell, at this point nothing short of a firm—sod off, I’m not interested—was going to dent Axel’s curiosity.

“You said you’d heard that a lot of the guys who drink here are into leather.”

Bayden nodded.

“From who?”

Shrug.

“Do you know any of the Dragons; ever played with one of us?” Axel kept his tone light, not inclined to let on how much he already hated the idea of one of the other guys having ever laid a hand on Bayden.