Axel's Pup (9 page)

Bayden…

Axel paused to catch his breath. Of course it was a good thing that no one was breaking in, but the idea of Bayden sneaking off at the crack of dawn didn’t exactly fill him with the joys of spring.

As Axel watched, Bayden stepped into the lock-up, but he didn’t make any attempt to jump on his bike and rush away. He moved his helmet to one side and crouched down next to the bike, inspecting it.

Axel hadn’t thought about boots or a shirt before he threw himself down the stairs. He didn’t bother to go back for them. He made his way slowly across the yard, the concrete rough under his bare feet, the morning air chilly against his bare chest.

Bayden had had the sense to get fully dressed before coming outside. Unaware that he had company, he ran his hands over the bike as if it was a lover who needed to be carefully inspected for any injuries after an extended absence.

Axel knew he hadn’t made a sound, but Bayden looked up as if a herd of buffalo would have shown more stealth.

Bayden didn’t wince at the way the skin on his back had to have protested his movements. Axel glanced at the back of Bayden’s jacket, wondering how the hell he could tolerate it against his wounds, but he stopped himself asking about it, sure that a direct question about it would shut the boy down.

“Will your family be worried that you didn’t come home last night?” he asked instead.

Bayden shook his head. “I don’t live with them.” A moment’s pause. “I moved out a couple of years ago. I’ve got my own place.”

“Out by the marina,” Axel remembered.

Bayden turned his attention back to his bike. “Yeah, that’s right.”

A couple of years ago. He was twenty-three now. “You moved out when you were twenty-one?”

Bayden gave a curt nod, but Axel wasn’t about to be put off just because Bayden’s conversational skills stopped at around interrogation level.

He’d said before that he’d been given his bike for his twenty-first. Just how spoilt was he? “Was your flat another present when you turned twenty-one?”

Bayden jerked his head up. Sudden anger filled his gaze. “It’s not something to joke about!” He snatched up his helmet.

Axel raised an eyebrow. “Want to fill me in on what I’m supposed to be joking about?”

Bayden glared at him, then hesitated as he seemed to realise that Axel genuinely had no idea what the hell had made Bayden so angry. “The anti-pack laws. They’re not a joke.”

Axel frowned as he searched through deep recesses of his memory. “Those? They’re ancient. We studied them in school. They’re not still in force.” Except, suddenly, Axel wasn’t so sure. “Are they?”

Bayden still had his helmet in hand. He studied Axel through narrowed eyes for a long time before he spoke. “They’re still the law.”

Axel shook his head as he tried to remember what the damn things were and failed.

“No more than two adult wolves can congregate in any one place,” Bayden said, curtly.

“And adult means over twenty-one,” Axel finished for him.

Another jerky nod, and Axel had the distinct impression that whatever he said next could shatter their tentative beginnings of an understanding past repairing.

“People actually enforce that law?”

Nod.

“So werewolves have no choice but to move out as soon as they turn twenty-one?”

Another sharper nod.

“Well, that’s fucked up.”

Bayden’s gaze narrowed. “Yes, it is.” He thought for a moment, then nodded again, a slower more considering gesture. The fact that Axel wasn’t defending the laws seemed to have reassured him that Axel wasn’t a complete arsehole. Bayden set his helmet down and went back to examining his bike.

Axel rested a shoulder against the lock-up’s wall. Mother. Grandfather. There hadn’t been any mention of a father, but it would be stupid to push for more info on his family at this point. And, damn it, he couldn’t put off asking forever. “How’s your back?”

“Wolves heal quickly,” Bayden said, tracing his fingers over his bike’s saddle.

From a whipping like that? “Overnight?” Axel asked.

Bayden seemed to think very carefully for several moments. When he straightened up, Axel half expected to be treated to another attempt at storming away in a huff. Instead, Bayden took off his jacket and laid it neatly on the motorbike’s handlebars. He turned his back on Axel and pulled up his vest.

There were still vivid red lines painted across his skin, but it was nothing compared to the mess it had been in the previous night. Axel stepped forward.

The moment Axel touched his skin, Bayden tensed. It obviously wasn’t because he was in pain.

“Problem?” Axel asked.

He was silent for so long, Axel became certain Bayden was trying to find a reasonably polite way to tell him to keep his hands to himself. But no.

Bayden shook his head. “It’s fine.”

Axel ran his fingers over the traces of the whipping, mentally picturing the way his back had appeared less than twelve hours ago. And now… “Wolves do heal quickly,” Axel allowed, as he stepped back. It didn’t make him feel any better about Bayden having been whipped for a bet.

Bayden pulled his vest down but he didn’t rush to meet Axel’s gaze. “Does that mean you won’t try to tell me I can’t ride today?”

Axel laughed. “You’re allowed to ride. But you can leave your bike in the lock-up while you come back in for breakfast.”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s not a suggestion,” Axel said, mostly to see how Bayden would react.

Bayden met his gaze. He held it for several long seconds before finally looking down. “Okay.”

Axel waited while Bayden carefully locked up. As they walked back inside, Axel reached out and ruffled Bayden’s hair.

Bayden glanced up at him, quick and fleeting. His lips twitched into a half smile.

Upstairs, when Axel set to work in the kitchen, Bayden lingered in the doorway. Axel looked up from what he was doing just in time to see him reach into the pocket where he usually carried the money he won in his bets.

“Before I bought this place, it was a B&B,” Axel said. “They charged for bed and breakfast. I don’t.”

Bayden moved his hand away from his pocket.

“Good boy.”

Bayden glanced up at him. He smiled slightly more broadly, seeming both shy and pleased by the praise. Axel smiled back and pointed to the table. “Grab a seat. It won’t be long.”

“You don’t want me to help?” Bayden checked.

Axel shook his head. “I’ve got it.” He opened the fridge and looked inside. “If you’re a vegetarian or whatever, now’s the time to say.”

“Anything’s fine,” Bayden said. “But you really don’t need to give me breakfast.”

Axel ignored that. It didn’t take him long to have coffee brewing, and bacon and eggs on the go, but, by the time he looked across to Bayden again it was obvious the boy had used the time to work himself up to saying something.

“What you said last night—that I was in no condition to play…”

“Yes?”

“I’m fine today.”

The words hung in the air, bright, sparkling and full of possibilities. Axel kept his attention on the frying pan, as he debated his choices. Damn, but it would be so easy to tumble Bayden straight into a scene. It was obvious the boy wouldn’t say no to whatever he threw at him.

Images flashed through Axel’s mind—most of them involving Bayden in various states of bondage in and around the pub. There wasn’t a single piece of equipment in the back rooms that he wouldn’t look fantastic on.

Axel looked over his shoulder.

His gaze met Bayden’s, and other images hurried forward to push aside the pretty pictures of bondage and naked skin.

Bayden agreeing to be whipped by Richards for all the wrong reasons, or, at least, for reasons that only made sense to a wolf. The anger that made every muscle in Bayden’s body tense when he thought about the way some humans treated wolves. The look in Bayden’s eyes when he’d all but admitted he’d only ever played out mockeries of scenes where he’d had no intention of actually submitting to anyone.

“We’re not doing a scene.”

Bayden dropped his gaze. He put his hands on the table, obviously about to jerk himself to his feet and rush out.

“Not today,” Axel added.

Bayden hesitated.

“Unless you’re telling me it’s a onetime offer?” Axel asked.

Bayden shook his head. “I’m not saying that.”

“Good.” Axel dished up the food, filling two plates with equal servings.

Bayden seemed about to speak several times, only to stop himself short.

“Pup?” Axel prompted as he put the plates on the table and sat down.

Bayden looked up. “I should wash my hands before breakfast.”

Axel didn’t chuckle, but it was a near run thing. He nodded to the sink. “Knock yourself out.” He watched as Bayden scrubbed his hands with the intensity of a surgeon about to operate, blatantly playing for time before he came back to the table.

They’d both cleared their plates before Bayden finally spoke up. “The scene. You’ll tell me when you want to?”

“I’ll tell you,” Axel promised.

Bayden didn’t seem to know what to do with himself then. He looked from one plate to another. “I can clean up.”

“There’s no dish washer,” Axel warned.

Bayden didn’t even blink.

“Go ahead,” Axel allowed.

A challenge, a puzzle, and a sub. Axel leaned back in his chair and smiled to himself as he watched Bayden dutifully work his way through the breakfast dishes. Yes, Axel could play the slow game for a guy who was all three of his favourite things wrapped up together in one very hot little package.

* * * * *

Bayden carefully unloaded the shopping bags from his panniers. He checked each one. Everything had survived the short journey intact.

His mother must have spotted him from the living room window, because she opened the door before he had a chance to knock.

“You didn’t need to, love.”

Bayden shrugged. “I was passing the shop on my way here. I thought I might as well save you the trip.” He put the bags down on the doorstep and pushed his hands into his pockets. “Is he any better today?”

She hesitated for a moment, then stepped outside, wrapping her cardigan around her to ward off the chill autumn air. “You do know he’s not going to get better, love.” The words were gentle, but firm. “You understand that?”

Bayden nodded, but he couldn’t meet her eye. “I know.” He’d known for what felt like half a lifetime. “Sometimes it’s just easier to…” Hope? Pretend? He sighed.

His mother cast a last look up the stairs and stepped away from the doorstep. A low wall ran along the edge of the garden. She brushed at the moss growing between the bricks, but that would never get it clean enough. Bayden shrugged his jacket off and put it on the wall for her, leather side down.

“Thank you.”

Bayden sat next to her and waited.

“He’s not going to get better. All the doctor can do is keep him as comfortable as possible.” She stared down at her hands as she straightened the edge of her cardigan. “I know you don’t like to think about what will happen afterwards, but we have to be practical. I’ve been making plans.”

“You mean where you’d prefer to live?” Bayden asked.

“Yes.”

Bayden glanced up at the flat. There were a lot of memories wrapped up in there. Since his grandfather had fallen ill, they weren’t happy ones. “If you don’t want to stay here, we can find somewhere else.”

“That’s not quite what I mean, love.”

Bayden frowned. “You’ll live with me. Not where I am at the moment, but here, or somewhere else. I don’t mind where. We can…”

She put her hand over his and gently squeezed his fingers. Her expression was very serious. “I’ve been talking to one of the ladies who works at the Danville Project.”

Bayden relaxed. Was that all? “You want to go back to work there?” As much as he hated the idea, he nodded and kept a smile pinned to his lips. “You don’t need to. But, if you want to, we can find somewhere to live that’s close to one of their sites and—”

“They’ve offered me a residential place,” she cut in.

It was like being punched in the stomach. “There’s no need for that.”

“Bayden…”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing humans can do to stop
two
wolves living under one roof. You’ll live with me. Money won’t be a problem. You can work at Danville, if you like, or you don’t need to go back to work at all. I can—”

“It’s what I want, love.”

Bayden met her gaze. “You…” He shook his head again. “You don’t mean that. You’re just tired. It’s too much, looking after granddad on your own. You should let me help more.”

“Bayden—”

“You didn’t say how he is today,” Bayden reminded her.

She slid her fingers through her hair, pushing the long brown strands back off her face. “He’s in pain. He hasn’t complained, but… He’ll need to see the doctor again.” She hesitated and looked down. “Maybe later this week, or…” She sighed. When she smiled, there was no happiness in it. “Enough about us. How are you?”

“Fine,” Bayden said. “You don’t need to worry about me. Shall I go up and sit with him for a while, let you get some air?”

She shook her head and moved to stand up.

Bayden jolted to his feet and put his hand on her shoulder. “At least let me carry the shopping up before I go?”

For a long time, he thought she was going to say no. He didn’t live there. He wasn’t part of her pack any more. He had no right to interfere. She didn’t have to accept his help. He held his breath until she finally nodded.

Picking up the bags, he made his way up, careful to avoid the creaky top stair and make as little noise as possible.

Setting the shopping bags on the kitchen table, he opened the furthest wall cabinet on the left and took the battered old tin from its hiding place at the back. There were two five pound notes and a couple of coins left.

He’d already counted out the money his mother’s rent man would want. He added it to the tin, just as he had so many times since his grandfather had fallen ill.

Maybe Bayden couldn’t stay under the same roof as his family without breaking the law. Maybe he wasn’t technically part of their pack anymore. But there were some things that human laws couldn’t stop him from doing.