Prodigal (Outcast Sons Book 1) Read online

  And Jon would be all but forgotten.

  He tried to push that nagging concern to the back of his mind, to be grateful that he was with Cae now, and that his presence was helping the other man maintain his grip on his sanity.

  And at least he didn’t have to eat squirrel any more.

  He’d been right. Hunting in a pack, even a small pack, was easier. The two of them worked well together, with Cae stalking the prey and flushing it toward Jon, who pounced on it in his wolf form and killed it. Their first night together, it was venison, and Cae cooked the meat over a fire, since human taste buds preferred it that way. The two of them sat together in their clearing, talking companionably as they ate.

  “I’m glad I finally found you,” Caeden said at last, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I’ve been looking for you for almost two weeks now. When my father told me you’d been exiled—I knew I had to come find you.”

  “You should’ve stayed, you know. Maybe Dr. Rich could have figured something out…”

  “I can’t lose you, Jon. I told you. I feel better when you’re around. More normal. More…” He smiled, a wry flash of teeth. “Sane.”

  “I took you home so you could get medical treatment, damn it.”

  “Yeah, I know. But the truth is that Dr. Rich doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s wrong with me or how to fix it.”

  “I’m sure he was going to do his level best to figure it out.”

  “And what if he didn’t?” Cae’s voice rose in agitation. “I knocked three people in the head to escape and come find you, Jon. And what’s worse, I didn’t even care all that much. What if I got worse instead of better, and started hurting people for no reason at all?”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Jon said, though he was aware it wasn’t quite true. He still remembered Cae’s awful, horrifying bloodlust in the city, the way he’d gone out of his way to antagonize human gangs. The way he’d slammed that guy into a wall with a casual ferocity that made Jon’s inner wolf cringe.

  Cae sighed, and threw himself onto his back. He stared up at the darkening sky, where a few stars were beginning to shimmer tentatively through the thick canopy of forest.

  “I might,” he said, his voice low. “I just might. You and I both know it’s possible. I shouldn’t be around anyone right now—I need to be away from wolves as well as humans. I’m not even sure you should be here, Jon. What if I—”

  “You would never hurt me,” Jon said firmly.

  Cae looked over at him, a long and thoughtful stare. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah. You’re right. I never would. I couldn’t hurt you, Jon, no matter what. I wonder why you’re safe from me, when no one else is?”

  Because I’m your oldest friend, Jon thought dispiritedly. Nothing more, nothing deeper. In the long run, there can’t be anything between us except friendship.

  Thoughts of friendship fled from his mind, however, when Cae’s big hand grasped his, and his thumb began tracing intricate circles on Jon’s palm. Jon sighed with pleasure, stretching out on the ground next to him. Although he was naked, the carpet of pine needles was soft enough and comfortable enough.

  And because he was naked, he couldn’t hide his body’s reactions—though given their kind’s sense of smell, he couldn’t have hidden them anyway. Not that he wanted to. By this point, it was hardly a secret that he wanted Cae, that he ached for him with every fiber of his being.

  He wanted to be taken by the other man, to be stretched, to be filled.

  The thought sent his mind reeling down some forbidden paths. Not for the first time, he wondered what knotting was like. He thought about Cae’s already huge cock swelling inside him, filling him, linking their bodies in a way that couldn’t be broken. The thought sent a flash of heat through him like a bolt of summer lightning, and his own cock responded, swelling against his belly.

  It was only a ludicrous fantasy, of course. No omega could mate with an alpha, and so knotting was absolutely out of the realm of possibility. He wished it weren’t, though. He would have given almost anything to be the one who could satisfy Cae’s deepest, most base urges, the one who could fulfill him completely. The one who could give him everything an alpha needed—knotting, a life-mate, and a lair full of cubs.

  He heaved a sigh, knowing that a happy domestic life with Cae wasn’t for him, and neither was knotting. Making love the ordinary way would have to suffice. Anyway, it wasn’t like screwing Cae wasn’t extraordinarily fulfilling. Having the other man rutting inside him had been incredible, had brought him to heights he’d never before imagined, and he was quite certain that Cae had felt the same way.

  What the two of them shared when they made love was almost enough.

  Almost.

  “I want you,” he said softly.

  “Yeah.” Cae’s hand closed on his, holding on tightly. “Yeah, Jon. Me too.”

  “Earlier… what the two of us did together… it was awesome. But tonight…” He hesitated, because an omega wasn’t supposed to make anything resembling a demand to an alpha. But he knew that Cae would forgive him, so he forged ahead, as boldly as he was capable of. “I want you inside me.”

  There was a long silence. “Are you sure?” Cae asked at last, sounding almost tentative. “The last time we were together… in the junkyard… I kind of lost control, and it scared me a little. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t hurt me. I’ve had weeks to recover, and besides, I was made for this. I was made for you.”

  It was true. Their people fucked that way more easily than humans did, thanks to natural lubrication and somewhat more flexible body construction. After all, anal sex was nothing at all when compared to the enormous stresses a body went through in transforming from human to wolf form and back again.

  Cae was still silent, and Jon squeezed his hand.

  “Please, Cae. You aren’t going to hurt me. After all, you know what they say.” He chuckled, not without bitterness. “Omegas are made for fucking.”

  “Don’t say that, damn it.” Cae’s voice was sharp. “I hate that saying. Omegas aren’t just fucktoys, no matter what anyone in the Pack might say, and I don’t want you to ever think of yourself that way. Omegas are people, the same as anyone else. Do you understand?”

  Jon looked at him a long moment, then nodded.

  “I’m glad you think so,” he said softly. “And okay, I’m not a fucktoy, just someone who needs you. So, so much.”

  That was the simple truth, too. He ached for Cae in a way he’d never ached for anyone. He’d had plenty of sexual partners, since their people were for the most part pretty free and easy about sex, but he’d never burned with this all-encompassing need for anyone before. His blood sang in his veins and his body throbbed with longing.

  All for Caeden.

  He turned his head to the side and drew in the other man’s fragrance, the strong, warm scent of the alpha, and his cock pulsed eagerly.

  “Please,” he whispered, dropping readily into the automatic submission of an omega. “Please, Cae. I’ll do anything.”

  Cae still wasn’t touching him, but his scent grew stronger. It was the fragrance of sex, and it drove Jon nearly wild with the need to submit, to be taken. He let go of Cae’s hand, and forgetting himself, scrabbled at the other man’s jeans, struggling to unzip them with hands gone clumsy with desire.

  “Jon. Take it easy.”

  “Can’t.” Jon remembered the way he’d felt in the city, like whatever had gone wrong with Cae might be going wrong with him as well. All at once he felt that way again, as if he was going wild, feral, vicious. He’d never felt so much savage sexual need churning inside him before. “Can’t. I have to have you. Now.”

  “Stop it,” Cae snapped, and Jon froze, because Cae was an alpha and he had to obey. A little whimper of protest rose from his throat, but the idea of rebelling never occurred to him.

  “Lie down,” Cae said, a little more gently, and Jon slowly lay back on the pine needles, shaking with the f
orce of his need.

  He watched hungrily as the other man sat up, watched as those big, strong hands drifted down Cae’s abdomen, to the waistband of his jeans.

  “You want this, Jon?”

  Jon whimpered again. He was past speech, past sanity, lost in the wildness of his own churning desire. And Cae hadn’t even touched him yet. He was more certain than ever that Caeden had infected him somehow, that they were both going crazy together. Certainly he felt less than sane right now. Heat surged through his veins with every beat of his heart, and he couldn’t fight it. He didn’t want to fight it.

  Slowly, Cae unfastened his jeans. He unzipped them in leisurely fashion, while Jon stared with avid, hungry eyes. He heard more frantic whimpers rising from the back of his throat, but his obvious desperation did nothing to spur Cae on. His movements were slow, deliberate, almost taunting.

  At last Caeden pushed his jeans and briefs down a bit, exposing his cock to Jon’s view. It was already huge, swollen, glinting in the starlight, and Jon could smell his precome, a starkly sensual scent that made his own cock twitch frantically.

  “You want it,” Cae murmured again, wrapping his hand around his cock and stroking himself from head to root, and back again. Precome beaded at the head of it, and Jon whined pathetically, somehow managing to find words.

  “Don’t. Cae, don’t.”

  “Don’t what, Jon?” Cae stroked himself again, and more precome beaded there, slowly trickling down the sides. “You’re only an omega. You can’t tell me what to do.”

  Jon knew that was true, and he struggled for words that wouldn’t sound too demanding. “I—I need you, Cae. I need…”

  “My cock?” Cae stroked himself again, and Jon felt tears prickling his eyes at the thought that the other man might just bring himself to orgasm, and leave him in this state of terrible, aching need. He couldn’t bear that.

  “Yes. Please.”

  “Tell me what you need, Jon.”

  “Your cock.” Jon was beyond any sort of shyness or meekness now. He blurted out the words Cae obviously wanted to hear. “Inside me. Please.”

  “You want me to fuck you.”

  That statement wasn’t quite right, although Jon couldn’t manage to think clearly enough to determine what was wrong with it. It was true that he wanted to be fucked like an animal, like the wild animal he was. He wanted it hard and fast and dirty. He couldn’t deny that. And yet…

  Omegas are made for fucking.

  Only he wasn’t, not really. He was made for so much more than that. All at once he remembered the words he’d whispered to Cae in the city: I don’t want to be fucked. I want you to make love to me.

  Yeah, that was it. He wanted to be fucked, but he also wanted Cae to make love to him.

  But even that, he thought, wouldn’t be enough. He wanted something more than sex, something even more than lovemaking. He wanted, needed, something beyond anything he’d ever experienced. He recalled his earlier dark fantasies about knotting, about how it would feel to have Caeden’s cock growing inside him, impossibly large, huge and hot and totally satisfying, and a tear escaped his control and slipped down his cheek.

  No, he told himself. He was being stupid. Knotting was the one thing he couldn’t have, not ever. No matter how much he wanted it, he could never have that.

  But at least he could have Caeden.

  “Yes, Cae,” he whispered at last. “I want you to fuck me. Please.”

  Cae’s hand was moving on himself harder now, faster, and Jon could see his cock beginning to twitch and spasm. He saw Cae’s nostrils flare, and knew that the other man was drawing in his scent, the needy, desperate, submissive scent that omegas exuded. Cae was getting off on his fragrance, and that was enough to make his own cock throb hard in helpless response.

  “Ahhh, Great Lupus.” He almost sobbed with frustration. “Please.”

  At last Cae released himself, and Jon almost shuddered with relief. He’d been so afraid that Cae was just going to spill his come onto the pine needles. He watched avidly as the other man stripped every last stitch of his clothing off, exposing his beautiful, heavily muscled body to the gathering night.

  He loomed over Jon, broad-shouldered and heavy and incredibly powerful, and the look in his golden eyes was that of a dangerous predator staring down his helpless prey.

  “I want you,” he whispered. “So much, Jon.”

  His mouth lowered, and then his lips brushed over Jon’s neck. Jon groaned, lifting his head and exposing his throat in the universal gesture of trust among their people. And he did trust Cae, no matter what might be going wrong inside the other man. No matter what might be going wrong inside both of them.

  Cae’s lips traced a path along the fragile skin beneath his jawline, and then slowly trailed downward. At last his lips closed over one of Jon’s nipples, and he suckled hard.

  Heat boiled within Jon, deep in his body, as if his balls were tightening along with his nipples. He writhed helplessly, making wordless, desperate sounds of pleasure, surrendering totally.

  Cae’s mouth slipped lower, down along his abdomen. Cae’s tongue stroked the head of his cock, very delicately, but then Cae’s lips parted, and—

  Jon whimpered in a shocked protest, and tried to catch at the ebony hair.

  “Cae—no—you can’t—”

  He remembered Cae licking him, the first night they’d been together. It had been wrong then, and it was wrong now. For an alpha to perform oral sex on a lower-ranking wolf was one of the few taboos among their people. It was scandalous, forbidden. Omegas and betas served; alphas were served.

  Just allowing Cae to lick him there had been shocking. But the idea that Cae might take him into his mouth and—well. He couldn’t possibly be thinking of doing that.

  Of course, there was no denying the two of them had broken an awful lot of taboos already. Because he had never changed, Cae was technically still a cub, and thus no one in the Pack should have lain with him. And besides, Cae was an alpha, just below his father in status, whereas Jon’s status was near the bottom of the Pack.

  When it came right down to it, their entire relationship was scandalous.

  But for Cae to even try to do this, to generously give so much sexual pleasure to a mere omega, nevertheless shocked Jon to his very core. Such a thing wasn’t just beneath Cae; it was beneath nearly everyone in the Pack.

  “Shush,” Cae said, not unkindly. His big hand captured Jon’s, and held it easily. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Yes, but—but—”

  Surely, he thought, Cae would not actually—

  But Cae did. His lips closed over the swollen head of his cock, and Jon cried out at the stunning pleasure of it. As one of the Pack’s lowest-ranked omegas, he’d never experienced this. He’d never imagined he could. The hot, wet tongue traced circles around him, and the lips suckled his sensitive flesh, and he heard himself crying out yes, yes, yes Cae. He clenched his fists tightly to avoid pulling the other man’s hair.

  He’d come so hard earlier, longer and harder than he’d ever come before, but somehow he knew instinctively this orgasm was going to be even better. His cock ached fiercely, his balls were taut, and every inch of his body strained for release. When Cae drew him more deeply into his mouth, inexpertly but eagerly, Jon heard himself crying out more loudly than before.

  Oh Lupus, I’m going to come… I’m going to come right down an alpha’s throat… Cae’s throat…

  He fought desperately to avoid letting that happen, even when Cae took more of him in, and the big, strong hand encircled the base of his cock, stimulating what Cae couldn’t take into his mouth. Cae was moving on him with strong, confident strokes now, his mouth fierce and hot and relentless, and every movement drove Jon higher. Eventually he forgot himself, and his hands tangled in the dark hair, begging for more. Demanding more. His hips rose to meet Caeden, thrusting harder into the warm, soft depths of his mouth.

  He was fucking an alpha’s mouth, somethi
ng an omega was never meant to do, and it felt so incredibly good that he thought he might die of it.

  The tension in his balls clenched tighter, and he knew he was about to shoot his load, and the knowledge drove him closer and closer to an unbearable peak.

  And then, all at once, Cae pulled away. Jon sobbed with thwarted need. His cock jerked so hard he thought he might just come all over his own belly, but Cae had judged his responses to the second, and pulled away just in time. His cock twitched and spasmed, but didn’t come. Totally forgetting himself, he let his hands dig into the other man’s hair, trying to pull his head back down.

  “No, Jon,” Cae said softly. Gentle though it was, the reprimand was enough for Jon to remember who was in charge here. Blushing hotly, he uncurled his fingers, releasing the midnight strands.

  “You told me earlier what you wanted,” Cae said, his voice still soft. “Remember? You wanted me to fuck you. You wanted me inside you.”

  Jon quivered all over at the words. All at once he remembered that was exactly what he had said. That it was what he needed, more than anything else in the world.

  “Yes.” His voice was hoarse, shaky. “Please.”

  “That’s what I want too, Jon. To be inside you.” The big hands rested gently on his thighs, pushing them open, and he shifted so that he was between Jon’s legs, and leaned forward, looming over the smaller man. Jon threw back his head and cried out at the feeling of the huge, wet cockhead pressing at his most sensitive flesh.

  He expected Cae to simply thrust in, expected the alpha to take what was his. Instead Cae teased him, rubbing his cock against Jon’s needy hole. He could feel how hot and wet and hard Cae was, and the feel of his cock right there, so close and yet not quite inside him, drove him almost to madness.

  He needed Cae, needed to service him, to satisfy him in any way that the other man wanted. And—although it was wrong for an omega to feel this way, or to expect any pleasure at all from an alpha—he needed satisfaction of his own. He ached for it.

  He scrabbled at Cae frantically, and tried to sink his teeth into the big shoulder.

  “Behave yourself.”