Feral Northern Shifters 2

him, Bram couldn’t even speak properly. “S-sorry.” He could feel Ethan staring at him.
“Shit.” Ethan’s warm bare foot touched Bram’s. “Bram, what are you sorry for?” Bram closed his eyes and gave up on thinking and speaking as Ethan ran a palm down his sternum. “Is it better I go?” Ethan asked. Bram shook his head.
“I’m tired,” he said, as if that explained anything at all or could explain how he felt strung out and worn out, tight when he wanted to be loose. Where had all this unease come from?
“I’m going to warm you up, okay?” Ethan settled closer to Bram, under the covers. He turned Bram on his side and spooned him so Bram could feel him chest to back, legs intertwined.
Ethan kissed his ear and whispered, “Go back to sleep.”
Right. But Bram made a valiant effort by trying to take his mind someplace where he could relax, trying to think of anything but Ethan’s heat, Ethan’s body around him. And in that striving, Bram fell into half-sleep and warmth, and slid further away until he slept again.
    Some omegas overdevelop their desire to please others so they can’t even tell themselves what they want. This isn’t some natural personality type thing, it’s part of the exigencies of being at the bottom of the pack. Trey’s expression had been grim, as it usually got when discussing pack dynamics. The man didn’t like packs, Ethan realized early on. He was one of those rare lone wolves, now alpha. Veronica had found it rather funny, and the other two men hadn’t. Ethan had mostly tried to forget about wolf packs because he hated them.
    Still, as he stared down at the sleeping Bram, he thought that he didn’t hate wolves when they came as singletons. In fact, he’d developed a crush on this one. The crush hadn’t bloomed until after Ethan had fled the compound. Three months of trying to find Bram had worked in tandem with a few fantasies.
Also Ethan seemed to imagine that he and Bram had a lot in common. Perhaps it wasn’t really true.
    The phone rang, dispersing Ethan’s thoughts, and he quietly slipped out of the room and ran for the phone, hoping the ringing wouldn’t wake an exhausted, undernourished werewolf.
“Hello?”
“How is he?” It was, as Ethan had guessed, Trey.
“Um…” Ethan didn’t know quite what to say. “Skittish?”
“I’d imagine,” Trey said dryly. “I told you he had a hard time here. Omega wolves are generally treated like shit and then they buy into the idea that they should be treated like shit. Go easy on him.”
Ethan was offended. “He saved my life. What do you think I’m going to do, kick him in the balls?”
“That’s not remotely what I think you’ll do, and that’s not what I mean.”
“Well, good.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” Why couldn’t Trey speak clearly sometimes?
“Just assure Bram that Doug is still here and will remain here, under my orders.” Not exactly an answer, but still an important topic.
“Bram says Doug will want to kill him.”
“Well, yeah. Bram brought him down.”
“I was hoping Bram was exaggerating.”
“No.”
“Speaking of Doug, Bram also says you and he are cousins.”
“Yes.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“No.” Oh, good, Trey had retreated into his monosyllabic responses. Ethan waited, and Trey sighed. “I don’t like Doug, to put it mildly. I think you know that. It doesn’t matter that he’s my cousin. Seth’s my nephew, focus on that relationship instead.”
Seth was a nice guy, but not someone Ethan needed to discuss with Trey right now. “Bram says Doug says you’re a cat killer.”
The pause was tense. “I’ve killed vicious cats, Ethan, yes.”
“You didn’t mention that either.”
“At the beginning I didn’t want you to run from me and afterwards it didn’t come up.”
“Didn’t come up,” Ethan repeated.
“Look, I think you’d better talk to Veronica, she’s better at this than I am.”
“She’s killed cats too?”
“ No . She’s better at explaining…stuff. Look, I have to go. I’ll check in again soon.”
“Bram doesn’t trust you,” Ethan said quickly.
“Well, get him to trust you. We’ll work from there. Bye.” The phone went dead.
We’ll work from there ? Who was this we ?
Still, the odd, truncated conversation with Trey, pretty typical actually, had made Ethan feel better.
A noise alerted Ethan that Bram was up. He decided to wait it out and let Bram come to him. It took about twenty minutes, but