The Duty of a Beta (3 page)

Chapter Two

Gunnar strode through the kitchen. His head was bowed and all his attention was on the notebook in his hand as he set off to check up on the gammas he’d ordered to begin work on the fencing around the far field. With any luck, Alfred would be in one of his less bratty moods and he’d actually have done some work rather than skived off or wound up the wolves he was supposed to have been working alongside.

Halfway across the room, Gunnar glanced up. He stopped short as he spotted
Steffan
standing in front of the duty roster he’d pinned to one of the cabinet doors. Apparently unaware he was being observed
,
the hulking great gamma reached for the pen hanging from the length of string tacked up next to the roster.

“Do you remember what happened last time you tried messing around with the duties I assigned to the wolves in this pack?” Gunnar asked.

Steffan
looked over his shoulder. There was far less guilt in his eyes than Gunnar would have expected. The beta leant slightly to one side in an effort to peer past the larger wolf’s shoulder and see what
Steffan
was trying to reassign Francis to this time.

He frowned as he realised that Francis’ wasn’t the name the pen had come to rest alongside.

“Talbot?” Suddenly, Gunnar found himself across the room, glaring at the gamma from just an inch or two away from the end of the other man’s nose. “Why are you so interested in him?”

Steffan
blinked. “What?”

“I know what it means when you start trying to move someone to different duties!” Gunnar bit out. “You did exactly the same thing with Francis. And I’m still waiting for an answer—what is your interest in Talbot?”

Steffan
looked from him to the duty roster and back again. “Francis is my mate…” he said slowly, as if trying to work out what the hell was going on and failing miserably.

Yes, you’ve got the mate you wanted. Stop sniffing around mine.
Gunnar growled as he pushed the words down. “That’s not an answer.”

Steffan
turned completely away from the cabinet to face him properly. “I wasn’t changing anything. I was checking what Talbot’s duties are for the rest of the day. He seemed out of sorts this morning. If he’s coming down with something then Francis and I could—”

“Then it’s still not your place to counteract the orders I give any of the wolves in this pack,” Gunnar snapped. “If you have concerns about the work I assign someone, you bring them to me, no one else.”

Especially if it’s about Talbot.
He barely kept those last words back either, but even if he hadn’t said them aloud, they were true. At least part of him found it impossible to believe anyone else had a right to look after the omega.

When their eyes met,
Steffan
quickly lowered his gaze, but Gunnar still had time to see his confusion.

The beta didn’t know why that should surprise him. He was already well aware he was making a bloody fool out of himself. “Go,” he barked.

Steffan
turned to leave. He was at the door leading out into the courtyard when Gunnar called out to him again.

“Where’s Talbot?”

“I think he’s in the laundry room,”
Steffan
said, turning to face him again. “I was just going to check on him when—” The gamma cut himself off, as he seemed to sense that Gunnar was willing to be damned before he’d give him leave to do any such thing.

Luck had already put him between the oversized gamma and the door leading towards Talbot. Gunnar folded his arms across his chest and let his body language speak for him until
Steffan
finally turned and left the kitchen without any further protest.

Gunnar didn’t linger a moment longer than was necessary to see
Steffan
safely out of sight. All thought of checking up on Alfred and the other gammas abandoned, he strode towards the utility room door and threw it open.

The little wolf jumped as the door banged into the work bench behind it. The sheets he’d been putting into the machine fell in a messy heap at his feet. He turned his head and looked towards Gunnar. The blood actually seemed to drain from his face right before the beta’s eyes.

“
Steffan
said you were ill,” Gunnar informed him, as he closed the door, in an effort to give them some semblance of privacy.

Talbot shook his head. Unfurling himself from where he’d been crouched down in front of the washer, he straightened up to his full height, such as it was, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the of piles fabric that seemed to litter the entire floor. Stepping over the confusion of laundry, Gunnar moved to stand directly before him.

The omega looked as if he might hyperventilate at any moment. Gunnar tightened his hand into a fist at his side, trying to resist the temptation to reach out and touch Talbot. He had no business touching him—not then, and not when they’d shared a shower either.

Alfred—that’s who he should be concentrating on.
Gunnar knew that as surely as he knew his place in his pack and what his alphas expected their newly acquired beta to do.

Except, Alfred wasn’t Talbot and… Gunnar bit back a frustrated growl as it threatened to escape from the back of his throat.

“I can do better,” the omega suddenly blurted out.

Gunnar frowned down at the smaller wolf. “Better?”

Talbot glanced up at him for just one brief moment. All Gunnar caught was a tiny glimpse of big blue eyes before Talbot’s lashes dipped back down and hid them away again. “In the shower this morning…” he whispered.

“What about it?” Gunnar demanded.

The omega flicked out his tongue and moistened his lips, making it near impossible for Gunnar not to wonder what it would feel like if the little wolf was lapping at his cock instead of his own mouth.

“If…if you did want us to… I could do better next time.”

Better…
Gunnar stared down at the smaller man in silence for a long time, trying to wrap his mind around what Talbot seemed to be trying to tell him, what he appeared to be attempting to offer him.

“If you’ll tell me what you like, then maybe…” Another brief sight of those pretty blue eyes was offered to Gunnar.

Brief wasn’t enough. Gunnar tucked a knuckle under Talbot’s chin and forced him to tilt back his head and look him properly in the eye.

“I know,” Talbot whispered. “I know that when you’re mated to Alfred, it’ll be different, that we couldn’t… But maybe until then…”

Heat rushed to Talbot’s cheeks, making him look far healthier than he had when Gunnar first walked into the room and far more innocent than a wolf who was offering himself to another man that way should ever be able to appear.

“That’s what you want?” Gunnar asked, his tone far harsher than he intended.

“I…”

That tongue was so wasted on caressing Talbot’s lips, no matter how dry with nerves they might be. The beta bit back the urge to howl his frustration.

And in that moment, when he had no choice but to face the fact that there was no way he’d be allowed to keep what he wanted permanently, it was impossible for Gunnar to do anything but lower his head and bring their mouths together while he still had the chance.

Talbot gasped his shock into the kiss, but he made no move to push him away. The little omega tilted back his head to give Gunnar the best possible access to his mouth. At the same time, Talbot’s hands remained at his sides, leaving his body completely available should Gunnar want to reach out and touch any part of him he might desire.

He couldn’t have formed himself into a more perfect little parcel of natural submission if he’d tied a damn bow around his neck. A frustrated growl rumbled through Gunnar. That wasn’t what he was supposed to want. He was supposed to want a challenge, to relish having a brat to tame. He was supposed to want Alfred.

Talbot pulled back. A startled, little whimpering sound escaped from the back of his throat in response to the growl.

Gunnar’s hands quickly wrapped around Talbot and stopped the smaller man’s retreat. One palm settled on the back of the omega’s head, fingers threading quickly into the short blond strands and taking a firm grip on them.

His other hand slid around Talbot’s body and pressed against the small of his back, dragging him forwards, pulling their bodies firmly against each other. At the same time, Gunnar dipped his head and brought their lips back together in an instinctive effort to reassure.

The idea of Talbot being scared of him turned Gunnar’s blood cold, even as it made his heart race painfully fast behind his ribs. Talbot should never be scared, or hurt, or worried about anything. Gunnar knew all of those things without even needing to think about it. The knowledge was there, right in the centre of his soul.

The depth and quality of Talbot’s submission should be cherished and nurtured. It should be held tightly, and not by a gamma, but by a wolf who was dominant enough to really appreciate it.

Talbot’s hands had moved too. Gunnar felt them come to rest against his shoulders, not pushing him away and not pulling him closer either. The omega’s hands just lay against him, deepening the connection between them while still accepting whatever he should choose to do.

It took every scrap of self-control Gunnar possessed to pull away from the omega and break the kiss again. Lowering his head, he moved his lips to Talbot’s ear.

“Whoever told you that your place was to be used and abused, to be screwed and cast aside by all the more dominant wolves in your pack was a
fool.
” Gunnar’s grip on Talbot tightened. A
fool
was the most charitable thing he could think of calling the sadistic little bastard. If he ever got his hands on the man who’d told him that…

Gunnar forced himself to temporarily push fantasies of revenge aside. There would be time enough for those when he didn’t have a far more erotic reality in his arms.

Talbot made a soft whimpering sound as if he somehow sensed Gunnar’s anger and had no idea that it wasn’t directed at him. The omega moved slightly within Gunnar’s hold. His body rubbed against the beta’s larger frame with the motion, perhaps by accident, perhaps because something inside him thought that the best way to distract him from his fury was to redirect all his blood to his cock. It only took the slightest movement on the omega’s part to have him hard and aching.

“Is that why you’ve looked so bloody afraid of me, ever since I joined the pack?” Gunnar demanded. “Were you afraid that I’d demand you let me screw you…?”

A moment of pure silence surrounded them. Talbot’s chest stilled as he seemed to hold his breath in anticipation.