Of Flesh, Fur, and Fang: Mating an Alpha - Part One
Of Flesh, Fur, and Fang
Mating an Alpha
Part One
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunkered down, making a good show that the pouring rain was making him equally as miserable as every other person who was scurrying through it. In reality he cared little about the rain. It was hardly cold enough to make him feel it through the warmth of his skin, and he had been in weather far worse then it, not to mention it suited his mood just fine.
A turn down a deserted side street brought him the sound of a hiss and then the clatter of quick movement signaling a feline had made a quick getaway. He didn’t know whether to smile or frown at it, and he ended up doing something in the middle that left his face in a distorted mixture of expressions. He was used to felines and animals in general not appreciating his presence. Anything wild tended to balk at the invasion of a predator in their territory, especially a large predator such as himself.
It hardly bothered him as much now as it had at one point, but every now and again he would catch himself longing for a pet to ease the loneliness. There were other ways of course, to ease the craving for companionship, but human women didn’t suit him and he could hardly join a pack, he was too dominate for that. Joining a pack would put him at risk of taking it over, something that he didn’t want no matter the circumstances. He had enough problems keeping his own nose out of trouble, the last thing he needed was a group of people with less control then he to look after.
The street spilled out into the outskirts of town, a small housing complex with a fair amount of land behind it. His house was nestled on the edge of a somewhat haphazard row, with neighbors closer then he liked, but plenty of land to the back of it. For a moment he thought of going home, but the thought of sitting alone and doing nothing persuaded him otherwise.
It was too wet for a run on four legs, he didn’t care to have soaking wet fur and the extra weight it would mean to carry around as he did so, but he could run on two legs in almost any weather. He walked past his house, taking care to stay in his own yard and not the neighbors since he was rather found of the older couple that lived there and wouldn’t want to accidentally crush any of the numerous plants she was caring for, and into the woods behind his home. Once into the cover of the trees where human eyes were unlikely to see him, he pulled off the coat and the shirt beneath and hung them over a tree limb. Both were soaked with water, but he hardly needed the tiny bit of warmth they had been offering him.
For a moment he thought about taking off his pants as well, but it would be much harder to explain why he was running through the forest in little more than his boxers and he decided against it. His shoes he left on, although he hardly needed them, and he took off through the forest at a lazy trot.
Although the balk of his body made him seem as though he would move with a good deal of clumsiness and a general lack of speed, he weaved through the trees with startling grace and precision. He made certain not to let his pace increase over that which a normal human male could travel, even if that was only a fraction of the speed he could achieve. It hardly mattered if humans were out in the forest or not, he couldn’t afford to take the chance.
A half an hour into his jog, long before he planned to begin looping back towards his house, he caught the scent of something unexpected. Gold flashed in his eyes before he angled his path slightly to the right and his entire gait shifted. His movements, different than before, took on the motion of such grace, that he seemed to flit from tree to tree as if he were a part of the forest and as he moved through the trees marginally quicker than he had been, the only sound to be heard was the steady rain hitting the leaves overhead.
It didn’t take him long at all to find what he had been looking for, which told him one of two things, either the creature wasn’t particularly good at hiding, or it wasn’t moving from its location. He found it to be both when he crept over a hill crouched low to the ground and found what it was he had been stalking. There, lying at the base of a old tree, was a white wolf, its fur dyed scarlet with blood.
It wasn’t a written rule that others of his kind wouldn’t come into the territory of a lone wolf such as himself, but it was one that was generally respected out of courtesy. Still this particular wolf didn’t appear to be able to go far from where he currently lay.
He though, for a moment, to leave the wolf to whatever his fate may be since death must be close for one as wounded as it was, but there could be all sorts of repercussions to that decision. It wouldn’t be hard for any normal human to realize that this creature was much too large to be a normal wolf or dog of any breed, and a scientist would know immediately due to the differences in skeletal structure with normal dogs. Unless someone had learned to breed a tiger, and wolf into one creature and then supersize it, this would be taken as a completely new creature.
He sighed; he couldn’t leave the body here, no matter why it had ended up in his forest. Slowly he edged closer to the wolf, knowing that if in fact it was still alive, it could easily spring up in defense of itself at any time, not that he couldn’t handle the wolf, but he would rather not have to wait for his wounds to heal to head back to his home.
When he was a foot away, easily within striking distance, the wolf raised its head and opened its eyes. Pure frosted blue eyes stared at him glazed with such pain that his heart clenched. The wolf released a barely audible whine and in an instant he turned from a deposer to a protector.
“Shh,” he murmured, moving forward, his hands touching soft fur. The wolf whimpered again at the touch and he crooned at it, a soft nose from his throat. Somehow he knew this wolf was without a pack, and without one, it would not survive the hour let alone the night.
Maybe it was the helpless look that had drawn forth every protective instinct in him that made him do it, or maybe it was something in the wolf’s eyes that he had seen that caused it, either way, without further thought he lifted arm to his own mouth and tore a piece of his own flesh from it. The process wasn’t without pain and even as he spit it out into his hand and forced it into the wolf’s mouth, something in him felt right.
The wolf, struggled for a moment and then settled as he growled, “Mine.” His arm where he had bit himself, was already healing, the tear closing as the rain washed away the blood nearly as quickly as it came forth. As he felt the bond between a pack and an Alpha settle into place, he didn’t have time to think that one wolf had single handily undone everything he had ever decided on in life, all he could see where blue eyes.
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He couldn’t chance asking the wolf to change, not here in the pouring rain when he would then have to carry a bleeding male back through his yard and to his house. His neighbors weren’t that nosey, but should he be seen, it was much better to be seen carrying a dog that looked like he should never be able to be picked up matted in blood, then a human.
Once in his home, the wolf fit in his large bathtub with his legs curled to its body, and he left it for a moment to gather all of the medical supplies he had in the house. Having gotten in his own share of fights, that was quite a few and it took him a few moments and a trip to his bedroom to retrieve the rest of the supplies. When he returned, the wolf looked as though he was straining to move and whining pitifully. He could feel the terror coming from it, fear greater than any he had ever felt before and it made him angry.
Anger would help no one, and he smashed it as quickly as he could. “Shh,” he murmured, reaching out and touching the wolf gently. At his touch the wolf quieted immediately and the fear dropped noticeably. “You aren’t going to like this, but you need to change,” he said gently.
It was very unlikely that the wolf would want to shift back to his human form, even with his new Alpha there to protect him from harm. He would have to force him. It was within his power, though new and previously unused, and he gently encouraged the werewolf to change. It wasn’t a pretty site, changing from one form to another, rarely was, and the wolf whimpered the entire time. When it was over, and he lay fully human on his side in the bath tub, the deep gashes crisscrossing his body were clearly visible.
The worst of them seemed to be on his the man’s back, and the Alpha set to work immediately on cleaning them with hydrogen peroxide and sewing them shut. It wasn’t gentle work, as he had nothing to numb the other werewolf with, not that any drug would have worked anyway and he was hardly a trained surgeon. Every whimper and whine tore at his heart and when he finished he was ready to kill the first thing that looked at him improperly. He broke the first aid kit in half trying to close it and threw the remains of it across the room in expression of his frustration.
He might have done something else equally violent, if he hadn’t looked back to the tub and seen the tears running down the young man’s face and the tremors in his body. At his look the young man whimpered and immediacy looked down, tilting his head back in submission and trying to roll to his back.
“No,” the Alpha murmured, reaching out and stopping him before he could do further harm to himself. The flinch his touch produced nearly made him growl but he contained it, barely.
“Come on,” he murmured, before carefully lifting the other young man into his arms. He carried the wolf to his room and laid him in the middle of the big bed, covering him with a blanket carefully. He thought about leaving the man that way, but he remembered the feeling of terror and the pain and decided otherwise.
It would have been easier if he had been dealing with the human side of the werewolf, but the scared icy blue eyes, told him he was still dealing with the Beast. Any explanation would certainly fall on deaf ears and he could hardly lie down and sleep next to a strange unpredictable wolf, Alpha or not. Instead he changed into pajamas, propped up his pillows, and grabbed his book before settling on one side of the bed in a reclining position. The wolf watched him with weary eyes until he had settled and opened the book.
He stared at the pages, pretending to read, but chances were that he would be able to do no such thing. His mind kept turning over and over the strange connection he now felt to this wolf. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been in a pack once, he had, but the leader of the pack had been a wolf stronger then all others who had prepared him for at least the basics of becoming a leader himself, but nothing could have prepared him for how it felt to have control over another. Part of him was pleased, another part was sickened.
There was a shift on the bed and then the young man’s head was in his lap. He glanced down to see his eyes closed in slumber, and he could feel that the werewolf had fallen into a deep healing sleep. He closed his book, the pretence no longer necessary, and set it on the table beside the bed. His hand feel into soft dyed blond hair and his eyes settled on the far wall as he turned things over in his mind.
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He was jumpy, he knew that, and he had already lashed out at his new Alpha when the man had come up beside him unexpectedly, something he cursed himself for letting happen in the first place. So it was hardly his fault when the doorbell rang and he dropped the plate he had been holding and fell into a defensive crouch.
“Leeteuk,” the Alpha murmured, “it is just the door.”
He wanted to snarl that he knew that, that he understood, but his Beast was too close to the surface and he could already feel its frightened anger so he simply looked down and nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he watched his Alpha leave the room to go to the door and he had to stifle an instinctive whine at the loss of the man’s presence. He wasn’t a child to need the constant reassurance of a body all the time, and he hated that he couldn’t keep himself from feeling this way.
The presence of the pack bonds just made it all the more worse for him. He hadn’t known that he could survive what had happened, and a part of him wished he hadn’t. Now all he was, was a dead weight and that couldn’t even clean up after dinner, let alone offer the Alpha who had tried to give him back what he had lost anything at all. He couldn’t have stopped the tears if he tried, hating how they displayed his weakness for the world to see, and he gently gathered the broken pieces of plate and put them in the trash.
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This was why, he thought, that he never wanted to be an Alpha in the first place. If Leeteuk wasn’t jumping at every little sound, he was lashing out violently and then falling into a terrified stupor. He still hadn’t worked the story of what had happened to him from the young man’s mouth and he hardly wanted to order it out of him, although his command could not be disobeyed. Story or not, he was worried he might be dealing with a crazed wolf and if that was the case, there was only one cure for that, death. If he couldn’t do anything for this wolf, at the very least he would have to turn him over to the Alpha over Alphas.
Waiting had never been his strong suit, and it had taken two weeks before Leeteuk was nearly healed. The cuts on his back had been to the bone in some places and had taken that long to heal completely. Whatever had happened, he was willing to bet that it involved being attacked from behind.
When he had judged Leeteuk healed enough, he had waited until the other young man was in the shower and quickly penned a note requesting him to come out back to the back garage. The note, he made certain was phrased in a way that Leeteuk could still refuse, but he wasn’t surprised when the werewolf showed up not ten minutes later with dripping hair and without a shirt.
The werewolf’s eyes didn’t even rise to attempt to meet his and the complete lack of fighting will, brought a growl bubbling up in Kangin. He stuffed it down, certain that his eyes were showing his irritation anyway, before he spoke. “I sometimes come out here to work off some stress. It’s been a long time since I have had a partner to spar with. Care to join me?”
Kangin watched as the other wolf looked around as if taking in the room where he was standing for the first time. The garage, originally used for storage, had been cleaned out. The floors were covered with mats that would keep a normal human from hurting themselves too badly, but would do little against the strength of a werewolf. Still they gave the large room the feel that he had wanted, somewhere that combat could occur away from the prying eyes of humans.
“Sure,” the other wolf agreed, and Kangin couldn’t tell exactly what motivated him to do so. He could smell reluctance, and the beginning edge of fear, but the body language was wrong for it.
“Do you have any formal training?” Kangin asked, flexing his arms.
“Some,” the wolf replied shortly.
“I do, so you don’t have to hold back,” it was both the truth and permission. Any wolf that came at an Alpha without their permission could be seen as challenging him for his position in the pack. By acknowledging what they were about to do, Kangin knew he had given the wolf permission to fight as hard as he wanted to. Kangin, as Alpha would still come out on top of their exchange, but there would be no harm between them.
The other werewolf nodded, still being careful not to raise his eyes, and Kangin waited, his stance calm, for the first move to be made. It happened faster than the human eye could have seen, the shift in weight of the werewolf, before he launched himself into a spinning kick. The kick was badly aimed likely because the werewolf refused to look at his target, and Kangin could tell that the man was off balance before he even completed the move.
Instead of simply stepping out of the way, which a simple step would have done, he reached out and caught the ankle of the werewolf. “Never give the enemy a limb you don’t want him to have or he will use it against you.” To illustrate his point Kangin pulled sharply, upsetting the balance of the other werewolf and releasing the limb, sending him sprawling across the mats face down. “Get up and try again,” he growled, harsher then he had probably meant.
The wolf glanced up at him and he caught a flash of ice blue eyes, before the body rolled and sprung up, immediately coming forward with a flurry of jabs. The moves were sloppy and even with the power and speed of the werewolf behind them, Kangin had no trouble blocking them. He didn’t back up, as his opponent was clearly trying to make him do, since doing so would chance losing standing and dominance at the same time, but he simply knocked the limbs aside, not feeling any need to press the openings he saw.
After a minute or so the other wolf leapt away, putting distance between them. Kangin watched as, chest heaving, the wolf looked at him with eyes that were all Beast and very little man, not in a way that was challenging, but in a frustrated and confused way. As an Alpha, he should have been soothing the Beast down, helping the clearly hurt man control the creature within him until he could control it himself, but something about the werewolf intrigued him.
The Beast snarled and lunged forward again, this time attacking with more of the ferocity of an animal then any part of man, and this time Kangin fought back. It was clear to him, that this wolf although dominate enough to rank high in a pack, had very little experience with fighting, and if the state of his body was any indication his last fight had ended very badly for him. A misplaced punch caught by Kangin upset their balance enough that they toppled to the mats in a tangled mess of limbs.
Kangin had never seen a Beast so enraged still in his human form, and he wasn’t surprised when the creature struggled to roll him over. He couldn’t let that happen, everything in him screamed against it. Alpha meant that he was above all and angry or not this Beast must respect that too. Kangin held fast, pinning the other werewolf to the mat with the weight of his body and he felt his own Beast rising to the surface, called by the anger in the room.
“Yield!” he growled sharply as the wolf gave a particularly sharp jerk and Kangin heard the pop of something going where it wasn’t meant to.
There was a snarl and icy blue eyes stared up at him defiance. He could feel the wolf through their bond as pack, anger, fear, and aggression all rolled into one, but there was something more to it, something else he couldn’t place. Kangin inhaled deeply, breathing in the scents from the wolf. His nose told him much of the same thing he had felt through the bond with an added scent that he recognized as arousal. Not simply the arousal that combat brought out in all wolves, but a truly attractive sexual arousal.
Kangin growled deeply as the Beast inside him was pleased by the discovery. The human side of him didn’t like where his Beast was going with its intentions, but he could hardly deny that he would truly mind. They had been alone for so very long and now that had a pack, but more than that they may have found, ‘Mate,’ his Beast growled, completing the thought.
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In the time of less than a year that he had been a werewolf, he had learned to use his Beast to hide a lot of things: fear, rage, nervousness, but more importantly desire. The Beast within him hadn’t particularly cared where his preferences lay, it simply hadn’t agreed with them giving him the perfect shield to call on to hide his want. Until suddenly his Beast had agreed with him and the entire thing fell apart on him.
He should have known that it would happen again, that it wouldn’t be safe to hide beneath the same familiar shield, but he had done so anyway. He wanted to make his new Alpha happy and if fighting wasn’t something he was good at, it was something his Beast would be better at by instinct. Still it had been foolish to allow his Beast the freedom to interact with his Alpha, a mistake he should have learned from the moment he first made it. But he hadn’t learned a thing, and this time he realized the moment his Alpha discovered his not so well guarded secret, the moment the more dominate wolf knew.
It took more effort than he had thought it would to push the instincts of his Beast back until he was in control again. He knew his Beast was right on the edge of taking over but he couldn’t let it, especially not as he closed his eyes and tipped his head backwards baring his throat in a position of submission. Fighting back had only brought him unspeakable pain before, perhaps this would end differently.
His eyes clenched tightly as he felt the Alpha shift and put his nose to his neck. The man inhaled deeply and then exhaled against his skin. Leeteuk couldn’t help the small jerk of his hips or the way his desire rose at the action. If his Beast wanted this werewolf, he wanted him even more as instinct and human desire blended together in him. A minute later he felt the head move away and for a moment he waited for a strike to fall.
Teeth closed over his nose in an action that would look so strange to any human but his Beast understood as a clear scolding for something done wrong. His eyes fluttered open, Alpha’s didn’t scold when they were truly upset about something, scolding was done out of affection for a pack mate and worry. “Is that why you have been so afraid of me?” Kangin’s voice was rough and a sideways looks showed that he did indeed have a ring of gold in his eyes. “Because you didn’t want me to find out you desired me?”
He should answer, he knew, an Alpha demanded obedience, but he would also demand the truth and Leeteuk wasn’t certain he was ready to give that yet. Nothing left his lips and a growl rumbled in Kangin’s throat.
“My Beast intends to claim you as his mate,” Kangin growled, “and the human in me isn’t opposed. We have been alone for a very long time.” Those were not the words he had expected to hear and it took them a moment to really sink into his mind. He wasn’t certain what to think at that. Anger and revulsion had been expected, not acceptance or more. “It is up to you to accept and reject us and decide your place in this pack.”
The Alpha leaned forward as if he wanted to do something and then abruptly rose and stormed from the room. Leeteuk didn’t know what to think and he simply lay on his back on the mat waiting for his dislocated shoulder to heal, and his Beast to stop grumbling.
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Kangin was brooding, he knew that. It wasn’t the fact that his Beast had decided to take a male for a mate. He wasn’t exactly opposed to the gender and had taken people of both into his bed on occasion. However he wasn’t pleased that his Beast has chosen a wolf that he wasn’t even certain was stable for a partner. It would have been one thing to have had to do what was needed to a pack mate, but an entirely different one to do it to his mate. He would never be able to hurt his mate, and he would die trying to protect him from any that tried. Not a fight he would win.
He was still staring at the opposite wall of his living room in the dark when Leeteuk walked in and sunk to his knees at the man’s feet. The action made him growl, “You aren’t a submissive wolf, why do you act like one?”
“My instincts nearly killed me before, I would like to live a bit longer and I seem to do better when I am ignoring them,” he murmured.
Kangin could sense that the wolf was dominate enough to rank high in the pack, yet to kneel at his feet as he was, must be taking an awful lot of will power. So much that only a second or an Alpha could have managed. “Get up,” he growled; not realizing his words were laced with the power of an order until Leeteuk rose shakily settling beside him on the couch. His head was still bowed, as if he had done something wrong, but it was better than he had been.
Sighing, Kangin closed his eyes and rested his head back on the couch. “I’m new to the whole Alpha thing,” he growled, not exactly admitting a weakness but close enough that his Beast didn’t like it. “I don’t have the subtly to deal with the pack that most Alphas have and I never cared because I never wanted to be a part of any pack.”
“I was second in a pack,” Leeteuk offered after a moment. “And you are much better than my Alpha was already.”
“That is only because I have been so worried about breaking you,” Kangin murmured, turning the full force of his gaze on Leeteuk. The werewolf looked away immediately but Kangin caught a flash of something. “You are young, a new wolf.”
“Yes,” Leeteuk admitted. “I was only turned seven months ago.”
“What happened?” He wasn’t asking about how Leeteuk was turned, he knew how that occurred since the basics of the happening were the same for everyone, but what had occurred to leave him broken and bleeding in the woods. Leeteuk shrugged and Kangin frowned. “Your control of your Beast isn’t good enough to be a second. You would upset the control of the rest of the pack.”
“I control my Beast just fine,” Leeteuk snapped and there was a flash of blue as their eyes met before Leeteuk remembered his place and looked down again. “I simply used it to hide parts of me.”
“A dangerous game,” Kangin murmured as the pieces slowly fell into place. “You desire men, not something that tends to go over well in a pack of generally straight wolves.”
“No it doesn’t,” Leeteuk agreed, “but my Beast didn’t share the same desires and we used that to cover them.”
“Until suddenly he did,” Kangin guessed.
“Yes,” Leeteuk murmured pulling in on himself.
“They attacked you didn’t they? Not in a fair challenged fight, but as a pack against one who they found to be an abomination to them,” Kangin murmured.
“Yes,” Leeteuk whispered.
“They left your body broken and bleeding and then took the last comfort you had. They took the pack from you, tore it from your mind.”
“Yes.”
Kangin could smell the salt of tears and see them running down the other wolf’s cheeks in the dark. “You were left alone, broken and dying.”
“I didn’t know,” Leeteuk whimpered. “I didn’t know it could hurt that much, to be alone. With no one. No one would love me. No one could. No pack. No one.”
Kangin realized the wolf beside him was trembling and it pulled to every protective instinct in him as both a man and a wolf. “Mine,” he growled and the word carried with it peace and protection. He could feel it reaching through their bond as a pack and curling around his wolf, reassuring, comforting.
Leeteuk gasped and looked up, shock and confusion keeping the look from being interpreted as a challenge. “Mine,” Kangin murmured, speaking both as an Alpha and a potential mate. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Leeteuk’s with gentleness that surprised himself. Pride rushed through him at the immediate feeling of desire followed but a rush of shock and hesitation. Leeteuk was unsure, he could feel it and he pulled his lips away in favor of pulling Leeteuk closer with his arms.
A twist had them stretched out together on the large couch with Leeteuk cradled protectively to his chest. “You are mine. Pack always,” Kangin murmured leaving the part about no matter what he chose unspoken. “Mine.” His hand smoothed down, Leeteuk’s back and he wrapped the man in a true protective embrace from an Alpha to his pack. That night as they lay on the couch together, Kangin showed him what a true pack was supposed to be.
Masterlist
Part Two
AN: This is the first part of the back story for Leeteuk and Kangin's bond. There will be at least one other part to this thing, but I'm not sure how much longer then that it will be. In other news I really wanted to help out with the relief effort for Japan, but since I am too broke to be able to afford donating, I have decided to auction off my writing instead. I am willing to offer a fanfiction and an original fiction with a minimum of 10K and no set maximum. If you are interested in placing a bid for my writing you can find the fanfiction here and the orginal fiction here as well as many other great things you can bid on.
Mating an Alpha
Part One
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunkered down, making a good show that the pouring rain was making him equally as miserable as every other person who was scurrying through it. In reality he cared little about the rain. It was hardly cold enough to make him feel it through the warmth of his skin, and he had been in weather far worse then it, not to mention it suited his mood just fine.
A turn down a deserted side street brought him the sound of a hiss and then the clatter of quick movement signaling a feline had made a quick getaway. He didn’t know whether to smile or frown at it, and he ended up doing something in the middle that left his face in a distorted mixture of expressions. He was used to felines and animals in general not appreciating his presence. Anything wild tended to balk at the invasion of a predator in their territory, especially a large predator such as himself.
It hardly bothered him as much now as it had at one point, but every now and again he would catch himself longing for a pet to ease the loneliness. There were other ways of course, to ease the craving for companionship, but human women didn’t suit him and he could hardly join a pack, he was too dominate for that. Joining a pack would put him at risk of taking it over, something that he didn’t want no matter the circumstances. He had enough problems keeping his own nose out of trouble, the last thing he needed was a group of people with less control then he to look after.
The street spilled out into the outskirts of town, a small housing complex with a fair amount of land behind it. His house was nestled on the edge of a somewhat haphazard row, with neighbors closer then he liked, but plenty of land to the back of it. For a moment he thought of going home, but the thought of sitting alone and doing nothing persuaded him otherwise.
It was too wet for a run on four legs, he didn’t care to have soaking wet fur and the extra weight it would mean to carry around as he did so, but he could run on two legs in almost any weather. He walked past his house, taking care to stay in his own yard and not the neighbors since he was rather found of the older couple that lived there and wouldn’t want to accidentally crush any of the numerous plants she was caring for, and into the woods behind his home. Once into the cover of the trees where human eyes were unlikely to see him, he pulled off the coat and the shirt beneath and hung them over a tree limb. Both were soaked with water, but he hardly needed the tiny bit of warmth they had been offering him.
For a moment he thought about taking off his pants as well, but it would be much harder to explain why he was running through the forest in little more than his boxers and he decided against it. His shoes he left on, although he hardly needed them, and he took off through the forest at a lazy trot.
Although the balk of his body made him seem as though he would move with a good deal of clumsiness and a general lack of speed, he weaved through the trees with startling grace and precision. He made certain not to let his pace increase over that which a normal human male could travel, even if that was only a fraction of the speed he could achieve. It hardly mattered if humans were out in the forest or not, he couldn’t afford to take the chance.
A half an hour into his jog, long before he planned to begin looping back towards his house, he caught the scent of something unexpected. Gold flashed in his eyes before he angled his path slightly to the right and his entire gait shifted. His movements, different than before, took on the motion of such grace, that he seemed to flit from tree to tree as if he were a part of the forest and as he moved through the trees marginally quicker than he had been, the only sound to be heard was the steady rain hitting the leaves overhead.
It didn’t take him long at all to find what he had been looking for, which told him one of two things, either the creature wasn’t particularly good at hiding, or it wasn’t moving from its location. He found it to be both when he crept over a hill crouched low to the ground and found what it was he had been stalking. There, lying at the base of a old tree, was a white wolf, its fur dyed scarlet with blood.
It wasn’t a written rule that others of his kind wouldn’t come into the territory of a lone wolf such as himself, but it was one that was generally respected out of courtesy. Still this particular wolf didn’t appear to be able to go far from where he currently lay.
He though, for a moment, to leave the wolf to whatever his fate may be since death must be close for one as wounded as it was, but there could be all sorts of repercussions to that decision. It wouldn’t be hard for any normal human to realize that this creature was much too large to be a normal wolf or dog of any breed, and a scientist would know immediately due to the differences in skeletal structure with normal dogs. Unless someone had learned to breed a tiger, and wolf into one creature and then supersize it, this would be taken as a completely new creature.
He sighed; he couldn’t leave the body here, no matter why it had ended up in his forest. Slowly he edged closer to the wolf, knowing that if in fact it was still alive, it could easily spring up in defense of itself at any time, not that he couldn’t handle the wolf, but he would rather not have to wait for his wounds to heal to head back to his home.
When he was a foot away, easily within striking distance, the wolf raised its head and opened its eyes. Pure frosted blue eyes stared at him glazed with such pain that his heart clenched. The wolf released a barely audible whine and in an instant he turned from a deposer to a protector.
“Shh,” he murmured, moving forward, his hands touching soft fur. The wolf whimpered again at the touch and he crooned at it, a soft nose from his throat. Somehow he knew this wolf was without a pack, and without one, it would not survive the hour let alone the night.
Maybe it was the helpless look that had drawn forth every protective instinct in him that made him do it, or maybe it was something in the wolf’s eyes that he had seen that caused it, either way, without further thought he lifted arm to his own mouth and tore a piece of his own flesh from it. The process wasn’t without pain and even as he spit it out into his hand and forced it into the wolf’s mouth, something in him felt right.
The wolf, struggled for a moment and then settled as he growled, “Mine.” His arm where he had bit himself, was already healing, the tear closing as the rain washed away the blood nearly as quickly as it came forth. As he felt the bond between a pack and an Alpha settle into place, he didn’t have time to think that one wolf had single handily undone everything he had ever decided on in life, all he could see where blue eyes.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
He couldn’t chance asking the wolf to change, not here in the pouring rain when he would then have to carry a bleeding male back through his yard and to his house. His neighbors weren’t that nosey, but should he be seen, it was much better to be seen carrying a dog that looked like he should never be able to be picked up matted in blood, then a human.
Once in his home, the wolf fit in his large bathtub with his legs curled to its body, and he left it for a moment to gather all of the medical supplies he had in the house. Having gotten in his own share of fights, that was quite a few and it took him a few moments and a trip to his bedroom to retrieve the rest of the supplies. When he returned, the wolf looked as though he was straining to move and whining pitifully. He could feel the terror coming from it, fear greater than any he had ever felt before and it made him angry.
Anger would help no one, and he smashed it as quickly as he could. “Shh,” he murmured, reaching out and touching the wolf gently. At his touch the wolf quieted immediately and the fear dropped noticeably. “You aren’t going to like this, but you need to change,” he said gently.
It was very unlikely that the wolf would want to shift back to his human form, even with his new Alpha there to protect him from harm. He would have to force him. It was within his power, though new and previously unused, and he gently encouraged the werewolf to change. It wasn’t a pretty site, changing from one form to another, rarely was, and the wolf whimpered the entire time. When it was over, and he lay fully human on his side in the bath tub, the deep gashes crisscrossing his body were clearly visible.
The worst of them seemed to be on his the man’s back, and the Alpha set to work immediately on cleaning them with hydrogen peroxide and sewing them shut. It wasn’t gentle work, as he had nothing to numb the other werewolf with, not that any drug would have worked anyway and he was hardly a trained surgeon. Every whimper and whine tore at his heart and when he finished he was ready to kill the first thing that looked at him improperly. He broke the first aid kit in half trying to close it and threw the remains of it across the room in expression of his frustration.
He might have done something else equally violent, if he hadn’t looked back to the tub and seen the tears running down the young man’s face and the tremors in his body. At his look the young man whimpered and immediacy looked down, tilting his head back in submission and trying to roll to his back.
“No,” the Alpha murmured, reaching out and stopping him before he could do further harm to himself. The flinch his touch produced nearly made him growl but he contained it, barely.
“Come on,” he murmured, before carefully lifting the other young man into his arms. He carried the wolf to his room and laid him in the middle of the big bed, covering him with a blanket carefully. He thought about leaving the man that way, but he remembered the feeling of terror and the pain and decided otherwise.
It would have been easier if he had been dealing with the human side of the werewolf, but the scared icy blue eyes, told him he was still dealing with the Beast. Any explanation would certainly fall on deaf ears and he could hardly lie down and sleep next to a strange unpredictable wolf, Alpha or not. Instead he changed into pajamas, propped up his pillows, and grabbed his book before settling on one side of the bed in a reclining position. The wolf watched him with weary eyes until he had settled and opened the book.
He stared at the pages, pretending to read, but chances were that he would be able to do no such thing. His mind kept turning over and over the strange connection he now felt to this wolf. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been in a pack once, he had, but the leader of the pack had been a wolf stronger then all others who had prepared him for at least the basics of becoming a leader himself, but nothing could have prepared him for how it felt to have control over another. Part of him was pleased, another part was sickened.
There was a shift on the bed and then the young man’s head was in his lap. He glanced down to see his eyes closed in slumber, and he could feel that the werewolf had fallen into a deep healing sleep. He closed his book, the pretence no longer necessary, and set it on the table beside the bed. His hand feel into soft dyed blond hair and his eyes settled on the far wall as he turned things over in his mind.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
He was jumpy, he knew that, and he had already lashed out at his new Alpha when the man had come up beside him unexpectedly, something he cursed himself for letting happen in the first place. So it was hardly his fault when the doorbell rang and he dropped the plate he had been holding and fell into a defensive crouch.
“Leeteuk,” the Alpha murmured, “it is just the door.”
He wanted to snarl that he knew that, that he understood, but his Beast was too close to the surface and he could already feel its frightened anger so he simply looked down and nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he watched his Alpha leave the room to go to the door and he had to stifle an instinctive whine at the loss of the man’s presence. He wasn’t a child to need the constant reassurance of a body all the time, and he hated that he couldn’t keep himself from feeling this way.
The presence of the pack bonds just made it all the more worse for him. He hadn’t known that he could survive what had happened, and a part of him wished he hadn’t. Now all he was, was a dead weight and that couldn’t even clean up after dinner, let alone offer the Alpha who had tried to give him back what he had lost anything at all. He couldn’t have stopped the tears if he tried, hating how they displayed his weakness for the world to see, and he gently gathered the broken pieces of plate and put them in the trash.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
This was why, he thought, that he never wanted to be an Alpha in the first place. If Leeteuk wasn’t jumping at every little sound, he was lashing out violently and then falling into a terrified stupor. He still hadn’t worked the story of what had happened to him from the young man’s mouth and he hardly wanted to order it out of him, although his command could not be disobeyed. Story or not, he was worried he might be dealing with a crazed wolf and if that was the case, there was only one cure for that, death. If he couldn’t do anything for this wolf, at the very least he would have to turn him over to the Alpha over Alphas.
Waiting had never been his strong suit, and it had taken two weeks before Leeteuk was nearly healed. The cuts on his back had been to the bone in some places and had taken that long to heal completely. Whatever had happened, he was willing to bet that it involved being attacked from behind.
When he had judged Leeteuk healed enough, he had waited until the other young man was in the shower and quickly penned a note requesting him to come out back to the back garage. The note, he made certain was phrased in a way that Leeteuk could still refuse, but he wasn’t surprised when the werewolf showed up not ten minutes later with dripping hair and without a shirt.
The werewolf’s eyes didn’t even rise to attempt to meet his and the complete lack of fighting will, brought a growl bubbling up in Kangin. He stuffed it down, certain that his eyes were showing his irritation anyway, before he spoke. “I sometimes come out here to work off some stress. It’s been a long time since I have had a partner to spar with. Care to join me?”
Kangin watched as the other wolf looked around as if taking in the room where he was standing for the first time. The garage, originally used for storage, had been cleaned out. The floors were covered with mats that would keep a normal human from hurting themselves too badly, but would do little against the strength of a werewolf. Still they gave the large room the feel that he had wanted, somewhere that combat could occur away from the prying eyes of humans.
“Sure,” the other wolf agreed, and Kangin couldn’t tell exactly what motivated him to do so. He could smell reluctance, and the beginning edge of fear, but the body language was wrong for it.
“Do you have any formal training?” Kangin asked, flexing his arms.
“Some,” the wolf replied shortly.
“I do, so you don’t have to hold back,” it was both the truth and permission. Any wolf that came at an Alpha without their permission could be seen as challenging him for his position in the pack. By acknowledging what they were about to do, Kangin knew he had given the wolf permission to fight as hard as he wanted to. Kangin, as Alpha would still come out on top of their exchange, but there would be no harm between them.
The other werewolf nodded, still being careful not to raise his eyes, and Kangin waited, his stance calm, for the first move to be made. It happened faster than the human eye could have seen, the shift in weight of the werewolf, before he launched himself into a spinning kick. The kick was badly aimed likely because the werewolf refused to look at his target, and Kangin could tell that the man was off balance before he even completed the move.
Instead of simply stepping out of the way, which a simple step would have done, he reached out and caught the ankle of the werewolf. “Never give the enemy a limb you don’t want him to have or he will use it against you.” To illustrate his point Kangin pulled sharply, upsetting the balance of the other werewolf and releasing the limb, sending him sprawling across the mats face down. “Get up and try again,” he growled, harsher then he had probably meant.
The wolf glanced up at him and he caught a flash of ice blue eyes, before the body rolled and sprung up, immediately coming forward with a flurry of jabs. The moves were sloppy and even with the power and speed of the werewolf behind them, Kangin had no trouble blocking them. He didn’t back up, as his opponent was clearly trying to make him do, since doing so would chance losing standing and dominance at the same time, but he simply knocked the limbs aside, not feeling any need to press the openings he saw.
After a minute or so the other wolf leapt away, putting distance between them. Kangin watched as, chest heaving, the wolf looked at him with eyes that were all Beast and very little man, not in a way that was challenging, but in a frustrated and confused way. As an Alpha, he should have been soothing the Beast down, helping the clearly hurt man control the creature within him until he could control it himself, but something about the werewolf intrigued him.
The Beast snarled and lunged forward again, this time attacking with more of the ferocity of an animal then any part of man, and this time Kangin fought back. It was clear to him, that this wolf although dominate enough to rank high in a pack, had very little experience with fighting, and if the state of his body was any indication his last fight had ended very badly for him. A misplaced punch caught by Kangin upset their balance enough that they toppled to the mats in a tangled mess of limbs.
Kangin had never seen a Beast so enraged still in his human form, and he wasn’t surprised when the creature struggled to roll him over. He couldn’t let that happen, everything in him screamed against it. Alpha meant that he was above all and angry or not this Beast must respect that too. Kangin held fast, pinning the other werewolf to the mat with the weight of his body and he felt his own Beast rising to the surface, called by the anger in the room.
“Yield!” he growled sharply as the wolf gave a particularly sharp jerk and Kangin heard the pop of something going where it wasn’t meant to.
There was a snarl and icy blue eyes stared up at him defiance. He could feel the wolf through their bond as pack, anger, fear, and aggression all rolled into one, but there was something more to it, something else he couldn’t place. Kangin inhaled deeply, breathing in the scents from the wolf. His nose told him much of the same thing he had felt through the bond with an added scent that he recognized as arousal. Not simply the arousal that combat brought out in all wolves, but a truly attractive sexual arousal.
Kangin growled deeply as the Beast inside him was pleased by the discovery. The human side of him didn’t like where his Beast was going with its intentions, but he could hardly deny that he would truly mind. They had been alone for so very long and now that had a pack, but more than that they may have found, ‘Mate,’ his Beast growled, completing the thought.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
In the time of less than a year that he had been a werewolf, he had learned to use his Beast to hide a lot of things: fear, rage, nervousness, but more importantly desire. The Beast within him hadn’t particularly cared where his preferences lay, it simply hadn’t agreed with them giving him the perfect shield to call on to hide his want. Until suddenly his Beast had agreed with him and the entire thing fell apart on him.
He should have known that it would happen again, that it wouldn’t be safe to hide beneath the same familiar shield, but he had done so anyway. He wanted to make his new Alpha happy and if fighting wasn’t something he was good at, it was something his Beast would be better at by instinct. Still it had been foolish to allow his Beast the freedom to interact with his Alpha, a mistake he should have learned from the moment he first made it. But he hadn’t learned a thing, and this time he realized the moment his Alpha discovered his not so well guarded secret, the moment the more dominate wolf knew.
It took more effort than he had thought it would to push the instincts of his Beast back until he was in control again. He knew his Beast was right on the edge of taking over but he couldn’t let it, especially not as he closed his eyes and tipped his head backwards baring his throat in a position of submission. Fighting back had only brought him unspeakable pain before, perhaps this would end differently.
His eyes clenched tightly as he felt the Alpha shift and put his nose to his neck. The man inhaled deeply and then exhaled against his skin. Leeteuk couldn’t help the small jerk of his hips or the way his desire rose at the action. If his Beast wanted this werewolf, he wanted him even more as instinct and human desire blended together in him. A minute later he felt the head move away and for a moment he waited for a strike to fall.
Teeth closed over his nose in an action that would look so strange to any human but his Beast understood as a clear scolding for something done wrong. His eyes fluttered open, Alpha’s didn’t scold when they were truly upset about something, scolding was done out of affection for a pack mate and worry. “Is that why you have been so afraid of me?” Kangin’s voice was rough and a sideways looks showed that he did indeed have a ring of gold in his eyes. “Because you didn’t want me to find out you desired me?”
He should answer, he knew, an Alpha demanded obedience, but he would also demand the truth and Leeteuk wasn’t certain he was ready to give that yet. Nothing left his lips and a growl rumbled in Kangin’s throat.
“My Beast intends to claim you as his mate,” Kangin growled, “and the human in me isn’t opposed. We have been alone for a very long time.” Those were not the words he had expected to hear and it took them a moment to really sink into his mind. He wasn’t certain what to think at that. Anger and revulsion had been expected, not acceptance or more. “It is up to you to accept and reject us and decide your place in this pack.”
The Alpha leaned forward as if he wanted to do something and then abruptly rose and stormed from the room. Leeteuk didn’t know what to think and he simply lay on his back on the mat waiting for his dislocated shoulder to heal, and his Beast to stop grumbling.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
Kangin was brooding, he knew that. It wasn’t the fact that his Beast had decided to take a male for a mate. He wasn’t exactly opposed to the gender and had taken people of both into his bed on occasion. However he wasn’t pleased that his Beast has chosen a wolf that he wasn’t even certain was stable for a partner. It would have been one thing to have had to do what was needed to a pack mate, but an entirely different one to do it to his mate. He would never be able to hurt his mate, and he would die trying to protect him from any that tried. Not a fight he would win.
He was still staring at the opposite wall of his living room in the dark when Leeteuk walked in and sunk to his knees at the man’s feet. The action made him growl, “You aren’t a submissive wolf, why do you act like one?”
“My instincts nearly killed me before, I would like to live a bit longer and I seem to do better when I am ignoring them,” he murmured.
Kangin could sense that the wolf was dominate enough to rank high in the pack, yet to kneel at his feet as he was, must be taking an awful lot of will power. So much that only a second or an Alpha could have managed. “Get up,” he growled; not realizing his words were laced with the power of an order until Leeteuk rose shakily settling beside him on the couch. His head was still bowed, as if he had done something wrong, but it was better than he had been.
Sighing, Kangin closed his eyes and rested his head back on the couch. “I’m new to the whole Alpha thing,” he growled, not exactly admitting a weakness but close enough that his Beast didn’t like it. “I don’t have the subtly to deal with the pack that most Alphas have and I never cared because I never wanted to be a part of any pack.”
“I was second in a pack,” Leeteuk offered after a moment. “And you are much better than my Alpha was already.”
“That is only because I have been so worried about breaking you,” Kangin murmured, turning the full force of his gaze on Leeteuk. The werewolf looked away immediately but Kangin caught a flash of something. “You are young, a new wolf.”
“Yes,” Leeteuk admitted. “I was only turned seven months ago.”
“What happened?” He wasn’t asking about how Leeteuk was turned, he knew how that occurred since the basics of the happening were the same for everyone, but what had occurred to leave him broken and bleeding in the woods. Leeteuk shrugged and Kangin frowned. “Your control of your Beast isn’t good enough to be a second. You would upset the control of the rest of the pack.”
“I control my Beast just fine,” Leeteuk snapped and there was a flash of blue as their eyes met before Leeteuk remembered his place and looked down again. “I simply used it to hide parts of me.”
“A dangerous game,” Kangin murmured as the pieces slowly fell into place. “You desire men, not something that tends to go over well in a pack of generally straight wolves.”
“No it doesn’t,” Leeteuk agreed, “but my Beast didn’t share the same desires and we used that to cover them.”
“Until suddenly he did,” Kangin guessed.
“Yes,” Leeteuk murmured pulling in on himself.
“They attacked you didn’t they? Not in a fair challenged fight, but as a pack against one who they found to be an abomination to them,” Kangin murmured.
“Yes,” Leeteuk whispered.
“They left your body broken and bleeding and then took the last comfort you had. They took the pack from you, tore it from your mind.”
“Yes.”
Kangin could smell the salt of tears and see them running down the other wolf’s cheeks in the dark. “You were left alone, broken and dying.”
“I didn’t know,” Leeteuk whimpered. “I didn’t know it could hurt that much, to be alone. With no one. No one would love me. No one could. No pack. No one.”
Kangin realized the wolf beside him was trembling and it pulled to every protective instinct in him as both a man and a wolf. “Mine,” he growled and the word carried with it peace and protection. He could feel it reaching through their bond as a pack and curling around his wolf, reassuring, comforting.
Leeteuk gasped and looked up, shock and confusion keeping the look from being interpreted as a challenge. “Mine,” Kangin murmured, speaking both as an Alpha and a potential mate. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Leeteuk’s with gentleness that surprised himself. Pride rushed through him at the immediate feeling of desire followed but a rush of shock and hesitation. Leeteuk was unsure, he could feel it and he pulled his lips away in favor of pulling Leeteuk closer with his arms.
A twist had them stretched out together on the large couch with Leeteuk cradled protectively to his chest. “You are mine. Pack always,” Kangin murmured leaving the part about no matter what he chose unspoken. “Mine.” His hand smoothed down, Leeteuk’s back and he wrapped the man in a true protective embrace from an Alpha to his pack. That night as they lay on the couch together, Kangin showed him what a true pack was supposed to be.
Masterlist
Part Two
AN: This is the first part of the back story for Leeteuk and Kangin's bond. There will be at least one other part to this thing, but I'm not sure how much longer then that it will be. In other news I really wanted to help out with the relief effort for Japan, but since I am too broke to be able to afford donating, I have decided to auction off my writing instead. I am willing to offer a fanfiction and an original fiction with a minimum of 10K and no set maximum. If you are interested in placing a bid for my writing you can find the fanfiction here and the orginal fiction here as well as many other great things you can bid on.